bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Three perspectives on grammaticalization
Authors: Nevalainen Terttu
Published: March 2014

The intersection of lexis and grammar normally provides the focus for the study of grammaticalization. This paper discusses how the focus can be widened by corpus linguistic and sociolinguistic approaches, but is also illustrates the challenges that grammaticalization processes present to corpus-linguistic principles such as total accountability and normalcy.

The three perspectives on grammaticalization come together in a case study which raises the issue whether -ly adverbialization constitutes a process of lexicalization or grammaticalization. Historical corpus data on the intensifiers fairly and pretty drawn from Nevalainen and Rissanen (2002) provide evidence for two complementary scenarios. However, placed in a sociolinguistic context, processes of adverbialization prove no different from other forms of language change in that they may be highly susceptible to language-external conditioning.
The semantic path from modality to aspect
Authors: Aijmer Karin
Published: March 2014

Ability has a number of lexical sources including dynamic, telic verbs of various sorts. For example, manage to, a verb implying that there were difficulties to overcome can come to mean ‘ability’, a development which has parallels in other languages. In this paper translations into Swedish are used as a window to show that can, be able to and manage to are closely related to each other. It is argued that in grammaticalisation studies of modality one has paid a lot of attention to ‘ability’ as a source for deontic and epistemic meanings but neglected its relevance as a source for the development to an aktionsart meaning associated with actuality and result.
Fowler’s Modern English Usage at the interface of lexis and grammar
Authors: Busse Ulrich , Schröder Anne
Published: March 2014

The relationship between lexicon and syntax poses a problem to theoretical linguistics but also to the normal language user as the theoretical division is reflected in a division of labour between dictionaries on the one hand and grammars on the other; and it seems as if only usage guides deal with aspects of both grammar and lexis. In this paper we will therefore discuss and investigate the position of a prototypical usage guide, i.e. Fowler’s Modern English Usage, between those of dictionaries and reference grammars by looking at instances of divided usage at the lexis-grammar interface and how they are dealt with in this reference work as compared to dictionaries and reference grammars of the English language.
The historical development of the verb doubt and its various patterns of complementation
Authors: Iyeiri Yoko
Published: March 2014

The present paper discusses the historical development of the verb doubt. In Present Day English, doubt is usually considered to yield whether-clauses in affirmative sentences and that-clauses in negative ones. However, this has not always been the case in the history of English. During the period from late Middle English to early Modern English, the same verb provides various constructions like infinitives, gerunds, lest-clauses, and but-clauses. Moreover, the history of English saw the development of I doubt as an epistemic phrase. By contrast, the development of the epistemic use is not prominent in negative sentences, which is most probably related to the development of no doubt as well as the simultaneously ongoing development of the auxiliary do.
Phonology as human behavior
Authors: Dreer Igor
Published: March 2014

This paper applies the theory of Phonology as Human Behavior to an analysis of the distribution of consonants in monosyllabic words in Byelorussian. Like other languages, Byelorussian shows a direct connection between the effort that speakers make to control the active articulators, involved in the production of phonemes, and the favorings or the disfavorings of these phonemes in various phonotactic distributions.
Phonology without the phoneme
Authors: Davis Joseph
Published: March 2014

In his otherwise radically innovative linguistics (Columbia School), William Diver retained the classical phoneme, defined on the basis of contrastive distribution. He did so despite his rejection of most of the apparatus of traditional, descriptivist, and contemporary linguistics, and despite wellknown analytical difficulties. Diver evidently saw the phoneme as being required on theoretical grounds, specifically the communicative orientation. Communication, however, does not require contrastive segmental units, and Columbia School phonology need not rely upon the phoneme, which is superfluous to its findings anyway.
Construing reference in context: Non-specific reference forms in Finnish and French discussion groups
Authors: Helasvuo Marja-Liisa , Johansson Marjut
Published: March 2014

Both Finnish and French have several personal forms which can be used for non-specific reference. This chapter focuses on the passive in both languages and on certain constructions containing 3rd person forms, namely, the French pronoun on + 3rd person verb form and the so-called zero person construction in Finnish which contains a 3rd person verb form without an overt subject and is interpreted as conveying non-specific reference. The forms are studied in their contexts of use in Internet discussion groups. We show how the linguistic context contributes to the construal of reference in the social situation between the participants, the on-going Internet discussion, and in the larger sociocultural situation, i.e., Finland and France.
'Basically speaking': A corpus-based analysis of three English adverbs and their formal equivalents in Spanish
Authors: Butler Christopher S.
Published: March 2014

