Tis paper discusses two assessments which evaluate the
progress of students in a Kaqchikel immers... more Tis paper discusses two assessments which evaluate the progress of students in a Kaqchikel immersion program in Guatemala. Picture-naming production and comprehension tasks were used to test for proficiency in phonology, morphology and lexical acquisition. Results serve to improve the program and inform future methodological and curricular decisions.
Tunica, an indigenous language of central Louisiana, died in the 1940’s with its last speaker, Se... more Tunica, an indigenous language of central Louisiana, died in the 1940’s with its last speaker, Sesostrie Youchigant. In 2010 the Tunica Tribe came to Tulane Linguistics asking for help reviving their language, and thus far we have created a practical orthography, produced two books of stories, written several prayers, and created basic lesson plans which are beginning to be taught to tribal children. We are currently writing a pedagogical grammar, a linguistic grammar, a new dictionary, and intermediate and advanced lessons.
The most complete record of the language lies in a grammar, dictionary, and book of 22 myths published by Mary Haas from working with Sesostrie. Through the materials available we have tried to recreate the language faithfully, while keeping in mind that the new generation of Tunica speakers will be coming to L2 through English. But there are still many difficult choices to be made. Haas has been our authority, but it became apparent that because her data were limited to the recollections of a single semi-speaker and the few narrative texts he was able to produce, supplemental information would be required to continue with the lessons and the grammars.
One of our members recently visited the National Anthropological Archives and photographed a 259 page handwritten manuscript of Tunica vocabulary, grammatical paradigms, and interlinearlized texts written by Gatschet ca. 1886 and later revised by Swanton. These data are particularly important in that they are not narrative in origin, but are elicited phrases and paradigms. Not only do you find useful day-to-day phrases but also examples of constructions which Haas lacked.
However, Gatschet’s orthographical conventions are not explained, word vs. morpheme boundaries are inconsistent, and we have no way of checking the accuracy of anything unattested in Haas. Worse yet, Gatschet and Swanton often disagree about both definition and form, and many of the forms contradict Haas. This paper discusses both the practical and ethical issues that arise from attempting to revive a language when faced with insufficient and conflicting data. Many of the large decisions regarding language planning belong to the tribe, but even the small decisions have the potential to have huge effects on the future of Tunica. Focus is mainly given to verb formation processes and what semantic and pragmatic information can be gleaned from the Gatschet-Swanton materials, then applied to paint a more complete picture of the Tunica verbal system in all of its polysynthetic complexity.
This paper explains how the Catalogue of Endangered Language was developed, its relationship to t... more This paper explains how the Catalogue of Endangered Language was developed, its relationship to the Endangered Languages Project website, what these two offer, a brief report of what has been achieved so far, and goals and procedures for phase 2 of the project.
Tis paper discusses two assessments which evaluate the
progress of students in a Kaqchikel immers... more Tis paper discusses two assessments which evaluate the progress of students in a Kaqchikel immersion program in Guatemala. Picture-naming production and comprehension tasks were used to test for proficiency in phonology, morphology and lexical acquisition. Results serve to improve the program and inform future methodological and curricular decisions.
Tunica, an indigenous language of central Louisiana, died in the 1940’s with its last speaker, Se... more Tunica, an indigenous language of central Louisiana, died in the 1940’s with its last speaker, Sesostrie Youchigant. In 2010 the Tunica Tribe came to Tulane Linguistics asking for help reviving their language, and thus far we have created a practical orthography, produced two books of stories, written several prayers, and created basic lesson plans which are beginning to be taught to tribal children. We are currently writing a pedagogical grammar, a linguistic grammar, a new dictionary, and intermediate and advanced lessons.
The most complete record of the language lies in a grammar, dictionary, and book of 22 myths published by Mary Haas from working with Sesostrie. Through the materials available we have tried to recreate the language faithfully, while keeping in mind that the new generation of Tunica speakers will be coming to L2 through English. But there are still many difficult choices to be made. Haas has been our authority, but it became apparent that because her data were limited to the recollections of a single semi-speaker and the few narrative texts he was able to produce, supplemental information would be required to continue with the lessons and the grammars.
One of our members recently visited the National Anthropological Archives and photographed a 259 page handwritten manuscript of Tunica vocabulary, grammatical paradigms, and interlinearlized texts written by Gatschet ca. 1886 and later revised by Swanton. These data are particularly important in that they are not narrative in origin, but are elicited phrases and paradigms. Not only do you find useful day-to-day phrases but also examples of constructions which Haas lacked.
