Doctoral Dissertation Research: A Reference Grammar of a Typologically Diverse Language

语言是人类最独特的特征。为了发展对人类语言的理解，语言学学科需要有关语言的详细信息，这些语言与过去研究的更熟悉的语言有显着不同。该项目将对Chepang语进行语法描述，Chepang语是尼泊尔中部约48，000人使用的濒危语言。Chepang属于汉藏语系，也包括中国人，西藏人和缅甸人。切庞语的语法模式在世界语言中是非常罕见的。举一个重要的例子，车旁句不像英语或大多数其他语言那样有相同的主语和宾语。在Chepang中，动词一致遵循一种非常复杂的“等级”模式，在这种模式下，从句的任何第一或第二人称论元，无论是主语、宾语，甚至是主语或宾语的拥有者，都控制着一致（因此，在Chepang翻译的句子“她骂了你的孩子”中，动词将与“你”一致，而不是与句子的主语一致）。像这样的语言是非常罕见的;它们包括一些北美的土著语言，一些南美的土著语言，以及一些喜马拉雅山的汉藏语。记录这种不寻常的语法对于理解人类语言的全部范围是很重要的。该项目将把美国的资源引入尼泊尔，并进行一些能力建设，在一个其他国家正在建立广泛联系的地区发挥“软实力”的作用。在博士论文中产生的语言分析将作为基础，为未来的母语为基础的多语言教育计划创建教材。更广泛的影响还包括为博士生提供培训和研究经验，他们将进行实地考察并编写语法。该项目将产生Chepang [ISO 639-3：cdm]的参考语法，生成对该语言的语音和语法结构的详细描述，以及一套转录的口语叙述。博士生玛丽-卡罗琳脑桥将与居住在Makawanpur区的平原和丘陵的不同Chepang社区的成员密切合作，录制音频/视频，转录和翻译各种各样的体裁，这些体裁将记录Chepang人的语言，历史和生活，包括叙事，民族志和程序文本，以及自然的对话互动。“车旁”有许多具有历史意义和理论意义的语法特征，其中包括上述的言语约定系统。目前，对这类语言的完整描述很少，并且在该领域中存在关于这些语言如何工作以及这种模式如何与更熟悉的语言中发生的事情相关的争论。由于这类语言文献只能在讲这种语言的社区中进行，记录说流利语言的长者的对话和叙述，因此该项目需要在尼泊尔进行广泛的研究。除了对语言科学的贡献，以及对我们了解亚洲史前史和藏缅语变化的贡献外，将产生的语法将对Chepang社区的语言保护具有相当大的价值。这个奖项反映了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。

Language is the most unique characteristic of the human species. In order to develop an understanding of human language, the discipline of linguistics requires detailed information about languages that are significantly different from the more familiar languages that were studied in the past. This project will produce a grammatical description of Chepang, an endangered language spoken in Central Nepal by around 48,000 people. Chepang belongs to the Sino-Tibetan family, which also includes Chinese, Tibetan, and Burmese. Chepang shows grammatical patterns which are very unusual in the world's languages. To take one important example, Chepang sentences do not have the same kind of subjects and objects as English or most other languages. In Chepang, verb agreement follows a very complex "hierarchical" pattern in which any first or second person argument of the clause, whether subject, object, or even the possessor of a subject or object, governs agreement (so that in the Chepang translation of the sentence "She scolded your child" the verb would agree with "you", not with the subject of the sentence). Languages like this are very rare; they include a few Native languages of North America, a few in South America, and a few Sino-Tibetan languages of the Himalayas. It is important to document this kind of unusual grammar in order to understand the full range of possible human language. The project will bring U.S. resources into Nepal and do some capacity building, acting like a type of "soft power" in a region where other foreign countries are making extensive connections of their own. The analysis of the language produced in the doctoral dissertation will serve as a foundation to create pedagogical materials for future mother-tongue based multilingual education programs. Broader impacts also include training and research experience for the doctoral student who will carry out the fieldwork and write the grammar.The project will produce a reference grammar of Chepang [ISO 639-3:cdm], generating a detailed description of the phonological and grammatical structures of the language, and a transcribed set of spoken narratives. Doctoral student Marie-Caroline Pons will work in close collaboration with members of different Chepang communities who live in the plains and hills of Makawanpur district, to audio/video record, transcribe, and translate a wide varieties of genres that will document the language, history, and life of the Chepang people, including narratives, ethnographical expository and procedural texts, as well as natural conversational interactions. Chepang has a number of grammatical features which are of great historical and theoretical interest, including the verbal agreement system mentioned above. At present very few full descriptions of languages of this kind exist, and there is debate in the field about how such languages work, and how this pattern relates to what occurs in more familiar languages. Because language documentation of this kind can only be carried out in a community of speakers, recording conversations and narratives from elders who are fluent speakers, the project requires extended research in Nepal. In addition to its contributions to the science of linguistics, and to our knowledge of Asian prehistory and Tibeto-Burman language change, the grammar which will be produced will be of considerable value to the Chepang community in the preservation of their language.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.