Language Contact and Change in the Americas: Studies in honor of Marianne Mithun, Apr 2016
This unique collection of articles in honor of Marianne Mithun represents the very latest in rese... more This unique collection of articles in honor of Marianne Mithun represents the very latest in research on language contact and language change in the Indigenous languages of the Americas. The book aims to provide new theoretical and empirical insights into how and why languages change, especially with regard to contact phenomena in languages of North America, Meso-America and South America. The individual chapters cover a broad range of topics, including sound change, morphosyntactic change, lexical semantics, grammaticalization, language endangerment, and discourse-pragmatic change. With chapters from distinguished scholars and talented newcomers alike, this book will be welcomed by anyone with an interest in internally- and externally-motivated language change.
Different studies have looked at phonotactic restrictions on ejectives from a variety of perspect... more Different studies have looked at phonotactic restrictions on ejectives from a variety of perspectives focusing on syllable structure or on general patterns of laryngeal features, such as cooccurrence limitations or positionally motivated neutralization of contrast (Blevins 2004, Coulston ...
This paper proposes a functional basis for final consonant extrametricality, the asymmetric statu... more This paper proposes a functional basis for final consonant extrametricality, the asymmetric status of CVC syllables as stress-attracting in non-final position of a word but stress-rejecting in final position. A typological study of phonemic vowel length pattern in 10 languages with this ...
This paper presents the first detailed description of the phonetic structures of the endangered M... more This paper presents the first detailed description of the phonetic structures of the endangered Mexican indigenous language Chuxnabán Mixe, including a survey of the main features of the consonant system and acoustic measurements of the characteristics of the ...
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2005
Differences between languages in the stress‐attracting properties of various syllable types (syll... more Differences between languages in the stress‐attracting properties of various syllable types (syllable weight) are associated with phonetic differences. Certain languages that preferentially stress CVC syllables (ie, treat CVC as heavy) fail to display substantial vowel shortening in ...
International Journal of American Linguistics, 2013
ABSTRACT Proposed criteria for defining nominal compounds cross-linguistically are not universall... more ABSTRACT Proposed criteria for defining nominal compounds cross-linguistically are not universally accepted. Moreover, in some languages, nominal compounds share properties with phrases and possessive constructions and are not easily identified in all instances (Aikhenvald 2007, Bauer 2006; 2009, Lieber and Štekauer 2009, and Scalise and Vogel 2010). This paper examines the phonological, morphosyntactic, and semantic properties of nominal compounds in Chuxnabán Mixe and argues that defining criteria for compoundhood are best viewed language-specifically. In Chuxnabán Mixe, nominal compounds are best discerned phonologically. In addition, they are distinct morphosyntactically by being treated as a whole for inflection and by showing a fixed order with respect to their parts. This work further establishes that nominal compounding is a productive word-formation process in Chuxnabán Mixe. While nominal compounding has been noted in Mesoamerican (Campbell, Kaufman, and Smith-Stark 1986) and other Mixean languages (Romero-Méndez 2008, Ruiz de Bravo Ahuja 1980, Schoenhals and Schoenhals 1982, and Van Haitsma and Van Haitsma 1976), there are no studies examining its formal properties or its productivity, possibly due to the fact that nominal compounding is a lesser-studied topic in polysynthetic languages where most information is encoded in verbs. [Keywords: Mixean, word formation, nominal compounds, productivity]
... System of an Extinct Language: The Case of Chimariko Carmen Jany Cal State, San Bernardino cj... more ... System of an Extinct Language: The Case of Chimariko Carmen Jany Cal State, San Bernardino cjany@csusb.edu Page 2. Introduction ∎ Contents ... spoken in a community Page 25. Thank you!Carmen Jany cjany@csusb.edu Page 26. Bibliography Berman, Howard. 2001. ...
Many discussions of orthography development center on the later stages of such endeav-ors and on ... more Many discussions of orthography development center on the later stages of such endeav-ors and on the impact of newly developed orthographies over an extended period of time. This paper focuses on the early stages of orthography development for Chuxnabán Mixe, a ...
