Comparative Siouan Grammar workshop
Prof. Dr. Johannes Helmbrecht
johannes.helmbrecht at sprachlit.uni-regensburg.de
Fri Sep 26 08:25:45 UTC 2008
Dear Bob,
thanks for your confirmation and the positive response with regard to the instrumentals.
I fully agree that we have to postpone the overview chapters until the specific topic chapters are written. The
overview chapters have an introducty and summarizing function for the future reader.
I also support the idea to integrate a chapter on sound correspondences into the program. And perhaps an
overview chapter on the historical development of Siouan would fit also pretty fine into the whole project?
We'll try to get John Koontz back into the boat doing the sound correspondences. John, can you hear us...?
I particularly like your idea about contributions which treat the exceptinal characteristics of SLs from a
theoretical or typological point of view. Whether this finally fills a separate volume or not, I don't kow, but I
really would like to follow this path too. I would like to hear what the others think about it.
I am, of course, willing to answer questions regarding the grammar of Hocank.
Best
Johannes
Datum: Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:24:29 -0500
Antwort an: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU
Von: "Rankin, Robert L" <rankin at ku.edu>
An: <siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU>
Betreff: RE: Comparative Siouan Grammar workshop
> Johannes, John et al.,
>
> The organizational chart looks good to me. I am happy with the
> affix/clitic sections assigned to me and will be happy to try to
> address the instrumental prefixes also, as you suggest. I have
> already done reconstructions of these, so notes on their relative
> positions, uses, etc. are what is left for me to work on. The
> suffixes/enclitics will take the most time and effort.
>
> I would suggest that your first topic, "Overview on common Siouan
> grammar" be postponed until the other chapters have been written and
> presented. Then someone could summarize the conclusions.
>
> Somewhere it was suggested that there be a survey of the sound
> correspondence sets for Siouan. John Koontz some years ago sent me a
> copy of such a survey in chart form that he had compiled. With a
> little discussion, it would be ideal, and he would be the ideal person
> to do it, if you can break him away from his other responsibilities.
>
> In light of our earlier discussion, with its mild disagreements, on
> the relationship between this volume and linguistic theory, I'd like
> to suggest a second volume of studies. The first vol. would be the
> one we are presently working on -- intended for language specialists
> and as theory-neutral as we can make it using our own best judgment.
> The second volume would be aimed specifically at general linguists
> (theorists/typologists) and would address "implications of Siouan
> linguistics for linguistic theory and typology." There are already a
> number of exceptional characteristics that make Siouan languages
> special and interesting to theoreticians.
>
> The status of adjectives/stative verbs in Siouan. (modified nouns as
> mini-rel. clauses, etc.).
> Reduplication patterns in Siouan (yamni/yamnimni, etc.).
> Status of nasal sonorants as universals.
> Clausal incorporation and the limits of incorporation (as in Crow).
> Phonetic obstruents as phonological sonorants (b, d, g; m, n, ng; w,
> r, l).
>
> Those are just a few I can imagine off the top of my head. Those with
> a more formal bent will be able to think of many more. Such contents
> would be very different from the "Handbuch" type of thing we're
> working on right now. But both slants are very important.
>
> That's it for now. I'll be happy to try to provide answers to
> questions re Kansa and Quapaw.
>
> Bob
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: owner-siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU on behalf of Prof. Dr. Johannes
> Helmbrecht
> Sent: Tue 9/16/2008 6:35 AM
> To: siouan at lists.Colorado.EDU; jpboyle at uchicago.edu
> Subject: Re: Comparative Siouan Grammar workshop
>
>
> Dear Siouanists,
>
>
> as was decided in Joplin, the workshop on Comparative Siouan Grammar
> (CSG) will take place on June, 11- 12 (i.e. Thursday/ Friday), 2009 in
> Lincoln, Nebraska. Mark takes care of the local organization at
> Lincoln, John Bolye offered to help me to organize this workshop which
> will then be part of the annual Siouan and Caddoan linguistics
> conference.
>
>
> John and I agree on the question that we have to start with the
> preparation of this workshop as early as possible in order to give the
> potential contributors a chance to do research for their respective
> papers. The particularity of the contributions of this workshop is
> that the papers will not deal with a certain grammatical category or
> construction in just one Siouan Language (the one we have some
> expertise in) but in as many SLs as possible. So, this implies that
> all available published and unpublished sources (inlcuding the
> knowledge and field notes of our fellow Siouanists) have to be
> consulted to get a comparative view of the formal and functional
> diversity of the respective grammatical phenomenon in the SLs
> (comprising also a historical reconstruction if that is possible).
>
>
> So, the first step for the next six weeks would be to arrive at an
> almost final program for the workshop (by the end of Octovber) AND a
> plan for the contents and structure of the volumes which will emerge
> from this research. Both items have to go hand in hand.
>
>
> Starting from the list of topics and volunteers which we put together
> during the Billings meeting in June 2006, (John found this list
> eventually on one of his computers), we would like to present a
> revised and systematized list of topics which is given in the table
> below. Since I do not know if this table comes out correctly on your
> screen, a pdf version is attached to this mail (which hopefully won't
> be blocked)
>
>
> Comparative Siouan Grammar (CSG)
> Chapters:
> Topics
> Authors
> Introduction
> Overview on common Siouan grammar
> ?
> Noun and noun-phrase operations
> Overview of the noun and noun phrase
> ?
> Determiners and positionals
> ?Carolyn Quintero?
> Definite and indefinite articles
> ?
> Demonstratives
> ?
> Nominal compounds
> ?
> Nominal possession
> ?John Koontz
> Relative clauses
> John Boyle
> Grammatical relations and valency adjusting operations
> Overview of the basic patterns of the marking of clausal
> participants
> ?
