The Amazonian Languages

1999-09-23

An overview of one of the richest and most complex linguistic regions in the world, the Amazon Basin.

Author: Robert M. W. Dixon

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

ISBN: 0521570212

Category: Foreign Language Study

Page: 446

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An overview of one of the richest and most complex linguistic regions in the world, the Amazon Basin.
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Don t Sleep There are Snakes

2010-07-09

Although Daniel Everett was a missionary, far from converting the Pirahãs, they converted him.

Author: Daniel Everett

Publisher: Profile Books

ISBN: 9781847651228

Category: Language Arts & Disciplines

Page: 327

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Although Daniel Everett was a missionary, far from converting the Pirahs, they converted him. He shows the slow, meticulous steps by which he gradually mastered their language and his gradual realisation that its unusual nature closely reflected its speakers' startlingly original perceptions of the world. Everett describes how he began to realise that his discoveries about the Pirah language opened up a new way of understanding how language works in our minds and in our lives, and that this way was utterly at odds with Noam Chomsky's universally accepted linguistic theories. The perils of passionate academic opposition were then swiftly conjoined to those of the Amazon in a debate whose outcome has yet to be won. Everett's views are most recently discussed in Tom Wolfe's bestselling The Kingdom of Speech. Adventure, personal enlightenment and the makings of a scientific revolution proceed together in this vivid, funny and moving book.
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Handbook of Amazonian Languages

1991

This volume includes grammatical descriptions of Wai Wai, Warekena, a comparative survey of morphosyntactic features of the Tupi-Guarani languages, and a paper on interclausal reference phenomena in Amahuaca.

Author: Desmond C. Derbyshire

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

ISBN: 3110128365

Category: Language Arts & Disciplines

Page: 529

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The fourth volume in a series on the languages of Amazonia. This volume includes grammatical descriptions of Wai Wai, Warekena, a comparative survey of morphosyntactic features of the Tupi-Guarani languages, and a paper on interclausal reference phenomena in Amahuaca.
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The Languages of the Amazon

2012-05-18

This is the first guide and introduction to the extraordinary range of languages in Amazonia, which include some of the most the most fascinating in the world and many of which are now teetering on the edge of extinction.

Author: Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

Publisher: Oxford University Press

ISBN: 9780191007996

Category: Language Arts & Disciplines

Page:

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This is the first guide and introduction to the extraordinary range of languages in Amazonia, which include some of the most the most fascinating in the world and many of which are now teetering on the edge of extinction. Alexandra Aikhenvald, one of the world's leading experts on the region, provides an account of the more than 300 languages. She sets out their main characteristics, compares their common and unique features, and describes the histories and cultures of the people who speak them. The languages abound in rare features. Most have been in contact with each other for many generations, giving rise to complex patterns of linguistic influence. The author draws on her own extensive field research to tease out and analyse the patterns of their genetic and structural diversity. She shows how these patterns reveal the interrelatedness of language and culture; different kinship systems, for example, have different linguistic correlates. Professor Aikhenvald explains the many unusual features of Amazonian languages, which include evidentials, tones, classifiers, and elaborate positional verbs. She ends the book with a glossary of terms, and a full guide for those readers interested in following up a particular language or linguistic phenomenon. The book is free of esoteric terminology, written in its author's characteristically clear style, and brought vividly to life with numerous accounts of her experience in the region. It may be used as a resource in courses in Latin American studies, Amazonian studies, linguistic typology, and general linguistics, and as reference for linguistic and anthropological research.
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HANDBOOK AMAZONIAN LANGUAGES

2010-12-14

This volume includes grammatical descriptions of Wai Wai, Warekena, a comparative survey of morphosyntactic features of the Tupi-Guarani languages, and a paper on interclausal reference phenomena in Amahuaca.

