May 2009 Report
on the activities of the St. Petersburg Team working in the project
“Lexicology and lexicography of Mande languages”
In December 2008 - February 2009, then April-May 2009, the St. Petersburg team continued its research in West Africa. The field trip consisted of three stages:
– December 25, 2008 to January 7, 2009, Côte-d’Ivoire (Abidjan, Man, Santa, Danané). The Team (Valentin Vydrin, Nadezda Makeeva, Anna Erman) participated in the festivities that took place on the occasion of publication of two Dan dictionaries. The festivities were organized with a financial support of the Swiss National Science Foundation;
– January 7 to February 27, 2009, Guinea, mostly Nzerekore. The Team worked on Guinean and Ivorean languages: Valentin Vydrin – Dan-Gweetaa; Nadezda Makeeva – Kla-Dan; Maria Konoshenko – Kpelle; Alexandra Vydrina – Kakabe; Daria Mischenko – Looma; Maria Khachaturyan – Mano. Anna Erman remained in Danané where she continued her work on the Dan-Blo language, then participated in an official ceremony of consecration of the Dan dictionaries in Abidjan, where prominent Ivorian politicians took part (January 27);
– April 6 – May 12, 2009: Elena Perekhvalskaya and Olga Kuznetsova, Côte-d’Ivoire. Olga worked with her Guro informants in Abidjan, and Elena went to the Bambaluma village (within the Mwan compact area).
Other Russian members of the team kept working at home.
The state of matter in each subproject is as follows.
1. Beng (by Denis Paperno, a postgraduate student, University of California/Moscow State University). This year again, Denis’ studies in the University of California did not allow him to join the team in RCI. However, he is planning to prepare for publication his Beng-French Lexicon during the Summer of 2009. Apart from this, he constantly helps other members of the Team to solve computer problems (conversion of documents, etc.). Two articles have been published:
Paperno, Denis. Relative constructions in the Beng language. In: African Collection – 2007. Valentin Vydrin (ed.). St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2008, pp. 306-319. (in Russian)
Paperno, Denis. Parlers décrits par Tauxier et Delafosse et le Beng moderne de Ouassadougou. In: Mande languages and linguistics. 2nd International Conference, St. Petersburg (Russia), September 15-17, 2008. Abstracts and Papers. V.Vydrin (ed.). St. Petersburg, 2008, pp. 113-120.
2. Dan-Blo (Anna Erman, junior researcher, Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, St. Petersburg). First edition of the Dan-Blo dictionary has appeared:
Dictionnaire Dan – Français (dan de l’Ouest) avec un index français-dan. Anna Erman, Japhet Kahouyé Loh. St Pétersbourg: Nestor-Istoria, 2008, 271 p.
After the festivities on the occasion of this publication, Anna stayed in Danané collecting further data for the subsequent edition.
3. Dan-Gweetaa (Valentin Vydrin, head of African Department, Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, St. Petersburg). First edition of the Dan-Gweetaa dictionary has appeared:
Dictionnaire Dan – Français (dan de l’Est) avec une esquisse de grammaire du dan de l’Est et un index français-dan. Valentin Vydrine, Mongnan Alphonse Kességbeu. St Pétersbourg: Nestor-Istoria, 2008, 368 p.
Two articles have been published:
Valentin Vydrin. Relativization strategies in Mande languages (the Dan-Gwèètaa and the Bamana cases). In: V.Vydrin (ed.). African Collection – 2007. St.Petersburg: Nauka, 2008, pp. 320-330. (in Russian).
Valentin Vydrin. Preverbs in Dan-Gweetaa. Voprosy jazykoznanija, 2, 2009, pp. 75-84 (in Russian).
Further data have been collected, especially on the grammatical semantics of the factative category in Dan-Gweetaa. About 30 pages of field recordings have been imputed into the Toolbox software and glossed.
4. Guro (Olga Kuznetsova and Nathalia Kuznetsova, post-graduate students, Institute of Linguistic Studies, St. Petersburg). During her stay in Abidjan (April-May 2009), Olga transcribed Guro texts and collected data on the Actionsarte of Guro verbs. The following articles have been published:
Kuznetsova, Natalia. Morphology of personal pronouns in Guro. In: African Collection – 2007. Valentin Vydrin (ed.). St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2008, pp. 367-409. (in Russian).
