Peggy Speas

Last updated

Margaret "Peggy" Speas is a linguist who works on syntax, specifically evidentiality and Navajo. She is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Speas received her PhD in Linguistics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1986. [1] Speas's work focuses on differences between elicitation, documentation and linguistic data analysis on North American Native Languages. [2] She also works with preservation of Navajo and is a founding member of the Navajo Language Academy. [3]

Contents

Work with language preservation

Peggy Speas has been heavily involved with the preservation of North American native languages, with focus on Navajo. She is a founding member of the Navajo Language Academy, [3] where she has served as president for two years. Founded in 1997, the Academy is a nonprofit organization which promotes the study and preservation of Navajo. [4] In the end of 1999, she finished her term as an associate editor on the journal, Language . [5] Speas is a co-author, with Evangeline Parsons Yazzie, on the book Diné Bizaad Bináhoo'aah: Rediscovering the Navajo Language, [6] which is now used as the official state textbook for the Navajo language in New Mexico. [7] In 2011, she was recognized as a Spotlight Scholar for her over 20 years of work in preserving North American native languages. [8]

Key publications

(2007) Yazzie, Evangeline Parsons, Jessie Ruffenach, Margaret Speas, and Berlyn Yazzie. Diné Bizaad Bináhoo'aah. Salina Bookshelf, 2007.

(2004) Speas, Margaret. "Evidentiality, logophoricity and the syntactic representation of pragmatic features." Lingua 114.3: 255-276.

(2003) Speas, Peggy, and Carol Tenny. "Configurational properties of point of view roles." Asymmetry in grammar 1: 315-345.

(1994) Speas, Peggy. "Null arguments in a theory of economy of projection."

(1990) Speas, Margaret. Phrase structure in natural language. Vol. 21. Springer Science & Business Media, 1990.

(1986) Speas, Margaret Jean. Adjunctions and projections in syntax. Dissertation. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Navajo language</span> Athabaskan language of Na-Dené stock in the United States

Navajo or Navaho is a Southern Athabaskan language of the Na-Dené family, as are other languages spoken across the western areas of North America. Navajo is spoken primarily in the Southwestern United States, especially in the Navajo Nation. It is one of the most widely spoken Native American languages and is the most widely spoken north of the Mexico–United States border, with almost 170,000 Americans speaking Navajo at home as of 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annie Dodge Wauneka</span> Navajo Nation activist (1910–1997)

Annie Dodge Wauneka was an influential member of the Navajo Nation as member of the Navajo Nation Council. As a member and three term head of the council's Health and Welfare Committee, she worked to improve the health and education of the Navajo. Wauneka is widely known for her countless efforts to improve health on the Navajo Nation, focusing mostly on the eradication of tuberculosis within her nation. She also authored a dictionary, in which translated English medical terms into the Navajo language. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963 by Lyndon B. Johnson as well as the Indian Council Fire Achievement Award and the Navajo Medal of Honor. She also received an honorary doctorate in Humanities from the University of New Mexico. In 2000, Wauneka was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara H. Partee</span> American linguist (born 1940)

Barbara Hall Partee is a Distinguished University Professor Emerita of Linguistics and Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass). She is known as a pioneer in the field of formal semantics.

The Navajo Language Academy is a non-profit educational and advocacy organization which focuses on the Navajo language.

Marianne Mithun is an American linguist specializing in American Indian languages and language typology. She is a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she has held an academic position since 1986.

Emmon Bach was an American linguist. He was Professor Emeritus at the Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Professorial Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), part of the University of London. He was born in Kumamoto, Japan.

This article is about the sound system of the Navajo language. The phonology of Navajo is intimately connected to its morphology. For example, the entire range of contrastive consonants is found only at the beginning of word stems. In stem-final position and in prefixes, the number of contrasts is drastically reduced. Similarly, vowel contrasts found outside of the stem are significantly neutralized. For details about the morphology of Navajo, see Navajo grammar.

