Document Type

Response or Comment

Publication Date

7-2011

Abstract

The Dene–Yeniseian (DY) hypothesis argues that Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit (NaDene) is related to the Siberian family Yeniseian, which consists of Ket and several extinct relatives. The strongest evidence comes from the verb-internal tense–mood system, action nominal (gerund, infinitive) morphology, and sound correspondences based on cognates in basic vocabulary. Shared words for ‘conifer needles’, ‘conifer pitch’, ‘rump, leg’, ‘liver’, and others reveal that phonemic tones arose separately in Yeniseian and Athabaskan from an earlier distinction involving coda glottalization, the original glottal articulation surviving in Tlingit and Eyak. Proponents of the DY hypothesis regard such evidence as indicative of genealogical affinity.

Publication Title

International Journal of American Linguistics

Volume

77

Issue

3

First Page

451

Last Page

452

Required Publisher's Statement

Copyright 2011 University of Chicago Press. The original published version may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/660978.

Subjects - Topical (LCSH)

Na-Dene languages--Grammar, Comparative--Yeniseian; Yeniseian languages--Grammar Comparative--Na-Dene; Languages in contact; Field theory (Linguistics)

Genre/Form

essays

Type

Text

Language

English

Format

application/pdf

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