Uncovering the dynamics of person marking: A construction-based approach in historical microtypology

揭示人物标记的动态：历史微观类型学中基于构造的方法

• 批准号: 450135853
• 负责人: Dr. Linda Konnerth
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Lehrstuhl für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft (AVS)
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Independent Junior Research Groups
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2019-12-31 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/450135853?language=en
• 关键词: Uncovering; dynamics; person; marking; construction

The category of ‘person’ is the grammatical system that lets us refer to the ‘speaker’ role (first person), the ‘addressee’ role (second person), the ‘other’, non-speech act participant role (third person), and commonly also groups of these basic roles (e.g., plural person forms). Traditionally, person forms are thought to be unusually stable. A considerable body of literature has examined the synchronic typology of this grammatical category, in particular regarding various paradigm types. We have a fairly good understanding of how different types of person markers function, i.e., bound vs. free markers; person markers of different syntactic roles (S, A, O); etc. We also know something about the diachronic developments of person forms, for example how different paradigmatic sets are diachronically related. But despite the long tradition of research on ‘person’, one important line of investigation remains entirely underexplored: the diachronic dynamics of particular person markers. That is, how particular person markers (rather than entire paradigms) change, and more specifically, how this happens in particular constructions. This project offers the first systematic approach to understanding the specific ways in which person markers can and do change over time. The South-Central (‘Kuki-Chin’) branch of Sino-Tibetan serves as an excellent language ‘sample’ to track the dynamics of person markers. Prior research shows that this branch of around 50 languages displays a remarkably high rate of changes in the domain of person marking. At the same time, the close phylogenetic relationship creates what comes closest to laboratory conditions: A range of variables can be held constant, from overall typological profile to phonological setting to inventories of particular constructions and specific grammatical forms. Moreover, the rich verbal morphology in SC overtly codes distinct person constructions, which makes specific pathways trackable. This includes, e.g., apparently bidirectional shifts between the inclusive (1+2) and 2nd person; changes from plural to inclusive marking; from 2nd to speech-act participant object marking; or the evolution of inverse markers. Many of the changes evident in South-Central (SC) apparently occur in languages around the world although less commonly. Thus, this project will identify general pressures for change experienced by particular person markers in particular constructions. Focusing on SC, the project will be able to examine variation both diachronically across related languages as well as synchronically in corpora of individual languages. This gives us a new angle to examine the impact of factors such as tense/aspect, transitivity, sentence polarity, or (socio-)pragmatics, among others. This in turn will provide us with a much deeper understanding of the general interactions between the category of person and other grammatical categories.

人称范畴是一种语法系统，它允许我们指代‘说话人’角色(第一人称)、‘受话人’角色(第二人称)、‘其他’、非言语行为参与者角色(第三人称)，通常也指这些基本角色的组(例如，复数人称形式)。传统上，人的外形被认为是异常稳定的。相当多的文献研究了这一语法范畴的共时类型学，特别是关于各种范式类型。我们对不同类型的人称标记的功能有了较好的了解，即约束标记和自由标记；不同句法角色的人称标记(S，A，O)等。我们还了解了人称形式的历时发展，例如不同的聚合集合是如何历时联系的。但是，尽管对“人”的研究有着悠久的传统，但有一条重要的研究路线仍然完全没有被探索：特定的人称标记的历时动态。也就是说，特定的人称标记(而不是整个范例)是如何变化的，更具体地说，是这种变化如何在特定的结构中发生。这个项目提供了第一个系统的方法来理解人的标记可以并且确实随着时间的推移而改变的具体方式。汉藏语的中南部分支是追踪人称标记语动态的一个很好的语言样本。先前的研究表明，这个由大约50种语言组成的分支在人称标记领域表现出非常高的变化率。与此同时，密切的系统发育关系创造了最接近实验室条件的东西：一系列变量可以保持不变，从总体类型配置到语音环境，再到特定结构和特定语法形式的清单。此外，SC中丰富的动词形态明显地编码了不同的人称结构，这使得特定的路径是可追踪的。这包括，例如，明显的在包含(1+2)和第二人称之间的双向转换；从复数标记到包含标记；从第二标记到言语行为参与者对象标记；或者反向标记的演变。中南部(SC)的许多明显变化显然发生在世界各地的语言中，尽管不太常见。因此，这个项目将确定在特定建筑中特定人标记所经历的改变的一般压力。以自然科学为重点，该项目将能够对相关语言之间的历时差异以及个别语言语料库中的差异进行同步检查。这为我们提供了一个新的视角来考察时体、及物性、句子的极性或(社会)语用等因素的影响。这反过来将使我们更深入地理解人称范畴与其他语法范畴之间的一般相互作用。