Calendar

Denis Bertet (DDL)
"One inflectional paradigm, two functional dimensions: agreement for gender vs agreement for social deixis in Tikuna (isolate, Western Amazon)"

Tikuna (isolate, Western Amazon) displays a system of five nominal agreement classes. Agreement for class, an obligatory and pervasive feature, is classically realized through the inflection of several adnominal and pronominal elements, both within the NP and on the predicative head. But what is it that determines which agreement class a given noun is assigned to in discourse? A few nouns, because they always trigger agreement for the same class, give the misleading impression of an Indo-European-like lexical gender system. Most nouns, however, disprove this hypothesis by showing the ability to trigger agreement for several of the five classes in discourse. A systematic examination of the array of agreement alternatives exhibited by a sample of nouns will show that the five agreement classes, although homogeneously realized from a morphosyntactic perspective, are functionally heterogeneous. While three of them do correspond to genuine lexical genders, the other two specify the referent for social deixis, a pragmatic dimension (familiarity vs unfamiliarity) orthogonal to gender. In discourse, a noun may alternatively trigger agreement according to its lexical gender (pragmatically unmarked option) or according to the desired social deixis effect (in which case gender is neutralized).

Natalia Eraso
Gender and classifiers in the Tanimuka Language - Colombia

In the Tanimuka language (Oriental Tucanoan), spoken by about 500 people of the Tanimuka (u’pairã) and the Letuama (retuarã) groups in the department of Amazonas in Colombia, two systems of nominal categorization co-occur together and intersect: gender and numeral classifiers. Nouns in this language are divided first into human and non-human entities. This grammatical categorization is associated with a semantic categorization that includes three gender values. Nouns with the +human feature take masculine, feminine and plural gender suffixes, and nouns with the –human feature (whether animate or inanimate) take neuter gender. Nouns obligatorily agree in gender and number with their determiners. The system of numeral classifiers is obligatorily suffixed on numerals or any word denoting quantity. There are two types of numeral classifiers: a closed system of sortal classifiers and an open system of classifying elements of lexical origin. -sortal classifiers form a group of four monosyllabic marks, completely grammaticalized, that make reference to the figure shape and configuration: long (1 D), flat (2 D), round (3 D), and flexible (1 D) /string-like. -classifiers of lexical origin form an open system of disyllabic marks, partially grammaticalized, which can refer to measure terms, essence, function or simply are repeaters or semi - repeaters of the words they classify. These lexical elements also play a role in nominal composition and are closer to the type of ‘class markers’ that are found in neighboring Amazonian languages, since they function as some sort of agreement to the extent that they appear on both the numeral and the determined noun. Both types have an anaphoric function and serve as reference tracking devices. These classifiers are also suffixed to demonstratives in deictic function, adjectives, where they acquire anaphoric and referential functions, and they also serve as elements of nominalization.

Yaqui, an Uto-Aztecan language spoken in northwestern Mexico, presents two different agent nominalizers: the suffix –me (1), and the suffix –reo (2):
(1)
tekipanoa-me
work-NMLZ
‘worker’
(2)
amu-reo
hunt-NMLZ
‘hunter’
In this presentation, I will explore the differences between both types of agent nominalizers, focusing on the origin and the function of both markers in Yaqui.
Regarding the diachrony of these markers, it will be shown that the suffix –me corresponds to an old nominalizer that can be found in many southern Uto-Aztecan languages and that its origin is associated with an animate plural noun marker. I will propose that the evolution from plurality to nominalization is triggered by the use of –me as an animate plural marker on adjectives used as NP-heads (such as tuuri-me ‘the good ones’). As for the suffix –reo, its origin is associated with language contact, since it has been recently borrowed from the Spanish agent nominalizer –ero (jardin-ero ‘garden-er’).
Considering the functions of these markers, the study will illustrate the need for distinguishing, on the one hand, between grammatical and lexical nominalizations (Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2006; Genetti et al. 2008; Shibatani 2009), and, on the other hand, between subject and agent nominalizers. Indeed, I will demonstrate that the suffix -me is a subject nominalizer that can be used for grammatical nominalizations as well as for lexical nominalizations, while the suffix –reo is only used as an agent nominalizer in lexical nominalizations. Finally, I will show that the suffix –me can also be involved in relativization when it is used with a modifying function in an appositive grammatical nominalization (Alvarez 2012, 2016).

