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This paper analyzes the mechanisms of syntactic and semantic change involved in the development of the degree modifieralgo“a bit, a little” in Spanish from an indefinite pronoun with inanimate reference meaning “something”. Specifically, it focuses on the distribution of the pronoun in the Medieval and Classical periods of Spanish and its interpretation in partitive and pseudo-partitive constructions. I argue for combination of structural and pragmatic factors in the creation of the degree modifier and relate this change to other diachronic developments of indefinites across languages. I also discuss implications for models of the distribution of degree modifiers crosslinguistically.

In this paper, we focus on two constructions that allow preverbal subjects headed by a so-called partitive article in French, that is, sentences with a stage-level predicate and generic emphatic constructions. The aim is to explain why their counterparts were generally not accepted by speakers of Francoprovençal, an endangered and understudied Gallo-Romance language, in a translation task carried out in fieldwork in the Aosta Valley in Italy (Ihsane 2018, Stark & Gerards 2020). To account for our results, we propose that preverbal subjects in the two languages have different statuses and develop the typology of languages postulated by Dobrovie-Sorin & Laca (2003): we argue that there are more than two types of languages when it comes to the status of preverbal subjects and that Francoprovençal differs not only from French (Ihsane 2018), but also from languages like Spanish: it generally has topical subjects like Spanish but also allows some subjects that represent new information to occur preverbally. In contrast to French, however, this option is restricted to nominals that reach a certain degree of referential givenness (Gundel 2003).

Constructions that question kinds have been discussed widely in Germanic, Slavic, and Baltic, but English and earlier stages of English have mostly been overlooked. This paper presents data on kind questioning constructions in English, followed by an analysis of these constructions. The Old English what followed by a partitive genitive noun, labeled the ‘what partitive construction’ (WPC), questions the kind and, unlike in other languages, it also questions the number of the noun. I analyze the WPC as including an unpronounced noun that heads the DP, as is evident from the agreement on the verb. In Middle English, an overt light noun (e.g., kind and number) replaces the WPC which initially functions as the head of the entire DP but later grammaticalizes into a higher functional category. There is also a stage with a ‘what for construction’ (WFC) but, unlike in the history of German, the English WFC appears a few centuries after the loss of the WPC, seems unrelated to the WPC, and is not long-lived. The analysis of the English WFC involves a PredP, adapting ideas from earlier proposals. The main contribution of the paper is to present a new set of data and a synchronic analysis for them.

This paper describes an exploratory approach to two related aspectual phenomena, non-culminating accomplishments and non-culminating construals of implied-result verbs, in the Bantu languages Xhosa and Nyakyusa. While documented for a diverse array of languages, leading to the identification of some cross-linguistic commonalities and axes of variation, these phenomena have so far not been studied for any continental African language. Both Xhosa and Nyakyusa license non-culminating accomplishments but differ regarding the felicity of such construals with different sub-types of accomplishments in relation to event progress, a decisive factor being that Nyakyusa possesses verbal partitive morphology. Concerning the non-culmination of implied-result verbs, both languages show such readings and support prior cross-linguistic findings that zero change readings are more readily available with agentive subjects. The data further point to the potential role of causative morphology as a parameter of variation to be considered in further comparative research on these verbs.

The article deals with the visual perception layer in Muriel Spark’s short story “The Dark Glasses” with the aim of carrying out a conceptual analysis of this text. Meaning generation models have already been demonstrated as multilayer non-homogeneous structures describing different points of view and different narrative layers in B. Uspensky’s, G. Genette’s and W. Schmid’s theories. The text as a complex structural language unit can, like the word, vary in different semantic fields. This article presents the spatial, temporal, ideological, and linguistic narrative layers according to the dominant visual perception layer in the protagonist-narrator’s internal point of view expressed in the story. The perceptual layer is demonstrated on the basis of the cognitive process in visual perception, namely, the optic array and human perceptual system. The optic array is implied in the story’s composition as a framed closed structure comprising two texts: the frame and the embedded text. Both of them follow the subject-object model of perception and are organized according to the principles of reflectivity, doubling, and copying. The perceptual system is expressed through various language units: simple verbal predicates see, look and a set of verbs of perception, substantives eyes, glasses and their direct (initial) and figurative meanings, colour terms based on adjectives in descriptions of the characters, as well as conceptual archetypal visual metaphors from the light–dark family, and metonymies based on causal and partitive semantic relations. For citation: Zhanturina B.N. Perceptual Narrative Layer in Muriel Spark’s Story “The Dark Glasses”. Vestnik Severnogo (Arkticheskogo) federal’nogo universiteta. Ser.: Gumanitarnye i sotsial’nye nauki, 2021, no. 1, pp. 41–49. DOI: 10.37482/2687-1505-V073

