Includes bibliographical references (pages 175-192) and index.

1. Expanding the Canon: Minoritization in the World and in Linguistic Theory

2. Indexical Shift in Zazaki and Uyghur 2.1 With an Eye and an Ear towards Zazaki -- 2.2 Indexical Shifting in Zazaki -- 2.3 The Consequences of an Overwriting Operator -- 2.4 Two Kinds of Embedding in Uyghur -- 2.5 Towards an Implicational Hierarchy of Shifting Patterns

3. Why Ergative Case Requires Structure in Basque and Ch’ol 3.1 A Sole Survivor -- 3.2 ‘A’ Is for Agent -- 3.3 When Ergative Can Be Removed or Imposed --3.4 Splitting Hairs: The Progressive Aspect -- 3.5 How the Mayan Language Ch’ol Thickened the Plot

4. Closest Conjunct Agreement in Slovenian and Xhosa 4.1 *Has the woman who coffee is happy? -- 4.2 Data Is Not the Plural of Anecdote -- 4.3 So Where Can Linearity Prevail over Hierarchy? -- 4.4 A Two-Step Theory of Agreement -- 4.5 Southern Bantu: Nonbinary Gender to the Seventh Power

5. Configurationality of Objects in Chichewa and Warlpiri 5.1 Rethinking Direct Objects -- 5.2 Symmetries within Bantu Applicatives -- 5.3 Transfer-of-Possession Is a Low Matter -- 5.4 Warlpiri: A ‘Nonconfigurational’ Language with Asymmetric Objects -- 5.5 Be Wary of Flatland

6. Partial Nasality in Maxakalí and Kaingang 6.1 What My DoktorGroßVater Proposed, and What He Didn’t Have a Chance to See -- 6.2 The Trouble with /b/ -- 6.3 Enhancement Theory and Hypervoicing -- 6.4 Nasal Shielding -- 6.5 On the Timing of Contoured Consonants

7. Symmetric Hands in Sign Language Phonologies 7.1 Sociohistorical Variation as a Window onto Sign Language Structure -- 7.2 From Cheremes to the Asymmetry of the Two Hands -- 7.3 A Paucity of Unmarked Shapes of the Base Hand -- 7.4 The Feature [+bimanual] in Minimal Pairs and Allophony -- 7.5 Empirical Contributions of Black ASL Phonology to the Model -- 7.6 Modeling the Restricted Status of H2: Features vs. Prosody --7.7 Conclusion

8. Number-Encoding on Verbs in Hiaki and Chechen 8.1 Roots and Suppletion: How Marginal? -- 8.2 The Subset Principle: Back to Warlpiri -- 8.3 Speech Errors to the Rescue -- 8.4 Going and Wending in Hiaki -- 8.5 When Suppletion Is Based on Morphosyntactic Features -- 8.6 Suppletion beyond Uto-Aztecan Verbs -- 8.7 Uncountable Mass Events in Chechen -- 8.8 Mass and Count in Dëne Su˛łiné

9. Conclusion: Towards Healthy Futures in the Language Sciences 9.1 The Argument So Far -- 9.2 On Unattested Chapters in This Version of This Book -- 9.3 The Value of Inclusivity, and Rethinking Aspects of Our Discipline -- 9.4 When Minoritized Languages Change Linguists’ Daily Work

Bibliography

Index

"For decades, a small set of major world languages have formed the basis of the vast majority of linguistic theory. However, minoritized languages can also provide fascinating contributions to our understanding of the human language faculty. This pioneering book explores the transformative effect minoritized languages have on mainstream linguistic theory, which, with their typically unusual syntactic, morphological and phonological properties, challenge and question frameworks that were developed largely to account for more widely-studied languages. The chapters address the four main pillars of linguistic theory – syntax, semantics, phonology, and morphology – and provide plenty of case studies to show how minoritized language can disrupt assumptions, and lead to modifications of the theory itself. It is illustrated with examples from a range of languages, and is written in an engaging and accessible style, making it essential reading for both students and researchers of theoretical syntax, phonology and morphology, and language policy and politics." (Book Cover)