Long-Distance Reflexivization and Logophoricity in the Dargin Language

The study of anaphora challenges us to determine the conditions under which the pronouns of a language are associated with possible antecedents. One of the theoretical questions is whether the distribution of pronominal forms is best explained by a syntactic, semantic or discourse level analysis. A more practical question is how we distinguish between anaphoric elements, e.g. what are the borders between the notions of pronouns, locally bound reflexives and long-distance reflexives? The study analyzes the anaphora device saj in Dargin that is traditionally considered to be a long-distance reflexivization language. We show that the previous research did not cover all uses of saj that are essential for the notion of long-distance reflexivization and logophoricity. The course of analysis leads to the conclusion that saj does not have the syntactic restrictions imposed on long-distance reflexives or logophors in other languages

The first Komi-Zyrian Universal Dependencies treebanks

Partanen N, Blokland R, Lim KT, Poibeau T, Rießler M. The first Komi-Zyrian Universal Dependencies treebanks. Presented at the 2018 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (Universal Dependencies Workshop 2018), Brussels

Heterogeneous sets: a diachronic typology of associative and similative plurals

This paper provides a diachronic typology of what we call ‘heterogeneous plurals’, an overarching term comprising associative plurals (expressions meaning X[person] & company) and similative plurals (expressions meaning X and similar entities). Based on a 110-language sample, we identify the most recurrent sources of these two types of plurals by means of various types of evidence (homophony/identity, internal reconstruction, comparison with cognate languages). The two types of plurals develop out of different source types: while the sources of associative plurals include elements that work as set constructors (plural anaphoric elements, plural possessives, names meaning ‘group’), those of similative plurals comprise elements with vague reference such as interrogative/indefinite items or uncertainty markers. There are also a few source types that may develop into both associative and similative plurals, such as connectives (‘and/with’) and universal quantifiers (‘every/all’). The differences in the diachronic pathways leading to the two types of plurals are explained in terms of the different referential properties of the nominal bases from which they are formed (proper names/kin terms vs. common nouns), but also taking into account the typical discourse contexts in which the two types of plurals are employed