Communities around the world have distinctive ways of representing language use across space and ... more Communities around the world have distinctive ways of representing language use across space and territory. The approach to and method of mapping languages that began with nineteenth-century European dialectology and colonial boundary making is one such way. Though practiced by relatively few linguists today, language mapping has developed considerably from its roots yet remains stymied by problems of ideology, representation, and data quality. In this paper, we argue that digital language mapping in hyperdiverse cities can both contribute to overcoming these problems and bring visibility and resources to communities using Indigenous, minority, and primarily oral languages. For these communities, official surveys like the census are often inadequate, leaving a gap that communities, linguists, and mapping experts working in partnership can address. Urban language mapping as a field should make space for Indigenous, minority, and primarily oral languages through geospatial visualizati...
Due to environmental, economic, and social factors, cities are increasingly absorbing speakers of... more Due to environmental, economic, and social factors, cities are increasingly absorbing speakers of endangered languages. In this chapter, the authors examine some of the ways that organizations can work with communities in an urban setting to further language documentation, conservation, and revitalization. They base their discussion on their experience at the Endangered Language Alliance, a non-profit organization based in New York City that facilitates collaboration between linguists, students, speakers of endangered languages, and other relevant parties. While ex-situ language documentation has not been given much attention in the literature, they argue that it has its own unique advantages and that diaspora communities need to be taken seriously, both to fully understand language endangerment and to better counteract it.
The last decade has seen great advances in the development of electronic tools for automated inte... more The last decade has seen great advances in the development of electronic tools for automated interlinearization, corpus creation and lexicon building (e.g. Fieldworks Explorer [FLEx]), as well as tools for creating time-aligned annotations (e.g. ELAN). However, methods for sharing these new data formats online lag far behind. While good options exist for lexical data (e.g. Webonary, Lexique Pro), there is no tool for turning a project created in the FLEx software into an online interlinearized corpus. We present here a tool in development which does precisely that. FLEx databases can be searched using regular expressions and individual lines from a text can be linked to audio and video media. The tool can furthermore bring together linguistic data in diverse formats (from ELAN, Praat, Fieldworks, Toolbox, Shoebox) for a single query and allow for queries over multiple language projects. We discuss the benefits of this program in relation to several ongoing fieldwork projects that ar...
Austronesian causatives and transitivity related morphology present several challenges to linguis... more Austronesian causatives and transitivity related morphology present several challenges to linguistic theory. As discussed by Travis (2010), some Austronesian languages, like Malagasy, appear to transparently reflect a layered VP structure with an inner “lexical” causative and an outer productive causative. Other languages, like Tagalog, present unexpected morphology-syntax mismatches in this area. I discuss here certain puzzles in transitivity related prefixes from a historical perspective building on the idea that contrast preservation and epenthesis played a large role in the behavior of two key historical affixes: *paRand *paN-.
Fieldwork with immigrant communities in urban centers has played an important historical role in ... more Fieldwork with immigrant communities in urban centers has played an important historical role in linguistics despite scarce mention of this practice in the growing literature on language description and fieldwork. Bowern and Warner (2015, 63), in a rare exception, explicitly identify diaspora fieldwork as a distinct scenario among seven different possible relations between linguists and a language community:
Infixation phenomena in a variety of languages has provided important evidence in support of an O... more Infixation phenomena in a variety of languages has provided important evidence in support of an Optimality Theoretic approach to morphophonology (Prince and Smolensky 1993; McCarthy and Prince 1993a; b). Within this approach, the category of infixes is not taken to be underlyingly specified as such, but rather their infixal status is seen to arise from the interaction of ALIGN with higher ranked markedness constraints. Hence, all affixes are taken to be primitively prefixes or suffixes with infixes being a derived category. Recently, evidence has been adduced against such a strong claim. Blevins (1999) and Yu (2002) have made arguments for specifying the precise attachment site of all affixes within the lexicon. Counter-evidence against the OT analysis of infixation can be classified into two types: (a) cases where infixation seems prosodically unmotivated and (b) cases where infixation is motivated but nonetheless does not occur (within a language already possessing infixes). This ...
