Doctoral Dissertation Research: Prefixal Agreement, Verb Classes, and Serialization

本论文的重点是详细记录和研究一种正在迅速减少代际传播的语言。这种语言表现出许多在其语系中相对独特的结构特征；对词形一致性和动词类的起源进行更深入的调查，有可能揭示理论语言学中更广泛的问题，如词汇项目的潜在表示，同时也进一步加深我们对语言随时间变化和发展的方式的理解。此外，该项目旨在为未来相关语言差异的研究提供坚实的实证基础，有助于我们了解该地区及其周边地区的类型学模式。最后，该项目的目标是与母语顾问密切合作处理的结果数据和公开存档，将具有多功能，适合改编为面向社区的文学，教学和参考材料，促进当地语言维护和保存的努力。为了从共时和历时的角度全面记录和分析语法结构，特别是语言的形态系统及其与其他句法和语音现象的接口，研究人员将与母语人士进行现场实地调查。特别地，这个项目是围绕着一个假设建立的，即存在一个发展初期的屈折类系统，其中一组特定动词的前缀形状的选择不再是语音或语义上可预测的。通过仔细研究动词类、配价、语态和序列化的子系统变化，本项目旨在阐明以下问题：1)主语一致性和半特质动词类的结构地位和历史起源；代词元素的分布及其与格列发展的交集；iii)改变词价和范畴的衍生词法的语法化及其与词汇项目抽象表征的关系。因此，这项工作有可能有助于我们更广泛地理解形态句法理论的跨语言，同时也为研究一个未被充分研究的语系带来了新的历时视角。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。

This dissertation project focuses on the detailed documentation and study of an under-studied language with rapidly decreasing intergenerational transmission. The language displays a number of structural characteristics which are relatively unique within its language family; deeper investigation into the origin of morphological agreement and verb classes has the potential to shed light on broader issues within theoretical linguistics such as the underlying representation of lexical items, while also furthering our understanding of the ways in which languages change and develop over time. In addition, this project aims to provide a solid empirical foundation for future research into variation across related languages, contributing to our knowledge of typological patterns found in and around the region. Finally, it is a goal of the project that the resulting data, processed in close collaboration with native speaker consultants and publicly archived, will be multifunctional and suitable for adaptation into community-facing literary, pedagogical, and reference material, facilitating local efforts at language maintenance and preservation.The researcher will conduct on-site fieldwork with native speakers in order to thoroughly document and analyze grammatical structure with particular focus on the language's morphological systems and their interface with other syntactic and phonological phenomena from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective. In particular, this project is built around the hypothesis that there is a developing incipient inflection class system, wherein the choice of prefix shape with a particular set of verbs is no longer phonologically or semantically predictable. By closely investigating sub-systemic alternations in verb class, valency, voice, and serialization, this project aims to shed light on issues such as i) the structural status and historical origin of subject agreement and semi-idiosyncratic verb classes; ii) the distribution of pronominal elements and their intersection with the development of case and alignment; and iii) the grammaticalization of valency- and category-changing derivational morphology and their relationship to the abstract representation of lexical items. Thus, this work has the potential to contribute to our broader understanding of morphosyntactic theory cross-linguistically, while also bringing a novel diachronic perspective to the study of an understudied language family.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.