A sociolinguistic study of address terms in a Nigerian university’s staff club

This article explores the sociopragmatic functions of address terms in social interactions at the University of Calabar Senior Staff Club. It takes into perspective the metalinguistic categories of address terms, their motivations, and the cultural and sociolinguistic parameters that determine their choice among Club members. The study is rooted in social identity theory and community of practice (CoP) analytical framework as are theorized in contemporary sociolinguistic literature. The study identifies nicknames, titles, acronyms, formulaic appellations, clipped personal names and extended personal names as the primary types of address terms in the Club, and articulates that the use of address terms is a social construction of identity that enacts intimacy, fosters collective belonging, and enhances solidarity. Conversely, address terms can also reinforce social division and inequality given the hierarchical structure of the Club which does not license reciprocal use of some address terms. The study concludes that address terms are a site of highly creative use of language which is reflexively framed through humour, clipping, lengthening, language play and other linguistic devices. Generally, address terms provide mechanisms for members to bond socially and adapt flexibly to the socio-academic environment of the Club.

Some notes on central causal clauses in Venetian

The goal of this paper is to provide novel evidence in favor of an integration of Haegeman’s (2002) taxonomy of adverbial clause subordination by discussing some data from C-introduced causal constructs in Venetian, the Italo-Romance dialect spoken in the city of Venice. Haegeman’s model is based on a two-class categorization of adverbial structures into central clauses, in which matrix-clause phenomena (such as the licensing of some sentence-initial or sentence-final discourse particle-like items, XP-fronting) are excluded, and peripheral clauses, in which these phenomena are licit. The external-syntactic distinction predicted by this model, namely a semantic differentiation resulting from TP/VP-adjunction for central vs. CP-adjunction for peripheral adverbial clauses, has severe consequences for the internal syntax of the a/m constructions, the most striking being the absence of the upper projections of the Split CP of central constructs. The data presented in this paper, however, suggest that (at least) in Venetian, (some) main-clause phenomena may also be licensed in central adverbial clauses under specific circumstances. Additionally, it will be shown that the conclusions drawn from the observation of the Venetian data match the behavior of the same constructions in Standard Italian, as well as in other languages, under the very same conditions.

Between feature mapping and thematic prominence: Old english se-demonstratives and pronouns in discourse

Old English se-demonstratives (which usually trace less salient referents) and personal pronouns (usually continuing previous topics) have frequently been taken to share a common pronominal property (e.g. Breban 2012; Epstein 2011; van Gelderen 2013, 2011; Kiparsky 2002; Howe 1996). This assumption holds despite their non-overlapping distribution which still remains a puzzle (cf. van Gelderen 2013; Los and van Kemenade 2018). In this paper, we argue that this distributional discrepancy stems from the lack of syntactic and formal affinities between the two forms. Se-demonstratives are either dependent (introducing full DPs) or independent (usually labeled as “pronominal”), but still instances of the same lexical item. As a D-category, they necessarily license their NP complements regardless of their being lexical or empty, thereby entering into tight formal and semantic relations with their nominal antecedents. In doing so, they rely on the working of their gender- and case-features, the two carrying semantic import and mapping onto the specific reference [+ref/spec]-property in the semantic module(s). Being bundles of case- and/or φ-features, pronominals lack the complex syntactic structure of se-demonstratives. Their formal and semantic relations with nominal antecedents are thus less intimate, holding due to interpretable person- and number-features.

Engagement markers in research project websites: Promoting interactivity and dialogicity

Scholars are currently not only required to produce primary output, i.e. peer-reviewed research articles, chapters or books, which constitutes certified and legitimised knowledge (Puschmann 2015), but also to disseminate such output, which is frequently carried out digitally and in English. In this context it is the aim of this paper to gain insights into scholars’ digital discursive practices by analysing academic websites of research projects funded under the European H2020 programme. More specifically, it explores the ways in which a potentially wide, blurred audience is addressed by means of engagement markers, particularly, reader pronouns, questions, and directives, including imperatives, obligation modals and adjectival phrases expressing necessity. Results indicate that the frequency of use of engagement markers varies across websites and that it may affect their degree of potential interactivity. They further show that some engagement markers are more common than others and that they tend to display specific rhetorical purposes. Differences on their use and function when compared to their use in RA writing are also shown. It is concluded that these interpersonality features have an important role in the potential promotion of dialogicity in this digital medium, and crafting an effective professional identity of the research teams.

Perceptual mapping of linguistic variation in Saudi Arabic dialects

This article provides a perceptual dialectology account of linguistic diversity in Saudi Arabia. Using the map-drawing and labeling task, the study examined the perceptions and ideologies of 674 speakers of Saudi Arabic dialects about the perceived boundaries of regional dialect varieties, as well as their social evaluation of and beliefs about the dialects. The analysis of the results as displayed in composite maps using a Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping program revealed that respondents identified five major dialect areas as having the most distinct features: the Najdi, Hijazi, southern, eastern, and northern regions. Ten categories of respondents’ labels emerged out of the qualitative analysis: style, influence, Bedouin/urban, fast, open/closed, vowel lengthening, unique vocabulary, alternation of /k/ and /g/, attraction, and social media. The present findings show the salience of certain linguistic and social features that respondents associate with certain dialect areas. Such perceptions can ultimately guide and enhance future descriptions and analyses of actual linguistic variation in Saudi Arabia.

What the frequency list can teach us about Turkish sign language?

Recent studies on linguistics, cognitive science and psychology have shown that describing lexical frequency characteristics can answer many critical questions on language acquisition, mental lexicon and language use. Given the importance of corpus-based methodology, this study reports the preliminary findings from the objective lexical frequency list in TİD based on 103.087 sign tokens. This paper shows that frequency occurrence has a very decisive role on the linguistics categories and language in use. With respect to the multi-functionality of pointing in signed languages, the top ranked ID-gloss occurrences are mostly shaped by the pronominal references. Moreover, when compared to previous studies in terms of lexical density and lexical diversity, TİD shares both similar and different statistical features observed in other signed languages.

Markedness relation, identity avoidance, and clausal recursion in Mandarin Chinese

This paper uses optimality theory (OT) to account for the phenomenon of identity occurrence resulting from clausal recursion, which we argue is derived from syntactic embedding and syntactic adjunction. This paper shows that the interaction between faithfulness and economy constraints allows for the optional deletion of functional morphemes that occur repetitively. The syntactic process of deletion is sensitive to the concept of markedness in a few ways. First, the marked, rather than the unmarked, pattern is the trigger for deletion; second, unmarked constructions have priority over marked constructions as the target for deletion. All of these ideas are integrated into the OT model that involves self-conjoined constraints, the mechanism of harmonic alignment, and the competition between faithfulness and economy constraints.

Bracketing paradoxes: A dependency grammar analysis in terms of morph catenae

This manuscript examines various types of bracketing paradoxes: classical “personal noun” constructions, parasynthetic compounds, agentive deverbal nouns, compound denominal adjectives, plural nouns with lexicalized modifiers, multiple auxiliary constructions, and German particle verb constructions. We argue that given a dependency-based view of both sentence and word structure, these bracketing puzzles become non-paradoxical. The morph catena is taken to be the fundamental unit of morphosyntax. A morph catena is A MORPH OR A COMBINATION OF MORPHS THAT ARE CONTINUOUS WITH RESPECT TO DOMINANCE. This notion is derived from its syntactic equivalent, the catena, which is defined as a word or a combination of words that are continuous with respect to dominance. Given an understanding of morphosyntax that acknowledges morph catenae, bracketing paradoxes are resolved by the ability of morph catenae to reach across words to include parts of words.