Book Description
The
present volume examines the ways in which linguistic traits may change
in a contact situation. It contains an encyclopaedic introduction,
which sets out a general theory of contact-induced change, and twelve
subsequent chapters, which analyse the effects of language contact on
grammatical
systems in a variety of languages belonging to different geographical areas and diverse types.
About the Author
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 Barber languages and published,
in Russian, a grammar of Modern Hebrew (1990). She is a major authority
on
typological and areal features of South American languages,
particularly of the Arawak family: Bare (1995, based on work with the
last speaker, who has since died), Warekena (1998), and Tariana (2003).
Her monographs include Classifiers: a Typology of Noun Categorization
Devices (2000, 2003),
Language Contact in Amazonia (2002) and
Evidentiality (2004), all published by OUP. 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 Yidin), in
addition to A Grammar of Boumaa Fijian (1988), The Jarawara Language of
Southern Amazonia
(2004) and A Semantic Approach to English Grammar
(2005). His works on typological theory include Where have All the
Adjectives Gone? and Other Essays (1982) and Ergativity (1994). His
essay The Rise and Fall of Languages (1997) expounded a punctuated
equilibrium model for language development which
is the basis for
his detailed case study Australian Languages: their Nature and
Development (2002). He is currently working on an extensive study of
the basic linguistic theory.