CAREER: Grammatical change and reconstruction

职业：语法变化和重建

• 批准号: 2048220
• 负责人: Don Daniels
• 金额: $ 53.85万
• 依托单位: University of Oregon Eugene
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-03-15 至 2027-02-28
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2048220&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Grammatical; change; reconstruction

Understanding the abstract, cognitive principles that underlie language change has long been a topic of linguistic research. However, the bulk of work on language change has focused on major world languages--in large part because they tend to have long written histories. In addition, studies employing comparative reconstruction have concentrated on identifying and recreating the words and sounds of undocumented proto-languages. This project broadens the empirical basis for theories of language change by examining change in less studied languages and language families, thereby taking on the challenge posed by languages that lack written records and, in some cases, that have previously remained understudied or entirely undocumented. It also shifts attention from identifying the words and sounds of proto-languages by developing methods for reconstructing grammar, and it applies those methods to less-described languages in order to further broaden our understanding of language change.The project’s primary methodological contribution to theories of language change is to develop research practices for reconstructing distributional restrictions. The project focuses on the distributional properties of cross-linguistically rare structures, including flexible word classes; suppletive roots for verbs of transfer that index the person and number of the recipient argument; and a focus construction that marks tense on nominal constituents. In the pursuit of these goals, the project engages team members to document previously undocumented languages. The project also provides training opportunities for indigenous researchers to prepare them for documenting understudied and endangered languages. All of the language documentation resulting directly from this project are to be stored securely in a language archive, and made freely available to community members, linguists, and any other interested parties.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.

理解语言变化背后的抽象认知原则一直是语言学研究的一个主题。然而，关于语言变化的大部分工作都集中在世界上主要的语言上——很大程度上是因为这些语言往往有很长的文字历史。此外，采用比较重构的研究主要集中在识别和重建未记录的原始语言的单词和声音。该项目通过研究研究较少的语言和语族的变化，拓宽了语言变化理论的经验基础，从而应对缺乏书面记录的语言所带来的挑战，在某些情况下，这些语言以前一直没有得到充分的研究或完全没有记录。它还通过开发重建语法的方法，将人们的注意力从识别原始语言的单词和声音转移开来，并将这些方法应用于描述较少的语言，以进一步扩大我们对语言变化的理解。该项目对语言变化理论的主要方法论贡献是为重建分布限制发展研究实践。该项目侧重于跨语言罕见结构的分布特性，包括灵活的词类；转移动词的补语词根，用于索引接收参数的人或数；以及一个在名义成分上标记时态的焦点结构。在追求这些目标的过程中，项目让团队成员对以前未归档的语言进行文档化。该项目还为土著研究人员提供培训机会，使他们为记录研究不足和濒危的语言做好准备。该项目直接产生的所有语言文档都将安全地存储在语言档案中，并免费提供给社区成员、语言学家和任何其他感兴趣的团体。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。