A Maasai Grammar With Vocabulary
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Number Constructions and Semantics
| Author | : Anne Storch |
| Publisher | : John Benjamins Publishing Company |
| Total Pages | : 384 |
| Release | : 2014-03-19 |
| Genre | : Language Arts & Disciplines |
| ISBN | : 9027270635 |
This book is the outcome of several decades of research experience, with contributions by leading scholars based on long-term field research. It combines approaches from descriptive linguistics, anthropological linguistics, socio-historical studies, areal linguistics, and social anthropology. The key concern of this ground-breaking volume is to investigate the linguistic means of expressing number and countable amounts, which differ greatly in the world’s languages. It provides insights into common number-marking devices and their not-so-common usages, but also into phenomena such as the absence of plurals, or transnumeral forms. The different contributions to the volume show that number is of considerable semantic complexity in many languages worldwide, expressing all kinds of extendedness, multiplicity, salience, size, and so on. This raises a number of challenging questions regarding what exactly is described under the slightly monolithic label of ‘number’ in most descriptive approaches to the languages of the world.
Typology of Pluractional Constructions in the Languages of the World
| Author | : Simone Mattiola |
| Publisher | : John Benjamins Publishing Company |
| Total Pages | : 263 |
| Release | : 2019-04-24 |
| Genre | : Language Arts & Disciplines |
| ISBN | : 9027262586 |
The aim of this book is to give the first large-scale typological investigation of pluractionality in the languages of the world. Pluractionality is defined as the morphological modification of the verb to express a plurality of situations that can additionally involve a plurality of participants and/or spaces. Based on a 246-language sample, the main characteristics of pluractionality are described and discussed throughout the book. Firstly, a description of the functions that pluractional markers cross-linguistically express is presented and the relationships occurring among them are explained through the semantic map model. Then, the marking strategies that languages display to express such functions are illustrated and some issues concerning the formal identification are briefly discussed as well. The typological generalizations are corroborated showing how pluractional markers work in three specific languages (Akawaio, Beja, Maa). In conclusion, the theoretical conceptualization of pluractionality is discussed referring to the Radical Construction Grammar approach.
A typology of marked-S languages
| Author | : Corinna Handschuh |
| Publisher | : Language Science Press |
| Total Pages | : 279 |
| Release | : 2014-03-05 |
| Genre | : Language Arts & Disciplines |
| ISBN | : 3944675193 |
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.
Causatives and Causation
| Author | : Jae Jung Song |
| Publisher | : Routledge |
| Total Pages | : 290 |
| Release | : 2014-06-11 |
| Genre | : Language Arts & Disciplines |
| ISBN | : 131788843X |
Causatives and Causation is the first comprehensive study of causative constructions found in the world's languages. This important new research, based on a data base of more than 600 languages, not only investigates fully the richness and variety of causative types, but also presents an alternative perspective to the traditional typological approach. The new typology enables a better understanding of how the human mind cognizes causation and how this is reflected in language. Causatives and Causation is also an important attempt to integrate language typology with diachrony by constructing a diachronic model of causative affixes on the basis of this new typology. Drawing on the theoretical insight of Role and Reference Grammar, this book provides a case study of the causative constructions in Korean, providing additional support for both the proposed new typology and the diachronic model. It also examines the pragmatic foundations of causatives, an important but previously unexplored area of study.
ACAL in SoCAL
| Author | : Yaqian Huang |
| Publisher | : Language Science Press |
| Total Pages | : 580 |
| Release | : 2024-05-23 |
| Genre | : Language Arts & Disciplines |
| ISBN | : 3961104727 |
This volume contains a selection of papers that were presented at the 53rd Annual Conference on African Linguistics, which was held virtually at the University of California San Diego. There are 21 papers covering phonology, morphology, syntax, lexical semantics, sociolinguistics, typology and historical linguistics. The volume features a keynote paper that proposes a novel community-based approach to language documentation. African languages investigated in detail include Wolof, Mende, Dangme, Kusaal, Nzema, Anii, Nigerian Pidgin, Tunen, Nyokon, Vale, Lokoya, Lopit, Otuho, Kalenjin, Tiriki, Oromo, Tigrinya, Asá, Qwadza, and Ikalanga.
Diachronic Change in the English Passive
| Author | : J. Toyota |
| Publisher | : Springer |
| Total Pages | : 305 |
| Release | : 2008-11-05 |
| Genre | : Language Arts & Disciplines |
| ISBN | : 0230594654 |
In this coherent historical development of the passive voice in English, the main argument deals not only with the passive per se, but also with its related constructions, which can play vital parts in identifying both functional and structural motivations for creating the passive.
Syllable Weight in African Languages
| Author | : Paul Newman |
| Publisher | : John Benjamins Publishing Company |
| Total Pages | : 231 |
| Release | : 2017-04-12 |
| Genre | : Language Arts & Disciplines |
| ISBN | : 9027265828 |
Syllable weight is a crucially important concept in the fields of phonology and morphology. It impacts analyses and explanation whether theoretical, typological, or descriptive. African linguistics was critical in the original development of the concept and, as this book demonstrates, the concept is critical to our understanding of complex phenomena in African languages, including stress, tone, allomorphy, minimal word requirements, and metrics. This volume includes a broad overview of syllable weight as a phonological variable and then provides detailed case studies covering an array of African languages from various phyla spoken across the continent. This should prove to be an essential book for scholars and students in the area of general phonology and African linguistics. The editor of the book, Distinguished Professor Paul Newman, is an internationally well-known expert on African linguistics in general and the Hausa language in particular. It was he who first introduced the term ‘syllable weight’ in a seminal article published nearly a half century ago.
Cognitive Foundations of Grammar
| Author | : Bernd Heine |
| Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
| Total Pages | : 196 |
| Release | : 1997-11-27 |
| Genre | : Language Arts & Disciplines |
| ISBN | : 0195356209 |
The main function of language is to convey meaning. Therefore, argues Bernd Heine in these pages, the question of why language is structured the way it is must first of all be answered with reference to this function. Linguistic explanations offered in terms of other exponents of language structure (for example, syntax) are likely to highlight peripheral or epi-phenomenal--rather than central--characteristics of language structure. Heine provides a solid introductory treatment of the ways in which language structure (that is, grammar) and language usage can be explained with reference to the processes underlying human conceptualization and communication. Exploring an area of linguistics that has developed only recently and is rapidly expanding, Cognitive Foundations of Grammar will appeal to students of linguistics, psychology, and anthropology, especially those interested in grammaticalization processess.
Composing the Music of Africa
| Author | : Malcolm Floyd |
| Publisher | : Routledge |
| Total Pages | : 398 |
| Release | : 2018-12-17 |
| Genre | : Social Science |
| ISBN | : 0429864299 |
First published in 1999, this volume explores the great diversity of music created by African communities is reflected in this book, which discusses the ways in which a wide range of musical forms are composed and performed from Egypt to South Africa and from Ghana to Kenya. As two composers explain here, this diversity provides much inspiration for western contemporary composition. Particular attention is paid to the contexts generate musical creativity. Ceremonies and festivals celebrating birth, death, marriage or rites of passage provide the impetus for much composition and performance, enabling young people to pick up, early on, some of the techniques and styles of which they then become the new exponents. The book also looks at the role played by formal music education programmes and bodies such as the South African Music Rights Organization and the South African Broadcasting Corporation in fostering musical activity, as well as the contribution of composers to the social and political changes that have dominated South African life in recent years.
