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Journal of Historical Linguistics - Online First
Online First articles are the published Version of Record, made available as soon as they are finalized and formatted. They are in general accessible to current subscribers, until they have been included in an issue, which is accessible to subscribers to the relevant volume
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Position-dependent polarity in the Alor-Pantar languages and its origins
Author(s): Bastian Persohn and Antoinette SchapperAvailable online: 10 February 2025More LessAbstractMultiple members of the Alor-Pantar group of Papuan languages display a cross-linguistically unusual pattern whereby certain grammatical words in the domain of phasal polarity yield an affirmative statement when standing before the predicate, whereas the occurrence of the same items after the predicate vests the clause with negative polarity. In this article, we describe this phenomenon in its different manifestations and compare it to negation and phasal polarity constructions reconstructable to Proto-Alor-Pantar. While position-dependent polarity in the domain of phasal polarity is typologically unusual, we show that it is the outcome of processes of cyclical change that are well known with respect to negation: the notion of ‘not yet’ came to be expressed by a construction in which an originally pre-predicative ‘still’ marker also occupies a post-predicate position. Erosion of the initial element of this construction then left the post-predicate ‘still’ marker as the sole exponent of ‘not yet’. Analogy with embracing constructions for standard negation and structural calquing across languages in the group can be seen to have led to the innovative patterns for expressing ‘not yet’ being shared across languages.
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Crosslinguistic perspectives on the source of first/second person pronouns : With special reference to demonstratives
Author(s): Osamu IshiyamaAvailable online: 06 January 2025More LessAbstractThis study investigates demonstratives as the diachronic source of first/second person pronouns and shows that though several languages use them to designate the speaker/addressee, most usage does not conventionalize as first/second person pronouns despite the claim in previous studies. It then presents functional reasons that demonstratives rarely give rise to first/second person pronouns. This study additionally examines nouns and reflexives as the source of first/second person pronouns and shows that while it is relatively common for nouns to develop into first/second person pronouns, the same conclusion as demonstratives can be drawn for reflexives. I argue that the historical development of first/second person pronouns differs from that of third person pronouns due to speech-functional and discourse-pragmatic reasons. The development of the former concerns the speaker-addressee axis, thus more strongly affected than the latter by the tug of war between efficiency in linguistic communication and social success in interpersonal communication.
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When never meant ever : The polarity item nunca in Old Portuguese
Author(s): Clara PintoAvailable online: 09 December 2024More LessAbstractIn European Portuguese, nunca ‘never’ is traditionally classified as a temporal adverb and it can convey sentential negation on its own, therefore behaving as a strong negative polarity item (NPI). Nevertheless, in early stages of the language we find nunca with a non-negative interpretation, in contexts that are considered ungrammatical in contemporary Portuguese. Unlike negative indefinites that started as weak NPIs and became inherently negative, nunca was already a strong negative polarity item in 13th century Portuguese. In this article I will show that, apart from the strong NPI nunca, there was also an ambiguous item nunca that corresponded to a modal polarity item. In the Romance context, items originating from Latin numquam also unfold into ambiguous items with different polarity. In Portuguese, however, ambiguity was not preserved. The evolution of nunca reinforces the idea that Portuguese is the most innovative of Romance languages regarding the outcomes of polarity items.
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Musk deer are inherited : The reconstruction of the onset *t.ɬj- in Proto-Gyalrongic
Author(s): Yunfan LaiAvailable online: 09 December 2024More LessAbstractThis paper explores a rare sound correspondence pattern found in Gyalrongic languages, focusing on two etyma: ‘musk deer’ and ‘valley’. The reflexes in daughter languages exhibit different onsets, including palatals, alveolars, and laterals, which renders their genetic relationship non-obvious. Despite its significance, this correspondence pattern has been largely overlooked and insufficiently reconstructed. In this study, I propose a novel reconstruction of the onset, namely *t.ɬj-, elucidating the distinct reflexes observed in different sub-branches. Through this analysis, I demonstrate that both etyma have Sino-Tibetan origins. Additionally, the paper emphasises the importance of studying correspondences with limited examples and discusses the broader implications of such research for other domains.
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How fear developed from an object to a subject experiencer verb : Remarks on argument structure change
Author(s): Richard ZimmermannAvailable online: 02 December 2024More LessAbstractThis paper offers quantitative observations on the argument structural change from object to subject experiencers for the verb fear (from causative ‘frighten’ to stative ‘feel fear’) during late medieval and Early Modern English. The empirical statements are based on a corpus of 7.5m words spanning 1350–1600. The paper explores the precise time course of the change, disambiguating cues and ambiguous contexts, the influence of other lexical items, and other facts. In so doing, it reconstructs the history of the argument structure change in fear. It introduces a concept of “polysemous competition” as a more abstract type of change exemplified by this specific case, presents a survey of observable phenomena that may generally accompany such a development, and discusses other implications.
