Application of the comparative method to vocoid sequences in Nivkh
The Nivkh language family of Sakhalin Island and the adjacent mainland in Northeast Asia is generally considered to be without known external relatives. Since its internal diversity is relatively shallow – leading some authors to treat it as a single ‘language’ divisible only into ‘dialect’-level va...
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ftunivkansas:oai:kuscholarworks.ku.edu:1808/26631 2023-05-15T16:19:47+02:00 Application of the comparative method to vocoid sequences in Nivkh Halm, Robert 2018-07-10T19:39:11Z http://hdl.handle.net/1808/26631 https://doi.org/10.17161/1808.26631 unknown University of Kansas Linguistics Department http://hdl.handle.net/1808/26631 doi:10.17161/1808.26631 This work is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. For more information, please see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. openAccess CC-BY Nivkh language -- Phonology Working Paper 2018 ftunivkansas https://doi.org/10.17161/1808.26631 2022-08-26T13:23:18Z The Nivkh language family of Sakhalin Island and the adjacent mainland in Northeast Asia is generally considered to be without known external relatives. Since its internal diversity is relatively shallow – leading some authors to treat it as a single ‘language’ divisible only into ‘dialect’-level varieties – comparative linguistics internal to the family has been neglected. The internal diversity of Nivkh is not, however, as trivial as has been portrayed, and involves at least two (Gruzdeva, 1998) and possibly three Fortescue (2016) mutually unintelligible varieties, indicating fertile ground for the application of the Standard Comparative Method within the family. In the present paper, the correspondences of vocoid sequences among six attested varieties are examined, allowing an important sound change affecting one major variety group (Proto-Nivkh /*a, *i, *u/ > Amur Nivkh, West Sakhalin Nivkh, and North Sakhalin Nivkh /@/ when followed by a glide) to be reconstructed, as well as the applicable environment for this change to be precisely circumscribed, and furthermore allowing for an important phonological contrast for the proto-language to be reconstructed which is not well documented in the living varieties; namely, a contrast between sequences of vowel-glide and similar diphthongs, /*aw, *iw, *aj, *uj/ ̸= /*au, *iu, *ai, *ui/. Keywords: Nivkh, Gilyak, comparative method, Proto-Nivkh Report Gilyak Nivkh Sakhalin The University of Kansas: KU ScholarWorks Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics |
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The University of Kansas: KU ScholarWorks |
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Nivkh language -- Phonology |
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Nivkh language -- Phonology Halm, Robert Application of the comparative method to vocoid sequences in Nivkh |
topic_facet |
Nivkh language -- Phonology |
description |
The Nivkh language family of Sakhalin Island and the adjacent mainland in Northeast Asia is generally considered to be without known external relatives. Since its internal diversity is relatively shallow – leading some authors to treat it as a single ‘language’ divisible only into ‘dialect’-level varieties – comparative linguistics internal to the family has been neglected. The internal diversity of Nivkh is not, however, as trivial as has been portrayed, and involves at least two (Gruzdeva, 1998) and possibly three Fortescue (2016) mutually unintelligible varieties, indicating fertile ground for the application of the Standard Comparative Method within the family. In the present paper, the correspondences of vocoid sequences among six attested varieties are examined, allowing an important sound change affecting one major variety group (Proto-Nivkh /*a, *i, *u/ > Amur Nivkh, West Sakhalin Nivkh, and North Sakhalin Nivkh /@/ when followed by a glide) to be reconstructed, as well as the applicable environment for this change to be precisely circumscribed, and furthermore allowing for an important phonological contrast for the proto-language to be reconstructed which is not well documented in the living varieties; namely, a contrast between sequences of vowel-glide and similar diphthongs, /*aw, *iw, *aj, *uj/ ̸= /*au, *iu, *ai, *ui/. Keywords: Nivkh, Gilyak, comparative method, Proto-Nivkh |
format |
Report |
author |
Halm, Robert |
author_facet |
Halm, Robert |
author_sort |
Halm, Robert |
title |
Application of the comparative method to vocoid sequences in Nivkh |
title_short |
Application of the comparative method to vocoid sequences in Nivkh |
title_full |
Application of the comparative method to vocoid sequences in Nivkh |
title_fullStr |
Application of the comparative method to vocoid sequences in Nivkh |
title_full_unstemmed |
Application of the comparative method to vocoid sequences in Nivkh |
title_sort |
application of the comparative method to vocoid sequences in nivkh |
publisher |
University of Kansas Linguistics Department |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/1808/26631 https://doi.org/10.17161/1808.26631 |
genre |
Gilyak Nivkh Sakhalin |
genre_facet |
Gilyak Nivkh Sakhalin |
op_relation |
http://hdl.handle.net/1808/26631 doi:10.17161/1808.26631 |
op_rights |
This work is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. For more information, please see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. openAccess |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.17161/1808.26631 |
container_title |
Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics |
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1766006200980209664 |