However, Gatschet’s orthographical conventions are not explained, word vs. morpheme boundaries are inconsistent, and we have no way of checking the accuracy of anything unattested in Haas. Worse yet, Gatschet and Swanton often disagree about both definition and form, and many of the forms contradict Haas. This paper discusses both the practical and ethical issues that arise from attempting to revive a language when faced with insufficient and conflicting data. Many of the large decisions regarding language planning belong to the tribe, but even the small decisions have the potential to have huge effects on the future of Tunica. Focus is mainly given to verb formation processes and what semantic and pragmatic information can be gleaned from the Gatschet-Swanton materials, then applied to paint a more complete picture of the Tunica verbal system in all of its polysynthetic complexity.
This paper explains how the Catalogue of Endangered Language was developed, its relationship to t... more This paper explains how the Catalogue of Endangered Language was developed, its relationship to the Endangered Languages Project website, what these two offer, a brief report of what has been achieved so far, and goals and procedures for phase 2 of the project.
This chapter focuses on women who contributed significantly to American Indian linguistics before... more This chapter focuses on women who contributed significantly to American Indian linguistics before World War II. It highlights the lives, work, and impact of the influential scholars Mary Haas, Gladys Reichard, and Lucy Freeland, as well as the contributions of Native American women such as Ella Deloria and Flora Zuni in this period of early linguistic work on Native American languages. The personal and professional histories of these women and the challenges they faced in male-dominated academia are discussed. Despite those challenges, they contributed significantly to the discipline through their fieldwork on Native American languages, their commitment to language documentation and to their students, and the knowledge they passed on to subsequent generations. Their perseverance at a turning point in American linguistics advanced the role of women and has had a lasting effect on the climate of American scholarship.
This paper discusses three assessments which evaluate the progress of students in a Kaqchikel imm... more This paper discusses three assessments which evaluate the progress of students in a Kaqchikel immersion program in Guatemala. Picture-naming production and comprehension tasks were used to test for proficiency in phonology, morphology and lexical acquisition. Results serve to improve the program and inform future methodological and curricular decisions.
International Journal of American Linguistics, 2017
Tunica, a language isolate of Louisiana no longer spoken by native speakers, is unusual among the... more Tunica, a language isolate of Louisiana no longer spoken by native speakers, is unusual among the languages of the southeastern United States given its robust gender system. All nouns are assigned grammatical gender—masculine or feminine—which is often explicitly marked on nouns and cross-referenced on verbs. This relatively straightforward binary system is complicated by animacy and number, both of which influence gender assignment. This paper describes the Tunica gender system and shows how the interaction of different features results in the patterning found in the Tunica corpus. It also presents evidence that feminine is the unmarked gender for all non-human nominals. Notably, lexically masculine non-human nouns can take feminine marking and trigger feminine agreement, but the reverse is not true. Tunica is therefore one of the few languages of the world that shows evidence of an unmarked feminine gender.
Perspectives on Language and Linguistics: Community-Based Research, 2018
This chapter examines the ethics of linguistic work in a situation where there is already a subst... more This chapter examines the ethics of linguistic work in a situation where there is already a substantial amount of indigenous-led infrastructure for language documentation, description, and revitalization. It deals specifically with the Maya context in the highlands of Guatemala and the collaborative language work both authors are engaged in. It begins with an overview of the collabora-tive research tradition in Guatemala and the complex reactions Maya scholars and activists have had to outside researchers. We then discuss recent developments with respect to language revitalization in the Kaqchikel area, and how this has opened up new opportunities for collaboration. The second half of the chapter looks at specific projects the authors have worked on together to do linguistically-informed assessments of children's progress in a Kaqchikel immersion school, with the aim of using the results to improve language proficiency. These projects exemplify the kinds of projects that can be mutually beneficial for academic researchers and community activists, without impacting the autonomy Maya have with respect to the language programming, planning, policy, and research which they have created out of the decades-long fight for the decoloni-zation of Mayan languages and culture. for their comments on an earlier version of this chapter. We would also like to give a special thanks to William O'Grady for providing the impetus for the line of research which has brought and continues to bring us into productive collaborations. We thank the teachers at Nimaläj Kaqchikel Amaq' for their instrumental help in coordinating and conducting the assessments , and finally we thank the broader Kaqchikel revitalization community for their dedication to the preservation of their language. The research for the assessment was funded by the Bilinski foundation, and the CLIP project is funded by the University ofHawaìi at Mānoa and the Smith-sonian Institution. Any remaining mistakes are our own. Collaborative research and assessment in Kaqchikel 229
This paper discusses two assessments designed to evaluate the progress of students in the Kaqchik... more This paper discusses two assessments designed to evaluate the progress of students in the Kaqchikel immersion program at Nimaläj Kaqchikel Amaq'. Picture-naming production and comprehension tasks were used to test for proficiency in phonology and morphology as well as lexical acquisition. The tests targeted basic contrasts which are important to Kaqchikel grammatical structure. While students are still struggling with many aspects of the language such as the phonology and positional verbs, many are able to understand and use singular vs. plural intransitive verb morphology. Results are being used to improve the program and inform future methodological and curricular decisions.
