Edited by Karen Dakin, Claudia Parodi and Natalie Operstein
Language-contact phenomena in Mesoamerica and adjacent regions present an exciting field for research that has the potential to significantly contribute to our understanding of language contact and the role that it plays in language change. This volume presents and analyzes fresh empirical data… read more
Edited by Natalie Operstein and Aaron Huey Sonnenschein
Zapotec languages present a wide range of lexical, morphological, phonological, and syntactic means of indicating valence changes. Despite their significant theoretical interest, detailed descriptions of valence-changing phenomena in Zapotec are rare, comparative studies are practically… read more
This monograph proposes a new interpretation of the intrasegmental structure of consonants and provides the first systematic intra- and cross-linguistic study of consonant prevocalization. The proposed model represents consonants as inherently bigestural and makes strong predictions that are… read more
In their typological survey of pidgins, Parkvall and Bakker (2013) observe that pidgin discourse is characterized by an exceptionally low type-token ratio. Taking this observation as its starting point, the present paper examines the type-token ratio in Lingua Franca, a contact language… read more
Published literature on Lingua Franca contains divergent views regarding its place in the taxonomy of contact language types. While this language is traditionally regarded as a pidgin, some scholars consider it more accurate to view it as a koine. This paper shows that Lingua Franca exhibits… read more
The purpose of this introductory chapter is to provide an overview of the volume by outlining some of the major threads in the published literature on language contact and contact-induced change in Mesoamerica and adjacent areas, and by situating the volume and its individual chapters in the… read more
The best-documented variety of Lingua Franca (lf), the one spoken in Algiers just before the French colonization of Algeria, comprises three main Romance lexical components; in order of numerical importance, these are Italian, Spanish and French. While it is agreed that the French component is… read more
In their proposed taxonomy of loanword prosody types, Davis, Tsujimura & Tu (2012: 36) remark on the potentially interesting difference between the assimilation of loanwords into a majority prosodic pattern in the recipient language and their assimilation into a minority prosodic pattern. This… read more
This paper provides evidence that the dialect mixture to which speakers of Mesoamerican indigenous languages were exposed at the beginning of their contact with Spanish contained a number of different peninsular dialects. The specific focus of the study is on the phonological shape of early Spanish… read more
This chapter provides the first descriptive account of valence-changing devices in Zaniza Zapotec, an under-documented language from the Papabuco branch of Zapotec. As in the other Zapotec varieties, the number of valence-increasing mechanisms in Zaniza Zapotec outnumbers that of valence-lowering… read more
This chapter provides the first attempt to systematize data on valence-altering operations in Zapotec. It contributes both to cross-linguistic research on valence, by situating the valence phenomena of Zapotec within a common framework, and to Zapotecan linguistics, by discussing cross-family… read more
This chapter examines several types of synchronic and diachronic connections between valence and verb inflection in Zapotec. Among the issues examined are the origin of the division of Zapotec verbs into four inflectional classes, the alignment between verb classes and valence, the origin of the… read more
Serving as an overview to the language family and the volume, this chapter provides a brief history of research on Zapotec, a brief overview of the main grammatical features found in Zapotec languages, brief summaries of the individual chapters found in the volume, a brief resume of the… read more
