A Grammar of Tundra Nenets

A Grammar of Tundra Nenets
Author: Irina Nikolaeva
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 528
Release: 2014-06-18
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110320649

The book is the first substantial description of Tundra Nenets, a highly endangered Uralic language spoken in Western Siberia and the north of European Russia, destined for the international linguistic community. Its purpose is to provide a thorough documentation of all of the major grammatical phenomena in the language. The grammar particularly emphasizes the description of syntax, because this has traditionally been a very neglected area of Nenets studies. Many syntactic aspects have not received a systematic treatment in the existing literature or have not been addressed at all. Since the existing works are not easily available, incomplete, or idiosyncratically presented, Tundra Nenets syntax has played little or no role in the considerations of modern linguists, whether more descriptively or theoretically inclined. The book is largely descriptive: it is not intended to address theoretical questions per se and the description is not meant to be formulated within a particular framework. However, it identifies and discusses issues which are of broad typological and theoretical interest. The description is richly exemplified. Most of the cited examples are the result of fieldwork conducted by the in various locations. They are sentences produced by native speakers either spontaneously or elicited in response to questions posed in Russian. Other examples are excerpts from original texts.

A Grammar of Tundra Nenets

A Grammar of Tundra Nenets
Author: Irina Nikolaeva
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 515
Release: 2014-08-19
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110373297

The book is the first substantial description of Tundra Nenets, a highly endangered Uralic language spoken in Western Siberia and the north of European Russia, destined for the international linguistic community. Its purpose is to provide a thorough documentation of all of the major grammatical phenomena in the language. The grammar particularly emphasizes the description of syntax, because this has traditionally been a very neglected area of Nenets studies. Many syntactic aspects have not received a systematic treatment in the existing literature or have not been addressed at all. Since the existing works are not easily available, incomplete, or idiosyncratically presented, Tundra Nenets syntax has played little or no role in the considerations of modern linguists, whether more descriptively or theoretically inclined. The book is largely descriptive: it is not intended to address theoretical questions per se and the description is not meant to be formulated within a particular framework. However, it identifies and discusses issues which are of broad typological and theoretical interest. The description is richly exemplified. Most of the cited examples are the result of fieldwork conducted by the in various locations. They are sentences produced by native speakers either spontaneously or elicited in response to questions posed in Russian. Other examples are excerpts from original texts.

A Grammar of Nganasan

A Grammar of Nganasan
Author: Beáta Wagner-Nagy
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 601
Release: 2018-10-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9004382763

With this descriptive grammar of Nganasan Beáta Wagner-Nagy presents a comprehensive description of the highly endangered Samoyedic language, spoken only by a small number of individuals on Siberia’s Taimyr Peninsula. Based on corpus data from the Nganasan Spoken Language Corpus as well as field work the grammar follows a traditional structure. Contents range from a description of phonetic features and phonological processes over word classes, morphological features to syntactic and semantic properties. The grammar highlights morphophonological alternations as well as the pragmatic organization of Nganasan. A discussion of the core vocabulary completes the account in addition to two sample texts. The grammar reflects significant typological aspects thus serving as a reasonable basis for further comparison in Uralic studies.

Uralic Essive and the Expression of Impermanent State

Uralic Essive and the Expression of Impermanent State
Author: Casper de Groot
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 577
Release: 2017-11-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027265291

This volume is the first book length study into the essive, a relatively unknown case marker like English ‘as (a child)’. It focuses on the distribution of the essive in contemporary Uralic languages with special attention to the opposition between permanent and impermanent state. The volume presents large sets of new data and insights into the use of the essive in nineteen Uralic languages on the basis of a typological linguistic questionnaire. The typological variation is discussed within the linguistic domains of non-verbal main predication, secondary predication, complementation, and manner, temporal, and circumstantial adverbial phrases. The descriptions and analyses are presented in such a way that they are accessible to linguists in general, descriptive and theoretical linguists, and specialists in Uralic and/or linguistic typology. The data and approach offer many starting points for further investigations within but also outside the Uralic language family.

A Descriptive Grammar of Ket (Yenisei-Ostyak)

A Descriptive Grammar of Ket (Yenisei-Ostyak)
Author: Stefan Georg
Publisher: Global Oriental
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2007-03-22
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9004213503

Linguists and specialists on Siberia are generally familiar with the name Ket, which designates a small ethnic group on the Yenisei and their language, widely regarded as a linguistic enigma in many respects. Ket is a severely endangered language with today less than 500 native speakers. Together with Yugh, Kott, Arin, Assan and Pumpokol, all of which are completely extinct, it forms the Yeniseic family of languages, which has no known linguistic relatives. This Grammar of Ket constitutes the first book of its kind in English and is structured as follows: (1) Introduction; (2) The Kets and their Language; (3) Phonology; (4) Morphology; (5) References. A second volume is planned on Ket syntax, supported by a collection of original texts with translations and annotations.

Negation in Uralic Languages

Negation in Uralic Languages
Author: Matti Miestamo
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 679
Release: 2015-06-24
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027268649

The grammaticalized expression of negation is a linguistic universal. This volume deals with negation in the Uralic language family in a typological perspective. As in no other major language family before, a comprehensive typological questionnaire provides the basis for the chapters documenting negation in 17 languages. Most of them are endangered. The chapters highlight negative auxiliary verbs—the special Uralic feature—and their ways of combining with the rich inventory of other negators in different types of clauses, as well as negative replies, negative indefinites, abessives/caritives/privatives, scope, polarity and emphatic negation. Selected aspects of negation, such as negative indefinites, negation of non-verbal predicates and information structure, are discussed in more detail in five further chapters. The book brings new typologically informed perspectives on negation in the Uralic family, and it provides valuable data and insights for any linguist working on negation.

Mid-Holocene Language Connections Between Asia and North America

Mid-Holocene Language Connections Between Asia and North America
Author: Edward Vajda
Publisher: Brill's Studies in the Indigen
Total Pages: 546
Release: 2022-01-27
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9789004436817

This volume presents the up-to-date results of investigations into the Asian origins of the only two languages families of North America, Eskaleut and Na-Dene, that are widely acknowledged as having likely genetic links in northern Asia.

Clause Linkage in the Languages of the Ob-Yenisei Area

Clause Linkage in the Languages of the Ob-Yenisei Area
Author: Anja Behnke
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 473
Release: 2023
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9004684778

The volume explores clause-linkage strategies from a cross-linguistic perspective with an emphasis on asyndetic constructions. The data-driven approaches focus on areal differences and similarities in using non-finite verb forms in complex sentences in languages situated in Central and Western Siberia.