Olga Lovick
Biographic Data
| ID | 217464 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Olga Lovick |
| GIVEN NAMES | Olga |
| FAMILY NAME | Lovick |
| SIGNATURE | LOVICK O |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Saskatchewan |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5668-8789 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 4 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 9 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Innovating Morphology
We describe a morphological change affecting the impersonal-subject construction in a variety of Dënë Sųłıné. Prior research on Dënë Sųłıné identified two actor-defocusing constructions: the passive, which describes episodic events, and the impersonal subject construction, which describes generic events. In a corpus comprising over 70 hours of audio-visual data from 107 speakers, we observe innovative forms combining properties of both constructi…
Lower Tanana Dene Dictionary
Prosodic Intensification
The study of scalar meanings or intensification has focused primarily on morphological means, yet there are many spoken languages where these concepts are expressed systematically by iconic prosody. Languages employ a combination of prosodic cues, including increased duration, raised pitch, special pitch patterns, and special voice quality, to signal scalar increases of property concepts, quantity, exhaustivity, duration, and so forth. In some la…
Pitch Patterns in Standard Negation in Alaskan Dene and the Development of Grammatical Tone
NSF NSF/ BCS 1160654 supported research on Koyukon, Lower Tanana and Upper Tanana (2012–2015). NSF 0504247 supported research on Lower Tanana (2004–2007). Research on Upper Tanana was additionally supported by an Insight Development Grant from SSHRC (2012–2015). Research in the 1990s on Middle Tanana was supported by a grant to James Kari from the Alaska Humanities Forum
Existential and Standard Negation in Northern Dene
This paper is a comparative analysis of existential and standard negation across Northern Dene. There are two strategies for existential negation: some languages use a negative verb, while others use a negative morpheme reconstructed as *də-weˑ. Standard negation involves negative inflection in some languages; most of them require additional preverbal or postverbal negative particles. The languages without negative inflection also fall into two g…
Įįjih and Request Formation in Upper Tanana
Formation and use of direct positive and negative requests in Upper Tanana (Dene) are investigated through qualitative analysis of narrative texts. Choice of request form depends on speakers’ evaluation of their entitlement, as well as of the contingencies involved in granting the request. Negative requests are relatively infrequent because they are easily construed as criticism of the hearer’s knowledge of įįjih , the moral underpinnings of Uppe…
The Prosody of Dena'ina Narrative Discourse
We investigate the prosodic realization of discourse structure in Dena’ina based on two narratives. We assume that a Dena’ina text consists of informational and prosodic “building blocks” of different sizes that we call paragraphs, story units, intonation units, and prosodic words. After outlining semantic and syntactic criteria for each of these, we demonstrate that story units and intonation unit boundaries are cued by prosodic markers includin…
Vowels of Upper Tanana Athabascan
This paper provides a detailed phonetic, synchronic description of the oral vowels of Upper Tanana, an Athabascan language spoken in eastern interior Alaska and the western Yukon Territory. Upper Tanana has, depending on the dialect, six or seven oral monophthongs that can be modified for (low) tone, nasalization, and length. Previous accounts are auditory. They disagree regarding the articulation of two of the vowels (which we represent as /ɘ/ a…
Person-Marked Numerals in North Alberta Beaver (Athabaskan)
This article describes person-marked numerals in North Alberta Beaver, a dialect of Beaver Athabaskan. North Alberta Beaver numerals are frozen complex forms consisting of a numeral stem incorporated into a form of the verb theme d + Ø + t'yii 'to be thus'. By illustrating how the word category of numerals is formed through reanalysis of existing verbal paradigms, this article contributes to the typology of numerals and to the description of mino…
The Prosody of Dena'ina Narrative Discourse
We investigate the prosodic realization of discourse structure in Dena’ina based on two narratives. We assume that a Dena’ina text consists of informational and prosodic “building blocks” of different sizes that we call paragraphs, story units, intonation units, and prosodic words. After outlining semantic and syntactic criteria for each of these, we demonstrate that story units and intonation unit boundaries are cued by prosodic markers includin…
Existential and Standard Negation in Northern Dene
