Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Phonology and Morphology of Karuk

卡拉克语是加利福尼亚州北部一种高度濒危的美洲原住民语言，只有不到12名长老将其作为第一语言使用。Karuk的特点是一个极其复杂的形态变化系统，即一个单词的发音随着前缀或后缀的添加而发生变化，类似于英语中‘Leaf’~‘Leaves’中的辅音变化，以及英语中‘Democratic at’~‘DIMPLICE’中的重音转移。卡鲁克语系充满了元音和辅音的延长和缩短、向右和向左的重音变化以及辅音变化的例外和不寻常的规则。这种复杂性提出了一个问题，即什么组织原则构成单词，特别是什么决定了韵律突出(重音、重音或高音)在单词中的位置，以及从其组成部分组装单词的规则集与那些部分的发音规则的集成程度。以前的语言学研究已经描述了Karuk中的许多这样的变化，但考虑到过去半个世纪语言学的理论和技术进步的统一分析尚未进行。这个项目通过收集有关可能的词缀组合及其对单词重音和其他发音变化的影响的语言数据来解决这些问题，目的是全面分析不同的模式。桑迪将在加利福尼亚州北部使用启发式、翻译任务和自由叙述的方式，从其余讲卡拉克语的人那里收集数据，制作高质量的会议录音，这将成为她分析的基础。这个项目将提供实证数据，以支持当前关于人类语言中可能存在的形态-音系学相互作用范围的理论。它还将受益于与遗产语言教师和学习者的合作，为遗产社区提供语言数据和语言方法培训，以及为语言学研究生提供语言振兴和教学方面的培训。

Karuk is a highly endangered Native American language of Northern California, spoken as a first language by fewer than a dozen elders. Karuk is characterized by an extraordinarily complex system of morphophonological alternations, that is, changes in a word's sounds with the addition of prefixes or suffixes, akin to the consonant change in 'leaf'~'leaves', and the stress shift in 'democrat'~'democracy', in English. The Karuk system is rife with exceptions and unusual rules of vowel and consonant lengthening and shortening, rightward and leftward accent shift, and consonant changes. This complexity raises the question of what organizing principles underlie word formation, in particular, what determines the placement of prosodic prominence (accent, stress, or high pitch) in words, and how integrated are the sets of rules for assembling words from their component parts and those for the pronunciation of those parts. Prior linguistic scholarship has described many of these alternations in Karuk, but a unifying analysis, which takes into account the theoretical and technological advances of linguistics in the past half-century, has yet to be undertaken. This project addresses these questions by collecting linguistic data on possible affix combinations and their effects on accentuation and other sound changes in words, with the aim of a comprehensive analysis of the disparate patterns. Ms. Sandy will collect data in Northern California from the remaining first-language speakers of Karuk using elicitation, translation tasks, and free narratives, making high-quality audio recordings of sessions which will form the basis for her analysis. This project will provide empirical data to bear on current theories about the range of morphology-phonology interactions possible in human languages. It will also benefit from collaboration with heritage language teachers and learners by providing linguistic data and training in linguistic methodology for the heritage community, as well as training in language revitalization and pedagogy for a linguistics graduate student.