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The Slavic Expansion during the 300s-700s poses interesting problems of interpretation (§1). This... more The Slavic Expansion during the 300s-700s poses interesting problems of interpretation (§1). This paper considers ways of procuring water, which is inomissible for any populationwhether stable or expandingand suggests that the Slavic Expansion comprised three modes of settlement, (i) along water courses, (ii) by natural springs, and (iii) dependent on hand-dug wells. The progression through these three modes entailed significant changes in the way of life of the Slavs (§2). They are evidenced by hundreds of placenames derived from words for 'spring' (§3) and by the later, widespread semantic change of words for 'spring' to 'well' and the creation of new words for 'spring' (§4). The remarkably diverse Slavic words for 'spring' reflect language contacts in the period before the Historical Expansion in the 500s and are of different age (§5). Their modern geographical distributions in 'spring' econyms reflect population movements at several stages of the Expansion, beginning centuries before the Historical Expansion (§6). They give indications about the relative locations of the Slavs and the contact languages prior to the Historical Expansion (§7).
The generally accepted idea that the word for 'king' in the Slavic languages reflects German Karl... more The generally accepted idea that the word for 'king' in the Slavic languages reflects German Karl, the name of Charlemagne (§1), does not account for all the relevant details of this etymon. This is at least one reason why it may not seem convincing (§2). In fact, the standard etymology is a product of an old-fashioned approach to etymology that is primarily impressionistic and often does not pay attention to phonological and morphological detail (§3). Thus, phonologically PS *korľ-ĭ does not correspond to Gm. Karl (§4.1). Morphologically it is a possessive adjective (§4.2), so it can hardly have originated as a fancy title for a foreign potentate, as is widely believed (§4.3-4). The question is sometimes asked whether this word was really Proto-Slavic. This question, at least, can be answered in the affirmative (§4.5). The main points of the exposition are summed up in the Conclusion (§5).
Diachronica, 2009
This volume contains a collection of nine papers originally presented in a workshop at the Deutsc... more This volume contains a collection of nine papers originally presented in a workshop at the Deutscher Romanistentag in Saarbrücken in 2005. It is "of interest to a broad public within linguistics", "[s]yntacticians, typologists, historical linguists and romanists" (p. 9). Besides the papers, there is an "Introduction" by the editors (1-11), "Contents" (p. i), "Acknowledgements" (p. ii), and a "Subject Index" (251-252). The title of the volume refers to Eugenio Coseriu's "paradox of change: if synchronically, languages can be viewed as perfectly running systems, then there is no reason why they should change … And yet, as everyone knows, languages are changing constantly" (p. 1). Unfortunately the editors show no interest in Coseriu's resolution of this paradox. In the "Introduction" (1-11) they take it to imply that grammar change is a total mystery, which was not Coseriu's understanding (to which I return below). They then list a number of types of explanation of change that have been proposed by linguists of diverse persuasions (1-4) and try to characterize each of the papers that make up the volume in terms of these explanation types. The editors' own contribution ("Syntactic change from within and from without syntax: A usage-based analysis", 13-30) discusses two changes, the rise of the French interrogative particle est-ce que and the Spanish presentative hay + noun. The exposition illustrates the authors' conviction that the "best solution to the paradox of change is the notion that change … originates in language usage". The first of these changes is shown to be pragmatically motivated and the second, an instance of syntactically motivated syntactic change. Andreas Dufter ("On explaining the rise of c' est-clefts in French", 31-56) tests the standard explanations for this innovation (loss of word stress and/or word order as focus marking) against several corpora and shows the relevance of phonological and syntactic factors in this development, and especially a pragmatic innovation, that of the informative-presupposition cleft (48-51), from which clefting was extended to other environments. Elisabeth Stark's paper ("The role of the plural system in Romance", 57-84) confronts number, partitivity, and gender in Latin and modern Romance (mainly
Diachronica, 2015
