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Tlingitology Seminar Notes: Background and Morphology

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Tlingitology Seminar Notes: Background and Morphology Tlingitology Seminar Notes: Background and Morphology Dzéiwsh James A. Crippen University of British Columbia 22 January 2013 Summary This document consists of lecture notes for the rst half of the “Tlingitology” seminar at the Univer- sity of British Columbia from 1 May through 11 May 2012, taught by James A. Crippen. The lectures covered the social and documentary background of the Tlingit language, essentials of the segmen- tal and tonal phonology, most of the noun morphology, and the basic lexical and morphological infrastructure of the verbal system. Some simple syntactic phenomena were also presented. These notes have been expanded from the lectures, including more examples, extensive citations from previous publications, and discussion of a few more topics that were neglected for various reasons. These notes cover enough of the language for a linguist to start analyzing most Tlingit sentences. Contents 1 Background ··············································· 4 2 Language materials ··········································· 5 3 Segmental and tonal phonology ···································· 7 4 Nouns ·················································· 13 5 Verbs ·················································· 18 5.1 Verb theme ·········································· 19 5.2 Person inection and valency ································· 23 5.3 Stem variation ········································· 26 5.4 The classier ·········································· 27 5.5 Mode inection ········································ 32 5.6 Imperfective types ······································ 36 5.7 Theme categories ······································· 43 5.8 Motion verbs ········································· 52 5.9 Non-motion derivation ···································· 57 5.10 Auxiliaries ··········································· 58 5.11 Epimode ············································ 61 5.12 Epiaspect ··········································· 63 1. Dzéiwsh (Gaanyaa), Kaaḵáakʼw Hít Deisheetaan (Ḵakʼweidí), Sʼiknax̱.ádi yádi, Shtaxʼhéen Ḵwáan. 1 References ·················································· 66 6 Appendix: Tables and gures ····································· 70 6.1 Dialectology ·········································· 70 6.2 Historical relationships ···································· 72 6.3 Nouns ············································· 73 6.4 Verbs ·············································· 78 6.4.1 Incorporated nouns ································ 82 6.4.2 Stem variation ··································· 85 6.4.3 Conjugation ···································· 88 6.4.4 Prex contraction ································· 88 6.4.5 Modes ······································· 101 6.4.6 Motion derivation ································· 104 6.4.7 Epimode and auxiliaries ······························ 108 6.4.8 Derivation ····································· 109 List of Tables 1 Tlingit consonant inventory ······································ 71 2 Northern Tlingit vowel inventory ··································· 71 3 Tongass Tlingit vowel inventory ···································· 72 4 Southern Tlingit falling tone vowels ·································· 72 5 Suprasegmental correspondences between dialects ························· 72 6 Possessive sux allomorphy ······································ 74 7 Case suxes and postpositions ···································· 74 8 Pronouns and verb pronominals ··································· 75 9 Unpredictable nominal allomorphy ·································· 76 10 Prenominal and postnominal adjectives ······························· 77 11 Verb template structure ········································ 78 12 Verb morphemes ············································ 79 13 Classiers ················································ 80 14 Preverbs ················································ 81 15 Group 1 preverb (+17) variants ···································· 82 16 Alienable incorporated nouns (+12) ·································· 83 17 Inalienable incorporated nouns (+11) ································· 84 18 Stem variation system ········································· 85 19 Stem variation system in Northern Tlingit ······························ 86 20 Distribution of stem variation suxes across modes ························· 87 21 Conjugation classes and their associated features ·························· 88 22 Conjugation class and repetitive imperfectives ···························· 88 23 Conjugation class and progressive imperfective directional preverbs · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 88 24 Classiers by phonological shape ··································· 