Grammars in Contact: A Cross-Linguistic Typology

The present volume examines the ways in which linguistic traits may change in a contact situation. It contains an encyclopaedic introduction, which sets out a general theory of contact-induced change, and twelve subsequent chapters, which analyze the effects of language contact on grammatical systems in a variety of languages belonging to different geographical areas and diverse types.


Author: Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 02/01/2009
Pages: 376
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.16lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.78d
ISBN: 9780199556465

About the Author

Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald is Professor of Linguistics, The Cairns Institute, James Cook University. She has worked on descriptive and historical aspects of Barber languages and published, in Russian, a grammar of Modern Hebrew (1990). She is a major authority on typological and areal features of South
American languages, particularly of the Arawak family: Bare (1995, based on work with the last speaker, who has since died), Warekena (1998), and Tariana (2003). Her monographs include Classifiers: a Typology of Noun Categorization Devices (2000, 2003), Language Contact in Amazonia (2002) and
Evidentiality (2004), all published by OUP. She is currently working on a reference grammar of Manambu, from the Sepik area of New Guinea.
R.M.W. Dixon is Professor and Director of the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology at La Trobe University. He has published grammars of a number of Australian languages (including Dyirbal and Yidiñ), in addition to A Grammar of Boumaa Fijian (1988), The Jarawara Language of Southern Amazonia
(2004) and A Semantic Approach to English Grammar (2005). His works on typological theory include Where have All the Adjectives Gone? and Other Essays (1982) and Ergativity (1994). His essay The Rise and Fall of Languages (1997) expounded a punctuated equilibrium model for language development which
is the basis for his detailed case study Australian Languages: their Nature and Development (2002). He is currently working on an extensive study of the basic linguistic theory.

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