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- Volume 35, Issue 4, 2018
Diachronica - Volume 35, Issue 4, 2018
Volume 35, Issue 4, 2018
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Pragmatic differentiation of negative markers in the early stages of Jespersen’s cycle in North Germanic
Author(s): Tam Blaxter and David Willispp.: 451–486 (36)More LessAbstractThis article investigates the pragmatic function of new negative markers during incipient renewal of negation in ‘Jespersen’s cycle’. We outline a typology of these markers, suggesting a pathway by which they begin as specialized for use with discourse-old propositions and later expand to inferred propositions before finally becoming possible with discourse-new propositions. This framework is applied to an overlooked case of Jespersen’s cycle in North Germanic: replacement of early Norwegian ei(gi) “not” by ekki (originally “nothing”) from 1250 to 1550. We document a sharp rise in frequency of ekki around 1425, suggesting that, until then, ekki had been restricted to negating discourse-old propositions. Once this constraint was lifted, ei(gi) and ekki competed directly, resulting in rapid replacement of ei(gi) by ekki. This typologically unusual direct replacement of a negator with no intervening doubling stage can be attributed to the new negator’s origin as a negative indefinite and the lack of negative concord in early Norwegian.
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Competing motivations in the diachronic nominalization of English gerunds
Author(s): Lauren Fonteyn and Charlotte Maekelberghepp.: 487–524 (38)More LessAbstractThe present study is an in-depth, corpus-based analysis of the rise and institutionalization of the indefinite nominal gerund in Late Modern English, considering the observed developments in light of their interactions with functionally related constructions. Based on historical data taken from the Corpus of Late Modern English Texts (version 3.1), we argue that the rise of indefinite nominal gerunds constitutes an instance of diachronic nominalization, in which the nominal gerund over time gradually comes to exploit a fuller range of paradigmatic properties associated with the nominal class. At the same time, this study investigates the potential influence of isomorphism on the observed developments. While the results do support the frequently investigated claim that language systems have a (weak) preference for a one-form-one-meaning organization in later stages of their development, the initial emergence of indefinite nominal gerunds can more accurately be explained by allowing system pressure as an enabling force of linguistic innovation. The picture presented in this study serves as evidence that the long-term development of linguistic constructions can be the result of competing – even maximally opposite – forces.
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The evolution of word prosody in the Papuan languages of Eastern Timor
Author(s): Tyler M. Hestonpp.: 525–551 (27)More LessAbstractWord prosody and sentence-level intonation undergo complex interactions through time. In this study, I focus on the effects of intonation on the development of word prosody in two closely related Papuan languages, Makalero and Fataluku. Though both are very similar segmentally, Makalero’s prosodic system is based on trochaic stress, while Fataluku is characterized primarily by phrase-level intonational contours. On the basis of internal comparative evidence, I demonstrate that the trochaic stress system of Makalero is older, and that a series of well-motivated sound changes has led to a dissociation of stress and intonation in Fataluku. A disassociation between stress and intonation is typologically unexpected, and analysis of the historical development of Fataluku’s system sheds light on how such a dissociation may have taken place.
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Language contact and prosodic change in Slavic and Baltic
Author(s): Tijmen Pronkpp.: 552–580 (29)More LessAbstractThis paper discusses several Slavic and Baltic dialects which have undergone stress shifts as a result of language contact. Two types of change are discussed: (1) stress retractions from the final syllable onto the initial syllable of a prosodic word, and (2) the rise of fixed stress replacing earlier free stress. It is argued that in all cases discussed in the paper, contact with a language with fixed initial stress caused a stress shift. Examples from Croatian and Lithuanian demonstrate that pitch contours played an important role in these shifts. The results of the shifts are not always identical, but the underlying mechanism is the same in each of these cases: the lexical pitch contour of the donor language was imposed on the target language, thereby introducing constraints on the position of stress in the target language. It is argued that a similar mechanism operated in West Slavic, where languages with free stress introduced fixed stress on the initial or penultimate syllable due to contact with German and possibly Hungarian.
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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