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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Delsing, Lars-Olof
(author)
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Pronominal case in Västerbottnian
- 2021
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In: Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1949-0763 .- 0374-0463.
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this article, I consider the use of seemingly old nominative forms (ONF) in object position. The phenomenon is noted for the dialects of Västerbotten (in Northern Sweden) by several authors. Earlier works imply that the phenomenon is rather recent (early 1900s) and that the phenomenon is in more common usage in the inland rural areas than by the more urban coast. I discuss the structural analysis presented by Holmberg in the 1980s, which involves a restriction on “subject forms” to noun phrases that are assigned Case and Theta role from different heads. I present both theoretical and empirical reasons to doubt that account. Instead, I opt for a phonological account, which claims that the ONFs are used, if and only if they are strong (stressed). The suggestion is corroborated by new data from a few informants. I end the paper by giving the details of case forms for strong and weak first- and second-person pronouns in the old and modern dialects. The modern dialect is claimed to have lost its strong object forms and now resorts to using the only available strong forms (ONFs) in both subject and object position.
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| 4. |
- Gregoromichelaki, Eleni, et al.
(author)
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Completability vs (In)completeness
- 2020
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In: Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0374-0463 .- 1949-0763. ; 52:2, s. 260-284
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- © 2020 The Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen. In everyday conversation, no notion of “complete sentence” is required for syntactic licensing. However, so-called “fragmentary”, “incomplete”, and abandoned utterances are problematic for standard formalisms. When contextualised, such data show that (a) non-sentential utterances are adequate to underpin agent coordination, while (b) all linguistic dependencies can be systematically distributed across participants and turns. Standard models have problems accounting for such data because their notions of ‘constituency’ and ‘syntactic domain’ are independent of performance considerations. Concomitantly, we argue that no notion of “full proposition” or encoded speech act is necessary for successful interaction: strings, contents, and joint actions emerge in conversation without any single participant having envisaged in advance the outcome of their own or their interlocutors’ actions. Nonetheless, morphosyntactic and semantic licensing mechanisms need to apply incrementally and subsententially. We argue that, while a representational level of abstract syntax, divorced from conceptual structure and physical action, impedes natural accounts of subsentential coordination phenomena, a view of grammar as a “skill” employing domain-general mechanisms, rather than fixed form-meaning mappings, is needed instead. We provide a sketch of a predictive and incremental architecture (Dynamic Syntax) within which underspecification and time-relative update of meanings and utterances constitute the sole concept of “syntax”.
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| 5. |
- Hallonsten Halling, Pernilla
(author)
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Prototypical adverbs : from comparative concept to typological prototype
- 2017
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In: Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. International Journal of Structural Linguistics. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0374-0463 .- 1949-0763. ; 49:1, s. 37-52
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- While adjectives and their potential universality have been much debated, adverbs remain rather neglected in the typological and cognitive literature. From a typological perspective, adjectives can be dealt with using a comparative concept: rather than assuming from the outset the existence of a class of adjectives, a particular language-independent definition of adjectives is used as a heuristic for examining recurrent form-meaning combinations. In the present article, adverb is addressed as a comparative concept in the same vein: an adverb is a lexeme that denotes a descriptive property and can be used to narrow the predication of a verb. This comparative concept is applied to a sample of 41 languages from the whole world. The results show that although there are diverse structural possibilities in terms of different adverbial constructions of varying spread and productivity, simple adverbs are found in a considerable number of unrelated languages, even in some cases where adjectives cannot be found. Clear adverb subtypes reminiscent of semantic types of adjectives further emerge, leading to a discussion of whether the comparative concepts in this case allow us to uncover a substantial cross-linguistic prototype.
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| 6. |
- Heegård, Jan, et al.
(author)
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Geomorphic coding in Palula and Kalasha
- 2018
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In: Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. International Journal of Structural Linguistics. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0374-0463 .- 1949-0763. ; 50:2, s. 129-160
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The article describes the geomorphic systems of spatial reference in the two Indo-Aryan languages Palula and Kalasha, spoken in adjacent areas of an alpine region in Northwestern Pakistan. Palula and Kalasha encode the inclination of the mountain slope as well as the flow of the river, in systematic and similar ways, and by use of distinct sets of nominal lexemes that may function adverbially. In their verbal systems, only Palula encode, landscape features in a systematic way, but both languages make use of a number of verbal sets that in different ways emphasise boundary-crossing. The article relates the analysis to Palmer's Topographic Correspondence Hypothesis that predicts that the linguistic system of spatial reference will reflect the topography of the surrounding landscape. The analysis of the geomorphic systems in Palula and Kalasha supports this hypothesis. However, data from a survey of spatial strategies in neighbouring languages, i.e., languages spoken in a similar alpine landscape, reveal another system that does not to the same extent or in a similar way encode typical landscape features such as the mountain slope and the flow of the river. This calls for a revision of Palmer's hypothesis that also takes language contact into consideration.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Johansson, Niklas, et al.
