Typology represents an approach to the study of linguistic structure that differs in certain important respects from the generative and the functionalist approaches (Wasow, this volume; Van Valin, this volume), although it is closer in spirit to the latter. The most important difference between typology and these other approaches to linguistic structure

It is widely assumed that human learning and the structure of human languages are intimately related. This relationship is frequently suggested to be rooted in a language-specific biological endowment, which encodes universal, but arbitrary, principles of language structure (a universal grammar or UG). How might such a UG have evolved? We argue that UG could not have arisen either by biological adaptation or non-adaptationist genetic processes. The resulting puzzle concerning the origin of UG we call the logical problem of language evolution. Because the processes of language change are much more rapid than processes of genetic change, language constitutes a “moving target ” both over time and across different human populations, and hence cannot provide a stable environment to which UG genes could have adapted. We conclude that a biologically determined UG is not evolutionarily viable. Instead, the original motivation for UG—the mesh between learners and languages—arises because language has been shaped to fit the human brain, rather than vice versa. Following Darwin, we view language itself as a complex and interdependent “organism, ” which evolves under selectional pressures from human learning and processing mechanisms. That is, languages are themselves undergoing severe selectional pressure from each generation of language users and learners. This suggests that apparently arbitrary aspects of linguistic structure may result from general learning and processing biases, independent of language. We illustrate how this framework can integrate evidence from different literatures and methodologies to explain core linguistic phenomena, including binding constraints, word order universals, and diachronic language change. 1.

In this paper I reconsider Sweetser's (1990) proposal to include 'speech-act modality' in the categories of modality expressed by natural language alongside the traditional cases of root and epistemic modality. I propose a reanalysis of her examples using the relevance-theoretic notion of metarepresentation. Rather than assuming that there is a separate speech-act domain for modal operators in natural language to range over, I suggest that the material embedded under modal operators is sometimes used metarepresentationally, a possibility which is independently motivated and well manifested in other logical operators. 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Introduction As the title suggests, this chapter is about the ways in which speakers of European languages talk about the future; more specifically, the grammatical devices that are used in doing so. At the centre of the investigation, we will necessarily find the things traditionally called future tenses. Since their theoretical status has been the object of considerable controversy, and since we want to be open for other potentially interesting phenomena, the delimitation of the area of study is kept deliberately vague. Future time reference (FTR) was the first of the focal areas in the work of the EUROTYP Theme Group on Tense and Aspect. Questionnaire data were collected for about 30 languages, and on the basis of them a number of descriptions on the marking of FTR in different European languages were written and issued as working papers. Much of what will be said below is based on the empirical material in the questionnaires and the working papers. In this chapter, we shal

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communicative intention

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For three decades now, linguists have attempted to study the grammatical rules and constraints that govern codeswitching (i.e. the alternating use of two or more linguistic codes in the course of a single conversation). This dissertation pursues an explanation for Swedish/Persian codeswitching in terms of language typological differences. The idea that the contrasting typological properties of the language pair may limit the probability of switches lies at the heart of this dissertation. The codeswitching data used in this dissertation were collected from tape-recordings of spontaneous conversations involving teenage Swedish/ Iranian bilingual speakers in Stockholm. Analyses of data provide evidence that typological differences in the concrete subject-verb agreement relation (AGR), further complicated by a distinction in verb affixation and verb compounding, would limit the probability of switches. However, the data are indicative of a general process of bilingual verb formation. Verb compounding

This paper deals with the semantics of the Evidential marker in Northern Ostyak. As far as I know, the semantics of grammaticalized Evidentials has not been studied in detail for the (eastern) Uralic languages, although in the modal system of some of them the Evidential category plays an important role. I will analyze the different meanings of the Ostyak Evidentials, and suggest that the apparent variety of meanings can be deduced from one basic prototype. This model, I believe, may have a descriptive cross-linguistic value. Furthermore, it supports two points sometimes raised in the linguistic literature: that the Evidentials should be treated separately from the epistemics; and that often they go back historically to the Perfect. The paper is organized in the following way. In section 1 I present the morphology of the Ostyak Evidentials and previous proposals about them. Section 2 outlines the role of Evidentials in modal systems in general. Central to the paper is section 3, where I suggest a core of semantics for the Evidential markers. More detailed examples will be given in sections 4 and 5, and independent arguments supporting it will be given in section 6. Section 7 discusses the relationship between the Evidential and the Perfect. Unless indicated otherwise, I refer to the data that I myself collected during expeditions between

This response to Azar (this volume) intends to discuss from an academic's perspective the main points raised in her paper (i.e., grammar-based instruction and its relation to focus on form and error correction) and, to encourage a more concept-based approach to grammar instruction (CBT). A CBT approach to language development argues that the conceptual nature of grammatical forms is best expressed through underlying cognitive schemata. With L2 learners, conceptual development has already taken place and so the L2 morphology may be very opaque conceptually. Thus, introducing schematic depictions for grammatical forms similar to the ones learners developed when learning their L1 can assist the L2 learner to link the underlying concept through deduction to the overt grammatical expression. CBT views language development as a sociocognitive process and this entails the compatibility between cognitive or construction grammars and sociocultural theory. The concept also holds a central position in the synthesis of these perspectives. The response concludes with the proposition that grammar instruction can become more concept-based using a CBT task-based methodology which integrates focus on form, error correction, and the initiation-response-feedback teaching-exchange triad.