Best Linguistics Tomes

General discussion about learning languages
Lisa
Green Belt
Posts: 309
Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:08 pm
Location: Oregon, United States
Languages: English (N), German (intermediate) Idle: French (beginner) Esperanto (beginner) Spanish (was intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=10854
x 1076

Re: Best Linguistics Tomes

Postby Lisa » Sun Apr 02, 2023 2:54 am

lavengro, thanks, it's worth a look!

A skilled expert explaining things would be ideal. You can listen to many things online but I don't think I'm good enough at listening to get the distinction in sounds. I'm kind of trying to approach it from the data side and hope it clarifies the experience.

Even more specifically, wikipedia and google didn't help me figure out the distinctions between "w", voiced labial-velar approximant and "ɥ" the voiced labial-palatal approximant (in french). I kind of suspect it's a distinction I can't hear due to my particular language background (as apparently may be the case of the difference between "ʌ" and "ɘ").
0 x

Online
Crojo
White Belt
Posts: 26
Joined: Fri Oct 28, 2022 9:35 am
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate?), Mandarin/中文 (pre-beginner)
x 59

Re: Best Linguistics Tomes

Postby Crojo » Mon Apr 03, 2023 11:08 am

eido wrote:I just ordered a book on Llanito, the "spanglish" spoken in Gibraltar. The book is in Spanish, and I believe is one if not the only currently existing longitudinal studies involving this specific variety of language mixing.


What's the book?
0 x

Online
Crojo
White Belt
Posts: 26
Joined: Fri Oct 28, 2022 9:35 am
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate?), Mandarin/中文 (pre-beginner)
x 59

Re: Best Linguistics Tomes

Postby Crojo » Mon Apr 03, 2023 7:41 pm

galaxyrocker wrote:If you wanna read in Spanish …
Introducción a la lingüística española. …

It covers a lot of the main topics, looking at them in in the case of Spanish. Chapters including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, dialectology, historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, contextual variation, with a chapter dedicated to the language in the US (it was written by a professor at UC Berkley).


A similar book (about Spanish, in Spanish, for students of Spanish) is Introducción a la lingüística hispánica actual: teoría y práctica by Javier Muñoz-Basols et al (Routledge).
3 x

User avatar
Querneus
Blue Belt
Posts: 836
Joined: Thu Dec 01, 2016 5:28 am
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Languages: Speaks: Spanish (N), English
Studying: Latin, French, Mandarin
x 2269

Re: Best Linguistics Tomes

Postby Querneus » Mon May 22, 2023 10:00 am

eido wrote:I have a "Hispanic world" theme going here.

I once heard someone describe Ralph Penny's A History of the Spanish Language (2nd ed. 2002) as a model of what books on the history of the pronunciation and word inflection of a language should be like in terms of clarity. I agree. Note it goes from classical Latin to modern Spanish. (It discusses changes in syntax a lot less however. Pre-literary Spanish is also unfortunately given very little space, the book rather jumps from Latin to 13th-century Old Spanish.) Also available in Spanish translation (not wholly sure about the title, but it seems to be Gramática histórica del español).

John Lipski's Latin American Spanish (1992) is a compilation of short descriptions of a variety of dialects country by country, then area by area. Its vocabulary lists are particularly very dated by now because slang evolves fast, but the comments on pronunciation and word forms are still fine. Also available in Spanish translation, El español de América.

Ti Alkire and Carol Rosen's Romance Languages: A Historical Introduction (2010) is a textbook on the history of the few major Romance languages beginning from Latin and I can only say it is amazing in terms of sound pedagogy and clarity. I especially liked the fact that at various points it lets the student consider certain pitfalls you would easily fall into looking at the data only to correct them to better explanations/arguments right after.

The RAE's Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (2005) is a very interesting compilation of things Spanish native speakers aren't sure of at all, with the RAE's opinion on what should be supposedly used.
8 x


Return to “General Language Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests