Alan Libert Livres

The classification of words in terms of parts of speech is frequently problematic. This book examines the classification of conjunctions and similar words of other classes. It reviews work done from the 19 th century to the present on a wide range of languages, including English, German, French, Latin, Ancient Greek, Welsh, Persian, Chinese, Japanese, Ute, and Abun. Most chapters treat conjunctions as opposed to one of the other traditionally recognized parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, adpositions, and interjections. The book’s major focus is on the terminology used to describe words on or near the borders between conjunctions and other parts of speech, such as «deverbal conjunctions», «conjunctional adverbs», «prepositional conjunctions», and «so-called conjunctions».

It has often proven difficult to classify certain words as adpositions or nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. This book looks at the distinctions between adpositions, i. e. prepositions and postpositions, and other word classes with respect to a wide range of languages. In particular, it focuses on how these distinctions have been treated by previous authors and the terminology used to describe items on or close to the adpositional border, e. g. pseudo-postpositions and auxiliary nouns. Chapters are devoted to adpositions as opposed to most of the other traditional parts of speech. Among the criteria for (non-)adpositional status brought up are the presence or absence of inflection on putative adpositions and genitive case marking on complements of such words. Definitive conclusions on how to determine whether words are adpositions seem elusive, but some formal criteria, such as absence of inflection, are problematic; possibly a solution will involve a notion of adpositional function.

This book treats various areas of the phonetics, orthography, morphology, syntax, and lexica of artificial languages in an effort to determine what features such languages have in common, and how they differ. Among the topics dealt with are affricates, digraphs, stress, plural formation, demonstratives, prepositional case assignment, color terms, terms for beverages, and terms for meteorological phenomena. Data from many artificial languages, gathered from both primary and secondary sources, are presented in an attempt to give a picture of tendencies among them. The comparative examination of the languages considered in this book demonstrates that artificial languages are relatively uniform in some phonological aspects (e. g. nasals and affricates) while they show a considerable degree of variation in relation to some morphological categories (e. g. demonstratives and plurals). With regard to vocabulary from various lexical fields, in addition to the expected differences among a priori languages, different degrees of uniformity were found among a posteriori and mixed languages with respect to lexemes with particular meanings.

Esperanto is by far the most successful artificial language. However, some of those who learned it were not satisfied with it and changed it in various ways. Esperanto has also been modified to serve as an intermediate language in machine translation. In addition, designers of some other languages borrowed many elements from Esperanto. This book is a survey of artificial languages resulting from these processes. After an introductory chapter in which the languages are presented, there are chapters on phonetics and phonology (including orthography), the lexicon, morphology, syntax, and semantics. At various points comparisons to Esperanto are made. The languages covered include Ido (the best known language of this type), Aiola, Arlipo, Atlango, the DLT Intermediate Language, Ekselsioro, La lingvo Esperantida, Esperloja, Farlingo, Hom-idyomo, Linguna, Modern Esperanto, Mondezo, Mondlango, Mondlingvo, Neo, Olingo, Perio, Zamenhof's Reformed Esperanto, Romániço, and Virgoranto. Some of these languages are quite similar to Esperanto, while others are rather different in several respects. Some daughters of Esperanto involve simplifications in one or more areas of the grammar, but some have introduced greater complexity, e.g. more personal pronouns or more morphological cases.

Two major categories of relational words are prepositions and positions, the difference between them having to do with whether they precede or follow their object. There is a relatively small group of words of the same general type which can be placed either before or after their object. Such words have been given the name ambipositions. A possible (though not uncontroversial) example from English is through, e.g. he walked through the forest and he slept the whole night through. Other examples are German entlang and Ancient Greek peri. This book is a detailed examination of this unusual type of word. Preface, Abbreviations, 1 Introduction, 2 Ambipositions with Simple Behavior, 3 Meaning Differences Depending on Position, 4 Ambipositions with Case Marking Differences in Different Positions, 5 Differences in Types of Complement Allowed, 6 Differences in Form of Prepositional and Postpositional Occurrences, 7 Ambipositions from an Historical Point of View, 8 Conclusion, References. (with examples from Old and Middle English, French, Dutch, German, Scandinavian Languages, Latin, Greek, Old Indic Languages, Modern Indic Languages, Armenian, Baltic Languages, Polish, Estonian, Finnish, other Finno-Saamic Languages, Hu ngarian, Old Georgian and Georgian, Berbice Dutch Creole, Uralic Languages, North Arawak Languages, Vedic, Slovenian, Italic Languages, Sindhi, Tetelcingo Nahutal).

