The Ruthwell Cross is one of the finest Anglo-Saxon high crosses that have come down to us. The longest epigraphic text in the Old English Runes Corpus is inscribed on two sides of the monument: it forms an alliterative poem, in which the Cross itself narrates the crucifixion episode. Parts of the inscription are irrevocably lost. This study establishes a historico-cultural context for the Ruthwell Cross's texts and sculptures. It shows that The Ruthwell Crucifixion Poem is an integral part of a Christian artefact but also an independent text. Although its verses match closely with lines of The Dream of the Rood in the Vercelli Book, a comparative analysis gives new insight into their complex relationship. An annotated transliteration of the runes offers intriguing information for runologists. Detailed linguistic and metrical analyses finally yield a new reconstruction of the lost runes. All in all, this study takes a fresh look at the Ruthwell Cross and provides the first scholarly edition of the reconstructed Ruthwell Crucifixion Poem-one of the earliest religious poems of Anglo-Saxon England. It will be of interest to scholars and students of historical linguistics, medieval English literature and culture, art history, and archaeology.

This is the most comprehensive survey ever published of auxiliary verb constructions, as in 'he could have been going to drink it' and 'she does eat cheese'. Drawing on a database of over 800 languages Dr Anderson examines their morphosyntactic forms and semantic roles. He investigates and explains the historical changes leading to the cross-linguistic diversity of inflectional patterns, and he presents his results within a new typological framework. The book's impressive range includes data on variation within and across languages and language families. In addition to examining languages in Africa, Europe, and Asia the author presents analyses of languages in Australasia and the Pacific and in North, South, and Meso-America. In doing so he reveals much that is new about the language families of the world and makes an important contribution to the understanding of their nature and evolution. His book will interest scholars and researchers in language typology, historical and comparative linguistics, syntax, and morphology.

Sentence First, Arguments Afterward collects the most important papers of Lila Gleitman's career, spanning over 50 years of work. These papers explore the nature of linguistic knowledge in children and adults by asking how children acquire language, how language and thought are related, the nature of concepts, and the role of syntax in shaping the direction of word learning. With an exclusive foreword by Noam Chomsky and an essay by Jeffrey Lidz contextualizing Gleitman's work in the emergence of the field of cognitive science, this book promises to be valuable both for its historical perspective on language and its acquisition and for the lessons it offers to current practitioners.

This book considers how languages have traditionally been divided into families, and asks how they should classified in the future. It describes and applies computer programs from biology and evolutionary genetics to data about languages and shows how the power of the computer can be harnessed to throw light on long-standing problems in historical linguistics. It tests current theories and hypotheses, shows how new ideas can be formulated, and offers a series of demonstrations that the new techniques applied to old data can produce convincing results that are sometimes startlingly at odds with accepted wisdom. April and Robert McMahon combine the expertise and perspectives of an historical linguist and a geneticist. They analyse the links between linguistic and population genetics, and consider how far language can be used to discover and understand the histories and interrelations of human populations. They explore the origins and formation of the Indo-European languages and examine less well studied languages in South America. Their book will be of great practical importance to students and researchers in historical and comparative linguistics and will interest all those concerned with the classification and diffusion of languages in fields such as archaeology, genetics, and anthropology. Its approachable style will appeal to general readers seeking to know more about the relationship between linguistic and human history.

As the final volume of a multi-volume set on the Chinese language, this book studies the Western and Japanese influence on the lexicon of Modern Chinese, lexical developments in synonyms, idioms and proverbs in modern times, and lexical developments in contemporary times. This volume first introduces the influence of foreign cultures on the modern Chinese lexicon with an emphasis on loanwords from Japanese and Indo-European languages. It then discusses the synonyms, idioms and proverbs of Modern Chinese, elucidating their evolution, sources and composition. The final part centers on the development of the Chinese lexicon after the May 4 Movement in 1919, marking the beginning of the contemporary phase of the Chinese language. The author analyses trends and types of neologisms and loanwords and analyzes the blend of Mandarin and dialect words as well as the necessity of lexical standardization. Illustrated with abundant examples, this comprehensive groundwork on Chinese lexical history will be a must read for scholars and students studying modern Chinese language, linguistics and especially for beginning learners of modern and contemporary Chinese lexicon.

