Eloise Jelinek

Eloise Jelinek (February 2, 1924, Dallas - December 21, 2007, Tucson) was an American linguist specializing in the study of syntax. She became particularly known for her Pronominal Argument Hypothesis of syntax based on data from the Navajo language, which holds that in some languages the pronominal affixes on the verb should be considered the syntactic arguments of the verbs, rather than the free pronouns, which should only be considered adjuncts.[1] Through her work on many endangered languages she demonstrated that less-studied languages often challenged the theories of generative linguistics, and she worked to develop ways of integrating this data into the generative paradigm. Among the languages that she worked on are the Straits Salish languages Samish and Lummi, as well as Navajo, Choctaw, and Yaqui.[2][3][4] Her 1981 doctoral dissertation at the University of Arizona was titled "On Defining Categories: AUX and PREDICATE in Colloquial Egyptian Arabic".

Publications

References

  1. Kenneth L. Hale 2003. On the significance of Eloise Jelinek’s Pronominal Argument Hypothesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology In: Carnie, Andrew, Heidi Harley and MaryAnn Willie (eds.), Formal Approaches to Function in Grammar: In honor of Eloise Jelinek. (pp. 11–43)
  2. Home Page at the University of Arizona
  3. Obituary at LinguistList
  4. Obituary in Arizona Daily Star
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