Search Results (15)

The focus in this corpus-based study is on a set of Spanish constructions formed with the verb of visual perception, ver ‘to See’, and a predicate adjective or participle. In addition to a clearly recognizable transitive schema, the set includes various instances featuring a reflexive clitic pronoun coreferential with the subject, some of which have been argued to evidence the grammaticalization of lexical ver into a univerbated semicopular verb (pronominal verse), meaning little more than ‘be’ in some examples, and proximate to the intransitive sense of English look in other cases. We trace the evolution of these constructions in data spanning the history of the Spanish language, from its recorded beginnings to the present. We establish the need to distinguish two constructional sources of change, namely, an old middle-reflexive and a younger reflexive passive. We draw attention to the “renewal” of the Latin deponent videri ‘appear, look, seem’, which can be said to have taken place in Spanish as a product of the passive-derived process of grammaticalization undergone by ver. And throughout the paper we address problems of analyzability, attributable to the superficially identical strings of words that characterize the constructional patterns with a reflexive morpheme. Full article

In separate traditions in the HB, the Rephaim are presented either as a living group of gigantic warriors or as shadowy figures of the underworld of Sheol. They are referred to as the rp’um in earlier Amorite Ugaritic texts, in which their role and status are much debated. This paper offers a hypothesis that, first, tracks rp’um/Rephaim antecedent traditions from the Sumerian heroic and funerary practices adopted by the Amorites to the tradition of the rp’um of the Ugaritic literature, and then tracks them on to the HB, through the Amorite connection to Mlk/Molech, in two different regional traditions found in the HB. Literary analysis and cross-cultural evidence regarding the Amorites are used to demonstrate the plausibility of this hypothesis. This paper also puts forth that: the name Hammurapi is a reference to a funerary practice and is a titular name; rpi is employed in its more basic sense of meaning “to restore/mend”; rp’um, following Good, is the passive participle, “restored/healed ones”; and Deut 2:10–11 and the biblical King Og texts do not support the Israelites having encountered living Rephaim warriors. Tracking the heroic and death-culture traditions shows that the antecedents to the biblical Rephaim were likely originally heroic-age warriors who, upon death, were cared for and were appealed to through funerary rituals for some benefit. However, these Amorite traditions were not fully understood by the Israelites when they encountered them and appropriated aspects in their representation of the Rephaim. Full article

This article is devoted to the study of syntactic and pragmatic functions of the vocative and direct address constructions. Since the direct address in Latvian, in addition to the vocative, also permits the nominative and accusative, this article examines the relationships and conditions of use of these three cases depending on the noun declension. In Latvian, the vocative (and nominative and accusative used in the function of direct address) is also variously agreed with its attached nominal (noun, adjective, declinable participle) or pronoun, so in order to better understand the syntax and pragmatics of the direct address in Latvian, this article covers this issue as well. The analysis of the data shows that there are five possible pragmatic functions of direct address in Latvian. The choice of these functions is operated, taking into account the place (of the address) in the clause or text, the lexemes used, and various extra-linguistic factors. Full article

As recent research has shown, MAs cross-linguistically show signs of a complex internal structure which can consist of a diverse set of syntactic categories. Notably absent from previously studied MA patterns are those that, at first impression, appear to contain verbal substructure. This raises the question whether or not the category V is among the diverse syntactic categories that feature in the grammar of MAs. In this study, I take a closer look at Dutch MAs that appear to contain a present participle -end form of the verb, like lopend ‘by walking’ or spelenderwijs ‘playfully’. Using tests for verbal substructure, I expand on findings from previous literature that show Dutch -erwijs adverbials do not contain verbal substructure by showing that Dutch present participle MAs without -erwijs also lack verbal substructure. Instead, the adjectival -end form is argued to enter into a small clause structure as a predicate over a manner noun to account for the manner reading of Dutch present participle MAs. Full article

