The Sino-Tibetan Languages

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Author :
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1315399490
Total Pages : 1049 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (153 download)

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Book Synopsis The Sino-Tibetan Languages by : Graham Thurgood

Download or read book The Sino-Tibetan Languages written by Graham Thurgood and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-12-08 with total page 1049 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are more native speakers of Sino-Tibetan languages than of any other language family in the world. Our records of these languages are among the oldest for any human language, and the amount of active research on them has multiplied in the last few decades. Now in its second edition and fully updated to include new research, The Sino-Tibetan Languages includes overview articles on individual languages, with an emphasis on the less commonly described languages, as well as descriptions and comments on the subgroups in which they occur. There are overviews of the whole family on genetic classification and language contact, syntax and morphology, and also on word order typology. There are also more detailed overview articles on the phonology, morphosyntax, and writing system of just the Sinitic side of the family. Supplementing these overviews are articles on Shanghainese, Cantonese and Mandarin dialects. Tibeto-Burman is reviewed by genetic or geographical sub-group, with overview articles on some of the major groups and areas, and there are also detailed descriptions of 41 individual Tibeto-Burman languages, written by world experts in the field. Designed for students and researchers of Asian languages, The Sino-Tibetan Languages is a detailed overview of the field. This book is invaluable to language students, experts requiring concise, but thorough, information on related languages, and researchers working in historical, typological and comparative linguistics.

The Sino-Tibetan Languages

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 113579717X
Total Pages : 754 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (357 download)

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Book Synopsis The Sino-Tibetan Languages by : Randy J. LaPolla

Download or read book The Sino-Tibetan Languages written by Randy J. LaPolla and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-05-17 with total page 754 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are more native speakers of Sino-Tibetan languages than of any other language family in the world. Records of these languages are among the oldest for any human language, and the amount of active research on them, both diachronic and synchronic, has multiplied in the last few decades. This volume includes overview articles as well as descriptions of individual languages and comments on the subgroups in which they occur. In addition to a number of modern languages, there are descriptions of several ancient languages.

The Roots of Old Chinese

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Author :
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9027236909
Total Pages : 267 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (272 download)

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Book Synopsis The Roots of Old Chinese by : Laurent Sagart

Download or read book The Roots of Old Chinese written by Laurent Sagart and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The phonology, morphology and lexicon of late Zhou Chinese are examined in this volume. It is argued that a proper understanding of Old Chinese morphology is essential in correctly reconstructing the phonology. Based on evidence from word-families, modern dialects and related words in neighboring languages, Old Chinese words are claimed to consist of a monosyllabic root, to which a variety of derivational affixes attached. This made Old Chinese typologically more like modern languages such as Khmer, Gyarong or Atayal, than like Middle and modern Chinese, where only faint traces of the old morphology remain. In the first part of the book, the author proposes improvements to Baxter's system of reconstruction, regarding complex initials and rhymes, and then reviews in great detail the Old Chinese affixal morphology. New proposals on phonology and morphology are integrated into a coherent reconstruction system. The second part of the book consists of etymological studies of important lexical items in Old Chinese. The author demonstrates in particular the role of proportional analogy in the formation of the system of personal pronouns. Special attention is paid to contact phenomena between Chinese and neighboring languages, and — unlike most literature on Sino-Tibetan — the author identifies numerous Chinese loanwords into Tibeto-Burman. The book, which contains a lengthy list of reconstructions, an index of characters and a general index, is intended for linguists and cultural historians, as well as advanced students.

The Tai-Kadai Languages

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135791155
Total Pages : 637 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (357 download)

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Book Synopsis The Tai-Kadai Languages by : Anthony Diller

Download or read book The Tai-Kadai Languages written by Anthony Diller and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-11-30 with total page 637 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Language Family Series is aimed at undergraduates and postgraduates of linguistics and language, or those with an interest in historical linguistics, linguistics anthropology and language development. With close to 100 million speakers, Tai-Kadai constitutes one of the world's major language families. The Tai-Kadai Languages provides a unique, comprehensive, single-volume tome covering much needed grammatical descriptions in the area. It presents an important overview of Thai that includes extensive cross-referencing to other sections of the volume and sign-posting to sources in the bibliography. The volume also includes much new material on Lao and other Tai-Kadai languages, several of which are described here for the first time. Much-needed and highly useful, The Tai-Kadai Languages is a key work for professionals and students in linguistics, as well as anthropologists and area studies specialists. ANTHONY V. N. DILLER is Foundation Director of the National Thai Studies Centre, at the Australian National University. JEROLD A. EDMONDSON is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Texas Arlington and a member of the Academy of Distinguished Scholars. YONGXIAN LUO is Senior Lecturer in the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne and a member of the Australian Linguistic Society.

