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Abstract

In this dissertation, I examine grammaticalization and linguistic cycles in the Yuman-Cochimí family. Whereas grammaticalization involves the loss of lexical meaning, phonological substance, and syntactic independence of an element as it takes on a more functional role in the grammar over the diachrony of a language, elements which are subject to considerable loss, especially those critical to the grammar of a language, are reinforced or even replaced by another element from the lexicon. This constitutes a cycle. By using descriptive Yuman grammars (N=26), dictionaries (N=12), texts of the languages, and other Yuman scholarship, I examine six case studies: (1) reflexives, (2) passives, (3) case, (4) agreement, (5) pronominals and demonstratives, and (6) grammatical number. I primarily employ the comparative method, internal reconstruction, areal analysis, and language contact in Yuman, as well as philological and corpus analysis of the dormant Cochimí language of Baja California (Mixco, 1978; Shaul, 2020). Informed by the robust typological literature on grammaticalization (Kuteva et al., 2019, inter alia), I utilize the minimalist-based Linguistic Cycle framework of van Gelderen (2011a; 2022), infused with theories of Voice head (Kratzer, 1996; Alexiadou, 2014) as well as the featural composition of agreement (Béjar & Rezac, 2009), demonstrative deixis (Harbour, 2016; Bjorkman et al., 2019), and grammatical number (Harbour, 2014). With the benefit of rich typological literature, theoretical discoveries, and improved documentation of Yuman languages, this dissertation proposes descriptive and theoretical solutions for some of the puzzles related to (1-6), both synchronically in the languages, historically in the reconstruction of Proto-Yuman morphosyntax, and diachronically with innovations in the languages. I address the puzzles with both descriptive and explanatory power for some of the cases of grammaticalization and cycles in Yuman-Cochimí, which typologically informs the literature on language change.