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Reply to Kassian et al. (2023). Calibrated weighted permutation test detects ancient language connections in the Circumpolar area (Chukotian-Nivkh and Yukaghir-Samoyedic)
Author(s): Andrea CeolinAvailable online: 29 November 2024More LessAbstractKassian et al. (2023) propose a method to detect ancient linguistic relationships by means of a weighted permutation test applied to word lists. The method provides evidence for an ancient historical connection between Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages and Nivkh languages, and between Samoyedic languages and Yukaghir. In this paper, I argue that while the word lists collected by the authors represent a valid dataset for language comparison and are supported by extensive etymological work, their statistical tests constitute a departure from the significance testing framework that has propelled contemporary literature on long-range comparison. I then advance some proposals on how their tests can be integrated and compared with those traditionally accepted in the literature.
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Auxiliaries in Old Dutch : A diachronic parallel corpus exploration
Author(s): Evie Coussé, Gerlof Bouma and Nicoline van der SijsAvailable online: 11 November 2024More LessAbstractThis study explores the use of auxiliaries in the oldest text available for Old Dutch, the Wachtendonck Psalter, dating from the 10th century. Our aim is to understand why there are so few different auxiliaries in this text in comparison to other texts in Old Dutch. We tackle this question by taking a historical comparative perspective, using methodological insights and techniques from corpus-based contrastive linguistics and typology. More specifically, we build a diachronic parallel corpus of psalm translations and compare the contexts in which auxiliaries and inflectional alternatives are used in these parallel texts by means of multidimensional scaling. Our historical comparative method results in five proximity maps which allow us to explore and compare the inventory of verb constructions of the Wachtendonck Psalter both retrospectively, with its source text in Latin, and prospectively, with later translations in Dutch. Our analysis examines the role of grammaticalization as well as the specific nature of the text as an interlinear translation as possible motivations for the presence and absence of auxiliaries in the Wachtendonck Psalter.
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West Iranian in historical perspective : The grammaticalization of *rādī ‘because of’
Author(s): Ludwig PaulAvailable online: 08 November 2024More LessAbstractThe development of the Persian definitive object marker -rā from Old Persian rādī through Middle Persian benefactive rāy has been established as a model grammaticalization process by Bossong (1985). His explanations on other modern Iranian languages, and their interplay in the historical development, have received far less research attention. This article offers a novel and comprehensive account of the historical development of -rā in West Iranian, from Old Persian up to approximately 20 New Iranian languages. Based on the semantic map model, it demonstrates that concerning -rā, most West Iranian languages can be subdivided into three typological groups, two of which represent more or less clearly defined genetic subgroups within the continuum of West Iranian. The interplay of genetic and typological/functional factors is complex, and open questions remain. The present study aims to provide empirical data, and to raise relevant questions, for future in-depth studies.
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Ecuadorian Quechua and Quechuan classification
Author(s): Simeon FloydAvailable online: 26 August 2024More LessAbstractAccording to the traditional Quechuan classification which has dominated Andean historical linguistics since the 1960s, the Ecuadorian Quechua group (Andean Quichua, Amazonian Quichua, Colombian Ingano, and lower Pastaza Inga in Peru) belongs to the “Quechua II” branch, supposedly including all northern and southern Quechuas, and to the “Quechua IIB” sub-branch, said to also include the Chachapoyas-Lamas Quechua group and the “coastal” Quechua documented by Domingo de Santo Tomás in the mid-16th century. This study evaluates the traditional classification of Ecuadorian Quechua and shows that it does not meet the basic standards of subgrouping based on shared innovations. Special attention is given to the historical status of contrastive complex stops, traditionally claimed to be an Aymara-influenced innovation in Cuzco Quechua, supposedly transferred to Ecuadorian Quechua through “superstrate” influence; instead, it is demonstrated that these sounds have correspondences across the Quechuan family, confirming them as retentions that are uninformative for classification. The study goes on to individually evaluate all proposed criteria for the traditional classification of Ecuadorian Quechua, finding that none hold up as shared innovations, leading to the conclusion that Ecuadorian Quechua is an independent branch of the Quechuan family. Historical records document how this branch originated in Ecuador when Quechua was first introduced by the Incas, then was adopted by the Spanish as a colonial standard, and then became fragmented into four modern languages, all within a period of about 500–600 years.
