Areal Diffusion and Genetic Inheritance Problems in Comparative Linguistics

Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. & R. M. W. Dixon

ISBN 10: 0199283087 / ISBN 13: 9780199283088

Published by Oxford University Press, 2006

About this Item

Oxford University Press, 2006. 1st edition, 1st paperback printing. Originally published in 2001. Xvi + [454] pp. Light dust smudge bottom of text block. As New otherwise. ; Explorations In Linguistic Typology; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 470 pages.

Seller Inventory # 26446

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Areal Diffusion and Genetic Inheritance Problems in Comparative Linguistics
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0199283087
• ISBN 13: 9780199283088
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition: First Paperback Edition; First Printing.
• Condition: As New
• Weight: 1.3 pounds

About this title

Synopsis

This book considers how and why forms and meanings of different languages at different times may resemble one another. Its editors and authors aim to explain and identify the relationship between areal diffusion and the genetic development of languages, and to discover the means of distinguishing what may cause one language to share the characteristics of another.

About the Author

Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald is Professor and Associate Director of the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology at La Trobe University. She has worked on descriptive and historical aspects of Berber languages and has published, in Russian, a grammar of modern Hebrew (1990). She is a major authority on languages of the Arawak family, from northern Amazonia, and has written grammars of Bare (1995) (based on work with the last speaker who has since died) and Warekena (1998), plus A Grammar of Tariana, from Northwest Amazonia (CUP 2003), in addition to essays on various typological and areal features of South American languages. Her monographs, Classifiers: A Typology of Noun Categorization Devices (2000, paperback reissue 2003), Language Contact in Amazonia (2002) and Evidentiality (2004) are published by Oxford University Press. She is currently working on a reference grammar of Manambu, from the Sepik area of New Guinea.


R. M. W. Dixon is Professor and Director of the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology at La Trobe University. He has published grammars of a number of Australian languages (including Dyirbal and Yidiñ), in addition to A Grammar of Boumaa Fijian (University of Chicago Press 1988), The Jarawara Language of Southern Amazonia (OUP 2004), and A Semantic Approach to English Grammar (OUP 2005). His works on typological theory include Where Have All the Adjectives Gone? and Other Essays in Semantics and Syntax (Mouton,1982) and Ergativity (CUP 1994). The Rise and Fall of Languages (CUP 1997) expounded a punctuated equilibrium model for language development: this is the basis for his detailed case study Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development (CUP 2002).