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This special issue examines the question of how both formal(ist) and functional(ist) accounts or elements of theorizing can contribute to the explanation of (morpho)syntactic variation. Are formal and functional approaches really irreconcilable with each other, as often seems to be taken for granted by their respective advocates? It will be argued instead that they are rather complementary and that both can make a valuable contribution to explaining linguistic variation, in synchronic as well as diachronic respects. The integration of ways of looking at a certain phenomenon or problem from the respective other camp is proven to provide a significant added value and should not be excluded. The volume focuses on several Germanic languages and dialects, more specifically on German, Dutch, and Swedish varieties. It unites different formal and functional perspectives and, not least, it considers also semantic and phonological factors. The models covered include different versions of generative grammar, information-based morphology, construction grammar/construction morphology, natural morphology, and sociolinguistics.

In this article, I briefly explore how theoretical linguistics and philosophy are interconnected. I focus on three possibilities, and argue that the fields are most harmonious when utilised in critical reflection of a particular target, a format officially adopted in Theoretical Linguistics since 2002. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we address the issue concerning the gestural patterns in expressing surprise and disapproval across various languages and cultures. The results obtained so far point to an interesting, and in a sense rather surprising, uniformity. We consider two types of special questions: counter-expectational questions expressing surprise and surprise-disapproval questions, i.e., sentences expressing surprise with a negative orientation, and adopt an experimental design involving sentence repetition and spontaneous production. We focus on the realization of these sentences in Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese, which we compare with the results previously obtained for Italian and replicated for Neapolitan, Spanish and German. Our research is based on the Minimalist theoretical framework developed by Chomsky and scholars in the tradition of generative grammar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the variation in information structure of Estonian -des, -mata and -maks constructions, and analyzes the factors influencing this variation. The paper describes information structure via the categories of information status and information role. Information status, which refers to the general pragmatic status of a linguistic unit, has two possible values: an information unit or an element of an information unit. Information role refers to the pragmatic status of an element in the information structure of a larger information unit. Information role has five possible values: focus, background of the comment, topic, frame or prominent element. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis, this article gives an account of the variation in the information status and information role of Estonian converb constructions. In addition, this paper discusses the way in which the relevant explanatory variables relate to the information status and role of converb constructions. This analysis gives an overview of how the information status of converb constructions relates to the presence of punctuation, the position of the converb construction relative to the main clause, the number of words in the converb construction, the semantic function of the converb construction, the position of the converb within the construction, the morphological form of the converb, and the number of modifiers of the converb. This analysis also discusses how the information role of converb constructions relates to the position and semantic function of the construction and the presence of a lexicogrammatical prominence marker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I examine the Literary Chinese reflexive zì, which exhibits a crosslinguistically uncommon pattern: it performs both anaphoric and emphatic uses in adverbial position. I show that it has several uses: signalling coreference between the subject and the object, the object's possessor or the topic or focus of a complement clause, emphasising that the subject's identity, and indicating that the event affected the subject itself or had no external cause. I argue against categorically dividing these uses into anaphoric and emphatic uses. I propose four properties to unify the various uses: the referent of zì is centrally relevant to the event denoted by the predicate, coreferential with the subject, unexpected in its role in the event, and often contrasts with an alternative referent that may play same role. I compare my account to properties of reflexives in other languages, and argue that zì only partially supports Levinson's (Levinson, Stephen C. 1991. Pragmatic reduction of the binding conditions revisited. Journal of Linguistics 27(1). 107–161) theory of the development of anaphoric reflexives from emphatics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In der neueren Diskussion um Röm 2,28–29 wird eine unveröffentlichte philologische Studie zitiert, die zu weitreichenden Schlussfolgerungen Anlass gibt. Das dadurch aufgezeigte Desiderat einer detaillierten philologischen Untersuchung dieser Passage unter Anführung möglicher syntaktischer Vergleichsstrukturen wird durch die vorliegende Untersuchung erfüllt. In diesem Zusammenhang legt es sich nahe, die grammatikalische Möglichkeit aufzuzeigen, dass gegen die herrschende Meinung in Röm 2,17–20 kein Anakoluth vorliegt. Hierdurch eröffnen sich bisher wenig beachtete Perspektiven für das Verständnis dieser Passage im Kontext der paulinischen Verkündigung. In the recent scholarly discussion of Rom 2:28–29, an unpublished philological study is cited, which suggests further far-reaching conclusions. The desideratum identified by the unpublished study, for a detailed philological examination of the passage with reference to possible comparable syntactic structures, is fulfilled by the present study. In this context, the grammatical possibility is put forward that, contrary to prevailing opinion, there is no anacoluthon in Rom 2:17–20. This opens up previously overlooked perspectives for understanding this passage in the context of Pauline proclamation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes three homophonous morphemes ka integral to alignment in Vamale, a South Oceanic language: a relational classifier, a subject marker clitic, and a possessive linker in nominalizations. Northern New Caledonian languages tend towards ergativity, while southern ones favour accusative alignment in all domains. Vamale is spoken near the border between the two and shows a fascinating pattern: one system in nouns, another in verbs, and a third one in nominalizations. Using first-hand field data, this article introduces the relevant concepts with examples and compares Vamale to its neighbours. While the development of this system remains speculative, we argue that the language has assimilated to its powerful neighbour Cèmuhî.

