This dissertation investigates the diachronic development of Chinese and Naxi, focusing particularly upon six linguistic puzzles that are likely to be associated with the various linguistic changes in most areas of the grammar, including sound/phonological changes, semantic/meaning changes, syntactic/sentence-structure changes, and contact-induced changes. This dissertation's primarily purpose is to provide new perspectives in order to solve these puzzles on the basis of typological and diachronic evidence. The dissertation will analyze cross-linguistic data from Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages in order to reconstruct various diachronic developments in Chinese and Naxi. The main body of the dissertation from Chapter II to Chapter V will examine the six linguistic puzzles successively, as follows: (1) tonal splits in proto-checked syllables and subgrouping of Loloish, (2) semantic development of RETURN in Chinese, (3) semantic development of TAKE in Chinese, (4) development of agentive passive markers in Mandarin, (5) definiteness and nominalization, relativization, and genitivization in Chinese, and (6) development of nominalization, relativization, and genitivization in Naxi. My approach is a rather elaborate attempt to pursue a new framework for comparative reconstruction of historical linguistics. In my study, comparative analysis of historical linguistics focuses on reconstructing ancient patterns based on diachronic records and/or typological data from several languages or dialects in a language group. The ultimate aim of the comparative reconstruction is to demonstrate the historical process of language change. A historical linguist, like a competent detective, must possess acute vision and strong reasoning skills to be able to reconstruct the whole story of language change, and admissible evidence is of upmost importance. In order to discover the solution to the aforementioned linguistic puzzles, the linguist must rely on three key types of clues: typological evidence, historical evidence, and linguistic theories. The basic assumption behind the comparative reconstruction is that the diverse synchronic, linguistic patterns in the same language group were diachronically derived from an identical origin. The common origin of these linguistic differences could be a sound, a meaning, a function word, a syntactic structure, etc., depending on the linguistic field in question. Between the origin and synchronic diversity is a series of diachronic processes. Therefore, the framework of the comparative reconstruction should consist of at least three basic elements: (1) synchronic diversity in a language group, (2) the original pattern or form of diversity, and (3) diachronic processes from the origin to the diversity.

Inaug. Diss.--Münster.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1972. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliography.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 240-254). Also available on the Internet.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Linguistics / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This inquiry employs a purposefully designed proofreading protocol to obtain empirical data on the ability of the target population (i.e. South African secondary school learners aged 13 to 17 – grades 8 to 11 – with English first-language proficiency from the upper-middle class socio-economic sphere in the urban Pretoria region) to identify textisms in formal written Standard English. The proofreading protocol is supplemented by a teacher survey to obtain attitudinal data on teachers’ views on textese and their learners’ written work, and the data obtained from the two research instruments are compared. It is argued that the target audience of secondary school learners, as part of the ‘digital native’ generation, might have reached the ‘point of saturation’ and will therefore struggle to identify textisms in a formal writing context because they are so used to seeing them in informal writing contexts. Register theory is accordingly used to argue that due to the target population’s frequent exposure to and use of textese, they might not have a precise grasp of register and will therefore struggle to identify textisms in formal written Standard English. The results indicate that the 288 secondary school learners who participated in this study do, in fact, have a precise grasp of register and will not struggle to identify textisms in formal written Standard English. The results further suggest that textese does not currently pose a threat to Standard English in South Africa as it merely reveals English’s remarkable ability to adapt to its users’ ever-changing demands and needs. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / Humanities Education / Unrestricted

Some such as Schwink (2004) have analyzed diachronic developments in Germanic gender as a whole, while others like Steinmetz (1985, 2001) and Trosterud (2006) have looked at diachronic changes in grammatical gender in the North Germanic languages. Specifically within the history of Icelandic, Steinmetz and Trosterud both argue for a neuter-default gender system for Old Norse (and for Modern Icelandic). This report looks at loan words from the Old Norse period drawn from historical sources, such as the Heimskringla (History of the Kings of Norway) and Laxdœla Saga, and compares their gender assignment then with their gender in Modern Icelandic in order to see if any of their originally assigned genders changed in the modern language. That none of the loans analyzed in this report changed their gender assignment from neuter to masculine as in West Germanic supports Steinmetz' and Trosterud's notions of Icelandic having a neuter-default gender system. These findings also support Schwink's view (2004:99), when he writes that Icelandic's gender system remains relatively unchanged from that of Old Norse. / text

This analysis explores the reflection of semantic features of emotion verbs that are metaphorized on the morphosyntactic level in constructions that express these emotions. This dissertation shows how the avoidance or distancing response to fear is mirrored in the morphosyntax of fear constructions (FCs) in certain Indo-European languages through the use of non-canonical grammatical markers. This analysis looks at both simple FCs consisting of a single clause and complex FCs, which feature a subordinate clause that acts as a complement to the fear verb in the main clause. In simple FCs in some highly-inflected Indo-European languages, the complement of the fear verb (which represents the fear source) is case-marked not accusative but genitive (Baltic and Slavic languages, Sanskrit, Anglo-Saxon) or ablative (Armenian, Sanskrit, Old Persian). These two directional case inflections are generally used to represent the notion of movement away from. In simple FCs in these languages, the movement away is the subject/Experiencer’s recoiling or desire to distance him-/herself from the fear Source. In this way the grammar of simple FCs of these languages mirrors, or metaphorizes, the reflexive avoidance behavior of the fear response. In the subordinate clause of complex FCs in certain Indo-European languages (such as Ancient Greek, Latin, Old English, Baltic and Slavic languages, French, and Catalan), irrealis mood marking on the verb together with a negative particle that does not affect syntactic negation of the verb syntactically mark the potentiality of the feared event or state represented by the subordinate clause (which has not yet occurred and may not occur) and its undesirability for the subject/Experiencer of the fear verb in the main clause. In this way the negative particle + irrealis mood fear clause metaphorizes on the morphosyntactic level the primary semantic features of the emotion of fear: anticipation of a potential undesired event that the Experiencer seeks to negate. The analysis of complex FCs is followed by a case study proposing the evolution of these constructions in Latin from negative purpose clauses. This dissertation includes previously published material.

Thesis (M. A.)--Cincinnati Bible Seminary, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 136-140).