Studies in Language. International Journal sponsored by the Foundation “Foundations of Language” - Volume 46, Issue 3, 2022

Beyond their basic function to index exophoric and endophoric referents, Thai demonstratives have a host of pragmatic functions to encode concerns regarding discourse organization, subjectivity, and intersubjectivity. Based on a detailed analysis of demonstratives used in conversation, we attempt to uncover the pattern of grammaticalization for this class of words in Thai, and to propose a mechanism that allows them to develop multiple functions. Since demonstratives are indexical signs and are qualitatively distinct from content words, we must view the grammaticalization process of demonstratives differently from that of content words. In this paper, we use the model of the joint attention triangle based on Diessel’s earlier work and the functional utterance frame based on the “attractor position” analysis for grammaticalization of nouns and verbs advanced by Bisang (1996) to analyze how exactly demonstratives come to acquire pragmatic functions.

This paper aims to describe the morphosyntax and semantics of postpositions in Karijona, a Cariban language from Northwest Amazonia. The data, collected in the Karijona settlement of Puerto Nare (Colombia), were analyzed according to Basic Linguistic Theory and Cognitive Semantics. Like other Cariban languages, Karijona has a typologically unusual system of postpositions, which can cross-reference person and number, and form complex stems consisting of locative roots and locative suffixes. In terms of their semantics, the system distinguishes among spatial, relational, and ‘mental state’ postpositions. The first type encodes noun classification, orientation, and distance. While the second type has prototypical relational meanings, the third refers to cognitive and emotional states. This paper presents the first systematic description of the Karijona postpositions.

This study analyses the role of conjunctions in clause linkage in Australian languages. Conjunctions are seemingly straightforward clause-linking devices, but they remain under-studied, both for Australian languages and from a broader typological perspective. In this study, we propose a functional definition of conjunctions, as set against other resources for clause linkage. We show that this captures not just the prototypical free-standing elements (the equivalents of if, because, but etc.), but also various types of bound markers with a similar function (bound to clause-scoping positions or predicates). We survey the role of conjunctions in a representative sample of 53 Australian languages, showing that they are not a marginal clause linkage resource in Australia, as seems to be assumed in the relevant literature, but often form a major category within clause linkage systems. We also identify a number of areal patterns, based on the size of conjunction inventories and their morphosyntactic features.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed cross-linguistic analysis of so-called emphatic negative coordination (enc). This kind of clause linkage is illustrated by neither and nor in She neither could nor would speak lightly of the accident. On the basis of a 250-language sample, the paper lays out a new typology of enc meant to gain novel insights. It is shown that languages can combine enc types, and that contact and borrowing are relevant triggers for the emergence of this sort of clause linkage. The article also reveals that there is considerable variety in the etymological sources and grammaticalization paths of enc markers.

We make two claims regarding weather expressions in Basque: first, based on Eriksen et al.’s (2010) typology, we show that Basque tends towards the argument type (and less frequently so to the predicate-argument type) when coding dynamic (precipitation or other) events and to both the argument and the predicate type when coding static events; Basque often has transitive structures (i.e. both transitive predicate and argument transitive types), apparently a rare typological feature. Second, with respect to two key issues in the study of weather predicates within Generative Grammar, we claim (a) that Basque supports the view that both lexicalizations of weather verbs (unaccusative and unergative/transitive) are possible across languages, as argued by Bleotu (2015) and Levin & Krejci (2019); and (b) that the empty pro subject of Basque transitive weather constructions is closer to a quasi-argument (Chomsky 1981; Levin & Krejci 2019) rather than to a true expletive.