obviation in Siouan languages

ROOD DAVID S rood at spot.Colorado.EDU
Fri Jun 1 20:50:51 UTC 2007


Lungstrum's dissertation claims that chanke and yukhan are switch 
reference markers, defining "reference" as any major change of scene, 
characters, point of view, or some other discontinuity.  I wasn't 
convinced.

David


David S. Rood
Dept. of Linguistics
Univ. of Colorado
295 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0295
USA
rood at colorado.edu

On Fri, 1 Jun 2007, willemdereuse at unt.edu wrote:

> Hi all:
>
> I have always thought that the chankhe/yunkhan alternation of conjunctions in 
> Lakota texts, first discussed by Chafe (I think) and then by Dahlstrom had 
> something to do with obviation. It is definitely not switch-reference. Does 
> Richard Lungstrum's diss. say anything about this?  I am sorry to say I have 
> not yet gotten hold of a copy of Richard's diss.
>
> Willem de Reuse Quoting "Rankin, Robert L" <rankin at ku.edu>:
>
>> As Rory points out, Dhegiha languages have something very similar 
>> distinguishing primary from non-primary actors.  Ardis's dissertation was 
>> at least partly on this distinction in Omaha.
>> 
>> I have toyed with the idea of trying to redefine the "switch-reference" 
>> distinction in those Siouan languages that have it as an obviation 
>> distinction.  Such redefinition clearly works in Muskogean, where it is the 
>> only way to tie "S-R" and argument marking particles together without a 
>> hopelessly complex appeal to homophony, but I haven't really gotten down to 
>> the business of trying to demonstrate it in Siouan.  Clearly the more 
>> inclusive concept of "referent tracking" operates in Siouan grammars, 
>> though it differs from language to language.  If I had to guess, I'd say it 
>> is historically primary in Algonquian but secondary in Siouan.
>> 
>> What were the papers you're referring to on Algonquian?
>> 
>> Bob
>> 
>> ________________________________
>> 
>> From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu on behalf of Marino
>> Sent: Thu 5/31/2007 12:20 AM
>> To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>> Subject: obviation in Siouan languages
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> There were two excellent papers on obviation in Cree at the CLA
>> meetings.  One of the presenters asked me if there is obviation in any of
>> the Siouan languages.  I have a vague memory that this has come up before,
>> but I can't find time to troll through the archives.  Any suggestions?
>> 
>> Best
>> Mary Marino
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>
>



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