Published by De Gruyter Mouton

Volume 49 Issue Historica-vol-36 -

Issue of Folia Linguistica

Contents
Journal Overview

Publicly Available October 31, 2015

Frontmatter

Page range: i-vi

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October 31, 2015

Pronoun innovation in Middle English

Rhona Alcorn

Page range: 1-17

Abstract

This paper reconsiders the history of two little-known third-person pronouns – 3pl. acc. his and 3sg. fem. acc. his – attested only during Middle English. Competing theories of their origins are evaluated and a novel account is proposed. The paper highlights an important gap in our understanding of the history of English oblique pronouns and supplies the most comprehensive description yet published of the distribution of these innovative forms.

October 31, 2015

A diachronic view of Zamucoan verb inflection

Luca Ciucci, Pier Marco Bertinetto

Page range: 19-87

Abstract

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the verb system of the three known Zamucoan languages, namely Old Zamuco, described by the Jesuit father Ignace Chomé in the first half of the eighteenth century, plus Ayoreo and Chamacoco, still actively spoken in the Chaco area between Bolivia and Paraguay. The analysis has confirmed the internal consistency of this language family, allowing us to build a plausible reconstruction of the Proto-Zamucoan verb system. The analysis has unsurprisingly pointed out Old Zamuco as the most conservative language among the three; Chamacoco, by contrast, appears to be the most innovative. This notwithstanding, Chamacoco also has conservative features that turn out to be particularly relevant for the purpose of linguistic reconstruction.

October 31, 2015

A new interpretation of Lachmann’s Law

Alessandro De Angelis, Annamaria Chilà

Page range: 89-111

Abstract

In Latin, a short vowel followed by a voiced plosive undergoes lengthening in the past participle (Lachmann’s law). Many of these ppp. show a nasal segment inherited from the present or perfect stem. In a few ppp. moving from a dental stem, such as pēnsus , spōnsus etc., such a spreading provides the condition for the formation of the cluster - ns - (<*- nd -+- to ). By observing the supposed omission of - n - in some of these verbal forms (e.g.: frēsus vs. frĕndo ), regardless of the effective status of the process, as opposed to its retention in other ones (e.g.: pēnsus vs. pĕndeo / pĕndo ), Latin speakers could have hypothesized that all ppp. forms of this group were originally provided with -n -, see e.g. frēsus <* frĕnsus , with loss of - n - and compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel. The ‘NS-lengthening’ rule might represent an early trigger of the vowel lengthening described by Lachmann. Such a lengthening analogically spread to other ppp., according to a connectionist lexical process.

October 31, 2015

Event-centrality and the pragmatics–semantics interface in Kikongo: From predication focus to progressive aspect and vice versa

Jasper De Kind, Sebastian Dom, Gilles-Maurice de Schryver, Koen Bostoen

Page range: 113-163

Abstract

Across Bantu, several polysemic markers expressing progressive aspect and so-called predication focus have been reported (Güldemann 2003; Hyman and Watters 1984). In this article, we examine two such markers in Kikongo (Bantu, H16), i.e. the fronted-infinitive and the locative-infinitive constructions. We provide an in-depth synchronic description of the pragmatic and syntactic behaviour of both verbal constructions and suggest a historical evolution for each of them. We evoke the term ‘event-centrality’ to cover the different uses of both constructions and suggest that the fronted-infinitive construction’s progressive meaning evolved from its use as predication focus marker, and vice versa, that the locative-infinitive construction’s predication focus meaning evolved from its use as a progressive marker.

October 31, 2015

The origin of the causative prefix in Rgyalrong languages and its implication for proto-Sino-Tibetan reconstruction

Guillaume Jacques

Page range: 165-198

Abstract

In this paper, the first detailed description of the two causative derivations in Japhug Rgyalrong is presented, based on a corpus of spontaneous speech. Two new pathways of grammaticalization are proposed. First, it is shown that the causative derives from a special type of denominal derivation. Second, a previously undocumented development from the causative to the abilitative derivation is described. Lastly, the implications of these grammaticalization hypotheses for the reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan morphology as a whole are evaluated.

