There are some 6,500 different languages in the world, belonging to around 250 distinct families and conforming to numerous grammatical types. This book explains why. Given that the biological mechanisms underlying language are the same in all normal human beings, would we not be a more successful species if we spoke one language? Daniel Nettle considers how this extraordinary and rich diversity arose, how it relates to the nature of language, cognition, and culture, and how it is linked with the main patterns of human geography and history. Human languages and language families are not distributed evenly: there are relatively few in Eurasia compared to the profusion found in Australasia, the Pacific, and the Americas. There is also a marked correlation between biodiversity and linguistic diversity. The author explains the processes by which this distribution evolved and changes still. To do so he returns to the earliest origins of language, reconstructing the processes of linguistic variation and diffusion that occurred when humans first filled the continents and, thousands of years later, turned to agriculture. He ends by examining the causes of linguistic mortality, and why the number of the world's languages may halve before 2100. Linguistic Diversity draws on work in anthropology, linguistics, geography, archaeology, and evolutionary science to provide a comprehensive account of the patterns of linguistic diversity. It is written in a clear, lively and accessible style, and will appeal broadly across the natural and human sciences, as well as to the informed general reader.

本书以否定反问句和特指反问句为研究对象，在会话分析理论、功能主义语言学、认知语言学（主观性），语义学、语用学等理论的指导下，设计了“反问句使用环境”的研究框架，以此为基础，提出反问句的话语功能主要在于表达说话人不同程度的负面事理立场。

The Handbook of Language Contact offers systematic coverage of the major issues in this field – ranging from the value of contact explanations in linguistics, to the impact of immigration, to dialectology – combining new research from a team of globally renowned scholars, with case studies of numerous languages. An authoritative reference work exploring the major issues in the field of language contact: the study of how language changes when speakers of distinct speech varieties interact Brings together 40 specially-commissioned essays by an international team of scholars Examines language contact in societies which have significant immigration populations, and includes a fascinating cross-section of case studies drawing on languages across the world Accessibly structured into sections exploring the place of contact studies within linguistics as a whole; the value of contact studies for research into language change; and language contact in the context of work on language and society Explores a broad range of topics, making it an excellent resource for both faculty and students across a variety of fields within linguistics

The human imagination never ceases to be captivated by the quest for its own roots. Who were our ancestors? In the evolutionary clash of brains and brawn, what was it that prevailed and made us, Homo sapiens, uniquely human? Today scientists cite language as the distinctively human feature. But what is language a sign, a grunt? a sound with collective symbolic meaning? This remarkable book seeks to set the record straight with a critical refinement of the language theory, providing us for the first time with a scientific explanation of how Eve came to speak at all. Wrestling with the age-old question of why such a large gulf exists between humans and other animals, Philip Lieberman mines both the fossil record and modern neuroscientific techniques to chart the development of the anatomy and brain mechanisms necessary for human language as we know it. Eschewing any notion of a language gene or instinct, he pursues instead an evolutionary path in which environment acts on a biological capacity to reveal the interconnectedness of systems that make us most human: precise motor skills, speech, language, and complex thought. Eve Spoke challenges the dominant scientific theories of language's origins and forges a new understanding of the role of language in our evolution.

本书是在我教授的“国语语法论”讲义的基础上改写而成的。写这本书是为了向有志学习日语语法的人介绍日语语法研究的现状，并与读者一起思考一上结语法方面的问题。
本书旨在使读者感受到“思考型语法”的乐趣所在，为此以深入浅出的形式尽可能全面地介绍了日语描写语法的重要语法项目，以及基于不同立场的观点和最新的研究成果，同时也介绍了一些其他语言、古代日语及语用面的相关研究成果。
“导读”和正文部分适合一般的日语学习者阅读，包括了日语语法的基础知识；该部分同时也可作为日语专业学生语言学入门或提高语言能力的学习资料，全书贯穿了对语言进行分析探索的观念。
精心设计的“思考题”和参考资料翔实的“内容指南”相当于名师的指导，有助于收到事半功倍的学习效果。

内爆音是一种由特殊气流机制产生的语音。世界上大部分的语音由肺部气流机制产生，内爆音则是由喉部向内的气流机制产生的。内爆音在语音演变的过程中起着重要而独特的作用。本书是对中国境内内爆音语音性质的系统研究，在对多种方言和语言中内爆音的空气动力学、声学数据进行测量的基础上，概括出内爆音的语音类型，并对内爆音的历史来源和汉语方言中相关的历史音变现象予以解释，为世界语音学界认识中国内爆音的语音性质提供了重要资料。

