A Grammar of Hunzib
with texts and lexicon

Helma van den Berg
University of Leiden

Hunzib is a non-written language, spoken by some 2000 inhabitants of Daghestan (Russia). It belongs to the Tsesic group of the Avar-Andi-Tsesic branch of East-Caucasian languages. This relatively little described language has 27 consonants and 16 vowels. Word stress is generally linked to the prefinal vowel of the word. Hunzib has five noun classes, which serve as the basis for agreement between nouns and coreferent adjectives, pronouns, verbs and adverbial constructions. This agreement is generally indicated by class prefixes; these operate on a nominative-ergative system. Demonstrative pronouns in the nominative distinguish between three degrees of distance: near the speaker 'this', near the hearer 'that', far from both speaker and hearer 'yonder'.

A Hunzib verb consists of a central part, the stem, which can be preceded by a class prefix and followed by endings. Simple stems consist of a root only, complex stems of a root and one or more derivational suffixes. Half of the roots can be disrupted by a plural infix. The most frequent valency types are (1) Subject; (2) Agent, Patient; (3) Experiencer, Patient. Derivational suffixes (like causative, antipassive and others) can affect the valency of the verb.

A Grammar of Hunzib consists of three parts. The grammatical sketch of the Hunzib language (part one) covers the phonology, morphology and syntax of the language. The second parts is a corpus of texts with a morpheme analysis. Part three is a Hunzib-English lexicon. All material was gathered during three periods of one-site fieldwork in Dagestan (1990-1994).

ISBN 9783895860065. LINCOM Studies in Caucasian Linguistics 01. 400p. 1996.

Godoberi

Alexandr E. Kibrik (ed.)
Lomonosov State University, Moscow

The volume is a result of one of collective field trips traditionally organized under the auspices of the Philological Faculty of Lomonosov State University. Godoberi is spoken almost exclusively in the village of Godoberi in the mountains of Daghestan (North-East Caucasus). The number of Godoberians is approximately 2500. Godoberi is one of the languages that belong to the Andic branch of Nakho-Dagestanian (or, in other terms, East Caucasian) languages. The contributors of the volume are: A.E. Kibrik, S.V. Kodzasov, A.A. Kibrik, Yu. Gisatullina, M. Haspelmath, K. Kazenin, S. Tatevosov, S. Toldova, O. Fedorova, N. Dobrushina, T. Sosens-kaja, A. Solov'jeva, A. Eulenberg et al.

The volume contains chapters on phonology, morphology, syntax, analyses several texts and contains a short dictionary.

ISBN 9783895860447. LINCOM Studies in Caucasian Linguistics 02. 303pp. 1995.

Kontaktbedingter Sprachwandel in der adygeischen Umgangssprache im Kaukasus und in der Türkei

Vergleichende Analyse des russischen und türkischen Einflusses in muendlichen adygeischen Texten

Monika Höhlig
Technische Universität Berlin

The North West Caucasian Adyghe language provides ideal conditions for the study of language change because of the sociolinguistic history of its speakers and their contact with typologically and genetically different languages. This study examines the socio-cultural and sociolinguistic factors which determine dominance relations in Adyghe-Russian language contact in the Caucasus and Adyghe-Turkish language contact in Turkey in the present century. The analysis is based on text material in the Abdzakh dialect of Adyghe, collected during fieldwork in Turkey (1979-1990) and Adygheya in the Caucasus (1990-1994).

In the comparisons of both contact situations, the focus is on the description of the linguistic features. The kind and extent of interference are dealt with on different levels of the Adyghe language. Lexical interference includes the borrowing of different parts of speech and devices of integration in Adyghe. Structural interference includes changes in Adyghe phonology, morphology, and syntax due to foreign elements (Russian and Turkish, respectively).

After comparisons of the decisive social factors, the main part of the study closes with a tentative prognosis regarding the process of language change in the Abdzakh dialect and the Adyghe language in general in Turkey and the Republik of Adygheya in the Caucasus.

The book consists of eight chapters with an appendix which includes the proposal of a Latin-Turkish based alphabet for Adyghe and a collection of Abdzakh texts with a German translation. [written in German]

ISBN 9783895860836. LINCOM Studies in Caucasian Linguistics 03. 300S.

Person, Klasse, Kongruenz. Vol. 1/1

Fragmente einer Kategorialtypologie des einfachen Satzes in den ostkaukasischen Sprachen

Wolfgang Schulze
Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen

This series is devoted to the study of the basic morphosyntactic and morphosemantic features used in the about thirty East Caucasian languages to construe "simple sentences". The approach proposed here is derived from the theories of Cognitive and Functional Grammar and substantiated in terms of a "Grammar of Scenes and Scenarios" (GSS). This approach derives grammatical categories that are obligatory to produces an utterance both from their cognitive, functional, and communicative background as well as from the evidence given by language typology.

