Historical and comparative linguistics Books

Book SynopsisAdvanced Grammar is a new, advanced-level grammar course that prepares English language learners for academic work. Its unique approach helps students master written grammar with the use of authentic academic sources and prepares them to read extensive academic texts, write and present using academic language, and process complex academic content. Advanced Grammar focuses on the academic forms and uses of grammatical structures without oversimplifying either the content or the grammar structures. This approach is made possible by the authentic textbook content upon which each chapter is based. Features In-depth exposure to authentic academic language via textbook excerpts. Students become accustomed to and use authentic academic language as it is spoken and written. Rigorous and authentic readings from a variety of academic disciplines. Students are exposed to rich content that illustrates examples of gramTable of ContentsPart 1: The Verb Tense System: Using Academic Verb Tense Patterns (Academic Discipline: Computer Science)Chapter 1: Review of Verb TensesChapter 2: Passive VerbsChapter 3: Modal Auxiliary VerbsPart 1: Putting It All Together Part 2: Noun and Noun Phrases: Adding Variety and Detail (Academic Discipline: Sociology)Chapter 4: Noun FunctionsChapter 5: Elements of Noun Phrases: PremodifiersChapter 6: Elements of Noun Phrases: PostmodifiersPart 2: Putting It All Together Part 3: Adjective Clauses and Phrases: Adding Description, Prediction, Historical Explanation, and Emphasis (Academic Discipline: History)Chapter 7: Review of Adjective ClausesChapter 8: Reduced Adjective Clauses and Adjective PhrasesChapter 9: Academic Uses of Adjective Clauses, Phrases, and Cleft ReferencesPart 3: Putting It All Together Part 4: Adverb Clauses, Adverb Phrases and Other Structures that Express Complex Relationships (Academic Discipline: Anthropology)Chapter 10: Adverb Clauses and Other Structures that Express Time, Cause/Effect, Purpose, and MannerChapter 11: Adverb Clauses and Other Structures that Express Concession, Contrast, and ConditionChapter 12: Reduced Adverb Clauses and Absolute ConstructionsPart 4: Putting It All Together Part 5: Noun Clauses (Academic Discipline: Physics)Chapter 13: Noun Clauses Used as ObjectsChapter 14: Noun Clauses Used as Subjects, Complements, and AppositivesChapter 15: Noun Clauses Used for Academic PurposesPart 5: Putting It All Together ReferencesBibliographyAppendix A: Vocabulary PracticeAppendix B: Writing and Speaking GuidelinesAppendix C: Answer Keys for Appendix AAppendix D: Answer Keys for "What Did You Learn?"Glossary of Grammar and Writing Terms

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Book SynopsisIn Pop Goes the Weasel, Albert Jack explores the strange and fascinating histories behind the nursery rhymes we thought we knew, showing that their real meanings are far from innocent.Who were Mary Quite Contrary and Georgie Porgie? How could Hey Diddle Diddle offer an essential astronomy lesson? And if Ring a Ring a Roses isn''t about catching the plague, then what is it really about? This ingenious book delves into the hidden meanings of the nursery rhymes and songs we all know so well and discovers all kinds of strange tales ranging from Viking raids to firewalking and from political rebellion to slaves being smuggled to freedom.From the grim true story behind ''Oranges and Lemons'' to the deadly secrets of Mary Quite Contrary''s garden, and from how Lucy Locket lost more than her pocket to why Humpty Dumpty wasn''t egg-shaped at all, Pop Goes the Weasel is a compendium of surprising stories you won''t be able to resist passing on to everyone Trade ReviewAn irresistible treasure-trove ... The way these gossipy little rhymes give us a snapshot of everyday life in centuries gone by is enchanting. You'll never look at nursery rhymes again in the same way * Daily Mirror *The history behind nursery rhymes is not only highly specific but often splendidly grim. This book is a reminder of the riches below the surface: characters, jokes, events and stories * The Times *

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Book SynopsisEnglish Vocabulary Elements draws on the tools of modern linguistics to help students acquire an effective understanding of learned, specialized, and scientific vocabulary. This fully refined and updated edition helps develop familiarity with over 500 Latin and Greek word elements in English and shows how these roots are the building blocks within thousands of different words. Along the way, the authors introduce and illustrate many of the fundamental concepts of linguistics, sketch word origins going back to Latin, Greek, and even Proto-Indo-European, and discuss issues around meaning change and correct usage. Moreover, the volume adds new illustrative examples, self-help tests, and study questions. A companion website provides supplementary materials including an Instructor''s Manual with an answer key. Offering a thorough approach to the expansion of vocabulary, English Vocabulary Elements is an invaluable resource that provides students a deeper understanding of the language.Trade ReviewLeben, Kessler, and Denning have created a winning combination of the practical and the academic in English Vocabulary Elements, now in its third edition. This latest edition features a companion website that makes for a seamless and enjoyable learning experience for students looking to improve their English vocabulary through linguistic analysis. * Mark Aronoff, Distinguished Professor of Linguistics, Stony Brook University *English Vocabulary Elements is the best college-level introduction to English words and the system behind their structure and use that is available. College students, English teachers, and anyone interested in using English will benefit from this remarkably broad and thorough examination of the rich lexical resources of English. * Suzanne Kemmer, Associate Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Sciences, Rice University *Table of ContentsPreface List of Figures List of Tables Symbols and Abbreviations 1. The Wealth of English 2. The History of English and Sources of English Vocabulary 3. Morphology: The Structure of Complex Words 4. Allomorphy 5. Phonetics 6. Regular Allomorphy; Numeric Elements 7. Meaning Change 8. Usage and Variation 9. Latin and Greek morphology 10. The Prehistory of English and the Other Indo- European Languages 11. Later Changes: From Latin to French to English Appendix 1. Elements to Glosses Appendix 2. Glosses to Elements Glossary Further Reading and Research Tools Index

