Historical and comparative linguistics Books

Book SynopsisThis book offers an empirical and theoretical exploration of the development of object clitic pronouns in the Romance languages, drawing on data from Latin, medieval vernaculars, modern Romance languages, and lesser-known dialects. Diego Pescarini examines phonological, morphological, and especially syntactic aspects of Romance object clitics, using the findings to reconstruct their evolution from Latin to Romance and to model clitic placement in modern Romance languages. On the theoretical side, the volume engages with previous accounts of clitics, particularly in generative theory. It challenges the received idea that cliticization resulted from a form of syntactic deficiency; instead, it proposes that clitics resulted from the feature endowment of discourse features, which initially caused freezing of certain pronominal forms and then - through reanalysis - their successive incorporation to verbal hosts. This approach leads to a revision of earlier analyses of well-known phenomena sTrade Review... is extremely valuable for future research. * Anna Chiara Bassan, LINGUIST List *The different chapters of the book hang well together. Their ordering provides the overall schema, but there are many cross-references between chapters resulting from systematic methodologies and critical themes. The whole framework accounts for the accurate visualization of the object clitic phenomenon in Romance languages ... The present work is accessible to university-level students and is extremely valuable for future research. It provides a detailed source of bibliographic materials while evoking the historiographical process a theory or hypothesis is based on. * Anna Chiara Bassan, LINGUIST List *Table of ContentsIntroduction Part I: Setting the Scene 1: Properties of Romance object clitics 2: Theoretical preliminaries 3: Historical overview Part II: Deficiency 4: Syntactic evidence against deficiency 5: Morphophonological evidence against deficiency Part III: The Emergence of Clitics 6: Clitics in embryo 7: The rise of ad-verbal clitics Part IV: Early Romance 8: 'V2' and clitic placement 9: Deriving enclisis in 'V1' clauses Part V: Towards Microvariation 10: Clitic climbing 11: Clitic combinations 12: Conclusions

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Book SynopsisThis volume explores the role that functional elements play in syntactic change and investigates the semantic and functional features that are the driving force behind those changes. It contains both case studies of individual languages such as German, Hungarian, and Romanian, and detailed investigations of cross-linguistic phenomena.Table of Contents1: Barbara Egedi and Veronika Hegedüs: The role of functional heads in syntactic change 2: Lieven Danckaert: Changing patterns of clausal complementation in Latin: A parametric approach to 'constructional' changes 3: Adina Dragomirescu and Virginia Hill: From split to remerged Fin in Romanian supine complements 4: Ana Maria Martins, Sandra Pereira, and Clara Pinto: The diachronic path of senão: From conditional subordination to exceptive coordination 5: Emanuela Sanfelici, Jacopo Garzonio, and Cecilia Poletto: On Italian relative complementizers and relative pronouns: Rethinking grammaticalization 6: Julia Bacskai-Atkari: Information structure, functional left peripheries, and the history of a Hungarian interrogative marker 7: Eric Haeberli and Tabea Ihsane: The recategorization of modals in English: Evidence from adverb placement 8: Ida Larsson and Ellen Brandner: Tense recursion, perfect doubling, and the grammaticalization of auxiliaries 9: Jóhannes Gísli Jónsson and Brynhildur Stefánsdóttir: P-incorporation in the history of Icelandic 10: Heimir F. Viðarsson: From Old to Modern Icelandic: Dative applicatives and NP/DP configurationality

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Book SynopsisThe Victorians and English Dialect tells the story of the Victorians'' discovery of English dialect, and of the revaluation of local language that was brought about by the new, historical philology of the nineteenth century. Regional dialects came to be seen not as corrupt or pernicious, but rather as venerable and precious. The book examines the work of the ground-breaking collectors of the 1840s and 1850s, who first alerted their contemporaries to the importance of local dialect - and also to the perils that threatened it with extinction.It traces the connection between dialect and literature, in the flourishing of dialect poetry and the foregrounding of regional voices in Victorian fiction. It explains how the antiquity of regional dialects cast light on the national past - the Celts, Anglo-Saxons, and Vikings - and how dialect study was also at the heart of the discovery of local folklore and oral culture: old words, old customs, old beliefs. And it tells the story of the three gre

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Book SynopsisAn Introduction to Middle High German is a dedicated student edition of The Oxford Guide to Middle High German (Jones & Jones; OUP, 2019) designed for taught courses and self-study. It offers a detailed account of the language and literature of German in the period 1050-1350, including an introductory-level grammar and a wide selection of texts with extensive explanatory material.Following an initial chapter that defines Middle High German linguistically, geographically, and chronologically, the grammar and lexis chapters offer a self-contained introduction to the language. The user-friendly and accessible grammatical descriptions and explanations will allow entry-level students to gain sufficient knowledge of the language to read and understand a range of Middle High German texts. Chapter 4 comprises thirty textual passages, each placed in context and with extensive explanatory footnotes to facilitate their use in teaching and class discussion. The volume also offers two essential glo

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Book SynopsisThe history of science is echoed in the development of its language and the names chosen for its technical terms. The Names of Science examines in detail how, over time, new words have entered the scientific lexicon and how some of them, but far from all, have survived to the present. Why is a transistor called a transistor and not something else? Why was the term ''scientist'' only coined in 1834, and why was the name regarded as controversial for a long time afterwards?There is a story behind every scientific word we use today. In this work, Helge Kragh tells many of these stories, taking a broad historical perspective from the Renaissance to the present. By combining elements of linguistics with the history of the natural sciences including physics, chemistry, and astronomy, this book offers a new and innovative perspective on the historical development of the natural sciences.Following an introductory list of useful linguistic terms, the book is structured in six chapters, which cover important phases in the history of science, dealing with a vast range of scientific terminology from physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, to cosmology. It also considers, if only briefly, how English - and not, say, Latin or French - developed to become the internationally accepted language of science.Contrary to other works dealing with the subject, The Names of Science pays serious attention to the historical dimension of scientific language, and to the way in which scientists have, sometimes unconsciously, acted as linguists and neologists in their research work.