This chapter investigates the properties of basically, essentially andfundamentally and their formal Spanish equivalents básicamente, esencialmente and fundamentalmente, in corpora. After an initial study of the frequencies of the adverbs, I examine their collocational behaviour and show that the three English adverbs, although they share some patterns, nevertheless have distinct collocational profiles. This is also true of the Spanish adverbs, but there is much more overlap. The chapter then reports on a study of the syntactic properties of the adverbs. I investigate their positions within the clause, and make comparisons between adverbs and across languages. The results are of interest not only from descriptive and comparative perspectives, but also for language teaching and learning.
Universal human concepts as a basis for contrastive linguistic semantics
Authors: Goddard Cliff , Wierzbicka Anna
Published: March 2014

This study sets out to demonstrate that the NSM metalanguage of semantic primes provides a stable language-neutral medium for fine-grained contrastive semantic analysis, in both the lexical and grammatical domains. The lexical examples are drawn from “yearning-missing” words in English, Polish, Russian and Spanish, while the grammatical examples contrast the Spanish diminutive with the hypocoristic “diminutive” of Australian English. We show that the technique of explication (reductive paraphrase) into semantic primes makes it possible to pin down subtle meaning differences which cannot be captured using normal translation or grammatical labels. Explications for the Polish, Russian and Spanish examples are presented both in English and in the language concerned, thus establishing that the metalanguage being used is transposable across languages.
Production of English initial /s/-clusters by speakers of Brazilian Portuguese and Argentine Spanish
Authors: Rauber Andréia Schurt
Published: March 2014

Based on Flege’s (1995) claim that inaccurate perceptual targets may be responsible for misproductions of L2 sounds, this study investigates the relationship between perception and production of vowel paragoge by Brazilian EFL learners. Production data was obtained through the reading of sentences containingmonosyllabic target words of the form CVC followed by monosyllabic context words or silence. Perception data was obtained through an oddity discrimination test. The study involved twenty undergraduate students at the beginning level of English. Support for the perception-production relationship was provided by statistically significant correlation results. This study is innovative in that previous investigations focusing on the issue have dealt with distinctions between phonemes,whereas this deals with syllable structure and the addition of an extra phone.
Perception of double stress by Spanish learners of English
Authors: Lecumberri María Luisa García
Published: March 2014

A perception experiment required Spanish learners of English (NNLs) and native English listeners (NLs) to identify the position and relative prominence of stresses in polysyllabic English words and compounds. The results indicated that both groups recognized stress shift and lack of shift very accurately. The NLs showed a stronger tendency to perceive prominence shift in simple words than NNLs, who were more likely to hear simple words as containing one stress. For compounds, differences between listener groups were not significant. It was concluded that, in these experimental tasks, native competence did not provide a strong advantage for stress identification. This result may be partly due to differences in metalinguistic awareness between the English and Spanish participants.
Conversations with survivors of the siege of Leningrad: Between myth and history
Authors: Clapperton James Chalmers
Published: March 2014

The following article is based upon a series of interviews conducted by the author with thirty survivors of the siege of Leningrad (1941–44). The purpose of the research was to explore the potential which oral history has in democratically repositioning our view of history away from grand master-narratives towards personal recollections. I sought to embrace various urban myths and stories which are often overlooked by historians because of a lack of supporting documentation. Consequently, it is hoped that these testimonies can illuminate our knowledge of the siege by bringing into focus the sights, sounds and smells of besieged Leningrad and the myths of everyday life. In addition, memories are examined which acutely recall the transformed topography of a wartime city ravaged by famine and without transport or electricity.
The ethics of oral history: Expectations, responsibilities, and dissociations
Authors: Halbmayr Brigitte
Published: March 2014

This article focuses on the mutual expectations of the oral historian and the interviewee – problems and opportunities that could arise from the rapport that is established between them. The (sometimes conflicting) expectations are elaborated in three stages: first, the interview setting itself; second, the level of interpretation and evaluation of the research results; and third, a possible ongoing rapport beyond the given research goal (as seen by the researcher). The author concludes that for each stage, balances must be found between the conflicting interests to meet the goals of the research project as well as to respect the dignity of the interviewee.
Aspectual oppositions from Proto-Indo-European to Latin
Authors: Haug Dag T.T.
Published: March 2014

In this paper, I attempt to trace the evolution of the aspect system from Indo-European times to the historically attested Latin system. The focus is not on the study of single changes, but on providing an overview which shows what diachronic typology can contribute to the history of the Latin aspect system.
The relevance of tense and aspect in Semitic Languages: The case of Hebrew and Arabic
Authors: Dahlgren Sven-Olof
Published: March 2014

This article presents an introduction to the verbal system of the Semitic languages and an historic account of the research on the verbal system of Hebrew as a background to the main subject of the paper: the verbal system of Hebrew and Arabic.

At variance with the common view that these systems are based on aspect, we propose that Biblical Hebrew and – to a large extent – Arabic have a relative tense system. Although this is not a new notion it introduces the foreground/background distinction in this context, as well as the concept of marked and unmarked verbal forms as an explanation of the mysterious verbal system of Biblical Hebrew.