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Book SynopsisIn 1578, the Anglo-Italian author, translator, and teacher John Florio wrote that English was ''a language that wyl do you good in England, but passe Dover, it is woorth nothing''.Learning Languages in Early Modern England Learning Languages in Early Modern England is the first major study of how English-speakers learnt a variety of continental vernacular languages in the period between 1480 and 1720. English was practically unknown outside of England, which meant that the English who wanted to travel and trade with the wider world in this period had to become language-learners. Using a wide range of printed and manuscript sources, from multilingual conversation manuals to travellers'' diaries and letters where languages mix and mingle,Learning Languages explores how early modern English-speakers learned and used foreign languages, and asks what it meant to be competent in another language in the past. Beginning with language lessons in early modern England, it offers a new perspective on England''s ''educational revolution''. John Gallagher looks for the first time at the whole corpus of conversation manuals written for English language-learners, and uses these texts to pose groundbreaking arguments about reading, orality, and language in the period. He also reconstructs the practices of language-learning and multilingual communication which underlay early modern travel.Learning Languages in Early Modern England offers a new and innovative study of a set of practices and experiences which were crucial to England''s encounter with the wider world, and to the fashioning of English linguistic and cultural identities at home. Interdisciplinary in its approaches and broad in its chronological and thematic scope, this volume places language-learning and multilingualism at the heart of early modern British and European history.Trade Review[Learning Languages] exemplifies the benefit of combining cutting-edge historical research with historical sociolinguistics ... [Gallagher] handles a wealth of multilingual manuscripts — language exercises, diaries, notebooks, and correspondence — that connect three layers: texts, oral speech and pronunciation, as well as social communication. ... This work comprehensively combines ideas and approaches from the histories of education, books, and travel with social and cultural history. ... From extracurricular education to conversation manuals and travellers' accounts, it illuminates the dynamics of language learning and multilingualism in early modern England and its encounters with continental Europe. * Weiao Xing, Journal of Historical Sciolinguistics *Learning Languages in Early Modern England offers a fresh account both of the desire for foreign languages that animated early modern English culture and of some of the means pursued by the English in order to acquire them. It will be indispensable for readers interested in the histories of English foreign relations and travel as well as for those whose research treats the history of languages instruction more narrowly. * Rory G. Critten, Journal of British Studies *Gallagher... assembles a rich body of documentary evidence to illustrate the methods and social importance of instruction in vernacular languages. ... Gallagher's main point is simple but powerful: 'early modern England was multilingual.' ...[He has] given us a picture of an early modern England made louder and more boisterous by print, not silenced by it. Printed books made foreign languages more accessible, even to those without a private teacher or the funds to travel. Overseas trade and global politics resulted in greater interest in foreign tongues, with books on Arabic, Malay and Narragansett as well as the Continental standards. Immigrants take their place here as teachers, authors of foreign-language manuals, and students of English in their own right. This is a story of England finding its many voices. * Irina Dumitrescu, London Review of Books *The methodological tools and historical contexts... will be of much use to both historians and literary scholars... Gallagher's concepts are clearly defined and arguments well developed... Learning Languages in Early Modern England is a significant contribution to scholarly conversations about historical multilingualism, education, language acquisition, and intellectual economies and networks; it will be found of much interest and importance not just to the student of English cultural history, but to anyone with an interest in textual production and/or social interactions in the early modern period, who will be inspired by its arguments about the role of languages and learning in people's lived experience in the period, and aided by its clarity of thought and organization. * Sjoerd Levelt, Renaissance Studies *Gallagher is meticulous in his work, and bases his narrative on early modern primary records. ...The sheer volume of Gallagher's sources is convincing, and the society that he describes is one where polyglot men and women of different classes delight in 'speaking tongues'. ...Gallagher also explains why learning another language was important in early modern England, and this may offer a different perspective to the one we have on that society. * Onyeka Nubia, Social History *How English men and women of the late 15th to the early 18th century went about doing so is the subject of John Gallagher's fascinating new book, a welcome attempt to show that the history of language encompasses much more than just the history of words. * Fara Dabhoiwala, The Guardian *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1: Extracurricular Economy: Language Teachers and Language Schools in Early-Modern England 2: Speaking Books: The Early-Modern Conversation Manual 3: To Be Languaged: Early-Modern Linguistic Competences 4: A Conversable Knowledge: Language-Learning and Educational Travel Conclusion

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Book SynopsisThis book explores the contemporary phenomenon of English as an international language, and sets out to analyse how and why the language has become so dominant. It looks at the spread of English historically, at the role it plays in Third World countries, and at the ideologies transmitted through the English language.Trade Review'What is original about his treatise is that it provides the first systematic examination of the enormous significance of language to most neo-colonial enterprises. It should be recommended to anyone convinced of the 'superiority' of the English language or of the necessity of its universal dissemination.' * New Internationalist (21/09/1995) *'This is an important, groundbreaking study of the political background and impact of the spread of English. Congratulations are due to Phillipson for having taken on this task ... Phillipson has tackled a topic of major proportion and his work shows his wide reading of a large number of interesting sources ... He has drawn attention dramatically to important issues that have so far been mainly ignored and that cry out for continued investigation, and his book should be required reading for all concerned with the development and implementation of language policy.' * Journal of Pragmatics (12/02/1996) *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements ; 1. ELT: Taking stock of a world commodity ; The aims of this book ; English for all? ; Professional and ethical aspects of ELT 'aid' ; Notes ; 2. English, the dominant language ; English in core English-speaking countries ; English in periphery-English countries ; Language promotion ; Opposition to the dominance of English ; Notes ; 3. Linguistic imperialism: theoretical foundations ; A cautionary word on terminology ; A working definition of English linguistic imperialism ; Linguistic imperialism and linguicism ; Cultural imperialism in science, the media, and education ; The State, hegemony, and ELT ; Notes ; 4. Earlier work relevant to linguistic imperialism ; Language spread ; The sociology of language ; Language planning ; Theoretical models of language teaching and learning ; Linguistic human rights ; Two approaches, Wardhaugh and Calvet ; Notes ; 5. The colonial linguistic inheritance ; Their masters' language ; Colonial educational language policy and practice ; The importance of English as a colonial inheritance ; Notes ; 6. British and American promotion of English ; The origins and structure of the British Council ; The British strategy for expanding ELT ; American promotion of English ; Anglo-American collaboration ; Notes ; 7. Creating a profession: the structure and tenets of ELT ; Creating a British academic base for ELT ; ELT and educational language planning for under-developed countries ; Tenet one: English is best taught monolingually ; Tenet two: the ideal teacher of English is a native speaker ; Tenet three: the earlier English is taught, the better the results ; Tenet four: the more English is taught, the better the results ; Tenet five: if other languages are used much, standards of English will drop ; Conclusions: the legacy of Makerere ; Notes ; 8. English language teaching in action ; ELT research ; ELT in 'aid' to education ; - The overall context of ELT 'aid' ; - EFL, ESL or ... ? ; - Principles for the analysis of ELT in 'aid' ; - Postulate 1: political disconnection ; - Postulate 2: narrowly technical training ; - English for special and new purposes ; Notes ; 9. Arguments in linguistic imperialist discourse ; Types of argument and types of power ; English-intrinsic arguments ; English-extrinsic arguments ; English-functional arguments ; The means used to exert linguistic power ; Arguments in language planning for Namibia ; Notes ; 10. Linguistic imperialism and ELT ; ELT: master-minded? ; On the force of the evidence ; Studying ELT and imperialism ; Notes ; Bibliography ; Index

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Book SynopsisThe 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.Trade ReviewA language of our own is an extremely valuable book, not only for linguistics, but also for many other disciplines outside linguistics. Throughout the book Bakker is careful and complete. He remains calm and analytical. He does not let popular ideas distract him; he takes nothing for granted. His writing style is very pleasant. At times it can be read as an exciting novel, and his choice of vocabulary makes it so the book can be read by a relatively broad audience. * The Carrier Pidgin, Vol 28 No 1-3, *Peter Bakker's book is an excellent account of the birth of Michif ... Bakker's monograph is the first detailed account of the birth of a mixed language, and hopefully it will be the start of a rich tradition ... This is a pioneering work of high quality that deserves to be followed up by more studies in this field. * The Carrier Pidgin, Vol 28, No 1-3 *"Bakker's work is of great originality and erudition--and even greater ambition: there has been no comparable attempt to deal with an issue that is so intractable and at the same time of such surpassing interest for the theory of language contact and linguistic theory itself."--H.C. Wolfart, University of Manitoba"A major contribution, this book presents a sensible, intensively researched solution to a problem that has long challenged scholars....Linguists, historians, and all students of Métis culture and history will be much in debt to Peter Bakker for his analytical breakthroughs in this field."--Jennifer S.H. Brown, University of Winnipeg