This paper proposes a syntactic analysis of the complex phenomenon of pronominal object fronting in negated clauses in Late Archaic Chinese (LAC). I first propose that partitive case is assigned to objects in LAC negated clauses, accounting for the fact that only pronouns in LAC undergo fronting, since they have a person feature and cannot be licensed by a defective case like partitive. I next identify the structural constraints accounting for when pronouns do and do not front in LAC negated clauses. In the context of the sentential negator 不 bu, only pronouns base generated in the verb’s complement position undergo fronting. I propose that the dislocation is head movement to the phase head v. This accounts for the large number of cases in which pronoun fronting fails to take place in the context of 不 bu. In contrast, pronouns nearly always front to the negative quantifier 莫 mo and the aspectual negator 未 wei. I show that this is because these negators occupy higher structural positions, which allows phrasal movement over a greater distance. I further show how the discrepancy between the two positions for negation is the result of diachronic change. 不 bu historically exhibited the same behavior as the other negators but came to occupy a lower position in the LAC period, which in turn resulted in the more local relationship between 不 bu and the base position of the pronominal object in LAC.

This article discusses the development of the contrastive-partitive function of the possessive =ešin colloquial Persian. Examples of colloquial Persian show that the third person singular clitic pronoun =ešin some adnominal possessive constructions does not refer to any obvious referent present either in the syntactic structure (co-text) or in the situational context. Instead, the function of =eš, namely contrastive-partitive, is to mark the host as a part and contrast it with other parts of the similar set. The same function is attested in a few languages of Uralic and Turkic group. We believe that the same development has been occurred in possessive =ešin Persian. To describe the process of the development of the contrastive-partitive function, authentic colloquial examples from Internet blogs and formal examples from a historical corpus of New Persian are investigated. It is argued that this non-possessive function of =ešhas originated from the whole-part relation in cross-referencing possessives, where both the lexical and clitical possessor =ešare present. The presence of the lexical possessor facilitates the loss of referentiality in =ešand it is developed to denote partitivity. Furthermore, the pragmatic motivation of communicating contrast makes =ešto be further grammaticalized into denoting contrastive-partitive function.

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.

The disappearance of inflexion -es from the noun groups denoting quantity or measure (eine Tasse Tees > eine Tasse Tee) is in the focus of the article. In the groups without distribution partitive genitive was dropped in the XVIII century already. However, the genitive remains in the groups extended by attributes. In contemporary German there are several syntactic types of such groups. Groups with attribution can be formed by means of the genitive case (ein Glas warmer Milch), prepositions (Hunderte von jungen Mädchen), cordination of both nouns in case (einen Becher heißen Tee) and attachment (mit einem Strauß schöne Blumen). A corpus of examples from the press of Switzerland is adduced in the article to demonstrate the dependence of syntactic construction on the semantics of nouns denoting quantity. All quantitative nouns have been divided into three groups: Squant 1 noun by the designation of the numbers (Paar, Dutzend, Hundert, Drittel …); Squant 2 + Ssg and Squant 2 + Spl noun c by the designation of a measure and quantity (Gramm, Liter, Pfund, Stück, Glas, Flasche…); Squant 3 the noun, designating totalities of the living beings and objects (Gruppe, Mannschaft, Herde, Schaar, Schwarm, Bukett, Strauß). The study has showed that not only has the genitive not disappeared from the analyzed groups but it also remains in certain cases a predominant form of subordination.

In this article we analyze partitive objects under negation (NPOs) in the Northern Italian dialectal (NID) domain and discuss their diachronic and synchronic relation with both partitive constructions and partitive articles. We take into exam the areal distribution of the phenomenon, its syntactic variation and the different factors that regulate this variation. The main claim of the paper is that NPOs in the NIDs are a special type of grammaticalized partitive constructions, where negation licenses a silent quantifier and the preposition expresses extraction from a ‘whole’. In other words, the development of NPOs is similar to that of partitive articles, but they have not lost the partitive meaning. This explains why they appear only with plurals and singular mass nouns.

