<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?><rss xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" version="2.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[LingBuzz]]></title><description><![CDATA[archive of linguistics articles]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz</link><generator>RSS for Node</generator><lastBuildDate>Tue, 26 May 2026 06:17:23 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/LingBuzz" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><pubDate>Tue, 26 May 2026 06:17:02 GMT</pubDate><language><![CDATA[en]]></language><webMaster><![CDATA[mitcho@mitcho.com (Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine)]]></webMaster><ttl>60</ttl><category><![CDATA[linguistics]]></category><xhtml:meta content="noindex" name="robots" xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"/><item><title><![CDATA[Event counting and discontinuity of the experiential perfect]]></title><description><![CDATA[This paper investigates counting in the domain of events under the Mandarin expe-
riential perfect marker -guo, with particular attention to the contrast between the two counting expressions, ⌜NUM xia⌝ and ⌜NUM ci⌝, for different levels of counting. The central question is why only certain activity verbs are compatible with ⌜NUM xia⌝ under -guo, and more generally what constrains the availability of event counting in this environment. I propose that the observed contrast is grounded in a distinction between two subclasses of activity verbs: those
whose denotation is associated with determinate endpoints, and those whose denotation lacks such endpoints. Building on this distinction, I argue that the discontinuity effect of -guo discussed in the literature should be reformulated as a presupposition requiring the existence of determinate endpoints of the relevant events. Whether this presupposition is satisﬁed depends on the subclass of activities and the level of counting.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010025</link><guid isPermaLink="false">010025v1</guid><category><![CDATA[event]]></category><category><![CDATA[countability]]></category><category><![CDATA[perfect]]></category><category><![CDATA[verbal classiﬁers]]></category><category><![CDATA[semantics]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Guo, Yiyang]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Off phases: It's all relative(ized)]]></title><description><![CDATA[This paper argues that Phase Theory (Chomsky, 2000, 2001) can be subsumed by a theory of locality based on Relativized Minimality (Rizzi, 1990). Any phrase head can induce phase-like locality effects for a particular dependency, if it bears the relevant feature. C has no special status; while it reliably induces locality effects in A-bar dependencies, we find crosslinguistic variation in whether it induces locality for other dependencies. Phrases like TP induce locality effects for A-depdencies when they bear phi-features. Examining crosslinguistic patterns in long-distance A-dependencies, we tease apart the predictions of phase-based and minimality-based locality and show that minimality fares better.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/008323</link><guid isPermaLink="false">008323v4</guid><category><![CDATA[locality]]></category><category><![CDATA[phases]]></category><category><![CDATA[relativized minimality]]></category><category><![CDATA[a-movement]]></category><category><![CDATA[a-bar movement]]></category><category><![CDATA[syntax]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Halpert, Claire; Zeijlstra, Hedde]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sentiment-linked quantification among adjectives]]></title><description><![CDATA[Yoon (1996) observed that "The cups are clean" is taken by default to describe all the cups, while "The cups are dirty" might describe only some of them. This paper grounds Yoon’s clean/dirty contrast in the sentiment (valence) of these adjectives: "clean" is desirable, "dirty" undesirable. Sentiment is linked to quantification through the longstanding idea, known as the Anna Karenina Principle, that a good situation must be all good, while any bad element makes it bad. Assuming that “Is the current situation okay?” is a common Question Under
Discussion across contexts, positive-sentiment adjectives are easily taken to answer this question affirmatively, conveying that the current situation is all okay; while negative-sentiment adjectives are taken to answer it negatively, conveying that there is at least something wrong. Using quantitative data, this analysis is argued to explain not just Yoon’s clean/dirty contrast, but also further instances of variable quantificational force among adjectives in the domains of degrees and dimensions. This paper breaks new ground in deriving (a priori emotionless) logical inferences from sentiment, a relatively less-explored topic in formal semantics.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010022</link><guid isPermaLink="false">010022v1</guid><category><![CDATA[sentiment]]></category><category><![CDATA[adjectives]]></category><category><![CDATA[homogeneity]]></category><category><![CDATA[quantification]]></category><category><![CDATA[anna karenina principle]]></category><category><![CDATA[semantics]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Glass, Lelia]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[on the proper use of commutation]]></title><description><![CDATA[Thanks to the foundational work of Saussure and Troubetzkoy, further developed by Hjelmslev and Martinet, linguists today possess a highly effective tool for language description: commutation. However, these great pioneers did not provide clear methodological guidelines for applying this tool to the study of significant linguistic units. In this article, I would like to help young researchers use commutation correctly and avoid some common mistakes.Indeed, deploying this analytical method requires some precautions. Above all, it is essential to begin by carefully preparing the field—identifying and selecting relevant contexts in which commutation can be meaningfully applied and lead to  convincing results. The examples I draw upon come from various studies I have published on French and Berber.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010021</link><guid isPermaLink="false">010021v1</guid><category><![CDATA[commutation]]></category><category><![CDATA[relevant contexts]]></category><category><![CDATA[verbal systems]]></category><category><![CDATA[enunciation]]></category><category><![CDATA[discourse]]></category><category><![CDATA[narrative]]></category><category><![CDATA[cardinal numbers]]></category><category><![CDATA[oaths.]]></category><category><![CDATA[syntax]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Bentolila, Fernand]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Unified Hypothesis on the Origins of Hurro-Urartian, Kartvelian, and Tyrsenian Language Families]]></title><description><![CDATA[This paper proposes a unified framework for understanding three ancient language families — Hurro-Urartian, Kartvelian, and Tyrsenian (Etruscan/Lemnian/Raetic) — as descendants of a common Caucasian Hunter-Gatherer (CHG) linguistic ancestor dating to the Mesolithic period. Drawing on comparative personal pronoun systems, grammatical architecture, phonological inventories, and recent archaeogenetic evidence, we argue that these families share a set of structural features — pure suffixing morphology, ergative-absolutive alignment, animacy-based nominal distinctions, Suffixaufnahme, and a five-vowel proto-system — that cannot be explained by chance or contact alone. We further propose that the Tyrsenian branch (proto-Etruscan/Pelasgian/Minoan) reached the Aegean during the Early Bronze Age Kura-Araxes expansion (c. 3100–2500 BC), eventually establishing itself in Italy around 700 BC during Orientalizing period to become the historical Etruscans. We additionally incorporate Kassite as a probable eastern branch of the CHG linguistic family, extending the CHG linguistic arc from the Zagros mountains in the east to the Italian peninsula in the west.