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Book SynopsisA Historical Greek Reader provides an introduction to the history of the ancient Greek language by means of a series of texts with linguistic commentary, cross-referenced to each other and to a reference grammar at the front. It offers a selection of epigraphic and literary texts from the Mycenaean period (roughly the fourteenth century BC) to the koiné (the latest text dates to the second century AD), and includes a wide range of Greek dialect texts. The epigraphic section balances a number of well-known inscriptions with recent discoveries that may not be easily available elsewhere; a selection of literary texts traces major developments in the language of Greek poetry and literary prose. The book finishes with an account of the linguistic and sociolinguistic background of koiné Greek. The commentary assumes no prior knowledge of Greek historical linguistics, but provides a basic amount of up-to-date bibliography so that advanced students and others can pursue linguistic issues at grTable of ContentsI. INTRODUCTION; II. TEXTS WITH TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY

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Book SynopsisThis is the first full account of the transformation of Ottoman Turkish into Modern Turkish. It is based on the author''s knowledge and experience of the language, history, and people of Turkey. The transformation of the Turkish language is probably the most thorough-going piece of linguistic engineering in history. Its prelude came in 1928, when the Arabo-Persian alphabet was outlawed and replaced by the Latin alphabet. It began in earnest in 1930 when Ataturk declared:''Turkish is one of the richest of languages. It needs only to be used with discrimination. The Turkish nation, which is well able to protect its territory and its sublime independence, must also liberate its language from the yoke of foreign languages.''All Arabic and Persian vocabulary was replaced forthwith by words collected from popular speech, resurrected from ancient texts, or coined from native roots and suffixes. The snag - identified by the author as one element in the catastrophic aspect of the reform - was tTrade ReviewReview from previous edition The Turkish Language Reform is a dramatic story, entertainingly written, and not overly long. What is more, it provides a great insight into the practicalities of language planning.... From the moment you read 'A catastrophic success' in the subtitle you know that Lewis's intention is to provide interesting, entertaining reading. The story is a great one ... and well worth the read.' * Journal of Sociolinguistics 5/2, 2001 *Professor Lewis has written a fascinating book and he deserves the gratitude and appreciation of both colleagues and non-specialists alike. Lewis has succeeded in making a demanding task seem particularly easy and even graceful. As a stylist, Lewis is incisive, sometime brutally candid, and almost always witty. The book is sure to remain the last word on the language reform for a long time to come. * Journal of Middle Eastern Studies *Very informative - especially for the nonspecialist - and worthwhile reading ... this book can and must be recommended to anyone interested in the modern Turkish language.' * Anthropological Linguistics *Lewis's book is learned, eloquent, and witty... Particularly effective and entertaining are those passages which he skillfully translates twice -- first in their unadulterated form with their full complement of words of non-Turkic origin, then in their clean-up, "pure" Turkic form.' * Sino-Platonic Papers *Lewis ... writes in a lively and witty style. Absolutely essential for collections supporting Turkish and linguistics departments at all levels... This book is a fascinating description of what can happen when language reform is attempted in an unplanned but enthusiastic fashion.' * Choice *Table of Contents1. Introduction ; 2Ottoman Turkish ; 3. The New Alphabet ; 4. Ataturk and the Language Reform until 1936 ; 5. The Sun-Language Theory and After ; 6. Atay, Atac, Sayili ; 7. Ingredients ; 8. Concoctions ; 9. Technical Terms ; 10. The New Yoke ; 11. The New Turkish ; 12. What Happened to the Language Society ; References ; Index

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Book SynopsisPortuguese emerged from vulgar Latin during the course of the third century. Influential in its development were successive invasions by Germanic peoples, Visigoths, and Moors, the latter of whom were finally evicted in the thirteenth century. As a consequence of the newly-independent kingdom''s imperial achievements, Portuguese is the national language of Brazil and the official language of several African countries.Maria Helena Mateus and Ernesto d''Andrade present a broad description and comparative analysis of the phonetics and phonology of European and Brazilian Portuguese. They begin by introducing the history of Portuguese and its principal varieties. Chapter 2 describes the phonetic characteristics of consonants, vowels, and glides, and Chapter 3 looks at prosodic structure. Chapters 4 and 5 present the general characteristics of Portuguese nominal and verbal systems, the former considering inflectional and the latter derivational processes. Chapter 6 examines stress, main, secTrade ReviewThis is a much appreciated book for those of us who regularly teach a course on the synchronic phonology and morphophonology of Portuguese....The book is divided into clear modules, the data in each section being clearly presented in well-organised tables, always including examples covering each of the possible cases of interest....Mateus and d'Andrade have crafted a very easy to read, well-organised exposition of their favourite analyses quite suitable for a course in the structure of Portuguese phonology. * Phonology *Table of Contents1. Introduction ; 2. The Phonological System of Portuguese ; 3. Syllable Structure ; 4. Portuguese Morphology: Inflection ; 5. Portuguese Morphology: Derivation ; 6. Word Stress in Portuguese ; 7. Phonological Processes ; References ; Index

