Volume 42, Issue 4

The goal of this paper is to account for the polysemy of Italian simple prepositions ( a , da , di , in ) via the integration of two distinct theoretical perspectives: Semantic Maps and Syntactic Cartography. We show that these prepositions can coexpress several spatial and non-spatial senses, via a detailed study of their distribution in web corpora. We then argue that these senses share a common semantic feature: they all introduce ‘general parthood relations’ between two or more referents in discourse; verbs and complement DPs specify the content of these relations. We propose a cartographic analysis of their structure in which each preposition acts as a single exponent for a cluster of heads and distinct combinations of semantic values. We then offer a semantic maps analysis of these prepositions as coexpressing senses forming a coherent semantic domain, but partitioning this domain via different patterns. We analyse these principles by connecting the maps approach with a compact model-theoretic discussion. We conclude by proposing some considerations on the empirical reach of this integrated method for theories of adpositions and their multi-dimensional polysemy.

Once an event occurs, it can never be cancelled by its very nature. This paper, based on examination of the aspectual and modal properties of the completion marker -čih in Mongolian, shows that uncancelledness, a hitherto undocumented aspect of semantics, plays significant roles in aspectual and modal properties of verbs. It is argued that uncancelledness is an semantic primitive, which leads to the thorough completion of (the commencement of) events as well as a resultant state and causes modal effect by the virtue of the information available in the presupposition, say, contradiction.

In Iranian Armenian, certain verbal suffixes display allomorphy or morphophonological alternations that are conditioned by the location of another word. These alternations are a phonosyntactic process, i.e., a syntax-sensitive morphophonological process. The choice of surface form for the perfective converb suffix depends on the location of an auxiliary. If the auxiliary is to the right of the suffix (with possible interveners), then the suffix uses the default form [-eɻ]. If the auxiliary is to the left of the suffix, then the marked form [-e] is used. The alternation cannot be reduced to phonology, and the verb and auxiliary must be part of same clause. Long-distance conditioning is also possible. The alternation can be analyzed as either a morphophonological process (floating segments) or as suppletion. Each analysis requires elaboration to pre-existing models of the phonology-syntax interface. The process-based analysis requires a traditional Direct Reference model, while the allomorphy analysis falsifies locality restrictions on allomorphy.

Recent studies (e.g. Kupisch, Tanja & Maria Polinsky. 2022. Language history on fast forward: Innovations in heritage languages and diachronic change. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 25. 1–12) have rekindled an old debate concerning whether language change in contact (CIC) and language change in diachrony (CID) proceed along the same developmental path, or whether they diverge from one another in fundamental and predictable ways. This paper contributes to this ongoing debate; we propose a new heuristic to determine similarities and differences in syntactic change in CIC and CID. We postulate that the primary distinction boils down to the type of features related to the domain of syntax under investigation, i.e., situations involving (formal) ϕ -features lead to similar trajectories of change in both CIC and CID, while those driven by discourse-features show divergence. We test our hypothesis on a host of different empirical data, e.g., indexicals, (subject) clitics, and differential object marking (DOM) as evidence for our claim.