Browsing by Subject "Linguistics"

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A grammar of Chácobo, a southern Pano language of the northern Bolivian Amazon
(2018-08) Tallman, Adam J.; Epps, Patience, 1973-; Guillaume, Antoine; Woodbury, Anthony C; Wechsler, Stephen; Bruile, Martine; Salanova, Andres P
This dissertation provides a description of the Chácobo language, a southern Pano language spoken by approximately 1200 people who live close to or on the Geneshuaya, Ivon, Benicito and Yata rivers in the northern Bolivian Amazon. The grammatical description emerges out of an ethnographically based documentation project of the language. Chapter 1 contains an overview of the cultural context in which the Chácobo language is embedded and a brief ethnohistory of the Chácobo people. I also discuss the general methodology of the dissertation touching specifically on issues related to data collection. Chapter 2 introduces the phonology of the language focusing on the categories necessary for its description. Chapter 3 provides a discussion of morphosyntactic structures and relations. This chapter provides a discussion of how head-dependent relations and the general distinction between morphology and syntax are understood throughout the dissertation. Parts of speech classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) are also defined and motivated based on semantic and formal criteria. Chapter 4 describes predication and its relationship to clause-typing. Chapter 5 is concerned with constituency which refers to hierarchical structures motivated through distributional properties and relations and the relative degree of contiguity between linguistic categories. Chapter 6 provides an extensive discussion of morphophonology and its relation to constituency. Chapter 7 and 8 are concerned with the language’s alignment and valence-adjusting systems. The next five chapters provide a description of the functional domains relevant to the verbal domain including; Tense (Chapter 9); Temporal distance (Chapter 10); Aspect (Chapter 11); Associated Motion (Chapter 12); Perspective (Chapter 13). The last two Chapters focus on categories in the nominal domain. Chapter 14 provides a description of noun compounding, adjectives and possession. Chapter 15 provides a description of number, quantification and deixis inside and outside the nominal domain.
A snapshot of Texas bilingual preparation programs
(2022-07-01) De La garza, Sarah A.; Reyes, Pedro, 1954-; DeMatthews, David E; Valenzuela, Angela; Salinas, Cinthia
Extant research on bilingual teacher preparation is growing but limited. The purpose of my study was to analyze bilingual program structures and the experiences of bilingual preservice candidates. The following research questions guided my study: (1) What are the most common structures of bilingual teacher preparation programs in Texas related to English learner student needs? (2) How, if at all, do programs vary in their structures around knowledge of cultural and linguistic diversity? (3) How, if at all, do programs vary in their structures around knowledge of linguistics? The study employed a 2-stage exploratory sequential design that involved interviews with bilingual program directors and an extensive document analysis of program documents and syllabi. This study also addressed a gap in the literature through a multi-institutional case study, the findings of which were based on a sample of 7 bilingual preparation programs in Texas. The findings to the first research question describe how various curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and faculty structures impact the state’s bilingual preparation programs. These structures respond to state policies such as the passage of H.B. 3 and H.B. 3217 in 2019, existing certification exam requirements for bilingual preservice candidates, and the new clinical residency model. The findings also illustrate the programs’ dependence on adjunct faculty to teach general preparation courses. Bilingual candidates have mixed access to tenure-track or tenured faculty for specialized bilingual courses. The findings of the second and third research questions illuminate how programs varied in their structures of knowledge of cultural diversity, linguistic diversity, and linguistics. Some programs were more intentional about addressing cultural diversity from a political or intersectional lens than others. Moreover, programs varied in their attention to the English Language Proficiency Standards and emergent bilinguals’ levels of English proficiency. While the document analysis showed variation in how programs addressed candidates’ knowledge of Spanish language structures, few differences emerged in what bilingual candidates learned about English language structures. This manuscript concludes with implications to consider in the policy, practice, theoretical, and research areas. These recommendations include longitudinal studies and revision of existing certification exam policies.
