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This article discusses the emergence of the partitive case in the three western-most branches of the Uralic language family, which are Saamic and Finnic in North Europe, and Mordvinic in Central Russia. The Finnic languages represent the outer edge of development in the partitive from an earlier ablative case, which used to manifest 'source', a specific property of spatial relations. In Finnic the partitive case is a multifunctional and conceptually distinct case, an inflectional category which has developed highly specific functions in object marking, negative phrase and as a case of non-canonical subject. Traces of this development are found in Saamic and Mordvinic as well, whereas other Uralic languages don't share this kind of secondary development and functional extension. The development of this particular affix consists of several stages, special bottlenecks, enhancing functional properties and triggering the reanalysis of an inherited affix *-ta/-tä. This article focuses on the diachrony of this particular affix with special emphasis on western Uralic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We very warmly dedicate this volume to the memory of Edit Doron, Anita Mittwoch and Susan Rothstein for their inspiring and outstanding contribution to research on tense, aspect and verb meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dutch partitive constructions of the type one of the (few) X who Y show a striking pattern of singular subject-verb agreement in their relative clause. This paper presents a corpus study showing that the prescriptively "incorrect" singular agreement pattern is in fact the dominant pattern in Dutch. In order to explain this, we argue that this type of partitive construction often has a specific function in context, namely, to point out that the subject is special or extraordinary, usually for the reason presented by the relative clause. We apply a usage-based approach to this construction within the framework of Construction Grammar, arguing that the prevalent implicature of the subject's specialness has become a conventionalized part of the meaning of the construction. This analysis then can be used to explain the syntactic pattern of singular agreement within the relative clause. A similar albeit less pronounced pattern can be found in German.* [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a typology of partitive aspectual operators based on whether an operator: (i) requires (non-)proper event parts in the extension of the VP that it combines with and (ii) imposes a 'maximal stage requirement', which is satisfied when a VP-event culminates or ceases to develop further in the actual world. I provide evidence for such a typology by looking at the Russian imperfective, the Hindi perfective and the English progressive. I argue that each of these languages has a partitive, aspectual operator that fills a distinct cell in the proposed typology. The typology is important because it allows us to dispense with Smith's (The parameter of aspect. Kluwer, Dordrecht, ) notion of 'neutral aspect' used to classify aspectual forms as having properties of both the perfective and the imperfective. In particular, the typology reveals that an operator is perfective if it requires a maximal stage of an event in the extension of the VP that it combines with; an operator is imperfective if it requires a stage of an event in the extension of the VP that it combines with, but this stage need not be maximal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grammar skill is a component of the language competency that students must master as a result of receiving a basic general education. The methodology for the formation of each grammatical skill has its own specifics. The use of partitive expressions in English is the subject of frequent student mistakes. As part of the training, these categories are not given enough attention, they are not studied separately, but are included in the topics fractionally, which prevents the creation of an overall picture and the formation of grammatical skill. Textbooks do not give a classified system of counting words and partitive expressions, and skills automation exercises are present only in conjunction with the study of other grammatical topics, which does not allow focusing on working out the data of grammatical categories. The necessity for a methodological base for teaching partitive expressions in English, highlighting a separate topic devoted to the named grammatical categories and developing a set of exercises emphasises the relevance of the chosen topic. In general, the methods of forming a grammatical skill are well studied, but not specified for teaching counting words and partitive expressions, which means that they require further development. The aim of the paper is to study the methods of forming a grammatical skill and developing a set of exercises for the formation of a grammatical skill (based on the example of partitive expressions). As a result of the study, the concept and structure of the grammatical skill were studied, the stages of its formation were examined, the linguo-didactic fundamentals of teaching in both languages were identified, the process of selecting material for a set of exercises was described, a set of exercises for both languages was developed. As research methods, general scientific methods of analysis, synthesis and comparison were chosen, linguistic methods-descriptive, prescriptive and structural. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of RumeliDE Journal of Language & Literature Research / RumeliDE Dil ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi is the property of RumeliDE Uluslararasi Hakemli Dil & Edebiyat Arastirmalari Dergisi 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 Linguistica Uralica is the property of Teaduste Akadeemia Kirjastus 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 Russian Linguistics is the property of Springer Nature 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.)

