Abstract This paper provides a cross-linguistic overview of adnominal demonstratives (i.e., demonstratives that accompany a noun), with a particular focus on their syntactic function. Drawing on data from a wide range of languages, the paper compares the morphosyntactic properties of adnominal demonstratives to those of demonstrative pronouns and adverbs, examines their position relative to other constituents in complex NPs, and explains how they develop into definite articles and clause linkers, which are often difficult to distinguish from true demonstratives. Taken together, the patterns described in this paper suggest that the syntactic functions of adnominal demonstratives vary along a continuum ranging from free pronouns adjoined to a noun to syntactic determiners integrated into a tightly organized NP.

Abstract Spanish demonstratives encode speaker-referent and addressee-referent distance, displaying a sociocentric conceptualization of space. By contrast, English demonstratives encode speaker-referent distance, but not addressee-referent distance, reflecting a speaker-based egocentric conceptualization of space. To test the hypothesis that bilinguals transfer the way that space is encoded from one language into another, 41 Spanish-English bilinguals and 19 English-speaking monolinguals completed an elicited production puzzle task in which the addressee's position was manipulated: the experimenter either sat next to or across from the participant. The bilingual participants comprised two groups: 19 bilinguals who arrived in the U.S. as adults (“Adult Arrivals”) and 22 who were raised in the U.S. (“U.S.-raised”). Mixed-effects binary logistic regressions demonstrate that the Adult Arrivals were more likely to use esta ‘this’ rather than esa ‘that’ when the experimenter was across from rather than next to the participant, displaying a sociocentric conceptualization of space. By contrast, experimenter position did not impact the English monolinguals' demonstratives. Mirroring the English monolinguals, the U.S.-raised bilinguals' demonstratives were not conditioned by experimenter position – neither in English nor in Spanish – suggesting that these bilinguals transferred an egocentric conceptualization of space from English into Spanish. The findings contribute to our understanding of how bilingualism affects the cognitive processes invoked when using demonstratives and how age of onset of bilingualism and language dominance mediate such conceptual transfer.

Abstract This study provides an up-to-date overview of current research on demonstratives, integrating insights from experimental pragmatics, corpus-based studies, and language acquisition research. The contributions to this thematic issue, including our own, emphasize the importance of social, multimodal, and interactional factors in demonstrative use and show how the selection of demonstratives dynamically adapts to various speaker-addressee configurations and evolving discourse contexts. A central aim of this thematic issue is to highlight an ongoing shift toward interaction-oriented and procedural accounts, where demonstratives serve not only as spatial markers but also as tools for managing joint attention and maintaining discourse coherence. The introductory paper argues for an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates linguistic typology, relevance theory, and usage-based models to deepen our understanding of the cognitive and social foundations of demonstrative reference.

Abstract In many languages, two referentially disjoint personal pronouns can occur in the same domain (e.g., she saw her), as expected given Binding Principle B. I present corpus-based and judgment-based evidence showing that Finnish patterns differently and is subject to a Pronoun Dissimilation Constraint: When two expressions in the same local domain (coarguments of the same verb) are referentially distinct, realizing them both as personal pronouns is dispreferred. In other words, sequences such as ‘She saw her’ sound very odd in Finnish, but replacing one of the personal pronouns with an anaphoric demonstrative yields an acceptable sentence. I present evidence showing that the Pronoun Dissimilation Constraint cannot be reduced to a pure disambiguation phenomenon, nor to linear proximity, phonological similarity, or the presence of another option in the language's anaphoric paradigm. After presenting large-scale corpus data assessing the robustness of the Pronoun Dissimilation Constraint, I return to the question about the source of this constraint, and explore links to other work on dissimilation phenomena and obviation patterns in Algonquian languages.

Abstract Transparent vowels, i.e. vowels that seem invisible to vowel harmony (vh), pose a challenge for feature-based and phonetically grounded accounts alike (Gafos & Dye 2011): For example, Finnish i/e are classified as [−back]/articulatorily front, yet do not (fully) pattern as such. This paper argues that their transparency follows from their internal structure, in combination with the location of the harmonic property within that structure: Non-transparent front vowels involve more complex structures with the element responsible for harmony high up, while transparent vowels have that same element in a lower position (in a sense to be made precise), which results in their being transparent to vh. Finnish transparent vowels can nevertheless participate in harmony if they “gang up”, a phenomenon that will also be given due attention. In addition, the Finnish system is briefly contrasted to that of Turkish which lacks transparent vowels altogether.

