Linguistic outcomes of language contact: The production and perception of intonation

All over the world contact between groups of people and their languages has led to language change. It is well known that when languages come into contact, changes occur due to a combination of linguistic factors (e.g., differences between the languages) and social factors (e.g., number of speakers, prestige), but researchers do not know how these factors interact.

This is an issue this project addresses. Specifically, this project examines the linguistic outcomes of language contact between an indigenous, endangered language and a socially dominant language in two distinct contact settings. This language pair allows for a careful examination of linguistic differences between these languages and the long-term and intensive contact situation.

The same language pair is studied in two areas to tease apart the effects of linguistic and social factors on the outcomes of language contact.

This project specifically focuses on intonation, which is an area that has received less attention in language contact. Intonation is the melody of a sentence and corresponds to changes in pitch (e.g., high and low tones), which may cause changes in meaning (e.g., questions versus statements). This project examines the production and perception of questions and explores how their different intonation strategies collide in contact situations.

The two languages under investigation differ in how questions are marked grammatically and with intonation contours, with one language using a particle with no intonational difference between questions and statements. However, the other language distinguishes questions and statements intonationally. By investigating production and perception, alongside factors such as age of acquisition and proficiency, this project aims to uncover the nuances of language contact outcomes.

By using a combination of linguistic and psycholinguistic methods including proficiency tests, elicitation tasks, and eye-tracking, this project not only advances linguistic understanding of the dynamics of language contact but also sheds light on understudied language varieties in indigenous contact settings. The broader impacts of this research extend to promoting inclusivity of underrepresented minorities in linguistic research, fostering an appreciation of linguistic diversity, and contributing valuable resources for language documentation and education.

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.