UC Publications in Linguistics – serie

Kawaiisu offers the most comprehensive record of the language and culture of the Kawaiisu people, a Native community of the southern Sierra Nevada and adjacent desert regions of California. Drawing on decades of collaboration with Kawaiisu speakers, Maurice L. Zigmond, Curtis G. Booth, and Pamela Munro present a rich and carefully documented study that combines ethnographic detail with linguistic analysis. The volume preserves traditional stories, vocabulary, and cultural practices, situating them within broader contexts of daily life and ceremonial traditions. By doing so, it safeguards knowledge that might otherwise be lost, while providing scholars and community members alike with an indispensable resource. Balancing technical rigor with accessibility, the book demonstrates the authors’ commitment to recording and honoring Indigenous voices. Their approach highlights the interplay between language, cultural practice, and worldview, showing how the Kawaiisu have understood and narrated their environment over generations. This study not only advances research in linguistics, anthropology, and Native American studies but also contributes to cultural preservation and revitalization efforts. As such, Kawaiisu is both a scholarly achievement and a testament to the resilience of a people whose traditions continue to shape California’s cultural landscape.

In this dictionary of the Nez Perce language, which is spoken in the states of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, the author illustrates how each word is used by citing examples from published Nez Perce oral literature; the dictionary is thus also a concordance. In addition, the author retranscribes and incorporates words from earlier publications, when recognized by today's Nez Perce speakers. The dictionary includes an English-Nez Perce index, appendixes listing phonosymbolic words and Nez Perce animal and plant names, and illustrations from Nez Perce life.

This work is a quantitative discourse study of referential devices in Yagua, a relatively unstudied language of the Amazon basin. Of particular interest are folktales in which the major participants are matched pairs, and which involve extensive use of direct speech. A major finding is that the indices of "Referential Distance" and "Persistence" quantify distinct functional domains.

The Sabaki languages form a major Bantu subgroup and are spoken by 35 million East Africans in Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and the Comoro Islands. The authors provide a historical/comparative treatment of Swahili (and other Sabaki languages), an account of the relationship of Swahili to Sabaki and to other Bantu languages, and some data on contemporary Sabaki languages. Data sets, appendices, maps, and figures present essential information on phonology, lexical makeup, and tense/aspect morphology. The final chapter is a synthesis describing the linguistic and historical relationship of the Sabaki dialects to each other and to hypothetical proto-stages.

This collection of 31 articles (dedicated to Margaret Langdon) represents the multitude of approaches to Native American languages taken by linguists today. Half of the essays treat Hokan languages, but Uto-Aztecan, Penutian, Muskogean, Iroquoian, Mayan, and other groups are also represented, with pieces on phonology, syntax, the lexicon, and discourse.

This work provides the first truly comprehensive and systematic reconstruction of proto-Afroasiatic (proto-Afrasian). It rigorously applies, throughout, the established canon and techniques of the historical-comparative method. It also fully incorporates the most up-to-date evidence from the distinctive African branches of the family, Cushitic, Chadic, and Omotic. Using concrete and specific evidence and argument, the author proposes full vowel and consonant reconstructions and a provisional reckoning of tone. Each aspect of these reconstructions is substantiated in detail in an extensive etymological vocabulary of more than 1000 roots. The results, while confirming some previous views on proto-Afroasiatic (proto-Afrasian), revise or overturn many others, and add much that is new.

Central Hill Nisenan was spoken in the hills northeast of Sacramento, California, but like many other California languages, it is no longer spoken. This monograph includes texts recorded by the late Richard Smith, a brief description of the language (with chapters on phonology, morphology, and syntax), and a short word list.

From Latin through the Romance languages, which types of past participle survived? Which older, "irregular" types disappeared and which older, "regular" types proliferated? Which new types of past participles emerged, which proved popular in standard Romance languages, and which exist in a wide range of dialects? The author explores reasons for the expansion or contraction of each type, in each area.

This volume describes aspects of word- and sentence-formation in Nuuchahnulth (formerly known as Nootka), a language spoken on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Aspects included are polysynthetic word formation, word classes, and clause structure. The morphosyntactic regularities are examined in the context of general structural characteristics of the language in an attempt to contribute to the language an internally and typologically accurate understanding of Nuuchahnulth morphosyntactic structures.

