This volume examines the concept of 'word' in its many guises and across many languages. 'Word' is a cornerstone for the understanding of any language: it is a pronounceable phonological unit; it has a meaning and a morphological structure and syntactic function; and it exists as a dictionary entry and an orthographic item. Speakers also understand 'word' as a psychological reality: they can talk about the meaning of a word and its suitability in certain social contexts. However, the relationship between the phonological word and grammatical word can be more complex, in that a phonological word can consist of more than one grammatical word, or vice versa. Following an introduction outlining the parameters of variation for phonological word and grammatical word, the chapters in this volume explore how the concept of 'word' can be applied to languages of diverse typological make-up, from the highly synthetic to highly analytic. The data are drawn from languages of Australia and the Pacific (Fijian, Yalaku, Yidiñ), the Americas (Chamacoco, Murui, Jarawara), Asia (Hmong, Japanese, Lao), and Africa (Makary Kotoko), with a final chapter that investigates the properties of 'word' from a cross-linguistic perspective. The volume advances our understanding of what constitutes a word, and will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of typology, linguistic anthropology, phonology, and grammar.
Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Distinguished Professor and Director of the Language and Culture Research Centre, James Cook University, R. M. W. Dixon, Adjunct Professor and Deputy Director of the Language and Culture Research Centre, James Cook University, Nathan M. White, PhD Student, Language and Culture Research Centre, James Cook University
Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald is Distinguished Professor, Australian Laureate Fellow, and Director of the Language and Culture Research Centre at James Cook University. She is a major authority on languages of the Arawak family, from northern Amazonia, and has written grammars of Bare (1995) and Warekena (1998), plus
A Grammar of Tariana, from Northwest Amazonia (CUP, 2003) and
The Manambu Language of East Sepik, Papua New Guinea (OUP, 2008; paperback 2010), in addition to essays on various typological and areal features of South American and Papuan languages and typological issues including evidentials, classifiers, and serial verbs. Her other recent publications with OUP include
Imperatives and Commands (2010),
Languages of the Amazon (2012; paperback 2015),
The Art of Grammar (2015),
How Gender Shapes the World (2016; paperback 2018), and
Serial Verbs (2018).
R. M. W. Dixon is Adjunct Professor and Deputy Director of the Language and Culture Research Centre at James Cook University. He has published grammars of a number of Australian languages (including Dyirbal and Yidiñ), as well as studies of Boumaa Fijian (University of Chicago Press, 1988) and Jarawara (OUP, 2004). His book
The Rise and Fall of Languages (CUP, 1997) expounded a punctuated equilibrium model for language development; this is the basis for his detailed case study
Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development (CUP, 2002). His many publications with OUP include the three-volume work
Basic Linguistic Theory (2010-12),
Making New Words (2014),
Edible Gender, Mother-in-Law Style, and Other Grammatical Wonders (2015; paperback 2020), and
Are Some Languages Better than Others? (2016). His academic biography,
I am a Linguist, was published by Brill in 2011.
Nathan M. White is a PhD student at the Language and Culture Research Centre at James Cook University. He studied Intercultural Studies at Biola University and completed an MA in Linguistics at Trinity Western University in 2014. He has taught courses in Linguistics at Fresno Pacific University and College of the Sequoias. His research interests include language typology and documentation, natural language processing methods for minority languages, East and Southeast Asian languages, Semitic languages, and indigenous languages of California. The topic of his PhD thesis is 'The Hmong Language of North Queensland',
