Pub Date : 2018-09-10DOI: 10.1515/9783110607963-005
Dmitry Idiatov
Clause-final negation markers (CFNMs), although typologically rare, can be found in a very wide range of languages of Northern Sub-Saharan Africa. Based on a sample of 618 African languages, this paper provides an analysis of spatio-temporal language dynamics in Sub-Saharan Africa with respect to the feature CFNM. I argue that it is important to consider together both the languages that have the feature under investigation and the languages that do not have it. Furthermore, in order to better capture the diversity of the languages that have CFNMs, I increase the degree of granularity of my data by taking into account two parameters, viz., obligatoriness of CFNMs and possible restrictions on the freedom to use CFNMs in different constructions. For spatial analysis and visualiza-tion, I use the methods of spatial interpolation and generalized additive model-ing. Both methods converge on the need to distinguish two focal areas of the feature CFNM. The first one, the Central Focal Area, is the most prominent of the two and spans the east of West Africa and parts of Central Africa. The second one, the Western Focal Area, is less prominent and is restricted to West Africa. The two focal areas are separated by a major discontinuity around Ghana, Togo and Be-nin. In order to better calibrate the results of the spatial analysis and to identify the historical core of the Central Focal Area, I call onto other types of data available. Finally, I address the distribution of optional and/or restricted CFNMs in Africa, with a particular focus on the spread of CFNMs among Bantu languages to the south of the Central Focal Area, primarily in the Congo River corridor and the north of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
{"title":"An areal typology of clause-final negation in Africa","authors":"Dmitry Idiatov","doi":"10.1515/9783110607963-005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110607963-005","url":null,"abstract":"Clause-final negation markers (CFNMs), although typologically rare, can be found in a very wide range of languages of Northern Sub-Saharan Africa. Based on a sample of 618 African languages, this paper provides an analysis of spatio-temporal language dynamics in Sub-Saharan Africa with respect to the feature CFNM. I argue that it is important to consider together both the languages that have the feature under investigation and the languages that do not have it. Furthermore, in order to better capture the diversity of the languages that have CFNMs, I increase the degree of granularity of my data by taking into account two parameters, viz., obligatoriness of CFNMs and possible restrictions on the freedom to use CFNMs in different constructions. For spatial analysis and visualiza-tion, I use the methods of spatial interpolation and generalized additive model-ing. Both methods converge on the need to distinguish two focal areas of the feature CFNM. The first one, the Central Focal Area, is the most prominent of the two and spans the east of West Africa and parts of Central Africa. The second one, the Western Focal Area, is less prominent and is restricted to West Africa. The two focal areas are separated by a major discontinuity around Ghana, Togo and Be-nin. In order to better calibrate the results of the spatial analysis and to identify the historical core of the Central Focal Area, I call onto other types of data available. Finally, I address the distribution of optional and/or restricted CFNMs in Africa, with a particular focus on the spread of CFNMs among Bantu languages to the south of the Central Focal Area, primarily in the Congo River corridor and the north of the Democratic Republic of Congo.","PeriodicalId":244606,"journal":{"name":"Aspects of Linguistic Variation","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126769753","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-10DOI: 10.1515/9783110607963-010
Jean-Christophe Verstraete
This paper analyzes a pattern of epistemic marking that is found in several Paman (Pama-Nyungan) languages of Cape York Peninsula, in the north-east of Australia. Formally, the pattern consists of a marker that is identical to the imperative form of a verb of visual perception, optionally accompanied by an ignorative of the ‘thing’ category or another type of marker. Semantically, these elements mark potential verification, i.e., a weak type of epistemic meaning. The pattern is interesting for two reasons. From a typological perspective, it adds to the inventory of direct lexical sources for epistemic modality that have been identified in the literature. The paper examines the semantics of the pattern in more detail, showing that, at least in its origins, its meaning can be linked to an instruction for verification marked by the imperative of visual perception, with the ignorative as a modal reinforcer. The pattern is also interesting from an areal perspective, because it is attested in five languages from three different subgroups of Paman, which neighbor each other geographically and which are linked by recurrent patterns of personal multilingualism. The spread of the pattern reinforces existing arguments for the identification of a small linguistic area centered on Princess Charlotte Bay and its hinterland, on the east coast of Cape York Peninsula.
