Latest documents http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/index/index/ Tue, 25 Sep 2012 11:21:31 +0200 Tue, 25 Sep 2012 11:21:31 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25171 Why should we engage in language universals research and language typology? What do we want to explain? It is a fact that, although languages differ significantly and considerably. indeed, no one would deny, that they have something in common; how else could they be labelled 'language'? - There is obviously unity among them, no matter how vaguely felt and for what reasons: Scientific, practical, moral, etc. Neither diversity per se nor unity per se is what we want to explain. There is no reason whatsoever to consider either one of them as primary, and the other as derived. What we do want to explain is "equivalence in difference" – cf. our motto – which manifests itself, among others, in the translatability from one language to another, the learnability of any language, language change – which all presuppose that speakers intuitively find their way from diversity to unity. This is a highly salient property which deserves to be brought into our consciousness. Generally then, our basic goal is to explain the way in which language-specific facts are connected with a unitarian concept of language – "die Sprache" – "le langage". Hansjakob Seiler workingpaper http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25171 Tue, 25 Sep 2012 11:21:31 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25168 The Stanford Project on Language Universals began its activities in October 1967 and brought them to an end in August 1976. Its directors were Joseph H. Greenberg and Charles A. Ferguson. The Cologne Project on Language Universals and Typology [with particular reference to functional aspects], abbreviated UNITYP, had its early beginnings in 1972, but deployed its full activities from 1976 onwards and is still operating. This writer, who is the principal investigator, had the privilege of collaborating with the Stanford Project during spring of 1976. […] One of the leading Greenbergian ideas is that of implicational generalizations, has been integrated as a fundamental principle in the construction of continua and of universal dimensions as proposed by UNITYP. It is hoped that the following considerations on numeral systems will be apt to bear witness to this situation. They would be unthinkable without Greenberg’s pioneering work on "Generalizations about numeral systems" (Greenberg 1978: 249 ff., henceforth referred to as Greenberg, NS). Further work on this domain and on other comparable domains almost inevitably leads one to the view that generalizations of the Greenberg type have a functional significance and that a dimensional framework is apt to bring this to the fore. This is the view on linguistic behaviour as being purposeful, and on language as a problem- solving device. The problem consists in the linguistic representation of cognitive-conceptual ideas. The solution is represented by the corresponding linguistic structures in their diversity and the task of the linguist consists in reconstructing the program and subprograms underlying the process of problem-solving. It is claimed that the construct of continua and of universal dimensions makes these programs intelligible. Hansjakob Seiler workingpaper http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25168 Thu, 20 Sep 2012 13:25:30 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25166 The human mind may produce prototypization within virtually any realm of cognition and behavior. A "comparative prototype-typology" might prove to be an interesting field of study – perhaps a new subfield of semiotics. This, however, would presuppose a clear view on the samenesses and differences of prototypization in these various fields. It seems realistic for the time being that the linguist first confine himself to describing prototypization within the realm of language proper. The literature on prototypes has steadily grown in the past ten years or so. I confine myself to mentioning the volume on Noun Classes and Categorization, edited by C. Craig (1986), which contains a wealth of factual information on the subject, along with some theoretical vistas. By and large, however, linguistic prototype research is still basically in a taxonomic stage - which, of course, represents the precondition for moving beyond. The procedure is largely per ostensionem, and by accumulating examples of prototypes. We still lack a comprehensive prototype theory. The following pages are intended, not to provide such, a theory, but to do the first steps in this direction. Section 2 will feature some elements of a functional theory of prototypes. They have been developed by this author within the frame of the UNITYP model of research on language universals and typology. Section 3 will bring a discussion of prototypization with regard to selected phenomena of a wide range of levels of analysis: Phonology, morphosyntax, speech acts, and the lexicon. Prototypization will finally be studied within one of the universal dimensions, that of APPREHENSION - the linguistic representation of the concepts of objects – as proposed by Seiler (1986). Hansjakob Seiler workingpaper http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25166 Thu, 20 Sep 2012 13:05:24 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25165 This is a survey of the development of the model of PARTICIPATION (P'ATION) with reference to the postulated sequence of the techniques on the dimension of P'ATION. Along with a brief explanation of the techniques this article contains a discussion of the major claims with regard