Doctoral Dissertation Research: A Reference Grammar of a Typologically Diverse Language

语言是人类最独特的特征。为了发展对人类语言的理解，语言学学科需要关于语言的详细信息，这些语言与过去研究的更熟悉的语言有显著不同。该项目将对切邦进行语法描述，切邦是尼泊尔中部一种濒危语言，约有4.8万人使用。车邦属于汉藏语系，也包括汉语、藏语和缅语。Chepang展示了在世界语言中非常不寻常的语法模式。举一个重要的例子，车帮句的主语和宾语不同于英语或大多数其他语言。在切邦，动词一致遵循一个非常复杂的“等级”模式，在这种模式下，小句的任何第一或第二人称论元，无论是主语、宾语，甚至是主语或宾语的拥有者，都支配着一致(因此，在切邦翻译的句子“她责骂你的孩子”中，动词会与“你”一致，而不是与句子的主语一致)。像这样的语言非常罕见，包括北美的几种土著语言，南美的几种语言，以及喜马拉雅山脉的几种汉藏语。为了全面理解人类可能的语言，记录这种不寻常的语法是很重要的。该项目将把美国的资源带入尼泊尔，并进行一些能力建设，在一个其他国家也在建立广泛联系的地区扮演着一种“软实力”的角色。对博士论文中产生的语言的分析将作为为未来以母语为基础的多语言教育项目创建教学材料的基础。更广泛的影响还包括对将进行实地考察和撰写语法的博士生的培训和研究经验。该项目将编制切邦[ISO 639-3：CDM]的参考语法，生成该语言的语音和语法结构的详细描述，以及一套转录的口语叙述。博士生Marie-Caroline Pons将与生活在Makawanpur区平原和丘陵地区的不同车邦社区的成员密切合作，记录、转录和翻译各种体裁，记录车邦人的语言、历史和生活，包括叙事、民族志说明性和程序性文本，以及自然的对话互动。车帮具有许多具有重大历史和理论意义的语法特征，包括上述的动词约定系统。目前对这类语言的完整描述很少，这一领域还存在关于这种语言是如何工作的，以及这种模式如何与更熟悉的语言中发生的事情相关的争论。由于这种语言记录只能在说话者社区中进行，记录讲得很流利的长辈的对话和叙述，因此该项目需要在尼泊尔进行广泛的研究。除了对语言学的贡献，以及我们对亚洲史前史和藏缅语变化的了解，将产生的语法对切邦社区在保护他们的语言方面将具有相当大的价值。这一奖项反映了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。

Language is the most unique characteristic of the human species. In order to develop an understanding of human language, the discipline of linguistics requires detailed information about languages that are significantly different from the more familiar languages that were studied in the past. This project will produce a grammatical description of Chepang, an endangered language spoken in Central Nepal by around 48,000 people. Chepang belongs to the Sino-Tibetan family, which also includes Chinese, Tibetan, and Burmese. Chepang shows grammatical patterns which are very unusual in the world's languages. To take one important example, Chepang sentences do not have the same kind of subjects and objects as English or most other languages. In Chepang, verb agreement follows a very complex "hierarchical" pattern in which any first or second person argument of the clause, whether subject, object, or even the possessor of a subject or object, governs agreement (so that in the Chepang translation of the sentence "She scolded your child" the verb would agree with "you", not with the subject of the sentence). Languages like this are very rare; they include a few Native languages of North America, a few in South America, and a few Sino-Tibetan languages of the Himalayas. It is important to document this kind of unusual grammar in order to understand the full range of possible human language. The project will bring U.S. resources into Nepal and do some capacity building, acting like a type of "soft power" in a region where other foreign countries are making extensive connections of their own. The analysis of the language produced in the doctoral dissertation will serve as a foundation to create pedagogical materials for future mother-tongue based multilingual education programs. Broader impacts also include training and research experience for the doctoral student who will carry out the fieldwork and write the grammar.The project will produce a reference grammar of Chepang [ISO 639-3:cdm], generating a detailed description of the phonological and grammatical structures of the language, and a transcribed set of spoken narratives. Doctoral student Marie-Caroline Pons will work in close collaboration with members of different Chepang communities who live in the plains and hills of Makawanpur district, to audio/video record, transcribe, and translate a wide varieties of genres that will document the language, history, and life of the Chepang people, including narratives, ethnographical expository and procedural texts, as well as natural conversational interactions. Chepang has a number of grammatical features which are of great historical and theoretical interest, including the verbal agreement system mentioned above. At present very few full descriptions of languages of this kind exist, and there is debate in the field about how such languages work, and how this pattern relates to what occurs in more familiar languages. Because language documentation of this kind can only be carried out in a community of speakers, recording conversations and narratives from elders who are fluent speakers, the project requires extended research in Nepal. In addition to its contributions to the science of linguistics, and to our knowledge of Asian prehistory and Tibeto-Burman language change, the grammar which will be produced will be of considerable value to the Chepang community in the preservation of their language.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.