Comrie's and Stone's The Russian Language since the Revolution (OUP 1978) provided a comprehensive account of the way Russian changed in the period between 1917 and the 1970s. In this new volume the authors, joined by Maria Polinsky, extend the time frame back to 1900 and forward to glasnost in the mid 1980s. They first consider changes in the pronunciation, morphology, syntax, and vocabulary of the language and then examine the effects of social change on the language in chapters on the changing status of women, modes of address and speech etiquette, and orthography. They show that changes in all these areas have been very substantial, and explore the extent to which the standard language, as portrayed in dictionaries and grammars, coincides with the actual usage--both spoken and written--of educated Russians.

The Russian Language in the Twentieth Century

Literature & Fiction

Stone, Gerald

Polinsky, Maria

Comrie, Bernard

History & Criticism

Clarendon Press

This volume is the first extensive and reliable grammatical description of any traditional language of the Great Andamanese family. Akabea died out in the 1920s, but was extensively documented in the late nineteenth century by two British administrators, Edward Horace Man and Maurice VidalPortman. Although neither was a trained linguist, their material nonetheless provides a sufficient basis for a reliable analysis of Akabea grammar, especially its morphology and its phrasal and clausal syntax, although there are inevitable limitations on our understanding of Akabea phonology, clausecombining, and discourse structure. The grammar is accompanied by an online appendix that provides a diplomatic edition with commentary and analysis of the single most valuable resource for Akabea grammatical analysis, Portman's Dialogues.Raoul Zamponi and Bernard Comrie's Grammar of Akabea offers a unique insight into the culture, history, and prehistory of the Andaman Islands, and also broadens our understanding of the human capacity for language. It highlights the typologically interesting and cross-linguistically rare traits ofthe language, such as a rich system of somatic (body-part) prefixes and the phenomenon of Verb Root Ellipsis, whereby under certain circumstances the root of a verb may be absent, leaving behind a grammatical word consisting solely of affixes. The project at last makes this valuable evidenceaccessible both to linguists and to interested scholars from other disciplines, such as anthropology, history, and genetics.

A Grammar of Akabea

Reference

Zamponi, Raoul

Words, Language & Grammar

Oxford University Press

Since its first publication, Language Universals and Linguistic Typology has become established as the leading introductory account of one of the most productive areas of linguistics—the analysis, comparison, and classification of the common features and forms of the organization of languages. Adopting an approach to the subject pioneered by Greenberg and others, Bernard Comrie is particularly concerned with syntactico-semantic universals, devoting chapters to word order, case making, relative clauses, and causative constructions. His book is informed throughout by the conviction that an exemplary account of universal properties of human language cannot restrict itself to purely formal aspects, nor focus on analysis of a single language. Rather, it must also consider language use, relate formal properties to testable claims about cognition and cognitive development, and treat data from a wide range of languages. This second edition has been revised and updated to take full account of new research in universals and typology in the past decade, and more generally to consider how the approach advocated here relates to recent advances in generative grammatical theory.

Language Universals and Linguistic Typology: Syntax and Morphology

Foreign Language Study & Reference

University of Chicago Press

Language Universals and Linguistic Typology

Univ of Chicago Pr

This book is about one of the most exciting and rapidly developing areas of linguistics--the analysis, comparison and classification of the common features and forms of organization of languages--the analysis, comparison, and classification of the common features and forms of organization of languages. Professor Comrie argues for the use of data from a wide range of languages, contesting the transformational view that language universals can be derived from the abstract analysis of a single language. He provides full critical discussion of those areas currently producing the most promising results, and is particularly concerned with syntactico-semantic universals, devoting chapters to word order, case marking, relative clauses and causative constructions. The book is informed throughout by the conviction that an explanatory account of universal properties of human language cannot restrict itself to purely formal aspects. It must also take account of language in use and relate formal properties to testable claims about cognition and cognitive development. This book serves as an introduction to the field for advanced undergraduates and graduate students of theoretical and descriptive linguistics. It will also be of considerable interest to those working in sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics.

An introduction to the general linguistic study of aspect. Topics covered include the relation of tense and aspect, the morphology and the semantics of aspect, and structuralist and philosophical approaches. Dr Comrie draws his examples particularly from English and the Slavonic and Romance languages, but also from Arabic, Chinese, Welsh, Greek and a variety of others. This is the first study of aspect, considered as a general linguistic phenomenon. It is intended for students of individual languages as well as for students of linguistics.

Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics)

Cambridge University Press

A general account of the languages of the Soviet Union, one of the most diverse multinational and multilingual states in the world as well as one of the most important. There are some 130 languages spoken in the USSR, belonging to five main families and ranging from Russian, which is the first language of about 130,000,000 people, to Aluet, spoken only by 96 (in the 1970 census). Dr Comrie has two general aims. First, he presents the most important structural features of these languages, their genetic relationships and classification and their distinctive typological features. Secondly, he examines the social and political background to the use of functioning of the various languages in a multilingual state. The volume will be of importance and interest to linguists and to those with a broader professional interest in the Soviet Union.

The Languages of the Soviet Union (Cambridge Language Surveys)

Bernard Comrie defines tense as the grammaticalisation of location in time. In this textbook he introduces readers to the range of variation found in tense systems across the languages of the world, bringing together a rich collection of illustrative material that student and specialist alike will find invaluable. This systematic account of the data is carefully integrated with a theoretical discussion of tense that is sensitive both to the range of tense oppositions found cross-linguistically and also to the constraints on that variation. For the most part the book is written without formalism, nor is it written within the framework of any specific current theory of linguistics. Nevertheless, as the final chapter makes clear, a formal theory of tense can build upon the insights gained here. For all readers, Dr Comrie's coherent and characteristically elegant account of this complex grammatical category will provide a solid basis for further research on tense, even in a language as thoroughly studied as English.

Tense (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics)

Bernard Comrie defines tense as the grammaticalisation of location in time. In this textbook he introduces readers to the range of variation found in tense systems across the languages of the world, bringing together a rich collection of illustrative material that student and specialist alike will find invaluable. This systematic account of the data is carefully integrated with a theoretical discussion of tense that is sensitive both to the range of tense oppositions found cross-linguistically and also to the constraints on that variation. For the most part the book is written without formalism, nor is it written within the framework of any specific current theory of linguistics. Nevertheless, as the final chapter makes clear, a formal theory of tense can build upon the insights gained here. For all readers, Dr Comrie's coherent and characteristically elegant account of this complex grammatical category will provide a solid basis for further research on tense, even in a language as thoroughly studied as English.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Comrie, Bernard. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Comrie, Bernard

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Comrie, Bernard. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Russian Language in the Twentieth Century

A Grammar of Akabea

Language Universals and Linguistic Typology: Syntax and Morphology

Language Universals and Linguistic Typology

Language Universals and Linguistic Typology: Syntax and Morphology

Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics)

The Languages of the Soviet Union (Cambridge Language Surveys)

Tense (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics)

Tense (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics)

Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics)