Cover not available

To be specified published In: Journal of Historical Linguistics
Vol. 6:1 (2016) ► pp.72–92

Article

How the accusative became the relative

A Samoyedic key to the Eskimo-Uralic relationship?

 | University of Copenhagen and St Hugh’s College, Oxford
Published online: 29 September 2016
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.6.1.03for
Abstract
The Eskimo-Uralic hypothesis of a genetic link between Eskimo-Aleut and the Uralic languages is now reaching its second centenary. Two major problems with its advancement since Bergsland, Knut. 1959. The Eskimo-Uralic Hypothesis. Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 611. 1–29.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar summary of its status are addressed in this article. The first of these is the lack of an obvious correlate of the ubiquitous Eskimo-Aleut (EA) relative case marker -m in Uralic; the other is the lack of an m-initial first person singular morpheme in EA to correlate with that of the Uralic languages. That the EA singular genitive/relative marker -m — as well as the instrumental/accusative singular -mək based on it — might be cognate with Uralic singular accusative -m was suggested already by Sauvageot, Aurélien. 1953. Caractère ouraloïde du verbe eskimo. Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 491. 107–121.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, but no firm conclusion on the matter has since been reached. This has remained a tantalizing possibility, despite the conflicting semantics. However, the remarkable morphosyntactic parallels between Eskimo-Aleut and Samoyedic in particular have grown more apparent with recent publications. A solution is proposed, linking the emergence of ergativity in the Eskimo-Aleut family with a reanalysis of the original nominative-accusative case marking system.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The source of the Eskimo-Aleut relative case
  • 3.Relative and accusative 1st person singular
  • 4.A possible contiguous Eskimo-Uralic “homeland”
  • 5.Summary
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • References
References (35)
References
Abondolo, Daniel. 1998. Finnish. In Daniel Abondolo, ed., 149–183. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
, ed. 1998. The Uralic Languages. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y., & R. M. W. Dixon, eds. 2001. Areal Diffusion and Genetic Inheritance. Problems in Comparative Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bergsland, Knut. 1959. The Eskimo-Uralic Hypothesis. Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 611. 1–29.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1997. Aleut Grammar. Research Paper Number 10, Alaska Native Language Center. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Fairbanks.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Collinder, Björn. 1960. Comparative Grammar of the Uralic Languages. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Comrie, Bernard, 2010. The Role of Verbal Morphology in Establishing Genealogical Relations among Languages. Transeurasian Verbal Morphology in a Comparative Perspective: Genealogy, Contact, Chance ed. by L. Johansen & M. Robbeets, 21–31. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fedoseeva, S.H. 1980. Ymyiakhtakhskaia kul’tura Severo-vostochnoi Azii. Novosibirsk: Nauka.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fortescue, Michael. 1984. West Greenlandic. Beckenham, Kent: Croom Helm.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1998. Language Relations across Bering Strait: Reappraising the Archaeological and Linguistic Evidence. London: Cassell Academic.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. The Relationship of Nivkh to Chukotko-Kamchatkan Revisited. Lingua 1211. 1359–1376. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fortescue, Michael, Steven Jacobson, & Lawrence Kaplan. 2010. Comparative Eskimo Dictionary with Aleut Cognates. 2nd ed. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Häkkinen, Jaakko. 2012. Early Contacts between Uralic and Yukagir. Per Urales ad Orientum, iter polyphonicum multilingue, Festskrift tillägnad Juha Janhunen på hans sextioårsdag den 12 februar 2012, Suomilais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia (Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne) 264. 91–101.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd. 2009. Grammaticalization of Cases. In Andrej Malchukov & Andrew Spencer, eds., 458–469.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ives, John. 2010. Dene-Yeniseian, Migration and Prehistory. The Dene-Yeniseian Connection ed. by J. Kari & B. A. Potter, 324–334. Fairbanks: Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska, New Series Vol. 51: 1–2.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Janhunen, Juha. 1982. On the Structure of Proto-Uralic. Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen 441. 23–42.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1998. Samoyedic. In Daniel Abondolo, ed., 457–479.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2009. Proto-Uralic—What, Where, and When? The Quasquicentennial of the Finno-Ugrian Society, Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 258. 57–78.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kittilä, Seppo & Andrej Malchukov. 2009. Varieties of accusative. In Andrej Malchukov & Andrew Spencer, eds., 549–561.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Malchukov, Andrej & Andrew Spencer, eds. 2009. The Oxford Handbook of Case. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maslova, Elena. 2009. Case in Yukaghir. In Andrej Malchukov & Andrew Spencer, eds.,, 789–796.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mikola, Tibor. 1988. Geschichte der Samojedischen Sprachen. The Uralic Languages ed. by Denis Sinor, 219–265. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nikolaeva, Irina. 1988. Problema uralo-jukogirskix svjazej. Dissertatsija kand. fil. nauk. Moskva: Akademija nauk.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. A Grammar of Tundra Nenets. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Powers, W.R., & R.H. Jordan. 1990. Human Biography and Climate Change in Siberia and Arctic North America in the Fourth and Fifth Millennium BP. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences 330: 1615. 665–670. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pusztay, János. 2004. Thoughts on the Chain-Like Homeland of the Uralic People. The Mankind Quarterly 3/41. 313–328. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rask, R. K. 1818. Undersōgelse om det gamle Nordiske eller Islandske Sprogs Oprindelse. Kjōbenhavn: Gyldendalske Boghandlings Forlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sauvageot, Aurélien. 1953. Caractère ouraloïde du verbe eskimo. Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 491. 107–121.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Seefloth, Uwe. 2000. Polypersonale Paradigmen im Uralo-Sibirischen, Zentralasiatische Studien 301. 163–191.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Starikovskaya, E. B., R. I. Sukernik, O. A. Derbeneva, N. V. Volodko, E. Ruiz-Pesini, A. Torroni, M. D. Brown, M. T. Lott, S. H. Hosseini, K. Huoponen, & D. C. Wallace. 2005. Mitochondrial DNA Diversity in Indigenous Populations of the Southern Extent of Siberia, and the Origins of Native American Haplogroups. Annals of Human Genetics 69: 1. 67–89. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trask, Robert. 1979. On the Origins of Ergativity. Ergativity ed. by F. Plank, 385–404. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Turunen, Rigina. 2011. Parts of Speech in Non-Typical Function: (A)Symmetrical Encoding of Non-Verbal Predicates in Erzya. Linguistic Discovery 9: 1. 137–172. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Uhlenbeck, C. C. 1905. Uralische Anklänge in den Eskimosprachen. Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 591. 757–765.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Volodko, N. V., E. B. Starikovskaya, I. O. Mazunin, N. P. Eltsov, P. V. Naidenko, D. C. Wallace, & R. I. Sukernik. 2008. Mitochondrial Genome Diversity in Arctic Siberians with Particular Reference to the Evolutionary History and Pleistocenic Peopling of the Americas. The American Journal of Human Genetics 821. 1084–1100. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue