CV by Johanna Nichols
Noun-modifying constructions and relativization in the central and western Caucasus. Yoshiko Mats... more Noun-modifying constructions and relativization in the central and western Caucasus. Yoshiko Matsumoto et al., eds., Generalized Noun-Modifying Constructions.
Downloadables by Johanna Nichols
2017 revision of wordlistfor basic valence orientation.
Wordlist used for Nichols, Peterson, & Barnes 2004 on basic valence orientation. Now superseded ... more Wordlist used for Nichols, Peterson, & Barnes 2004 on basic valence orientation. Now superseded by 2017 revision.
Papers by Johanna Nichols
American Journal of Biological Anthropology, e24923, 2024
The known languages of the Americas comprise nearly half of the world's language families and a w... more The known languages of the Americas comprise nearly half of the world's language families and a wide range of structural types, a level of diversity that required considerable time to develop. This paper proposes a model of settlement and expansion designed to integrate current linguistic analysis with other prehistoric research on the earliest episodes in the peopling of the Americas. Diagnostic structural features from phonology and morphology are compared across 60 North American languages chosen
for coverage of geography and language families and adequacy of description. Frequency comparison and graphic cluster analysis are applied to assess the fit of linguistic types and families with late Pleistocene time windows when entry from Siberia to North America was possible. The linguistic evidence is consistent with two population strata defined by early coastal entries 24,000 and 15,000 years ago, then an inland entry stream beginning 14,000 ff. and mixed coastal/inland 12,000 ff. The dominant structural properties among the founder languages are still reflected in the modern linguistic populations. The modern linguistic geography is still
shaped by the extent of glaciation during the entry windows. Structural profiles imply that two linguistically distinct and internally diverse ancient Siberian linguistic populations provided the founding American populations.
Sofia Björklöf et al., eds., Itämeren kieliapajilta Volgan verkoille, 515-533. (SUST 278(, 2024
Florian Mühlfried, ed., Languages and cultures of the Caucasus: A Festschrift for Kevin Tuite, pp. 57-71. Wiesbaden: Reichert., 2024
Edward J. Vajda, ed. 2023. The languages of Northern Asia, 741-744. (WOL 10.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter., 2024
Northern Asia is not a linguistic area by any standard definition: The notable features and struc... more Northern Asia is not a linguistic area by any standard definition: The notable features and structures that are common there are also found
in good numbers in other nearby areas. What does define Northern Asia as a linguistic area is a coincidence of several dynamic characteristics, some one-time and contingent historical events and some long-term or standing processes, trajectories, and principles that have defined ranges of languages and linguistic phenomena over time. This chapter surveys a number of typological features with area-defining distributions and histories: palatal and uvular series in consonant inventories, vowel harmony and its concomitants including velar~uvular allophony and front rounded vowels, and the size and complexity of phoneme inventories; and, more briefly some morphosyntactic properties: configurational vs. templatic morphosyntax, valence and alignment features, aspects of person marking,
and pronoun consonantism. It describes the dynamic history of each. Some of these reflect universal preferences and dependencies between features. One of the standing trajectories, whereby language ranges tend to drift northward over time, may be an inevitable consequence of different population densities and the network structures those entail.
T. I. Davidjuk et al., Jazyk kak on est'., 2023
Diachronica
The widespread Uralic family offers several advantages for tracing prehistory: a firm absolute ch... more The widespread Uralic family offers several advantages for tracing prehistory: a firm absolute chronological anchor point in an ancient contact episode with well-dated Indo-Iranian; other points of intersection or diagnostic non-intersection with early Indo-European (the Late Proto-Indo-European-speaking Yamnaya culture of the western steppe, the Afanasievo culture of the upper Yenisei, and the Fatyanovo culture of the middle Volga); lexical and morphological reconstruction sufficient to establish critical absences of sharings and contacts. We add information on climate, linguistic geography, typology, and cognate frequency distributions to reconstruct the Uralic origin and spread. We argue that the Uralic homeland was east of the Urals and initially out of contact with Indo-European. The spread was rapid and without widespread shared substratal effects. We reconstruct its cause as the interconnected reactions of early Uralic and Indo-European populations to a catastrophic climate c...