This paper investigates the linguistic functions of the syncretic particle ʕaad in Jordanian Arabic. It particularly examines the repetitive, evidential, and evaluative functions of ʕaad, and attempts to make some speculations on the source from which this particle could have been originated. Moreover, it explores the syntactic function of each ʕaad, arguing that one ʕaad is an utterance-oriented repetitive particle, while the other two are mood particles, with one expressing evidential mood but the other evaluative mood. It will also be shown that the three particles are syntactically functional heads encoding different grammatical and pragmatic meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prepositional form and function in Irish, as in other Modern Celtic languages, are topics of much significance. In Modern Irish numerous simple prepositions not only form compounds with possessive forms of personal pronouns but additionally marshal an impressive array of 'conjugated' forms corresponding to the various grammatical persons. Prepositions also play a crucial role in indicating aspect and are involved in passive/ reflexive roles with the verbal noun. This paper offers an overview of the functioning of a selection of important prepositions in the language and provides examples by way of illustration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addresses the issue of unmarked word order in Modern Eastern Armenian (MEA), typologically considered a flexible (S)OV language due to its being strongly left-branching as well as the syntactic properties of its VP (focus, bare objects, low adverbs). However, Armenian grammars generally consider (S)VO to be the canonical order. We have conducted a corpus study and two sentence production experiments to tackle this controversy. These studies show that the placement of direct objects (DOs) is mainly triggered by definiteness. While definite DOs are overwhelmingly postverbal, indefinite DOs display a strong preference for preverbal placement. This implies a “typological discrepancy”: although MEA is a strongly left-branching language, the unmarked placement of definite DOs is postverbal. We account for this “discrepancy” based on areal, historical and cognitive factors. Contact with OV languages has resulted in a consistent shift from right to left-branching in Armenian, whereas word order at the clausal level has resisted the shift because MEA makes optimal use of each order in accordance with their cognitive advantages. The evolution of word order in MEA is an illustration of the universal crosslinguistic bias toward SVO.

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Linguistic expressions are very often indeterminate and have several possible readings. Syntactic indeterminacy may result from different underlying structures, from polysemous elements, or from so-called oscillation. Unlike the former two, oscillation cannot be reduced to one or more discrete interpretations in a given context, it is fundamentally non-resolvable. While oscillating structures do not hamper successful communication, they present a problem for linguistic analyses and categorizations. The relevant literature does not address oscillation systematically; if anything, it is treated in connection with problems of categorization. In this paper, oscillation is perceived as a phenomenon sui generis. We first give a definition of oscillation against the backdrop of other indeterminate structures and outline their relevance for a proper understanding of older and less formal varieties. Then we propose a tentative typology of oscillating structures and their potential triggers in selected Slavic languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Slawistik is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Data presented by Sakayan (Sakayan, Dora. 1993. On Armenian relative participles and their access to AH (Accessibility Hierarchy). In André Crochetière, Jean-Claude Boulanger and Conrad Ouellon (eds.), Proceedings of the XVth International Congress of Linguists, Université Laval, 1992, vol. 2, 361–364. Sainte-Foy, Québec: Université Laval Press) show that Modern Eastern Armenian appears to violate the Relativization Accessibility Hierarchy (Keenan, Edward and Bernard Comrie. 1977. Noun phrase accessibility and universal grammar. Linguistic Inquiry 8. 63–99), as participial relative clauses may be used to relativize certain oblique and genitive elements, but apparently not indirect objects. Stimuli were constructed to elicit relative clauses on all positions in the hierarchy to investigate whether participial relativization violates the hierarchy and shed light on the factors affecting relativization accessibility phenomena. Two different manifestations of the Accessibility Hierarchy (AH) were investigated: the distribution of participial relative clauses (RCs), and ‘non-target’ responses, in which the relativized element is expressed with a grammatical relation other than that which is targeted by the stimulus. The results show that the hierarchies for these two manifestations are significantly different. If the AH effects were a mechanical reflex of syntactic structure, we would not expect to find these differences. In fact, it appears that different factors are dominant in each case, notably role-reference association for non-target responses, and role prominence in terms of topicality and affectedness for participial relativization. The fact that participles are not normally used for indirect object (IO), while they may be used for some obliques and genitives, makes sense when the AH effects are analyzed as the combined operation of a number of factors, rather than a mechanical reflex of syntactic structure, and indeed, in colloquial language, participles may be used for IO under some circumstances, for example when it is the undisputed primary topic. Thus there is good evidence that non-syntactic factors are key to the operation of the AH in its various manifestations, and can account for this supposed violation.

