Russell Thornton
Biographic Data
| ID | 79257 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Russell Thornton |
| GIVEN NAMES | Russell |
| FAMILY NAME | Thornton |
| SIGNATURE | THORNTON R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Macquarie University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2854-3720 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 83 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 281 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 83 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1970 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
The interpretation of disjunction in VP ellipsis
It has long been noted that verb phrase (VP) ellipsis cancels the polarity sensitivity of the English Positive Polarity Items (PPIs). In recent work, it has been proposed that words for disjunction are governed by a parameter. On one value of the parameter, disjunction is a PPI for adult speakers of many languages including Mandarin Chinese. On the other value, disjunction is interpreted in situ. It has also been proposed that child language lear…
Negation and First Language Acquisition
This chapter investigates children’s acquisition of negation from a cross-linguistic perspective. The chapter reviews topics in the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of negation in children’s grammars. Discussion of the syntax of negation in early grammars includes the hierarchical position of negation in children’s early structures, internal versus external negation, and the syntactic category of the negative marker. Topics relevant to 3- to 5-y…
Like dishwashing detergents, all analogies are not the same
This response argues against the proposal that novel utterances are formed by analogy with stored exemplars that are close in meaning. Strings of words that are similar in meaning or even identical can behave very differently once inserted into different syntactic environments. Furthermore, phrases with similar meanings but different underlying syntactic structures can give rise to disparities in meaning in particular contexts. In short, analogy …
Subject–Aux Inversion in Children with SLI
Cleft sentences and reconstruction in child language
This study examines it -clefts in four- and five-year-old English-speaking children using a truth-value judgment task. The goal was to find out whether children (i) observe principle C in clefts like It was Spot that he brushed and (ii) access bound-variable interpretations in clefts like It was her pig that every girl carried , despite the lack of c-command between relevant elements in the surface representation. Our experimental finding was tha…
Differences in Scope Assignments for Child and Adult Speakers of Mandarin
The interpretation of logical connectives in Turkish
This study investigated how Turkish-speaking children and adults interpret negative sentences with disjunction (English or ) and ones with conjunction (English and ). The goal was to see whether Turkish-speaking children and adults assigned the same interpretation to both kinds of sentences and, if not, to determine the source of the differences. Turkish-speaking children and adults were found to assign different interpretations to negative sente…
Negative sentences in children with specific language impairment
This study used elicited production methodology to investigate the negative sentences that are produced by English-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI). Negative sentences were elicited in contexts in which adults use the negative auxiliary verb doesn’t (e.g., It doesn’t fit). This form was targeted to see how negative markers ( not, n’t) interact with the 3rd person singular - s in the grammars of children with SLI. A robust…
First Language Acquisition, Linguistic Theory of
Americas, Sociocultural Overviews
Children’s knowledge of double negative structures in Mandarin Chinese
Studies at the interface of child language and models of language acquisition
This commentary on this special issue underscores the importance of experimental design, suggesting that less than optimal methodology can lead to errors on the part of children (and adults) that are sometimes interpreted as stemming from other sources, including processing limitations or problems with an ‘interface.’ Methodological remarks aside, the syntax–discourse interface stands out as problematic and the source of much debate about transfe…
Sentential negation in early child English
Starting with the seminal work of Klima & Bellugi (1966) and Bellugi (1967), young English-speaking children have been observed to pass through a stage at which their negative utterances differ from those of adults. Children initially use not or no , whereas adults use negative auxiliary verbs ( don't , can't , etc.). To explain the observed mismatches between child and adult language, the present study adopts Zeijlstra's (2004, 2007, 2008a, b) N…
Early child control
Repatriation as healing the wounds of the trauma of history
Implementing repatriation in the United States
Universal Grammar versus language diversity
Why continuity
Language Acquisition is Language Change
Historical Demography
The Navajo–U.S. Population Mortality Crossover since the Mid-20th Century
Binding principles and ACD constructions in child grammars
