City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects CUNY Graduate Center 9-2020 360º Video and Language Documentation: Towards a Corpus of Kanien'kéha (Mohawk) Joseph Pentangelo The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4030 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] 360º VIDEO AND LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION: TOWARDS A CORPUS OF KANIEN’KÉHA (MOHAWK) by JOSEPH PENTANGELO A dissErtation submittEd to the GraduatE Faculty in Linguistics in partial fulfillmEnt of the requiremEnts for the degreE of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of NEw York 2020 ii © 2020 JOSEPH PENTANGELO All Rights ResErved iii 360º Video and Language DocumEntation: Towards a Corpus of KaniEn’kéha (Mohawk) by JosEph PEntangelo This manuscript has beEn read and accEptEd for the GraduatE Faculty in Linguistics in satisfaction of the dissErtation requiremEnt for the degreE of Doctor of Philosophy. ______________________ ________________________________________________ Date JuliEttE BlEvins Chair of Examining CommittEE ______________________ ________________________________________________ Date Gita Martohardjono Executive OfficEr Supervisory CommittEE: JuliEttE BlEvins Jason Kandybowicz DaniEl Kaufman THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iv ABSTRACT 360º Video and Language DocumEntation: Towards a Corpus of KaniEn’kéha (Mohawk) by JosEph PEntangelo Advisor: Prof. JuliEttE BlEvins Robust documEntation is a major goal of documEntary linguistics. Recognizing spoken language as a multimodal phenomEnon, resEarchers working in this fiEld broadly agreE that video is an improvemEnt over audio-only recording. At the samE timE, video is limitEd by the format’s framE, which permits only a relatively small portion of the visual fiEld to be recorded at any given timE. This results in much data being lost, as the documEntEr must decide where to aim their camEra, necEssarily lEaving out more than they record. In this dissErtation, I apply 360º video to language documEntation for the first timE. 360º video, which is one variEty of virtual reality, improves upon traditional video by drastically Expanding the framE, recording in all directions surrounding the camEra. In this way, a maximum of visual data is recorded, and there is no neEd for the camEra to be redirectEd as participants take turns speaking or move around the spacE. I recorded over 10 hours of 360º video with ambisonic audio, containing mostly naturalistic conversation in the AkwEsasne variEty of KaniEn’kéha (Mohawk), an endangered Northern Iroquoian language spoken in NEw York StatE, Ontario, and Quebec. Most of the existing documEntation of KaniEn’kéha outside of this corpus is formal or non-naturalistic. The resulting corpus thus sErves a dual purposE: it is both a demonstration of the v capabilitiEs of 360º video for language documEntation, and a contribution to the documEntation of KaniEn’kéha. This dissErtation includes a briEf grammatical description of KaniEn’kéha phonology and morphology, a discussion of the intErplay bEtwEEn tEchnology and language documEntation throughout North AmErican history, an exploration of the significancE of 360º video to documEntary linguistics, a briEf analysis of gesture and intonation in the presEnt corpus, and an assEssmEnt of the suitability of ambisonic audio for linguistic analysis. Directions for potEntial future resEarch are indicatEd throughout. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissErtation could not have beEn writtEn without the support and encouragemEnt of many peoplE. First, I’d like to thank JuliEttE BlEvins, whosE mEntorship throughout my timE in graduatE school has beEn instrumEntal to my developmEnt as a scholar. I am very gratEful for your guidancE and willingness to help mE think through my ideas in a rigorous way. I am also very gratEful to Jason Kandybowicz and DaniEl Kaufman, both of whom provided important feEdback on this projEct throughout its developmEnt. I have beEn extremEly fortunatE to have such an engaged committEE, and I appreciatE all of your contributions. I have tremEndous gratitude for everyone in AkwEsasne who has participatEd in or beEn otherwisE helpful to this projEct. I cannot list everyone by namE here, especially sincE many of you have expressEd that you wish to remain anonymous, but plEasE know that I appreciatE your involvemEnt and generosity, and I hope that this work proves usEful to you. There are somE peoplE whom consciEncE mandatEs I thank individually. Dorothy KarihwEnhawE Lazore in particular has beEn extremEly helpful. I truly could not havE done this without your involvemEnt, and your help at every stage of this projEct’s developmEnt has beEn essEntial. CarolE Katsi’tsiEnhá:wi Ross has also beEn