A Grammar of Fongbe

A Grammar of Fongbe PDF Author: Claire Lefebvre
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 9783110173604
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 610

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Book Description
The series builds an extensive collection of high quality descriptions of languages around the world. Each volume offers a comprehensive grammatical description of a single language together with fully analyzed sample texts and, if appropriate, a word list and other relevant information which is available on the language in question. There are no restrictions as to language family or area, and although special attention is paid to hitherto undescribed languages, new and valuable treatments of better known languages are also included. No theoretical model is imposed on the authors; the only criterion is a high standard of scientific quality.

A Grammar of Fongbe

A Grammar of Fongbe PDF Author: Claire Lefebvre
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 9783110173604
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 610

Get Book Here

Book Description
The series builds an extensive collection of high quality descriptions of languages around the world. Each volume offers a comprehensive grammatical description of a single language together with fully analyzed sample texts and, if appropriate, a word list and other relevant information which is available on the language in question. There are no restrictions as to language family or area, and although special attention is paid to hitherto undescribed languages, new and valuable treatments of better known languages are also included. No theoretical model is imposed on the authors; the only criterion is a high standard of scientific quality.

A Grammar of Fongbe

A Grammar of Fongbe PDF Author: Claire Lefebvre
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110880180
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 609

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Book Description
This book is a reference grammar of Fongbe, a language which is part of the Gbe dialect cluster. It is spoken mainly in the former kingdom of Dahomey, which today comprises the southern areas of Benin and Togo. This book has three objectives: First, its main purpose is to provide a thorough description of the grammar of Fongbe. Second, this book provides language-specific syntactic tests which were developed in the course of this research. Finally, we provide the reader with the most exhaustive list possible of references on Fongbe, and on the Gbe languages in general. This book thus attempts to represent a "state of the art" of the language itself, and of the analyses proposed to account for its particular constructions. This book is of particular interest to Africanists, scholars interested in comparative linguistics or in the reconstruction of language families, and creolists who work on the languages spoken in the Caribbean area.

Word-formation and Creolisation

Word-formation and Creolisation PDF Author: Maria Braun
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3484305177
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
This book explores a relatively little investigated area of creole languages, word-formation. It provides the most comprehensive account so far of the word-formation patterns of an English-based creole language, Sranan, as found in its earliest sources, and compares them with the patterns attested in the input languages. One of the few studies of creole morphology based on historical data, the book discusses the theoretical problems arising with the historical analysis of creole word-formation and provides an analysis along the lines of Booij's (2005, 2007) Construction Morphology in which the assumed boundaries between affixation, compounding and syntactic constructions play a very minor role. It shows that Early Sranan word-formation is characterised by the absence of superstrate derivational affixes, the use of free morphemes as derivational markers and of compounding as the major word-formation strategy. The emergence of Early Sranan word-formation involved multiple sources (the input languages, universals, language-internal development) and different mechanisms (reanalysis of free morphemes as derivational markers, adaptation of superstrate complex words, transfer from the substrates and the creation of innovations). The findings render untenable theoretical accounts of creole genesis based on one explanatory factor, such as superstrate or substrate influence.

Defining Creole

Defining Creole PDF Author: John H. McWhorter
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195347234
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
A conventional wisdom among creolists is that creole is a sociohistorical term only: that creole languages share a particular history entailing adults rapidly acquiring a language usually under conditions of subordination, but that structurally they are indistinguishable from other languages. The articles by John H. McWhorter collected in this volume demonstrate that this is in fact untrue. Creole languages, while complex and nuanced as all human languages are, are delineable from older languages as the result of their having come into existence only a few centuries ago. Then adults learn a language under untutored conditions, they abbreviate its structure, focusing upon features vital to communication and shaving away most of the features useless to communication that bedevil those acquiring the language non-natively. When they utilize their rendition of the language consistently enough to create a brand-new one, this new creation naturally evinces evidence of its youth: specifically, a much lower degree of the random accretions typical in older languages, which only develop over vast periods of time. The articles constitute a case for this thesis based on both broad, cross-creole ranges of data and focused expositions referring to single creole languages. The book presents a general case for a theory of language contact and creolization in which not only transfer from source languages but also structural reduction plays a central role, based on facts whose marginality of address in creole studies has arisen from issues sociopolitical as well as scientific. For several decades the very definition of the term creole has been elusive even among creole specialists. This book attempts to forge a path beyond the inter- and intra-disciplinary misunderstandings and stalemates that have resulted from this, and to demonstrate the place that creoles might occupy in other linguistic subfields, including typology, language contact, and syntactic theory.

Celtic Linguistics, 1700-1850: pt. 2. A grammar of Iberno-Celtic, or Irish language

Celtic Linguistics, 1700-1850: pt. 2. A grammar of Iberno-Celtic, or Irish language PDF Author: Daniel R. Davis
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780415204828
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 736

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Book Description


Handbook of Paleoanthropology

Handbook of Paleoanthropology PDF Author: Winfried Henke
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3540324747
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 2057

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Book Description
This 3-volume handbook brings together contributions by the world ́s leading specialists that reflect the broad spectrum of modern palaeoanthropology, thus presenting an indispensable resource for professionals and students alike. Vol. 1 reviews principles, methods, and approaches, recounting recent advances and state-of-the-art knowledge in phylogenetic analysis, palaeoecology and evolutionary theory and philosophy. Vol. 2 examines primate origins, evolution, behaviour, and adaptive variety, emphasizing integration of fossil data with contemporary knowledge of the behaviour and ecology of living primates in natural environments. Vol. 3 deals with fossil and molecular evidence for the evolution of Homo sapiens and its fossil relatives.

Two-tiered Relexification in Yiddish

Two-tiered Relexification in Yiddish PDF Author: Paul Wexler
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 311089873X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 729

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Book Description
The book claims that Yiddish was created when Judaized Sorbs first relexified their language to High German between the 9th-12th centuries; by the 15th century, the descendants of the Judaized Khazars also relexified their Kiev-Polessian (northern Ukrainian and southern Belarusian) speech to Yiddish and German, Yiddish thus uses a mixed West-East Slavic grammar and suggests that converted Khazars were a major component in the Ashkenazic ethnogenesis.

Journal of African Languages and Linguistics

Journal of African Languages and Linguistics PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : African languages
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description


The Poetical Works of the Rev. Goronwy Owen (Goronwy Ddu O Fon)

The Poetical Works of the Rev. Goronwy Owen (Goronwy Ddu O Fon) PDF Author: Goronwy Owen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English letters
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description


Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable

Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable PDF Author: Geoffrey Sampson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199545219
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
This fascinating book challenges the idea that languages are equally complex. Eighteen scholars look at evidence from a wide range of times and places. They consider the links between linguistic structure and change and social complexity. Their conclusions challenge conventional ideas about the nature of language and contemporary theory.