Preverbal Marker Research Articles

NEGATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN THE HISTORY OF GERMAN: THE CASE OF MULTIPLE NEGATION

This paper discusses the evolutionary path of sentence negation development in the history of the German language. The peculiarities of means of multiple negation realization in the studied periods of the language development have been analyzed, taking into account changes in the paradigm of negative markers of Old, Middle, and Early New High German. In terms of polynegation, the attention has been focused on the negative concord, accompanied by a preverbal marker and an additional negative adverb or pronoun. It has been found that the implementation of the negative concord involves a single semantic core of negation. The reasons for the transition from double to single negation in the appropriate period of the German language development have been highlighted. The study of the mechanisms of grammaticalization made it possible to trace the development of negative grammatical constructions, namely the loss of syntactic independence and morphological diversity of elements in the syntactic paradigm. The gradual nature of sentence negation has been presented according to Jespersen's cycle, which reflects the weakening of the mononegative proclitic with its subsequent strengthening with the help of an additional negative pronoun, and, as a result, the return to the mononegative model in which the second negative element was implemented. A particular attention has been paid to the phenomenon of grammatical redundancy and its manifestations in the transformation of the negative model in diachrony. In linguistic studies, grammatical redundancy is characterized as a property or language behavior when the same function is realized by two or more means. The gradual elimination of the additional negative element contributed to the isolation of the mononegative model inherited by Modern German. It has been also shown that structural changes in negative sentences are closely related to a relatively free or limited word order.

Do Creoles conform to typological patterns? Habitual marking in Palenquero

AbstractIt is widely debated whether creole languages form a typological class; however, crosslinguistic generalizations from functional typology are seldom tested in creoles. Typological studies report a strong crosslinguistic tendency for asymmetries in habitual grammatical expressions across the present and past temporal reference domains (Bybee, 1994:245–8; Bybee, Perkins, & Pagliuca, 1994:151–60). This study analyzes two linguistic variants, preverbal asé and zero, which compete for habitual marking in Palenquero Creole (Colombia). I ask here: To what degree does the linguistic patterning of these forms conform to the crosslinguistic tendency? Results show that, despite Palenquero having widely cited creole features (e.g., preverbal markers and bare verb stems), the asymmetrical expression, distribution, and relative ordering of forms in the variable contexts closely align with crosslinguistic predictions for habituals, thus giving convincing evidence of typological markedness and not a Creole Prototype.

Reinforcement of Grammatical Structures through Explicit Instruction in Palenquero Creole: A Pilot Study

The Afro-Hispanic creole, Palenquero, has been spoken (together with Spanish) in the village of San Basilio de Palenque, Colombia, for centuries. Until recently, Palenquero was endangered due to prejudice, but language revitalization efforts are underway, and younger speakers are learning Palenquero, but with little reinforcement out of school. The school instruction involves no grammatical explanations, almost no student production, or critical feedback. Adult speakers usually do not address younger speakers in Palenquero, thus leaving school-acquired forms suspended without reinforcement. This represents a unique scenario of heritage acquisition of a language with no bidirectional communication between younger and adult speakers. The present study focuses on the use of preverbal particles and prenominal plural marker by heritage speakers of Palenquero before and after explicit instruction. Communication activities explicitly presented the prenominal plural ma and preverbal particles, such as zero morpheme (simple present), asé (habitual), ta (progressive), a (perfective/simple past) and tan (future). Participants performed better at the post-test and results suggest that explicit explanation of grammatical rules, practice, repetition, and corrective feedback improved the usage of ma and tan. This result lines up with previous studies that posit the amount of time and exposure that learners need in order to acquire complex morphology.

Von Negation zu Domänensubtraktion

Abstract Middle Low German (MLG) underwent Jespersen’s Cycle, a change in the expression of sentential negation, whereby a preverbal marker ni (stage I) was adjoined by an adverbial niht (stage II) in the transition towards MLG, and was eventually replaced by it (stage III). In this article, I argue that the single preverbal particle ne/en in MLG became a marker of negation which is located syntactically higher, i. e. above the clause boundary, than the clause in which ne/en appears. This analysis is based on a corpus study investigating MLG exceptive clauses (English unless-clauses). Both on semantic and syntactic grounds, it is shown that these clauses can be explained as being complements of an operator that subtracts the proposition in the exceptive clause from the modal domain of a universal quantifier.

