Dictionaries by Guillaume Jacques
This article deals with elevational deixis in Kiranti languages, a feature which is pervasive in ... more This article deals with elevational deixis in Kiranti languages, a feature which is pervasive in these languages in both the verbal and nominal domains. The system of elevation is described in most grammars of these languages as tripartite, following the typologically common system comprising up(wards), same level/across, down(wards) elevations. This work reviews the available data on elevational deixis in the verbal system, and has two main contributions. First, it shows that motion verbs unspecified for elevation are an essential part of the elevation marking paradigm, and are obligatory in some specific elevational configurations. Second, it argues that on the one hand elevationally marked motion verbs are cognate as whole sets across Kiranti, and probably reconstructible to proto-Kiranti and beyond, and on the second hand that a subgroup of Kiranti including Chintang, Athpare, Belhare and Yamphu have innovated a second set of elevationally-marked motion verbs.
Morphosyntax by Guillaume Jacques
STUF, 2024
While speed is a secondary parameter in some associated motion systems, some languages have verba... more While speed is a secondary parameter in some associated motion systems, some languages have verbal affixes dedicated to the encoding of speed-CELERATIVE markers. Celeratives can encode both quick and slow speed and are in some languages even the main or the sole way of expressing this meaning. However, some morphemes not only encode speed, but also other types of ACTION MANNER, in particular hurry or suddenness, following colexification patterns also observed in the lexicon crosslinguistically. This paper provides a first overview of this category in the world's languages, and more generally suggests that action manner constitutes a set of comparative concepts that can be be encoded morphologically.
Folia Linguistica, 2023
This paper is the first survey of verbal affixes encoding the day period (‘at night’,‘in the morn... more This paper is the first survey of verbal affixes encoding the day period (‘at night’,‘in the morning’ etc.) or the yearly seasons (‘in winter’ etc.) when the action takes place. It introduces the term ‘periodic tense’ to refer to this comparative concept, explores the attested paradigms, their interactions with other verbal categories (including the more usual deictic tense), and investigates their diachronic origins. It shows that periodic tense markers are not restricted to incorporated nouns of time period but constitute a highly grammaticalized verbal category in some languages, which can redundantly co-occur with free adverbs or nouns indicating time.
Studies in Language, 2023
This article deals with simulative derivations, meaning 'pretend (to be) X', where X stands for a... more This article deals with simulative derivations, meaning 'pretend (to be) X', where X stands for a verb or a noun. It shows that these derivations have three main origins: incorporation, denominal derivation and combination of reflexive and causative. It also systematically discusses the corresponding analytic constructions.
Linguistic Typology
This article deals with estimative (also called ‘tropative’) constructions meaning ‘find/consider... more This article deals with estimative (also called ‘tropative’) constructions meaning ‘find/consider X to be Y’, where Y stands for a noun or an adjective. It systematically investigates morphological estimatives and their relationship to causative, applicative and denominal derivations from synchronic and diachronic perspectives. In addition, the article presents a survey of periphrastic estimative strategies in the world’s languages.
for the Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality (A. Aikhenvad ed.); comments welcome!
This paper shows the existence of an auditory demonstrative in Khaling. The use of the demonstrat... more This paper shows the existence of an auditory demonstrative in Khaling. The use of the demonstrative is illustrated via examples taken from narrative discourse. It is described here within the context of the spatial demonstrative system, in order to demonstrate how it is specifically used to highlight that perception of the referent is attained using the sense of audition, regardless of the visibility of the object in question. Khaling appears to be unique in having a true auditory demonstrative and it is hoped that this description will prompt field linguists to refine the description of the contrasts found within the demonstrative systems of languages around the world.
In this paper, we review the documented diachronic pathways leading to antipassive markers in the... more In this paper, we review the documented diachronic pathways leading to antipassive markers in the world's languages and show that Japhug Rgyalrong, a polysynthetic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan family, attests a previously unreported source of antipassives.
