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This paper explores the problem of diachronic development of verbal forms expressing future time reference. The analysis proposed so far (Bybee et al. 1994 and, especially, Haspelmath 1998) suggest that habitual-future polysemy frequently attested across languages only emerges as a side effect of the independent development of two grammatical morphemes along the same grammaticalization path. This...
We discuss a phenomenon that appears when ‘even’ occurs in questions. Specifically, an inference of what we call “extreme ignorance” is projected onto the speaker. We argue that this effect arises when the known unlikelihood ‘even’ focuses an entire question, resulting in the focused question being the least likely to be asked. Specific implicatures then conspire to bring about the inference that...
The paper examines syntax and semantics of complex predicates in Ossetian, an Iranian language spoken in the Central Caucasus. Ossetian, being a language where complex predicates participate in the causative-inchoative alternation, offers us an opportunity to investigate a case where the alternation is blocked by telicizing prefixes if the non-verbal component is not eventive. To account for this...
The present study is devoted to the categories expressing the meaning of indirect evidence and, in addition, resultative and anterior meanings. In what follows, I discuss semantic characteristics and distribution of the verbal forms in three Nakh-Daghestanian languages - Archi (Lezgic), Bagvalal (Andic), and Dargwa (Dargwa) - that are traditionally labeled as Perfects. The overview of the domain of...
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