Browsing by Author "Willis, Christina M."

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    A grammar of Belep
    (2013-06-05) McCracken, Chelsea; Willis, Christina M.; Englebretson, Robert; Oswald, Frederick L.
    This dissertation is a description of the grammar of Belep [yly], an Austronesian language variety spoken by about 1600 people in and around the Belep Isles in New Caledonia. The grammar begins with a summary of the cultural and linguistic background of Belep speakers, followed by chapters on Belep phonology and phonetics, morphology and word formation, nouns and the noun phrase, verbs and the verb group, basic clause structure, and clause combining. The phonemic inventory of Belep consists of 18 consonants and 10 vowels and is considerably smaller than that of the surrounding languages. This is due to the fact that Belep consonants do not contrast in aspiration and Belep vowels do not contrast in length, unlike in Belep’s closest relative Balade Nyelâyu. However, like-vowel hiatuses—sequences of heterosyllabic like vowels—are common in Belep, where the stress correlates of vowel length, intensity, and pitch do not generally coincide. Belep morphology is exclusively suffixing and fairly synthetic; it is characterized by a large disconnect between the phonological and the grammatical word and the existence of a number of proclitics and enclitics. Belep nouns fall into four noun classes, which are defined by their compatibility with the two available (alienable and inalienable) possessive constructions. Belep transitive verbs are divided into bound and free roots, while intransitive verbs are divided between those which require a nominative argument and those which require an absolutive argument. While the surrounding languages have a split-ergative argument structure, Belep has an unusual split-intransitive nominative-absolutive system, with the further complication that transitive subjects may be marked as genitive depending on the specificity of the absolutive argument. Belep case marking is accomplished through the use of cross-linguistically unusual ditropic clitics; clitics marking the function of a Belep noun phrase are phonologically bound to whatever element precedes the noun phrase. In general, Belep lacks true complementation, instead making use of coordinate structures with unique linkers as a complementation strategy.
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    An acoustic analysis and cross-linguistics study of the phonemic inventory of Nez Perce
    (2013-09-16) Nelson, Katherine; Niedzielski, Nancy; Willis, Christina M.; Oswald, Frederick L.
    This dissertation is an acoustic description of the phonemic inventory of Nez Perce [nez], a Penutian language of the United States. Acoustic work has been conducted on the consonants of Nez Perce, but no acoustic work has been conducted on the vowels or vowel harmony system. This work begins with an overview of the dissertation, language situation, and previous research. Following the introduction are chapters on ejectives and plain obstruents, plain and glottalized sonorants, vowels, vowel harmony, and the conclusion. Nez Perce has both plain and ejective stop series, a plain and ejective affricate series, and a plain fricative series. I examine these segments for acoustic correlates comparing them to previous research, other languages and current theory. The ejectives are described with f0, intensity, jitter, burst amplitude and VOT. I discuss fricatives in terms of spectra, duration, formant transitions, and moments. The timing and realization of glottalization on glottalized and plain sonorants is investigated. Segments are measured for duration and are visually and aurally inspected for variation of glottalization, realized using pitch, laryngealization, glottal stops, or a combination of these features. It is nearly always realized on the sonorant rather than before or after. Vowels are plotted and compared to previous phonological descriptions. The inventory is /i, æ, a, o, u/ rather than the canonical five-vowel system, leading to the description of the inventory as having a “gap” and not maximally contrastive. I suggest that if Nez Perce vowels are considered using a shifted axis then the vowels are maximally contrastive. The non-canonical vowel inventory leads to two seeming unrelated vowel harmony sets: dominant, /i, a, o/, and recessive, /i, æ, u/. The proposed shifted axis view becomes important for reanalyzing the vowel harmony to reconcile these unusual sets. Previous analyses have described Nez Perce vowel harmony as based on advanced tongue root (ATR). I investigated Nez Perce vowels for ATR acoustic correlates; however, the results provide evidence both supporting and not supporting an ATR analysis. I propose an alternate analysis for the vowel harmony based on the principle of maximal contrast, evidenced by the shifted axis model.
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    The Voices of Houston: A Linguistic Survey
    (Kinder Institute for Urban Research, 2013) Willis, Christina M.
    This report summarizes the initial findings of the Voices of Houston Project: A Linguistic Summary, which seeks to determine the extent of the linguistic diversity found in the Houston Greater Metropolitan Area. The Linguistic Survey will provide an account of the linguistic diversity of the Houston Area by asking two related questions: (1) Which languages are spoken in the Houston area?; and (2) Where are these languages spoken?