In every-day language use, two or more structurally unrelated constructions may occasionally give rise to strings that look very similar on the surface. As a result of this superficial resemblance, a subset of instances of one of these constructions may deviate in the probabilistic preference for either of several possible formal variants. This effect is called 'constructional contamination', and was introduced in Pijpops & Van de Velde (2016). Constructional contamination bears testimony to the hypothesis that language users do not always execute a full parse of the utterances they interpret, but instead often rely on 'shallow parsing' and the storage of large, unanalyzed chunks of language in memory, as proposed in Ferreira, Bailey, & Ferraro (2002), Ferreira & Patson (2007), and Dąbrowska (2014). Pijpops & Van de Velde (2016) investigated a single case study in depth, namely the Dutch partitive genitive. This case study is reviewed, and three new case studies are added, namely the competition between long and bare infinitives, word order variation in verbal clusters, and preterite formation. We find evidence of constructional contamination in all case studies, albeit in varying degrees. This indicates that constructional contamination is not a particularity of the Dutch partitive genitive but appears to be more wide-spread, affecting both morphology and syntax. Furthermore, we distinguish between two forms of constructional contamination, viz. first degree and second degree contamination, with first degree contamination producing greater effects than second degree contamination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the case of Spanish Perfecto simple and Imperfecto from the perspective of the cross-linguistic proposal in Altshuler's () 'A typology of partitive aspectual operators', pointing to ways in which the Spanish data suggests refinements for Altshuler's proposal. In particular: (i) the paper provides evidence from Spanish that sheds doubts on Altshuler's proposal that temporal asymmetry should be built into the semantics of Landman-style partitive operators in a manner that guarantees that the worlds quantified over match the actual world in the past; (ii) following Altshuler's observations regarding differences between events being 'completed' vs. events 'not continuing', the paper provides a comparison between examples from Spanish and Russian to argue that more than one notion of 'complete-event' is actually needed; (iii) expanding on Altshuler's proposal to link habitual readings to plural events, the paper examines the case of Spanish Perfecto vs. Imperfecto, showing that both modality and plurality play a crucial role in generating habitual readings. The paper also discusses the relative role of semantics and pragmatics in the interpretation of aspectual operators, comparing some aspects of Altshuler's proposal to Arregui et al. (). Together, the various examples strengthen the case for a semantics of aspect grounded on a fine-grained ontology that brings together both temporal and modal dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies fictive dynamicity as a factor motivating aspectual case marking in Finnish. In Finnish transitive sentences aspect is marked with the morphological case of the object: the restrictive object is used in sentences with a resultative meaning, whereas the partitive object is used in sentences indicating either atelicity, irresultativity, or progressivity. Interestingly, however, the restrictive object is also used in so-called quasi-resultative sentences, the aspectual meaning of which is atelic. These typically express a static physical location, perception, or cognition. In this article I argue that the use of the restrictive object in quasi-resultative sentences reflects the telic features of the conceptualization used to construct the representation of the atelic situation, where the atelic situation is represented as the result of a fictive change. This study thus extends the concept of fictive dynamicity to cover phenomena related to linguistic aspect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Degree modifiers (DM) are intensifying words that typically modify adjectives or adverbs. Some DMs (e.g., 'rather', 'very') indicate an open scale, which is unbounded and has no maximal or minimal boundaries, others (e.g., 'quite', 'almost') a closed scale, which has either or both. In Finnish, many spatial grams, i.e., adpositions and adverbs, accept DMs. Such grams have a scalar meaning, which the DM then elaborates. I analyze three groups of grams: 1) topological luona 'at; by', lähellä 