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Colloquiumfest: Clint Awai and Shuan Karim

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April 12, 2019
3:55PM - 5:15PM
103 Oxley Hall

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Add to Calendar 2019-04-12 15:55:00 2019-04-12 17:15:00 Colloquiumfest: Clint Awai and Shuan Karim Presenter: Clint AwaiTitle: The typology of Pidgin Hawaiian (QP2) Abstract: Pidgin Hawaiian is a pidgin, based on Hawaiian, that was spoken in the Hawaiian Islands during the 19th century and fell out of use at the beginning of the 20th century.  It has been established by Bickerton (1987) and Roberts (1995) that Pidgin Hawaiian is indeed a pidgin.  But establishing where this pidgin fits within the typology of pidgins still remains to be done.  Because of this fact, two questions emerge.  How does Pidgin Hawaiian fit within the typology of pidgins?  To accomplish this, the list of structural features of pidgins (Bickerton 1981, Drechsel 1996) is used as a diagnostic tool and mapped with data from Pidgin Hawaiian to determine approximately when the pidgin emerged and stabilized and when it fell out of use.  The second, related question is, what does Pidgin Hawaiian tell us about the typology?  Pidgins are frequently based on European languages due to colonial history.  How much influence have the European languages had on the diagnostic tools and definitions of pidgins that we use?  These questions are all addressed in this research project.  Details of the history of Pidgin Hawaiian are also given, with special focus on those aspects of the history which match up with the aspects of the typological consideration of the language.  Presenter: Shuan KarimTitle: Competition Between Formatives and the Diversity of Ezafe Markers (QP2) Abstract: The ezafe, in its simplest form, serves an ad-nominal linker which descended from the inherited PIE y-series relative pronoun and links a noun to an attributive adjective/possessor. I argue here, rather, that among certain Iranian languages, the ezafe has descended from the y-series relative pronoun in some but crucially, not all cases. Zazaki possesses the most diverse nominal paradigm in terms of the interaction of case and ezafe markers. In certain forms (e.g. obl.sg.m.), the formatives that express case and those that express ezafe do not co-occur, and the surface form does not equal the sum of its parts. A hint as to why, for instance,  the obl.sg.m. ezafe ending /-e/ is not fusional is revealed by its contribution to massive syncretism within the paradigm.In Zazaki, /a/ and /e/ fill most paradigm cells marked for ezafe. By exploring closely related Iranian languages previous states can be observed synchronically. Phonological and syntactic competition between formatives caused a single formatives to surface with its function intact and augmented by the lost form. This observation explains the complexity of the Zazaki system and those of other Iranian languages, and it sheds light on an approach to exploring the origins of accidental homophony in complex morphological systems. 103 Oxley Hall Department of Linguistics linguistics@osu.edu America/New_York public

Presenter: Clint Awai

Title: The typology of Pidgin Hawaiian (QP2)

 

Abstract: Pidgin Hawaiian is a pidgin, based on Hawaiian, that was spoken in the Hawaiian Islands during the 19th century and fell out of use at the beginning of the 20th century.  It has been established by Bickerton (1987) and Roberts (1995) that Pidgin Hawaiian is indeed a pidgin.  But establishing where this pidgin fits within the typology of pidgins still remains to be done.  Because of this fact, two questions emerge.  How does Pidgin Hawaiian fit within the typology of pidgins?  To accomplish this, the list of structural features of pidgins (Bickerton 1981, Drechsel 1996) is used as a diagnostic tool and mapped with data from Pidgin Hawaiian to determine approximately when the pidgin emerged and stabilized and when it fell out of use.  The second, related question is, what does Pidgin Hawaiian tell us about the typology?  Pidgins are frequently based on European languages due to colonial history.  How much influence have the European languages had on the diagnostic tools and definitions of pidgins that we use?  These questions are all addressed in this research project.  Details of the history of Pidgin Hawaiian are also given, with special focus on those aspects of the history which match up with the aspects of the typological consideration of the language.

 

 

Presenter: Shuan Karim

Title: Competition Between Formatives and the Diversity of Ezafe Markers (QP2)

 

Abstract: The ezafe, in its simplest form, serves an ad-nominal linker which descended from the inherited PIE y-series relative pronoun and links a noun to an attributive adjective/possessor. I argue here, rather, that among certain Iranian languages, the ezafe has descended from the y-series relative pronoun in some but crucially, not all cases. Zazaki possesses the most diverse nominal paradigm in terms of the interaction of case and ezafe markers. In certain forms (e.g. obl.sg.m.), the formatives that express case and those that express ezafe do not co-occur, and the surface form does not equal the sum of its parts. A hint as to why, for instance,  the obl.sg.m. ezafe ending /-e/ is not fusional is revealed by its contribution to massive syncretism within the paradigm.

In Zazaki, /a/ and /e/ fill most paradigm cells marked for ezafe. By exploring closely related Iranian languages previous states can be observed synchronically. Phonological and syntactic competition between formatives caused a single formatives to surface with its function intact and augmented by the lost form. This observation explains the complexity of the Zazaki system and those of other Iranian languages, and it sheds light on an approach to exploring the origins of accidental homophony in complex morphological systems.

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