This 800-page volume is a clear and readable presentation of the current state of research on the history of the Tibeto-Burman (TB) language family, a typologically diverse group of over 250 languages spoken in Southern China, the Himalayas, NE India, and peninsular Southeast Asia. The TB languages are the only proven relatives of Chinese, with which they form the great Sino-Tibetan family. The exposition is systematic, treating the reconstruction of all the elements of the TB proto-syllable in turn, including initial consonants (Ch. III), prefixes (Ch. IV), monophthongal and diphthongal rhymes (Ch. V), final nasals (Ch. VII), final stops (Ch. VIII), final liquids (Ch. IX), root-final *-s (Ch. X), suffixes (Ch. XI). Particular attention is paid to variational phenomena at all historical levels (e.g. Ch. XII 'Allofamic variation in rhymes'). This Handbook builds on the best previous scholarship, and adds up-to-date material that has accumulated over the past 30 years. It contains reconstructions of over a thousand Tibeto-Burman roots, as well as suggested comparisons with several hundred Chinese etyma.It is liberally indexed and cross-referenced for maximum accessibility and internal consistency. Emphasis is placed on the special theoretical issues involved in historical reconstruction in the East/Southeast Asian linguistic area.

This volume represents a reconstruction of Proto-Wintun, the parent language of a group of California Indian languages. It includes a grammatical sketch of Proto-Wintun, cognate sets with reconstructions and an index to the reconstructions. The book fulfills a need for in-depth reconstructions of proto-languages for California Indian language families, both for theoretical purposes and deeper comparison with other proto- or pre-languages.

Wappo is an indigenous language, generally regarded as a language isolate, which was once spoken in the Russian River Valley, just north of San Francisco, California. This reference grammar is based on the speech of Laura Fish Somersal, its last fluent speaker, who died in 1990, and represents the most extensive data and grammatical research ever done on this language. The grammar focuses on morphosyntax, particularly nominal, verbal, and clausal structures and clause combining patterns, from a functional/typological perspective.

This pioneering book is the prototype of the etymological thesaurus that has been the goal of the Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus project (STEDT) since 1987. It presents nearly 170 Proto-Tibeto-Burman etymologies in the semantic area of the reproductive system, along with discussions of possible Chinese cognates. Special attention is paid to patterns of semantic associations between the reproductive system and other areas of the lexicon.

The Chimariko language, now extinct, was spoken in Trinity County, California. This reference grammar, based on data collected by Harrington in the 1920's, represents the most comprehensive description of the language. Written from a functional-typological perspective, this work also examines language contact in Northern California showing that grammatical traits are often shared among genetically unrelated languages in geographically contiguous areas.

This book provides an in-depth look at the production of clicks using a variety of different techniques. Static palatography, linguography, electropalatography, and aerodynamic data, including the intra-oral pressure of the click cavity, never previously before measured, all combine to create a comprehensive picture of click consonants. This important work provides conclusive evidence that click consonants co-articulate, or adjust their articulation, with adjacent consonants in interesting ways. Although clicks are widely considered to be among the most interesting classes of segments, many aspects of their phonetics are little known. This book examines how the three different click types of IsiZulu differ from each other in their production in both spatial and temporal dimensions, and considers the question of how these complex segments are integrated into the stream of speech. Strong claims have been made in the literature that clicks do not coarticulate, but there is little articulatory evidence to support this claim.Coproduction and coarticulation of the dental, palato-alveolar and lateral clicks of IsiZulu were examined using three different techniques for the collection of physiological phonetic information: staticpalatography and linguography, dynamic palatography, and aerodynamic records. Four native IsiZulu speakers provided controlled data sets of real IsiZulu words. Results indicate that the characteristics of the front closure release are markedly different for the three click types. Rarefaction in all three click types is achieved by lowering the tongue center, with the greatest proportional change in cavity volume occuring in palato-alveolar clicks and the least with laterals. Palato-alveolar clicks supplement tongue center lowering with some retraction of the location of the dorsal closure. Quite extensive adaptation of both spatial and timing properties of clicks to the different vowel contexts is observed. For example, the dorsal closure is fronted in front vowel contexts, and before mid vowels the tongue center rises in preparation for the upcoming mid-vowel. Clicks are indeed complex articulations but they none-the-less coarticulate.This book contains a wealth of physiological phonetic data, including aerodynamic measures of the click cavity, which have never before been measured, and provides us with a comprehensive account of click consonants.

This is a comprehensive reference grammar of Ingush, a language of the Nakh branch of the Nakh-Daghestanian or East Caucasian language family of the central Caucasus (southern Russia). Ingush is notable for its complex phonology, prosody including minimal tone system, complex morphology of both nouns and verbs, clause chaining, long-distance reflexivization, and extreme degree of syntactic ergativity.

This extensive survey of consonant harmony in the world's languages reveals surprising diversity in the featural dimensions involved, and uncovers new empirical generalizations and tendencies. Striking parallels with phonological speech errors suggest a connection to the psycholinguistic domain of speech planning. An Optimality Theory analysis of consonant harmony as long-distance featural agreement, rather than feature spreading, is developed in detail.

