This volume brings together a number of ground-breaking papers in the theory of phonology.

The papers in this volume are a selection from those presented at the 3rd International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL), held in 1977 at the University of Hamburg. These selected papers deal with a wide variety of issues, some from a more general-theoretical perspective, some deriving new theoretical insights from language data ranging from Ojibwa to Old-Saxon.

From the contents: Stig JOHANSSON: Towards a multilingual corpus for contrastive analysis and translation studies. - Anna SAGVALL HEIN: The PLUG project: parallel corpora in Linkoping, Uppsala, Goteborg: aims and achievements. - Raphael SALKIE: How can linguists profit from parallel corpora? - Trond TROSTERUD: Parallel corpora as tools for investigating and developing minority languages."

No detailed description available for "Signs of Humanity / L'homme et ses signes".

The papers in this volume describe and analyze an array of intriguing linguistic phenomena as they occur in the Saami languages, ranging from etymological nativization of loanwords to the formation of deadjectival and denominal verbs. Saami displays a number of characteristics that are unusual from a cross-linguistic perspective, including partial agreement on verbs, a three-way quantity distinction in consonants and spectacular consonant gradation. The eight papers presented here approach these and other issues from diverse theoretical perspectives in morphology, phonology, and syntax. The volume includes an extensive research bibliography which will be helpful for anyone interested in Saami linguistics.

This book introduces formal grammar theories that play a role in current linguistic theorizing (Phrase Structure Grammar, Transformational Grammar/Government & Binding, Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar, Lexical Functional Grammar, Categorial Grammar, Head-​Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Construction Grammar, Tree Adjoining Grammar). The key assumptions are explained and it is shown how the respective theory treats arguments and adjuncts, the active/passive alternation, local reorderings, verb placement, and fronting of constituents over long distances. The analyses are explained with German as the object language. The second part of the book compares these approaches with respect to their predictions regarding language acquisition and psycholinguistic plausibility. The nativism hypothesis, which assumes that humans posses genetically determined innate language-specific knowledge, is critically examined and alternative models of language acquisition are discussed. The second part then addresses controversial issues of current theory building such as the question of flat or binary branching structures being more appropriate, the question whether constructions should be treated on the phrasal or the lexical level, and the question whether abstract, non-visible entities should play a role in syntactic analyses. It is shown that the analyses suggested in the respective frameworks are often translatable into each other. The book closes with a chapter showing how properties common to all languages or to certain classes of languages can be captured.