Chingduang Yurayong’s research while affiliated with University of Helsinki and other places

This article presents a typological survey of verbal numeral classifiers (VNCs) in languages of Eastern Eurasia. As classifiers of occurrence (e.g., to V once, to V twice), VNCs are prevalent in languages of East Asia and Southeast Asia, yet the phenomenon has been largely overlooked in typological studies that have overwhelmingly focused on the adnominal use of numeral classifiers. Analyzing a sample of 543 linguistic varieties, the study categorizes the language families of Eastern Eurasia into three groups based on their use of VNCs: 1) VNCs consistently present in all languages (e.g., Tai-Kadai); 2) VNCs present in some languages (e.g., Sino-Tibetan); and 3) VNCs consistently absent (e.g., Yukaghir). Additionally, the meanings of VNCs are shown to follow a non-random distribution by centering on certain semantic fields, such as quantifying hits with ‘verbs of violence’. The study aims to offer the first step toward an areal typological study of VNCs, highlighting the importance of including this phenomenon in future descriptive work.

Tämä juhlakirja koostuu neljästäkymmenestäkolmesta professori Riho Grünthalin (s. 22.5.1964) 60-vuotispäiväksi kirjoitetusta lahjasta. Opiskelu- ja työtoverit sekä oppilaat tarkastelevat artikkeleissaan uralilaisen kielikunnan eri haaroja sekä kielten ja puhujayhteisöjen esihistoriaa. Kirjoituksissa käsitellään Grünthalille läheisiä aiheita. Tutkitaan esimerkiksi itämerensuomea ja sen etnonyymeja, mordvalaiskieliä, etymologiaa ja kielten kehitystä. Huomion kohteena ovat myös kielikontaktit, kielitypologia ja -sosiologia sekä empiirisen kielenaineksen keräämiseksi ja kieliyhteisön tutkimiseksi tehtävät kenttätyöt. Teos sisältää myös kollegan kirjoittaman lämpimän aikalaismuistelun ja Grünthalin julkaisuluettelon. See pühendusraamat koosneb neljakümne kolmest professor Riho Grünthali (s. 22.5.1964) 60. juubeliks kirjutatud kingitusest. Tudengipõlve sõbrad, töökaaslased ja õpilased vaatlevad oma artiklites Uurali keelkonna erinevaid harusid ning ka keelte ja nende kõnelejate kollektiivide eelajalugu. Kirjutistes käsitletakse Grünthalile lähedasi teemasid. Näiteks on arutluse all läänemeresoome keeled ja etnonüümid, mordva keeled, etümoloogia ja keelte areng. Samuti pälvivad tähelepanu keelekontaktid, keeletüpoloogia ja -sotsioloogia ning empiirilise keeleainese kogumiseks ja keelekogukonna uurimiseks tehtavad välitööd. Teos sisaldab ka kolleegi poolt kirjutatud sooja meenutust ning Grünthali bibliograafiat.

Tämä juhlakirja koostuu neljästäkymmenestäkolmesta professori Riho Grünthalin (s. 22.5.1964) 60-vuotispäiväksi kirjoitetusta lahjasta. Opiskelu- ja työtoverit sekä oppilaat tarkastelevat artikkeleissaan uralilaisen kielikunnan eri haaroja sekä kielten ja puhujayhteisöjen esihistoriaa. Kirjoituksissa käsitellään Grünthalille läheisiä aiheita. Tutkitaan esimerkiksi itämerensuomea ja sen etnonyymeja, mordvalaiskieliä, etymologiaa ja kielten kehitystä. Huomion kohteena ovat myös kielikontaktit, kielitypologia ja -sosiologia sekä empiirisen kielenaineksen keräämiseksi ja kieliyhteisön tutkimiseksi tehtävät kenttätyöt. Teos sisältää myös kollegan kirjoittaman lämpimän aikalaismuistelun ja Grünthalin julkaisuluettelon. See pühendusraamat koosneb neljakümne kolmest professor Riho Grünthali (s. 22.5.1964) 60. juubeliks kirjutatud kingitusest. Tudengipõlve sõbrad, töökaaslased ja õpilased vaatlevad oma artiklites Uurali keelkonna erinevaid harusid ning ka keelte ja nende kõnelejate kollektiivide eelajalugu. Kirjutistes käsitletakse Grünthalile lähedasi teemasid. Näiteks on arutluse all läänemeresoome keeled ja etnonüümid, mordva keeled, etümoloogia ja keelte areng. Samuti pälvivad tähelepanu keelekontaktid, keeletüpoloogia ja -sotsioloogia ning empiirilise keeleainese kogumiseks ja keelekogukonna uurimiseks tehtavad välitööd. Teos sisaldab ka kolleegi poolt kirjutatud sooja meenutust ning Grünthali bibliograafiat.

