Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

List of John Benjamins publications for which Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald plays a role.

Book series

Journal

Classifiers

Edited by Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

Special issue of Asian Languages and Linguistics 3:2 (2022) v, 227 pp.
Subjects Afro-Asiatic languages | Altaic languages | Dravidian languages | Historical linguistics | Japanese linguistics | Sino-Tibetan languages | Theoretical linguistics | Turkic languages | Typology | Uralic languages

Creativity in Language

Edited by Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Andrea Hollington, Nico Nassenstein and Anne Storch

Special issue of International Journal of Language and Culture 6:1 (2019) vi, 223 pp.
Subjects Anthropological Linguistics | Applied linguistics | Cognition and language | Cognitive psychology | Communication Studies | Pragmatics

Studies in Evidentiality

Edited by Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald and R.M.W. Dixon

[Typological Studies in Language, 54] 2003. xiv, 349 pp.
Subjects Semantics | Typology

Non-canonical Marking of Subjects and Objects

Edited by Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, R.M.W. Dixon and Masayuki Onishi

[Typological Studies in Language, 46] 2001. xii, 364 pp.
Subjects Semantics | Syntax | Typology
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2024 Speaking about knowledge: Evidentiality and the ecology of languageEvidentiality, Modality and Grammaticalization, Mélac, Eric (ed.), pp. 543–574 | Article
We focus on the grammatical expression of four major groups of meanings related to knowledge: I. Evidentiality: grammatical expression of information source; II. Egophoricity: grammatical expression of access to knowledge; III. Mirativity: grammatical expression of expectation of knowledge; and… read more
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2023 What everybody knows: Expressing shared knowledge thorough evidentialsVerb and Context: The impact of shared knowledge on TAME categories, Rodríguez Rosique, Susana and Jordi M. Antolí Martínez (eds.), pp. 1–18 | Chapter
Every language has a variety of ways of expressing how one knows what one is talking about. In quite a few of the world’s languages, one has to always specify the information source through grammatical means. Evidential terms may combine reference to the information sources of the speaker and of… read more
Tariana, an Arawak language from Brazil, has nominal markers which convey temporal and aspectual information about the noun phrase. Besides nominal future, there is a distinction between completed and non-completed nominal pasts. The completed nominal past has three meanings – decessive (‘late,… read more
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2022 Classifiers: Setting the scene: An introduction to the special issue on classifiers in the languages of AsiaClassifiers, Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. (ed.), pp. 141–152 | Article
Classifiers are morphemes which occur under specifiable conditions and which categorise nominal referents in terms of their animacy, shape, and other properties. The most widely represented type is numeral classifiers, which occur next to a number word or a quantifier. Further types include noun… read more
The Amazon Basin is renowned for its high linguistic diversity. The history of Amazonian languages has been marred with language extinction and loss ever since the European conquest. Newly emergent varieties of the national languages – Portuguese and Spanish – bear the substratum influence of the… read more
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2019 Expressing ‘possession’: Motivations, meanings, and formsPossession in Languages of Europe and North and Central Asia, Johanson, Lars, Lidia Federica Mazzitelli and Irina Nevskaya (eds.), pp. 7–26 | Chapter
Competing motivations are often at work in the choice of form and meaning of possessive and associative noun phrases. The article offers a broad typological review of the ways of expressing possession at the NP-internal level. In particular, it discusses how iconicity and economic motivations… read more
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2019 Hidden from women’s ears: Gender-based taboos in the Vaupés areaCreativity in Language, Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y., Andrea Hollington, Nico Nassenstein and Anne Storch (eds.), pp. 95–118 | Article
Across the multilingual area of the Vaupés River Basin in north-west Amazonia, women are considered a dangerous ‘other’. In accordance with the local marriage practices, men marry women from language groups different to their own. Women are denied access to important rituals, such as the Yurupary… read more
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. and Anne Storch 2019 Creativity in language: Secret codes, special styles and linguistic tabooCreativity in Language, Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y., Andrea Hollington, Nico Nassenstein and Anne Storch (eds.), pp. 1–9 | Introduction
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2018 Chapter 2. The magic of names: A fieldworker’s perspectiveWord Hunters: Field linguists on fieldwork, Sarvasy, Hannah and Diana Forker (eds.), pp. 9–27 | Chapter
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2016 Language contact and word structure: A case study from north-west AmazoniaLanguage Contact and Change in the Americas: Studies in honor of Marianne Mithun, Berez-Kroeker, Andrea L., Diane M. Hintz and Carmen Dagostino (eds.), pp. 297–314 | Article
