Download or read book The Structure of Kiranti Languages written by Karen H. Ebert and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A grammar of Yakkha written by Diana Schackow and published by Language Science Press. This book was released on 2015-10-12 with total page 623 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This grammar provides the first comprehensive grammatical description of Yakkha, a Sino-Tibetan language of the Kiranti branch. Yakkha is spoken by about 14,000 speakers in eastern Nepal, in the Sankhuwa Sabha and Dhankuta districts. The grammar is based on original fieldwork in the Yakkha community. Its primary source of data is a corpus of 13,000 clauses from narratives and naturally-occurring social interaction which the author recorded and transcribed between 2009 and 2012. Corpus analyses were complemented by targeted elicitation. The grammar is written in a functional-typological framework. It focusses on morphosyntactic and semantic issues, as these present highly complex and comparatively under-researched fields in Kiranti languages. The sequence of the chapters follows the well-established order of phonological, morphological, syntactic and discourse-structural descriptions. These are supplemented by a historical and sociolinguistic introduction as well as an analysis of the complex kinship terminology. Topics such as verbal person marking, argument structure, transitivity, complex predication, grammatical relations, clause linkage, nominalization, and the topography-based orientation system have received in-depth treatment. Wherever possible, the structures found were explained in a historical-comparative perspective in order to shed more light on how their particular properties have emerged.
Download or read book Endangered Languages and New Technologies written by Mari C. Jones and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-12-04 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a time when many of the world's languages are at risk of extinction, the imperative to document, analyse and teach them before time runs out is very great. At this critical time new technologies, such as visual and aural archiving, digitisation of textual resources, electronic mapping and social media, have the potential to play an integral role in language maintenance and revitalisation. Drawing on studies of endangered languages from around the world - Europe, Asia, Africa and North and South America - this volume considers how these new resources might best be applied, and the problems that they can bring. It also re-assesses more traditional techniques of documentation in light of new technologies and works towards achieving a practicable synthesis of old and new methodologies. This accessible volume will be of interest to researchers in language endangerment, language typology and linguistic anthropology, and to community members working in native language maintenance.
Download or read book Noun Phrase Structure in the Languages of Europe written by Frans Plank and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2008-08-22 with total page 878 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The result of over five years of close collaboration among an international group of leading typologists within the EUROTYP program, this volume is about the morphology and syntax of the noun phrase. Particular attention is being paid to nominal inflectional categories and inflectional systems and to the syntax of determination, modification, and conjunction. Its areal focus, like that of other EUROTYP volumes, is on the languages of Europe; but in order to appreciate what is peculiarly European about their noun phrases, a more comprehensive and genuinely typological view is being taken at the full range of cross-linguistic variation within this structural domain. There has been no shortage lately of contributions to the theory of noun phrase structure; the present volume is, however, unique in the extent to which its theorizing is empirically grounded.
Download or read book The Sino Tibetan Languages written by Randy J. LaPolla and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-05-17 with total page 754 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are more native speakers of Sino-Tibetan languages than of any other language family in the world. Records of these languages are among the oldest for any human language, and the amount of active research on them, both diachronic and synchronic, has multiplied in the last few decades. This volume includes overview articles as well as descriptions of individual languages and comments on the subgroups in which they occur. In addition to a number of modern languages, there are descriptions of several ancient languages.
Download or read book The Languages and Linguistics of South Asia written by Hans Henrich Hock and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2016-05-24 with total page 927 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With nearly a quarter of the world’s population, members of at least five major language families plus several putative language isolates, South Asia is a fascinating arena for linguistic investigations, whether comparative-historical linguistics, studies of language contact and multilingualism, or general linguistic theory. This volume provides a state-of-the-art survey of linguistic research on the languages of South Asia, with contributions by well-known experts. Focus is both on what has been accomplished so far and on what remains unresolved or controversial and hence offers challenges for future research. In addition to covering the languages, their histories, and their genetic classification, as well as phonetics/phonology, morphology, syntax, and sociolinguistics, the volume provides special coverage of contact and convergence, indigenous South Asian grammatical traditions, applications of modern technology to South Asian languages, and South Asian writing systems. An appendix offers a classified listing of major sources and resources, both digital/online and printed.
Download or read book Case and Grammatical Relations written by Greville G. Corbett and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The papers in this volume can be grouped into two broad, overlapping classes: those dealing primarily with case and those dealing primarily with grammatical relations. With regard to case, topics include descriptions of the case systems of two Caucasian languages, the problems of determining how many cases Russian has and whether Hungarian has a case system at all, the issue of case-combining, the retention of the dative in Swedish dialects, and genitive objects in the languages of Europe. With regard to grammatical relations, topics include the order of obliques in OV and VO languages, the effects of the referential hierarchy on the distribution of grammatical relations, the problem of whether the passive requires a subject category, the relation between subjecthood and definiteness, and the issue of how the loss of case and aspectual systems triggers the use of compensatory mechanisms in heritage Russian.
Download or read book Typological Hierarchies in Synchrony and Diachrony written by Sonia Cristofaro and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2018-07-15 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Typological hierarchies are widely perceived as one of the most important results of research on language universals and linguistic diversity. Explanations for typological hierarchies, however, are usually based on the synchronic properties of the patterns described by individual hierarchies, not the actual diachronic processes that give rise to these patterns cross-linguistically. This book aims to explore in what ways the investigation of such processes can further our understanding of typological hierarchies. To this end, diachronic evidence about the origins of several phenomena described by typological hierarchies is discussed for several languages by a number of leading scholars in typology, historical linguistics, and language documentation. This evidence suggests a rethinking of possible explanations for typological hierarchies, as well as the very notion of typological universals in general. For this reason, the book will be of interest not only to the broad typological community, but also historical linguists, cognitive linguists, and psycholinguists.
