Postdoctoral Fellowship: SPRF: Documenting Dialect Divergences Across Space and Time

该奖项是NSF社会，行为和经济科学博士后研究奖学金（SPRF）和语言学计划的一部分。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界，工业或私营部门和政府的科学事业准备有前途的早期职业博士级科学家。SPRF的奖励包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行两年的培训，并鼓励博士后研究员进行独立研究。NSF致力于促进来自科学界各部门的科学家，包括来自代表性不足的群体的科学家参与其研究计划和活动;博士后期间被认为是实现这一目标的专业发展的重要水平。每个博士后研究员必须解决推进各自学科领域的重要科学问题。在达特茅斯学院的劳拉·麦克弗森博士的赞助下，这个博士后奖学金支持了一位早期职业科学家，他调查了语言音调的多样性和音调演变的模式。该项目的目标是将这些问题应用于一种类型学上不寻常的语言。很少有语言拥有目标语语音系统的所有元素，甚至更少的语言中这些元素独立发挥作用。其他语言可能会使用词缀来表达词汇或语法上的区别，而目标语言几乎完全是超音段的（与辅音和元音的音段无关）。发音对比（无论声音听起来是吱吱作响还是呼吸）和音调对比（给定单词的音高旋律）在这种语言中独立发挥作用，但几乎在所有其他语言中都有联系。目标语言还表现出以前理论上不可能的特征。例如，有三种程度的元音长度（短，长和过长），和对比音调对齐（一个单词的含义可以通过元音的语音音调下降开始的时间点来改变）。该项目的重点是目标语言的无证方言;该项目的目标是描述他们的声调系统，并调查涉及声调的语法现象。该项目还将最终导致比较研究：调查这些方言彼此之间的相似和不同之处，以及它们如何从共同的祖先进化而来。仔细记录一种类型学上独特的语言的许多方言将有助于理解人类语言中可能存在的声调现象，并加深对高度复杂的声调系统的了解。大多数以前对目标语声调的研究都集中在语言的单一方言上，但不同方言的声调系统可能有很大差异。该项目将通过分析来自多个方言群的几个未记录或未充分描述的方言的音调系统来记录音调行为和现象的范围，形成关于音调系统如何演变和相互偏离的假设，并收集可用于深入研究每个方言中的音调和跨方言比较的数据。主要的研究方法包括收集受控数据集和分析记录的自发语音。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得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的支持。

This award was provided as part of the NSF Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) and Linguistics programs. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Laura McPherson at Dartmouth College, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating the diversity of linguistic tone and patterns in tonal evolution. The goal of the project is to apply these questions to a typologically unusual language. Few languages exist that possess all of the elements of the the target language sound system, and in even fewer do the elements function independently. Where other languages might use affixation to express lexical or grammatical distinctions, the target language's way of doing this is almost entirely suprasegmental (not having to do with the segmental sounds of consonants and vowels). A phonation contrast (whether the voice sounds creakier or breathier) and tone contrasts (the pitch melody of a given word) function independently in this language but are linked in almost every other language. The target language also exhibits features previously theorized to be impossible. For example, there are three degrees of vowel length (short, long, and overlong), and contrastive tonal alignment (a word’s meaning can be changed by the time point at which a vowel’s phonetic fall in pitch begins). This project focuses on undocumented dialects of the target language; the goal of the project is to describe their tone systems and investigate grammatical phenomena in which tone is involved. The project will also ultimately lead to comparative studies: investigations into how these dialects are similar and dissimilar to one another, and how they might have evolved from a common ancestor. Careful documentation of many dialects of a typologically unique language will contribute to understanding of the possible range of tonal phenomena in human language and deepen knowledge of highly complex tone systems. Most previous research on tone in the target language has focused on single dialects of the language, but the tone systems can differ considerably across dialects. This project will document the range of tonal behavior and phenomena by analyzing the tone systems of several undocumented or under-described dialects from multiple dialect clusters, forming hypotheses about how the tone systems evolved and diverged from one another, and collecting data that can be used for in-depth studies of tone in each dialect and for cross-dialect comparison. Primary research methods include the collection of controlled datasets and analysis of recorded spontaneous speech. The project also promotes accessible remote methodologies for conducting linguistic fieldwork.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.