Is Lithuanian a polysynthetic language?

This paper reviews the definitions and operationalisations of the notion of “polysynthesis” proposed in the typological literature and applies them to Lithuanian (verbal) morphology. It is shown that while Lithuanian falls short of polysynthesis in terms of morphemes-to-words ratio and lacks such features as polypersonalism and incorporation, it still possesses certain properties associated with polysynthesis. These include the so-called lexical affixes (it is argued that Lithuanian verbal prefixes are an example of these) and, to a limited extent, “productive non-inflectional concatenation”, i.e. morphemes with a high combinatory potential and compositional meanings, including successively applying verbalisers and nominalisers. These observations not only shed novel light on some well-known facts of Lithuanian grammar, but also further underscore the multifactorial and vague nature of polysynthesis

Chapter Borrowed preverbs and the limits of contact-induced change in aspectual systems

I survey cases of contact-induced influence of Slavic and Baltic systems of prefixal perfectivization on Yiddish, Romani, Livonian and Istroromanian. I show that, although both matter and pattern borrowing of entire systems of Slavic or Baltic verbal prefixes is attested, grammatical aspectual categories similar to those of the donor languages do not arise in the contact languages, or develop in a way distinct from the donor languages (as in Istroromanian). This indicates that abstract grammatical oppositions such as “Slavic-style” aspect are immune to direct transfer in language contact

Actionality, Aspect, Tense, and Counterfactuality in Kuban Kabardian

This paper presents the fieldwork data on the interaction of actionality, aspect, and tense in counterfactual conditional clauses of the Kuban dialect of Kabardian, a polysynthetic Northwest Caucasian language. Kabardian shows non-trivial similarities to Romance languages in its use of the Imperfective Past suffix as a marker of counterfactuality — alone or as a part of the complex marker of the Pluperfect marker where the Imperfect attaches to the Preterite (perfective past). I show that the choice between several types of marking in counterfactual protases (the plain Imperfect, the Pluperfect, and the simple Preterite) primarily depends on actional class and viewpoint aspect: perfective counterfactuals employ either the Pluperfect or the Preterite, while imperfective counterfactuals require the Imperfect, which is in line with the more general distribution of these tense-aspect forms. Theoretical implications of the tense-aspect marking in Kuban Kabardian counterfactual conditionals are also briefly discussed

[Рецензия]

Arkadiev Peter M. [Рецензия] [Электронный ресурс] / Peter М. Arkadiev// LINGUIST List 23.4022. - 2012. - Fri Sep 28 2012

Bibliographic Data

 &nbsp

Table of Contents

 &nbsp

[Рецензия]

Arkadiev Peter M. [Рецензия] [Электронный ресурс] / Peter M. Arkadiev// LINGUIST List 23.1803. - 2012. - Mon Apr 09 2012