'near', and kaukana 'far'; 2) directional kohti 'towards' and ohi 'past'; and 3) targeting keskellä 'in the middle of'. I argue that the scalar meaning of the grams may relate 1) to the distance between Figure and Ground; 2) to the direction of Figure's motion or orientation with respect to Ground; 3) to the precision of Figure's location at (or deviation from) a targeting point specified with respect to Ground. Most of the grams accept only closed-scale DMs, while some accept open-scale DMs, and yet others both. The compatibility of closed-scale DMs with most of the grams indicates that the search domain of the grams is typically bounded and has at least a maximal-degree boundary and often also a minimal-degree boundary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the loss of the partitive genitive (e. g. ein Glas Weines > ein Glas Wein) in German, focusing on the early stage of the decline, i. e. the ENHG period, and on variation in present-day German (e. g. einem Glas gutem Wein vs. einem Glas guten Wein). On the basis of data collected in a questionnaire study and in corpora (both contemporary and historic) it is proposed that formal properties of the inflectional suffixes involved are highly relevant for this language change phenomenon: Several observations concerning the diachronic and synchronic variation caused by the (incomplete) loss of the partitive genitive seem to be explicable by so-called ›signal strength‹, a concept which goes back to Köpcke (1993). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concepts mismatch, type-shifting, and coercion are central to much recent work on cognitive linguistics. In a number of papers, Michaelis has investigated entity and event coercion (Michaelis 2003a, b, 2004 a, b). I address her question what conditions favor the diachronic development of shift constructions (Michaelis 2004a: 8) from the perspective of grammaticalization, with particular reference to the development of partitive constructions like a bit of apple into degree modifier constructions like a bit of a hypocrite. I show why these are different constructions, and conclude that the most important factors have to do with matching quantitative implicatures to already extant quantifying degree modifiers with NP heads, and with the strategies for expressing how much pragmatic slack (Lasersohn 1999) is available in computing denotations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on one of the crucial aspects that differentiates Italian and Finnish: the way to express definiteness and indefiniteness. Italian is a typical article-language whereas Finnish has no such means to convey definiteness or indefiniteness, but other linguistic strategies can be optionally used. After presenting the main characteristics of Italian and Finnish we will discuss which can be the challenges in translation and for language learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to examine a contaminated sentence as a realization of blending of propositions. Each proposition in a language generally has one realization, a sentence, and this realization has one basic order of components. It notes that several characteristics of the Finnish existential sentences and certain other sentences justify to remove these problematic expressions into the field of text grammar. The surface form of these propositions consists of some embedded parataxis of sentences.

This squib investigates the nature of the phenomenon of isomorphism, which expresses the observation that young children, unlike adults, display a strong preference for the interpretation of sentences containing negation and quantified noun phrase (NPs) that corresponds to the surface syntactic position of these scope-taking operators. The authors focus on sentences containing negation and indefinite objects. Based on the intuition that indefinites can give rise to what has been called either a presuppositional/quantificational or a cardinal interpretation, they propose that isomorphism, as it pertains to indefinite objects, arises when children fail to select the so-called presuppositional interpretation of the NP and its associated logical representation. This account predicts that when plain NPs like some Ns and two Ns are replaced by inherently presuppositional ones, such as partitives, children should be more likely to access the nonisomorphic, wide-scope interpretation of the indefinite objects with respect to negation. This prediction is tested and verified in two experiments designed to assess young children's interpretation of sentences containing negation and partitive NPs in object position.

