Steve Nicolle | Canada Institute of Linguistics; Trinity Western University (original) (raw)

African languages by Steve Nicolle

Language Documentation & Conservation 29: 423–434, 2024

This chapter describes an approach that helps Bible translation teams discover the discourse feat... more This chapter describes an approach that helps Bible translation teams discover the discourse features of their languages and apply this understanding to their own translation practice. This approach is participatory in the following ways: First, the workshops are designed to meet the needs of the translation teams, and the workshop facilitators adapt their materials and methods accordingly, for example by focusing on the relevant genre and including exercises in which teams translate or revise these passages. Second, the teams analyze non-translated texts of the relevant genre that they have collected, rather than materials provided by an instructor. Third, the translation teams analyze their texts and produce new knowledge, rather than replicating research that has already been done on other languages or merely providing data for others to analyze. They function not only as students but also as researchers in their own right. Fourth, the teams apply their own analyses of these materials to translations which they themselves have made. As translators, the team members are motivated to produce translations that communicate clearly and naturally; these workshops help them not only to identify discourse features of their languages but also to incorporate these features into their translations in appropriate ways.

CanIL Electronic Working Papers, 2018

This collaborative paper builds on analyses conducted as part of the CanIL Discourse Analysis cou... more This collaborative paper builds on analyses conducted as part of the CanIL Discourse Analysis course. We provide an overview of a number of features of narrative discourse based on detailed analysis of ten texts, five of which are included as appendices.

Studies in African Linguistics, 2022

The interaction of grammatical aspect and lexical aspect has been a topic of interest to linguist... more The interaction of grammatical aspect and lexical aspect has been a topic of interest to linguists for many years, yet only recently has more attention been focused on this topic specifically in relation to Bantu languages. The difficulty of mapping Bantu actional types onto the commonly accepted categorizations has resulted in new frameworks being proposed to take these complex lexicalisations into account. In this paper, we use Croft’s (2012) two-dimensional diagrammatic representations of events to represent the aspectual contour encoded by certain predicates in the South Tanzanian Bantu language Bungu [wun]. We investigate the semantics of the Progressive, Anterior, and Resultative aspects in Bungu, and by identifying the phases within each aspectual contour that are profiled by each of these grammatical aspects, we show that the particular interpretation of each aspect depends on the type of predicate that it modifies. By using Croft’s diagrammatic representations of events to identify the semantic contribution made by different grammatical aspects in Bungu, we illustrate its potential as a descriptive tool.

Andersen, G & T. Fretheim (eds) Pragmatic Markers and Propositional Attitude, 2000

In the eastern Bantu language Digo, clauses that describe sequential events contain the verbal pr... more In the eastern Bantu language Digo, clauses that describe sequential events contain the verbal prefixes chi‑ or ka‑ in each clause that follows the initial clause. In an interesting case of isomorphy, the same verbal prefixes chi‑ or ka‑ occur in the protasis (the if-clause) of reality and predictive conditional sentences (hypothetical and counterfactual conditionals are marked with a different construction). I argue that the verbal prefixes indicate that there is a contingent relation between two clauses, whilst the syntactic frame in which these morphemes occur determines whether this contingency is temporal or conditional in nature.

Studies in African Linguistics, 2017

This paper serves as an introduction to the special issue of Studies in African Linguistics devot... more This paper serves as an introduction to the special issue of Studies in African Linguistics devoted to conditional constructions in African languages. I first describe the motivation for this volume and the common terminological conventions used in the papers, before discussing some of the more influential attempts to categorize conditional constructions together with some of the functions of conditional constructions. I then present an overview of conditional constructions in African languages, noting the various kinds of conditional meanings that are distinguished grammatically in different languages, and types of isomorphism between conditional constructions and other categories. I conclude with a note on concessive conditionals.

Diversity in African languages: Selected papers from the 46th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, 2016

Despite significant typological similarities, eastern Bantu languages differ in how information s... more Despite significant typological similarities, eastern Bantu languages differ in how information structure is expressed, but much of this variation only becomes apparent when discourse considerations are taken into account. Using data from narrative texts in eleven eastern Bantu languages I highlight three parameters of variation. First, in some languages surveyed all topics must be left dislocated, while in others certain kinds of topics in specific discourse contexts may be right dislocated. Second, all languages surveyed express argument focus on non-subjects through cleft constructions and right dislocation. However, while argument focus can be expressed through right dislocation of the subject in most languages surveyed, it can be expressed only through the use of cleft constructions in three languages, one of which allows right dislocation of subjects in response to content questions. Third, whilst all of the languages have thetic (topicless) sentences with VS constituent order, most also allow SV constituent order in the orientation sections of narratives, and one language allows SV thetic sentences elsewhere as well.

