Clause Chaining Research Articles

The Forms and Functions of Switch Reference in A’ingae

This paper examines switch reference (SR) in A’ingae, an understudied isolate language from Amazonian Ecuador. We present a theoretically informed survey of SR, identifying three distinct uses of switch reference: in clause chaining, adverbial clauses, and so-called ‘bridging’ clause linkage. We describe the syntactic and semantic properties of each use in detail, the first such description for A’ingae, showing that the three constructions differ in important ways. While leaving a full syntactic analysis to future work, we argue that these disparate properties preclude a syntactic account that unifies these three constructions to the exclusion of other environments without SR. Conversely, while a full semantic account is also left to future work, we suggest that a unified semantic account in terms of discourse coherence principles appears more promising. In particular, we propose that switch reference in A’ingae occurs in all and only the constructions that are semantically restricted to non-structuring coordinating coherence relations in the sense of Segmented Discourse Representation Theory.

Serial Verb Constructions in Nzema: A Descriptive Analysis

This paper aims to discuss Serial Verb Constructions (SVCs) in Nzema, a Southern Bia (Kwa) language. It draws on some of the characteristics and properties that have been surveyed in the existing literature, for instance, subject/object sharing, tense, aspect, and negation. It also discusses the types and functions of SVCs in Nzema. The current paper analyses the notions of tense, aspect, and polarity and how they are marked in Nzema SVCs. Most of the data used in the analysis has been derived from the daily conversations of native speakers. Four respondents were approached for the purpose of this study. The analysis shows that Nzema SVCs belong to the types explored in the literature as clause chaining, both integrated and concordial. Moreover, serial verb patterns are used by the speakers to add argument, such as an instrument or beneficiary. Future markers are used before the verbs, while past markers occur after the verbs. On the other hand, progressive aspect markers occur before the verbs in the speech of the respondents. Furthermore, tense and aspect marking are repeated by the respondents on all the verbs in the series. Regarding argument sharing, the object is only shared when the verbs in the series are transitive.
 Keywords: argument sharing, clause chaining serialization, concordial serial verb, integrated serial verb construction

Tangut verb agreement

Abstract The Tangut language is of particular importance to the field of Sino­Tibetan Studies, notably because of its morphological conservatism, which is unexpectedly correlated with a simplification of its syllable structure, a consequence of a process Miyake (2012) called “compression”. Such conservatism is evident in the syllable qualities reconstructed, which sometimes reflect proto­ Tangut’s ancient derivational processes. Verbs also exhibit various flectional phenomena, mainly due to conversion of agreement rules and referential hierarchy rules (Silverstein 1976), in a manner reminiscent of the indexation system of languages of the rGyalrongic taxon within the Qiangic family. The present paper attempts to explain the absence of indexation in the Tangut verb, a key phenomenon in the history of verb agreement analysis. First, I recall the main rules of the Tangut verb’s agreement system, as shown by Kepping (1975) and Gong (2001). Second, cases of non­agreement are analyzed. Apart from the case of non­local contexts, we see that the absence of agreement occurs in non­finite forms resulting from a dependency pattern, such as clause chaining, topic/comment context, and semantically dependent modality.1

Cross-clause planning in Nungon (Papua New Guinea): Eye-tracking evidence.

Hundreds of languages worldwide use a sentence structure known as the "clause chain," in which 20 or more clauses can be stacked to form a sentence. The Papuan language Nungon is among a subset of clause chaining languages that require "switch-reference" suffixes on nonfinal verbs in chains. These suffixes announce whether the subject of each upcoming clause will differ from the subject of the previous clause. We examine two major issues in psycholinguistics: predictive processing in comprehension, and advance planning in production. Whereas previous work on other languages has demonstrated that sentence planning can be incremental, switch-reference marking would seem to prohibit strictly incremental planning, as it requires speakers to plan the next clause before they can finish producing the current one. This suggests an intriguing possibility: planning strategies may be fundamentally different in Nungon. We used a mobile eye-tracker and solar-powered laptops in a remote village in Papua, New Guinea, to track Nungon speakers' gaze in two experiments: comprehension and production. Curiously, during comprehension, fixation data failed to find evidence that switch-reference marking is used for predictive processing. However, during production, we found evidence for advance planning of switch-reference markers, and, by extension, the subjects they presage. We propose that this degree of advance syntactic planning pushes the boundaries of what is known about sentence planning, drawing on data from a novel morpheme type in an understudied language.

