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As Koptjevskaja-Tamm points out, the division of labor between the elative and the partitive case in partitive constructions largely corresponds to the distinction between partitive nominal constructions (elative) and pseudo-partitive constructions (partitive), as shown in Figure 2 (from [50]: 533). 2.2 Partitive elements Partitive constructions may also develop into "faded" partitives, a term introduced by [51] to indicate seemingly partitive constructions in which, however, there is only a vague hint to a possible part-whole relation, as discussed in De Hoop ([34]: 193-206; see also [75]). As observed in Section 1, the term "partitive", "partitives" has been used with different meanings, comprising partitive and pseudo-partitive constructions, faded partitives and indefinite or "generalized" partitives. Section 3.2.2 is devoted to so-called "generalized" partitives, i.e. partitive cases, partitive genitives, partitive articles that express notions other than partivity, such as indefiniteness or unboundedness. Partitive constructions and their developments In this section we present some basic notions related to partitivity, focusing on types of constructions connected with the notion of part/whole relation, i.e. the partitive nominal construction, or "proper partitive", and the pseudo-partitive construction (Section 2.1). [Extracted from the article]

In several ancient and modern Indo-European languages, the partitive-genitive may be used in place of the accusative to encode the second argument of two-place verbs. In Ancient Greek the two types of object encoding can alternate with change-of-state verbs, alternation being viewed as connected with degrees of patient affectedness: the partitive-genitive encodes partially affected objects. Alternation also extends to experiential verbs, which are typically characterized by a low degree of transitivity and do not imply any change of state of the object-stimulus. Rather than concentrating on the implications of case alternation on the construal of the object, I consider the effects of variation on the whole construction, and argue that genitive vs. accusative marking of the object (NomGen vs. NomAcc constructions) reflects the construal of the subject-experiencer. While the different construal of the experiencer in terms of degrees of control cross-linguistically often results in non-nominative encoding of the experiencer, in Ancient Greek it is object encoding that affects the construal of the experiencer and reflects a scale based on possible control. The distribution of constructions with experiential verbs shows that NomAcc is typical of verbs of sight, thought, intellectual knowledge and emotions connected to sight and awareness, such as wonder and fear. NomGen is connected with touch, smell, taste, memory, forgetfulness, care and desire. In the in-between area, verbs of hearing, learning and verbs of affection may feature both accusative and genitive encoding, thus constituting a fuzzy transition area. The connection between sight and other experiential verbs that feature accusative encoding reflects an embodied conceptualization of experiential situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gapping, or leaving out identical verbs in coordinated clauses, is a common feature of Classical Greek prose. There is a distinct tendency toward rightward gapping that may be connected to human processing capacities, and gapping for each specific occurrence can be demonstrated as pragmatically motivated.

In Hittite, deictic motion verbs pai- 'go' and uwa- 'come' may co-occur in a monoclausal structure with a second verb that carries the lexical meaning. As yet, their exact function remains obscure. I argue that motion verbs involved in such construction underwent transcategorization and function as New Event Markers. I show that this development is best explained as an instance of constructionalization involving both the motion verbs and the second verb in the clause, which is based on a pragmatic inference arising when motion verbs were used without a spatial complement. Either motion verb contributes a different semantics to the construction based on the different perspective regarding the deictic center identified by the ego, whereby pai- 'go' (motion originating from the deictic center) marks an event as close in time and controlled, while uwa- 'come' (motion originating outside the deictic center) indicates distance in time and possible lack of control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including linguistic analysis, historical linguistics and corpora.

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This paper discusses basic valency orientation in Hittite, based on the typology proposed in Nichols et al. (2004). Verb pairs usually employed to test basic valency indicate the clearly transitivizing character of this language; a closer scrutiny of intransitive verbs further reveals the existence of a three-fold distinction featuring two intransitive verbs, a basic stative one (or an adjective), and an overtly marked intransitive change-of-state, in addition to a transitive counterpart overtly marked as causative. The high productivity of causative derivation is shown by the fact that morphologically marked causatives are not only derived from stative verbs, but also from telic intransitives and from transitive verbs. In the case of telic intransitive verbs, a minor pattern is also attested, whereby valency alternation is encoded through voice alternation, with intransitive forms inflected in the middle voice and transitive forms in the active. Since neither voice can be considered to be derived with respect to the other, verbs that display this behavior are indeterminate as to basic valency orientation. In spite of the limited extent to which voice indicates valency alternation, this finding becomes more significant when set into the framework of valency alternation in the early Indo-European languages, and sheds some light (or raises more questions) on the original function of the Hittite and of the Indo-European middle voice, a typologically puzzling category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editors discuss various reports within the issue on topics including historical linguistics, linguistic changes in Russian and semantics of aspectual-modal suffixes in Persian.