Datooga lexico-grammar of motion in a dialectological and historical perspective (DALGOM)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Roland Kießling
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages ; African, American and Oceania Studies
• Term: from 2017 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 388586688

The project aims at a comprehensive study of the lexico-grammatical encoding of motion in Datooga, an under-researched Southern Nilotic language cluster in Tanzania, in order to improve the general understanding of the linguistic conceptualization of motion events in a broader typological perspective by inclusion of data from a language with cross-linguistically rare structural properties such as the morphological category of associated motion, i.e. translational motion indicating spatial displacement. In concrete terms, this project is meant to address five desiderata: (a) provide a fine-grained analysis of Datooga motion verbs which integrates their lexical semantics, their derivational scope with respect to the - still poorly and inadequately analyzed - system of verbal extensions, and their syntactic properties with respect to the assignment of semantic roles of participants to syntactic slots; (b) fertilize the general typology of the linguistic encoding of motion events which widely lacks profound analyses from Non-European languages and in particular input from languages which employ the rare category of grammaticalised associated motion such as Datooga; (c) explore the diatopic variation of the linguistic encoding of motion, in order to enhance the understanding of its diachronic dynamics under conditions of multilateral scenarios of language contact in the highly diversified Tanzanian Rift Valley Area of which all Datooga varieties forms a part; (d) contribute to the study of the diachronic development of Datooga over the past 80 years by comparing contemporary data with historical data from a text corpus of outstanding linguistic quality compiled by Paul Berger around 1935; (e) generally advance the documentation and analysis of Datooga grammar by systematically closing descriptive gaps on all structural levels and fixing inadequacies, shortcomings and misconceptions in prior analyses of Datooga. The urgency of this project is upgraded by the general situation of sociopolitical marginalization of Datooga groups in present day Tanzania, which is characterized by accelerated language shift away from Datooga towards Southern Cushitic languages such as Iraqw, local Tanzanian Bantu languages and the national official language Swahili. Extended periods of bilingualism over the past 80 years are expected to reveal diachronic changes in the lexico-grammar of motion of Datooga L1-varieties according to the locally dominant contact language(s). The following results are envisaged for the first phase of the project: a corpus of fully transcribed, translated and annotated texts and lexical data-bases of two different Datooga varieties, two data-bases of motion verbs classified for their semantic and morphosyntactic properties for the two Datooga varieties under investigation plus an outline sketch of salient aspects of the encoding of motion events and two PhDs on Datooga morphosyntax and / or semantics.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Tanzania
• International Co-Applicants: Professor Dr. Amani Lusekelo; Professor Dr. Gastor Mapunda