The Grammar of Words
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David Suchoff Family Resemblances: Ludwig Wittgenstein As a Jewish Philosopher the Admonition to Silence with Which Wittgenstein
David Suchoff Family Resemblances: Ludwig Wittgenstein as a Jewish Philosopher The admonition to silence with which Wittgenstein ended the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922) also marks the starting point for the emer- gence of his Jewish philosophical voice. Karl Kraus provides an instructive contrast: as a writer well known to Wittgenstein, Kraus’s outspoken and aggressive ridicule of “jüdeln” or “mauscheln” –the actual or alleged pronunciation of German with a Jewish or Yiddish accent – defined a “self-fashioning” of Jewish identity – from German and Hebrew in this case – that modeled false alternatives in philosophic terms.1 Kraus pre- sented Wittgenstein with an either-or choice between German and Jewish identity, while engaging in a witty but also unwitting illumination of the interplay between apparently exclusive alternatives that were linguistically influenced by the other’s voice. As Kraus became a touchstone for Ger- man Jewish writers from Franz Kafka to Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, he also shed light on the situation that allowed Wittgenstein to develop his own non-essentialist notion of identity, as the term “family resemblance” emerged from his revaluation of the discourse around Judaism. This transition from The False Prison, as David Pears calls Wittgenstein’s move from the Tractatus to the Philosophical Investiga- tions, was also a transformation of the opposition between German and Jewish “identities,” and a recovery of the multiple differences from which such apparently stable entities continually draw in their interconnected forms of life.2 “I’ll teach you differences,” the line from King Lear that Wittgenstein mentioned to M. O’C. Drury as “not bad” as a “motto” for the Philo- sophical Investigations, in this way represents Wittgenstein’s assertion of a German Jewish philosophic position. -
Fertility and Modernity*
Fertility and Modernity Enrico Spolaore Romain Wacziarg Tufts University and NBER UCLA and NBER May 2021 Abstract We investigate the determinants of the fertility decline in Europe from 1830 to 1970 using a newly constructed dataset of linguistic distances between European regions. We …nd that the fertility decline resulted from a gradual di¤usion of new fertility behavior from French-speaking regions to the rest of Europe. We observe that societies with higher education, lower infant mortality, higher urbanization, and higher population density had lower levels of fertility during the 19th and early 20th century. However, the fertility decline took place earlier and was initially larger in communities that were culturally closer to the French, while the fertility transition spread only later to societies that were more distant from the cultural frontier. This is consistent with a process of social in‡uence, whereby societies that were linguistically and culturally closer to the French faced lower barriers to learning new information and adopting new behavior and attitudes regarding fertility control. Spolaore: Department of Economics, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155-6722, [email protected]. Wacziarg: UCLA Anderson School of Management, 110 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles CA 90095, [email protected]. We thank Quamrul Ashraf, Guillaume Blanc, John Brown, Matteo Cervellati, David De La Croix, Gilles Duranton, Alan Fernihough, Raphael Franck, Oded Galor, Raphael Godefroy, Michael Huberman, Yannis Ioannides, Noel Johnson, David Le Bris, Monica Martinez-Bravo, Jacques Melitz, Deborah Menegotto, Omer Moav, Luigi Pascali, Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, Nico Voigtländer, Joachim Voth, Susan Watkins, David Yanagizawa-Drott as well as participants at numerous seminars and conferences for useful comments. -
Noun Layers in Old English: Mismatches and Asym- Metry in Lexical Derivation
