Reanalysis of Passive and Negative Prefixes in Seri
     by Stephen A. Marlett    (PDF - 135k)

Two productive Seri prefixes, negative and passive, are in a limited number of cases reanalyzed as part of the verb stem. This reanalysis has produced homophonous verb forms: one group is clearly analytical (affix + root) and one group is clearly synthetic. The evidence that reanalysis has taken place is presented. These new verb roots enter into new morphological constructions. And since the original analytical verb forms continue to exist, the result is the coexistence of homophonous and sometimes virtually synonymous words (such as the original transitive verb and a new causative verb that is based on a reanalyzed passive).

On Some Control Structures in Hellenistic Greek: A Comparison with Classical and Modern Greek
     by Brian D. Joseph    (PDF - 173k)

Control Structures in Ancient Greek typically involved infinitival complementation while in Modern Greek, finite complementation is the rule. Hellenistic Greek provides an interesting "way-station" between these two types of complementation, inasmuch as it is both chronologically and structurally transitional. In this contribution to the historical syntax of Greek, an analysis is offered of control structures in Hellenistic Greek, tracing the transition from the Ancient Greek type to the Modern Greek type. Based on the evidence of these three stages of Greek and the developments that the language shows with regard to innovations in the form and properties of control structures, an argument is put forth in support of the view that control is not a purely syntactic phenomenon but rather derives from the lexical semantics of the predicates involved.

Notes on Agreement in Itelmen
     by Jonathan David Bobaljik and Susi Wurmbrand    (PDF - 261k)

Agreement in Itelmen is represented by means of both prefixes and suffixes. While the prefixes reference subjects (of both transitive and intransitive verbs), the suffixal agreement morphemes on a given verb may reference the subject, the object, or an oblique argument, or some combination of these. We propose that the proper characterization of the factors that determine which arguments control suffixal agreement involves a division of labour between morphology and a notion of discourse prominence/salience. In essence, we propose that the suffixal agreement morpheme is an object agreement marker, but the features of the subject are reflected in this position when the object lacks the relevant features (for example, we treat third person as the lack of a person feature), or is absent altogether (thus, intransitive verbs agree twice with their subjects). When a verb occurs with an oblique as well as a direct object, discourse salience will determine which of these non-subject arguments will control object agreement. In addition to providing a description of a complex range of facts from Itelmen, the paper sheds light on the nature of “multiple exponence” and the role of “competition” among affixes for a particular position in the verbal agreement system.

What Does Yaghan Have to Do with Digital Technology?
     by Lenore A. Grenoble and Lindsay J. Whaley    (PDF - 112k)

Digital media offers some powerful new ways to organize and transmit linguistic data. This editorial suggests that linguists need to be more aggressive in exploting the technology so that information about language is spread more rapidly and in a more efficient format. To make this point, the case of fieldwork on Yaghan is examined. Though early fieldwork was carried out on Yaghan very little about the language is known because of the way the data was collected and reported.

Origins of Apparent Violations of the "No Phrase" Constraint in Modern Georgian
     by Alice C. Harris    (PDF - 174k)

It is widely suggested in the literature that words are based on words, roots, or stems, but not on phrases (the "No Phrase" Constraint). In Modern Georgian, constructions such as megobar-ta-gan-i '[one, some] of the friends' are common; they appear to violate the "No Phrase" Constraint because gan 'from' is traditionally considered a postposition. In this example, -i, the marker of the nominative case, serves as both inflectional and derivational morphology, deriving a substantive, apparently from the postpositional phrase. The paper demonstrates that the construction at issue originated in double case marking. Old Georgia had case marking of this sort, in which case markers occurred not only on head nouns, but also at the right edges of phrases. The same phenomenon was found with postpositional phrases inside an NP, and it is proposed here that although Modern Georgian does not have double case marking, it is the origin of the modern construction discussed here.

A New Passive in Kaqchikel
     by George Aaron Broadwell and Lachlan Duncan    (PDF - 657k)

This paper contrasts two passives in Kaqchikel, a Mayan language spoken in Guatemala. The first passive, which we label the ‘standard passive’ is already well-attested in the literature. However, the second passive, which we label the ‘ki-passive’, has not been previously described. A verb in the ki-passive shows active morphology, with ergative agreement for a third person plural subject, as would be appropriate for a verb with an impersonal ‘they’ subject.

