Doctoral Dissertation Research: Property Concepts in Wolof

博士论文研究：沃洛夫语中的财产概念

• 批准号: 1324343
• 负责人: Christopher Kennedy
• 金额: $ 1.24万
• 依托单位: University of Chicago
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-08-01 至 2015-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1324343&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Property; Concepts

Property concepts (PCs) are a class of stative notions relating to speed, age, dimension, color, value, etc. PCs are consistently lexicalized as adjectives in languages which have this category. However, PCs may also be lexicalized as nouns or roots, particularly in languages which lack a robust class of adjectives. In an array of typologically diverse and genetically unrelated languages, non-adjectival PC lexemes are found to systematically surface with possessive morphosyntax. It has recently been suggested that lexical category assignment thus reflects variation in the semantics of PC lexemes. The Niger-Congo language Wolof splits its PC terms between nouns and adjectival verbs and exemplifies both possessive predication and direct predication strategies. Under the direction of Dr. Christopher Kennedy, Ms. Rebekah Baglini will conduct primary fieldwork in Senegal to investigate the two PC constructions in the language and how they pattern together or diverge semantically. Several aspects of PC expression in Wolof will be given special focus. Of particular interest is the interpretation of scalar properties associated with the two types of PC expressions, and whether they behave similarly with respect to degree modifiers, measure phrases, comparative constructions, and the formation of degree achievements. Baglini will also investigate whether particular semantic subclasses of PCs are predictably assigned to one lexical category or another and evaluate whether the Wolof facts are consistent with generalizations made in the typological literature on PCs. The project will employ a mix of field methodologies, including elicitation, production and comprehension tasks, and the collection of spontaneous speech. The findings on Wolof will be linked to longstanding questions in the theoretical literature about the nature of properties and their representation in the model theory. Moreover, this project contributes to the growing need for evaluating semantic theories against data from under-represented languages. This award also contributes to the training of a promising graduate student.

属性概念 (PC) 是一类与速度、年龄、维度、颜色、价值等相关的静态概念。在具有此类的语言中，PC 始终被词汇化为形容词。 然而，PC 也可以被词汇化为名词或词根，特别是在缺乏强大形容词类的语言中。在一系列类型多样且遗传上无关的语言中，我们发现非形容词 PC 词位系统性地以所有格形态句法出现。最近有人提出，词汇类别分配反映了 PC 词位语义的变化。尼日尔-刚果语沃洛夫语将其 PC 术语分为名词和形容词动词，并举例说明了所有格谓语和直接谓语策略。在 Christopher Kennedy 博士的指导下，Rebekah Baglini 女士将在塞内加尔进行初步实地考察，研究该语言中的两种 PC 结构以及它们如何在语义上共同形成或不同。沃洛夫语中 PC 表达的几个方面将受到特别关注。特别令人感兴趣的是与两种类型的 PC 表达式相关的标量属性的解释，以及它们在程度修饰语、量词、比较结构和程度成就的形成方面是否表现相似。 Baglini 还将调查 PC 的特定语义子类是否可预测地分配给一个词汇类别或另一个词汇类别，并评估沃洛夫事实是否与 PC 类型学文献中的概括一致。 该项目将采用多种现场方法，包括启发、产生和理解任务，以及自发语音的收集。沃洛夫的研究结果将与理论文献中长期存在的问题联系起来，这些问题涉及属性的本质及其在模型理论中的表示。此外，该项目还满足了针对代表性不足的语言的数据评估语义理论的日益增长的需求。该奖项还有助于培养有前途的研究生。