This title compares the sounds, phonology, and prosody of General American English and Southeastern Brazilian Portuguese.

This study analyzes passive sentences in English and Portuguese which result from a post-semantic transformation applied when a nound, which does not play the semantic role of actor, is chosen as syntactic subject. Choice between a passive and its non-passive or active counterpart reflects differences in the distribution of information in the sentence as regards the relative importance of the latter's constituents for communication. Such distribution is analyzed in terms of Praque school theory, especially that involving the notions of communicative dynamism and the distribution of theme and rheme. The book concludes with a contrastive analysis of English and Portuguese passive sentence patterns which serves as the basis for observations on the teaching of Portuguese passives to native speakers of English.

This accessible new book provides a comprehensive introduction to the linguistic structure of Portuguese. Clearly organised, it covers the central topics of syntax, phonology, morphology, semantics and pragmatics, and explores the social and historical background of Portuguese, its development and spread in the world, and related sociolinguistic issues such as dialect variation and language planning. It also includes a chapter on Portuguese in Brazil, where approximately 80 per cent of Portuguese speakers live. Assuming very little prior knowledge of linguistic terminology, Portuguese: A Linguistic Introduction is designed to help intermediate and advanced students of Portuguese understand how the language functions at all levels, and to give students of linguistics a useful starting point for work on the structure of Portuguese. Keeping linguistic theory to a minimum, it focuses on presenting the linguistic facts in a clear and lucid way, providing a useful global overview of the Portuguese language and its surrounding issues.

Ditched Dreams is a dazzling novel about workers in a mysterious mine where they must remain for two years without leaving. To escape that suffocating environment, the miners tell tales of frustrated love affairs, revenge, dreams, and witchcraft which are written down and retold by a worker nicknamed Foureyes. The novel is spiced with scatological and picaresque scenes, witchcraft spells and mythological beings, along with science-fiction inventions such as a Pleasurematic. Readers have recognized scenes alluding to classical literary works, biblical passages, adventure novels, old movie serials, and contemporary films. Ditched Dreams is a cavalcade in which down-to-earth Brazilian humor provokes non-stop Rabelaisian laughter as the whip of social criticism. The narrative, essentially oral, includes samples of the vast linguistic mosaic found in Brazilian Portuguese, dexterously adapted into a literary dialect that evokes vernacular English from everywhere and nowhere in particular.

This accessible new book provides a comprehensive introduction to the linguistic structure of Portuguese. Clearly organised, it covers the central topics of syntax, phonology, morphology, semantics and pragmatics, and explores the social and historical background of Portuguese, its development and spread in the world, and related sociolinguistic issues such as dialect variation and language planning. It also includes a chapter on Portuguese in Brazil, where approximately 80 per cent of Portuguese speakers live. Assuming very little prior knowledge of linguistic terminology, Portuguese: A Linguistic Introduction is designed to help intermediate and advanced students of Portuguese understand how the language functions at all levels, and to give students of linguistics a useful starting point for work on the structure of Portuguese. Keeping linguistic theory to a minimum, it focuses on presenting the linguistic facts in a clear and lucid way, providing a useful global overview of the Portuguese language and its surrounding issues.