The present article is dedicated to the syntax, morphology, and phonetics of ideophones in Arusa Maasai. After examining the compliance of 69 ideophonic lexemes with the typologically driven prototype of an ideophone, the authors conclude that Arusa ideophones may range from canonical to non-canonical even within a single language module. When syntax, morphology, and phonetics are considered jointly, holophrastic and asyntagmatic ideophones are more canonical than ideophones used as verbal modifiers and parts of complex predicates, which are, in turn, more canonical than predicative ideophones. The extent of canonicity is inversely correlated with the systematicity and integration of ideophones in sentence grammar and their diffusion into other lexical classes: predicative ideophones have been fully incorporated into the category of verbs; for ideophones employed as verbal modifiers, a comparable incorporation into the category of adverbs has not been completed; for all the other types, especially holophrastic and asyntagmatic, ideophones still maintain their categorical individuality. Overall, ideophones constitute an “old” category in Arusa, one that is well advanced on its grammaticalization cline.

This article considers NP complexity and discontinuity in the Papuan language Coastal Marind. First, I give an overview of NP structure in the language, which is characterized by extremely limited possibility of elaboration and modification. I connect this to the observation that Papuan languages are characterized by exceptionally simple NP structures. The lack of research makes it difficult to evaluate the significance of such observations, but I suggest that Coastal Marind is an example of a Papuan language that imposes very strict upper boundaries on NP complexity. Second, while an argument could be made that Coastal Marind NPs allow considerable discontinuity, more thorough consideration of the facts reveals a fundamental, tight-knit, left-branching NP structure, which contrasts with relatively rarely employed looser nominal configurations, including discontinuous nominal expressions. The discontinuous construals are restricted primarily by information structure. Although considered grammatical by speakers, they are extremely rare in corpus data. I propose that aboutness is an important factor constraining the choice of nominal construal types in Coastal Marind discourse.

The linguistic properties of the three most common verbs of posture, which express positions, such as zuò 'sit', zhàn 'stand', tǎng 'lie' have been thoroughly studied in a wide range of languages belonging to typologically different language families, but they have never been extensively investigated in Chinese. Our article traces the diachrony of these verbs from the Archaic Chinese period (5th - 2nd centuries BCE, corresponding to the Classical Chinese by excellence) to the present-day Chinese, showing that they have very rarely been grammaticalized into aspect markers, as has been the case in other languages. We also examine the semantic distinction between the expression of a dynamic vs. static action, as well as the syntactic behavior of these positional verbs. We finally discuss their links with locative / existential verbs from the Early Medieval Chinese onwards (3rd c. CE) and the grammaticalization path that has been hypothesized according to which the posture verbs have been first reanalyzed into locative/existential verbs before being grammaticalized into aspectual markers will be tested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study offers a quantitative and qualitative approach to the syntactic functions of the pronoun en from Archaic Catalan to Modern Valencian. In order to describe these, the functional behaviour of its predecessor, the Latin adverb ĭnde, is discussed, and its meanings are explained through grammaticalisation. A corpus of texts selected from the Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic (CICA), the Corpus Informatitzat del Valencià (CIVAL) and the Corpus Informatitzat de la Gramàtica del Català Modern (CIGCMod) is analysed. The various occurrences of the pronoun en are identified, their syntactic functions are delimited and quantified, and the data are submitted to statistical analysis. The results show that the syntactic functions of en exhibit a high degree of continuity with respect to Latin ĭnde. The analysis demonstrates that partitives and lexicalisations constitute the very functional core of the pronoun en through time and they are the only functions that strongly survive in Modern Valencian. The progressive decay of the rest of the functions – a decay that in today's language is also affecting partitives and lexicalisations – provides a faithful picture of the pathway of the linguistic change affecting Catalan. The progressive recession of the functionality of en can be considered an exponent of this linguistic change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subregular linguistics is a fairly new approach that seeks a deeper understanding of language by combining the rigor of formal grammar with the empirical sophistication of theoretical linguistics. The approach