Complex Sentences in Brazilian Indigenous Languages: Experimental and Theoretical Studies

补语从句、关系从句、不定式、控制、嵌入疑问句和长距离疑问句、长距离和对数约束句以及状语从句是研究得很好的语言语法的中心话题。此外，对复杂句子的分析对不太复杂的结构的分析也经常具有启发性，例如，德语的动词第二和动词末尾结构就表明了这一点。然而，关于研究不足的语言的描述性工作很少涉及复杂句子，收集关于复杂句子的理论上有洞察力的数据的工具也不发达。COSY项目用五种巴西土著语言弥补了这一差距：Maxakalí语、Kaingang语(都是Je语)、尤贾语、Kawawete语(都是图皮语)和Kuikuro语(加勒比语)。COSY的贡献既包括关于人类语言的句法和语义原则和参数的理论见解，也包括在田野调查语言描述中描述复杂句子的技术的实践进展。为了实现其目标，COSY在UFRJ的巴西研究人员和ZAS的德国研究人员之间进行了深入的交流。COSY的理论目标涉及对开头提到的领域的理解，此外还涉及转换参照标记、索引转换、格系统、证据性和言语行为标记。对五种美洲印第安语复杂句子结构的密切研究将导致新的发现，这些发现对普遍语法中的句法和语义理论具有重要意义。这些见解所基于的实际进展是自发启发技术，改进的问卷，以及COSY开发的几个进一步的实验，以系统地收集关于复杂句子的数据。随着我们改进这些技术，我们同时收集了一个独特的语料库，涉及三种不同语系的五种未被研究和濒危的巴西语言。最后，该项目与加拿大、荷兰、德国和巴西的研究人员和机构合作，推动采用现场工作数据分析和存储方面的领先技术。

Complement clauses, relative clauses, infinitivals, control, embedded and long-distance questions, long-distance and logophoric binding, and adverbial clauses are central topics of the grammar of well-studied languages. Furthermore, the analysis of complex sentences is also frequently revelatory for the analysis of less complex structures, as shown by, for example, German verb-second and verb-final structures. Descriptive work on understudied languages, however, rarely tackles complex sentences, and the tools to gather theoretically insightful data on complex sentences are underdeveloped. Project COSY addresses this gap in five indigenous languages of Brazil: Maxakalí, Kaingang (both Je), Yudja, Kawaiwete (both Tupi), and Kuikuro (Carib). The contribution of COSY consists of both theoretical insights concerning the syntactic and semantic principles and parameters of human language and practical advances for techniques to describe complex sentences in fieldwork description of languages. To accomplish its goals, COSY creates an intensive exchange between the Brazilian researchers at UFRJ and German researchers at ZAS.The theoretical goals of COSY concern the understanding of the areas mentioned at the beginning, and in addition also on switch reference marking, indexical shift, case systems, evidentiality, and speech-act marking. The close study of complex sentence structures in the five Amerindian languages is going to lead to new discoveries that are important for the syntactic and semantic theory within universal grammar. The practical advances these insights are based on are spontaneous elicitation techniques, an improved questionnaire, and several further experiments COSY develops to systematically gather data on complex sentences. As we refine these techniques, we simultaneously collect a unique corpus of data on five understudied and endangered Brazilian languages of three different language families. Finally, the project advances the adoption of leading technology in fieldwork data analysis and storage in cooperation with the Canadian, Dutch, German, and Brazilian researchers and institutions.