Language contact occurs when speakers of different languages interact and their languages
influence one another. Drawing on the author's own first-hand observations of child and …

Africanists have been criticized by comparative linguists working on language families in
other parts of the world for being lumpers. The present contribution reviews current views …

This is the first cross-linguistic study of imperatives, and commands of other kinds, across the
world's languages. It makes a significant and original contribution to the understanding of …

Language is one of the most fundamental defining features of the human being, and
scholars have been trying to capture its essentials for thousands of years. One way of doing …

All languages change, just as other aspects of human society are constantly changing. This
book is an introduction to the concepts and techniques of diachronic linguistics, the study of …

This is the first guide and introduction to the extraordinary range of languages in Amazonia,
which include some of the most the most fascinating in the world and many of which are now …

Sprachkontaktforschung beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, wie sich Sprachen in multilingualen
Gesellschaften oder bei mehrsprachigen Individuen wechselseitig beeinflussen. Dies betrifft …

Both pidgins and creoles are assumed to have small phoneme inventories, to allow only
simple syllable structures and to lack tone, while mixed languages are assumed to either …

Although the comparative method has been applied to a range of African language families,
these have received little coverage in general textbooks. The present monograph was …

This book offers reconstructions of various syntactic properties of Proto-Germanic, including
verb position in main clauses, the syntax of the wh-system, and the (non-) occurrence of null …