Does morphosyntactic alignment shape discourse? Implementing a corpus-based approach to linguistic typology

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Geoffrey Haig
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: from 2017 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 323627599

This project is intended as a proof-of-concept study for corpus-based approaches to typology. We address the question of whether typological differences in the morphosyntax of individual languages are reflected in the organisation of spontaneous spoken discourse of those languages, with a special focus on so-called ergative languages. While claims of a co-dependence between grammar and discourse have regularly been made in the literature (Hopper 1983, Du Bois 2003, Durie 2003), the issue has never been systematically investigated on a more representative language sample. The project builds on an existing language archive architecture (Multi-CAST, Multilingual Corpus of Annotated Spoken Texts, integrated into LAC (Language Archive Cologne), and implements an expanded version of the syntactic annotation system GRAID (Grammatical Relations and Animacy in Discourse, Haig & Schnell 2014, to appear). The existing language sample will be extended by the inclusion of ergative languages of Australia (in collaboration with the Centre of Excellence for Dynamics of Language, Canberra and Melbourne), and from the Nakh-Daghestanian language family, and data from Phillippine-type languages (Brickell & Schnell, submitted). All corpora are subjected to a standardized annotation procedure, and the resulting data feed into quantitative cross-corpus analysis in order to identify significant statistical patterns in connected discourse (for example, distribution of referential expressions across syntactic functions, density of zero-anaphora, patterns of new-referent introduction, division of labour among pronouns and lexical expressions, impact of animacy on syntactic configurations). The resulting dataset, the first of its kind worldwide, aids the detection of possible correlations between the alignment of morphosyntax, and probabilistic patterning in the way connected spoken language is organized.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Australia
• Cooperation Partners: Professorin Dr. Diana Forker; Dmitrii Ganenkov, Ph.D.; Dr. Stefan Schnell