Balkan tongues

Mike Morgan Mike.Morgan at mb3.seikyou.ne.jp
Tue Oct 19 05:06:29 UTC 2004


> Don't think the Russ ones are postposed, but it would take a much better
> Slavicist than me to know.

Can't claim to be that... my training in Slavic Linguistics is long behind
me, and only from time to time does it surface (usually unexpectedly).

As for whether N Russian articles are post-posed or not, I COULD be wrong -
it DOES happen, particularly when relying on memory of E Slavic dialectology
classes some 30 years ago! I tried to track down a source - in my library,
on the net, etc - but couldn't. So take it with a grain (or more, if your
not on a low-salt diet) of salt.

Anyway, I agree with Bob that we should probably move on from the "Balkan
tongues" thread, and to help that transition, I have a perhaps naive Native
American Sprachbund question. Put simply, what work has been done trying to
argue for Sprachbund effects for Siouan languages (as a group and/or
individually). Presumably the languages that would go into such a grouping
are out East somewhere. And since East is a relative term, I DON'T mean out
East like where I live, but the original homeland of the Siouans, or some
intermediate homeland for individual languages of subgroups, assuming they
stayed there long enough for the effects to take hold. Again presumably -
and supported by what LITTLE I know of the structure of languages that they
have been in contact with in recent history - the Lakota (and Nakota) Sioux
have not been where they currently dwell long enough for any such effects
(or am I wrong ... again?).

I don't claim to be a Siouanist, and so may well be lacking in even basic
knowledge (though I have been lurking the list for maybe 3 years or a bit
more, since work I was doing on Japanese Sign Language typology lead me back
to Klimov and the theory of active-stative languages and that lead to
studying Lakota and Guarani ... and so it goes). If it doesn't merit an
on-line discussion, I personally would appreciate someone directing me to
where to start looking (a short biblio, internet links, past Siouan ML
postings, etc).

Thanks!

Mike Morgan
Kobe City University of Foreign Studies
Kobe, Japan
Sign Linguist
Sign Theoretic (aka Jakobsonian) Linguist
One-time Slavicist (and borderline Balkanist)
Mike.Morgan at mb3.seikyou.ne.jp



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