Robert E. Longacre (August 13, 1922–April 20, 2014) was an American

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

and

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thoma ...

who worked on the

Triqui language The Triqui (), or Trique, languages are a family of Oto-Manguean spoken by 30,000 Trique people of the Mexican states of Oaxaca and the state of Baja California in 2007 (due to recent population movements). They are also spoken by 5,000 immigrant ...

and a text-based theory and method of

discourse analysis Discourse analysis (DA), or discourse studies, is an approach to the analysis of written, spoken, or sign language, including any significant semiotic event. The objects of discourse analysis (discourse, writing, conversation, communicative sy ...

. He is well known for his seminal studies of discourse structure (text linguistics), but he also made significant contributions in other linguistic areas, especially the

historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of how languages change over time. It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of languages. Historical li ...

Mixtec The Mixtecs (), or Mixtecos, are Indigenous Mesoamerican peoples of Mexico inhabiting the region known as La Mixteca of Oaxaca and Puebla as well as La Montaña Region and Costa Chica of Guerrero, Costa Chica Regions of the state of Guerre ...

, Trique, and other related languages. His PhD was at the University of Pennsylvania under

Zellig Harris Zellig Sabbettai Harris (; October 23, 1909 – May 22, 1992) was an influential American linguist, mathematical syntactician, and methodologist of science. Originally a Semiticist, he is best known for his work in structural linguistics and di ...

and Henry Hoenigswald. His 1955 dissertation on Proto-Mixtecan was the first extensive linguistic reconstruction in Mesoamerican languages. This was one of several SIL studies which helped to establish the

Oto-Manguean The Oto-Manguean or Otomanguean () languages are a large family comprising several subfamilies of indigenous languages of the Americas. All of the Oto-Manguean languages that are now spoken are indigenous to Mexico, but the Manguean languages, Ma ...

language family as being comparable in time depth to

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Euro ...

. His research on Trique was the first documented case of a language with five distinct levels of

tone Tone may refer to: Visual arts and color-related * Tone (color theory), a mix of tint and shade, in painting and color theory * Tone (color), the lightness or brightness (as well as darkness) of a color * Toning (coin), color change in coins * ...

. He was Professor Emeritus at the

University of Texas at Arlington The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA or UT Arlington) is a public research university in Arlington, Texas, United States. It is the second oldest university in the University of Texas System and was founded in 1895. It was in the Texas A& ...

, where he taught Linguistics for over 20 years (1972-1993), mostly on topics related to his approach to discourse analysis. In 1994-1995, he served as President of the Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States (LACUS) and was honored by LACUS in 2007. He was academically sharp and active till the end, working on a new book that came out just after his death: * 2015. Robert Longacre & Andrew Bowling. Understanding Biblical Hebrew Verb Forms: Distribution and Function across Genres. Dallas: SIL International. Born in Akron, Ohio on August 13, 1922, he attended Houghton College in upper New York State where he met his wife, Gwen. After graduating in 1943 they married in 1946 and went to Mexico in 1947 where they lived with the Trique peoples in the mountains of Oaxaca State.

Education

* 1943 – BA, Religious Education,

Houghton College Houghton University is a Private university, private Christian liberal arts college in Houghton, New York, United States. Houghton was founded in 1883 by Willard J. Houghton and is affiliated with the Wesleyan Church.Faith Theological Seminary Faith Theological Seminary is an Higher education accreditation in the United States, unaccredited evangelicalism, evangelical Christian seminary in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1937 in Wilmington, Delaware, relocated to Philadelphia ...

* 1952 – MA, Linguistics,

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

* 1955 – PhD, Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania

Major publications

*1952. Five phonemic pitch levels in Trique. Acta Linguistica 7 (1-2): 62-82. *1957. Proto-Mixtecan. International Journal of American Linguistics 23(4), Part 3:1-195. *1960 (with Mak, Cornelia). Proto-Mixtec phonology. International Journal of American Linguistics 26.1: 23-40. *1964. Progress in Otomanguean reconstruction. Janua Linguarum, Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Linguists, Horace G. Lunt (ed.), pp. 1016–1025. *1964. Grammar discovery procedures: a field manual. Janua Linguarum, series minor, Academic Training. *1965 (with Upson, B. W.). Proto-Chatino phonology. International Journal of American Linguistics 31.4: 312-22. *1968. Discourse, paragraph and sentence structure in selected Philippine languages. Dallas: SIL International. *1970. Paragraph and sentence structure in New Guinea Highlands languages. Kivung (now Language and Linguistics in Melanesia), pp. 150–163. *1975. The tone system of Proto-Mixtecan. Bibliotheca Phonetica, Studies in tone and intonation by members of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, Ruth M. Brend (ed.) pages 152-154. *1976. (with Frances M. Woods, editor), Discourse grammar: Studies in indigenous languages of Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador 1, Dallas: SIL International. *1976. 'Mystery' particles and affixes. Papers from the Twelfth Regional Meeting Chicago Linguistic Society. Salikoko S. Mufwene, Carol A. Walker and Sanford B. Steever (eds.) pages 468-77. *1976. An anatomy of speech notions. Peter de Ridder Publications in Tagmemics. *1977 (with Frances M. Woods, editor). Discourse grammar: Studies in Indigenous Languages of Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador 2. Dallas: SIL International. *1979. Why we need a vertical revolution in linguistics. The Fifth LACUS Forum 1978, Wolfgang Wölck and Paul Garvin (eds.), pp. 247–70. *1979. The discourse structure of the flood narrative. Journal of the American Academy of Religion XLVII (1) Supplement, pp. 89–133. *1983. Spectrum, profile and constituency structure in text analysis. In Shiró̱ Hattori and Kazuko Inoue (eds.), Proceedings of the 13th International Congress of Linguists, Tokyo. pp. 1024–27. *1990. Storyline concerns and word order typology in East and West Africa. Studies in African Linguistics. Monograph Supplement 10, 181 pages. *1996. The Grammar of Discourse, 2nd edition, Springer. *2003. Joseph: A Story of Divine Providence: A Text Theoretical and Textlinguistic Analysis of Genesis 37 and 39-48, 2nd ed. Eisenbrauns. *2012 (with Shin Ja J. Hwang). Holistic Discourse Analysis, Second Edition, Dallas: SIL International. *2015 (with Andrew Bowling). Understanding Biblical Hebrew Verb Forms: Distribution and Function across Genres. Dallas: SIL International.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Longacre, Robert E Linguists from the United States People from Akron, Ohio Faith Theological Seminary alumni Houghton University alumni University of Pennsylvania alumni University of Texas at Arlington faculty 1922 births 2014 deaths Linguists of Oto-Manguean languages

Education

Major publications

See also

References