started in phonology but has since branched out to morphology and even syntax, unearthing unexpected parallels between these three domains of language. In this paper, I argue based on these results that subregular linguistics has a lot to offer to both fields. Subregular linguistics may be the ideal conduit for knowledge transfer between these two communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term “pivot” usually refers to two overlapping syntactic units such that the completion of the first unit simultaneously launches the second. In addition, pivots are generally said to be characterized by the smooth prosodic integration of their syntactic parts. This prosodic integration is typically achieved by prosodic-phonetic matching of the pivot components. As research on such turns in a range of languages has illustrated, speakers routinely deploy pivots so as to be able to continue past a point of possible turn completion, in the service of implementing some additional or revised action. This article seeks to build on, and complement, earlier research by exploring two issues in more detail as follows: (1) what exactly do pivotal turn extensions accomplish on the action dimension, and (2) what role does prosodic-phonetic packaging play in this? We will show that pivot constructions not only exhibit various degrees of prosodic-phonetic (non-)integration, i.e., differently strong cesuras, but that they can be ordered on a continuum, and that this cline maps onto the relationship of the actions accomplished by the components of the pivot construction. While tighter prosodic-phonetic integration, i.e., weak(er) cesuring, co-occurs with post-pivot actions whose relationship to that of the pre-pivot tends to be rather retrospective in character, looser prosodic-phonetic integration, i.e., strong(er) cesuring, is associated with a more prospective orientation of the post-pivot’s action. These observations also raise more general questions with regard to the analysis of action.

In this introductory paper to the special issue on “Weak cesuras in talk-in-interaction”, we aim to guide the reader into current work on the “chunking” of naturally occurring talk. It is conducted in the methodological frameworks of Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics – two approaches that consider the interactional aspect of humans talking with each other to be a crucial starting point for its analysis. In doing so, we will (1) lay out the background of this special issue (what is problematic about “chunking” talk-in-interaction, the characteristics of the methodological approach chosen by the contributors, the cesura model), (2) highlight what can be gained from such a revised understanding of “chunking” in talk-in-interaction by referring to previous work with this model as well as the findings of the contributions to this special issue, and (3) indicate further directions such work could take starting from papers in this special issue. We hope to induce a fruitful exchange on the phenomena discussed, across methodological divides.

Moreover, productivity and verb acceptability, when evaluated, also supported the proposed flexibility of ear verbs, showing many verb-types associations are possible and that comprehenders take quite seriously the interpretive demands imposed by the frame (as originally claimed by [50] I a.m.o. i ). (1) HT

This paper on rhythm is an adaptation of the semiotic research on rhythm in versified language presented as one of the seven types of poetic iconicity in Chapter 5 of The Communicative Mind: A Linguistic Exploration of Conceptual Integration and Meaning Construction (L. Brandt 2013) entitled "Effects of poetic enunciation: Seven types of iconicity". Defined by the linebreak, poetic language use engenders distinctive interpretive affordances, some of which manifest themselves as emphatically iconic sign relations contributing to the expressive whole of a text. In "Effects of poetic enunciation", I explore syntactic, semantic, phonetic, rhythmic and rhetorical aspects of the phenomenon of semiotic iconicity, and its counterpart aniconicity, in language characterized by an intentionally (line)broken syntax and contribute a systematic account of the different types of semiotic iconicity relations, understood as figural or diagrammatic similarity relations – or, conversely, potent dissimilarity relations, i.e. aniconicity – between expressive means and semantic content. Rhythmic iconicity is the fifth type of iconicity in this typology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes subordinate clauses which have gained both syntactic and discursive independence through insubordination, the diachronic conventionalization of main clause usage. First, I introduce the notion of insubordination and discuss its application to a corpus language such as Latin from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective. Second, cases of insubordination from Archaic and Classical Latin are critically evaluated on the basis of evidence from different grammars and corpus research, yielding insubordinate directives (commands and requests with ut(ei) + subjunctive), insubordinate wishes (with ut, utinam and si + subjunctive) and assertives (with quasi + subjunctive). Special attention is paid to the pragmatic and syntactic characteristics of these insubordinate constructions such as (i) syntactic versus pragmatic independence from the linguistic common ground, (ii) main clause syntactic complexity, and (iii) the role of discourse particles of adversativity (at, sed) and positive polarity (quidem). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Furthermore, it is only by extending the results from the 2PL completion task, which shows parallel use of CA-morpheme and full pronouns, that we could assume that the I -s i -morphemes in the translation task are also CA-morphemes and not clitic pronouns. While we generally follow this interpretation as a CA morpheme, in our subsequent analysis, we will distinguish instances where only a I -st i -morpheme appears from those where both CA morpheme and clitic pronoun (i.e., I -stu i ) occur. With few exceptions, the presence of both I -s i -morpheme and full pronoun allows an interpretation that the I -s i -morpheme is not a mere clitic pronoun but indeed an indication of CA. Instead, the majority of respondents ( I ob i 9; 60%, I wann i 6; 67%) shows CA and a full pronoun in the completion task, but only a CA-morpheme/clitic in the translation task. Keywords: syntax; language production experiments; complementizer agreement; corpus construction EN syntax language production experiments complementizer agreement corpus construction 237 262 26 05/12/22 20220501 NES 220501 1 Introduction Investigation of specific phenomena in corpora of spontaneous speech often meets hurdles, as they may be limited to specific interactive or linguistic contexts or of a generally low frequency (Lenz 2008: 163; [28]: 513). [Extracted from the article]

Some Mayan languages display optional verbal agreement with 3pl arguments (Dayley1985; Henderson2009; England2011). Focusing on novel data from Santiago Tz’utujil (ST), we demonstrate that this optionality is not reducible to phonological or morphological factors. Rather, the source of optionality is in the syntax. Specifically, the distinction between arguments generated in the specifier position and arguments generated in the complement position governs the pattern. Only base-complements control agreement optionally; base-specifiers control agreement obligatorily. We provide an analysis in which optional agreement results from the availability of two syntactic representations (DP vs. reduced nominal argument). Thus, while the syntactic operation Agree is deterministic, surface optionality arises when the operation targets two different sized goals.

A parasitic gap construction typically occurs when an otherwise illicit gap in an island is ameliorated by a gap elsewhere in the sentence. In this paper, we consider the relationship between the unacceptability of extraction from subject islands (ExtrSubj) and the amelioration associated with parasitic gaps. We argue that there is no parasitic gap mechanism per se that has the effect of making extraction from an island grammatical. Rather, the link between the two is a matter of processing complexity. Our central claim is that in ExtrSubj, the presence of a distinct referring argument in the predicate contributes processing complexity. This referring argument is the 'Uninvited Guest'. If an instance of ExtrSubj is of reduced acceptability, inclusion of the Uninvited Guest is likely to make it fully unacceptable, or 'ungrammatical' in conventional terms. On the other hand, linking of the argument position to the extracted A′ constituent – a 'parasitic gap' configuration – does not contribute additional processing complexity, thus giving rise to the appearance of amelioration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Languages differ with respect to the morphological structure of their verbal inventory: some languages predominantly derive intransitive experiencer-subject verbs from more basic transitive experiencer-object verbs by morphosyntactic operations such as stative passivization (e.g., German, English), reflexivization (e.g., German, Spanish), or mediopassive voice (e.g., Greek, Icelandic). Other languages apply transitivizing operations of causativization to intransitive basic forms, e.g., via causative affixes (e.g., Turkish, Japanese, Yucatec Maya) or embedding under causative predicates (e.g., Korean, Chinese). Yet other languages derive both alternants from a common base (e.g., Hungarian, Cabécar). This classification is especially pertinent when applied to psych verbs, given that variable linking is a widely recognized characteristic of this domain. The valence orientation profile of a language’s psych domain has recently been linked to the presence or absence of noncanonical syntax, another well-known property of psych predicates. This article reports results from an ongoing study which aims to test this observation on a larger typological scale, presenting comparative empirical data on the interplay of morphology and syntax in the psych domains of Icelandic, Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Yucatec Maya, Finnish, Turkish, and Bété.

