Dogon Languages of Mali

在国家科学基金会的支持下，杰弗里·希思博士将记录西非马里东部多贡家族的六种以前未被描述的语言。 这个项目建立在以前NEH资助的关于这个家庭的另一种语言（Jamsay）的项目之上。结果将以出版的参考语法的形式出现，并辅以词汇和文本文档，这些文档将在多贡网站上进行比较。多贡语言是动词词尾和后置的，并且有一个特别有趣的“关系从句”系统，其中中心名词不移动，而是降低其音调。更一般地说，声调叠加的使用甚至“语调”效果是这些语言的语法系统（例如复合、所有格、连词）的核心。多贡人以其对当地植物群和动物群的了解而闻名（一个普通村民可以区分15-18种蝗虫），该项目的词典编纂方面将努力做到这一点。首席研究员是马里的一名资深实地工作者（阿拉伯语，图阿雷格语，桑海语），并将与两名年轻的欧洲同事一起参与该项目。

With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Jeffrey Heath will document six previously undescribed languages of the Dogon family in eastern Mali, West Africa. This project builds on a prior NEH-funded project on another language of this family (Jamsay). The results will appear in the form of published reference grammars, supplemented by lexical and textual documentation that will be disseminated on a comparative Dogon website. Dogon languages are verb-final and postpositional, and have an especially interesting system for "relative clauses" where the head noun is not moved, but rather drops its tones. More generally, the use of tone overlays and even "intonation" effects are central to the grammatical systems (e.g. compounding, possession, conjunction) of these languages. The Dogon are famous for their knowledge of local flora and fauna (an average villager can distinguish 15-18 types of grasshopper), and the lexicographic aspect of the project will try to do this knowledge justice. The Principal Investigator is a veteran fieldworker in Mali (Arabic, Tuareg, Songhay), and will be joined by two younger European colleagues in this project.