A New Look at Language Contact in Amerindian Languages

The purpose of the studies presented in this book is to analyze a fundamental question for researchers interested in the linguistic consequences of language contact; that is, the role played by differences in typology. Are there particular constraints in regard to the different structures that can be transferred from one language to another when the donor and the recipient languages differ considerably in their typology? All the contributions in this volume deal with languages spoken in America. The comparison of the typological characteristics of the languages is a prerequisite for the study of contact in different sociolinguistic situations. The papers illustrate different types of contact-induced changes, analyzing consequences of linguistic contact at morphosyntactic and prosodic levels, taking into account a cross-linguistic typological perspective. They show that although any linguistic feature can be transferred, some hierarchies may be drawn and that typological aspects of the languages involved in a contact situation put certain constraints on the type of what may be borrowed. Some contributions also point out the relevance of sociolinguistic and pragmatic factors in linguistic changes in settings involving contact