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/009785</link><guid isPermaLink="false">009785v2</guid><category><![CDATA[hurro-urartian]]></category><category><![CDATA[kartvelian]]></category><category><![CDATA[tyrsenian]]></category><category><![CDATA[lemnian]]></category><category><![CDATA[caucasian hunter-gatherers]]></category><category><![CDATA[suffixaufnahme]]></category><category><![CDATA[m-t pronoun pattern]]></category><category><![CDATA[kura-araxes]]></category><category><![CDATA[ergative alignment]]></category><category><![CDATA[syntax]]></category><category><![CDATA[phonology]]></category><category><![CDATA[semantics]]></category><category><![CDATA[morphology]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Hrdonka, Václav]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Spanish subject-verb agreement as cliticization: A Merge-based approach]]></title><description><![CDATA[In this paper, I evaluate the claim that cliticization and “true” phi-agreement are technologically distinct from one another (Zwicky & Pullum 1983; Kramer 2014; Preminger 2014; Yuan 2021, a.o.) against the argument clitic and subject-verb inflectional paradigms from Spanish, showing that argument clitics and subject-verb agreement morphemes in this language display a striking number of formal and distributional similarities that cast doubt on the idea that these two phenomena are underlyingly distinct. Motivated by these similarities, I unify these phenomena by reducing subject-verb agreement to the technology involved in cliticization (e.g., Taraldsen 1992; 1993; Barbosa 1995; Ordóñez 1997; Ordóñez & Treviño 1999). Here, I adopt a view of clitics as functional heads that license particular features of certain arguments (Sportiche 1996), which I cast in terms of the Strong Minimalist Thesis (SMT) (Chomsky et al. 2019; Chomsky 2021; Chomsky 2024, a.o.), showing that this unified analysis does not require any computational stipulations in the narrow-syntactic component of grammar other than simplest Merge. This analysis is able to explain various clitic/agreement interaction effects in Spanish, and I additionally connect it to discussions of subject licensing and crosslinguistic variation within Romance.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010023</link><guid isPermaLink="false">010023v1</guid><category><![CDATA[clitics]]></category><category><![CDATA[agreement]]></category><category><![CDATA[spanish]]></category><category><![CDATA[smt]]></category><category><![CDATA[merge]]></category><category><![CDATA[licensing]]></category><category><![CDATA[variation]]></category><category><![CDATA[morphology]]></category><category><![CDATA[syntax]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Storment, John David]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[A challenge to unified accounts of non-canonical belief reports]]></title><description><![CDATA[This paper is concerned with two observations about belief attribution. The first is Fauconnier’s (1984) observation that we can felicitously ascribe to  belief in a proposition , even when our pre-theoretical intuitions suggest that  does not really believe , as long as  would have believed  if he shared some of our presuppositions. The second is to Szab ó's (2010) observation that when  believes , of  individuals, that they bear a property , we can attribute to  the belief that “ things are ” even if  claims not to know how many relevant  beliefs she has. In other words, we can “sum up” 's distinct  beliefs in a single belief report. These two observations have been introduced in isolation of each other, but have recently been offered a unifying account (Mayr and Schmitt 2026). This note posits empirical challenges to unification, and discusses the potential theoretical implications that arise if, indeed, the two observations cannot be successfully unified.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010024</link><guid isPermaLink="false">010024v1</guid><category><![CDATA[belief reports]]></category><category><![CDATA[summative readings]]></category><category><![CDATA[qud-sensitivity]]></category><category><![CDATA[attitudes]]></category><category><![CDATA[semantics]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Benbaji-Elhadad, Ido]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Cognitive Grammar analysis of Compromise Forms in Bilingual Speech at an Idiolectal level ]]></title><description><![CDATA[This paper presents evidence against matrix-language approaches to code-switching by applying Ronald Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar framework to bilingual pedagogical discourse. Analyzing seven classroom lectures from a multilingual Indian instructor, the study examines non-standard compromise forms, focusing integration of construction schemas through extension relations at the level of the individual structured inventory. Rather than demonstrating a shift between bounded linguistic systems as separate mental spaces, the data reveals a fluid, integrated structured inventory where constructions are selected based on cognitive economy and conceptual negotiation. The results show that non-standard syntax emerges from the convergence of entrenched structures across languages, serving to reduce processing cost during spontaneous delivery. Ultimately, this study supports a usage-based, construction-driven model of bilingual competence.  

Keywords: code switching, bilingualism, cognitive grammar, compromise forms, integration]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010020</link><guid isPermaLink="false">010020v1</guid><category><![CDATA[code switching]]></category><category><![CDATA[bilingualism]]></category><category><![CDATA[cognitive grammar]]></category><category><![CDATA[compromise forms]]></category><category><![CDATA[integration]]></category><category><![CDATA[semantics]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Mukherjee, Atrayee]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Note on the Syntax and Semantics of Chinese Classifiers]]></title><description><![CDATA[We examine the structure of classifier constructions in Mandarin Chinese in light of Little et al.’s (2022) proposal on the semantics of two kinds of classifier constructions and Zhang's (2011, 2013) analysis of classifiers in Chinese. Little et al. propose that classifiers either compose first with nouns (classifiers-for-nouns) or compose first with numerals (classifiers-for-numerals). The semantic denotation of numerals is different in both cases. Zhang proposes that Chinese has both structures. Taking both proposals at face valve would require us to assume that numerals are listed twice in the lexicon in Chinese (once for each denotation in Little et al.’s models). We critically examine Zhang's diagnostics and conclude that Chinese has only the classifier-for-nouns structure. A tentative semantic analysis is provided.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010019</link><guid isPermaLink="false">010019v1</guid><category><![CDATA[numeral classifiers]]></category><category><![CDATA[chinese]]></category><category><![CDATA[semantic composition]]></category><category><![CDATA[semantics]]></category><category><![CDATA[syntax]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Barrie, Michael]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Adpositions and adpositional phrases A syntactic view from Dutch]]></title><description><![CDATA[This chapter examines adpositions and adpositional phrases in Dutch. Section 2 begins with the traditional classification of adpositions based on their position relative to their complements (if any): prePs, postPs, circumPs and intransitive Ps. This is followed by a discussion of the modification possibilities and syntactic uses of adpositional phrases in sections 3 and 4. Section 5 discusses the movement possibilities of adpositional phrases as well as subextraction from them. Subsection 6 returns to the classification of adpositions in section 2 and argues on the basis of the earlier discussion that it is epiphenomenal; word order is not lexically but syntactically determined.