Doctoral Dissertation Research: Ergativity and Constituent Order in Chol

语言学的一个中心目标是发现所有人类语言共有哪些属性，以及语言在哪些方面可能有所不同。为了进一步实现这一目标，Jessica Coon女士将在大卫佩谢茨基博士和诺文理查兹博士的监督下，对Chol语言的词结构和句法进行语言学实地考察。Chol是墨西哥恰帕斯州约150，000名土著居民使用的一种未被记录的玛雅语言。本研究通过对Chol分裂-同意模式的研究，探讨小句参与者语法标记的语言变异问题。虽然大多数被研究得最好的语言都表现出“主格-主格”的人称标记系统，但世界上许多语言都表现出“作格-绝对”的模式。在作格-绝对系统中，及物动词的宾语和不及物动词的主语有相似的标记。玛雅语系的大多数成员都表现出作格-绝对格模式。然而，Chol显示了一个分裂的系统：完成体分句是作格-绝对的，而非完成体分句是主格-否定的。初步研究结果表明，这种分裂可能与非完成体从句的名物化有关。尽管Chol有其独特的协议系统，但与许多玛雅语言相比，它得到的描述或分析相对较少，而且没有全面的语法。这项研究的意义将是既推进我们对人类语言的词序和协议系统之间的变化可能点的理解，以及援助的努力，以进一步记录和维护Chol language.Data本次调查将来自启发会议与母语，以及从文本记录和转录库恩，在三次前往恰帕斯州收集。库恩将在2008年秋季作为访问学生在社会人类学研究中心（CIESAS），一个跨学科的社会科学研究机构在圣克里斯托瓦尔德拉斯卡萨斯。这项研究将产生重要的影响，不仅在理论语言学，而且在当地社区，更普遍的土著社区所关注的领域。而在CIESAS，库恩将积极参与与学生在印度-美国语言学硕士课程，培训土著语言的语言文献，振兴和语言理论的发言者。

A central aim of linguistics is to discover which properties are shared by all human languages, and in which respects languages may vary. To further this goal, Ms. Jessica Coon, under the supervision of Dr. David Pesetsky and Dr. Norvin Richards, will conduct linguistic fieldwork on the word-structure and syntax of the language Chol. Chol is an under-documented Mayan language spoken by approximately 150,000 indigenous inhabitants of Chiapas, Mexico. This study addresses the question of linguistic variation in the grammatical marking of clausal participants through the study of Chol's split-agreement pattern. While most of the best-studied languages exhibit "nominative-accusative" systems of person marking, many of the world's languages show "ergative-absolutive" patterns. In an ergative-absolutive system, the object of a transitive verb is marked similarly to the subject of an intransitive verb. Most members of the Mayan language family exhibit an ergative-absoulutive pattern. Chol, however, shows a split system: perfective clauses are ergative-absolutive, but imperfective clauses are nominative-accusative. Initial findings suggest that this split may be connected to nominalization of non-perfective clauses. Despite its unique system of agreement, Chol has received relatively little description or analysis compared to many Mayan languages, and there is no comprehensive grammar. The significance of this study will be to both advance our understanding of the possible points of variation among word order and agreement systems in human language, as well as aid in efforts to further document and maintain the Chol language.Data for this investigation will come from elicitation sessions with native speakers, as well as from texts recorded and transcribed by Coon, collected during three trips to Chiapas. Coon will spend the fall of 2008 as a visiting student at the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS), an interdisciplinary social sciences research institution in San Cristóbal de las Casas. This study will have an important impact not only within theoretical linguistics, but also in areas of concern to the local community, and to indigenous communities more generally. While at CIESAS, Coon will be actively involved in working with students in the Masters in Indo-American Linguistics program, which trains speakers of indigenous languages in language documentation, revitalization, and linguistic theory.