The notion of aspect is, however, not discarded. Its use in modern written and spoken Arabic is dealt with at the end of this article.
Pragmatically case-marked: Non-syntactic functions of the Kuuk Thaayorre ergative suffix
Authors: Gaby Alice
Published: March 2014

In Kuuk Thaayorre, ergative marking is of both syntactic and pragmatic import. Syntactically, ergative inflection marks a noun phrase as the subject of a transitive clause. Though this may be considered definitional of an ergative morpheme, Kuuk Thaayorre joins a growing number of languages in which ergative marking is documented to be “optional”; not obligatorily present in all transitive clauses. Conversely – and more unusually – the subject of a Kuuk Thaayorre intransitive clause may in some cases be ergative-marked. This chapter proposes that as well as signifying the ergative case relation, the ergative morpheme’s presence in an intransitive clause signals that the subject referent is “unexpected”, and its absence from a transitive clause signals that the subject referent is “expected”.
The interpretation of complex nominal expressions in Southeast Arnhem Land languages
Authors: Baker Brett
Published: March 2014

In this chapter, I examine the function of noun class prefixes in several non-Pama-Nyungan languages. In these languages, prefixes show several alternants. I show that these alternants are distributed according to discourse functions “topic” and “focus”, making them somewhat like articles in European languages (or better, the topic marking clitics in Japanese and Korean). The topic marker is also found in a number of polarity contexts: under the scope of negative and interrogative operators in the clause. In order to understand this highly unusual phenomenon, we need to understand the nature of references to kinds, and the realisation of number and quantification in these languages. This examination reveals that topics serve to enable operators to bind variables without a well-defined configurational phrase structure. The adaptation of the tools of formal semantics to nonconfigurational languages is in its infancy. This paper represents an initial step in understanding the similarities and differences between the semantics of such languages, and the better-described languages of Western Europe.
"Double reference" in Kala Lagaw Ya narratives
Authors: Stirling Lesley
Published: March 2014

The label “double reference” is introduced to describe clauses which incorporate reference to the same participant in the same grammatical function via use of two distinct nominal expressions. This paper investigates the discourse-referential function of double reference in narratives in Kala Lagaw Ya, the language of the Western Islands of the Torres Strait. A distributional analysis of the reference tracking options used in the stories is reported, with particular discussion of the Givónian measures of “Referential Distance” and “Potential Interference”. For referential distance the results situate “double reference” as an intermediate accessibility marker, falling between ellipsis and pronouns on the one hand and full nps on the other, but patterning statistically with the latter. With respect to a measure of potential interference, the results are suggestive in locating double reference at the extreme positive end of the scale, although this tendency is not statistically significant. Finally, a narrative structure analysis of one story is reported, showing that double reference almost always occurs in the introductory clauses of three highlight episodes of the story.
"Saying" verbs in Spanish
Authors: Ibañez Cerda Sergio
Published: March 2014

The aim of this work is to provide a fine-grained semantic description of “saying” verbs in Spanish to try to determine the specific semantic features that permit these verbs to project their argument structure in an ample set of alternative syntactic constructions. The work provides a characterization of this verbal domain in specifc semantic sub-domains through the notion of frame semantics. It is argued that the relevant frame for the description of these verbs’s meaning is Jakobson’s model of communicative functions. It’s claim that these functions play an important role in defining the semantics of the different sub-domains and that they permit the identification of the features that are behind the different constructional patterns of these verbs.
Transitivity in Kabardian
Authors: Matasović Ranko
Published: March 2014

In traditional grammars of Kabardian, transitive and intransitive verbs are represented as having different rules of case assignment, as well as different order of personal prefixes. This paper shows how both case assignment and order of verbal prefixes can be accounted for by an elegant set of rules within the framework of Role and Reference Grammar (RRG ). It is also shown that in Kabardian, a large majority of transitive verbs are formed by lexical rules or morphological causativization from basic intransitives, and it is argued that there is a systematic correlation between Aktionsart and transitivity: intransitives are, as a rule, activity verbs, while their transitive correlates are active accomplishments.
Cognitive onomasiology and lexical change: Around the eye
Authors: Koch Peter
Published: March 2014

Using the methodology of diachronic cognitive onomasiology, as developed in two projects at Tübingen University, the study discusses polygenetic semantic parallels in semantic change, focussing on those that are due to fundamental cognitive constants. The cognitive and formal relations between a source and a target concept are identified through a two-dimensional grid. The approach is exemplified for the semantic domain of eye (eyelash, eyebrow, eyelid, and eyeball). The study provides a list of all the cognitive solutions to create lexical innovations chosen in the language sample. Together with cultural and linguistic categorization, it also explains the different options chosen by the languages for lexical conceptualisation and gives insight to the ongoing debate on linguistic relativity.
From semantic change to polysemy: The cases of 'meat/animal' and 'drink'
Authors: Boyeldieu Pascal
Published: March 2014