{"title":"‘Perhaps’ in Cape York Peninsula","authors":"Jean-Christophe Verstraete","doi":"10.1515/9783110607963-010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110607963-010","url":null,"abstract":"This paper analyzes a pattern of epistemic marking that is found in several Paman (Pama-Nyungan) languages of Cape York Peninsula, in the north-east of Australia. Formally, the pattern consists of a marker that is identical to the imperative form of a verb of visual perception, optionally accompanied by an ignorative of the ‘thing’ category or another type of marker. Semantically, these elements mark potential verification, i.e., a weak type of epistemic meaning. The pattern is interesting for two reasons. From a typological perspective, it adds to the inventory of direct lexical sources for epistemic modality that have been identified in the literature. The paper examines the semantics of the pattern in more detail, showing that, at least in its origins, its meaning can be linked to an instruction for verification marked by the imperative of visual perception, with the ignorative as a modal reinforcer. The pattern is also interesting from an areal perspective, because it is attested in five languages from three different subgroups of Paman, which neighbor each other geographically and which are linked by recurrent patterns of personal multilingualism. The spread of the pattern reinforces existing arguments for the identification of a small linguistic area centered on Princess Charlotte Bay and its hinterland, on the east coast of Cape York Peninsula.","PeriodicalId":244606,"journal":{"name":"Aspects of Linguistic Variation","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115309130","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-10DOI: 10.1515/9783110607963-fm
{"title":"Frontmatter","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/9783110607963-fm","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110607963-fm","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":244606,"journal":{"name":"Aspects of Linguistic Variation","volume":"132 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121964389","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-10DOI: 10.1515/9783110607963-007
P. Larrivée, Adeline Patard
: Semantic maps, to which Johan van der Auwera has brought a major intellectual contribution, are a representation of implicational relations in the typological domain. They have increasingly been used to chart historical evolution. They are arranged as a series of contiguous cells that define pathways of variation and change. The questions raised concern the rationale for the contiguity arrangement. It is demonstrated on the basis of novel diachronic analyses that the cells making up a semantic map should be semantic functions and that the contiguous arrangement of these functions relates to the existence of bridging contexts. Because evolution from one function to the next is made possible by bridging contexts, a specific pathway of function pairs defines the evolution of items that can only proceed between cells that share bridging contexts.
语义映射是类型学领域中隐含关系的一种表现形式，Johan van der Auwera对此做出了重要的智力贡献。它们越来越多地被用来描绘历史演变。它们被排列成一系列连续的细胞，这些细胞定义了变异和变化的途径。提出的问题涉及毗连安排的理据。在新的历时分析的基础上，我们证明了构成语义图的单元应该是语义功能，这些功能的连续排列与桥接上下文的存在有关。因为从一个功能到下一个功能的进化是通过桥接上下文实现的，所以功能对的特定途径定义了只能在共享桥接上下文的细胞之间进行的项目的进化。
{"title":"Pathways of evolution, contiguity and bridging contexts","authors":"P. Larrivée, Adeline Patard","doi":"10.1515/9783110607963-007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110607963-007","url":null,"abstract":": Semantic maps, to which Johan van der Auwera has brought a major intellectual contribution, are a representation of implicational relations in the typological domain. They have increasingly been used to chart historical evolution. They are arranged as a series of contiguous cells that define pathways of variation and change. The questions raised concern the rationale for the contiguity arrangement. It is demonstrated on the basis of novel diachronic analyses that the cells making up a semantic map should be semantic functions and that the contiguous arrangement of these functions relates to the existence of bridging contexts. Because evolution from one function to the next is made possible by bridging contexts, a specific pathway of function pairs defines the evolution of items that can only proceed between cells that share bridging contexts.","PeriodicalId":244606,"journal":{"name":"Aspects of Linguistic Variation","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125035618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-10DOI: 10.1515/9783110607963-011
Jacqueline Visconti
: The diachronic investigation of discourse markers has proven challenging since its inception in the late Eighties. Their context dependency and frequent association with informal, colloquial usage have raised methodological, as well as theoretical, questions, as historical work has to rely on written texts, which record speech with varying degrees of accuracy, and provide no access to prosodic cues. Using Old to Present Day Italian databases, in particular the Opera del Vocabolario Italiano , the contribution details the evolution of discourse marker anzi ‘on the contrary’ from spatial and temporal uses to its present-day contrastive-corrective function, by focusing on the role of the comparative structure in the shift. The importance of different types of contexts and genres will be discussed, for instance, Old Italian volgarizzamenti , translations or adaptations (or both) of Latin prose originals into vernacular versions, where the rendering with anzi can be compared to the original item in the Latin source text. the large corpus
{"title":"On the origins of Italian anzi","authors":"Jacqueline Visconti","doi":"10.1515/9783110607963-011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110607963-011","url":null,"abstract":": The diachronic investigation of discourse markers has proven challenging since its inception in the late Eighties. Their context dependency and frequent association with informal, colloquial usage have raised methodological, as well as theoretical, questions, as historical work has to rely on written texts, which record speech with varying degrees of accuracy, and provide no access to prosodic cues. Using Old to Present Day Italian databases, in particular the Opera del Vocabolario Italiano , the contribution details the evolution of discourse marker anzi ‘on the contrary’ from spatial and temporal uses to its present-day contrastive-corrective function, by focusing on the role of the comparative structure in the shift. The importance of different types of contexts and genres will be discussed, for instance, Old Italian volgarizzamenti , translations or adaptations (or both) of Latin prose originals into vernacular versions, where the rendering with anzi can be compared to the original item in the Latin source text. the large corpus","PeriodicalId":244606,"journal":{"name":"Aspects of Linguistic Variation","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129140331","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-10DOI: 10.1515/9783110607963-002
D. Divjak
: This paper contributes to current debates in linguistic theory and meth-odology by focusing on discreteness versus continuity in linguistic description as well as on the importance of structure versus use for understanding mental rep-resentations of language phenomena. It does so through a case study on the Polish [finite verb + infinitive] construction, henceforth [Vfin Vinf]. Within a Cognitive Linguistic framework, Divjak (2007) proposed a structurally underpinned Binding Scale encompassing eight levels of looser to tighter integration, with verbs expressing modality, intention, attempt, result and phase representing the most integrated type of [Vfin Vinf] constructions. Cognitive Linguistics aims to give a usage-based account of the complex system that language is, grounded in general cognitive principles. But at which level of abstraction should we pitch the linguistic description of a system such as the [Vfin Vinf] system to find such mo-tivating principles at work? In this paper, I assess the distance between usage and structure by investigating whether the proposed Binding Scale can be relia-bly distinguished in judgments of usage events through statistical unsupervised learning. By experimenting with the type of abstraction that needs to be imposed on acceptability ratings to arrive at a meaningful classification, conclusions can be drawn about the social or mental nature of this structure.