Air-borne bards : Anglo-Irish writers and the BBC, 1931-1968
(2012-08) Bloom, Emily Catherine; Cullingford, Elizabeth; Carter, Mia; Friedman, Alan W; Hutchison, Coleman; Savage, Robert J
This dissertation defines and explores “radiogenic aesthetics” in late modernism that emerged alongside radio broadcasting, World War II era propaganda, censorship, and paper shortages, and the transnational networks forming in the shadow of British imperial collapse. The Anglo-Irish writers in this study—W.B. Yeats, Louis MacNeice, Elizabeth Bowen, and Samuel Beckett—addressed a changing media environment that mapped on to the socio-cultural flux of the period following Irish Independence. Transcending the newly minted national boundaries between Ireland and England, the British Broadcasting Corporation became a locus for shaping transnational literary networks, this in spite of the nationalist rhetoric surrounding broadcasting. By analyzing broadcasts alongside print literature, I identify a circuit of influence coursing between modernism and broadcasting, rather than a unidirectional flow. This body of work, which includes drama (radio and stage), feature broadcasts, poetry, and fiction, offers a counter-narrative to literary historical theories that position modernist aesthetics as a reaction against popular mass media. Motifs of uncanny repetition—returns, echoes, and hauntings—are typical of these radiogenic aesthetics and reveal tensions between orality and literacy, embodiment and disembodiment, communalism and individualism, ephemerality and permanence, and tradition and “the now.” These tensions become definitive features of late modernism as the self-assurance of modernism’s first practitioners gives way to troubling questions about the future of literature in the unstable media environments surrounding World War II. Adapting traditional literary forms from the novel, poem, and play for the broadcast medium and incorporating radio’s epistemologies into their literary theories, Yeats, MacNeice, Bowen, and Beckett draw attention to fundamental questions about mediation itself. In so doing, they anticipate the hypermediacy of postmodernism without, however, relinquishing the modernist pursuit of authenticity or the quest for forms capable of transcending the widening distance between author and audience.
Algunos aspectos lingüísticos y socioculturales de la influencia de las lenguas indígenas en las variedades americanas del español
(2002) Umaña, Adolfo Constenla
El tema del español en contacto con las lenguas indígenas nos lleva a plantearnos una serie de preguntas como ¿cuál ha sido la naturaleza de este contacto?; ¿a qué tipo de fenómenos lingüísticos ha dado origen?; ¿cuáles han sido los factores socioculturales determinantes en esta situación de contacto y en sus efectos lingüísticos?; ¿cuán grandes han sido estos efectos?; ¿han sido semejantes en todos los lugares a lo largo de los siglos en que se ha estado dando el contacto?, y, finalmente, ¿cuál es su importancia desde el punto de vista sociocultural? A continuación plantearé mi punto de vista en torno a uno de los aspectos de esta cuestión: el efecto en el español; únicamente al final y muy de paso, mencionaré brevemente la otra cara de la medalla, esto es, el efecto en las lenguas indígenas.
