The development of asymmetrical serial verb constructions in an Australian mixed language

Gurindji Kriol is a mixed language spoken in northern Australia. It is derived from Gurindji, a Pama-Nyungan language, and Kriol, an English-lexifier creole language. Despite these clear sources, Gurindji Kriol contains grammatical systems which are not found in Gurindji or Kriol, for example asymmetrical serial verb constructions. The origin of these constructions is unclear given that Kriol only contains a very limited set of serial verb constructions and they are not found in Gurindji. The development of asymmetrical serial verb constructions is examined and it is suggested that they are a product of the more restricted Kriol serial verb construction developing and expanding under the influence of the Gurindji complex verb. The formation of this construction was a part of the more general genesis of the mixed language which was derived from code-switching

On truth unpersistence: At the crossroads of epistemic modality and discourse

International audienceWe propose a semantic analysis of the particles afinal (European Portuguese) and alla fine (Italian) in terms of the notion of truth unpersistence, which combines both epistemic modality and constraints on discourse structure. We argue that the felicitous use of these modal particles requires that the truth of a proposition p* fail to persist through a temporal succession of epistemic states, where p* is incompatible with the proposition modified by afinal/alla fine, and that the interlocutors share knowledge of a previous epistemic attitude toward p*. We analyze two main cases, that of plan-related propositions and that of propositions without plans. We also discuss the connections between truth unpersistence and evidentiality

Construing the child reader: a cognitive stylistic analysis of the opening to Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book

Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book (2009) charts the story of Nobody Owens, a boy who is adopted by supernatural entities in the local graveyard after his family is murdered. This article draws on the notion of the “construed reader,” and combines two cognitive stylistic frameworks to analyse the opening section of the novel. In doing so, the article explores the representation and significance of the family home in relation to what follows in the narrative. The analysis largely draws on Text World Theory (Werth, 1999; Gavins, 2007), but also integrates some aspects of Cognitive Grammar (Langacker, 2008), which allows for a more nuanced discussion of textual features. The article pays particular attention to the way Gaiman frames his narrative and positions his reader to view the fictional events from a distinctive vantage point and subsequently demonstrates that a stylistic analysis of children’s literature can lay bare how such writing is designed with a young readership in mind

Toward a unified functional account of structural focus and negation in Hungarian

The goal of this paper is to provide a unified analysis of the function of various types of (structural) focus and the negative particle (used preverbally) in Hungarian. It is argued that the function of these elements (each inducing the inversion of verbal modifier and verb) is best understood with respect to the interpretation assigned to the verbal predicate in different contexts. By treating the verbal predicate as a schematic positive declarative clause (or “proto-statement”) in its default interpretation, it becomes possible to define the function of the elements concerned in terms of the kind of relation in which they stand with the proto-statement, the kind of relation in which the overall symbolic pattern (as a Gestalt) stands with the unmarked positive declarative clause type

The White Linguist in Africa: Dynamics of Involvement

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Linguistic Colonialism and De-Colonialisation: The School System as a Tool of Opression

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