In Kaqchikel, however, we argue that this verb form has evolved into a new passive. The paper compares the properties of the standard passive and the ki-passive, and argues that while they involve the same change of grammatical relations, the two passives differ in the discourse functions they assign to the agent and patient.

Archiving Electronic Journals
     by Lenore A. Grenoble and Lindsay J. Whaley    (PDF - 52k)

An editorial on issues of archiving in the world of electronic journals.

Vowel Harmony in Oroqen
     by Lindsay J. Whaley    (PDF - 66k)

A problem set that focuses on vowel harmony in Oroqen, a Tungusic language.

A Particle of Indefiniteness in American Sign Language
     by Carol Neidle, Frances Conlin and Paul Hagstrom    (PDF - 1056k)

We describe here the characteristics of a very frequently-occurring ASL indefinite focus particle, which has not previously been recognized as such. We show here that, despite its similarity to the question sign "WHAT", the particle is distinct from that sign in terms of articulation, function, and distribution. The particle serves to express "uncertainty" in various ways, which can be formalized semantically in terms of a domain-widening effect of the same sort as that proposed for English "any" by Kadmon & Landman (1993). Its function is to widen the domain of possibilities under consideration from the typical to include the non-typical as well, along a dimension appropriate in the context.

Iambic Feet in Paumari and the Theory of Foot Structure
     by Daniel L. Everett    (PDF - 667k)

This paper analyzes stress and moraic constituencies in Paumari, an endangered language of the Arawan family of the Brazilian Amazon. It argues that Paumari feet are quantity-insensitive iambs, built from right-to-left within the prosodic word. Both of these latter claims are theoretically important because they violate some proposed universals of foot structure. The paper also discusses more general implications of the Paumari data for theories of foot size and shape, proposing two constraints on foot size, Foot Maximality and Foot Minimality, to replace the less fine-tuned constraint Foot Binarity.

Articles in the Next Issue
     by Editors

Upcoming issue

Contrastive tone in Kalam Kohistani
     by Joan L.G. Baart    (PDF - 770k)

It has been observed that tonal phenomena occur in quite a few Indo-Aryan languages in the northwestern corner of the South-Asian subcontinent. This paper presents a study of the tone system of one of these languages, Kalam Kohistani. After establishing that Kalam Kohistani has five contrastive surface tones—a high tone, a low tone, a rising tone, and two types of falling tone—I propose an analysis of these tones in terms of Autosegmental Phonology. Furthermore, some observations are made on the relation between aspiration and tone, and on the functional load of tone in Kalam Kohistani. Its relatively rich inventory of tones makes Kalam Kohistani, along with two of its close neighbors, stand out as unique among the Indo-Aryan languages.

A crosslinguistic lexicon of the labial flap
     by Kenneth S. Olson and John Hajek    (PDF - 528k)

We provide a large sample of the occurrences of the labial flap in the world’s languages, including audio and video data from the Mono dialect of Mid-Southern Banda. This sample provides the evidence for Olson and Hajek’s (2003) crosslinguistic generalizations concerning the articulation, the geographic distribution, the genetic distribution, and the phonological status of the speech sound.

Substratal Influence on the Morphosyntactic Properties of Krio
     by Malcolm Awadajin Finney    (PDF - 139k)

The morphosyntactic development of Atlantic creoles, including Krio, an English-based creole in Sierra Leone, is a highly debated issue, with the controversy centering on the extent of the influence of the properties of substrate West African languages, if any, on the development of Krio morphosyntax. Contrary to proposals that creoles (including Krio) tend to exhibit basic, universal, simplistic, and transparent grammar, this paper presents evidence of substratal influence on the morphosyntactic properties of Krio. The properties of three morphosyntactic structures—focused constructions, verb serialization, and complementation—are examined and evidence is provided for an intricate and productive system of morphosyntactic operations that sometimes generate structures of a regional rather than a universal orientation. In addition, these are linguistically marked structures that are extremely difficult to account for under proposed universal unmarked principles of grammar as currently stipulated.

Argument Marking in Ditransitive Alignment Types
     by Martin Haspelmath    (PDF - 448k)

This paper discusses the patterns of case-marking/adpositional marking and indexing of ditransitive clauses in the world's languages, i.e. clauses with an Agent, a Recipient and a Theme argument. It distinguishes three major alignment types, indirective, secundative, and neutral, corresponding to accusative, ergative and neutral in monotransitive constructions. The alignment and coding patterns are recorded for a sample of 100 languages from around the world. Ditransitive alignment is compared with monotransitive alignment, alignment of case-marking/adpositional marking is compared to alignment of indexing, and the various coding types are distinguished, depending on the occurrence of zero-coding and overt coding. Seven cross-linguistic generalizations emerging from the data are proposed as valid tendencies, and possible functional explanations for these tendencies are discussed.

