Introduces readers to the linguistic diversity of East and Southeast Asia. This book combines serious treatments of diverse areas: for example, word origins, cultural key words, tones and sounds, language families and typology, key syntactic structures, writing systems, communicative style.

1. A First Look ; 1.1 Introductory Remarks ; 1.2 Lack of Inflection ; 1.3 Word Order (constituent order) ; 1.4 Sounds and Writing of East Asian Languages ; 1.5 Lexical Tone ; 1.6 Classifier Constructions ; 1.7 Serial Verb Constructions ; 1.8 Multiple Pronouns and Other Systems of Address ; 1.9 Honorific Forms ; 1.10 Other Common Features ; 2. Language Families, Linguistics Areas, and Language Situations ; 2.1 What is a Language Family? ; 2.2 The Major Language Families of East Asia ; 2.3 Mainland Southeast Asia as a Linguistic Area ; 2.4 Language Situations in the Countries of East Asia ; 3. Words: Origins, Structures, Meanings ; 3.1 Loans as Indicators of Cultural History ; 3.2 Word Structure: Derivational Morphology ; 3.3 Meaning Differences Between Languages ; 3.4 Cultural Key Words ; 4. Grammatical Topics ; 4.1 Classifier Constructions Revisited ; 4.2 Aspect ; 4.3 Serial Verb Constructions ; 4.4 Subject and Topic ; 4.5 Sentence-final (illocutionary) Particles ; 5. The East Asian Soundscape ; 5.1 Phoneme Systems ; 5.2 Word Shapes: Phonatactics ; 5.3 Tones and Allotones ; 5.4 Shifting Sounds: Morphophonemics ; 5.5 Pitch-Accent in Japanese ; 6. Writing Systems of East Asia ; 6.1 Types of Writing System ; 6.2 Alphabetic Systems ; 6.3 A Logographic System: Chinese ; 6.4 Japanese: A Multi-scriptal System ; 6.5 A Note on Calligraphy ; 7. The Art of Speaking ; 7.1 Word Skills in East Asian Languages ; 7.2 Speech Styles ; 7.3 The Japanese Honorific System ; 7.4 Communicative Styles ; Exercises ; Solutions

The first textbook introduction to some of the world's most popular languages in a region with a long tradition of language study For linguistics students, highlights include its treatments of celebrated East Asian features such as classifiers serial verb constructions, tones, topic-prominence, and honorifics With its exercises, solutions, and glossary, and many fascinating examples, this is an ideal introduction to descriptive and field linguistics Shows students of particular Asian languages how their language fits structurally and culturally into the regional language mosaic

Cliff Goddard is Professor of Linguistics at Griffith University, Australia. He was previously Professor of Linguistics, University of New England. His books include The Languages of East and Southeast Asia (OUP 2005). He is co-editor with Anna Wierzbicka of Meaning and Universal Grammar (Benjamins 2002) with whom he is currently working on a book concerned with words and meanings.

The first textbook introduction to some of the world's most popular languages in a region with a long tradition of language study For linguistics students, highlights include its treatments of celebrated East Asian features such as classifiers serial verb constructions, tones, topic-prominence, and honorifics With its exercises, solutions, and glossary, and many fascinating examples, this is an ideal introduction to descriptive and field linguistics Shows students of particular Asian languages how their language fits structurally and culturally into the regional language mosaic