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- Allassonnière-Tang, Marc, et al.
(författare)
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Expansion by migration and diffusion by contact is a source to the global diversity of linguistic nominal categorization systems
- 2021
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Ingår i: Humanities & Social Sciences Communications. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2662-9992. ; 8, s. 1-6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Languages of diverse structures and different families tend to share common patterns if they are spoken in geographic proximity. This convergence is often explained by horizontal diffusibility, which is typically ascribed to language contact. In such a scenario, speakers of two or more languages interact and influence each other’s languages, and in this interaction, more grammaticalized features tend to be more resistant to diffusion compared to features of more lexical content. An alternative explanation is vertical heritability: languages in proximity often share genealogical descent. Here, we suggest that the geographic distribution of features globally can be explained by two major pathways, which are generally not distinguished within quantitative typological models: feature diffusion and language expansion. The first pathway corresponds to the contact scenario described above, while the second occurs when speakers of genetically related languages migrate. We take the worldwide distribution of nominal classification systems (grammatical gender, noun class, and classifier) as a case study to show that more grammaticalized systems, such as gender, and less grammaticalized systems, such as classifiers, are almost equally widespread, but the former spread more by language expansion historically, whereas the latter spread more by feature diffusion. Our results indicate that quantitative models measuring the areal diffusibility and stability of linguistic features are likely to be affected by language expansion that occurs by historical coincidence. We anticipate that our findings will support studies of language diversity in a more sophisticated way, with relevance to other parts of language, such as phonology.
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| 2. |
- Nintemann, Julia, et al.
(författare)
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Towards a typology of spatial deictic expressions A conflation of interrogative and declarative spatial morphology
- 2019
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Ingår i: Language Typology and Universals. - : Walter de Gruyter GmbH. - 1867-8319 .- 2196-7148. ; 72:3, s. 335-371
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In response to the typology of spatial interrogatives (Stolz et al. 2017b), the morphologically corresponding spatial deictic declaratives pursuant to the three basic relations PLACE - GOAL - SOURCE are brought into focus for a comparison of both related paradigms. A canonical model (Corbett 2005) is applied to assess paradigms of spatial deictic forms. Logical outcomes considering all possible distributions of (a)syncretic patterns are discussed. To prepare our data for statistical evaluations, both parallels and differences between the two related paradigms are surveyed. Our corpus data is presented to outline what a typology of spatial deictic paradigms should encompass.
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| 6. |
- Robbers, Maja, 1989-
(författare)
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Comparing spatial deixis in Uto-Aztecan
- 2020
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Ingår i: Lenguas yutoaztecas: historia, estructuras y contacto lingüístico. - Guadalajara : Universidad de Guadalajara. - 9786075478081
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)
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| 8. |
- Robbers, Maja, 1989-
(författare)
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Orientation and motion in the world’s languages : From field studies to cross-linguistic comparison
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Human life frequently involves spatial orientation and motion, and natural languages express manifold aspects of spatial perception in diverse ways. The articles included in this thesis delve into several of these aspects and explore space and motion from multiple perspectives, ranging from a dedicated field study of within-language variation systems to cross-linguistic comparisons of various orientation and motion aspects. A field study of Yine, an Arawakan language spoken in the Peruvian Amazonas, points to relative reference frame use by younger speakers, as opposed to riverine orientation in the speech of senior community members. The central questions addressed in two comparative studies revolve around the distinctions among languages in terms of which form classes are employed to express Place/Goal/Source coding and related motion aspects with different types of Ground arguments. A study of basic location and motion expressions in 35 languages demonstrates that motion verbs are more often pivotal than grammaticized markers for Goal and Source, and that coding asymmetries arise from the use of both also within languages. A dedicated paper on the novel computer-assisted sampling technique employed to obtain the sample of 35 languages discusses how informativity loads in grammatical descriptions can be pre-screened to facilitate data assessment. It is shown how this method can be employed to create genealogically balanced samples which give access to the variety of coding strategies present in the world’s languages. Another part of the cumulative dissertation addresses the question of how these form classes interact with various contextual factors and describes previously underresearched Source expressions based on iconic ordering of elements in detail. The findings of the thesis address the nuanced nature of orientation and motion expressions across languages. The exploration of these topics is underpinned by an array of typologically and areally diverse languages, and descriptive gaps in lesser-explored languages are highlighted throughout the thesis. The research underscores the importance of scrutinizing languages that have previously received only limited attention due to a lack of descriptions, and it offers insights into underresearched languages that are hoped to contribute to the development of a general typology of motion and orientation.
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| 9. |
- Robbers, Maja
(författare)
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River-based and egocentric spatial orientation in Yine
- 2022
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Ingår i: Linguistics Vanguard. - : Walter de Gruyter. - 2199-174X. ; 8:S1, s. 53-65
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In linguistic studies on spatial reference frames, South American languages are still underrepresented. This explorative study offers a qualitative discussion of strategies that were found to encode location and orientation of objects in Yine, an Amazonian language of Peru. Geocentric and egocentric frames were attested as equally dominant strategies to provide spatial information in a picture-matching task, the results of which are split by age group of speakers. Senior Yine speakers mainly used river-oriented geocentric and intrinsic frames, whereas young adult speakers relied on egocentric and intrinsic frames exclusively. Left/right/behind relators were predominantly interpreted in allocentric-intrinsic frames by speakers of both groups but egocentric-extrinsic frames also arose in spatial descriptions elicited from younger speakers.
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