CASE MARKING IN KIOWA: A STUDY OF ORGANIZATION OF MEANING (AMERICAN INDIAN, SEMANTICS, PRAGMATICS; SOUTHERN PLAINS).
Item
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Title
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CASE MARKING IN KIOWA: A STUDY OF ORGANIZATION OF MEANING (AMERICAN INDIAN, SEMANTICS, PRAGMATICS; SOUTHERN PLAINS).
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Identifier
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AAI8501179
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identifier
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8501179
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Creator
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TAKAHASHI, JUNICHI.
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Contributor
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Edward H. Bendix
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Date
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1984
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Anthropology, Cultural
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Abstract
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This is a functional analysis of case-marking in Kiowa (a Tanoan language in the Southern Plains). Its main objective is to produce a consistent semantico-pragmatic account of the complex grammatical process of participant coding in Kiowa.;It first examines the basic indexical categories and relational (grammatical) categories which the verb prefix represents. Kiowa indexical categories can be optimally defined in terms of levels of saliency ("high-salient", "low-salient" and "diffuse"), markedness in individuation ("individuation-marked") and coupling ("coupled"), and deictic relations ("proximal" and "distal"), rather than the traditional person and number categories. The relational categories may be optimally defined in terms of two parameters--direction of effect ("source", "goal", "intermediary" and "neutral") and focus ("focus" and "low-focus"), rather than European-based case categories.;It then proceeds to a functional analysis of three major morpho-syntactic processes (i.e., selection of the verb prefix, occurrence and ordering of NP's and selection of intersentential {lcub}conjunctive{rcub} markers) which are the most basic and important grammatical devices for coding of participants in Kiowa sentences.;Two grammatical variables appear to have a key role in coordination of the above three processes in Kiowa case-marking. Those two variables, which are referred to as "the focused participant" and "the participant with the highest semantic role", reflect different semantic aspects of the participants (i.e., the semantic content of the participant for the former, and the semantic role of the participant for the latter), and they exhibit different traits of typical "subjecthood". Thus, their behaviors provide some interesting insights into the notion of subject as a grammatical and pragmatic category in linguistic analysis.;The analysis finally confirms a functional view that participant coding in Kiowa is a complex process which involves both grammatical marking and pragmatic inferences which are inseparably integrated in actual functioning of the language.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Anthropology