A Synchronic Lexical Study of Gbe Language Varieties: The Effects of Different Similarity Judgment Criteria
     by Angela Kluge    (PDF - 2448k)

In the context of a synchronic lexical study of the Gbe varieties of West Africa, this paper explores the question whether the use of different criteria sets to judge the similarity of lexical features in different language varieties yields the same or different conclusions regarding the relative relationships and clustering of the investigated varieties and the prioritization of further sociolinguistic research. Word lists elicited in 49 Gbe varieties were analyzed by means of the inspection method. To assess the effects of different similarity judgment criteria, two different similarity judgment criteria sets were applied to the elicited data to identify similar lexical items. The quantification of these similarity decisions resulted in the computation of two similarity matrices which were subsequently analyzed by means of correlation analysis and multidimensional scaling. The findings of the correlation analysis indicate a significant linear and positive relationship between both word-list computations, thus supporting the conclusion that application of either set of similarity judgment criteria would lead to similar clustering results for the Gbe data set. These findings are corroborated by the findings of multidimensional scaling which suggest that different sets of similarity judgment criteria lead to similar clustering results and similar conclusions as to the scope and priorities for further research

A Typological Overview of the Seri Language
     by Stephen A. Marlett    (PDF - 270k)

This paper presents a concise overview of some typological characteristics of Seri, a language isolate spoken in northwestern Mexico. Glosses are given word by word only when indicated by precise alignment; otherwise they are given phrase by phrase. References to various more detailed descriptive works on Seri are not indicated in the text itself; one may consult the references at the end since the titles clearly indicate the content. The data are cited in the practical orthography (see section 5 for details on the sounds).

Note to Volume 4.1
     by Lenore A. Grenoble and Lindsay J. Whaley

A note from the editors

A cross-linguistic corpus of forms meaning yes
     by Steve Parker    (PDF - 431k)

Based on a carefully-compiled database of 604 attested forms for 'yes' taken from 512 languages spoken in over 70 countries, I show that this word exhibits a cross-linguistic tendency to contain laryngeal phonemes. As part of the statistical analysis I examine cognate items within specific genetic families and argue that certain phonotactic patterns involving 'yes' are not random in nature. These findings further corroborate the observation that glottal consonants often behave phonologically as a default or unmarked class of segments.

The Iquito Language Documentation Project: Developing Team-Based Methods for Language Documentation
     by Christine Beier and Lev Michael    (PDF - 35482k)

Poster from the 2006 LSA annual meeting.

Idiosyncratic Factors in Language Endangerment: The Case of Upper Sorbian
     by Bernard Comrie and Paulina Jaenecke    (PDF - 2210k)

Poster from the 2006 LSA annual meeting.

Saying Goodbye in the Field
     by Lise M. Dobrin    (PDF - 4107k)

Poster from the 2006 LSA annual meeting.

Na(t)ive orthographies and language endangerment: Two case studies from Siberia
     by K. David Harrison and Gregory Anderson    (PDF - 2006k)

Poster from the 2006 LSA annual meeting.

Training speakers of indigenous languages of Latin America at a US university
     by Anthony C. Woodbury and Nora England    (PDF - 2218k)

Poster from the 2006 LSA annual meeting.

Lexicon and Description of Sui Adjective Intensifiers
     by James N. Stanford    (PDF - 404k)

Sui, an indigenous minority language of southwest China, has an elaborate system of adjective intensification. Adjectives are intensified with word-specific, bound morphemes that usually either rhyme with the base or alliterate with the base. Stanford (2007) notes morpho-phonological patterns that suggest reduplication, rhyme, alliteration, The Emergence of the Unmarked (McCarthy & Prince 1994, Yip 2001), identity avoidance, and “Copy But Don’t Repeat” (Kennard 2004). However, the adjective intensifiers defy a simple, fully predictable explanation in such terms; the intensifier lexicon may be best described as “patterned variety,” a case of lexicalized poetry or a poeticized lexicon. Word formation is guided by general patterns, but each specific intensifier may vary within those overall guidelines. Many adjectives have multiple intensifiers that bear subtle semantic and pragmatic distinctions. The current paper serves as a complement to Stanford (2007) by providing a detailed lexicon of the Sui adjective intensifiers for future reference and further analysis. This lexicon is based on the author’s fieldwork and represents the first detailed account of Sui adjective intensifiers for the wider linguistic community.