《赣语声母的历史层次研究》是就一个大方言区进行这种研究的一次成功的实践。方言语音的历史层次研究必须从共时的内外比较人手，归纳区内的各种类型，再和周边方言比较其异同，然后在汉语语音吏方面分析其历史层次。因此，方言语音的历史层次研究实际上就是方言语音的纵横两向的比较研究。虽然讨论的只是声母的历史层次，其实在许多方面已涉及韵母和声调的特征。因为声母的分合和演变常常是以韵母、声调为制约条件的。不仅如此，讨论声母的历史层次势必还会牵连到词汇的特征，关系到方言形成和发展的历史背景。常用词和非常用词、方言固有词和通语用词、口语用字和书面语用字等等，也常常成了不同语音历史层次的取决条件，而方言历史背景对于理解方言语音的历史层次来说，有时，是不可缺少的。《赣语声母的历史层次研究》关于赣语声母历史层次的研究方法是遵循内外比较、历史分析、关照系统(声母、韵母和声调的语音系统和语音、词汇的系统)，并且联系了语言与历史文化背景的外部关系，因此，所做的分析是有说服力的，也可以使人们得到关于赣方言的整体特征的认识。可见，研究方法对头了，分析问题就会有新的突破，理论上也可以得到升华。
除了方法科学，《赣语声母的历史层次研究》的成功还在于作者下足了功力。在讨论每个声母现象的时候，《赣语声母的历史层次研究》都能尽量不遗漏地罗列已有的赣语调查材料，努力进行类型归纳，做到言之有据。同时也尽量不遗漏地查检历来学者们的有关分析结论，认真加以比较、权衡和评价。在材料方面，作者从1987年攻读硕士学位时开始就一点一点地调查赣方言，后来参加我们所主持的《客赣方言调查报告》这个研究项目，赣方言点大多是他参与'或独力到实地调查的。从那时到本．书成书，真可谓是十年磨_剑，其中甘苦不言而喻。所以，《赣语声母的历史层次研究》的成功首先得益于作者这十几年的积累。在理论方面，作者对于前人的研究成果也努力做到不论巨细，一一检验。对于初学者的研究成果并不忽略，对于大专家的结论也敢于提出质疑，在真理面前人人平等。没有发掘材料和检验理论这两方面的功力，要寻求突破是艰难的。
《赣语声母的历史层次研究》对于赣语声母的历史层次的研究上有哪些突破，当然还有待于各方面的专家们审核。无需在这一篇序文里一一提出。但是，由于我们始终都参与并关注这项研究，还是有不少感触的，希望专家和读者能仔细披阅，多加发掘。这里只就若干较为重要的课题提个头，供大家思考。

It contains everything the student needs to know about the psychology of language: how we understand, produce, and store language. This new edition contains new chapters on how children learn to read, and how language is used in everyday settings. It also describes recent research on the impact of new techniques of brain imaging.
The text is comprehensive and written in a lively and accessible style. It covers all the main topics in this complex field, focusing on the processes involved in understanding and producing language, including reading, writing, speaking, and listening. The text covers recent connectionist models of language, describing complex ideas in a clear and approachable manner. Following a strong developmental theme, the text describes how children acquire language (sometimes more than one), and also how they learn to read. The Psychology of Language demonstrates how language is related to the brain and to other aspects of cognition.

"Highly recommended...extremely useful." Linguist List In some languages, every statement must contain a specification of the type of evidence on which it is based: for example, whether the speaker saw it, heard it, inferred it from indirect evidence, or learnt it from someone else. This grammatical reference to information source is called 'evidentiality', and is one of the least described grammatical categories. Evidentiality systems differ in how complex they are: some distinguish just two terms (eyewitness and non-eyewitness, or reported and everything else), while others have six or even more terms. Evidentiality is a category in its own right, and not a subcategory of epistemic or some other modality, nor of tense-aspect. Every language has some way of referring to the source of information, but not every language has grammatical evidentiality. In English expressions such as 'I guess', 'they say', 'I hear that', and 'the alleged' are not obligatory and do not constitute a grammatical system. Similar expressions in other languages may provide historical sources for evidentials. True evidentials, by contrast, form a grammatical system. In the North Arawak language Tariana, an expression such as 'the dog bit the man' must be augmented by a grammatical suffix indicating whether the event was seen, heard, assumed, or reported. This book provides the first exhaustive cross-linguistic typological study of how languages deal with the marking of information source. Examples are drawn from more than 500 languages from all over the world, several of them based on the author's original fieldwork. Professor Aikhenvald also considers the role evidentiality plays in human cognition, and the ways in which evidentiality influences human perception of the world. This is an important book on an intriguing subject. It will interest anthropologists, cognitive psychologists and philosophers, as well as linguists.

