Historical and comparative linguistics Books

Book SynopsisHermann Beckh's lectures on language - published here in English for the first time - offer a unique and penetrating discussion of the origins and evolution of speech. Based on his professional knowledge of Tibetan, Sanskrit and Pali - and complete fluency in at least six other ancient languages, not to count nine modern languages - and accompanied by a heartfelt understanding of anthroposophy, the lectures comprise an unparalleled marriage of academic and meditative insights. Further, they give a valuable introduction to the author's later works on music, the stars and the Gospels of Mark and John. The Source of Speech features Beckh's complete series of articles on the subject that were developed during the early, 'seeding' period of his life and work. These include: 'Rudolf Steiner and the East', an unprecedented study of Steiner's relationship to Sanskrit and Buddhist spirituality; 'Let There be Light', Beckh's exploration of the six Hebrew words forming Genesis 1:3; articles devoted to the origins of language, Indian philosophies and the names of the Divine in sacred texts; and essays published in Das Goetheanum which examine speech sounds, especially those of Sanskrit and Classical Hebrew. Also included are contemporaneous reviews of Beckh's articles by Albert Steffen and Eugen Kolisko and a lecture on academia, materialism and the undisciplined enthusiasm for Indian spirituality, held at the University of Berlin. Nearly one hundred years on, Beckh's perspectives and themes remain as exciting, relevant and fresh as ever.Table of ContentsIntroduction by Neil Franklin - Hermann Beckh: Rudolf Steiner and the East - Indology and Spiritual Science - I. Pragmatic Etymology and Genetic Etymology with special application to Sanskrit - II. Contribution to the Vedanta Philosophy: The Teaching of Atman and Brahman and its tangible Significance in the Light of Linguistics - III. Contribution to Sankhya Philosophy: sattva, rajas, tamas And their Relationship to Goethe's Theory of Colours in the Light of Linguistics - The Names of the Divine in the Primal Word of Sacred Languages - New Ways to the Origin of Speech, Three lectures (1921): 1. Etymology and the meaning of speech-sounds in the light of spiritual science - 2. The Physical and the Spiritual Origin of Speech - 3. 'Let there be Light': The Biblical Primal Words of Creation - Anthroposophy and University Knowledge - The Sun-Mantra of the Rig-Veda - Appendix, Reviews: Albert Steffen, Etymology and the Meaning of Speech Sounds in the Light of Spir-itual Science - Eugen Kolisko, Vom Lebenswerk Rudolf Steiners: Eine Hoffnung neuer Kultur - Notes - Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThis book explores how the eponymous and original Lingua Franca was recognized as a potential linguistic template for future military and colonial pidgins. The author traces the career trajectory of General Louis Faidherbe, a member of the French colonizing force in Algiers in the early 1830s and a recognized linguist, who rose up through the ranks in various African colonies and was the founder of regiments in West Africa, including the Senegal-based tirailleurs. Their artificially constructed military pidgin, Français Tirailleur, was a language modelled on the reduced grammar and lexicon of Lingua Franca. This book demonstrates the direct link between the two languages, as well as connections with other colonial pidgins in Asia that also derived to some extent from Lingua Franca. It will be of interest to students and scholars of language contact and language history, pidgins and creoles, and military and colonial history. Table of ContentsChapter 1: The evolution of Lingua Franca to Sabir and beyond.- Chapter 2: Louis Faidherbe, colonialist and linguist.- Chapter 3: Parallels of Sabir and Français Tirailleur.- Chapter 4: The mixed fortunes of Sabir.

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Book SynopsisThis text deals with one of the central problems for theories of word-formation, the productivity of morphological processes.

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Book SynopsisThe book will focus on the textualization process of long oral epics, found today mainly outside Europe, especially on their oral composition, documentation, codification in writing, editing and publication. Interesting fieldwork-based studies on living oral epics are able to inform us about the problems of textualization in a way which will also interest scholars studying long-dead epic traditions such as Homer, Beowulf, Nibelungenlied, Edda, etc. The problem of textualization has been vividly discussed in recent years in anthropology, folkloristics, literary studies, philology and linguistics. The book will open an ethnographic angle on the discussion on how long epics are composed and used in a variety of cultural contexts.

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This reference grammar is the first description of the endangered Oceanic language Daakaka. This language is spoken by about 1000 speakers on the island of Ambrym, Vanuatu. The data on which the analysis is based were collected by the author during a documentation project between 2009 and 2012. All structural levels of the language are discussed, including discussions of reduplication patterns and orthography design, nominal and verbal subclasses, clause types and information structure and the different types of subordinate clauses. Particular emphasis is given to the intricate system of nominal possession, the system of TAM- and polarity markers and serial verb constructions. Literary genres of the region and related art forms such as songs and the symbolic sand drawings are discussed in the final chapter. The grammar will be especially relevant to readers with an interest in Oceanic languages, general typology and theoretical linguistics as well as those with a broader interest in the region.

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Book SynopsisThis monograph explores the different types of clausal relations in the world’s languages. In the recent literature, there have been claims that the strict dichotomy of subordination and coordination cannot be maintained since some constructions seem to be in between these two categories. This study investigates these constructions in detail. The first part is concerned with clause chaining constructions, while the second is concerned with different cases of asymmetric coordination in English. In both parts, it is shown that the different tests to distinguish clausal relations indeed yield different results for the specific constructions. This poses a severe challenge for the established theories of clausal relations. However, as it is argued, recent analyses of coordination provide for the possibility to map a subordinate structure onto a coordinate one by means of regular transformational rules. It is shown that a single movement step derives all the peculiar properties of the phenomena in question. This book thus provides the first comprehensive solution for a long-standing problem in theoretical syntax.

