Quirky negative concord

This paper explores the interaction between connective negation (‘neither ... nor’) and negative concord, an issue that has not received much attention. It looks at different ‘negative concord’ languages, viz. Croatian, Spanish, and French. The approach is synchronic; the data come from existing descriptions and from native speaker judgments. The paper describes the many idiosyncrasies but also lays bare some of the similarities.

A note on the career of metaphorical domains

One of most dominant conceptual metaphors used to talk about the COVID-19 across languages and cultures is the war metaphor, but many other metaphors have been attested, exploiting a wide range of source domains. It appears, however, that there is a sort of evolutionary movement concerning the frequency with which particular source domains are used, progressing first towards more aggressive, war-like concepts, then after a sort of culmination in the spring of 2020, towards other related concepts, as the epidemic turned into a pandemic, and as new waves of infections emerged. However, we can now observe the beginnings of a new cycle: the domain that has so far been conceptualized metaphorically in terms of other source domains is now beginning to emancipate itself, becoming itself a source domain. Metaphorically speaking, when we study this switch, we study not the career of a metaphor, but the career of a domain (which in our opinion is even more exciting than the former enterprise). The aim of this article is to shed some light on this incipient trend by taking a look at the constellation of two (among many possible) factors that may have facilitated this mutation: the phenomenon of domain homogenization (towards a negative paragon) as a semantic catalyst and the family of XY(Z) constructions as the formal catalyst.

Metonymy and Croatian adverbial clauses

In this article I examine some metonymic aspects of the semantics of Croatian connectives introducing adverbial clauses of cause, condition, purpose, and concession. The analysis leans on the theory of conceptual metaphor and metonymy and, to a lesser extent, on cognitive grammar. It is also informed by grammaticalization scholarship within typological functionalism. I explore metonymic mappings between the categories of time and cause, manner and cause, cause and condition, purpose, cause and concession, condition and concession, time and condition, and metonymic mappings operating at the level of speech acts. The goal is to contribute to the growing, though still arguably small, body of cognitive linguistic research into the relevance of metonymy for the semantics of complex sentences, specifically the role it plays in subordination, and to expand this analysis to subordinate constructions in Croatian. Some attention is given to grammaticalization studies, where metaphor and metonymy are seen as two types of pragmatic inferencing facilitating interactions between the mentioned semantic categories in complex sentences.

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.

A new look at word classes in Cognitive Grammar

Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar aims to offer a conceptual characterization of word classes. Pivotal to this endeavor is the distinction between a “thing” and a “relation” as well as the claim that relations can be scanned either sequentially or summarily. The difference between the two scanning modes is essential to separate, for example, enter as a finite verb from the dynamic preposition into. In this paper, the debate on the status and relevance of the two scanning modes is revisited and the very notion of relation is subjected to close scrutiny, thus revealing its potentially problematic nature. A new way of looking at word classes based on the notions of evolving vs. non-evolving categorization sequences, extrinsicality vs. intrinsicality, and anchorability is developed, which constitutes a radical departure from Cognitive Grammar despite being compatible with its fundamental assumptions.

The afterlife of the antipassive

Three examples are presented of reanalyses of antipassives as or in the direction of ordinary transitive constructions, from Tsez, Chukchi, and Mayan languages. In all cases, an antipassive construction remains in the language or language family concerned, thus presenting empirical evidence of reanalysis to parallel earlier hypothesized reconstructions of antipassives to explain synchronic idiosyncrasies

Die Beziehung zwischen der Bewusstheit und den Lehrmethoden beim Erlernen der (nicht) passivfähigen Verben im Deutschen als Fremd-sprache

