Author: Ronald P. Schaefer
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 9783825840303
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 680
Book Description
" This collection of seventy prose of narrative samples represents the only published record of the oral tradition of the Emai people of southern Nigeria. The narratives are presented in both Emai orthography and English translation. They tend to portray everyday cultural practices of the Emai with human characters or their animal personification. As such, they provide an initial glimpse of Emai cosmology, cultural values and social norms as well as a firm impression of how Emai grammatical resources function in spontaneous narrative discourse. Ronald P. Schaefer is Professor at the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English Language and Literature, at the Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. Francis O. Egbokhare teaches at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. "
Oral Tradition Narratives of the Emai People
Author: Ronald P. Schaefer
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 9783825840303
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 680
Book Description
" This collection of seventy prose of narrative samples represents the only published record of the oral tradition of the Emai people of southern Nigeria. The narratives are presented in both Emai orthography and English translation. They tend to portray everyday cultural practices of the Emai with human characters or their animal personification. As such, they provide an initial glimpse of Emai cosmology, cultural values and social norms as well as a firm impression of how Emai grammatical resources function in spontaneous narrative discourse. Ronald P. Schaefer is Professor at the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English Language and Literature, at the Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. Francis O. Egbokhare teaches at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. "
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 9783825840303
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 680
Book Description
" This collection of seventy prose of narrative samples represents the only published record of the oral tradition of the Emai people of southern Nigeria. The narratives are presented in both Emai orthography and English translation. They tend to portray everyday cultural practices of the Emai with human characters or their animal personification. As such, they provide an initial glimpse of Emai cosmology, cultural values and social norms as well as a firm impression of how Emai grammatical resources function in spontaneous narrative discourse. Ronald P. Schaefer is Professor at the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English Language and Literature, at the Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. Francis O. Egbokhare teaches at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. "
A Grammar of Emai
Author: Ronald P. Schaefer
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110766280
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1019
Book Description
This reference grammar is the first ever description of West Africa’s Edoid language Emai. It incorporates narrative, lexical and grammatical field results over the last three decades. Treated are morphology, syntax and argument structure after an introductory phonology and orthographic overview highlighting grammatical and lexical tone. Individual chapters delineate noun and verb phrase structure as well as clause shape in discourse and clause combination. Noun inflection and derivation are detailed as is verb inflection in the context of tense, aspect and modality. Noun phrase character encompasses remnant noun classes, nominal modification types and pronoun forms followed by conjunction. Verb phrase features include complex predicates, both verbs in series and verb plus postverbal particle, functionally distinct copulas, double objects, and sentence complement types constrained by matrix verb. Also analyzed are preverbal and postverbal adverbials relative to information question types. Multi-clause constructions are profiled as to coding varieties across dependent clauses as well as precedence relations. A concluding chapter presents a sample narrative in orthographic form, interlinear gloss and English free translation.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110766280
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1019
Book Description
This reference grammar is the first ever description of West Africa’s Edoid language Emai. It incorporates narrative, lexical and grammatical field results over the last three decades. Treated are morphology, syntax and argument structure after an introductory phonology and orthographic overview highlighting grammatical and lexical tone. Individual chapters delineate noun and verb phrase structure as well as clause shape in discourse and clause combination. Noun inflection and derivation are detailed as is verb inflection in the context of tense, aspect and modality. Noun phrase character encompasses remnant noun classes, nominal modification types and pronoun forms followed by conjunction. Verb phrase features include complex predicates, both verbs in series and verb plus postverbal particle, functionally distinct copulas, double objects, and sentence complement types constrained by matrix verb. Also analyzed are preverbal and postverbal adverbials relative to information question types. Multi-clause constructions are profiled as to coding varieties across dependent clauses as well as precedence relations. A concluding chapter presents a sample narrative in orthographic form, interlinear gloss and English free translation.
