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Language Structure and Environment
Social, cultural, and natural factors
Language Structure and Environment is a broad introduction to how languages are shaped by their environment. It makes the argument that the social, cultural, and natural environment of speakers influences the structures and development of the languages they speak. After a general overview, the contributors explain in a number of detailed case studies how specific cultural, societal, geographical, evolutionary and meta-linguistic pressures determine the development of specific grammatical features and the global structure of a varied selection of languages. This is a work of meticulous scholarship at the forefront of a burgeoning field of linguistics.
[Cognitive Linguistic Studies in Cultural Contexts, 6] 2015. vi, 370 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 1 June 2015
Published online on 1 June 2015
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
- Chapter 1. The influence of social, cultural, and natural factors on language structure: An overviewRik De Busser | pp. 1–28
- Grammar and culture
- Chapter 2. On the logical necessity of a cultural and cognitive connection for the origin of all aspects of linguistic structureRandy J. LaPolla | pp. 31–44
- Chapter 3. The body, the universe, society and language: Germanic in the grip of the unknownKate Burridge | pp. 45–76
- Chapter 4. When culture grammaticalizes: The pronominal system of Onya DaratUri Tadmor | pp. 77–98
- Chapter 5. The cultural bases of linguistic form: The development of Nanti quotative evidentialsLev Michael | pp. 99–130
- Grammar and society
- Chapter 6. Societies of intimates and linguistic complexityPeter Trudgill | pp. 133–148
- Chapter 7. On the relation between linguistic and social factors in migrant language contactMichael Clyne, Yvette Slaughter, John Hajek and Doris Schüpbach | pp. 149–176
- Grammar and geography
- Chapter 8. Topography in language: Absolute Frame of Reference and the Topographic Correspondence HypothesisBill Palmer | pp. 177–226
- Chapter 9. Walk around the clock: The shaping of a (counter-)clockwise distinction in Siar directionalsFriedel Martin Frowein | pp. 227–260
- Chapter 10. Types of spread zones: Open and closed, horizontal and verticalJohanna Nichols | pp. 261–286
- Grammar and evolution
- Chapter 11. The role of adaptation in understanding linguistic diversityGary Lupyan and Rick Dale | pp. 289–316
- Grammar and the field of linguistics
- Chapter 12. On becoming an object of study: Legitimization in the discipline of LinguisticsCatherine L. Easton and Tonya N. Stebbins | pp. 319–352
- Subjects and Languages Index | pp. 353–366
- Author Index | pp. 367–370
Cited by (14)
Cited by 14 other publications
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Zhang, Yue
Duan, Mingyuan & Shangyi Zhou
Moran, Steven, Nicholas A. Lester & Eitan Grossman
Abainia, Kheireddine
Antunes, Nicolas, Wulf Schiefenhövel, Francesco d’Errico, William E. Banks, Marian Vanhaeren & Richard A Blythe
Ye, Zhengdao
Cooperrider, Kensy, James Slotta & Rafael Núñez
Ono, Tsuyoshi & Sandra Thompson
2017. Negative scope, temporality, fixedness, and right- and left-branching. Studies in Language 41:3 ► pp. 543 ff.
Greenhill, Simon J.
LaPolla, Randy J.
2016. Review of Evans (2014): The language myth: Why language is not an instinct. Studies in Language 40:1 ► pp. 235 ff.
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