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A Hmao (Hua Miao) Songs, Stories and Legends from China NICHOLAS TAPP & MARK PFEIFER (eds.) Australian National University, Hmong Resource Center in Minnesota These wonderful materials come from the A Hmao people of Southwest China, a Miao people related to the Hmong. Their language is a unique one and this book represents a fair selection of their whole corpus of oral legends - songs and folk tales about the origins of the world, their oppression by the Chinese, their flight and exodus, their relations with landlords, together with stories of their social customs, lovesongs and animal fables. Before the Chinese revolution of 1949 the Parsons brothers, who collected and translated these materials, worked with the A Hmao as Christian pastors. Before leaving China they had asked the A Hmao to write down their entire oral corpus in the special form of writing invented by missionaries for their hitherto oral language. After China opened up in 1978 more of these materials were sent to the Parsons brothers, for all through the years of socialism the A Hmao had faithfully recorded their entire corpus.
There are four sections – the ‘Beginnings’, dealing with Creation and the Flood, ‘History’, dealing with early leaders, clashes with the Chinese, and the loss of the homeland, ‘Social Life’, covering shamanism, marriage and other customs, and ‘Narratives’ (fantastic stories about orphans, tigers, and many animal fables). Each legend has a brief introduction by the Parsons brothers followed by their free translation.
This selection has been put together from the entire mass of the collection by Nicholas Tapp, a Professor of Anthropology at the Australian National University, and Mark Pfeifer, former Head of the Hmong Resource Center in Minnesota. To show the uniqueness of the
language, some examples of the word-for-word translations which accompany each entry in the original are given, and some samples of the special Pollard script invented for the language. This is a unique corpus of imaginative folklore and linguistic materials and marks a considerable contribution towards world mythology. ISBN 978 3 929075 70 0 (Hardbound). LINCOM Text Collections 02. 600pp. USD 184.80 / EUR 150.20 / GBP 127.70. 2009.
An Island of Stories and Songs Folk Tales and Songs from the Great Andaman ANVITA ABBI Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
A rare book of folk tales and songs from the Great Andamanese language family which has no more than five speakers at present. This is the first time that a researcher has collected folk tales and songs from the fluent speakers of the languages of this family. Most of the narrators and singers who rendered the material for this book are no longer alive. The tales are unique in their content and style and present a world-view of one of the most ancient civilizations of the world. The accompanying CD-Rom contains audio and video recordings of songs, including those from Boa Sr., the last speaker of the Bo language. The English translation of songs is given in the book. The book also contains a long chapter on the methodology and process used for elicitation of stories. This will familiarize the readers with the environment, the context in which the elicitation was done as well as with the frame of mind of the narrator. It was challenging to elicit stories in a dying language as no one in
the community had heard or told any story in the last four decades. Accompanied by maps, charts, photographs and vocabulary used in stories and songs.
ISBN 978 3 89586 007 2. Languages of the World/Text Collections 27. 75pp plus CD. USD 61.70 / EUR 50.20 / GBP 41.70. 2010/IV.
A Grammar of Classical Japanese NORIKO KATSUKI-PESTEMER University of Trier The book is intended both for learners of Classical Japanese and for linguists with or without knowledge of the Japanese language. Systematic descriptions clarify the morphological agglutination of lexical items, which is one of the salient features of Japanese. Grammatical characteristics are explained with a wealth of examples from well-known works of the classical Japanese literature. The monograph also compares Classical Japanese to Modern Standard Japanese and shows diachronic changes which have taken place. It illuminates the adaptation process which takes place when foreign elements are absorbed into Japanese: the way they are selected and filtered and the devices employed to incorporate them without destroying the backbone, in other words the syntax, of the language. The volume is clearly structured and contains seven chapters: 1. Introduction; 2. Phonetics and Phonology; 3. Morphosyntax; 4. Word Class Descriptions; 5. Honoratives; 6. Rhetoric; 7. Conclusions. Noriko Katsuki-Pestemer is Lecturer in Modern Japanese, Classical Japanese, and Japanese Linguistics at the University of Trier. She has published many books. Her latest publications are: Grundstudium Japanisch 1 (2004), 2nd new ed.; Grundstudium Japanisch 2 (2005), 2nd new ed.; Kanji-Arbeitsheft 1 (2005), Kanji-Arbeitsheft 2 (2005); Kanji-Arbeitsheft 3 (2006); Japanese Postpositions: Theory and Practice (2008), 2nd ed. ISBN 978 3 929075 68 7. LINCOM Studies in Japanese Linguistics 03. 312pp. USD 93.80 / EUR 76.20 / GBP 64.80. 2009.
Classifying the Austroasiatic languages: history and state of the art PAUL SIDWELL Australian National University The Austroasiatic language phylum spans the breadth of South and Southeast Asia, with more than 150 languages over a dozen branches. Some are spoken by villages of just a few dozen people, while others have millions of speakers such as the national languages Cambodian and Vietnamese. Historically much of the Austroasiatic region has been divided and overlain by unrelated language families, creating a vast zone of ethnolinguistic contact and diversity. This creates a special imperative for us to turn to comparative linguistics to solves great issues of regional (pre)history that other disciplines cannot address.
Yet, despite more than a century of comparative Austroasiatic studies, scholars have yet to present an explicitly justified internal genetic classification of the phylum upon which specialists can agree. The text is divided into two main parts; the first charts the emergence of the Austroasiatic hypothesis and its various guises, and reviews much of the literature which has addressed how constituent branches may (or may
LINCOM Studies in Chinese Linguistics Phonetic Ambiguity in the Chinese Script A Palaeographical & Phonological Analysis CHRIS BUTTON SOAS, University of London Rejections of ideographic 會意 Huiyi graphs, whose composition belies membership of the 形聲 Xingsheng category of phonetic compounds and the 象形 Xiangxing category of pictographs that form their phonetic base, may be questioned on the basis that Xiangxing and Huiyi cannot be clearly distinguished in the earliest inscriptions. However, once these original Huiyi graphs have become firmly entrenched as Xiangxing graphs and viable entities for the production of Xingsheng graphs, it does seem unlikely that new graphs would be created irrespective of their pronunciation. The reasonable premise, that Chinese writing essentially consists of Xiangxing graphs with their Xingsheng derivatives, means that the issue is not whether Huiyi is a viable distinction but rather whether explanations via polyphony are viable alternatives. A role for polyphony in the Chinese script is without doubt, yet any notion that polyphony was a fundamental driving force in the creation and development of the script differs fundamentally from these sporadic cases of graphic convergence or synonymic interchange. More thorough palaeographical analyses, combined with more sophisticated reconstructions of Old Chinese, vindicate suggestions that Huiyi is an artificial distinction without requiring any recourse to polyphony. ISBN 978 3 89586 632 6. LINCOM Studies in Chinese Linguistics 08. 111pp. USD 54.40 / EUR 44.20 / GBP 37.60. 2010.
Vol. 08 new
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not) relate to each other, while the second part looks at each branch in detail, examining the history of scholarship and summarizing the state of the art. Many relevant maps and diagrams are reproduced, including some colour plates.
ISBN 978 3 929075 67 0 (Hardbound). LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 76. 175pp. USD 151.20 / EUR 112.00 / GBP 106.40. 2009.
A Semiotactic Approach to Modern Japanese HETTY GEERDINK-VERKOREN Leiden University This book is a rewritten version of the PhD thesis with the same title, presented in May 2008 at Leiden University. In this work the syntax and semantics of Modern Japanese are analyzed while applying the semiotactic theory of C.L. Ebeling. In the first chapter of this work a brief summary is given of Ebeling’s theory and methodology, followed by a summary of the basic characteristics of the Japanese language. In the next chapter various issues that came up when applying this theory to Japanese are discussed and Japanese adjectives and adverbs are analyzed.
The following chapters are devoted to analyzing the particles, classifying them by their functions. In the last three chapters various verbal and nominal constructions are described, such as the passive, potential and causative, as well as verb combinations with the -te form, including -te iru and -te aru, and nominalizations with koto and no. Finally, one complete literary text, a short story by Natsume Soseki, is analyzed. The semiotactic analyses in this book clearly demonstrate that there are no indirect objects in Japanese, that the traditional definitions for transitivity do not apply, and that all noun phrases marked by nominative ga should be analyzed as subjects, even when there are two or more particles ga in one sentence.
ISBN 978 3 89586 533 6. LINCOM Studies in Japanese Linguistics 04. 350pp. USD 98.70 / EUR 80.20 / GBP 68.20. 2009.
Crimean Tatar DARYA KAVITSKAYA Yale Uiniversity Crimean Tatar is a Turkic language of the West Kipchak subgroup, spoken mainly in Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and in Uzbekistan, as well as in small communities in Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey. Crimean Tatar consists of three major dialects: the Central dialect is currently used as the standard variety while the Northern and Southern dialects are endangered. The vowel system of standard Crimean Tatar distinguishes eight vowel phonemes. Crimean Tatar has backness and rounding harmony, as is the case in many Turkic languages (most notably, Turkish). However, rounding harmony is quite different from other Turkic languages, being licensed only by the first two syllables of the word.
The inflectional morphology of Crimean Tatar is exclusively suffixing, and derivational morphology makes use of both suffixation and compounding. Syntactically, Crimean Tatar uses the usual Turkic patterns; however, the word order is not strictly SOV, possibly reflecting Russian influence. Complex sentences are formed through the coordination of clauses with or without conjunctions. Fully embedded clauses are formed with non-finite verb forms such as participles and converbs.
This book contains the first full description of Crimean Tatar to appear in English or in any
other language. It covers all major aspects of the phonology, morphology, and syntax of the Central dialect of Crimean Tatar, and it also mentions the unique features of the Northern and Southern dialects where possible. Three texts in Central, Northern, and Southern Crimean Tatar with interlinear glosses and English translation are included.
ISBN 978 3 89586 690 6. Languages of the World/Materials 477. 200pp. USD 70.50 / EUR 57.30 / GBP 48.70. 2009.
Kui MIKHAIL S. ANDRONOV Kui is a nonliterary tribal language spoken by more than six hundred thousand people in the valley of the river Mahanadi in the Indian state of Orissa and in some areas of the neighboring Andhra Pradesh state. Most Kui speakers are hunters, fishermen and collectors. Some of them, however, practise agriculture and some work as plantation labourers in Assam and West Bengal.
The Kui language belongs to the northern group of the Dravidian language family. Its speakers call themselves kui (i.e. ‘highlanders’), while their neighbors call them kondho. Many of the Kui people are bilingual, their second language being Oriya. This fact accounts for the strong Oriya influence on Kui. In the past some Kui primers were published in the Roman and Oriya script, but they didn’t become popular, and the language is still unwritten. The present book contains a sketch of Kui phonetics and morphology (written in Russian).
ISBN 978 3 89586 596 1. LINCOM Language Research 07. 29pp. USD 47.40 / EUR 38.50 / GBP 32.70. 2009.
Selected Papers of the 2nd European Conference on Korean Linguistics JIEUN KIAER, University of Oxford & JAEHOON YEON, SOAS (eds.) The contributors for “the Proceeding of the 2nd European Conference on Korean Linguistics (ECKL)” discuss various aspects of Korean Linguistics, including historical linguistics, syntax, semantics, morphology, phonology, phonetics, psycholinguistics, corpus linguistics and language teaching. All the papers were presented at the 2ND ECKL, held in the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London in 2008. Jaehoon Yeon is Reader in Korean language at SOAS and Jieun Kiaer is a University Lecturer at the University of Oxford.
Contents: 1 Two Types of Denominal Predicates in Korean and Theories of Morphology-Syntax Interface, James Hye-Suk Yoon 2 Use of Referent Honorific Lexical Substitutions by Korean University Students, Lucien Brown 3 From the acoustics to the phonology of the accentual phrase in Korean read speech: Tonal patterns and boundary, Hyongsil Cho 4 L2 acquisition of polarity items: the case of Korean-English interlanguage, Kook-Hee Gill Heather Marsden 5 Difficulties encountered in the construction of a Korean bilingual dictionary and their - the case of the New Korean-French Dictionary, Guillaume Jeanmaire 6 A Phonetic Study on Phrasing in Seoul Korean, Hae-Sung Jeon 7 A Classification of Korean Support Verbs, Mihwa JO 8 Multiple –ka Construction and Performance-Grammar Correspondence, Jieun Kiaer
9 A Historical Corpus-Based Approach to Korean Logophor Caki, Sun-Hee Lee and Yelee-An 10 The Syntax of Inchoativity- -eci, event structure, and scalarity, Dongsik Lim and Maria-Luisa Zubizarreta 11 Korean –cocha ‘even’ and Japanese –sae ‘even’, Eun-Hae Park 12 Licensing Double Nominative Constructions in Korean, Jisung Sun 13 Upstep and Constituent Length in Daegu Korean: A Preliminary Report, Akira Utsugi and Hyejin Jang 14 Constraints on Double-Accusative External Possession Constructions in Korean: A Cognitive approach, Jaehoon Yeon
ISBN 978 3 89586 592 3 (Hardcover). LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 77. 300pp. USD 172.50 / EUR 140.20 / GBP 119.20. 2010.
Turkish - Azerbaijani Dictionary of Interlingual hom*onyms and Paronyms VÜGAR SULTANZADE Mediterranean University in North Cyprus Edited by Javanshir Shibliyev
Although mutual intelligibility between Turkish and Azerbaijani is extremely high, it is possible to observe differences in the use of hom*onymous words. Interlingual hom*onyms are words and idioms which are identical in form but different in meaning. Interlingual paronyms are like hom*onyms. They are etymologically related words, which have slight differences in form and have different meanings. Interlingual hom*onyms and paronyms are thought to be the most problematic words for translators, they are often named “translator’s false friends”. As the issue of such words between Turkish and Azerbaijani has not been subjected to comprehensive investigations, the aim of this dictionary is to fill this gap and present challenging material for the study of diachronic and interference problems between Oghuz languages. The book consists of the preface, the dictionary part and appendixes. Preface focuses on the main reasons that interlingual hom*onyms and paronyms emerge. In the dictionary part, a large number of interlingual hom*onyms and paronyms have been subjected to comprehensive analysis. Appendix I contains the list of verbs which have one and the same meaning but different argument structures in Turkish and Azerbaijani. Appendix II provides index of interlingual hom*onyms and paronyms. The dictionary can serve as a valuable source for linguists who are interested in Turkic languages, both synchronically and diachronically.
ISBN 978 3 89586 678 4. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 75. 184pp. USD 75.30 / EUR 61.20 / GBP 52.00. 2009.
The Japanese Aspectual Construction -TE I- (-TE –IRU) A Context-Free/Context-Sensitive Approach BENJAMIN M. ROSENTHAL The Japanese auxiliary construction -te i- (-te iru) has long attracted attention from linguists due to its unusual array of aspectual interpretations. It corresponds in some instances to the English
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The LINCOM webshop: www.lincom-europa.com LINCOM EUROPA• project line 20 • 2010 ♦ 45
“progressive” construction (e.g. be eating), in some instances to the English “perfect” construction (e.g. have eaten), and in some instances to neither (e.g. know, be open). A number of attempts have been made to find a unitary meaning that would tie the various interpretations of -te i- together, but none have hit the mark. Utilizing data from actual conversation (the original natural habitat of language), this monograph provides an analysis of -te i- that is at once context- free and context-sensitive, articulating a meaning that is shared by all instances of -te i- but also respects how any instance is situated in a context. It is proposed that -te i- invokes non-punctuality, a quality of not being confined to a single point in time. The notion of non-punctuality is used as a frame of reference to analyze the related auxiliary construction -te ari- (-te aru), explain the use of -te inai (a negative non-past form of -te i-) in polar opposition to the past affix -ta, deconstruct the preoccupation in much of the literature on -te i- with the “progressive” and “resultative” interpretations, and shed light on a hitherto unrecognized interpretation of -te i- as the holding of a “discourse stance”. This monograph will stimulate anyone interested in Japanese linguistics, aspect, or usage-based linguistics. ISBN 978 3 89586 943 3. LINCOM Studies in Japanese Linguistics 02. 158pp. USD 73.20 / EUR 59.50 / GBP 50.60. 2008.
The discourse functions of the modal auxiliaries wake da and no da in Japanese XIANGDONG LIU University of Western Sydney This study investigates the discourse functions of two common modal auxiliaries in Japanese - wake da and no da – in written discourse, and the essential differences between them.
Although previous studies provide a wealth of information on the uses and meanings of these two expressions, they have shown serious limitations and problems. The majority of previous works are carried out at the level of the sentence or paragraph, and rely on the scholars’ own interpretations of the meanings, or their subjective judgments regarding whether or not one expression can be replaced by the other. They focus on descriptions of the similarities and interchangeabilities between the two expressions, rather than their distinctive characteristics and functions. Many researchers characterize the functions of both of the two expressions as ‘asking or giving explanations’ or ‘conveying explanatory modality’.
This study examines authentic data from Japanese newspapers at the text level with reference to the original context and linguistic features, such as lexical chains, as objective clues. The investigation focuses on the distinctive functions of each of the expressions and their fundamental differences. To avoid potential circularity, likely to be caused by using similar terms in definitions, this study adopts a component approach when describing the discourse functions of the two expressions.
This study has found that, although certain syntactic features and logical relations make the two modal auxiliaries similar superficially, they are distinct from each other in terms of (1) the types of modality they carry; (2) the attitudes of the writer they indicate; (3) the nature of information they convey; and (4) the ways they relate to the rest of the text. The key findings of this study have gone beyond the limitations of previous research and confirmed the basic thesis proposed. That is, it is not adequate to simply conclude, as some previous studies suggest, that
wake da and no da are interchangeable. Although it may often be grammatically acceptable to substitute one for the other in an isolated sentence, one is more or less suitable than the other in each particular context.
Furthermore, summary expressions such as ‘explanatory modal auxiliaries’ or ‘asking or giving explanations’ are found not to be sufficient to describe the discourse functions of these two modal auxiliaries. The information expressed by a sentence involving wake da or no da (including their variants) is far more than merely explanation. It involves the writer’s attitude towards the information conveyed in the proposition; the nature of the information, and the way the sentences involving the auxiliaries related to the rest of the text.
ISBN 978 3 89586 296 0. LINCOM Studies in Japanese Linguistics 01. 260pp. USD 95.30 / EUR 77.50 / GBP 65.90. 2008.
Model Letters in Late Imperial China - 60 Selected Epistles from 'Letters from Snow Swan Retreat' DANIEL Z. KADAR Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences This volume introduces the reader to the historical Chinese epistolary corpus, in particular model letters, via sixty translated and thoroughly annotated letters selected from the Letters from Snow Swan Retreat (雪鴻軒尺牘). This collection, dating from the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), became one of the most influential and renowned manuals for letter writers. The present book is a groundbreaking work not only because it provides a translation of this difficult-to-read source, but also because no single-authored corpus of Chinese letters has been translated into English to date.
Letters from Snow Swan Retreat is an invaluable source for researchers and advanced students of Sinology. Furthermore, it is an important material for historical pragmaticians, historical politeness researchers and other experts of historical linguistics, with an interest in epistolary activity across cultures. Finally, the letters presented here are of interest to ‘lay’ readers devoted to Chinese literature due to the enjoyable archaic style of the translations.
The present book is a useful reference material for student readers: along with a detailed introduction of the corpus studied, it supplements the translated texts with three Appendices and a Glossary of epistolary expression; this Glossary is the most extensive historical Chinese epistolary glossary that has ever been produced in English. ISBN 978 3 929075 62 5. LINCOM Studies in Chinese Linguistics 07. 242pp. USD 91.30 / EUR 74.20 / GBP 63.10. 2009.
Mandarin Resultative Verb Compounds: Where Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics Meet CHAO LI The City University of New York This book undertakes two major tasks. First, it offers a lexical-semantic account of Mandarin resultative verb compounds (RVCs) within the event structure model of argument representation and argument realization developed on the basis
of Levin & Rappaport Hovav’s work (particularly Levin 1999 and Rappaport Hovav & Levin 1998). On this account, the complex thematic relations expressed by RVCs result from different interactions of the individual thematic relation expressed by each component of the compound and the composite thematic relation expressed by the whole compound, and from the different ways of realizing the Causer and the Causee. Second, the book places the study of Mandarin RVCs in a larger context and examines four aspects of Mandarin RVCs from a crosslinguistic perspective, namely the subject-oriented reading (when the causing predicate is unergative or transitive), the “scare reading,” the occurrence in the inchoative frame of a causative alternation, and the use of a stative causing predicate. It shows that all these phenomena are crosslinguistically marked and thus typologically significant. It argues that the differences among English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Romanian, and Swedish with respect to the first three phenomena fall out of the difference in the way the resultative is formed (namely, compound resultatives vs. non-compound resultatives), the headedness of the compound (and the degree of topic prominence of the language). The lexical-semantic account proposed is of theoretical significance in at least three respects. First, lexical (and syntactic) rules, like ordinary lexical items, are language memory bank items, although they themselves are not lexical items. As a result, there is no need to list the outputs of the rules in the lexicon or in the language memory bank. In turn, it does not necessarily lead to polysemy when the same verb is used in different syntactic frames. Second, both simple event roles licensed by simple events and complex event roles licensed by complex events should be recognized. Finally, the division of labor should be maintained, syntax should be made simpler, and the complete isomorphism between syntax and semantics should be abandoned. ISBN 978 3 89586 067 6. LINCOM Studies in Chinese Linguistics 06. 174pp. USD 85.10 / EUR 69.20 / GBP 58.80. 2008
Modern Chinese as a Foreign Language A Practical Course for American Students MING CHAO GUI The University of Oklahoma The book is considered by the author the “rich fruit” of the his language teaching experience for 39 years, including 14 years of teaching modern Chinese as a foreign language at the universities in the United States. The fundamental differences between teaching and learning Modern Chinese as a foreign language and as a native language have been a brand new topic in the past decade or so when the status of the Chinese language has been changing rapidly and the demand for this language has been increasing dramatically in the face of the globalization of the world’s economy and the growing influence of China to the world in many aspects and fields.
