Socio-economic transformations, communicative practices and indigenous grammars: understanding current developments in Yucatec Maya

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Stavros Skopeteas; Professorin Dr. Elisabeth Verhoeven
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 527419415

Current socioeconomic developments influence speaker behavior (communicative practices and attitudes), which in turn may influence language change. With this in mind, this project aims to understand changes in indigenous/minority languages that may be influenced by current social processes. We are studying Yucatec Maya, an indigenous language in Mexico. As a language with a large population, Yucatec Maya provides an opportunity to study a variety of language situations that represent different scenarios related to language endangerment: areas with low density of indigenous population, migration to urban centers, external migration, educational contexts, etc. Sociological interviews and sociolinguistic measurements will be used to examine current changes in communication practices. Field experiments will be used to describe key developments in grammar that show interesting patterns of variation: (a) at the phonological level, we will examine the interaction of lexical tones and boundary tones, and variation in processes of coda weakening; (b) at the morphosyntactic level, we will examine developments in the syntax of nominal classifiers and the use of aspectual auxiliaries. Variation in these areas will be evaluated in terms of general phenomena that have been commonly reported for these situations: phenomena that increase the learnability of certain linguistic structures, changes that lead to variability, restructuring processes, instances of transfer. Based on these data collections and combining knowledge from linguistics, sociolinguistics, and the social sciences, models of the relationships between linguistic, sociolinguistic, and social variables will be built and compared against the data. The expected result contributes to our understanding of current developments in society and language and provide us with tools to assess language endangerment.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Mexico
• Partner Organisation: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)
• Cooperation Partners: Privatdozentin Dr. Barbara Blaha Degler Pfeiler; Dr. Ricardo López Santillán