Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/03740463.2021.1984823
J. Parrott
ABSTRACT Pronoun-case-only (pro-case) languages in Germanic have been under-investigated, despite exhibiting theoretically significant patterns of inter- and intra-individual case variation. The goals of this paper are thus twofold. First, it establishes a pro-case typological distinction between Oblique-Form Default (OFD) as observed in Danish and English, and Subject-Form Default (SFD), as observed in Swedish. In OFD varieties, SFs (Subject Forms) occur as subjects of finite clauses, while OFs (Oblique Forms) occur elsewhere, including as predicatives and in heterogenous other syntactic environments. OFs also appear inside coordinate and other complex DPs, where sociolinguistic variation is attested. In SFD varieties, variation inside complex DPs is unattested; SFs occur as predicatives, but variable OFs express non-deictic semantics. My second aim is to demonstrate that these patterns of variation result from distinct post-syntactic mechanisms for OFD and SFD pro-case. Following Emonds, I argue that OFD pronouns are not the phonological realization of case features; instead, pro-case forms are morphosyntactic-contextual allomorphs. SFD pro-case, in contrast, is the phonological realization of dependent Oblique and Nominative features assigned by post-syntactic rules.
{"title":"Post-syntactic mechanisms of pronominal case variation in Germanic","authors":"J. Parrott","doi":"10.1080/03740463.2021.1984823","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03740463.2021.1984823","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Pronoun-case-only (pro-case) languages in Germanic have been under-investigated, despite exhibiting theoretically significant patterns of inter- and intra-individual case variation. The goals of this paper are thus twofold. First, it establishes a pro-case typological distinction between Oblique-Form Default (OFD) as observed in Danish and English, and Subject-Form Default (SFD), as observed in Swedish. In OFD varieties, SFs (Subject Forms) occur as subjects of finite clauses, while OFs (Oblique Forms) occur elsewhere, including as predicatives and in heterogenous other syntactic environments. OFs also appear inside coordinate and other complex DPs, where sociolinguistic variation is attested. In SFD varieties, variation inside complex DPs is unattested; SFs occur as predicatives, but variable OFs express non-deictic semantics. My second aim is to demonstrate that these patterns of variation result from distinct post-syntactic mechanisms for OFD and SFD pro-case. Following Emonds, I argue that OFD pronouns are not the phonological realization of case features; instead, pro-case forms are morphosyntactic-contextual allomorphs. SFD pro-case, in contrast, is the phonological realization of dependent Oblique and Nominative features assigned by post-syntactic rules.","PeriodicalId":35105,"journal":{"name":"Acta Linguistica Hafniensia","volume":"343 1","pages":"132 - 159"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75461243","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 : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/03740463.2021.1955474
Lars Heltoft
ABSTRACT In late Middle Danish, case was reduced to pronominal case, but in spite of this, Middle Danish case preserved features of a system typologically different from modern Danish. Case grammaticalised semantic roles, with considerable polysemy. Along with the transitivity system, Middle Danish preserved inactive (impersonal) constructions and the polysemy of the case forms was resolved according to construction type. Such a system is indexical in the sense that the case forms point to their predicate types as the locus from which their polysemy is resolved. From this stance, it makes sense to maintain a sharp distinction between predicational structure (argument(s) and predicate), grammatical relations (subject and object) and case paradigms. Inactive constructions do not have oblique subjects, but objects as their basic argument, and subjects are everywhere in the nominative case. So-called oblique subjects cannot be agents. In accordance with this claim by Jan Terje Faarlund, I propose an analysis of the grammaticalised semantic role systems of transitivity and inactivity. The rise of categorical sentence structure, including the alignment of subjecthood, status as the primary argument, subject position and a kind of structural nominative case is a development of post-Reformation Danish.