The so-called perífrasis perfectivas in Galician present the action as concluded or realized. This particular aspectual feature constitutes the common ground for an otherwise heterogeneous set of constructions, ranging from rematar de ‘finish’+ infinitive (e.g., rematóu de beber ‘(s/he) finished drinking’) to ter ‘have’ + participle (e.g., teñen ido ‘(they) have gone (Rep.)’). This work provides a critical assessment of their syntactic and semantic properties in cases where the participle may not show agreement. This is the case for periphrases built on three auxiliaries: ter, levar, and dar, of which ter + participle stands out as the most grammaticalized one. The case of ter is further investigated in relation to European Portuguese (EP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP), where ter + participle is considered a fully-fledged perfect tense. Additionally, the use of these periphrases in areas where Spanish is also present is evaluated from a contact perspective. Full article

This project explores the synchronic variation of participle forms in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Despite general systematicity, the language maintains many historically irregular participles, which often compete with regularized variants. The language has also developed innovative participles, which tend to exist in variation with regular forms. Adopting a usage-based framework, the study examines how analogical processes affect persistent irregular participles and short-form forms in BP, emphasizing the role of grammatical context and frequency. Data are drawn from the Portuguese Web 2011 corpus, including 12 verbs with long-form Latinate irregulars (n = 4800) and 8 verbs with short-form forms (n = 3200). The results show that long-form Latinate irregulars are more common as adjectives and with the verb estar, while regularized forms are prevalent with ser and in perfect constructions. Conversely, short-form participles occur least frequently in perfect constructions, showing a tendency towards the maintenance of regularity in this context. Additionally, verbs that occur more often in perfect constructions are most resistant to innovation. These findings indicate that perfect constructions play a dual role in promoting and preserving regularity in BP and shed light on how grammar–internal relationships and contexts of occurrence play a role in language variation and change. Full article

In the Kuikuro language (Upper Xingu Carib), the construction tü-/ t-verb-i/-ti/-si/-stress is a reflex of the Carib proto-construction *t-V-ce, often labeled as a ‘participle’. It is a morphological form composed of a prefix and a set of allomorphic suffixes that attach to transitive, intransitive, transitivized, or detransitivized verb stems. In this paper, the construction tü-/ t-verb-i/-ti/-si/-stress is described and analyzed as a resultative denoting a grammatically represented result of an event that is the background of a subsequent foregrounded event. We argue that, in Kuikuro, the participial verb inflection has aspectual value and we define the construction tü-/ t-verb-i/-ti/-si/-stress as participial resultative aspect. Unlike in English, in Kuikuro, an ergative language, the resultative participial forms of transitive and transitivized verb stems license their external arguments. A description of the morphosyntax, semantics, and uses of Kuikuro participial forms precedes a final theoretically based approach that departs from Embick’s analysis of English participles. Our proposal for the analysis of the resultative participles in Kuikuro emphasizes the importance of this phenomenon for a comparison inside the Carib family and for ergative languages regarding the relationship between transitive resultative participles and ergativity. Full article

In this paper, I explore the properties and the uses of the past participles in the Arbëresh variety of S. Nicola dell’Alto, an Albanian dialect still spoken in Southern Italy, which has been in contact with Italo-Romance varieties for more than five centuries. The data are discussed in comparison to standard Albanian and the contact language, Italian. In Albanian grammar, there is only one type of participle: the past participle. It has both verbal and adjectival properties. As a verbal form, the participle is used in compound and in periphrastic tenses, in combination with both the auxiliaries KAM ‘have’ and JAM ‘be’. It can also be used in combination with other particles to create non-finite verbal forms such as gerund or infinitive or to build up temporal expressions. Finally, it can also be used after some modal impersonal verbs. Verbal participles never show agreement. Albanian participles can also be adjectival. All the adjectives derived by a participial verb take a linking article and always agree with the noun they modify in gender, number, Case and definiteness. The formal distinction of the verbal participles from adjectival participles seems to correlate with the aspectual properties of the construction: a verbal participle appears in eventive structures, whereas an adjectival participle occurs in stative structures. But, as we shall see, this is not always the case. Arbëresh participles have maintained the same morphological and syntactical properties of Albanian. They can be used both in stative and in eventive contexts, but in Arbëresh eventive passives, which are built up as in Italian rather than as in Albanian, the adjectival participles are always inflected. Agreement is obligatory in all the contexts where it is in Italian. This is a clear contact-induced change. The data presented in this paper show that Arbëresh, on the one hand, preserves features of Albanian grammar, whereas, on the other hand, it has undergone changes under the influence of the surrounding Italo-Romance varieties. Full article

