Synopsis:

This book is composed of four studies that all investigate different aspects of word stress in Papuan Malay, an Austronesian language spoken in eastern Indonesia. These aspects, in order of presentation, include acoustic realisation, auditory perception, lexical analyses and word disambiguation. The introduction provides the theoretical background against which the studies are undertaken. All studies are empirical in nature; they either report acoustic analyses, production or perception experiments, or corpus-based analyses. Taken together, the results of all studies pose a challenge to maintaining a stressless analysis of Papuan Malay. At the same time, the type of word stress that emerges from the reported results is unlike its common theoretical conception and therefore requires more work to be integrated in prosodic theory. Given the controversy on word stress in Indonesian languages, the results are always discussed and carefully interpreted in a cross-linguistic context. In this way, the current thesis extends and deepens our knowledge and understanding of word stress in prosodic theory.

Synopsis:

The present volume in the series Empirical Issues in Syntax and Semantics collects a curated selection of papers from the 2023 Colloque de Syntax et Sémantique à Paris (CSSP 2023), held on December 7-8, 2023, at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. The result aims to be a snapshot of contemporary linguistic research in the areas of syntax and semantics.

The eight contributions investigate phenomena spanning focus, meaning, modification, and discourse, offering new insights into how grammatical structures encode and convey information, and illustrating how detailed empirical work informs our understanding of grammatical phenomena. Drawing on data from multiple languages and employing diverse analytical frameworks, these studies advance current debates while maintaining the methodological rigor characteristic of contemporary formal linguistics.

The collection provides a valuable resource for researchers and graduate students working in syntax, semantics, and related areas.

Synopsis:

Lexicography, in its many forms, is a very old, practical discipline solving practical problems concerning word usage. The term “word” seems more appropriate than “language” in this context, as lexicography addresses more questions relating to what we now call lexicology. As with all areas of human endeavour, what developed gradually through trial and error has eventually been subjected to a theoretical framework. The role of historical lexicography is to look back on the development of these highly varied word lists to understand how we arrived at the tremendous variety that characterises practice throughout the world.

This volume is both a selection of expanded papers from one conference on historical lexicography and lexicology, held under the aegis of the International Society for Historical Lexicography and Lexicology (ISHLL) in Lorient, France, in May 2022, and also the first in a new book series dedicated to the field. The new series represents a collaboration between two sister associations, ISHLL and the Helsinki Society for Historical Lexicography (HSHL). The volume contains texts in both English and French that provide insights into dictionaries, their compilers and users using evidence from numerous languages across the globe. It is also diachronic, moving from topics on medieval usage to contemporary issues concerning open access and digital publishing in historical lexicography. The title reflects the global scope of its authors and content, encompassing Japan to the United States, Eastern Europe to the United Kingdom, and Portugal.

Synopsis:

North American Norwegian (NAmNo) is a diasporic heritage variety of Norwegian spoken primarily in the Upper Midwest of the United States. NAmNo has been in use since the mid-19th century, but it is now moribund. This volume serves as a synopsis of previous research focusing on the syntax of this language while also expanding upon these findings in key domains. Beyond the rich empirical description of facets of North American Norwegian syntax, the chapters in this volume also contribute to theory-building efforts from a Minimalist perspective. Kari Kinn and Michael T. Putnam begin the volume introducing the language and the theoretical preliminaries of aspects of the Minimalist Program found throughout the volume. The introductory chapter is followed by a detailed history of the emigration and language during the settlement period by Arnstein Hjelde. Brita Ramsevik Riksem and Mari Nygård explore the intricacies of agreement in determiner phrases, while Yvonne van Baal investigates its properties of definiteness. Kari Kinn rounds out the contributions on aspects of determiner phrases by taking a closer look at how possession is licensed in these structures. Shifting focus to the verbal and clausal domains, Kristin Eide’s chapter addresses the syntactic reflexes of tense, modality, and aspect in NAmNo. The structure of non-finite clauses is the theme of Michael T. Putnam and Åshild Søfteland’s contribution, which is followed up by Merete Anderssen, Helene R. Jensberg, Terje Lohndal, Björn Lundquist, and Marit Westergaard’s treatment of verb second (V2) word and finite verb placement. Ida Larsson and Kari Kinn analyze argument placement in NAmNo, focusing particularly on subject shift, object shift, and verb particles. Michael T. Putnam and Kari Kinn conclude the volume with an epilogue, highlighting the key empirical and theoretical findings of these contributions as well as charting a course for future research on the syntax of NAmNo. In summary, this volume is the first of its kind whose mission is not only to simultaneously summarize previous and ongoing research on the syntax of NAmNo, but to also demonstrate the important role heritage language syntax contributes to our understanding of the acquisition, attrition, change, and maintenance of heritage language syntax.

