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
The dissertation investigates the interaction of various kinds of phonologically weak items (clitics) with different types of elliptical operations (mainly VP-ellipsis and sluicing). The main focus... Show moreThe dissertation investigates the interaction of various kinds of phonologically weak items (clitics) with different types of elliptical operations (mainly VP-ellipsis and sluicing). The main focus of the work is on what this interaction can reveal about the timing of ellipsis and cliticization.The first part of the dissertation investigates the interaction of VP-ellipsis and second position cliticization in Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian and reveals crucial differences between the two languages in this respect: it is argued that second position cliticization is phonological in nature in the former and syntactic in the latter. The second part focuses on preposition omission under sluicing in Russian. It is argued that the operation of preposition omission is sensitive to the prosodic organization of the prepositional phrase. This dissertation is of relevance to those interested in the nature of cliticization, the timing of ellipsis and prosodic restrictions on elliptical operations. Show less
This dissertation reconstructs the history of the Flores-Lembata languages (Austronesian, eastern Indonesia) by investigating traces of contact in the lexicon and grammar. Part I fills a gap in the... Show moreThis dissertation reconstructs the history of the Flores-Lembata languages (Austronesian, eastern Indonesia) by investigating traces of contact in the lexicon and grammar. Part I fills a gap in the documentation of the Flores-Lembata languages by providing a descriptive grammar of the previously undescribed Central Lembata language. Part II researches the history of the phonology and the lexicon of the Flores-Lembata languages and provides evidence for both inherited lexical items and a non-Austronesian lexical substrate. Part III examines morpho-syntactic features and their history of contact. Eight atypical structural features of the Flores-Lembata languages are described and evaluated on their potential of being the result of contact with non-Austronesian languages of the area.It is proposed that the Flores-Lembata languages have been in contact with one or more languages typologically similar to the non-Austronesian Alor-Pantar languages that are currently spoken on two adjacent islands. This contact between Flores-Lembata languages and non-Austronesian languages must have been ongoing since the time of Proto-Flores-Lembata until after the break-up of the family into subgroups. The Lamaholot subgroups have gained more non-Austronesian features than the other subgroups. This suggests that the contact of each of the subgroups must have varied in intensity and length. Show less
This study provides a comprehensive look at the tonal system of a Kwa language, including an examination of lexical underlying tone patterns as well as intonational boundary tone and tone which... Show moreThis study provides a comprehensive look at the tonal system of a Kwa language, including an examination of lexical underlying tone patterns as well as intonational boundary tone and tone which signals grammatical meaning without the aid of segmental information. While a number of Kwa languages have been analyzed as having two underlying tones, the author shows that Saxwe has a three-tone system—likely a result of the historical contact between a two-tone Gbe language which had depressor consonant-related lowering effects and a three-tone Yoruboid language.Included in the analysis is a series of phonetic studies of the details of tone implementation in Saxwe. The author examines the phenomena known as automatic downstep and non-automatic downstep and notes the variation that is observed among speakers as they implement downstep. This research will be of interest to Africanists, as well as to those interested in tone and intonation studies. Show less
Majang is a Nilo-Saharan language of the Surmic subfamily spoken in Southwest Ethiopia. This language provides an interesting subject for phonological, morphosyntactic and pragmatic studies,... Show moreMajang is a Nilo-Saharan language of the Surmic subfamily spoken in Southwest Ethiopia. This language provides an interesting subject for phonological, morphosyntactic and pragmatic studies, particularly from a typological perspective. Majang is a tonal language with two tones and two different sources of non-automatic downstep; the tones distinguish meaning both in the lexicon and in the grammar. As would be expected from an Eastern-Sudanic language, Majang features an intricate number-marking system, where numerous inflectional strategies are chosen for the different nouns of the lexicon. This number marking interacts with the case marking of Majang, which is one of the few African languages with clearly manifested ergative-absolutive structures, balanced by an alternative system with nominative-absolutive markings; the deciding factor between the two systems is deeply grounded in the pragmatic context of the predications. The topicality of constituents not only influences the case-marking strategies, but has further manifestations in a topicality-based sentence-final marker and in a syntactic distinction mostly known from Bantu languages, the conjoint-disjoint distinction. This language description covers a wide range of topics: sociolinguistics, phonology, morphology, syntax and pragmatics, supplemented by two interlinearized texts and two wordlists (Majang-English and English-Majang). Show less