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Book SynopsisIn How to Kill a Dragon Calvert Watkins follows the continuum of poetic formulae in Indo-European languages, from Old Hittite to medieval Irish. He uses the comparative method to reconstruct traditional poetic formulae of considerable complexity that stretch as far back as the original common language. Thus, Watkins reveals the antiquity and tenacity of the Indo- European poetic tradition. Watkins begins this study with an introduction to the field of comparative Indo-European poetics; he explores the Saussurian notions of synchrony and diachrony, and locates the various Indo-European traditions and ideologies of the spoken word. Further, his overview presents case studies on the forms of verbal art, with selected texts drawn from Indic, Iranian, Greek, Latin, Hittite, Armenian, Celtic, and Germanic languages. In the remainder of the book, Watkins examines in detail the structure of the dragon/serpent- slaying myths, which recur in various guises throughout the Indo-European poetic tradition. He finds the signature formula for the myth--the divine hero who slays the serpent or overcomes adversaries--occurs in the same linguistic form in a wide range of sources and over millennia, including Old and Middle Iranian holy books, Greek epic, Celtic and Germanic sagas, down to Armenian oral folk epic of the last century. Watkins argues that this formula is the vehicle for the central theme of a proto-text, and a central part of the symbolic culture of speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language: the relation of humans to their universe, the values and expectations of their society. Therefore, he further argues, poetry was a social necessity for Indo- European society, where the poet could confer on patrons what they and their culture valued above all else: imperishable fame.Trade Reviewsince Watkins writes in English, and very readably (exotic material is regularly translated), he will surely dominate Anglophone perceptions of the field ... This is a magnificent work. * N.J.Allen *"...it attests to an extraordinary erudition and unique command of the major ancient IE languages; it contains innumerable original insights and fascinating notes on religion and mythology; it is well written and develops its argument step by step with growing conviction and clarity; altogether, a challenging and stimulating work!"--The Journal of Indo-European Studies"The book...is at once an impressive summation of what has gone before and a bold step forward into new waters...In its methodology, in its breadth, Watkins' book can only be termed a tour de force."--Journal of the American Oriental Society"This book is an inspiring introduction to the problems and techniques of comparative Indo-European poetics and at the same time a major contribution to that field...It is both delightfully entertaining and a very important work..."--The Classical Journal"...[this] rewarding book crowns many decades of thorough and ofter brillant linguistic research."--Religious Studies Review"Watkins builds a compelling case for his interpretations....This work is richly illustrated with examples from relevant literature, with all passages presented both in the original and in translation."--Diachronica"...the sheer mass of the learning in this landmark book by Watkins is overwhelming....the whole book is full of stimulating ideas....We owe a debt of gratitude to Watkins for this massive - and masterly - synthesis of traditional poetics in the Indo-European tradition."--Journal of American FolkloreTable of ContentsABSTRACTS OF INDO-EUROPEAN POLITICS I. The Field of Comparative Poetics: Introduction and Background 1: The comparative method in linguistic and poetics 2: Sketch for a history of Indo-European politics 3: Poetics as grammar: Typology of poetic devices, and some rules of poetic grammar 4: Poetics as repertory: The poetic traditions of the Indo-European world -- sources and texts 5: The Indo-European poet: His social function and his art 6: The poet's truth: The power, particularly, and preservation of the word II. Case Studies 7: Greece and the art of the world 8: Vedic India and the art of the world 9: Ireland and the art of the syllable 10: Saxa loquuntur: The first age of poetry in Italy -- Faliscan and South Picene 11: Most ancient Indo-Europeans 12: The comparison of formulaic sequences 13: An Indo-European stylistic figure 14: A late Indo-European traditional epithet 15: An Indo-European theme and formula: Imperishable fame 16: The hidden track of the cow: Obscure styles in Indo-European III. The Strophic Style: An Indo-European Poetic Form 17: Some Indo-European prayers: Cato's lustration of the fields 18: Umbria: The Tales of Iguvium 19: Italy and India: The elliptic offering 20: Strophic structures as "rhythmic prose"? Italic 21: Strophic structures in Iranian 22: 'Truth of Truth', 'most kavi of kavis', 'throng-lord of throngs': An Indo-Iranian stylistic figure 23: More strophic structures 24: Early Irish rosc 25: The Asvamedha or Horse Sacrifice: An Indo-European Liturgical form 26: Orphic gold leaves and the great way of the soul: Strophic style, funerary ritual formula, and eschatology HOW TO KILL A DRAGON IN INDO-EUROPEAN: A CONTRIBUTION TO THE THEORY OF THE FORUMLA IV. The Basic Forumla and Its Variants in the Narration of the Myth 27: Preliminaries 28: The root *guhen-: Vedic han- 29: The root *guhen-: Avestan jan- 30: The root *guhen-: Hittite kuen- and the Indo-European theme and formula 31: The slayer slain: A reciprocal forumla 32: First variant: The root *uedh- 33: 'Like a reed': The Indo-European background of a Luvian ritual 34: Second variant: the root *terh2- 35: Latin tarentum, the ludi saeculares, and Indo-European eschatology 36: The myth of Greece: Variations on the formula and theme 37: Expansion of the forumla: A recursive formulaic figure 38: Herakles, the formulaic hero 39: Hermes, Enualios, and Lukoworgos: The Serpent-slayer and the Man-slayer 40: Nektar and the adversary Death 41: The saga of Iphitos and the hero as monster 42: The name of Meleager 43: The Germanic world 44: Thor's hammer and the mace of Contract V. Some Indo-European Dragons and Dragon-Slayers 45: Fergus mae Leti and the muirdris 46: Typhoeus and the Illuyankas 47: Python and Ahi Budhnya, the Serpent of the Deep 48: Azi dahaka, Visvarupa, and Greyon VI. From Myth to Epic 49: From God to hero: The formulaic network in Greek 50: The best of the Achaeans 51: To be the death of: Transformation of the formula 52: The forumla without the word: A note on Euripides and Lysias 53: The basic forumla and the announcement of death 54: Further Indo-European comparisons and themes 55: The song of victory in Greek VII. From Myth to Charm 56: From dragon to worm 57: The charms of Indo-European 58: Indo-European medical doctrine 59: The poet as healer

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Book SynopsisBeyond Yellow English is the first edited volume to examine issues of language, identity, and culture among the rapidly growing Asian Pacific American (APA) population. The distinguished contributors-who represent a broad range of perspectives from anthropology, sociolinguistics, English, and education-focus on the analysis of spoken interaction and explore multiple facets of the APA experience. Authors cover topics such as media representations of APAs; codeswitching and language crossing; and narratives of ethnic identity. The collection examines the experiences of Asian Pacific Americans of different ethnicities, generations, ages, and geographic locations across home, school, community, and performance sites.Trade ReviewThis volume is a valuable collection of scholarly work that moves linguistic anthropological and sociolinguistic approaches to Asian Pacific America beyond the stereotype of the inscrutable, closed off, and unapproachable Asian. This book is a significant move "beyond" the restrictive stereotype of "Yellow English." * The Journal of Language in Society, Volume 39-2010 *Table of ContentsTable of Contents ; Contributors ; Part I: Interactional Positionings of Selves and Identities ; Part II: Discursive Constitutions of Groups and Communities ; Part III: Languages in Contact ; Part V: Educational Institutions and Language Acquisition ; Index

