LINGUIST List 15.2286

Wed Aug 11 2004

Books: Language Description/Jarawara: Dixon

Editor for this issue: Neil Salmond <neillinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. lowri.jones, The Jarawara Language of Southern Amazonia: Dixon

Title: The Jarawara Language of Southern Amazonia

Publication Year: 2004
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
		http://www.oup.com/us
		http://www.oup.co.uk

Book URL: http://www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0-19-927067-8

Author: R.M.W. Dixon, La Trobe University

Hardback: ISBN: 0199270678, Pages: 672, Price: U.K. � 95.00

			
Abstract:

This is the first account of Jarawara, a Southern Amazonia language of
great complexity and unusual interest, and now spoken by less than two
hundred people. It has only two open lexical classes, noun and verb,
and a closed adjective class with fourteen members which can only
modify a noun. Verbs have a complex structure with three prefix and
some twenty-five suffix slots. There is an eleven-term tense-modal
system with an evidentiality contrast (eyewitness/non-eyewitness) in
the three past tenses. Of the two genders, feminine and masculine,
feminine is unmarked. There are at least eight types of subordinate
clause constructions, including complement clauses, relative clauses,
coreferential dependent clauses, and 'when', 'if', 'due to the lack
of' and 'because of' clauses.There are only eleven consonants and four
vowels but an extensive set of ordered phonological rules of lenition,
vowel assimilation and unstressed syllable omission. There are four
imperative inflections (with different meanings) and three explicit
interrogative suffixes within the mood system. The book is entirely
based on field work by the authors.


Lingfield(s):	Anthropological Linguistics
		Syntax
		Typology
		
Subject Language(s):	Jaru�ra (Language code: JAP)
		
Written In:	English (Language Code: ENG)


 See this book announcement on our website:
 http://linguistlist.org/get-book.html?BookID=11111.