From W.A.van.der.Wurff at LET.leidenuniv.nl Fri Nov 8 22:35:48 2002 From: W.A.van.der.Wurff at LET.leidenuniv.nl (Wurff, W.A. van der) Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 17:35:48 EST Subject: call for papers Comparative Diachronic Syntax Conference Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Conference on Comparative Diachronic Syntax University of Leiden Centre for Linguistics (ULCL), 29-30 August 2003 Description of Conference Topic In the synchronic study of syntax, the comparative approach has been highly successful in uncovering insights into the nature of syntactic principles and the variation that they allow. In fact, it may not be an overstatement to say that modern syntax is to a large extent based on comparative work. It is certainly true that any analysis of language-specific data will not be considered successful if it cannot be made responsive to data from other languages. In the diachronic study of syntax, the role of cross-linguistic comparative concerns is somewhat less clear. While diachronic investigation focusing on typology and grammaticalisation has produced an important body of comparative work, it is sometimes rough-grained and often neglects issues of syntactic structure. Diachronic study from other perspectives, while it may be more fine-grained and structure-conscious, tends to ignore questions of cross-linguistic comparison. It therefore appears that there is still a need to explore the implications of a principled comparative stance to historical syntactic change. This conference hopes to stimulate discussion of the possibilities and problems that such a stance would create, with reference to specific case histories or more general issues in the study of syntactic change. Among the questions that could be addressed are the following: * what can a comparative perspective contribute to our understanding of some specific syntactic change or set of changes in a language? * what is the exact contribution that models of comparative synchronic syntax can make to the study of diachrony? * are there types of diachronic syntactic phenomena that may be particularly well or ill suited to comparative analysis? * does comparative diachronic analyis place special demands on the kinds of data that are required? Call for papers Key-note speaker at the conference will be Professor Ian Roberts (University of Cambridge; confirmed). There are ten to twelve slots for further papers on the conference topic. Abstracts are invited for 40-minute papers (followed by 15 minutes discussion). The abstract should have a maximum length of two pages, including any references, and should reach the address below before 1 January 2003, preferably in the form of an e-mail message or attachment. Notification of acceptance will be sent by e-mail by 1 February 2003. Practical information * Dates: Friday 29 August and Saturday 30 August 2003 * Programme: from 9.15 till 17.15 on both days * Location: Faculty of Arts, Room 148 of Main Building (also known as Building 1175 or LAK Building), University of Leiden, Leiden * Conference fee: EUR 20 (this will cover abstracts, tea, coffee, and drinks on Friday), to be paid at registration on the first day of the conference * Five double rooms have been reserved for participants to the conference, in the International Centre of the University of Leiden, Rapenburg 6, Leiden (within walking distance of the conference site) from 28 to 30 August 2003 (so Thursday, Friday and Saturday night); price: EUR 20 per person per night (no breakfast included, but there are simple self-catering facilities on the premises). Anyone wanting to share such a room should contact the conference organiser as soon as possible. Contact address Conference on Comparative Diachronic Syntax Dr. Wim van der Wurff Department of English P.O. Box 9515 NL-2300 RA Leiden The Netherlands e-mail: w.a.van.der.wurff at let.leidenuniv.nl For all further information, see the ULCL website at From mirovsky at ufal.ms.mff.cuni.cz Wed Nov 13 13:51:03 2002 From: mirovsky at ufal.ms.mff.cuni.cz (Jiri Mirovsky) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 08:51:03 EST Subject: XVII Int. Congress of Linguists - DEADLINE EXTENSION Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- *** DEADLINE EXTENSION *** DEADLINE EXTENSION *** --------------------------------------------------- XVII International Congress of Linguists Prague, Czech Republic July 24-29, 2003 Organized by Faculty of Mathematics and Physics Charles University in Prague Center for Computational Linguistics and Institute of Formal and Applied Linguistics in cooperation with Institute of Czech Language Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic Under the auspices of Comité International Permanent des Linguistes ---------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT DEADLINES FOR SUBMISSIONS OF 3-PAGE ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS, WORKSHOP CONTRIBUTIONS AND POSTERS HAVE BEEN EXTENDED TO: DECEMBER 10th, 2002 ----------------- The abstracts of papers should be sent directly to the parallel sessions organizers: Language planning and language policies: Professor Ayo Bamgbose, Department of Linguistics, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. e-mail: bamgbose at skannet.com Pidgins, creoles, language in contact: Professor Kees Versteegh, Institute of Linguistics, VH Midden Oost, Postbus 9103, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. e-mail: C.Versteegh at let.kun.nl Comparative linguistics: Professor Lyle Campbell, Department of Linguistics, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zeeland. e-mail: l.campbell at canterbury.ac.nz Computational linguistics: Professor Giacomo Ferrari, Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Universita del Piemonte Orientale, Via A.Manzoni 8, 13100 Vercelli, Italy. e-mail: ferrari at apollo.lett.unipmn.it Language and fieldwork: Professor Daniel Everett, Caixa Postal 129, Porto Velho, RO, 78900-970, Brazil. e-mail: dan_everett at sil.org Techniques for language description: Professor Nicoletta Calzolari, Istituto di Linguistica Computazionale del CNR, Via Moruzzi 1, 56124 Pisa, Italy e-mail: glottolo at ilc.cnr.it Syntax and morphology: Professor Stephen Anderson, Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, Yale University, PO Box 208236, Yale Station, New Haven CT, 06520-8236 USA. e-mail: stephen.anderson at yale.edu Lexicology and lexicography: Professor Rufus Gouws, Department of Afrikaans and Durch, University of Stellenbosch, Private Bag X1, Matieland 7602, South Africa. e-mail: Rhg at akad.sun.ac.za Phonetics and phonology: Professor Jean Lowenstamm, Université de Paris 7, UFR Linguistique, CASE 7003, 2, Place Jussieu, 75251 Paris Cedex 05, France. e-mail: jean.lowenstamm at linguist.jussieu.fr Pragmatics and semantics: Professor Robert M.Harnish, Department of Philosophy, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA. e-mail: harnish at u.arizona.edu ------------ The abstracts of the contributions to the workshop should be sent directly to the workshop organizers (see the address of the organizing committee at the end of the mail). Important dates for submission of abstracts of papers, workshop contributions and poster descriptions: 3-page abstracts ... December 10, 2002 Information of acceptance/rejection will be sent out before: ... December 31, 2002 1-page summary for publication in the proceedings ... March 31, 2003 If you wish to submit an abstract which does not fit any of the announced topics please send your abstract to Professor Ferenc Kiefer (kiefer at nytud.hu). The authors of late submissions (after October 1 but before December 10) will be notified about acceptance or rejection by January 31, 2003. Each abstract should contain: a separate page with the title of the paper/poster, the author's name, and affiliation, postal address, e-mail address and fax. The author's name should not be written on the abstract itself. Address of the Chair of the Scientific Committee: Prof. Ferenc Kiefer Research Institute for Linguistics Hungarian academy of Sciences Benczur u. 33 H-1068 Budapest, Hungary e-mail: kiefer at nytud.hu Languages: Papers can be delivered in English, German, French or Russian; summaries published in the volume of abstracts should be written in English or French. Address of the organizing committee: CIL 17 Center for Computational Linguistics MFF UK c/o Mrs Anna Kotesovcova Malostranske nam. 25 118 00 Prague 1 Czech Republic e-mail: cil17 at cil17.org fax: ++420-2-2191 4304 web page: http://www.cil17.org From paul at benjamins.com Thu Nov 14 22:09:26 2002 From: paul at benjamins.com (Paul Peranteau) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 17:09:26 EST Subject: New Book: Fanego I Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- John Benjamins Publishing is pleased to announce a new work in historical linguistics. Title: English Historical Syntax and Morphology Subtitle: Selected papers from 11 ICEHL, Santiago de Compostela, 7-11 September 2000 Series Title: Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 223 Publication Year: 2002 Publisher: John Benjamins http://www.benjamins.com/ http://www.benjamins.nl Editor: Teresa Fanego Editor: Javier Pérez-Guerra Editor: María José López-Couzo (University of Santiago de Compostella / University de Vigo) US: Canada: Hardback: ISBN: 158811192X, Pages: x, 306 pp., Price: USD 99.00 Everywhere else: Hardback: ISBN: 9027247315, Pages: x, 306 pp., Price: EUR 109.00 Abstract: This volume offers a selection of papers from the Eleventh International Conference on English Historical Linguistics held at the University of Santiago de Compostela. From the rich programme (over 130 papers were given during the conference), the present twelve papers were carefully selected to reflect the state of current research in the fields of English historical syntax and morphology. Some of the issues discussed are the emergence of viewpoint adverbials in English and German, changes in noun phrase structure from 1650 to the present, the development of the progressive in Scots, the passivization of composite predicates, the loss of V2 and its effects on the information structure of English, the acquisition of modal syntax and semantics by the English verb WANT, or the use of temporal adverbs as attributive adjectives in the Early Modern period. Many of the articles tackle questions of change through the use of methodological tools like computerized corpora. The theoretical frameworks adopted include, among others, grammaticalization theory, Dik's model of functional grammar, construction grammar and Government & Binding Theory. Table of Contents Introduction Teresa Fanego 1 Two types of passivization of 'V+NP+P' constructions in relation to idiomatization Minoji Akimoto 9 On the development of a friend of mine Cynthia L. Allen 23 Historical shifts in modification patterns with complex noun phrase structures: How long can you go without a verb? Douglas Biber and Victoria Clark 43 Grammaticalization versus lexicalization reconsidered: On the late use of temporal adverbs Laurel J. Brinton 67 The derivation of ornative,locative,ablative,privative and reversative verbs in English: A historical sketch Dieter Kastovsky 99 >From gold-gifa to chimney sweep? Morphological (un)markedness of Modern English agent nouns in a diachronic perspective Lucia Kornexl 111 A path to volitional modality Manfred G. Krug 131 Is it, stylewise or otherwise, wise to use -wise? Domain adverbials and the history of English -wise Ursula Lenker 157 The loss of the indefinite pronoun man: Syntactic change and information structure Bettelou Los 181 The progressive in Older Scots Anneli Meurman-Solin 203 Detransitivization in the history of English from a semantic perspective Ruth Möhlig and Monika E. Klages 231 Morphology recycled: The Principle of Rhythmic Alternation at work in Early and Late Modern English grammatical variation Julia Schlüter 255 Lingfield(s): Historical Linguistics Subject Language(s): English (Language code: ENG) Written In: English (Language Code: ENG) John Benjamins Publishing Co. Offices: Philadelphia Amsterdam: Websites: http://www.benjamins.com http://www.benjamins.nl E-mail: service at benjamins.com customer.services at benjamins.nl Phone: +215 836-1200 +31 20 6304747 Fax: +215 836-1204 +31 20 6739773 From EvolPub at aol.com Thu Nov 14 14:30:26 2002 From: EvolPub at aol.com (Tony Schiavo) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 09:30:26 EST Subject: Book Announcement: Wood's Vocabulary of Massachusett (1634) Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Evolution Publishing is pleased to announce publication of the following volume from the American Language Reprints (ALR) series: Volume 27: Wood's Vocabulary of Massachusett William Wood, 1634 The earliest substantial vocabulary of Massachusett was that taken by William Wood and published in his New England's Prospect in 1634. It represents the North Shore dialect of the language and contains over 250 words and phrases in the now-extinct language. Included are the numbers up to twenty, days of the week, months, and names of important people and places. October 2002 ~ 50 pp. ~ clothbound ~ ISBN 1-889758-25-6 ~ $28.00 Evolution Publishing is dedicated to preserving and consolidating early primary source records of Native and early colonial America with the goal of making them more accessible and readily available to the academic community and the public at large. For further information on this and other titles in the ALR series: http://www.evolpub.com/ALR/ALRhome.html Evolution Publishing evolpub at aol.com From tuitekj at ANTHRO.UMontreal.CA Tue Nov 19 21:59:14 2002 From: tuitekj at ANTHRO.UMontreal.CA (Kevin Tuite) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 16:59:14 EST Subject: Etymology of "trouver" (summary) Message-ID: Dear colleagues, About three weeks ago, I solicited your opinions concerning the competing etymologies proposed for French "trouver" and Occitan "trobar". I had in mind the debate, which took place about a century ago, between Hugo Schuchardt and the French linguists Gaston Paris and Antoine Thomas. Paris had reconstructed the Vulgar Latin proto-form *tropare via regular sound laws, and then proposed a somewhat farfetched semantic pathway ("compose [a melody]" > "invent" > "discover, find" ) to make the etymology work. Schuchardt revived the derivation from /turbare/ proposed by Diez, which required the postulation of irregular sound changes under the influence of the closely-related verb /turbulare/ > */trublare/ "stir up". On the semantic side, turbare underwent a meaning shift from "stir up" to the more specialized sense of "stir up [water] in order to drive [fish toward a trap or net]". At the time I sent the message, I had encountered but a single mention of a third proposal, according to which the ultimate source of Old Provençal trobar and its cognates, at least in their specialized use to denote the composing of verses, singing, etc. (and of course, the derived nouns trobador, troubadour) is an Arabic word borrowed into the Romance dialects of medieval Spain. The text I had read was an unfavorable review (in Romania 1969) of a 1966 paper by Richard Lemay (Annales Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations XXI: 990-1011), in which the word "troubadour" was traced to the Arabic root /D.-R-B/ “strike, touch”, by extension “play a musical instrument” (the postposed dot = "emphatic", pharyngealized coarticulation). The review was rather dismissive in tone, and did not inspire me to look into the matter further. Since submitting my question, I have received about a dozen responses, which fall into two groups: (1) those who believe that some form of the *tropare root is the most likely source of "trouver" &c, and who have never heard of the proposal of an Arabic source; (2) those who HAVE heard of the Hispano-Arabic hypothesis. Most of these latter find it credible or even "the most likely source" (Paul Lloyd). No one supported Schuchardt's /turbare/ etymology. What has come as a total surprise to me is not only the existence of this third etymology -- actually, set of etymologies, there is more than one -- but the curious disconnection between the two groups of respondants. In a second e-mail, Paul Lloyd wrote that his professor of Arabic (at U. of Pennsylvania) thought the Hispano-Arabic source "was the accepted etymology and was surprised that any Romance scholars doubted it". The person most responsible for promoting this third proposal, at least among Arabists and literary historians, appears to be María Rosa Menocal, professor of Spanish at Yale. In two papers (Romance Philology XXXVI #2: 137-148 [1982], and Papers from the XIIth Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages, pp. 501-515 [1984]), as well as her 1987 book "The Arabic role in medieval literary history: A forgotten heritage" [University of Pennsylvania Press], Prof. Menocal has attempted to demonstrate, first of all, that the correct Arabic source is not the root identified by Lemay, but rather the nearly homophonous /T.-R-B/ “provoke emotion, excitement, agitation; make music, entertain by singing”. Secondly, she accused the scholarly community of Romance linguists of bad faith for their refusal to grant the Hispano-Arabic hypothesis the same airing in professional journals and etymological dictionaries as was accorded Schuchardt's /turbare/ etymology. In her opinion, it was not a question of the relative plausibility of either Arabic etymon compared to the Latin ones under consideration; the real problem is "the intellectual framework and set of scholarly assumptions and procedures which led to the complete ignoring of this possible Arabic etymon" (Menocal 1984: 504). It is essential to note that neither Lemay nor Menocal offer their Arabic etymon as the source for the Romance verb meaning “find”. In their view, this lexeme was already present in the Romance dialects of Spain and the Provence, with something akin to its modern meaning, when the Arabic root was borrowed. Homophony led to overlapping usage and eventual fusion of the two verbs, one indigenous (trobar1), one borrowed (trobar2) (Lemay 1966: 1009). One can easily imagine why such an etymology, in either version, would meet with the disfavor of “mainstream” specialists. The semantic fields associated with /T.-R-B/ and /D.-R-B/ most closely overlap that of *tropare, in that all three roots could be employed to denote some sort of musical composition or performance, whereas they have no resemblance whatsoever with the meanings reconstructed by either Diez or Schuchardt for turbare. Therefore, the postulation of an Arabic source would compel rejection of the Latin etymon with the most impeccable phonetic credentials, and a meaning no more problematic, in favor of a hypothetical borrowing that would require additional phonetic assumptions, relating to the manner of its adoption into Hispano-Romance, to account for its attested forms (Lemay 1966: 1004-1007; Menocal 1982: 146-147). The proposed antecedent *tropare is not attested in Latin, but neither is there any compelling evidence that any derivative of either Arabic root was borrowed into medieval Hispano-Romance. The proposal has another, equally unfortunate, consequence. Having been pushed aside as the source of trobar2, trobador, etc., *tropare would be left to compete with turbare as the etymon of trouver/trobar1 “find” alone. On this reduced playing field *tropare would be at a distinct disadvantage, indeed, partisans of the Hispano-Arabic hypothesis would be almost forced to acknowledge turbare as the sole likely source of the homophonous verb trobar1. In other words, it requires overturning the stronger etymology in favor of the weaker one, and abandoning a single source for both senses of “trobar” for the less elegant solution of a split etymology. One might question the extent to which the study of the Arabic influence on Hispano-Romance has been tainted by “the overtly anti-Semitic tendencies in Spanish history” (Menocal 1984: 504-505), or whether Romance etymologists have shown bad faith in refusing to discuss, in print at least, the merits of /T.-R-B/ or /D.-R-B/ as an antecedent of Old Provençal trobar. I have just given some of the weaknesses of the Hispano-Arabic hypothesis that might have motivated its rejection. Whether those are grounds for carrying on as though the etymon had never been seriously proposed is another question, one that I am in no position to answer. Sorry for the rather wordy answer. My thanks to all those who responded: Miguel Carrasquer (who was also kind enough to scan & send me the entry on "trobar" from Corominas' "Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana"), Marc Picard, Laurent Sagart, Britt Mize, Mark Southern, Paul M. Lloyd, Carol Justus, Roger Wright, and Maria Rosa Menocal. Kevin Tuite ************************************************************************ Kevin Tuite 514-343-6514 (bureau) Département d'anthropologie 514-343-2494 (télécopieur) Université de Montréal C.P. 6128, succursale centre-ville Montréal, Québec H3C 3J7 tuitekj at anthro.umontreal.ca NOUVEAU! Page Web en construction: http://www.philologie.com ************************************************************************ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 8312 bytes Desc: not available URL: From gd116 at hermes.cam.ac.uk Tue Nov 19 15:42:43 2002 From: gd116 at hermes.cam.ac.uk (Guy Deutscher) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 10:42:43 EST Subject: Who's right? (Latin future in -b-) Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear Histlingers, In Linguistic accounts (e.g. Fleischman (1982)The future in thought and language, p.34), the Latin future in -bo, -bis etc. is presented as deriving from the grammaticalisation of the verb *bh(w)u/*bheu ('be', 'become'), which merged with the stem: ama + bhwo > amabo. This origin is presented as a fact, or at the very least, as an entirely secure and incontrovertible reconstruction. In the grammaticalization literature, this development almost seems to have become a showcase example, e.g. Hopper and Traugott 1993, p.9, but also in many other places. Again, the derivation from an auxiliary *bheu is generally described as a fact. Since this is what I 'grew up' on, I was alarmed to find recently that Indo-Europeanists are much less convinced. For example, Pisani (Storia della Lingua Latina, 1962, p.108) doesn't seem to have any doubts that *bheu cannot be the source of the Latin future: "Ma non detto che il -b- latino risalga qui a -bh-, certo esso non ha nulla a vedere con la radice *bheu....". Szemer�nyi (Introduction to Indo-European Lingsuitics, 4h ed. OUP, 1996, p.287, note 1) is less categorical, but makes it clear that he believes the *bheu theory to have been superseded in recent times by the suggestion that the formation derives from a desiderative -su-. ("The Latin b-future... was for a long time traced back to an Italo-Celtic formation with -bh(w)o,.... but in recent times..." ) Not being an Indo-Europeanist, I can't judge the plausibility of the arguments presented, and so would be grateful for advice on how we should regard this example: 1) Are the arguments of the Indo-Europeanists silly, and so to be ignored, and we can happily go on propagating the *bheu origin as a fact or at least secure reconstruction? 2) Are the arguments of the Indo-Europeanists not silly, but we should ignore them anyway, just because it's a pity to let go of such a nice example of grammaticalization? 