The traditional philological literature on Sardinian claims that Sardinian has a “partitive object” construction, arguing that it is either inherited from Latin or due to Catalan influence. Under closer examination, however, the construction at issue turns out to be a common Romance clitic right dislocation (CLRD) structure involving the prepositiondeand a partitive clitic. The article presents the syntactic distribution of this Sardinian construction and its clitic left dislocation (CLLD) counterpart and compares it to similar structures in French, Catalan, and Italian. The result is that the structure appears in all these languages when a bare NP is dislocated, including split-QP/NumP/NP constructions: In all these languages, the dislocated indefinite NP is marked byde/diand a partitive clitic (Sardiniannde, Frenchen, Italianne, Catalanen/ne) shows up. The article ends with a Minimalist analysis, in which clitics are the spell-out of a probe in v that triggers movement of a complement to the specifier of vP to overcome a phase boundary. In this account, a probe that targets indefinite NPs assigns partitive case, while the probe itself is spelled out as a partitive clitic. While taking Sardinian as a starting point, the article bears on more general issues and unveils a common mechanism in one group of Romance languages.

This paper explores the hypothesis of contact-induced change for the rise of the partitive case in Finnic languages and of the partitive case/determiner in Basque. On the basis of the well-established Indo-European partitive-genitive case and taking into account the lack of such a basis on the Uralic side, we argue that the partitive case in Finnic languages has arisen as a result of Balto-Slavic influence. Concerning the Basque partitive determiner, we likewise suggest a contact scenario (with Romance languages) as being responsible for the development of an entire system of determiners, including the definite and possibly the indefinite article as well as the partitive marker, which originates in an old ablative ending but crucially lacks the morphological properties characteristic of Basque inflectional markers.

Toetudes eesti keele uhendkorpuse materjalidele, tutvustatakse artiklis regulaarset (lause aspektist soltuvat) ja ebaregulaarset (ka/voi muudest teguritest soltuvat) objekti vormivaheldust ja seda voimaldavaid, aspektverbidena kaituvaid verbe. Regulaarsena kasitletakse aspektverbide voi nende eritahendus(t)e) ning modifitseerivate elementide tottu aspektverbidena kaituvate partitiiv- ja perfektiivverbide aspekti eristavat kaandevaheldust. Ebaregulaarsuse juhtumitest on vaatluse all pusiuhendi struktuurist tingitud, verbi tahendusi eristav, neutraalset aspekti tahistav ja objektfraasi leksikaalsemantilisest koosseisust soltuv kaandevaheldus. *** Estonian transitive verbs facing choices Estonian transitive verbs are traditionally divided into partitive, aspect, and perfective verbs. While the classic definitions state that partitive verbs are to express imperfective aspect and to be applied with partitive objects only, and perfective verbs to appear with total objects in genitive or nominative cases, both verb types may allow differentional object case alternation (DOM) under certain circumstances. Object case alternation could be seen as regular (or distinguishing aspect) and non-regular (e.g., differentiating meanings of a verb, depending on context, object features, ‘neutral’ aspect, or the structure of a fixed expression). All these cases are analysed in the article based on the Estonian National Corpus 2017 materials.

Child-level factors such as input quantity and quality have received little attention by studies of bilingual language acquisition in situations of societal bilingualism. The present study addresses this gap by investigating the acquisition of quantified partitivity in Catalan-Spanish bilingualism. The two languages present different licensing conditions for noun ellipsis in quantified partitive objects: Catalan requires quantitative clitic en whereas Spanish requires only the quantifier. Bilingual participants (N = 338), ages 4–9, were administered two Oral Production Tasks, one for each language. Analyses of participants’ responses showed that a different combination of child-level factors accounted for their performance in each language, revealing dominance effects. Once participants were classified into three groups (Catalan-dominant, Balanced bilingual, and Spanish-dominant) according to their language dominance, between-group differences were found in each language with respect to the acquisition timeline of the respective structure.

The concept of semantic rhythm as the vehicle of making abstraction of an artistic text enables the detection of intentionality and artistic aims inherent for the text. It is the conflict of automatism and intentionality that becomes its basis and enables the widening of rhythmic properties over the macroscopic dimension of a whole work. The rhythmic effects are displayed through the centralization of the semantic space of a text with accentuation (the field structure), through the formation of closed cycles as the textual units and with the rise of distant connections between the remote textual segments. Rhythm is conceived as a non-linear multidimensional phenomenon where the components manifested in text permanently coexist and interact with the latent ones. Semantic rhythm is a particular abstraction, together with the textual semantic net, that is peculiar for its personal location (especially authorization) and positional localization. The relation “part — whole” becomes more important than that of “genus — species” (predicate — subject) determining thus the constructive role of details. This enables describing the semantic rhythm with the names that are reconceived as the partitive designations of some entirety, the rhetoric figure of hendiadys being here taken as an example. The rows of details become the forces of making up textual cycles where the feedback (recursion) between textual components arises as the revelation of its purposefulness. The seclusion of such cycles contributes to the formation of particular textual space and time. It is the subtext that is to be traced behind the interconnection of such cyclic textual elements that they refer to involving thus latent information in the interpretation of a text. The interpretative mission of the rhythmic cycles of details determines their importance for theatre as the instrument of the disclosure of dramatis personae’s intentions that the text of a dramatic play contains. It is in the concept of semantic rhythm as an intentional object that the approaches and experiences of musicology, theatrical study and philology display their mutuality as separate branches of researches of a complex problem.

