Characteristics of Nuuchahnulth syntax in relation to clause and clause combining

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K02473
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Linguistics
• Research Institution: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
• Principal Investigator: Nakayama Toshihide 東京外国語大学, アジア・アフリカ言語文化研究所, 教授 (70334448)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 中山 久美子 東京外国語大学, アジア・アフリカ言語文化研究所, 研究員 (40401426)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: ヌートカ語 / 危機言語 / 節連結 / 統語論

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study examined the characteristics of syntactic organization of Nuuchahnulth, an endangered indigenous language of Canada, with a focus on the structural domains of clause and clause combining. A clause in Nuuchahnulth is very limited in its internal structure. Many of meanings that could be expressed within a clause using a various phrases (prepositional, adverbial, or nominal) in English must be expressed with clause combining in Nuuchahnulth. This difference in encodability seems to be related to the fact that the lexical category distinction is much less developed in Nuuchahnulth. The clause is often assumed to be universally at the center of syntactic organization. The findings in this study, however, show that it is not always the case, and that the role of the clause in syntax depends on the structural type of the language.

Free Research Field

言語学、用法基盤言語学