Doris L. Payne
Professor Emerita
Department of Linguistics
University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403
Phone: (541) 346-3894 E-mail: dlpayne@uoregon.edu
Doris L. Payne
Professor Emerita
Department of Linguistics
University of Oregon, Eugene,
OR 97403
Phone: (541)
346-3894
E-mail: dlpayne@uoregon.edu
Publications & CV (updated 2024)
Nilotic Language Network
Maasai Language Project
Field work: Primarily
in urban cities, the Peruvian rainforest, the Venezuelan
savannah, and urban/rural Kenya.
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| A Yagua house: Peruvian Amazon | Field work is soooo tough. The view from our Yagua house |
Research
My research has quite consistently focused on morphosyntax of little-studied languages, from typological, functional, and cognitive perspectives. Along the way, I have done a little phonetics, phonology, and a fair bit of lexical semantics. A particular interest has been verb-initial languages (Yagua, Panare, Maasai, some
Austronesian), and those where order of major consituents is based primarily on cognitive - pragmatic factors such as identifiability and contrastive focus (O'odham
or Papago). However, I have also worked on fairly rigid
grammatical relations languages (Chickasaw),
and various South
American languages. One research question has been split
syntax (meaning that different parts of the grammar of a language may have very different grammatical patterns or inflections).
Additional interests include sentence
and discourse processing issues in verb-initial languages, the
function of grammatical forms in discourse, and external
possession. I have had the priviledge of collaborating
in study of additional
languages with other investigators. Most recently, I
have been studying Maasai verb properties and working on a Maasai
dictionary with several students.
Professional Associations
Since 1974, I have worked with SIL International/Global, and often teach or participate in workshops.
Since 1995 I have collaborated on a Maasai dictionary and text data base. This started with the Maasai Cultural Center (now disbanded) and continued with many native Maasai speakers including Leonard Kotikash, Sarah Tukuoo, Philip Koitelel, Keswe Mapena, Stephen Muntet, Kimeli Ole-Naiyomah, Ole-Melubo and others. Various students at the University of Oregon (Duke Allen, Austin Bush, Mitsuyo Hamaya, Kent Rasmussen, Cindy Schneider and others) have also contributed to the project. Thank you to all!
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