You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
The 46 papers in this 4-volume collection pro-vide clear and certain evidence that the search for "implicational universals" of human language (that is, for valid empirical generalizations such as "if property Y exists in a language, then property X must exist as well") has established itself, once and for all, as a powerful and dynamic force in modern linguistics. Concomitantly, the collection attests to a broadened use among scholars engaged in universals re-search of a theoretical and methodological strategy-pioneered, elaborated, and most extensively applied by Joseph Greenberg- that contrasts in fundamental respects with procedures favored by generative grammarians. Finally, and most impressive of all, the papers present abundant "results," a profusion of concrete findings that should persuade even the most hardened skeptics that implicational principles have a great deal to tell about what human language is and how it got to be that way. -- from http://www.jstor.org (May 21, 2014).
Extending the tradition of this series, which has become a standard reference work in language acquisition, this volume contains chapters on seven more languages, including a section on ergative languages. Languages in this volume include: Georgian; Greenlandic; K'iche Mayan; Warlpiri; Mandarin; Scandinavian and Sesotho.
Language typology is concerned with the construction of theoretical frameworks capable of delimiting the range of human languages and of capturing constraints on cross-linguistic variation. This text offers accounts of the theoretical foundations and findings of leading scholars in this field.
From the point of view of psychology and cognitive science, much of modern linguistics is too formal and mathematical to be of much use. The New Psychology of Language volumes broke new ground by introducing functional and cognitive approaches to language structure in terms already familiar to psychologists, thus defining the next era in the scientific study of language. The Classic Edition volumes re-introduce some of the most important cognitive and functional linguists working in the field. They include a new introduction by Michael Tomasello in which he reviews what has changed since the volumes were first published and highlights the fundamental insights of the original authors. The New Psychology of Language volumes are a must-read for anyone interested in understanding how cognitive and functional linguistics has become the thriving perspective on the scientific study of language that it is today.
This book examines the frequencies of the six possible basic word (or constituent) orders (SOV, SVO, VSO, VOS, OSV, OVS) provides a typologically grounded explanation for those frequencies in terms of three independent, functional principles of linguistic organization. From a database of nearly 1,000 languages and their basic constituent orders, a sample of 400 languages was produced that is statistically representative of both the genetic and areal distributions of the world’s languages. This sample reveals the following relative frequencies (in order from high to low) of basic constituent order types: (1) SOV and SVO, (2) VSO, (3) VOS and OVS, (4) OSV. It is argued that these relative fr...
The Enciclopedia de Linguistica Hispánica provides comprehensive coverage of the major and subsidiary fields of Spanish linguistics. Entries are extensively cross-referenced and arranged alphabetically within three main sections: Part 1 covers linguistic disciplines, approaches and methodologies. Part 2 brings together the grammar of Spanish, including subsections on phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Part 3 brings together the historical, social and geographical factors in the evolution of Spanish. Drawing on the expertise of a wide range of contributors from across the Spanish-speaking world the Enciclopedia de Linguistica Hispánica is an indispensable reference for undergraduate and postgraduate students of Spanish, and for anyone with an academic or professional interest in the Spanish language/Spanish linguistics.
This outstanding volume offers the first comprehensive collection of optimality-theoretic studies in Spanish phonology. Bringing together most of the best-known researchers in the field, it presents a state-of-the-art overview of research in Spanish phonology within the non-derivational framework of optimality theory. The book is structured around six major areas of phonological research: phoneticsphonology interface, segmental phonology, syllable structure and stress, morphophonology, language variation and change, and language acquisition, including general as well as more specialized articles. The reader is guided through the volume with the help of the introduction and a detailed index. The book will serve as core reading for advanced graduate-level phonology courses and seminars in Spanish linguistics, and in general linguistics phonology courses. It will also constitute an essential reference for researchers in phonology, phonological theory, and Spanish, and related areas, such as language acquisition, bilingualism, education, and speech and hearing science.
To the philosopher, the logician, and the linguist, questions have a special fascination. The two main views of language, that it describes the world, and that it expresses thought, are not directly applicable to questions. Ques tions are not assertions. A question may be apt, sharp, to the point, impor tant, or it may be inappropriate, ambiguous, awkward, irrelevant or irreverent. But it cannot be true or false. It does not have a truth value not just because an utterance like Was the letter long? does not indicate which letter is being talked about. The indicative The letter was not long has the same indeter minacy. In actual context the anaphoric definite article will be resolved both for...
This book is a full reference grammar of Qiang, one of the minority languages of southwest China, spoken by about 70,000 Qiang and Tibetan people in Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in northern Sichuan Province. It belongs to the Qiangic branch of Tibeto-Burman (one of the two major branches of Sino-Tibetan). The dialect presented in the book is the Northern Qiang variety spoken in Ronghong Village, Yadu Township, Chibusu District, Mao County. This book, the first book-length description of the Qiang language in English, is the result of many years of work on the language, and is as typologically comprehensive as possible. It includes not only the reference grammar, but also an et...