Antecedent-contained deletion (ACD) constructions have been the focus of much recent literature in linguistic theory. These constructions have been instrumental in arguments against dispensing with the operation of Quantifier Raising (QR) and a level of Logical Form (LF) (e.g., May 1985; Fiengo & May 1994; Fox 1999, 2000). In fact, it has been argued that in ACD constructions, the binding principles apply at LF (e.g., Fiengo & May 1994). The pres…
A Report of a New Mandan Calendric Chart
Many Native American peoples of the Plains kept oral histories in which periods of time were designated by events. Often pictorial recordings of these events were created as mnemonic devices to assist proper memory, which itself was some-times recorded in written language. These pictorial calendars occasionally resurface and provide new insights into the histories of Native Americans. A new pictorial calendar of the Mandan Indians has recently re…
A Rosebud Reservation Winter Count, circa 1751-1752 to 1886-1887
This is a discussion of a newly found winter count of a Lakota tiyospaye(extended kinship group) that eventually ended up on the Rosebud Reservation created for the Sicangu (Brule). The count is on muslin, measuring 89 centimeters by 176 centimeters. It consists of 136 pictographs, most drawn in black ink with colored ink washes, that cover a span approximately from 1751-2 to 1886-7. The count was obtained by either John A. Anderson or Myrtle Mil…
Navigating negative quantificational space
This paper reports the findings from an interconnected set of experiments designed to assess children's knowledge of the semantic interactions between negation and quantified NPs. Our main finding is that young children, unlike adults, systematically interpret these elements on the basis of their position in overt syntax. We argue that this observation can be derived from an interplay between fundamental properties of universal grammar and basic …
American Indian holocaust and survival
Demographic overview of North American history describing in detail the holocaust that occurred to the Indians.
The Dynamics of Role Acquisition
A developmental approach to role acquisition, containing both social and psychological dimensions, is presented in this paper. It entails four stages in the acquisition of a role: anticipatory, formal, informal, and personal. Each stage is discussed in terms of the variety of sources, content, and forms of expectations present, as well as the degree of consensus on the expectations and individuals' reactions to them. It is suggested that the acqu…
Navigating negative quantificational space
This paper reports the findings from an interconnected set of experiments designed to assess children's knowledge of the semantic interactions between negation and quantified NPs. Our main finding is that young children, unlike adults, systematically interpret these elements on the basis of their position in overt syntax. We argue that this observation can be derived from an interplay between fundamental properties of universal grammar and basic …
Tribal membership requirements and the demography of ‘old’ and ‘new’ Native Americans
American Indian Population Recovery following Smallpox Epidemics
Scholars generally agree that American Indian populations were reduced substantially following European contact by a variety of Old World diseases. However, scholarly attention has been devoted almost exclusively to ascertaining mortality during smallpox and other disease episodes and its impact on population size, as typified in “working backwards” to ascertain earlier population size. American Indian populations were dynamic entities, and were …
Cherokee Population Losses during the Trail of Tears
Etude des pertes de population subies par les Cherokee durant leur deplacement depuis le sud-est des Etats-Unis jusqu'a l'Indian Territory en 1830
Demographic Antecedents of a Revitalization Movement
The author considers the 1890 American Indian Ghost Dance movement as a demographic revitalization attempt to recover population losses. The effect of tribal population characteristics on participation in the movement is examined, with particular attention to changes in tribal size prior to and at the time of the Dance
A Research Note
SINCE THOMAS MALTHUS (1914 [1798]), the historical fertility patterns of North American Indian populations have been a concern of historians, anthropologists, and other scholars (see Krzywicki, 1934; Aberle, Watkins and Pitney, 1940; Cook, 1976; Grinde, 1984; and Shoemaker, 1988). More recent fertility patterns, particularly those during the twentieth century, have come under scrutiny by anthropologists, demographers, sociologists, and others (se…
Language Acquisition is Language Change
Changing Sex Ratios
Cherokee Tragedy
Estimating prehistoric American Indian population size for united states area
Implications of a revised United States American Indian nadir population and the pattern of decline leading to it are examined. Substituting the new nadir for that used by Dobyns (1966) lowers by several million his estimates of Indian population for the United States (and Canada) area. These estimates then become more compatible with ones currently being suggested by other scholars. The nineteenth century decline leading to this nadir is found t…
Why continuity
Binding principles and ACD constructions in child grammars
