Temporal Adverbials in Aramaic

One cross-linguistically recurrent asymmetry between affirmation and negation is the neutralization of tense-aspect distinctions in negatives. A functional explanation proposed for this is that in their typical discourse context negatives have less need for temporal specification than affirmatives and in some languages this discourse preference is reflected as fewer tense-aspect distinctions in grammar. To examine whether such a discourse preference exists, we compare the use of temporal adverbials in affirmatives and negatives in English, Finnish and Korean corpus data. The results provide qualified support for the hypothesized discourse preference: in English and Korean, affirmatives are likelier to have temporal adverbials than negatives, but Finnish shows no statistically significant difference. In English and Finnish, affirmatives are likelier than negatives to contain adjuncts indicating temporal position. Verb semantics is found to interact with temporal specifications. The study also uncovers further differences between affirmatives and negatives in the use of adverbials.

The paper proposes a new approach to temporal clauses and temporal adverbs, which are mostly said to "localize" the main verb. In recent work of Vicenzo Lo Cascio and others, temporal clauses and adverbs are treated completely differently and independently. We want to show that they should be handled together. Therefore, we start from a different conception of temporal localization, based on non-linguistic localization, as used in f.e. geography. So, we are able to show similarities between temporal clauses and adverbs. Our conclusion is that the localizer is always the time interval which is situated at the background, although it is not necessarily expressed by the temporal clause or adverb. On the contrary, a temporal clause or adverb can also be localized by the verb of the main clause.

Temporal adverbial functions can be realized by a subordinate clause. This subordinate clause is called temporal adverbial clause. The temporal adverbial clause is marked by a particular word(s) according to its semantic function. Balinese has several temporal adverbial clause markers, which can be in a simple or a complex form. The simple form is one word marker, while the complex form can be a phrase. Although there is a set of semantic function classifications, but somehow, not all of those semantic functions of the temporal adverbial in Balinese are filled by an adverbial clause. This paper focuses on the markers of those temporal adverbials, which are realized by an adverbial clause. The data in this paper, which are obtained from several short stories collections in Balinese, are descriptively analyzed. The result showed that Balinese has a number of marker variations, which do not only depend on the semantic function of temporal adverbial, but also depend on the speech level of the utterance. This means that a particular semantic function may be exclusively marked by several markers.

Topicalization is a common means of bringing about syntactic variation in Old Swedish. In topicalization, a sentence element for which the usual place is in the middle or final field is instead placed in the initial field. In Early Old Swedish and up to the mid-15th century, adverbials were more common than subjects in sentence-initial position. This study analyzes factors connected to genre and information structure that contribute to topicalization of adverbials in Early Old Swedish legal language. These factors are analyzed in relation to the structure of the text.The data consist of the Uppland law (UL) and are restricted to topicalized spatial and temporal adverbs (n=77). Three research questions are posed: 1) what features connected to genre contribute to topicalization in UL; 2) what functions topicalized spatial and temporal adverbials serve in information structure; and 3) whether there is a relationship between genre features and information structure in Early Old Swedish legal language.Topicalized spatial and temporal adverbials are significantly more common in main clauses (n=57) than in subordinate clauses (n=20) in UL. Clauses with a topicalized spatial or temporal adverb usually belong to legal declarations; topicalization occurs in both first and second clauses. Two central genre-related motivations for topicalization are textual binding and framing, which means that spatial and temporal adverbs can be used to refer backward and forward in the text. Factors connected with genre also include emphasis and contrast, which in old laws is not just a stylistic technique, but has a further function in shaping the text. The information structure functions of the adverbs studied are background and rheme, with the background function being the most common. The function of theme does not occur in the data. The analysis shows clearly that the genre features are connected with the information structure functions; together they contribute to topicalization in Old Swedish legal language.