Synopsis:

This book is dedicated to Ilse Zimmermann, who was a pioneer of Generative Grammar in Germany and made important contributions to the analysis of German and Slavic languages. It contains original articles by Zimmermann as well as newly written papers inspired by her work. Zimmermann's original articles cover a wide range of topics over a long period of research – the earliest dating from 1983 – and they make it clear that issues that are highly topical today have long been the subject of linguistic research. The newly written papers are closely related to Zimmermann's topics ranging from DP structure, verbal inflection and reciprocity to the modification of causative verbs, all from a Slavic perspective. They are rounded off by a contribution highlighting the leading role played by the Strukturelle Grammatik research group, of which Zimmermann was a member, in the development of linguistics in Germany.

Dieses Buch ist Ilse Zimmermann gewidmet, die eine Pionierin der Generativen Grammatik in Deutschland war und wichtige Beiträge zur Analyse des Deutschen und der slawischen Sprachen geleistet hat. Es enthält sowohl Originalartikel von Zimmermann als auch neu verfasste Beiträge, die durch ihre Arbeit inspiriert wurden. Zimmermanns Originalartikel decken ein breites Spektrum von Themen in einem langen Forschungszeitraum ab – der früheste datiert aus dem Jahr 1983 – und sie machen deutlich, dass Fragen, die heute hochaktuell sind, schon lange Gegenstand der linguistischen Forschung sind. Die neu verfassten Kapitel stehen in engem Zusammenhang mit Zimmermanns Themen. Sie reichen von der DP-Struktur über verbale Flexion und Reziprozität bis hin zur Modifikation kausativer Verben, alles aus slawischer Perspektive. Abgerundet werden sie durch einen Beitrag, der die führende Rolle der Forschungsgruppe Strukturelle Grammatik, deren Mitglied Zimmermann war, für die Entwicklung der Linguistik in Deutschland hervorhebt.

Synopsis:

Tsova-Tush is an East Caucasian language spoken in one single village in Eastern Georgia by approximately 300 speakers. Since its early description, scholars have been intrigued by the high degree of linguistic influence from the Georgian language. This book has a threefold goal: (1) To contribute to the overall description of the Tsova-Tush language, by filling gaps in the previous literature in absence of a reference grammar. (2) To contrast Tsova-Tush constructions with functionally equivalent constructions in Chechen and Ingush, its closest relatives, and with Georgian, the language of wider communication which all Tsova-Tush speakers speak as a second language, in order to form hypotheses concerning which Tsova-Tush construction is inherited, and which has arisen under influence of Georgian. (3) To provide the most probable diachronic scenario of language contact, by looking at historical Tsova-Tush language data, as well as at its historical sociolinguistics.

This book provides a basic description of Tsova-Tush, in particular in the domain of spatial cases (which exhibit a two-slot system similar to Daghestanian languages), TAME categories (indentifying a Iamitive and a Past Subjunctive developing indirect evidential semantics), complex verbs, and subordination and clause-chaining (which in Tsova-Tush is finite).

In terms of language contact, this book concludes that (1) Tsova-Tush conforms to most established borrowing hierarchies and theories surrounding intensity of contact, except for the borrowing of a verbal inflection marker in a remarkably early stage of contact; (2) The Georgian influence that Tsova-Tush shows in sources from the 1850 suggest that a notable increase in bilingualism occured already at a point where there was little institutional or numeral dominance of surrounding the Georgian-language population. A change in ethnic self-identification can be the underlying factor for the early instances of contact-induced change.