Das Hauptziel dieser Untersuchung war es, die Beziehung zwischen der Bewusstheit (engl. awareness) und den expliziten und impliziten Lehrmethoden bezüglich des Erlernens einer komplexen, mehrdimensionalen fremdsprachlichen Zielstruktur, der (nicht) passivfähigen Verben im Deutschen als Fremdsprache, zu erforschen. Viele Untersuchungen aus dem Bereich des Zweit- und Fremdsprachenerwerbs (z. B. Schmidt 1990; Robinson 1995; Leow 2001) haben bis jetzt Schmidts Noticing-Hypothese (1990; 1993; 1995; 2001) bestätigt, in der davon ausgegangen wird, dass die Aufmerksamkeit eine Schlüsselrolle beim erfolgreichen Erlernen zielsprachlicher Strukturen spielt, da es ohne Aufmerksamkeit nicht zum Bemerken der Zielstruktur im Input kommen kann, ohne das Bemerken nicht zum Erlernen. Es wird somit nicht nur der Aufmerksamkeit, sondern auch der Bewusstheit eine ausschlaggebende Rolle zugesprochen . Schmidt geht in seiner Noticing-Hypothese (1990; 1993; 1995; 2001) von der niedrigeren Bewusstheitsebene, der Ebene des Bemerkens, und der höheren Bewusstheitsebene, der Ebene des Verstehens, aus. Das Verstehen des sprachlichen Inputs kann auf zwei verschiedene Weisen zustande kommen: durch implizites und/oder explizites Lernen/Lehrmethoden (DeKeyser 2003; Ellis, R. 2005). Um diese Beziehungen detaillierter zu beleuchten, wurde in der vorliegenden Untersuchung ein Experiment in drei Phasen durchgeführt. Die Teilnehmer waren kroatische Gymnasiasten, die Deutsch als Fremdsprache lernen, und Germanistikstudenten eines Masterstudiums. Zur Datenerhebung bezüglich der Bewusstheitsebenen wurde die Think-aloud-Methode angewandt. Die erhaltenen Daten wurden qualitativ und quantitativ mit einer statistischen Analyse (mehrfaktorielle Varianzanalyse) bearbeitet. Die Resultate zeigen bezüglich der Erforschung der Rolle der Bewusstheit in der Input-intake-Phase eine starke positive Beziehung zwischen den Lernergebnissen der expliziten Lehrmethode und der höheren Bewusstheitsebene, aber auch der impliziten Lehrmethode und der niedrigeren Bewusstheitsebene. Die Lernergebnisse der Untersuchungsteilnehmer, die der expliziten Lehrmethode ausgesetzt waren, haben, insgesamt betrachtet, bessere Resultate gezeigt. Es wurde auch eine Interaktion zwischen den Untersuchungsteilnehmern, die sich auf einem höheren Sprachkenntnisstand befinden, und der niedrigeren Bewusstheitsebene festgestellt, wobei diese Untersuchungsteilnehmer bessere Lernleistungen beim unmittelbaren Posttest zeigten. Die erhaltenen Daten bestätigen die Annahmen von Schmidts Noticing-Hypothese (1990) und die Untersuchungsergebnisse ähnlicher Untersuchungen (z. B. Leow 1997; 2001; Medina 2015).

