DOCTORAL DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Syntactic and Psycholinguistic Investigations of Odawa

形式语言学家和心理语言学家从一个标准的假设开始，即所有人类的大脑都按照相同的原则运作，所有人类语言和人类句子处理都必须遵守这些原则，而不管任何给定语言的表面特征如何。然而，绝大多数心理语言学研究（包括产生和理解）都集中在世界上少数几种语言上。除了少数例外，所有的语言在类型上都是同质的，因此在句法上也是相似的。拟议的研究主要是为了扩大心理语言学研究的Odawa语言，美洲土著语言密切相关的奥吉布瓦和其他阿尔冈昆语和发言在南部安大略，加拿大。Odawa语言在类型和句法上都与心理语言学家所研究的任何语言都有很大的不同，因此它为人类句子处理的各种理论提供了一个全新的视角。Odawa语言由于其在独立从句中极其自由的词序而被称为非构形语言。任何由两个名词短语论元和一个动词组成的及物性句子在语法上都可以以六种可能的语序中的任何一种出现。然而，这种语序并没有得到丰富的、传统的格系统的促进，这种格系统在表现出一定程度的语序自由的语言中被观察到，并且已经被心理语言学家研究过（例如，德语、日语）。这种语序的自由度是任何当前的句子生成或理解模型都没有考虑到的。学生调查员有前所未有的机会将他在正式句法、心理语言学和Odawa语言方面的训练联合收割机结合起来，在加拿大安大略的Wikwemikong镇进行大量的生成和理解实验，在那里，7个句子中大约有50%的人，10000名居民仍然以该语言为母语。将进行生产实验，以评估各种结构替代品的基线偏好，并确定是否可以改变各种启动操作的偏好。理解实验将试图建立暂时的歧义，然后观察参与者从这种歧义中恢复的方式和时间过程。重要的是，Odawa的句法允许对当前句子处理理论的关键假设进行批判性的检验。

Formal linguists and psycholinguists start with the standard assumption that all human brains operate according to the same principles, and that all human language and human sentence processing must adhere to these principles, regardless of the surface characteristics of any given language. Yet the vast majority of psycholinguistic research (on both production and comprehension) that has been conducted has focused on a tiny number of the world's languages. With only a few exceptions, all of the languages have been typologically homogeneous and therefore syntactically similar. The proposed research seeks primarily to extend psycholinguistic research to the Odawa language, a Native American language closely related to Ojibwa and other Algonquian languages and spoken in southern Ontario, Canada. Odawa is typologically and syntactically very different from any language ever investigated by psycholinguists and thus offers a totally new perspective on the various current and competing theories of human sentence processing.Odawa is often referred to as a nonconfigurational language due to its extremely free word order in independent clauses. Any transitive sentence consisting of two noun phrase arguments and a verb can occur grammatically in any of the six possible word orders. Yet this word order is not facilitated by a rich, conventional case system of the sort observed in languages that exhibit certain degrees of word order freedom and which have been studied by psycholinguists (e.g., German, Japanese). This degree of word order freedom is something that is not taken into consideration in any current model of sentence production or comprehension.The Student Investigator has the unprecedented opportunity to combine his training in formal syntax, psycholinguistics, and the Odawa language to perform a large number of production and comprehension experiments in the town of Wikwemikong, Ontario, Canada, where approximately 50% of the 7,000 residents are still native speakers of the language. The production experiments will be conducted to assess baseline preferences for various structural alternatives, and to determine whether the preferences can be changed with various priming manipulations. The comprehension experiments will seek to establish temporary ambiguities and then observe the manner and time course of participants' recovery from such ambiguities. Critically, the syntax of Odawa allows key assumptions made by current theories of sentence processing to be critically examined.