This is the first volume in a new series, Edinburgh Historical Linguistics, edited by Joe Salmons... more This is the first volume in a new series, Edinburgh Historical Linguistics, edited by Joe Salmons and David Willis and dedicated to advanced textbooks on language change and comparative linguistics. As a whole, the series is intended "to provide a comprehensive introduction to this broad and increasingly complex field" (back cover). Analogy seems an excellent choice of topic for this first volume: A notion that has been central to the study of synchronic and diachronic morphology since antiquity, and which continues to attract the interest of theoretical linguists. The volume (hereafter A&MC) covers its topic in eight chapters (1-140) to be detailed below. It concludes with a list of "References" (141-156) and an "Index" of names, languages and concepts (157-160). The first chapter ("Fundamental concepts and issues", 1-18) introduces the notion of analogy. It provides basic historical background since the 1870s, clarifies the polysemy of the word analogy, distinguishing cognitive analogy vs. analogical formation, analogical innovation vs. change and change vs. diachronic correspondences. It alerts the reader to some of the different senses in which the word analogy is used in the literature and contrasts analogy with reanalysis, sound change, language contact and grammaticalization. Chapter 2 ("Basic mechanisms of morphological change", 19-41) continues the description of the essential conceptual apparatus, contrasting the reanalysis types resegmentation and revaluation with actualization, and discussing associative interference, extension, the role of transmission (acquisition) in grammatical innovation and static vs. dynamic conceptions of grammar. A key part of this chapter is a novel classification of analogical innovations (27-37). It is based on the traditional proportional equation's A : B = C : D and distinguishes A-, B-, C-, and D-reanalysis. "Exaptation" (37-40) is viewed as a separate change type not subsumed in this classification. I return to these below. Chapter 3 ("Types of analogical change: Introduction and proportional change", 42-56) discusses the difference between proportional and nonproportional analogy, suggests the limitations of the proportional scheme and goes through the traditional subtypes: four-part analogy, extension, backformation, (ir) regularization and singular vs. "across-the-board" changes.
Languages in Contrast, 2006
Uncovering the origin of SLOVĚNE, the Late Common Slavic self-designation of the Slavs, has for a... more Uncovering the origin of SLOVĚNE, the Late Common Slavic self-designation of the Slavs, has for a long time seemed a pretty hopeless business. But so far no attempt has been made to reconstruct the prehistorical contextbefore the Slavic migrationsin which it must have been created. Such an attempt is made here. It pays attention to the details of the morphological prehistory of patrials (words for inhabitants), but especially to the semantic categories of patrials that can be observed in the oldest stages of attested Slavic, and which can be posited for earlier times. Against this background it is possible to hypothesize both the discourse context in which the word was created and the series of semantic changes it must have gone through since then. Section 1 reviews some recent, innovative proposals for the etymology of SLOVĚNE. Section 2 examines the morphology and semantics of patrials in Old Church Slavonic and several others of the earliest attested Slavic languages. Section 3 reconstructs the semantic categories of Common Slavic patrials. Section 4 applies the relevant findings in an etymological explication of SLOVĚNE. Section 5 discusses phonological and morphophonemic changes relevant to the patrial suffix. Section 6 is a brief summary.
Journal of Slavic Linguistics
Russian Linguistics, Apr 1, 2006
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 2008
Historical Development of Auxiliaries, 1987
Journal of Linguistics, 1969
It is generally accepted that Contemporary Standard Russian (CSR) has four labiodental fricatives... more It is generally accepted that Contemporary Standard Russian (CSR) has four labiodental fricatives, f, f', v and v'. Most descriptions of Russian phonetics note that two of these, the voiced v and v' differ from all other Russian obstruents in one important respect. While as a general rule obstruent sequences are either voiced throughout or voiceless throughout depending on the voiced or voiceless character of the last member of the sequence, v and v' do not effect assimilative voicing in a preceding obstruent; cf. otbój [-db-], otdát' [-dd-], otgón [-dg-], otzýv [-dz-], otžít' [-dž-], but otvál [-tv-].
Historiographia Linguistica, 1982
The Slavic Expansion during the 300s-700s poses interesting problems of interpretation (§1). This... more The Slavic Expansion during the 300s-700s poses interesting problems of interpretation (§1). This paper considers ways of procuring water, which is inomissible for any populationwhether stable or expandingand suggests that the Slavic Expansion comprised three modes of settlement, (i) along water courses, (ii) by natural springs, and (iii) dependent on hand-dug wells. The progression through these three modes entailed significant changes in the way of life of the Slavs (§2). They are evidenced by hundreds of placenames derived from words for 'spring' (§3) and by the later, widespread semantic change of words for 'spring' to 'well' and the creation of new words for 'spring' (§4). The remarkably diverse Slavic words for 'spring' reflect language contacts in the period before the Historical Expansion in the 500s and are of different age (§5). Their modern geographical distributions in 'spring' econyms reflect population movements at several stages of the Expansion, beginning centuries before the Historical Expansion (§6). They give indications about the relative locations of the Slavs and the contact languages prior to the Historical Expansion (§7).
