| 1. |
- Börstell, Carl, 1987-
(författare)
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Object marking in the signed modality : Verbal and nominal strategies in Swedish Sign Language and other sign languages
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this dissertation, I investigate various aspects of object marking and how these manifest themselves in the signed modality. The main focus is on Swedish Sign Language (SSL), the national sign language of Sweden, which is the topic of investigation in all five studies. Two of the studies adopt a comparative perspective, including other sign languages as well. The studies comprise a range of data, including corpus data, elicited production, and acceptability judgments, and combine quantitative and qualitative methods in the analyses.The dissertation begins with an overview of the topics of valency, argument structure, and object marking, primarily from a spoken language perspective. Here, the interactions between semantics and morphosyntax are presented from a typological perspective, introducing differential object marking as a key concept. With regard to signed language, object marking is discussed in terms of both verbal and nominal strategies.Verbal strategies of object marking among sign languages include directional verbs, object handshape classifiers, and embodied perspective in signing. The first study investigates the use of directionality and object handshapes as object marking strategies in Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL), Israeli Sign Language (ISL), and SSL. It is shown that the strategies generally display different alignments in terms of the types of objects targeted, which is uniform across languages, but that directionality is much more marginal in ABSL than in the other two languages. Also, we see that there is a connection between object marking strategies and the animacy of the object, and that the strategies, object animacy, and word order preferences interact. In the second and third studies, SSL is investigated with regard to the transitive–reflexive distinction. Here, we see that there are interactional effects between object handshapes and the perspective taken by the signer. This points to intricate iconic motivations of combining and structuring complex verb sequences, such as giving preference to agent focusing structures (e.g., agent perspective and handling handshapes). Furthermore, the use of space is identified as a crucial strategy for reference tracking, especially when expressing semantically transitive events.Nominal strategies include object pronouns and derivations of the sign PERSON. The fourth study provides a detailed account of the object pronoun OBJPRO in SSL, which is the first in-depth description of this sign. It is found that the sign is in widespread use in SSL, often corresponds closely to object pronouns of spoken Swedish, and is argued to be grammaticalized from the lexical sign PERSON. In the final study, the possible existence of object pronouns in other sign languages is investigated by using a sample of 24 languages. This analysis reveals that the feature is found mostly in the Nordic countries, suggesting areal contact phenomena. However, the study also shows that there are a number of derivations of PERSON, such as reflexive pronouns, agreement auxiliaries, and case markers. The use of PERSON as a source of grammaticalization for these functions is attributed to both semantic and phonological properties of the sign.This dissertation is unique in that it is dedicated to the topic of object marking in the signed modality. It brings a variety of perspectives and methods together in order to investigate the domain of object marking, cross-linguistically and cross-modally.
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| 2. |
- Di Garbo, Francesca, 1983-
(författare)
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Gender and its interaction with number and evaluative morphology : An intra- and intergenealogical typological survey of Africa
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation investigates interactions between gender and number and gender and evaluative morphology in a sample of 100 African languages, and provides a method for assessing the role that these interactions play in the grammatical complexity of gender systems. The dissertation is organised around three research foci.First, the dissertation surveys patterns of interaction between gender and number along the following dimensions: exponence, syncretism, indexation, correlations in type of marking, and gender assignment. The study provides evidence for the possibility that nominal features are organised in a relevance hierarchy. In addition, the study shows that animacy and lexical plurality play a crucial role in the distribution of special patterns of plural indexation. The study also shows that pervasive indexation systems in the language sample always involve both gender and number. Finally, the study shows how gender assignment can be used as a means for encoding variation in the countability properties of nouns and noun phrases.Second, the dissertation surveys patterns of interaction between gender and evaluative morphology in the languages of the sample. Two types of interactions are found. The study shows that the distribution of the two types depends on three factors: the type of gender system, the number of gender distinctions and the possibility of assigning a noun to more than one gender.Third, the dissertation investigates the role that interactions of gender and number and gender and evaluative morphology play in the absolute complexity of gender. The study proposes a metric for gender complexity and uses this metric to compute complexity scores for the languages of the sample. The results suggest that the gender systems of the language sample lean toward high complexity, that genealogically related languages have the same or similar complexity scores, and that the distribution of the outliers can often be understood as the result of language contact.
