The rise of language typology and and increasing interest in the study of language universals have produced a large number of theoreticians who require accurate, well-formulated descriptive data from a wide range of languages. The Descriptive Grammars series provides the required framework, making cross-language comparisons possible and enabling a really fruitful interaction between theoretical and descriptive linguistics. A wide variety of well-known and lesser-known languages are covered and the information is arranged to be readily accessable to linguists working on language universals, language typology, comparative syntax, morphology, or phonology.
By Shahrzad Mahootian
April 01, 2010
Persian, or Farsi, is one of the world's oldest languages. Dating back to the sixth century B.C., it is spoken today by over forty million people in Iran and 5 million in Afghanistan. Now available in paperback for the first time, this comprehensive grammar of Persian provides detailed ...
By Winifred Bauer
June 14, 1993
This descriptive grammar provides a uniquely comprehensive description of Maori, the East Polynesian language of the indigenous people of New Zealand. Today, the language is under threat and it seems likely that the Maori of the future will differ quite considerably from the Maori of the ...
By Daniel L. Everett, Barbara Kern
September 11, 2002
This is the first major study of any Chapakuran language and makes an important contribution to linguistic theory. This study is especially timely as the Chapakuran languages of Western Brazil and Eastern Bolivia are endangered, and less than 2,000 known speakers of Wari and its related dialects ...
By Jaklin Kornfilt
September 29, 1997
Turkish is spoken by about fifty million people in Turkey and is the co-official language of Cyprus. Whilst Turkish has a number of properties that are similar to those of other Turkic languages, it has distinct and interesting characteristics which are given full coverage in this book. Jaklin ...
By Igor Nedjalkov
July 22, 1997
Evenki is one of nine Tungusic languages spoken in Siberia and Northern China. This book gives the first ever complete description of all this language's linguistic domain. Evenki is remarkable both for the vast area where it is spoken - from Western Siberia through the Amur region to the shores ...
By Merja Karalainen, Helena Sulkala
April 22, 1992
Finnish is one of the Finno-Ugrian family of languages, and being historically linked with Swedish, can be compared with that language, particularly in its vocabulary. There are about five million native speakers of the language and large Finnish-speaking minorities in Norway, Sweden, the USA and ...