The series builds an extensive collection of high quality descriptions of languages around the world. Each volume offers a comprehensive grammatical description of a single language together with fully analyzed sample texts and, if appropriate, a word list and other relevant information which is available on the language in question. There are no restrictions as to language family or area, and although special attention is paid to hitherto undescribed languages, new and valuable treatments of better known languages are also included. No theoretical model is imposed on the authors; the only criterion is a high standard of scientific quality.

This is a comprehensive description of a language spoken some 450 km offshore from the mainland of Papua New Guinea. The language is remarkable for its phonological, morphological and syntactic complexity. As the sole surviving member of its language family, and with little historical contact with surrounding languages, the language provides evidence of the kind of languages spoken in this part of the world before the Austronesian expansion. The grammar provides detailed information on the phoneme inventory, morphology, syntax and select semantic fields. Remarkable features include a 90 phoneme inventory including unique sounds, a morphology with thousands of non-compositional portmanteau elements, complex rules for negation, and extensive ergative syntax. Unusual patterns are also found in the organization of semantic fields, for example in partonymies of the body, taxonomies of the natural world, verbal semantics and kinship terms. The combination of linguistic ‘rara’ suggest that linguistic evolution under low contact can yield baroque and unusual patterns. The volume should be of special interest to linguists, typologists, sociolinguists, anthropologists and researchers in Oceania and Melanesia. Endorsement: "This long-awaited grammar is a major contribution to Papuan and general linguistics, providing as it does by far the most comprehensive and accurate grammatical description of a language that has already assumed a position as one of the world's most complicated. Hitherto, the most extensive grammatical description of the language has been the survey-like Henderson (1995), and while Levinson explicitly acknowledges his debt to this earlier grammar and to unpublished work by Henderson, his own detailed grammar clearly takes the level of description and analysis of the language to a completely new level. In particular, Levinson's grammar makes clear precisely to what extent and in what ways the language's morphology is complex beyond even what most studies on morphologically complex languages envisage. In addition, it provides a much more detailed account of the language's syntax, based on a judicious combination of corpus attestation and careful elicitation (incl. using the kits developed by Levinson's group at the MPI for Psycholinguistics). The grammar thus not only fills a major lacuna in our knowledge of the non-Austronesian languages of the New Guinea area, but also provides grist for future studies on the implications of the language's complexities." Bernard Comrie, University of California, Santa Barbara

This is the first comprehensive description of Savosavo, a non-Austronesian (Papuan) language spoken by approximately 2,500 speakers on Savo Island, Solomon Islands. Based on primary field data recorded by the author, it provides an overview of all levels of grammar. In addition, a full chapter is dedicated to nominalization of verbs by means of one particular suffix, which occur in a number of constructions ranging from lexical to syntactic nominalization. The appendix provides glossed example texts and a list of lexemes.

The World Atlas of Language Structures is a book and CD combination displaying the structural properties of the world's languages. 142 world maps and numerous regional maps - all in colour - display the geographical distribution of features of pronunciation and grammar, such as number of vowels, tone systems, gender, plurals, tense, word order, and body part terminology. Each world map shows an average of 400 languages and is accompanied by a fully referenced description ofthe structural feature in question.The CD provides an interactive electronic version of the database which allows the reader to zoom in on or customize the maps, to display bibliographical sources, and to establish correlations between features. The book and the CD together provide an indispensable source of information for linguists and others seeking to understand human languages.The Atlas will be especially valuable for linguistic typologists, grammatical theorists, historical and comparative linguists, and for those studying a region such as Africa, Southeast Asia, North America, Australia, and Europe. It will also interest anthropologists and geographers. More than fifty authors from many different countries have collaborated to produce a work that sets new standards in comparative linguistics. No institution involved in language research can afford to bewithout it.

This book presents a collection of papers on clusivity, a newly coined term for the inclusive–exclusive distinction. Clusivity is a widespread feature familiar from descriptive grammars and frequently figuring in typological schemes and diachronic scenarios. However, no comprehensive exploration of it has been available so far. This book is intended to make the first step towards a better understanding of the inclusive–exclusive opposition, by documenting the current linguistic knowledge on the topic. The issues discussed include the categorial and paradigmatic status of the opposition, its geographical distribution, realization in free vs bound pronouns, inclusive imperatives, clusivity in the 2nd person, honorific uses of the distinction, etc. These case studies are complemented by the analysis of the opposition in American Sign Language as opposed to spoken languages. In-depth areal and family surveys of clusivity consider this opposition in Austronesian, Tibeto-Burman, central-western South American, Turkic languages, and in Mosetenan and Shuswap.

This book presents the first systematic typological analysis of applicatives across African, American Indian, and East Asian languages. It is also the first to address their functions in discourse, the derivation of their semantic and syntactic properties, and how and why they have changed over time. Applicative constructions are typically described as transitivizing because they allow an intransitive base verb to have a direct object. The term originates from the seventeenth-century missionary grammars of Uto-Aztecan languages. Constructions designated as prepositional, benefactive, and instrumental may refer to the same or similar phenomena. Applicative constructions have been deployed in the development of a range of syntactic theories which have then often been used to explain their functions, usually within the context of Bantu languages. Dr Peterson provides a wealth of cross-linguistic information on discourse-functional, diachronic, and typological aspects of applicative constructions. He documents their unexpected synchronic variety and the diversity of diachronic sources about them. He argues that many standard assumptions about applicatives are unfounded, and provides a clear guide for future language-specific and cross-linguistic research and analysis.

Offers an introduction to linguistic typology that covers various linguistic domains from phonology and morphology over parts-of-speech, the NP and the VP, to simple and complex clauses, pragmatics and language change. This title also includes a discussion on methodological issues in typology.

This book presents the first comprehensive survey of the languages of the Pacific rim, a vast region containing the greatest typological and genetic diversity in the world. It includes the littoral regions of North and South America, Australasia, east and south-east Asia, and Japan, as well as the Pacific itself. As its languages decline and disappear, sometimes without trace, this rich linguistic heritage is rapidly eroding. In The Vanishing Languages of the Pacific Rim distinguished scholars report on the current state of the region's languages and provides a critical survey of the current state of the region's languages. They show what is currently known and recorded and what remains to be examined and documented. They consider which languages are the most vulnerable to extinction and what steps that can be taken to save them. Their analyses range from the regional to the local and focus on languages in a wide variety of social and ecological settings. Together they make a compelling case for research throughout the region, and show how and where this needs to be done.

This book characterises the diverse morphological complexity we find in the languages of the world. Richly illustrated, examples are drawn from dozens of different languages and are subjected to rigorous quantitative analysis. It will be ideal reading for academic researchers and graduate students of linguistics, with a special interest in morphology and English language.

Although the interest in the concept of partitivity has continuously increased in the last decades and has given rise to considerable advances in research, the fine-grained morpho-syntactic and semantic variation displayed by partitive elements across European languages is far from being well-described, let alone well-understood. There are two main obstacles to this: on the one hand, theoretical linguistics and typological linguistics are fragmented in different methodological approaches that hinder the full sharing of cross-theoretic advances; on the other hand, partitive elements have been analyzed in restricted linguistic environments, which would benefit from a broader perspective. The aim of the PARTE project, from which this volume stems, is precisely to bring together linguists of different theoretical approaches using different methodologies to address this notion in its many facets. This volume focuses on Partitive Determiners, Partitive Pronouns and Partitive Case in European languages, their emergence and spread in diachrony, their acquisition by L2 speakers, and their syntax and interpretation. The volume is the first to provide such an encompassing insight into the notion of partitivity.