The emergence of conjunctions and phrasal coordination in Khanty
Abstract Prior to widespread contact with Russian, Khanty (Uralic; Finno-Ugric) did not have overt conjunctions or phrasal coordination. Instead, Khanty texts from the late 19th–early 20th centuries only include examples of conjunction-less clausal juxtaposition, which was used for both clausal and...
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2022
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crjohnbenjaminsp:10.1075/jhl.21016.kis 2024-06-09T07:47:27+00:00 The emergence of conjunctions and phrasal coordination in Khanty Borise, Lena Kiss, Katalin É. 2022 http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/jhl.21016.kis http://www.jbe-platform.com/deliver/fulltext/jhl.21016.kis.pdf en eng John Benjamins Publishing Company http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Journal of Historical Linguistics volume 13, issue 2, page 173-219 ISSN 2210-2116 2210-2124 journal-article 2022 crjohnbenjaminsp https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.21016.kis 2024-05-15T13:26:21Z Abstract Prior to widespread contact with Russian, Khanty (Uralic; Finno-Ugric) did not have overt conjunctions or phrasal coordination. Instead, Khanty texts from the late 19th–early 20th centuries only include examples of conjunction-less clausal juxtaposition, which was used for both clausal and phrasal coordination. By comparing Khanty texts over the 20th century, we trace the emergence of overt conjunctions and coordination of phrasal constituents. We show that overt conjunctions first appeared in the context of clausal coordination, followed by coordination of smaller phrases. Based on novel elicitation data, we demonstrate that, in contemporary Khanty, (i) overt conjunctions are commonplace, (ii) coordinated clausal constituents may be derived via phrasal coordination or clausal coordination with conjunction reduction/ellipsis, but (iii) ellipsis of syntactic heads is banned (nouns & postpositions) or dispreferred (verbs). Based on this diachronic picture, we conclude that the coordination of phrasal constituents only emerged in Khanty once overt conjunctions became available. We derive this correlation from the Maximize On-line Processing principle ( Hawkins 2004 ), and show that this maxim, usually invoked in the context of speech planning and production, can be successfully applied to modelling language change. Article in Journal/Newspaper khanty John Benjamins Publishing Company Journal of Historical Linguistics |
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John Benjamins Publishing Company |
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English |
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Abstract Prior to widespread contact with Russian, Khanty (Uralic; Finno-Ugric) did not have overt conjunctions or phrasal coordination. Instead, Khanty texts from the late 19th–early 20th centuries only include examples of conjunction-less clausal juxtaposition, which was used for both clausal and phrasal coordination. By comparing Khanty texts over the 20th century, we trace the emergence of overt conjunctions and coordination of phrasal constituents. We show that overt conjunctions first appeared in the context of clausal coordination, followed by coordination of smaller phrases. Based on novel elicitation data, we demonstrate that, in contemporary Khanty, (i) overt conjunctions are commonplace, (ii) coordinated clausal constituents may be derived via phrasal coordination or clausal coordination with conjunction reduction/ellipsis, but (iii) ellipsis of syntactic heads is banned (nouns & postpositions) or dispreferred (verbs). Based on this diachronic picture, we conclude that the coordination of phrasal constituents only emerged in Khanty once overt conjunctions became available. We derive this correlation from the Maximize On-line Processing principle ( Hawkins 2004 ), and show that this maxim, usually invoked in the context of speech planning and production, can be successfully applied to modelling language change. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Borise, Lena Kiss, Katalin É. |
spellingShingle |
Borise, Lena Kiss, Katalin É. The emergence of conjunctions and phrasal coordination in Khanty |
author_facet |
Borise, Lena Kiss, Katalin É. |
author_sort |
Borise, Lena |
title |
The emergence of conjunctions and phrasal coordination in Khanty |
title_short |
The emergence of conjunctions and phrasal coordination in Khanty |
title_full |
The emergence of conjunctions and phrasal coordination in Khanty |
title_fullStr |
The emergence of conjunctions and phrasal coordination in Khanty |
title_full_unstemmed |
The emergence of conjunctions and phrasal coordination in Khanty |
title_sort |
emergence of conjunctions and phrasal coordination in khanty |
publisher |
John Benjamins Publishing Company |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/jhl.21016.kis http://www.jbe-platform.com/deliver/fulltext/jhl.21016.kis.pdf |
genre |
khanty |
genre_facet |
khanty |
op_source |
Journal of Historical Linguistics volume 13, issue 2, page 173-219 ISSN 2210-2116 2210-2124 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.21016.kis |
container_title |
Journal of Historical Linguistics |
_version_ |
1801378543836332032 |