The present section deals with the semantic affinities of two (groups of) concepts, namely “meat/animal” and “drink”. Though not related, they contrast two different approaches in the domain of semantic parallels: while various data concerning “meat/animal” naturally lead to a historical approach, revealing diachronic changes, the links regarding “drink”, chiefly exemplified in French, show a range of features involved in the semantic field of boire, that explain the diversity of its synchronic use.
Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental perceptions: A crosslinguistic perspective
Authors: Vanhove Martine
Published: March 2014

Following previous works (Sweetser 1990; Evans & Wilkins 2000) on the semantic extensions of verbs expressing sensory modalities and prehension to other semantic domains, this study investigates the semantic associations between vision, hearing, prehension, and mental perception in a sample of 25 languages belonging to 8 phyla. The study, based on first hand data, combines synchronic and diachronic analyses. It shows that, although vision prevails in the hierarchy of physical senses (Viberg 1984), the auditory modality prevails crosslinguistically as far as transfield associations between the hearing sense and mental perception are concerned. Vision comes next, then prehension. Furthermore the data invalidates the assumption that literacy might privilege sight as opposed to hearing in this respect, as a lexical universal.
Cats and bugs: Some remarks about semantic parallelisms
Authors: Masson Michel
Published: March 2014

In several European languages lexical items meaning “cat” also designate the “monkey”, the “drunkard” (or “drunkenness”), several “insects” and some supernatural creatures. Those coincidences – here termed “semantic parallelisms” – are in fact intimately associated and constitute a network of beliefs linked with the medieval carnival. Building up on the pioneer work of Sainean (1905) and previous works by the author (Masson 1999), this paper illustrates the importance of semantic parallelisms not only from the linguistic viewpoint but also from the anthropological and cultural viewpoints. It shows that the semantic parallelisms stem from the cross-culturally recurrent conception of these living beings as connected to supernatural powers, giving rise to semantic shifts such as “scarecrow”, “frighten”, “devil” or “have the gift of witchcraft”.
Semantic and pragmatic constraints on the English get-passive
Authors: Guerrero Medina Pilar
Published: March 2014

This article focuses on the so-called get-passive, frequently regarded as a problematic construction in the linguistic literature. It is my contention that a lexically-based approach is insufficient to account for the appropriateness of the get-passive, since pragmatic and contextual factors are also crucial to ascertain its acceptability. Basing my discussion on corpus data, I will analyze how the semantics of the get-passive interacts with the semantic properties of verbs from five semantic types that can be integrated within the construction: affect, giving, motion (take-subtype), corporeal and annoying. Along the lines of Goldberg & Jackendoff (2004: 563), I suggest that the get-passive should be treated as a family of constructions in order to account for its semantic and pragmatic properties. Two main subconstructions will be posited: the “causative” get-passive and the “spontaneous” get-passive.
!Xun
Authors: König Christa
Published: March 2014

!Xun (also known as Jul'hoan) is essentially an isolating language. Phonetically it represents one of the most complex languages of the world (see Heikkinen 1986). It shows a productive serial verb construction (Svc) which has properties of compounding. Although nearly all verbs of the language can appear in an Svc, a subset of roughly thirty verbs, called coverb, is used in a more grammaticalized way to express functions like manner, location, position, way of moving, tense, aspect, and modality. There is hardly any cross reference on the verb. Participant marking is optional. The basic constituent order is verb-medial. !Xun has a noun class system of three (in some dialects four) noun classes (or genders). Gender is covertly expressed on nominal modifiers such as demonstratives and possessives. Gender and number are basically independent. Each noun class can either refer to singular or plural. Plurality is optionally marked by clitics suffixed to the noun phrase.

Verbs are either intransitive or transitive, ditransitive verbs are absent. The language uses two productive mechanisms to increase the valency: A verbal suffix -ā, increasing the valency by one, and a preposition like element called the transitivizer kē. The transitivizer provides the most general way to include further participants, whether core, like objects, or peripheral, like locatives. Its occurrence is in principle not constrained. Its use is mainly restricted to the position after the verb. All the features mentioned above, such as a Svc, a noun class system where gender and number are basically independent of one another, a transitivizing device which freely adds participants, used only post-verbally, are salient not only in !Xuu (North Khoisan) but also in !Ui-Taa (South Khoisan) languages. However, whether these two groupings are genetically related remains unclear. In two dialects of !Xun there is an obligatory topic marker, which in some contexts is used like a subject case marker. Focus constituents precede topic ones, so that the general discourse structure tends to show the ordering is focus – topic – subject – verb – object.
Likpe
Authors: Ameka Felix K.
Published: March 2014

