Language Isolates
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Recent papers in Language Isolates
Islands as specific research sites in their own right have been given little direct attention by linguists. The physical segregation, distinctness, and isolation of islands from mainland and continental environments may provide scholars... more
A brief survey of Tonkawa grammar, with discussion of its historical origins, its system of case assignment, subject and object agreement, reference tracking (including both definiteness and obviation), its exuberant nominal and verb... more
Some languages around the Pacific have multiple possessive classes of alienable constructions using appositive nouns or classifiers. This pattern differs from the most common kind of alienable/inalienable distinction, which involves... more
"Although tribal traditions survive among the Tonkawa people, now located in northern Oklahoma, the Tonkawa language has been extinct for more than 75 years. Much of what is known about Tonkawa—an “isolate” language, related to no... more
The paper deals with a relatively recent hypothesis, put forward by the scholar I. Čašule, according to which the Burushaski language, traditionally considered an isolate, actually belongs to the Indo-European linguistic stock. The... more
To appear as a chapter in The Amazonian languages: An international handbook (Eds. Lev Michael and Patience Epps), De Gruyter.
Burushaski has been considered a language isolate. However, greater scrutiny of the language does not support this view. Rather, I would suggest that Burushaski is a language founded in early Proto Indo-European and left somewhat... more
Brown, Wichmann & Beck (2014) put forward 90 cognate sets and a number of structural comparisons which they propose are indicative of a genetic relationship between Chitimacha, a Gulf isolate of Louisiana, and Proto-Totozoquean, the... more
We report the results of a qualitative and quantitative lexical comparison between Bangime and neighboring languages. Our results indicate that the status of the language as an isolate remains viable, and that Bangime speakers have had... more
This critical report-cum-position statement summarises several workshops and conference panels recently held in three Nordic countries-Denmark, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands-based in developing the concept of island languages. It puts... more
A new etymological solution is proposed to explain two highly irregular formations in Ainu: *tutko ‘two days’ and *rerko ‘three days’, from *tu ‘2’ and *re ‘3’, respectively. These words contain two components which have not been... more
historical district and town in Isfahan province, central Persia First published as “Ḵvānsār. Historical Geography”, at Encyclopedia Iranica Online 18 Feb. 2013. Published on paper as “Ḵonsār”, Enc. Iranica, vol. XVII, fasc. 4, 2023,... more
Islands as specific research sites in their own right have been given little direct attention by linguists. The physical segregation, distinctness, and isolation of islands from mainland and continental environments may provide scholars... more
I, who am usually quite critical, must admit I found this book absolutely enjoyable from the beginning to somewhere near the end at the point when Tom Wolfe offers hints of his own theory of language. If like me you tire of reading... more
Islands as specific research sites in their own right have been given little direct attention by linguists. The physical segregation, distinctness, and isolation of islands from mainland and continental environments may provide scholars... more
Within historical linguistics, language isolates are often viewed as a problem. Their isolate status makes it difficult to peer into their history, and internal reconstruction is generally thought to be of limited utility. Campbell... more
Negative structures are generally assumed to be maximally accessible for verbal predicates, as evidenced by the requirement in many languages that nonverbal predicates be supported by a verb when negated. Indeed, the term 'standard... more
Tylex-2017 International Summer School on Typology and Lexicon (TyLex) September 1–8, 2017 National Research University Higher School of Economics, Voronovo campus, Moscow.
Negative structures are generally assumed to be maximally accessible for verbal predicates, as evidenced by the requirement in many languages that nonverbal predicates be supported by a verb when negated. Indeed, the term 'standard... more
This paper aims to describe the semantic features conditioning an alternation between two related but behaviorally-distinct negation constructions in Chitimacha, an isolate language of the Southeast U.S. linguistic area. These... more
Chitimacha is a language isolate formerly spoken in southern Louisiana, and is a part of the Southeast linguistic area. Using documentary materials recorded by Morris Swadesh in the 1930s, this talk examines the language-internal evidence... more