Macro- and micro-variation in Bantu grammatical gender systems and their sociolinguistic correlates

班图语语法性别系统的宏观和微观变化及其社会语言学相关性

• 批准号: 529007750
• 负责人: Professorin Dr. Annemarie Verkerk
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Lehrstuhl für Translationsorientierte Sprachtechnologie
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/529007750?language=en
• 关键词: Macro; micro; variation; Bantu; grammatical

Variation and change are inherent to language. While this is an uncontroversial statement in linguistics, the mechanisms that steer language variation and change are debated. Our project addresses this debate by investigating variation and change in the nominal classification systems of the Bantu languages, a.k.a. grammatical gender systems. Bantu is one of the world’s largest language families. At each of the borders of the Bantu spread zone – northwestern, northeastern, and southern – Bantu languages are in contact with other language families that we investigate. These encompass distantly related branches of the Niger-Congo family, such as Ubangi, and genealogically unrelated groupings such as Cushitic, Nilotic, Central Sudanic, Khoe-Kwadi, Kx’a, and Tuu. Within the Bantu spread zone, inter-Bantu contact can be intense and sustained. We investigate how Bantu gender systems vary and change in languages spoken at the border with non-Bantu and/or other Bantu languages. By comparing changes that occur in Bantu languages in contact with non-Bantu and Bantu languages, we study how processes of language convergence differ depending on whether languages in contact share ancestry. In doing so, we examine the sociohistorical correlates of language change across different language contact ecologies and shed new light on the language and population history of sub-Saharan Africa. Language contact is well-researched, but the outcomes of contact are still hard to predict, and there is a lack of research on comparing contact effects in unrelated and related languages. Our research consortium will tackle these issues with new methods and bring fresh answers to it. We investigate contact-induced change in Bantu gender systems through large-scale comparative analyses and field-based studies conducted in several regions of the Bantu-speaking world. The two teams consist of researchers with leading expertise in Bantu historical-comparative and contact linguistics, the language and population history of the Bantu people and Africa, language typology, sociolinguistics, and quantitative methods in the language sciences.

变异和变化是语言所固有的。虽然这在语言学中是一个没有争议的说法，但引导语言变异和变化的机制却存在争议。我们的项目通过调查班图语名义分类系统的变异和变化来解决这一争论。语法上的性别系统。班图语是世界上最大的语系之一。在班图传播区的每个边界--西北部、东北部和南部--班图语与我们调查的其他语系有联系。这些人包括尼日尔-刚果家族的远亲分支，如乌班吉人，以及在谱系上不相关的群体，如库希提人、尼罗河人、中苏丹语、科夸迪人、科克斯阿人和图乌人。在班图传播区内，班图人之间的接触可能是激烈和持续的。我们调查班图性别系统如何在与非班图和/或其他班图语言接壤的语言中变化和变化。通过比较班图语在接触非班图语和班图语时发生的变化，我们研究了语言趋同的过程如何取决于接触的语言是否有共同的祖先。在这样做的过程中，我们考察了不同语言接触生态系统中语言变化的社会历史关联，并对撒哈拉以南非洲的语言和人口历史提出了新的看法。语言接触已经得到了很好的研究，但接触的结果仍然很难预测，缺乏对无关和相关语言的接触效果进行比较的研究。我们的研究联盟将用新的方法解决这些问题，并给它带来新的答案。我们通过在班图语世界几个地区进行的大规模比较分析和实地研究，调查班图族性别系统因接触而发生的变化。这两个团队由在班图历史比较和接触语言学、班图人和非洲的语言和人口史、语言类型学、社会语言学和语言科学中的量化方法方面具有领先专长的研究人员组成。