Documentation of Morphosyntactic and Phonological Features in Himoj: A Dialect of Chechen

• Main Author: Wagner, John Doyle
• Language: en
• Published: The University of Arizona. 2012
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10150/243935

This research examines the morphosyntactic and phonological features of Himoj, a dialect of Chechen - an indigenous language of the North Caucasus and largest member, by virtue of number of native speakers, of the Nakh-Dagestanian language family. Himoj is an undocumented dialect of Chechen despite its use amongst the people of the Himoj teip, a clan in the Highland region of the Chechen Republic. The goals of this research is to highlight specific features of the Himoj dialect and provide evidence for its placement in the Highland group of Chechen dialects by means of cross-dialectical referencing of these same features. By first describing the phonological and morphosyntactic features that distinguishes the Himoj dialect, this paper intends to place Himoj into the greater Highland dialect group, making note of sound correspondences, similar features and cognate forms in other major Highland dialects found in Chechnya; focusing on Č'aberloj, Itum-Qale, Šaroj and Kisti dialects. Data in this thesis is collected from consultation with a native speaker of Himoj as well as audio and video recordings of her relatives. Finally, many examples from other Highland dialects are taken from word lists in the current literature.