This sketch of the grammar of the Digo language is not intended to be complete. It focuses on wor... more This sketch of the grammar of the Digo language is not intended to be complete. It focuses on words rather than on sentences, clauses or paragraphs, since dictionaries deal primarily with words rather than with longer units.

This study of narrative texts from twelve Bantu languages spoken in eastern Africa reveals a numb... more This study of narrative texts from twelve Bantu languages spoken in eastern Africa reveals a number of discourse-level similarities together with previously undescribed differences. Discourse features investigated include the characteristics of different episodes, inter-clausal and inter-sentential connectives, participant reference (including the use of independent pronouns and demonstratives), tense and aspect, movement expressions (such as itive and ventive markers), information structure, adverbial and relative clauses, and reported speech. Of particular note are variations between the languages concerning the discourse functions of demonstratives and the expression of topic and focus, and evidence of a linguistic cycle affecting quotative markers in reported speech.

Studies in African Linguistics 43, 2014

Demonstratives are an important feature of many eastern Bantu narrative texts. In addition to a b... more Demonstratives are an important feature of many eastern Bantu narrative texts. In addition to a basic tracking use, in which demonstratives are used to refer to different participants in a narrative, at least four additional functions can be identified: specifying the activation status (activated vs. reactivated) of major participants; distinguishing participants with agent semantic roles from those with non-agent semantic roles; distinguishing different kinds of participants and different episodes; and marking key thematic developments. These functions are described for 10 eastern Bantu languages based on analyses of original (i.e. non-translated) narrative texts.

SIL Language and Culture Documentation and Description 26

This paper describes the linguistic features of narrative texts in Digo based on a corpus of non-... more This paper describes the linguistic features of narrative texts in Digo based on a corpus of non-translated texts. Digo, or Chidigo (Ethnologue code [dig]), is a Bantu language (classified as E73) spoken in the coastal region of Kenya and Tanzania between Mombasa (04°02'S, 039°37'E) and Tanga (05°05'S, 039°04'E).

Africana Linguistica 18:193–233, 2012

Demonstrative forms consisting of a noun class concord plus a demonstrative root ‑no (or a phonol... more Demonstrative forms consisting of a noun class concord plus a demonstrative root ‑no (or a phonologically very similar form) are found in a number of Bantu languages. The root *‑nó indicating proximity to the speaker has been reconstructed for Proto-Bantu, and in a survey of 99 Bantu languages almost all of the ‑no demonstrative forms indicate a closer degree of proximity to the speaker than any of the other demonstratives attested in each language. In this paper, I consider a range of additional meanings associated with ‑no demonstrative forms in various languages, and the loss (partial or complete) of spatial-deictic meaning. These changes are correlated with differences in semantic-pragmatic scope (from scope over an entity, through scope over a proposition, to scope over a larger discourse unit), and will be analyzed as examples of different stages in a diachronic process.

University of Nairobi Occasional Papers in Language and Linguistics 2:86–103., 2004

This article summarises the findings of ethnobotanical research conducted among the Digo people o... more This article summarises the findings of ethnobotanical research conducted among the Digo people of Kwale District, Kenya, together with applications of this research for the benefit of the local community and implications of this for language vitality. The article consists of four sections. Section 1 provides background information on the Digo people and language, the ecology of the region, and the research methodology employed. Section 2 discusses Digo botanical folk taxonomy, that is, the way in which Digo speakers classify plants, and the ways in which this differs from botanical folk taxonomies reported for neighbouring Swahili speakers. Section 3 provides details of medicinal and other uses of a sample of 30 plants.

SIL Notes on Anthropology 5(1):33–43., 2001

This paper explores how members of two East African language groups, with similar languages and c... more This paper explores how members of two East African language groups, with similar languages and cultures, classify the plant world. Differences primarily concern which parameters (e.g., size, uses, and longevity) determine how plant species are categorized. I show how linguistically similar classifications can obscure significant differences in folk botanical taxonomies.

