A Grammar of Tariana, from Northwest Amazonia
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. (2003) A Grammar of Tariana, from Northwest Amazonia. Cambridge Grammatical Descriptions . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
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Abstract
This is a comprehensive reference grammar of Tariana, an endangered Arawak language from a remote region in the northwest Amazonian jungle. Its speakers traditionally marry someone speaking a different language, and as a result most people are fluent in five or six languages. Because of this rampant multilingualism, Tariana combines a number of features inherited from the protolanguage with properties diffused from neighbouring but unrelated Tucanoan languages. Typologically unusual features of the language include: an array of classifiers independent of genders, complex serial verbs, case marking depending on the topicality of a noun, and double marking of case and of number. Tariana has obligatory evidentiality: every sentence contains a special element indicating whether the information was seen, heard, or inferred by the speaker, or whether the speaker acquired it from somebody else. This grammar will be a valuable source-book for linguists and others interested in natural languages.
• Full reference grammar of a relatively undescribed and currently endangered language
• An account of the multilingualism resulting from strict traditions of exogamy and its effect on the structure of a language
• A description of varied unusual linguistic features in typological perspective (classifiers, evidentiality, serial verbs and many others)
| Item ID: | 9628 |
|---|---|
| Item Type: | Book (Research - A1) |
| ISBN: | 978-0-521-82664-8 |
| Date Deposited: | 25 Jun 2010 04:03 |
| FoR Codes: | 20 LANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE > 2004 Linguistics > 200407 Lexicography @ 100% |
| SEO Codes: | 95 CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING > 9502 Communication > 950202 Languages and Literacy @ 100% |
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