3) Are their arguments convincing, and so we should find another example? I would be very grateful for any help... Guy Deutscher. From ratcliffe at tufs.ac.jp Wed Nov 20 12:56:05 2002 From: ratcliffe at tufs.ac.jp (Robert R. Ratcliffe) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 07:56:05 EST Subject: etymology of trouver Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- re Arabic vs. Latin origin of troubador, troubar, Kevin Tuite wrote: The proposed antecedent *tropare is not attested in Latin, but neither is there any compelling evidence that any derivative of either Arabic root was borrowed into medieval Hispano-Romance. ............. This isn't quite right. It may well be that nationalism or linguistic purism has hindered the search for Arabic etymologies of Ibero-Romance words, but there is another problem as well, which is the slow pace of historical and historical linguistic research on Arabic. Arabic dictionaries traditionally are ahistorical and anetymological. They simply throw together all attested senses of a word without indication of where and when they were attested. Using such sources has led to unreliable etymological proposals, and rightly led to scepticism. In order to evaluate the likelihood of borrowing in a contact situtation, you have to know about the specific form of Arabic spoken in the specific time and place where the contact took place. Since 1977 Frederico Corriente and his students have done much to establish the characteristics of Andalusi Arabic. Any proposals before that should be regarded with scepticism. For example, Lemay's proposal of D.arab as a source for troubar is untenable because D. becomes d or ld in Spanish, not t, and because the semantics don't fit. T.arab, on the other hand, is the normal word for "sing, recite, perform musically" in old Arabic, for example in the Kitaab al-'aghaaniiy (book of songs, 9th century). tarab is attested as the normal word for music in Andalusi Arabic, and it comes into various Hispano-Romance languages in the form "tarabilla" "clapper of a mill." (Corriente 1994). It's still a stretch, phonologically from tarab to troubar, and "find" doesnt' come into it at all. But the word is there-- in the right place at the right time with the right meaning. When I was a student by the way, I wondered to my Professor (Franz Rosenthal), whether this T.arab could be the source of troubador, and he said no it comes from a Romance verb to find. That seemed to be a stretch semantically, but now I learn there is no such Romance verb (or at least no Latin verb) my scepticism has increased. In short while the older generation of Romance scholars may have had bad reasons for rejecting some proposed Arabic etymologies, they also had a good one-- the purely speculative nature of most of the proposals made. Now, in light of the great advancement in research in Arabic dialects and medieval Arabic in the last thirty years, it might be a good time for Arabists and Romance specialists to get together to re-evaluate some of these older problems and proposals. Conference, anyone? refs. Corriente, Frederico. 1994. "Current State of Research in the Field of Andalusi Arabic" in Eid, Cantarino, Walters, ed. Perspectives on Arabic LInguistics VI. Amsterdam. Benjamins. ___.1977. A grammatical Sketch of the Spanish Arabic Dialect Bundle. Madrid. Instituto Hispano-Arabe de Cultura. ____________________________________ *NEW E-mail address: ratcliffe at tufs.ac.jp* Robert R. Ratcliffe Associate Professor, Arabic and Linguistics Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Asahi-machi 3-11-1, Fuchu-shi, Tokyo 183-8534 Japan From gd116 at cam.ac.uk Thu Nov 21 12:04:25 2002 From: gd116 at cam.ac.uk (gd116 at cam.ac.uk) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 07:04:25 EST Subject: Latin future in -b- Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear all, Various people sent me very helpful answers, but for some reason, none of these seems to have been transmitted to the whole list. So in case you have been losing sleep over the Latin -bo- future, here is a short digest. The problem, it seems, is made complex by alleged parallel formations in other I-E languages (Celtic), and more importantly, by the parallel formation of the imperfect in -bam- in Latin itself. So in fact, most of the people who responded actually favour a third alternative, which was not mentioned in my query, namely that the -bo- future is a later analogical formation on the imperfect in -bam, which itself is taken (by most, not all) to derive from *bheu. (Arguments for this view in print can be found in Baldi 1976, 1999, and Hewson and Bubenik 1997). According to this view, then, the -bo future is related to *bhu only indirectly (via analogy), and not as a direct grammaticalisation from *ama-bh(w)u. Carol Justus, on the other hand, thinks that it�s *possible* that *bheu grammaticalised independently in two roles (to give imperfect and future, as later �habeo� in Romance: �habeo cantatum� and �cantare habeo�), but she would certainly not claim that this was a secure reconstruction. In short, in view of the responses (reproduced below), while it would be unfair to call the *canta-bh(w)o etymology �discredited�, it�s certainly far from �credited�. I guess that the reason why the canta-bo future is so often quoted by linguists must be that it is so neat to have two parallel cycles of grammaticalisation of periphrastic future in the history of Romance: pre-Latin *canta-bh(w)o, and Romance cantare habeo. But since we have many other cases where we can be on less shifting ground, it�s probably better to find other show-case examples. Many thanks to all who responded (John Hewson, Gonzalo Rubio, Carol Justus, Martin Huld, Andreas Ammann, Paul Hopper), and a digest of their views follows. Guy Deutscher. ----------------------------- >From John Hewson: Phil Baldi's 1976 article in Language (Lg 52.839-850) is an excellent overview of the question. When Vit Bubenik and I looked at the question (Hewson & Bubenik, Tense & Aspect in IE Langs, Benjamins 1997) we concluded that future tenses in IE langs are rare (only Italic, Baltic, and some Celtic), and all late developments (most IE languages express the future by aspect, not tense). They are definitely not inherited, but new formations. If you look at the whole Latin system, you will find three forms (past, present, and future tenses) for the perfect, and similarly three forms for the non-perfect, the perfectum/ infectum constrast being aspectual. To form the past and the future in the perfect, -erat and -erit (etc) are added to the perfect stem, the future having the endings of the ancient subjunctive. Here we can see that what was originally the stem of the verb "to be" (-er-) has become the marker of the non-present, with -at and -it distinguishing past and future. In other words Latin formed a future perfect with the inflections of an ancient subjunctive of the *es- stem of the verb "to be". In the three tenses of the infectum the -ba- is also a formation from the *bhu- stem of the verb "to be" (see Baldi 1976); this form is not problematic. The problem is the future. Looking at the total picture, and avoiding an atomistic approach, it is clear that just as -er- came to be From gd116 at cus.cam.ac.uk Thu Nov 21 13:15:50 2002 From: gd116 at cus.cam.ac.uk (Guy Deutscher) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 08:15:50 EST Subject: Latin future in -b- Message-ID: Note: the previous posting from Guy Deutscher was truncated, so I'm reposting his communication. Dorothy Disterheft ************************************************************************ Dear all, Various people sent me very helpful answers, but for some reason, none of these seems to have been transmitted to the whole list. So in case you have been losing sleep over the Latin -bo- future, here is a short digest. The problem, it seems, is made complex by alleged parallel formations in other I-E languages (Celtic), and more importantly, by the parallel formation of the imperfect in -bam- in Latin itself. So in fact, most of the people who responded actually favour a third alternative, which was not mentioned in my query, namely that the -bo- future is a later analogical formation on the imperfect in -bam, which itself is taken (by most, not all) to derive from *bheu. (Arguments for this view in print can be found in Baldi 1976, 1999, and Hewson and Bubenik 1997). According to this view, then, the -bo future is related to *bhu only indirectly (via analogy), and not as a direct grammaticalisation from *ama-bh(w)u. Carol Justus, on the other hand, thinks that it's *possible* that *bheu grammaticalised independently in two roles (to give imperfect and future, as later 'habeo' in Romance: 'habeo cantatum' and 'cantare habeo'), but she would certainly not claim that this was a secure reconstruction. In short, in view of the responses (reproduced below), while it would be unfair to call the *canta-bh(w)o etymology 'discredited', it's certainly very far from 'credited'. I guess that the reason why the canta-bo future is so often quoted by linguists must be that it is so neat to have two parallel cycles of grammaticalisation of periphrastic future in the history of Romance: pre-Latin *canta-bh(w)o, and Romance cantare habeo. But since we have many other cases where we can be on less shifting ground, it's probably better to find other show-case examples. Many thanks to all who responded (John Hewson, Gonzalo Rubio, Carol Justus, Martin Huld, Andreas Ammann, Paul Hopper), and a digest of their views follows. Guy Deutscher. ----------------------------- >From John Hewson: Phil Baldi's 1976 article in Language (Lg 52.839-850) is an excellent overview of the question. When Vit Bubenik and I looked at the question (Hewson & Bubenik, Tense & Aspect in IE Langs, Benjamins 1997) we concluded that future tenses in IE langs are rare (only Italic, Baltic, and some Celtic), and all late developments (most IE languages express the future by aspect, not tense). They are definitely not inherited, but new formations. If you look at the whole Latin system, you will find three forms (past, present, and future tenses) for the perfect, and similarly three forms for the non-perfect, the perfectum/ infectum constrast being aspectual. To form the past and the future in the perfect, -erat and -erit (etc) are added to the perfect stem, the future having the endings of the ancient subjunctive. Here we can see that what was originally the stem of the verb "to be" (-er-) has become the marker of the non-present, with -at and -it distinguishing past and future. In other words Latin formed a future perfect with the inflections of an ancient subjunctive of the *es- stem of the verb "to be". In the three tenses of the infectum the -ba- is also a formation from the *bhu- stem of the verb "to be" (see Baldi 1976); this form is not problematic. The problem is the future. Looking at the total picture, and avoiding an atomistic approach, it is clear that just as -er- came to be used in the perfectum as a non-present marker, -b- likewise came to be used in the infectum as a non-present marker, adding the subjunctive endings to form a future paralleling the future perfect. In other words, the Latin futures in -bo, -bis, -bit, are a late analogical formation. You will find this late out more coherently in Hewson & Bubenik 1997:192-194. -------------------------------------------------------------- >From Gonzalo Rubio: I think you may want to take a look at Philip Baldi, _The foundations of Latin_ (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1999), pp. 397-98. As Baldi points out, the future must be understood in relation with the preterite in -ba:-. Both formations are parallel, as in the case of the perfect and pluperfect (amavero, amaveram). The imperfect in -ba:- most likely exhibits an (aorist?) optative form of the verb "to be" (*bhu-a:-m) preceded by a participle or participle-like form. Heinz-Dieter Pohl argued (in 1992, reference in Baldi) that the /b/ could be an "epenthetic" consonant of sorts preceding an optative marker -a:- (this was proposed before Pohl, I'm sure). But this seems rather far-fetched (no epenthetic b's occur in that context normally in Latin). --------------------------------- >From Carol Justus: I don't know what other Indo-Europeanists think, but in general IE etymology is a hypothesis-forming process. One proposes a plausible etymology, then checks related data to see to what extent it is confirmed (or not) by independent findings. On the one hand *bheu does fit the sound correspondences. It is also to be compared with the imperfect, however. Do both both -ba- imperfects and -bo- futures have a similar origin (Jay Jasanoff has written on the imperfect, I forget where, but someone out there probably recalls)? It is true also that in the evolution of the Romance languages we find one verb giving rise to more than one tense form. I am thinking here of 'have'. The standard view that I learned some decades ago was that the French future (e.g., trouver-a 'will find') is built on the infinitive to which a form of 'have' was suffixed and phonetically reduced. The perfect by contrast was formed with 'have' as an aux (e.g., a trouve have found'). Did *bheu 'be' similarly serve as suffixed aux that had two separate evolutions? It seems that the value of this etymology is in raising this kind of question. More interesting yet would be the use of 'be' rather than 'have' at the Latin stage of IE evolution. On the other hand, if you maintain, which many do not, that the Sanskrit and Greek verbal systems represent the oldest layer of IE, then you will want to find something that looks more like a Sanskrit and Greek future form to relate to Latin. The suffix -su- with -s- has that advantage, but I can't quite see how the sound correspondences would work. Personally, I would favor *bheu and the questions it raises over what seems like an ad hoc *-su- to prop up a wobbly hypothesis about language grouping and chronology. The etymology *bheu in and of itself is also more important within the framework of grammaticalization as a hypothesis in terms of the questions that it raises, and it should also be treated that way. For example, if in IE it happened that a form of 'be' was suffixed to form a new tense, then might similar things have happened elsewhere? If they did, then 'be' looks like a pretty good origin for the Latin future and imperfect. This would be hypothesis confirming information. But to elevate this etymology to a proof is a bit tricky. Heine & Kuteva's World Lexicon of Grammaticalization would seem to help lay a foundation for this kind of inquiry. