Linguistic Variation - Current Issue

Abstract

The contrastive connector pero ‘but’ is rigidly sentence-initial in most Spanish varieties. However, at least three Spanish dialects allow locating it at the end of a sentence. This paper discusses the properties of final pero as attested in the dialect spoken in Bahia Blanca (Argentina), i.e., the so-called pero bahiense. First, I demonstrate that pero bahiense cannot be reduced to superficially similar phenomena in Spanish. Then, I offer a comparison between pero bahiense and its sentence-initial counterpart showing that they share a number of non-trivial characteristics but also differ in relevant regards. Based on these properties, I advance an account of the pero bahiense phenomenon according to which instances of pero that express concessivity may optionally attract the CP projection to their left. While the analysis does not cover all properties of pero bahiense, it highlights aspects of the syntax of connective particles that require further investigation.

Abstract

The second person pronouns in Spanish have exhibited numerous variants along its history, not only regarding its stressed forms, but also the agreement that emerges in the inflecting elements that anchor these stressed pronouns. Despite the quantity of studies carried out about voseo, tuteo and ustedeo, none of them has argued what grammatical reasons underlie for so much variation, since they have focused on pragmatic and sociolinguistic patterns without going any further than a mere description. In this article, I aim to account for the linguistic features that have triggered all variants and person disagreements, for every case has undergone the same grammatical process.

Abstract

The present article is dedicated to conative animal calls (CACs) in a Kalahari Khoe language, Tjwao. By using a prototype approach to categorization, the authors test the Tjwao CACs for their compliance with the prototype of CACs posited recently in scholarly literature. The authors conclude that Tjwao CACs largely conform to the pragma-semantic, phonetic, and morphological properties associated with CACs across languages. In light of the Tjwao data, a few refinements are also proposed. These concern the potential prevalence of whistles as the most common sounds not included in the International Phonetic Alphabet, the correlation of summonses with replication and repetitions as well as front and/or close vowels, the higher frequency of summonses and dispersals among all semantic types of CACs, and the lesser extent of monosemy than previously claimed.

Abstract

This article sketches a new analysis of the diachronic development found in many West Germanic languages from a hybrid VO-OV order to a rigid OV or VO order. The discussion departs from the discussions in Struik & Van Kemenade (2020/2022) and Struik & Schoenmakers (to appear) on the diachronic development of English/Dutch, which focus on the role of object shift and information structure. My interpretation of their data will be based on an earlier analysis of the Germanic OV and VO languages in Broekhuis (2008: § 2.4; 2011). The main conclusions are the following. First, the change from the historical hybrid VO-OV systems to the rigid OV and VO systems of the present-day languages is due to changing the “setting” [±V‑to‑v] to the more categorical ones [−V-to-v] or [+V-to-v]. Second, the role of object shift in the diachronic development is modest; it is not involved in the development of the OV-languages at all and involves only the (partial) loss of object shift in the VO-languages (contra Struik et al.). Third, the encoding of the information-structural new-given distinction remains constant in that the interpretation of (un)scrambled nominal objects does not change over time (contra Struik & Schoenmakers).

This article reviews The Oxford Handbook of Universal Grammar978-0-19-882617-0