Research Mentor Information
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Primary Research Mentor Name: Antje Muntendam
Research Mentor Preferred Pronouns: she/her
When potential research assistants are reaching out via email, what is your preferred honorific?: Dr.
Contact Email (FSU Email if affiliated): amuntendam@fsu.edu
Position Title: Faculty
FSU College (if applicable): Arts and Sciences
FSU Department or Non-FSU Organization Affiliation: Modern Languages and Linguistics
Headshot (optional): https://cre.fsu.edu/system/files/webform/urop_project_proposal_portal/8056/Antje-Muntendam-1.jpg

Additional Research Mentor(s)
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Research Assistant Supervisor (if different from above): {Empty}
Research Assistant Supervisor Preferred Pronouns: {Empty}
Research Assistant Supervisor Preferred Honorific?: {Empty}
Contact Email (FSU Email if affiliated): {Empty}
Name of Other Faculty/Collaborator(s) (if applicable): {Empty}
Other Faculty/Collaborator(s) Preferred Pronouns: {Empty}
Other Faculty/Collaborator(s) Preferred Honorific?: {Empty}
Contact Email (FSU Email if affiliated): {Empty}

Overall Project Details
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Title of the Project: Traces of contact in intonation: Spanish in contact with Quechua in the Andes
Project Keywords: Linguistics, Spanish, bilingualism, language contact, indigenous language
Are you currently looking for research assistants?: No
Number of Research Assistants Needed : 2
Relevant Research Assistant Major(s):
The project is Open to all majors who have (some) knowledge of Spanish. The project is most relevant to students who have an interest in linguistics or related fields.

Project Location:: On FSU Main Campus
If the project location is off campus, does the research assistant(s) need to provide their own transportation?: {Empty}
Please select the choice that most accurately describes your expectations for the research assistant(s):: Partially Remote
Approximately how many hours a week would the research assistant(s) need to work?: 5-10
Roughly what time frame do you expect research assistant(s) to work?: Flexible schedule (Combination of business and outside of business. TBD between student and research mentor.)
Overall Research Project Description:
This project examines the linguistic outcomes of language contact between Spanish and Quechua in Peru and Argentina, with particular attention to intonation. Quechua is an Andean language and refers to a language family, rather than a language. There are approximately 44 Quechuan languages (Eberhard et al., 2020), which are spoken from southern Colombia to northern Argentina and Chile, with larger groups of speakers in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Quechua has been in contact with Spanish for almost 500 years. This long-term contact situation as well as typological differences between the two languages have led to an influence from Quechua into Spanish and vice versa (see Muysken & Muntendam, 2016). 
This project specifically investigates intonation, which is an area that has been relatively unexplored in language contact studies in general, and in Quechua-Spanish contact studies in particular.  Intonation is the melody of a sentence and corresponds to changes in pitch (e.g., high and low tones), which may cause changes in meaning. For instance, in many varieties of Spanish, intonation is used to make a distinction between questions and statements (e.g., ¿Tienes un gato? ‘Do you have a cat?’ vs. Tienes un gato. ‘You have a cat'). Intonation systems vary highly across languages and language varieties, and based on intonation, we can recognize where someone is from (e.g., from Spain, Peru, Argentina, or Cuba). 
This project specifically focuses on the marking of yes/no-questions (e.g., Do you have a cat?), wh-questions (e.g., What do you have?), and statements in Quechua and Spanish. Quechua and Spanish use different strategies to mark questions and statements. In Quechua, questions are marked in morphology, that is, with an interrogative particle. Importantly, in Quechua questions and statements are not distinguished intonationally; both have a falling intonation. In Spanish, however, intonation is used to distinguish questions and statements and questions often have a rising intonation. The question is what happens when these languages come into contact. The specific research questions of this project are: (1) Do Quechua-Spanish bilinguals in Peru and Argentina use intonation and/or morphology (i.e., interrogative particles) to mark questions and statements in Quechua and Spanish? (2) How do Spanish monolinguals use intonation to mark questions and statements? (3) Are bilingual Quechua and Spanish in Peru and Argentina affected by language contact? If so, how?
To answer these questions, data were collected from Quechua-Spanish bilinguals from Cusco (Peru), and Quechua-Spanish bilinguals and Spanish monolinguals from Santiago del Estero (Argentina). The tasks included a sociolinguistic background questionnaire, two controlled elicitation tasks to elicit questions and statements (a game (see Muntendam & Torreira, 2016) and a map task), and a story telling task (based on a frog story (Mayer, 1969). Bilingual participants did the tasks in both languages.
The data were transferred to a computer for data analysis. The data from the elicitation tasks will be segmented, annotated, and analyzed acoustically in Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2022) (software for acoustic analysis). For the intonation analysis, Spanish_ToBI (Estebas-Vilaplana & Prieto, 2010) will be used. The data from the story-telling task will be transcribed in ELAN (Sloetjes & Wittenburg, 2008) (annotation software).
In all, this project will provide new empirical data on understudied Quechua and Spanish varieties and will contribute to our understanding of the outcomes of language contact, in particular in the area of intonation.