The current study investigated overregularization of Spanish irregular past participles (e.g., dicho ‘said’, regularized as decido) among 20 child heritage speakers of Spanish in New Mexico, ages 5;1–11;9. Overregularization occurs when a child produces an irregular form analogously to its regular counterpart (e.g., eated instead of ate). Typically, children first produce the irregular form and then, after they have learned a morphological pattern, they overapply it to the irregular form. Ultimately, children retreat from overregularization and once again produce the target irregular form. While there has been a wealth of studies on monolingual children’s overregularizations, very few have investigated this phenomenon in child heritage speakers, who may develop their grammars diversely due to their exposure to the heritage language. This study analyzed the impact of age, Spanish language experience, Spanish morphosyntax proficiency, and lexical frequency on overregularization among the 13/20 children who produced past participles (n = 233) in response to an elicited production task. Participles were overregularized at high rates (74%), resulting in forms like ponido (‘put’, cf: puesto). Results from a regression analysis indicate that overregularization was more likely among the younger children, the children with lower morphosyntax scores, and with lower-frequency participles. Further, an interaction between morphosyntax score and lexical frequency indicated that children with higher scores overregularized with lower frequency participles, but not higher frequency ones, whereas children with low scores overregularized with both low- and high-frequency forms. In summary, child heritage speakers overregularize Spanish past participles at high rates, and the retreat from overregularization is tied to overall grammatical development and lexical frequency, suggesting that the acquisition of irregular participles is dependent on experiencing multiple instances of the irregular verb form. Full article

This contribution addresses a set of phenomena attested in the dialects spoken in Piedmont, including Franco-Provençal and Occitan varieties, and in West Liguria, concerning the interaction between subject and object clitics. Complementarily to these phenomena, we find the interplay between the realization of the 3rd person clitic and the auxiliary. More specifically, we will investigate the object-for-subject mechanism in the Piedmontese and Franco-Provençal dialects, the one of subject-with-object in some Franco-Provençal dialects and their possible interaction with the auxiliary. In some Piedmontese dialects, the alternation between be and have affects the distribution of subject and object clitics; in particular, the 3rd person clitic can occur in all persons, where it can be ambiguous between the subject or the object reading. The relation between the verb and the realization of its argumental clitics, and the interaction between auxiliaries and clitics are the main topics of this work. Our approach relies on the idea that clitics are the realization of φ-features associated with v and T and that auxiliaries are not functional elements but verbs with lexical properties. The theoretical frame we follow is the formulation recently proposed by Chomsky, based on the operation Merge and the Labeling Algorithm, leading to a more appropriate conceptualization of morpho-syntactic structures. Full article

In this article, I will argue that many of the theoretical approaches to extraction from participle adjunct islands suffer from the fact that the focus of investigation lies on perceived grammaticality differences in interrogative structures. Following approaches which make an explicit connection between extraction asymmetries and properties of the underlying proposition, I will argue that there is good evidence for the existence of similar differences in declarative adjunct constructions which can explain most of the grammaticality patterns observed for interrogatives. A crucial distinction to the majority of previous theories is the focus on acceptability rather than grammaticality, and the assumption that acceptability in declaratives is determined by a variety of semantic and syntactic complexity factors which do not influence how strongly extraction degrades the structure. This line of argumentation is more compatible with approaches to island phenomena that explain the low acceptability of some extractions by independent effects such as processing complexity and discourse function instead of syntactic principles blocking the extraction. I will also discuss a partially weighted, multifactorial model for the acceptability of declarative and interrogative participle adjunct constructions, which explains the judgment patterns in the literature without the need for additional, complex licensing conditions for extraction. Full article

