Journal of South Asian Linguistics
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Classifying Bengali as Southeast Asian: An Analysis of Definiteness and Quantificational Approximateness in the DP
No full textBengali/Bangla is unusual among South Asian languages in that it uses numerical classifiers. In this paper, Ipropose a new analysis of the DP structure in Bengali motivated by data previously unaccounted for, as wellas typological concerns. Specifically, I propose that Bengali has DP-internal NP movement to Spec, DP tomark definiteness, that the numeral and classifier form separate heads in the syntax, and that there is nounto classifier movement when there is no overt classifier. I propose a feature for each of these phenomena, andattempt to explain the ungrammatical examples using principled reasons derived from the structure. Also, I givean analysis for the quantificationally approximate construction, in which the numeral and classifier appear onopposite sides of one another. I claim that the model presented in this paper can account for these constructions,and that the differences found between “classifier-compatible” nouns and “classifier-less” nouns with regard tothe quantificationally approximate structures follows naturally from my analysis
Mirativity in Kurtöp
Full text link The linguistic coding of information as being unexpected, is referred to as the ‘mirative’. Since DeLancey (1997) established mirativity as a cross-linguistic category its presence in languages of the world is growing. This is true also in languages of South Asia, perhaps most commonly amongst the Tibeto-Burman languages, but not exclusively. The aim in this article is to offer the first description of mirativity in Kurtöp, an under-described Tibeto-Burman language of Bhutan. As I show below, mirativity is encoded through unique suffixes and free forms which are also an integral part of the verbal paradigm in Kurtöp
The imperfective-perfective contrast in Middle Indo-Aryan
Full text linkThis paper examines the distribution of two morphological paradigms inherited from Old Indo-Aryan in Middle and New Indo-Aryan languages – the Old Indo-Aryan Present (labeled PRES) and the Past Participle (labeled PERF). It is argued that these forms, contra standard assumptions, do not realize the present and past tenses, but rather the imperfective and perfective aspects with no tense specification. This hypothesis provides an explanation for the puzzling occurrences of the Present and the Past Participial forms with past and future reference in Middle Indo-Aryan. It also makes sense of some distributional patterns of these paradigms in New Indo-Aryan. This, in turn, supports the idea that the Middle Indo-Aryan proto-system that gave rise to the New Indo-Aryan languages was an aspect-based system with no present-past distinction
Hindi and English Perfectives
Full text linkIt has been observed for several languages, including many South Asianlanguages, that some perfective forms do not entail completion of theevents they describe. We explore this phenomenon in the current study,contributing experimental and cross-linguistic perspectives. Wecompare perfective interpretations in Hindi, which has a perfectiveform that does not entail completion of its event, with perfectiveinterpretations in English, which does not have such a form. Using avariety of predicate types, we test the predictions of a semanticaccount of perfective interpretation, which predicts clear-cutdifferences between Hindi and English as well as clear patterns forcertain types of predicates, and a semantic account, which predicts amuch greater role for context as well as similar patterns acrosslanguages. Our results provide support for (a) the important ofcontext in perfective interpretation, and (b) considerable similarityin interpretation between Hindi and English. We hope the resultsindicate an important role for experimental investigation intosemantic phenomena
The role of clefting, word order and given-new ordering in sentence comprehension: Evidence from Hindi
Full text linkTwo Hindi eyetracking studies show that clefting a noun results in greater processing diculty initially, due to the extra processing steps involved in encoding a clefted noun (e.g., for computing the exhaustiveness interpretation). However, this extra diffculty in encoding a clefted noun results in a processing advantage when the clefted noun needs to be retrieved later on in the sentence { the clefted noun is retrieved faster in subsequent processing compared to its non-clefted counterpart. This effect is short-lived, however; it does not last beyond the current sentence. We also show that given-new ordering yields a processing advantage over new-given order, but this is only seen after the whole sentence is processed, i.e., it is a late effect that occurs after syntactic processing is completed. Finally, following up on work on German by Hornig et al. (2005), we present evidence that non-canonical order can be processed more easily than canonical order given appropriate context
First Phase Syntax of Persian Complex Predicates: Argument Structure and Telicity
Full text linkIn this paper, I propose an analysis of Persian complex predicates, based on the First Phase Verbal syntax developed by Ramchand (2008). I suggest that the light verbs lexicalize the subevent heads into which the verbal phrase is decomposed, while the preverbal element occupies the RHEME position and semantically unifies with the light verb to build one joint predication. Further, I propose a feature specification for some of the most productive light verbs. I argue that the light verb is responsible for the argument structure of the entire predicate (in line with Megerdoomian 2002b, and Folli et al 2005), while the aspectual properties of the complex predicate depend on the interaction between the preverb and the light verb.