Frajzyngier, Johnston: A Grammar of Mina (Mouton de Gruyter, 2005)

[Julia Ulrich]

NEW FROM MOUTON DE GRUYTER

 

Zygmunt Frajzyngier and Eric Johnston

A Grammar of Mina

In cooperation with Adrian Edwards

 

2005. xx, 512 pages. Cloth. Euro 148.00 / sFr 237.00 / for USA, Canada,
Mexico US$ 207.20

ISBN 3-11-018565-2

(Mouton Grammar Library 36)

 

Language of publication: English

Date of publication: 12/2005

http://www.degruyter.de/rs/bookSingle.cfm?id=IS-3110185652-1&l=E

 

 

 

"A Grammar of Mina" is a reference grammar of a hitherto undescribed and
endangered Central Chadic language. The book contains a description of
the phonology, morphology, syntax, and all the functional domains
encoded by this language. For each hypothesis regarding a form of
linguistic expression and its function, ample evidence is given. The
description of formal means and of the functions coded by these means is
couched in terms accessible to all linguists regardless of their
theoretical orientations. 

 

The outstanding characteristics of Mina include: vowel harmony; use of
phonological means, including vowel deletion and vowel retention, to
code phrasal boundaries; two tense and aspectual systems, each system
carrying a different pragmatic function; a lexical category 'locative
predicator' hitherto not observed in other languages; some tense,
aspect, and mood markers that occur before the verb, and others that
occur after the verb; the markers of interrogative and negative modality
that occur in clause-final position; the conjunction used for a
conjoined noun phrase in the subject function that differs from the
conjunction used for a conjoined noun phrase in all other functions.In
addition to the coding of argument structure, adjuncts, tense, aspect,
and mood categories, Mina also codes the category point-of-view. The
language has a clausal category 'comment clause' used in both simple and
complex sentences, which overtly marks the speaker's comment on the
proposition. The discourse structure has the principle of unity of
place. If one of the participants in a described event changes scene,
that is coded by a special syntactic construction in addition to any
verb of movement that may be used. Because of these unusual linguistic
characteristics, the "Grammar of Mina" will be of interest to a wide
range of linguists. 

 

 

AUTHORS:

 

Zygmunt Frajzyngier is Professor at the Department of Linguistics,
University of Colorado at Boulder, USA. 

Eric Johnston is affiliated with the Department of Linguistics,
University of Colorado at Boulder, USA. 

 

 

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