Books in the Explorations in Linguistic Typology series

Considers how and why forms and meanings of different languages at different times may resemble each other. This book investigates the relationship between areal diffusion and the genetic development of languages. The chapters cover Ancient Anatolia, Modern Anatolia, Australia, Amazonia, Oceania, Southeast and East Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

This volume focuses on the form and the function of commands-directive speech acts such as pleas, entreaties, and orders-from a typological perspective. Authors analyse the marking and meaning of commands in a range of typologically diverse languages on the basis of extensive fieldwork and in a way that allows useful comparison.

This book explores the expression of information source, inferences, assumptions, probability and possibility, and gradations of doubt and beliefs across a wide range of languages in different cultural settings. Like others in the series it will interest both linguists and linguistically-minded anthropologists.

Linguists and anthropologists explore the intriguing variety of possessive phrases denoting ownership of property, whole-part relations (such as body and plant parts), and blood and affinal kinship relations across a wide range of languages. Like others in the series this pioneering book will be equally valued in linguistics and anthropology.

This book explores the expression of information source, inferences, assumptions, probability and possibility, and gradations of doubt and beliefs across a wide range of languages in different cultural settings. Like others in the series it will interest both linguists and linguistically-minded anthropologists.

Considers how and why forms and meanings of different languages at different times may resemble each other. This book investigates the relationship between a real diffusion and the genetic development of languages, and reveals the means of distinguishing what may cause one language to share the characteristics of another.

Linguists and anthropologists explore the intriguing variety of possessive phrases denoting ownership of property, whole-part relations (such as body and plant parts), and blood and affinal kinship relations across a wide range of languages. Like others in the series this pioneering book will be equally valued in linguistics and anthropology.

This book is a cross-linguistic examination of the grammatical means languages employ to represent a set of semantic relations between clauses. Professor Dixon's opening discussion is followed by fourteen case studies of languages ranging from Korean and Kham to Iquito and Ojibwe. The book's concluding synthesis is provided by Professor Aikhenvald.

This book is a cross-linguistic examination of the grammatical means languages employ to represent a set of semantic relations between clauses. Professor Dixon's opening discussion is followed by fourteen case studies of languages ranging from Korean and Kham to Iquito and Ojibwe. The book's concluding synthesis is provided by Professor Aikhenvald.

This book examines the ways in which linguistic traits may change in a contact situation. It contains an encyclopaedic introduction and twelve subsequent chapters, which analyse the effects of language contact on grammatical systems in a variety of languages belonging to different geographical areas and diverse types.

This book shows how languages differ in the grammatical properties of complement clauses and in the types of verbs which take them, and explores the strategies deployed by languages which lack a complement clause construction.

A serial verb construction is a sequence of verbs which acts together as one. This oustanding book is the first to study the phenomenon across languages of different typological and genetic profiles. The authors, all experienced linguistic fieldworkers, follow a unified typological approach and avoid formalisms.

The present volume examines the ways in which linguistic traits may change in a contact situation. It contains an encyclopaedic introduction, which sets out a general theory of contact-induced change, and twelve subsequent chapters, which analyse the effects of language contact on grammatical systems in a variety of languages belonging to different geographical areas and diverse types.

Explores the variety of types of complementation found across the languages of the world, their grammatical properties, and meanings. This book is useful to scholars of typology, language universals, syntax, information structure, and language contact in departments of linguistics and anthropology, as well as to advanced and graduate students.

Studies the phenomenon across languages of different typological and genetic profiles. This book follows a unified typological approach and avoids formalisms. It is of interest to students, at graduate level and above, of syntax, language universals, information structure, and language contact in departments of linguistics and anthroplogy.

This book shows that every language has an adjective class and how such classes vary. Thirteen scholars report original research on languages from North, Central and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Pacific. The book throws new light on the nature and classification of adjectives and redefines the cross-linguistic parameters of their variation.

This volume offers a comprehensive account of the typology of noun classification across the world's languages. Following a detailed introduction to noun categorization, the chapters in the volume provide in-depth studies of genders and classifiers of different types in a range of South American and Asian languages and language families.

This volume examines the concept of 'word' as a phonological unit and as an item with both meaning and grammatical function. The chapters explore how this concept can be applied to a range of typologically diverse languages, from Lao and Hmong in Southeast Asia to Yidin in northern Australia and Murui in the Amazonian jungle.