Re: Salishan nounlessness

Wow. I'm just now reading some articles on the very topic in an effort
to finish up some remaining problems in Miapimoquitch syntax (which is
designed so as not to make a formal distinction bewteen Noun and
Verb). The following articles argue that there is no distinction
between Noun and Verb in languages of the Northwest:

Boas, Franz. 1911. Kwakiutl. Handbook of American Indian languages I,
ed. by Franz Boas, 423-557. Washington, DC: Bureau of American
Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution.

Hukari, Thomas E. 1976. Person in a Coast Salish language.
International Journal of American Linguistics 42.305-18.

Jelinek, Eloise and Richard A. Demers. 1994. Predicates and Pronominal
Arguments in Straits Salish. Language 70: 697-736.

Kinkade, M. Dale. 1983. Salish evidence against the universality of
"Noun" and "Verb". Lingua 60.25-40.

Kuipers, Aert. 1968. The categories verb-noun and
transitive-intransitive in English and Squamish. Lingua 21.610-26.

Sapir, Edward. Some aspects of Nootka language and culture. American
Anthropologist 13.15-28.

For a couple of works that take the opposing view, see:

Hess, Thomas M., and Jan van Eijk. Noun and verb in Salishan. Working
Papers of the 20th International Conference on Salish and Neighboring
Languages, 97-104. Vancouver: University of British Columbia.

Jacobson, William H., Jr. 1979. Noun and verb in Nootkan. Proceedings
of the Victoria Conference on Northwestern Languages, 1976, ed. by
Barbara S. Efrat, 83-153. Victoria: British Columbia Provincial Museum
Heritage Record No. 4.

Good luck.

Dirk

On 10/20/07, Eric Christopherson <rakko@...> wrote:
> I've read that some linguists consider Salishan languages to have no
> nouns, but others dispute this. Does anyone know of some good reading
> material on this debate?
>