logo for University of Michigan Press
Samskrta-Subodhini
A Sanskrit Primer
Madhav M. Deshpande
University of Michigan Press, 1999
Saṃskṛta-Subodinī: A Sanskrit Primer marks the culmination of Professor Deshpande’s experience of teaching Sanskrit at the University of Michigan for over twenty-five years. Tested in classes at Michigan and elsewhere and successively improved for over twenty years, the teaching materials in the book now offer an effective tool to learn and teach Sanskrit. The focus is Sanskrit as a language, rather than as a religious or mystical entity. Deshpande’s primer also simplifies the process of learning Sanskrit by dissociating this language-learning process from the heavy burdens imposed both by the tradition of Indo-European linguistics and the tradition of indigenous Sanskrit grammarians in India. By treating Sanskrit as a productive language, rather than as a dead language merely to be deciphered, the book represents a significant advance over the traditional Western approach to the study of Sanskrit.
Work on this book began in 1976, and now almost two generations of Professor Deshpande's students have used successively improved versions. The book’s examples include many modified versions of classical Sanskrit passages from epic texts such as the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. The book also contains examples from Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions, as well as samples of Sanskrit poetry and satire.
[more]

logo for University of Chicago Press
The Semantics of Syntax
A Minimalist Approach to Grammar
Denis Bouchard
University of Chicago Press, 1995
During the last thirty years, most linguists and philosophers have assumed that meaning can be represented symbolically and that the mental processing of language involves the manipulation of symbols. Scholars have assembled strong evidence that there must be linguistic representations at several abstract levels—phonological, syntactic, and semantic—and that those representations are related by a describable system of rules. Because meaning is so complex, linguists often posit an equally complex relationship between semantic and other levels of grammar.

The Semantics of Syntax is an elegant and powerful analysis of the relationship between syntax and semantics. Noting that meaning is underdetermined by form even in simple cases, Denis Bouchard argues that it is impossible to build knowledge of the world into grammar and still have a describable grammar. He thus proposes simple semantic representations and simple rules to relate linguistic levels. Focusing on a class of French verbs, Bouchard shows how multiple senses can be accounted for by the assumption of a single abstract core meaning along with background information about how objects behave in the world. He demonstrates that this move simplifies the syntax at no cost to the descriptive power of the semantics. In two important final chapters, he examines the consequences of his approach for standard syntactic theories.
[more]

logo for Georgetown University Press
A Short Reference Grammar of Iraqi Arabic
Wallace M. Erwin. Foreword by Margaret Nydell and Karin C. Ryding
Georgetown University Press, 2004

A Short Reference Grammar of Iraqi Arabic is the only volume of its kind, reflecting Iraqi Arabic as spoken by Muslims in Baghdad. With all the Arabic transcribed, it is written for beginners as well as Arabic speakers wanting to learn the dialect. It covers the phonology, morphology (word formation of nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, and numerals, achieved by adding prefixes and suffixes to roots), and syntax, teaching the reader how to make the sounds, form words, and construct sentences.

[more]

front cover of Sifrut al Ketzeh Halashon
Sifrut al Ketzeh Halashon
Intermediate Hebrew Textbook
Edna Genossar Grad
Northwestern University Press, 1992
This text is directly dedicated to the intermediate Hebrew student. Organized by topics from everyday life and Jewish heritage and culture, it provides a familiar framework for the development of skills in both written and spoken Hebrew. The guide is unique in its inclusion of many literary selections representative of modern Hebrew literature, each introduced by introductory essays placing the works in historical and social context. Immediate and cumulative review sections reinforce a rich vocabulary and, unlike most texts at this level, the selections expose the student to colloquial, formal, Biblical, and rabbinic Hebrew.
[more]

front cover of Signed Language Corpora
Signed Language Corpora
Jordan Fenlon
Gallaudet University Press, 2022
Jordan Fenlon and Julie A. Hochgesang present a revolutionary contribution to the field of signed language linguistics with Signed Language Corpora, the first volume to provide a comprehensive overview of the creation, development, and use of signed language corpora. This work will advance discussions on corpus linguistics as a methodology and its place in signed language linguistics research.