In this pilot work, we are going to discuss several aspects concerning the Albanian language spoken in the Italian territory by immigrants of different generations. After an excursus on heritage languages in general, and Albanian as a heritage language in particular, we present the results of both a sociolinguistic and a linguistic survey conducted among some Albanian immigrants in Italy. The former aims at investigating the contexts of use of Albanian and Italian languages, the participants' competence in both of them and their attitude towards code-switching. The latter is focused on the participants' judgments of the acceptability of different types of mixed Italian–Albanian DPs, i.e., DPs where D and N are expressed in different languages, and the theoretical implications that emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a case study of a definiteness split in a language in which three different types of nominal expressions are available for definite descriptions. The article contributes ample empirical data and comprises a close investigation of the patterns found in Reunion Creole (Réyoné), the language under study. Réyoné displays one kind of contrast also found in other languages which is frequently analyzed in terms of semantic versus pragmatic definiteness (following Löbner) or uniqueness versus familiarity (following Schwarz). What sets Réyoné apart from other languages though, is that it features a determiner that is dedicated to functional concepts. The language thereby distinguishes individual from functional concepts: the former type (the sun; the News) is exclusively expressed by bare noun phrases, while functional concepts – definite descriptions with functional head nouns (prefect of y; head of y), including a subtype of bridging reference, as well as compositionally created functional relations such as superlatives – are realized by lo-marked noun phrases. These facts offer strong support for Löbner's theory. The article also discusses demonstrative descriptions, which have already been reported to play a role in certain definiteness splits, and which are obligatory with sortal concepts in Réyoné. It is argued that demonstratives are pragmatic definites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores a learning model for acquiring a variety of null and non-null-subject languages (i.e., consistent, partial, semi and non-null-subject languages). This model builds upon a version of the Null Subject Parameter(s) based on the "Borer-Chomsky Conjecture" (BCC), which assumes that the presence or absence of a D(definiteness)-feature in different functional heads, together with EPP (Extended projection principle) related features, account for the distributions of null subjects in a complex typology of (non-)null-subject languages. This BCC-based learning model assumes the hypothesis that children, in order to learn the pattern of null subjects in their language, need to look at the morphology of functional elements. By reviewing acquisition studies, I examine whether the model is compatible with the data. I argue that there is no evidence of parameter missetting in any of the languages examined, and that children's early sensitivity to functional elements suggests that the BCC-based learning model is a suitable theory for the acquisition of null subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genitive in languages like Czech, German, Japanese or Latin is notoriously multiply ambiguous. Some senses (partitive, possessive, relational, objective) are more or less well-studied, but one, in particular, is understudied: the explicative genitive (also called the genitive of apposition or of definition). I discuss this genitive across several languages and argue that it encodes the inverse of the function that the definite article is standardly taken to encode. Like the definite article, the explicative genitive (also: the EG) is polymorphic, taking arguments of a wide range of logical types. I further argue that many cases of apposition involve the EG meaning, more specifically, that so-called close apposition should be modeled in terms of a covert EG. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Nasleđe is the property of University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Philology & Arts 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.)

Recent investigations of the constraints on the scope of Comparative Quantifier Phrases (CQPs) (Takahashi 2006 ; Mayr & Spector 2012 ; Fleisher 2015) have revealed a puzzle: while CQPs give the appearance of behaving like typical generalized quantifier phrases in some environments, they seem to have a more restricted scopal range than other quantificational phrases, apparently resisting inverse scope over indefinite subjects, except in certain discourse contexts. In this paper, we present a set of three experiments probing the scope of object CQPs relative to a singular indefinite in subject position. Based on the results, make two major contributions. First, we demonstrate that CQPs in object position can uncontroversially take wide scope over an indefinite subject, thereby revealing that they have a wider scopal range than has been assumed based on introspection, and