Author: PhilSocUK

The Philological Society is the oldest learned society in Great Britain devoted to the scholarly study of language and languages. It is also a registered charity (no. 1014370). It was established in its present form in 1842, consisting partly of members of a society of the same name established at the University of London in 1830 “to investigate and promote the study and knowledge of the structure, the affinities, and the history of languages”. As well as encouraging all aspects of the study of language, PhilSoc has a particular interest in historical and comparative linguistics, and maintains its traditional interest in the structure, development, and varieties of Modern English.

PhilSoc and other learned societies react to Brexit

On 23 June 2016, the British public voted for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union with a majority of 51.9% and a turnout of 72.2%. Since then, only few details of HM Government’s plan for “Brexit” have emerged. In part, this delay is owed to the Prime Minister’s policy of non-disclosure, but has also been affected by the long-awaited decision of the Supreme Court regulating that Parliament need be consulted on triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. A bill to this effect has been approved by the House of Commons on 8 February 2017, and will now be considered by the House of Lords.

In view of these events and owing to the as yet unspecified possibility of changes to regulations in the education and research sector, a number of learned societies including the Philological Societies have drafter a letter of response to “Brexit” and its impact on language and language learning in the United Kingdom.

The letter calls on HM Government to develop a language policy emphasising four points:

  1. Foster a positive public attitude towards language, language learning and working with languages.
  2. Maintain and enlarge the UK’s international diplomatic, regulatory, and security networks.
  3. Encourage the development of multilingual skills at all stages of the National Curriculum.
  4. Provide for research on language as on of many aspects of human nature and society.

The Society looks to its members for comments on this statement in the comments section. The full text of the letter can be found below. Continue reading “PhilSoc and other learned societies react to Brexit” →

Ethnopoetic philology and the power of narrative for endangered voices

by Alexander King (Franklin & Marshall College)

Ethnopoetics lies at the juncture of linguistics, comparative literature, anthropology, and activist politics. It is more of an approach than a discipline, and was inspired by the realization that indigenous oral literature, or ‘orature’ was of equal literary merit to that of the ancient and modern literary languages. Ethnopoetic analysis requires close attention to the form and performance of oral narratives, looking for patterning in phonology, morphology, syntax, as well as repetitions in word use and larger units. I will present some examples of the power of stories in the lives of Koryaks, who are indigenous to Kamchatka, Russia. The material comes from a documentation project by Valentina R. Dedyk and me (funded by a grant from the Endangered Languages Documentation Project).

A video of the talk can be found below.

This paper was read at the Philological Society meeting in London, SOAS Main Building, Room 116, on Friday, 10 February, 4.15pm.

TPS 115(1) – Abstract 6

Enclisis/proclisis alternations in Romance: allomorphies and (re)ordering

by M. Rita Manzini & Leonardo M. Savoia (Università di Firenze) 

Romance clitic pronouns appear to the left of the verb in I and to the right of the verb in C. This alternation correlates with (a) allomorphy, specifically l- vs. zero; (b) stress shifts; (c) reordering of the clitic string. The alternations in (a)-(c) are also observed between non-negative and negative contexts. The key points of our analysis are: (i) the l- segment is associated with definite content; (ii) interpretively, pronouns scope out of modal/non-veridical operators; (iii) syntactically, the exponent for modality/nonveridicality may have the pronoun in its domain; (iv) externalization of the l- segment is found when semantic scope (ii) and syntactic configuration (iii) are mismatched. Therefore allomorphies (including also stress), far from being morphophonological quirks, contribute to the externalization of syntactico-semantic notions of nonveridicality. In dealing with clitic (re)ordering we propose a model based on the dissociation between Merge and linear order. Phrasal constituents are ordered to the right of the verb in Romance; clitics mirror them in that they are ordered to the left, while keeping the Merge relations constant.

DOI: 10.1111/1467-968X.12093

TPS 115(1) – Abstract 5

Notes on the nominal system of Bashkardi

by Agnes Korn (CNRS / UMR Mondes iranien et indien)

This article studies the nominal system and noun phrase of Bashkardi, a language of the Iranian family spoken in Southern Iran in the region of Bashakerd. Bashkardi is a very little studied language, and is in particular need of being documented because it is a minority language endangered by heavy influence from Persian. The article is based on recordings made by Ilya Gershevitch in 1956.

