Study on polysynthesis in Nuuchahnulth

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24520420
• 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): NAKAYAMA Kumiko 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): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 複統合性 / 形態論 / ヌートカ語 / 危機言語 / 類型論

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The goal of this project was to examine the nature of morphological complexity in Nuuchahnulth (Wakashan: British Columbia, Canada) in hope of making contribution to understanding of the diversity of polysynthesis. As made clear in some recent studies, there is a great degree of variation among ‘polysynthetic languages’ in terms of the kind and degree of morphological complexity. Nuuchahnulth represents a rather unusual type that relies almost exclusively on affixation of suffixes with rich semantic contents (lexical suffixes).
In this project, polysynthesis in Nuuchahnulth was examined in detail, using databases of natural discourse data and lexicon, from two perspectives: (1) the range of combination and configuration (both structural and semantic) of lexical suffixes that is allowed in a word; (2) distribution and functions of polysynthetic words in discourse.

Free Research Field

言語学、ヌートカ語、類型論、形態統語論、用法基盤言語学