The book, written from the perspective of teaching and learning modern Chinese as a foreign language, is intended for American students studying the Chinese language, especially those who want to become a teacher of the language. Beginning learners with some basic knowledge of the language will also benefit from this book.
This practical course book not only gives the readers the basic yet essential knowledge of the grammar of the language on different levels of its linguistic hierarchy when learned as a foreign
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language, but also discloses and discusses in detail the fundamental differences between learning and teaching modern Chinese as a native language and as a foreign language. It makes it clear that the effective way in acquiring modern Chinese as a foreign language is to learn it in a functional way, in other words, to learn and teach the actual functions of words, phrases, grammatical patterns in context, or sentences, rather than the classifications of words or types of sentences. Comparison to the different features of English is another concept and practice behind all the discussions in this book, which has also been proven to an effective teaching and learning technique in the acquisition of a foreign language.
ISBN 978 3 89586 944 0. LINCOM Coursebooks in Linguistics 14. 193pp. USD 68.30 / EUR 55.50 / GBP 47.20. 2008. Course discounts available!
Elliptical Predicate Constructions in Mandarin RUIXI RESSY AI Harvard University This work presents a study of elliptical predicate constructions in Mandarin Chinese (MC). Four types of VP ellipsis have been investigated across languages. They are: (a) VPE in disguise (alternatively known as V-Stranding VPE); (b) English-like VPE (vPE); (c) Antecedent Contained Deletion (ACD) and (d) Pseudo-Gapping (PG). It is shown that the distribution of these types of VPE constructions is quite impoverished in MC. For VPE in disguise or V-Stranding VPE, its distribution can only be detected when the object is [-animate], with the possibility of relating it to a context called strong pragmatic control. For English-like VPE (vPE), it is argued that shi ('be')-supported construction is not an instance of vPE. Instead, it is an instance of deep anaphora, in the sense of Sag (1976a), and Hankamer and Sag (1976). Genuine vPE constructions in MC, however, do exist and they are licensed by a particular kind of modals, which can be (sometimes) combined with certain negative morphemes. This particular kind of modals refers to those that can indicate (epistemic or deontic) possibility. Modals indicating (epistemic or deontic) necessity, on the other hand, cannot license vPE in MC. ACD constructions are also limited in MC due to: (a) the limited distribution of VPE constructions in MC; (b) the limited process of relativization and (c) the peculiar Lfreconstruction of the ellipsis site. PG is impossible in MC because the syntactic machinery that can derive them is not available.
The study of elliptical predicate constructions in MC supports a mixed approach in analyzing (VP) ellipsis. That is, we need both the PF-deletion approach and the interpretive (or the LF-reconstruction/copying) approach. The identity condition for VPE constructions is argued to be LF-structural identity of predicates. ISBN 978 3 89586 149 9. LINCOM Studies in Chinese Linguistics 05. 284pp. USD 92.50 / EUR 75.20 / GBP 63.90. 2008.
Bu-Yu, the Complex-Predicate Structures in Mandarin Chinese HAIYONG LIU Wayne State University In this book, the author surveys the internal structures of three classes of bu-yu, complex-
predicate structures, in Mandarin. They are traditionally termed as jieguo-‘resultative’ bu-yu, keneng- ‘potential’ bu-yu, and miaoshu- ‘descriptive’ bu-yu. They all consist of P(redicate)1 and P(redicate)2.
The author offers a finer categorization within and without these bu-yu structures that differ in formation, aspect marking, negation, and A-not-A question formation.
His analysis of P1 and P2 incorporation explains why in jieguo bu-yu, only P2 is under the scope of negation and why an intransitive P2 can now assign case. He argues that keneng bu-yu is derived from jieguo bu-yu, based on the similarities in their interpretations, the transitivity of their P2’s, and the optionality in their object topicalization and pro-drop. He proposes, however, that keneng bu-yu is a serial-verb construction, the infix de being an analytical morpheme for both potentiality and causativity. A successive cyclic analysis accounts for the idiosyncrasy in keneng buyu A-not-A question, which takes the form of P1-DE-P2-P1-not-P2, different from the normal A-not-A questions.
He divides miaoshu bu-yu into descriptives, resultatives, and causatives, depending on the nature of their P2. When P2 is an individual-level predicate, we have descriptives, with P2 being the main predicate. When P2 is a stage-level predicate, we have resultatives or causatives. Resultatives has either subject-control or complex clausal structure, based on the finiteness of P2. Causatives have ECM. The de in descriptives is argued to be a nominalizer, which explains the peculiar P1-copying effect.
The de in resultatives is argued to be a complementizer like English ‘that’. The de in causatives is argued to be a prepositional complementizer like English ‘for’ that introduces an infinitive complement.
ISBN 978 3 89586 902 0. LINCOM Studies in Chinese Linguistics 04. 155pp. USD 75.70 / EUR 61.50 / GBP 52.30. 2007.
Being Affected: The meanings and functions of Japanese passive constructions MAMI IWAsh*tA University of Sydney Amongst the multiple and diverse meanings and functions passive constructions hold, this study shows that the primary function of passives in Japanese is to portray an event from the point of view of an affected entity. It identifies three types of affectedness in Japanese passive constructions: emotive affectedness, direct / physical affectedness, and objective affectedness.
A key contribution of this study is to reveal how Japanese passives are actually used in real contexts. In order to achieve this, detailed examination of authentic written and spoken data is conducted. Some findings of this data analysis contradict previous claims, such as the finding of a large proportion of passives with a non-sentient subject, the very low frequency of indirect passives and the appearance of a considerable number of passives in a proposition with a neutral or positive meaning.
Many previous researchers have claimed a complete and apparently transparent correlation between the syntactic and semantic distinctions of the Japanese passive. However, through analysing authentic data, it becomes evident that the correlation is much more subtle, and that is a matter of degree or a continuum, rather than a discrete, black and white issue. To reflect this view, this study proposes separate sets of categories for syntactic and semantic distinctions.
ISBN 978 3 89586 768 2. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 71. 255pp. USD 104.20 / EUR 84.70 / GBP 72.00. 2007.
Malto MIKHAIL S. ANDRONOV Institute of Oriental Studies, The Russian Academy of Sciences Malto is a nonliterary tribal language spoken by nearly one hundred thousand Dravidian tribesmen in the hilly tracts of Rajmahal in Northern Bihar. They prefer to reside in small settlements hidden in jungle thickets and surrounded by prickly hedges. There they lead a life of hunters, fishermen and collectors of edible plants, eggs, insects and small animals. Often they practise goat-, and sheep-breeding and even rear buffaloes. Tillage and husbandry are less popular with them.
Linguistically Malto belongs to the north-eastern group of the Dravidian family of languages. Of its three dialects one, called Sawriya, was thoroughly studied and described by B.Droese in the mid 19th Century, the other, Malpahariya, was described by B.P. Mahapatra in the 70s of the last Century, and the third, Kumarbhag, can be known from Mahapatra´s notes, too. In the present book phonetics, morphology and syntax of all the three Malto dialects are summarized and systematized with due account of the comparative data received so far (written in Russian).
ISBN 978 3 89586 128 4. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 74. 66pp. USD 58.10 / EUR 47.20 / GBP 40.10. 2008.
The only typological work
ever undertaken on the Andamanese languages
Endangered Languages of the Andaman Islands ANVITA ABBI Center of Linguistics and English, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi This is a book on the languages of one of the world’s most endangered and ancient linguistic groups - the Andamanese. Andamanese, a language isolate, is considered the fifth language family of India. Based on fieldwork conducted in the impregnable jungles of the Andaman Islands, the author brings out a comparative linguistic sketch of Great Andamanese, Jarawa, and Onge. The book provides the first detailed description of phonology, word formation processes, morphophonemic processes, lexicon containing words from various semantic fields, and syntax of the three languages. Similarities and differences between Great Andamanese, Jarawa and Onge are discussed to suggest possible genealogical affiliations and language contact. In addition, the book contains information on the nature of the field work pursued by the author, as well visual materials, which help contextualize the different tribes and their languages, in terms of civilization and environment. This is very relevant in the context of Tsunami-havoc that led to dislocation of some of the Andamanese tribes. The provided CD-Rom contains sound files, which help to provide more detailed phonetic and prosodic information as well as phonetic variation among the speakers of the dying and ‘mixed’ language such as Great Andamanese.
This is an important book as the speakers of these languages [8 Great Andamanese, 250 Jarawa, and 94 Onge] represent the last survivors of the pre-Neolithic population of the Southeast Asia. Latest research by geneticists (Science 2005) indicates that the Andamanese tribes are the remnants of the first migration from Africa that took place 70,000 years before present. These languages are highly endangered, especially Great Andamanese where not more than 6-8 speakers are left. Even these few speakers have stopped speaking the language amongst themselves. Very little work on these languages has been carried out so far. While a
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cross linguistic study in the present book has generated a good description of typological similarities and differences among languages, the comparative study of the lexicon and word formation processes draw reader’s attention to the genetic similarity between Onge and Jarawa. As Andamanese data have been analyzed against the parameters provided by the most current theoretical research in linguistic typology, the linguistic data and its analysis reported in the current book are of utmost importance theoretically, typologically, and historically.
The accompanying CD-Rom exposes, for the first time, the sounds and pictures of the tribes in their natural surroundings that may serve as a rare audiovisual treat to the users of the book. Some important sociohistorical events, which happen to take place during the author’s field trip, are also included in the CD, providing an indispensable insight into the lives and culture of these ancient peoples.
Structure of the book: The book is divided into six chapters followed by bibliographical reference and indices. [1] Introduction. [2] A Great Experience: From the Field Diary. [3] Where Have All the Speakers Gone? The
Great Andamanese Language [4] Touch Me Not. The Jarawa Language [5] Lost In the Jungle. The Onge Language [6] Conclusions: A Typology of the Andamanese
Language [7] Two appendices containing demographic
figures, maps and pictures follow. [8] References [9] Index
Each chapter on a grammatical sketch is complete in itself as it deals with all the aspects of grammar from sound system to syntax to a large inventory of lexical items and sociolinguistics. The current book is rich in visual representation. It has thirty one tables and figures, seven maps and substantial number of photographs of tribes taken in their natural surroundings.
Because of the unique and rare nature of the data the book is launched with a CD-Rom containing pictures, first-hand raw linguistic data, sound files of songs and narrations, short video clippings shot in the local habitat.
ISBN 3 89586 866 3 (incl. CD-ROM). LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 64. 175 pp. USD 114.20 / EUR 92.80 / GBP 78.90. 2006.
A Study of Chinese Colour Terminology WEIYUAN XU Australian National University This study represents a comprehensive investigation of Chinese colour terminology through both synchronic and diachronic perspectives.
We find that: In Modern Standard Chinese, basic colour categories are designated by eight basic colour terms which anchor the nomenclature system. Tertiary terms are often morphologically derived from, and semantically defined by, the basic terms. Secondary terms provide interesting evidence of language change. There is no single internal semantic structure constant across basic and non-basic terms.
The potentiality of syntactic function and collocation versatility of colour terms are generally determined by their morphological structures and semantic attributes. The gradual increase of varieties of functions; of overt grammatical constraints; and of the probability of syntactic extension is the trend in the development of syntactic function of colour terms.
Some figurative usages of colour terms stemmed from universal psychological associations, others were based upon Chinese-
specific etymological or cultural factors. Western languages and cultures have significantly influenced MSC colour terminology. New colour terms used to be created overwhelmingly through semantic derivation. In more recent times they have been created mainly through morphological combination and affixation. The development of Chinese colour terminology conforms by and large to Berlin and Kay's universal evolutionary ordering.
ISBN 978 3 89586 378 3. LINCOM Studies in Chinese Linguistics 01. 227pp USD 111.00 / EUR 90.30 / GBP 76.80. 2007.
Textes tangoutes I « Nouveau recueil sur l’amour parental et la piété filiale » GUILLAUME JACQUES Université Paris V – René Descartes Le tangoute est l’une des plus anciennes langues sino-tibétaines a avoir été portée à l’écrit; dans toute la famille, seules les traditions écrites du chinois et du tibétain l’ont précédée. Toutefois, en dépit de son intéret historique considérable et de la quantité importante de textes qui sont parvenus jusqu’à nous, peu de linguistes se sont adonnés à l’étude de cette langue. Son apprentissage est rendu difficile par un système d’écriture excessivement complexe, mais surtout par l’absence d’éditions de textes facilement utilisables.
Le présent ouvrage répond à un double but : offrir aux spécialistes du tangoute un corpus de texte analysé pour contribuer à une meilleure connaissance de la morphologie et de la syntaxe de cette langue, et fournir aux étudiants désireux d’apprendre le tangoute un manuel de base pour leur travail.
Le choix du nouveau recueil sur l’amour parental et la piété filiale pour le présent travail est motivé par le fait que ce texte a un contenu varié et est traduit moins servilement du chinois que beaucoup d’autres ouvrages tangoutes, en particuliers les sutras bouddhiques.
Le texte tangoute est constitué de 44 textes courts traduits du chinois. Pour chacun de ces textes, nous fournissons l’original chinois, le texte tangoute organisé ligne par ligne, le numéro du caractère dans le dictionnaire de Li (1998), la reconstruction de Gong Hwangcherng, le numéro de la rime ainsi qu’une glose en chinois.
Par ailleurs, nous proposons un index complet dans lequel est donnée une définition en chinois et en français du sens de chaque mot. ISBN 978 3 89586 766 8. Languages of the World/Text Collections 25. 172pp. USD 87.00 / EUR 70.70 / GBP 60.10. 2007.
Tense, Aspect and Modality in Nepali and Manipuri TIKARAM POUDEL Tribhuvan University This work explores the morpho-syntax and semantics of tense, aspect and modality in Nepali and Manipuri. We show that a sentence in natural language consists of a proposition, the element of modality and temporal reference. The proposition consists of the verb and its arguments. The notion of modality encodes different attitudes and judgments of the speaker. The temporal reference refers to whether the action is completed or on going and whether the state or the action is prior, simultaneous or posterior to the speech time. Traditionally moods and modal verbs were considered to be the subdivisions of modality. We show that modality is rather a semantic notion with its subdivisions of realis and irrealis. Not
only moods and modal verbs, but also inherently modality verbs, express this modal contrast. Declarative mood is the default way of expressing realis modality, on the other hand, irrealis modality, the marked category, is expressed by nondeclarative in Nepali and irrealis in Manipuri. Modal verbs express different sorts of modality such as epistemic and deontic. Modality verbs cast different modal senses on their complements. The notion of aspect is discussed within the subdivision of inherent aspect, perfectivity, terminativity and sequentiality. The discussion on inherent aspect explores the effect of inherent meanings of verbal group on the aspectual distinction. The term perfectivity is limited within the morphological level and includes the notions such as completives, anteriors, resultatives and past time markers. It contrasts with imperfectivity such as genericity, durativity and habituality. The term terminativity operates in the clausal level and has both verbal group and nominal arguments in its scope. The term sequentiality is a discourse level property and we illustrate it from the textual analysis from modern Manipuri fiction. We show that non-stative verbs marked with perfectivity and having the feature of terminativity move the story line forward functioning as the foregrounding property of discourse. The study concludes that tense is not a universal category, but a device languages employ to encode the relationship between speech time and event time. Nepali uses tense as one of such devices and Manipuri uses realis mood and other temporal means for the same purpose as it does not have grammatical way of marking tense.
ISBN 978 3 89586 186 4. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 73. 282pp. USD 96.80 / EUR 78.70 / GBP 66.90. 2007
The Acquisition and Use of Motion Event Expressions in Chinese LIANG CHEN University of Georgia
The study examined the structural and discourse characteristics of habitual descriptions of dynamic motion events in Chinese. It asked how these characteristics develop in children learning Chinese at different ages as contrasted with Chinese speaking adults. Contrasts with written productions by adults were also examined.
In expressions of motion events in Chinese, verbs marking path of movement (jìn “enter”) can either function alone or follow a verb marking manner of movement to form a serial verb construction. The linguistic analysis (Chapter 2) suggests the need of detailed examination of language use in diverse contexts to address the controversy over whether Chinese is best characterized as a verb-framed (Tai, 2003), satellite-framed (Talmy, 1985, 2000), or equipollently-framed (Slobin, 2004) language.
Motion event descriptions in both elicited oral narratives (Chapter 3) and fictional written narratives (Chapter 4) in Chinese exhibited characteristics that have been associated with and/or expected from both satellite-framed languages such as English and verb-framed languages such as Spanish. These hybrid patterns of motion event descriptions in discourse support characterizing Chinese as an equipollently-framed language.
Equipollently-framed structural patterns of motion event description were found to emerge early in Chinese children (Chapter 5), while the richness of the most advanced features of motion event descriptions in connected discourse continues to develop throughout preschool and the school years.
These studies, on the whole, suggest a close link between patterns of language structure and patterns of language use, and point to the influence of such patterns on children’s
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development of motion event descriptions.
ISBN 978 3 89586 867 2. LINCOM Studies in Chinese Linguistics 03. 144pp. USD 87.00 / EUR 70.70 / GBP 60.10. 2007.
Chinese Internet Language A Study of Identity Constructions LIWEI GAO Over the past decade, the rapid development of Internet communication in mainland China has resulted in a new variety of Chinese, which is generally termed the Chinese Internet language (Henceforth CIL). The majority of Internet consumers in China are aged between eighteen and twenty-four, who are studying in two- or four-year colleges. This study examines identity construction in the use of CIL by young Chinese netizens. It argues that the employment of CIL is not only attributable to such external factors as constraints from computers as a medium of communication but also, perhaps equally importantly, to such internal factors as netizens’ desire to construct various personal identities.
To make the argument, this work first analyzes objective linguistic data, CIL usages on the lexical, sentential, and discursive level that were collected primarily from five Internet situations – BBS’s, chatrooms, Internet literature, personal e-mails, and public web sites. It then examines the subjective data collected through a questionnaire survey conducted in mainland China. The survey results strongly support the argument that CIL is oftentimes utilized for the purpose of identity construction. The types of identities that the survey participants would like to construct include those characterized with being 1) entertaining and interesting, 2) technologically well informed and being able to keep up with social developments, 3) modern, fashionable and cool, 4) internationally oriented or transnational, 5) unconventional and even rebellious, and/or 6) young, fresh and innocent.
This study contributes to the understanding of the interaction between language use and identity construction in the Internet arena. Aside from documenting a new type of language contact and convergence in the digital age, this study also informs research on the social and technological factors responsible for language variation and change. Moreover, this study sheds light on such topics as language and culture, functions of language, and language attitudes.
ISBN 978 3 89586 382 0. LINCOM Studies in Chinese Linguistics 02. 187pp. USD 84.50 / EUR 68.70 / GBP 58.40. 2007.
Ga: Japanese Conjunction Its Functions and Sociolinguistic Implications TATSUYA f*ckUSHIMA University of Arkansas This book presents results of the historical, pragmatic, and variation analyses of the Japanese conjunction ga “but; however” in an attempt to identify its functions as well as to reveal their situational and sociocultural implications. The historical analysis finds that ga, which initially functioned as a nominative case marker for a nominalized clause, developed the conjunctive function as a result of its occurrences in increasingly complex sentence patterns. The pragmatic analysis identifies five functional categories of ga based on data from a popular live TV talk show.
Additionally, the first variation analysis employs data from newspaper articles, public speeches by prominent elected officials, and
message boards on the World Wide Web, and reveals a number of situational and sociocultural characteristics of ga occurrences. Furthermore, the second variation analysis compares ga occurrences in press conferences with three Japanese prime ministers and finds their relevance to premiers’ attempts in varying degrees to craft a party-friendly image at home and to demonstrate their “true colors” abroad. The conclusion of this book discusses the role of the ga historical development in its common functional feature in Modern Japanese and evaluates the relationship between ga occurrence patterns and characteristics of Japanese language, people, and culture.