References

Álvarez González, A. 2016. The evolution of grammatical nominalizations in Cahita Languages. In Finiteness and Nominalization [Typological Studies in Language 113], C. Chamoreau & Z. Estrada-Fernandez (eds), 107-140. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Álvarez González, A. 2012. Relative clauses and nominalizations in Yaqui. In Relative Clauses in Languages of the Americas. A Typological Overview [Typological Studies in Language 102], B. Comrie & Z. Estrada-Fernandez (eds), 67-96. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Genetti, C., Bartee, E., Coupe, A., Hildebrandt, K. & Lin, Y.J. 2008. Syntactic aspects of nominalization in five Tibeto-Burman languages of the Himalayan area. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 31(2): 97–143.
Koptjevskaja-Tamm, M. 2006. Nominalization. In Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, Vol.8, Keith Brown (ed.), 642–659. Oxford: Elsevier.
Shibatani, M. 2009. Elements of complex structures, where recursion isn’t it. The case of relativization. In Syntactic Complexity. Diachrony, Acquisition, Neuro-Cognition, Evolution [Typological Studies in Language 85], T. Givón & M. Shibatani (eds), 163-98. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Session 1: Consonant and vowel inventories and systems

In this session we will discuss common and rare crosslinguistic patterns in consonant and vowel inventories, as well as various proposed accounts for these.

Guest presentations:
Minella DUZEROL: "Phoneme inventory of Martiniquais"
Natasha ARALOVA: "Negidal vowels in the Tungusic context"

Dynamic deixis and associated motion in Jóola Fóoñi (Atlantic)
Denis Creissels (DDL)

Like the other Atlantic languages for which the relevant information is available, Jóola Fóoñi (aka Diola-Fogny) does not have nondeictic path directionals, but uses verb morphology to encode dynamic deixis and associated motion. Jóola Fóoñi has a single dynamic deixis/associated motion marker, a verbal suffix with two allomorphs - ʊlɔ and ul. With motion verbs, this suffix indicates that the motion is oriented towards the deictic center, but in combination with verbs that do not encode movement, it acts as an associated movement marker, with a wide range of possible interpretations. Moreover, it can also be used to encode aspectual meanings. This presentation describes the uses of this suffix attested in a corpus of naturalistic texts.

Au cours de la première année de vie, l’enfant passe progressivement d’une alimentation exclusivement lactée à une alimentation familiale grâce à une période de diversification alimentaire. C’est également au cours de cette période qu’apparaissent le babillage et la mastication tous deux associés à l’émergence d’oscillations rythmiques mandibulaires (MacNeilage, 1998). Ce geste moteur commun ainsi que la cooccurrence des troubles alimentaires et des troubles du langage/parole suggèrent l’existence d’un lien entre le développement des activités de parole et d’alimentation. A ce jour, non seulement peu d’études ont examiné les caractéristiques du développement précoce de ces deux activités, mais il en existe aussi très peu qui ont cherché à vérifier expérimentalement ce lien. Ce projet de thèse vise à répondre à ces deux objectifs. La première partie de notre travail vise ainsi à décrire les conduites alimentaires du jeune enfant français au cours de la diversification alimentaire et à les comparer aux recommandations des organismes de santé publique (OMS, Inpes). Un questionnaire parental intitulé « Inventaire des Conduites Alimentaires » a été créé et a permis d’examiner les modalités d’introduction des aliments complémentaires, et notamment de celles des textures, au sein d’un échantillon de 806 enfants français au développement typique. La deuxième partie de notre recherche a pour objectif d’examiner le lien existant entre le babillage et la mastication au sein de deux études. En nous appuyant sur des données acoustiques et vidéo, nous avons tout d’abord examiné de manière longitudinale les trajectoires développementales des patrons temporels syllabiques et masticatoires entre 8 et 14 mois chez 4 enfants québécois. Nous avons ensuite analysé les caractéristiques de ces patrons temporels chez 14 enfants français âgés de 10 mois en fonction du développement des gestes communicatifs et du type de textures consommées. Les résultats obtenus mettent en évidence un âge de transition alimentaire compris entre 4 et 5 mois ainsi qu’une introduction séquentielle des textures lors de la diversification alimentaire. Par ailleurs, les trajectoires des patrons syllabiques et masticatoires obtenues suggèrent d’une part une amélioration globale du contrôle oro-moteur entre 10 et 12 mois et d’autre part que les patrons temporels syllabiques subissent l’influence du type de textures auquel l’enfant est régulièrement exposé. Nos observations font ainsi émerger des arguments en faveur de l’existence d’une interdépendance unilatérale entre les activités de parole et d’alimentation à un stade précoce du développement.

Session 2: Syllable structure and phonotactics
In this session, we will discuss cross-linguistic patterns in syllable structure complexity, common claims about asymmetries in onset/coda structure, consonant phonotactics, and nucleus patterns, and examine some crosslinguistic patterns challenging those claims. We will also discuss diachronic processes affecting syllable patterns and some crosslinguistically established relationships between various syllable constituents and phonotactic properties.

Guest presentations:
Françoise ROSE: "Hiatus resolution and cluster changes in Mojeño"
Tessa VERMEIR: "Phonotactics in Sso"