Augment-less NPs in Xhosa and de NPs like de chevaux ‘of horses’ have strikingly similar properties. It seems that the properties of de NPs reflect the absence of the definite article les which combines with de to form the so-called partitive article des chevaux ‘some horses’. Taking the Xhosa augment to be similar (though not identical) to the French definite article, we account for the observed similarities between augment-less NPs and French de NPs.

This study reports an oral production experiment investigating the expression of existentiality in the Catalan of adult Catalan–Spanish early bilinguals (N= 58) with comparable proficiencies but different language dominance. The results show qualitative differences among the bilinguals in existential predicate selection and in their supply of partitive pronouns, modulated by language dominance. Balanced Bilinguals as well as Spanish-dominant bilinguals significantly produced moreestar(in detriment ofser-hiandhaver-hi) not only in locative contexts, where Catalan already presents optionality regulated by semantic differences, but also in existential constructions, where this optionality does not exist. We argue forindirectcrosslinguistic influence (CLI), when the bilingualperceivescertain structural overlap within constructions, mediating the influence from one structure to another one and expanding the limits of CLI. The qualitative differences found among bilinguals challenge the idea of a bilingualism continuum in Catalan–Spanish bilingualism with an identical mental representation.

The paper examines a class of Estonian transitive verbs referred to as ‘partitive verbs’: verbs that appear with partitive-marked objects. This class is more heterogeneous than previously assumed. Firstly, there are verbs that cannot have total (accusative) objects. Secondly, there are verbs that can have total objects in lexically restricted combinations. Thirdly, some verbs combine freely with a boundarymarking element. Finally, there is a group of less studied verbs that normally represent unbounded situations but nevertheless allow total object marking if the context highlights the boundary of a situation or result. We clarify the conditions of partitive verbs appearing with total objects, hoping to enhance Estonian L2 instruction and lexicography. *** Piiride seadmisest: partitiivverbid eesti verbiklassifikatsioonides Artiklis vaatleme eesti keele transitiivverbide klassifikatsioonides partitiivverbideks liigitatud verbe, keskendudes nn pehmetele partitiivverbidele. Kasutusnaidetest ilmneb, et pehmete partitiivverbide naol on tegemist heterogeensema verbiklassiga, kui on eelnevate uurimuste alusel jareldatud. Taiustame seniseid klassifikatsioone eesmargiga tapsustada verbide esitust eesti keele oppesonaraamatuis. Eristame partitiivverbide klassi, mis tuupjuhtudel valjendavad tulemuseta ja piiritlemata situatsioone, ent esinevad siiski ka totaalobjektiga, kui diskursuse kontekst tostab esile situatsiooni piirid ja tulemuse.

This paper concerns the superlative forms of the wordsmany,much,few, andlittle, and their equivalents in German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Dalecarlian, Icelandic, and Faroese. It demon-strates that every possible relationship between definiteness marking and interpretation is attested. It also demonstrates that different kinds of agreement mismatches are found under relative and proportional readings. One consistent pattern is that under a relative interpretation, quantity superlatives with adverbial morphology show neuter singular agreement even if the target noun is plural. In contrast, under a proportional interpretation, quantity superlatives always agree in number. This evidence is taken to show that quantity superlatives are not structurally analogous to quality superlatives such astalleston either a relative or a proportional reading; however, depending on their interpretation, quantity superlatives depart from a plain attributive structure in different ways. On relative readings, they can have a structure akin to that of pseudo-partitives (as intwo liters of milk), while on proportional readings, they tend to have a quantificational structure, sometimes involving a true partitive (as insome of the children). Furthermore, I suggest that the agreement features of a quantity superlative depend on the domain from which the target is drawn (the Target-Domain Hypothesis).

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 inPijpops & 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 inFerreira, Bailey, & Ferraro (2002),Ferreira & Patson (2007), andDąbrowska (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.

