Overview
The Grammar of Knowledge offers both a linguistic and anthropological perspective on the expression of information sources, as well as inferences, assumptions, probability and possibility, and gradations of doubt and beliefs in a range of languages. The book investigates twelve different languages, from families including Tibeto-Burman, Nakh-Dagestani, and Austronesian, all of which share the property of requiring the source of information to be specified in every sentence. In these languages, it may not be possible to say merely that 'the man went fishing'. Instead, the source of evidence for the statement must also be specified, usually through the use of evidential markers. For example, it may be necessary to indicate whether the speaker saw the man go fishing; has simply assumed that the man went fishing; or was told that he went fishing by a third party. Some languages, such as Hinuq and Tatar, distinguish between first-hand and non first-hand information sources; others, such as Ersu, mark three distinct types of information - directly required, inferred or assumed, and reported. Some require an even greater level of specification: Asheninka Perene, from South America, has a specific marker to express suspicions or misgivings. Like others in the series, the book illustrates and examines these aspects of language in different cultural and linguistic settings. It will interest linguists of all persuasions as well as linguistically-minded anthropologists.Readership: Scholars and advanced students of the syntax-semantics interface in linguistics, particularly from a typological perspective, and all those interested in the interactions of language and culture in linguistics and anthropology.
Full Product Details
Author: Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (Distinguished Professor, Australian Laureate Fellow, and Director of the Language and Culture Research Centre, James Cook University) ,
R. M. W. Dixon (Adjunct Professor and Deputy Director of the Language and Culture Research Centre, James Cook University)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Volume: 7
Dimensions:
Width: 16.20cm
, Height: 2.60cm
, Length: 24.00cm
Weight: 0.624kg
ISBN: 9780198701316
ISBN 10: 0198701314
Pages: 312
Publication Date: 27 February 2014
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Tertiary & Higher Education
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
This outstanding collection of studies probes into one of the most critical areas of human cognition: knowledge. The systematic survey of 12 languages whose grammatical system includes epistemological devices reveals both fascinating differences and striking similarities in how different languages construe the nature of knowledge and its sources. Edith Moravcsik, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
This outstanding collection of studies probes into one of the most critical areas of human cognition: knowledge. The systematic survey of 12 languages whose grammatical system includes epistemological devices reveals both fascinating differences and striking similarities in how different languages construe the nature of knowledge and its sources. * Edith Moravcsik, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee *
Author Information
Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald is Distinguished Professor, Australian Laureate Fellow, and Director of the Language and Culture Research Centre at James Cook University. She is a major authority on languages of the Arawak family, from northern Amazonia, and has written grammars of Bare (1995) and Warekena (1998), plus A Grammar of Tariana, from Northwest Amazonia (Cambridge University Press, 2003), in addition to essays on various typological and areal features of South American languages. Her other major publications, with OUP, include Classifiers: A Typology of Noun Categorization Devices (2000), Language Contact in Amazonia(2002), Evidentiality (2004), The Manambu Language of East Sepik, Papua New Guinea, (2008), Imperatives and Commands (2010), Languages of the Amazon (2012), and The Art of Grammar (forthcoming). R. M. W. Dixon is Adjunct Professor and Deputy Director of the Language and Culture Research Centre at James Cook University. He has published grammars of a number of Australian languages (including Dyirbal and Yidin), in addition to A Grammar of Boumaa Fijian (University of Chicago Press, 1988), The Jarawara Language of Southern Amazonia (Oxford University Press, 2004;, paperback 2011) and A Semantic Approach to English Grammar (Oxford University Press, 2005). He is also the author of the three volume work Basic Linguistic Theory (Oxford University Press, 2010-12) and of an academic autobiography I am a linguist (Brill, 2011).
