Investigating the interaction of tone and syntax in the Bagime and the Dogon languages of Mali and Burkina Faso

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The proposed field research in Mali and Burkina Faso will complete a multi-year project documenting all languages of the Dogon family (Mali). These languages are especially interesting for their tonosyntactic systems, where certain words control tone overlays on adjacent words. A second feature of interest is that action verbs such as 'eat' and 'carry' are consistently expressed to include indication of manner or process of acting rather than, as in English, the function or result of acting. The project will also complete work on Bangime (Mali), a language isolate. Having established a second base in neighboring Burkina Faso, the project will also carry out primary documentation of two more endangered language, Jalkunan (Mande family) and Tiefo (Gur family), and will begin documentation of a third, Seeku (Mande). In addition to reference grammars (and spin-off journal articles), lexicons, and texts, the project is producing simple documentary videos of many practical activities and cultural events, is mapping the 1000 or so villages of the Dogon/Bangime and adjoining areas in Mali, and is developing guides to local flora-fauna including scientific identifications, native names in several languages, and ethnozoological information. Select grammars are being published through traditional venues and most of the materials collected will be disseminated on a project website.This award is co-funded by NSF's International Science and Engineering Office and the Documenting Endangered Langauges Program.