This article analyzes the audio diaries of a Tibetan physician, originally from Amdo (Qinghai Pro... more This article analyzes the audio diaries of a Tibetan physician, originally from Amdo (Qinghai Province, China), now living in New York City. Dr. Kunchog Tseten describes his experiences during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, in spring and summer 2020, when Queens, New York—the location where he lives and works—was the “epicenter of the epicenter” of the novel coronavirus outbreak in the United States. The collaborative research project of which this diary is a part combines innovative methodological approaches to qualitative, ethnographic study during this era of social distancing with an attunement to the relationship between language, culture, and health care. Dr. Kunchog’s diary and our analysis of its contents illustrate the ways that Tibetan medicine and Tibetan cultural practices, including those emergent from Buddhism, have helped members of the Himalayan and Tibetan communities in New York City navigate this unprecedented moment with care and compassion.
Philippine-type languages are often cited as exemplifying a cross-linguistically unique voice sys... more Philippine-type languages are often cited as exemplifying a cross-linguistically unique voice system, in which verb morphology can select not only an agent or patient, but also locative, instrumental and other adjunct type relations as the nominative argument. In this paper, we examine three approaches to this typologically remarkable system: the ergative analysis, the case agreement analysis and the nominalization analysis, arguing for the latter based on strong parallels between verbal and nominal predication from the root level to the clause level. The morphologically symmetric nature of Philippine-type languages is argued to stem from their nominal roots. The historical development of verbal roots leads to a more fixed argument structure in which canonical ergative languages develop. Mamuju, an Austronesian language of West Sulawesi, Indonesia, is offered as an example of a classically ergative language, in contrast to Philippine-type systems.
International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2016
Juhuri is a dialect of the Tat language of the eastern Caucasus (specifically, Dagestan and Azerb... more Juhuri is a dialect of the Tat language of the eastern Caucasus (specifically, Dagestan and Azerbaijan). Although Juhuri is dialectologically related to Persian, it is not mutually intelligible with any Persian dialect. The Juhuri speakers, called Mountain Jews, are estimated at around 200,000, most of whom have immigrated to Israel and the United States. The New York community is largely centered in Brooklyn around the Kavkazi Jewish Congregation. The language is still spoken by those born in the Caucasus, and is maintained in some families and some spheres of daily life. Many of these Mountain Jews are multilingual in Juhuri, Russian, Azerbaijani, Hebrew, and English. In this article, we situate the language within the context of the New York expatriate community and explore the role of Juhuri in relation to ethno-religious identity, language attitude, and functional domains. The data reported on here are based on interviews and a written survey. We conclude that although the odds...
This article analyzes the audio diaries of a Tibetan physician, originally from Amdo (Qinghai Pro... more This article analyzes the audio diaries of a Tibetan physician, originally from Amdo (Qinghai Province, China), now living in New York City. Dr. Kunchog Tseten describes his experiences during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, in spring and summer 2020, when Queens, New York—the location where he lives and works—was the "epicenter of the epicenter" of the novel coronavirus outbreak in the United States. The collaborative research project of which this diary is a part combines innovative methodological approaches to qualitative, ethnographic study during this era of social distancing with an attunement to the relationship between language, culture, and health care. Dr. Kunchog's diary and our analysis of its contents illustrate the ways that Tibetan medicine and Tibetan cultural practices, including those emergent from Buddhism, have helped members of the Himalayan and Tibetan communities in New York City navigate this unprecedented moment with care and compassion.