ISBN 3 89586 321 1. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 63. 184pp. USD 74.90 / EUR 60.90 / GBP 51.80. 2006.
Introduction to Chinese Dialectology MARGARET MIAN YAN Indiana University
Introduction to Chinese Dialectology intends to give a comprehensive account of the studies on Chinese dialects tracing from the first Chinese dialect study of Yang Xiong's Fangyan "Dialect" to present works, covering mainly phonological and lexical features.
It investigates the dialect research from historical and theoretical linguistic perspectives. Topics include: the classification of Chinese dialects, dialect studies in different periods, the criteria for the dialect classification as proposed by different scholars, discussions on the Chinese dialectology from philological, descriptive, generative and computational quantifying approaches, and the contributions of Chinese dialectology to the general linguistic theories. The main text devotes to the description of the major phonological characteristics and distributions of the major dialects, supplemented by fourteen sketch dialect maps and over one hundred tables of dialect data for easier reading and comparisons. Each chapter is supported by exercises, which basically is in the form of contrastive and comparative linguistic analysis nature.
Contents
Preface, Acknowledgements
1 Background of Chinese Dialectology 2 Modern Period of Dialectology I 3 Modern Period of Dialectology II 4 Major Dialect Groups 4.1 The Mandarin and Jin Dialects 4.2 The Wu Dialects 4.3 The Xiang Dialects 4.4 The Min Dialects 4.5 The Gan Dialects 4.6 The Kejia Dialects 4.7 The Yue Diaelcts 4.8 Transitional Dialects
Concluding Remarks, References Summary of Phonological Rules Index
ISBN 3 89586 629 6 (Hardbound). LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 22. USD 164.00 / EUR 133.30 / GBP 113.30. 2006.
The Katuic Languages Classification, Reconstruction and Comparative Lexicon PAUL SIDWELL School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University The Katuic languages are a branch of the Mon-Khmer family with more than a million speakers
in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. The present study compiles data from various sources, including recent fieldwork that has helped to reveal the extent and diversity of the family. Sixteen languages are compared to produce a comparative reconstruction of the Proto Katuic phonology and lexicon, including 1400 etymologies and reconstructions, and many wider MK comparisons.
Katuic languages are particularly significant for their rich vowel systems, which are among the most complex in the world, and include contrastive phonation types or ‘registers’. In some cases these arose from the splitting of vowels in connection with changes in initial consonants. Interestingly it appears that register systems arose independently at least three times in the history of the Katuic family.
The reconstruction of Proto Katuic reveals an archaic phonological system not far removed from Proto Mon-Khmer, and the study is augmented with an index of Proto Mon-Khmer reconstructions by the late Professor Harry Shorto (previously unpublished).
ISBN 3 89586 802 7 (Hardbound). LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 58. 250pp. USD 144.30 / EUR 117.30 / GBP 99.70. 2005.
Sound Systems of Mandarin Chinese and English: a comparison
TSUNG CHIN University of Maryland This is a book on the sound systems of Mandarin Chinese and English. It takes a contrastive approach by first analyzing English and then using the same framework for Chinese.
The book focuses on the basic concepts for the understanding of Mandarin sound system. It describes the basic units of meaning, zi (words), as morpheme-syllables. The 405 morpheme-syllables in Mandarin form a closed set before tones are added. The components in the syllable are analyzed in terms of consonants and vowels, and divided into initials and finals by a binary approach used in traditional Chinese linguistics. In this book, an original view is illustrated on the positional analysis of the syllable and the selection of vowels heading the groups of finals in the binary system. The four tones are shown to form a symmetrically balanced system with the phonetic variations explained in concise and simple terms. The placement of tone marks which often causes confusion is also demonstrated to follow well-motivated rules.
This book provides insights for speakers of English and Chinese about their languages. It can be used as a textbook on Chinese phonetics, or as a reader for students of Chinese as a second language. Linguistic concepts are explained in plain language supplemented by analogies, examples, and reinforcing exercises. Learning problems are pointed out, causes explained, and remedies suggested. Table of Contents Division 1: The Chinese Language Section I: What Is Chinese Section II: The Dialects Section III: Mandarin Section IV: Mono-Syllabicity, the Morpheme and the Morpheme Syllable
Division 2: Linguistic Concepts Section V: Pronunciation vs. Spelling Section VI: Phonetics Section VII: Consonants, Vowels, and the Syllable
Division 3: English Sound System Section VIII: Minimal Pairs and Phonemes Section IX: English Consonants
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Section X: Allophones and Assimilation Section XI: English Vowels
Division 4: Mandarin Sound System Section XII: Mandarin Consonants Section XIII: Mandarin Vowels Section XIV: Mandarin Syllable Structure Section XV: Mandarin Tones
Division 5: Traditional Chinese Phonology Section XVI: Reverse Correspondence and Twin Initial-Double Final Section XVII: Binary Initial+Final Analysis of the Mandarin Syllable Section XVIII: Combinatory Constrains and Mandarin Syllables
Division 6: Phonetic Systems Section XIX: The Three Major Romanization Systems and Their Comparison Section XX: The National Phonetic Alphabet
Mandarin Initials Mandarin Syllables
Index
ISBN 3 89586 322 X. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 70. 144pp. USD 62.60 / EUR 50.90 / GBP 43.30. 2006.
Handbook of Japanese Grammar HIROKO STORM A Handbook of Japanese Grammar is intended for students who study Japanese as a second language, and teachers of the language. It is designed for those who seek a comprehensive understanding of multiple areas of Japanese.
Contents: Chapter 1: Pronunciation; Chapter 2: The Writing System; Chapter 3: Vocabulary; Chapter 4: Parts of Speech; Chapter 5: Numerals and Counters; Chapter 6: Word Order; Chapter 7: Conditionals; Chapter 8: Double Noun Phrase; Sentences; Chapter 9: Noun Modifiers; Chapter 10: Comparatives and Superlatives; Chapter 11: Causatives; Chapter 12: Passives; Chapter 13: Requests, Invitations, and Commands; Chapter 14: Potentials; Chapter 15: Purposes; Chapter 16: Honorifics; Chapter 17: Male and Female Speech
ISBN 3 89586 708 X. LINCOM Handbooks in Linguistics 18. 200pp. USD 93.10 / EUR 75.70 / GBP 64.40. 2003.
Topic Chains in Chinese A Discourse Analysis and Applications in Language Teaching WENDAN LI University of North Carolina Chinese is a discourse-oriented language. It has relatively few morphological and syntactic rules, but more constructions and strategies at the discourse level for the organization of text. The topic chain is such a structure at the discourse level in which clauses are linked not by conjunctions, but by coreferential relationships between overt topic noun phrases and unspecified noun phrases in adjacent clauses. Since the topic chain is used frequently in Chinese, the understanding of the structure is important to the understanding of the language. This book analyzes the structural characteristics of topic chains, their functions in discourse organization and their commonly occurring patterns.
It demonstrates how the patterns are used either individually or in combination to build up
units of text at the discourse level. The analysis also has its practical application in second language teaching. It is shown in the second part of the book that the patterns of topic chains can be used as a transitional measure to lead students’ production from the clause to the discourse level. The study is an attempt to investigate how discourse patterns, structures and strategies can be effectively taught in second language classrooms to reflect the discourse-oriented nature of the Chinese language. It bridges the gap between linguistic analysis and language pedagogy.
ISBN 3 89586 371 8. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 57. 239pp. USD 100.50 / EUR 81.70 / GBP 69.50. 2005.
Studies on Bă Resultative Construction A Comprehensive Approach to Mandarin Bă Sentences PICUS SIZHI DING Simon Fraser University The present work represents a comprehensive approach to the perennial problem of Mandarin bă sentences. In the light of typological studies of resultative, the bă-construction is identified as the Bă Resultative Construction (BRC), in which bă is argued to have developed an abstract meaning of ‘bringing about a resultative state’. Bă is consequently argued to be the head of the periphrastic resultative construction, where its verbal status has remained after the grammaticalization. The complexity of the bă problem is elucidated in semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic studies of BRC. Semantically, a bă sentence in BRC is complex in that it typically involves an underlying action and a resultative state. Considering bă as a verb, a complex structure naturally arises in the syntactic analysis of BRC. Finally, bă sentences in BRC also possess a pragmatically complex structure: an embedded topic structure.
The monograph is organized as follows: Chapter 1 presents a general introduction of the bă problem; Chapter 2 briefly reviews literature on Mandarin bă sentences, including studies available as recently as 2005; Chapter 3 concerns the constructional meaning of BRC; Chapter 4 represents a lexical study of bă itself, discussing how the resultative meaning of the verb has evolved and its syntactic properties in BRC. Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 are devoted to the overall syntactic structure of BRC. The former investigates relations between arguments of the matrix verb bă and the embedded verb in the complement clause under the Government-Binding Theory, while the latter addresses a parsing experiment of BRC in the cooking domain implemented within the framework of Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Chapter 7 focuses on the pragmatic features of BRC. Finally, conclusions are drawn in Chapter 8. ISBN 978 3 89586 491 9. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 62. 100pp. USD 61.40 / EUR 49.90 / GBP 42.40. 2007.
A Reference Grammar of the Tamil Language MIKHAIL S. ANDRONOV Institute of Oriental Studies, The Russian Academy of Sciences Tamil belongs to the Dravidian family of languages, where it is rightfully regarded as their most ancient and typical representative. The number of speakers, which exceeds 70 million, makes Tamil one of the major languages of the world. The groat bulk of Tamils (approx. 90 per cent) live in South India, where Tamil is an official language of Tamilnadu. A few millions of Tamils live in Sri Lanka, mostly in its northern and eastern areas. Tamils also form a sizable portion of the population in South East Asian countries, primarily Malaysia (nearly 1 million), Indonesia (0.5 mill.). Nyanmar (0.2 mill.) and Singapore (0.2 mill.). Many hundred thousand
Second revised and enlarged edition
Brahui, a Dravidian Language MIKHAIL S. ANDRONOV Institute of Oriental Studies, The Russian Academy of Sciences The Brahui language, spoken by some 1,5 million people in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, is the earliest offshoot of the Dravidian stock. Isolated from the kindred languages for several thousand years, it combines ancient features inherited from the Proto-Dravidian ancestor with numerous borrowings from its Iranian and Indo-Aryan neighbours.
Apart from a detailed practical grammar, illustrated with copious examples from Brahui texts, the book offers the latest comparative-historical information on the evolution and origin of the main elements of the language. The Brahui phonemes are traced to their Old Dravidian sources, the origins of case Suffixes and other nominal desinences are expounded, the Brahui numerals and pronouns are also traced to their ancient archetypes, and so are the personal suffixes of the verb. The primary systems of gender, tense and mood, lost or modified in the contemporary language, are reconstructed in comparison with those of Old Tamil and other classical languages.
The Brahui syntax, although basically Dravidian, lost many original constructions, particularly those with nonfinite verbal forms. However, Brahui suffered the greatest losses in its vocabulary, where the layer of Dravidian words is remarkably thin. Etymologies of those which were retained can be referred to in the book.
The position of Brahui within the Dravidian family and its relationship ties with kindred languages are discussed at large in the final chapter.
General Information on Brahui is given in the Introduction. The history of its study is also briefly outlined there. A bibliography of earlier works on the Brahui language is appended in the end. The subject index will make the use of the book easier. (Revised and enlarged Version of the 2001 edition (ISBN 3 89586 412 9 )). ISBN 3 89586 348 3 (Hardbound). LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 65. 160 pp. USD 119.70 / EUR 97.30 / GBP 82.70. 2006.
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Tamils reside in South Africa, Mauritius and elsewhere. As a second language Tamil is regularly used by tribesmen of Tamilnadu and other Indian bilinguals (ca 4 mill.).
The written history of the Tamil language is known for nearly twenty-two centuries: the earliest specimens of writing Tamil date back to the 2nd century B.C. The earliest extant monuments of Tamil poetry belong to the last quarter of the 1st century A.D. Yet there are evident signs of a long literary tradition that must have preceded their appearance.
CONTENTS: The grammar includes chapters on: Orthography and Orthoepy - Morphology (Nouns - Numerals - Pronouns - Personal nouns - Adjectives - Verbs - Adverbs - Particles - Imitative words - Echo-words - Interjections) - Syntax (Simple sentence (Subject - Predicate - Agreement between subject and predicate - Attribute - Object - Adverbial modifiers - hom*ogeneous parts of the sentence - Word order - Inversion - Mononuclear sentences - Incomplete sentences), Composite sentence (Complex sentences - Compound sentences - Parenthetical sentences)). It concludes with an index of sandhi transmutations, an index of inflexions, and References. (The grammar is an unchanged reprint of the English edition; Moscow (2003)). ISBN 3 89586 838 8. LINCOM Language Research 04. 470pp. USD 117.20 / EUR 95.30 / GBP 81.00. 2005.
Dravidian Historical Linguistics MIKHAIL S. ANDRONOV Institute of Oriental Studies, The Russian Academy of Sciences The book is composed of papers dealing with controversial problems in the history and comparative grammar of the Dravidian languages. A historical overview of Dravidian studies in the 19th and 20th centuries is followed by a detailed discussion of various systems of language classification worked out by leading comparativists in the past two centuries. The major principles of the comparative-historical method are discussed in connection with unceasing attempts to establish genetic relationship between Dravidian and non-Dravidian languages. The origin and historical evolution ot finite forms of the Dravidian verb are dealt with in several papers, and those of the adjective in Tamil and personal pronouns in Brahui are traced in the other two. A peculiar case of grammar hybridization in Old Malayalam mixed with Sanskrit and cases of structural borrowing in modern Dravidian languages are described and analysed in three papers. Finally, the etymologies of the word ‘Dravidian‘ and a dozen of other ethnonyms are explained. A bibliography of over 300 items indicates the relevant literature, both classical and modern. [Original and unabridged version, set with a typewriter].
ISBN 3 89586 413 7. LINCOM Language Research 02. 160pp. USD 100.50 / EUR 81.70 / GBP 69.50. 2001.
A Grammar of the Brahui Language in Comparative Treatment MIKHAIL S. ANDRONOV Institute of Oriental Studies, The Russian Academy of Sciences The Brahui language, spoken by some 1.5 million
people in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, is the earliest offshoot of the Dravidian stock. Isolated from the kindred languages for several thousand years, it combines ancient features inherited from the Proto-Dravidian ancestor with numerous borrowings from its Iranian and Indo-Aryan neighbours.
Apart from a detailed practical grammar, illustrated with copious examples from Brahui literary texts, the book offers the latest comparative-historical information on the evolution and origin of the main elements of the language. The Brahui phonemes are traced to their Old Dravidian sources, the origins of case suffixes and other nominal desinences are expounded, the Brahui numerals and pronouns are also traced to their ancient archetypes, and so are the personal suffixes in the verb. The primary systems of gender, tense and mood, lost or modified in the contemporary language, are reconstructed in comparison with these of Old Tamil and other classical languages. The general information on Brahui is given in the Introduction. The history of its study is also briefly outlined there and, in particular, the position of Brahui within the Dravidian family is discussed. A bibliography of earlier works on the Brahui language is appended in the end. The subject index will make the use of the book easier. [Original and unabridged version, set with a typewriter]. ISBN 3 89586 412 9. LINCOM Language Research 01. 100pp. USD 87.00 / EUR 70.70 / GBP 60.10. 2001.
A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages MIKHAIL S. ANDRONOV Institute of Oriental Studies, The Russian Academy of Sciences A decisive role played by the Dravidian component in the linguistic history of South Asia, makes the historical study of the Dravidian languages one of the primary tasks of modern South Asian linguistics. Information on the Dravidian language structure at the earliest stage of existence as well as on the course of its development in subsequent periods has become indispensable for the understanding of many fundamental aspects of the evolution of Indo-Aryan, Munda and other languages spoken in this area, not to mention the internal history of the Dravidian family itself. Modern linguistics operates with data from twenty-six Dravidian languages, viz., Tamil, Malayalam, Kasaba, Kurru, Kota, Toda, Kodagii, Kannada, Kuruba, Tulu, Koraga, Bellari, Telugu, Kolami, Naiki, Parji, Gadaba, Gondi, Konda, Pengo, Manda, Kul, Kuvi, Kurukh, Malto and Brahui.
In the absence of a definite boundary between the notions of language and dialect some of the South Dravidian tribal dialects are occasionally treated as independent languages in literature. It seems, however, that there are no sufficient grounds for it as peculiarities of such dialects do not generally exceed dialectisms found elsewhere. Therefore tribal dialects retain their original status in this edition of Comparative Grammar. At the same time there is no confidence that all languages of the Dravidian family have already been discovered and their list will not be expanded in the future. Dravidian comparative studies have a 140-year-old history. The multiplicity and diversity of collected facts, the complicacy of raised problems and the discrepancy between their conflicting interpretations, on the one hand, and the necessity to restrict the extent of the study to the limits of this book, on the other, called for a careful selection of the material to be examined here. The work on this book has a long history. Its preliminary stage started in the early fifties when
the author studied Bengali, Hindi and especially Tamil at the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies and, later, at the Tamil Department, University of Madras. The creative part of the work was accomplished in the Institute of Oriental Studies, the Russian Academy of Sgiences, which in 1978 and 1994 brought out two editions of the book in Russian. The present edition incorporates numerous additions and amendments made in the text in the process of its translation.
Contents: Preface, Abbreviations, Introduction 1. Phonetics 1.1. Phones and phonemes 1.2. Historical development of sounds 1.3. Phonetic correspondences 1.4. Phonetic processes 1.5. Dravidian root structure 2. Morphology 2.1. Nouns 2.2. Numerals 2.3. Pronouns 2.4. Personal nouns 2.5. Adjectives 2.6. Verbs 2.7. Adverbs 2.8. Imitative words 2.9. Echo-words 2.10. Particles 2.11. Postpositions 2.12. Conjunctions 2.13. Interjections 3. Proto-Dravidian Language 4. Bibliographical references 5. Indexes.
ISBN 3 89586 705 5. LINCOM Language Research 03. 342pp. USD 124.60 / EUR 101.30 / GBP 86.10. 2003.
The Phonology of Guangzhou Cantonese MING CHAO GUI The University of Oklahoma Cantonese, also widely known as Yue Yu (粤语) or Guangdong Hua (广东话) in a much broader sense, is in fact one of the many varieties of the Yue Family of Chinese dialects. From the linguistic and historical linguistic point of view, it is generally viewed as the lingua fanca of this family. The variety being discussed in this book is the one spoken in the City of Guangzhou (广州), the capital of Guangdong province, therefore it is known as Guangzhou Hua (Guangzhou speech), or rather, Guangzhou Cantonese as suggested by the title of this book.
This book is based on the author's Master's thesis completed at the University of Texas with up-dated information and language data. A sociolinguistic as well as historical linguistic account of this language is given in some detail, including a special section on the Creo-natured origin of Cantonese and its close varieties. Discussions in great detail have been given to the segmental and suprasegmental features of this language. The complex yet symmetrical tone system and the unique tone sandhi phenomena are treated with feature geometry framework. The major motivation for the tone change has been investigated. For the first time, presumably, some significant synchronic changes undertaken by modern Guangzhou Cantonese in the past fifty years have been probed.
ISBN 3 89586 643 1 (Hardbound). LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 56. 144pp. USD 141.80 / EUR 115.30 / GBP 98.00. 2005.
Intonation in Cantonese CHOI-YEUNG-CHANG FLYNN University of Hong Kong This study develops a system for describing intonation in Cantonese, a language having six phonological tones employing both pitch and slope. It analyses the utterance intonation contour into major intonation groups, intonation groups and feet. It defines what criteria those units meet and how they relate to each other.
The intonation contours, constructed with a string of lexical tones, are described in terms of prosodic units which separate themselves in terms of pitch height and pitch span. The demarcation of the units is an innovation of this work. The different F0 values of identical phonological tones in an utterance are found to be in gradual
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descent if they are within an intonation group, and an intonation group is depicted more clearly when the two fitted lines which cover the top and the bottom are parallel and declined. A major intonation group is the largest prosodic unit in utterances. It is decided by a larger size of resetting of pitch span. An intonation group and a major intonation group each represent a unit of information which is semantically and syntactically coherent. The most prominent syllable in an intonation group is the tonic.
An acoustic analysis of all possible combinations of the lexical tones of disyllabic and trisyllabic tonal sequences shows that tonal coarticulation is an important factor in modifying the F0 contours. The modification can affect both the pitch height and the slope of the F0 contours, and is also realised in both anticipatory and carryover effects. Prominence is examined, both at the level of words and of utterances, and a description of its prosodic parameters is developed with supporting evidence from the discussion of tonics. ISBN 3 89586 986 4. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 49. 150pp. USD 88.20 / EUR 71.70 / GBP 61.00. 2003.
A Profile of the Mandarin Noun Phrases Possessive Phrases & Classifier Phrases in Spoken Discourse HSIN-YUN LIU University of Cologne This empirical study investigates complex Mandarin noun phrases (NP) in actual spoken discourse, with special emphasis on the adnominal possessive phrases and the classifier phrases.
