Modality and Information Structure on the Rio Negro

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Uli Reich
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages ; Individual Linguistics, Historical Linguistics
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 556930235

The project compiles and analyzes data on the languages Portuguese (Romance), Nheengatu (Tupi-Guaraní) and Baniwa (Arawak), as they are spoken on the upper Rio Negro in Brazil. The three languages are spoken in different demographic configurations and with different socio-indexical characteristics in the three communities under consideration. The project therefore also aims at a systematic description of multilingual competence in these languages, which interpenetrate each other in concrete utterances. We are working in close cooperation with multilingual indigenous communities, which are being elevated from objects to agents of research. From a methodological point of view, we use dialogical elicitation techniques and questionnaires. We also use questionnaires to create the possibility of network analyses. All recordings are carried out by indigenous collaborators in everyday conversations, transcribed, translated and morphologically glossed. A large part of the data work is carried out by pupils from a local school, who also acquire skills in the use of electronic media and are involved in the development of linguistic apps. The data and material are made available to indigenous communities and organizations. Through this participatory approach, the project also aims to enhance the value of indigenous languages and thus the cultural autonomy of indigenous ways of life. In the linguistic core area, we aim to record and model the systems of modality and information structure within the framework of a model of dynamic semantics that makes the interweaving of these two areas of meaning, which are usually processed separately, visible. In addition to lexical and morphological, syntactic and intonational means of expression are recorded and modeled together.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants