DOCTORAL DISSERTATION RESEARCH: A Grammar of Huehuetla Tepehua

本论文的研究将提供一个Tepehua，墨西哥托托纳卡语系的成员Huehuetla品种的语法。韦韦特拉特佩瓦语（Huehuetla Tepehua，以下简称HT）的确切使用者人数不详，但在墨西哥的伊达尔戈州、韦拉克鲁斯州和普埃布拉州，使用这三种特佩瓦语的人数不到1万人。HT只在Huehuetla镇和外围村庄使用。Huehuetla的语法，包括对语言的基本描述，HT/西班牙语词典，以及HT中的故事和其他文本的汇编，将作为语言学论文提交给德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校。该项目对几个领域和团体具有重要意义。首先，它对语言学意义重大，因为它将为一种几乎没有文献记载的语言提供描述，并有助于确定HT和相关变体Tlachichilco Tepehua是同一语言的方言还是不同的语言。更具体地说，它对历史语言学领域很重要，因为HT的语法将有助于促进原始Totoncan的重建。第二，该项目将提供的结果，将是有用的领域，侧重于中美洲，如考古学和艺术史，并利用历史语言学破译字形和重建史前。第三，该项目对特佩瓦人本身具有重要意义：（i）它将为保存语言所需的教学材料奠定基础，（ii）它将为他们提供以其母语书写和记录的、与他们文化相关的文学作品的开端，该项目在Huehuetla镇及其周围进行了为期九个月的实地考察。收集的数据将包括引出的单词和句子;引出的叙述，如故事，食谱和笑话;和自然发生的讲话，如对话和仪式。所有数据都将记录在迷你光盘上;叙述也将记录在Hi 8录像带上，以记录演讲事件并帮助分析和翻译。

This dissertation research will provide a grammar of the Huehuetla variety of Tepehua, a member of the Totonacan language family of Mexico. The precise number of remaining speakers of Huehuetla Tepehua (henceforth HT) is unknown, but the three varieties of Tepehua are spoken by fewer than 10,000 people in the Mexican states of Hidalgo, Veracruz, and Puebla. HT is spoken only in the township of Huehuetla and the outlying villages. The grammar of Huehuetla, to consist of a basic description of the language, an HT/Spanish dictionary, and a compilation of stories and other texts in HT, will be submitted to the University of Texas at Austin as a dissertation in linguistics.This project has significance for several fields and groups. First, it will be significant for linguistics because it will provide a description of a nearly undocumented language, and it will help determine whether HT and the related variety Tlachichilco Tepehua are dialects of the same language or separate languages. More specifically, it will be important to the field of historical linguistics, because a grammar of HT will help facilitate the reconstruction of Proto-Totoncan. Second, the project will provide results that will be useful to fields that focus on Mesoamerica, such as archaeology and art history, and that utilize historical linguistics to decipher glyphs and to reconstruct prehistory. Third, the project will be significant for the Tepehua people themselves: (i) it will provide a foundation on which to base pedagogical materials needed for language preservation, and (ii) it will provide them with the beginnings of a body of literature that is written and recorded in their native language and culturally relevant to them.The project involves nine months of fieldwork in and around the town of Huehuetla. The collected data will consist of elicited words and sentences; elicited narratives such as stories, recipes and jokes; and naturally-occurring speech, such as conversations and ceremonies. All data will be recorded on minidiscs; the narratives will be recorded on Hi8 videotapes as well, both to document speech events and to aid in analysis and translation.