Volume 46, Issue 4 - In memoriam: Prof. Edmund Gussmann (1945-2010)

Describing Motion Events in Sign Languages Research has shown that sign languages represent space by using the body and the signing space in front of the signers. To date, it is largely unknown to what extent sign languages differ from one another in their linguistic use of space. The present study addressed this question by conducting an experimental study on basic motion event descriptions in historically unrelated sign languages: American, Croatian, Austrian, and Turkish Sign Languages. It was found that these sign languages are similar to one another in the use of classifiers to encode location, orientation, and movement of objects, and that they are similar in using path-only and path+manner descriptions, while leaving out manner-only descriptions. However, these sign languages differ from one another in their lexical signs, in choosing a particular set of classifiers, in responding to the manipulations of objects in space, and in the ratio of path-only constructions with respect to path+manner constructions for the same events. Overall, this study contributes to our knowledge of how motion events are encoded in natural human language. Future research will compare the current findings with those from spoken languages to further explore the properties of the language of motion events.

Polish Place-Names and Word-Final Consonant Groups: More Affricates and Diphthongs in Polish? In this paper, an attempt is made at classifying word-final clusters occurring in Polish place-names from the viewpoint of syllabic structure within a strict CVCV model of Government Phonology. It is proposed here that the phonemic analysis of sounds should be truly abandoned. As a result, we can discover that segments behave according to the unchangeable syllabic structure: more than one segment can be attached to one skeletal position, the string of sounds in a word being preserved and the governing relations being contracted in line with the theoretical assumptions. Consequently, what we have in Polish is occasional diphthongs, affricates and complex segments which need not be recognized as distinctive phonemically.

Intrusive Consonants: The Internal Structure of English Liquids The aim of the paper is to explore the internal structure of English liquids. This is done by analysing some processes, both diachronic and synchronic, in which liquids are the leading actors. Thus we discuss historical liquid vocalization together with the vocalic developments in the preliquid position. Moreover, we look at two sandhi phenomena of liquid-zero alternations, i.e. linking and intrusion in two varieties of English recorded in southern England and north-eastern United States. We address the questions concerning the distribution, representation and interaction of liquids with the preceding vowel and explain the mechanics behind the liquid-zero alternations.

Towards a Gradual Scale of Vowel Reduction: A Pilot Study The study reports the results of an acoustic analysis of vowel reduction of the /i:/ vowel, considering all three traditionally explored aspects of vowel reduction, i.e. duration, F1 and F2 in read speech produced by 12 native speakers of English. Starting from the observation that the standard literature considers only duration as a proxy for overall reduction, the aim of the study is to verify whether duration, F1 and F2 exhibit reduction (construed as shortening of duration and centralization of formants, respectively) to the same degree. The r test reveals the lack of a robust linear correlation between duration, F1 and F2, the highest value being 0.51 (the correlation between duration and F1) and 0.24 (the correlation between duration and F2), neither of which is a strong correlation. In light of the results, the study seeks to establish a gradual scale of vowel reduction, combining the spatial and the temporal aspects by means of averaging the distances between the least and the most reduced tokens across duration, F1/F2 on an equal basis. The resulting degree is expressed on a scale of reduction, ranging from 0 (no reduction whatsoever) to 100 per cent (reduction to schwa).

The Linguistic Worldview Revisited. A Cognitive Analysis of Plant Terms The analysis of plant names offers enormous interpretive possibilities in the field of lexical semantics. (On the name-related interpretation of an expression's meaning, see, for example, Carroll 1985.) One such possibility, for example, is to define a plant term through the prism of the linguistic worldview as proposed by Bartmiński (1999, 2007, 2009), another - by the theory of cognitive domains as delineated by Langacker (1987, 1988a, 1988b, 2005, 2008). The problem is not a trivial one: what is required of a modern lexical analysis nowadays is that it should offer an account of how, for example, the meaning of the word pansy ‘any of various plants of the genera Achimenes or Viola, especially V. tricolor or its hybrids, having flowers with velvety petals of various colors’ is related to such disparate meanings as ‘a man or boy who is considered effeminate’ or even to ‘a homosexual male’. Although both Bartmiński's and Langacker's theories can provide viable lexicographic definitions of an expression such as pansy , the two theories differ in the ways such definitions are held to be structured. Thus, using the notion of facet , Bartmiński's theory makes a clear-cut division between the so-called lexicographical definition of a word and its cognitive counterpart, "which reflects the socially preserved categorization of phenomena specific for a given language and its users" (Bartmiński 2007: 42). Langacker, in turn, by making crucial use of the so-called complex matrix of domains (Langacker 1988: 56), claims - contra Bartmiński - that "the existence of a clear-cut boundary [between linguistic and extra-linguistic knowledge] has been assumed on methodological (not factual) grounds [only]ę (Langacker 1988:57; also Taylor 1989). The aim of this paper is to critically evaluate the two approaches to an expression's meaning. It is argued that of the two, it is Langacker's approach that is to be preferred, given its precise description of the processes involved in the "dynamic, on-line" account of plant meaning.