Language Contact and Change in the Americas: Studies in honor of Marianne Mithun, Apr 2016
This unique collection of articles in honor of Marianne Mithun represents the very latest in rese... more This unique collection of articles in honor of Marianne Mithun represents the very latest in research on language contact and language change in the Indigenous languages of the Americas. The book aims to provide new theoretical and empirical insights into how and why languages change, especially with regard to contact phenomena in languages of North America, Meso-America and South America. The individual chapters cover a broad range of topics, including sound change, morphosyntactic change, lexical semantics, grammaticalization, language endangerment, and discourse-pragmatic change. With chapters from distinguished scholars and talented newcomers alike, this book will be welcomed by anyone with an interest in internally- and externally-motivated language change.
Different studies have looked at phonotactic restrictions on ejectives from a variety of perspect... more Different studies have looked at phonotactic restrictions on ejectives from a variety of perspectives focusing on syllable structure or on general patterns of laryngeal features, such as cooccurrence limitations or positionally motivated neutralization of contrast (Blevins 2004, Coulston ...
This paper proposes a functional basis for final consonant extrametricality, the asymmetric statu... more This paper proposes a functional basis for final consonant extrametricality, the asymmetric status of CVC syllables as stress-attracting in non-final position of a word but stress-rejecting in final position. A typological study of phonemic vowel length pattern in 10 languages with this ...
This paper presents the first detailed description of the phonetic structures of the endangered M... more This paper presents the first detailed description of the phonetic structures of the endangered Mexican indigenous language Chuxnabán Mixe, including a survey of the main features of the consonant system and acoustic measurements of the characteristics of the ...
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2005
Differences between languages in the stress‐attracting properties of various syllable types (syll... more Differences between languages in the stress‐attracting properties of various syllable types (syllable weight) are associated with phonetic differences. Certain languages that preferentially stress CVC syllables (ie, treat CVC as heavy) fail to display substantial vowel shortening in ...
International Journal of American Linguistics, 2013
ABSTRACT Proposed criteria for defining nominal compounds cross-linguistically are not universall... more ABSTRACT Proposed criteria for defining nominal compounds cross-linguistically are not universally accepted. Moreover, in some languages, nominal compounds share properties with phrases and possessive constructions and are not easily identified in all instances (Aikhenvald 2007, Bauer 2006; 2009, Lieber and Štekauer 2009, and Scalise and Vogel 2010). This paper examines the phonological, morphosyntactic, and semantic properties of nominal compounds in Chuxnabán Mixe and argues that defining criteria for compoundhood are best viewed language-specifically. In Chuxnabán Mixe, nominal compounds are best discerned phonologically. In addition, they are distinct morphosyntactically by being treated as a whole for inflection and by showing a fixed order with respect to their parts. This work further establishes that nominal compounding is a productive word-formation process in Chuxnabán Mixe. While nominal compounding has been noted in Mesoamerican (Campbell, Kaufman, and Smith-Stark 1986) and other Mixean languages (Romero-Méndez 2008, Ruiz de Bravo Ahuja 1980, Schoenhals and Schoenhals 1982, and Van Haitsma and Van Haitsma 1976), there are no studies examining its formal properties or its productivity, possibly due to the fact that nominal compounding is a lesser-studied topic in polysynthetic languages where most information is encoded in verbs. [Keywords: Mixean, word formation, nominal compounds, productivity]
... System of an Extinct Language: The Case of Chimariko Carmen Jany Cal State, San Bernardino cj... more ... System of an Extinct Language: The Case of Chimariko Carmen Jany Cal State, San Bernardino cjany@csusb.edu Page 2. Introduction ∎ Contents ... spoken in a community Page 25. Thank you!Carmen Jany cjany@csusb.edu Page 26. Bibliography Berman, Howard. 2001. ...
Many discussions of orthography development center on the later stages of such endeav-ors and on ... more Many discussions of orthography development center on the later stages of such endeav-ors and on the impact of newly developed orthographies over an extended period of time. This paper focuses on the early stages of orthography development for Chuxnabán Mixe, a ...
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