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The syntactic and semantic promenade of the Spanish absolute construction along the Communicative Continuum : A case of clause linkage in 15th—18th-century translations from Latin
Author(s): Marie MolenaersAvailable online: 08 August 2024More LessAbstractThis paper investigates the diachronically changing syntactic and semantic status of the Spanish Absolute Construction (AC) on the Communicative Continuum (Koch & Oesterreicher 1990 [2011]) in a corpus of 15th- to 18th-century translations from Latin. Previous research has already demonstrated that the 15th-century preclassical Spanish AC evolved from a highly formal past participial Latin calque in the realm of Communicative Distance to an entrenched gerundial absolute in the 18th century, positioned slightly further from the Communicative Distance pole (Del Rey Quesada 2018, 2021, Molenaers 2023). This study highlights that, besides the altering predicate, other characteristics enhanced the AC’s progression along the Continuum, including one syntactic (non-augmentation) and two semantic (non-adverbial, coreferential) factors. By means of clause linkage (Raible 1992, 2001), a development is traced to a syntactically less dense and semantically less complex gerundial AC, which displays a high frequency of the three outlined features. Complementary analyses grounded in a functional-pragmatic theory of subordination (Cristofaro 2003) have revealed a moderate widening of the innovative AC’s clausal status beyond strict subordination. Two language-internal evolutions, the case switch from ablative to nominative in the transition from Latin to Spanish and priming with the gerundial unaugmented free adjunct (FA), are identified as the driving forces behind the Spanish AC’s syntactic and semantic promenade beyond the extremes of Communicative Distance.
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The Ossetic transitive preterite : Typology, evolution, contact
Author(s): Ronald I. KimAvailable online: 18 June 2024More LessAbstractIn contrast to most Middle and Modern Iranian languages, which have developed a preterite based on an ergative construction with the Old Iranian past passive participle, Ossetic has distinct formations for the intransitive and transitive preterite, and the latter has no close correlate in any other Iranian language. It is argued that only a periphrasis with Old Iranian *dā- ‘put’ can adequately account for the formal peculiarities of the Ossetic transitive preterite, namely its geminate dental and person-number endings. Despite its formal resemblance to the periphrasis reconstructed for the Germanic weak preterite, this construction probably did not arise via contact between the Sarmatian tribes and Germanic peoples in the first centuries CE.
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Variant patterns of sibilant debuccalization in Camuno : Phonetic implications of Eastern Lombard s > h for sound change typology
Author(s): Juliette Blevins and Michela CresciAvailable online: 03 June 2024More LessAbstractSome varieties of Camuno, an Eastern Lombard variety spoken in Valcamonica, Italy, show clear evidence of what appears to be an unconditioned sound change of S > h, where S had [s] and [θ] variants (Bonfadini 1995a; Cresci 2014). However, neighboring varieties in the upper parts of the valley retain inherited S and, in at least one village, Cerveno, debuccalization is limited to intervocalic position. In this study, we attempt to explain dialect variation in Camuno in terms of s-debuccalization as a lenition process within the general framework of Evolutionary Phonology (Blevins 2004a, 2006, 2015) building on the typology established by Ferguson (1990). The probability of articulatory undershoot is greatest in the V_V environment, and all dialects with S > h show the sound change in this context. In medial clusters like rS, lS, nS, where there is articulatory overlap and longer sustained constriction, articulatory undershoot is less likely, and S is most likely to be maintained, as it is in Cerveno. A treatment of S > h as lenition implies that [s] and [θ] were produced with spread vocal folds in languages where this sound change has been observed. Here we offer additional evidence for aspiration as an active feature in Camuno phonology and suggest possible origins of this feature during the long period of contact with Longobardic. Another central issue explored in this study are phonetic factors that might differentiate intervocalic s > h from s > h that originates in the syllable coda, as in many varieties of Spanish.
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Gorani substrate within Kurdish : Evidence from southern dialects of Central Kurdish
Author(s): Masoud MohammadiradAvailable online: 21 May 2024More LessAbstractThe traditional view within Kurdish linguistics is that the split between Central Kurdish (CK) and Northern Kurdish (NK) is mainly the result of a Gorani substrate within the former group. More recent studies refute this hypothesis, arguing instead that Kurdish was initially composed of two distinct but closely related subgroups and that the differences between CK and NK are partly due to distinct source languages and partly due to ensuing contact with neighbouring languages. This study aims to shed new light on the Gorani-substrate hypothesis within CK by examining a corpus-based study of the southernmost CK dialects located within the historical Gorani heartland. Combining recent historical accounts of language shift from Gorani to CK in the region with linguistic data, the paper claims that (i) Gorani borrowings and substrate features reflect different layers of historical contact in Southern CK dialects and (ii) the Gorani substrate has caused a split in the morphosyntactic features across vernaculars of CK, showcasing second-language learning in shaping the historically recent development of Southern CK dialects.
