Tone (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics)
By Moira Yip
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Publisher:Cambridge University Press
Number Of Pages:376
Publication Date:2002-09-30
ISBN-10 / ASIN:0521773148
ISBN-13 / EAN:9780521773140
Binding:Hardcover
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Product Description:
The sounds of language can be divided into consonants, vowels, and tones--the use of pitch to convey meaning. Seventy percent of the world's languages use pitch in this way. Assuming little or no prior knowledge of the topic, this textbook provides a clearly organized introduction to tone and tonal phonology. Comprehensive in scope, it examines the main types of tonal systems found in Africa, the Americas, and Asia, using examples from the widest- possible range of tone languages.
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Summary: Great book
Rating: 5
this is a great book about a linguistic issue so problematic and difficult. the reading is very easy
Summary: One of the best linguistics books I've read
Rating: 5
This is one of the best-written linguistics books I have read.
If you want a scholarly review, see one of the following:
Bao, Zhi-ming. 2003. Phonology 20.2: 275-279.
Myers, Scott. 2004. Journal of Linguistics 40.1: 213-215.
Chapter 4 gives an excellent introduction to Optimality Theory, and how it is implemented in the analysis of tone. This part has been especially helpful to me.
The book is also highly referenced, so that it is easy to find more in-depth discussions on languages that are referred to in the text.
I cannot think of any negative aspects of this book.
Enjoy!
Summary: A good review, introduction and advanced reading
Rating: 4
The author provides a good review to the tonogenesis, historical backgroup and phonetic quality of tones and tone languages in this book at the first. I think the definitions the author makes are pretty clear and easy to understand. Then the author introduces how the current phonology theory - that is, Optimality Theory - can also be used to analysis tonal alternations in a simple way. In the second half part of the book, the author introduce tone languages in a very wide range which includes African, Asian, North and Mid American and so on. I know the author has done many studies on Asian tone languages and made some famous arguments around '90s. But it is good that the author is not biased by her previous research and tries to describe Asian tone languages in a moderate way. The only thing which I don't feel good enough is that the book is less than 300 pages. Therefore, the author had to describe tone languages in a limited spaces and I felt there are still a lot of thing can be put into this book. But, anyway, the author tried to make it as possible. It's a good book.
Language and Gender (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics)
By Penelope Eckert, Sally McConnell-Ginet
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Number Of Pages: 378
Publication Date: 2003-02-03
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0521654262
ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780521654265
Binding: Paperback
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Book Description:
This is a new introduction to the study of the relation between gender and language use, written by two of the leading experts in the field. It covers the main topics, beginning with a clear discussion of gender and of the resources that the linguistic system offers for the construction of social meaning. The body of the book offers unprecedented breadth and depth in its coverage of the interaction between language and social life. It is the ideal textbook for students in language and gender courses in several disciplines, including linguistics, gender studies, women's studies, sociology, and anthropology.
Download Description:
This is a new introduction to the study of the relation between gender and language use. Written by two of the leading experts in the field, it covers the main topics, beginning with a clear discussion of gender and of the resources that the linguistic system offers for the construction of social meaning. The body of the book offers an unprecedentedly broad and in depth coverage of the interaction between language and social life.
Case (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics)
By Barry J. Blake
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Publisher:Cambridge University Press
Number Of Pages:248
Publication Date:2001-10-08
ISBN-10 / ASIN:0521807611
ISBN-13 / EAN:9780521807616
Binding:Hardcover
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Product Description:
This book is a concise and accessible introduction to the ways in which relations between words in sentences are marked in languages. The author describes the systems of suffixes familiar from languages like Latin and also the roles of prepositions, postpositions and the use of the pronominal elements on verbs. This new edition incorporates expanded discussions of the key concepts, taking into consideration current developments in the field, and includes an updated section on abstract case in the Chomskyian paradigm.
