Appositive Possession in Ainu and Around the Pacific
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Animacy and Alienability: a Reconsideration of English
Running head: ANIMACY AND ALIENABILITY 1 Animacy and Alienability A Reconsideration of English Possession Jaimee Jones A Senior Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation in the Honors Program Liberty University Spring 2016 ANIMACY AND ALIENABILITY 2 Acceptance of Senior Honors Thesis This Senior Honors Thesis is accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation from the Honors Program of Liberty University. ______________________________ Jaeshil Kim, Ph.D. Thesis Chair ______________________________ Paul Müller, Ph.D. Committee Member ______________________________ Jeffrey Ritchey, Ph.D. Committee Member ______________________________ Brenda Ayres, Ph.D. Honors Director ______________________________ Date ANIMACY AND ALIENABILITY 3 Abstract Current scholarship on English possessive constructions, the s-genitive and the of- construction, largely ignores the possessive relationships inherent in certain English compound nouns. Scholars agree that, in general, an animate possessor predicts the s- genitive while an inanimate possessor predicts the of-construction. However, the current literature rarely discusses noun compounds, such as the table leg, which also express possessive relationships. However, pragmatically and syntactically, a compound cannot be considered as a true possessive construction. Thus, this paper will examine why some compounds still display possessive semantics epiphenomenally. The noun compounds that imply possession seem to exhibit relationships prototypical of inalienable possession such as body part, part whole, and spatial relationships. Additionally, the juxtaposition of the possessor and possessum in the compound construction is reminiscent of inalienable possession in other languages. Therefore, this paper proposes that inalienability, a phenomenon not thought to be relevant in English, actually imbues noun compounds whose components exhibit an inalienable relationship with possessive semantics. -
The Languages of Amazonia Patience Epps University of Texas at Austin
Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America Volume 11 Article 1 Issue 1 Volume 11, Issue 1 6-2013 The Languages of Amazonia Patience Epps University of Texas at Austin Andrés Pablo Salanova University of Ottawa Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti Part of the Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Epps, Patience and Salanova, Andrés Pablo (2013). "The Languages of Amazonia," Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America: Vol. 11: Iss. 1, Article 1, 1-28. Available at: http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti/vol11/iss1/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Trinity. It has been accepted for inclusion in Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Trinity. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Epps and Salanova: The Languages of Amazonia ARTICLE The Languages of Amazonia Patience Epps University of Texas at Austin Andrés Pablo Salanova University of Ottawa Introduction Amazonia is a linguistic treasure-trove. In this region, defined roughly as the area of the Amazon and Orinoco basins, the diversity of languages is immense, with some 300 indigenous languages corresponding to over 50 distinct ‘genealogical’ units (see Rodrigues 2000) – language families or language isolates for which no relationship to any other has yet been conclusively demonstrated; as distinct, for example, as Japanese and Spanish, or German and Basque (see section 12 below). Yet our knowledge of these languages has long been minimal, so much so that the region was described only a decade ago as a “linguistic black box" (Grinevald 1998:127). -
Toward a Shared Syntax for Shifted Indexicals and Logophoric Pronouns
Toward a Shared Syntax for Shifted Indexicals and Logophoric Pronouns Mark Baker Rutgers University April 2018 Abstract: I argue that indexical shift is more like logophoricity and complementizer agreement than most previous semantic accounts would have it. In particular, there is evidence of a syntactic requirement at work, such that the antecedent of a shifted “I” must be a superordinate subject, just as the antecedent of a logophoric pronoun or the goal of complementizer agreement must be. I take this to be evidence that the antecedent enters into a syntactic control relationship with a null operator in all three constructions. Comparative data comes from Magahi and Sakha (for indexical shift), Yoruba (for logophoric pronouns), and Lubukusu (for complementizer agreement). 1. Introduction Having had an office next to Lisa Travis’s for 12 formative years, I learned many things from her that still influence my thinking. One is her example of taking semantic notions, such as aspect and event roles, and finding ways to implement them in syntactic structure, so as to advance the study of less familiar languages and topics.1 In that spirit, I offer here some thoughts about how logophoricity and indexical shift, topics often discussed from a more or less semantic point of view, might have syntactic underpinnings—and indeed, the same syntactic underpinnings. On an impressionistic level, it would not seem too surprising for logophoricity and indexical shift to have a common syntactic infrastructure. Canonical logophoricity as it is found in various West African languages involves using a special pronoun inside the finite CP complement of a verb to refer to the subject of that verb. -
