Hokan

A number of different languages in outside of the Indo-European family were analyzed based on how difficult it would be for a native English speaker to learn them. They were then rated on a purely impressionistic 1-6 scale of easiest to most difficult. Extensive phonological, morphological, syntactic and even semantic analysis was done for many of these tongues to highlight areas of difficulty for English learners. Very long: 101 pages.

In this paper I present a detailed analysis of a number of morphological comparisons between the branches of the hypothetical Hokan family. The following areas are considered: 1) subject person/number markers on verbs, as well as possessor person/number markers on nouns, 2) so-called 'lexical prefixes' denoting instrument and manner of action on verbs, 3) plural infixes, used with both nouns and verbs, and 4) verbal directional suffixes 'hither' and 'thither'. It is shown that the respective morphological parallels can be better accounted for as resulting from genetic inheritance rather than from areal diffusion.

This paper examines the question of how strongly head-marking languages such as Yana and Washo, which have no noun case system and few or no prepositions or postpositions, can distinguish between statements expressing ablative or elative directional motion ("away from" or "out of" a location or point of reference) vs. allative or illative directional motion ("to/ toward" or "into" a location or point of reference). The introduction summarizes the few brief existing accounts of Yana grammar, reviews the distinction between head-marking and dependent-marking morphology, and surveys how various more familiar dependent-marking languages such as English, Latin, Russian, Finnish and other Uralic languages, Inuktitut (double marking), and Ichishkíin express the ablative/elative vs. allative/illative distinction: with prepositional or postpositional noun phrases, with noun case suffixes, or with a combination of both. The paper then focuses on primarily head-marking Yana and Washo, while noting a couple minor examples of emergent dependent-marking morphology in Yana, possibly a result of areal influence of the Plateau Penutian languages Klamath and/or Ichishkíin in the Bipartite Stem Belt of Oregon and northern California. The paper analyzes Washo directional verb suffixes, while noting the apparent limitations and difficulties in expressing certain types of statements of directional motion with respect to a reference point other than the speaker. The hypothesis is raised that perhaps strictly head-marking morphology makes the expression of statements with such meanings more difficult in general, and thus perhaps in certain situations of language contact and areal influence, dependent-marking features are more likely to spread to head-marking languages than the other way around. The paper then focuses on the expression of directional motion in Yana, reviewing Leanne Hinton's excellent summary in her 1988 sketch of Yana morphology. The eight cardinal directional motion suffixes, an allative and ablative pair for each of the four cardinal compass directions, are highlighted as the most basic and frequent directional suffixes in Yana. The paper reviews these forms, analyzes examples of verb forms containing them, and finally reviews and analyzes numerous examples of verb forms with such directional suffixes in the context of their occurrence in Yana texts. In the course of this detailed analysis of text examples, certain oversights or apparent errors in the Yana Dictionary are found, explained, and corrected.

This paper presents 34 Plateau Penutian loanword etymologies, 32 of them borrowings from the Ichishkíin (Sahaptin) language, of morphologically opaque forms in the lexicon of Yana, a language isolate of northern California, proposed to belong to the hypothetical Hokan language family, that went extinct almost a century ago. Little research has been done on Yana since Sapir's essential documentation and analysis of it a century ago, and apart from the efforts to identify Hokan cognates, no research has ever been done into the possible etymologies of other forms in the attested Yana lexicon. The paper describes the linguistic area of central and eastern Oregon and northern California, the languages of which exhibit the distinctive areal morphological feature of bipartite verb stems, as analyzed by Jacobsen, DeLancey, and Jansen. Plateau Penutian and northern California Hokan languages belonged to the core of this Bipartite Verb Stem Belt linguistic area, including in particular Klamath, Ichishkíin, Yana, Atsugewi, Washo, and quite possibly other languages as well. The paper explains how this historical linguistic analysis of the area implies that these languages were likely in contact with each other as recently as 500 to 2,000 years before present. Thus the plausibility of the presence of a substantial number of Ichishkíin loanwords borrowed into the Yana lexicon during this time period is established. Finally, the paper presents each of the 34 individual loanword etymologies, providing supporting analysis of phonological, morphological, and semantic details where necessary.