This paper is a comparative analysis of existential and standard negation across Northern Dene. There are two strategies for existential negation: some languages use a negative verb, while others use a negative morpheme reconstructed as *də-weˑ. Standard negation involves negative inflection in some languages; most of them require additional preverbal or postverbal negative particles. The languages without negative inflection also fall into two g…
Įįjih and Request Formation in Upper Tanana
Formation and use of direct positive and negative requests in Upper Tanana (Dene) are investigated through qualitative analysis of narrative texts. Choice of request form depends on speakers’ evaluation of their entitlement, as well as of the contingencies involved in granting the request. Negative requests are relatively infrequent because they are easily construed as criticism of the hearer’s knowledge of įįjih , the moral underpinnings of Uppe…
Person-Marked Numerals in North Alberta Beaver (Athabaskan)
This article describes person-marked numerals in North Alberta Beaver, a dialect of Beaver Athabaskan. North Alberta Beaver numerals are frozen complex forms consisting of a numeral stem incorporated into a form of the verb theme d + Ø + t'yii 'to be thus'. By illustrating how the word category of numerals is formed through reanalysis of existing verbal paradigms, this article contributes to the typology of numerals and to the description of mino…
Vowels of Upper Tanana Athabascan
This paper provides a detailed phonetic, synchronic description of the oral vowels of Upper Tanana, an Athabascan language spoken in eastern interior Alaska and the western Yukon Territory. Upper Tanana has, depending on the dialect, six or seven oral monophthongs that can be modified for (low) tone, nasalization, and length. Previous accounts are auditory. They disagree regarding the articulation of two of the vowels (which we represent as /ɘ/ a…
The Prosody of Dena'ina Narrative Discourse
We investigate the prosodic realization of discourse structure in Dena’ina based on two narratives. We assume that a Dena’ina text consists of informational and prosodic “building blocks” of different sizes that we call paragraphs, story units, intonation units, and prosodic words. After outlining semantic and syntactic criteria for each of these, we demonstrate that story units and intonation unit boundaries are cued by prosodic markers includin…
Įįjih and Request Formation in Upper Tanana
Formation and use of direct positive and negative requests in Upper Tanana (Dene) are investigated through qualitative analysis of narrative texts. Choice of request form depends on speakers’ evaluation of their entitlement, as well as of the contingencies involved in granting the request. Negative requests are relatively infrequent because they are easily construed as criticism of the hearer’s knowledge of įįjih , the moral underpinnings of Uppe…
Existential and Standard Negation in Northern Dene
This paper is a comparative analysis of existential and standard negation across Northern Dene. There are two strategies for existential negation: some languages use a negative verb, while others use a negative morpheme reconstructed as *də-weˑ. Standard negation involves negative inflection in some languages; most of them require additional preverbal or postverbal negative particles. The languages without negative inflection also fall into two g…
Pitch Patterns in Standard Negation in Alaskan Dene and the Development of Grammatical Tone
NSF NSF/ BCS 1160654 supported research on Koyukon, Lower Tanana and Upper Tanana (2012–2015). NSF 0504247 supported research on Lower Tanana (2004–2007). Research on Upper Tanana was additionally supported by an Insight Development Grant from SSHRC (2012–2015). Research in the 1990s on Middle Tanana was supported by a grant to James Kari from the Alaska Humanities Forum
Prosodic Intensification
The study of scalar meanings or intensification has focused primarily on morphological means, yet there are many spoken languages where these concepts are expressed systematically by iconic prosody. Languages employ a combination of prosodic cues, including increased duration, raised pitch, special pitch patterns, and special voice quality, to signal scalar increases of property concepts, quantity, exhaustivity, duration, and so forth. In some la…
Innovating Morphology
We describe a morphological change affecting the impersonal-subject construction in a variety of Dënë Sųłıné. Prior research on Dënë Sųłıné identified two actor-defocusing constructions: the passive, which describes episodic events, and the impersonal subject construction, which describes generic events. In a corpus comprising over 70 hours of audio-visual data from 107 speakers, we observe innovative forms combining properties of both constructi…
Lower Tanana Dene Dictionary
Linguistics (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Mathematics (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (4 works) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (3 works) · Phonetics and Phonology Research (3 works) · Realization (probability (3 works) · History (2 works)