The Languages of the Amazon by Alexandra Aikhenvald (original) (raw)
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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.
Notes on Linguistics, 2001
Abstract: These four volumes of the journal present articles, review articles, abstracts, dissertation abstracts, and reports. Articles include the following:" The Linguist's Role in Archiving Linguistic Data Sources"(Joan Spanne);" The SIL Language and Culture Archive: An Interview with Joan Spanne"(Eugene Loos);" The Value of Comparative Linguistics"(Joseph E. Grimes);" Historical Linguistics in Southeast Asian Language Programs"(Paulette Hopple);" Comparative-Historical MesoAmerican Reconstruction and ...
are regularly on the staff of SIL-UND and were on staff this summer. Robert Van Valin, of the Linguistics Department at SUNY-Buffalo, was visiting lecturer for a week at this year's SIL-UND session. Karol Franklin is a former student whose contribution to this volume grew from her M.A. work at the University of Texas at Austin; in addition to that historic tie with SIL-UND, her paper is particularly appropriate for this collection because it builds on and responds to a paper in an earlier volume (J. Albert Bickford, "Initial and Non-Initial Indirect Object in Spanish," in the 1982 workpapers). The topics similarly represent a variety of kinds of linguistics: in phonology, Sue Regnier's description of Quiegolani Zapotec; in syntax, Steve Marlett's paper within a relational grammar framework, David Weber's paper within government and binding theory, Karol Franklin's paper which responds to both of these syntactic theories, and Robert Van Valin's overview of a relatively new theory of syntax (Role and Reference Grammar); and Steve Marlett's and Becky Moser's paper on Seri kinship terms. Our thanks for the production of the volume go to Betty Brown for copyediting, to Ed Owen for doing editing and formatting on the computer, and to Chuck Speck and Kathie Dooley for arranging for printing and distribution. We would also like to express our appreciation to unnamed referees for help in evaluating papers for the volume.
1992
Four working papers from the 1992 Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota session, are presented. The first, "English Borrowing in Thai as Reflected in Thai Journalistic Texts," by James Kapper, looks at patterns of the influence of the English language on Thai. It is concluded that English has permeated Thai culture and society deeper than the level of the specialized bilinguals who introduced many of the loan words. "Preposed and Postposed Adverbials in English," by Stephen H. Levinsohn, describes the differences in meaning resulting from placing adverbial clauses before or after the main verb in an English sentence. In "The Role of Language in the Dissolution of the Soviet Union," by David F. Marshall, the dynamics of multiple languages and cultures, ethnic mobilization, and the dissolution of the USSR are explored. It is proposed that government policy concerning multilingualism was less to blame for ethnic tensions than Russian ethnocentrism. "Tone in Komo," by John Paul Thomas, is an analysis of sound patterns in Komo, a sub-Bantu language, focusing on tonal patterns. Rules and processes for each of three strata of tonal processes is outlined. (MSE)
Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics. Volume 5, Number 1
1980
These papers deal with a variety of topics bearing on modality in a variety of languages and language families. While-all languages have ways of expressing modality, that is, such notions as possibility, necessity, and contingency, this phenomenon has been the object of little systematic linguistic analysis. These papers are presented with the hope that they will stimulate comments from the profession.