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/007559</link><guid isPermaLink="false">007559v6</guid><category><![CDATA[adpositions]]></category><category><![CDATA[dutch]]></category><category><![CDATA[syntax]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Broekhuis, Hans; Corver, Norbert]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Brief Discussion of Free Merge, Markovian Merge, and Non-Markovian Merge]]></title><description><![CDATA[This paper is principally concerned with the principle of Free Merge, arguably one of the central commitments of the Minimalist Programme. It first traces the relevant theoretical developments, before turning to a more gradual analysis of three notions: Free Merge, Markovian Merge, and Non-Markovian Merge. The discussion will then consider what kinds of problems this theoretical apparatus may be able to address, while also offering an exposition and interpretation of Chomsky’s most recent proposals.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010018</link><guid isPermaLink="false">010018v1</guid><category><![CDATA[free merge; markovian merge; non-markovian merge]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[kangjie, CHANG]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The temporal semantics of proximate futures in English and Turkish]]></title><description><![CDATA[Proximate futures, like English 'be about to' or Turkish 'üzere', are a type of future expression which entails that an eventuality will hold at a future time that is close to the reference time (RT) from tense. While past work on the semantics of future expressions has primarily focused on contrasts between WOLL, 'be going to', and their cross-linguistic counterparts (e.g., Copley 2002, Klecha 2014), less work has investigated the semantics of proximate futures (for an exception, see Hill 2025). What is the core semantic contribution of proximate future expressions, and to what extent does the meaning of proximate futures vary cross-linguistically? In this paper, I discuss a set of properties that hold for proximate futures in both English and Turkish, focusing on their temporal contribution: both express temporal closeness, require that the relevant eventuality has not yet started, and, like the perfect aspect, interact with temporal adverbials/viewpoint aspect. Additionally, the forms 'about' and 'üzere' can both be used elsewhere to express spatial closeness, based on which I hypothesize that forms that denote spatial proximity are able to be recruited for temporal proximity during the process of grammaticalization. In my analysis, I argue that the interval introduced by proximate futures serves as its own RT and is thus a parallel of the perfect time span (PTS) (McCoard 1978, Dowty 1979, Iatridou et al. 2001). Rather than stretching into the past, proximate futures “extend the now” into the future, with an additional restriction of proximity to the RT from tense. In this way, the current analysis positions proximate futures as a mirror of the “hot news” perfect (McCawley 1971). I conclude by discussing the status of proximate futures as (non-)modal operators.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010016</link><guid isPermaLink="false">010016v1</guid><category><![CDATA[proximate future]]></category><category><![CDATA[high aspect]]></category><category><![CDATA[perfect aspect]]></category><category><![CDATA[english]]></category><category><![CDATA[turkish]]></category><category><![CDATA[semantics]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Knick, Emily]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Conditional backshift and counterfactual illusion: Tense, probability and epistemic stance in backshifted English conditional constructions]]></title><description><![CDATA[Famously, English conditional constructions licence the use of past tense verb forms to refer to present or future time and the use of past perfect structures where we would normally expect to see past simple ones. The  occurrence of such verb forms in conditionals is here termed  “conditional backshift” in line with scholars such as Dancygier (1998). Across linguistics, philosophy, psychology and related fields the standard view is that conditional backshift conveys that the proposition in the antecedent of the conditional is unlikely to occur, is regarded with doubt by the speaker or is counterfactual. The aim of this paper is to overturn the standard view. To this end, two sets of data are presented. The first is a body of theoretical evidence from the language. The second consists of the results from a research survey administered to 1,300 respondents from a UK Russell Group university. The results provide overwhelming evidence that conditional backshift neither entails nor implicates improbability, negative epistemic stance or counterfactuality on the part of speakers.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/009346</link><guid isPermaLink="false">009346v4</guid><category><![CDATA[backshift]]></category><category><![CDATA[conditionals]]></category><category><![CDATA[exhaustive conditionals]]></category><category><![CDATA[remote conditionals]]></category><category><![CDATA[subjunctive conditionals]]></category><category><![CDATA[counterfactual conditionals]]></category><category><![CDATA[distributive conditionals]]></category><category><![CDATA[future less vivid]]></category><category><![CDATA[irrealis were]]></category><category><![CDATA[past tense]]></category><category><![CDATA[epistemic stance]]></category><category><![CDATA[counterfactuality]]></category><category><![CDATA[modality]]></category><category><![CDATA[reverse causation]]></category><category><![CDATA[efl]]></category><category><![CDATA[semantics]]></category><category><![CDATA[morphology]]></category><category><![CDATA[syntax]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chatterjee, Cris]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[It May or May Not Be Relevant: Testing the Relationship Between Relevance and Informativeness]]></title><description><![CDATA[The dominant view in cognitive science and formal pragmatics is that relevance is a matter of informativeness: a sentence is relevant if it is informative, and irrelevant otherwise. We provide experimental evidence against this thesis. For polar questions (e.g. ‘Is Mary coming to the party?’), we constructed two kinds of uninformative replies: replies that clearly violate relevance (uninformative-off-topic condition; e.g. ‘Mary lives in an old house’) and replies that are equally uninformative yet do not intuitively incur a relevance violation, such as uncertainty or disagreement reports (target condition; e.g. ‘Her parents disagree about that’). In a within-subject study (N = 100; 12 scenarios), participants judged both kinds of replies uninformative, but a forced-choice continuation diagnostic revealed a sharp dissociation in perceived relevance: target replies were judged relevant 95%, versus 3% for the uninformative-off-topic condition. These results show that informativeness is not a necessary condition for relevance.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010017</link><guid isPermaLink="false">010017v1</guid><category><![CDATA[relevance; informativity; question answering; maxim of relation]]></category><category><![CDATA[semantics]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Feinmann, Diego; Ramotowska, Sonia]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Meaning after the Multimodal Revolution:  Seven Things Signs and Gestures Teach Us about Meaning]]></title><description><![CDATA[Following a "multimodal revolution" in the language sciences, meaning is now studied not just in speech but also in sign languages ('sign') and in gestures. Seven lessons can be drawn from recent research. (1) Sometimes sign makes visible key logical elements that are covert in speech. (2)  Sign combines the same meaning operations as speech with a richer depictive component. (3)  Sign combines the same kind of syntax as speech with a dedicated syntax for its depictive elements. (4) Even the purely depictive component of sign is linguistically structured. (5) Gestures that replace words share some non-trivial properties with signs—but unlike signs, they are not words. (6) Gestures that accompany words make backgrounded (non-assertive) contributions.  (7) Several of these properties apply beyond signs and gestures, suggesting that they have a deeper cognitive source, not a narrowly linguistic one. These lessons show that human meaning results from both discrete, logical-like and gradient, iconic components, integrated through powerful cognitive mechanisms across sign, speech and gestures.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010015</link><guid isPermaLink="false">010015v2</guid><category><![CDATA[multimodality]]></category><category><![CDATA[sign language]]></category><category><![CDATA[gestures]]></category><category><![CDATA[semantics]]></category><category><![CDATA[iconicity]]></category><category><![CDATA[semantics]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Schlenker, Philippe]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Hand That Measures: Greek δῶρον 2 and the Body-Part-as-Measure Cluster on PIE *de-r-]]></title><description><![CDATA[Frisk's Griechisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch and Beekes's Etymological Dictionary of Greek both treat Greek δῶρον as two entries: δῶρον 1 "gift," with its established derivation from PIE *deh₃-ro-, and δῶρον 2 "palm-of-the-hand, palm-as-measure," marked by Frisk as origin unknown and by Beekes as ◁?▷. This paper supplies the etymology Frisk left open. Greek δῶρον 2 descends from the body-part heteroclite arm-noun *de-r- of the companion paper The Hand That Gives via two standard morphological steps: Szemerényi's Law on the o-grade consonant-stem r-stem nominative *do-r-s yields *dōr, parallel to εὐπάτωρ from *eu-patōr-s and Homeric δώτωρ from *deh₃-tōr-s; thematicization *dōr → *dōr-o-n surfaces as δῶρον 2. The architectural advance is the recognition that *de-r- generates a coherent cross-IE family across three measurement-and-form registers anchored on different aspects of the cupped hand: a palm-as-linear-measure register (δῶρον 2, δάρις/δάρειρ, Old Irish derna, Continental Celtic DERNV[, Albanian dorë); a handful-as-volume register on zero-grade *dr̥-k- (δράξ "handful," δράσσομαι, δράγμα, δραχμή — the monetary handful); and a scoop-and-ladle tool register (Sanskrit darvī "ladle, cobra's hood," Luwian taruwal-, Hittite tarwāli-, Armenian targal/dgal). The δωρ-/δαρ-/δραξ- pattern is a three-way ablaut alternation on the same r-stem base, dissolving Schrijver's (1995) "obscure" verdict at the morphological rather than phonological level. A parallel cluster on the s-stem sister *dóws- generates Sanskrit dos = 18 inches and dor-jyā = sine, placing the framework inside the near-universal cubit family. The organizing principle is a body-schema (the cupped hand as primal scoop), with two lexicalization channels: a body-part channel (the hand-as-anatomy) and a configuration channel (the cupped shape, diagnostically Sanskrit darvī, which names both ladles and the splayed hood of a cobra). Vitruvius's etymology (De architectura 2.3.3) — that the palm is called δῶρον because giving is called δῶρον — is folk etymology, parallel to English ear (hearing) and ear (grain). Probability conditional on Paper 1's framework: 50–60%.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010010</link><guid isPermaLink="false">010010v2</guid><category><![CDATA[δῶρον 2]]></category><category><![CDATA[palm-as-measure]]></category><category><![CDATA[szemerényi's law]]></category><category><![CDATA[thematicization]]></category><category><![CDATA[body-part metrology]]></category><category><![CDATA[sibling derivation]]></category><category><![CDATA[r-stem heteroclite]]></category><category><![CDATA[δάρις]]></category><category><![CDATA[old irish derna]]></category><category><![CDATA[bronze of novallas]]></category><category><![CDATA[cubit family]]></category><category><![CDATA[sanskrit dor-jyā]]></category><category><![CDATA[folk etymology]]></category><category><![CDATA[hesychian lexicon]]></category><category><![CDATA[mycenaean linear b]]></category><category><![CDATA[semantics]]></category><category><![CDATA[morphology]]></category><category><![CDATA[phonology]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chavis, J. M.; Claude, A.I.]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Why English doesn't extract left branches (yet)]]></title><description><![CDATA[English resists separating pre-head dependents from the head of an NP: \textit{*Whose did you read book?} is sharply unacceptable. Rather than positing a universal constraint, this paper asks what English does instead; and measures it. The explanation has three strands: distributional (fused-head construals and workarounds like pied-piping and \textit{big mess} are frequent; configurations resembling left-branch extraction are absent), psycholinguistic (fused-head parsing commits listeners early, making reanalysis costly), and functional (the workaround family already does the semantic work that extraction would do). Corpus rates from Universal Dependencies confirm: workarounds are entrenched, determiner–head packaging is tight, and discontinuity is near-zero. A Bayesian learner has no positive evidence for separation; the posterior stays near zero and the gap perpetuates itself. Absence of evidence, when the search is thorough, is evidence of abstinence. And abstinence, unlike impossibility, can end.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/009708</link><guid isPermaLink="false">009708v2</guid><category><![CDATA[left-branch condition]]></category><category><![CDATA[bayesian acquisition]]></category><category><![CDATA[distributional learning]]></category><category><![CDATA[functionalism]]></category><category><![CDATA[english syntax]]></category><category><![CDATA[corpus linguistics]]></category><category><![CDATA[syntax]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Reynolds, Brett]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Atoms, Aggregates, and Elementary Predicates: on Proper Names in Italian and beyond]]></title><description><![CDATA[This article challenges uniform predicativism and covert light noun analyses of proper names. Using Italian and cross- linguistic data, we argue that onomastic morphosyntax relies on a mereosyntactic dichotomy: roots conceptualized as atomic individuals merge in D as referential expressions, whereas aggregates merge in N, requiring functional support. This distinction explains asymmetries in toponyms, temporal names, and plural names. For complex names (e.g., Lago di Garda), we propose they avoid ordinary predication by recruiting the exact mereological relators used for material constitution, directly fusing a sortal noun with a rigid designator into a unified domain. Note: After a series of personal and professional setbacks, compounded by what I perceive to be a highly marginalizing and unsupportive academic environment at my home institution, I have finally found the time and focus to bring out some long-standing ideas I had kept in my drawer for years. I have recently submitted this research for review. Comments are very welcome.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010000</link><guid isPermaLink="false">010000v2</guid><category><![CDATA[proper names]]></category><category><![CDATA[complex names]]></category><category><![CDATA[light noun hypothesis]]></category><category><![CDATA[italian]]></category><category><![CDATA[mereology]]></category><category><![CDATA[morphology]]></category><category><![CDATA[syntax]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Franco, Ludovico]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The North Remembers, Part 1: Kajon väkeä, tähtein kukkia]]></title><description><![CDATA[The research reveals new connection between well-established language families. More material will follow in the very near future.
