Abstract
Typological studies have repeatedly expressed doubt about the possibility of relative clause markers grammaticalizing from possessive markers. At the same time, cross-linguistic studies of attribution have provided substantial evidence for markers of adjectival attribution deriving from possessive markers. Given that simple adjectival attributive constructions are accepted to expand readily into relative clause constructions, there is an apparent discordance in the typological literature on the diachronic sources of their markers. Using data from the Timor-Alor-Pantar languages of south-eastern Wallacea, the present article argues that the link between possessive and relative clause markers, by way of an adjectival attributive marker, should also be uncontroversial.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 369-401 |
| Number of pages | 33 |
| Journal | Language Typology and Universals = STUF - Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung |
| Volume | 76 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Early online date | 18 Sept 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 26 Sept 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This article owes much to the insights of Benny Delpada and Amos Sir, who as native speakers of, respectively, Abui and Teiwa significantly expanded the datasets I had to work with for those two languages. Amos Sir passed away suddenly in April 2023 before this article could be published. He was a powerful advocate for the indigenous languages of Alor and Pantar; he will be greatly missed. Additional thanks also go to Rachel Hendery, David Gil, Malcolm Ross and two anonymous reviewers for the commentaries and discussions they provided. Research funding came from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research VENI project “The evolution of the lexicon. Explorations in lexical stability, semantic shift and borrowing in a Papuan language family”, the Australian Research Council project (ARC, DP180100893) “Waves of words”, and the European Research Council “OUTOFPAPUA” project (grant agreement no. 848532). All errors are my own.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 the author(s), published by De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston.
Funding
This article owes much to the insights of Benny Delpada and Amos Sir, who as native speakers of, respectively, Abui and Teiwa significantly expanded the datasets I had to work with for those two languages. Amos Sir passed away suddenly in April 2023 before this article could be published. He was a powerful advocate for the indigenous languages of Alor and Pantar; he will be greatly missed. Additional thanks also go to Rachel Hendery, David Gil, Malcolm Ross and two anonymous reviewers for the commentaries and discussions they provided. Research funding came from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research VENI project “The evolution of the lexicon. Explorations in lexical stability, semantic shift and borrowing in a Papuan language family”, the Australian Research Council project (ARC, DP180100893) “Waves of words”, and the European Research Council “OUTOFPAPUA” project (grant agreement no. 848532). All errors are my own.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| European Research Council | 848532 |
| European Research Council | |
| Australian Research Council | DP180100893 |
| Australian Research Council |
Keywords
- grammaticalization
- possessive-like attribute constructions
- relative clause markers
- Timor-Alor-Pantar languages