本书对76种语言时体态的语法语素进行了深入细致的调查，通过跨语言的比较，概括了完成体、进行体及相关语法语素类型以及将来时和部分表示情态的语法语素的语法化路径，深入讨论了语法化理论中的一组假设，总结出语义演变的若干机制。本书还对时体态跨语言研究所涉及到的100个左右的“意义标签”进行了详细的定义和必要的比较。这些定义不仅保证了该研究在跨语言标注时具有较高的内部一致性，而且也为今后的时体类型学研究和语法化研究奠定了基础，对克服时体态研究领域概念混杂的局面起到了很好的澄清作用。概括而言，本书不仅是类型学中时体研究的集大成之作，也是语法化研究的经典著作。

《现代汉语连词的语篇连接功能研究》以语篇分析、话语标记理论为指导，在语篇层面上探讨了现代汉语连词的用法。汉语连词的连接范围小至两个分句（本书不研究只连接词语的连词），大至段落。与前人不同的是，本书提出连词的功能与连接范围相关，需要根据连词的连接范围以及语体解释连词在语篇中的语义、语篇功能与人际功能。研究发现，不是所有的连词都能连接语段或者段落，只有因果、转折、承接、递进、并列等连词能连接更大的层面，并且它们都是承前性连词。本书重点分析了使用频率高的因果、转折、承接类全局连接连词，包括"因为、所以、之所以、因此、因而；但是、可是、不过、然而；那么、然后、于是、总之"等，分析了每个连词的复句连接与全局连接的关系，在不同语体中具备哪些全局连接功能等，得到了一些使用规则。在书面语与口语语体中，全局连接连词的连接功能有不同的表现，可以从汉语的语篇组织特点上为其找到解释。本书的研究对于对外汉语教学以及中文信息处理都有一定参考价值。

潘志刚编著的这本《魏晋南北朝汉语连词研究》 选取魏晋南北朝汉语的连词作为研究对象，从汉语史学界常用的魏晋南北朝时期的文献语料中找出此时期使用的连词词项，通过全面系统地描写分析此时期使用的连词，揭示出中古汉语连词的使用特点，探究中古汉语连词的来源及发展情况，并进一步深入探讨中古汉语连词在整个汉语连词发展进程中的某些演变规律

本书从共时和历时、微观和宏观、汉外语际对比的角度切入，对汉语连词进行多侧面的考察和分析，揭示了连词的功能特点和使用规律。

Syncretism - where a single form serves two or more morphosyntactic functions - is a persistent problem at the syntax-morphology interface. It results from a 'mismatch' whereby the syntax of a language makes a particular distinction but the morphology does not. This pioneering book provides a full-length study of inflectional syncretism, presenting a typology of its occurrence across a wide range of languages. The implications of syncretism for the syntax-morphology interface have long been recognised: it argues either for an enriched model of feature structure (thereby preserving a direct link between function and form), or for the independence of morphological structure from syntactic structure. This book presents a compelling argument for the autonomy of morphology and the resulting analysis is illustrated in a series of formal case studies within Network Morphology. It will be welcomed by all linguists interested in the relation between words and the larger units of which they are a part.

Most of the world's languages have indefinite pronouns, that is, expressions such as someone, anything, and nowhere. Martin Haspelmath presents the first comprehensive and encyclopaedic investigation of indefinite pronouns in the languages of the world, mapping out the range of variation in their functional and formative properties. He shows that cross-linguistic diversity is severely constrained by a set of implicational universals and by a number of unrestricted universals. The author treats his subject matter broadly within the Humboldt-Greenberg tradition of language typology, but also considers the contribution of other theoretical approaches to an understanding of the functional and formal properties of indefinite pronouns. The book is organized into four logically ordered steps: selection of a part of grammar - indefinite pronouns - that can be identified across languages by formal and functional criteria; investigation of the properties of indefinite pronouns in a world-wide sample of forty languages; formulation of generalizations that emerge from the data, summarized in the form of an implicational map; and theoretically informed explanations of the generalizations, which go beyond system-internal statements, appealing to cognitive semantics, functional pressures, and universals of language change (especially grammaticalization).