Tunica, a language isolate of Louisiana no longer spoken by native speakers, is unusual among the... more Tunica, a language isolate of Louisiana no longer spoken by native speakers, is unusual among the languages of the southeastern United States given its robust gender system. All nouns are assigned grammatical gender—masculine or feminine—which is often explicitly marked on nouns and cross-referenced on verbs. This relatively straightforward binary system is complicated by animacy and number, both of which influence gender assignment. This paper describes the Tunica gender system and shows how the interaction of different features results in the patterning found in the Tunica corpus. It also presents evidence that feminine is the unmarked gender for all non-human nominals. Notably, lexically masculine non-human nouns can take feminine marking and trigger feminine agreement, but the reverse is not true. Tunica is therefore one of the few languages of the world that shows evidence of an unmarked feminine gender.
This dissertation presents the results of a typological study that investigated the global
distri... more This dissertation presents the results of a typological study that investigated the global distribution of antipassive constructions, as well as the distribution of the relevant antipassive-related features. The sample includes data from 445 languages, which represent 144 language families and isolates. This larger study is informed by an in-depth analysis of Kaqchikel antipassives, and how this influences our understanding of antipassives of Mayan languages. The goals of this study are (1) to provide a more comprehensive look at antipassives and antipassive-type structures than had previously been attempted; (2) to provide an updated account of antipassives in Mayan languages, based on primary data; (3) to discover which other typological factors relate to the existence of antipassives in a particular language (4) to discover the types and distribution of features in antipassive-type constructions cross-linguistically, and (5) to establish guidelines for the identification and description of antipassive-type constructions in a wide variety of languages. Among other discoveries, findings show that about 25% of the world’s language have antipassive constructions. Antipassives tend to exist in languages with ergative-absolutive verb alignment, although there are also non-ergative languages which have antipassives. Additionally, while there is on some level a division between antipassives which serve primarily syntactic functions and those which serve primarily pragmatic functions, the more consistent distinction is between antipassives with allow the patient to be expressed in an oblique phrase and those which do not. There are also a small number of languages which can be said to have more than one antipassive. Mayan languages are known for having a rather large number of voice distinctions, including passives and antipassives. I identify five morphosyntactically distinct agent-preserving vii detransitivizing constructions in Kaqchikel, two of which I considered to be antipassives. I also look at several issues involving the markers for these constructions, the syntactic contexts in which they appear, and how they differ in terms of their function. The facts for Kaqchikel are also compared with what is known about other K’ichean and non-K’ichean languages.
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Conference Presentations by Raina Heaton
progress of students in a Kaqchikel immersion program in
Guatemala. Picture-naming production and comprehension tasks
were used to test for proficiency in phonology, morphology and
lexical acquisition. Results serve to improve the program and
inform future methodological and curricular decisions.
The most complete record of the language lies in a grammar, dictionary, and book of 22 myths published by Mary Haas from working with Sesostrie. Through the materials available we have tried to recreate the language faithfully, while keeping in mind that the new generation of Tunica speakers will be coming to L2 through English. But there are still many difficult choices to be made. Haas has been our authority, but it became apparent that because her data were limited to the recollections of a single semi-speaker and the few narrative texts he was able to produce, supplemental information would be required to continue with the lessons and the grammars.
