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This introduction lays out the issues in the study of morphosyntactic variation in Modern Greek dialects and summarizes the contents of the papers included herein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a newly discovered glossary (230 items) of Northern and Southern Kuril Ainu recorded by the captain Vasily Mikhaylovich Golovnin in 1811 and stored at the Russian National Archive of the Navy in St. Petersburg. Based on this new document we argue that Southern Kuril has a much closer lexical resemblance to Northeastern Hokkaido Ainu than Northern Kuril. On the other hand, we reaffirm that both Southern and Northern Kuril Ainu constitute a really separate Kuril group because they show a number of lexical, phonological and grammatical features, which are different from Hokkaido Ainu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dialects of Ewen vary widely with respect to the forms and uses of reflexive, reciprocal, and intensifier pronouns derived from the stems meːn and bej. This paper establishes nine isoglosses based on the features of these pronominal forms and plots them on the dialectal map of Ewen. In a second step, comparative evidence from other Tungusic and some contact languages of Ewen is adduced in order to shed light on the diachronic developments underlying the current dialectal distrubtion of the forms in question. As a result, a number of tentative historical scenarios for the developments of reflexives and intensifiers both in Ewen and in Tungusic in general are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The present paper discusses the patterns of interaction between the Islamic religion and the universal categories of verbal politeness described by Brown, Levinson (1987). The two scholars based their theory on the existence of two contrasting sets of 'face-wants' (negative and positive) and on the speakers' necessity to preserve them while, at the same time, pursuing their goals. Verbal politeness provides means that enable the speaker to do so without endangering his social relations. While the phenomenon is, in itself, universal (i.e. found in all known cultures), its outer manifestations tend to be culturally bound. Amongst Maghrebi Arabic-speaking societies, the object of the present study, the 'code' of verbal politeness heavily draws on the Islamic religion. The present paper, thus, aims to analyse the interplay between Islam and the different strategies described by Brown and Levinson, by means of a wide exemplification that will highlight general trends and underlying structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The biblical text implies that the language of the southern and northern monarchies differed, though with the exception of one anecdotal story no specifics are offered. While the hypothetical existence of a number of dialects is widely accepted, several scholars have claimed that there is actual evidence for at least two, possibly three, dialects in the text of the Hebrew Bible. In order to substantiate this claim a long list of grammatical features has been suggested over the past three decades. In this paper I will evaluate the evidence purported to prove the existence of Hebrew dialects, and show that it is weak and does not support the dialectal hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her work on the Cyrenaean dialect, C. Dobias-Lalou concluded that the dialect of Cyrene had in the fourth century BC a dissymmetric system of long vowels, with one /:/ but /ε:/ and /e:/. This new theory is motivated by some anomalous forms with instead of expected from e + e contraction. In this paper I firstly bring arguments against D.-L.'s interpretation in order to prove that the Cyrenaean of the fourth century had only one /e:/. Secondly I try to explain otherwise the anomalous forms with for . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I give an overview of several syntactic and morpho-syntactic phenomena applying to a range of Modern Greek dialects. I present a descriptive account of these phenomena, and refer to some possible theoretical analyses put forward by a number of well-known linguists. In certain cases, I offer evidence for the cross-dialectal occurrence of a phenomenon as a contribution to the establishment of syntactic isoglosses, and report some hints of its diachronic development when the available sources permit. My data are drawn not only from written sources, but also from the oral material that has been collected in the last six years from several Greek areas, and stored in the Modern Greek Dialects Laboratory (MGDL) of the University of Patras. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accounts of the La Recherche expedition (1st voyage, 1835–2nd voyage, 1836) include two Greenlandic wordlists that offer the opportunity to catch a glimpse (one admittedly small) of the local lect of Paamiut. The comparison with contemporary dialectological descriptions allows for interesting conclusions about the linguistic history of this region on the southwest coast of Greenland. Of the four diagnostic features traditionally ascribed to Paamiut Greenlandic, that is, (1) i- effect, (2) retention of the /s/ vs /ʂ/ opposition, (3) shortening of geminates in sequences of the type VVCCV(V), and (4) a kind of "vowel harmony" whereby /ua/ > /awa/ & /ui/ > /iwi/, the wordlists confirm fully (1) and partially (2). There is inconclusive evidence for (3) and no trace of (4) whatsoever. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Judaeo-Arabic manuscripts with complete vocalisation are rare, a problem which makes reconstructing the pronunciation of the medieval language challenging. This study presents an edition of a Judaeo-Arabic translation of Ecclesiastes from the Cairo Genizah with full Tiberian vocalisation. This manuscript exhibits noteworthy features of dialectal medieval Arabic and a palaeographic style which places it in twelfth-century Egypt-Palestine. The transcription system provides specific evidence for the pronunciation of a type of medieval Judaeo-Arabic, while the translation offers a window into the culture of popular Bible translations and scribal activity in the medieval Middle East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Close inspection of the Kuril Ainu vocabularies included in two of P.S. Pallas's less-known publications reveal the existence of expressions which are apparently documented nowhere else. By attempting to identify their provenance, at least one new source comes into light, the general impression being, as one would rather expect, that there must be a multitude of them hidden in the travelogues and personal diaries of Russian explorers from the 18th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]