The languages of native North America / Marianne Mithun.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mithun, Marianne

Series:

Cambridge language surveys

Cambridge language surveys.

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Indians of North America--Languages.

Indians of North America.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxi, 773p. ) maps

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Summary:

This authoritative survey of the several hundred languages indigenous to North America demonstrates the tremendous genetic and typological diversity and offers numerous challenges to current linguistic theory.

This book is a comprehensive and authoritative survey of the North American Indian languages. It includes an overview of their special characteristics, descriptions of special styles, and a catalogue of the languages detailing their locations, genetic affiliations, number of speakers, and major structural features, and listing published material on them. This book provides an authoritative survey of the several hundred languages indigenous to North America. These languages show tremendous genetic and typological diversity, and offer numerous challenges to current linguistic theory. Part I of the book provides an overview of structural features of particular interest, concentrating on those that are cross-linguistically unusual or unusually well developed. These include syllable structure, vowel and consonant harmony, tone, and sound symbolism; polysynthesis, the nature of roots and affixes, incorporation, and morpheme order; case; grammatical distinctions of number, gender, shape, control, location, means, manner, time, empathy, and evidence; and distinctions between nouns and verbs, predicates and arguments, and simple and complex sentences; and special speech styles. Part II catalogues the languages by family, listing the location of each language, its genetic affiliation, number of speakers, major published literature, and structural highlights. Finally, there is a catalogue of languages that have evolved in contact situations.

Contents:

Introduction; Part I. The Nature of the Languages: 1. Sounds and sound patterns; 2. Words; 3. Grammatical categories; 4. Sentences; 5. Special language; Part II. Catalogue of Languages: 6. Relations among the languages; 7. Catalogue.

Notes:

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York.

www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521232289.

© Cambridge University Press 1999.

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First edition published 1999.

Reprinted 2001.

First paperback edition 2001.

Third printing 2006.

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.

Transferred to digital printing 2009.

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Information regarding prices, travel timetables and other factual information given in this work are correct at the time of first printing but Cambridge University Press does not guarantee the accuracy of such information thereafter.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 617-750) and index.

ISBN:

9781107384583

1107384583

9781107298729

1107298725

Publisher Number:

2027/heb07832 hdl