Papers by Daniel A Kaufman
Communities around the world have distinctive ways of representing language use across space and ... more Communities around the world have distinctive ways of representing language use across space and territory. The approach to and method of mapping languages that began with nineteenth-century European dialectology and colonial boundary making is one such way. Though practiced by relatively few linguists today, language mapping has developed considerably from its roots yet remains stymied by problems of ideology, representation, and data quality. In this paper, we argue that digital language mapping in hyperdiverse cities can both contribute to overcoming these problems and bring visibility and resources to communities using Indigenous, minority, and primarily oral languages. For these communities, official surveys like the census are often inadequate, leaving a gap that communities, linguists, and mapping experts working in partnership can address. Urban language mapping as a field should make space for Indigenous, minority, and primarily oral languages through geospatial visualizati...
The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages, 2018
Due to environmental, economic, and social factors, cities are increasingly absorbing speakers of... more Due to environmental, economic, and social factors, cities are increasingly absorbing speakers of endangered languages. In this chapter, the authors examine some of the ways that organizations can work with communities in an urban setting to further language documentation, conservation, and revitalization. They base their discussion on their experience at the Endangered Language Alliance, a non-profit organization based in New York City that facilitates collaboration between linguists, students, speakers of endangered languages, and other relevant parties. While ex-situ language documentation has not been given much attention in the literature, they argue that it has its own unique advantages and that diaspora communities need to be taken seriously, both to fully understand language endangerment and to better counteract it.
This presentation will look at the broad typology of TAM marking with a focus on aspect and finit... more This presentation will look at the broad typology of TAM marking with a focus on aspect and finiteness in a wide variety of Indonesian languages. The goal will be to better understand the diversity of Indonesian strategies for marking aspect and finiteness within the larger Austronesian picture. We begin by looking at how TAM categories are canonically marked in the Philippine languages. Strikingly, Philippine systems are quite uniform in the following properties: 1. The infix <in> (in any of its numerous modern reflexes) indicates an initiated action or perfective aspect while reduplication typically marks various imperfective aspects.
Language Documentation & Conservation, 2017
The last decade has seen great advances in the development of electronic tools for automated inte... more The last decade has seen great advances in the development of electronic tools for automated interlinearization, corpus creation and lexicon building (e.g. Fieldworks Explorer [FLEx]), as well as tools for creating time-aligned annotations (e.g. ELAN). However, methods for sharing these new data formats online lag far behind. While good options exist for lexical data (e.g. Webonary, Lexique Pro), there is no tool for turning a project created in the FLEx software into an online interlinearized corpus. We present here a tool in development which does precisely that. FLEx databases can be searched using regular expressions and individual lines from a text can be linked to audio and video media. The tool can furthermore bring together linguistic data in diverse formats (from ELAN, Praat, Fieldworks, Toolbox, Shoebox) for a single query and allow for queries over multiple language projects. We discuss the benefits of this program in relation to several ongoing fieldwork projects that ar...
Austronesian causatives and transitivity related morphology present several challenges to linguis... more Austronesian causatives and transitivity related morphology present several challenges to linguistic theory. As discussed by Travis (2010), some Austronesian languages, like Malagasy, appear to transparently reflect a layered VP structure with an inner “lexical” causative and an outer productive causative. Other languages, like Tagalog, present unexpected morphology-syntax mismatches in this area. I discuss here certain puzzles in transitivity related prefixes from a historical perspective building on the idea that contrast preservation and epenthesis played a large role in the behavior of two key historical affixes: *paRand *paN-.
