The issue of arbitrariness in syntactic reconstruction

Author:

Daniels Don1

Affiliation:

1. Department of Linguistics , University of Oregon , Eugene , USA

Abstract

Abstract Practitioners of syntactic reconstruction have not acknowledged that arbitrariness and iconicity influence syntactic change, and that they therefore need to be incorporated into methods of reconstruction. I argue that iconicity creates a directional tendency in syntactic change, privileging structures that are more iconic. I propose a method for incorporating this fact into methods of syntactic reconstruction. I demonstrate the application of this method on two pieces of reconstructed syntax: orientation serial verb constructions and left-peripheral topics. Both case studies are from Proto-Sogeram, the ancestor to ten languages of Papua New Guinea. A third, briefer case study concerns Proto-Carib.

Publisher

Walter de Gruyter GmbH

Subject

Linguistics and Language,Language and Linguistics

Reference95 articles.

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2. Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2006b. Serial verb constructions in Tariana. In Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald & R. M. W. Dixon (eds.), Serial verb constructions: A cross-linguistic typology, 178–201. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

3. Anttila, Raimo & Sheila Embleton. 1989. The iconic index: From sound change to rhyming slang. Diachronica 6(2). 155–180.

4. Balles, Irene. 2008. Principles of syntactic reconstruction and “morphology as paleosyntax”: The case of some Indo-European secondary verbal formations. In Gisella Ferraresi & Maria Goldbach (eds.), Principles of syntactic reconstruction (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 302), 161–186. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

5. Barðdal, Jóhanna. 2013. Construction-based historical-comparative reconstruction. In Thomas Hoffmann & Graeme Trousdale (eds.), The Oxford handbook of construction grammar, 438–457. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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