Formal Approaches to South Asian Languages (E-Journal)
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Clausal Restructuring in the complex nominal: Evidence from participial LVCs in Kannada
Full text linkRestructuring of infinitival complements within complex VPs, or Verbal Restructuring, is a well-known cross-linguistic phenomenon. In contrast, there is a dearth of empirical evidence for restructured complements within complex NP/DPs, even though the theory posits equivalence between nominal and verbal domains. Here, we provide novel evidence for the presence of restructuring within complex NP/DP complements in Kannada light verb constructions, and claim on this basis that clausal restructuring within the nominal domain is a possibility in natural languages
Non-veridicality in Habitual Context: Analysing the role of complex predicates in NPI Licensing
Full text linkThis paper presents a semantic-pragmatic analysis of the habitual aspect as a licensing context for Negative Polarity Items (NPIs). Further, we analyse why complex predicates (V1 + V2) in the habitual aspect form a better licensing context for NPIs than simple predicates. Habitual aspect can license certain NPIs in languages, in spite of being a non-Downward Entailing environment. Giannakidou (2002) argued that Veridicality, instead of Downward-Entailment (DE), should be the primary condition to characterize licensing contexts for NPIs. This paper attempts to further Giannakidou\u27s (2002, 2011) argument by proposing a Stalnakerian approach (Stalnaker, 1978) to define habitual aspect as an Iterative Pluractional and prove how it is non-veridical. Further we explore how the semantic compositionality of complex predicates makes the habitual context a better licensor for NPIs
Phonetic Reduction Effects in Malayalam
Full text linkThe current study examines how lenition processes are affected by speech rate in Malayalam. Two native Malayalam speakers were asked to read the North Wind and Sun passage at three different speech rates, and singleton, intervocalic consonants were analyzed to see how the rate of speech impacted the surface forms observed. Additionally, the study looked at instances where the use of the enunciative vowel was optional, and how the choice to use it could be described by a function of speech rate. Speech rate was shown not to impact when and how consonant lenition occurred, but speech rate did influence the presence of the enunciative vowel, which was present more frequently in slower speech. Consonant lenition may be weakly influenced by a syllable’s location in the word, depending on the place of articulation. The presence of the enunciative vowel, in addition to being influenced by speech rate, may also be tied to intonational boundaries, which shift as speech rate increases
Optionality in Hindi Schwa Deletion: Interaction between weighted prosodic constraints
Full text linkThe Dravidian Correlative and the Disjunction Marker
Full text linkThe Dravidian correlative is formed with a wh-item containing clause that has the disjunction marker -oo at the clause edge. The disjunction marker -oo in Dravidian languages besides coordinating elements, also participates in forming indefinites, and questions. Given that the canonical semantics of correlatives (Dayal 1991, 1996) analyses them as definite descriptions, which bind the pronoun variable via predicate abstraction, the issue is what -oo is doing here, and how the semantic composition works.
