Grammatical Change in Indo-European Languages
Grammatical Change in Indo-European Languages

Author: Vit Bubenik

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2009-07-16

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 9027289298

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The product of a group of scholars who have been working on new directions in Historical Linguistics, this book is focused on questions of grammatical change, and the central issue of grammaticalization in Indo-European languages. Several studies examine particular problems in specific languages, but often with implications for the IE phylum as a whole. Given the historical scope of the data (over a period of four millennia) long range grammatical changes such as the development of gender differences, strategies of definiteness, the prepositional phrase, or of the syntax of the verbal diathesis and aspect, are also treated. The shifting relevance of morphology to syntax, and syntax to morphology, a central motif of this research, has provoked lively debate in the discipline of Historical Linguistics.

Gender in Indo-European
Gender in Indo-European

Author: Ranko Matasović

Publisher: Universitatsverlag Winter

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13:

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This book discusses the origin and history of the grammatical category of gender in the Indo-European family of languages. Gender systems of Proto-Indo-European (PIE), and of the various daughter languages are assessed from historical, typological, and areal points of view. In addition, common properties and tendencies (or drift) in the development of gender in different Indo-European branches are presented. The formal and semantic principles of gender assignment in PIE are examined on the basis of a reconstructed lexicon of PIE nouns, and the scope of gender agreement in the proto-language is reconstructed by comparing the agreement rules in the early Indo-European dialects. The Early PIE two-gender system and the development of the feminine gender in Late PIE are also discussed, and finally the PIE gender system is contrasted with the typologically rather different gender systems found in the neighboring areas of Eurasia.

A Language of Our Own
A Language of Our Own

Author: Peter Bakker

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1997-06-05

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0195357086

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The Michif language -- spoken by descendants of French Canadian fur traders and Cree Indians in western Canada -- is considered an "impossible language" since it uses French for nouns and Cree for verbs, and comprises two different sets of grammatical rules. Bakker uses historical research and fieldwork data to present the first detailed analysis of this language and how it came into being.

The Cambridge Handbook of Germanic Linguistics
The Cambridge Handbook of Germanic Linguistics

Author: Michael T. Putnam

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-04-16

Total Pages: 1207

ISBN-13: 1108386350

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The Germanic language family ranges from national languages with standardized varieties, including German, Dutch and Danish, to minority languages with relatively few speakers, such as Frisian, Yiddish and Pennsylvania German. Written by internationally renowned experts of Germanic linguistics, this Handbook provides a detailed overview and analysis of the structure of modern Germanic languages and dialects. Organized thematically, it addresses key topics in the phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics of standard and nonstandard varieties of Germanic languages from a comparative perspective. It also includes chapters on second language acquisition, heritage and minority languages, pidgins, and urban vernaculars. The first comprehensive survey of this vast topic, the Handbook is a vital resource for students and researchers investigating the Germanic family of languages and dialects.

The Prehistory of Languages
The Prehistory of Languages

Author: Mary R. Haas

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2018-12-03

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 3110881640

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No detailed description available for "The Prehistory of Languages".

Comparative Indo-European Linguistics
Comparative Indo-European Linguistics

Author: Robert S.P. Beekes

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2011-10-18

Total Pages: 441

ISBN-13: 9027285004

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This book gives a comprehensive introduction to Comparative Indo-European Linguistics. It starts with a presentation of the languages of the family (from English and the other Germanic languages, the Celtic and Slavic languages, Latin, Greek and Sanskrit through Armenian and Albanian) and a discussion of the culture and origin of the Indo-Europeans, the speakers of the Indo-European proto-language.The reader is introduced into the nature of language change and the methods of reconstruction of older language stages, with many examples (from the Indo-European languages). A full description is given of the sound changes, which makes it possible to follow the origin of the different Indo-European languages step by step. This is followed by a discussion of the development of all the morphological categories of Proto-Indo-European. The book presents the latest in scholarly insights, like the laryngeal and glottalic theory, the accentuation, the ablaut patterns, and these are systematically integrated into the treatment. The text of this second edition has been corrected and updated by Michiel de Vaan. Sixty-six new exercises enable the student to practice the reconstruction of PIE phonology and morphology.

Studies on the Collective and Feminine in Indo-European from a Diachronic and Typological Perspective
Studies on the Collective and Feminine in Indo-European from a Diachronic and Typological Perspective

Author: Sergio Neri

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2014-01-16

Total Pages: 390

ISBN-13: 9004264957

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This volume contains thirteen contributions on the origin of the feminine gender and its relation to the collective in the Indo-European parent language. The Indo-European daughter languages have got mostly a three-gender system, however the early attested Anatolian languages owned only two genders. In this respect, it is debatable whether the feminine gender is primary or arose secondarily from another morphological category. Due to special morphological and morphosyntactic phenomena it is also questionable whether the neuter plural of the individual languages continues an inflectional category or it was rather grammaticalized from an original word formation category collective. The authors suggest different approaches on the question of the relationship between feminine and collective.

The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World
The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World

Author: J. P. Mallory

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2006-08-24

Total Pages: 756

ISBN-13: 0199287910

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The authors introduce Proto-Indo-European describing its construction and revealing the people who spoke it between 5,500 and 8,000 years ago. Using archaeological evidence and natural history they reconstruct the lives, passions, culture, society and mythology of the Proto-Indo-Europeans.

Le Ou La?
Le Ou La?

Author: Marie Surridge

Publisher: Multilingual Matters

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 100

ISBN-13: 9781853592683

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A practical manual designed to help students of French to conquer the problem of genders. The author simplifies the task by divining words into lexical categories, simple versus complex nouns and day-to-day versus learned vocabulary. The activities aim to facilitate learning by encouraging the use of adjectives and structures which mark genders clearly.