Mid-Holocene Language Connections between Asia and North America (Brill's Studies in the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, 17)

Atfirstglance,EskaleutandNa-Deneseemanunlikelypairof languagefamilies to write a book about. Their grammatical structures and lexicons share virtu- ally nothing in common and must be described as entirely unrelated systems, starkly differing from one another even in basic typology. Na-Dene is a prefix- ing,templaticlanguage,whileEskaleutisexclusivelysuffixingwithahugearray of inflectional endings and a derivational morphology that is elaborately recur- sive rather than rigidly templatic. The phonologies differ markedly, as well. Many Na-Dene languages are tonal and glottalized obstruent phonemes are ubiquitous. Neither of these salient traits is commonly found in languages spo- ken by Aleut, Yupik or Inuit peoples. Because of their glaring structural disso- nance on every level, no one has entertained even the most casual speculation that these two primary families might be genealogically relatable in a larger macrofamily, even at a very deep time depth. Finally, despite their extensive geographic contiguity across the North American Arctic/Sub-Arctic ecotone, there is surprisingly little evidence of contact effects between the two families. Itwouldseemthathistoricallinguistshavenoreasontoconsiderthemtogether as a single topic. ‎Contents ‎Tables and Illustrations ‎Abbreviations ‎Introduction (Fortescue and Vajda) ‎Part 1. The Uralo-Siberian Hypothesis ‎Chapter 1. Overview ‎Chapter 2. The Eskaleut, Uralic and Yukaghir Languages ‎2.1. Eskaleut ‎2.2. Uralic ‎2.3. Yukaghir ‎Chapter 3. The History of the Hypothesis ‎Chapter 4. Uralo-Siberian Cognates ‎4.1. The Basis of the Reconstructions: Sound Correspondences ‎4.2. Proto-Uralo-Siberian Stems ‎4.3. Proto-Uralo-Siberian Morphology ‎4.4. Summary ‎Chapter 5. The Relationship to Chukotko-Kamchatkan ‎Chapter 6. The Emergence of Ergativity in Eskaleut and Siberian Languages ‎Chapter 7. Aleut Lexical Items Not Attested in Eskimoan: Evidence of a Substratum? ‎Chapter 8. Sirenikski: Remnant Asian Eskimoan ‎8.1. The Position of Sirenikski within Eskimoan ‎8.2. Sirenikski Phonology and Lexicon ‎8.3. Sirenikski Morphology ‎8.4. The Idiosyncrasy of Sirenikski ‎Chapter 9. Support from Archaeology and Population Genetics ‎9.1. The Dispersal of Uralo-Siberian: A Model ‎9.2. Archaeological Support for the Model ‎9.3. Genetic Support for the Model ‎Part 2. The Dene-Yeniseian Hypothesis ‎Chapter 1. Overview ‎Chapter 2. Yeniseian Languages ‎Chapter 3. Na-Dene: Tlingit, Eyak, and the Dene Languages ‎Chapter 4. Dene-Yeniseian Phonology ‎Chapter 5. Dene-Yeniseian Cognates ‎Chapter 6. Form Classes and Noun Morphology ‎Chapter 7. Possessive Constructions ‎7.1. Yeniseian Possessive Morphology ‎7.2. Dene-Eyak Noun Class Markers and Qualifiers ‎7.3. Postpositional Constructions ‎7.4. Directionals ‎7.5. Demonstratives and Interrogatives ‎7.6. Summary ‎Chapter 8. Finite Verb Morphology ‎8.1. The Origin of Dene-Yeniseian Templatic Polysynthesis ‎8.2. The Na-Dene Classifier Prefixes ‎8.3. The Proto-Yeniseian Template ‎8.4. Tense-Aspect-Mood Affixes ‎8.5. Agreement Morphology ‎8.6. Contact-Induced Changes in the Yeniseian Daughter Templates ‎8.7. Areal Influence on Na-Dene Verb Morphology ‎8.8. Action Nominals ‎8.9. Concluding Remarks on Dene-Yeniseian Verb Morphology ‎Chapter 9. Summary of the Linguistic Evidence for Dene-Yeniseian ‎Chapter 10. Perspectives on Dene-Yeniseian from Population Genetics and Archaeology ‎Chapter 11. Summary and Future Perspectives ‎Concluding Discussion (Fortescue and Vajda) ‎Appendix 1. P-US to English; English to P-US ‎Appendix 2. P-DY to English; English to P-DY ‎References ‎Index "This volume presents the up-to-date results of investigations into the Asian origins of the only two languages families of North America that are widely acknowledged as having likely genetic links in northern Asia. It brings together all that has been proposed to date under the respective rubrics of the Uralo-Siberian (Eskimo-Yukaghir-Uralic) hypothesis and the Dene-Yeniseian hypothesis. The evolution of the two parallel research strategies for fleshing out these likely linguistic links between North America and Asia are compared and contrasted. Although focusing on stringently controlled linguistic reconstructions the volume draws upon archaeological and human genetic data where relevant"-- Provided by publisher. This volume presents the up-to-date results of investigations into the Asian origins of the only two languages families of North America, Eskaleut and Na-Dene, that are widely acknowledged as having likely genetic links in northern Asia.