ABSTRACT Investigation of grammatical elements functioning within naturalistic discourse expands our understanding of the workings of grammar. Moreover, it reveals how discourse genres and cultural practices are partially constructed through speakers' use of grammatical resources. The grammar of Northern Pomo, a dying American Indian language of Northern California, displays several grammatical subsystems (e.g. fluid-S' subject case marking, logophoric pronouns, so-called switch reference) which interact with discourse in ways that are of interest to theories of grammar and discourse. The grammar has been extensively described, but descriptive and theoretical work on these and other topics has been limited by the availability of a very small corpus of extended discourse. Now an opportunity has arisen to collect a large corpus of conversational and traditional narrative data from two of the last fluent and intellectually active Northern Pomo speakers. The Principal Investigator will collect conversational data, and working with her consultant of the last decade, will transcribe, analyze, gloss, and translate new and existing conversational and monologue data. This will culminate in a volume of texts, with grammatical and lexical supporting material. The PI will also investigate specific linguistic hypotheses about the grammar of Northern Pomo based on the analyzed corpus of connected discourse.
