Imperatives in contact. Linguistic interactions on the Sakhalin Island (original) (raw)

Unaccusativity and the syntax of imperatives in East Circassian

Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America, 2017

This paper presents novel evidence for the syntactic distinction between unergative and unaccusative verbs in East Circassian (or Kabardian). The evidence concerns a particular strategy of forming imperatives – simultaneous causativization and reflexivization – which is only applicable to unaccusative predicates. I argue that this type of imperative involves the promotion of the internal argument to the a higher position through the use of the causative morpheme which has been grammaticalized to mark imperative mood. The observed patterns suggest that imperative mood, while generally associated with the CP-layer, must be sensitive to the structure of vP.

Contact-induced usages of volitional moods in East Caucasian languages

International Journal of Bilingualism, 2016

Aims and hypothesis: The aim of this article is to introduce a case of syntactic borrowing. I test the hypothesis that the uses of volitional forms (optative, imperative, hortative and jussive) in complement clauses of the verbs of wish and in purpose clauses in East Caucasian languages evolve under the influence of Azerbaijanian. Design/methodology/approach and data and analysis: The data of 13 languages are considered in the paper. To prove that shared features are contact-induced, two control languages are included in the sample. Archi belongs to the same genetic group as the languages that use volitionals in subordinate clauses, but is exposed to Azerbaijanian to a lesser extent. Axaxdərə Akhvakh belongs to another group, but has strong contacts with Azerbaijanian due to recent migration. Findings/conclusions: A survey shows that volitionals are used in subordinate clauses most extensively in those languages whose speakers exhibit a high level of bilingualism in Azerbaijanian, a...

Introduction. A New Look at Language Contact in Amerindian Languages

2010

This volume contains nine chapters, each of them investigating distinct aspects of the linguistic consequences of language contact, among them those that result from the differences in the typology of the languages involved. The central scientific question that inspires the authors is: Are there particular constraints in regard to the different structures that can be transferred from one language to another when the donor and recipient languages differ considerably in their typology?

Differential object marking in contact-influenced Russian Speech: evidence from the Corpus of Contact-influenced Russian Speech of Russian Far East and Northern Siberia

The paper deals with differential object marking in the Russian Speech of Nanai-Russian bilingual speakers, namely the variation such as принес рыбу ~ принес рыба ('{he} brought fish-acc ~ fish-nom'). The puzzle is that this peculiarity can result from a number of different processes: morphosyntactic borrowing from Nanai, penetration of dialectal features into the speech of bilinguals, under-acquisition or reinterpretation of the Standard Russian system. The data of a small corpus of contact-influenced Russian Speech is used to test all these hypotheses. The results are following. Nominative forms are used in DO-position in quite a systematic way and such uses cannot be estimated as occasional " errors ". The main factors that influence the NOM~ACC distribution are a) information structure and b) the accentual type of noun stem. The latter fact supports the hypothesis of a systematic reinterpetation of the Standard Russian system in the situation of incomplete acquisition. No significant correlations with animacy, definiteness, verb form and word order were attested. DOM pattern of Nanai Russian differs from those of Russian dialects and reveals some similarity to those of Nanai. However it cannot be considered as a full morphosyntactic calque.

Preliminary of the Imperative in the Japreria language

Research in University Of New Mexico, 1998

Durbind and Seijas (1975) and Villalón (1987) fail to point out that Japreria may be a language different from Yukpa, the other Cariban language spoken in "Sierra de Perijá". They classify Japreria as a dialect of Yukpa. But , in my paper "Is Japreria a dialect of Yukpa ? (1998) , I try to demonstrate that Japreria has developed independently from Yukpa with regard to submorphemic units of the kinship system , the pronominal system, and the lexicon. The aim in this work is to describe the use of the imperative in Japreria and to compare its structure to the interrogative form. I analyzed twenty verbs in Japreria language. In the interrogative form in the present tense the addressee is manifested but not in the imperative form, contrary to the explanation of Manning (1996 :7) who wrote : " For semantic reasons certain grammatical processes will universally pick out this notion of (deep) subject regardless of the surface pivot of the Language. This the addressee of imperative ." The prominence of the addressee in the Japreria interrogative form constitutes the difference with regard to the structure of the imperative. My tentative conclusion is that in the imperative construction of the Japreria language the prominence of the addressee is pragmatic.

Discursive Registers in Finno-Karelian Communicative Incantations

Signs and Society , 2021

The present paper investigates discursive justification as a moderative device in Kalevalametric incantations. It explores different uses of justification by Finno-Karelian ritual specialists and argues that justification functions differently with positively and negatively evaluated non-human agents. In addition, a typology of discursive units of justification is provided. The results of the analysis reveal that justification functions as a register-based Contact Tuukka Karlsson at PL 59 (Unioninkatu 38) 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland (tuukka.karlsson@ helsinki.fi).