A structural comparison of the Californian Penutian - article ; n°1 ; vol.51, pg 109-128

G. Francescato

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Journal de la Société des Américanistes - Année 1962 - Volume 51 - Numéro 1 - Pages 109-128
20 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique

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• Publié par: JOURNAL_DE_LA_SOCIETE_DES_AMERICANISTES
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1962
• Nombre de lectures: 13
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

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G. Francescato
A structural comparison of the Californian Penutian
In: Journal de la Société des Américanistes. Tome 51, 1962. pp. 109-128.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Francescato G. A structural comparison of the Californian Penutian. In: Journal de la Société des Américanistes. Tome 51,
1962. pp. 109-128.
doi : 10.3406/jsa.1962.1242
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/jsa_0037-9174_1962_num_51_1_1242A STRUCTURAL COMPARISON
OF THE CALIFORNIAN PENUTIAN
by G. FRANCESCATO.
o. Introduction, i. Yokuts. 2. Miwok. 3. Maidu.
0.1 E. Sapir in his paper ' A characteristic Penutian form of stem ' (/. /.
A. L.., 2.58-67, 1921-23) establishes for the family of languages four
groups, called Californian group, Oregon group, Chinookan and Tsimshian.
Many languages are gathered under these labelings, altho for most of them
not sound proof of their genetic relationship is given.
We can say that the knowledge of the Penutian stock of languages has been
greatly improved up to day, and that particularly the Californian group has
received great attention by many linguists.
The Californian Penutian includes the following languages : Yokuts, Miwok,
Maidu, Wintun, Costanoan. Of these, only the three first will be taken in consi
deration in this paper, because they are the only three for which a consistent
description is available at present.
Yokuts is spoken in the south-central California, and can be divided into
various dialects, Yawelmani, Wikchamni, Gashowu, Choynimni, Chawchila,
Chukchansi. The analysis in the present paper is based on S. Newman's ' Yokuts
Language of California' (Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology, n. 2,
New York, 1944).
Mowik is spoken in central California, on the eastern slopes of the Sierras,
and can be roughly divided into three dialects, central (or Tuolumne) northern
(or Amador) and southern (or Mariposa). The data here used are taken from
L. S. Freeland's ' Language of the Sierra Miwok ' (Indiana University Publi
cations in Anthropology and Linguistics. Memoir 6, Baltimore, 1951).
Maidu is spoken in the northeastern California and also consists of three
dialects, northwestern, and southern. R. B. Dixon's paper on
' Maidu ' published in the Boas' ' Handbook of American Indian Languages '
(part 1, BAE-B 40.681-734, 191 1) was used as a source.
Société des Amèricanistes, 1962. 8 110 SOCIETE DES AMERICANISTES
о . 2 The three languages considered show such similarities that Sapir and
others after him were lead to assume that they are genetically related from a
comparative point of view. A closer inspection of their structure may (or may
not) confirm this assumption, but certainly some striking features suggest
that there is a kind of parallelism in the structure of these languages.
All three use no prefixes, but a large number of suffixes. All present some
important phenomena of internal conditioned and not conditioned change.
All present a larger possibility of derivational processes for verbs than for
nouns. All, finally, present some features of vowel harmony.
All of these features appear clearly for Yokuts and Miwok, less clearly for
Maidu, since the only source at disposition, for reasons inherent to its relative
age, is far from beeing complete and therefore the statements about this lan
guage are somewhat scantier. But a mere listing of such features has no lin
guistic value, unless accompanied by a statement of the particular conditions
and the way in which the features appear and operate in the individual lan
guages.
Entering into detail we will therefore discuss the following main points.
о . 3 Bases, Stems, Themes.
In all of the source materials bases are considered to belong to various
classes, among which the most important are nouns and verbs. As a matter
of fact, certain bases consistently are found with one set of suffixes, which
can be called diagnostic for nouns, and other bases with another set,
can be for verbs. There is, however, a certain percentage of
bases which can be found with either set, and moreover all bases may be
shifted from one type to the other means of an appropriate set of suffixes,
which differ from both the noun and verb diagnostics. Any base becomes a