than the current decompositional accounts on the market allow. Second, we identify two factors related to processing scopally ambiguous sentences and three specific factors that affect the accessibility availability of the inverse scope reading: the form of the subject indefinite, the form of the object CQP, and the felicity conditions supporting the use of a CQP. Our results thus underscore the features of the optimal contexts for examining the full scopal range of quantificational phrases more generally. We propose that the varied scopal behavior of object CQPs in particular are related to their post-suppositional cardinality requirements (Brasoveanu 2013), which interact with independently motivated processing preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optionality is an issue within the minimalist theory of language, in which the principle of the "last resort" does not admit competing options to express the same meaning. What is needed is a solid empirical base showing that apparently competing forms do specialize for some syntactic/semantic traits. Hence, the aim of this pilot study is to investigate optionality in the choice of competing indefinite determiners in Piacentine, an Italo-Romance variety spoken in north-western Italy. Sixteen native Piacentine speakers were presented with a questionnaire to collect linguistic data. Statistical analyses of the data were performed to seek correlations between the choice of the indefinite determiners and some syntactic/semantic traits that were controlled for. The results indicate that Piacentine displays four main determiners, labeled ART, di+art, bare di, and ZERO. ART and di+art are the most widespread determiners allowing both narrow and wide scope and occurring in all the investigated contexts. Bare di is instead the unmarked form for expressing non-existential indefiniteness in negative contexts and only has narrow scope. ZERO co-varies with bare di, and its use was strengthened by contact with Italian, preventing its loss, differently from French, which lost ZERO instead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines two different strategies found in direct object encoding on the basis of a sample of 159 languages. In particular, this paper deals with the differences between symmetric (i.e. the alternation between two or more overt markers) and asymmetric (i.e. the alternation between a zero and one of more overt markers) alternations. The investigation is aimed at determining whether there are any evident cross-linguistic regularities with respect to the factors involved in these two kinds of alternation. It will be argued that the difference in the formal realization of direct object encoding is related to the distinct functions that these two structures perform cross-linguistically.While asymmetric alternations are regulated by referential properties of the direct object referent, symmetric alternations are governed by parameters related to verbal semantics, such as affectedness and boundedness, polarity, and quantification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Estonian & Finno-Ugric Linguistics / Eesti ja Soome-ugri Keeleteaduse Ajakiri is the property of University of Tartu Press 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 investigates the syntactic–pragmatic behavior of two expletive-like elements, namely a and chiru, in Fornese and Cilentano, two Romance varieties spoken in Northern and Southern Italy, respectively. We argue that a and chiru are not bona fide expletive subjects but discourse-pragmatic expletives, which mark zero aboutness or the absence of an aboutness referent in an utterance. The investigation of Fornese and Cilentano points towards the existence of a sub-class of null-subject languages where aboutness as a discourse feature must be structurally satisfied by merging an overt or null topic in the syntactic spine of the clause. In the absence of such an element—for example, in thetic clauses—a discourse-pragmatic expletive is externally merged as a last-resort strategy to satisfy [uAboutness]. We argue that, in these null-subject languages, the satisfaction of the discourse feature [uAboutness] is an LF requirement, which is subject to a parametric choice. We show that, in Fornese, "default" [aboutness] is satisfied in SubjP, which is the canonical syntactic position for overt subjects within a cartographic approach. In Cilentano, on the other hand, [aboutness] is satisfied in a higher position within the C-domain, namely ShiftP, the canonical syntactic position that hosts overt aboutness/shift topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Vox Romanica: Annales Helvetici Explorandis Linguis Romanicis Destinati is the property of Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH & Co.KG 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 Journal of Estonian & Finno-Ugric Linguistics / Eesti ja Soome-ugri Keeleteaduse Ajakiri is the property of University of Tartu Press 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 Journal of Estonian & Finno-Ugric Linguistics / Eesti ja Soome-ugri Keeleteaduse Ajakiri is the property of University of Tartu Press 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.)