Download or read book Language System and its Change written by Jadranka Gvozdanovic and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as neuroscience and cognitive science. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.
Download or read book Rethinking Grammaticalization written by María José López-Couso and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume and its companion one "Theoretical and empirical issues in grammaticalization" offer a selection of papers from the "Third International Conference New Reflections on Grammaticalization," held in Santiago de Compostela in July 2005. From the rich programme of the conference (over 120 papers), the twelve contributions included in this volume were carefully selected to reflect the state of current research in grammaticalization and suggest possible directions for future investigations in the field. Combining theoretical discussions with the analysis of particular test cases from a wide range of languages from various language families, the selected papers focus on such central questions as the need for a broader notion of grammaticalization, the distorting effects of grammaticalization on grammar, the areal perspective in grammaticalization and the relevance of contact-induced change to grammaticalization. Other topics discussed include the development of markers of textual connectivity and the emergence of cardinal numerals and numeral systems.
Download or read book Languages of the Himalayas written by George van Driem and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-09-12 with total page 924 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Dura Language written by Nicolas Schorer and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-08-29 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Dura Language: Grammar & Phylogeny Nicolas Schorer provides the definite descriptive account of this poorly documented language of Nepal and investigates the phonology, nominal and verbal morphology, lexical and syntactic properties as well as the phylogeny of Dura.
Download or read book Languages of the Greater Himalayan Region Volume 7 A Grammar of Sunwar written by Dörte Borchers and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2008-05-31 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This description of Sunwar, an endangered Tibeto-Burman language spoken in eastern Nepal, is based on extensive field work by the author and contains a chapter with background information on the Sunwar language, its speakers and their culture, followed by sections on the phonology, the indigenous writing system and the morphology of Sunwar. Verb paradigms, glossed texts, a Sunwar-English glossary and bibliographical references are also presented. Contact between the Sunwar and Nepali languages resulted in language change, most visible in the verbal system, where the older biactantial agreement system typical for Kiranti languages disappeared and suffix conjugations emerged. This book will interest those interested in descriptive linguistics, language change and languages of South Asia.
Download or read book Valency over Time written by Silvia Luraghi and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-10-25 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Valency patterns and valency orientation have been frequent topics of research under different perspectives, often poorly connected. Diachronic studies on these topics is even less systematic than synchronic ones. The papers in this book bring together two strands of research on valency, i.e. the description of valency patterns as worked out in the Leipzig Valency Classes Project (ValPaL), and the assessment of a language's basic valency and its possible orientation. Notably, the ValPaL does not provide diachronic information concerning the valency patterns investigated: one of the aims of the book is to supplement the available data with data from historical stages of languages, in order to make it profitably exploitable for diachronic research. In addition, new research on the diachrony of basic valency and valency alternations can deepen our understanding of mechanisms of language change and of the propensity of languages or language families to exploit different constructional patterns related to transitivity.
Download or read book Nominalization in Asian Languages written by Foong Ha Yap and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2011-06-29 with total page 796 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research on nominalization, a process that gives rise to referring expressions, has always played a central role in linguistic investigations. Over the years there has also been growing evidence that nominalization constructions often extend to non-referential domains. They participate in noun-modifying expressions (e.g. genitive and relative clauses), subordinate clauses and topic constructions, finite structures with the nominalizers reanalyzed as TAM markers, and stance constructions with evaluative, attitudinal, evidential and epistemic overtones. This volume brings together historical and crosslinguistic evidence from more than 20 different languages representing six different language families spanning the Asian continent and the Pacific and Indian oceans to elucidate the strategies and grammaticalization pathways that give rise to both referential and non-referential uses of nominalization constructions. This collection highlights the diversity of strategies and at the same time the robust cyclical nature of change within and across languages. The combined diachronic and typological analyses in this volume are particularly valuable for linguistic research on diachronic morphosyntax and linguistic ‘universals’, and are also an important supplementary cross-referencing tool for linguistic investigations of versatile and ubiquitous morphemes in under-documented languages.
Download or read book Himalayan Languages written by Anju Saxena and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2011-05-12 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With its many and diverse languages, including some with very long documented histories, its cultural diversity, and its widespread multilingualism- both the stable and transient kind- the Himalayan region is a treasure trove of empirical data for linguistic research on language typology and universals, historical linguistics, language contact and areal linguistics. Himalayan Languages contains contributions on Himalayan linguistics written by some of the leading experts in the field. The volume is divided into three parts: First, a general overview is given of the linguistic study of Himalayan languages and language communities. The second part offers synchronic studies of individual languages of the region (Indo-Aryan languages Shina and Kalasha, and Tibeto-Burman languages Belhare, Magar, Kinnauri, Classical Tibetan and Thangmi). The papers in the third part of the volume address topics in historical and areal linguistics, with an emphasis on the Tibeto-Burman languages of the region, discussing grammaticalization processes (in Sunwar, Newar, Seke, Tshangla and Bantawa) and the subgrouping of Tibeto-Burman.
Download or read book Tense and Aspect in the Languages of Europe written by Östen Dahl and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2000 with total page 864 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume puts the European tense-aspect systems in a consistent typological and diachronic perspective.
