Project leader: Øystein A. Vangsnes
Funding source: Tromsø Research Foundation
Period: 2009-2013
The primary goal of this four-year project is to develop an analysis of the intonation system of different varieties of the Sámi languages. Modern intonation theory essentially begins with the assumption that any intonation pattern in any language may be described as a sequence of high and low tone units which may combine to form ‘tunes’ with each their own meaning (such as ‘I am making an assertion’, ‘I am not finished speaking’, ‘I have doubts about the propositional content of this utterance’, and so on). The richly modulated structure of intonation in spoken language derives largely from the way tunes are combined and associated with ‘text’, i.e. how they are anchored in specific vowels and consonants and how their distribution is governed by various structural groupings within the utterance, such as the ‘word’ or ‘accent phrase’. This project sets out to determine what the tunes of Sámi are, how they are placed in the utterance, how they might vary in pronunciation depending on their position in the utterance, as well as what they contribute to the meaning of the utterance as a whole. The project will contribute towards the establishment of a corpus of spoken Sámi, developed as a general research infrastructure for scholars working on the structure of the Sámi languages.
Sylvia Blaho has been working on several of the theoretical issues raised by the project. In particular, she spent time in 2011 exploring the current use of typological generalizations in Optimality Theory and working towards alternative approaches that avoid the difficulties identified in that approach. Dave Odden has been working on a dialect of North Sami, spending many hours doing fieldwork and transcription. He has produced work which has now been accepted for publication in a leading (level 2) publication. Arnhild Lindbach has been hired part-time on this project as a research assistant (2011-2012), working at the Árran Lule Saami Center, Drag, where she is doing data collection and data entry. The project also co-funds an assistant in the DASAGO project.
Sylvia Blaho has been working on several of the theoretical issues raised by the project. In particular, she spent time in 2011 exploring the current use of typological generalizations in Optimality Theory and working towards alternative approaches that avoid the difficulties identified in that approach. Dave Odden has been working on a dialect of North Sami, spending many hours doing fieldwork and transcription. He has produced work which has now been accepted for publication in a leading (level 2) publication. Arnhild Lindbach has been hired part-time on this project as a research assistant (2011-2012), working at the Árran Lule Saami Center, Drag, where she is doing data collection and data entry. The project also co-funds an assistant in the DASAGO project.
