Structural and areal challenges to models of language change

虽然语言学家们意识到语言转换(一群说话者从一种语言转换到另一种语言的过程)如何在一种语言的消亡中发挥作用，但仍然存在一些重要的问题，包括社会和认知限制如何塑造语言结构，以及认知、社会和历史因素如何相互作用导致语言转换。一个相关的问题是，语言学家确实知道的主要来自英语或拉丁语等印欧语言，这从两个方面限制了可能的数据集：一是这些语言缺乏的语言结构，二是发生了语言转换的较小的社交场合。为了加强变化情况和语言结构的类型学，该项目将通过1967-1971年收集的乌干达东北部两种濒危语言的一套独特的实地笔记和录音，以及与其余发言者进行的新的田野调查，来调查语言变化。由于本研究中的目标语在类型学上与现有的随着语言停止使用而发生结构变化的大部分样本不同，他们提供了一种可能的假设，即观察到的不同语言之间的结构相似是由于历史上的偶然干扰，而不是特定语法结构的普遍标记等级。该项目的更广泛影响包括推进博士后学者的培训，并为语言学本科生创造学习机会，以参与和贡献尖端研究。该项目将确保Nyangi和Soo社区也获得该收藏中材料的副本，并提供接触更广泛的科学研究人员社区的机会。最后，该项目将促进美国和乌干达机构的学者之间的国际合作。对于祖先语言被非欧洲语言取代的情况，人们很难理解。在某种程度上，很难对非欧洲语言的语言转换进行分析，因为这些语言往往缺乏它们开始转换之前的文件。这意味着没有可以比较当前语言形式的参照点：语言学家对语言所经历的变化类型有终点，但没有起点。该项目通过使用Nyangi(NYP)和Soo(TEU)两种语言来解决这个问题，这两种语言现在正被非洲语言所取代。该项目要数字化和存档的数据包括大约26个小时的盒式磁带和盘对盘磁带的录音，以及大约3 000页手写实地笔记。由此产生的数字化录音集合将被翻译成英语，并被翻译成Nyangi人和Soo人使用的更广泛的交流语言。将与Soo和Nyangi社区协商，对其精选内容进行分析和丰富的注释。对50年来Soo和NYang‘i观察到的变化的类型和区域动机的分析将永久保存在一个安全和可访问的位置，在学术会议上共享和讨论，并发表在语言学杂志上。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

While linguists are aware of how language shift (the process by which a community of speakers changes from one language to another) plays a role in the demise of a language, significant questions remain, including how social and cognitive constraints shape language structure and how cognitive, social, and historical factors interact to result in language shift. A related issue is that what linguists do know comes primarily from Indo-European languages like English or Latin, which restricts the possible data set in two ways: by the linguistic structures these languages lack and by the smaller set of social situations where language shift has occurred. In order to augment the typology of shift situations and linguistic structure, this project will investigate language change through a unique set of field notes and recordings of two endangered languages of northeastern Uganda collected from 1967-1971, and from new fieldwork with the remaining speakers. Because the target languages in this study diverge typologically from much of the existing sample of structural changes as languages cease to be spoken, they offer a control against the possible hypothesis that observed structural similarities across shifting languages are attributable to historically contingent interference rather than a universal markedness hierarchy of particular grammatical structures. Broader impacts of the project include advancing the training of a post-doctoral scholar and creating learning opportunities for undergraduate linguistics students to participate in and contribute to cutting-edge research. The project will ensure the Nyangi and Soo communities also get copies of the materials in this collection, as well as providing access to the broader community of scientific researchers. Finally, the project will promote international collaboration between scholars at American and Ugandan institutions.The outcomes of situations in which an ancestral language is replaced by a non-European language are poorly understood. In part, analyses of language shift in languages shifting to non-European languages have been hard to come by because such languages often lack documentation from before the time that they started to shift. This means that there is no reference point to compare current linguistic forms to: linguists have ending points for the types of change undergone by languages, but not starting points. This project addresses this problem by making data accessible from Nyangi (nyp) and Soo (teu), two languages that are now being replaced by African languages. The data to be digitized and archived in this project includes approximately 26 hours of audio recordings on cassette tapes and reel-to-reel tapes and approximately 3,000 pages of hand-written field notes. The resulting collection of digitized recordings will be translated into English and into the language of broader communication used by the Nyangi and Soo. A selection of its contents will be analyzed and richly annotated in consultation with the Soo and Nyangi communities. Analyses of the typological and areal motivations for the changes observed in Soo and Nyang'i in the 50 years since the recordings in this collection were made will be permanently archived in a secure and accessible location, shared and discussed at scholarly conferences, and published in linguistics journals.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.