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Book SynopsisPeople have been reading on computer screens for several decades now, predating popularization of personal computers and widespread use of the internet. But it was the rise of eReaders and tablets that caused digital reading to explode. In 2007, Amazon introduced its first Kindle. Three years later, Apple debuted the iPad. Meanwhile, as mobile phone technology improved and smartphones proliferated, the phone became another vital reading platform.In Words Onscreen, Naomi Baron, an expert on language and technology, explores how technology is reshaping our understanding of what it means to read. Digital reading is increasingly popular. Reading onscreen has many virtues, including convenience, potential cost-savings, and the opportunity to bring free access to books and other written materials to people around the world. Yet, Baron argues, the virtues of eReading are matched with drawbacks. Users are easily distracted by other temptations on their devices, multitasking is rampant, and scrTrade ReviewLucid and engaging... Words Onscreen ably brings into focus the impact that reading in one form or another will have on our culture and how practice will change as a consequence of that impact. * Babel: The Language Magazine, Erika Corradini *Words Onscreen is a timely book. * Leah Price, The Times Literary Supplement. *For every digital devotee clutching an e-reader, there is an old-school bibliophile brandishing a physical book. But which works best for reading comprehension? In this thoughtful study, linguist Naomi Baron investigates each platform in the light of recent research, and surveys US, Japanese and German reading habits. * Nature *this is one of the few books to address the question without resort to such clichés as 'I can't smell an ebook' * Scotland on Sunday, Stuart Kelly *Table of ContentsChapter 1. "I Hate Books": Words Go Digital ; Chapter 2. Reading Evolves ; Chapter 3. tl;dr: Readers Reshape Writing ; Chapter 4. The Appeal of Words Onscreen ; Chapter 5. The Web Ate My Print Button: One-Off Reading ; Chapter 6. How Social is Reading? ; Chapter 7. "It's Not a Book": The Physical Side of Reading ; Chapter 8. Your Brain on eText ; Chapter 9. Faxing Tokyo: When Cultures and Markets Meet ; Chapter 10. The Future of Reading in a Digital World

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Book SynopsisIn the first comprehensive survey of the politics of language in Ireland in the colonial and post-colonial period, Tony Crowley challenges received notions, revisits familiar materials, and considers previously little-known evidence in order to present a complex, fascinating, and often surprising history.Trade ReviewReview from previous edition This book offers a simultaneously sweeping and subtle view into the ways language has been inextricably linked with notions of cultural, political, and personal identity throughout modern Irish history... As impressive as the breadth of Crowley's research is the beauty and accessibility of his prose: the book proves enjoyable to the historian or critic as well as the linguist. Indeed, War of Words will encourage scholars in all aspects of Irish Studies to recognize the centrality of the language issue to nearly all aspects of Irish culture and politics. * Michael J Durkan Prize Review *Crowley's War of Words is a valuable and stimulating book, bringing together an impressive array of primary and secondary sources from more than five centuries in a carefully crafted argument... the defining account of a historical formation * Chris Morash, Times Literary Supplement *A sourcebook, a treasure trove . . . Crowley brings a welcome sensitivity to the complexity of his subject . . . Tony Crowley's War of Words and his earlier The Politics of Language in Ireland are seminal texts for our understanding of how that dichotomy has evolved over the centuries. [Crowley has] raised profoundly important questions and provided a context in which they can be thought about and planned for in the hope that future wars over words will be far less bitter and prolonged. * Irish Literary Supplement *a first-rate piece of scholarship that deserves to be read by any student of Ireland and her history. * Contemporary Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Language acquisition ; 1. Reforming the Word and the words of the Irish, 1537-1607 ; 2. Language, God, and the struggle for history, 1607-1690 ; 3. Education, antiquity, and the beginnings of linguistic nationalism, 1690-1789 ; 4. Culture, politics, and the language question, 1789-1876 ; 5. Language and revolution, 1876-1922 ; 6. The politics of language on the island of Ireland, 1922-2004

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Book SynopsisThis volume publishes in full for the first time all known cuneiform manuscripts of an Akkadian calendar treatise composed in Babylon in the Late Babylonian period. Hand-drawn copies of the clay tablets in the British Museum, a composite edition, and a manuscript score, are accompanied by a contextualizing introduction and detailed commentary.Trade ReviewReynolds should be congratulated, and readers should be pleased, to see this important text finally elucidated in print. * M. Willis Monroe, University of British Columbia, Journal for the History of Astronomy *Dedicated readers with an interest in the composition or in Late Babylonian priestly scholarship will find the book to be an inspiring treasure trove and the starting point for much further research. * Mathieu Ossendrijver, Bibliotheca Orientalis *Table of ContentsFrontmatter Bibliographical Abbreviations Selected Conventions INTRODUCTION 1. The calendar treatise and Mesopotamian scholarship 2. Topography: Babylonian cult and warfare 3. Manuscripts of the calendar treatise and the Mu%s=ezib family 4. Language and orthography EDITION Table of manuscripts Previous publications Calendar treatise: composite edition MS A colophon and MS C vi: edition Calendar treatise: manuscript score COMMENTARY § 1 i 1-12: [Nisannu (day x)] § 2 i 1'-7': [Ayaru (day x)] § 3 i 8'-23': Sim=anu § 4 i 24'-35': Du'=uzu § 5 ii 1-3: [Du'=uzu] or [Abu (day x)] § 6 ii 1'-13': [Abu (day x)] § 7 ii 14'-iii 8: [Ul=ulu] § 8 iii 9-15: Ta%sr=itu day 6 § 9 iii 16-26: Ta%sr=itu day 8 § 10 iii 27-30: Ta%sr=itu day 13 § 12 iii 1''-5'': [Kisl=imu (day x)] § 13 iv 1-41: .Teb=etu § 14 iv 1'-12': [Addaru (day x)] Endmatter References General index Selective index of texts and publications CUNEIFORM TEXTS Plates 1-8