In investigating the structure of the Mandarin noun phrase, the author finds that there are two highly interesting phenomena which merit special attention: the functional behavior of the particle de in adnominal phrases and the use of classifiers. The particle de is observed to play a crucial role in the syntactic configuration of the Mandarin NP: apart from connecting two elements together, it can occur with all the possible modifying elements and makes explicit the modification relationship such an element bears to the head noun in a complex NP. The use of the classifier turns out to be the most conspicuous typological feature of Mandarin. In view of their significance, the phenomena involving the particle de and the classifier will be scrutinized in chapters two and three, respectively.
With regard to the adnominal possessive construction, there is a general consensus in Chinese linguistics about the linking function of the particle de. Given that the presence of this particle in adnominal constructions is not obligatory, some analyses thus hint at a possible correlation between the omission/non-use of the particle de and inalienbility (cf. Dragunov 1960; Chao 1968; Li and Thompson 1981), possible factors triggering the presence or absence of the particle de in actual spoken discourse are, however, never surveyed. It is Chappell and Thompson (1992) who first inquire into this question. They conduct a survey on a corpus consisting of both spoken and written texts and arrive at the conclusion that the use or omission of the particle de is determined by a number of convergent factors. Based on their findings, Liu will explore further the relevant factors determining the use or omission of the particle de in a pure spoken discourse. This is the main task of chapter two. In addition, issues concerning to what extent the notion of “inalienability” is relevant to the adnominal possessive phrase, as well as how this notion is expressed in Mandarin, will also be investigated in this chapter.
Due to the isolating morphological character of Mandarin, grammatical categories such as gender and case are irrelevant for the NP. Issues on number, by contrast, turn out to be of most importance and relevance. Indeed it is precisely the unique behavior of the NP in relation to number expression which is characteristic of the Mandarin NP, i.e., the use of the classifier. A survey of this phenomenon will be the main task of chapter three. In order to express the notion of quantification, Mandarin Chinese draws on the use of classifiers. In Chinese linguistics, however, classifiers are not defined clearly enough.
(to be continued in the LINCOM webshop: www.lincom.eu).
ISBN 3 89586 728 4. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 53. 300pp. USD 100.50 / EUR 81.70 / GBP 69.50. 2003.
2nd edition:
Japanese Postpositions: Theory and Practice NORIKO KATSUKI-PESTEMER University of Trier This handbook gives the reader an overview of Japanese postpositions which have a wide range of functions, such as case marking, adverbial, copulative, conjunctive and modality expressing roles. The aim of this book is to provide the reader general linguistic features with a wealth of concrete examples. Therefore, this introduction to Japanese postpositions, on the one hand, facilitates learners of Japanese at all levels in understanding its structures and their meanings and thus using them correctly. On the other hand, it enables linguists to gain an insight into the case system and syntactic structures of the Japanese language; it also clarifies the agentless features, a strong dependency on the context for understanding texts or discourse; and finally the manifestations of subjectivity inherent to the Japanese language. Suggestions for further reading, which are given in footnotes, enable students and researchers to find their way to more detailed fields of Japanese linguistics.
Noriko Katsuki-Pestemer is Lecturer of Japanese language and Japanese linguistics at the University of Trier. She is the author of Japanese textbooks for undergraduate students at German universities: Grundstudium Japanisch Volume 1 (1990) and Volume 2 (1991); Japanisch für Anfänger Volumes 1 and 2 (1996). ISBN 978 3 89586 111 6. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 52. 210pp. USD 101.50 / EUR 82.50 / GBP 70.10. 2008 (2nd edition).
The Intonational Phonology of Direct and Indirect Imperative Sentence Types in Seoul Korean HYUNG-SOON YIM Australian National University This book describes and analyses the intonation of two morpho-syntactically equivalent sentence types in Seoul Korean: the so-called direct imperative (or command), and the indirect imperative (or suggestion). The Autosegmental-Metrical theory developed by Pierrehumbert (1980), Beckman and Pierrehumbert (1986), Pierrehumbert and Beckman (1988), and Jun (1996; 1998) is used as analytical framework.
Specifically, the book asks if the two sentence types are intonationally distinguishable, and if they are, how they are different. As part of this aim, it also examines how intonational tones are realised over units of different length in the two sentence types, and investigates the intonational
phrase structure - the so-called accentual phrase structure - of the two sentence types.The results show that the two sentence types are both similar and different in their intonational structure. They are similar in two ways. Both have the same accentual phrase structure, with two accentual phrases, and both permit of an orthogonal 'strength' dimension. Thus it is claimed that direct imperatives can differ in the authority conveyed, and indirect imperatives can differ in the degree of assertiveness conveyed. It is further claimed that both these orthogonal 'strength' dimensions are signalled by the same phonological mechanism: through the first high tone of the accentual phrase.
The two sentence types differ in three ways. They have different boundary tones: /HL%/ or /L%/ in direct imperative and /LHL%/ in indirect imperative, and the relationship between strong authority and weak authority in the direct imperative is categorical, while the relationship between strong assertiveness and weak assertiveness in the indirect imperative is gradient. Also, the indirect imperative has considerably longer duration on the final syllable than the direct imperative. ISBN 3 89586 722 5. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 48. 144pp. USD 77.40 / EUR 62.90 / GBP 53.50. 2003.
Studies on Dialects in the Shanghai Area Their Phonological Systems and Historical Developments ZHONGMIN CHEN University of California, Berkeley This study is an analysis of phonological systems and historical developments of dialects in the Shanghai Area. Though there are five groups in the area, it is the historical development of The City group in the period from the 1850's to present which will be of primary concern to us in this study. There are five chapters and two appendices in the study. Chapter One presents the general information about the location, history, administration, and population of the area, an overview of previous studies, and a brief discussion of the research methods and databases employed in the study. Chapter Two addresses the internal divergence between the dialects and classifies the dialects in the area into five groups. The analysis includes the criteria of the classification, the classification of the dialects, and the historical-cultural background of the classification. The author treats the characteristics of tonal systems as a principal criterion in classifying the dialects in the area into five groups. Finally, a brief description of the phonological systems of the four representative dialects in the suburban area will be given (Chengqiao, Jiading , Songjiang and Liantang dialect). Chapter Three is a description of the phonological system of The City group. The sound system of The City group is based on most people's (majority) pronunciation. The differences between "majority" and "older", and other variations will be also discussed in this chapter. Chapter Four presents a discussion of some major sound changes in the dialects. This analysis includes tonal developments, pre-glottalized stops and their developments, the difference between literary and colloquial readings, and the pronunciation strata of the Yu rhyme category of Middle Chinese. Chapter Five discusses the major sound changes that have occurred in The City group from the 1850's to present by comparing the four sound systems from three periods. Appendix One is the language atlas in the area. There are twenty-five maps in this appendix, including administrative maps, two maps on the classification of the dialects, and
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twenty-one maps of language features. Appendix Two is a comparative morpheme-syllabary. The pronunciations of more than 2,000 characters from the five groups are listed in this appendix.
ISBN 3 89586 978 3. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 46. 260pp. incl. 24 maps (four colour printing). USD 122.10 / EUR 99.30 / GBP 84.40. 2003.
Grammaticalization of Verbs in Mandarin Chinese JANET ZHIQUN XING Western Washington University This study demonstrates that many processes of syntactic and semantic change discussed in the literature (e.g. Traugott and Heine 1991, Hopper and Traugott 1993, Heine 1993, Bybee et al. 1994) occur in the grammaticalization of Chinese verbs. In addition to that, there are a number of significant tendencies in the grammaticalization of Chinese verbs compared with those from typologically different languages.
For instance, semantic categories vary among the verbs that enter into grammaticalization; the source meaning does not determine the path of grammaticalization; and grammaticalization does not entail desemantization. Evidence is presented to show that all verbs investigated in this study have undergone three stages of syntactic reanalysis: serialization, de-centralization, and functionalization. As to semantic change, pragmatic inferencing plays a crucial role throughout the process of all cases of grammaticalization. It is argued that this is primarily attributed to the isolating nature of the Chinese language. ISBN 3 89586 755 1. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 47. 139pp. USD 72.50 / EUR 58.90 / GBP 50.10. 2003.
Studies on Cross-linguistic Transfer Patterning and Prosodic Typology : Cantonese, Japanese, English ESTHER YUK WAH LAI University of Hong Kong The present book is a collection of studies on prosody and universal transfer patterning in distinct prosodic types. The languages of reference are Cantonese, Japanese and English. The first paper: “Cantonese Stress: its Forms and Functions” investigates the stress phenomenon in the under-researched tonal language of Cantonese (a Chinese dialect belonging to the Yue dialect group). An original Cantonese Durational Stress/Accent Hypothesis is motivated to explain prosodic operations that are hitherto overlooked on the basis of stress behaviour in other tonal dialects of Chinese as well as languages of distinct typologies. The second paper: “Predictability and Universality of Transfer Patterning in Distinct Prosodic Types” adopts the contrastive approach to examine cross-linguistic transfer patterning, proposing a Contrastive Transfer Hierarchy to predict, or explain, transfer prominence and degrees of difficulties in SLA with L1 and L2 from distinct prosodic typological backgrounds.
The third paper: “A Cantonese Accent: Transfer of Cantonese Prosodic Traits in the Acquisition of Japanese as a Second Language” and the forth one: “Which is more Difficult for the Japanese Native Speaker to Master, Cantonese or English Prosody?” present rather
straight-forward accounts of learning difficulties in the particular group of first language speakers regarding the prosody of the specified second languages on the basis of the assumptions laid down previously in the first papers.
ISBN 3 89586 701 2. Languages of the World 28. 100pp. USD 78.60 / EUR 63.90 / GBP 54.30. 2003.
Yunnanese and Kunming Chinese:
A Study of the Language Communities, the Phonological Systems, and the Phonological Developments
MING CHAO GUI University of Oklahoma, Norman This is a interdisciplinary study composed of extensive research and detailed analyses of Yunnanese, a Southwestern Mandarin language spoken in Yunnan, China, and Kunming Chinese--one of its major varieties spoken in the city of Kunming. The research work is conducted in three major areas: the language communities, the phonological systems, and the phonological developments in the past six decades. The language communities are discussed from the perspectives of ethnology, sociolinguistics, and dialectology, covering such aspects as history of the civilization of Yunnan and Kunming, the ethnographical and ethno-historical account for the twenty-four ethnic groups inhabiting in Yunnan province, the demographic statistics of these groups, and dialect geography of Yunnanese and its varieties, as well as the members of Southwestern Mandarin subgroup.
A language survey has been conducted in some detail on the varieties of Yunnanese represented by one hundred and thirty-five locations with a comparative study of their segmental and suprasegmental structures. A comparative study on the language data representing two different varieties of Kunming Chinese spoken in two different periods of time, i.e., in 1940s and in 1990s, discloses the striking sound changes undergone by this dialect. Analyses of tone sandhi in autosegmental and metrical framework have revealed the edge sensitive characteristic of its tone system, as well as the constrains of tone sandhi imposed by syntactic structure and lexical category.
ISBN 3 89586 635 0. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 28. 250pp. USD 98.00 / EUR 79.70 / GBP 67.80. 2001.
The Prosodic Syntax of Chinese
SHENGLI FENG University of Kansas In linguistics, it has been commonly assumed that syntax can exert influence on prosody, but the opposite direction, prosody influences syntax, is much less widely recognized. The present manuscript argues for a bidirectional interaction between prosody and syntax: Syntax governs prosody and prosody also constrains syntax, based on data from Chinese. For example, a classical problem in Chinese syntax is this: only one constituent is, in general, allowed after the main verb. However, if the object is a destressed element (a pronoun, for example), two constituents can legitimately occur after the verb. This pattern is explained by proposing a prosodic feature assignment on elementary trees in the Tree Adjoining Grammar notation. The manuscript is the first work that a system of prosodically constrained syntax is proposed in the literature, and it will create a sub-field of linguistics in the study of human languages.
ISBN 3 89586 369 6. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 44. 148pp. USD 95.60 / EUR 77.70 / GBP 66.10. 2002.
Prosody and Prosodic Transfer in Foreign Language Acquisition: Cantonese and Japanese ESTHER YUK WAH LAI University of Hong Kong The present volume is an elaborate study of the prosodic system and prosodic transfer effects in two typologically distinct languages, Cantonese and Japanese, which are representative of two big prosodic types, namely, tone language and pitch-accent language. The first part of the study examines the most important features characterizing the overall prosody of each language through a comprehensive review over important issues in the light of present day prosodic and phonological theories as the metrical theory, auto segmental and prosodic phonology etc. The second part focuses on a contrastive study to predict or explain potential areas of prosodic interference in the foreign language classroom of Cantonese and Japanese speakers through postulating a hierarchy of transfer parameters, with empirical verification where necessary.
The study displays its unique contribution in multiple directions: (a)The Cantonese stress/accent hypothesis proposed in the study is the first attempt ever to examine closely the prosodic behaviour of Cantonese, beyond the scope of the lexical tone. (b) The detailed prosodic analyses as presented should greatly facilitate second language learning for Cantonese and Japanese speakers who are both well known to speak a second language with a strong first language accent. (c) The scrutiny of diverse language types revealing universal principles underlying language specific behaviour seems to suggest that barriers between the so called "distinct prosodic types" such as "tonal versus intonation", "rhythm of alternation versus rhythm of succession" can be rather superficial, upon new discovery and new interpretation of their prosodic behaviour.
ISBN 3 89586 467 6. LINCOM Studies in Language Acquisition 08. 350pp. USD 103.00 / EUR 83.70 / GBP 71.20. 2002.
Rawang Texts RANDY J. LAPOLLA & DORY POA City University of Hong Kong This volume is a collection of fully analyzed texts of the Mvtwang dialect of the Rawang language collected as part of fieldwork on the language. Rawang is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by approximately fifty thousand people who live in northern Kachin State, Myanmar (Burma), particularly along the Mae Hka (‘Nmai Hka) and Maeli Hka (Mali Hka) river valleys just south and east of Tibet. The Mvtwang dialect is considered to be the most central of the many Rawang dialects spoken in Myanmar, and so has become a standard for writing and intergroup communication.
The texts include the Rawang creation and migration stories, other folk stories, and also dialogic procedural texts detailing how to weave cloth, how to prepare different traditional foods and how to make a bow and arrows. An introductory chapter gives a brief grammatical description of the language and introduces the Rawang orthography.
(The orthography uses the roman alphabet and a few other symbols; it was developed by American missionary Robert H. Morse in the 1960’s, and is commonly used by the Rawangs.)
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The texts are given in this orthography. They are first presented unanalyzed side-by-side with a free English translation, section by section. Then each section is presented again in the standard four-line format (as spoken/morphemic analysis/morpheme gloss/free translation).
ISBN 3 89586 783 7. Languages of the World/Text Collections 18. 300 pp. USD 117.20 / EUR 95.30 / GBP 81.00. 2001.
Folktales of China’s Minhe Mangghuer ZHU YONGZHONG (Zhongchuan Junior Middle School), WANG XIANZHENG (Qinghai Medical College), KEITH SLATER (University of California) & KEVIN STUART (Qinghai Junior Teachers’ College)
In the east-central portion of Northwest China’s Qinghai Province dwell the majority of China's Monguor (Tu) nationality, classified as one of China's fifty-six official ethnic groups and numbering 190,000 (1990). The 37,900 Minhe Mangghuer, dwelling in Minhe Hui and Mangghuer (Tu) County, are the second largest Monguor group.
Minhe Mangghuer (language) is of primarily Mongolic lexicon and morphosyntax while, at the same time, exhibiting massive lexical and phonological influences from Chinese. This collection of more than twenty folktales are presented in the Mangghuer written system (based on a modified pinyin system), English translation and extensive notes and provides valuable linguistic materials on this endangered Monguor dialect that exists nowhere else. Map, illustrations.
ISBN 3 89586 254 1. Languages of the World/Text Library 01. 280pp. USD 109.90 / EUR 89.30 / GBP 75.90. 2005.
Les langues Hmong-Mjen (Miáo-Yáo). Phonologie historique. BARBARA NIEDERER Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l’Asie Orientale, CNRS L’épanouissem*nt que connaît la recherche sur les langues Hmong-Mjen depuis une quinzaine d’années a enrichi sensiblement nos connaissances sur cette famille linguistique. Les informations concernant les différentes langues sont toutefois dispersées dans des documents hétérogènes, souvent difficilement accessibles, et aucune présentation d’ensemble n’a été tentée jusqu’à ce jour. Nous nous sommes donc proposé d’entreprendre une étude comparative des langues Hmong-Mjen en considérant ces sources dans leur totalité. Un tel travail de synthèse nous a paru constituer une étape préliminaire à des recherches plus approfondies, auxquelles s’ajouteront nécessairement des enquêtes de terrain. Notre aperçu vise, en effet, à mettre en évidence les principaux problèmes encore en suspens dans le domaine de la phonologie historique Hmong-Mjen tout en révélant les lacunes dont pâtit encore notre documentation.
Après la présentation des travaux antérieurs effectués dans le domaine de la linguistique diachronique Hmong-Mjen, et la discussion de leurs résultats dans une perspective ethnohistorique, nous décrivons les systèmes phonologiques de quarante parlers Hmong-Mjen, en analysant leurs systèmes d’initiales, de rimes, de tons et, dans la mesure du possible, leur sandhi tonal. Notre examen révèle que certaines langues
attestent près de cent consonnes initiales tandis que d’autres n’en ont qu’une vingtaine, certaines langues attestent plus de cent rimes tandis que d’autres en possèdent à peine une dizaine, certaines langues ont développé plus de seize tons phonologiques tandis que d’autres n’en attestent que trois. La glottalisation et le type de phonation sont employés à une fin distinctive dans plusieurs parlers. La phonation murmurée apparaît en relation avec d’anciennes initiales sonores dans la plupart des langues Hmong. Le déclenchement du sandhi tonal, progressif dans la majorité des langues Hmong et régressif dans la majorité des langues Mjen, s’avère être fortement limité par des contraintes phonologiques et syntaxiques, aussi bien que par l’usage. Notre description des quarante parlers Hmong-Mjen est suivie d’une partie comparative dans laquelle sont présentés les principaux types d’évolution des systèmes tonals et les tableaux de correspondances des tons, des initiales et des rimes.
ISBN 3 89586 211 8. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 07. 340 pp. USD 124.60 / EUR 101.30 / GBP 86.10. 1998.
Chinese Historical Phonology A Compendium of Beijing and Cantonese Pronunciations of Characters and their Derivations from Middle Chinese JOHN NEWMAN & ANAND V. RAMAN Massey University; John Hopkins University This volume is an explicit summary of the phonological histories of Beijing and Cantonese dialects, based on earlier accounts proposed by Matthew Chen and John Newman and which appeared in the Journal of Chinese Linguistics (1976, 1984/1985). Approximately 2,700 characters appear here with their Middle Chinese reconstructions (the 'Simplified Middle Chinese' reconstructions proposed by Chen) and arranged by their Middle Chinese rime, initial, and tone class. For each character, the complete derivations (as sequences of rule labels) from Middle Chinese to Beijing pronunciation and from Middle Chinese to Cantonese pronunciation are given, including indications of exceptional application or non-application of rules. A full statement of the regular phonological rules referred to in the derivations is provided. The meanings of the characters (in English) are also included. A Hanyu Pinyin-Middle Chinese index enables the reader to determine the Middle Chinese reconstruction from the Hanyu Pinyin representation. The detail of Beijing and Cantonese phonological histories is here made accessible to linguists outside the specialist field of Sinology. The material is explicit, comprehensive, and transparent in a way which will be appreciated by Sinologists and non-Sinologists alike. ISBN 3 89586 543 5. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 27. 300 pp. USD 124.60 / EUR 101.30 / GBP 86.10. 1999.
Japanese Phonology A Functional Approach TSUTOMU AKAMATSU
University of Leeds What crucially distinguishes this book from any others previously published on Japanese phonology is that the approach adopted in this book is functionalist. The author offers his own phonological analysis of current standard Japanese (of which he is a native speaker) from a functional point of view. The objective of the
present book is therefore to present an analysis of the phonic substance (of both segmental and suprasegmental nature) of Japanese with a view to identifying and hierarchically classifying the functions that they fulfil in the phonic substance of the language and making statements about the actual workings of these functions in Japanese. The book basically falls into Part I and Part II, each of which divides into chapters. Part I explains for the benefit of general readers the theoretical framework, i.e. the framework of functional linguistics, in which the author's phonological analysis of Japanese is carried out. The principles and procedures of a phonological analysis of languages, Japanese in the present case, from a functional point of view are set out. To this end the author explains, by drawing on illustrations from English, the various concepts of functional phonology that are necessarily invoked in analyzing the phonic substance of languages. These concepts include 'functions', 'phonology', 'phonological opposition', 'exclusive opposition', 'commutation test', 'distinctive unit', 'relevant feature', 'phoneme', 'archiphoneme' and 'neutralization'. Part II presents in detail the author's own phonological analysis of Japanese step by step, that is, by following the successive analytical procedures, and not just the global results of his analysis. The phonemes of Japanese are identified through the commutation test, together with the relevant features which define them, and the instances of the neutralization of the phonological oppositions are discovered, and the archiphonemes associated with the respective neutralizations defined in terms of the relevant features. The suprasegmental parts dealt with in this book centre on what the author calls 'moraic unit' which has certain phonological as well as phonetic implications in Japanese, and on various accentual patterns which result from certain manners in which accent in this language is realized. The book ends with the Conclusion, followed by Notes, References and Index. As can easily be seen from its title, this book can rightly be considered a sister volume to the author's previous book, Japanese Phonetics: Theory and Practice (1997, Lincom Europa). In this book the phonic substance of Japanese is presented in detail from an articulatory point of view. The functions of the phonic substance is deliberately left out of the purview in anticipation of the publication of this new and later book in which Japanese phonology is presented from a functional point of view.
