In linguistics , reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or the stem of a word (or part of it), or even the whole word, is repeated exactly or with a slight change.
107-433: The classic observation on the semantics of reduplication is Edward Sapir's : "generally employed, with self-evident symbolism, to indicate such concepts as distribution, plurality, repetition, customary activity, increase of size, added intensity, continuance." Reduplication is used in inflections to convey a grammatical function, such as plurality, intensification, etc., and in lexical derivation to create new words. It
214-901: A "very extended study of all the various existing stocks of languages, in order to determine the most fundamental properties of language" – almost a program statement for the modern study of linguistic typology , and a very Boasian approach. In 1906 he finished his coursework, having focused the last year on courses in anthropology and taking seminars such as Primitive Culture with Farrand, Ethnology with Boas, Archaeology and courses in Chinese language and culture with Berthold Laufer . He also maintained his Indo-European studies with courses in Celtic , Old Saxon, Swedish, and Sanskrit. Having finished his coursework, Sapir moved on to his doctoral fieldwork, spending several years in short-term appointments while working on his dissertation. Sapir's first fieldwork
321-475: A 1933 article which would become influential in the characterization of the phoneme . Although noted for his work on American linguistics, Sapir wrote prolifically in linguistics in general. His book Language provides everything from a grammar-typological classification of languages (with examples ranging from Chinese to Nootka) to speculation on the phenomenon of language drift , and the arbitrariness of associations between language, race, and culture. Sapir
428-456: A back vowel ( /a, o, u/ ) and preceding an /i/ ; otherwise it is [ l ] . /s/ is less sibilant (hissing) than in English. /r h/ are found in loan words. The consonants in parentheses are only present in loanwords and informal Samoan. Loanwords from English and other languages have been adapted to Samoan phonology: Stress generally falls on the penultimate mora ; that is, on
535-503: A female professional academic. Though they were very close friends for a while, it was ultimately the differences in worldview and personality that led their friendship to fray. Before departing Canada, Sapir had a short affair with Margaret Mead , Benedict's protégé at Columbia. But Sapir's conservative ideas about marriage and the woman's role were anathema to Mead, as they had been to Benedict, and as Mead left to do field work in Samoa ,
642-525: A few words, such as mate or maliu 'dead', vave 'be quick'. In formal Samoan, used for example in news broadcasts or sermons, the consonants /t n ŋ/ are used. In colloquial Samoan, however, /n ŋ/ merge as [ŋ] and /t/ is pronounced [k] . The glottal stop /ʔ/ is phonemic in Samoan. Its presence or absence affects the meaning of words otherwise spelled the same, e.g. mai = from, originate from; maʻi = sickness, illness. The glottal stop
749-539: A formal student of Sapir. (For a time he dated Sapir's daughter.) In 1936 Sapir clashed with the Institute for Human Relations over the research proposal by anthropologist Hortense Powdermaker , who proposed a study of the black community of Indianola, Mississippi. Sapir argued that her research should be funded instead of the more sociological work of John Dollard . Sapir eventually lost the discussion and Powdermaker had to leave Yale. During his tenure at Yale, Sapir
856-409: A handful; feanu , to spit; anusaga , spittle; tanu , to bury; tanulia , the part buried. These verbal nouns have an active participial meaning; e.g. ʻO le faiga o le fale , the building of the house. Often they refer to the persons acting, in which case they govern the next noun in the genitive with a ; ʻO le faiga a fale , contracted into ʻo le faiga fale , those who build
963-554: A leave from Yale, during which Benjamin Lee Whorf taught his courses and G. P. Murdock advised some of his students. After Sapir's death in 1939, G. P. Murdock became the chair of the anthropology department. Murdock, who despised the Boasian paradigm of cultural anthropology, dismantled most of Sapir's efforts to integrate anthropology, psychology, and linguistics. Sapir's anthropological thought has been described as isolated within
1070-431: A maʻa , the heap of stones, that is, the stones which have been heaped up. Those nouns which take ʻaga are rare, except on Tutuila ; gataʻaga , the end; ʻamataʻaga , the beginning; olaʻaga , lifetime; misaʻaga , quarrelling. Sometimes the addition of ga makes the signification intensive; such as ua and timu , rain; uaga and timuga , continued pouring (of rain). The simple form of
1177-586: A nationality. Edward Sapir's first language was Yiddish , and later English. In 1888, when he was four years old, the family moved to Liverpool, England, and in 1890 to the United States, to Richmond , Virginia . Here Edward Sapir lost his younger brother Max to typhoid fever . His father had difficulty keeping a job in a synagogue and finally settled in New York on the Lower East Side , where
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#17328024937041284-400: A new '-ish' adjective form is derived from other words by suffixing the reduplicated first consonant of the base followed by the segment [oχ] . This can be written succinctly as -Coχ . Below are some examples: Somali has a similar suffix that is used in forming the plural of some nouns: -aC (where C is the last consonant of the base): This combination of reduplication and affixation
1391-707: A number of Southern Paiute songs that Tillohash knew. This fruitful collaboration laid the ground work for the classical description of the Southern Paiute language published in 1930, and enabled Sapir to produce conclusive evidence linking the Shoshonean languages to the Nahuan languages – establishing the Uto-Aztecan language family . Sapir's description of Southern Paiute is known by linguistics as "a model of analytical excellence". At Pennsylvania, Sapir
1498-412: A reduplication of linguistic constituents (i.e. words , stems , roots ). As a result, reduplication is interesting theoretically as it involves the interface between phonology and morphology. The base is the word (or part of the word) that is to be copied. The reduplicated element is called the reduplicant , often abbreviated as RED or sometimes just R . In reduplication, the reduplicant
