In defense of a language error

The verb valda ‘cause’ in Icelandic standardly has the past participle/supine valdið, but an alternative form is ollið (ollað). This verb governs dative case with objects, which is preserved in passive in standard Icelandic. However, in a few examples, nominative is found instead, in which case an inflected form of the participle shows up (ollnar), agreeing with the nominative sub-ject of the passive clause. Such instances can be understood on the pre-sumption that the speakers in question not only have the alternative form of the participle, but also substitute nominative for dative in passive (by Nominative Sickness). In this article I look at examples of the intuitively ill-formed form ollnar, and discuss its possible emergence. As it turns out, structures involving this form are completely “grammatical” in light of some morphological and morphosyntactic changes in Icelandic.

Libertae isdem coniugi T. Licinius Il problema della fossilizzazione del pronome idem1

SummaryWe know about a significant number of inscriptions – the major part of them were found in Rome - in which the pronoun idem, the form of the nominative masculine, stands in the place of another grammatical gender or case of the same word (usually a dative), or in the place of the adverb item. In the edited epigraphic corpora, this form is usually interpreted as adverbial and emendated for item. However, in similar context (as for example in the title), we can often see isdem too, the archaic form of the nominative masculine, which cannot be explained on the base of the phonology as derivated from item. In the 19th century, Friedrich Ritschl thought that these forms substituted in reality eidem (dative singular of idem), and explained the change based on phonology (eidem to idem), and then on analogy (idem to isdem). An explanation like this imply the fossilisation of the pronoun, since the variants of the nominative masculine occure in the place of another inflected form of the word, specifically in the dative. In 1907, E. H. Sturtevant published an article (Some Unfamiliar Uses of Idem and Isdem in Latin Inscriptions) in which he intended to refute Ritschl’s claim and to give another interesting interpretation. In his opinion, the fenomenon has different origins in Ostia and in Rome. In his theory, the occurrences of the form idem in a position, which is different from the nominative masculine of the pronoun, are dialectic variants of item if they are from Ostia; though the same forms registrated in Rome are interpreted as consciously used nominatives. In consequence, the fossilisation of the word would be a non-existent fenomenon. The aim of this study is to examine critically Sturtevant’s argumentation concerning the fossilisation of the pronoun idem and its eventual fusion with the adverb item.

’n Korpusondersoek na huidiglik

A corpus exploration of huidiglik. In tandem with Van Huyssteen (2018a), this article examines the current usage of the word huidiglik (‘currently’) (an alleged Anglicism), together with other associated words (e.g. its base, huidig ‘current’). Based on a comprehensive literature review, Van Huyssteen (2018a) concludes that apart from stylistic preferences, none of the linguistic arguments against huidiglik holds water. In this article, a corpus exploration of some of the issues pertaining to huidiglik is undertaken. Based on evidence from a large variety of corpora, we conclude that huidiglik has become well-established in Afrikaans over the past four decades, both in formal texts and informal chat language. Since it does not displace any of its often-prescribed synonyms (like tans, deesdae, or teenswoordig), it confirms that arguments for its status as an Anglicism is rather thin. Although the inflected form huidige is mostly used as prenominal adjective, its uninflected form is also used with noticeable frequency as adverb and predicative adjective. Huidiglik, however, is used almost exclusively as adverb, rarely as inflected attributive adjective, but never as predicative adjective. Lastly, it is shown that adverbialising ⋅lik occurs with high frequency in Afrikaans, but it is not very productive. In addition, it is illustrated that ⋅ig⋅lik is an entrenched suffix pairing.

Inflectional Morphology in Fluent Aphasia: A Case Study in a Highly Inflected Language

Inflectional morphology difficulties are typically reported in non-fluent aphasia with agrammatism, but a growing number of studies show that they can also be present in fluent aphasia. In agrammatism, morphological difficulties are conceived as the consequence of impaired phonological encoding and would affect regular verbs more than irregular verbs. However, studies show that inflectional morphology difficulties concern both regular and irregular verbs, and that their origin could be more conceptual/semantic in nature. Additionally, studies report more pronounced impairments for the processing of the past tense compared to other tenses. The goal of this study was to characterize the impairment of inflectional morphology in fluent aphasia. RY, a 69-year-old man with chronic fluent aphasia completed a short neuropsychological and language battery and three experimental tasks of inflectional morphology. The tasks assessed the capacity to select the correct inflected form of a verb based on time information, to access the time information included in an inflectional morpheme, and to produce verbs with tense inflection. His performance was compared to a group of five adults without language impairments. Results showed that RY had difficulties selecting the correct inflected form of a verb, accessing time information transmitted by inflectional morphemes, and producing inflected verbs. His difficulties affected both regular and irregular verbs, and verbs in the present, past, and future tenses. The performance also shows the influence of processing limitations over the production and comprehension of inflectional morphology. More studies of inflectional morphology in fluent aphasia are needed to understand the origin of difficulties.

