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Folia Linguistica

Acta Societatis Linguisticae Europaeae

Editors-in-Chief: Viviana Masia and Maria Napoli

Language: English

First published: January 1, 1967

Publication Frequency: 4 issues per year

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About this journal

Objective
Folia Linguistica and Folia Linguistica Historica are the peer-reviewed journals of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE). Each volume consists of two issues of Folia Linguistica, one issue of Folia Linguistica Historica, and one Special Issue. Folia Linguistica is devoted to empirically based linguistic topics and covers all non-historical areas in the traditional disciplines of general linguistics. The journal welcomes work from various theoretical perspectives, but contributions should be directed towards a general linguistic audience, in other words the argument should be understandable to linguists with other theoretical backgrounds. The domain of interest of Folia Linguistica includes sociological, discoursal, computational and psychological aspects of language and linguistic theory. Other areas of central concern are grammaticalization, language typology, and variation within and across languages. Folia Linguistica Historica is exclusively devoted to empirically based diachronic linguistics of all language families (including both historical and comparative linguistics).

Topics
Folia Linguistica

non-historical areas in general linguistics
grammaticalization
language typology
language variation
language varieties
sociological, discoursal, computational and psychological aspects of language and linguistic theory

Folia Linguistica Historica

diachronic linguistics (including both historical and comparative linguistics)
linguistic reconstruction (both internal and external) and language phylogeny
computational approaches to linguistic variation and change

Article formats
Research articles, Review articles, Book reviews, Miscellanea (reports and discussion notes)

Your Benefits

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Folia Linguistica: broad focus covering general linguistics
Folia Linguistica Historica: specific focus on diachronic linguistics
Timely publication of high-quality peer-reviewed articles

History

Folia Linguistica was founded in 1967 as the journal of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, with Ronald Crossland as its first editor. Initially, its focus was on language structure as well as language history. From 1980 onwards, Folia Linguistica Historica was established as a separate journal devoted to diachronic linguistics.

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“But I think, with respect, that the trial court was wrong”: but signalling stance in Nigerian Supreme Court Judgements

October 7, 2025

Florence Oluwaseyi Daniel

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This study investigates the stance functions of but as a contrastive marker in Nigerian Supreme Court judgements to explore other lexical means of marking stances in the legal genre aside value-laden words and lexico-grammatical constructions. The study analysed a corpus of Nigerian Supreme Court judgements comprising lead, supporting and dissenting judgements for stance classification, following the stance triangle model. Findings show that the contrastive marker mostly signals epistemic, evidential, and evaluative stances, an indication that even with but the presentation of subjective positions in judicial opinions entails evaluation of other stance takers’ stances, assertive presentation of such positions alongside cogent evidence to justify and legitimise them. Alignment and affective positions are rarely signalled with but in the corpus, which implies that beyond any other communicative intents, projection of individual voice based on legal principles and facts is more important to the judge than expression of affect or alignment with others.
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Testing lexical specificity hypotheses in world Englishes: evidence from the null subject alternation

October 7, 2025

Iván Tamaredo

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The present paper tests a series of hypotheses dealing with variation, across dialects of English, in the degree of lexical specificity of constructions. The study focuses on the null subject alternation, which is conceptualized here as consisting of two allostructions, the null and overt variants, of a more schematic constructeme. Five hypotheses put forward in the specialized literature are adapted to the null subject alternation and tested on a dataset of null and overt subjects extracted from GloWbE by means of five indexes of frequency and lexical specificity. The results confirm four of the five hypotheses and provide further support to the claim that speakers of varieties of English in earlier phases in Schneider’s Dynamic Model rely more on partially lexically filled constructions.
Open Access
From reflexive clitic to marker of human impersonal subjects: the Resian reflexive sa

October 7, 2025

Florian Wandl

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Like standard Slovenian, Polish, and several Romance languages, the Slovenian dialect of Resia forms impersonal clauses by combining transitive and intransitive verbs with reflexive clitics. Due to their syntactic and semantic properties, these reflexive impersonals have been analyzed as involving a subject with an arbitrary human referent realized by the reflexive clitic. Based on data from a recent translation of The little prince and other Resian resources, this paper brings forward hitherto unnoticed empirical evidence supporting this analysis. Unlike other Slavic languages, Resian has developed a set of subject clitics whose position in the clause differs from that of object clitics. Interestingly, when forming impersonal constructions, reflexive clitics are placed like subject clitics and not like object clitics as they are in other contexts. Furthermore, the distribution of the reflexive clitic variants se and sa in The little prince suggests that the latter is becoming the sole impersonal marker while the former is used to express all other reflexive meanings. This implies that sa is developing into a separate subject clitic. The general significance of these findings lies in the fact that they demonstrate a link between impersonal reflexives and subjects which does not depend on the assumption of a specific theoretical framework.
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Consonant clusters in Qassimi Arabic: analysis from optimality theory and sonority principles

October 3, 2025

Aseel Al-Aboudi, Mohammad Aljutaily

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Consonant clusters in Qassimi Arabic (QA) exhibit distinct patterns of adherence to and deviation from the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP), analyzed here using Optimality Theory (OT). This study identifies three sonority profiles in QA clusters: falling, equal, and rising. While coda clusters generally conform to the SSP, onset clusters often violate it, which OT constraints effectively explain. Rising sonority violations in coda clusters are resolved through vowel epenthesis, whereas falling or equal sonority clusters of two obstruents require no epenthesis. The choice of the epenthetic vowel is influenced by vowel harmony and the place of articulation of adjacent consonants. Additionally, QA clusters reveal unique characteristics regarding minimal sonority distance: zero in coda clusters and (-1) in onset clusters. Through OT, the interplay of markedness and faithfulness constraints determines optimal cluster formation. For QA onset clusters, constraints are ranked as ONS >> SyllCon >> *V(short)]σ >> SSP >> LINEARITY >> Comp-Ons >> MAX-IO >> DEP-IO, while for coda clusters, the ranking is ONS >> *V(short)]σ >> SSP >> *i[-Pahr] >> Comp-Ons >> MAX-IO >> DEP-IO. This research sheds light on SSP violations, vowel epenthesis, and their governance in QA, enriching our understanding of its phonological structure.
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Stylistics

October 2, 2025

Florence Floquet

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Orientation preverbs in Qiangic: multifunctionality and grammaticalization in cross-linguistic perspective

October 2, 2025

Linlin Sun

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This study undertakes a cross-linguistic investigation of orientation preverbs in Qiangic languages (Sino-Tibetan), examining their multifunctional properties (scope and type) and grammaticalization trajectories within the framework of Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG). By identifying both typological variation and shared patterns evident in these trajectories, this study establishes a classification of Qiangic preverb systems based on their degree of functional diversification. This typological classification reveals two different systems: Type I systems display limited grammatical multifunctionality, with preverbs primarily encoding perfective aspect and certain illocutionary values while retaining their directional semantics. Type II systems exhibit more advanced grammaticalization, where the preverbs of a system can systematically express a wider spectrum of TAME (tense-aspect-modality-evidentiality) functions through deeper integration with the grammar of the language. The FDG-based analysis yields five potential paths of grammaticalization for the preverbs. These paths suggest that the multifunctionality observed in Type I systems emerges from interactions between the lexical and grammatical systems of a language, while the multifunctionality in Type II systems is largely attributable to subsequent grammatical evolution.
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From interactional to informative discourse: a 90-year evolution of newspaper headlines (1930–2019)

September 23, 2025

Ruhan Güçlü

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This study investigates unplanned (interactional) and planned (informative) discourse in Cumhuriyet newspaper headlines diachronically across five 18-year historical periods: 1930–1947, 1948–1965, 1966–1983, 1984–2001, and 2002–2019. Drawing on the Turkish-adapted taxonomy derived from Biber’s (1988) Multidimensional Model (Dimension 1), it analyzes lexico-grammatical discourse features within a corpus-based approach. The findings reveal a consistent predominance of planned discourse, reflecting both structural characteristics of the Turkish language and conventions of newspaper media writing. At the same time, the analysis highlights notable shifts in stylistic and linguistic features, suggesting that while planned communication remains dominant, discourse practices have been gradually reshaped by developments in education, technology, and socio-cultural trends. These changes point to the evolving nature of newspaper genres and a movement towards more formal journalistic styles in recent years.
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Exploring psycholinguistic reality of local grammar patterns: a case study of health metaphor in research articles of economics

September 23, 2025

Lei Zhang, Xuemei Tang

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In corpus linguistics, local grammar has been recognized as an effective approach to describing the semantic patterns of language for a particular communicative function/meaning. However, no study has yet examined whether the semantic patterns (i.e. local grammar patterns) produced by local grammar analyses are psychologically real for language learners. To assess the psycholinguistic reality of local grammar patterns, it is reasonable to start with testing whether such patterns can affect language learners’ processing of their corresponding language instances. This study used an eye movement experiment to test whether the local grammar patterns of a particular type of metaphorical expressions (i.e. health metaphor) in research articles of economics can influence Chinese EFL learners’ perception and comprehension of these expressions. The results showed that the occurrence of particular meanings and the positioning of the meanings in the patterns significantly affected the learners’ processing. These findings provide evidence for the psycholinguistic reality of local grammar patterns. The study also provides theoretical implications for local grammar research and metaphor research and pedagogical implications for metaphor teaching.
Open Access
Sofia Rüdiger, Theresa Neumaier, Sven Leuckert, & Sarah Buschfeld, eds. 2025. World Englishes in the 21st century: new perspectives and challenges to the dynamic model. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Pp. xxv + 392. ISBN 9781399527842

