Sahaptin Grammar and Texts

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Abstract Narrative The Sahaptin language was spoken aboriginally in central and eastern Washington state, and along the middle Columbia and Deschutes Rivers in Oregon. Sahaptin and Nez Perce, a language spoken in Idaho and northeastern Oregon, together comprise the Sahaptian family. The Sahaptian languages are of particular interest to linguists both in terms of their genetic and his- torical relationships to other American Indian languages, and also because of their grammatical properties, some of which bear directly on currently discussed issues in linguistic theory. Documentation of the language, however, is scanty. The purpose of this project is to produce a grammar of Sahaptin. The process of preparing the grammar, with computational aids, will also result in the analysis of a number of Sahaptin texts, which will also be an important contribution to the field. The Co-Principal Investigator, who will be carrying out the bulk of the work on the project, has worked for a number of years on the related language Nez Perce. His work has been very successful, and has earned him a reputation as an extremely talented young linguist. This experience has made him entirely qualified to carry out the proposed new project to a successful conclusion.