This book introduces readers to the remarkable linguistic diversity of East and Southeast Asia. It contains wide-ranging and accessible discussions of every important aspect of the languages of the region, including word origins, cultural key words, tones and sounds, language families and typology, key syntactic structures, writing systems, and communicative styles. Students of linguistics will welcome the book's treatments of celebrated East Asian features such as classifiers, serial verb constructions, tones, topic-prominence, and honorifics. It shows students of particular Asian languages how their language fits structurally and culturally into the regional language mosaic. With its exercises, solutions, glossary, and many fascinating cases and insights, the book is an ideal introduction to descriptive and field linguistics. Cliff Goddard writes with great clarity and an eye for interesting examples.

This book presents an overview of sociolinguistic research in England. Showcasing developments in sociolinguistic theory, method and application, the chapters examine sociolinguistic topics on different linguistic levels and in different geographical areas across the country. Allowing the reader to engage with contemporary research in the field, each chapter is unique in the topic or geographical area explored. Topics include historical sociolinguistics, British Sign Language, lexical variation, life-span change, and variation and innovation in urban and peripheral areas; while the regions covered range from Cornwall to West Cumbria. Edited and authored by a range of international scholars, this is sure to be a key research resource for students and scholars interested in language use in England.

People constantly talk to each other about experience or knowledge resulting from spatial perception; they describe the size, shape, orientation and position of objects using a wide range of spatial expressions. The semantic treatment of such expressions presents particular challenges for natural language processing. The meaning representation used must be capable of distinguishing between fine-grained sense differences and ambiguities grounded in our experience and perceptual structure. While there have been many different approaches to the representation and processing of spatial expressions, most computational characterisations have been restricted to particularly narrow problem domains. The chapters in the present volume reflect a commitment to the development of cognitively informed computational treatments of spatial language and spatial representation. Therefore the chapters present computational work, empirical work, or a combination of both. The book will appeal to all those interested in spatial language and spatial representation, whether they work in artificial intelligence, cognitive science, cognitive psychology or linguistics.

This book provides (a) the first comprehensive description of the phonology and phonetics of Standard Mongolian, known as the Halh (Khalkha) dialect and spoken in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of the Republic of Mongolia; and (b) the first account in any language of the historical phonology of the Mongolian group of languages. The synchronic phonology is based on data collected by the authors and on their own phonological analyses. The historical phonology is based on their research on the Halh, on published Chinese and Mongolian sources for the modern Mongolic languages, and on their reconstruction of Old Mongolian from the medieval written sources.

The notions of 'function', 'feature' and 'functional feature' are associated with relatively new developments and insights in several areas of cognition. This book brings together different definitions, insights and research related to defining these notions from such diverse areas as language, perception, categorization and development. Each of the contributors in this book explicitly defines the notion of 'function', 'feature' or 'functional feature' within their own theoretical framework, presents research in which such a notion plays a pivotal role, and discusses the contribution of functional features in relation to their insights in a particular area of cognition. As such, this book not only presents new developments devoted to defining 'function', 'feature' and 'functional feature' in several sub-disciplines of cognitive science, but also offers a focused account of how these notions operate within the cognitive interface linking language and spatial representation. All book chapters are accessible for the interested novice, and offer the specialized researcher new empirical and theoretical insights into defining function, both with respect to the language and space interface and across cognition. The introduction to the book presents the reader with the main issues and viewpoints that are discussed in more detail in each of the book chapters.

How do translators manage relations with parties in a position of authority and power? The book investigates the intellectual, social and professional identity of translators and interpreters across different time periods and locations when their role involves a negotiation with political powers and cultural authorities.