In: K. Jaszcolt & K. Turner (eds.) Meaning Through Language Contrast, vol. 2, 3–22. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series 100.), 2003

In: A. Branco, T. McEnery & R. Mitkov (eds.) Proceedings of the 4th Discourse Anaphora and Anaphora Resolution Colloquium (DAARC 2002). Lisbon: Edições Colibri. Pp.141–146., 2002

In addition to pronominal affixes, independent pronouns and demonstratives, Digo (a Bantu languag... more In addition to pronominal affixes, independent pronouns and demonstratives, Digo (a Bantu language spoken in Kenya and Tanzania) has a further kind of referring expression consisting of a shortened form of an independent pronoun affixed to a conjunction. The most common form is naye which consists of na (and/with) and ye (3rd person singular pronoun). Naye plays an important discourse-pragmatic role as an indicator of either contrastive or parallel focus. In contrastive focus, the focused element contrasts with another, previously mentioned element of the same type (participant, event, state), whilst in parallel focus the focused element is notable for occurring in addition to another element of the same type. A study of narrative texts suggests that naye marks parallel or contrastive focus between two (or more) participants in a discourse, whereas the primary function of naye in hortatory discourse is to indicate parallel or contrastive focus between actions or states involving the same participant. The role of naye in anaphora resolution is therefore discourse-pragmatic rather than grammatical. In the concluding section, I use relevance theory to suggest how the way addressees process clauses containing naye results in the aforementioned focus effects.

Grammaticalization and language change by Steve Nicolle

Constructions and Frames, 2023

This paper describes the way in which represented speech is introduced in ten eastern Bantu langu... more This paper describes the way in which represented speech is introduced in ten eastern Bantu languages, and explains the different constructions used as stages of a linguistic cycle. In this cycle, verbs of speech develop into quotative markers, and eventually cease to be used to introduce direct speech. This cycle can be understood as a systematic and unidirectional series of constructional changes.

English Text Construction. 2:185–208., 2009

The present paper aims to complement recent work on deictic movement verb constructions by using ... more The present paper aims to complement recent work on deictic movement verb constructions by using a corpus-based approach to identify differences between the four deictic movement verb constructions: go-and-V, come-and-V, go-V and come-V, and to evaluate the proposal made in Nicolle that go/come-V developed from go/come-and-V in the context of imperative clauses. It will be shown that this is a possible scenario for the development of go-V from goand-V, although come-V may have developed by analogy with go-V rather than independently from come-and-V. Finally, subjectification will be proposed as a motivating factor in the development of both go-V and come-V.

Cognitive Linguistics 9:1–35., 1998

This was the first paper to propose that grammaticalization involves a shift from conceptual to p... more This was the first paper to propose that grammaticalization involves a shift from conceptual to procedural encoding.

In: Robert Binnick (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect, 370–397. Oxford: Oxford University Press., 2012

Questions about diachronic change as it relates to tense and aspect (TA) range from the general, ... more Questions about diachronic change as it relates to tense and aspect (TA) range from the general, such as "How do TA systems come about?" and "How do TA systems change over time?" to the more specific, such as "How do individual tense/aspect markers or particular temporal or aspectual distinctions arise?" and "How do tense/aspect markers change over time?" This chapter will primarily be concerned with the more specific questions, but we will begin with a brief summary of how entire TA systems develop and change.

Language Documentation & Conservation 29: 423–434, 2024

CanIL Electronic Working Papers, 2018

Studies in African Linguistics, 2022

Andersen, G & T. Fretheim (eds) Pragmatic Markers and Propositional Attitude, 2000

Studies in African Linguistics, 2017

Diversity in African languages: Selected papers from the 46th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, 2016

Studies in African Linguistics 43, 2014

SIL Language and Culture Documentation and Description 26

Africana Linguistica 18:193–233, 2012

University of Nairobi Occasional Papers in Language and Linguistics 2:86–103., 2004

SIL Notes on Anthropology 5(1):33–43., 2001

In: K. Jaszcolt & K. Turner (eds.) Meaning Through Language Contrast, vol. 2, 3–22. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series 100.), 2003

In: A. Branco, T. McEnery & R. Mitkov (eds.) Proceedings of the 4th Discourse Anaphora and Anaphora Resolution Colloquium (DAARC 2002). Lisbon: Edições Colibri. Pp.141–146., 2002

Constructions and Frames, 2023

English Text Construction. 2:185–208., 2009

Cognitive Linguistics 9:1–35., 1998

In: Robert Binnick (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect, 370–397. Oxford: Oxford University Press., 2012

