The Verbal Morpho-semantics and Clausal Architecture of Tlingit

特林吉特语的言语形态语义和从句结构

• 批准号: 1322770
• 负责人: Seth Cable
• 金额: $ 33.99万
• 依托单位: University of Massachusetts Amherst
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-09-01 至 2018-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1322770&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Verbal; Morpho; semantics; Clausal; Architecture

This project will conduct detailed, theoretically-informed fieldwork upon the Tlingit language (Lingít, /lin.kít/), a highly endangered and understudied language indigenous to Alaska, British Columbia, and the Yukon. The project will focus upon aspects of the language related to the expression of time and possibility, as well as the nature of the language's rather flexible word order. This project will yield results of significance to both professional linguists and community members striving to learn Tlingit as a second language. Both groups will directly benefit from the collection of new Tlingit language data, given the language's status as highly endangered. In addition, study of the specific linguistic phenomena identified in this project will make distinct, important contributions to diverse areas of linguistic theory. For example, the investigation of word-order and sentence structure in Tlingit is expected to establish for linguists the existence of 'covert A-scrambling', a grammatical process whose existence is predicted by theory, but which has thus far not been definitively documented. Furthermore, study of the grammatical means by which Tlingit expresses the concepts of time and possibility will inform specific debates surrounding the extent to which languages vary in the expression of these concepts, thus probing deep and long-standing questions relating to human nature and the structure of human cognition.Beyond these technical results, this project will advance ongoing efforts to document, maintain and revitalize the growing number of endangered languages throughout the world, mitigating the inevitable and catastrophic language death that will occur by the end of this century. This project will uncover subtle grammatical generalizations of no small importance to the growing number of persons learning Tlingit as a second language. Moreover, the digital recordings and field reports made during this project will be added to the archives stored at the Sealaska Heritage Institute and the Alaska Native Language Archive, preserving for future Tlingit generations the voices and the words of their forebears.

该项目将对特林吉特语（Lingít，/lin.kít/）进行详细的、有理论依据的实地考察，特林吉特语是阿拉斯加、不列颠哥伦比亚省和育空地区的一种高度濒危和研究不足的土著语言。该项目将侧重于语言的时间和可能性的表达，以及语言的相当灵活的词序的性质。该项目将产生重要的结果，专业语言学家和社区成员努力学习特林吉特作为第二语言。这两个群体将直接受益于收集新的特林吉特语言数据，因为该语言的地位是高度濒危的。此外，在这个项目中确定的具体语言现象的研究将作出独特的，重要的贡献，语言理论的不同领域。例如，对特林吉特语的词序和句子结构的研究有望为语言学家建立“隐性A-扰乱”的存在，这是一种语法过程，其存在被理论预测，但迄今为止还没有明确的文献记载。此外，对特林吉特表达时间和可能性概念的语法手段的研究将为围绕语言在表达这些概念方面的差异程度的具体辩论提供信息，从而探索与人类本性和人类认知结构有关的深刻而长期的问题。除了这些技术成果，该项目还将推动正在进行的努力，以记录，维护和振兴世界各地日益增多的濒危语言，减轻本世纪末将不可避免的灾难性语言消亡。这个项目将揭示微妙的语法概括，对越来越多的人学习特林吉特语作为第二语言具有不小的重要性。此外，在该项目期间制作的数字录音和实地报告将被添加到储存在Sealaska遗产研究所和阿拉斯加土著语言档案馆的档案中，为未来的Tlingit世代保留他们祖先的声音和话语。