Theoretical Perspectives on Native American Languages

Edited by Donna B. Gerdts & Karin Michelson

Subjects: Linguistics
Series: SUNY series in Linguistics
Paperback : 9780887066436, 289 pages, June 1989
Hardcover : 9780887066429, 289 pages, June 1989
Out of print (Hardcover)

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Table of contents

Contributors

Preface

PART ONE: PROBLEMS IN PHONOLOGICAL REPRESENTATION

The Complex Status of Complex Segments in Dakota
Patricia A. Shaw

Invisibility: Vowels without a Timing Slot in Mohawk
Karin Michelson

Underspecification and Derived-Only Rules in Sekani Phonology
Sharon Hargus

Vowel Initial Suffixes and Clitics in Slave
Keren D. Rice

Articulatory and Acoustic Correlates of Pharyngealization: Evidence from Athapaskan
Eung-Do Cook

PART TWO: THE MORPHO-SYNTAX OF COMPLEX VERBAL MORPHOLOGY

Agreement in Dogrib: Inflection or Cliticization?
Leslie Saxon

Disjoint Reference in a "Free Word Order" Language
Ann Grafstein

Argument Structure and the Morphology of the Ojibwa Verb
Glyne L. Piggott

The Morphosyntax of Eskimo Causatives
John T. Jensen and Alana Johns

The Nature of Polysynthesis in Algonquian and Eskimo
J. Peter Denny

Relational Parameters of Reflexives: The Halkomelem Evidence
Donna B. Gerdts

Index

Description

American linguistics has a tradition of finding unique and important insights from studies of Native American languages, often leading to innovations in current theories. At the same time, research on Native languages has been enhanced by the perspectives of modern theory. This book extends this tradition by presenting original analyses of aspects of six Native languages of Canada—Algonquin, Athapaskan, Eskimo, Iroquoian, Salishan, and Siouan.

Addressing problems relevant to phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics, the authors make both descriptive and theoretical contributions by presenting data that has not been previously published or treated from the viewpoint of contemporary theory.

Donna B. Gerdts is in the Department of Linguistics at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Karin Michelson is in the Department of Linguistics at Harvard University.

Reviews

"This book represents an emerging area, research in which will provide important new insights into both the languages under study and the theories involved. It is a very timely book, and a good one. All linguists working on Amerindian languages should buy it, and I suspect many theoreticians will as well. " — Elizabeth A. Cowper, University of Toronto