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Robert Franklin
California State University, Dominquez Hills
Abstract. From 1984 to 1990, as part of a federal land claims case, San Juan Paiute elders and attorneys representing the San Juan Paiute Tribe, the Hopi Tribe, and the Navajo Tribe took part in a series of depositions and finally a trial in federal district court. This article examines deposition and trial testimony in order to understand the cultural, linguistic, and communicative style dimensions of the problems that arose during this intercultural communicative experience.
Abstract. This paper shows that one facet of a Hopi narrative may involve relations among verses and stanzas. The quotative is a principal marker of such relations. The spoken lines of the narrative in question vary greatly in length and makeup, and the same is true of a Zuni telling of a related story. Perhaps there is a Southwest region of which this is true, in contrast to much of native North America. In such a case the contours of performance cannot all be represented together. Vocal and grammatical marking of relations must be shown separately. The latter show a formal coherence that reflects a deep- seated competence.
Abstract. Verse analysis of a personal experience narrative in Warm Springs Sahaptin shows rhetorical patterns like those in a myth narrative of the same narrator published in an earlier article. The patterns are cultural and their implementation is individual, reflecting the narrator's role as mother and grandmother in the content, her preference for elegant understatement in the style.
Abstract. The Upper Chehalis kinship system has an unusual pattern of terminology for siblings, distinguishing elder from younger, male from female, and inclusive from exclusive. The last applies only to elder siblings, and sex is not distinguished for inclusive siblings; the result is a five-term system. Other parts of the system are less unusual (aside from one or two decedence terms). Some of the meanings of these terms are not well identified; comparative data from other Salishan languages help provide a fuller understanding of the use of this terminology and suggest a source for the complex sibling terms.
Abstract. The Arizona Tewa genre of public announcements (tún khé) provides an interesting example of a culturally important and diverse speech resource. Like other specialized forms of noncasual speech (Voegelin 1960), the genre possesses distinctive formal properties and is used under culturally prescribed circumstances to perform a wide range of social functions. Three examples from the genre provide illustrations of local canons of structure and use, as well as new evidence for the operation of a linguistic ideology (Silverstein 1985, 1979) that tacitly adopts kiva speech (te'e hi:li) as a model for more secular and mundane acts of speaking (Kroskrity 1992).
Clara Jack
Okanagan Curriculum Project, Penticton, British Columbia
Abstract. We discuss the appellatives, or the address terms, of Okanagan-Colville (Ok-Cv), an interior Salish language continuum of southern British Columbia and north-central Washington State. Because the majority of Ok-Cv address terms are also kin reference terms, we describe briefly the Ok-Cv kinship system. We also discuss the grammatical properties and the various allomorphs of the terms, calling particular attention to hypocoristic and baby talk forms, and to kin terms used to address unrelated individuals, phenomena that must reflect certain facts of Ok-Cv social organization.
Abstract. In his ethnographic reconstruction of the culture of the Kiliwa, a Yuman-speaking tribe of Baja California (Mexico), Meigs (1939) mentions the name of a wooden idol known as ñipumjós in approximate Spanish orthography. However, Meigs offers no etymology, grammatical analysis, or translation of this name and only provides a meager description of its role in Kiliwa aboriginal funerary rites. This paper attempts to shed light on both the linguistic and cultural role of this ritual object as well as the metaphors it embodies.
Abstract. This paper describes hypocoristic forms of personal names in Hausa. There are seven different hypocoristic types, some of which can be combined with one another. Six types employ segmental suffixes and one type is formed by partial reduplication. Some of the types display an overall tonal melody; others simply add a tonally fixed affix to a basic name with its inherent tone. The hypocoristic types differ both in their affective/emotive connotations and in who uses them.
Kenneth Hale
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract. The Misumalpan languages of Nicaragua and Honduras, comprising Miskitu and Sumu, together with the extinct Matagalpa-Cacaopera, form a well-defined family that is not closely related to any other in the Americas. Its suggested affiliation is with Macro-Chibchan, a reasonable proposal given its geographic proximity to the Nicaraguan Chibchan language, Rama, and to other Chibchan languages of Central America. But this putative relationship is not easy to demonstrate. Comparative work in the lexical domain is unrewarding for the most part. If the relationship can be demonstrated at all, evidence for it is most likely to come from details of morphosyntax. In this paper, a single element is compared, i.e., the verbal suffix -i, of similar shape and function, appearing in the Misumalpan languages, in Rama, and in Ika, a Chibchan language of Colombia. The study is offered as an initial step in the process of harvesting morphology and syntax for possible evidence in support of the putative Macro-Chibchan affiliation of the Misumalpan languages.
