The Phonology and Morphology of the Tanacross Athabaskan Language PDF
Preview The Phonology and Morphology of the Tanacross Athabaskan Language
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !"#$%"&’&(&)*$+’,$-&./"&(&)*$&0$1"#$ !+’+2.&33$41"+5+36+’$7+’)8+)#$ ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara The Phonology and Morphology of the Tanacross Athabaskan Language A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics by Gary Holton Committee in charge: Professor Marianne Mithun, Chairperson Professor Wallace Chafe Professor Susanna Cumming Professor Michael Krauss August 2000 ! The dissertation of Gary Holton is approved _______________________________________ _______________________________________ _______________________________________ _______________________________________ Committee Chairperson August 2000 ii ! August 1, 2000 Copyright by Gary Holton 2000 iii ! VITA October 12, 1964 — born — Norfolk, Virginia 1986 — B.S., mathematics, University of Alaska Fairbanks 1987 — M.S., mathematics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 1997 — M.A., linguistics, University of California, Santa Barbara APPOINTMENTS 1999 — Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks PUBLICATIONS 1999. Categoriality of property words in a switch-adjective language. Linguistic Typology 3(3).341-60. 1997. Grammatical Relations in Tobelo. Unpublished M.A. thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara. 1996. Bibliography of Language and Language Use in North and Central Maluku. (Southeast Asia Paper no. 40). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Center for Southeast Asian Studies. SELECTED PRESENTATIONS 2000. Tone and intonation in Tanacross. Workshop on Athabaskan Prosody, June 9, Moricetown, B.C. 1999. Remarks on Tanacross tone. Alaska Anthropological Association, April 1-3. Fairbanks, Alaska. 1998. Acoustic correlates of the fortis/lenis distinction in Tanacross fricatives. Athabaskan Language Conference, June 12-14. Calgary, Alberta. REVIEWS 2000. Review of L. Faltz' The Navajo Verb. Southwest Journal of Linguistics 19(1).93-6. 1997. Review of René van den Berg’s Studies in Sulawesi Linguistics, part IV. Language 73(2).463-4. iv ! DEDICATION !"#"$%&’’()&*+,-#(,..#(/0"( v ! ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost I owe a great debt of gratitude to the people of Tanacross, who generously shared their language and friendship. These include Laura Sanford, Irene Solomon Arnold, Jerry Isaac, Larry Jonathan, Kenny Thomas, Sr., Diane Titus, and many others. I am thankful for all that I have learned of the Tanacross language, but I am even more thankful for the many friends I have gained along the way. I hope that this dissertation will in some way provide a foundation for the continued appreciation of the Tanacross language. Elsewhere in Alaska many scholars have aided my work along the way. My knowledge of Athabaskan linguistics has been greatly expanded by discussions with my colleagues at the Alaska Native Language Center, in particular Michael Krauss and Jeff Leer. In addition Jim Kari has shared his Tanacross data and his knowledge of Athabaskan lexicography. John Ritter of the Yukon Native Language Centre read through the entire manuscript of the dissertation and commented extensively. John’s input and encouragement along the way have been invaluable. Numerous scholars outside Alaska also contributed to this dissertation. My committee chair, Marianne, has been a tireless supporter throughout my travails in the field and the classroom. Wally Chafe provided extensive comments on the manuscript and has always encouraged me to keep thinking outside the box. Both Marianne and Wally bring an Americanist perspective which broadens the sometimes overly narrow Athabaskanist view. In the process of writing a dissertation about a particular language it is easy to forget the large perspective of human language. In that regard Susanna Cumming has kept me thinking about the ways in which language informs langue, and vice versa. Finally I must thank the many people who have helped to illuminate an often poorly lit trail through the field of linguistics. Thanks to Colette Grinevald, who first introduced me to linguistic field work and inspired me to follow this path. And to Jim Collins, terimah kasih banyak atas kebantuan anda. vi ! Funding for the field research on which this dissertation is based was provided by the Endangered Language Fund (1997-1998), the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages (1997-1998), the American Philosophical Society Phillips Fund for Native American Studies (1999- 2000), the Jacobs Research Funds (1998-2000), the University of California, Santa Barbara, Humanities and Social Science Research Grant (1998), and the National Science Foundation (1999-2000, grant no. 9907059). Support for dissertation write-up was provided by a Dissertation Fellowship and a Brython Davis Fellowship from the University of California, Santa Barbara. vii ! ABSTRACT The Phonology and Morphology of the Tanacross Athabaskan Language by Gary Holton This dissertation presents a linguistic description of the phonology and morphology of Tanacross Athabaskan, an endangered language spoken by approximately sixty persons in eastern interior Alaska. There is little extant documentation of Tanacross; hence, this description is based primarily on data gathered from first-hand field work. Tanacross is typical of the Athabaskan family in its typological characteristics. There is a relatively small phonemic inventory, and most of the phonemic contrasts are neutralized outside the stem-syllable onset position. The lexicon is relatively small, consisting of perhaps six thousand distinct morphemes. Noun morphology is relatively straightforward, with few active morphological processes. In contrast, verb structure is extremely complex, consisting of a possibly discontinuous root morpheme together with a string of inflectional and derivational affixes which combine via an elaborate system of non- concatenative templatic morphology. The verb word may stand alone as entire utterance. Members of other minor word classes tend to be monomorphemic. Tanacross exhibits several unique properties which distinguish it from neighboring Athabaskan languages and invite further study. Tanacross is unique among the Alaska Athabaskan languages in having high tone as the reflex of Proto-Athabaskan constriction. In addition, more than any other tonal language in Alaska Tanacross has preserved segmental information lost via apocope through an elaborate system of compound tone. Tanacross also has many unique phonetic features, including the loss of suffix vowels and the devoicing of stem-initial fricatives. Tanacross morphology reflects its transitional status between the (historically) conservative languages of the lower Tanana river and the innovative languages of the Tanana and Yukon uplands. viii ! CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION.....................................................................1 CHAPTER 2 PHONOLOGY........................................................................22 CHAPTER 3 TWO PHONETIC STUDIES..................................................96 CHAPTER 4 NOUN MORPHOLOGY......................................................122 CHAPTER 5 VERB MORPHOLOGY.......................................................163 CHAPTER 6 MINOR WORD CLASSES..................................................277 CHAPTER 7 SUMMARY..........................................................................300 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...............................................................................................303 APPENDIX A. TANACROSS PRACTICAL ORTHOGRAPHY.................312 APPENDIX B. CONJUGATION-MODE-SUBJECT-CLASSIFIER PARADIGMS.......................................................................318 APPENDIX C. TEXT.....................................................................................319 APPENDIX D. SELECTED VOCABULARY..............................................340 ix
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