Doctoral Dissertation Research: An investigation of clause type and insubordination as a window into 'finiteness'

About This Grant

Linguists often take for granted that language is organized into discrete syntactic units called sentences or clauses- either as main clauses or subordinate clauses, as in "Nathaniel suggests (that) Theodore eat the cookies," where ‘Nathaniel suggests (it)’ is the main clause, and ‘(that) Theodore eat the cookies’ is the subordinate clause. All languages seem to have these two categories, yet what distinguishes them remains nebulous. Further complicating the picture are instances of so-called "insubordination" in which a normally subordinate clause gains main-clause status; for example, when Theodore's mother exclaims: "(that) Theodore eat the cookies?! Absolutely not!" The existence of insubordination complicates the generalization that clauses can be categorized in a binary of main or subordinate. This doctoral dissertation project seeks to understand clause types and the main vs. subordinate dichotomy, using data from a language that exhibits a previously unstudied form of insubordination. The data gathered advances linguists' understanding of clausal syntax and semantics and is invaluable for language documentation and pedagogical purposes. In linguistic science, the characteristics of a main clause are often referred to as evidencing "finiteness," while the characteristics of a subordinate one evidence "nonfiniteness." This dissertation project investigates what syntactic or semantic realities underlie these characteristics. Previous work on these questions has focused almost entirely on well-known languages and has seldom taken into account the phenomenon of insubordination. This project remedies these gaps by creating and analyzing new data from an understudied language through elicitation sessions with native speakers. 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.