>Return to Beginner's Research Group
Daniel Ross (4:10-5pm on Wednesday, March 13th in HMNSS 2412)
My research focuses on large-scale typological comparison of the world's languages following the methodology of the World Atlas of Languages Structures (WALS: Haspelmath et al. 2005). Specifically, I investigate the properties and variation in multi-verb constructions. In a sample of several hundred languages, I look for what properties are shared (and where), and how languages vary in terms of morphology (word formation) and syntax (sentence structure) in these constructions.
One focus of this talk will be methodological: what is it like to compare so many languages at once, and what challenges come up? How should we design a balanced sample of languages, considering factors of related languages in the same families and also geographic distributions? And what are the differences in available descriptions for grammatical features in the many languages of the world? Then there is the fundamental question of how to actually identify the same feature in multiple languages. Are there universal properties of human languages? How do we define them? In fact, some linguists would argue there are no inherently shared features and instead that we should define comparative concepts as arbitrary working definitions to understand similarities. Another problem is that often conflicting definitions are proposed by different researchers, and the definitions may also be applied inconsistently by fieldworkers describing different languages, so an important task for a comparative linguist is to "translate" terminology used in a wide array of sources. The procedure of applying such definitions sometimes also sometimes results in more questions than answers, such as when there are borderline cases that stand out in the sample, revealing more research to be done in the future.
The other focus will be on the morphosyntactic features themselves: what are multi-verb constructions like around the world? I will primarily discuss two types. The first is Pseudocoordination, such as go and get or try and do in English, where the word and is not really acting as a typical conjunction and instead just linking the verbs in the multi-verb construction. We can then observe a parallel in the second type, known as Serial Verb Constructions, similar to English go get. These constructions lack any linker between the verbs and are found in many languages around the world but are rare in Europe; for this reason, they have sometimes been considered exotic or surprising in linguistic research, but I will argue against that perspective, pointing out among other things that they are functionally equivalent to more familiar expressions like English pseudocoordination (compare go and get vs. go get).
The talk will conclude with a world tour of pseudocoordination in the world's languages, which is the topic of my upcoming presentation at a conference in Italy. I will show that despite being understudied, pseudocoordination is actually widespread around the world, although it tends to cluster in some areas, including Europe. I will discuss each of these regions, and consider how their properties may have developed independently, via contact, or through historical relationships between the languages.