to the sequence of the techniques and the possibilities of subjecting the claims to empirical verification. Jürgen Broschart workingpaper http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25165 Thu, 20 Sep 2012 12:57:00 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25156 The aim of this contribution is to embed the question of an antinomy between "integral" vs. "partial typology", inscribed as the topic of this plenary session, into the comprehensive framework of the dimensional model of the research group on language universals and typology (UNITYP). In this introductory section I shall evoke some cardinal points in the theory of linguistic typology, as viewed "from outside", viz. on the basis of striking parallelisms with psychological typology. Section 2 will permit a brief look on the dimensional model of UNITYP. In section 3 I shall present an illustration of a typological treatment on the basis of one particular dimension. In section 4 I shall draw some conclusions with special reference to the "integral vs. partial" antinomy. Hansjakob Seiler workingpaper http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25156 Wed, 19 Sep 2012 10:41:21 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25153 Most typological and language specific studies on so- called ergative languages are concerned with case marking patterns, particularly split ergativity, with the organization of syntactic relations as defined by syntactic operations such as coreferential deletion across coordinate conjunctions, Equi-NP-deletion and relativization , and with the notion of subject, but usually neglect the notion of valency, though the inherent relational properties of the verb , i. e. valency, play a fundamental role in the syntactic organization of sentences in ergative as well as in other languages . The following investigation of ergativity in Samoan aims to integrate the notion of valency into the description of semantic and syntactic relations and to outline the characteristic features of Samoan verbal clauses as far as they seem to be relevant to recent and still ongoing discussions on linguistic typology and syntactic theory. The main points of the definition of valency […] are: Valency is the property of the verb which determines the obligatory and optional number of its participants, their morphosyntactic form, their semantic class membership (e.g. ± animate, ± human) , and their semantic role (e.g. agent , patient , recipient). All semantic properties and morphosyntactic properties of participants not inherently given by the verb and therefore not predictable from the verb, are not a matter of valency. Valency is not a homogenous property of the verb, but consists of several exponents which show varying degress of relevance in different languages or different verb classes within a single language. Ulrike Mosel workingpaper http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25153 Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:31:38 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25141 The approach outlined in the present paper is based on observations made with African languages. Although the 1000-odd African languages display a remarkable extent of structural variation, there are certain structures that do not seem to occur in Africa. Thus, to our knowledge, an African language having anything that could be called an ergative case or a numeral classifier system has not been discovered so far. It may turn out that our approach can, in a modified form, be made applicable to languages outside Africa. This , however, is a possibility that has not been considered here. The present approach is based essentially on diachronic findings in that it uses observations on language evolution in order to account for structural differences between languages. Thus, it has double potential: apart from describing and explaining typological diversity it can also be material to reconstructing language history. Bernd Heine; Mechthild Reh workingpaper http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25141 Wed, 12 Sep 2012 11:22:45 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25140 At the end of last year, I designed an inquiry about the present state of linguistic typology in the form of a questionnaire. It was an attempt to cover the whole field by formulating the questions which seemed most relevant to it. This questionnaire is reproduced, without modifications, following this preface. In the first days of this year, it was sent to 33 linguists who I know are working in the field. The purpose was to form, on the basis of responses received, a picture of convergences and divergences among trends of present-day linguistic typology. The idea was also to get an objective basis for my report on "The present state of linguistic typology", to be delivered at the XIII. International Congress of Linguistics at Tokyo, 1982. Christian Lehmann workingpaper http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25140 Wed, 12 Sep 2012 11:07:08 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25139 Possessive constructions are grammatical constructions which contain two nominals and express that the referent of one of these nominals belongs to the other. The kind of relationship denoted by possessive constructions is not only that of ownership (1), as the term "possessive" might suggest, but also that of kinship (2), bodypart relationship (3), part/whole relationship (4) and similar relationships [...]