9505658 Gensler The International Junior Investigator and Postdoctoral Fellows Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. This award will support a twelve-month postdoctoral research visit by Dr. Orin D. Gensler to work with Professor Bernd Heine at the Institut fur Afrikanistik at the Universitat zu Koln in Cologne, Germany. The goal of this project is to learn the Cushitic languages and linguistics, specifically Cushitic syntax in an Afroasiatic and East African context. This work will build on Gensler's previous work in which he assembled detailed information from 18 African languages, in a balanced continent-wide sample, including several East African languages, among them one Cushitic language, Afar. This data has been useful in a purely African context as a typological mini-database for areal work. Now he will approach Cushitic as a member of an East African Sprachbund. The linguistic link between Ethiopic and Cushitic is a matter of areal and genetic considerations which provide a classic example of undisputed substratal influence. This year will lay the ground work for future field work on a Cushitic (or Omotic) language in East Africa, where there are many ill-described or undescribed languages, some which are on the verge of extinction. ***
