Language Contact, Cognition, and Cross-Linguistic Influence in the Greek Pentateuch

This study engages recent discussions concerning the description of the Greek of the LXX Pentateuch and the nature of source text interference. Research in contact linguistics and cognition provides a framework to describe the various phenomena observed, ranging from borrowing of linguistic material to the more widespread structural transfer. Processes such as pivot-matching and the cognitive aspects of word-choice transfer shed light on the mechanics of translation and issues such as the nature of cross-linguistic influence and a translator’s apparent inconsistencies. In this context, the intelligibility of specific renderings or their grammatical conventionality are not sufficient criteria for assessing cross-linguistic influence since its effects can be felt at the level of register or genre. This has important ramifications for the register or genre categorization of various textual units of the LXX Pentateuch and stylistic descriptions.

Semantička adaptacija frekventnih germanizama u oblasti domaćinstva

The task of the analysis of adaptation processes is to describe which changes the foreign word has undergone in the primary phase, ie from the moment of borrowing to the formation of the basic form – which in contact linguistics is called replica – and which changes occur in the replica in the secondary phase, ie from the moment of integration in the language system of the recipient further. This paper analyzes the semantic adaptation of frequency Germanisms in the Bosnian language system and focuses on the conceptual field of “household”. The main goal is to determine the semantic changes that words taken from the German language undergo during the download and adaptation to the Bosnian language system. During the analysis, the contact linguistic methodology of Rudolf Filipović was used, in which the adaptation processes are divided into primary and secondary phases of adaptation. The comparative method compared the meanings of German models with the meanings of Bosnian replicas, and the changes were classified into three categories: zero semantic extension, narrowing of meaning and broadening of meaning. Based on the analysis of adaptive changes in the primary phase, it was determined that Germanisms were mostly taken over into the Bosnian language with their specific meanings, but the category of narrowing in the field of meaning was also noted. Unlike the primary adaptation, the secondary adaptation includes changes that occur on the formed replica. These changes are no longer associated with the German language because they are always related only with the Bosnian language system and its rules. This is evidenced by the examples of Germanisms in which in the phase of secondary adaptation there was an expansion of meaning through the use of metaphor, metonymy, pejorization, folk etymology and ellipse.

New achievements in Russian linguistics (neo-psycholinguistics, migration linguistics, contact linguistics, computational linguistics, connectivistics)

The paper is focused on relevant directions in modern Russian Linguistics. It is the continuation of the 2019 publication where the ideas of Pedagogical and Anthropo-Oriented Linguistics, Political Communication Studies and Theological Linguistics were introduced. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the expanding horizons of the science about the language of the 21st century. The particular sections of the text characterize the goals of modern linguistics, its key concepts, objectives and methods currently employed in the sphere of studying language and real discursive practices. The methodology of the research consists in describing new research paradigms. Such paradigms are objectively formed in the course of progressing scientific activity; their changes are triggered by the evolution of society, its socially valuable demand to upgrade not only science but also its educational system on the basis of certain conceptual, value, methodological and technological beliefs. The idea behind this paper is to help teachers to make sense of a big variety of modern linguistic ideas and opt for those which they can use to develop innovative approaches to teaching Russian.

Embedding in Shawi narrations: A quantitative analysis of embedding in a post-colonial Amazonian indigenous society

In this article, we provide the first quantitative account of the frequent use of embedding in Shawi, a Kawapanan language spoken in Peruvian Northwestern Amazonia. We collected a corpus of ninety-two Frog Stories (Mayer 1969) from three different field sites in 2015 and 2016. Using the glossed corpus as our data, we conducted a generalised mixed model analysis, where we predicted the use of embedding with several macrosocial variables, such as gender, age, and education level. We show that bilingualism (Amazonian Spanish-Shawi) and education, mostly restricted by complex gender differences in Shawi communities, play a significant role in the establishment of linguistic preferences in narration. Moreover, we argue that the use of embedding reflects the impact of the mestizo1 society from the nineteenth century until today in Santa Maria de Cahuapanas, reshaping not only Shawi demographics but also linguistic practices. (Post-colonial societies, Amazonian linguistics, Kawapanan, Shawi, embedding, language variation and change, contact linguistics)*

Indexicality, semanticity and contact along the now < this time pathway

This study presents data from modern Arabic innovations now < this time to investigate the cross-linguistic developmental pathway temporal deictic < [demonstrative [time noun]]. Products of this path (e.g., German heute, Spanish ahora) feature consistently in contrastive approaches to grammaticalization and lexicalization and have been advanced as exclusive examples of both phenomena, without clear resolution. In this investigation, I establish the derivation of now forms in dialectal Arabic from ten distinct [demonstrative [time noun]] source constructions and identify patterns of fusion and coalescence relevant to both grammaticalization and lexicalization analyses. I then demonstrate a correlated progression of indexicalization and desemanticization in these items’ semanto-pragmatic structure that firmly positions them as examples of grammaticalizing, rather than lexicalizing, change, and proceed to develop this account via examination of the cross-dialectal diffusion of now < this time as an abstract, schematized structure. This approach provides additional support for a grammaticalization account of temporal deictic < [demonstrative [time noun]] developments cross-linguistically and elaborates a novel evidentiary stream with implications for the integration of contact linguistics and grammaticalization/lexicalization studies more broadly.

The pragmatic and textual dimensions of French in Côte d'Ivoire: functions of ke in colloquial conversation

By focusing on discourse markers, this article aims to show that the appropriation of French in Côte d'Ivoire is manifested from a pragmatic-textual perspective. It contributes to the extension of the tradition of work already done on French in this country. I argue that ke as a morpheme borrowed from African languages is a marker of intensification with different communicative values in Ivorian French. My analysis is based on a corpus of spontaneous oral data and on interactional approaches developed in the framework of contact linguistics.