Search results for "History"
showing 10 items of 18523 documents
Outlining a grammaticalization path for the Spanish formula en plan (de): A contribution to crosslinguistic pragmatics
2020
Abstract This article discusses the diachronic development of the Spanish multifunctional formula en plan (with its variant en plan de, literally ‘in plan (of)’ but usually equivalent to English like). The article has two main aims: firstly, to describe the changes that the formula has undergone since its earliest occurrences as a marker in the nineteenth century up to the early 21st century. The diachronic study evinces a process of grammaticalization in three steps: from noun to clause adverbial and then to discourse marker. Secondly, to conduct a contrastive analysis between en plan (de) and the English markers like and kind of/kinda so as to shed new light on the potential existence of …
Verbalization of nominalizations: A typological commentary on the article by Nikki van de Pol
2019
Abstract The present article provides a typological commentary on the article by Nikki van de Pol (2019) on the history of the English gerund. It is shown that in spite of certain idiosyncratic aspects, the history of the verbal gerund illustrates a well-known grammaticalization path of verbalization, whereby deverbal nouns are first grammaticalized into nonfinite forms (participles, infinitives, converbs), and may later be integrated into the verbal paradigm. It is further suggested that the mixed behavior attested for the verbal gerund, which deviates both from the nominal and from the clausal prototype, may be universally supported by constructional polysemy and blending with constructio…
From engl-isc to whatever-ish: a corpus-based investigation of -ish derivation in the history of English
2020
Drawing on a wide array of historical and contemporary corpora, this article provides one of the first empirical analyses of the intricately related functional changes that -ish underwent in the course of English language history. By investigating the distribution of -ish formations, the analysis sheds light on the productivity of the suffix, which does not only become evident in the numerous hapax legomena, but also in the trajectory of change itself in which -ish occurs with ever new base categories and new functions. Moreover, the article revisits theoretical claims made in the literature about the diachronic development and synchronic properties of -ish and reassesses them in the light …
Figure–Ground Spatial Relationships in Finnish Sign Language Discourse
2020
AbstractThis study is about expressing spatial relationships between Figure and Ground in Finnish Sign Language discourse and shows that the variation in this expression is primarily discourse dependent. The main findings are, first, that Ground mainly precedes Figure whether the Figure is new or a known referent within the discourse; the reverse order is possible only when the Figure is known. Second, the lexical signolla(‘have’) appears more frequently in expressing spatial relationships with a new Figure and less frequently with a known Figure but never in a construction with Figure preceding Ground; the formoli(‘had’), referring to the past, appears only in Figure preceding Ground const…
Odysseus the traveler: Appropriation of a chronotope in a community of practice
2020
Abstract In this article we analyze the role of chronotopes in the formation and negotiation of identities. In particular, we consider the case of a superdiverse community of practice formed by minors asylum seekers and teachers in a school of Italian in Sicily, Italy. In our analysis we stress the role of reciprocity on the ways in which the chronotopic figure of Odysseus is reinterpreted and appropriated by members of this community. We look at how through a process of mutual engagement the indexical values associated with the figure of Odysseus are recontextualized by both teachers and students in light of their present experiences. Data for the article come from interviews, narratives a…
Playing with accents
2020
While certain ways of speaking or varieties of English – such as American English or British English – evoke associations of modernity, higher education and urbanity in Uganda, others – such as Ugandan English with strong northern or western accents – stand for backwardness, social strata remote from education and ‘village identities’. Yet concepts of backwardness or modernity are not only based on linguistic criteria but also associated with a specific worldview, contributing to complex signs of higher-order indexicality. In contrast, speakers’ practices of enregisterment reveal how fluid and contextual these indices of urbanity and rurality actually are. Considering diverse repertoires of…
“Holding Grudges Is So Last Century”: The Use of GenX So as a Modifier of Noun Phrases
2020
This article focuses on the X is so NP-construction in American English, as exemplified by “Holding grudges is so last century” (SOAP, As the World Turns, 2002). Drawing on the Corpus of American Soap Operas (Davies 2011-), the aim of this study is to provide an account of the distributional pattern of noun phrase modification with so, including preferences in modified noun phrase (NP) types and concomitant differences in the meaning of so. The analyses reveal that, in line with subjectification theory on intensification (Athanasiadou 2007), so is expanding its functional range from intensification to emphasis. The findings suggest a near-complementary distribution of these meanings, with …
Materiality and atmosphere. Two American beat artists painting Europe
2019
The article discusses how European painting heavily influenced two American Beat painters in the post war years. Post-war American painting was often concerned with breaking away from traditional iconography and style, but Jay DeFeo and Joan Brown chose to engage with European traditional painting. Both artists travelled to Europe early in their careers and both declare an intense interest in European painters, paintings, and architecture. In Brown’s case particularly the works of Goya, Velazquez, and Rembrandt become scrutinized and remodeled in her pasty abstract style. De Feo, on her hand, states a particular interest in how the European cities’ distinct colors, lights and textures inspi…
Coffins in Finland : the history of production, design and attitudes
2017
AbstractCoffins as death-related objects have changed in Finland during the past 150 years and the Finnish funeral industry has been created to answer the changing needs of customers. No longer do people build coffins in the household, or only buy a coffin and some other items from the funeral company: now professionals manage entire funerals. Coffin designs have become simpler and less socially discriminating and the colour formerly reserved for children and young people, white, has become the most popular colour for a coffin. Attitudes towards coffins have also changed, from mild dislike of having a coffin in the home to general demand of hiding coffins even in funeral companies’ premises…
The leftovers. The dead in life and social disappearance.
2020
Through an analysis of the TV series The Leftovers, we delve into the concept of "social disappearance" and into how it expresses the limits between life and death. The analysis focuses on the event that drives the plot: the mass disappearance of millions of people without reason. It has three moments: (1) the reconstruction of the order that the disappearance has broken; (2) the deviation of the mourning processes from their original logic; and (3) the acceptance that in the post-disappearance world nothing will be the same as before. The text offers some suggestions for thinking about possible lives in a world that is broken and with no promise of reconstruction, a world in which "social …