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- >From Andreas Ammann: I've come across yet a third proposal in: Kurzova Helena (1993): From Indo-European to Latin: The Evolution of a Morphosyntactic Type. Amsterdam: Benjamins. On p. 188 she claims that we are not dealing with *bh(w)u-, but rather with *dhe:- (colon instead of the usual macron for vowel length here), just like, according to her, in the case of the imperfect in -bam, bas, bat... That would be the same marker as in the Germanic dental preterit, i.e. a root for 'put' (which shifted to 'do' in Germanic). Latin -b- is one of the word-medial reflexes of IE *-dh-, the other being -d-. It seems clear that the -b- in the Latin future is the same as the one in the Latin imperfect, but what is not clear is which of the two is older. Some authors say its the future, some say its the imperfect, and the respective other form arose analogically. (I find it interesting that during my little sampling I havent found a statement that they may both have been grammaticalized at about the same time.) Anyway, Kurzova argues that the imperfect form came first. If you want to derive the -b- from the desiderative, you have to think of the imperfect as later (or totally unrelated). There is a danger of circularity here, of course. --------------------------------------------------------------- >From Martin Huld: The problem arises when the account of the Latin future is expanded to include data beyond Latin. The Faliscan future carefo can be regarded as the same as Latin -bo with Faliscan retaining the intervocalic voiced spirant that occluded to -b- in Latin. Beside the future in bunt (3pl) is the imperfect in -bant whose Oscan counterpart fans again preserves the original spirant value. The traditional explanation is that -bo et all. is analogical to -bam et all. on the model of eram vs. ero. That means that -bam represents a subjunctive of *bhueA-, but fui, OIr. boi point to PIE *bhouH-, which means unmotivated schwebeablaut. This is probably the reasoning behind Sihler's pronouncement on the future in -b- "This is at bottom the same formation as the imperfect in *ba- and, like that formation, is partly transparent and partly opaque. (New Comparative Greek and Latin Grammar p. 558). Nevertheless, there are other sources for a Proto-Italic voiced bilabial spirant besides PIE *bh(w) and that is the problem. Matters become more complex when Celtic (the Irish f-future)is brought into the equation. Like the Latino-Faliscan bo/fo future; the Goidelic f-future is not found in the other branch of Celtic, Brythonic. On the face of it, Irish -f- (-b in word final position but that is a later development) should reflect *-sw-, which would mean (as Thurneysen in Old Irish Grammar p. 398 [and also Pedersen] maintained) that the comparison is simply invalid, but he notes that some have argued that both forms arise from *-bhw-, but there is no independent evidence that Proto-Irish *-f- can arise from *-bhw-. Without giving details, Meillet held that Le futur latin ... amabo, monebo, audibo fal. carefo, pipafo a son corresponant exact dans le futur irlandais en -b, -f-(Les dialectes indoeuropeens 37). Even if Thurneysen's account is correct and the Irish is merely an accidental similarity and the future arose analogically from the imperfect by association with the regular paradigm ero (from an IE thematic subjunctive) and eram (of obscure origin), the periphrastic account still leaves the formation of the stem unaccounted for, and that fact probably accounts for Szemerenyi's hesitation. For what its worth, Buck (1933:278-81) expresses the same view, that periphrasis with *bheuH- is the most probable explanation, but the details of the analogical development are unclear and there is no credible explanation for the stem formation. As is often the case, the handbook accounts record the surface details but have overlooked the footnotes which all along have acknowledged the difficulties in the periphrastic explanation. From Malcolm.Ross at anu.edu.au Fri Nov 22 12:55:00 2002 From: Malcolm.Ross at anu.edu.au (Malcolm Ross) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 07:55:00 EST Subject: Recent publications from Pacific Linguistics Message-ID: PACIFIC LINGUISTICS is happy to announce the publication of the following works: Joel Bradshaw and Kenneth Rehg (eds) Issues in Austronesian Morphology: A festschrift for Byron W. Bender Ritsuko Kikusawa Proto Central Pacific ergativity: Its reconstruction and development in the Fijian, Rotuman and Polynesian languages Robert S. Bauer (ed.) Collected papers on Southeast Asian and Pacific Languages These works are described below. Prices are in Australian dollars (one Australian dollar is currently equivalent to about US$ 0,56.). _______________________________________________________________ Joel Bradshaw and Kenneth Rehg (eds) Issues in Austronesian Morphology: A festschrift for Byron W. Bender PL 519 This volume contains original contributions by leading scholars in the field of Austronesian linguistics. All the articles focus on issues in morphology, with special attention to the interface of morphology with phonology, syntax, and semantics, from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. This work will be of interest not only to Austronesianists, but to anyone concerned with the ongoing debates about the role of morphology in linguistic theory. 2001 ISBN 0 85883 485 5 vii + 287 pp. Australia A$64.90 International A$59.00 _______________________________________________________________ Ritsuko Kikusawa Proto Central Pacific ergativity: Its reconstruction and development in the Fijian, Rotuman and Polynesian languages PL 520 The main objective of this study is to determine the actancy system (ergativity or accusativity) of Proto Central Pacific, and to determine how this system developed in its daughter languages, Fijian and Rotuman, which are accusative, as well as in the Polynesian languages, some of which are ergative. It is shown that an ergative system has to be reconstructed for Proto Central Pacific, based on the presence of two sets of clitic pronouns (Genitive and Nominative) used for the core arguments of transitive constructions. A set of independent pronouns is also reconstructed. These pronominal forms are shown to be reflexes of Proto Malayo-Polynesian reconstructions. The process by which the ergative parent language changed into some of its accusative daughter languages is illustrated. The following points in this work may be of particular interest: 1) a description of clear cases where the actancy systems change from ergative to accusative; 2) an illustration of how syntactic, phonological, morphological, and/or lexical changes are synthesised; 3) typological descriptions of three Central Pacific languages, namely Rotuman, Fijian, and Tongan, applying Lexicase Dependency Grammar; 4) a modification to the currently accepted subgrouping hypothesis for the Central Pacific group. 2002 ISBN 0 85883 438 3 xxii + 213 pp. Australia A$53.90 International A$49.00 _______________________________________________________________ Robert S. Bauer (ed.) Collected papers on Southeast Asian and Pacific Languages PL 530 The languages investigated in these papers represent the five major language families or subfamilies (depending on one's classification schema) of mainland and insular Southeast Asia, viz., (1) Tibeto-Burman with Meiteilon (Manipuri); (2) Mon-Khmer with Alak, Bru, Chatong, Dak Kang, Kaseng, Katu, Laven, Lavi, Nge', Nyah Kur, Suai, Ta Oi', Tariang, Tariw, Vietnamese, Yaeh; (3) Tai with Nung An, Lao, and Hlai; (4) Austronesian with Chamorro; and (5) the Malayo-Polynesian family itself. The eleven papers have been classified under five broad linguistic topics: I. Linguistic analysis with A.G. Khan's 'Impact of linguistic borrowing on Meiteilon (Manipuri)'; N.J. Enfield's 'Functions of 'give' and 'take' in Lao complex predicates'; and Sophana Srichampa's 'Vietnamese verbal reduplication'. II. Language classification includes Jerold A. Edmondson's 'Nùng An: origin of a species'; Lawrence A. Reid's 'Morphosyntactic evidence for the position of Chamorro in the Austronesian family'; and Theraphan L.-Thongkum's 'A brief look at the thirteen Mon-Khmer languages of Xekong Province, Southern Laos'. III Discourse analysis with John and Carolyn Miller's 'The tiger mother's child and the cow mother's child: a preliminary look at a Bru epic'; and Somsonge Burusphat's 'The temporal movement of the hlai (li) origin myth'. IV. Sociolinguistics with Suwilai Premsrirat's 'The future of Nyah Kur'. V. Historical linguistics with Graham Thurgood's 'A comment on Gedney's proposal for another series of voiced initials in Proto Tai'; and Stanley Starosta's 'The rise and fall and rise and fall of Proto Malayo-Polynesian'. 2002 ISBN 0 85883 407 7 x + 203 pp Australia A$53.90 International A$49.00 _______________________________________________________________ Orders may be placed by mail, e-mail or telephone with: Publishing, Imaging and Cartographic Services (PICS) Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200 Australia Tel: +61 (0)2 6125 3269 Fax: +61 (0)2 6125 9975 mailto://Thelma.Sims at anu.edu.au Credit card orders are accepted. For our catalogue and other materials, see: http://pacling.anu.edu.au (under construction) _______________________________________________________________ Other enquiries (but not orders) should go to: The Publications Administrator Pacific Linguistics Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200 Australia Tel: +61 (0)2 6125 2742 Fax: +61 (0)2 6125 4896 mailto://jmanley at coombs.anu.edu.au _______________________________________________________________ -- _____________________________________ Dr Malcolm D. Ross Senior Fellow Department of Linguistics Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies The Australian National University CANBERRA A.C.T. 0200 Australia For international students: ANU CRICOS Provider Number is 00120C -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz Sat Nov 30 12:46:20 2002 From: l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz (Lyle Campbell) Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 07:46:20 EST Subject: Major developments in historical linguistics Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Hi all, I'm seeking advice. I've been asked to come up with a short-and-sweet statement of the state-of-the art in historical and comparative linguistics which would survey major developments in the field in the last 10 years. In discussing this with a few colleagues, I discovered there is a very wide and divergent range of opinion concerning this. Therefore, I am writing to ask others' what their ideas about this are, hoping to get responses in order to make this as informed and representative as possible. If you write me at my e-mail address (l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz or lyle.campbell at canterbury.ac.nz), I'll send a summary of the responses to HISTLING. Thanks in advance, Lyle -- Professor Lyle Campbell, Dept. of Linguistics University of Canterbury Christchurch, New Zealand Fax: 64-3-364-2969 Phone: 64-3-364-2242 (office), 64-3-364-2089 (Linguistics dept) From W.A.van.der.Wurff at LET.leidenuniv.nl Fri Nov 8 22:35:48 2002 From: W.A.van.der.Wurff at LET.leidenuniv.nl (Wurff, W.A. van der) Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 17:35:48 EST Subject: call for papers Comparative Diachronic Syntax Conference Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Conference on Comparative Diachronic Syntax University of Leiden Centre for Linguistics (ULCL), 29-30 August 2003 Description of Conference Topic In the synchronic study of syntax, the comparative approach has been highly successful in uncovering insights into the nature of syntactic principles and the variation that they allow. In fact, it may not be an overstatement to say that modern syntax is to a large extent based on comparative work. It is certainly true that any analysis of language-specific data will not be considered successful if it cannot be made responsive to data from other languages. In the diachronic study of syntax, the role of cross-linguistic comparative concerns is somewhat less clear. While diachronic investigation focusing on typology and grammaticalisation has produced an important body of comparative work, it is sometimes rough-grained and often neglects issues of syntactic structure. Diachronic study from other perspectives, while it may be more fine-grained and structure-conscious, tends to ignore questions of cross-linguistic comparison. It therefore appears that there is still a need to explore the implications of a principled comparative stance to historical syntactic change. This conference hopes to stimulate discussion of the possibilities and problems that such a stance would create, with reference to specific case histories or more general issues in the study of syntactic change. Among the questions that could be addressed are the following: * what can a comparative perspective contribute to our understanding of some specific syntactic change or set of changes in a language? * what is the exact contribution that models of comparative synchronic syntax can make to the study of diachrony? * are there types of diachronic syntactic phenomena that may be particularly well or ill suited to comparative analysis? * does comparative diachronic analyis place special demands on the kinds of data that are required? Call for papers Key-note speaker at the conference will be Professor Ian Roberts (University of Cambridge; confirmed). There are ten to twelve slots for further papers on the conference topic. Abstracts are invited for 40-minute papers (followed by 15 minutes discussion). The abstract should have a maximum length of two pages, including any references, and should reach the address below before 1 January 2003, preferably in the form of an e-mail message or attachment. Notification of acceptance will be sent by e-mail by 1 February 2003. Practical information * Dates: Friday 29 August and Saturday 30 August 2003 * Programme: from 9.15 till 17.15 on both days * Location: Faculty of Arts, Room 148 of Main Building (also known as Building 1175 or LAK Building), University of Leiden, Leiden * Conference fee: EUR 20 (this will cover abstracts, tea, coffee, and drinks on Friday), to be paid at registration on the first day of the conference * Five double rooms have been reserved for participants to the conference, in the International Centre of the University of Leiden, Rapenburg 6, Leiden (within walking distance of the conference site) from 28 to 30 August 2003 (so Thursday, Friday and Saturday night); price: EUR 20 per person per night (no breakfast included, but there are simple self-catering facilities on the premises). Anyone wanting to share such a room should contact the conference organiser as soon as possible. Contact address Conference on Comparative Diachronic Syntax Dr. Wim van der Wurff Department of English P.O. Box 9515 NL-2300 RA Leiden The Netherlands e-mail: w.a.van.der.wurff at let.leidenuniv.nl For all further information, see the ULCL website at From mirovsky at ufal.ms.mff.cuni.cz Wed Nov 13 13:51:03 2002 From: mirovsky at ufal.ms.mff.cuni.cz (Jiri Mirovsky) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 08:51:03 EST Subject: XVII Int. Congress of Linguists - DEADLINE EXTENSION Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- *** DEADLINE EXTENSION *** DEADLINE EXTENSION *** --------------------------------------------------- XVII International Congress of Linguists Prague, Czech Republic July 24-29, 2003 Organized by Faculty of Mathematics and Physics Charles University in Prague Center for Computational Linguistics and Institute of Formal and Applied Linguistics in cooperation with Institute of Czech Language Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic Under the auspices of Comit? International Permanent des Linguistes ---------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT DEADLINES FOR SUBMISSIONS OF 3-PAGE ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS, WORKSHOP CONTRIBUTIONS AND POSTERS HAVE BEEN EXTENDED TO: DECEMBER 10th, 2002 ----------------- The abstracts of papers should be sent directly to the parallel sessions organizers: Language planning and language policies: Professor Ayo Bamgbose, Department of Linguistics, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. e-mail: bamgbose at skannet.com Pidgins, creoles, language in contact: Professor Kees Versteegh, Institute of Linguistics, VH Midden Oost, Postbus 9103, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. e-mail: C.Versteegh at let.kun.nl Comparative linguistics: Professor Lyle Campbell, Department of Linguistics, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zeeland. e-mail: l.campbell at canterbury.ac.nz Computational linguistics: Professor Giacomo Ferrari, Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Universita del Piemonte Orientale, Via A.Manzoni 8, 13100 Vercelli, Italy. e-mail: ferrari at apollo.lett.unipmn.it Language and fieldwork: Professor Daniel Everett, Caixa Postal 129, Porto Velho, RO, 78900-970, Brazil. e-mail: dan_everett at sil.org Techniques for language description: Professor Nicoletta Calzolari, Istituto di Linguistica Computazionale del CNR, Via Moruzzi 1, 56124 Pisa, Italy e-mail: glottolo at ilc.cnr.it Syntax and morphology: Professor Stephen Anderson, Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, Yale University, PO Box 208236, Yale Station, New Haven CT, 06520-8236 USA. e-mail: stephen.anderson at yale.edu Lexicology and lexicography: Professor Rufus Gouws, Department of Afrikaans and Durch, University of Stellenbosch, Private Bag X1, Matieland 7602, South Africa. e-mail: Rhg at akad.sun.ac.za Phonetics and phonology: Professor Jean Lowenstamm, Universit? de Paris 7, UFR Linguistique, CASE 7003, 2, Place Jussieu, 75251 Paris Cedex 05, France. e-mail: jean.lowenstamm at linguist.jussieu.fr Pragmatics and semantics: Professor Robert M.Harnish, Department of Philosophy, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA. e-mail: harnish at u.arizona.edu ------------ The abstracts of the contributions to the workshop should be sent directly to the workshop organizers (see the address of the organizing committee at the end of the mail). Important dates for submission of abstracts of papers, workshop contributions and poster descriptions: 3-page abstracts ... December 10, 2002 Information of acceptance/rejection will be sent out before: ... December 31, 2002 1-page summary for publication in the proceedings ... March 31, 2003 If you wish to submit an abstract which does not fit any of the announced topics please send your abstract to Professor Ferenc Kiefer (kiefer at nytud.hu). The authors of late submissions (after October 1 but before December 10) will be notified about acceptance or rejection by January 31, 2003. Each abstract should contain: a separate page with the title of the paper/poster, the author's name, and affiliation, postal address, e-mail address and fax. The author's name should not be written on the abstract itself. Address of the Chair of the Scientific Committee: Prof. Ferenc Kiefer Research Institute for Linguistics Hungarian academy of Sciences Benczur u. 33 H-1068 Budapest, Hungary e-mail: kiefer at nytud.hu Languages: Papers can be delivered in English, German, French or Russian; summaries published in the volume of abstracts should be written in English or French. Address of the organizing committee: CIL 17 Center for Computational Linguistics MFF UK c/o Mrs Anna Kotesovcova Malostranske nam. 25 118 00 Prague 1 Czech Republic e-mail: cil17 at cil17.org fax: ++420-2-2191 4304 web page: http://www.cil17.org From paul at benjamins.com Thu Nov 14 22:09:26 2002 From: paul at benjamins.com (Paul Peranteau) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 17:09:26 EST Subject: New Book: Fanego I Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- John Benjamins Publishing is pleased to announce a new work in historical linguistics. Title: English Historical Syntax and Morphology Subtitle: Selected papers from 11 ICEHL, Santiago de Compostela, 7-11 September 2000 Series Title: Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 223 Publication Year: 2002 Publisher: John Benjamins http://www.benjamins.com/ http://www.benjamins.nl Editor: Teresa Fanego Editor: Javier P?rez-Guerra Editor: Mar?a Jos? L?pez-Couzo (University of Santiago de Compostella / University de Vigo) US: Canada: Hardback: ISBN: 158811192X, Pages: x, 306 pp., Price: USD 99.00 Everywhere else: Hardback: ISBN: 9027247315, Pages: x, 306 pp., Price: EUR 109.00 Abstract: This volume offers a selection of papers from the Eleventh International Conference on English Historical Linguistics held at the University of Santiago de Compostela. From the rich programme (over 130 papers were given during the conference), the present twelve papers were carefully selected to reflect the state of current research in the fields of English historical syntax and morphology. Some of the issues discussed are the emergence of viewpoint adverbials in English and German, changes in noun phrase structure from 1650 to the present, the development of the progressive in Scots, the passivization of composite predicates, the loss of V2 and its effects on the information structure of English, the acquisition of modal syntax and semantics by the English verb WANT, or the use of temporal adverbs as attributive adjectives in the Early Modern period. Many of the articles tackle questions of change through the use of methodological tools like computerized corpora. The theoretical frameworks adopted include, among others, grammaticalization theory, Dik's model of functional grammar, construction grammar and Government & Binding Theory. Table of Contents Introduction Teresa Fanego 1 Two types of passivization of 'V+NP+P' constructions in relation to idiomatization Minoji Akimoto 9 On the development of a friend of mine Cynthia L. Allen 23 Historical shifts in modification patterns with complex noun phrase structures: How long can you go without a verb? Douglas Biber and Victoria Clark 43 Grammaticalization versus lexicalization reconsidered: On the late use of temporal adverbs Laurel J. Brinton 67 The derivation of ornative,locative,ablative,privative and reversative verbs in English: A historical sketch Dieter Kastovsky 99 >From gold-gifa to chimney sweep? Morphological (un)markedness of Modern English agent nouns in a diachronic perspective Lucia Kornexl 111 A path to volitional modality Manfred G. Krug 131 Is it, stylewise or otherwise, wise to use -wise? Domain adverbials and the history of English -wise Ursula Lenker 157 The loss of the indefinite pronoun man: Syntactic change and information structure Bettelou Los 181 The progressive in Older Scots Anneli Meurman-Solin 203 Detransitivization in the history of English from a semantic perspective Ruth M?hlig and Monika E. Klages 231 Morphology recycled: The Principle of Rhythmic Alternation at work in Early and Late Modern English grammatical variation Julia Schl?ter 255 Lingfield(s): Historical Linguistics Subject Language(s): English (Language code: ENG) Written In: English (Language Code: ENG) John Benjamins Publishing Co. Offices: Philadelphia Amsterdam: Websites: http://www.benjamins.com http://www.benjamins.nl E-mail: service at benjamins.com customer.services at benjamins.nl Phone: +215 836-1200 +31 20 6304747 Fax: +215 836-1204 +31 20 6739773 From EvolPub at