This book presents a critical reading of Kristapurana, the first South Asian retelling of the Bible. In 1579, Thomas Stephens (1549-1619), a young Jesuit priest, arrived in Goa with the aim of preaching Christianity to the local subjects of the Portuguese colony. Kristapurana (1616), a sweeping narrative with 10,962 verses, is his epic poetic retelling of the Christian Bible in the Marathi language. This fascinating text, which first appeared in Roman script, is also one of the earliest printed works in the subcontinent. Kristapurana translated the entire biblical narrative into Marathi a century before Bible translation into South Asian languages began in earnest in Protestant missions. This book contributes to an understanding of translation as it was practiced in South Asia through its study of genre, landscapes, and cultural translation in Kristapurana, while also retelling a history of sacred texts and biblical narratives in the region. It examines this understudied masterpiece of Christian writing from Goa in the early era of Catholic missions and examines themes such as the complexities of the colonial machinery, religious encounters, textual traditions, and multilingualism, providing insight into Portuguese Goa of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The first of its kind, the book makes significant interventions into the current discourse on cultural translation and brings to the fore a hitherto understudied text. It will be an indispensable resource for students and researchers of translation studies, comparative literature, religious studies, biblical studies, English literature, cultural studies, literary history, postcolonial studies, and South Asian studies.

This book brings together current research findings on the involvement of word-internal structure for the purpose of word reading (especially morphological structure). The central theme of reading complex words is approached from several angles, such that the chapters span a wide variety of topics where this issue is important. It is a valuable resource for all researchers studying the mental lexicon and to those who teach advanced courses in the psychology of language.

There are far more syntactically distinct languages than we might have thought; yet there are far fewer than there might have been. Questions of Syntax collects sixteen papers authored by Richard S. Kayne, a preeminent theoretical syntactician, who has sought over the course of his career to understand why both these facts are true. With a particular emphasis on comparative syntax, these chapters collectively consider how wide a range of questions the field of syntax can reasonably attempt to ask and then answer. At issue, among other topics, are the relation between syntax and (certain aspects of) semantics, the relation between syntax and what appear to be lexical questions, the relation between syntax and morphology, the relation between syntax and certain aspects of phonology (insofar as silent elements and their properties play a substantial role), and the extent to which comparative syntax can provide new and decisive evidence bearing on these different kinds of questions. To Kayne, comparative syntax can shed light on what may initially seem lexical questions, and antisymmetry on the evolution of human language itself. Taken as a whole, these essays elucidate the theoretical contributions of one the most influential scholars in linguistics.

Sicilian Elements in Andrea Camilleri's Narrative Language examines Camilleri's unique linguistic repertoire and techniques over his career as a novelist examines the intensification of Sicilian linguistic features in Camilleri's narrative works focusing on features pertaining to the domains of sounds and grammar since these have been marginalized in linguistic-centered research on the evolution of Camilleri's narrative language and remain overall understudied. Through a systematic comparative analysis of the distribution patterns of selected Sicilian features in a selection of Camilleri's historical novels and novels of the Montalbano series, the author identifies the individual features that have become most widespread and the lexical items that are targeted with highest frequency and consistency. The results of the analysis show that in the earlier novels Sicilian features are rather sparse and can be attributed linguistic situational functionality; that is, they function as indices of salient, distinctive aspects of topics, settings, events/situations and characters. Conversely, in the latest novels Sicilian elements pervade the entire novels and the texts are written almost entirely in Camilleri's own Sicilian, "vigatese", so that Sicilian is stripped of any linguistic situational functionality.

A groundbreaking work on Chinese linguistics by a distinguised linguist A full picture of phonetical system from old Chinese to modern Chinese Illustrated with concrete examples

1. This title offers an extensive study of the conceptual metaphors in the perception domain. 2. The authors adopts contrastive perspective to reveal the similarities and differences between English and Chinese. 3. This title provides a thorough consideration of embodied motivation for various metaphorical mappings, which would benefit a variety of readership groups.

