A Grammar of Mbembe

A Grammar of Mbembe PDF Author: Doris Richter
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900428396X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 541

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Book Description
A Grammar of Mbembe is a description of a little studied Jukunoid language which is spoken in the borderland of Nigeria and Cameroon. Present-day structures of different dialects are described and discussed with respect to diachronic developments. It is based on extensive fieldwork, but also takes into consideration previous work on Mbembe and other Jukunoid languages. The main topics in the chapters on the noun phrase and the verb and simple sentence structures are nominal classification and number marking based on Ablaut phenomena and tone, argument structure, and serial verb constructions. The remaining chapters cover phonology, complex structures, information structure and requesting information, and other word classes. This is complemented by example texts and a word list in the appendix.

A Grammar of Mbembe

A Grammar of Mbembe PDF Author: Doris Richter
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900428396X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 541

Get Book Here

Book Description
A Grammar of Mbembe is a description of a little studied Jukunoid language which is spoken in the borderland of Nigeria and Cameroon. Present-day structures of different dialects are described and discussed with respect to diachronic developments. It is based on extensive fieldwork, but also takes into consideration previous work on Mbembe and other Jukunoid languages. The main topics in the chapters on the noun phrase and the verb and simple sentence structures are nominal classification and number marking based on Ablaut phenomena and tone, argument structure, and serial verb constructions. The remaining chapters cover phonology, complex structures, information structure and requesting information, and other word classes. This is complemented by example texts and a word list in the appendix.

Catching Language

Catching Language PDF Author: Felix K. Ameka
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110197693
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 671

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Book Description
Descriptive grammars are our main vehicle for documenting and analysing the linguistic structure of the world's 6,000 languages. They bring together, in one place, a coherent treatment of how the whole language works, and therefore form the primary source of information on a given language, consulted by a wide range of users: areal specialists, typologists, theoreticians of any part of language (syntax, morphology, phonology, historical linguistics etc.), and members of the speech communities concerned. The writing of a descriptive grammar is a major intellectual challenge, that calls on the grammarian to balance a respect for the language's distinctive genius with an awareness of how other languages work, to combine rigour with readability, to depict structural regularities while respecting a corpus of real material, and to represent something of the native speaker's competence while recognising the variation inherent in any speech community. Despite a recent surge of awareness of the need to document little-known languages, there is no book that focusses on the manifold issues that face the author of a descriptive grammar. This volume brings together contributors who approach the problem from a range of angles. Most have written descriptive grammars themselves, but others represent different types of reader. Among the topics they address are: overall issues of grammar design, the complementary roles of outsider and native speaker grammarians, the balance between grammar and lexicon, cross-linguistic comparability, the role of explanation in grammatical description, the interplay of theory and a range of fieldwork methods in language description, the challenges of describing languages in their cultural and historical context, and the tensions between linguistic particularity, established practice of particular schools of linguistic description and the need for a universally commensurable analytic framework. This book will renew the field of grammaticography, addressing a multiple readership of descriptive linguists, typologists, and formal linguists, by bringing together a range of distinguished practitioners from around the world to address these questions.

Sociolinguistic and Typological Perspectives on Language Variation

Sociolinguistic and Typological Perspectives on Language Variation PDF Author: Silvia Ballarè
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110781166
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Linguistic variation, loosely defined as the wholesale processes whereby patterns of language structures exhibit divergent distributions within and across languages, has traditionally been the object of research of at least two branches of linguistics: variationist sociolinguistics and linguistic typology. In spite of their similar research agendas, the two approaches have only rarely converged in the description and interpretation of variation. While a number of studies attempting to address at least aspects of this relationship have appeared in recent years, a principled discussion on how the two disciplines may interact has not yet been carried out in a programmatic way. This volume aims to fill this gap and offers a cross-disciplinary venue for discussing the bridging between sociolinguistic and typological research from various angles, with the ultimate goal of laying out the methodological and conceptual foundations of an integrated research agenda for the study of linguistic variation.