89 25 Verb prexes participating in prex contraction ··························· 89 26 Contractable prex sequences and their associated modes ····················· 90 27 Northern contractions with +4 perfective ÿu- ····························· 91 2 28 Northern contractions with future ·································· 92 29 Northern contractions with +5 -conjugation ····························· 93 30 Northern contractions with +5 na-conjugation ···························· 94 31 Northern contractions with +5 g̱a-conjugation ···························· 95 32 Northern contractions with +7 ga-conjugation ···························· 96 33 Northern contractions with +5 -conjugation and +4 g̱a-mode ··················· 97 34 Northern contractions with na-conjugation and g̱a-mode ······················ 98 35 Northern contractions with g̱a-conjugation and g̱a-mode ······················ 99 36 Northern contractions with ga-conjugation and g̱a-mode · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 100 37 Non-stative imperfective (declarative) modes ···························· 101 38 Stative imperfective (declarative) modes ······························· 102 39 Non-imperfective declarative modes ································· 103 40 Deontic and circumstantial (non-declarative) modes ························ 104 41 Some -conjugation class (telic) motion derivation strings · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 105 42 More -conjugation class (telic) motion derivation strings · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 106 43 na-, g̱a- & ga-conjugation class motion derivation strings · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 107 44 Combinations of modes with epimode and clause type · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 108 45 Verb auxiliaries (−7) ·········································· 109 46 Derivational suxes (−2) ······································· 110 47 Some verbs with –2 derivational suxes in Naish & Story 1973 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 110 48 More verbs with –2 derivational suxes in Naish & Story 1973 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 111 49 Even more verbs with –2 derivational suxes in Naish & Story 1973 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 112 List of Figures 1 Tlingit dialect overview ········································ 71 2 Tlingit’s family tree ··········································· 73 3 Noun possession types ········································· 73 4 Domains of the verb ·········································· 80 3 James A. Crippen Tlingitology seminar 1–11 May summary 22 January 2013 1. B • Name: English Tlingit /ˈklɪŋˌkɪt/ ~ /ˈklɪŋˌɡɪt/; Tlingit Lingít /ɬ̀n.ḱt/ ‘Tlingit’, from lingít ‘person, human’ • Historical Relationship: Na-Dene (Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit) family (see sec. 6.2 on p. 72) – tree: [Na-Dene Tlingit [Ath.–Eyak Eyak [Dene [Northern Ahtna …] [Pacic Coast Hupa …] [Southern Navajo …]]]] – Tlingit is phonologically closer to Eyak, but shows evidence of long contact with Dene (Athabaskan) lgs. • Place: spoken in most of Southeast Alaska; also Atlin BC, Carcross, Tagish, and Teslin YT – most Tlingit speakers today are in Juneau AK, Sitka AK, and Whitehorse YT • Situation: circa 200 uent speakers (excluding semi-speakers, learners, etc.), all are also uent in English – still used in daily conversation by many; frequent ceremonial use by 1 and 2 speakers – literacy in Tlingit is rare though English literacy is nearly universal – attitude is positive but support is limited, see Dauenhauer & Dauenhauer 1998a; Dauenhauer 2005 – maybe 15–20 advanced learners with conversational uency, including 5–10 very advanced learners who can understand most of the verb conjugations and can transcribe and translate into English • Languge contact: pre-European contact with Eyak, Ahtna, Southern Tutchone, Tagish, Tahltan, Kaska, Nisg̱aʼa, Coast Tsimshian, Haida; post-European contact with Russian, Chinook Jargon, English – borrowings from Tlingit into other languages are fairly widespread – borrowings from Dene (Athabaskan) into Tlingit are somewhat common, but many are not from any currently identiable language (i.e. not modern neighbours) – pre-European borrowings from other languages are very sparse in the Tlingit lexicon – small Russian vocabulary, larger Chinook Jargon vocabulary, increasing English vocabulary • Culture: Northern Northwest Coast, similar to Haida, Nisg̱aʼa, & Coast Tsimshian – population is quite large: circa 25,000 people today in both countries – Coastal Tlingit have a typical rainforest subsistence, Inland Tlingit have a boreal forest subsistence like and probably adapted from Dene (Athabaskan) neighbours – rmly matrilineal, patriline is acknowledged and used ritually ⁃ English last names are patrilineal, hence represent paternal families and not matriline
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