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Book SynopsisThis history of the Spanish lexicon is written from the interacting perspectives of linguistic and cultural change and in the light of advances in the study of language contact and lexical change. The author describes the language inherited from spoken Latin in the Iberian Peninsula during six centuries of Roman occupation and examines the degree to which it imported words from the languages - of which only Basque survives - of pre-Roman Spain. He then shows how Germanic words were imported either indirectly through Latin or Old French or directly by contact with the Visigoths. He describes the importation of Arabisms following the eighth-century Arab conquest of Spain, distinguishing those documented in medieval sources from those adopted for everyday use, many of which survive in modern Spanish. He considers the influence of Old French and Old Provençal and identifies late direct and indirect borrowings from Latin, including the Italian elements taken up during the Renaissance. AfterTrade ReviewThe scholarship in this book is, without question, of the highest calibre. This book will benefit greatly both advanced students and scholars of Spanish historical linguistics, and, as a pedagogical tool, could serve either as supplementary reading for a course on the history of the Spanish language or as the main text for a seminar on the topic for advanced undergraduate and graduate students. * Joel Rini, Bulletin of Spanish Studies *Dworkins book is a lively and entertaining discussion of the history of the Spanish lexicon. The approach made this book difficult to put down. The books accessibility makes it a joy to read, suitable for beginning students, and yet rigorous enough for Hispanists. More books should be written in a way that encourages future students to undertake studies in the field. * Diachronica *This History will probably be used as a reference book rather than as a good read, but the scholarly perspectives and thought processes displayed should even so impress and inspire all those who have ever wondered about the hows and whys of the provenance of Spanish vocabulary from other languages. * Roger Wright, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies *a lively and entertaining discussion of the history of the Spanish lexicon. * John M. Ryan, Diachronica *Table of Contents1. Language Contact and the History of the Spanish Lexicon: General and methodological questions ; 2. The Lexical Impact of the Pre-Roman Languages of the Iberian Peninsula ; 3. The Latin Base of the Spanish Lexicon ; 4. The Germanic Component of the Spanish Lexicon ; 5. The Arabic Component of the Spanish Lexicon ; 6. The Impact of Gallo-Romance on the Spanish Lexicon ; 7. The Influence of Italian on the Spanish Lexicon ; 8. Latinisms in Spanish ; 9. Portuguese and Catalan Loans in Spanish ; 10. Lexical Borrowings From the New World ; 11. Anglicisms in Spanish ; 12. Some Final Thoughts ; References ; Index Verborum ; General Index

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Book SynopsisThis book provides both the first comprehensive description of the phonology and phonetics of Standard Mongolian and the first account in any language of the historical phonology of the Mongolian group of languages.Trade Reviewa ripe source for interested researchers. * Andrew Nevins, Phonology *Table of Contents1. Vowels ; 2. Consonants ; 3. Phonemes ; 4. Writing Systems ; 5. Phonological Processes ; 6. Syllabification and Epenthesis ; 7. Prosody ; 8. Old Mongolian ; 9. The Mongolic Languages ; 10. Development of the Modern Mongolic Languages ; Appendices ; References ; Index ; Index of Old Mongolian Words

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Book SynopsisA Linguistic History of Arabic challenges the traditional accounts of the progression of classical Arabic to contemporary dialects. It presents a rich and complex picture of early Arabic language history and establishes the basis for a comprehensive, linguistically-based understanding of the history of Arabic.Trade Review...highly stimulating read for anyone with interest in the history of Arabic...It deserves a warm welcome. * Clive Holes SOAS *Table of Contents1. Introduction: A Language and its Secrets ; 2. Old Arabic, Neo-Arabic, and Comparative Linguistics ; 3. Case and Proto Arabic ; 4. Al-Idgham al-Kabiyr and Case Endings ; 5. Pre-Diasporic Arabic in the Diaspora: A Statistical Approach to Arabic Language History ; 6. Nigerian Arabic and Reconstruction of the Imperfect Verb ; 7. Imala ; 8. Suffix Pronouns and Reconstruction ; 9. Summary and Epilogue ; Appendix ; References ; Index

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Book SynopsisBasic Linguistic Theory provides a fundamental characterization of the nature of human languages and a comprehensive guide to their description and analysis. In crystal-clear prose, R. M. W. Dixon describes how to go about doing linguistics. He show how grammatical structures and rules may be worked out on the basis of inductive generalisations, and explains the steps by which an attested grammar and lexicon can built up from observed utterances. He describes how the grammars and vocabulary of one language may be compared to others of the same or different families, explains the methods involved in cross-linguistic parametric analyses, and shows how to interpret the results. Volume 3 introduces and examines key grammatical topics, each from a cross-linguistic perspective. The subjects include number systems, negation, reflexives and reciprocals, passives, causatives, comparative constructions, and questions. The final chapter discusses the relation between linguistic explanation and thTrade ReviewThere can be little doubt that Basic Linguistic Theory is a valuable addition to the linguistic literature, both as a broadly conceived typological study and as an inspiring guide to grammar writers ... BLT covers the principal parts of grammar and probably more extensively so than any other single book of its kind. * Steffen Haurholm-Larsen, Studies in Language *These books are monumental and destined to become classics, equatable to the two volumes entitled Language by Sapir (1921) and Bloomfield (1933), and to Givón's Syntax, volumes 1 (1984) and 2 (1990) but in each case surpassing them in scope, detail, rigor, and coherence. Dixon presents a complete, fully articulated, and cohesive explication of grammar, with extensive elaboration on every major grammatical structure found in the world's languages, as well as many minor ones.... This is a masterwork ... a lasting reference for grammar writers, typologists, grammatical theorists, and all those fascinated by the complexities of linguistic systems and grammatical analysis. * Carol Genetti,Language *Table of Contents19. Non-spatial Setting ; 20. Number Systems ; 21. Negation ; 22. Reflexive and Reciprocal Constructions ; 23. Pivots, Passives,and Antipassives ; 24. Causatives ; 25. Applicatives ; 26. Comparative Constructions ; 27. Questions ; 28. Language and the World: explanations now and needed ; Appendix