Ngbugu digital wordlist: A test case for best practices in archiving and presenting language documentation
     by Gary F. Simons, Kenneth S. Olson and Paul S. Frank    (PDF - 243k)

Language documentation faces challenges of data preservation and accessibility. Data can be lost due to physical deterioration (e.g. field notes or tape recordings) or outdated format (e.g. Microsoft Word 3.0). Archived data is typically difficult to access, and it is sometimes found that the archived information is inadequate for research purposes. Increased interest in language documentation has coincided with advancements in digital technologies, offering hope for meeting these challenges. This paper discusses the archiving of a 204-item wordlist of Ngbugu, an Ubangian language spoken in Central African Republic, employing best practice recommendations. Our solution includes: TIFF digital imaging of the original handwritten transcription, WAV digital recording of the wordlist, descriptive markup encoding of the wordlist in XML employing Unicode transcription, viewing and playback via an XSLT style sheet that renders the information in HTML, publishing metadata for resource discovery with the Open Language Archives Community (OLAC), and depositing the original materials and digital representations in an institutional archive committed to long-term preservation and access.

Ngbugu digital wordlist: Presentation form
     by Kenneth S. Olson and Jacques Vermond Mbomate    (PDF - 183k)

This paper presents a 204-item digital wordlist of Ngbugu, an Ubangian language spoken in Central African Republic. The wordlist includes orthographic and broad phonetic transcriptions of the words, French and English glosses, an individual WAV recording of each word, GIF images of the original field transcriptions, and metadata for resource discovery. This presentation form of the wordlist was generated from an archived version (Olson 2006) following the procedure laid out in Simons, Olson and Frank (2007).

Stress, Extrametricality and the Minimal Word in Seri
     by Stephen A. Marlett    (PDF - 277k)

Seri, a language isolate spoken in northwestern Mexico, regularly assigns stress to the penultimate syllable of a root; affixes are not relevant for determining the placement of stress. A heavy final syllable in the root attracts stress, however, although a final consonant is extrametrical. The final consonant of a word is relevant for the minimal word condition that major class lexical items respect, as this paper shows. Some roots have extrametrical final syllables and a few roots have exceptional stress. This paper documents these facts with audio recordings.

Perfectivity and time reference in Hausa
     by Mahamane L. Abdoulaye    (PDF - 352k)

The relative marking in Hausa marks discourse presupposition in perfective and imperfective relative clauses and out-of-focus clauses of focus and fronted wh-questions. However, the Relative Perfective also appears in storyline narrative clauses and various accounts try to find a common feature between relative clauses and narrative context. This paper rejects the common feature approach to Hausa relative marking and presents a systematic grammaticalization account of the functions of the Relative Perfective. The paper shows that in temporal when relative clauses headed by look?cin d? 'time that', the aspectual contrast Relative Imperfective vs. Relative Perfective has vanished, and the Relative Perfective indexes the specific time of the event. The temporal relative clauses differ from locative and manner adverbial relative clauses, whose semantics (location and manner) are not usual inflectional categories and they therefore maintain the aspectual contrast between Relative Perfective and Relative Imperfective. The paper shows that the new temporal category, the Specific Time Marker, spread to other environments and incorporated a time orientation feature in main clauses of narrative and dialogical discourse to become a simple past. The paper proposes a mixed tense and aspect TAM system for Hausa, a system positioned between aspect-only and tense-prominent systems.

A frequentist explanation of some universals of reflexive marking
     by Martin Haspelmath    (PDF - 359k)

This paper identifies a number of empirically observable universals of reflexive marking that concern the existence of a special reflexive pronoun and the length of the marker that is used in reflexive constructions, in various different positions of the nonreflexive or reflexive pronoun. Most of the proposed universals have been mentioned earlier in the literature, but they have not been very prominent because the literature on binding has focused on language-specific generalizations rather than identifying readily testable generalizations. I argue that all of these universals have their basis in a frequency asymmetry: Under different circumstances, the likelihood of an anaphoric pronoun being coreferential with the subject can be quite different, and this is argued to be the motivation for the universal patterns of form.