Synopsis:

Advances in Formal Slavic Linguistics 2022 brings together a collection of 22 articles originating as talks presented at the 15th Formal Description of Slavic Languages conference (FDSL 15) held in Berlin on 5–7 October, 2022. The contributions cover a broad spectrum of topics, including clitics, nominalizations, l-participles, the dual, verbal prefixes, assibilation, verbal and adjectival morphology, lexical stress, vowel reduction, focus particles, aspect, multiple wh-fronting, definiteness, polar questions, negation words, and argument structure in such languages as BCMS, Bulgarian, Czech, Macedonian, Polish, Russian, Slovenian, Ukrainian, and Upper Sorbian.

The wide range of topics explored in this volume underscores the diversity and complexity of Slavic languages. The contributions not only advance our understanding of languages belonging to the Slavic group but also offer fresh perspectives for linguistics more broadly

Synopsis:

This volume presents studies on aspects of teacher education that prepare teachers for working in linguistically diverse classrooms and schools in five Nordic countries; Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. This twin focus (teacher education in linguistically diverse contexts; and Nordic perspectives) makes the volume unique in its field, and contributes to international discussions on how teacher education can prepare preservice and in-service teachers for working with linguistically diverse student groups.

The volume includes contributions on:

Teacher education policies

Teacher educators’ perspectives on teacher education

Pre-service teacher perspectives on teacher education.

The ways in which teacher education prepares educators for working with newcomers and multilingual students has attracted considerable attention in recent years. This reflects the increasingly linguistically diverse nature of classrooms that teachers around the world meet, that is in turn, a direct result of intensified globalisation and transnational migration. Clearly, teacher education is crucial for successful implementation of educational provisions for multilingual students. Teacher knowledge, gained partly through teacher education, plays a central role in creating educational environments where multilingual students can thrive.

This volume focuses specifically on teacher education in a Nordic context, a region traditionally associated with progressive approaches in education based on principles of inclusivity, social justice and equal opportunity. In the twenty-first century, most Nordic countries have experienced increasing levels of migration. While neither multilingualism nor transnational migration are new phenomena in the region, geographical and social factors, as well as the ways humans communicate have helped make multilingualism more visible in the twenty-first century. Schools in the Nordic countries have had to act quickly and think flexibly to meet the needs of an increasingly linguistically and culturally heterogenous group of students. The ability of the Nordic countries to provide these students with “inclusive, equal education and a fair chance to start a new life” constitutes in some ways the ultimate test of the “Nordic model” of education. Investigating how this challenge is addressed in different forms of teacher education is the topic to which this volume turns its attention.

Synopsis:

Otto Jespersen's landmark study of negation provides a wide-ranging analysis of how languages express negative meaning. Drawing on an impressive array of historical texts and comparative examples, primarily from Germanic and Romance languages, Jespersen examines the forms, functions, and historical development of negative expressions. The work traces the evolution of negative markers, analyzes how negative prefixes modify word meanings, and reveals coherent patterns in how languages structure negative expressions.

Through meticulous analysis of authentic examples, Jespersen documents both common patterns and language-specific variations in negative expressions. His treatment of topics such as double negation, the distinction between special and nexal negation, and the various forms of negative particles provides a methodical account of negation's complexity. The work's enduring importance stems not only from its analysis of the cyclical renewal of negative markers (later termed “Jespersen's Cycle”) but from its comprehensive scope and detailed examination of negative expressions across multiple languages and historical periods.

This new critical edition makes this classic work accessible to modern readers while preserving its scholarly depth. The text has been completely re-typeset, with examples presented in contemporary numbered format and non-English examples given Leipzig-style glosses. A new introduction contextualizes Jespersen's achievement and demonstrates its continued significance for current linguistic research.

Synopsis:

This book offers an in-depth exploration of contemporary issues and methodologies in the fields of dialectology and sociolinguistics. Readers will find a diverse collection of studies that examine how language varies and changes across different regions, communities, and social contexts. The book covers a wide range of languages, including German, English, Yiddish, Russian, and Japanese, providing a global perspective on linguistic diversity.