edit: 2026 05 14 an edit to remove all edits. partial Swadesh up! go wild!
edit: 2026 05 15 an edit to add edits again. dumb or not?? +6 Swadeshs, now with over 20/40 ==%)
edit: 2026 05 22 THE GATES ARE AFOOT ONCE AGAIN!!! And FFS people, why do you download AI stuff like maniac0s???? Download MY products of natural stupidity no I meant curiousity instead and witness some REAL INNOBATIONZSS!! :----D!!!]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/009798</link><guid isPermaLink="false">009798v12</guid><category><![CDATA[language family discovery]]></category><category><![CDATA[morphology]]></category><category><![CDATA[phonology]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Uurasjärvi, Johannes]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Pictures and Figures: Golding, Halliday, and the Stratum Closest to Being]]></title><description><![CDATA[This paper advances a convergence argument across phenomenological linguistics, narrative
enactment, and embodied cognitive science. M. A. K. Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar
describes a stratum of meaning — the content plane of figures — that precedes grammaticalization:
experience organised as configurations of process, participants, and circumstances before any
lexicogrammatical structure captures it. This stratum is structurally identical to what William
Golding’s Neanderthal protagonists enact as “picture-thinking,” and to what enactivist cognitive
science identifies as the sensorimotor coupling through which organisms constitute meaning prior
to representation. Clark (2009) concludes that what previous analysis read as communicative
deficit in Golding’s Neanderthals may be richness at a level the grammaticalized system cannot
register — a conclusion stratification theory reaches independently. Golding’s prose enacts the
content plane directly: transitivity suppressed, causality unencoded, likeness as figural identity
before predicated comparison. Mapping Halliday’s stratification model onto a companion paper’s
(a1)–(a2)–(b↔c) framework gives the argument structural precision: the history of representation
becomes a history of progressive grammaticalization, AI represents the completion of that history
by operating without any figural ground, and the a3 condition is the recovery of access to the
content plane. A further section distinguishes the lateral a2 convulsion from the outward a1-
touching convulsion, arguing that discriminating between them is the central practice of a3
existence. A final section identifies aging as a second and universal forcing condition, reading the
gerontolinguistic pattern of preserved transformed gist in healthy aging as empirical evidence of
outward movement through the strata.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010014</link><guid isPermaLink="false">010014v1</guid><category><![CDATA[being]]></category><category><![CDATA[representation]]></category><category><![CDATA[artificial intelligence]]></category><category><![CDATA[content plane]]></category><category><![CDATA[stratification]]></category><category><![CDATA[systemic functional grammar]]></category><category><![CDATA[figures]]></category><category><![CDATA[embodied cognition]]></category><category><![CDATA[enactivism]]></category><category><![CDATA[picture-thinking]]></category><category><![CDATA[golding]]></category><category><![CDATA[the inheritors]]></category><category><![CDATA[phenomenology]]></category><category><![CDATA[heidegger]]></category><category><![CDATA[pre-predicative]]></category><category><![CDATA[transitivity]]></category><category><![CDATA[figural vocalization]]></category><category><![CDATA[grammaticalization]]></category><category><![CDATA[aging]]></category><category><![CDATA[gerontolinguistics]]></category><category><![CDATA[transformed gist]]></category><category><![CDATA[fuzzy trace theory]]></category><category><![CDATA[mind-at-large]]></category><category><![CDATA[dissociation]]></category><category><![CDATA[practice]]></category><category><![CDATA[analogy]]></category><category><![CDATA[cognitive science]]></category><category><![CDATA[philosophy of language]]></category><category><![CDATA[philosophy of mind]]></category><category><![CDATA[continental philosophy]]></category><category><![CDATA[narrative enactment]]></category><category><![CDATA[literary linguistics]]></category><category><![CDATA[pragmatics]]></category><category><![CDATA[enaction]]></category><category><![CDATA[sensorimotor coupling]]></category><category><![CDATA[kastrup]]></category><category><![CDATA[chapman]]></category><category><![CDATA[brainerd]]></category><category><![CDATA[reyna]]></category><category><![CDATA[alzheimer]]></category><category><![CDATA[propositional content]]></category><category><![CDATA[sub-propositional]]></category><category><![CDATA[functional discourse grammar]]></category><category><![CDATA[hjelmslev]]></category><category><![CDATA[lateral analogy]]></category><category><![CDATA[outward movement]]></category><category><![CDATA[epochal arc]]></category><category><![CDATA[gestell]]></category><category><![CDATA[pre-socratic]]></category><category><![CDATA[ai epoch]]></category><category><![CDATA[convulsion of the understanding]]></category><category><![CDATA[likeness]]></category><category><![CDATA[shared picture]]></category><category><![CDATA[markov blanket]]></category><category><![CDATA[figural identity]]></category><category><![CDATA[metaphor]]></category><category><![CDATA[semantics]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Mcknight, Scott]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Back Jer as a Negative Marker: Jer Color in Slavic Liquid Contexts as an Etymological Diagnostic and Evidence for Syllabic-Resonant Coloring]]></title><description><![CDATA[Old Church Slavonic distinguishes two jer letters, ъ (back) and ь (front), whose
distribution in liquid contexts (CъrC/CьrC, CъlC/CьlC) has resisted phonolog-
ical explanation for over a century. This paper makes a coordinated empirical
and theoretical claim. Empirically, on the basis of a 128-word Proto-Slavic corpus
together with a reanalysis of Kuryłowicz’s (1956) survey of Trautmann’s (1924)
Balto-Slavic dictionary, jer color in these positions is shown to function as an ety-
mological diagnostic: front jer ь marks inheritance from a PIE syllabic resonant (*r̥,
*l ̥); back jer ъ marks every other source—loanwords, laryngeal sequences, substrate
vocabulary, full-grade roots. The diagnostic is categorical for unconditioned inher-
ited vocabulary in both directions: among confirmed inherited front-jer-plus-liquid
words (n= 60), none fails to trace to a PIE syllabic resonant; among back-jer-
plus-liquid words with no labial/round conditioning environment (n= 50), none
traces to a PIE syllabic resonant. Seven cases of PIE syllabic resonants yielding
back jer (*gъrdlo, *gъrnъ, *bъrzъ, *drъvo, *tъrkъ, *mъlva, *tъlkъ) are explained by
a unified labial/round conditioning environment (labiovelars, u-stems, labial *w).
