Non-exhaustive connectives

This paper provides the first cross-linguistic study on non-exhaustive connectives. After defining non-exhaustivity and briefly exploring the range of linguistic strategies encoding it across languages, the methodology underlying the study will be discussed. Based on the analysis of 35 languages, for which at least one non-exhaustive connective was found, it will be argued that non-exhaustive connectives exhibit quite homogenous distributional properties and derive from a restricted set of recurrent diachronic sources. Speakers are indeed likely to mobilize i) elements already encoding or implying non-exhaustivity, ii) elements expressing an epistemic condition of uncertainty, or iii) elements expressing exemplification

Constructing lists to construct categories

The aim of this paper is to analyze list constructions as linguistic tools to build categories in discourse, identifying the inferential processes leading from list constructions to categorization and examining the semantic and morphosyntactic elements that activate abstractive reasoning within lists. Based on real occurrences of lists in written and spoken Italian, we will first of all propose a crucial distinction between exhaustive and non-exhaustive lists, arguing that (non-)exhaustivity determines the layer at which the construction of a category occurs, namely the layer of presupposition or the \u2018what-is-said\u2019 part of the utterance. We will then focus on non-exhaustive lists, arguing that they directly communicate a bottom-up, exemplar-driven abstraction, characterized by the presence of an inherently indexical reference (i.e. reference to further Xs characterized by some underlying Property P), which will lead us to call it \u2018indexical categorization\u2019. The linguistic analysis of how indexical categorization is expressed in discourse will show a major distinction between (i) elements characterized by an indexical semantics, which trigger the abstraction process, and (ii) elements providing semantic clues towards the correct construction of the indexical category. We will conclude by taking a broader perspective and by explaining the patterns observed for indexical categorization in the light of the wider process of online reference construction

La verità visibile nella natura e nella scrittura. Sul baco da seta di Khamis bar Qardahe (fine del XIII secolo)

Khamis bar Qardaḥe was an East Syrian author active in the last decades of the 13th century, probably a representative member of the East-Syrian community at the court camp of the Il-Khans, and somehow connected with the town of Arbela. In the present article, his poetic work is presented in the broader context of the so-called ‘Syriac Renaissance’, as an example of late East-Syriac literature profoundly influenced by Persian poetry. The poem On the Silk-Worm is here critically edited and translated for the first time into a European language. Its complicated imagery turns out to be an interesting mélange of philosophical concepts, meta-literary reflection – poetry as a way to knowledge and salvation –, Christian themes – including the virginal conception of Mary –, and Persian, possibly Sufic, motifs. The monorhyme poem is rich with sound figures such as alliteration and etymological play

The role of exemplification in the construction of categories: the case of Japanese

The aim of this paper is to examine the role of exemplification in categorization processes, that is, how examples can be used in discourse to communicate conceptual categories. Based on data from present-day Japanese and a corpus-driven methodology, it will be shown that exemplifying constructions can be used 1) to refine already explicit categories by contextualizing and actualizing the reference, and 2) to create categories ex novo by triggering associative inferences and abstractive processes. Accordingly, a detailed analysis of the linguistic properties of the examples will be provided in order to identify recurring encoding patterns and correlations with the functions described above. Furthermore, it will be argued that, although any conceptual category can be lexicalized by means of a category label, there exist some interesting correlations between the coding of the examples and the labelling of the category. Finally, we will conclude by showing that the linguistic analysis of exemplification can provide useful insights regarding the modalities in which the human brain categorizes