Ideophones
Author: Erhard Friedrich Karl Voeltz
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027229465
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 454
Book Description
The present volume represents a selection of papers presented at the International Symposium on Ideophones held in January 1999 in St. Augustin, Germany. They center around the following hypotheses: Ideophones are universal; and constitute a grammatical category in all languages of the world; ideophones and similar words have a special dramaturgic function that differs from all other word classes: they simulate an event, an emotion, a perception through language. In addition to this unique function, a good number of formal parallels can be observed. The languages dealt with here display strikingly similar patterns of derivational processes involving ideophones. An equally widespread common feature is the introduction of ideophones via a verbum dicendi or complementizer. Another observation concerns the sound-symbolic behavior of ideophones. Thus the word formation of ideophones differs from other words in their tendency for iconicity and sound-symbolism. Finally it is made clear that ideophones are part of spoken language the language register, where gestures are used rather than written language.
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027229465
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 454
Book Description
The present volume represents a selection of papers presented at the International Symposium on Ideophones held in January 1999 in St. Augustin, Germany. They center around the following hypotheses: Ideophones are universal; and constitute a grammatical category in all languages of the world; ideophones and similar words have a special dramaturgic function that differs from all other word classes: they simulate an event, an emotion, a perception through language. In addition to this unique function, a good number of formal parallels can be observed. The languages dealt with here display strikingly similar patterns of derivational processes involving ideophones. An equally widespread common feature is the introduction of ideophones via a verbum dicendi or complementizer. Another observation concerns the sound-symbolic behavior of ideophones. Thus the word formation of ideophones differs from other words in their tendency for iconicity and sound-symbolism. Finally it is made clear that ideophones are part of spoken language the language register, where gestures are used rather than written language.
The Linguistic Typology and Representation of African Languages
Author: John M. Mugane
Publisher: Africa World Press
ISBN: 9781592211555
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
For the thirty-third consecutive year, the Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL) has provided the major forum for the discussion of linguistic data geared towards understanding how African languages are constituted, acquired and used. This volume represents a selection of 25 peer-reviewed papers from the 33rd AWAL held in March 2002 at Ohio University in Athens. The papers cover language acquisition, syntax, phonetics, phonology, morphology, historical linguistics, as well as language use and function in Africa.
Publisher: Africa World Press
ISBN: 9781592211555
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
For the thirty-third consecutive year, the Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL) has provided the major forum for the discussion of linguistic data geared towards understanding how African languages are constituted, acquired and used. This volume represents a selection of 25 peer-reviewed papers from the 33rd AWAL held in March 2002 at Ohio University in Athens. The papers cover language acquisition, syntax, phonetics, phonology, morphology, historical linguistics, as well as language use and function in Africa.
Introducing the Framework, and Case Studies from Africa and Eurasia
Author: Andrej Malchukov
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110395274
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 891
Book Description
Earlier empirical studies on valency have looked at the phenomenon either in individual languages or a small range of languages, or have concerned themselves with only small subparts of valency (e.g. transitivity, ditransitive constructions), leaving a lacuna that the present volume aims to fill by considering a wide range of valency phenomena across 30 languages from different parts of the world. The individual-language studies, each written by a specialist or group of specialists on that language and covering both valency patterns and valency alternations, are based on a questionnaire (reproduced in the volume) and an on-line freely accessible database, thus guaranteeing comparability of cross-linguistic results. In addition, introductory chapters provide the background to the project and discuss its main characteristics and selected results, while a series of featured articles by leading scholars who helped shape the field provide an outside perspective on the volume’s approach. The volume is essential reading for anyone interested in valency and argument structure, irrespective of theoretical persuasion, and will serve as a model for future descriptive studies of valency in individual languages.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110395274
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 891
Book Description
Earlier empirical studies on valency have looked at the phenomenon either in individual languages or a small range of languages, or have concerned themselves with only small subparts of valency (e.g. transitivity, ditransitive constructions), leaving a lacuna that the present volume aims to fill by considering a wide range of valency phenomena across 30 languages from different parts of the world. The individual-language studies, each written by a specialist or group of specialists on that language and covering both valency patterns and valency alternations, are based on a questionnaire (reproduced in the volume) and an on-line freely accessible database, thus guaranteeing comparability of cross-linguistic results. In addition, introductory chapters provide the background to the project and discuss its main characteristics and selected results, while a series of featured articles by leading scholars who helped shape the field provide an outside perspective on the volume’s approach. The volume is essential reading for anyone interested in valency and argument structure, irrespective of theoretical persuasion, and will serve as a model for future descriptive studies of valency in individual languages.