Like many other languages, in Finnish the alternative conjunction vai ('or') can be used in a turn-final position without the presence of an (explicit) alternative. This article discusses the contribution of turn-final vai 'or' in requests for confirmation. It argues that there are two main contexts of use. The forward-looking vai -turn seeks confirmation for something that is not based on the previous talk. In this case, vai marks the content of the question as merely one possible alternative. In backward-looking use, the vai -turn offers an interpretation of something that was implied in the previous talk and typically contrasts with a previously held, alternative assumption. The former type enables a (dis)confirmation with elaboration, whereas the latter type makes relevant a (dis)confirmation with minimal specification/explanation. The study contributes to the cross-linguistic research on turn-final particles and specifically, the particle 'or'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the syntax of two unaccusative verbs in Polish – ubyć.perf/ubywać.imperf 'to disappear, to decrease' and przybyć.perf/przybywać.imperf 'to arrive, to increase' – with a view to shedding light on the structure of existential unaccusatives. The two above-mentioned verbs appear in two distinct paradigms – the disappearance/motion verb and the existential one – both of which are taken to represent subtypes of existential structure. Existential verbs are treated here as monadic predicates with a single small clause complement, whose internal structure may vary, depending on the predicate. The two existential unaccusatives analysed in the paper may select two different types of small clause complement, which are different from the small clause selected by the existential być 'to be'. Thus, Polish seems to make use of three different small clause structures in existential clauses. The paper also provides evidence that in Polish, like in English, existential unaccusatives are structurally distinct from change of state unaccusatives, and thus in the two languages there is more than one way to be structurally unaccusative. The account bears on the analysis of the genitive of negation in Polish, especially the issue of its inapplicability to existential unaccusatives versus its presence with the existential być 'to be'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like many other Oceanic and Kanak languages of New Caledonia, Zuanga-Yuanga [ZY] has classifiers restricted to the possession of nouns denoting food, drink, animals and plants; it also has dichotomous direct and indirect adnominal possessive constructions, which are generally labeled inalienable or alienable in the Oceanic literature. These terms refer to a distinction between close versus distant structural marking, which do not strictly correlate with lexical-semantic categories. For instance, kinship nouns are split over the two types of constructions, distinguishing reference from address kinship terms, not in terms of semantic distinctions between close versus distant kinship types. The split for body-part nouns is between directly possessed dedicated terms and indirectly possessed metaphorical body terms, not in terms of permanent versus removable parts, or temporary body properties. In ZY possessive constructions correlate with fairly strict possessee noun classes belonging to one single structural class (directly or indirectly marked). Only a limited number of nouns denoting parts-of-whole have alternate constructions expressing different semantic relations to the possessed noun. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Lähivõrdlusi / Lähivertailuja is the property of Eesti Rakenduslingvistika Uhing (ERU) / Estonian Association for Applied Linguistics 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.)

Proportional quantification and progressive aspect interact in English in revealing ways. This paper investigates these interactions and draws conclusions about the semantics of the progressive and telicity. In the scope of the progressive, the proportion named by a proportionality quantifier (e.g. most in The software was detecting most errors) must hold in every subevent of the event so described, indicating that a predicate in the scope of the progressive is interpreted as an internally homogeneous activity. Such an activity interpretation is argued to be available for telic predicates (e.g. cross the street) because these receive a partitive interpretation except in combination with a completive operator, which asserts that the event so described has culminated. The obligatoriness of the completive operator in the preterit is shown to parametrically distinguish those languages that show completion entailments in the preterit, e.g. English, from those that do not, e.g. Malagasy, Hindi, and Japanese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the sequel of "Quantificatori generalizzati e logica del primo ordine - I". In that paper I argued that from the point of view of Generalized Quantifier theory one can single out some classes of quantifiers that cannot be identified by first order logic. The discovery of these classes is important because it allows to explain some regularities observed in natural language: in some contexts, only the quantifiers of one of these classes may appear. In this paper I examine existential and partitive contexts in particular. Existential contexts are those in which a NP follows the expression "there is/are...". I show that only one of the three types of quantifiers singled out in the first part of this work is allowed in these contexts, while the other two are not. I try to explain why this happens on the basis of the characterization of those classes I gave in the first paper. Partitive contexts are those of the type "NP1 of NP2". Only the NPs determined by one of identified classes of quantifiers are allowed in NP2 position. Again I try to explain why. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Estonian clauses can be divided into two basic patterns: unmarked basic clauses and marked basic clauses, depending on whether the clause-initial topic is the subject or not. The main clausal topic of the unmarked basic clause has the typical coding and behavioural properties of the subject. The main clausal topic of the marked basic clauses is less grammaticalized than in the case of the unmarked basic clause. It may be realized not as a prototypical grammatical subject but as an adverbial (or an oblique or a direct object). If the sentence has the subject, it is a non-prototypical subject and its neutral position is after the verb (basic word order XVS). The main types of marked basic clauses include existential, possessive, source-marking resultative, and experiential clauses. The marked possessive, resultative and experiential clauses have their counterparts among unmarked clauses. Current trends in language use show expanding use of unmarked possessive and experiential basic clauses at the expense of marked clauses. This could be seen both as a language contact- induced shift from the Finno-Ugric clause patterns towards Standard Average European (SAE) patterns and as (just) simplification of the internal structure of the language. Resultative constructions show a tendency to use the focussed clause-final subject in both clause patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Typological studies have repeatedly expressed doubt about the possibility of relative clause markers grammaticalizing from possessive markers. At the same time, cross-linguistic studies of attribution have provided substantial evidence for markers of adjectival attribution deriving from possessive markers. Given that simple adjectival attributive constructions are accepted to expand readily into relative clause constructions, there is an apparent discordance in the typological literature on the diachronic sources of their markers. Using data from the Timor-Alor-Pantar languages of south-eastern Wallacea, the present article argues that the link between possessive and relative clause markers, by way of an adjectival attributive marker, should also be uncontroversial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The terminological principles and methods of terminological lexicography are the guidelines which are followed not only by subcommittees and working groups of the International Standardization of Organization (ISO) Terminology Technical Committees but also by national and international commissions of technical organizations preparing the terminology of their field of activity. The worldwide application of ISO principles and methods should allow terminological data to be made compatible for exchange purposes. Compatibility of terminological data is required for the functioning of a network of co-operating terminological agencies which is being developed by Infoterm.

This article aims to examine Plautine style systematically, based on distributional criteria and statistics. It looks at the various means that Plautus can utilize in order to characterize a passage as archaic or colloquial. When Plautus wants to sound old-fashioned, he relies on morphology, while he has more varied ways of marking a passage as colloquial. There is a reason for this asymmetry: speakers of any language have access to colloquial registers on a day-to-day basis and can draw on phonology, morphology, and syntax, but archaic registers are acquired from written sources, and here it is morphology that stands out to readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Unsociable individual, male, polymathic, 47, desires correspondence with an intelligent, thoughtful, feminine (not feminist) woman." — New York Review of Books , May 26, 1994 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics is the property of Nordic Council for Reindeer Husbandry Research 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 Revista Pensamiento Americano is the property of Corporacion Universitaria Americana 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 study characterizes the descriptive and theoretical properties of scrambling in Central Kurdish. Scrambling denotes a phenomenon or a process by which constituents of a clause are displaced from their original and unmarked positions and are placed in other positions in the sentence. Following the tenets and concepts as currently assumed in work within the framework of the Minimalist Program, the study answers questions that are related to the types of constituents that may undergo scrambling in the language, the nature of the movement types and positions involved, and the semantic-discourse import of scrambled constituents. Arguments and adjuncts in Central Kurdish may undergo displacement as a result of scrambling, and the syntactic categories affected by scrambling are DP, PP, VP, and adjunct CPs. As the language displays all three of short-distance, mid-distance and long-distance scrambling, several diagnostic tests such as binding, crossover effects, and parasitic gaps were applied to find out the nature of movement for each type of scrambling. In terms of the semantic - discourse import, it was found that scrambling in Central Kurdish does not alter the compositional semantics of the sentences, but it gives rise to new discourse interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a review of a work which aims at critically