Doctoral Dissertation Research: The History of the Sogeram Language Family

University Of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara CA

Investigators

Abstract

This project investigates the almost completely uncharted linguistic area of Papua New Guinea. Linguists see the urgency in documenting these typologically interesting languages since many are on the verge of extinction as speakers are switching at an alarming rate from their traditional languages to the lingua franca, Tok Pisin. Through this ambitious project, six of the nine languages of the Sogeram family spoken in the Madang Province of Papua New Guinea (PNG) will be documented. The project involves ten months of fieldwork over the course of three trips. The resulting documentation will include detailed grammatical descriptions of each of the six languages. By applying rigorous comparative historical linguistic methods, comparison between the descriptions will lead to a reconstruction of the morphology of a postulated parent language. This study will allow for investigation into topics as diverse as historical phonology, drift, pronominal reference, and comparative kinship terminology. The project will increase the profile of Sogeram languages at local universities and will create language documentation materials for use pedagogical use by speakers. This project will also support the graduate training of a promising junior scholar.