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Book SynopsisAll languages change, just as other aspects of human society are constantly changing. This book is an introduction to the concepts and techniques of diachronic linguistics, the study of language change over time. It covers all themajor areas of historical linguistics, presenting concepts in a clear and concise way. Examples are given from a wide range of languages, with special emphasis on the languages of Australia and the Pacific. While the needs of undergraduate students of linguistics have been kept firmly in mind, the book will also be of interest to the general reader seeking to understand langauge and language change. For this fourth edition, a number of new sections have been written, including many new problems and several datasets. Existing materials have been supplemented with new sections on grammaticalization, tonogenesis, morphological change, and using statistical methods in language classification.Trade ReviewBecause of the diversity of the data presented and the completeness displayed in these chapters, this book constitutes an essential tool for linguistics students, and for all readers with a smattering in phonetics ... this updated edition shows that the classic work of T. Crowley remains an essential tool both for its completeness and its simplicity, especially thanks to C. Bowern's addition to this new edition. * Oscar Garcia-Marchena, Lexis *Table of ContentsTables, Figures, Maps, Preface, Phonetic Symbols, Language Maps ; 1. Introduction ; 2. Types of Sound Change ; 3. Expressing Sound Changes ; 4. Phonetic and Phonemic Changes ; 5. The Comparative Method (1): Procedures ; 6. Determining Relatedness ; 7. Internal Reconstruction ; 8. Computational and Statistical Methods ; 9. The Comparative Method (2.) History and Challenges ; 10. Morphological Change ; 11. Semantic and Lexical Change ; 12. Syntactic Change ; 13. Observing Language Change ; 14. Language Contact ; 15. Cultural Reconstruction ; Data Sets ; Language Index ; References ; Endnotes ; Index

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Trade ReviewIn this scholarly yet very readable study, Harrison writes powerfully of the value and beauty of these vanishing knowledge systems. * PD Smith, The Guardian *K. David Harrison makes an excellent case for studying our disappearing languages. Intrepid and dedicated, he is committed to salvaging what he can before it is too late. * Gregory Norminton, TLS *Table of Contents1.: A World of Many (Fewer) Voices 2.: An Extinction of (ideas about) Species 3.: Many Moons Ago: Traditional Calendars and Time-Reckoning Case Study: Urban Nomads of Mongolia 4.: An Atlas in the Mind Case Study: Wheel of Fortune, and a Blessing 5.: Silent Storytellers, Lost Legends Case Study: New Rice vs. Old Knowledge 6.: Counting to Twenty on your Toes Case Study: The Leaf-Cup People, India's Modern Primitives 7.: Worlds within Words Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisLike Carl Darling Buck''s Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin (1933), this book is an explanation of the similarities and differences between Greek and Latin morphology and lexicon through an account of their prehistory. It also aims to discuss the principal features of Indo-European linguistics. Greek and Latin are studied as a pair for cultural reasons only; as languages, they have little in common apart from their Indo-European heritage. Thus the only way to treat the historical bases for their development is to begin with Proto-Indo-European. The only way to make a reconstructed language like Proto-Indo-European intelligible and intellectually defensible is to present at least some of the basis for reconstructing its features and, in the process, to discuss reasoning and methodology of reconstruction (including a weighing of alternative reconstructions). The result is a compendious handbook of Indo-European phonology and morphology, and a vade mecum of Indo-European linguistics Table of ContentsPART I: INTRODUCTION; PART II: PHONOLOGY; PART III: DECLENSION; PART IV: PRONOUNS; PART V: NUMERALS; PART VI: CONJUGATION

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Book SynopsisIt is said to be the most frequently spoken (or typed) word on the planet, more common than an infant''s first word ma or the ever-present beverage Coke. It was even the first word spoken on the moon. It is OK - the most ubiquitous and invisible of American expressions, one used countless times every day. Yet few of us know the secret history of OK - how it was coined, what it stood for, and the amazing extent of its influence.Allan Metcalf here traces the evolution of America''s most popular word, writing with brevity and wit, and ranging across American history with colourful portraits of the nooks and crannies in which OK survived and prospered. He describes how OK was born as a lame joke in a newspaper article in 1839, used as a supposedly humorous abbreviation for oll korrect (i.e, all correct), but should have died a quick death, as most clever coinages do.However OK was swept along in a nineteenth-century fad for abbreviations, was appropriated by a presidential campaign (one ofTrade Reviewwonderfully crafted biography of the world's hardest working word. * Sunday Telegraph *Ok provides a beguiling perspective upon linguistic serendipity * The Independent *intriguing. * Mail on Sunday 2 *Table of ContentsPrologue: The Oddity of OK Chapter 1: The Joke Chapter 2: Old Kinderhook Chapter 3: The Jackson Myth Chapter 4: Telegraphic OK Chapter 5: The Business of OK Chapter 6: OK in Literature Chapter 7: Presidential "okeh" Chapter 8: Okey-Dokey Chapter 9: The Practical OK Chapter 10: The Philosophical OK: Twentieth Century Chapter 11: The Psychological OK Chapter 12: The Philosophical OK: Twenty-first Century Epilogue: OK Around the World

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Book SynopsisThis monograph examines the relationship between women, language and grammar with particular reference to the Italian context between the sixteenth and the end of the nineteenth century, from the codification of Italian as a literary language to the formation of a unified state. It investigates the role played by women in the Italian linguistic tradition as addressees, readers or authors of grammatical texts. In spite of the ever-growing interest in different aspects of women''s life in the Western world through the centuries, little attention has been given up to now to women''s linguistic education, their relationship with grammar and the ideas about their use of language. In the context of Italy, these questions were virtually unexplored. This study is the result of extensive first-hand research and detailed analysis of primary sources (well-known texts, as well as minor and rare ones), brought together for the first time and made available to a wider public. Sources range from moreTrade ReviewThis excellent study ... [is] a thorough and original treatment of a hitherto unexplored aspect of Italian linguistic and literary history. ... It will surely become a standard reference for scholars in linguistic and women's history alike. * Paul Gehl, Historiographia Linguistica *"[An] excellent and stimulating study ... richly detailed and illustrated. * Jane Everson, Times Literary Supplement *Sanson's excellent study proposes a different way of looking at the development of the Italian standard language according to women's perspective ... [it] opens the path for further research in this field ... We wish this book could be translated into Italian. * Jolanda Guardi, Gender and Language *Helena Sanson's book ... stands out for its thorough coverage and its rigorous use of documentary evidence. * Francesco Sberlati, Modern Language Review *An excellent study ... [T]he richness of little-known material brought together and discussed ... is simply astounding [...] reading this learned ... highly enjoyable book is particularly satisfying ... this volume will remain forever as a milestone in the study of women's contribution to linguistics and the study of grammar. * Diego Zancani, Letteratura italiana antica *Table of ContentsPROLOGUE: ON GRAMMAR AND WOMEN ; PART I (SIXTEENTH-SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES) ; PART TWO (EIGHTEENTH-EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURIES) ; PART THREE (THE NINETEENTH CENTURY)

