Investigating the phonological and morphological evolution of the Yeniseian languages

• Applicant: Dr. Svenja Bonmann
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 554898769

The project’s working hypothesis is that linguistic changes can be exactly dated and that unattested proto-languages can be exactly reconstructed. A rigorous historical-comparative investigation of genetically related languages can (a) detect phonological and morphological innovations via recurrent sound correspondences and correspondence sets, (b) reconstruct phonemes, morphemes, and lexemes of an unattested proto-language through an application of the Comparative Method to linguistic data, (c) date changes in relative and absolute terms and (d) provide a robust data base for successive phylogenetic research questions. The project will demonstrate this with a small Asiatic language family only attested from the Early Modern Period onwards. The Yeniseian languages were once spoken in large parts of southern Siberia but are nowadays on the verge of extinction. In the 18th century, at least six languages still existed: Ket, Yugh, Pumpokol, Arin, Assan, and Kott. A rigorous bottom-up investigation of these six languages is a well-known desiderate of research. The project will systematically investigate the phonological and morphological evolution of the Yeniseian languages, including a reconstruction of features of the unattested proto-language, Proto-Yeniseian, and the relatively exact dating of different linguistic changes. The project’s results will help to (I) verify or falsify macro-comparative hypotheses with regard to the Yeniseian family, (II) to provide a better basis for research into the diachronic typology of Siberia as a linguistic area, (III) to publish non-Indo-European data on recurrent sound correspondences, sound changes, sound laws and morphological changes, and (IV) to demonstrate that Historical-Comparative Linguistics is an exact science.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants