Conditionals, or if-then sentences, form a crucial ingredient of everyday reasoning and argumentation, as they enable us to express our thoughts about possible states of the world. They are used in... Show moreConditionals, or if-then sentences, form a crucial ingredient of everyday reasoning and argumentation, as they enable us to express our thoughts about possible states of the world. They are used in very different ways, and the main aim of this dissertation is to investigate to what extent these different uses of conditionals are connected to one another and to their grammatical features.The first part of this dissertation presents an analysis of conditionals in terms of implicatures of 'unassertiveness' and 'connectedness'. Insights from semantics, pragmatics, cognitive linguistics, and neighbouring fields are combined. In the second part, the analysis is tested on a corpus of spoken and written Dutch discourse. To investigate the relation between the meaning and grammar of conditionals, several cluster analyses are conducted. The results show that grammatical features such as verb tense and modal marking do not, or only weakly, license generalised implicatures of unassertiveness and connectedness. This outcome sheds light on difficulties in applying general categories of conditionals to language use data, and it suggests that the fundamentals of categorising conditional constructions need revision.The dissertation shows the benefits of combining semantic and pragmatic analyses of conditionals. It provides an extensive discussion of classifications of conditionals, an overview of the grammatical features of Dutch conditionals, and it presents cluster analyses using state-of-the-art machine-learning techniques. The study should therefore be of interest to anyone concerned with the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of conditionals, and to anyone working on Dutch grammar, corpus linguistics, theories of argumentation, and the interface between semantics and pragmatics. Show less
This dissertation investigates the properties of a particular type of question, namely wh-in-situ questions in French. It examines their properties from two perspectives related to the context in... Show moreThis dissertation investigates the properties of a particular type of question, namely wh-in-situ questions in French. It examines their properties from two perspectives related to the context in which a question is uttered. These are (a) the information structure of the sentence, specifically focus and givenness, and (b) the distinction between regular information seeking questions and echo questions.An important result is the insight that French has two mechanisms to interpret wh-in-situ questions, yielding potentially identical looking questions with different properties. While certain speakers only have one of these mechanisms to interpret wh-in-situ questions in their grammar, others, often younger speakers, have both. This explains much of the data confusion regarding the properties of French wh-in-situ questions.The investigation also provides more general insights into the relation between wh-questions and aspects of the preceding context. While it is often assumed that the focus in wh-questions necessarily equals the wh-phrase, the dissertation shows experimentally that this is not the case in all languages. In languages like French, what is focused may depend on the preceding context, as in declaratives. The dissertation also suggests a direction of research for contextually restricted wh-in-situ in wh-fronting languages like English and German Show less
This book comprises a synchronic description of Tagdal a Songhay-Berber mixed language spoken in the southeastern and central regions of the Republic of Niger. It begins with a summary of the... Show moreThis book comprises a synchronic description of Tagdal a Songhay-Berber mixed language spoken in the southeastern and central regions of the Republic of Niger. It begins with a summary of the historic and general sociolinguistic situation in Niger and how it affects speakers of Tagdal, followed by a description of the sound system, beginning with the consonant and vowel inventories, as well as some phonological processes. The largest sections include a description of the grammar, starting with the morphology. The intricate interactions between stress placement, vowel and consonant length, and certain aspects of the morphology are described in detail. Special attention is given to the idea that Tagdal contains two prosodic sub-systems, one for vocabulary of Songhay origin and another for vocabulary of Berber-Tuareg origin. This leads to processes such as suppletion of Songhay cognates, with suppletive stems of Tuareg origin. The syntax of Tagdal is also described, including descriptions of how clauses are combined to form both simple and complex sentences. Attention is also paid to how Tagdal combines sentences into higher-level units such as paragraphs, sections and discourses. Show less
Why has Africa not been doing so well and what is the way forward? This book starts with the analysis of Vansina and Prah: the old cultural traditions in Africa have been destroyed in colonial... Show moreWhy has Africa not been doing so well and what is the way forward? This book starts with the analysis of Vansina and Prah: the old cultural traditions in Africa have been destroyed in colonial times; new ones are currently taking shape, based in part in African languages. The book uses cross-cultural psychology to show that such new cultural traditions are indeed forming in Africa. However, almost all African countries currently use a former colonial language in secondary and higher education. The book demonstrates that if more and more people get educated, this system will no longer scale. Over the next decade, more and more African countries will have to make a transition towards increased use of African languages. The book proposes a distinction between discerned and designed languages. All over the world, designed languages are made to serve speakers of several discerned languages. This could and should happen in Africa as well. The book contains a number of brief case studies, showing how in fact such a transition is practically possible. In future, African countries will be able to achieve success in their educational systems by using a small number of languages as medium of instruction. Such a transition will also help to form the new cultural traditions that are already taking shape on the continent. Show less
This dissertation provides a description and analysis of the Mandarin copula shì and copular structures containing it. On the basis of a comprehensive description of the syntactic distribution of... Show moreThis dissertation provides a description and analysis of the Mandarin copula shì and copular structures containing it. On the basis of a comprehensive description of the syntactic distribution of shì and properties of different types of copular sentences (predicational, specificational, and equative), this study proposes a unified structural analysis for predicational and specificational copular sentences in Mandarin.It is proposed that shì is a functional element in the structure of the clause. Importantly, shì is not a verb, and copular structures in Mandarin contain no verb phrase at all, which is consistent with proposals about pronominal copular elements in other languages. Specificational copular sentences are analysed as inverted predicational copular sentences, derived via predicate inversion. This analysis captures both the underlying similarities and the differences between the two types of copular sentences. It is also pointed out that the third type of copular sentences, equatives, is clearly distinct from both predicational and specificational copular sentences and should thus be analysed in a different way.The dissertation also proposes that tense is not always syntactically expressed in Mandarin copular structures. While sentences with a stage-level predicate express tense syntactically, those with an individual-level predicate do not. Show less
Ancient rhetoricians such as Cicero and Quintilian advised orators to apply memoria strategies to memorize their speech. Modern public-speaking textbooks recommend various rhetorical techniques to... Show moreAncient rhetoricians such as Cicero and Quintilian advised orators to apply memoria strategies to memorize their speech. Modern public-speaking textbooks recommend various rhetorical techniques to make messages memorable for audiences. However, the effect of these techniques on information retention has been sparsely studied.This dissertation investigates how rhetorical techniques in speeches can enhance information retention by the audience. Using a three-way approach, it connects rhetorical theory, advice and practice to insights from memory psychology.First, an analysis of influential English-language and Dutch-language public-speaking textbooks showed that frequently advised retention techniques are related to organization, elaboration and visualization—three encoding principles that contribute to information storage. Authors prefer the conclusion of a speech for influencing retention.Secondly, the study describes how scholars, politicians and TED speakers use organization and elaboration techniques (e.g. summaries and anecdotes) in public-speaking practice. Results indicate discrepancies with textbook advice and context-dependent technique variants.Thirdly, two experiments were performed that focused on three organization techniques applied in conclusions of informative presentations. Results show that announcing the conclusion and providing an informative summary can enhance information retention by the audience. We are one step closer to knowing what makes messages memorable. Show less
This book provides a description of Cuvok, a language spoken by about 10,000 people in the far north of Cameroon. The study of the linguistic elements addresses and provides an analysis of the... Show moreThis book provides a description of Cuvok, a language spoken by about 10,000 people in the far north of Cameroon. The study of the linguistic elements addresses and provides an analysis of the language through the examination of phonological and morphological aspects, as well as some notes on syntax and a bilingual lexicon.The issue of prosodies is central to the discussion of vowel segments. The harmonic domain of the word has a prominent place in the morpho-phonological discussion. The noun and the verb are the only grammatical categories that exhibit harmonic domains within which the features +palatalization and -palatalization are observed. All satellite elements of these two categories are either palatalized or non-palatalized depending on the opposition between the two phonemic vowels in the final position of the nominal or verbal complex. The perception of the Cuvok world is revealed through the study of prepositions, markers of temporal and spatial location. The expression of the four cardinal points shows a fixed orientation of the Tchouvok people.Particular emphasis was placed on the ethnolinguistic aspect, which deals with the role of the blacksmith as a key actor in the development of the society. This monographic section examines the role of the blacksmith in a society that is undergoing rapid change and is prey to new ideas and habits.The Cuvok grammar is a work that constitutes a decisive step towards the development and standardization of this language and hence of the central Chadic languages in general. Show less
Attested in cuneiform, hieroglyphic and alphabetic texts dating to the first two millennia BCE, the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family is intriguing already by itself. But... Show moreAttested in cuneiform, hieroglyphic and alphabetic texts dating to the first two millennia BCE, the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family is intriguing already by itself. But Anatolian is also of central importance for the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European, the last common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Not only is it the earliest attested branch, it has also long been suspected that Anatolian reflects an earlier stage of the proto-language than that underlying the rest of the family.Focusing on the three best-attested Anatolian languages, Hittite, Luwian and Lycian, this book aims to further our understanding of Anatolian, and by extension Proto-Indo-European, by offering in-depth analyses of essential issues in Anatolian historical morphology and semantics. Various well-known as well as several newly adduced topics are scrutinized to determine whether the innovations leading to the discrepancies with the rest of Indo-European took place on the Anatolian or on the non-Anatolian side.The present study suggests that Anatolian is in many respects closer to the ancestor of the other Indo-European languages than is often claimed. Nevertheless, the investigation has also led to new evidence in favor of the hypothesis that Anatolian was the first branch to split off from the family. Show less
The Luwian language belongs to the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family and was spoken around 3000 years ago (approx. 1500 – 700 BCE; Turkey northern Syria). Even though this... Show moreThe Luwian language belongs to the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family and was spoken around 3000 years ago (approx. 1500 – 700 BCE; Turkey northern Syria). Even though this language hasno living descendants and left no significant traces in any language currently spoken in the area, we do have a steadily growing corpus of texts, written on clay, stone and metal, in two different writing systems: cuneiform and hieroglyphic writing. This dissertation is concerned with the question of how Luwian must have sounded (phonetics) and how its sounds were systematically organised (phonology). It also treats the language’s history, tracing the origins of its sounds back to Proto-Anatolian and Proto-Indo-European. Five chapters, each of which has been published in a peer-reviewed journal or offered for publication, cover the most important domains of Luwian phonology: vowels, consonants and syllable structure. At the same time, this thesis illustrates various methods used to retrieve phonetic and phonological details from a dead language. These involve etymology, diachronic and synchronic typology and rigorous orthographical study. Along the way, various proposals are made to refine our phonetic interpretation of the writing systems in which the language was documented. Show less
This dissertation presents a description of Mankanya, an Atlantic language spoken by about 65 000 speakers in Guinea-Bissau, Senegal and the Gambia. It includes a sketch of the phonology and a... Show moreThis dissertation presents a description of Mankanya, an Atlantic language spoken by about 65 000 speakers in Guinea-Bissau, Senegal and the Gambia. It includes a sketch of the phonology and a detailed description of the morphology and syntax of the language. Some aspects of discourse level structure are also discussed and two interlinearised sample texts are included.Mankanya has a rich morphology with both nominal and verbal inflection, and a range of derivative morphemes. Like many other Atlantic languages, nouns can be grouped into classes based on the agreement of the inflections between nouns and their modifiers. Verbs have prefixes that agree with the subject. Though some verbal affixes indicate different aspects, most distinctions of tense, aspect and mode are made by using verbal auxiliaries. Clause chaining is possible with reduced subject agreement if the subject is unchanged. Where the subject does change a different subject marker is often used.A Grammar of Mankanya will be of interest for those studying of Atlantic languages, as well a resource for wider typological comparison. Show less
This dissertation investigates how sound change is adopted by speakers and listeners, based on a currently-ongoing cluster of changes in Dutch termed the ‘Polder shift’. The main aim of the... Show moreThis dissertation investigates how sound change is adopted by speakers and listeners, based on a currently-ongoing cluster of changes in Dutch termed the ‘Polder shift’. The main aim of the dissertation is to form a bridge between five key areas of linguistics: historical phonology, sociophonetics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, and quantitative linguistics. A unified account of these different angles to the study of sound change is not trivial. This dissertation uses psycholinguistic experiments combined with detailed quantitative analysis to study the contributions of the different components to the adoption of sound change in the medium and long term. The population studied in this dissertation is sociolinguistic migrants: in this case, Flemish speakers of Dutch who have migrated to the Netherlands, and thereby migrated from a non-Polder-shift area to a Polder-shift area. The methods adopted in this dissertation include a corpus study of regional variation, longitudinal psycholinguistic experiments over nine months’ time, cross-sectional psycholinguistic experiments spanning multiple decades of apparent time, and two neurolinguistic studies using EEG. Results show that the sociolinguistic migrants rapidly acquire allophonic variation at the phonological level (albeit not necessarily the associated sociolinguistic knowledge), but that it takes a long time (more than nine months, up to multiple decades) for this to carry forward to their behavioral production and perception, and moreover is subject to significant individual differences. The contributions by this dissertation show how the fundamentally sociolinguistic phenomenon of sound change can be studied empirically using psycho- and neurolinguistics, and profit from recent innovations in statistics. Show less
This book presents a grammar description of Dhao, an endangered Austronesian language spoken by about 3000 people on Ndao Island in Eastern Indonesia. It is a member of the Sumba-Hawu subgroup in... Show moreThis book presents a grammar description of Dhao, an endangered Austronesian language spoken by about 3000 people on Ndao Island in Eastern Indonesia. It is a member of the Sumba-Hawu subgroup in the Austronesian family and displays an intensive contact with nearby Kupang Malay and the Rote dialects, which also influences the grammar of the language. This grammar has six chapters which mainly describe the phonology, morphology, and syntax of Dhao. Dhao has an open syllabic system. Word classes are defined only through constructions. The only derivational prefix pa- bears a variety of meanings and interacts with other morphological processes. (C)a- partial reduplication applies to both nominal and verbal categories. Furthermore, verbs and adjectives are only distinguishable through serial verb constructions (SVCs).In order to indicate grammatical relations, only co-indexing system applies. Due to mismatch between verb valencies and constructions, valency is treated as semantic and transitivity is syntactic term. SVCs include at most three verbs whose types are based on the semantics of the verbs. This grammar provides an innovative contribution to the tradition of language research and description in Eastern Indonesia and specifically in the Timor Region. Show less
This descriptive grammar of Nchane, a Beboid language of Cameroon, is based largely on text data and takes a functional approach. Chapters include accounts of the phonology, nouns, noun phrases,... Show moreThis descriptive grammar of Nchane, a Beboid language of Cameroon, is based largely on text data and takes a functional approach. Chapters include accounts of the phonology, nouns, noun phrases, verbs, clause structure, and information structure. An interlinearized text is provided as well. Features of particular interest are the presence of a fricative vowel, two locative noun classes, compound pronouns, and a set of anaphoric demonstratives which encode speaker attitude. Show less
