From Number Cycle to Split Plurality and Back in Albanian

Albanian plural morphology is analysed in the paper as split between the Num and n heads. This is shown to result diachronically from a plural-to-singular reanalysis cycle, where splitting the number morphology between Num and n has worked as a competition resolution strategy in Albanian. The system is still in transition, however, and represents a long-lasting state of a dynamic equilibrium.

Latino o cirillico? Le proposte di un alfabeto misto nelle visioni di unità jugoslava del periodo interbellico

This paper discusses the context of script choice (Latin and Cyrillic) in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the late 1920s and early 1930s, focusing on bialphabetism and biliteracy as official policies of the country. I place the topic in the framework of Latinization in the interwar period and examine three texts by Yugoslav authors that propose a ‘hybrid’ writing system containing the characters of both alphabets as a solution to digraphia. It then explores some reactions to such proposals, including the one of Aleksander Belić. The article is based on the analysis of previously unknown sources found in the Matica Srpska Library in Novi Sad.

It’s All Under Control! On Perfective Present Forms in BCS Main Clauses

This study aims to provide a unified analysis of the syntax-pragmatics interface of the (allegedly) anomalous licensing of the perfective present (PresPF) in BCS present-tensed main clauses. Although PresPF forms cannot usually refer to eventualities that are anchored to the time of utterance UT, there seem to be three apparent exceptions to this structural constraint. They are as follows: 1) abusive metonymic performatives; 2) live demonstrations; and 3) nonveridical contexts introduced by the epistemic operator možda ‘maybe’. It is claimed that for PresPF forms to be licensed in BCS main clauses, control needs to be specified as a variable at the level of the so-called Seat of Knowledge in the SpeechActP layer.

On the Diachrony of the Clitic Cluster in Bulgarian

The article traces back the formation of the clitic cluster in Bulgarian starting from the Old Church Slavonic through Middle Bulgarian up to the Early Modern Bulgarian and beyond. It offers a hypothetical two-layer structure of the cluster – with the main layer consisting of a (pronominal) core and a (verbal) periphery, and a secondary layer hosting (‘quasi-clitical’) elements that exhibit, both diachronically and synchronically, a behaviour that is not strictly consistent with that of the clitical elements. The language material from three corpora shows that there was no change in the positions of the elements in the core, and the changes in the periphery observed are mainly due to the changes in the set of the elements (as a result of the restructuring of the pronoun system and changes in the auxiliary system, as well as the loss of some early clitics, such as the discourse markers).

Postposed Articles and DP Structures in Torlak

This article sheds light on postposed articles and DP structures in Torlak, a non-standardised Balkan Slavic variety. Torlak and specifically Trgoviste-Torlak, unlike Bulgarian and Macedonian, does not exhibit MD. We argue that this scenery is due to a partial grammaticalization of the determiner, which is arguably an inflectional affix and maintains the demonstrative feature. In addition, we verify the nature of the Torlak DP and we make some considerations on the intermediate nature of this element with respect to the grammaticalization path, followed by the other Balkan Slavic varieties.

Language Ideologies and Multilingual Practices of Post-Soviet Migrants in Western Europe from a Translanguaging Perspective

The main point of this paper is to describe, discuss and analyse multilingual practices of non-Russian migrants from the former Soviet Union from a translanguaging perspective uncovering language ideologies underpinning these practices. Using data collected through a 3-month linguistic ethnography supplemented by linguistic analysis of informal online communication, the Author found that fluid, translingual practices are generally not characteristic for the majority of well-educated post-Soviet migrants. Instead, we observe in the normative linguistic behaviour a lack of need or unwillingness to cross language boundaries and create hybrid linguistic forms.

No Gender in ‘Gender Agreement’: On Declension Classes and Gender in Serbo-Croatian

The present paper argues for a view of gender agreement without either grammatical or natural gender being represented as syntactic features. Rather than deriving declension classes in terms of realisation, I postulate them as the only relevant feature that is lexically specified on the noun. Agreement copies the declension class and triggers presuppositions. When these presuppositions clash with those already active in the discourse, default agreement is realised. The paper moreover provides a quantitative analysis of semantic correlates of declension classes and a novel analysis of SC declension classes.