Fieldwork with immigrant communities in urban centers has played an important historical role in ... more Fieldwork with immigrant communities in urban centers has played an important historical role in linguistics despite scarce mention of this practice in the growing literature on language description and fieldwork. Bowern and Warner (2015, 63), in a rare exception, explicitly identify diaspora fieldwork as a distinct scenario among seven different possible relations between linguists and a language community:
Infixation phenomena in a variety of languages has provided important evidence in support of an O... more Infixation phenomena in a variety of languages has provided important evidence in support of an Optimality Theoretic approach to morphophonology (Prince and Smolensky 1993; McCarthy and Prince 1993a; b). Within this approach, the category of infixes is not taken to be underlyingly specified as such, but rather their infixal status is seen to arise from the interaction of ALIGN with higher ranked markedness constraints. Hence, all affixes are taken to be primitively prefixes or suffixes with infixes being a derived category. Recently, evidence has been adduced against such a strong claim. Blevins (1999) and Yu (2002) have made arguments for specifying the precise attachment site of all affixes within the lexicon. Counter-evidence against the OT analysis of infixation can be classified into two types: (a) cases where infixation seems prosodically unmotivated and (b) cases where infixation is motivated but nonetheless does not occur (within a language already possessing infixes). This ...
Asian Medicine, 2021
This article analyzes the audio diaries of a Tibetan physician, originally from Amdo (Qinghai Pro... more This article analyzes the audio diaries of a Tibetan physician, originally from Amdo (Qinghai Province, China), now living in New York City. Dr. Kunchog Tseten describes his experiences during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, in spring and summer 2020, when Queens, New York—the location where he lives and works—was the “epicenter of the epicenter” of the novel coronavirus outbreak in the United States. The collaborative research project of which this diary is a part combines innovative methodological approaches to qualitative, ethnographic study during this era of social distancing with an attunement to the relationship between language, culture, and health care. Dr. Kunchog’s diary and our analysis of its contents illustrate the ways that Tibetan medicine and Tibetan cultural practices, including those emergent from Buddhism, have helped members of the Himalayan and Tibetan communities in New York City navigate this unprecedented moment with care and compassion.
Verge: Studies in Global Asias, 2018
as diasporic Tibetans from India and culturally Tibetan regions in China, have settled into lives... more as diasporic Tibetans from India and culturally Tibetan regions in China, have settled into lives as New Yorkers, their senses of identity have begun to transform. Language plays a central role in these transformations. Himalayan voices can now be heard in the already hyperdiverse sociolinguistic landscape of a place like Jackson Heights. Yet the processes of migration and assimilation have created new challenges for maintaining language diversity and cultivating a sense of social belonging through language. How are Himalayan New Yorkers finding a sense of community, navigating new transnational and intergenerational cultural dynamics, and responding to the relationship between "home" and being "over here" in New York? And what does language have to do with this? These questions have guided a collaborative research project, Voices of the Himalaya: Language, Culture, and Belonging in Immigrant New York. Using the medium of video interviews, this project explores the lived experiences of migration and social change between the greater Himalayan region and New York City. The project has brought together a team of scholars and social activists, with expertise in linguistics, anthropology, and community-based participatory research (including the creation of digital archives), toward the production and curation of accessible narratives
Oceanic Linguistics, 2017
Oxford Handbooks Online, 2017
Philippine-type languages are often cited as exemplifying a cross-linguistically unique voice sys... more Philippine-type languages are often cited as exemplifying a cross-linguistically unique voice system, in which verb morphology can select not only an agent or patient, but also locative, instrumental and other adjunct type relations as the nominative argument. In this paper, we examine three approaches to this typologically remarkable system: the ergative analysis, the case agreement analysis and the nominalization analysis, arguing for the latter based on strong parallels between verbal and nominal predication from the root level to the clause level. The morphologically symmetric nature of Philippine-type languages is argued to stem from their nominal roots. The historical development of verbal roots leads to a more fixed argument structure in which canonical ergative languages develop. Mamuju, an Austronesian language of West Sulawesi, Indonesia, is offered as an example of a classically ergative language, in contrast to Philippine-type systems.
