Historical Syntax

Generative Oscillation - A Cognitive Model for the Emergence of Language

by Thorold (Thor) May

Research Material for a discontinued PhD

DRAFT COPY ONLY

NOT READY FOR PRINT PUBLICATION

The GO model proposes a co-generative view of the emergence of language. Most conventional linguistics models conceive... more The GO model proposes a co-generative view of the emergence of language. Most conventional linguistics models conceive of language as a representational system of symbols which refer to events, either mental or external to the organism. This representational function is said to motivate the linguistic system and (depending upon the linguistic model) largely control its form. The GO (Generative Oscillation) model proposed here recognizes the representational role of language. However it notes that as the mental linguistic system itself becomes efficiently organized, it creates an internal logic and drive of its own. To some extent this internally motivated linguistic system is conceived to override the external motivation to represent another reality. Since the internal linguistic system is dynamic and generative, it may give rise to linguistic output which seems strange in an inter-human communicative context (or even within the reflective mind of the creator). Thus while the external communicative context can become a constraint on unmotivated non-representational "internal language", it might not eliminate it. The Generative Oscillation model proposes that actual language production is an oscillating compromise between the representational function of language and the mental "language bot" itself (i.e. an internal self-organizing system) which is generating language strings just because that is what language language bots do. As far as I know, the Generative Oscillation Model, or anything like it, had not been suggested before in linguistics at the time of writing. Some conventional linguists may find it a bit "off the wall".

The ritual for the Royal Couple CTH 416. Syntax of non verbal predicates and numerals.

by Alfredo Rizza

Published in

Barbera et al., Anatolistica, indoeuropeistica e oltre nelle memorie dei seminarî offerti da Onofrio Carruba (anni 1997-2002) al Medesimo presentate (Antiqui Aevi Grammaticae Artis Studiorum Consensus Series Maior, 1), Milano 2011, pp. 13-38.

The volume is available for free distribution via www.openlibrary.org
http://openlibrary.org/works/OL16110156W/

Creating a Dual-Purpose Treebank

by Anton Ingason

Grammaticalization, borrowing, and verb post-second sentences in Icelandic

by Kendra Willson

Willson, Kendra.  2000. Grammaticalization, borrowing and verb-post-second sentences in Icelandic. In:  The Nordic Languages and Modern Linguistics X.  Guðrún Þórhallsdóttir, ed. Reykjavík: Institute of Linguistics, University of Iceland. pp. 253-264.

The words kannski 'maybe', ætli 'suppose' and bara 'only' appear as non-conjunctional complementizers (NCC), defining... more The words kannski 'maybe', ætli 'suppose' and bara 'only' appear as non-conjunctional complementizers (NCC), defining a Modern Icelandic sentence type that did not exist prior to the emergence of these lexical items.  Kannski and ætli transparently reflect grammaticalization of verbal expressions, while bara is a (Danish) adverb derived from an adjective.  The grammaticalization of ætli took place within Icelandic, but the adverb kannski has been regarded as a loanword from Danish, its source in turn a calque from Middle Low German.  However, the prevalence of NCC and parenthetical expressions among early attestations of kannski seems to indicate that the grammaticalization occurred in Icelandic partly independent of borrowing.

Old Icelandic topicalization and the emergence of stylistic fronting

by Kendra Willson

Willson, Kendra.  2001. Old Icelandic topicalization and the emergence of stylistic fronting.  In:  Proceedings of the 18th Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics. Arthur Holmer, Jan Olof Svantesson, and Åke Viberg, eds Travaux de l'Institut de linguistique de Lund, 39.  Lund: Lund University.  vol. 2, pp. 127-137.

