A Descriptive Grammar of San Bartolomé Zoogocho Zapote

Aaron Huey Sonnenschein
California State University, Northridge

In this grammar, the author provides a grammatical description of San Bartolomé Zoogocho Zapotec, an endangered Otomanguean language. The initial six chapters provide a description of the major grammatical features of the language, while the final two examine two major issues in the description of this and other Zapotecan languages: parts-of-speech and word order.

The first six chapters provide descriptions of the ethnographic and sociolinguistic situations of the language, the sounds of the language, the pronominal system, the morphology, and the syntax of the language. San Bartolomé Zoogocho Zapotec is a tonal language that can be complex phonologically. It is a prototypical VSO language having prepositions, NAdj, NDem, NGen, and NRel orders. Various means of combining clauses exist, including complementation, coordination, and relativization.

Chapter Seven is an examination of the lexical classes present in San Bartolomé Zoogocho Zapotec. Much of the discussion is devoted to the grammaticalization of relational nouns, a topic that has received a great deal of discussion in the literature of Zapotecan and Otomanguean languages. In Chapter Eight, verb initial word order is examined, and a study of word order in San Bartolomé Zoogocho Zapotec texts is compared with other textual studies of word order in verb initial languages.

ISBN 9783895868030. Languages of the World/Materials 451. 308pp. 2005.

Lithuanian Romani

Anton Tenser
University of Manchester

Lithuanian Romani is a dialect spoken by a small population of Roma (Gypsies) living on the territory of present-day Lithuania, as well as recent migrants from this area to the Western Europe. The dialect was tentatively assigned to the Northeastern group of Romani dialects. It is the only dialect in this group the grammar of which has not been previously described in literature. The primary goal of this work is to provide a grammatical description of the dialect, using as a framework the RMS database developed at the University of Manchester, supported by transcribed recordings of a questionnaire conceived within the RMS project.

The main body of the book is descriptive, presenting Phonology, derivation and inflection of Nominal and Verbal categories. The fourth chapter deals with grammatical relations within the phrases, including cases, subordination, coordination and word order.

Within the main body of the book, there are details concerning borrowing into the dialect, and also comparisons, on specific issues, of Lithuanian Romani to other dialects in the Northeastern group. These two topics form the last two chapters of the book, entitled Borrowing and Dialect Classification. The Dialect Classification chapter also serves as a conclusion and argues the validity of classifying Lithuanian Romani as belonging to the Northeastern group.

ISBN 9783895869594. Languages of the World/Materials 452. 70pp. 2005.

Timbisha (Panamint)

John E. McLaughlin
Utah State University

Timbisha (Panamint) is a moribund member of the Central Numic branch of the Numic language family of the Uto-Aztecan stock. It was formerly spoken in southeastern California in Death Valley, Saline Valley, Panamint Valley and Owens Valley. Today, the few remaining speakers of Timbisha are concentrated in the Timbisha Shoshone community of Death Valley, California. Unique among Native American communities in the United States, the Timbisha community lives within the confines of a National Park and is therefore subject to unique political and cultural pressures. Timbisha is related to the Shoshone language of Nevada, Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, and more to the Comanche language of Oklahoma, but it has features that are archaic within Central Numic, such as the retention of a phonemic velar nasal.

Timbisha has an underlying obstruent system which consists of voiceless stops /p, t, k, kw/, two voiceless fricatives /s, h/, and a voiceless affricate /ts/, but a surface phonetic system that includes voiced and voiceless stops, fricatives, and affricates in all the places of articulation of the underlying stops and affricates. Nominals in Timbisha are inflected for three cases and for singular, dual, and plural number. Timbisha aspect and tense are reflected as suffixes on the verb stem and there is a large set of instrumental prefixes that can be prefixed as well. Adverbial relations are marked by postpositions. Timbisha word order is relatively free, although there is a marked tendency toward SOV. Subordinate clauses in Timbisha are marked for same reference of subjects or for switch reference of subjects. John E. McLaughlin, Associate Professor of English at Utah State University, began fieldwork on Timbisha in 1983 and has published on the historical phonology and morphology of the Numic and Central Numic languages since 1980.

ISBN 3895862427. Languages of the World/Materials 453. 71 pp. 2005.

Dhankute Tamang Grammar

Kedar Prasad Poudel
English Department, Mahendra Multiple Campus, Dharan, Nepal

Most Tamang people settle around Kathmandu Valley. Some of them have migrated to the eastern and western hilly regions of the country. Tamang belongs to the Tibeto-Burman branch of Sino-Tibetan language family. Dhankute Tamang spoken in the far eastern district Dhankuta has not been studied so far. The population of Dhankute Tamangs is 11,932 (CBS 2001). Nepali is their lingua franca and medium of education. Its neighboring languages are Limbu, Rai, Magar and Newar.

