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Noun Class and Number in Kiowa-Tanoan 83 revealed to a degree. The following section will discuss what has been found concerning the semantic basis for the categories. However, since there are still open questions about the distribution of nouns across noun classes, the historical semantics of the inverse will remain unresolved for the present. It must be borne in mind that the inverse system did not necessarily have a transparent semantic basis in Proto-Kiowa-Tanoan. 27 Proto-languages are of course still languages, unattested though they may be, and are just as likely to show arbitrary properties as synchronic languages. Arbitrary as grammars may end up being, however, they usually do not start out that way. Constructions and patterns tend to have an original semantic or formal motivation which is then obscured over time by grammaticalization processes. The questions driving this paper are targeted towards these original motivations, even though they may no longer have been apparent by the time of the immediate ancestor of the modern Kiowa-Tanoan languages. That such a typologically unusual inverse number system is not found in any other language family—including Uto-Aztecan, which some have posited has a connection to Kiowa-Tanoan (Whorf and Trager 1937, Davis 1989)—suggests that the system and the motivations for the system arose after an ancestor of the Kiowa-Tanoan languages had split from other relations. Only further research will be able to determine the possible character of Proto-Kiowa-Tanoan and whether the inverse system had any transparent semantic basis in that language or if it had been lost by this time. 3.4. GENDER AND NUMBER IN HISTORICAL KIOWA-TANOAN NOUN CLASSES. Why nouns fall into the classes that they do in each of the languages is not entirely clear. If it were based solely upon fine number differentiations, one would expect more variation in the number marking of a given noun, depending upon the construal necessary in the given context, as discussed at the end of section 2.4. Additionally, there would not be the semantic patterns that are quite prevalent in the languages. The most pervasive of these patterns is the restriction of animate nouns to class I and, moreover, the restriction of class I to animate nouns, with very few exceptions. Even in Kiowa, where more inanimates are classed in I than in the other languages, they still are relatively few in number. This provides strong evidence that the languages are at the very least making an animate-inanimate distinction and that this distinction is reflected in the number marking pattern. 28 The question then arises whether there is a further semantic basis between inanimate nouns in their respective classes, i.e., II, III, and IV. Class IV nouns, which appear in all languages but Kiowa to consist entirely of inanimate non-count and abstract nouns, are obviously distinguished for their unique number properties, namely that no number distinction tends to be made. This is a class determined solely by number semantics and does not seem to have any interaction with any gender distinctions, outside of the fact that most or all non-count and abstract nouns are inanimate. 27 Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for reminding the author to explicate this point. 28 The distinction between animates and inanimates is well attested elsewhere in the languages. See especially Allen, Gardiner, and Frantz (1984), Rosen (1990), and Sadock (1985) for Southern Tiwa; Yumitani (1998) for Towa. fieldwork and linguistic analysis in indigenous languages of the americas
Noun Class and Number in Kiowa-Tanoan 84 It is in classes II and III where the semantic basis is most unclear. Each of the languages shows a different pattern for these two classes, which otherwise do seem to be comparable, at least among the Tanoan languages. For instance, all trees appear to fall under class II in both Towa and Northern Tiwa (as does te: ‘tree’ in Tewa), while in Northern Tiwa, at least, the fruits and parts of the plants largely seem to be class III. Conversely, in Southern Tiwa, trees appear to fall mostly under class III. 29 Such patterns are present, but not with enough consistency to make any strong statements without a more detailed analysis. Among the body part terms, which all occur in classes II and III in the Tanoan languages, many class II nouns in Taos Tiwa have a semantic correspondence to class III nouns in Towa and many class III nouns correspond to class II, but there are exceptions (data from Trager 1946 and Yumitani 1998). (26) Taos Towa xonemą (II) hǽ: (III) ‘arm’ tsinemą (II) sé: (III) ‘eye’ phona (III) ɸó:lá (II) ‘hair’ phəyna (III) ɸôse (II) ‘nose’ As discussed in section 2.3, Speirs (1974) points out a distinction between classes II and III in terms of object shape, which is consistent with the Towa and Taos distinction among (tall, thin) trees and their (usually roundish) parts, but this simple categorization would need to be greatly extended to encompass all inanimate count nouns in the languages. This discussion has ignored the effects of the innovations in the different synchronic systems in trying to determine the historical basis for the two classes. That the closely related Northern Tiwa and Southern Tiwa should assign nouns of similar semantics (and often cognate forms) to different classes indicates that the diachronic change in the noun class system may have far reaching effects, despite a similar underlying semantic basis that may still be residually present in the languages. By the same token, the historical distinction between classes II and III may have been purely based on number construal, with other semantic patterns arising by virtue of the fact that nouns in the same or similar semantic fields will be construed for number in similar ways. If the basis for the distinction between classes II and III is number, a return to Table 6 would be fruitful. Classes II and III are only distinct in the singular, whether it is marked as singular or as inverse; dual is consistent between them and plural is largely subject to construal between a collective and distributive reading. The difference appears, therefore, to be determined by the semantics of the inverse. Class III nouns make a simple singular, dual, plural distinction where singular is essentially unmarked, i.e., it is not ‘unusual’—assuming a direct meaning form correlation—to construe a class III noun as singular. Class II nouns, on the other hand, may occur regularly as dual or plural, but have to be ‘specially’ marked if one is to construe them as singular. As stated above, the semantic attributes of 29 Further data are needed to clarify this point. fieldwork and linguistic analysis in indigenous languages of the americas
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Fieldwork and Linguistic Analysis i
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Contents Foreword iii Marianne Mith
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Another fading boundary is that bet
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languages: Akawaio (Kapóng), Akuri
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Acknowledgments The editors are dee
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Introduction 2 COMMUNITY COLLABORAT
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Introduction 4 confined themselves
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Introduction 6 Often, what turns ou
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Introduction 8 references boas, fra
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The Discourse Marker vet in Ixil Ma
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Page 47 and 48: Classifying Clitics in Sm’algyax
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Page 105 and 106: The Story of *ȏ in the Cariban Fam
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Page 139 and 140: Zapotec Determiners 126 System of O
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Page 145 and 146: Zapotec Determiners 132 The minimal
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Zapotec Determiners 134 (14) (MMC,
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Zapotec Determiners 136 In the text
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Zapotec Determiners 138 b. bɛn gun
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Zapotec Determiners 140 rɛ’ɛbi-
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Zapotec Determiners 142 (29) (LGL,
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Zapotec Determiners 144 APPENDIX: T
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146 fieldwork and linguistic analys
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Middles and Reflexives in Yucatec M
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Dena’ina Discourse Markers 174 On
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Dena’ina Discourse Markers 176 (4
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Dena’ina Discourse Markers 178
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Dena’ina Discourse Markers 180 5
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Dena’ina Discourse Markers 190 Th
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Dena’ina Discourse Markers 194 Q
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Dena’ina Discourse Markers 198 co
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Dena’ina Discourse Markers 200 RE
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Dena’ina Discourse Markers 202 Pe
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Gemination and Tonal Feet in Welede
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Dependent Verbs in Sierra Popoluca
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