The Alignment of Hattian: An Active Language with an Ergative Base

by Petra Goedegebuure

published in Proceedings of the 53e Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale Vol. 1: Language in the Ancient Near East (2010)

"Gospatric's Writ": una nuova interpretazione dell'origine del testo alla luce dell'analisi storico-linguistica

by Omar Khalaf

published in Dolcetti Corazza, V., Gendre, R., "Lettura di Heliand", Alessandria, edizioni dell'Orso, 2011, 271-284

A linguistic analysis of an Old English Northumbrian text showing a peculiar VO word order which apparently sets it... more A linguistic analysis of an Old English Northumbrian text showing a peculiar VO word order which apparently sets it apart from the common syntactic situation reconstructed for Old English, mainly based on the investigation of West Saxon texts.
This study aims at demonstrating that the the roots of the passage from OV to Vo in the history of English are to be traced back not (only) to the linguistic contact with Scandinavian languages, but to an internal phenomenon of reorganization.

Split-ergativity in Hittite (ZA, in press)

by Petra Goedegebuure

The attachment covers ***the final version*** of my presentation of split-ergativity in the pronominal clitic system (section 8) and the conclusion (section 9).

“it is possible that all languages show ergativity on some level” (McGregor 2009: 482)


McGregor,... more “it is possible that all languages show ergativity on some level” (McGregor 2009: 482)


McGregor, William (2009). “Typology of Ergativity”. Language and Linguistics Compass 3/1: 480–508.

Los futuros analíticos y sintéticos en la Fazienda de Ultra Mar

by Miriam Bouzouita

Bouzouita, Miriam (forthcoming) ‘Los futuros analíticos y sintéticos en la Fazienda de Ultra Mar.’ In: Actas del VIII Congreso Internacional de la Historia de la Lengua Española: Santiago de Compostela, 14-18 de Septiembre, 2009. Emilio Montero Cartelle (ed), Madrid: Arco Libros.

Nominalization and nominalization-based constructions in Galo.

by Mark W. Post

-- (2011). F. H. Yap, K. Grunow-Hårsta and J. Wrona, Eds., Nominalization in Asian Languages: Diachronic and Typological Perspectives. [Typological Studies in Language 96.] Amsterdam, John Benjamins: 255-288.

O se-passivo é passivo? Revisitando as construções com SE na história do Português

by Silvia Cavalcante

draft

SE-constructions like “vendem-se casas” have traditionally been analyzed as “synthetic passives” or passive-SE... more SE-constructions like “vendem-se casas” have traditionally been analyzed as “synthetic passives” or passive-SE constructions, in which the DP "casas" is analyzed as the subject of the sentence or co indexed with the subject position (Cinque, 1988; Dobrovie Sorin, 1998; Cyrino, 2007). This analysis, however, may be questioned in view of: (1) the linguistic change that occurs between the 15th and 16th centuries by which the agent disappears from these passive constructions (Naro, 1976; Martins, 2003) and (2) the change that occurs from the 18th century on by which the subjects of active and canonical passive constructions becomes preferably preverbal (Galves & Paixão de Sousa, 2005; Cavalcante, Galves & Paixão de Sousa, 2010). This paper investigates the behavior of the DPs of so-called "synthetic passives" compared with the DPs of canonical passives and active constructions in texts of the Tycho Brahe Corpus, based on the following main hypothesis: if the DP of these constructions with SE is indeed a subject, it will behave as subjects of passive and active constructions. For this, we observed the behavior of these DPs in these constructions over along the 16th and 19th centuries texts taking into account (a) the position of DP in relation to the verb, the frequency of null DPs (in relation to full DPs); (b) the presence of the PP external argument; (c) the verbal agreement patterns between the plural DP and the verb in SE-constructions. The quantitative results indicate significant differences between the behavior of the DP of the so-called synthetic-passives with the DP subjects of the other two constructions, so as we can say that these SE-constructions are in fact active and the DP, even when triggering agreement with the verb, behaves as a complement. These results support the theoretical analysis for both European Portuguese and Italian (Raposo and Uriagereka, 1996; Martins, 2003).

Head-Noun Ellipsis in Hittite and Elsewhere A Study in Recoverability Conditions

by Ilya Yakubovich

CLS 40-2: The Panels / Papers from the panels of the fortieth annual meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (ed. N. Adams et al.). Chicago Linguistic Society 2008, pp. 37-53.

My presentation addresses the issue of non-phrasal ellipsis that is not directly licensed through a linguistic... more My presentation addresses the issue of non-phrasal ellipsis that is not directly licensed through a linguistic antecedent. The grammatical recoverability condition can be formulated in this case in the following way: the grammatical function of the constituent marked for deletion must be unambiguously deducible from the sentence surface structure in order for the ellipsis to take place.

Il "cum inversum" fra italiano antico e moderno

by Francesco Bianco

to be published in "Actes del XXVIé Congrés Internacional de Lingüística i Filologia Romàniques (València, 6-11 setembre 2010)", De Gruyter

Modulo sintattico spiccatamente narrativo, il cum inversum (detto anche inversione temporale o subordinazione inversa;... more Modulo sintattico spiccatamente narrativo, il cum inversum (detto anche inversione temporale o subordinazione inversa; cfr. Agostini 1978, Consales 2004) presenta caratteristiche che lo distinguono dalle proposizioni temporali canoniche. Queste ultime esprimono azioni che fanno da “sfondo” all'evento principale, enunciato nella reggente:

Mentre stavo dormendo beatamente, squillò il telefono.

Al contrario, nei casi di subordinazione inversa la proposizione introdotta dalla congiunzione temporale veicola l'evento principale, che si realizza sullo sfondo descritto nella proposizione formalmente reggente:

Stavo dormendo beatamente, quando squillò il telefono.

Molte sono le questioni, più o meno aperte, che riguardano questo costrutto: il suo status sintattico, a cavallo fra subordinazione e coordinazione (Consales 2004: 113 parla a tal proposito di “pseudosubordinata”); la sua collocazione entro il paradigma dei rapporti di temporalità (posteriorità, anteriorità, contemporaneità); il rapporto tra una frase del tipo mentre stavo dormendo beatamente, squillò il telefono, una del tipo "stavo dormendo beatamente, quando squillò il telefono" e una del tipo "quando squillò il telefono, stavo dormendo beatamente"; di quest'ultimo tipo si riporta un esempio tratto da un testo antico (cfr. Bianco 2009: 232, nota 11):

E quando 'l Grande Kane giunse al campo con sua gente, Naiano stava sul letto co la moglie in grandi solazzi, ché molto le volea grande bene". (M. Polo, Il Milione. Versione Toscana del Trecento, Adelphi, Milano 1994, p. 117)

Rispetto a ricerche precedenti (Mäder 1968, Agostini 1978, Consales 2004), orientate all'analisi dell'italiano antico, in questo contributo si cercherà di offrire un quadro della subordinazione inversa che includa anche dati sull'italiano contemporaneo. Il costrutto è infatti ancor oggi assai vitale, ben documentato nella narrativa così come nella prosa giornalistica:

Drogo osservava una mosca che si era fermata per terra proprio sulla striscia di sole [...] La osservava camminare con
circospezione, quando uno batté alla porta. (D. Buzzati, Il deserto dei Tartari, Mondadori, Milano 1989, p. 183)

Cercava la stanza del presidente del Consiglio, quando è stato bloccato dagli agenti della Digos. («La Stampa», 17.12.2009, p. 7)

Anche in altri in altri testi, prodotti o diffusi oralmente, si riscontrano casi di subordinazione
inversa; si riporta un esempio di italiano “trasmesso”:

Stava calando la sera ieri in Afghanistan su questa strada, la Ringroad, il principale asse stradale del paese, quando una moto, lasciata al lato della carreggiata, è esplosa al passaggio di un convoglio militare italiano. («Tg3», 26.7.2009)

