International Research Fellowship Program: Evolution of Language Systems: A Comparative Study of Grammatical Change in English and Icelandic

国际研究奖学金计划：语言系统的演变：英语和冰岛语语法变化的比较研究

• 批准号: 0853114
• 负责人: Joel Wallenberg
• 金额: $ 8.56万
• 依托单位: Wallenberg Joel C
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-10-01 至 2011-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0853114&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: International; Research; Fellowship; Program; Evolution

0853114WallenbergThis award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).The International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.This award will support an eighteen-month research fellowship by Dr. Joel C. Wallenberg to work with Dr. Hoskuldur Thrainsson at the University of Iceland.This collaboration continues an in-depth study of a number of intricate grammatical constructions in modern Icelandic, as well as a detailed comparison of the grammar of Icelandic and English throughout their written histories. The 18 month project has the following three primary goals: to conduct a series of experiments with speakers of Icelandic focusing on a selection of scientifically important grammatical constructions, the collection and syntactic annotation of a database (?corpus?) of modern and historical Icelandic texts, and a detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis of the experimental and written data. The project investigates central questions of natural language syntax and language evolution through a study of modern and historical English and Icelandic. These two languages are similar enough to allow for a detailed comparison, but yet differ in important and interesting ways. While the project includes a broad comparison of historical Icelandic and English, it focuses primarily on phenomena of modern Icelandic that have already been shown to exist in historical English as well, particularly ?object shift? or ?scrambling? (Wallenberg 2007, 2008) and ?quantifier movement? (Light & Wallenberg 2008). Both of these phenomena show a degree of optionality for speakers in both languages, as well as limits on this optionality due to general grammatical constraints. Both phenomena have also followed different historical trajectories in the two languages under investigation. The construction of a diachronic corpus of Icelandic creates a permanent, public resource for quantitative and replicable studies of language variation and change over time. The investigation of internal and external factors in language stability and language change sheds light on how children acquire language, how the human language faculty processes statistical inputs from the population of speakers, and brings more data to bear on the relationship between the dynamics of language evolution and the dynamics of biological evolution (cf. e.g. Nowak 2006: Chapt. 13). Furthermore, experimentation in the computational methods necessary to annotate such a corpus could further advance general research in natural language processing (cf. part-of-speech-tagging Icelandic in Dredze & Wallenberg 2008a, 2008b). Finally, in addition to potential scientific gains, the profound language contact between English and the Scandinavian languages in England, Ireland, and Scotland during the medieval period points to a shared cultural history between American English and modern Icelandic, the details of which will be much better understood after a thorough comparison of the early English and Icelandic grammatical systems.

0853114 Wallenbergthis奖是根据2009年的《美国复苏与再投资法》（公法111-5）资助的。国际研究奖学金计划使美国科学家和工程师能够在国外进行九至二十四个月的研究。 该计划的奖项为共同研究提供了机会，以及在国外使用独特或补充设施，专业知识和实验条件。该奖项将支持乔尔·C·沃伦伯格（Joel C. Wallenberg）博士的18个月研究奖学金，与冰岛大学的霍斯库尔德尔·特雷纳斯森（Hoskuldur Thrainsson）博士合作，对这些详尽的格局进行了详尽的研究，以进行现代化的现代构建，以进行现代化的研究。冰岛和英语的书面历史。 这个18个月的项目具有以下三个主要目标：进行一系列实验，以冰岛的讲话者着眼于精选的科学重要语法结构，对现代和历史冰岛文本的数据库（？corpus？）的收集和句法注释，以及对实验和书面数据的详细定性和定量分析。 该项目通过对现代和历史英语和冰岛语的研究研究了自然语法和语言演变的中心问题。 这两种语言足够相似，可以进行详细的比较，但在重要和有趣的方式上有所不同。 虽然该项目包括历史冰岛和英语的广泛比较，但它主要集中在现代冰岛现象上，这些现象也已被证明存在于历史英语中，尤其是对象转移？还是？ （Wallenberg 2007，2008）和“量词运动？ （Light＆Wallenberg 2008）。 这两种现象均显示出两种语言的说话者的选择程度，并且由于一般的语法约束而限制了这种选择性。 两种现象也遵循了正在调查的两种语言中的不同历史轨迹。冰岛的历时性语料库的建造创造了一种永久的公共资源，用于对语言变化和随时间变化的定量和可复制研究。 对语言稳定和语言变化中内部和外部因素的调查阐明了儿童如何获得语言，人类语言教师如何处理说话者人群的统计输入，并带来了更多数据，以了解语言演变动力与生物进化动态之间的关系（参见Nowak 2006：Chapt。13）。 此外，注释这种语料库所需的计算方法中的实验可以进一步推进自然语言处理中的一般研究（参见Dredze＆Wallenberg 2008a，2008b中的演讲部分诱人的冰岛一部分。 最后，除了潜在的科学收益外，英语与斯堪的纳维亚语言之间的深刻语言接触在中世纪时期，这表明了美国英语与现代冰岛现代之间的共同文化历史，在对早期英语和冰岛语语法系统的详尽比较之后，这些细节将得到更好的理解。