Language Contact and Change in Mesoamerica and Beyond
Language Contact and Change in Mesoamerica and Beyond

Author: Karen Dakin

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2017-06-30

Total Pages: 451

ISBN-13: 9027265712

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Language-contact phenomena in Mesoamerica and adjacent regions present an exciting field for research that has the potential to significantly contribute to our understanding of language contact and the role that it plays in language change. This volume presents and analyzes fresh empirical data from living and/or extinct Mesoamerican languages (from the Mayan, Uto-Aztecan, Totonac-Tepehuan and Otomanguean groups), neighboring non-Mesoamerican languages (Apachean, Arawakan, Andean languages), as well as Spanish. Language-contact effects in these diverse languages and language groups are typically analyzed by different subfields of linguistics that do not necessarily interact with one another. It is hoped that this volume, which contains works from different scholarly traditions that represent a variety of approaches to the study of language contact, will contribute to the lessening of this compartmentalization. The volume is relevant to researchers of language contact and contact-induced change and to anyone interested both in the historical development and present features of indigenous languages of the Americas and Latin American Spanish.

Missionary Linguistic Studies from Mesoamerica to Patagonia
Missionary Linguistic Studies from Mesoamerica to Patagonia

Author: Astrid Alexander-Bakkerus

Publisher: Brill's Studies in Language, C

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 9789004424609

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This volume presents the results of in-depth studies of grammars, vocabularies, and religious texts, dating from the sixteenth - nineteenth century. The researches involve twenty indigenous Mesoamerican and South American languages, including: Nahuatl (Mexico), Pukina (Peru); Tehuelche (Patagonia).

Missionary Linguistic Studies from Mesoamerica to Patagonia
Missionary Linguistic Studies from Mesoamerica to Patagonia

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-06-02

Total Pages: 339

ISBN-13: 9004427007

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Missionary Linguistic Studies from Mesoamerica to Patagonia presents the results of in-depth studies of grammars, vocabularies and religious texts, dating from the sixteenth – nineteenth century. The researches involve twenty (extinct) indigenous Mesoamerican and South American languages: Matlatzinca, Mixtec, Nahuatl, Purépecha, Zapotec (Mexico); K’iche, Kaqchikel (Guatemala); Amage, Aymara, Cholón, Huarpe, Kunza, Mochica, Mapudungun, Proto-Tacanan, Pukina, Quechua, Uru-Chipaya (Peru); Tehuelche (Patagonia); (Tupi-)Guarani (Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay). The results of the studies include: a) a digital model of a good, conveniently arranged vocabulary, applicable to all indigenous Amerindian languages; b) disclosure of intertextual relationships, language contacts, circulation of knowledge; c) insights in grammatical structures; d) phone analyses; e) transcriptions, so that the texts remain accessible for further research. f) the architecture of grammars; g) conceptual evolutions and innovations in grammaticography.

Headless Relative Clauses in Mesoamerican Languages
Headless Relative Clauses in Mesoamerican Languages

Author: Associate Professor of Linguistics Ivano Caponigro

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2020-12-15

Total Pages: 579

ISBN-13: 0197518370

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This volume constitutes the first in-depth, systematic study of varieties of headless relative clauses in fifteen languages from five language families, all Mesoamerican languages spoken in Mexico and Guatemala and one Chibchan language spoken in Honduras. Headless relative clauses are clauses that often resemble interrogative clauses or headed relative clauses in their morpho-syntactic shape, but whose meaning brings them close to nominal constructions. For the vastmajority of the languages in this volume, many of which are endangered and all of which are understudied, the work presented here represents the only published material on the subject.

The Mesoamerican Indian Languages
The Mesoamerican Indian Languages

Author: Jorge A. Suarez

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1983-04-14

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 9780521296694

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At least a hundred indigenous Indian languages are known to have been spoken in Mesoamerica, but it is only in the past fifty years that many of them have been adequately described. Professor Suárez draws together this considerable mass of scholarship in a general survey that will provide an invaluable source of reference.

