The research that we are planning would in part be a continuation of work that linguists at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Tromsø have been doing over the years, but with more concentrated effort and a higher degree of goal-directedness. The following is a summary of research relevant to the proposed program that has been carried out in Tromsø:

1. Micro-comparative syntax and phonology: This is, and has been the primary research topic of all of the members of the core group (Holmberg, Lorentz, Rice, Svenonius, Taraldsen; see the attached list of publications).

2. Macro-comparative linguistics: Dissertation by Marit Julien, 2000; postdoc project by Marit Julien on topic and focus in a cross-linguistic perspective.

3. Diachronic linguistics, language acquisition: Dissertation 1999 by Thorbjörg Hróarsdóttir on diachronic Icelandic syntax; postdoc project on diachronic syntax and language acquisition. Furthermorem two PhD dissertations on language acquisition are underway.

4. Descriptive linguistics: The Linguistics Department has an ongoing project called ‘Grammatical description of a Kotoko language’, led by David Odden (Ohio State University) and Anders Holmberg. A volume of papers is underway on Zina Kotoko, a hitherto undescribed language from Northern Cameroun. The papers are written by a group of graduate students and teachers, and has been accepted for publication by Lincom Europa.

It should be mentioned in this connection that Peter Svenonius is currently director and coordinator for IGLO (Intercomprehension of Germanic Linguistics Online), a three-year project started in 2000 with an operating budget of 8 million kroner. IGLO involves seven institutions (in addition to the University of Tromsoe, the Universities of Salzburg, Hagen, Antwerp, Lund, and Reykjavik, and the Copenhagen Business School), and receives substantial funding and support from the EU. IGLOs primary goals are twofold: to apply modern syntactic theory to the microcomparison of the Germanic languages, and to apply the results of this research to the problem of language learning and intercomprehension. In this context, IGLO is developing a free, web-based language instruction program for seven Germanic languages (German, Dutch, English, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and Icelandic). Through IGLO, the research group in Tromsoe has formed close bonds with the linguistic research communities in the other six partner institutions. IGLO is also cooperating closely with related EU-financed projects on intercomprehension of Romance and Slavic languages.

However, establishing the Centre will entail an expansion of activities falling under point 2, 3, and especially 4. The description of hitherto undescribed or poorly described languages will undertaken as part of doctoral studies carried out within the proposed research program. It would also be coordinated with the international Master’s program at the Department of Linguistics, which in the future even more than today will be oriented towards training students, many of whom are from developing countries, to work on poorly described minority languages and dialects in their home countries. We are also presently planning research projects in cooperation with two institutions in Africa: One is the Institute of Ethiopian Studies in Addis Ababa, with a project concerning investigation of the linguistic relations among the Semitic languages, and description of certain other poorly described languages in Ethiopia. The other is the Department of Linguistics and Department of African Languages at the University of Cape Town with a project concerning the investigation of a low status variety of Afrikaans spoken among the Cape Malay.

The plan is to select a small set of phenomena in syntax and phonology, and concentrate our efforts on detailed investigation of these phenomena, in a carefully selected sample of languages. Examples of such phenomena could be, for instance, the expression of contrastive focus, verbal ellipsis, negation, long-distance dependencies, etc. The research would be concentrated on one theme at a time, or two themes, one phonological, one syntactic. The average time that would be spent on a theme would be one year. The languages to be investigated would be selected.

The staff of researchers, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and guest researchers would be selected so as to conform with the themes.


Aim | Why? | How | Research Plan | Applications