Storytelling and conversation often require that speakers share something that has been said by someone else, known as "reported speech." Tremendous variation occurs cross-linguistically in terms of the different linguistic means by which speakers convey their own perspective on a segment of reported speech, including the extent to which speakers agree or disagree with it in content or tone. The notion of "perspective shift" is not only an area of linguistic significance, but is also important to theories of cognition, but considerable gaps in our knowledge of these processes exist. This project seeks to addresses some of those gaps to advance a better understanding of perspective in linguistic theory and cognition through analysis of an endangered language of Ecuador, A'ingae, which employs a typologically unique mechanism to signal perspective shift by producing a word that is unusually or unnaturally high, known as falsetto. The project will create a diverse collection of narratives useful for future scientific and cultural endeavors, as well as innovative methodological advances like digital animation and interactive board games to examine language use in context. Broader impacts also include the training of undergraduate and graduate students from underrepresented groups at two US universities in scientific research methods, technical skills like digital animation, as well as hands-on experience working with diverse groups of stakeholders in an international collaboration. The study of perspective shift within discourse and sentences is one of the most important areas of semantics and pragmatics research, and it is one where the study of indigenous and endangered languages has proven especially crucial. This project explores these issues through the documentation of an understudied language whose grammar allows for the explicit expression of perspective shift of a sort which is implicit in English and other more well-studied languages. The perspective-shifting use of falsetto in A'ingae (CON), a linguistic isolate of Ecuador, can co-occur with other reported speech devices in the language including lexical verbs like "say" and "tell", as well as reportative and quotative clitics. To understand more precisely the kind of perspective shift that falsetto in A'ingae encodes, the project will analyze the broader domain of reported speech and perspective-taking through the collaborative creation of an annotated digital corpus of naturalistic speech and careful consideration of how these devices impact deictic and other perspective-sensitive elements with which they co-occur. Specifically, speakers produce a single syllable of falsetto in order to indicate shifts between different perspectives in discourse, a shift that is largely or entirely implicit in other languages, thereby shedding light on perspective-taking processes which are often quite difficult to observe in other languages. This project, in addition to creating important documentary materials and linguistic training opportunities, will provide important insights on the rich techniques that speakers use to signal perspective taking and perspective shifting. The issues impact many areas of semantics and pragmatics and this theoretical focus dove-tails naturally with broad coverage language documentation, as perspective-taking can be studied only in rich and diverse discourse contexts. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.