The best known artificial language is Esperanto. However, hundreds of other artificial languages have been proposed, although some have not progressed beyond the stage of sketches and few have seen much actual use. Those which are not consciously based on natural languages are called a priori languages. Such languages have been less successful than artificial languages built with elements of natural languages, such as Esperanto and Interlingua. However, a priori languages are of considerable theoretical interest, in particular from the point of view of language if a universal property holds even of languages created "from scratch", then it can indeed be seen as a property of any (usable) human language. Therefore, in the description of the grammars of several a priori languages, particular attention will be given to whether their features are in accord with proposed universals, of both the Greenbergian and Chomskyan types. After an introduction one chapter each will be devoted to phonetics/phonology, writing systems, lexicon, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The languages described include aUI, Babm, Fitusa, Loglan/Lojban, and Suma. Most of these languages have received very little attention, even from scholars studying artificial languages.

Artificial languages are often classified on the basis of whether they are based on natural languages or are attempts to build a language (or at least the vocabulary of a language) "from scratch". The former type are called 'a posteriori' languages and the latter 'a priori' languages. This is not a strict dichotomy, but rather a spectrum, and there may be no truly a priori languages. However, languages with substantial a priori and a posteriori components have been labelled 'mixed' languages. This book is a survey of several such languages. After an introduction, there are chapters on phonetics, lexicon, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Given that these languages are partly a priori, one might wonder to what extent they conform to universals posited for natural languages, and this is examined with respect to various properties. The languages discussed include Volapük (by far the best known and most successful language of this type), the Blue Language, Gilo, pan-kel, and Vela. ISBN 3895868442. Languages of the World 29. 110pp. 2003. Paperback.

Among the hundreds of artificial languages created in recent centuries are a fair number of modified versions of Latin and languages which have taken many elements from Latin. These diverge in varying degrees and ways from Classical Latin. This book is a survey of such projects. The languages examined include Communia, Latino sine Flexione, Linguum Islianum, SPL and Universal-Latein. An introduction presenting the languages is followed by chapters on phonetics, lexicon, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Preface Abbrevations 1 Introduction 1.1 Carpophorophilus's Language 1.2 Kosmos 1.3 Latino Moderne 1.4 Latino sine Flexione 1.5 Latinulus 1.6 Linguum Islianum 1.7 Mundelingva 1.8 Myrana and Communia 1.9 Nov Latin 1.10 Reform-Latein 1.11 SIMP-LATINA (SPL) 1.12 Universal-Latein 1.13 Uropa 1.14 Weltsprache (Eichhorn) 1.15 Weltsprache (Volk and Fuchs) 2 Phonetics 2.1 Sound Inventories and Orthography 2.2 Suprasegmentals 3 Lexicon 3.0 General Issues 3.1 Forms of Nouns Used 3.2 Words for Modern Concepts 4 Morphology 4.0 General Issues 4.1 Nouns 4.2 Pronouns 4.3 Numerals 4.4 Adjectives 4.5 Adverbs 4.6 Verbs 4.7 Prepositions 4.8 Conjunctions 4.9 Particles and Interjections 5 Syntax 5.1 Word Order 5.2 Binding and the Use of Reflexive Pronouns 5.3 Pro-drop 5.4 Absolute Constructions 6 Semantics 6.1 Ambiguity and Homonymy 6.2 Synonymy 6.3 Idioms 6.4 Generics References.