A fieldwork exercise forteaching undergraduate syntaxMarjorie Pak mgpak@emory.edu Emory University SECOL 80 Spartanburg, SC April 5, 2013*

Question 1What do we want our students to take away from their study of syntax? Question 2What do they actually take away?*

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The ideal balance*enough English syntax to get a sense of how rules and trees workenough cross-linguistic data to get a sense of the range of syntactic variation+

How to achieve this balance? (Its hard enough just to teach English syntax!) PROPOSAL: include some exercises on descriptive syntaxGet students to recognize, talk and write about properties of a syntactic structure in various languagese.g. How are relative clauses formed in ____?

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Exercise #1Translate 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. We saw the women [who work at the hospital].I read the book [that fell off the table].We saw the women [you visited].I need the book [that you borrowed].

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Preparation: Basic background on relative clausesWe saw the women [who work at the hospital].I read the book [that fell off the table].We saw the women [you visited].I need the book [that you borrowed].A RC is a clause that modifies a nounMany languages have relative markers Eng. that, who, 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 gradingSpend some time in class looking at a sampling of peers write-ups togetherCriteria 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 languageI scheduled small-group elicitation sessions with a native speaker of Kiswahilia former graduate studentpaid a small stipendwas instructed to speak slowly and clearly but not unnaturally, and not to spell words for studentsgave 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 becauseconsonants and vowels are familiar for English speakers and easy to transcribe with IPAagglutinative morphology is an interesting challenge very different from English but highly transparentunfamiliar to most students but fairly well-studied; online dictionaries, tutorials, etc. are available......so the assignment can be tailored to various levels *

Preparation: Background on Kiswahili morphosyntaxLike 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-aSpanish a-FEM bracelet[FEM] pretty-FEM a pretty braceletun anillo bonit-o a.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 its not entirely arbitraryEach even-numbered class is the plural of the preceding (odd-#d) classSemantic patterns: e.g. class 1 nouns are always people*

Unlike in Eur. languages, the verb agrees with the subject in noun class. Verb morphology: subject agreement + tense + verb roota-na-fika.He/she arrives ni-li-nunua kiti.I bought the chair. _______________He/she bought the chairs. _______________The chair arrives. _______________The chairs arrive.

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

Preparation: a students notes*

ST:Okay, um, could you say The teacher buys books?KS: Mwalimu ananunua vitabu. teacher CL1.PRES.buy booksST:Could you say I saw the books that the teacher buys?KS:Niliona vitabu ambavyo mwalimu ananunua. (repeats) 1SG.PST.see books REL.CL8 teacher CL1.PRES.buyST: Could you say The child reads the book?KS: Mtoto anasoma kitabu. child CL1.PRES.read bookST: Um, could you say I saw the child that reads the book?KS:Niliona mtoto anayesoma kitabu. 1SG.PST.see child CL1.PRES.REL.CL1.read book*

If all goes well, students discover...two ways to form RCs in Kiswahili a prefix on the verbanasoma reads anayesoma who/that readsamba- + noun-classkitabu amba-cho anasoma the book that s/he readsBoth relative markers show noun-class agreementBoth 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*

Grading criteriaStudents arent penalized if the consultant doesnt happen to produce both structures during their sessionNo penalty for misspellings or incorrect word breaksBut they are expected to elicit (and report on) subject and object RCs modifying nouns of various classesIn grading, I pay attention to whether studentsdescribe their particular groups findings accuratelyapply technical terms and discuss concepts accurately (subject vs. object RCs, noun class, etc.)write clearly and include appropriate examples*

ModificationsAdvanced 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 arent 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 languageA chance to learn about fieldwork practices for programs that dont have a dedicated Field Methods courseStudent 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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