Journal of Historical Linguistics - Volume 12, Issue 3, 2022

Abstract

Among the morpho-syntactic patterns by which Italo-Romance varieties code there sentences, a peculiar structure surfaces in extreme southern varieties, particularly in Salento and in southern Calabria: this involves an invariable 3rd person form of the outcome of habēre as the copula, with no agreement with the postcopular nominal, the so-called pivot. Even though this pattern is attested in other Romance languages too, it proves, however, to be peculiar, insofar as it hosts top-ranking definite NPs (especially 1st and 2nd person pronouns), which are generally disallowed within ‘to have’ there sentences in the Romance varieties. In the present paper, we infer that this pattern depends on the contact with Italo-Greek, which displays similar constructions, with an invariant 3rd sg. form of ‘to have’, the lack of the proform and the pivot marked as accusative. However, a diachronic investigation reveals that neither the extreme southern Italo-Romance varieties nor Italo-Greek displayed in their Medieval stage a similar construction, since both of them exhibited the definiteness effect. Sociolinguistic factors can account for how the two systems influenced each other by ruling out the definiteness effect from the respective patterns at the end of the interference process.

Abstract

In this article, we present the first quantitative study of what we call multiple unconditioned reflexes (MUR) in Bantu, more specifically of Proto-Bantu velar stops *k and *g in the West-Coastal Bantu (WCB) branch of the Bantu language family. MUR, also known as “doubles reflexes” in Bantu studies, represent a situation where one and the same proto-sound has two or more reflexes in a given language which cannot be accounted for by phonological conditioning and/or lexical borrowing. This diachronic irregularity has been explained in Bantu historical linguistics, and Niger-Congo studies more broadly, by reconstructing either an additional series of consonants (phonemic merger) or a latent conditioning that went lost (phonemic split). We show that MUR should not be explained, but rather taken as an indicator of the same pervasive irregularity of sound change reported in other parts of the world that are highly multilingual and lack a neat overlap between distinct languages and communities. Along with widespread multilingualism, we assess lexical diffusion, substrate influence, and spread-over-spread events in Bantu language history as complementary explanations for the rise of MUR in WCB.

Abstract

North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA), which is a subgroup of dialects of vernacular Neo-Aramaic, exhibits considerable internal diversity. In this paper, I describe the diversity that exists in the form of the copula in this subgroup. The paradigms of the copula in the various dialects exhibit different degrees of convergence with verbal inflection. There is an areal progression in verbalization from the western periphery to the eastern periphery. The incipient verbalization of the copula can be correlated with semantic properties of the subject and the clause that would be expected typologically to be most compatible with verbal predicates. Close correlations, however, can be identified with the distribution of pronominal and verbal inflections of copulas in the languages with which the NENA dialects have been in contact in the region. It is likely, therefore, that the realization of the internal potential verbalization of the NENA copula was induced by language contact.

Abstract

Through comparison of regular sound correspondences in three closely related Tibeto-Burman (TB) languages, Ersu, Lizu, and Duoxu (collectively “ELD”), informed by external comparison with other TB languages and recent phonetic analyses of the production of voiceless nasals, we reconstruct *fricative-nasal sequences in their common ancestor, Proto-ELD.

In the development of these historic clusters, two pathways of change can be recognized. Their difference lies in the divergent relative phasing of velic and oral gestures in the original fricative-nasal sequences:

• (i)  fricative weakening (from a tight cluster): *FN > N̥ > h̃ > x
• (ii)  fricative strengthening (from a loose cluster): *F-n > *F-t > t > k or *F‑n > s

The different reflexes observed in Ersu, Lizu, and Duoxu represent different points along these two developmental pathways. These reconstructions and pathways of development have implications for our understanding of both universal (phonetic) and language-specific aspects of change in fricative-nasal sequences. The first pathway makes it possible to explore the process of nasal devoicing beyond voiceless nasals so as to enrich our understanding of nasal devoicing in natural languages. The co-existence of two opposite pathways of change, on the other hand, provides insights into the morphological and syllabic structure of words with contiguous fricative-nasal sequences in ELD languages at different points in time – insights that may be valuable in examining the history of other languages and language families beyond the ELD cluster.

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