The present article deals with Easy-to-read Russian. It focuses on the level of syntax which is mainly characterized by the avoidance of complex sentence structures. The necessity to write sentences that are as short and simple as possible is intuitively comprehensible, but often difficult to implement in practice since Easy-to-read texts also have to express causal, final or many other relations. Suggestions for avoiding complex syntactic structures in Russian are submitted and put up for discussion by consulting results and important proposals of studies about German "Leichte Sprache". This includes both clause constructions and complex sentences with their individual subgroups as well as asyndetic compound sentences. On the whole, the study is intended to make a linguistically substantiated contribution to the development of Easy-to-read Russian, for which there are only initial approaches available today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reassesses the evidence for active transitive participles in Hittite and suggests that they are in reality formed from the unergative class of intransitive verbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Jahrbuch für Germanistische Sprachgeschicht is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper analyzes the position of object and adverbial clitic pronouns in coordinated affirmative verb-first declaratives introduced by e(t) "and" in Old Occitan and early Old French, a context in which clitics are variably preverbal or postverbal. An empirical study reveals that this variation is principled and reflects semantico-discursive properties in the same way in these two related and grammatically similar medieval Gallo-Romance varieties. On a theoretical level, I posit that preverbal clitics occur when conjunction occurs at the TP level, and postverbal clitics occur when conjunction occurs at the CP level, and that the choice of clause structure (TP vs. CP) for second conjunct clauses depends on illocutionary force, which in turn depends on discourse coherence relations and the semantics of verba dicendi (verbs of utterance). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article seeks a rapprochement between pragmatic and semantic theories of language by returning to a breaking point in the history of philosophy, the middle of the twentieth century, when these theoretical models began to evolve into distinct schools of thought. Philosophical accounts of this period explore various and intertwined dependencies between semantics and context; however, they only implicitly examine the potential of sounds and bodily gestures in bringing descriptive clarity to the modes and limits of such dependencies. The article first investigates the way W. V. Quine conceptualized linguistic reference by combining behavioral models of language acquisition with more systematic explorations of syntax. It then turns to P. F. Strawson's revisionary accounts of Kantian philosophy which reassess the silent strains of empiricism in Kant's framework in order to identify possible grounds of reconciliation between pragmatic and semantic theories of language. Sound and gesture, two aspects that supplement language and give it an embodied feeling, are suggested as possible devices for formalizing intersections between context and semantic-oriented approaches. Poems by Wallace Stevens are used to think about the endurance of reference and how this endurance can find more compelling demonstration through an investigation of language as an embodied phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In syntactic dependency trees, when arcs are drawn from syntactic heads to dependents, they rarely cross. Constraints on these crossing dependencies are critical for determining the syntactic properties of human language, because they define the position of natural language in formal language hierarchies. We study whether the apparent constraints on crossing syntactic dependencies in natural language might be explained by constraints on dependency lengths (the linear distance between heads and dependents). We compare real dependency trees from treebanks of 52 languages against baselines of random trees which are matched with the real trees in terms of their dependency lengths. We find that these baseline trees have many more crossing dependencies than real trees, indicating that a constraint on dependency lengths alone cannot explain the empirical rarity of crossing dependencies. However, we find evidence that a combined constraint on dependency length and the rate of crossing dependencies might be able to explain two of the most-studied formal restrictions on dependency trees: gap degree and well-nestedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the manifestation of refusal of request speech act among Persian, English and Balouchi speakers with a focus on gender. The role of interlocutors' social status was also studied in this regard. To this aim, 180 participants (60 persons in each language including 30 females and 30 males) took part in the study. The instrument was a discourse completion task with six real life situations. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics and Chi-square were employed. The findings revealed both similarities and differences in the realization of refusal of request speech act between males and females in the three languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is often said, independently of any linguistic evidence, that the refusal of the redactors of the Rigveda text to allow sandhi between the second and third eight-syllable verses (pādas) of the three-line Rigvedic gāyatrī stanza is based on their parallel convention in the cases of the four-line triṣṭubh and anuṣṭubh stanzas, where the first two lines predominantly serve as an independent discourse unit (distich) relative to the last two. This paper attempts to provide independent linguistic evidence for the redactors' treatment of the gāyatrī line by examining the syntactic and rhetorical structures of the first 300 gāyatrī stanzas in the Rigveda. The results show that nearly 60% of these show a clear syntactic and/or rhetorical break at the end of the second verse, whereas fewer than 19% show such a boundary following the first verse. While this does not prove that the redactors' procedure was