One cross-linguistically recurrent asymmetry between affirmation and negation is the neutralization of tense-aspect distinctions in negatives. A functional explanation proposed for this is that in their typical discourse context negatives have less need for temporal specification than affirmatives and in some languages this discourse preference is reflected as fewer tense-aspect distinctions in grammar. To examine whether such a discourse preference exists, we compare the use of temporal adverbials in affirmatives and negatives in English, Finnish and Korean corpus data. The results provide qualified support for the hypothesized discourse preference: in English and Korean, affirmatives are likelier to have temporal adverbials than negatives, but Finnish shows no statistically significant difference. In English and Finnish, affirmatives are likelier than negatives to contain adjuncts indicating temporal position. Verb semantics is found to interact with temporal specifications. The study also uncovers further differences between affirmatives and negatives in the use of adverbials.

The present study adopts a typological approach to investigate intersubjective uses of the Finnish clitic markers =hAn and =se, which are derived from third-person pronouns, within the emerging framework of engagement. The methods encompass two data gathering approaches: 1) a qualitative survey involving actual Finnish language users through a questionnaire to identify functions, and 2) a quantitative survey examining co-occurrences between the clitic markers and subject persons using the Suomi24 Sentences Corpus 2001–2020 for usage-based frequencies. The data analysis focuses on the interrelations with a subject person, drawing parallels with other languages which exhibit similar phenomena of pragmatic extension from referential uses towards engagement marking. The results reveal that the two Finnish clitics semantically inherit their referential meanings from their lexical forms and further extend them towards marking interlocutors’ intersubjectivity, enriching the engagement system of Finnish. A distinct difference related to the subject person becomes evident. On the one hand, =hAn as a recognitional marker more frequently co-occurs with first person, signalling the speaker’s involvement in epistemic management as a speech act participant responsible for managing inclusive attention and shared information with the hearer. On the other hand, =se as a contrastive marker co-occurs more frequently with third person in general and with second-person statements which involve the speaker’s observed information and its exclusivity.

The present study employs a quantitative method to investigate phonological profiles of languages spoken across the coastline of East Asia, ranging from the Chukotka Peninsula to the Malay Peninsula. The sampling includes 264 linguistic varieties from 17 different genealogical units. 20 typological features related to various domains of phonology, including qualities and contrasts in vowels and consonants, as well as components in the syllable structure and tones are considered. Attention is paid to three points of focus: areal distribution, diachronic change, and learnability. Across Coastal East Asia, there is a north-south divide running across the boundary between Northeast and Southeast Asia. Within these zones, numerable groups of languages share similar phonological features and thereby form Sprachbünde, the formation of which can be traced back to the existence of (pre)historical political entities, population movements and subsequent encounters among speakers of different language families. Under areal diffusion, languages in contact have acquired similar tendencies of retention and innovation for individual phonological features, resulting in deviation across cognate languages spoken in different Sprachbünde. In several cases, a statistical method reveals an obvious signal of particular language families being the source of areal patterns. Among the phonological features under investigation, several features have a lower degree of learnability, especially among L2 speakers in the scenario of language shift, and this is largely due to typological differences from their L1. Cross-cutting between areality and learnability, those features with a higher degree of complexity, such as consonant clusters, tend to reveal more clearly the area-specific tendencies.

The present study discusses typology and variation of word order patterns in nominal and verb structures across 20 Chinese languages and compares them with another 43 languages from the Sino-Tibetan family. The methods employed are internal and external historical reconstruction and correlation studies from linguistic typology and sociolinguistics. The results show that the head-final tendency is a baseline across the family, but individual languages differ by the degree of head-initial structures allowed in a language, leading to a hybrid word order profile. On the one hand, Chinese languages consistently manifest the head-final noun phrase structures, whereas head-initial deviants can be explained either internally through reanalysis or externally through contact. On the other hand, Chinese verb phrases have varied toward head-initial structures due to contact with verb-medial languages of Mainland Southeast Asia, before reinstalling the head-final structures as a consequence of contact with verb-final languages in North Asia. When extralinguistic factors are considered, the typological north-south divide of Chinese appears to be geographically consistent and gradable by the latitude of individual Chinese language communities, confirming the validity of a broader typological cline from north to south in Eastern Eurasia.

It is well-known that Tai-Kadai languages have affected the typological profiles of Southern Sinitic varieties. For example, compared with their northern sisters, Southern Sinitic varieties display a stronger tendency towards head-initial structures, as in the N-N compounds for expressing the sex of animals and in post-verbal temporal adverbs. Given that the Tai-Kadai languages in China have been in contact with Sinitic for over two millennia, it is quite natural to find signs of Sinitic influence therein. Most remarkably, pre-verbal adjunct phrases and pre-nominal relative clauses, which are extremely atypical of VO languages but distinctive of Sinitic, are attested in some Tai-Kadai languages in Southern China. The prevalence of such typologically unusual traits among different linguistic groups in the Lingnan region of Southern China provides strong support for its status as a linguistic area. Devising and adopting a 'mutualist' approach, we analyse the typological data of over 280 language varieties, which we believe illustrates and strongly supports the idea that Western Lingnan qualifies as a linguistic area in its own right according to criteria widely recognized by areal linguists. The approach proposed in this study can be applied to other putative linguistic areas around the world to study the mechanisms and outcomes of contact-induced change under a specific set of ecological conditions.