I dati sull'italiano contemporaneo sono particolarmente preziosi, perché permettono di affrontare la questione da nuovi punti di vista, primo fra tutti (grazie agli esempi di italiano parlato) quello dell'intonazione; il contorno intonativo che accompagna le frasi con il cum inversum presenta infatti significative differenze con quello delle temporali canoniche, chiaro indice una diversa organizzazione sintattica e informazionale. Integrando i dati sull'italiano antico con quelli ricavati dall'osservazione della lingua contemporanea si cercherà, da un lato, di fornire una descrizione più completa del costrutto; dall'altro, di tracciare un profilo della sua evoluzione diacronica, attraverso il confronto fra la sua realizzazione nelle diverse fasi storiche (forme, frequenza d'uso, etc.).

Bibliografia

AGOSTINI, FRANCESCO, Proposizioni indipendenti. Proposizioni subordinate, in Enciclopedia dantesca. Appendice, vol.
VI,, Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, Roma 1978, pp. 369-408;

BIANCO, FRANCESCO, Per uno studio delle proposizioni temporali di contemporaneità nell'italiano antico in Sintassi
storica e sincronica dell'italiano. Atti del X Congresso della Società Internazionale di Linguistica e Filologia
(Basilea 30 giugno-3 luglio 2008), a cura di A. Ferrari, III voll., Cesati, Firenze 2009, pp. 227-243;

CONSALES, ILDE, Un tipo particolare di temporale nella prosa antica: il caso del CUM INVERSUM in SintAnt. La sintassi
dell'italiano antico. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi (Università “Roma Tre”, 18-21 settembre 2002), a
cura di M. Dardano e G. Frenguelli, Aracne, Roma 2004, pp. 485-488;

DIGREGORIO, ROSARITA, Le proposizioni temporali della posteriorità in italiano antico tra sintassi, testualità e
stilizzazione in «La lingua italiana: storia, struttura, testi», 2 (2006), pp. 61-70;

GIUSTI, GIULIANA, Le frasi temporali in Grande Grammatica Italiana di Consultazione. II. I sintagmi verbale,
aggettivale, avverbiale. La subordinazione, a cura di L. Renzi, G. Salvi e A. Cardinaletti, Il Mulino, Bologna 2001,
pp. 720-38;

MÄDER, ROLF CHRISTIAN, Le proposizioni temporali in antico toscano (sec. XIII/XIV), Herbert Lang, Berna 1968.

On Verbal Negation in Semitic

by Na'ama Pat-El

Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 162/1 (2012): 17-45

While there have been many studies of negative expressions and negation in a number of Semitic languages, negation is... more While there have been many studies of negative expressions and negation in a number of Semitic languages, negation is not normally used in comparative Semitic linguistic and is avoided in discussions about subgrouping. This study reviews the negation of verbal predicates in an attempt to reconstruct the original Semitic set of negation particles. It concludes that verbal negation in Semitic was originally a set containing two
particles with distinct functions: *ʾl was used to negate indicative verbal forms, while *lā was used to negate non-indicative ones. Many languages generalized the indicative negation particle to negate all verbal forms, a move which subsequently led to the loss of the original syntactic distinction. The reconstruction of the innovations in Semitic corroborates
the subgrouping of Semitic suggested by Hetzron (1976) and modified by Porkhomovsky (1997) and Huehnergard (1991; 2005), and in fact validates the modification of Hetzron’s proposal.

On Periphrastic Genitive Constructions in Biblical Hebrew

by Na'ama Pat-El

Hebrew Studies 51 (2010):43-38

J. M. Allegro has convincingly shown that the archaic Hebrew relative pronoun ze can function as a genitive marker in... more J. M. Allegro has convincingly shown that the archaic Hebrew relative pronoun ze can function as a genitive marker in a common Semitic pattern N Pron N (cf. Aramaic baytā dī-malkā). So far, it has been assumed that once ze was replaced by ʾǎšer this pattern was no longer possible in Hebrew. The current paper offers data which indicate that at least in Biblical Hebrew ʾǎšer can still function as a genitive marker.