Volume 48, Issue 4

The study discusses the use of reflexive pronouns as markers of middle situation types and questions the traditional generalization that only light or weak reflexives (e.g., German sich , Spanish se ) appear as such markers. Based on an analysis of approximately 2000 examples drawn from the British National Corpus, it explores if and to what extent the English heavy reflexive itself can be found in such contexts. Moreover, it provides a typology of the middle situation types in which the form itself occurs and analyzes the processes that give rise to the use of itself in such contexts. While some incipient grammaticalization processes can be found, the study argues that self -intensification as well as various lexicalization processes need to be considered, too. It also provides an extensive quantitative analysis of the contexts in which itself occurs. The study concludes that morphologically complex or heavy reflexives can occur as markers of middle situation types, contrary to widely accepted accounts. Moreover, it argues that the traditional grammaticalization account given for the occurrence of reflexive pronouns as markers of middle situation types is too simplistic and needs to be revised.

Most known cases of affix controlled accentuation patterns involve local accent assignment: prefixes assign root-initial accents whereas suffixes assign root-final accents. In this article we document the nonlocal accentuation behavior of [-zu], a recently emerged suffix in Japanese which an elicitation study reveals to be productively root-initial-accenting. We present a phonological analysis of the [-zu] data, showing that standard theories of morpheme realization predict the existence of such a suffix. The existence of [-zu] therefore fills what would otherwise be an undesirable typological gap.

Previous research has shown that speech perception can be influenced by a speaker's social characteristics, including the expected dialect area of the speaker (Niedzielski, Journal of Language and Social Psychology 18: 62–85, 1999; Hay et al. The Linguistic Review 23: 351–379, 2006a). This article reports on an experiment designed to test to degree to which exposure to the concept of a region can also influence perception. In order to invoke the concept, we exposed participants, who were all speakers of New Zealand English, to either stuffed toy kangaroos and koalas (associated with Australia) or stuffed toy kiwis (associated with New Zealand). Participants then completed a perception task in which they matched natural vowels produced by a male New Zealander to vowels from a synthesized continuum which ranged from raised and fronted Australian-like tokens to lowered and centralized New Zealand-like tokens. Our results indicate that perception of the vowels shifted depending on which set of toys the participants had seen. This supports models of speech perception in which linguistic and nonlinguistic information are intricately entwined.

The Amazonian language Bora systematically uses in narratives a special, paragraph-initial anaphoric “connector pronoun”. This pronoun helps to ensure referential coherence through agreement in noun class and number with an antecedent, whose referent is thematic in the new paragraph. Additional morphology in the connector pronoun specifies temporal, causal, and other relations between events. The connector pronoun is syntactically tightly integrated into the clause, where it may function as an argument of a verb or as the dependent element of a genitive phrase. Certain frequent forms of the connector pronoun are the basis for a number of lexicalized conjunctions. This paragraph-linking strategy parallels in a number of ways tail-head linkage systems, not only in its functionality, but also with respect to its diachronic outcome (discourse conjunctions). The fact that Bora grammaticalized nominal expressions in a paragraph-linking system (whereas verbs are the central components of tail-head linkage) is congruent with the general preference of Bora to use many noun phrases per clause, in contrast to tail-head linkage languages, where noun phrases are rarely used.

The Surpass (or Exceed) comparative is a widespread feature of Sinitic languages found in almost all ‘dialect’ groups. This article investigates the nature of Surpass constructions in Southern Chinese varieties with a focus on Cantonese, and in unrelated languages of Southeast Asia, where Surpass comparatives are also found (Thai, Lao and Vietnamese). I offer possible grammaticalization paths for the Surpass comparative in the history of Chinese grammar, and argue that Surpass constructions are typical of Southern Sinitic but not of Mandarin Chinese (contra Stassen, Comparison and universal grammar, Basil Blackwell, 1985, Stassen, Comparative constructions, Oxford University Press, 2005). I also propose that the Surpass comparative should be added to the shared features of a broadly defined Mainland Southeast Asian region which illustrates the affinity of languages such as Cantonese to their non-Sinitic Southeast Asian neighbors. Finally, in arguing that comparatives in Mandarin Chinese are not Surpass construction, I suggest that it is not Sinitic languages in general that go against robust typological correlations between basic word order and standard-adjective order; rather, it is only Mandarin that provides a counterexample and is, in that respect, typologically rare.