Noun Layers in Old English: Mismatches and Asym- metry in Lexical Derivation Javier Martín Arista, University of La Rioja Abstract The aim of the article is to explain the form-function mismatches that occur in the formation of Old English nouns. The analysis identifies pairs of derived nouns that share a lexemic root and represent instances of near-synonymy. Two types of mismatch are found in the formation of nouns, namely convergent derivation due to the competition of suffixes and convergent derivation resulting from the competition of bases. Four types of asymmetry can be distinguished: on the grounds of process, category, productivity and recursivity. The existence of mismatches and the associated asymmetry indicate two waves of word-formation that configure two layers in the lexicon of Old English. Keywords: Old English, word-formation, lexical layers, mismatch, asymmetry 1. Introduction This article deals with lexical layering in Old English in terms of the coexistence of the outcome of different processes of word-formation and the form-function mismatches that arise in paradigmatic analysis. 1 The departure point for this research is the identification of such mismatches in pairs of nominal derivatives that share a lexemic root and convey a similar meaning while showing formal differences attributable to morphological processes of derivation. A mismatch in lexical derivation, therefore, is said to take place when a change in form resulting from a derivational process is not matched by a change in meaning. Two derivational processes are considered, namely affixation and zero derivation. Whereas the former involves the attachment of derivational prefixes or suffixes, as bēn ‘prayer’ (< bannan ‘to summon, to command’) and handlung ‘handling’ (< hand ‘hand’) respectively, the latter is characterized by the absence of any explicit morphemic ending, as is the case with fær ‘movement’ (< faran ‘to go’), or by the only presence of the inflectional morpheme required by the change in lexical 1 This research has been funded through the project FFI2011-29532. -
Downloaded from Brill.Com09/25/2021 11:36:06AM Via Free Access Hybridity Versus Revivability 41
HYBRIDITY VERSUS REVIVABILITY: MULTIPLE CAUSATION, FORMS AND PATTERNS Ghil‘ad Zuckermann Associate Professor and ARC Discovery Fellow in Linguistics The University of Queensland, Australia Abstract The aim of this article is to suggest that due to the ubiquitous multiple causation, the revival of a no-longer spoken language is unlikely without cross-fertilization from the revivalists’ mother tongue(s). Thus, one should expect revival efforts to result in a language with a hybridic genetic and typological character. The article highlights salient morphological constructions and categories, illustrating the difficulty in determining a single source for the grammar of Israeli, somewhat misleadingly a.k.a. ‘Modern Hebrew’. The European impact in these features is apparent inter alia in structure, semantics or productivity. Multiple causation is manifested in the Congruence Principle, according to which if a feature exists in more than one contributing language, it is more likely to persist in the emerging language. Consequently, the reality of linguistic genesis is far more complex than a simple family tree system allows. ‘Revived’ languages are unlikely to have a single parent. The multisourced nature of Israeli and the role of the Congruence Principle in its genesis have implications for historical linguistics, language planning and the study of language, culture and identity. “Linguistic and social factors are closely interrelated in the development of language change. Explanations which are confined to one or the other aspect, no matter how well constructed, will fail to account for the rich body of regularities that can be observed in empirical studies of language behavior.” Weinreich, Labov & Herzog 1968: 188. -
On Degrammaticalization: Controversial Points and Possible Explanations
Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2015 On degrammaticalization: controversial points and possible explanations Viti, Carlotta Abstract: This paper discusses the problem of degrammaticalization, that is, the exceptions to the uni- directionality of grammaticalization. After analyzing the criteria that allow us to distinguish between various instances of counter-directional change, two principles underlying degrammaticalization are iden- tified; one is related to the type of language and the other to the type of target structures inwhich degrammaticalization occurs. Firstly, the targets of degrammaticalization are usually closed-class parts of speech with an abstract semantic component. Secondly, the languages in which counter-directional grammatical changes occur turn out to be deprived of an elaborate fusional morphology. These findings may also have an impact on the theoretical conception of grammaticalization, some of whose defini- tional properties are discussed. The paper ends with a discussion of a more controversial point, namely, counter-directional changes by folk etymology rather than by etymology proper. