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This article presents the structure of the ATLAs Alignment Module, a typological database designed to exhaustively capture languageinternal variation in argument marking (indexing and flagging). The flexible design of our database can be extended to cover further aspects of morphosyntactic alignment. We demonstrate with a small diversity sample how the database can be queried and the data aggregated at different levels of structure (e.g. for a language as a whole or for individual referential types in the form of alignment statements) for the purposes of cross-linguistic comparison. The database is made available in the Cross-Linguistic Data Formats (CLDF), and we provide code that generates an array of aggregations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports some results of the first large-scale, comprehensive survey of the phonological systems of the Khoisan languages of the Kalahari Basin Area. These languages are famous for their large sets of click phonemes, a typologically rare characteristic otherwise found only in a limited number of languages worldwide. They are also unique because the click phonemes carry a high functional load in terms of phonemic and lexical distinctions in the respective systems. Finally, these languages have strikingly similar and highly skewed root phonotactics. The article provides empirical support for a range of claims and speculations that have been made about these typologically rare systems of the Kalahari Basin Area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informed by the framework of register analysis (Biber & Egbert 2018) and narrative analysis (Labov & Waletzky 1967), this paper studies customer reviews of assistive reading devices to identify intra-register variation between narratives of one's own and another's experience. The lexico-grammatical features differentiating the two experience types include the use of pronouns, references to animate and inanimate entities, patterns of user and product description, stance markers, negation, as well as expectation- and transaction-related lemmas. The study reveals that the distribution of these features is determined by the narrative ownership and the associated distinctions in expectations. Furthermore, the difference in narrative ownership results in variation with respect to the experience narrative composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Verbs in Bantu languages usually carry an obligatory subject (or S/A) prefix, whereas the presence of a transitive object (or P) prefixes depends on various language-specific factors. A number of such factors is well described in a range of studies mainly based on elicited data. To examine their interplay in naturalistic texts, we conducted a corpus-based case study of object prefixes (or P indexing in the terminology used in this article) in the Bantu language Ruuli (JE103). The corpus of over 15 000 words was annotated for variables such as animacy, identifiability and textual givenness. The statistically relevant factors for triggering P indexing were identified using conditional inference trees. Unsurprisingly, the results show that the strongest predictor for P indexing in Ruuli is word order. Just as P indexing itself, we assume that word order is a differential pattern expressing the argument's semantic and pragmatic properties. Taking only the latter into account, the analyses reveal that firstly, P indexing seems to be strongly predictable by textual givenness. Secondly, if the referent is given, the probability that it gets indexed is significantly higher if it is human. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Words in utterance-final positions are often pronounced more slowly than utterance-medial words, as previous studies on individual languages have shown. This paper provides a systematic cross-linguistic comparison of relative durations of final and penultimate words in utterances in terms of the degree to which such words are lengthened. The study uses time-aligned corpora from 10 genealogically, areally, and culturally diverse languages, including eight small, under-resourced, and mostly endangered languages, as well as English and Dutch. Clear effects of lengthening words at the end of utterances are found in all 10 languages, but the degrees of lengthening vary. Languages also differ in the relative durations of words that precede utterance-final words. In languages with on average short words in terms of number of segments, these penultimate words are also lengthened. This suggests that lengthening extends backwards beyond the final word in these languages, but not in languages with on average longer words. Such typological patterns highlight the importance of examining prosodic phenomena in diverse language samples beyond the small set of majority languages most commonly investigated so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By force of nature, every bit of spoken language is produced at a particular speed. However, this speed is not constant—speakers regularly speed up and slow down. Variation in speech rate is influenced by a complex combination of factors, including the frequency and predictability of words, their information status, and their position within an utterance. Here, we use speech rate as an index of word-planning effort and focus on the time window during which speakers prepare the production of words from the two major lexical classes, nouns and verbs. We show that, when naturalistic speech is sampled from languages all over the world, there is a robust cross-linguistic tendency for slower speech before nouns compared with verbs, both in terms of slower articulation and more pauses. We attribute this slowdown effect to the increased amount of planning that nouns require compared with verbs. Unlike verbs, nouns can typically only be used when they represent new or unexpected information; otherwise, they have to be replaced by pronouns or be omitted. These conditions on noun use appear to outweigh potential advantages stemming from differences in internal complexity between nouns and verbs. Our findings suggest that, beneath the staggering diversity of grammatical structures and cultural settings, there are robust universals of language processing that are intimately tied to how speakers manage referential information when they communicate with one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this introductory article we provide an overview of the range of the phenomena that can be referred to as differential argument marking (DAM). We begin with an overview of the existing terminology and give a broad definition of the DAM to cover the phenomena discussed in the present volume and in the literature under this heading. We then consider various types of the phenomenon which have figured prominently in studies of DAM in various traditions. First, we differentiate between