September 23, 2025

Michael Westphal

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A comparative typological analysis of passivisation and functional alternatives: Keenan’s passive universals in Eshkevari Gilaki (EG), Hungarian, and lingua franca languages

September 15, 2025

Yasin Khoshhaldelijani

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Passives in some languages are less frequent than in English, and this infrequency is compensated for by alternatives. This typological analysis focuses on passivisation and semi-passive constructions in two lesser-studied languages: Eshkevari Gilaki (EG) and Hungarian. For comparative context, three widely-studied lingua franca languages, English, Mandarin Chinese and Arabic, are also referenced. It evaluates these languages’ conformity to Edward L. Keenan’s universals of passive productivity. The synthesised data are derived from native speakers and existing literature. Hungarian and EG, being topic-prominent, adopt passive-like functional alternatives such as agentless clauses, impersonals and middles. Moreover, the observations challenge the assumed direct correlation between syntactic flexibility and passive productivity. Despite its less-configurational nature, Hungarian prioritises pragmatic role assignment over syntactic promotion. This analysis proposes an extension of Keenan’s framework, arguing that typological restrictions on passivisation emanate not from structural incapacity but from morphosyntactic conditions and discourse-pragmatic priorities. It is also suggested that, given the unique features observed in EG (inchoatives and middles) and Hungarian (telicity), functional alternatives and semi-passives should be integrated into cross-linguistic typology, particularly for languages with low EGIDS rankings.
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Exploring ecolinguistics: ecological principles and narrative practices

August 29, 2025

Hossein Davari, Amir Ghorbanpour

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Why so serious? An interdisciplinary approach to humour and play in satirical discourse (language play and creativity, vol. 6, ed. Nancy Bell)

August 29, 2025

Lynn Blin

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Polyfunctional heri (হেৰি) in Assamese: a view from Discourse Grammar

August 28, 2025

Abhijnan Pritam Sarma, Tohru Seraku, Sweta Sinha

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Whilst there is a wealth of morphosyntactic studies on Assamese (Indo–Aryan), little attention has been paid to its semantic and pragmatic aspects. In this paper, we describe the polyfunctional item heri in Assamese, drawing on examples from podcasts, supplemented by film and web series scripts. We show that heri functions as a vocative (politely addressing an unknown person), a placeholder (substituting for a target form), an interjective hesitator (filling pauses interjectively), a general extender (yielding a conjunctive or disjunctive list reading), and a discourse marker (initiating new conversation topics). Furthermore, we model the grammatical, functional, and prosodic properties of heri across these distinct uses and analyse them in the framework of Discourse Grammar. The placeholder and general extender uses fall within the Sentence Grammar domain, and the vocative, interjective hesitator, and discourse marker uses are situated in the Thetical Grammar domain. Also, the developments of the interjective hesitator and discourse marker uses are examined through the lens of cooptation, a pragmatic operation whereby a unit in Sentence Grammar is recruited as a unit in Thetical Grammar. This study represents the first functional–grammatical analysis of Assamese based on spontaneous data.
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The predicate restriction in Najdi Arabic existential sentences: an empirical perspective

August 25, 2025

Bader Alharbi, Mohammad Aljutaily

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The predicate restriction (PR) indicates that only stage-level predicates (SLP) are permitted in the coda position of existential sentence (ES), whereas individual-level predicates (ILP) are barred. This restriction has theoretically shown to be available in the structure of the ES of Najdi Arabic (NA). This study aimed to empirically examine whether the facts reported in the theoretical literature about the effect of the PR in NA ES were reflected in the actual use of NA ES. A grammaticality judgement task in the form of a questionnaire was presented to 85 NA native speakers. The participants were asked to rate the grammaticality of the NA ESs given in the questionnaire according to their intuition. The questionnaire comprised three conditions based on the predicate type: adjectival SLP, adjectival ILP, and nominal predicates. It was expected that NA ES with adjectival SLP would yield the best ratings of the three conditions, followed by ES with adjectival ILP and ES with nominal predicates. As expected, the findings showed that the NA ES with adjectival SLP obtained the higher ratings, whereas those with adjectival ILP and nominal predicates obtained the very lowest ratings. These findings revealed that adjectival SLPs are more acceptable in the coda position of NA ES, whereas adjectival ILPs and nominal predicates are unacceptable in this position. This empirical study established a connection between the conclusions confirmed in the theoretical literature and the actual manifestations of the PR in the structure of ES.
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The meaning of constructions

August 20, 2025

Anthe Sevenants

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The grammaticalization path of the Kaakye relative clause marker

August 14, 2025

Levina Nyameye Abunya

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Languages develop their relative markers from a variety of sources. This paper examines the paths along which the relative marker in Kaakye, (a Kwa Niger-Congo language) has developed. Using the concept of grammaticalization as a framework, evidence suggests that the Kaakye relative marker kɛ́ originates from the manner demonstrative adverb kɛ́nɩ̀ŋ̀ , which means ‘in such a manner’ or ‘like this/that.’ The grammaticalization process begins with desemanticization, where the adverb’s concrete meaning, tied to its deictic reference, is first used to specify a referent noun phrase. Over time, this function evolves into a more abstract grammatical element, ultimately developing into a relative marker. Other mechanisms of grammaticalization such as extension, decategorialization and erosion, and Hopper’s principles of divergence associated with development process are discussed. Though the relativizer is derived from a demonstrative as it is attested in other languages, the particular grammaticalization path identified is quite unique. The paper contributes to the study of grammaticalization in general and provides a particular piece of evidence to support demonstratives as sources of relative markers.
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VP copying interacting with verum focus

August 1, 2025

Ningxian Li

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This study investigates the syntax of VP copying by looking at data from Mandarin Chinese. It focuses on VP copying used to express verum focus and presents a two-step syntactic process that involves moving a DP to a topic position, a case of left dislocation, and the remnant movement of the VP to the TopP at the CP domain. As to the phonetic realization of both verb copies, this paper adopts a minimalist Spell-Out framework by Bleaman (2022. Predicate fronting in Yiddish and conditions on multiple copy Spell-Out. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 40(2). 393–424) and Collins and Stabler (2016. A formalization of minimalist syntax. Syntax 19(1). 43–78). The findings in this paper not only contribute to syntactic theory by elucidating syntactic structures and their pragmatic functions, shedding light on the current debate regarding the syntax of VP copying observed in various languages, but also pave the way for further research on the interplay between information structure and syntax in conveying emphasis and focus in Mandarin Chinese.
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The evaluative suffixoid -head and its Spanish and Italian equivalents

July 31, 2025

Elisa Mattiello, José A. Sánchez Fajardo

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This study examines the evaluative morphology of the English suffixoid -head and its equivalents in Spanish and Italian. Adopting a construction morphology approach, the research focuses on the pejorative and human-related connotations in English [x- head ] N constructions, such as crackhead or fathead . A quantitative/qualitative analysis using the itTenTen20 and esTenTen18 (in Sketch Engine ), combined with a contrastive analysis in OPUS parallel corpora (OPUS2), reveals that, while English often uses suffixoids for negative evaluation, Spanish and Italian employ different morphological strategies, such as augmentatives, loose compounds, or syntactic constructs. The study further explores the morphosemantic features of equivalent constructions [ cabeza de [x] N ] N and [ cabeza [x] A ] N (in Sp.) and [ testa di [x] N ] N and [ testa [x] A ] N (in It.), comparing their meanings and productivity. The findings contribute to understanding how construction networks in languages from different families can converge in expressing similar evaluative frames – such as representing individuals with negative traits through body part references – while also highlighting structural preferences, such as the widespread use of N of N syntagmatic patterns in Romance languages. Importantly, the study acknowledges that these constructions are not inherently tied to negative evaluation or to the presence of the lexeme head , but rather reflect broader tendencies in phrase formation and semantic extension across languages.
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Intra-language differences of motion event encoding – a case of advent paths in Mandarin Chinese

July 28, 2025

Sai Ma, Ye Jin, Michael Barlow

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Despite considerable research on motion event encoding, studies from the perspective of intra-language differences are still few in number. To examine whether motion event encoding is influenced by event types (translational vs. fictive events), this study investigates lexicalization patterns and associated linguistic features of Mandarin advent path (one type of fictive motion) expressions and compares them with existing findings on translational motion event expressions. Data were collected from a self-built corpus. Results show that fictive motion expressions differ from translational motion event ones in encoding motion events. Specifically, in Mandarin advent path expressions, 1) there are three main lexicalization patterns: the satellite-framed language pattern, the double-framing pattern, and the verb-framed language pattern; 2) the frequency of path verbs is similar to that of manner verbs; 3) alternative expressions of manner information are used frequently; and 4) the complexity of Ground encoding is low. These findings suggest that event types contribute to intra-language differences of motion event encoding and that a motion event encoding pattern is better applied to a certain event type in a certain language than to a language as a whole.
Open Access
Lexical contact in Africa: Italian loanwords in the Mà’dí language of South Sudan and Uganda