. The following investigation will start with possessive constructions on phrase level, i.e. possessive phrases, and then deal with possessive constructions on clause level. Ulrike Mosel workingpaper http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25139 Wed, 12 Sep 2012 10:45:40 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25138 The basic question is whether POSSESSOR and POSSESSUM are on the same level as the roles of VALENCE, two additional roles as it were. My research on POSSESSION has shown (Seiler 1981:7 ff.) that this is not the case, that there is a difference in principle between POSSESSION and VALENCE. However, there are multiple interactions between the two domains, and these interactions shall constitute the object of the following inquiry. It is hoped that this will contribute to a better understanding both of POSSESSION and of VALENCE. Hansjakob Seiler workingpaper http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25138 Wed, 12 Sep 2012 10:37:13 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25137 In this study I want to show, above all, that the linguistic expression of POSSESSION is not a given but represents a problem to be solved by the human mind. We must recognize from the outset that linguistic POSSESSION presupposes conceptual or notional POSSESSION, and I shall say more about the latter in Chapter 3. Certain varieties of linguistic structures in the particular languages are united by the fact that they serve the common purpose of expressing notional POS SESSION. But this cannot be their sole common denominator. How would we otherwise be able to recognize, to understand, to learn and to translate a particular linguistic structure as representing POSSESSION? There must be a properly linguistic common denominator, an invariant, that makes this possible. The invariant must be present both within a particular language and in cross-language comparison. What is the nature of such an invariant? As I intend to show, it consists in operational programs and functional principles corresponding to the purpose of expressing notional POSSESSION. The structures of possessivity which we find in the languages of the world represent the traces of these operations, and from the traces it becomes possible to reconstruct stepwise the operations and functions. Hansjakob Seiler workingpaper http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25137 Wed, 12 Sep 2012 10:28:42 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25121 The basic idea I want to develop and to substantiate in this paper consists in replacing – where necessary – the traditional concept of linguistic category or linguistic relation understood as 'things', as reified hypostases, by the more dynamic concept of dimension. A dimension of language structure is not coterminous with one single category or relation but, instead, accommodates several of them. It corresponds to certain well circumscribed purposive functions of linguistic activity as well as to certain definite principles and techniques for satisfying these functions. The true universals of language are represented by these dimensions, principles, and techniques which constitute the true basis for non-historical inter-language comparison. The categories and relations used in grammar are condensations – hypostases as it were – of such dimensions, principles, and techniques. Elsewhere I have outlined the theory which I want to test here in a case study. Hansjakob Seiler workingpaper http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25121 Wed, 08 Aug 2012 11:24:06 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25119 In an earlier paper, I proposed a system for evaluating the relative descriptivity of lexical items in a consistent manner in terms of the interrelations of three metrics. The first of these, including five possible degrees of descriptivity, is based on the premise that the sum of the meaningful parts of a given form is or is not equal to the meaning of the whole. The second, also composed of five degrees, is based on paraphrase-term relations in which the logical quantifiers: all, some and no, are applied to the terms of the paraphrase in one test and to the meaningful parts of the term (linguistic form) in the reversibility test. Both tests are applied in the form of logical propositions. The third metric, with three degrees, deals with the relative explicitness of the meaningful parts of a given form: explicit, implicit or neither. […] This system was then tested in a pilot study involving the fairly limited and semantically homogeneous lexical domain of body-part terms in a specific language, Finnish. The purpose of the present paper is to subject comparable data from other languages to the same kind of analysis and compare the results in order to ascertain whether the generalizations arrived at with the Finnish data also hold for the other languages or, more specifically, which of these generalizations are more or less universal and which language or language-type specific? The additional languages to be examined here are: French, German, Ewe, Maasai and Swahili. Russel Ultan workingpaper http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25119 Tue, 07 Aug 2012 14:06:11 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25118 These notes grew out of my preoccupation with writing a grammar of a particular language, Cahuilla, which is spoken in Southern California and belongs to the Uto-Aztecan family. [...] The Introduction to the Grammar as a whole – of which two sections are reproduced here in a modified version – tries to integrate the synoptic views of the different chapters into a series of comprehensive statements. The statements cluster around two topics: 1. A presentation of Cahuilla as a type of language. 