Comparison expresses a relation involving two or more entities which are ordered on a scale with respect to a gradable property, called the parameter of comparison. In European languages, it is typically expressed through two constructions, comparatives and superlatives. Comparative constructions generally involve two entities, and indicate whether the compared entity shows a higher, lesser, or equal degree of the parameter with respect to the other entity, which is the standard of comparison. Superlatives set out one entity against a class of entities and indicate that the compared entity shows the highest or lowest degree of the parameter. Hence, comparatives may express either inequality (superiority or inferiority) or equality, whereas superlatives necessarily express superiority or inferiority. In traditional grammar, the terms comparative and superlative are primarily used to refer to the morphology of adjectives and adverbs in languages with synthetic marking (cf. Eng. slow, slower, slowest). However, while Latin has such synthetic marking, modern Romance languages no longer possess productive comparative or superlative suffixes. All Romance languages use analytic markers consisting of dedicated adverbs (e.g., Fr. plus ‘more’, moins ‘less’, aussi ‘as, also’) and determiners (e.g., Sp./It. tanto, Ro. atât ‘so much’). Superlatives are marked with the same markers and are mainly distinguished from comparatives by their association with definiteness. Another difference between comparatives and superlatives lies in the complements they license. Comparatives license a comparative complement, which may be clausal or phrasal, and which identifies the standard of comparison. As for superlatives, they license partitive PPs denoting the comparison set, which may be further specified by other PPs, a relative clause, or an infinitive clause. The Romance languages show many similarities with respect to the morphosyntactic encoding of comparatives and superlatives, but they also display important cross-linguistic differences. These differences may be related to the status of the comparative marker, the encoding of the standard marker, ellipsis phenomena in the comparative clause, and the dependence of the superlative on the definite article.

List of Figures and Tables Glosses and Abbreviations 1 Introduction Tabea Ihsane 2 The Rise and Fall of Partitive Markers in Some Germanic Varieties Thomas Strobel and Elvira Glaser 3 Bound To Be? Bare and Partitive-Marked Noun Phrases in Romance Languages and the Emergence of Prominence-Conditioned Patterns Hagay Schurr 4 Why "Partitive Articles" Do Not Exist in (Old) Spanish David Paul Gerards and Elisabeth Stark 5 Predicates of Personal Taste and Pancake Sentences in Brazilian Portuguese and French Fabienne Martin, Janayna Carvalho and Artemis Alexiadou 6 Negation, des-Indefinites in French and Bare Nouns across Languages Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin 7 Telicity, Specificity, and Complements with a Plural "Partitive Article" in French Tabea Ihsane 8 A Protocol for Indefinite Determiners in Italian and Italo-Romance Giuliana Giusti 9 "Partitive Articles" in Aosta Valley Francoprovencal-Old Questions and New Data Elisabeth Stark and David Paul Gerards Index

The purpose of this contribution is a comparative analysis of different “partitive markers” in the noun phrase of several Germanic varieties, with a special focus on areally peripheral non-standard or less standardized West Germanic varieties. Starting with the use of genitive case for the marking of partitive functions in various syntactic contexts in the older stages of German, we then take a closer look at those varieties for which the survival of at least some genitive forms and functions related to partitive meanings is reported in modern times. This is true for some Highest Alemannic dialects in Switzerland (Henzen 1932, 122–124; Szadrowsky 1937, 1940) and for Letzebuergesch, both the dialects and the Koine (Dohmer 2017).1 We would like to emphasize, however, that for Highest Alemannic recent data are lacking completely. While there is some recent research on the more widely existing pronominal remnants of partitive genitive forms (see Strobel 2017), there is in general much less information concerning the expression of partitivity within the noun phrase (see Glaser 1992, 1993; Grestenberger 2015)

In this paper, we analyze sentences with a des-complement, that is, a complement introduced by a so-called “partitive article” in the plural, and focus on the impact of this complement on the (a)telicity of the eventuality. Although des-complements generally occur in atelic sentences, we discuss some telic situations in which they are possible. To explain the acceptability of such sentences, we examine various semantic properties of these complements which could play a role in the telic interpretation, such as the presence/absence of an implicit quantity expression in the complement, their type of reference (quantized vs. cumulative; individuated) and specificity. We propose that the des-complements found in telic situations involve a quantity that is known and that this “knowledge” can be formalized in terms of epistemic specificity, as defined in Von Heusinger (2002a, 2002b and subsequent developments).