An analysis and reconstruction of transitive nominalization in Ch’olan languages
(2020-08-11) Walters, Mackenzie Cheyenne; Law, Danny, 1980-
This paper reconstructs the transitive nominalizing suffix *-yaj (IPA */-jax/) in the Ch’olan branch of Mayan languages. I consider data from modern Chol, Chontal, and Ch’orti’ as well as colonial Ch’olti’ to reconstruct the phonological form and syntactic function of this morpheme. This suffix has been called nominalizing antipassive (e.g., Robertson et al. 2010:186-7), although it does not eliminate the object in all cases. Rather, I analyze it as a more general valency-reducing suffix. Each of the languages has undergone small phonological changes, and all of them allow truncation of the suffix to -aj in certain phonological contexts and in fast speech. This paper argues that the glide is underlying, rather than epenthetic, and that the final consonant reconstructs to the velar fricative /x/ rather than the glottal /h/. It also considers the distribution of these nominalizations in each of the languages, and the additional morphology that can appear on them. In particular, there has been a shift between colonial Ch’olti’ and modern Ch’orti’ in the preferred method for marking the thematic roles of the nominalized verb. Ch’olti’ requires a prepositional phrase to reference the patient or stimulus of the verb if it has been derived into an agentive, while Ch’orti’ uses the Set A possessor for the same function. When there is no agentive prefix in Ch'olti', the Set A proclitic can appear before the nominalization, as in Ch’orti’. Chol and Chontal use the *-yaj suffix very similarly to each other. Although there is some debate about the role of nominalizations in split-ergative languages like these, these particular forms act as syntactic nouns, taking nominal morphology including possessors and being incorporated into verbs like any other noun. Further fieldwork on the distribution of the allomorphs in these languages would be particularly useful, as would a closer study focused on the syntactic distribution
An investigation of projection and temporal reference in Kaqchikel
(2017-08-11) Stout, Tammi Leann; Beaver, David I., 1966-; Kamp, Hans; England, Nora C; Law, Danny; Tonhauser, Judith
This dissertation is an investigation of two categories of meaning: projective content and temporal reference. Both topics have been discussed widely in literature for better studied languages, primarily English, but have received much less attention in both formal semantics and in documentary and descriptive literature for languages that are under-studied. Using data from primary fieldwork conducted in Guatemala on the Mayan language, Kaqchikel, I contribute to the discussion of the semantics of under-studied languages by investigating linguistic expressions that trigger implications, which are said to project out of the scope of entailment canceling operators, such as negation. For the first half of the dissertation, I introduce the concepts and diagnostics to determine if an implication is projective both in English and in Kaqchikel. I then show how the diagnostics are borne out in Kaqchikel both for projection and for at-issue meaning. I then turn to an investigation of temporal reference and provide an analysis of Kaqchikel as a tenseless language, which leads into the discussion in Ch. 6 on particles in the language with projective and temporal implications. I conclude by drawing on the results from both studies to discuss the implications for future studies both in Kaqchikel and for other languages.
Aspects of the phonology and morphology of Zenzontepec Chatino, a Zapotecan language of Oaxaca, Mexico
(2014-08) Campbell, Eric William; Woodbury, Anthony C.
This dissertation is an analysis of aspects of the phonology and morphology of Zenzontepec Chatino (ISO 639-3: czn), a Zapotecan (Otomanguean) language spoken in a remote area of Oaxaca, Mexico (16°32"N, 97°30"W). There are an estimated 8,000 speakers of the language, but its vitality is weakening due to accelerating shift to Spanish. The phonological analysis begins with the segmental inventory. After that, the autosegmental contrasts are treated, with the highlight being the tone system. The tone bearing unit is the mora, which may bear high tone /H/, mid tone /M/, or no tone Ø. In tone systems with a three-way contrast, the unspecified category is usually the mid-level one. Therefore, Zenzontepec Chatino is typologically unusual in this respect. Special chapters are devoted to phonotactics and phonological processes, including a play language of "speaking backwards" that sheds light on crucial phonological questions, such as the status of glottalization and the limits of prosodic domains. There are also chapters on special topics in phonology: regional variation, Spanish loanwords, and sound symbolism. Another chapter bridges the phonology and the morphology, defining and comparing the phonological word versus the grammatical word, and outlining the basic morphological building blocks: roots, affixes, clitics, and particles. After that, lexeme classes are defined using morphosyntactic criteria, providing a syntactic sketch of the language. The language is strongly head-marking with somewhat agglutinating and synthetic morphology. Another chapter gives an overview of verbal morphology, which is the locus of most of the language's morphology. The dissertation is the beginning of a full descriptive grammar and is part of a larger project to document Zenzontepec Chatino, complementing a dictionary and a documentary text corpus recorded in the community with native speakers. The theoretical approach is one in which the language is explored as much as possible on its own terms using naturalistic textual data supplemented by lexicographic and elicited material. The analysis is not bound by any formal framework, but it is informed by socio-cultural and diachronic considerations. It is situated in a typological perspective to offer more of a contribution to the scientific understanding of the structure of human language.
