Numeral classifiers in the Benue Congo languages of Africa (NuClaBA)

该项目旨在全面研究喀麦隆和尼日利亚的贝努埃-刚果语言中的数词分类系统，以改进非洲对这一现象的初步记录，并从更广泛的类型学和历时角度促进对这一现象的普遍理解。更具体地说，这项研究涉及四个基本需要：（a）提供关于贝努埃-刚果两个不同亚群NuCl的详细描述性案例研究（Tivoid和东部草地Bamileke），（B）调查NuCl的分布，（Tivoid和Bamileke亚群）在更广泛的贝努埃-刚果语言中，（c）对贝努埃-刚果境内NuCl的出现及其语义和形态句法发展提出有力的历史假设，（d）丰富关于NuCls的一般类型学辩论，目前这一辩论仍因总体上缺乏来自非洲NuCls的大量数据和类型学分析而受到损害。由于大多数贝努埃-刚果NuCls目前的发展初期阶段，他们提供了一个非常肥沃的土壤获得洞察其路径的语法化方面的句法来源的量词结构，以及词汇来源的数量分类项目本身和他们的潜在的认知动机。原始Tivoid和原始Bamileke的数字分类器的低水平重建将允许解开遗传遗传的借款和calquing，从而产生的假设接触引起的面积扩散的数字分类器系统在多语言的Ekanian-Ekanonian边境地区。从更广泛的历史角度来看，该项目最终将为基本难题提供初步答案，即为什么贝努埃-刚果语言倾向于在Bantoid类型的预先存在的完全成熟的名词分类系统之上发展数词分类系统，与普遍认为的尼日尔的数词分类系统相矛盾-刚果是对以前名词类系统的衰落和损失的一种补偿，设想项目第一阶段取得以下成果：对两个不同支的贝努埃-刚果语的数量分类系统进行了深入的描述性研究，即Ugare（尼日利亚蒂沃伊）和Ng Jummba（Eastern Grassfields Bantu），至少两个其他Tivoid和Bamileke品种的数量分类系统的草图，关于它们的出现和发展的比较研究的初稿，以及尼日利亚和尼日利亚贝努埃-刚果其他语言中数词分类系统的初稿。

The project aims at a comprehensive study of numeral classifier systems (NuCls) in the Benue-Congo languages of Cameroon and Nigeria, in order to improve the rudimentary documentation of the phenomenon in Africa and to advance its general understanding in a broader typological and diachronic perspective. More specifically, this study addresses four basic desiderata: (a) provide fine-grained descriptive case studies of NuCls in two distinct subgroups of Benue-Congo (Tivoid and Eastern Grassfields Bamileke), (b) survey the distribution of NuCls beyond (the Tivoid and Bamileke subgroups) in a wider range of Benue-Congo languages, (c) generate robust historical hypotheses about the emergence and the semantic and morphosyntactic development of NuCls within Benue-Congo, (d) fertilize the general typological debate on NuCls which is currently still blemished by an overall lack of both substantial data from and typologically informed analyses of African NuCls. Since most Benue-Congo NuCls present incipient stages of development, they provide an exceptionally fertile ground for gaining insights into their paths of grammaticalisation with respect to the syntactic sources of classifier constructions as well as the lexical sources of the numeral classifier items themselves and their underlying cognitive motivations. Low level reconstructions of numeral classifiers of Proto-Tivoid and Proto-Bamileke will allow to disentangle genetic inheritance from borrowing and calquing and thus generate hypotheses about the contact-induced areal diffusion of numeral classifiers systems in the multilingual Nigerian-Cameroonian borderlands. In a broader historical perspective, the project will finally provide preliminary answers to the fundamental puzzle of why Benue-Congo languages tend to develop numeral classifier systems on top of the pre-existing fully fledged noun class system of the Bantoid type, contradicting a generally held view that numeral classifier systems in Niger-Congo rather compensate for the decline and loss of a prior noun class system.The following results are envisaged for the first phase of the project: in-depth descriptive studies of the numeral classifier systems of two Benue-Congo languages from different branches, i.e. Ugare (Tivoid, Nigeria) and Ngəmba (Eastern Grassfields Bantu), draft sketches of numeral classifier systems of at least two other Tivoid and Bamileke varieties, a first draft of a comparative study on their emergence and development and preliminary draft sketches of numeral classifier systems in other Nigerian and Cameroonian Benue-Congo languages.