A Grammar of Mapuche

A Grammar of Mapuche

Author: Ineke Smeets

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2008-12-10

Total Pages: 613

ISBN-13: 3110211793

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Mapuche is the language of the Mapuche (or Araucanians), the native inhabitants of central Chile. The Mapuche language, also called Mapudungu, is spoken by about 400,000 people in Chile and 40,000 in Argentina. The Mapuche people, estimated at about one million, constitute the majority of the Chilean indigenous population. The history of the Mapuche is the story of passionate fighters who managed to stop the Inca's but succumbed to the Spanish invaders after two and a half century of warfare. The relationship of the Mapuche language with other Amerindian languages has not yet been established. Mapuche is a highly agglutinative language with a complex verbal morphology. This book offers a comprehensive and detailed description of the Mapuche language. It contains a grammar (phonology, morphology and syntax), a collection of texts (stories, conversations and songs) with morphological analyses and free translations, and a Mapuche-English dictionary with a large number of derivations and examples. The grammar is preceded by a socio-historical sketch of the Mapuche people and a brief discussion of previous studies of the Mapuche language. The material for the description was collected by the author with the help of five Mapuche speakers with attention to the dialectal differences between them. The abundance of thoroughly analysed examples makes for a lively decription of the language. The intricacy of the verbal morphology will arouse the interest not only of those who practice Amerindian linguistics but also of those who are interested in language theory and language typology.


Preferred Argument Structure

Preferred Argument Structure

Author: John W. Du Bois

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2003-01-01

Total Pages: 480

ISBN-13: 9789027226242

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Preferred Argument Structure offers a profound insight into the relationship between language use and grammatical structure. In his original publication on Preferred Argument Structure, Du Bois (1987) demonstrated the power of this perspective by using it to explain the origins of ergativity and ergative marking systems. Since this work, the general applicability of Preferred Argument Structure has been demonstrated in studies of language after language. In this collection, the authors move beyond verifying Preferred Argument Structure as a property of a given language. They use the methodology to reveal more subtle aspects of the patterns, for example, to look across languages, diachronically or synchronically, to examine particular grammatical relations, and to examine special populations or particular genres. This volume will appeal to linguists interested in the relationship of pragmatics and grammar generally, in the typology of grammatical relations, and in explanations derived from data- and corpus-based approaches to analysis.


Language Change in South American Indian Languages

Language Change in South American Indian Languages

Author: Mary Ritchie Key

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2016-11-11

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 1512803065

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South American Indian Languages are a particularly rich field for comparative study, and this book brings together some of the finest scholarship now being done in that area.


Second Language Acquisition

Second Language Acquisition

Author: Thomas Jerome Baker

Publisher: Thomas Jerome Baker

Published: 2013-05-14

Total Pages: 109

ISBN-13: 1484936736

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"Written for new teachers, experienced teachers, parents of English Language Learners worldwide, and students from all disciplines with a need to know how students learn English in actual day to day practice. This book provides an actionable answer to the question of "How Do Students Learn English?" through the discovery method applied to case studies and actual experience, in reality.If encountering the topic for the first time, this is a clear and practical introduction to experiential Second Language Acquisition (SLA). It shows actual students and teachers grappling with SLA issues in an interdisciplinary manner. To do this, we "stand on the shoulders of giants" like Wittgenstein, Gass & Selinker.Storytelling becomes the medium to illustrate SLA in action, without being heavy on explanation. This is an inductive, discovery approach to deep learning about SLA in action.How a second language is acquired; whether English, French, Yu'pik, or Mapudungun is what the second language learner needs to know; whether in the USA, Canada, Singapore, China, Chile or any other location worldwide, we all need to find relevant answers to know why some learners are more successful than others. The book introduces in a warm, friendly, first-person, engaging fashion a range of fundamental concepts - such as SLA in adults and children, in formal and informal learning contexts, and in diverse sociocultural settings - and takes (in the tradition of Gass & Selinker) an interdisciplinary approach, encouraging students to consider SLA from linguistic, psychological, and social perspectives."Second Language Acquisition: This book is designed to inspire readers to reach for their dreams in language learning. Buy this book. Read it. Share it with everyone you know. You - and they - will be glad you did!


Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World

Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World

Author:

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2010-04-06

Total Pages: 1320

ISBN-13: 0080877753

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Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World is an authoritative single-volume reference resource comprehensively describing the major languages and language families of the world. It will provide full descriptions of the phonology, semantics, morphology, and syntax of the world's major languages, giving insights into their structure, history and development, sounds, meaning, structure, and language family, thereby both highlighting their diversity for comparative study, and contextualizing them according to their genetic relationships and regional distribution.Based on the highly acclaimed and award-winning Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, this volume will provide an edited collection of almost 400 articles throughout which a representative subset of the world's major languages are unfolded and explained in up-to-date terminology and authoritative interpretation, by the leading scholars in linguistics. In highlighting the diversity of the world's languages — from the thriving to the endangered and extinct — this work will be the first point of call to any language expert interested in this huge area. No other single volume will match the extent of language coverage or the authority of the contributors of Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World. - Extraordinary breadth of coverage: a comprehensive selection of just under 400 articles covering the world's major languages, language families, and classification structures, issues and dispute - Peerless quality: based on 20 years of academic development on two editions of the leading reference resource in linguistics, Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics - Unique authorship: 350 of the world's leading experts brought together for one purpose - Exceptional editorial selection, review and validation process: Keith Brown and Sarah Ogilvie act as first-tier guarantors for article quality and coverage - Compact and affordable: one-volume format makes this suitable for personal study at any institution interested in areal, descriptive, or comparative language study - and at a fraction of the cost of the full encyclopedia


Morphologie

Morphologie

Author: G. E. Booij

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 1184

ISBN-13: 311017278X

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This series of HANDBOOKS OF LINGUISTICS AND COMMUNICATION SCIENCE is designed to illuminate a field which not only includes general linguistics and the study of linguistics as applied to specific languages, but also covers those more recent areas which have developed from the increasing body of research into the manifold forms of communicative action and interaction. For "classic" linguistics there appears to be a need for a review of the state of the art which will provide a reference base for the rapid advances in research undertaken from a variety of theoretical standpoints, while in the more recent branches of communication science the handbooks will give researchers both an verview and orientation. To attain these objectives, the series will aim for a standard comparable to that of the leading handbooks in other disciplines, and to this end will strive for comprehensiveness, theoretical explicitness, reliable documentation of data and findings, and up-to-date methodology. The editors, both of the series and of the individual volumes, and the individual contributors, are committed to this aim. The languages of publication are English, German, and French. The main aim of the series is to provide an appropriate account of the state of the art in the various areas of linguistics and communication science covered by each of the various handbooks; however no inflexible pre-set limits will be imposed on the scope of each volume. The series is open-ended, and can thus take account of further developments in the field. This conception, coupled with the necessity of allowing adequate time for each volume to be prepared with the necessary care, means that there is no set time-table for the publication of the whole series. Each volume will be a self-contained work, complete in itself. The order in which the handbooks are published does not imply any rank ordering, but is determined by the way in which the series is organized; the editor of the whole series enlist a competent editor for each individual volume. Once the principal editor for a volume has been found, he or she then has a completely free hand in the choice of co-editors and contributors. The editors plan each volume independently of the others, being governed only by general formal principles. The series editor only intervene where questions of delineation between individual volumes are concerned. It is felt that this (modus operandi) is best suited to achieving the objectives of the series, namely to give a competent account of the present state of knowledge and of the perception of the problems in the area covered by each volume.


Arguments and Agreement

Arguments and Agreement

Author: Peter Ackema

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2006-09-28

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 019928573X

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This book explores the role of agreement morphology in the morphosyntactic realization of a verb's arguments. It examines the differences and parallels between configurational and nonconfigurational languages, languages that allow pronoun drop only in particular constructions, and languages which always require overt syntactic determiner phrases as arguments. These and related issues are explored in the context of a wide range of languages. The book will interest linguists at graduate level and above concerned with morphosyntactic theory, typology, and the interactions of syntax and morphology in different languages.


Basic Linguistic Theory Volume 2

Basic Linguistic Theory Volume 2

Author: R. M. W. Dixon

Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 508

ISBN-13: 0199571074

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In Basic Linguistic Theory R. M. W. Dixon provides a comprehensive guide to the nature of human languages and their description and analysis. The books are a one-stop text for undergraduate and graduate students, the triumphant outcome of a lifetime's immersion in every aspect of language, and a lasting monument to innovative scholarship.