New book: Comparative Morphology

[LINCOM EUROPA]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Comparative Morphology of  the Omotic Languages
M. LIONEL BENDER
University of  Southern Illinois-Carbondale

Omotic is the least-known family in the Afrasian (=Afroasiatic or
"Hamito-Semitic") phylum. No book-length synthesis of the family has
appeared previously and it is not generally known that Omotic is a
highly agglutinative family with many obvious Afrasian characteristics.
Omotic is located entirely within southwest and west Ethiopia, on both
sides of the Omo River, from which it takes its name. Some still consder
Omotic not to be an independent family, but rather West Cushitic.
In this monograph, the author covers all nine Omotic families in
descriptive chapters as follows: 1. Northwest Ometo, 2. Southeast Ometo
and C'ara, 4. Gimira-Yem (Janjero)-Kefoid, 6. Dizoid, 7. Aroid, 8. Mao.
Chs. 3 and 5 are analytic chapters covering preceding chapters and Ch. 9
is an overall analysis, summary, and conclusions. All varieties having
sufficient documentation (about 30 in number) are covered, along with
notes on others.
Sources are all available published sources which contain significant
linguistic material, many of them obscure and difficult to obtain, plus
extensive unpublished fieldnotes of the author and others. All are fully
referenced.
Each descriptive chapter has an introduction featuring nomenclature,
locations, demographic estimates, and a listing of main sources. There
follows a brief phonological sketch divided into consonants, vowels, and
suprasegmentals and phonotactics. Morphological categories are then
taken up in the order: pronouns, including independents, possessives,
verbal affixes, gender, number, and case; demonstratives;
interrogatives; nouns, including species and the  categories applying to
pronouns; verbal TMA (tense-mode-aspect) system; copulas and connecters;
nominal and verbal derivations. In the comparative analysis, the author
surveys grammatical formatives by family and indicates potential
proto-forms where possible. Conclusions include remarks on the
sub-classification  of Omotic and the position of Omotic in the Afrasian
phylum.

The book contains about 250 pages including Notes, References, Map. It
is to be followed by a second volume on Omotic phonology and lexicon.

ISBN 3895862517
LINCOM Studies in African Linguistics 19.
Ca. 260 pp. EUR 70.56 / USD 94 / DM 138 /# 56.



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Dorothy Disterheft schrieb:
>
> I just read your announcement of the Nau book on Latvian which you
> posted to the LINGUIST  list. I am the
> moderator of HISTLING, a discussion list devoted to historical linguistics.
> This would be a book that some of our subscribers would be interested
> in knowing about. Would you mind sending me a copy to post on HISTLING?
> Also, if you have other books on historical topics in the future, please
> keep HISTLING in mind; I would be happy to post announcements for you.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Dorothy Disterheft
> Moderator, HISTLING