Studies in Language. International Journal sponsored by the Foundation “Foundations of Language” - Volume 34, Issue 2, 2010

The present paper investigates the relationship between dislocation and differential object marking in some Romance languages. As in many languages that have a DOM system, it is usually also assumed that in Romance languages the phenomenon is regulated by the semantic features of the referents, such as animacy, definiteness, and specificity. In the languages under investigation, though, these features cannot explain the distribution and the emergence of DOM. After discussing the main theoretical approaches to the phenomenon, I will analyse DOM in four Romance languages. I will argue that DOM emerges in pragmatically and semantically marked contexts, namely with personal pronouns in dislocations. I will then show that in these languages the use of the DOM system is mainly motivated by the need to signal the markedness of these direct objects as a consequence of being used in (mainly left) dislocation as topics (cf. English “As for him, we didn’t see him”). Finally, the examination of comparative data from Persian and Amazonian languages lends further support to the advocated approach in terms of information structure

Kemmer (1993) argues that middle voice markers almost always arise diachronically through the semantic extension of a reflexive marker to other semantic uses related to reflexive. In this paper I will argue for an alternative diachronic path that has led to the development of the middle marker in Yurakaré (unclassified, Bolivia): through ideophone-verb constructions. Taking this perspective helps explain a number of synchronic peculiarities of the middle marker in Yurakaré, and it introduces a previously unnoticed channel for middle voice markers to arise.

In this paper it is argued that, contrary to what is often assumed, embedded adverbial clauses have an information structure articulation independent from that of the main clause. More particularly, it is shown that the specific way in which information structure is expressed in adverbial clauses depends on the possibility vs. impossibility of epistemic qualification in the adverbial clause. The claim is based on new empirical evidence concerning the distribution of a clearly information structure-driven syntactic configuration: verb-subject word order in French.

The Dumut languages Mandobo, South Wambon and North Wambon are a subgroup of the Awyu-Dumut family. They form a dialect chain that represents stages of the development from clause conjoining with independent verb forms to clause chaining with dependent verb forms that express switch-reference. South Wambon represents the first stage in which there is coordination reduction of tense and subject person-number suffixes in thematic continuity conditions. This process created three verb types: fully finite verbs; semi-finite verbs and non-finite verbs. Coordination reduction leaves the coordinating conjunctions intact and this explains the presence of coordinators with all verb types, including dependent verbs. Coordination reduction creates verb forms that signal subject continuity but it does not create subject discontinuity forms and there is no switch-reference in South Wambon. However, the introduction of dependent subject continuity forms gives South Wambon speakers a choice in subject continuity conditions between dependent forms and independent verb forms. Since speakers prefer dependent forms under these conditions, a frequency pattern emerges that associates independent forms with subject discontinuity conditions and that sets the stage for the development of medial verb forms and switch-reference. North Wambon and Mandobo represent the second stage in which subject discontinuity forms develop. North Wambon transforms conjoined semi-finite independent verbs into two types of special medial verb forms that express switch-reference. In Mandobo any medially occurring independent verb form is reinterpreted as a Different Subject form. The two-stage hypothesis revives the coordination reduction theory of Haiman (1983a) as an explanation for the origin of (certain) switch-reference systems by viewing coordination reduction as an explanation of SS forms only. In this way, the two-stage theory overcomes the problems of limited applicability that Roberts (1997: 190) noted for the original theory of Haiman (1983a).

This paper explores the phenomenon that pro-adverbs of manner are cross-linguistically used to mark transitions from one activity to another. In Estonian, the pro-adverb nii is used for this purpose. Among Estonian refugees in Sweden, an activity transition is frequently marked with soo. Both nii and soo originally had the same semantic meaning ‘like this/that, in this way, so’, even though soo merely in its source language German. The article argues that the deictic pro-adverbs of manner are especially suitable for the task of marking activity transitions because they can be applied at the boundaries of verbal as well as non-verbal activities. The reason for the existence of this pattern seems to lie in the general necessity in human interaction to jointly move from one activity to another and the exophoric deictic capacity of pro-adverbs. The study explores audio- and video-recorded examples with regard to the sequencing of social actions accomplished by the participants in the verbal as well as the bodily domain.

The two main types of nominal classification systems in Australian languages — classifiers and genders — are usually easy to distinguish both formally and functionally. However, in the Australian language Mawng, gender agreement carries much of the burden of reference, varies depending on how an entity is construed, and contributes elements of compositional meaning to discourse, with properties usually associated with classifiers rather than genders. The way that semantically-based genders are used in Mawng suggests that we need to add how classification is used to our typologies of nominal classification systems; existing typologies consider mainly morphosyntactic and semantic properties.