The Grammar of Surmiran Rumantsch

当一种语言消亡时，它失去了什么？语言正在以比生物物种更快的速度灭绝，每次发生这种情况，一个民族与其历史、传统知识和文化遗产的联系就会被切断。每一种语言都是人类语言教员提供的可能性的独特组合，而每一种消亡的语言都会减少对该教员性质可用的证据。世界上许多濒临灭绝的语言是偏远地区部落人民的语言，但更多的语言与我们认为的主要语言一起使用。事实上，在许多情况下，这种接近是当地或少数民族语言濒临灭绝的一个主要原因。在国家科学基金会的支持下，斯蒂芬·安德森博士将对苏米兰语进行实地研究，苏米兰语是瑞士鲁曼奇语的五种主要形式之一。来自讲意大利语的人，尤其是讲德语的人的巨大语言压力，使得大约3000名讲这种语言的人很难保持他们的Rumantsch身份。然而，这种语言有许多特点，这使得它对于罗曼蒂克语言的研究和更广泛的语言学理论来说都相当重要。例如，Rumantsch是唯一一种始终要求句子中的动词出现在第二位置的现代罗曼奇语言，其方式类似于德语(但与德语略有不同)。苏美拉语有一套弱的(或“克制的”)代词系统，这些代词与完整的表达一起出现，在复杂的条件下指主语，与许多其他语法属性有关。这种语言的发音类型也非常不寻常，无论是在它们本身还是在它们形成组(或簇)的方式上都是如此。在语法的每个领域，Surmiran Rumantsch都有一些东西可以向我们展示人类语言的各种可能性，如果语言在被研究之前消失了，我们可能永远不会知道。这个项目将在几个层面上提供语言特征的文件。对于语言学家来说，对其特殊性及其与重要理论问题的相关性的技术分析将带来一组新的数据进入该领域的讨论。对于说这种语言的人，将提供语法描述，这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。通常情况是，仅仅是对濒危语言给予科学关注的事实就可以唤醒社区的自豪感和兴趣，因为他们意识到他们的语言不仅仅是一种边缘的“方言”，而是一种特殊的、有价值的知识，在结构上与那些更有声望的语言一样丰富和多样，对他们来说特别有价值，因为他们是表达自己文化的媒介。除了为这两个群体提供资源，一方面是语言学家，另一方面是会说苏里语的人，这个项目还将为研究生提供直接参与研究的机会，既有基础的也有应用的。

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.