Morphology, Syntax and Cohesion in Nabak, Papua New Guinea

Morphology, Syntax and Cohesion in Nabak, Papua New Guinea PDF Author: Grace Fabian
Publisher: Pacific Linguistics
ISBN:
Category : Nabak language
Languages : en
Pages : 582

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Book Description

Morphology, Syntax and Cohesion in Nabak, Papua New Guinea

Morphology, Syntax and Cohesion in Nabak, Papua New Guinea PDF Author: Grace Fabian
Publisher: Pacific Linguistics
ISBN:
Category : Nabak language
Languages : en
Pages : 582

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Book Description


The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area

The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area PDF Author: Bill Palmer
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110567261
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1142

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Book Description
The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide is part of the multi-volume reference work on the languages and linguistics of all major regions of the world. The island of New Guinea and its offshore islands is arguably the most diverse and least documented linguistic hotspot in the world - home to over 1300 languages, almost one fifth of all living languages, in more than 40 separate families, along with numerous isolates. Traditionally one of the least understood linguistic regions, ongoing research allows for the first time a comprehensive guide. Given the vastness of the region and limited previous overviews, this volume focuses on an account of the families and major languages of each area within the region, including brief grammatical descriptions of many of the languages. The volume also includes a typological overview of Papuan languages, and a chapter on Austronesian-Papuan contact. It will make accessible current knowledge on this complex region, and will be the standard reference on the region. It is aimed at typologists, endangered language specialists, graduate and advanced undergraduate students, and all those interested in linguistic diversity and understanding this least known linguistic region.

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. --

Koromu (Kesawai)

Koromu (Kesawai) PDF Author: Carol Priestley
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501510959
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 558

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Book Description
This book is a grammatical description of Koromu (or Kesawai), an endangered and previously undescribed language in Papua New Guinea's Ramu Valley. Koromu belongs to the Madang subgroup of the putative Trans New Guinea family. The grammar covers the structures of the language, with an emphasis on information structure. Geographic, linguistic, social and historical setting are described as well as phonology and morphophonology. The book examines the morphosyntactic structures of the language, covering basic clause structure, word classes, phrase structures and structures of spatial reference, verbal morphology, serial verb constructions, experiencer object constructions and the various constructions of clause combining (clause chaining, complement clauses, adverbial and relative clauses). Chapters also deal with noun phrase (non)realisation and morphological signaling of prominence and show how links and tails are encoded grammatically. Appendices contain texts and a wordlist.

The Paradigmatic Structure of Person Marking

The Paradigmatic Structure of Person Marking PDF Author: Michael Cysouw
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199254125
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
This book investigates paradigms of person - both independent pronouns as well as bound person marking. Based on empirical and theoretical grounds, the author argues that the notion 'number' has to be redefined to deal with the cross-linguistic variation of person marking. Equipped with a new definition, a typology of the paradigmatic structure of person marking is presented, incorporating data from around 400 languages. Nothing appears to be impossible for the paradigmatic structure, although some patterns are clearly more probable than others are. Starting from the more commonly occurring patterns, the diachronic dynamics of paradigmatic structure are investigated by comparing close relatives that differ slightly in the structure of their person paradigms.

A Grammar of Kilmeri

A Grammar of Kilmeri PDF Author: Claudia Gerstner-Link
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501506765
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 1010

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Book Description
This book is a description of Kilmeri, a language of Papua New Guinea, based on the author's fieldwork. The volume is dedicated to the detailed description of form and meaning and their interface, which is supported through extensive illustration by examples. The narrative structure of entire texts is accessible via a small collection of fully glossed personal and traditional stories included in the Online Supplement. The typological evaluation of selected properties of Kilmeri rounds out the description of the language.

Predicative Possession

Predicative Possession PDF Author: Leon Stassen
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199211655
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 831

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Book Description
This pioneering work draws on on data from over 400 languages from a wide range of language families to establish a typology of four basic types of predicative possession. It examines their interdependence with other typologies, and explores varieties of related grammaticalization processes.

A typology of marked-S languages

A typology of marked-S languages PDF Author: Corinna Handschuh
Publisher: Language Science Press
ISBN: 3944675193
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
A typological study of the rare marked-S language type which overtly marks the single argument of intransitive verbs (S) while one of the arguments of transitive verbs (either A or P) is left zero-coded. The formal (overt versus zero-coding) as well as functional aspects (range of uses of individual case forms) of the phenomenon are treated. The book covers languages from the Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan languages of Africa and of the North America Pacific Northwest and Pacific regions.

The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect

The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect PDF Author: Robert I. Binnick
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199700443
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Tense and aspect are means by which language refers to time--how an event takes place in the past, present, or future. They play a key role in understanding the grammar and structure of all languages, and interest in them reaches across linguistics. The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect is a comprehensive, authoritative, and accessible guide to the topics and theories that currently form the front line of research into tense, aspect, and related areas. The volume contains 36 chapters, divided into 6 sections, written by internationally known experts in theoretical linguistics.

Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable

Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable PDF Author: Geoffrey Sampson
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191567663
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
This book presents a challenge to the widely-held assumption that human languages are both similar and constant in their degree of complexity. For a hundred years or more the universal equality of languages has been a tenet of faith among most anthropologists and linguists. It has been frequently advanced as a corrective to the idea that some languages are at a later stage of evolution than others. It also appears to be an inevitable outcome of one of the central axioms of generative linguistic theory: that the mental architecture of language is fixed and is thus identical in all languages and that whereas genes evolve languages do not. Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable reopens the debate. Geoffrey Sampson's introductory chapter re-examines and clarifies the notion and theoretical importance of complexity in language, linguistics, cognitive science, and evolution. Eighteen distinguished scholars from all over the world then look at evidence gleaned from their own research in order to reconsider whether languages do or do not exhibit the same degrees and kinds of complexity. They examine data from a wide range of times and places. They consider the links between linguistic structure and social complexity and relate their findings to the causes and processes of language change. Their arguments are frequently controversial and provocative; their conclusions add up to an important challenge to conventional ideas about the nature of language. The authors write readably and accessibly with no recourse to unnecessary jargon. This fascinating book will appeal to all those interested in the interrelations between human nature, culture, and language.