A fieldwork exercise forteaching undergraduate syntax

Marjorie Pakmgpak@emory.edu

Emory University

SECOL 80Spartanburg, SC

April 5, 20131

Question 1

What do we want our students to take away from

their study of syntax?

Question 2

What do they actually take away?

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The ideal balance

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enough English syntax to get a sense of how rules and trees work

enough cross-linguistic data to get a sense of the range of syntactic variation

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How to achieve this balance? (It’s hard enough just to teach English syntax!)

PROPOSAL: include some exercises on descriptive syntax

Get students to recognize, talk and write about properties of a syntactic structure in various languages

e.g. How are relative clauses formed in ____?

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Exercise #1

Translate these sentences into another language. Work with a native speaker if your proficiency is not very high. Use the conventional 3-line notation for linguistic examples we have practiced. What differences do you observe between the way relative clauses are formed in English and in your target language? Supply additional examples to help support any patterns you believe you have observed. Write 1-2 paragraphs.

1) We saw the women [who work at the hospital].

2) I read the book [that fell off the table].

3) We saw the women [you visited].

4) I need the book [that you borrowed].

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Preparation: Basic background on relative clauses

1) We saw the women [who work at the hospital].2) I read the book [that fell off the table].3) We saw the women [you visited].4) I need the book [that you borrowed].

A RC is a clause that modifies a noun

Many languages have relative markers – Eng. that, who, Ø

The noun that the RC modifies is called the head noun. The RC follows the head noun in English.

The head noun may be interpreted as the subject or the object of the RC verb.

subject RCs in (1)-(2) object RCs in (3)-(4)

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Follow-up discussion and grading

Spend some time in class looking at a sampling of peers’ write-ups together

Criteria for grading: Has the student...

accurately observed patterns in the target language?

appropriately used technical terms learned in class?

included examples that support their claims?

Students gain exposure to cross-linguistic variation and also practice descriptive writing about observations

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Exercise #2: Eliciting RCs in an unfamiliar language

I scheduled small-group elicitation sessions with a native speaker of Kiswahili

a former graduate student

paid a small stipend

was instructed to speak slowly and clearly but not unnaturally, and not to spell words for students

gave permission for students to record (but students should still double-check)

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The instructor does not need to know Kiswahili. Like other Bantu languages, Kiswahili works well because

consonants and vowels are familiar for English speakers and easy to transcribe with IPA

agglutinative morphology is an interesting challenge – very different from English but highly transparent

unfamiliar to most students but fairly well-studied; online dictionaries, tutorials, etc. are available...

...so the assignment can be tailored to various levels

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Preparation: Background on Kiswahili morphosyntax

Like many other Bantu languages: SVO, pro-drop, agglutinative morphology with multiple noun classes

Noun roots in Kiswahili must always occur with a prefix designating the noun class.

Noun class is similar to gender – a way of classifying nouns into (arbitrary?) categories that affect the noun itself as well as agreeing adjectives, articles, etc. un-a pulsera bonit-a Spanish

a-FEM bracelet[FEM] pretty-FEM‘a pretty bracelet’

un anillo bonit-oa.MASC ring[MASC] pretty-MASC‘a pretty ring’

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But instead of 2 or 3 genders, Bantu languages have 10+ noun classes!

The class of any given noun must be learned and memorized.

But it’s not entirely arbitrary…

Each even-numbered class is the plural of the preceding (odd-#’d) class

Semantic patterns: e.g. class 1 nouns are always people

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Unlike in Eur. languages, the verb agrees with the subject in noun class.

Verb morphology: subject agreement + tense + verb root

a-na-fika. ‘He/she arrives’ni-li-nunua kiti. ‘I bought the chair.’_______________ ‘He/she bought the chairs.’ _______________ ‘The chair arrives.’ _______________ ‘The chairs arrive.’

13(http://mwanasimba.online.fr/E_Chap07.htm)

Preparation: a student’s notes

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1. ST: Okay, um, could you say ‘The teacher buys books’?

2. KS: Mwalimu ananunua vitabu. teacher CL1.PRES.buy books

3. ST: Could you say ‘I saw the books that the teacher buys’?

4. KS: Niliona vitabu ambavyo mwalimu ananunua. (repeats)1SG.PST.see books REL.CL8 teacher CL1.PRES.buy

5. ST: Could you say ‘The child reads the book’?

6. KS: Mtoto anasoma kitabu. child CL1.PRES.read book

7. ST: Um, could you say ‘I saw the child that reads the book’?

8. KS: Niliona mtoto anayesoma kitabu. 1SG.PST.see child CL1.PRES.REL.CL1.read book

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If all goes well, students discover...

two ways to form RCs in Kiswahili

1) a prefix on the verb

anasoma ‘reads’ anayesoma ‘who/that reads’

2) amba- + noun-class

kitabu amba-cho anasoma ‘the book that s/he reads’

Both relative markers show noun-class agreement

Both options are reported to be available with both subject and object RCs

Our consultant heavily favored option 1 with subject RCs and option 2 with object RCs

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Grading criteria

Students aren’t penalized if the consultant doesn’t happen to produce both structures during their session

No penalty for misspellings or incorrect word breaks

But they are expected to elicit (and report on) subject and object RCs modifying nouns of various classes

In grading, I pay attention to whether students

describe their particular group’s findings accurately

apply technical terms and discuss concepts accurately (subject vs. object RCs, noun class, etc.)

write clearly and include appropriate examples

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Modifications

Advanced students could read background papers on Kiswahili relative clauses and discuss whether this particular speaker conformed to reported patterns.

Students watch The Linguists, read excerpts from Bowern 2008 or other books/articles about fieldwork practices, and discuss challenges and limitations of this exercise.

For larger classes where small-group sessions aren’t feasible, students could listen to previously recorded sessions, transcribe them and complete a report.

And of course, the basic exercise can be adapted to a wide range of languages and linguistic phenomena.

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What does this kind of exercise achieve?

Students learn in-depth about syntactic phenomena in another language

A chance to learn about fieldwork practices for programs that don’t have a dedicated Field Methods course

Student comments:

‘It made me feel like a linguist.’

‘It was more difficult than I imagined.’

‘I now feel like I have some knowledge concerning how to approach languages unfamiliar to me.’

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Many thanks to the Emory Program in Linguistics, students in my Fall 2012 LING-242 class, and our patient and generous Kiswahili consultant.

ReferencesBowern, Claire. 2008. Linguistic fieldwork: a practical guide. Palgrave

McMillan.Demuth, Katherine & Harford, Carolyn. 1999. Verb raising and subject

inversion in Bantu relatives. JALL 20, 41-61.Edelsten, Peter, Kula, Nancy & Marten, Lutz. 2010. Swahili relative clauses.

Handout from talk given at Colchester which hunt, University of Essex.

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