Quantifying clause chains in Nungon texts

Abstract Clause chains are sequences of clauses with under-specified verbal predicates, plus a single clause with a fully-specified verbal predicate. Clause chains represent the morpho-syntactic demarcation of a speech unit greater than a single clause, but the precise length of this unit is rarely assessed. Clause chain length, distribution, bridging linkage, and non-canonical forms are evaluated in a sample of 64 texts, containing over 1742 clause chains, in the Papuan language Nungon. In the 49 narrative texts, unlike in other genres, total clause chains per text increases as text duration increases. The average clause chain in the sample is 3–4 clauses long; the longest has 22 clauses. Average clause chain length decreases as text length increases. The longest narrative texts have similar average clause chain length, proportion of bridging clauses, and proportion of non-canonical clause chains, and feature a leisurely rhythm: half of their clause chains are minimal, two-clause chains.

Realis converbs and irrealis converbs in Hwari Tibetan

Abstract This article analyzes the realis converbs and irrealis converbs in Hwari (Dpa’ ris) Tibetan, an Amdo Tibetan dialect spoken in Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County, Wuwei City, Gansu Province, China. One peculiarity of Hwari Tibetan morphosyntax is the existence of a large set of converbal suffixes. A survey of previous descriptions reveals a lack of consensus in the analysis of these converbs. They have been included in the framework of Written Tibetan too often, which has led to confusion regarding their typological status. A primary objective of our paper is to rectify this approach by describing the language on its own terms by comparing the morphosyntactic behavior of eight selected suffixes with regard to relevant criteria, such as realis and irrealis. This empirical research feeds back into the theoretical discussion, as it shows that the Hwari Tibetan converbs can be described using conventional typological concepts if construed appropriately. Our second objective is to explain the semantic and pragmatic properties of these converbs, particularly -na and -ta. The conclusion is that the two converb types are located along a continuum from realis/irrealis to positive/negative, thus constituting an instantiation of syntax-semantics isomorphism. The clause chaining in Hwari Tibetan is representative. By describing the converbs in Hwari Tibetan from the perspective of realis and irrealis, and by focusing on the syntactic properties and pragmatic features of -Ce in realis converbs and -Ca in irrealis converbs, it is revealed that the irrealis converbs -na and -ta function in a unique way in Hwari Tibetan.

Clause chaining and switch-reference in Aikanã and Kwaza

Abstract In Aikanã and Kwaza, neighbouring endangered isolate languages of Rondônia, Brazil, sentences can include chains of medial clauses and end with a predicate in a matrix sentence mood, such as declarative, interrogative etc. In Kwaza, traditional narratives may even consist of a single long string of medial clauses, terminated by a fixed formula in the declarative mood. In both languages, subject (dis)continuity is expressed by a switch-reference system that indicates on the predicate of the current clause whether the subject of the next clause will be different or not. In this descriptive article I present similarities and differences between the systems of switch-reference in Aikanã and Kwaza. Among the differences, I discuss cases of formally marked switch-reference that appears to express topic discontinuity rather than subject discontinuity, in Kwaza. Also, I analyse the unusual anticipatory nature of the Kwaza system. As a special feature of this article I include two versions of a traditional mythological narrative, originally told in Aikanã and later retold in Kwaza, to illustrate clause chaining and switch-reference through a coherent and culturally relevant text.

Beyond the Two-Clause Sentence: Acquisition of Clause Chaining in Six Languages.