This study compares the morphosyntax of children with SLI to the morphosyntax of children acquiring a second language (L2) to determine whether the optional infinitive phenomenon (M. Rice, K. Wexler, & P. Cleave, 1995; K. Wexler, 1994) is evident in both learner groups and to what extent cross-learner similarities exist. We analyzed spontaneous production data from French-speaking children with SLI, English-speaking L2 learners of French, and French-speaking controls, all approximately 7 years old. We examined the children's use of tense morphology, temporal adverbials, agreement morphology, and distributional contingencies associated with finiteness. Our findings indicate that the use of morphosyntax by children with SLI and by L2 children has significant similarities, although certain specific differences exist. Both the children with SLI and the L2 children demonstrate optional infinitive effects in their language use. These results have theoretical and clinical relevance. First, they suggest that the characterization of the optional infinitive phenomenon in normal development as a consequence of very early neurological change may be too restrictive. Our data appear to indicate that the mechanism underlying the optional infinitive phenomenon extends to normal (second) language learning after the primary acquisition years. Second, they indicate that tense-marking difficulty may not be an adequate clinical marker of SLI when comparing children with impairment to both monolingual and bilingual peers. A more specific clinical marker would be more effective in diagnosing disordered populations in a multilingual context.

Expression of time is an important field in linguistic research. In Lithuanian linguistics, the study of time has focused first and foremost on tense and aspect systems. Therefore, Lithuanian language has developed a big diversity of means to encode time, e.g. noun cases (vasarą ‘in summer’) and noun phrases (liepos vakarą ‘in July evening’), prepositional phrases (po darbo ‘after work’), adverbs (netrukus ‘soon’), subordinate clauses (kai nustos lyti ‘when it stops raining’). All of them despite their different grammatical status are suggested to be called temporal adverbials. ‘Adverbial’ is a quite new notion in Lithuanian linguistics, it was first presented in the studies of stance adverbials but is also convenient in the field of linguistic expression of time. The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate the necessity of distinguishing a semantic-functional class of temporal adverbials in Lithuanian linguistics and to show their position in the system of means that encode time. The second part of the paper presents a few semantic models of the temporal adverbials made by foreign linguists and the semantic research of Lithuanian temporal means that should be regarded as temporal adverbials.

Understanding complex sentences that contain multiple clauses referring to events in the world and the relations between them is an important development in children's language learning. A number of theoretical positions have suggested that factors like syntactic structure (clause order), iconicity (whether the order of clauses reflects the order of events), and givenness (whether information is shared between speakers) affect ease of comprehension. We tested these accounts by investigating how these factors interact in British English-speaking children's comprehension of complex sentences with adverbial clauses (after, before, because, if), while controlling for language level, working memory and inhibitory control. 92 children in three age groups (4, 5 and 8 years) and 17 adults completed a picture selection task. Participants heard an initial context sentence, followed by a two-clause sentence which varied in: (1) the order of the main and subordinate clause; (2) the order of given and new information; and (3) whether the given information occurred in the main or subordinate clause. Accuracy and response times were measured. Our results showed that given-before-new improves comprehension for four- and five-year-olds, but only when the given information is in the initial subordinate clause (e.g., “Sue crawls on the floor. Before she crawls on the floor, she hops up and down”). Temporal adverbials (after, before) were processed faster than causal adverbials (because, if). These effects were not found for the eight-year-olds, whose performance was more similar to that of the adults. Providing a context sentence also improved performance compared to presenting the test sentences in isolation. We conclude that existing accounts based on either ease of processing or information structure cannot fully account for these findings, and suggest a more integrated explanation which reflects children's developing language and literacy skills.

The iconicity assumption and the functional distribution of English temporal adverbial clauses: A textual perspective

Temporal subordinate clauses are introduced by temporal conjunctions like nachdem (‘after’), seit (‘since’), bevor (‘before’) and others. Depending on their conjunction, they can express a positional or a durational meaning, and they function as temporal adverbials in their matrix clause. Thus, the temporal subordinate clauses — or short: TEMPORAL CLAUSES — in (1.1a, c, e) function analogously to the temporal adverbials in (1.1b, d, f), respectively.

