This is the first detailed descriptive grammar in English (indeed, in any language other than Japanese) dedicated to the Western Old Japanese, which was spoken in the Kansai region of Japan during the seventh and eighth centuries. The grammar is divided into two volumes, with the first volume dealing with sources, script, phonology, lexicon and nominals. The second volume focuses on adjectives, verbs, adverbs, particles and conjunctions. In addition to descriptive data, the grammar also includes comparisons between Western Old Japanese and Eastern Old Japanese and Ryukyuan, together with a...

The present study is the first large-scale investigation of the syntax of Old Japanese (mainly eighth-century Japanese). It gives a detailed account of complement clauses and related constructions in Old Japanese, based on an exhaustive investigation of the extant text corpus. The aim is twofold: first, to give a synchronic description of the types of complementation which are found in this period and of the system they are part of. Second, to address the diachronic issues of the origin of the Old Japanese complement system and more widely the pre-history of complementation in Japanese....

Linguists and specialists on Siberia are generally familiar with the name Ket, which designates a small ethnic group on the Yenisei and their language, widely regarded as a linguistic enigma in many respects. Ket is a severely endangered language with today less than 500 native speakers. Together with Yugh, Kott, Arin, Assan and Pumpokol, all of which are completely extinct, it forms the Yeniseic family of languages, which has no known linguistic relatives. This Grammar of Ket constitutes the first book of its kind in English and is structured as follows: (1) Introduction; (2) The Kets...

The Yiyu (Beilu yiyu) - a Chinese-Middle Mongol glossary included in the Dengtan Bijiu (a military handbook for generals compiled during the Wanli period of the Ming dynasty) - is an important source regarding the history of the Mongolian language. The manuscript version of Yiyu is a copy made for Louis Ligeti on his first expedition to China (1928-31) and is now conserved by the Oriental Collection of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In his edition the author reconstructs the often chaotic material of the Yiyu with the help of other available Yiyu texts. Next to its contribution in...

Sakishima comprises a group of islands situated between Okinawa and Taiwan, forming a culturally important bridge between Japan and Taiwan. Studies of the languages of the Ryukyuan islands are valuable for an accurate understanding of the linguistic history of Japan as a whole.

Together with Part 1 of the same grammar (Sources, Script and Phonology, Lexicon and Nominals), this two-volume set represents the most detailed and exhaustive description ever done of any language, including Japanese of the Old Japanese language of the Yamato region during the Asuka Nara period. It presents hundreds of examples drawn not only from the major Old Japanese texts such as the Man'yoshu, the Senmyo, the Kojiki kayo and the Nihonshoki kayo but also from all minor extant texts such as the Fudoky kayo, the Bussoku seki ka, and others....

In this book, Akos Bertalan Apatoczky offers a complete reconstruction of the Chinese-Mongol vocabulary of the 17th century comprehensive Chinese military work called Lulongsai lue (盧龍塞略, LLSL), a document of key importance containing one of the last Sino-Mongol glossaries without proper critical reconstruction until now. The work has resulted in a clarification of the earlier sources the compilers of LLSL used in the bilingual part. The author argues that contrary to what scholars have thought of it until now, the linguistic corpus of the glossary is not...

This volume contains a state-of-the-art survey of Khitan Small Script studies, accompanied by a critical analysis of two recently discovered and previously unpublished epigraphic documents. The texts are reproduced in the original script, in transcription as well as in facsimile, and are supported by a preliminary translation, linguistic comments and index. This is the first ever critical edition of Khitan texts, and the two epigraphic documents analysed in the volume constitute a substantial addition to the extant corpus of Khitan Small Script materials.

This book marks the first attempt to rationalise the meaning of Korean intonation, especially its boundary tones. Unlike other languages where various pragmatic and discourse meanings are delivered through the types of pitch accent (prominent pitch movement on stressed syllable) and the types of phrase-final boundary tones, Korean delivers the pragmatic/discourse meaning mainly by the types of phrase-final boundary tones. This is possible because Korean has at least nine boundary tones while other languages have two (or, even four or five if the boundary tone of a smaller phrase are...

Drawing from Tangut philological sources and from the author's personal fieldwork on the closely related Rgyalrong languages, this book is the first application of the comparative method to the study of Tangut. It contains a detailed account of Tangut historical phonology within the proposed Macro-Rgyalrongic group, and over twenty new sound laws are proposed. It also discusses the issue of language classification and the position of Tangut in the Sino-Tibetan family. Base sur la philologie tangoute et sur les etudes de terrain de l'auteur sur les langues rgyalrongs, qui y sont prochement...