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Book SynopsisA spirited account of the life and times of one of the seminal figures in history of English grammar which dispels the myth of Lowth as the icon of prescriptivism, and establishes him as a key figure in the history of English grammar. It will appeal to everyone interested in the history of English the long-running debate on linguistic correctness.Trade ReviewTieken's great virtue is paying attention to what Lowth actually wrote, both for publication and for private circulation. rather than depending on the caricatures. She has discovered a writer on language who was uncommonly sensitive to different degrees of formality ... The Bishop's Grammar is not the last word on Lowth but, if we're lucky, it will reduce the amount of foolishness attributed to "the eighteenth-century grammarians" by those who haven't bothered to read them. * Jack Lynch, Times Literary Supplement *This is a key book for any scholar working on grammatical norms of the English language, and/or the codification and standardisation of English. Tieken-Boon van Ostade provides an alternative account to the standard depiction of Robert Lowth as an initiator of prespective grammar... it would be of great interest to a range of scholars, from those working on the nuances of eighteenth century grammar, to those looking at modern usage, and more broadly at the codification and standardisation of languages. Tieken-Boon van Ostade presents her argument well throughout the text, and it is clear that she is a stalwart defender of Lowth's name. * Laura Paterson The Linguist *Tieken-Boon van Ostade has presented a book which is remarkable in many ways ... Apart from enriching the study of grammaticography with this methodological innovation, the author also makes a significant, well-founded contribution to debate about prescriptivism. * Simon Pickl, Language and History *Table of Contents1. Prejudice and Misconceptions ; 2. Life and Career ; 3. The Grammar: Origin and Publication History ; 4. The Grammar: Contents and Approach ; 5. Reconstructing Lowth's Social Network ; 6. Communicative Competence and the Language of the Letters ; 7. Lowth's Own Usage and the Grammar's Norm of Correctness ; 8. The Grammar and the Rise of prescriptivism ; 9. Conclusion ; References ; Index

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Book SynopsisPossession and Ownership brings together linguists and anthropologists in a series of cross-linguistic explorations of expressions used to denote possession and ownership, concepts central to most if not all the varied cultures and ideologies of humankind. Possessive noun phrases can be broadly divided into three categories - ownership of property, whole-part relations (such as body and plant parts), and blood and affinal kinship relations. As Professor Aikhenvald shows in her extensive opening essay, the same possessive noun or pronoun phrase is used in English and in many other Indo-European languages to express possession of all three kinds - as in Ann and her husband Henry live in the castle Henry''s father built with his own hands - but that this is by no means the case in all languages. In some, for example, the grammar expresses the inalienability of consanguineal kinship and sometimes also of sacred or treasured objects. Furthermore the degree to which possession and ownership Trade ReviewThis volume, the result of cooperation among eminent linguists and anthropologists, is a significant intellectual achievement. * Lars Johanson, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Project Muse *Table of Contents1. Possession and Ownership: a cross-linguistic perspective ; 2. Ownership, part-whole and Other Possessive-associated Relations in Nelemwa ; 3. Possession in Moskona, an East Bird's Head Language ; 4. Possession and Ownership in Manambu, a Ndu Language from the Sepik Area, Papua New Guinea ; 5. Possession in Martuthunira ; 6. Possession in Nanti ; 7. Possession and Association in Galo Language and Culture ; 8. Possessive Constructions in Chinese ; 9. Possession in Hone ; 10. Possession in Lipke ; 11. Possession in Wandala ; 12. Spirits of the Forest, the Wind, and New Wealth: defining some of the possibilities, and limits, of Kamula possession ; 13. Being and Belonging: exchange, value, and land ownership in the Western highlands of Papua New Guinea ; 14. Possession and Also Ownership - vignettes

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Book SynopsisThis book offers an exciting new perspective on the origins of language. Language is conceptualized as a collective invention, on the model of writing or the wheel, and the book places social and cultural dynamics at the centre of its evolution: language emerged and further developed in human communities already suffused with meaning and communication, mimesis, ritual, song and dance, alloparenting, new divisions of labour and revolutionary changes in social relations. The book thus challenges assumptions about the causal relations between genes, capacities, social communication and innovation: the biological capacities are taken to evolve incrementally on the basis of cognitive plasticity, in a process that recruits previous adaptations and fine-tunes them to serve novel communicative ends. Topics include the ability brought about by language to tell lies, that must have confronted our ancestors with new problems of public trust; the dynamics of social-cognitive co-evolution; the roleTable of ContentsPART 1 THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS; PART 2 LANGUAGE AS A COLLECTIVE OBJECT; PART 3 APES AND PEOPLE, PAST AND PRESENT; PART 4 THE SOCIAL ORIGINS OF LANGUAGE; PART 5 THE JOURNEY THEREAFTER

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Book SynopsisThe best introduction to word history ever published combines scholarship with readability. OED's chief etymologist shows how words originate and change. He explores the histories of place and personal names and explains how to use different kinds of evidence, historical as well as linguistic. This is a book for everyone interested in words.Trade ReviewThis is an immaculate work in every sense, proudly flying the banners of authority and of hegemony ... a galazy of fascinating examples ... a brilliant, addictive work indispensable for school and academic libraries at all levels, and for all with any interest in words and the enchanted patterns they weave. * H. G. A. Hughes, Reference Reviews *a very readable, informative, content-packed introduction for the beginner; for the initiated it provides an incentive to ponder the many open questions presented. As such it can be unreservedly recommended. * Elmar Seebold, Anglia *Our strong expectations of The Oxford Guide to Etymology are fully realized * Nicoline van der Sijs, Nederlandse Taalkunde *Very much to be welcomed * Paul T. Roberge, English Language and Linguistics *Table of ContentsAbout this book ; 1. Introduction ; 2. What is a Word? Which Words Need Etymologies? ; 3. Are Words Coherent Entities? ; 4. Word Formation ; 5. Lexical Borrowing ; 6. The Mechanisms of Borrowing ; 7. Change in Word Form ; 8. Semantic Change ; 9. Etymology and Names ; 10. Conclusion ; Glossary ; Suggested for Further Reading ; References ; General Index ; Index of Word Forms

