This book provides an up-to-date survey of the role of linguistic and cultural interaction in the process of language change. It covers theoretical issues; different forms of language contact in Medieval and Renaissance Italy; and dialect transition and diversity in the North and South of Italy.

Innovations and Challenges in Grammar traces the history of common understandings of what grammar is and where it came from to demonstrate how 'rules' are anything but fixed and immutable. In doing so, it deconstructs the notion of 'correctness' to show how grammar changes over time thereby exposing the social and historical forces that mould and change usage. The questions that this book grapples with are: Can we separate grammar from the other features of the language system and get a handle on it as an independent entity? Why should there be strikingly different notions and models of grammar? Are they (in)compatible? Which one or ones fit(s) best the needs of applied linguists if we assume that applied linguists address real-world problems through the lens of language? And which one(s) could make most sense to non-specialists? If grammar is not a fixed entity but a set of usage norms in constant flux, how can we persuade other professionals and the general public that this is a positive observation rather than a threat to civilised behaviour? This book draws upon both historical and modern grammars from across the globe to provide a multi-layered picture of world grammar. It will be useful to teachers and researchers of English as a first and second language, though the inclusion of examples from and occasional references to other languages (French, Spanish, Malay, Swedish, Russian, Welsh, Burmese, Japanese) is intended to broaden the appeal to teachers and researchers of other languages. It will be of use to final-year undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral students as well as secondary and tertiary level teachers and researchers in applied linguistics, second language acquisition and grammar pedagogy.

This study of reduplication in Afrikaans provides a unified and principled analysis of an unusual and highly complex word formation process, shedding new light on the scope and content of various fundamental lexicalist principles of word formation. Surprisingly, Rudolf Botha concludes that the principles involved in Afrikaans reduplication are not unique to Afrikaans, as has often been thought, and are used by many other languages. Moreover, the interpretation of Afrikaans reduplications depends on principles of conceptual structure that are restricted neither to Afrikaans nor to the interpretation of reduplications, thus supporting recent work on cognition and meaning undertaken by Ray Jackendoff and other scholars. In analysing the data, Professor Botha has also provided a concrete illustration of how the Galilean style of linguistic inquiry can fruitfully be applied in the study of word formation and meaning. The study thus represents an important theoretical and methodological advance which will be of as much interest for its method of inquiry and argumentation as for the fresh insights it provides for scholars and researchers in the fields of morphology, word formation and semantics.

The boundaries between word classes are often fuzzy. This book looks at the classification of interjections and similar words of other classes. It reviews work done over the past 250 years on several languages, including English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Albanian, and Welsh. Most chapters discuss interjections in relation to one of the other traditionally recognized parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, adpositions, and conjunctions. A major focus is on the use of relevant terminology e.g. primary and secondary interjections, proper and improper interjections, and interjectives.

Modern Chinese Grammar provides a comprehensive coverage of Chinese grammar through the clause-pivot theory and the double triangle approach, first proposed by Fuyi Xing in 1996. Translated into English for the first time, the book is widely regarded by linguists as a seminal text, and ground-breaking in linguistics research. The book contains discussion of the topics which are essential to Chinese grammar, from words and phrases, to complex sentences and sentence groups. It addresses such controversial issues as word class identification, the distinction between words and phrases, and between clauses and complex sentences. The book also shows, through a wealth of examples, how the clause-pivot theory and the double triangle approach can be applied productively in grammatical studies. Modern Chinese Grammar: A Clause-Pivot Theoretical Approach is an essential purchase for researchers and graduate students of Chinese grammar and syntax.

This book investigates the lexico-grammatical complementarity in language in its construal of person as a semantic system. Given the vast and wide spectrum of resources for expressing distinctions in the assignment of person roles in language, this book presents person-related system networks covering a rich range of semantic features. It also studies the system of person in relation to other major semantic systems instead of regarding it as one isolated component of language parallel to gender, number, case, etc. Systemic features of person are in turn realized by lexicogrammar, whose components, lexis and grammar form a relationship of complementarity in the process of transforming human experience into meaning. Person-related meaning can be either realized by lexical means, i.e. entity, process, quality, or grammatical means, i.e. pronouns, clitics, affixes, zero forms. Besides, such meaning is also found to be realized at some indeterminate areas along the lexis-grammar continuum. A special feature of this book is that it observes the lexicalization and grammaticalization of person based on evidence from a variety of languages. Readers will be presented a comprehensive look into the meaning of person and will be encouraged to reflect on its realization in their own languages.

The functional perspective on Chinese syntax has yielded various new achievements since its introduction to Chinese linguistics in the 1980s. This two-volume book is one of the earliest and most influential works to study the Chinese language using functional grammar. With local Beijing vernacular (Pekingese) as a basis, the information structure and focus structure of the Chinese language are systematically examined. By using written works and recordings from Beijingers, the authors discuss topics such as the relationship between word order and focus, and the distinction between normal focus and contrastive focus. In addition, the authors also subject the reference and grammatical categories of the Chinese language to a functional scrutiny while discussion of word classes and their functions creatively combines modern linguistic theories and traditional Chinese linguistic theories. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese linguistics and linguistics in general.

