The Ancient Languages of Asia and the Americas

Description

This book, derived from the acclaimed Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages, describes the ancient languages of Asia and the Americas, for the convenience of students and specialists working in that area. Each chapter of the work focuses on an individual language or, in some instances, a set of closely related varieties of a language. Providing a full descriptive presentation, each of these chapters examines the writing system(s), phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon of that language, and places the language within its proper linguistic and historical context. The volume brings together an international array of scholars, each a leading specialist in ancient language study. While designed primarily for scholars and students of linguistics, this work will prove invaluable to all whose studies take them into the realm of ancient language. Half-title Title Copyright Contents Figures Tables Map Contributors Notes on numbering and cross-referencing Abbreviations Preface Preliminary remarks Format and conventions Further acknowledgments Preface to the first edition Chapter 1 Language in Ancient Asia and the Americas: an introduction Bibliography Chapter 2 Sanskrit 1. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS 2. WRITING SYSTEM 3. PHONOLOGY 3.1 Diachronic overview 3.2 Vowels 3.3 Consonants 3.4 Phonological alternations 3.4.1 External sandhi 3.4.2 Internal consonantal alternations 3.4.2.1 Voicing and aspiration 3.4.2.2 Velars and palatals 3.4.2.3 Palatals and retroflexes 3.4.3 Internal vocalic alternations 3.5 Syllable structure and phonotaxis 3.6 Accent 3.7 Diachronic developments 4. MORPHOLOGY 4.1 Word formation 4.2 Nominal morphology 4.2.1 Gender 4.2.2 Number 4.2.3 Case 4.2.4 Nominal stem-classes 4.2.4.1 Vowel stems 4.2.4.2 Consonant stems 4.2.5 Endings 4.2.6 Comparison of adjectives 4.2.7 Pronouns 4.2.7.1 Personal pronouns 4.2.7.2 Gender-marking pronouns 4.3 Verbal morphology 4.3.1 Person and number 4.3.2 Voice 4.3.3 Tense-aspect 4.3.4 Perfect stemmorphology 4.3.5 Primary and secondary endings 4.3.6 Present stem morphology 4.3.7 Aorist stem morphology 4.3.8 Mood 4.3.8.1 Indicative 4.3.8.2 Imperative 4.3.8.3 Optative 4.3.8.4 Subjunctive 4.3.8.5 Injunctive 4.3.9 Nonfinite verbals 4.3.9.1 Infinitive 4.3.9.2 Gerund 4.3.9.3 Tense-stem participles 4.3.9.4 Past passive participle 4.3.9.5 Past active participle 4.3.9.6 Gerundive (or future passive participle) 4.4 Compounds 4.4.1 Verbal compounds 4.4.2 Nominal compounds 4.4.2.1 Dvandvas 4.4.2.2 Tatpurusa 4.4.2.3 Bahuvrihi 4.5 Numerals 5. SYNTAX 5.1 Case usage 5.2 Word order 5.3 Cliticization 5.4 Subordination 5.5 Agreement 5.6 Stylistic syntactic developments 6. LEXICON 7. READING LIST Bibliography Chapter 3 Middle Indic 1. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS 1.1 Inscriptions 1.2 Pali (Pa.) 1.3 Gandhari Prakrit 1.4 Prakrits “proper” (Pkt.) 1.5 “Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit” 1.6 Late Prakrit (Apabhramsa) 2. WRITING SYSTEMS 3. PHONOLOGY 3.1 Vowels 3.2 Consonants 3.2.1 Consonant clusters 3.3 Phonotaxis 3.4 Accent 3.5 The Middle Indic phonological system 4. MORPHOLOGY 4.1 Word formation 4.2 Nominal morphology 4.2.1 Gender 4.2.2 Number 4.2.3 Case 4.2.4 Nominal stem-classes 4.2.4.1 Consonant stems 4.2.4.2 Vowel stems 4.2.5 Endings 4.2.6 Comparison of adjectives 4.2.7 Pronouns 4.2.7.1 Personal pronouns 4.2.7.2 Gender-marking pronouns 4.3 Verbal morphology 4.3.1 Person and number 4.3.2 Voice 4.3.3 Tense 4.3.4 Stem formation 4.3.5 Present stem morphology 4.3.6 Preterite stemmorphology 4.3.7 Mood 4.3.7.1 Imperative 4.3.7.2 Optative 4.3.8 Verb endings 4.3.9 Nonfinite verbals 4.3.9.1 Infinitive 4.3.9.2 Gerund 4.3.9.3 Tense-stem participles 4.3.9.4 Past passive participle 4.3.9.5 Past active participle 4.3.9.6 Gerundive 4.4 Compounds 4.5 Numerals 5. SYNTAX 6. LEXICON 7. READING LIST Bibliography Chapter 4 Old Tamil 1. