LINGUIST List 23.4093
Tue Oct 02 2012
Diss: Anthro Ling/ Lang Doc/ Morphology/ Phonology/ Mocho: Palosaari: 'Topics in Mocho' Phonology and Morphology'
Editor for this issue: Lili Xia
<lxialinguistlist.org>
Date: 02-Oct-2012
From: Naomi Palosaari <naomi
linguistlist.org>
Subject: Topics in Mocho' Phonology and Morphology
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Institution: University of Utah
Program: Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2011
Author: Naomi Elizabeth Palosaari
Dissertation Title: Topics in Mocho' Phonology and Morphology
Dissertation URL:
http://linguistlist.org/people/naomi_palosaari/palosaari_diss-w-toc-final.pdf
Linguistic Field(s):
Anthropological Linguistics
Language Documentation
Morphology
Phonology
Subject Language(s):
Mocho (mhc)
Dissertation Director:
Lyle Campbell
Keren Rice
Marianne Christison
Randall Eggert
Judith Maxwell
Dissertation Abstract:
This dissertation is a grammatical description of several features of themorphology and phonology of the Mocho' language. Mocho'(Motozintleco) is a Mayan language spoken in the Chiapas region ofMexico near the border of Guatemala. It is moribund, with fewer than30 remaining speakers, all over the age of 70 and bilingual in Spanish.Mocho' is a language with several features of interest, but which hasnot yet been the subject of a full linguistic description.
This dissertation, based on data collected during several field trips andsupplemented with unpublished data from previous researchers,provides an overview of the grammatical structure of Mocho'. Thetopics covered include phonology, loanwords, root structure, derivationand inflection of the different word classes, and important discourseparticles.
Mocho' is of special interest in Mayan linguistics as well as linguistictheory in general for many reasons. For example, Mocho' is one of onlyfour Mayan languages to develop a tonal contrast; the Mocho' patternis unique and has developed recently. Mocho' has severalgrammatical features which are unique in Mayan, including thedevelopment of middle voice from Proto-Mayan antipassive markingand the patterning of positionals, negatives, and syntactic markers ofdirection, location, and motion. Mocho' has a split ergative system,with ergative marking on third persons and nominative-accusativemarking on first and second persons. Mocho' also has unique patternsof definiteness and evidentiality. This dissertation provides adescription of Mocho' morphological and phonological structure inseveral areas, including those described above.
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