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| 3. |
- Hörberg, Thomas, 1979-
(författare)
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Probabilistic and Prominence-driven Incremental Argument Interpretation in Swedish
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation investigates how grammatical functions in transitive sentences (i.e., `subject' and `direct object') are distributed in written Swedish discourse with respect to morphosyntactic as well as semantic and referential (i.e., prominence-based) information. It also investigates how assignment of grammatical functions during on-line comprehension of transitive sentences in Swedish is influenced by interactions between morphosyntactic and prominence-based information.In the dissertation, grammatical functions are assumed to express role-semantic (e.g., Actor and Undergoer) and discourse-pragmatic (e.g., Topic and Focus) functions of NP arguments. Grammatical functions correlate with prominence-based information that is associated with these functions (e.g., animacy and definiteness). Because of these correlations, both prominence-based and morphosyntactic information are assumed to serve as argument interpretation cues during on-line comprehension. These cues are utilized in a probabilistic fashion. The weightings, interplay and availability of them are reflected in their distribution in language use, as shown in corpus data. The dissertation investigates these assumptions by using various methods in a triangulating fashion.The first contribution of the dissertation is an ERP (event-related brain potentials) experiment that investigates the ERP response to grammatical function reanalysis, i.e., a revision of a tentative grammatical function assignment, during on-line comprehension of transitive sentences. Grammatical function reanalysis engenders a response that correlates with the (re-)assignment of thematic roles to the NP arguments. This suggests that the comprehension of grammatical functions involves assigning role-semantic functions to the NPs.The second contribution is a corpus study that investigates the distribution of prominence-based, verb-semantic and morphosyntactic features in transitive sentences in written discourse. The study finds that overt morphosyntactic information about grammatical functions is used more frequently when the grammatical functions cannot be determined on the basis of word order or animacy. This suggests that writers are inclined to accommodate the understanding of their recipients by more often providing formal markers of grammatical functions in potentially ambiguous sentences. The study also finds that prominence features and their interactions with verb-semantic features are systematically distributed across grammatical functions and therefore can predict these functions with a high degree of confidence.The third contribution consists of three computational models of incremental grammatical function assignment. These models are based upon the distribution of argument interpretation cues in written discourse. They predict processing difficulties during grammatical function assignment in terms of on-line change in the expectation of different grammatical function assignments over the presentation of sentence constituents. The most prominent model predictions are qualitatively consistent with reading times in a self-paced reading experiment of Swedish transitive sentences. These findings indicate that grammatical function assignment draws upon statistical regularities in the distribution of morphosyntactic and prominence-based information in language use. Processing difficulties in the comprehension of Swedish transitive sentences can therefore be predicted on the basis of corpus distributions.
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| 4. |
- Sjöberg, Anna, 1993-
(författare)
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Knowledge predication : A semantic typology
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The present thesis is an investigation of the cross-linguistic expression of knowledge predication (‘He knows that it’s raining’, ‘she knows the boy’ etc.) Knowledge predication is investigated in parallel texts—specifically New Testament translations—in a genealogically and areally stratified variety sample of 83 languages. A selection of 100 verses, representing the variety of knowledge as well as near-lying concepts, are manually analysed and annotated for lexical and constructional information and analysed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. In the first part of the thesis (chapters 2-4), the theoretical and methodological foundations of the investigation are presented. The definition of knowledge is discussed and a survey of previous research on knowledge and its aspects is presented, drawing on work in philosophy and psychology as well as linguistics. The results are the basis for the selection of verses for investigation. The novel sampling procedure employed—a development of the Diversity Values sampling method with added areal stratification—is introduced. This part of the thesis also situates the investigation within the field of semantic typology, describes the theoretical frameworks used – constructional typology and cognitive semantics—and discusses the methodological challenges of parallel corpora drawing on results from translation studies.In the second part of the thesis (chapters 5-6), the question of whether knowledge is generally distinguished cross-linguistically is addressed. A similarity measure based on lexical and constructional annotations and incorporating automatically inferred paradigmatic relationships is presented and applied. This is then the basis for agglomerative hierarchical clustering, the results of which are interpreted as evidence of an extended knowledge domain (‘know’, ‘understand’ and ‘find out’) and a narrow knowledge domain (‘know’). Also addressed is the question of the universality of knowledge predication, and the sample’s two possible exceptions to this (Kalam [Nuclear Trans New Guinea, PNG] and Fasu [Isolate, PNG]) are discussed in some depth.In the third part of the thesis (chapters 7-11), the cross-linguistic expression of the extended knowledge domain is investigated in more detail. Using Classical Multi-Dimensional Scaling (also known as Torgerson Scaling or Principal Co-Ordinate Analysis), the dimensions along which the expression of knowledge varies cross-linguistically are explored. Their semantics is investigated, and the typology of their expression is discussed. Additionally, the connections of the different parts of the knowledge domain to other domains such as perception—are explored and analysed from a cognitive semantic perspective. Finally, quantitative evidence for knowledge having a core (‘know that’) and a periphery (‘know person’, ‘understand’ etc.) is presented, including a measure of directionality of formal motivational relationships.The fourth part (chapter 12) concludes and summarises the thesis. Six generalisations regarding the linguistic expression of the knowledge domain are made, describing for example restrictions on co-expression patterns. Finally, a semantic map of the domain of knowledge predication is presented, synthesising the results of the thesis, and establishing a basis for future research.
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| 5. |
- Vafaeian, Ghazaleh, 1982-
(författare)
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Progressives in use and contact : A descriptive, areal and typological study with special focus on selected Iranian languages
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Progressives are grammatical patterns primarily used to refer to events that are ongoing at a specific time. This thesis investigates uses of such patterns in a number of languages as well as the interaction of a number of progressives in contact. The dissertation includes a typological study of the uses of 89 progressive patterns in two parallel corpora, an investigation of the uses and origin of the Persian dāštan progressive and an areal linguistic investigation of 50 Iranian varieties spoken around the Caspian Sea.The dissertation presents features that increase the likelihood that a progressive is used. Such features are 1) a focalized (punctual) reference point, 2) the engagement or ‘busyness’ of the agentive subject on the event, 3) an emotive component and 4) the desire to turn the attention of the addressee towards an ongoing event. The significance of these features is expected to weaken as progressives grammaticalize.There is a cross-linguistic tendency for progressives to occur more often with present time reference than with past time reference. In some cases, they are even restricted to the former. Among the varieties of the Iranian language Taleshi, on the other hand, we find asymmetric temporal paradigms as a consequence of former progressive patterns having expanded and lost their progressive character in the present but not in the past.The study also shows that progressives are used differently in the present and the past: while events with present time reference often have the features mentioned above in 1-4, events with past time reference are often, although not exclusively, background contexts to other events pushing the narration forward.The thesis also discusses various peripheral uses of progressives, such as uses in habitual and performative-like contexts, proximative, iterative and futurate uses, uses with stative verbs and temporary and subjective uses. Some of these tend to be found in patterns with higher frequencies and can be regarded as expansions towards the imperfective. Other uses are linked to the type of event to which the progressive applies: the proximative reading is shown to arise with achievements and the iterative use with repeated punctual events. The data from the varieties of the Iranian languages Mazandarani, Gilaki, Taleshi and Tati, as well as from varieties under the influence of Persian, suggests that the progressive in these varieties is highly borrowable. Among the varieties discussed in Chapter 5, an areal cline is noted where constructional schemas used for ongoing events shift towards the imperfective. In the borrowing process, on occasion, a shift from progressive to proximative is also noted. As expected, the data from Caspian varieties shows that there are more progressive patterns than imperfective patterns.
