Tense and Aspect in Bantu

Tense and Aspect in Bantu
Author: Derek Nurse
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 422
Release: 2008-07-03
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 0199239290

Derek Nurse looks at variations in the form and function of tense and aspect in Bantu, a branch of Niger-Congo, the world's largest language phylum. His account is based on data from more than 200 Bantu languages and varieties, a representative sample of which is freely available on the publisher's website.

Lexical Conflict

Lexical Conflict
Author: Danko Šipka
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2015-09-18
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1107116155

This work explores the lexical richness of over 100 world languages and proposes solutions for instances of imperfect equivalence between them.

Grammatical Relations

Grammatical Relations
Author: Clifford S. Burgess
Publisher: Center for the Study of Language (CSLI)
Total Pages: 488
Release: 1995
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9781575860039

This is a collection of discussions of grammatical relations and related concepts using current syntactic theory.

Humanitarian Law in Action Within Africa

Humanitarian Law in Action Within Africa
Author: Jennifer Moore
Publisher:
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2012-04-19
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0199856966

In this book, Jennifer Moore studies the role and application of humanitarian law by considering the experiences of African countries that are emerging from civil wars. Moore first offers an overview of international law, including its essential vocabulary, and then describes four particular subfields of international law: international humanitarian law, international human rights law, international criminal law, and international refugee law. After offering readers this important backdrop, Moore turns to practical mechanisms necessary to implement international humanitarian law, focusing specifically on the experiences of Uganda, Sierra Leone, and Burundi. This study of humanitarian law, despite its focus on Africa's experience, is important to conflict resolution and reconstruction throughout the world.

Voice syncretism

Voice syncretism
Author: Nicklas N. Bahrt
Publisher: Language Science Press
Total Pages: 340
Release:
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3961103194

This book provides a comprehensive typological account of voice syncretism, focusing on resemblance in formal verbal marking between two or more of the following seven voices: passives, antipassives, reflexives, reciprocals, anticausatives, causatives, and applicatives. It covers voice syncretism from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives, and has been structured in a manner that facilitates convenient access to information about specific patterns of voice syncretism, their distribution and development. The book is based on a survey of voice syncretism in 222 geographically and genealogically diverse languages, but also thoroughly revisits previous research on the phenomenon. Voice syncretism is approached systematically by establishing and exploring patterns of voice syncretism that can logically be posited for the seven voices of focus in the book: 21 simplex patterns when one considers two of the seven voices sharing the same marking (e.g. reflexive-reciprocal syncretism), and 99 complex patterns when one considers more than two of the voices sharing the same marking (e.g. reflexive-reciprocal-anticausative syncretism). In a similar vein, 42 paths of development can logically be posited if it is assumed that voice marking in each of the seven voices can potentially develop one of the other six voice functions (e.g. reflexive voice marking developing a reciprocal function). This approach enables the discussion of both voice syncretism that has received considerable attention in the literature (notably middle syncretism involving the reflexive, reciprocal, anticausative and/or passive voices) and voice syncretism that has received little or not treatment in the past (including seemingly contradictory patterns such as causative-anticausative and passive-antipassive syncretism). In the survey almost all simplex patterns are attested in addition to seventeen complex patterns. In terms of diachrony, evidence is presented and discussed for twenty paths of development. The book strives to highlight the variation found in voice syncretism across the world’s languages and encourage further research into the phenomenon.

A History of African Linguistics

A History of African Linguistics
Author: H. Ekkehard Wolff
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2019-06-13
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1108417973

The first global history of African linguistics as an emerging autonomous academic discipline, covering Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Europe.

The Joy of Grammar

The Joy of Grammar
Author: Diane Brentari
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 414
Release: 1992-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027274061

Two threads run through this collection of 22 papers by students and colleagues of James D. McCawley. The first is a commitment to deep reflection on the direction of linguistic study, sometimes resulting in challenges to the writings of major figures or new appreciations, sometimes questioning our assumptions about the organization of linguistic information in the mind. The second thread is a shared sense of the requirements for the rigor of a good linguistic argument, that its presentation be thoroughgoing, straightforward and clearly made. There is a strong emphasis on testing the “party line” with the widest possible range of languages and the strongest possible set of linguistic tests. Demonstrating bugs and strategizing over the choice between competing analyses is not enough. The completion of an argument lies in constructing a better alternative.