Intensive language contact between genetically unrelated languages may result in their structural adjustment to each other. The languages will then converge and become similar in their grammar. The effects of language contact are expected to be particularly strong if a dominant language is in the… read more
Many languages of the world have genders, that is, grammatical agreement classes, based on such core semantic properties as animacy, sex and humanness, and also shape. In Manambu, a language of New Guinea, nouns are assigned genders according to the sex of a human referent, and to shape and size… read more
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2015 Body, mind, and spirit: What makes up a person in ManambuStudies in Language 39:1, pp. 85–117 | Article
In many languages, terms denoting the human body and its parts constitute a closed subclass of nouns with special grammatical properties. Many if not all parts of the human body may acquire dimensions of meanings with ethnographic importance. I focus on a tri-partite division of visible and… read more
A combination of number marking, on the one hand, and genders, animacy and classifiers of various sorts on the other, may form the basis for semantic subcategorisation of nominal referents, in addition to further such devices. The paper investigates number as a noun categorisation device in a… read more
Shared features, and especially shared grammaticalization patterns, may result from geographic proximity, contact, and borrowing (“copying”). Related languages “will pass through the same or strikingly similar phases”: this “parallelism in drift” (Sapir 1921: 171‒172) accounts for additional… read more
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2011 Areal Features and Linguistic Areas: Contact-induced Change and Geographical TypologyGeographical Typology and Linguistic Areas: With special reference to Africa, Hieda, Osamu, Christa König and Hiroshi Nakagawa (eds.), pp. 13–39 | Article
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2010 The social life of a language: Will Manambu survive?New Perspectives on Endangered Languages: Bridging gaps between sociolinguistics, documentation and language revitalization, Flores Farfán, José Antonio and Fernando F. Ramallo (eds.), pp. 13–28 | Article
The island of New Guinea is probably the most linguistically diverse and complex area in the world. The Sepik river basin displays cultural as well as linguistic diversity and fragmentation, perhaps more so than other areas of New Guinea. Many of the Sepik languages show signs of endangerment.… read more
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2009 'Eating', 'drinking' and 'smoking': A generic verb and its semantics in ManambuThe Linguistics of Eating and Drinking, Newman, John (ed.), pp. 91–108 | Article
Many of the world’s languages have different forms for the concepts of ‘eating’ (solid food) and ‘drinking’ (liquid). Manambu, from the Ndu family in the Sepik region of New Guinea, has the same verb covering the notions of ‘eating’, ‘drinking’, smoking’ and ‘breast-feeding’. It also refers to… read more
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2007 30. Reciprocal and sociative, reflexive and reciprocal in Tariana: Their genetic and areal propertiesReciprocal Constructions, Nedjalkov, Vladimir P. (ed.), pp. 1351–1366 | Chapter
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2007 20. Reciprocals and reflexives in North Arawak languages of the Upper Rio Negro (Warekena, Bare, Baniwa of Içana)Reciprocal Constructions, Nedjalkov, Vladimir P. (ed.), pp. 845–855 | Chapter
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2005 Review of König (2002): Kasus im IkStudies in Language 29:1, pp. 200–207 | Review
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2004 Evidentiality: Problems and challengesLinguistics Today – Facing a Greater Challenge, Sterkenburg, Piet van (ed.), pp. 1–30 | Article
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2003 1. Evidentiality in typological perspectiveStudies in Evidentiality, Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. and R.M.W. Dixon (eds.), pp. 1–31 | Chapter
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2003 6. Evidentiality in TarianaStudies in Evidentiality, Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. and R.M.W. Dixon (eds.), pp. 131–164 | Article
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2002 Review of Seiler (2000): Language Universals Research: a SynthesisStudies in Language 26:2, pp. 502–504 | Review
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2001 Verb types, non-canonically marked arguments and grammatical relations: A Tariana perspectiveNon-canonical Marking of Subjects and Objects, Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y., R.M.W. Dixon and Masayuki Onishi (eds.), pp. 177–200 | Article
Tariana, a North Arawak language from northwest Amazonia, has a complex system of serial verbs and a certain amount of verb compounding. Serial verbs in Tariana provide important evidence in favour of the existence of cross-linguistically valid defining properties of serial verbs. Verb… read more
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 1999 Review of Plank (1995): Double case: Agreement by SuffixaufnahmeStudies in Language 23:2, pp. 447–454 | Review
Dixon, R.M.W. and Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald 1997 A Typology of Argument-Determined ConstructionsEssays on Language Function and Language Type: Dedicated to T. Givón, Bybee, Joan L., John Haiman and Sandra A. Thompson (eds.), pp. 71–114 | Article
This paper discusses the phonological properties of words and phrases in two Northern Arawak languages of the Upper Rio Negro, Brazil. These features are h-prosody, vowel harmony triggered by the glottal fricative h, vowel nasalization and vowel diphthongization. A feature that is used to mark a… read more