This paper explores the ways in which participants involved in the realisation of events as labelled by verbs and licensed by constructions are expressed in Likpe (Sεkpεlé lip), a Na-Togo, Kwa (Niger-Congo) language spoken in Ghana. A semantically based view of grammar is adopted. It is shown that the strategies deployed in the language are significant for theoretical and cross-linguistic understandings of the coding of participants in several respects: Participants with locative function are systematically linked to core, oblique and peripheral roles. There is linking underspecification with some experiential and spatial predicates such that their participants can be linked to either core grammatical relation with attendant semantic consequences. A complexification in this domain of Likpe is the combination of serial verb constructions, adpositions and verb derivational processes for fulfilling some of the participant coding functions.
Changes in Popolocan word order and clause structure
Authors: Veerman-Leichsenring Annette
Published: March 2014

The Popolocan languages (Otomanguean, Mexico) have historically a VSO basic word order. The subject is encoded in the verb, in some verbs subject and human object. For pragmatic reasons a subject or object may be moved into the preverbal prosition. The preverbal argument, often marked by a focus marker, is repeated after the predicate by a nominal or pronominal form — one may say to restore the basic word order. The four Popolocan languages are affected by a change from a VSO into a SVO word order. However, each language shows a different stage of this development by using or omitting the coreferential terms and the focus marker.

Comparable observations are made with reference to the instrumental and comitative categories. The encoding in the verb of these arguments is gradually replaced by the use of prepositions, in some languages together with word order changes, each language showing a different degree of development.

As the vast majority of Popolocan speakers are bilingual, these developments are likely to be influenced by the Spanish SVO order.
The non-linearity of speech production
Authors: Fortescue Michael
Published: March 2014

The traditional linear conception of speech production shared by the majority of formalists and functionalists alike envisages a step-by-step succession of stages on the way from conceptual intention to speech chain product. However, the alternative conception of parallel distributed processing has for some time been gaining favour in such quarters. This contribution presents facts from a number of languages, including English, that support the idea that speech processing must be in large part non-linear, including at the lower levels involved in lexical access and phonological spell-out. Top-down contextual processesmust constrain bottom-up generation, even when the relevant contextual trigger appears to lie further ahead in the linear speech chain. A Whiteheadian perspective is adopted to help gain insight into the non-linear processes involved in speech production and comprehension.
Expressing past habit in English and Swedish
Authors: Altenberg Bengt
Published: March 2014

English has no single verb expressing habitual aspect. Instead, habitual behaviour is indicated in various ways, e.g. by will (predictable or timeless habit), by used to and would (habit in the past), or simply by means of the simple present or past tense, often combined with a temporal adverb (usually, normally, etc). The choice of construction is partly determined by tense and aktionsart (state vs activity), but otherwise the ways of expressing habit in English are not well investigated. By contrast, Swedish makes use of a single auxiliary, bruka, to express both past and present habit. This cross-linguistic difference is a fruitful starting point for a corpus-based contrastive investigation. In the present study the means of expressing past habit in the two languages are explored on the basis of the English-Swedish Parallel Corpus, a bidirectional corpus of English and Swedish texts and their translations into the other language. Starting from constructions with brukade in Swedish original texts and translations the corresponding expressions in English translations and source texts are examined. The perspective is then reversed: using the English habitual marker used to as a point of departure the Swedish equivalents are investigated to determine if other forms than brukade are used in Swedish. The study reveals a complex cross-linguistic picture where aktionsart, generic subject, temporal specification and other contextual features are shown to be important factors determining the choice of habitual expression in the two languages.
Mister so-called X
Authors: Vandelanotte Lieven
Published: March 2014

In this paper, I explore the usage range of the pattern Mister so-called X on the basis of internet data. In a first step I argue that framing adjectives such as so-called, alleged, and purported involve interpersonal rather than representational meaning and structure. Secondly, of the different framing adjectives, so-called is shown to be the one which has come to be used most often with dissociative affect, a development which is co-enabled by its high frequency and its lack of very strong register preferences and collocates. Finally, in a set of 88 observations of the pattern Mister so-called X collected through WebCorp [www.webcorp.org.uk], I distinguish different usage patterns and relate these in terms of subjectification.
Indirect anaphora in text
Authors: Schwarz-Friesel Monika
Published: March 2014

The term indirect anaphor (IA) refers to a definite NP which has no explicit antecedent in text and is linked via a cognitive process to some element in prior text which functions as some kind of anchor for the interpretation of IA. According to one popular view, IA are treated as phenomena that can best be explained in terms of associability. In this paper I will argue for a more complex cognitive approach. Taking a procedural perspective, I want to demonstrate, firstly, that there are different types of IA. A distinction will be drawn between IA which are based on the activation of semantic knowledge in the mental lexicon and IA which require more general conceptual knowledge for their interpretation. I will base the discussion on naturally occurring data from German texts. All kinds of indirect anaphora have to be seen as “given-and-new-entities”. Combining both easy accessibility and the establishment of new referential files in text-world models, they serve as “progressive continuity markers”. The second aim of this paper is to illustrate that in many cases there is no clear-cut distinction between direct and indirect anaphora in text, showing that the most typical examples of direct and indirect anaphors may best be regarded as two extremes on a continuum of textual reference, thereby weakening the claim for a strict distinction between the two types and arguing for a unified account in explaining the interpretation of referring expressions.
Resolving complex anaphors
Authors: Marx Konstanze , Bornkessel-Schlesewsky Ina , Schlesewsky Matthias
Published: March 2014

