Under the direction of Dr. Molly Diesing, Dr. Rachel Hastings will collect data for her (second) doctoral dissertation. She will conduct linguistic research on the Quechua language through fieldwork in the regions of Cusco, Peru, and Quito, Ecuador. Quechua speakers will be consulted regarding the meaning and contexts of use of expressions involving quantification and nominals containing relative clauses. Evidence from both spontaneous speech and texts (such as folktales published in Quechua) will also be consulted. The semantics of quantification in Quechua has received little attention in the past, and thus an initial goal of this study will be to investigate the semantic scope of quantifiers, and the syntactic position of the quantifier within a nominal. Some unusual, apparently clause-escaping properties of certain Quechua quantifiers will then be used to probe the structure of relative clauses. Quechua permits constructions in which the "head" of the relative clause (the nominal being modified by the clause) appears internally to the clause, as well as constructions in which the head is external. The semantic interactions between quantification and these two types of relativization will be used to investigate the detailed structure of these clauses.
The importance of this research lies both within Quechua linguistics and within cross-linguistic theories of syntax and semantics. First, this research will contribute to the body of Quechua data that is available to on-going efforts to document Quechua grammar, promote Quechua literacy, and analyze variation between dialects. Second, within theoretical linguistics, the results of the study will contribute to the emerging field of cross-linguistic semantic studies, and quantification studies in particular. The results of this research will also inform on-going debates on the structure of relative clauses, in particular questions regarding relations between internally and externally-headed relatives.