Inspiring Innovations in Language Teaching (Modern Languages in Practice, No 3) (Paperback)
by Judith Hamilton (Author)
Product Details
Paperback: 296 pages
Publisher: Multilingual Matters Limited (November 1995)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1853592838
ISBN-13: 978-1853592836
Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
Shakespearean Language: A Guide for Actors and Students (Hardcover)
by Leslie O'Dell (Author) "Between these two poles sits an attitude toward the published organization of words that we call The Collected Works of William Shakespeare..."
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
The goal of this trio of books by O'Dell (theater and English, Wilfrid Laurier Univ.), the text consultant for the Stratford Festival, is to help actors and students gain access to Shakespeare's plays. Each combines background information with practical techniques and exercises to be used for interpreting Shakespeare in performance. Shakespearean Language covers Shakespeare's use of rhetoric and iambic pentameter patterns to project emotion and to develop character and plot. Instructions on 16th-century scansion, grammar, and rhetorical devices are included. Shakespearean Characterization identifies the challenges involved in bringing 400-year-old characters to life. Solutions for translating Elizabethan theatrical conventions for death scenes, exits and entrances, the passage of time, and personification into conventions understood by 21st-century audiences are presented as well. In Shakespearean Scholarship, O'Dell identifies the materials she feels are the most useful for a performance-based approach, including glossaries and dictionaries, versions of the plays, pictorial representations of Elizabethan life, and other sources of historical information about the details of Shakespeare's world. Recognizing that there are differences between her ideas and scholarly ones, O'Dell emphasizes that her suggestions are intended to provide a practical approach to theatrical productions of Shakespeare's plays. Extensive reference lists and indexes are included. Recommended for public and academic libraries serving people interested in better understanding Shakespeare's plays as audience member, student, or player. Shana C. Fair, Ohio Univ., Zanesville
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
“Recommended for public and academic libraries serving people interested in better understanding Shakespeare's plays as audience member, student, or player.”–Library Journal
“This book makes a nice break from traditional encyclopedic, bibliographic, or dictionary volumes targeted to Shakespeare. Shakespearean Language includes these features of traditional Shakespearean reference tools, but it specifically targets the impact of the spoken word and how it can be utilized on the stage. O'Dell's emphasis in getting modern actors to understand how Shakespeare's actors would have approached the work is successfully demonstrated throughout the volume by utilizing examples from a variety of Shakespeare's works.”–Reference & User Services Quarterly
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Product Details
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Greenwood Press (October 30, 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0313311455
ISBN-13: 978-0313311451
Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
Switched On?: Video Resources in Modern Language Settings (Modern Languages in Practice, 10) (Hardcover)
by Steven Fawkes (Author)
Product Details
Hardcover: 85 pages
Publisher: Multilingual Matters Limited (May 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1853594245
ISBN-13: 978-1853594243
Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6 x 0.6 inches
Phrasal Movement and Its Kin
Linguistic Inquiry Monographs ; 37
by Pesetsky, David Michael.
Publication: Cambridge, Mass., London MIT Press, 2000.
Subject:
Grammar, Comparative and general--Syntax.
Phraseology.
Grammar, Comparative and general--Interrogati...
Generative grammar.
Language: English
Product ID: 138650
eBook ISBN: 9781423737827
ISBN: 9780262161961
Full Metadata
Restriction and Saturation
Linguistic Inquiry Monographs ; 42
Author:
What Counts: Focus and Quantification (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs)
By Elena Herburger
* Publisher: The MIT Press
* Number Of Pages: 184
* Publication Date: 2000-10-16
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 026208287X
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780262082877
* Binding: Hardcover
Book Description:
In What Counts, Elena Herburger considers the effects of focus on interpretation. She investigates how focus affects the pragmatics and truth conditions of a sentence by rearranging its quantificational structure.
Adopting a neo-Davidsonian stance, Herburger claims that various pragmatic and truth-conditional effects of focus sustain a uniform explanation if focus is viewed as imposing structure on otherwise unrestricted quantification. Phenomena discussed include "free" focus, the interaction between focus and negation, the quantificational structure of adverbs of quantification, the semantics of only and even, and the differences between weak and strong determiners.