Theoretically, the conditioning is uniformly consonantal and glide-based, with no
vowel-quality features as conditioners; this argues that the segment being condi-
tioned was a colored syllabic consonant rather than a reduced vowel, and that OCS
ъ/ь in liquid contexts function as notational conventions for that syllabic resonant.
The argument converges with the Havlík’s-law vocalization asymmetry developed
in a companion preprint (Jevremović 2026) and reframes the etymological diagnos-
tic as a downstream consequence of a structural account in which inherited PIE
material and loaned or substratum material feed the same Slavic syllabic-resonant
slot through two distinct channels.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010011</link><guid isPermaLink="false">010011v1</guid><category><![CDATA[proto-slavic]]></category><category><![CDATA[jers]]></category><category><![CDATA[yers]]></category><category><![CDATA[syllabic resonants]]></category><category><![CDATA[liquid contexts]]></category><category><![CDATA[old church slavonic]]></category><category><![CDATA[slavic historical phonology]]></category><category><![CDATA[common slavic]]></category><category><![CDATA[balto-slavic]]></category><category><![CDATA[pie syllabic resonants]]></category><category><![CDATA[etymological diagnostic]]></category><category><![CDATA[loanword phonology]]></category><category><![CDATA[havlík's law]]></category><category><![CDATA[winter's law]]></category><category><![CDATA[comparative reconstruction]]></category><category><![CDATA[phonology]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Jevremović, Marko]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Hand That Gives: PIE *der- and the give/take root: an alternative reconstruction proposed for consideration]]></title><description><![CDATA[This paper develops three derivational outputs of a Pre-PIE arm-extension element *de- in the post-Anatolian Indo-European tradition. The first is the directional/allative particle *de/do, preserved as a productive morpheme in Mycenaean Greek by 1400–1200 BCE, in Old Church Slavonic do, Proto-Germanic *tō, and Celtiberian DV at the Bronze of Novallas. The second is the body-part heteroclite arm-noun *de-r-, formed by the addition of the locative case-ending *-r to the bare element; its daughter-language reflexes — Albanian dorë, Old Irish derna, Hesychian δάρις — display the ARM → HAND grammaticalization attested within Sanskrit and articulated for Proto-Celtic by Matasović (2009). A sister s-stem heteroclite *dóws- generates the Sanskrit doṣ-/dor-, Avestan daoš-, and Balto-Slavic pa-duse/pazuxa arm-vocabulary across the family. The third is the post-Anatolian give-verb *deh₃-, analyzed bimorphemically as *de- + *-h₃-; the bimorphemic decomposition is supported by the Greek root-aorist 2pl imperative contrast (δότε : στῆτε), in which roots the framework analyzes as bimorphemic preserve the bare-CV vowel while monomorphemic roots preserve the laryngeal-conditioned long vowel throughout. The deverbal action-noun *deh₃-ti-/-tu- is attested across five independent post-Anatolian branches, with the Anatolian gap consistent with the framework's chronological claim. The morphological foundation for *de-r- is supplied by three convergent published treatments of PIE *-r: Lipp (2009) on the body-part heteroclite class, Bauhaus (2019) on PIE *-r as a locative case-ending, and Kahl (2024) on the locative origin of *-(t)ero-. The framework adopts the coexistence reading with respect to PIE *ǵʰesr- (Greek χείρ, Hittite kessar) and does not contest the standard derivation of the gift-noun cluster from *deh₃-ro-/-no-. Probability conditional on the paper's central claims: 45–55%.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/009940</link><guid isPermaLink="false">009940v20</guid><category><![CDATA[pre-pie reconstruction]]></category><category><![CDATA[indo-anatolian]]></category><category><![CDATA[body-part heteroclite]]></category><category><![CDATA[r/n heteroclite]]></category><category><![CDATA[give-verb]]></category><category><![CDATA[directional particle]]></category><category><![CDATA[arm → hand grammaticalization]]></category><category><![CDATA[locative *-r]]></category><category><![CDATA[bimorphemic decomposition]]></category><category><![CDATA[greek root-aorist]]></category><category><![CDATA[mycenaean linear b]]></category><category><![CDATA[albanian dorë]]></category><category><![CDATA[sanskrit doṣ-]]></category><category><![CDATA[szemerényi's law]]></category><category><![CDATA[grammaticalization]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chavis, J. M.; Claude, A.I.]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Knowledge as Conventionalized Arbitrary Relations: Toward a Theory of Epistemology]]></title><description><![CDATA[This paper proposes that encyclopedic knowledge — what we know about the world, as distinct from what follows from definitions or logical structure — consists fundamentally of conventionalized arbitrary relations. Drawing on Saussurean sign-arbitrariness, Kripkean modal semantics, and the gradient conventionalization framework developed in prior work on lexical meaning, the paper argues that every empirical claim depends on a contingent carving of reality into concepts and a contingent act of reference-fixing that anchors those concepts to worldly entities. Both operations are arbitrary in the Saussurean sense and require intersubjective stabilization before they can function as publicly warranted knowledge rather than as private epistemic state. The thesis is tested against apparent counterexamples — Kripke's necessary a posteriori, scientific laws, mathematical truths, and perceptual beliefs — each reducing to either a system-internal relation or a conventionalized arbitrary relation not necessary in any world-independent sense. The degree to which a claim qualifies as publicly warranted knowledge corresponds to its degree of conventionalization within a specified epistemic community, operationalized through the alpha coefficient developed in prior work. The framework remains agnostic about inaccessible first-person standpoints, a stance illustrated through wrongly convicted defendants, deceased persons, and the Cartesian cogito. Philosophy, on the resulting picture, is not a producer of α-scorable knowledge but the generative substrate through which the conceptual carvings over which conventionalization operates are invented, contested, and revised.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010012</link><guid isPermaLink="false">010012v1</guid><category><![CDATA[epistemology]]></category><category><![CDATA[arbitrary relations]]></category><category><![CDATA[conventionalization]]></category><category><![CDATA[saussure]]></category><category><![CDATA[kripke]]></category><category><![CDATA[necessary a posteriori]]></category><category><![CDATA[two-dimensional semantics]]></category><category><![CDATA[gradient framework]]></category><category><![CDATA[encyclopedic knowledge]]></category><category><![CDATA[alpha coefficient]]></category><category><![CDATA[intersubjective agreement]]></category><category><![CDATA[publicly warranted knowledge]]></category><category><![CDATA[semantics]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Mozahid, Tariq]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Etymology of Albanian dorë: PIE *de-r- “hand, open palm,” the *ĝhʰesr--side reading, and the ARM → HAND grammaticalization pathway]]></title><description><![CDATA[Albanian dorë "hand" (consonantal plural duar) has been derived in two competing ways since the nineteenth century. The *der-side reading, originating with Gustav Meyer's Albanesische Studien I (1883) and running through La Piana (1937, 1942), Belardi (1948), Pokorny (1959), and Frisk (1960–72), groups dorë with PIE *der- "Spanne der Hand" (Pokorny IEW 203) using only regular Albanian sound changes. The *ǵʰesr-side reading, canonicalized by Demiraj (1990, 1997) and inherited by Orel (1998), Vermeer (2008), and Beekes (2010), groups dorë with PIE *ǵʰesr- "hand" (IEW 447) but requires positing the irregular shift *ǵʰ → d in Albanian, where the regular reflex of PIE *ǵʰ is dh.
