Full Description
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.
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 & 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
Ga%sper Begu%s
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
