The Locus of Linguistic Variation
The Locus of Linguistic Variation

Author: Constantine Lignos

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2018-09-06

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 9027263663

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This volume explores how the patterning of surface variation can shed light on the grammatical representation of variable phenomena. The authors explore variation in several domains, addressing intra- and inter-dialectal patterns, using diverse sources of data including corpora of naturally-occurring speech and judgment studies, and drawing on lesser-studied varieties of familiar languages, such as Northwest British Englishes and varieties of Canadian French. Ultimately, the contributions serve to expand our understanding of the nature of the mental representations and abstract processes required to support variation in language. Originally published as special issue of Linguistic Variation 16:2 (2016)

Sociocultural and Historical Contexts of African American English
Sociocultural and Historical Contexts of African American English

Author: Sonja L. Lanehart

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 396

ISBN-13: 9781588110466

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This volume, based on presentations at a 1998 state of the art conference at the University of Georgia, critically examines African American English (AAE) socially, culturally, historically, and educationally. It explores the relationship between AAE and other varieties of English (namely Southern White Vernaculars, Gullah, and Caribbean English creoles), language use in the African American community (e.g., Hip Hop, women's language, and directness), and application of our knowledge about AAE to issues in education (e.g., improving overall academic success). To its credit (since most books avoid the issue), the volume also seeks to define the term 'AAE' and challenge researchers to address the complexity of defining a language and its speakers. The volume collectively tries to help readers better understand language use in the African American community and how that understanding benefits all who value language variation and the knowledge such study brings to our society.

Language Variety in the South Revisited
Language Variety in the South Revisited

Author: Cynthia Bernstein

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Published: 2014-01-22

Total Pages: 656

ISBN-13: 0817357440

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Top linguists from diverse fields address language varieties in the South. Language Variety in the South Revisited is a comprehensive collection of new research on southern United States English by foremost scholars of regional language variation. Like its predecessor, Language Variety in the South: Perspectives in Black and White (The University of Alabama Press, 1986), this book includes current research into African American vernacular English, but it greatly expands the scope of investigation and offers an extensive assessment of the field. The volume encompasses studies of contact involving African and European languages; analysis of discourse, pragmatic, lexical, phonological, and syntactic features; and evaluations of methods of collecting and examining data. The 38 essays not only offer a wealth of information about southern language varieties but also serve as models for regional linguistic investigation.

Englishes Around the World: General studies, British Isles, North America
Englishes Around the World: General studies, British Isles, North America

Author: Edgar Werner Schneider

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 1997-01-01

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 9027248761

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The two volumes of Englishes around the World present high-quality original research papers written in honour of Manfred Görlach, founder and editor of the journal English World-Wide and the book series Varieties of English Around the World. The papers thematically focus on the field that Manfred Görlach has helped to build and shape. Volume 1 contains articles on general topics and studies of what might be termed “Old” Englishes, varieties of English that have been rooted in their respective regions for a long time and have been traditional focal points of scholarly study. The first section contains eight general and comparative papers (dealing with terminological matters or definitions of core concepts, historical issues, structural comparisons across a wide range of varieties); the second one has nine papers on dialects of English as used in the British Isles (covering England, Scotland, Ulster and Ireland); and finally, there are four contributions on North American varieties of English (including Southern English, African American Vernacular English, Newfoundland Vernacular English, and American English in a historical perspective). The thematic scope comprises the levels of lexis, phonology, morphology, syntax, pragmatics, and orthography, as well as sociohistorical issues, the question of the evolution and transmission of dialects, various sources of evidence including literary dialect.

Polymorphous Linguistics
Polymorphous Linguistics

Author: Salikoko Mufwene

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2005-05-13

Total Pages: 590

ISBN-13: 9780262262712

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James McCawley (1938-1999) was one of the most significant linguists of the latter half of the twentieth century. His legacy to a generation of linguists encompasses not only his work in phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and the philosophy of language but also his emphasis on bridging research in linguistics with that in other disciplines, from anthropology and psychology to physics and biology. This book, written by his former students—all now scholars in their own right—pays tribute to McCawley by pursuing questions about language that engaged him during his career. The variety of perspectives in these essays reflects McCawley's eclecticism as well his belief that what is important in scholarly work is not the analytic framework used but the insights reached. The book considers topics in phonology; syntax, with several essays on Indic languages (in which McCawley had a special interest) as well as one on African-American English; tense, aspect, and mood; semantics and pragmatics, with essays in these areas grouped together to reflect the intertwining of McCawley's work on these subjects; knowledge of language; and the treatment of language, with its implicit colonial biases, in the 11th edition of Encyclopedia Britannica.

Approaches to Hungarian
Approaches to Hungarian

Author: Tibor Laczkó

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 9027204829

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This volume contains eight papers, all presented at the 9th International Conference on the Structure of Hungarian (University of Debrecen, 2009), addressing a great variety of topics in the syntax, morphology, phonology, and semantics of Hungarian, and also offering discussion of related phenomena in other languages. The volume includes a syntax-based analysis of Hungarian external causatives in the framework of the Minimalist Program (MP); argumentation for the lack of phonological or acoustic evidence for secondary stress in Hungarian; an MP approach to a Hungarian modal construction with a counterfactual, reproaching reading; empirical arguments for assuming that in the case of embedded sentences factivity is irrelevant for syntax, and clauses are differentiated by referentiality; a comprehensive semantic account of result states in Hungarian; a claim that certain paradigmatic/morphophonological variation in the Hungarian verbal paradigm is caused by conflicting paradigmatic pressures; a purely interface-based MP account of the syntax of identificational focus in Hungarian; and an analysis of arbitrarily interpreted null subjects in Hungarian with third person, plural agreement on the finite and infinitival verb. The volume will be of interest not just to scholars working on Hungarian, but to a general audience of generative linguists.