A query...
Claire Bowern
anggarrgoon at gmail.com
Tue Oct 24 16:49:59 UTC 2006
>
> I have read many grammars that I am skeptical about at points. But I
> have no way of checking it out, unless I actually visit the people and
> do my own field research (which in phonology I have done - i.e. I have
> visited villages and spent a few days recording and analyzing
> phonological data, especially prosody, because the claims I had read
> seemed unlikely. For example one language/people that I still want to
> visit or would like sound files of is the Arawan language, Culina, for
> which Pike - many, many years ago - claimed that there were no
> syllables. Since the dictionary of Culina has words that look like all
> the other Arawan languages (and I have done fieldwork on all of those) I
> am betting that Culina has CV and CVV syllables (not the V and CV that
> some claim) like all the other Arawan languages. If the data were
> on-line, it would help resolve this mystery - just to take a random
> example).
>
You could also email the author of the grammar. For many people (and
speech communities) there's a big difference between making large
amounts of raw data generally available and discussing and sharing it
with colleagues.
Claire
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