The volume is highly relevant to the current regional and international discussion on endangered ... more The volume is highly relevant to the current regional and international discussion on endangered languages, language contact, documentation and areal typology. The publication is the outcome of a fruitful theoretical and methodological exchange between Latin American scholars and international scholars working in other regions. Most of the papers target Latin American languages. Additionally, new insight into the contact situations in Indonesia, Iran, Australia and Papua New Guinea is provided.
This grammar of Akabea is the first published descriptive grammar of a traditional language of th... more This grammar of Akabea is the first published descriptive grammar of a traditional language of the Great Andamanese family and the first grammar of a traditional Great Andamanese language written to current linguistic standards. Akabea died out in the 1920s, but was extensively documented in the late nineteenth century by two British administrators, Edward Horace Man and Maurice Vidal Portman. Although neither was a trained linguist, their material nonetheless provides a sufficient basis for a reliable analysis of Akabea grammar, especially its morphology and phrasal and clausal syntax, although there are inevitable limitations on our understanding of Akabea phonology, clause combining, and discourse structure. The published grammar is accompanied by an online appendix providing a diplomatic edition with commentary and analysis of the single most valuable resource for Akabea grammatical analysis, Portman’s Dialogues. For the first time, linguists will have access to an extensive and reliable grammatical description of a traditional Great Andamanese language, thus enabling Akabea to take its rightful place as an object of scientific study among the languages of the world. This is all the more important in that the language exhibits a number of cross-linguistically rare phenomena, such as a rich system of somatic (body-part) prefixes and the phenomenon of Verb Root Ellipsis, whereby under certain circumstances the root of a verb may be absent, leaving behind a grammatical word consisting solely of affixes. The work will also contribute to a deeper interdisciplinary understanding of the history and prehistory of the indigenous inhabitants of the Andaman Islands.
Outline description of the Tepera dialect of Tabla [ISO 639-3: tnm; Glottocode: tabl1243], a lang... more Outline description of the Tepera dialect of Tabla [ISO 639-3: tnm; Glottocode: tabl1243], a language of the Sentanic family; Tabla is one of the non-Austronesian (Papuan) languages spoken in Papua Province, Indonesia. Written in association with Nico Jakarimilena.
... The enclitic coordinating conjunctions*-kwe'and' and*-ue'or'have widespre... more ... The enclitic coordinating conjunctions*-kwe'and' and*-ue'or'have widespread reflexes. ... neuter (as in Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, Latin, etc.) or animate-inanimate (as in Hittite: see Chapter 7 ... simply used to mark those noun phrases that are more'active', whether subjects of transitive ...
This chapter presents the limited available material on complex sentences, in particular coordina... more This chapter presents the limited available material on complex sentences, in particular coordination of clauses, relative clauses, and complement clauses.
The Sorbian languages basically use a decimal (base 10) numeral system with multiplication and ad... more The Sorbian languages basically use a decimal (base 10) numeral system with multiplication and addition, although there are also traces of subtraction and, perhaps, division. Ordinal numerals are suppletive for ‘first’ and ‘second’ only. The order of elements under addition is basically descending, except that the units precede the tens. Numerals have both adjectival and nominal properties, with adjectival properties characterizing lower numerals, nominal properties higher numerals – the details are complex. Loanwords are found for higher rather than lower numerals. The data provide interesting confirmation of several proposed universals of numeral systems.
The volume is highly relevant to the current regional and international discussion on endangered ... more The volume is highly relevant to the current regional and international discussion on endangered languages, language contact, documentation and areal typology. The publication is the outcome of a fruitful theoretical and methodological exchange between Latin American scholars and international scholars working in other regions. Most of the papers target Latin American languages. Additionally, new insight into the contact situations in Indonesia, Iran, Australia and Papua New Guinea is provided.
This grammar of Akabea is the first published descriptive grammar of a traditional language of th... more This grammar of Akabea is the first published descriptive grammar of a traditional language of the Great Andamanese family and the first grammar of a traditional Great Andamanese language written to current linguistic standards. Akabea died out in the 1920s, but was extensively documented in the late nineteenth century by two British administrators, Edward Horace Man and Maurice Vidal Portman. Although neither was a trained linguist, their material nonetheless provides a sufficient basis for a reliable analysis of Akabea grammar, especially its morphology and phrasal and clausal syntax, although there are inevitable limitations on our understanding of Akabea phonology, clause combining, and discourse structure. The published grammar is accompanied by an online appendix providing a diplomatic edition with commentary and analysis of the single most valuable resource for Akabea grammatical analysis, Portman’s Dialogues. For the first time, linguists will have access to an extensive and reliable grammatical description of a traditional Great Andamanese language, thus enabling Akabea to take its rightful place as an object of scientific study among the languages of the world. This is all the more important in that the language exhibits a number of cross-linguistically rare phenomena, such as a rich system of somatic (body-part) prefixes and the phenomenon of Verb Root Ellipsis, whereby under certain circumstances the root of a verb may be absent, leaving behind a grammatical word consisting solely of affixes. The work will also contribute to a deeper interdisciplinary understanding of the history and prehistory of the indigenous inhabitants of the Andaman Islands.
Outline description of the Tepera dialect of Tabla [ISO 639-3: tnm; Glottocode: tabl1243], a lang... more Outline description of the Tepera dialect of Tabla [ISO 639-3: tnm; Glottocode: tabl1243], a language of the Sentanic family; Tabla is one of the non-Austronesian (Papuan) languages spoken in Papua Province, Indonesia. Written in association with Nico Jakarimilena.
... The enclitic coordinating conjunctions*-kwe'and' and*-ue'or'have widespre... more ... The enclitic coordinating conjunctions*-kwe'and' and*-ue'or'have widespread reflexes. ... neuter (as in Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, Latin, etc.) or animate-inanimate (as in Hittite: see Chapter 7 ... simply used to mark those noun phrases that are more'active', whether subjects of transitive ...
This chapter presents the limited available material on complex sentences, in particular coordina... more This chapter presents the limited available material on complex sentences, in particular coordination of clauses, relative clauses, and complement clauses.
The Sorbian languages basically use a decimal (base 10) numeral system with multiplication and ad... more The Sorbian languages basically use a decimal (base 10) numeral system with multiplication and addition, although there are also traces of subtraction and, perhaps, division. Ordinal numerals are suppletive for ‘first’ and ‘second’ only. The order of elements under addition is basically descending, except that the units precede the tens. Numerals have both adjectival and nominal properties, with adjectival properties characterizing lower numerals, nominal properties higher numerals – the details are complex. Loanwords are found for higher rather than lower numerals. The data provide interesting confirmation of several proposed universals of numeral systems.
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