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Because of a lack of fossil evidence of the evolutionary development of the flower, our understanding of its structure is derived almost entirely from comparative studies of morphology, anatomy, ontogeny and histogenesis of existing floral types. Morphology has often been considered by others as a thoroughly explored field. This opinion may be correct as far as the study of external forms is concerned, but unlikely so in the studies of floral ontogeny or developmental morphology. [...]

The goals of the dissertation are documentation and description of the language, and investigation of theoretical issues raised by the language data. Nuu-chah-nulth, which constitutes, along with Ditidaht and Makah, the Southern branch of the Wakashan family, is in immediate danger of extinction. There are many factors contributing to endangerment, but above all, there is an enormous generation-gap between people who can speak the language and people who cannot, which may ultimately be too deep and broad to bridge without significant linguistic or educational measures. The problem is compounded by the fact the there is very little documentation of the language, hampering both linguistic research and efforts in the realm of education/revitalisation of the language. This work will contribute to documentation of Nuu-chah-nulth, which will ultimately help Nuu-chah-nulth people to develop education materials for their children. Although previous studies describe and analyse Tseshaht and Kyuquot, two of the 12 Nuu-chah-nulth dialects, there is not much comprehensive work where both the Nuu-chah-nulth sound system and related phonological phenomena and its morphology, are both well-described and analysed. Nuu-chah-nulth has unique and interesting dialect variation as well as linguistic phenomena which require organisation and generalisation. This thesis focuses on the description of the Ahousaht dialect. The documentation, in conjunction with previous work, will help us understand Nuu-chah-nulth better in terms of the different evolution between dialects as well as both linguistic and typological characteristics of the language. It is important to investigate the phonology and morphology of Nuu-chah-nulth from the perspective of linguistic theory. Many phonological and morphological processes in Nuu-chah-nulth raise interesting questions in terms of universality, markedness, learnability, variability, and typological issues. Theoretical treatments of linguistic phenomena will help us understand the language itself better, and general characteristics of human language as well. I discuss the segmental phonology of the language in Chapter 3, including the treatment of pervasive phonological processes such as glottalisation, lenition, (de)labialisation, vowel lengthening, vowel shortening, and vowel alternation due to variable vowels; I treat prosodic phonology in Chapter 4, the morphological structure of words in Chapter 2, and morphological processes such as reduplication and allomorphy in Chapter 5. I treat these phenomena within Optimality Theory, due to its direct encoding of claims concerning universality, language variation, and typology.

In this thesis, I conduct a detailed case study of expressive suffixes in Russian. I show that although the suffixes under investigation have the same function (“expressive”), they differ significantly in their formal properties. I identify two major semantic types of expressive suffixes: attitude and size suffixes. Attitude suffixes convey an attitude of the speaker toward the referent. Size suffixes both convey an attitude and refer to the size of the referent. I argue that the two different semantic types map onto different syntactic types. Attitude suffixes are syntactic heads, while size suffixes are syntactic modifiers. As heads, attitude suffixes determine the formal properties (syntactic category, grammatical gender and inflectional class) of the derived form. As modifiers, size suffixes do not determine the formal properties of the derived form. Attitude suffixes can attach both to category-free √Roots and to categories (n/a/v), while size suffixes can only attach to a noun category. I investigate the functional and formal properties of Russian expressive suffixes in a systematic way, which has not been done before. In doing so, I analyze how expressive suffixes pattern along several kinds of criteria (gender/class change, category change, subcategorization). An important byproduct of this analysis is that I show how grammatical gender of an expressive form can be predicted from its inflectional class (combined with animacy and natural gender of the base). One implication of this analysis is that I show that the formal properties of expressives are no different from those of non-expressives (descriptives), as both expressives and descriptives can attach as heads or modifiers either to √Roots or categories. Another implication is that the formal criteria which I develop for a small set of expressive suffixes in Russian can be extended to set up a cross-linguistic typology of expressives.

Variation in terrestrial mammalian craniodental morphology and skull shape is known to constrain feeding performance, which in turn influences dietary habits and ultimately fitness. Otters have evolved two feeding specializations: underwater raptorial capture of prey (mouth-oriented) and capture of prey by hand (hand-oriented), which likely correspond to craniodental morphology and bite performance. However, feeding biomechanics and performance data for otters, aquatic mustelids that consume prey above water, are sparse. The first goal of the study was to investigate the relationship between feeding morphology and bite performance between two mouth-oriented piscivores (giant river otters and North American river otters) and two hand-oriented invertebrate specialists (sea otters and Asian small-clawed otters) using morphometric approaches. The second goal was to investigate fluctuating asymmetry in the cranium of otters. The third goal was to characterize feeding mechanisms (kinematics and jaw musculature) and role of bite performance in the trophic ecology of sea otters. Mouth-oriented piscivores possessed longer skulls and mandibles, with jaws designed for increased velocity at the expense of bite capability. Hand-oriented possessed more blunt skulls and mandibles designed for increased bite capability. Sea otters displayed a greater degree of fluctuating asymmetry of the skull, which is likely linked to environmental stresses. Bite performance and durophagous feeding behavior in sea otters was characterized in detail in the feeding kinematics. Estimated bite forces of sea otters were large enough to crush all size classes of butter and littleneck clams tested in the lab. However, sea otters are size selective predators and generally choose bivalves of small to medium size. Medium sized butter and littleneck clams required an intermediate breaking force, and are buried at a shallower depth than larger clams. Clams requiring an intermediate breaking force could decrease consumption time, thus overall handling time.