Comparative Bodic Syntax

本项目涉及藏缅语系波底语系四种语言的情报工作。拉萨藏、纽瓦里和孙瓦里的工作将在俄勒冈州尤金进行；在印度的Almora和Simla研究Kinnauri。在所有这些语言中，较新的时态标记系统都是从带有copulas的旧补语从句发展而来的。本研究的目标是对所研究语言的语法和形态学的相关方面进行全面的描述和分析，并重建原体语中的联系词系统、名词化结构、补语和时向标记。叙述了语法变化的过程，这些变化导致了子语言中的模式。这个项目将对我们理解一个主要但仍然令人惊讶地鲜为人知的语系做出重要贡献。目前是开展这种性质的项目的理想时机：政治气候的改善使首席调查员及其同事有可能与有关语言和方言的母语人士合作。部分项目急需完成，因为一些较小的藏缅语正在消亡。该项目不仅对藏缅语语言学有影响，而且对语言变化的一般理论也有影响。

ABSTRACT The project entails informant work on four languages of the Bodic branch of Tibeto-Burman. Work on Lhasa Tibetan, Newari, and Sunwari will be carried out in Eugene, Oregon; work on Kinnauri in Almora and Simla, India. In all of these languages, newer tense-marking systemms have developed from older complement clauses with copulas. The goals of the research are full des- criptions and analyses of the relevant aspects of the syntax and morphology of the languages to be studied, and a reconstruction of the copula system, nominalization constructions, complementa- tion and tense-aspect marking in Proto-Bodic, with an account of the processes of syntactic change which have led to the patterns found in the daughter languages. The project will make an important contribution to our understanding of a major but still surprisingly poorly known language family. The present time is an ideal time to carry out a project of this nature: improvements in the political climate have made it possible for the Principal Investigator and his associates to work with native speakers of the relevant languages and dialects. Parts of the project require urgent completion, as a number of the smaller Tibeto-Burman languages are moribund. The project will have implications not only for Tibeto-Burman linguistics, but also for the general theory of language change.