July 23, 2025

John Hajek, Valentina De Iacovo

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We examine the presence of Italian loanwords in Mà’dí (ISO 630 code [mhi]), a Moru-Madi language spoken in South Sudan and Uganda. The existence of Italian loanwords elsewhere in Africa is the result primarily of colonial contact, and/or the presence of communities of Italian-speakers originally from Italy. We show that the Italian loanwords in Mà’dí have two sources of transmission: (a) direct contact with Italian Catholic missionaries; (b) indirect mediation via Arabic (mostly via a creole form of it, known as Juba Arabic). We argue that what are in some cases loanwords borrowed from Arabic are in fact ultimately indirect loans from Italian, having first entered into Arabic. Other loanwords, presumed to be Anglicisms, may be or are also Italian in origin or show some evidence of contact with Italian. The situation is rendered more complicated by the presence of borrowings that may instead be Latin or even Portuguese in origin – the latter potentially having entered Mà’dí indirectly through Swahili.
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Neological -ance nominalizations of psych predicates

July 22, 2025

Philippe Gréa, Marie-Laurence Knittel, Rafael Marín, Florence Villoing

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Object experiencer psych verbs (OEPV) in French ( fasciner ‘fascinate’) exhibit a surprising behavior in their derivational properties: most of them are related to adjectives in -ant ( fascinant ‘fascinating’), but virtually none of them have a nominalization in - ance , with the sole exception of attirance ‘attraction’, although - ance can derive nouns from both adjectives ( élégance ‘elegance’ from élégant ‘elegant’) and verbs ( surveillance ‘monitoring’ from surveiller ‘monitor’). However, in a current research project on nominalizations based on a very large corpora, we have found a significant number of neological - ance nouns related to OEPVs, such as fascinance ‘lit. fascin- ance ’. We argue that these neological N- ance are not properly verbal, but related to a morphological family containing an OEPV ( fasciner ‘fascinate) and an adjective in -ant ( fascinant ‘fascinating’). They can be constructed on the verb (in which case they denote states) but also, and more frequently, on the adjective (they then denote properties). This is completely impossible for standard derivatives, which explains the success of neological N- ance .
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What linguists think everyone should know about language – on extracting salience from open-ended responses

July 10, 2025

Tomas Lehecka, Jan-Ola Östman

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The study reports on a global survey asking linguists what they think everyone should know about language. Specifically, we asked linguists to formulate questions that it would be important for the general public to know the answer to. We received 3,349 suggestions for such questions from 538 linguists from 49 different countries. The study undertakes a content analysis of these open-ended responses. We analyze the text data at three levels of abstraction: (i) the overarching themes that the responses represent, (ii) the general questions about language that the individual responses relate to, and (iii) the specific topics that are mentioned in the responses. Results show that Variation and (language as a) System are the most recurrent themes among the responses, that ‘How and why do languages change?’ is the most frequently provided question, and that Language learning , Language structure , and Comparing languages are the most prevalent topics in the data. We contend that these findings reflect what issues are the most salient to linguists when asked about language in general. However, we also show that there is considerable variation in the responses, indicating that not all linguists think of the same issues when asked what everyone should know about language. The study provides a foundation for discussions and further research on the practical value of language-related knowledge for the general public.
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Experimental evidence suggests that null complement anaphora in Russian is not reducible to clausal ellipsis

July 9, 2025

Mikhail Knyazev

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Null complement anaphora, NCA (e.g., I suggested the price was too high, and she agreed ∅.), is a long known but poorly understood phenomenon subject to idiosyncratic lexical restrictions. In languages like Russian, however, it is (or appears) productive, with verbs not allowing NCA hard to find, raising the question whether omission of the clausal argument (CP) in NCA contexts can be derived by a supposedly regular process of CP/clausal argument ellipsis, which has recently gained attention in the literature, and which independently exists in Russian. This paper tests the prediction of this view whereby selection for CP should be sufficient (and necessary) for NCA-licensing, using two acceptability rating studies based on a corpus-based list of potential NCA-licensors. The results suggest that whether a verb licenses omission of the CP in NCA contexts is not predictable from its ability to license CP, and that the process is lexically sensitive. This provides evidence against analyzing NCA contexts as a result of CP ellipsis and more generally against reducing NCA to the latter in Russian and similar languages. The paper highlights issues of cross-linguistic variation in the study of NCA. It also raises questions about the parallelism condition on clausal ellipsis.
Open Access
‘They cost me less pains than tragedy does’: on the configuration of the quantifiers less and fewer in English

June 24, 2025

Javier Calle-Martín, Marta Pacheco-Franco

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Although less and fewer are supposed to have their particular domains for the expression of quantification, this has not always been the case in the history of English. These two quantifiers coexisted in free variation – irrespective of the typology of the noun – down to the eighteenth century. While some scholars have believed that the advent of prescriptivism seemed to specialise their distribution – with fewer being used exclusively for count nouns – the issue has been controversial on two grounds. On the one hand, it is unclear whether the distinction between fewer and less resulted from the codification of English grammar or if it was a usage-derived development later confirmed by grammarians. On the other hand, the state of affairs in present-day usage is uncertain, as less is lately being used regardless of the typology of the noun. In light of this, the present paper provides an overview of the phenomenon over time, paying attention to the historical and contemporary distribution of the quantifiers less and fewer in combination with count and mass nouns. From a corpus-based perspective, the paper examines the phenomenon throughout Modern English as well as across World Englishes today and concludes that usage preceded codification and that, while less is indeed spreading into the domain of fewer , the process appears to be slow and localised so far.
Open Access
Dialect vowel maintenance in a diglossic context: a study of linguistic heterogeneity in Gavaṛ, Armenia

June 16, 2025

Emma Portugal

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This study uses variationist methods to assess whether three demographic factors (self-reported gender, birth year, education level) correlate with maintenance of previously described dialect vowels in Gavaṛ, Armenia. Some maintenance was found, contradicting previous claims about dialect leveling in Armenian cities. Specifically, in picture-naming and word-list data, men maintained some dialect vowels more than women, while the other two demographic predictors were not significant (though preliminary analysis of spontaneous speech suggests that age may also be relevant for dialect vowel maintenance in less monitored speech contexts). Participants’ positive attitudes toward both Standard Eastern Armenian and the local dialect, along with the lack of significant results for education level, are consistent with Armenia’s diglossic environment, suggesting that even some highly educated speakers use dialect features outside of formal domains. This result demonstrates the key role of local language ideologies, as social class has been found to predict use of standard variants in more well-studied Western contexts. Because the analysis included one allophonic phenomenon whose results showed idiosyncratic tendencies, the study also has implications for evaluating social meaning of phenomena with different phonological statuses.
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On classifying Yorùbá noun phrases

June 5, 2025

Mayowa Akinlotan

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The study examines some selected Yoruba noun phrases’ internal structure, processes and meaning. This predominant Nigerian language relies on creativity and innovativeness in its structures and meaning process. Drawing on contemporary everyday data and language idiosyncrasies, this study identifies four Yorùbá NP types and analyses their constituents. It argues that the determiner and modification systems exhibit complex movement and placement that not only form the characteristic structural features of the language but also as cues to the meaning and interpretation process. Findings reveal that there appears to be a movement-and-placement competition between these two constituents. However, the determiner system outweighs the modification system’s ability to move freely within the NP structure. While this is the case for the determiner system, the study establishes that the movement and placement of the modification system are more related to the processing of meaning and interpretation than the movement and placement of the determiner. The study concludes that structural properties may represent the nature and texture of international Yoruba, a new trend in language usage to meet the growing demand among diasporic speakers globally.
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Agreement in Najdi Arabic existential sentences

June 4, 2025

Bader Yousef Alharbi

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It has been observed that existential sentences (ES) crosslinguistically display different agreement patterns. For instance, in the dialect of Najdi Arabic (NA) the ES shows interesting asymmetric agreement patterns. When the nominal pivot precedes the copular verb, the verb must fully agree with the pivot NP in all ϕ-features. Conversely, when the nominal pivot follows the copular verb, the verb always shows up with the third-person masculine singular features regardless of the ϕ-features of the nominal pivot. This paper aims to provide an analysis for these asymmetric agreement patterns in the NA ES by using a single mechanism, namely Agree. The analysis suggests that the obligatory full agreement results from Agree between the head v with unvalued ϕ-features and the pivot NP with interpretable ϕ-features. However, the other agreement type results from Agree between the head T with unvalued ϕ-features and the NP fiih that bears third-person masculine singular features. This latter type of agreement explains why the copular verb in some NA ES always shows up with the third-person masculine singular features regardless of the pivot ϕ-features. The proposed analysis in the current work may make useful insight into the ongoing discussion on ES agreements crosslinguistically.
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Beyond “to be”: multiple copula verbs in Munya

May 30, 2025

Junwei Bai

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This paper examines copulas in Munya, a Qiangic language within the Tibeto-Burman family, focusing on how they express identity, existence, location, and possession. While Munya uses a distinct copula for identity, it employs eight polysemous copulas for the other three senses. The selection of these copulas is determined by the properties of what this paper terms the “copula-determining referent”, which can be the copula subject or copula complement. The study further investigates dialectal variations in copula inventory and meaning, and proposes that possessive constructions in Munya evolved from existential ones through a process of transitivization.
Open Access
Possessives as source of definite articles? Diachronic evidence from Persian

