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Morphological Complexity in Nuer

努尔语的形态复杂性

基本信息

批准号：
AH/L011824/1
负责人：
Matthew Baerman
金额：
$ 65万
依托单位：
University of Surrey
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2015
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2015 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FL011824%2F1
关键词：
Morphological Complexity Nuer

项目摘要

A notorious complicating factor in language comes from inflectional morphology, which is all the more striking because some languages have it and others do not. In English, for example, verbs inflect, and alongside a form such as 'sing', a speaker must know 'sings', 'sang', 'sung' and 'singing'. In Mandarin Chinese, where verbs do not inflect, a speaker only needs to know one form (chàng). But inflection is not just a matter of learning multiple forms -- speakers also need to negotiate a network of unpredictable and ambiguous relationships. For instance, English speakers do not just need to know that a verb must have a simple past tense form, they need to know that the past tense forms of 'sing', 'fling', 'bring' and 'ping' are all constructed in different ways ('sang', 'flung', 'brought' and 'pinged'), and that while 'sang' and 'hang' rhyme, one is a past tense form and the other present. While the inflectional system of English is still fairly simple, in other languages things may get considerably more complex.One of the world's most extreme examples comes from Nuer, a language of the West Nilotic branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family, mainly spoken in the Republic of South Sudan. This complexity is not due so much to a large number of forms, but rather to their unpredictability and internal structure. This can be clearly seen in the case suffixes. On the face of it, the system is quite simple. There just two suffixes, -ka in the singular and -ni in the plural. But their behaviour is quite baffling, because their meaning varies according to the individual noun; for example, -ni can function as a genitive case suffix for some nouns, as a locative case for others, or as both, or even as a general plural suffix with no case-marking function at all. Speakers must learn how to use and recognize these forms, and select the correct function from this range of competing options. Besides suffixation, nouns may also inflect through various internal changes, as with English 'foot' versus 'feet'. But in Nuer this goes well beyond such vocalic alternations, and takes advantage of a rich system of prosodic features such as length, tone, and phonation type (breathy voice versus creaky voice). As with the suffixes, it is not possible to establish a fixed function for these features. For example, the genitive case of 'cow' is formed by vowel lengthening (yang ~ yaang) while that of 'person' is formed by shortening (raan ~ ran). Taken together, the patterns of suffixation and word-internal changes constitute a system whose complexity is matched by few languages in the world. This is of major interest both to the study of language and of cognition more generally, because the reigning linguistic and psychological models of inflection are based on systems which are considerably simpler.But while we know enough about the language to appreciate the challenges it poses, we lack any detailed information. Very little about it is known about Nuer outside the speech community, and the existing descriptions are sketchy at best. Therefore, in this project we aim to produce the first comprehensive description of the inflectional morphology of Nuer, based on original fieldwork, at the same time illuminating aspects of its sound system, syntax and historical development. Alongside the structural complexities of the system, the prosodic system poses particular descriptive challenges of its own, in which the overlapping effects of tone, phonation type and the typologically unusual three-way vowel length distinction must be untangled through careful acoustic measurements. The results of this investigation will be important to students of language and the human mind, and will also have value to the speaker community in the development of orthographic standards, an ongoing process in the newly independent South Sudan.

语言中一个臭名昭著的复杂因素来自屈折形态学，这是所有更引人注目的，因为一些语言有它，而另一些没有。例如，在英语中，动词会发生屈折变化，除了“singing”这样的形式，说话者还必须知道“sings”、“sang”、“singing”和“singing”。在汉语普通话中，动词不发生屈折变化，说话者只需要知道一种形式（chàng）。但是，语调变化不仅仅是学习多种形式的问题，说话者还需要协商一个不可预测和模糊的关系网络。例如，说英语的人不仅需要知道动词必须有一个简单的过去时形式，他们还需要知道“sing '，”fling“，”bring“和”ping“的过去时形式都是以不同的方式构造的（”sang“，”flung“，”bringed“和”pinged“），并且当”sang“和”hang“押韵时，一个是过去时形式，另一个是现在时形式。虽然英语的屈折系统仍然相当简单，但在其他语言中，事情可能会变得相当复杂。世界上最极端的例子之一来自努尔语，这是尼罗-撒哈拉语系西尼罗语分支的一种语言，主要在南苏丹共和国使用。这种复杂性与其说是由于大量的形式，不如说是由于它们的不可预测性和内部结构。这一点可以从案例后缀中清楚地看出。从表面上看，这个系统很简单。只有两个后缀，-ka是单数，-ni是复数。但它们的行为却令人困惑，因为它们的意义因名词而异;例如，-ni可以作为某些名词的属格后缀，也可以作为其他名词的方位格后缀，或者两者兼有，甚至可以作为一个没有任何格标记功能的一般复数后缀。演讲者必须学会如何使用和识别这些形式，并从这一系列竞争选项中选择正确的功能。除了后缀，名词也可以通过各种内部变化发生屈折变化，如英语中的foot与feet。但在努埃尔语中，这远远超出了这种元音交替，并利用了丰富的韵律特征系统，如长度、音调和发声类型（呼吸声与吱吱声）。与后缀一样，不可能为这些功能建立固定的功能。例如，“cow”的属格是由元音延长（yang ~ yaang）形成的，而“person”的属格是由元音缩短（raan ~ ran）形成的。词缀和词内部变化的模式构成了一个复杂的系统，世界上很少有语言能与之相比。这对语言研究和更广泛的认知研究都很有意义，因为主流的语言学和心理学的屈折变化模型都是基于相当简单的系统，但尽管我们对语言有足够的了解，能够理解它带来的挑战，但我们缺乏任何详细的信息。在语言社区之外，人们对努埃尔人知之甚少，现有的描述充其量也只是粗略的。因此，在这个项目中，我们的目标是在原始田野调查的基础上，对努尔语的屈折形态进行第一次全面的描述，同时阐明其语音系统，句法和历史发展。除了系统的结构复杂性，韵律系统提出了自己的特殊的描述性的挑战，在其中的音调，发声类型和类型学上不寻常的三路元音长度的区别的重叠效果必须通过仔细的声学测量解开。这项调查的结果将对语言和人类思维的学生很重要，也将对讲者群体在制定正字法标准方面具有价值，这是新独立的南苏丹正在进行的一项工作。