Rethinking Universals: How Rarities affect Linguistic Theory

299 Pages·2010·1.56 MB·English

by  Jan Wohlgemuth

Rethinking Universals
Empirical Approaches
to Language Typology
45
Editors
Georg Bossong
Bernard Comrie
Yaron Matras
De Gruyter Mouton
Rethinking Universals
How Rarities affect Linguistic Theory
Edited by
Jan Wohlgemuth
Michael Cysouw
De Gruyter Mouton
ISBN 978-3-11-022092-6
e-ISBN 978-3-11-022093-3
ISSN 0933-761X
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The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie;
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Printing:Hubert&Co.GmbH&Co.KG,Göttingen
(cid:2)Printedonacid-freepaper
PrintedinGermany
www.degruyter.com
Preface
Aboutthisbook
The idea for this volume arose in the context of a lecture by Larry Hyman
duringtheALTSummerSchoolinLinguisticTypologyinCagliaripreceding
the fifth meeting of the Association for Linguistic Typology (ALT V), 2003.
Mentioningtheuniquecaseof“affixationbyplaceofarticulationinTiene”,1
Hyman argued that there should be a more consistent interest into rarities,
as a counterpart to the widely practiced pursuit of broad-scale typological
generalizations. In reaction, Jan Wohlgemuth, David Gil, Orin Gensler and
Michael Cysouw organized an international conference around the topic of
rara and rarissima which was held in Leipzig from 29 March to 1 April
2006. The present volume consists of a selection out of the fifty-two papers
thatwerepresentedatthatconference.
For the conference we invited papers dealing with the description and
analysis of (apparently) rare features in individual languages. Additionally,
we explicitly solicited papers dealing with the reflection and discussion of
theimpactofraraonlinguistictheoryandlinguisticuniversals.Thepapersin
thisvolumeareofthelatterkind:Theydealwithrarephenomenathatdonot
seemtofitintoreceiveduniversalsanddiscusshowlinguistictheoriesshould
approach the existence of rare and unusual phenomena. Papers dealing with
the former topic are collected in the companion volume “Rara & Rarissima:
Documenting the fringes of linguistic diversity”, also published by Mouton
deGruyter.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Bernard Comrie and the staff at the Department of
LinguisticsattheMaxPlanckInstituteforEvolutionaryAnthropology,espe-
ciallyClaudiaSchmidtandJuliaCissewski,fortheirsupportwiththeorgani-
zationoftheRara&Rarissimaconferenceandthepreparationofthepresent
volume.
For their assistance in the editing and proofreading process we whole-
heartedly thank our (anonymous) reviewers and Eike Lauterbach and Orin
Gensler.Furthermore,weareindebtedtoPatrickSchulzandJohannesReese
vi Preface
for their invaluable part of the typesetting and layout, as well as Pavel Io-
sad and Harald Hammarström for additional help with LATEX idiosyncrasies.
Finally, we are grateful to the admirably persistent and indulgent staff of
MoutondeGruyter,especiallyUrsulaKleinhenz,JulieMiess,andWolfgang
Konwitschny.
Leipzig,Winter2009/2010
JAN WOHLGEMUTH&MICHAEL CYSOUW
Notes
1. cf.Hyman’scontributiontothecompanionvolume
Contents
Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Listofcontributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
MichaelCysouw&JanWohlgemuth
Theotherendofuniversals:theoryandtypologyofrara . . 1
HaraldHammarström
Raritiesinnumeralsystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
ThomasHanke
Additionalraritiesinthetypologyofnumerals . . . . . . . 61
AliceC.Harris
Explaining typologically unusual structures: the role of
probability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
PavelIosad
Right at the left edge: initial consonant mutations in the
languagesoftheworld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
AndrejMalchukov
“Quirky” case: rare phenomena in case-marking and their
implicationsforatheoryoftypologicaldistributions . . . . 139
MattiMiestamo
Negativeswithoutnegators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
FrederickJ.Newmeyer
Accounting for rare typological features in formal syntax:
threestrategiesandsomegeneralremarks . . . . . . . . . . 195
JanRijkhoff
Raraandgrammaticaltheory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
SørenWichmann&EricW.Holman
Pairwisecomparisonsoftypologicalprofiles . . . . . . . . 241
viii Contents
JanWohlgemuth
Language endangerment, community size and typological
rarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Subjectindex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Languageindex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
List of contributors
MichaelCysouw EricW.Holman
DepartmentofLinguistics DepartmentofPsychology
MaxPlanckInstituteforEvolutionary UniversityofCalifornia
Anthropology LosAngeles,CA90095
DeutscherPlatz6 U.S.A.
04103Leipzig [email protected]
GERMANY
[email protected] PavelIosad
UniversityofTromsø/CASTL
HaraldHammarström Center for Advanced Study in Theo-
DepartmentofComputerScience reticalLinguistics
ChalmersUniversity UniversityofTromsø
41296Gothenburg Tromsø9037
SWEDEN NORWAY
[email protected] [email protected]
ThomasHanke AndrejMalchukov
Friedrich-Schiller-UniversitätJena DepartmentofLinguistics
InstitutfürAnglistik/Amerikanistik MaxPlanckInstituteforEvolutionary
Ernst-Abbe-Platz8 Anthropology
07743Jena DeutscherPlatz6
GERMANY 04103Leipzig
[email protected] GERMANY
[email protected]
AliceC.Harris
DepartmentofLinguistics MattiMiestamo
226SouthCollege Helsinki Collegium for Advanced
UniversityofMassachusettsAmherst Studies
150HicksWay P.O.Box4
Amherst,MA01003 00014UniversityofHelsinki
U.S.A. FINLAND
[email protected] matti.miestamo@helsinki.fi