May 28, 2025

Zahra Etebari

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This article discusses a distinct function of the third person singular pronominal clitic =eš in Persian: to denote definiteness. In certain possessive constructions, =eš does not refer to an external possessor but serves to make its host identifiable – whether through association with another item in the linguistic or situational context or as an anaphoric definite marker without any association. The use of possessive markers for definiteness has been observed in Uralic, Trans-Eurasian, Austronesian, Semitic, and Mayan language families; this study presents evidence of a similar development in Persian, an Indo-European language of the southwestern Iranian branch. The present article examines various definite uses of =eš through colloquial examples from social media and historical examples from a New Persian corpus. The findings trace the development of =eš , illustrating how its associative link to external entities weakens over time until it functions as an anaphoric definite marker. A tentative grammaticalization path is proposed in which the abstraction of the possessive meanings leads to the eventual loss of possessive semantics in =eš , resulting in the loss of person and number features in anaphoric uses. Additionally, the article discusses how increasing frequency of =eš has contributed to its development across stages of New Persian.
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The weight of VOT and f0 in English stop differentiation: 2L1 bilinguals versus monolinguals

May 26, 2025

Sha Liu, Kaye Takeda

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This study focuses on the differences and similarities between 2L1 bilinguals and monolinguals from the perspective of the weight of VOT and f0 as cues in English stop differentiation. The paper takes both Japanese-English and Mandarin-English 2L1 bilinguals into consideration, as f0 has different roles in stop distinguishing in Japanese and Mandarin. The statistical analysis models indicate that both kinds of 2L1 bilinguals show differences from the English monolinguals that cannot be explained by cross-linguistic interaction. Efficiency can satisfactorily explain these observed differences. Neither 2L1 bilingual group differs from the English monolingual group both in the weights of VOT and f0. The Japanese-English 2L1 bilingual group relies less on VOT than the English monolingual group in word list reading and more on f0 than the English monolingual group in text reading, although VOT and f0 have similar weights as cues for stop differentiation in Japanese and English. The Japanese-English 2L1 bilingual group uses one cue differently from the English monolingual group to distinguish between their two first languages. The Mandarin-English 2L1 bilingual group relies on f0 as much as the monolingual group in English stop differentiation although f0 has a lighter weight in Mandarin stop differentiation; this may make the differentiation between Mandarin and English easier.
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Changes in linguistic etiquette of modern Japanese: borrowing and transformation of traditional forms of expression

May 26, 2025

Jingli Li

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The study aimed to examine the changes in linguistic etiquette in modern Japanese, focusing on the process of borrowing and transforming traditional forms of expression. To achieve this, the study relied on the analysis of social networks such as Twitter, LINE, and 2ch. By examining the language used on these social networks, the study was able to identify the most popular loanwords used by Japanese speakers in their daily communication. It also analyzed how these loanwords were integrated into the Japanese language and how they impacted the traditional form of Japanese polite language (keigo) and other styles of speech. The research primarily involved the lexical-semantic. Therefore, three groups of words with borrowings were analyzed, that is keigo, gairaigo, and wakamono kotoba. The study’s findings have significant value in the educational sphere, as they provide a unique insight into the features of Japanese language and society, which can be used by foreigners to learn more about Japanese culture. The study’s findings can be useful for language teachers, linguists, and cultural researchers interested in exploring the complex relationship between language, culture, and society in contemporary Japan.
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Third-person singular present tense inflectional variation in Medieval and Early Modern English scientific texts: a corpus-based study

May 23, 2025

Ana Mondéjar-Pérez

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The present study analyses the morphological variation of the third-person singular present tense inflection in English scientific texts from the Late Middle English to the Early Modern English period. This study delves into the historical development of this inflectional variation, focusing first on the rivalry between the interdental fricative -(e)th and the alveolar fricative -(e)s , by examining how these inflections competed and evolved in scientific prose, particularly medical recipes and treatises. Data retrieved from The Málaga Corpus of Late Middle English Scientific Prose and The Málaga Corpus of Early Modern English Scientific Prose allows the analysis of the use, distribution and frequency of these inflections from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century. The results shed light on the importance of period development and text-type in the process of morphological standardisation.
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D-Linked wh-phrase in Arabic: contrast, cliticization and topic values

May 22, 2025

Murdhy Alshamari, Naif Alshammari

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Standard assumptions maintain that D-Linked wh-phrases (DLW) presuppose discourse-givenness and contrastiveness being associated to the referent expressed by the wh-associate DP. Developing the characterization of DLW as involving a [TOP] feature, the novelty this contribution advances is that in Hail Arabic, a Najdi variety of Arabic, DLW encodes Familiar Topic [F-Topic], a Topic value that is distinguished within Topics typology, while contrastiveness is not consistently involved in DLW interpretation. Investigating weɪn ‘where-pattern’, we demonstrate that DLW is expressed via cliticization; a mechanism whereby a clitic φ-agreeing with the DP is spelled out on weɪn . Implementing Cartographic and Minimalist assumptions, it is shown that DLW movement, triggered by u-[φ], is Shortest, targeting the outer Spec of PrP. This Shortest movement allows weɪn to φ-probe the DP, an Agree relation that results in lexicalizing the clitic on weɪn , driving weɪn -CL and demotivating peripheral movement of weɪn . The DP receives F-Topic interpretation, valued by v-[F-TOP] on weɪn . Further insight emerges where the DP carries contrastiveness due to u-[CONT], which triggers movement of the DP to the Spec of a C-layer dedicated for Contrastiveness, KontP, stranding weɪn -CL in PrP-domain. The extracted DP receives Contrastive Topic interpretation by the combination of F-Topic and CONTRAST.
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The metamorphosis of ʤaaj in Rural Jordanian Arabic

April 28, 2025

Basem Ibrahim Malawi Al-Raba’a, Mohammad Alhailawani

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This paper reports on the syntactic and semantic properties of grammaticalized uses of the motion active participle ʤaaj ‘coming’ in Rural Jordanian Arabic (RJA). We show that ʤaaj has undergone grammaticalization, resulting in the emergence of three markers with distinct semantics and syntactic behaviors. In particular, we show that ʤaaj has three functions in RJA: (i) a volitional act marker, signifying a purposive or deliberate action, (ii) a marker of inceptive aspect, indicating the initiation of an action, and (iii) a directive mood marker, encoding imperative mood. From a syntactic perspective, we argue that the three markers occupy distinct functional head positions in the clause in line with Cinque, Guglielmo. (2006). Restructuring and functional heads: The cartography of syntactic structures , Vol. 4. Oxford: Oxford University Press. The volitional and inceptive ʤaaj respectively head their own functional projections, Volition Phrase and Aspect inceptive Phrase, both located below Tense Phrase. On the other hand, the directive ʤaaj heads an imperative Mood Phrase above Tense Phrase. We support this division by showing that the first two makers exhibit full agreement in phi-features with the thematic subject, whereas the latter does not agree with the subject at all due to its high position above Tense Phrase. The findings of this paper align with the crosslinguistic observation that motion verbs like come can be grammaticalized into varying functional elements (Bybee, Joan L., Revere Perkins & William Pagliuca. 1994. The evolution of grammar: Tense, aspect and modality in the languages of the world . Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; Dragomirescu, Adina & Alexandru Nicolae. 2014. The multiple grammaticalization of Romanian veni ‘come’. Focusing on the passive construction. In Maud Devos & Jenneke van der Wal (eds.), Come and go off the beaten grammaticalization path , 69–100. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter; Heine, Bernd & Tania Kuteva. 2002. World lexicon of grammaticalization . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Kuteva, Tania, et al. 2019. World lexicon of grammaticalization , 2nd edn., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Lumien van Klinken, Catherine. 1999. A grammar of the Fehan dialect of Tetun . Canberra: Pacific Linguistics).
Open Access
Sak-relatives in Reunion Creole: examining the distinction between light-headed and free relatives

April 7, 2025

Alina McLellan

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This article revisits the issue of light-headedness in relative clauses, arguing that the distinction between light-headed and free relative clauses is not clear-cut in Reunion Creole. Analysis of a heterogeneous set of first-hand data from Reunion Creole reveals that at least two distinct light-headed structures exist for the same surface form, one likely deriving from the other. I argue that a third structure, which is a true free relative clause and not a light-headed one, may be developing from two light-headed ones, meaning that demonstratives could be a source for free relative pronouns in this language. The article contributes, on the one hand, to our knowledge and understanding of an underrepresented language, and on the other hand, to our understanding of the typology of headless relative clauses. In examining the distinction between light-headed and free relatives in Reunion Creole, the article sheds light on a possible pathway of grammaticalisation, from light-headed relative to free relative, that has to date received little attention.
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A reverse way: agreement marker motivates the subject in Persian frame impersonal constructions