Relative Clause Structure in Mesoamerican Languages
Relative Clause Structure in Mesoamerican Languages

Author: Enrique L. Palancar

Publisher: Brill's Studies in the Indigen

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 9789004467750

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"As the first major survey of relative clause structure in the indigenous languages of Mesoamerica, this volume comprises a collection of original, in-depth studies of relative constructions in representative languages from across Mexico and Central America, based on empirical data collected by the authors themselves. The studies not only reveal the complex and fascinating nature of relative clauses in the languages in question, but they also shed invaluable light on how Mesoamerica came to be one of the richest and most diverse linguistic areas on our planet. Contributors are: Eric Campbell, Claudine Chamoreau, Lucero Flores Nájera, Silviano Jiménez Jiménez, Óscar López Nicolás, Eladio (B'alam) Mateo Toledo, Enrique L. Palancar, and Roberto Zavala Maldonado"--

Missionary Linguistics/Lingüística misionera
Missionary Linguistics/Lingüística misionera

Author: Otto Zwartjes

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2004-08-31

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 9027285411

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When the first European missionaries arrived on other continents, it was decided that the indigenous languages would be used as the means of christianization. There emerged the need to produce grammars and dictionaries of those languages. The study of this linguistic material has so far not received sufficient attention in the field of linguistic historiography. This volume is the first published collection of papers on missionary linguistics world-wide; it represents the insights of recent research, containing an introduction and papers on methodology, meta-historiography, the historical and cultural background. The book contains studies about early-modern linguistic works written in Spanish, Portuguese, English and French, describing among others indigenous languages from North America and Australia, Maya, Quechua, Xhosa, Japanese, Kapampangan, and Visaya. Topics dealt with include: innovations of individual missionaries in lexicography, grammatical analysis, phonology, morphology, or syntax; creativity in descriptive techniques; differences and/or similarities of works from different continents, and different religious backgrounds (Catholic or Protestant).

Information Structure in Isthmus Zapotec Narrative and Conversation
Information Structure in Isthmus Zapotec Narrative and Conversation

Author: Juan José Bueno Holle

Publisher:

Published: 2020-10-09

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 9781013292927

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This book presents an in-depth description of information structure in Isthmus Zapotec, an Otomanguean language spoken by around 50,000 people in southeastern Oaxaca, Mexico, and represents the first book-length treatment of information structure in a Mesoamerican language. Three main observations motivate the study: Strong documentation and a relatively large and active speaker community create a unique opportunity to document information structure in Isthmus Zapotec and to study the language as it is used by speakers in everyday life; As a tonal and verb-initial language, the examination of Isthmus Zapotec represents a chance to explore the possible combinations of tone, intonation, morphology and verb-initial syntax that may occur in the coding of information structure. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

Loans in Colonial and Modern Nahuatl
Loans in Colonial and Modern Nahuatl

Author: Agnieszka Brylak

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2020-11-23

Total Pages: 869

ISBN-13: 3110591928

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The dictionary expands on the original idea of Karttunen and Lockhart to map the usage of loans in Nahuatl, by using a much larger and diversified corpus of sources, and by including contextual use, missing in earlier studies. Most importantly, these sources enrich the colonial corpus with modern data – significantly expanding on our knowledge on language continuity and change.

Language Contacts in Prehistory
Language Contacts in Prehistory

Author: Henning Andersen

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 9781588113795

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Every language includes layers of lexical and grammatical elements that entered it at different times in the more or less distant past. Hence, for periods preceding our earliest historical documentation, linguistic stratigraphy the systematic study of such layers may yield information about the prehistory of a given tradition of speaking in a variety of ways. For instance, irregular phonological reflexes may be evidence of the convergence of diverse dialects in the formation of a language, and layers of material from different source languages may form a record of changing cultural contacts in the past. In this volume are discussed past problems and current advances in the stratigraphy of Indo-European, African, Southeast Asian, Australian, Oceanic, Japanese, and Meso-American languages.