This dissertation concerns the description of possessive constructions in Tongugbe, one of the many dialects of the Ewe language, which is spoken in south-eastern Ghana, along the Volta River.... Show moreThis dissertation concerns the description of possessive constructions in Tongugbe, one of the many dialects of the Ewe language, which is spoken in south-eastern Ghana, along the Volta River. It presents a detailed description of the constructions; and explores the relationship that exists between clausal possessive constructions and locative and existential constructions. In addition to this, the work presents a first outline grammar of Tongugbe. The grammar presents notably preliminary findings on the duration contrast in tones of Tongugbe and a rich demonstrative paradigm. The possessive constructions can be grouped into attributive, predicative and external possessor constructions. It is shown that the structural configurations of attributive possessive constructions are functionally motivated. It is also demonstrated that structural variations in predicative possessive and external possessor constructions correspond to differences in meaning. Finally, it is argued that, synchronically, clausal possessive constructions and locative and existential constructions are not reducible to a single structure. The view supported here then is that each construction is a form-meaning pair. Show less
Whenever someone makes a statement, they take stance on what they are talking about. Their utterance presents the propositional content of their message and at the same time shares their position... Show moreWhenever someone makes a statement, they take stance on what they are talking about. Their utterance presents the propositional content of their message and at the same time shares their position regarding the subject of talk. They convey their support or opposition, affiliation or disaffiliation, their like or dislike of the topic of talk. Subsequent, related, contributions similarly do not only react to the content of the earlier message, but to the associated stance taken by the other participant as well. Every interaction thus requires careful management of both the content discussed and the interpersonal relations between those involved. This dissertation investigates how people manage their informal interactions by means of phatic communicative structures. It explores to what extent the choices made by speakers are cross-linguistically stable or language specific, as differences in conversational style could affect intercultural communication and understanding. Three types of linguistic behavior are addressed: offering support and agreement, reproducing meaning (and form), and collaboratively constructing a single message. The preferences across and within these three types are contrasted for Dutch and Indonesian speakers. Show less
The ability to learn rules is at the heart of the ability to learn language. This thesis is a collection of papers tackling rule learning from various perspectives and domains – including... Show moreThe ability to learn rules is at the heart of the ability to learn language. This thesis is a collection of papers tackling rule learning from various perspectives and domains – including visual, auditory, and speech domains – in both infants and adults. Using both simple XYX-, XXY-, or XYY-type rules, and more complex Lindenmayer grammars, we were able to gain insights into the rule learning processes of young infants and of adults. While we were unsuccessful in attempted replications and extensions of previous studies, it was precisely these failures that helped to provide a more nuanced picture of rule learning: even the simplest type of rule learning is far from straightforward. For infants, we find evidence for a repetition bias in both the visual and speech domain that is difficult to overcome, while for adults we show that the learning environment – the task used, the instructions, types of testing stimuli – are all highly influential in determining whether a simple rule can be learned or not. Furthermore, by studying patterns found in babbling we were able to hypothesize for the first time about the parallels between production and perceptual abilities with respect to rule learning. Show less
Until the beginning of this century, with few notable exceptions, prescriptivism has received little serious attention among the academic linguistic community as a factor in language variation... Show moreUntil the beginning of this century, with few notable exceptions, prescriptivism has received little serious attention among the academic linguistic community as a factor in language variation and change. The five studies included in this book are embedded in the growing research initiative that is attempting to paint a fine-grained picture of linguistic prescriptivism in the English language. In contrast to institutional prescriptivism, or the so-called prescriptivism from above, which is enforced by bodies such as language planning boards, governmental committees, and agencies, this book focuses on grassroots prescriptivism – the attempts of lay people to promote the standard language ideology. Grassroots prescriptivism investigates the metalinguistic comments of language users expressed on traditional (letters to newspaper editors and radio phone-ins) and new media platforms (forum and blog discussions). This book demonstrates that, contrary to popular belief, language users are not passive recipients of language rules, but active participants in matters of linguistic prescriptivism. The diachronic exploration of grassroots prescriptivism reveals a complex picture. While in many respects, twenty-first-century prescriptivism represents a continuation of the 250-year-old prescriptive tradition, the author argues that prescriptivism, like language itself, undergoes change over time. Show less
