Demonstrative Frames of Reference in Norton Sound Kotlik Yup'ik: A Corpus-Based Analysis

• Author / Creator

  Toler, Nicholas G

• This dissertation uses a corpus of natural, connected speech to examine the demonstrative system in the under-documented Norton Sound Kotlik dialect of the Central Alaskan Yup'ik language. By utilizing a corpus of connected speech, I provide a usage-based illustration of one of the world's most complex demonstrative systems across different domains of use through a frame of reference approach.

  Norton Sound Kotlik Yugtun has undergone a dramatic shift in the last 50 years, beginning with a mass relocation of speakers in the Lower Yukon Kotlik region from around six historic villages to the single village of Kotlik when a new school was built in the 1970s. This relocation accompanied a shift in the cultural and linguistic praxis of the region from the traditional Yuuyaraq 'Yup'ik Way of Life' to a now Anglo-Yup'ik hybrid utilizing English as the primary language of use. As a result, only around 40 Elders are fluent in the Norton Sound Kotlik dialect today. The school teaches Yup'ik as a second language but uses resources from General Standard Yup'ik. My fieldwork began in 2014 and focuses on creating a documentary corpus of the Norton Sound Kotlik dialect in collaboration with the Tribal Council and Elders. Drawing from this documentary corpus, I have compiled a linguistic corpus of six texts from five Elders telling Yuuyarat 'way of life narratives,' Univkarat 'historical narratives,' and Qulirat 'traditional legends.'

  My linguistic corpus was transcribed, translated, glossed and analyzed with an eye to understanding the natural contours of the demonstratives in vivo. The linguistic corpus contains 5390 word tokens, including 1047 demonstratives. With demonstratives accounting for 30% of my corpus, this dissertation presents a new, holistic account of the 30-plus demonstrative reflexes embedded within their particular frame of reference. In addition, the Yup'ik grammatical system used to inflect and contextualize demonstratives is examined with these new data from Kotlik. My analysis uses a constructional approach founded on the productive and concatenative use of distinct and meaningful formative patterns.

  Demonstratives are deictic pointing words that speakers use to index an object and bring it into joint attention with interlocutors. They are typically closed-class function words which derive much of their (functional) meaning from context. Present in all languages, they are among the first words acquired by children and are readily adapted by speakers to perform a host of non-spatial functions across languages. Demonstrative systems are typically categorized by the number of distance juxtapositions presented in the system, and traditional accounts utilize a simplistic conceptualization of spatial reference.

  As pointing words, the Inuit-Yupik languages arguably have the most complex demonstrative system, with several dozen reflexes, depending on the language. However, previous descriptions have presented idealized paradigms without providing consistent structural, semantic, or contextual analysis and little elucidation of each demonstrative's frequencies, functions, or semantic extensions especially beyond strictly spatial uses. The Inuit-Yupik system is traditionally said to have a three-way person-based juxtaposition. However, Yup'ik is claimed to have reduced it to a more opaque, two-way, distance-based juxtaposition with several semantic add-ons for object shape and accessibility. My analysis reanalyzes the demonstrative system within the frame of reference literature. It shows that three distinct frames of reference are employed in Yugtun: a deictic intrinsic egocentric frame, a deictic relative allocentric frame, and a deictic absolute geocentric frame of reference.

  These three frames of reference are used across the domains of space, time, and discourse and emphasize the ground and origo, the shape of the figure object, and the perceptual space of the speaker. Within these semantic frames, demonstratives are used as nominals to bring objects into joint attention or to focus on objects, and as particles to bring thematic cohesion to the discourse. Demonstratives also cluster in topic constructions to help the speaker ground the textual world within the real world. This dissertation finds three simpler but interconnected demonstrative models functioning complexly rather than a single complex model functioning simply. In doing so, I highlight a central lexical class of the Yup'ik grammar and begin to describe its function in context.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Central Alaskan Yup'ik
  • Inuit-Yupik-Unangan
  • Demonstratives
  • Frames of Reference
  • Corpus Linguistics
  • Language Documentation
  • Grammar

• Graduation date

  Fall 2024

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-h7ds-s049

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Library with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.