Antecedent-contained deletion (ACD) constructions have been the focus of much recent literature in linguistic theory. These constructions have been instrumental in arguments against dispensing with the operation of Quantifier Raising (QR) and a level of Logical Form (LF) (e.g., May 1985; Fiengo & May 1994; Fox 1999, 2000). In fact, it has been argued that in ACD constructions, the binding principles apply at LF (e.g., Fiengo & May 1994). The pres…
Indians and Anthropologists
Indians and Anthropologists: Vine Deloria, Jr. and the Critique of Anthropology. Thomas Biolsi and Larry J. Zimmerman. eds. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997. + 226 pp., contributors, index
The Semiology of Orientation in Urban Space [and Comments and Reply]
According to the author, a semiology of orientation is not an examination of urbanism aimed at exposing the links between the "structure" ofhe city under discussion and the professional, economic, social, and cultural activities of its population. Nor is it a sociological study of urban space which examines how the city organizes, perceives, imposes, or inhibits its functions and social relations. It is even less a psychological or psychosociolog…
Sentential negation in early child English
Starting with the seminal work of Klima & Bellugi (1966) and Bellugi (1967), young English-speaking children have been observed to pass through a stage at which their negative utterances differ from those of adults. Children initially use not or no , whereas adults use negative auxiliary verbs ( don't , can't , etc.). To explain the observed mismatches between child and adult language, the present study adopts Zeijlstra's (2004, 2007, 2008a, b) N…
The Navajo–U.S. Population Mortality Crossover since the Mid-20th Century
Boundary Dissolution and Revitalization Movements
Scholars have long debated the conditions under which revitalization movements arose among historic North American Indian peoples. McLoughlin recently argued such efforts may be inappropriate ; instead, scholarship should focus on unique circumstances of individual tribes producing revitalizations. Despite his argument, McLoughlin's own analysis of 19th century Cherokee history documents a series of Cherokee revitalization movements associated wi…
On Ethnography without Tears
This article comprises five responses to a target article by Roberto Cardoso de Oliveira, "Sobre o pensamento selvagem," published in a previous issue of Current Anthropology. Cardoso de Oliveira's piece explored the concept of "savage thought" as presented by Claude Lévi-Strauss, arguing for a more nuanced understanding of indigenous thought systems and criticizing the binary opposition between "primitive" and "modern" thought. The respondents, …
History, Structure, and Survival
Difference d'amplitude relative de la depopulation initiale (par les Blancs), experience des reserves, differents types d'organisation sociale preexistant a l'arrivee des Blancs, sont les trois facteurs expliquant le declin demographique de ces deux groupes indiens depuis le debut du 19 siecle
Social Organization and the Demographic Survival of the Tolowa
A Report of a New Mandan Calendric Chart
Many Native American peoples of the Plains kept oral histories in which periods of time were designated by events. Often pictorial recordings of these events were created as mnemonic devices to assist proper memory, which itself was some-times recorded in written language. These pictorial calendars occasionally resurface and provide new insights into the histories of Native Americans. A new pictorial calendar of the Mandan Indians has recently re…
A Rosebud Reservation Winter Count, circa 1751-1752 to 1886-1887
This is a discussion of a newly found winter count of a Lakota tiyospaye(extended kinship group) that eventually ended up on the Rosebud Reservation created for the Sicangu (Brule). The count is on muslin, measuring 89 centimeters by 176 centimeters. It consists of 136 pictographs, most drawn in black ink with colored ink washes, that cover a span approximately from 1751-2 to 1886-7. The count was obtained by either John A. Anderson or Myrtle Mil…
The Cherokees
Journal Article The Cherokees: A Population History. By Russell Thornton with C. Matthew Snipp and Nancy Breen. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. xvi + 237 pp. $35.00.) Get access David Henige David Henige University of Wisconsin, Madison Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 78, Issue 3, December 1991, Pages 1045–1046, https://doi.org/10.2307/2078821 Published: 01…
The Semi-Professions and Their Organization
The Indian Identity Crises
The Dynamics of Role Acquisition
A developmental approach to role acquisition, containing both social and psychological dimensions, is presented in this paper. It entails four stages in the acquisition of a role: anticipatory, formal, informal, and personal. Each stage is discussed in terms of the variety of sources, content, and forms of expectations present, as well as the degree of consensus on the expectations and individuals' reactions to them. It is suggested that the acqu…
"On "Open School vs. Traditional School
Implications of Catlin's American Indian population estimates for revision of Mooney's estimate
