Hiaki Grammar: Documentation and Analysis

Hiaki Grammar：文档和分析

• 批准号: 1528295
• 负责人: Heidi Harley
• 金额: $ 23.93万
• 依托单位: University of Arizona
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-08-01 至 2022-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1528295&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Hiaki; Grammar; Documentation; Analysis

This three-pronged project focuses on the grammar of Hiaki (Yaqui), an endangered Uto-Aztecan language spoken in southern Arizona and northern Mexico. Investigating understudied languages like Hiaki provides researchers the opportunity to discover hitherto undocumented diversity in the human capacity for linguistic expression, and hence to test and improve upon models of human language and cognition. Basic descriptive research on a broad array of grammatical areas will be conducted, enabling the drafting of the second volume of a projected three-volume series on the grammar of Hiaki. A series of subtitled videos, useful in language teaching as well as serving documentary purposes, will be produced.Two particularly intriguing aspects of Hiaki will be the focus of the theoretical component of this research. The grammar of Hiak''s noun phrases is like that of German or Russian, with concord for number and case marking on articles, nouns and adjectives. In contrast, Hiaki's verb phrases resemble those of Japanese, requiring complex suffixation processes instead of complement clauses in many contexts. Surprisingly, noun phrase concord becomes dissociated when the noun phrase mentions a possessor, like 'The dancer's beads', such that number marking on the article tracks the number of the possessor but the case of the whole noun phrase. This pattern of dissociation is not expected in many current models of grammatical agreement. Verb phrases also exhibit an unusual property: They permit passivization of already non-active verbs. These two very unusual features of Hiaki will be investigated in detail in consultation with native speakers of the language, and a model of these grammatical patterns developed. The implications for our understanding of the structure of human language will include a new grasp of when and why such variation can arise, and, potentially, new theories of agreement and passivization, respectively.

这个三管齐下的项目侧重于Hiaki（Yaqui）的语法，这是一种在亚利桑那州南部和墨西哥北部所说的濒临灭绝的UTO-Aztecan语言。调查诸如Hiaki之类的研究研究的语言使研究人员有机会发现迄今为止人类语言表达能力的多样性，从而测试和改进人类语言和认知模型。将对广泛的语法区域进行基本的描述性研究，从而使投影在Hiaki语法上的预计三卷系列的第二卷起草。将制作一系列针对语言教学和服务纪录片目的的字幕视频。这是Hiaki特别有趣的方面将成为这项研究的理论组成部分的重点。 Hiak的名词短语的语法就像是德国或俄罗斯的语法，并在文章，名词和形容词上进行了数字和案例标记。相反，Hiaki的动词短语类似于日本的动词短语，需要复杂的后缀过程，而不是在许多情况下补充条款。令人惊讶的是，当名词短语提到拥有者（例如“舞者的珠子”）时，名词短语concord就会解散，因此文章上标记的数字标记跟踪了拥有者的数量，但是整个名词短语的情况。在许多当前的语法一致模型中，这种解离模式不会预期。动词短语也表现出不寻常的特性：它们允许对已经非活动动词进行钝化。 Hiaki的这两个非常不寻常的特征将与以该语言的母语人士协商，并开发了这些语法模式的模型。我们对人类语言结构的理解的影响将包括对何时以及为什么会出现这种变化的新掌握，并可能分别对一致性和钝化的新理论。