This book examines the ways in which linguistic traits may change in a contact situation. It contains an encyclopaedic introduction and twelve subsequent chapters, which analyse the effects of language contact on grammatical systems in a variety of languages belonging to different geographical areas and diverse types.

1. Grammars in Contact: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective ; 2. Grammatical Diffusion in Australia: Free and Bound Pronouns ; 3. How Long do Linguistic Areas Last?: Western Nilotic Grammars in Contact ; 4. Grammars in Contact in the Volta Basin (West Africa): On COntact Induced Grammatical Change in Likpe ; 5. Basque in Contact with Romance Languages ; 6. Language Contact and Convergence in East Timor: The Case of Tetun Dili ; 7. Language Contact and Convergence in Pennsylvania German ; 8. Balkanizing the Balkan Sprachbund: A Closer Look at Grammatical Permeability and Feature Distribution ; 9. Cantonese Grammar in Areal Perspective ; 10. Semantics and Pragmatics of Grammatical Relations in the Vaupes Linguistic Area ; 11. The Vaupes Melting Pot: Tucanoan Influence on Hup ; 12. The Quechua Impact in Amuesha, an Arawak Language of the Peruvian Amazon ; 13. Feeling the Need: The Borrowing of Cariban Functional Categories into Mawayana (Arawak) ; Glossary of Terms ; Author Index ; Index of Languages, Language Families, and Linguistic Areas ; Subject Index

`Review from previous edition The articles are of consistently high quality and the range of language types represented, like the calibre of the researchers themselves, is impressive ... Dixon and Aikhenveld are to be congratulated on bringing together...a first-rate cast of linguists working on such a diverse set of the world's languages ... a remarkable volume ... This volume and the papers in it represent a major advance in parts of speech typology and will surely frame the debate in the nature of adjectives, and lexical classes, and their role in grammatical and typological theory for years to come.' David Beck, Functions of Language `...makes a major contribution to the general study of parts of speech across languages... The editors of this book have provided a much-needed analytical framework for typologizing the key distinctions in how the adjective manifests itself as a part of speech.' Edward J Vajda, Western Washington University

Presents a conceptual and analytic framework in the area of language contact Addresses central issues on cross-linguistic grammatical patterns Case studies based on new data Designed for both advanced undergraduate and research students

Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald is Professor and Associate Director of the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology at La Trobe University. She has worked on descriptive and historical aspects of Berber languages and published, in Russian, a grammar of Modern Hebrew (1990). She is a major authority on typological and areal features of South American languages, particularly of the Arawak family: Bare (1995, based on work with the last speaker, who has since died), Warekena (1998), and Tariana (2003). Her monographs include Classifiers: a Typology of Noun Categorization Devices (2000, 2003), Language Contact in Amazonia (2002), Evidentiality (2004), and The Manambu Language of East Sepik, Papua New Guinea (2008). R.M.W. Dixon is Professor and Director of the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology at La Trobe University. He has published grammars of a number of Australian languages (including Dyirbal and Yidiñ), in addition to A Grammar of Boumaa Fijian (1988), The Jarawara Language of Southern Amazonia (2004) and A Semantic Approach to English Grammar (2005). His works on typological theory include Where have All the Adjectives Gone? and Other Essays (1982) and Ergativity (1994). His essay The Rise and Fall of Languages (1997) expounded a punctuated equilibrium model for language development which is the basis for his detailed case study Australian Languages: their Nature and Development (2002). He is currently working on an extensive study of the basic linguistic theory.

Presents a conceptual and analytic framework in the area of language contact Addresses central issues on cross-linguistic grammatical patterns Case studies based on new data Designed for both advanced undergraduate and research students