9:45 - 10:15

Judith Tonhauser -- "Discovering meaning in the field "

Abstract:

        Language is a key component of fieldwork across disciplines since it is the central medium for obtaining and conveying information about our research questions. For linguists, language is also the object of study, including the sounds of the language under investigation, its syntactic structures, or the way in which meaning is conveyed. It is often assumed that languages not only differ in their phonological and syntactic make-up but also in how and which meaning is expressed, and that these differences are correlated with differences in the 'world view' of the speakers of different languages (linguistic relativity). In this talk, I use data from my research on temporal interpretation in Yucatec Maya (Mexico) and Guaraní (Paraguay), two languages that differ from English in that they do not have tenses, to illustrate the methodology by which semanticists discover and analyze meaning, and thereby provide the empirical basis for testing claims about linguistic relativity. Since semantic research relies on native speaker judgments about the truth and felicity of sentences in discourse, the methodology of semantic research conducted in the field is inherently more complex than that of semantic research conducted on the linguists' native language. In particular, the relationship between the semanticist and the native speaker consultant is a collaborative one which simultaneously has to navigate an imbalance of knowledge about linguistic methodology, and (often) power and education. I conclude the talk by addressing how semantic fieldwork and the results obtained from it have been reshaping our field over the past 15 years by raising new questions about semantic universals, the expressive power of language, and the relation between language and mind.

About Judith Tonhauser:

My research interests lie in syntax and semantics, that is, in the way in which sentences of human languages are structured and the way in which these structures (sentences) give rise to meaning. I am particularly interested in how human languages differ and how they are alike, and formulating mathematically precise theories that account for cross-linguistic universals and variation. The empirical focus of my research are American indigenous languages: I have conducted fieldwork on Yucatec Maya in Mexico and San Francisco since 2002, and on Guaraní in Paraguay since 2004.