(author)
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The De-Iconization and Rebuilding of Iconicity in Spatial Deixis
- 2015
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In: Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. International Journal of Structural Linguistics. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1949-0763. ; 47:1, s. 4-32
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper investigates iconicity as a possible driving force behind the rebuilding of deictic systems and forms in individual languages. A comparison of a reconstructed Proto-Indo-European deictic system (based mainly on Beekes, Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction, 1995) compared with the systems of attested Indo-European languages makes it clear that both systems and forms have undergone change, may it be through sound change, analogy, and/or semantic change. Based on the assumptions by Ultan (Universals of Human Language 2, Phonology, 1978), Woodworth (1991), Traunmüller (Tongues and Texts Unlimited. Studies in Honour of Tore Jansson on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Anniversary, 1994), and Johansson and Zlatev (Motivations for Sound Symbolism in Spatial Deixis: A Typological Study of 101 languages. The Public Journal of Semiotics, 2013), iconicity obviously plays a role in the synchronic systems of spatial deixis, which in turn indicates the iconicity has played a role on the process of change, both of the forms themselves and the systems as such. Data from 13 contemporary and 17 historical languages, belonging to 12 Indo-European branches was used. Vowels and consonants were divided into voiceless sounds as being more proximal, and voiced sounds being more distal (see the explanation below). The voiced sounds were divided according to the frequency of their f2, with [i] and voiced palatal consonants as more proximal and [u] as more distal (Ohala, Sound Symbolism, 1994). Results were divided into motivated (fulfilling the expected relation between deictic form and sound value), non-motivated (arbitrary), and reversed-motivated (the reverse of motivated). Five strategies of rebuilding deictic systems and forms were identified. None of the languages investigated have used a system identical to the Proto-Indo-European reconstructed system. Mostly internal material from the Proto-Indo-European deictic system was used in the forms of the systems of the daughter languages. Generally, a statistically significant motivated support was found: 70.2% of the forms of the languages used were identified as motivated, 9.2–10.4% were non-motivated and 19.4–20.7% reversed-motivated. Due to the different strategies of rebuilding systems and forms, generative explanations for the motivated support should be excluded. Hence, iconicity seemed to be reintroduced after the decay, by means of language change, of a former (motivated) deictic system. Therefore, it turned out as a very likely conclusion that iconicity has been and is involved in the rebuilding of deictic material, relating to the systems as such.
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| 9. |
- Kronning, Hans, Professor, 1953-
(author)
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Modalité, typologie et cognition : la construction devoir + INFINITIF comme périphrase future et évidentielle
- 2023
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In: Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. International Journal of Structural Linguistics. - : Routledge. - 0374-0463 .- 1949-0763.
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- To pay homage to the memory of Michael Herslund we will examine the hypothesis that the French modal verb devoir + Infinitive can be seen as an evidential future periphrasis from a typological perspective in uses such as La pluie doit s’abattre sur une bonne partie du pays (‘The rain will pour down on a good part of the country’). More specifically, we will scrutinize the cases where devoir is in the Present, the inflectional Future and the Conditional. On the basis of recent authentic material it will be contended that evidentiality in these cases is reportive.
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| 10. |
- Linell, Per, 1944
(author)
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On the grammar of utterances: putting the form vs. substance distinction back on its feet
- 2016
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In: Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0374-0463 .- 1949-0763. ; 48:1, s. 35-58
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- © 2016 The Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen.Recent work in language theory, linguistic typology and usage-based linguistics has actualised the time-honoured distinction between ‘form’ (or ‘structure’) and ‘substance’, which was popular not least during classical European structuralism. This paper reviews some controversies within the theory of form and substance. Current dialogical theories of situated languaging, as well as many variants of functional, cognitive and other usage-based approaches, motivate a perspective shift in the language sciences, assigning primacy to language use (‘languaging’, ‘doing language’) rather than to abstract language systems. This gives more weight to ‘substance’, while it still necessitates the recognition of language structures. This paper makes an argument for a respecification of the relationships between form and substance, or between structuralist and substantialist conceptions, seen in relation to received versions. The empirical data adduced in this paper are drawn from conversational Swedish.
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| 11. |
- Naidu, Viswanatha, 1983, et al.
