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  This study examines the phonology and historical development of the labialized dorsal consonants in Seri (Cmiique Iitom), a language of northwestern Mexico. This language has a rare contrast between velar and uvular fricatives, each with labialized counterparts, forming six voiceless dorsal phonemes. It is shown that labialized consonants originated historically through the loss of round vowels in three main contexts: posttonic syllable, the third person indirect object prefix, and the emphatic realis prefix. Phonetic phenomena such as anticipatory labialization and postlexical spread are presented in detail. The study also discusses the Seri orthography, which preserves distinctions critical to the language’s structure. Este estudio examina la fonología y el desarrollo histórico de las consonantes dorsales labializadas en el seri (cmiique iitom), una lengua del noroeste de México. Esta lengua presenta un contraste poco común entre fricativas velares y uvulares, cada una con su contraparte labializada, formando seis fonemas dorsales sordos. Se demuestra que las consonantes labializadas surgieron históricamente por la pérdida de vocales redondeadas en tres contextos principales: la sílaba postónica, el prefijo de objeto indirecto de tercera persona y el prefijo de realis enfático. Se presentan detalles fonéticos como la labialización anticipada y la propagación posléxica. Además, se analiza la ortografía del seri, que preserva distinciones críticas para la estructura del idioma.

Este estudio examina la fonología y el desarrollo histórico de las consonantes dorsales labializadas en el seri (cmiique iitom), una lengua del noroeste de México. Esta lengua presenta un contraste poco común entre fricativas velares y uvulares, cada una con su contraparte labializada, formando seis fonemas dorsales sordos. Se demuestra que las consonantes labializadas surgieron históricamente por la pérdida de vocales redondeadas en tres contextos principales: la sílaba postónica, el prefijo de objeto indirecto de tercera persona y el prefijo de realis enfático. Se presentan detalles fonéticos como la labialización anticipada y la propagación posléxica. Además, se analiza la ortografía del seri, que preserva distinciones críticas para la estructura del idioma.

Isla Rasa in the Gulf of California has been recognized as an important seabird breeding island for more than 150 y. Yet during most of this period, the island suffered human disturbances that severely reduced seabird nesting success. Today, nearly two decades after disturbances ended, Isla Rasa supports about 90% of the global populations of Heermann's gulls (Larus heermanni) and elegant terns (Thalasseus elegans), plus smaller populations of other species. However, the recently available 1856 journals of Italian naturalist Federico Craveri, and the oral traditions of the Comcaac (Seri people), suggest that the array of nesting species has changed. Apparently, California brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis californicus) abandoned Isla Rasa as a breeding site at the onset of disturbances, and terns first colonized it around 1920.

In 1925, Sapir proposed that Seri (Sonora, Mexico) and Salinan (central California) formed, with Chumash, a branch of the Hokan stock but did not provide any supporting argumentation. In 1956, Bright presented a small amount of data that in a preliminary way seemed to confirm that hypothesis, although these data and this presentation were not meant to be taken as the argumentation that was lacking. No further documentation has ever been produced, although the Seri–Salinan family reappeared in Greenberg’s 1987 volume on languages of the Americas (without discussion), which was cited in the 1992International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, which was the basis for the classification in theEthnologue. In this paper, the Seri data are refined, the data from Bright (1956) are re‐evaluated, and the proposal of a genetic relationship is put into doubt. It is suggested, in fact, that the hypothesis should be abandoned until proper evidence is presented.

Denominal verbs in Seri are productively formed by affixing the prefix to a bound noun base (such as body-part nouns) and typically mean 'have X' or something related pragmatically to that meaning. The denominal verb may be morphologically and syntactically transitive or intransitive. When it is transitive, a direct object may appear in the clause which further specifies the identity of the noun which is in the verb. The noun base is typically nonreferential, although some examples in which it is referential appear to be quite acceptable. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

This paper describes the form and use of names in the Seri language. Names are distinguishable from common nouns by some tests. Some names are simple, but others are complex, often constructed from common noun phrases. It is shown how the patterns described are attested in names of people, places, months, etc. Names may be embellished by certain common nouns and they may be used as appositive modifiers. Finally, the use of names and other words in vocative function is described.

Isthmus Zapotec (autoglossonym: [dìʤàˈzàˑ]) is the common name used for a variety of Zapotec (Otomanguean family) spoken on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, Mexico (Suárez 1983: xvi; Campbell 1997: 158). It is now officially listed by the Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (INALI 2008) as ‘zapoteco de la planicie costera’ (‘coastal plain Zapotec’) to distinguish it from other varieties of Zapotec spoken on the Isthmus. It is the mother tongue of many inhabitants of various cities and towns, as well as many smaller communities (INALI 2008), with some lexical, syntactic and phonetic variation between towns only a few kilometers apart. The ISO 639-3 code for this variety is zai. Since the most recent census figures do not separate out the varieties of Zapotec, and have not done so reliably when attempted, official statistics as to the number of speakers of Isthmus Zapotec are not available. (The Ethnologue (Lewis 2009) cites the 1990 census as listing 85,000 speakers; that figure must have been an interpretation of other statistics in the census.) INALI (personal communication, September 2008) estimates the current number to be about 104,000. In the city of Tehuantepec, the language is no longer widely used. In certain other locations, including Juchitán de Zaragoza, Spanish is becoming the dominant or the only language spoken by many people born after about 1990, although Zapotec is dominant in many outlying towns, including San Blas Atempa. Mature speakers have remarked that young people who are not fluent do not use tones correctly. Isthmus Zapotec has had active writers, including poets and novelists, since the first half of the twentieth century, well before an orthography was officially established (Alfabeto popular 1956), but reading and writing of the language are still not taught in schools in the region.

Yine [ˈjine] (previously known as Piro, ISO 639-3 = pib) is a Maipuran language (Payne 1991, Campbell 1997, Solís Fonseca 2003). See Payne (1991) and Campbell (1997) for discussion of the relationship of the Maipuran (or Maipurean) languages to the controversial Arawakan stock. There are approximately 3,000 speakers of Yine in the Peruvian Amazon. People in Brazil and Bolivia known as Manchineri (alternative spellings exist; ISO 639-3 = mpd) also speak a dialect of Yine (Urquía Sebastián 2006a).

This paper is a general and brief introduction to the phenomena explored in this issue--denominal verbs and allied constructions. We outline their morphological, syntactic, and semantic properties and contrast them with other similar phenomena such as noun incorporation and noun stripping. As seen in the papers herein, these properties may differ substantially from language to language, but the various constructions are profitably compared under a common rubric. Thus, these papers give a glimpse of the linguistic variety that is found in languages of North America, while contributing to our typological knowledge of denominal verb constructions, which heretofore have received little attention. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]