Alain Peyraube (Directeur de recherche émérite CNRS),  Syntactico-semantic change in Chinese: Processes of analogy, reanalysis, external borrowing
Mercredi 15 janvier 2014

This paper will discuss some of the most hotly debated topics over the past few years on syntactico-semantic change in a functional-cognitive perspective and propose a new model of grammatical change in Chinese by providing more solidly-based definitions of such notions as ‘grammaticalization’, ‘lexicalization’, ‘degrammaticalization’, ‘exaptation’, and ‘reanalysis’, as well as ‘analogy’ with respect to internal processes of change, but also for external ones, specifically, borrowing through language contact.
It will be proposed that this new model is constituted by just two internal mechanisms: reanalysis and analogy. Consequently, it will be argued that grammaticalization – which has been by far the focus of most of the studies on historical grammar in recent decades – is secondary. The processes of grammaticalization and exaptation will thus be viewed as sub-classes of reanalysis, while degrammaticalization/lexicalization will be more aptly viewed as a sub-class of analogy.
The main motivations (if not genuine explanations) for grammatical change will also be discussed, i.e. semantic-pragmatic change (including metaphorical extension, pragmatic inferencing or metonymization and (inter-)subjectification), structural requirements, typological tension, as well as others, such as phonological change.
Concerning the third – and external - mechanism of change, examples will be provided to account for how Northwestern Sinitic languages such as Tangwang, Linxia, Wutun or Gan’gou have borrowed many morpho-syntactic structures from Altaic languages with which they have been in contact for several centuries.

 

Guillaume Jacques (Chargé de recherché au CNRS),  Relativization in Japhug Rgyalrong
Mercredi 22 janvier 2014

Japhug, like all Rgyalrong languages (Tibeto-Burman), has a rich array of relativization constructions. Based on both natural oral texts and elicited material, this presentation will describe all attested types of relatives in Japhug, including head-internal and prenominal relatives, as well as nominalized and non-nominalized ones. It provides a case by case account of the possible constructions for all syntactic roles including various types of adjuncts, and explains the semantic differences between each construction.
Keywords: relativization, internally-headed relative, resumptive pronoun, nominalization, templatic morphology.

 

Redouane Djamouri (Chargé de recherché au CNRS), Incorporation de l’objet et caractéristiques typologiques du Tangwang
Mercredi 29 janvier 2014

The Tangwang language is mainly spoken in the village of the same name situated in the northeast of Dongxiang County within the Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu Province. It is the vernacular language used among 14,000 inhabitants, classified ethnically as Han (44%), Hui (17%), and Dongxiang (39%). The Tangwang language is close to the Hezhou variety of the Lan-Yin subgroup of Northwestern Mandarin. Its vocabulary is mainly composed of Chinese words (95%), and to a much lesser extent, of Dongxiang words (2%), Arabic (0,5%) and Persian (0,5%); the origin of the remaining 2% is unclear.
The Tangwang language displays features commonly associated with OV languages (head-final, relative-noun, postpositional phrases only, dependent clause preceding the matrix clause, mainly suffixing). Saliently, the different grammatical functions of nouns and pronouns in the sentence, with the exception of the subject, are marked by case suffixes.
Beside its dominant OV word order, Tangwang also displays VO order under the following two distinct conditions: first, when the object corresponds to a quantified and indefinite patient and second, when verb-object incorporation takes place.
From a typological point of view, this incorporation is quite rare among the languages of the world. The languages which display such a phenomenon usually preserve their dominant constituent order: right incorporation for VO languages and left for OV ones. The case of Tangwang seems quite exceptional insofar as it shows an OV dominant order and incorporation which corresponds to VO order. This confirms, on the one hand, that the underlying order in Tangwang is VO and, on the other hand, that the dominant OV order, with a specific marker on the object, is a secondary phenomenon.
Moreover, it will be argued that the asymmetry of VO-OV in Tangwang cannot be considered as reflecting a “mixed” situation implying the superposition of Altaic and Chinese syntactic features.