Shiwiar is a language spoken by around 1,200 people in the Amazonian lowlands of eastern Ecuador and northern Peru. It belongs to the Chicham (Jivaroan) language family. This work is the first... Show moreShiwiar is a language spoken by around 1,200 people in the Amazonian lowlands of eastern Ecuador and northern Peru. It belongs to the Chicham (Jivaroan) language family. This work is the first grammatical description of the language, and it is based on a 30-hour audio-visual corpus of natural speech, collected over 12 months of fieldwork between 2011 and 2016 in the Pastaza province of Ecuador.This dissertation is an analysis of Shiwiar phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and information structure. Some of the most salient and typologically interesting phenomena described include the high degree of phonetic and phonological variability in the speech community, a rare type of differential object marking, a rich paradigm of pronominal indexing on the verb, and the extensive use of clause chains as a discursive and clause combining device. This work also engages with the areal and typological literature to shed light on their diachronic development. From a methodological perspective, special emphasis is given throughout this dissertation to the value of using natural language data for linguistic analysis, and the importance of committing to a high standard of transparency and resolvability with regards to the data. Show less
Estimates differ, but in general it is assumed that about half of our spoken and written language consists of stock phrases, formulaic sequences, and common, semantically transparent combinations... Show moreEstimates differ, but in general it is assumed that about half of our spoken and written language consists of stock phrases, formulaic sequences, and common, semantically transparent combinations of words, also known as lexical bundles. There is a growing body of experimental work showing that lexical bundles are read, understood, and pronounced faster than their infrequent matched controls, which seems to suggest that these bundles function as units in processing, much like single words.This thesis focuses on the processing of Dutch lexical bundles, and does so by considering them from different angles: How do we read lexical bundles? Are there differences in processing between age groups? How do we process spoken lexical bundles? And how do we produce them? In answering these questions, a wide range of experimental methods, and both statistical and computational modeling are employed. Show less
This dissertation provides a comprehensive look at the consonant-tone interaction embedded in a description of the sound system of two under-documented Chinese dialects, namely Lili Wu Chinese and... Show moreThis dissertation provides a comprehensive look at the consonant-tone interaction embedded in a description of the sound system of two under-documented Chinese dialects, namely Lili Wu Chinese and Shuangfeng Xiang Chinese. In the existing literature, consonant-tone interaction generally concerns a [voiceless/H]-[voiced/L] co-occurrence pattern. A high tone usually co-occurs with a voiceless consonant, while a low tone usually co-occurs with a voiced consonant. However, largely because of the high level of homogeneity in the languages sampled, and the lack of access to up-to-date statistical techniques, this [voiceless/H]-[voiced/L] pattern has veiled the full picture of consonant-tone interaction across the world’s languages. Based on a series of phonetic studies of phonological contrasts, there are two key findings that contribute to our understanding of the diversity in consonant-tone interaction. First, voiceless aspirated onsets can also co-occur with low tones. This finding is antagonistic to the [voiceless/H]-[voiced/L] pattern which posits that only contrastively voiced onsets can be in favor of low tones. Second, the realization of consonant-tone interaction is not only specific between languages but also within languages. Speakers of different generations of a given language can utilize phonetic cues differently to signal the same phonological contrasts. Show less
This thesis is about the Mochica language, an extinct linguistic isolate that was spoken until the mid- to late-nineteenth century in the northern coastal area of Peru. The aim of this study is... Show moreThis thesis is about the Mochica language, an extinct linguistic isolate that was spoken until the mid- to late-nineteenth century in the northern coastal area of Peru. The aim of this study is twofold. The first goal is to reconstruct and better understand the Mochica language, in order to achieve the second goal of this research: a comparison of the Mochica language with other languages, which could potentially allow the establishment of contact or genealogical relations.This thesis includes a brief grammatical sketch of the Mochica language, as well as the reconstruction of some of its grammatical aspects (nominal possession, numeral classification, and nominalization) and its phonology. The thesis also offers the results of the grammatical and lexical comparison carried out between the Mochica language and other surrounding languages, and with other typologically similar languages.This thesis will be of interest to linguists who study indigenous languages of the Americas, Andean Linguistics and Linguistic Typology. Show less
