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This grammar provides the first comprehensive grammatical description of Yakkha, a Sino-Tibetan language of the Kiranti branch. Yakkha is spoken by about 14,000 speakers in eastern Nepal, in the Sankhuwa Sabha and Dhankuta districts. The grammar is based on original fieldwork in the Yakkha community. Its primary source of data is a corpus of 13,000 clauses from narratives and naturally-occurring social interaction which the author recorded and transcribed between 2009 and 2012. Corpus analyses were complemented by targeted elicitation. The grammar is written in a functional-typological framework. It focusses on morphosyntactic and semantic issues, as these present highly complex and comparatively under-researched fields in Kiranti languages. The sequence of the chapters follows the well-established order of phonological, morphological, syntactic and discourse-structural descriptions. These are supplemented by a historical and sociolinguistic introduction as well as an analysis of the complex kinship terminology. Topics such as verbal person marking, argument structure, transitivity, complex predication, grammatical relations, clause linkage, nominalization, and the topography-based orientation system have received in-depth treatment. Wherever possible, the structures found were explained in a historical-comparative perspective in order to shed more light on how their particular properties have emerged.
- Subjects:
- Foreign Language Learning
- Keywords:
- Language languages -- Grammars Yakha language Kiranti languages Textbooks
- Resource Type:
- e-book
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e-book
This book presents an in-depth linguistic description of Papuan Malay, a non-standard variety of Malay. The language is spoken in coastal West Papua which covers the western part of the island of New Guinea. The study is based on sixteen hours of recordings of spontaneous narratives and conversations between Papuan Malay speakers, recorded in the Sarmi area on the northeast coast of West Papua. Papuan Malay is the language of wider communication and the first or second language for an ever-increasing number of people of the area. While Papuan Malay is not officially recognized and therefore not used in formal government or educational settings or for religious preaching, it is used in all other domains, including unofficial use in formal settings, and, to some extent, in the public media. After a general introduction to the language, its setting, and history, this grammar discusses the following topics, building up from smaller grammatical constituents to larger ones: phonology, word formation, noun and prepositional phrases, verbal and nonverbal clauses, non-declarative clauses, and conjunctions and constituent combining. Of special interest to linguists, typologists, and Malay specialists are the following in-depth analyses and descriptions: affixation and its productivity across domains of language choice, reduplication and its gesamtbedeutung, personal pronouns and their adnominal uses, demonstratives and locatives and their extended uses, and adnominal possessive relations and their non- canonical uses. This study provides a starting point for Papuan Malay language development efforts and a point of comparison for further studies on other Malay varieties.
- Subjects:
- Foreign Language Learning
- Keywords:
- Language languages -- Grammars Textbooks
- Resource Type:
- e-book
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e-book
This grammar provides a grammatical description of Palula, an Indo-Aryan language of the Shina group. The language is spoken by about 10,000 people in the Chitral district in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. This is the first extensive description of the formerly little-documented Palula language, and is one of only a few in-depth studies available for languages in the extremely multilingual Hindukush-Karakoram region. The grammar is based on original fieldwork data, collected over the course of about ten years, commencing in 1998. It is primarily in the form of recorded, mainly narrative, texts, but supplemented by targeted elicitation as well as notes of observed language use. All fieldwork was conducted in close collaboration with the Palula-speaking community, and a number of native speakers took active part in the process of data gathering, annotation and data management. The main areas covered are phonology, morphology and syntax, illustrated with a large number of example items and utterances, but also a few selected lexical topics of some prominence have received a more detailed treatment as part of the morphosyntactic structure. Suggestions for further research that should be undertaken are given throughout the grammar. The approach is theory-informed rather than theory-driven, but an underlying functional-typological framework is assumed. Diachronic development is taken into account, particularly in the area of morphology, and comparisons with other languages and references to areal phenomena are included insofar as they are motivated and available. The description also provides a brief introduction to the speaker community and their immediate environment.
- Subjects:
- Foreign Language Learning
- Keywords:
- Language languages -- Grammars Indo-Aryan languages -- Grammar Textbooks
- Resource Type:
- e-book
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e-book
This grammar provides a synchronic grammatical description of Mauwake, a Papuan Trans-New Guinea (TNG) language of about 2000 speakers on the north coast of the Madang Province in Papua New Guinea. It is the first book-length treatment of the Mauwake language and the only published grammar of the Kumil subgroup to date. Relying on other existing published and unpublished grammars, the author shows how the language is similar to, or different from, related TNG languages especially in the Madang province. The grammar gives a brief introduction to the Mauwake people, their environment and their culture. Although the book mainly covers morphology and syntax, it also includes ashort treatment of the phonological system and the orthography. The description of the grammatical units proceeds from the words/morphology to the phrases, clauses, sentence types and clause combinations. The chapter on functional domains is the only one where the organization is based on meaning/function rather than structure. The longest chapter in the book is on morphology, with verbs taking the central stage. The final chapter deals with the pragmatic functions theme, topic and focus. 13 texts by native speakers, mostly recorded and transcribed but some originally written, are included in the Appendix with morpheme-by-morpheme glosses and a free translation. The theoretical approach used is that of Basic Linguistic Theory. Language typologists and professional Papuanist linguists are naturally one target audience for the grammar. But also two other possible, and important, audiences influenced especially the style the writing: well educated Mauwake speakers interested in their language, and those other Papua New Guineans who have some basic training in linguistics and are keen to explore their own languages.
