Learning and memory processes are basic features of human existence. They allow us to (un)consciously adapt to changes in our social and physical environment in a variety of ways and may have been a precursor for survival in human evolution. Through several reviews and original work the book focuses on three key topics that enhanced our understanding of the topic in the last twenty years: first…
After publishing A Grammar of the Bedouin Dialects of the Northern Sinai Littoral: Bridging the Linguistic Gap between the Eastern and Western Arab World (Brill:2000), Rudolf de Jong completes his description of the Bedouin dialects of the Sinai Desert of Egypt by adding the present volume. To facilitate direct comparison of all Sinai dialects, the dialect descriptions in both volumes run paral…
Manuscript cultures based on Arabic script feature various tendencies in standardisation of orthography, script types and layout. Unlike previous studies, this book steps outside disciplinary and regional boundaries and provides a typological cross-cultural comparison of standardisation processes in twelve Arabic-influenced writing traditions where different cultures, languages and scripts inte…
"Multilingualism is integral to the human condition. Hinging on the concept of Creative Multilingualism – the idea that language diversity and creativity are mutually enriching – this timely and thought-provoking volume shows how the concept provides a matrix for experimentation with ideas, approaches and methods. The book presents four years of joint research on Creative Multilingualism co…
This study on language vitalization and community empowerment in the Kosovar sign language community focuses on linguistic work taking place within the framework of a development co-operation project between two NGOs in Kosovo and Finland. The long-term objectives were to improve the status of Kosovar Sign Language (KosSL) and to guarantee the human (linguistic) rights of Deaf language users …
The work is concerned with the reconstruction of the phonemes of Proto-Malayo-Javanic, the last proto-language which is directly continued by the Sundanese, Javanese, Malay, and Madurese.
This volume of the series “Translation and Multilingual Natural Language Processing” includes most of the papers presented at the Workshop “Language Technology for a Multilingual Europe”, held at the University of Hamburg on September 27, 2011 in the framework of the conference GSCL 2011 with the topic “Multilingual Resources and Multilingual Applications”, along with several additi…
Unlike other professions, the impact of information and communication technology on interpreting has been moderate so far. However, recent advances in the areas of remote, computer-assisted, and, most recently, machine interpreting, are gaining the interest of both researchers and practitioners. This volume aims at exploring key issues, approaches and challenges to the interplay of interpreting…
One of the hardest problems in science is the symbol grounding problem, a question that has intrigued philosophers and linguists for more than a century. With the rise of artificial intelligence, the question has become very actual, especially within the field of robotics. The problem is that an agent, be it a robot or a human, perceives the world in analogue signals. Yet humans have the abilit…
This interdisciplinary study presents the cutting-edge state of theoretical and applied research in phraseology. The author elaborates key terminology and theoretical concepts of phraseology, while challenging some prevailing assumptions. Exploration of phraseological meaning across sentence boundaries is supported by ample textual illustrations of stylistic use ranging from Old English to Mode…
"On Looking into Words is a wide-ranging volume spanning current research into word structure and morphology, with a focus on historical linguistics and linguistic theory. The papers are offered as a tribute to Stephen R. Anderson, the Dorothy R. Diebold Professor of Linguistics at Yale, who is retiring at the end of the 2016-2017 academic year. The contributors are friends, colleagues, and for…
The eighteenth century is an important period both in the history of science and in the history of languages. In this volume, seventeen authors explore, from a variety of angles, the construction of a scientific language and discourse. The chapters explore the forming of scientific communities, the emergence of new languages of science, the spread of scientific ideas, and the development of sci…
The volume contains a selection of papers originally presented at the symposium on “Areal patterns of grammaticalization and cross-linguistic variation in grammaticalization scenarios” held on 12-14 March 2015 at Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. The papers, written by leading scholars combining expertise in historical linguistics and grammaticalization research, study variation in gr…
This innovative study on the phenomenon of 'grammaticalization' and its manifestation in Chinese provides new insights into language change in Chinese and a large number of grammatical topics. Grammaticalization occurs in all of the world's languages. Xiu-Zhi Zoe Wu demonstrates general linguistic principles present and active in the phenomenon of grammaticalization whilst also describing the m…
This open access edited collection examines representations of human trafficking in media ranging from British and Serbian newspapers, British and Scandinavian crime novels, and a documentary series, and questions the extent to which these portrayals reflect the realities of trafficking. It tackles the problematic tendency to under-report particular types of victim and forms of trafficking, and…
This book presents a range of ongoing studies on atypical language development in Romance languages. Despite the steady increase in the number of studies on typical language development, there is still little research about atypical language development, especially in Romance languages. This book covers four main conditions causing atypical language development. Part I explores the linguistic a…
This book presents groundbreaking robotic experiments on how and why spatial language evolves. It provides detailed explanations of the origins of spatial conceptualization strategies, spatial categories, landmark systems and spatial grammar by tracing the interplay of environmental conditions, communicative and cognitive pressures. The experiments discussed in this book go far beyond previous …
In October 2014 about thirty scholars from Asia and Europe came together for a conference to discuss different kinds of sources for the research on Central Asia. From museum collections and ancient manuscripts to modern newspapers and pulp fiction and the wind horses flying against the blue sky of Mongolia there was a wide range of topics. Modern data processing and data management and the prob…
Why is the Isle of Dogs in the Thames called Isle of Dogs? Did King Canute’s men bring English usage back to Jutland? How can we find out where English speakers suck their breath in to give a short response? And what did the Brontës do about dialect and think about foreign languages? The answers are in this collection of empirical work on English past and present in honour of Nils-Lennart Jo…
Since the hiring of its first Africanist linguist Carleton Hodge in 1964, Indiana University’s Department of Linguistics has had a strong and continuing presence in the study of African languages and linguistics through the work of its faculty and of its graduates on the faculties of many other universities. Research on African linguistics at IU has covered some of the major language groups s…