Project Home: http://www.rch.uky.edu/Shughni/
Project Description
The Pamiri languages belong to the Eastern Iranian group and are spoken in the mountainous regions of eastern Tajikistan and northeastern Afghanistan. All of the Pamir languages are endangered or vulnerable. A collaborative research group comprising scholars at the University of Kentucky as well as academic institutions in Tajikistan are working to document these languages by providing a detailed grammar of the major language Shughni that will include comparisons with the sister Pamiri languages. A significant methodological component of the documentation enterprise involves language digitization, computer manipulation, and computer modeling. Two of the digital outputs we are working towards are:
- An online database of verb forms and meanings of the various languages using MySQL running on an Apache web server, and using PHP as the script for the user interface; the project will be deployed on a Linux operating system.
- A formal model of the Pamiri verb as represented by the various constituent languages. This will take the form of a DATR theory, and will be computer-interpretable. It will express both commonalities and differences amongst languages, and generate full paradigms of verbs form with example sentences on demand.
Outputs to date:
- Raphael Finkel. Shughni online dictionary: http://www.cs.uky.edu/~raphael/linguistics/shughniDict.cgi
- Stump, Gregory; and Andrew Hippisley. 2011. "Valence sensitivity in Pamirian past-tense inflection: a realizational analysis." In: Agnes Korn, Pollet Samvelian and Geoffrey Haig (eds) Topics in Iranian Linguistics. 103-116. Wiesbaden: Reichert.
- Hippisley, Andrew; and Gregory Stump. 2011. "Head & dependent marking and the Pamiri verb: a defaults-based account in Network Morphology.", Paper presented at Explorations into Syntactic Government and Subcategorisation, University of Cambridge, September 2011.
- Hippisley, Andrew; and Greg Stump. 2010c. "Negotiating the terrain of Pamiri grammar: Hazards and Prospects", presented at the CUNY Graduate Institute Linguistics Seminar, New York, December 2010.
- Hippisley, Andrew; and Greg Stump. 2010b "Exploring Tajikistan’s mountain languages: the Pamir grammar project". Presented at Linguistics Seminar Series, Columbia University, New York, December 2010.
- Hippisley, Andrew; and Gregory Stump. 2010a. "Alternative trajectories toward accusativity in the Pamir languages." Paper read at the workshop Subject and transitivity in IE and beyond, Societas Linguistica Europaea 43rd Annual Meeting, University of Vilnius. September 2010.
- Amanda Barie. "Exploring cleft sentences and other aspects of Shughni syntax". Master's Thesis. May 5, 2009.
- Mingzhen Bao. Phonetic realization of glottal stop in Shugni, paper presented at the 158th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, San Antonio, Texas, October 26-30, 2009.
- Andrew Hippisley and Gregory Stump. 2009b. "Valence sensitivity in Pamirian past-tense inflection: a realizational analysis", paper presented at the Third International Conference on Iranian Linguistics, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, September 2009.
- Andrew Hippisley and Gregory Stump. 2009a. "Realization without exponence: the Shughni past tense", paper read at the Linguistics Association of Great Britain Meeting, University of Edinburgh. September 2009.
- Amanda Barie, Darya Bukhtoyarova, Raphael Finkel, Andrew Hippisley, Mark Richard Lauersdorf, Jeanmarie Rouhier-Willoughby, Gregory Stump (University of Kentucky); Muqbilsho Alamshoev, Shoxnazar Mirzoev, Gulnoro Mirzovafoeva, Shahlo Nekushoeva "A collaborative project for the documentation of the Shughni language", poster presented at the 1st International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation University of Hawai'i at Manoa, March 12-14, 2009.
- Andrew Hippisley, Gregory Stump, and Raphael Finkel, 'Computing in the field: language modeling for elicitation and documentation of Shughni’, paper presented at the 1st International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation University of Hawai'i at Manoa, March 12-14, 2009. Slides and presentation here: http://hdl.handle.net/10125/5066.
- Andrew Hippisley and Gregory Stump, "The wonders of morphology: The Shughni past tense", English Department Colloquium, University of Kentucky, November 14, 2008.
- Andrew Hippisley and Gregory Stump, "Periphrasis and Shughni verb inflection", paper presented at the Southeast Morphology Meeting, University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom, September 26, 2008.
Research on the Documenting the Pamiri Languages project has been supported by:
Collaboratory for Research in