Clause chains are a special type of complex sentence, found in hundreds of languages outside Western Europe, in which clauses are dependent but not embedded, and dozens of clauses can be combined into a single sentential unit. Unlike English complex sentences, clause chains’ distribution is partially predictable in that they can, most fundamentally, be linked to a particular semantic context: description of temporally sequential events or actions. This and the morphological simplicity of verb forms in clause chains may combine to accelerate their acquisition by children, relative to complex sentences in other languages. No previous cross-linguistic studies of the acquisition of complex sentences have investigated clause chaining. In this paper, we report insights from a survey of the acquisition of clause chaining in six languages of diverse stocks with child speech databases spanning 1;1 to 10 years. Overall, children acquiring clause chaining languages begin to produce 2-clause chains between around 1;11 and 2;6. An initial stage in which chains are limited to just two clauses in length is followed by a stage in which longer chains of 3–5 clauses are also produced. Children acquiring languages in which adults produce both same-subject and different-subject clause chains produce a similar mix from early on; for some languages, this involves morphological “switch-reference” marking that anticipates the identity of the subject of an upcoming clause. This survey broadens our understanding of the acquisition of complex sentences by adding new data on the acquisition timing, semantics, and reference continuity of early clause chains.

The Acquisition of Clause Chaining in Nungon.

The clause chain is an under-investigated complex sentence type, found in hundreds of languages. In a clause chain, as many as 20 or more ‘medial’ clauses with under-specified verbal predicates combine with a single ‘final’ clause with fully-specified verbal predicate. Clause chains are of interest for three main reasons: (a) the special syntactic relationship between clauses, which is neither textbook subordination nor coordination; (b) the potential extreme length of a single chain; and (c) switch-reference marking in clause chains of some languages could require speakers to plan at least one clause ahead as they speak. Research on child production of complex sentences has largely overlooked clause chains. Longitudinal data for three children aged 1;1 to 3;3 acquiring the Papuan language Nungon show that Nungon-speaking children begin producing clause chains around the age of 2;4, with a marked increase in rate of use around age 2;11. Chain length is limited to two clauses until age 3;1. Different-subject marking in medial clauses is used by all three children early, but is first attested in one-clause, ‘root medial’ contexts, rather than in chains. Bayesian statistical models confirm the strong tendency for children to use root medials in expressions of desires and commands. Children’s production of three types of complex sentences—clause chains, subordinated final clauses, and coordinated final clauses—is shown to be subject to the same type of developmental constraint; but once development reaches an adequate level for increased complex sentence production, children acquiring Nungon produce many more clause chains than complex sentences involving subordinated or coordinated final clauses.

Acquisition of Pitjantjatjara Clause Chains.

In Pitjantjatjara, a central Australian Indigenous language, speakers typically describe sequences of actions using clause chaining constructions. While similar constructions are common among the world’s languages, very little is known about how children acquire them. A notable exception are the converb constructions of Turkish, which have been relatively well-studied. The present paper examines the acquisition of Pitjantjatara clause chaining constructions and compares this with the acquisition of Turkish converb constructions. Data is drawn from a naturalistic corpus recorded between 2016 and 2019. The corpus contains over 4000 utterances from 23 children aged between 10 months and 10 years, five of whom are recorded at multiple ages. The corpus also includes approximately 1600 utterances from 21 adults, aged between 16 and 70. Results show that the acquisition of Pitjantjatjara clause chains consists of three stages. Stage 1 features juxtaposition of finite verb forms. In Stage 2, children make regular use of clause chain morphology, but primarily for modification purposes. In Stage 3, clause chains are the preferred strategy for sequential actions as well as modification purposes. The initial use of verb juxtaposition followed by increasing use of dedicated morphology is consistent with findings for Turkish converb acquisition, with speakers of both languages utilizing dedicated forms from around 2;6 onwards. A notable difference between the acquisition of Pitjantjatjara clause chains and Turkish converbs is in the order of acquisition of semantic functions. In Turkish, children acquire temporal functions, such as sequential actions, before modifying functions, such as manner specification. In Pitjantjatjara, the order is reversed, with children first using clause chaining constructions for modification and simultaneous aspects of events before utilizing them to combine sequential actions. This raises questions regarding the distribution and relative timing of event combination and modification strategies.