ISBN 3 89586 544 3. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 38. 360 pp. USD 124.60 / EUR 101.30 / GBP 86.10. 2000.
Japanese Phonetics Theory and Practice TSUTOMU AKAMATSU University of Leeds Japanese Pronunciation gives a detailed description of both the segmental elements in terms of articulatory phonetics and suprasegmental elements of standard (Tokyo) Japanese pronunciation and is intended for both professional specialists of Japanese and advanced foreign learners of Japanese interested in acquiring an in-depth knowledge of facts about Japanese pronunciation. Hints and advice for acquiring ‘intelligible’ Japanese pronunciation are also found here and there as appropriate. Chapter 1 is provided for the benefit of those readers who are not sufficiently familiar with articulatory phonetics. Full articulatory description of the vowels follows (Chapter 2). Full treatment is given of inter alia ’nasalized vowel’, which is well known to present substantial and notorious difficulty to foreign speakers of Japanese.
The Japanese consonants are individually described (Chapter 3). Then all types of combination involving vowels, semivowels and consonants are studied (Chapter 4). Chapters 5 to
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8 deal with suprasegmental elements like rythm, accent and speech melody; the moraic structure of Japanese words is also treated as it relates to the question of rhythm. Finally, a summary of guideline is provided to help towards the acquisition of 'intelligible' Japanese pronunciation (Chapter 9). The book ends with Conclusion, References and Index.
ISBN 3 89586 095 6. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 03. 440 pp. USD 120.90 / EUR 98.30 / GBP 83.60. 1997.
Comparative West Bahnaric Dictionary
PASCALE JACQ & PAUL SIDWELL University of Melbourne The dictionary consolidates wordlists collected by Jacq and Sidwell during fieldwork to the Lao PDR (1996 to 1998), plus some material from other sources. The languages treated are Oi, Cheng, Sapuon, Talieng, Kraseng, Nhaheun, Laveh, Loven and Alak. The listing is according to semantic fields and includes both native vocabulary and borrowings, with some etymological commentary. The introduction includes a discussion of the current linguistic situation in the south of the Lao PDR, with maps and a listing of languages and villages where they are spoken. The recording and transcription of data is discussed, and some brief remarks are made on the phonology and grammar of the languages. A preliminary genetic classification based upon the lexical data is also presented. A bibliography of West Bahnaric studies completes the introduction.
ISBN 3 89586 558 3. Languages of the World/Dictionaries 21. 250 pp. USD 114.80 / EUR 93.30 / GBP 79.30. 2000.
Meaning and Form: Essays in Pre-Modern Chinese Grammar K. TAKASHIMA & JIANG SHAOYU (eds.) The 21 articles collected in this volume were first presented to the Fourth International Conference on Classical Chinese Grammar held in August, 2001, at UBC in Vancouver. The rejection rate of the original papers submitted for publication consideration being about 40% ensured a high-quality level of the papers. The authors of the papers written in English include: Françoise Bottéro (distinction between “noncompound characters” and “compound characters”); Roderick Campbell (focus, classifiers and quantificational typology in early Chinese); Michael Friedrich (Georgvon der Gabelentz and synchronic linguistics); Zev Handel (今, 翌, and .as time demonstratives in OBI); Richard Lynn (philosophical semantics of Chinese literary thought); Chrystelle Maréchal (idioms and graphic identification in bronze inscriptions [BI]); Barbara Meinsternst (future tense in classical Chinese); EdwinPulleyblank (“Only” in old Chinese); Jingtao Sun (fission reduplication in old Chinese); Newell Van Auken (modal negative wu in classical Chinese); Shun-chiu Yau (semiotics out of the past); Anne Yue (focus markers in Zhongshan BI). The papers written in Chinese are:
朱.祥(.研.甲骨文的方法); 董秀芳(從話題結構 到複.結構：以“者＂和“所＂的功能演變為.); 郭錫.(先秦稱.法的發展); 江.生(時間詞“時＂與“後＂的語法化); .紹愚(受事主語.的發展與使役. 到被動.的演變); .貴生(古漢語中的「.之何」與「.何」); .曉虹(試.中 世漢語中的三音節子尾詞); 大西克也(施受同辭芻議─《史記》中的“中
性動 詞＂和“作格動詞＂); 臧克和(《尚書》語法.型補.).
ISBN 3 89586 824 8. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 55. 260pp. USD 119.70 / EUR 97.30 / GBP 82.70. 2004.
Shanghai Tonetics SEAN XIAONONG ZHU Australian National University This study presents the first multi-speaker acoustic investigation into the citation tones on monosyllables (Chapters 4 to 8) and the sandhi tones on disyllables (Chapter 10) in Shanghai Chinese. It shows that using many speakers is necessary not only for phonetics, but also phonology. Both citation and disyllabic tones are described in terms of the following dimensions: raw duration, normalised duration, raw fundamental frequency, and normalised fundamental frequency. Citation tones are also described in raw intensity and normalised intensity. The acoustic data collected from many speakers show, among other thing, a great amount of between-speaker variations. To factor out these variations, various normalisation methods for fundamental frequency, intensity and duration are explored, and an appropriate one is developed. Its superiority to the existing ones is demonstrated. It is shown that highly constant patterns underlie the very considerable surface variations. Only after these variations have been substantially reduced, can a tonetic model be proposed in order to sufficiently characterise the tones in a linguistic variety and, hopefully, to make between-variety comparison. To account for the between-tone fundamental frequency variations in disyllabic tone sandhi (Chapter 10), a coordinate shift procedure is developed and four phonetic realisation rules are formulised. These reveal the underlying uniformity and simplicity of complicated surface manifestations. In addition, some phonological issues are discussed, especially the word geometry suggested for Shanghai phonology (Chapter 2), and the relationship between phonetics and phonology (Chapter 11).
ISBN 3 89586 584 2. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 32. 200 pp. USD 119.70 / EUR 97.30 / GBP 82.70. 1999.
Nhaheun - French - English Lexicon
by MICHEL FERLUS
Edited and Annotated by PASCALE JACQ and PAUL SIDWELL University of Melbourne The present volume is a lexicon of Nhaheun, with glosses in French and English, and etymological commentary in English. There are more than 1500 entries. In total there are 160 pages, including introduction, transcription guide and semantic index. Nhaheun is a West Bahnaric language, and Bahnaric itself is a branch of Mon-Khmer. Nhaheun is presently spoken by plantation farmers on the Boloven Plateau in the south of the Lao PDR. Materials for the lexicon were collected in the 1960s and 70s, but until now have not appeared in a consolidated listing. To our knowledge existing published sources are not as extensive as this list. Nhaheun is phonologically divergent among West Bahnaric languages, in particular showing consonant lenitions which are not shared by its close relatives. Also Nhaheun is under strong Lao influence. The lexicon is intended as a useful reference and data source for comparative linguistics. The latter is especially strengthened by the inclusion of extensive etymological
commentary by the editors, who are specialists in Bahnaric historical phonology and lexicography.
ISBN 3 929075 56 3. Languages of the World/Dictionaries 16. 150 pp. USD 93.10 / EUR 75.70 / GBP 64.40. 1998.
Loven (Jruq) Con-solidated Lexicon PASCALE JACQ & PAUL SIDWELL University of Melbourne Loven (autonym Jruq, also known as Boloven or Lawen) is a West-Bahnaric (Mon-Khmer) language. There are around 20,000 Loven living on the Boloven Plateau, Champasak province, southern Lao P.D.R.
The consolidated lexicon is compiled from a number of sources, including the authors' 1998 fieldnotes, and secondary sources including: Lavallée's (1901 manuscript) vocabulary as presented in Cabaton (1905), Phraya Prachakij-karachak (1919, republished by Thomas & Srichampa 1995), Bondet de la Bernadie (1949), Ferlus (manuscript), Huffman (1971 manuscript) and Thomas & Andrianoff (1978 manuscript). There are more than 1500 entries and a semantic index. The main entries are given according to the practical orthography developed by the authors, and are supported by subentries of the various forms as recorded in the sources. There is also some etymological commentary based on the authors recent comparative work, and a description of the little known indigenous Loven writing system, which was used during the 1920s and 1930s.
ISBN 3 89586 623 7. Languages of the World/Dictionaries 23. 130pp. USD 65.10 / EUR 52.90 / GBP 45.00. 1999.
Huzhu Mongghul Folklore Texts & Translations Limusishiden (Qinghai Medical College) & Kevin Stuart (Qinghai Junior Teachers’ College) China's Monguor (Tu) nationality, classified as one of China's fifty-six official ethnic groups, lives in the east-central portion of Northwest China's Qinghai Province. For the first time, wedding songs, funeral lamentations, folktales, jokes and riddles, and other songs are presented in the Mongghul written system (based on a modified pinyin system), English translation and extensive notes. The 57,000 Huzhu Mongghul (1990) are the largest Monguor group, speaking a language with many links to Mongol and greatly influenced by Tibetan culture, especially in the religious arena. Map, illustrations.
ISBN 3 89586 256 8. Languages of the World/Text Library 03. 350pp. USD 112.30 / EUR 91.30 / GBP 77.60. 1998.
Huzhu Folklore Selections Texts & Translations Limusishiden (Qinghai Medical College) & Kevin Stuart (Qinghai Junior Teachers’ College) (eds.) China's Monguor (Tu) nationality (1990 population = 190,000) , classified as one of China's fifty-six official ethnic groups, lives in the east-central portion of Northwest China's
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Qinghai Province. The 57,000 Huzhu Mongghul (1990) are the largest Monguor group, speaking a language with many links to Mongol and greatly influenced by Tibetan culture, especially in the religious arena. An extensive selection of folklore materials written by Huzhu Mongghul has been published over the last decade in a mimeographed journal. Few complete collections of this material remain. HUZHU FOLKLORE SELECTIONS presents the great body of this material in a single Mongghul-language collection with notes and a Table of Contents in English. The Mongghul written system is based on a modified pinyin system. Map, illustrations.
ISBN 3 89586 257 4. Languages of the World/Text Library 04. 500pp. 2 Vols. Each USD 60.80 / EUR 49.40 / GBP 42.00. 2001.
Korean Phonology A Principle-based Approach DUCK-YOUNG LEE The Australian National University This book presents an attempt to investigate major issues in Korean phonology in terms of principles and elements, based on the framework of Government Phonology. It begins with an introductory section, describing central aspects of the framework, which include recent development in the theory with regard to the representation of ATR and coronals. An analysis of a wide range of data in Korean phonology is then provided. In dealing with data involving vowels, the study first discusses vowel harmony, which has traditionally been treated as the result of the harmonic opposition between 'light vowels' and 'dark vowels'. It address some unsolved problems in previous analyses by proposing a phonological operation called 'A-head alignment'. This will be followed by an element-based analysis of vowel coalescence and diphthongisation. It will be shown that a phonological operation called 'Nuclear Fusion' and asymmetry in the spreading properties of the vocalic elements 'I' and 'U' in Korean have a crucial role in the analysis. The second half of the book is devoted to discussions of issues involved in consonantal clusters, such as tensification, lenition, nasalisation and vowel epenthesis, etc. It outlines the mechanisms as to under what conditions these phenomena take place and how each phenomenon is connected to each other. These mechanisms will be discussed in conjunction with the possibility that consonantal clusters may occur in two onsets that are separated by a nuclear position which does not contain any phonetic realisation (i.e. an empty nucleus). The important point is that onsets surrounding an empty nucleus are in a governing relation (i.e. interonset government) in Korean, and an intervening empty nucleus maintains its null status during derivation if the surrounding two onsets form the governing relation. Tensification and neutralisation are manifestations of interonset government, while the failure of the government results in vowel epenthesis or nasalisation.
ISBN 3 89586 220 7. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 12. 250 pp. USD 96.80 / EUR 78.70 / GBP 66.90. 1998.
Grammars:
Wutun JUHA JANHUNEN, MARJA PELTOMAA, ERIKA SANDMAN, XIAWU DONGZHOU University of Helsinki This is the first ever systematic grammatical
description of the Wutun language, spoken by a compact population of some 4,000 individuals at Wutun, Qinghai Province, China, also known as the Amdo region of ethnic Tibet. Wutun is an aberrant variety of Northwest Mandarin. Its basic vocabulary and the material resources of its grammar are mainly of a Chinese origin, but structurally it has almost completely adapted to its current linguistic environment, in which various local varieties of Amdo Tibetan are the dominant oral idioms.
Wutun may be characterized as a topic-prominent serial-verb language with a well-developed category of nominal case and a complex system of complement verbs and auxiliaries. Its other properties include a highly diversified consonant paradigm and the universally uncommon category of perspective.
The Wutun speakers are officially classified as members of the Tu nationality, but culturally they are closely connected with the Tibetan ethnicity. The locality of Wutun is an important center of Tibetan art and learning, Wutun remains a living language supported by the whole local community of all generations.
Juha Janhunen is Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the Institute for Asian and African Studies, University of Helsinki. Marja Peltomaa and Erika Sandman are doctoral candidates at the same institute. Xiawu Dongzhou, a native speaker of Wutun, is a project manager based in Xining, Qinghai Province, China.
ISBN 978 3 89586 026 3. Languages of the World/Materials 466. 136pp. USD 63.40 / EUR 51.50 / GBP 43.80 2008.
Khamnigan Mongol JUHA JANHUNEN University of Helsinki Khamnigan Mongol is a Mongolic language used as the principal community language of the Khamnigan, an ethnic group in the Amur source region, in the borderzone of China, Russia, and Mongolia. The only vigorous community of Khamnigan Mongol speakers (ca. 2,000 people) today lives in the basins of the Mergel and Imin rivers of Hulun Buir League, Inner Mongolia, China.
Khamnigan Mongol remained virtually unexplored until the 1950s, when preliminary field surveys were made of its last speakers in northeastern Mongolia and Russian Transbaikalia. The Khamnigan community in China, officially classified as a local group of the Ewenki nationality, was only identified in the 1980s. The present description is based on the variety of Khamnigan Mongol spoken by the Khamnigan in China.
As a Mongolic language, Khamnigan Mongol is characterized by exceptional conservativeness, in that it lacks most of the innovations that separate the neighbouring Mongolic languages, including Mongol proper, Buryat, and Dagur, from their Proto-Mongolic ancestor. Khamnigan Mongol is therefore of considerable importance for the diachronic study of the entire Mongolic language family. It also provides an interesting case for the study of the phenomenon of linguistic conservativeness, in general.
Another important property of Khamnigan Mongol is its close and prolonged symbiosis with the Ewenki language within the Khamnigan community. A large part of the Khamnigan in China today still speak ethnospecific forms of Ewenki as their other native language. The two languages have long interacted at the social and linguistic levels, with various kinds of interference phenomena as a result.
Due to its conservativeness, Khamnigan Mongol is structurally close to Middle Mongol, though some of its morphosyntactic features also resemble Buryat. Like Buryat and Dagur, but unlike most other Mongolic languages, Khamnigan Mongol has a fully-developed system
of personal marking on the finite predicate. In the phonology, there are properties, including the vowel system, which show an areal parallelism with Ewenki.
ISBN 3 89586 226 6. Languages of the World/Materials 173. 66pp. USD 53.00 / EUR 43.10 / GBP 36.60. 2005.
Darkhat CSABA GÁSPÁR Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest Darkhats live in Khöwsgöl, the northernmost county of Mongolia, in the districts of Rinchenlkhümbe, Ulaan uul, Bayandzürkh. Their origin has not been cleared so far, it is not even to be easily decided whether they are descendants of Turks or Mongols, it seems very likely by all means that they were living together with tribes of Turkic origin: this can be inferred from several linguistic phenomena. Since they have been nomadising quite isolated in the high mountains far from the centre, traditional culture and shamanism could survive among them.
Darkhat is considered as a dialect of the Khalkha, but bears the features of the Oirat, Buryat and Khalkha, as well. It resembles Oirat for the labial attraction, both the Oirat and Buryat concerning the affixation and verbal inflexions, and its vocabulary contains numerous typical Oirat words, too. G. Sanzheyev, one of the few linguists, who has given an outline of Darkhats’ language, said, “[…] Darkhat can be regarded as a modern form of Oirat.”
Peculiar distinguishing feature of the Darkhat is its peculiar intonation, tune, some phonetic and morphological properties, and its special vocabulary.
The author's object is to give a comprehensive description of Darkhat dialect, using the results of earlier researches as well as the newest materials collected on the expeditions of the Inner Asian Department of Eötvös Loránd University since 1991 up to now.
ISBN 3 89586 696 2. Languages of the World/Materials 419. 60pp. USD 50.60 / EUR 41.10 / GBP 34.90. 2006.
A Grammar of Shanghai Wu XIAONONG ZHU Hong Kong University of Science and Technology The Wu dialect of Chinese is used by 80 million people in eastern China. Shanghai is the lingua franca of Wu, and is the least conservative among Wu dialects.
This book is a descriptive grammar of Shanghai Wu, concise but comprehensive. It covers various topics in Shanghai grammar: the phonological system, morphology, and syntax. In addition, two special topics in Shanghai grammar, tone sandhi and compounding, are included. Tone sandhi in Shanghai is a morpho-phonological process to produce prosodic words, while compounding is a syntactic means to make lexical words.
Like other Chinese dialects, Shanghai is an isolating language. There is no grammatical agreement or case markers, nor tense, gender or numeral differences, or anything like those called inflection in European languages. That does not mean there are no morphological processes at all: reduplication, tone sandhi, and affixation are common in Shanghai. Of course, compounding is the most productive in making new words.
Morphologically and syntactically Shanghai has something different from Mandarin. For example, adjective reduplication in Shanghai is AAB, while it is ABB in Mandarin. The word order in Shanghai is ‘V + direct O + indirect O’,
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different from Mandarin’s ‘V + indirect O + direct O’.
The author, Xiaonong Zhu, is currently teaching at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He published widely in Chinese historical phonology, Chinese dialectology, and experimental phonetics. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION
2. SYLLABLE AND PHONOLOGY 2.1. Introduction 2.2. Initials 2.3. Finals 2.3.2. Rhymes 2.4. Tones 2.5. Transcriptions 2.6. Phonotactics 2.7. Syllable
3. TONE SANDHI AND PROSODIC WORD 3.1. Introduction 3.2. Left-Dominant Sandhi 3.3. Right-Dominant Sandhi 3.4. Tone Sandhi And Stress
4. WORD AND MORPHOLOGY 4.1 Introduction 4.2. Nominal Mophology 4.3. Verbs And Other Parts Of Speech
5. COMPOUNDS 5.1. Introduction 5.2. Subject-Predicate Compounds 5.3. Coordinate Compounds 5.4. Subordinate Compounds 5.5. Verb-Object Compounds 5.6. Verb-Complement Compounds 5.7. Verb-Localizer Compounds 5.8. Complex Compounds
6. SYNTAX 6.1. Introduction 6.2. Word Order 6.3. Phrasal Structure 6.4. Sentence Types 6.5. Complex Sentences 6.6. Compound Sentences
7. SAMPLE TEXTS 7.1. A Story About The North Wind And The Sun 7.2. Father’s Riddles
REFERENCES, ABBREVIATIONS
ISBN 3 89586 900 7 (Hardbound). LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 66. 290pp. USD 139.40 / EUR 113.30 / GBP 96.30. 2006.
Ket EDWARD J. VAJDA Western Washington University Ket is the only surviving member of the formerly widespread Yeniseic family and one of the world's more intriguing language isolates. Its phonology, vocabulary, and grammar differ strikingly from the surrounding families. A system of five phonemic tones, apparently derived from simplified consonant articulations, mark the beginning of each phonological word. Agreement-related inflections reflect a tripartite noun-class division based on animacy and gender. The polysynthetic verb contains ten position classes and involves a variety of distinct agreement patterns: active/inactive, ergative/ absolutive, nominative/accusative, and two that employ redundant subject markers. Each stem selects one of these strategies as part of its lexical makeup. The co-indexed subject and object NPs are zero-marked regardless of the verb's agreement type. Incorporation affects certain intransitive subjects, as well as objects, instruments, and directional adverbs. Important derivational categories include event number (punctual vs. iterative) and transitivity, with transitive and intransitive stems normally differing in some formal way. Causatives, inceptives, and even infinitives are distinct
lexemes rather than grammatical forms of another stem. The only verbal inflectional categories are tense (past/non-past), mood (indicative /imperative), and agreement in person, class, and number with at most two grammatical terms. Particles convey other temporal and modal nuances. Most morphemes are roots or grammatical inflections. With so few derivational affixes, compounding is the most prevalent technique of lexeme creation. Redundant inflections also play a role in stem formation. This is manifested most obviously in the verb, but occurs in the noun too.