Progressive forms and meanings: the curious case of Capeverdean

The progressive may be described as a periphrastic construction (auxiliary + non-finite verb; for instance, in English: be + V-ing) which denotes an ongoing situation at a given time, be it an instant or an interval. This general picture, however, has faced two descriptive challenges: (i) those same forms may also appear associated with other temporal readings; (ii) the progressive meaning may also be obtained through other grammatical forms. The current paper approaches these apparent mismatches from the perspective of two varieties of Capeverdean, whose arrangements between forms and meanings of the progressive may provide a crucial insight to this cross-linguistic puzzle. The description and discussion of novel data support the two steps in a brand-new proposal for this Portuguese-based Creole: (a) the superficially different morphemes that mark the progressive have a unique diachronic path, involving the preverbal marker ta and a complete progressive cycle; (b) if we frame the temporal meaning of the progressive somewhat differently, considering the existence, under specific pragmatic conditions, of a precursory stage, at least one of the mentioned mismatches will be resolved. An additional contribution of the current discussion concerns the expression of time reference in natural language, namely that past, present or future meanings do not necessarily depend on dedicated tense morphemes

Divergence in heritage Ambon Malay in the Netherlands: The role of social-psychological factors

Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions: This article examines the role of social-psychological factors in the development of heritage Ambon Malay in the Netherlands. More specifically, it aims to answer this question: Can social-psychological factors account for the different frequency of Dutch-like structures among heritage speakers? Design/Methodology/Approach: Data from 32 Ambon Malay heritage speakers and 27 Ambon Malay homeland speakers were collected by means of video stimuli and a sociolinguistic interview. Data and Analysis: The database provides six linguistic variables and three social-psychological factors. The linguistic variables are as follows: the pre-verbal marker ada; the definite marker = nya; the double object construction; the prepositional phrase and adjectival phrase in resultative constructions; the pre-nominal order for the demonstrative itu and the numeral satu ‘one’. The social-psychological factors are where the speaker lives, onset of Dutch bilingualism and attitude. The effect of the social-psychological factors on the linguistic variables was assessed using a multivariate general linear model. Findings/Conclusions: The results show that place where the speaker lives is the best predictor. Heritage speakers living outside a Moluccan ward have a higher rate of Dutch-like features than speakers living inside a Moluccan ward. In some cases, sequential bilinguals are more innovative than simultaneous bilinguals. Finally, speakers with only a mild positive attitude towards the heritage language have a higher rate of Dutch-like features. Originality: Unlike previous studies, this article does not test the role of social-psychological factors against self-ratings of heritage language proficiency, but it uses real language data. Significance/Implications: The theoretical significance of this study is to bridge the gap between the sphere of language structure and the sphere of language use and language attitude. An additional value lies in its findings that frequent use of the heritage language means not only a higher rate of maintenance but also accelerated change.

Cycles of negation in Rangi and Mbugwe

The Tanzanian Bantu languages Rangi and Mbugwe both employ a double negation marking strategy. In Rangi, verbal negation is achieved through the presence of a pre-verbal negative marker and a negative marker which appears either post-verbally or in a clause-final position. In Mbugwe, negation is indicated by a prefix that appears on the verb form and an optional post- verbal negative marker. This paper presents a descriptive account of negation in these two closely related languages, as well as exploring possible origins and grammaticalisation pathways involved in the development of the respective negation strategies in each instance. We propose that negation in these two languages shows evidence of the stages of Jespersen’s cycle: with what started out as a single marker of negation giving way to a bipartite negation strategy. We present data exemplifying negation in the two languages, contributing to the discussion of the development of negation in Bantu and the applicability of Jespersen’s cycle in the language family, as well as highlighting the possible role played by language contact in the development of negation in these languages.