2. Remarks on writing a grammar. Hansjakob Seiler workingpaper http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25118 Tue, 07 Aug 2012 13:54:50 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/24512 In my paper "Thesen zum Universalienprojekt" (1976) I mention two complementary procedures for discovering language universals: 1. The investigation of the dimensions and principles whose existence is necessitated by the communicative function of language; 2. The development of a formal language in which all syntactic rules are explicitly formulated and in which all syntactic categories are defined by their relation to a minimally necessary number of syntactic categories. Since the first procedure is treated in many of the other papers of this volume, I wish to discuss the role of formal methods in the research of language universals. As an example I want to take the dimensions of determination and show how expressions denoting concepts are modified and turned into reference identifying expressions. There is a general end a specific motivation for the introduction of formal methods into linguistics. The general motivation is to make statements in linguistics as exact and verifiable as they are in the natural sciences. The specific motivation is to make the grammars of various languages comparable by describing them with the same form of rules. The form has to be flexible enough to describe the phenomena of any possible natural language. All natural languages have in common that they may potentially express any meaning. The flexibility of the form of grammatical rules may therefore be attained, if syntactic rules are not isolated from the semantic function they express and syntactic classes are not defined merely by the relative position of their elements in the sentence, but also by the communicative function their elements fulfill in their combination with elements of other classes. Montague (1974) has shown that this flexibility may be attained by using the language of algebra combined with categorial grammar. Algebraic systems have been developed by mathematicians to model any systems whose operations are definable. Montague does not merely use the tools of mathematics for describing the features of language, but regards syntax, semantics and pragmatics as branches of mathematics. One of the advantages of this approach is that we may apply the laws developed by mathematicians to the systems constructed by linguists for the description and explanation of natural language. Paul Otto Samuelsdorff workingpaper http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/24512 Tue, 29 May 2012 11:33:50 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/24549 Different languages employ different morphosyntactic devices for expressing genericity. And, of course, they also make use of different morphosyntactic and semantic or pragmatic cues which may contribute to the interpretation of a sentence as generic rather than episodic. [...] We will advance the strong hypo thesis that it is a fundamental property of lexical elements in natural language that they are neutral with respect to different modes of reference or non-reference. That is, we reject the idea that a certain use of a lexical element, e.g. a use which allows reference to particular spatio-temporally bounded objects in the world, should be linguistically prior to all other possible uses, e.g. to generic and non-specific uses. From this it follows that we do not consider generic uses as derived from non-generic uses as it is occasionally assumed in the literature. Rather, we regard these two possibilities of use as equivalent alternative uses of lexical elements. The typological differences to be noted therefore concern the formal and semantic relationship of generic and non-generic uses to each other; they do not pertain to the question of whether lexical elements are predetermined for one of these two uses. Even supposing we found a language where generic uses are always zero-marked and identical to lexical sterns, we would still not assume that lexical elements in this language primarily have a generic use from which the non-generic uses are derived. (Incidentally, none of the languages examined, not even Vietnamese, meets this criterion.) Leila Behrens workingpaper http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/24549 Wed, 25 Apr 2012 11:33:43 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/24547 In the present monograph, we will deal with questions of lexical typology in the nominal domain. By the term "lexical typology in the nominal domain", we refer to crosslinguistic regularities in the interaction between (a) those areas of the lexicon whose elements are capable of being used in the construction of "referring phrases" or "terms" and (b) the grammatical patterns in which these elements are involved. In the traditional analyses of a language such as English, such phrases are called "nominal phrases". In the study of the lexical aspects of the relevant domain, however, we will not confine ourselves to the investigation of "nouns" and "pronouns" but intend to take into consideration all those parts of speech which systematically alternate with nouns, either as heads or as modifiers of nominal phrases. In particular, this holds true for adjectives both in English and in other Standard European Languages. It is well known that adjectives are often difficult to distinguish from nouns, or that elements with an overt adjectival marker are used interchangeably with nouns, especially in particular semantic fields such as those denoting MATERIALS or NATlONALlTIES. That is, throughout this work the expression "lexical typology in the nominal domain" should not be interpreted as "a typology of nouns", but, rather, as the cross-linguistic investigation