1605-802: A reduplication of only part of the word. For example, Marshallese forms words meaning 'to wear X' by reduplicating the last consonant-vowel-consonant ( CVC ) sequence of a base, i.e. base + CVC : Many languages often use both full and partial reduplication, as in the Motu example below: Reduplication may be initial (i.e. prefixal ), final (i.e. suffixal ), or internal (i.e. infixal ), e.g. Initial reduplication in Agta (CV- prefix) : Final reduplication in Dakota (-CCV suffix) : Internal reduplication in Samoan (-CV- infix) : Internal reduplication
1712-556: A special written iteration mark 々 to indicate reduplication, although in Chinese the iteration mark is no longer used in standard writing and is often found only in calligraphy . Indo-European languages formerly used reduplication to form a number of verb forms, especially in the preterite or perfect . In the older Indo-European languages, many such verbs survive: Those forms do not survive in Modern English but existed in its parent Germanic languages . Many verbs in
1819-536: A stable appointment for his student, and by his recommendation Sapir ended up being hired by the Canadian Geological Survey, who wanted him to lead the institutionalization of anthropology in Canada. Sapir, who by then had given up the hope of working at one of the few American research universities, accepted the appointment and moved to Ottawa. In the years 1910–25 Sapir established and directed
1926-450: Is (C)V, where V may be long or a diphthong. A sequence VV may occur only in derived forms and compound words; within roots, only the initial syllable may be of the form V. Metathesis of consonants is frequent, such as manu for namu 'scent', lavaʻau for valaʻau 'to call', but vowels may not be mixed up in this way. Every syllable ends in a vowel. No syllable consists of more than three sounds, one consonant and two vowels,
2033-706: Is a Polynesian language spoken by Samoans of the Samoan Islands . Administratively, the islands are split between the sovereign country of Samoa and the United States territory of American Samoa . It is an official language , alongside English , in both jurisdictions. It is widely spoken across the Pacific region, heavily so in New Zealand and also in Australia and the United States . Among
2140-402: Is a close relation between Sapir's literary interests and his anthropological thought. His literary theory saw individual aesthetic sensibilities and creativity to interact with learned cultural traditions to produce unique and new poetic forms, echoing the way that he also saw individuals and cultural patterns to dialectically influence each other. Sapir's special focus among American languages
2247-521: Is an annual celebration of the language in New Zealand supported by the government and various organisations including UNESCO . Samoan Language Week was started in Australia for the first time in 2010. The Samoan alphabet consists of 14 letters, with three more letters ( H , K , R ) used in loan words. The ʻ ( koma liliu or ʻokina ) is used for the glottal stop . Vowel length
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#17328024937042354-413: Is by far the most time-consuming and nerve-racking that I have ever undertaken. Ishi's imperturbable good humor alone made the work possible, though it also at times added to my exasperation". The First World War took its toll on the Canadian Geological Survey, cutting funding for anthropology and making the academic climate less agreeable. Sapir continued work on Athabascan, working with two speakers of
2461-501: Is commonly referred to as fixed-segment reduplication . In Tohono O'odham initial reduplication also involves gemination of the first consonant in the distributive plural and in repetitive verbs: Sometimes gemination can be analyzed as a type of reduplication. In the Malayo-Polynesian family, reduplication is used to form plurals (among many other functions): In pre-1972 Indonesian and Malaysian orthography, 2
2568-459: Is contrasted to "junk-food". One may say, "En ollut eilen koulussa, koska olin kipeä. Siis kipeäkipeä" ("I wasn't at school yesterday because I was sick. Sick-sick, that is"); that means that one was actually suffering from an illness instead of making up excuses, as usual. Words can be reduplicated with their case morphemes, as in lomalla lomalla ("away, on vacation, on leave"), where the adessive morpheme - -lla appears twice. In Swiss German ,
2675-779: Is copied and inserted before the medial consonant of the root. Internal R → L copying in Temiar (an Austroasiatic language of Malaysia ): A rare type of reduplication is found in Semai (an Austroasiatic language of Malaysia). "Expressive minor reduplication" is formed with an initial reduplicant that copies the first and last segment of the base: All of the examples above consist of only reduplication. However, reduplication often occurs with other phonological and morphological process, such as vowel alternation , deletion , affixation of non-reduplicating material, etc. For instance, in Tz'utujil
2782-402: Is done in referring to a family; as Sa Muliaga, the family of Muliaga, the term Sa referring to a wide extended family of clan with a common ancestor. So most words ending in ga , not a sign of a noun, as tigā , puapuaga , pologa , faʻataga and aga . So also all words ending in a diphthong , as mamau , mafai , avai . In speaking the voice is raised, and
2889-432: Is either the bathing-place or the party of bathers. The first would take o after it to govern the next noun, ʻO le taʻelega o le nuʻu , the bathing-place of the village; the latter would be followed by a , ʻO le taʻelega a teine , the bathing-place of the girls. Sometimes such nouns have a passive meaning, such as being acted upon; ʻO le taomaga a lau , the thatch that has been pressed; ʻo le faupuʻega
2996-464: Is his excellence or that is his best. Many verbs may become participle-nouns by adding ga ; as sau , come, sauga ; e.g. ʻO lona sauga muamua , his first coming; mau" to mauga , ʻO le mauga muamua , the first dwelling. As there is no proper gender in Oceanic languages, different genders are sometimes expressed by distinct names: When no distinct name exists, the gender of animals
3103-486: Is important for the ways in which culture and society develop. Among his major contributions to linguistics is his classification of Indigenous languages of the Americas , upon which he elaborated for most of his professional life. He played an important role in developing the modern concept of the phoneme , greatly advancing the understanding of phonology . Before Sapir it was generally considered impossible to apply
3210-542: Is most often repeated only once. However, in some languages, reduplication can occur more than once, resulting in a tripled form, and not a duple as in most reduplication. Triplication is the term for this phenomenon of copying two times. Pingelapese has both forms. In this article, English translations of words are shown in apostrophes: Triplication occurs in other languages, e.g. Ewe , Shipibo , Twi , Mokilese , Min Nan ( Hokkien ), Stau . Sometimes gemination (i.e.