Despite its isolate status, Ket shares certain areal features with its Uralic, Turkic, and Tungusic neighbors. These include a nominal paradigm containing a dozen cases and a propensity to use postpositions or case suffixes as clausal subordinators.
Ket is spoken today by a few hundred of the 1,200 Ket people, mainly in remote areas near the Yenisei River in the Turukhansk District of Russia's Krasnoyarsk Province. Most speakers are adults who know Russian fluently too.
This book contains the first full-length description of Ket to appear in English. It covers all aspects of the phonology, morphology and syntax of Southern Ket (the dialect with the most speakers), and briefly discusses the traditional culture and its characteristic vocabulary. Also included is a previously unpublished folktale with interlinear morpheme glosses and an English translation.
ISBN 3 89586 221 5. Languages of the World/Materials 204. 109pp. USD 61.40 / EUR 49.90 / GBP 42.40. 2004.
Spoken Karay (Trakai Dialect) TIMUR KOCAOĞLU, Koç University In collaboration with Mykolas Firkovicius Karay (Karaim) is one of the endangered languages of the world. It belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages. Today, only 20 persons can speak and write fluently in Karay out of ca. 2,500 people who are believed to preserve their ethnic identity in various countries (Lithuania, Poland, Crimea in Ukraine, Turkey, Israel, France, and the US). The present work is a handbook for the spoken Karay language of the Trakai dialect in Lithuania apart from the Halich and the Crimean dialects of Karay. The Karay phrases based on the spoken Karay were prepared in 1999 by the spiritual leader of the Lithuanian Karays, Mykolas Firkovicius who died in 2000, and were translated into English by Timur Kocaoğlu. The handbook is consisted of an introduction to the Karay language followed by a grammatical description of the spoken Karay based on the Trakai dialect of Lithuania, 800 Karay phrases in both Lithuanian and Turkic Latin alphabets with their English translations, and the Karay-English word list with full grammatical index, plus bibliography. ISBN 3 89586 490 0. Languages of the World/Materials 458. 220pp. USD 94.40 / EUR 76.70 / GBP 65.20. 2006.
The Bisu Language XU SHIXUAN Institute of Nationality Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences CECILIA BRASSETT (TRANS.) A transnational language, Bisu is spoken in the border areas of China, Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos. It was first described in Thailand in the 1960s, and is an important member of the Bisoid branch of the Burmese-Yipho group within the
Tibeto-Burman language family. Other members of this branch include Phunoi, Sangkong, Mpi, and Pyen. This is an English translation of a linguistic description of the Bisu spoken in Yunnan Province in southwestern China. The original Chinese text was written by Xu Shixuan of the Institute of Nationality Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as part of the series Newly-Discovered Languages in China.
The volume analyses and describes Bisu in terms of its structure, its relationship to other languages in the same family, and its socio-cultural background, presenting a comprehensive and systematic overview of the language. There are extensive discussions of the origins and forms of loan words in Bisu, a detailed description of its dialects, as well as numerous charts of Burmese-Yipho cognates. The two appendices include a lexicon of over 2,000 words and three Bisu odes. This thorough description of one of the lesser-known minority languages of China provides an excellent record of a language whose speaker numbers are declining. In addition, the distinctive features of Bisu and the effects of contact with other languages such as Thai and Dai can offer new perspectives in the investigation of Tibeto-Burman languages. ISBN 3 89586 346 7. Languages of the World/Materials 411. 280pp. USD 105.40 / EUR 85.70 / GBP 72.90. 2001.
Peking Mandarin DINGXU SHI Hong Kong Polytechnic University The book is a descriptive grammar of Peking Mandarin, the Chinese dialect spoken in the capital of China. It is a reference grammar for learners of Mandarin but is also designed for those who are interested at Peking Mandarin and its special features. It is comprehensive because it will cover all aspects of Peking Mandarin, i.e., its history and evolution, its sound system, word and phrase structures, sentence structures, special sentence patterns and discourse features. It is also selectively in depth because issues not dealt with in most Mandarin grammar books will be given special attention here. The most prominent issues to be discussed are the parallelism between the internal structure of compounds, phrases and sentences; the complex predicates, the relatively free word order and its semantic implications; the complex sentences; the after thought structure; the focus and topic constructions; the prevalence of phonetically null forms and the recovery of their reference or signifié; and the dependency between syntax and semantics, discourse and pragmatics. The author Dingxu Shi is an associate professor of Chinese linguistics at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He does research on syntax, interface strategy, and language contact and language change. ISBN 3 89586 825 6. Languages of the World/Materials 377. 132pp. USD 68.80 / EUR 55.90 / GBP 47.50. 2004.
Daur
CHAOLU WU (ÜJIYEDIN CHULUU) Daur belongs to the Mongolic branch of Altaic languages and is spoken by a small number of people, approximately 94,014, in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, Heilongjiang, and the Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China. The present monograph begins with an introduction to a brief sociolinguistic background of Daur and its contact situation with neighbouring languages, including the Manchu-Tungusic languages and the Mongolian languages. This is followed by an outline of Daur
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phonology and a more detailed discussion of Morphology. Daur provides an interesting data to the Morphological studies. It has both complex nominal morphological features and verbal marking systems. In particular, its case marking and verbal marking systems will be presented with an emphasis on their sentence functions and morphological variants. The sketch also includes a brief discussion of the syntactical properties of Daur in relevance to noun phrase and clause structure. Finally, the sketch includes a biblio-graphy of the selected works on Daur and a sample text with interlinear transcription and translation. ISBN 3 89586 015 8. Languages of the World/Materials 93. 60pp. USD 51.80 / EUR 42.10 / GBP 35.80. 1996.
Dhankute Tamang Grammar KEDAR PRASAD POUDEL English Department, Mahendra Multiple Campus, Dharan, Nepal Most Tamang people settle around Kathmandu Valley. Some of them have migrated to the eastern and western hilly regions of the country. Tamang belongs to the Tibeto-Burman branch of Sino-Tibetan language family. Dhankute Tamang spoken in the far eastern district Dhankuta has not been studied so far. The population of Dhankute Tamangs is 11,932 (CBS 2001). Nepali is their lingua franca and medium of education. Its neighboring languages are Limbu, Rai, Magar and Newar.
The general objective of this study is to present a description of a Dhankute Tamang, specifically its phonology, morphology and syntax.
This study consists of 4 chapters. Chapter 1 presents the introductory remarks. Chapter 2 describes the phonology. Chapter 3 deals with the lexicon and Chapter 4 describes the syntax. This work has been entirely based on the author’s field work.
ISBN 3 89586 488 9. Languages of the World/Materials 454. 195pp. USD 93.10 / EUR 75.70 / GBP 64.40. 2006.
Tundra Yukaghir ELENA MASLOVA Stanford University Tundra Yukaghir is one of the extant Yukaghir languages, two highly threatened languages spoken in the north-east of Russia. Yukaghir is considered by different scholars either as a genetic isolate or as a distant relative of the Uralic family, and is therefore crucial to reconstruction of prehistory of Siberia and, potentially, of the Uralic family; for the same reason, it is almost a must in any sample-based research on cross-linguistic variability. In a number of ways, Tundra Yukaghir is similar to the languages of the region. It is a predominantly head-final language with agglutinating morphology. Clause-linking strategies are based on a variety of non-finite verb forms; coordination and balancing strategies are virtually absent. However, there is a number of significant differences, including but not limited to a morphological Focus-marking system, a set of topic-introducing devices based on non-finite forms of copula, absence of grammaticalized past/present distinction, a specialized cross-reference marker of non-reflexive Possessor opposed to reflexive possessive pronouns. The Focus system, which also saliently affects the case alignment, and the tense/aspect/mood system constitute two major domains of grammatical divergence between the two Yukaghir languages, Tundra and Kolyma Yukaghir.
The book constitutes the first grammatical overview of Tundra Yukaghir to be published in English. It is based on previous studies (Krejnoviè 1958, 1982), the author's own field notes (1987, settlement Andryushkino) and analysis of texts archived in the Yakut branch of Russian Academy of Sciences.
ISBN 3 89586 792 6. Languages of the World/Materials 372. 100pp. USD 58.90 / EUR 47.90 / GBP 40.70. 2003.
Udeghe ALBINA H. GIRFANOVA Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, St.Petersburg The present work provides a brief grammatic description of the Udeghe language, one of the Tungus-Manchu languages which is spoken in the border areas of Russia and China in the Far East. It is an unwritten language which is a vernacular for the 3% of the ethnic Udeghe. Udeghe had a brief and very restricted circulation as a written language in the early 1930s. The present grammatical sketch consists of three major parts. The introduction deals with "General socio- and geolinguistic data of the Udeghe language".
The first part "Phonology" contains the description of phonological specific features of Udeghe: glottal stop (the Udeghe Language is the only Tungusic language having this feature) and the vowel harmony violation. The second part contains the description of the Udeghe morphology system (e.g. the Udeghe is the only Tungusic language where the opposition of evidentuality/non-evidentuality is expressed on the surface morphological level). The third part "Syntax" gives the information of the word order, clause structure, clause chaining, noun phrases, verb serialization of the Udeghe language. The last part contains a folklore text with an English translation and the relevant bibliography. The author widely uses the data received during several expeditions.
ISBN 3 89586 524 9. Languages of the World/Materials 255. 57pp. USD 54.30 / EUR 44.10 / GBP 37.50. 2002.
Classical Mongolian ALICE SÁRKÖZI Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest The present work is a brief grammar of Classical Mongolian, or, in other words, Written Mongolian that has been the literary language of all the Mongols (Khalkhas, Oirats, Buriats, Kalmüks, etc). It has never been spoken in this form and served as the language of books. Today a little modified version of this written language is used in Inner Mongolia, in the Xinjiang Autonom territory. They write and publish books in the Uighur script, however the pronunciation is far from the written form. Nowadays, the Uighur script is going to be reintroduced in the Mongolian Republic, it is taught in the elementary school side by side with the Cyrillic scrip.
The monuments of Written Mongolian cover large-scale literary forms: inscriptions, Buddhist sûtras, historical chronicles, folklore texts, and poetical and prosaic works of poets and writers of the centuries. This short grammar may help anybody interested in Mongolian culture to get closer to these literary monuments.
The work was carried out in the framework of the project of description of grammars of the Altaic languages fulfilled by the members of the Research Group of Altaic Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Science and the Department of Inner Asian Studies of the Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem of Budapest.
ISBN 3 89586 859 0. Languages of the World/Materials 429. 60pp. USD 51.80 / EUR 42.10 / GBP 35.80. 2004.
Kazak SOMFAI DÁVID KARA Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest Kazak is a Turkic language, it is spoken by some 11 million people in Kazakstan and its neighboring countries (Russia, Mongolia, China, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan). It is spoken on a huge territory between Tibet and the Volga River, Siberia and the Kara-Kum desert. Kazak belongs to the Kypchak group of Turkic Languages, which was once the „Lingua Franca” of the western part of the Mongol Empire. For this reason Kazak have strong ties with other Turkic languages of Inner and Central Asia, Kyrgyz, Kazan-Tatar (Volga-Bulgar), Uzbek etc.
This present material of the Kazak language is an up-to-date grammar, based on the author’s ten-year research among the Kazaks of Kazakstan and other neighboring countries.
During that time the author himself mastered the language and paid special attention to colloquial Kazak and the usage of the changing language. In this present work he summarized up his observation, especially about TAM (Tense-Mood-Aspect) Categories of the Kazak Verb Morphology and Auxiliary Verb Formations, which are the basic aspects of understanding colloquial Kazak, as well as Kazak literature. The author also gives numerous examples to illustrate the usage of these morphological aspects. The phonology part explains some phonetic changes that can be observed only in spoken Kazak, but writing does not indicate them.
ISBN 3 89586 470 6. Languages of the World/Materials 417. 60pp. USD 51.80 / EUR 42.10 / GBP 35.80. 2002.
Written Oirat
ATTILA RÁKOS Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
The Written Oirat language and the Oirat script were created in 1648 by the Oirat Zaya Pandita, Oqtorγuyin Dalai. On the basis of the traditional Uigur-Mongolian script he prepared a new writing system (Oir. todorxoi üzüq ’Clear Script’), which has eliminated the deficiencies of that (ambiguity of some letters, lack of long vowels, etc.) using diacritical marks and new letters, so the new script was suitable to accurately indicate the vocalic system of the contemporary spoken Mongolian. Beside the new script Zaya Pandita created a new literary language with new orthography, and he intended it for a common Mongolian literary language, however it could spread only among the Oirats (Western Mongols). Although this literary language was close to the spoken language in some aspects, it had many features inherited from Written Mongolian. It had strict rules in its original form and was used mostly for Buddhist texts, but shortly spread in wider range (codes, documents, historical works, folk-religious texts, etc.), and became under the strong influence of the spoken language.
Up to the 20th century Written Oirat was the literary language of the Oirats of Western Mongolia and Eastern Turkestan, as well as of the Kalmyks. Later on the Oirats of Xinjiang used it only, but few years ago they partly replaced it with Uigur-Mongolian script.
ISBN 3 89586 471 4. Languages of the World/Materials 418. 60pp. USD 51.80 / EUR 42.10 / GBP 35.80. 2002.
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The Tujia Language CECILIA BRASSETT, PHILIP BRASSETT, MEIYAN LU The Tujia people group is the sixth largest ethnic minority in China, numbering over 8 million. However, the Tujia language is now only spoken by about 70,000 people, a figure that represents less than 1% of the total Tujia population. These speakers live in the northern half of the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in northwestern Hunan Province. The language was once spoken throughout the areas inhabited by the Tujia, which comprise a region of 100,000 square miles straddling the common borders of Hunan, Hubei, and Guizhou Provinces, and Chongqing Municipality. In view of the present rate of decrease in language use, Tujia is considered to be an endangered language. Tujia is a member of the Tibeto-Burman family of languages, but its specific genetic affiliation remains unclear. Its phonology is extremely similar to the local Chinese dialect. Tujia syllables are of the CV type, with most vowels having nasalised variants. There are four tones and sandhi is common. The basic word order is SOV. There is an abundance of verb particles, which indicate aspect, modality, directionality, negation, and relevance. Adjectives do not exist as a distinct category and conjunctions are rare. This grammar of the northern dialect of Tujia is based on research conducted in Xiangxi over an 18-month period from 2002 to 2003. It is the first in-depth analysis of the Tujia language that has been written in the English language. The book offers a comprehensive and systematic overview of the language and includes a lexicon of over 1,500 vocabulary items as well as three traditional texts. This description of one of the lesser-known minority languages of China should also provide a useful record of a language which is currently in decline.
ISBN 3 89586 995 3. Languages of the World/Materials 455. 220pp. USD 96.80 / EUR 78.70 / GBP 66.90. 2006.
Tuvan dictionary K. DAVID HARRISON & GREGORY DAVID ANDERSON Yale University, University of Manchester This dictionary consists of approximately 5-6,000 basic vocabulary items of Tuvan, a Turkic language of south central Siberia.
The lexicon of Tuvan is charcterized by a larger number of Mongolian loans than in other Turkic languages of southern Siberia. Modern Tuvan has also borrowed extensively from Russian, though less than neighboring Altai-Sa yan Turkic languages. There are also a number of loans in Tuvan from Chinese, Tibetan, and even Sanskrit, though usually through a Mongolian intermediary; these words are predominantly in the religious or political spheres, or refer to cultural items diffused from those areas.
Finally there are a small number of words in Tuvan from other, now extinct (and in part assimilated to Tuvan linguistically), languages belonging to the Yeniseian and Samoyed families. Thus, the lexicon of Tuvan reflects the diverse and complex history of socio-cultural contacts of the Tuvan people.
Tuvan (aka Tuvan/Tuvinian) is spoken by 150-200,000 people in the Republic of Tuva in south central Siberia. Tuvan (along with the closely related Tofalar) stand out among the Turkic languages in several ways. Tuvan has three sets of phonemic vowels: plain, long, and creaky voice. Word-initially obstruents exhibit a contrast between unaspirated/aspirated or voiced/voiceless, depending on the speaker.
There is also a phonemically marginal series of long nasalized vowels. Tuvan has only one inflectional series for verbs, prefering encl*tic pronominals in most forms (in main clauses). Large numbers of Mongolisms and Mongolian derivational affixes are found, the latter often appearing with Turkic roots. Russian loans are also numerous, and in the speech of certain younger residents of Kyzyl, contact-induced restructuring can be observed.
ISBN 3 89586 528 1. Languages of the World/Dictionary 28. 176pp. USD 90.70 / EUR 73.70 / GBP 62.70. 2003.
Tyvan K. DAVID HARRISON & GREGORY DAVID ANDERSON Yale University, University of Manchester Tyvan (aka Tuvan/Tuvinian) is spoken by 150-200,000 people in the Republic of Tyva in south centra Siberia. Tyvan (along with the closely related Tofalar) stand out among the Turkic languages in several ways.
Tyvan has three sets of phonemic vowels: plain, long, and creaky voice. Word-initially obstruents exhibit a contrast between unaspirated/aspirated or voiced/voiceless, depending on the speaker. There is also a phonemically marginal series of long nasalized vowels. Tyvan has only one inflectional series for verbs, prefering encl*tic pronominals in most forms (in main clauses).
Large numbers of Mongolisms and Mongolian derivational affixes are found, the latter often appearing with Turkic roots. Russian loans are also numerous, and in the speech of certain younger residents of Kyzyl, contact-induced restructuring can be observed. This study is a description of present day Tyvan, particularly as used in the capital city of Kyzyl. This is the first field-based study of Tyvan available in English and the first description of Kyzyl Tyvan in any language. ISBN 3 89586 529 X. Languages of the World/Materials 257. 80pp. USD 61.40 / EUR 49.90 / GBP 42.40. 1999.
Manipuri Grammar
D.N.S BHAT & M.S. NINGOMBA Central Institute of Indian Languages Manipuri (called Meiteilon in the language itself) is a Tibeto-Burman language belonging to the Kuki-Chin subgroup. The language is spoken primarily in the valley region of the State of Manipur, Índia (ca. 700,000 speakers, ca. 300,000 speakers in Burma, ca. 100,000 speakers in Assam, ca. 50,000 in Bangladesh and 30,000 in Tripura).
The grammar of Manipuri shows a number of interesting typological characteristics: There are only two major lexical categories, namely nouns and verbs, with adjectives and adverbs merging rather unrecognizably with verbs. Inflectional markers also split into two distinct categories, namely nominal and verbal inflections with exclusive membership.
The volume contains 14 chapters: Introduction, Phonology, Word-formation, Sentence structure, Nominal category, Use of case suffixes, Verbal category, Directional and deictic verb distinctions, Valency patterns, Tense, aspect and mood, Modyfying constructions, Complementation, Illocutionary distinctions.
ISBN 3 89586 191 X. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 04. 480pp. USD 119.70 / EUR 97.30 / GBP 82.70. 1997.
A Grammar of Athpare KAREN EBERT University of Zürich Athpare is a Kiranti language spoken in a few villages around Dhankuta in eastern Nepal. The number of speakers is probably less than 2000, but unlike other small Kiranti languages, Athpare is still learned by children. Athpare has SOV word order, all modifiers precede their head. The verb morphology is highly complex; subject and object person markers are realized partly as prefixes, partly as suffixes. There are separate number suffixes and tense markers, some of them followed by a copy of the person marker. Periphrastic tense-aspects (perfect and progressive) are fully grammaticalized. Athpare is morphologically ergative, with a split between 1st person and the rest. Minimal use is made of nonfinite verb forms: Compound verbs consist of two verbs marked for person and tense, subordinators follow inflected verbs. The Athpare data are from a short field trip to Dhankuta. There are no previous descriptions of Athpare except for some data used in earlier publications by the author.
ISBN 3 89586 146 4. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 01. 270pp. USD 118.50 / EUR 96.30 / GBP 81.90. 1997.
A Grammar of Mandarin Chinese HUA LIN University of Victoria Mandarin Chinese is the official language in China, Taiwan and Singapore, and the language with the largest number of native speakers. In recent years, Mandarin usage has spread even further: it is now taught in most schools in Hong Kong, and with the influx of immigrants to the West from China and Taiwan, many parts of the world including Canada, the United States, Australia, and Europe have seen a steady increase in the number of speakers. Mandarin is not a hom*ogeneous language; any grammar that tries to describe it needs to select one region as its focus. In this book, the focus will be on Mandarin as is spoken in its motherland of Northern China, especially the Chinese capital of Beijing.