of lexical areas constitutive for "referring phrases" irrespective of how the parts-of-speech system in a specific language is defined. Hans-Jürgen Sasse; Leila Behrens workingpaper http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/24547 Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:52:23 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/24542 The present paper is an attempt to lay the foundation for Lexical Typology as a new kind of linguistic typology.1 The goal of Lexical Typology is to investigate crosslinguistically significant patterns of interaction between lexicon and grammar. Leila Behrens; Hans-Jürgen Sasse workingpaper http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/24542 Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:03:52 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/24406 In the area of the Modern Greek verb, phenomena which consistently appear are headmarking, many potential slots before and/or after the verb root, noun and adverb incorporation, addition of adverbial elements by means of affixes, a large inventory of bound morphemes, verbal words as minimal sentences, etc. These features relate Modern Greek to polysynthesis. The main bulk of this paper is dedicated to the comparison of affixal and incorporation patterns between Modern Greek and the polysynthetic languages Abkhaz, Cayuga, Chukchi, Mohawk, and Nahuatl. Ultimately, a typological outlook for Modern Greek is proposed. Chariton Charitonidis bookpart http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/24406 Tue, 13 Mar 2012 11:54:40 +0100 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/15126 It is often assumed that the goal of typology is to define the notion ‘possible human language’. This view, which I call the Universalist Typology view is shared, for example, by virtually all contributors to Bynon & Shibatani’s 1995 volume Approaches to Language Typology, and by Moravscik in her review of this volume in Linguistic Typology 1 (p.105). In the following I claim that this assumption is fundamentally mistaken. To clarify the theoretical status of what is meant by ‘possible human language’, I argue here for a distinction between typological theory (theoretical typology) and grammatical theory (theoretical syntax and theoretical morphology) as distinct subdisciplines of linguistics. Balthasar Bickel workingpaper http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/15126 Tue, 10 Aug 2010 14:18:39 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/14875 This paper is more about presenting phenomena and questions related to the concept of transitivity in Tibeto-Burman languages that I hope will stimulate discussion, rather than presenting strong conclusions. Sections 2 and 3 present alternative analyses of transitivity and questions about transitivity in two Tibeto-Burman languages I have worked on. In Section 4 I discuss some general issues about transitivity. Randy J. LaPolla article http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/14875 Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:03:12 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/14862 Dulong is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Gongshan Dulong and Nu Autonomous county in Yunnan, China, by members of the Dulong nationality (pop.: 6,000), and part of the Nu nationality (roughly 6,000 people). Randy J. LaPolla preprint http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/14862 Mon, 19 Jul 2010 11:13:07 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/14859 Randy J. LaPolla article http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/14859 Mon, 19 Jul 2010 10:50:12 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/14834 The Sino-Tibetan (ST) language family includes the Sinitic languages (what for political reasons are known as Chinese ‘dialects’) and the 200 to 300 Tibeto-Burman (TB) languages. Geographically it stretches from Northeast India, Burma, Bangladesh, and northern Thailand in the southeast, throughout the Tibetan plateau to the north, across most of China and up to the Korean border in the northeast, and down to Taiwan and Hainan Island in the southeast. The family has come to be the way it is because of multiple migrations, often into areas where other languages were spoken (LaPolla, 2001). Randy J. LaPolla article http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/14834 Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:38:43 +0200 http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/14824 Language contact has become a major focus of inquiry in historical and typological linguistics in the last twenty years, spurred in a large part by the publication of Thomason & Kaufman (1988), which tried to make sense of a large amount of language contact data. They argued that there was a direct relationship between the degree or intensity of language contact and the amount and type of influence the contact would have on one or more of the languages involved. Essentially, the greater the degree of bilingualism, the greater the degree of contact influence (see also Thomason 2001); if the contact and bilingualism was minimal, then there might just be a few loanwords adapted to the borrowing language's phonology and grammatical system, but if the contact and bilingualism was of a greater degree there would be influence in the grammar and phonology of the affected language. As more linguists came to take language contact more seriously, they came to realize how common language contact phenomena are. Randy J. LaPolla article http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/14824 Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:46:05 +0200