The Morphosyntax of Verbs in Arizona Yaqui

亚利桑那州亚基语动词的形态句法

• 批准号: 0446333
• 负责人: Heidi Harley
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Arizona
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-07-01 至 2007-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0446333&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Morphosyntax; Verbs; Arizona; Yaqui

The nucleus of any sentence of any human language is the verb. When a speaker chooses a particular verb, the structure of the rest of the sentence usually follows automatically. Verbs seem to hold the key to understanding the central expressive possibilities of human language. Interestingly, there are relatively few structural options for verbs in English: they can accept or reject the presence of a subject, an object, and/or an indirect object, but not much else. In English, verbs that share a core meaning usually pattern alike in the sentence structure(s) they accept. These core meanings may give us insight into the universal structure of human thought - or may only give us insight into the structure of thought of speakers of English. We don't know because no systematic classification of the structural properties of the verbs of any language other than English currently exists. With support from the National Science Foundation Dr. Heidi Harley and Dr. Jason Haugen will attempt to fill this gap by documenting the verbs of Yaqui, a Native American language of the southwest. Yaqui differs from English significantly in that many kinds of suffixes can be added to its verbs. These suffixes change the sentence structures that the verbs require. By discovering which suffixes can attach to which verbs of Yaqui, the investigators will establish whether the verb root's core meaning affects sentence structure in the same way that it does in English - and more importantly, will discover whether the same types of core meanings that define English verb classes are also at work in Yaqui. The investigators will work with speakers of Yaqui to create a large database of Yaqui verbs and example sentences using them, with and without each verbal suffix. By the end of the study, it should be clear whether the core meanings that matter for English verb classes are also important in the classification of Yaqui verbs.Using endangered, understudied Yaqui as the subject language will provide a dual benefit, unlike a study of a widely-studied living language with similar suffixing properties. This project will provide extensive documentation of many important aspects of Yaqui grammar for the first time, contributing new data to our store of knowledge about human language-data that may well otherwise be lost to science and humanity forever. In addition, the Yaqui language teaching community will be able to employ the materials produced by the study in language classes, and as documentation of their linguistic heritage. These materials will support the tribe's active efforts in the urgent arena of language maintenance and revitalization.

任何人类语言的任何句子的核心都是动词。当说话者选择特定动词时，其余句子的结构通常会自动遵循。动词似乎是理解人类语言中心表达可能性的关键。有趣的是，英语动词的结构选择相对较少：它们可以接受或拒绝主体，对象和/或间接对象的存在，但没有其他内容。用英语，具有核心含义的动词通常在他们接受的句子结构中相似。这些核心含义可能使我们深入了解人类思想的普遍结构，或者只能让我们深入了解英语说话者的思想结构。我们不知道，因为目前存在以外的任何语言动词的结构属性的系统分类。在国家科学基金会的支持下，海蒂·哈雷（Heidi Harley）博士和杰森·霍根（Jason Haugen）博士将试图通过记录西南美洲原住民语言Yaqui的动词来填补这一空白。 Yaqui与英语的不同之处在于，可以将许多后缀添加到其动词中。这些后缀更改动词所需的句子结构。通过发现哪些后缀可以附加到Yaqui的动词上，研究人员将确定动词root的核心含义是否以英语中的方式影响句子结构是否会影响句子结构 - 更重要的是，会发现定义英语动词类的相同类型的核心含义是否在Yaqui中也是在起作用。调查人员将与Yaqui的演讲者合作，使用它们，并使用它们创建一个大型的Yaqui动词数据库和示例句子，并使用或没有每个语言后缀。到研究结束时，应该清楚的是，对于英语动词类重要的核心含义在Yaqui动词的分类中也很重要。使用濒临灭绝的Yaqui，作为主题语言的濒临灭绝的Yaqui将提供双重益处，这与对具有类似充足性的广泛研究的生活语言的研究不同。该项目将首次提供Yaqui语法的许多重要方面的广泛文档，为我们对人类语言数据的知识贡献新数据，否则很可能会永远失去科学和人类。此外，Yaqui语言教学社区将能够在语言课上使用该研究产生的材料，并记录其语言遗产。 这些材料将支持部落在语言维护和振兴的紧急领域的积极努力。