عنوان

A Historical Reconstruction of the Koman Language Family

Number

TL51666

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

A Historical Reconstruction of the Koman Language Family

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Otero, Manuel Alejandro

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

Payne, Doris L

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

University of Oregon

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2019

Text of Note

757 p.

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Body granting the degree

University of Oregon

Text preceding or following the note

2019

Text of Note

This dissertation is a historical-comparative reconstruction of the Koman family, a small group of languages spoken in what now constitutes the borderlands of Ethiopia, Sudan and South Sudan. Koman is comprised five living languages: Gwama, Opo, Komo, Uduk, and the previously unidentified Dana language. The Koman family has been relatively understudied though it has figured prominently in large-scale classifications of the Nilo-Saharan super family. These classifications are radically distinct, given the paucity of research on Koman as a whole at the time. Some current scholars even question Koman's genetic affiliation to Nilo- Saharan entirely. One main issue in high-level classifications is the lack of low-level reconstructions of families established with verifiable sound correspondences coupled with morphological evidence to support the internal structure of a given family. This dissertation addresses this issue by reconstructing the basic phonology, including segmental and suprasegmental domains, and tracing the evolution from Proto-Koman down through the nodes to the modern-day sound systems. In addition, some of the core lexicon and morphology is reconstructed to Proto-Koman and to the subnodes. The data for this dissertation was collected in the field from native speakers of all of the living Koman languages including from previously undocumented varieties. In an effort to make the analyses as faithful to the data as possible, all of the data and all of the correspondence sets employed to reconstruct proto-sounds are provided in the Appendices. Further, an etymological wordlist of lexica reconstructed to distinct nodes within the family is also provided. While Koman's affiliation to the purported Nilo-Saharan super family is still under debate, the overarching aim of this dissertation is to provide a conservative reconstruction of Proto-Koman which will hopefully serve future Koman scholars as well as those interested in higher-level genetic classifications of East African languages.

Subject Term

Linguistics

Otero, Manuel Alejandro

Payne, Doris L

University of Oregon

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y