Morphological Complexity in Nuer

语言中一个臭名昭著的复杂因素来自词尾变化形态，这一点更加引人注目，因为一些语言有而另一些语言没有。例如，在英语中，动词的词尾变化，除了像“sing”这样的形式外，说话者还必须知道“sings”、“ang”、“Song”和“sing”。在普通话中，动词不会屈折变化，说话人只需要知道一种形式(变化)。但语调变化不仅仅是学习多种形式的问题--说话者还需要协商一个由不可预测和模棱两可的关系组成的网络。例如，说英语的人不仅需要知道一个动词必须有一个简单的过去时形式，他们还需要知道‘sing’，‘fling’，‘b’和‘ping’等过去时形式都是以不同的方式构成的(‘ang’，‘flung’，‘带来’和‘pinged’)，并且当‘ang’和‘ang’押韵时，一个是过去时形式，另一个是现在时形式。虽然英语的词形变化系统仍然相当简单，但在其他语言中，情况可能会变得复杂得多。世界上最极端的例子之一来自努尔语，这是尼罗-撒哈拉语系的西尼罗河支系的一种语言，主要在南苏丹共和国使用。这种复杂性与其说是由于大量的形式，不如说是因为它们的不可预测性和内部结构。这一点在大小写后缀中可以清楚地看到。从表面上看，这个系统相当简单。只有两个后缀，单数的-ka和复数的-ni。但它们的行为相当令人费解，因为它们的意义因个别名词的不同而不同；例如，-ni可以用作某些名词的所有格后缀，也可以用作其他名词的处所格，或者两者兼而有之，甚至可以用作完全没有格标功能的一般复数后缀。演讲者必须学习如何使用和识别这些形式，并从这一系列竞争选项中选择正确的功能。除了后缀，名词还可以通过各种内部变化产生词尾变化，比如英语中的“Foot”和“Foot”。但在努尔语中，这远远超出了这种声音的交替，并利用了丰富的韵律特征系统，如长度、音调和发音类型(喘息的声音与吱吱作响的声音)。与后缀一样，不可能为这些功能建立固定的功能。例如，COW的所有格由元音加长(Yang~yaang)形成，而Person的所有格由缩写(raan~ran)形成。综上所述，后缀模式和词内变化模式构成了一个复杂的系统，其复杂性是世界上很少有语言能比拟的。这对语言的研究和更广泛的认知都是很有意义的，因为占主导地位的语言和心理模式的屈折是建立在非常简单的系统上的。但是，尽管我们对语言有足够的了解来理解它所带来的挑战，但我们缺乏任何详细的信息。在语言社区之外，人们对努尔语知之甚少，现有的描述充其量也是粗略的。因此，在这个项目中，我们的目标是在原始田野调查的基础上，首次对努尔语的屈折形态进行全面的描述，同时阐明其语音系统、句法和历史发展的各个方面。除了系统结构的复杂性，韵律系统本身也提出了特别的描述性挑战，其中音调、发音类型和类型上不寻常的三向元音长度差异的重叠影响必须通过仔细的声学测量来解决。这项调查的结果将对语言和人类思维的学生很重要，也将对说话者群体在制定拼写标准方面具有价值，这是新独立的南苏丹正在进行的一个进程。

A notorious complicating factor in language comes from inflectional morphology, which is all the more striking because some languages have it and others do not. In English, for example, verbs inflect, and alongside a form such as 'sing', a speaker must know 'sings', 'sang', 'sung' and 'singing'. In Mandarin Chinese, where verbs do not inflect, a speaker only needs to know one form (chàng). But inflection is not just a matter of learning multiple forms -- speakers also need to negotiate a network of unpredictable and ambiguous relationships. For instance, English speakers do not just need to know that a verb must have a simple past tense form, they need to know that the past tense forms of 'sing', 'fling', 'bring' and 'ping' are all constructed in different ways ('sang', 'flung', 'brought' and 'pinged'), and that while 'sang' and 'hang' rhyme, one is a past tense form and the other present. While the inflectional system of English is still fairly simple, in other languages things may get considerably more complex.One of the world's most extreme examples comes from Nuer, a language of the West Nilotic branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family, mainly spoken in the Republic of South Sudan. This complexity is not due so much to a large number of forms, but rather to their unpredictability and internal structure. This can be clearly seen in the case suffixes. On the face of it, the system is quite simple. There just two suffixes, -ka in the singular and -ni in the plural. But their behaviour is quite baffling, because their meaning varies according to the individual noun; for example, -ni can function as a genitive case suffix for some nouns, as a locative case for others, or as both, or even as a general plural suffix with no case-marking function at all. Speakers must learn how to use and recognize these forms, and select the correct function from this range of competing options. Besides suffixation, nouns may also inflect through various internal changes, as with English 'foot' versus 'feet'. But in Nuer this goes well beyond such vocalic alternations, and takes advantage of a rich system of prosodic features such as length, tone, and phonation type (breathy voice versus creaky voice). As with the suffixes, it is not possible to establish a fixed function for these features. For example, the genitive case of 'cow' is formed by vowel lengthening (yang ~ yaang) while that of 'person' is formed by shortening (raan ~ ran). Taken together, the patterns of suffixation and word-internal changes constitute a system whose complexity is matched by few languages in the world. This is of major interest both to the study of language and of cognition more generally, because the reigning linguistic and psychological models of inflection are based on systems which are considerably simpler.But while we know enough about the language to appreciate the challenges it poses, we lack any detailed information. Very little about it is known about Nuer outside the speech community, and the existing descriptions are sketchy at best. Therefore, in this project we aim to produce the first comprehensive description of the inflectional morphology of Nuer, based on original fieldwork, at the same time illuminating aspects of its sound system, syntax and historical development. Alongside the structural complexities of the system, the prosodic system poses particular descriptive challenges of its own, in which the overlapping effects of tone, phonation type and the typologically unusual three-way vowel length distinction must be untangled through careful acoustic measurements. The results of this investigation will be important to students of language and the human mind, and will also have value to the speaker community in the development of orthographic standards, an ongoing process in the newly independent South Sudan.