Language variation and change in the formation of Greek superlative constructions

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-76
Author(s):  
Dimitra Melissaropoulou ◽  
Christos Papanagiotou
Keyword(s):  
Language Variation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Conceptual Category ◽  
Theoretical Level ◽  
Language Variation And Change ◽  
Dialectal Variation ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Comparative Constructions ◽  
The One

Abstract This paper addresses variation and change in the realization of superlative constructions in the light of the evidence provided by Modern Greek dialectal variation as a window into the study of the organization of grammar. Dialectal data show that analyticity prevails in the realization of relative comparative constructions, while absolute ones seem to resist more persistently due to their high relevance with another morphological category, evaluative intensification. Our findings argue in favour of the strong interplay among all three processes, viewed as realizations of the conceptual category of gradation, accounted for in terms of a continuum. The proposed organization captures the strong interplay between intensification and absolute superlatives on the one hand, while relative and absolute superlative formations on the other. On a theoretical level, this account could contribute further to important issues such as the controversial status of comparison and evaluation in grammar, which may differ cross-linguistically, suggesting that a combined account of the three processes might prove more adequate.

Estruturas comparativas complexas: variação e desvio e questões de tradução

2019 ◽  
pp. 265-286
Author(s):  
Telmo Móia ◽  
Rui Marques
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Comparative Constructions ◽  
Game Console ◽  
The One

In this paper, we analyse two subtypes of related comparative constructions in Portuguese, with a focus on grammatical anomaly and change – whether expressed in translated text, as a result of calquing (from English), or in autochthonous text, evincing an area of grammatical instability and change in progress. These are: on the one hand, comparative clauses using multiplicative numbers or fractions, like the Portuguese counterparts of the president is twice as popular as the prime minister or women are four times less likely to develop coronary problems than men, and, on the other hand, nominal phrases resorting to the same quantifying operators, but in a non-clausal environment, like the counterparts of Spain has twice the level of unemployment of Portugal or this game console has four times the memory of the previous one. The observed anomalies – or disputed constructions – involve the non-canonical: (i) use of equative operators (tão/tanto, ‘as’) in comparative clauses with multiplicative numbers or fractions (likely, as a result of calquing from English); (ii) use of a connective (que/do que, ‘than’) in nominal phrases with quantifying operators similar to those of comparative clauses (likely, as a result of autochthonous hybridization); (iii) use of complex prepositional expressions like comparativamente com (‘in comparison with’) or em relação a (‘relatively to’) either instead of the connective (do) que in comparative clauses, or before modifiers inside nominal phrases with multiplicative numbers or fractions. Overall, an intriguing area of grammatical unrest is discussed, with a particular focus on its bearing on translating texts into standard Portuguese.

scholarly journals Holistic and conceptual character of the mental in Donald Davidson’s work

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-142
Author(s):  
Milos Bogdanovic
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Ontological Category ◽  
Conceptual Category ◽  
Central Thesis ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
Rule Out

In this paper we will try to confront Quine?s and Davidson?s holistic position through Davidson?s thesis of mental as a non-ontological category. In this regard, since Davidson came to this position through the thesis of mental as a decidedly conceptual category, we will try to show how this approach does not, nevertheless, rule out the possibility of its interpretation in ontological terms. However, in what follows we will draw attention to the fact that mental can be interpreted so that it proves to be immune to ontologization in Quine?s sense. This would be the evidence of different ways, which are not necessarily compatible, to argue for Davidson?s central thesis - the thesis about holistic character of mental - as well as, which is closely related, a certain difference that exists between Davidson?s view of mental as a conceptual category on the one hand, and a holistic category on the other hand.