aol.com Thu Nov 14 14:30:26 2002 From: EvolPub at aol.com (Tony Schiavo) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 09:30:26 EST Subject: Book Announcement: Wood's Vocabulary of Massachusett (1634) Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Evolution Publishing is pleased to announce publication of the following volume from the American Language Reprints (ALR) series: Volume 27: Wood's Vocabulary of Massachusett William Wood, 1634 The earliest substantial vocabulary of Massachusett was that taken by William Wood and published in his New England's Prospect in 1634. It represents the North Shore dialect of the language and contains over 250 words and phrases in the now-extinct language. Included are the numbers up to twenty, days of the week, months, and names of important people and places. October 2002 ~ 50 pp. ~ clothbound ~ ISBN 1-889758-25-6 ~ $28.00 Evolution Publishing is dedicated to preserving and consolidating early primary source records of Native and early colonial America with the goal of making them more accessible and readily available to the academic community and the public at large. For further information on this and other titles in the ALR series: http://www.evolpub.com/ALR/ALRhome.html Evolution Publishing evolpub at aol.com From tuitekj at ANTHRO.UMontreal.CA Tue Nov 19 21:59:14 2002 From: tuitekj at ANTHRO.UMontreal.CA (Kevin Tuite) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 16:59:14 EST Subject: Etymology of "trouver" (summary) Message-ID: Dear colleagues, About three weeks ago, I solicited your opinions concerning the competing etymologies proposed for French "trouver" and Occitan "trobar". I had in mind the debate, which took place about a century ago, between Hugo Schuchardt and the French linguists Gaston Paris and Antoine Thomas. Paris had reconstructed the Vulgar Latin proto-form *tropare via regular sound laws, and then proposed a somewhat farfetched semantic pathway ("compose [a melody]" > "invent" > "discover, find" ) to make the etymology work. Schuchardt revived the derivation from /turbare/ proposed by Diez, which required the postulation of irregular sound changes under the influence of the closely-related verb /turbulare/ > */trublare/ "stir up". On the semantic side, turbare underwent a meaning shift from "stir up" to the more specialized sense of "stir up [water] in order to drive [fish toward a trap or net]". At the time I sent the message, I had encountered but a single mention of a third proposal, according to which the ultimate source of Old Proven?al trobar and its cognates, at least in their specialized use to denote the composing of verses, singing, etc. (and of course, the derived nouns trobador, troubadour) is an Arabic word borrowed into the Romance dialects of medieval Spain. The text I had read was an unfavorable review (in Romania 1969) of a 1966 paper by Richard Lemay (Annales Economies, Soci?t?s, Civilisations XXI: 990-1011), in which the word "troubadour" was traced to the Arabic root /D.-R-B/ ?strike, touch?, by extension ?play a musical instrument? (the postposed dot = "emphatic", pharyngealized coarticulation). The review was rather dismissive in tone, and did not inspire me to look into the matter further. Since submitting my question, I have received about a dozen responses, which fall into two groups: (1) those who believe that some form of the *tropare root is the most likely source of "trouver" &c, and who have never heard of the proposal of an Arabic source; (2) those who HAVE heard of the Hispano-Arabic hypothesis. Most of these latter find it credible or even "the most likely source" (Paul Lloyd). No one supported Schuchardt's /turbare/ etymology. What has come as a total surprise to me is not only the existence of this third etymology -- actually, set of etymologies, there is more than one -- but the curious disconnection between the two groups of respondants. In a second e-mail, Paul Lloyd wrote that his professor of Arabic (at U. of Pennsylvania) thought the Hispano-Arabic source "was the accepted etymology and was surprised that any Romance scholars doubted it". The person most responsible for promoting this third proposal, at least among Arabists and literary historians, appears to be Mar?a Rosa Menocal, professor of Spanish at Yale. In two papers (Romance Philology XXXVI #2: 137-148 [1982], and Papers from the XIIth Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages, pp. 501-515 [1984]), as well as her 1987 book "The Arabic role in medieval literary history: A forgotten heritage" [University of Pennsylvania Press], Prof. Menocal has attempted to demonstrate, first of all, that the correct Arabic source is not the root identified by Lemay, but rather the nearly homophonous /T.-R-B/ ?provoke emotion, excitement, agitation; make music, entertain by singing?. Secondly, she accused the scholarly community of Romance linguists of bad faith for their refusal to grant the Hispano-Arabic hypothesis the same airing in professional journals and etymological dictionaries as was accorded Schuchardt's /turbare/ etymology. In her opinion, it was not a question of the relative plausibility of either Arabic etymon compared to the Latin ones under consideration; the real problem is "the intellectual framework and set of scholarly assumptions and procedures which led to the complete ignoring of this possible Arabic etymon" (Menocal 1984: 504). It is essential to note that neither Lemay nor Menocal offer their Arabic etymon as the source for the Romance verb meaning ?find?. In their view, this lexeme was already present in the Romance dialects of Spain and the Provence, with something akin to its modern meaning, when the Arabic root was borrowed. Homophony led to overlapping usage and eventual fusion of the two verbs, one indigenous (trobar1), one borrowed (trobar2) (Lemay 1966: 1009). One can easily imagine why such an etymology, in either version, would meet with the disfavor of ?mainstream? specialists. The semantic fields associated with /T.-R-B/ and /D.-R-B/ most closely overlap that of *tropare, in that all three roots could be employed to denote some sort of musical composition or performance, whereas they have no resemblance whatsoever with the meanings reconstructed by either Diez or Schuchardt for turbare. Therefore, the postulation of an Arabic source would compel rejection of the Latin etymon with the most impeccable phonetic credentials, and a meaning no more problematic, in favor of a hypothetical borrowing that would require additional phonetic assumptions, relating to the manner of its adoption into Hispano-Romance, to account for its attested forms (Lemay 1966: 1004-1007; Menocal 1982: 146-147). The proposed antecedent *tropare is not attested in Latin, but neither is there any compelling evidence that any derivative of either Arabic root was borrowed into medieval Hispano-Romance. The proposal has another, equally unfortunate, consequence. Having been pushed aside as the source of trobar2, trobador, etc., *tropare would be left to compete with turbare as the etymon of trouver/trobar1 ?find? alone. On this reduced playing field *tropare would be at a distinct disadvantage, indeed, partisans of the Hispano-Arabic hypothesis would be almost forced to acknowledge turbare as the sole likely source of the homophonous verb trobar1. In other words, it requires overturning the stronger etymology in favor of the weaker one, and abandoning a single source for both senses of ?trobar? for the less elegant solution of a split etymology. One might question the extent to which the study of the Arabic influence on Hispano-Romance has been tainted by ?the overtly anti-Semitic tendencies in Spanish history? (Menocal 1984: 504-505), or whether Romance etymologists have shown bad faith in refusing to discuss, in print at least, the merits of /T.-R-B/ or /D.-R-B/ as an antecedent of Old Proven?al trobar. I have just given some of the weaknesses of the Hispano-Arabic hypothesis that might have motivated its rejection. Whether those are grounds for carrying on as though the etymon had never been seriously proposed is another question, one that I am in no position to answer. Sorry for the rather wordy answer. My thanks to all those who responded: Miguel Carrasquer (who was also kind enough to scan & send me the entry on "trobar" from Corominas' "Diccionari etimol?gic i complementari de la llengua catalana"), Marc Picard, Laurent Sagart, Britt Mize, Mark Southern, Paul M. Lloyd, Carol Justus, Roger Wright, and Maria Rosa Menocal. Kevin Tuite ************************************************************************ Kevin Tuite 514-343-6514 (bureau) D?partement d'anthropologie 514-343-2494 (t?l?copieur) Universit? de Montr?al C.P. 6128, succursale centre-ville Montr?al, Qu?bec H3C 3J7 tuitekj at anthro.umontreal.ca NOUVEAU! Page Web en construction: http://www.philologie.com ************************************************************************ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 8312 bytes Desc: not available URL: From gd116 at hermes.cam.ac.uk Tue Nov 19 15:42:43 2002 From: gd116 at hermes.cam.ac.uk (Guy Deutscher) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 10:42:43 EST Subject: Who's right? (Latin future in -b-) Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear Histlingers, In Linguistic accounts (e.g. Fleischman (1982)The future in thought and language, p.34), the Latin future in -bo, -bis etc. is presented as deriving from the grammaticalisation of the verb *bh(w)u/*bheu ('be', 'become'), which merged with the stem: ama + bhwo > amabo. This origin is presented as a fact, or at the very least, as an entirely secure and incontrovertible reconstruction. In the grammaticalization literature, this development almost seems to have become a showcase example, e.g. Hopper and Traugott 1993, p.9, but also in many other places. Again, the derivation from an auxiliary *bheu is generally described as a fact. Since this is what I 'grew up' on, I was alarmed to find recently that Indo-Europeanists are much less convinced. For example, Pisani (Storia della Lingua Latina, 1962, p.108) doesn't seem to have any doubts that *bheu cannot be the source of the Latin future: "Ma non detto che il -b- latino risalga qui a -bh-, certo esso non ha nulla a vedere con la radice *bheu....". Szemer?nyi (Introduction to Indo-European Lingsuitics, 4h ed. OUP, 1996, p.287, note 1) is less categorical, but makes it clear that he believes the *bheu theory to have been superseded in recent times by the suggestion that the formation derives from a desiderative -su-. ("The Latin b-future... was for a long time traced back to an Italo-Celtic formation with -bh(w)o,.... but in recent times..." ) Not being an Indo-Europeanist, I can't judge the plausibility of the arguments presented, and so would be grateful for advice on how we should regard this example: 1) Are the arguments of the Indo-Europeanists silly, and so to be ignored, and we can happily go on propagating the *bheu origin as a fact or at least secure reconstruction? 2) Are the arguments of the Indo-Europeanists not silly, but we should ignore them anyway, just because it's a pity to let go of such a nice example of grammaticalization? 