The Aesthetics of Grammar: Sound and Meaning in the Languages of Mainland Southeast Asia (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781107007123)

The languages of mainland Southeast Asia evidence an impressive array of elaborate grammatical resources, such as echo words, phonaesthetic words, chameleon affixes, chiming derivatives, onomatopoeic forms, ideophones and expressives. Speakers of these languages fashion grammatical works of art in order to express and convey emotions, senses, conditions and perceptions that enrich discourse. This book provides a detailed comparative overview of the mechanisms by which aesthetic qualities of speech operate as part of speakers' grammatical knowledge. Each chapter focuses on a different language and explores the grammatical information of a number of well- and lesser-known languages from mainland Southeast Asia. It will be of great interest to syntacticians, morphologists, linguistic anthropologists, language typologists, cognitive scientists interested in language, and instructors of Southeast Asian languages.

Author: Jeffrey P. Williams
ISBN-10: 1107007127
ISBN-13: 9781107007123
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 11/28/2013
Pages: 308
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.28lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.75d