At the threshold : liminality, architecture, and the hidden language of space
(2013-05) Wilbur, Brett Matthew; Benedikt, Michael
Intersubjectivity is the acknowledgment that the subject of the self, the I, is in direct relations with the subject of the other. There is an immediate correspondence; in fact, one implies the existence of the other as a necessary state of intersubjective experience. This direct relationship negates a need for any external mediation between the two subjects, including the idea of a separate object between the subject of one individual and that of another. The essay proposes that our confrontation with the other occurs not in physical geometric space, but in liminal space, the space outside of the mean of being, at the threshold of relativity. The essay endorses the idea that liminality is not a space between things, but instead is an introjection, an internalization of the reflected world, and a reciprocal notion of the externalized anomaly of the other within each of us. We meet the surface of the world at the edge of our body but the mind is unencumbered by such limitations and as such subsumes the other as itself. Through symbolic language and myth, the surfaces and edges of things, both animate and inanimate, define the geography of the intersubjective mind. Inside the self the other becomes an object and persists as an abstraction of the original subject. We begin to perceive ourselves as the imagined projections of the other; we begin to perceive ourselves as we believe society perceives us. The process applies to the design of architectural space as a rudimentary vocabulary that is consistent with the language of the landscape.
Audience design and code-switching in Bayside, Texas
(2009-12) Dahl, Kimberly Lynn; Crowhurst, Megan Jane; Hinrichs, Lars
This study casts the code-switching patterns observed among Spanish-English bilinguals in Bayside, Texas within the framework of Bell’s (1984) theory of audience design, which is claimed to apply to both monolingual style-shifting as well as bilingual code-switching. The latter part of this claim has been little explored. The intent of this study, then, is to determine if the explanatory power of audience design, as demon¬strated in studies on style-shifting, does indeed hold when applied to cases of language alternation. Analysis of the data from Bayside generally supports Bell’s theory as it shows speakers adjusting their use of Spanish and/or English to suit their audience. The study will highlight a less frequently analyzed aspect of Bell’s model, i.e., the role of the auditor, and will call for the auditor to be classified as a primary influencer of lin¬guistic choice in bilingual contexts, alongside the addressee. The code selection patterns exhibited by a pair of Bayside residents in a series of interviews and in conversations videotaped at the local general store will be com¬pared to illustrate the effects of addressee and auditor. A qualitative analysis will dem¬onstrate that differing determinations regarding the linguistic repertoires of the auditors led to contrasting linguistic choices on the part of the study’s subjects. The data collected will show that, when selecting a language of communication, as opposed to a register, style, or dialect, a speaker may be more greatly affected by an auditor than by the addressee. The methods used in collecting the data will also support an expan¬sion of Bell’s model to include an additional participant category suitable for capturing the effect of the recording device, as per Wertheim (2006).
