Relativization

Cuwabo (Bantu P34, Mozambique) illustrates a relativization strategy, also attested in some NorthWestern and Central Bantu languages, whose most salient characteristics are that: (a) the initial agreement slot of the verb form does not express agreement with the subject (as in independent clauses), but agreement with the head noun; (b) the initial agreement slot of the verb form does not express agreement in person and number-gender (or class), but only in number-gender; (c) when a noun phrase other than the subject is relativized, the noun phrase encoded as the subject in the corresponding independent clause occurs in post-verbal position and does not control any agreement mechanism. In this article, we show that, in spite of the similarity between the relative verb forms of Cuwabo and the corresponding independent verb forms, and the impossibility of isolating a morphological element analyzable as a participial formative, the relative verb forms of Cuwabo are participles, with the following two particularities: they exhibit full contextual orientation, and they assign a specific grammatical role to the initial subject, whose encoding in relative clauses coincides neither with that of subjects of independent verb forms, nor with that of adnominal possessors.

Does anything like 'Standard Sino-Tibetan nominalization' exist in Hmong-Mien languages? It has been suggested that Iu Mien nyei and Xong nangd/naond may be examples. Here it is suggested that White Hmong and Green Mong li/le may be examples as well.

Bantu languages, which are spoken throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa, permit wh-questions to be constructed in multiple ways, including wh-in-situ, full wh-movement, and partial wh-movement. Shona, a Bantu language spoken by about 13 million people in Zimbabwe and Mozambique, allows all three of these types. In this dissertation, I conduct the first in-depth examination of Shona wh-questions, drawing on fifty hours of elicitation with a native speaker consultant to explore the derivational relationships among these strategies.

Wh-in-situ questions have received a wide variety of treatments in the syntactic literature, ranging from covert or disguised movement to postsyntactic binding of the wh-phrase by a silent question operator. In Bantu languages, wh-in-situ questions are often taken to be derived via a non-movement relation (e.g., Carstens 2005 for Kilega, Diercks 2010 for Lubukusu, Muriungi 2003 for Kîîtharaka, Sabel 2000 for Kikuyu and Duala, Sabel & Zeller 2006 for Zulu, Schneider-Zioga 2007 for Kinande), but alternatives have rarely been considered. I demonstrate how movement-based analyses that have been proposed for wh-in-situ in non-Bantu languages make the wrong predictions for Shona wh-in-situ, which lacks word order permutation, extraction marking, island effects, and intervention effects. These properties provide support for the traditional Bantuist view that the relation between the pronunciation site of an in-situ wh-phrase and its scopal position in the left periphery is not movement; I claim that in Shona it is unselective binding.

Many Bantu languages, including Shona, prohibit wh-phrases from appearing in the canonical preverbal subject position. Wasike (2007) demonstrates that this restriction applies to topicalized non-subjects as well as preverbal subjects. I replicate these results for Shona and argue that they cast doubt on Sabel & Zeller's (2006) attempt to characterize the ban with an appeal to improper movement. I argue instead that restrictions on the distribution of wh-in-situ in Bantu are tied to restrictions on the domain for focus licensing. This claim is further bolstered by an examination of crosslinguistic variation within Bantu with respect to whether the ban on in-situ preverbal wh-subjects applies in embedded clauses. I observe a previously unnoticed generalization: languages that universally ban in-situ preverbal wh-subjects (like Zulu) have immediately after the verb (IAV) focus effects; languages that do allow in-situ preverbal wh-subjects in embedded clauses (like Shona, Lubukusu, and Kîîtharaka) also lack IAV effects.

Full wh-movement in Shona gives rise to questions that bear a certain similarity to English wh-questions. However, using a range of diagnostics including extraction marking, island effects, reconstruction effects, and the distribution of temporal modifiers, I argue that what appears to be full wh-movement in Shona actually has a cleft structure: the wh-phrase moves to become the head of a relative clause, which is selected by a copula in the matrix clause. Just as in wh-in-situ, an ex-situ wh-phrase is pronounced lower than its scopal position, and the relation between these two positions is established via unselective binding. Additional evidence for this proposal comes from the sensitivity of partial wh-movement to island boundaries below but not above the pronunciation site of the wh-phrase, a pattern that has been predicted by previous analyses (e.g., Abels 2012, Sabel 2000, Sabel & Zeller 2006) but for which empirical support has been lacking until now. I therefore unify full and partial wh-movement under a single analysis for cleft-based wh-in-situ that involves a step of relativization (independently needed for relative clauses) and a step of unselective binding (independently needed for wh-in-situ).

This paper focuses on lexical nominalization, clausal nominalization and complementation, and relativization in Isbukun Bunun (Formosan, Austronesian). Based on fieldwork in Taoyuan, Kaohsiung in Taiwan, it shows the similarities and dissimilarities between the three different linguistic phenomena. It is found that the Philippine focus system plays a very important role in all three phenomena and that some markers are shared between them.