This paper develops the case for the *der-side reading on three grounds. Phonologically, the derivation *der-s → *dḗr → *dḗr-eh₂- → *dḗr-ā → dorë uses only sound laws all parties accept: Szemerényi's Law on the e-grade r-stem nominative, the *-eh₂- feminine extension, regular Albanian *ē → o, and unstressed final *-ā → -ë. Historiographically, the post-1990 consolidation rests in its foundational citation (Demiraj 1997: 140 → Tagliavini L'albanese di Dalmazia p. 101) on a page whose content does not address Albanian dorë; Pokorny's own text at IEW 447 had already stated, in his own voice, that *ǵʰesr- could not produce dorë. Comparatively, the post-2000 specialist reconstruction (Vermeer 2008) has independently moved to *ǵʰēr- — a sibilant-less form differing from the framework's *dēr- by one phoneme — and Vermeer describes the sound law underlying Huld's dismissal of La Piana's *dōrom as having no reliably agreed example.
The paper further addresses the deeper question of where PIE *de-r- itself comes from, developing the ARM → HAND grammaticalization hypothesis with reference to Heine and Kuteva (2002), Matasović's published Proto-Celtic parallel (*dowsant-, 2009), Sanskrit doṣ-/dor- with its rich compound system and metrological attestations, and the morphological frame of Lipp (2009), Bauhaus (2019), and Kahl (2024). A formal constraint qualifies the deeper hypothesis: the well-attested IE arm-root carries o/u-vocalism (*dóws-), not e-vocalism, so the deeper unification requires Pre-PIE compositional analysis developed in the companion papers. Probability: *de-r- → dorë etymology, 55–70%; deeper ARM → HAND hypothesis, 15–25%.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010008</link><guid isPermaLink="false">010008v1</guid><category><![CDATA[albanian dorë]]></category><category><![CDATA[phantom citation]]></category><category><![CDATA[tagliavini]]></category><category><![CDATA[belardi argument]]></category><category><![CDATA[*ǵʰesr-]]></category><category><![CDATA[szemerényi's law]]></category><category><![CDATA[*-eh₂- feminine]]></category><category><![CDATA[irregular sound change]]></category><category><![CDATA[demiraj]]></category><category><![CDATA[vermeer]]></category><category><![CDATA[la piana]]></category><category><![CDATA[iew 203]]></category><category><![CDATA[arm → hand grammaticalization]]></category><category><![CDATA[proto-celtic *dowsant-]]></category><category><![CDATA[sibilant-less reconstruction]]></category><category><![CDATA[semantics]]></category><category><![CDATA[morphology]]></category><category><![CDATA[phonology]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chavis, J. M.; Claude, A.I.]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[LENGUA, DIALECTO Y DESCRIPCIÓN GRAMATICAL: EL CASO DEL ESPAÑOL RIOPLATENSE]]></title><description><![CDATA[This chapter offers an overview of the phonology, the lexicon, the morphology and the syntax of Rioplatense Spanish.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010007</link><guid isPermaLink="false">010007v1</guid><category><![CDATA[rioplatense spanish]]></category><category><![CDATA[morphology]]></category><category><![CDATA[lexicon]]></category><category><![CDATA[syntax]]></category><category><![CDATA[morphology]]></category><category><![CDATA[syntax]]></category><category><![CDATA[phonology]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Muñoz Pérez, Carlos; Saab, Andrés]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA['Everywhere here can say this': The English locative impersonal]]></title><description><![CDATA[For many speakers of English, locative  can be used instead of the universal pronoun  in certain contexts, to denote a generic or impersonal set of individuals. This paper documents "impersonal " for the first time, applying a range of syntactic tests to determine its synchronic status. Based on a large-scale acceptability study, we find that it requires overt reference to a large location, as in . The results further indicate that UK speakers are more accepting of it than US speakers, in particular, younger UK speakers. We discuss the grammatical properties of this construction and how it might have arisen - from variationist and diachronic perspectives.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/006708</link><guid isPermaLink="false">006708v3</guid><category><![CDATA[impersonals]]></category><category><![CDATA[locatives]]></category><category><![CDATA[innovation]]></category><category><![CDATA[restrictor]]></category><category><![CDATA[metonymy]]></category><category><![CDATA[semantics]]></category><category><![CDATA[morphology]]></category><category><![CDATA[syntax]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Sluckin, Benjamin L.; Kastner, Itamar]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Huautla Mazateco Complex Segments as Single Phonemes: A Multi-layered Subsegmental Structure Approach]]></title><description><![CDATA[This paper proposes a novel approach to the analysis of consonantal phonetic sequences in Huautla Mazatec. These sequences comprise a large inventory of both simple and complex phonemes, including typologically unexpected contrasts such as pre- vs. post-aspirated consonants like /ht/ vs. /th/ or /hnd/ vs. /nth/. This paper argues that the primary phonological contrast between these phonemes does not reside in temporal anchoring or linearity, but rather in a distinct arrangement within a subsegmental hierarchical binary structure. This approach adapts Pike & Pike's (1947) 'Immediate Constituents' proposal to the representational framework of Q-Theory (Garvin et al. 2018; Inkelas & Shih 2016; Shih & Inkelas 2019).]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010013</link><guid isPermaLink="false">010013v1</guid><category><![CDATA[mazatec]]></category><category><![CDATA[consonantal sequences]]></category><category><![CDATA[complex consonants]]></category><category><![CDATA[secondary articulation]]></category><category><![CDATA[pre-aspiration]]></category><category><![CDATA[post-aspiration]]></category><category><![CDATA[q-theory]]></category><category><![CDATA[phonological recursion]]></category><category><![CDATA[phonology]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Wagner Oviedo, Carlos]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Etymology of Albanian dorë: PIE *de-r- “hand, open palm,” the *ĝhʰesr--side reading, and the ARM → HAND grammaticalization pathway]]></title><description><![CDATA[Albanian dorë "hand" (consonantal plural duar) has been derived in two competing ways since the nineteenth century. The *der-side reading, originating with Gustav Meyer's Albanesische Studien I (1883) and running through La Piana (1937, 1942), Belardi (1948), Pokorny (1959), and Frisk (1960–72), groups dorë with PIE *der- "Spanne der Hand" (Pokorny IEW 203) using only regular Albanian sound changes. The *ǵʰesr-side reading, canonicalized by Demiraj (1990, 1997) and inherited by Orel (1998), Vermeer (2008), and Beekes (2010), groups dorë with PIE *ǵʰesr- "hand" (IEW 447) but requires positing the irregular shift *ǵʰ → d in Albanian, where the regular reflex of PIE *ǵʰ is dh.
