| In this sub-programme, initially funded through prof.dr. Pieter Muysken's Spinoza grant, the domain of study is formed by a group of languages that are spoken in Bolivia and its border area with the Brazilian province of Rondonia. In a broader perspective and in relation to the language typology projects at the Max Planck Institute, the aim of this work can be stated as: documenting the extremes of diversity in the languages of the world. More concretely, we investigate the properties of a series of isolated languages and small language families to see to what extent similarities and differences between languages are the result of genetic relations, of typological laws, and of areal contact. A number of these languages are described for the first time, and their properties are stored in a database to facilitate comparative research. A major externally funded project in this sub-programme is the NWO VIDI project Language diversity of the Guaporé region (2005-2010), carried out in collab-oration with the Goeldi Museum in Belém, Brazil. In the Bolivian component there is cooperation with the University of Bonn and the Catholic University of Lima. |