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Book SynopsisThe Andes are of unquestioned significance to the human story: a cradle of agriculture and of ''pristine'' civilisation with a pedigree of millennia. The Incas were but the culmination of a succession of civilisations that rose and fell to leave one of the richest archaeological records on Earth. By no coincidence, the Andes are home also to our greatest surviving link to the speech of the New World before European conquest: the Quechua language family. For linguists, the native tongues of the Andes make for another rich seam of data on origins, expansions and reversals throughout prehistory. Historians and anthropologists, meanwhile, negotiate many pitfalls to interpret the conflicting mytho-histories of the Andes, recorded for us only through the distorting prism of the conquistadors'' world-view.Each of these disciplines opens up its own partial window on the past: very different perspectives, to be sure, but all the more complementary for it. Frustratingly though, specialists in eaTrade ReviewThis book offers a splendid conspectus of issues on many aspects of the Andean past and provides a blueprint for the questions which further researchers should explore. Further examination of such questions will henceforth be unthinkable without students of the topic examining this rich and diverse collection of handsomely-edited papers. * Anthony Grant, Edge Hill University *Table of ContentsIntroduction - Archaeology and Language in the Andes: A Much-Needed Conversation ; Archaeology and Language in the Andes: Some General Models of Change ; Broadening Our Horizons: Towards an Interdisciplinary Prehistory of the Andes ; Modelling the Quechua-Aymara Relationship: Sociolinguistic Scenarios and Possible Archaeological Evidence ; On the Origins of Social Complexity in the Central Andes and Possible Linguistic Correlations ; Central Andean Language Expansion and the Chavin Sphere of Interaction ; The 1st Millennium ad in North Central Peru: Critical Perspectives on a Linguistic Prehistory ; Cajamarca Quechua and the Expansion of the Huari State 155 ; Middle Horizon Imperialism and the Prehistoric Dispersal of Andean Languages ; Indicators of Possible Driving Forces for the Spread of Quechua and Aymara Reflected in the Archaeology of Cuzco ; Unravelling the Enigma of the 'Particular Language' of the Incas ; Accounting for the Spread of Quechua and Aymara Between Cuzco and Lake Titicaca ; The Herder-Cultivator Relationship as a Paradigm for Archaeological Origins, Linguistic Dispersals and the Evolution of Record Keeping in the Andes ; How did Quechua Reach Ecuador? ; Quechua's Southern Boundary: The Case of Santiago del Estero, Argentina ; Conclusion - A Cross-Disciplinary Prehistory for the Andes? ; Surveying the State of the Art

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Book SynopsisWithin classical music, much writing on the Western song tradition since 1800 has assumed a direct link between musical cultures and national literatures, and song has typically been interpreted as one of the means by which constructions of nationalism and nationhood have been pursued in the cultural sphere. Yet song can also be a mobile and cosmopolitan genre and form of cultural practice, able - through performance, publication, and translation - to cross boundaries between cultures and languages. This volume brings together musicologists, literary scholars, linguists, and cultural historians to examine the ways in which song creation, practice, and interpretation has been defined by, and in turn defines, conceptions of nationalism and the transnational. It focuses on four key poets - the Persian Hafiz, German Heine, American Whitman, and French Verlaine - and examines how their poems have been ''translated'' into song, and how music can challenge the seemingly organic relationship bTable of ContentsINTRODUCTION Philip Ross Bullock and Laura Tunbridge: 'L'invitation au voyage' HAFIZ 1: Natasha Loges: Hafiz between Nations: Song Settings by Daumer/Brahms and Peacock/Beamish 2: Stephen Downes: Szymanowski, a Hafiz 'Grablied', and the 'translation' of Nietzsche 3: Philip Ross Bullock: The German Roots of Russian Orientalism: Hafiz's Poetry in Early Twentieth-Century Russian Song HEINE 4: Suzannah Clark: Traces of Tourism and Transnationalism in Liszt's Heine Settings 5: Benjamin Binder: Performance Matters in Heine: The Case of Pauline Viardot's 'Das ist ein schlechtes Wetter' 6: Laura Tunbridge: 'Once again...speaking of' Heine, in Song VERLAINE 7: Peter Dayan: Why song in Verlaine's Verse is Always Already Beyond the Nation 8: David Evans: French Impressions: The Transnational Afterlives of Verlaine's 'La Lune blanche' in Song 9: Carlo Caballero: Paul Verlaine in Parallel: Loeffler, Fauré, Debussy 10: Helen Abbott: Song Just Beyond the Nation, or Debussy via Verlaine WHITMAN 11: Jennifer Ronyak: Johanna Müller-Hermann's Lied der Erinnerung: Austria, America, and Beyond 12: Lawrence Kramer: The Émigré Walt Whitman: Songs of Mourning, 1943-48 13: Elizabeth Helsinger: A Song, the Sea, and a Listening Boy: Whitman - Swinburne - Delius 14: Emma Sutton: Whitman and Stevenson: Singing the Nation from Scotland to Samoa via Ohio and Hawai'i AfterwordTerence Cave:

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Book SynopsisWhat follows when state institutions name historically oppressed languages as official? What happens when bilingual education activists gain the right to coordinate schooling from upper-level state offices? The intercultural bilingual school system in Ecuador has been one of the most prominent referents of Indigenous education in the Americas. Since its establishment in 1988, members of Ecuador''s pueblos and nationalities have coordinated a second national school system that includes the teaching of Indigenous languages. Based on more than two years of ethnographic research in Ecuador''s Ministry of Education, at international and national conferences, in workshops, in schools, and with families, Recognizing Indigenous Languages considers how state agents carry out linguistic and educational politics and policies in eras of greater inclusivity and multiculturalism. This book shows how institutional advances for bilingual education and Indigenous languages have been premised on affirming the equality-and the equivalency-of the linguistic and cultural practices of members of Indigenous pueblos and nationalities with other Ecuadorians. Major responsibilities like serving as national state agents, crafting a standardized variety of the Kichwa language family, translating legal documents to Kichwa, and teaching Indigenous languages in schools have provided vast authority, representation, and visibility for those languages and their speakers. However, the everyday work of directing a school system and making Kichwa a language of the state includes double binds that work against the very goals of autonomous schooling and getting people to speak and write Kichwa.Table of ContentsPart I Introduction Chapter 1: Introducing Double Binds of State Institutions and Linguistic Recognition Part II Chapter 2: The Intercultural Era: Kichwa, Literacy, and Schooling in National Politics and Policy Chapter 3: Unified Kichwa? Unions, Divisions, and Overlap in Language Standardization Chapter 4: Promise and Predicament as Professionals Part III Chapter 5: Translating the Law to Kichwa Chapter 6: Speaking for a State: How and Whom to Greet? Chapter 7: Modeling Intercultural Citizenship Through Language Instruction Conclusions Notes on Transcription References Acknowledgments Notes