Philippine-type languages are often cited as exemplifying a cross-linguistically unique voice sys... more Philippine-type languages are often cited as exemplifying a cross-linguistically unique voice system, in which verb morphology can select not only an agent or patient, but also locative, instrumental and other adjunct type relations as the nominative argument. In this paper, I examine three approaches to this typologically remarkable system: the ergative analysis, the case agreement analysis and the nominalization analysis, arguing for the latter based on strong parallels between verbal and nominal predication from the root level to the clause level. The morphologically symmetric nature of Philippine-type languages is argued to stem from their nominal roots. The historical development of verbal roots leads to a more fixed argument structure in which canonical ergative languages develop. Mamuju, an Austronesian language of West Sulawesi, Indonesia, is offered as an example of a classically ergative language, in contrast to Philippine-type systems.
Austronesian causatives and transitivity related morphology present several challenges to linguis... more Austronesian causatives and transitivity related morphology present several challenges to linguistic theory. As discussed by Travis (2010), some Austronesian languages, like Malagasy, appear to transparently reflect a layered VP structure with an inner “lexical” causative and an outer productive causative. Other languages, like Tagalog, present unexpected morphology-syntax mismatches in this area. I discuss here certain puzzles in transitivity related prefixes from a historical perspective building on the idea that contrast preservation and epenthesis played a large role in the behavior of two key historical affixes: *paR- and *paN-.
Communities around the world have distinctive ways of representing language use across space and ... more Communities around the world have distinctive ways of representing language use across space and territory. The approach to and method of mapping languages that began with nineteenth-century European dialectology and colonial boundary making is one such way. Though practiced by relatively few linguists today, language mapping has developed considerably from its roots yet remains stymied by problems of ideology, representation, and data quality. In this paper, we argue that digital language mapping in hyperdiverse cities can both contribute to overcoming these problems and bring visibility and resources to communities using Indigenous, minority, and primarily oral languages. For these communities, official surveys like the census are often inadequate, leaving a gap that communities, linguists, and mapping experts working in partnership can address. Urban language mapping as a field should make space for Indigenous, minority, and primarily oral languages through geospatial visualizati...
Due to environmental, economic, and social factors, cities are increasingly absorbing speakers of... more Due to environmental, economic, and social factors, cities are increasingly absorbing speakers of endangered languages. In this chapter, the authors examine some of the ways that organizations can work with communities in an urban setting to further language documentation, conservation, and revitalization. They base their discussion on their experience at the Endangered Language Alliance, a non-profit organization based in New York City that facilitates collaboration between linguists, students, speakers of endangered languages, and other relevant parties. While ex-situ language documentation has not been given much attention in the literature, they argue that it has its own unique advantages and that diaspora communities need to be taken seriously, both to fully understand language endangerment and to better counteract it.
The last decade has seen great advances in the development of electronic tools for automated inte... more The last decade has seen great advances in the development of electronic tools for automated interlinearization, corpus creation and lexicon building (e.g. Fieldworks Explorer [FLEx]), as well as tools for creating time-aligned annotations (e.g. ELAN). However, methods for sharing these new data formats online lag far behind. While good options exist for lexical data (e.g. Webonary, Lexique Pro), there is no tool for turning a project created in the FLEx software into an online interlinearized corpus. We present here a tool in development which does precisely that. FLEx databases can be searched using regular expressions and individual lines from a text can be linked to audio and video media. The tool can furthermore bring together linguistic data in diverse formats (from ELAN, Praat, Fieldworks, Toolbox, Shoebox) for a single query and allow for queries over multiple language projects. We discuss the benefits of this program in relation to several ongoing fieldwork projects that ar...
Austronesian causatives and transitivity related morphology present several challenges to linguis... more Austronesian causatives and transitivity related morphology present several challenges to linguistic theory. As discussed by Travis (2010), some Austronesian languages, like Malagasy, appear to transparently reflect a layered VP structure with an inner “lexical” causative and an outer productive causative. Other languages, like Tagalog, present unexpected morphology-syntax mismatches in this area. I discuss here certain puzzles in transitivity related prefixes from a historical perspective building on the idea that contrast preservation and epenthesis played a large role in the behavior of two key historical affixes: *paRand *paN-.