One of our members recently visited the National Anthropological Archives and photographed a 259 page handwritten manuscript of Tunica vocabulary, grammatical paradigms, and interlinearlized texts written by Gatschet ca. 1886 and later revised by Swanton. These data are particularly important in that they are not narrative in origin, but are elicited phrases and paradigms. Not only do you find useful day-to-day phrases but also examples of constructions which Haas lacked.
However, Gatschet’s orthographical conventions are not explained, word vs. morpheme boundaries are inconsistent, and we have no way of checking the accuracy of anything unattested in Haas. Worse yet, Gatschet and Swanton often disagree about both definition and form, and many of the forms contradict Haas. This paper discusses both the practical and ethical issues that arise from attempting to revive a language when faced with insufficient and conflicting data. Many of the large decisions regarding language planning belong to the tribe, but even the small decisions have the potential to have huge effects on the future of Tunica. Focus is mainly given to verb formation processes and what semantic and pragmatic information can be gleaned from the Gatschet-Swanton materials, then applied to paint a more complete picture of the Tunica verbal system in all of its polysynthetic complexity.
progress of students in a Kaqchikel immersion program in
Guatemala. Picture-naming production and comprehension tasks
were used to test for proficiency in phonology, morphology and
lexical acquisition. Results serve to improve the program and
inform future methodological and curricular decisions.
The most complete record of the language lies in a grammar, dictionary, and book of 22 myths published by Mary Haas from working with Sesostrie. Through the materials available we have tried to recreate the language faithfully, while keeping in mind that the new generation of Tunica speakers will be coming to L2 through English. But there are still many difficult choices to be made. Haas has been our authority, but it became apparent that because her data were limited to the recollections of a single semi-speaker and the few narrative texts he was able to produce, supplemental information would be required to continue with the lessons and the grammars.
One of our members recently visited the National Anthropological Archives and photographed a 259 page handwritten manuscript of Tunica vocabulary, grammatical paradigms, and interlinearlized texts written by Gatschet ca. 1886 and later revised by Swanton. These data are particularly important in that they are not narrative in origin, but are elicited phrases and paradigms. Not only do you find useful day-to-day phrases but also examples of constructions which Haas lacked.
However, Gatschet’s orthographical conventions are not explained, word vs. morpheme boundaries are inconsistent, and we have no way of checking the accuracy of anything unattested in Haas. Worse yet, Gatschet and Swanton often disagree about both definition and form, and many of the forms contradict Haas. This paper discusses both the practical and ethical issues that arise from attempting to revive a language when faced with insufficient and conflicting data. Many of the large decisions regarding language planning belong to the tribe, but even the small decisions have the potential to have huge effects on the future of Tunica. Focus is mainly given to verb formation processes and what semantic and pragmatic information can be gleaned from the Gatschet-Swanton materials, then applied to paint a more complete picture of the Tunica verbal system in all of its polysynthetic complexity.
distribution of antipassive constructions, as well as the distribution of the relevant antipassive-related
features. The sample includes data from 445 languages, which represent 144 language
families and isolates. This larger study is informed by an in-depth analysis of Kaqchikel
antipassives, and how this influences our understanding of antipassives of Mayan languages.
The goals of this study are (1) to provide a more comprehensive look at antipassives and
antipassive-type structures than had previously been attempted; (2) to provide an updated
account of antipassives in Mayan languages, based on primary data; (3) to discover which other
typological factors relate to the existence of antipassives in a particular language (4) to discover
the types and distribution of features in antipassive-type constructions cross-linguistically, and
(5) to establish guidelines for the identification and description of antipassive-type constructions
in a wide variety of languages.
Among other discoveries, findings show that about 25% of the world’s language have
antipassive constructions. Antipassives tend to exist in languages with ergative-absolutive verb
alignment, although there are also non-ergative languages which have antipassives. Additionally,
while there is on some level a division between antipassives which serve primarily syntactic
functions and those which serve primarily pragmatic functions, the more consistent distinction is
between antipassives with allow the patient to be expressed in an oblique phrase and those which
do not. There are also a small number of languages which can be said to have more than one
antipassive.
Mayan languages are known for having a rather large number of voice distinctions,
including passives and antipassives. I identify five morphosyntactically distinct agent-preserving
vii
detransitivizing constructions in Kaqchikel, two of which I considered to be antipassives. I also
look at several issues involving the markers for these constructions, the syntactic contexts in
which they appear, and how they differ in terms of their function. The facts for Kaqchikel are
also compared with what is known about other K’ichean and non-K’ichean languages.