{"title":"From indexical to symbolic case in Danish – a content analysis","authors":"Lars Heltoft","doi":"10.1080/03740463.2021.1955474","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03740463.2021.1955474","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In late Middle Danish, case was reduced to pronominal case, but in spite of this, Middle Danish case preserved features of a system typologically different from modern Danish. Case grammaticalised semantic roles, with considerable polysemy. Along with the transitivity system, Middle Danish preserved inactive (impersonal) constructions and the polysemy of the case forms was resolved according to construction type. Such a system is indexical in the sense that the case forms point to their predicate types as the locus from which their polysemy is resolved. From this stance, it makes sense to maintain a sharp distinction between predicational structure (argument(s) and predicate), grammatical relations (subject and object) and case paradigms. Inactive constructions do not have oblique subjects, but objects as their basic argument, and subjects are everywhere in the nominative case. So-called oblique subjects cannot be agents. In accordance with this claim by Jan Terje Faarlund, I propose an analysis of the grammaticalised semantic role systems of transitivity and inactivity. The rise of categorical sentence structure, including the alignment of subjecthood, status as the primary argument, subject position and a kind of structural nominative case is a development of post-Reformation Danish.","PeriodicalId":35105,"journal":{"name":"Acta Linguistica Hafniensia","volume":"46 1","pages":"160 - 190"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73125200","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 : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/03740463.2021.1955320
L. Delsing
ABSTRACT In this article, I consider the use of seemingly old nominative forms (ONF) in object position. The phenomenon is noted for the dialects of Västerbotten (in Northern Sweden) by several authors. Earlier works imply that the phenomenon is rather recent (early 1900s) and that the phenomenon is in more common usage in the inland rural areas than by the more urban coast. I discuss the structural analysis presented by Holmberg in the 1980s, which involves a restriction on “subject forms” to noun phrases that are assigned Case and Theta role from different heads. I present both theoretical and empirical reasons to doubt that account. Instead, I opt for a phonological account, which claims that the ONFs are used, if and only if they are strong (stressed). The suggestion is corroborated by new data from a few informants. I end the paper by giving the details of case forms for strong and weak first- and second-person pronouns in the old and modern dialects. The modern dialect is claimed to have lost its strong object forms and now resorts to using the only available strong forms (ONFs) in both subject and object position.
{"title":"Pronominal case in Västerbottnian","authors":"L. Delsing","doi":"10.1080/03740463.2021.1955320","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03740463.2021.1955320","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this article, I consider the use of seemingly old nominative forms (ONF) in object position. The phenomenon is noted for the dialects of Västerbotten (in Northern Sweden) by several authors. Earlier works imply that the phenomenon is rather recent (early 1900s) and that the phenomenon is in more common usage in the inland rural areas than by the more urban coast. I discuss the structural analysis presented by Holmberg in the 1980s, which involves a restriction on “subject forms” to noun phrases that are assigned Case and Theta role from different heads. I present both theoretical and empirical reasons to doubt that account. Instead, I opt for a phonological account, which claims that the ONFs are used, if and only if they are strong (stressed). The suggestion is corroborated by new data from a few informants. I end the paper by giving the details of case forms for strong and weak first- and second-person pronouns in the old and modern dialects. The modern dialect is claimed to have lost its strong object forms and now resorts to using the only available strong forms (ONFs) in both subject and object position.","PeriodicalId":35105,"journal":{"name":"Acta Linguistica Hafniensia","volume":"30 1","pages":"207 - 220"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86894578","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 : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/03740463.2021.1949919
Astrid van Alem, S. Barbiers
ABSTRACT This paper proposes a novel analysis of the exceptional agreement patterns in pronominal het ‘it’-clefts with the order het-copula-pronoun in Dutch. We argue that the complex interaction in clefts between case, agreement and word order can be explained from the radical featural defectivity of het ‘it’: het ‘it’ has a third person (3p) feature, but no case, number, strength and gender features. We show that het ‘it’ is different from all personal pronouns in the major dialect groups of Dutch in that it never shows any case distinction. The absence of case on het ‘it’ makes it possible and necessary for the pronoun to occur in the nominative in a cleft. Similarly, the absence of number in the feature specification of het ‘it’ makes plural agreement with the pronoun possible and necessary in clefts. Finally, we show that Standard Dutch has two subgrammars, one of which has the additional requirement that the finite copula agree in person with both het ‘it’ and the pronoun.
