Search Results (30)

This paper assesses the role of socio-demographic triggers on Kolmogorov-based complexity in spoken English varieties. It thus contributes to the ongoing debate on contact and complexity in the sociolinguistic typological research community. Currently, evidence on whether socio-demographic triggers influence the morphosyntactic complexity of languages is controversial and inconclusive. Particularly controversial is the influence of the proportion of non-native speakers and the number of native speakers, which are both common proxies for language contact. In order to illuminate the issue from an English-varieties perspective, I use regression analysis to test several socio-demographic triggers in a corpus database of spoken English varieties. Language complexity here is operationalised in terms of Kolmogorov-based morphological and syntactic complexity. The results only partially support the idea that socio-demographic triggers influence morphosyntactic complexity in English varieties, i.e., speaker-related triggers turn out to be negative but non-significant. Yet, net migration rate shows a positive significant effect on morphological complexity which needs to be seen in the global context of English as a commodity and unequal access to English. I thus argue that socioeconomic triggers are better predictors for complexity than demographic speaker numbers. In sum, the paper opens up new horizons for research on language complexity. Full article

This study provides a comprehensive philological analysis of ten Old Uyghur manuscript fragments of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra (Lotus Sutra) in the Berlin Turfan Collection, while systematically examining all extant Old Uyghur Lotus Sutra manuscripts to establish a complete corpus for comparative analysis. By collating this complete corpus with Kumārajīva’s Chinese translation, this research demonstrates a typology of Old Uyghur Lotus Sutra fragments. It identifies at least two distinct translation lineages: (1) early translations (pre-10th century) exhibiting lexical and structural divergences indicative of Sogdian mediation or hybrid source traditions, and (2) late translations (11th–14th centuries) directly derived from the Chinese version, characterized by syntactic fidelity and a standardized terminology. Through comparative textual analysis, orthographic scrutiny, and terminological cross-referencing, this paper aims to reconstruct the historical trajectory of the Lotus Sutra’s transmission. In addition, it discusses some facts indicating linguistic and cultural contact between the Sogdians and the progressive alignment of Uyghur Buddhist texts with Chinese Buddhist traditions. Full article

This paper presents a comprehensive synchronic and diachronic analysis of the Sino-Vietnamese negative prefixes bất (Chinese 不 bù), vô (無 wú), and phi (非 fēi), examining their historical development and modern usage in Vietnamese, with a comparative perspective on their Chinese equivalents. By investigating the interaction between these prefixes and Vietnamese sentential negators—such as the native chẳng and the Chinese-derived không—the study explores the evolution of negation in Vietnamese over several centuries. The research draws on a corpus of three bilingual Classical Chinese–Vietnamese translations of Confucius’s Analects from the 17th, 19th, and 21st centuries, two written in traditional Nôm script and one in the modern Quốc ngữ alphabet. This corpus provides valuable insights into linguistic shifts driven by language contact in Vietnam. The findings reveal that in the 17th century, the Sino-Vietnamese prefixes bất, vô, and phi were largely absent, with native chẳng dominating. By the 19th century, chẳng persisted, but không emerged as a sentential negator, and bất appeared, both reflecting Chinese forms and demonstrating innovative uses. In the 21st century, không became the dominant negator, with bất and vô seeing increased usage, reflecting broader trends of linguistic modernization. This study situates these changes within the broader context of 20th-century East Asian literacy expansion, where Japan played a pivotal role in disseminating modernized Chinese-based vocabulary. By examining the selective adaptation and integration of Sino-Vietnamese elements, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of language contact, syntactic influence, and lexical innovation in the evolving Vietnamese lexicon. Full article

This article presents an updated view of the language history of Vietnamese from its native Austroasiatic roots, including key historical phonological, morphological, and syntactic features and developments; a characterization of its Austroasiatic etyma; and the context of this information in Vietnamese linguistic ethnohistory. It is now possible to make better supported claims and more precise characterizations due to improved understanding of the history of Austroasiatic and Vietic and their reconstructions, the nature and effect of language contact with Chinese, and the process of typological convergence of the ancestral language of Vietnamese. This study shows that, while Vietnamese is not a typologically characteristic Austroasiatic language, the Austroasiatic components of the Vietnamese lexicon and linguistic structure are more prominent than previously supposed. Full article