       The ability to search corpora to obtain information about the frequency of patterns in language is an important step forward for signed language research. Access to large datasets will expand scholarly understandings of signed language structure in ways never before possible. Through reflective discussions on the processes of creating, using, and utilizing corpora, the editors and contributors hope that other linguists will be inspired to take similar steps. The descriptions provided in this book have been written to provide a framework for those eager to develop or make use of signed language corpora for their respective signed language varieties. Creating signed language corpora is significant not only for linguistic research, but for the long-term preservation of collected texts that include the stories and histories of signed language communities.

       Additional areas of focus include the use of signed language corpora in applied settings, the ethics of working with signed language communities, and the future of this methodology in research.
[more]

front cover of Sonora Yaqui Language Structures
Sonora Yaqui Language Structures
John M. Dedrick and Eugene H. Casad
University of Arizona Press, 1999
Yaqui is a Southern Uto-Aztecan language spoken by a people living predominantly in Sonora, with some communities in Arizona. This comprehensive reference on the Sonoran Yaqui language is a descriptive grammar that covers topics on phonology, word classes, verb structure, and complex sentences. John M. Dedrick, who lived and worked among the Yaquis for more than thirty years, shares his extensive knowledge of the language, while Uto-Aztecan specialist Eugene H. Casad helps put the material in a comparative perspective.

The book includes useful sections on quantifiers and adverbial and deictic particles, often inadequately treated in reference grammars. A section on auxiliary verbs and well-documented information on voice, aspect, and other features of verbal inflection provide readers with useful data for particular lines of linguistic inquiry. Each grammatical point is illustrated by example sentences distinguished by their naturalness and cultural relevance. At the end of the book, a Yaqui text provides a sample of connected sentences in a natural context.

Sonora Yaqui Language Structures is a valuable source not only for research on this language family but also for anthropological studies of the Arizona-Sonora cultural region. In addition, it documents an indigenous language for future generations of Yaqui speakers.
[more]

front cover of A Sourcebook for Ancient Greek
A Sourcebook for Ancient Greek
Grammar, Poetry, and Prose
John Tomarchio
Catholic University of America Press, 2022
This book was designed for students transitioning from the study of Greek grammar to translation of texts. It was developed in classroom use for classroom use, in the context of an integrated Great Books program in liberal arts and sciences. It is meant for students not only of Classics, but more, for students of Humanities interested in direct engagement of primary sources. Each Greek text offered for translation was chosen for its theoretical interest as well as the interest of its Greek. The selections of Greek literature offered in this Sourcebook are wide-ranging. The indisputable standard of excellence for classicists is of course the Attic dialect of Athens in its glory. However, this Sourcebook is meant for students of liberal arts and sciences whose interests range far more widely. Thus, it does not hesitate to extend not only backward to the archaic Greek of Homer, but also forward to the koine Greek of the Alexandrian and Roman empires. Greek works were chosen for being seminal to Western thinking today, chosen to give students of Western arts and sciences introductions to its Greek sources Naturally, Greek grammar is taught to the newcomer analytically and sequentially, but the continuing student needs to synthesize these distended enumerations of elements and principles. Accordingly, grammatical synopses are not appended as reference tables but placed front and center as objects of study. The grammar tables offer synoptic views of integral parts of Greek grammar to show the form and logic of the whole part of speech or part of a sentence. On the basis of these tables, detailed grammatical notes and commentary appended to Greek selections that follow are tailored for continuing students.
[more]

front cover of Spaces, Worlds, and Grammar
Spaces, Worlds, and Grammar
Edited by Gilles Fauconnier and Eve Sweetser
University of Chicago Press, 1996
In the highly influential mental-spaces framework developed by Gilles Fauconnier in the mid-1980s, the mind creates multiple cognitive "spaces" to mediate its understanding of relations and activities in the world, and to engage in creative thought.