The PKK series tries to analyze the grammar of all East Caucasian languages with respect to the prerogatives of GSS. The aim is to give an overall view of the operating systems dominating these languages as well as their assumed proto-language ("Proto-East Caucasian"). Consequently, the following aspects are treated volume by volume: Vol. 1.: Foundations of GSS and the East Caucasian (linguistic) area, vol. 2: The Person, vol. 3: Noun Classification, vol. 4: Case systems, vol. 5: Scenes and scenarios, vol. 6: Space and time, vol. 7: Modalization. In a more traditional mood, these volumes can be regarded as a contribution to a comparative syntax of East Caucasian.

Vol. 1: Die Grundlagen. Teil 1&2

This first volume of the PKK series presents the theoretical prerogatives for a "Grammar of Scenes and Scenarios" (GSS) together with informations about the East Caucasian languages to which GSS is applied. GSS is a tool to describe and interpret "simple sentences" presupposing theories of holistic cognitivism, pragmatism, and connectionism. After some reflections about the state of the arts of cognitive and functional linguistics the basic concepts of a Categorial Typology as well as their reflexes in a GSS are subsequently introduced: Reviewing the problem of the cognitive reality of grammatical categories and paradigms themselves leads to some central claims concerning their relationship to linguistic and world knowledge and their use to produces utterances. In a second step the linguistic area dealt with is introduced: The notion of Areal Typology is discussed (introducing the notion of Cognitive and Communicative Areas which are - at least partly - present in language systems as well as in the lexicon). The area in question (Daghestan, Chechnia etc.) then is documented language by language together with some claims concerning their genetic relationship and informations about their general typological properties with respect to morphosyntax and morphosemantics. The third part of this volume concentrates on the concept of GSS itself . Among others, the following features are discussed: cognitive and communicative routines, operating systems, causality, ergative-accusative-continuum, semantic and functional hierarchies, grounding strategies, discourse cohesion devices etc.). The primarily deductive approach is substantiated and evaluated by evidences from formal and functional typology and diachrony. [written in German]

ISBN 9783895861840 (Teil 1)
LINCOM Studies in Caucasian Linguistics 04. 360pp. 1998. ISBN 9783895865527 (Teil 2)
 

Person, Klasse, Kongruenz. Vol. 1/2

Fragmente einer Kategorialtypologie des einfachen Satzes in den ostkaukasischen Sprachen

Wolfgang Schulze
Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität München

This series is devoted to the study of the basic morphosyntactic and morphosemantic features used in the about thirty East Caucasian languages to construe "simple sentences". The approach proposed here is derived from the theories of Cognitive and Functional Grammar and substantiated in terms of a "Grammar of Scenes and Scenarios" (GSS). This approach derives grammatical categories that are obligatory to produces an utterance both from their cognitive, functional, and communicative background as well as from the evidence given by language typology.

The PKK series tries to analyze the grammar of all East Caucasian languages with respect to the prerogatives of GSS. The aim is to give an overall view of the operating systems dominating these languages as well as their assumed proto-language ("Proto-East Caucasian"). Consequently, the following aspects are treated volume by volume: Vol. 1.: Foundations of GSS and the East Caucasian (linguistic) area, vol. 2: The Person, vol. 3: Noun Classification, vol. 4: Case systems, vol. 5: Scenes and scenarios, vol. 6: Space and time, vol. 7: Modalization. In a more traditional mood, these volumes can be regarded as a contribution to a comparative syntax of East Caucasian.

Vol. 1: Die Grundlagen. Teil 1&2

This first volume of the PKK series presents the theoretical prerogatives for a "Grammar of Scenes and Scenarios" (GSS) together with informations about the East Caucasian languages to which GSS is applied. GSS is a tool to describe and interpret "simple sentences" presupposing theories of holistic cognitivism, pragmatism, and connectionism. After some reflections about the state of the arts of cognitive and functional linguistics the basic concepts of a Categorial Typology as well as their reflexes in a GSS are subsequently introduced: Reviewing the problem of the cognitive reality of grammatical categories and paradigms themselves leads to some central claims concerning their relationship to linguistic and world knowledge and their use to produces utterances. In a second step the linguistic area dealt with is introduced: The notion of Areal Typology is discussed (introducing the notion of Cognitive and Communicative Areas which are - at least partly - present in language systems as well as in the lexicon). The area in question (Daghestan, Chechnia etc.) then is documented language by language together with some claims concerning their genetic relationship and informations about their general typological properties with respect to morphosyntax and morphosemantics. The third part of this volume concentrates on the concept of GSS itself . Among others, the following features are discussed: cognitive and communicative routines, operating systems, causality, ergative-accusative-continuum, semantic and functional hierarchies, grounding strategies, discourse cohesion devices etc.). The primarily deductive approach is substantiated and evaluated by evidences from formal and functional typology and diachrony. [written in German]

