John Hewson

Article and Noun in English

Canadian Museum of Civilization

Canadian Ethnology Service

This proto-language dictionary contains over 4,000 entries and an extensive index of English glosses, and was produced from computer programmes that reconstructed the sound systems of four Algonquian languages, from some 30,000 lexical items recorded by Leonard Bloomfield.

A Computer-generated Dictionary of Proto-Algonquian

This monograph presents a general picture of the evolution of IE verbal systems within a coherent cognitive framework. The work encompasses all the language families of the IE phylum, from prehistory to present day languages. Inspired by the ideas of Roman Jakobson and Gustave Guillaume the authors relate tense and aspect to underlying cognitive processes, and show that verbal systems have a staged development of time representations (chronogenesis). They view linguistic change as systemic and trace the evolution of the earliest tense systems by (a) aspectual split and (b) aspectual merger from the original aspectual contrasts of PIE, the evidence for such systemic change showing clearly in the paradigmatic morphology of the daughter languages. The nineteen chapters cover first the ancient documentation, then those families whose historical data are from a more recent date. The last chapters deal with the systemic evolution of languages that are descended from ancient forbears such as Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, and are completed by a chapter on the practical and theoretical conclusions of the work.

Theory, Typology, Diachrony

Tense and Aspect in Indo-European Languages

Vít Bubeník

Sarah R. Rose

The product of a group of scholars who have been working on new directions in Historical Linguistics, this book is focused on questions of grammatical change, and the central issue of grammaticalization in Indo-European languages. Several studies examine particular problems in specific languages, but often with implications for the IE phylum as a whole. Given the historical scope of the data (over a period of four millennia) long range grammatical changes such as the development of gender differences, strategies of definiteness, the prepositional phrase, or of the syntax of the verbal diathesis and aspect, are also treated. The shifting relevance of morphology to syntax, and syntax to morphology, a central motif of this research, has provoked lively debate in the discipline of Historical Linguistics.

Papers Presented at the Workshop on Indo-European Linguistics at the XVIIIth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Montreal, 2007

Grammatical Change in Indo-European Languages

This study is based on the writings and teaching of Gustave Guillaume (1883-1960), one of the earliest proponents of what is today called Cognitive Linguistics. It offers (1) a much needed presentation in English of Guillaume's view of the French system, (2) the clarifications added by his successors, and (3) much empirical detail added by the author from his own extensive experience with the material.The word "system" in this work, as explained in the very first chapter, is intended in the Saussurian sense of a closed set of contrasts. The method is first briefly applied to English, in order to familiarize the reader with the methodological concepts and terminology, and comparisons are made with the general outline of the French system.The major sub-systems of the French verb are analysed in the four central chapters (4-7) entitled Aspect, Voice, Tense, Mood, followed by a chapter on systemic comparison, and two final chapters of detailed analysis of the verbal morphology and its relevance to the cognitive system.

The Cognitive System of the French Verb

Or, The Trial of the Eleven Disciples of Christ, in a Court of Law and Equity, as Charged with Stealing the Crucified Body of Christ Out of the Sepulchre. Humbly Dedicated to the Whole Nation of the Jews, which are Scattered Abroad on the Face of the Earth: and to the Deists of Modern Times. Designed, Also, as a Help to Wavering Christians. An Original Work

Christ Rejected

Pacifique

Bernard Francis

First published (1939), as Leçons grammaticales théoriques et pratiques de la langue micmaque of Rev. Father Pacifique Buisson, The Mi'kmaw Grammar of Father Pacifique is a vast and important collection of information on the Mi'kmaw language. It represents a tradition of Mi'kmaw grammatical studies by missionary priests that spans more than 200 years, from the days of abbé Pierre Maillard (ca. 1710-1762), to Father Pacifique, who, although he intended his grammar to be a guide to other priests who wanted to learn Mi'kmaw, seems to have been the last priest to speak the language fluently. The purpose of updating the orthography is, of course, to give the reader who does not know the language exact information on the pronunciation of each Mi'kmaw word. This was not an important goal for Pacifique, since he recommends, in the original, that the pronunciation should be obtained from a native speaker. Now that the language has been lost from many communities so that native speakers are not as available as they once were, it has become crucially important to use the new, exact, orthography, so that the written word can be used to convey as much information as possible on the accepted pronunciations.

John Hewson

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