Binding Principle A in English and Northeast Asian Languages

The aims of this chapter are twofold. On the one hand, an analytic survey of the verbal categories across the Transeurasian language families, coached in general typological terms for better comparison. On the other hand, a selective discussion of the verbal domain, focusing on convergent developments across the individual families. Most of these similarities are clearly due to independent developments reflecting shared diachronic scenarios rooted in common typology, but some other are arguably due to areal influence. We examine in more detail two examples of such convergent developments, one pertaining to the development of adversative passives, and the other to the renewal of finite forms (and tense and mood categories) through nominalizations. The latter development, discussed in typological literature under the label of “insubordination,” “desubordination,” or “verbalization,” is shown to be an areal feature of Northeast Asian languages.

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A comparative approach to the vowel systems and harmonies in the Transeurasian languages and beyond

The Oxford Guide to the Transeurasian Languages ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198804628.003.0030 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 486-508

Author(s):

Andrew Joseph ◽

Seongyeon Ko ◽

John Whitman

Keyword(s):

Vowel Harmony ◽

Comparative Approach ◽

Vowel Systems ◽

Northeast Asian ◽

Asian Languages

In this chapter the standard treatments of the Transeurasian vowel correspondences are reviewed, including their reconstructions of hypothetical proto-inventories, for the purpose of establishing a description of the Transeurasian vowel inventory and vowel harmony type. The review commences with a comparison of two major types of vowel-harmony systems in the Transeurasian languages, i.e. the palatal vs. the tongue-root harmony systems, and presents phonetic, phonological, and comparative evidence for a tongue-root harmony analysis of Korean, Mongolic, and Tungusic. Interpretations of the main Transeurasian reconstructions are then proposed, such as Ramstedt (1952–66) and Poppe (1960b) according to tongue-root harmony analysis as opposed to the conventional palatal harmony analysis. After this, there is an effort to situate the Transeurasian vowel inventory in its typological and geographical neighborhood, including Northeast Asian languages and beyond, and in its linguistic geographical setting.

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Modern Greek V V dvandva compounds: A linguistic innovation in the history of the Indo-European languages

WORD Structure ◽

10.3366/e1750124509000294 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 48-68 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Angela Ralli

Keyword(s):

Language Contact ◽

High Rate ◽

Compound Formation ◽

Modern Greek ◽

Late Medieval Period ◽

European Languages ◽

History Of ◽

Internal Change ◽

Contact Situation ◽

Asian Languages

This paper deals with [V V] dvandva compounds, which are frequently used in East and Southeast Asian languages but also in Greek and its dialects: Greek is in this respect uncommon among Indo-European languages. It examines the appearance of this type of compounding in Greek by tracing its development in the late Medieval period, and detects a high rate of productivity in most Modern Greek dialects. It argues that the emergence of the [V V] dvandva pattern is not due to areal pressure or to a language-contact situation, but it is induced by a language internal change. It associates this change with the rise of productivity of compounding in general, and the expansion of verbal compounds in particular. It also suggests that the change contributes to making the compound-formation patterns of the language more uniform and systematic. Claims and proposals are illustrated with data from Standard Modern Greek and its dialects. It is shown that dialectal evidence is crucial for the study of the rise and productivity of [V V] dvandva compounds, since changes are not usually portrayed in the standard language.

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