The article asks whether the morphosyntax of embedded direct object clauses and purpose clauses in Western Neo-Aramaic reflects retention from older stages of Aramaic, or innovation under the influence of contact Arabic. To this end, direct object clauses and purpose clauses are analysed in Western Neo-Aramaic, in older stages of Aramaic, namely, Old, Official, Biblical and Qumran Aramaic, as well as Syriac, the three Western Late Aramaic dialects (CPA, JPA, SA), and in contemporaneous Syrian Arabic. The analysis considers the embedded verb form, the formal means of linking the embedded clause to the matrix clause, and the co-referentiality of the matrix and embedded subjects, and relates these features to tense-aspect-mood. The article compares the constructions in the various sources of Aramaic and Syrian Arabic and finds features that Western Neo-Aramaic has retained from Late Aramaic, which differ from Syrian Arabic, despite the well documented influence of the latter.

218 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 76, NUMBER 1 (2000) ratives in German, English, Tagalog, Indonesian, Nunggubuyu, and Usan. In his introductory chapter (1-18) H maps out the direction of the study to follow, beginning with three empirical observations. He notes first that (apparently ) all languages contain demonstratives, that is, deictic elements which may appear adnominally. Second, while only a small number oflanguages have definite articles per se, many languages have functional elements which resemble definite articles, all descending from demonstratives Third, according to H, languages differ in the degree to which nominal expressions may be analyzed as configurational, i.e. he questions the universality of such structures as NP and DP. Rather, H suggests that the hierarchical structure of nominal expressions may be understood as scalar across languages. H's caution in making universal generalizations about syntactic structure leads him to generally avoid terms such as 'noun' and 'determiner' in favor of 'N(ominal)-element' and 'D-element', which includes deictic elements as well as their grammaticalized descendants, definite articles , and similar functional elements. Ch. 2 (19-33) argues that in order to accurately describe the grammaticalization of demonstratives into functional elements, it is necessary to describe the semanto-pragmatic and syntactic characteristics of the nominal expressions in which they occur increasingly over time. In Ch. 3 (34-108), H explores the semantic and pragmatic features of D-elements as they are employed in discourse. Of central importance to him is the degree to which these elements, especially demonstratives, are used by a speaker 'anamnestically ', i.e. to refer to specific knowledge the speaker believes to be shared by his/her interlocutor. Further, speaking of historical reflexes of adnominal demonstratives, such as definite articles, H argues that increasing grammaticalization is not only correlated with a loss of semanto-pragmatic transparency but also with an increase in overall configurationality . That is, through the expanded use of D + N expressions constructions arise which are semantically noncompositional and which may be properly analyzed as syntactically structured. The idea that 'emergence of syntactic structure' in nominal expressions is a consequence of the grammaticalization of deictic elements is the focus of Ch. 4 (109-57). In Ch. 5 (158-228), H presents a crosslinguistic typology of grammaticalized adnominal D-elements, subdividing them into two major groups, 'phrase articles ' (e.g. definite articles in languages such as German and English) and 'linking articles' (e.g. Tagalog na). He follows up this chapter with a brief summary (229-32) and appendices consisting ofthe texts from the six major languages examined. Though a subject index would have been helpful, H does provide lists of persons and languages cited. [Mark L. Louden, University of Texas at Austin.] The syntax of subordination. By Dagmar Haumann. (Linguistische Arbeiten 373.) Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1997. Pp. vii, 278. In this monograph Haumann provides a fine review of the various ways subordinate clauses and the elements which introduce them have been treated in generative grammar. Further, she offers an original analysis which clearly distinguishes the different types of subordinator. H points out that in previous work subordinators have been analyzed as either complementizers or prepositions, i.e. as functional or lexical heads. Here she argues, on the basis of English data, that a third category, 'Subcon', which has both functional and lexical features, must be introduced . While H continues to analyze a number of English subordinators as complementizers (e.g. that) and prepositions (viz. temporal adverbials such as after), she assigns the majority (nontemporal adverbials ) to Subcon, e.g. although, because, unless. The book is divided into three parts. In Part 1 which consists of three chapters, H reviews a number of the major conceptual aspects sunounding the analysis of subordination in generative theory through the 1970s. Ch. 1 ('Subordination in early generative grammar—An instance of recursiveness', 7-24) deals with the phrase structure analysis of subordinate clauses as analogous to noun phrases or adverbial phrases. In Ch. 2 ('Complementizers', 25-44), H compares the status of complementizers in transformational and phrase structure analyses, preferring the latter for its inclusion of semantic features in the description of complementizers. H goes on in Ch. 3 ('Subordinating conjunctions—a question of categorization ', 45-62...

