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The common reconstruction of *eh2- and devī́-type *ih2-stem singular nominatives as *-ah2 (< *-eh2) and *-ih2 includes no overt marking of the nonneuter nominative singular. Instead of taking this for granted and searching for a motivation in the history of those stems, we raise the possibility of a reconstruction with overt marking (*-āh2, *-īh2). In the second part, the distribution of some word-final vowel shortenings in the Rigveda is analysed in order to determine whether they correlate with the different origins of the vowels or not. The distributions prove interesting, and call for further investigation, but since shortening seems possible irrespective of the origin of the vowel, the Vedic evidence cannot help decide between the two possible reconstructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the ways tense, aspect, mood, and modality are marked in the Finisterre-Huon Papuan language Awara. Awara uses verbal suffixes for all of these, as well as employing multi-verb constructions for four aspectual distinctions. Two past tenses, the present tense, and one future tense are marked. Distinguishing between the present tense suffix and the homophonous imperfective aspect suffix is a thorny issue in Awara morphology. The suffixes marking mood and modality belong to two classes of irrealis suffixes, which are similar in form to irrealis suffixes of other Finisterre-Huon languages. Awara is noteworthy for a grammatical distinction between static and dynamic verb classes, realized in different forms of imperfective aspectual suffixes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] We used Uighur scripts which are known for their rich suffixes. [•] The influences of number of suffixes on initial landing positions and refixation probability independent of frequency. [•] These results are difficult to explain by purely low-level guidance of eye movements. [•] Morphological structure of parafoveal words can influence saccade program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the relationship between the lexicon and language use through the lens of type and token frequency. Type frequency is taken to reflect the lexicon, token frequency language use. Type and token frequencies were compared for a total of 10 basic distinctions at the phonological, morphological, lexical and lexico-syntactic levels in English. These include consonants vs. vowels, prefixes vs. suffixes, count vs. mass nouns and transitive vs. intransitive verbs. The empirical analysis reveals that type frequencies may be more, or less, extreme than token frequencies. Non-phonological distinctions evince a higher discrepancy between type and token frequency than phonological ones. In addition, complexity is more strongly discouraged in token than in type frequency, suggesting that it is more of an issue in processing than in storage. It is concluded that the lexicon constrains language use, though only to a limited extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The derivational prefix be- productively forms deverbal, denominal and deadjectival verbs in Modern English (ModE) (e.g. beblast, bepearl, beblind). This paper re-examines the Oxford English Dictionary's (OED) description of this prefix's semantic and categorial properties in light of word-formation theory and proposes a new analysis according to which denominal and deadjectival be-verbs are based on denominal and deadjectival converted verbs (e.g. to pearl, to blind). The theoretical motivation for this analysis is the need to deal coherently with both deverbal and denominal/deadjectival be-verbs, and the analysis is empirically confirmed by the input morphology and output semantics of be-verbs. This analysis allows us to conclude that be- is a deverbal verb-forming prefix whose main function is to add the notion of total affectedness to the meaning of the base verb. This paper also shows that the ModE prefix be- provides an interesting case of the conflict between the OED and word-formation theory. Word-formation theory analyses words based on synchronic principles of language, and the results can differ greatly from the OED's descriptions, which are based on the historical-etymological principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Setswana is an agglutinative language where prefixes and suffixes are extensively used in the formation of words. Words such as verbs, pronouns, adjectives and so on, which have a grammatical relationship with nouns in sentences, demonstrate agreement with such nouns by means of agreement morphemes. In certain instances verbs in Setswana sentences may take two objects. Both of these objects may be represented in the verb by object agreement morphemes. The result is that two object agreement morphemes may be prefixed to the verb. While the morphemes of the verb are presented systematically in Setswana grammars, the occurrence of multiple object agreement morphemes has received limited attention in the literature on Setswana linguistics. Similarly, this phenomenon has not yet been investigated from a computational morphological point of view. This article reports on (i) an example-based investigation towards a better and more complete understanding of the phenomenon of multiple object agreement morphemes as they appear in Setswana verbs, (ii) the modelling of these morphemes in an existing finite state tokeniser and computational morphological analyser for Setswana, and (iii) the novel role that a morphological analyser and its guesser variant can play in a corpus-based investigation of the phenomenon under discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Convergence in case mapping strategies in the oral speech of Quechua–Spanish bilinguals is examined. In principle, Quechua case suffixes could be analyzed as postpositions or as case markers. The data show that in code mixing utterances, Spanish prepositions and Quechua case suffixes co-occur and that mapping strategies converge. The fact that, in Quechua–Spanish code switching, Spanish prepositions are combined with Quechua case suffixes is taken as evidence that the latter are case markers, not postpositions. Further support for this view is the fact that no obvious differences were found in the data between non-oblique and oblique case markers. This distribution is consistent with an analysis of Quechua case suffixes as the spell out of an agree relationship between a null prepositional head and a DP. Cases of case suffix dropping in differential object marking expressions are analyzed as a possible source of instability in case marking in code mixing utterances. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]