based on syntactic-rhetorical structure alone, it is maintained that the redactors could not have been unaware of the preponderance of a linguistic break following the second verse of the gāyatrī and that, even if they were influenced by their treatment of the distich boundary in four-line stanzas, their procedure was not simply a matter of analogical extension independent of linguistic considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article is a systematic, large-scale corpus study of the varying position of the Old English adnominal genitive. Particular focus is put on intertextual variation and the potential influence of Latin, which is analysed alongside such intra-linguistic factors as syntactic weight and the animacy of the referent. The model of logistic regression adopted helps address a key issue in studies on genitive placement, namely, if and how multiple variables exert combined impact on the choice of the variant. The paper highlights the importance of a bottom-to-top approach in studies of older English syntax, as global tendencies turn out to be the corollary of significantly different contributions on the level of individual texts, whose translation status (original composition or translation) is also of importance to the variation studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some Mayan languages display optional verbal agreement with 3pl arguments (Dayley1985; Henderson2009; England2011). Focusing on novel data from Santiago Tz'utujil (ST), we demonstrate that this optionality is not reducible to phonological or morphological factors. Rather, the source of optionality is in the syntax. Specifically, the distinction between arguments generated in the specifier position and arguments generated in the complement position governs the pattern. Only base-complements control agreement optionally; base-specifiers control agreement obligatorily. We provide an analysis in which optional agreement results from the availability of two syntactic representations (DP vs. reduced nominal argument). Thus, while the syntactic operation Agree is deterministic, surface optionality arises when the operation targets two different sized goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reevaluates the evidence for dative case marking of the direct object of the infinitive in Hittite against the Indo-European and cross-linguistic background. It provides a full corpus of relevant examples in Hittite, suggests a new taxonomy of them and proposes that a syntactic rule has to be formulated to account for the non-finite contexts where dative case marks the direct object of the infinitive in Hittite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition to inflecting adjectives for case, number, and gender, the early Germanic languages inflect adjectives as either strong or weak. Scholarly consensus is lacking regarding what triggers this fourth inflectional category, i.e. why an adjective surfaces as either strong or weak. While the traditional school of thought held that weak adjectives surface with definite determiners, some recent scholarship has argued that a semantic force such as definiteness or classification is responsible. To evaluate the two positions, I compared attributive adjectives in the Old High German translation of Tatian's Diatessaron with the corresponding passages in Gothic and Old English. The conclusion supports the traditional school of thought that determiners trigger weak adjectives and refutes the idea that semantics is primarily responsible for whether an adjective surfaces as strong or weak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the classification of the functions of preverbs in Georgian and the other Kartvelian languages as a contribution to the typology of this issue. Preverbs have different meanings and activities in different languages. The typological classification of the functions of preverbs reveals the four core functions: spatial, temporal, objective and lexical. This paper discusses verbal argument structure alternations encoded by preverbs. I argue that preverbs affect verbal valency changes and stimulate object role-shifting in Georgian verbs and other Kartvelian languages. I also argue that preverbs have a crucial role in object alternation across the languages.

This paper discusses a series of morpho-syntactic properties of Romance languages that have the functional projection vP as its locus, showing a continuum that goes from strongly configurational Romance languages to partially configurational Romance languages. It is argued that v-related phenomena like Differential Object Marking (DOM), participial agreement, oblique clitics, auxiliary selection, and others align in a systematic way when it comes to inflectional properties that involve Case-agreement properties. In order to account for the facts, I argue for a micro-parametric approach whereby v can be associated with an additional projection subject to variation (cf. D'Alessandro, Merging Probes. A typology of person splits and person-driven differential object marking. Ms., University of Leiden, 2012; Microvariation and syntactic theory. What dialects tell us about language. Invited talk given at the workshop The Syntactic Variation of Catalan and Spanish Dialects, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, June 26–28, 2013; Ordóñez, Cartography of postverbal subjects in Spanish and Catalan. In Sergio Baauw, Frank AC Drijkoningen & Manuela Pinto (eds.), Romance languages and linguistic theory 2005: Selected papers from 'Going Romance', Utrecht, 8–10 December 2005, 259–280. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2007). I label such projection "X," arguing that its feature content and position varies across Romance. More generally, the present paper aims at contributing to our understanding of parametric variation of closely related languages by exploiting the intuition, embodied in the so-called Borer-Chomsky Conjecture, that linguistic variation resides in the functional inventory of the lexicon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the pioneering paper by Emenau (1956) there have been many attempts (cf. Masica 1976, 2001; Ebert 2001; among many others) to select areal features which are shared among languages spoken in South Asia. However, there has been little consent on the number of such features and the possible direction of their spread. In this paper we are focusing on two selected isoglosses, namely alignment and constituent order. Both of them have been used to define the Indo-Aryan linguistic area: alignment is one of the key elements to distinguish western from eastern Indo-Aryan (Peterson 2017) and word order is one of the innovations which differentiates some of the "Outer" languages from "Inner" Indo-Aryan languages (Zoller 2017: 15). This article focuses on two languages which are said to determine these isoglosses: Awadhi and Kashmiri. Our study of Awadhi shows that the isogloss delineating ergative or accusative case marking zones is situated in the area where the so-called Eastern Hindi dialects (among them Awadhi) are spoken. As we will demonstrate, this specific isogloss is substantially supported by diachronic evidence. The second language under consideration, namely Kashmiri, is an example of an "Outer" language with a quite stable V2 feature. Both Awadhi and Kashmiri are compared with Pahari, a language branch which functions as a link between the two of them. Our comparison of Kashmiri with certain Western Pahari Himachali languages shows that there is no clear borderline between two language groups supported by word order. We conclude from these case studies that the study of isoglosses is by definition a study of fluid boundaries, and qualitative, historical studies of one language can prove or disprove hypotheses based on synchronic similarities between languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language learning strategies (LLS) are suggested to facilitate learning and support learner autonomy. The integration of content and language in foreign language education increases the cognitive work load. Furthermore, self-efficacy has been identified as a key predictor for strategy use and language achievement. The present study aimed to (1) investigate LLS use in content-based versus traditional foreign language environments and (2) assess the impact LLS use and self-efficacy have on language proficiency. Participants were Year 9 Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and regular English as a foreign language (EFL) students (N=378) in Germany. Structural equation modelling, controlling for a range of confounding variables, showed that (1) there was no difference in LLS use between CLIL and EFL students. (2) LLS use had a negative impact while self-efficacy predicted higher language proficiency. These results suggest that students may best be supported by enhancing their self-efficacy while they should carefully choose their strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mainstream approaches to the typology of reported discourse have been based on the notion of a direct-indirect continuum: reported speech constructions are traditionally analyzed as conforming to or deviating from the "ideals" of European direct and indirect speech. This study argues that continuum-based approaches fail to distinguish between two dimensions of variation that are systematically discriminated in a number of African languages and should therefore be treated separately. First, different constructions can be recruited for speech reporting, ranging from paratactic to subordinate structures. Second, languages differ in the way pronouns in speech reports are interpreted. In European languages two different deictic strategies are associated with different syntactic types of speech report ('indirect' and 'direct' deixis is correlated with subordination and parataxis, respectively). In Kakabe, we argue, the choice of pronominal values is independent of the construction's syntax. Dissociating the construction's structural properties from the behavior of indexicals allows us to describe the Kakabe strategies of speech reporting as well as account for the seemingly puzzling behavior of reported commands. Our data shows that speech reporting strategies of Kakabe should be treated as a type in its own right: a type characterized by loose syntax and flexible pronominal indexicality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers an analysis of the morphosyntactic properties of Lithuanian participles in terms of the criteria of "canonical" finiteness proposed by (Nikolaeva, Irina. 2013. Unpacking finiteness. In Dunstan Brown, Marina Chumakina & Greville G. Corbett (eds.), Canonical morphology and syntax, 99–122. Oxford: Oxford University Press.). It is shown that in their different uses, i. e., as heads of two types of evidential clauses, as predicates in complement, adverbial and attributive clauses and as lexical verbs in periphrastic constructions, Lithuanian participles show considerably different combinations of finite and nonfinite characteristics and hence cannot be unequivocally treated as nonfinite. It is argued that it is the individual constructions where the participles occur that determine their morphosyntactic features and that the very notion of (non)finiteness is composite and largely derivative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a visual-world eye-tracking study, we investigate the on-line comprehension of subject and object which-questions in 60 German-English adult second-language (L2) learners at various stages of proficiency. In particular, we examine whether adult L2 learners follow the same acquisitional trajectories as children or whether L1 transfer dictates a different development. Previous research on monolingual English children shows that child learners initially commit to a strong subject preference and use inflectional cues, i.e. number marking, to overcome structural biases (e.g. Contemori and Marinis 2014b). The adult data on comprehension accuracy show strong effects of proficiency. Intermediate-proficiency L2 learners have an overwhelming structural preference for subject questions, and they are not sensitive to inflectional cues that disambiguate towards object readings. High-intermediate learners come to exploit inflectional cues for revising an initial subject-preference to the target object reading. Finally, advanced learners display native-like comprehension patterns. In contrast to the off-line accuracy data, the analysis of the eye movements shows that all groups of L2 adults make incremental use of inflectional cues in on-line comprehension.