Doctoral Dissertation Research: Syntactic Description of a Language with Unique Patterns of Symmetrical Voice Alternations

“Mary kicking The ball”（主动语态）和“The ball was kicking by Mary”（被动语态）的区别对说话者和语言学理论都是一个重要的问题。在主动语态中，重点放在玛丽身上，她是踢腿的发起者。在被动语态中，焦点放在球上，甚至可以省略对玛丽的提及，如“the ball was kicking”。主-被动区分的一个关键特征是它的不对称性：主动语态是表达某事的典型方式，而被动语态则与众不同，将注意力从发起动作的人身上移开，并在被动句中添加“was”和“by”。世界上有数百种语言记录了主动-被动的区别，导致许多人认为这种结构是普遍存在的。然而，最近学者们开始挑战这一假设，他们指出，来自以前未记载的语言的新数据表明，对称的语音差异是存在的。换句话说，主动语态和被动语态都不是最基本的。这个项目将研究一种未被记录的语言——西方苏巴侬语（ISO 639-3等）中的对称语态，它对各种主动语态进行了更精细的区分。这种区别在主动语态类型的对称性和层次上都与英语不同。更广泛的影响包括录音和抄写的公共储存库、供社区成员使用的材料以及促进该区域语言的可持续性和现代语言文献技术。其他成果包括培养一名博士生。CoPI是夏威夷大学的一名博士候选人，她将记录和分析西苏巴农语，这是菲律宾南部使用的一种濒危的土著少数民族南岛语。虽然菲律宾语经常被视为对称语音语言的原型，但大多数研究只关注少数较大的语言，如他加禄语，而忽略了存在于大菲律宾中部的多样性，一个近一百种语言的家族。Subanon在区分主动语态的多种形式方面是独一无二的，主动语态的标记以复杂的方式与数、时态和情绪相互作用。为了更好地理解促使人们选择声音的因素，该研究所将编纂一份全面的自然语言使用记录。这些录音将形成语音语法描述的基础，同时也服务于研究相关语法主题的研究人员的需要。由于缺乏现有的Subanon文档，对称语音的描述将嵌入到参考语法中，从而确保其他研究人员可以最大限度地访问这项工作。此外，为了更好地了解促使语音形式选择的因素，本研究将编制一个自然语言注释录音语料库，并将其存档，供研究人员和社区成员使用。该项目的成果将为一种很少被研究的菲律宾语言提供新的数据，同时也为正在进行的关于对称声音本质的辩论提供信息。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。

The distinction between "Mary kicked the ball" (active voice) and "The ball was kicked by Mary" (passive voice) is an important one for both speakers and linguistic theory. In the active voice the focus is on Mary as the instigator of the kicking. In the passive voice the focus is on the ball, and reference to Mary can even be omitted, as in "The ball was kicked. " A key feature of the active-passive distinction is its asymmetry: the active is the typical way of saying something, while the passive stands out as different, moving the focus away from the person initiating the action and adding "was" and "by" in the passive sentence. Active-passive distinctions have been documented in hundreds of the world's languages, leading many to assume the universality of this construction. However, recently scholars have begun to challenge this assumption, pointing to new data from previously undocumented languages suggesting that symmetrical voice distinctions exist. In other words, neither the active nor passive form is more basic. This project will investigate symmetrical voice in an underdocumented language, Western Subanon (ISO 639-3 suc), which makes even finer distinctions between types of active voice. Such distinctions are different from English in both the symmetry and the gradation of types of active voice. Broader impacts include a public repository of recordings and transcriptions, materials for use by community members and promotion of linguistic sustainability and modern language documentation techniques in the region. Other outcomes include the training of a doctoral student.The CoPI, a doctoral candidate at the University of Hawaii, will document and analyze Western Subanon, an endangered and understudied indigenous minority Austronesian language spoken in the southern Philippines. While Philippine languages are often taken as prototype examples of symmetrical voice languages, most research has focused on just of a few of the larger languages, such as Tagalog, ignoring the diversity which exists within Greater Central Philippines, a family of nearly one hundred languages. Subanon is unique in distinguishing multiple forms of active voice, the marking of which interacts in complex ways with number, tense, and mood. In order to better understand the factors motivating choice of voice the CoPI will compile a comprehensive collection of recordings of natural language use. These recordings will form the basis for a grammatical description of voice, while also serving the needs of researchers working on related grammatical topics. Given the lack of existing documentation of Subanon, the description of symmetrical voice will be embedded within a reference grammar, thus ensuring that this work is maximally accessible to other researchers. Moreover, in order to better understand the factors motivating choice of voice forms this research will compile a corpus of annotated recordings of natural language, which will be archived and accessible for both researchers and community members. The outcomes of this project will thus provide new data on a little-studied Philippine language while also informing ongoing debates about the nature of symmetrical voice.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.