Relativism and Universalism in Linguistics - Fachbereich 10 ...

42 Sections
ostbaltischen Futurs bekommt eine natürliche Erklärung, wenn man für die Bildung auf
urbaltisch *-sya- mit desiderativer Modalität rechnet, die Bildung auf urbaltisch *-s- dagegen
auf ein futurisches Jussiv zurückführt. Aus dieser Hypothese ergeben sich wichtige
Konsequenzen für das System der urbaltischen Konjugation und seine Vorgeschichte.
On transcategorization
Jezek, Elisabetta / Ramat, Paolo
University of Pavia / University of Pavia
jezek@unipv.it;paoram@unipv.it
Our theoretical starting point is that the Parts-of-speech (PoS) embodied by the categories of
grammar (traditionally called ‘partes orationis’) are the result of the analysis of the linguist.
As such they are universal concepts, and their definition has to be universally, i.e crosslinguistically,
valid: an ADV must have such and such definitional property, such and such
morphosyntactic behaviour; but this does not mean that ADVs must be present in all
languages, though languages must have some way to modify a verb as well as other PoS. The
implementation of the category (‘part-of-speech’) ADV need not be universal. Another
important preliminary point is that there are items which belong to the core of a category and
items which are more peripheral: e.g. yellow as ADJ vs. dog as Noun; green, on the contrary,
may be metonymically used also as Noun : ‘an area planted with grass’.
We define transcategorization (TC) the phenomenon according to which linguistic elements
(lexemes and phrases) are used with different functions without any superficial modification
of their form. This means that TC is a functional reanalysis based on (morpho)syntactic
context. Transcategorized elements are employed in different syntactic environments which
are different from the original one. In this way, verbs may become adpositions (as Chin. yong
“to use” and “with”; Ewe bé “to say” and complementizer), adjectives may be used as adverbs
(as Germ. schön: sie ist schön “good looking” and sie singt schön “in a nice way” or It. forte
“strong” and “strongly”), verbs may be used as nouns (as Engl. he likes to run and he went for
a run), etc. In such cases we may speak of ‘categorial flexibility’.
The general aim of the paper is to improve the description of TC processes both
synchronically and diachronically and, consequently, to sketch a possible typology of TCs.
We discuss many instances and various types of TC: some of them are frequent, others less
frequent and of other possible TCs we have no or very rare examples.
Finally, attention is paid to where (i.e. in which language type) TC is/can be more operative.
Historical linguistics:
Obsolete lexemes and desemantized fossilized syntagmata
Leschber, Corinna
Viadrina-University Frankfurt (Oder)
corinna@leschber.com
In an investigation of word material of unknown etymology several characteristics were
discovered:
• Of the denotations of as yet unknown etymological classification, the majority are
those attested in isolated, inaccessible areas, frequently mountain regions.
• Mountain ranges protect relic vocabulary from innovations.
• In part, this vocabulary can be defined as originating from unknown contact languages
or substrata languages, about which we still know very little.