The Romance languages are characterized by the existence of pronominal clitics. Third person pronominal clitics are often, but not always, homophonous with the definite determiner series in the same language. Both pronominal and determiner clitics emerge early in child acquisition, but their path of development varies depending on clitic type and language. While determiner clitic acquisition is quite homogeneous across Romance, there is wide cross-linguistic variation for pronominal clitics (accusative vs. partitive vs. dative, first/second person vs. third person); the observed differences in acquisition correlate with syntactic differences between the pronouns. Acquisition of pronominal clitics is also affected if a language has both null objects and object clitics, as in European Portuguese. The interpretation of Romance pronominal clitics is generally target-like in child grammar, with absence of Pronoun Interpretation problems like those found in languages with strong pronouns. Studies on developmental language impairment show that, as in typical development, clitic production is subject to cross-linguistic variation. The divergent performance between determiners and pronominals in this population points to the syntactic (as opposed to phonological) nature of the deficit.

This paper focusses on the so-called partitive pronoun in French and Dutch, and the corresponding data in German, a language which is assumed not to have partitive pronouns in its standard, in contrast to certain dialectal varieties. Taking the diverse uses of the French partitive pronoun en as a starting point, we investigate the corresponding constructions in Dutch and German. The ultimate aim of the paper is to develop an analysis accounting for the similarities and differences between these languages in relation to the presence/absence of the partitive pronoun. To reach our objectives, we rely on data collected in a Grammaticality Judgment Test taken by native speakers of French, Dutch and German. We put together theory and experimental data in a crosslinguistic perspective investigating three languages that differ in their uses of partitive elements and formalize the results in a model in which the partitive pronoun can replace different portions of the nominal structure.

Section 11.1 pulls together themes from several earlier chapters. It presents an Iceberg semantic analysis of partitives. It gives a conservative semantics for measure comparison most. The section uses both of these to show that neat mass nouns allow measure comparison readings that are distinct from the measure comparision readings of corresponding partitives. This shows that the measure comparison readings of neat mass nouns cannot be attributed to downshifting, and, with that, the section clinches the argument that neat mass nouns and count nouns differ not just in a grammatical feature, but in their semantics.

This paper deals with a group of agentive verbs in Eastern dialects of Basque that show mixed unergative and unaccusative properties. Although they pattern with unergatives in certain aspects, they combine with an absolutive subject and the auxiliary ‘be’, contrary to what one would expect for Basque unergative verbs. Additionally, they behave like unaccusatives in a number of other tests, such as in their inability to take cognate objects and in allowing partitive subjects. The analysis put forward in this paper accounts for the hybrid nature of these verbs. In particular, we claim that their subject is introduced in the specifier of vP, and that it is co-indexed with a thematic but non-pronounced argument of Voice. As a consequence, the subject shows both external and internal properties. This paper thus challenges the mutually exclusive external/internal division of the subject in intransitive verbs and argues that intransitive verbs can be classified into more groups than just two, as also argued elsewhere. Additionally, it argues that the different types of intransitive verbs are grammatically encoded and shaped by different versions of Voice and v. Thus, this analysis assumes the typology of Voice proposed by Schäfer (2008) and developed by Alexiadou, Anagnostopoulou and Schäfer (2015), and extends it to the functional head v. In the case of Anna Pineda, this work has been supported by a postdoctoral research fellowship from the Beatriu de Pinós program of Catalonia’s Department of Economy and Knowledge (2014 BP_A 00165), a Juan de la Cierva-Incorporación fellowship from Spain’s Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (IJCI-2016-30474), and research-project funding from the same ministry (FFI2014-56968-C4-1-P). In the case of Ane Berro, the author acknowledges the research funding received from the Basque Government (IT1169-19), the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (PGC2018-096380-B-I00) and Agence National de la Recherche (ANR-17-CE27-0011-01).

Lithuanian and Finnish both have alternations in object marking involving the notion of partitivity. In Finnish, the case of the direct object of transitive verbs alternates between the accusative and the partitive. Partitive is the default case for the object of a transitive verb and a special feature is required for the assignment of the accusative. In Lithua­nian, the case of the direct object of transitive verbs alternates between the accusative and the partitive genitive. Some functions of the Finnish parti­tive and the Lithuanian partitive genitive in object marking are identical, but some are markedly different. This paper offers an overview of the fac­tors that have been discussed in the literature as affecting the use of parti­tive cases, and also a comparison of their relevance and relative ranking in Finnish and Lithuanian. Keywords: partitivity, object marking, partitive, genitive, accusative, Finnish, Lithuanian