Äiwoo wâtu and the typology of comparatives

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Åshild Næss
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
Comparative Constructions ◽  
Standard Of Comparison ◽  
The One ◽  
Comparative Construction

Abstract This paper examines a comparative construction in the Oceanic language Äiwoo and argues that it differs from those known in the typological literature on comparatives on two counts. It is similar to a so-called ‘exceed’ comparative in involving a morpheme meaning ‘go far’; but unlike canonical exceed comparatives, the construction is intransitive, and the standard of comparison is expressed as an oblique. Moreover, the standard is indicated not only by this oblique phrase but also by a directional marker on the verb, in an extension of the frequent use of directionals in Äiwoo to indicate peripheral participants. This construction thus, on the one hand, expands the established typology of comparative constructions; and on the other, shows that the use of directional morphemes to indicate peripheral participants, otherwise attested e.g. for recipients of give verbs, may extend to the standard in comparative constructions, pointing to an avenue for further typological exploration.

scholarly journals The role of transfer in language variation and change: Evidence from contact varieties of French

2005 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
JEANINE TREFFERS-DALLER ◽  
RAYMOND MOUGEON
Keyword(s):  
Geographical Area ◽  
Demographic Factors ◽  
Institutional Support ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Language Variation And Change ◽  
Over Time

In this Special Issue, the focus is on contact-induced language variation and change in situations of societal bilingualism that involve long-term contact between French and another language. As is well known, when two or more languages are spoken by groups of speakers in the same geographical area, over time, features from one language can be transferred to the other language, especially when the languages in question are unequal in terms of prestige, institutional support and demographic factors. The process that leads to the adoption of such features in the contact languages is generally known as INTERFERENCE or TRANSFER, and these terms are also used to describe the features in question (i.e. the end product of the process of transfer). In this issue we prefer to use the term TRANSFER over the use of the notion INTERFERENCE, as the former has fewer negative connotations than the latter.

Paris: a sociolinguistic comparative perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID BRITAIN
Keyword(s):  
Language Variation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Language Variation And Change ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

AbstractThis article assesses the sociolinguistic impact and importance of the other articles in this special issue on Paris, considering three main themes that are evoked. First, the contribution of the articles here to the development of work on language variation and change on Hexagonal French within the variationist paradigm. Second, I address what I see as the important contribution made to our understanding of the ‘city’ as a sociolinguistic site. Finally, I focus on ethnicity as a social construct in recent variationist work in cities and consider what the articles here, and in comparison with cities elsewhere, add to our understanding of the impact of immigration on local manifestations of language variability. In each case, I attempt to show how these articles foreground or even problematize these three issues, and provide a prospectus for further research that can address unresolved questions.

scholarly journals Complements vs. adjuncts and mouse-controlled reading

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armine Garibyan
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
The Other ◽  
Theoretical Level ◽  
Psycholinguistic Research ◽  
The Past ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
The One ◽  
Fundamental Categories ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between sentence processing and cognitive demand has received a lot of attention in the past decades. In valency theory, some elements of the sentence are determined by the verbs either in terms of their form or by their presence (Herbst & Schüller 2008). It has to be said that little attention has been paid to the processing of such fundamental categories in the theory of syntax. On the one hand, this is remarkable since given the amount of research, we still do not know whether this distinction is psychologically real, or whether it only serves a lexicographic and pedagogical purpose. On the other hand, there is a consensus among linguists about the problematic character of the distinction itself even on a more theoretical level (Dowty 2000; Herbst & Schüller 2008). Therefore, this study attempts to explore whether complements and adjuncts are associated with different kinds of processing. To answer the research questions, an experiment consisting in a mouse-controlled reading task has been designed. To the best of our knowledge, this is a new method in psycholinguistic research. The paper presents the results of a pilot study.

scholarly journals The Problem of Religious Pluralism of Modern Greek Catholicism in Postmodern Conditions

2009 ◽  
pp. 106-114
Author(s):  
O.I. Savchuk
Keyword(s):  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Public ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Optimal Degree ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
The One

Modern Christian religiosity as a whole, and in particular the Greek-Catholic way of expressing it, are all-round in the public consciousness. Religion is transformed as intensely as other components of the latter. That is why today it is relevant to analyze, on the one hand, the relation of existential and anthropocentric, and on the other - the pluralistic filling of modern Ukrainian Greek Catholicism and to find out the optimal degree of this relation.

scholarly journals Si isch grösser weder ig! Zum Komparativanschluss im Schweizerdeutschen