The general objective of this study is to present a description of a Dhankute Tamang, specifically its phonology, morphology and syntax. This study consists of 4 chapters. Chapter 1 presents the introductory remarks. Chapter 2 describes the phonology. Chapter 3 deals with the lexicon and Chapter 4 describes the syntax.

This work has been entirely based on the field study.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ii

List of figures and tables
Abbreviations
Chapter 1: Introductory remarks 1
Chapter 2: Tamang phonology 5-38
2.0 Outline 5
2.1 Segmental phonemes 5
2.1.1 Vowels 5
2.1.11 Pure vowels 5
2.1.12 Diphthongs 9
2.1.2 Consonants 10
2.2 Phonotactics 20
2.2.1 Syllable structures 20
2.2.2 Types of syllables 26
2.2.3 Onset consonant clusters 27
2.2.4 Hiatus and onset glides 28
2.2.5 Intervocalic /h/ deletion 29
2.3 Suprasegmental features 30
2.3.1 Juncture 30
2.3.2 Stress 31
2.3.3 Pitch/tone 33
2.3.4 Tone unit 35
2.3.5 Intonation 36
2.3.6 Prosodic lengthening 37
2.4 Conclusion 38
Chapter 3: Lexicon 39-69
3.0 Outline 39
3.1 Tamang words 39
3.1.1 Tibeto-Burman words 39
3.1.2 Borrowed words 40
3.2 Morphological processes 44
3.2.1 Affixation 44
3.2.2 Compounding 59
3.2.3 Reduplication 63
3.2.4 Conversion 68
3.2.3 Abbreviation 68
3.3 Conclusion 69
Chapter 4: The Syntax 70-178
4.0 Outline 70
4.1 Basic sentence 70
4.1.1 Obligatory constituents of basic sentence 70
4.1.2 Basic sentence patterns 71
4.1.3 Constituent order and clause structure 76
iii
4.1.4 Modifications of simple sentences 78
4.1.41 Questions 78
4.1.42 Negation 81
4.2 Noun phrase 83
4.2.1 Forms of noun phrases 83
4.2.2 Functions of noun phrases 84
4.2.3 Sequential occurrence of modifiers 85
4.2.4 Determiner 87
4.2.41 Adjectival determiners 87
4.2.42 Demonstrative determiners 88
4.2.43 Quantifying determiners 89
4.2.44 Genitive determiners 91
4.2.45 Limiting determiners 92
4.2.5 Pronoun 93
4.2.51 Persons 94
4.2.52 Number 94
4.2.53 Exclusive and inclusive pronouns 95
4.2.54 Honorific and non-honorific pronouns 95
4.2.55 Inflections of pronouns 96
4.2.56 Pronominalization 96
4.2.6 Case system 97
4.2.61 Case clitics 97
4.2.62 Stem forms 106
4.2.63 Postpositions 106
4.2.64 Cases and grammatical relations 113
4.2.7 Gender system 114
4.2.71 Types of gender 115
4.2.72 Gender markings 115
4.2.8 Classifier 118
4.2.9 Adjective 119
4.2.91 Formation of adjectives 119
4.2.92 Functions of adjectives 121
4.3 Verb phrase 123
4.3.1 The structure of finite verbal sequence 123
4.3.2 Verb stems 130
4.3.3 Verbal affixes 131
4.3.31 p-group affix alternation 131
4.3.32 b-group affix alternation 131
4.3.33 Imperative mood markers 132
4.3.34 Intransitive and transitive inflections 133
4.3.4 Copular verbs 134
4.3.41 Existential copular verbs 135
4.3.42 Identificational copular verbs 135
4.3.43 Acquisitional copular verbs 136
4.3.5 Complex predicates 136
4.3.6 Tenses 141
4.3.61 Past tense 141
4.3.62 Non-past tense 141
iv
4.3.7 Aspects 146
4.3.71 Progressive aspect 146
4.3.72 Perfect aspect 148
4.3.73 Perfect progressive aspect 149
4.3.8 Moods 151
4.3.81 Indicative mood 151
4.3.82 Imperative mood 153
4.3.83 Hortative mood 153
4.3.84 Optative mood 153
4.3.85 Irrealis mood 154
4.4 Adverb 154
4.4.1 Formation of adverbs 154
4.4.11 Non-derived adverbs 155
4.4.12 Derived adverbs 155
4.4.13 Adverbial phrases 157
4.4.14 Adverbial clauses 157
4.4.2 Positions of adverbs 161
4.4.3 Classification of adverbs 161
4.4.31 Temporal adverbs 161
4.4.32 Locational adverbs 162
4.4.33 Manner adverbs 163
4.4.34 Directional adverbs 163
4.4.35 Degree adverbs 163
4.4.36 Frequency adverbs 164
4.4.37 Sentential adverbs 164
4.5 Clause combining 165
4.5.1 Types of clause combining 165
4.5.11 Subordinate clauses 165
4.5.12 Coordinate clauses 172
4.6 Conclusion 177
References 179

ISBN 9783895864889. Languages of the World/Materials 454. 195pp. 2005.