Vee F. Browne is an American writer of children's literature, and journalist. She is from Cottonwood and Tselani Arizona, and a member of the Navajo Nation, belonging to the Bitter Water and Water Flows Together clans.

Paul Platero was a Navajo linguist. He was born into the Water’s Edge Clan for the Two Who Came To the Water Clan. He was a student of the late MIT linguistics professor Ken Hale. Platero earned his Ph.D. in linguistics from MIT, with a dissertation on the relative clause in Navajo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southern Athabaskan languages</span> Subfamily of Athabaskan languages

Southern Athabaskan is a subfamily of Athabaskan languages spoken primarily in the Southwestern United States with two outliers in Oklahoma and Texas. The languages are spoken in the northern Mexican states of Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila and to a much lesser degree in Durango and Nuevo León. Those languages are spoken by various groups of Apache and Navajo peoples. Elsewhere, Athabaskan is spoken by many indigenous groups of peoples in Alaska, Canada, Oregon and northern California.

Elisabet Britt Engdahl is a Swedish linguist and professor emerita of Swedish at the University of Gothenburg. She was the first linguist to investigate parasitic gaps in detail.

Salina Bookshelf is a publishing company based in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Eloise Jelinek was an American linguist specializing in the study of syntax. Her 1981 doctoral dissertation at the University of Arizona was titled "On Defining Categories: AUX and PREDICATE in Colloquial Egyptian Arabic". She was a member of the faculty of the University of Arizona from 1981 to 1992.

Lyn Frazier (born October 15, 1952, in Madison, Wisconsin) is an American experimental linguist, focusing on psycholinguistic research of adult sentence comprehension. She is professor emerita at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Harris (linguist)</span> American linguist and caucasologist (b. 1947)

Alice Carmichael Harris is an American linguist. She is Professor emerita of Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Ellen Broselow is an experimental linguist specializing in second language acquisition and phonology. Since 1983, she has been on the faculty of SUNY Stony Brook University, where she has held the position of Professor of Linguistics since 1993.

Elisabeth O. Selkirk is a theoretical linguist specializing in phonological theory and the syntax-phonology interface. She is currently a professor emerita in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Jane Barbara Grimshaw is a Distinguished Professor [emerita] in the Department of Linguistics at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. She is known for her contributions to the areas of syntax, optimality theory, language acquisition, and lexical representation.

Dr. Lisa Green is a linguist specializing in syntax and African American English (AAE). She is a professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. In July 2020 she was awarded the title of Distinguished Professor.

Evangeline Parsons Yazzie was a Navajo educator and author of the first textbook adopted by the U.S. public education system to teach the Navajo language.

References

  1. ↑ "Margaret Speas (CV)".
  2. ↑ Sims, Christine (2010). "Indigenous Language Revitalization: Encouragement, Guidance & Lessons Learned" . American Indian Quarterly. 34 (2): 263–265. doi:10.1353/aiq.0.0110. S2CID   161810295 . Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  3. 1 2 "UMass Amherst Linguist Recognized for Preserving Native American Languages". Indian Country. Archived from the original on 2016-03-08.
  4. ↑ "Navajo Language Academy | UMass Amherst Worldwide". www.umass.edu. Retrieved 2015-07-22.
  5. ↑ "The Editor's Department". Language. 76 (2): 502. June 2000. doi:10.1353/lan.2000.0092. S2CID   257979691.
  6. ↑ Parsons-Yazzie, Evangeline (2007). Dine Bizaad Binahoo'aah: Rediscovering the Navajo Language. Salina Bookshelf.
  7. ↑ "Canku Ota - December 1, 2008 - NM governor unveils new Navajo language textbook". www.turtletrack.org. Retrieved 2015-07-22.
  8. ↑ "Education Briefs". Navajo Times. 31 March 2011. Retrieved 9 October 2015– via Bibliography of Native North Americans - EBSCOhost.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.