Comparative Bodic Syntax

摘要该项目涉及藏缅语布底语分支的四种语言的情报工作。拉萨藏语、纽瓦里和桑瓦里的工作将在俄勒冈州的尤金进行；金库里的工作将在印度的阿尔莫拉和西姆拉进行。在所有这些语言中，新的时态标记系统都是从带有系词的旧补语从句发展而来的。这项研究的目的是全面描述和分析被研究语言的句法和词法的相关方面，并对原型语言中的系词系统、名词化结构、补语和时体标记进行重构，并说明导致子语模式的句法变化过程。该项目将对我们理解一个主要但仍然令人惊讶地鲜为人知的语言家族做出重要贡献。目前是开展这种性质项目的理想时机：政治气氛的改善使首席调查员及其同伙有可能与以有关语言和方言为母语的人合作。该项目的部分工作需要紧急完成，因为一些较小的藏缅语正在消亡。该项目不仅对藏缅语语言学有影响，而且对语言变化的一般理论也有影响。

ABSTRACT The project entails informant work on four languages of the Bodic branch of Tibeto-Burman. Work on Lhasa Tibetan, Newari, and Sunwari will be carried out in Eugene, Oregon; work on Kinnauri in Almora and Simla, India. In all of these languages, newer tense-marking systemms have developed from older complement clauses with copulas. The goals of the research are full des- criptions and analyses of the relevant aspects of the syntax and morphology of the languages to be studied, and a reconstruction of the copula system, nominalization constructions, complementa- tion and tense-aspect marking in Proto-Bodic, with an account of the processes of syntactic change which have led to the patterns found in the daughter languages. The project will make an important contribution to our understanding of a major but still surprisingly poorly known language family. The present time is an ideal time to carry out a project of this nature: improvements in the political climate have made it possible for the Principal Investigator and his associates to work with native speakers of the relevant languages and dialects. Parts of the project require urgent completion, as a number of the smaller Tibeto-Burman languages are moribund. The project will have implications not only for Tibeto-Burman linguistics, but also for the general theory of language change.