Cross-Linguistic Trade-Offs and Causal Relationships Between Cues to Grammatical Subject and Object, and the Problem of Efficiency-Related Explanations

Cross-linguistic studies focus on inverse correlations (trade-offs) between linguistic variables that reflect different cues to linguistic meanings. For example, if a language has no case marking, it is likely to rely on word order as a cue for identification of grammatical roles. Such inverse correlations are interpreted as manifestations of language users’ tendency to use language efficiently. The present study argues that this interpretation is problematic. Linguistic variables, such as the presence of case, or flexibility of word order, are aggregate properties, which do not represent the use of linguistic cues in context directly. Still, such variables can be useful for circumscribing the potential role of communicative efficiency in language evolution, if we move from cross-linguistic trade-offs to multivariate causal networks. This idea is illustrated by a case study of linguistic variables related to four types of Subject and Object cues: case marking, rigid word order of Subject and Object, tight semantics and verb-medial order. The variables are obtained from online language corpora in thirty languages, annotated with the Universal Dependencies. The causal model suggests that the relationships between the variables can be explained predominantly by sociolinguistic factors, leaving little space for a potential impact of efficient linguistic behavior.

Typological Shift in Bilinguals’ L1: Word Order and Case Marking in Two Varieties of Child Quechua

We compare speech production and find morphosyntactic change among children and adolescents speaking two closely related varieties of Quechua in Cuzco, Peru, and Chuquisaca, Bolivia. Quechua languages traditionally employ Object-Verb (OV) word order in main clauses, but robust case marking permits other orders, especially to focalize new information through constituent fronting. In Chuquisaca, but not Cuzco, we find that schoolchildren often omit the accusative suffix -ta from direct objects while retaining a prosodic trace of -ta. In other varieties, loss of accusative marking is associated with a shift towards Verb-Object (VO) word order, as in Spanish. However, we find that Chuquisaqueños use more canonical OV and possessor-possessed order in declarative sentences than do Cuzqueños, who employ a wide range of word orders at the sentence level and deviate from the possessor-possessed norm for Quechua noun phrases. Our finding of more rigid word order in Chuquisaca highlights the complex factors contributing to typological shift in word order and morphology: Omission of case morphology places a greater burden on word order to identify grammatical roles. Further, we find that Chuquisaqueño schoolchildren alone have begun to use huk, “one,” to mark indefiniteness, perhaps to replace determiner-like functions ascribed to -ta and to obsolescent markers such as evidentials.

Pride and Prejudiced

The reclamation of slurs raises a host of important questions. Some are linguistic: What are the linguistic conventions governing the slur post-reclamation and how are they related to the conventions governing it pre-reclamation? What mechanisms engender the shift? Others bend toward the social: Why do a slur’s targets have a special privilege in initiating its reclamation? Is there a systematic explanation why prohibitions on out-group use of reclaimed slurs vary from slur to slur? And how does reclamation contribute to shaping social identities and reversing oppressive social norms and stigma? Most analyses of slur reclamation advance a single model to answer these questions. The author argues that there are different varieties of reclamation. Two predominate, what she calls pride reclamation and insular reclamation. While many features unite pride and insular reclamation, they differ with respect to the purpose of the reclamatory act, the linguistic mechanisms reclaimers employ to execute the linguistic change, and the social and grammatical roles of the reclaimed slur. By distinguishing these two types of reclamation and offering a fine-grained characterization of their properties, the author argues that we gain deeper insight into the reasons why slurs may in principle only be ignited by the target group and why pride- but not insular-reclaimed slurs become available for use by out-group members.

Figure and Ground in spatial language: evidence from German and Korean

abstractWe investigate how German and Korean speakers describe everyday spatial/motion events, such as putting a cup on the table. In these motion events, themoving object(e.g., cup) and thenon-moving reference object(e.g., table) take on the roles of Figure and Ground, respectively. Figure(F) and Ground(G) thus have distinct perceptual properties and assume conceptually asymmetric roles (entity moving along a trajectory vs. stationary reference frame). We examine the degrees to which speakers distinguish between F and G semantically (spatial/Path terms, e.g.,on,in) and syntactically (grammatical roles, e.g., subject, object). Participants described events involving two objects that switched their F-G roles (put cup(F)on board(G) andput board(F)under cup(G)). German speakers use distinct Path terms (e.g.,auf,in) for differential F-G relations, thus encoding the F-G asymmetry. In contrast, Korean speakers use the same terms (e.g.,kkita‘fit.tightly’) and the same syntactic constructions regardless of switches in F-G roles. These cross-linguistic differences are evident for Non-typical events (Put board(F)under cup(G)), showing that the encoding of the asymmetry interacts with speakers’ everyday experiences of motion events. We argue that the differences reflect the interactions between the Path lexicon and spatial syntax, and language-specific viewpoints of the F-G relation.