Spanish and P'urhepecha: Mutual Influences in an Ongoing Case of Language Contact in Central Western Mexico
SPANISH AND P’URHEPECHA: MUTUAL INFLUENCES IN AN ONGOING CASE OF LANGUAGE CONTACT IN CENTRAL WESTERN MEXICO Martha Mendoza* * Associate Professor of Linguistics & Spanish. Florida Atlantic University Correo electrónico: [email protected] * Mendoza, Martha. “Spanish and P’urhepecha: Mutual Influences in an Ongoing Case of Lan- guage Contact in Central Western Mexico”. Thesaurus 58(2016): 156-179. Web. 156 n.o 58, octubre 2016 - abril 2017 Abstract Spanish in Mexico is in contact with numerous indigenous languages still spoken in its territory. Such is the case of P’urhepecha in the state of Michoacán, a language isolate part of the sixty eight indigenous language groups remaining in the country today, with as many as 125 000 speakers. Both Spanish and P’urhepecha have been influenced by each other’s presence through centuries of close contact. Over time, Spanish has been modified mostly with respect to its lexicon, while P’urhepecha has experienced both lexical and grammatical influences. Examples of the lexical in- fluence of P’urhepecha on the Spanish of Michoacán are nouns likehuarache ‘san- dal’, tacuche ‘suit’, and corunda ‘tamale’. Examples of the massive lexical influence of Spanish on P’urhepecha are words such as pensarini ‘think’ < Spanish pensar, butella ‘bottle’, mesa ‘table’, telebisioni ‘television’, etc. To this date, however, the contact between Spanish and P’urhepecha has not yet been sufficiently investigat- ed. Thus, the present study provides an overview of the history and current state of the contact between these two -
Inalienable Possession in Swedish and Danish – a Diachronic Perspective 27
FOLIA SCANDINAVICA VOL. 23 POZNAŃ 20 17 DOI: 10.1515/fsp - 2017 - 000 5 INALIENABLE POSSESSI ON IN SWEDISH AND DANISH – A DIACHRONIC PERSP ECTIVE 1 A LICJA P IOTROWSKA D OMINIKA S KRZYPEK Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań A BSTRACT . In this paper we discuss the alienability splits in two Mainland Scandinavian language s, Swedish and Danish, in a diachronic context. Although it is not universally acknowledged that such splits exist in modern Scandinavian languages, many nouns typically included in inalienable structures such as kinship terms, body part nouns and nouns de scribing culturally important items show different behaviour from those considered alienable. The differences involve the use of (reflexive) possessive pronouns vs. the definite article, which differentiates the Scandinavian languages from e.g. English. As the definite article is a relatively new arrival in the Scandinavian languages, we look at when the modern pattern could have evolved by a close examination of possessive structures with potential inalienables in Old Swedish and Old Danish. Our results re veal that to begin with, inalienables are usually bare nouns and come to be marked with the definite article in the course of its grammaticalization. 1. INTRODUCTION One of the striking differences between the North Germanic languages Swedish and Danish on the one hand and English on the other is the possibility to use definite forms of nouns without a realized possessive in inalienable possession constructions. Consider the following examples: 1 The work on this paper was funded by the grant Diachrony of article systems in Scandi - navian languages , UMO - 2015/19/B/HS2/00143, from the National Science Centre, Poland. -
'Appositive Possession in Ainu and Around the Pacific'
Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2021 Appositive possession in Ainu and around the Pacific Bugaeva, Anna ; Nichols, Johanna ; Bickel, Balthasar Abstract: Some languages around the Pacific have multiple possessive classes of alienable constructions using appositive nouns or classifiers. This pattern differs from the most common kind of alienable/i- nalienable distinction, which involves marking, usually affixal, on the possessum, and has only one class of alienables. The Japanese language isolate Ainu has possessive marking that is reminiscent of the Circum-Pacific pattern. It is distinctive, however, in that the possessor is coded not as a dependent in an NP but as an argument in a finite clause, and the appositive word is a verb. This paper givesa first comprehensive, typologically grounded description of Ainu possession and reconstructs the pattern that must have been standard when Ainu was still the daily language of a large speech community; Ainu then had multiple alienable class constructions. We report a cross-linguistic survey expanding pre- vious coverage of the appositive type and show how Ainu fits in. We split alienable/inalienable into two different phenomena: argument structure (with types based on possessibility: optionally possessible, obligatorily possessed, and non-possessible) and valence (alienable, inalienable classes). Valence-changing operations are derived alienability and derived inalienability. Our survey classifies the possessive systems of languages in these terms. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2021-2079 Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-204338 Journal Article Published Version The following work is licensed under a Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License. -
Can Grammar Define Similarity of Human Natural Languages?