The generally accepted idea that the word for 'king' in the Slavic languages reflects German Karl... more The generally accepted idea that the word for 'king' in the Slavic languages reflects German Karl, the name of Charlemagne (§1), does not account for all the relevant details of this etymon. This is at least one reason why it may not seem convincing (§2). In fact, the standard etymology is a product of an old-fashioned approach to etymology that is primarily impressionistic and often does not pay attention to phonological and morphological detail (§3). Thus, phonologically PS *korľ-ĭ does not correspond to Gm. Karl (§4.1). Morphologically it is a possessive adjective (§4.2), so it can hardly have originated as a fancy title for a foreign potentate, as is widely believed (§4.3-4). The question is sometimes asked whether this word was really Proto-Slavic. This question, at least, can be answered in the affirmative (§4.5). The main points of the exposition are summed up in the Conclusion (§5).
Diachronica, 2009
This volume contains a collection of nine papers originally presented in a workshop at the Deutsc... more This volume contains a collection of nine papers originally presented in a workshop at the Deutscher Romanistentag in Saarbrücken in 2005. It is "of interest to a broad public within linguistics", "[s]yntacticians, typologists, historical linguists and romanists" (p. 9). Besides the papers, there is an "Introduction" by the editors (1-11), "Contents" (p. i), "Acknowledgements" (p. ii), and a "Subject Index" (251-252). The title of the volume refers to Eugenio Coseriu's "paradox of change: if synchronically, languages can be viewed as perfectly running systems, then there is no reason why they should change … And yet, as everyone knows, languages are changing constantly" (p. 1). Unfortunately the editors show no interest in Coseriu's resolution of this paradox. In the "Introduction" (1-11) they take it to imply that grammar change is a total mystery, which was not Coseriu's understanding (to which I return below). They then list a number of types of explanation of change that have been proposed by linguists of diverse persuasions (1-4) and try to characterize each of the papers that make up the volume in terms of these explanation types. The editors' own contribution ("Syntactic change from within and from without syntax: A usage-based analysis", 13-30) discusses two changes, the rise of the French interrogative particle est-ce que and the Spanish presentative hay + noun. The exposition illustrates the authors' conviction that the "best solution to the paradox of change is the notion that change … originates in language usage". The first of these changes is shown to be pragmatically motivated and the second, an instance of syntactically motivated syntactic change. Andreas Dufter ("On explaining the rise of c' est-clefts in French", 31-56) tests the standard explanations for this innovation (loss of word stress and/or word order as focus marking) against several corpora and shows the relevance of phonological and syntactic factors in this development, and especially a pragmatic innovation, that of the informative-presupposition cleft (48-51), from which clefting was extended to other environments. Elisabeth Stark's paper ("The role of the plural system in Romance", 57-84) confronts number, partitivity, and gender in Latin and modern Romance (mainly
Diachronica, 2015
This is the first volume in a new series, Edinburgh Historical Linguistics, edited by Joe Salmons... more This is the first volume in a new series, Edinburgh Historical Linguistics, edited by Joe Salmons and David Willis and dedicated to advanced textbooks on language change and comparative linguistics. As a whole, the series is intended "to provide a comprehensive introduction to this broad and increasingly complex field" (back cover). Analogy seems an excellent choice of topic for this first volume: A notion that has been central to the study of synchronic and diachronic morphology since antiquity, and which continues to attract the interest of theoretical linguists. The volume (hereafter A&MC) covers its topic in eight chapters (1-140) to be detailed below. It concludes with a list of "References" (141-156) and an "Index" of names, languages and concepts (157-160). The first chapter ("Fundamental concepts and issues", 1-18) introduces the notion of analogy. It provides basic historical background since the 1870s, clarifies the polysemy of the word analogy, distinguishing cognitive analogy vs. analogical formation, analogical innovation vs. change and change vs. diachronic correspondences. It alerts the reader to some of the different senses in which the word analogy is used in the literature and contrasts analogy with reanalysis, sound change, language contact and grammaticalization. Chapter 2 ("Basic mechanisms of morphological change", 19-41) continues the description of the essential conceptual apparatus, contrasting the reanalysis types resegmentation and revaluation with actualization, and discussing associative interference, extension, the role of transmission (acquisition) in grammatical innovation and static vs. dynamic conceptions of grammar. A key part of this chapter is a novel classification of analogical innovations (27-37). It is based on the traditional proportional equation's A : B = C : D and distinguishes A-, B-, C-, and D-reanalysis. "Exaptation" (37-40) is viewed as a separate change type not subsumed in this classification. I return to these below. Chapter 3 ("Types of analogical change: Introduction and proportional change", 42-56) discusses the difference between proportional and nonproportional analogy, suggests the limitations of the proportional scheme and goes through the traditional subtypes: four-part analogy, extension, backformation, (ir) regularization and singular vs. "across-the-board" changes.