Ku Waru Clause Chaining and the Acquisition of Complex Syntax

How do children learn to understand and use complex syntactic constructions? In English, Diessel (2004) shows that they do so in two different ways. Complex sentences with dependent clauses (e.g., ‘Peter promised that he would come’) develop out of simple sentences that are gradually expanded into multi-clause ones. Complex sentences with coordinate clauses (e.g., ‘He tried hard, but he failed’) develop by integrating two independent sentences into a single two-clause unit. Here we expand on that research by focusing on the acquisition of a kind of complex syntactic structure which involves both dependency and coordination – the clause chain – in Ku Waru, a Papuan language spoken in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Clause chains are constructions coordinating multiple clauses in sequence, where the non-final or ‘medial’ clauses are in a dependent relationship with the final clause. One function of clause chains, which is often taken to be the prototypical one, is to refer to a series of events in sequence. Some Ku Waru clause chains do refer to sequential events. Other Ku Waru clause chains containing particular verbs refer to single events, sometimes with the particular verb providing aspectual or adverbial qualification (‘keep doing’, ‘do quickly’, etc.). In this article, we track their acquisition of several different kinds of clause chains based on longitudinal recordings of four children acquiring Ku Waru as their first language between the ages of 1½ and 5. We show that, although there are differences among the children in the ages at which they acquire the various kinds of clause chain, all four of them follow the same series of steps in doing so. In conclusion, we compare our findings to Diessel’s for English. We find that they are similar in some ways and different in others, which may be related to the differences between subordinate constructions, coordinate non-dependent constructions and coordinate-dependent constructions.

Development of Clause Chaining in Korean.

Korean is a language with the verb at the end of a clause/sentence. In chaining several clauses [each consisting of a subject and a verb] in a sentence, a conjunction (e.g., -ko “and then,” -ese “because, and so”) is suffixed to the verb of a non-final clause. Korean has an extensive set of conjunctions that connect to the next clause, expressing temporal, causal, and contrastive relations among others. In this paper, I lay out a developmental trajectory of clause chaining construction in Korean based on longitudinal and cross-sectional data samples, focusing on conjunctive forms and functions as well as morphological and syntactic properties of connected clauses in a sentence. The database comes from longitudinal naturalistic speech data of five children collected regularly over different time periods between 2 and 5 years of age, and from elicited descriptions of short video events from children - aged 3, 4, 6, 8, and 10 years - and adults. The results show that, at least from 2 years of age, the Korean children in the sample start connecting clauses using appropriate conjunctions. Within 6 months, they acquire several major conjunctions that express temporal, causal, conditional, and contrastive relations between events. By 4 years of age, the children’s clause chains are quite adult-like in terms of the repertoire of conjunctive forms and functions, and of the morphological and syntactic features of the clauses that connect to the main clause. In particular they learn to express temporal relations that have some disjuncture between events. However, 4-year-olds still lack the ability to appropriately refer to differential subjects of the chained clauses and also to connect multiple clauses in a sentence. The elicitation data reveal that further development in clause chaining occurs over several years – with a milestone at 10 years – and through adulthood, particularly in relation to appropriate referential marking, conjunction frequency, and segmentation of a macro event into sub-events for clause-chaining construction. These developmental processes are presented from a cognitive perspective, in particular with regard to concept of temporal relation, reference specification involving two or more entities, and perceptual saliency of event type.

Clause Chaining and Discourse Continuity in Turkish Children's Narratives.

The present study examines the development of complex sentences with non-finite clause combining with particular focus on clause chaining, in narratives of 40 Turkish-speaking 4- to 11-year-olds and six adults elicited by a wordless picture book. Results show a gradual increase by age in the variety of clauses combined, the length of the complex sentences and their frequency of use. Clause chains formed with converbal clauses are the earliest and most frequent type of clause combinations, already present in 4-year-olds' complex sentences with 1-non-finite clause. Older children's and adults' 2- or 3-non-finite clause complex sentences consist of some combinations of adverbial, complement, relative and converbal clauses. Developmentally, clause chains establish first, aspectual-temporal continuity, then temporal-causal continuity. Sentence-internal and cross-sentence-boundary referential continuities are present early, from age 4 onwards. These findings are discussed in terms of the demands of narrative organization as well as the syntactic and semantic complexity of the clause combination devices in Turkish.

