Proceedings of the First International Conference on Manchu-Tungus Studies, Bonn, August 28-September 1, 2000: Trends in Tungusic and Siberian linguistics


Book Description

In recent years, Manchu and Tungus studies have experienced an increased interest from scholars all around the world, among them experts of such diverse fields as Chinese and Inner Asian history, folklore studies, comparative Altaic philology, and linguistics. The present collaborative volume contains a selection of papers on Tungusic and Siberian linguistics and ethnolinguistics from the First International Conference on Manchu-Tungus Studies (ICMTS), which took place at the University of Bonn in summer 2000.From the table of contents (12 contributions): G. Doerfer, Altaistik? Ein subjektiver Uberblick B.E. Dresher, X. Zhang, Contrast in Manchu Vowel Systems S. Georg, Unreclassifying Tungusic E. Helimski, Die Sprache der Avaren: Die mandschu'tungusische Alternative S. Kazama, On the "Causative" Forms in Tungus Languages G.N. Kiyose, Independent Corroberation of the Jurchen *- Reconstructed by the Comparative Method C. Naeher, A Note on Vowel Harmony in Manchu H. Werner, Zum Problem der KausativFormen in den Jenissej-Sprachen




The Manchu-Tungusic Languages


Book Description

The Manchu-Tungusic languages constitute a linguistically well-defined but geographically widely-dispersed family of about a dozen separate languages distributed in Siberia, Central and East Asia. Although a considerable amount of descriptive, historical and field work has been carried out on these languages in Russia and China, little is known about them in the west, since almost all available publications are either in Russian or in Chinese. An up-to-date survey of this language family aimed at the western reader is therefore long overdue.





Book Description




The Contrastive Hierarchy in Phonology


Book Description

The subject of 'contrast' in phonology is one of the most central concepts in linguistics and is of key importance to linguists working across many languages. This book offers a fascinating account of both the logic and history of contrast in phonology.




The Languages of China


Book Description

An incredible source of information about the Chinese language and China’s minority languages In this accessible and informative book, S. Robert Ramsey lucidly explains what the Chinese language is—its social and geographical situation, its history, its range of dialects, the structure of the modern standard language, and the writing system. He goes on to describe the languages of China’s national minorities, showing how they interrelate with each other and with Chinese. Readers learn about the peoples who speak the languages of China, what China is like linguistically, and the cultural and historical settings of the country’s languages. For those who want more linguistic detail, Ramsey provides lists, maps, charts, and descriptions along with technical references in notes at the end of the book. Invaluable to general linguists and Sinologists alike, The Languages of China is an excellent introduction to Chinese and East Asian linguistics.




Phonological Typology


Book Description

Despite earlier work by Trubetzkoy, Jakobson and Greenberg, phonological typology is often underrepresented in typology textbooks. At the same time, most phonologists do not see a difference between phonological typology and cross-linguistic (formal) phonology. The purpose of this book is to bring together leading scholars to address the issue of phonological typology, both in terms of the unity and the diversity of phonological systems.




The Languages and Linguistics of Northern Asia


Book Description

The Languages and Linguistics of Northern Asia: A Comprehensive Guide surveys the indigenous languages of Asia’s North Pacific Rim, Siberia, and adjacent portions of Inner Eurasia. It provides in-depth descriptions of every first-order family of this vast area, with special emphasis on family-internal subdivision and dialectal differentiation. Individual chapters trace the origins and expansion of the region’s widespread pastoral-based language groups as well as the microfamilies and isolates spoken by northern Asia’s surviving hunter-gatherers. Separate chapters cover sparsely recorded languages of early Inner Eurasia that defy precise classification and the various pidgins and creoles spread over the region. Other chapters investigate the typology of salient linguistic features of the area, including vowel harmony, noun inflection, verb indexing (also known as agreement), complex morphologies, and the syntax of complex predicates. Issues relating to genealogical ancestry, areal contact and language endangerment receive equal attention. With historical connections both to Eurasia’s pastoral-based empires as well as to ancient population movements into the Americas, the steppes, taiga forests, tundra and coastal fringes of northern Asia offer a complex and fascinating object of linguistic investigation.




Asymmetries in Vowel Harmony


Book Description

This book deals with the phenomenon of vowel harmony, a phonological process whereby all the vowels in a word are required to share a specific phonological property, such as front or back articulation. Vowel harmony occurs in the majority of languages of the world, though only in very few European languages, and has been a central concern in phonological theory for many years. In this volume, Harry van der Hulst puts forward a new theory of vowel harmony, which accounts for the patterns of and exceptions to this phenomenon in the widest range of languages ever considered. The book begins with an overview of the general causes of asymmetries in vowel harmony systems. The two following chapters provide a detailed account of a new theory of vowel harmony based on unary elements and licensing, which is embedded in a general dependency-based theory of phonological structure. In the remaining chapters, this theory is applied to a variety of vowel harmony phenomena from typologically diverse languages, including palatal harmony in languages such as Finnish and Hungarian, labial harmony in Turkic languages, and tongue root systems in Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan, and Tungusic languages. The volume provides a valuable overview of the diversity of vowel harmony in the languages of the world and is essential reading for phonologists of all theoretical persuasions.




Manchu Grammar


Book Description

A comprehensive grammar of Manchu, the official language in China during the Qing dynasty. Taking also into account the scholarship on the subject from both China and Russia, the volume covers the Manchu writing system, morphology and phrenology. Sibe is also dealt with.