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS 2. WRITING SYSTEM 3. PHONOLOGY 3.1 Consonants 3.2 Vowels 3.3 Morphophonemic variation 3.4 Phonotaxis 3.5 Prosody 4. MORPHOLOGY 4.1 Word formation and word classes 4.2 Nominal morphology 4.2.1 Gender 4.2.2 Number 4.2.3 Stem-forms 4.2.4 Case 4.2.4.1 Nominative 4.2.4.2 Accusative 4.2.4.3 Dative 4.2.4.4 Instrumental 4.2.4.5 Sociative 4.2.4.6 Equative 4.2.4.7 Genitive 4.2.4.8 Locative 4.2.4.9 Vocative 4.2.4.10 Absence of case-marking 4.2.5 Person 4.2.6 Pronouns 4.2.6.1 Personal pronouns 4.2.6.2 Demonstrative and interrogative pronouns 4.3 Verbal morphology 4.3.1 Stem-forms 4.3.2 Verbal conjugations 4.3.2 Nonindicative moods 4.3.2.1 Imperative 4.3.2.2 Optative 4.3.3 Indicative mood 4.3.3.1 Tense markers 4.3.3.2 Personal endings 4.3.4 Periphrastic constructions 4.3.5 Nonfinite verbals 4.3.5.1 Primary forms 4.3.5.2 Secondary forms 4.3.5.3 Verbal nouns 4.3.5.4 Nonfinite verbal constructs 4.4 Adjectives and adverbs 4.4.1 Adjectives 4.4.2 Adverbs 5. SYNTAX 5.1 Word order 5.2 Sentence structure 5.3 Agreement 5.4 Pro-drop 5.5 Clitics 5.6 Compound and complex clauses 6. LEXICON 7. DISCOURSE Abbreviations Texts cited Bibliography Chapter 5 Old Persian 1. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS 2. WRITING SYSTEM 2.1 Graphemic shape and inventory 2.2 Orthographic conventions 2.3 Origin of the script 2.4 Decipherment 3. PHONOLOGY 3.1 Phonemic inventory 3.1.1 Consonants 3.1.2 Vowels 3.2 Phonotaxis 3.3 Syllable structure 3.4 Accent 3.5 Diachronic developments 3.5.1 Consonants 3.5.2 Vowels 4. MORPHOLOGY 4.1 Morphological type 4.2 Nominal morphology 4.2.1 Stem formation 4.2.2 Nominal declension 4.3 Pronominal morphology 4.3.1 Personal pronouns 4.3.2 Demonstrative pronouns 4.3.3 Relative and interrogative pronouns 4.3.4 Pronominal adjectives 4.4 Verbal morphology 4.4.1 Voice 4.4.2 Mood 4.4.3 Tense 4.4.4 Verbal stems 4.4.5 Verbal endings 4.4.6 Nonfinite verbal forms 4.5 Compounds 4.6 Numerals 5. SYNTAX 5.1 Word order 5.2 Topicalization 5.3 Clitics 5.4 Coordination and subordination 5.5 Relative constructions 5.6 Agreement 5.7 Stylistics 6. LEXICON 7. READING LIST Abbreviations Bibliography Chapter 6 Avestan 1. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS 2. WRITING SYSTEM 3. PHONOLOGY 3.1 Phonemic status 3.2 Consonants 3.3 Vowels 3.4 Diachronic developments 3.4.1 Proto-Indo-Iranian 3.4.2 Indo-European laryngeals 3.4.3 Stops 3.4.4 Fricatives 3.4.5 Liquids 3.4.6 Nasals 3.4.7 Glides 3.4.8 Vowels 3.4.9 Diphthongs 3.4.10 Epenthesis 4. MORPHOLOGY 4.1 Morphological type 4.2 Nominal morphology 4.3 Pronominal morphology 4.3.1 Personal pronouns 4.3.2 Demonstrative pronouns 4.4 Verbal morphology 4.5 Numerals 5. SYNTAX 5.1 Word order 5.2 Clitics 6. LEXICON 7. READING LIST Bibliography Chapter 7 Pahlavi 1. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS 2. WRITING SYSTEM 3. PHONOLOGY 3.1 Phonemic inventory 3.1.1 Consonants 3.1.2 Vowels 3.2 Interesting and significant diachronic developments 4. MORPHOLOGY 4.1 Morphological type 4.2 Nominal morphology 4.3 Pronominal morphology 4.4 Verbal morphology 4.5 Numerals 5. SYNTAX 5.1 Word order 6. READING LIST Bibliography Chapter 8 Ancient Chinese 1. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS 1.1 Introduction 1.2 The linguistic family of Chinese 1.3 Chronological stages 1.4 Dialectal variation 2. WRITING SYSTEMS 2.1 The origin of Chinese writing 2.2 The nature of the writing system 2.3 Evolution of the writing system 3. PHONOLOGY 3.1 Reconstruction of Middle Chinese phonology 3.1.1 Consonants and vowels 3.1.2 Tones 3.2 Reconstruction of Old Chinese phonology 3.2.1 Consonants and vowels 3.3 Significant diachronic processes linking Old and Middle Chinese 4. MORPHOLOGY 4.1 Compounding 4.2 Reduplication 4.3 Affixation 4.3.1 Prefixes 4.3.2 Suffix *-s 4.3.3 Infixes 5. SYNTAX 5.1 Word order 5.1.1 VO versus OV 5.1.2 Prepositions or postpositions? 