- Subjects:
- Foreign Language Learning
- Keywords:
- Language languages -- Grammars Textbooks
- Resource Type:
- e-book
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e-book
This book is a comprehensive description of the grammar of Rapa Nui, the Polynesian language spoken on Easter Island. After an introductory chapter, the grammar deals with phonology, word classes, the noun phrase, possession, the verb phrase, verbal and nonverbal clauses, mood and negation, and clause combinations. The phonology of Rapa Nui reveals certain issues of typological interest, such as the existence of strict conditions on the phonological shape of words, word-final devoicing, and reduplication patterns motivated by metrical constraints. For Polynesian languages, the distinction between nouns and verbs in the lexicon has often been denied; in this grammar it is argued that this distinction is needed for Rapa Nui. Rapa Nui has sometimes been characterised as an ergative language; this grammar shows that it is unambiguously accusative. Subject and object marking depend on an interplay of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic factors. Other distinctive features of the language include the existence of a ‘neutral’ aspect marker, a serial verb construction, the emergence of copula verbs, a possessive-relative construction, and a tendency to maximise the use of the nominal domain. Rapa Nui’s relationship to the other Polynesian languages is a recurring theme in this grammar; the relationship to Tahitian (which has profoundly influenced Rapa Nui) especially deserves attention. The grammar is supplemented with a number of interlinear texts, two maps and a subject index.
- Subjects:
- Foreign Language Learning
- Keywords:
- Language languages -- Grammars Rapanui language -- Grammar Textbooks
- Resource Type:
- e-book
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e-book
Sons et lettres provides a set of classroom materials to train students to hear and produce the sounds of French and to recognize the regular spellings used to represent those sounds in print. The materials are inspired by a desire to help students feel more confident about their French pronunciation and more at home saying the many French words, familiar and unfamiliar, which they encounter in their studies, in French media and in their travels. In our experience, students are not given sufficient preparation to successfully decipher and pronounce French words. These materials are intended to fill that gap and to clear away the confusion that English speakers often feel when they see French words with seemingly mysterious combinations of letters.
- Subjects:
- Foreign Language Learning
- Keywords:
- French language -- Pronunciation French language -- Study teaching Textbooks
- Resource Type:
- e-book
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e-book
Chapeau! is a first-year college text. Although it may appear, at first glance, to move very fast and introduce a large amount of material early, the vocabulary and grammatical structures that we expect students to control actively by the end of the year are limited in accord with our notion of a reasonable application of the ACTFL proficiency guidelines. As a result, while some instructors may be surprised at such things as the absence of the possessive pronoun, no insistence on the use of optional subjunctives, and no active treatment of the relative dont, others may be disturbed by what we still include in a first-year text. What we do expect students to acquire (which is quantitatively less than what we present in the text for them to know about), we believe they will acquire well, providing a sound basis for further study (formal or informal) and permitting us to say to them, both during and at the end of the course, "Chapeau!"
- Subjects:
- Foreign Language Learning
- Keywords:
- French language -- Study teaching Textbooks
- Resource Type:
- e-book
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e-book
Au boulot! is a two-year college French program consisting of: a textbook, workbook and 21 accompanying audio exercises; as well as a reference grammar, to be used the entire two years. We also insist that our students obtain a full-sized dictionary, and we recommend the HARPER-COLLINS-ROBERT bilingual New Standard Edition. (Instructors will note in reviewing the materials that we provide vocabulary lists at the ends of chapters, with translations, but no glossary. We have become convinced after years of experience that glossaries are counter-productive. It is vital that students learn to use dictionaries, and the sooner the better.)
- Subjects:
- Foreign Language Learning
- Keywords:
- French language -- Grammar French language -- Study teaching Textbooks
- Resource Type:
- e-book
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e-book
After completing basic biblical Greek, students are often eager to continue to learn and strengthen their skills of translation and interpretation. This intermediate graded reader is designed to meet those needs. The reader is “intermediate” in the sense that it presumes the user will have already learned the basics of Greek grammar and syntax and has memorized Greek vocabulary words that appear frequently in the New Testament. The reader is “graded” in the sense that it moves from simpler translation work (Galatians) towards more advanced readings from the book of James, the Septuagint, and from one of the Church Fathers. In each reading lesson, the Greek text is given, followed by supplemental notes that offer help with vocabulary, challenging word forms, and syntax. Discussion questions are also included to foster group conversation and engagement. There are many good Greek readers in existence, but this reader differs from most others in a few important ways. Most readers offer text selections from different parts of the Bible, but in this reader the user works through one entire book (Galatians). All subsequent lessons, then, build off of this interaction with Galatians through short readings that are in some way related to Galatians. The Septuagint passages in the reader offer some broader context for texts that Paul quotes explicitly from the Septuagint. The Patristic reading from John Chrysystom comes from one of his homilies on Galatians. This approach to a Greek reader allows for both variety and coherence in the learning process. This reader is a collaborative project that developed out of an advanced Greek course at Portland Seminary (2017-2018). The following students contributed equally to the content of the textbook. Alexander Finkelson (MATS, Portland Seminary, 2018) Bryn Pliska Girard (MATS, Portland Seminary, 2018) Charles E. R. Jesch (MDIV, Portland Seminary, current student) Paul C. Moldovan (MDIV, Portland Seminary, current student) Jenny E. Siefken (MATS, Portland Seminary, current student) Julianna Kaye Smith (MATS, Portland Seminary, 2018) Jana Whitworth (MDIV, Portland Seminary, current student) Kyle J. Williams (MATS, Portland Seminary, 2018)
- Subjects:
- Foreign Language Learning and Religious Studies
- Keywords:
- Bible. New Testament Greek language Biblical Bible. Galatians Textbooks
- Resource Type:
- e-book
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e-book
This textbook guides a learner who has no previous German experience to gain the ability to accurately understand formal written German prose, aided only by a comprehensive dictionary.
- Subjects:
- Foreign Language Learning
- Keywords:
- German language -- Study teaching Textbooks
- Resource Type:
- e-book