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 most prominent prosodic feature of tonal languages such as Standard Chinese is their use of pitch to distinguish lexical meanings (i.e., tone). However, speech ambiguity arises in Standard... Show moreThe most prominent prosodic feature of tonal languages such as Standard Chinese is their use of pitch to distinguish lexical meanings (i.e., tone). However, speech ambiguity arises in Standard Chinese because the same pitch contour can also cue another linguistic function (i.e., intonation) in the same linguistic system. As most Standard Chinese speakers also speak a local Chinese dialect, speech ambiguity can further arise when the same or similar pitch contours cue the same linguistic function (e.g., tone), but different categories of that function in two linguistic systems of a bi-dialectal speaker. This dissertation investigates how pitch is processed within a linguistic system (i.e., Standard Chinese) and across two linguistic systems (i.e., Standard Chinese and Xi’an Mandarin) when the same pitch contour cues different linguistic functions (i.e., tone and intonation) or different categories of the same linguistic function (i.e., tone). Show less
To interpret (1) a process of semantic recovery is required when we process the "elliptical" right conjunct. (1) John likes bananas, and Sally pears. In (1) the message of the right conjunct... Show moreTo interpret (1) a process of semantic recovery is required when we process the "elliptical" right conjunct. (1) John likes bananas, and Sally pears. In (1) the message of the right conjunct is that Sally *likes* pears; she did not - for example - steal them. Somehow we can retrieve a missing element and integrate it with the remaining elements. This dissertation investigates the processing of ellipsis, in particular the ellipsis type Gapping and its sub-type Stripping. After a thorough review of the theoretical and experimental background on Gapping (and Stripping), five electrophysiological studies are reported -- including one replication study. Using the method of event-related (brain) potentials, questions are tackled regarding the nature of syntactic, semantic and prosodic processes and how they interplay. Two mechanisms described in the experimental literature -- "Copy alpha" and "cue-based retrieval" -- are drawn upon to connect theory to processing. It is true that a mapping between existing theoretical insights and actual processing may be problematic, however, commensurate with theoretical insights, all experimental findings underscore the multidimensional nature of Gapping and Stripping. It is further argued that ellipsis resolution is sustained by a two-stage mechanism that is based on retrieval and integration processes. Show less
This dissertation is about verse, some of its recurrent features, and cognitive aspects which can explain their prevalence. Verse includes a range of verbal phenomena, most typically songs and... Show moreThis dissertation is about verse, some of its recurrent features, and cognitive aspects which can explain their prevalence. Verse includes a range of verbal phenomena, most typically songs and poems, but also nursery rhymes, religious chants or demonstration slogans. Compared to everyday speech, all these forms show additional layers of structure, like a regular alternation of accented syllables or a fixed melody. Every linguistic community in the world engages in verse, but certain features seem suspiciously widespread. On the one hand, I have developed computational tools in order to assess systematically how widespread individual verse features are. On the other hand, I have conducted behavioural experiments to investigate to which extent these widespread features may stem from properties of human cognition. Using these two approaches, the thesis examines three aspects of verse: constituent structure, final strictness, and textsetting. Although verse constitutes a prototypically creative activity subject to extensive cultural variability, it is nonetheless bound and shaped by our cognitive system. Show less
This book is an inquiry into the relation between the formal marking of possessive constructions and their corresponding interpretations. On the one hand, a single language can have multiple... Show moreThis book is an inquiry into the relation between the formal marking of possessive constructions and their corresponding interpretations. On the one hand, a single language can have multiple marking strategies to express adnominal possession. In English, for instance, this student’s friend and a friend of this student represent distinct strategies for marking adnominal possession. On the other hand, a single possessive construction can have multiple interpretations, some of which are more prominent than others. Thus, John's head is more readily interpreted as John's body part than as a bust representing John. This thesis offers a unified analysis of the semantics of adnominal possessive constructions. A fundamental distinction is established between idiosyncratic and non-idiosyncratic possessive strategies. Idiosyncratic possessive strategies are reserved for stereotypical relations that are systematically derived from the possessed noun. The choice between an idiosyncratic and a non-idiosyncratic strategy is determined by the principle, Maximize Presupposition. A speaker intending to refer to a stereotypical relation will choose the idiosyncratic strategy. By contrast, the choice of a non-idiosyncratic strategy gives rise to the inference that the stereotypical relation does not hold. This hypothesis is tested against a typologically rich sample of languages. Show less
