From Linguistic Areas To Areal Linguistics

From linguistic areas to areal linguistics explores language description and typology in terms of areal background, presenting case studies in areal linguistics. Some concern well-established linguistic areas such as the Balkan, other regions such as East Nusantara (Indonesia) and the Guapore-Mamore (Amazon) regions have never before been studied in an areal perspective, and yet other areas are involved in current debates. The insight has gained ground that languages owe many of their characteristics to the languages they are in contact with over time. Yet the nature of these areal influences remains a matter of debate. Furthermore, areas are often hard to define. Hence the title: a shift from linguistic areas as concrete and circumscribed objects to a new way of doing linguistics: areally. New findings include the observation that there may be many more language areas than previously recognized. The book is primarily directed at linguists working in descriptive, comparative, historical and typological linguistics. Since it covers linguistic areas from four continents, it will have a wide appeal.

The contributors to this collection address issues of definition and theory of linguistic areas, analyze the process of convergence, and introduce methods to assess the impact of language contact across geographical zones. New case studies are accompanied by discussions that revisit some of the more well-established linguistic areas.

Providing a contemporary and comprehensive look at the topical area of areal linguistics, this book looks systematically at different regions of the world whilst presenting a focussed and informed overview of the theory behind research into areal linguistics and language contact. The topicality of areal linguistics is thoroughly documented by a wealth of case studies from all major regions of the world and, with chapters from scholars with a broad spectrum of language expertise, it offers insights into the mechanisms of external language change. With no book currently like this on the market, The Cambridge Handbook of Areal Linguistics will be welcomed by students and scholars working on the history of language families, documentation and classification, and will help readers to understand the key area of areal linguistics within a broader linguistic context.

This book considers how and why forms and meanings of different languages at different times may resemble each other. Its distinguished authors investigate the relationship between areal diffusion and the genetic development of languages, and reveal the means of distinguishing what may cause one language to share the characteristics of another. The chapters cover Ancient Anatolia, Modern Anatolia, Australia, Amazonia, Oceania, Southeast and East Asia, and Sub-Saharan. Africa. - ;Two languages can resemble each other in the categories, constructions, and types of meaning they use; and in the fo.

Issues in multilingualism and its implications for communities and society at large, language acquisition and use, language diversification, and creative language use associated with new linguistic identities have become hot topics in both scientific and popular debates. A ubiquitous aspect of multilingualism is language contact. This book contains twelve articles that discuss specific aspects of Contact Linguistics. These articles cover a wide range of topics in the field, including creoles, areal linguistics, language mixing, and the sociolinguistic aspects of interactions with audiences. The book is dedicated to Pieter Muysken whose work on pidgin and creole languages, mixed languages, code-switching, bilingualism, and areal linguistics has been ground-breaking and inspirational for the authors in this book, as well as numerous other scholars working on the various facets of this rapidly expanding field.

This book investigates linguistic convergence in Europe, esp. in Eastern Central Europe diachronically and synchronically. The focus lies on methodical and empirical questions in the context of possible language contact. Languages of Eastern Central Europe share common vocabulary due to cultural contact, but also several grammatical features.

Quantifying Language Dynamics: On the Cutting Edge of Areal and Phylogenetic Linguistics contains specially-selected papers introducing new, quantitative methodologies for understanding language interaction and evolution. It draws upon data from the phonologies, morphologies, numeral systems, constituent orders, case systems, and lexicons of the world’s languages, bringing large datasets and sophisticated statistical techniques to bear on fundamental questions such as: how to identify and account for areal distributions, when language contact leads to grammatical simplification, whether patterns of morphological borrowing can be predicted, how to deal with contact within phylogenetic models, and what new techniques are most effective for classification of the world’s languages. The book is relevant for students and scholars in general linguistics, typology, and historical and comparative linguistics.

The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide is part of the multi-volume reference work on the languages and linguistics of all major regions of the world. The island of New Guinea and its offshore islands is arguably the most diverse and least documented linguistic hotspot in the world - home to over 1300 languages, almost one fifth of all living languages, in more than 40 separate families, along with numerous isolates. Traditionally one of the least understood linguistic regions, ongoing research allows for the first time a comprehensive guide. Given the vastness of the region and limited previous overviews, this volume focuses on an account of the families and major languages of each area within the region, including brief grammatical descriptions of many of the languages. The volume also includes a typological overview of Papuan languages, and a chapter on Austronesian-Papuan contact. It will make accessible current knowledge on this complex region, and will be the standard reference on the region. It is aimed at typologists, endangered language specialists, graduate and advanced undergraduate students, and all those interested in linguistic diversity and understanding this least known linguistic region.

Conceptually, the volume focuses on the relationship of the three key notions that essentially triggered the inception and subsequent realization of this project, to wit, language contact, grammaticalization, and areal grouping. Fully concentrated on the areal-typological and historical dimensions of Slavic, the volume offers new insights into a number of theoretical issues, including language contact, grammaticalization, mechanisms of borrowing, the relationship between areal, genetic, and typological sampling, conservative features versus innovation, and socio-linguistic aspects of linguistic alliances conceived of both synchronically and diachronically. The volume integrates new approaches towards the areal-typological profiling of Slavic as a member of several linguistic areas within Europe, including SAE, the Balkan Sprachbund and Central European groupings(s) like the Danubian or Carpathian areas, as well as the Carpathian-Balkan linguistic macroarea. Some of the chapters focus on structural affinities between Slavic and other European languages that arose as a result of either grammatical replication or borrowing. A special emphasis is placed on contact-induced grammaticalization in Slavic micro-languages