LINGUIST List 15.2469

Tue Sep 7 2004

Books: Language Description: Bradley et al (Eds)

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

Directory

1. jmanley, Language variation: Bradley, LaPolla, Michailovsky, Thurgood (Eds)

Title: Language variation
Subtitle: Papers on variation and change in the Sinosphere and in the
	 Indosphere in honour of James A. Matisoff
Series Title: Pacific Linguistics

Publication Year: 2004
Publisher:	Pacific Linguistics
		http://pacling.anu.edu.au/

Editor: David Bradley
Editor: Randy LaPolla
Editor: Boyd Michailovsky
Editor: Graham Thurgood

Paperback: ISBN: 085883541, Pages:  xii + 320, Price: AUS $ 72.00
	 Comment: In Australia A$79.20 (inc. GST)

			
Abstract:

This volume discusses the nature of variation and change in a number
of East, Southeast and South Asian languages, especially of the
Sino-Tibetan family, also extending to other languages, even as far
afield as English. The papers honour the work of James A. Matisoff, in
celebration of his 65th birthday.

There are nineteen papers by twenty authors concerning issues in
phonology, morphology, syntax, language contact, orthography and
language documentation.

Randy LaPolla provides a paper with broad theoretical implications,
'Why languages differ: variation in the conventionalisation of
constraints on inference'.

Martha Ratliff writes on Hmong secret languages. Graham Thurgood and
Fengxiang Li give an account of contact-induced variation and
syntactic change in the Austronesian Tsat language of Hainan. Benji
Wald's contribution considers verb compounding in English and East
Asian languages.

The other papers in the volume concern Sino-Tibetan
languages. Balthasar Bickel writes on prosodic tautomorphemicity in
Sino-Tibetan word structure. Robert Bauer discusses the impact of
English loanwords on the Hong Kong Cantonese syllabary. Eleven papers
are on Tibeto-Burman topics. David Bradley discusses deictic patterns
in Lisu and SE Tibeto-Burman. Jackson Sun describes tonal developments
in Tibetan, while Michel Ferlus writes on borrowing from Middle
Chinese into Proto Tibetan. Yasuhiko Nagano describes negation
particles in Gyarong (Sichuan) and David Peterson agreement and
grammatical relations in Hyow (Bangladesh). Jerold Edmondson provides
data from Ph� L�, X� Ph�, L� L�, all located in Vietnam.

Five of the Tibeto-Burman papers concern languages of Nepal. Michael
Noonan writes on recent language contact among Tibeto-Burman languages
of the Himalaya. Carol Genetti provides some case studies on
linguistic variation involving Newar. Boyd Michailovsky describes
time-ordinals in Kiranti languages, Aim�e Lahaussois ergativity in
Thulung Rai , and Martine Mazaudon the discourse/grammar interface in
Tamang.

Two papers deal with orthographic issues. R.K. Sprigg describes the
Lepcha and Limbu (Tibeto-Burman) scripts of Nepal and Mark Hansell
analyses variations in Chinese character choice in writing loanwords
in Taiwan.


Lingfield(s):	Language Description
		
Written In:	English (Language Code: ENG)


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