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• W2334180439 abstract "Written varieties of many languages show greater syntactic complexity than their spoken counterparts. The difference is not surprising: writers have more time to create elaborate structures than speakers, who must produce speech in a steady stream. As documentation grows of the effects of language contact in the Americas, it is becoming ever clearer that exposure to European languages with strong literary traditions has often had a significant impact on syntactic structure. Here it is shown that though contact can indeed result in copied markers or replicated categories, it is not a precondition for the development of complexity. 1. Spoken and written language A number of works have documented the fact that overall, written language tends to show greater syntactic complexity than spoken language, such as CHAFE 1985, BIBER 1988, ROMAINE 1992, NEWMEYER 2002, KARLSSON 2007, and LAURY & ONO 2010. (Syntactic complexity is understood here in a specific sense: the combination of multiple clauses within a single sentence.) Of course within each medium, different genres can show different degrees and types of elaboration, so the two are not discrete. Though academic prose is likely to show greater complexity than a bus stop conversation, for example, an informal email message might show less complexity than formal oratory. Overall, however, written styles tend to be characterized by greater syntactic elaboration: writers have the luxury of time to compose their messages, while speakers are under certain pressures to produce a steady stream of speech in order to hold their audience. It appears that the existence of a well-developed literary tradition can in turn affect the complexity of the spoken language. At least some of the elaborated constructions developed by writers can be routinized over time: recurring patterns of expression can become conventionalized in syntactic constructions. Some of these eventually find their way into speech. At the same time, there is growing documentation of the effects of European languages with literary traditions on unwritten languages of the Americas. Contact effects appear not only in the lexicon, but also in grammar, particularly syntax (KARTUNNEN 1976, CAMPBELL 1987, MITHUN 1992, In press, AIKHENVALD 2002, HEINE & KUTEVA 2005, 2006, GUTIERREZ-MORALES 2008, and others). In some instances, European syntactic markers and structures have replaced native ones, but in others, they have resulted in new constructions where none existed before. Such innovations do not of course indicate that complex ideas were not expressed before contact. Spoken language contains powerful resources for indicating relationships among ideas that written language lacks, such as pitch, volume, and rhythm. These innovations have simply added specificity to the grammar. Such contact effects raise interesting questions concerning the extent to which the development of elaborate syntactic complexity is triggered by literacy or contact with a language that has literary traditions. The languages of the Americas provide a fruitful area for the investigation of such questions since, with certain notable exceptions, most did not have written traditions of their own before their speakers came into contact with European colonizers. As awareness is growing of the potentially powerful role of language contact in shaping grammar, more is being discovered about the ways in which European languages are affecting languages of the New World. Here it will be shown that though contact can indeed result in copied markers and replicated categories, it is not a precondition for the development of complexity. 2. Replicated markers A large number of American languages, particularly those indigenous to Middle and South America, have copied syntactic markers directly from Spanish or Portuguese. Examples can be seen in Sierra Popoluca, a Mixe-Zoquean language indigenous to Mexico. (1) Sierra Popoluca: Salome Gutierrez, speaker p.c. a. „She said, „I have to go to the river‟, pero i’x je’m ichɨɨxi’ moongpa’ ixɨ’ ikaajtsayhoom. but she saw her baby sleeping in his hammock. Nɨmpa, “Siga anakyuspa yɨ’p chɨɨxi’ She said, “If I wake this baby up, ejtee puej mojpa weeje’ . . . and then he starts crying, . . .‟ b. „Then the woman filled her pail poorke seetto’oba’m ichɨɨ’ imaanɨk. because she wanted to get back to her baby, her son.