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| 6. |
- Vejdemo, Susanne, 1982-
(författare)
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Triangulating Perspectives on Lexical Replacement : From Predictive Statistical Models to Descriptive Color Linguistics
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to investigate lexical replacement processes from several complementary perspectives. It does so through three studies, each with a different scope and time depth.The first study (chapter 3) takes a high time depth perspective and investigates factors that affect the rate (likelihood) of lexical replacement in the core vocabulary of 98 Indo-European language varieties through a multiple linear regression model. The chapter shows that the following factors predict part of the rate of lexical replacement for non-grammatical concepts: frequency, the number of synonyms and senses, and how imageable the concept is in the mind.What looks like a straightforward lexical replacement at a high time depth perspective is better understood as several intertwined gradual processes of lexical change at lower time depths. The second study (chapter 5) narrows the focus to seven closely-related Germanic language varieties (English, German, Bernese, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Icelandic) and a single semantic domain, namely color. The chapter charts several lexical replacement and change processes in the pink and purple area of color space through experiments with 146 speakers.The third study (chapter 6) narrows the focus even more, to two generations of speakers of a single language, Swedish. It combines experimental data on how the two age groups partition and label the color space in general, and pink and purple in particular, with more detailed data on lexical replacement and change from interviews, color descriptions in historical and contemporary dictionaries, as well as botanical lexicons, and historical fiction corpora.This thesis makes a descriptive, methodological and theoretical contribution to the study of lexical replacement. Taken together, the different perspectives highlight the usefulness of method triangulation in approaching the complex phenomenon of lexical replacement.
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| 7. |
- Agbetsoamedo, Yvonne, 1974-
(författare)
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Aspects of the Grammar and Lexicon of Sεlεε
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is a description of some aspects of the grammar of Sɛlɛɛ, a Ghana-Togo-Mountain (GTM) language, based on my own fieldwork. The thesis consists of an introduction and five papers.Paper (I), Noun classes in Sεlεε, describes the noun class system of Sɛlɛɛ. It consists of eight noun class prefixes, four marking singular and four plural. They are paired in irregular ways to form eight genders (singular-plural pairs). Nouns agree with determiners, numerals and interrogative qualifiers within the noun phrase and can be indexed on the predicate. Nouns are allocated to classes/genders based partly on semantic notions.Paper (II), Sεlεε (with Francesca Di Garbo), details the morphological encoding of diminution in Sɛlɛɛ either by the suffixes -bi, -bii, -mii, -e or -nyi alone or in combination with noun class shift. Augmentation is not expressed morphologically.Paper (III), The tense and aspect system of Sεlεε: A preliminary analysis, shows that Sɛlɛɛ, unlike most Kwa languages, has a rather elaborate tense system encompassing present, hodiernal, pre-hodiernal and future tenses. The aspectual categories are progressive, habitual and perfect. Both categories often amalgamate with first person singular subject clitics.Paper (IV), Standard negation in Sεlεε, deals with the negation of declarative verbal main clauses. This is primarily encoded by a high tone, sometimes combined with segmental morphemes, portmanteau negative tense-aspect morphemes and vowel lengthening. Each tense-aspect category has at least one particular negation strategy.Paper (V), Unravelling temperature terms in Sεlεε (with Francesca Di Garbo), investigates the grammatical constructions employed for temperature evaluations. Personal feeling is only encoded via subjects, while ambient and tactile evaluations are construed attributively and predicatively.A comparison of Selee and other GTM languages revealed similar noun morphologies but very different verbal morphologies.
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| 8. |
- Perder, Emil, 1979-
(författare)
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A Grammatical Description of Dameli
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation aims to provide a grammatical description of Dameli (ISO-639-3: dml), an Indo-Aryan language spoken by approximately 5 000 people in the Domel Valley in Chitral in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in the North-West of Pakistan. Dameli is a left-branching SOV language with considerable morphological complexity, particularly in the verb, and a complicated system of argument marking. The phonology is relatively rich, with 31 consonant and 16 vowel phonemes.This is the first extensive study of this language. The analysis presented here is based on original data collected primarily between 2003-2008 in cooperation with speakers of the language in Peshawar and Chitral, including the Domel Valley. The core of the data consists of recorded texts and word lists, but questionnaires and paradigms of word forms have also been used. The main emphasis is on describing the features of the language as they appear in texts and other material, rather than on conforming them to any theory, but the analysis is informed by functional analysis and linguistic typology, hypotheses on diachronical developments and comparisons with neighbouring and related languages.The description is divided into sections describing phonology, morphology and syntax, with chapters on a range of individual subjects such as particular word classes and phrase types, phonological and syntactical phenomena. This is not intended to be an exhaustive reference grammar; some topics are only touched upon briefly while others are treated in more detail and suggestions for further research are given at various points throughout the work.
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