Key themes include the use of modern data sources, such as social media, to study language patterns and the impact of digital communication on regional dialects. The book also addresses the dynamics of language contact in expatriate communities, revealing how speakers adapt and merge linguistic features from different dialects.

Several chapters focus on the evolution of dialectological research, offering critiques and new approaches to studying regional language variations. Readers will also encounter innovative methods, such as cognitive geography, which uses mental representations of space to understand dialect variation, and tone distance measures, which are crucial for studying tonal languages.

Additionally, the book presents case studies on how non-experts perceive and categorize dialects, providing insights into the public's understanding of linguistic diversity. It also tackles challenges in selecting dialect speakers for research, especially in urban environments, where traditional criteria may no longer apply.

Overall, this book is a valuable resource for linguists, researchers, and anyone interested in the complex and ever-changing landscape of human language. It highlights the importance of adapting research methods to keep pace with the evolving nature of language and offers fresh perspectives on how we study and understand dialects and language variation.

Synopsis:

This is the first modern grammar and dictionary of Sherbro, an endangered Mel language spoken by ca. 50,000 people in Sierra Leone. The language faces significant pressure being abandoned in favor of the lingua francas Mende, Themne, Krio, and English. The previous grammar, while competently done, was written in 1921 as a handbook for missionaries. The autonym for the language is Bolom; however, speakers of the language while speaking Krio or English use “Sherbro” to refer to themselves and their language, so that practice is followed here. The grammar and dictionary are based on field data collected as part of a four-year research project (2016-2020), “Documenting the Sherbro Language and Culture,” funded by the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Documentation Programme. An archive of the project is permanently housed by the Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR), www.elar-archive.org including the FLEx database, more than 30 glossed transcriptions and more than 150 recordings. This book is intended as a resource for linguists and Sherbro speakers, learners, and educators.

Synopsis:

Die Arbeit untersucht den Einfluss der metapragmatischen Bewertung von Genitiv und Dativ auf die Nutzung der Kasus in Präpositionalphrasen. Die Variation zwischen Genitiv- und Dativrektion betrifft insbesondere Präpositionen, die noch nicht vollständig grammatikalisiert sind. Daher wurde das Phänomen bisher vor allem aus grammatikalisierungstheoretischer Sicht betrachtet. Dies greift jedoch zu kurz – vielmehr hat die metapragmatische Bewertung der Kasus entscheidenden Einfluss auf die Kasuswahl. Genitiv und Dativ werden von SprecherInnen sehr unterschiedlich bewertet: Der Genitiv gilt als Prestigekasus, der Dativ wird mit geringer Bildung und Umgangssprachlichkeit verbunden.

Die Arbeit untersucht daher einerseits Sprachideologien zu Dativ und Genitiv genauer und andererseits den Einfluss der metapragmatischen Bewertung auf die Kasuswahl. Hierfür wurden exemplarisch die ursprünglichen Genitivpräpositionen wegen und während sowie die ursprünglichen Dativpräpositionen dank und gegenüber untersucht. Zusätzlich wurde die Primärpräposition seit in die Studie aufgenommen. Die metagpragmatische Bewertung der Kasus wurde mitihlfe eines Akzeptabilitätstest und Abfragen freier Assoziationen untersucht, der Einfluss auf die Kasuswahl mithilfe von Produktionsdaten. An der umfangreichen Onlinestudie nahmen 400 Muttersprachler:innen des Deutschen teil. Die Arbeit ist damit die erste, die die metapragmatische Bewertung von Genitiv und Dativ in den Mittelpunkt stellt, systematisch erhebt und im Rahmen der Sprachideologieforschung diskutiert.

