LINGUIST List 26.2523

Mon May 18 2015

Books: The Palaungic Languages: Classification, Reconstruction and Comparative Lexicon: Sidwell

Editor for this issue: Sara Couture <saralinguistlist.org>

Date: 18-May-2015
From: Ulrich Lueders <lincom.europat-online.de>
Subject: The Palaungic Languages: Classification, Reconstruction and Comparative Lexicon: Sidwell
E-mail this message to a friend

Title: The Palaungic Languages: Classification, Reconstruction and
Comparative Lexicon
Series Title: Languages of the World 50
Published: 2015
Publisher: Lincom GmbH
                http://www.lincom-shop.eu

Book URL: http://bit.ly/1EfCE9T

Author: Paul Sidwell
Hardback: ISBN: 9783862886302 Pages: 243 Price: Europe EURO 142.80
Abstract:

This volume presents a reconstruction of the historical phonology and lexicon of the Palaungic branch of Austroasiatic, plus discussion of classification and homeland. Data from 22 published sources covering languages of Myanmar, China, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam are compared to yield a proto-lexicon of 885 words of Proto Palaungic. It is hypothesized that the language was spoken by early Bronze Age rice farmers approximately 3000 years ago in the border region of Northern Laos and Xīshuāngbǎnnà. Although otherwise a fairly typical Austroasiatic language, Proto Palaungic show various phonological mergers and lexical innovations that clearly distingush it from other branches of the family. The latter history of Palaungic is quite complex, with various daughter languages drastically restructuring, some developing tones in odd ways, others assimilating structural features of neighbouring tongues. The results include a new classification of the group and the identification of a new sub-branch ‘Bit-Khang’ comprised of languages previously misidentified as Khmuic.

Paul Sidwell graduated with a PhD in Linguistics in 1999 from the University of Melbourne; since then he has held appointments with the Max Planck Institute (Leipzig), the Centre for Research in Computational Linguistics (Bangkok) and the Australian National University (Canberra). Currently he is a senior lecturer/researcher fellow in the College of Asia and the Pacific of the ANU. The focus of his research lays in the comparative reconstruction of Austroasiatic language history and its wider implications for the history of Mainland Southeast Asia.

Linguistic Field(s): Genetic Classification
                            Historical Linguistics
                            Phonology
Language Family(ies): Austro-Asiatic
                            Khmuic
                            Palaungic

Written In: English (eng)

See this book announcement on our website:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/books/get-book.cfm?BookID=85533


---------------------------------- Publishing Partner ----------------------------------
Cambridge University Press http://us.cambridge.org

----------------------------- Major Supporting Publishers -----------------------------
Akademie Verlag GmbH http://www.oldenbourg-verlag.de/akademie-verlag
Bloomsbury Linguistics (formerly Continuum Linguistics) http://www.bloomsbury.com
Brill http://www.brill.nl
Cambridge Scholars Publishing http://www.c-s-p.org
Cascadilla Press http://www.cascadilla.com/
Classiques Garnier http://www.classiques-garnier.com/
De Gruyter Mouton http://www.degruyter.com/
Edinburgh University Press http://www.euppublishing.com
Elsevier Ltd http://www.elsevier.com/
Equinox Publishing Ltd http://www.equinoxpub.com/
European Language Resources Association (ELRA) http://www.elra.info/
Georgetown University Press http://www.press.georgetown.edu/
John Benjamins http://www.benjamins.com/
Lincom GmbH http://www.lincom-shop.eu/
MIT Press http://mitpress.mit.edu/
Multilingual Matters http://www.multilingual-matters.com/
Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG http://www.narr.de/
Oxford University Press http://www.oup.com/us
Palgrave Macmillan http://www.palgrave.com/
Peter Lang AG http://www.peterlang.com/
Rodopi http://www.rodopi.nl/
Routledge (Taylor and Francis) http://www.routledge.com/
Springer http://www.springer.com/
University of Toronto Press http://www.utpjournals.com/
Wiley-Blackwell http://www.wiley.com/

--------------------------- Other Supporting Publishers ---------------------------
Association of Editors of the Journal of Portuguese Linguistics http://www.fl.ul.pt/revistas/JPL/JPLweb.htm
International Pragmatics Assoc. http://ipra.ua.ac.be/
Linguistic Association of Finland http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/
Morgan & Claypool Publishers http://www.morganclaypool.com/
Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke (LOT) http://www.lotpublications.nl/
Seoul National University http://j-cs.org/index/index.php
SIL International Publications http://www.sil.org/resources/publications
Universitat Jaume I http://www.uji.es/CA/publ/
University of Nebraska Press http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/
Utrecht institute of Linguistics http://www-uilots.let.uu.nl/

Page Updated: 18-May-2015