Fieldwork and Language Documentation

CLA updates

November 7, 2021

Here's the latest from the California Language Archive:

Hannah Sande, with the assistance of Julianne Kapner, has archived a new collection of materials related to Gã (Kwa; Ghana), from the Georgetown field methods course she taught in the fall of 2019. The collection consists of sound recordings of elicitation sessions, with accompanying transcriptions, glossing, and translation of sessions. We hosted a visit by Mischelle Dressler, Lisa Enos, Herman Fillmore, and Mitchell Osorio, who consulted William Jacobsen's (PhD 1964) lexical file slips of Washo (isolate; CA). The visit was sponsored by the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival.

A theory of indexical shift

Amy Rose Deal
2020

A comprehensive overview of the semantics and syntax of indexical shift that develops a constrained typology of the phenomenon across languages.

CLA updates

November 1, 2021

Here's the latest from the California Language Archive:

We remodeled our research room! Thanks go to Erik Maier, Edwin Ko, and Allegra Robertson for assisting. The remodel moves our collection of reference books out of the archive room, making available space for cabinets and shelving for new archival materials. Come by and check it out! We are hosting a weeklong research visit by Dr. Darla Garey-Sage, who is working with William Jacobsen's (PhD 1964) numerous Washo (isolate; CA) lexical file slips. We hosted a tour of the CLA for a group organized by Sharon Inkelas, Professor of Linguistics and Associate Vice Provost for the Faculty, including: Khira Griscavage, Associate Chancellor and Chief of Staff to the Chancellor; Martha Chavez, Associate Chief of Staff to the Chancellor; Christine Treadway, Assistant Chancellor for Government and Community Relations; Linda Rugg, Professor of Swedish Literature and Associate Vice Chancellor for Research; Phenocia Bauerle, Director, Native American Student Development; Peter Nelson, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management and Ethnic Studies; and Carolyn Smith, Postdoctoral Scholar, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research. Thanks to Emily Remirez, who alerted us to a drawer of analogue recordings in 51 Dwinelle: 50 reel-to-reel tapes, 19 cassettes, 15 VHS tapes, six U-matic tapes, and one 45! The recordings generally stem from work done in the PhonLab. Represented are 23 languages, in addition to unidentified Siberian languages: Arabic, Ashaninka (Arawak; Peru), Dutch, French, Guatemalan Sign Language, Hindi, Hmong, Hungarian, Ikalanga (Bantu; Botswana, Zimbabwe), Kalabari (Ijoid; Nigeria), Korean, Mandarin, Mazahua (Oto-Pamean; Mexico), Mixtec (Mixtecan; Mexico), Northern Pomo (Pomoan; CA), Nyamwezi (Bantu; Tanzania), Polish, Quechua, Quiotepec Chinantec (Chinantecan; Mexico), Tamil, Thai, Xhosa (Bantu; South Africa, Zimbabwe), and Yucatec Maya (Mayan; Mexico). Most are "speech sound" recordings, described in accompanying paper documentation as "designed primarily to provide the user practice recognizing and transcribing some of the important sound contrasts" in these languages. Others come from, for example, Leanne Hinton's courses on Chalcatongo de Hidalgo Mixtec in 1981 and 1982 (with Nicolás Cortés), and from Michelle Caisse (PhD 1988) and Catherine O'Connor's (PhD 1987) early documentation of Northern Pomo, including unique recordings of stories told by Edna Guerrero.

Karuk

Andrew Garrett, Susan Gehr, Erik Hans Maier, Line Mikkelsen Crystal Richardson, and Clare Sandy
2021

Forms and Functions of Backward resumption: The case of Karuk.

Charron (Sonny) Davis, Vina Smith, Nancy Super (nén Jerry), Peter Super Sr., Charlie Thom Sr., Line Mikkelsen
2020

This article examines obligatory backward resumption in Karuk (kyh; isolate), a verb-final language
of Northern California, and argues that it is the result of conflicting word-order requirements.
This conceptual analysis is further developed within the chain-resolution framework of
Landau 2006, in which resumption is the result of partial deletion. The Karuk facts indicate that
partial deletion targets spellout domains and not phases, contra van Urk 2018. Examination of two
case studies from the literature and a reinterpretation of the Dinka resumption data discussed in
...

CLA updates

October 24, 2021

Here's the latest from the California Language Archive:

We hosted a visit by Wanda Batchelor, Robin Bradley, Clyde Prout III, and Travis Young, with linguist Sheri Tatsch, who together consulted linguistic field notes, file slips, and sound recordings related to Nisenan (Maiduan; CA), especially those by Richard Smith and Hans Jørgen Uldall. Wanda and Robin are the great-granddaughters of speaker Lizzie Enos. During the visit, sponsored by the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival, we also went over sound recordings, slides, and 16mm film held by the Hearst Museum of Anthropology. We also hosted introductory visits by the Society for Linguistics Undergraduate Students (SLUgS) and by the students of Linguistics R1B "Endangered Languages: Why does linguistic diversity matter?" taught by linguistics PhD candidate Julia Nee.

O'Hagan on KQED, and obituary of Gerald Weiss

October 21, 2021

Zachary O'Hagan was a contributor on Thursday to KQED Forum's segment "How Preserving Indigenous Languages Revitalizes California Culture, Identity and History" (listen here!), together with Phil Albers (Karuk), Quirina Geary (Mutsun, Tamien), and Jennifer Malone (Wukchumni). This month he also published an academic obituary for Gerald Weiss (1932-2021), an early ethnographer in Ashaninka communities of the Tambo River region of Peru.

CLA updates

October 18, 2021

Here's the latest from the California Language Archive:

We hosted a visit by Patrick Burtt and Dillon McKay, sponsored by the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival, to consult archival materials related to Patwin (Wintuan; CA). They worked with the field notes of Elizabeth Bright and Kenneth Whistler (PhD 1980), as well as sound recordings made variously by Peter Abraham (1949, held by the Hearst Museum), E. Bright (1952), Donald Ultan (1961-1962), and Whistler (1975) with speakers Sara Gonzales, Nora Lowell, and Oscar McDaniel.

A sketch of Muniche segmental and prosodic phonology

Lev Michael
Stephanie Farmer
Gregory Finley
Christine Beier
Karina Sullón Acosta
2013

This paper presents a description of the segmental and prosodic phonology of Muniche, a critically endangered Peruvian Amazonian isolate. Using data from team-based fieldwork with a group of rememberers of Muniche, this paper describes the segmental inventory, syllable structure, and stress system of the language, plus a number of prosodically motivated epenthetic processes. A historical overview of the language and its contact with neighboring Kawapanan languages is also presented. Finally, the results of this study are compared with Gibson (1996), the sole previous study of Muniche...

CLA updates

October 10, 2021

Here's the latest from the California Language Archive:

Christine Beier and Lev Michael have added audio and video recordings of 109 texts in Ikíitu (Zaparoan; Peru) to their growing archival collection (see items ending in 002, 027-029, 031-034, 036-037, 039-042, and 049-053). The texts were produced by speakers Hermenegildo Díaz Cuyasa, Ligia Inuma Inuma, Ema Llona Yareja, and Jaime Pacaya Inuma between 2002 and 2017. Some recordings were made by or with the assistance of Cynthia Anderson Hansen, Marcus Berger, Marcelo Inuma Sinchija, I-wen Lai, Sisi Bautista Pizarro, and Alison Zerbe (MA 2015).