This paper addresses the use of partitive determiners in Piedmontese as a case in point for the interplay of language variation and change in Italo-Romance. Firstly, a brief diachronic account will be provided of the development of partitive determiners in Piedmontese, ranging from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; such an overview will rely upon the results of recent studies on this subject. Next, the behavior of partitive determiners in contemporary Piedmontese will be examined; we will draw primarily on some unpublished materials collected within the ALEPO research program (ALEPO stands for Atlante linguistico ed etnografico del Piemonte Occidentale, “Linguistic and Ethnographic Atlas of Western Piedmont”), which consist of both responses to a questionnaire survey and spontaneous speech data. The study will help to shed light on the similarities and differences not only between different varieties of Piedmontese, but also between such varieties and Italian. The main paradigmatic differences identified will be argued to relate to two different ways of categorizing the relationship between mass nouns and countable plurals, one in which quantification prevails over classification, and the other in which classification is foregrounded. This state of affairs will then be discussed against the backdrop of the sociolinguistic situation under scrutiny, paying special attention to the contact between Piedmontese and Italian (as well as with French up to the end of the nineteenth century) and to the “superposition” of both an official standard language (i. e., Italian) and a regional koine (based on the variety of Turin) over local varieties of Piedmontese.

The article examines the results of the process of innovation taking place in the Russian vocabulary at the beginning of the 21st century. The author analyses semantic innovations which arose on the basis of metonymization in the Russian language during the indicated period. Besides, the article seeks to determine the degree of activity of various metonymizations in the development of secondary meanings in the Russian language in recent years. The innovations are classified according to productive metonymic models that appear in the process of their development. The classification is based on the concept of the syntagmatic and paradigmatic plan of metonymy. Within the paradigmatic metonymy, the genus-species and partitive types are considered; as regards the syntagmatic metonymy, the subordinate and coordinative type of metonymization are distinguished. For the purposes of better systematization, the categorical types of innovations (person, organization, subject, process) are isolated. As a result of the analysis, the genus-species paradigmatic metonymy appears to be the most active type of metonymy in the development of semantic innovations, and the syntagmatic metonymy (subordinate and coordinative) is much less productive. В статье рассматриваются результаты инновационного процесса, протекающего в области лексики русского языка в начале ХХІ века. Анализируются семантические инновации, возникшие на основе метонимизации в русском языке в указанный период. Определяется степень активности разновидностей метонимизации в развитии вторичных значений в русском языке в последние годы. Возникшие инновации классифицируются в зависимости от продуктивных метонимических моделей, проявляющихся в процессе их развития. Основой классификации служит концепция о синтагматическом и парадигматическом плане метонимии. В рамках парадигматической метонимии рассматриваются родо-видовой и партитивный типы, в рамках синтагматической выделяются субординативный и координативный типы метонимизации. В целях лучшей систематизации в изложении обособляются категориальные типы возникших инноваций (лицо, организация, предмет, процесс). В результате анализа устанавливается, что наиболее активным типом метонимизации в процессе развития семантических инноваций является родо-видовая парадигматическая метонимия, а синтагматическая метонимия (субординативная и координативная) намного менее продуктивна.

The paper examines how children quote their parents’ utterances. In other words, it investigates linguistic recycling as an aspect of language learning and how the child-directed speech (CDS) of adults influences child speech (CS). This topic is examined especially in the light of research made in the crosslinguistic project on pre- and protomorphology in language acquisition. Premorphology is characterized by rote-learned forms, which the child has memorized and stored as chunks from CDS (e.g., Finn vettä, Est vett ‘water,’ partitive form). During protomorphology, the child imitates CDS and produces analogical forms (e.g. Finn CDS: söi vs. CS: syöi ‘ate’, Est CDS: ütles vs. CS: ükki ‘said’), which then gradually evolve into adult-like grammar. Usage-based approaches to language acquisition rely on the assumption that language structures are learned from language use. Typical material in present-day child language research is based on tape recordings and transcripts made from these recordings. This kind of data makes it possible to take into account the influence of CDS to CS in a more accurate way than the earlier data collecting methods, such as diary material, which usually contains mostly utterances produced by the child do. The article examines how CDS gives models to CS and how the acquisition proceeds from early rote-learned forms to adult-like grammar from the perspective of frequency distributions of inflectional patterns and elaboration on linguistic forms in CDS – CS interaction. On the basis of analyzed speech samples and previous results, it is obvious that the quoting in children’s and adults’ speech is present on different levels of language and is often bidirectional in nature.

At the heart of this special issue are partitive elements (i. e., partitive articles, partitive pronouns, and partitive case markers) which can express different “shades” of partitivity, namely true partitivity, pseudopartitivity, or indefiniteness, that is, the absence of a part-whole relation in the meaning, in contrast to (pseudo)partitivity. Since these partitive elements express (at least) two such notions, as they can be truly partitive but often are not, the questions around partitivity are complex, interrelated and challenging. This special issue, with a strong and wide crosslinguistic (typological) coverage, deals with two overarching topics: first, the geographical distribution of partitive elements and the identification of potential instances of language contact, and, second, sometimes in combination with the first topic, the formal description and explanation of different partitive constructions.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an internal and an external structures of English Partitive Constructions (EPC). From the superficial level,...

