What kind of constructions yield what kind of constructions?

2019 ◽  
pp. 131-154
Author(s):  
Andreas Blümel ◽  
Marco Coniglio
Keyword(s):  
Early New High German ◽  
Diachronic Development ◽  
Null Noun

The chapter investigates the properties and diachrony of the much-debated German was-für construction based on data from historical corpora. It is argued that this construction originated from the was ‘what’ plus partitive genitive construction. The latter is claimed to be a construction stretching over two DPs, the first one consisting of a wh-element and a null noun, the second one being a genitive noun. Given the absence of phonetical evidence for the presence of a null noun in the first DP, it is shown that, during the Early New High German period, this binominal construction was reanalysed as a mononominal construction consisting of the wh-element was in combination with an indefinite NP. A number of properties of this construction (absence of partitive interpretation, possibility to split, etc.) can be explained straightforwardly by means of the diachronic development sketched.

What drives morphological change?

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-289
Author(s):  
Stefan Hartmann
Keyword(s):  
Morphological Change ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
Formation Pattern ◽  
Early New High German ◽  
Diachronic Development ◽  
Deverbal Nominals ◽  
Lexical Factors

This paper investigates the role of syntactic, semantic, and lexical factors in the diachronic development of German nominalization patterns. Drawing on an extensive corpus analysis of Early New High German and New High German texts, it is shown that (a) deverbal nominals in the suffix -ung tend to develop more reified meaning variants, which is reflected in the syntactic patterns in which the word-formation products preferentially occur, and (b) infinitival nominalization becomes more productive and is established as the new default word-formation pattern deriving nouns from verbs. These considerations fit in neatly with a cognitively-oriented theory of word-formation change situated in the framework of Construction Grammar.

Reconstruction of the Ancient Numeral System in Basque Language

Philology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2018) ◽  
pp. 157-172
Author(s):  
FERNANDO GOMEZ-ACEDO ◽  
ENEKO GOMEZ-ACEDO
Keyword(s):  
Cardinal Number ◽  
Counting System ◽  
Cardinal Numbers ◽  
Original Meaning ◽  
Diachronic Development ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract In this work a new insight into the reconstruction of the original forms of the first Basque cardinal numbers is presented and the identified original meaning of the names given to the numbers is shown. The method used is the internal reconstruction, using for the etymologies words that existed and still exist in Basque and other words reconstructed from the proto-Basque. As a result of this work it has been discovered that initially the numbers received their name according to a specific and logic procedure. According to this ancient method of designation, each cardinal number received its name based on the hand sign used to represent it, thus describing the position adopted by the fingers of the hand to represent each number. Finally, the different stages of numerical formation are shown, which demonstrate a long and diachronic development of the whole counting system.

Negation and Nonveridicality in the History of Greek

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katerina Chatzopoulou
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Data ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Inertial Forces ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Polarity Item ◽  
Syntactic Change ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
Diachronic Development

This study is an investigation of the expression of negation in the history of Greek, through quantitative data from representative texts from three major stages of vernacular Greek (Attic Greek, Koine, Late Medieval Greek), and qualitative data from Homeric Greek until Standard Modern. The contrast between two complementary negators, NEG1 and NEG2, is explained in terms of sensitivity of NEG2 μη‎ to nonveridicality: NEG2 is a polarity item in all stages of the Greek language, an item licensed by nonveridicality. The asymmetry in the diachronic development of the Greek negator system (the replacement of NEG1 and the preservation of NEG2) is explained with reference to the particulars of the uses of NEG2, specifically the inertial forces drawn by the nonnegative uses of NEG2, which being nonnegative did not experience the renewal pressures predicted by the Jespersen’s Cycle. These are its complementizer uses: (i) as a question particle, and (ii) in introducing verbs of fear complements. A viewpoint for Jespersen’s Cycle is proposed that abstracts away from the morphosyntactic and phonological particulars of the phenomenon and explicitly places its regularities in the semantics, accommodating not only for Greek, but for numerous other languages that deviate in different ways from the traditional description of Jespersen’s Cycle. The developments observed in the history of the Greek negator system agree with current generative theories of syntactic change, regarding the notions of up-the-tree movement.

Outlining a grammaticalization path for the Spanish formula en plan (de): A contribution to crosslinguistic pragmatics

Linguistics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (6) ◽  
pp. 1543-1579
Author(s):  
Paula Rodríguez-Abruñeiras
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Diachronic Study ◽  
Diachronic Development ◽  
The Early 21St Century

AbstractThis article discusses the diachronic development of the Spanish multifunctional formula en plan (with its variant en plan de, literally ‘in plan (of)’ but usually equivalent to English like). The article has two main aims: firstly, to describe the changes that the formula has undergone since its earliest occurrences as a marker in the nineteenth century up to the early 21st century. The diachronic study evinces a process of grammaticalization in three steps: from noun to clause adverbial and then to discourse marker. Secondly, to conduct a contrastive analysis between en plan (de) and the English markers like and kind of/kinda so as to shed new light on the potential existence of a universal pathway of grammaticalization in the emergence of discourse markers.

scholarly journals Analogy-driven change: the emergence and development of mirative end up constructions in American English

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-121
Author(s):  
MARIO SERRANO-LOSADA
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
American English ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Pragmatic Enrichment ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Diachronic Development

This article explores the diachronic development of mirative end up in American English, which emerged in the late nineteenth century and which seems to be, at present, in the process of becoming a parenthetical element. The rise of the various mirative end up constructions is argued to be the result of both pragmatic enrichment and paradigmatic analogy, motivated by a series of semantically and formally related expressions, most prominently by mirative turn out. Moreover, the article delves into the process of cooptation to explain the emergence of parenthetical instances in the present-day language. Cooptation is understood as an intrinsically analogical-driven mechanism when it entails the eventual grammaticalization of formulaic parenthetical constructions. Data for the present study were taken from a variety of diachronic and synchronic sources, which include COHA, COCA and NOW, among others.

scholarly journals Nominalization and argument structure in Early New High German

2002 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 67-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrike Demske
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
German Language ◽  
Decomposition Approach ◽  
Lexical Decomposition ◽  
Early New High German ◽  
Carry Over ◽  
Syntactic Behavior ◽  
Different Parts

Recent work on argument selection couched in a lexical decomposition approach (Ehrich & Rapp 2000) postulates different linking properties for verbs and nouns, challenging current views on argument inheritance. In this paper, I show that the different behavior with respect to verbal and nominal linking observed for Present-Day German does not carry over to ung-nominals in Early New High German. Deverbal nouns and corresponding verbs rather behave alike with respect to argument linking. I shall argue that this change is motivated by the growing rift between ung-nominals and their verbal bases both focussing on different parts oftheir lexicosemantic structure in Present-Day German. Evidence for the verb-like behavior of ung-nominals in Early New High German comes from the regular meaning relation between verbs and corresponding derived nouns, the actional properties of event-denoting nouns, and the patterning of ung-nominals with nominalized infinitives. Even their syntactic behavior reflects the verbal character of ung-nominals during that period of the German language. The diachronic facts can be accounted for in a straightforward way once we adopt a lexical decomposition approach to argument selection.  

Some restrictions on Sesotho null noun class prefixes

2007 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 166-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malillo Machobane ◽  
Francina Moloi ◽  
Katherine Demuth
Keyword(s):  
Noun Class ◽  
Null Noun
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