The Languages of East and Southeast Asia: An Introduction

by Cliff Goddard

Overview

This book introduces readers to the remarkable linguistic diversity of East and Southeast Asia. It contains wide-ranging and accessible discussions of every important aspect of the languages of the region, including word origins, cultural key words, tones and sounds, language families and typology, key syntactic structures, writing systems, and communicative styles. Students of linguistics will welcome the book's treatments of celebrated East Asian features such as classifiers, serial verb constructions, tones, topic-prominence, and honorifics. It shows students of particular Asian languages how their language fits structurally and culturally into the regional language mosaic. With its exercises, solutions, glossary, and many fascinating cases and insights, the book is an ideal introduction to descriptive and field linguistics. Cliff Goddard writes with great clarity and an eye for interesting examples. His book will appeal to all those with a serious interest in the languages and cultures of the region.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191037337
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	07/14/2005
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	15 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Cliff Goddard is Professor of Linguistics at Griffith University, Australia. He was previously Professor of Linguistics, University of New England. His books include The Languages of East and Southeast Asia (OUP 2005). He is co-editor with Anna Wierzbicka of Meaning and Universal Grammar (Benjamins 2002) with whom he is currently working on a book concerned with words and meanings.

Table of Contents

1. A First Look1.1. Introductory Remarks1.2. Lack of Inflection1.3. Word Order (constituent order)1.4. Sounds and Writing of East Asian Languages1.5. Lexical Tone1.6. Classifier Constructions1.7. Serial Verb Constructions1.8. Multiple Pronouns and Other Systems of Address1.9. Honorific Forms1.10. Other Common Features2. Language Families, Linguistics Areas, and Language Situations2.1. What is a Language Family? 2.2. The Major Language Families of East Asia2.3. Mainland Southeast Asia as a Linguistic Area2.4. Language Situations in the Countries of East Asia3. Words: Origins, Structures, Meanings3.1. Loans as Indicators of Cultural History3.2. Word Structure: Derivational Morphology3.3. Meaning Differences Between Languages3.4. Cultural Key Words4. Grammatical Topics4.1. Classifier Constructions Revisited4.2. Aspect4.3. Serial Verb Constructions4.4. Subject and Topic4.5. Sentence-final (illocutionary) Particles5. The East Asian Soundscape5.1. Phoneme Systems5.2. Word Shapes: Phonatactics5.3. Tones and Allotones5.4. Shifting Sounds: Morphophonemics5.5. Pitch-Accent in Japanese6. Writing Systems of East Asia6.1. Types of Writing System6.2. Alphabetic Systems6.3. A Logographic System: Chinese6.4. Japanese: A Multi-scriptal System6.5. A Note on Calligraphy7. The Art of Speaking7.1. Word Skills in East Asian Languages7.2. Speech Styles7.3. The Japanese Honorific System7.4. Communicative StylesExercisesSolutions