3317-577: Is much less common than the initial and final types. A reduplicant can copy from either the left edge of a word ( left-to-right copying) or from the right edge ( right-to-left copying). There is a tendency for prefixing reduplicants to copy left-to-right and for suffixing reduplicants to copy right-to-left: Initial L → R copying in Oykangand Kunjen (a Pama–Nyungan language of Australia ): Final R → L copying in Sirionó : Copying from
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3424-629: Is notable for the phonological differences between formal and informal speech as well as a ceremonial form used in Samoan oratory. Samoan is an analytic , isolating language and a member of the Austronesian family, and more specifically the Samoic branch of the Polynesian subphylum. It is closely related to other Polynesian languages with many shared cognate words such as aliʻi , ʻava , atua , tapu and numerals as well as in
3531-459: Is often used when a speaker adopts a tone more "expressive" or figurative than ordinary speech and is also often, but not exclusively, iconic in meaning. Reduplication is found in a wide range of languages and language groups, though its level of linguistic productivity varies. Examples of it can be found at least as far back as Sumerian , where it was used in forming some color terms , e.g. babbar "white", kukku "black". Reduplication
3638-412: Is phonemic in Samoan; all five vowels also have a long form denoted by the macron . For example, tama means child or boy, while tamā means father. Diphthongs are /au ao ai ae ei ou ue/ . The combination of u followed by a vowel in some words creates the sound of the English w , a letter not part of the Samoan alphabet, as in uaua (artery, tendon). /a/ is reduced to [ ə ] in only
3745-475: Is represented by the koma liliu ("inverted comma"), which is recognized by Samoan scholars and the wider community. The koma liliu is often replaced by an apostrophe in modern publications. Use of the apostrophe and macron diacritics in Samoan words was readopted by the Ministry of Education in 2012 after having been abandoned in the 1960s. /l/ is pronounced as a flap [ ɾ ] following
3852-441: Is sometimes used where English would require the indefinite article. As a specific, rather than a definite article, it is used for specific referents that the speaker has in mind (specificity), regardless of whether the listener is expected to know which specific referent(s) is/are intended (definiteness). A sentence such as ʻUa tu mai le vaʻa , could thus, depending on context, be translated into English as "A canoe appears", when
3959-575: Is the standard term for this phenomenon in the linguistics literature. Other terms that are occasionally used include cloning , doubling , duplication , repetition , and tautonym when it is used in biological taxonomies , such as Bison bison . Reduplication is often described phonologically in one of two ways: either (1) as reduplicated segments (sequences of consonants / vowels ) or (2) as reduplicated prosodic units ( syllables or moras ). In addition to phonological description, reduplication often needs to be described morphologically as
4066-576: Is used when the speaker doesn't have a particular individual of a class in mind, such as in the sentence Ta mai se laʻau , "Cut me a stick", whereby there is no specific stick intended. The plural non-specific article ni is the plural form and may be translated into English as "some" or "any", as in Ta mai ni laʻau , "Cut me some sticks". In addition, Samoan possesses a series of diminutive articles. Names of natural objects, such as men, trees and animals, are mostly primitive nouns, e.g. ʻO le la ,
4173-532: The Chicago School of Sociology , and his friendship with psychologist Harry Stack Sullivan . From 1931 until his death in 1939, Sapir taught at Yale University , where he became the head of the Department of Anthropology. He was invited to Yale to found an interdisciplinary program combining anthropology, linguistics and psychology, aimed at studying "the impact of culture on personality". While Sapir
4280-540: The Nootka language. Apart from Sapir the division had two other staff members, Marius Barbeau and Harlan I. Smith. Sapir insisted that the discipline of linguistics was of integral importance for ethnographic description, arguing that just as nobody would dream of discussing the history of the Catholic Church without knowing Latin or study German folksongs without knowing German, so it made little sense to approach
4387-556: The Southern Paiute language ; he decided to work with Tony Tillohash , who proved to be the perfect informant. Tillohash's strong intuition about the sound patterns of his language led Sapir to propose that the phoneme is not just an abstraction existing at the structural level of language, but in fact has psychological reality for speakers. Tillohash became a good friend of Sapir, and visited him at his home in New York and Philadelphia. Sapir worked with his father to transcribe
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4494-575: The phoneme . In 1907–1908 Sapir was offered a position at the University of California at Berkeley , where Boas' first student Alfred Kroeber was the head of a project under the California state survey to document the Indigenous languages of California. Kroeber suggested that Sapir study the nearly extinct Yana language , and Sapir set to work. Sapir worked first with Betty Brown, one of
4601-575: The 2021 census in Australia conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Samoan language is spoken in the homes of 49,021 people. US Census 2010 shows more than 180,000 Samoans reside in the United States, which is triple the number of people living in American Samoa, while slightly less than the estimated population of the island nation of Samoa – 193,000, as of July 2011. Samoan Language Week ( Vaiaso o le Gagana Sāmoa )
