Relativism and Universalism in Linguistics - Fachbereich 10 ...

76 Sections
Modal Particles in Dutch and Afrikaans:
a Case of Divergence
Conradie, Jac
University of Johannesburg, South Africa
jacc@uj.ac.za
Modern Dutch and Afrikaans, two closely related languages (Afrikaans deriving form 17 th
cent. Dutch), have both shown a propensity for developing modal particles. In as far as the
presence of a syntactic middle field may be a factor in the creation of such particles (cf. W.
Abraham), Dutch and Afrikaans may both partake of a universal tendency. While the two
languages still have a considerable number of particles in common, deriving from earlier
language phases, each has after their separation gone on to develop its own set of modal
particles, such as best, echt, soms, eens, even in the case of Dutch, and hoeka, mos, sommer,
glo, rêrig, darem in the case of Afrikaans. A number of inherited Dutch temporal adverbs
have developed a modal value in Afrikaans.
It seems likely that these later developments in both languages differ both as to the source of
the modals and their target profiles, which would indicate a certain relativism in the
development of modals. Thus a factor which seems to have given rise to Dutch modal such as
best and echt seems to be metonimia, while the new Afrikaans modals often derive from
temporal expressions, such as the Khoi loan hoeka and Dutch derived temporal adverbs which
have taken on a modal sense in Afrikaans, for example straks, reeds, dalk (< dadelijk), aans
(< aanstonds), altemit, netnou. Soms, meaning ‘from time to time’ in both languages, is
exceptional in that it only became modal in Dutch. As far as semantic or pragmatic values are
concerned, Dutch seems to target politeness (eens, even, soms) and persuasion (heus, echt)
while Afrikaans targets probability (dalk), make-believe (kamma) or hearsay (glo), the
assertion or validation of the speaker’s point of view (rêrig, darem), and solidarity between
speaker and addressee (mos).
Aspectual coercion in Bulgarian negative imperatives
Kühnast, Milena
Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS), Berlin
kuehnast@zas.gwz-berlin.de
Bulgarian is known as a language which has a negative imperative construction with a
genuine verbal imperative inflection. From a Slavic perspective this would be a trivial
statement, if Bulgarian was not the only Slavic language exhibiting aspectual coercion in
negative imperatives. Negative Imperatives with perfective verbs are ungrammatical.
Imperfective or secondary imperfectivised verbs are obligatory in Preventives in which other
Slavic languages regularly choose perfective verbs.
In the following I want to argue that this phenomenon is due to the inability of Bulgarian
perfective verbs to express finiteness. The reasoning follows the cognitive approach of time
categorisation in language (Klein, 1994) and provides typological evidence contrasting the
different functions of perfective verbs in Bulgarian and other Slavic languages.
Finiteness is synonymous with tense expression, signalling that a speaker makes an assertion
restricted to a time span which is located with respect to the time of speaking. This
combination of truth assertion and a time stretch, called Topic time (TT), is also essential for
the definition of aspect. Depending on the relations between TT and the duration of a
situation, different aspectual values are yielded. Perfectivity means a full or partial inclusion