This paper develops the case for the *der-side reading on three grounds. Phonologically, the derivation *der-s → *dḗr → *dḗr-eh₂- → *dḗr-ā → dorë uses only sound laws all parties accept: Szemerényi's Law on the e-grade r-stem nominative, the *-eh₂- feminine extension, regular Albanian *ē → o, and unstressed final *-ā → -ë. Historiographically, the post-1990 consolidation rests in its foundational citation (Demiraj 1997: 140 → Tagliavini L'albanese di Dalmazia p. 101) on a page whose content does not address Albanian dorë; Pokorny's own text at IEW 447 had already stated, in his own voice, that *ǵʰesr- could not produce dorë. Comparatively, the post-2000 specialist reconstruction (Vermeer 2008) has independently moved to *ǵʰēr- — a sibilant-less form differing from the framework's *dēr- by one phoneme — and Vermeer describes the sound law underlying Huld's dismissal of La Piana's *dōrom as having no reliably agreed example.
The paper further addresses the deeper question of where PIE *de-r- itself comes from, developing the ARM → HAND grammaticalization hypothesis with reference to Heine and Kuteva (2002), Matasović's published Proto-Celtic parallel (*dowsant-, 2009), Sanskrit doṣ-/dor- with its rich compound system and metrological attestations, and the morphological frame of Lipp (2009), Bauhaus (2019), and Kahl (2024). A formal constraint qualifies the deeper hypothesis: the well-attested IE arm-root carries o/u-vocalism (*dóws-), not e-vocalism, so the deeper unification requires Pre-PIE compositional analysis developed in the companion papers. Probability: *de-r- → dorë etymology, 55–70%; deeper ARM → HAND hypothesis, 15–25%.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010009</link><guid isPermaLink="false">010009v1</guid><category><![CDATA[albanian dorë]]></category><category><![CDATA[phantom citation]]></category><category><![CDATA[tagliavini]]></category><category><![CDATA[belardi argument]]></category><category><![CDATA[*ǵʰesr-]]></category><category><![CDATA[szemerényi's law]]></category><category><![CDATA[*-eh₂- feminine]]></category><category><![CDATA[irregular sound change]]></category><category><![CDATA[demiraj]]></category><category><![CDATA[vermeer]]></category><category><![CDATA[la piana]]></category><category><![CDATA[iew 203]]></category><category><![CDATA[arm → hand grammaticalization]]></category><category><![CDATA[proto-celtic *dowsant-]]></category><category><![CDATA[sibilant-less reconstruction]]></category><category><![CDATA[semantics]]></category><category><![CDATA[morphology]]></category><category><![CDATA[phonology]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chavis, J. M.; Claude, A.I.]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The presuppositions of 'forget']]></title><description><![CDATA[The propositional attitude verb forget has received relatively little attention
in the formal linguistics literature, though its properties present interesting problems
for formal semantics. White (2014) argues that a uniform account of forget as a
factive verb is possible. On this view, forget presupposes the truth of its clausal
argument (See also Kiparsky & Kiparsky (1970)). But in order to do so, he claims
that a covert modal operator is obligatorily present in the infinitival complements
of forget, deriving modalized factive presuppositions. In this paper, I present data
showing that the distribution of this covert modal operator is even more restricted.
I argue that modalization of the complement is separate from the clause-type, and
that it is instead the pre-existence presupposition (Bondarenko 2020), that is part of
forget’s meaning, that is responsible for the distribution of this covert operator.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/009797</link><guid isPermaLink="false">009797v2</guid><category><![CDATA[presuppositions]]></category><category><![CDATA[attitude verbs]]></category><category><![CDATA[factive-implicatives]]></category><category><![CDATA[modality]]></category><category><![CDATA[semantics]]></category><category><![CDATA[syntax]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Williams, William]]></dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Learnability of Bridge Effects]]></title><description><![CDATA[The distinction between bridge verbs, which allow long-distance questions out of their CP complement, and non-bridge verbs, which do not, is found in a range of languages. In the previous literature, this distinction has been variably attributed to the lexical semantic/discourse properties of the CP-embedding verbs, or the syntactic positioning of the dependent CP. In this study, we provide evidence for an alternative, learning-based account, whereby positive input evidence is needed for children to acquire the possibility of wh-dependencies across a CP-embedding verb, and to further generalize this property to all such verbs.  We examine the bridge/non-bridge distinction in English and Mandarin, with a corpus analysis of child-directed speech and experimental evidence provided for each language. We demonstrate that while English shows a clear bridge/non-bridge distinction, Mandarin CP-embedding verbs are all bridge verbs for both argument and adjunct wh-dependencies. These findings are predicted by a difference in the structure of the input data available to English versus Mandarin children as they acquire long-distance wh-dependencies, along with the proposed learning-based account of the bridge effect.]]></description><link>http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/010005</link><guid isPermaLink="false">010005v1</guid><category><![CDATA[bridge effect]]></category><category><![CDATA[learnability]]></category><category><![CDATA[long-distance dependency]]></category><category><![CDATA[island effect]]></category><category><![CDATA[the tolerance principle]]></category><category><![CDATA[syntax]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[Lu, Jiayi; Legate, Julie; Yang, Charles]]></dc:creator></item></channel></rss>