The book will begin by an introduction to the geographic characteristics, dialects and historical development of the language. This will be followed by Mandarin phonetics and phonology. Topics covered include the syllable, tones, the consonants, the vowels, the glides and, more importantly, how these interact to create the sound structure of the language. A description of the morphology will follow, addressing special features of the language in terms of compounding, reduplication, word stress, and disyllabicity. The remainder of the book will be devoted to Mandarin syntax. It will first outline the major parts of speech and the major types of phrases; then it will focus on some salient syntactic features, including the topic-comment structure, the serial-verb construction, and the de- construction. The book will end with two sample texts, each accompanied by interlinear translation and free translation.
ISBN 3 89586 642 3. Languages of the World/Materials 344. 200pp. USD 84.50 / EUR 68.70 / GBP 58.40. 2001.
Kunming Chinese MING CHAO GUI University of Oklahoma
Kunming Chinese, commonly regarded as lingua franca of Yunnan province, is a major variety of
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Yunnanese, a member of Southwestern Mandarin. Based primarily on the linguistic typology and geographic distribution, Kunming Chinese has been further classified in one of the four major subgroups of Yunnanese: Central Yunnan group. Kunming Chinese, as well as all the dialects in Yunnan province, has a long history of development, which can probably be traced back to Qin and Han dynasties. The languages of twenty-four ethnic groups inhabiting in the same speech community also play a very important role in the development of Kunming Chinese. Until now Kunming Chinese remains a less studied dialect and no complete work has been done on its major grammatical aspects, especially morphology and syntax. This book is intended to provide a descriptive account for the grammar of Kunming Chinese as spoken in Kunming city and its vicinities. The major topics discussed are: phonetics and phonology; the phonological developments in the past sixty years; morpheme categories and word formation; grammatical categories, syntactic categories; sentence types and structures. Special discussions are given to the idiosyncratic features of the dialect: fronting and deletion of nasal in nasal rhymes, loss of rhotic initial series, breathy phonation; infix, the function and loss of “-er” suffix, word blending, reduplication and its interaction with tone change; question words and question formation. The book also features an interlinear text with transcription and translation demonstrating the major features discussed. ISBN 3 89586 634 2. Languages of the World/Materials 340. 116pp. USD 58.90 / EUR 47.90 / GBP 40.70. 2000.
A Grammar of Chagatay ANDRÁS J. E. BODROGLIGETI University of California, Los Angeles
An acrolect of the Central Asian Turks from the fifteenth to the late nineteenth century, the Chagatay language was a multilayered literary idiom employed in Transoxiana, Khorasan Fergana and East Turkistan, especially in cultural centers such as Samarkand, Bukhara, Herat, Khiva, Kokand and Kashghar. Chagatay was also used in India in the court of the Great Moghuls, in Kazan, and even in the Ottoman Empire. Presently it is regarded as the Classical phase of Modern Uzbek although the scope of Chagatay, especially of the lexion was much broader than what the term Classical Uzbek would imply. Orthography: Chagatay works were written in Arabic script with generous use of matres lectionis: a criterion that makes Chagatay different from Ottoman and allows the reader an easier identification of graphemes. Text publications mostly use transcription with alphabets using modified characters of the Latin, or Russian writing systems. Morphology operates with suffixes, prefixes, postpositions, prepositions Izafet markers, composition and coordination. Suffixes have a definite hierarchy of sequence. Chagatay nouns and pronouns have no grammatical gender. They have singular and plural forms. By their final phoneme we distinguish light and heavy nouns; by the behavior of their last consonant or their second vowel under certain conditions we distinguish weak and strong nouns. There are ten cases of nouns and pronouns. There are no definite or indefinite articles. Adjectives have no special class marker. Some of the means of derivation may signal that the derivative is an adjective. There is no strict boundary between adjectives and adverbs. Adjectives often occur as nouns and can take case endings and plural signs. Adjectives have three degrees: positive, comparative, and superlative. The superlative also serves as the absolute degree. Intensive forms are created by
morphological and analytic means. Stems: weak and strong, light and heavy, simple and derivative. Primary stems: positive, negative, possibilitive, impossibilitive. Secondary stems: Active, passive, reflexive, reciprocal, adjutative, cooperative, causative, desiderative, similative, transitive, ditransitive, intransitive. Coordinated [serialized] stems. Compound stems. Finite forms: person (first, second, and third), number (singular and plural). Structure: stems, particles, themes, personal signs.
Tenses: Present, future, past. Moods: imperative, voluntative, indicative, optative, conditional, temporal. Aspects: perfect, imperfect, progressive. Negation: Negative stems, and negative particles are used. Affirmation by affirmative particles and adverbs. Traces of an honorific system: lexical, suffixal means. Nonfinite forms: Verbal nouns (agent nouns, action nouns infinitives). Gerunds (imperfect, antecedental, inceptive, purposive, resolutive, terminative, compensative, copulative, negative. Participles (past, present, aorist: positive, negative, necessitative, agental, resultative and status-related). Adverbs have no special category markers. There is no strict class boundary between adverbs and adjectives. There are simple, derivative, and phrasal adverbs. Six types of noun phrases. Sentence structure: Simple [nominal, verbal], expanded and compound sentences. Clause structure: finite, nonfinite. Clause chaining: coordination by juxtapositon, connective gerunds, and conjunctions. Subordination: The main sentence. Relative clauses, completive clauses.
ISBN 3 89586 563 X. Languages of the World/Materials 155. 270 pp. USD 118.50 / EUR 96.30 / GBP 81.90. 2001.
Xakas
GREGORY DAVID ANDERSON University of Manchester Xakas is a Turkic language spoken by 70,000 people in south central Siberia. Xakas is a cover term created in the early 20th century to cover the related dialect clusters of the region; the terms positively viewed by some members of the ethnolinguistic group and negatively by others. Xakas is one of the only Turkic languages to preserve nine short vowels. Morphologically, Xakas shows an unusually high number of affixally realized verbal categories, as well as a complicated AUX verb system. In the imperative Xakas has preserved a dual inclusive. Xakas has a very high number of cases for a Turkic language (9), a number more typical of central and eastern Siberian languages. Due to the centuries-long contact with speakers of Russian, Xakas not only has a large number of Russian loans but it also shows a great-degree of contact-induced restructuring, some examples of which have even found their way into the standardized literary language. The present study is an analysis of the standardized register of Xakas, and constitutes the first description of Xakas in English.
ISBN 3 89586 511 7. Languages of the World/ Materials 251. 100 pp. USD 63.80 / EUR 51.90 / GBP 44.10. 1998.
Evenki NADEZHDA BULATOVA (Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg) & LENORE GRENOBLE (Dartmouth College) Evenki is the largest of the Manchu-Tungusic languages spoken in Siberia. The Evenki ethnic population currently numbers roughly 30,000 people; approximately one third of the population
speaks Evenki. This monograph provides an overview of Evenki phonology, morphology and syntax. Evenki is characterized by strong agglutination, vowel harmony, verb-final (SOV) word order, and the use of postpositions. Nouns inflect for case, number and possession; Standard Evenki has 12 cases. The verbal system morphologically marks tense, mood, person and number, aspect and Aktionsarten as well as voice. Furthermore, Evenki possesses a complex system of participles, supines and gerunds. In addition to the grammatical sketch and a sample text, discussion of the current sociolinguistic situation of Evenki is provided as well, with special attention to the Evenki dialect continuum and the status of Evenki as an ‘endangered’ language.
ISBN 3 89586 222 3. Languages of the World/Materials 141. 60pp. USD 51.80 / EUR 42.10 / GBP 35.80. 1999.
Kod¢ava KAREN EBERT University of Zürich Kod ¢ava is a South Dravidian language spoken by approximately 70,000 people in Coorg, Karnataka. Although some Kod ¢ava claim that they speak a dialect of Kannada, their language is closer to Tamil. The Kannada script is used for writing Kod ¢ava. Kod ¢ava shares all the well-known traits of South Dravidian languages, such as exclusively suffixing morphology, strict SOV word order with modifiers preceding their head, dative subjects, the use of converbs and participles in subordination. Apart from the retroflex consonants Kod ¢ava has central vowel phonemes. Earlier publications on Kod¢ava are a grammar from 1867 and articles on the vowels and on morphophonemic processes in verb stems. This description is based on work with a native speaker.
ISBN 3 89586 038 7. Languages of the World/Materials 104. 57pp. USD 51.80 / EUR 42.10 / GBP 35.80. 1996.
Sapuan (Sapuər) PASCALE JACQ & PAUL SIDWELL University of Melbourne
Sapuan (autonym Sapuər) is an endangered West Bahnaric (Mon-Khmer) language spoken by the population of a single village, Ban Sapuan, about 40 kms north of Attapeu (Lao PDR). Other than a short wordlist collected early this century, no other descriptions of Sapuan are known. The present sketch grammar is prepared on the basis of the authors' recent fieldwork. Sapuan phonology and syntax are discussed and short glossed texts and a lexicon are provided. ISBN 3 89586 559 1. Languages of the World/Materials 302. 60pp. USD 51.80 / EUR 42.10 / GBP 35.80. 1999.
An Academic Reference Grammar of Modern Literary Uzbek ANDRÁS J. E. BODROGLIGETI University of California, Los Angeles The work is a comprehensive descriptive grammar of Modern Uzbek, the official language of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Its objective is to present amply illustrated rules for proper understanding of Uzbek grammatical expression
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and provide a guide for educated Uzbek composition.
It is the author's conviction that this is the best way to serve the users' interest in the present evolutionary stage and political-cultural milieu of the Uzbek language.
The categories of the "normative" grammar of the Soviet imperial period were loosened up and revised especially in verbal inflection and syntax. New rules were created or some old ones modified, as authentic data required. Illustrations were used from works of Uzbek writers and poets from the twenties to the present and from data collected in numerous field trips. The selected illustrations are not only linguistically relevant but in the majority of cases provide an insight into the cultural content of the language.
Works on Uzbek grammar by native Uzbek authors were duly considered. The traditional arrangement of materials was followed not only to keep this grammar closer to the native grammatical literature but also to promote greater efficiency in learning by the users.
The Uzbek material is used in the Cyrillic alphabet, mainly because the sources they come form were composed and printed in that writing system. Although The Uzbek Supreme Council in its 13th session on September 2, 1993 introduced a new Latin based writing system, it leaves the Cyrillic in place partly for practical reasons, partly to secure access to the literary heritage of the Soviet period. During his resent visits [2001; 2003] to Uzbekistan the author got the impression that the Uzbeks are not going to give up the Cyrillic writing system any time soon.
Vol. I.: ISBN 3 89586 694 6. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 50. 690pp. USD 105.40 / EUR 85.70 / GBP 72.90. 2003.
Vol. II.: ISBN 3 89586 710 1. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 51. 690pp. USD 105.40 / EUR 85.70 / GBP 72.90. 2003.
Modern Literary Uzbek A Manual for Intensive Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced Courses [incl. a descriptive grammar of Modern Literary Uzbek]. ANDRÁS J. E. BODROGLIGETI University of California, Los Angeles Developed in the regular and intensive courses of the Uzbek Language and Area Studies Program at UCLA and updated every season for the Summer Sessions of the same institution this handbook is a time tested comprehensive work to provide systematically, arranged and culturally balanced language materials for students aiming at wellrounded composition and conversation competence in Modern Literary Uzbek, the official language of the Republic of Uzbekistan.
In thirty sizable units the manual presents 60 culturally relevant readings, 30 topic-oriented conversations, 210 proverbs, 450 phrases, set expressions and idioms, ca. 2000 most frequently used words proportionally representing the semantic fields they belong to. Most of all, it contains a grammar of the language with illustrations selected from a rich and varied storehouse of primary sources. Texts used for two-way translations and topics for directed compositions reflect the cultural dimensions of the language and address its functional need in actual circ*mstances.
The Manual was prepared for class-room use with an instructor of native or close to native competence in charge. The detailed grammatical and morphological index, however, makes the Manual also useful for linguists interested in descriptive grammar. ISBN 3 89586 695 4. LINCOM Language Coursebooks 10. 2 vols., each 360pp. Each vol. USD 74.90 / EUR 60.90 / GBP 51.80. 2003.
Karachay STEVE SEEGMILLER Montclair State University Karachay-Balkar is a Turkic language spoken in the North Caucasus by approximately 200,000 speakers and by approximately 30,000 more speakers living in Turkey, Western Europe, and the United States. This work provides a linguistic overview of the Karachay dialect of Karachay-Balkar. It consists of a detailed description of the phonological system and the inflectional morphology as well as a necessarily briefer description of the main syntactic features of the language. Also included are several short texts with interlinear translations and a glossary. This is the first description of Karachay to appear in English.
ISBN 3 89586 021 2. Languages of the World/Materials 109. 60 pp. USD 51.80 / EUR 42.10 / GBP 35.80. 1996.
Even
ANDREI L. MALCHUKOV Russian Academy of Sciences The present work provides a concise grammatical description of Even, one of the Tungusic languages of Siberia. This grammatical sketch differs from the previous works on Even grammar in that 1) it is confined to synchronic description, 2) it foregrounds the functional aspects of grammar, 3) it focuses on those topics that are of interest from a typological viewpoint.
ISBN 3 929075 13 X. Languages of the World/Materials 12. 48pp. USD 53.00 / EUR 43.10 / GBP 36.60. 1995.
Nivkh EKATERINA GRUZDEVA Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg Nivkh (otherwise known as Gilyak) is considered genetically isolated, though is traditionally classified as Paleasiberian. Typologically, Nivkh is an agglutinative synthetic nominative language with elements of morphological fusion and some analytical features. It is the language of a small nationality (4,700 people) presently residing mainly at the lower reaches of the Amur River in the far east on the Asian continent and on Sakhalin Island (Russia). Four dialects of Nivkh are distinguished: Amur, East-Sakhalin, North-Sakhalin and South-Sakhalin. The description is based primarily on the materials of Amur and East-Sakhalin diaelcts of Nivkh, the last not well described yet. The sketch contains five sections, two folklore texts (in both examined dialects of Nivkh) with interlinear translation and an ample bibliography. The first section describes socio- and geolinguistic data, different hypothesis of Nivkh genesis and principal stages of its studying. The phonology and morphology section deals with the phoneme inventory, prosody, syllable structure and morphological alternations. It pays particlar attention to the system of initial consonant alternations in noun and verb phrases. Principal models of word-formation are discussed in the third section. The fourth section is devoted to the analysis of nominal and verbal morphology, pronominal system, numerals, adverbs, graphic words, connective words and interjections. Special emphasis is laid to the unique system of cardinals consisting of 26 sub-systems, each of those is used for counting objects of special types. The section also focuses on finite verbal forms and their categories, as well as on non-finite verbal forms. Nivkh is well-known for its numerous converbs, which number is about 30.
The last section examines syntax of noun and verb phrases, word order, clause structure and clause chaining with special reference to a polypredicative construction. The last is usually represented as a predicate complex whose verbal forms are interlinked by different semantic relations, namely tense, cause, condition, concession, etc. ISBN 3 89586 039 5. Languages of the World/Materials 111. 60pp. USD 51.80 / EUR 42.10 / GBP 35.80. 1998.
Camling/Chamling
KAREN EBERT University of Zürich Chamling is a Kiranti language spoken by approximately 10,000 people in a remote area of Eastern Nepali. The number of speakers is rapidly decreasing, as the language is no longer learned by children. Chamling has SOV word order and split ergativity, with 1st and 2nd person construed in an accusative pattern. There is very little evidence for ergative syntax. Higher and lower location plays an important role not only in the lexicon and deictic system, but is also grammaticalized in a series of local case markers. Like all eastern Kiranti languages, Chamling is characterized by a highly complex verb morphology. Eleven persons - with duals, plurals, inclusive, exclusive - are marked on the verb in actor and undergoer function. In the western dialect there are traces of an older inverse system, which the eastern dialect has replaced by 1st person undergoer markers and subject agreement. The complex verb forms are retained before most subordinators and in both members of a compound verb. All Chamling data are from the author’s fieldwork in Nepal. There are no previous descriptions of Chamling.
ISBN 3 89586 037 9. Languages of the World/Materials 103. 63pp. USD 51.80 / EUR 42.10 / GBP 35.80. 1997.
Newār / Nepāl Bhās flā
AUSTIN HALE & KEDĀR P. SHRESTHA
Newār (known outside Nepal as Newāri, but referred to by speakers as Nepāl Bhasha) is spoken by half a million people, most of whom reside in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal.
Newār is a Tibeto-Burman language influenced by centuries of contact with Indo- Aryan languages. As an Indospheric Tibeto- Burman language, Newār has many syntactic characteristics typical of South Asia: a somewhat flexible SOV clause order, a sentence structure typified by strings of medial clauses before a final finite clause. The freedom with which arguments can be omitted from a clause makes this an interesting language to investigate from the standpoint of referential density (Bickel Language 79.4:708-736 (2003)).
Newār has an auxiliary structure which makes grammatical use of semantically bleached lexical verbs to express directional, benefactive, aspectual, status, and honorific modifications of the main verb. The process of grammaticalization is current and ongoing. One can still identify non-final verb forms that provide the bridge across which grammaticalization of lexical verbs as auxiliaries has been taking place.
Newār (along with Tibetan) is also of interest as a language with a logophoric conjunct/disjunct verbal inflection, related to matters of evidentiality and the intentionality of the verb. Of special interest is the extensive concatenation of verbs within the clause.
Newār is one of the few Tibeto-Burman languages (along with Tibetan and Burmese) to have produced a distinguished written literature. It is a relatively well documented language with extensive grammars and dictionaries of both Classical Newāri and the modern language.
ASIAN LANGUAGES
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This grammar deals with the language as it is used in Kathmandu. Most examples are drawn from a corpus of published Newār stories and essays. The examples were chosen primarily to illustrate the grammatical workings of the language, but one often gets glimpses as well of the wit and charm of the contemporary masters of the language.
ISBN 3 89586 525 7. Languages of the World/ Materials 256. 230 pp. USD 96.80 / EUR 78.70 / GBP 66.90. 2006.
Kyrgyz
SOMFAI DÁVID KARA Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
Kyrgyz is a Turkic language, it is spoken by some 3,5 million people in Kyrgyzstan and its neighbouring countries (Uzbekistan, China, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Kazakstan). It is spoken in the valleys and plateaus of the Tianshan and Pamir-Alai Mountain Ranges (e.g. Chüi Valley, Talas Valley, Kara-Tegin). The Kyrgyz language belongs to the Kypchak group, although genetically related to South Siberian Turkic languages. During the Mongol Era, the Kyrgyz became the language of the nomad groups in the Chagatai Empire. It was strongly influenced by the Kazak and Uzbek languages.
This present material of the Kyrgyz language is an up-to-date grammar based on the author’s five-year research with the Kyrgyz of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (where the disappearing South dialect is still alive). In this book he tried to summarize up his observations, just as he did it in his first book about the Kazak language. There are useful information about the TAM (Tense-Mood-Aspect) categories of verb morphology, auxiliary verb formations and numerous examples to illustrate them. These aspects help to understand Kyrgyz literature and colloquial speech as well. The phonology part explains the main phonetic rules that can be observed only in spoken Kyrgyz.
ISBN 3 89586 843 4. Languages of the World/Materials 423. 60pp. USD 51.80 / EUR 42.10 / GBP 35.80. 2003. A Grammar of Iranian Azari including comparisons with Persian YAVAR DEHGHANI This study intends to develop a grammar of Iranian Azari which is spoken mainly in the north western parts of Iran: it consists of phonology, morphology, and the syntax of simple and complex clauses. Since Persian has a prominent influence on this language, the phonology, morphology and syntax of borrowed words are also discussed and when appropriate, the constructions in the language are compared to that of Persian. For more information on this title see www.lincom.eu. ISBN 3 89586 991 0. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 30. 280pp. USD 112.30 / EUR 91.30 / GBP 77.60. 2000.
Adverbials in Turkish The Third Parameter in Aspectual Interpretation MINE GÜVEN Boğaziçi University The main argument of the present study is that T/A adverbials in Turkish constitute the third
parameter in aspectual interpretation along with the other two parameters, namely situation type and viewpoint aspect.
Concerning the expression of viewpoint aspect in Turkish, (i) the semantic distinctions denoted by Turkish T/A morphology and (ii) the basic opposition between perfective vs. imperfective and their extended interpretations are considered. As for the second parameter, the interaction of situation type with objects, Turkish perfective vs. imperfective morphology and T/A adverbials is analyzed. A time-relational analysis/ categorization of T/A adverbials is proposed. The data suggest that T/A adverbials constitute one of the core elements of aspectual interpretation and that a combination of the insights of B. Comrie, C. Smith, W. Klein and M. Krifka is required to account for Turkish data adequately.