{"title":"Poor weak het ‘it’ and agreement patterns in pronominal clefts","authors":"Astrid van Alem, S. Barbiers","doi":"10.1080/03740463.2021.1949919","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03740463.2021.1949919","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper proposes a novel analysis of the exceptional agreement patterns in pronominal het ‘it’-clefts with the order het-copula-pronoun in Dutch. We argue that the complex interaction in clefts between case, agreement and word order can be explained from the radical featural defectivity of het ‘it’: het ‘it’ has a third person (3p) feature, but no case, number, strength and gender features. We show that het ‘it’ is different from all personal pronouns in the major dialect groups of Dutch in that it never shows any case distinction. The absence of case on het ‘it’ makes it possible and necessary for the pronoun to occur in the nominative in a cleft. Similarly, the absence of number in the feature specification of het ‘it’ makes plural agreement with the pronoun possible and necessary in clefts. Finally, we show that Standard Dutch has two subgrammars, one of which has the additional requirement that the finite copula agree in person with both het ‘it’ and the pronoun.","PeriodicalId":35105,"journal":{"name":"Acta Linguistica Hafniensia","volume":"25 1","pages":"221 - 241"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73135243","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 : 2021-04-28DOI: 10.1080/03740463.2021.1889802
B. Slofstra, E. Hoekstra
ABSTRACT The Frisian arbitrary pronoun men is analysed here as a deficient pronoun, since it does not allow expansion of its projection by means of premodification, coordination or relativisation. Furthermore, men occurs adjacent to the tensed verb in main clauses and to the complementiser in embedded clauses. To explain these data, we suggest that men is case licensed in Phonetic Form under adjacency by means of a head–head relation, being deficient as a maximal projection. The relation between case and deficiency is further reflected in the defective (or suppletive) morphological case paradigm of men. Evidence is presented that the paradigm of men in written Frisian originated in the 16th and 17th centuries by suppletion of forms of the indefinite pronoun ien/jin ‘one’. Out of these arose the reflexive object form of the arbitrary pronoun men: jin, and as its reflexive jin thus truly became part of men’s paradigm.
弗里斯兰语的任意代词men在这里被分析为一个有缺陷的代词，因为它不允许通过前置修饰、协调或相对化来扩展其投射。此外，men在主句中与时态动词相邻，在嵌入从句中与补语相邻。为了解释这些数据，我们认为men是通过头-头关系在邻接下的语音形式的case许可，作为最大投影是缺乏的。格与缺的关系进一步体现在人的缺陷(或补充)形态格范式中。有证据表明，弗里斯兰语中男人的范例起源于16世纪和17世纪，是由不定代词ien/jin ' one '的补充形式产生的。由此产生了任意代词men的反身宾语形式:jin，作为它的反身物jin因此真正成为了men范式的一部分。
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Pub Date : 2021-03-05DOI: 10.1080/03740463.2021.1886578
Carlos I. Echeverría
ABSTRACT This article revisits the idea of parallelism between the two semiotic planes – expression and content – focusing on two seemingly contradictory analogies found in the structural literature, namely expression figuræ : sign expressions :: content figuræ : sign contents and phonic features : phonemes :: semantic features : signifieds. It is shown that, though it may not seem to be the case at first glance, both analogies describe the same types of relations and can be regarded as equally valid from the point of view of their respective theoretical frameworks and levels of analysis. However, a functional synthesis of the two views ultimately reveals an asymmetry in the categorical structure of the two planes, a situation that is explained by the nature of the relationship between expression and content.
{"title":"Once again on the parallelism between expression and content","authors":"Carlos I. Echeverría","doi":"10.1080/03740463.2021.1886578","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03740463.2021.1886578","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article revisits the idea of parallelism between the two semiotic planes – expression and content – focusing on two seemingly contradictory analogies found in the structural literature, namely expression figuræ : sign expressions :: content figuræ : sign contents and phonic features : phonemes :: semantic features : signifieds. It is shown that, though it may not seem to be the case at first glance, both analogies describe the same types of relations and can be regarded as equally valid from the point of view of their respective theoretical frameworks and levels of analysis. However, a functional synthesis of the two views ultimately reveals an asymmetry in the categorical structure of the two planes, a situation that is explained by the nature of the relationship between expression and content.","PeriodicalId":35105,"journal":{"name":"Acta Linguistica Hafniensia","volume":"64 1","pages":"24 - 39"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74947207","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 : 2021-01-02DOI: 10.1080/03740463.2021.1871218
Steven Coats
ABSTRACT This study looks at the relative frequency of ‘bad language’ according to gender in Nordic languages and in English in a 210-million-token corpus of messages by 18,686 Nordic Twitter users. For the Nordic languages, more than 19,000 ‘bad-language’ word forms were compiled on the basis of usage note annotations in major Nordic-language dictionaries. The most frequent terms overall are swear words, and while males use more of these items on average, the gender difference is less pronounced for English words. For potentially offensive words in the Nordic languages, males make more use of traditional profanities associated with the Devil, religion, and blasphemy. Both genders make more use of profanities when tweeting to people of their own gender. The study provides empirical evidence for a small gender-based discrepancy in the use of profanity in social media in the Nordic languages, mirroring results previously found in corpus-based studies of English-language data. The results are interpreted in light of previous findings as evidence for a gendered difference in sensitivity toward the use of language that could potentially be offensive.
