Originally published in 1963, this was, and still is, the only Grammar to be published of the Margi language which is spoken by the people of the Adamawa and Bornu areas of Nigeria. Definitions and explanations ahve been given in as explicitya form as possible, especially where the average student could not be expected to be familiar with the terminology. Numerous examples have been added to illustrate the theoretical explanations.

This is a collection of 37 of the most important, enduring, and influential essays by one of the great linguists of this century, gathered from a wide range of journals and books spanning four decades.

Drawing on extensive field data, this groundbreaking work explores the development of the sound systems of Central Chadic languages.

The book is the first large-scale typological study of participles, based on data from more than 100 languages. Its main aim is to model the diversity of non-finite verb forms involved in adnominal modification. Participles are examined with respect to several morphological and syntactic parameters, and are shown to be a versatile cross-linguistic category. The book is of interest to language typologists and descriptive linguists.

This book traces the spread of the perfect tense across Europe, demonstrating the crucial role of language contact.

"The Emergence of Distinctive Features will be of essential interest to phonologists and typologists, as well as to syntacticians, cognitive scientists, and scholars outside linguistics interested in the nature of language and its acquisition."--BOOK JACKET.

The volume's central concern is grammatical voice, traditionally known as diathesis, and its classical manifestations as Active, Middle, and Passive. While numerous problems in the meaning, syntax, and morphology of these categories in Indo-European remain unsolved, their counterparts in more exotic languages have raised still further questions. What discourse functions and diachronic events unite 'voice' as a recognizable phenomenon across languages? How are they typically grammaticalized? What stages do children go through in learning them? How does 'voice' link up with ergativity and with other categories and constructions such as the Inverse and the Antipassive? The authors in this volume have different perspectives on these problems: they discuss voice, e.g., from a typological-universal view, in relation to language acquisition and to ergativity, and from diachronic and cross-linguistic perspectives.

Taking a functional approach, this book provides a thorough overview of Morphosyntax, and sets out a framework for syntactic constructions.