This article provides a detailed survey of complement clauses and complementation strategies in Japhug. It shows the bewildering diversity of constructions attested in these languages, which are largely unpredictable and need to be specified for each complement-taking verb. Special focus is given to typologically unusual constructions, in particular Hybrid Indirect Speech.

Hmongic languages have multiple types of possessive, demonstrative, and anaphoric constructions and also vary in the placement of relative clauses in relationship to the head NP. Most of these structures have been observed and analyzed by Adam Sposato. I here provide a few additional examples and broach the possibility that Masayoshi Shibatani's theory that classifiers are nominalizers may provide a theoretical basis for understanding this diversity.

Em um período histórico de secularização e relativização, o fenômeno religioso já não pode ser entendido sem se levar em conta o papel das mídias. Hoje, os processos de comunicação midiática se tornam generalizados, e a internet passa a ser também um ambiente para práticas religiosas, caracterizando um fenômeno de midiatização da religião. Formam-se, assim, novas modalidades de percepção e de expressão do sagrado em novos ambientes de culto. Neste artigo, analisamos algumas práticas religiosas em redes sociodigitais – como o Facebook – para perceber como o religioso circula nos meandros da internet por meio de uma ação não apenas do âmbito da “produção” eclesial, mas também mediante uma ação comunicacional dos inúmeros pontos (usuários) da rede. Vemos que não apenas as instituições eclesiais, nem somente as instituições midiáticas, mas também a sociedade em geral, nos mais diversos âmbitos da internet, reconstroem o “religioso” – em nosso caso específico, o “católico”, ou seja, construtos simbólicos que a sociedade como um todo considera como relacionados às crenças e às práticas da Igreja Católica. Assim, a experiência e a tradição católicas, via mídias, são ressignificadas socialmente, gerando desvios teológicos com relação a questões como identidade, autoridade, comunidade. Esse cruzamento e deslocamento de sentidos fomenta o surgimento de um “novo” catolicismo – marcadamente midiatizado.

This article takes a close look at pseudo-correlatives: multiple sentences in Middle Russian with the pronoun kotoryj ‘which’ in the first clause. It will be argued that they lack correlatives features and that korotyj in such constructions was not a relative but an indefinite pronoun, like the Russian nekotoryj, koe-kakoj. The pseudo-correlatives of Middle Russian are the result of the intermediate stage of the process of the grammaticalization of kotoryj from indefinite to relative pronoun that caused the transformation of the compound constructions into the complex sentence

The Highland East Cushitic language Kambaata employs five different purpose-encoding strategies. Purpose clauses can be headed by switch reference-sensitive purposive verb forms or by dative-marked verbal nouns. A third type of purpose clause is modelled on a similative clause and contains a relative verb to which an enclitic ‘like’ is added. Two less common strategies are the converb and the quotative strategy. The present article gives a detailed account of the syntax of purpose clauses (and complex sentences) as well as the morphology of the verb forms used in purpose clauses. It also discusses which formal devices are shared between purpose and complement clauses and between purpose clauses and indirect commands (jussive clauses). Finally, the purpose-encoding strategies applied in Kambaata are compared to those in closely related Highland East Cushitic languages.

Холодилова М. А. Рассогласование в ингерманландских финских относительных предложениях // В. Ф. Выдрин, Н. В. Кузнецова (ред.). От Бикина до Бамбалюмы, из варяг в греки. Экспедиционные этюды в честь Елены Всеволодовны Перехвальской. СПб.: Нестор-История, 2014. С. 288–301.

Art has always dealt with complexity, the artworks’ making often required complex processes, abilities, knowledge and intellectual as well as technical skills. Today, thanks to sciences and technologies, the most compelling contemporary art forms can refer to complex poetics. It becomes possible to express theories, topics, ideas, visions of the world, even critically, integrating different disciplines and tools. Art can discuss the complex issues between humanity and the phenomenal world, inherent to the environment, to the living beings, to the idea of Nature. From this point of view, and more effectively than other disciplines, art becomes a philosophy of contemporaneity.

Through sciences and technologies humanity is shaping up a vast and complex emerging panorama made up of new devices, machines, algorithms and new life forms. Art has always represented the living and Nature, and humanity, since its origin throughout its evolution, has always been representing, simulating, modifying and reinventing Nature, for many purposes. Nature and the living have been the inspiration, the solution and the event horizon in human activities, in solving practical problems to achieve protection, knowledge and effectiveness in the phenomenal world. And also in inventing narratives, in generating new aesthetics, in creating new art forms.

Today Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Life, Smart Algorithms, Synthetic Biology, Genetic Engineering, Biotechnologies, Nanotechnologies, Internet of Things, De-Extinction and other disciplines are expanding the boundaries of life and evolution. Many artefacts, devices, machines, entities are becoming increasingly powerful, complex, autonomous and independent. Scientific evolution has led to the ability to deeply modify the existing organisms and to create new ones, new species that would have never evolved. We are going to assist to the extension of the idea of life and life forms from the organic domain to a complex landscape with organic, inorganic and mixed life forms. Through sciences and technologies humanity is creating a sort of “Third Life”, originating from human knowledge and culture, which is independently and autonomously evolving, expanding Nature from within its own domain. These emerging life forms can be called “Third Life”, being the “First Life” the biological life, and the “Second Life” the life in the symbolic dimension.

