Studies in Language. International Journal sponsored by the Foundation “Foundations of Language” - Volume 40, Issue 1, 2016

This paper investigates the morphosyntactic and pragmatic properties of floating person agreement in Sanzhi Dargwa (Nakh-Daghestanian, Russia). Person agreement enclitics can occur on the verb or on other constituents (NPs, adverbs, or pronouns). In the latter case, they seem to function like constituent focus markers because they emphasize their host, but this effect is limited to elicited sentences. Floating agreement in Sanzhi Dargwa is compared to similar constructions in other Nakh-Daghestanian languages (Udi, Lak) which have been analyzed as synchronic in situ clefts or as diachronically arising from clefts. The paper shows that a synchronic cleft analysis for floating agreement in Sanzhi must be rejected, and it is argued that diachronically they originate from identificational copula constructions.

Usage-based models of language have proposed a dynamic, organized system based on analogy, or the recognition of similarity. The potential role of analogy between similar forms or constructions, however, is not often discussed. If we aim to illustrate grammaticalization and other diachronic processes not through one construction at a time — but by quantitatively assessing the relationship between constructions — we may better address the role of analogy as a mechanism of change. This quantitative, diachronic, corpus-based examination of language-internal constructional analogy is based on four forms in Spanish: altamente ‘highly’, enormemente ‘enormously’, extraordinariamente ‘extraordinarily’, and extremadamente ‘extremely’. These forms all occur in at least two basic constructions, in which they function as modifiers of verbs and as modifiers of modifiers. Analogical “transference” of paths of change between forms is proposed as a cross-linguistic language-internal process. Not only do forms compete with each other, but they also may borrow the path another has taken.

Japanese speakers are often characterised as ‘indecisive’. The indecision is indicated by epistemic markers being frequently added to express the doubt. The sentence-final particle kana shows an indecisive attitude and is usually translated into English as I wonder or maybe. There are other similar Japanese expressions, for example, darou ka and (n) janai ka. Both expressions represent uncertainty and are generally interpreted as I wonder or maybe. Although kana, darou ka and (n) janai ka are often treated as ‘synonyms’, they are not necessarily interchangeable. The aim of this study is to define these Japanese epistemic markers using the reductive paraphrase methodology of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach. New definitions are presented to clarify semantic differences and the invariant concept embedded in each expression. This analysis elucidates Japanese speakers’ epistemic stance when they are in doubt.

This article presents the findings of a cross-linguistic survey of tense. In an areally and genetically balanced sample, 318 languages were investigated for whether they have tense and, if so, how they partition the timeline with respect to the deictic centre. Three quarters of the languages have tense: the majority partition the timeline into three sections: before, during and after the deictic centre (effectively past, present and future tense). Those languages with only two tenses most commonly have future/nonfuture tense. Interestingly, a group of languages have only one tense, the majority of them the future. This might indicate that there is a stronger motivation for the future tense to grammaticalize than for other tenses, mirroring a real/unreal world divide: real world events are easier to characterize through aspect than events that are yet to happen, which might create a need for a device that locates an event in future time.

Building on recent findings made in the framework of Construction Grammar, on the one hand, and within the framework on grammaticalization, on the other, the present paper is concerned with the development from lexical compounding to derivation. Compounding is presumably the most common source of derivational categories and this applies in particular to modifying (endocentric) compounds, which are the main subject of this paper. By looking at three cases of grammatical change in English, German, and the West African language Ewe it is argued that the two frameworks differ in their goals and in their approaches. Both frameworks search for regularities in grammatical change, but whereas Construction Grammar has a focus on constructional change, that is, change in the development of constructions, the central question asked by students of grammaticalization is how and why, e.g., lexical categories give rise to grammatical (or functional) categories.

In this paper we provide an analysis of the function of Polish verbal prefixes and German verbal particles in aspectual composition of incremental theme predicates (ITP) such as eat and drink. Incremental theme verbs (e.g. eat, drink) are well known for the fact that the referential properties of the incremental theme arguments (ITA) affect the telicity of the whole predication. In the Slavic languages, only prefixed incremental theme verbs result in a telic predication. Since in many cases prefixed verbs are perfective, it is often assumed that telicity results from perfectivity. We argue that grammatical aspect is not necessary for achieving a telic ITP, since there are perfective ITPs that do not result in a telic predication. Rather (a)telicity is dependent on the semantic content of the verbal prefix.

This paper deals with the coordination of clauses in Finnish Sign Language (FinSL). Building on conversational data, the paper first shows that linking in conjunctive coordination in FinSL is primarily asyndetic, whereas in adversative and disjunctive coordination FinSL prefers syndetic linking. Secondly, the paper investigates the nonmanual prosody of coordination: nonmanual activity is shown both to mark the juncture of the coordinand clauses and to draw their contours. Finally, the paper addresses certain forms of clausal coordination in FinSL that are sign language-specific. It is suggested that the sign language-specific properties of coordination are caused both by the fact that signers can use two manual articulators in the production of sentences and by the pervasive iconicity of sign language structure.