4708-545: The Aboriginal American Culture (1916), in which he laid out an approach to using historical linguistics to study the prehistory of Native American cultures. Particularly important for establishing him in the field was his seminal book Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech (1921), which was a layman's introduction to the discipline of linguistics as Sapir envisioned it. He also participated in
4815-534: The Alaskan languages Kutchin and Ingalik . Sapir was now more preoccupied with testing hypotheses about historical relationships between the Na-Dene languages than with documenting endangered languages, in effect becoming a theoretician. He was also growing to feel isolated from his American colleagues. From 1912 Florence's health deteriorated due to a lung abscess , and a resulting depression. The Sapir household
4922-706: The Anthropological Division in the Geological Survey of Canada in Ottawa. When he was hired, he was one of the first full-time anthropologists in Canada. He brought his parents with him to Ottawa, and also quickly established his own family, marrying Florence Delson, who also had Lithuanian Jewish roots. Neither the Sapirs nor the Delsons were in favor of the match. The Delsons, who hailed from
5029-523: The Chinook sound system than Boas. In the summer of 1906 he worked on Takelma and Chasta Costa . Sapir's work on Takelma became his doctoral dissertation, which he defended in 1908. The dissertation foreshadowed several important trends in Sapir's work, particularly the careful attention to the intuition of native speakers regarding sound patterns that later would become the basis for Sapir's formulation of
5136-616: The Indo-European languages exhibit reduplication in the present stem, rather than the perfect stem, often with a different vowel from that used for the perfect: Latin gigno, genui ("I beget, I begat") and Greek τίθημι, ἔθηκα, τέθηκα (I place, I placed, I have placed). Other Indo-European verbs used reduplication as a derivational process: compare Latin sto ("I stand") and sisto ("I remain"). All of those Indo-European inherited reduplicating forms are subject to reduction by other phonological laws. Reduplication can be used to refer to
5243-749: The Iroquois in 1988.) He also argued for the reversal of a Canadian law prohibiting the Potlatch ceremony of the West Coast tribes. In 1915 Sapir returned to California, where his expertise on the Yana language made him urgently needed. Kroeber had come into contact with Ishi , the last native speaker of the Yahi language , closely related to Yana, and needed someone to document the language urgently. Ishi , who had grown up without contact with European-Americans,
5350-474: The Origin of Language , and included examples from Inuit and Native American languages, not at all familiar to a Germanicist. The thesis criticized Herder for retaining a Biblical chronology, too shallow to allow for the observable diversification of languages, but he also argued with Herder that all of the world's languages have equal aesthetic potentials and grammatical complexity. He ended the paper by calling for
5457-513: The Polynesian languages, Samoan is the most widely spoken by number of native speakers. Samoan is spoken by approximately 260,000 people in the archipelago and with many Samoans living in diaspora in a number of countries, the total number of speakers worldwide was estimated at 510,000 in 2015. It is the third-most widely spoken language in New Zealand, where 2.2% of the population, 101,900 people, were able to speak it as of 2018. The language
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#17328024937045564-510: The Yana material for publication until 1910, to Kroeber's deep disappointment. Sapir ended up leaving California early to take up a fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania , where he taught Ethnology and American Linguistics. At Pennsylvania he worked closely with another student of Boas, Frank Speck , and the two undertook work on Catawba in the summer of 1909. Also in the summer of 1909, Sapir went to Utah with his student J. Alden Mason . Intending originally to work on Hopi, he studied
5671-419: The administrative pressures to which Kroeber was subject, among them the need for a speedy completion and a focus on the broader classification issues. In the end Sapir didn't finish the work during the allotted year, and Kroeber was unable to offer him a longer appointment. Disappointed at not being able to stay at Berkeley, Sapir devoted his best efforts to other work, and did not get around to preparing any of
5778-780: The choice of an international auxiliary language. He was the first Research Director of the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA), which presented the Interlingua conference in 1951. He directed the Association from 1930 to 1931, and was a member of its Consultative Counsel for Linguistic Research from 1927 to 1938. Sapir consulted with Alice Vanderbilt Morris to develop the research program of IALA. Samoan language Samoan ( Gagana faʻa Sāmoa or Gagana Sāmoa , pronounced [ŋaˈŋana ˈsaːmʊa] )
5885-480: The classification search of the database itself. There are approximately 470,000 Samoan speakers worldwide, 50 percent of whom live in the Samoan Islands. Thereafter, the greatest concentration is in New Zealand , where there were 101,937 Samoan speakers at the 2018 census, or 2.2% of the country's population. Samoan is the third-most spoken language in New Zealand after English and Māori. According to
5992-404: The compound word is composed; as tofátumoánaíná , to be engulfed. The articles le and se are unaccented. When used to form a pronoun or participle, le and se are contractions for le e , se e , and so are accented; as ʻO le ona le meae , the owner, literally the (person) whose (is) the thing, instead of O le e ona le meae . The sign of the nominative ʻoe ,