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Book SynopsisThis book takes a fresh approach to analysing how new languages are created, combining in-depth colonial history and empirical, usage-based linguistics. Focusing on a rarely studied language, the authors employ this dual methodology to reconstruct how multilingual individuals drew on their perception of Romance and West African languages to form French Guianese Creole. In doing so, they facilitate the application of a usage-based approach to language while simultaneously contributing significantly to the debate on creole origins. This innovative volume is sure to appeal to students and scholars of language history, creolisation and languages in contact.Chapter 3 is published open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.Trade Review“The book is well written, the argumentation is usually clear, the authors have a clear theorical framework, they present a great deal of linguistic data … . This book is probably its best test to date. … In short, this is an interesting book, more historically informed than most works of its kind.” (Peter Bakker, Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, Vol. 36 (2), 2021)Table of ContentsChapter 1. Introduction: A dual approach.- Chapter 2. History: The Creation of French Guianese Creole.- Chapter 3. Linguistics: Inheritance and Innovation in French Guianese Creole.- Chapter 4. Conclusion.

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Book SynopsisThe historical relationship between the Catalan and Occitan languages had a definitive impact on the linguistic identity of the powerful Crown of Aragon and the emergent Spanish Empire. Drawing upon a wealth of historical documents, linguistic treatises and literary texts, this book offers fresh insights into the political and cultural forces that shaped national identities in the Iberian Peninsula and, consequently, neighboring areas of the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. The innovative textual approach taken in these pages exposes the multifaceted ways in which the boundaries between the region’s most prestigious languages were contested, and demonstrates how linguistic identities were linked to ongoing struggles for political power. As the analysis reveals, the ideological construction of Occitan would play a crucial role in the construction of a unified Catalan, and Catalan would, in turn, give rise to a fervent debate around ‘Spanish’ language that has endured through the present day. This book will appeal to students and scholars of historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, Hispanic linguistics, Catalan language and linguistics, anthropological linguistics, Early Modern literature and culture, and the history of the Mediterranean.Trade Review“I find Lledó-Guillem‘s monograph to be brilliant, innovative, and groundbreaking. … this book is a must-have to both students and scholars in Medieval and Early Modern political, cultural, and intellectual history, European studies, Romance languages, historical sociolinguistics, and linguistic anthropology. It is a work that will be referenced and cited for years to come.” (Josef Fioretta, Scripta, Issue 11, June, 2018)Table of ContentsChapter 1: Introduction.Part I: The political use of the Occitan language by the Catalan-Aragonese monarchy; Chapter 2: The Rise of Catalan as a Royal Language: Bernat Desclot’s account of the Battle of Castellammare in response to Bernat d’Auriac’s sirventés;Chapter 3: The politics of the linguistic discontinuity of Occitan versus the continuity of Catalan: the Sermó by Ramon Muntaner.Chapter 4: Catalan and Occitan versus Aragonese: the poetic ceremony following the Coronation of Alfonso the Benign in Muntaner’s Crònica.Part II: The interpretation of the Catalan-Occitan relationship in the construction of the Spanish Empire.- Chapter 5: The historical (dis)continuity of the Catalan language and the linguistic creation of the Spanish Empire: Ausiàs March in the Early Modern Period.Chapter 6: A unitary Catalan-Occitan language in the Early Modern Period: the exaltation of Apitxat Valencian.Chapter 7: Conclusion.

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Book SynopsisThe first comprehensive history of European studies on Philippine languages, this book gives a synoptic view of studies by Dutch, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish linguists from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, placing them in their historical context. It opens up a new field of research in Philippine studies on previously unknown materials in European libraries and archives.

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Book SynopsisThis book provides a systematic, contrastive analysis of the segmentation and representation of English and Chinese Translocative Motion Events (TMEs), which possess Macro-Event Property (MEP). It addresses all the issues critical to understanding TMEs in English and Chinese, from event segmentation, MEP principles and the conceptual structure of TMEs and their constituents, to the representation of Actant, Motion, Path and Ground. The book argues that the corpus-based alignment for the TME segmentation in both languages, the parameters of Actant, Motion, Path and Ground and their relevant statistical description are particularly important for understanding English and Chinese TMEs. The linguistic materialization of Actant, Ground, Path and Motion, together with a wealth of tables and figures, offers convincing evidence to support the typological classification of English and Chinese. The book’s suggestions regarding the Talmyan bipartite typology and Bohnemeyer’s MEP contribute to the advancement of TME studies and language typology, and help learners to understand motion events and English-Chinese typological similarities and differences.Table of ContentsList of TablesList of FiguresList of AbbreviationsChapter 1 Introduction: Events, Motion Events and Translocative Motion Events1.1 Translocative Motion Events (TMEs) 1.1.1 Defining event1.1.2 TME 1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Study 1.2.1 Purpose of the study 1.2.2 Significance of the study 1.3 Framework and Methodological Issues1.4 The RoadmapChapter 2 MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of the TMES 2.0 Introduction 2.1 Theoretical Issues 2.1.1 Talmyan dichotomy typology and motion event studies by other scholars 2.1.1.1 Talmyan dichotomy typology 2.1.1.2 Dichotomy or trichotomy 2.1.2 Event segmentation 2.2 Principles of MEP 2.2.1 The biuniqueness constraint 2.2.2 The macro-event linking principle 2.2.3 The referential uniqueness constraint 2.2.4 The unique vector constraint 2.2.5 The loss of MEP 2.2.6 A brief summary of Section 2.2 2.3 The Segmentation of Complex Motion Events and the TME Constructions with MEP2.3.1 The conceptual structure and types of motion events 2.3.2 The segmentation of complex motion events 2.3.3 The TME constructions with MEP 2.4 The Components of TMEs and Parameter-setting 2.4.1 Figure and parameter-setting 2.4.2 Motion and parameter- setting 2.4.3 Path and parameter-setting 2.4.4 Ground and parameter-setting 2.5 Tertium Comparationis and the Hypothesis for This Study2.6 Summary Chapter 3 Corpus Tagging and Statistical Work3.0 Introduction 3.1 Research Design 3.1.1 The parallel translation corpus 3.1.2 Sentence selection and tagging 3.1.3 Variables 3.2 English and Chinese TME Constructions3.2.1 The MEP sentences in English and Chinese texts 3.2.2 The subevent constructions in English and Chinese texts 3.3 Representing English and Chinese TME Constructions3.3.1 Who is moving 3.3.2 How to move 3.3.3 Which road to follow 3.3.4 Where to go 3.4 Summary Chapter 4 Contrasting the Representation of English and Chinese TMEs4.0 Introduction 4.1 The Representation of English and Chinese TMEs 4.1.1 English TMEs in the original texts 4.1.2 English TMEs in the translated texts 4.2.1 Chinese TMEs in the original texts 4.2.2 Chinese TMEs in the translated texts 4.2.3 At hand or in the distance? Part I: English and Chinese TME constructions in comparison 4.3 The TMEs Between English and Chinese 4.3.1 From English to Chinese 4.3.2 From Chinese to English 4.4 The Representation of Motion Event Components 4.4.1 The representation of Actants4.4.2 The representation of Motion4.4.3 The representation of Paths4.4.5 At hand or in the distance? Part II: English and Chinese TME component representation in comparison4.5 Beyond Surface Representation4.6 SummaryChapter 5 Conclusions5.0 Introduction5.1 Major Findings5.2 Theoretical Implications5.3 Limitations and Future StudyBibliography