Kuznetsova, Olga. Numerals in the Guro language. In: African Collection – 2007. Valentin Vydrin (ed.). St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2008, pp. 410-417. (in Russian).
Kuznetsova, Olga. Relative constructions in Guro. In: Acta Linguistica Petropolitana. Vol. IV, part 2. St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2008, pp. 111-116. (in Russian).
Kuznetsova, Natalia & Kuznetsova, Olga & Vydrine, Valentin. Propositions pour une réforme de l’orthographe du gouro. Mandenkan 44, 2008, pp. 43-52.
5. Mwan (Elena Perekhvalskaya, senior researcher, Institute of Linguistic Studies, St. Petersburg): In April-May 2009, Elena went to Côte-d’Ivoire. The improvement of the political situation in the country allowed her to visit, for the first time, the core Mwan area: she spent about 4 weeks in the Bambaluma village collecting “rural vocabulary” for improvement of the Mwan dictionary.
Two articles were published:
Perekhvalskaya, Elena. Spatial deixis in Mwan. In: African Collection – 2007. Valentin Vydrin (ed.). St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2008, pp. 355-366 (in Russian).
Perekhvalskaya, Elena. Body parts and their metaphoric meanings in Mwan and other South Mande languages. Mandenkan, 44, 2008, pp. 53-62.
6. Gban: Unfortunately, no progress has been achieved for the dictionary of this language during the last years. An article has been published:
Zheltov, Alexandre. Some elements of Gban grammar and linguistic typology. In: Mande languages and linguistics. 2nd International Conference, St. Petersburg (Russia), September 15-17, 2008. Abstracts and Papers. V.Vydrin (ed.). St. Petersburg, 2008, pp. 126-130.
7. Wan (Tatiana Nikitina, postgraduate student, Stanford University, California): In May, 2008, Tatiana defended her PhD thesis on the Niger-Congo syntax, where Wan data is very much present. Tatiana’s work on the Wan dictionary has been impeded by the birth of a son, Vasily. Nevertheless, Tatiana has published an article:
Nikitina, Tatiana. 2008. Locative terms and spatial frames of reference in Wan. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 29(1): 29-47.
8. Tura (Dmitry Idiatov, University of Antwerpen, Belgium): inputting of data into the Tura dictionary continued, in a close cooperation with the “Village lexicography team”. Editing of the dictionary is on the way; its publication in 2009 is possible. Dmitry has published an article:
Dmitry Idiatov. A partial anti-morphologization: An example from the verbal morphology of Tura. Voprosy jazykoznanija, 2, 2009, pp. 66-74.
9. Yaure (Maria Tsyurupa, postgraduate student, Moscow State University): No progress in 2008/2009.
10. Kla-Dan (Nadezda Makeeva, 5-year student, Russian State University for Human Studies, Moscow): Nadezda continued her work on the Kla-Dan phonology; she also concentrated on the morphology of “locative nouns”, of adjectives, and several other topics. The dictionary has reached 1590 entries, with a correct transcription of all the language data. Two articles were published:
Makeeva, Nadezda. Morphologie des pronoms personnels en kla-dan. In: Mande languages and linguistics. 2nd International Conference, St. Petersburg (Russia), September 15-17, 2008. Abstracts and Papers. V.Vydrin (ed.). St. Petersburg, 2008, pp. 104-112.
Makeeva, Nadezda. The phonological system of Kla-Dan. In: African Collection – 2007. Valentin Vydrin (ed.). St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2008, pp. 331-344 (in Russian).
Nadezda has also written a large work on verbal morphology of Kla-Dan (in Russian, not yet published).
11. Mano (Maria Khachaturyan, 4-year student, Moscow State University): Mano is the last language of the South Mande group included into the scope of the Team. First of all, even before her trip to Africa, Maria handled the data from available practical manuals of the Liberian Mano. In Guinea, she collected data on the phonology of a local variety of Mano. After the trip, she has written a description of the segmental phonology and presented it as her student’s research work. She has composed a first version of the Guinean Mano dictionary (about 960 entries).