In conclusion, it is argued that aspectual oppositions derive from universal properties of time intervals, relations between intervals and mereological structure and that aspect is a linguistic instantiation of boundedness. The opposition between perfective and imperfective is argued to be an instantiation of a total vs. partial overlap relation between the reference interval and the time of the situation, in analogy to one that obtains between an adverbial interval and the time of the situation. This, in turn, suggests that from a wider perspective aspect is a linguistic reflection of the basic conceptual/perceptual contrast between figure and ground in the sense of L. Talmy and H. Demirdache & M. Uribe-Etxebarria.
ISBN 3 89586 809 4. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 59. 260pp. USD 93.10 / EUR 75.70 / GBP 64.30. 2006.
The Old Sirinek Language Texts, Lexicon, Grammatical Notes NIKOLAI VAKHTIN Russian Academy of Sciences This book deals with one of the most mysterious languages of the Far North of Russia - the so-called Old Sirinek Language (OSL). The language is part of the Eskimo family; however, its place in the family is unclear. According to some theories, this language is the last survival of a third group of Eskimo languages alongside Yupik and Inuit. The last speaker, Valentina Wye, the person whose language skills and patient efforts to share them made this book possible, died in 1997.
The book contains practically everything collected on OSL by several Russian scholars.
Contents: Genetic affiliation - folklore and other narrative texts in OSL with Russian interlinear translation - grammatical data - supplement where lexical data are presented as materials for a dictionary, ca. 2500 entries.[written in Russian]
ISBN 3 89586 951 1. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 33. 600pp. USD 135.70 / EUR 110.30 / GBP 93.80. 2000.
Camling texts and glossary KAREN EBERT University of Zürich Chamling is a Kiranti language spoken by approximately 10,000 people in a remote area of Eastern Nepali. This booklet is meant to accompany the grammatical description in LW/M 103, which contains many references to the texts. It contains transcriptions of narrated Camling mythology. Although the texts are of ethnological interest, the presentation is mainly directed
towards linguists. A brief introduction is given to the Camling mythological cycles. The narrations are then presented sentence by sentence with morphological glosses and an English translation. ISBN 3 89586 218 5. Languages of the World/Text Collections 11. 130pp. USD 70.00 / EUR 56.90 / GBP 46.40. 2000.
Ket Prosodic Phonology EDWARD J. VAJDA Western Washington University The present study proposes a complete inventory of the segmental and suprasegmental phonemic units for the southern dialect of Ket, a language isolate spoken in Central Siberia. It argues that Ket contains a constrastive system of tones operating within the domain of the phonological word rather than the syllable. This word tone system consists of four tonemes, two of which have disyllabic and monosyllabic allotones.
Tone in Ket serves to delimit one word from another by marking the leftmost two syllables of each phonological word with one of four contrastive combinations of melodic (height and contour) and non-melodic features (vowel length and glottalization). In addition, the four tonemes distinguish meaning by forming numerous minimal pairs. The article describes Ket segmental phonology as containing only 12 consonant and 7 vowel phonemes. Many constrasts which previous researchers treated as phonemic (such as the difference between tense vs. lax mid vowels and plosives vs. fricatives in word final position) turn out to be allophonic when prosodic data are considered.
ISBN 3 89586 915 5. Languages of the World 15. 36pp. USD 28.40 / EUR 23.10 / GBP 19.60. 2000.
Probleme der Wortbildung in den Jenissej-Sprachen
HEINRICH WERNER Universität Bonn Bislang liegen auf dem Gebiet der Wortbildung in den Jenissej-Sprachen nur wenige Arbeiten vor, und es schien dem Verfasser angebracht zu sein, sich dem Problem in einer zusammenfassenden Arbeit zuzuwenden. Dabei setzte er sich vor allem zum Ziel, die theoretische Fragen und die praktischen Richtlinien für die Erstellung von Wörterbüchern der Jenissej-Sprachen zu erörtern. Da aber die Wortbildung in diese Sprachen aufs engste mit der Morphologie verbunden und verflochten und in vielen Fällen kaum von ihr zu trennen ist, kann eine derartige Spezialuntersuchung der Wortbildung auch zur Klärung mehrerer grammatischer Phänomene beitragen. Die Spezifik der lexikalischen Nomination in den Jenissej-Sprachen kann außerdem auf wichtige typologische Züge hinweisen, die einen breiteren Überblick über den typologischen Zustand dieser Sprachen ermöglichen. Die Arbeit basiert hauptsächlich auf ketische, jugischen und kottischen Sprachmaterialien. Inhalt: 1. Zum Problem des Wortes in den Jenissej-Sprachen, 2. Zum Problem der nominalen Wortbildung, 3. Zum Problem der verbalen Wortbildung, 4. Zur Wortbildung der Adverbien und Numeralien, 5. Grenzfälle der verbalen Wort- und Formbildung, 6. Schlußbetrachtungen.
ISBN 3 89586 270 3. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 25. 180pp. USD 85.70 / EUR 69.70 / GBP 59.30. 1998.
ASIAN LANGUAGES
62 ♦ LINCOM EUROPA• project line 20 • 2010
Basic Burushaski Etymologies The Indo-European and Paleo-balkanic affinities of Burushaski ILIJA ČAŠULE Macquarie University By applying the most stringent principles of the comparative-historical method nearly two hundred Burushaski words are analysed which display firm Indo-European correspondences that do not originate from an Indo-Aryan or Iranian source. The etymologies show consistent and regular phonetic correspondences and highly specific semantic concordance with the ancient Balkan languages (most notably Phrygian and Thracian) and with Balto-Slavic. The basic and compact semantic fields to which the analysed vocabulary belongs (body parts, age and family relations, agriculture, plant names, sheep-farming, geographical features, names of vessels and tools, core adjectives and verbs) together with the derivational, grammatical and structural correspondences point to a rather close relationship and affinity of Burushaski with these linguistic groupations. It can be concluded that there is an ancient Indo-European layer in Burushaski which indicates an early relationship or contact in its history with the Southern (Aegean) branch of I.E. on the one hand and with the Northern I.E. group on the other, with which it shows remarkable and very close correspondences. Further systematic study of Burushaski vocabulary and grammar should clarify the implications of these findings and determine more closely Burushaski's affiliation within Indo-European.
ISBN 3 89586 089 1. LINCOM Etymologic-al Studies 01. 160 pp. USD 85.70 / EUR 69.70 / GBP 59.30. 1998.
Semantische Eigenschaften von Ideophonen im Türkischen GERD JENDRASCHEK Université de Toulouse-Le-Mirail Ideophone stellen im Türkischen ein reiches Inventar expressiver Ausdrücke dar, mit denen wahrgenommene Eindrücke den Zuhörern anschaulich vor Augen geführt werden können. Der Bereich der Ideophonie betrifft wenige semantische Domänen, wobei Wahrnehmungen verschiedenster Art im Zentrum stehen. Ideophone sind lautsymbolisch, was bedeutet, daß Laute, die keine Morpheme sind, Bedeutung tragen. Es gibt also zu einem gewissen Grade eine Entsprechung phonologischer und semantischer Merkmale. Je nach dem Grad der Ikonizität können diese Entsprechungen mehr oder weniger offensichtlich sein.
Wie alle Sprachzeichen sind Ideophone jedoch auch konventionell. Ein weiteres Charakteristikum türkischer Ideophone ist ihre modifikative Funktion, sie werden also adjektivisch oder adverbial verwendet. Sie unterstreichen die Bedeutung eines Verbs, können aber auch zusätzliche semantische Informationen enthalten. Sie werden im Türkischen meist redupliziert verwendet, wobei die Reduplikation Wiederholung zum Ausdruck bringt. Plötzliche, abrupte Eindrücke werden hingegen mittels Quotativkonstruktionen oder derivierter Formen ausgedrückt. Durch Alternationen der Vokale oder Konsonanten können weitere semantische Nuancen versprachlicht werden. ISBN 3 89586 365 3. Edition Linguistik 30. 120 S. USD 74.90 / EUR 60.90 / GBP 51.80. 2002.
re-editions A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian Family of Languages ROBERT CALDWELL Contents: Use of the Common Term 'Dravidian', Enumeration of Dravidian Languages, Comparative Grammar: Part I: Sounds (Alphabet, system of sounds), Part II: Roots, Part III: The Noun, Part IV: The Numerals, Part V: The Pronoun, Part VI: The Verb. Part VII: Glossarial Affinities.
This re-edition has been published as no. 14 in the LINCOM Gramatica (LINGram) series (originally published 1913, 3rd edition, written in English).
ISBN 978 3 89586 135 2. LINCOM Gramatica 14. 686pp. USD 109.70 / EUR 89.20 / GBP 75.80. 2010.
A Grammar of the Khassi Language H. ROBERTS We would particularly call attention to two prominent features of the work: complete paradigms for the conjugation of all verbs and a detailed treatment of the article, subjects in regard to which the Khassi language possesses features altogether its own, as compared with other members of the Sub-Himalayan group. The number of people speaking the language may roughly estimated at 250,000. Their area is situated in the very centre of the Province of Assam (adopted from the preface).
The grammar contains chapters on orthography, nominal morphology (noun, pronoun, adjectives), verbal morphology (moods and tenses, conjugations, active, passive voice), adverbs, preposition, and syntax. (Re-edition; originally published 1891 in London; written in English)
ISBN 978 3 86290 003 9. LINCOM Gramatica 20. 227pp. USD 71.10 / EUR 57.80 / GBP 49.10. 2010/IV.
Ein türk-tatarischer Dialekt in Galizien Vokalharmonie in den entlehnten Wörtern der karaitischen Sprache in Halicz (Mit Einleitung, Texten und Erklärungen zu den Texten) JOHANN GRZEGORZEWSKI
Von etlichen (etwa 18) alten Niederlassungen der Łach-Karaiten, welche von ihren Krimer Glaubensgenossen deshalb so genannt werden, weil sie auf dem Gebiete des ehemaligen polnischen (lechitischen) Staates wohnen, existieren heute nur noch einige, und zwar in Troki und Umgegend (Litauen), in Łuck und Umgegend (Wolhynien) und in Halicz samt Umgegend (Ost-Galizien). Außerdem lebten polnische Karaiten in Lemberg (seit dem 14. Jahrhundert und in Kukizów, einem etwa 2 Meilen nordöstlich von Lemberg gelegenen Marktflecken. Jedoch in den Dreißigerjahren des
eben abgelaufenen Säkulums übersiedelten die letzten Kukizower Karaiten samt ihren Heiligtümern nach Halicz und verschmolzen gänzlich mit ihren dortigen Stammen- oder Religionsgenossen.
Aus dem Inhalt: Einteilung der Lehnwörter nach ihrer Herkunft, Monophtongische Stämme und unzerlegbare Morpheme, Diphtongische Stämme und unzerlegbare Morpheme, Affixe mit weiten und engen Vokalen, enklitische Zusätze, Konsonantische Attraktion der Konsonanten, Slavische Präpositionen.
In his study “A Turc-Tatar dialect in Galicia” Johann Grzegorzewski focuses on vowel harmony in loan words of the Karaitic language of Halicz. This re-edition has been published as no. 04 in the LINCOM Orientalia (LIOR) series (originally published 1903, Wien: Sitzungsberichte der kais. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Kl. 196).
ISBN 978 3 89586 263 2. LINCOM Orientalia 04. 86pp. USD 53.80 / EUR 43.80 / GBP 37.20. 2010.
Lehr und Lesebuch der Siamesischen Sprache
F.J. WERSHOVEN Das Buch behandelt die Umgangssprache des täglichen Lebens. So ist das Buch nicht nur für die praktische Spracherlernung bestimmt, sondern wird auch den Philologen willkommen sein, welche die charakteristischen Eigenschaften der einsilbigen ostasiatischen Sprache kennen zu lernen wünschen.
The grammar focuses on phonology (consonants, vowels, intonation, accentuation), nominal and verbal morphology, offers some texts and a dictionary (2500 entries).
(Re-edition; originally published 1892 in Wien; written in German) ISBN 978 3 86290 102 9. LINCOM Gramatica 82. 189pp. USD 66.30 / EUR 54.80 / GBP 45.40. 2010/IV.
A Brief Account of Malayalam Phonetics L.V.R. AIVAR I give below a list of the International Phonetic Association symbols that I have requisioned for the following concise discussion of the phonetic habits of the Malayalam language. The symbols below represent the sounds occuring in the pronuciation of the people of the Cochin State, which, situated as it is right in the central portion of Malabar or the Malayalam speaking land, has a great degree preserved the true Malayalam sounds free from contamination of the Kannada or Kanarese influence in the north and Tamil in the south (Re-edition; originally published 1927 in London; written in English).
ISBN 978 3 86290 127 2. LINCOM Orientalia 39. 36pp. USD 29.00 / EUR 24.00 / GBP 19.90. 2010/IV.
Die Übereinstimmung der Tempus- und Modalcharaktere in den ural-altaischen Sprachen ANTON BOLLER Der stoffliche Zusammenhang der ural-altaischen Sprachen ist gegenwärtig in so ausgedehntem
ASIAN LANGUAGES
The LINCOM webshop: www.lincom-europa.com LINCOM EUROPA• project line 20 • 2010 ♦ 63
Umfange blossgelegt und nachgewiesen, dass man zu seiner Erklärung notwendig auf die Annahme eines gemeinsamen Ursprunges der genannten Sprachen gedrängt wird. Wenn ich nun in vorliegendem Aufsatze es unternehme die Tempus- und Moduscharaktere der einzelnen hierher gehörigen Sprachen (u.a. Mandźu, Mongolisch, Kalmückisch, Türkisch-tatarisch, die samojedischen Sprachen, Suomi und Magyarisch) einer vergleichenden Analyse zu unterziehen, um ihre Identität nachzuweisen, so bestimmen mich hierzu Gründe, welche den Aufsatz „über Wurzelsuffixe in den ural-altaischen Sprachen“ veranlassten.
(Re-edition; originally published 1856 in Wien; written in German) ISBN 978 3 86290 096 1. LINCOM Orientalia 28. 45pp. USD 40.10 / EUR 32.60 / GBP 27.70. 2010/IV.
Die Wurzelsuffixe in den ural-altaischen Sprachen
ANTON BOLLER Seit Schott's entscheidenden Forschungen über die ural-altaischen Sprachen war die Tätigkeit der Sprachforscher darauf gerichtet, das Material für eine vergleichende Grammatik aller zum großen Stamme gehörigen Sprachen zu sammeln und vorzubereiten. An die Stelle der mangelhaften älteren Grammatiken bereits bekannter Sprachen traten neue den gegenwärtigen Anforderungen der Wissenschaft Rechnung tragende Bearbeitun-gen; und Idiome, welche man bisher kaum mehr als dem Namen nach gekannt, wurden einer allseitigen kritischen Untersuchung unterworfen.
So entstanden u.a. neuere türkische, tatarische, mongolische, kalmückische, mand-schurische, magyarische Grammatiken. Ist es also an der Zeit, an die vergleichende Grammatik des Ural-altaischen zu gehen? (adaptiert aus den Sitzungsberichten der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klas-se, XXII. Band, I. Heft, 1856, hrsg. 1857).
In his study “the root-suffixes of the ural-altaic languages“ Prof. Boller study focuses on issues of the genetic relationship of the these languages. This re-edition has been published as no. 02 in the LINCOM Orientalia (LIOR) series (originally published 1857, Wien).
ISBN 978 3 89586 249 6. LINCOM Orientalia 12. 96pp. USD 53.70 / EUR 44.40 / GBP 36.80. 2010.
Entwurf einer Vergleichenden Grammatik der Altaischen Sprachen nebst einem vergleichenden Wörterbuch JOSEPH GRUNZEL In seiner Abhandlung vergleicht der Autor phonetische und morphologische Eigenschaften u.a. des Türkischen, Mongolischen, Mandschu-rischen und Japanischen. Er beabsichtigt in knapper, systematischer Form die Grundzüge darzulegen, nach welchen sich der altaische Sprachstamm aufbaut. Das auf Grund des lexikalischen Materials zusammengestellt, vergleichende Wörterbuch bildet nur einen kurzen Auszug einer größeren Sammelarbeit und soll in erster Linie als tatsächlicher Beleg der aufgestellten Regeln dienen. Da es dem Autoren schon in diesem Stadium gelang, unumstößliche Beweise für die Zugehörigkeit des Japanischen zum altaischen Sprachstamm zu erbringen, vermutet er, dass der eingeschlagene Weg auch dazu führen wird, das Wesen einer oder der anderen noch isolierten Sprache Ostasiens aufzuhellen (frei nach dem Vorwort von 1895).
(Re-edition; originally published 1895 in Leipzig; written in German) ISBN 978 3 86290 114 2. LINCOM Orientalia 31. 96pp. USD 53.70 / EUR 44.40 / GBP 36.80. 2010/IV.
Étude sur la phonétique bachkire N.K. DIMITRIEV Le territoire, ou est parlée la langue bachkire, est plus proche que celui des Turcs de Sibérie, amis, jusqu´à présent, le bachkir est resté très peu connu des turcologues. C´est pourquoi je me suis décidé á publier mes observations personelles; elles sont fondées sur l’étude de la langue vivante, de la langue du folklore, puls systématiquement, mon but est de décrire les particularités de la phonétique bachkire dans son stade actuel (Re-edition; originally published 1927 in Paris; written in French). ISBN 978 3 86290 121 0. LINCOM Orientalia 35. 64pp. USD 46.90 / EUR 38.80 / GBP 32.20. 2010/IV.
Azerbajğanische Studien mit einer Charakteristik des Südtürkischen KARL FOY Das Azerbajğanische, auch kürzer Azeri genannt, nimmt ein sehr weites Gebiet ein, es wird in Russland und besonders in Persien gesprochen. Man kann zwei Hauptzweige unterscheiden, das Transkaukasische, namentlich die Sprache der Karabagi, Šaksewend, Terekeme und Azerbajğani, und das Türkische in der Umgebung Hamadans und der nomadischen Bevölkerung der Provinz Fers. Inhalt: Quellen und Vorarbeiten, die Mundart von Erzurum, Orthographie, Charkteristik des Südtürkischen, Übersicht der Hauptcharakteristika der südlichen Mundarten, zur Grammatik und Wortschatz des Azeri, Texte (Re-edition; originally published 1906/7 in Berlin; written in German).
ISBN 978 3 86290 116 6. LINCOM Orientalia 32. 140pp. USD 56.30 / EUR 46.60 / GBP 38.60. 2010/IV. A Mongolian Grammar
outlining the Khalkha Mongolian with notes on the Buriat, Kalmuck, and Ordoss Mongolian A. NEVILLE WHYMANT This, the first Mongolian grammar in the English tongue, published in 1926, focuses on orthography, articles, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and ends with a short vocabulary (Re-edition; originally published 1926 in London ; written in English)
ISBN 978 3 86290 065 7. LINCOM Gramatica 25. 83pp. USD 51.30 / EUR 42.40 / GBP 35.10. 2010/IV.
Manual of the Bengali Language Comprising a Bengali Grammar and Lessons, with Various Appendices
G.F. NICHOLL G.F. Nicholl's second edition of the Manual of the Bengali Language focuses on orthography,
accidence (declensions of nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals, conjugations of verbs), syntax. The grammar offers several exercises, and exposition of Bengali moneys, weights, extracts rom Bengali newspapers, and illustrations of Bengali arithmetic. (Re-edition; originally published 1893 in London; written in English)
ISBN 978 3 86290 040 4. LINCOM Gramatica 53. 344pp. USD 83.20 / EUR 68.80 / GBP 57.10. 2010/IV. A Grammar of the Burmese Language A. JUDSON The Burmese language is written from left to right, without any division of words. The pure Burmese is monosyllabic, but the introduction of the Pali language, with the Boodhistic religion, has occasioned the incorporation of many polysyllabc words of Pali origin. The short grammar gives information on the alphabet, nouns, secondary nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, interjections (Re-edition; originally published 1888 in Rangoon; written in English)
ISBN 978 3 86290 059 6. LINCOM Gramatica 64. 67pp. USD 46.20 / EUR 38.20 / GBP 31.70. 2010/IV.
Сравнительная грамматика монгольского письменного языка и халхасского наречия введение и фонетика БОРИС ЯКОВЛЕВИЧ ВЛАДИМИРЦОВ The study written by Boris Yakovlevich Vladimircov (1884-1931) who was one of the most excellent researchers in Mongolian studies focuses in the introduction on the classification of the Mongolian language, and gives information on the main features of Mongolian grammar. The grammar includes 16 tables (Re-edition; originally published 1929 in Leningrad; written in Russian).
ISBN 978 3 86290 190 6. LINCOM Gramatica 125. 450pp. USD 92.90 / EUR 76.80 / GBP 63.70. 2010/IV.
![World/Text Collections 27 Phonetic Ambiguity in the …A Grammar of Classical Japanese NORIKO KATSUKI-PESTEMER University of Trier The book is intended both for learners of Classical - [PDF Document] (2024)](data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mP8/h8AAvMB+NzmkbcAAAAASUVORK5CYII=)