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- Volume 28, Issue, 2011
Diachronica - Volume 28, Issue 1, 2011
Volume 28, Issue 1, 2011
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Innovation of head-marking in Humburi Senni (Songhay, Mali)
Author(s): Jeffrey Heathpp.: 1–24 (24)More LessHumburi Senni (HS), the Songhay language spoken in the town of Hombori in Mali, has innovated not one but two suffixal pronominal-possessor paradigms for nouns (inalienable vs. alienable), a suffixal pronominal-complement paradigm for (original) postpositions, and a suffixal Imperative Singular for verbs. These are absent (with one very limited, but important, exception) in other Songhay languages, including HS’s nearest genetic neighbor. The effect is that HS has veered sharply toward head-marking, which is virtually absent in other Songhay languages. However, its specific typological profile is unusual, with head-marking well-developed for nouns and adpositions but absent from nonimperative verbs/clauses. We can reconstruct the sequence of events (crucially involving the encliticization of opportunistically appended independent pronouns) that result in the attested paradigms. As a result of these innovations, plus another innovation involving the morphology of unpossessed nouns, an original Definite Singular suffix *-òó now has four reflexes — none of which is now definite. Neither language contact nor demographic disruption played a role in the innovations; instead, the initial catalyst for the head-marking was probably the monophthongization of 1sg proclitic *ay to *i, merging segmentally with 3pl proclitic *i.
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Modal grammaticalization and the pragmatic field: A case study
Author(s): Virginia Hillpp.: 25–53 (29)More LessThis paper proposes a diachronic syntactic analysis of the Romanian verb putea “can”. It is argued that the grammaticalization of putea consists of several upward reanalyses, and the gradual stripping of semantic features set off its reclassification as control verb > raising verb > auxiliary > pragmatic marker. This analysis accounts for ambiguous epistemic/deontic readings on the modal, which were considered mysterious under lexical/semantic approaches; it also explains why infinitive verbs are so productive as complements to the modal; and it points out that conversational pragmatic features must be factored in as triggers of syntactic reanalysis.
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Perfective and imperfective from the same source: Directional ‘down’ in rGyalrong
Author(s): You-Jing Linpp.: 54–81 (28)More LessExtensive typological research on spatiotemporal development has shown that directionals tend to start as ‘bounders’, and eventually grammaticalize into perfective or simple-past markers. Meanwhile, recent crosslinguistic studies of tense and aspect have demonstrated that the opposition between perfective and imperfective is the most general contrast expressed via verbal morphology. This paper, however, presents a clear counterexample to the above commonly accepted generalizations. Specifically, rGyalrong languages show a perfective-imperfective distinction, but the past imperfective marker and one of the perfectives developed from the same source — the directional ‘down’. This study thus documents a previously undescribed development, through which a single directional has grammaticalized into two opposing aspectual categories. The unexpected spatio-temporal development presents a challenge to the approach of grammaticalization studies that focuses on ‘major’ developmental pathways.
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Tying up loose ends: The Creole Prototype after all
Author(s): John McWhorterpp.: 82–117 (36)More LessSince the introduction of the Creole Prototype hypothesis in 1998, much of the controversy it has occasioned has centered on a question as to whether it is scientifically appropriate to reconstruct creoles as born as pidgins, rather than as results of only moderately transformational second-language acquisition or as simply mixtures of ‘features’ from assorted languages coming together. This paper first outlines traits in creoles that reveal their origin in pidgins. Then, the paper refines the characterization of the Creole Prototype’s three features, regarding inflectional morphology, tone, and compositionality of derivation-root combinations. The inflectional component is refined to incorporate Booij’s (1993) distinction between contextual and inherent inflection and Kihm’s (2003) proposal that inflectional morphology can be either bound or free. The tonal stipulation is refined in view of traits of Mon-Khmer phonology that distinguish these languages from creoles despite their analyticity, and the grammatical uses of tone in some creoles such as Papiamentu and Principense. Finally, for the derivational component, an account is proposed for the noncompositionality of reduplicated forms that have been observed in many creoles. The conclusion is that there remains a synchronic characterization possible only in languages recently born from pidgins, and impossible of older (i.e. most) languages.
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Theoretical Trends in Historical Syntax
Author(s): D. Gary Miller and Dieter Wannerpp.: 119–131 (13)More Less
Volumes & issues
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Volume 41 (2024)
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Volume 40 (2023)
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Volume 39 (2022)
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Volume 38 (2021)
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Volume 37 (2020)
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Volume 36 (2019)
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Volume 35 (2018)
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Volume 34 (2017)
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Volume 33 (2016)
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Volume 32 (2015)
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Volume 31 (2014)
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Volume 30 (2013)
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Volume 29 (2012)
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Volume 28 (2011)
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Volume 27 (2010)
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Volume 26 (2009)
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Volume 25 (2008)
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Volume 24 (2007)
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Volume 23 (2006)
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Volume 22 (2005)
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Volume 21 (2004)
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Volume 20 (2003)
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Volume 19 (2002)
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Volume 18 (2001)
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Volume 17 (2000)
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Volume 16 (1999)
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Volume 15 (1998)
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Volume 14 (1997)
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Volume 13 (1996)
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Volume 12 (1995)
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Volume 11 (1994)
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Volume 10 (1993)
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Volume 9 (1992)
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Volume 8 (1991)
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Volume 7 (1990)
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Volume 6 (1989)
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Volume 5 (1988)
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Volume 4 (1987)
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Volume 3 (1986)
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Volume 2 (1985)
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Volume 1 (1984)
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What happened to English?
Author(s): John McWhorter
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