New Perspectives on Chinese Syntax

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Author :
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3110338777
Total Pages : 374 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis New Perspectives on Chinese Syntax by : Waltraud Paul

Download or read book New Perspectives on Chinese Syntax written by Waltraud Paul and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2014-12-12 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mandarin Chinese has become indispensable for crosslinguistic comparison and syntactic theorizing. It is nevertheless still difficult to obtain comprehensive answers to research questions, because Chinese is often presented as an "exotic" language defying the analytical tools standardly used for other languages. This book sets out to demystify Chinese. It places controversial issues in the context of current syntactic theories and offers precise analyses based on a large array of representative data. Although the focus is on Modern Mandarin, earlier stages of Chinese are occasionally referred to in order to highlight striking continuities in its history. VO order is one such constant factor, thus invalidating the idea that Chinese went through a major word order change from OV to VO and back to OV. Another claim often made for Chinese as an isolating language, viz. the existence of an impoverished inventory of parts of speech, is likewise refuted. Other long debated issues addressed here include the relevance of the dichotomy topic vs subject prominence and the role of Chinese as a recurring exception to crosscategorial harmonies posited in typological studies.

Catching Language

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Author :
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
ISBN 13 : 3110197693
Total Pages : 671 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis Catching Language by : Felix K. Ameka

Download or read book Catching Language written by Felix K. Ameka and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2008-08-22 with total page 671 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Descriptive grammars are our main vehicle for documenting and analysing the linguistic structure of the world's 6,000 languages. They bring together, in one place, a coherent treatment of how the whole language works, and therefore form the primary source of information on a given language, consulted by a wide range of users: areal specialists, typologists, theoreticians of any part of language (syntax, morphology, phonology, historical linguistics etc.), and members of the speech communities concerned. The writing of a descriptive grammar is a major intellectual challenge, that calls on the grammarian to balance a respect for the language's distinctive genius with an awareness of how other languages work, to combine rigour with readability, to depict structural regularities while respecting a corpus of real material, and to represent something of the native speaker's competence while recognising the variation inherent in any speech community. Despite a recent surge of awareness of the need to document little-known languages, there is no book that focusses on the manifold issues that face the author of a descriptive grammar. This volume brings together contributors who approach the problem from a range of angles. Most have written descriptive grammars themselves, but others represent different types of reader. Among the topics they address are: overall issues of grammar design, the complementary roles of outsider and native speaker grammarians, the balance between grammar and lexicon, cross-linguistic comparability, the role of explanation in grammatical description, the interplay of theory and a range of fieldwork methods in language description, the challenges of describing languages in their cultural and historical context, and the tensions between linguistic particularity, established practice of particular schools of linguistic description and the need for a universally commensurable analytic framework. This book will renew the field of grammaticography, addressing a multiple readership of descriptive linguists, typologists, and formal linguists, by bringing together a range of distinguished practitioners from around the world to address these questions.

Syntax over Time

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Author :
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191511749
Total Pages : 439 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (915 download)

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Book Synopsis Syntax over Time by : Theresa Biberauer

Download or read book Syntax over Time written by Theresa Biberauer and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2015-02-27 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a critical investigation of syntactic change and the factors that influence it. Converging empirical and theoretical considerations have suggested that apparent instances of syntactic change may be attributable to factors outside syntax proper, such as morphology or information structure. Some even go so far as to propose that there is no such thing as syntactic change, and that all such change in fact takes place in the lexicon or in the phonological component. In this volume, international scholars examine these proposals, drawing on detailed case studies from Germanic, Romance, Chinese, Egyptian, Finnic, Hungarian, and Sámi. They aim to answer such questions as: Can syntactic change arise without an external impetus? How can we tell whether a given change is caused by information-structural or morphological factors? What can 'microsyntactic' investigations of changes in individual lexical items tell us about the bigger picture? How universal are the clausal and nominal templates ('cartography'), and to what extent is syntactic structure more generally subject to universal constraints? The book will be of interest to all linguists working on syntactic variation and change, and especially those who believe that historical linguistics and linguistic theory can, and should, inform one another.

Koguryo: The Language of Japan’s Continental Relatives

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Author :
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9047420284
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (474 download)

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Book Synopsis Koguryo: The Language of Japan’s Continental Relatives by : Christopher Beckwith

Download or read book Koguryo: The Language of Japan’s Continental Relatives written by Christopher Beckwith and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007-05-28 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes the Koguryo language, which was once spoken in Manchuria and Korea, including Koguryo and Japanese ethnolinguistic history, Koguryo’s genetic relationship to Japanese, Koguryo phonology, and the Koguryo lexicon. It also analyzes the phonology of archaic Northeastern Chinese.