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Book SynopsisHe Pitopito Korero no te Perehi Maori Readings from the Maori Language Press is a reader of various articles and content from 19th-century Maori newspapers. The editors, Jenifer Curnow, Jane McRae and Ngapare Hopa, released a successful book of essays on Maori-language newspapers, Rere Atu, Taku Manu! (AUP), in 2002, and this new companion volume is sure to be popular with the same audience. For easy use and comparison, the Maori and English texts have been placed alongside one another, illustrating a fascinating range of tone, style and subject. The book contains an introduction followed by six sections divided thematically: From the Editors, Letters,Articles, News, Obituaries and Advertisements. Curnow, McRae and Hopa have chosen from the wealth of material available a representative, insightful selection of Maori-language texts that are incomparably useful as a reflection of New Zealand history and Maori attitudes as well as a wonderful resource for students of Maori language and culture.

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Book SynopsisKush/Cush and Cushitic: Language, History, Race, and Religion offers a multifaceted examination of the term 'Kush/Cush' and its related concepts, drawing from historical, linguistic, and cultural perspectives. In the realm of historical linguistics, 'Cushitic' is employed to describe a hypothetical language family within the Afroasiatic phylum. This term may also be used to refer to the people who speak these languages. However, there is often confusion between this academic usage and the ancient kingdom of Kush, which is frequently referred to as Nubia in historical works. The confusion extends to the usage of the same term in Biblical texts. The book delves into the history of the Kingdom of Kush, the Biblical usage of Kush/Cush, and the so-called Cushitic languages, offering a nuanced discussion of these intertwined topics.

