Language contact and negation in indigenous South America

Project Information

LACONN

Grant agreement ID: 895548

DOI

10.3030/895548

Project closed

EC signature date 20 April 2020

Start date 1 March 2021

End date 7 April 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 175 572,48

EU contribution

€ 175 572,48

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITEIT LEIDEN
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - LACONN (Language contact and negation in indigenous South America)

Reporting period: 2021-03-01 to 2023-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The project was concerned with explaining the dominance of the postverbal negation pattern in indigenous languages of South America (SA), specifically investigating the role of language contact. The need for this research arises from the fact that the languages of the world strongly prefer preverbal negation (i.e. placing a negative marker before the verb), while indigenous SA languages go against the world tendency and prefer postverbal negation (i.e. placing the negative element after the verb, and often in the form of a morphologically bound marker - a suffix). During the project I have compiled a large database of negation strategies for more than 220 SA languages, analyzed the data, plotted the languages and their negation strategy on the geographical map. The results of the project is that it became evident that each negation strategy has its own area of concentration within the SA continent. The dominant postverbal negation is present throughout the continent, but it is particularly concentrated in the northwestern part of SA. Crucially, the dominant strategy (which is functionally dispreferred) is found in 58% of language families in SA, which suggests that has been likely spread by language contact. I put forward a conjecture that the dominant postverbal pattern has first developed in languages in major extensions (e.g. Cariban, Macro-Je) and then spread through earlier language contact, i.e. pre-Colombian times. The motivation for the latter is that the dominant negation strategy in SA is morphologically bound, which requires time to develop from the syntactic strategy. The results of the project are published in a linguistic journal 'Linguistic Typology', which is a high-ranked journal in the field. The results of the project show that functionally dispreferred linguistic patterns can arize through language contact, and get maintained. There is a need for an experimental approach to explanation as to why and how such patterns can be maintained through longer periods of time.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

I have compiled a large database of negation strategies for more than 220 SA languages, analyzed the data, plotted the languages and their negation strategy on the geographical maps. In order to objectively evaluate the geographical distribution of the patterns, together with my colleagues I have applied one-sided chi-squared goodness-of-fit tests for spatial clustering, using the quadrat.test function of the spatstat R package, tested of each quadrats are significantly arger than expected values, given a Poisson distribution. To identify possible hotspots where particular negation strategies are clustered, we generated kernel density maps for each of the four negation strategies in South America. The density in each cell was estimated using a Gaussian kernel function. To assess the sensitivity of our findings to the chosen function, we also fitted a quartic kernel function. This was implemented using the density.ppp function from the spatstat R package. This was an innovative part of the analysis for this kind of data. It became clear that each negation strategy has its own area of concentration within the SA continent. However, the dominant strategy (postverbal negation) has been it is found in 58% of language families in SA, which suggests that has been likely spread by contact. My evidence-based conjecture is that the dominant postverbal pattern has first developed in languages in major extensions (e.g. Cariban, Macro-Je) and then spread through earlier language contact, i.e. pre-Colombian times. The motivation for the latter is that the dominant negation strategy in SA is morphologically bound, which requires time to develop from the syntactic strategy. This is a significant result of the project and it has been published in a linguistic journal 'Linguistic Typology', which is a high-ranked journal in the field.
I have authored and/or co-authored and published the following papers related to the project:
-Krasnoukhova, Olga, Johan van der Auwera & Sietze Norder. 2023. Standard negation: the curious case of South America. Linguistic Typology 27(3): 629-666. (https://doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2021-0017)
-van Gijn, Rik, Sietze Norder, Leonardo Arias Alvis, Nicholas Q. Emlen, Matheus Azevedo, Allison Caine, Saskia Dunn, Austin Howard, Nora Julmi, Olga Krasnoukhova, Mark Stoneking & Jurriaan Wiegertjes. 2022. The social lives of isolates (and small language families): the case of the Northwest Amazon. Interface Focus 13, 20220054. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsfs.2022.0054
-van der Auwera, Johan & Olga Krasnoukhova. 2022. Revisiting postverbal standard negation in the Jê languages. Boletim do Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Ciências Humanas 17(2): 1-30. https://doi.org/10.1590/2178-2547-BGOELDI-2021-0062
-Krasnoukhova, Olga, Johan van der Auwera & Mily Crevels. 2021. Postverbal negation: Typology, Diachrony, Areality. Studies in Language 45(3): 499-519. https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.00020.int
-van der Auwera, Johan & Olga Krasnoukhova. 2021. Guahiboan negation: Ascription and existence. Amerindia 43: 1-26. https://amerindia.cnrs.fr/guahiboan-negation-ascription-and-existence/
-Krasnoukhova, Olga. 2022. Number in South American languages. In Paolo Acquaviva & Michael Daniel (eds.) Number in the world’s languages. A comparative Handbook. Comparative Handbooks of Linguistics, 5], 609-669. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
-Editing of a Special issue of Studies in Language 45(3): 2001. Guest-editors: Olga Krasnoukhova, Johan van der Auwera & Mily Crevels. Theme: Postverbal negation. https://benjamins.com/catalog/sl.45.3

I have also authored the following chapter in the Oxford handbook, which is currently in production and will be published in July 2024. Since there is no DOI available yet, I cannot add this publication to the tab with dissemination results:
-Krasnoukhova, Olga. Forthcoming/2024. Morphological structures and categories of the Central Andes: The nominal domain. In Matthias Urban (ed.) Guide to the Languages of the Central Andes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

During the fellowship I have presented results at a number of scientific events. Specifically, I was invited to give a talk at a workshop at the University of Helsinki. I was invited to give guest-lectures for MA students. And I presented and/or co-presented six papers at international conferences. Note that in year 2021, three of the conferences where I presented took place online.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Please see above.

Area of concentraion of postverbal morphological negation in South America