Bilingual language contexts : variable language switching costs and phonetic production
(2012-08) Olson, Daniel James; Ortega-Llebaria, Marta; Toribio, Almeida Jacqueline, 1963-; Bullock, Barbara; Griffin, Zenzi; Hensey, Frederick; Kelm, Orlando; Sussman, Harvey
Bilinguals are generally adept at segregating their two competing languages and switching between them when contextually appropriate, although it has been shown that switching languages incurs a reaction time delay, or switch cost (Kolers, 1966). These switch costs are modulated by language dominance, with bilinguals evidencing greater delays when switching into their dominant language relative to their non-dominant language (e.g. Meuter & Allport, 1999). While these asymmetrical switch costs have formed the basis for theories of bilingual language separation and selection, the key factor of language context, the degree to which each language is employed in a given paradigm or conversation, has yet to be considered. In addition, previous research and subsequent theories of language selection have focused exclusively on the lexical level, yet given the distinct phonetic categories in a bilingual’s two languages (Caramazza et al., 1973), selection must also occur at the phonetic level. Addressing these gaps in the literature, this dissertation investigates the language switching costs and phonetic production of Spanish-English bilinguals in two experimental paradigms: a cued picture-naming task and an oral production task. In both studies, bilinguals (English-dominant, Spanish-dominant, and balanced bilinguals) produced language switches in varying language contexts, from monolingual to bilingual. Analyses focus on switch costs, error rates, and phonetic production, as a means to further the understanding of the language switching mechanism at the lexical and phonetic levels. Drawing on results from the two experimental paradigms, this dissertation makes several major contributions to the ongoing discussion regarding bilingual language selection. First, this study provides evidence for a gradient nature of the language switching mechanism at the lexical level. Second, it contributes an examination of the effects of language switching at the phonetic level, demonstrating asymmetrical phonetic transfer. And third, parallels are drawn between the underlying effects of language switching and the phonetic realizations produced in connected speech. Implications are considered for theories of bilingual language selection, and a gradient account of the Inhibitory Control Model (Green, 1986) is proposed at both the lexical and phonetic levels.
Cambios en la sociedad y en el habla limeña
(1985-06) Escobar, Alberto
Case marking in Spanish reverse psychological verbs : a lexical semantic perspective
(2015-08) Ganeshan, Ashwini; Nishida, Chiyo; Beavers, John T.; Toribio, Almeida Jacqueline; Russi, Cinzia; Koike, Dale
This dissertation is a lexical semantic study of case marking in Spanish reverse psychological verbs, which exhibit an alternation in dative-accusative case marking. Previous accounts propose a strong correlation between case marking and eventualities (Parodi & Luján 2000, Ackerman & Moore 2001). Through the use of corpus data and native speaker judgments, I first demonstrate that there is a correlation between stative reverse psychological predicates and dative case marking, while eventive reverse psychological predicates allow accusative or dative experiencers. In my alternative proposal, I postulate that case marking alternation can be accounted for by analyzing reverse psychological verbs based on whether they have two components of transitivity — agentivity and affectedness of the object. I propose that accusative case marking in reverse psychological verbs is unspecified for agentivity and carries an entailment of affectedness of the object, whereas dative case marking entails a weakening or lack of agentivity and is unspecified for affectedness of the object. As predicted by the Transitivity Hypothesis (Hopper & Thompson 1980) the findings here corroborate that the accusative vs. dative experiencer case-marking reflects the relatively higher vs. lower transitivity respectively of a given reverse psychological predicate. In two reverse psychological verb clauses that differ, the features agentivity, affectedness, and case marking co-vary in the same direction. If one clause has lower transitivity features, such as lack of agentivity, and no affectedness of the object, then the case marking also co-varies in the same direction with dative case marking and vice versa. I also claim that reverse psychological verbs that have higher transitivity are causatives. As part of making this case, I provide linguistic diagnostics to distinguish between states and events, and to identify agentivity, volitionality, and affectedness. The analysis presented here contributes to cross-linguistic and theoretical work on transitivity and causation.
Code-switching in the determiner phrase : a comparison of Tunisian Arabic-French and Moroccan Arabic-French switching
(2010-12) Post, Rebekah Elizabeth; Birdsong, David; Bullock, Barbara E.