In discussing the Bashkardi nominal system, I compare it to that of geographically or historically neighbouring languages such as Balochi, spoken nearby in the province (and also in the form of the Koroshi dialect spoken in Fars province to the west). From a historical perspective, Middle Persian and Parthian, the only two Western Iranian languages attested from Middle Iranian times, are adduced to elucidate the development of the Bashkardi nominal system.

I argue that the nominal system of Bashkardi agrees with Persian and other Western Ir. languages in having lost the distinction between direct and oblique case (preserved in Kurmanji, Balochi etc.), but that a trace of the oblique case might be present in the possessive marker -ī. Like Middle Persian, Bashkardi employs adpositions to mark syntactic relations, but none of these is used in a systematic way as of yet.

DOI: 10.1111/1467-968X.12087

TPS 115(1) – Abstract 4

Collective Nouns in Welsh: a Noun Category or a Plural Allomorph?

by Silva Nurmio (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies)

A noun category in Welsh which has a shorter form for a collection/plural meaning and a suffixed singulative for a single instance has been described in the literature as both a number category and a plural allomorph, often with terminological ambiguity and blurring of boundaries between different noun types. This paper is an investigation of the features of these nouns using a number of theoretical approaches which cumulatively support the argument that collective can be considered a full number category in Welsh. 

DOI: 10.1111/1467-968X.12086

TPS 115(1) – Abstract 3

Reduction in Remoteness Distinctions and Reconfiguration in the Bemba Past Tense

by Nancy Kula (University of Essex)

Bantu languages are well-known for having multiple remoteness distinctions in both the past and the future. This paper looks at the 4-way remoteness distinction of Bemba (central Bantu) showing that the system is undergoing change that is resulting in the loss of an intermediate past tense by merger with the remote past. Two factors are central in driving this change; a merger of forms by tone loss and neutralisation and a shift in the scope of semantic function. Because the Bemba tense-aspect system manifests the so-called conjoint-disjoint alternation there is also some reconfiguration of the TA system that accompanies the merger. The different factors involved in this change are unified under a cognitive multi-dimensional approach to tense, which is here extended to account for language change in tense systems.

DOI: 10.1111/1467-968X.12084

TPS 115(1) – Abstract 2

Verbal triplication morphology in Stau རྟའུ། (Mazi dialect)

by Jesse P. Gates (Southwest University for Nationalities)

This paper presents the first documentation and analysis of a typologically remarkable process of verbal triplication in the Stau language (Sino-Tibetan). Moreover, Stau’s triplication of verbs to index multiple agents (S/A) and to pragmatically highlight those agents, as is demonstrated in this study, is a morphological process that has not been documented among any of the world’s spoken languages to date. Stau’s verbal triplication, although unique in many regards, falls into a broader typological linguistic pattern of iconicity, demonstrating that there is often a strong tie between form and function.

DOI: 10.1111/1467-968X.12083

TPS 115(1) – Abstract 1

Words and Paradigms: Peter H. Matthews and the Development of Morphological Theory

by Stephen Anderson (Yale University)

The tension between morpheme-based views of word structure, on which words are exhaustively divided into atomic units linking form and content, and word and paradigm views, on which words are analyzed in terms of their relations to others, goes back at least to the beginning of the twentieth century. The history of this opposition within modern linguistics is described, and the specific role of Peter H. Matthews in promoting the superiority of a non-morphemic approach to morphology is highlighted. Arguments for such an approach are briefly reviewed, with discussion of the response to these on the part of the broader field of linguistics.

DOI: 10.1111/1467-968X.12090

Finiteness in Greek and Latin, then and now

by Dag Haug (University of Oslo)

Finiteness is a crucial notion in modern theories of grammar.  The concept originates in the work of ancient grammarians on Greek and Latin and it has often been thought to be inadequate for other languages. In my talk, I trace a very brief history of the idea and then show that Greek and Latin themselves actually display a number of phenomena relating to the syntax and semantics of participles and infinitives that challenge this traditional idea of finiteness. Thus, there is still a lot to learn from the grammar of Greek and Latin if one is willing to dig deeper than the traditional descriptions.

A video recording of the talk can be found below.

This paper was read at the Philological Society meeting in London, SOAS Main Building, Room 116, on Friday, 13 January, 4.15pm. The slideshow accompanying the paper is available here.