March 31, 2025

Sahar Bahrami-Khorshid

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This paper is an attempt to investigate an idiosyncratic construction in Persian called ‘Frame Impersonal Constructions’, in detail. One of the remarkable features of this construction is the permanent occurrence of verb as 3 sg ; this feature naturally evokes the nature of the subject in this construction. Adopting a cognitive grammar formulation, I show that ‘Frame Impersonal Constructions’ are in fact instances of setting-subject construction in which some unspecified ambient force or energy is at work to stimulate a sensory experience on some animate entity. This stimulus is best codified as 3 sg , since the setting is reasonably construable as a 3 sg entity. The interesting point is that in ‘Frame Impersonal Constructions’ it is the 3 sg agreement on the verb which can be motivated as making reference to the semantic relevance of the setting-subject; that is, agreement marker alone profiles the setting-subject, whereas in personal constructions a separate overt nominal encodes the clausal subject. This finding asserts that the occurrence of agreement is semantically motivated, in contrast to accounts which consider it a purely syntactic constituent which occurs by default. The semantic pole of this construction also reveals that the enclitic which obligatorily occurs in ‘Frame Impersonal Constructions’ is the host of some sensory impression exerted by the schematic setting; hence, it is considered as experiencer.
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The diachronic development of the inchoative construction in Spanish: a case of constructionalization

March 24, 2025

Sven Van Hulle, Renata Enghels

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This study reconstructs the constructionalization process of the inchoative construction in Spanish, both from a formal and semantic viewpoint, operating within the framework of (Diachronic) Construction Grammar. The statistical method of VNC (Variability-based Neighbor Clustering) is implemented in order to obtain a bottom-up periodization of the evolution of the schema. Formally, the study maps the variation between a , de and en in the preposition slot of the construction. First, the paper uncovers that the formal fixation took place before the end of the 18th century, and prepared the integration of new members in the construction. Semantically, the extension of the auxiliary slot is scrutinized, unveiling when each micro-construction emerged and how each subschema became more productive. Second, the study shows that some inchoatives are coerced into the construction by metaphorical extensions, while others are recruited by analogical extension, based on an earlier incorporated (and to some extend conventionalized) member within the same subschema. Third, it is argued that these various developments reflect different needs of creativity and expressivity in the course of the history of the construction. Finally, based on the VNC-output and the empirical data, the analysis leads to the conclusion that the constructionalization was finalized around the 18th century, when both the preposition slot fixated with the preposition a and when the auxiliary slot extended significantly to other domains, resulting in the activation of all current subschemas in contemporary Spanish.
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Can syntax swallow semantics? Or might it not be the other way around?

March 19, 2025

Patrick Duffley

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In the Generative model of human language, the semantic component has the role of interpreting the syntax. This amounts to semantics being swallowed up by syntax and explains Chomsky’s reiterated statements that at bottom natural language has only syntax and pragmatics: “natural language has no semantics … it has syntax (symbol manipulation) and pragmatics (modes of use of language)” (Chomsky, Noam. 2013. Notes on denotation and denoting. In Ivano Caponigro & Carlo Conchetto (eds.), From grammar to meaning: the spontaneous logicality of language , 38–45. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). It will be argued that this conclusion is predetermined by the view of language as a computationally perfect syntactic system. Language is thereby reduced to syntactic distribution and symbol manipulation, linguistic form separated from meaning, with syntax being investigated according to the goals of coherence and consistency and subsequently reconnected extrinsically to the world by means of pragmatics. It will be shown that a basic understanding of the nature of language, which is constituted by the fundamental correlation between linguistic signs and their meanings, reveals that one cannot isolate and study separately the physically observable side of language without tearing asunder the very object of one’s investigation. The causal conditioning of syntax by both semantics and pragmatics will be demonstrated via the examples of English causative verbs and the ‘degree adverb + proper name’ construction.
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Local grammar and speech act analysis: a case study of compliments

February 24, 2025

Mengyuan Tang

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As local grammar starts to receive attention in the field of corpus linguistics, this study examines the local grammar of the speech act of complimenting. Utilizing the corpus from the first three seasons of Modern Family , the research identifies ten functional categories, revealing both commonalities and individualities in their use based on explicit and implicit strategies. A total of 31 explicit compliment patterns and 2 implicit ones are classified. The application of local grammar offers a clear and holistic perspective, enriching corpus pragmatics and providing communicative instructions for EFL and ESL learners.
Open Access
When possessor and argument indexes coincide. A cross-linguistic survey

February 24, 2025

Alessandra Barotto, Andrea Sansò

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Cross-linguistically, it is not uncommon to find the same person indexes in noun and verb phrases, referring, respectively, to the possessor of the noun and to various (combinations of) arguments (A, S and P). This phenomenon has never been the object of a dedicated typological survey. This article seeks to address this gap by investigating cases in which possessor and argument indexes coincide in a variety sample of 225 languages. The parameters of analysis include the (combinations of) arguments indexed, the type of coincidence (total, covering all persons in a given index set, or partial, limited to some persons), the segmental similarity between coinciding argument/possessor indexes and independent pronouns, the restriction of coinciding indexes to specific TAM and/or voice constructions, and the type of possessor indexes involved (alienable vs. inalienable). The typological survey is further complemented by a discussion of diachronic scenarios that may explain these patterns of coincidence, including (but not limited to) parallel developments from independent pronouns and the reinterpretation of nominalized forms of the verb (where possessor indexes correspond to an argument of the full verb) as predicative forms.
Open Access
A corpus-based behavioral profile analysis of polysemy and antonymy: the case of the ancient Greek size adjectives mikrós and mégas

February 24, 2025

Thanasis Georgakopoulos, Marialena Lavda

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This article explores the semantic relationships between the antonymous adjectives mikrós (‘small’/‘little’) and mégas (‘big’/‘large’) in Classical Greek. Adopting a cognitive and usage-based perspective, the study applies the Behavioral Profile approach to investigate the polysemy of these adjectives and to assess the strength of their antonymic relationship. Specifically, it aims to determine whether the functional similarity among antonymous words is greater or lesser than that found within the senses of polysemous words. By focusing on how antonymous senses of different lexemes cluster together in a joint network, the study examines the extent to which antonymy, rather than polysemy, governs the organization of these senses. The analysis points to an upgraded role of antonymy in semantic structure.
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Go to church or die in prison: PPs with bare institutional nouns in the history of English

February 24, 2025

Lotte Sommerer, Eva Zehentner

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This paper traces the diachronic development of prepositional phrases (PPs) with bare institutional/location nouns (e.g. go to church , stay in bed, die in prison ) from Middle English to Late Modern English. Based on a dataset of 2,249 instances extracted from the Penn Parsed Corpora of Historical English (PPCME2, PPCEME, PPCMBE2), we investigate changes in the usage of these constructions (i.e. formal and functional features). One question addressed is why a definite determiner is apparently ‘missing’ in these constructions ( died in prison rather than died in the prison ) and what kind of semantic interpretation this lack of overt definiteness marking triggers. Moreover, we assess whether there is evidence of these PPs becoming increasingly integrated into the extended verb phrase, by zooming in on the patterns’ semantic functions and formal features. By using collostructional analyses as well as by fitting a conditional random forest model, we show that different constructional types can be identified, which differ regarding the association strength between the elements involved as well as regarding their preferred semantic function, among other things. These results are then discussed from a usage-based, cognitive constructional perspective, indicating that the constructions at hand force us to revisit traditional assumptions about phrase structure boundaries and compositionality.
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As if grammar, discourse and prosody don’t interact: a comparative study of hypothetical manner clauses in English and Dutch

February 19, 2025

Wout Van Praet, Liesbeth Degand, An Van linden

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This study examines hypothetical manner (HM) clauses in spoken English and Dutch. In both languages, HM clauses can assume different levels of grammatical and discursive (in)dependence, and different semantic-pragmatic functions. This study examines whether the grammatical-discursive configurations that English and Dutch allow for are associated with different prosodic profiles. To this end, the study investigates not just prosodic integration of the clause in the same intonation unit as the main/previous clause, but also potential pitch resets (or downsteps) at the start of the clause, average amount of pausing before the clause, and the pitch contour with which the clause is uttered. The study finds that, while syntactic status and semantic-pragmatic function interact, syntactic status is generally the better predictor of the prosodic realisation of the clause. Among syntactically independent clauses, few differences are found between discursively independent clauses (‘stand-alone insubordinates’) and discursively dependent ones (‘dependency shifts’). We argue, therefore, that these two clause types are similar from a communicative viewpoint, both marking ‘fresh starts’ in the discourse. Finally, the many observed similarities between English and Dutch indicate that meaningful generalisations can be made about the interactions between grammatical, discursive and prosodic profiles, at least for the two languages under investigation.
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Tracing the origins and grammaticalization path of Irish English habitual do V: an analysis of the 1641 Depositions

February 3, 2025

Teresa Fanego, Seamus Johnston, Zeltia Blanco-Suárez

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This article addresses the use of the auxiliary do in affirmative declarative clauses (so-called periphrastic do ) during the early stages of the shift from Irish, the Celtic language spoken in Ireland, to English as the more common vernacular language there. A corpus compiled from the digital edition of the 1641 Depositions, a collection of witness testimonies recorded after a rebellion in Ireland, is used to examine the functions of periphrastic do . The focus is on possible habitual uses, since contemporary Irish English allows for the marking of habitual aspect in ways which differ significantly from the marking of habituality in other varieties of English. The data show that a periphrasis consisting of do plus the infinitive of a lexical verb (V) is often used in the 1641 Depositions in combination with markers of duration, yielding a habitual interpretation. It is argued that such uses, whose existence in the superstratal variety, Early Modern British English, has not been established, provided the conditions for the exaptation of do as a dedicated marker of habitual aspect, on the model of the habitual categories found in the verbal system of Irish.
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Systemic functional linguistics: a complete guide

January 30, 2025

Ruochen Li, Haijuan Yan

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Laryngealized vowels in Yánesha’: a phonetic description and subsegmental analysis

