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- Volume 49, Issue 1, 2025
Studies in Language. International Journal sponsored by the Foundation “Foundations of Language” - Volume 49, Issue 1, 2025
Volume 49, Issue 1, 2025
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Inflection class interactions and valency changes in Matlatzinca
Author(s): Enrique L. Palancar and Leonardo Carranza Martínezpp.: 1–43 (43)More LessAbstractIn this paper, we explore how changes in the inflection class membership of verbs in Matlatzinca (Oto-Pamean, Oto-Manguean, Mexico) lead to changes in both their valency and meaning. In Matlatzinca, verbs often exhibit multiple class membership so that a given verb may be inflected as transitive in one class but as intransitive in another. For instance, the verb chun+ta, when inflected in different classes, can encompass diverse meanings: the action of ‘waking someone up’; the result state of ‘being awake’; and the spontaneous event of ‘waking up’. This linguistic phenomenon is intriguing from both a typological and a theoretical perspective as it challenges our understanding of lexical representation by prompting the question of whether these meanings represent distinct lexical entries or various construals of the same verb (Spencer 2013).
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What can be said?
Author(s): Thera Marie Crane, Remah Lubambo, M Petrus Mabena, Cordelia Nkwinika, Muhle Sibisi and Onelisa Slaterpp.: 44–92 (49)More LessAbstractWe employ a cluster approach to explore the comparative semantic maps of several markers of modal possibility – the “potential” prefix nga‑ and expressions meaning, roughly, ‘know how to’ and ‘be able to’ – in four South African Nguni languages: isiNdebele, isiZulu, isiXhosa, Siswati. We also compare the Nguni results with results from Xitsonga, a closely related language outside of the Nguni clade. The languages exhibit cross-linguistic differences in the expansion of core meanings, some of which do not appear to follow the cross-linguistically common diachronic pattern in which goal-oriented modality precedes deontic modality. In addition, the distinction between inherent and learned ability is salient in several of these languages. Semantic maps of the markers’ functional distributions further show the diversity of modal systems that can be found even in closely related languages in significant contact with one another.
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The ventive and the deictic shift
Author(s): Sergey Koval and Sergey Loesovpp.: 93–118 (26)More LessAbstractThe Old Assyrian language is a branch of East Semitic. East Semitic has been extinct since around 400 BCE. The Old Assyrian texts used in this study were produced by Assyrian merchants between 1890 and 1860 BCE in Northern Mesopotamia and Central Anatolia. Old Assyrian, as well as most other East Semitic varieties, had a ventive (or cislocative) marker hosted on motion verbs. This marker obligatorily encoded motion either toward the speaker or the interlocutor (the addressee of a written message). By way of a deictic shift, the ventive sometimes also came to point to a future location of the speaker and even to the whereabouts of non-speech act participants. The ventive marker had three allomorphs which are also allomorphs of the 1st person singular indirect object pronoun ‘to/for me’. The cislocative and personal pronoun meanings of the marker evolved in the course of a complex interaction which we trace in the etymological part of the study.
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Discontinuous past interpretation in Abaza
Author(s): Evgenia Klyaginapp.: 119–157 (39)More LessAbstractAbaza (Northwest Caucasian) has two perfective tenses which mark events in the past. In single clauses, however, one of them has a discontinuous interpretation. Recently, it has been argued that at least in some languages a discontinuous interpretation of past forms is a pragmatical implicature rather than a part of the encoded meaning. The aim of the paper is to describe the functions of the Abaza perfective past tenses and investigate the origin of the discontinuous interpretation in Abaza. Special attention is paid to the distribution of two tenses in various types of finite and non-finite clauses. The data show that there is no obligatory discontinuous interpretation in the syntactic environments where only one of the tenses can be used. However, the discontinuous interpretation does arise if two tenses compete with each other. Thus, the discontinuous implicature in Abaza can be considered a pragmatical implicature.
