Amazonian Quichua Language and Life: Introduction to Grammar, Ecology, and Discourse from Pastaza and Upper Napo, Ecuador

by Janis B. Nuckolls, Tod D. Swanson

Overview

In 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781793616197
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	10/21/2020
Pages:	290
Product dimensions:	6.32(w) x 8.97(h) x 0.85(d)

About the Author

Janis Nuckolls is professor of anthropological linguistics at Brigham Young University

Tod Swanson is associate professor in the faculty of religious studies at Arizona State University.

Table of Contents

Contents

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

Editorial Reviews

"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

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