Descriptive and Theoretical Approaches to African Linguistics

Descriptive and Theoretical Approaches to African Linguistics PDF Author: Galen Sibanda
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3985540365
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 446

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Book Description
Descriptive and Theoretical Approaches to African Linguistics contains a selection of revised and peer-reviewed papers from the 49th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, held at Michigan State University in 2018. The contributions from both students and more senior scholars, based in North America, Africa and other parts of the world, provide a glimpse of the breadth and quality of current research in African linguistics from both descriptive and theoretical perspectives. Fields of interest range from phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics to sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, discourse analysis, language documentation, computational linguistics and beyond. The articles reflect both the typological and genetic diversity of languages in Africa and the wide range of research areas covered by presenters at ACAL conferences.

Descriptive and Theoretical Approaches to African Linguistics

Descriptive and Theoretical Approaches to African Linguistics PDF Author: Galen Sibanda
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3985540365
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 446

Get Book Here

Book Description
Descriptive and Theoretical Approaches to African Linguistics contains a selection of revised and peer-reviewed papers from the 49th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, held at Michigan State University in 2018. The contributions from both students and more senior scholars, based in North America, Africa and other parts of the world, provide a glimpse of the breadth and quality of current research in African linguistics from both descriptive and theoretical perspectives. Fields of interest range from phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics to sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, discourse analysis, language documentation, computational linguistics and beyond. The articles reflect both the typological and genetic diversity of languages in Africa and the wide range of research areas covered by presenters at ACAL conferences.

The Oxford Handbook of Language Prosody

The Oxford Handbook of Language Prosody PDF Author: Carlos Gussenhoven
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
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.

Studies in African Linguistic Typology

Studies in African Linguistic Typology PDF Author: F. K. Erhard Voeltz
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027293570
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
The twenty-one papers that make up this volume reflect the broad perspective of African linguistic typology studies today. Where previous volumes would present language material from a very restricted area and perspective, the present contributions reflect the global interest and orientation of current African linguistic studies. The studies are nearly all implicational in nature. Based upon a detailed survey of a particular linguistic phenomenon in a given language or language area conclusions are drawn about the general nature about this phenomenon in the languages of Africa and beyond. They represent as such a first step that may ultimately lead to a more thorough understanding of African linguistic structures. This approach is well justified. Taking the other road, attempting to pick out linguistic details from often fairly superficially documented languages runs the risk that the data and its implications for the structure investigated might be misunderstood. Consequentially only very few studies of this nature giving the very broad perspective, the overview of a particular structure type covering the whole African continent are represented here.

The Languages and Linguistics of Africa

The Languages and Linguistics of Africa PDF Author: Tom Güldemann
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110421666
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1034

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Book Description
This innovative handbook takes a fresh look at the currently underestimated linguistic diversity of Africa, the continent with the largest number of languages in the world. It covers the major domains of linguistics, offering both a representative picture of Africa’s linguistic landscape as well as new and at times unconventional perspectives. The focus is not so much on exhaustiveness as on the fruitful relationship between African and general linguistics and the contributions the two domains can make to each other. This volume is thus intended for readers with a specific interest in African languages and also for students and scholars within the greater discipline of linguistics.

The Cambridge Handbook of African Linguistics

The Cambridge Handbook of African Linguistics PDF Author: H. Ekkehard Wolff
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781108417983
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book provides an in-depth and comprehensive state-of-the-art study of 'African languages' and 'language in Africa' since its beginnings as a 'colonial science' at the turn of the twentieth century in Europe. Compiled by 56 internationally renowned scholars, this ground breaking study looks at past and current research on 'African languages' and 'language in Africa' under the impact of paradigmatic changes from 'colonial' to 'postcolonial' perspectives. It addresses current trends in the study of the role and functions of language, African and other, in pre- and postcolonial African societies. Highlighting the central role that the 'language factor' plays in postcolonial transformation processes of sociocultural modernization and economic development, it also addresses more recent, particularly urban, patterns of communication, and outlines applied dimensions of digitalization and human language technology.