6099-548: The course "Introduction to Anthropology", with Professor Livingston Farrand , who taught the Boas "four field" approach to anthropology. He also enrolled in an advanced anthropology seminar taught by Franz Boas , a course that would completely change the direction of his career. Although still in college, Sapir was allowed to participate in the Boas graduate seminar on American Languages, which included translations of Native American and Inuit myths collected by Boas. In this way Sapir
6206-533: The development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States. Sapir was born in German Pomerania , in what is now northern Poland. His family emigrated to the United States of America when he was a child. He studied Germanic linguistics at Columbia , where he came under the influence of Franz Boas , who inspired him to work on Native American languages . While finishing his Ph.D. he went to California to work with Alfred Kroeber documenting
6313-486: The doubling of consonants or vowels) is considered to be a form of reduplication. The term dupleme has been used (after morpheme ) to refer to different types of reduplication that have the same meaning. Full reduplication involves a reduplication of the entire word. For example, Kham derives reciprocal forms from reflexive forms by total reduplication: Another example is from Musqueam Halkomelem "dispositional" aspect formation: Partial reduplication involves
6420-421: The emphasis falls on the last word in each sentence. When a word receives an addition by means of an affixed particle, the accent is shifted forward; as alofa , love; alofága , loving, or showing love; alofagía , beloved. Reduplicated words have two accents; as palapala , mud; segisegi , twilight. Compound words may have even three or four, according to the number of words and affixes of which
6527-444: The end of his life he was professor of anthropology at Yale . Among his many students were the linguists Mary Haas and Morris Swadesh , and anthropologists such as Fred Eggan and Hortense Powdermaker . With his linguistic background, Sapir became the one student of Boas to develop most completely the relationship between linguistics and anthropology. Sapir studied the ways in which language and culture influence each other, and he
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#17328024937046634-409: The family lived in poverty. As Jacob Sapir could not provide for his family, Sapir's mother, Eva Seagal Sapir, opened a shop to supply the basic necessities. They formally divorced in 1910. After settling in New York, Edward Sapir was raised mostly by his mother, who stressed the importance of education for upward social mobility, and turned the family increasingly away from Judaism. Even though Eva Sapir
6741-452: The field of anthropology in his own days. Instead of searching for the ways in which culture influences human behavior, Sapir was interested in understanding how cultural patterns themselves were shaped by the composition of individual personalities that make up a society. This made Sapir cultivate an interest in individual psychology and his view of culture was more psychological than many of his contemporaries. It has been suggested that there
6848-410: The fire; talafaʻasolopito , ("history") stories placed in order, faletalimalo , ("communal house") house for receiving guests. Like many Austronesian languages, Samoan has separate words for inclusive and exclusive we , and distinguishes singular , dual , and plural . The root for the inclusive pronoun may occur in the singular, in which case it indicates emotional involvement on the part of
6955-724: The first based on evidence from modern comparative linguistics. He was the first to produce evidence for the classification of the Algic , Uto-Aztecan , and Na-Dene languages . He proposed some language families that are not considered to have been adequately demonstrated, but which continue to generate investigation such as Hokan and Penutian . He specialized in the study of Athabascan languages , Chinookan languages , and Uto-Aztecan languages, producing important grammatical descriptions of Takelma , Wishram , Southern Paiute . Later in his career he also worked with Yiddish , Hebrew , and Chinese , as well as Germanic languages , and he also
7062-684: The formulation of a report to the American Anthropological Association regarding the standardization of orthographic principles for writing Indigenous languages. While in Ottawa, he also collected and published French Canadian Folk Songs, and wrote a volume of his own poetry. His interest in poetry led him to form a close friendship with another Boasian anthropologist and poet, Ruth Benedict . Sapir initially wrote to Benedict to commend her for her dissertation on "The Guardian Spirit", but soon realized that Benedict had published poetry pseudonymously. In their correspondence
7169-406: The house, the builders. In some cases verbal nouns refer to either persons or things done by them: ʻO le faiga a talo , the getting of taro, or the party getting the taro , or the taro itself which has been got. The context in such cases decides the meaning. Sometimes place is indicated by the termination; such as tofā , to sleep; tofāga , a sleeping-place, a bed. ʻO le taʻelega
7276-466: The indigenous languages there. He was employed by the Geological Survey of Canada for fifteen years, where he came into his own as one of the most significant linguists in North America, the other being Leonard Bloomfield . He was offered a professorship at the University of Chicago , and stayed for several years continuing to work for the professionalization of the discipline of linguistics. By
7383-482: The language's few remaining speakers. Later he began work with Sam Batwi, who spoke another dialect of Yana, but whose knowledge of Yana mythology was an important fount of knowledge. Sapir described the way in which the Yana language distinguishes grammatically and lexically between the speech of men and women. The collaboration between Kroeber and Sapir was made difficult by the fact that Sapir largely followed his own interest in detailed linguistic description, ignoring
