Aspectuo-Temporal Underspecification in Anindilyakwa: Descriptive, Theoretical, Typological and Quantitative Issues

So-called ‘zero’ or ‘null’ tenses have often been characterized as functionally deficient forms, deprived of any inherent content. In this paper, we will focus on the semantics of a morpho-phonologically null inflectional verbal paradigm in Anindilyakwa (Groote Eylandt, N.T., Australia, which is both temporally and aspectually underspecified. Through a quantitative corpus study conducted in the paper, we establish that ‘zero inflection’ in this language, contra prior works on such tenses in general (e.g. Bybee 1990) and in Anindilyakwa in particular (Bednall 2019), presents various degrees of sensitivity to traditional Vendlerian aspectual parameters. We show that while telicity is not a significant predictor for the temporal interpretation of zero-inflected Anindilyakwa verbs, and dynamicity is a good but not very good predictor, only a very broad opposition between change-of-state (including qua boundedness) and non-change-of-state, or perfective/imperfective, gives very significant biases towards past vs. present anchoring. We also show that atomic telicity is the only categorical Aktionsart predictor for temporal anchoring in this context correctly predict the temporal anchoring of such verbs, and stativity is not biased towards present interpretations, thereby questioning currently received typological theories of the semantics of so-called ‘zero-tenses’ / aspectuo-temporally underspecified tenses.

Big Things Often Have Small Beginnings: A Review on the Development, Use and Value of Small and Big Corpora for Flemish Sign Language Linguistic Research

In 1990, Vermeerbergen started the first larger-scale corpus study with (semi)spontaneous language data from adult signers on the morpho-syntactic aspects of Flemish Sign Language (VGT). After this, a number of lexicographic projects, including the collection of a 90-h corpus, led to the launch of the first online bilingual Dutch/VGT—VGT/Dutch dictionary in 2004. Since then, researchers have developed several corpora of variable sizes, with the greatest realization being the VGT Corpus. The main focus of this chapter is twofold. On the one hand the run-up to, the development and the use of the VGT Corpus will be discussed, while on the other hand smaller specific research corpora will be highlighted such as the corpus on early parent-child interaction and the multifocal eye-tracking corpus. The current chapter will discuss the research and community value of the corpora and future directions. Finally, it will elaborate on the need for corpus research, the associated advantages and disadvantages, and the obstacles faced in smaller deaf communities.

A corpus-based approach to map target vowel asymmetry in Brazilian Veneto metaphony

Metaphony targeting upper-mid vowels /e, o/ is a characteristic of Central Veneto, a dialect of Veneto spoken in northeastern Italy. In a closely related understudied dialect spoken in southern Brazil, namely Brazilian Veneto (locally known as Talian), metaphony is also observed. Although the phenomenon is reported as variable for both dialects, little is known about how such variation is structured. In this paper, we explore the structural conditioning of metaphony in Talian through a corpus study. We show that metaphony in this dialect is asymmetrical, as /e, o/ exhibit different rates of application, which are conditioned by number of syllables in the word and morphology. We formalize this asymmetry using a MaxEnt Grammar. Finally, we introduce the Talian Corpus, a corpus of written materials in Talian that promotes the linguistic study of this variety.

French missing object constructions

This paper discusses a class of French à-infinitival constructions, where the missing direct object corresponds to an external argument, either being the antecedent noun in an attributive use, or else a raised argument in a subject or object predication or in the tough construction.  We investigate the internal and external properties of these constructions and show that (i) the construction displays passive-like properties and (ii) control and raising verbs may intervene between the marker à and the missing object verb, as shown on the basis of a corpus study. We observe that while the construction as a whole behaves like a passive where the erstwhile logical object ends up being promoted to external argument, the logical subject is still accessible for control, both from within the à-infinitive and from outside. Building on Grover (1995), we analyse these double subjects by way of a two-step passivisation, where the direct object valency is lexically promoted to subject without concomitant subject demotion. Raising of the missing object as a secondary subject will make it available on the marker à, which finally promotes it to external argument, thereby completing the passivisation effect. The present analysis thus captures the full set of à-infinitival missing object constructions in a unified fashion, capturing its passive-like properties and the extended domain of locality.

Poetic Utterances and Socio-Political Commitment in Ọbasa’s Poems

Yorùbá literary critics such as Olabimtan (1974a), Fo ̣ lọ runs ̣ ọ (1998), among ̣ others, have classified D. A. Obasá as a unique colonial poet whose poems ̣ were committed to the promotion of Yorùbá cultural heritage. Tus, a lot of critical works that exist on Obasa’s poems largely concentrate on the cultural ̣ and the philosophical dimensions with little or no focus on the socio-political commitment of the poet. The objective of this study therefore, was to examine the socio-political commitment of Obasa and his poetic utterances. The research methodology is descriptive. It is a corpus study or content analysis of the poetry books. Poems that are relevant to socio-political issues in the three books (Ìwé Kinni Awon Akéwì, ̣ Ìwé Kejì Awon Akéwì and ̣ Ìwé Kéta ̣ Àwoṇ Akéwì) were analyzed within the theory of Nativism. The major findings of the study were that: the selected poems have diverse socio-political themes as related to traditional politics, colonial politics, Yorùbá civil wars, first world war, migration and the need to remember one’s home or country; some of the poems were used as viable tool for political education; while others were essentially to ignite political consciousness in the readers. The paper concluded that Obasá was a committed poet who used his poetic utterances to disseminate, analyze, and educate the readers on the socio-political climate of colonial days. His non-violence ideological position in resolving socio-political issues is in consonance with the theory of Nativism and it is recommended for modern Yorùbá society and other African societies.

Slovak comparative correlatives

Comparative Correlatives (CCs) are biclausal constructions (e.g. The harder you work, the more you earn) that have complex semantics and form. This is the first construction grammar-based corpus study to investigate Slovak CCs, based on a 500-token sample. I argue that intra-clausal word-order phenomena can be explained through processing efficiency, based on Hawkins’ principle of Early Immediate Constituents (2004), and I use covarying-collexeme analysis (Stefanowitsch & Gries 2005) to provide evidence for the existence of meso-constructions. The findings of this study contribute to construction grammar’s “aspirations toward universal applicability” (Fried 2017: 249), proving that the theory is also suitable for analysis of syntactic patterns in Slavic languages.

On the origins of the epistemic, evidential, and subjectivity meanings in the mental state predicates

This paper aims to contribute to the debates about the nature of the speaker-related meanings of the mental state predicates, on the basis of a diachronic corpus study into the semantic evolution of five such verbs in Dutch. The analyses show that each of these verbs develops its own spe-cific profile in terms of a limited set of clearly distinguishable speaker-related meanings, viz. epistemic modality, evidentiality, and ‘subjectivi-ty’. Each of these meanings is moreover characterized by a distinctive di-achronic path. The study thus also demonstrates the independent status of ‘subjectivity’ as a meaning category.