e-dition: Best of Linguistics / Linguistik (eBook Package / eBook-Paket)

Reviews of selected highlights: Darrell T. Tryon / Peter Mühlhäusler / Stephen A. Wurm: Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas “An absolutely unique work in linguistics publishing– full of beautiful maps and authoritative accounts of well-known and little-known language encounters. Essential reading (and map-viewing) for students of language contact with a global perspective.” Prof. Dr. Martin Haspelmath Moris Halle / Roman Jakobson: Fundamentals of Language “Jakobson and Halle’s initial statement of the principles of linguistic organization should be made available to all future generations of linguists. It builds a solid foundation for Saussurean thinking about linguisic oppositions and establishes distinctive feature theory as the basis of their formal treatment.” Prof. Dr. William Labov Thomas V. Gamkrelidze /Vjaceslav V. Ivanov: Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans. A Reconstruction and Historical Analysis of a Proto-Language and Proto-Culture“Gamkrelidze and Ivanov’s wide-ranging and interdisciplinary work, superbly translated from Russian, is a must for every student of Indo-European prehistory. Its erudition is unsurpassed, and its unorthodox conclusions are a continuing challenge.” Prof. Dr. Martin Haspelmath Uriel Weinreich: Languages in Contact. Findings and Problems “This remains the fundamental base for studies of multilingual communities and language shift. Weinreich laid out the concepts, principles and issues that govern empirical work in this field, and it has not been replaced by any later general treatment.” Prof. Dr. William Labov Joseph Greenberg: Language Typology. A Historial and Analytic Overview “Greenberg's survey of the earlier history of typology is without rivals, a must read for every linguist who is curious about the intellectual roots of current typology. This wouldn’t be a work by Greenberg if it didn’t go far beyond simple historiography, providing a highly original and readable framework for understanding the earlier efforts.” Prof. Dr. Martin Haspelmath Joseph Greenberg: Language Universals “This is the latest version of the 1956 book which began the modern study of universals, and provides the foundation for many inquiries that followed. The hypotheses are cast at a moderate level of abstraction, and so are likely to survive as a basis for inquiry for many decades to come.” Prof. Dr. William Labov William Labov is Professor of Linguistics and Director of the Linguistics Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the founder of variationist sociolinguistics and is widely considered to be one of the world's leading linguists. Labov served as president of the Linguistic Society of America, is a member the National Academy of Science, and has been awarded numerous prizes. Martin Haspelmath is a renowned typologist and one of the leading linguists in Germany today. He is a senior scientist in the Department of Linguistics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and an honorary professor at the University of Leipzig. In 2007 he received the Prize of the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities for exceptional scientific achievement.