stem when it undergoes the internal phonemic modifications which accompany
the most of the suffixation processes.
After a base has undergone various suffixations and changes, it can be fixed
in a definitive phonemic form, which is then called theme, and to which further
suffixes are added without any more phonemic change. In the theme the last
suffixe defines the class to which the theme itself belongs. A stem, therefore,
is a base plus suffixe and /or internal change, which may undergo further
phonemic change, while a theme remains phonemically unmodified.
0.4 Suffixation and internal change. is almost the only means used in all these languages to indicate
grammatical relations. In general we can distinguish suffixes which are dia
gnostic for nouns and suffixes which are diagnostic for verbs (both beeing in
some sense final suffixes) on one hand, and derivational (non final) suffixes on
the other hand. Particular classes of suffixes make it possible in certain cases
to establish other base classes.
As a rule, a verbal stem can be amplified by means of non-final or dériva- A STRUCTURAL COMPARISON OF THE CALIFORNIAN PENUTIAN III
tional suffixes, which commonly indicate particular space relations, or aspect,
voice, mode, or serve merely as class indicators, characterizing either
verb or noun class. Further suffixes are added for tense, mode, case and some
times person and number, either to stems or to themes. Yokuts is the language
in which the distinctions between base, stem and theme appear to be most
complex. Miwok and Maidu, on the contrary, have developed a more or less
complicated system of indicators for person and number, which is completely
lacking in Yokuts.
For nouns, the possibilities of amplification are somewhat more restricted
than for verbs in all the languages ; but it is always possible to shift a stem
from the verbal class to the nominal class by means of appropriate suffixes.
Since the contrary process is possible too, in all these languages a stem can
theoretically be nominalized or verbalized various times, before receiving the
final endings, which conclusively establish its nature. Anyway this theoretical
possibility is never carried on to a large extend in actuel speech.
Suffixation works more or less the same way in all languages, each suffixe
beeing tied together with some morphophonemic internal change of the base,
or stem to which the suffixe is added. Where the suffixe is actually a zero
alternate, or in some cases where there is no suffixe as such, the internal change
alone indicates the grammatical relation.
In Yokuts internal change can be labeled, following Newman's terminology,
'dynamic vocalic change ' and it is mainly represented by modifications in
quality, quantity of vowels, glottalization and change of stress position. In
Miwok internal change operates on prosody (quantity of vowels, stress and
syllabic length) and may be indicated by metathesis, amplification and
contraction of stems and glottalization. No indications of this sort are given
for Maidu. On the contrary, in the latter language a certain number of so
called prefixes is reported, but their status as true prefixes is uncertain and
they will be discussed later.
о . 5 Vowel harmony.
All three languages seem to present, along with the internal conditioned
change, some sort of vowel harmony. ' In contrast with the root consonants,
which are inflexible, unchanging phonological units... the root vowels undergo
a variety of changes in assuming their stem form. The extensive system of
vocalic change can be conceived as operating on two planes : on the one hand,
dynamic vowel processes effect ablaut changes which are not to be explained
in terms of mechanical phonetic conditions ; on the other hand, a number
of phonetic processes introduce additional vowel changes of a purely mechan
ical nature. In the formation of stems these two planes interact... ' (Newman,
op. cit., 2:8).
A mechanical coordination of the stem vowels within the stem itself and
with the vowels of the following suffixes is particularly clear in Yokuts and
Miwok, where almost all suffixes can have a double vocalism, according to 112 SOCIÉTÉ DES AMÉRICANISTES
the classification of the vowels characteristic of each language ; suffixes which
do not present this phenomenon constitute a separate group. In Maidu some
thing similar is found in the complex vocalism of some suffixes, which mostly
agrees with the vocalism of the stem.
0.6 Verbal system.
Many aspect and voice relations are indicated, as shown above, by means
of verbal derivational suffixes. Various tenses and modes are marked, howewer,
to a certain extent ; particularly in Miwok, large use is made of tense and mode
indicators with nominalized forms. In Miwok even nouns can take tense indi
cators.
о . 7 Noun case system.
In all the languages nouns are mainly provide