Abstract. Examination of the spellings of Egyptian ?-b-h 'tooth' shows that the reading should be ?-3-b-h. This is analyzed as prothetic alif, the root 3-b and the suffix h. The base from which this is derived is reconstructed as **l-b 'pierce'. Consideration of the ablaut variants of this base, historically r-b, l-m, r-m, etc., shows two lines of semantic development: that which pierces and act of piercing . Examples of derivatives are given both in Egyptian and in related languages of the Lislakh phylum, illustrating both semantic and formal developments.
Abstract. The Sioux, Assiniboine, and Stoney peoples -- members of the Siouan language family -- form a dialect continuum extending over a vast area of the northern Great Plains in the United States and Canada. Since the exact number of and interrelationships among the dialects and subdialects comprising this continuum have been indeterminate, a dialect survey of all the Sioux, Assiniboine, and Stoney communities was undertaken. Summarized here are the major findings of that survey, organized around five of the most common misunderstandings persistent in the historical and contemporary literature: the inadequacy of the d-n-l classification; the fallacy of the "Nakota Sioux" and the relationships of Yankton to Yanktonai, Yanktonai to Assiniboine, and Assiniboine to Stoney.
Abstract. The stress patterns of Arabic and their variations have been investigated through a well-designed experiment utilizing native speakers from different regions of the Arab World. The three suprasegmental features loudness, pitch, and time seem, collectively, to play a role in determining the stressed syllable. The syllable types, distribution, and environment of the construct phrase (Idafah) seem to play important roles in the placement of stress. The tentative results of this study conclude that there is more uniformity among the speakers in stress placement than originally thought. The first word of the construct phrase is favored over the second in receiving primary stress. The two words in this phrase seem to strike a balance within their own syllabic structure. The long syllable within each word is favored to receive primary stress, while the linking syllable of these words is, surprisingly, much more prominent than expected.
John E. McLaughlin
Utah State University
Abstract. The alveolar taps found in Numic languages seem to pattern with spirants, and virtually every scholar working on these languages appears to have assumed that they result from the same process that is responsible for the spirants. We find no phonological justification for such an assumption. Our analysis of Central Numic taps argues that they are due to a distinct rule that bleeds spirantization. When we extend our analysis to Western and Southern Numic, we are forced to conclude that in no Numic language have the taps ever belonged to a series of spirants.
Abstract. Hualapai, an Upland Yuman language, has a set of four auxiliary verbs, each of which is generally considered to be correlated with the semantic categories of the main verb. The auxiliary -yu appears with stative-intransitive verbs, -wi with active-transitive verbs, i with verbs of vocalization, and -yi with cognitive verbs. Some verbs, however, may occur with an unexpected auxiliary. The auxiliary alternation is best explained by the speaker's attitude toward the event described by the expression, particularly toward the role of the arguments involved in the given expression.
Abstract. This paper corrects a long-standing error in H. C. Wolfart's interpretation of a feature of Algonquian grammar.
Abstract. There is an apparent constraint on the formation of relative clauses in Hopi that is reflected in the circumstance that subjects can only be relativized if the head of the relative clause is itself a subject in the matrix. If this constraint were true in the language it would be unique among languages of the world. Therefore, it is more likely that it is a by-product of more general principles of grammar. It is argued here that the apparent constraint is in fact an instance of the well-known phenomenon of case conflict, and as such falls under the purview of the Case Filter.
Abstract. Hidatsa, a Siouan language spoken on the Fort Berthold reservation in central North Dakota, has five morphemes with approximative force. This paper documents their semantics and distribution in synchronic Hidatsa; suggests cognates in Crow, Mandan, and Lakhota; and relates the Hidatsa forms to the history of ablaut in Siouan. There is reason to believe that Siouan ablaut was once semantically, rather than morphologically, triggered.
Abstract. Hopi and Navajo number categories are compared, partly to illustrate difficulties in studying communicative efficiency cross-culturally. In the process, Carl and Florence Voegelin are praised for their Hopi linguistic contributions, marked by quality, conciseness, and comprehensiveness. Comparison of number categories is presented informally and, in an exploratory beginning, with some Boolean feature specifications.
Abstract. While lexical and structural ambiguity have received considerable attention in the linguistic literature, hierarchic ambiguity has received almost none. I define hierarchic ambiguity as the situation in which the same term designates both genus and species (often across several levels of folk taxonomies). I attempt to remedy this situation by illustrating hierarchic ambiguity with English and Navajo examples. I also show that in the uses of language hierarchic ambiguity is all pervasive: in language learning, in folk classification, in the use of generic terms of species, and in the case of verbal action plans (scripts). Finally, I draw conclusions about the significance of this type of ambiguity for the semanticist and especially the ethnographer.
Last updated: 12 March 1996
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1996
Anthropological Linguistics.