3) Are their arguments convincing, and so we should find another example? I would be very grateful for any help... Guy Deutscher. From ratcliffe at tufs.ac.jp Wed Nov 20 12:56:05 2002 From: ratcliffe at tufs.ac.jp (Robert R. Ratcliffe) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 07:56:05 EST Subject: etymology of trouver Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- re Arabic vs. Latin origin of troubador, troubar, Kevin Tuite wrote: The proposed antecedent *tropare is not attested in Latin, but neither is there any compelling evidence that any derivative of either Arabic root was borrowed into medieval Hispano-Romance. ............. This isn't quite right. It may well be that nationalism or linguistic purism has hindered the search for Arabic etymologies of Ibero-Romance words, but there is another problem as well, which is the slow pace of historical and historical linguistic research on Arabic. Arabic dictionaries traditionally are ahistorical and anetymological. They simply throw together all attested senses of a word without indication of where and when they were attested. Using such sources has led to unreliable etymological proposals, and rightly led to scepticism. In order to evaluate the likelihood of borrowing in a contact situtation, you have to know about the specific form of Arabic spoken in the specific time and place where the contact took place. Since 1977 Frederico Corriente and his students have done much to establish the characteristics of Andalusi Arabic. Any proposals before that should be regarded with scepticism. For example, Lemay's proposal of D.arab as a source for troubar is untenable because D. becomes d or ld in Spanish, not t, and because the semantics don't fit. T.arab, on the other hand, is the normal word for "sing, recite, perform musically" in old Arabic, for example in the Kitaab al-'aghaaniiy (book of songs, 9th century). tarab is attested as the normal word for music in Andalusi Arabic, and it comes into various Hispano-Romance languages in the form "tarabilla" "clapper of a mill." (Corriente 1994). It's still a stretch, phonologically from tarab to troubar, and "find" doesnt' come into it at all. But the word is there-- in the right place at the right time with the right meaning. When I was a student by the way, I wondered to my Professor (Franz Rosenthal), whether this T.arab could be the source of troubador, and he said no it comes from a Romance verb to find. That seemed to be a stretch semantically, but now I learn there is no such Romance verb (or at least no Latin verb) my scepticism has increased. In short while the older generation of Romance scholars may have had bad reasons for rejecting some proposed Arabic etymologies, they also had a good one-- the purely speculative nature of most of the proposals made. Now, in light of the great advancement in research in Arabic dialects and medieval Arabic in the last thirty years, it might be a good time for Arabists and Romance specialists to get together to re-evaluate some of these older problems and proposals. Conference, anyone? refs. Corriente, Frederico. 1994. "Current State of Research in the Field of Andalusi Arabic" in Eid, Cantarino, Walters, ed. Perspectives on Arabic LInguistics VI. Amsterdam. Benjamins. ___.1977. A grammatical Sketch of the Spanish Arabic Dialect Bundle. Madrid. Instituto Hispano-Arabe de Cultura. ____________________________________ *NEW E-mail address: ratcliffe at tufs.ac.jp* Robert R. Ratcliffe Associate Professor, Arabic and Linguistics Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Asahi-machi 3-11-1, Fuchu-shi, Tokyo 183-8534 Japan From gd116 at cam.ac.uk Thu Nov 21 12:04:25 2002 From: gd116 at cam.ac.uk (gd116 at cam.ac.uk) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 07:04:25 EST Subject: Latin future in -b- Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Dear all, Various people sent me very helpful answers, but for some reason, none of these seems to have been transmitted to the whole list. So in case you have been losing sleep over the Latin -bo- future, here is a short digest. The problem, it seems, is made complex by alleged parallel formations in other I-E languages (Celtic), and more importantly, by the parallel formation of the imperfect in -bam- in Latin itself. So in fact, most of the people who responded actually favour a third alternative, which was not mentioned in my query, namely that the -bo- future is a later analogical formation on the imperfect in -bam, which itself is taken (by most, not all) to derive from *bheu. (Arguments for this view in print can be found in Baldi 1976, 1999, and Hewson and Bubenik 1997). According to this view, then, the -bo future is related to *bhu only indirectly (via analogy), and not as a direct grammaticalisation from *ama-bh(w)u. Carol Justus, on the other hand, thinks that it?s *possible* that *bheu grammaticalised independently in two roles (to give imperfect and future, as later ?habeo? in Romance: ?habeo cantatum? and ?cantare habeo?), but she would certainly not claim that this was a secure reconstruction. In short, in view of the responses (reproduced below), while it would be unfair to call the *canta-bh(w)o etymology ?discredited?, it?s certainly far from ?credited?. I guess that the reason why the canta-bo future is so often quoted by linguists must be that it is so neat to have two parallel cycles of grammaticalisation of periphrastic future in the history of Romance: pre-Latin *canta-bh(w)o, and Romance cantare habeo. But since we have many other cases where we can be on less shifting ground, it?s probably better to find other show-case examples. Many thanks to all who responded (John Hewson, Gonzalo Rubio, Carol Justus, Martin Huld, Andreas Ammann, Paul Hopper), and a digest of their views follows. Guy Deutscher. ----------------------------- >From John Hewson: Phil Baldi's 1976 article in Language (Lg 52.839-850) is an excellent overview of the question. When Vit Bubenik and I looked at the question (Hewson & Bubenik, Tense & Aspect in IE Langs, Benjamins 1997) we concluded that future tenses in IE langs are rare (only Italic, Baltic, and some Celtic), and all late developments (most IE languages express the future by aspect, not tense). They are definitely not inherited, but new formations. If you look at the whole Latin system, you will find three forms (past, present, and future tenses) for the perfect, and similarly three forms for the non-perfect, the perfectum/ infectum constrast being aspectual. To form the past and the future in the perfect, -erat and -erit (etc) are added to the perfect stem, the future having the endings of the ancient subjunctive. Here we can see that what was originally the stem of the verb "to be" (-er-) has become the marker of the non-present, with -at and -it distinguishing past and future. In other words Latin formed a future perfect with the inflections of an ancient subjunctive of the *es- stem of the verb "to be". In the three tenses of the infectum the -ba- is also a formation from the *bhu- stem of the verb "to be" (see Baldi 1976); this form is not problematic. The problem is the future. Looking at the total picture, and avoiding an atomistic approach, it is clear that just as -er- came to be From gd116 at cus.cam.ac.uk Thu Nov 21 13:15:50 2002 From: gd116 at cus.cam.ac.uk (Guy Deutscher) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 08:15:50 EST Subject: Latin future in -b- Message-ID: Note: the previous posting from Guy Deutscher was truncated, so I'm reposting his communication. Dorothy Disterheft ************************************************************************ Dear all, Various people sent me very helpful answers, but for some reason, none of these seems to have been transmitted to the whole list. So in case you have been losing sleep over the Latin -bo- future, here is a short digest. The problem, it seems, is made complex by alleged parallel formations in other I-E languages (Celtic), and more importantly, by the parallel formation of the imperfect in -bam- in Latin itself. So in fact, most of the people who responded actually favour a third alternative, which was not mentioned in my query, namely that the -bo- future is a later analogical formation on the imperfect in -bam, which itself is taken (by most, not all) to derive from *bheu. (Arguments for this view in print can be found in Baldi 1976, 1999, and Hewson and Bubenik 1997). According to this view, then, the -bo future is related to *bhu only indirectly (via analogy), and not as a direct grammaticalisation from *ama-bh(w)u. Carol Justus, on the other hand, thinks that it's *possible* that *bheu grammaticalised independently in two roles (to give imperfect and future, as later 'habeo' in Romance: 'habeo cantatum' and 'cantare habeo'), but she would certainly not claim that this was a secure reconstruction. In short, in view of the responses (reproduced below), while it would be unfair to call the *canta-bh(w)o etymology 'discredited', it's certainly very far from 'credited'. I guess that the reason why the canta-bo future is so often quoted by linguists must be that it is so neat to have two parallel cycles of grammaticalisation of periphrastic future in the history of Romance: pre-Latin *canta-bh(w)o, and Romance cantare habeo. But since we have many other cases where we can be on less shifting ground, it's probably better to find other show-case examples. Many thanks to all who responded (John Hewson, Gonzalo Rubio, Carol Justus, Martin Huld, Andreas Ammann, Paul Hopper), and a digest of their views follows. Guy Deutscher. ----------------------------- >From John Hewson: Phil Baldi's 1976 article in Language (Lg 52.839-850) is an excellent overview of the question. When Vit Bubenik and I looked at the question (Hewson & Bubenik, Tense & Aspect in IE Langs, Benjamins 1997) we concluded that future tenses in IE langs are rare (only Italic, Baltic, and some Celtic), and all late developments (most IE languages express the future by aspect, not tense). They are definitely not inherited, but new formations. If you look at the whole Latin system, you will find three forms (past, present, and future tenses) for the perfect, and similarly three forms for the non-perfect, the perfectum/ infectum constrast being aspectual. To form the past and the future in the perfect, -erat and -erit (etc) are added to the perfect stem, the future having the endings of the ancient subjunctive. Here we can see that what was originally the stem of the verb "to be" (-er-) has become the marker of the non-present, with -at and -it distinguishing past and future. In other words Latin formed a future perfect with the inflections of an ancient subjunctive of the *es- stem of the verb "to be". In the three tenses of the infectum the -ba- is also a formation from the *bhu- stem of the verb "to be" (see Baldi 1976); this form is not problematic. The problem is the future. Looking at the total picture, and avoiding an atomistic approach, it is clear that just as -er- came to be used in the perfectum as a non-present marker, -b- likewise came to be used in the infectum as a non-present marker, adding the subjunctive endings to form a future paralleling the future perfect. In other words, the Latin futures in -bo, -bis, -bit, are a late analogical formation. You will find this late out more coherently in Hewson & Bubenik 1997:192-194. -------------------------------------------------------------- >From Gonzalo Rubio: I think you may want to take a look at Philip Baldi, _The foundations of Latin_ (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1999), pp. 397-98. As Baldi points out, the future must be understood in relation with the preterite in -ba:-. Both formations are parallel, as in the case of the perfect and pluperfect (amavero, amaveram). The imperfect in -ba:- most likely exhibits an (aorist?) optative form of the verb "to be" (*bhu-a:-m) preceded by a participle or participle-like form. Heinz-Dieter Pohl argued (in 1992, reference in Baldi) that the /b/ could be an "epenthetic" consonant of sorts preceding an optative marker -a:- (this was proposed before Pohl, I'm sure). But this seems rather far-fetched (no epenthetic b's occur in that context normally in Latin). --------------------------------- >From Carol Justus: I don't know what other Indo-Europeanists think, but in general IE etymology is a hypothesis-forming process. One proposes a plausible etymology, then checks related data to see to what extent it is confirmed (or not) by independent findings. On the one hand *bheu does fit the sound correspondences. It is also to be compared with the imperfect, however. Do both both -ba- imperfects and -bo- futures have a similar origin (Jay Jasanoff has written on the imperfect, I forget where, but someone out there probably recalls)? It is true also that in the evolution of the Romance languages we find one verb giving rise to more than one tense form. I am thinking here of 'have'. The standard view that I learned some decades ago was that the French future (e.g., trouver-a 'will find') is built on the infinitive to which a form of 'have' was suffixed and phonetically reduced. The perfect by contrast was formed with 'have' as an aux (e.g., a trouve have found'). Did *bheu 'be' similarly serve as suffixed aux that had two separate evolutions? It seems that the value of this etymology is in raising this kind of question. More interesting yet would be the use of 'be' rather than 'have' at the Latin stage of IE evolution. On the other hand, if you maintain, which many do not, that the Sanskrit and Greek verbal systems represent the oldest layer of IE, then you will want to find something that looks more like a Sanskrit and Greek future form to relate to Latin. The suffix -su- with -s- has that advantage, but I can't quite see how the sound correspondences would work. Personally, I would favor *bheu and the questions it raises over what seems like an ad hoc *-su- to prop up a wobbly hypothesis about language grouping and chronology. The etymology *bheu in and of itself is also more important within the framework of grammaticalization as a hypothesis in terms of the questions that it raises, and it should also be treated that way. For example, if in IE it happened that a form of 'be' was suffixed to form a new tense, then might similar things have happened elsewhere? If they did, then 'be' looks like a pretty good origin for the Latin future and imperfect. This would be hypothesis confirming information. But to elevate this etymology to a proof is a bit tricky. Heine & Kuteva's World Lexicon of Grammaticalization would seem to help lay a foundation for this kind of inquiry. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- >From Andreas Ammann: I've come across yet a third proposal in: Kurzova Helena (1993): From Indo-European to Latin: The Evolution of a Morphosyntactic Type. Amsterdam: Benjamins. On p. 188 she claims that we are not dealing with *bh(w)u-, but rather with *dhe:- (colon instead of the usual macron for vowel length here), just like, according to her, in the case of the imperfect in -bam, bas, bat... That would be the same marker as in the Germanic dental preterit, i.e. a root for 'put' (which shifted to 'do' in Germanic). Latin -b- is one of the word-medial reflexes of IE *-dh-, the other being -d-. It seems clear that the -b- in the Latin future is the same as the one in the Latin imperfect, but what is not clear is which of the two is older. Some authors say its the future, some say its the imperfect, and the respective other form arose analogically. (I find it interesting that during my little sampling I havent found a statement that they may both have been grammaticalized at about the same time.) Anyway, Kurzova argues that the imperfect form came first. If you want to derive the -b- from the desiderative, you have to think of the imperfect as later (or totally unrelated). There is a danger of circularity here, of course. --------------------------------------------------------------- >From Martin Huld: The problem arises when the account of the Latin future is expanded to include data beyond Latin. The Faliscan future carefo can be regarded as the same as Latin -bo with Faliscan retaining the intervocalic voiced spirant that occluded to -b- in Latin. Beside the future in bunt (3pl) is the imperfect in -bant whose Oscan counterpart fans again preserves the original spirant value. The traditional explanation is that -bo et all. is analogical to -bam et all. on the model of eram vs. ero. That means that -bam represents a subjunctive of *bhueA-, but fui, OIr. boi point to PIE *bhouH-, which means unmotivated schwebeablaut. This is probably the reasoning behind Sihler's pronouncement on the future in -b- "This is at bottom the same formation as the imperfect in *ba- and, like that formation, is partly transparent and partly opaque. (New Comparative Greek and Latin Grammar p. 558). Nevertheless, there are other sources for a Proto-Italic voiced bilabial spirant besides PIE *bh(w) and that is the problem. Matters become more complex when Celtic (the Irish f-future)is brought into the equation. Like the Latino-Faliscan bo/fo future; the Goidelic f-future is not found in the other branch of Celtic, Brythonic. On the face of it, Irish -f- (-b in word final position but that is a later development) should reflect *-sw-, which would mean (as Thurneysen in Old Irish Grammar p. 398 [and also Pedersen] maintained) that the comparison is simply invalid, but he notes that some have argued that both forms arise from *-bhw-, but there is no independent evidence that Proto-Irish *-f- can arise from *-bhw-. Without giving details, Meillet held that Le futur latin ... amabo, monebo, audibo fal. carefo, pipafo a son corresponant exact dans le futur irlandais en -b, -f-(Les dialectes indoeuropeens 37). Even if Thurneysen's account is correct and the Irish is merely an accidental similarity and the future arose analogically from the imperfect by association with the regular paradigm ero (from an IE thematic subjunctive) and eram (of obscure origin), the periphrastic account still leaves the formation of the stem unaccounted for, and that fact probably accounts for Szemerenyi's hesitation. For what its worth, Buck (1933:278-81) expresses the same view, that periphrasis with *bheuH- is the most probable explanation, but the details of the analogical development are unclear and there is no credible explanation for the stem formation. As is often the case, the handbook accounts record the surface details but have overlooked the footnotes which all along have acknowledged the difficulties in the periphrastic explanation. From Malcolm.Ross at anu.edu.au Fri Nov 22 12:55:00 2002 From: Malcolm.Ross at anu.edu.au (Malcolm Ross) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 07:55:00 EST Subject: Recent publications from Pacific Linguistics Message-ID: PACIFIC LINGUISTICS is happy to announce the publication of the following works: Joel Bradshaw and Kenneth Rehg (eds) Issues in Austronesian Morphology: A festschrift for Byron W. Bender Ritsuko Kikusawa Proto Central Pacific ergativity: Its reconstruction and development in the Fijian, Rotuman and Polynesian languages Robert S. Bauer (ed.) Collected papers on Southeast Asian and Pacific Languages These works are described below. Prices are in Australian dollars (one Australian dollar is currently equivalent to about US$ 0,56.). _______________________________________________________________ Joel Bradshaw and Kenneth Rehg (eds) Issues in Austronesian Morphology: A festschrift for Byron W. Bender PL 519 This volume contains original contributions by leading scholars in the field of Austronesian linguistics. All the articles focus on issues in morphology, with special attention to the interface of morphology with phonology, syntax, and semantics, from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. This work will be of interest not only to Austronesianists, but to anyone concerned with the ongoing debates about the role of morphology in linguistic theory. 2001 ISBN 0 85883 485 5 vii + 287 pp. Australia A$64.90 International A$59.00 _______________________________________________________________ Ritsuko Kikusawa Proto Central Pacific ergativity: Its reconstruction and development in the Fijian, Rotuman and Polynesian languages PL 520 The main objective of this study is to determine the actancy system (ergativity or accusativity) of Proto Central Pacific, and to determine how this system developed in its daughter languages, Fijian and Rotuman, which are accusative, as well as in the Polynesian languages, some of which are ergative. It is shown that an ergative system has to be reconstructed for Proto Central Pacific, based on the presence of two sets of clitic pronouns (Genitive and Nominative) used for the core arguments of transitive constructions. A set of independent pronouns is also reconstructed. These pronominal forms are shown to be reflexes of Proto Malayo-Polynesian reconstructions. The process by which the ergative parent language changed into some of its accusative daughter languages is illustrated. The following points in this work may be of particular interest: 1) a description of clear cases where the actancy systems change from ergative to accusative; 2) an illustration of how syntactic, phonological, morphological, and/or lexical changes are synthesised; 3) typological descriptions of three Central Pacific languages, namely Rotuman, Fijian, and Tongan, applying Lexicase Dependency Grammar; 4) a modification to the currently accepted subgrouping hypothesis for the Central Pacific group. 2002 ISBN 0 85883 438 3 xxii + 213 pp. Australia A$53.90 International A$49.00 _______________________________________________________________ Robert S. Bauer (ed.) Collected papers on Southeast Asian and Pacific Languages PL 530 The languages investigated in these papers represent the five major language families or subfamilies (depending on one's classification schema) of mainland and insular Southeast Asia, viz., (1) Tibeto-Burman with Meiteilon (Manipuri); (2) Mon-Khmer with Alak, Bru, Chatong, Dak Kang, Kaseng, Katu, Laven, Lavi, Nge', Nyah Kur, Suai, Ta Oi', Tariang, Tariw, Vietnamese, Yaeh; (3) Tai with Nung An, Lao, and Hlai; (4) Austronesian with Chamorro; and (5) the Malayo-Polynesian family itself. The eleven papers have been classified under five broad linguistic topics: I. Linguistic analysis with A.G. Khan's 'Impact of linguistic borrowing on Meiteilon (Manipuri)'; N.J. Enfield's 'Functions of 'give' and 'take' in Lao complex predicates'; and Sophana Srichampa's 'Vietnamese verbal reduplication'. II. Language classification includes Jerold A. Edmondson's 'N?ng An: origin of a species'; Lawrence A. Reid's 'Morphosyntactic evidence for the position of Chamorro in the Austronesian family'; and Theraphan L.-Thongkum's 'A brief look at the thirteen Mon-Khmer languages of Xekong Province, Southern Laos'. III Discourse analysis with John and Carolyn Miller's 'The tiger mother's child and the cow mother's child: a preliminary look at a Bru epic'; and Somsonge Burusphat's 'The temporal movement of the hlai (li) origin myth'. IV. Sociolinguistics with Suwilai Premsrirat's 'The future of Nyah Kur'. V. Historical linguistics with Graham Thurgood's 'A comment on Gedney's proposal for another series of voiced initials in Proto Tai'; and Stanley Starosta's 'The rise and fall and rise and fall of Proto Malayo-Polynesian'. 2002 ISBN 0 85883 407 7 x + 203 pp Australia A$53.90 International A$49.00 _______________________________________________________________ Orders may be placed by mail, e-mail or telephone with: Publishing, Imaging and Cartographic Services (PICS) Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200 Australia Tel: +61 (0)2 6125 3269 Fax: +61 (0)2 6125 9975 mailto://Thelma.Sims at anu.edu.au Credit card orders are accepted. For our catalogue and other materials, see: http://pacling.anu.edu.au (under construction) _______________________________________________________________ Other enquiries (but not orders) should go to: The Publications Administrator Pacific Linguistics Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200 Australia Tel: +61 (0)2 6125 2742 Fax: +61 (0)2 6125 4896 mailto://jmanley at coombs.anu.edu.au _______________________________________________________________ -- _____________________________________ Dr Malcolm D. Ross Senior Fellow Department of Linguistics Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies The Australian National University CANBERRA A.C.T. 0200 Australia For international students: ANU CRICOS Provider Number is 00120C -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz Sat Nov 30 12:46:20 2002 From: l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz (Lyle Campbell) Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 07:46:20 EST Subject: Major developments in historical linguistics Message-ID: ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Hi all, I'm seeking advice. I've been asked to come up with a short-and-sweet statement of the state-of-the art in historical and comparative linguistics which would survey major developments in the field in the last 10 years. In discussing this with a few colleagues, I discovered there is a very wide and divergent range of opinion concerning this. Therefore, I am writing to ask others' what their ideas about this are, hoping to get responses in order to make this as informed and representative as possible. If you write me at my e-mail address (l.campbell at ling.canterbury.ac.nz or lyle.campbell at canterbury.ac.nz), I'll send a summary of the responses to HISTLING. Thanks in advance, Lyle -- Professor Lyle Campbell, Dept. of Linguistics University of Canterbury Christchurch, New Zealand Fax: 64-3-364-2969 Phone: 64-3-364-2242 (office), 64-3-364-2089 (Linguistics dept)