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These are followed by seven chapters on prepositions whose basic meaning is spatial, with many extensions to abstract senses, and one that ties together the varied ways through which prepositions deal with time. The final chapter outlines how some people have attempted to prescribe how language should be used; it also covers dialect variation, foreign learners' errors, and prospects for the future. The book is written in Dixon's accustomed style - clear and well-organized, with easy-to-understand explanations, and with limited use of technical terms. 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Can we say, for instance, that because German has three genders and French only two, German is a better language in this respect? Jarawara, spoken in the Amazonian jungle, has two ways of showing possession: one for a part (e.g. 'Father's foot') and the other for something which is owned and can be given away or sold (e.g. 'Father's knife'); is it thus a better language, in this respect, than English, which marks all possession in the same way?  R. M. W. Dixon begins by outlining what he feels are the essential components of any language, such as the ability to pose questions, command actions, and provide statements. He then discusses desirable features including gender agreement, tenses, and articles, before concluding with his view of what the ideal language would look like - and an explanation of why it does not and probably never will exist. Written in the author's usual accessible and engaging style, and full of personal anecdotes and unusual linguistic phenomena, the book will be of interest to all general language enthusiasts as well as to a linguistics student audience, and particularly to anyone with an interest in linguistic typology.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50525555917073,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50525556670737,"sku":"GOR011304264","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51484855828753,"sku":"GOR011692829","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0198817835.jpg?v=1750779425"},{"product_id":"dyirbal-language-of-north-queensland-book-r-m-w-dixon-9780521097482","title":"The Dyirbal Language of North Queensland","description":"Originally published in 1972, this study is dedicated to the surviving speakers of the Dyirbal, Giramay and Mamu dialects. For more than ten thousand years they lived in harmony with each other and with their environment. Over one hundred years ago many of them were shot and poisoned by European invaders. Those allowed to survive have been barely tolerated tenants on their own lands, and have had their beliefs, habits and language help up to ridicule and scorn. In the last decade they have seen their remaining forests taken and cleared by an American company, with the destruction of sites whose remembered antiquity is many thousands of years older than the furthest event in the shallow history of their desecrators. The survivors of the three tribes have stood up to these diversities with dignity and humour. 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The volume is accompanied by a companion website hosting the full set of textual data on which the grammar is based, as well as a thesaurus\/dictionary of nouns, adjectives, and verbs across ten dialects of Dyirbal.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50999755669777,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999758913809,"sku":"NIN9780192859907","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0192859900.jpg?v=1772035165"},{"product_id":"edible-gender-mother-in-law-style-and-other-grammatical-wonders-book-r-m-w-dixon-9780198864202","title":"Edible Gender, Mother-in-Law Style, and Other Grammatical Wonders","description":"This book builds on R. M. W. Dixon's most influential work on the languages of North Queensland. 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The investigations focus on ways of combining clauses other than through relative and complement clause constructions. These span a number of types of semantic linking. Three, for example, describe varieties of consequence - cause, result, and purpose - which may be illustrated in English by, respectively: Because John has been studying German for years, he speaks it well; John has been studying German for years, thus he speaks it well; and John has been studying German for years, in order that he should speak it well. Syntactic descriptions of languages provide a grammatical analysis of clause types. The chapters in this book add the further dimension of semantics, generally in the form of focal and supporting clauses, the former referring to the central activity or state of the biclausal linking; and the latter to the clause attached to it. The supporting clause may set out the temporal milieu for the focal clause or specify a condition or presupposition for it or a preliminary statement of it, as in Although John has been studying German for years (the supporting clause), he does not speak it well (the focal clause). Professor Dixon's extensive opening discussion is followed by fourteen case studies of languages ranging from Korean and Kham to Iquito and Ojibwe. 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Alongside a systematic discussion of these forms, Professor Dixon explores and explains the hundreds of conundrums that seem to be exceptions to general rules. Why, for instance, do we say un-distinguished (with prefix un-) but in-distinguishable (with in-); why un-ceasing but in-cesssant? Why, alongside gold-en, do we say silver-y (not silver-en)? Why is it wood-en (not wood-ic) but metall-ic (not metall-en)?    