This book offers insights on the study of natural language as a complex adaptive system. It discusses a new way to tackle the problem of language modeling, and provides clues on how the close relation between natural language and some biological structures can be very fruitful for science. The book examines the theoretical framework and then applies its main principles to various areas of linguistics. It discusses applications in language contact, language change, diachronic linguistics, and the potential enhancement of classical approaches to historical linguistics by means of new methodologies used in physics, biology, and agent systems theory. It shows how studying language evolution and change using computational simulations enables to integrate social structures in the evolution of language, and how this can give rise to a new way to approach sociolinguistics. Finally, it explores applications for discourse analysis, semantics and cognition.

Schon die Zeitgenossen zählten die >Vision des Mönchs von Eynsham

Interesting, topical and up-to-date, Close-Up is a four-level B1 / C1 course which makes English come alive through spectacular National Geographic photography and facts carefully selected to appeal to the inquisitive minds of young teenagers. Thematically-based, Close-Up provides a plethora of interesting and diverse reading texts guaranteed to appeal to this age-group, while providing a springboard for the development of language skills required to communicate effectively about the world around us.

This volume presents a multinational perspective on the juxtaposition of language and politics. Bringing together an international group of authors, it offers theoretical and historical constructs on bilingualism and bilingual education. It highlights the sociocultural complexities of bilingualism in societies where indigenous and other languages coexist with colonial dominant and other prestigious immigrant languages. It underlines the linguistic diaspora and expansion of English as the world's lingua franca and their impact on indigenous and other minority languages. Finally, it features models of language teaching and teacher education. This book challenges the existent global conditions of non-dominant languages and furthers the discourse on language politics and policies. It does so by pointing out the need to change the bilingual/multilingual educational paradigm across nations and all levels of educational systems.

This book researches the study of languages other than English, and their place in the Australian tertiary sector. Languages are discussed in the context of the histories of Australian universities, and the series of reports and surveys about languages across the second half of the twentieth century. It demonstrates how changes in the ethnic mix of society are reflected in language offerings, and how policies on languages have changed as a result of societal influences. Also discussed is the extent to which influencing factors changed over time depending on social, cultural, political and economic contexts, and the extent to which governments prioritised the promotion and funding of languages because of their perceived contribution to the national interest. The book will give readers an understanding as to whether languages have mattered to Australia in a national and international sense and how Australia's attention to languages has been reflected in its identity and its sense of place in the world.

Learn to speak Dutch in just three months with this practical and comprehensive self-study language course. Whether you're a complete beginner or wanting to refresh your knowledge, Hugo: Dutch in Three Months will have you speaking Dutch fluently in just 12 weeks. With a fresh new look and an accompanying audio app, the latest edition of this classic self-study course provides all the resources needed to speak, read, and write in Dutch. The 12 weekly chapters contain lessons on the key grammatical structures and present a range of useful vocabulary, along with exercises to reinforce your learning. The essentials of Dutch grammar are clearly explained and tested in conversational exercises, giving you the authentic feel of the language. In addition to a written "imitated pronunciation" guide, which replaces Dutch sounds with English syllables you're already familiar with, the new audio app also allows you to perfect your pronunciation - at home or on the go. Whether you're learning Dutch for work, a future holiday, or because you're interested in languages, this course is the perfect place to start. Learning Dutch has never been so easy!

This two-volume set presents a comprehensive syntactical picture of Singapore Mandarin and discusses the distinguishing characteristics of the Chinese language and especially Singapore Mandarin. As a variety of Mandarin Chinese, Singapore Mandarin is characterised by syntactic rules taking precedence over morphological rules. The first volume provides an overview of the grammar of Singapore Mandarin and argues that word order and functional words are specifically important in the study of Singapore Mandarin. It also explains the properties and functions of the nine grammatical components, including phrase types, word classes, sentences, subjects and predicates, predicates and objects, predicates and complements, attributes and adverbials, complex predicate phrases and prepositions and prepositional phrases. The second volume describes expressions of number, quantity, time and place and composite sentences, covering seven types of compound sentences, eight types of complex sentences and connective words with a focus on conjunctions. The concluding part of the study explores the characteristics of Singapore Mandarin grammar compared with Chinese Mandarin (Putonghua) and issues of language standardisation. With rich and authentic language examples, the book will serve as a must read for learners and teachers of Mandarin Chinese and linguistics scholars interested in global Chinese and especially Singapore Mandarin.

This book showcases the state of the art in the corpus-based linguistics of medieval Celtic languages. Its chapters detail theoretical advances in analysing variation/change in the Celtic languages and computational tools necessary to process/analyse the data. Many contributions situate the Celtic material in the broader field of corpus-based diachronic linguistics. The application of computational methods to Celtic languages is in its infancy and this book is a first in medieval Celtic Studies, which has mainly concentrated on philological endeavours such as editorial and literary work. The Celtic languages represent a new frontier in the development of NLP tools because they pose special challenges, like complicated inflectional morphology with non-straightforward mappings between lemmata and attested forms, irregular orthography, and consonant mutations. With so much data available in non-electronic form and ongoing efforts to convert these data to computer-readable format, there is much room for the developing/testing of new tools. This books provides an overview of this process at a crucial time in the development of the field and aims to the data accessible to computational linguists with an interest in diachronic change.

Build your fluency in Spanish by mastering its pronouns and prepositions Pronouns and prepositions may be small, but they are crucial for effective communication with speakers of Spanish. Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions is the go-to guide for clear, precise explanations that pinpoint when a certain word should be used in a given situation. Learners will also receive plenty of practice in using their new language skills. And this book is accompanied by flashcards and audio recordings (available online and via app) that provide an extra dimension to your study of Spanish. THE BOOK IS DIVIDED INTO THREE MAIN PARTS: PART I covers pronouns, including subject, interrogative, possessive, relative, demonstrative and reciprocal pronouns, as well as double-object pronoun order, se and the passive voice, and more. PART II focuses on prepositions, including their various uses and the subtle difference. And, of course, there is extensive practice with the perennial troublemakers por and para! The Appendixes feature helpful charts, explanations, and summaries of the eight parts of speech, with special emphasis on pronouns and prepositions.

This book presents the first comprehensive reference on noun declensions in Modern Irish. Whereas traditional descriptions of noun inflection are notoriously complex and filled with exceptions and irregularities, this reference guide provides a systematic and straightforward characterization of nominal paradigms, which also captures important generalizations about the inflection of nouns. Andrew Carnie proposes ten declension classes instead of the traditional five and separates off seven major types of plural formation. He provides fully inflected paradigms for 1200 nouns, and a reference list of 10,000 Irish nouns annotated with their new declension class, their plural type and the form of the genitive singular and common case (nominative) plural. The book also includes parallel information on the inflection of adjectives and prepositions.
This unique reference tool will be invaluable not only to language researchers and authors, but to teachers and students of the language, whether they are native speakers or beginners.