> Instrumentals
> ?Bob Rankin
> Applicatives (locative, instrument and benefactive applicatives)
> Johannes Helmbrecht
> Causative constructions
> Johannes Helmbrecht
> Noun incorporation
> William de Reuse
> Reflexive constructions
> ?
> Oblique objects/ postpositions in SL
> Regina Pustet
> Verb and verb-phrase operations
> Overview of the grammatical categories of the verb - form and function
> ?
> Verb classes in SL
> ?
> Deictic motion verbs
> Linda Cumberland
> Pre-verbal and post-verbal morphology (template of
> prefixes/suffixes/enclitics)
> Bob Rankin
> Active-inactive pronominals (pronominal affixes, forms and paradigms
> throughout SL)
> ?John Koontz
> Plural marking
> (plural marking on nouns and verbs)
> ?John Koontz
> Indefinite absolutive *waa-
> John Boyle
> Tense/ Aspect marking
> Regina Pustet
> Modality in SL
> Iren Hartmann
> Pragmatically marked structures
> Topic and topicalization constructions
> ?
> Focus marking and focus marking constructions
> ?
> Negation
> (phrasal negation and clausal negation)
> ?
> Question word questions (t-words)
> Bruce Ingham
> Clause combinations
> Overview of the grammatical devices of clause combining in SL
> ?
> Serial verb constructions
> ?David Rood
> Switch reference and clause chaining
> Randy Graczyk
> Coordination (AND, BUT, OR)
> Catherine Rudin
> Adverbial subordination (temporal, conditional etc.)
> John Boyle & Johannes Helmbrecht
> The SLs individually
> 1.
> The role model for the structure of the individual sketches could be
> the sketch by David Rood and Allan Taylor in Vol. 17 of the Handbook
> of North American Indians
> 2.
> 3.
> 4.
> Etc.
>
>
>
>
> As can be seen, the topics are organized around central issues in
> grammar, the noun and the noun phrase, grammatical relations, the verb
> and the verb phrase, clause combination and pragmatically marked
> clausal structures. The last row in the table indicates that we intend
> to provide grammatical sketches of the individual SLs. The role model
> of these sketches could be the one of Lakhota by David Rood and Allan
> Taylor in the Handbook (Vol. 17). We have to discuss this later on.
>
>
> The topics listed above are certainly different and asymmetric with
> regard to the amount of research needed. Plural marking in nouns and
> verbs and negation probably require less research and are easier with
> regard to data collection than other topics. For instance, I can
> imagine that it is pretty difficult to collect data and information on
> topic and topicalization strategies in SLs, since these things have
> not been investigated systematically in our languages. Anyway, the
> asymmetry of the size of the topics should not be a principle problem,
> everyone is free to volunteer for a second topic if he or she has
> spare time and work resources available. The main problem for the
> individual contributor will be to gather the data and information on
> the chosen topic from the other languages. We have to admit that we
> put Bob Rankin in the field "Instrumentals" although he has never
> volunteered for this, but since prefixes are his topic we thought ....
> perhaps.... Other names are also accompanied with a question mark,
> because it is not clear to us whether these people really would take
> over the topic they are assigned to in this list.
>
>
> Now, what we need to know from all participants in the CSG project is
> the following:
>
>
> a) Are there topics which need to be included and which are lacking on
> this list? (for instance, should we add a topic "external possession
> (?)", which is really important in SLs, or not)
>
>
> b) Are there suggestions to rearrange the list of topics or to
> reformulate the titles?
>
>
> c) Who would like to volunteer for the topics still open (i.e. marked
> with a question mark) ? (note that there are many many free
> fields...)
>
>
> d) We would also like to get a confirmation from those people who are
> already on the list whether they still intend to submit a paper with
> the title/ topic indicated (or a different topic/title).
>
>
> e) and finally, who of the volunteers would like to present his or her
> research on the workshop next June? (this question is also addressed
> to people who gave a presentation already on the workshop in Billings
> - it might be the case that the original paper can be broadened and
> enriched with additional data from other SLs now)
>
>
> We would like to address another question: is it desireable to create
> a separate mailing platform exclusively for the participants of the
> CSG project or should we continue to use the Siouan List for this
> purpose. In any case, as soon as we have a complete list of
> contributions and volunteers, I would distribute the e-mail address of
> the them so that people can communicate directly with the other
> participants in this project (for data exchange etc.).
>
>
> That's it for the moment.
>
>
> All the best (also on behalf of John)
> Johannes
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> --
>
>
> Prof. Dr. Johannes Helmbrecht
> Lehrstuhl für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft
> Universität Regensburg
> Philosophische Fakultät IV
> Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft
> Universitätsstr. 31
> 93053 Regensburg
> Deutschland
>
> Tel: ++49(0)941 943-3388
> ++49(0)941 943-3387 (Sekretariat)
> Fax: ++49(0)941 943-2429
> E-Mail: johannes.helmbrecht at sprachlit.uni-regenburg.de
> Webseite: http://www-avs.uni-regensburg.de/index.htm
> <http://www-avs.uni-regensburg.de/index.htm>
>
--
Prof. Dr. Johannes Helmbrecht
Lehrstuhl für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft
Universität Regensburg
Philosophische Fakultät IV
Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft
Universitätsstr. 31
93053 Regensburg
Deutschland
Tel: ++49(0)941 943-3388
++49(0)941 943-3387 (Sekretariat)
Fax: ++49(0)941 943-2429
E-Mail: johannes.helmbrecht at sprachlit.uni-regenburg.de
Webseite: http://www-avs.uni-regensburg.de/index.htm
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