Toyon Kang L&S Social Sciences
Ergativity and Argument Marking in Noke Koĩ
This project investigates how Noke Koĩ, an endangered Indigenous Amazonian language of the Panoan family spoken in Acre, Brazil, marks and tracks participants in discourse. While English uses a subject–object system, Noke Koĩ follows an ergative-absolutive system, in which agents of transitive verbs are marked differently from both affected participants and intransitive subjects. Ergative systems are relatively rare, found in about 17% of the world’s languages, and remain less studied than subject–object systems. In addition to ergativity, this project examines the presence of other grammatical systems, such as split or tripartite alignment, that have been described in related languages.
I will conduct fieldwork in a Noke Koĩ community over the summer to document these argument patterns in natural speech. Beyond contributing to linguistic theory, this research will expand documentation of Noke Koĩ by producing recorded and annotated data that support language maintenance efforts, including future research, pedagogy, and community-based initiatives.
Message To Sponsor
I am deeply grateful to SURF and my sponsor for supporting my research on an understudied and underdocumented Indigenous Amazonian language. Your generous contribution will allow me to return to Brazil to conduct in-person fieldwork in a Noke Koĩ community. Your support not only fosters my development as a scholar, but also contributes to broader efforts in language revitalization, maintenance, and community-based language initiatives.