Catherine Willmond and Pamela Munro

Pamela Munro Professor, UCLA Linguistics Dept. 3125 Campbell Hall UCLA Box 951543 Los Angeles CA 90095-1543 munro@ucla.edu

My primary research involves the study of all aspects of the grammar of a number of different American Indian languages (currently focusing on Chickasaw, San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec, Macuiltianguis Zapotec, Tlacolula Zapotec, Lakhota, Tolkapaya Yavapai, Garifuna, and Gabrielino, among others) and language families (especially Muskogean, Uto-Aztecan, Yuman, and Zapotecan) — syntax, phonology, lexicon, history — both through fieldwork with native speakers and through comparative research and analysis of existing descriptions. In the field of syntax, I am often concerned with problems of agreement, reference, and subjecthood. I consider it vital to make linguistic findings available to native speakers and other interested laymen through accurate, accessible descriptive and pedagogical materials, including dictionaries. I am particularly interested in working out better ways to make dictionaries, since I feel that this process generally illuminates most aspects of grammar.

Selected publications

• Ronald W. Langacker and Pamela Munro. 1975. "Passives and their meaning", Language 51: 789-830.
• Pamela Munro. 1976. Mojave Syntax. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.
• Katherine Siva Sauvel and Pamela Munro. 1981. Chem'ivillu' (Let's Speak Cahuilla). Los Angeles and Banning, CA: UCLA American Indian Studies Center and Malki Museum Press.
• Pamela Munro and Lynn Gordon. 1982. "Syntactic relations in Western Muskogean: A typological perspective", Language 58: 81-115.
• Maurice L. Zigmond, Curtis G. Booth, and Pamela Munro. 1990. Kawaiisu: Grammar and Dictionary, with Texts, University of California Publications in Linguistics 119.
• Pamela Munro. 1990. "Stress and vowel length in Cupan absolute nominals", IJAL 56: 217-50.
• Pamela Munro (editor); Susan E. Becker, Gina Laura Bozajian, Deborah S. Creighton, Lori E. Dennis, Lisa Renée Ellzey, Michelle L. Futterman, Ari B. Goldstein, Sharon M. Kaye, Elaine Kealer, Irene Susanne Veli Lehman, Lauren Mendelsohn, Joseph M. Mendoza, Lorna Profant, and Katherine A. Sarafian. 1991. Slang U. New York: Harmony Books. Excerpted as Pamela Munro, with Susan E. Becker, et al. "Party hats and pirates' dreams", Rolling Stone 600 (March 21, 1991): 67-69.
• Pamela Munro. 1993. "The Muskogean II prefixes and their significance for classification", IJAL 59: 374-404.
• Pamela Munro and Catherine Willmond. 1994. Chickasaw: An Analytical Dictionary. Norman - London: University of Oklahoma Press.
• Pamela Munro and Dieynaba Gaye. 1997. Ay Baati Wolof: A Wolof Dictionary (Revised Edition), UCLA Occasional Papers in Linguistics 19.
• Pamela Munro and Felipe H. Lopez, with Olivia V. Méndez, Rodrigo Garcia, and Michael R. Galant. 1999. Di'csyonaary X:tèe'n Dìi'zh Sah Sann Lu'uc (San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec Dictionary / Diccionario Zapoteco de San Lucas Quiaviní). Chicano Studies Research Center Publications, UCLA.

Languages (and families; stocks / principal speaker locations) on which I've done fieldwork and/or published

Cahuilla (Uto-Aztecan / California), Chemehuevi (Uto-Aztecan / Arizona, California), Cherokee (Iroquoian / Oklahoma, North Carolina), Chickasaw (Muskogean / Oklahoma), Choctaw (Muskogean / Oklahoma, Mississippi, Louisiana), Creek-Seminole (Muskogean / Oklahoma, Florida), Crow (Siouan / Montana), Diegueño (Yuman / California), Gabrielino (Uto-Aztecan — extinct / California), Garifuna (Arawakan / Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua), Hopi (Uto-Aztecan / Arizona), Kawaiisu (Uto-Aztecan / California), Lakhota (Siouan / South Dakota), Luiseño (Uto-Aztecan / California), Maricopa (Yuman / Arizona), Mojave (Yuman / Arizona, California), Navajo (Athabascan / Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah), Pima (Uto-Aztecan / Arizona), Tübatulabal (Uto-Aztecan / California), Wolof (West Atlantic; Niger-Kordofanian / Senegal, Gambia), Yavapai (Yuman / Arizona), Yupik (Eskimo-Aleut / Alaska), Zapotec languages of San Lucas Quiaviní, Macuiltianguis, and Tlacolula (Zapotecan; Otomanguean / Oaxaca).