2005 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Friedli
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
The Other ◽  
Variant Selection ◽  
Small Areas ◽  
Swiss German ◽  
The Third ◽  
German Dialects ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Comparative Constructions ◽  
The One

Whereas in Standard High German (SHG) there is only one comparative particle, in Swiss German Dialects (SGD) different lexemes may fulfill the function of a comparative particle: (1) SHG: Sie ist grösser als ich SGD: Si isch grösser als / as / weder / wan / wie ig 'She is bigger than me' The present paper describes the geographical distribution of the comparative particles in the Swiss German area in contexts such as (1). Whereas in some small areas only one comparative particle is found, in the rest of the Swiss German speaking area several competing variants coexist. The data are taken from the third questionnaire of the Syntactic Atlas of Swiss German Dialects, where three different comparative constructions have been investigated. A sociolinguistic analysis of the data reveals differences in the use of the particles: On the one hand, older people tend to use only one comparative particle, whereas younger people show a higher degree of variation. Moreover, older people tend to use the particle weder, in contrast to younger people who tend to use the particle wie. On the other hand, higher educated people use more than one comparative particle, whereas less educated people tend to use one variant only. The analysis of two other constructions also shortly mentioned in the paper shows that syntactic factors have an impact on variant selection, too.

Legal Oracularism and Theological Prophetism. Fleshly Silences Across Memories and Traditions

Pólemos ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Costantini
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Judicial Interpretation ◽  
Theoretical Level ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
Fault Lines ◽  
The One ◽  
Voice And Silence

AbstractThis essay aims at providing a critical glance on the legal “fault lines” between voice and silence; utterance and dumbness; disclosure and mystery; discernability and ambiguity. At a theoretical level, the arguments suggested intend to innovate the conventional discourse on legal traditions, focusing on their proper and complex morphosyntax. Specifically, the main purpose is to call forth the haunted ventriloquism which animates and informs legal traditions in order to disfigure the ideological image portrayed for a legitimating project. On this ground what is proposed is an original understanding of the politics of memories, conceived as the inner force, which codifies heterogeneous canons of commemoration. The poles of usual contrapositions (memory/forgetting; remembrance/silencing) are questioned and scrutinized; the multiple facets of the voices of memory and the silence of oblivion are taxonomically typified. The proposed paradigm is consequently applied to the particularities of the English Legal Tradition, emphasizing how the culture of legal revelling dramatized the ambiguities concealed in the speakable word of Law: on the one hand, the internal articulation of these sumptuous festivities, which structurally reflected the osmotic threshold between speech and faintness, utterance and dumbness; on the other, it has been noted that Revels made patent the meaningful silence implied in the proper other face of the conventional appearance of Law, that is in its suspension or in its exception. Conclusive remarks are devoted to analyse the nexus among word, interpretation, and violence in Robert Cover’s thought. In this perspective the essay debates on the silent sacrifice behind the supposed creative act of judicial interpretation and intellectually claims for a counter-resistant act of unveiling heterodoxy.

scholarly journals The Uncanny and the Unspoken Element of Speech in Kazantzakis and Terzakis

2020 ◽  
pp. 70-87
Author(s):  
A. Alexopoulou
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Death Drive ◽  
Structural Element ◽  
Common Component ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
The Erotic

This study investigates the theme of Uncanny in the Modern Greek roman of the 20th century and in particular in Terzakis’ Secret life and Kazantzakis’ Christ Recrucifi ed. The unspoken element of speech is a common component of the romans and a structural element of their poetics to the extent that it refl ects the divided consciousness of the characters. The encounter with the erotic Other becomes the occasion for the subjective division to emerge, to the point where the only escape is death drive. The cancellation of the love aff air brings the characters in confrontation with the diametrically opposed poles of their own subjectivity, the impulse of death on the one hand and life on the other. The depersonalisation of speech and the phenomena of xenopathy appear as a consequence of the extinction of the subject. Their doppelgängers emerge as a response to their desperate desire, up to the point where they eventually crush their living existence.

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