This book presents new findings on the role of active learning in infants' and young children's cognitive and linguistic development. Chapters discuss evidence-based models, identify possible neurological mechanisms supporting active learning, pinpoint children's early understanding of learning, and trace children's recognition of their own learning. Chapters also address how children shape their lexicon, covering a range of active learning practices including interactions with parents, teachers, and peers; curiosity and exploration during play; seeking information from other people and their surroundings; and asking questions. In addition, processes of selective learning are discussed, from learning new words and trusting others in acquiring information to weighing evidence and accepting ambiguity. Topics featured in this book include: Infants' active role in language learning. The process of active word learning. Understanding when and how explanation promotes exploration. How conversations with parents can affect children's word associations. Evidence evaluation for active learning and teaching in early childhood. Bilingual children and their role as language brokers for their parents. Active Learning from Infancy to Childhood is a must-have resource for researchers, clinicians and related professionals, and graduate students in developmental psychology, psycholinguistics, educational psychology, and early childhood education.

This text explores the consequences for language acquisition, language evolution and linguistic theory of taking the underlying architecture of the language faculty to be that of a dynamical system. The authors investigate whether it is possible for a complex adaptive system to identify the categories, structures and rules of a language given access only to instances of grammatical utterances of that language. The linguistic tradition says that this is impossible, but there is a growing body of literature in psychology and computer science arguing that grammar can be uncovered using purely statistical techniques applied to the distribution of forms in a string of words. The book goes on to discuss whether a learner requires information about structure that goes beyond the information that is contained in the meaning. Does the learner have to have knowledge of grammar per se prior to language acquisition, as has been traditionally assumed? The authors ask whether it is possible to adequately describe and explain linguistic phenomena if we restrict ourselves to the relatively impoverished apparatus that we require for language acquisition. They explore the consequences of adopting a radical form of minimalism to try to reconcile the linguistic facts with the book's perspective of language acquisition. Culicover and Nowak investigate to what extent it is possible to account for language variation in dynamical terms, as a consequence of the behaviour of the complex social network in which languages and the properties of languages are acquired by learners through interactions with other speakers over time.

Renaissance Truth and the Latin Language Turn provides an entirely new look at an era of radical change in the history of West European thought, the period between 1480 and 1540, mainly in France and Germany. The book's main thesis is that the Latin language turn was not only concurrent with other aspects of change, but was a fundamental instrument in reconfiguring horizons of thought, reformulating paradigms of argument, and rearticulating the relationship between fiction and truth. Its topics include Latin dictionaries and phrase-books; religious disputation; and early approaches to literary criticism.

Endangered Languages in the 21st Century provides research on endangered languages in the contemporary world, the challenges still to be faced, the work still to be done, and the methods and practices that have come to characterize efforts to revive and maintain disadvantaged indigenous languages around the world. With contributions from scholars across the field, the book brings fresh data and insights to this imperative, but still relatively young, field of linguistics. While the studies acknowledge the threat of losing languages in an unprecedented way, they focus on cases that show resilience and explore paths to sustainable progress. The articles are also intended as a celebration of the twenty-five years' work of the Foundation for Endangered Languages, and as a parting gift to FEL's founder and quarter-century chair, Nick Ostler. This book will be informative for researchers, instructors, and specialists in the field of endangered languages. The book can also be useful for university graduate or undergraduate students, and language activists.

In their book, the authors describe the usage of and attitudes towards English in Asia since the 19th century, as well as the creative and dynamic ways in which Asians of the 21st century continually reinvent the lexicon of English, and the lexicons of their native tongues. The current biggest source of loanwords for many of the world's languages is English, the once obscure Germanic language that has risen to the role of a global lingua franca. However, the overwhelming influence of English is far from being entirely one-sided, at least from a lexical perspective. Many have decried the way that English has "invaded" the vocabularies of their languages, without realising that the English word stock is to some extent also being invaded by these languages. This book explores the phenomenon of word exchange by examining its occurrence between English and some of the major languages spoken in Asia-highly multi-ethnic, multicultural, and multilingual region where English is the predominant medium of international and intraregional communication. Students and researchers from various linguistic areas such as world Englishes, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, lexicology, and contact linguistics will find this book appealing.

The first usage-based approach of its kind, this volume contains twelve studies on key issues in Spanish syntax: word order, null arguments, grammatical-relation marking, inalienable possession, "ser" and "estar," adjective placement, small clauses and causatives. The studies are approached within a broad functionalist perspective. The studies strengthen the view that components of grammar intricately interact and that a usage-based approach to analyzing them offers new and insightful perspectives on some stubborn problems.