Research Tasks:
The data for this project have already been collected and transferred to a computer for analysis. The research assistants will focus on the Spanish data (unless they know Quechua). Their tasks will consist of data segmentation, transcription, annotation, and analysis. Specifically, students will segment sound files in Audacity or Praat (software for acoustic analysis), transcribe short utterances (orthographically and/or phonetically), and annotate and analyze data for intonation analysis. The story telling data will be transcribed in ELAN. The research assistants will receive detailed instructions on all aspects of the project and will work closely with their mentor. 
There will be in-person meetings for instructions and checking work. The research tasks can be carried out on a computer in the lab (during business hours), or on a laptop computer as all the software is freely available. The in-person meetings will be during business hours. The research tasks can be carried out during business hours or outside of business hours, as long as they meet the deadlines. 

Skills that research assistant(s) may need::
The required skill for this project is at least some knowledge of Spanish. Some background in Linguistics (e.g., LIN 3041 Introduction to Linguistics, IDS 2291 Language Birth, Language death, or another course) or in Spanish Linguistics (e.g., LIN 4700 Introduction to Hispanic Linguistics, LIN 4780 Spanish Phonetics, or another course), or some experience with Praat or ELAN is a plus (but not required as students will be trained).

Mentoring Philosophy:
I approach mentoring as a collaboration, whereby the students and the mentor mutually and actively engage. My goals for mentoring include identifying the students’ prior knowledge, motivation and goals, developing a productive collaboration, creating a positive learning environment, and giving students opportunities to grow. These goals are reflected in my mentoring activities in a variety of ways. 
At the start of the project,  I share my goals and expectations, and I outline the students’ responsibilities and what they can expect from me. I identify students’ prior knowledge and skills and build on them. When needed, I adapt the students' responsibilities or instructions. To ensure that we are on the same page, I also ask the students about their motivation, goals, and expectations,. 
I aim to create a productive collaboration by giving detailed instructions and regularly checking the students’ understanding and work. I also promote collaboration between students on the project, so they will not only learn from me but also from each other. 
I believe a positive learning environment and open communication are essential for an active engagement. Students are encouraged to ask questions, and will know that it is okay to make mistakes and learn from them.
During the project, I provide opportunities for students to grow and to become more independent. The project may provide some initial challenges as students may not be familiar with the software and the type of analysis used, but they will learn to address these challenges, come up with solutions, and gain confidence.

Please provide a link to your publications, a video clip, or a website for your research project (if applicable):: {Empty}
Please add any additional information here (if applicable)::
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UROP Program Elements
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Mentor Handbook, FAQs, and Communication: Yes
UROP Performance Evaluation: Yes
Materials Grant: Yes
UROP Poster Presentation: Yes

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Year: 2023
update url: https://cre.fsu.edu/urop-research-mentor-project-submission-portal?token=dfFgT8_qzTrO-XY2oVS_hT8IYdnPpaoT84zyLpziKao