January 30, 2025

Allegra Robertson Molinaro

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This paper addresses the phonetic and phonological status of laryngeals in Yánesha’(Arawakan), showing that they are features associated with vowels, rather than following consonants or free-standing segments. Based on phonetic findings, I propose that [+spread glottis] and [+constricted glottis] are contrastive features associated with the rightmost subsegments of aspirated and glottalized vowels, respectively, within a Q-Theoretic framework. This analysis is supported by distributional and durational patterns and interactions between weight and stress, as quantified in the phonetics description. Yánesha’s laryngealized vowels are subsequently considered in light of areal trends, and an analytical extension to closely related Chamicuro is proposed. This paper contributes to our empirical understanding of a typologically rare segment type in an understudied language.
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Revisiting Hittite prayer lexicon: a focus on heteroclitic nouns and light verb constructions

December 20, 2024

Virna Fagiolo

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This paper focuses on the Hittite prayer lexicon, with particular regard to deverbal forms derived with the suffixes -( a̅ ) tar , - eššar , and - war (- mar ) from different verbs (i.e., arkuwai - ‘plead, argue’, mald - ‘declaim, recite’, mugai - ‘invoke’, talliya - ‘summon’, walliya - ‘praise’, wek - ‘wish, ask’). The aim of this work is to analyse the semantics of the verbal nouns for ‘prayer’ to identify possible semantic distinctions among these forms. In addition, the light verb constructions of these verbal nouns, with the verb iya - ‘do, make’ and its iterative form ešša -, are examined, comparing them with the corresponding synthetic forms, to detect similarities and differences in the use of these verbal constructions.
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Numeral systems in Lezgic languages

December 20, 2024

Maksim Melenchenko

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The paper presents an overview of numeral systems in Lezgic languages (East Caucasian) and discusses hypotheses about their diachronic development. Similarly to other branches of the East Caucasian family, languages of the Lezgic branch have either a decimal (base-10) or a vigesimal (base-20) system. Decimal systems are attested in languages and dialects in the northwestern part of the Lezgic area, while languages with vigesimal systems are spoken in the southeast. The article analyzes unusual features of numeral systems in several Lezgic languages: the fossilization of gender markers in a subset of decimal numerals (‘30’–‘90’), a shared decimal-based etymon for ‘40’, and north–south dialectal variation in numeral systems of Agul and Tabasaran, which are likely the result of contact influence. These phenomena challenge the traditional view that the vigesimal numeral system is original to the Lezgic languages and suggest that the hypothesis of the originality of the decimal system should not be overlooked.
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Beyond hypothetical manner: a functional typology of insubordinate como si-clauses

December 11, 2024

Víctor Royo Viñuales, An Van linden

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This article explores the phenomenon of insubordination through the analysis of independent clauses introduced by the conjunction como si ‘as if’ in Spanish. Drawing on present-day corpus data, it proposes a four-way functional typology of insubordinate como si -clauses. In line with previous studies on insubordination, we observe that insubordinate constructions allow speakers to move beyond the prototypical function of como si -clauses observed in subordinate structures, in which they express hypothetical manner. Specifically, we distinguish two types which meet the narrow definition of insubordination in that they combine syntactic with discursive independence, namely denial of an assumption and scalar evaluation , as well as two types that are discursively dependent, and hence instantiate dependency shift, namely nuanced agreement and discursive elaboration or reformulation . In terms of tense-aspect-mood marking, we find that three types consistently show past subjunctive marking, while one type, that of scalar evaluation , invariably shows present indicative verb forms. In terms of discourse-interactional features, we observe that denial of an assumption clauses stand out in favouring dialogic contexts, while the other three types tend to occur in monologic contexts. Within dialogic settings then, all four types are found to be uttered more frequently turn-initially than turn-medially.
Open Access
Constructing a web-accessible lexical database for core Tongan vocabulary

December 11, 2024

Katsuo Tamaoka, Shaoyun Yu, Jingyi Zhang, Koji Miwa, Masatoshi Koizumi

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According to UNESCO. 2020. World atlas of languages , 3rd edn. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Available at: https://en.wal.unesco.org, the Tongan language is classified as ‘potentially vulnerable.’ This study aimed to identify a core Tongan vocabulary and develop a web-searchable database to support the preservation and accessibility of the language. Due to the lack of a large-scale corpus for calculating lexical frequencies, we utilized vocabulary from the Students’ English-Tongan and Tongan-English Dictionary (Thompson, Richard H. & ‘Ofa Thompson. 1992. The students’ English-Tongan and Tongan-English dictionary . Tonga: Faletohi ‘Otumotu Angl’ofa’), a resource commonly used in Tongan schools. This dictionary compiles words used in both Tongan and English in everyday life. By examining processing speed and accuracy rates in lexical decision tasks, we identified a core Tongan vocabulary. Lexical decision tasks conducted on 4,013 words from the dictionary demonstrated a mean accuracy of 95.40 % and a rapid mean reaction time of 575 ms. A comparative analysis with an equal number of high-frequency words in English (Balota, David A., Melvin J. Yap, Michael J. Cortese, Keith A. Hutchison, Brett Kessler, Bjorn Loftis, James H. Neely, Douglas L. Nelson, Greg B. Simpson & Rebecca Treiman. 2007. The English lexicon project. Behavior Research Methods 39. 445–459) and French (Ferrand, Ludovic, Boris New, Marc Brysbaert, Emmanuel Keuleers, Patrick Bonin, Alain Méot, Maria Augustinova & Christophe Pallier. 2010. The French Lexicon Project: Lexical decision data for 38,840 French words and 38,840 pseudowords. Behavior Research Methods 42. 488–496) revealed that Tongan words were processed more quickly, though with an average accuracy approximately 2 % lower than the English and French words. Despite this slight difference in accuracy, the overall comprehension level for Tongan words remained high, with accuracy exceeding 95 %. Given the faster processing speeds observed, we propose that these words represent a core vocabulary in Tongan. To facilitate access to this vocabulary, we developed a web-based search engine (https://tonganlex.vercel.app/), which provides detailed information on letter (grapheme) count, phonemes, moras, parts of speech, meanings, as well as lexical decision times and accuracies. This study contributes to the accessibility of the Tongan language by making essential lexical information readily available online.
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Ryan Nefdt, Language, Science, and Structure Oxford: Oxford University Press Pp. xiii + 237. ISBN 9780197653098.

December 9, 2024

David Liebesman

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Middle voice in Cháoyáng Mǐn

December 9, 2024

Yang Xiao, Matthias Gerner

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Cháoyáng Mǐn, a dialect originating from Southeast China, exemplifies a unique instance of an isolating language featuring a middle voice. Historically, the middle voice in Cháoyáng Mǐn emerged as the culmination of a sequential transformation involving causative, passive, and anticausative constructions as intermediate stages. This unexpected alternation between valency-increasing and valency-decreasing constructions can be attributed to the grammaticalization of pro-drop (zero-anaphora) within serial verb constructions. The formal marker of all these constructions is the coverb khiɁ ‘give’ which is further merged with the expletive human pronoun i ‘s/he’ into khiɁi as a marker of the last two constructions: anticausative and middle voice. We claim that khiɁi serves as a genuine synthetical middle voice marker, whereas khiɁ fails one crucial set of data to qualify for an analytical middle voice marker.
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How grammatical constructions contribute to responsibility attribution in GBV coverage: a corpus-assisted study

November 11, 2024

Chunhong Yang, Yuanyuan Zhang, Youqi Zheng

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The portrayal of key participants in gender-based violence (GBV) by the media has been analyzed as ideologically driven by critical discourse analysis (CDA) scholars. Nevertheless, previous studies of media coverage of GBV cases with a CDA approach were confined to qualitative analysis while quantitative evidence was lacking and were perpetrator-oriented without the victim’s perspectives. Addressing these gaps, this study conducted a case analysis of four British newspapers, each representing different political inclinations. Results revealed that the political inclinations did not influence media’s preference for certain constructions. However, the perpetrator was ascribed with a much greater degree of agency in high frequency active constructions. Even in passive and nominal constructions, he was specified more frequently than deleted, contradicting most previous research indicating that the perpetrators were often deleted to conjure away responsibility. We also verified the significance of the context particularly in interpreting the agentless passive and nominal constructions. Further research from diachronic and reader-oriented perspectives should bring more converging evidence.
Open Access
Lenition of voiced stops in Kurdish

November 11, 2024

Masoud Mohammadirad, Ergin Öpengin

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Contemporary Kurdish variety groups exhibit considerable variation with respect to the lenition of voiced stops. This paper presents a first systematic overview of lenition across major varieties of Kurdish, drawing on published data and a recent questionnaire developed for studying phonological variation within Kurdish. Following recent studies on lenition, a distinction is made between lenition as a process related to earlier stages of language and lenition as a synchronically active process. Analysing diachronic sound changes in Kurdish as well as the synchronic lenition phenomena in its dialects, we conclude that while at earlier stages, Kurdish varieties favoured the lenition of voiced stops across different phonological environments, synchronically, lenition of voiced stops tends to be phonologically active only in the southernmost dialects of Central Kurdish and neighbouring Southern Kurdish and Gorani dialects, and with a limited extent, in the westernmost outliers of Northern Kurdish. It is argued that the synchronic lenition in the Gorani contact zone arose through innovation in Gorani and spread to Kurdish through substratum interference or originated in diffusion from Southern Kurdish.
Open Access
Intransitive clause word order in Neo-Aramaic: information structure, pragmatics and word order shifts