Bilinguals have been shown to adapt to syntactic innovations (i.e., structures that deviate from the standard grammar) either by producing such structures more or by processing them faster after repeated exposure. However, research on whether they adapt by increasing their acceptability ratings for innovations is limited. We consider this to be a crucial gap in the literature, since it could provide insights into how speakers adapt their perception for innovations that they might otherwise not adapt to in their production and/or processing. On this basis, the present study investigates overall acceptability and trial-by-trial acceptability (adaptation) for different types of innovations in Canadian French with grammatical structural equivalents in English. Structure type and individual differences in language experience (dominance, proficiency, exposure, etc.) are considered as factors that influence these processes, as previous research has shown that they play a role in the acceptability of innovations in bilinguals. For this purpose, we employed a timed acceptability judgment task (TAJT), where adult bilingual speakers of French and English in Canada were asked to rate innovative sentences in French and their standard (grammatical) counterparts as fast and spontaneously as possible. Both acceptability ratings (offline measure) and response times (RTs) (online measure) across trials were measured to test whether speakers show adaptation on both levels. Results revealed that innovations were rated lower and for most structure types slower than their standard counterparts, with the different types of innovations showing differences. Crucially, adaptation on a group level was reflected only in response times and not in acceptability ratings. On an individual level, though, some participants adapted their ratings, but not consistently across all innovation types. Moreover, ratings and RTs were influenced by individual language experience, with participants with a higher contact with French (higher French Score) being faster and less accepting of innovative sentences compared to participants with a lower contact with French. Full article

Intonational plateaus exist in Chilean Spanish in contexts in which they do not exist in any other variety of Spanish. Mapudungun, which has been in contact with Chilean Spanish for centuries, also has plateaus in similar contexts, although for years, the possibility of any influence of Mapudungun on Spanish has been largely dismissed. The present study examines the discourse contexts in which intonational plateaus occur in both Chilean Spanish and Mapudungun and finds that their pragmatic function is similar, with the vast majority of cases highlighting information based on the subjective communicative desire of the speaker rather than falling into established syntactic or pragmatic categories such as narrow focus. However, while the pragmatic function is similar between the languages, Mapudungun has a wider use of the plateaus, indicating a likely longer presence in this language. Based on the similarities in pragmatic function, the absence of such plateaus in any other variety of Spanish, and the wider use of plateaus in Mapudungun, this paper argues that the Chilean Spanish plateaus originate from Mapudungun due to their centuries-long history of intense language contact. Full article

The so-called perífrasis perfectivas in Galician present the action as concluded or realized. This particular aspectual feature constitutes the common ground for an otherwise heterogeneous set of constructions, ranging from rematar de ‘finish’+ infinitive (e.g., rematóu de beber ‘(s/he) finished drinking’) to ter ‘have’ + participle (e.g., teñen ido ‘(they) have gone (Rep.)’). This work provides a critical assessment of their syntactic and semantic properties in cases where the participle may not show agreement. This is the case for periphrases built on three auxiliaries: ter, levar, and dar, of which ter + participle stands out as the most grammaticalized one. The case of ter is further investigated in relation to European Portuguese (EP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP), where ter + participle is considered a fully-fledged perfect tense. Additionally, the use of these periphrases in areas where Spanish is also present is evaluated from a contact perspective. Full article

This paper investigates the formation of spatial locative relativization in three African varieties of Portuguese. While research on relative constructions in Portuguese has deserved considerable attention in the literature, it tends to focus on the European and Brazilian varieties, with locative relativization being only marginally addressed. Using data extracted from spoken corpora of contemporary, urban varieties of Angolan, Mozambican, and Santomean Portuguese, we aim to discuss whether there is a correlation between syntactic and semantic variables and the selection of the two main locative relative morphemes, onde ‘where’ and que ‘that’. Overall, the three varieties at stake behave similarly with respect to the analyzed syntactic variables and follow the tendency found in Portuguese varieties toward the use of pied-piping and P-chopping as the dominant relativization mechanisms, independent of the syntactic relation between the antecedent and the relative clause. Semantically, we identified some fine-grained differences between the three varieties, with Santomean Portuguese generally being the outlier or one of the outliers. Crucially, definiteness of the head noun stands out as the one variable that plays a major role in the selection of the relative morpheme: [−definite] head nouns show a proportionally higher preference for que in both AP and STP, which is particularly visible with bare nouns in the latter. This motivates the hypothesis that less specified head nouns show a preference for the un(der)specified relative morpheme que. We further show that the role of language contact is at best very limited. Full article