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Book SynopsisA New Yorker Best Book of 2022 A Globe & Mail Book of the Year "A stimulating work on the politics of language." LA Review of Books As globalisation continues languages are disappearing faster than ever, leaving our planet’s linguistic diversity leaping towards extinction. The science of how languages are acquired is becoming more advanced and the internet is bringing us new ways of teaching the next generation, however it is increasingly challenging for minority languages to survive in the face of a handful of hegemonic ‘super-tongues’. In Speak Not, James Griffiths reports from the frontlines of the battle to preserve minority languages, from his native Wales, Hawaii and indigenous American nations, to southern China and Hong Kong. He explores the revival of the Welsh language as a blueprint for how to ensure new generations are not robbed of their linguistic heritage, outlines how loss of indigenous languages is the direct result of colonialism and globalisation and examines how technology is both hindering and aiding the fight to prevent linguistic extinction. Introducing readers to compelling characters and examining how indigenous communities are fighting for their languages, Griffiths ultimately explores how languages hang on, what happens when they don’t, and how indigenous tongues can be preserved and brought back from the brink.Trade ReviewThis history of endangered languages assesses the political causes of their precariousness. * The New Yorker *A welcome addition to critiques of empire and studies of language and politics. Part history, part memoir, part policy critique, the volume succeeds at telling a universal tale through particular stories, including characters who remind us that the languages we speak – and speak not – are the worlds in which we live, and that such worlds are worth fighting for. -- David Moscrop * The Globe & Mail *Speak Not is an astute, well-researched, and often scholarly meditation on the forces that drive marginal languages out of existence in favor of dominant metropolitan tongues ... [a] stimulating work on the politics of language. -- Oliver Farry * LA Review of Books *A lucid and timely account of languages under threat around the world… illuminating in the extreme. -- Kang Hyun-kyung * The Korea Times *Griffiths is spot on: the survival of many languages—and perhaps the identities that go with them—depends on politics. * Asian Review of Books *Speak Not teases out both differences and similarities between [Griffiths’] examples, be that in the racial dimension or level of state violence in their oppression, with both sensitivity and passion. * Buzz *As languages throughout the world continue to disappear at an alarming rate, James Griffiths' book could not be more relevant. Focusing mainly on the historical trajectories of Welsh, Hawaiian and Cantonese, Griffiths chronicles the contentious and often bloody struggles faced by these languages, weaving the strands of history, culture and linguistics into a fascinating and highly readable narrative. Languages die for many reasons, but the book's central message is that language demise is not merely the natural consequence of modernization and mass media, but is often the result of a calculated authoritarian strategy that sees a common language as a guarantor of political unity. Speak Not is not merely a lament at the loss of the planet's linguistic diversity, but is also a positive record of how the courage and perseverance of beleaguered language communities can preserve and even revive their native tongues. * David Moser, author of "A Billion Voices: China's Search for a Common Language" *Speak Not is a beautifully narrated and intensely smart global history of how languages are destroyed. From Hong Kong to Wales, Hawaii to South Africa, Griffiths artfully guides us through intimate stories of people fighting over decades, often in vain, to protect their linguistic heritage and identities, stories that, when taken together, reveal an oft-unexplored aspect of the "disasters wrought" by colonialism, nationalism, and global inequality. Yet within Griffiths powerful critique of language destruction is a story of hope: a glimpse into a world in which language revitalization is possible. * Dr. Gina Anne Tam, Trinity University, San Antonio, USA *This commendable undertaking adds to the literature highlighting the constitutive role that centuries of imperial rule have played in the modern world. ... Speak not ends with a powerful call to action. * International Affairs *Table of ContentsEPIGRAPH INTRODUCTION PART ONE: WELSH 1. Blue Books 2. Fire and Fury 3. Signs of Change 4. Bilingual Nation INTERLUDE: AFRI-CAN’T PART TWO: HAWAIIAN 5. The Princess Who Was Promised 6. Sandwiched Islands 7. I Mua Kamehameha 8. Ke Ea Hawaii 9. Road Closed Due to Desecration INTERLUDE: THE OLD, NEW TONGUE PART THREE: CANTONESE 10. Dialectics 11. A Chinese Alphabet 12. Common Tongue 13. ‘Cantonese Gives You Nasal Cancer’ 14. Sounds of Separatism 15. Language Plateau EPILOGUE AUTHOR’S NOTE NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

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Book SynopsisHeller and McElhinny reinterpret sociolinguistics for the twenty-first century with an original approach to the study of language that is situated in the political and economic contexts of colonialism and capitalism. In the process, they map out a critical history of how language serves, and has served, as a terrain for producing and reproducing social inequalities. The authors ask how, and by whom, ideas about language get unevenly shaped, offering new perspectives that will excite readers and incite further research for years to come.Table of ContentsList of Figures Acknowledgements Preface: Hope Chapter 1: Language, Capitalism, Colonialism: Walking Backward into the Future 1.1 Language and Inequality: A Wary Approach to a Red Thread World 1.2 Red Flags: Keywords, Hegemonies, Ideologies, and Warty Genealogies 1.3 Language Out of Place 1.4 Knotted Histories: Following the Threads through the Book 1.5 The End of the Beginning PART I: LANGUAGE, INTIMACY, AND EMPIRE Chapter 2: Language and Imperialism I: Conversion and Kinship 2.1 "The First Nations Bible Translation Capacity-Building Initiative" 2.2 Colonialism, Imperialism, Postcolonialism, Decolonization 2.3 Intimacy and Connection Across Five Continents 2.4 Reduced to and by Christian Love: Missionary Linguistics 2.5 Family Trees, Comparative Philology and Secular Religion Chapter 3: Language and Imperialism II: Evolution, Hybridity, History 3.1 "Mixing Things Up" 3.2 Imperialism and Industrial Capitalism 3.3 Evolutionary Theory: Language and/as Race 3.4 Slavery, Plantation, Labour, Trade, and "Mixed" Languages 3.5 Americanist Anthropology: The Limits of Cultural Critiques of Evolutionary Racism American Modern: Assimilating Blackness, Disappearing Indigeneity American Primitive: Extracting Language 3.6 Linguistic Relativity, Colonial Ambivalence, and Modern Alienation PART II: THE CONTRADICTIONS OF LANGUAGE IN INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISM Chapter 4: Language and European Notions of Nation and State: 4.1 "Le Symbole" 4.2 The Emergence of the Nation-State in Europe 4.3 Markets and Liberal Democracy 4.4 Making Subjects Through Language Regimentation: Census, Standardization, Literacy Standardization: Grammars, Dictionaries, Canons, Pedagogies 4.5 Language and Differential Citizenship 4.6 Creating Peripheries 4.7 Regulating Relations in Industrial Capitalism 4.8 Making Scientific Linguistic Expertise Chapter 5: Internationalism, Communism, and Fascism: Alternative Modernities 5.1 "Visions of the Future" 5.2 Peace, Geopolitics, and International Auxiliary Languages 5.3 Making Communist Linguistics Marrism The Bakhtin Circle From Language as Action to Language as Tool in the Cold War 5.4. Language and Fascism National Socialism in Germany Language and Race: Yiddish and Esperanto Race, Propaganda, and Mass Media 5.5 Fault Lines PART III: BRAVE NEW WORLDS: LANGUAGE AS TECHNOLOGY, LANGUAGE AS TECHNIQUE Chapter 6: The Cold War: Surveillance, Structuralism, and Security 6.1 "Black Out" 6.2 Battles for Hearts and Minds 6.3 The Investigation of Linguists During the McCarthy Period 6.4 Suspicious Words, Suspicious Minds The Prague Linguistics Circle Fear of the Translator 6.5 Infrastructure and Institutionalization: Communication Studies, Area Studies, Linguistics, Applied Linguistics 6.6 Machine Translation and the Rise of Syntax Rational and Universal Principles for Linguistic Analysis: Late Structuralist Linguistics Freedom, Creativity, and Human Nature: The Rise of Generative Linguistics 6.7 Nineteen Eighty-Four as a Weapon of the Cold War Chapter 7: On the Origins of 'Sociolinguistics': Democracy, Development and Emancipation 7.1 "A Dialectologist in India" 7.2 Engineering Language: Literacy, Standardization, and Education 7.3 Language Policy and Planning: Technocratic Solutions 7.4 Domestic Development and American Sociolinguistics Challenging "Deficit": Three Approaches Fear of the Political 7.5 Challenging Consensus Feminist Linguistics Difference and Domination: Anti-Racist Critiques 7.6 Pidgins, Creoles, and New Nationalisms 7.7 The Rise of Sociolinguistics in Europe: Class and Conflict 7.8 The End of the Trente Glorieuses Chapter 8: Language in Late Capitalism: Intensifications, Unruly Desires, and Alternative Worlds 8.1 "Nayaano-nibii maang Gichigamiin" 8.2 Late Capitalism: The Expanding Reach of the Market and the Neoliberal State 8.3 Language, Inequality, and Ideology 8.4 Managing Your Assets: Language Quality, Linguistic Diversity, and Citizenship 8.5 Brave New Selves: "I am a Business, Man!" 8.6 Affect, Authenticity, and Embodiment 8.7 Recapturing the Commons 8.8 Reclamation, Redress, Refusal, and Reimagining 8.9 This is How We Hope References Index

