The Grammar of Surmiran Rumantsch

当一种语言消亡时，我们失去了什么？语言的灭绝速度比生物物种的灭绝速度要快得多，每次这种情况发生时，一个民族与其历史、传统知识和文化遗产的联系就被切断了。每种语言都是人类语言能力所提供的各种可能性的独特组合，而每种语言的消亡都减少了证明这种能力本质的证据。世界上许多濒临灭绝的语言都是偏远地区部落民族的语言，但更多的语言与我们认为的主要语言同时使用。事实上，在许多情况下，正是这种接近是地方语言或少数民族语言濒临灭绝的一个主要原因。在美国国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation）的支持下，斯蒂芬·安德森（Stephen Anderson）博士将对瑞士五种主要罗曼史之一的Surmiran进行实地研究。来自说意大利语的人，尤其是说德语的人的巨大语言压力，使得大约3000名说这种语言的人很难保持他们的罗曼语身份。然而，这种语言的许多特征使得它对罗曼语的研究和更广泛的语言学理论都非常重要。例如，罗曼什语是唯一一种始终要求句子动词出现在第二位置的现代罗曼语，其方式与德语相似（但又略有不同）。Surmiran有一个弱（或“clitic”）代词系统，在与许多其他语法属性相关的复杂条件下，与指代主语的完整表达一起出现。这种语言也有非常不寻常的声音类型，无论是在它们本身还是在它们形成群体（或集群）的方式上。在其语法的每一个领域，Surmiran romantsch都向我们展示了人类语言的各种可能性，如果语言在被研究之前就消失了，我们可能永远不会知道这些可能性。这个项目将在几个层次上提供该语言特性的文档。对于语言学家来说，对其特点及其与重要理论问题的相关性的技术分析将为该领域的讨论带来一套新的数据。对于该语言的使用者，将提供一种语法描述，可以在教育系统的语言课程中发挥作用，并提供方便的参考。通常情况下，仅仅是对一种濒临灭绝的语言给予科学关注这一事实就能起到唤醒社区自豪感和兴趣的作用，因为他们意识到他们的语言不仅仅是一种边缘的“方言”，而是一种特殊而有价值的知识，在结构上与那些更有声望的语言一样丰富多样，对他们来说，作为表达自己文化的工具尤其有价值。除了为这两个群体提供资源，一方面是语言学家，另一方面是苏姆兰语使用者，这个项目还将为研究生提供直接参与基础和应用研究的机会。

What is lost when a language dies? Languages are becoming extinct at a much higher rate than biological species, and each time this happens, the connection of a people with their history, traditional knowledge and cultural heritage is severed. Each language is a unique combination of the possibilities offered by the human language faculty, and each language that dies reduces the evidence available for the nature of that faculty. Many of the world's endangered languages are those of tribal peoples in remote places, but many more are spoken right alongside what we think of as major languages. Indeed, this very proximity is a major reason, in many cases, for the endangered status of local or minority languages. With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Stephen Anderson will carry out field studies of Surmiran, one of five major forms of Rumantsch in Switzerland. Intense linguistic pressure from speakers of Italian and especially German makes it extremely difficult for the 3,000 or so speakers of this language to maintain their Rumantsch identity. The language has a number of features that make it quite important, though, both for the study of Romance languages and for linguistic theory more generally. For example, Rumantsch is the only modern Romance language that consistently requires the verb of the sentence to appear in second position, in a way similar to (but subtly different from) German. Surmiran has a system of weak (or "clitic") pronouns that appear together with a full expression referring to the subject under complex conditions related to a number of other grammatical properties. The language also has sound types that are quite unusual both in themselves and in the ways they form groups (or clusters). In every area of its grammar, Surmiran Rumantsch has something to show us about the range of possibilities for human language that we might well never know if the language disappeared before it could be investigated.This project will provide documentation of the features of the language at several levels. For linguists, technical analyses of its peculiarities and their relevance to important theoretical issues will bring a new set of data into discussion in the field. For speakers of the language, a grammatical description will be provided which can play a role in language courses in the educational system, as well as providing a convenient reference. It is often the case that the mere fact of devoting scientific attention to an endangered language can have the effect of awakening pride and interest in the community, as they realize that their language is not simply a marginal "dialect" but a special and valuable kind of knowledge, structurally as rich and varied as those with more prestige, and especially valuable to them as the vehicle in which their own culture is expressed. In addition to providing resources to these two communities, linguists on the one hand and Surmiran speakers on the other, this project will also provide opportunities for graduate students to participate directly in research with both a basic and an applied character.