Volume 64, Issue 3 -

The present paper investigates language change in the categories of Number, Gender, Case and Definiteness from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. On the basis of data from Germanic and Slavic, as well as from Greek, Breton, Spanish and Persian, it is claimed that the observed changes are constrained by the Animacy Hierarchy and what we call the Relevance Constraint, which says that language change targets the part of the lexicon where the categories in question are most relevant for human experience and the changes do not make any ‘leaps’ along the Hierarchy. It is suggested that animacy and relevance presuppose a linguistic theory based on embodiment and construal, such as cognitive linguistics.

Eastern Highlands is an Otomi language (Oto-Pamean, Oto-Manguean) spoken in the municipality of Huehuetla in the State of Hidalgo, Mexico. Voigtlander & Echegoyen (1979, 2007) propose that this Otomi language has up to seven conjugation classes. In this paper, I propose an alternative analysis of such conjugations by studying a sample of 2,000 verbs. I claim that one nasal marker involved in the paradigms of two of the alleged classes has a derivational function rather than being inflectional. The proposal reduces the complexities of the inflectional system of Eastern Highlands Otomi setting the number of conjugation classes to only five of them.

This paper shows that there are two ditransitive alignment types in Ainu, viz. a frequently-used double-object construction (DOC) and infrequently-used indirective object construction (IOC). Ainu ditransitives encoded by the DOC are unusual cross-linguistically because all of them, including the verb kor-e [have-CAUS] ‘give’, are derived by causative, applicative or applicative-causative derivations. I argue that the IOC is possible in Ainu only either with those verbs which have no applicative (three-argument) counterparts or with ditransitive verbs of a slightly extended ditransitive case frame including Source/inanimate Goal instead of Recipient proper. Comparing the formal properties of the DOC-encoded ditransitives and those of other three-argument constructions, I claim that Ainu presents a counterexample to KITTILÄ’s (2006) Universal 1, since the so-called most typical ditransitive verb ‘give’, viz. the derived verb kor-e lit. ‘make/let sb have sth’ in Ainu, is outranked in formal transitivity by the underived three-argument verb o ‘put/place sth (PL) on sth’ of a non-ditransitive case frame.

This paper discusses a cross-linguistic sample of spatial PPs in languages that both have adpositions and case. It is shown that the distribution of labor within these potentially complex PPs follows from two general principles only. According to the principle of Grammaticalization, less frequent meaning elements should never be expressed by more grammatical means than more frequent ones. According to the principle of Compositionality, the syntactic construction should reflect the order of semantic function application. The only viable spatial PP constructions according to these principles are those constructions in which the P simultaneously expresses configuration and directionality, and constructions in which the P expresses configuration and the case marker on the P directionality.

Nicole Dehé & Yordanka Kavalova (eds.), Parentheticals , (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 106), Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2007. 314 pp.

Norbert Cyffer, Erwin Ebermann & Georg Ziegelmeyer (eds.), Negation patterns in West African languages and beyond , (Typological Studies in Language 87), Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2009. vi + 368 pp.

Uwe Hinrichs [unter Mitarbeit von Petra Himstedt-Vaid] (ed.), Handbuch der Eurolinguistik , (Slavistische Studienbücher, Neue Folge, Band 20), Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010. xii+996 pp.