To Link or Not to Link: Clause Chaining in Japanese Narratives.

Japanese is a clause chaining language, in which a sentence is formed by linking two or more clauses in a series (chain), using different forms of the verb in “non-final” clauses within the chain from the “final” clauses that end the chain. Since the verb comes at the end of a clause in Japanese, speakers must decide by the time they reach the verb at end of one clause whether or not to connect it to the following clause. This study analyzes the narratives of Japanese children and adults with the dual goal of discovering why narrators decide either to link the clause they are producing to the following clause or not to link, i.e., to end the clause chain. Stories were elicited from 60 3- to 7-year-old children and 10 adults, who performed two tasks: (1) telling the story depicted in a hand-drawn cartoon, and (2) viewing a 7-min video and then recounting the plot from memory. The data were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. The qualitative analysis examines story length and prompting, length of clause chains, variety of linking connectives, semantic relations—such as simultaneity, temporal sequence, and causality—between clauses in chains, shifts of subject from one story character to another (switch-reference), and contexts in stories where narrators end clause chains. For the quantitative analysis, a multifactorial, mixed-effects model was fit to determine which of several potential predictors have a significant effect on the probability that narrators will link clauses. The model is significant, though weak in discriminatory power. Among the significant effects, simultaneous relations between events increase the probability that narrators will link clauses, while changing the subject referent and reaching the end of a narrative unit, e.g., an episode, increase the probability that narrators will end their clause chain. There are no significant age effects: the children respond in the same way to the predictors as the adults. The qualitative and quantitative results of the study are interpreted with respect to the close relation between grammar (clause chains) and discourse (narrative structure) as well as the cognitive process of producing clause chains during narration.

Acquisition and Development of Verb/Predicate Chaining in Hebrew.

The study considers development and use of verb/predicate chaining constructions by Hebrew speakers from early childhood to adolescence, based on analysis of authentic conversational and narrative corpora. Three types of constructions are analyzed, ordered hierarchically by degree of cohesivity and obligatoriness of chaining: (1) monoclausal complex predicates (the “extended predicates” of traditional Hebrew grammars); (2) coreferential interclausal predicate chaining; and (3) discursively motivated topic chaining. Relevant typological features of Modern Hebrew are reviewed as accounting for the absence of canonical clause chaining in the language (the paucity of non-finite constructions in everyday usage, absence of an uninflected basic form of verbs, lack of auxiliary verbs, and monolexemic verb-internal complexity). Monoclausal verb chaining emerges early in the speech of toddlers in interaction with their caretakers, whereas predicate chaining by coordination across clauses occurs only later, and chunking of such constructions at the service of discourse connectivity is found only from school-age. Non-finite subordination emerges as an advanced form of clause combining, in contrast to straightforward subordination with the multifunctional subordinator še ‘that’. Two main conclusions follow from the study: First, the innovative hierarchy defined here for different degrees of verb/predicate linkage mirrors developmental phases in child language; and, second, monoclausal chains of finite verbs or verbal operators followed by infinitival complements are grammatically obligatory, and are common from an early age, whereas bi- and multi-clausal predicate chaining represents an optional rhetorical choice on the part of a given speaker–writer in a particular communicative context.

