Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Li Xei: A Phonology Of An Understudied Bahnaric Language In Central Vietnam, Stephanie Lynn Person

Theses and Dissertations

Li Xei is an understudied North Bahnaric language spoken in the province of Quảng Nam in central Vietnam. Li Xei speakers are officially considered members of the Giẻ Triêng ethnic group (also written Jeh Trieng), although Li Xei's exact position within the North Bahnaric branch is unknown. This thesis analyzes 1,591 audio recordings of two native speakers of Li Xei, consisting of single words and multiple-word compounds, to describe its phonemic inventory. In addition, Li Xei reflexes are compared to 774 Proto North Bahnaric reconstructions from Sidwell (2011) to provide a basic description of the most significant sound changes from …

A Grammar Sketch Of Kinamayo, Benjamin James Schmitt

Theses and Dissertations

Kinamayo (Kamayo) is an Austronesian language spoken on the eastern part of the island of Mindanao, Philippines. This thesis presents a grammar sketch of the case system, a preliminary analysis of the voice system, reference phrase structure, and verb tense, modality, and aspect. The theoretical framework used for this analysis is Role and Reference Grammar. Within this framework, Kamayo is best analyzed as a symmetrical voice language in addition to having an antipassive voice. The case system of active and stative verbs observed in Kamayo supports this analysis. Reference phrases are marked by case, which helps identify syntactic arguments and …

The Iconicity And Non-Arbitrariness Of Body Locations In Four Unrelated Sign Languages, John Samson

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I show that universally, there is a strong tendency for signs located on the body to have an iconic or non-arbitrary motivation, especially in their original form. I analyze sign language dictionaries from four unrelated sign languages and establish an iconic or non-arbitrary link between the form of the signs and their meaning, and classify those links according to 8 categories of body location iconicity and 3 categories of non-arbitrariness. The strength of this tendency depends on the percentage of signs that are shown to have an iconic or non-arbitrary link. For the data analyzed here this …

Complex Predicates In Southern Turkmen: A Role And Reference Grammar Analysis, Nathaniel Andrew Shaver

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis uses the concepts of nexus and juncture, as articulated by Role and Reference Grammar, to examine complex verbal constructions found in four collected texts. These texts were collected from four Southern Turkmen (or Turkmen of Afghanistan) speakers. Through transcribing, glossing, and analyzing these texts, a number of complex predicates were identified. These were then described according to their various nexus juncture types. Three nexus juncture varieties were represented in the collected texts. These include clausal coordination, clausal subordination, and core cosubordination. Although not represented in the texts, it was possible to elicit three other provisional nexus juncture varieties. …

Information Structure In Mangghuer: A Narrative Text Analysis Of Topic And Focus In A Mongolic Language Of Northwestern China, Cory Christopher Coogan

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis describes information structure in Mangghuer, a Mongolic language spoken in northwestern China. My analysis relies on a set of twenty-three narrative texts published in the 2005 volume, Folktales of China's Minhe Mangghuer (Chen et al. 2005), and I also draw from the text "Lu Buping," published in the 2001 Mangghuer Folktale Reader (Stuart & Zhu 2001). I rely on Lambrecht's (1994) approach to information structure as a theoretical framework to analyze these texts. I also apply methods from Levinsohn's (2015) "Self Instruction-Materials on Narrative Discourse Analysis." Default information structure in Mangghuer is the topic-comment sentence. The default form …

Resemblance-Oriented Communication Strategies: Understanding The Role Of Resemblance In Signed And Spoken Languages, Daniel R. Eberle

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this thesis is to propose that resemblance plays an important role in human communication. Saussure proposed a characteristic principle of the linguistic sign: that connections between linguistic codes and the objects they signify are arbitrary; however, I intend to show that resemblance, which I define as the visual or aural similarity between a stimulus, the thought it is intended to activate, and the real world target that utterance is about, is an important part of human communication and should be taken into consideration when defining language and proposing theories of human communication.

I have chosen Relevance Theory …