This book provides a synchronic description of the phonology, word classes, morphology, and syntax of the Cheke Holo language. Cheke Holo is an Austronesian language of the Oceanic subgroup, spoken... Show moreThis book provides a synchronic description of the phonology, word classes, morphology, and syntax of the Cheke Holo language. Cheke Holo is an Austronesian language of the Oceanic subgroup, spoken by 11,000 speakers on Santa Isabel island in the Solomon Islands. This is the first published grammar of Cheke Holo. It is based on the author’s 30 years of linguistic work carried out among Cheke Holo speakers. Like many other Oceanic languages, Cheke Holo has SVO word order, serial verbs, distinguishes alienable and inalianable possession of nouns, and reduplicates verbs to intensify or prolong the action they denote. Four types of demonstratives are attested in Cheke Holo. Basic distinctions of the demonstratives occur between specificity and number, and whether or not the noun modified is proximal or distal. The two-way distinction of past and non-past is the most useful descriptor for the Cheke Holo tense system. Several features of Cheke Holo phonology and grammar are less typical for an Oceanic language. These include its consonant clusters, the voiceless continuants, the verb nominalizations in four different phonemic environments, and the gender distinction in the third person singular pronouns. The encoding of pragmatic emphasis is a common feature of Cheke Holo grammar. Show less
The present study is an in-depth, corpus-based analysis of the rise and institutionalization of the indefinite nominal gerund in Late Modern English, considering the observed developments in light... Show moreThe present study is an in-depth, corpus-based analysis of the rise and institutionalization of the indefinite nominal gerund in Late Modern English, considering the observed developments in light of their interactions with functionally related constructions. Based on historical data taken from the Corpus of Late Modern English Texts (version 3.1), we argue that the rise of indefinite nominal gerunds constitutes an instance of diachronic nominalization, in which the nominal gerund over time gradually comes to exploit a fuller range of paradigmatic properties associated with the nominal class. At the same time, this study investigates the potential influence of isomorphism on the observed developments. While the results do support the frequently investigated claim that language systems have a (weak) preference for a one-form-one-meaning organization in later stages of their development, the initial emergence of indefinite nominal gerunds can more accurately be explained by allowing system pressure as an enabling force of linguistic innovation. The picture presented in this study serves as evidence that the long-term development of linguistic constructions can be the result of competing – even maximally opposite – forces. Show less
