Doctoral Dissertation Research: Integration of Quantitative and Documentary Methodologies in the Analysis of a Segmentally-Rich Language

我们所知道的人类语言是如何运作的，主要是基于少数几种经过充分研究的语言，这些语言主要来自西方工业化国家。与此同时，世界上7000种语言中有近一半正面临消失的威胁，这给语言学带来了一项紧迫的挑战，即在社区仍在使用的情况下记录研究不足的语言。本论文项目解决了这些问题，不仅通过记录一种研究不足的、片段丰富的语言，而且通过开创性地将实验方法适应于实地工作环境，提供通常只适用于研究充分的语言的丰富的、定量的数据。研究人员将对Tsova-Tush的语音系统和语法进行首次定量调查，Tsova-Tush是格鲁吉亚使用的一种极度濒危的东北高加索语言。这个语系和区域在语言学中都被严重低估，这意味着来自该语言的定量数据对于帮助增加语言科学可用数据库的多样性特别有价值。此外，它在格鲁吉亚的位置是一个理想的野外工作环境，适合为一种濒临灭绝的语言调整实验方法：Tsova-Tush语是一个农村农业村庄，与其他野外工作地点相比有许多挑战，但有足够可靠的交通和电信通道，使实验方法的应用和故障排除可行。最后，该文档将提供关于分段复杂语言的有价值的数据，这将进一步我们对人类语言复杂性的认知需求的理解。更广泛的影响包括录音和转录的公共存储库，博士生的培训，以及促进少数民族语言群体获得语言资源以加强科学理解。本文的定量研究主要集中在三个语言学问题上：长元音和长辅音的地位、指示代词和代词（指示代词）的语法性以及拟议的书写系统的可读性。有人认为，Tsova-Tush既有普通辅音，也有“强化”辅音，还有短元音、长元音和“超长元音”，但语言学家缺乏语音细节来确定这个复杂语音系统的确切属性。通过对多个扬声器的详细声学研究，本项目将描述区分这些辅音和元音的持续时间特性。此外，Tsova-Tush语有一个复杂的索引系统，区分了三种指示距离（“here”/“there”/“over there”），它们的语法用途很少被理解。在这个项目中，我们将进行一个实验，要求说话者在各种不同的语境中判断带有索引的句子的语法性，从而建立索引转移的参数。最后，根据这些研究的结果，研究人员将测试拟议的Tsova-Tush书写系统的可读性，并为使用该语言开发书面材料提供语言学上合理的建议。论文描述的成功和挑战的定量研究在文件的情况下，将有助于提高文献和实验语言学的方法。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

Much of what we know about how human languages work is based on only a handful of well-studied languages, chiefly from Western, industrialized countries. Meanwhile, nearly half of the world's 7,000 languages are under threat of disappearance, presenting linguistics with the urgent challenge of documenting under-studied languages while communities still use them. This dissertation project addresses these issues not only by documenting an under-studied, segmentally-rich language, but through groundbreaking adaptation of experimental methods to a fieldwork setting to provide rich, quantitative data of the type normally only available for well-studied languages. The researchers will conduct the first quantitatively-driven investigations of the sound system and grammar of Tsova-Tush, a critically endangered Northeast Caucasian language spoken in Georgia. This language family and region are both dramatically underrepresented in linguistics, meaning that quantitative data from this language are particularly valuable for helping to increase the diversity of the database available to linguistic science. Further, its location in Georgia is an ideal fieldwork setting for adapting experimental methods for an endangered language: Tsova-Tush is spoken in a rural, agricultural village with many of the challenges of other fieldwork sites, but with reliable enough access to transit and telecommunications to make the application and troubleshooting of experimental methods feasible. Finally, the documentation will provide valuable data about a segmentally complex language that will further our understanding of the cognitive demands of human language complexity in general. Broader impacts include a public repository of recordings and transcriptions, the training of a doctoral student, and facilitating access to linguistic resources for a minority language group to enhance scientific understanding.The quantitative studies in the dissertation focus on three linguistic questions: the status of long vowels and consonants, the grammaticality of demonstratives and pronouns (indexicals), and the readability of a proposed writing system. It has been suggested that Tsova-Tush has both plain and "intensive" consonants, as well as short, long, and "hyperlong" vowels, but linguists lack the phonetic details to establish the exact properties of this complicated sound system. Through a detailed acoustic study with multiple speakers, this project will describe the durational properties that distinguish these consonants and vowels. Further, Tsova-Tush has a complex system of indexicals, distinguishing three deictic distances ('here'/'there'/'over there'), whose grammatical uses are poorly understood. In this project, an experiment will be conducted, in which speakers will be asked to judge the grammaticality of sentences with indexicals in a wide variety of contexts, thus establishing the parameters of indexical shift. Finally, based on the findings of these studies, the researchers will test the readability of a proposed Tsova-Tush writing system and provide speakers with linguistically sound recommendations for developing written materials in the language. The dissertation's description of the successes and challenges of the quantitative studies in a documentation scenario will help improve the methodologies of both documentary and experimental linguistics.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.