This study investigates the question of whether the processing of complex anaphors require more cognitive effort than the processing of NP-anaphors. Complex anaphors refer to abstract objects which are not introduced as a noun phrase and bring about the creation of a new discourse referent. This creation is called “complexation process” (see also Consten et al. this volume). We describe ERP findings which provide converging support for the assumption that the cognitive cost of this complexation process is higher than the cognitive cost of processing NP-anaphors.
Relativization strategies in the languages of Europe
Authors: Cristofaro Sonia , Giacalone Ramat Anna
Published: March 2014

This paper examines the relativization patterns found in twenty-six languages of Europe, focusing on the strategies used to encode the relativized item. We provide a critical overview of extant classifications of these strategies, and discuss the distribution of these strategies across different syntactic roles. We present data on roles less accessible to relativization, such as possessors, or not included in the Accessibility Hierarchy for relativization, such as time circumstantials. These data can be accounted for in terms of a number of factors related to the syntax and semantics of the head noun, rather than the syntactic role of the relativized item as such. These factors also account for a number of recurrent parallelisms between the relativization of time circumstantials and temporal clauses.
2. The problem of the Caucasian Sprachbund.
Authors: Chirikba Viacheslav
Published: March 2014

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the fact that by many parameters, which involve all levels of linguistic structure (phonology, morphology, syntax, lexical semantics and lexicon), the Caucasus constitutes a linguistic area. The totality of numerous features shared by the two mutually unrelated indigenous Caucasian linguistic families (North Caucasian and Kartvelian) could be interpreted in terms of the Caucasian Sprachbund; this does not preclude the postulation of parallel smaller Caucasian Sprachbünde.
6. Zhuang: A Tai language with some Sinitic characteristics. Postverbal 'can' in Zhuang, Cantonese, Vietnamese and Lao
Authors: Sybesma Rint
Published: March 2014

This paper deals with an areal feature shared by languages spoken in Indo-China and Southern China, namely, the presence of a modal element in a for these languages a-typical post-verbal position. In this paper we investigate the properties of this element in Cantonese, Lao, Vietnamese and Zhuang. One of the questions we focus on is the fact that the element in question can be translated with ‘can’, but the languages differ in that only in a subset of them, it can mean ‘can-ability’. It turns out that the interpretational properties of the element is tightly interrelated with both syntactic and interpretational properties of the resultative construction.
Complexity in isolating languages: Lexical elaboration versus grammatical economy
Authors: Riddle Elizabeth M.
Published: March 2014

Contrary to recent claims that highly analytic or isolating languages are simpler than synthetic languages, in large part due to lack of inflectional affixation in the former, I argue that although isolating Asian languages such as Hmong, Mandarin Chinese, and Thai may be economical in terms of inflection, they exhibit significantly more complex lexical patterns of particular types than more synthetic languages such as Polish and English in like contexts. Evidence includes the use of classifiers, reduplication, compounding, stylized four-part expressions, verb serialization, and other types of what I call “lexical elaboration.” This analysis has implications for the question “What is linguistic complexity?” as well as for the more basic and vexing question of “What is grammar?”
Grammatical resources and linguistic complexity: Sirionó as a language without NP coordination
Authors: Dahl Östen
Published: March 2014

The paper discusses the relationship between cross-linguistic differences in grammatical resources and linguistic complexity. It is claimed that Sirionó (Tupí-Guaraní) lacks syntactic coordination as in English John and Mary are asleep. Instead, Sirionó employs a number of different strategies – the ‘with’ strategy, the list strategy, and the ‘also’ strategy – to make up for this. It is argued that one or more of these strategies may serve as a diachronic source of syntactic coordination. The development of syntactic coordination in a language exemplifies condensation processes in grammaticalization and increases complexity in the sense that a certain type of complex syntactic structure is introduced, and makes it possible to express in one syntactic unit what previously needed two or more.
Complexity and simplicity in minimal lexica: The lexicon of Chinook Jargon
Authors: Juvonen Päivi
Published: March 2014

I examine the ways the minimal lexicon of a pidgin language, Chinook Jargon, gains maximal efficiency when put into use in a contemporary fictional text. The paper first describes the lexicon used from a structural point of view. It then examines the use of multifunctional lexical items in comparison to English. The results of these studies show, that 1) there is no bound morphology (neither derivational nor inflectional) in the variety studied and, 2) there is much more multifunctionality in the pidgin text than in the English texts. Finally, it is argued that the results show that the lexicon studied can indeed be described as simple and efficient.
Articles, definite and indefinite
Authors: Herslund Michael
Published: March 2014

