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Vol. 60, no. 4 (Winter 2018)

Contents

Abstracts

Limb Term Naming Patterns in South American Languages

Kelsie Pattillo
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Abstract. Although there is widespread agreement that metaphor and metonymy play an important part in naming body parts crosslinguistically, many of the accepted claims regarding body part naming strategies in the world’s languages come from unbalanced language samples; the most frequently referenced studies include few, if any, indigenous languages from South America. Focusing on terms for the upper and lower limbs, this article reexamines some crosslinguistic tendencies proposed by David P. Wilkins and Elaine S. Andersen with data from twenty-six language families and isolates spoken across South America; my analysis shows differences in the distribution and examples of the proposed patterns.

Xinkan Vowel Harmony Revisited

Chris Rogers
Brigham Young University

Abstract. The Xinkan languages have been described as exhibiting a unique type of vowel harmony within the Mesoamerican linguistic area. However, these analyses have not considered the phonologically complementary distribution of vowels, leading to proposals suggesting that two separate constraints are needed: lexical stipulation within morphemes and harmonic assimilation between morphemes. However, a more unified analysis of Xinkan vowel harmony is possible—one involving only four contrastive vowels and an extrasegmental feature [-high], rather than the six vowels posited previously.

Functions and Uses of Numeral Classifiers in Upper Necaxa Totonac

Michelle García-Vega
University of Alberta

Abstract. Upper Necaxa Totonac has a system of numeral classifiers whose semantic categories include classes that select inherent properties of the noun (type of living being, shape, dimension, form) and classes contingent on configuration or arrangement of the nominal referent (roll, bunch, handful). This article explores the etymological origins of numeral classifiers in Upper Necaxa, and the morphosyntactic and semantic functions of the classifier system. The data show that while some classifiers are selected collocationally, the semantic contribution of the classifier morpheme to the noun phrase ranges from semantically adding to nominal reference to merely selecting a feature of the noun.

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