Seri landscape classification and spatial reference

This thesis contributes to the growing field of ethnophysiography, a new subfield of cognitive anthropology that aims to determine the universals and variation in the categorization of landscape objects across cultures. More specifically, this work looks at the case of the Seri people of Sonora, Mexico to investigate the way they categorize landscape objects (e.g., mountains, streams, deserts) that exist in their territory through the way they talk about them in their language. It describes what kinds of landscape objects get lexicalized and examines the structural and semantic properties of the resulting landscape terms. Another focus of this thesis is the grammar of space in Seri. This thesis provides the first in depth look at spatial reference in Seri, providing a larger context for the discussion of landscape categorization. Additionally, this thesis provides significant contributions to the documentation and description of the Seri language and culture, presenting the first detailed description of the grammar of space in Seri.