Potsdam Linguistic Investigations – serie

This book proposes a novel analysis of Nominal Construction from the syntax-semantics interface. It is based on the newly developed framework of Radical Minimalism, and provides both a concise introduction to this formal model and the application of the theory to real examples provided by native speakers. The theory, which makes use of mathematics, cognitive science, and physics combined with formal syntax, is explained in detail before entering the domain of the nominal construction where straightforward, clear analyses are provided for multiple interlinguistic phenomena. Even though mainly theoretical, the book has a strong empirical basis and enables the reader to continue the quest by applying the framework to phenomena of his interest.

This study adopts a context-sensitive and functional approach to the qualitative analysis of Spanish linguistic means that are used to convey evidential meanings. Verbs of cognitive attitude, modal adverbs, modal verbs, the Spanish conditional and the synthetic future are analysed against the background of pragmatics. GlossaNet, a search engine that supports the researcher to build a corpus, was used to collect the examples analysed in this study. Furthermore, as evidentiality is – at least in Spanish – a linguistic category that overlaps with other semantic-functional categories, namely epistemic modality, deixis, subjectivity and polyphony, it is argued that the superordinate category speaker’s perspectivisation should be imposed on these categories.

This collection of essays tackles the issues that arise when multilingualism meets translation and discusses the findings with a particular focus on Slavonic migrant languages. Despite its high relevance from both the theoretical and the applied perspective, the intersection of multilingualism and translation has been rather neglected in international research on multilingualism. This volume intends to create a new angle within this wide field of research and to systematize the most relevant approaches and ideas on this topic in international Slavonic studies.

The volume Urban Voices presents studies, analysing how speakers of Russian convey social meanings across a variety of speech situations. Rooted in quantitative and qualitative methodological frameworks, the contributions show how various linguistic, paralinguistic and pragmatic means relate to sociolinguistic dimensions (e.g. display the social, ethnic, local identity of a speaker, the institutional character of a communicative situation). The analyses are the results of the research network Urban Voices, which focuses on the sociolinguistics, grammar and pragmatics of spoken Russian and investigates its linguistic and communicative diversity. The contributors are Olga Blinova, Nina Bodganova-Beglarian, Beatrix Kreß, Lenore Grenoble, Peter Kosta, Elena Markasova, Ludger Paschen, Nicole Richter, Christian Sappok, Tatiana Sherstinova and Nadine Thielemann.

This book provides a summary of Radical Minimalism, putting forth a neurocognitively implementable theory of grammar as I-language. Radical Minimalism tries to give a ‘fully explicit’ description of syntactic structures mapped into cognitive frames of thought. It focuses on the division of labor between Narrow Syntax and Meaningful Units of the sentence and also on the role of Mental Lexicon (understood as a selection of Roots and Labels), the Labeling Mechanism, and the participation of the Senso-Motoric and Conceptual-Intentional Interfaces within a Crash-proof Grammar of Human Language. The data are taken from the languages of different genetic origins and types. The book is based on the idea that language and thought are closely connected and must be studied within the physical laws of the Anti-Entropy and Dynamical Frustration theory.Peter Kosta’s new book touches on an exceptional range of subjects in theoretical syntax and the philosophy of grammar, bearing ample proof of his lifelong engagement with these vital disciplines within the humanities of the 20th/21st centuries. His acute awareness of important insights and discussions in current day minimalism is evident from every page, informing his treatment of a wide diversity of problems in the morphosyntax of Slavic languages and beyond.(Jan-Wouter Zwart, University of Groningen)This book provides a breath of fresh air in linguistic theorising by combining empirically based syntactic innovations with original discussions of long-standing semantic puzzles and a revised architecture of the Faculty of Language. Foundational notions in generative theory are thoroughly revised in the light of detailed comparative analyses. This remarkable work represents the culmination of years of research on what meaning is, how it is structured, and to what extent syntax encodes meaning.(Diego Gabriel Krivochen, University of Verona)

The book offers a comprehensive overview of current research in Slavic linguistics from a theoretical and experimental perspective and from a variety of languages. The selected papers from the 11th European Conference on Formal Description of Slavic Languages (FDSL 11) that took place at the University of Potsdam in 2015, illustrate the advancement of Slavic linguistic studies and their outreach for the development of general linguistics. The guest paper by Noam Chomsky at the beginning of the book sets a clear sign in this direction and may be taken as an acknowledgement of the field.