Opaque Allomorphy in OT: Candidate Chains vs. Derivational Optimality Theory This article investigates the opacity in allomorphic processes in the masculine nominative plural of Polish nouns. It is shown that the discussed cases of allomorphy are opaque. Subsequently, it is examined whether Optimality Theory can account for the opacity in the Polish data and concluded that parallel evaluation is unable to handle the relevant examples. Next, the problem is reanalyzed within the theory of candidate chains in order to determine whether the theory is capable of providing a non-derivational account. However, this version of Optimality Theory fails to achieve the attested output. It is concluded that candidate chains are unable to handle the opaque generalizations. Finally, the non-derivational account is juxtaposed with Derivational Optimality Theory in order to prove that Optimality Theory must admit derivational levels.

Phonology in the Speech Signal - Unifying cue and Prosodic Licensing This paper is offered in commemoration of Prof. Edmund Gussmann, who passed away sadly and unexpectedly just a few short weeks before the 41st Poznań Linguistic Meeting, where the paper was presented. The PLM session, Competing Explanations in Phonology , was the type of gathering at which Prof. Gussmann would thrive, advancing his strong theoretical position that phonetics is irrelevant for phonological theory (Gussmann 2004). Prof. Gussmann argued for this view in an animated and sometimes provocative manner, but he always did so with charm and good nature. My own views on the role of speech in phonology differ sharply from Prof. Gussmann's. I am nevertheless quite grateful for his perspective, which has indeed changed the way I think of speech. Under the influence of Government Phonology, I have adopted a phonological view of the acoustic signal, which seeks to challenge phoneticians with new hypotheses about the way speech interacts with grammar. This paper explicates this perspective, and applies it to a recent case, cue vs. prosodic licensing, in which "phonetic" and "phonological" explanations seemed to be at an impasse. Thanks in part to Prof. Gussmann's strong theoretical position, I have developed a new theory of constituency that offers a vehicle with which we may reconcile competing views on the underpinnings of phonological licensing.

A Logic-Based Approach to Problems in Pragmatics After an exposé of the programme involved, it is shown that the Gricean maxims fail to do their job in so far as they are meant to account for the well-known problem of natural intuitions of logical entailment that deviate from standard modern logic. It is argued that there is no reason why natural logical and ontological intuitions should conform to standard logic, because standard logic is based on mathematics while natural logical and ontological intuitions derive from a cognitive system in people's minds (supported by their brain structures). A proposal is then put forward to try a totally different strategy, via (a) a grammatical reduction of surface sentences to their logico-semantic form and (b) via logic itself, in particular the notion of natural logic, based on a natural ontology and a natural set theory. Since any logical system is fully defined by (a) its ontology and its overarching notions and axioms regarding truth, (b) the meanings of its operators, and (c) the ranges of its variables, logical systems can be devised that deviate from modern logic in any or all of the above respects, as long as they remain consistent. This allows one, as an empirical enterprise, to devise a natural logic, which is as sound as standard logic but corresponds better with natural intuitions. It is hypothesised that at least two varieties of natural logic must be assumed in order to account for natural logical and ontological intuitions, since culture and scholastic education have elevated modern societies to a higher level of functionality and refinement. These two systems correspond, with corrections and additions, to Hamilton's 19th-century logic and to the classic Square of Opposition, respectively. Finally, an evaluation is presented, comparing the empirical success rates of the systems envisaged.

Infinitives in the 1820 Settler Letters of Denunciation: What can a Contextualised Application of Corpus-Based Results Tell us About the Expression of Persuasion? This paper takes issue with Biber's (1988) findings concerning the significance of infinitives for what he calls the "overt expression of persuasion" (Biber 1988: 115). It aims to demonstrate that statistically generated results of research on large electronic corpora of contemporary English may not be verifiable in small, well-contextualised, single-genre collections, such as the one representing 19th century English used in this study. The collection comprises denunciation letters addressed to the colonial authorities (the Colonial Office) by the first British settlers in the Cape Colony (the 1820 Settlers). The letters follow the generic model of petition (Włodarczyk 2010) understood as an official written request. An act of denunciation, as we may assume, contributes to the inherent persuasiveness of petitions by increasing the illocutionary force (in the sense of Searle 1969, 1979) of the letter. Therefore, patterns of distribution of infinitives as markers of persuasion (Biber 1988) are particularly interesting to trace in the 1820 Settler denunciation letters. The paper shows that some of Biber's statements may not be taken as valid generalizations, as the persuasive potential of infinitives may not be corroborated unless each and every token is thoroughly contextualized. Furthermore, an analysis of requests in denunciations conducted within Speech Act Theory (Austin 1962; Searle 1969; Blum-Kulka 1984; Culpeper and Archer 2008) shows that it is first and foremost politeness concerns (cf. Brown and Levinson 1987), not the increased need for persuasiveness, that determine the degree of the illocutionary force of requests.

Consonant Clusters Across Morpheme Boundaries: Polish Morphonotactic Inventory and its Acquisition Morphonotactics is a term introduced by Dressler and Dziubalska-Kołaczyk (2006) to refer to the interaction of phonotactics and morphotactics. This paper examines the acquisition of phonotactics and morphonotactics, i.e. consonant clusters occurring within morphemes and across morpheme boundaries. It is hypothesized that morphonotactic clusters will be better retained in production than lexical clusters as they carry significant morphological information. Additionally, the acquisition of consonant clusters will be investigated in terms of markedness. With respect to markedness, two hypotheses have been put forward. Firstly, less marked (preferred) sequences will emerge earlier. Secondly, preferred clusters will be retained in production better.