October 31, 2015

Exaptation and phonological change

Kamil Kaźmierski

Page range: 199-217

Abstract

Looking at the fate of the concept of exaptation in historical linguistics, this article attempts an extension of exaptation from morphosyntactic change to phonological change. It argues that explicit recognition of the links between language change and other manifestations of Darwinian evolution can provide a context in which the use of this concept might be justified. First, an overview of the applications of exaptation in linguistics is provided (Section 2). Next, the historical data, that is the raisings of the close–mid long vowels as part of the Great Vowel Shift, as well as the lowerings of the short vowels as part of the Short Vowel Shift, adduced in this paper to verify the usefulness of exaptation in studying sound change are presented (Section 3). Consequently, two ways in which exaptation can be applied in the analysis of these data are presented: first (Section 4.1), a superficially evolutionary approach, which treats exaptation as a biologically inspired metaphorical label, and second (Section 4.2), a strictly evolutionary approach, which goes beyond metaphorical extensions of biological terms to linguistics, and which instead treats languages as truly evolutionary systems.

October 31, 2015

Reconstruction and idiomaticity: The origin of Russian verbless clauses reconsidered

Mikhail Kopotev

Page range: 219-243

Abstract

There are three types of Russian verbless clauses, which emerged through the ellipsis of the copula and other (full) verbs. This paper provides arguments against the hypothesis that they owe their existence to contact with Uralic languages. It argues that Finnic verbless clauses developed in parallel or even later than their Russian counterparts, and that the verbless clauses in Samoyedic languages, which preserve ancient Proto-Uralic features and use predicate nominal suffixes, differ structurally too much from those in Russian to represent likely models. It is argued that verbless clauses can naturally emerge when the meaning expressed by a frequent and semantically bleached verb is also included in the meaning of the phrase dependent on it. Other factors (contact-induced change, pragmatic and contextual factors) can support the emergence of – usually highly idiomatic – verbless clause constructions.

October 31, 2015

The historical phonology of Mawé glides

Fernando O. de Carvalho

Page range: 245-270

Abstract

This study aims at contributing to a more elaborate understanding of the historical phonology of Mawé (Tupí family, Brazil). The paper discusses two patterns of diachronic correspondence involving j and w , arguing, first, that the diachronic correspondence involving j is more insightfully viewed as stemming from the blocking of a regular process of change and, second, that the process of change underlying the correspondence of the glide w is better conceptualized as a dissimilatory process. A unified, conspirational account of these changes is proposed by invoking a constraint banning homorganic glide-vowel sequences that acted in two seemingly contradictory ways: blocking a change that targeted t in the proto-language and triggering a change that dissolved wu sequences. Finally, I discuss the singular character of the correspondence w > h and propose a hypothesis accounting for this reflex. Wider implications of these accounts are also considered, and the hypotheses and analyses advanced here are evaluated and compared to alternative accounts.

Reviews

October 31, 2015

David Willis, Christopher Lucas, and Anne Breitbarth: The history of negation in the languages of Europe and the Mediterranean

Giuliano Bernini

Page range: 271-277

October 31, 2015

Coulter H. George: Expressions of time in Ancient Greek

John Hewson

Page range: 279-285

October 31, 2015

Kim Gerdes, Eva Hajičová & Leo Wanner: Dependency Linguistics. Recent advances in linguistic theory using dependency structures

John Hewson

Page range: 287-296

October 31, 2015

IE.com: Websites relevant to Indo-European Historical Linguistics

Todd B. Krause

Page range: 297-305

About this journal

Objective
Folia Linguistica and Folia Linguistica Historica are the peer-reviewed journals of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE). Each volume consists of two issues of Folia Linguistica, one issue of Folia Linguistica Historica, and one Special Issue. Folia Linguistica is devoted to empirically based linguistic topics and covers all non-historical areas in the traditional disciplines of general linguistics. The journal welcomes work from various theoretical perspectives, but contributions should be directed towards a general linguistic audience, in other words the argument should be understandable to linguists with other theoretical backgrounds. The domain of interest of Folia Linguistica includes sociological, discoursal, computational and psychological aspects of language and linguistic theory. Other areas of central concern are grammaticalization, language typology, and variation within and across languages. Folia Linguistica Historica is exclusively devoted to empirically based diachronic linguistics of all language families (including both historical and comparative linguistics).

Topics
Folia Linguistica

non-historical areas in general linguistics
grammaticalization
language typology
language variation
language varieties
sociological, discoursal, computational and psychological aspects of language and linguistic theory

Folia Linguistica Historica

diachronic linguistics (including both historical and comparative linguistics)
linguistic reconstruction (both internal and external) and language phylogeny
computational approaches to linguistic variation and change

Article formats
Research articles, Review articles, Book reviews, Miscellanea (reports and discussion notes)