POLYSEMY PATTERNS OF THE SIMILATIVE SUFFIX -LA IN HILL MARI

Статья посвящена моделям полисемии суффикса la в горномарийском языке. Основное значение данного суффикса — маркирование стандарта сравнения в симилятивных конструкциях. В статье рассматриваются такие значения суффикса, как маркер глоттонимов, маркер актанта при глаголе madaš ‘играть’, маркер обменного эквивалента, маркер приблизительной локализации. Помимо типологически ожидаемых моделей полисемии (как, например, маркер глоттонимов или маркер актанта при глаголах čučaš ‘казаться’, kajaš ‘быть видимым, казаться’), горномарийский симилятивный маркер la имеет менее изученные в типологическом плане функции — например, маркер актанта при глаголе madaš ‘играть’. Предыдущие исследования показали, что la может иметь разные морфосинтаксические ограничения в зависимости от контекста. В статье приводятся существующие ограничения для не рассматриваемых ранее контекстов употребления. Так, маркируя глоттоним или актант при глаголе madaš ‘играть’, la имеет более ограниченную морфосинтаксическую дистрибуцию по сравнению с симилятивными конструкциями и конструкциями с глаголами типа čučaš ‘казаться’. Еще одно употребление la — с локативными выражениями в качестве маркера приблизительной локализации. В этой функции la присоединяется к именной группе, оформленной одним из локативных падежей, а также к послеложной группе с пространственным послелогом или к наречию, сохраняющему в своем составе старые формы локативных падежей. Согласно нашим данным, полученным в ходе опроса носителей, la может присоединяться ко всем трем локативным падежам, а не только к иллативу, как это отмечается в грамматиках. Однако сочетание la с инессивом и лативом, в отличие от иллатива, грамматично только для имен с пространственной семантикой. Помимо этого, в статье анализируется описанная сеть полисемии: обсуждается возможность развития рассматриваемых функций маркера из симилятивного значения, распространившегося из симилятивных конструкций на остальные контексты. This article discusses the polysemy models of the Hill Mari suffix la, which main meaning is marking the standard of comparison in similative constructions: glottonym marker, marker of the actant in constructions with the verb madaš ‘play’, marker of the approximate localization. In addition to the typologically expected patterns of polysemy (for example, the marker of glottonyms or the complementizer marker in constructions with the verbs čučaš ‘seem’, kajaš ‘be seen, seem’), the Hill Mari similative marker la has some functions that are less studied from typological perspective. Previous research has shown that la can have different morphosyntactic restrictions depending on the context. The article presents the restrictions for contexts of la that were not studied previously in a proper way. Thus, when used as a glottonym marker or as a marker of an actant in constructions with the verb madaš ‘play’, la has a more limited morphosyntactic distribution compared to similative constructions and constructions with verbs like čučaš ‘seem’. Another context for la is locative expressions. The suffix is used to indicate the direction and not a final point. In this function, la is attached to a noun phrase marked by one of the locative cases, as well as to a postpositional group with a spatial postposition or to an adverb that retains the old forms of locative cases. It is important that la can be attached to all three locative cases, not just to the illative, as noted in the grammars. Moreover, the article analyzes the existing polysemy network: there is an attempt to present a possible invariant underlying all functions of the la. This is the similative meaning of the suffix, which is spread from the similative constructions to other contexts.

The concept of space in Classic Mayan

The ancient Maya civilization left us a significant corpus of glyphic inscriptions, a large portion of which consists of historical records, meticulously dating events and time elapsed between them – births, accessions and deaths of rulers, wars, ceremonies, visits and family relationships between royal dynasties, etc. (see Martin and Grube 2008). Time being such a prominent topic, the texts contain a number of time-related terms, including (1) event-based expressions (ti ik’ k’in ‘at black day / at dusk / at night’; i pas ‘then at dawn’; si[h]yajiiy ‘(X years) after s/he was born’), (2) conceptualizations which are potentially and likely spatial in nature as they appear both in locative expressions and temporal adverbials (preposition ti ‘in/on/at/with/as; the verb uht ‘to happen’ and deictic verb hul ‘to arrive’; tu paat + date ‘on the back of / after), and finally, (3) non-spatial metaphorical conceptualizations, such as reification and personification of the units of time. Sweetser and Gaby (2017, 626) notice that “crosslinguistically, the single primary historical source for temporal vocabulary is spatial vocabulary” and it is an overwhelming tendency observed in numerous languages around the world. Levinson and Wilkins (2006c, 6) also pose an interesting question how much spatial information is coded in language and how much is inferred from context and our knowledge of the world around us. The concept of space being so basic and significant, surprisingly little has been published on how space was conceptualized in Maya texts of the Classic Period (250-950 CE). Thus, this paper investigates how the domain of space is coded in Classic Mayan, a grapholect recorded in Maya glyphic inscriptions, how the language expresses relationships of containment, contiguity and adjacency, the manner and path of motion events, as well as available frames of reference to locate objects which are separated in space.

