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Since antiquity scholars have been fascinated by the phenomena of case. The explanation for this fascination is as Hjelmslev already pointed out over fifty years ago the fact that he who can unravel the meaning of case-relations has the key to language structure as a whole.

For over three years a team of twenty scholars affiliated with the Linguistics Department of Leuven University in Belgium has concentrated on case phenomena in different languages both Indo- and non-Indo-European. It is the first time that such a large scale investigation into case has been undertaken. Noteworthy is also its reliance on computer-stored corpora of authentic material.

The results are published as a series (Case and Grammatical Relations across Languages) of which the first volume a bibliography appeared in 1994.

The first volume on the dative case contains 13 articles each of which gives a detailed syntactic-semantic description of the dative or its counterparts in a particular language. In addition to the lexico-syntactic frames in which they occur a number of textual and extra-linguistic factors are taken into account. Languages investigated are English (K. Davidse) German (L. Draye) Dutch (W. Van Belle & W. Van Langendonck) Afrikaans (L.G. de Stadler) Latin (W. Van Hoecke) French (L. Melis) Spanish (N. Delbecque & B. Lamiroy) Portuguese (R. de Andrade) Polish (B. Rudzka-Ostyn) Hungarian (G. Tóth) Pashto (W. Skalmowski) Hebrew (P. Swiggers) and Orizaba Nahuatl (D. Tuggy).

This edition has been replaced by a new edition and is no longer available for purchase.

A replacement of the author's well-known book on Translation Theory In Search of a Theory of Translation (1980) this book makes a case for Descriptive Translation Studies as a scholarly activity as well as a branch of the discipline having immediate consequences for issues of both a theoretical and applied nature. Methodological discussions are complemented by an assortment of case studies of various scopes and levels with emphasis on the need to contextualize whatever one sets out to focus on. Part One deals with the position of descriptive studies within TS and justifies the author's choice to devote a whole book to the subject. Part Two gives a detailed rationale for descriptive studies in translation and serves as a framework for the case studies comprising Part Three. Concrete descriptive issues are here tackled within ever growing contexts of a higher level: texts and modes of translational behaviour — in the appropriate cultural setup; textual components — in texts and through these texts in cultural constellations. Part Four asks the question: What is knowledge accumulated through descriptive studies performed within one and the same framework likely to yield in terms of theory and practice?

Der vorliegende Band ist ein Ergebnis der Arbeit im Bereich der vergleichen den germanischen Sprachwissenschaft am Germanistischen Institut der Universität Oslo. Im Beitrag von Harald Bjorvand wird gezeigt daß die Zahl der maskulinen Verbalnomina mit i-Stamm bildung aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach wesentlich größer ist als bisher angenommen wurde. Der Aufsatz von Ottar Gronvik bringt neue Gesichtspunkte zu den Verwandtschaftsbeziehungen des Krimgotischen und zur Herkunft der Goten. Im Beitrag von John Ole Askedal werden Hauptzüge der arealtypologischen Beziehungen zwischen Verbkonstruktionen in den modernen germanischen Sprachen beschrieben.

Today the notion of 'diglossia' occupies a prominent place in sociolinguistic research. Since the 1960s when the dominant sense of 'diglossia' was the complementary sociofunctional distribution of two varieties of the same language the term has been applied — often controversially — to a growing number of diverse sociolinguistic situations. As a consequence of this extension of the scope of the concept in combination with an increasing interest in the relationship between the role of language and the social structure the number of publications in this field has risen exponentially over the last decades. However despite the growing importance of the notion up till now there was no adequate bibliography devoted to diglossia while coverage in other bibliographies does not do justice to the number of works actually published in this area. This first comprehensive bibliography of the subject includes almost 3000 entries; although the time span covered is 1960-1990 the book includes several dozens of entries from before 1960 and also a substantial number of very recent publications from the period 1990-1992. The selection of items has not been restricted to a specific definition of diglossia: all available publications in which the term (or one of its offsprings) appears have been included; moreover when considered appropriate some material relevant to the subject has been added even though the term is not explicitly used. The usefulness of the bibliography has been enhanced significantly by six indexes: (1) index of languages (2) diglossia in literature (3) historically oriented works (4) pedagogically oriented works (5) theoretical works and (6) theses and dissertations.

