scholarly journals Should a conditional marker arise … The diachronic development of conditional sollte in German

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Breitbarth
Keyword(s):  
Diachronic Development

Reconstruction of the Ancient Numeral System in Basque Language

Philology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2018) ◽  
pp. 157-172
Author(s):  
FERNANDO GOMEZ-ACEDO ◽  
ENEKO GOMEZ-ACEDO
Keyword(s):  
Cardinal Number ◽  
Counting System ◽  
Cardinal Numbers ◽  
Original Meaning ◽  
Diachronic Development ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract In this work a new insight into the reconstruction of the original forms of the first Basque cardinal numbers is presented and the identified original meaning of the names given to the numbers is shown. The method used is the internal reconstruction, using for the etymologies words that existed and still exist in Basque and other words reconstructed from the proto-Basque. As a result of this work it has been discovered that initially the numbers received their name according to a specific and logic procedure. According to this ancient method of designation, each cardinal number received its name based on the hand sign used to represent it, thus describing the position adopted by the fingers of the hand to represent each number. Finally, the different stages of numerical formation are shown, which demonstrate a long and diachronic development of the whole counting system.

Negation and Nonveridicality in the History of Greek

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katerina Chatzopoulou
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Data ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Inertial Forces ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Polarity Item ◽  
Syntactic Change ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
Diachronic Development

This study is an investigation of the expression of negation in the history of Greek, through quantitative data from representative texts from three major stages of vernacular Greek (Attic Greek, Koine, Late Medieval Greek), and qualitative data from Homeric Greek until Standard Modern. The contrast between two complementary negators, NEG1 and NEG2, is explained in terms of sensitivity of NEG2 μη‎ to nonveridicality: NEG2 is a polarity item in all stages of the Greek language, an item licensed by nonveridicality. The asymmetry in the diachronic development of the Greek negator system (the replacement of NEG1 and the preservation of NEG2) is explained with reference to the particulars of the uses of NEG2, specifically the inertial forces drawn by the nonnegative uses of NEG2, which being nonnegative did not experience the renewal pressures predicted by the Jespersen’s Cycle. These are its complementizer uses: (i) as a question particle, and (ii) in introducing verbs of fear complements. A viewpoint for Jespersen’s Cycle is proposed that abstracts away from the morphosyntactic and phonological particulars of the phenomenon and explicitly places its regularities in the semantics, accommodating not only for Greek, but for numerous other languages that deviate in different ways from the traditional description of Jespersen’s Cycle. The developments observed in the history of the Greek negator system agree with current generative theories of syntactic change, regarding the notions of up-the-tree movement.

Outlining a grammaticalization path for the Spanish formula en plan (de): A contribution to crosslinguistic pragmatics

Linguistics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (6) ◽  
pp. 1543-1579
Author(s):  
Paula Rodríguez-Abruñeiras
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Diachronic Study ◽  
Diachronic Development ◽  
The Early 21St Century

AbstractThis article discusses the diachronic development of the Spanish multifunctional formula en plan (with its variant en plan de, literally ‘in plan (of)’ but usually equivalent to English like). The article has two main aims: firstly, to describe the changes that the formula has undergone since its earliest occurrences as a marker in the nineteenth century up to the early 21st century. The diachronic study evinces a process of grammaticalization in three steps: from noun to clause adverbial and then to discourse marker. Secondly, to conduct a contrastive analysis between en plan (de) and the English markers like and kind of/kinda so as to shed new light on the potential existence of a universal pathway of grammaticalization in the emergence of discourse markers.

scholarly journals Analogy-driven change: the emergence and development of mirative end up constructions in American English

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-121
Author(s):  
MARIO SERRANO-LOSADA
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
American English ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Pragmatic Enrichment ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Diachronic Development

This article explores the diachronic development of mirative end up in American English, which emerged in the late nineteenth century and which seems to be, at present, in the process of becoming a parenthetical element. The rise of the various mirative end up constructions is argued to be the result of both pragmatic enrichment and paradigmatic analogy, motivated by a series of semantically and formally related expressions, most prominently by mirative turn out. Moreover, the article delves into the process of cooptation to explain the emergence of parenthetical instances in the present-day language. Cooptation is understood as an intrinsically analogical-driven mechanism when it entails the eventual grammaticalization of formulaic parenthetical constructions. Data for the present study were taken from a variety of diachronic and synchronic sources, which include COHA, COCA and NOW, among others.

Diachronic features of Romanian in a broader comparative setting

2019 ◽  
pp. 217-222
Author(s):  
Alexandru Nicolae
Keyword(s):  
Structural Properties ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Romance Language ◽  
Syntactic Theory ◽  
Syntactic Change ◽  
History Of ◽  
Diachronic Development

Chapter 6 highlights the novel theoretical and empirical facts brought about by the word order changes that occurring in the passage from old to modern Romanian, showing how the diachrony of Romanian may contribute to a better understanding of the history of the Romance languages and of the Balkan Sprachbund, as well as to syntactic theory and syntactic change in general. One important dimension of diachronic variation and change is the height of nouns and verbs along their extended projections (lower vs higher V- and N-movement). The two perspectives from which language contact proves relevant in the diachronic development of word order in Romanian, language contact by means of translation and areal language contact, are discussed. The chapter also addresses the issue of surface analogy vs deep structural properties; once again, Romanian emerges as a Romance language in a Balkan suit, as Romance deep structural properties are instantiated by means of Balkan word order patterns.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Sam Wolfe
Keyword(s):  
Medieval Romance ◽  
Seminal Work ◽  
The Status ◽  
Null Argument ◽  
Pronominal System ◽  
Diachronic Development ◽  
Theoretical Developments

This chapter briefly outlines the main evidence that has been put forward in favour of the V2 hypothesis for Medieval Romance. It then gives a survey of the main developments in the study of Germanic V2, starting with seminal work in the 1970s and 1980s and outlining major empirical and theoretical developments which have taken place since. The chapter concludes by setting out the ‘Medieval Romance problem’ in need of resolution, namely the nature of microvariation or continuity between varieties, the status of V2 correlates in the null argument and clitic pronominal system and the diachronic development of V2.

Labial softening

2020 ◽  
pp. 133-170
Author(s):  
Daniel Recasens
Keyword(s):  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Special Analysis ◽  
Onset Clusters ◽  
Diachronic Development

This chapter is about the palatalization and assibilation of labial and nasal stops, and of labiodental fricatives. Based on several diachronic pathways, it presents the hypothesis that labial softening is achived through glide fricativization or occlusivization, depending on the language or dialect taken into consideration. A special analysis is performed of labial palatalization and assibilation in the Bantu languages, Romanian dialects, and /Cl/ onset clusters in Romance, where those changes may have taken place once the alveolar lateral shifted to a palatal approximant. In so far as two independent articulators, i.e., lips and tongue, are involved in the production of the labial and labiodental sequences of interest, their diachronic development turns out to be far more complex than the palatalization and softening of velar and dentoalveolar obstruents.

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