(author)
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Typological features of Telugu: defining the parameters of post-Talmian motion event typology
- 2022
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In: Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0374-0463 .- 1949-0763. ; 54:2, s. 205-234
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Recent research in motion event typology has moved beyond the binary Talmian division of “verb-framed” and “satellite-framed” languages and has established the existence of at least four distinct typological clusters, instantiated by, for example, Swedish (Germanic), French (Romance), Thai (Tai-Kadai) and Telugu (Dravidian). In this paper, we focus on characteristic features of Telugu, as a representative of the fourth cluster. In the study, 30 native Telugu speakers described video-recorded translocative events, in which the factors boundedness, viewpoint and causation were manipulated. Using the model Holistic Spatial Semantics, we show that Telugu speakers (a) preferentially used Direction verbs rather than Path verbs, (b) predominantly used case markers rather than verbs for encoding Path, (c) extensively used Landmark and Region expressions, and (d) frequently used Manner verbs in situations of “boundary-crossing” unlike speakers of typical “verb-framed” languages. We propose these features to be criterial of the fourth typological cluster mentioned above, a claim to be investigated in future research.
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| 12. |
- Parkvall, Mikael, 1971-, et al.
(author)
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Simulating the genesis of Mauritian
- 2013
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In: Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. International Journal of Structural Linguistics. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0374-0463 .- 1949-0763. ; 45:2, s. 265-273
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper presents a computer simulation of the genesis of Mauritian Creole. The input consists of detailed demographic data and typological information on Mauritian as well as the languages which contributed to its birth. The simulation is deliberately a simplistic one – the idea is to have as few potentially controversial assumptions as possible built into the model, and add additional parameters only to the extent that its output differs from the real-world result. As it turns out, the model generates a language which is highly similar to Mauritian as it is spoken today, and thus, very little “tweaking” seems necessary. Most notably, the model produces the desired result without the postulation of targeted language acquisition, and while one cannot conclude that this was not a part of the creolisation process, our simulation suggests that it is not a necessary assumption.
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| 13. |
- Sigurd, Bengt
(author)
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A referent grammatical analysis of relative clauses
- 1988
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In: Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. International Journal of Structural Linguistics. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1949-0763. ; 21:2, s. 95-115
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Relative clauses have traditionally been said to have an antecedent or a correlate corresponding to a coreferent, missing, and relativized constituent in the relative clause (some representative works on relative clauses are mentioned in the list of references). Referent grammar (Sigurd, 1987) assumes referent variables in the syntactic representations of noun phrases and it is natural to assume that it is a referent variable, which is the antecedent or the correlate, not an individual word or individual words. The advantages of this analysis will be shown in this paper. The paper includes a survey of the main types of relative clauses with some typological comments. Swedish and English will be used as the main languages of demonstration. As Referent Grammar (RG) is formalized in Definite Clause Grammar (DCG), a formalism supported by many Prolog programs, the analysis can be implemented directly and run on a computer. The analysis presented in this paper is part of a computer program used for automatic translation by SWETRA (Swedish Computer Translation Research Center at the Department of Linguistics and Phonetics, Lund University, SWEDEN).
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| 14. |
- Sigurd, Bengt
(author)
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Generative Grammar and Historical Linguistics
- 1966
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In: Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. International Journal of Structural Linguistics. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1949-0763. ; 10:1, s. 35-48
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- It has been observed that some of the rules in a generative grammar of a language reflect changes that have occurred in the language and furthermore that the order of applying some rules reflects the chronology of the historical changes. 1 The synchronic grammar may reflect changes of various time depths and does not mirror the whole history or a certain period of the history completely. Some rules may reflect known historical changes, others may clearly not have any historical basis. As for some rules, for instance the basic phrase structure rules, we cannot tell whether they reflect early historical processes or not.
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| 15. |
- Sigurd, Bengt
(author)
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The passive as an auxiliary
- 1994
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In: Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1949-0763 .- 0374-0463. ; 27:1, s. 447-454
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The passive is one of the most intriguing grammatical phenomena and it has been discussed in innumerable articles and books. This paper will present the approach to the passive taken in the MT-projekt Swetra focusing the translation between Swedish and English (Sigurd et al. 1992). The approach to the passive may be said to be auxiliary-oriented (cf. Sigurd, 1992) and the suggested meaning representation of the passive looks the same as the representation of an auxiliary.
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| 16. |
- Sigurdsson, Halldor Armann, et al.
(author)
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Swedish predicative oblique case : default or not?