In this profound transformation, many topics from the past appear as outdated and inadequate, while new topics are emerging. These processes seem to push forward the human knowledge and awareness, as well as its boundaries and goals, and at the same time they are undermining the centuries-old centrality of humanity. Will these processes be able to illuminate on a possible evolution? Will art, as in the past, succeed in anticipating and providing a reliable vision of these complex transformations?

Холодилова М. А. Конкуренция основных стратегий релятивизации подлежащего в русском языке // Acta Linguistica Petropolitana. Труды Института лингвистических исследований РАН X, 2 [Сай С. С., Овсянникова М. А., Оскольская С. А. (ред.). Русский язык: грамматика конструкций и лексико-семантические подходы. СПб.: Наука], 2014. С. 478–509.

A preliminary list of examples of classifiers and nominalizers in Hmongic languages, focusing on possessive, demonstrative, and anaphoric constructions both with and without a head NP, and on relative clauses. The goal is to provide a database for further investigation of Adam Sposato's observations about Hmong-Mien word order and of Masayoshi Shibatani's theory that classifiers are nominalizers.

The animate accusative form of the pronoun kotoryj 'which' (in Russian)

The Russian relative pronoun kotoryj ‘which’ sometimes appears in the animate accusative form, even though the head noun would receive the inanimate morphological marking in the same context. This kind of animacy mismatch is observed in relative clauses headed by masculine collective nouns with reference to people, such as narod ‘nation’, and neuter nouns with reference to animates, such as životnoe ‘animal’. This phenomenon cannot be subsumed under the notion of semantic agreement. The expected semantic agreement pattern with collective nouns implies plural animate forms, while the examples in question include singular forms. The animate accusative form after neuter nouns could be treated as a masculine form corresponding to a masculine referent, however this kind of semantic agreement is ungrammatical in non-accusative forms, and the masculine forms are used even if the referent is feminine. This animacy mismatch in Russian is closely paralleled
by the better studied data of other Slavic languages, especially Croatian, where the relative pronoun can take animate marking after masculine or neuter nouns, irrespective of their semantics. Another parallel is provided by other Russian pronouns, especially the reciprocal pronoun odin drugogo ‘one another’, which receives animate marking in the same range of contexts as the relative pronoun kotoryj ‘which’. The data suggest that relative pronouns are higher on the animacy hierarchy than nouns, but lower than personal pronouns.

This paper analyses the relativisation patterns in the Northumbrian Old English gloss to St. Mark's gospel, composed by the scribe Owun. Its analysis leads to the conclusion that in this corpus seþe compound relatives constitute a relativisation category of their own. Owun’s use shows a skewed distribution that does not reflect the distribution of the three types in West Saxon; the þe-relative, the most frequent in West Saxon, is rare in Owun’s gloss; Non-nominative contexts are mainly glossed by se-relatives, and nominative contexts by seþe-relatives. The motivation for using se-relatives in preference to þe-relative may have been morphological. The motivation for using seþe-relatives was likely prompted by Owun wanting to reflect the topic-shifting character of many of the nominative relative pronouns in his Latin Vorlage. In West Saxon, se-relatives usually have a topic-shifting function. Owun’s use of these for non-nominative cases required another form to highlight topic-shifting: this function fell to seþe-relatives.

This paper presents the first-ever processing experiment on relativization in Avar, an ergative language with prenominal relatives. The results show no processing difference between the ergative subject gap and the absolutive object gap. The absolutive subject gap, however, is processed much faster. We propose a principled explanation for this result. On the one hand, Avar has a subject preference (cf. the Accessibility Hierarchy, Keenan and Comrie, 1977), which would make the processing of the ergative and the absolutive subject gap easier than the processing of the absolutive object gap. On the other hand, the ergative DP in a relative clause serves as a strong cue that allows the parser to project the remainder of the clause, including the absolutive object DP (cf. Marantz, 1991, 2000); such morphological cueing favors the absolutive object gap. Thus, two processing preferences, the one for subject relatives and the other for morphologically cued clauses, cancel each other out in...

I explore how the relative pronouns kotoryj and kakoj behave in Russian relative clauses embedded under superlatives w.r.t. the licensing of the particle tol'ko and certain NPI pronouns, as well as whether and under what conditions they allow for the mismatch in number between the pronoun and the head of the relative clause.
Several theoretical hypotheses are adduced to cover the empirical observations. First, the two pronouns differ as to whether, and probably to what extent, the embedded clause is entitled to independent (assertive) illocutionary force. Second, kotoryj can have some of its features agreeing with those of the head and some freely referring to the aspects of the real world situation, such as the number of individuals involved in the situation represented by the relative clause.