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Vol. 36, no. 4 (Winter 1994)


Contents

Articles

Classifiers in Tariana Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald 407

American Indians as Linguists (Part 2)

John Napoleon Brinton Hewitt: Tuscarora Linguist Blair A. Rudes 467
George Hunt and the Kwak'wala Texts Judith Berman 483

Book Reviews

Language, Identity and Social Division: The Case of Israel (Eliezer Ben-Rafael) Douglas J. Glick 515
Hebrew in Ashkenaz: A Language in Exile (Lewis Glinert, editor) Harris Lenowitz 519
A Lexicon of South African Indian English (Rajend Mesthrie) Tim Taylor 521
English in Language Shift: The History, Structure and Sociolinguistics of South African Indian English (Rajend Mesthrie) Rakesh M. Bhatt 524
Language Shift and Cultural Reproduction: Socialization, Self, and Syncretism in a Papua New Guinean Village (Don Kulick) Paul B. Garrett 526
Reflexive Language: Reported Speech and Metapragmatics (John Lucy, editor) Asif Agha 529
Language and Culture: Papers from the Annual Meeting of the British Association of Applied Linguistics Held at Trevelyan College, University of Durham, September 1991 (David Graddol, Linda Thompson, and Mike Bryan, editors) David Leedom Shaul 534
A Grammar of Comanche (Jean Ormsbee Charney) John E. McLaughlin 536
Publications Received 538

Abstracts

Classifiers in Tariana

Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
Australian National University, Canberra

Abstract. This paper describes an unusual and complicated system of classifiers and agreement in Tariana (North Arawak, Brazil). Tariana has gender agreement in verb-argument constructions, and classifier agreement in head-modifier constructions. It has three subtypes of classifiers: numeral classifiers, demonstrative classifiers, and verb-incorporated, concordial, and genitive classifiers. Classifiers have anaphoric and discourse-pragmatic functions. Almost every derivational affix can be used as a classifier to mark agreement. Also, noun incorporation is used as an agreement device in head-modifier constructions, under specific discourse conditions. Thus, classifiers constitute a virtually open class of elements. The system of classifiers is very much semantically motivated. The unusual system of classifiers and agreement in Tariana provides important suggestions for a typology of classifiers, such as: (a) the existence of demonstrative classifiers as a special type; (b) the coexistence of more than one system of noun categorization used for different kinds of agreement in one language (called "split" system); and (c) the possibility of an "open" character for a system of classifiers.

John Napoleon Brinton Hewitt: Tuscarora Linguist

Blair A. Rudes
First Americans Research

Abstract. A careful examination of the unpublished manuscripts and published works of J. N. B. Hewitt reveals that he had considerable descriptive and analytic linguistic skills. Furthermore, it is clear that his theoretical approach to linguistics was in several respects ahead of his contemporaries. However, Hewitt's lingusitic work was not well received by some of the more influential theoreticians of his time; in part as a result, Hewitt abandoned theoretical research to concentrate on descriptive work and the collection of texts.

George Hunt and the Kwak'wala Texts

Judith Berman
University of Pennsylvania

Abstract. The vast majority of the Kwak'wala-language texts published by Franz Boas were composed by George Hunt. The child of a British father and a Tlingit mother, Hunt was born an outsider to the Fort Rupert, British Columbia, native community. His Kwak'wala contains errors, and some modern Kwak'wala speakers cannot understand it. These facts raise questions about the reliability of Hunt's materials. However, investigation into Hunt's family, personal, and linguistic history, and into matters of style and language change, shows that despite his foreign origins Hunt became a cultural expert and an important figure in Kwakwaka'wakw society, and he spoke Kwak'wala fluently and for the most part correctly.

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