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Book SynopsisThe Oxford Handbook of Pre-Roman Italy gives a comprehensive account of the peoples who lived on the Italian peninsula during the last millennium BCE. Most people have heard of the Etruscans, but there were many other fascinating civilizations, including the Celts and the Samnites, who inhabited the region at this time. This was an age that began with the rise of urbanism, was marked by the flourishing of diverse and politically sophisticated communities, and ended with the political and cultural unification of the peninsula under Roman rule. The region did not have a single overarching identity, but rather was characterized by a constantly changing pattern of intercultural exchange and communication. Written by more than fifty authors, this book describes the diversity of these indigenous cultures, their languages, interactions, and reciprocal influences. It gives special emphasis to Greek colonization, the rise of aristocracies, technological innovations, and the spread of literacy,

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Book SynopsisExploring the many different contact points between Iberian colonialism and indigenous cultures, this book features contributors who identify the crucial parameters of language evolution that have led to today's state of linguistic diversity in Latin America.Trade Review"Together the chapters in this book give a well-thought-out overview of the complexity of the social ecologies and linguistic development within Latin America, of the differences between the Portuguese and the Spanish empires, and of those within the Spanish viceroyalties. With this volume, Mufwene brings to English-language readers the missing piece in the discussion of language ecologies in excolonial regions." (Anna Maria Escobar, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)"

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Book SynopsisFirst published privately in 1885 and reissued in 1959, this grammar text employs the inductive method of Hebrew instruction developed by William Rainey Harper and practiced by him at the University of Chicago. This inductive method in the teaching of grammar is educationally sound, and in employing it in this text some eighty years ago, the author was certainly far ahead of his time.William Chomsky, Jewish BooklandA treatment of much that is essential in Hebrew grammar. . . .useful tools to the divinity student and instructor in biblical Hebrew.David Weinstein, Jewish Education

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Book SynopsisA very close look at language and landscape design in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, looking at how the word approach changed from a verb to a noun, coming to denote the drive up to an estate.

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Book SynopsisA very close look at language and landscape design in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, looking at how the word "approach" changed from a verb to a noun, coming to denote the drive up to an estate.

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Book SynopsisThis study is the story of writing from its beginnings to its recent transformations through technology. The author shows how the written word originated, how it spread and how it figured in the evolution of civilization.

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Book SynopsisThis volume proposes means of describing, comparing, and interpreting linguistic diversity, both genetic and structural, providing the foundations for a theory of diversity based upon popular science.

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Book SynopsisHow have we come to depend so greatly on the words terror and terrorism to describe broad categories of violence? David Simpson offers here a philology of terror, tracking the concept's long, complicated history across literature, philosophy, political science, and theology--from Plato to NATO. Introducing the concept of the fear-terror cluster, Simpson is able to capture the wide range of terms that we have used to express extreme emotional states over the centuries--from anxiety, awe, and concern to dread, fear, and horror. He shows that the choices we make among such words to describe shades of feeling have seriously shaped the attribution of motives, causes, and effects of the word terror today, particularly when violence is deployed by or against the state. At a time when terror-talk is widely and damagingly exploited by politicians and the media, this book unpacks the slippery rhetoric of terror and will prove a vital resource across humanistic and social sciences disciplines.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“[Greene’s] unique approach allows for a range of insights—historical, cultural, and linguistic—that offer new ways of viewing the rise of modernity. . . . Highly recommended.” * Choice *“Beautiful and evocative. . . . Written with the deep learning and associative sensibility of a true humanist and drawing on an astonishing range of works in order to capture the semantic explosion of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Roland Greene’s book is itself both inventive and worldly.” -- Julia Reinhard Lupton * Studies in English Literature 1500–1900 *“[A] stunningly good book, erudite but lively, informed by a great depth and breadth of reading, and tackling difficult yet very important (some would say urgent) questions. It should be read by everyone with an interest in Renaissance literature, and in language itself.” -- Hannah Crawforth * Renaissance Quarterly *“[T]he chapters’ angular assertions work conceptually to deliver rather dazzling and unexpected insights. . . . His ability to illuminate texts as beleaguered as the initial sonnet of Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella or the trial scene from The Merchant of Venice no less than a poem by Buchanan or a mixed-race account of the Spanish colonization of Peru confirms Greene’s astonishing critical adroitness throughout.” -- Christopher Martin * Sixteenth Century Journal *"Five Words’s erudition and scope are indisputable as it draws on a vast store of sources ranging from Cicero to Philip Sidney, Antonio Viera to the Inca Garcilaso, not to mention Shakespeare and Cervantes." * Comparative Drama *"Greene explores each of his words through sensitive, detailed readings. . . . Five Words reminds us of the importance of individual critical intelligence and offers a strong example of such intelligence at work." * Modern Philology *“A unique, compelling, and often dazzling approach to literature and culture of the early modern period. . . . Each chapter of Five Words is engaging and useful in its own right, and certainly research in any one of these five areas would be enriched by Greene’s extensive work on that subject. The book’s greatest achievement, however, is in demonstrating how these five words together animate the worlds of Renaissance thought and culture.” * Comparative Literature Studies *“There is nothing like Five Words in current criticism. Grounded upon deep erudition, it represents a genuine breakthrough in critical methodology, conceptual history, and the social and cultural task of locating literature among the other discourses. Roland Greene’s efforts to relate and interrelate the implications of the ‘five words’ shape an overarching argument about critical semantics that will have great impact upon the entire field of literary study.” -- William Kennedy, Cornell University “One of our leading theorists in the field of European Renaissance literature offers an absorbing and important discussion of five dynamical concepts, rooted in particular words, which underwent profound change in the age of Shakespeare and Cervantes. These writers do not merely designate the age: they are the most influential writers in the West, and the deepest users of the words that have shaped the mind of the West. To understand other cultures, we need to understand the limits and the range of our own culture. This book is a timely contribution to that effort.” * Gordon Teskey, Harvard University * “Roland Greene’s new book is a brilliant exercise in cultural and linguistic criticism. Drawing on broad study in half a dozen languages and serious engagement with recent developments in critical thought, Greene guides his readers through nuanced readings of a set of key terms that shape the emergence of modernity. He shows how such seemingly innocent words as ‘world’ and ‘invention’ hide entire galaxies of meaning that shape the culture of the early modern period. Along the way, he develops a set of critical paradigms that will influence our understanding of the intersection of language and culture far beyond the confines of this excellent study.” * Timothy Hampton, University of California, Berkeley *