Class Marking in Emai
Author: Ronald P. Schaefer
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498542735
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 311
Book Description
Class Marking in Emai examines the retention, reduction, and transformation of inflectional resources pertaining to noun class in Emai, an Edoid language of south-central Nigeria. Ronald P. Schaefer and Francis O. Egbokhare demonstrate that in contrast to its Bantu relations, Emai retains form class prefixes on a relatively small group of nouns that distribute across eleven declension sets. Prefix addition rather than prefix alternation arises when ideophonic adverbials become syntactically displaced due to information structure and when Emai borrows lexical items from other languages. Reduction is evident in two primary domains: agreement class or gender and prefixes that alternate to express form class and grammatical number. As for transformation, it characterizes tonal, nominal and pronominal domains. Putting Emai and its noun class system into a broader cultural and archaeological context of historical language change, this book explores what it means to be a Benue Congo language with a reduced inflectional system.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498542735
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 311
Book Description
Class Marking in Emai examines the retention, reduction, and transformation of inflectional resources pertaining to noun class in Emai, an Edoid language of south-central Nigeria. Ronald P. Schaefer and Francis O. Egbokhare demonstrate that in contrast to its Bantu relations, Emai retains form class prefixes on a relatively small group of nouns that distribute across eleven declension sets. Prefix addition rather than prefix alternation arises when ideophonic adverbials become syntactically displaced due to information structure and when Emai borrows lexical items from other languages. Reduction is evident in two primary domains: agreement class or gender and prefixes that alternate to express form class and grammatical number. As for transformation, it characterizes tonal, nominal and pronominal domains. Putting Emai and its noun class system into a broader cultural and archaeological context of historical language change, this book explores what it means to be a Benue Congo language with a reduced inflectional system.
The Expression of Information Structure
Author: Ines Fiedler
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027206724
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 401
Book Description
Printbegrænsninger: Der kan printes 10 sider ad gangen og max. 40 sider pr. session
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027206724
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 401
Book Description
Printbegrænsninger: Der kan printes 10 sider ad gangen og max. 40 sider pr. session
Beyond Aspect
Author: Doris L. Payne
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027267871
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 330
Book Description
Certain grammatical elements help hearers know how propositions are conceptually related: Does a given proposition advance the foregrounded event line, or not? Initiate versus continue an event chain? Indicate that one proposition belongs to a different "mental space" from the previous one? Provide background information? Studies in this volume show that African languages sometimes support, but often refute the idea that perfective aspect or past tense marks the narrative event line. Rather, languages may employ clause level constructions, conjunctions or connectives, tonal melodies on verbs or subjects, specialized auxiliaries, special verb forms and even dependent clause and imperfective aspect forms. Often, correlation of such grammatical elements with the event line is a subcase of a more general function. Analyses in this volume contribute to developing a typology of the expression of discourse functions, a field of research which has so far been minimally addressed from a typological perspective.
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027267871
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 330
Book Description
Certain grammatical elements help hearers know how propositions are conceptually related: Does a given proposition advance the foregrounded event line, or not? Initiate versus continue an event chain? Indicate that one proposition belongs to a different "mental space" from the previous one? Provide background information? Studies in this volume show that African languages sometimes support, but often refute the idea that perfective aspect or past tense marks the narrative event line. Rather, languages may employ clause level constructions, conjunctions or connectives, tonal melodies on verbs or subjects, specialized auxiliaries, special verb forms and even dependent clause and imperfective aspect forms. Often, correlation of such grammatical elements with the event line is a subcase of a more general function. Analyses in this volume contribute to developing a typology of the expression of discourse functions, a field of research which has so far been minimally addressed from a typological perspective.