Handbook of Descriptive Linguistic Fieldwork

Handbook of Descriptive Linguistic Fieldwork PDF Author: Shobhana L. Chelliah
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9048190266
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 505

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Book Description
The Handbook of Descriptive Linguistic Fieldwork is the most comprehensive reference on linguistic fieldwork on the market bringing together all the reader needs to carry out successful linguistic fieldwork. Based on the experiences of two veteran linguistic fieldworkers and advice from more than a twenty active fieldwork researchers, this handbook provides an encyclopedic review of current publications on linguistic fieldwork and surveys past and present approaches and solutions to problems in the field, and the historical, political, and social variables correlating with fieldwork in different areas of the world. The discussion of the ethical dimensions of fieldwork, as well as what constitutes the “typical” linguistic fieldwork setting or consultant is explored from multiple perspectives relevant to fieldwork on every continent. Included is information omitted in most other texts on the subject such as the collection, representation, management, and methods of extracting grammatical information from discourse and conversational data as well as the relationship between questionnaire-based elicitation, text-based elicitation, and philology, and the need for combinations of these methods. The book is useful before, during and after linguistic field trips since it provides extensive practical macro and micro organization and planning fieldwork tips as well as a handy sketch of major typological features for use in linguistic analysis. Comprehensive references are provided at the end of each chapter as resources relevant to the reader's particular interests.

Morphosyntactic variation in East African Bantu languages

Morphosyntactic variation in East African Bantu languages PDF Author: Hannah Gibson
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3985540918
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 446

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Book Description
The approximately 500 Bantu languages spoken across vast areas of Central, Eastern and Southern Africa are united by the presence of a number of broad typological similarities, including, for example, complex noun class system and agglutinative verbal morphology. However, the languages also exhibit a high degree of micro-variation. Recent work has demonstrated fine-grained morphosyntactic variation across many Bantu languages focusing on grammatical topics such as double object constructions, inversion constructions, or object marking, adopting formal, comparative and typological perspectives. Continuing in this vein, this volume builds on the momentum of the dynamic field of morphosyntactic variation in Bantu and contributes to the growing body of work which examines morphosyntactic variation, with a regional focus on the Bantu languages of East Africa. The East African region is characterized by high linguistic complexity in terms of the number of languages spoken, in terms of the four different linguistic phyla present, and in terms of the inherent sociolinguistic dynamics. The current volume explores this complexity further by bringing together studies which investigate features of morphosyntax of an individual language as well as those which develop an in-depth examination of a single morphosyntactic phenomena in a small sample of languages. The book seeks also to add to the descriptive status of the languages under examination, as well as raising questions relating to language, language contact, language change, and micro-variation in related languages spoken in close geographic proximity.

A grammar of Pichi

A grammar of Pichi PDF Author: Kofi Yakpo
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3961101337
Category : Creole dialects, English
Languages : en
Pages : 645

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Book Description
Pichi is an Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier Creole spoken on the island of Bioko, Equatorial Guinea. It is an offshoot of 19th century Krio (Sierra Leone) and shares many characteristics with West African relatives like Nigerian Pidgin, Cameroon Pidgin, and Ghanaian Pidgin English, as well as with the English-lexifier creoles of the insular and continental Caribbean. This comprehensive description presents a detailed analysis of the grammar and phonology of Pichi. It also includes a collection of texts and wordlists. Pichi features a nominative-accusative alignment, SVO word order, adjective-noun order, prenominal determiners, and prepositions. The language has a seven-vowel system and twenty-two consonant phonemes. Pichi has a two-tone system with tonal minimal pairs, morphological tone, and tonal processes. The morphological structure is largely isolating. Pichi has a rich system of tense-aspect-mood marking, an indicative-subjunctive opposition, and a complex copular system with several suppletive forms. Many features align Pichi with the Atlantic-Congo languages spoken in the West African littoral zone. At the same time, characteristics like the prenominal position of adjectives and determiners show a typological overlap with its lexifier English, while extensive contact with Spanish has left an imprint on the lexicon and grammar as well.

Introducing Linguistic Research

Introducing Linguistic Research PDF Author: Svenja Voelkel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316946533
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
Over the past decade, conducting empirical research in linguistics has become increasingly popular. The first of its kind, this book provides an engaging and practical introduction to this exciting versatile field, providing a comprehensive overview of research aspects in general, and covering a broad range of subdiscipline-specific methodological approaches. Subfields covered include language documentation and descriptive linguistics, language typology, corpus linguistics, sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics, cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics, and neurolinguistics. The book reflects on the strengths and weaknesses of each single approach and on how they interact with one-another across the study of language in its many diverse facets. It also includes exercises, example student projects and recommendations for further reading, along with additional online teaching materials. Providing hands-on experience, and written in an engaging and accessible style, this unique and comprehensive guide will give students the inspiration they need to develop their own research projects in empirical linguistics.

The Bantu Languages

The Bantu Languages PDF Author: Derek Nurse
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135796831
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 727

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Book Description
Gerard Philippson is Professor of Bantu Languages at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales and is a member of the Dyamique de Langage research team of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Lyon II University. He has mainly worked on comparative Bantu tonology. Other areas of interest include Afro-Asiatic, general phonology, linguistic classification and its correlation with population genetics.