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Book SynopsisThis volume combines Rousseau's essay on the origin of diverse languages with Herder's essay on the genesis of the faculty of speech. Rousseau's essay is important to semiotics and critical theory, as it plays a central role in Jacques Derrida's book "Of Grammatology," and both essays are valuable historical and philosophical documents.

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Book SynopsisA provocative investigation into the making of human languages and the exceptional nature of human adaptation.Trade ReviewThe Domestication of Language brings an important new perspective to an extraordinarily difficult and important topic: the evolution of language. Language is the result of intelligence: an invented social and communicative technology, invented not by a Promethean genius, but multi-generationally by us all as we respond to and experiment in our specific situations. Over many generations, we have converted our original, wild, native endowment of communicative capacity to something new, special, and transforming. -- Kim Sterelny, Australian National University A superbly original book and an exciting piece of philosophy. Cloud builds a serious account of the evolution of language that recognizes the long and complex process that links the prior state (nothing like language at all) to the end state (language of the kinds now in existence) and that responds to the points of greatest difficulty in that process. -- Philip Kitcher, Columbia University Cloud has done much more than given us a 'just-so story' about the evolution of language. He has identified the real obstacles it had to surmount and creatively drawn on the best hard science to show how it overcame them. -- Alex Rosenberg, Duke University This stimulating and engaging book lucidly defends a remarkable proposal. Just as a breeder of honeybees makes choices that influence the evolution of domesticated bees, all of us-by choosing which words and practices to employ and which ones to scowl, chuckle, or roll our eyes at-actively influence the evolution of our language and culture. -- Adam Elga, Princeton University A tour de force. Drawing on recent work in the philosophy of language, evolutionary biology, and ethology, Daniel Cloud has fashioned a new account of the origins of our capacity for linguistic communication. Cloud's book is both a wonderfully readable introduction to the topic and a bold and original work of scholarship. Any attempt to reconstruct the origins of language will be speculative, but this is the best sort of speculation: rigorous, scientifically informed, strikingly imaginative, and utterly plausible. -- Gideon Rosen, Princeton University [The Domestication of Language] presents an intriguing new theory of cultural evolution. -- Nikhil Sonnad Quartz This serious piece of academic writing is a must-read for those working on the frontiers of the philosophy of language. Library Journal If you're into the evolution of language, you'll love The Domestication of Language. Farnam Street A bold hypothesis and a book worth reading... Recommended. Choice The book is tightly argued. It builds wonderfully on the work of others and offers realistic aspirations for futher research agendas in various disciplines. MetapsychologyTable of Contents1. Where Do Words Come From? 2. The Conventions of a Human Language 3. The Evolution of Signals 4. Varieties of Biological Information 5. The Strange Case of the Chimpanzee 6. The Problem of Maladaptive Culture 7. The Cumulative Consequences of a Didactic Adaptation 8. Meaning, Interpretation, and Language Acquisition 9. What's Accomplished in Conversation? 10. Recapitulation and Moral References Index

