Vol. XVII Nr. 1
Gabriela Alboiu and Michael Barrie
A feature geometric approach of verbal inflection in Onondaga
Abstract: Iroquoian inflectional verbal morphology is well-documented in the descriptive literature (Chafe 1961, Lounsbury 1949, 1953, Michelson and Doxtator 2002),but has received less attention from a generative perspective. Most generative analyses of verbal inflection rely on the notion of tense as a central category and the universal projection of a T(ense) Phrase. Onondaga (Northern Iroquoian), however, often makes very little use of tense as a grammatical concept, capitalizing instead on the notions of aspect and mood, thereby rendering the standard generative approach inappropriate. Instead, we propose that a feature geometric analysis (Cowper 2005), which does not rely on tense as a central concept, is better suited for analysing the Onondaga verbal inflectional domain.
Keywords: Onondaga, tense, aspect, mood
Elena Buja
Phonological development in Romanian monolingual children
Abstract: The paper aims at bringing to the fore the errors that occur in the production of children’s early words in an attempt to see what phonological processes young learners of Romanian resort to in order to simplify adult targets. The data employed come from four longitudinal corpora and from diaries kept by colleagues of mine and they have been analysed in the framework of “developmental universals” and “particulars” (Slobin 1985). The findings reveal that, to a large extent, Romanian-speaking children adopt similar strategies in dealing with challenging targets as their English peers, but also strategies determined by language-specific features.
Keywords: acquisition of phonology, phonological processes, adult targets, developmental path
Cristina Bălan
Vowel epenthesis in Japanese loanword adaptation
Abstract: It is a generally accepted idea that vowel epenthesis is the main strategy used to repair illicit vowels in Japanese loanword adaptation; however, little attention has been paid to the quality of epenthetic vowels and the processes triggering their occurrence. This paper aims at providing an optimality-theoretic account of the processes that cause each of the five Japanese vowels to surface as epenthetic vowels. All three processes of vowel epenthesis – default vowel epenthesis, consonant place assimilitation and vowel harmony – are defined in terms of feature insertion or feature spreading (Uffmann 2006, 2007). The paper provides as well a quantitative analysis regarding the frequency of epenthetic vowels and epenthesis strategies.
Keywords: default vowel epenthesis, vowel harmony, consonant assimilation, feature spreading
Costin-Valentin Oancea
Talkin’ or talking? Phonological variation in the speech of London teenagers
Abstract: This paper analyses the (ing) variable in the speech of London teenagers. The study is based on a corpus consisting of approximately five hours of speech collected at Queen Mary’s College, University of London, in October 2012. I argue that the nonstandard form [n], usually associated with the speech of boys is frequently used by girls, contrary to the findings found in the literature on (ing).
Keywords: velar nasal, alveolar nasal, variation, variationist sociolinguistics, London teenagers
REVIEW ARTICLE
Imola-Ágnes Farkas
Fseq and Cartography: The tip of the iceberg
Abstract: The present paper is intended as an overview of some of the major issues in, and contributions to, Cartography. First, it discusses the general framework. Next, it describes some highly influential analyses and the conclusions that have been reached in the literature of the past few decades. Then, it compares Cartography to Nanosyntax. Finally, it presents some alternatives to this research program.
Keywords: fseq, Cartography, Nanosyntax, functional categories
REVIEWS
Carmen Valero-Garcés. Forme de mediere interculturală. Traducerea şi interpretarea pentru serviciile publice. Concepte, date, situaţii şi aplicaţii practice. (Reviewed by Daniela Corina Ionescu)
Geoffrey Leech. The Pragmatics of Politeness. (Reviewed by Silvia Florea)