This dissertation investigates on-going language variation and change in Abui, a Timor-Alor-Pantar (Papuan) language spoken on the island of Alor, eastern Indonesia. Like many indigenous languages... Show moreThis dissertation investigates on-going language variation and change in Abui, a Timor-Alor-Pantar (Papuan) language spoken on the island of Alor, eastern Indonesia. Like many indigenous languages spoken on Alor, Abui has been in intensive contact with Alor Malay, the regional lingua franca, for around 50-60 years. This has had the greatest impact on younger speakers, who are now being raised in Alor Malay and only learn Abui during or after adolescence. Drawing on methods from descriptive linguistics, bilingualism research, and variationist sociolinguistics, the Abui of four different age-groups was found to vary significantly, suggesting that this shift to Alor Malay is having an impact on Abui.This was illustrated using three case-studies of language variation and change, examining reflexive possessive marking, verb usage, and reduplication. Broadly speaking, it was found that the 50-60 years of intense contact between Alor Malay and Abui has led to the simplification of Abui grammar. In particular, the reflexivity distinction in possession is becoming neutralized, certain verbs are taking over others and becoming more generic, while reduplication is becoming more productive and more Malay-like in function and form. These outcomes are argued to be a case of both incomplete acquisition and transfer.This dissertation may prove of relevance to anyone interested in the study of language contact and change, bilingualism, sociolinguistics, descriptive linguistics, endangered languages, Papuan and Austronesian languages, and language variation in minority languages. Show less
Computer-assisted corpus linguistics is one of the main points of convergence between linguistic and computational methods. In particular, the use of diachronic linguistic corpora provides... Show moreComputer-assisted corpus linguistics is one of the main points of convergence between linguistic and computational methods. In particular, the use of diachronic linguistic corpora provides opportunities for the quantitative analysis of phenomena concerning language change through time. This dissertation offers contributions to three of the stages of the research involving diachronic corpora: (a) corpus building and compilation; (b) designing of tools and algorithms for data exploration; and (c) data analysis for linguistic, cultural and historical research. Two resources are first presented: a Web scraper of comments from news portals; and a diachronic corpus composed of comments published in a news website. Then, I propose a generalizable method to assist in the identification of periods of establishment and obsolescence of linguistic items in a diachronic corpus based on the frequency of these items in the corpus. This method may be employed for the analysis of any collection of linguistic items, regardless of language or historical period. Finally, I describe how diachronic corpora might be used for quantitative linguistic investigation by proposing a framework centered on the investigation of vocabulary through a diachronic approach, and demonstrate its applicability by analyzing the use of the term 'fake news' in the media. Show less
Dit promotieonderzoek heeft tot hoofddoel de mogelijke cognaten te analyseren voor bepaalde antiloopsoorten in de Bantoe gemeenschappen. Door enerzijds de fundamentele principes van de Historisch... Show moreDit promotieonderzoek heeft tot hoofddoel de mogelijke cognaten te analyseren voor bepaalde antiloopsoorten in de Bantoe gemeenschappen. Door enerzijds de fundamentele principes van de Historisch-Vergelijkende Taalkunde (vergelijkende methodologie) en anderzijds een maximum aantal bibliografische bronnen te gebruiken, zijn een groot aantal woorden uit een aanzienlijk aantal Bantoetalen verzameld. 174 protovormen betreffende de woordenschat specifiek voor de antilopen in Bantoe zijn uitgelicht. Van deze vormen waren 62 stammen al voorgesteld in de database Bantu Lexical Reconstructions (BLR) (2003) en 14 via andere bronnen. Sommige veelvoorkomende lexicale creatieprocessen in de Bantoetalen zijn semantische uitbreiding, reduplicatie, metathese en de metafoor. Bovendien heeft dit onderzoek het mogelijk gemaakt de betekenis te verfijnen van meerdere reeds voorgestelde reconstructies in de BLR. De semantische velden van de nomenclatuur van dieren zijn onderhevig aan heel wat verschuivingen, wat voornamelijk wordt verklaard door de veranderingen van de nominale klassen, maar ook door problemen met de betrouwbaarheid van bepaalde bronnen. In sommige gevallen is men erin geslaagd de oorsprong van de betekenis van gereconstrueerde stammen te achterhalen en hun semantische motivaties te begrijpen. Show less
