The Languages of Native North America (Cambridge Language Surveys)

Author: Mithun, Marianne

Brand: Cambridge University Press

Edition: Illustrated

Binding: paperback

Format: Illustrated

Number Of Pages: 796

Release Date: 07-06-2001

Part Number: 12 Maps

Details: Product Description
This book provides an authoritative survey of the several hundred languages indigenous to North America. These languages show tremendous genetic and typological diversity, and offer numerous challenges to current linguistic theory. Part I of the book provides an overview of structural features of particular interest, concentrating on those that are cross-linguistically unusual or unusually well developed. These include syllable structure, vowel and consonant harmony, tone, and sound symbolism; polysynthesis, the nature of roots and affixes, incorporation, and morpheme order; case; grammatical distinctions of number, gender, shape, control, location, means, manner, time, empathy, and evidence; and distinctions between nouns and verbs, predicates and arguments, and simple and complex sentences; and special speech styles. Part II catalogues the languages by family, listing the location of each language, its genetic affiliation, number of speakers, major published literature, and structural highlights. Finally, there is a catalogue of languages that have evolved in contact situations.
Review
'This volume is a most welcome continuation of a most useful series. it is a great pleasure to review Marianne Mithun's The Languages of Native North America in the Cambridge Language Surveys, since one can only express admiration for the tremendous amount of labour behind this book. There are very few people in modern native North American linguistics, if any, who could do an equally beautiful job as Mithun.' Linguistic Typology
Book Description
An authoritative and detailed survey of the languages of the North American Indians.

EAN: 9780521298759

Package Dimensions: 9.0 x 6.0 x 1.8 inches

Languages: English