Monica Macaulay

University of Wisconsin–Madison | UW · Language Sciences Program

Nisinoon is an NSF-funded cross-linguistic database of the components which make up words in Algonquian languages. There are two main goals: 1) To provide tribes with a source for lexical expansion for their language revitalization/reclamation projects. 2) To provide a basis for comprehensive reconstruction of Proto-Algonquian. This database is a...

This entry describes the role of prominence hierarchies in agreement, focusing on the Algonquian language Menominee (ISO mez). Thorough consideration of the data shows that there are four hierarchies rather than just one, each corresponding to a different affix slot. A brief look at other Algonquian languages shows that additional configurations of...

Not only can monolingual histories mask multilingual practices, but writing languages out of history happens very differently even in the same time and place. We examine two cases in one historical setting, an Indigenous language and an immigrant language in Wisconsin (U.S.), Menominee and German. The widespread view of the United States today as a...

A common need among Algonquian language revitalization programs, especially those with no or few first-language speakers, is novel vocabulary. This paper describes a web-based, open-access comparative database of Algonquian derivational morphemes, now in its pilot phase. We have two main goals: to provide tribes with a source for novel word creatio...

This article revisits Bloomfield’s 1962 description of reduplication in Menominee, drawing examples from his work and from original fieldwork. Reduplication of verb stems is shown to mark repetition or continuation of action, habitual action, intensification, and plurality. The forms of reduplica-tion–regular and irregular–are discussed, as is Bloo...

This paper identifies two difficulties with treatments of derivation in Algonquian languages. In traditional approaches to grammar, in which the morpheme is seen as a unitary entity, morphemes are understood as minimal units of meaning and/or function. Definitions share an appeal to the morpheme’s indivisibility. In the Algonquianist literature, in...

This article examines theoretical and typological characterizations of evidentials. Based on the literature and newly analyzed data from Karuk (a Native American language of California), we argue that two properties are criterial: (i) marking source of evidence and (ii) membership in grammatical systems. Other properties vary crosslinguistically: p...

This paper provides a thorough description of wh-questions in Menominee (Algonquian) and further makes the argument that basic or unmarked wh-questions in the language are best analyzed as having a monoclausal structure. Biclausal analyses which have been given for such wh-questions in other Algonquian languages propose a concealed cleft structure,...

Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: Special Session on Syntactic Issues in Native American Languages (1993)

Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: Special Session on African Language Structures (1991), pp. 120-133

This paper surveys the prominence hierarchy, a term which we use to refer to a ranking of person and other categories of reference for a variety of grammatical purposes. This kind of hierarchy has been referred to in the literature by various names, for example person hierarchy, empathy hierarchy, animacy hierarchy, indexability hierarchy, and so o...

This article uses examples from first fieldwork experience to illustrate the need for better training of graduate students in linguistics on the subject of fieldwork, especially in the personal and practical aspects. This very personal account also points out the need for the development of a better and more extensive literature on linguistic field...

Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1982)

The Algonquian prominence hierarchy, usually characterized as 2 > 1 > 3, is often cited as a counterexample to claims that 1st person outranks 2nd universally. Data from five Algonquian languages show that rankings 1 > 2, 2 > 1, and 1 Combining double low line 2 are actually found, depending on the affix position and language, leading to the conclu...

This paper provides an analysis of the factors conditioning the appearance of the Karuk discourse marker káruma and the contributions it makes to discourse organization. We claim that the effect of káruma is to highlight especially relevant information that advances the storyline of a narrative, contributing to dramatic tension. We show that an ade...

L'A. propose de traiter le morpheme 'iin du karuk, langue hoka parlee a Orleans en Californie, comme marqueur des arguments obviatifs dans des configurations ergatives. Les constructions en 'iin ont la particularite de presenter des traits significatifs a la fois de l'obviatif et de l'ergatif. Il cherche a demontrer qu'une hierarchie de la personne...

This paper provides a preliminary sketch of Ojitlan Chinantec phonology and parts of its verbal morphology. Most Chinantec monomorphemic words are monosyllabic, and inflected words are often monosyllabic as well. There are numerous potential contrasts within the syllable: a large number of consonants, oral and nasal vowels, tone, and stress. Issues...

This article presents the results of two studies which show that gender bias and stereotyping are widespread in the example sentences of syntax textbooks. Results from both studies indicate that little has changed over the past twenty-five years: virtually all of the authors favor male-gendered NPs as subjects and agents and regularly stereotype bo...

Les travaux sur la langue mixtec, synchroniques et diachroniques, ont propose deux approches differentes du statut des occlusives glottales. L'A. montre que ces deux approches sont insuffisantes comme solution synchronique au probleme. Pour resoudre cette difficulte, il pose pour la majorite des dialectes mixtec l'existence d'un trait glottique d'e...

This paper considers the categorial status of several postverbal morphemes in Karok, focusing on one which has previously been claimed (by Bright (1957)) to be an infixed clitic, or ‘endoclitic’. The existence of endoclisis poses a theoretical problem for any morphological framework which assumes that clitics are phrasal affixes, appearing outside...

Kuiper and Merrifield (1975) have analyzed Diuxi Mixtec verbs of motion and arrival in terms of the notions "Base," "one-way," and "round trip." This paper compares their analysis with Speck and Pickett's (1976) work on the same domain in Texmelucan Zapotec, and presents an analysis parallel to the latter for Chalcatongo Mixtec. A reanalysis of the...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Berkeley, 1987. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 214-219). Photocopy.