[PDF] Pacific Linguistics eBook

Author : John Lynch
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 380 pages
File Size : 50,84 MB
Release : 2016-06-01
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 0824842588

GET BOOK

Almost one-quarter of the world's languages are (or were) spoken in the Pacific, making it linguistically the most complex region in the world. Although numerous technical books on groups of Pacific or Australian languages have been published, and descriptions of individual languages are available, until now there has been no single book that attempts a wide regional coverage for a general audience. Pacific Languages introduces readers to the grammatical features of Oceanic, Papuan, and Australian languages as well as to the semantic structures of these languages. For readers without a formal linguistic background, a brief introduction to descriptive linguistics is provided. In addition to describing the structure of Pacific languages, this volume places them in their historical and geographical context, discusses the linguistic evidence for the settlement of the Pacific, and speculates on the reason for the region's many languages. It devotes considerable attention to the effects of contact between speakers of different languages and to the development of pidgin and creole languages in the Pacific. Throughout, technical language is kept to a minimum without oversimplifying the concepts or the issues involved. A glossary of technical terms, maps, and diagrams help identify a language geographically or genetically; reading lists and a language index guide the researcher interested in a particular language or group to other sources of information. Here at last is a clear and straightforward overview of Pacific languages for linguists and anyone interested in the history of sociology of the Pacific.

Author : Don Kulick
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 516 pages
File Size : 19,22 MB
Release : 2019-06-04
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 150151220X

GET BOOK

Tayap is a small, previously undocumented Papuan language, spoken in a single village called Gapun, in the lower Sepik River region of Papua New Guinea. The language is an isolate, unrelated to any other in the area. Furthermore, Tayap is dying. Fewer than fifty speakers actively command it today. Based on linguistic anthropological work conducted over the course of thirty years, this book describes the grammar of the language, detailing its phonology, morphology and syntax. It devotes particular attention to verbs, which are the most elaborated area of the grammar, and which are complex, fusional and massively suppletive.The book also provides a full Tayap-English-Tok Pisin dictionary. A particularly innovative contribution is the detailed discussions of how Tayap’'s grammar is dissolving in the language of young speakers. The book exemplifies how the complex structures in fluent speakers’ Tayap are reduced or reanalyzed by younger speakers. This grammar and dictionary should therefore be a valuable resource for anyone interested in the mechanics of how languages disappear. The fact that it is the sole documentation of this unique Papuan language should also make it of interest to areal specialists and language typologists.

Author : Peter Mühlhäusler
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 381 pages
File Size : 44,68 MB
Release : 2002-11-01
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 1134934882

GET BOOK

In this book, the author examines the transformation of the Pacific language region under the impact of colonization, westernization and modernization. By focusing on the linguistic and socio-historical changes of the past 200 years, it aims to bring a new dimension to the study of Pacific linguistics, which up until now has been dominated by questions of historical reconstruction and language typology. In contrast to the traditional portrayal of linguistic change as a natural process, the author focuses on the cultural and historical forces which drive language change. Using the metaphor of language ecology to explain and describe the complex interplay between languages, speakers and social practice, the author looks at how language ecologies have functioned in the past to sustain language diversity, and, at what happens when those ecologies are disrupted. Whilst most of the examples used in the book are taken from the Pacific and Australian region, the insights derived from this area are shown to have global applications. The text should be useful for linguists and all those interested in the large scale loss of human language.

Author : Midori Osumi
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 44,11 MB
Release : 1995-01-01
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN : 9780824816292

GET BOOK

This book presents an analysis of the phonology, morphology, and syntax of Tinrin, a previously undescribed Melanesian language of southern New Caledonia.

Author : Ilana Mushin
Publisher : De Gruyter Mouton
Page : 502 pages
File Size : 35,71 MB
Release : 2012
Category : Foreign Language Study
ISBN :

GET BOOK

Mushin provides the first full grammatical description of Garrwa, a critically endangered language of the Southwest Gulf of Carpentaria region in Northern Australia. Garrwa is typologically interesting because of its uncertain status in the Australian language family, its pronouns and its word order syntax. This book covers Garrwa phonology, morphology and syntax, with a particular focus on the use of grammar in discourse. The grammatical description is supplemented with a word list and text collection, including transcriptions of ordinary conversation.

Author : Moshe Rapaport
Publisher : Bess Press
Page : 492 pages
File Size : 49,12 MB
Release : 1999
Category : History
ISBN : 9781573060424

GET BOOK

Forty-five contributors offer information on the physical environment, history, culture, population, economy, and living environment of the Pacific islands.

Author : Stephen A. Wurm
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
Page : 1903 pages
File Size : 20,90 MB
Release : 2011-02-11
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 3110819724

GET BOOK

“An absolutely unique work in linguistics publishing – full of beautiful maps and authoritative accounts of well-known and little-known language encounters. Essential reading (and map-viewing) for students of language contact with a global perspective.” Prof. Dr. Martin Haspelmath, Max-Planck-Institut für Evolutionäre Anthropologie The two text volumes cover a large geographical area, including Australia, New Zealand, Melanesia, South -East Asia (Insular and Continental), Oceania, the Philippines, Taiwan, Korea, Mongolia, Central Asia, the Caucasus Area, Siberia, Arctic Areas, Canada, Northwest Coast and Alaska, United States Area, Mexico, Central America, and South America. The Atlas is a detailed, far-reaching handbook of fundamental importance, dealing with a large number of diverse fields of knowledge, with the reported facts based on sound scholarly research and scientific findings, but presented in a form intelligible to non-specialists and educated lay persons in general.

Author : Osahito Miyaoka
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 552 pages
File Size : 27,97 MB
Release : 2007-04-12
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 0191532894

GET BOOK

This book presents the first comprehensive survey of the languages of the Pacific rim, a vast region containing the greatest typological and genetic diversity in the world. It includes the littoral regions of North and South America, Australasia, east and south-east Asia, and Japan, as well as the Pacific itself. As its languages decline and disappear, sometimes without trace, this rich linguistic heritage is rapidly eroding. In The Vanishing Languages of the Pacific Rim distinguished scholars report on the current state of the region's languages and provides a critical survey of the current state of the region's languages. They show what is currently known and recorded and what remains to be examined and documented. They consider which languages are the most vulnerable to extinction and what steps that can be taken to save them. Their analyses range from the regional to the local and focus on languages in a wide variety of social and ecological settings. Together they make a compelling case for research throughout the region, and show how and where this needs to be done.