Computational Tool and Corpora Development in a Language with Complex Clause-marking

语言中存在歧义的一种方式是通过代词。当不清楚代词是否有相同或不同的所指时，复合句会引入歧义。例如，在一个句子中，“She shouted when she throwed the ball”，“she”的两个实例都可以指同一个所指对象（即，“玛丽”），或者它们可以指不同的女性（即，“玛丽”和“苏珊”）。为了更好地理解这一现象以及其他与复杂分句相关的现象，有必要研究构式语法策略的跨语言变异来源。在某些语言中，一组标记标志着两个分句之间的关系，这个系统被称为开关参照。这些指示由从句传达的事件之间的时间/逻辑关系，以及这些事件是否共享一个突出的参与者。转换参照系统是美洲、澳大利亚、新几内亚和南太平洋地区几种土著语言的主要话语组织手段。可以说，世界上最复杂的开关参考系统是在阿马瓦卡语中发现的，阿马瓦卡语是一种来自秘鲁亚马逊地区的濒临灭绝的语言。调查人员将记录Amawaka，以增进对开关参考的复杂性、产生这些系统的历史路径及其沟通优势和潜在模糊性的了解。它将推进知识方面的语法结构超越句子水平和语篇组织策略。 这些数据将永久保存在濒危语言档案中，供研究人员和公众使用。此外，本科生和土著社区成员将接受语言培训和实地研究经验，并将编写一本故事书和双语词典供学校使用。这些活动将教育和培训下一代研究人员，并促进与社区的相互尊重的合作。该团队将通过记录该领域的原始数据，然后转向转录，翻译，注释和分析数据，使用现有的语言软件和开发一个用于句法分析的树库工具。由于树库包含语言注释的数据集，它们可以作为句子结构句法中语言理论的关键测试，因为自然出现的例子数量很大。 除了切换指称，在阿马瓦卡语中还发现了其他具有理论和类型学重要性的复杂系统，包括与信息结构相互作用的三重格标记，大量的单数与复数补动词，以及复杂的韵律（音调和声门化）。考虑到这种语言正在迅速灭绝，目前的研究将确保及时说明这些和其他特征，这些特征很少被研究或根本没有被研究。项目产出包括一个附有注释的Amawaka大型数据库、语法说明、词典、重点研究论文和教学材料。除了增加Amawaka的科学知识，转换参考及其其他语法特征外，由此产生的树库数据集将有助于更强大和可重复的语言科学。帕诺亚内部比较将允许重建原始语言的中心方面。最终，这些科学发现将为亚马逊语言学做出重大贡献，并对语言学领域产生更广泛的影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

One way ambiguity exists in language is through pronouns. Complex sentences can introduce ambiguity when it is unclear whether pronouns have the same referent or a different one. For example, in a sentence like, "She yelled when she threw the ball," both instances of "she" could refer to the same referent (i.e., "Mary"), or they could refer to different females (i.e., "Mary" and "Susan"). To better understand this and other phenomena associated with complex clauses, it is necessary to investigate sources of crosslinguistic variation in the grammatical strategies of constructions. In some languages, a set of markers signal the relationship between two clauses in a system known as switch-reference. These indicate the temporal/logical relationship between the events conveyed by the clauses and whether these events share a prominent participant or not. Switch reference systems are the main discourse organization device in several indigenous languages of the Americas, Australia, New Guinea, and the South Pacific. Arguably the most complex switch-reference system in the world is found in Amawaka, a critically endangered language from Peruvian Amazonia from the Panoan family. Investigators will document Amawaka to advance knowledge of the complexities of switch-reference, the historical paths that give rise to these systems, and their communicative advantages and potential ambiguities. It will advance knowledge in regards grammar structures beyond the sentence level and discourse organization strategies. The data will be permanently stored in archives for endangered languages, available to researchers and the general public. Additionally, undergraduate students and members of the indigenous community will receive linguistic training and field research experience and will produce a storybook and bilingual dictionary for use in schools. These activities will educate and train the next generation of researchers and foster respectful collaboration with the community.The team will record primary data in the field through and then turn to transcribing, translating, and annotating and analyzing that data using existing linguistic software and by developing a a treebank tool for syntactic analysis. Because treebanks contain linguistically annotated data sets, they serve as critical tests of linguistic theories in syntax for sentence structure, given the robustness of the number of naturally occurring examples. Alongside switch-reference, other complex systems of theoretical and typological importance are found in Amawaka, including tripartite case-marking that interacts with information structure, a large number of singular vs. plural suppletive verbs, and sophisticated prosody (tone and glottalization). Considering that the language is rapidly becoming extinct, the present research will ensure a timely account of these and other features, which have been scantly studied or not studied at all. Project outputs include a large annotated Amawaka database, a grammar description, dictionaries, focused research papers, and pedagogical materials. In addition to increasing the scientific knowledge of Amawaka, switch reference, and its other grammatical features, the resulting treebank data set will contribute to more robust and reproducible language sciences. A Panoan-internal comparison will allow the reconstruction of central aspects of the protolanguage. Ultimately, the scientific findings will significantly contribute to Amazonian linguistics and highly impact the linguistic field more generally.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.