American Journal of Applied Sciences Original Research Paper Can Grammar Define Similarity of Human Natural Languages? 1Vladimir Nikolaevich Polyakov, 2Ivan Sergeevich Anisimov and 3Elena Andreevna Makarova 1NUST, “MISIS”, Moscow, Russia 2“Yandex”, LLC, Moscow, Russia 3Institute of Linguistics of RAS, Moscow, Russia Article history Abstract: The aim of the present study is to show that similarity of human Received: 11-06-2016 natural languages can be conveyed not only by phonetic data, but also by Revised: 03-10-2016 grammar. The paper regards the largest typological database WALS and its Accepted: 05-09-2016 possibilities in the sphere of genealogic relationship of languages. Using the method of two-objective optimization and data mining, which is new Corresponding Author: Vladimir Nikolaevich Polyakov for linguistic studies, we show that grammatical (structural) data, as well as NUST “MISIS”, Moscow, phonetic data, can deliver information on the similarity of languages. Russia Language isolates and micro-families do not have genealogic relatives Email: [email protected] based on phonetic information, but they do have genealogic relatives based on grammar information. Keywords: WALS, Two-Objective Optimization, Data Mining, Language Isolates, Micro-Families, Similarity, Grammar Introduction became the source of information. WALS, being the result of work of 55 specialists, was the first feature atlas on a The main source of information for the present study world-wide scale, which made it possible to compare is World Atlas of Language Structures-WALS unrelated languages all over the world. (Haspelmath et al ., 2005). It is the world’s biggest The present study uses the data WALS in an attempt database describing structural properties of languages. -
The Ten Tonemes of Ticuna, an Amazonian Oddity
January 2018 – Talk abstract for AMAZÓNICAS VII The ten tonemes of Ticuna, an Amazonian oddity Ticuna is a language isolate spoken by an approximate 50,000 ethnic Ticunas in Western Amazonia, across the borders of Peru, Colombia and Brazil. The language’s unusually rich toneme inventory, consisting of 10 contrastive units in stressed syllables and 5 in unstressed syllables, makes it exceptional from both a typological and an areal point of view. Except for epenthetic syllables, each and every Ticuna syllable is lexically attached one toneme – which in specific morphosyntactic contexts may automatically alternate with some other toneme. No complex sandhi-like realization rules apply: each toneme, whether lexical or morphosyntactically conditioned, is always realized as its corresponding tone in the syllable it belongs to. A relatively straightforward phonological analysis of firsthand data from the San Martín de Amacayacu (SMA; Colombia) variety collected in 2015-2017 yields the following toneme inventory: Toneme inventory in stressed syllables in unstressed syllables 36 pitch 5 pitch 52 — 4 — 34 — 3 — 43 — 1 — 33 — creaky voice phonation1 31 — 22 — 21 — terminal creaky voice phonation1 initial creaky voice — TABLE 1 | SMA Ticuna toneme inventory (N.B.: 6 = highest F0; 1 = lowest F0) A comparably rich analysis probably holds for other Ticuna varieties, among others Caballococha and Cushillococha (Peru) Ticuna (Anderson, 1959, 1962; Skilton, pers. com.). In today’s SMA Ticuna at the very least, there seems to be no way to account for minimal pairs (such as those presented in APPENDIX, TABLE 2) with a more economic toneme inventory (such as Montes, 1995’s pioneering three-toneme analysis based on SMA Ticuna data collected from 1984 onwards). -
A Grammatical Description of Warao Imperatives: Formal Brevity and Morphological Complexity
65 Cadernos de Etnolingüística A grammatical description of Warao imperatives: Formal brevity and morphological complexity Allegra Robertsona and Konrad Rybkab aUniversity of California, Berkeley, bMusée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac Abstract Warao is a morphologically complex language isolate, spoken in Guyana and Venezuela. This paper focuses on the critically endangered Guyanese dialect. First-hand data are used to provide a descriptive analysis of Warao imperative constructions, identify their grammatical features and illocutionary forces, and clarify relevant distinctions concerning telicity. The Warao imperative mood is composed of canonical (2nd singular and 2nd plural) and non-canonical (1st person and 3rd person) imperatives, which are expressed by a set of person-specific verbal suffixes. Both canonical and non-canonical imperatives are negated by the same standard negator. These imperatives commonly express instructions, requests, invitations, warnings, prohibitions, and optatives. As compared to verb forms in other moods, Warao imperatives are syntactically and formally simple; however, the imperative suffixes attach to the morphologically complex Warao verb, thus adding complexity to the compositional meaning of the imperative. In addition to bearing numerous other affixes, the Warao imperatives are often marked as telic. The common marking of telicity in the imperative has led to the reassessment of previous analyses by Osborn (1959) and Romero-Figueroa (2003). The ways in which Warao imperatives adhere to and differ from cross-linguistic trends are also explored. This paper draws on Speech Act Theory, as well as Dixon’s Basic Linguistic Theory more broadly. Keywords: Warao, imperative, morphology, telicity, indigenous language documentation 1 Introduction Imperative constructions are a typologically interesting category of language for several reasons, including their tendency toward simplicity of form. -