This thesis considers Purepecha from the perspectives of genealogy and contact, as well as offering insight into word formation processes. The genealogy study re-visits the most prominent... Show moreThis thesis considers Purepecha from the perspectives of genealogy and contact, as well as offering insight into word formation processes. The genealogy study re-visits the most prominent classification proposals for Purepecha, concluding on the basis of a quantitative lexical comparison and a typological comparison of affix ordering that there is no signal of relatedness between Purepecha and any other sampled language. The two language contact studies address possible interaction between Purepecha and other languages at long-distance, regional and local levels. The lexicon of metallurgy, the most convincing archaeological evidence for long-distance interaction, does not support this contact scenario although the lack of observable loanwords in this domain may reflect the largely non-verbal nature of technology transmission. At the regional and local levels Purepecha also displays very few borrowings from the prehispanic period. This paucity of borrowings is reversed in the modern period, with Spanish exerting a heavy influence in all domains. The shift in borrowing pattern is explained by huge socio-political change since the imposition of Spanish. The word formation studies focus on the varying semantic transparency of roots and suffixes, with a specific emphasis on olfactory language. They also introduce the notion that roots may be precategorial in nature. Show less
This thesis provides a novel analysis of the word order variation in three-verb clusters reported in the Syntactic Atlas of the Dutch Dialects (SAND). On the basis of distributional correlations... Show moreThis thesis provides a novel analysis of the word order variation in three-verb clusters reported in the Syntactic Atlas of the Dutch Dialects (SAND). On the basis of distributional correlations between order variation in verb clusters and interruption of the verb cluster by non-verbal constituents, it is argued that only 1-2-3 and its mirror image 3-2-1 are truly verbal clusters. All other orders attested in SAND are argued to involve non-verbal elements: adjectival participles and nominal infinitives. This analysis dispenses with movement in the derivation of verb clusters, an improvement over many previous accounts, as movement in this domain is unmotivated and, in certain cases, makes wrong predictions. It is argued that speakers possess knowledge of word orders that do not occur in their own language varieties. This is shown to follow from properties of human grammar. Neither familiarity nor properties of language processing can account for these results. Verb clusters are base-generated in a low structural position in the clause. There is a cut-off point for cluster interruption, which is parameterized. In West-Flemish, it lies at vP, only elements that are merged below vP can interrupt the verb cluster. Show less
The study in this thesis focuses on the development of word-onset consonant clusters, in two-year-olds, acquiring Dutch. Word-onset clusters are often simplified during acquisition, but the... Show moreThe study in this thesis focuses on the development of word-onset consonant clusters, in two-year-olds, acquiring Dutch. Word-onset clusters are often simplified during acquisition, but the studies reported here demonstrate a more complex and diverse range of developmental possibilities. For example, reduced onset clusters were found systematically to contain an acoustic trace in the subsequent vowel; a seven-staged process of /Cr/ development in production was revealed. In perception longer looking times at toel (stoel) as opposed to tein (trein), evidenced for a more stable mental representation of correct /sC/ clusters. This phenomenon is studied from different perspectives. Both longitudinal and experimental data are studied, and experiments comprise both production and perception. In addition to phonological analyses, detailed acoustic analyses are performed. The speech production mechanism appears to develop in a top-down manner. The main error source for onset cluster productions is initially formed by incomplete segmental representations in the mental lexicon; with complete specifications, syllable spell-out at the phonological encoding level forms the main error locus. Phonetic encoding errors are the most persistent. Variable word forms are a hallmark of early child language; they show the relative instability of a new developmental state of the speech production mechanism. Show less
This book is the first comprehensive description of Mundabli, a Southern Bantoid (Niger-Congo) language spoken in the Grassfields region of Northwest Cameroon. Mundabli has four level tones... Show moreThis book is the first comprehensive description of Mundabli, a Southern Bantoid (Niger-Congo) language spoken in the Grassfields region of Northwest Cameroon. Mundabli has four level tones plus a number of contour tones. Its phonology is further characterized by a complicated vowel system including a set of pharyngealized vowels. Its noun class system, with paired singular and plural classes, is similarly elaborate as those of Bantu languages. However, unlike in other related languages, noun classes in Mundabli are often not marked on the noun. Some singular-plural class pairings are instead marked by stem-initial consonant mutation or by tonal changes. Agreement is restricted to the noun phrase. Verbs belong to one of three inflectional classes or verb tone classes. Mundabli makes use of two future tenses and four non-future tenses. Evidence for grammatical relations is relatively weak and evidence for the subject is stronger than for the object. The unmarked word order is SVO, but when the subject is in focus, it occurs in the focus position immediately behind the verb complex. Presenting novel data from a formerly undocumented language, this grammar is of interest to both Niger-Congo scholars and scholars in linguistic typology and theoretical linguistics. Show less