These twelve original papers extend the mental-spaces framework and demonstrate its utility in solving deep problems in linguistics and discourse theory. Investigating the ties between mental constructs, they analyze a wide range of phenomena, including analogical counterfactuals; the metaphor system for conceptualizing the self; abstract change expressions in Japanese; mood in Spanish; deictic expressions; copular sentences in Japanese; conditional constructions; and reference in American Sign Language.

The ground-breaking research presented in this volume will be of interest to linguists and cognitive scientists.

The contributors are Claudia Brugman, Gilles Fauconnier, George Lakoff, Yo Matsumoto, Errapel Mejias-Bikandi, Laura A. Michaelis, Gisela Redeker, Jo Rubba, Shigeru Sakahara, Jose Sanders, Eve Sweetser, and Karen van Hoek.

[more]

logo for Georgetown University Press
Spanish Second Language Acquisition
State of the Science
Barbara A. Lafford and Rafael Salaberry, Editors
Georgetown University Press, 2003

Spanish Second Language Acquisition provides a panoramic overview of previous studies on the acquisition of Spanish as a second or foreign language, the theoretical approaches used in these studies, and the effects of various pedagogical approaches on the development of Spanish interlanguage systems. Barbara Lafford and Rafael Salaberry have compiled the first volume to provide a comprehensive critical overview of the research done and data compiled on how adults acquire Spanish as a second language. Major scholars in the field of SLA have contributed chapters having to do with a wide range of "products" (phonology, tense/aspect, subjunctive, clitics, lexicon, discourse/pragmatics) and "processes" (generative, cognitive and sociocultural theories) involved in the acquisition process-concluding with a discussion of the effects of instruction on Spanish interlanguage development.

While being an invaluable reference tool for undergraduate and graduate programs that focus on the acquisition of Spanish as a second language, due to the extraordinary range of the review research on theoretical and methodological issues, this is also an extremely useful volume for second language theoreticians and practitioners involved in all aspects of the pedagogy of other second languages. It is the editors' desire that students, teachers, program administrators and scholars alike will benefit from the insights that the contributors bring to the myriad issues that language professionals confront.

[more]

front cover of Structure, Alignment and Optimality in Swedish
Structure, Alignment and Optimality in Swedish
Peter Sells
CSLI, 2001
Very little research has been performed on the grammatical structure of sentences in Swedish. Structure, Alignment and Optimality in Swedish is one of the first books to explore the Swedish sentence structure, presenting an account of the order of the words and phrases within the sentence. The book uses the theoretical framework of Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG), which provides syntactic analysis in terms of subject, object, topic, and focus, as well as part-of-speech analysis in terms of noun phrase and verb phrase. The book also uses Optimality Theory, a theory of constraint interpretation that allows constraints to conflict by allowing the satisfaction of certain constraints or requirements to lead to a grammatical structure even if less important constraints are violated.
[more]

front cover of The Structure of English
The Structure of English
Studies in Form and Function for Language Teaching
Jeanette S. DeCarrico
University of Michigan Press, 2000
Covering the spectrum of grammatical structures, The Structure of English teaches why grammatical structures are important and how to use them through literary illustrations and clear explanations of grammar's effective use and communicative function. It is directed at future English teachers, as well as the new ESL/EFL teacher.

With an emphasis on discourse function throughout, students are never expected to rely on lists of unrelated, constructed example sentences. Rather, when major points of grammar are presented, the structures are illustrated with rich, "real world" contexts excerpted from literature (mostly American), including novels, short stories, poems, essays, and drama. Exercises in the companion workbook are likewise based on naturally occurring stretches of discourse.
Though informed by modern linguistic theory, explanations are framed in more traditional terminology and are designed to help build students' confidence in using English grammar by deepening their understanding of its forms and functions..
For advanced ESL students and graduate TESOL and certificate programs.
[more]

front cover of The Structure of Russian in Outline
The Structure of Russian in Outline
Charles Bidwell
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1970
A brief, structurally oriented reference grammar of Russian for use by advanced students, Slavicists, and linguists, Bidwell's guide can also be used as a text for courses on the linguistic structure and grammar of the Russian language.