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Book SynopsisThirty years ago Robert Kaster''s Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity investigated ancient Greco-Roman grammarians as social agents within their social and cultural context. This collection of twelve essays develops that line of inquiry by focusing on one dimension of their activity: how Roman grammarians - as well as scholars and intellectuals more broadly - described, made sense of, and resisted linguistic diversity within the Roman republic and empire. This includes social and diachronic variety within Latin as well as multilingual contact with Greek and other Mediterranean languages. The essays cover five centuries of Latin reflection on language, from Varro to the fifth or sixth century CE. The book concludes with an autobiographical Epilogue by Robert Kaster about the origins of Guardians of Language and updates to the prosopography of known ancient grammarians found in Guardians.Trade ReviewHow does a language that has become the lingua franca of an Empire change over time? Who drives such change, and how is it seen by intellectuals and by those who oversee élite education-the grammatici? These essays explore these questions in detail, insightfully, often humorously. The Epilogue, Robert Kaster's own account of the accidental genesis of Guardians of Language, shows why its 30th anniversary deserves celebration, and displays the wit and modesty that helped inspire the loyalty of Kaster's students and colleagues alike. Kaster's updated prosopography of Roman grammatici makes the book indispensable for students of that no longer quite so neglected group of guardians of the Latin language. * David Blank, University of California, Los Angeles *Gitner has assembled an all-star team to finally respond to Guardians of Language in the best possible way. Recent technical advances in a variety of fields have been marshaled, the time frame of the investigation has been expanded, and the relevance of a variety of other scholarly discourses to the policing of language has been properly recognized. All in all, a remarkable collective achievement. * Andrew Riggsby, University of Texas, Austin *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Contributors Short Title Abbreviations Preface Adam Gitner Introduction 1. Counterfeit and Coinage: Gresham's Law and the Grammarian James E. G. Zetzel Part I: Varro 2. Varro the Conservative? Katharina Volk 3. Varro and the Sabine Language in the De lingua Latina Wolfgang D. C. de Melo 4. Varro's Word Trees Andreas T. Zanker Part II: Professional Grammarians 5. The Use of Greek in Diomedes' Ars grammatica Bruno Rochette 6. The Grammarian Consentius on Language Change and Variation Tommaso Mari 7. Antiquus = squalidus? Pompeius' Attitude towards Antiquity Anna Zago 8. T(w)o Be or Not T(w)o Be: The dualis numerus according to Latin Grammarians up to the Early Middle Ages Tim Denecker 9. Anonymous Grammatical Scholarship: Insights from an Annotated Juvenal Codex from Egypt Alessandro Garcea and Maria Chiara Scappaticcio Part III: Scholars and Intellectuals 10. Civic Metaphors for Lexical Borrowing from Seneca to Gellius Adam Gitner 11. Grammar and Grammarians, Linguistic and Social Change from Gellius to Macrobius Leofranc Holford-Strevens 12. Language Variation and Grammatical Theory in Roman Legal Texts Rolando Ferri Epilogue The (Very Fragile) Origins of Guardians of Language Robert A. Kaster Prosopographical Addenda to Guardians of Language Robert A. Kaster Bibliography General Index Index of Notable Passages

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Book SynopsisThe story of how English became American -- and how it became Southern, Bostonian, Californian, African-American, Chicano, elite, working-class, urban, rural, and everything in between By the time of the Revolution, the English that Americans spoke was recognizably different from the British variety. Americans added dozens of new words to the language, either borrowed from Native Americans (raccoon, persimmon, caucus) or created from repurposed English (backwoods, cane brake, salt lick). Americans had their own pronunciations (bath rhymed with hat, not hot) and their own spelling (honor, not honour), not to mention a host of new expressions that grew out of the American landscape and culture (blaze a trail, back track, pull up stakes). Americans even invented their own slang, like stiff as a ringbolt to mean drunk. American English has continued to grow and change ever since. The United States of English tells the engrossing tale of how the American language evolved over four hundred yTrade ReviewFrom a rich body of literature, Ostler mines material for this special history of the United States with the stories and reasons for creating the uniquely American language. * Robert S. Davis, New York Journal of Books *Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter 1: The Beginnings of American English Chapter 2: Early Regional Dialects Chapter 3: Building the Vocabulary Chapter 4: American Grammar and Usage Chapter 5: The Spread of Regional Speech Chapter 6: Ethnic Dialects Chapter 7: Language Innovation outside the Mainstream Chapter 8: The Social Life of American English Chapter 9: American English Today Afterword: American English Tomorrow Appendix: American Vowels Endnotes Select Bibliography

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Book SynopsisTable of ContentsPart I: Presentation of the volume Introduction Table of contents 1. Adverbial resumption in V2 languages: the background Liliane Haegeman Karen De Clercq Terje Lohndal Christine Meklenburg Salvesen 2. Frame-setters and microvariation of subject-initial Verb Second Ciro Greco Liliane Haegeman Part II. Revisiting the typology of adverbial resumption 3. On the syntax of fronted adverbial clauses in two Tyrolean dialects: the distribution of resumptive semm Jan Casalicchio Federica Cognola 4. A generalised resumptive in the Ghent variety of East Flemish? Karen De Clercq Liliane Haegeman 5. Resumptive adverbs in Old French and Old Occitan Barbara Vance Part III. Adverbial resumption and the syntax of V2 3.1. Resumption and the syntax of (non) integration 6. Adverbial resumption in German from a synchronic and diachronic perspective Katrin Axel-Tober 7. V3 in True V2 Contexts and Adverbial Resumption in Old English Eric Haeberli Susan Pintzuk 8. Adverbial resumption and scope: a case study of Norwegian Christine Meklenborg Salvesen Terje Lohndal 3.2. Adverbial resumption and the articulated left periphery of V2 9. Resumption in Medieval Romance: Reconsidering si Sam Wolfe 10. Why is it so? An analysis of the V3 cases after si in Old Italian Cecilia Poletto 11. The syntax of the V3 particle så in the Swedish left periphery Anders Holmberg 12. The XP-Þá-construction and V2 Jóhannes Gísli Jónsson 13. Resolving permissible and impermissible V3 in Kiezdeutsch: resumption and beyond Benjamin Lowell Sluckin Oliver Bunk

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Book SynopsisLost origins of words revealed. We like to recount that goodbye started out as god be with you, that whiskey comes from the Gaelic for water of life, or that avocado originated as the Aztec word for testicle. But there are many words with origins unknown, disputed, or so buried in old journals that they may as well be lost to the general public. In Origin Uncertain: Unraveling the Mysteries of Etymology, eminent etymologist Anatoly Liberman draws on his professional expertise and etymological database to tell the stories of less understood words such as nerd, fake, ain''t, hitchhike, trash, curmudgeon, and quiz, as well as puzzling idioms like kick the bucket and pay through the nose. By casting a net so broadly, the book addresses language history, language usage (including grammar), history (both ancient and modern), religion, superstitions, and material culture. Writing in the spirit of adventure through the annals of word origins, Liberman also shows how historical linguists constr

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Book SynopsisWhat are the possible and preferred means of extending the vocabulary in Latin at the beginning and end of the Roman Empire? This book addresses this question with reference to the language of medicine and so offers the first systematic account of a part of this large, rich, and largely unworked field.Trade ReviewLangslow's work is an important contribution to our understanding of the field. * Hermathena: A Trinity College Dublin Review *This is one of the most thoroughgoing attempts to place Latin lexicological studies on a quantitive basis. * Hermathena: A Trinity College Dublin Review *... an unusual air of intellectual dialogue within the work, and a sense that this area of Latin linguistics has made real progress since the mid-1980s. This book both summarizes this progress and builds on it; it offers a range of new approaches to technical languages, potentially applicable to other branches of Latin and indeed to other languages as well. In doing so, [Langslow] gives a fine example of how classical philology can go on contributing to debate within modern general linguistics. * Hermathena: A Trinity College Dublin Review *Very welcome linguistical study of terminology in Latin medical texts. * Medical History *The author must be praised for combining the tasks of a linguist with those of a classicist. * Medical History *The book and the three indexes included in the appendix will be used as an essential reference tool for future research. * Medical History *

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Book SynopsisThis is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.Most of the world''s languages have indefinite pronouns, that is, expressions such as ''someone'', ''anything'', and ''nowhere''. Martin Haspelmath presents the first comprehensive and encyclopaedic investigation of indefinite pronouns in the languages of the world, mapping out the range of variation in their functional and formal properties. He shows that cross-linguistic diversity is severely constrained by a set of implicational universals and by a number of unrestricted universals.The author treats his subject matter broadly within the Humboldt-Greenberg tradition of language typology, but also considers the contribution of other theoretical approaches to an understanding of the functional and formal properties of indefinite pronouns. The book is organized into four logically ordered steps: selection of a part of grammar-indefinite pronouns-that can be identified across languages by formal and functional criteria; investigation of the properties of indefinite pronouns in a world-wide sample of forty languages; formulation of generalizations that emerge from the data, summarized in the form of an implicational map; and theoretically-informed explanations of the generalizations, which go beyond system-internal statements, appealing to cognitive semantics, functional pressures, and universals of language change (especially grammaticalization).Trade Reviewof interest to all linguists with an interest in cross-linguistic variation and typology ... the book is clearly written and well edited ... the facts provided offer a great deal of food for thought to anyone with an interest in cross-linguistic work. * Molly Diesing, American Journal of Germanic Linguistics and Literatures 10.2 1998 *This volume is well presented and edited and contains an extensive bibliography on the topic of indefinite pronouns in what Haspelmath regards the mainstream of linguistics. It will appeal to specialists rather than to people with an only generalist interest in linguistics. * Peter Muhlhausler *A welcome addition to the typological literature, this book is the most comprehensive work to date devoted exclusively to the description of indefinite pronous ... in the world's languages. Haspelmath's presentation offers generally interesting reading, giving us many facts, testable universal claims, and tantalizing attempts at explanation. With its many examples, the book can serve not only as a springboard for further scholarship but also as a useful reference work for teaching. ... well-organized book... The writing style is accessible; thus the book has a potentially wide readership among both linguists and nonlinguists interested in language universals and their explanation. Haspelmath is to be applauded for attempting explanations of so many of his findings. The explanatory ideas he appeals to are seductive ones that crop up repeatedly in linguistics. * Jessica Wirth, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Anthropological Linguistics, Vol 41, no.1 *The first book in a new series which aims to provide a functional-typological perspective to linguistic problems that are of both typological and formal importance. One couldn't wish for a better first book to inaugurate the series... highly recommended, not only to field workers... but also to any linguist who wants to see a textbook example of a linguistic analysis... adds significantly to our understanding of negative indefinites. Anyone working on two or more closely related languages should be required to read this book. * Ferdinand de Haan, Notes on Linguistics 2.2 *Table of Contents1. Overview ; 2. A Typological Perspective on Indefinite Pronouns ; 3. Formal and Functional Types of Indefinite Pronoun ; 4. An Implicational Map for Indefinite Pronoun Functions ; 5. Theoretical Approaches to the Functions of Indefinite Pronouns ; 6. The Grammaticalization of Indefinite Pronouns ; 7. Further Sources of Indefinite Pronouns ; 8. Negative Indefinite Pronouns ; 9. Conclusions ; Appendix A The Data of the 40-Language Sample ; Appendix B The Data of the 100-Language Sample

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Book SynopsisThis book provides the first comprehensive overview of the syntax of old Romanian written in English and targeted at a non-Romanian readership. It draws on an extensive new corpus analysis of the period between the beginning of the sixteenth century, the date of the earliest attested Romanian texts, and the end of the eighteenth century, generally considered to mark the start of the modernization of Romanian. Gabriela Pana Dindelegan and her co-authors adopt both a synchronic and diachronic approach by providing a detailed corpus analysis in a given period, while also comparing old and modern Romanian. They examine the evolution of a variety of syntactic phenomena, including the elimination or diminishing of certain facts or generalization of others, the total or partial grammaticalization of phenomena, competition between structures, and cases of syntactic variation. The book takes a typological and comparative perspective, focusing on those phenomena that are considered specific to RTrade ReviewA major contribution to the historical grammar of Romanian, and indeed to the history of the Romanian language. * Rudolf Windisch, Revue de Linguistique Romane *Table of ContentsPreface ; Abbreviations and conventions ; The contributors ; 1. Introduction ; 2. The verb and its arguments ; 3. Non-finite verb forms and non-finite constructions ; 4. The nominal phrase ; 5. Adjectives and adjectival phrases ; 6. Adverbs and adverbial phrases ; 7. Prepositions and prepositional phrases ; 8. Coordination and coordinating conjunctions ; 9. The complex clause ; 10. Word order and configurationality ; 11. Clausal organization and discourse phenomena ; 12. Conclusions ; Appendix 1: Corpus ; Appendix 2: Map. Regional distribution of the main old Romanian texts ; References ; Index

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Book SynopsisSlang, however one judges it, shows us at our most human. It is used widely and often, typically associated with the writers of noir fiction, teenagers, and rappers, but also found in the works of Shakespeare and Dickens. It has been recorded since at least 1500 AD, and today''s vocabulary, taken from every major English-speaking country, runs to over 125,000 slang words and phrases. This Very Short Introduction takes readers on a wide-ranging tour of this fascinating sub-set of the English language. It considers the meaning and origins of the word ''slang'' itself, the ideas that a make a word ''slang'', the long-running themes that run through slang, and the history of slang''s many dictionaries.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Trade Reviewa welcome edition of Oxford's Very Short Introductions, and anyone seeking an accessible tour d'horizon of this lively subject will find that Green's book is just the ticket. * Benjamin George Friedman, Times Literary Supplement *Table of Contents1. 'Slang': the word ; 2. 'Slang' as a linguistic register ; 3. Is slang a language? ; 4. The words of slang: themes and development ; 5. The users of slang ; 6. The components of slang ; 7. Recording slang ; 8. The lexicography of slang: slang's dictionaries ; 9. The future of slang

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Book SynopsisThis volume is the first to present a detailed survey of the systems of verb-verb complexes in Asian languages from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective. Many Asian languages share, to a greater or lesser extent, a unique class of compound verbs consisting of a main verb and a quasi-auxiliary verb known as a ''vector'' or ''explicator''. These quasi-auxiliary verbs exhibit unique grammatical behaviour that suggests that they have an intermediate status between full lexical verbs and wholly reduced auxiliaries. They are also semantically unique, in that when they are combined with main verbs, they can convey a rich variety of functional meanings beyond the traditional notions of tense, aspect, and modality, such as manner and intensity of action, benefaction for speaker or hearer, and polite or derogatory styles in speech. In this book, leading specialists in a range of Asian languages offer an in-depth analysis of the long-standing questions relating to the diachrony and geograTable of Contents1: Taro Kageyama, Peter E. Hook, and Prashant Pardeshi: Introductory remarks Part I: Languages of Northeast Asia 2: Taro Kageyama: Between lexical verbs and auxiliaries: The architecture of Japanese verb-verb complexes 3: Hirofumi Aoki and Bjarke Frellesvig: Verb-verb complexes is Old and Middle Japanese 4: Taro Kageyama: Grammaticalization and constructionalization in Japanese lexical compound verbs 5: Hideki Kishimoto: Syntactic V-V compounds in Japanese 6: Yo Matsumoto: The semantic differentiation of V-te V complexes and V-V compounds in Japanese 7: Michinori Shimoji: V-V complexes in Irabu Ryukyuan 8: Hyun Kyung Hwang and John Whitman: Korean verb-verb sequences Part II: Languages of South Asia 9: Prashant Pardeshi: Classification of complex verbs and the evolution of the compound verb in Marathi 10: Benjamin Slade: Development of verb-verb complexes in Indo-Aryan 11: Peter E. Hook: Births, earthquakes, meteors, and other autogenous expressions: The Hindi-Urdu compound verb and its covert semantics 12: E. Annamalai: The matrix of verb-verb sequences in Tamil 13: Sanford Steever: Verb + verb sequences in Dravidian 14: Bettina Zeisler: Semantically related verb verb combinations in Tibetan and Ladakhi: 1300 years of stable transition Part III: Languages of Central and Northwest Asia 15: Andrej Shluinsky: -V complexes in Turkic languages: Interaction of lexical and delexicalized verbs 16: Noriko Ohsaki and Fuyuki Ebata: Verb-verb complexes in Central and Eastern Turkic languages 17: Yu Kuribayashi: Turkish and Uyghur V-V complexes in contrast 18: Hisanari Yamada: V-V complexes in Avar Part IV: Chinese and Thai 19: Kingkarn Thepkanjana and Satoshi Uehara: Verbal complexes in Thai 20: Hsin-hsin Liang and Peter E. Hook: Verb-verb sequences in Mandarin and Hindi-Urdu: A comparison References Index of languages Index of subjects