 

Gong Xun (CRLAO), Word-level prosodic structure and stress in Old Tibetan
Mercredi 5 février 2014

Based on Caplow (2009) and a fresh analysis of suprasementals in Lhasa Tibetan and Amdo Tibetan, this talk proposes a pan-Tibetan system of word-level prosodic structure. This system is widespread among Tibetan dialects and can be projected back to the level of Old Tibetan.
In dialects following this structure, the prosodic word consists of a prosodic core and an appendix. The core, with a maximal length of two syllables, is the stressed part of the prosodic word, while the appendix is unstressed. The last syllable of the prosodic core is automatically associated with a non-phonemic high tone.
This talk will discuss the interaction of the prosodic structure with syllable structure and especially morphology. Caplow (2009) proposed a noun-verb split pattern of stress in Tibetan: disyllabic words show second-syllable stress in nouns and first-syllable stress in verbs. It will be shown, however, that the apparent first-syllable stress in verbs observed by Caplow is a conflation of two distinct phenomena: some of her examples result from suffixes that are lexically specified as belonging to the prosodic appendix, while other examples actually reflect intonational prominence at a level higher than prosodic words.

 

Marion Carel (Directrice d’Etudes à l’EHESS),  Argumentation et temporalité: l’exemple de quand»
Mercredi 12 février 2014

Il est habituel de reconnaître dans la conjonction quandune marque sémantique de temporalité :
(1)   quand Pierre entra, une porte claqua
(2)   quand Pierre fut entré, il posa son sac
(3)   quand il faisait beau, Pierre sortait en forêt
Dans (1), la signification de quandserait responsable de ce que les deux événements apparaissent simultanés ; dans (2), elle signalerait l’antécédence de l’entrée de Pierre ; dans (3), elle marquerait la simultanéïté des événements et par là préparerait l’interprétation causale sans l’imposer. On se propose, sur des exemples tirés du premier des Trois Contesde Flaubert, Un cœur simple, de discuter l’inscription de ces éléments de sens dans la signification même de quand. On défendra l’idée que ces indications temporelles constituent des effets interprétatifs, découlant d’une organisation argumentative plus abstraite.

 

Hans-Jörg Döhla (SeDyL-CNRS/ Université de Zürich), Differential Object Marking in Romance and Beyond: between internal and contact-induced grammaticalization
Mercredi 19 février 2014

Quite a considerable number of the world’s languages exhibit differential object marking (DOM), where direct objects are overtly marked or left unmarked according to their inherent properties, i.e. their degree of animacy, and/or their referential, i.e. their topical and focal, status. The talk will be divided into three parts. In the first part, a general introduction to the subject will be provided by presenting an overview of the most important findings concerning DOM. In the second part, examples from a range of languages will illustrate the afore-mentioned theoretical considerations. Special attention will be paid to the so-called ‘squishy zone’ (term coined by Bossong 1985) where object marking is optional and establishing a rule for the overt marking seems quite impossible. In the final part, I will present an outline of my post-doc project entitled ‘DOM in situations of language contact between Romance and non-Romance languages’ and then focus on the example of PapiaKristang (Portuguese creole), Hokkien Chinese and MelayuPasar in Malacca, Malaysia.

 

Song Na (CRLAO-INALCO), La particule finale 呢[ɳi] en tant que marqueur d’aspect imperfectif dans le dialecte de Baoding (sinitique)
Mercredi 26 février 2014

Baoding (保定) se situe dans la province du Hebei (河北), à 140 kilomètres au sud de Pékin (北京). La langue parlée est le dialecte de Baoding, qui appartient au sous-groupe du Mandarin appelé jìlŭ (冀鲁官话 mandarin du ‘Hebei-Shandong’ selon l’Atlas linguistique de la Chine, cartes B2 et B3 (1987)). Le mandarin jilu est un dialecte mandarin parlé essentiellement dans le centre, le sud-est et certaines régions du nord-est du Hebei (jì 冀), dans l’ouest du Shandong (lŭ 鲁). Il est aussi parlé dans quelques zones peu étendues de l’est du Shanxi.
Le dialecte de Baoding présente des caractéristiques différentes du chinois standard, notamment le système aspectuel. Nous essayons de montrer la valeur d’aspect imperfectif de la particule finale呢 [ɳi] à travers la distribution avec les différents types de prédicats dans le dialecte de Baoding.
En ce qui concerne l’aspect imperfectif, le chinois standard utilise l’adverbe zài 在 pour exprimer une action qui est en train de se dérouler, appelé le progressif. Cependant, dans le dialecte de Baoding, en absence de l’adverbe zài 在, ceci est exprimé par la particule finale 呢 [ɳi].
Cette particule finale 呢 [ɳi] ne se trouve pas à la fin des phrases interrogatives. Elle peut coexister avec les particules finales interrogatives comme 唉 [ɛ], donc 呢 [ɳi] entre dans un paradigme différent. Elle entre dans le même paradigme que 唻 (了2).
呢 [ɳi] exprime le progressif en se combinant avec les prédicats d’activité comme 淘米 [thou22 mi214] ‘laver-riz’, «laver le riz». A part le progressif, 呢 [ɳi] a aussi une valeur non-progressive en se combinant avec les prédicats du type 上家 [ʂaŋ51tɕia45], «être à la maison». Quant aux prédicats de posture et de placement, la situation est relativement compliquée. 呢 [ɳi] n’est pas compatible avec les prédicats de posture, mais seulement avec les prédicats de placement, pour exprimer le progressif. Lorsqu'il est suivi par le suffixe 着 [tʂə], 呢 [ɳi] peut se combiner avec les prédicats de posture et de placement exprimant le duratif. 呢 [ɳi], enfin, n’est pas compatible avec les prédicats ponctuels comme 洒 [ʂa214] «renverser» et les composés verbaux de structure ‘procès+résultat’ comme 解开 [tɕiɛ214khai] délacer-détacher «délacer».