After short preliminary chapters, which set the scene and outline the criteria employed, there are accounts of the derivation of negative words, of other derivations which do not change word class, on making new verbs, new adjectives, new nouns, and new adverbs. The final chapter deals with combinations of suffixes, of prefixes, and of the two together. Within each chapter, derivational affixes are arranged in semantic groups, the members of which are contrasted with respect to meaning and function; for example, child-less and child-free. For each affix there is an account of its genetic origin (from Old English, Greek, Latin, French, and so on), its phonological form and implications for stress placement, the roots it can be attached to (and why), and how its range of meanings has developed over the centuries. The book is written in the author's accustomed style - clear and well-organised, with easy-to-understand explanations. The exposition is illustrated by examples, ranging from Shakespeare, W. S. Gilbert, and modern novels to what was heard on the radio. It will be an invaluable text and sourcebook for scholars and students of the English language and of general linguistics, from undergraduate level upwards. The many fascinating facts presented here, in such a lucid and accessible manner, will also appeal to the general reader interested in picking to pieces the English language to see how it works.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51857741775121,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51857741873425,"sku":"NGR9780198712367","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780198712367.jpg?v=1753828546"},{"product_id":"basic-linguistic-theory-volume-1-book-r-m-w-dixon-9780199571062","title":"Basic Linguistic Theory Volume 1","description":"In Basic Linguistic Theory R. M. W. Dixon provides a new and fundamental characterization of the nature of human languages and a comprehensive guide to their description and analysis. In three clearly written and accessible volumes, he describes how best to go about doing linguistics, the most satisfactory and profitable ways to work, and the pitfalls to avoid. In the first volume he addresses the methodology for recording, analysing, and comparing languages. He argues that grammatical structures and rules should be worked out inductively on the basis of evidence, explaining in detail the steps by which an attested grammar and lexicon can build up from observed utterances. He shows how the grammars and words of one language may be compared to others of the same or different families, explains the methods involved in cross-linguistic parametric analyses, and describes how to interpret the results. Volume 2 and volume 3 (to be published in 2011) offer in-depth tours of underlying principles of grammatical organization, as well as many of the facts of grammatical variation. 'The task of the linguist,' Professor Dixon writes, 'is to explain the nature of human languages - each viewed as an integrated system - together with an explanation of why each language is the way it is, allied to the further scientific pursuits of prediction and evaluation.'   Basic Linguistic Theory is the triumphant outcome of a lifetime's thinking about every aspect and manifestation of language and immersion in linguistic fieldwork. 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The book ends with a guide to sources, a consideration of the number of languages in the world, a glossary, and indexes of authors, languages, and subjects covering all three volumes. Volume 1 addresses the methodology for recording, analysing, and comparing languages and includes chapters on analysis, typology, phonology, the lexicon, and field linguistics. Volume 2, like the present work, considers underlying principles of grammatical organization, and has chapters devoted to the word, nouns and verbs, adjectives, transitivity, copula constructions, pronouns and demonstratives, possession, relative clauses and complementation.   Basic Linguistic Theory is the triumphant outcome of a lifetime's thinking about every aspect and manifestation of language. 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This book provides an overview in a single volume of this rich and exciting linguistic area. The editors and contributors have sought to make their descriptions as clear and accessible as possible, in order to provide a basis for further research on the structural characteristics of Amazonian languages and their genetic and areal relationships, as well as a point of entry to important cross-linguistic data for the wider constituency of theoretical linguists.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52136540602641,"sku":"NLS9780521570213","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780521570213.jpg?v=1757554215"},{"product_id":"amazonian-languages-book-r-m-w-dixon-9780521578936","title":"The Amazonian Languages","description":"The Amazon Basin is arguably both one of the least-known and the most complex linguistic regions in the world. 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This pioneering work of synthesis covered more than two hundred Aboriginal languages, and stimulated the next generation of scholarship in the field. The author's subsequent search for an overarching theoretical model to explain the unusual properties of Australian languages finally led him to adopt a 'punctuated equilibrium' model of language development. Dixon proposed this in The Rise and Fall of Languages (1997), which provided the framework for his major work Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development (2002). 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