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/flin-2015-0014 Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-117203 Journal Article Published Version Originally published at: Viti, Carlotta (2015). On degrammaticalization: controversial points and possible explanations. Folia Linguistica, 49(2):381-419. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/flin-2015-0014 Folia Linguistica 2015; 49(2): 381–419 Carlotta Viti* On degrammaticalization: Controversial points and possible explanations DOI 10.1515/flin-2015-0014 Submitted November 19, 2014; Revision invited November 2, 2014; Revision received March 6, 2015; Accepted May 14, 2015 Abstract: This paper discusses the problem of degrammaticalization, that is, the exceptions to the unidirectionality of grammaticalization. -
BUILDING a LEXICAL FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR for TURKISH By
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Sabanci University Research Database BUILDING A LEXICAL FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR FOR TURKISH by OZLEM¨ C¸ETINO˙ GLU˘ Submitted to the Graduate School of Engineering and Natural Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Sabancı University June 2009 BUILDING A LEXICAL FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR FOR TURKISH APPROVED BY Prof. Dr. Kemal Oflazer .............................................. (Thesis Supervisor) Assoc. Prof. Dr. Aslı G¨oksel .............................................. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Berrin Yanıko˘glu .............................................. Prof. Dr. Cem Say .............................................. Assoc. Prof. Dr. H¨usn¨uYenig¨un .............................................. DATE OF APPROVAL: .............................................. c Ozlem¨ C¸etino˘glu 2009 All Rights Reserved to my parents Acknowledgments I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Kemal Oflazer, for his guidance and advices not only for this research but also for academic life in general. I thank Prof. Dr. Cem Say, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Berrin Yanıko˘glu, Assoc. Prof. Dr. H¨usn¨uYenig¨un and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Aslı G¨oksel for their kind attendance to the thesis committee and for their valuable contributions. My sincere gratitude goes to Prof. Dr. Miriam Butt for patiently answering my questions and for her enormous help in linguistics. I would also like to thank all Par- Gram members for the insightful discussions and comments. I learned a lot from them. Onsel¨ Arma˘gan and Tuba G¨um¨u¸s helped me in integrating their work into my system. I thank them for their efforts. Thanks to everyone at FENS 2014 for creating a fun place to work. -
Philological Sciences. Linguistics” / Journal of Language Relationship Issue 3 (2010)
Российский государственный гуманитарный университет Russian State University for the Humanities RGGU BULLETIN № 5/10 Scientific Journal Series “Philological Sciences. Linguistics” / Journal of Language Relationship Issue 3 (2010) Moscow 2010 ВЕСТНИК РГГУ № 5/10 Научный журнал Серия «Филологические науки. Языкознание» / «Вопросы языкового родства» Выпуск 3 (2010) Москва 2010 УДК 81(05) ББК 81я5 Главный редактор Е.И. Пивовар Заместитель главного редактора Д.П. Бак Ответственный секретарь Б.Г. Власов Главный художник В.В. Сурков Редакционный совет серии «Филологические науки. Языкознание» / «Вопросы языкового родства» Председатель Вяч. Вс. Иванов (Москва – Лос-Анджелес) М. Е. Алексеев (Москва) В. Блажек (Брно) У. Бэкстер (Анн Арбор) В. Ф. Выдрин (Санкт-Петербург) М. Гелл-Манн (Санта Фе) А. Б. Долгопольский (Хайфа) Ф. Кортландт (Лейден) А. Лубоцкий (Лейден) Редакционная коллегия серии: В. А. Дыбо (главный редактор) Г. С. Старостин (заместитель главного редактора) Т. А. Михайлова (ответственный секретарь) К. В. Бабаев С. Г. Болотов А. В. Дыбо О. А. Мудрак В. Е. Чернов ISSN 1998-6769 © Российский государственный гуманитарный университет, 2010 УДК 81(05) ББК 81я5 Вопросы языкового родства: Международный научный журнал / Рос. гос. гуманитар. ун-т; Рос. Акад. наук. Ин-т языкознания; под ред. В. А. Дыбо. ― М., 2010. ― № 3. ― X + 176 с. ― (Вестник РГГУ: Научный журнал; Серия «Филологические науки. Языко- знание»; № 05/10). Journal of Language Relationship: International Scientific Periodical / Russian State Uni- versity for the Humanities; Russian Academy of Sciences. Institute of Linguistics; Ed. by V. A. Dybo. ― Moscow, 2010. ― Nº 3. ― X + 176 p. ― (RSUH Bulletin: Scientific Periodical; Linguistics Series; Nº 05/10). ISSN 1998-6769 http ://journal.nostratic.ru [email protected] Дополнительные знаки: С. -
