Studies in Language. International Journal sponsored by the Foundation “Foundations of Language” - Volume 36, Issue 4, 2012

The present paper offers an analysis of the transitivizing and intransitivizing preverbs (semi-bound verbal prefixes) in Vedic Sanskrit. I will argue that the (in)transitivizing force of these morphemes is weak: the passivization test shows that transitivizing preverbs only exceptionally make fundamentally intransitive verbs true transitives, whilst the only intransitivizing preverb ví has but a rather limited valency-changing capacity.

The variety of Sicilian spoken in Pantelleria has developed a progressive construction which involves pronominal subject clitics. This is striking in many respects. Firstly, on a Romance scale, subject clitics are usually regarded as characteristic for varieties spoken north of Florence. Secondly, in none of the central Romance dialects where subject clitics are known to occur do these convey progressive meaning. The latter seems to be unusual on a larger scale too, as none of the strategies for progressive marking reported in the relevant literature on linguistic typology seems to be directly comparable with the one displayed by Pantiscu. Besides, the results of the present study have some consequences for grammaticalization theory, as they suggest that recent revisions of Hopper & Traugott’s ‘cline of grammaticalization’ are not on the right track and that the cline originally proposed should rather be revised so as to include the distinction between syntactic and phonological cliticization.

The present analysis is grounded in a view of grammar emerging in interaction and coming into being through mundane language use. By analyzing Hebrew interactional data, I outline the continua of synchronic usage from literal constructions involving the verb yada (‘know’) to three projecting constructions of the discourse marker variety. The study furthers our understanding of how projecting constructions are sedimentations of interactional practices. I combine interactional linguistics with grammaticization studies to show phonological, morphological, syntactic, pragmatic, and prosodic evidence in support of different grammaticization paths from matrix clause to discourse marker. Diachronic evidence from Mishnaic and Medieval Hebrew is added as further support for the paths suggested. The previously debated issue of complement-taking predicates is thus situated in another language and in a wider context, showing that different constructions employing the same matrix verb may follow different grammaticization paths. The study continues along an existing path of investigation into the issue of complement-taking constructions viewed as grammatically superordinate vs. as attachments to essentially monoclausal utterances. I argue for a more differentiated analysis recognizing both types of usage.

The present paper aims to register the principal morphological and morphosyntactic items of the Manchu language that encode modal notions and to propose a functional and semantic classification for them. The inventory of items is classified according to three functional categories which are determined by their relationship to aspect within a hierarchy of scope. The position of a given modal item in the scope hierarchy is established by testing whether it is combinable with aspect, and if so, whether the modal item operates on aspect or forms part of the operandum of aspect. The three functional modal categories, which are also mutually distinct in terms of basic semantic properties, are investigated with regard to their internal semantic design. It will be suggested that while the domain of event modality can be adequately described with received theories of modality, the other semantic classes call for alternative approaches.

The present paper offers a description of ditransitive constructions in Kashibo-Kakataibo (Panoan, Peru). While doing so, this paper challenges what can be called the “non-distinguishable objects analysis”, which stipulates that, in some Panoan languages, the two objects of ditransitive constructions cannot be syntactically distinguished. I not only argue that this analysis cannot be applied to Kashibo-Kakataibo, but also that it invokes important methodological problems. In contrast, this paper argues for a constructional approach, which looks at different grammatical properties independently. This approach allows us to explain the distribution of alignments found in Kashibo-Kakataibo’s ditransitive constructions: the neutral alignment type dominates according to a principle of coding-behavior harmony, while the indirective alignment type is limited to reflexive constructions, which have an intrinsic bias to T-based constructions. This constructional approach can also be applied to other Panoan languages and, therefore, offers a solid comparative basis for future studies on ditransitive constructions from a Panoan perspective.