November 4, 2024

Dorota Molin

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This paper studies quantitatively intransitive constructions in Northeastern Neo-Aramaic, and their implications for Neo-Aramaic word order typology (historically, ‘subject-verb-object’). Though not considered previously, transitivity proves to be a significant factor in Neo-Aramaic word order variation. The differences between the intransitive Subject and the transitive Agent in Neo-Aramaic are a product of their divergent information-structural tendencies, as well as, it would seem, their basic syntactic preferences. Unidentifiable (i.e. indefinite, old) Subjects largely follow the verb, which fits with the larger tendency for pre-verbal arguments to be topical. Identifiable arguments, however, have roughly equal pre- and post-verbal frequencies in the corpus, when jointly considered. A deeper analysis considers referential distance and lexical-pragmatic factors. I propose that VS for identifiable Subjects is more likely for functions associated with ‘discourse discontinuity’, being less likely for foreground events. This distribution in Neo-Aramaic hints at a functional versatility of the VS structure, which is thus not restricted to a single construction such as sentence focus. By contrast, in (co-territorial Qəltu) Arabic, transitivity and topicality are less significant for word order variation. Finally, comparative data from Neo-Aramaic varieties of different word order profiles reveal the instability of the VS clause amidst larger word order changes. The cross-dialectal data show that the loss of the VS clause correlates very closely with the ‘verb-object’ to ‘object-verb’ shift. While Aramaic would have started as ‘(Agent-)verb-object’, some Neo-Aramaic dialects show increasing rates of ‘object-verb’.
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Non-canonical quantification in Old Persian: the adverb vasai̯

October 10, 2024

Pascal Coenen

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In this paper, I conduct a synchronic investigation of the Old Persian adverb vasai̯ . In some cases, this adverb functions as a degree intensifier whereas in others it appears to quantify over an argument NP. By drawing on analyses of adverbs like French beaucoup , English completely and German größtenteils , I will argue that a unified semantic analysis can be applied to all attestations of vasai̯ . I will argue that in all attestations, vasai̯ indicates a high position on a scale. What differs in the respective passages is the nature of the scale. It can be an intensity scale specified by the predicate or a volume scale specified by an argument of the predicate. The latter case yields an interpretation that can be paraphrased by using an adnominal quantifier like much . In addition to the semantic analysis, I will argue that, contrary to the assumption made by several scholars, vasai̯ is always to be interpreted as an adverb and does not function as an uninflected noun or adjective.
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Quantifier float in Hmong

September 17, 2024

Nathan M. White

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The typology of quantifier float (QF) in classifier languages has been the subject of research in several recent works. Some proposals suggest that languages should either have noun classifiers or the ability for the quantifier to “float”, that is, appear separate from the noun it quantifies. QF has never been described for any Hmong-Mien language, leaving a critical gap in existing work and limiting the existing typology. The current work fills this gap with an analysis of quantifier float in Hmong, and considers that Hmong possesses both bare classifiers and quantifier float, a combination previously unattested in the literature on QF and contrasts with current typological proposals. Hmong allows this via two quantifier + noun orderings (QN and NQ) related to two functions of the classifier system that both permit quantifier float. The QN-only ordering is canonically associated with indefinite nouns, and the NQ ordering involves a nested noun phrase structure and is associated with definite nouns (generally with inner NP-internal bare noun classifiers) and partitive or distributive readings. The QN-only ordering is particularly significant for the typology as quantifier float to the right is permitted for quantifier + classifier sequences associated with a prenominal NP-internal position, where the classifier involved in this QF pattern occupies the same syntactic position within the noun phrase as the bare noun classifier in noun phrases generally.
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Comparison of micro- and macro- structural narrative features between Turkish-Kurdish bilinguals and Turkish monolinguals

September 17, 2024

Merve Savaş, Senanur Kahraman Beğen, İlayda Çelik Başoğlu, Berfin Aktan, Özlem Öge-Daşdöğen

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Bilingualism may lead to differences in narrative micro- and macrostructural features. Creating a normative data set on the narrative characteristics of healthy Turkish-Kurdish bilinguals may allow for a more effective assessment of language disorders that may occur in bilinguals with acquired brain injury. This study aims to determine how narrative micro- and macrostructural features differ in Turkish-Kurdish bilinguals in single picture and story narratives. A total of 23 bilingual (Turkish-Kurdish) and 23 monolingual (Turkish) healthy individuals were included in the study. Narrative samples were obtained using single pictures and a story. Micro- and macrostructural features were compared between bilinguals and monolinguals matched for age, education, and gender. Mean length utterance-morpheme and clausal density variables, considered as indicators of grammatical complexity, were higher in monolinguals in both single picture and story narratives. Morphemic errors were higher for bilinguals. Effort behaviors, which can interrupt verbal efficiency, were higher in bilinguals in single picture narratives. While there was no difference between the groups in verbal fluency (phonemic and categorical), the lexical diversty in storytelling was higher in monolinguals. In terms of macrostructural features, cognitive inferences in the story context and emotional discourse in the single picture context were higher in monolinguals, while enrichment expressions in the single picture narrative were higher in bilinguals. In both groups, macrostructural features such as cognitive inferences and expressions of uncertainty in discourse were negatively correlated with grammatical complexity variables. Turkish-Kurdish bilinguals’ single picture and story narratives in Turkish may show semantic, morphosyntactic and pragmatic differences compared to Turkish-speaking monolinguals.
Open Access
Voice, impersonal construction, and zero lexeme: formalization of crucial notions

September 17, 2024

Igor Mel’čuk

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The paper considers a relatively rare verbal syntactic construction found in East Sakhalin Ainu and in Lingala: an active form of a transitive verb governs simultaneously a direct object and an agentive complement, has no overt syntactic subject and is in the 3rd person plural. In order to characterize this verb form, three sets of formal linguistic notions are introduced and described: voice (with a calculus of logically possible voice grammemes), impersonal construction, and zero lexeme; many illustrations come from Lingala and Kinyarwanda, as well as several other languages. The verb forms under analysis are shown to be the partial demotional passive.
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Multifunctionality matters: preverbal yǒu in Mandarin and its aspectual potential

September 4, 2024

Linlin Sun, Walter Bisang

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This article confronts a multifunctional grammaticalized form in Mandarin, the preverbal morpheme yǒu (有). Since its appearance in the Chinese mainland around the 1990s, there has been controversy about whether it is an aspect marker or not. In response to this question, we conducted a questionnaire survey to investigate how native Mandarin speakers generally understand sentences with preverbal yǒu . The results not only show that preverbal yǒu can serve as a perfective viewpoint marker that makes the terminal boundary of an event semantically visible, but also provide evidence of its other function as an existential marker. The concrete function of preverbal yǒu (perfective or existential) depends on pragmatic inference based on the temporal properties of a given situation. With this observation, the paper resolves the controversy of which of these two functions actually applies to preverbal yǒu , and integrates this marker into the broader context of pragmatics-based multifunctionality as it is widely found in Sinitic and mainland Southeast Asian languages.
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On the construal of MUSIC IS MOTION metaphor

August 20, 2024

Jingfang Wu, Yuhong Liu

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TIME IS MOTION can be construed in two models. One is the Ego-based, the other is Time-based so as to form three time metaphors, MOVING TIME, TIME’S LANDSCAPE, and TEMPORAL SEQUENCE. When construing musical motion, people tend to borrow this conceptual framework and get three musical metaphors, i.e. MOVING MUSIC, MUSICAL LANDSCAPE, and MUSICAL SEQUENCE. The MUSICAL SEQUENCE metaphor falls into three categories, i.e. SEQUENCE IS THE RELATIVE POSITION ON THE TIME PATH, ON THE PITCH PATH, and ON THE KEY PATH. Time Metaphor and the Event Structure Metaphor jointly construct the two construal models for the metaphor MUSIC IS MOTION. This study tries to validate the previous research on conceptual construals in such a new field as music so as to enlarge the research range of the conceptual metaphor theory and provide reference for the subsequent research on music.
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Detecting angloversal tendencies in the outer circle: a pilot study on a Maltese English speaker

July 30, 2024

Antonio Daniele

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World Englishes constitute an ever-developing study field where keeping track of the real-time changes which occur in language usage is a challenging task. This chapter aims at broadening the application field of the research on angloversals, described in literature as particular features divergent from Standard English and shared by English varieties across the world regardless of their geographical proximity or cultural affiliation. The present qualitative study hypothesises the presence of angloversals in Maltese English and considers a blended methodological approach to verify the research hypothesis. The study was performed on selected oral excerpts taken from a random interview to a speaker of the Maltese English continuum. Both the interviewee and the interviewer are native Maltese speakers and communicated in English all throughout the interview with no instances of code mixing between the two languages. Syntactical structures containing the overuse of the progressive aspect, article omission and resumptive pronouns, as well as unmarked phonology traits have been included in the angloversal categories by previous research on the matter. Said features are particularly found in contexts where language contact has had an impact on both the substrate and superstrate languages. This is the case for the Maltese context, where explanations for the plausible presence of the above features are to be sought in the realms of transfer from Maltese to English, language universals and pragmatic principles.
Open Access
The emergence of stand-alone insubordinate conditional clauses in Hungarian