Based on a corpus study of 2074 occurrences in Archaic (424) and Classical (1650) Greek, I offer a unified explanation for the temporal reference extensions of counterfactual mood forms in declarative, interrogative, wish and de-activated illocutions (i.e. subordinate clauses). I propose a diachronic trajectory (life cycle) for counterfactual mood forms from past to present and future reference. Extensions are constrained diachronically by grammatical aspect (e.g. imperfect facilitating extensions to present reference more than the aorist or pluperfect), and actionality of the state of affairs in clausal context (atelic states of affairs enabling temporal extensions), as well as synchronically by illocutionary usage, collocations with temporal adverbs and common ground knowledge (i.e. temporal location known or not). This trajectory explains the replacements of the inherited counterfactual optative by the counterfactual indicative, because their life cycles are interlocked: in Archaic Greek the counterfactual optative had already extended from its original past to present and future reference and is losing its counterfactuality, whereas the counterfactual indicative referred only to the past and sometimes the present. In Classical Greek, temporal extensions of the counterfactual indicative are continued across different aspects, clause types and illocutions at different rates of change and the counterfactual optative is filtered out of the system.

Sentence adverbials build a multidimensional constituent in many languages, i.e. they can, among others, modify the meaning of the entire sentence, emphasize a particular element in it, or build the coherence in texts. Due to the multifaced character of this linguistic phenomenon the acquisition of it in foreign language learners can be a complex process. The learner is not only faced with a variety of different words and phrases that can be used in order to deliver a complementary information in the text, but also, depending on the structural requirements of the specific language, has to learn to put this constituent in the correct place in the sentence. In present paper the use of sentence adverbials in Polish learners od Swedish will be presented. The data considered in the analysis comprises two types of texts: a summary of an expository text and a narrative. The results show that foreign language learners at the intermediate stage of the language use a broad repertoire of sentence adverbials and place them in appropriate contexts. In narratives modal expressions predominate, while in summaries connectives and intensifiers are used more often. The learners can place sentence adverbials correctly in the sentence, especially in main clauses. However, the word order in dependent clauses when other sentence adverbials occur, except for sentences with the negation inte, is still under development.

