Pacific languages an introduction
Almost one-quarter of the world's languages are (or were) spoken in the Pacific, making it linguistically the most complex region in the world. Although numerous technical books on groups of Pacific or Australian languages have been published, and descriptions of individual languages are availa...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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Honolulu
University of Hawai'i Press
[1998]©1998, 1998
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| Collection: | JSTOR Open Access Books - Collection details see MPG.ReNa |
| Summary: | Almost one-quarter of the world's languages are (or were) spoken in the Pacific, making it linguistically the most complex region in the world. Although numerous technical books on groups of Pacific or Australian languages have been published, and descriptions of individual languages are available, until now there has been no single book that attempts a wide regional coverage for a general audience. Pacific Languages introduces readers to the grammatical features of Oceanic, Papuan, and Australian languages as well as to the semantic structures of these languages. For readers without a formal linguistic background, a brief introduction to descriptive linguistics is provided. In addition to describing the structure of Pacific languages, this volume places them in their historical and geographical context, discusses the linguistic evidence for the settlement of the Pacific, and speculates on the reason for the region's many languages |
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| Item Description: | Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002 |
| Physical Description: | xix, 359 pages illustrations, maps |
| ISBN: | 0824818989 0824842588 0824881834 9780824818982 9780824881832 9780824859183 0824859189 9780824842581 |