Topics in Polynesian Language and Culture History

Topics in Polynesian Language and Culture History
Title Topics in Polynesian Language and Culture History PDF eBook
Author Jeffrey C. Marck
Publisher
Pages 308
Release 2000
Genre Ethnology
ISBN

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Topics in Polynesian Language and Culture History

Topics in Polynesian Language and Culture History
Title Topics in Polynesian Language and Culture History PDF eBook
Author Jeffrey C. Marck
Publisher
Pages 316
Release 2000
Genre Ethnology
ISBN

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Topics in Oceanic Morphosyntax

Topics in Oceanic Morphosyntax
Title Topics in Oceanic Morphosyntax PDF eBook
Author Claire Moyse-Faurie
Publisher Walter de Gruyter
Pages 353
Release 2011-10-27
Genre Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN 3110259915

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This monograph is a collection of selected papers on Oceanic languages. For the first time, aspects of the morphology and syntax of Oceanic languages such as the encoding of sentence types, the structure of the noun phrase, noun incorporation, constituent order, and ergative vs. accusative alignment are discussed from a comparative point of view, thus drawing attention to genetic, areal and language-specific features. The individual papers are based on the field work of the authors on lesser-described and endangered languages and are basically descriptive studies. At the same time they also explore the theoretical implications of the data presented and analyzed, as well as the historical development of certain morpho-syntactic phenomena, without basing these explorations on a single theoretical framework. The book provides new insights into the morphosyntactic structures of Oceanic languages and is of interest primarily for linguists working on Austronesian, in particular Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian languages, but also for typologists and linguists working on language change.

Hawaiian Language

Hawaiian Language
Title Hawaiian Language PDF eBook
Author Albert J. Schütz
Publisher University of Hawaii Press
Pages 382
Release 2020-05-31
Genre Foreign Language Study
ISBN 0824869834

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With color and black-and-white illustrations throughout, Hawaiian Language: Past, Present, Future presents aspects of Hawaiian and its history that are rarely treated in language classes. The major characters in this book make up a diverse cast: Dutch merchants, Captain Cook’s naturalist and philologist William Anderson, ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia (the inspiration for the Hawaiian Mission), the American lexicographer Noah Webster, philologists in New England, missionary-linguists and their Hawaiian consultants, and many minor players. The account begins in prehistory, placing the probable origins of the ancestor of Polynesian languages in mainland Asia. An evolving family tree reflects the linguistic changes that took place as these people moved east. The current versions are examined from a Hawaiian-centered point of view, comparing the sound system of the language with those of its major relatives in the Polynesian triangle. More recent historical topics begin with the first written samples of a Polynesian language in 1616, which led to the birth of the idea of a widespread language family. The next topic is how the Hawaiian alphabet was developed. The first efforts suffered from having too many letters, a problem that was solved in 1826 through brilliant reasoning by its framers and their Hawaiian consultants. The opposite problem was that the alphabet didn’t have enough letters: analysts either couldn’t hear or misinterpreted the glottal stop and long vowels. The end product of the development of the alphabet—literacy—is more complicated than some statistics would have us believe. As for its success or failure, both points of view, from contemporary observers, are presented. Still, it cannot be denied that literacy had a tremendous and lasting effect on Hawaiian culture. The last part of the book concentrates on the most-used Hawaiian reference works—dictionaries. It describes current projects that combine print and manuscript collections on a searchable website. These projects can include the growing body of manuscript and print material that is being made available through recent and ongoing research. As for the future, a proposed monolingual dictionary would allow users to avoid an English bridge to understanding, and move directly to a definition that includes Hawaiian cultural features and a Hawaiian worldview.

Natural Experiments of History

Natural Experiments of History
Title Natural Experiments of History PDF eBook
Author Jared Diamond
Publisher Harvard University Press
Pages 287
Release 2012-11
Genre Business & Economics
ISBN 0674076710

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In eight case studies by leading scholars in history, archaeology, business, economics, geography, and political science, the authors showcase the “natural experiment” or “comparative method”—well-known in any science concerned with the past—on the discipline of human history. That means, according to the editors, “comparing, preferably quantitatively and aided by statistical analyses, different systems that are similar in many respects, but that differ with respect to the factors whose influence one wishes to study.” The case studies in the book support two overall conclusions about the study of human history: First, historical comparisons have the potential for yielding insights that cannot be extracted from a single case study alone. Second, insofar as is possible, when one proposes a conclusion, one may be able to strengthen one’s conclusion by gathering quantitative evidence (or at least ranking one’s outcomes from big to small), and then by testing the conclusion’s validity statistically.

Language Contacts in Prehistory

Language Contacts in Prehistory
Title Language Contacts in Prehistory PDF eBook
Author Henning Andersen
Publisher John Benjamins Publishing
Pages 302
Release 2003
Genre Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN 902724751X

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Every language includes layers of lexical and grammatical elements that entered it at different times in the more or less distant past. Hence, for periods preceding our earliest historical documentation, linguistic stratigraphy — the systematic study of such layers — may yield information about the prehistory of a given tradition of speaking in a variety of ways. For instance, irregular phonological reflexes may be evidence of the convergence of diverse dialects in the formation of a language, and layers of material from different source languages may form a record of changing cultural contacts in the past. In this volume are discussed past problems and current advances in the stratigraphy of Indo-European, African, Southeast Asian, Australian, Oceanic, Japanese, and Meso-American languages.

Oceanic Explorations

Oceanic Explorations
Title Oceanic Explorations PDF eBook
Author Stuart Bedford
Publisher ANU E Press
Pages 311
Release 2007-11-01
Genre History
ISBN 1921313331

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Lapita comprises an archaeological horizon that is fundamental to the understanding of human colonisation and settlement of the Pacific as it is associated with the arrival of the common ancestors of the Polynesians and many Austronesian-speaking Melanesians more than 3000 years ago. While Lapita archaeology has captured the imagination and sustained the focus of archaeologists for more than 50 years, more recent discoveries have inspired renewed interpretations and assessments. Oceanic Explorations reports on a number of these latest discoveries and includes papers which reassess the Lapita phenomenon in light of this new data. They reflect on a broad range of interrelated themes including Lapita chronology, patterns of settlement, migration, interaction and exchange, ritual behaviour, sampling strategies and ceramic analyses, all of which relate to aspects highlighting both advances and continuing impediments associated with Lapita research.