 

Mariarosaria Gianninoto (Université Stendhal – Grenoble 3),  « Le défi de la description des langues chinoises: ordre des mots et particules grammaticales dans les grammaires du 17ème, 18ème et 19ème siècles »
Mercredi 5 mars 2014

Les premières descriptions des langues chinoises dans les langues occidentales remontent au 17ème siècle et se retrouvent dans des grammaires rédigées à des fins didactiques par les missionnaires occidentaux établis en Asie. Au cours du 19ème siècle, la fondation de la sinologie académique française puis allemande apportera une contribution majeure aux études linguistiques qui se traduit notamment par la compilation d’importantes grammaires de référence.
Le développement des études grammaticales sur les langues chinoises a constitué une innovation importante de la sinologie européenne, missionnaire et universitaire. Il s’agit peut-être de l’innovation la plus importante dans les études sur les langues chinoises, car les descriptions systématiques de la langue étaient peu représentées dans la tradition native. Ces grammaires constituent un nouveau modèle théorique d’analyse et de description de la langue.
Les premières descriptions des langues chinoises sont caractérisées par l’adaptation de catégories occidentales et sont donc considérablement influencées par le modèle gréco-latin. Cependant, au cours du 18ème et du 19ème siècle, une attention croissante est portée aux spécificités des diverses langues, ce qui conduit à l’introduction de catégories natives ainsi qu’à l’élaboration de nouvelles catégories et de nouvelles théories pour rendre compte de ces spécificités. Les études grammaticales du 19ème sont donc marquées par un amalgame d’éléments occidentaux et chinois.
Parmi les éléments récurrents dans les descriptions des langues chinoises, on peut citer l’importance reconnue à l’ordre des mots et aux particules grammaticales. Le caractère central de ces deux aspects semble répondre aux difficultés posées par des langues typologiquement différentes du latin. Le rôle joué par l’ordre des mots et par les particules dans l’expression des relations grammaticales a été décrit par différents sinologues et missionnaires occidentaux dans leurs grammaires et manuels comme un trait spécifique des langues chinoises.
Ces deux aspects sont analysés par Martini et Varo dans leurs grammaires, puis largement débattus dans les échanges épistolaires entre Humboldt et Abel-Rémusat sur le chinois. L’ordre des mots devient central dans les grammaires de Marshman et Julien ; cet élément est repris mais relativisé par Perny et figure également dans les ouvrages de Edkins et de Wade. Prémare, Julien et Perny sont parmi les auteurs qui accordent le plus d’importance au rôle joué par les particules grammaticales qu’ils présentent dans des glossaires et des monographies.
Cette intervention se propose d’examiner la question de l’ordre des mots et de la description des particules grammaticales dans les grammaires occidentales des langues chinoises et de retracer l’évolution de ces topoï dans les descriptions des langues chinoises du 17ème au 19ème siècle.

