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Andrej A. Kibrik (aakibrik@gmail)

Andrej A. Kibrik (aakibrik@gmail.com). ENCODING DIRECTIONS IN UPPER KUSKOKWIM ATHABASKAN: A CASE STUDY IN FIELD ETHNOLINGUISTICS. Field Linguistics Conference Moscow, October 2009. Basic information about Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskan (UKA).

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Andrej A. Kibrik (aakibrik@gmail)

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  1. Andrej A. Kibrik(aakibrik@gmail.com) ENCODING DIRECTIONS IN UPPER KUSKOKWIM ATHABASKAN: A CASE STUDY IN FIELD ETHNOLINGUISTICS Field Linguistics Conference Moscow, October 2009

  2. Basic information about Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskan (UKA) • About 25 speakers left out of the population of about 200 • Most speakers reside in the village of Nikolai • Actual use of UKA – in two or three households • Prior work – Collins and Petruska 1979 • Kibrik’s field trips in 1997, 2001, and 2009 • As in other Athabaskan: • polysynthesis • highly complex verb morphology and morphophonemics

  3. Welcome to Nikolai

  4. Field work environment in Nikolai • Very few speakers • Very little motivation to do linguistic work • Very expensive • But very nice and hospitable people (generally)

  5. Domain under consideration • Organization of spatial representation • Directional adverbs • Dimensional directionals • Riverine orientation • Elevational orientation

  6. Data • Natural discourse recordings (transcribed) • Folk stories • Personal stories • Conversation (pre-arranged) • Interview at school • In all –about 8 hours of talk • Elicited examples

  7. Abundance of directionals and locatives in discourse noygi digheloye hidenin ghelheŒ yats’in nehwdadidził ts’eŒ uphill mountain slope perhaps other.side brush.was.piled.up and notsints’eŒ nehulkanh ts’eŒ degheneŒ <…> downhill they.were.pushing.earth Comp he.used.to.say yiŒots’ digheloye denin yihw hulkanh <…> from.uphill mountain slope there they.ploughed.out nodigw hwk’oy hwts’inh noŒinyotsin hidenin hwdinelkanh<…> uphill ridge from further downhill slope it.was.leveled.out

  8. Schematic representation of the UKA native area

  9. Riverine orientation:upriver vs. downriver • Roots: • -n- ‘upriver’ • -d- ‘downriver’ • Basic examples • y-o-n-aŒ zido ‘He lives upriver’Pref-Pref-upriver-Id he.lives • n-o-d-o-ts’ tekash Pref-Pref-downriver-Id-El you.paddle ‘Come this way (by boat, from downriver)’

  10. Elevational orientation:uphill vs. downhill • Roots: • -n(w)g- ‘uphill’ • -ts- ‘downhill’ • Basic examples: • n-o-ts-in tighisyoł Pref-Pref-downhill-Id I.will.go ‘I will go downhill’ • minh y-o-ng-w-t lake Pref-Pref-uphill-Id-Punct ‘The lake is up there’

  11. Deictic orientation • X is at the river bank, Y is away from the river: • X speaks to Y: • n-o-ng-i tighisyoł ‘I will go uphill’Pref-Pref-uphill-Id I.will.go • Y speaks to X: • y-o-ts-ets’ teyosh Pref-Pref-downhill-El you.go ‘Come here (from downhill)’

  12. Telida grand local Kuskokwim river Nikolai Alaska range Relevance of scale

  13. Local vs. grand scale • Local scale: • y-o-ng-i sikayih hi-ts’eŒ notighisdołPref-Pref-uphill-Id my.house Ar-to I.will.go ‘I will go to my house’ • Grand scale: • dotron’ n-o-ts-in nonot’wh raven Pref-Pref-downhill-Id it.flies ‘A raven flies away from the mountains’

  14. Templatic morphology • Close to 100 forms just from these four roots

  15. Examples of meaningful affixes • sichila sungha ghw-ts-et zidomy.younger.brother my.older.brother dim-downhill-punct he.lives‘My younger brother lives a little below my older brother’ • n-o-nwh-ts’eŒ tighisyoł pref-pref-uphill-el I.will.go‘I will go down (from an elevation)’ • y-o-n-wgh noghimał pref-pref-upriver-reg it.is.swimming.across ‘It is swimming upriver across the river’

  16. Conclusions • Dimensional directionals display a remarkable variety of forms • They are semantically and morphologically highly complex • They, as well as other types of directionals, are highly abundant in discourse • Specification of directions and locations is a hallmark of UKA ethnic cognitive representation and constitutes an important linguistic phenomenon in this language

  17. Methodological comments • This kind of complex phenomena must be preferably explored with the help of best available consultants • Criteria: age; personal life experience; gender; general intelligence

  18. Bobby Esai

  19. Nick Alexia

  20. TsenŒan! • Thanks to all speakers of Upper Kuskokwim, both mentioned and unmentioned above • Thanks to many individuals and organizations that helped to collect and process the data, in chronological order: • Michael Krauss • James Kari • Raymond Collins • Alaska Native Language Center • Fulbright Program • Endangered Language Fund • Bernard Comrie • MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig • Russian Foundation for the Humanities • National Science Foundation

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