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Visual perception verbs in Old Anatolian Turkish
Author(s): Zeynep Erk Emeksiz and Julian RentzschAvailable online: 13 May 2024More LessAbstractThis study aims at describing the verbs of the visual sensory domain in Old Anatolian Turkish (oat), including basic and compound verb forms. We shall specifically focus on intra-field and trans-field meaning extensions of visual perception verbs such as baḳ-, naẓar et-, gör-, and görin-/gözük-. Our findings are based on a corpus consisting of 11 texts both in prose and poetry from the 13th to 15th centuries. There are mainly two types of verbs that conceptualise mental and emotive states through visual perception: one pertains to idiomatic expressions with göz ‘eye’, such as göz-(ün) aç- (eye-poss.acc open), göz-den düş- (eye-abl fall), and göz dut- (eye hold). The second form includes basic verbs including baḳ- (to look at), gör- (to see), naẓar et- (to look at) and gör-in-/göz-ük- (to appear). We shall show that visual perception constitutes a rich source for expressing emotive states, and the use of vision verbs for the expression of emotions is as productive as it is for mental states. Similar to Sweetser’s body is mind metaphor, we suggest that vision is emotion. The domain of visual perception in oat texts displays a strong connection to intellection; however, there is no evidence in our data indicating that the verbs gör- and baḳ- have meaning extension to ‘to know’. The phenomenon-based verbs görin- and gözük- have mainly two meaning extensions: one is related to physical existence, as in ‘occur’ and ‘appear’ in English. When these verbs co-occur with nouns and adjectives, they reflect the speakers’ judgements and beliefs by means of a metaphor.
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Calibrated weighted permutation test detects ancient language connections in the Circumpolar area (Chukotian-Nivkh and Yukaghir-Samoyedic) *
Author(s): Alexei S. Kassian, George Starostin, Mikhail Zhivlov and Sergey A. SpirinAvailable online: 18 December 2023More LessAbstractRelationships between universally recognized language families represent a hotly debated topic in historical linguistics, and the same is true for correlation between signals of genetic and linguistic relatedness. We developed a weighted permutation test which represents the classical permutation tests with weights introduced for individual Swadesh concepts according to their typological stability. Further, the obtained values were calibrated on a negative control group to override non-uniform distribution of phonemes within the Swadesh wordlist. We applied the calibrated permutation test to the basic vocabularies of nine languages and reconstructed proto-languages to show that three groups of circumpolar language families in the Northern Hemisphere show evidence of relationship through common descent or borrowing in the basic vocabulary: [Chukotko-Kamchatkan, Nivkh]; [Yukaghir, Samoyedic]; and [Yeniseian, Na-Dene, Burushaski]. The former two pairs showed the most significant signals of language relationship. Our findings further support some hypotheses on long-distance language relationships previously put forward based on linguistic methods but lacking universal acceptance.
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Lexico-semantic stability in the anatomical domain in the Mayan language family
Author(s): David F. Mora-Marín, Megan Fletcher and Elizabeth GormanAvailable online: 13 November 2023More LessAbstractThis paper deals with lexico-semantic stability, specifically in the anatomical domain. The main goal is to develop a method for measuring semantic polysemy and shift, in order to address: (1) the validity of standardized vocabulary lists (e.g., Swadesh 1950 , 1952 , 1955 ; Holman et al. 2008 ; Haspelmath & Tadmor 2009a , 2009b ) for investigating cross-linguistic stability; and (2) the difference between basic and stable vocabulary ( Ratliff 2006 ; Matisoff 2009 ), and its implications for studying remote relationships between language families, on the one hand, and subgroup differentiation within language families, on the other. To study these problems, a total of 50 etyma from the anatomical domain were selected from the Preliminary Etymological Mayan Database ( Kaufman with Justeson 2003 ), and these were then classified employing the novel metric, and further analyzed by means of statistical methods. The results point to: (1) no specific correlation with the stability rankings of the Swadesh and Leipzig-Jakarta lists; (2) support for the “basicness” of etyma from the anatomical domain; (3) several significant relationships between stability and polysemy scores and independent variables relevant to the anatomical domain; (4) evidence of lexico-semantic stability score affinities between Mayan subgroups; and (5) evidence supporting the utility of polysemies to investigate subgrouping and language contact. The paper also offers conclusions and areas for further research.
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Save the trees
Author(s): Guillaume Jacques and Johann-Mattis List
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