Binna skelde: zur Deutung eines Ausdrucks des friesischen Fehdewesens

In this article we will try to clarify the expression binna skelde (literally ‘within the shield’ or ‘within the debt’), which features in Old Frisian juridical language, and which has not yet received a satisfactory explanation. We arrive at the following results. Firstly, the (inflected) form skelde undoubtedly means ‘shield’. Secondly, the context of most of the relevant passages—some being unclear—proves that the expression belongs to the field of Frisian feud terminology, which has its own specific characteristics. Finally, the data suggest that the best way to paraphrase binna skelde is ‘under the liability of the feud leader(s)’ or, alternatively ‘under his (or: their) liability as (a) feud leader(s)’. In diesem Aufsatz wird der Versuch gewagt, einen bislang nicht befriedigend gedeuteten Begriff der altfriesischen Rechtssprache, und zwar die Wendung binna skelde (wortwörtlich ‚innerhalb des Schildes‘ oder ‚innerhalb der Schuld‘), zu klären. Es lässt sich Folgendes feststellen. Erstens ist mit skelde (flektierte Form) zweifelsohne ‚Schild‘ gemeint. Weiterhin lässt sich aus dem Kontext der meisten der vorhandenen Belegstellen – die übrigen sind unklar – schließen, dass der Ausdruck der teilweise ganz eigenständigen friesischen Fehdeterminologie zuzuordnen ist. Letztendlich wird aus den vorliegenden Daten gefolgert, dass eine angemessene Umschreibung der Bedeutung des Ausdruckes ‚unter der Haftung des Fehdeleiters‘ oder auch ‚unter seiner (bzw. ihrer) Haftung als Fehdeleiter‘ ist. This article is in German.

Breaking down temporal distance in a Continental French variety: Future temporal reference in Vimeu

This article examines future temporal reference (FTR) in the French spoken in Vimeu, a rural area of France where French evolved alongside Picard, a Gallo-Romance regional language. Unlike most French varieties, which favour periphrasis, Vimeu Picard favours the inflected form. By comparing French data from Picard–French bilinguals and French monolinguals, we assess the potential effect of Picard contact on Vimeu French. We hypothesized that bilinguals may favour the inflected form more than monolinguals, a hypothesis that was not verified. Instead, education is the best social predictor: speakers with a baccalauréat or higher disfavour the periphrastic future. Regarding linguistic constraints, we expected sentential polarity to constrain FTR (negation favours the inflected form), as in many varieties. Surprisingly, only temporal distance constrains FTR in our data: proximate events favour periphrasis, and do so even more strongly with events to occur within the minute. These results suggest that Vimeu French marks imminence through periphrasis.

Gothic possessives, adjectives, and other modifiers in-ata

The paradigm of some possessive pronouns, adjectives, and some other modifiers in Gothic contains an instance of morphological variation in the neuter nominative and accusative singular, where the bare stem of the modifier alternates with the pronominally inflected form in-ata(for example,juggversusjuggata‘young’). In an effort to account for this morphological variation, this paper examines the evidence for the competition between the bare stem and inflected forms in-ataattested in the Gothic New Testament. Further, it assesses the synchronic and diachronic implications of the variation with a view to gaining a better understanding of the development of the Germanic strong modifier inflection. It demonstrates that-atais a stylistically charged form observed in specific contexts and grammatical environments. From a diachronic point of view, the evidence of-atasheds light on the development of the Germanic strong modifier inflection, pointing toward a lexical diffusion-type development, with the inflection of demonstrative pronouns spreading across the lexicon of modifiers through possessive pronouns and quantifiers to adjectives and participles.*

Controversies Surrounding the Reception of Valī “Dakhanī” (1665?–1707?) in Early Tażkirahs of Urdu Poets

Early Urdu poetry, at the time called Reḳhtah, forms a remarkable example of the circulation of ideas in early modern India. Scholars trace its modern form to the reception in early eighteenth-century Delhi of a Southern literary idiom, usually called Dakhanī that is itself the result of repeated waves of migration from North India to the Deccan. While the historical origins of Urdu occupy an arena of lively scholarly debate, its later historical and literary importance is quite clear. By the start of the nineteenth century a highly literary and Persian-inflected form of Urdu would swiftly replace Persian in elite circles. Thus we have a historically significant moment at which the confluence of the vernacular and the cosmopolitan created a new cosmopolitan vernacular, however this process remains understudied.

The Portuguese Inflected Infinitive: an empirical approach

This paper deals with the seemingly free competition between inflected and uninflected infinitives in Portuguese, a much-debated issue in Portuguese linguistics, which, however, has not been seriously empirically studied before. We specifically focus on Vesterinen's (2006, 2011) cognitive hypothesis according to which the inflected infinitive is used in cases in which the infinitival subject risks to be less cognitively accessible due to contextual reasons. We investigate this theory by analyzing both corpus and experimental (self-paced reading) data, making use of advanced linear modeling. We show that both types of analysis lead to complementary results: the inflected form primarily eases the processing of sentences with increased complexity. On the basis of these results, we argue that Vesterinen's accessibility account is but part of the solution for the inflected/non-inflected problem.