Morphophonology of Mengrelian Preverbal Markers and Structure of PF

The paper examines the preverbal markers in Mengrelian as the possible loci of post-syntactic phonological rules that affect the allomorphy of these preverbs. The goal of the paper is to pinpoint the series of these rules and the extent to which the final form of the derived material changes as a result of their application. The phonological rules are examined in light of cyclic and post-cyclic processes that have different local domains of application such as nested constituents for the former and entire words for the latter (Halle & Nevins, 2009). It is shown that that phonological rules may obscure the derivation of surface forms from underlying representations and that the meaning of preverbal markers may not be kept as a result of these changes. The paper concludes that the derivational view of morphology such as Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz, 1993) should be modified to accommodate these data. Keywords : cyclic, post-cyclic, phonological rule, preverb, PF

Sentential Negative Markers as Pro-Forms of Negative Sentences in Modern Mongolian

Negation in modern Mongolian was analyzed by scholars namely : Luvsanvandan Sh (1968, 2000), Wonsoo Yu (1991), Monkh-Amgalan Yu (1998), Purev-Ochir B. (1998, 2001), Byambasan P. (2006), Kunihiko Hasimoto (2008), Bat-Ireedui J.(2009), Ravdan E. (2009), Monkh-Amgalan Yu & Kan Shin (2014). Sentential negation in modern Mongolian is not sufficiently studied in sentential and discourse level s . The tendency of modern linguistic requires us to conduct more comprehensive and deeper research than previous scholars did. Our research is considered to be the first intended research on negation in modern Mongolian, because it is one part of Ph.D dissertation on negative meaning of modern Mongolian. There are two forms of sentential negation s in modern Mongolian language, namely: explicit and implicit. Explicit negation is expressed by negative markers, but implicit negation is expressed by form s without negative markers, positive form s , intonation s , structure s with interrogative word s and phrase s . Negative markers have preverbal and postverbal positions in sentences. Preverbal negative markers are all particles ( buu, bitgij, ul, es, alga) and have SONegV sentential type, but postverbal negative markers are particles ( uguj , bis, bus ) and negative grammatical morphemes (- guj, -udzaj 2 , -lguj, -ltguj, -mguj, -sguj ) which have SOVNeg type. Particles, which are used as preverbal and postverbal negative markers in modern Mongolian, have more specific features than negative markers in other languages. Their unique features are to be used not only as negative markers in negative sentences, but also to substitute for verb phrases in c-command and sentences in the discourse level. This paper aims to consider how sentential negative markers in modern Mongolian are used as pro-forms of negative sentences. Keywords: modern Mongolian, preverbal, postverbal, negative marker, pro-verb, pro-clause, pro-sentence

Reanalysis of negatives as polarity markers? The last 400 years of decline of the French preverbal negative clitic

Typically, the evolution of negation involves an intermediate stage where a post-verbal negator doubles a preverbal marker. The decline of the preverbal marker is generally understood as a form of weakening, through mechanisms that remain rather vague in the literature. A precise hypothesis is proposed by Anne Breitbarth in her analysis of the negative cycle in Germanic (2009). She claims that the acquisition of negative status by the post-verbal item causes the preverbal item to become a polarity marker. The marker should therefore increasingly display a preponderance of uses in non-negative environments. Whether the predictions made by this dual reanalysis hypothesis are supported by the history of French negation is assessed in this paper. Data from 17th and 18th century vernacular French texts (Textes français privés des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles), as well as from the contemporary vernacular (Corpus de français parlé parisien des années 2000), show that the French preverbal negative contradicts the predictions of the dual reanalysis hypothesis in being increasingly used in negative environments. The causes of the decline of the preverbal negative in French are proposed to relate to its membership of a clitic cluster that is susceptible to phonological reductions.

The evolution of negation in French and Italian: Similarities and differences

This article examines similarities and differences in the evolution of both standard clause negation and n-word negation in French and Italian. The two languages differ saliently in the extent to which standard negation features postverbal markers. We suggest that a convergence of phonetic, prosodic, morphosyntactic, and pragmatic changes in the evolution of French may explain why the grammaticalization of the postverbal marker is significantly more advanced in that language. Two types of n-word negation must be considered: (i) those where the n-word occurs postverbally, and (ii) those where an n-word is positioned preverbally. In the former type, French allows deletion of the preverbal marker, whereas Italian does so to a much lesser extent. In the second type, French allows (indeed, normatively demands) insertion of a second preverbal negative marker, whereas Italian does not. We suggest that this is attributable to the respective positive vs negative etymologies of the n-words. In type (i) constructions, this etymological difference appears to make Italian a negative-concord language from the outset. In contrast, negative concord in Modern French has, to a large extent, developed gradually out of what was originally a reinforcement of standard negation by positive items with scalar properties. Our analysis suggests that the pace and form of grammaticalization cannot be attributed to any single cause, but is rather the result of a confluence of formal and functional factors.