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Voice and transitivity in Äiwoo and Engdewu
Author(s): Åshild Næsspp.: 158–193 (36)More LessAbstractThis paper examines the structural and functional links between symmetrical voice systems, typologically unusual and characteristic of western Austronesian languages, and systems of accusative alignment. It compares the clausal patterns of two closely related languages, Äiwoo and Engdewu, where one is analysed as having symmetrical voice and the other as having accusative alignment. It argues that the usage patterns in Äiwoo point towards a possible path of reanalysis from one type of system to another, and that this involves two key factors: increased importance of referentiality of the patient argument as a condition for the choice between two alternative constructions, and loss of the distinction between subject and nonsubject actors in two domains of grammar. Referentiality in particular, being a key factor in the concept of transitivity as it is understood in the typological literature, provides a promising avenue for better understanding the relationships between the two types of system.
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Managing expectations
Author(s): Giovanni Chun Long Ma and John Mansfieldpp.: 194–223 (30)More LessAbstractOne of the central goals of human language is to convey intended messages successfully to the addressee. However, communication inherently involves uncertainty or unexpectedness which hinders this delivery. Different languages have different strategies to manage unexpectedness. In this article, we explore the strategies used in Murrinhpatha, an Australian Aboriginal language with highly flexible syntax, that is, free constituent order and frequent NP omission. We argue that Murrinhpatha speakers utilise the language’s syntactic flexibility to manage referential expectations. Highly unexpected referents tend to be expressed preverbally, while expected referents which need to be ‘reinforced’ are usually expressed postverbally. Uniquely expected referents are usually syntactically omitted. We argue that expectation and uncertainty provide a more convincing account of Murrinhpatha compared to an account of accessibility. Our findings shed new light on several aspects of syntactically flexible languages, including pragmatic salience and newsworthiness, and the functional distinction between postverbal NPs and NP omission.
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Specificity contrasts in Lalo Yi
Author(s): Yaqing Hu and Andrew Simpsonpp.: 224–241 (18)More LessAbstractLalo Yi (Tibeto-Burman; China) makes systematic distinctions in the encoding of specificity with numerically-quantified nominals. Whereas specific indefinite NPs involve the presence of an article nikhe in an NP-internal position [Noun nikhe Numeral Classifier], non-specific existentially-asserted indefinites require the use of a syntactically discontinuous floating quantifier pattern [NP…Numeral-Classifier…]. A third, distinctive patterning is found with weak, non-specific indefinites (indefinites that are not existentially asserted). This paper describes these previously undocumented contrastive forms in Lalo Yi and how the language has developed a strikingly transparent linking between morpho-syntax and semantics/pragmatics in the domain of nominal phrases.
Volumes & issues
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Volume 49 (2025)
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Volume 48 (2024)
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Volume 47 (2023)
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Volume 46 (2022)
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Volume 45 (2021)
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Volume 44 (2020)
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Volume 43 (2019)
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Volume 42 (2018)
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Volume 41 (2017)
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Volume 40 (2016)
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Volume 39 (2015)
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Volume 38 (2014)
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Volume 37 (2013)
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Volume 36 (2012)
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Volume 35 (2011)
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Volume 34 (2010)
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Volume 33 (2009)
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Volume 32 (2008)
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Volume 31 (2007)
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Volume 30 (2006)
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Volume 29 (2005)
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Volume 28 (2004)
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Volume 27 (2003)
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Volume 26 (2002)
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Volume 25 (2001)
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Volume 24 (2000)
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Volume 23 (1999)
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Volume 22 (1998)
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Volume 21 (1997)
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Volume 20 (1996)
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Volume 19 (1995)
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Volume 18 (1994)
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Volume 17 (1993)
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Volume 16 (1992)
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Volume 15 (1991)
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Volume 14 (1990)
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Volume 13 (1989)
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Volume 12 (1988)
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Volume 11 (1987)
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Volume 10 (1986)
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Volume 9 (1985)
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Volume 8 (1984)
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Volume 7 (1983)
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Volume 6 (1982)
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Volume 5 (1981)
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Volume 4 (1980)
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Volume 3 (1979)
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Volume 2 (1978)
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Volume 1 (1977)
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