Fieldwork with immigrant communities in urban centers has played an important historical role in ... more Fieldwork with immigrant communities in urban centers has played an important historical role in linguistics despite scarce mention of this practice in the growing literature on language description and fieldwork. Bowern and Warner (2015, 63), in a rare exception, explicitly identify diaspora fieldwork as a distinct scenario among seven different possible relations between linguists and a language community:
Infixation phenomena in a variety of languages has provided important evidence in support of an O... more Infixation phenomena in a variety of languages has provided important evidence in support of an Optimality Theoretic approach to morphophonology (Prince and Smolensky 1993; McCarthy and Prince 1993a; b). Within this approach, the category of infixes is not taken to be underlyingly specified as such, but rather their infixal status is seen to arise from the interaction of ALIGN with higher ranked markedness constraints. Hence, all affixes are taken to be primitively prefixes or suffixes with infixes being a derived category. Recently, evidence has been adduced against such a strong claim. Blevins (1999) and Yu (2002) have made arguments for specifying the precise attachment site of all affixes within the lexicon. Counter-evidence against the OT analysis of infixation can be classified into two types: (a) cases where infixation seems prosodically unmotivated and (b) cases where infixation is motivated but nonetheless does not occur (within a language already possessing infixes). This ...
This article analyzes the audio diaries of a Tibetan physician, originally from Amdo (Qinghai Pro... more This article analyzes the audio diaries of a Tibetan physician, originally from Amdo (Qinghai Province, China), now living in New York City. Dr. Kunchog Tseten describes his experiences during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, in spring and summer 2020, when Queens, New York—the location where he lives and works—was the “epicenter of the epicenter” of the novel coronavirus outbreak in the United States. The collaborative research project of which this diary is a part combines innovative methodological approaches to qualitative, ethnographic study during this era of social distancing with an attunement to the relationship between language, culture, and health care. Dr. Kunchog’s diary and our analysis of its contents illustrate the ways that Tibetan medicine and Tibetan cultural practices, including those emergent from Buddhism, have helped members of the Himalayan and Tibetan communities in New York City navigate this unprecedented moment with care and compassion.
Philippine-type languages are often cited as exemplifying a cross-linguistically unique voice sys... more Philippine-type languages are often cited as exemplifying a cross-linguistically unique voice system, in which verb morphology can select not only an agent or patient, but also locative, instrumental and other adjunct type relations as the nominative argument. In this paper, we examine three approaches to this typologically remarkable system: the ergative analysis, the case agreement analysis and the nominalization analysis, arguing for the latter based on strong parallels between verbal and nominal predication from the root level to the clause level. The morphologically symmetric nature of Philippine-type languages is argued to stem from their nominal roots. The historical development of verbal roots leads to a more fixed argument structure in which canonical ergative languages develop. Mamuju, an Austronesian language of West Sulawesi, Indonesia, is offered as an example of a classically ergative language, in contrast to Philippine-type systems.
International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2016
Juhuri is a dialect of the Tat language of the eastern Caucasus (specifically, Dagestan and Azerb... more Juhuri is a dialect of the Tat language of the eastern Caucasus (specifically, Dagestan and Azerbaijan). Although Juhuri is dialectologically related to Persian, it is not mutually intelligible with any Persian dialect. The Juhuri speakers, called Mountain Jews, are estimated at around 200,000, most of whom have immigrated to Israel and the United States. The New York community is largely centered in Brooklyn around the Kavkazi Jewish Congregation. The language is still spoken by those born in the Caucasus, and is maintained in some families and some spheres of daily life. Many of these Mountain Jews are multilingual in Juhuri, Russian, Azerbaijani, Hebrew, and English. In this article, we situate the language within the context of the New York expatriate community and explore the role of Juhuri in relation to ethno-religious identity, language attitude, and functional domains. The data reported on here are based on interviews and a written survey. We conclude that although the odds...