The Oxford Handbook of Language Prosody

The Oxford Handbook of Language Prosody PDF Author: Carlos Gussenhoven
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198832230
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 957

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Book Description
This handbook presents detailed accounts of current research in all aspects of language prosody, written by leading experts from different disciplines. The volume's comprehensive coverage and multidisciplinary approach will make it an invaluable resource for all researchers, students, and practitioners interested in prosody.

The Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality

The Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality PDF Author: Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191077399
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 929

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Book Description
This volume offers a thorough, systematic, and crosslinguistic account of evidentiality, the linguistic encoding of the source of information on which a statement is based. In some languages, the speaker always has to specify this source - for example whether they saw the event, heard it, inferred it based on visual evidence or common sense, or was told about it by someone else. While not all languages have obligatory marking of this type, every language has ways of referring to information source and associated epistemological meanings. The continuum of epistemological expressions covers a range of devices from the lexical means in familiar European languages and in many languages of Aboriginal Australia to the highly grammaticalized systems in Amazonia or North America. In this handbook, experts from a variety of fields explore topics such as the relationship between evidentials and epistemic modality, contact-induced changes in evidential systems, the acquisition of evidentials, and formal semantic theories of evidentiality. The book also contains detailed case studies of evidentiality in language families across the world, including Algonquian, Korean, Nakh-Dagestanian, Nambikwara, Turkic, Uralic, and Uto-Aztecan.

Demonstratives in Cross-Linguistic Perspective

Demonstratives in Cross-Linguistic Perspective PDF Author: Stephen C. Levinson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108424287
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
The definitive guide to demonstratives, which play a key role in language acquisition and use.

A Typological Study of the Existential Clause

A Typological Study of the Existential Clause PDF Author: Wang Yong
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040051359
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
This book investigates the existential clause (EC) from a cross-linguistic perspective and within the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics. The prototypical EC in the less familiar languages is identified through its functional equivalents in the more familiar ones, which share the common semantic basis of ‘there exists something in some location’. Topics addressed include the morpho-syntactic features of the EC, the subject of the EC, the definiteness effect and its manifestations in the EC, the EC as impersonals, the distinction between entity- vs. event-existentials, and the EC and its related constructions. Drawing on both cross-linguistic observations based on the language sample and in-depth investigations in particular languages (e.g., in Chinese and English), the study aims to unravel how the lexico-grammar of EC is related to its meanings and functions, that is, how meaning is realised in form. The title will appeal to scholars and students in the field of linguistics, especially functional linguistics, and syntax.

How Languages Work

How Languages Work PDF Author: Carol Genetti
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108600638
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 710

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Book Description
Language is a sophisticated tool which we use to communicate in a multitude of ways. Updated and expanded in its second edition, this book introduces language and linguistics - presenting language in all its amazing complexity while systematically guiding you through the basics. The reader will emerge with an appreciation of the diversity of the world's languages, as well as a deeper understanding of the structure of human language, the ways it is used, and its broader social and cultural context. Part I is devoted to the nuts and bolts of language study - speech sounds, sound patterns, sentence structure, and meaning - and includes chapters dedicated to the functional aspects of language: discourse, prosody, pragmatics, and language contact. The fourteen language profiles included in Part II reveal the world's linguistic variety while expanding on the similarities and differences between languages. Using knowledge gained from Part I, the reader can explore how language functions when speakers use it in daily interaction. With a step-by-step approach that is reinforced with well-chosen illustrations, case studies, and study questions, readers will gain understanding and analytical skills that will only enrich their ongoing study of language and linguistics.

Language at Large

Language at Large PDF Author: Alexandra Aikhenvald
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004206078
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 631

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Book Description
The volume brings together important essays on syntax and semantics by Aikhenvald and Dixon. It focusses on topics in linguistic typology, the analysis of previously undescribed languages and issues in the grammar and lexicography of English.

World Lexicon of Grammaticalization

World Lexicon of Grammaticalization PDF Author: Tania Kouteva
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107136245
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 647

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Book Description
Based on analysis of more than 1,000 languages, this volume reconstructs more than 500 processes of grammatical change in the languages of the world.