The Narrative Past Inflection in Sesotho Child and Child-Directed Speech

This study investigates a low-frequency verbal inflection called the ‘narrative past’ in child and child-directed speech in the Bantu language Sesotho. Since the function of the Sesotho narrative past is not well-described, this study aimed to illuminate both function and acquisition trends in the Demuth Sesotho Corpus (Demuth, 1992). This construction has been assumed to be under-specified for tense, comparable in function to the better-known Swahili -ka- inflection. The Swahili form, in turn, has been said to function in ‘clause chains’ that are functionally and structurally similar to such chains in Papuan and other languages. We expected that if the Sesotho narrative past is indeed functionally similar to Swahili -ka-, its distribution in child-directed speech and acquisition by children may pattern similarly to tense-less verb forms in non-Bantu clause chaining languages such as the Papuan language Nungon, where such verb forms can comprise over 20% of all verb tokens in child-directed and child speech at age 3;3. This study thus examined the conversational interactions of four children acquiring Sesotho in a village setting, aged 2;1 to 4;7. All 492 tokens of the narrative past form were coded for syntactic and discourse categories. Results show that the Sesotho narrative past generally occurs in much ‘looser’ discourse chains than in the clause chains of languages like Nungon; for Sesotho, other turns or elements can intervene between narrative past-framed mentions of previously-introduced topics. Further, the Sesotho narrative past has very low frequency in both child and child-directed speech, representing less than 3% of all verb tokens for both registers. There is possible evidence that one of the target children uses the Sesotho narrative past in increasing proportions as his linguistic sophistication increases, though there is no proportional increase in child-directed speech. Thus, in function and distribution, in both child-directed and child speech, the Sesotho narrative past form differs greatly from tense-less forms in more canonical clause chaining languages.

Taube , Moshe The Logika of the Judaizers: A Fifteenth-Century Ruthenian Translation from Hebrew (review)

Slavonic and East European Review, 97, 2, 2019 Reviews Taube, Moshe. The Logika of the Judaizers: A Fifteenth-Century Ruthenian Translation from Hebrew. The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Jerusalem, 2016. 720 pp. Illustration. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Glossaries. Index. $115.00. The critical edition of the Book Called Logic prepared by Moshe Taube is a long-anticipated publication in this field of the literature of Judaizers. As the author writes in his Preface, the aim of this book was to provide the necessary ground for a discussion of two medieval Arabic philosophical texts that were translated from their medieval Hebrew translations into the language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the last quarter of the fifteenth century: (pseudo-?) Maimonides’ Logical Terminology and Al-Ghazālī’s Intentions of the Philosophers. Parts of these Ruthenian translations, which are called following Alexej Sobolevskij’s appellation, ‘the literature of the Judaizers’, were combined in the Muscovite Principality into a single text, entitled Logika, first mentioned by Archbishop Gennadij of Novgorod in his 1489 letter to Iosaf, former archbishop of Rostov. The book under review is structured in several parts, namely, the Preface followed by extensive references, the Introduction, the Logika of the Judaizers, consistingofSlavictexts,Hebrewtexts,Englishtranslationsandcommentaries. The edition of the Logika is capped with a glossary of English terms, a glossary of Hebrew terms and a Slavic concordantial index. This book also contains a Hebrew preface. Right at the outset of this review, I deem it necessary to point out that Taube’s critical edition of the Logika is a masterfully crafted book which has nevertheless some flaws as I will explain below. The Introduction features a most exhaustive survey of the corpus of translations from Hebrew into Ruthenian. The first group contains Hebrew works integrated at the beginning of the fifteenth century into Russian compilations. The second group includes works belonging to the second half of the fifteenth century, in particular the first two sections of Abū Hāmid Muhammad Al-Ghazālī’s Intentions of the Philosophers (Logic and Theology) and (pseudo-?) Mimonides’ Logical of the Sphere. According to Taube, the text of the Logika was translated by a learned Jew from the Ruthenian lands who dictated his literal rendering into a vernacular, heavily Polonized Ruthenian (pp. 50–51). The Slavic collaborator put it down in writing, occasionally correcting in accordance with the bookish, heavily Polonized ‘chancery language’ (pp. 50–51). Whence, perhaps, a very peculiar language whose analysis in the book takes only six pages, which is not enough for a critical edition of this calibre. According to the author, several of the phonological and morphological features reflected in the orthography of the text clearly REVIEWS 343 indicate the scribe’s “Belorussian” [! – A.D.] provenance (p. 51). With this in mind, the author confuses the t’ > c’ affrication in Belarusian with the results of phonetic assimilations in podvoicьsę ‘repeats itself’ (p. 51), describes ‘v/u fluctuation’ (better to name, alternation) as found in the following changes v, vъ > ou, ou > v, ou > vo, ou > vъ (p. 52), although only the first change is historically grounded; he also mentions the x/h confusion (p. 53), which reflects in fact an assimilation process rather than a shift as attested primarily in Transcarpathia under a Hungarian influence. The author also believes that cases of relative clauses without a relative pronoun but with an anaphoric pronoun represent a syntactic calque of the Arabic asyndetic relative clause (p. 54), though this pattern reflects one of the types of relative clause chaining in East Slavic. Clearly, the aforementioned features are misleading enough to posit the Belarusian provenance of the translations collated as an ‘eclectic edition’ and presented as a ‘reconstruction’ by the author (p. 130). Needless to say, the question of delimitation of Ukrainian and Belarusian texts is of utmost importance for a critical edition of the Ruthenian texts. Speaking about a possible Jewish motivation in the translation of the texts under consideration, Taube repeated his view first advanced in 2005 that learned Jews, such as Scharia, versed in scholarly and scientific literature, translated a variety of works of rationalist tenor for Slavs eager to gain access to such scholarly treasures; the Jews...

