The goal of this project is to describe and analyze the grammar of San Miguel Chimalapa Zoque (MIG Zoque). This is a Mixe-Zoquean language spoken in southwestern Oaxaca, Mexico. The project will be the first detailed documentation of MIG Zoque and the first study of the syntax of any of the Oaxacan Zoque dialects. Project work involves twelve months of study in Mexico, working with native speaker consultants to determine the grammatical structure of the language. Samples of naturally-occurring speech and narrative texts of various kinds will be recorded, translated, and analyzed in order to study the discourse structure of MIG Zoque and to enhance and guide the direct elicitation process. The result of the project will be the student investigator's doctoral dissertation. The project is expected to have significance for (a) the documentation and description of Mixe-Zoquean languages, which are rapidly being replaced by Spanish in all communities; (b) historical work in reconstructing epi-Olmec, an ancestor of the modern Zoquean languages; (c) theoretical work in morphosyntax and syntax, by providing current and usable data on a language with many interesting phenomena at these levels of the grammar; and (d) the promotion (via the foregoing) of research on a wide range of languages, especially those studied in the 'field' and faced with imminent extinction.