ISBN 9783895861840 (Teil 1)
LINCOM Studies in Caucasian Linguistics 04. 360pp. 1998. ISBN 9783895865527 (Teil 2)

Kartvelian Morphosyntax

Number Agreement and Morphosyntactic Orientation in the South Caucasian Languages

Kevin Tuite
University of Montréal

The Kartvelian (South Caucasian) family comprises three languages: Georgian, Svan and Zan (Laz-Mingrelian). The protolanguage, Proto-Kartvelian, is believed to have been characterized by ergative-absolutive case marking and a verb with two sets of crossreferencing affixes (Set S ["subject"] and Set O ["object"]). These affixes manifest a nominative-accusative pattern in all the daughter languages, and probably did so in Proto-Kartvelian. In the course of four millenia the Kartvelian languages and their dialects have undergone changes in various morphosyntactic components: agreement (in particular, agreement for number), case assignment, and also in the internal structure of case paradigms. These changes are described in detail, dialect by dialect, in the monograph. The conclusion I draw is that certain of these changes can be described in terms of drift toward or away from three TYPES of morphosyntactic ORIENTATION. By "orientation" is meant a typology of dialects according to the structuration of their morphosyntactic components to accord syntagmatic and paradigmatic "privileges" (control of agreement, especially obligatory agreement; link to unmarked member of paradigmatic set, etc.). Orientation can be described both in terms of degree of asymmetry (does one clausal argument-type receive special privileges not shared with others; in other words, can one speak meaningfully of a grammatical SUBJECT?), and in terms of alignment (nominative, absolutive, etc.) The following three orientations can be discerned in the Kartvelian languages and their dialects:

Type A: split-absolutive orientation [the most archaic, still preserved in some northeast Georgian mountain dialects]. Type B: nominative (semantic-subject) orientation [the modern literary Georgian language and most contemporary dialects]. Type C: Discourse-prominence orientation [several dialects from southwest Georgia].

ISBN 9783929075960. LINCOM Studies in Caucasian Linguistics 12. 260pp. 1998.

Description de l'Ingouche: parler du centre nord du Caucase

Françoise Guerin
Université de Paris IV

C'est la première description fonctionnaliste synchronique de l'ingouche (dialecte de la langue nakh) parlé sur le territoire caucasien de l'Ingouchie, république fédérée à la Russie. La phonologie, la syntaxe et la synthématique sont les principaux axes de recherche.

L'ingouche présente un système vocalique à trois oppositions d'aperture pour les voyelles brèves, à deux degré d'aperture pour les voyelles longues. Il n'y a ni voyelles nasales ni diphtongues dans cette langue. Le système phonologique présente des corrélations de sonorité, de nasalité, de sulcalité, de glottalisation et de fermeture.

Une place prépondérante est laissée à l'étude syntaxique : l'inventaire des classes est ordonné autour de la dichotomie prédicat non verbal (prédication connective) et prédicat verbal (prédication nucléaire). L'étude des fonctions syntaxiques, considérées comme des signes linguistiques à part entière, permet de dresser un système relationnel cohérent et économique. La structure ergative, la valence des verbes en relation avec les rôles sémantiques et les changements diathétiques ont été également étudiés.

La dimension humaine n'a pas été écartée, elle est présente avec l'étude ethnolinguistique de quelques concepts (espace, temps…), qui s'expriment à la fois sous des formes grammaticalisées et sous des formes lexicalisées, montrant ainsi comment les Ingouches envisagent leurs rapports avec le monde.

ISBN 9783895864032. LINCOM Studies in Caucasian Linguistics 15. 424pp.

A Short Grammar of Georgian

Tamar Makharoblidze
Tbilisi State University

Georgian is the official language of Georgia. It’s the primary language of about 3.9 million people in Georgia itself (about 83 percent of the population), and of another 500,000 abroad (chiefly in Turkey, Iran, Russia, USA and Europe). It is the literary language for all ethnographic groups of Georgian people, especially those who speak other South Caucasian languages (or Kartvelian languages).

Georgian can be characterised as an agglutinative language. It shows split ergativity, poly-personal verbal constructions and has a subject-verb-object primary sentence structure.

