Language Universals

by Morten H. Christiansen, Christopher Collins, Christopher Collins, et al.

Book Overview

Languages differ from one another in bewildering and seemingly arbitrary ways. For example, in English, the verb precedes the direct object ('understand the proof'), but in Japanese, the direct object comes first. In some languages, such as Mohawk, it is not even possible to establish a basic word order. Nonetheless, languages do share certain regularities in how they are structured and used. The exact nature and extent of these "language universals"...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195305337
• ISBN13: 9780195305333
• Release Date: November 2099
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 368 Pages