Formal Approaches to South Asian Languages (E-Journal)
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It’s about time!: Relating structure, the brain, and comparative syntax
Full text linkStudying language in the brain is hard. We’ve identified a left-lateralized ‘language network’ that supports language comprehension across languages, individuals, and ages. However, it\u27s proven difficult to relate the parts of this language network to spe-cific representations or computations. Why is it so hard to get better insight into the functions of the pieces of the language network? One reason is that careful, cross-lin-guistic comparison across languages is still in its infancy in neurolinguistics. Another reason is that our theories of language comprehension are largely informed by results from serial, slow, word-by-word reading tasks. To understand how the brain processes and represents grammatical knowledge, we need to carefully vary and contrast lan-guages and modalities – our theories of language should not be over-fit to one language or one kind of task. Here, I show how different reading paradigms in Bengali (Bangla), Hindi/Urdu, Nepali, and English can refine our understanding of the brain bases of language
Borrowing and disappearance of light verbs: Loan-verb integration in Indian languages
Full text linkIn this paper, I discuss patterns of loan-verb integration attested in Indian languages and show that certain English verbal borrowings in languages like Hindi and Marathi can either be accommodated into the host language using a supporting light verb or be directly integrated to carry the host language’s verb morphology without needing to undergo any means of verbalization. I argue that syntactic analyses which assume the existence of a common (or identical) verbal functional structure between the donor and recipient (or host) languages to be a prerequisite for direct integration of loan verbs fail to adequately explain this optionality of direct integration. Instead, I show that it is the degree of bilingualism of speakers which makes direct integration of loan verbs into the target language possible; and propose that verbal borrowings are borrowed with an understanding that they are verbs – irrespective of whether they are accommodated using a light verb construction or not
On the interaction of aspect and ability in two Hindi/Urdu constructions
Full text linkComplex predicates with the Hindi/Urdu light verb le (‘take’) show an unexpected pattern of interpretation in composition with grammatical aspect. Perfective le has a completive meaning (Singh 1990), but a dispositional (modal) interpretation arises in the imperfective (Butt 1997). This paper pursues a unified analysis of le: I compare le predicates to uses of the English implicative manage, and its aspectual alternation to the actuality entailments of the Hindi/Urdu ability modal sak (Bhatt 1999). The account builds on prior work (Nadathur 2023a,b) to argue that all three predicates share reference to a complex causal structure, predicting the observed patterns of interpretation in combination with the contrastive semantics of (im)perfective aspects
Malayalam long-distance anaphor taan: a null theory
Full text linkThe Dravidian languages, Malayalam included, have a third-person pro-form taan, with a surprising locality profile. Like pronouns, taan cannot be bound locally; like reflexives, it seems to require a sentence-internal antecedent. Nearly three decades years ago, Jayaseelan (1997) argued that Malayalam taan is a Condition B-obeying pronoun, but this analysis has since fallen out of favor. A prominent alternative instead treats taan as a reflexive, bound by a silent pronoun instantiating a syntactically-represented perspectival center (Jayaseelan 1998 for Malayalam; Sundaresan 2012, Sundaresan 2018 for Tamil). In this paper, I will reexamine the syntactic and interpretive profile of taan and argue that the evidence favors the ‘taan-as-pronoun’ analysis. Minor amendments to taan’s semantics — specifically, encoding its perspective-sensitivity as a presupposition — capture much of its distribution
Verb Root Allomorphy in Indo-Aryan Languages
Full text linkThis paper aims to theoretically describe the phonological basis for the systematic verb root allomorphy seen in some of the Indo-Aryan languages. To highlight the similarities and differences in allomorphy patterns, three languages, Bangla, Hindi and Odia have been compared. The paper proposes that these languages typologically choose to achieve Paradigm Uniformity (Steriade 2000) within the verbal paradigm by introducing additional phonological processes, rather than by blocking the phonological processes active in the rest of the language
Four Puzzles and Affixal N in Hindi