In: Heiko Narrog & Bernd Heine (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Grammaticalization, 401–412. Oxford: Oxford University Press., 2011

Révue de Sémantique et Pragmatique 11:47–68., 2002

In: L. de Saussure, J. Moeschler and G. Puskas (eds.) Tense, Mood and Aspect: Theoretical and descriptive issues, 47–65. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi. (Cahiers Chronos 17.), 2007

Cognition, 1999

Gibbs and Moise [Gibbs, R., Moise, J., 1997. Pragmatics in understanding what is said. Cognition ... more Gibbs and Moise [Gibbs, R., Moise, J., 1997. Pragmatics in understanding what is said. Cognition 62, 51-74], present experimental results which, they claim, show that people recognize a distinction between what is said and what is implicated. They also claim that these results provide support for theories of utterance interpretation (such as RELEVANCE Theory) which recognize that pragmatic processes are involved not only in understanding what is implicated but also in working out what is said (the 'explicature'). We attempted to replicate some of these experiments and also adapted them. Our results fail to confirm Gibbs and Moise's claims. Most significantly, they show that, under certain conditions, subjects select implicatures when asked to select the paraphrase that best reflects what a speaker has said. We suggest that our results can be explained within the framework of RELEVANCE Theory (Sperber, D., Wilson, D., 1986. Communication and Cognition. Blackwell, Oxford) if we assume that subjects select the paraphrase that comes closest to achieving the same set of communicated contextual effects as the original utterance. When an utterance gives rise to a single strong implicature, subjects tend to select this as the paraphrase that best reflects what is said; in other cases (for example in Gibbs and Moise's stimuli) subjects tend to select the explicature.

Revista alicantina de estudios ingleses, No. 11 (Nov. …, 1998

This paper builds on work by Zegarac and Clark (Zegarac and Clark, forthcoming; Zegarac, in press... more This paper builds on work by Zegarac and Clark (Zegarac and Clark, forthcoming; Zegarac, in press) on phatic communication. Zegarac and Clark define phatic interpretations as interpretations which depend on the recognition of a communicative intention (as defined by Sperber and Wilson 1986 and exploited in their definition of ostensive communication). This definition does not link phatic interpretations directly to social functions but does reflect the fact that phatic interpretations have social effects. The social effects follow from the fact that any act of ostensive communication is, by definition, social. Zegarac discusses how phatic interpretations become standardised and conventionalised. Here we explore the processes of standardisation and conventionalisation in more detail. A first glance at the phenomena suggests an interesting paradox. When a particular linguistic form becomes so frequently linked with phatic interpretations that this usage becomes conventionalised, Zegarac and Clark's definition seems to predict that utterances containing that form will no longer give rise to phatic interpretations (because the interpretation will depend on the linguistically-encoded meaning rather than on the recognition of a communicative intention). We consider an alternative approach to that proposed by Zegarac, which exploits the relevance-theoretic notion of procedural encoding. We show how such an approach might lead to the modification of a prediction of Zegarac and Clark, i.e. the claim that purely phatic interpretations arise only when non-phatic interpretations are not consistent with the principie of relevance.

Saussure (2011) has claimed that procedural expressions facilitate the search for a relevant infe... more Saussure (2011) has claimed that procedural expressions facilitate the search for a relevant inference and therefore tend not to be elided. Nicolle (1998, 2011) similarly argues that procedural expressions serve to reduce processing effort, with the result that, while conceptual information may be replaced by procedural information during grammaticalization, the reverse never happens. However, there is ample evidence that procedural expressions (such as tense and aspect markers) may undergo further semantic change or may be lost all together from a language. This paper investigates what motivates changes in – or loss of – procedural semantic content.

