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This paper explores the use of the set of positional auxiliary verbs SIT, STAND, LIE, and MOVE in Biloxi. It offers a detailed analysis of these positionals and compares their use with other Siouan and some non-Siouan languages. While positional stance verbs also double as positional auxiliaries in many languages of the world, in Biloxi positional auxiliaries are grammaticized variants of what were once physical stance verbs, evidenced by the fact that the positional auxiliaries no longer take pronominal marking and sometimes occur side-by-side with their physical stance counterparts. This is a typologically interesting situation in which positional auxiliary verbs form a discrete series distinct from positional stance verbs. The proper use of positional verbs is a complex aspect of the grammar of Biloxi and other Siouan languages. While the choice of positional verbs is often logically motivated based on an object's salient axial extension or shape, this analysis demonstrates that, particularly in more abstract cases, the proper choice of positional auxiliary is not at all obvious. Discrepancies in choice of positional, even among closely related languages and even in the same language, are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes a typological contribution by describing a stress system that uses syllabic trochees while also displaying characteristics more typically associated with a quantity-sensitive language. The description comes from Tohono O'odham. The rhythm of this language is quantity-insensitive and trochaic, although the language also displays characteristics often associated with quantity-sensitivity (i.e., long vowels, gemination). Examined together, the facts illustrated here demonstrate the prosodic inconsistency of Tohono O'odham: that rhythm and prosodic morphology offer different perspectives on the role played by quantity, and that Tohono O'odham is the first language documented to split its rhythm and prosodic morphology along quantitative lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents results of a phonological and phonetic study of stress in Chickasaw, a Muskogean language spoken in south central Oklahoma. Three degrees of stress are differentiated acoustically, with primary stressed vowels having the highest f0 and greatest duration and intensity, unstressed vowels having the lowest f0 and shortest duration and intensity, and secondary stressed vowels displaying intermediate f0, duration, and intensity values. Vowel quality differences and segmental lenition processes also are diagnostic for stress. The location of stress is phonologically predictable, falling on word-final syllables, heavy (CVC and CVV) syllables, and on the second in a sequence of light (CV) syllables. Short vowels in nonfinal open syllables are made heavy through a process of rhythmic vowel lengthening. Primary stress is sensitive to a further weight distinction, which treats CVV as heavier than both CV and CVC. In words lacking a CVV syllable, stress falls on the final syllable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]