‘Go’ on a rare grammaticalisation path to focus

In the Bantu language Shangaci there are four pairs of tenses, simple and complex, which express the same time reference. The complex tenses contain a preverbal marker which is derived from the verb entta go . We examine the meaning that entt contributes and show that it cannot be a progressive aspect marker. Instead, the complex tenses appear to express verb focus.

Double-headed negation in Santome

Santome, a Portuguese-related creole spoken on the island of São Tomé in the Gulf of Guinea, exhibits a standard discontinuous sentence negation pattern consisting of a preverbal marker (Neg1) and a VP-final marker (Neg2). It will be shown (i) that both markers are heads of independent NegPs and (ii) that the VP-final marker is sensitive to the distinction between arguments and adjuncts and, within the latter, peripheral and non-peripheral adjuncts. I will challenge previous analyses of languages that exhibit bipartite negation for which it is claimed that Neg2 projects higher in the structure than Neg1 by proposing that Neg2 heads a NegP that sits lower in the structure than the NegP hosting the preverbal marker.

Subject Agreement in Marovo: Diachronic Explanations of Synchronic Conditions

In many Oceanic languages, subject arguments are indexed by preverbal markers within the verb complex. In Marovo, an Oceanic language of the Solomon Islands, such subject markers show unusual synchronic behavior, in that their presence is conditioned by both morphosyntactic and pragmatic characteristics of the clause. Thus, in Marovo preverbal subject markers occur obligatorily with certain clause-initial discourse connective particles and with the negative particle. Subject markers also occur outside of these morphosyntactic environments, where their use contrasts with that of other expressions of the subject argument, including lexical or pronominal noun phrases or the lack of overt expression. Within this context of subject expression more generally, the occurrence of Marovo subject markers can be seen to be determined by the discourse role of the subject argument. It is argued here, through comparison of Marovo subject marking with that in closely related languages, that these synchronic condition shave diachronic explanations.

Barbudan Creole English

This article presents some of the core grammatical features of Barbudan Creole English, an Anglophone language that has never been described in the linguistics or creolistics literature. It begins with a historical presentation of Barbuda within the British colonial world, discussing the island’s unusual social configuration regarding the use of African slaves and its role in producing goods for plantations in nearby Antigua. The grammatical presentation focuses on the preverbal markers as well as other features and provides some comparative data mostly between Antiguan Creole English and Barbudan.

Habitual and imperfective in Guyanese Creole

This paper describes variation in the grammar of aspect in Guyanese Creole. In particular, the various grammaticalized strategies for conveying ha-bituality, progressivity and imperfectivity are discussed. The paper contributes to an ongoing debate regarding the function of various preverbal markers and their interrelationships (see Bickerton, 1975; Edwards, 1984; Gibson, 1988; Ja-ganauth, 1994; Rickford, 1987; Winford, 1993a). Choice of preverbal marker is shown to be strongly conditioned by the stativity of the predicate (in the case of habituals). Drawing on the insights of Weinreich (1953), it is suggested that partial congruence between relatively independent grammatical systems encourages recurrent interlingual identifications.