First published in 1976. This title presents a study of Yucatec Maya segmental phonology by children. The aim of the study is to describe the phonological systems revealed in the speech of group of children in order to determine the kinds of structural differences which exist among these pedolectal variants. This title will be of great interest to students of linguistics.

The functional perspective on Chinese syntax has yielded various new achievements since its introduction to Chinese linguistics in the 1980s. This two-volume book is one of the earliest and most influential works to study the Chinese language using functional grammar. With local Beijing vernacular (Pekingese) as a basis, the information structure and focus structure of the Chinese language are systematically examined. By using written works and recordings from Beijingers, the authors discuss topics such as the relationship between word order and focus, and the distinction between normal focus and contrastive focus. In addition, the authors also subject the reference and grammatical categories of the Chinese language to a functional scrutiny while discussion of word classes and their functions creatively combines modern linguistic theories and traditional Chinese linguistic theories. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese linguistics and linguistics in general.

First published in 1984. This study is designed as an introductory course in phonology for linguistics students. Like phonology itself, the book is divided into two main parts, the first dealing with segmental phonology, and the second with suprasegmental aspects, including stress, rhythm and intonation. Finally, there is a section on applied phonology, including dialects, historical change and language acquisition, all areas which provide the raw material for theoretical phonology. While the author is sympathetic to orthodox generative phonology, he also offers a critique of it, and argues that theoretical phonology should be concerned with the fundamental phonological processes of language-processes which are found repeatedly in different languages at different periods of time.

First published in 1986. This book presents studies of intonation undertaken from within a number of different traditions: acoustic phonetics, phonology, psychology, social psychology, syntax, conversation analysis, developmental phonetics and sociolinguistics. The studies reported are empirically based, and give an indication of the many methodologies which have been developed in different disciplines for the investigation of the nature, structure and functions of intonation.

First published in 1991. The existence of morphonology had been the subject of intense debate in twentieth-century linguistic theory. Attempts to identify putatively morphonological phenomena had often foundered on the widespread assumption of a rigid dichotomy between synchronic morphological structures and the phonetic processes which historically shared them. With the difficulties of establishing any role for morphonology clearly identified, the author introduces a comparative and historical survey of the morphologization of metaphony in Italian dialects. On the basis of this the existence is argued of authentic synchronic 'morphonological' interaction between morphological structures and phonetic processes, such that inflectional paradigms serve to specify phonetic details of implementation of incipient sound changes. The circumstances under which such interaction may be expected to occur are discussed. This book is an important contribution to our understanding of both morphology and phonology, taking seriously the implications of abandoning a rigid distinction between synchronic morphology and diachronic phonology. It successfully integrates linguistic theory with the analysis of philological data, and indicates the direction for future research on morphonology. This detailed study of Italian dialects also constitutes a valuable addition to the study of Romance dialectology.

First published in 1988. This title explores the phonology of Sekani, a northern Athabaskan language, within the framework of Lexical Phonology. After providing an overview of the language of Sekani and the theory of Lexical Phonology, the author goes on to explore various issues in the application of this theory. This title will be of interest to students of language and linguistics.

First published in 1994. This study aims to provide evidence for the natural class of sounds comprised of front vowels, front glides and coronal consonants. The author also shows that a revised definition of the articulator feature [coronal] properly characterises this natural class of sounds. The study provides a formal representation of front vowels and coronal consonants and their interaction within a nonlinear model of feature organisation. This title will be of interest to students of language and linguistics.

First published in 1994. In this study, the author proposes that neutralization is the result of a wellformedness condition that the author calls the Laryngeal Constraint: In languages that have laryngeal neutralization, a laryngeal node is only licensed in a particular syllabic configuration; elsewhere the node will delink to repair the violation of well-formedness. This approach to neutralization is required to correctly explain the typology of laryngeal neutralization. This title will be of interest to students of language and linguistics.

First published in 1995. This investigation shows that cliticization is not a totally unified phenomenon. Asymmetries in the behaviour of phonological and syntactic clitics show that no single principle predicts all clitic behaviour. The study explores the idea that modifications to the original five parameter system of analysis can be altered to a more efficient analysis in terms of three parameters. This title will be of interest to students of phonetics and phonology.

First published in 1991. In this study, the author investigates the proper treatment of harmony processes in phonological theory. The data examined lead to a formulation of morphologically governed harmony processes which involves multi-planar representations. The analysis of multi-planar harmony leads into a discussion of Plane Conflation and Bracket Erasure in Lexical Phonology. This title will be of great interest to students of linguistics.

