Dissertation Research Improvement Grants: Doctoral Dissertation Research: Menominee Metrical Structure

在博士的指导下。Monica Macaulay和Thomas Purnell， Marianne Milligan女士将为她的博士论文进行实地考察。她将与梅诺米尼语的剩余使用者一起工作，这是威斯康星州梅诺米尼保留地使用的一种濒危语言。她的论文强调了梅诺米尼的韵律结构，特别是重音的位置和长、短元音的模式。这个话题在理论上很有趣，因为梅诺米尼的格律很不寻常。这些规则得到了几种不同的理论分析，其中一种被用作反对语言学理论中某些当前趋势的证据。然而，所有对梅诺米尼格律结构的分析都是基于美国语言学家伦纳德·布卢姆菲尔德已发表的作品，因此继承了他的作品中包含的各种问题。首先，虽然他的语法被认为是对美洲印第安人语言最全面的描述之一，但它是在他死后由另一位语言学家完成的。因此，有些地方是矛盾的。其次，因为布卢姆菲尔德使用了标准化的拼写系统而不是语音转录，所以他的作品没有表现出发音的变化。关于Menominee的理论主张需要对数据进行更准确的描述。这个项目的数据也将用于部落语言保护项目的教学材料中。所有录在录音带上的材料将被转制成CD，用于存档、分发给部落组织和声学分析。这项研究在两个方面意义重大。首先，它将通过提供梅诺米尼数据的准确描述和理论分析来扩展梅诺米尼测量结构的研究。了解梅诺米尼不寻常的格律结构不仅会增加我们对人类语言的总体理解，而且这些数据提出的问题也可能影响当前语言学理论中的争论。第二，本计划将协助制作的语言教材，例如带文字的故事磁带、词汇磁带和语法课程，将用于部落在保留区的学校中保留语言和文化的努力。

Under the direction of Drs. Monica Macaulay and Thomas Purnell, Ms. Marianne Milligan will conduct fieldwork for her doctoral dissertation. She will work with the remaining speakers of Menominee, an endangered language spoken on the Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin. Her dissertation emphasizes the metrical structure of Menominee, in particular the placement of accent and the pattern of long and short vowels. The topic is theoretically interesting because Menominee's metrical rules are very unusual. These rules have received several different theoretical analyses, one of which is used as evidence against certain current trends in linguistic theory. However, all analyses of Menominee metrical structure are based on the published works of American linguist Leonard Bloomfield, and so inherit various problems his work contains. First, while his grammar is considered one of the most comprehensive descriptions of an Amerindian language, it was completed after his death by another linguist. It is thus contradictory in places. Second, because Bloomfield used a standardized spelling system rather than phonetic transcription, his work does not show variation in pronunciation. Theoretical claims about Menominee require more accurate description of the data. This project's data will also be used in pedagogical materials for the tribe's language preservation programs. All materials recorded on audiotape will be transferred to CD for archiving purposes, distribution to tribal organizations, and acoustic analysis. This research is significant in two ways. First, it will extend research on Menominee metrical structure by providing both an accurate description and a theoretical analysis of the Menominee data. Understanding the unusual metrical structure of Menominee will not only add to our general understanding of human language, but the issues raised by these data may also affect current debates within linguistic theory. Second, the language teaching materials that this project will contribute to producing, such as tapes of stories with accompanying text, tapes of vocabulary items, and grammatical lessons, will be used in the tribe's efforts to retain the language and culture in the schools on their reservation.