7490-655: The languages of the North West Coast. During his time in Canada, together with Speck, Sapir also acted as an advocate for Indigenous rights, arguing publicly for introduction of better medical care for Indigenous communities, and assisting the Six Nation Iroquois in trying to recover eleven wampum belts that had been stolen from the reservation and were on display in the museum of the University of Pennsylvania. (The belts were finally returned to
7597-414: The last syllable if that contains a long vowel or diphthong or on the second-last syllable otherwise. Verbs formed from nouns ending in a, and meaning to abound in, have properly two aʻs, as puaa ( puaʻaa ), pona , tagata , but are written with one. In speaking of a place at some distance, the accent is placed on the last syllable; as ʻO loʻo i Safotu , he is at Safotu. The same thing
7704-523: The listener or reader is not expected to know which canoe, or "The canoe appears", if the listener or reader is expected to know which canoe, such as when the canoe has previously been mentioned. The plural specific is marked by a null article: ʻO le tagata "the person", ʻO tagata "people". (The word ʻoe in these examples is not an article but a "presentative" preposition. It marks noun phrases used as clauses, introducing clauses or used as appositions etc.) The non-specific singular article se
7811-410: The lung abscess, and she died in 1924 due to an infection following surgery, providing the final incentive for Sapir to leave Canada. When the University of Chicago offered him a position, he happily accepted. During his period in Canada, Sapir came into his own as the leading figure in linguistics in North America. Among his substantial publications from this period were his book on Time Perspective in
7918-502: The major subdivisions of Polynesian under this analysis. A revision by Marck reinterpreted the relationships among Samoan and the outlier languages. In 2008 an analysis, of basic vocabulary only, from the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database is contradictory in that while in part it suggests that Tongan and Samoan form a subgroup, the old subgroups Tongic and Nuclear Polynesian are still included in
8025-884: The major universities, in order to professionalize the discipline. Sapir enlisted the assistance of fellow Boasians: Frank Speck , Paul Radin and Alexander Goldenweiser , who with Barbeau worked on the peoples of the Eastern Woodlands: the Ojibwa , the Iroquois, the Huron and the Wyandot . Sapir initiated work on the Athabascan languages of the Mackenzie valley and the Yukon , but it proved too difficult to find adequate assistance, and he concentrated mainly on Nootka and
8132-504: The methods of historical linguistics to languages of indigenous peoples because they were believed to be more primitive than the Indo-European languages . Sapir was the first to prove that the methods of comparative linguistics were equally valid when applied to indigenous languages. In the 1929 edition of Encyclopædia Britannica he published what was then the most authoritative classification of Native American languages, and
8239-505: The most prototypical instance of a word's meaning. In such a case, it is called contrastive focus reduplication . Finnish colloquial speech uses the process; nouns can be reduplicated to indicate genuinity, completeness, originality and being uncomplicated, as opposed to being fake, incomplete, complicated or fussy. It can be thought as compound word formation. For example, Söin jäätelöä ja karkkia, sekä tietysti ruokaruokaa. "I ate ice cream and candy, and of course food-food". Here, "food-food"
8346-468: The name of gods in mythology . Linguists differ somewhat on the way they classify Samoan in relation to the other Polynesian languages . The "traditional" classification, based on shared innovations in grammar and vocabulary, places Samoan with Tokelauan , the Polynesian outlier languages and the languages of Eastern Polynesia , which include Rapanui , Māori , Tahitian and Hawaiian . Nuclear Polynesian and Tongic (the languages of Tonga and Niue) are
8453-571: The other direction is possible although less common: Initial R → L copying in Tillamook : Final L → R copying in Chukchi : Internal reduplication can also involve copying the beginning or end of the base. In Quileute, the first consonant of the base is copied and inserted after the first vowel of the base. Internal L → R copying in Quileute : In Temiar, the last consonant of the root
8560-406: The prepositions o, a, i, e , and the euphonic particles i and te , are unaccented; as ʻO maua, ma te o atu ia te oee , we two will go to you. Ina , the sign of the imperative, is accented on the ultima; ína , the sign of the subjunctive , on the penultima. The preposition iá is accented on the ultima, the pronoun ia on the penultima. Samoan syllable structure
8667-628: The prestigious Jewish center of Vilna , considered the Sapirs to be rural upstarts and were less than impressed with Sapir's career in an unpronounceable academic field. Edward and Florence had three children together: Herbert Michael, Helen Ruth, and Philip. As director of the Anthropological division of the Geological Survey of Canada, Sapir embarked on a project to document the Indigenous cultures and languages of Canada. His first fieldwork took him to Vancouver Island to work on
