Word Formation in South American Languages


Book Description

This volume focuses on word formation processes in smaller and so far underrepresented indigenous languages of South America. The data for the analyses have been mainly collected in the field by the authors. The several language families described here, among them Arawakan, Takanan, and Guaycuruan, as well as language isolates, such as Yurakaré and Cholón, reflect the linguistic diversity of South America. Equally diverse are the topics addressed, relating to word formation processes like reduplication, nominal and verbal compounding, clitic compounding, and incorporation. The traditional notions of the processes are discussed critically with respect to their implementation in minor indigenous languages. The book is therefore not only of interest to readers with an Amerindian background but also to typologists and historical linguists, and it is a supplement to more theory-driven approaches to language and linguistics.




Word-Formation in the World's Languages


Book Description

Fills a gap in cross-linguistic research by being the first systematic survey of the word-formation of the world's languages. Data from fifty-five world languages reveals associations between word-formation processes in genetically and geographically distinct languages.




Genders and Classifiers


Book Description

This volume offers a comprehensive account of the typology of noun classification across the world's languages. Every language has some means of categorizing objects into humans, or animates, or by their shape, form, size, and function. The most widespread are linguistic genders - grammatical classes of nouns based on core semantic properties such as sex (female and male), animacy, humanness, and also shape and size. Classifiers of several types also serve to categorize entities. Numeral classifiers occur with number words, possessive classifiers appear in the expressions of possession, and verbal classifiers are used on a verb, categorizing its argument. These varied sorts of genders and classifiers can also occur together. This volume elaborates on the expression, usage, history, and meanings of noun categorization devices, exploring their various facets across the languages of South America and Asia, which are known for the diversity of their noun categorization. The volume begins with a typological introduction that outlines the types of noun categorization devices and their expression, scope, functions, and development, as well as sociocultural aspects of their use. The following nine chapters provide in-depth studies of genders and classifiers of different types in a range of South American and Asian languages and language families, including Arawak languages, Zamucoan, Hmong, and Japanese.




Handbook of Japanese Lexicon and Word Formation


Book Description

This volume presents a comprehensive survey of the lexicon and word formation processes in contemporary Japanese, with particular emphasis on their typologically characteristic features and their interactions with syntax and semantics. Through contacts with a variety of languages over more than two thousand years of history, Japanese has developed a complex vocabulary system that is composed of four lexical strata: (i) native Japanese, (ii) mimetic, (iii) Sino-Japanese, and (iv) foreign (especially English). This hybrid composition of the lexicon, coupled with the agglutinative character of the language by which morphology is closely associated with syntax, gives rise to theoretically intriguing interactions with word formation processes that are not easily found with inflectional, isolate, or polysynthetic types of languages.




Edinburgh Handbook of Evaluative Morphology


Book Description

With examples drawn from over 200 world languages, this ground-breaking volume presents a state-of-the-art overview of evaluative morphology.




Word-Formation in the World's Languages


Book Description

A pioneering book establishing the foundations for research into word-formation typology and tendencies. It fills a gap in cross-linguistic research by being the first systematic survey of the word-formation of the world's languages. Drawing on over 1500 examples from fifty-five languages, it provides a wider global representation than any other volume. This data, from twenty-eight language families and forty-five language genera, reveals associations between word-formation processes in genetically and geographically distinct languages. Data presentation from two complementary perspectives, semasiological and onomasiological, shows both the basic functions of individual word-formation processes and the ways of expressing selected cognitive categories. Language data was gathered by way of detailed questionnaires completed by over eighty leading experts on the languages discussed. The book is aimed at academic researchers and graduate students in language typology, linguistic fieldwork and morphology.




Reduplication in Indigenous Languages of South America


Book Description

The morphological process of reduplication occurs in languages throughout the world. Reduplication in indigenous languages of South America is the first volume to focus on reduplication in South America. The indigenous languages of South America remain under-documented and little accessible to theoretical linguistics. Most regions and language families of the continent are represented in articles based on recent fieldwork by the authors. Included are data concerning a diverse set of reduplication phenomena from the Andes, Amazonia, and other regions of the continent. A wide range of language families and isolates are discussed, such as Tupian, Quechuan, Mapuche, Tacanan, Arawakan, Barbacoan, and Macro-Jê. Several languages present unusual properties, some of which violate presumed universals, such as no partial without full reduplication.




Language Isolates II: Kanoé to Yurakaré


Book Description

The series Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science is designed to illuminate a field which not only includes general linguistics and the study of linguistics as applied to specific languages, but also covers those more recent areas which have developed from the increasing body of research into the manifold forms of communicative action and interaction.




Cultures, Ideologies, and the Dictionary


Book Description

A pioneering volume addressing issues related to cultures, ideologies, and the dictionary. A cross-cultural and cross-linguistic study with focus on selected Western and non-Western languages. A number of in-depth case studies illustrates the dominant role ideology and other types of bias play in the making of a dictionary. The volume includes invited papers of 40 internationally recognized scholars.




Word-Formation across Languages


Book Description

Research into cross-linguistic aspects and typology of word-formation has not been paid relevant and systematic attention by morphologists, and only a few articles dealing with various word-formation issues of this kind appear in journals. The chapters in this volume address this issue by discussing, on contrastive principles, important questions of word-formation in a sample of 26 languages. The focus of the book, as a whole, is on typological features of word-formation in the languages sampled. It is aimed at researchers that have an interest in word-formation in a variety of languages.