Studies in Language. International Journal sponsored by the Foundation “Foundations of Language” - Volume 47, Issue 3, 2023

Van der Auwera & Vossen (2017) identify an intriguing shift from a copula to a negative marker in the Tibeto-Burman Kiranti group, and discuss it as a possible example of Jespersen’s Cycle. This paper traces a fuller history of the copula #ni, and presents an account of its association with negation, which is attested in several other Tibeto-Burman languages besides Kiranti. In most Tibeto-Burman languages the equational copula is “optional”, occurring in affirmative sentences only with a contrastive or emphatic sense. For this reason copulas often develop into sentence-final stance markers. Since negation is morphologically marked on verbs, a negated equational sentence requires an overt copula which can be negated. This paper presents data showing how this association of the presence of a copula with negation has resulted in the negative sense becoming associated with and, in a few cases, becoming the direct meaning of the erstwhile copula.

This study investigates the relationship between progressive patterns and present and past time reference. First, it looks at the shared distribution of more than 90 progressives in two parallel corpora and discusses the characteristics of these contexts. It is shown that while progressives are used for dramatic and topical events in the present, they are typically used as backgrounding, supportive material in the past. Second, it is shown that progressives generally have more occurrences in contexts with present time reference than past, this is especially true for progressives with many uses, i.e. more grammaticalized progressives. And third, a number of progressives temporally restricted are presented. Two historical explanations for these restrictions are provided, both of which result from the higher frequency of present uses over past.

The article starts out from a Lithuanian construction denoting achievement of an excessive value of some parameter of an incremental event. It is verb-framed, that is, the main-clause verb denotes motion along a path towards a normative value of the parameter involved. Its implications for our understanding of the Talmyan typology of event conflation are discussed. Event conflation in the domains of spatial motion and change of state has received most attention in the literature; differences in saliency and elaboration, and the importance of constraints on the lexicalization of path (result) and manner, have been pointed out. The Lithuanian verb-framed constructions discussed here are, however, similar to those in the domain of ‘temporal contouring’ in that they involve an incremental path superimposed on the path-to-result lexicalized in the embedded predicate. This extension beyond the core domains of spatial motion and change of state represents another dimension of the Talmyan typology, largely overlooked until now.

There is a long history presuming smell is not expressible in language, but numerous studies in recent years challenge this presupposition. Large smell lexica have been reported around the world thereby showing high lexical codability in this domain. Psycholinguistic studies likewise find smell can be described with relatively high agreement, demonstrating high efficient codability. Often the two go hand-in-hand: languages with high lexical codability also display high efficient codability. This study compares two Austroasiatic (Aslian) languages – Semaq Beri and Semelai – previously shown to diverge in their efficient codability for smell: Semaq Beri showed relatively high efficient codability, whereas Semelai did not. Despite this, we demonstrate that both languages have high lexical codability, i.e., large lexica of basic smell terms. This seems to be a feature of the Aslian language family, suggesting a long-standing preoccupation with odours. More generally, the dissociation between lexical and efficient codability suggests a more nuanced approach towards linguistic expressibility is necessary.

This paper focuses on the history of a polyfunctional case marker 𗗙 jij¹ in Tangut, an extinct Rgyalrongic language (Sino-Tibetan). This versatile case morpheme is a typological rarity of maximum syncretism among several abstract case functions, including differential object marking, the genitive, and the oblique (which overlaps with the dative). For one thing, accusatives originating from datives or spatial sources are rarely found with additional genitive functions; for another, reported instances of accusative/genitive syncretism seldom include other functions. The principal hypothesis of this paper is that the Tangut 𗗙 jij¹ may be the result of multiple grammaticalization processes stemming from a proto-locative source. These processes can be subsumed under two pathways, one leading from an allative to an accusative, with an intermediate oblique stage, and the other from a locative to a genitive. Although both of these development pathways are frequently attested, the Tangut 𗗙 jij¹ remains a typological rarity due to their superposition.

This paper explores the rich diversity in structural possibilities that are available for (simple) nominal expressions in Australian languages. First, I identify a number of construction types found across a 50 language sample, which may be recognised by using a restricted set of parameters. I show that an important factor is whether a given parameter (such as word order) is generalised or displayed only by some word classes. Second, I develop a four-way typology based on how the construction types cluster in individual languages. Two types are described to some extent in the literature, but I provide a more detailed characterisation: one mostly has flexible, non-phrasal expressions and the other mostly rigid noun phrases. The other two types have not been described as such. One mostly has flexible phrases, which combine internal flexibility with phrasal case marking, and the other has distinct construction types depending on the type of modifier.