The Oxford Handbook of Languages of the CaucasusMaria Polinsky The Oxford Handbook of Languages of the Caucasus is an introduction to and overview of the linguistically diverse languages of southern Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. Though the languages of the Caucasus have often been mischaracterized or exoticized, many of them have cross-linguistically rare features found in few or no other languages. This handbook presents facts and descriptions of the languages written by experts. The first half of the book is an introduction to the languages, with the linguistic profiles enriched by demographic research about their speakers. It features overviews of the main language families as well as detailed grammatical descriptions of several individual languages. The second half of the book delves more deeply into theoretical analyses of features, such as agreement, ellipsis, and discourse properties, which are found in some languages of the Caucasus. Promising areas for future research are highlighted throughout the handbook, which will be of interest to linguists of all subfields. |
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Abaza Abkhaz addition adjectives adverbial Adyghe agreement analysis appear argument Armenian Avar Caucasian Caucasus chapter Chechen Circassian clause clitic common Compare complement complex conditional consonant constructions contrast converb correlatives Dargwa dative demonstrative derived described dialects direct object discussion distinction dynamic verbs ergative example expressed final finite forms function future gender Georgian head indicative inflection Ingush interrogative intransitive Kabardian Kartvelian languages lexical linguistic major marker marking meaning Megrelian morphological Nakh-Dagestanian negative nominal non-finite noun object oblique occur Ossetic paradigm participle past pattern perfective person phonetic phrase plural position possessive possible postpositions predicate prefix present preverbs pronouns properties question reference reflexive relative clause root Russian semantic shows speakers stem stops stress structure studies suffix syllable Tabasaran Table tense third tion transitive types typically Ubykh verb verbal voiced vowel