Effects of grammatical roles and topicality on Vietnamese referential form production

We conducted two studies on the use of null and overt pronouns and noun phrases in Vietnamese, with a focus on referents’ grammatical roles, grammatical parallelism and topicality. Vietnamese overt pronouns differ from English-type languages as they also function as kin terms. The first study investigated narratives and finds that referential form choice is influenced by the grammatical role and grammatical position of the antecedent: When the subject of the current clause refers to the subject of the preceding clause (subject parallelism), we find a high rate of (null and overt) pronouns. Lack of parallelism triggers mostly NPs. When the object of the current clause refers to the object of the preceding clause (object parallelism), we also find more pronouns than in non-parallel cases. Interestingly, null pronouns only occur in parallel cases. Crucially, we find no clear differences in the distribution of null vs. overt pronouns, suggesting that grammatical roles and parallelism have the same effects on both pronoun types. Using passivization to manipulate topicality, Experiment 2 further investigated the null vs. overt pronoun choice and found that pronouns are strongly preferred for topicalized subjects in passives and that null pronouns exhibit a stronger sensitivity to topicality than overt pronouns. To our knowledge, these experiments are the first experimental investigation of a kin-term-based pronoun system.

A corpus-based analysis of word order variation in Yami relative clause construction

Yami relative clauses (RCs) can either precede the head noun, for example, kanakan ‘child,’ as in ko ni-ma-cita o [ji yákneng] a kanakan ‘I saw the child who cannot hold still’, functioning as restrictive RCs ([RC] + a + Head NP), or follow it as in ko ni-ma-cita o kanakan a [ji yákneng] ‘I saw that child, who cannot hold still’, functioning as nonrestrictive RCs for complementation strategy (Head NP + a + [RC]). The VARBRUL results demonstrate that head final RCs are predominant in Yami, and Yami speakers use them to connect the given referent with the previous discourse to convey given information. The study found that Subject head nouns outnumber other grammatical roles of head NPs, and that Subject head noun with Subject RC construction is produced more than any other RC constructions, which indicates that Yami RCs are used to modify the Subject for topic continuity.

On the syntax of comitative constructions: the case of Finnish mukana, mukaan ‘with, along’

The topic of this article is the syntax of Finnish comitative markers mukana and mukaan ‘with, along’. Comitative markers express accompaniment relations, which are typically conceived of being asymmetrical: the accompanee is the predominant participant, while the companion is involved in the situation only via the accompanee (Stolz et al. 2006: 26–27). However, markers such as mukana and mukaan are used in several syntactic constructions where the grammatical roles of expressions of the accompanees vary from subject to adverbial, that is, from syntactic core to periphery. Five syntactic construction types were analyzed from a corpus data showing three genres. On the basis of this study, it is shown that syntactic variation has an effect on the conceived asymmetry between the accompanee and the companion, and that syntax makes an important contribution to the semantics of comitative constructions. In strongly asymmetric accompaniment relations, a human accompanee is expressed by a possessive suffix affixed to the comitative marker, or by a clause-initial adverbial. The question of asymmetry contracts to the background when the accompanee is expressed by a non-clause-initial adverbial and when the accompanee is implicit, without overt marking altogether.Kokkuvõte. Krista Ojutkangas: Komitatiivkonstruktsioonide süntaksist: soome keele mukana, mukaan ‘kaasas, kaasa’. Artiklis käsitletakse soome keele komitatiivsete markerite mukana ja mukaan ‘kaasas, kaasa’ süntaksi. Komitatiivsed markerid väljendavad kaasasolusuhteid, mida peetakse tüüpiliselt asümmeetrilisteks: kaasaja on peamine osaleja, samas kui kaaslane on situatsiooni haaratud ainult kaasaja kaudu (Stolz et al. 2006: 26–27). Markereid mukana ja mukaan kasutatakse mitmetes süntaktilistes konstruktsioonides, kus kaasaja grammatiline roll varieerub subjektist adverbiaalini. Artiklis käsitletakse viit konstruktsioonitüüpi kolmes erinevas korpuses. Uurimus näitab, et süntaktiline varieerumine mõjutab tajutud asümmeetriat kaasaja ja kaaslase vahel ning süntaksi roll komitatiivsete konstruktsioonide semantikas on suur. Tugevalt asümmeetrilistes kaasasolusuhetes on inimesest kaasaja väljendatud possessiivsufiksiga, mis liitub komitatiivi markerile, või lausealgulise adverbiaaliga. Asümmeetria tõmbub taustale, kui kaasaja on väljendatud mittelausealgulise adverbiaaliga või kui kaasaja on implitsiitne.Võtmesõnad: kaassõnad; grammid; kaasasolusuhted; komitatiiv; grammatilised rollid; süntaks; soome keel