Code-switching (CS) between French and Arabic is common across North Africa and in parts of the Middle East. Many researchers have examined this phenomenon in Tunisia (Belazi 1991, Lawson & Sachdev 2000, Belazi et. al 1994) and Morocco (Abbassi 1977, Bentahila 1983, Bentahila & Davies 1983, Lahlou 1991, Redouane 2005.) Corpus and elicited data from these two countries has helped form the basis of proposed universal constraints on code-switching, specifically the Functional Head Constraint (FHC) (Belazi et al 1994) and the Complement Adjunct Distinction (CAD) (Mahootian and Santorini 1996). However, CS between French and Moroccan and Tunsian dialects has not been directly investigated within a single study. This study is a step in filling that gap. Using a web-based survey, the present study examines native dialect speakers’ ratings of authenticity of sentences that contain both French and Arabic with a switch occurring in the Determiner Phrase (DP). The syntactic structure of the DP in the dialects examined is the same, (DP = D (D) N (A)). This is similar to the DP in French (DP = D (A) N (A)) with a few key differences that make it possible to test the FHC and CAD within the DP alone. An example of one of the eight possible switch types, between an Arabic Demonstrative Determiner and a French Definite Determiner, is seen here between Moroccan Arabic and French: Men dima had l’homme n’aime pas les chiens. (Since always this the man doesn’t like dogs.) A mixed-model ANOVA performed on the participants’ ratings reveals main effects for dialect, sex and switch type. Significant interactions also exist, including an interaction between switch type, sex and dialect. While further research is needed, the results indicate that syntactic constraints may not be the only way to understand the practice of CS. Instead, a typological approach, as suggested by Muysken (2000), may lead to a more complete understanding of why and how communities use multiple languages.
Computational models of changes in language use
(2019-09-23) Rosenfeld, Alex Bryant; Erk, Katrin; Beavers, John; Hinrichs, Lars; Law, Danny; Mooney, Ray
There has been a large body of research on distributional models, which are computational models of word use. However, less research has explored diachronic distributional models, which predict changes in word use over time. In this dissertation, we expand upon this research in several ways. We propose several diachronic distributional models that, instead of having to break up the data into bins, represent time as a continuous variable. The first of these is a deep neural network that incorporates time via a feedforward network. The second is an RBF network that provides more interpretable information on how a word changes usage over time. We then propose several novel methods for evaluating diachronic distributional models. One is a pseudoword task where a model predicts synthetic changes in meaning. The other is a collection of tasks where a model predicts how a word changed senses over time. We then expand the scope of our analysis beyond diachronic distributional models. One direction we pursue is the development of a distributional model that incorporates regional information instead of temporal information. We then use this model to predict the linguistic regions of Texas. A second direction we pursue is the use of epidemiological models to explore sources of changes in word use
Contact-induced grammaticalization as an impetus for arabic dialect development
(2018-04-23) Leddy-Cecere, Thomas Alexander; Brustad, Kristen; Law, Danny, 1980-; Huehnergard, John; Epps, Patience
This dissertation proposes contact-induced grammaticalization as an account for the widespread occurrence of functionally analogous but etymologically distinct grammatical innovations across modern Arabic dialects. Similarities in functional and semantic details of these grammatical items argue for interrelated development, while diversity in form rules out an origin in common inheritance or matter-based borrowing. The dissertation proposes that these developments are products of the diffusion of grammaticalization pathways between neighboring dialects by means of replication. This hypothesis is evaluated using a sample of attested realizations of three relevant classes of developments (future tense markers, temporal adverbs meaning ‘now’, and genitive exponents) drawn from eighty-one modern Arabic varieties, examined by means of a three-part heuristic which assesses 1) the status of individual innovations as examples of grammaticalization, 2) the multiple replication of attested grammaticalization pathways, and 3) the geographical distribution of modern reflexes as indicating a history of areal diffusion. The results demonstrate substantial evidence for the role of contact-induced grammaticalization in all three sets of developments examined, and the dissertation concludes by discussing the significance of these findings for the study of Arabic diachrony and contact-induced grammaticalization theory more broadly.
