Volume 58, Issue 2 -

This article deals with the mechanisms by which directive imperatives develop into grams with various non-directive meanings. The types discussed include conditional and concessive, historical, mirative and echoic-necessitive imperatives. It is argued that such non-directive functions should not be traced back to putative general meanings of the imperative but arise, in various specific constructions and through various mechanisms, from the properly directive imperative.

In this article, I discuss secondary predication in Biblical Hebrew, showing that contrary to what linguists such as Rothstein (2004. Structuring events . Malden, MA & Oxford: Blackwell) suggest, there are languages with verb phrases as secondary predicates. In particular, I deal with a construction in Biblical Hebrew I refer to as the double infinitive-absolute construction , where in addition to a finite verb, the sentence contains two conjoined occurrences of an infinitive absolute, where the first is of the same root and binyan (pattern) as the finite verb but deprived of temporal and agreement features, while the second is of a different root and (maybe) binyan. I show that Biblical Hebrew uses this construction to form a new complex verb with the primary predicate, such that it shares the subject or the object with the primary predicate, depicting a situation that overlaps in time with the situation depicted by the primary predicate or results from it.

This article offers an analysis of the morphosyntactic properties of Lithuanian participles in terms of the criteria of “canonical” finiteness proposed by (Nikolaeva, Irina. 2013. Unpacking finiteness. In Dunstan Brown, Marina Chumakina & Greville G. Corbett (eds.), Canonical morphology and syntax , 99–122. Oxford: Oxford University Press.). It is shown that in their different uses, i. e., as heads of two types of evidential clauses, as predicates in complement, adverbial and attributive clauses and as lexical verbs in periphrastic constructions, Lithuanian participles show considerably different combinations of finite and nonfinite characteristics and hence cannot be unequivocally treated as nonfinite. It is argued that it is the individual constructions where the participles occur that determine their morphosyntactic features and that the very notion of (non)finiteness is composite and largely derivative.

Languages differ in their number of basic verbs that describe perceptual experience. Some languages have only two such verbs: one for visual perception and another for non-visual perception. How do speakers of these languages conceptualize sensory perception? To shed light on this question, this paper investigates the perception verbs mɔ̀ ‘see’ and nu ‘hear/feel/taste/smell’ in Avatime (Kwa, Niger-Congo). These verbs are studied together with the constructions in which they occur, using both translated data and spontaneous discourse. Both perception meanings and meanings outside the domain of perception are taken into account. The detailed picture that emerges shows some previously undocumented patterns of perception encoding and enriches our understanding of the conceptualization of the senses more generally.

Cuwabo (Bantu P34, Mozambique) illustrates a relativization strategy, also attested in some North-Western and Central Bantu languages, whose most salient characteristics are that: (a) the initial agreement slot of the verb form does not express agreement with the subject (as in independent clauses), but agreement with the head noun; (b) the initial agreement slot of the verb form does not express agreement in person and number-gender (or class), but only in number-gender; (c) when a noun phrase other than the subject is relativized, the noun phrase encoded as the subject in the corresponding independent clause occurs in post-verbal position and does not control any agreement mechanism. In this article, we show that, in spite of the similarity between the relative verb forms of Cuwabo and the corresponding independent verb forms, and the impossibility of isolating a morphological element analyzable as a participial formative, the relative verb forms of Cuwabo are participles, with the following two particularities: they exhibit full contextual orientation, and they assign a specific grammatical role to the initial subject, whose encoding in relative clauses coincides neither with that of subjects of independent verb forms, nor with that of adnominal possessors.

The negative existential cycle has been shown to be operative in several language families. Here it is shown that it also operates within a single language. It happens that the existential fī that has been adduced as an example of a type A in the Arabic of Damascus, Syria, negated with the standard spoken Arabic verbal negator mā , does not participate in a negative cycle, but another Arabic existential particle does. Reflexes of the existential particle šay ( y )/ šē / šī / ši of southern peninsular Arabic dialects enter into a type A > B configuration as a univerbation between mā and the existential particle ši in reflexes of maši . It also enters that configuration in others as a univerbation between mā , the 3rd-person pronouns hū or hī , and the existential particle šī in reflexes of mahūš / mahīš . At that point, the existential particle šī loses its identity as such to be reanalyzed as a negator, with reflexes of mahūš / mahīš negating all manner of non-verbal predications except existentials. As such, negators formed of reflexes of šī skip a stage B, but they re-enter the cycle at stage B > C, when reflexes of mahūš / mahīš begin negating some verbs. The consecutive C stage is encountered only in northern Egyptian and southern Yemeni dialects. An inchoate stage C > A appears only in dialects of Lower Egypt.

Imposters, seemingly third person nouns with speech act participant reference, have been varyingly analyzed as being licensed through an elaborated DP syntax (Collins and Postal. 2008. Imposters. Manuscript . http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/000640 (accessed 12 May 2017), Collins and Postal. 2012. Imposters: A study of pronominal agreement . Cambridge: MIT Press) or through lexical specification (Kaufman 2014. The syntax of Indonesian imposters. In Chris Collins (ed.), Cross-linguistic studies of imposters and pronominal agreement , 89–120. Oxford: Oxford University Press). Looking at Korean and Indonesian, two languages that make frequent use of imposters, we show that both can be accounted for without appeal to an elaborated DP syntax and that, in fact, such a structure makes the wrong predictions. Rather, other heads in the clause, in conjunction with differences in lexical specification, can account for both languages. In Indonesian, which freely allows imposters to bind anaphors with person features of the referent, the imposter is lexically specified for those features. In Korean, where such binding is restricted, imposters are underspecified for person and so anaphors only occur when there is another person feature-carrying head to supply the necessary features (Zanuttini et al. 2012. A syntactic analysis of interpretive restrictions on imperative, promissive, and exhortative subjects. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 30(4). 1231–1274). Previously left unexplained was why Korean imposters were unable to bind any person-marked anaphors, including third person, under an assumption that person-underspecified DPs get valued with a default third person feature. We argue this is a result of the difference in types of third person, those specified for third person and those that are not (Sigurðsson 2010. On EPP effects. Studia Linguistica 64(2). 159–189).

Much of how we sequence events in speech mirrors the order of their natural occurrence. While event chains that conform to chronology may be easier to process, languages offer substantial freedom to manipulate temporal order. This article explores to what extent digressions from chronology are attributable to differences in grammatical aspect systems. We compared reverse order reports (RORs) in event descriptions elicited from native speakers of four languages, two with (Spanish, Modern Standard Arabic [MSA]) and two without grammatical aspect (German, Hungarian). In the Arabic group, all participants were highly competent MSA speakers from Palestine and Jordan. Standardized frequency counts showed significantly more RORs expressed by non-aspect groups than by aspect groups. Adherence to chronology changing as a function of contrast in grammatical aspect signal that languages without obligatory marking of ongoingness may provide more flexibility for event reordering. These findings bring novel insights about the dynamic interplay between language structure and temporal sequencing in the discourse stream.