The object of this research is partitive lexicon of the modern Russian language which is united by a complex of language characteristics confirming its field organization system. The subject of consideration is the semantic processes in the lexical-semantic field of partitive lexicon which is revealed by the analysis of the semas of modifications of values in the communicative act. The purpose of the article is to describe intraparcellative and interparcellative transfers of values in the lexical-semantic field of partitive lexicon. Methodology of the component and contextual analysis and also elements of a stylistic method are used. All these methods were applied according to the synchronous description of material. The finding of this research established that intra field variation of lexical-semantic options (25 types of transfers of values) represents its own system multi-scale, multidirectional and the multi-frequency of transfers of the values regulated by language requirements of this microstructure. The comparative tables showing a dynamic proportion of the directions the interparcellative processes and also range of rate of figurative uses included in the work. Analysing the variative relationship the author came to conclusion that almost all constituents of field have potential possibility to conduct intra field transfers of names. The most regular, frequent and divaricate process of variations are observed among high-frequency partitives of the second level of abstractness — elements of a zone of the near periphery. The practical value of results of the research is possible in respect of forecasting of the corresponding semantic innovations.

The article explores the semantic differences between three Slovak substantives expressing a short duration: chviľa , okamih , and minuta . The study was conducted using the material of the Slovak national corpus and is based on the analysis of collocations of the lexemes in question. The statistical parameters that were used are the data on absolute frequency and the indicators of the measure of association (t-score). We have analyzed the potential factors that could restrict the compatibility of the nouns chosen inside a genitive construction, as well as possible contextual differences in situations where restrictions on the compatibility are absent. Genitive constructions can have two possible meanings: partitive (part/whole relation) or temporal proper. In the first case, minuta differs from chviľa and okamih in that it has a specific target content. In the second case, each of the substantives is characterized by its basic compatibility area: for chviľa , it is combination with nouns denoting a period or a break not limited by a strictly initial or final phase; for okamih , combination with actions denoting a start or an appearance; for minuta , central role is given to genitive constructions with fixed final phase substantives. In combination with život and smrť substantives , contexts with chviľa focus on describing the situation directly from the position of the subject of perception, whereas contexts with okamih usually have it viewed by an outside observer. Thus, Slovak substantives of short duration form a system that is fundamentally different from the one used in the Russian language. In the Slovak system, personal time is opposed to social, and then the personal time is divided into irrational ( chviľa ) and rational ( okamih ) time. DOI: 10.31168/2305-6754.2018.7.2.12

This paper argues that nouns and names, as such, do not refer. Apparently-referring nouns and names have been converted lexically to determiners. Thus nouns and names participate in reference by virtue of dependency on a determiner, either in the syntax, as part of a determiner phrase, or lexically, by conversion. Determiners may be partitive (referring to a subset) or non-partitive (generic), and defi nite or non-defi nite; and various combinations of these subcategories may be expressed either by presence of an independent determiner or by conversion of a noun to a determiner. So, in English, for example, the cows is defi nite and partitive; but converted cows may be either non-defi nite (partitive or not) or defi nite non-partitive (generic). Apparently-referring nouns and names in English are paralleled in some other languages by expressions with a distinct determiner. In French, for instance, conversion is sparing and nouns typically appear with an accompanying determiner: So non-defi nite partitive cows corresponds to des vaches in French, and defi nite non-partitive cows to (one sense of) les vaches. Greek is intermediate in recourse to conversion. Presence of a determiner and conversion are considered to be alternative strategies (syntactic vs. lexical) for permitting nouns to participate in reference. In the absence of these, nouns are predicative, and languages again vary in how predicativity is expressed – though arguably again involving a determiner. Non-singular predicative nouns are often converted to a non-referential determiner. Singulars may or may not be accompanied by a singular non-referential determiner: compare Greek Ine δikiγoros (‘S/he is lawyer’) with English She is a lawyer. What follows concerns a topic intimately connected with early work of Torben Thrane, notably what was published as Thrane (1980). That particular volume originated in work done largely when Torben was a student of John Lyons, who had also been my PhD supervisor. I therefore thought it might be appropriate to pursue here some consequences of remarks of our former supervisor on the semantics of nouns. These emanate from that same period. 1