One of Herburger's aims is to show that a simple semantics, without reliance on such notions as semantic presupposition, can account for the truth-conditional and pragmatic effects of focus. The book will be of interest to anyone exploring the syntax-semantics interface and current theories of quantification.
Linguistic Inquiry Monograph No. 36
Prosody, Focus, and Word Order (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs) (Paperback)
by Maria Luisa Zubizarreta (Author)
Editorial Reviews
Product Description
This monograph exemplifies a new trend in grammatical theory in which researchers combine findings from more than one area of linguistics. Specifically, the author looks at the relationship between phrasal prominence and focus in Romance and Germanic languages to provide new insights into how these properties are grammatically articulated. Building upon previous results in the field, she argues that phrasal prominence (nuclear stress) reflects syntactic ordering. There are two varieties of syntactic ordering. The first is the standard asymmetric c-command ordering. The second is the ordering derived from the primitive relation of selection holding between a head and its associated argument.
Part of the difference between Germanic and Romance languages stems from a difference in the way the two syntactic orderings interact in the mapping onto phrasal prominence. The author shows that the symmetry between syntactic ordering and phrasal prominence so defined may be broken because of the independent requirement that a focused constituent must contain the most prominent element in the sentence. Two kinds of processes come into play to repair the broken symmetry. One is a process of deaccenting. The other is a process of movement, called "p-movement." The author shows that a proper understanding of the properties of p-movement can be attained within the framework of the Minimalist Program.
About the Author
Maria Luisa Zubizarreta is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Levels of Representation in the Lexicon and in the Syntax.
Product Details
* Paperback: 225 pages
* Publisher: The MIT Press (June 12, 1998)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 0262740214
* ISBN-13: 978-0262740210
* Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
Relators and Linkers: The Syntax of Predication, Predicate Inversion, and Copulas (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs) (Hardcover)
by Marcel den Dikken (Author) "These are by no means the first words ever written about predication..." (more)
Key Phrases: postcopular noun phrase, specificational copular sentences, equative copular sentences, Locative Inversion, Den Dikken, Copular Inversion (more...)
Editorial Reviews
Review
"This is den Dikken in top form. Copula constructions and predicate inversion are among the most central and most vexing problems in grammar. Trust den Dikken to defend a theory that is both original and inspiring, controversial and thoroughly argued, far-reaching and broadly documented. Relators and Linkers is a must." - Henk van Riemsdijk, Models of Grammar Group, Tilburg University, The Netherlands"
"This is den Dikken in top form. Copula constructions and predicate inversion are among the most central and most vexing problems in grammar. Trust den Dikken to defend a theory that is both original and inspiring, controversial and thoroughly argued, far-reaching and broadly documented. Relators and Linkers is a must."
—Henk van Riemsdijk, Models of Grammar Group, Tilburg University, The Netherlands
"Written by one of the leading experts on Predicate Inversion, this monograph provides a compelling account of a variety of syntactic constructions involving predication. It includes a comprehensive and insightful historical survey of the previous literature on the syntax of predication and copular constructions, and in this respect it would be appropriate for use as a textbook for a graduate seminar on this topic. The study covers a broad range of constructions, ranging from small clauses and conventional copular constructions to free relatives and qualitative binominal NPs, and its cross-linguistic coverage is impressive. The book is a must-read for all scholars interested in the issues of predication, copular constructions, and linker particles."
—Tim Stowell, Department of Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles
Product Description
In Relators and Linkers, Marcel den Dikken presents a syntax of predication and the inversion of the predicate around its subject, emphasizing meaningless elements (elements with no semantic load) that play an essential role in the establishment and syntactic manipulation of predication relationships. One such element, the RELATOR, mediates the relationship between a predicate and its subject in the base representation of predication structures. A second, the LINKER, connects the predicate to its subject in Predicate Inversion constructions. Den Dikken argues that all subject-predicate relationships are syntactically mediated by a RELATOR and that predication relationships in syntax are configurationally asymmetrical and non-directional. Discussing the inversion of the predicate around its subject and the distribution of LINKER elements surfacing between the inverted predicate and the subject, den Dikken presents an in-depth analysis of Predicate Inversion from the perspective of the minimalist theory of locality.
