UvA-DARE (

UvA-DARE (

UvA-DARE (

Between derivation and multifunctionality: In search of evidence for conversion

UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Nominal plurals in Sign Language of the Netherlands: Accounting for allomorphy and variation

The morpho-syntax of Standard Scottish English

With empirical research on Standard Scottish English showing a bias towards phonology, the aim of the current study is to contribute to the morpho-syntactic documentation of this variety. Relying on Standard Southern British English for comparison, we concentrate on four eWAVE features on which the varieties have been noted to diverge: (i)  youse as a second person plural pronoun, (ii) extended uses of the progressive, (iii) epistemic mustn’t , and (iv) quotative like . We use questionnaire data, where respondents indicate how many speakers in their home country use a particular feature. Ratings are elicited from 43 English and 61 Scottish participants (mostly university students) for two usage contexts, (informal) speech and (semi-formal) writing. Our findings corroborate expert ratings in eWAVE and show that the reported currency of all features is higher in Standard Scottish English, albeit to varying degrees. Our study draws attention to the complementary potential of questionnaire data in World Englishes research.

Affirmative markers: A cross-linguistic study of overspecification

Based on a worldwide sample of 604 languages from 179 families, this study shows that affirmative markers, the functional opposite of standard negators, are highly infrequent and possibly ‘rara.’ This confirms previous impressionistic claims. Nine languages with one affirmative marker each were found. Their geographical distribution (a major cluster in eastern Africa), exponence (five of the nine markers are prefixes), and possible diachronic emergence are discussed. The existence of affirmative markers is explained against the background of ‘overspecification,’ operationalized here as the combination of a high degree of verbal synthesis and a low number of zero markers throughout the system. Languages with affirmative markers generally have a large number of morphological categories/slots and also show a tendency to overtly mark other meanings often zero-marked cross-linguistically (e.g., nominative, present tense, third person). The results suggest that some languages prefer explicitness to economy, which informs different aspects of typology.