This explorative study examines intonation contours in neutral and non-neutral statements of Paraguayan Spanish, a variety shaped by extensive contact with Guarani, a co-official language of Paraguay. Paraguayan Spanish displays both lexical and syntactic borrowings from Guarani, along with innovative intonation patterns not found in other Spanish varieties. Previous but still limited research on yes/no and wh-questions in this variety suggests the emergence of a unique intonational system, possibly of a hybrid nature, in both Spanish monolinguals and Spanish–Guarani bilinguals. To date, no comprehensive description of intonation patterns in Paraguayan Spanish statements exists. The present study addresses this gap by analyzing data obtained through a Discourse Completion Task, covering broad-focus statements, contrastive focus, exclamatives, and statements of the obvious. Data were collected in 2014 from two monolingual speakers, eleven bilingual Spanish-dominant speakers, and eight bilingual Guarani-dominant speakers. The intonation is formalized using the Autosegmental–Metrical model of intonational phonology and the Spanish Tones and Break Indices labeling system. The findings reveal three main realizations of nuclear accents (L+H*, H+L*, and innovative >H+L*) in neutral and non-neutral declarative sentences, lengthening of syllables, diverse syntactical strategies, and lexical borrowings. The study contributes to the understanding of a lesser-studied Spanish variety and offers insights into theoretical aspects of contact linguistics. Full article

In this paper, I explore the properties and the uses of the past participles in the Arbëresh variety of S. Nicola dell’Alto, an Albanian dialect still spoken in Southern Italy, which has been in contact with Italo-Romance varieties for more than five centuries. The data are discussed in comparison to standard Albanian and the contact language, Italian. In Albanian grammar, there is only one type of participle: the past participle. It has both verbal and adjectival properties. As a verbal form, the participle is used in compound and in periphrastic tenses, in combination with both the auxiliaries KAM ‘have’ and JAM ‘be’. It can also be used in combination with other particles to create non-finite verbal forms such as gerund or infinitive or to build up temporal expressions. Finally, it can also be used after some modal impersonal verbs. Verbal participles never show agreement. Albanian participles can also be adjectival. All the adjectives derived by a participial verb take a linking article and always agree with the noun they modify in gender, number, Case and definiteness. The formal distinction of the verbal participles from adjectival participles seems to correlate with the aspectual properties of the construction: a verbal participle appears in eventive structures, whereas an adjectival participle occurs in stative structures. But, as we shall see, this is not always the case. Arbëresh participles have maintained the same morphological and syntactical properties of Albanian. They can be used both in stative and in eventive contexts, but in Arbëresh eventive passives, which are built up as in Italian rather than as in Albanian, the adjectival participles are always inflected. Agreement is obligatory in all the contexts where it is in Italian. This is a clear contact-induced change. The data presented in this paper show that Arbëresh, on the one hand, preserves features of Albanian grammar, whereas, on the other hand, it has undergone changes under the influence of the surrounding Italo-Romance varieties. Full article

The Gallo-Italic dialects widespread within central–eastern Sicily represent the result of the medieval immigration of settlers from southern Piedmont and Liguria, after the Norman conquest of the island (1061–1091). As far as the language spoken by these communities is concerned, an oddity arises: most of their lexical and syntactic features developed further through contact with neighboring varieties (such as, most notably, Sicilian), whereas, at a phonetic/phonological level, they have remained very conservative, largely maintaining their original northern characteristics. In the present paper, the possible causes underlying such a split are discussed: if the transfer of syntactic structures can be triggered by the presence of bilingual speakers who become progressively dominant (that is, more proficient) in Sicilian as L2, the preservation of the main phonetic/phonological features can represent a tool employed to the ends of emphasizing the identity of these new settlers from both an ethnic and linguistic perspective. Full article