Full text linkFour puzzles in Hindi morphosyntax are “default agreement,” an “oblique stem,” suppletion in the nominative plural, and number-case synthesis. These phenomena are not unrelated. I analyze T’s ?-features as nominal category features: N (the so-called “gender ?-feature(s)”), Num, and D, or Person. The default value -aa of the categorial feature N (“Affixal N,” “N-stem”) is reflexively overt in Hindi. “Default agreement,” which surfaces in the absence of Agree, is this affixal N at T. Taking Case as a categorial feature, I argue that the nominative case feature is minimally [N-on-T]. N surfacing as -aa on T without Agree, an -aa-marked subject noun must check [N-on-T] by “reverse” Agree to get nominative case; N-aa becomes a “nominative stem” (N-ee is the ‘elsewhere’ stem). The Hindi Number suffixes are “portmanteaux,” not “syncretic.” NUM is a nasal feature spelt out on a structural Case feature: on [N-on-T] (spelt out aa) in the nominative, and elsewhere, on [V], the accusative case-feature common to all oblique cases (spelt out -oo). This explains the various plural suffix-shapes, and why plural agreement on V manifests as just a [nasal] feature (as NUM has no vowel -aa prior to nominative case assignment, the vowel in the NOM PL suffix -a?a? is absent in agreement). The form expected as the NOM.M.PL noun is *N-aa-a?a?. This form suffers spell-out failure, and suppletion occurs. This analysis of Hindi Number and Case explains the near-universal silence of nominative case as a ‘direct’ or self-licensing case that manifests only in “?-agreement” at T
Verbalization as Re-categorization of Lexical Categories in Santali
Full text linkA well-known lexicon-syntax debate in the generative tradition concerns whether word formation occurs in the lexicon or in syntax (Bruening, 2018; Embick & Noyer, 2007). This paper builds on the idea of word formation/ categorization as a syntactic process, focusing on verbalization. In the literature that takes categorization as a syntactic process, verbalization is considered either idiosyncratic or compositional (Arad, 2003). Typological literature (Rijkhoff & van Lier, 2013; Peterson, 2011, 2010; Rau, 2013) indicates that Austro- Asiatic (AA) languages such as Santali and Kharia possess flexible verbal categorization, where a root x can behave like both a noun (N) and a verb (V), defying the N-V distinction that is found in most languages. However, I show empirical support from Santali, an AA language spoken in the Indian states of Odisha and Jharkhand, to argue that verbal categorization is a compositional syntactic process in Santali, where any root must go through a categorization process forming an N or adjective (A) before getting verbalized.
Santali displays high semantic transparency in verbalization, where the verbalized items have a predictable meaning of an N or A. This paper analyzes Santali fluid verbalization and compares it with the kinds of verbalization seen in English. It also questions how re-categorization (verbalization of lexical categories, not roots) incurs a predictable meaning in the verbalized structures and which head of the structure takes care of the semantic transparency or compositionality in Santali
Modal Debris: Threefold Ambiguities between Permission, Weak Necessity, & Strong Necessity in Bengali
Full text linkIn this paper, I explore the possibility of X-marking (in the sense of von Fintel & Iatridou 2023) used in weak necessity modals being null. I argue that this is exactly what seems to be the case in a hitherto undiscussed phenomenon in Bengali, in which the modal that’s canonically described as the strong necessity modal of the language shows a systematic ambiguity between strong and weak necessity in upward entailing environments, and between strong necessity and permission in non-upward-entailing environments. The behavior in upward entailing contexts can be understood if X-marking (that is known to turn strong necessity modals into weak necessity ones) can have null exponence, and the behavior in non-upward-entailing contexts can be explained if Staniszewski’s (2022) account of weak necessity and X-marking is espoused, which involves strengthening an underlyingly existential meaning into a universal one. Crucially, the QR approach to neg-raising in weak necessity modals fails to explain the facts. I also address an independent problem of alternatives faced by Staniszewski’s account and propose a solution for that
Familiar Definite Marking in Magahi
Full text linkThis paper investigates the nominal suffix -waa in Magahi, an Eastern Indo-Aryan language. Existing accounts of -waa vary from analyzing it semantically in terms of familiarity and non-honorificity (Alok 2022), diminutivity (Atreya & Sinha 2020), or definiteness (Kumar 2020) and syntactically in terms of whether it projects a head in the nominal spine (Kumar 2020) or not (Alok 2012, 2022). I argue that -waa is a familiar definite marker, similar to the German strong article (Schwarz 2009) and Akan familiar article (Arkoh & Matthewson 2013), with additional presuppositions of non-uniqueness (Owusu 2022) and non-honorificity. Additionally, I argue that -waa can either be generated as the definite allomorph of the general classifier (Kumar 2020) and undergo CLF to D movement, or be be base generated in D (Simpson 2005)
An Agree-based Analysis of Nominal Agreement: Evidence from Hindi-Urdu
Full text linkThere are two different ways of understanding DP-internal agreement: Either as a result of an independent feature sharing mechanism, or as a consequence of the same Agree-based mechanism that explains verbal agreement. This paper makes an empirical argument in favour of an Agree-based account of nominal agreement: the operation Agree explains the diverse empirical facts found in nominal agreement, and it is sensitive to the structure of the various modificational relations that exist within the DP. The empirical domain is provided by Hindi-Urdu where adjectives and possession indicating morphemes agree with the head noun of the DP. By exploring these agreement relations in detail, this paper presents a case for analysing nominal agreement as arising out of Agree - the same operation that is understood to underlie verbal agreement