The Grammar of Surmiran Rumantsch

苏米兰鲁曼奇语语法

• 批准号: 0418410
• 负责人: Stephen Anderson
• 金额: $ 15.02万
• 依托单位: Yale University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2004
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2004-09-01 至 2008-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0418410&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Grammar; Surmiran; Rumantsch

What is lost when a language dies? Languages are becoming extinct at a much higher rate than biological species, and each time this happens, the connection of a people with their history, traditional knowledge and cultural heritage is severed. Each language is a unique combination of the possibilities offered by the human language faculty, and each language that dies reduces the evidence available for the nature of that faculty. Many of the world's endangered languages are those of tribal peoples in remote places, but many more are spoken right alongside what we think of as major languages. Indeed, this very proximity is a major reason, in many cases, for the endangered status of local or minority languages. With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Stephen Anderson will carry out field studies of Surmiran, one of five major forms of Rumantsch in Switzerland. Intense linguistic pressure from speakers of Italian and especially German makes it extremely difficult for the 3,000 or so speakers of this language to maintain their Rumantsch identity. The language has a number of features that make it quite important, though, both for the study of Romance languages and for linguistic theory more generally. For example, Rumantsch is the only modern Romance language that consistently requires the verb of the sentence to appear in second position, in a way similar to (but subtly different from) German. Surmiran has a system of weak (or "clitic") pronouns that appear together with a full expression referring to the subject under complex conditions related to a number of other grammatical properties. The language also has sound types that are quite unusual both in themselves and in the ways they form groups (or clusters). In every area of its grammar, Surmiran Rumantsch has something to show us about the range of possibilities for human language that we might well never know if the language disappeared before it could be investigated.This project will provide documentation of the features of the language at several levels. For linguists, technical analyses of its peculiarities and their relevance to important theoretical issues will bring a new set of data into discussion in the field. For speakers of the language, a grammatical description will be provided which can play a role in language courses in the educational system, as well as providing a convenient reference. It is often the case that the mere fact of devoting scientific attention to an endangered language can have the effect of awakening pride and interest in the community, as they realize that their language is not simply a marginal "dialect" but a special and valuable kind of knowledge, structurally as rich and varied as those with more prestige, and especially valuable to them as the vehicle in which their own culture is expressed. In addition to providing resources to these two communities, linguists on the one hand and Surmiran speakers on the other, this project will also provide opportunities for graduate students to participate directly in research with both a basic and an applied character.

当一种语言消亡时，会失去什么？语言灭绝的速度比生物物种灭绝的速度要快得多，每次这种情况发生时，一个民族与其历史、传统知识和文化遗产的联系就会被切断。每种语言都是人类语言能力所提供的可能性的独特组合，而每种消亡的语言都会减少证明该能力本质的证据。世界上许多濒临灭绝的语言都是偏远地区部落民族的语言，但还有更多语言是与我们认为的主要语言并存的语言。事实上，在许多情况下，这种邻近性是当地语言或少数民族语言濒临灭绝的主要原因。在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，斯蒂芬·安德森博士将对瑞士罗曼语的五种主要形式之一的苏米兰语进行实地研究。来自意大利语（尤其是德语）使用者的巨大语言压力使得大约 3,000 名意大利语使用者很难维持其罗曼语身份。然而，该语言具有许多使其非常重要的特征，无论是对于罗曼语言的研究还是对于更广泛的语言理论来说。 例如，罗曼语是唯一一种始终要求句子的动词出现在第二位置的现代罗曼语，这与德语类似（但略有不同）。 Surmiran 具有弱（或“附加”）代词系统，这些代词与在与许多其他语法属性相关的复杂条件下指代主语的完整表达一起出现。该语言还具有一些声音类型，这些声音类型本身以及它们形成组（或簇）的方式都非常不寻常。在语法的每个领域，Sumiran Rumantsch 都向我们展示了人类语言的可能性范围，如果这种语言在被调查之前就消失了，我们很可能永远不会知道。该项目将在以下位置提供该语言特征的文档：几个级别。对于语言学家来说，对其特性及其与重要理论问题的相关性进行技术分析将为该领域的讨论带来一组新的数据。对于该语言的使用者，将提供语法描述，可以在教育系统的语言课程中发挥作用，并提供方便的参考。通常情况下，对濒临灭绝的语言进行科学关注这一事实就可以唤醒社区的自豪感和兴趣，因为他们意识到自己的语言不仅仅是一种边缘“方言”，而是一种特殊且有价值的语言知识的结构与那些更有声望的知识一样丰富多样，并且作为表达自己文化的载体对他们来说尤其有价值。除了为这两个群体（一方面是语言学家，另一方面是苏米兰语使用者）提供资源外，该项目还将为研究生提供直接参与基础和应用研究的机会。