Studies in Ditransitive Constructions
Author: Andrej Malchukov
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110220377
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 793
Book Description
This rich volume deals comprehensively with cross-linguistic variation in the morphosyntax of ditransitive constructions: constructions formed with verbs (like give) that take Agent, Theme and Recipient arguments. For the first time, a broadly cross-linguistic perspective is adopted. The present volume, consisting of an overview article and twenty-odd in-depth studies of ditransitive constructions in individual languages from different continents, arose from the conference on ditransitive constructions held at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig) in 2007. It opens with the editors' survey article providing an overview of cross-linguistic variation in ditransitive constructions, followed by the questionnaire on ditransitive constructions, compiled by the editors in order to elicit various properties of these patterns. The editors' overview discusses formal properties of ditransitive constructions as well as behavioral (or syntactic) and lexical properties (i.e., the extension of ditransitive constructions across different verb classes). The volume includes 23 contributions describing properties of ditransitive constructions in languages from all over the world, written by leading experts. Care has been taken that the contributions to the volume will be representative of structural, geographic and genealogical diversity in the domain of ditransitive constructions. Thus the present volume provides a unique source of information on typological diversity of ditransitive constructions. It is expected that it will be of central interest to all scholars and advanced students of linguistics, especially to those working in the field of language typology and comparative syntax.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110220377
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 793
Book Description
This rich volume deals comprehensively with cross-linguistic variation in the morphosyntax of ditransitive constructions: constructions formed with verbs (like give) that take Agent, Theme and Recipient arguments. For the first time, a broadly cross-linguistic perspective is adopted. The present volume, consisting of an overview article and twenty-odd in-depth studies of ditransitive constructions in individual languages from different continents, arose from the conference on ditransitive constructions held at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig) in 2007. It opens with the editors' survey article providing an overview of cross-linguistic variation in ditransitive constructions, followed by the questionnaire on ditransitive constructions, compiled by the editors in order to elicit various properties of these patterns. The editors' overview discusses formal properties of ditransitive constructions as well as behavioral (or syntactic) and lexical properties (i.e., the extension of ditransitive constructions across different verb classes). The volume includes 23 contributions describing properties of ditransitive constructions in languages from all over the world, written by leading experts. Care has been taken that the contributions to the volume will be representative of structural, geographic and genealogical diversity in the domain of ditransitive constructions. Thus the present volume provides a unique source of information on typological diversity of ditransitive constructions. It is expected that it will be of central interest to all scholars and advanced students of linguistics, especially to those working in the field of language typology and comparative syntax.
Oral Literature in the Digital Age
Author: Mark Turin
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1909254304
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192
Book Description
Thanks to ever-greater digital connectivity, interest in oral traditions has grown beyond that of researcher and research subject to include a widening pool of global users. When new publics consume, manipulate and connect with field recordings and digital cultural archives, their involvement raises important practical and ethical questions. This volume explores the political repercussions of studying marginalised languages; the role of online tools in ensuring responsible access to sensitive cultural materials; and ways of ensuring that when digital documents are created, they are not fossilised as a consequence of being archived. Fieldwork reports by linguists and anthropologists in three continents provide concrete examples of overcoming barriers -- ethical, practical and conceptual -- in digital documentation projects. Oral Literature In The Digital Age is an essential guide and handbook for ethnographers, field linguists, community activists, curators, archivists, librarians, and all who connect with indigenous communities in order to document and preserve oral traditions.
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1909254304
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192
Book Description
Thanks to ever-greater digital connectivity, interest in oral traditions has grown beyond that of researcher and research subject to include a widening pool of global users. When new publics consume, manipulate and connect with field recordings and digital cultural archives, their involvement raises important practical and ethical questions. This volume explores the political repercussions of studying marginalised languages; the role of online tools in ensuring responsible access to sensitive cultural materials; and ways of ensuring that when digital documents are created, they are not fossilised as a consequence of being archived. Fieldwork reports by linguists and anthropologists in three continents provide concrete examples of overcoming barriers -- ethical, practical and conceptual -- in digital documentation projects. Oral Literature In The Digital Age is an essential guide and handbook for ethnographers, field linguists, community activists, curators, archivists, librarians, and all who connect with indigenous communities in order to document and preserve oral traditions.