African American English: A Linguistic Introduction

African American English: A Linguistic Introduction by Lisa J. Green. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, xii+285 pp. Reviewed by Jevon D. Hunter University of California, Los Angeles With a heartfelt analysis that encourages readers to re-examine their ideas Lisa Green presents a provocative discussion in her recent about language education glish: in general, of African American English (AAE) book, African American En- that A Linguistic Introduction. In this book, Green effectively argues AAE is it both systematic and rule-governed rather than a system of isolated features that historically have been characterized as bad English. Throughout the book be- comes quite clear that the author aligns herself with those researchers who advo- cate a level of legitimacy for AAE as a linguistic system. Green's approach suc- (i.e., cessfully blends the theoretical rigors of academia sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, lan- and historical emergence) with the pragmatic concerns of (i.e., guage education use). language acquisition, language assessment, and language Her end result is a text that argues for a re-thinking of teaching and learning methodologies to challenge current pedagogical approaches to language educa- tion. Therefore, the book is appropriate not only for courses that deal with lan- in teacher guage development, but also for students an interest in literacy. education programs who have Green's chapter breakdown demonstrates well the blending of theory and practice. Chapters through 4, for example, involve a discussion of the theoretical foundations of AAE study. Chapter One, Lexicons and Meaning, focuses on the lexicon and semantics of AAE, affording the author an opportunity to discuss as a system of different AAE is word selection and meaning. Green contends its that AAE lexicon from other English lexicons because of reliance on verbal markers as indicators of how a particular event or action occurs. Her distinction offers a con- venient segue into Chapter Two, Syntax Part Verbal Markers in AAE, which addresses the usage of verbal markers within AAE syntax. It is in this chapter that (e.g., Green provides a detailed discussion of auxiliary verbs markers (i.e., have, be, do), aspectual meaning that informs occurrence), and preverbal markers {e.g.,finna, steady, and come). Chapter Three, Syntax Part 2: Syntactic and Morphosyntactic Properties in AAE it and Chapter Four, Phonology of AAE, conclude Green's this point structural analysis of AAE. Green's analyses up to challenge critics of four AAE who view as an improper, ungrammatical language whose speakers sound, first generally speaking, inarticulate and unintelligent. Thus, by the end of the Issues in Applied Linguistics ISSN 1050-4273 Vol. 13 No. © 2002, Regents of the University of California

Between perfect and perfective. The meaning and function of Ambonese Malay su and suda

The case of the Ambonese Malay pre-verbal marker su provides a good illus tration of how tense, modality, and aspect (TMA) features interact in this lan guage.1 These features are connected with a function of su on a higher dis course level, namely creating textual coherence in multi-clause sentences. Furthermore, since the pre-verbal marker su is synchronically and diachron ically related to the sentence-final particle suda, the said TMA and discourse features combine with pragmatic features to express subjective, speaker-ori ented values. Stressing the basic interconnectedness of these features and functions, we will show that su is definable in terms of the perfect and per fective aspect as defined in the linguistic literature, while suda is best charac terized as an illocutionary particle expressing a kind of decisiveness. If su and suda were unique to Ambonese Malay, the relevance of a feature analysis of these elements would be rather limited. However, there are cog

Creole Genesis and the Acquisition of Grammar: The Case of Haitian Creole

Preface List of abbreviations 1. The problem of creole genesis and linguistic theory 2. Cognitive processes involved in creole genesis 3. The research methodology 4. Functional category lexical entries involved in nominal structure 5. The preverbal markers encoding relative tense, mood and aspect 6. Pronouns 7. Functional category lexical entries involved in the structure of the clause 8. The determiner and the structure of the clause 9. The syntactic properties of verbs 10. Are derivational affixes relexified? 11. The concatenation of words in compounds 12. Parameters 13. Evaluation of the hypothesis 14. Theoretical consequences Appendices Notes References Indexes.

The Configuration of Liberia’s Englishes

‘Liberian English,’ the non‐standard English‐lexifier speech of Liberia, can be divided into three varieties: Kru Pidgin English, spoken by Kru mariners and migrant workers; Settler English, spoken by descendants of nineteenth‐century African American immigrants to Liberia; and Vernacular Liberian English, spoken by the rest of Liberia’s English‐speaking population. An examination of 21 speakers of putatively basilectal and lower‐mesolectual Vernacular Liberian English (VLE) sets out the basis for the assertion that VLE comprises a single continuum, but the examination also introduces complications: five lects are proposed to cover the treatment of past‐tense aspect for these speakers, but the relationship of one lect to another is not always fluid; moreover, still with regard to tense‐aspect, two speakers of the 21 seem to fall outside the continuum entirely. Tense‐aspect in VLE is different from tense‐aspect in other Atlantic pidgins/creoles. Those varieties are aspect‐prominent, but VLE is highly tense‐sensitive, ordinarily merging tense with aspect. The cornerstone of VLE’s treatment of past‐tense aspect is the preverbal marker wa, used most basilectally as the primary marker of all types of past‐tense aspect (including statives) and used all the way along the continuum to mark statives.