How are relationships established between the world's languages? This is one of the most topical and most controversial questions in contemporary linguistics. The central aims of this book are to ...answer this question, to cut through the controversies, and to contribute to research in distant genetic relationships. In doing this the authors aim to: (1) show how the methods have been employed; (2) reveal which methods, techniques, and strategies have proven successful and which ones have proven ineffective; (3) determine how particular language families were established; (4) evaluate several of the most prominent and more controversial proposals of distant genetic relationship (such as Amerind, Nostratic, Eurasiatic, Proto-World, and others); and (5) make recommendations for practice in future research. This book will contribute significantly to understanding language classification in general.
New Zealand English Gordon, Elizabeth; Campbell, Lyle; Hay, Jennifer ...
05/2004
eBook, Book
New Zealand English - at just 150 years old - is one of the newest varieties of English, and is unique in that its full history and development are documented in extensive audio-recordings. The rich ...corpus of spoken language provided by New Zealand's 'mobile disk unit' has provided insight into how the earliest New Zealand-born settlers spoke, and consequently, how this new variety of English developed. On the basis of these recordings, this book examines and analyses the extensive linguistic changes New Zealand English has undergone since it was first spoken in the 1850s. The authors, all experts in phonetics and sociolinguistics, use the data to test previous explanations for new dialect formation, and to challenge current claims about the nature of language change. The first ever corpus-based study of the evolution of New Zealand English, this book will be welcomed by all those interested in phonetics, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics and dialectology.
Salikoko Mufwene raises significant questions about how and why languages become endangered (and die). The purpose of this reply is to provide additional perspective on what goes into answering these ...questions. Several of Mufwene’s claims are responded to. Questions are raised concerning what the theorizing about language endangerment and loss (LEL) that Mufwene calls for would be like. Many causal factors associated with LEL are mentioned, advances in understanding are pointed out, and the roles of language documentation and language revitalization are clarified.
The Indigenous Languages of South America: A Comprehensive Guide is a thorough guide to the indigenous languages of this part of the world. With more than a third of the linguistic diversity of the ...world (in terms of language families and isolates), South American languages contribute new findings in most areas of linguistics. Though formerly one of the linguistically least known areas of the world, extensive descriptive and historical linguistic research in recent years has expanded knowledge greatly. These advances are represented in this volume in indepth treatments by the foremost scholars in the field, with chapters on the history of investigation, language classification, language endangerment, language contact, typology, phonology and phonetics, and on major language families and regions of South America.
This Glossary provides accessible and widely representative definitions, discussion, and examples of key terms and concepts used in the field of Historical Linguistics. It includes numerous ...cross-references to related terms and covers new as well as traditional terminology.
Native American languages are spoken from Siberia to Greenland. Campbell's project is to take stock of what is known about the history of Native American languages and in the process examine the ...state of American Indian historical linguistics.
Claims about grammaticalization, and especially about “grammaticalization theory,” are assessed. It is argued that grammaticalization is derivative, that is, that it has no independent status of its ...own, but rather relies on other processes and mechanisms of linguistic change which are independent of grammaticalization but which provide the explanations for the phenomena involved in grammaticalization. This raises the question of whether grammaticalization has any value at all. The position taken here is that it does, that while the phenomenon of grammaticalization is interesting and attention on it has provided a range of valuable information, there are serious problems with so-called “grammaticalization theory.”
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