The Morphosyntax of Deretu Manchu

Abstract

This dissertation presents a detailed description of the morphosyntax of Deretu Manchu, an endangered variety of Manchu spoken traditionally within my mukvn, or clan. First, this work introduces the Manchu language, community-related information, revitalization, and recent speaker demographics. This information is followed by the Deretu Manchu description itself, comprising a brief introduction to its phonemic inventory and phonology, and a description of both its morphology and syntax. All descriptive portions of this text additionally provide examples of contemporary uses of our language in modern speaking domains – involving topics such as programming, linguistics, video games, and job searching. Finally, this work includes a Jurchen language SAS® Terms Dictionary intended for community use, as well as a discussion of the most frequent methods of developing neologisms used by myself and my ahvn Mukdexan in our revitalization work together.