Author: Desmond C. Derbyshire

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

ISBN: 9783110822120

Category: Language Arts & Disciplines

Page: 652

View: 219

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The fourth volume in a series on the languages of Amazonia. This volume includes grammatical descriptions of Wai Wai, Warekena, a comparative survey of morphosyntactic features of the Tupi-Guarani languages, and a paper on interclausal reference phenomena in Amahuaca.
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Amazonian Linguistics

2014-06-23

However, as this volume demonstrates, tremendous diversity and significance are found in the languages of this region.These nineteen essays, originally presented at a conference on Amazonian languages held at the University of Oregon, offer ...

Author: Doris L. Payne

Publisher: University of Texas Press

ISBN: 9780292786110

Category: Language Arts & Disciplines

Page: 584

View: 501

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Lowland South American languages have been among the least studied ln the world. Consequently, their previous contribution to linguistic theory and language universals has been small. However, as this volume demonstrates, tremendous diversity and significance are found in the languages of this region. These nineteen essays, originally presented at a conference on Amazonian languages held at the University of Oregon, offer new information on the Tupian, Cariban, Jivaroan, Nambiquaran, Arawakan, Tucanoan, and Makuan languages and new analyses of previously recalcitrant Tupí-Guaraní verb agreement systems. The studies are descriptive, but typological and theoretical implications are consistently considered. Authors invariably indicate where previous claims must be adjusted based on the new information presented. This is true in the areas of nonlinear phonological theory, verb agreement systems and ergativity, grammatical relations and incorporation, and the uniqueness of Amazonian noun classification systems. The studies also contribute to the now extensive interest in grammatical change.
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A Grammar of Tariana from Northwest Amazonia

2003-08-07

This is a comprehensive reference grammar of Tariana, an endangered Arawak language from a remote region in the northwest Amazonian jungle.

Author: Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

ISBN: 9781107268807

Category: Foreign Language Study

Page:

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This is a comprehensive reference grammar of Tariana, an endangered Arawak language from a remote region in the northwest Amazonian jungle. Its speakers traditionally marry someone speaking a different language, and as a result most people are fluent in five or six languages. Because of this rampant multilingualism, Tariana combines a number of features inherited from the protolanguage with properties diffused from neighbouring but unrelated Tucanoan languages. Typologically unusual features of the language include: an array of classifiers independent of genders, complex serial verbs, case marking depending on the topicality of a noun, and double marking of case and of number. Tariana has obligatory evidentiality: every sentence contains a special element indicating whether the information was seen, heard, or inferred by the speaker, or whether the speaker acquired it from somebody else. This grammar will be a valuable source-book for linguists and others interested in natural languages.
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Nonverbal Predication in Amazonian Languages

2018-08-15

This volume explores typological variation within nonverbal predication in Amazonian languages.

Author: Simon E. Overall

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

ISBN: 9789027264244

Category: Language Arts & Disciplines

Page: 407

View: 926

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This volume explores typological variation within nonverbal predication in Amazonian languages. Using abundant data, generally from original and extensive fieldwork on under-described languages, it presents a far more detailed picture of nonverbal predication constructions than previously published grammatical descriptions. On the one hand, it addresses the fact that current typologies of nonverbal predication are less developed than those of verbal predication; on the other, it provides a wealth of new data and analyses of Amazonian languages, which are still poorly represented in existing typologies. Several contributions offer historical insights, either reconstructing the sources of innovative nonverbal predicate constructions, or describing diachronic pathways by which constructions used for nonverbal predication spread to other functions in the grammar. The introduction provides a modern typological overview, and also proposes a new diachronic typology to explain how distinct types of nonverbal predication arise.
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Languages of the Amazon

2012-05-17

This guide and introduction to the extraordinary range of languages in Amazonia includes some of the most fascinating in the world and many of which are now teetering on the edge of extinction.

Author: Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

Publisher: Oxford University Press

ISBN: 9780199593569

Category: Language Arts & Disciplines

Page: 514

View: 943

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The first guide to Amazonia's over 300 languages compares their features, sets out their characteristics, and describes the cultures of those who speak them. Clearly written and brought vividly to life with anecdotes from the author's fieldwork, this is both an essential reference and an accessible introduction for linguistics and anthropologists.
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