Books published by Sil International, Global Publishing

Karen Daley leads the reader into what is perhaps the first discourse study of Vietnamese classifiers to date. After presenting a summary of classifiers and their funciton in languages of the world, she challenges the validity of regarding Vietnamese classifiers as simply fitting the prototypical pattern of phrase-level numeral classifiers. In Vietnamese several of the functions attributed to classifiers imply discourse relations, despite the prevailing assumption that their use is associated with the syntactic relations of phrases. A coherent pattern of classifier use becomes evident when they are observed in the larger syntactic environment of discourse. Daley uses discourse measurements of overall frequency, referential distance, and referential persistence and compares them with four criteria from a study of classifiers in White Hmong. The results in the present study indicate that the basic function of classifiers in Vietnamese discourse is referential-to mark salience.

The books in this series are analytical commentaries on the Greek text of New Testament books. Each book first identifies the high-level semantic components of the text and indicates the relationships between them. These components are then further analyzed to identify sub-components and their relationships. This process is continued until the basic units of communication, called propositions, are identified. These propositions are stated in semantically unskewed English glosses. Theme statements for paragraphs and larger units are derived from the analysis. A discussion of the evidence supporting the analysis is also given.

Cheyenne narratives exhibit all possible orders for the three major constituents of subject, object, and verb. In this book, the author explores factors that could possibly influence the order of major constituents in Cheyenne narrative. Through the analysis of texts elicited from Cheyenne speakers, she concludes that the newsworthy first principle provides an accounting for alternate constituent order and can be used to predict constituent order. Cheyenne, an Algonquian language, is spoken by Native Americans living in Montana and Oklahoma. The author has done language research with those in Montana since 1975. The theoretical basis of this study comes from her work toward earning a master''s degree at the University of Oregon.

The beat of an nkul, a wooden slit drum, reverberates at dawn around and through the trees and houses of the Ewondo people of Mekomba, Cameroon. What is being communicated? The author''s interest was sparked in this communication phenomenon when he recorded audio versions of a drummed message. Though the general message was the same for each performance, the differences were strikingly noticeable. It was apparent that this was not a recital of a fixed piece. He wondered how many different ways a text could be drummed and still be understood, and how exact was the correlation between speech sounds and drum strokes. By examining in detail the performance paradigm of Antoine Owono, a church leader who has been drumming for more than forty years, Paul Neeley presents a thorough analysis of this communication event. The analysis ranges from phonology of drumstrokes, to the discourse level, to the level of community comprehension. This study draws from such diverse disciplines as sociolinguistics, anthropology, semiotics, cognition, aesthetics, and ethnomusicology to make an invaluable contribution to our understanding of African culture and communication.

The social patterns that constrain behavior in each language group in Irian Jaya define both what holds the culture together internally and what protects it against dismemberment from the outside. As happens with the people of other countries, the people of these varied indigenous cultures face mounting contact with representatives of the country''s major culture. Any attempt to understand their chances of cultural survival or adaptation must be based on an understanding of the social fabric that provides cohesion for each culture. The articles contained in this volume reveal the way the people cope with the forces that present both tension and stability as an essential part of their social fabric.

The books in this series are analytical commentaries on the Greek text of New Testament books. Each book first identifies the high-level semantic components of the text and indicates the relationships between them. These components are then further analyzed to identify sub-components and their relationships. This process is continued until the basic units of communication, called propositions, are identified. These propositions are stated in semantically unskewed English glosses. Theme statements for paragraphs and larger units are derived from the analysis. A discussion of the evidence supporting the analysis is also given.

Twenty-two papers selected from a 1993 Seminar in Dallas, attended by a combination of professional Bible translators, biblical scholars and discourse linguists, are divided into three parts: Grammatical, Syntactical and Accent Studies; Narrative Genre; and Topics Related to Nonnarratives Genres. There is an introductory essay by C.H.J. van der Merwe which will help non-specialists. The authors are translation personnel and consultants from SIL International and the United Bible Societies, as well as scholars from Denmark, Sweden, Holland, South Africa, Israel, and the United States. Shares interaction of linguists and biblical scholars to provide exciting insights into the understanding of biblical texts.

Stress plays an important role in the phonology, morphology, and syntax of Mamainde. The author uses the current theories of metrical and lexical phonology to analyze this stress system. It is demonstrated that a typical application of metrical rules alone will not predict stress correctly. Instead, Mamainde must make use of multiple strata in order for stress placement to be predicted.

Contains a selection of folktales collected in Vietnam from 1960 to 1975.

Presents 12 papers on coherence, participant reference, and Relevance Theory in Niger-Congo and Chadic languages of Cameroon. The papers are organized into three sections to explain the linguistic features of Niger-Congo and Chadic languages of Cameroon whose meaning can only be explained by taking into account domains larger than the sentence. Folk tales and other narratives are used to illustrate discourse features of 10 languages from Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria, and Zaïre. The first section concentrates on how coherence is maintained in a text when the author introduces a local discontinuity. The second section identifies factors which affect the amount of encoding used as a speaker refers to participants throughout a discourse. The third section presents data that applies insights from Relevance Theory. Describes markers of prominence and backgrounding.

This book is based on a typological/functional perspective which provides an excellent framework for writing a broadly useful, descriptive grammar. Retuarã, is also know as Letuama (Tanimuca-Retuarã, Retuama, Letuhama, Ufaina, Uairã) is a member of the central Tucanoan language family and is closely related to Tanimuca. Though the Retuarã and Tanimuca peoples consider themselves as separate groups, they speak the same language with slight lexical differences. Their location is in widely distributed areas of the Amazon Basin in southeastern Colombia has brought them into contact with other Tucanoan and Arawakan languages resulting in some grammatical variations. Besides a brief phonological sketch and description of various aspects of the Retuarã language, the study presents a detailed discussion of parts of the speech, the noun phrases, case, the verb phrase, adverbs, sentence structure, imperatives, questions, negation, subordination, and various elements of discourse.

Each volume in the Exegetical Summaries series works through the original text phrase by phrase. English equivalents are provided for all Hebrew and Greek words, making this an excellent reference for exegetes of all levels. Questions that occur to exegetes as they study the text are stated and then answered by summarizing the ways many scholars have interpreted the text. This information should help translators or students in making their own exegetical decisions. As a basis for discussion, a semi-literal translation of the text is given. The first question to be answered is the meaning of key words in context. Information from standard lexicons is given and then translations of the word are cited from a dozen major Bible versions and from commentaries that offer their own translations of the text. Questions about the grammar and discourse structure of the original languages are answered by summarizing the views of many commentators. When exegetical disagreements appear in the commentaries and versions, the various interpretations are listed. This book is not intended to replace the commentaries that are consulted. Rather than being a stand-alone commentary, this book summarizes many important details of exegesis that should be considered in studying the biblical text. Dr. Harold Greenlee, Ph.D. in Biblical and Patristic Greek (Harvard), has worked as a teacher and Greek exegetical consultant for many years with both OMS International and SIL International. He has written numerous books and articles, including five volumes in the Exegetical Summary series.