A Grammar of Kolyma Yukaghir (Mouton Grammar Library [MGL], 27)

Kolyma Yukaghir is a seriously endangered language spoken by about 50 people in the northeast of Asiatic Russia. It is one of the two surviving languages of the Yukaghir family, which is considered by different scholars either as an isolate left over from before the expansion of other languages and language families into Siberia, or as a distant relative of the Uralic family. In many ways, Yukaghir fits the grammatical type widespread among the languages of Siberia, namely that of predominantly verb-final dependent-marking language with relatively rich agglumative morphology and deranking strategies of clause linking. Furthermore, it has a number of typologically remarkably features, which will be of interest to general linguists irrespective of their theoretical orientation. These include Yukaghir focus-marking system, differential object marking based on global effects of person hierarchy, the obligatory use of bound possesive markers to indicate non-coreference of the possessor with the subject, elaborated switch-reference system, initimate interaction between aspect and valence-changing derivation, etc. The book incorporates all major components of descriptive grammar, from phonology to syntax, with a special chapter on coreference and discourse coherence, annotated and translated sample texts, a Yukaghir-English vocabulary, and a subject index. The description is based on extensive field materials and richly exemplified by non-elicited data. The organization of the book facilitates its use as a reference grammar, with numerous cross-references between sections and concise summaries of interrelated phenomena discussed in various parts of the grammar. The book is of interest to scholars of Uralic and Siberian languages, linguistic typology, and general linguistics. Abbreviations 17 1. Introduction 19 1. Kolyma Yukaghir and its genetic affiliation 19 2. An overview of Kolyma Yukaghir grammar 19 2.1. Phonology and morphophonemics 19 2.2. Morphology 21 2.3. Syntax 27 3. About this grammar 30 3.1. Purpose 30 3.2. The structure of the grammar 32 3.3. Data for this study and exemplification 34 3.4 Terminology and glossing conventions 35 2. Kolyma Yukaghir and its speakers 37 1. The Kolyma Yukaghirs 37 1.1. Population figures and geographical location 37 1.2. The village of Nelemnoye 38 1.3. Some remarks on Yukaghir history 39 1.4. On ethnonyms 39 2. Sociolinguistic situation in Nelemnoye 40 3. Accents and varieties 41 4. The effect of language contact on Kolyma Yukaghir 43 5. Kolyma and Tundra Yukaghir 45 3. Phonology 47 1. Segmental phonological units 47 1.1. Vowels 47 1.2. Consonants 48 1.3. Transcription 50 2. Phonotactics 50 2.1. Syllable structure 50 2.2. Consonant clusters 52 2.3. Vowel clusters 53 2.4. Vowel harmony 53 3. Phonological and morphophonemic alternations 57 3.1. Syllable-final consonant alternations 57 3.2. Syllable-initial alternations of consonants 61 3.3. Suffix-initial /j/ 61 3.4. The morphoneme {E} and related alternations 67 3.5. Epenthetic submorphs 74 4. Word stress 76 4. Parts of speech and inflectional paradigms 79 1. Nouns vs. verbs 79 1.1. Nominal paradigm 79 1.2. Verbal paradigm 80 1.3. Relationship between the major paradigms 81 2. Adverbs 82 2.1. Generalities 82 2.2. Locative paradigm 83 3. Attributes and properties 84 3.1. Attributive forms of nouns and verbs 84 3.2. Qualitative verbs 85 3.3. Adverbial use of qualitative verbs 87 3.4. Nonverbal qualitative stems 88 4. Closed classes 89 5. Nominal morphology 91 