International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2016
Juhuri is a dialect of the Tat language of the eastern Caucasus (specifically, Dagestan and Azerb... more Juhuri is a dialect of the Tat language of the eastern Caucasus (specifically, Dagestan and Azerbaijan). Although Juhuri is dialectologically related to Persian, it is not mutually intelligible with any Persian dialect. The Juhuri speakers, called Mountain Jews, are estimated at around 200,000, most of whom have immigrated to Israel and the United States. The New York community is largely centered in Brooklyn around the Kavkazi Jewish Congregation. The language is still spoken by those born in the Caucasus, and is maintained in some families and some spheres of daily life. Many of these Mountain Jews are multilingual in Juhuri, Russian, Azerbaijani, Hebrew, and English. In this article, we situate the language within the context of the New York expatriate community and explore the role of Juhuri in relation to ethno-religious identity, language attitude, and functional domains. The data reported on here are based on interviews and a written survey. We conclude that although the odds...
Oceanic Linguistics, 2007
The Salako language, spoken in parts of West Kalimantan and Sarawak, is accepted as belonging to ... more The Salako language, spoken in parts of West Kalimantan and Sarawak, is accepted as belonging to the Malayic family (Adelaar 1992a), but despite this linguistic af²liation, Salako speakers are culturally far removed from present-day Malay groups in Western Indonesia due to the preservation to their traditional lifestyle and religion until relatively recently. The Salako are, of course, not the only "Dayak" people of Kalimantan to be counted in the Malayic family; other such groups include the Iban and the Kendayan. But in contrast to the better-documented Iban language, Salako had not received suf²cient attention from linguists prior to Adelaar's earlier publications, especially in regard to grammar and morphology. The present grammar thus represents the ²rst attempt at offering a more holistic picture of the Salako language, and ²lls an important gap in our knowledge of the Malayic family and the linguistic landscape of West Kalimantan. The grammar, however, as stated in the title, is only a sketch. It covers the fundamental points of the phonology and morphology of the language along with a basic picture of the syntax. The bulk of the book comprises a collection of texts in Salako with English translations and a lexicon. It is the product of Adelaar's ²eldwork in Nyarumkop, a Roman Catholic parochial center located in the Singkawang Timur district, Benkayang regency, where he collected data intermittently between the late 1980s and 2004. In what follows, I review the content and presentation of this publication while at the same time highlighting some points of Salako grammar that are of importance for current issues in linguistics. The relevance of Salako to the reconstruction and subgrouping of Malayic has already been dealt with by Adelaar in several articles (Adelaar 1992a, 1992b, 2004, 2005b). The book is organized into four parts. Part i is an introduction containing basic information about the speaker community, the history of Salako scholarship, and the recent sociolinguistic situation. Part ii is a sketch grammar with subsections covering phonology, morphophonology, and morphosyntax. Part iii consists of 20 texts that are mostly narrated stories, procedural texts, and stories explaining Salako customs with a few samples of dialogue included. Part iv, the ²nal part, is a Salako-English lexicon. The introduction is well written and informative, enriched by Adelaar's longstanding interest in the language area in particular, and in the Malayic family more generally. We are told here about the various linguistic pressures affecting Salako speakers today, the greatest of which is from Indonesian, as is evident from the code-mixing within the texts. This pressure is not new; in earlier times, Adelaar informs us, the Catholic church was responsible for the marginalization of Salako by their promotion of Malay as the of²cial liturgical language. In regard to classi²cation, Adelaar locates Malayic in the framework of his Malayo-Sumbawan hypothesis (Adelaar 2005a) which groups Madurese, Sundanese, Sasak, Sumbawa, Balinese, Chamic, and Malayic into a single subgroup of Malayo-Polynesian.
