RECENT LANGUAGE CHANGE IN SHOSHONE: STRUCTURAL CONSEQUENCES OF LANGUAGE LOSS by Katherine Matsumoto A dissertation submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics The University of Utah December 2015 Copyright c Katherine Matsumoto 2015 All Rights Reserved The University of Utah Graduate School STATEMENT OF DISSERTATION APPROVAL The dissertation of Katherine Matsumoto has been approved by the following supervisory committee members: Rachel Hayes-Harb , Chair 3/27/2015 Date Approved Mauricio J. Mixco , Member 3/27/2015 Date Approved Aniko Csirmaz , Member 3/27/2015 Date Approved Patricia Hanna , Member 3/27/2015 Date Approved John E. McLaughlin , Member 3/27/2015 Date Approved and by Edward J. Rubin , Chair/Dean of the Department/College/School of Linguistics and by David B. Kieda, Dean of The Graduate School. ABSTRACT This dissertation provides a detailed case study of language endangerment-induced lan- guage change in the Shoshone community of Duck Valley, a Shoshone and Paiute reservation where the native languages have lost ground to English significantly over the past decades. The analysis incorporates factors from individual speaker backgrounds and sociolinguistic histories in determining language endangerment-induced language change and variation and indicates how these variables show that extensive contact with English and decreasing use of Shoshone have led to structural simplification in the nominal morphological features examined in this study. This dissertation examines structural changes in Shoshone, a language whose commu- nity is undergoing language shift. Shoshone is an endangered Uto-Aztecan language with approximately 2,000 speakers spoken in the Great Basin area: Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. There is a large dialect chain of Shoshone speakers over this geographical area. Miller conducted extensive fieldwork throughout the Shoshone-speaking community during the 1960s and 70s. His vast collection of texts and grammatical work, the Wick R. Miller Collection (WRMC), is housed at the University of Utah. The availability of this collection for comparison with present-day data that I collected during a three-week field trip to the reservation provides a picture of language change over a period where the language has gone from relatively viable to extremely endangered. This analysis focuses on nominal morphology motivated by the existence of crosslinguis- tically marked features, the anecdotal or preliminary observations of changes in progress, and to build on the findings of previous case studies into endangered language nominal morphology. Descriptive analysis of each feature is presented with examples from present- day speakers of various language proficiency levels and compared with the texts from the WRMC. The features discussed are the accusative case allomorphy, number marking and agreement, and proximity indication in demonstrative stems. The analysis of the sociolinguistic data on language use, gender, age, and social network indicates that these factors interact with age being the most relevant factor in retention or innovation in the features presented here. CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................... ..... iii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................. vi LIST OF TABLES ................................................... vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................ ix CHAPTERS 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................... 1 2. THE SHOSHONE LANGUAGE .................................. 5 2.1 Shoshone Language Introduction . 5 2.2 Uto-Aztecan Language Family . 7 2.3 GrammaticalSketch ................................... 9 2.3.1 Lexical Categories . 9 2.3.2 BasicWordOrder.................................... 10 2.3.3 Morphological Typology . 11 2.3.4 Case Marking: Nominative-Accusative . 13 2.3.5 Number Agreement in VPs . 15 2.3.6 Pronouns.......................................... 16 2.3.7 Valence, Tense, Aspect, and Mood . 19 2.4 Shoshone History and Present in Duck Valley . 23 2.5 Shoshone Language Status and Shift . 27 3. ENDANGERMENT AND STRUCTURAL CONSEQUENCES ....... 32 3.1 Language Death and Endangerment . 32 3.2 Consequences of Language Death on Linguistic Structure . 35 3.3 Common Sociolinguistic Pressures in Language Death Situations . 39 3.3.1 Internal or External Pressures (or Both)? . 39 3.3.2 Rate of Change . 43 3.3.3 Language Learning/Use Issues . 45 3.3.4 Speaker Proficiency and a Timeline of Language Obsolescence . 50 4. METHODOLOGY ............................................... 53 4.1 Fieldwork and Methodology . 54 4.1.1 SpeakerInterviews ................................ 59 4.1.2 Connected Shoshone Speech . 61 4.1.3 Sentence Translation Task . 