Volume 12, Issue 1

Although various types of interrogative words have been thoroughly studied, such is not the case for interrogative verbs. The latter possess the morphosyntactic features of verbs, but in addition they question what they themselves express, the very predicate. Based on a sample of languages from all parts of the world, this article, after introducing interrogative verbs, illustrates them from various languages and indicates their main morphological, syntactic, and semantic characteristics. It then examines three important questions, namely why interrogative verbs have developed in certain languages, why interrogative verbs may be considered typologically unusual, and what relationships exist between interrogative verbs and other possible interrogative words. The article ends with a map showing the areal distribution of interrogative verbs.

This article presents the first study of crosslinguistic variation in grammaticalization processes affecting verba dicendi in Sinitic languages, making use of discourse data in the comparison. Its principal objective is to undertake a quantitative analysis of say verbs used as complementizers in Southern Min and Cantonese in order to pinpoint the stages reached in grammaticalization. In particular, it will be argued that Southern Min is more advanced in its development of a complementizer than is Cantonese. A second and more general objective is to provide an overview of grammaticalized functions of say verbs in an enlarged sample of ten Sinitic languages for which discourse data is also available, including Hakka, Xiang, Wu, Jin, Gan, and three varieties of Mandarin.

Exploring the semantic encoding of a group of crosslinguistically uncommon “spatial-coordinate demonstratives”, this work establishes the existence of demonstratives whose function is to project angular search domains, thus invoking proper coordinate systems (or “frames of reference”). What is special about these distinctions is that they rely on a spatial asymmetry in relativizing a demonstrative referent (representing the Figure) to the deictic center (representing the Ground). A semantic typology of such demonstratives is constructed based on the nature of the asymmetries they employ. A major distinction is proposed between asymmetries outside the deictic Figure-Ground array (e.g., features of the larger environment) and those within it (e.g., facets of the speaker/addressee dyad). A unique system of the latter type, present in Jahai, an Aslian (Mon-Khmer) language spoken by groups of hunter-gatherers in the Malay Peninsula, is introduced and explored in detail using elicited data as well as natural conversational data captured on video. Although crosslinguistically unusual, spatial-coordinate demonstratives sit at the interface of issues central to current discourse in semantic-pragmatic theory: demonstrative function, deictic layout, and spatial frames of reference.