Doctoral Dissertation Research: Integration of Quantitative and Documentary Methodologies in the Analysis of a Segmentally-Rich Language

University Of Hawaii, Honolulu

Investigators

Abstract

Much of what we know about how human languages work is based on only a handful of well-studied languages, chiefly from Western, industrialized countries. Meanwhile, nearly half of the world's 7,000 languages are under threat of disappearance, presenting linguistics with the urgent challenge of documenting under-studied languages while communities still use them. This dissertation project addresses these issues not only by documenting an under-studied, segmentally-rich language, but through groundbreaking adaptation of experimental methods to a fieldwork setting to provide rich, quantitative data of the type normally only available for well-studied languages. The researchers will conduct the first quantitatively-driven investigations of the sound system and grammar of Tsova-Tush, a critically endangered Northeast Caucasian language spoken in Georgia. This language family and region are both dramatically underrepresented in linguistics, meaning that quantitative data from this language are particularly valuable for helping to increase the diversity of the database available to linguistic science. Further, its location in Georgia is an ideal fieldwork setting for adapting experimental methods for an endangered language: Tsova-Tush is spoken in a rural, agricultural village with many of the challenges of other fieldwork sites, but with reliable enough access to transit and telecommunications to make the application and troubleshooting of experimental methods feasible. Finally, the documentation will provide valuable data about a segmentally complex language that will further our understanding of the cognitive demands of human language complexity in general. Broader impacts include a public repository of recordings and transcriptions, the training of a doctoral student, and facilitating access to linguistic resources for a minority language group to enhance scientific understanding. The quantitative studies in the dissertation focus on three linguistic questions: the status of long vowels and consonants, the grammaticality of demonstratives and pronouns (indexicals), and the readability of a proposed writing system. It has been suggested that Tsova-Tush has both plain and "intensive" consonants, as well as short, long, and "hyperlong" vowels, but linguists lack the phonetic details to establish the exact properties of this complicated sound system. Through a detailed acoustic study with multiple speakers, this project will describe the durational properties that distinguish these consonants and vowels. Further, Tsova-Tush has a complex system of indexicals, distinguishing three deictic distances ('here'/'there'/'over there'), whose grammatical uses are poorly understood. In this project, an experiment will be conducted, in which speakers will be asked to judge the grammaticality of sentences with indexicals in a wide variety of contexts, thus establishing the parameters of indexical shift. Finally, based on the findings of these studies, the researchers will test the readability of a proposed Tsova-Tush writing system and provide speakers with linguistically sound recommendations for developing written materials in the language. The dissertation's description of the successes and challenges of the quantitative studies in a documentation scenario will help improve the methodologies of both documentary and experimental linguistics. 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.