8774-1135: The scholarship Sapir supplemented his mother's meager earnings. Sapir entered Columbia in 1901, still paying with the Pulitzer scholarship. Columbia at this time was one of the few elite private universities that did not limit admission of Jewish applicants with implicit quotas around 12 percent—approximately 40% of incoming students at Columbia were Jewish. Sapir earned both a B.A. (1904) and an M.A. (1905) in Germanic philology from Columbia , before embarking on his Ph.D. in Anthropology which he completed in 1909. Sapir emphasized language study in his college years at Columbia, studying Latin, Greek, and French for eight semesters. From his sophomore year he additionally began to focus on Germanic languages, completing coursework in Gothic , Old High German , Old Saxon , Icelandic , Dutch , Swedish , and Danish . Through Germanics professor William Carpenter , Sapir
8881-436: The speaker. In formal speech, fuller forms of the roots mā- , tā- , and lā- are ‘imā- , ‘itā- , and ‘ilā- . Articles in Samoan do not show the definiteness of the noun phrase as do those of English but rather specificity . The singular specific article le has frequently, erroneously, been referred to as a "definite" article, such as by Pratt, often with an additional vague explanation that it
8988-688: The study of Indigenous folklore without knowledge of the indigenous languages. At this point the only Canadian first nation languages that were well known were Kwakiutl, described by Boas, Tshimshian and Haida. Sapir explicitly used the standard of documentation of European languages, to argue that the amassing knowledge of indigenous languages was of paramount importance. By introducing the high standards of Boasian anthropology, Sapir incited antagonism from those amateur ethnologists who felt that they had contributed important work. Unsatisfied with efforts by amateur and governmental anthropologists, Sapir worked to introduce an academic program of anthropology at one of
9095-411: The summer of 1915, having to invent new methods for working with a monolingual speaker. The information from Ishi was invaluable for understanding the relation between the different dialects of Yana. Ishi died of his illness in early 1916, and Kroeber partly blamed the exacting nature of working with Sapir for his failure to recover. Sapir described the work: "I think I may safely say that my work with Ishi
9202-422: The sun; ʻo le tagata , the person; ʻo le talo , the taro; ʻo le iʻa , the fish; also manufactured articles, such as matau , an axe, vaʻa , canoe, tao , spear, fale , house, etc. Some nouns are derived from verbs by the addition of either ga , saga , taga , maga , or ʻaga : such as tuli , to chase; tuliga , chasing; luluʻu , to fill the hand; luʻutaga ,
9309-476: The two critiqued each other's work, both submitting to the same publishers, and both being rejected. They also were both interested in psychology and the relation between individual personalities and cultural patterns, and in their correspondences they frequently psychoanalyzed each other. However, Sapir often showed little understanding for Benedict's private thoughts and feelings , and particularly his conservative gender ideology jarred with Benedict's struggles as
9416-625: The two separated permanently. Mead received news of Sapir's remarriage while still in Samoa, and burned their correspondence there on the beach. Settling in Chicago reinvigorated Sapir intellectually and personally. He socialized with intellectuals, gave lectures, participated in poetry and music clubs. His first graduate student at Chicago was Li Fang-Kuei . The Sapir household continued to be managed largely by Grandmother Eva, until Sapir remarried in 1926. Sapir's second wife, Jean Victoria McClenaghan,
9523-404: The two vowels making a diphthong; as fai , mai , tau . Roots are sometimes monosyllabic , but mostly disyllabic or a word consisting of two syllables. Polysyllabic words are nearly all derived or compound words; as nofogatā from nofo (sit, seat) and gatā , difficult of access; taʻigaafi , from taʻi , to attend, and afi , fire, the hearth, making to attend to
9630-690: The verb is sometimes used as a noun: tatalo , to pray; ʻo le tatalo , a prayer; poto , to be wise; ʻo le poto , wisdom. The reciprocal form of the verb is often used as a noun; e.g. ʻO le fealofani , ʻo femisaiga , quarrellings (from misa ), feʻumaiga ; E lelei le fealofani , mutual love is good. A few diminutives are made by reduplication , e.g. paʻapaʻa , small crabs; pulepule , small shells; liilii , ripples; ' ili'ili , small stones. Adjectives are made into abstract nouns by adding an article or pronoun; e.g. lelei , good; ʻo le lelei , goodness; silisili , excellent or best; ʻo lona lea silisili , that
9737-424: The verbs gah or goh "go", cho "come", la or lo "let" and aafa or aafo "begin" reduplicate when they are combined with other verbs. Si she chunt comes üse our Chrischtboum Edward Sapir Edward Sapir ( / s ə ˈ p ɪər / ; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American anthropologist - linguist , who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in
9844-490: Was also a pioneer in Yiddish studies (his first language) in the United States (cf. Notes on Judeo-German phonology , 1915). Sapir was active in the international auxiliary language movement. In his paper "The Function of an International Auxiliary Language", he argued for the benefits of a regular grammar and advocated a critical focus on the fundamentals of language, unbiased by the idiosyncrasies of national languages, in
9951-401: Was an important influence, Sapir received his lust for knowledge and interest in scholarship, aesthetics, and music from his father. At age 14 Sapir won a Pulitzer scholarship to the prestigious Horace Mann high school , but he chose not to attend the school which he found too posh, going instead to DeWitt Clinton High School , and saving the scholarship money for his college education. Through
10058-401: Was denied membership to the faculty club where the senior faculty discussed academic business. At Yale, Sapir's graduate students included Morris Swadesh , Benjamin Lee Whorf , Mary Haas , Charles Hockett , and Harry Hoijer , several of whom he brought with him from Chicago. Sapir came to regard a young Semiticist named Zellig Harris as his intellectual heir, although Harris was never
