Volume 50, Issue 3 - New Directions in Lexical Typology

Erratum to Linguistics, Volume 50, issue 2 (2012), pp. 269–303 (10.1515/ling-2012-0010): Thomas Berg, Sabine Helmer, Marion Neubauer and Arne Lohmann, Determinants of the extent of compound use: A contrastive analysis. Table 5 (p. 285) was originally printed with an error. Please find the corrected version of Table 5 attached.

Focusing on the perception verb systems in three little documented Khoe languages, i.e., ⫲Haba, G∣ui, and G∥ana, the present paper demonstrates their typologically unique feature, namely the crosslinguistically uncommon behavior of TASTE among the five sense modalities involved in perception verbs. By using the new findings the paper examines two models of the sense-modality hierarchy proposed by Viberg (1984, 2001). In addition, this study also reports on two peculiar lexical semantic classes, i.e., “elaborate taste verbs” and “food texture verbs”, attested in G∣ui and G∥ana, in which TASTE potentially plays an important role. The findings of this study have some theoretical implications for lexical typology since they show a subtle interaction between universal and language-specific factors.

The semantic domain of pain seems to be unique in that, crosslinguistically, it includes few predicates that are specifically dedicated to pain (like hurt or ache ); instead, the major part of the field is constituted by lexical units drawn from other semantic domains, which are applied to pain through processes of semantic derivation (like my eyes are burning, my throat is scratching ). After discussing methodological considerations concerning data collection, the article first analyzes the semantic sources for pain predicates and addresses the issue of their typological consistency, based on data from over 20 languages. It is then demonstrated that the evolution of a pain meaning cannot be reduced to a merely semantic process, since the meaning shift may be accompanied by changes in the morphological, morphosyntactic and/or syntactic properties of the source verb. We suggest the term “re-branding” for the complex meaning changes of this kind and discuss their theoretical relation to the well-established notions of metaphor and metonymy.

The categorization alluded to in the title is the assignment of a class of concepts to a lexeme class and/or a syntactic category. The purpose of the paper is to establish converseness of strategies of categorization among languages as a typological concept. It is argued that, quite in general, coding strategies in a given functional domain may be oriented in opposite directions across languages. Particular attention will be paid to the relationship between basic/lexical categorization and derived/syntactic categorization. A particular kind of converseness is produced by the alternative of basically lexicalizing some concept in grammatical category C i and transferring it into category C j by derivational or grammatical operations, or vice versa. The chief empirical domain to illustrate the principle is the categorization of dynamic relational concepts as verbs vs. non-verbs, the latter paired with prominence of light-verb constructions in the grammar. A couple of other functional domains susceptible of the same kind of analysis are analyzed more summarily. Whenever the elements of a certain conceptual field or functional domain are uniformly lexicalized in some particular category, this is typically coupled with a regular operation of recategorization into its complementary category. In such cases, both the basic category assignment and the presence of the operation shape the structure of sentences and of texts in the language.

Traditionally, lexical typology has mostly confined itself to local domains, such as color terms. In this paper I propose an integral typology of verbal lexical systems. As a first step, I compare the verbal lexicon of Northern Athabaskan languages (primarily Koyukon) with that of English, as well as Russian. The research question is how the construction of verbal lexical meaning operates in various languages. As an independent benchmark, I use a list of 122 verbs that were described as a child's earliest acquisitions in a developmental study by Michael Tomasello. Translational counterparts of English verbs have been identified for Koyukon. English and Koyukon basic verbs demonstrate very different degrees of morphological and conceptual complexity. Whereas English verbs have very few derivational morphemes, an average Koyukon verb has 1.5 derivational morphemes. Koyukon verb roots are significantly more abstract and a lot of derivational material is required to reach the level of semantic concreteness that is found in English verb roots. The measurement “index of verb complexity” is introduced that captures such differences between languages numerically. Various semantic classes of verbs display different degrees of complexity. In particular, Koyukon manipulation verbs are mostly derived, whereas motion verbs have a larger proportion of simple verbs. The derivational complexity of the Koyukon verbal lexicon may be related to the overall morphological complexity of the language.

