Synopsis:

Tsova-Tush is an East Caucasian language spoken in one single village in Eastern Georgia by approximately 300 speakers. Since its early description, scholars have been intrigued by the high degree of linguistic influence from the Georgian language. This book has a threefold goal: (1) To contribute to the overall description of the Tsova-Tush language, by filling gaps in the previous literature in absence of a reference grammar. (2) To contrast Tsova-Tush constructions with functionally equivalent constructions in Chechen and Ingush, its closest relatives, and with Georgian, the language of wider communication which all Tsova-Tush speakers speak as a second language, in order to form hypotheses concerning which Tsova-Tush construction is inherited, and which has arisen under influence of Georgian. (3) To provide the most probable diachronic scenario of language contact, by looking at historical Tsova-Tush language data, as well as at its historical sociolinguistics.

This book provides a basic description of Tsova-Tush, in particular in the domain of spatial cases (which exhibit a two-slot system similar to Daghestanian languages), TAME categories (indentifying a Iamitive and a Past Subjunctive developing indirect evidential semantics), complex verbs, and subordination and clause-chaining (which in Tsova-Tush is finite).

In terms of language contact, this book concludes that (1) Tsova-Tush conforms to most established borrowing hierarchies and theories surrounding intensity of contact, except for the borrowing of a verbal inflection marker in a remarkably early stage of contact; (2) The Georgian influence that Tsova-Tush shows in sources from the 1850 suggest that a notable increase in bilingualism occured already at a point where there was little institutional or numeral dominance of surrounding the Georgian-language population. A change in ethnic self-identification can be the underlying factor for the early instances of contact-induced change.

Synopsis:

Armenian is an Indo-European language. Alongside two varieties, there are countless non-standard dialects, many of which were were made extinct because of the Armenian Genocide. This book is an English translation of a monograph originally written in Armenian by Hrachia Adjarian: "Հայ Բարբառագիտութիւն" or "Armenian dialectology." The original monograph consisted of descriptions of 31 non-standard Armenian varieties. The present book is both a translation and commentary on this monograph. The translation includes paradigm tables, sound changes, morpheme segmentation, glossing, and IPA transcriptions.

Iranian Armenian is the variety of spoken Armenian that was developed by Armenians in Tehran, Iran over the last few centuries. It has a substantial community of speakers in California. This variety or lect is called “Persian Armenian” [pɒɻskɒhɒjeɻen] or “Iranian Armenian” [iɻɒnɒhɒjeɻen] by members of the community. The present book is not a comprehensive grammar of the language. It occupies a gray zone between being a simple sketch versus a sizable grammar. We attempt to clarify the basic aspects of the language, such as its phoneme inventory, noticeable morphophonological processes, various inflectional paradigms, and some peculiar aspects of its syntax. We likewise provide a sample text of Iranian Armenian speech.

Many aspects of this variety seem to be identical to Standard Eastern Armenian (SEA), so we tried to focus more on those aspects of Iranian Armenian which differ from SEA. The phonology has developed new phonemes and intonational contours due to contact with Persian. The morphophonology has grammaticalized allomorphic patterns that are phonosyntactic, meaning they reference syntactic information. Nominal morphology is largely identical to SEA but with some simplification of irregular processes. Verbal morphology is similar to SEA, but with major innovations in the aorist paradigm. The aorist or past perfective paradigm has undergone a change whereby irregular patterns have been reanalyzed as regular patterns. The syntax is largely the same as SEA, but with innovations due to contact with Persian, such as object clitics and the use of resumptive pronouns.

Sanzhi Dargwa belongs to the Dargwa (Dargi) languages (ISO dar; Glottocode sanz1248) which form a subgroup of the East Caucasian (Nakh-Dagestanian) language family. Sanzhi Dargwa is spoken by approximately 250 speakers and is severely endangered. This book is the first comprehensive descriptive grammar of Sanzhi, written from a typological perspective. It treats all major levels of grammar (phonology, morphology, syntax) and also information structure. Sanzhi Dargwa is structurally similar to other East Caucasian languages, in particular Dargwa languages. It has a relatively large consonant inventory including pharyngeal and ejective consonants. Sanzhi morphology is concatenative and mainly suffixing. The language exhibits a mixture of dependent-marking in the form of a rich case inventory and head-marking in the form of verbal agreement. Nouns are divided into three genders. Verbal inflection conflates tense/aspect/mood/evidentiality in a rich array of synthetic and analytic verb forms as well as participles, converbs, a masdar (verbal noun), and infinitive and some other forms used in analytic tenses and subordinate clauses. Salient traits of the grammar are two independently operating agreement systems: gender/number agreement and person agreement. Within the nominal domain, modifiers agree with the head nominal in gender/number. Agreement within the clausal domain is mainly controlled by the argument in the absolutive case. Person agreement operates only at the clausal level and according to the person hierarchy 1, 2 > 3. Sanzhi has ergative alignment in the form of gender/number agreement and ergative case marking. The most frequent word order at the clause level is SOV, though all other logically possible word orders are also attested. In subordinate clauses, word order is almost exclusively head-final.

This book is an investigation into the grammar of Mehweb (Dargwa, East Caucasian also known as Nakh-Daghestanian) based on several years of team fieldwork. Mehweb is spoken in one village community in Daghestan, Russia, with a population of some 800 people, In many ways, Mehweb is a typical East Caucasian language: it has a rich inventory of consonants; an extensive system of spatial forms in nouns and converbs and volitional forms in verbs; pervasive gender-number agreement; and ergative alignment in case marking and in gender agreement. It is also a typical language of the Dargwa branch, with symmetrical verb inflection in the imperfective and perfective paradigm and extensive use of spatial encoding for experiencers. Although Mehweb is clearly close to the northern varieties of Dargwa, it has been long isolated from the main body of Dargwa varieties by speakers of Avar and Lak. As a result of both independent internal evolution and contact with its neighbours, Mehweb developed some deviant properties, including accusatively aligned egophoric agreement, a split in the feminine class, and the typologically rare grammatical categories of verificative and apprehensive. But most importantly, Mehweb is where our friends live.