A descriptive study of morphosyntax of the First Nations' languages in the Northwest Coast of Canada

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25370470
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Linguistics
• Research Institution: Shizuoka University
• Principal Investigator: HORI Hirofumi 静岡大学, 人文社会科学部, 教授 (10283326)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): SASAMA Fumiko 大阪学院大学, 情報学部, 准教授 (60330114)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 言語学 / ハイダ語 / 海岸ツィムシアン語 / 言語類型論 / 北米先住民諸言語

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This project aims to elucidate various linguistic phenomena of Haida and Coast Tsimshian spoken in the Northwest Coast of British Columbia in Canada.
The outcomes of this project are summarized as follows. With regard to Haida, firstly, the polysynthetic nature is reexamined to clarify that several morphosyntactic, semantic and sociolinguistic factors interact with each other to make Haida look less polysynthetic. Secondly, the choice between the free and bound forms of third-person pronouns is also explained in terms of transitivity of predicate verbs and information structure. Concerning Coast Tsimshian, functions of possessive affixes that show alienable and inalienable possession are explicated; the usage and function of connectives are examined to show that significant differences are observed among the speakers.

Free Research Field

言語学