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Book SynopsisThis book describes the earliest reconstructable stages of the prehistory of English, focusing specifically on linguistic structure. It outlines the grammar of Proto-Indo-European, considers the changes by which one dialect of that prehistoric language developed into Proto-Germanic, and provides a detailed account of the grammar of Proto-Germanic. In the course of his exposition Don Ringe draws on a long tradition of work on many languages, including Hittite, Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Slavic, Gothic, and Old Norse. This second edition has been significantly revised to provide a more in-depth account of Proto-Indo-European, with further exploration of disputed points; it has also been updated to include new developments in the field, particularly in the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European verb and nominal inflection. The author also reconsiders some of his original approaches to specific linguistic changes and their relative chronology based on his recent research. This new edition Trade ReviewReview from previous edition This is without any doubt a major work in the field of Indo-European linguistics and will be of utmost relevance in English linguistics. We have a large number of Histories of the English Language, but in none of them is the pre-history of English dealt with in comparable depth. * Professor Alfred Bammesberger, Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt *A highly welcome and useful book for scholars and advanced students of comparative Indo-European and Germanic linguistics and the history of English. * David Stifter, Linguist List *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments List of abbreviations Note on transcription 1: Introduction 2: Proto-Indo-European 3: The development of Proto-Germanic 4: Proto-Germanic References Index

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Book SynopsisComparative Literature is both the past and the future of literary studies. Its history is intimately linked to the political upheavals of modernity: from colonial empire-building in the nineteenth century, via the Jewish diaspora of the twentieth century, to the postcolonial culture wars of the twenty-first century, attempts at ''comparison'' have defined the international agenda of literature. But what is comparative literature? Ambitious readers looking to stretch themselves are usually intrigued by the concept, but uncertain of its implications. And rightly so, in many ways: even the professionals cannot agree on a single term, calling it comparative in English, compared in French, and comparing in German. The very term itself, when approached comparatively, opens up a Pandora''s box of cultural differences. Yet this, in a nutshell, is the whole point of comparative literature. To look at literature comparatively is to realize just how much can be learned by looking over the horizon of one''s own culture; it is to discover not only more about other literatures, but also about one''s own; and it is to participate in the great utopian dream of understanding the way nations and languages interact. In an age that is paradoxically defined by migration and border crossing on the one hand, and by a retreat into monolingualism and monoculturalism on the other, the cross-cultural agenda of comparative literature has become increasingly central to the future of the Humanities. We are all, in fact, comparatists, constantly making connections across languages, cultures, and genres as we read. The question is whether we realise it.This Very Short Introduction tells the story of Comparative Literature as an agent of international relations, from the point of view both of scholarship and of cultural history more generally. Outlining the complex history and competing theories of comparative literature, Ben Hutchinson offers an accessible means of entry into a notoriously slippery subject, and shows how comparative literature can be like a Rorschach test, where people see in it what they want to see. Ultimately, Hutchinson places comparative literature at the very heart of literary criticism, for as George Steiner once noted, ''to read is to compare''.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Trade ReviewWith admirable clarity, Hutchinson analyses the issues that the discipline faces, and brings back invigorating news of possibilities ahead. This eloquent and richly packed VSI puts the case for comparative literature as the most vital, enriching and valuable way of reading and studying literature at a time of colossal shifts in the prospects of the Humanities. * Marina Warner, President of the Royal Society of Literature *This fascinating study presents an optimistic view of the state of comparative literature today, showing how the discipline has evolved and why it is so important. This book should be required reading for anyone with an interest in literature. * Susan Bassnett, President of the British Comparative Literature Association *Comparative Literature: A Very Short Introduction focuses not only on the history of comparative literature but also the future of it.Table of Contents1: Metaphors of Reading 2: Practices and Principles 3: History and Heroes 4: Disciplines and Debates 5: The Futures of Comparative Literature Further Reading Index

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Book SynopsisWhere do our everyday words come from? The bagel you eat for breakfast, the bumf you have to wade through at the office, and the bus that takes you home again: we use these words without thinking about their origins or how their meanings have changed over time. Simon Horobin takes the reader on a journey through a typical day, showing how the words we use to describe routine activities - getting up, going to work, eating meals - have surprisingly fascinating histories.Trade Reviewif you've ever wished, "If only the OED were organized categorically instead of alphabetically," then your wish has been granted in the form of Bagels, Bumf, and Busses: A Day in the Life of the English Language. Amateur etymologists will rejoice and enjoy this book * Timothy Esposito, past president of the STC Philadelphia Metro Chapter., Technical Communication *Horobin's often humorous and always enthusiastic work will entertain readers by revealing the dynamic nature of language. * Publishers Weekly *For anyone curious about where everyday English words "come from," this accessible text will prove to be an enticing choice, as well as a useful guide for general readers seeking resources on English usage and popular linguistics. * Library Journal *Fans of language and of pursuing trivia will find a goldmine of the unusual, surprising, and always fascinating history of everyday words. * Mark Knoblauch, Booklist *All in all, an interesting and entertaining way to motivate students to explore language through etymology. * Maurice Cassidy, Training, Language & Culture *Anyone with a passion for language or a burning desire to learn more trivia should check out Bagels, Bumf, and Buses. * Valentina Palladino, ars Technica *A book to make you stop and marvel over words we use unthinkingly every day. Simon Horobin offers a tantalising glimpse into the hidden lives of our vocabulary. If you've ever pondered why eggs is eggs, or whether toadying up to someone ever involved a real amphibian, this is the book for you. * Susie Dent, lexicographer and etymologist *A very entertaining etymological journey through the things you do every day... Horobin takes the reader through a veritable bombardment of fun facts about quotidian words that secretly hide fascinating stories... This is good for both people new to linguistics and experienced etymologists, because there's nothing technical about it but there's something to learn for all levels - I definitely recommend it. * Adam Aleksic, The Etymology Nerd *Table of ContentsStarting the Day 1: Getting up 2: Breakfasting 3: Getting dressed 4: Commuting Work 5: The office 6: Law and Order 7: Politics 8: Religion 9: Health services 10: Parenting Eating and drinking 11: Breaktimes 12: Mealtimes 13: Eating out Sport and leisure 14: Sport 15: Animals Evening 16: Going out 17: Drinking 18: Staying in

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