Studies in Language. International Journal sponsored by the Foundation “Foundations of Language” - Volume 21, Issue 2, 1997

In this paper, I present an analysis of the so-called tense forms of Biblical Hebrew. While there is fairly broad consensus on the interpretation of the yiqtol tense form, the interpretation of the qdtal tense form has led to considerable controversy. I will argue that the qātal form has no intrinsic semantic value and that it serves a pragmatic function only, namely, signaling to the hearer that the event or state expressed by the verb cannot be tightly integrated into the discourse representation of the hearer, given the speaker's estimate of their common ground.

This article re-examines the correlation between factivity and complementizer choice in Japanese. Kuno (1973) argues that the concept of factivity proposed by Kiparsky and Kiparsky (1971) to analyze the choice of complement types in English is a determining factor in complementizer choice in Japanese. Observation of data collected for this study indicates that there are numerous instances that cannot be accounted for using the concept of factivity. Complementizer choice in Japanese is determined, not by factivity of the predicate, but by the degree of internalization of the information/proposition expressed in the complement.

Silverstein (1976) showed that the grammatical cases take varying kinds of case-marking according to the hierarchical value of the nominal being marked. This paper demonstrates that such hierarchical marking occurs in non-grammatical cases as well. Moreover, these cases typically take nominals of a specific hierarchical value as arguments. Analysis of the data according to classic marking theory reveals that departures from the typical pattern often take extra morphological marking. Since the new forms appear in atypical contexts, they are prone to being pragmatically reinterpreted. And the combination of marking and reinterpretation will produce new cases in the language.

It has generally been assumed in the literature on ergativity that the phenomenon of ergative clause structure in Chukotkan languages represents a family-internal development reflecting the common source of such constructions in earlier passives. On closer inspection it appears that Chukotkan ergativity is of a typologically quite aberrant kind, however, whose most likely source is to be found in influence from neighbouring Eskimo. Prior to that, all Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages had already developed complex transitive verbal paradigms of a non-ergative type.