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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.
List of contents
- Abbreviations
- Notes on Contributors
- Maps
- Introduction
- Maria Polinsky
- Part I: General overview of the Caucasus
- 1. Languages and sociolinguistics of the Caucasus
- Nina Dobrushina, Michael Daniel, and Yuri Koryakov
- 2. North Caucasus: Regions and their Demography
- Konstantin Kazenin
- Part II: Nakh-Dagestanian Languages
- 3. Nakh-Dagestanian Languages
- Dmitry Ganenkov and Timur Maisak
- 4. Dargwa
- Nina Sumbatova
- 5. Lak
- Victor A. Friedman
- 6. Avar
- Diana Forker
- 7. Archi
- Marina Chumakina
- 8. Chechen and Ingush
- Erwin R. Komen, Zarina Molochieva, and Johanna Nichols
- Part III: Northwest Caucasian Languages
- 9. Northwest Caucasian Languages
- Peter Arkadiev and Yury Lander
- 10. Abaza and Abkhaz
- Brian O'Herin
- Part IV: Kartvelian Languages
- 11. Kartvelian, or South Caucasian Languages
- Yakov G. Testelets
- 12. Megrelian
- Alexander Rostovtsev-Popiel
- Part V: Indo-European Languages
- 13. Indo-European Languages of the Caucasus
- Oleg Belyaev
- 14. Iron Ossetic
- David Erschler
- Part VI: Phenomena
- 15. Segmental Phonetics and Phonology in Caucasian Languages
- Gasper Begus
- 16. Word stress in Languages of the Caucasus
- Lena Borise
- 17. Tone and Intonation in Languages of the Caucasus
- Lena Borise
- 18. Ergativity in the Caucasus
- Dmitry Ganenkov
- 19. The Nominal Domain in Languages of the Caucasus
- Balkiz Ozturk and Omer Eren
- 20. Agreement in Languages of the Caucasus
- Steven Foley
- 21. Binding and Indexicality in the Caucasus
- Dmitry Ganenkov and Natalia Bogomolova
- 22. Correlatives in Languages of the Caucasus
- Omer Demirok and Balkiz Ozturk
- 23. Ellipsis in Languages of the Caucasus
- David Erschler
- 24. Information Structure in Languages of the Caucasus
- Diana Forker
- References
- Appendix I: Language names
- Appendix II: Transliteration tables
- Index
About the author
Maria Polinsky is Professor of Linguistics and Associate Director of the Language Science Centre at the University of Maryland. She is the author of Heritage Languages and Their Speakers (2018), Deconstructing Ergativity (2016) and The Russian Language in the Twentieth Century (1996). She has done extensive primary work on several language families, in particular, on languages of the Caucasus: Nakh-Dagestanian, Norwest Caucasian, and Kartvelian. Her research emphasizes the importance of lesser-studied languages for theoretical linguistics.
Summary
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.
