A grammar of Tariana, from northwest Amazonia / Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Aĭkhenvalʹd, A. I︠U︡. (Aleksandra I︠U︡rʹevna), author.

Series:

Cambridge grammatical descriptions.

Cambridge grammatical descriptions

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Tariana language--Grammar.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxiv, 705 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

Digitally printed first paperback version.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This is a comprehensive reference grammar of Tariana, an endangered Arawak language from a remote region in the northwest Amazonian jungle. Its speakers traditionally marry someone speaking a different language, and as a result most people are fluent in five or six languages. Because of this rampant multilingualism, Tariana combines a number of features inherited from the protolanguage with properties diffused from neighbouring but unrelated Tucanoan languages. Typologically unusual features of the language include: an array of classifiers independent of genders, complex serial verbs, case marking depending on the topicality of a noun, and double marking of case and of number. Tariana has obligatory evidentiality: every sentence contains a special element indicating whether the information was seen, heard, or inferred by the speaker, or whether the speaker acquired it from somebody else. This grammar will be a valuable source-book for linguists and others interested in natural languages.

Contents:

1. The language and its speakers

2. Phonology

3. Word classes

4. Nominal morphology and noun structure

5. Noun classes and classifiers

6. Possession

7. Case marking and grammatical relations

8. Number

9. Further nominal categories

10. Derivation and compounding

11. Closed word classes

12. Verb classes and predicate structure

13. Valency changing and argument rearranging mechanisms

14. Tense and evidentiality

15. Aspect, Aktionsart and degree

16. Mood and modality

17. Negation

18. Serial verb constructions and verb compounding

19. Complex predicates

20. Participles and nominalisations

21. Clause types and other syntactic issues.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (pages [682]-689) and index.

ISBN:

1-139-88310-0

1-107-26406-5

1-107-26446-4

1-107-26693-9

1-107-26337-9

1-107-27001-4

1-107-05095-2