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Book SynopsisA foundational book by one of the most distinguished German humanists of the last half century, Tempus joins cultural linguistics and literary interpretation at the hip. Developing two controversial theses—that sentences are not truly meaningful in isolation from their contexts and that verb tenses are primarily indicators not of time but of the attitude of the speaker or writer—Tempus surveys a dazzling array of ancient and modern texts from famous authors as well as casual speakers of German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, and English, with a final chapter extending the observations to Greek, Russian, and world languages. A classic in German and long available in many other languages, Tempus launched a new discipline, text linguistics, and established a unique career that was marked by precise observation, sensitive cultural outreach, and practical engagement with the situation of migrants. Weinrich’s robust and lucid close readings of famous and little-known authors from all the major languages of western Europe expand our literary horizons and challenge our linguistic understanding.Table of ContentsTranslators’ Note | ix Introduction | 1 Jane K. Brown and Marshall Brown 1 Tense in Texts | 9 Tense and Time, 9 • Text Linguistics, 11 • A Preliminary Reflection: Obstinate Signs, 14 • Tense Distribution, 17 • Two Tense Groups: Discussing and Narrating, 22 • On the Freedom of the Narrator, 25 2 Discussing–Narrating | 32 Syntax and Communication, 32 • Register, 36 • Tense in Different Genres, 42 • The World of Discussion, 45 • The World of Narrating, 50 • Tense in the Language of Children, 55 3 Perspective | 60 Time in Texts, 60 • The Future (using French as an example), 64 • The Perfekt in German, 69 • The Perfect in English, 75 • Thornton Wilder: The Ides of March, 78 • The Passé composé in French, 83 • The Passato prossimo in Italian, 87 • The Perfecto compuesto in Spanish, 91 • Narration, Past, Truth, 96 4 Highlighting | 101 Narrative Highlighting, 101 • Narrative Tempo in the Novel, 106 • Baudelaire: “Le vieux saltimbanque” (The Old Mountebank), 111 • Of the Tense of Death, 117 5 Tense in Novellas and Short Stories: Highlighting vs. Aspect | 121 Maupassant, 121 • Pirandello, 126 • Unamuno, Darío, Echegaray, 129 • Hemingway, 135 • Frame Narrative (Boccaccio), 142 • Narration in the Middle Ages, 147 • Frame and Highlighting in Modern Stories, 150 6 Tense Transitions 153 Tense in Dialogue, 153 • Descartes, Rousseau, and the Sequence of Tenses, 164 7 Tense Metaphors | 171 Tense Metaphors in Texts, 171 • Condition and Consequence, Reality and Unreality, 180 8 Tense Combinations | 186 Tense and Person, 186 • Tense and Adverbs, 190 • Combined Transitions, 197 • Semi-finite Verbs, 205 9 A Crisis in Narration? | 211 Tense in Old French, 211 • Evidence of Language Consciousness in French Classicism, 217 • The Time of Newspapers, 224 • Albert Camus: L’étranger, 227 • Oral Narration in French, 236 • A Parallel: Tense in South-German Dialects, 244 10 Other Languages—Other Tenses? | 252 Tense in Ancient Greek, 252 • Tense in Latin, 256 • Whorf, Spengler, and the Hopi Indians, 264 • Toward a New Method of Description, 270 Index | 275