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Book SynopsisIn Neopoetics, Collins turns his attention to the cognitive evolution of the writing-ready brain. Further integrating neuroscience into the popular field of cognitive poetics, he adds empirical depth to our study of literary texts and verbal imagination and offers a whole new way to look at reading, writing, and creative expression.Trade ReviewProfessor Collins has shown, with his unique combination of interests, just how complex and unpredictably intricate the cognitive web of human culture has become. Of course, this is not the last word on the subject of how culture shapes and modifies our collective cognitive process; we have just begun the task of mapping out the territory to be explored. But exploration is inherently exciting in itself, and this book has significantly widened the scope of the project. -- Merlin Donald, author of "Origins of the Modern Mind" Neopoetics brings ideas from ancient Greece and modern literary and psychological theory together in describing the "writing-ready" brain. It is a work of impressive scholarship, though the literary extracts and occasionally anecdotal style make the book a pleasure to read. I think it will make a distinctive mark in fields of human understanding, including history, psychology, anthropology, literary criticism, musicology. -- Michael Corballis, author of From Hand to Mouth: The Origins of Language Christopher Collins weaves the strands of cognitive poetics - neuroscience, cognitive psychology, anthropology, linguistics and semiotics - into a masterful work of scholarship on literacy, language, memory and the mind that itself reads as beautifully as a novel. This book calls out to be picked up and read carefully by anyone interested in how writing transformed the traditionally oral cultures of ancient Greece and Rome into literate and literary ones, and indeed helped define our own cultural evolution as human beings -- William Short, University of Texas, San Antonio The word poetics is rooted in the Greek poiein, to 'build' or 'create.' In his 2013 book, Paleopoetics, Christopher Collins assessed how evolution gave rise to the "language-ready" brain and its ability to create tools that extends our thoughts. Neopoetics carries his story forward to illuminate how writing has transformed the way that language supports 'mindsharing,' performance and narrative. His exposition fruitfully augments the tools of literary analysis with well-judged perspectives from cognitive neuroscience in ways that extend to dance, music and emotion. -- Michael Arbib, University of Southern California Collins breathes new life into the constructionist premise that language shapes how humans think. Using the literary traditions of ancient Greece and Rome to examine the constraints that oral and written media, respectively, impose on narrative representation, Neopoetics suggests new ways of thinking about the cognitive mechanisms that shape cultural transmission. -- Michelle Scalise Sugiyama, University of Oregon Recommended. -- A. Kind CHOICETable of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments 1. Innovating Ourselves 2. Narrative Memory 3. The Dancing, Singing Daughters of Memory 4. Visual Instruments of Memory 5. Poets' Play and Plato's Poetics 6. Writing for the Voice 7. Writing and the Reading Mind Epilogue: Poetics and the Making of the Modern Self Appendix: Three Horatian Texts Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisWe understand our thoughts and ourselves through language, but what is the nature of language?Trade ReviewCombining wide learning, sharp insight, and deft style, these enlightening and intriguing vignettes carry us through the ages to reach considerable understanding of the distinctive linguistic capacity that sets humans apart from the rest of the natural world. -- Noam Chomsky, author of What Kind of Creatures Are We? There is much to find appealing in this pocket-size, readable historical panorama of important thinkers who have pondered the nature of language from the ancient Greeks to the present day. Nobody has drawn out the historical links in the story of language science in this way, and most nonspecialists would learn much from Moro's quite original observations. -- Robert C. Berwick, Massachusetts Institute of Technology I Speak, Therefore I Am explores the intriguing connections between linguistics on the one hand and the sciences and philosophy on the other. The book is abundant with entertaining anecdotes of intellectual history that shed light on these connections. Moro plays the role of wise guide, and leads the reader through a remarkable journey. -- Robert Frank, Yale University The author manages the considerable feat of making insightful remarks about a wide variety of figures in a very short space. Library JournalTable of ContentsPreface: Choice, Then Order, Then Chance, Finally Only Light 1. God 2. Plato 3. Aristotle 4. Marcus Terentius Varro 5. Roger Bacon 6. Descartes 7. Antoine Arnauld and Claude Lancelot 8. Sir William Jones 9. Hermann Osthoff and E. Karl Brugmann 10. Ferdinand de Saussure 11. Bertrand Russell 12. Martin Joos 13. Roman Jakobson 14. Joseph Greenberg 15. Eric H. Lenneberg 16. Niels Jerne 17. Noam Chomsky Finale Postscript Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography

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Book SynopsisWe understand our thoughts and ourselves through language, but what is the nature of language?Trade ReviewCombining wide learning, sharp insight, and deft style, these enlightening and intriguing vignettes carry us through the ages to reach considerable understanding of the distinctive linguistic capacity that sets humans apart from the rest of the natural world. -- Noam Chomsky, author of What Kind of Creatures Are We? There is much to find appealing in this pocket-size, readable historical panorama of important thinkers who have pondered the nature of language from the ancient Greeks to the present day. Nobody has drawn out the historical links in the story of language science in this way, and most nonspecialists would learn much from Moro's quite original observations. -- Robert C. Berwick, Massachusetts Institute of Technology I Speak, Therefore I Am explores the intriguing connections between linguistics on the one hand and the sciences and philosophy on the other. The book is abundant with entertaining anecdotes of intellectual history that shed light on these connections. Moro plays the role of wise guide, and leads the reader through a remarkable journey. -- Robert Frank, Yale University The author manages the considerable feat of making insightful remarks about a wide variety of figures in a very short space. Library JournalTable of ContentsPreface: Choice, Then Order, Then Chance, Finally Only Light 1. God 2. Plato 3. Aristotle 4. Marcus Terentius Varro 5. Roger Bacon 6. Descartes 7. Antoine Arnauld and Claude Lancelot 8. Sir William Jones 9. Hermann Osthoff and E. Karl Brugmann 10. Ferdinand de Saussure 11. Bertrand Russell 12. Martin Joos 13. Roman Jakobson 14. Joseph Greenberg 15. Eric H. Lenneberg 16. Niels Jerne 17. Noam Chomsky Finale Postscript Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThomas O. Höllmann explains the development of the Chinese writing system and its importance in literature, religion, art, and other aspects of culture. Spanning epigraphs and oracle bones to writing and texting, Chinese Script is a wide-ranging introduction to the complexity and beauty of written text and calligraphy in the Chinese world.Trade ReviewA competent, comprehensive look at the historical development of the Chinese writing system and its manifestations in literature, calligraphy, religion, and other aspects of culture. -- Victor H. Mair, University of Pennsylvania A well-researched, detailed book that provides broad yet concise information on the Chinese writing system's historical background, as well as its linguistic and artistic aspects. -- Peter Yang, Case Western Reserve UniversityTable of ContentsPreface1. Inspiration and Drill2. The Script3. Ingenuity and Passion4. Book Printing and Its Consequences5. Import–Export6. CalligraphyAppendix 1. Notes on PronunciationAppendix 2. Timeline of Chinese DynastiesBibliographyIndex of Names

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