In this Book
- Pacific Languages: An Introduction
- Book
- 1998
- Published by: University of Hawai'i Press
-
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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.
Table of Contents
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- Half-Title Page
- p. ii
- Title Page
- p. iii
- Dedication
- pp. v-vi
- Illustrations
- pp. x-xii
- Acknowledgments
- pp. xvii-xviii
- Terms Used
- pp. xix-xx
- Part One: Geography and History
- pp. 21-22
- Part Two: Structure
- pp. 73-74
- Chapter 5. Sound Systems
- pp. 75-99
- Part Three: The Social and Cultural Context
- pp. 203-204
- Chapter 9. Languages in Contact
- pp. 205-219
- Chapter 10. Pidgins, Creoles, and Koines
- pp. 220-236
- Conclusion. Ideas about Pacific Languages
- pp. 272-278
- Suggestions for Further Reading
- pp. 279-282
- Appendices
- pp. 283-284
- Appendix 1. Data Sources
- pp. 285-290
- Appendix 2. Phonetic Symbols
- pp. 291-294
- Appendix 3. Sample Phoneme Systems
- pp. 295-298
- Appendix 4. Glossary of Technical Terms
- pp. 299-312
- References
- pp. 321-344
- About the Author
- p. 360
Additional Information
ISBN
9780824842581
Related ISBN(s)
9780824859183
MARC Record
OCLC
1112115998
Launched on MUSE
2019-08-14
Language
English
Open Access
Yes
Creative Commons
CC-BY-NC-ND