Highlights from Three Language Families in Southwest China
Highlights from three Language Families in Southwest China Matthias Gerner RFLR Monographs Matthias Gerner Highlights from three Language Families in Southwest China RFLR Monographs Volume 3 Matthias Gerner Highlights from three Language Families in Southwest China Burmese-Lolo, Tai-Kadai, Miao Research Foundation Language and Religion e-Book ISBN 978-3-947306-91-6 e-Book DOI https://doi.org/10.23772/9783947306916 Print ISBN 978-3-947306-90-9 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie and available in the Internet at https://www.dnb.de. © 2019 Research Foundation Language and Religion Duisburg, Germany https://www.rflr.org Printing and binding: Print Simply GmbH, Frankfurt Printed in Germany IX Acknowledgement God created rare language phenomena like those hidden in the Burmese-Lolo, Tai-Kadai and Miao languages which are the subject of this monograph (Proverbs 25:2). I am grateful to Emil Reschke and Siegfried Lechner of Research Foundation Language and Religion for their kind assistance. The following native speakers have provided helpful discussion: Michael Mǎhǎi 马海, Zhū Wén Xù 朱文旭, Hú Sùhúa 胡素华, Āyù Jĭpō 阿育几坡, Shí Défù 石德富, Zhāng Yǒngxiáng 张永祥, Wú Zhèngbiāo 吴正彪, Xióng Yùyǒu 熊玉有, Zhāng Yǒng 张勇, Wú Shìhuá 吴世华, Shí Lín 石林, Yáng Chéngxīng 杨成星, Lǐ Xùliàn 李旭练. The manuscript received feedback from colleagues who commented on the data presented at eleven international conferences between 2006 and 2016. Thanks are due to Jens Weigel for the cover design and to Jason Kline for proofreading the manuscript. X Preface The Burmese-Lolo, Tai-Kadai, Miao-Yao and Chinese languages form a loose Sprachbund in Southwest China with hundreds of languages coexisting and assimilating to each other. -
Inflectional Morphology in Optimality Theory
Inflectional Morphology in Optimality Theory A Dissertation Presented by Zheng Xu to The Graduate School in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics Stony Brook University August 2007 Copyright by Zheng Xu August 2007 Stony Brook University The Graduate School Zheng Xu We, the dissertation committee for the above candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy degree, hereby recommend acceptance of this dissertation Mark Aronoff, Professor of Linguistics Robert D. Hoberman, Professor of Linguistics Alice C. Harris, Professor of Linguistics James P. Blevins, Assistant Director of Research Research Center for English and Applied Linguistics University of Cambridge This dissertation is accepted by the Graduate School Lawrence Martin Dean of the Graduate School ii Abstract of the Dissertation Inflectional Morphology in Optimality Theory by Zheng Xu Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics Stony Brook University 2007 This dissertation proposes an inferential-realizational model of inflectional morphology (Matthews 1972, Zwicky 1985, Anderson 1992, Aronoff 1994, Stump 2001) within the framework of Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993). Following Russell 1995, Yip 1998, Hyman 2003, MacBride 2004, I assume that the phonological information of inflectional affixes is introduced through realization constraints (RC) which associate abstract morphosyntactic or semantic feature values with phonological forms. I propose that rankings of realization constraints conform to the specificity condition, i.e. a constraint realizing a more specific morphosyntactic feature value set outranks a less specific realization constraint. I also propose that the unmarked situation in which one feature value is realized by one form (Wurzel 1989) is encoded in two universal and violable markedness constraints, *FEATURE SPLIT which bans the realization of a feature value by more than one form and *FEATURE FUSION which bans a form realizing more than one feature value. -
Unsupervised and Phonologically Controlled Interpolation of Austrian German Language Varieties for Speech Synthesis
