Download Free Contact Structure And Change Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Contact Structure And Change and write the review.

Contact, Structure, and Change addresses the classic problem of how and why languages change over time through the lens of two uniquely productive and challenging perspectives: the study of language contact and the study of Indigenous American languages. Each chapter in the volume draws from a distinct theoretical positioning, ranging from documentation and description, to theoretical syntax, to creole languages and sociolinguistics. This volume acts as a Festschrift honoring Sarah G. Thomason, a long-time professor at the University of Michigan, whose career spans the disciplines of historical linguistics, contact linguistics, and Native American studies. This conversation among distinguished scholars who have been influenced by Thomason extends and in some cases refracts the questions her work addresses through a collection of studies that speak to the enduring puzzles of language change.
This text on contact topology is a comprehensive introduction to the subject, including recent striking applications in geometric and differential topology: Eliashberg's proof of Cerf's theorem via the classification of tight contact structures on the 3-sphere, and the Kronheimer-Mrowka proof of property P for knots via symplectic fillings of contact 3-manifolds. Starting with the basic differential topology of contact manifolds, all aspects of 3-dimensional contact manifolds are treated in this book. One notable feature is a detailed exposition of Eliashberg's classification of overtwisted contact structures. Later chapters also deal with higher-dimensional contact topology. Here the focus is on contact surgery, but other constructions of contact manifolds are described, such as open books or fibre connected sums. This book serves both as a self-contained introduction to the subject for advanced graduate students and as a reference for researchers.
The authors construct Heegaard Floer theory for 3-manifolds with connected boundary. The theory associates to an oriented, parametrized two-manifold a differential graded algebra. For a three-manifold with parametrized boundary, the invariant comes in two different versions, one of which (type D) is a module over the algebra and the other of which (type A) is an A∞ module. Both are well-defined up to chain homotopy equivalence. For a decomposition of a 3-manifold into two pieces, the A∞ tensor product of the type D module of one piece and the type A module from the other piece is ^HF of the glued manifold. As a special case of the construction, the authors specialize to the case of three-manifolds with torus boundary. This case can be used to give another proof of the surgery exact triangle for ^HF. The authors relate the bordered Floer homology of a three-manifold with torus boundary with the knot Floer homology of a filling.
Book endorsed by the Sunyer Prize Committee (A. Weinstein, J. Oesterle et. al.).
The goal of these notes is to provide a fast introduction to symplectic geometry for graduate students with some knowledge of differential geometry, de Rham theory and classical Lie groups. This text addresses symplectomorphisms, local forms, contact manifolds, compatible almost complex structures, Kaehler manifolds, hamiltonian mechanics, moment maps, symplectic reduction and symplectic toric manifolds. It contains guided problems, called homework, designed to complement the exposition or extend the reader's understanding. There are by now excellent references on symplectic geometry, a subset of which is in the bibliography of this book. However, the most efficient introduction to a subject is often a short elementary treatment, and these notes attempt to serve that purpose. This text provides a taste of areas of current research and will prepare the reader to explore recent papers and extensive books on symplectic geometry where the pace is much faster. For this reprint numerous corrections and clarifications have been made, and the layout has been improved.
Rolfsen's beautiful book on knots and links can be read by anyone, from beginner to expert, who wants to learn about knot theory. Beginners find an inviting introduction to the elements of topology, emphasizing the tools needed for understanding knots, the fundamental group and van Kampen's theorem, for example, which are then applied to concrete problems, such as computing knot groups. For experts, Rolfsen explains advanced topics, such as the connections between knot theory and surgery and how they are useful to understanding three-manifolds. Besides providing a guide to understanding knot theory, the book offers 'practical' training. After reading it, you will be able to do many things: compute presentations of knot groups, Alexander polynomials, and other invariants; perform surgery on three-manifolds; and visualize knots and their complements.It is characterized by its hands-on approach and emphasis on a visual, geometric understanding. Rolfsen offers invaluable insight and strikes a perfect balance between giving technical details and offering informal explanations. The illustrations are superb, and a wealth of examples are included. Now back in print by the AMS, the book is still a standard reference in knot theory. It is written in a remarkable style that makes it useful for both beginners and researchers. Particularly noteworthy is the table of knots and links at the end. This volume is an excellent introduction to the topic and is suitable as a textbook for a course in knot theory or 3-manifolds. Other key books of interest on this topic available from the AMS are ""The Shoelace Book: A Mathematical Guide to the Best (and Worst) Ways to Lace your Shoes"" and ""The Knot Book.""
This volume presents a careful selection of fifteen articles presented at the SPCL meetings in Atlanta, Boston and Hawai'i in 2003 and 2004. The contributions reflect - from various perspectives and using different types of data - on the interplay between structure and variation in contact languages, both synchronically and diachronically. The contributors consider a wide range of languages, including Surinamese creoles, Chinook Jargon, Yiddish, AAVE, Haitian Creole, Afro-Hispanic and Afro-Portuguese varieties, Nigerian Pidgin, Sri Lankan Malay, Papiamentu, and Bahamian Creole English (Hackert). A need to question and test existing claims regarding pidginization/creolization is evident in all contributions, and the authors provide analyses for a variety of grammatical structures: VO-ordering and affixation, agglutination, negation, TMAs, plural marking, the copula, and serial verb constructions. The volume provides ample evidence for the observation that pidgin/creole studies is today a mature subfield of linguistics which is making important contributions to general linguistic theory.
This volume contains the proceedings of the 2017 Georgia International Topology Conference, held from May 22–June 2, 2017, at the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia. The papers contained in this volume cover topics ranging from symplectic topology to classical knot theory to topology of 3- and 4-dimensional manifolds to geometric group theory. Several papers focus on open problems, while other papers present new and insightful proofs of classical results. Taken as a whole, this volume captures the spirit of the conference, both in terms of public lectures and informal conversations, and presents a sampling of some of the great new ideas generated in topology over the preceding eight years.
Since the early 1980s, there has been an explosive growth in 4-manifold theory, particularly due to the influx of interest and ideas from gauge theory and algebraic geometry. This book offers an exposition of the subject from the topological point of view. It bridges the gap to other disciplines and presents classical but important topological techniques that have not previously appeared in the literature. Part I of the text presents the basics of the theory at the second-year graduate level and offers an overview of current research. Part II is devoted to an exposition of Kirby calculus, or handlebody theory on 4-manifolds. It is both elementary and comprehensive. Part III offers in-depth treatments of a broad range of topics from current 4-manifold research. Topics include branched coverings and the geography of complex surfaces, elliptic and Lefschetz fibrations, $h$-cobordisms, symplectic 4-manifolds, and Stein surfaces. The authors present many important applications. The text is supplemented with over 300 illustrations and numerous exercises, with solutions given in the book. I greatly recommend this wonderful book to any researcher in 4-manifold topology for the novel ideas, techniques, constructions, and computations on the topic, presented in a very fascinating way. I think really that every student, mathematician, and researcher interested in 4-manifold topology, should own a copy of this beautiful book. —Zentralblatt MATH This book gives an excellent introduction into the theory of 4-manifolds and can be strongly recommended to beginners in this field … carefully and clearly written; the authors have evidently paid great attention to the presentation of the material … contains many really pretty and interesting examples and a great number of exercises; the final chapter is then devoted to solutions of some of these … this type of presentation makes the subject more attractive and its study easier. —European Mathematical Society Newsletter