In the Indo-European languages where a definite article exists, it is historically derived from a demonstrative pronoun. The hypothesis of this paper is that the origin of the definite article is the creation of noun phrase structure by the subordination of a noun to a demonstrative pronoun. This process is described for the Romance languages and Danish. In languages where an indefinite article exists, it is historically derived from the numeral ‘one’. This origin of the indefinite article points out two possible directions for its further evolution: it can continue as a quantifier or it can become a classifier. The quantifier road is illustrated by the plural of the indefinite article in Old French and Spanish, the classifier use by the two indefinite articles of Modern French. Definite and indefinite articles thus have different functions and values: definite articles are pronominal heads, indefinite articles are quantifiers or classifiers.
Determination of N2 modifiers in Spanish nominal syntagmatic compounds
Authors: Høeg Müller Henrik
Published: March 2014

To many informants the semantic difference between the following two types of nominal syntagmatic compounds (NSCs) in Spanish seems almost undetectable or maybe even non-existent.

a. Crisis de la energía (energy crisis), crisis del petróleo (oil crisis), puesta del sol

(sun set)

[internal structure: N1prep. def.N2]

b. Fuente de energía (energy source), pozo de petróleo (oil well) día de sol (day

of sun)

[internal structure: N1 prep. ØN2]

However, I will claim that the two structure types are far from being synonymous. A fundamental assumption in the article is that conceptualisation of basic entity types as either heterogeneous, delimited and internally structured (bounded) or homogeneous, amorphous and without delimitation or internal structure (unbounded) interacts with the grammatical determiner system in attributing interpretational values to NSCs. The point of departure is that the definite article attributes to N2 either a referential reading or a prototype reading, while the zero determiner brings about an interpretation as either a mass or a concept. In the last part of the article it is argued that the semantic effects of the N2 configuration are essentially different from genericity. Nominals in existential or generic expressions denote, or are sometimes even said to refer to, a class or type of objects, whereas N2 gives access to characteristic properties of the entity type.
Reference to individuals, person, and the variety of mapping parameters
Authors: Longobardi Giuseppe
Published: March 2014

The paper addresses two related questions: whether the principle that nominal arguments must be projections of D, apparently holding in many Romance languages, holds in English and in other languages as well; and why such a principle should exist at all. The answer empirically suggested to the first question is that the principle does hold in English, contrary to Chierchia (1998) and supporting the N-movement approach to the nominal Romance-Germanic parametrization proposed by Longobardi (1996), but that certain other languages, specifically Japanese, are likely to exhibit nominal arguments without D, as expected in Chierchia’s (1998) framework. Following the restrictive approach to phrase structure proposed by Chomsky (1995, ch 4.), the second question will be addressed by identifying D with the Person head and by arguing that the latter feature is crucial to allow type-shifting from property- to individual-denotation. Under a minimalist theory of parameter formats, it will be argued that all the three possible polymorphic realizations of the feature Person admitted by such a theory are crosslinguistically instantiated, precisely by Japanese, English, and Italian.
Commensurability of scientific theories and indeterminacy of terminological concepts
Authors: Leitchik Vladimir M. , Shelov Serguey D.
Published: March 2014

Since a previous discussion was published 15 years ago (Leichik and Shelov 1991), other studies of terminological indeterminacy and vagueness have been carried out (cf. particularly the introduction to Bhatia et al. (2005)). Our 1991 discussion argued in favour of vague, fuzzy, “soft” terms, and suggested placing some basic types of this vagueness, fuzziness and “softness” on the scale “Determinacy vs. Indeterminacy”. The present discussion treats various term definitions and the concepts they define, with special attention being paid to the degree of indeterminacy of the definitions and of the concepts defined. Three types of fuzzy terminological definitions are described. Conceptual indeterminacy (fuzziness, softness) of the basic theoretical terms is claimed to provide commensurability of different scientific theories.
Ontologies and indeterminacy
Authors: Madsen Bodil Nistrup
Published: March 2014

This contribution describes some important principles that should be used when establishing terminological ontologies, and demonstrates that these principles may be used both for terminological ontologies, i.e. domain-specific ontologies, and for general language ontologies such as WordNet. In doing this, the paper argues that the principles for building ontologies should not allow indeterminacy in the resulting ontologies. The principles described here have been developed in the research and development project CAOS – Computer-Aided Ontology Structuring. CAOS is a joint research project carried out by Bodil Nistrup Madsen, Hanne Erdman Thomsen and Carl Vikner, Department of Computational Linguistics, Copenhagen Business School. The descriptions of the principles of CAOS and the examples used originate from joint papers.
Terminological modelling of processes
Authors: Nuopponen Anita
Published: March 2014