Letters to Language Cilene Rodrigues Language accepts letters from readers that briefly and succinctly respond to or comment upon either material published previously in the journal or issues deemed of importance to the field. The editor reserves the right to edit letters as needed. Brief replies from relevant parties are included as warranted. Response to a book review April 5, 2020 To the Editor: In their review of the book Recursion across domains (ed. by Luiz Amaral, Marcus Maia, Andrew Nevins, and Tom Roeper, Cambridge University Press, 2018), Daniel Everett and Edward Gibson (E&G; Language 95(4).777–90, 2019) concluded that the chapters devoted to Pirahã do not meet ‘high scientific standards’ (p. 780). Their review is unusual in criticizing not only the argumentation and claims of these chapters, but also the very competence of the authors to conduct their research, as well as the competence of a local assistant thanked by the authors, mistakenly described as the ‘primary Pirahã consultant’ (p. 781). I coauthored two of the chapters criticized in their review, Chs. 6 and 15. For space reasons, I focus on their criticism of the first of those papers. There is much to be said about the rest of their review, but I believe that the failings of their response to Ch. 6 satisfactorily exemplify issues that pervade the review. I am writing this communication not because their review was negative, but because it contains misrepresentations and falsehoods, which should be corrected. I first briefly summarize the evidence and argument that Ch. 6 presents in favor of structural embedding. I then consider E&G’s critique, ending with a brief response to their comments concerning our competence, the competence of our sources, and their criticism of our data. ________ Word order and control: Our argument for syntactic embedding was straightforward, based on fieldwork data that showed obligatory control, a phenomenon found internal to complex sentences in the world’s languages, and not found across discourse. The canonical word order of Pirahã is SOV (Everett 1983:201, ex. 3; A lingua Pirahã e a teoria da sintaxe, Universidade Estadual de Campinas dissertation). However, in constructions that one might take to show a clause embedded as a complement of a higher verb, Pirahã generally places that clause after the verb, yielding a structure that one might analyze as SVO (Everett 2005:629, ex. 24; ‘Cultural constraints on grammar and cognition in Pirahã: Another look at the design features of human language’, Current Anthropology 46(4).621–46). Everett 2005, however, took this as evidence that such structures do not actually involve clausal complementation, but paratactic conjunction, the putative clausal object actually constituting an independent sentence. We presented the following arguments against E’s (2005) claim: a. The Pirahã counterpart of sentences like ‘I want to study’ shows the phenomenon of obligatory control (OC). When the subject of ‘study’ is unpronounced, it must be understood as controlled by the subject of ‘want’. Our consultant permitted no other interpretation. b. In such structures, both SOV and SVO are acceptable (Everett 2005:117, ex. 13, 14). The first of these orders is clearly not amenable to reanalysis as paratactic conjunction. c. Main-clause material may follow the complement clause in control structures with SVO order. A temporal adverb following a complement clause in an SVO OC structure can only modify the main clause (Everett 2005: 119, ex. 17) (possibly because the embedded clause is too small to support ad verbial modification). If the putative complement clause were actually an independent sentence, we would not expect that it could be followed by an adverb modifying an earlier independent sentence. d. SOV order is not restricted to environments of control. The desiderative verb sogabagai may also take a full clausal complement with an overt subject. In this case, SOV order is restricted; only the embedded predicate can precede the desiderative verb. The subject of the embedded clause follows the higher verb, resulting in a subject-predicate split. Once again, we would not expect an independent sentence to be followed by the subject of the sentence that preceded it. ________ E&G’s critique: According to E&G, Rodrigues et al. ‘missed some crucial...

Right-edge boundary tones have earlier been found to restrict syntactic processing by closing a clause for further integration of incoming words. The role of left-edge intonation, however, has received little attention to date. We show that Swedish left-edge boundary tones selectively facilitate the on-line processing of main clauses, the syntactic structure they are associated with. In spoken Swedish, main clauses are produced with a left-edge boundary tone, which is absent in subordinate clauses. Main and subordinate clauses are further distinguished syntactically by word order when containing sentence adverbs. The effects of tone and word order on the processing of embedded main, subordinate, and neutral clauses (lacking sentence adverbs) were measured using ERPs. A posterior P600 in embedded main clauses and a smaller P600 in subordinate clauses indicated that embedded clauses with sentence adverbs were structurally less expected than neutral clauses and thus were reanalyzed. The tone functioned as a cue for main clause word order, selectively reducing the P600 in embedded main clauses, without affecting the processing of subordinate or neutral clauses. Its perception was reflected in a right frontal P200 effect. The left-edge boundary tone thus seems to activate a main clause structure, albeit without suppressing alternative structures. The P600 was also preceded by a short positive effect in cases where a left-edge boundary tone was absent.