Languages of the Himalayas

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Author :
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004514929
Total Pages : 924 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (45 download)

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Book Synopsis Languages of the Himalayas by : George van Driem

Download or read book Languages of the Himalayas written by George van Driem and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-09-12 with total page 924 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Oxford Handbook of Derivational Morphology

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Author :
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 019165177X
Total Pages : 768 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (916 download)

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Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Derivational Morphology by : Rochelle Lieber

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Derivational Morphology written by Rochelle Lieber and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-09-25 with total page 768 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Derivational Morphology is intended as a companion volume to The Oxford Handbook of Compounding (OUP 2009) Written by distinguished scholars, its 41 chapters aim to provide a comprehensive and thorough overview of the study of derivational morphology. The handbook begins with an overview and a consideration of definitional matters, distinguishing derivation from inflection on the one hand and compounding on the other. From a formal perspective, the handbook treats affixation (prefixation, suffixation, infixation, circumfixation, etc.), conversion, reduplication, root and pattern and other templatic processes, as well as prosodic and subtractive means of forming new words. From a semantic perspective, it looks at the processes that form various types of adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and verbs, as well as evaluatives and the rarer processes that form function words. The book also surveys derivation in fifteen language families that are widely dispersed in terms of both geographical location and typological characteristics.

A Grammar of Jero

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Author :
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9047415086
Total Pages : 431 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (474 download)

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Book Synopsis A Grammar of Jero by : Jean Robert Opgenort

Download or read book A Grammar of Jero written by Jean Robert Opgenort and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2005-06-01 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This description of the phonology, morphology and syntax of the endangered (Tibeto-Burman) Jero language as spoken in eastern Nepal, appears in sequel to the author's 2004 Grammar of Wambule, the language most closely related to Jero. It pictures the complex-pronominalising language of the Jero Rai, one of the Kiranti tribes of eastern Nepal. With a historical comparative study of the Kiranti languages, the branch of the Tibeto-Burman language family to which both Jero and Wambule belong. An exhaustive and model reference work for Tibeto-Burman linguistics, language typology and linguistic theory. With financial support of the International Institute for Asian Studies (www.iias.nl).

Linguistics of the Himalayas and Beyond

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Author :
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
ISBN 13 : 3110968991
Total Pages : 457 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (19 download)

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Book Synopsis Linguistics of the Himalayas and Beyond by : Roland Bielmeier

Download or read book Linguistics of the Himalayas and Beyond written by Roland Bielmeier and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2011-05-12 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The approximately 250 languages of the Tibeto-Burman family are spoken by 65 million speakers in ten different countries including Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma and China/Tibet. They are characterized by a fascinating linguistic, historical and cultural diversity. The languages spoken in the Himalayas, on their southern slopes and on the high Tibetan plateau in the north constitute the core of this diversity. Thus, the 21 papers mainly deal with these languages and some go even beyond to the area of the Blue Lake in northern Amdo and to southern Kham within linguistic Tibet. The ten papers dedicated to Tibetan linguistic studies offer approaches to the phonological analysis of Balti, to labial place assimilation, perfective stem renovation and stem alternation connected with verbal valence in Amdo Tibetan, to directional markers in Tokpe Gola in northeastern Nepal, to secondary verb constructions in Kham Tibetan, to narrative texts in Dzongkha, to case-marking patterns in various Tibetan dialects and to language history of Tibetan in general. Other papers deal with deictic patterns and narratives in western Himalayan Kinnauri and with the classification of neighbouring Bunan. With the Tamangic languages of northern Nepal the relationship between vowels and consonants and the development of demonstratives and plural markers are addressed. A further paper investigates the genetic relationship between Dzala and Dakpa, two East Bodish languages, and another one case-marking in Rabha and Manipuri in northeastern India. With the Kiranti languages Sampang, Limbu, Chaurasia and Sunwar in eastern Nepal, questions of accent, pronominally marked determiners, subclassification and language shift are discussed. The impressive selection of languages and linguistic topics dealt with in this book underlines the diversity of the Tibeto-Burman languages in Central and South Asia and highlights their place within present-day linguistic research. The results achieved by leading experts are remarkable in general, and the book is of interest to linguists, anthropologists and geographers.