This book presents a comprehensive account of the grammatical expression of aspect and related semantic domains in South Conchucos Quechua, a language of central Peru. Based on naturally-occurring speech, the functional-typological approach applied here integrates the description of the synchronic system in South Conchucos with an investigation of cognitive and communicative forces that have shaped aspect and related categories across the language family.

This publication presents the first documentation of Nzadi, a Bantu language spoken by fishermen along the Kasai River in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It is the product of extensive study by the authors and participants in field methods and group study courses at the University of California, Berkeley, and consists of ten chapters covering the segmental phonology, tone system, morphology, and sentence structure, followed by appendices on the Nzadi people and history and on Proto-Bantu to Nzadi sound changes. Also included are three texts and a lexicon of over 1100 entries, including a number of fish species. Prior to this work, Nzadi had not even been mentioned in the literature, and at this time still has no entry as a language or dialect in the Ethnologue. Of particular interest in the study of Nzadi is its considerable grammatical simplification, resulting in structures quite different from those of canonical Bantu languages. Although Nzadi has lost most of the inherited agglutinative morphology, there are still recognizable class prefixes on nouns and a reflex of noun class agreement in genitive constructions.Other areas of particular interest are human/number agreement, tense-aspect-mood marking, non-subject relative clause constructions, and WH question formation. This succinct, but comprehensive grammar provides broad coverage of the phonological, grammatical and semantic properties that will be of potential interest not only to Bantuists, Africanists and those interested in this area of the DRC, but also to typologists, general linguists, and students of linguistics.

In one of the most thorough studies ever prepared of a California language, Hill's grammar reviews the phonology, morphology, syntax and discourse features of Cupeno, a Uto-Aztecan (takic) language of California. Cupeno exhibits many unusual typological features, including split ergativity, that require linguists to revise our understanding of the development of the Uto-Aztecan family of languages in historical and areal perspective.

This is a dictionary of Bole, a little documented language of the Chadic family, spoken in northeastern Nigeria. This is one of the most comprehensive dictionaries of any Chadic language other than Hausa. All entries for Bole are fully marked for tone and vowel length. The Bole-English-Hausa section has full definitions and explanations of meaning in English with numerous examples of use. Each entry has a Hausa gloss. The English-Bole section is intended mainly as an index to the Bole-English-Hausa section. There are appendices of flora and fauna terms, cultural terms, pronouns, and comprehensive paradigms of verb forms.

The Seneca language belongs to the Northern Iroquoian branch of the Iroquoian language family, where its closest relatives are Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Tuscarora. Seneca holds special typological interest because of its high degree of polysynthesis and fusion. It is historically important because of its central role in the Longhouse religion and its place in the pioneering linguistic work of the 19th century missionary Asher Wright. This grammatical description, which includes four extended texts in several genres, is the culminatin of Chafe's long term study of the language over half a century.

When Mary R. Haas died in 1996, she left behind several thousand pages of notes and texts in the Creek (Muskogee) language collected in Oklahoma from 1936 to 1940. The majority of the texts come from the unpublished writings of James H. Hill of Eufaula, an especially knowledgeable elder who composed texts for Dr. Haas using the standard Creek alphabet. Twelve other speakers served as sources for dictated texts.

The Yuki language, including Huchnom and Coast Yuki, was spoken in Mendocino County until relatively recently (the last speaker died in 1983). This grammar is based primarily on spoken narratives recorded by Alfred Kroeber between 1901-1911. While Yuki was extensively documented over the course of the twentieth century, there is relatively little in the way of actual published works on the language. Balodis discusses the language within the historical and cultural context of the people who spoke it.

The Cocopa Dictionary serves as a vital resource in documenting and preserving the Cocopa language, a member of the Yuman family, spoken by communities in southwestern Arizona and northern Mexico. With a heritage rooted in the Colorado River delta region, this language connects its speakers to a rich history of cultural and environmental adaptation. Based on over 21 months of immersive fieldwork from 1963 to 1979, the dictionary captures the intricacies of Cocopa grammar, vocabulary, and syntax, offering a window into a language at risk of disappearing. This work synthesizes both firsthand data and historical records, providing a comprehensive linguistic resource that preserves the voices and knowledge of the Cocopa people for future generations.Designed for linguists, educators, and those invested in indigenous language preservation, the Cocopa Dictionary provides detailed grammatical analyses, including noun inflections, verb constructions, and sentence structures. It highlights the dynamic nature of the language, noting generational variations in speech patterns while addressing its synthetic and agglutinative morphology. In addition to linguistic data, the dictionary includes cultural insights, connecting words and expressions to their social and historical contexts. By meticulously recording the language's complexity and resilience, this work not only celebrates the Cocopa people's linguistic heritage but also serves as a critical tool for revitalization efforts, ensuring that this invaluable piece of human history endures.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1989.