1: Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald and R. M. W. Dixon: Introduction
2: Peter Bellwood: Archaeology and the Historical Determinants of
Punctuation in Language-Family Origins
3: Calvert Watkins: An Indo-European Linguistic Area and its
Characteristics: Ancient Anatolia. Areal Diffusion as a Challenge
to the Comparative Method?
4: R. M. W. Dixon: The Australian Linguistic Area
5: Alan Dench: Descent and Diffusion: The Complexity of the Pilbara
Situation
6: Malcolm Ross: Contact-Induced Change in Oceanic Languages in
North-West Melanesia
7: Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald: Areal Diffusion, Genetic Inheritance,
and Problems of Subgrouping: A North Arawak Case Study
8: Geoffrey Haig: Linguistic Diffusion in Present-Day East
Anatolia: From Top to Bottom
9: Randy J. LaPolla: The Role of Migration and Language Contact in
the Development of the Sino-Tibetan Language Family
10: N. J. Enfield: On Genetic and Areal Linguistics in Mainland
South-East Asia: Parallel Polyfunctionality of 'Acquire'
11: James A. Matisoff: Genetic Versus Contact Relationship:
Prosodic Diffusibility in South-East Asian Languages
12: Hilary Chappell: Language Contact and Areal Diffusion in
Sinitic Languages
13: Gerrit J. Dimmendaal: Areal Diffusion Versus Genetic
Inheritance: An African Perspective
14: Bernd Heine and Tania Kuteva: Convergence and Divergence in the
Development of African Lanaguages
15: Timothy Jowan Curnow: What Language Features can be 'Borrowed'?
Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald is Professor and Associate Director of the
Research Centre for Linguistic Typology at La Trobe University. She
has worked on descriptive and historical aspects of Berber
languages and has published, in Russian, a grammar of modern Hebrew
(1990). She is a major authority on languages of the Arawak family,
from northern Amazonia, and has written grammars of Bare (1995)
(based on work with the last speaker who has since died) and
Warekena
(1998), plus A Grammar of Tariana, from Northwest Amazonia (CUP
2003), in addition to essays on various typological and areal
features of South American languages. Her monographs, Classifiers:
A Typology of
Noun Categorization Devices (2000, paperback reissue 2003),
Language Contact in Amazonia (2002) and Evidentiality (2004) are
published by Oxford University Press. She is currently working on a
reference grammar of Manambu, from the Sepik area of New
Guinea.
R. M. W. Dixon is Professor and Director of the Research Centre for
Linguistic Typology at La Trobe University. He has published
grammars of a number of Australian languages (including Dyirbal and
Yidiñ), in addition to A Grammar of Boumaa Fijian (University of
Chicago Press 1988), The Jarawara Language of Southern Amazonia
(OUP 2004), and A Semantic Approach to English Grammar (OUP 2005).
His works on typological theory include Where Have All the
Adjectives Gone? and Other Essays in Semantics and Syntax
(Mouton,1982) and Ergativity (CUP 1994). The Rise and Fall of
Languages (CUP 1997) expounded a punctuated equilibrium model for
language development: this is the basis for his detailed case
study Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development (CUP
2002).
`extremely rich, competent, and well-edited.'
Language,
`Review from previous edition This book is a pleasure to sample,
and will serve as a resource for years to come. The salutary lesson
that emerges from every chapter is that diffusion studies are
necessarily complementary to genetic studies, and that our
methodology for studying various types of contact needs to be
extended and refined.'
Diachronica
`Highly recommended for all those interested in historical
linguistics, linguistic typology, language contact and language
change ... this book represents a good opportunity to meditate, on
the one side, on models of language evolution and, on the other
side, on actual phenomena of language change.'
LINGUIST List
`Invaluable ... the uniformly high quality of the contributions
demonstrates that all contributors know whereof they speak ... The
geographical range of the contributions is impressive. ...The
quality of the production is high.'
The Journal of The Royal Anthropological Institute
`... A book worth acquiring and reading.'
Journal of Linguistics
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