The semantic space location–existence–possession has been investigated from different perspectives since Lyons 1967. In this paper it is first accurately redefined (Section 2) so that it constitutes an operative onomasiological grid for lexical and constructional typological research. Patterns of joint expression of categories and of clear distinction of categories are examined over significant subparts of the relevant semantic space (Sections 2.3/3.1: possession corresponding e.g., to E. The boy had a book ; thematic location : E. The book was on the table ; rhematic location : E. There was a book on the table ; bounded existence : E. There are many lions in Africa ; ( generic ) existence : E. There are many unhappy people ). This research is conducted on the basis of an initial 19-language sample (Section 3.2 and Appendix B), which, despite its bias towards Europe and Africa, yields very interesting observations concerning crosslinguistic tendencies and the effects of genetic affiliation and areal proximity. Since for the typology of this field it is not only the verbal lexical item that counts, but the whole construction (in some languages even with zero copula), adequate tools for a constructional typology have to be developed in terms of inheritance links inspired by Construction Grammar (Section 4). In the central sections of the paper, crosslinguistic patterns of inheritance and of clear distinction of categories within the semantic space are analyzed with respect to the target concepts possession (Section 5), location (Section 6), and existence (Section 7). On the semantic level the relevant links are all metonymic or at least contiguity-based. From the detailed analyses several interesting crosslinguistic, but also areal tendencies can be gathered (Section 8.1). A general hypothesis about the domain location  +  existence emerges: languages either opt for informational salience, opposing thematic location to the (rhematic) rest, or for propositional salience, opposing (generic) location to existence , or they dismiss both types of salience, linking (generic) location and existence directly to each other. As a conclusion, three interesting methodological and theoretical issues are addressed: the non-necessary congruence between synchronic patterns and diachronic paths (Section 8.2.1), problems of the conceptual grid in the realm rhematic existence / rhematic location (Section 8.2.2), and the utility of an account in terms of constructional typology (8.2.3).

This investigation of crosslinguistic patterns in lexicon-grammar interaction looks at complex predicate data from four Asian languages (Mandarin Chinese, Hindi-Urdu, Japanese, Marathi). In these languages verbs whose basic meanings are HIT and EAT are used as operators in complex predicates: e.g., Mandarin dǎ yíge quántóu {HIT a fist} ‘give a punch’ versus chī yíge quántóu {EAT a fist} ‘take a punch’ or Hindi-Urdu raub mār - {awe HIT} ‘intimidate’ versus raub khā - {awe EAT} ‘be intimidated’. We show that in Chinese, Hindi-Urdu, and Marathi the normal antonymy of paired CPs featuring these two operators disappears if the CPs themselves alternate with the monolexical heads of intransitive clauses provided those clauses are unaccusative.

This paper presents an overview of a project that aims at creating a representative catalogue of crosslinguistically recurring semantic shifts in the languages of the world and at implementing this catalogue in the form of a searchable computer database. Such a catalogue is useful in several theoretical and methodological respects. First of all, both universal and language-specific semantic shifts can be considered a window onto human cognitive mechanisms operative in the domain of linguistic conceptualization. Second, the catalogue provides a rich empirical basis for the study of genetic and areal tendencies in semantic change, as well as in polysemy patterns. Another potential application is historical reconstruction, since the catalogue gives evidence for attested paths of diachronic semantic evolution. In Section 1 we outline the general concept of the catalogue of semantic shifts . Section 2 describes the design of the computer database. In Section 3 we discuss some difficulties that we have faced while working on the catalogue. The next three sections demonstrate how the catalogue can be used in linguistic research and present an analysis of three selected issues, namely semantic shifts in the domain of dimension (Section 4), motivation strategies in the domain of folk biology (Section 5), and euphemization as a mechanism of semantic change (Section 6).

This paper discusses a multidimensional probabilistic semantic map of lexical motion verb stems based on data collected from parallel texts (viz. translations of the Gospel according to Mark) for 100 languages from all continents. The crosslinguistic diversity of lexical semantics in motion verbs is illustrated in detail for the domain of ‘go’, ‘come’, and ‘arrive’ type contexts. It is argued that the theoretical bases underlying probabilistic semantic maps from exemplar data are the isomorphism hypothesis (given any two meanings and their corresponding forms in any particular language, more similar meanings are more likely to be expressed by the same form in any language), similarity semantics (similarity is more basic than identity), and exemplar semantics (exemplar meaning is more fundamental than abstract concepts).

The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach has a long track record in crosslinguistic lexical semantics (Wierzbicka 1992, 1996, 1999; Goddard 1998, 2006, 2008, 2011; Harkins and Wierzbicka 2001; Goddard and Wierzbicka 2002; Peeters 2006; Gladkova 2010; Ye 2007a, 2007b, 2010; Bromhead 2009, 2011; Wong 2005, 2010; and other works). It is therefore not surprising that it has a clear theoretical position on key issues in lexical semantic typology and a well-developed set of analytical techniques. From a theoretical point of view, the overriding issue concerns the tertium comparationis . What are the optimal concepts and categories to support the systematic investigation of lexicons and lexicological phenomena across the world's languages? To this question, the NSM approach offers the following answer: the necessary concepts can — and must — be based on the shared lexical-conceptual core of all languages, which NSM researchers claim to have discovered over the course of a thirty-five year program of empirical crosslinguistic semantics. This shared lexical-conceptual core is the minilanguage of semantic primes and their associated grammar. In addition, over the past 10 or so years, NSM researchers have developed certain original analytical constructs which promise to enhance the power and systematicity of the approach: in particular, the notions of semantic molecules and semantic templates. This paper sets out to explain and illustrate these notions, to report some key analytical findings (updated, in many cases, from previously published accounts), and to extrapolate their implications for the further development of lexical typology.