A grammar of Kolyma Yukaghir

Viac o knihe

Kolyma Yukaghir is a critically endangered language spoken by around 50 people in northeastern Asiatic Russia, representing one of the two remaining languages in the Yukaghir family. Scholars debate its classification, viewing it either as an isolate from before the spread of other languages in Siberia or as a distant relative of the Uralic family. Yukaghir exhibits grammatical characteristics typical of Siberian languages, such as being predominantly verb-final and featuring rich agglutinative morphology along with complex clause-linking strategies. It also possesses unique typological features that attract the interest of linguists across various theoretical perspectives. These include a focus-marking system, differential object marking influenced by person hierarchy, mandatory bound possessive markers for non-coreference, and an intricate switch-reference system. The book covers all major aspects of descriptive grammar, including phonology, syntax, and a dedicated chapter on coreference and discourse coherence. It includes annotated sample texts, a Yukaghir-English vocabulary, and a subject index. Drawing from extensive field materials and non-elicited data, the book is structured for ease of reference, with cross-references and concise summaries throughout. It appeals to scholars of Uralic and Siberian languages, linguistic typology, and general linguistics.