The Morphosyntax of Verbs in Arizona Yaqui

任何人类语言的任何句子的核心都是动词。当说话者选择一个特定的动词时，句子的其余部分通常会自动跟随。动词似乎掌握着理解人类语言的核心表达可能性的关键。有趣的是，英语中动词的结构选择相对较少：它们可以接受或拒绝主语、宾语和/或间接宾语的存在，但不会有太多其他选择。在英语中，核心意义相同的动词在他们接受的句子结构中通常模式相似(S)。这些核心含义可能会让我们洞察人类思维的普遍结构--或者只让我们洞察说英语的人的思维结构。我们不知道，因为目前还没有对除英语以外的任何语言的动词的结构属性进行系统的分类。在国家科学基金会的支持下，海蒂·哈雷博士和杰森·豪根博士将试图通过记录雅基语的动词来填补这一空白。雅基语是美国西南部的一种土著语言。雅基语与英语的显著不同之处在于，它的动词可以添加多种后缀。这些后缀改变了动词所需的句子结构。通过发现哪些后缀可以附加到雅基语的哪些动词上，研究人员将确定动词词根的核心含义是否像英语中那样影响句子结构--更重要的是，他们将发现定义英语动词类别的相同类型的核心含义是否也在雅基语中起作用。调查人员将与说雅基语的人合作，创建一个雅基语动词的大型数据库，并使用它们举例说明句子，包括每个动词后缀和不带每个动词后缀。到研究结束时，对于英语动词类别至关重要的核心意义是否在雅基语动词分类中也是重要的应该是清楚的。使用濒危的、未被研究的雅基语作为主语将提供双重好处，而不是研究一种被广泛研究的具有相似后缀特性的活语言。这个项目将首次提供雅基语语法许多重要方面的广泛文献，为我们存储关于人类语言的知识贡献新的数据--这些数据很可能是科学和人类永远失去的。此外，雅基语教学界将能够在语言课上使用研究产生的材料，并将其作为语言遗产的文件。这些材料将支持部落在紧急语言维护和振兴领域的积极努力。

The nucleus of any sentence of any human language is the verb. When a speaker chooses a particular verb, the structure of the rest of the sentence usually follows automatically. Verbs seem to hold the key to understanding the central expressive possibilities of human language. Interestingly, there are relatively few structural options for verbs in English: they can accept or reject the presence of a subject, an object, and/or an indirect object, but not much else. In English, verbs that share a core meaning usually pattern alike in the sentence structure(s) they accept. These core meanings may give us insight into the universal structure of human thought - or may only give us insight into the structure of thought of speakers of English. We don't know because no systematic classification of the structural properties of the verbs of any language other than English currently exists. With support from the National Science Foundation Dr. Heidi Harley and Dr. Jason Haugen will attempt to fill this gap by documenting the verbs of Yaqui, a Native American language of the southwest. Yaqui differs from English significantly in that many kinds of suffixes can be added to its verbs. These suffixes change the sentence structures that the verbs require. By discovering which suffixes can attach to which verbs of Yaqui, the investigators will establish whether the verb root's core meaning affects sentence structure in the same way that it does in English - and more importantly, will discover whether the same types of core meanings that define English verb classes are also at work in Yaqui. The investigators will work with speakers of Yaqui to create a large database of Yaqui verbs and example sentences using them, with and without each verbal suffix. By the end of the study, it should be clear whether the core meanings that matter for English verb classes are also important in the classification of Yaqui verbs.Using endangered, understudied Yaqui as the subject language will provide a dual benefit, unlike a study of a widely-studied living language with similar suffixing properties. This project will provide extensive documentation of many important aspects of Yaqui grammar for the first time, contributing new data to our store of knowledge about human language-data that may well otherwise be lost to science and humanity forever. In addition, the Yaqui language teaching community will be able to employ the materials produced by the study in language classes, and as documentation of their linguistic heritage. These materials will support the tribe's active efforts in the urgent arena of language maintenance and revitalization.