Definiteness in the Arabic dialects
(2018-10-11) Turner, Michael Lee; Brustad, Kristen; Epps, Patience; Al-Batal, Mahmoud; Russi, Cinzia
This dissertation proposes a model, based roughly on Dryer's (2014) REFERENCE HIERARCHY, that can systematically account for variation in the morphosyntactic strategies used to mark different degrees of definiteness and indefiniteness in the Arabic dialects. These primarily spoken varieties display a great deal of diversity in this domain, not only in the forms of the articles and affixes and that they use to mark referential status in noun phrases, but also in the semantic notions with which formal marking strategies can be associated. Although there is some information available in individual Arabic dialect grammars, many of which note the existence of any reference-marking strategies perceived as unique or significant, there has been relatively little comparative work on these strategies and only limited progress toward describing them using cross-linguistically applicable models for semantic typology. The present study fills this gap by providing a case study based, textually supported account of key points of grammatical variation and a preliminary typological classification system for dialects' treatment of definiteness. The goal of this approach is to clarify the discrete semantic parameters that govern the use of marking strategies across a diverse set of Arabic varieties, thereby opening the door for a more thorough comparative analysis of the corresponding forms' semantic properties and diachronic origins.
Definiteness marking in Moroccan Arabic : contact, divergence, and semantic change
(2013-08) Turner, Michael Lee; Brustad, Kristen
The aim of the present study is to cast new light on the nature of definiteness marking in Moroccan Arabic (MA). Previous work on the dialect group has described its definiteness system as similar to that of other Arabic varieties, where indefinite entities are unmarked and a "definite article" /l-/ modifies nouns to convey a definite meaning. Such descriptions, however, do not fully account for the behavior of MA nouns in spontaneous natural speech, as found in the small self-collected corpus that informs the study: on one hand, /l-/ can and regularly does co-occur with indefinite meanings; on the other, a number of nouns can exhibit definiteness even in the absence of /l-/. In response to these challenges, the study puts forth an alternate synchronic description the system, arguing that the historical definite article */l-/ has in fact lost its association with definiteness and has instead become lexicalized into an unmarked form of the noun that can appear in any number of semantic contexts. Relatedly, the study argues that the historically indefinite form *Ø has come under heavy syntactic constraints and can best be described as derived from the new unmarked form via a process of phonologically conditioned disfixation, represented {- /l/}. At the same time, MA has also apparently retained an older particle ši and developed an article waħəd, both of which can be used to express different types of indefinite meanings. To support the plausibility of this new description, the study turns to the linguistic history of definiteness in MA, describing how a combination of internal and external impetuses for change likely pushed the dialect toward article loss, a development upon which semantic reanalysis and syntactic restructuring of other forms then followed. If the claim that MA no longer overtly marks definiteness is indeed correct, the study could have a significant impact on work that used previous MA descriptions to make grammaticality judgments, as well as be of value to future work on processes of grammaticalization and language contact.
A dictionary of foreign language education ; and, William Dwight Whitney : the proto-modern linguist
(1995-12) Adamson, Brent Matthew, 1968-; Donahue, Frank E.; Louden, Mark Laurence
Does Lateral Transmission Obscure Inheritance in Hunter-Gatherer Languages?
(Public Library of Science, 2011-09-27) Bowern, Claire; Epps, Patience; Gray, Russell; Hill, Jane; Hunley, Keith; McConvell, Patrick; Zentz, Jason
In recent years, linguists have begun to increasingly rely on quantitative phylogenetic approaches to examine language evolution. Some linguists have questioned the suitability of phylogenetic approaches on the grounds that linguistic evolution is largely reticulate due to extensive lateral transmission, or borrowing, among languages. The problem may be particularly pronounced in hunter-gatherer languages, where the conventional wisdom among many linguists is that lexical borrowing rates are so high that tree building approaches cannot provide meaningful insights into evolutionary processes. However, this claim has never been systematically evaluated, in large part because suitable data were unavailable. In addition, little is known about the subsistence, demographic, ecological, and social factors that might mediate variation in rates of borrowing among languages. Here, we evaluate these claims with a large sample of hunter-gatherer languages from three regions around the world. In this study, a list of 204 basic vocabulary items was collected for 122 hunter-gatherer and small-scale cultivator languages from three ecologically diverse case study areas: northern Australia, northwest Amazonia, and California and the Great Basin. Words were rigorously coded for etymological (inheritance) status, and loan rates were calculated. Loan rate variability was examined with respect to language area, subsistence mode, and population size, density, and mobility; these results were then compared to the sample of 41 primarily agriculturalist languages in [1]. Though loan levels varied both within and among regions, they were generally low in all regions (mean 5.06%, median 2.49%, and SD 7.56), despite substantial demographic, ecological, and social variation. Amazonian levels were uniformly very low, with no language exhibiting more than 4%. Rates were low but more variable in the other two study regions, in part because of several outlier languages where rates of borrowing were especially high. High mobility, prestige asymmetries, and language shift may contribute to the high rates in these outliers. No support was found for claims that hunter-gatherer languages borrow more than agriculturalist languages. These results debunk the myth of high borrowing in hunter-gatherer languages and suggest that the evolution of these languages is governed by the same type of rules as those operating in large-scale agriculturalist speech communities. The results also show that local factors are likely to be more critical than general processes in determining high (or low) loan rates.
