Lise M. Dobrin

The morphosyntactic reality of phonological form

Apparent reference to a noun’s phonological form is common in noun class and gender systems.1 However, if morphosyntactic operations are mediated by abstract features, as has been argued most explicitly by Anderson (1992), Zwicky (1987), and Zwicky and Pullum (1986), then phonological identities between nouns and their corresponding agreement markers cannot be expressed directly in morphosyntactic rules.

The cultures of Native North American language documentation and revitalization

ABSTRACT The reviewed books comprise an emerging ethnographic literature on endangered language documentation and revitalization in Native North America. Language loss and preservation are pressing concerns for tribal communities, galvanizing activists and researchers to develop classroom curricula and literacy traditions in hopes of producing new speakers. While the reviewed books show that this goal often goes unrealized, we nevertheless read them as grounds for optimism. Even if language revitalization rarely increases the everyday use of particular lexical and grammatical codes, it may succeed in accomplishing another important goal: facilitating indigenous communities’ efforts to create for themselves more meaningful contemporary cultures.