The Native Languages of South America

✍ Scribed by Pieter Muysken, Loretta O'Connor

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2014
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 399
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

In South America indigenous languages are extremely diverse. There are over one hundred language families in this region alone. Contributors from around the world explore the history and structure of these languages, combining insights from archaeology and genetics with innovative linguistic analysis. The book aims to uncover regional patterns and potential deeper genealogical relations between the languages. Based on a large-scale database of features from sixty languages, the book analyses major language families such as Tupian and Arawakan, as well as the Quechua/Aymara complex in the Andes, the Isthmo-Colombian region and the Andean foothills. It explores the effects of historical change in different grammatical systems and fills gaps in the World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) database, where South American languages are underrepresented. An important resource for students and researchers interested in linguistics, anthropology and language evolution.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Figures
Maps
Tables
Contributors
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction: South American indigenous languages; genealogy, typology, contacts
Part I Introduction to South America
2 Human migrations, dispersals, and contacts in South America
3 Basic vocabulary comparison in South American languages
Part II Case studies in contact
4 Structural features and language contact in the Isthmo-Colombian area
5 The Andean foothills and adjacent Amazonian fringe
6 The Andean matrix
7 The Arawakan matrix
8 The Tupian expansion
Part III Comparative perspectives on linguistic structures
9 Language internal and external factors in the development of the desiderative in South American indigenous languages
10 Verbal argument marking patterns in South American languages
11 The Noun Phrase: focus on demonstratives, redrawing the semantic map
12 Subordination strategies in South America: nominalization
Part IV Major findings and conclusions
13 The languages of South America: deep families, areal relationships, and language contact
References
Subject and place index
Language index
Author index