Static locative expressions in Amharic

This paper describes the semantics of static locative expressions in Amharic, particularly the variety spoken in Godʒdʒam. The analysis shows that the semantic category of a site subsumed under Path is exclusively expressed by an adposition. The adpositions can be specific and general locatives. The specific locatives show a specific type of topological relation (for instance, verticality as in tatʃtʃ ‘below, under,’ horizontality as in fit ‘front,’ containment as in wɨst’ ‘in’) between figure and ground entities, but not the general locatives. Besides, static positional verbs encode the conflation of the fact of locatedness with a manner of the positioning of a figure. Based on Talmy’s Motion event typology, the present study has identified that Amharic uses a satellite-framed pattern in static locative constructions exclusively. Moreover, based on Ameka & Levinson’s typology of locative predication, Amharic can be classified under type Ia where a language uses a dummy verb in basic locative construction.

Topicalization in the Romance Languages

Topic and topicalization are key notions to understand processes of syntactic and prosodic readjustments in Romance. More specifically, topicalization refers to the syntactic mechanisms and constructions available in a language to mark an expression as the topic of the sentence. Despite the lack of a uniform definition of topic, often based on the notions of aboutness or givenness, significant advances have been made in Romance linguistics since the 1990s, yielding a better understanding of the topicalization constructions, their properties, and their grammatical correlates. Prosodically, topics are generally described as being contained in independent intonational phrases. The syntactic and pragmatic characteristics of a specific topicalization construction, by contrast, depend both on the form of resumption of the dislocated topic within the clause and on the types of topic (aboutness, given, and contrastive topics). We can thus distinguish between hanging topic (left dislocation) (HTLD) and clitic left-dislocation (ClLD) for sentence-initial topics, and clitic right-dislocation (ClRD) for sentence-final dislocated constituents. These topicalization constructions are available in most Romance languages, although variation may affect the type and the obligatory presence of the resumptive element. Scholars working on topic and topicalization in the Romance languages have also addressed controversial issues such as the relation between topics and subjects, both grammatical (nominative) subjects and ‘oblique’ subjects such as dative experiencers and locative expressions. Moreover, topicalization has been discussed for medieval Romance, in conjunction with its alleged V2 syntactic status. Some topicalization constructions such as subject inversion, especially in the non-null subject Romance languages, and Resumptive Preposing may indeed be viewed as potential residues of medieval V2 property in contemporary Romance.

On body-part nouns and the expression of spatial and locative reference in Dagbani

This paper examines the linguistic means by which spatial relations are expressed in Dagbani, a Mabia (Gur) language spoken in the northern region of Ghana (West Africa). I pay particular attention to the grammar of Dagbani “postpositions” demonstrating that the system of locative expressions comprises words that share heterosemic relations with some body parts and landmark terms. I show that although these locative expressions are related both segmentally and suprasegmentally to the nominal items they might have developed from, they are distinct in terms of their semantic, syntactic and morphological properties. Consequently, I conclude that the body-part nouns in locative constructions are distinct syntactic categories due to the morphosyntactic and semantic differences they exhibit. These body-part nouns are thus analysed as grammaticalized items, which function as postpositions and instantiate a postpositional phrase (PostP) category. Finally, I propose possible series of semantic changes that could account for the development of the body-part terms as postpositions.

No effects of modality in development of locative expressions of space in signing and speaking children

Linguistic expressions of locative spatial relations in sign languages are mostly visually motivated representations of space involving mapping of entities and spatial relations between them onto the hands and the signing space. These are also morphologically complex forms. It is debated whether modality-specific aspects of spatial expressions modulate spatial language development differently in signing compared to speaking children. In a picture description task, we compared the use of locative expressions for containment, support, and occlusion relations by deaf children acquiring Turkish Sign Language and hearing children acquiring Turkish (age 3;5–9;11). Unlike previous reports suggesting a boosting effect of iconicity, and/or a hindering effect of morphological complexity of the locative forms in sign languages, our results show similar developmental patterns for signing and speaking children's acquisition of these forms. Our results suggest the primacy of cognitive development guiding the acquisition of locative expressions by speaking and signing children.

Using Spatial Image Schemata in the characterization of spatial relations

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Spatially describing objects or environments is a natural and everyday task present in the daily lives of individuals. To portray the existing relationships between present elements of the scene described, it is necessary to use terms known as spatial relations. Frequently, such descriptions are performed using Natural Language (NL), both spoken and written. The existence of a constant interaction of human with the environment makes NL rich in terms that characterize space, resulting in a diversity of such words. The variety of terms used as spatial relations makes it difficult to implement spatial localization systems that use NL. Therefore, to understand how spatial relations are used, the present article aimed to detect and categorize such spatial relations. For this, an experiment of a spatial description of environments unknown by users was performed. The volunteers were native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese language and from the spatial descriptions were obtained locative expressions that allowed the definition and categorization of spatial relations using the Spatial Image Schemata. The results obtained demonstrated an attempt to understand the spatial relations used in spatial descriptions. In the future, we aim to define a set of spatial relations representative of the words used in a spatial description task.</p>