very helpful and generous with her timE. Darren BonapartE graciously sEcured us spacE to record in the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe’s administrative building, oftEn on short noticE, and, in our conversations, taught mE a lot about AkwEsasne and KaniEn’kehá:ka culture. William Loran, thank you for allowing us to record in your housE, and thank you for the intEresting in-depth conversations about the KaniEn’kéha language. And finally, thank you to ChiEf Eric TEhoroniathe Thompson for being so encouraging and supportive of this projEct, and for taking the timE to discuss this work with mE. Niá:wEn to all of you. vii Many thanks to the Endangered Language Initiative for funding this resEarch, and the Macaulay Honors CollEge for providing mE with the software that I usEd to do much of this work. I have beEn fortunatE enough to be a TEaching and LEarning Collaboratory FEllow (previously known as Instructional TEchnology FEllow) with the Macaulay Honors CollEge throughout my timE working on this dissErtation, and I am gratEful for the collaboration and camaraderiE afforded to mE there. Thank you to Christina Tortora for encouraging mE to go to graduatE school for a PhD in linguistics in the first placE. I appreciatE that good advicE as wEll as your continued support. I’d like to thank my parents, Joe and Joanne, for always being so encouraging of my intErests. I could not have even approached doing any of this without your lifelong supportiveness. Thanks also to my brother Guy, for always being there for mE. And finally, I am very thankful to my wonderful wife, Rebecca, who always helps mE to think through my ideas, and who is really just the greatEst. You are my best friEnd and my companion forever. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS FRONT MATTER LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………………………… xiii LIST OF CHARTS…………………………………………………………………………… xiv LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………………………… xv ORTHOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………………….. xvi ABBREVIATIONS…………………………………………………………………………… xvii NOTE ON REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………… xix I. TOWARDS A VR CORPUS OF KANIEN’KÉHA 1. Goals and MEthods……………………………………………………………………… 1 1.1. Participants…………………………………………………………………………… 3 1.2. Equipment…………………………………………………………………………… 3 1.3. Procedure …………………………………………………………………………… 5 2. AkwEsasne……………………………………………………………………………… 9 2.1. Government…………………………………………………………………………… 12 2.2. Religion……………………………………………………………………………… 14 3. KaniEn’kéha…………………………………………………………………………… 16 3.1. Grammar……………………………………………………………………………… 18 3.1.1. Morphology………………………………………………………………… 19 3.1.1.1. Particles…………………………………………………………… 21 3.1.1.1.1. Function particles………………………………………. 22 3.1.1.1.2. Interjections……………………………………………. 25 3.1.1.2. Nouns……………………………………………………………… 29 ix 3.1.1.2.1. Polymorphemic nouns…………………………………… 30 3.1.1.2.2. Monomorphemic nouns………………………………… 33 3.1.1.2.2.1. Monomorphemic nouns and particles………… 38 3.1.1.3. Verbs……………………………………………………………… 41 3.1.1.3.1. Prepronominal prefixes………………………………… 42 3.1.1.3.2. Pronominal prefixes…………………………………… 44 3.1.1.3.3. Semireflexive/reflexive………………………………… 46 3.1.1.3.4. Incorporated noun stem………………………………… 47 3.1.1.3.5. Verb root………………………………………………… 50 3.1.1.3.6. Root suffix……………………………………………… 51 3.1.1.3.7. Aspectual and postaspectual suffixes…………………… 53 3.1.1.3.8. Noun-like verbs………………………………………… 55 3.1.1.4. Words for people………………………………………………… 56 3.1.1.5. Clitics……………………………………………………………… 57 3.1.1.5.1. Additional notes on augmentative……………………… 60 3.1.2. Phonology…………………………………………………………………… 61 3.1.2.1. Consonants………………………………………………………… 63 3.1.2.2. Bonvillain and Labials…………………………………………… 63 3.1.2.3. Hopkins (1988) and /kw/…………………………………………… 67 3.1.2.4. Sum Phonemic Inventory………………………………………… 69 3.1.2.5. Allophony………………………………………………………… 69 3.1.2.6. Obstruent Voicing………………………………………………… 70 3.1.2.7. /hsj/ → /hʃj/……………………………………………………… 70 x 3.1.2.8. Labiodentalization………………………………………………… 70 3.2. Kanien’kéha’s Varieties……………………………………………………………… 71 3.2.1. Phonology…………………………………………………………………… 72 3.2.1.1. Nasal Backing…………………………………………………… 72 3.2.1.2. Tyendinaga Vowel Lengthening…………………………………… 73 3.2.1.3. Approximant Variation…………………………………………… 73 3.2.1.4. Voiceless Plosive + /j/…………………………………………… 73 3.2.1.5. Affricate…………………………………………………………… 74 3.2.1.6. /s/ Backing………………………………………………………… 75 3.2.1.7. /t/ Affrication……………………………………………………… 75 3.2.2. Lexicon……………………………………………………………………… 75 3.3. Documentation………………………………………………………………………… 77 3.3.1. Text………………………………………………………………………… 78 3.3.2. Audio and Video…………………………………………………………… 86 II. LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION 1. DEfining Language DocumEntation……………………………………………………