Alor-Pantar languages: origins and theoretical impact (Alor-Pantar)
(AHRC, NSF, NWO)
This project aims to further document and analyze the non-Austronesian languages of the Alor-Pantar archipelago of southeastern Indonesia. Until very recently these languages were among the least well-documented languages of Indonesia, and all of them are endangered.
The project focuses on:
I. Extended Documentation of spatial reference and numerical expressions.
II. Word Class Typology: the continuum between word classes and grammatical features; how morphosyntactic categories evolve; unusual morphosyntactic phenomena of the Alor-Pantar languages.
III. Linguistic Prehistory: quantitative evidence for the genetic position of the Alor-Pantar languages, based on bottom-up reconstruction to establish genetic subgroups and evaluate potential genetic relationships with languages of New Guinea.
Further information: Alor-Pantar website
Project Leader: Dr. Marian Klamer, Leiden University, Netherlands
Principal Investigators:
Professor Greville Corbett, University of Surrey, United Kingdom
Dr. Gary Holton, University of Alaska Fairbanks, United States
The Kalahari Basin area: a ‘Sprachbund’ on the verge of extinction (KBA)
(DFG, ESRC, FIST, NWO)
The KBA project attempts to untangle some aspects of the complex linguistic and population history of the southern African groups speaking languages other than from the Bantu family. These are commonly subsumed under the unsubstantiated concept of a “Khoisan” family but might turn out to share certain traits because of convergence processes within a geographical area. The project will pursue a two-tiered approach, investigating southern Africa as a linguistic area from a broad perspective as well as offering fine-scaled studies of individual contact situations. The overall approach is a multidisciplinary one in involving linguists, molecular anthropologists and social anthropologists.
Further information: KBA website
Project Leader: Professor Tom Güldemann, Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, Germany
Principal Investigators:
- Professor Alan Barnard, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- Professor William McGregor, Aarhus University, Denmark
- Professor Maarten Mous, University of Leiden, Netherlands
- Dr. Brigitte Pakendorf, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
Associated Partner:
- Professor Hirosi Nakagawa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Japan
Ob-Ugric languages: conceptual structures, lexicon, constructions, categories - An innovative approach to creating descriptive resources for Khanty and Mansi - (Ob-Ugric languages)
(AKA, DFG, FWF, OTKA)
This project aims to provide online descriptive resources for two endangered Ob-Ugric languages Khanty (Ostyak) and Mansi (Vogul), consisting of a text corpus (for four different dialects), an e-grammar, e-dictionaries (four dialectal, an onomaseological and an etymological), and an e-library (bibliography with PDF-files or scans of rare old publications).
Further information: Ob-Ugric languages website
Project Leader: Professor Elena Skribnik, Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität, Germany
Principal Investigators:
- Professor Marianne Bakró-Nagy, University of Szeged, Hungary
- Professor Ulla-Maija Kulonen, University of Helsinki, Finland
- Professor Johanna Laakso, University of Vienna, Austria
- Dr. Anna Widmer, Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität, Germany
Associated Partners:
- Dr. Klavdiya Afanasjeva, Institute of further training for teachers, Khanty-Mansiysk, Russian Federation
- Dr. Natalya Koshkaryova, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
- Professor Nadezhda Lukina, Pedagogical University of Tomsk, Russian Federation
- Dr. Valentina Solovar, Yugra State University of Khanty-Mansiisk, Russian Federation
Referential Hierarchies in Morphosyntax: description, typology, diachrony (RHIM)
(AHRC, DFG, NSF, SNSF)
The RHIM project explores morphosyntactic systems that are based on a hierarchy of referents - first and second person ranking over third, humans over non-humans, known referents over unknown ones. This hierarchy is known to influence the structure of grammatical relations (the basic "who does what to whom in an event"), giving rise to e.g. inverse morphology or differential argument marking. There have only been few comparative studies on these phenomena, and many languages displaying them are seriously endangered. Based on fieldwork and documentation corpora, we aim at a better understanding of these systems from a typological and diachronic perspective.
Further information: RHIM website
Project Leader: Dr. Katharina Haude, CNRS, SEDYL-CELIA, Villejuif, France
Principal Investigators:
- Professor Balthasar Bickel, University of Leipzig, Germany
- Professor Spike Gildea, University of Oregon, United States
- Professor Nikolaus Himmelmann, Universität zu Köln, Germany
- Dr. Fernando Zúñiga, University of Zurich, Switzerland
Endangered sign languages in village communities (Village Sign)
(AHRC, DFG, NSF, NWO)
The case of sign languages in rural communities with a high incidence of, often hereditary, deafness is the latest major discovery in the field of sign language linguistics. For the first time, this project looks comparatively at a substantial number of these communities, in Thailand, Mexico (Yucatan Peninsula), South India, Turkey (Mardin), Ghana, Mali (Dogon region), Australia (Aboriginal communities in Arnhem Land), Jamaica, Indonesia (Bali) and an Algerian expatriate community in Israel.
The project investigates these sign languages and communities from the two complementary angles of linguistics and anthropology. Our diverse project team, which includes deaf researchers from the target countries, pays particular attention to ethical issues in working with these communities.
Further information: Village Sign website
Project Leader: Professor Ulrike Zeshan, University of Central Lancashire, United Kingdom
Principal Investigators:
Professor Marie Carla Adone, Universität zu Köln, Germany
Professor Maarten Mous, Leiden University, Netherlands
Dr. Angela Nonaka, University of Texas at Austin, United States
Associated Partner:
Dr. Irit Meir, University of Haifa, Israel
