Language Change and Linguistic Diversity - by Thiago Costa Chacon & Nala H Lee & W D L Silva (Paperback)

About the Book

Explores advances in the fields of language documentation, language change and historical linguistics

Book Synopsis

Professor Lyle Campbell has had a long and distinguished career and his extensive work on the languages of Mesoamerica have inspired research and researchers. In this volume, contributors come together to present new data, analyses and theoretical perspectives on how understanding language change raises questions for language documentation, description and even revitalization. Coverage ranges from the linguistic isolates Basque and Mapundungun to large families such as Tupian and Austronesian and spans a range of theoretical issues including ongoing language change, etymological opacity, word order, alignment systems and grammatical relations, language contact, onomastics and the study of pre-history. The book shows that linguistic fieldwork, when carried out and used appropriately, allows for a more consistent understanding of language change, and for a better understanding of the ethnographic record. It also explores the junctures between language change, linguistic diversity and other related fields that draw on primary linguistic fieldwork.

Review Quotes

There are few who have contributed so much to the understanding language documentation, historical linguistics, language typology, and language revitalization as Lyle Campbell. This book truly honours those contributions through chapters that combine aspects of these topics in rich and creative ways.

About the Author

Thiago Costa Chacon is Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of Brasília.

Nala H. Lee is Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the National University of Singapore

Wilson Silva is Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona