Alexandra Aikhenvald
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alexandra Yurievna Aikhenvald (born 1957 in Russia) is a linguist specialising Linguistic typology and Arawak language family (including Tariana), which is spoken in the Brazilian Amazon basin. She has published work on Berber languages, Modern and Classical Hebrew, Ndu languages (Eastern Sepik, Papua-New Guinea), alongside a number of articles and monographs on various aspects of linguistic typology. She is a founding member of the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. In January 2009 she became a professor at the James Cook University[1] where she founded The Language and Culture Research Group along with Professor R.M.W. Dixon[2]
She has extensively worked on language contact, with particular attention to the multilingual area of the Vaupés River Basin [3]. She has established a comprehensive typology of classifiers [4] and worked out major parameters for the typology of evidentials as grammatical markers of information source [5]. In addition, she authored a comprehensive grammar of Warekena and of Tariana, both Arawak, in addition to a lengthy Tariana-Portuguese dictionary (available on-line).
She is Natalia Shvedova's niece and Yuly Aikhenvald's great granddaughter.
[edit] References
- ^ https://secure.jcu.edu.au/app/contact/index.cfm?fuseaction=whoswho&groupid=67
- ^ http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/20/20-138.html
- ^ Language Contact in Amazonia By Alexandra Aikhenvald, Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 019925785X
- ^ Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald,Classifiers: A Typology of Noun Categorization Devices, Oxford University Press, 2000, pb. 2003, ISBN 019926466X
- ^ Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Evidentiality Oxford University Press]] 2004, pd. 2006, ISBN 0199263884
[edit] External links
- La Trobe home page
- A.Y. Aikhenvald's official home page
- A.Y. Aikhenvald's CV
- For want of a word - New Scientist magazine interview
- Telling the Truth in Tariana - ABC radio documentary transcript
