TAMEAL

"The interrelation of Tense, Aspect and Modality with Evidentiality in Australian Aboriginal languages"

Coordinatore	UNIVERSITE PARIS DIDEROT - PARIS 7    more  Organization address address: RUE THOMAS MANN 5 city: PARIS postcode: 75205 contact info Titolo: Ms. Nome: Anne Cognome: Bonvalet Email: send email Telefono: +33157 27 55 59 Fax: +33157 27 55 47
Nazionalità Coordinatore	France [FR]
Totale costo	82˙800 €
EC contributo	82˙800 €
Programma	FP7-PEOPLE Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013)
Code Call	FP7-PEOPLE-IRSES-2008
Funding Scheme	MC-IRSES
Anno di inizio	2009
Periodo (anno-mese-giorno)	2009-06-01   -   2013-07-31

 Partecipanti

#	participant	country	role	EC contrib. [€]
1	UNIVERSITE PARIS DIDEROT - PARIS 7  Organization address address: RUE THOMAS MANN 5 city: PARIS postcode: 75205 contact info Titolo: Ms. Nome: Anne Cognome: Bonvalet Email: send email Telefono: +33157 27 55 59 Fax: +33157 27 55 47	FR (PARIS)	coordinator	82˙800.00

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'The present research project focuses on the relationship between tense/aspect and modality with evidentiality in Australian Aboriginal languages. These languages are good candidates for such a study, for they possess tense-aspect markers with both modal and evidential uses, as well as fully grammatical evidentials. From a purely theoretical point of view, tense, aspect, modality and evidentiality (TAME henceforth) are known to form a semantic cluster with deep-running synchronic and typological connections. Thus many so-called tense-aspect markers exhibit evidential readings, and vice-versa, evidential markers are often derived from tense-aspect markers (Aikhenvald 2004). Recent works (e.g. Faller 2004, 2006, Chung 2007...) have highlighted the necessity of proposing a complex theoretical (and formal) approach to evidentiality, and have started trying to integrate evidentiality and tense-aspect within a unified theoretical framework, comprising an explicit semantics/pragmatics interface. Indeed, TAME markers often associate a semantic with a pragmatic contribution; some have been identified as illocutionary force-level items. In addition, evidentiality and modality are known to be 'sister' categories, overlapping to some extent. Current research on modal items is increasingly focusing on an integrated theory of modality and tense/aspect (cf. Arregui 2007, Ippolito 2006, Kaufmann 2005); this makes it all the more desirable and fruitful to propose an integrated account of tense/aspect, modality and evidentiality, which would help us delineate and articulate better these four connected yet distinct categories. It is our goal to bring together specialists of the different subfields at stake (tense/aspect, modality, evidentiality, Aboriginal linguistics), to turn what is today a merely emerging theoretical convergence into an in depth, large scale unified theory, developed from a rich, and – sadly – endangered empirical object: Australian Aboriginal languages.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

State-of-the-art methodology and tools are designed to document and ultimately help revitalise endangered languages.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Australian Aboriginal languages are critically endangered; therefore, their study and documentation is presently crucial. The EU-funded project TAMEAL studied these languages in terms of how four major grammatical categories interrelate. These categories covertense/ aspect (the speaker's perception on events happening over time), modality and evidentiality (a category conveying the nature of evidence for a given utterance).

Nine Australian and European researchers participated in the consortium. Together, they were successful in developing a series of descriptive, experimental, theoretical and formal tools for studying the above categories in Australian Aboriginal languages.

Key achievements of TAMEAL comprise the publication of two thematic issues of international journals, the creation of sets of theoretical concepts, a database of videos and the organization of several international workshops. Cross-community research actions were also performed.

The findings will be useful for linguistic research, including applied linguistic work with socioeconomic impact such as language revitalisation in areas where Australian languages are still spoken.