This volume is a collection of seventeen papers, on languages of all three indigenous Caucasian families as well as other languages spoken in the territory of the former Soviet Union. Several papers are concerned with diachronic questions, either within individual families, or at deeper time depths. Some authors utilize their field data to address problems of general linguistic interest, such as reflexivization. A number of papers look at the evidence for contact-induced change in multilingual areas. Some of the most exciting contributions to the collection represent significant advances in the reconstruction of the prehistory of such understudied language families as Northeast Caucasian, Tungusic and the baffling isolate Ket. This book will be of interest not only to specialists in the indigenous languages of the former USSR, but also to historical and synchronic linguists seeking to familiarize themselves with the fascinating, typologically diverse languages from the interior of the Eurasian continent.Dee Ann Holisky is Professor of English and Linguistics, and Associate Dean for Academic Programs of the College of Arts & Sciences at George Mason University. She is the author of Aspect and Georgian Medial Verbs (Caravan Books, 1981) and of numerous articles on Georgian and Kartvelian linguistics. Kevin Tuite is Professor of Anthropology at the Universite de Montreal. Among his books are An Anthology of Georgian Folk Poetry (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1994) and Ethnolinguistics and Anthropological Theory (co-edited with Christine Jourdan; Montreal: Editions Fides, 2003).

This is the first comprehensive grammar of a non-Indo-European language from the Northwest Caucasian family in a language other than Russian. Kabardian is complex at every level. A Grammar of the Kabardian Language gives the reader the first account of the syntax of this language. It will give the area specialist access to the language. It will give the linguist interested in complex languages access to an extraordinarily difficult language, and it will give the theoretical linguist access to a language that exhibits topological exotica at every level of its grammar, from phonetics to the lexicon.

The book deals with some syntactic and semantic aspects of the shared Balkan Sprachbund properties. In a comprehensive introductory chapter, Tomic offers an overview of the Balkan Sprachbund properties. Sobolev, displaying the areal distribution of 65 properties, argues for dialect cartography. Friedman, on the example of the evidentials, argues for typologically informed areal explanation of the Balkan properties. The other contributions analyze specific phenomena: polidefinite DPs in Greek and Aromanian (Campos and Stavrou), Balkan constructions in which datives combine with impersonal clitics or non-active morphology (Rivero), Balkan optatives (Ammann and Auwera), imperative force in the Balkan languages (Isac and Jakab), clitic placement in Greek imperatives (Boškovic), focused constituents in Romanian and Bulgarian (Hill), synthetic and analytic tenses in Romanian (D'Hulst, Coene and Avram), "purpose-like" modification in a number of Balkan languages (Bužarovska), Balkan modal existential “wh”-constructions (Grosu), child and adult strategies in interpreting empty subjects in Serbian/Croatian (Stojanovic and Marelj), conditional sentences in Judeo-Spanish (Montoliu and Auwera).

Georgian: A Comprehensive Grammar constitutes a complete reference work addressing all major elements of modern Georgian grammar and usage. It provides a systematic and accessible description of the language’s phonology, orthography, morphology, and syntax. The focus is on contemporary spoken and written usage, with attention devoted throughout to differences in register and genre. Points are illustrated with examples drawn from a range of authentic written and recorded sources, such as press, radio, and television. The grammar is designed for a wide readership, including students of Georgian, particularly at the intermediate and advanced levels, as well as scholars of Georgian and theoretical linguistics.

This volume is the first one of the revived series of Travaux, which was the well-known international book series of the classical Prague Linguistic Circle, published in the years 1929-39. The tradition of the Circle still attracts attention in broad circles of European and American linguistics. The first volume of the new series is divided into five sections: 1. Introductory papers characterizing the development of the Prague School in the recent decades; 2. Methodological issues of structural and functional linguistics; 3. Sentence structure; 4. Discourse patterns; 5. Theory of literature. In accordance with the tradition, the volume contains contributions concerning issues of principle, empirical linguistic studies, and also papers from the theory of literature.