Full Description
This volume discusses methodological issues in conducting elicitation on semantic topics in a fieldwork situation. In twelve chapters discussing 11 language families from four continents, authors draw on their own fieldwork experience, pairing explicit methodological proposals with concrete examples of their use in the field. Several chapters cover issues specific to semantic topics such as modality, comparison, tense and aspect, and definiteness, while others focus on elicitation techniques more generally, addressing methodological issues such as the creation of elicitation plans, the choice of language in which to conduct elicitation, and the status of translation tasks. Together, the chapters of this volume demonstrate that elicitation on semantic topics, when conducted following sound methodologies, can and does produce reliable results. Given the high number of languages currently classified as endangered, conducting one-on-one fieldwork with native speaker consultants is critical for gathering new empirical findings that bear on linguistic theory.
Contents
Introduction ; M. Ryan Bochnak and Lisa Matthewson ; Part 1: General Overview of Elicitation Techniques ; 1. A practical epistemology for semantic elicitation in the field and elsewhere ; Jurgen Bohnemeyer ; 2. The Problem with No-Nonsense Elicitation Plans (for semantic fieldwork) ; Meagan Louie ; Part 2: Techniques for Particular Semantic Domains ; 3. Documenting and Classifying Aspectual Classes Across Languages ; Leora Bar-el ; 4. Investigating gradable predicates, comparison, and degree constructions in underrepresented languages ; M. Ryan Bochnak and Elizabeth Bogal-Allbritten ; 5. Targeted construction storyboards in semantic fieldwork ; Strang Burton and Lisa Matthewson ; 6. Reasoning about equivalence in semantic fieldwork ; Amy Rose Deal ; 7. Investigating D in Languages With and Without Articles ; Carrie Gillon ; Part 3: Using Language-Internal Evidence to Guide Semantic Fieldwork ; 8. Linguistically establishing discourse context: two case studies from Mayan languages ; Scott AnderBois and Robert Henderson ; 9. Semantic fieldwork on TAM ; Rebecca T. Cover ; 10. Deriving topic effects in Kiowa with semantics and pragmatics ; Andrew McKenzie ; 11. Reciprocity in Fieldwork and Theory ; Sarah E. Murray ; 12. Theories of meaning in the field: Temporal and aspectual reference ; Rebecca Cover and Judith Tonhauser
