2018 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Comparative Semantics of Yaeyaman Verbal Morphology
| Project/Area Number |
18K12374
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| Research Institution | University of the Ryukyus |
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Principal Investigator |
クリストファー デイビス 琉球大学, 国際地域創造学部, 准教授 (80647339)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2018-04-01 – 2021-03-31
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| Keywords | Yaeyama / fieldwork / verbal morphology / dialog / Taketomi / Kohama / Hatoma / Ishigaki |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
My research this year was focused on gathering and processing recordings of various dialects of Yaeyaman, in particular recordings of dialogs between two speakers using the "pear story" and other silent videos as an elicitation tool. I collected such data from the Taketomi, Kohama, Hatoma, and Ishigaki dialects of Yaeyaman, and also did transcription work on the previously recorded dialog from the Miyara dialect, giving a total of five dialects for which comparative data has now been collected. The data thus collected will form the basis for a cross-dialectal naturalistic corpus of Yaeyaman, with a focus on contexts triggering contrasts in verbal TAM marking, evidential marking, and interactional stance marking.
I have also done additional fieldwork targeting the basic verbal morphological contrasts in Taketomi, Kohama, and Hatoma. A basic description of verb forms for the Kohama dialect was also compiled this year, and I am working now on organizing the verbal morphology data for Taketomi and Hatoma.
Using the new recording equipment purchased with grant funds, I was able to make recordings with very high sound quality, and am planning to make the recordings available to the community in Yaeyama as well as other researchers within the next year.
I presented the research methodology and some preliminary results at a workshop (研究会) in Okinawa, where I received feedback to help improve the collection of data.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
My progress this year was slightly delayed due to a higher than expected workload related to teaching and various administrative duties, which did not allow for as many fieldwork trips as I had hoped. In particular, my plans for extended fieldwork trips in the summer were delayed due to unforeseen circumstances. Fortunately, I have been able to reduce my teaching load in the second semester of this year, allowing me to do intensive fieldwork during October and November.
As described above, I have collected and partially analyzed both naturalistic and elicited data for 5 dialects of Yaeyaman. I had hoped to get data for several other dialects (in particular, Shiraho, Kabira, Hateruma, and Funauki), but have not been able to do so yet. For the Funauki dialect, it is difficult to find two native speakers for the dialog task, and it may not be possible to include this dialect in the project. For the other two dialects, I have not yet been able to coordinate with speakers, but am planning to do so later this year.
Despite these delays, I have still collected and partially analyzed a substantial number of recordings for several dialects, and have given a presentation of some preliminary results of this work. The groundwork is well laid for more intensive fieldwork and publication efforts in the next year.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
In order to make up for the slight delay in research progress this year, I have arranged my teaching schedule this year to allow for several prolonged research trips during October and November. I plan to use these trips to finalize my work on the five dialects for which fieldwork has already been conducted, and to begin work on at least three dialects (Shiraho, Kabira, Hateruma) for which I feel confident native speaker consultants can be found.
While continuing to collect primary data, I also plan to begin cross-dialectal analysis of the verbal forms, so that cognate forms in different dialects are labeled consistently and their uses can be compared. With consistent labeling conventions established across all the dialects examined, I will then update and improve my transcriptions of the dialog data, on the basis of which I will begin compiling a cross-dialectal comparative corpus of the data collected, transcribed in ELAN and made available for searching the usage of particular forms across different dialects.
In addition, I plan to present the preliminary results of the work and the methodology developed at a seminar-type talk at the University of Massachusetts in September. I plan to make the recordings I transcribe available online within the year, and also to submit a paper describing the preliminary results of the research.
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| Causes of Carryover |
The funds left over this year were due to less time than expected for prolonged fieldwork in Yaeyama. In the next year, I have arranged my teaching load so that I can make prolonged fieldwork trips in October and November, using the leftover funds from this year. These trips are in addition to those originally planned during May/June of 2019, Summer 2019, and February/March 2020.
In addition, my laptop computer I use for writing and processing data unexpectedly broke, and I expect to use some funds to either repair or replace this laptop. In addition, I may need to purchase some additional SD cards for storing fieldwork data. These purchases will be made early in the year.
Finally, I am planning to submit the results of my research to several international conferences, and plan to use some funds to pay for travel to those conferences if I am accepted.
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