This article proposes an idealized model of direct-inverse systems inspired by canonical morpholo... more This article proposes an idealized model of direct-inverse systems inspired by canonical morphology, against which attested systems are then evaluated in terms of their deviation from it. A language-independent definition of obviation is provided, and then applied to language families other than Algonquian. Referential hierarchies are shown not to be the only way of accounting for direct-inverse systems. Finally, the article surveys the attested origins of inverse systems and the ways in which they can be further reanalyzed, ultimately leading to their decay.
Transitive NEED Does Not Imply Transitive HAVE: Response to Harves and Kayne 2012
""This article investigates the synchronic status and diachronic origin of an incorporation-like ... more ""This article investigates the synchronic status and diachronic origin of an incorporation-like construction in Japhug, a polysynthetic Sino-Tibetan language of Eastern Tibet. This construction constitutes the intermediate stage on a path of development from denominal derivation to incorporation, the opposite of the usual path of development from incorporation to denominal derivation.
Additionally, this article shows that similar phenomena exist in other languages, and that coalescence between noun and verb is not the only attested diachronic origin of incorporating verbs.""
Phonology by Guillaume Jacques
This paper presents two hitherto unnoticed sets of alternations in the tonal systems of Northern ... more This paper presents two hitherto unnoticed sets of alternations in the tonal systems of Northern Pumi. First, in some verbs, rising tone in the citation form alternates with falling tone in the perfective. Second, the verb "to go", when combined with other verbs, presents tonal alternations which are not found elsewhere in the verbal system. A sample text is added in the appendix to illustrate the tonal phenomena discussed in the article.
Japhug by Guillaume Jacques
A grammar of Japhug (verbal morphology)
A grammar of Japhug (verbal morphology)
Egophoric marking and Person Indexation in Japhug
Language and Linguistics, 2019
Japhug, like other Gyalrong languages, is one of the very few languages with both a full-fledged ... more Japhug, like other Gyalrong languages, is one of the very few languages with both a full-fledged person indexation system and an egophoric evidential category. A detailed account of the uses and meanings of the Egophoric and its interaction with person is thus of interest to the typology of evidential systems. This paper describes the uses of Egophoric marking in Japhug and of the two other evidential categories with which it contrasts (Factual and Sensory), as well as their interaction with person indexation. Due to the limited distribution of the Egophoric in Japhug (it only occurs in present contexts), the present paper exclusively focuses on the uses of evidentials with stative verbs in present (imperfective) contexts, where minimal pairs are available in the corpus.
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Dictionaries by Guillaume Jacques
Morphosyntax by Guillaume Jacques
Additionally, this article shows that similar phenomena exist in other languages, and that coalescence between noun and verb is not the only attested diachronic origin of incorporating verbs.""
Phonology by Guillaume Jacques
Japhug by Guillaume Jacques
Additionally, this article shows that similar phenomena exist in other languages, and that coalescence between noun and verb is not the only attested diachronic origin of incorporating verbs.""
languages. Most of the vocalic and consonantal alternations observed in the verbal paradigms remain unexplained after more than a hundred years of investigation: the study of historical Tibetan morphology would seem to have reached an aporia. This paper proposes a new model, explaining the origin of the alternations in the Tibetan verb as the remnant of a former system of directional prefixes, typologically similar to the ones still attested in the Rgyalrongic languages."
coronal consonant (including *y from proto-Semitic *y and *w) in
North-West Semitic languages. This rule, which has been obscured by
analogy in each of the North-West Semitic languages, explains three independent
sets of facts: the formation of irregular maqtal-s in Hebrew,
Phoenician and Aramaic; the irregular conjugations of several verbs in
Hebrew; and the plural formation of the irregular noun “house” in
Hebrew and Aramaic. This proposal also solves the long-standing problem
of the etymology of the verb “to give” in North-West Semitic languages
(NTN in Hebrew vs. YTN in Phoenician).
province, China. The data presented here is based on ongoing eldwork by the authors.