University of California Santa Cruz NO SOMOS ANIMALES
University of California Santa Cruz NO SOMOS ANIMALES: INDIGENOUS SURVIVAL AND PERSEVERANCE IN 19TH CENTURY SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in HISTORY with emphases in AMERICAN STUDIES and LATIN AMERICAN & LATINO STUDIES by Martin Adam Rizzo September 2016 The Dissertation of Martin Adam Rizzo is approved: ________________________________ Professor Lisbeth Haas, Chair _________________________________ Professor Amy Lonetree _________________________________ Professor Matthew D. O’Hara ________________________________ Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright ©by Martin Adam Rizzo 2016 Table of Contents List of Figures iv Abstract vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Chapter 1: “First were taken the children, and then the parents followed” 24 Chapter 2: “The diverse nations within the mission” 98 Chapter 3: “We are not animals” 165 Chapter 4: Captain Coleto and the Rise of the Yokuts 215 Chapter 5: ”Not finding anything else to appropriate...” 261 Chapter 6: “They won’t try to kill you if they think you’re already dead” 310 Conclusion 370 Appendix A: Indigenous Names 388 Bibliography 398 iii List of Figures 1.1: Indigenous tribal territories 33 1.2: Contemporary satellite view 36 1.3: Total number baptized by tribe 46 1.4: Approximation of Santa Cruz mountain tribal territories 48 1.5: Livestock reported near Mission Santa Cruz 75 1.6: Agricultural yields at Mission Santa Cruz by year 76 1.7: Baptisms by month, through -
The Pragmatics and Syntax of German Inalienable Possession Constructions University of Georgia1
The Pragmatics and Syntax of German Inalienable Possession Constructions 1 2 VERA LEE-SCHOENFELD , GABRIELE DIEWALD University of Georgia1; Leibniz Universität Hannover2 1 The Phenomenon and Previous Syntactic/Pragmatic Analyses The prototypical inalienable possession construction in German has a dative (DAT)-marked external possessor: (0) Bello hat mir die Hand geleckt. Bello has me.DAT the hand licked ‘Bello licked my hand.’ This is an instance of external possession because the understood possessor of the body part, the possessum, is expressed outside of the nominal phrase containing the possessum, showing up as 1 an object pronoun (mir ‘me.DAT) in the verbal argument domain. Notice that the literal translation of the dative does not work in English. This is because English generally prefers internal possessors and thus makes use of the possessive pronoun my rather than the object pronoun me in examples like (0) (see e.g. Haspelmath 2001, König and Gast 2012). In German inalienable possession constructions with a PP-embedded possessum, there is considerable variation between the prototypical possessor dative construction and four others, so that there are a total of five different construction types: external possession with a dative- marked possessor (1a), external possession with an accusative (ACC)-marked possessor (1b), internal possession, with a genitive (GEN)-marked possessor (2), and doubly-marked possession, with both external and internal possessor, where the external possessor is again either dative- marked (3a) or accusative-marked (3b).2 (1) a. Bello hat mir in die Hand gebissen. Bello has me.DAT in the hand bitten ‘Bello bit me in the hand.’ b. -
Appositive Possession in Ainu and Around the Pacific
Appositive possession in Ainu and around the Pacific Anna Bugaeva1,2, Johanna Nichols3,4,5, and Balthasar Bickel6 1 Tokyo University of Science, 2 National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, Tokyo, 3 University of California, Berkeley, 4 University of Helsinki, 5 Higher School of Economics, Moscow, 6 University of Zü rich Abstract: Some languages around the Pacific have multiple possessive classes of alienable constructions using appositive nouns or classifiers. This pattern differs from the most common kind of alienable/inalienable distinction, which involves marking, usually affixal, on the possessum and has only one class of alienables. The language isolate Ainu has possessive marking that is reminiscent of the Circum-Pacific pattern. It is distinctive, however, in that the possessor is coded not as a dependent in an NP but as an argument in a finite clause, and the appositive word is a verb. This paper gives a first comprehensive, typologically grounded description of Ainu possession and reconstructs the pattern that must have been standard when Ainu was still the daily language of a large speech community; Ainu then had multiple alienable class constructions. We report a cross-linguistic survey expanding previous coverage of the appositive type and show how Ainu fits in. We split alienable/inalienable into two different phenomena: argument structure (with types based on possessibility: optionally possessible, obligatorily possessed, and non-possessible) and valence (alienable, inalienable classes). Valence-changing operations are derived alienability and derived inalienability. Our survey classifies the possessive systems of languages in these terms. Keywords: Pacific Rim, Circum-Pacific, Ainu, possessive, appositive, classifier Correspondence: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] 2 1.