analysing the grammatical codification of the Romanian language in the latest academic treatises (GALR, 2000/2006; GBLR. 2005/2010). Ștefan Găitănaru, the author of the Gramatica critică a limbii române, române ('The Critical Grammar of the Romanian Language'), published by the University of Pitești, examines the arguments for various innovations in the interpretation of language facts, proposing counterarguments and providing his own interpretations related to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with estimative (also called 'tropative') constructions meaning 'find/consider X to be Y', where Y stands for a noun or an adjective. It systematically investigates morphological estimatives and their relationship to causative, applicative and denominal derivations from synchronic and diachronic perspectives. In addition, the article presents a survey of periphrastic estimative strategies in the world's languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses several problematic scientific practices in psycholinguistic research. We discuss challenges that arise when working with minority languages, such as the notion of monolingual/monocultural normality and its historical origins, the stereotype of native-speakerism, the quest for testing people who fit specific profiles, the implications of the policy that urges scholars to match bilingual groups to monolingual comparison groups, and the use of powerful theoretical narratives that may evoke problematic labels and ableist terminology. These issues invest the field of psycholinguistics with questionable practices that contribute to the marginalization of groups that do not tick the standard normative boxes. Surveying some of the most widespread scientific practices in the field of psycholinguistics, our emphasis is on how several processes and policies may embody stereotypes that contribute to the exclusion of certain groups from the scientific literature, with grievous consequences for the visibility and the representation of some minoritized languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dominant tradition in analytic philosophy of language views reference as paradigmatically enabled by the acquisition of words from other speakers. Via chains of transmission, these words connect the referrer to the referent. Such a picture assumes the notion of a word as a stable mapping between sound and meaning. Utterances are constructed out of such stable mappings. While this picture of language is both intuitive and historically distinguished, various trends and programs that have developed over the last few decades in theoretical linguistics suggest an alternative. According to these approaches, the word, conceived of as a linguistic 'building block', has no special theoretical significance. While natural language systems generate structures mapping sounds onto meanings, they need not do so by composing elements which themselves specify such mappings. I shall describe some of these developments, and show how they pose a problem for traditional philosophical views of language and communication, before identifying an alternative approach to reference which does not rely on this common‐sense picture of words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous experimental work on the processing of clausal ellipsis with contrastive remnants shows a Locality preference – DP remnants are preferentially paired with the most recently encountered DP correlate in the antecedent clause, even in the presence of contrastive prosody or semantic bias favouring a non-local correlate. The Locality effect has been argued to arise from the language processor consulting (default) information-structural representations when pairing remnants and correlates, yet direct evidence for the information structure hypothesis for Locality has been difficult to obtain. Estonian is a flexible word order language that optionally marks Contrastive Topics (CTs) syntactically, while allowing for the linear distance between a CT subject correlate and remnant to be held constant, in order to rule out a Recency explanation for the Locality effect. In an eye-tracking during reading experiment with case-disambiguated subject and object remnants in Estonian, we see asymmetries in the Locality preference (i.e. object advantage) following canonical Verb-second antecedent clauses and subject CT-marking Verb-third clauses. This provides novel evidence for fine-grained information-structural representations guiding the processing of contrastive ellipsis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This investigation offers an analysis of crosslinguistic variation in the expression of clausal negative concomitance (e.g. 'he slept without using a pillow') in a sample of 65 languages, showing that most languages in the sample tend to use conjunctions and converbs for indicating clausal negative concomitance. The discussion of clause-linkage patterns reveals that most languages have monofunctional devices for signaling clausal negative concomitance. Intriguingly, even when languages employ a clause-linking device for conveying clausal negative concomitance, negative markers may play an important role in that they may be obligatory, optional, or disallowed in the 'without V-ing' clause. It is proposed that whether the clause-linking device is semantically monofunctional or polyfunctional is the key to this puzzle. The paper also shows that most languages in the sample tend to signal clausal negative concomitance and nominal negative concomitance (e.g. 'you took a basket without holes') in the same way. This indicates a diachronic connection between these constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]