arguments of the same predicate form and arguments of different predicate forms. Within the first type we discuss DAM systems triggered by inherent lexical argument properties and the ones triggered by non-inherent, discourse-based argument properties, as well as some minor types. It is this first type that traditionally constitutes the core of the phenomenon and falls under our narrow definition of DAM. The second type of DAM is conditioned by the larger syntactic environment, such as clause properties (e.g. main vs. embedded) or properties of the predicate (e.g. its TAM characteristics). Then, we also discuss the restrictions that may constrain the occurrence of DAM cross-linguistically, other typical features of DAM systems pertaining to the morphological realization (symmetric vs. asymmetric) or to the degree of optionality of DAM. Finally, we provide a brief overview over functional explanations of DAM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Apart from common cases of differential argument marking, referential hierarchies affect argument marking in two ways: (a) through hierarchical marking, where markers compete for a slot and the competition is resolved by a hierarchy, and (b) through co-argument sensitivity, where the marking of one argument depends on the properties of its co-argument. Here we show that while co-argument sensitivity cannot be analyzed in terms of hierarchical marking, hierarchical marking can be analyzed in terms of co-argument sensitivity. Once hierarchical effects on marking are analyzed in terms of co-argument sensitivity, it becomes possible to examine alignment patterns relative to referential categories in exactly the same way as one can examine alignment patterns relative to referential categories in cases of differential argument marking and indeed any other condition on alignment (such as tense or clause type). As a result, instances of hierarchical marking of any kind turn out not to present a special case in the typology of alignment, and there is no need for positing an additional non-basic alignment type such as "hierarchical alignment". While hierarchies are not needed for descriptive and comparative purposes, we also cast doubt on their relevance in diachrony: examining two families for which hierarchical agreement has been postulated, Algonquian and Kiranti, we find only weak and very limited statistical evidence for agreement paradigms to have been shaped by a principled ranking of person categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argument marking with trivalent verbs exhibits a much larger variation than argument marking with bivalent verbs. In many cases, this variation -- stemming both from referential and lexical factors -- presents a problem when attempting crosslinguistic comparison of alignment patterns of trivalent verbs. Often, this problem results in picking just one of a number of patterns as representative for comparative purposes and thus ignoring the rest of the variation. This paper addresses these general challenges by discussing a case study of trivalent verbs in Yakima Sahaptin, a language with a large amount of alignment variation in indexing and flagging. In doing so, the paper elaborates the recently developed method for alignment typology called exhaustive alignment, adjusting the method to meet the challenges of constructions with trivalent verbs and pointing out its limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an overview of papers that deal with problems related to the postulation of a referential hierarchy to describe grammatical systems with topics such as languages with two transitive constructions, survey of the diachronic sources for inverse and hierarchical agreement systems, and referential and lexical factors in alignment variation of trivalent verbs.

Do principles of language processing in the brain affect the way grammar evolves over time or is language change just a matter of socio-historical contingency? While the balance of evidence has been ambiguous and controversial, we identify here a neurophysiological constraint on the processing of language that has a systematic effect on the evolution of how noun phrases are marked by case (i.e. by such contrasts as between the English base form she and the object form her). In neurophysiological experiments across diverse languages we found that during processing, participants initially interpret the first base-form noun phrase they hear (e.g. she…) as an agent (which would fit a continuation like … greeted him), even when the sentence later requires the interpretation of a patient role (as in … was greeted). We show that this processing principle is also operative in Hindi, a language where initial base-form noun phrases most commonly denote patients because many agents receive a special case marker ("ergative") and are often left out in discourse. This finding suggests that the principle is species-wide and independent of the structural affordances of specific languages. As such, the principle favors the development and maintenance of case-marking systems that equate base-form cases with agents rather than with patients. We confirm this evolutionary bias by statistical analyses of phylogenetic signals in over 600 languages worldwide, controlling for confounding effects from language contact. Our findings suggest that at least one core property of grammar systematically adapts in its evolution to the neurophysiological conditions of the brain, independently of socio-historical factors. This opens up new avenues for understanding how specific properties of grammar have developed in tight interaction with the biological evolution of our species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to determine to what extent there is cross-linguistic evidence for postulating clusters of predicate-specific semantic roles such as experiencer, cognizer, possessor, etc. For this, we survey non-default case assignments in a sample of 141 languages and annotate the associated predicates for cross-linguistically recurrent semantic roles, such as 'the one who feels cold', 'the one who eats sth.', 'the thing that is being eaten'. We then determine to what extent these roles are treated alike across languages, i.e. repeatedly grouped together under the same non-default case marker or under the same specific alternation with a non-default marker. Applying fuzzy cluster and NeighborNet algorithms to these data reveals cross-linguistic evidence for role clusters around experiencers, undergoers of body processes, and cognizers/perceivers in one- and two-place predicates; and around sources and transmitted speech in three-place predicates. No support emerges from non-default case assignment for any other role clusters that are traditionally assumed (e.g. for any distinctions among objects of two-argument predicates, or for distinctions between themes and instruments). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]