This book addresses various shortcomings in definitions of "applicative" when compared to what is actually found across languages and proposes a four-way distinction among applicative constructions, especially relevant to Bantu, a large family of lan...

"We frequently see one idea appear in one discipline as if it were new, when it migrated from another discipline, like a mole that had dug under a fence and popped up on the other side". Taking note of this phenomenon, John Goldsmith and Bernard La...

We're all familiar with "a flock of sheep" but what are the collective nouns for racehorses, pigs, zebras or giraffes? Drawing on a range of sources, from fifteenth-century hunting terms to more recent inventions that have now entered the language, t...