1. Formation of major categories 91 1.1. Plural formation 92 1.2. Comitative formation 94 1.3. Possessive forms 95 1.4. Consonantal stems 95 2. Functions of the Possessive markers 97 3. Functions of the Number forms 98 3.1. Functions of the Singular 98 3.2. Functions of the Plural 102 4. Functions of the cases 106 4.1. Core cases 106 4.2. Other cases 114 5. Other nominal forms 134 5.1. The Attributive form 134 5.2. The Privative form 138 5.3. The Temporal Form 139 5.4. The Prospective form 139 5.5. Verbal forms 140 6. Nominal derivation 146 6.1. Derivational suffixes 146 6.2. Compounds 152 6.3. Lexicalization of verb forms 154 6.4. Conversion 156 6. Verb morphology 157 1. Major types of verb forms 157 1.1. The Finite forms 157 1.2. The Attributive forms 163 1.3. The Nominal forms 165 1.4. Switch-reference forms (converbs) 176 2. Tense and Mood 184 2.1. The Tense-Mood subparadigm 184 2.2. Functions of the non-Future 186 2.3. Functions of the Future 186 2.4. Functions of the Irrealis 189 2.5. Functions of the non-Future Inferential 190 2.6. Functions of the Future Inferential (Hypothetical) 193 2.7. Functions of the Prospective 193 2.8. Functions of the Imperative 194 2.9. Periphrastic Tense-Mood Forms 196 2.10. Desiderative 199 3. Aspect 200 3.1. Preliminaries 200 3.2. The Imperfective in -nu- 200 3.3. “Internal” Aspect marking 206 3.4. Habitual 215 3.5. Ingressive and Inchoative 218 3.6. Resultative and Stative 223 3.7. Other aspect-related markers 227 4. Valence-changing morphology 228 4.1. Preliminaries 228 4.2. Denominai Proprietive verbs 229 4.3. Causative 231 4.4. Transitivizers and detransitivizers 242 4.5. Reciprocal and Reflexive 245 7. Morphology of closed classes 251 1. Pronouns 251 1.1. Personal pronouns 251 1.2. Demonstrative pronouns 256 1.3. Interrogative pro-forms 268 1.4. Indefinite Pronouns 268 1.5. Universal quantifiers 274 2. Numerals 278 2.1. Cardinal numerals 278 2.2. Ordinal numerals 282 2.3. Frequentative adverbials 284 3. Postpositions 285 3.1. Spatial postpositions 285 3.2. Postpositions with spatial and temporal meanings 291 3.3. Comparative postposition 295 8. Noun phrase and postpositional phrase 299 1. The structure of the noun phrase 299 1.1. Overview of NP types 299 1.2. Word order in the noun phrase 304 2. Noun phrases as noun modifiers 307 2.1. Zero marking: NPM+NPH-CASE 308 2.2. Possessive (head) marking: NPM NPH-POSS-CASE 314 2.3. Attributive marking: NPM-ATTR+NPH-CASE 322 3. Quantifiers 328 4. NP conjunction 331 4.1. Comitative strategy 331 4.2. Asyndeton 334 4.3. Conjunction with tāhile ‘then’ 336 5. Postpositional phrases 337 5.1. Possessive pronouns vs. Possessive markers 337 5.2. Attributive marking 339 9. Syntax of the clause 343 1. Core participants and grammatical relations 343 1.1. Finite clauses: summary of case marking 343 1.2. Non-finite clauses 346 1.3. “Pragmatic motivations” for case marking 355 1.4. Grammatical relations 356 1.5. Constituent order 359 2. Overview of verb patterns 364 2.1. Introductory notes 364 2.2. One-slot patterns 366 2.3. Monotransitive pattern 367 2.4. Patterns with a Dative slot 370 2.5. Patterns with Ablative 373 2.6. Patterns with Directional slot 374 2.7. Patterns with non-primary Experiencer 376 2.8. Reciprocal pattern 379 3. Clausal adjuncts 380 3.1. Overview of clausal adjuncts 380 3.2. Sociative adjuncts 383 10. Clause chaining 387 1. Types of clause chaining 387 1.1. Switch reference 388 1.2. Ordinary vs. Conditional chaining 391 1.3. Structural cohesion 394 2. Semantics of ordinary chains 399 2.1. General semantic properties and “loose” chaining 399 2.2. Temporal relations in clause chains 400 2.3. Backgrounding 402 2.4. Semantic cohesion 404 3. Conditional constructions 410 3.1. Predictive conditional constructions 411 3.2. Generic conditional constructions 413 3.3. The unreality conditional constructions 415 3.4. Inferential conditional constructions 416 4. The concessive construction 417 11. Subordination 419 1. Nominal Complements 419 1.1. Introductory notes 419 1.2. Complements in the S slot 420 1.3. Complements in the O slot 422 1.4. Detached nominal complements 426 1.5. The verb medū- ‘be heard’: Instrumental Action Nominal 427 1.6. Complements in the Directional slot 429 2. Minor complementation strategies 430 2.1. Clause chaining as a strategy of complementation 431 2.2. The Supine complements 432 2.3. Applicatives of complement-taking verbs 433 3. Relative clauses 434 3.1. Attributive relative clauses 435 3.2. Nominal relative clauses 442 3.3. Headless relative clauses 443 4. Adverbial clauses 445 4.1. Temporal Adverbial clauses 445 4.2. Spatial adverbial clauses 449 4.3. Causal clauses 449 4.4. The Supine Purpose clause 450 4.5. Comparative adverbial clauses 452 12. Nominal predicates and grammatical Focus 455 1. Clauses with nominal predicates 455 1.1. Descriptive clauses 455 1.2. Proprietive clauses 462 1.3. Minor copular-like clause patterns 466 2. Syntax of the Focus construction 469 2.1. Introductory remarks 469 2.2. Focus as a clause-internal phenomenon: summary 470 2.3. Cleft-like constructions 471 2.4. Clause chains with shared Focus 472 3. Semantics of grammatical Focus 475 3.1. Compulsory Focus marking 476 3.2. Free Focus marking 481 13. Sentence types and negation 491 1. Imperative sentences 491 2. Questions 493 2.1. Polar questions 493 2.2. Question-word questions 498 2.3. Negative/dubitative use of questions 505 3. Minor sentence types 507 3.1. Exclamations 507 3.2. Optative 508 4. Negation 509 4.1. Standard negation 509 4.2. The negative marker n’e 512 4.3. Negation in non-finite clauses 514 4.4. Negative particles 515 5. Speech-reporting strategies 518 5.1. Quotations 518 5.2. Indirect questions 523 5.3. Correlative subordinate clauses 526 14. Coreference and discourse coherence 531 1. Grammaticalized coreference phenomena 531 1.1. Clause-internal phenomena 531 1.2. Reflexivization and omission in subordination 533 1.3. Chain-level phenomena 535 2. Paragraph-level phenomena 540 2.1. Referent tracking 540 2.2. Links between same-type situations 546 3. Connective adverbials 554 Appendices 559 Yukaghir-English vocabulary 559 Non-productive verb derivation 575 Texts 581 1. Perch 581 2. My friend 594 Notes 601 References 611 Subject index 615 1. Introduction -- 2. Kolyma Yukaghir And Its Speakers -- 3. Phonology -- 4. Parts Of Speech And Inflectional Paradigms -- 5. Nominal Morphology -- 6. Verb Morphology -- 7. Morphology Of Closed Classes -- 8. Noun Phrase And Postpositional Phrase -- 9. Syntax Of The Clause -- 10. Clause Chaining -- 11. Subordination -- 12. Nominal Predicates And Grammatical Focus -- 13. Sentence Types And Negation -- 14. Coreference And Discourse Coherence. Elena Maslova. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [593]-596) And Index. Kolyma Yukaghir is a seriously endangered language spoken by about 50 people in the northeast of Asiatic Russia. Based on extensive field materials and text records, it provides a thorough and richly exemplified description of all major components of Yukaghir grammar - phonology, morphology, and syntax - annotated sample texts, and a Yukaghir-English vocabulary