Bilingual children often experience difficulties with inflectional morphology. The aim of this longitudinal study was to investigate how regularity of inflection in combination with verbal short-term and working memory (VSTM, VWM) influences bilingual children’s performance. Data from 231 typically developing five- to eight-year-old children were analyzed: Dutch monolingual children (N = 45), Frisian-Dutch bilingual children (N = 106), Turkish-Dutch bilingual children (N = 31), Tarifit-Dutch bilingual children (N = 38) and Arabic-Dutch bilingual children (N = 11). Inflection was measured with an expressive morphology task. VSTM and VWM were measured with a Forward and Backward Digit Span task, respectively. The results showed that, overall, children performed more accurately at regular than irregular forms, with the smallest gap between regulars and irregulars for monolinguals. Furthermore, this gap was smaller for older children and children who scored better on a non-verbal intelligence measure. In bilingual children, higher accuracy at using (irregular) inflection was predicted by a smaller cross-linguistic distance, a larger amount of Dutch at home, and a higher level of parental education. Finally, children with better VSTM, but not VWM, were more accurate at using regular and irregular inflection. Full article

The most generally accepted diachrony of mediante assumes a grammaticalization path that started in an absolute clause, which first evolved into a preposition, and later into conjunction. However, data reveals that its development is not connected to an evolution in terms of grammaticalization. Indeed, mediante was introduced in Spanish in the fourteenth century as a consequence of syntactic borrowing from Medieval Latin. More specifically, this borrowing entered Old Spanish through Aragonese and Catalan (languages spoken in the east of the Iberian Peninsula). Since its first examples, mediante has acted as a preposition, and its form, connected to present participles, would give texts a cultured and Latinising air that was well-suited to the rhetorical guidelines of the European Renaissance and pre-Renaissance. Thus, this paper shows that the writer and rhetorical rules have become a key factor in the evolution of grammar. Full article

This paper aims to contribute to the clarification of the linguistic and extra-linguistic circumstances that accompany the emergence and behavior of mediante in the first centuries of Spanish. To this end, the origin of the Latin participle medians, mediantis is examined and the evidence of its ablative form mediante in various contexts is also analysed and discussed. We conclude from our study that (1) the appearance of mediante in Latin takes place at a relatively late stage of Latin, it having entered the language as a grammatical calque from Greek; (2) in Latin, prepositional values of mediante, which do not necessarily originate from Latin absolute ablative clauses, are already detected; and finally, (3) discursive traditions and historical-cultural factors, in particular those developed in Patristic and Scholastic Literature, are fundamental for the understanding, not only of the evolution of mediante in Latin, but also of its introduccion into Spanish. Full article

The chapter presents the current state of research concerning the development of the BE + past participle constructions from Latin to Spanish. Starting from the description in Rosemeyer (2014) and the theoretical background collated in Kailuweit and Rosemeyer (2015), it will be shown that the functional change does not follow traditional grammaticalization paths. Several concepts that deal with cases contradicting traditional grammaticalization theory will be discussed. ‘Exaption’ (Lass 1990, 1997), focusing on total defunctionalization does not account for the fact that the resultative value of the BE + past participle construction, marginal in Latin, becomes central in Mediaeval Spanish. ‘Refunctionalization’ Smith (2008, 2011) captures this aspect in a more appropriate way. However, the development of the construction could be also conceived as the opposite of what Pountain (2000) describes as ‘capitalization’: a process of ‘decapitalization,’ by which a feature is exploited, not for wider, but for more restricted purposes. Full article