Recent work within relevance theory suggests that the distinction between truth-conditional and n... more Recent work within relevance theory suggests that the distinction between truth-conditional and non-truth-conditional meaning is of limited value in the study of linguistic (as opposed to logical) semantics. Of potentially greater interest is the distinction between conceptual and procedural encoding. Conceptual encoding contributes to the construction of conceptual representations in the mind of the addressee, whilst procedural encoding provides the addressee with instructions as to how conceptual representations are to be manipulated to achieve relevance.
The primary aims of this thesis are, firstly to clarify the currently intuitive distinction between conceptual and procedural encoding by providing a precise characterisation of procedural information and a set of criteria by which linguistically encoded information can be identified as either conceptual or procedural, and secondly to determine the implications of the distinction for linguistic semantics.
I propose that procedural encoding is of two basic kinds: that which constrains the manipulation of propositional conceptual representations, and that which constrains the manipulation of sub-propositional conceptual representations. An example of the former is the discourse connective 'so', which establishes an inferential connection between the proposition with which it is associated and some highly accessible assumption. This type of procedural encoding has been widely discussed (see for example Blakemore 1987, 1988).
Less widely discussed is procedural encoding which constrains the manipulation of sub-propositional conceptual representations. I propose that such encoding is a property of grammaticized expressions, such as pronouns, and tense, aspect and modality markers. I demonstrate how a procedural account of grammatical markers accounts not only for their role in utterance interpretation (constraining the construction of propositional conceptual representations) but also for their historical development through grammaticization, and the corresponding variation in usage which linguistic change engenders.

Journal of Linguistics 33:355–377., 1997

This paper provides a relevance theoretic account of the semantics of the be going to constructio... more This paper provides a relevance theoretic account of the semantics of the be going to construction in English, based on Klinge's () model for the semantics of the modal auxiliaries, and in particular of will. The semantics of both forms will be accounted for in terms of the relation between linguistic representations of situations and cognitive domains. Finally the pragmatics of utterances of sentences containing will and be going to will be discussed.

English Language and Linguistics 2:223–243., 1998

This paper provides an account of be going to and will within the framework of Relevance Theory .... more This paper provides an account of be going to and will within the framework of Relevance Theory . Because of the range of interpretations derived from the use of these expressions in different contexts, many previous accounts have characterized them as polysemous. This polysemy has been attributed to semantic retention, whereby both old (lexical) and new (grammaticalized) meanings are recovered in certain contexts. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate: (i) that although be going to does exhibit semantic retention, in a relevance-theoretic framework this does not entail polysemy, and (ii) that interpretations of will previously attributed to semantic retention are, in fact, pragmatically derived, and hence will is also monosemous.

Pragmatics 10: 233–245., 2000

According to relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson 1986; Blakemore 1991) some cases of communicati... more According to relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson 1986; Blakemore 1991) some cases of communication depend on the hearer recognising that a particular speech act, for example admitting, betting or promising, is being performed. These are 'communicated' acts. Other cases of communication do not depend on the hearer recognising that a particular speech act, for example predicting, warning or permitting, is being performed. These are 'non-communicated' acts. In the case of non-communicated acts communication is successful so long as the hearer recovers adequate contextual effects without having to recognise the speaker's intentions. Against this view, I will argue that each of the speech acts considered to be noncommunicated in the relevance theory literature fall into one of two categories. The speech acts in one category contribute to the strength of associated assumptions, and those in the other convey socially relevant information. I will argue that according to relevance theory both types of speech act must be recognised and that they are in fact communicated. If relevance theory is to be internally consistent, therefore, the distinction between communicated and non-communicated speech acts must be abandoned. -94), some cases of communication depend on the hearer recognising that a particular speech act, for example admitting, betting, promising or thanking, is being performed. These are communicated acts. Other cases of communication do not depend on the hearer recognising that a particular speech act, for example predicting, warning, suggesting or permitting, is being performed. These are non-communicated acts. In the case of non-communicated acts, communication is deemed successful so long as the hearer recovers adequate contextual effects from the utterance apart from recovering the speaker's intentions. So, in and communication is deemed successful so long as adequate contextual effects can be derived from processing the information that the weather will be warmer on the day following the utterance or that the path is slippery in the place indicated; it is not necessary for the hearer to understand that the speaker is predicting in (1) or warning in (2).

In: M. Groefsema (ed.) Proceedings of the University of Hertfordshire Relevance Theory Workshop. Chelmsford: Peter Thomas and Associates. Pp.47–56., 1997

Pragmatics & Cognition 11:345–378., 2003

In: R. A. Nilsen, N. N. A. Amfo and K. Borthen (eds.) Interpreting Utterances: Pragmatics and its Interfaces. Essays in honour of Thorstein Fretheim, 127–146. Oslo: Novus., 2007

Journal of Translation, 2022

These notes cover every conditional sentence in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. They are designed... more These notes cover every conditional sentence in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. They are designed to give guidance to translators in the field, and to complement—rather than replace—Translator’s Notes and other exegetical and translation helps. The emphasis in this study will be to show how Paul uses conditionals to argue, rebuke, exhort, etc., and to discuss how to translate these conditionals so that the translation achieves the same effect.

