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A Grammar of Upper Tanana, Volume 1 provides a linguistically accurate written record of the endangered Upper Tanana language. Serving as a descriptive grammar of Upper Tanana, the book meticulously details a language that is currently fluently spoken by approximately fifty people in limited parts of Alaska’s eastern interior and Canada’s Yukon Territory. As part of the Dene (Athabascan) language group, Upper Tanana embodies elements of both the Alaskan and Canadian subgroups of Northern Dene. This is the first comprehensive grammatical description of any of the Alaskan Dene languages.
With the goal of preserving a language no longer consistently taught to younger generations, Olga Lovick’s foundational study is framed within the traditional form of linguistic theory that allows linguists and nonspecialists alike to study a vulnerable language that exists outside the dominant Indo-European mainstream. This text provides a substantive bulwark to protect a language acutely threatened by near-term extinction. In its expansive detailing of the Upper Tanana language, this volume is methodologically oriented toward structural linguistics through approaches focusing on phonology, lexical classes, and morphology. With attention to both detail and thoroughness, Lovick’s comparative approach provides solid grounding for the future survival of the Upper Tanana language.
List of contents
List of Tables
List of Figures
List of Maps
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Preface
I Background
1 About this grammar
2 About Upper Tanana
3 Dialects
4 Some cultural background
II Phonology
5 Consonants
6 Vowels
7 Tone
8 A historical perspective on the sound system
9 Stem-initial fricative lenition
10 Syllable structure
11 Light and heavy stems
12 The practical orthography
III Lexical categories
13 Nouns
14 Verbs
15 Free postpositions
16 Adverbs
17 Directionals
18 Adjectives and modifiers
19 Pronouns
20 Numerals
21 Other minor word categories
IV Morphology
22 Possessor inflection
23 Inflection of postpositions
24 Verbal morphology: An overview
25 Verb theme categories
26 Verb stem
27 Voice/valence markers
28 Subject marking
29 Cöugation and mode prefixes
30 Qualifiers
31 Pronominal prefixes
32 Distributive prefix
33 Incorporated roots
34 Iterative prefix
35 Adverbial-derivational prefixes
36 Bound postpositions
37 Verbal suffixes
References
About the author
¿Olga Lovick is a professor of linguistics and department head at the University of Saskatchewan. She is the editor of a collection of stories of the Tetlin people of Alaska.
Summary
Provides a linguistically accurate written record of the endangered Upper Tanana language. Serving as a descriptive grammar of the Upper Tanana language, the book meticulously details a language that is currently fluently spoken by approximately fifty people in limited parts of Alaska's eastern interior and Canada's Yukon Territory.