10165-835: Was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , the United States National Academy of Sciences , and the American Philosophical Society . In the summer of 1937 while teaching at the Linguistic Institute of the Linguistic Society of America in Ann Arbor , Sapir began having problems with a heart condition that had been diagnosed a couple of years earlier. In 1938, he had to take
10272-447: Was explicitly given the task of founding a distinct anthropology department, this was not well received by the department of sociology who worked by William Graham Sumner 's "Evolutionary sociology", which was anathema to Sapir's Boasian approach, nor by the two anthropologists of the Institute for Human Relations Clark Wissler and G. P. Murdock . Sapir never thrived at Yale, where as one of only four Jewish faculty members out of 569 he
10379-482: Was exposed to methods of comparative linguistics that were being developed into a more scientific framework than the traditional philological approach. He also took courses in Sanskrit, and complemented his language studies by studying music in the department of the famous composer Edward MacDowell (though it is uncertain whether Sapir ever studied with MacDowell himself). In his last year in college Sapir enrolled in
10486-581: Was in the Athabaskan languages, a family which especially fascinated him. In a private letter, he wrote: " Dene is probably the son-of-a-bitchiest language in America to actually know ...most fascinating of all languages ever invented." Sapir also studied the languages and cultures of Wishram Chinook , Navajo , Nootka , Colorado River Numic , Takelma , and Yana . His research on Southern Paiute, in collaboration with consultant Tony Tillohash , led to
10593-461: Was interested in the relation between linguistic differences, and differences in cultural world views. This part of his thinking was developed by his student Benjamin Lee Whorf into the principle of linguistic relativity or the "Sapir–Whorf" hypothesis. In anthropology Sapir is known as an early proponent of the importance of psychology to anthropology , maintaining that studying the nature of relationships between different individual personalities
10700-510: Was introduced to Indigenous American languages while he kept working on his M.A. in Germanic linguistics. Robert Lowie later said that Sapir's fascination with indigenous languages stemmed from the seminar with Boas in which Boas used examples from Native American languages to disprove all of Sapir's common-sense assumptions about the basic nature of language. Sapir's 1905 Master's thesis was an analysis of Johann Gottfried Herder 's Treatise on
10807-584: Was invested in the development of an International Auxiliary Language . Sapir was born into a family of Lithuanian Jews in Lauenburg (now Lębork) in the Province of Pomerania where his father, Jacob David Sapir, worked as a cantor . The family was not Orthodox , and his father maintained his ties to Judaism through its music. The Sapir family did not stay long in Pomerania and never accepted German as
10914-404: Was largely run by Eva Sapir, who did not get along well with Florence, and this added to the strain on both Florence and Edward. Sapir's parents had by now divorced and his father seemed to develop psychosis, which made it necessary for him to leave Canada for Philadelphia , where Edward continued to support him financially. Florence was hospitalized for long periods both for her depressions and for
11021-533: Was monolingual in Yahi and was the last surviving member of his people. He had been adopted by the Kroebers, but had fallen ill with tuberculosis , and was not expected to live long. Sam Batwi, the speaker of Yana who had worked with Sapir, was unable to understand the Yahi variety, and Krober was convinced that only Sapir would be able to communicate with Ishi. Sapir traveled to San Francisco and worked with Ishi over
11128-540: Was on the Wishram Chinook language in the summer of 1905, funded by the Bureau of American Ethnology. This first experience with Native American languages in the field was closely overseen by Boas, who was particularly interested in having Sapir gather ethnological information for the Bureau. Sapir gathered a volume of Wishram texts, published 1909, and he managed to achieve a much more sophisticated understanding of
11235-547: Was shorthand for the reduplication that forms plurals: orang "person", orang-orang or orang2 "people". This orthography has resurfaced widely in text messaging and other forms of electronic communication. The Nama language uses reduplication to increase the force of a verb : go , "look;", go-go "examine with attention". Chinese also uses reduplication: 人 rén for "person", 人人 rénrén for "everybody". Japanese does it too: 時 toki "time", tokidoki 時々 "sometimes, from time to time". Both languages can use
11342-496: Was sixteen years younger than he. She had first met Sapir when a student in Ottawa, but had since also come to work at the University of Chicago's department of Juvenile Research. Their son Paul Edward Sapir was born in 1928. Their other son J. David Sapir became a linguist and anthropologist specializing in West African Languages, especially Jola languages . Sapir also exerted influence through his membership in
11449-486: Was urged to work at a quicker pace than he felt comfortable. His "Grammar of Southern Paiute" was supposed to be published in Boas' Handbook of American Indian Languages , and Boas urged him to complete a preliminary version while funding for the publication remained available, but Sapir did not want to compromise on quality, and in the end the Handbook had to go to press without Sapir's piece. Boas kept working to secure
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