Studies in Language. International Journal sponsored by the Foundation “Foundations of Language” - Volume 23, Issue 1, 1999

Based on film animation scenes and on an elicitation-task devised by members of the Cognitive Anthropology Research Group I elicited data on how the concepts ENTER and EXIT are expressed in Kilivila, the Austronesian language of the Trobriand Islanders. The paper presents the methodology used for data elicitation and the results for Kilivila. Kilivila can express ENTER and EXIT concepts either with specific lexicalized verbal expressions, or with constructions that use the motion verbs 'come' and/or 'go' together with a locative like 'in, into' or 'out, outside' (these constructions can be compared to Talmy's "verb+satellite constructions"), or with serial verb constructions that minutely describe the ENTER/EXIT actions observed. Both the form and the semantics of these constructions are discussed.

This paper presents an account of the variation in Spanish Progressive constructions from the perspective of grammaticization. Retention of features of meaning from the source constructions is reflected in distribution constraints on the different auxiliaries, which, nevertheless, are converging toward continuous meaning. The evidence supports the hypothesis that progressives originate as locative or movement constructions and that the process by which they evolve is semantic generalization (as opposed to metaphor or pragmatic strengthening). An important mechanism in this grammaticization process is frequency of occurrence in certain contexts, in support of the view that frequent repetition plays a role in semantic change (Bybee and Thomspon 1997; Haiman 1994).

The aim of this paper is to document the presence of substratum semantics in the verbal inventory of Haitian creole on the basis of a comparison of a sample of verbs in Haitian, French (its lexifier language) and Fongbe (one of its substratum languages). The paper begins with a comparison of the meanings of a sample of Haitian, French and Fongbe verbs. Although the phonological representations of the Haitian verbs are derived from the phonetic representations of French verbs, the details of their semantics do not correspond exactly to those of French, but rather to those of Fongbe. Idiomatic expressions in Haitian are often expressed with similar verbal phrases in Fongbe, whereas they are rendered by a simple verb in French. Aspectual properties of verbs (stative/non-stative) constitute another facet of verbal semantics, and I compare the aspectual properties of Haitian, French and Fongbe verbs. Haitian verbs, like Fongbe verbs, are often not specified for aspectual properties, in contrast to French verbs. Thematic properties constitute yet another topic in the semantics of verbs, addressed here from the point of view of the verbs' agentiveness. On the basis of these various types of data, it is argued that the bulk of Haitian verbs' semantic properties have been carried over into the creole from the substratum lexicons. This situation argues in favor of the claim that the process of relexification plays a central role in the formation of a Creole's lexicon. Some cases of acquisition of French verbs are also reported. Such cases have triggered a reorganization in the properties of the verbal lexical entries originally relexified from the Haitian substratum languages.

This essay tries to 1) outline a pragmatically anchored, universal matrix of morpho-syntax and semantics, 2) provide a general account of one of its components, i.e., reference entailment and maintenance mechanisms, and 3) focus on some of these mechanisms, such as "topic-markers" and "topicalizers" (defined below), by analyzing the structural and functional characteristics of several particles in Japanese, in terms of the interactions between markedness hierarchy, the semantic contents of NPs (explained below), case relations, interclausal linkages and reference-maintenance relations. Also the paper investigates relationships between forms in the linguistic structure of Japanese and the emotive and conative effects of their uses in discourse.

From a typological perspective, the most striking — and perhaps the only noteworthy — feature of the auxiliation of the main verb baan 'get' in Khmer is that it migrates from V2 to V1 position, contravening the general tendency for grammatical morphemes to remain frozen in the same position where the words from which they originate are found. It may be that the reason for this migration is, ultimately, prosodic: Khmer is an iambic language; hence, it is an exclusively prefixing language; and hence it is a language in which unstressed elements are attracted into some prefixed position.It is possible that Wackernagel's Law, following which unstressed elements are attracted into a suffixing position (typically, sentence-second) may be a typological parameter, rather than a universal. In exclusively prefixing languages like Khmer, which are admittedly very rare, the corresponding migration may be into initial position.