Description
Book SynopsisIn Amazonian Quichua Language and Life: Introduction to Grammar, Ecology, and Discourse from Pastaza and Upper Napo, Janis B. Nuckolls and Tod D. Swanson discuss two varieties of Quichua, an indigenous Ecuadorian language. Drawing on their linguistic and anthropological knowledge, extensive fieldwork, and personal relationships with generations of speakers from Pastaza and Napo communities, the authors open a door into worlds of intimate meaning that knowledge of Quichua makes accessible. Nuckolls and Swanson link grammatical lessons with examples of naturally occurring discourse, traditional narratives, conversations, songs, and personal experiences to teach readers about the languages’ structures and discourse patterns and speakers’ sensory depictions, ecological aesthetics, and emotional perspectives.
Trade Review"Strongly rooted in day-to-day Quichua cultural experiences, this innovative and highly practical course book provides many insights into the language spoken in the upper Amazon in Ecuador. In its organization it strikes the right balance between grammatical overviews and cultural practices. It's your best entry into Quichua language-culture and a book that makes you want to learn even more."
-- Pieter Muysken, Radboud University
“This text represents a major accomplishment and considerably expands the available scholarship on not just one, but two varieties of Amazonian Quichua. This book is quite clearly the result of careful scholarship and long-term research with speakers of Amazonian Quichua. Writing with sensitivity to the rich linguistic and cultural practices of their interlocutors, the authors open a path for students to enter the relational world of Amazonian Quichua. Not just a linguistic textbook, the authors also contextualize the linguistic practices within the vibrant, and at times unfamiliar, social environment of speakers of Amazonian Quichua. This book will be useful for introductory and advanced language courses, as well as for independent scholars."
-- Georgia Ennis, Penn State University
Table of ContentsContents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part 1: Self and Other
Lesson 1: The most basic verbal interactions
Lesson 2: Expressing ideas of being
Lesson 3: Talking about family
Lesson 4: Types of questions
Lesson 5: Affirming, negating and evading
Lesson 6: Articulating the perspectives of self and other
Lesson 7: Human and nonhuman bodies
Lesson 8: Expressing thoughts, feelings, processes, and enumeration
Lesson 9: Suffixes of instrumentality, accompaniment and the imperatives
Lesson 10: Suffixes of Togetherness, Separateness, and Exclusivity
Part 2: Space and Time
Lesson 11: Purpose, directionality, duration, color
Lesson 12: Attribution, location, past tense
Lesson 13: Habituality, complex movement suffixes, delimitation
Lesson 14: The Co-reference suffix -sha
Lesson 15: The Switch-Reference suffix -kpi
Lesson 16: The Present Perfect -shka
Lesson 17: Talking about the future
Lesson 18: Varieties of compound verbs
Lesson 19: Conditionality, ordering and connecting ideas
Lesson 20: Evidentiality, speech reports, Inchoative -ya, and Purposive -chun
Vocabulary
Bibliography