Among the features by which Relators and Linkers distinguishes itself from past studies of predication is a detailed investigation of predication and Predicate Inversion inside the complex nominal phrase that makes a carefully documented case for the existence of two types of qualitative binominal noun phrases, one exploiting a predicate-specifier structure and the other employing a predicate-complement structure cum Predicate Inversion. Empirical data includes examples not only from English and Dutch but also from Hungarian, Hebrew, French, Italian, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, and other languages. Den Dikken's analysis, cast in terms of the theory of generative grammar, fruitfully brings Chomskyan minimalist principles to bear on the discussion of predication and Predicate Inversion.
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Product Details
* Hardcover: 363 pages
* Publisher: The MIT Press (March 1, 2006)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 0262042312
* ISBN-13: 978-0262042314
* Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
Interface Strategies: Optimal and Costly Computations (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs) (Paperback)
by Tanya Reinhart (Author) "A hypothesis that got much attention in the 1990s is that the well-formedness of syntactic derivations is not always determined by absolute conditions, but it..." (more)
Key Phrases: Mama Bear, Flash Gordon, Only Max (more...)
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Interface Strategies is a carefully crafted study, explaining how several seemingly unrelated psycholinguistic phenomena can be unified. This is a major scientific achievement, bringing linguistic theory to bear directly on child and adult language processing."
—Stephen Crain, Professor of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Australia
"The central question of Reinhart's long-awaited study is how language is designed so that it can be used by systems of thought, interpretation, and interaction in a manner appropriate to circumstances. One original thesis, rich in consequences, is that the computational system of language that generates linguistic expressions is distinct from the computational strategies that operate in cases of mismatch with properties of the systems that access internally generated expressions in language use. These 'interface strategies,' she argues, involve choice of an 'optimal competitor' within a narrowly constructed reference set of options. This sophisticated and wide-ranging study, and the framework it presents and explores in depth, should prove invaluable for further inquiry into the fundamental questions of language and thought, and their place in the biological world and in human life."
—Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor, MIT
"This volume investigates fundamental questions of language structure like quantifiers, anaphora, and focus. A unifying trait of such constructions is that their interpretation hinges on comparing alternatives. As Reinhart shows, the consequences of this for the architecture of grammar are far reaching. Her investigations go to the very heart of the problems, combining thorough analyses of specific issues with broad insights on universal grammar. Research of this sort vividly illustrates why the generative enterprise, with all its problems and controversies, remains so exciting and keeps pushing forward the frontiers of our understanding of human cognition."
—Gennaro Chierchia, University of Milan-Bicocca and Harvard University
Product Description
In this monograph Tanya Reinhart discusses strategies enabling the interface of different cognitive systems, which she identifies as the systems of concepts, inference, context, and sound. Her point of departure is Noam Chomsky's hypothesis that language is optimally designed—namely, that in many cases, the bare minimum needed for constructing syntactic derivations is sufficient for the full needs of the interface. Deviations from this principle are viewed as imperfections.
The book covers in depth four areas of the interface: quantifier scope, focus, anaphora resolution, and implicatures. The first question in each area is what makes the computational system (CS, syntax) legible to the other systems at the interface—how much of the information needed for the interface is coded already in the CS, and how it is coded. Next Reinhart argues that in each of these areas there are certain aspects of meaning and use that cannot be coded in the CS formal language, on both conceptual and empirical grounds. This residue is governed by interface strategies that can be viewed as repair of imperfections. They require constructing and comparing a reference set of alternative derivations to determine whether a repair operation is indeed the only way to meet the interface requirements.
Evidence that reference-set computation applies in these four areas comes from language acquisition. The required computation poses a severe load on working memory. While adults can cope with this load, children, whose working memory is less developed, fail in tasks requiring this computation.
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Product Details
* Paperback: 350 pages
* Publisher: The MIT Press (April 7, 2006)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 0262681560
* ISBN-13: 978-0262681568
* Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
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