This article analyzes the audio diaries of a Tibetan physician, originally from Amdo (Qinghai Pro... more This article analyzes the audio diaries of a Tibetan physician, originally from Amdo (Qinghai Province, China), now living in New York City. Dr. Kunchog Tseten describes his experiences during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, in spring and summer 2020, when Queens, New York—the location where he lives and works—was the "epicenter of the epicenter" of the novel coronavirus outbreak in the United States. The collaborative research project of which this diary is a part combines innovative methodological approaches to qualitative, ethnographic study during this era of social distancing with an attunement to the relationship between language, culture, and health care. Dr. Kunchog's diary and our analysis of its contents illustrate the ways that Tibetan medicine and Tibetan cultural practices, including those emergent from Buddhism, have helped members of the Himalayan and Tibetan communities in New York City navigate this unprecedented moment with care and compassion.
Philippine-type languages are often cited as exemplifying a cross-linguistically unique voice sys... more Philippine-type languages are often cited as exemplifying a cross-linguistically unique voice system, in which verb morphology can select not only an agent or patient, but also locative, instrumental and other adjunct type relations as the nominative argument. In this paper, I examine three approaches to this typologically remarkable system: the ergative analysis, the case agreement analysis and the nominalization analysis, arguing for the latter based on strong parallels between verbal and nominal predication from the root level to the clause level. The morphologically symmetric nature of Philippine-type languages is argued to stem from their nominal roots. The historical development of verbal roots leads to a more fixed argument structure in which canonical ergative languages develop. Mamuju, an Austronesian language of West Sulawesi, Indonesia, is offered as an example of a classically ergative language, in contrast to Philippine-type systems.
Austronesian causatives and transitivity related morphology present several challenges to linguis... more Austronesian causatives and transitivity related morphology present several challenges to linguistic theory. As discussed by Travis (2010), some Austronesian languages, like Malagasy, appear to transparently reflect a layered VP structure with an inner “lexical” causative and an outer productive causative. Other languages, like Tagalog, present unexpected morphology-syntax mismatches in this area. I discuss here certain puzzles in transitivity related prefixes from a historical perspective building on the idea that contrast preservation and epenthesis played a large role in the behavior of two key historical affixes: *paR- and *paN-.
Handout from AFLA 2017. With co-author Victoria Chen. The latest installment in work on clausal c... more Handout from AFLA 2017. With co-author Victoria Chen. The latest installment in work on clausal constituency and historical Austronesian syntax.
Handout on clausal constituency and what it tells us about the history of Austronesian languages.... more Handout on clausal constituency and what it tells us about the history of Austronesian languages. Based partly on fieldwork with Victoria Chen.
Handout comparing the Verb Phrase in conservative Austronesian languages with that of mainland So... more Handout comparing the Verb Phrase in conservative Austronesian languages with that of mainland Southeast Asian languages
A critical look at some posited long distance relationships between Austronesian and other langua... more A critical look at some posited long distance relationships between Austronesian and other language families of mainland Asia.
A relatively lengthy review of Jauncey's (2011) Tamambo grammar in which I discuss several issues... more A relatively lengthy review of Jauncey's (2011) Tamambo grammar in which I discuss several issues of grammatical, historical and general typological interest.
This chapter examines what is an under-researched field encompassing stress, tone, and intonati... more This chapter examines what is an under-researched field encompassing stress, tone, and intonation. Apart from summarizing the relatively little that is known about intonation in the area under scrutiny, the chapter is primarily concerned with stress systems. Of particular interest is that recent research has suggested that for several western Austronesian languages, including most notably Indonesian, stress is entirely absent. The sporadic appearance of tone in western Austronesian languages (including Chamic and West New Guinea) is notable for the variety of tonal systems found and the role of contact with non2Austronesian tonal languages.
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