The study presents a systematic and complete morpho-syntactic analysis of Czech nominal phrases in a generative framework, based on universal structures and morpho-syntactic principles. The author cites relevant studies in the field, assuming that morphology results from steps in syntactic derivations that reflect the underlying structure (Radically Distributed Morphology). Theoretical claims are based on examples (including corpus data) and contrasted paradigms. Most data come from Czech, but other languages are also used to demonstrate more universal characteristics of the phenomena. The paradigms cover (i) the structure and feature content of nominal projections including adjectives, possessives and quantifiers, and (ii) agreements with nominal constituents such as pronominals and coordinates.

The volume presents the analysis of the tripartite deictics in the Bulgarian Rhodope dialect (Slavic), namely the use of the three definite forms -s, -t and -n with nominals. The author explores the domain of temporal value in the nominal structure in other languages, mostly non-Indo European, in order to comprehend the relation between speaker, addressee, temporal interpretation and consequences on morphosyntax. He demonstrates that the choice of temporality and semantic values of the deictics in the Rhodope dialect is based on cognitive and contextual factors. Data, including first-hand, are supported by qualitative and quantitative analysis. The aim of this research is to contribute to the theory building process of the temporal expression in nominals, which may be useful in typological perspective.

The volume is a collection of papers in diverse areas of Slavic linguistics, selected from the 14th annual meeting of the Slavic Linguistics Society, held at the University of Potsdam on 11–13 September 2019. The volume is dedicated to Peter Kosta, longtime chair of Slavic linguistics at the Department of Slavic languages and literatures at the University of Potsdam, in recognition of his enormous contributions to the field. Contents: Publications of Peter Kosta – Vrinda Subhalaxmi Chidambaram: A Case of Parasitic Attrition: The disappearance of the degree morpheme -ьš in Bulgarian and Macedonian superlative adjectives – Steven Franks: Reflexive Typology, Movement, and the Structure of NP – Jadranka Gvozdanović:‘Have’ + infinitive in Czech: A long multilingual history – Iliyana Krapova and Tomislav Sočanac: Factivity in South Slavic languages: Complement and relative clauses – Alexander Letuchiy: ‘Missed TAM’: The lack of tense and mood marking in Russian argument conditionals – semantic and formal motivation – Franc Lanko Marušič and Rok Žaucer: Investigation of Slovenian copular agreement – James Joshua Pennington: Today’s Grammaticalization Theory is Yesterday’s Grammaticalization: The BCMS Future as An(other) Strike Against the Unidirectionality Hypothesis – Katrin Schlund: On the origin of East Slavic Elemental Constructions/Adversity Impersonals. Evidence from town chronicles of Old Rus’ – Luka Szucsich and Karolina Zuchewicz: Incrementality and (non)clausal complementation in Slavic – Alan Timberlake: String Syntax – Beata Trawiński: Polish żeby under Negation – Mladen Uhlik and Andreja Žele: Reflexive Possessive Pronouns in Slovene: A Contrastive Analysis with Russian – Vladislava Warditz: Structural Variation in Heritage Russian in Germany: Language Usage or Language Change? – Jacek Witkoś: On Some Aspects of Agree, Move and Bind in the Nominal Domain – Ilse Zimmermann†: On Pronouns Relating to Clauses

This book is concerned with the diachronic development of selected topic and focus markers in Spanish, Portuguese and French. On the one hand, it focuses on the development of these structures from their relational meaning to their topic-/ focus-marking meaning, and on the other hand, it is concerned with their current form und use. Thus, Romance topic and focus markers – such as sp. en cuanto a, pt. a propósito de, fr. au niveau de or sentence-initial sp. Lo que as well as clefts and pseudo-clefts – are investigated from a quantitative and qualitative perspective. The author argues that topic markers have procedural meaning and that their function is bound to their syntactic position. An important contribution of this study is the fact that real linguistic evidence (in the form of data from various corpora) is analyzed instead of operating with constructed examples.

Scientific insight is obtained through the processes of description, explanation, and prediction. Yet grammatical theory has seen a major divide regarding not only the methods of data eliciting and the kinds of data evaluated, but also with respect to the interpretation of these data, including the very notions of explanation and prediction themselves.The editors of the volume organized a conference bringing together adherents of two major strands of grammatical theory illustrating this clash, traditionally grouped under the labels of formalist and functionalist theories. This book includes five keynote lectures given by internationally renowned experts. The keynotes offer insight into the current debate and show possibilities for exchange between these two major accounts of grammatical theory.