Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

good books; typology & verse forms

From:And Rosta <a.rosta@...>
Date:Saturday, March 6, 2004, 18:43
[combining messages bcs Listserv is spurning me for sins
of blathersomeness]

Tom:
> > > The is a programmatic but fascinating article on this by Patricia > > > Donnegan and David Stampe in CLS (Proc. of the nth regional meeting > > > of the Chicago Linguistic Society) from c. 1983. For the full > > > reference, I suggest either Google or Dirk; each is pretty reliable! > > Or I can do it -- I am a *current* officer of the Chicago Linguistic > Society, afterall. I have access to all the proceedings for all > four decades of CLS's existence, in fact. If you still need it, I can > take a look next time I'm in the CLS office.
I subsequently posted the ref (it's in the 1983 parasession vol) to the list. But if you in your abundant free time fancied posting a precis to the list, I'm sure it would be read with much interest. Doug Dee:
> Some of my other favorite books are in a series from Cambridge U. Press > that includes: > > _Gender_ by Greville Corbett > _Number_ by Greville Corbett > _Tense_ by Berbard Comrie > _Aspect_ by Bernard Comrie > _Case_ by Barry Blake > _Definiteness_ by Christopher Lyons > _Ergativity_ by RMW Dixon
These are all excellent surveys of the ways natlangs do things (except perhaps for _Aspect_, which some find disappointingly thin & superficial, and for _Definiteness_, which I haven't seen). One from the same series that I found especially useful for conlanging was F.R. Palmer's _Mood and modality_: on every page you find something that makes you think "Yes! My conlang has GOT to have a way of expressing that!". In fact, that is the *only* linguistics book that has had any demonstrable direct effect on my conlanging (even though it was 15 years ago). --And.