15.3417, Books: Language Description, Latvian: Nau

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-15-3417. Tue Dec 07 2004. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 15.3417, Books: Language Description, Latvian: Nau

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Wayne State U <aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry at linguistlist.org>

Reviews (reviews at linguistlist.org)
        Sheila Collberg, U of Arizona
        Terry Langendoen, U of Arizona

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/

The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, Wayne
State University, and donations from subscribers and publishers.

Editor for this issue: Megan Zdrojkowski <megan at linguistlist.org>
================================================================

Links to the websites of all LINGUIST's supporting publishers
are available at the end of this issue.


===========================Directory==============================

1)
Date: 23-Nov-2004
From: Ulrich Lueders < lincom.europa at t-online.de >
Subject: Latvian: Nau



-------------------------Message 1 ----------------------------------
Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2004 10:41:16
From: Ulrich Lueders < lincom.europa at t-online.de >
Subject: Latvian: Nau


Title: Latvian
Series Title: Languages of the World/Materials 217

Publication Year: 2004
Publisher: Lincom GmbH
           http://www.lincom-europa.com

Author: Nicole Nau, University of Kiel

Paperback: ISBN: 3895862282 Pages: 74 Price: Europe EURO 32


Abstract:

Latvian is the official language of the Republic of Latvia, where about 1.4
million people speak it as a native language, and an increasing number of
mainly Russian speaking persons use it as a second language. This sketch
concentrates on morphology and syntax, with a short introduction to
Latvian phonology. The sample text, as well as most of the examples that
illustrate grammatical points, are taken from autobiographical narratives
collected by the Latvian Archive for Oral History.

Compared to Lithuanian, the only other living Baltic language, Latvian has
further diverged from its Indo-European heritage in that it has abandoned
certain inflectional forms and categories and developed new ones. The fact
that, for centuries, speakers of Latvian have been in close contact with
speakers of Baltofinnic, Germanic and Slavic languages has certainly been
an important factor for innovations in all parts of the grammar. However,
Latvian still resembles the well known old Indo-European languages in
certain respects more closely than Standard Average European languages do.

Latvian is a fusional language with some traits of agglutination. The
morphology is strikingly regular, especially with nominals. Nominal
inflectional categories are gender, number, case, and definiteness, which
is marked on adjectives. The five morphological cases have clear syntactic
and/or semantic functions. Particularly noteworthy in the verbal
inflectional paradigm are evidentiality and the debitive mood, a Latvian
innovation. Characteristic features of the syntax are non-verbal predicates
and converb constructions.



Linguistic Field(s): Language Description

Subject Language(s): Latvian (LAT)


Written In: English  (ENG)

See this book announcement on our website:
http://linguistlist.org/get-book.html?BookID=12336



MAJOR SUPPORTERS

        Blackwell Publishing
                http://www.blackwellpublishing.com

        Cambridge University Press
                http://www.cup.org

        Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd
                http://www.continuumbooks.com

        Edinburgh University Press
                http://www.eup.ed.ac.uk/

        Elsevier Ltd.
                http://www.elsevier.com/locate/linguistics

        Equinox Publishing Ltd.
                http://www.equinoxpub.com/

        Georgetown University Press
                http://www.press.georgetown.edu

        John Benjamins
                http://www.benjamins.com/

        Kluwer
                http://www.springeronline.com

        Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
                http://www.erlbaum.com/

        Lincom GmbH
                http://www.lincom-europa.com

        MIT Press
                http://mitpress.mit.edu/

        Mouton de Gruyter
                http://www.mouton-publishers.com

        Oxford University Press
                http://www.oup.com/us

        Rodopi
                http://www.rodopi.nl/

        Routledge (Taylor and Francis)
                http://www.routledge.com/

OTHER SUPPORTING PUBLISHERS

        Anthropological Linguistics
                http://www.indiana.edu/~anthling/

        Arawak Publications


        CSLI Publications
                http://csli-publications.stanford.edu/

        Canadian Journal of Linguistics
                http://www.utpjournals.com/jour.ihtml?lp=cjl/cjl.html

        Cascadilla Press
                http://www.cascadilla.com/

        Graduate Linguistic Students' Assoc., Umass
                http://glsa.hypermart.net/

        International Pragmatics Assoc.
                http://ipra-www.uia.ac.be/ipra/

        Kingston Press Ltd
                http://www.kingstonpress.com/

        Linguistic Assoc. of Finland
                http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/

        MIT Working Papers in Linguistics
                http://web.mit.edu/mitwpl/

        Multilingual Matters
                http://www.multilingual-matters.com/

        Pacific Linguistics
                http://pacling.anu.edu.au/

        Palgrave Macmillan
                http://www.palgrave.com

        Pearson Longman
                http://www.pearsoneduc.com/discipline.asp?d=LG

        SIL International
                http://www.ethnologue.com/bookstore.asp

        St. Jerome Publishing Ltd.
                http://www.stjerome.co.uk

        Utrecht Institute of Linguistics
                http://www-uilots.let.uu.nl/




-----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-15-3417