In der Studie zeigt sich deutlich, dass den untersuchten Rektionsvarianten eine ganze Reihe unterschiedlicher indexikalischer Bedeutungen zugeschrieben werden: Der Genitiv wird als formell angesehen und steht für hohe Bildung, gute Sprachkenntnisse, Arroganz, Professionalität und Verkrampftheit. Der Dativ gilt als informell und steht für geringe Bildung, mangelnde Sprachkenntnisse und Schlampigkeit. Die im Fragebogen erhobenen Produktionsdaten verdeutlichen den Einfluss dieser metapragmatischen Bewertungen und bestätigen das mangelnde Erklärungspotenzial der Grammatikalisierungstheorie: Sowohl bei ursprünglichen Genitiv- als auch bei ursprünglichen Dativpräpositionen lässt sich eine Tendenz zum Genitiv erkennen, insbesondere im formell gehaltenen Produktionsteil. Diese Ergebnisse sprechen dafür, dass die Variation der präpositionalen Rektion in hohem Maße von der metapragmatischen Bewertung der Kasus beeinflusst wird und die Varianten entsprechend ihrer sozialen Bedeutung genutzt werden.

Der Preis der gebundenen Ausgabe ist in Deutschland auf 45,00€ festgesetzt.

Synopsis:

The Bantu language family is spread over a large area of Africa, stretching from Cameroon to Kenya to South Africa, and comprises an estimated 555 languages. The languages show a large amount of small-scale variation while at the same time forming part of one relatively uniform family within Niger-Congo. Interestingly, the morphosyntax of these languages has been observed to be heavily influenced by information structure. Studying the expression of information structure in Bantu is therefore of great importance not only for developing cognitive models of the role of information structure in language, but also for understanding the basic grammatical structure of the Bantu languages themselves. Before modelling the interaction between syntax and information structure in Bantu, however, a thorough empirical description of the expression of information structure in Bantu should be available. That description is what this book aims to provide.

This book follows from a systematic investigation of information structure in the languages of the BaSIS research project (Bantu Syntax and Information Structure). The data come from original field research conducted using the BaSIS methodology, which was specifically developed to investigate the expression of information structure in Bantu. The book contains a comprehensive introduction chapter which explains the main terms and issues in the field of information structure, the methodology employed in the project, and common structures which characterise topic and focus expression in Bantu. The introduction is then followed by eight chapters which each give detailed descriptive overviews of the expression of information structure in a different Bantu language, namely Tunen (Guthrie classification A44, Cameroon), Teke-Kukuya (B77, Congo), Kîîtharaka (E54, Kenya), Kirundi (JD62, Burundi), Rukiga (JE14, Uganda), Kinyakyusa (M31, Tanzania), Makhuwa-Enahara (P31, Mozambique), and Cicopi (S61, Mozambique).

Taken together, the book provides detailed information on the expression of information structure in the Bantu family. It is intended both to inform future theoretical work and to provide a methodology and model for the investigation of information structure that can be used in studies of other languages.

Synopsis:

This book is concerned with the licensing and usage of the elliptical construction topic drop in German. The term topic drop refers to the omission of the preverbal constituent in declarative verb-second sentences, for example, the omission of the subject ich (‘I’) in the sentence Bin gleich zurück (‘Am right back’). Topic drop exists in most of the Germanic verb-second languages and typically occurs in spoken language and text types such as SMS, chats, notes, etc.

While much of the previous research has focused on individual specific properties of topic drop, often adopting a purely theoretical perspective, this book presents a systematic investigation of both the syntactic properties and usage conditions of topic drop based on empirical evidence from a corpus study and 12 acceptability rating studies.

The first part of the book investigates the licensing of topic drop, in particular its restriction to the preverbal ‘prefield’ position. The results of four rating studies on topic drop in different prefield configurations lead to a refined prefield condition based on proposals by Rizzi (1994) and Freywald (2020) that is independent of topicality. Moreover, they inform the discussion on the most suitable syntactic analysis of topic drop, supporting a PF-deletion approach.

The second part of the book presents and tests an information-theoretic account of topic drop usage that builds on the Uniform Information Density hypothesis (Levy & Jaeger 2007). In a corpus study and seven rating studies, several potential usage factors are investigated, including grammatical person and verb predictability. The results provide initial evidence suggesting that topic drop usage can be explained by general processing principles: The prefield constituent is omitted when it is redundant and realized overtly when it facilitates the processing of the following verb. This information-theoretic explanation is based on independently evidenced processing mechanisms, bundles isolated claims from the theoretical literature, and allows for a unified analysis of topic drop with other types of ellipsis and reduction.