Agentivnost subjekta u konstrukcijama s osje-tilnim glagolima vida i sluha

U ovome radu analizira se semantička uloga subjekta u konstrukcijama s osjetilnim glagolima iz kognitivnogramatičke perspektive, a prije svega njegova agentivnost. Naime temeljna kategorizacija osjetilnih glagola uspostavlja se upravo u odnosu na semantičku ulogu subjekta u konstrukcijama s osjetilnim glagolima, a glavna je značenjska odrednica subjekta, na temelju koje se osjetilni glagoli dijele na voljne ili glagole aktivne percepcije, nevoljne ili glagole pasivne percepcije te izokrenute osjetilne glagole, pritom upravo njegova agentivnost. Glavni je cilj ovoga rada preispitati općeprihvaćenu kategorizaciju osjetilnih glagola kao stativnih glagola ili glagola stanja, posebice kada su u pitanju glagoli poput vidjeti i čuti, koji se na temelju često pojednostavljenih i nepreciznih jezičnih testova svrstavaju u kategoriju glagola pasivne percepcije i stativnih glagola, a njihov subjekt često opisuje kao pasivni, nevoljni i neagentivni, što onda vodi prema nepreciznomu gramatičkom opisu i pogrešnome shvaćanju ne samo osjetilnih glagola već i drugih gramatičkih koncepata važnih za proučavanje glagola općenito poput događajne strukture konstrukcije ili aktionsarta, semantičkih ekstenzija glagola, sintaktičke okoline u kojoj se pojavljuju, prijelaznosti i sl. Analiza semantičke uloge subjekta u konstrukcijama s osjetilnim glagolima vida i sluha u ovome radu temelji se na metodologiji kognitivne lingvistike, odnosno kognitivne gramatike, s naglaskom na ideju utjelovljenja jezika (engl. embodiment), koja uključuje i enciklopedijski pogled na značenje, koncept kanonskoga događajnog modela, čiji jezični odraz predstavlja prijelazna konstrukcija, te ideju radijalnih kategorija utemeljenih na efektu prototipa. Radna je pretpostavka ovoga rada da se osjetilni glagoli, kao i sve drugo u jeziku, ne mogu gramatički opisati, a da se u taj opis ne uključi i naša vlastita predodžba o ljudskim osjetilnim organima, njihovim mogućnostima i ograničenjima te načinu na koji funkcioniraju, odnosno da se ne analiziraju veze između tjelesnoga iskustva, općih kognitivnih sposobnosti čovjeka, konceptualnih struktura te samih jezičnih struktura.

Zapažanja o hrvatskim adverbijalima položaja u vremenu

Vremenski adverbijali heterogena su skupina izraza čija je distribucija i funkcija nalik onima leksičke kategorije priloga, a kojima se izražavaju različiti aspekti kognitivne kategorije vremena. Polazeći od Kleinova određenja ovih izraza (1994; 2009a), u radu se predlaže klasifikacija hrvatskih adverbijala položaja u vremenu, kojima je svojstveno smještanje događaja na vremensku os. U analizi se uzimaju u obzir neki hrvatski adverbijali položaja koji smještaju događaj u prošlost – tada, u poss vrijeme, u svoje vrijeme, jednom, nekoć i nekad(a). Razmatraju se primjeri njihove uporabe u korpusu hrWaC (Ljubešić i Klubička 2014), a u analizi načina na koji istraživani adverbijali smještaju događaj na vremensku os primjenjuje se Haspelmathov (1997) pristup vremenskim adverbijalima te se komentiraju njihova svojstva anaforičnosti i/ili deiktičnosti. U radu se daju neka zapažanja o vremenskom određenju istraživanih izraza i predlažu kriteriji na temelju kojih je moguće klasificirati i razlikovati hrvatske adverbijale položaja u vremenu.

The geometry vs. the algebra of meaning

In this paper Gärdenfors’s geometric approach to meaning in natural language is compared to Jackendoff's algebraic one, and this is done against the backdrop of formal semantics. Ultimately, the paper tries to show that Jackendoff's framework is to be preferred to all others. The paper proceeds as follows. In Section 2, the common theoretical commitments of Gärdenfors and Jackendoff are outlined, and it is attempted to argue briefly that they are on the right track. In Section 3, the basics of the two frameworks to be compared are laid out, and it is assessed how they deal with some central issues in semantic theory, namely reference and truth, lexical decomposition, and compositionality. In Section 4, we get into the nitty-gritty of how Gärdenfors and Jackendoff actually proceed in semantic analysis, using an example of a noun and a verb (embedded in a sentence). In Section 5, the merits of Gärdenfors's empiricism when it comes to word learning and concept acquisition are assessed and compared to the moderate nativism of Jackendoff, and it is argued that Jackendoff's nativism is to be preferred. In the sixth section, the semantic internalism common to both frameworks is commented on.