FINN-OUGRIAN LANGUAGES

Udmurt Eberhard Winkler University of Munich Udmurt (Votyak) is spoken by approx. 70 % of the 750.000 Udmurt as mother tongue (according to the 1989 census). The Udmurt are living mainly in their own Autonomous Republic in the European part of Russia (Vjatka-Kama-Region), where they constitute less than one third of the population. Udmurt belongs to the Permic branch of theFinno-Ugric Languages, which form together with Samojed languages the Uralic language family. In former times Turkic languages (Chuvash and Tatar) had a strong influence on the grammar of Udmurt, whereas the younger Russian influence is restricted to the lexicon. Nevertheless the grammar is typical Finno-Ugric and shows a lot of common features with the nearly related more archaic Komi language. The monograph is based on the Literary language and will contain chapters on phonology, morphology and syntax. Emphasis will be given to morphology, with special attention to the verbal inflectional system and the functions of these categories. The sketch includes a short Udmurt text with interlinear translation. ISBN 9783895862724. Languages of the World/Materials 212. 88pp. 2001. Complement Clauses and Grammatical Relations in Finnish Kristina Sands RMW Dixon (series ed.) Complement Clauses and Grammatical Relations in Finnish looks at complement clauses in Finnish both from a syntactic and a semantic point of view. All seven of the complement clause types used in Finnish are discussed including a detailed discussion on the argument(s) of the main verb that these clauses fill as well as how the arguments of the main clause and the complement clause inter-relate. There is also discussion about the semantics of complement clauses and the verbs with which these co-occur. The most common and important semantic classes of verbs that may govern complement clauses are discussed and it is shown that the types of complement clause that any verb may occur with are determined both by syntactic considerations (such as what types of argument the verb governs and what types of argument the complement clause may fulfil) and by the semantics of both the complement clause and the main verb. The hypothesis that there is a strong semantic relationship between complement clauses and the verbs that the occur with is shown to be true for Finnish. This study also provides some cross-linguistic information on complement clauses as well as a detailed discussion on the controversial usage of the so-called nominative, accusative, genitive and partitive cases in Finnish and their relationship with the arguments S, A and O. ISBN 9783862880911. Outstanding grammars from Australia 01. 374pp. 2011. Vogul (Mansi) Timothy Riese University of Vienna The Vogul language (endogenous name: Mansi) is spoken by approximately 3.000 speakers in northwestern Siberia. Together with Ostyak, it forms the Ob-Ugrian branch of the Finno-Ugrian language family and is generally considered to be closest relative of Hungarian. In the introductory section general information on the Vogul people and their sociolinguistic situation is given. The dialect described in the following sections on Vogul phonology, morphology, and syntax is the Northern one, spoken by the greatest majority of modern Voguls and forming the basis for the literary language. Vogul is in the most respects a typical agglutinative language and its grammar is relatively straightforward, i.e. unencumbered with major rules of inflection. In this study particular care is taken to place (Northern) Vogul in a general Finno-Ugrian and a complete Vogul context. This means that although the major emphasis lies on the synchronic description of (Northern) Vogul, the discussion is supplemented by obervations of a historical nature to show to which extent (Northern) Vogul has adhererd to general Finno-Ugrian patterns and to which extent it has diverged both from the related languages and other Vogul dialects. This study closes with a (Northern) Vogul folklore text with an interlinear transcription and translation ISBN 9783895862311. Languages of the World/Materials 158. 92pp. 2001.