Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Phonology and Morphology of Karuk

卡鲁克语是北加州一种高度濒危的美洲原住民语言，只有不到12位长老将其作为第一语言。卡鲁克语的特点是一个极其复杂的词形音变系统，也就是说，单词的发音随着前缀或后缀的增加而变化，类似于英语中“leaf”到“leaves”的辅音变化，以及“democrat”到“democracy”的重音变化。卡鲁克语系统充满了例外和不寻常的规则，比如元音和辅音的加长和缩短，向右和向左的重音转移，以及辅音的变化。这种复杂性提出了一个问题，即什么组织原则是构成单词的基础，特别是什么决定了单词中的韵律突出（重音、重音或高音）的位置，以及从组成部分组装单词的规则集和这些部分的发音规则集是如何整合的。先前的语言学学者已经在Karuk中描述了许多这些变化，但是一个统一的分析，考虑到语言学在过去半个世纪的理论和技术进步，还没有进行。这个项目通过收集可能的词缀组合及其对单词中重音和其他声音变化的影响的语言学数据来解决这些问题，目的是对不同的模式进行全面分析。桑迪女士将在北加州通过引出、翻译任务和自由叙述等方式从剩余的卡鲁克语第一语言使用者那里收集数据，制作高质量的会话录音，这将成为她分析的基础。本项目将为当前有关人类语言中词形-音系相互作用范围的理论提供经验数据。它还将受益于与遗产语言教师和学习者的合作，为遗产社区提供语言数据和语言方法论培训，并为语言学研究生提供语言振兴和教学法培训。

Karuk is a highly endangered Native American language of Northern California, spoken as a first language by fewer than a dozen elders. Karuk is characterized by an extraordinarily complex system of morphophonological alternations, that is, changes in a word's sounds with the addition of prefixes or suffixes, akin to the consonant change in 'leaf'~'leaves', and the stress shift in 'democrat'~'democracy', in English. The Karuk system is rife with exceptions and unusual rules of vowel and consonant lengthening and shortening, rightward and leftward accent shift, and consonant changes. This complexity raises the question of what organizing principles underlie word formation, in particular, what determines the placement of prosodic prominence (accent, stress, or high pitch) in words, and how integrated are the sets of rules for assembling words from their component parts and those for the pronunciation of those parts. Prior linguistic scholarship has described many of these alternations in Karuk, but a unifying analysis, which takes into account the theoretical and technological advances of linguistics in the past half-century, has yet to be undertaken. This project addresses these questions by collecting linguistic data on possible affix combinations and their effects on accentuation and other sound changes in words, with the aim of a comprehensive analysis of the disparate patterns. Ms. Sandy will collect data in Northern California from the remaining first-language speakers of Karuk using elicitation, translation tasks, and free narratives, making high-quality audio recordings of sessions which will form the basis for her analysis. This project will provide empirical data to bear on current theories about the range of morphology-phonology interactions possible in human languages. It will also benefit from collaboration with heritage language teachers and learners by providing linguistic data and training in linguistic methodology for the heritage community, as well as training in language revitalization and pedagogy for a linguistics graduate student.