Two Kinds of Data in Syntactic Fieldwork

This blog post is a prelude to future blog post: Why Video? In that blog post I will tackle the question of why a generative syntactician, like me, should care about video? But before I get to that point, I need to tackle some background issues concerning the source of data in syntactic fieldwork.

Syntactic Puzzle

(partially taken from Facebook post on August 16, 2018)

I came up with this puzzle while visiting Erich Groat at his cabin in upstate NY.

Some things I learned in the Peace Corps that helped me with linguistic fieldwork.

I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Togo from 1985 to 1987. Here is a short list of things I learned then that have been helpful to me in doing linguistic fieldwork ever since (especially in Togo, Namibia and Botswana).

Solar Power for Linguistic Fieldwork

Here is my solar power set up for 2019-2020. Some of this post is modified from a Facebook post on December 19, 2015, when I had a similar set-up. The whole system cost roughly 740 US dollars (panel, inverter, controller and battery). There are photos of the set-up at the end of the post.

Tips for Recording Sound when Shooting Video in Linguistic Fieldwork

I am a linguist doing linguistic fieldwork on highly endangered Khoisan languages. Part of my project is to produce video documentation of people speaking those languages.

As a beginning film maker, I have found the following tips to be useful in obtaining high quality sound recordings to accompany video. I have learned most of these the hard way, by actually making mistakes.

Golden Oldies in Syntax

Why read the Golden Oldies?

I define a golden oldie as a paper in the framework of generative syntax written in the 60s and 70s (roughly between and including Chomsky (1957) “Syntactic Structures” and Chomsky (1981) “Lectures on Government and Binding”).

2019_09_16 (Sasi Fieldwork)

After three weeks with Kua, I am now moving on to my first fieldwork trip to Mokgenene for the year. I have already been there twice, once to deliver blankets to my consultants on July 3rd and another time for the delivery of the clothing to the children on August 8th. This time, I plan to stay in Mokgenene for two weeks to kick off my video documentation project. This project is part of an ELDP and ACLS funded project that will begin in earnest on January 1st (the official grant start date). I this short trip, I plan to do preliminary recordings and make sure my consultants are comfortable with the arrangements.

I have a house from the VDC council allocated to me, where I plan to stay for two weeks. Since there is no electricity in the village, I will bring my solar panel.