Volume 75, Issue 3

The paper proposes a usage-based account of a largely productive pattern of dative experiential sentences in Modern Hebrew that stand in contra-distinction to their parallels in Indo-European languages. In the pattern under consideration, the dative-Experiencer is non-topical, following an invariable predicate in masculine singular form. The paper seeks to prove that the construction in Hebrew is essentially a subjectless construction. Its origin is traced back to Biblical Hebrew, but its proliferation in present-day language is assumed to be contact-facilitated by a parallel subject-like dative-Experiencer construction widespread in Slavic and Yiddish languages.

This paper presents the results of an investigation into the morphosyntactic expression of three-participant events in Romani and situates Romani within a typological framework (Margetts & Austin 2007). It provides an inventory of attested strategies and first insights into their distribution across the dialects of Romani. My research indicates that three-place predicate and oblique/adjunct strategies are the principal means for encoding three-participant events in Romani, each applicable for several event types. However, dialectal differences become apparent. For each Romani dialect cluster, one variety is particularly focussed upon, namely: Kalderaš (Vlax), Arli (Balkan), East Slovak Romani (Central), Sinti (Northwestern), and Lithuanian Romani (Northeastern).

The purposes of this study are to investigate and describe the varying functions of the comitative preposition ábə̀ with Throughout this paper the preposition ábə̀ will be glossed in small caps with in order to reflect the fact that its meaning has extended beyond ‘with’ to a variety of other grammatical functions. in Gavar, compare these functions with cross-linguistic observations and propose an explanation for their diachronic development. This particle has a wide variety of functions. Firstly, it is used as a preposition marking phrases with a wide range of semantic roles. Secondly, its use has extended to Noun Phrase coordination, a common occurrence cross-linguistically. Its clause linking functions include its use as a temporal/sequential marker and elaboration. Of special interest to typologists is its predicative/complementizer use. This function is not observed in nearby languages and appears to be unusual cross-linguistically. Informed by previous research on the behavior of the comitative/instrumental preposition with cross-linguistically, general grammaticalization principles and an analysis of the semantic links between the different functions based on shared semantic features, a semantic map/network is provided showing the possible paths of development for the various functions of ábə̀ with in Gavar.