Studies in Language. International Journal sponsored by the Foundation “Foundations of Language” - Volume 48, Issue 4, 2024

A number of works have explored expletive negation in clause-linkage constructions. Most of them have shown that this type of negative marker can be omitted from the adverbial clause without affecting the interpretation holding between clauses. The study shows, based on the analysis of natural discourse data, that expletive negation has developed an intriguing discourse function in three types of ‘until’ constructions in Huasteca Nahuatl: ‘not…until’ constructions, scalar additive ‘until’ constructions, and beginning-to-end constructions. When the negative marker amo appears in the ‘until’ clause, the proposition should be characterized as expressing surprise. When it is absent from the ‘until’ clause, the proposition does not express surprise. This function of the expletive negative marker amo does not appear in elicited sentences, but only in spontaneous speech. It is proposed that Huasteca Nahuatl developed expletive negation in ‘not…until’ constructions due to contact with Spanish. However, the development of expletive negation in scalar additive ‘until’ constructions and beginning-to-end constructions is an internally motivated development in Huasteca Nahuatl that cannot be attributed to Spanish.

This paper examines a hitherto unreported use of the Gã Perfect gram termed the ‘sequential perfect’. The sequential perfect represents a late stage of grammaticalization as it no longer conveys any aspectual information on its own, instead deriving its semantics from verbal categories in the prior discourse. It is primarily modal, being used for irrealis, habitual and iterative situations. It occurs in the non-initial clause of multiclausal constructions and signals that the event it marks is temporally posterior to another event. It also imparts the epistemic modal meanings of inevitability and certainty. I propose that these newer functions are developed from the core semantic components of change-of-state and completion. This involves grammaticalization via domain extension, where change-of-state within an event is extended to change between events. The investigation introduces a new pathway for grammaticalization of the perfect, which has implications for studies of the perfect and grammaticalization generally.

The parts of speech system and lexical flexibility in Mandarin Chinese (henceforth Chinese) has long been subjects of debate due to the pervasive zero coding of action reference constructions. In this article, we analyze properties of the Chinese Action Reference Construction from the perspective of Radical Construction Grammar (Croft 2001, 2022), focusing on its structural coding, behavioral potential, productivity, and semantic shifts. We also discuss typological features that potentially reinforce lexical flexibility in Chinese, and the implications that the language-specific properties of Chinese present for cross-linguistic discussions of parts of speech. Specifically, reference, instead of predication, is the most flexible information-packaging function in Chinese, challenging the privileged status of predication established in previous studies on parts of speech and lexical flexibility.

This paper is the first detailed description of the exceptionally rich subsystem of verbal inflections that express imperfective aspect in Tacana, an endangered and underdescribed language from the Takanan family. The unusually high degree of elaboration of this system, which includes nine members in paradigmatic opposition, is achieved by co-expressing imperfective aspect with spatial meanings taken from two distinct categories: associated motion (with five values: ‘going’, ‘coming’, ‘going back’, ‘coming back’, ‘wandering’) and what I will call “associated posture” (with three values: ‘standing’, ‘lying/bending’, ‘hanging’). The ninth member is a default imperfective marker that does not carry any spatial meaning. The paper challenges linguistic theories that consider grammatical(izable) concepts as belonging to a strictly limited range of notional domains from which motion and posture are excluded. Additionally, the paper provides strong support for a new comparative concept of “associated posture” in linguistics.

This paper examines the morphosyntax of the East African Swahili-based urban youth language or stylect Sheng. Research on urban youth languages has often focused on these varieties as sites of rapid change and linguistic creativity. However, we show that many of the structural features which appear to make Sheng stand out when compared to (Standard) Swahili are widespread across East African Bantu languages. We examine nominal and verbal domains, as well as clausal syntax, and highlight areas in which Sheng exhibits features in common with its contact languages, as well as features which appear to reflect instances of independent innovation. The study shows that Sheng is not a “simplified” version of Swahili which deviates from the grammar of Swahili in a range of ad hoc ways. Rather, the language exhibits features of retention and contact-induced borrowing, as well as systematic changes which are reflective of variation across the Bantu languages.