Journal of Translation, 2022

The Greek conditional construction ἐὰν μή is usually translated into English using unless, which ... more The Greek conditional construction ἐὰν μή is usually translated into English using unless, which is a portmanteau combining the ideas of a conditional if and a negative not. Sentences containing ἐὰν μή ‘unless’ can often be challenging to translate for a combination of reasons: 1) in the majority of cases, the usual order of protasis (conditional clause) and apodosis (consequence clause) is reversed; 2) typically, both clauses are negative (or the protasis is negative and the apodosis is a rhetorical question expecting a negative response); 3) at the pragmatic level, the protasis usually describes the only situation or fact that would invalidate the apodosis. In this paper I will show that in many cases conditional sentences with ἐὰν μή ‘unless’ can be rephrased by removing the negative elements in both clauses and making explicit the pragmatic idea of exclusivity. However, this type of rephrasing is not always appropriate, and I discuss a number of situations in which it should potentially be avoided.

Journal of Translation, 2022

In this paper we look at the various functions of conditionals in Jesus’ speech as recorded in th... more In this paper we look at the various functions of conditionals in Jesus’ speech as recorded in the gospels. We will show how Jesus often uses conditionals to describe hypothetical situations, frequently as illustrations to support a teaching point. We will also look at the way in which Jesus uses conditionals to argue from a known fact to a novel proposition, often using a familiar concrete situation to illustrate a novel spiritual truth. Differences between the ways that the gospel writers use the Greek conditional constructions are also noted.

Journal of Translation, 2022

There are over six hundred conditional sentences in the Greek New Testament, defined as sentences... more There are over six hundred conditional sentences in the Greek New Testament, defined as sentences consisting of two clauses, one of which contains the conjunction εἰ or ἐάν and expresses the condition under which the other clause holds. The conditions which εἰ and ἐάν introduce encompass a wide range of meanings, which are unlikely to be expressed by any single conjunction, particle, or construction in another language. Understanding the range of meanings associated with Greek conditional constructions is therefore an essential first step in translating them appropriately. This paper describes the various constructions that are used in New Testament Greek to express conditionality (following the traditional classification of conditionals), demonstrating that the form of each construction does not entirely determine how it should be interpreted. The paper also looks at constructions containing εἰ or ἐάν that express specific meanings, which may be more or less conditional in nature.

To make a translation that is natural, clear, and accurate, translators need to understand the di... more To make a translation that is natural, clear, and accurate, translators need to understand the discourse features of the language they are translating from and the language they are translating into, even if this is their mother tongue.
* These training materials describe important discourse features in narratives, such as natural ways of starting a new section, joining clauses and sentences, describing the characters in a story, representing speech and thoughts, highlighting important information, and distinguishing the main events from background information.
* Each chapter introduces a particular discourse feature and provides discovery procedures to help readers identify and describe this feature in their own languages.
* These procedures are then applied to the Greek text of Acts 16:16–40, and readers are guided through how to translate part of this passage.
* No previous knowledge of Greek is assumed.

SIL Notes on Translation 13(3):1–12., 1999

SIL Journal of Translation 7:21–48., 2011

In: R. Kailuweit, B. Wiemer, E. Staudinger & R. Matasović (eds.) New Applications of Role and Reference Grammar: Diachrony, grammaticalization, Romance languages, 58–68. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing., 2008

In RRG, the grammatical categories of tense, mood and aspect are characterized as operators with ... more In RRG, the grammatical categories of tense, mood and aspect are characterized as operators with scope over different parts of the layered structure of the clause (LSC). RRG also posits a rigid order of such operators with respect to the predicating element, including the relative ordering: tense/status > deontic modality> aspect. However the English be going to construction, which has been characterized as a future tense operator, has variable surface scope. In addition, in some (but not all) utterances, going to encodes various meanings in addition to expressing future time reference. In this paper I argue that variation in the scope of going to correlates with semantic differences. Specifically, when going to is within the scope of one or more operators it functions as a nucleus, rather than a tense operator, and exhibits semantic retention, that is, hearers recover its conceptual semantic content. Conversely, when going to has one or more operators within its surface structure scope it functions as a tense operator and semantic retention is impossible. Finally, if there are no other operators either within the scope of going to or that have going to within their scope, going to may function as a tense operator, unless it exhibits semantic retention, in which case it is only analyzable as a nucleus. 1 I am grateful to Ranko Matasovic and Björn Wiemer for suggesting improvements and corrections to this paper; I bear sole responsibility for any remaining errors.

