Ergativity and Information Structure: Comparing Chibchan languages

在过去的几十年里，语言学研究已经在语法的几个层面上建立了关于复杂语法现象的大量知识。当前语言学研究面临的一个挑战是理解这些语言结构层次之间的联系。本项目研究了小句结构的两个层次：对齐和信息结构，以及这些层次之间的相互作用。项目目标是由法国和德国语言学家网络目前的研究和合作推动的，两国在创造描述濒危语言的经验和分析工具方面有着共同的兴趣。它将提供带深度注释的语料库和关于语言研究中研究不足和代表性不足的语言家族的实证研究，即Chibchan语(其成员分散在从中美洲的洪都拉斯到南美洲的哥伦比亚和委内瑞拉的地理区域)。该项目的核心小组将详细研究三种语言(Pesh、Cabécar、Ika)，项目合作伙伴将用更多的语言进行比较研究，以便详细了解这一语系的微小变化。研究方法采用基于语料库的探索性研究和实地实验的验证性研究相结合的方法。这一综合方法将提供对不同类型实地数据的见解，并将为今后研究奇布昌语提供可持续的资源。研究的目标包括：(A)对作格的句法和语义特征进行详细的结构调查；(B)对信息结构进行研究，重点是微小变化在语序可能性中的作用；(C)准确地考察信息结构在具有可选作格标记的语言中的作用，这是一种在几种语言中已经观察到的现象，但尚未被详细研究或理解。项目团队整合了法国和德国的一大批语言学家，并将通过在研究和博士生资格方面的合作措施来加强他们现有的合作，这将导致合作产品并将创建一个科学网络。

Linguistic research in the last decades has established substantial knowledge about complex grammatical phenomena at several layers of the grammar. A challenge for the current linguistic research is to understand the linking between these layers of linguistic structure. This project investigates two layers of clause structure: alignment and information structure as well as the interaction between these layers. The project targets are motivated by the current research and collaboration of a network of French and German linguists sharing a common interest in the creation of empirical and analytical tools for the description of endangered languages. It will provide deeply annotated corpora and empirical studies on a language family that is understudied and underrepresented in linguistic research, namely Chibchan (the members being dispersed in the geographical area from Honduras in Central America to Colombia and Venezuela in South America). The core team of the project will examine three languages in detail (Pesh, Cabécar, Ika) and the project partners will conduct comparative studies in further languages, in order to obtain a detailed picture of the micro-variation within this language family. The methodological approach combines exploratory research based on corpora and confirmatory research through field experiments. This combined approach will provide insights into the different types of field data and will yield a sustainable resource for future study of the Chibchan languages. The research goals include (a) a detailed structural investigation of the syntactic and semantic properties of ergativity, (b) a study on information structure focusing on the role of microvariation in word order possibilities, and (c) a precise examination of the role of information structure in languages with optional ergative marking, which is a phenomenon that has been observed for several languages but is not yet studied or understood in detail. The project teams integrate a large group of linguists in France and Germany and will enhance their existing collaborations with cooperative measures in research and in the qualification of PhD students that will lead to collaborative products and will create a scientific network.