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Speech Communication 72 (2015) 176–193 www.elsevier.com/locate/specom Unsupervised and phonologically controlled interpolation of Austrian German language varieties for speech synthesis Markus Toman a,⇑, Michael Pucher a, Sylvia Moosmu¨ller b, Dietmar Schabus a a Telecommunications Research Center Vienna (FTW), Donau-City-Str 1, 3rd floor, 1220 Vienna, Austria b Austrian Academy of Sciences – Acoustics Research Institute (ARI), Wohllebengasse 12-14, 1st Floor, 1040 Vienna, Austria Received 10 December 2014; received in revised form 18 May 2015; accepted 4 June 2015 Available online 12 June 2015 Abstract This paper presents an unsupervised method that allows for gradual interpolation between language varieties in statistical parametric speech synthesis using Hidden Semi-Markov Models (HSMMs). We apply dynamic time warping using Kullback–Leibler divergence on two sequences of HSMM states to find adequate interpolation partners. The method operates on state sequences with explicit durations and also on expanded state sequences where each state corresponds to one feature frame. In an intelligibility and dialect rating subjective evaluation of synthesized test sentences, we show that our method can generate intermediate varieties for three Austrian dialects (Viennese, Innervillgraten, Bad Goisern). We also provide an extensive phonetic analysis of the interpolated samples. The analysis includes input-switch rules, which cover historically different phonological developments of the dialects versus the standard language; and phonological processes, which are phonetically motivated, gradual, and common to all varieties. We present an extended method which linearly interpolates phonological processes but uses a step function for input-switch rules. Our evaluation shows that the integra- tion of this kind of phonological knowledge improves dialect authenticity judgment of the synthesized speech, as performed by dialect speakers. -
Linguistics 1A Morphology 2 Complex Words
Linguistics 1A Morphology 2 Complex words In the previous lecture we noted that words can be classified into different categories, such as verbs, nouns, adjectives, prepositions, determiners, and so on. We can make another distinction between word types as well, a distinction that cuts across these categories. Consider the verbs, nouns and adjectives in (1)-(3), respectively. It will probably be intuitively clear that the words in the (b) examples are complex in a way that the words in the (a) examples are not, and not just because the words in the (b) examples are, on the whole, longer. (1) a. to walk, to dance, to laugh, to kiss b. to purify, to enlarge, to industrialize, to head-hunt (2) a. house, corner, zebra b. collection, builder, sea horse (3) c. green, old, sick d. regional, washable, honey-sweet The words in the (a) examples in (1)-(3) do not have any internal structure. It does not seem to make much sense to say that walk , for example, consists of the smaller parts wa and lk . But for the words in the (b) examples this is different. These are built up from smaller parts that each contribute their own distinct bit of meaning to the whole. For example, builder consists of the verbal part build with its associated meaning, and the part –er that contributes a ‘doer’ reading, just as it does in kill-er , sell-er , doubt-er , and so on. Similarly, washable consists of wash and a part –able that contributes a meaning aspect that might be described loosely as ‘can be done’, as it does in refundable , testable , verifiable etc. -
Nature Redacted September 7,2017 Certified By
The Universality of Concord by Isa Kerem Bayirli BA, Middle East Technical University (2010) MA, Bogazigi University (2012) Submitted to the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics at the MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY September 2017 2017 Isa Kerem Bayirli. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part in any medium now known or hereafter created. Signature redacted Author......................... ...... ............................. Departmeyf)/Linguistics and Philosophy Sic ;nature redacted September 7,2017 Certified by...... David Pesetsky Ferrari P. Ward Professor of Linguistics g nThesis Supervisor redacted Accepted by.................. Signature ...................................... David Pesetsky Lead, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY SEP 2 6 2017 LIBRARIES ARCHiVES The Universality of Concord by Isa Kerem Bayirh Submitted to the Deparment of Linguistics and Philosophy on September 7, 2017 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics Abstract In this dissertation, we develop and defend a universal theory of concord (i.e. feature sharing between a head noun and the modifying adjectives). When adjectives in a language show concord with the noun they modify, concord morphology usually involves the full set of features of that noun (e.g. gender, number and case). However, there are also languages in which concord targets only a subset of morphosyntactic features of the head noun. We first observe that feature combinations that enter into concord in such languages are not random.