LINGUIST List 10.946

Fri Jun 18 1999

Books: Amerindian Linguistics

Editor for this issue: Scott Fults <scottlinguistlist.org>



Links to the websites of all LINGUIST's supporting publishers are available at the end of this issue.

Directory

  • LINCOM EUROPA, Amerindian ling: Linguistic Acculturation in Mopan Maya

    Message 1: Amerindian ling: Linguistic Acculturation in Mopan Maya

     Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1999 10:35:21 +0200
    From: LINCOM EUROPA <LINCOM.EUROPAt-online.de>
    Subject: Amerindian ling: Linguistic Acculturation in Mopan Maya


    LINGUISTIC ACCULTURATION IN MOPAN MAYA A study of language change in Belizean Mopan due to Spanish and English culture and language contact

    Lieve Verbeeck

    Mopan is a language of the Yucatecan Maya family, spoken by about 10 000 people in the Eastern Pet\233n, Guatemala, and Southern Belize. This study focusses at the native language of the 3 000 Belizean Mopan speakers, who, after 2 centuries of contact with the Spanish language and culture, are experiencing now, as fourth generation immigrants a second contact stage with Belizean Creole English. Belizean Mopan is unusual among the Mayan languages in displaying only slight structural Spanish interferences. The systematic study of Mopan lexicon reveals that Spanish influence has not penetrated in an equal measure the various domains of importance to Mopan society. The persistence of the native lexicon related to the studied domains gives an indication of continuity in various aspects of traditional Mopan culture. In the section on phonological interferences a significant finding concerns a sound change in exclusively Spanish loanwords, which indicates that Mopan speakers possess some unconscious awareness of the foreign status of part of their lexicon. A large portion of the research was devoted to the question of how Mopan speakers incorporated the different borrowed parts of speech into the Mopan linguistic structure. Among the interesting characteristics of the grammatical interference analysis are the neutral status of nouns, the incorporation of loanverbs into an agentive subclass of the intransitive verb category, the native character of comparative constructions, the doublet constructions in the use of discourse markers.

    ISBN 3 89586 103 0. LINCOM Studies in Native American Linguistics 05. Ca. 120 pp. USD 39 / DM 58 / pound sterling 27. 2nd printing June 1999.

    Ordering information for individuals: Please give us your creditcard no. / expiry date or send us a cheque. Prices in this information include shipment worldwide by airmail. A standing order for this series is available with special discounts offered to individual subscribers.

    LINCOM EUROPA, Paul-Preuss-Str. 25, D-80995 Muenchen, Germany; FAX +4989 3148909; New titles: http://home.t-online.de/home/LINCOM.EUROPA/new1.htm; LINCOM.EUROPAt-online.de.






    If you buy one of these books please tell the publisher or author that you saw it advertised on the LINGUIST list.

    The following publishers contribute to the support of The LINGUIST List:



    1999 Major Supporters

    Other Supporting Publishers