A linguistic microvariation approach to complementizers and complementation

这个项目研究语言如何在句子中表达句子，例如“他认为她离开了。特别令人感兴趣的是像上面的“that”这样的词，叫做“complementizers“。“大量的工作一直致力于补充剂的作用。补语在连接句子时起着什么作用，这种作用在不同语言中有多大的不同？这个项目通过关注语言的一个子类中的变化来扩展对句子中的重复的一般理解。在这些语言中，有各种各样的策略将一个句子嵌入另一个句子，包括在一种语言中使用多个（有时超过五个）不同的补语。该项目通过对母语人士的详细采访，严格记录和分析了这些不同补语的功能，从而增加了对这种复杂句子类型的更广泛理解。这项研究增加了我们的理论基础，人类语言如何工作和发展的教学资源，为speaker community.Decades的跨语言的工作，主要是印欧语言，揭示了一些不同的因素影响之间的关系嵌入子句和其相关的主句。句法、语义和形态标准都与小句嵌入策略的确定有关。这些调查导致了一个复杂的，有时不一致的图片的句法和语义嵌入子句跨语言。该项目通过记录和分析密切相关的语言之间的变化来解决这些问题。以前的描述性工作揭示了显着的中介语，在某些情况下，说话人之间的变化。这个项目的重点是变异作为一种手段，以解决一些长期存在的困惑嵌入条款。它还为散居地和边缘化语言社区做出贡献，创造教学资源，并突出一些讲非官方“方言”的社区，这些社区以前很少得到认可或记录。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。

This project investigates how languages express sentences within sentences, such as "He thinks that she left." Of particular interest are words like "that" above, called "complementizers." A great deal of work has been dedicated to the role of a complementizer. What function does a complementizer play in linking together sentences, and to what extent does this function vary across languages? This project expands the general understanding of sentences-within-sentences by focusing on variation within a subfamily of languages. Among these languages, there is a wide range of strategies for embedding a sentence in another sentence, including multiple (sometimes upwards of five) different complementizers in a single language. This project rigorously documents and analyzes the function of these different complementizers via detailed interviews with native speakers, and thereby increases the broader understanding of this complex sentence type. This research adds to the empirical basis for our theorizing about how human language works and develops pedagogical resources for the speaker community.Decades of cross-linguistic work, largely on Indo-European languages, has revealed a number of different factors affecting the relationship between an embedded clause and its associated main clause. Syntactic, semantic, and morphological criteria have all been implicated in determining the clausal embedding strategy. These investigations have resulted in a complex and sometimes inconsistent picture of the syntax and semantics of embedded clauses cross-linguistically. This project addresses these issues by documenting and analyzing variation across closely related languages. Previous descriptive work has revealed significant inter-language, and in some cases, inter-speaker variation. This project focuses on variation as a means to address some of the long-standing puzzles about embedded clauses. It also contributes to diaspora and marginalized language communities, creating pedagogical resources and highlighting some of the communities who speak unofficial "dialects" that have previously received little recognition or documentation.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.