 

Dmitry Idiatov (LLACAN-CNRS), A typology of non-selective interrogative pronominals: formal and functional differentiation and issues in diachrony
Mercredi 12 mars 2014

In this talk, I present a typology of non-selective interrogative pronominals, that is, forms such as English who?andwhat? For purposes of crosslinguistic comparison, I define the non-selective interrogative pronominalsWHO?andWHAT?as idealizations resulting out of the interaction between several parameters (viz. entity type, type of reference, and expected answer) within a single conceptual space. Thus, WHO? is an interrogative pronominal asking for the identification of a person and expecting a proper name as an answer. WHAT? is an interrogative pronominal asking for the classification of a thing and expecting a common noun as an answer.
I discuss the crosslinguistic diversity in the domain of the non-selective interrogative pronominals as regards:
(i) the universality of their formal differentiation
(ii) the patterns of their functional differentiation in languages where they are distinguished formally. I pay particular attention to the use of WHO?in questions about the identification of things that expect a proper name as an answer and the use of non-selective interrogative pronominals in questions about non-human animates.
The talk will highlight the role of diachronic explanations in typology. Finally, with respect to diachrony, I will address some of the common assumptions on the issue of the diachronic stability of non-selective interrogative pronominals.

 

Cécile B. Vigouroux (Simon Fraser University / Collegium de Lyon),  Vitalité langagière: ce que les situations africaines nous apprennent
Mercredi 19 mars 2014

La question de la vitalité langagière, c’est-à-dire le maintien, la diffusion ou au contraire la disparition des langues, occupe un certain nombre d’acteurs/actrices socia-ux/les ou institutionnel-le-s. Les questions relatives à la vie et à la mort des langues ont connu un intérêt croissant depuis les débuts des années 1990 au moment où les linguistes se sont intéressé-e-s aux conséquences de la globalisation moderne sur le destin des langues. Aux discours alarmistes et simplificateurs de la première décennie sur la disparition des langues et l’uniformisation du monde (avec l’anglais désigné comme le principal coupable) ont succédé des positions plus nuancées grâce aux analyses ethnographiques fines de terrain. Celles-ci permettent de mettre en valeur la complexité des facteurs à prendre en compte pour expliquer le maintien ou non d’une langue.
L’Afrique du Sud nous servira de terrain de choix pour mettre en valeur l’imbrication de ces différentes dimensions, notamment à partir de l’examen de populations migrantes anciennes et plus récentes. Nous reviendrons ainsi sur la pertinence des facteurs couramment avancés dans la littérature linguistique pour soutenir la vitalité d’une langue comme : 1) la masse critique des locuteurs  (plus une population est nombreuse, plus une langue a des chances de survie) ; 2) le type de réseau auxquels participent les locuteurs/trices ; 3) le prestige de la langue (les locuteurs/trices seront plus enclin-e-s à abandonner une langue minorée) ; 4) la loyauté linguistiques des locuteurs/trices.
Soutenant la position de Mufwene (2001 & 2008) selon laquelle les changements linguistiques sont le résultat de l’accumulation de choix individuels opérés dans des actes communicatifs spécifiques, nous montrerons dans quelle mesure une réflexion sur la vitalité langagière ne peut faire l’économie de la démarche ethnographique.

 

Anton Antonov (INALCO-CRLAO), Verbal allocutivity in a crosslinguistic perspective
Mercredi 26 mars 2014

Allocutivity is a term coined to describe a phenomenon in Basque whereby, under certain pragmatic (and syntactic) circumstances, an addressee who is not an argument of the verb is systematically encoded in all declarative main clause conjugated verb forms. Although the term is applied exclusively to Basque, similar phenomena are found in other languages as well. Indeed, despite certain differences in the degree of grammaticalization and usage, allocutive verb forms are attested in at least Pumé (isolate; Venezuela), Nambikwara (isolate; Brazil), Mandan (Siouan; North America) and Beja (Cushitic; NE Africa).
The aim of this presentation is to propose a typology of verbal allocutivity in a crosslinguistic perspective, taking into consideration the locus of encoding, the manner in which it is encoded, the information concerning the addressee which is encoded and the syntactic environments in which it can appear.