Spread zones are areas where any resident language is likely to spread out widely, so overall lin... more Spread zones are areas where any resident language is likely to spread out widely, so overall linguistic diversity is low at any time (though over time different languages spread out, giving the area a diverse diachronic profile). This chapter subclassifies spread systems into four types: (1) mountain ranges, where languages tend to spread uphill gradually; (2) altiplanos, upland closed spread zones where the distinctive climate and ecology require special adaptation and a language, once established there, is hard to dislodge, and descendants of the first language in tend to undergo later spreads, giving the altiplano a very low diversity profile even diachronically; (3) lowland open spread zones, where a language can enter from any direction and any entering language has some chance of spread, so structurally and genealogically different languages spread over time and give the zone a diverse profile diachronically; (4) lowland closed spread zones, where natural or other barriers make entry difficult; here the history of spreads is rather like that in altiplanos.
Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks, 1993
During the Soviet years a number of popular Russian literary works were published in which native... more During the Soviet years a number of popular Russian literary works were published in which native Siberian individuals are depicted in interactions with urban and typically non-Siberian Russians.1 The first of these Siberians is Dersu Uzala of the classic works by V. K. Arsen’ev. In most such works the narrator shows a patronizing attitude toward the Siberian, who is treated as less than fully adult in language use and reasoning.
Journal of Indo-European Studies, 2019
Proceedings of the annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Nov 25, 1989
University of Pennsylvania Press eBooks, Dec 31, 1970
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CV by Johanna Nichols
Downloadables by Johanna Nichols
Papers by Johanna Nichols
for coverage of geography and language families and adequacy of description. Frequency comparison and graphic cluster analysis are applied to assess the fit of linguistic types and families with late Pleistocene time windows when entry from Siberia to North America was possible. The linguistic evidence is consistent with two population strata defined by early coastal entries 24,000 and 15,000 years ago, then an inland entry stream beginning 14,000 ff. and mixed coastal/inland 12,000 ff. The dominant structural properties among the founder languages are still reflected in the modern linguistic populations. The modern linguistic geography is still
shaped by the extent of glaciation during the entry windows. Structural profiles imply that two linguistically distinct and internally diverse ancient Siberian linguistic populations provided the founding American populations.
in good numbers in other nearby areas. What does define Northern Asia as a linguistic area is a coincidence of several dynamic characteristics, some one-time and contingent historical events and some long-term or standing processes, trajectories, and principles that have defined ranges of languages and linguistic phenomena over time. This chapter surveys a number of typological features with area-defining distributions and histories: palatal and uvular series in consonant inventories, vowel harmony and its concomitants including velar~uvular allophony and front rounded vowels, and the size and complexity of phoneme inventories; and, more briefly some morphosyntactic properties: configurational vs. templatic morphosyntax, valence and alignment features, aspects of person marking,
and pronoun consonantism. It describes the dynamic history of each. Some of these reflect universal preferences and dependencies between features. One of the standing trajectories, whereby language ranges tend to drift northward over time, may be an inevitable consequence of different population densities and the network structures those entail.
for coverage of geography and language families and adequacy of description. Frequency comparison and graphic cluster analysis are applied to assess the fit of linguistic types and families with late Pleistocene time windows when entry from Siberia to North America was possible. The linguistic evidence is consistent with two population strata defined by early coastal entries 24,000 and 15,000 years ago, then an inland entry stream beginning 14,000 ff. and mixed coastal/inland 12,000 ff. The dominant structural properties among the founder languages are still reflected in the modern linguistic populations. The modern linguistic geography is still
shaped by the extent of glaciation during the entry windows. Structural profiles imply that two linguistically distinct and internally diverse ancient Siberian linguistic populations provided the founding American populations.
in good numbers in other nearby areas. What does define Northern Asia as a linguistic area is a coincidence of several dynamic characteristics, some one-time and contingent historical events and some long-term or standing processes, trajectories, and principles that have defined ranges of languages and linguistic phenomena over time. This chapter surveys a number of typological features with area-defining distributions and histories: palatal and uvular series in consonant inventories, vowel harmony and its concomitants including velar~uvular allophony and front rounded vowels, and the size and complexity of phoneme inventories; and, more briefly some morphosyntactic properties: configurational vs. templatic morphosyntax, valence and alignment features, aspects of person marking,
and pronoun consonantism. It describes the dynamic history of each. Some of these reflect universal preferences and dependencies between features. One of the standing trajectories, whereby language ranges tend to drift northward over time, may be an inevitable consequence of different population densities and the network structures those entail.