{"title":"‘Bad language’ in the Nordics: profanity and gender in a social media corpus","authors":"Steven Coats","doi":"10.1080/03740463.2021.1871218","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03740463.2021.1871218","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This study looks at the relative frequency of ‘bad language’ according to gender in Nordic languages and in English in a 210-million-token corpus of messages by 18,686 Nordic Twitter users. For the Nordic languages, more than 19,000 ‘bad-language’ word forms were compiled on the basis of usage note annotations in major Nordic-language dictionaries. The most frequent terms overall are swear words, and while males use more of these items on average, the gender difference is less pronounced for English words. For potentially offensive words in the Nordic languages, males make more use of traditional profanities associated with the Devil, religion, and blasphemy. Both genders make more use of profanities when tweeting to people of their own gender. The study provides empirical evidence for a small gender-based discrepancy in the use of profanity in social media in the Nordic languages, mirroring results previously found in corpus-based studies of English-language data. The results are interpreted in light of previous findings as evidence for a gendered difference in sensitivity toward the use of language that could potentially be offensive.","PeriodicalId":35105,"journal":{"name":"Acta Linguistica Hafniensia","volume":"61 1","pages":"22 - 57"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86003765","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 : 2021-01-02DOI: 10.1080/03740463.2020.1865692
J. Zlatev, J. Blomberg, Simon Devylder, V. Naidu, Joost van de Weijer
ABSTRACT Motion-event typology has moved into a “post-Talmian” terrain of approaches focusing on an open-ended number of patterns across languages and constructions. Following a proposal to distinguish between four typological clusters, we systematically compared the motion event descriptions in four languages suggested to exemplify these clusters: Swedish, French, Thai and Telugu, with the help of an elicitation-based study. 20 adult native speakers of each language were asked to describe 52 motion events, 38 of which were translocative. The stimuli varied with respect to the parameters caused/uncaused, bounded/unbounded motion as well as the viewpoint from which they were filmed. The descriptions were analyzed following Holistic Spatial Semantics and compared with respect to the categories Path, Direction, Region, Landmark, Manner and Cause, as well as the means of expressing these. The four languages patterned differently in significant ways. In terms of Path expression, French lagged behind the other languages, but with respect to Direction, it patterned together with Swedish. We demonstrate a number of such criss-crossing patterns, showing that there is no way to group the languages, thus implying at least four distinct typological prototypes. Further, we show that different kinds of motion situations, corresponding to different constructions, need to be compared separately.
{"title":"Motion event descriptions in Swedish, French, Thai and Telugu: a study in post-Talmian motion event typology","authors":"J. Zlatev, J. Blomberg, Simon Devylder, V. Naidu, Joost van de Weijer","doi":"10.1080/03740463.2020.1865692","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03740463.2020.1865692","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Motion-event typology has moved into a “post-Talmian” terrain of approaches focusing on an open-ended number of patterns across languages and constructions. Following a proposal to distinguish between four typological clusters, we systematically compared the motion event descriptions in four languages suggested to exemplify these clusters: Swedish, French, Thai and Telugu, with the help of an elicitation-based study. 20 adult native speakers of each language were asked to describe 52 motion events, 38 of which were translocative. The stimuli varied with respect to the parameters caused/uncaused, bounded/unbounded motion as well as the viewpoint from which they were filmed. The descriptions were analyzed following Holistic Spatial Semantics and compared with respect to the categories Path, Direction, Region, Landmark, Manner and Cause, as well as the means of expressing these. The four languages patterned differently in significant ways. In terms of Path expression, French lagged behind the other languages, but with respect to Direction, it patterned together with Swedish. We demonstrate a number of such criss-crossing patterns, showing that there is no way to group the languages, thus implying at least four distinct typological prototypes. Further, we show that different kinds of motion situations, corresponding to different constructions, need to be compared separately.","PeriodicalId":35105,"journal":{"name":"Acta Linguistica Hafniensia","volume":"1 1","pages":"58 - 90"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81217504","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}
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