 

Anton Antonov (INALCO-CRLAO) and Alexandru Mardale (INALCO-SéDyL), From perlative to DOM marker: the curious case of Romanian pe

Mercredi 2 avril 2014

This paper discusses the grammaticalization of the Romanian P(reposition) pe into a DOM marker (Drăganu 1943).
Pe has two main types of uses: a lexical one, as a spatial, viz. temporal, P which has also developed various other more abstract but still lexical meanings, and a grammatical one, as a DOM marker. Both are attested in the first texts of the 16th century, the second one appears to be in its first stages of grammaticalization. A spatial P evolving into a DOM marker is cross-linguistically a common phenomenon. Still, this particular grammaticalization raises several questions.
First, pe continues, through a metathesis (i.e., pre, the most frequent form in Old Romanian (OR)), Latin per (Ciorănescu 2005, a.o.). However, Latin per was initially used as a kind of perlative marker, i.e., it expressed motion of the Trajector ACROSS or ABOUT the Landmark, whereas Romanian pre has the meaning ON a Landmark already in the earliest texts. While the originally spatial use of per in Latin extended to denoting temporal duration and its secondary uses include expression of INSTRUMENT (and also the AGENT in the passive), CAUSE and APPEAL, it never indicated location ON a Landmark (Brucale and Mocciaro 2011). This is also true of its reflexes in all other Romance languages.
Second, DOM markers in other Romance languages have developed similarly from a spatial P, a reflex of ¬ad, whose basic meaning of location NEXT TO developed into a direction marker with human landmarks (Luraghi 2011:215). Then, due to the low frequency of use of the morphological dative (Smith 2011:278-9), progressively grammaticalized into an analytical dative case marker well attested in Vulgar Latin but present already in the earliest texts (Väänänen 1981:113). The increasing number of verbs whose construction required a dative argument (often animate and human) is believed to have contributed to the reanalysis of the construction as an accusative marker used with referential human NPs. This ultimately converted it into a DOM marker in several Romance languages (Sornicola 2011: 36 ff). This pathway is straightforward since the grammaticalization of a P indicating direction into a dative marker is cross-linguistically well-attested, and subsequent extension of dative marking to semantically accusative (referential human) arguments is conceptually unproblematic. The second question to be answered then is why Romanian did not follow this pathway. What is particularly interesting is that p(r)e didn’t go through a similar dative stage.
Finally, pe grammaticalized into a DOM marker only in Daco-Romanian, whereas no authentic DOM (i.e., not influenced by schooling) has been reported for the other Balkan Romance (BR) varieties in close contact with Slavic languages (Friedman 2008, Hill 2013). This is all the more surprising since, in some of these Slavic varieties, P indicating location ON is used as a dative, genitive, and DOM marker (Adamou 2009).

 

Bee Chin NG (Université Technologique de Nanyang à Singapour / DE associé à l’EHESS), Borrowed, lost and readapted – the life cycle of Malay loanwords in Hokkien

Mercredi 9 avril 2014

This paper traces the life cycle of Malay loanwords in Singapore, a linguistically heterogeneous community. The study focuses on the adoption of Malay loanwords in Hokkien and Teochew and tracks the typology and semantic fields of the words borrowed. It also examines the motivations behind the adoption and the eventual loss of some of these loanwords. A survey was conducted with 60 Hokkien and 60 Teochew speakers from four different age groups ranging from 20-80 years to track the use and disuse of a list of 100 Malay loanwords. The aim is to examine how deeply entrenched these Malay borrowings are in these two Chinese languages.
The findings indicate a direct correlation between age and disuse of Malay loanwords with the younger generation retaining no more than 30-50% of the words tested. At its most advanced stage of assimilation, the Malay loanword completely dislodged the Hokkien and Teochew native words for the same item in the speaker’s lexicon. The pattern of usage of these loanwords is indicative of the dynamic and evolving nature of bilingualism in present day Singapore. The loss of the loanwords is explained in terms of the ethnolinguistic vitality of the Hokkien and Teochew speech communities and the rising influence of English and Mandarin Chinese which not only provided a more available source of lexical influences, they also left permanent imprints on the variety of Hokkien and Teochew spoken by younger Singaporeans.
In addition, we will make observations about the fluidity of the lexicon in a pluralistic language contact situation and propose a functional explanation which is based on competing relevance of languages in the lives of multilingual speakers. The extensive incorporation of Malay loanwords in various semantic and cultural fields suggests a close Hokkien-Malay and Teochew-Malay interaction, though the extent and nature of this interaction remains largely undocumented. The findings in this study highlight the relevance of language contact research in reconstructing social and historical connections in society.

Lü Shanshan (CRLAO-EHESS),  Basic Locative Constructions in Caijia – A Descriptive and Typological Perspective

Mercredi 16 avril 2014

Résumé/abstract