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Book SynopsisThe Indo-European dispersal has puzzled scholars for centuries. When in prehistory did this dramatic linguistic shift take place and from where? What were the main driving forces? This books provides the newest insights from linguistics, archaeology and genetics on the prehistoric spread of one of the world's largest language families.Table of ContentsIntroduction: re-theorizing interdisciplinarity, and the relation between Archaeology, Linguistics, and Genetics Kristian Kristiansen and Guus Kroonen ; Part I. Early Indo-European and the Origin of Pastoralism: 1. The Yamnaya Culture and the invention of Nomadic pastoralism in the Eurasian steppes David W. Anthony; 2. Yamnaya pastoralists in the Eurasian desert steppe zone: new perspectives on mobility Natalia I. Shishlina; 3. Proto-Indo-Anatolian, the 'Anatolian Split' and the 'Anatolian Trek': a comparative linguistic perspective Alwin Kloekhorst; Part II. Migratory Processes and Linguistic Dispersals between Yamnaya and the Corded Ware: 4. The corded ware complex in Europe in light of current archeogenetic and environmental evidence Wolfgang Haak, Martin Furholt, Martin Sikora, Adam Ben Rohrlach, Luka Papa, Karl-Goran Siogren, Volker Heyd, Morten Fischer Mortensen, Anne Brigitte Nielsen, Johannes Muller, Ingo Feeser, Guss Kroonen and Kristian Kristiansen; 5. Emergent properties of the corded ware culture: an information approach Quentin Burgeois and Erik Kroon; 6. Linguistic phylogenetics and words for metals in Indo European Thomas Olander; 7. Word mining: metal names and the Indo-European dispersal Rasmus Thorso, Andrew Wigman, Anthony Jakob, Axel I. Palmer, Paulus Van Sluis and Guus Kroonen; Part III. The Cultural and Linguistic Significance of Bell Beakers Along the Atlantic Fringe: 8. From the steppe to Ireland: the Impact of a DNA research James P. Mallory; 9. Beaker culture metal and mobility in Atlantic Europe: some implications for genetic and language origins William O' Brien; 10. 'From the ends of the earth': a cross-disciplinary approach to long-distance contact in bronze age Atlantic Europe John T. Koch and Johan Ling; 11. With the back to the ocean: the Celtic maritime vocabulary David Stifter; 12. European prehistory between Celtic and Germanic: the Celto-Germanic isoglosses revisited Paulus Van Sluis, Anders Richardt Jorgensen and Guus Kroonen; Part IV. The Bronze Age Chariot and Wool Horizons: 13. Relative and absolute chronologies of the chariot complex in Northern Eurasia and early Indo-European migrations Igor V. Chechushkov and Andrey V. Epimakhov; 14. Indo-European and Indo-Iranian wagon terminology and the date of the Indo-Iranian split Alexander M. Lubotsky; 15. Fire and Water: archaeology and linguistics (The bronze age of the Southern Urals and the Rigveda) Andrey V. Epimakhov and Alexander M. Lubotsky; 16. Wool fibers of the Northern Eurasian bronze age: the cultural and geographical contexts Natalia I. Shishlina, Polina S. Medvedeva; Olga V. Orfinskaya and Daria V. Kiseleva; 17. An archaeolinguistic approach to Indo-European wool terminology Birgit A. Olsen; Part V. Kinship Systems, Marriage, Fosterage, Free and Unfree: 18. Mobility, kinship, and marriage in Indo-European society Tijmen Pronk; 19. Marriage strategies and fosterage among the Indo-Europeans- a linguistic perspective Birgit A. Olsen; 20. Fostering women and mobile children in final neolithic and early bronze age Central Europe Philipp W. Stockhammer; 21. Hiding in plain sight? The enigma of the linguistic remains of prehistoric slavery Benedicte Nielsen Whitehead; Part VI. Concluding Reflections: 22. New directions in archaeogenetics and archaeolinguistics: recapitulation and outlook Guss Kroonen and Kristian Kristiansen.

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Book SynopsisA riveting series of stories that portray the biopolitics of speaking and writing in a postcolonial world.Trade ReviewA critically important and intellectually exciting contribution to debates concerning voice and language in postcolonial studies. -- Zahid R. Chaudhary, Princeton University May become one of the classic texts of Anglophone postcolonial studies. -- Panivong Norindr, University of Southern California Not Like a Native Speaker reads like a great novel. Through a dazzling array of historical and contemporary scenes, Rey Chow makes yet another invaluable contribution to postcolonial and diaspora studies, this time by taking on the vexing, yet hugely important, issue of "languaging," the racialization of bodies via the loss of native languages or accented speech. She examines the losses and affects that befall subjects who find themselves in the interstices of unequal languages and political economies with the same unflinching honesty and intellectual rigor that her scholarship has accustomed us to. -- Smaro Kamboureli, Avie Bennett Chair in Canadian Literature, University of Toronto Rey Chow's book Not Like a Native Speaker is not only a brilliant and original reflection on the fate of language in the afterlife of colonialism, but also an authoritative statement on postcolonial theory; moving beyond the confinement of the politics of identity, it provides a unique map for the postcolonial criticism of the future, one informed by rigor and unafraid of judgment. -- Simon Gikandi, Princeton University How does colonial power deploy language?-a central question in postcolonial studies-is infused with new life by Rey Chow in this dazzling book. Chow poses other searching questions concerning identity and estrangement, memory and oblivion, bilingualism and aphasia, and offers acute discussions of language in Fanon, Benjamin, Derrida, Achebe, and Ngugi. Not Like a Native Speaker is provocative and indispensable. -- Roland Greene, Stanford University [Not Life a Native Speaker] offers new, thought-provoking insights into the social effects engendered by imperialism and the rapid development of new communication technologies. -- Andrea Riemenschnitter Modern Chinese Literature and CultureTable of ContentsNote on Non-English Sources Acknowledgments Introduction: Skin Tones-About Language, Postcoloniality, and Racialization 1. Derrida's Legacy of the Monolingual 2. Not Like a Native Speaker: The Postcolonial Scene of Languaging and the Proximity of the Xenophone 3. Translator, Traitor; Translator, Mourner (or, Dreaming of Intercultural Equivalence) 4. Thinking with Food, Writing off Center: The Postcolonial Work of Leung Ping-kwan and Ma Kwok-ming 5. The Sounds and Scripts of a Hong Kong Childhood Notes Index

