Doctoral Dissertation Research: Negation strategies in an endangered language

人类语言的一个共性是，如果一件事可以被表达，那么它也可以被否定。然而，语言对句子和小短语的否定进行编码的方式在不同语言之间，甚至在同一语言中的不同类型的话语之间都有很大的差异。这个博士论文项目通过记录一种濒危和文献不足的语言中否定策略的使用来增强语言学家对这种变异的理解。利用这些文档，co-PI描述和分析了语言中各种类型的从句和短语是如何被否定的，并将其与世界语言中存在的其他否定策略进行了比较。该项目帮助语言学家了解否定的变化以及否定如何与语言的其他方面相互作用。这种对语言语法的一个中心但知之甚少和不寻常的方面的分析和记录为社区保护其语言提供了重要的资源。该项目还培训社区成员掌握文件和数据处理技术，使他们能够学习自己的语言，并使语言学领域多样化，利用既定的语言文件和实地工作方法，以目标语言记录自然语言和诱发语言。这些录音是转录，翻译和分析咨询母语。从相关语言以及世界各地的其他语言的数据进行比较分析，有助于类型学研究的否定策略。研究中的语言有小句否定标记，表示与小句主语的一致，因此研究促进了语言学家对一致和否定是如何联系的理解。这个博士论文项目是作为美国国家科学基金会和美国国家人文基金会为NSF动态语言基础设施- NEH记录濒危语言计划建立的资助伙伴关系的一部分。这个奖项反映了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。

It is a universal of human language that if something can be expressed, it can also be negated. Yet the ways that languages encode the negation of sentences and smaller phrases varies quite a lot between languages and even between different types of utterances in the same language. This doctoral dissertation project enhances linguists' understanding of this variation by documenting the use of negation strategies in an endangered and under-documented language. Using this documentation, the co-PI describes and analyzes how various types of clauses and phrases in the language are negated and compares this with other negative strategies that exist in the world's languages. The project helps linguists to understand variation in negation and how negation interacts with other aspects of the language being documented. This analysis and documentation of a central but poorly understood and unusual aspect of the language's grammar provides an important resource for the community to preserve its language. The project also trains community members in documentation and data processing techniques, empowering them to study their own language and diversifying the field of linguistics.Using established methods for language documentation and fieldwork, both naturalistic and elicited speech are recorded in the target language. These recordings are transcribed, translated, and analyzed in consultation with native speakers. Data from related languages as well as other languages from around the world are used for a comparative analysis, contributing to the typological study of negation strategies. The language under study has clausal negation makers that show agreement with the subject of the clause, so the research advances linguists' understanding of how agreement and negation are connected. This doctoral dissertation project is made as part of a funding partnership between the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities for the NSF Dynamic Language Infrastructure – NEH Documenting Endangered Languages Program.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.