Xiang (hsn) remains a poorly understood grouping within Sinitic, with no satisfactory conclusions on how to demarcate its boundaries or define its subgroupings. One general observation is that there is a rough typological split between the Northeast and Southwest related to contact from northern- and southern-type Sinitic varieties, respectively, which can be supported with phonological, lexical, and syntactic evidence. It is predicted here that an additional source of evidence can be found in the phonetic features of hesitation markers (HMs; ‘fillers’, ‘speech disfluencies’, etc.), which tend towards the central area of the vowel space (approaching [ə], [ɤ], [e], etc.) but still conform to the phonologies of the languages in which they occur. This study introduces a novel three-way division of Xiang in terms of phonemic central vowels found in open syllables (either [ə/ɤ], [e/ɛ], or both) which is then evaluated against the vocalic quality found in HMs to determine whether they can be used as evidence for Xiang internal typology. Data are gathered from 47 speakers representing 16 Xiang localities, distributed across Hunan province, recorded performing the Pear Stories paradigm, with 304 hesitation markers extracted. Features reported on include vowel quality (F1-F2), tonal contour (F0), and duration (ms). It is found that Xiang HMs demonstrate four distinct vowel qualities, but that their distribution does not neatly fit established taxonomic schemes; however, the evidence does support the transitional status of Xiang varieties as a site of mixture of northern and southern Sinitic features. Full article

Heritage Norwegian in the American Midwest is documented through a corpus of recordings collected and compiled over a time span of 80 years, from Einar Haugen’s recordings in the 1940s via the CANS corpus up to the present-day in the authors’ own recordings. This gives an unprecedented opportunity to study how a minority language changes in a language contact situation, over several generations and under gradually changing circumstances. Since we also have thorough historical knowledge of the institutions and societal texture of these communities, this privileged situation allows us to trace the various sources of input available to the heritage speakers in these communities in different relevant time slots. We investigate how the quality and quantity of input at different times are reflected in the syntactic production of heritage speakers of the corresponding generational cohorts, focusing on relative ratios of specific word orders (topicalization and verb second, prenominal and postnominal possessive noun phrases) and productive morphosyntactic paradigms (tense suffixes of loan verbs). Utilizing a model of relations between input and output, receptive and productive competence, to show how input–output effects will accumulate throughout the cohorts, we explain the observed linguistic change in individuals and society. Full article

With the blooming of blockchain-based smart contracts in decentralized applications, the security problem of smart contracts has become a critical issue, as vulnerable contracts have resulted in severe financial losses. Existing research works have explored vulnerability detection methods based on fuzzing, symbolic execution, formal verification, and static analysis. In this paper, we propose two static analysis approaches called ASGVulDetector and BASGVulDetector for detecting vulnerabilities in Ethereum smart contacts from source-code and bytecode perspectives, respectively. First, we design a novel intermediate representation called abstract semantic graph (ASG) to capture both syntactic and semantic features from the program. ASG is based on syntax information but enriched by code structures, such as control flow and data flow. Then, we apply two different training models, i.e., graph neural network (GNN) and graph matching network (GMN), to learn the embedding of ASG and measure the similarity of the contract pairs. In this way, vulnerable smart contracts can be identified by calculating the similarity to labeled ones. We conduct extensive experiments to evaluate the superiority of our approaches to state-of-the-art competitors. Specifically, ASGVulDetector improves the best of three source-code-only static analysis tools (i.e., SmartCheck, Slither, and DR-GCN) regarding the F1 score by 12.6% on average, while BASGVulDetector improves that of the three detection tools supporting bytecode (i.e., ContractFuzzer, Oyente, and Securify) regarding the F1 score by 25.6% on average. We also investigate the effectiveness and advantages of the GMN model for detecting vulnerabilities in smart contracts. Full article

This paper explores a novel case of contact-induced change due to micro-contact within Italy, where various Italo-Romance languages coexist (Standard Italian, Italiano Regionale ‘regional Italian’, and numerous local languages). Although morphosyntactic change due to micro-contact is probably widespread across Italy, it has received almost no attention in the literature. This case study involves the complementizer system of the local language Ferentinese (Southern Lazio), which underwent restructuring over a very brief period. I claim that this change is a case of downward reanalysis from Force to Fin within the split CP, triggered by the regression of the subjunctive and its subsequent replacement by a new complementation strategy. In turn, I argue that this change was the by-product of an increase in the number of complementizers in the language, from two to three, due to micro-contact between Ferentinese and Italiano Regionale. Crucially, the latter furnished a complementizer form (che) identical to one already present in the Ferentinese system, leading to reanalysis. Thus, in addition to reporting on a novel case of micro-contact in Italy, this paper illustrates one pathway to the genesis of a rare three-way complementizer system and sketches an initial typology of how related complementizer systems have changed in diachrony. Full article