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Described by Ken Hale as 'nothing less than a masterpiece' and by P. H. Matthews as 'absolutely clear, astonishingly complete, factually fascinating', The Languages of Australia (first published in 1980 and now reissued) was a landmark in Australian linguistics. This pioneering work of synthesis covered more than two hundred Aboriginal languages, and stimulated the next generation of scholarship in the field. The author's subsequent search for an overarching theoretical model to explain the unusual properties of Australian languages finally led him to adopt a 'punctuated equilibrium' model of language development. Dixon proposed this in The Rise and Fall of Languages (1997), which provided the framework for his major work Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development (2002). The Languages of Australia is still sought after, however, as a benchmark in the discipline and because its first four chapters provide a valuable non-technical introduction that does not appear in the 2002 volume.

W. M. Lindsay, an outstanding figure of his time and one of the greatest of British Latinists, recognised a need for a 'new treatment' of Latin philology in this enduring work of 1894. Demonstrating his considerable familiarity with the voluminous texts of earlier Latin grammarians, Lindsay draws upon previous significant studies to illustrate how our knowledge of the Latin language has advanced over time. The book addresses all the key aspects of the Latin language in turn, including its alphabet, pronunciation, accentuation, the formation of noun and adjective stems, declensions, conjunctions, adverbs and prepositions. It is clearly organised to enable the reader easily to locate the topic required. Held in extremely high regard by classical scholars today, Lindsay's work condenses a vast store of learning on this large and complex topic into a single volume, and represents a major contribution to the analysis of Latin grammar.

It's easy to teach yourself Bengali! Complete Bengali: A Teach Yourself Guide provides you with a clear and comprehensive approach to Bengali, so you can progress quickly from the basics to understanding, speaking, and writing Bengali with confidence. Within each of the 24 thematic chapters, important language structures are introduced through life-like dialogues. You'll learn grammar in a gradual manner so you won't be overwhelmed by this tricky subject. Exercises accompany the texts and reinforce learning in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. This program also features current cultural information boxes that reflect recent changes in society. The accompanying audio CDs contain all dialogues that appear in the course book, recorded by native speakers. Features: One and five-minute introductions to key principles to get you started Lots of instant help with common problems and quick tips for success, based on the author's many years of experience Tests in the book and online to keep track of your progress Extra online articles at www.teachyourself.com to give you a richer understanding of the basics of the language

This is a comprehensive grammatical documentation of Kham, a previously undescribed language from west-central Nepal, belonging to the Tibeto-Burman language family. The language has an unusual structure, containing a number of characteristics that are of immediate relevance to current work on linguistic theory, including split ergativity and its demonstrative system. Its verb morphology has implications for the understanding of the history of the entire Tibeto-Burman family. The book, based on extensive fieldwork, provides copious examples throughout the exposition. It will be a valuable resource for typologists and general linguists alike.

This monograph probes the structure of the verb phrase through a cross-linguistic investigation of the syntax and morphology of relevant constructions. In particular, the author provides evidence for two event-related non-lexical projections called "inner aspect" and "event". The former is found within the verb phrase and encodes information on the endpoint of an event. The latter is found at the edge of the verb phrase and demarcates the boundary of a particular domain of syntax, L-syntax. Although languages vary in their use of these projections and in the way they encode the endpoints of events, the author argues that the comparison of a number of languages and the analysis of a range of constructions results in the emergence of a consistent picture. While much of the discussion involves Austronesian languages such as Malagasy and Tagalog, other languages such as French, Spanish, Swedish, Scots Gaelic, Chinese, Japanese, Navajo, Slave, and Kalagan are discussed. Syntactic and morphological data from these languages are used to illuminate the details of the phrase structure of the verbal predicate. These data also aid in understanding how phrase structure is used to express certain facets of language, such as event structure, aspectual verb classes, productive and lexical causatives, derived objects, agents and causes, and coerced structures.

It's easy to teach yourself Babylonian! Complete Babylonian: A Teach Yourself Guide provides you with a clear and comprehensive approach to Babylonian, so you can progress quickly from the basics to understanding and writing Babylonian with confidence. Within each of the 24 thematic chapters, important language structures are introduced through life-like dialogues. You'll learn grammar in a gradual manner so you won't be overwhelmed by this tricky subject. Exercises accompany the texts and reinforce learning in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. This program also features current cultural information boxes that reflect recent changes in society. Features: One and five-minute introductions to key principles to get you started Lots of instant help with common problems and quick tips for success, based on the author's many years of experience Tests in the book and online to keep track of your progress Extra online articles at www.teachyourself.com to give you a richer understanding of the basics of the language

An innovative method to pronounce English without an accent for the millions of nonnative speakers learning English--created by an acclaimed accent reduction specialist.

Including Bosnian, Russian, Polish and Slovak, the Slavic group of languages is the fourth largest Indo-European sub-group. Spoken by 297 million people, it is one of the major language families of the modern world. This book presents a survey of all aspects of the linguistic structure of the Slavic languages. Roland Sussex and Paul Cubberley cover Slavic dialects and sociolinguistic issues, and the socio-historical evolution of the Slavic languages, in addition to general linguistic topics.

It is well known that British and American English differ substantially in their pronunciation and vocabulary - but differences in their grammar have largely been underestimated. This volume focuses on British-American differences in the structure of words and sentences and supports them with computer-aided studies of large text collections. Present-day as well as earlier forms of the two varieties are included in the analyses. This makes it the first book-length treatment of British and American English grammar in contrast, with topics ranging from compound verbs to word

Ti Alkire and Carol Rosen trace the changes that led from colloquial Latin to five major Romance languages, those which ultimately became national or transnational languages: Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian. Trends in spoken Latin altered or dismantled older categories in phonology and morphology, while the regional varieties of speech, evolving under diverse influences, formed new grammatical patterns, each creating its own internal regularities. Documentary sources for spoken Latin show the beginnings of this process, which comes to full fruition in the medieval emergence of written Romance languages. This book newly distills the facts into an appealing program of study, including exercises, and makes the difficult issues clear, taking well motivated and sometimes innovative stands. It provides not only an essential guide for those new to the topic, but also a reliable compendium for the specialist.