{"title":"Binding scale dynamics","authors":"D. Divjak","doi":"10.1515/9783110607963-002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110607963-002","url":null,"abstract":": This paper contributes to current debates in linguistic theory and meth-odology by focusing on discreteness versus continuity in linguistic description as well as on the importance of structure versus use for understanding mental rep-resentations of language phenomena. It does so through a case study on the Polish [finite verb + infinitive] construction, henceforth [Vfin Vinf]. Within a Cognitive Linguistic framework, Divjak (2007) proposed a structurally underpinned Binding Scale encompassing eight levels of looser to tighter integration, with verbs expressing modality, intention, attempt, result and phase representing the most integrated type of [Vfin Vinf] constructions. Cognitive Linguistics aims to give a usage-based account of the complex system that language is, grounded in general cognitive principles. But at which level of abstraction should we pitch the linguistic description of a system such as the [Vfin Vinf] system to find such mo-tivating principles at work? In this paper, I assess the distance between usage and structure by investigating whether the proposed Binding Scale can be relia-bly distinguished in judgments of usage events through statistical unsupervised learning. By experimenting with the type of abstraction that needs to be imposed on acceptability ratings to arrive at a meaningful classification, conclusions can be drawn about the social or mental nature of this structure.","PeriodicalId":244606,"journal":{"name":"Aspects of Linguistic Variation","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115780449","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-10DOI: 10.1515/9783110607963-006
E. König
{"title":"Definite articles and their uses","authors":"E. König","doi":"10.1515/9783110607963-006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110607963-006","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":244606,"journal":{"name":"Aspects of Linguistic Variation","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124085401","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-09-10DOI: 10.1515/9783110607963-004
Martin Haspelmath
: This paper reasserts the fundamental conceptual distinction between language-particular categories of individual languages, defined within particular systems, and comparative concepts at the cross-linguistic level, defined in substantive terms. The paper argues that comparative concepts are also widely used in other sciences and that they are always distinct from social categories, of which linguistic categories are special instances. Some linguists (especially in the generative tradition) assume that linguistic categories are natural kinds (like biological species or chemical elements) and thus need not be defined but can be recognized by their symptoms, which may be different in different languages. I also note that category-like comparative concepts are sometimes very similar to categories and that different languages may sometimes be described in a unitary commensurable mode, thus blurring (but not questioning) the distinction. Fi-nally, I note that cross-linguistic claims must be interpreted as being about the phenomena of languages, not about the incommensurable systems of languages.
{"title":"How comparative concepts and descriptive linguistic categories are different","authors":"Martin Haspelmath","doi":"10.1515/9783110607963-004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110607963-004","url":null,"abstract":": This paper reasserts the fundamental conceptual distinction between language-particular categories of individual languages, defined within particular systems, and comparative concepts at the cross-linguistic level, defined in substantive terms. The paper argues that comparative concepts are also widely used in other sciences and that they are always distinct from social categories, of which linguistic categories are special instances. Some linguists (especially in the generative tradition) assume that linguistic categories are natural kinds (like biological species or chemical elements) and thus need not be defined but can be recognized by their symptoms, which may be different in different languages. I also note that category-like comparative concepts are sometimes very similar to categories and that different languages may sometimes be described in a unitary commensurable mode, thus blurring (but not questioning) the distinction. Fi-nally, I note that cross-linguistic claims must be interpreted as being about the phenomena of languages, not about the incommensurable systems of languages.","PeriodicalId":244606,"journal":{"name":"Aspects of Linguistic Variation","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133342955","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：