Traditionally, metaphor is a figure of speech in which one word or idea is replaced with another ... more Traditionally, metaphor is a figure of speech in which one word or idea is replaced with another which it resembles in some way. For example, in Shakespeare's line All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players, the world is not only compared to a stage (in a theatre), it is said to be a stage, and the men and women are not only like players, they are players. 1

We have spent most of the previous units looking lexical semantics: the study of word meaning. Le... more We have spent most of the previous units looking lexical semantics: the study of word meaning. Lexical semantics addresses issues such as: what a lexeme is, how lexemes are associated with concepts, what concepts are, and how meanings are organised into different kinds of networks -including both the meanings associated with a single word and meanings associated with different words.

What we think of as contact between languages is in actual fact (and quite obviously, if we stop ... more What we think of as contact between languages is in actual fact (and quite obviously, if we stop to think about it) contact between speakers of different languages and the attempt by speakers of one language to learn or imitate another language. , cited in Winford 2005 distinguishes source language (SL) and recipient language (RL).

There is more to language contact phenomena than just borrowing. Intense contact can influence ch... more There is more to language contact phenomena than just borrowing. Intense contact can influence change in more subtle but also more pervasive ways.

• all conscious efforts that aim at changing the linguistic behaviour of a speech community (Mest... more • all conscious efforts that aim at changing the linguistic behaviour of a speech community (Mesthrie et al 2009: 371) • overt, directed, purposeful language change brought about in order to solve some identified problem (Lewis 2011:12) Language policy

Congrès International des Linguistes, 2013

Concessives are expressions such as English but, nevertheless, however, instead, rather, despite,... more Concessives are expressions such as English but, nevertheless, however, instead, rather, despite, although, on the other hand and so forth, which indicate that the clause which they introduce counters some other idea (‘adversatives’ like but are treated as a sub-set of concessives on this definition). Concessives may introduce material which either directly contradicts an idea expressed elsewhere in the discourse or counters an inference or expectation inferred from the discourse. Using data from over 30 African languages, I show that some languages do not have overt concessive expressions; instead, additives or juxtaposition are used and countering relations must be inferred. In other languages, the counterpart of the adversative conjunction but is a borrowed expression. I argue that in small, tight-knit, isolated communities with a high proportion of shared assumptions, speakers will typically need to provide hearers with few overt concessive expressions to ensure successful communication.

Keynote talk presented at the 6th International Conference on Bantu Languages (Bantu 6), Helsinki... more Keynote talk presented at the 6th International Conference on Bantu Languages (Bantu 6), Helsinki 22 June 2016

In Digo (a North-East Coastal Bantu language) clausal conjunction and conditionals are expressed ... more In Digo (a North-East Coastal Bantu language) clausal conjunction and conditionals are expressed through verbal inflection. Clausal conjunction and conditionals are structurally similar, and conceptually linked through the notion of contingency, expressed through the TAM markers with the same forms but different syntactic distribution.

Published in Studies in Language 36:928-937 (2012)

Published in Functions of Language 19:89-95 (2012)

Published in Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 27:99-105 (2006)

Published in Journal of Linguistics 40:192-198 (2004)

Published in Journal of Linguistics 38:181-183 (2002)

Published in SIL Notes on Linguistics 4.4 (2001)

The aim of this book is to demonstrate that all language contact phenomena are governed by the sa... more The aim of this book is to demonstrate that all language contact phenomena are governed by the same set of underlying principles. The theoretical framework which Carol Myers-Scotton employs is the Matrix Language Frame model (MLF), which was first proposed in . Central to the MLF is the distinction between Matrix Language and Embedded Language; this develops the idea of asymmetry between participating languages prevalent in the literature on codeswitching (cf. whilst treating the Matrix and Embedded Languages as abstract linguistic systems rather than actual languages. It is the Matrix Language which contributes structure (morpheme order) and "critical system morphemes," that is, "system morphemes which have grammatical relations external to their head constituent (i.e. which participate in the sentence's thematic role grid)" (p. 59). The Embedded Language contributes other morphemes, most notably content words.