5.2 Parts of speech 5.2.1 Shizi (full words) 5.2.1.1 Nouns 5.2.1.2 Verbs 5.2.1.3 Adjectives Numerals 5.2.2 Xuzi (empty words) 5.2.2.1 Pronouns 5.2.2.2 Adverbs 5.2.2.3 Prepositions 5.2.2.4 Conjunctions 5.2.2.5 Particles 5.3 Elements of sentence structure 5.3.1 Subject and predicate 5.3.2 Object and complement 5.3.3 Adjectivals and adverbials 5.4 Sentence-types 5.4.1 Interrogative sentences 5.4.2 Imperative and exclamatory sentences 5.4.3 Copular sentences 5.4.4 Passive sentences 5.4.5 Complex sentences 5.5 Significant diachronic developments between Late Archaic and Early Medieval Chinese 6. LEXICON 6.1 Historical development of the lexicon 6.2 Inherited elements and loanwords Bibliography Principal sources Additional references Chapter 9 Mayan 1. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS 1.1 Linguistic prehistory and history 1.2 The people and their culture 1.3 The documents and their content 2. WRITING SYSTEM 2.1 Principles of Mayan writing 2.2 Evolution of Mayan writing 2.3 Origins of Mayan writing 2.4 Decipherment of Mayan writing 3. PHONOLOGY 3.1 Consonants 3.2 Vowels 3.3 Syllable structure and phonotactic constraints 3.4 Morphophonemic processes 3.4.1 External sandhi 3.4.2 Contraction 3.4.3 Consonant cluster reduction (sandhi) 3.5 Diachronic developments 4. MORPHOLOGY 4.1 Word structure 4.2 Nominal morphology 4.2.1 Noun uses 4.2.2 Possessive morphology 4.2.3 Pronouns 4.3 Verbal morphology 4.3.1 Tense-aspect and mood 4.3.2 Voice 4.3.3 Verb classes 4.3.3.1 Transitive verbs 4.3.3.2 Intransitive verbs 4.3.3.3 Positional verbs 4.4 Derivational processes 4.5 Compounds 4.6 Numerals 5. SYNTAX 5.1 Word order 5.2 Coordinate and subordinate clauses 5.3 Clitics 6. LEXICON 6.1 The inherited element 6.2 Influence of other languages 7. READING LIST Bibliography Chapter 10 Epi-Olmec 1. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS 2. WRITING SYSTEM 2.1 Decipherment 2.2 The Epi-Olmec script 3. PHONOLOGY 3.1 Phoneme inventory 3.2 Vowel length 3.3 Phonotaxis and diachronic developments 4. MORPHOLOGY 4.1 Word classes 4.2 Person and Number Marking 4.2.1 Person 4.2.2 Pluralization 4.2.3 Gender 4.3 Verb morphology 4.3.1 Verb classes 4.3.1.1 Transitivity 4.3.1.2 Positional roots 4.3.2 Aspect and mood 4.3.3 Incorporation 4.3.4 Derivational prefixes 4.3.5 Non-aspect/mood suffixes on verbs 4.3.6 Nominalizers 4.4 Nouns and Noun Phrases 4.4.1 Possessive constructions 4.4.2 Markers of noun phrase function: core arguments, peripheral arguments, locatives, and manner 4.4.3 Enclitic relativizer 4.4.4 Numerals 4.4.5 Demonstratives 4.4.6 Interrogative-indefinites 4.5 Time words 5. SYNTAX 5.1 Word order 5.2 Subordination 5.3 Unattested traits of Epi-Olmec grammar 5.3.1 Relativized VPs 5.3.2 Negatives 5.3.3 Causative 5.3.4 Antipassive 5.3.5 Passive and reflexive 5.3.6 Syntactic reflexive 5.3.7 Reciprocal 5.3.8 Indefinite subject 5.3.9 Auxiliaries 5.3.10 Independent personal pronouns 6. LEXICON 7. THE PLACE OF EPI-OLMEC IN THE MIJE-SOKEAN FAMILY 7.1 Epi-Olmec and innovations in the diversification of Sokean 7.2 Elite innovations 7.2.1 Sokean optative 7.2.2 Mije-Sokean plural markers Acknowledgments Phonological transcriptions Morphological transcriptions Example sentence format Grammatical codes Absolutive person markers Ergative person markers Derivational prefixes on verbs Verb suffixes Plural person marking suffixes Aspect/mood suffixes Stative-deriving suffix Noun-deriving suffixes Locative enclitics Subordinating enclitics Bibliography Zapotec appendix Bibliography Appendix 1 Reconstructed ancient languages Introduction Phonology Regularity of sound change Proto-phonetics Limitations on reconstruction Reconstruction of phonemic systems The uniqueness of sound change Morphology The nature ofmorphological reconstruction Reconstructing morphology Syntax Lexicon Conclusions Bibliography Appendix 2 Full tables of contents from The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages, and from the other volumes in the paperback series Table of contents of WAL Table of contents of The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor Table of contents of The Ancient Languages of Europe Table of contents of The Ancient Languages of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Aksum Table of contents of The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia Index of general subjects Index of grammar and linguistics Index of languages Index of named linguistic laws and principles