This sketch towards a compositional derivation of the Dravidian correlative based on a question denotation proves that it is not only feasible but also quite advantageous -- we keep a unified semantics of -oo, the disjunction marker that also participates in forming indefinites, and questions, and derive a number of properties of the Dravidian correlative from the semantics of questions and answers. In the literature, the typology of correlatives has been proposed to have two syntactic parameters -- one, the kind of relative clause it originates from -- EHRC, IHRC, FR; and two, the kind of left dislocation involved -- HTLD, CLD, CLLD. We propose to add to this typology a third and semantic parameter, its denotation -- property or propositional (we locate this semantic parameter itself in the denotation of the wh-items of the language, their lexical semantic entry -- as sets of alternatives or as property free variables). We show that the Dravidian correlative is built out of a proposition-based denotation, Externally Headed Relative Clause, and Hanging Topic Left Dislocation
The syntax of Magahi addresse agreement
Full text linkThis paper analyzes addressee agreement, also known as allocutive agreement, in Magahi, an Eastern Indo-Aryan language. A leading idea in the literature is that addressee agreement is a realization of agreement of C with a syntactically expressed representation of an addressee “Hr-DP” in the speech act phrase. Magahi is significantly different from other allocutive languages. Magahi addressee agreement is associated with finiteness. It can occur in all sorts of finite clauses regardless of whether they are main clauses or embedded. I propose that Hr-DP that undergoes Add-Agr in Magahi is relatively low in the clause structure. It is a coordinate of FinP in Rizzi’s cartographic structure. This contrasts with the standard view where Hr-DP is a coordinate of speech act projection or context phrase, the highest projection of a clause found primarily in root clauses. I also claim that the functional head associated with Magahi addressee agreement is low in the clause—the ‘Fin’ head—hence below the canonical C head
Fortition in Marked on Marked Contexts: Velar Stopping in Sylheti
Full text linkThis paper presents a harmonic grammar analysis of the alternation of the velar voiceless fricative /x/ and the corresponding stop /k/ in the environment of high vowels /i/ and /u/ in Sylheti. This process occurs in several different environments: tautosyllabically [CVC], heterosyllabically [CV.C,] and the geminate [VC.CV]. I argue that the fricative undergoes fortition to a stop only when sonority requirements (*M1) become apparent in marked contexts (such as in the geminate condition (*M2), or in conjunction with *fricative and *dorsal) leading to fortition in special environments where constraints “gang up”, i.e., when the cumulative weight of markedness constraints outweigh the weight of the faithfulness constraints
Palatalization and velarization in Malayalam nasals: A preliminary acoustic study of the dental-alveolar contrast
Full text linkThe current study builds upon the literature on secondary articulations in Malayalam liquids to investigate whether another set of sonorants, i.e. the nasals, also involve palatalization, velarization, or varying configurations of the tongue root. Specifically, the current study focuses on the anterior nasals, i.e. dental n vs. alveolar ? a marginal contrast which has not been examined phonetically for secondary articulations. What is known about these two nasals is that they stem from different historical sources, they contrast in precise place of articulation, and they have been described impressionistically as distinguishable by velarization on the dental n and palatalization on the alveolar ?, although no phonetic evidence has ever been provided to support either claim. Preliminary acoustic results from a single speaker in the current study suggest that these claims are in fact borne out: back vowels are generally fronted when adjacent to geminate alveolar ??, compared to those adjacent to geminate dental nn. This suggests palatalization on the former and/or velarization on the latter, in line with the acoustic results for liquids in previous studies. These acoustic results thus suggest that Malayalam speakers can use secondary articulations to exaggerate the differences between otherwise very similar nasals, in the same ways that they use those articulations to distinguish the “clear” and “dark” classes of liquids
Adnominal Distributive Numerals in Bangla
Full text linkThis paper provides an introduction to the adnominal distributive numerals in Bangla and their interpretations. Discussing the licensing conditions of the adnominal distributive numerals, the paper classi?es them with distributive items that require overt or covert, syntactically c-commanding clause-mate pluralities as their antecedents. The paper also shows that the Bangla distributive numerals can distribute over contextually salient non-atomic covers of plurals
The Quotative Complementizer Says “I’m too Baroque for that”
Full text linkWe build a composite picture of the quotative complementizer (QC) in Dravidian by examining its role in various left-peripheral phenomena – agreement shift, embedded questions; and its particular manifestation in various constructions like noun complement clauses, manner adverbials, rationale clauses, with naming verbs, small clauses, and non-finite embedding, among others. The QC we conclude is instantiated at the very edge of the clause it subordinates, outside the usual left periphery, comes with its own entourage of projections, and is the light verb say which does not extend its projection. It adjoins to the matrix spine at various heights (at the vP level it gets a theta-role, and thus argument properties) when it does extend its projection, and like a verb selects clauses of various sizes (CP, TP, small clause). We take the Telugu QC ani as illustrative, being more transparent in form to function mapping, but draw from the the QC properties of Malayalam, Kannada, Bangla, and Meiteilon too