Cognitive Linguistics and Non-Indo-European Languages

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Author :
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
ISBN 13 : 3110197154
Total Pages : 465 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis Cognitive Linguistics and Non-Indo-European Languages by : Eugene H. Casad

Download or read book Cognitive Linguistics and Non-Indo-European Languages written by Eugene H. Casad and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2008-08-22 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book applies the theory of cognitive linguistics to the analysis of a variety of grammatical phenomena in non-Indo-European languages. In previous studies of languages from non-Indo-European families, cognitive linguistics has been remarkably useful in explaining non-prototypical structures as well as more common ones. The book expands that effort into a new set of families and languages.

Chinese Linguistics

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198847831
Total Pages : 358 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (988 download)

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Book Synopsis Chinese Linguistics by : Giorgio Francesco Arcodia

Download or read book Chinese Linguistics written by Giorgio Francesco Arcodia and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-03 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a directory of WWW resources on Chinese linguistics, compiled by the East Asian Libraries Cooperative. Links to resources on phonetics, grammar, and dialects. Provides access to online courses, journals, and academic organizations.

The Grammar of Causative Constructions

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Author :
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004368841
Total Pages : 517 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (43 download)

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Book Synopsis The Grammar of Causative Constructions by : Masayoshi Shibatani

Download or read book The Grammar of Causative Constructions written by Masayoshi Shibatani and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-01-13 with total page 517 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Relative Tense and Aspectual Values in Tibetan Languages

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Author :
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
ISBN 13 : 3110908182
Total Pages : 1012 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (19 download)

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Book Synopsis Relative Tense and Aspectual Values in Tibetan Languages by : Bettina Zeisler

Download or read book Relative Tense and Aspectual Values in Tibetan Languages written by Bettina Zeisler and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2011-06-24 with total page 1012 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study presents a comparative approach to a universal theory of TENSE, ASPECT and MOOD, combining the methods of comparative and historical linguistics, fieldwork, text linguistics, and philology. The parts of the book discuss and describe (i) the concepts of TENSE, ASPECT and MOOD; (ii) the Tibetan system of RELATIVE TENSE and aspectual values, with main sections on Old and Classical Tibetan, “Lhasa” Tibetan, and East Tibetan (Amdo and Kham); and (iii) West Tibetan (Ladakhi, Purik, Balti); Part (iv) presents the comparative view. Discussing the similarities and differences of temporal and aspectual concepts, the study rejects the general claim that ASPECT is a linguistic universal. A new linguistic concept, FRAMING, is introduced in order to account for the aspect-like conceptualisations found in, e.g., English. The concept of RELATIVE TENSE or taxis, may likewise not be universal. Among the Tibetan varieties, West Tibetan is unique in having fully grammaticalized the concept of ABSOLUTE TENSE. West Tibetan is compared diachronically with Old and Classical Tibetan (documented since the mid 8th century) and synchronically with several contemporary Tibetan varieties. The grammaticalized forms of each variety are described on the basis of their employment in discourse. The underlying general function of the Tibetan verbal system is thus shown to be that of RELATIVE TENSE. Secondary aspectual functions are described for restricted contexts. A special focus on the pragmatic or metaphorical use of present tense constructions in Tibetan leads to a typology of narrative conventions. The last part also offers some suggestions for the reconstruction of the Proto-Tibetan verb system.

Lesser-Known Languages of South Asia

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Author :
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
ISBN 13 : 3110197782
Total Pages : 395 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis Lesser-Known Languages of South Asia by : Anju Saxena

Download or read book Lesser-Known Languages of South Asia written by Anju Saxena and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2008-08-22 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The increasing globalization and centralization in the world is threatening the existence of a large number of smaller languages. In South Asia some locally dominant languages (e.g., Hindi, Urdu, Nepali) are gaining ground beside English at the expense of the lesser-known languages. Despite a long history of stable multilingualism, language death is not uncommon in the South Asian context. We do not know how the language situation in South Asia will be affected by modern information and communication technologies: Will cultural and linguistic diversity be strengthened or weakened as they become increasingly prevalent in all walks of life? This volume brings together areas of research that so far do not interact to any significant extent: traditional South Asian descriptive linguistics and sociolinguistics, documentary linguistics, issues of intellectual and cultural property and fieldwork ethics, and language technology. Researchers working in the areas of documentary linguistics and language technology have become aware of each other in the last few years, and of how work in the other area could be potentially useful in furthering their own aims. Similarly, the insights of documentary linguistics are making their way into descriptive linguistics and sociolinguistics. However, the potential for synergy among these areas of research is almost limitless. This volume provides the reader, not so much with a do-it-yourself recipe for applying modern technology to the problem of language shift in South Asia today, but rather with some basic knowledge about the problems involved and some directions from which solutions could be forthcoming, a toolbox rather than a blueprint, for helping to shape the linguistic future of South Asia.