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

3

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

4

5

Welcome to Nikolai

6

Field work environment in Nikolai

Very few speakersVery little motivation to do linguistic

workVery expensiveBut very nice and hospitable people

(generally)

7

Domain under consideration

Organization of spatial representation

Directional adverbs Dimensional directionals

• Riverine orientation• Elevational orientation

8

Data

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

Elicited examples

9

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 noŒin yotsin hidenin hwdinelkanh<…>

uphill ridge from further downhill slope it.was.leveled.out

10

Schematic representation of the UKA native area

11

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’ tekashPref-Pref-downriver-Id-El you.paddle‘Come this way (by boat, from downriver)’

12

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-tlake Pref-Pref-uphill-Id-Punct‘The lake is up there’

13

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)’

14

Relevance of scale

Nikolai

Telida

local

grand

15

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’

16

Templatic morphology

A B C D E F

Referential Prefix Prefix Root Idiosyncratic suffix

Localization

hw(areal)

y (default)n (default)d (relative)

o (default) d (downriver)n (upriver)ts (downhill)n(w)g (uphill)

oŒaŒini/w

w(gh) (regional)(e)t (punctual)(e)ts’(eŒ) (elative)ts’in (adessive)

ghw (diminutive)

Close to 100 forms just from these four roots

17

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 tighisyołpref-pref-uphill-el I.will.go‘I will go down (from an elevation)’

y-o-n-wgh noghimałpref-pref-upriver-reg it.is.swimming.across‘It is swimming upriver across the river’

18

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

19

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

20

Bobby Esai

21

Nick Alexia

22

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

23

24

25