El Diccionario Tarahumara –Alemán de Matthäus Steffel: Lengua y Cultura Rarámuri en el Siglo XVIII
(Universidad de Sonora, Hermosillo, Sonora, México, 2020) Merrill, William L.
El Diccionario Tarahumara-Alemán de Matthäus Steffel: Lengua y Cultura Rarámuri en el Siglo XVIII, by William L. Merrill, in collaboration with Maria Brumm and Greta de León. Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico: Universidad de Sonora. 1103 pages. Tarahumara, an Indigenous language of northwestern Mexico, is spoken today by more than 80,000 people, who refer to themselves and their language as "Rarámuri". It is related to over thirty other languages that together form the Uto-Aztecan language family, distributed at European contact from the Great Basin of the western United States to Central America. The only extant dictionary of the Tarahumara language produced prior to the twentieth century was compiled in German by the Moravian Jesuit Matthäus Steffel, based on his experience as a missionary among the Tarahumaras between 1761 and 1767. The dictionary was published in Germany in 1809, but it contains hundreds of mistakes, both typographical and substantive, suggesting that Steffel did not have the opportunity to review it before his death in 1806. Fortunately, the majority of these mistakes can be corrected by comparison with a manuscript version of the dictionary that is preserved in the Moravian Provincial Archives, located in Brno, Czech Republic, where Steffel lived during the last three decades of his life. This volume offers the first Spanish translations and detailed analyses of both the published and manuscript versions of Steffel's Tarahumara-German dictionary, as well as exact transcriptions of the German originals of both works. Its principal objectives are to make the dictionary accessible to the Rarámuri people and to enhance its value as a source of data for research in linguistics and other disciplines. Steffel documented over 1100 Tarahumara words, along with diverse dimensions of the phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics of the language in the eighteenth century. The record he created indicates that, during the last 250 years, the Tarahumara language has undergone significant changes that have tended to distance it from other Uto-Aztecan languages. His dictionary is crucial to clarifying the historical relationships between Tarahumara and these languages as well as the nature and temporal framework of the changes that occurred. In addition, Steffel enriched his lexical entries with precise descriptions of a range of Tarahumara cultural practices and various aspects of life in colonial Mexico, and he provided the first descriptions of the flora and fauna of the Tarahumara region. The translations and transcriptions of the dictionary presented in this volume are complemented by overviews of Steffel=s life and his linguistic endeavors and evaluations of the significance of these works for research on Tarahumara language and cultural history. To transform his studies into reliable sources of linguistic data and to facilitate their use in linguistic research, the volume presents a technical analysis of his orthographic conventions, along with an extensive review of the errors identified in the works, a presentation of the words and glosses documented in the published dictionary in separate Tarahumara-Spanish and Spanish-Tarahumara vocabulary lists, and a compilation of these lexical items rendered in Steffel's orthography and modern phonetic notation. A glossary of the plant and animal terms that Steffel documented is presented separately with postulated scientific identifications of the taxa designated by them. An index of the principal topics covered in the published dictionary also is provided.