Describing Mòòré: a language of Burkina Faso

Abstract

Designed for a non-specialist audience, this poster was designed to highlight ongoing research that continued beyond the Linguistic Field Methods sequence. In that three-term class, PhD students have to describe the system of a language unknown to them, starting from the smaller units (phonetics and phonology, i.e. sound inventory) up to the larger ones (syntax, i.e. sentence structure). The language under investigation was Mòòré, a Gur language spoken in Burkina Faso. Our consultant was a native speaker of Mòòré and a current student at the University of Oregon. During the first term we worked together toward a consensus on the sound system of the language. After the first term, every student in the class conducted linguistic research on a specific area of the Moore language.

Several of us have continued research with our consultant following the completion of the structured course in order to develop the analysis more fully . We have two goals: (i) collect missing data and (ii) improve the quality of our research. The overwhelming majority of linguistic documentation on Mòòré is in French. Our collective work represents: (i) a contribution to general knowledge about the structure of this language; (ii) an exploration of topics which have not been addressed in the available literature (or have been under a different theoretical framework); (iii) a resource for typological work on Gur languages; and (iv) a chance for non-French-speaking scholars to become interested/involved in Mòòré.

Citable as

Pacchiarotti, Sara, Rebecca Paterson, Amos Teo. 2015. Describing Mòòré: a language of Burkina Faso. Poster presented at the 6th Annual Graduate Research Forum, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon.

Tags: Mòóre Fieldwork
Subject Languages: Mossi
Countries: Burkina Faso
Cities: Eugene
Content Mediums: Print Poster
Organizations: University of Oregon