The Tujia Language

Cecilia Brassett, Philip Brassett, Meiyan Lu

The Tujia people group is the sixth largest ethnic minority in China, numbering over 8 million. However, the Tujia language is now only spoken by about 70,000 people, a figure that represents less than 1% of the total Tujia population. These speakers live in the northern half of the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in northwestern Hunan Province. The language was once spoken throughout the areas inhabited by the Tujia, which comprise a region of 100,000 square miles straddling the common borders of Hunan, Hubei, and Guizhou Provinces, and Chongqing Municipality. In view of the present rate of decrease in language use, Tujia is considered to be an endangered language.

Tujia is a member of the Tibeto-Burman family of languages, but its specific genetic affiliation remains unclear. Its phonology is extremely similar to the local Chinese dialect. Tujia syllables are of the CV type, with most vowels having nasalised variants. There are four tones and sandhi is common. The basic word order is SOV. There is an abundance of verb particles, which indicate aspect, modality, directionality, negation, and relevance. Adjectives do not exist as a distinct category and conjunctions are rare.

This grammar of the northern dialect of Tujia is based on research conducted in Xiangxi over an 18-month period from 2002 to 2003. It is the first in-depth analysis of the Tujia language that has been written in the English language. The book offers a comprehensive and systematic overview of the language and includes a lexicon of over 1,500 vocabulary items as well as three traditional texts. This description of one of the lesser-known minority languages of China should also provide a useful record of a language which is currently in decline.

ISBN 9783895869952. Languages of the World/Materials 455. 220pp. 2006.

Le nashta

Description d’un parler slave de Grèce en voie de disparition.

EVANGELIA ADAMOU
CNRS/LACITO

Ce travail est une description d’un dialecte slave parlé en Grèce du Nord. Ce parler, qui n’est pas enseigné et ne se transmet plus d’une génération à l’autre, laisse maintenant la place au grec moderne. Au plus près des discours métalinguistiques des locuteurs, l’auteure propose d’employer le terme nashta « la nôtre » pour désigner le parler décrit ici, ce qui présente le double avantage de respecter leur point de vue sur les langues en présence et faciliter la lecture en distinguant le parler slave local du bulgare et du macédonien standards.

En effet, le nashta étudié dans les usages répertoriés à Liti présente plusieurs particularités par rapport aux langues slaves du sud. Par exemple le système verbal de Liti a perdu toutes les formes en -l qui caractérisent toutes les langues slaves, et le médiatif qui caractérise des langues slaves du sud, alors qu’il emploie le parfait avec « avoir » pour une valeur d’antérieur et de résultatif.

Cette description dégage aussi des spécificités morphologiques (marquage différentiel de l’objet en fonction de l’humanitude, structures attributives sans copule, marquage de l’imperfectif par l’accent) ou sémantiques (système des prépositions spatio-temporelles fortement influencé par le grec).

Pour tenter d’expliquer ces phénomènes, l’auteure a recours aux acquis de la typologie et des études sur les contacts de langues. Evangelia ADAMOU est chargée de recherche au Laboratoire de Langues et Civilisations à Tradition Orale (LACITO, UMR 7107) du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France).

ISBN 9783895867712. Languages of the World/Materials 456. 122pp. 2006.

Dolenjska Romani

The dialect of the Dolenjski Roma in Novo Mesto and Bela Krajina, Slovenia

Petra Cech

Dolenjska Romani as presented here is spoken by a group of Roma in the Dolenjska region and Bela Krajina in Slovenija. It is basicly a dialect of the Southern Central group, but shows remarkable connections to Southern Balkan dialects as well as a number of interesting innovations unknown in other dialects. It gained some attention by linguists, as the scholar Rade Uhlik observed very few structures and lexemes of Greek origin in this dialect and assumed, the Dolenjski Roma's ancestors had never or hardly touched Greek territory in the past. Thus data and recordings of Dolenjska Romani were evaluated in several publications during the last decade, focussing on the degree of Greek influence on this dialect.

With the integration of Slovenia into the EU, the codification of the various minorities' dialects in Slovenia became urgent. In respond to this demand, a codification of Dolenjska Romani is presented, based on a wide range of texts, recordings and printed material of spontaneous codifications by Dolenjski Roma themselves. It begins with a survey of historical traces and references on the group's origin, followed by a comprehensive description of the dialect's phonology, morphology and syntax, including variants spoken in Southern Slovenija. Although the book does not comprise a text appendix or a glossary, all features discussed are illustrated by various examples of recordings or written texts for an optimal documentation of this fascinating Romani dialect.

CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. Sources, material and codification

3. Phonology
3.1. Vowels
3.2. Consonants
3.3. Metatheses
3.4. Elisions, protheses
3.5. Stress

4. Morphology
4.1. Verbal inflection
4.2. Negation
4.3. Nominal inflection
4.4. Adjective inflection
4.5. Pronouns
4.6. Case functions
4.7. Prepositions
4.8. Adverbs
4.9. Numerals
4.10. Conjunctions, particles
4.11. Derivation

5. Syntax
5.1. Verbal aspect and aktionsart
5.2. Passive
5.3. Subjunctive
5.4. Modal expressions
5.5. Object complements
5.6. Adverbial clauses
5.7. Word order
6. References
ISBN 9783895867729. Languages of the World/Materials 457. 73pp. 2006.

Karay (Trakai Dialect)

Timur Kocaoğlu, Koç University
In collaboration with Mykolas Firkovicius

Karay (Karaim) is one of the endangered languages of the world. It belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages. Today, only 20 persons can speak and write fluently in Karay out of ca. 2,500 people who are believed to preserve their ethnic identity in various countries (Lithuania, Poland, Crimea in Ukraine, Turkey, Israel, France, and the US). The present work is a handbook for the spoken Karay language of the Trakai dialect in Lithuania apart from the Halich and the Crimean dialects of Karay. The Karay phrases based on the spoken Karay were prepared in 1999 by the spiritual leader of the Lithuanian Karays, Mykolas Firkovicius who died in 2000, and were translated into English by Timur Kocaoğlu.

The grammar is consisted of an introduction to the Karay language followed by a grammatical description of the spoken Karay based on the Trakai dialect of Lithuania, 800 Karay phrases in both Lithuanian and Turkic Latin alphabets with their English translations, and the Karay-English word list with full grammatical index, plus bibliography.

ISBN 9783895864902. Languages of the World/Materials 458. 244pp. 2006.

Swiss German

The modern Alemannic vernacular in and around Zurich

Johannes Reese

The “German”-speaking part of Switzerland (almost two thirds of the population) is notorious for its diglossia. The written language is Standard German with few regional specialties, the everyday language is an Alemannic dialect; each village has its own. In recent years, there is a koineization process going on, with a gravitation center around Zurich. The dialects are becoming more similar to each other than they used to be. So, it may now be justified to summarize them as “Swiss German”, although there is no uniform language to expect over the next decades. Maybe the continuing diversity and rapid change are some of the reasons why these dialects have seldom been described to people unfamiliar with either one of them or at least Standard German. Few of the existing works make use of modern linguistic devices like IPA either.

The present booklet shall provide a concise overview of Swiss German as it is spoken today in the Zurich area. It covers phonology, morphology, the TAM and Aktionsart system, and syntax.

A recently recorded text is included, too. In the course of the chapters, some peculiarities are presented that haven’t appeared in the literature so far: e. g., the satellite-framed character of the language is the base of the phenomenon of multi-valent verbs, and in connection with the famous reduplicative verb construction, which is unique to Alemannic, it accounts for the so-called “absentive” in Germanic languages.

ISBN 9783895864971. 87pp. Languages of the World/Materials 462. 2006.

Wulguru

a salvage study of a north-eastern Australian language from Townsville

Mark Donohue
Monash University

Wulguru was a Pama-Nyungan language typical of the sort found on the northeast coast of Australia; it ceased to be spoken before it was properly documented. Wulguru was spoken in the area around present day Townsville, and also on the islands extending out to Palm Island. The sketch that is presented here has been assembled from the available data, based mainly on a journal kept by Charles Price, a resident of Townsville in the late 19th century; the current work is as complete a record as we are likely to have.

Wulguru had a vowel-length distinction; as a result of initial consonant loss, vowels could begin words; further, there were monosyllabic words. Wulguru marked syntactic relations by means of case marking; the ergative showed allomorphy based on syllable count as well as final consonant identity. There were at least three different verbal conjugations, possibly as many as five or six. Verbal agreement was optional, though this might represent second position clitics. The only textual material consists of a few short phrases, as well as the transcription of some songs, and the main text that we have for Wulguru, a translation of The Lord’s Prayer. It becomes apparent (after back-translation) that it was not Price himself who assembled the prayer translation, but probably a Wulguru speaker who makes a secret cry against the white invasion of the area.

ISBN 9783895863271. Languages of the World/Materials 463. 70pp. EUR 38.00. 2007.