9408892 MIXCO ABSTRACT Mandan is an endangered language (with fewer than twelve speakers, aged seventy or above.) The sole member of its own branch of Siouan, it has conservative features (and innovations) crucial for the understanding of the evolution of its family. No published modern grammar, dictionary or collection of texts exists for the language. This is a project of research to publish a grammar (with a revised phonology superseding previous treatments and a syntax) with a dictionary (7,000 entries) based on linguistic research by Mauricio J. Mixco. These reference works will serve the needs of scholars and the Mandan community. The focus of the first stage of work will be on phonology and syntax. Mixco will address unresolved phonological problems (namely: stress, vocal length and nasalization.) He will also collect new syntactic data and retranscribe a number of selected texts and other unpublished data. Mandan has a complex morphology and syntax. Its intransitive verbs may split into "active" and "stative" types with interesting syntactic consequences, such as the behavior of anaphora. Another syntactic attribute is auxiliary verbs that mark the position of the subject (sit, stand, lie or move), encoding tense-aspect and deixis (in articles and demonstratives.) The extent to which these attributes are present in Mandan will be instrumental in achieving a better understanding of the syntactic and discourse structure of Mandan (synchronically and diachronically), of Siouan and other Native American languages, and finally of language in general. ***