Synopsis:

Rare phenomena play a key role in forming and challenging linguistic theory. This volume presents multi-faceted analyses of rarities in phonetics and phonology, from a wide variety of theoretical standpoints. Some contributions to the volume analyse language-specific rare features, placing them in a broader cross-linguistic context and looking at a sum of their phonological, phonetic, and evolutionary properties, at times also making connections to sociolinguistic factors. Others consider the same (or similar) phenomena from different analytical angles, with extensive cross-referencing, or take a broad analytical or typological stance towards rare phenomena and discuss what it means to be rare.

The volume provides a nuanced picture of phonetic and phonological rarities in genealogically diverse languages, mostly lesser-studied, from around the globe. Authors were encouraged to attempt to strike a middle ground between radical exoticisation of the rarities at hand (describing them in idiosyncratic terms) and radical normalisation (underplaying the rarity of the phenomena at hand). Highly theory-specific or technical terminology is avoided or explained carefully, in order to make the book maximally accessible for a wide typologically-minded audience.

Violent conflict in Colombia has been intrinsically associated with territorial administration, that is, with the relationship that has been configured, within the framework of the state-building process, between the center and the territories. The historical trajectory of Caquetá shows the conflictive nature of this process. Caquetá has been a territory affected by the Colombian armed conflict and the war in Caquetá has traditionally been explained as a product of the "absence of the State". In the present research we argue that the conflict has not been due to the "absence of the State" but to the way in which the State has been configured in the region and therefore the research sought to understand how the State had been historically configured in the territory. In particular, we focused on the configuration of the local bureaucracy. In the first chapter of this research we wanted to provide a context of the historical configuration of the bureaucracy in Colombia. Since the beginning of the republic, the configuration of the bureaucracy in the territories was related to the development of the population structure and the negotiation between the center and the regional powers. The local governance that took shape had a weak bureaucratic apparatus complementary to the role of the church, the gamonal and the tinterillo. The precarious character of the local bureaucracy continued into the 20th century.

During the National Front (1958-1974) there was a transformation in the relationship between the State and the territories and this affected Caquetá, which at that time was undergoing a massive colonization process. The colonists helped shape the local bureaucracy and the presence of the State in the region. A review of the correspondence between the national government, the regional government and the settlers shows a much greater state presence than traditionally assumed. The articulation of the territory during the National Front was characterized by the clientelist system and thus a local gamonal, Hernando Turbay Turbay, emerged as the most important political figure of those decades. While Turbay increased his power thanks to relations with Bogotá, local institutions, following local disputes, were put at his service.

From the territory there was an important opposition to turbayism from diverse social and political sectors. This opposition coincided with demands for public services and infrastructure in the region. The settlers were living in very difficult conditions and there were large mobilizations demanding change. The discontent was repressed by the government and sectors of the mobilization became radicalized. The review of correspondence shows how Bogotá's response turned the colonists' claims into a public order problem. The colonists and the territory were the object of distrust. Caquetá became a territory conducive to the emergence of guerrillas. In the 1980s, the "Caquetá War" began in the territory when the State came to fight the guerrillas. Local governance was subsumed by the war and a military intendant was appointed. In this context, leftist political forces had an important electoral reception and represented a threat to the status quo of turbayismo. There was strong pressure in the country to democratize the political system and a series of reforms were proposed, including the popular election of local authorities. The intensification of the war forced the start of peace negotiations with the guerrillas and this generated an atmosphere of change in local governance. However, the negotiations were fragile and the war did not stop.

Despite the war, and the so-called "abandonment", the inhabitants of the territory never stopped trying to build and push for governance that would allow them to live with dignity, whether it was organizing to send letters, build small infrastructure, pay teachers' salaries, participate in elections, denounce violence and call for negotiation. The communities allowed the existence of the State and local institutionality. The discourses on the "absence" of the State strip them of their participation and restrict the type of powers that are expected to "order" the territory. The discussion on the nature of the State is not only conceptual but has important political implications in the regions and the solution to the conflict involves problematizing these traditional visions that have predominated not only in the government but also in Colombian academia.