Many linguists have believed that there is no connection between culture and language structures. This study reviews some of the literature supporting vocabulary connections hypotheses for other connections and critical views of this type of hypothesis. Precisely such a connection is developed employing a functional view of language and grammaticization principles. Using a world-wide probability sample of forty-nine languages an association between culture and the grammatical coding of deictics is tested and statistically found to be corroborated to a very significant extent. Suggestions are included on how some of the concepts used and developed in this study might be extended.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>

Discourse Description presents in one convenient volume a variety of approaches to text description that have been proposed in the linguistic literature in the last decade or so. The book is organized to make it easy to understand and compare the various approaches. Since all of the researchers are analyzing the same text their differences are readily seen.

The text they analyze is a letter mailed in bulk by a Washington-based lobbying organization which is supported by contributions from donors. Far from simply informing the readers the letter seeks to appeal to them on many levels intellectual emotional and financial. It is a fascinating study in how texts do their work.

Discourse Description is expected to serve both as a research document and as a case textbook for graduate and undergraduate courses in discourse and text analysis as well as a resource for text analysts.

Philip Luelsdorff's highly original approach to the grammar of orthography is to analyse in detail how German pupils learn about written English. In this collection of essays and experiments we are presented with the rich finds of a decade of programmatic research. The context is set with an exposition of current cognitive models of reading and spelling. Cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics meet in Luelsdorff's concept of linguistic error. This concept forms the basis from which it is possible to derive the grammar that governs our largely unconscious and vast knowledge of written words. It is proper to talk about a grammar for both orthographic and syntactic aspects of language. This is because spelling knowledge is not piecemeal or erratic but bears all the hallmarks of a system. Through second language orthography the author is showing us a new view of this advanced stage of spelling knowledge and its acquisition. This view is exciting because it seems now possible to form very detailed hypotheses as regards first language spelling about the order in which purely orthographic knowledge is developed.

This collection of original essays is intended to both celebrate Derek Bickerton's sixty-fifth birthday and honor his long and eminent career. Each author included in the volume is a noted scholar who has distinguished him/herself in some area of linguistics and has professionally or personally interacted with Bickerton and been influenced by his work. While the papers make independent thematic contributions they also discuss augment present alternatives to or are inspired in some way by Bickerton's seminal ideas or penetrating analyses. The book is organized into 5 sections each a reflection of a major research period in Bickerton's career: Section 1: Identifying Creoles; Section 2: Language Variation; Section 3: Creole Processes; Section 4: Creole Syntax and Semantics; Section 5: Serial Verbs.

Dutch literature of the 17th century while not as famous as other elements of the culture of the Dutch Golden Age deserves independent focus not only because of its own intrinsic worth but also because of the evidence of strong social concern that it presents and the light it sheds on other aspects of the Golden Age. Despite this outside the Netherlands the literature has not been examined closely undoubtedly because of the language barrier but also because there is no reasonable introduction to the material in English. This book fills that lacuna. Richly illustrated it groups its subjects thematically: politics religion nature daily life. Because Golden Age painting in particular is so famous the book devotes a special chapter to the connection between poetry and painting. A concluding chapter shows the republic's function as a European literary trading center with brisk import and export. Included also are texts and translations of poems and extensive bibliographies for further study.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>

This is a theoretically oriented study of the pragmatics of Vietnamese person reference (kinship terms personal pronouns naming set and status terms). Drawing upon linguistic data from a radically different non-Western society and the seminal insights of Volosinov Bakhtin and Leach it offers a critical analysis of the major theoretical premises of dominant approaches to denotation and connotation to knowledge of language and to knowledge of the world. The study suggests that the pragmatic presuppositions of Vietnamese person-referring forms figure in the native definitions of linguistic meanings as prominently as any denotative features. It is argued that the significance of pragmatic implications should be analyzed in relation to the native speaker's conception of the world.