Sonora Yaqui Language Structures (review)

Written by two scholars of long-term affiliation with the Summer Institute of Linguistics, this comprehensive descriptive grammar is designed to serve three purposes. First and foremost, it provides a detailed functional account of Yaqui, a Southern Uto- Aztecan language spoken mainly in Sonora, Mexico. Every grammatical point is richly illustrated with relevant examples that reflect natural Yaqui discourse or narration. Morpheme-by-morpheme glosses and literal translations designed to facilitate use of the data by general linguists in future typological or other category-specific studies accompany each example sentence. Also helpful in this respect is the abundance of examples illustrating discourse-related aspects of language structure such as deictic particles. This wealth of new Yaqui material reflects three decades of fieldwork by John M. Dedrick, who passed away in 1999 while the manuscript was still in press. The process of prepublication editing benefited from the participation of Eloise Jelinek, whose foreword (xix) begins the volume.

Second, the book’s synchronic description of Yaqui is specifically organized to address the needs of comparative Uto-Aztecan linguistics. This feature is due mainly to the second author, Eugene H. Casad, who has conducted extensive research on other Uto- Aztecan languages as well. To facilitate its comparative value, the presentation of material follows that of several previous grammatical sketches of Uto-Aztecan languages edited by Ronald W. Langacker (Studies in Uto-Aztecan grammar, 4 vols., Arlington: SIL & University of Texas at Arlington, 1977–84). A brief but adequate account of the phonology (21–35) is followed by a detailed discussion of sentence types (37–116). Part 3, ‘Word classes’ (117–253), covers the basic morphology of the nominal parts of speech and briefly describes the suffixes used to derive verb stems from other parts of speech. The remaining derivational as well as inflectional categories of the polysynthetic Yaqui verb receive elaborate separate treatment (257–355). Part 5 (357–98) covers complex sentence structure. Introduction of the morphology only after the discussion of most sentence types does not really detract from the material’s usefulness since the book is styled as a reference rather than as a reading grammar.

Third, the book contains a wealth of information about Yaqui ethnohistory and traditional culture, beginning with the introduction (1–19) which also provides a good overview of previous linguistic studies of the language. Also included is a sample text (399–407) entitled ‘Habiel mó’el’ (‘Gabriel Sparrow’s narrow escape’), recorded in the 1940s. Given morpheme glosses and interlinear translation, it is the book’s only extensive reproduction of connected speech. The example sentences throughout likewise reveal many useful facts about Yaqui sociolinguistics, and many were chosen for their cultural as well as grammatical relevance. Because D’s experience came almost entirely from living and working among the Yaqui majority located in Mexico, language variations from the Arizona Yaqui communities are mentioned only briefly in the introduction.

Intended for the serious linguist as well as anyone interested in the cultural anthropology of northern Mexico, this large and attractively formatted hardback is very reasonably priced.