Language and Linguistics - Volume 23, Issue 2, 2022

This study examined 25 emotion terms in Malaysian Malay and used corpus data to investigate whether these emotion terms appeared with the [meN-], [meN‑ -i], [meN‑ -kan], and [‑kan]-only forms. The emotion terms were patterned in four different ways. Category One included local emotion verbs that conformed to the pattern [Affector-Affectee]. In this category, the verbs were dominated by the [meN‑ -i] form, with a small number including the suffix [‑kan]-only. A verb in the [meN‑ -kan] form was either a Category Two [Causer meN‑ -kan Causee] pattern or a Category Four [Experiencer meN‑ -kan Event] pattern, among which Category Two had a higher number of instances. Category Three included two possible patterns – [Experiencer meN‑ -i Stimulus] and [Experiencer meN‑ (Stimulus absent)]. We found that the emotion terms with the [meN-]-only form were largely “narrating” the emotions of the speaker or situation, which provided the background, while the emotion terms with the [‑kan]-only form were largely “proposing” the emotion of the speaker or the subject being referred to (cf. Hopper 1983; Bambang Kaswanti Purwo 1988). We were able to discern not only emotion terms in Malay but also their different uses in [meN-], [meN‑ -i], [meN‑ -kan], and [‑kan]-only forms.

This article proposes a new account for the typologically uncommon grammaticalization path from an adjective meaning ‘tight’ to a progressive aspect marker in Cantonese. I take a formal approach to explain the cognitive foundations in such a grammaticalization path by using formal semantic theories and tools. There are two components in the meaning of the progressive aspect, i.e. temporal inclusion and dynamism. The meaning ‘tight’ is transferred from the spatial domain to describe the close succession of events, which gives rise to the dynamic meaning component. Furthermore, this eventual dynamism is mapped to the temporal domain, which corresponds to the regular partition of the time interval with an infinitesimal measure in the semantics proposed by Deo (2009). My analysis is extended to explain the Cantonese habitual marker with an original meaning ‘open’, and to the use of morphological reduplication to express the imperfective aspect in languages from the Austronesian and Pama-Nyungan families. The theoretical contribution of this article is that the grammaticalization paths of certain aspect markers share a common cognitive foundation in terms of space, events, and time, but they may take different trajectories of evolution that target different parts of a functional morpheme with complex meanings.

This paper offers new evidence from Stau, Geshiza, and Khroskyabs to address the question of directionality in valency-changing derivations in Sino-Tibetan. Examining Stau, Geshiza, and Khroskyabs causative and anticausative verb stem pairs adds to the evidence that in Proto-Sino-Tibetan, a number of intransitive stems are derived from transitive stems, in some cases as the result of *N‑ prefixation, and in other cases from voicing alternation independent of *N‑ prefixation. In addition, the proto-sigmatic prefix (*s-) does not cause devoicing in Stau, Geshiza, and Khroskyabs, but rather often undergoes voicing assimilation, and has more than just a causativization function. Furthermore, by looking at Gyalrong, Minyag, Tangut, Middle Chinese, and Old Chinese we emphasize that there is no synchronic evidence to support devoicing induced by *s‑, nor is there historical evidence to support the claim that *s‑ caused devoicing in Proto-Gyalrongic, or even at genetically deeper stages.

This paper provides a first overview of verb stem alternation in Gongduk (eastern Bhutan, Trans-Himalayan). Verb stem alternation in Gongduk is conditioned both by morphophonology and by grammatical categories. This paper presents both the morphophonologically transparent as well as the phonologically opaque, paradigmatic stem alternation. The analysis provided in this paper identifies seven verb classes and a small number of irregular verbs. Additionally, this paper provides some diachronic observations on Gongduk verb stems and shows that different stem classes of Gongduk preserve derivational morphology (valence, direction) with cognates in other branches of the language family. Gongduk therefore provides important evidence for the historical investigation of derivational morphology and verb stem alternation in Trans-Himalayan.

In this paper we comment on the maximality approach to Mandarin Chinese dou initiated by Giannakidou & Cheng (2006) and modified by Xiang (2008), showing that the approach fails (1) to explain several linguistic phenomena (e.g. the interaction between na ‘which’-phrases and dou, the distributive effect of dou, and the exclusiveness of dou), (2) makes incorrect predictions concerning the interpretations of dou-sentences, and (3) suffers from various theoretical problems (e.g. compositional difficulty). After refuting the maximality approach, the paper argues that treating dou as a device for encoding universal quantification gives the above issues a more cogent explanation, has a wider coverage of language data, and also avoids the theoretical problems with the maximality approach.

I critique traditional simplex approaches to Tangut Grade by primary reference to Xun Gong’s new suggestion that Grade I/II syllables were contrastively uvularized. Such proposals are rooted in the categories of philological Middle Chinese (MC), but the Grades are at the same time incommensurate with MC in reflecting the effects of apicalization, labiodentalization, and other changes affecting vocalism across northern late medieval Chinese languages (NLMC). Attention to these details suggests that Tangut Grade concerned vowel quality per se, not simplex diagnostic segments or features. Gong’s correspondence between Tangut Grade I/II K- and Rgyalrong Q- also has parallels in NLMC and will require a narrower solution within proposed Qiangic.

This paper identifies a type of noun incorporation in which the verb and a nominal are combined as early saturation of the verb, in contrast to early restriction, which is seen in the familiar type of noun incorporation. Two types of V-V resultative constructions in Mandarin Chinese are compared: the agent-oriented one and the patient-oriented one. The semantic grouping effects of the first verb and the post-verbal nominal of an agent-oriented type show that they are local to each other in their base-positions. But unlike in the patient-oriented one, the first verb in the construction shows a weak reachability. The defectiveness of the verb is parallel to that of an incorporated nominal in the familiar type of noun incorporation: e.g. no modification and no anaphoric linking to a proform. The paper argues that the first verb in the agent-oriented resultative construction and the post-verbal nominal, which can be a full-fledged referential nominal, undergo a type of noun incorporation parallel to the familiar type. In such noun incorporation, instead of the nominal, it is the verb that exhibits root-like properties. Such properties are viewed as a consequence of an early combination of a verb and a nominal, before each of them takes an event-argument, in a neo-Davisonian semantic perspective.

This paper examines the comitative and instrumental case markers in the Chinese dialects and Altaic languages spoken in the Gansu-Qinghai Linguistic Area (GQLA) and finds a noteworthy phenomenon: one of the frequently used comitative-instrumental markers originated from the numeral ‘two’, a rare source for comitatives. The numeral ‘two’ is grammaticalized under the process of {‘two’ (appositive) > coordinator > comitative > instrumental}. This paper argues that the marker ‘two’ in Chinese dialects did not have an Altaic origin and was then borrowed for Chinese, as Dwyer (1992) suggested. The fact that the comitative-instrumental markers in both Altaic (especially Mongolic) languages and Chinese dialects come from the numeral ‘two’ with comitative-instrumental syncretism reflects a regional innovation in GQLA.