The Handbook Of Berber Linguistics

Originally published in 1952, this volume shows the structural characteristics of the Berber language and its interrelations as far as these are known; the distribution of the language and the numbers speaking it; its use as literary and educational media and as a lingua franca.

This book presents a study of various important aspects of Tamazight Berber syntax within the generative tradition. Work on Berber linguistics from a generative perspective remains in many ways uncharted territory. There has been hardly any published research on this language and its different dialects, especially in English -- this book fills some of these gaps and lays down the foundations for further research. Ouali looks at three seemingly disparate ranges of syntactic phenomena, namely Subject-verb agreement, Clitic-doubling and Negative Concord. These phenomena have received different analytical treatments, but Ouali proposes that they are all forms of agreement derived under the same Chomskian 'Agree' mechanism. The book addresses a fundamental question in the ongoing debate in recent Minimalism with regard to how subject-verb agreement is obtained and proposes a new analysis of the so-called Anti-Agreement Effect. It will be of interest to all syntacticians and to researchers in Afroasiatic languages.

The Arabic Influence on Northern Berber provides an overview of the effects of language contact on a wide array of Berber languages spoken in the Maghrib. These languages have undergone important changes in their lexicon, phonology, morphology, and syntax as a result of over a thousand years of Arabic influence. The social situation of Berber-Arabic language contact is similar all over the region: Berber speakers introducing Arabic features into their language, with only little language shift going on. Moreover, the typological profile of the different Berber varieties is relatively homogenous. The comparison of contact-induced change in Berber therefore adds up to a study in typological variation of contact influence under very similar linguistic and social conditions.

The Handbook of African Linguistics provides a holistic coverage of the key themes, subfields, approaches and practical application to the vast areas subsumable under African linguistics that will serve researchers working across the wide continuum in the field. Established and emerging scholars of African languages who are active and current in their fields are brought together, each making use of data from a linguistic group in Africa to explicate a chosen theme within their area of expertise, and illustrate the practice of the discipline in the continent.

Tarifit Berber is one of the less-studied Berber languages. This book is a comprehensive investigation of the overarching themes which lie at the heart of the morphosyntax of Berber. This includes a grammatical description of parts of speech, the inflectional classes of nouns, the construct state, word order, clitics, and valency. These topics are investigated within the minimalist approach to syntactic theory. One of the most significant findings of the book is that Tarifit Berber is claimed to have gone through a grammatical shift in word order from verb-subject-object (VSO), as displayed by the major studied Berber varieties, to a topic-prominent system. Novel analyses are also proposed for clitics and the causative system, in order to bring these grammatical aspects within the range of current theories.

The book explores the change over time in language-society relations in a multilingual periphery of Egypt. It examines the role of language ideologies in the construction and negotiation of social identities in the processes of contact, maintenance and shift typical of multilingualism. Based on extensive fieldwork and interviews, it is the first of its kind to portray the inventory of linguistic and accompanying non-linguistic behaviors observed within and between different ethnolinguistic groups in the Siwa Oasis. It provides first-hand information about the linguistic habits of Siwan women, an aspect which is generally difficult to access in this gender-segregated community. The book sheds light on Berber-Arabic contact at the core of the Arab world and at a critical time when individual linguistic repertoires are expanding and Arabic is emerging as a powerful resource.

We Share Walls: Language, Land, and Gender in Berber Morocco explores how political economic shifts over the last century have reshaped the language practices and ideologies of women (and men) in the plains and mountains of rural Morocco. Offers a unique and richly textured ethnography of language maintenance and shift as well as language and place-making among an overlooked Muslim group Examines how Moroccan Berbers use language to integrate into the Arab-speaking world and retain their own distinct identity Illuminates the intriguing semiotic and gender issues embedded in the culture Part of the Blackwell Studies in Discourse and Culture Series