Volume 53, Issue 1 -

In addition to nouns, adjectives, numerals, postpositions, and verbs, Dogon languages such as Jamsay have an open-ended class of expressive adverbials (EAs). EAs partially overlap with what have been called ideophones or mimetics in other languages, but these labels conceal a range of grammatical statuses. EAs have no fixed position within larger syntactic phrases except as predicates. Unlike other constituents, they cannot be syntactically focalized, and they cannot be targeted by tonosyntactic operations. However, EAs do have a mini-morphosyntax of their own. All three of nouns, adjectives, and EAs can be made predicative, but the three use different morphosyntactic frames. Under limited conditions, an EA can fuse into a compound with a preceding noun or numeral that it is closely associated with. Most importantly, ordinary adjectives and numerals are convertible into EAs by morphological processes. In sum, Jamsay EAs constitute a distinct stem-class that functions as part of the grammar, but in a uniquely Dogon manner.

In this article we venture to elucidate the origin of the Albanian subjunctive marker të- . We contend that this marker is historically linked to a morphosyntactic device which is traditionally described as linking article and which licenses nominal syntactic units as constituents of larger syntactic units. Based on the observation that there is a substantial distributional, functional and semantic overlap between nonfinite verbal forms marked with të- and finite subjunctive predicates, we propose that the subjunctive marker spread across host classes from nominals to nonfinite predicates and to finite subjunctive predicates. The spread into the finite verbal domain is areally fostered, while the licensing device itself is an independent Albanian development that possibly picks up a vertical, Indo-European signal.

This article reports on a corpus-based study of diachronic change and constructional competition in the system of English complementation, with a focus on variation in non-finite complements of the adjective fearful. Fearful occurs with prepositional ( of -ing ) subject-controlled gerunds and with to- infinitives, which can further be distinguished into subject extraposition, subject control, and tough -constructions. Recent decades show a drastic decline of the to -infinitival patterns, concomitant to the loss of one of the senses of fearful . We examine the diachronic distribution and competition of the two construction pairs that show functional overlap, i.e. tough -constructions and extraposition constructions on the one hand, and infinitival and gerundial subject-control patterns on the other. This allows us to show the import of the ‘Great Complement Shift’ in the face of constructional attrition and to investigate new principles motivating the choice for either the to -infinitival or the gerundial subject-control construction. More specifically, the study provides further evidence for the ‘Choice Principle’, which involves the (lack of) agentivity of the understood subject in the event described by the lower clause. In this way, the study adds new explanatory factors and descriptive insights to our knowledge of the broader diachronic change known as the Great Complement Shift.

This paper reviews inclusory constructions and pronouns in the Mande language family and proposes a diachronic account of their development. Inclusory constructions, which are found in several Mande languages, are a type of conjunction strategy where the whole set of participants – the superset – and a subset of participants are expressed, as in Dan-Gwetaa yāā Gbȁtȍ ‘Gbato and I’, lit. ‘we Gbato’. In a number of Southern and Southwestern Mande languages, inclusory constructions are typologically unique, as they feature a separate series of inclusory pronouns, which are used exclusively in this construction. The paper argues that these inclusory pronouns are a Southwestern Mande innovation, which spread to other Mande languages through contact.

The motivation and diffusion of language change have been modelled and discussed in frequently conflicting terms, often focused on an isolated set of features rather than more integrative sociolinguistic concerns. We present a case study of language change in Austrian German along a broad range of lexical, syntactic as well as textual features, approached through a corpus based on genres situated in the pertinent fields of news reporting, education and business. Based on our results, we argue that drawing on ‘genre’ as socially-situated, interactive and goal-oriented patterns of language use provides both a conceptual and empirical framework that may help address some of the more prominent issues in modelling language change: as a concept, it provides a frame within which to grasp the social changes driving language change; as empirical focus, it guides data selection and allows us to describe and explicate complex and seemingly contradictory diffusion patterns.

The present study investigates the effect of gender and social class on the acoustic correlates of emphasis in Jordanian Arabic. To achieve this goal, 40 participants were recorded reading a list of minimal pairs, and several acoustic measurements were taken, including VOT (voiceless stops), post-release duration (voiced stops), friction duration, vowel duration, and vowel formant frequencies (F1–F3) at onset and midpoint positions. The results of the study reveal that significant gender and social class differences in emphasis production have different linguistic distributions. Gender differences were relevant at F1 and F2 at the onset and midpoint, whereas social class differences were evident at the onset position of F1 and F2, vowel duration, and the post-release duration of the voiced emphatic stop. Generally, male speakers produced stronger cues of emphasis, the non-prestigious form, than female speakers, as they made more F1 raising and F2 lowering in the emphatic environment. Strong emphasis cues were also favored by the lower-middle class speakers. The results also showed that the effect of gender significantly intersects with that of social class. At F1(onset and midpoint), significant gender differences existed only within the upper-class group. At F2 midpoint, however, gender differences were evident only in the lower-middle class group.

The first goal of this paper is to give a description of the article-like uses of the Croatian numeral jedan ‘one’, the indefinite determiner neki ‘some’ and the demonstrative determiner taj ‘this’ within the theoretical framework of Cognitive Grammar. This description places these constructions along a cognitively grounded definiteness hierarchy spanning from the demonstrative determiner taj (definite) on one side to jedan (indefinite specific) and neki (indefinite non-specific) on the other side. The second goal of the paper is to give a description of the constructions combining the article-like demonstrative determiner taj with the article-like numeral jedan and the article-like indefinite determiner neki , i.e. taj jedan and taj neki , lit. ‘this some/this one’. The functions and usage profiles of these constructions are carefully differentiated and, in order to explain the data obtained, a richer articulation of the cognitively grounded definiteness hierarchy is put forth. A new position is proposed, existing between definiteness and specific indefiniteness, to account for entities that are contextually defined as indefinite by taj jedan and taj neki .

This article compares the use of calques modelled on anglicisms in different European languages, especially Spanish and German, which do not only show structural differences (e.g. with regard to the use of noun-noun compounds, which are more common in German) but also reflect different attitudes towards English. Aspects covered range from the factors generally favouring the coinage of such replacive forms, to the reasons for the emergence of different types of calques, to variations in their use and challenges concerning their identification. To unravel the main patterns and trends in calquing, this study includes numerous examples from written and oral language, i.e. items of different register affiliation, age, length, and semantic transparency. On a theoretical level, the article incorporates findings from the fields of lexicology, contact linguistics and sociolinguistics.