12. Guinean Kpelle (Maria Konoshenko, 4-year student, St. Petersburg State University). Maria continued her work on the Kpelle phonology and discovered some new details in the tonal system of the Guinean Kpelle. She also collected data on the morphology of this language. Maria has published following articles:
Maria Konoshenko. Referential status of noun in the northern and in the central dialects of Guinean Kpelle. In: Acta Linguistica Petropolitana. Transactions of Institute for Linguistic Studies. Vol. IV, Part 4. St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2008, pp. 92-97 (in Russian).
Konoshenko, M. Tonal systems in three dialects of the Kpelle language. Mandenkan, 44, 2008, pp. 21-42.
13. Kakabe (Alexandra Vydrina, 4-year student, St. Petersburg State University). This year, Alexandra worked with a speaker of a different Kakabe dialect, that of the Kankalabe area, considerably different from the Sokotoro dialect (dealt with during the 2008 trip). Alexandra continued her study of the actant derivation of verbs. The Kakabe dictionary counts so far about 1730 entries. Alexandra has published an article:
Alexandra Vydrina. Vowel length in the Kakabe language. Mandenkan, 44, 2008, pp. 79-88.
14. Guinean Looma (Daria Mischenko, 3-year student, St. Petersburg State University). Before she traveled to Africa, Daria worked with available data on Looma for about 3 years. The most difficult problem of this language is its tonal system, because of numerous tone spread and tone shifting rules, which make it very difficult to establish lexical tones of lexemes. For this reason, during her stay in Guinea, Daria concentrated on tones of the Woi-Balagha dialect (which had been chosen by Bible Pioneer Translators as the basic dialect for the literary Looma in Guinea). She has magnificently coped with her task, and results of her study are presented in her student’s research work for the 3rd year of the University.
In the field of comparative studies, Valentin Vydrin has published a paper where he advanced a new inner classification of the Mande language family:
Valentin Vydrin. On the problem of the Proto-Mande homeland. Journal of Language Relationship 1, 2009, pp. 107-142.
In this paper, data of the Team is largely used.
The Team participated in the conference of Russian Africanists in St. Petersburg (Russia) in April 2009 (the proceedings are to be published in 2009):
Valentin Vydrin. The category of factative in Dan-Gweetaa.
Nadezda Makeeva. Reduplication in Kla-Dan.
Maria Khachaturyan. Phonological system of Mano.
Alexandra Vydrina. Verbal plural in Kakabe.
Daria Mischenko. Tonal system of Looma.
Maria Konoshenko. Morphology of noun phrase in Liberian and Guinean Kpelle.
The 2nd International conference on Mande languages and linguistics took place in St. Petersburg, on 15-17 September 2008, it was organized by the Russian team. Among the 29 communications, 12 are presented by the members of the Team:
Artem Davydov. On Souleymane Kanté’s “Nko Grammar”.
Dmitry Idiatov. La dérivation déoblique: une nouvelle catégorie de réduction de la valence.
Maria Konoshenko. Tonal systems in three dialects of the Kpelle language.
Natalia Kuznetsova. Morphology and syntax of postpositions in Guro.
Olga Kuznetsova. Constuctions relatives en gouro.
Nadezda Makeeva. Morphologie des pronoms personnels en kla-dan.
Elena Perekhvalskaya. Body parts and their metaphoric meanings in Mwan and other South Mande languages.
Maria Tsyurupa. Simple sentence in Yaouré.
Valentin Vydrin. Glossed electronic corpora of Mande languages: A perspective that we cannot avoid.
Valentin Vydrin. Lélé: présentation d’une langue.
Alexandra Vydrina. Vowel length in the Kakabe language.
Alexandre Zheltov. Some elements of Gban grammar and linguistic typology.
The proceedings of the conference have been published:
Mande languages and linguistics. 2nd International Conference, St. Petersburg (Russia), September 15-17, 2008. Abstracts and Papers. V.Vydrin (ed.). St. Petersburg, 2008, 150 p.
A detail survey of the activities of the Team is available on the site of the Mande project (withing the site of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography), http://mandelang.kunstkamera.ru/
By the end of May 2009, the site is completely available in Russian, and partly available in French (the work on the French version is in progress).
In 2008, the Swiss-Russian Joint Project «South Mande lexicology and reconstruction» supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation has come to an end. The field trips of January-February and April-March 2009 have been partly financed by a grant of the Russian Foundation of Human Studies; Margrit Bolli has also contributed.
May 30, 2009
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