January 1, 2000

Csilla Ilona Dér

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This study examines the development of stand-alone independent conditional clauses from the Old Hungarian period to the present. The analysis covers insubordinate conditional clauses with and without interjections, aiming to answer the question of what role interjections may have played in the emergence of these clauses. The results indicate that versions with interjections in the data appeared earlier (during the Old Hungarian period) and in greater quantities than those without, suggesting that interjections may have played a crucial role in the formation of indirect wishes and exclamatives/evaluations. Therefore, the independent clauses containing interjections are not merely occasional variants. This can be explained by the fact that interjections anticipate and emphasize the main characteristic of insubordinate clauses: their strong emotional charge. Since main clauses conveying emotional consequences with a more general meaning cannot be identified from the data, we consider hypoanalysis to be likely in the case of stand-alone conditional clauses.
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On the directionality from temporal to conditional

January 1, 2000

Yueh Hsin Kuo

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This paper examines the purportedly unidirectional process from temporal connective to conditional connective. As conditionals developed into temporals and vice versa in Chadic languages, Japanese and Mandarin, unidirectionality in the strict sense is unlikely, even though conditionals are more grammatical than temporals. As the bidirectional changes likely originated in contexts where formal and functional equivalence held between temporals and conditionals and their morphosyntactic distinction was vague, it is proposed that the changes are regular processes mediated by morphosyntactic vagueness. The proposal thus suggests that grammatical change may be regularly bidirectional. Grammaticalization, if defined in terms of regularity rather than unidirectionality, may be bidirectional, too.
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Negative correlative coordination in Indo-European: emergence, evolution and variability

January 1, 2000

Iker Salaberri

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This paper presents an analysis of the emergence, evolution and variability of negative correlative coordination ( ncc ) constructions in Indo-European, such as Armenian očʻ A ( ew ) očʻ B and Hindi nə A nə B. A new definition of ncc is put forward that takes into account the construction’s semantic and pragmatic properties, and this clause linkage strategy is analyzed in a sample of 240 historical and present-day doculects. It is argued that ncc constructions emerged in the proto-language by analogy with positive correlative conjunctions like Latin A- que B- que . The relationship between positive and negative correlative conjunctions is argued to be due to the fact that both constitute a system of question and response. Furthermore, a cyclic change is identified by which ncc markers bleach through frequent use and are regularly reinforced and renovated. A number of paths of renewal are identified, which are used to explain the variation of ncc constructions observed across the Indo-European family.
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How to express extreme quantity through Italian adverbial partially filled constructions

January 1, 2000

Martina Verdelli

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The aim of this paper is to explore the linguistic expression of extreme large quantities by focusing on some Italian adverbial constructions characterised by the [a + X NOUN <plural> ] pattern. These constructions can be considered as quantity intensifiers used to express a constructional meaning related to abundance that can be summarised as ‘a lot, in large quantities’. After presenting the syntactic and semantic properties shared by these expressions, a set of data extracted from the web will be analysed with a corpus-driven approach. The goal of the work is twofold: on one side, a comparison between the combinatorial contexts of the selected expressions will be presented and discussed, in order to highlight similarities and differences between them; on the other, a qualitative analysis of a specific multiword, a fiumi , will be proposed.
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Presupposition: accepted information or embraced beliefs? The role of informative function and trigger type in separating two levels of accommodation

January 1, 2000

Giulia Giunta, Maria Roccaforte, Nausicaa Pouscoulous, Edoardo Lombardi Vallauri

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How the speaker presents information linguistically may impact the recipient’s epistemic vigilance. For instance, information communicated through a presupposition suggests it does not warrant thorough scrutiny. Traditionally, presuppositions arise from the use of various linguistic triggers, but it has been suggested that a focal status can suspend the triggering of the presupposition. Using a mistake recognition task, we investigate whether the information structure of the utterance (specifically, topic-focus articulation) and different triggers (definite descriptions vs temporal clauses) influence presuppositions’ persuasive potential, both immediately and after one week. Our findings suggest that while a focal status of the presupposition does not seem to affect immediate mistake recognition rates, it shapes memorial representation, but only for one of the tested triggers (definite descriptions). Thus, this study provides further support that presupposition serves as a persuasive strategy; specifically, it indicates that for memory formation, this is influenced by the interplay between the information structure of the utterance and the type of trigger.
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The non-grammaticality of phonetics

January 1, 2000

John M. Anderson

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Here I observe that the grammatical system that constitutes our knowledge of language and formulates how syntactic and phonological structures may be constructed on the basis of context and the categories and their colligational information stored in the lexicon of signs does not contain a phonetic level. Indeed, what phonetics describes does not contribute to this grammatical system, but belongs to an interface where it implements phonological structures as a set of articulatory movements; and, reversing the interface, the sounds they create can be scanned by our auditory apparatus for indication of those distinctions in sound and their location that can be used to differentiate signs. These articulations and the functioning of the specifically auricular apparatus are capacities that differ from the purely mental capacity that is our knowledge of grammar and its use. One indication of this is precisely the lack of any grammatical motivation for the recognition of a determinate phonetic level, something not always acknowledged by phonological theories. This situation is illustrated here with reference to so-called ‘vowel harmony’ and to the prosodic contribution to the characterization of ‘ i -umlaut’ and ‘breaking’ in the development of Old English.

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Folia Linguistica publishes special and thematic issues focussed on important and emerging topics in the field of study. The journal has established a rigorous process to ensure that any special issue manuscripts follow the same high-quality standards and peer review processes as regular manuscripts. For further information on the journal’s peer review policy please see the "Instructions for Authors".

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Università del Piemonte Orientale
E-mail: maria.napoli_folh@uniupo.it

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Università del Piemonte Orientale
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Folia Linguistica
Editor-in-Chief
Dr Viviana Masia
Department of Foreign Languages, Literatures and Cultures
Roma Tre University
Via del Valco di San Paolo, 19
00146, Rome (Italy)
E-mail: viviana.masia@uniroma3.it and viviana.masia@gmail.com

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Dr. Virna Fagiolo
Università per Stranieri di Siena (Unistrasi)
E-mail: virna.fagiolo@unistrasi.it

Dr. Giorgia Mannaioli
Roma Tre University/University of Rome "La Sapienza"
E-mail: giorgia.mannaioli@uniroma3.it

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Dr. Eric Mélac
Département d'études anglophones
Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3
E-mail: eric.melac@univ-montp3.fr

Editorial Board
Enoch Aboh (University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
John Ole Askedal (University of Oslo, Norway)
Kasper Boye (University of Copenhagen, Denmark)
Giorgio Carella (Roma Tre University)
Marco Casentini (University of Ca' Foscari, Italy)
Sonia Cristofaro (University of Pavia, Italy)
María Josep Cuenca (University of Valencia, Spain)
Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kołaczyk (University of Poznań, Poland)
Teresa Fanego (University of Santiago de Compostela)
Mara Frascarelli (Roma Tre University, Italy)
Jeffrey Heath (University of Michigan, USA)
Gunther Kaltenböck (University of Graz, Austria)
Carmen Lepadat (University of Siena/Roma Tre)
Belén Méndez-Naya (University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain)
Amina Mettouchi (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, France)
Heiko Narrog (Tohoku University, Japan)
Martine Robbeets (Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena)
Jean-Christophe Verstraete (University of Leuven, Belgium)
Letizia Vezzosi (University of Perugia, Italy)

Folia Linguistica Historica

Editor-in-Chief
Professor Dr. Maria Napoli
Università del Piemonte Orientale
Department of Humanities
Via Galileo Ferraris 116
13100 Vercelli
Italy
E-mail: maria.napoli_folh@uniupo.it

Editorial Assistant
Irene De Felice (Università del Piemonte Orientale, Italy)
E-mail: irene.defelice@uniupo.it

Associate Editor
Eitan Grossman (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel)

Review Editor
Lars Erik Zeige (Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany)
Email: lars.zeige@rz.hu-berlin.de

Editorial Team
Christian Geddo (Università della Svizzera Italiana, Switzerland)
Giulia Fontana (Università del Piemonte Orientale, Italy)

Editorial Board
Kasper Boye (University of Copenhagen, Denmark)
Bert Cornillie (University of Leuven, Belgium)
Bridget Drinka (University of Texas at San Antonio, USA)
Patience Epps (University of Texas at Austin, USA)
Piotr Gąsiorowski (Adam Mickiewicz University Poznan, Poland)
Hans Henrich Hock (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA)
Dmitry Idiatov (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France)
Guillaume Jacques (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France)
Johanna Laakso (University of Vienna, Austria)
Roger Lass (University of Edinburgh, UK)
Piera Molinelli (Università di Bergamo, Italy)
Muriel Norde (Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany)
Nikolaus Ritt (University of Vienna, Austria)
John Charles Smith (University of Oxford, UK)
Freek Van de Velde (KU Leuven, Belgium)
Ferdinand von Mengden (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany)

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Journal information

Additional information

eISSN:

1614-7308

ISSN:

0165-4004

Language:

English

Publisher:

De Gruyter Mouton

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First published:

January 1, 1967

Publication Frequency:

4 issues per year

eISSN: 1614-7308

ISSN: 0165-4004

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researchers in the fields of linguistics and social sciences

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