The Fate of Mood and Modality in Language Death

The Fate of Mood and Modality in Language Death
Author: Petar Kehayov
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 406
Release: 2017-07-24
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110524082

Research into the “grammar of language death” is often biased toward formal processes (e.g. paradigmatic levelling). In this study the author changes the perspective and shows that the relative susceptibility of linguistic elements to loss, change and innovation in language death circumstances can be dependent on meaning and thus organized along semantic notions rather than along structure.

The Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality

The Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality
Author: Aleksandra I︠U︡rʹevna Aĭkhenvalʹd
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 929
Release: 2018
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0198759517

The first volume to offer a thorough and systematic account of evidentiality and the expression of information source, Illustrated with extensive data from a range of typologically diverse languages, Introductory chapter offers practical advice for fieldworkers investigating evidentially, Interdisciplinary in nature with insights from typology, semantics, pragmatics, language description, anthropology, cognitive psychology, and psycholinguistics Book jacket.

The Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality

The Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality
Author: Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 929
Release: 2018-01-18
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0191077402

This volume offers a thorough, systematic, and crosslinguistic account of evidentiality, the linguistic encoding of the source of information on which a statement is based. In some languages, the speaker always has to specify this source - for example whether they saw the event, heard it, inferred it based on visual evidence or common sense, or was told about it by someone else. While not all languages have obligatory marking of this type, every language has ways of referring to information source and associated epistemological meanings. The continuum of epistemological expressions covers a range of devices from the lexical means in familiar European languages and in many languages of Aboriginal Australia to the highly grammaticalized systems in Amazonia or North America. In this handbook, experts from a variety of fields explore topics such as the relationship between evidentials and epistemic modality, contact-induced changes in evidential systems, the acquisition of evidentials, and formal semantic theories of evidentiality. The book also contains detailed case studies of evidentiality in language families across the world, including Algonquian, Korean, Nakh-Dagestanian, Nambikwara, Turkic, Uralic, and Uto-Aztecan.

Formal approaches to complexity in heritage language grammars

Formal approaches to complexity in heritage language grammars
Author: Maria Polinsky
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2024-07-05
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3985541078

This collective volume breaks new ground in studies of linguistic complexity by addressing this phenomenon in heritage languages. It dismisses with the conception that heritage languages are less complex than their baseline or homeland counterparts and shows complexity trade-offs at various levels of linguistic representation. The authors consider defining properties of complexity as a phenomenon, diagnostics of complexity, and the ways complexity is modeled, measured, or operationalized in language sciences. The chapters showcase several bilingual dyads and offer new empirical data on heritage language production and use.

The Uralic Languages

The Uralic Languages
Author: Daniel Abondolo
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 1034
Release: 2023-03-31
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1317230973

The Uralic Languages, second edition, is a reference book which brings together detailed discussions of the historical development and specialized linguistic structures and features of the languages in the Uralic family. The Uralic languages are spoken today in a vast geographical area stretching from Dalarna County in Sweden to Dudinka, Taimyr, Russia. There are currently approximately 50 languages in the group, the largest one among them being the state languages Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian; other Uralic languages covered in the book are South Saami, Skolt Saami, Võro, Moksha Mordvin, Mari, Udmurt, Zyrian Komi, Mansi, Khanty, Nganasan, Forest and Tundra Enets, Nenets, and Selkup. The book also contains a chapter on Finnic languages, the reconstruction of Uralic, the history of Uralic studies, connections of Uralic to other language families, and language names, demographics, and degrees of endangerment. This second and thoroughly revised edition updates and augments the authoritative accounts of the first edition and reflects recent and ongoing developments in linguistics and the languages themselves, as well as our further enhanced understanding of the relations and patterns of influence between them. Each chapter combines modern linguistic analysis and documentary linguistics; a relatively uniform structure allows for easy typological comparison between the individual languages. Written by an international team of experts, The Uralic Languages will be invaluable to students and researchers within linguistics, folklore, and Siberian studies.

Manual of Romance Sociolinguistics

Manual of Romance Sociolinguistics
Author: Wendy Ayres-Bennett
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 806
Release: 2018-06-11
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110365952

The Romance languages offer a particularly fertile ground for the exploration of the relationship between language and society in different social contexts and communities. Focusing on a wide range of Romance languages – from national languages to minoritised varieties – this volume explores questions concerning linguistic diversity and multilingualism, language contact, medium and genre, variation and change. It will interest researchers and policy-makers alike.

Principles of Historical Linguistics

Principles of Historical Linguistics
Author: Hans Henrich Hock
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 1101
Release: 2021-10-25
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110746441

Historical linguistic theory and practice consist of a large number of chronological "layers" that have been accepted in the course of time and have acquired a permanence of their own. These range from neogrammarian conceptualizations of sound change, analogy, and borrowing, to prosodic, lexical, morphological, and syntactic change, and to present-day views on rule change and the effects of language contact. To get a full grasp of the principles of historical linguistics it is therefore necessary to understand the nature of each of these "layers". This book is a major revision and reorganization of the earlier editions and adds entirely new chapters on morphological change and lexical change, as well as a detailed discussion of linguistic palaeontology and ideological responses to the findings of historical linguistics to this landmark publication.

Garner's Modern American Usage

Garner's Modern American Usage
Author: Bryan Garner
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 1007
Release: 2009-08-27
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0195382757

A guide to proper American English word usage, grammar, pronunciation, and style features examples of good and bad usage from the media.