- 2021
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In: Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1949-0763 .- 0374-0463. ; 53:2, s. 191-206
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article describes and discusses an ongoing change of case marking, NOM(inative) > OBL(ique), in certain predicates in Swedish (type “Then you can be I” > “Then you can be me”). This change has gone largely unnoticed hitherto. The discussion is based on a large-scale online survey, conducted in May 2016. It was tested whether the change relates to finiteness or to semantics. The results strongly indicate that the latter is the case. The change is found in predicates that express role semantics but nondetectable in predicates with plain identity readings (type “It is I”). In addition, there are strong indications that the change is closely related to another change that is also taking place in Swedish, NOM > OBL in comparative phrases (type “She is bigger than I” > “She is bigger than me”). The results speak against the hypothesis that OBL is becoming default in Swedish. Instead, it seems that many speakers are reanalyzing role predicates as well as comparative phrases such that they contain a head that is a case assigner, an overt one in comparatives but a silent one in role predicates. The article concludes that Swedish is largely retaining its basic NOM-OBL case system.
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| 17. |
- Sigurðsson, Halldór, et al.
(author)
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Introduction : case impoverished Germanic
- 2021
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In: Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0374-0463 .- 1949-0763. ; 53:2, s. 129-131
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)
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| 18. |
- Van Epps, Briana, et al.
(author)
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From three genders to two : The sociolinguistics of gender shift in the Jämtlandic dialect of Sweden
- 2017
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In: Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1949-0763 .- 0374-0463. ; 49:1, s. 53-84
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The influence of standard language varieties on rural dialects is an important factor involved in dialect loss, which is widespread in Europe. In this study, we look at how the three-gender system in the Jämtlandic dialect of Sweden is changing under pressure from the two-gender system of Standard Swedish. The Jämtlandic dialect is an understudied Swedish dialect and an interesting object of study, in part because of the social and economic changes that have occurred over the past century. We performed a survey using profiled stimuli to elicit indefinite articles, definite articles and anaphoric pronouns for 36 target nouns. An analysis was conducted on the traditionalness of gender agreement in the material. We consider linguistic features (traditional gender and type of agreement), as well as sociological features (age, gender, education, geographical location, socioeconomic status, and language attitudes). The results show that most participants maintain the traditional three-gender system to a large degree. Age is the most significant predictor of traditionalness. While the youngest participants show the highest variability in gender assignment, they still retain the three-gender system to some degree. In addition, participants to whom the dialect is very important tend to use more traditional agreement.
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| 19. |
- Zlatev, Jordan, et al.
(author)
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Motion event descriptions in Swedish, French, Thai and Telugu: a study in post-Talmian motion event typology
- 2021
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In: Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0374-0463 .- 1949-0763. ; 53:1, s. 58-90
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Motion-event typology has moved into a “post-Talmian” terrain of approaches focusing on an open-ended number of patterns across languages and constructions. Following a proposal to distinguish between four typological clusters, we systematically compared the motion event descriptions in four languages suggested to exemplify these clusters: Swedish, French, Thai and Telugu, with the help of an elicitation-based study. 20 adult native speakers of each language were asked to describe 52 motion events, 38 of which were translocative. The stimuli varied with respect to the parameters caused/uncaused, bounded/unbounded motion as well as the viewpoint from which they were filmed. The descriptions were analyzed following Holistic Spatial Semantics and compared with respect to the categories Path, Direction, Region, Landmark, Manner and Cause, as well as the means of expressing these. The four languages patterned differently in significant ways. In terms of Path expression, French lagged behind the other languages, but with respect to Direction, it patterned together with Swedish. We demonstrate a number of such criss-crossing patterns, showing that there is no way to group the languages, thus implying at least four distinct typological prototypes. Further, we show that different kinds of motion situations, corresponding to different constructions, need to be compared separately. © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
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| 21. |
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| 22. |
- Widoff, Andreas
(author)
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On the feasibility of general meanings in prepositional semantics
- 2023
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In: Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. - 1949-0763. ; 55:1, s. 16-36
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The paper investigates the status of general meanings in prepositional semantics. On the basis of a review of the strategies employed in different accounts of prepositions, the paper argues that strict adherence to the notion of general meanings is unfeasible in the field, partly because a purely deductive method of description breaks down as the number of possible oppositions increases. This failure points to the need for a theoretical reformulation of the notion. The paper suggests that there are three conservative ways to pursue such a reformulation: by rejecting the idea that general meanings are autonomous from thought, by rejecting the principle of oppositional constitution or by rejecting the requirement of monosemy. The merits and flaws of these strategies are discussed and some theoretical and methodological motives in choosing between them are considered.
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