Languages in Contrast, 2006
Uncovering the origin of SLOVĚNE, the Late Common Slavic self-designation of the Slavs, has for a... more Uncovering the origin of SLOVĚNE, the Late Common Slavic self-designation of the Slavs, has for a long time seemed a pretty hopeless business. But so far no attempt has been made to reconstruct the prehistorical contextbefore the Slavic migrationsin which it must have been created. Such an attempt is made here. It pays attention to the details of the morphological prehistory of patrials (words for inhabitants), but especially to the semantic categories of patrials that can be observed in the oldest stages of attested Slavic, and which can be posited for earlier times. Against this background it is possible to hypothesize both the discourse context in which the word was created and the series of semantic changes it must have gone through since then. Section 1 reviews some recent, innovative proposals for the etymology of SLOVĚNE. Section 2 examines the morphology and semantics of patrials in Old Church Slavonic and several others of the earliest attested Slavic languages. Section 3 reconstructs the semantic categories of Common Slavic patrials. Section 4 applies the relevant findings in an etymological explication of SLOVĚNE. Section 5 discusses phonological and morphophonemic changes relevant to the patrial suffix. Section 6 is a brief summary.
Journal of Slavic Linguistics
Russian Linguistics, Apr 1, 2006
Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 2008
Historical Development of Auxiliaries, 1987
Journal of Linguistics, 1969
It is generally accepted that Contemporary Standard Russian (CSR) has four labiodental fricatives... more It is generally accepted that Contemporary Standard Russian (CSR) has four labiodental fricatives, f, f', v and v'. Most descriptions of Russian phonetics note that two of these, the voiced v and v' differ from all other Russian obstruents in one important respect. While as a general rule obstruent sequences are either voiced throughout or voiceless throughout depending on the voiced or voiceless character of the last member of the sequence, v and v' do not effect assimilative voicing in a preceding obstruent; cf. otbój [-db-], otdát' [-dd-], otgón [-dg-], otzýv [-dz-], otžít' [-dž-], but otvál [-tv-].
Historiographia Linguistica, 1982
The Slavic Expansion during the 300s-700s poses interesting problems of interpretation (§1). This... more The Slavic Expansion during the 300s-700s poses interesting problems of interpretation (§1). This paper considers ways of procuring water, which is inomissible for any population-whether stable or expanding-and suggests that the Slavic Expansion comprised three modes of settlement, (i) along water courses, (ii) by natural springs, and (iii) dependent on hand-dug wells. The progression through these three modes entailed significant changes in the way of life of the Slavs (§2). They are evidenced by hundreds of placenames derived from words for 'spring' (§3) and by the later, widespread semantic change of words for 'spring' to 'well' and the creation of new words for 'spring' (§4). The remarkably diverse Slavic words for 'spring' reflect language contacts in the period before the Historical Expansion in the 500s and are of different age (§5). Their modern geographical distributions in 'spring' econyms reflect population movements at several stages of the Expansion, beginning centuries before the Historical Expansion. (§6). They motivate hypotheses about the relative locations of the Slavs and the contact languages prior to the Historical Expansion (§7).