This book examines personal names, including given and acquired (or nick-) names, and how they were used in Anglo-Saxon England. It discusses their etymologies, semantics, and grammatical behaviour, and considers their evolving place in Anglo-Saxon history and culture. From that culture survive thousands of names on coins, in manuscripts, on stone and other inscriptions. Names are important and their absence a stigma (Grendel's parents have no names); they may have particular functions in ritual and magic; they mark individuals, generally people but also beings with close human contact such as dogs, cats, birds, and horses; and they may provide indications of rank and gender. Dr Colman explores the place of names within the structure of Old English, their derivation, formation, and other linguistic behaviour, and compares them with the products of other Germanic (e.g., Present-day German) and non-Germanic (e.g., Ancient and Present-day Greek) naming systems. Old English personal names typically followed the Germanic system of elements based on common words like leof (adjective 'beloved') and wulf (noun 'wolf'), which give Leofa and Wulf, and often combined as in Wulfraed, (raed noun, 'advice, counsel') or as in Leofing (with the diminutive suffix -ing). The author looks at the combinatorial and sequencing possibilities of these elements in name formation, and assesses the extent to which, in origin, names may be selected to express qualities manifested by, or expected in, an individual. She examines their different modes of inflection and the variable behaviour of names classified as masculine or feminine. The results of her wide-ranging investigation are provocative and stimulating.

Negation in Arawak Languages presents detailed descriptions of negation constructions in nine Arawak languages (Apurina, Garifuna, Kurripako, Lokono, Mojeno Trinitario, Nanti, Paresi, Tariana, and Wauja), as well as an overview of negation in this major language family. Functional-typological in orientation, each descriptive chapter in the volume is based on fieldwork by authors in the communities in which the languages are spoken. Chapters describe standard negation, prohibitives, existential negation, negative indefinites, and free negation, as well as language-specific negation phenomena such as morphological privatives, the interaction of negation with verbal inflectional categories, and negation in clause-linking constructions. Informed by typological approaches to negation, this volume will be of interest to specialists in Arawak languages, typologists, historical linguists, and theoretical linguists.

Adriana Belletti here collects work presented by top scholars at a workshop at the University of Siena in connection with a visit by Noam Chomsky. These eight articles go beyond strictly mapping syntactic properties, touching on broader theoretical questions related to Chomsky's Minimalist Program in particular. The reputation of the contributors, combined with the collection of cutting-edge research in one place, will interest scholars and students of generative linguistics.

This text presents a corpus-based description of all different types of verbal peripheries used in modern Peninsula Spanish. It provides a description of semantics and syntax of verbal perphases, and introduces a new subclassification of analytical verbal constructions.

Chinese Syntax in a Cross-linguistic Perspective is a collection of sixteen original papers by leading experts in Chinese syntax. The papers focus on a broad range of topics, demonstrating how the analysis of Chinese can inform our understanding of syntactic phenomena in other languages, and how insights gained in the study of other languages can in turn shed interesting new light on patterns in Chinese. Each chapter compares a specific major phenomenon in Chinese syntax with related patterns in at least one other language from Asia, Europe, North America or Africa, resulting in a series of fresh perspectives on Chinese and what the study of Chinese can offer linguists working on other, genetically unrelated languages.
The volume is divided into three thematic sections, on the nominal domain, the predicate domain, and the C-domain. In addition to chapters on synchronic, adult syntax, the book includes chapters on Chinese diachronic syntax in a comparative perspective and the acquisition of syntax in Chinese, in comparison with that of other languages. The collection is a tribute to Professor C.-T. James Huang's lifelong work on the syntax of Chinese and his attempts to demonstrate how the comparative analysis of Chinese reveals important properties of Universal Grammar. With its broad, cross-linguistic focus and its detailed, new studies of Chinese, this book is essential reading for researchers of all language backgrounds in modern generative syntax.

This volume adopts a multidisciplinary perspective in analyzing and understanding the rich communicative resources and dynamics at work in digital communication about food. Drawing on data from a small corpus of food blogs, the book implements a range of theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches to unpack the complexity of food blogs as a genre of computer-mediated communication. This wide-ranging framework allows for food blogs' many layered components, including recipes, photographs, narration in posts, and social media tie-ins, to be unpacked and understood at the structural, visual, verbal, and discourse level in a unified way. The book seeks to provide a comprehensive account of this popular and growing genre and contribute to our understandings of digital communication more generally, making this key reading for students and scholars in computer-mediated communication, multimodality, critical discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, and pragmatics.

This volume offers a critical examination of the construction of the Spoken British National Corpus 2014 (Spoken BNC2014) and points the way forward toward a more informed understanding of corpus linguistic methodology more broadly. The book begins by situating the creation of this second corpus, a compilation of new, publicly-accessible Spoken British English from the 2010s, within the context of the first, created in 1994, talking through the need to balance backward capability and optimal practice for today's users. Chapters subsequently use the Spoken BNC2014 as a focal point around which to discuss the various considerations taken into account in corpus construction, including design, data collection, transcription, and annotation. The volume concludes by reflecting on the successes and limitations of the project, as well as the broader utility of the corpus in linguistic research, both in current examples and future possibilities. This exciting new contribution to the literature on linguistic methodology is a valuable resource for students and researchers in corpus linguistics, applied linguistics, and English language teaching.