Studies in Language. International Journal sponsored by the Foundation “Foundations of Language” - Volume 45, Issue 4, 2021

Morphological complexity is expected to decrease under mass admixture from adult second language speakers. While this has been chiefly shown for morphological richness, an unresolved question is whether the effect extends to aspects of morphological boundedness. Here we report a case study of Sino-Tibetan verbs, contrasting verbal expressions of two languages with very large (Chinese, Burmese) and of two languages with very small (Bunan, Chintang) numbers of second language speakers. We find that while the amount of second language speakers accounts for differences in the range and number of inflectional categories (degrees of synthesis), it does not affect the way in which morphological constituents are bound together, reflecting fortification through a mix of diachronically stable and universally preferred patterns. This calls for theoretical models that narrow down the range of changes that are driven by second language speaker admixture, and for extensive empirical testing on a global scale.

The goal of this paper is to offer a theoretical analysis of chorophorics, a recently proposed pro-formal category that can refer either to “places”, or to locations as arguments of spatial relations. It is suggested that chorophorics are a common category that displays heterogeneous morphological properties but homogeneous syntactic distribution and semantic interpretation. Evidence supporting this argument is offered via eight genetically unrelated languages. The evidence shows that at least three different types of chorophorics can be individuated across languages: chorophorics as a sub-type of prepositions, of case-marked nouns or of postpositions. A formal account is offered, based on a Lexical Syntax analysis. The account shows that chorophorics share a similar distribution with prepositional phrases and receive their “place” sense from their distribution in discourse contexts.

This paper analyzes Differential Object Marking in P’orhépecha, which involves split case and fluid case alternations. Although this system is sensitive to Animacy and Definiteness, I will show that prominence on these scales does not account for the distribution of flagging. In fact, in P’orhépecha, the expected prominence effects of these scales are overridden by certain grammatical properties of the NPs, which explains the obligatory vs. forbidden flagging. The fluid pattern is of special interest, since even though there is evidence that flagging is used as a device to codify definiteness/specificity, higher and lower ranked objects on the definiteness scale may be (un)flagged. This peculiar behavior is explained by two facts: (a) definite/specific descriptions may, and in some instances must, be unflagged when the context of use guarantees the intended referential interpretation of the NP; and (b) lower ranked objects may be flagged only when their referents exhibit discourse salience.

Like all Algonquian languages, Cree distributes its stock of nouns over two classes: animate and inanimate. While this distinction is firmly based on different agreement rules, and is to a large extent (but not completely) backed up by semantic differences, Cree nouns can also be put on a 4-level hierarchy scale, depending on their morphological valence with regard to whether or not they allow markers for the plural, obviative, vocative/honorific, absentative or which one of the two types of locatives. In addition, in a few recorded cases an inanimate noun may be reclassified, or “promoted”, as an animate noun, but rarely vice versa. Although this paper concentrates on Plains Cree, and examples are from that dialect unless otherwise noted, some observations are also made on (in)animacy in East Cree and in a wider Algonquian context.

Ideophones and direct quotations are “depictive” signs, or vivid re-enactments of what they signify. Pursuing the typology of linguistic depiction, the current study proposes a three-way classification of depiction marking strategies: framing, foregrounding, and backgrounding. While well-known formal characteristics of ideophones, such as prosodic prominence and quotative constructions, illustrate framing and foregrounding, this paper discusses low-pitched quotative indexes in Japanese as backgrounding-type depiction markers. These quotatives immediately follow ideophones and exclamatory quotations and set them off. They also underlie the exceptional pitch pattern of heavy syllables in ideophones.

Khamti Shan features the marking of perfectivity comprised of three clause-final particles, one perfective and two imperfectives, each emerging from the basic verbs, yau¹ ‘finish’, u⁵ ‘live’, and nam⁵ ‘(be) extensive’. While the perfective category is straightforward, the imperfective category shows an unusual bifurcation, the first imperfective marker accommodating continuatives and habituals and the second imperfective marker working exclusively with the nominal predicate construction, clauses of potentiality (hortatives, futures), and the progressive construction. All three particles of perfectivity develop from lexical sources, with the pathways ‘finish’ > completive > perfective and ‘live’ > continuous/progressive > imperfective being well-documented across languages. The pathway ‘extensive’ > imperfective, on the other hand, appears unique to Khamti Shan. I motivate the usage of these perfectivity particles (primarily) with a semantic-cognitive analysis.

We investigate an unstudied, rich component of the relative clause system in Teramano, one of the Upper Southern Italian languages. We focus on light-headed relative clauses – relative clauses that lack a full nominal head and are introduced by only a Determiner-like or pronominal “light head”. We also briefly describe headed relative clauses in Teramano since the morphosyntactic features they exhibit are relevant for the investigation of light-headed relative clauses. Last, we highlight commonalities and differences between light-headed relative clauses in Teramano and Italian. Our paper provides the first systematic in-depth description of light-headed relative clauses in an Upper Southern Italian language that we are aware of, contributes to the knowledge of Teramano, the study of light-headed relative clauses crosslinguistically, and the ongoing investigation of microvariation among Italian and Italian languages.

This paper examines a comparative construction in the Oceanic language Äiwoo and argues that it differs from those known in the typological literature on comparatives on two counts. It is similar to a so-called ‘exceed’ comparative in involving a morpheme meaning ‘go far’; but unlike canonical exceed comparatives, the construction is intransitive, and the standard of comparison is expressed as an oblique. Moreover, the standard is indicated not only by this oblique phrase but also by a directional marker on the verb, in an extension of the frequent use of directionals in Äiwoo to indicate peripheral participants. This construction thus, on the one hand, expands the established typology of comparative constructions; and on the other, shows that the use of directional morphemes to indicate peripheral participants, otherwise attested e.g. for recipients of give verbs, may extend to the standard in comparative constructions, pointing to an avenue for further typological exploration.

Frequency asymmetries within a minimal grammatical domain create offline associations that languages tend to exploit for a more efficient encoding. We explore cross-linguistic coding patterns of antipassives. We first argue that antipassive markers tend to have properties of derivational markers. Secondly, we show that antipassives are considerably rarer than the basic transitive constructions. The lower frequency correlates with the length of coding: antipassives tend to be coded with longer forms than basic transitive verbs. Thirdly, we explore frequency associations of different lexical input types and find that it is the rare input types that tend to select the antipassive, if the marking is differential, while the frequent ones correlate with the unmarked verb (A-lability). We, furthermore, show that the rarer argument types and argument scenarios correlate stronger with antipassives than the more frequent argument types and scenarios.