Some ongoing research projects

• San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec. Felipe Lopez and I (with assistance by Silvia Lopez and others) are revising the recently published Zapotec-English-Spanish dictionary and completing an edited collection of personal narratives describing speakers' experiences emigrating from Oaxaca to Los Angeles. (For more information, see the now somewhat outdated project web page.) We are also working on developing a simplified orthography for use by native speakers.
• Chickasaw. Catherine Willmond and I are revising a teaching grammar of Chickasaw versions of which have been used so far in six undergraduate classes at UCLA.
• Other Zapotec projects. (1)  John Foreman and I are conducting research on Macuiltianguis Zapotec, a language of the Sierra of Oaxaca. (2) Brook Lillehaugen and I are conducting research on Tlacolula Zapotec, like San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec a language of the Valley of Oaxaca. (3) I have been collecting data on other Valley Zapotec languages for a projected study of dialectology. (4) Kevin Terraciano (UCLA, History), Lisa Sousa (Occidental College), John Foreman, Brook Lillehaugen, and I are studying written Zapotec documents from the early Mexican Colonial period.
• UCLA undergraduate slang. I regularly collect slang expressions from UCLA undergraduates for a growing longitudinal database. Every fouryears I lead a group of undergraduates in preparing a dictionary of current campus slang (the most recent collection (U.C.L.A. Slang 3) was published in 1997; the next such publication will be in Spring 2001).
• Tolkapaya Yavapai. Based on work with the late Molly Fasthorse, I am working on a dictionary and grammatical sketch of Tolkapaya (Western) Yavapai.
• Wolof. Dieynaba Gaye and I are revising our second preliminary version of the first Wolof-English dictionary.
• Comparative Muskogean. George A. Broadwell, Emanuel J. Drechsel, Heather K. Hardy, Geoffrey D. Kimball, Jack Martin, and I (with assistance by others) are compiling an analytical collection of cognate sets from languages of the Muskogean family.
• The Christmas Story.  Each year (with only one exception since 1989) I work with a speaker of an indigenous language of the Americas to translate Luke 2: 1, 3-20 into that language. This year the Christmas story was retold in Lakhota by Mary Iron Teeth. I hope to have these stories available on the web very soon.

Teaching

I regularly teach UCLA undergraduate courses on American Indian linguistics (Linguistics 114, which includes coverage of the structure of Chickasaw presented in collaboration with Catherine Willmond), historical linguistics (Linguistics 110), field methods (Linguistics 160), and slang (Linguistics 88A); this year I also taught beginning phonology (Linguistics 120A).

I regularly teach UCLA graduate courses in field methods (Linguistics 210AB); from time to time I teach graduate courses on the structure of various language families (e.g. Muskogean, Siouan, Zapotecan), dictionary making, and other special topics.

I work individually with graduate and undergraduate students in Linguistics, as well as graduate students in Applied Linguistics and American Indian Studies.

I am proud to have served as the advisor or co-advisor for UCLA Ph.D.s in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics whose dissertations preserve vital information on endangered American languages, including George A. Broadwell (Choctaw), Harold D. Crook (Nez Perce), Lynn Gordon (Maricopa), Heather K. Hardy (Tolkapaya Yavapai), Felicia A. Lee (San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec), Jean Mulder (Tsimshian), Doris L. Payne (Yagua), Brian C. Potter (Western Apache), Janine L. Scancarelli (Cherokee), Charles H. Ulrich (Choctaw), Cynthia A. Walker (Chickasaw), Karen K. Wallace (Crow), and Robert S. Williams (Choctaw). (I'm certainly very proud of my other Ph.D. students, including Susanna Cumming, Hyo Sang Lee, Rachel Lagunoff, Michaela Safadi, Stephan Schuetze-Coburn, and Marian Shapley, as well.) I'm also proud of my master's students with theses on American languages in Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, and American Indian Studies, Janet Scott Batchler (Chickasaw), Janine Ekulona (Garifuna), Olivia V. Méndez (San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec), Alicia Moretti (Assiniboine), and Angela Rodel (Lakhota) (and also Christina Foreman, who wrote on another topic).

Please email me for information about our department's weekly American Indian Linguistics seminar, at which linguists and others from a number of UCLA departments and other institutions informally present ongoing research.

Outreach

I have worked with many indigenous American communities and individual community members, helping to develop orthographies and educational materials on language and providing assistance in interpreting technical published sources.