Locative and existential predication of the Ob-Yenisei area
The DFG-funded project "Locative and existential predication in languages of the Ob-Yenisei area: typology and information structure" (07/2022-06/2025) aims to research the linguistic expression of locative and existential predication in languages of Northern and Central Siberia.
Locative predications express that a given referent is in a location, such as the dog is in the tent, while existential predications express that there is a referent in a given location, such as there is a dog in the tent. The referent to be localized is referred to as “figure” and the location as “ground”. Both structures describe an identical situation, but perspectivize it differently. In locative predications, the figure is prototypically definite and the starting point of the proposition, while in existential predications, the figure is prototypically indefinite and part of the focus domain. Therefore, the initial hypothesis is that locative and existential predications are based on an identical proposition, which is disambiguated language-specifically into one or another linguistic structure.
The first goal of the project is to investigate and describe the linguistic expression of locative and existential predications in the chosen languages from a formal perspective, the approach being largely typologically oriented. The languages under consideration are:
- Finno-Ugric (< Uralic) languages: Khanty, Mansi
- Samoyedic (< Uralic) languages: Nganasan, Nenets, Enets, Selkup, Kamas
- Turkic languages: Dolgan, Sakha (Yakut), Chulym Turkic, Khakas
- Tungusic languages: Ewenki, Ewen
- Yeniseian languages: Ket, Yugh
- Yukaghir
Since the analysis of locative and existential predications and, above all, their disambiguation is only possible in their linguistic context, the project uses coherent and spoken language data wherever possible. As expected, the available data for the languages mentioned vary in quality and quantity. Where possible, digital corpora are used, such as those created in the INEL project; in addition, (digital) text collections, databases and, in some cases, grammatical descriptions are used.
After the typological analysis, it will be examined how locative and existential predications are configured in terms of information structure and which conclusions can be drawn from this for the conceptual questions raised above. The methods applied are empirical and corpus linguistic since the investigation of information-structural phenomena can only be carried out by taking linguistic context into account. The aim is to answer the question of whether information structuring is a relevant and meaningful parameter for distinguishing locative from existential predications.
In conclusion, it can be said that the project aims to contribute to 1) the morphosyntactic description and research of the target languages, 2) approaches to typologizing locative and existential predications and, crucially, 3) the theoretical understanding of the semantic-pragmatic structure of locative and existential predications.