Oceanic Linguistics, 2012
Recent detailed study of the historical phonology of Palauan reveals a nonetymological velar nasa... more Recent detailed study of the historical phonology of Palauan reveals a nonetymological velar nasal at the beginning of inherited vowel-initial words, while synchronic studies of the language report final velar nasals in loans from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Blust argues that the initial velar nasal is not due to regular sound change, and also contests a potential morphological origin for the accreted segment. Reid examines Philippine evidence, and suggests that the source of the Palauan initial velar nasal is the linker *ŋa, though little evidence internal to Palauan is discussed. Here we demonstrate that, on the basis of internal evidence, a morphological source for both initial and final velar nasals is evident in Palauan, though internal and comparative evidence points to an ancient formative *ŋa 'emphatic' with distinct distribution and semantics from the well-studied Austronesian linker. 1. INTRUSIVE VELAR NASALS IN PALAUAN. 1 In a recent paper detailing the historical phonology of Palauan, Blust (2009) presents comparative evidence documenting two distinct processes of historical epenthesis or accretion. In the first case, vowel-initial words inherited from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP), or those that became vowel-initial early on due to *h-loss, show a nonhistorical initial velar nasal. The full set of forms given in Blust (2009) is shown in (1a), with (C) indicating etymologies suggested in Conant (1915); we have added several additional examples in (1b). (1) Secondary word-initial velar nasal in Palauan PMP PALAUAN a. *aku ŋak 'I, me' (C) *anak ŋalək 'child' (C) *anay ŋal 'termite' (C) *aRuhu ŋas, ŋasu 2 'casuarina' *esuŋ ŋ ot 'mortar' *habaRat (> abaRat) ŋəbarð 'west (wind)' (C) *hapuy (> apuy) ŋaw 'fire' *hated (> ateð) ŋaðər 'accompany' *hikan (> ikan) ŋikəl 'fish' (C) *hiket (> iket) ŋikəð 'tie, bind; make fishnet' *hulaR (> ulaR) ŋuys 'k.o. green snake' (C) *ia ŋiy 'he, she, it' (C) *ibeR ŋibəs 'drooling saliva' *ituq ŋiðəʔ 'climbing fern' *uRat ŋurð 'vein, artery'(C) *wada (> ada) ŋar 'be, exist' b. *idus ŋirt 'nasal, mucus, snot' *ita-ŋið '1PL.INCL' *wahiR (> ais)'water' 3 ŋais 'egg; testicles'
This article analyzes the audio diaries of a Tibetan physician, originally from Amdo (Qinghai Pro... more This article analyzes the audio diaries of a Tibetan physician, originally from Amdo (Qinghai Province, China), now living in New York City. Dr. Kunchog Tseten describes his experiences during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, in spring and summer 2020, when Queens, New York—the location where he lives and works—was the "epicenter of the epicenter" of the novel coronavirus outbreak in the United States. The collaborative research project of which this diary is a part combines innovative methodological approaches to qualitative, ethnographic study during this era of social distancing with an attunement to the relationship between language, culture, and health care. Dr. Kunchog's diary and our analysis of its contents illustrate the ways that Tibetan medicine and Tibetan cultural practices, including those emergent from Buddhism, have helped members of the Himalayan and Tibetan communities in New York City navigate this unprecedented moment with care and compassion.
Verge: Studies in Global Asias, 2018
Philippine-type languages are often cited as exemplifying a cross-linguistically unique voice sys... more Philippine-type languages are often cited as exemplifying a cross-linguistically unique voice system, in which verb morphology can select not only an agent or patient, but also locative, instrumental and other adjunct type relations as the nominative argument. In this paper, I examine three approaches to this typologically remarkable system: the ergative analysis, the case agreement analysis and the nominalization analysis, arguing for the latter based on strong parallels between verbal and nominal predication from the root level to the clause level. The morphologically symmetric nature of Philippine-type languages is argued to stem from their nominal roots. The historical development of verbal roots leads to a more fixed argument structure in which canonical ergative languages develop. Mamuju, an Austronesian language of West Sulawesi, Indonesia, is offered as an example of a classically ergative language, in contrast to Philippine-type systems.
McGill Working Papers in Linguistics, 2019
Austronesian causatives and transitivity related morphology present several challenges to linguis... more Austronesian causatives and transitivity related morphology present several challenges to linguistic theory. As discussed by Travis (2010), some Austronesian languages, like Malagasy, appear to transparently reflect a layered VP structure with an inner “lexical” causative and an outer productive causative. Other languages, like Tagalog, present unexpected morphology-syntax mismatches in this area. I discuss here certain puzzles in transitivity related prefixes from a historical perspective building on the idea that contrast preservation and epenthesis played a large role in the behavior of two key historical affixes: *paR- and *paN-.
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Papers by Daniel A Kaufman