Bidwell offers an original phonemic analysis and, breaking with traditional grammars, treats the language as primarily and basically a spoken phenomenon with the grammatical description based solidly on the spoken forms. Divided into three sections, focusing on the phonemics, morphology, and syntax, The Structure of Russian in Outline aims to give a coherent and concise account of the sounds, forms, and constructions of the Russian language, treating the whole as an integrated system structured on hierarchical levels.
[more]

front cover of Subject Pronoun Expression in Spanish
Subject Pronoun Expression in Spanish
A Cross-Dialectal Perspective
Ana M. Carvalho, Rafael Orozco, and Naomi Lapidus Shin, Editors
Georgetown University Press

Much recent scholarship has sought to identify the linguistic and social factors that favor the expression or omission of subject pronouns in Spanish. This volume brings together leading experts on the topic of language variation in Spanish to provide a panoramic view of research trends, develop probabilistic models of grammar, and investigate the impact of language contact on pronoun expression.

The book consists of three sections. The first studies the distributional patterns and conditioning forces on subject pronoun expression in four monolingual varieties—Dominican, Colombian, Mexican, and Peninsular—and makes cross-dialectal comparisons. In the second section, experts explore Spanish in contact with English, Maya, Catalan, and Portuguese to determine the extent to which each language influences this syntactic variable. The final section examines the acquisition of variable subject pronoun expression among monolingual and bilingual children as well as adult second language learners.

[more]

logo for Georgetown University Press
Subject Pronoun Expression in Spanish
A Cross-Dialectal Perspective
Ana M. Carvalho
Georgetown University Press

"[A] superb collection of studies that substantially increases our understanding, not only of variation in subject personal pronouns, but also of variable morphosyntactic processes generally.... clearly relevant to all students and scholars who wish to understand the complexities of linguistic variation and dialect contact." -- Robert Bayley, professor of linguistics, University of California, Davis

"Students and scholars will find that this volume is an essential reference in the field of Spanish language variation. If the study of final /s/ has led Spanish sociophonetics, the study of subject pronouns stars in sociogrammar. This volume presents a 3D analysis of how subject pronouns are used and acquired in Spanish. This comprehensive volume is not only of interest to those concerned with Spanish grammar, but also to anyone interested in pro-drop languages. The vision of Carvalho, Orozco and Shin has harmonized an excellent collective volume." -- Francisco Moreno-Fernández, professor of Hispanic linguistics. University of Alcala (Spain) and Instituto Cervantes at Harvard University.

,

"If you seek innovative, theoretically and empirically driven research into syntactic variation, open this book and read on. Here a variationist focus on alternating sound and silence, something and nothing, or subject pronouns and nulls generates striking insights into the nature of Spanish and those who speak and learn it." -- Richard Cameron,, University of Illinois at Chicago

[more]

logo for Georgetown University Press
The Syntax of Spoken Arabic
A Comparative Study of Moroccan, Egyptian, Syrian, and Kuwaiti Dialects
Kristen Brustad
Georgetown University Press, 2000

This book is the first comparative study of the syntax of Arabic dialects, based on natural language data recorded in Morocco, Egypt, Syria, and Kuwait. These four dialect regions are geographically diverse and representative of four distinct dialect groups.

Kristen E. Brustad has adopted an analytical approach that is both functional and descriptive, combining insights from discourse analysis, language typology, and pragmatics—the first time such an approach has been used in the study of spoken Arabic syntax. An appendix includes sample texts from her data.

Brustad's work provides the most nuanced description available to date of spoken Arabic syntax, widens the theoretical base of Arabic linguistics, and gives both scholars and students of Arabic tools for greater cross-dialect comprehension.

[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter