South Asian Linguistics: Thursday, 6 April 2006
Invited Speaker:
Veneeta Dayal (Rutgers University) - South Asian Languages and Semantic Variation
11:30-12:30
Although every language has ways of making generic statements, there is variation in the way genericity is expressed. This talk focuses on the range of admissible variation in the noun phrases that can be used as kind-denoting terms. Generic terms vary between bare and definite (rather than indefinite) forms across languages. Canonical and non-canonical uses of definiteness are distinguished and language variation posited to be a choice about the cut-off points for lexicalization on a universal scale of definiteness. Studying variation from the perspective of South Asian languages is shown to have interesting consequences for the notion of ‘pleonastic’ determiners.
Kurtoep and the Classification of the Languages of Bhutan
Gwendolyn Lowes (University of Oregon) - 9:00-9:40
The classification of the Tibeto-Burman languages of the Himalayas has been acomplicated endeavor for at least the past 30 years. Tibeto-Burman languages of Nepaland Bhutan are generally assigned to the Bodic branch of the family. Some languages ofthis sub-family are fairly well-described, while others, particularly those of Bhutan, remain only marginally documented. This paper offers the first in-depth study of Kurtoep phonology. By examining Kurtoep, a language of Bhutan, in a comparative perspective, this paper sheds light on the internal relationship amongst Bodic languages in Bhutan and beyond.
A Tale of Three Passives in Marathi—A Glimpse into the Subtle Interplay between Agent Defocusing and Intentionality
Prashant Pardeshi (Kobe University) - 9:45-10:25
In typological studies it has been proposed that one of the main functions of the passive is agent defocusing (Givón 1981, Shibatani 1985, Croft 2001, among others). In Marathi (Indo-Aryan) the passive comes in three varieties—the BECOME passive, the GO passive and the COME passive. The functional differences among them have hitherto remained a mystery. The goal of this paper is to unravel the functional division of labor among them. It is argued that the degree of agent defocusing holds the key not only to understanding the functional division of labor among them but also to predicting their use.
Intervention Effects in Agreement: comparing Hindi-Urdu with Tsez
Pritha Chandra (University of Maryland) - 10:30-11:10
This paper contrasts certain intervention effects and their obviations in Hindi-Urdu and Tsez long-distance-agreement constructions. Wh-phrases and focused elements intercede cross-clausal agreement in Tsez but not in Hindi-Urdu. I show that the correct answer to this puzzle lies in the different mechanisms these languages use in generating LDA constructions. While the former involves A-movement of the agreement triggering nominal to the specifier of the probe, the latter involves agreement between the nominal adjoined to the lower clause that undergoes obligatory clausal pied-piping. The presence of wh-phrases and focused elements entails the presence of CP, which blocks LDA in Tsez.
The relation between the imperfective and the progressive aspects
Ashwini Deo (Stanford University) - 1:30-2:10
Crosslinguistically, the progressive and the imperfective aspects arerelated in two interesting ways. First, in languages that do not morphologically realize the progressive category, progressive interpretation is licensed by general imperfective morphology. Second, diachronically, progressive morphology often semantically generalizes to license interpretations typically associated with the imperfective aspect such as the habitual/generic interpretation. I propose a unified semantic representation of the two aspects that analyzes them as general and specific versions of a single
temporal schema. Based on data from standard and non-standard Indo-Aryan languages, I further argue that the distribution of these aspectual categories is determined by blocking: the progressive, if morphologically instantiated, blocks the application of the more general imperfective in specific contexts.
Marathi Verbal Complexes: Light versus Serial Verbs
Tejaswini Deoskar (Cornell University) - 2:15-2:55
In this talk, I examine the syntactic behavior of the light verb construction in Marathi, and propose a structure for the verbal complex. Word order alternations between the main and light verb in Marathi provide syntactic evidence of a complementation structure, with the light verb being higher than the main verb. I compare the light verb construction with the conjunctive participle construction, and show that the latter is similar to the 'serial' construction in African languages. The different scrambling possibilities of the two in Marathi indicate that they are structurally different, contrary to proposals to unify the two cross-linguistically.
Variable Case Marking, Argument Structure, and Interpretation
Rajesh Bhatt (UMass Amherst) - 3:00-3:40
Hindi-Urdu has been documented extensively as displaying the phenomenon of Differential Object Marking (DOM, see Butt 1993, Masica 1982, Mohanan 1993, Singh 1994 i.a.). That a similar, though not identical, process is available for subjects has not been noted so far (with the exception of Hook 1979:132-133). Like DOM, Variable Case Marking on the subject correlates with interpretation. Unlike DOM, variable case marking seems to only be available to subjects of a subclass of predicates, namely the unaccusatives. I argue that this particular constellation of facts suggests that contrary to what has been previously assumed - at least for Hindi-Urdu - unaccusative v can optionally assign accusative, but in a very limited set of environments. These restrictions, I show, follow from the dependent nature of accusative case and Diesing-style limitations on what can be interpreted VP-internally.
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