This paper investigates the genetic affiliation of the Yana language of northern California, which sadly went extinct over a century ago. Edward Sapir’s documentation and analysis of Yana allow one to research its linguistic structure, but understandably such a long extinct language has had little appeal as an object of study for linguistics students and scholars for many generations. Yana is typically included among the languages of the proposed Hokan language family of California, Arizona, and Mexico. The Yana language area neighbored the Palaihnihan languages, in the same region of northern California as Shastan, Karuk, and Chimariko. However, Mikhail Zhivlov’s 2013 lexicostatistical analysis surprisingly found Yana to be genetically more closely related to the southern Hokan branches of southern California, Arizona, and Mexico: Yuman-Cochimí, Chontal, and Seri. This paper confirms Zhivlov’s finding and extends it with a deeper and more detailed analysis of lexical correspondences and sound correspondences between the Yana language and Yuman languages in particular. In addition to the 11 Yana-Yuman lexical correspondences in a 50-word basic lexicon that Zhivlov’s study found, this paper identifies as many as 26 additional Yana-Yuman lexical correspondences. Notably, three non-trivial new Yana-Yuman sound correspondences are proposed and supported with lexical evidence: Yana /w/, /u/ ~ Yuman /xw/, /kw/ ; Yana /b/ ~ Yuman /m/ ; and Yana /ʒ/, /c/, /c’/ ~ Yuman /y/. The significant distinctions between Yana and Yuman in their morphology and syntax are briefly discussed in order to explain certain apparent discrepancies observed between the coda phonemes of some corresponding Yana and Yuman root forms.

This paper proposes a historical explanation for the extraordinarily large number of root forms in the Karuk language of northern California that begin with vowels. It is argued that most of these initial vowels, which are either /a-/ or /i-/, in Karuk noun roots are the historical vestiges of the Proto-Hokan noun possession state prefixes #ʔaa-, #Hii-, and #kwhi-, reconstructed affix forms proposed by Kaufman. It is notable that #ʔaa- in particular, the proposed source of the largest number of initial vowels in Karuk nouns, is reconstructed as the absolutive form of Proto-Hokan intimately possessed nouns based primarily on data in southern Hokan branches in Mexico and Honduras such as Yuman, Seri, Chontal (Tequistlatecan), and Tolan (Jicaquean). The large number of Karuk body part terms with vowel-initial root forms is noted in particular, supporting the analysis that the initial vowels originated from historical possessive prefixes of a class of inalienably possessed nouns at an earlier stage of the language. A typological parallel is presented in the Caribbean Arawakan language Wayuu (Guajiro), which also has a similarly large number of vowel-initial dictionary forms of nouns, which is transparently explained by the presence of the indefinite / impersonal prefix /a-/ of inalienable nouns. The paper also presents a summary of the phonological shapes of Karuk roots, including the ubiquity of final consonants in root forms and in particular the striking frequency of the specific root structure VCCVC in Karuk. It is proposed that this structure arose from elision of the original first vowel in the Proto-Hokan root form, thus following the historical development #ʔaa-CVCV(CV) > *ʔaa-CCVC > aCCVC. The final section of the paper addresses material presented in Zhivlov’s very recent (June 2021) research on Hokan stress and syllable structure and presents a provisional analysis of the relevance of Zhivlov’s work to the question of the origin of Karuk vowel-initial roots.

The central question that this paper attempts to address is the
motivation for the statements given above. Specifically, assuming there was a Proto-Hokan, what
evidence is there for the shape of its vowel system? With the exception of Kaufman’s somewhat
equivocal statement above, the general (but basically unsupported) verdict has been that
Proto-Hokan had three vowels, *i, *a, and *u. This conclusion dates back to at least Sapir (1917,
1920, 1925) who implies a three-vowel system in his reconstructions of Proto-Hokan forms.
However, as far as I am aware, no one has carefully articulated why they think the Proto-Hokan
system should have been of one form instead of another (though Kaufman (1988) does discuss
some of his reasons).2 Furthermore, while reconstructions of Proto-Hokan forms exist, it has not
yet been possible to provide a detailed analysis of the sound changes required to relate
reconstructed forms to attested forms. As a result, even though the reconstructions themselves are
valuable, they cannot serve as a strong argument for the particular proto vowel system they
implicitly or explicitly assume.

[1] The purpose of this paper is to give a sketch of Atsugewi phonology, with particular attention to phonological processes found in the verb. [2] Atsugewi is a (probably) extinct language of the Hokan stock once spoken in far nothern California. It's closest (and only uncontroversial) relative is Achumawi. [3] I am deeply indebted to Leonard Talmy for giving me access to his notes on Atsugewi phonology as well as discussing the language with me. [4] Many of the descriptive analyses are ultimately attributable to him—here, I am just trying to update them somewhat, bring them together into one place, and provide illustrative examples. [5] Topics to be discussed [a] Segment inventory [b] Segmental processes [c] Suprasegmental phonology [d] Some comments on the relationship between phonological and morphological structure.