Adverbial clause combining in Latgalian

This paper investigates techniques of clause combining in spoken Latgalian, based on a corpus of 5 hours of recorded interviews with eleven speakers from different parts of Latgalia (Eastern Latvia). The study focuses on inter-clausal relations that are most typically expressed by adverbial clauses and in grammars of European languages are largely associated with adverbial subordinators such as English when, if, because, or although. In spoken Latgalian these relations are most often marked by a combination of lexical, grammatical and prosodic features. Patterns described in detail include asyndetic constructions with grammatical marking, clause chaining, clause combining with semantically vague or polysemous connectives, and correlative constructions. The study calls for a broad understanding of adverbial clause combining, without recourse to the problematic concept of subordination and without assuming the complex sentence as a syntactic or textual unit. Such an approach is needed to pay justice to the intricate structures of fluent speech.

On the Uzbek Converb Construction Starting with <em>olib</em>, its Reanalysis, and its Grammaticalisation

Converb constructions are widely used in Uzbek, as in many other Turkic languages. A less studied type of converb construction is the one which can be referred to as the Converb Construction of Motion (CCM). In this article, first, four groups of Uzbek CCMs are distinguished and it is argued that the CCMs starting with olib, the converb of the verb ol- (‘take’), constitute an important subgroup within the second group. It is further claimed that these olib CCMs are unique in that their first converb shows signs of grammaticalisation, accompanied by reanalysis. Based on data from a monolingual Uzbek corpus, a specific path is tracked down, leading through a number of syntactic levels from the use of the converb as a clause chaining device to its final univerbation with the following verb. It is demonstrated that the different levels of this process exhibit different morphosyntactic, prosodic and/or phonological behaviours. Reanalysis is especially apparent in the transition from a biclausal syntactic structure to a monoclausal structure, while the changes occurring in a set of parameters allow us to characterise the entire process as grammaticalisation.

Influence of Malayalam on temporal clauses in Malabar Indo-Portuguese

AbstractTemporal clauses with the subordinatorskandə(< Portuguesequando) andk(w)ain Malabar Indo-Portuguese creole (MIP) are used to express any kind of temporal relation between two clauses, typically sequence or simultaneity. These temporal clauses are ubiquitous in contexts in which Portuguese, the lexifier of MIP, could not employ temporalquandoclauses. In this paper, I show that the morphosyntax and semantics of temporal clauses withkandəandk(w)ain MIP differ from corresponding Portuguese strategies, and that these differences can be explained by the influence of Malayalam (Dravidian), the substrate and adstrate language of MIP. One of the most salient properties of Malayalam adverbial subordination present in MIP is clause chaining. I position this study within the debate on creole exceptionalism, and show that the South Asian typological profile of MIP can only be explained within the view that language ecology determines the typology of a creole (Ansaldo 2009).