63 4.2 SpeakerRecruitment................................ 64 4.2.1 Speaker Segmentation . 68 4.3 RecordingSessions .................................. 70 5. STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN ENDANGERED SHOSHONE ....... 71 5.1 Case Marking and Absolutives . 72 5.1.1 Changes in Accusative and Absolutive Marking . 74 5.2 Number............................................ 84 5.2.1 Changes in Number Marking . 87 5.3 Demonstratives and Third Person Pronouns . 95 5.3.1 Changes in Demonstratives . 99 6. SOCIOLINGUISTIC PATTERNS AND STRUCTURAL LOSS IN DUCK VALLEY SHOSHONE ........................................... 109 6.1 Age and Speaker Proficiency . 112 6.2 Language Contact and the Sociolinguistic Situation of Language Death . 113 6.2.1 Lack of Evidence for Internal Processes in Progress . 114 6.2.2 Evidence for Significance of English Contact . 116 6.3 Inadequate Acquisition . 121 6.3.1 Conclusion........................................ 123 6.3.2 Implications and Future Research . 124 6.3.3 Future of Shoshone . 127 APPENDICES A. ELICITATION TASK ............................................ 129 B. ABBREVIATIONS AND GLOSSES ............................... 132 REFERENCES ................................................... .. 134 v LIST OF FIGURES 5.1 Demonstrative close, between speaker and hearer . 98 5.2 Demonstrative far, within sight of the speaker and hearer . 98 5.3 ‘akka’ Speaker 8’s response to image (1), I see this (touching it) deer. F1 = 478.6 Hz, F2 = 1141 Hz . 102 5.4 ‘saikka’ Speaker 8’s response to image (2), I see this (close enough to touch) deer. F1 = 457 Hz, F2 = 1701 Hz . 102 5.5 ‘saikka’ Speaker 8’s response to image (3), I see this (close, between speaker and addressee) deer. F1 = 476 Hz, F2 = 1970 Hz . 102 LIST OF TABLES 2.1 NumicSubgrouping.................................... .......... 7 2.2 Suppletive/Reduplicative Plural Paradigm . 17 2.3 Shoshone Pronouns . 18 2.4 Shoshone Demonstratives . 18 2.5 ShoshonePrefinalSuffixes ............................... 22 2.6 ShoshoneFinalSuffixes ................................. 22 4.1 Age Gradation of Language Proficiency . 65 4.2 SpeakerSample ...................................... 66 5.1 Accusative -tta Distribution ....................................... 72 5.2 Accusative -i and a Distribution.................................... 72 5.3 Variation in Absolutive Suffixes . 74 5.4 Accusative Forms in Expected -tta Objects ........................... 75 5.5 Retention of the -tta Allomorph . 76 5.6 Age of Speakers and -tta Loss...................................... 77 5.7 Accusative Forms in Expected -a Objects............................. 78 5.8 Retention of the -a Allomorph . 79 5.9 Accusative Forms in Expected -i Objects............................. 80 5.10 Expansion of the -∅ Allomorph . 82 5.11 Accusative Forms in Expected -nii Objects ........................... 82 5.12 Accusative Allomorphy Speaker Continuum . 83 5.13 Sociolinguistic Traits of Speakers and Accusative Marking Loss . 84 5.14 PUA Pronominal System (Langacker 1977) . 84 5.15 PN Pronominal System (Babel et al. 2013) . 85 5.16 Shoshone Pronouns . 86 5.17 Uto-Aztecan Suppletive Verbs, Intransitive Subject Agreement . 86 5.18 Uto-Aztecan Suppletive Verbs, Transitive Object Agreement . 86 5.19 Observed First-person Pronouns . 88 5.20 Retention of the Three-Way Number Distinction . 89 5.21 Unexpected Nonhuman Plurals . 91 5.22 Shoshone Verb Paradigms (Dayley 1989:73-75; Miller 1996:35-36; Lindsey 2000:278-279) . 92 5.23 Observed Forms in Verbal Number Agreement . 93 5.24 Loss of Number Agreement . 94 5.25 Number Marking Speaker Continuum . 95 5.26 Sociolinguistic Traits of Speakers and Number Marking Loss . 95 5.27 Shoshone Demonstratives . 97 5.28 Observed Demonstratives (Conservative Proximal Variants in Bold) . 100 5.29 Observed Demonstratives - u- Expansion . 104 5.30 Demonstrative Paradigm Speaker Continuum . 107 5.31 Sociolinguistic Traits of Speakers and Number Marking Loss . 108 6.1 Percentage of Conservative Accusative, Number, and Demonstrative Forms in theSentenceElicitationTask ............................ 111 6.2 Reversal of Language Internal Trends, Morphological Complexity Retention (Langacker 1977; Dayley 1989; Crum and Dayley 1993; Miller 1996; Gould and Loether 2002; Babel et al. 2013) . 115 viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My biggest thank you goes to my committee: Mauricio Mixco, Rachel Hayes-Harb, Pat Hanna, Aniko Csirmaz, and John McLaughlin. You have all inspired me with your own work and consistently supported me through my education and training. I feel truly fortunate to have had your mentorship. Mauricio, I cannot adequately express the gratitude I have for the knowledge and friendship you have shared with me. Thank you, friend. A special thanks