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Book SynopsisIn Latin Alive, Joseph Solodow tells the story of how Latin developed into modern French, Spanish, and Italian, and deeply affected English as well. Offering a gripping narrative of language change, Solodow charts Latin's course from classical times to the modern era, with focus on the first millennium of the Common Era. Though the Romance languages evolved directly from Latin, Solodow shows how every important feature of Latin's evolution is also reflected in English. His story includes scores of intriguing etymologies, along with many concrete examples of texts, studies, scholars, anecdotes, and historical events; observations on language; and more. Written with crystalline clarity, this book tells the story of the Romance languages for the general reader and to illustrate so amply Latin's many-sided survival in English as well.Trade Review"Joseph Solodow, lecturer in Classics at Yale, joins the expanding ranks of scholars writing accessible histories of Latin, with his Latin Alive...the readers will be attracted by the mixture of perspectives, and the majority of readers will learn details they had not realized before....We can all read it with pleasure. " --BMCRTable of Contents1. Introduction: is English a cousin to the Romance languages?; Part I. Latin: 2. The career of Latin, I: from earliest times to the height of empire; 3. The career of Latin, II: the empire succeeded by barbarian kingdoms; 4. Latin at work, I: nature of the language; names and qualities; pronunciation; 5. Latin at work, II: actions and states; 6. Vulgar Latin; Part II. The Romance Vocabulary: 7. The lexicon in general; shifts in the meaning of words; 8. Changes in the form of words; 9. When words collide: conflict and resolution in the lexicon; 10. Immigrants: non-Latin words in the Romance languages; Part III. Proto-Romance, or What the Languages Share: 11. The sound of proto-Romance; 12. The noun in proto-Romance; 13. The verb in proto-Romance; Part IV. Earliest Texts and Future Directions, or Where the Languages Diverge: 14. French; 15. Italian; 16. Spanish.

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Book SynopsisWoodard examines the origin of the Greek alphabet and treats the advent of the alphabet script as a point which lies along an unbroken continuum of Greek literacy. Woodard argues that those persons responsible for adapting the Phoenician consonantal script for Greek use were scribes accustomed to writing Greek with the syllabic script of Cyprus.Trade Review...a very learned, thorough and informed work, and Woodard's conclusions are well worth considering. * New England Classical Journal *

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Book SynopsisHow did early modern scholarsas exemplified by Leibnizsearch for their origins in the study of language?Who are the nations of Europe, and where did they come from? Early modern people were as curious about their origins as we are today. Lacking twenty-first-century DNA research, seventeenth-century scholars turned to languageetymology, vocabulary, and even grammatical structurefor evidence. The hope was that, in puzzling out the relationships between languages, the relationships between nations themselves would emerge, and on that basis one could determine the ancestral homeland of the nations that presently occupied Europe. In Leibniz Discovers Asia, Michael C. Carhart explores this early modern practice by focusing on philosopher, scientist, and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who developed a vast network of scholars and missionaries throughout Europe to acquire the linguistic data he needed. The success of his project was tied to the Jesuit search for an overland route tTable of ContentsList of IllustrationsConventions1. Grimaldi at the Gates of Muscovy (Fall 1689)2. Making the Worst of a Bad Assignment: Origines Guelficae and the Linguistic Project (Autumn 1690-Summer 1692)3. Building the Network (Winter 1691-Summer 1692)4. The Jesuit Search for an Overland Route to China (1685-1689)5. Seeking the Languages of Grand Tartary (August 1693-December 1694)6. Assembling Novissima Sinica (February-September 1695)7. Johan Gabriel Sparwenfeld and Gothic Origins (November 1695-December 1697)8. The Grand Embassy of Peter the Great (Summer-Fall 1697)9. The Jesuits of Paris and China (1689, November 1697-March 1698)10. The Foundations of Modern Historical Linguistics (1697-1716)AcknowledgmentsAppendix I. "Desiderata circa linguas quorundam populorum"Appendix II. Plan for a Moscow Academy of Sciences and ArtsNotesBibliographyIndex of LettersGeneral Index

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Book SynopsisThis critical overview examines every aspect of the field including its history, key current research questions and methods, theoretical perspectives, and sociolinguistic factors. The authors represent leading proponents of every theoretical perspective. The book is a valuable resource for phonologists and a stimulating guide for their students.Trade ReviewHoneybone and Salmons have succeeded in compiling a useable, up-to-date, and comprehensive handbook that will prove an essential resource to generations of students and scholars interested in and working on any and all aspects of historical phonology. * Robin Meyer, Journal of Linguistics *Table of ContentsPART I INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT; PART II: EVIDENCE AND METHODS IN HISTORICAL PHONOLOGY; PART III: TYPES OF PHONOLOGICAL CHANGE; PART IV: FUNDAMENTAL CONTROVERSIES IN PHONOLOGICAL CHANGE; PART V: THEORETICAL HISTORICAL PHONOLOGY; PART VI: SOCIOLINGUISTIC AND EXOGENOUS FACTORS IN HISTORICAL PHONOLOGY

