A Grammar of Savosavo

A Grammar of Savosavo PDF Author: Claudia Wegener
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110289652
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
This is the first comprehensive description of Savosavo, a non-Austronesian (Papuan) language spoken by approximately 2,500 speakers on Savo Island, Solomon Islands. Based on primary field data recorded by the author, it provides an overview of all levels of grammar. In addition, a full chapter is dedicated to nominalization of verbs by means of one particular suffix, which occur in a number of constructions ranging from lexical to syntactic nominalization. The appendix provides glossed example texts and a list of lexemes.

A Grammar of Savosavo

A Grammar of Savosavo PDF Author: Claudia Wegener
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110289652
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
This is the first comprehensive description of Savosavo, a non-Austronesian (Papuan) language spoken by approximately 2,500 speakers on Savo Island, Solomon Islands. Based on primary field data recorded by the author, it provides an overview of all levels of grammar. In addition, a full chapter is dedicated to nominalization of verbs by means of one particular suffix, which occur in a number of constructions ranging from lexical to syntactic nominalization. The appendix provides glossed example texts and a list of lexemes.

A Grammar of Lavukaleve

A Grammar of Lavukaleve PDF Author: Angela Terrill
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110923963
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 589

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Book Description
Lavukaleve is a Papuan Language spoken on the Russell Islands in the Central Province of the Solomon Islands. The phonology and morpho-phonology of Lavukaleve are described, as well as arguments adjuncts, the Lavukaleve predicate structure (including predicate types and core participant marking, the agreement suffix, focus constructions, tense, aspect and mood, word-level derivation, complex predicates), interclausal syntax, and the Lavukaleve discourse organisation. The book includes a list of affixes, a list of lexemes, and an appendix with Lavukaleve texts. The data used in this work was collected by the author during five field trips.

An Areal Typology of Agreement Systems

An Areal Typology of Agreement Systems PDF Author: Ranko Matasović
Publisher:
ISBN: 1108420974
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
The first areal-typological exploration of agreement systems in the world's languages.

Highly complex syllable structure: A typological and diachronic study

Highly complex syllable structure: A typological and diachronic study PDF Author: Shelece Easterday
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3961101949
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 616

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Book Description
The syllable is a natural unit of organization in spoken language whose strongest cross-linguistic patterns are often explained in terms of a universal preference for the CV structure. Syllable patterns involving long sequences of consonants are both typologically rare and theoretically marginalized, with few approaches treating these as natural or unproblematic structures. This book is an investigation of the properties of languages with highly complex syllable patterns. The two aims are (i) to establish whether these languages share other linguistic features in common such that they constitute a distinct linguistic type, and (ii) to identify possible diachronic paths and natural mechanisms by which these patterns come about in the history of a language. These issues are investigated in a diversified sample of 100 languages, 25 of which have highly complex syllable patterns. Languages with highly complex syllable structure are characterized by a number of phonetic, phonological, and morphological features which serve to set them apart from languages with simpler syllable patterns. These include specific segmental and suprasegmental properties, a higher prevalence of vowel reduction processes with extreme outcomes, and higher average morpheme/word ratios. The results suggest that highly complex syllable structure is a linguistic type distinct from but sharing some characteristics with other proposed holistic phonological types, including stress-timed and consonantal languages. The results point to word stress and specific patterns of gestural organization as playing important roles in the diachronic development of these patterns out of simpler syllable structures.

Non-Canonical Gender Systems

Non-Canonical Gender Systems PDF Author: Sebastian Fedden
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192514784
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
This book explores the boundaries of the category of gender and their theoretical significance within the framework of Canonical Typology. Grammatical gender is a famously puzzling category: although it has been widely explored from a typological perspective, studies are constantly identifying exciting and unexpected patterns in gender systems, many of which cannot be easily classified or straightforwardly analysed. Some of these patterns stretch or even threaten to cross the largely unexplored outer boundaries of the category. In the canonical approach, morphosyntactic features like gender are established in terms of a canonical ideal: the clearest instance of the phenomenon. The canonical ideal is a clustering of properties that serves as a baseline to measure the actual examples observed. In this volume, international experts use this approach to analyse a range of gender systems that diverge from the canonical ideal, and to determine to what extent each component property of these systems can be considered canonical. Chapters explore a wide range of typologically diverse languages from all over the world, from South America to Melanesia, and from Central Italy to Northern Australia. The book will be of interest to all linguists working in the field of typology, from graduate level upwards, as well as to morphologists and syntacticians of all theoretical stripes who have an interest in grammatical gender.

Participles

Participles PDF Author: Ksenia Shagal
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110629933
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
The book is the first large-scale typological study of participles, based on data from more than 100 languages. Its main aim is to model the diversity of non-finite verb forms involved in adnominal modification. Participles are examined with respect to several morphological and syntactic parameters, and are shown to be a versatile cross-linguistic category. The book is of interest to language typologists and descriptive linguists.

A grammar of Yakkha

A grammar of Yakkha PDF Author: Diana Schackow
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3946234119
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 623

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Book Description
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.

Language Isolates

Language Isolates PDF Author: Lyle Campbell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317610911
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
Language Isolates explores this fascinating group of languages that surprisingly comprise a third of the world’s languages. Individual chapters written by experts on these languages examine the world's major language isolates and language isolates by geographic regions, with up-to-date descriptions of many, including previously unrecorded language isolates. Each language isolate represents a unique lineage and a unique window on what is possible in human language, making this an essential volume for anyone interested in understanding the diversity of languages and the very nature of human language. Language Isolates is key reading for professionals and students in linguistics and anthropology.

Reciprocals and Semantic Typology

Reciprocals and Semantic Typology PDF Author: Nicholas Evans
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027206791
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
Is there a single, Platonic 'reciprocal' meaning found in all languages, or is there a cluster of related concepts which are nonetheless impossible to characterize in any single way? This title develops and explains techniques for tackling this question. It confronts a general problem facing semantic typology.

The Syntax of Adjectives

The Syntax of Adjectives PDF Author: Guglielmo Cinque
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262014165
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
other language families. --