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SUMMARY:The Evolutionary Typology of Verbal Person-Number Indexes - Dr Ilj
 a Seržant (University of Leipzig)
DTSTART:20190207T163000Z
DTEND:20190207T180000Z
UID:TALK120109@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Julia Heine
DESCRIPTION:Intro: The present paper seeks to identify universal trends in
  the lengths of person-number affixes\nof verbs (such as English 3SG -s in
 \, e.g.\, he swim-s). The precise morphophonological realization of\nindex
 es is subject to cross-linguistic variation\, which\, however\, has no bea
 ring on the claims to be\nmade here. For example\, I gloss over the morpho
 logical differences between affixes and clitics. In\norder to identify uni
 versal trends I adopt the dynamic approach to universals (since Greenberg\
 n1969) which is in contrast to the more traditional\, static approach. The
  crucial question here is\nwhether the relevant mechanisms of change provi
 de evidence for the alleged universal (Bybee\n2008) or whether the changes
  bring about a higher degree of adherence to the alleged universal\npatter
 n than before these changes (Bickel et al. 2014).\n\nMethods and the data:
  I rely on a database with obligatory intransitive subject indexes from (a
 )\n290 modern languages from 14 unrelated (sub)families covering all macro
 areas and (b) their protoforms\nas reconstructed by the Historical-Compara
 tive Method in the authoritative literature: Indo-\nEuropean\, Uralic\, Ma
 yan\, Dravidian\, Semitic\, Oceanic (a subfamily of Austronesian)\, Bantu\
 n(Niger-Congo)\, Sogeram (Trans-New-Guinea stock)\, Awyu-Dumut (Trans-New-
 Guinea stock)\,\nRgyalrongic-Kiranti (Tibeto-Burman)\, Worrorran\, Muskoge
 an\, Athabaskan and Turkic.\n\nBickel\, Balthasar\, Alena Witzlack-Makarev
 ich & Taras Zakharko 2014: Typological evidence\nagainst universal effects
  of referential scales on case alignment. In: Bornkessel-Schlesewsky\, Ina
 \,\nAndrej Malchukov\, Marc Richards (eds.)\, Scales and Hierarchies: a cr
 oss-disciplinary\nperspective on referential hierarchies. Berlin: De Gruyt
 er Mouton\, 7-44.\n\nBybee\, Joan 2008: Formal universals as emergent phen
 omena: The origins of structure preservation.\nIn: Jeff Good (ed.)\, Lingu
 istic universals and language change. Oxford: Oxford University\nPress. 10
 8–121.\n\nGreenberg\, Joseph H. 1966: Language universals\, with special
  reference to feature hierarchies. The\nHague: Mouton.
LOCATION:Gr-06/7 (English Faculty Building)
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