Doctoral Dissertation Research: Documenting the Sisseton Dialect of Dakota, a Native American Language of South Dakota

语言学学科的一个中心公理是，语言变化是人类语言的一个不变的、无处不在的特征。虽然这种变化是不可避免的，但它往往是由语言接触的情况引起或加速的，这种情况由于全球化世界中的人口流动而日益普遍。该项目将有助于最近关于语法化的学术研究，即随着指代对象和动作（即名词和动词）的单词发展成为语法标记（如词缀和介词），语言变化提高了语法复杂性。它将通过仔细研究达科他语（dak）的方言差异来做到这一点，达科他语是一种与英语极端接触并向英语转变的美洲土著语言。这种方言差异对语言接触和变化理论具有重要的见解，这些理论目前认为，极端形式的接触会导致形态句法的简化和来自主导语言的干扰（语法借用）。正如1990年美国国会通过的《美洲原住民语言法案》所承认的那样，北美原住民使用的语言具有独特的地位和意义。在记录和分析语法化的进程及其在区分相关方言中的作用时，本项目将采用协作研究设计，以增强美洲原住民对科学研究的参与，并加强美洲原住民教师的STEM教育发展。其他更广泛的影响包括博士生的专业发展，加强研究型大学（弗吉尼亚大学）和部落学院（西塞顿·瓦佩顿学院）之间的合作，以及对部落公民的文献语言学培训。这个项目将调查达科他的西塞顿方言，这是一种高度濒危的苏族语言，分布在北部平原的几个保留区。由于达科他方言的历史深度和学术工作的丰富性，这种语言提供了一个难得的机会来研究美洲土著方言的变化和发展。然而，与其他达科他方言不同，西塞顿语并没有得到持续的学术关注。虽然现有的少量研究强调了西塞顿方言和相关方言之间词汇（单词）和语音（语音系统）的相似性，但本项目将分析西塞顿方言最近和正在进行的形态句法（语法）差异。西塞顿方言显示出增强的语法复杂性的证据，它阐述了达科他语的头部标记特征（即在短语核心上做出语法区分），而不是借用英语的依赖标记特征（即在修饰语上做出语法区分）。为了丰富和扩展我们对语言变化如何在接触情境中展开的理解，该项目将制作一个可访问和存档的带注释的塞西顿语视听语料库。该项目还将产生一篇论文，描述性和理论研究结果将通过期刊文章传播。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

A central axiom in the discipline of linguistics is that language change is a constant and ubiquitous characteristic of human language. While such change is inevitable, it is very often induced or accelerated by situations of language contact, which are increasingly common due to population mobility in a globalized world. This project will contribute to recent scholarship on grammaticalization, or linguistic change which enhances grammatical complexity as words referring to objects and actions (i.e. nouns and verbs) develop into grammatical markers (e.g. affixes and prepositions). It will do so by scrutinizing dialect divergence within Dakota (dak), a Native American language experiencing extreme contact with -- and shift towards -- English. This dialect divergence holds critical insights for theories of language contact and change, which currently maintain that extreme forms of contact yield morphosyntactic simplification and interference (grammatical borrowing) from the dominant language. As recognized in The Native American Languages Act passed by Congress in 1990, languages spoken by indigenous peoples of North America have a unique status and significance. When documenting and analyzing the progression of grammaticalization and its role in differentiating related dialects, this project will adopt a collaborative research design that enhances the participation of Native Americans in science research and strengthens STEM educator development for Native American instructors. Other broader impacts include the professional development of a doctoral student, enhanced collaboration between a research university (University of Virginia) and a tribal college (Sisseton Wahpeton College), and the training of tribal citizens in documentary linguistics.This project will investigate the Sisseton dialect of Dakota, a highly endangered Siouan language spoken in several reservation communities scattered across the Northern Plains. Because of the historical depth and richness of scholarly work on Dakota dialects, this language presents a rare opportunity to examine dialect variation and development in Native America. Yet unlike other Dakota dialects, Sisseton speech has not received sustained scholarly attention. While the little research that does exist emphasizes lexical (word) and phonological (sound system) similarities between Sisseton and related dialects, this project will analyze the Sisseton dialect's recent and ongoing morphosyntactic (grammatical) divergence. The Sisseton dialect displays evidence of enhanced grammatical complexity that elaborates the head-marking characteristics of Dakota (i.e. making grammatical distinctions on phrasal nuclei) as opposed to borrowing the dependent-marking characteristics of English (i.e. making grammatical distinctions on modifiers). In order to enrich and extend our understanding of how language change unfolds amidst situations of contact, this project will produce an accessible and archived annotated audio-visual corpus of Sisseton speech. The project will also produce a dissertation, and descriptive and theoretical findings will be disseminated via journal articles.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.