The article discusses the modelling and description of processes with the help of different types of concept relations. The study is part of an ongoing project where terminological concept analysis methods are being developed to accommodate needs of specialists. The example taken here is the Japanese tea ceremony and the material consists of observations of the actual process and of descriptions in literature. In terminology work normally only the established concepts are regarded as relevant, while here the whole process is being modelled. Concept relations that proved to be productive in the analysis were contiguity relations, activity relations, relations of origin, instrumental relations, and transmission relations, as well as several of their subtypes.
16. Coordination in Oceanic languages and Proto Oceanic
Authors: Moyse-Faurie Claire , Lynch John
Published: March 2014

1.Introduction

1.1 Typological preliminaries

1.2 Existing reconstructions

2. Nominal coordination

2.1 Tight and loose coordination

2.2 Common NPs vs proper NPs coordination

3. Verb phrase and clausal coordination

3.1 Phrasal (NP/VP) and clausal coordination marked differently

3.2 Phrasal and clausal coordination marked identically

3.3 Nominal coordination differs from verbal and clausal coordination

4. Numeral and end of lists coordination

5. Coordination and comitative

6. Adverbial functions of coordinators

7. Discussion

7.1 Towards a typology of Oceanic coordination

7.2 The coordinator-to-TAM-marker shift in Western Oceanic

7.3 Proto Oceanic Coordinators

8. Conclusion
The passive in Erzya-Mordvin folklore
Authors: Salo Merja
Published: March 2014

The aim of this research is to shed some light on theMordvin passive, an inadequately studied grammatical aspect of the language. Passive sentences contain a special polyfunctional derivative suffix -v-. Since only some groups of verbs with this suffix are passive, final judgement on the meaning can be rendered only in context. The relationship between the derivative and the root verb is illustrated using valence roles of case grammar. There are two groups of passive clauses: 1) where the primary actant is reflected as the agent in the surface structure, and 2) where the primary actant is not visible in the surface structure. A concise historical overview of the 170-yearlong study ofMordvin passive is also presented.
Grammatical relations in passive clauses
Authors: Givón T.
Published: March 2014

The paper first recapitulates a point made repeatedly elsewhere (Givón 1981, 1994 ed., 1995, 2001, 2002): that a syntactic typology of any clause-type, including the passive, is meaningless unless clause-types are first characterized as functional domains. Using as examples six widely-attested types of passive clauses, the paper then shows that the relational (GR) properties of those clauses, much like their other structural properties, are completely predictable from the structural properties of their source – non-passive – constructions. Because functional re-analysis is the earliest stage of diachronic change, the diachronic predictability of the structural properties of newly- reanalyzed clauses is most conspicuous at the earlier stages of grammaticalization, when structural re-shaping has not yet taken place. The diachronic determination of syntactic structures thus closely parallels the evolutionary determination of biological structures. An extant (‘synchronic’) structure in both domains is thus best characterized by the pathway through which it came to be. Consequently, much like in biology, where the most meaningful universals are evolutionary, the most meaningful universals of linguistic structure are diachronic.
Simple preterit and composite perfect tense
Authors: Rathert Monika
Published: March 2014

This paper explores several interrelated pragmatic issues connected to the (verbal and adjectival) passive and the periphrastic perfect tense. The language of investigation is German. In Sections 1 and 2, I start with tense selection, as both verbal passives and Extended-Now-adverbs impose restrictions on the tenses they can co-occur with. While the passive selects the preterit (among the tenses referring to the past), Extended-Now-adverbs select the perfect. The paper then shows how the selection restrictions on tense interact with other restrictions on the use of Extended-Nowadverbs. It is demonstrated in Section 3 how this complex interaction can be described in a coherent pragmatic Optimality-Theoretic framework together with a standard semantics of tense and adverbials. The paper then concludes with Section 4, which deals with criteria shared by the adjectival passive and the perfect. Pragmatic errors in usage and the necessary repair mechanisms are also dealt with.
"Over the hills and far away" or "far away over the hills": English place adverb phrases and place prepositional phrases in tandem?
Authors: Allerton David J.
Published: March 2014

Spatio-temporal adpositions (whether prepositions or postpositions) and spatio-temporal adverbs have a close relationship; indeed many modern grammarians regard such prepositions as “into” or “in” together with such spatial adverbs as “overhead” or “over” as subclasses of a single class. The question therefore arises what sort of structure English phrases like “far away over the hills” or German “am Ufer entlang” have, because they apparently include both a (modified) adverb and a preposition phrase. Can it be that, without involving the most common type of coordination, they exhibit a double-headed structure? Phrases of this and similar kinds in English and German will be scrutinized to ascertain the basic structure of such complex adverbial/adpositional phrases with a spatio-temporal adverbial function.