Author : Marianne Mithun
Release : 2001-06-07
Genre : Foreign Language Study
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Book Rating : 759/5 ( reviews)

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The Languages of Native North America - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Languages of Native North America write by Marianne Mithun. This book was released on 2001-06-07. The Languages of Native North America available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This book provides an authoritative survey of the several hundred languages indigenous to North America. These languages show tremendous genetic and typological diversity, and offer numerous challenges to current linguistic theory. Part I of the book provides an overview of structural features of particular interest, concentrating on those that are cross-linguistically unusual or unusually well developed. These include syllable structure, vowel and consonant harmony, tone, and sound symbolism; polysynthesis, the nature of roots and affixes, incorporation, and morpheme order; case; grammatical distinctions of number, gender, shape, control, location, means, manner, time, empathy, and evidence; and distinctions between nouns and verbs, predicates and arguments, and simple and complex sentences; and special speech styles. Part II catalogues the languages by family, listing the location of each language, its genetic affiliation, number of speakers, major published literature, and structural highlights. Finally, there is a catalogue of languages that have evolved in contact situations.