Language infrastructure and training in fieldwork and theoretical linguistics

This project examines language data to advance language infrastructure, knowledge, and theory. The research provides empirical data for the development and testing of theories of language, which are important for understanding human cognition, and trains students in these methods. The data are also important for demonstrating how different languages package information, knowledge that can improve the quality and usability of technologies like artificial intelligence. The project provides language and educational materials and fosters engagement with language speakers. The investigators focus on developing language infrastructure through training students in language documentation, data collection, management, language maintenance, and linguistic description and theory. The linguistic analysis focuses on language structures that are typologically unusual, such as a vowel harmony process that interacts with nasality, grammatical tone, and serial verb constructions. The team uses these data for producing grammatical sketches and a dictionary for the language, and project data are made available in a public language archive. This corpus of language documentation materials serves as a permanent record that can be used by linguists, lexicographers, and scholars in other fields that study and apply linguistic data. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.