Abstract We argue that traditional breaking of the historical long vowels in the predecessor of Southern Standard British English (e.g. Wells 1982, 213ff) is in fact ongliding to (or prevocalisation of) r in jr/wr which has been ongoing starting with (at least) Middle English, continued into Early Modern English and Southern Standard British English. It can be captured as prevocalisation of pharyngeal r before j/w-final diphthongs in terms of gestural phonology, producing sequences like fijər fear, fejər fare. This schwa-like onglide to r allows us to look at Middle English from a different perspective, from the point of view of a ‘tug of war’ between the long monophthongs and diphthongs (inherited from Old English, to which we can add Old French and Norse words) with identical stressed peaks (e.g. ij tile vs iː life, nice; uː shower vs uw power, etc.). This resulted in a merger favouring a diphthongal basis in the southern varieties of Middle English (as opposed to its northern counterparts, in which a monophthongal basis was established), resulting in fire/shower (< Old English fȳr/scūr) having ij and uw, respectively, setting the stage for prevocalisation in jr/wr (merging them with original ijə(r)/uwə(r)). We explore some of the consequences of such a supposition.

Abstract Mandarin resultative constructions famously allow for as many as three different interpretations, including an Agent-oriented reading that appears to pose a challenge for Simpson's generalization that resultatives are universally predicated of the Theme, and a causative reading in which the surface object is the Agent. This paper addresses the interpretive flexibility of Mandarin resultatives, and presents a structural explanation for each of the accessible readings as well as for the unavailability of the interpretations that cannot be accessed, safeguarding Simpson's Law and providing an enhanced structural perspective on the ‘Theme of’ relation, the syntax of light-verb ba and verb reduplication, the workings of topicalization, the internal structure of result phrases, and the syntax of agentivity and causation.

Abstract This paper analyzes the behavior of meal verbs in Romance, i.e., have lunch/breakfast/dinner, a verb class which we observe shows apparently contradictory behavior in the syntactic diagnostics broadly used to distinguish between unergative and unaccusative verbs. Building on Pineda & Berro's (2020) proposal for Basque, we argue meal verbs in Romance involve a hybrid syntactic structure: their subject is associated with more than one distinct functional head and is therefore thematically interpreted as a hybrid subject since it is assigned both an agent/initiator and a patient/undergoer thematic role. We show our proposal is able to account for the discrepancies attested by meal verbs when subjected to diagnostics that probe for unergative and unaccusative properties and the distinct syntactic properties this verb class exhibits when compared to their equivalents in Old Romance.

Abstract In Modern Hungarian, pedig can signal opposition or continuation between two states of affairs, as well as express concessive meaning, i.e. ‘however, although’, but it has exhibited the latter function only since the 16th century, while the others are older. This paper studies the functional expansion resulting in a shift between the subtypes of expressing contrast and a structural difference as well. Concessive pedig occurs both in clause- or sentence-initial position and, unlike other Hungarian conjunctions, in clause- or sentence-final position. The analysis investigates historical data from the 16th century up to recent language use, showing the diffusion of concessive pedig and variation with its functional variants in different registers. The study also raises the question of whether the change in the word order is connected to the functional difference, involving the role of peripheries in the grammaticalization process.

Abstract This paper presents two case studies on the morphophonology of Komi and Erzya, both belonging to the Uralic language family. Both languages are said to be agglutinative. There are some verbal forms in both languages, in which a vowel appears at the stem boundary in some paradigms, but not in other ones. The status of these vowels (whether they belong to the stem, to the suffix or to none of them) is debatable. In both languages, phonotactics plays a critical but limited role in the appearance of the vowel. The case studies describe the detailed conditions of the emergence of the vowel based on corpus data. Finally, the regularities observed in the two languages are compared.