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Book SynopsisA full introduction to Older Scots language and literature, with a wide selection of copiously annotated texts from the period. This book enables both students and more advanced scholars to develop a comprehensive understanding of Older Scots, the form of Scots which survives in records up to around 1700. It provides the means of understanding the language's essential characteristics, and enables readers to engage with the fascinating textual and linguistic problems which it presents. The volume contains an extensive set of annotated texts from the period, inviting closer engagement with the detail of the language, which are preceded by a comprehensive introduction to and discussion of the subject; it also looks at the linguistic detail (in the broadest sense) of the reception and afterlife of medieval andearly modern Scottish texts. Those interested in literary form in Older Scottish literature will find it a "kit" for stylistic analysis; book historians will appreciate the detailed studies of processes of production and reception, and be reminded of the importance of integrating disciplines such as textual criticism, codicology, paleography and philology; and for linguists, there is access to an unrivalled body of up-to-date textual information, previously hard to find in a single place. Jeremy J. Smith is Professor of English Philology, University of Glasgow.Trade ReviewMakes a vital contribution to Older Scots studies. [It] will be much appreciated by scholars and students alike.... The combination of high calibre scholarship, carefully selected texts, and a lucid, engaging written style, ensures that Smith's Linguistic Reader makes the Older Scots language come alive for students and researchers alike. * INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SCOTTISH STUDIES *An important tool and reference work for students and teachers who wish to study and teach this corpus. it is lucid, intelligent, and authoritative. * MEDIEVAL REVIEW *A great step forward in the sheer availability of representative texts from the Older Scots period. [...] It will become the standard textbook for these matters in the foreseeable future, not only for students but also academics. * JOURNAL OF IRISH & SCOTTISH STUDIES *[W]elcomed for presenting a linguistically and stylistically wide range of Older Scots texts in accessible form [...] this book will be welcomed by all teachers and researchers in the field. * SCOTTISH LANGUAGE *Table of ContentsPreface About Older Scots Transmission Grammar and Lexicon Style in Older Scottish Texts List of Texts Editorial Principles Texts 1: Documents Texts 2: Letters Texts 3: On language and literature Texts 4: Poetry Texts 5: Prose Texts 6: Bible translation Appendix: Older Scots: the first hundred words Bibliography and references

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Book SynopsisThe quintessential A to Z guide to British English—perfect for every egghead and bluestocking looking to conquer the language barrier Oscar Wilde once said the Brits have everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language. Any visitor to Old Blighty can sympathize with Mr. Wilde. After all, even fluent English speakers can be at sixes and sevens when told to pick up the dog and bone or head to the loo, so they can spend a penny. Wherever did these peculiar expressions come from? British author Christopher J. Moore made a name for himself on this side of the pond with the sleeper success of his previous book, In Other Words. Now, Moore draws on history, literature, pop culture, and his own heritage to explore the phrases that most embody the British character. He traces the linguistic influence of writers from Chaucer to Shakespeare and Dickens to Wodehouse, and unravels the complexity Brits manage to imbue in seemingly innocuous phrases like All right. Along the way, Moore reveals the uniquely British origins of some of the English language’s more curious sayings. For example: Who is Bob and how did he become your uncle? Why do we refer to powerless politicians as “lame ducks”? How did “posh” become such a stylish word?Part language guide, part cultural study, How to Speak Brit is the perfect addition to every Anglophile’s library and an entertaining primer that will charm the linguistic-minded legions.

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Book SynopsisFollowing the Tower of Babel story, language historians have long searched for a possible original language from which all others developed. Dr Wadler, inspired by his study of Rudolf Steiner's ideas, spent thirty years researching different languages and the connections between them; this book was the remarkable result. Wadler argues that pre-Columbia America holds the key to understanding the origin of human language and culture.This book is a classic of spiritual scientific literature.Trade Review'The book is one which cannot fail to be of the greatest use and interest to all whose concern is with the word as a means of approach to the spiritual world and to the history of the human being.'-- Owen Barfield

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Book SynopsisThis Language, A River is an introduction to the history of English that recognizes multiple varieties of the language in both current and historical contexts. The book aims to enable students to both grasp traditional histories of English, and to extend and complicate those histories. Exercises throughout provide opportunities for puzzling out concepts, committing terms and data to memory, and applying ideas. A comprehensive glossary and up-to-date bibliographies help to guide further study.This accompanying workbook includes exercises keyed to each chapter of the textbook. Exercises are graded into beginning, intermediate and advanced groupings, which will aid in making the textbook appropriate for different levels of students.Trade Review“This Language, A River: Workbook complements the eponymous textbook perfectly and is therefore a fantastic resource for students and instructors alike. With the comprehensive coverage of historical and linguistic phenomena in the textbook, the exercises provided in this workbook allow students to experience the English used in specific periods in a hands-on way, which deepens and broadens the understanding of the history of English. This workbook is extremely accessible. Each chapter features activities for students at different stages in their academic career—beginner, intermediate, and advanced—which allows instructors great flexibility to adjust material for lower and upper division and even graduate-level courses. The way in which the exercises build on each other and become more complex also ensures that no activity is redundant. Even at a higher-level course, the beginner-level exercises will serve as great introductory activities to a specific topic. This workbook is a marvelous resource.” — Dominik Heinrici, The University of Tennessee ChattanoogaTable of Contents 1: Introduction 2: Grammar Fundamentals 3: Before English 4: Introduction to Phonetics 5: Germanic 6: Orthography, Phonology, Morphology, and Syntax 7: Old English 8: Middle English 9: Early Modern English 10: The Modern Period and Global Englishes Glossary of Terms

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisOne of the most interesting changes in Proto-Germanic was the alternation of y and w after short syllables with i and u after long, respectively - an alternation with far-reaching effects. Described by Eduard Sievers in 1878, this law has been the subject of controversy ever since. Is it related to a similar phenomenon in Vedic Sanskrit, and was it, therefore, Indo-European in origin? What is its relationship to alliterative verse in Germanic? This study addresses such questions and demonstrates that Sievers'' Law has played a wider role in Old English than heretofore demonstrated.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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