Catlin's population estimates of 37 American Indian tribes for the period 1832 to 1839 are compared with Mooney's estimates for the same tribes that range from the year 1600 to the year 1780. The remarkably close correspondence between the two totals despite the difference in the time periods indicates considerable inaccuracy on the part of either Mooney or Catlin. If Catlin is given credibility, then the necessity of current upward revisions of …
American Indian Studies As an Academic Discipline
It was several hundred years ago that the system of higher education in the United States commenced with the founding of Harvard, William and Mary, Dartmouth, and other institutions to educate Indian and non-Indian youth of this land. During ensuing centuries, these colleges and the over two thousand that came later concentrated on the education of non-Indians. The education of Indians occurred in missions schools, in schools Indian peoples thems…
American Indian Historical Demography
American Indian Historical Demography: A Review Essay with Suggestions for Future Research\nRussell Thornton\nSherburne F. Cook. The Conflict Between the California Indian and White Civilization. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976. 522 pp. $6.95\nSherburne F. Cook. The Population of the California Indians, 1769-1970. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976. 222 pp. $13.95\nSherburne F. Cook. The Indian Population of New England…
The Semiology of Orientation in Urban Space [and Comments and Reply]
According to the author, a semiology of orientation is not an examination of urbanism aimed at exposing the links between the "structure" ofhe city under discussion and the professional, economic, social, and cultural activities of its population. Nor is it a sociological study of urban space which examines how the city organizes, perceives, imposes, or inhibits its functions and social relations. It is even less a psychological or psychosociolog…
Recent Estimates of the Prehistoric California Indian Population
Estimating prehistoric American Indian population size for united states area
Implications of a revised United States American Indian nadir population and the pattern of decline leading to it are examined. Substituting the new nadir for that used by Dobyns (1966) lowers by several million his estimates of Indian population for the United States (and Canada) area. These estimates then become more compatible with ones currently being suggested by other scholars. The nineteenth century decline leading to this nadir is found t…
Demographic Antecedents of a Revitalization Movement
The author considers the 1890 American Indian Ghost Dance movement as a demographic revitalization attempt to recover population losses. The effect of tribal population characteristics on participation in the movement is examined, with particular attention to changes in tribal size prior to and at the time of the Dance
Demographic Antecedents of Tribal Participation in the 1870 Ghost Dance Movement
Recently (Thornton 1981) differential participation of American Indian tribes in the 1890 Ghost Dance was analyzed. Viewing the movement as an attempted demographic revitalization in response to population decimations, tribal participation was predicted to be related positively to preceding population declines and negatively to absolute population size. A strong negative relationship between size and participation was found, with smaller tribes p…
Preliminary 1980 Census Counts for American Indians, Eskimos and Aleuts
Reported in Table 1 are advanced population counts, ranked by state, from the 1980 Census for American Indians, Eskimos and Aleuts obtained from the U.S. Bureau of the Census. The total number enumerated of 1,418,195 includes 1,361,869 American Indians, 42,149 Eskimos and 14,177 Aleuts. This contrasts with the total enumeration of 827,268 (792,730 American Indians) in the 1970 Census, and the reported 9,900,000 Americans with some degree of Ameri…
And Still More Navajo
The Handbook of National Population Censuses
This handbook is a longitudinal and comparative study of national population censuses and is designed to facilitate the use of census data. Information is included on how censuses are taken definitions and concepts used general content special features and location of copies. Countries and territories are grouped by continent or region. The present volume covers Latin America and the Caribbean North America and Oceania while subsequent volumes wi…
But How Thick Were They
The Cherokee Indian Nation
Cherokee Population Losses during the Trail of Tears
Etude des pertes de population subies par les Cherokee durant leur deplacement depuis le sud-est des Etats-Unis jusqu'a l'Indian Territory en 1830
Social Organization and the Demographic Survival of the Tolowa
Demography of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the United States
Disease and Fertility
Nineteenth-Century Cherokee History
Fertility in Canada
The Population of the United States
We Shall Live Again
This study of the 1870 and 1890 Ghost Dance movements among North American Indians offers an innovative theory about why these movements arose when they did. Emphasizing the demographic situation of American Indians prior to the movements, Professor Thornton argues that the Ghost Dances were deliberate efforts to accomplish a demographic revitalization of American Indians following their virtual collapse. By joining the movements, he contends, tr…
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