‟ These markers of complex syntactic constructions obviously have roots in Spanish: Sierra Popoluca pwej [pweh] „then‟ from Spanish pwes, pero „but‟ from Spanish pero, si-ga „if‟ from Spanish si, and poorke „because‟ from Spanish porque. Speaker Salome Gutierrez-Morales reports (p.c.) that 50 years ago, no one in his community knew any Spanish. At present, the entire younger generation speaks Spanish, most of them exclusively. It is astonishing to imagine that such transfers of syntactic markers, and perhaps syntactic complexity, could occur so quickly. As Gutierrez-Morales points out, however (2008), the story is more interesting. The conditional siga „if‟ seen in (1), a reduction of the longer form si’iga, contains an element si, presumably from Spanish. But like many of the other copied markers, this one actually entered the language via earlier bilingualism with neighboring Nahuatl dialects, whose speakers had been the ones in contact with Spanish speakers. The element iga is a general complementizer in the neighboring Mecayapan Nahuatl, where it continues a form related to Classical Nahuatl iica. Modern Mecayapan also contains a conditional marker si’iga, similarly often reduced to siga. Sierra Popoluca apparently took its Spanish-based conditional marker, and other complex syntactic constructions, from its neighbour. There is no indication that the Spanish markers replaced existing markers with the same functions in Sierra Popoluca. Still today the constructions signalled by them compete with unmarked sequences of clauses. It could be said, then, that at least some of the syntactic complexity in modern Sierra Popoluca was initially triggered by contact with Spanish, though the transfer was not direct. 3. Replicated categories Language contact may have other effects which can be more difficult to identify, particularly in the absence of a lengthy written record. Bilingual speakers may seek to replicate a pattern from one of their languages in the other, using material native to that second language. Such a situation can be seen in languages of the Iroquoian family indigenous to eastern North America (MITHUN 1992). The languages in this family from which we have documentation of connected speech all contain coordinating conjunctions. Most of the forms are not cognate, however. (2) Iroquoian coordinating conjunctions: „and‟ Mohawk tanon’ Oneida okhaleʔ Onondaga ohni’ Cayuga hni’ Seneca kho Wyandot tu:di’ Tuscarora tisne’ Cherokee aleʔ, =hno The positions of the conjunctions vary across the languages as well: they occur between the conjuncts, after all conjuncts, or after the first word of the second conjunct. There is thus no basis for reconstructing a coordinate construction for their common ancestor, Proto-Iroquoian, from which the modern constructions could have developed. The coordinate constructions in the modern languages also differ in their degrees of grammatical development and integration into the grammar, as well as in their frequency and obligatoriness. In Onondaga, for example, coordinate constituents are usually linked by intonation alone, while in Mohawk, they may be linked just by intonation but are more often linked overtly. In Cherokee, conjunctions are common in writing but rare in speech. In fact the etymological sources of most of the coordinating conjunctions can still be seen: they are descended from various kinds of discourse adverbials. (3) Sources in discourse adverbials Mohawk tah non:we’ „moreover‟, „so now‟ „now then‟ Oneida ok+aleʔ „just + again‟ Onondaga ohni’ „also‟ Cayuga hni’ „also‟ Seneca khoh „too‟ Wyandot thu + diʔ „there + also‟ Cherokee aleʔ „again‟ Comparison of the modern languages with 19 th century records reveals that the syntactic constructions have begun to solidify relatively recently, coinciding with the bilingualism of Iroquoian speakers in English and French . 4. Central Alaskan Yup’ik In contrast with Sierra Popoluca and the Iroquoian languages, languages of the Eskimo-Aleut family seem surprisingly devoid of coordinating and subordinating conjunctions. Examples here are drawn from Central Alaskan Yup‟ik, spoken in southwestern Alaska. The sentence in (4) was uttered by someone recounting a dream. It was later translated by the speaker as „When I saw them take you away because you had died, I ate our duck.‟ Despite the syntactic complexity of the English translation, the Yup‟ik original contained no obvious conjunctions or complementizers. (Punctuation reflects intonation.) (4) Yup‟ik complex sentence without conjunctions: George Charles, speaker p.c. Tangerrluten, I saw you ayaulluten, pillragni, took you away they did tuqullruavet, you died yaqulegpuk wiinga, nerellruaqa. our duck I myself I ate it The relations among these clauses are actually marked morphologically. Yup‟ik verbs consist of a base plus an inflectional ending. The base consists of a root optionally followed by various suffixes. The ending consists of a mood suffix plus pronominal suffix which identifies the core participants of the clause, one for intransitives and two for transitives. (5) Basic Yup‟ik verb morphology Nere-llru-a-qa eat-PAST-INTRANSITIVE.INDICATIVE-1SG/3SG „I ate it.‟ ROOT (SUFFIXES) MOOD PRONOMINAL SUFFIX" @default.
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• W2334180439 title "Exuberant Complexity: The Interplay of Morphology, Syntax, and Prosody in Central Alaskan Yup'ik" @default.
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