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Decomposing coordination
(2014)
Natural languages display a surprising diversity of expression of elementary logical operations. The study of this variation is emerging as an important topic of cross-linguistic semantics. In this paper, we address the expression of coordination from this perspective, especially coordination of individual denoting expressions such as "John and Mary". We argue that there is an underlying universal structure for individual coordination, and that the cross-linguistic variation can be explained by assuming that languages pronounce different morphemes of this universal structure. In particular, we argue that there two main types of system for the expression of individual coordination: the J-type and the μ-type. In μ-type languages the morpheme used for individual coordination also has uses a quantificational or focus particle, while in the J-type languages it doesn't. Instead at least in many J-type languages the same morpheme is used for individual and propositional coordination. The evidence we present for our model comes from two sources: new data from specific data of the J-type and μ-type languages, and from a study of the historical development of the expression of individual coordination in Indo-European which switched from a μ-type to a J-type system.
This paper presents epistemological and methodological problems found in work on the subgrouping of Sino-Tibetan languages and the reconstruction of features of the languages. A key problem is the lack of an accepted standard for judging this work, one that can stand up to statistical evaluation. An alternative methodology that involves using fixed sets of features to give us the statistical probability of common origin is suggested.
Chinese is often taken as a prime example of an isolating language. Most relation marking takes the form of particles rather than affixes or inflections. Possibly relevant to the facts that are presented below, Chinese has been argued to not have grammaticalized the sort of pivot constructions normally associated with grammatical relations. That is, it has been argued to not have any particular alignment, as there are no grammatical relations, and the clause pattern is simply topic-comment (Chao 1968, Lü 1979, LaPolla 1993, 1995, 2009; LaPolla & Poa 2005, 2006). We will first talk more generally about structures found in Sino-Tibetan languages, and then focus on Modern Mandarin Chinese.
This paper presents doublets in the phonology and accentuation of a Kajkavian dialect in central Croatia, where all three major Croatian groups of dialects meet. Inconsistencies in the vowel and consonant systems are also noted. The second part considers the accentual system, its units and their distribution. Many fluctuations were noted, even with respect to retractions and special Kajkavian features. These are explained through influences of neihbouring local dialects and from the urban dialect of Karlovac and Standard Croatian.
Evidentiality is a grammatical category which has source of information as its primary meaning — whether the narrator actually saw what is being described, or made inferences about it based on some evidence, or was told about it, and so on. Evidentials are a particularly salient feature of Tibeto-Burman languages. This volume features in-depth studies of evidentiality systems in six languages: Rgyalthang, a Kham Tibetan dialect, by Krisadawan Hongladarom; Yongning Na (Naxi group; believed to be closely related to Lolo-Burmese), by Liberty Lidz; Darma (Almora branch of Western Himalayish), by Christina Willis; nDrapa (Qiangic), by Satoko Shirai; Magar (Himalayish), by Karen Grunow-Hårsta, and Tabo (or Spiti), a Tibetan dialect, by Veronika Hein. Each opens new perspectives on the composition and the semantics of evidential systems, on the marking of more than one information source in one sentence, and on the grammaticalized expression of mirativity.
The new insights on evidentiality and related issues from the Tibeto-Burman area are crucial for understanding evidentials in a cross-linguistic perspective.
Agreement is traditionally viewed as a cross-referencing device for core arguments such as subjects and (primary) objects.1 In this paper, I discuss data from Bantu languages that lead to a radical departure from this generally accepted position: agreement in a subset of Bantu languages cross-references a (sentential) topic rather than the subject. The crucial evidence for topic agreement comes from a construction known as subject-object (S-O) reversal, where the fronted patient agrees with what has uniformly been taken to be a `subject marker'. The correct analysis of S-O reversal as a topic construction with `topic agreement' explains a range of known facts in the languages in question. Furthermore, synchronic variation across Bantu in the presence/absence of S-O reversal and in the properties of the (topic/subject) agreement marker suggests a diachronic path from topic to subject marking. The systematic variation and covariation in the syntax of Bantu languages and the historical picture that it offers would be missed altogether if we continue to reject the idea that the notion of topic can be deeply grammaticized in the form of agreement.
(Non)retroflexivity of slavic affricates and its motivation : Evidence from polish and czech <č>
(2005)
The goal of this paper is two-fold. First, it revises the common assumption that the affricate <č> denotes /t͡ʃ/ for all Slavic languages. On the basis of experimental results it is shown that Slavic <č> stands for two sounds: /t͡ʃ/ as e.g. in Czech and /ʈʂ/ as in Polish.
The second goal of the paper is to show that this difference is not accidental but it is motivated by perceptual relations among sibilants. In Polish, /t͡ʃ/ changed to /ʈʂ/ thus lowering its sibilant tonality and creating a better perceptual distance to /tɕ/, whereas in Czech /t͡ʃ/ did not turn to /ʈʂ/, as the former displayed sufficient perceptual distance to the only affricate present in the inventory, namely, the alveolar /t͡s/. Finally, an analysis of Czech and Polish affricate inventories is offered.
The paper explains the absence of resultative secondary predication in Russian as arising from a conflict of inferential interpretations. It formalises the framework necessary to express this proposal in terms of abductive reasoning with Poole systems in Gricean contexts. The conflict is shown to arise for default rules regulating alternative realisation of verb-internally specified consequent states. The paper thus indicates that typological variation may be due not only to different parameter values but to general inferential properties of the syntax-semantics mapping. The proposed theory also contradicts some widespread proposals that the absence of resultative secondary predication is due to the absence of some particular language feature.