A Short Grammar of Georgian starts with a presentation of the Georgian writing system. The following chapters discuss nominal and verbal morphology with a special focus on poly-personal verbal conjugation. The data is presented in a very simple way so that one can learn the general items of Georgian Grammar rather easily.

Besides the clear short description of Georgian grammar categories in traditional terms the author exposes some original views of the most complicated categories: such as version, personality, ergativity, destination and class-category.

Prof. Makharoblidze is Professor in the Georgian Language Department of Tbilisi State University.

ISBN 9783895861512. LINCOM Studies in Caucasian Linguistics 16. 128pp. 2009.

Nomen und nominales Syntagma im Lasischen

Eine deskriptive Analyse des Dialekts von Ardesen

Silvia Kutscher
Universität zu Köln

Das Lasische gehört neben dem Mingrelischen und Georgischen zum Georgisch-Zanischen Zweig der Südkaukasischen Sprachfamilie (auch: Kartvelsprachen). Anders als seine Schwestersprachen ist das Lasische mehrheitlich außerhalb Georgiens an der nordöstlichen Schwarzmeerküste der Türkei beheimatet.

Aufgrund seiner soziopolitischen Situation muß das Lasische als eine bedrohte Sprache eingestuft werden. Während die Älteren mehrheitlich zweisprachig Lasisch/Türkisch sind, erwerben nur noch wenige der unter 30-jährigen das Lasische als ihre Muttersprache.

Das Lasische ist eine im Bereich des Prädikats kopfmarkierende Sprache (head marking language) mit polypersonaler Verbmorphologie (auch: cross-referencing language, language with bound pronoun affixes), reichhaltigem Tempus, Aspekt, Modus- System, Präverbien und dem für die südkaukasischen Sprachen charakteristischen System der Applikativ- und Diathesemarkierungen am Verb (Versionsvokal, Charakter-vokal). Im Bereich des Nomens verfügt das Lasische über ein transnumerales Numerussystem mit sekundärem Plural und einem in den einzelnen Varietäten unterschiedlich gestaltetetem Kasussystem.

Die in der Türkei gesprochenen Varietäten des Lasischen sind alle linguistisch wenig untersucht, der Dialekt, dem die Aufmerksamkeit der vorliegenden Arbeit gilt, ist bisher noch keine eigenständige Erforschung zuteil geworden. Dieses Buch bietet daher erstmalig einen überblick über die Morphosyntax des nominalen Syntagmas und eine ausführliche Analyse der Charakterstika der Wortart Nomen und der Funktionen der nominalen Kategorien Numerus und Kasus in dieser Varietät des Lasischen.

Ein Teil des für diese Arbeit verwendeten Korpus' ist bei Lincom Europa in der Reihe Languages of theWorld/Text Collections als Band 14 unter dem Titel Ardesen narrates - Ardeseni na isinapinenpe veröffentlicht.

ISBN 9783895864476. LINCOM Studies in Caucasian Linguistics 17. 260pp. 2001.

A Grammar of Ubykh

Rohan S.H. Fenwick

Ubykh is one of the languages comprising the small North-West Caucasian (Abkhazo-Adyghean) language family. It is SOV, ergative, postpositional, head-marking, and massively agglutinative. First attested in around 1650 in the Seyâhatnâme of Evliya Çelebi, it was originally spoken in the region surrounding the modern Russian city of Sochi, then in exile in north-western Turkey after the 19th-century invasion of the northern Caucasus by the Russian Empire and subsequent emigration en masse of the Ubykh nation. Since the death in 1992 of Ubykh’s last competent native speaker, Tevfik Esenç, the language has been functionally extinct.

Ubykh already has considerable linguistic renown for its titanic inventory of consonant phonemes (comprising at least 80 segments in the only well-attested dialect), but it also demonstrates great complexity in morphology and syntax. This sketch takes a heavily descriptive approach, outlining not only Ubykh’s complex phonology and phonetics, but also its inflectional and derivational morphology – including the most comprehensive account to date of Ubykh noun morphology – and syntax, with particular focus on describing attested idiolectic and dialectic variation. The sketch is liberally illustrated with examples drawn mainly from 14 identified speakers, and is based upon both the published corpus and previously unpublished field recordings; many of the example sentences and one of the sample texts are published here for the first time. It is hoped that this sketch, the first Ubykh grammar in English, will stimulate renewed interest in the language and provide a useful reference for Caucasological researchers.

ISBN 9783862880508 (Hardbound). LINCOM Studies in Caucasian Linguistics 19. 225pp. 2011.