Neuaramäische Morphosyntax im areallinguistischen Kontext
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
The project has resulted in new insights into Neo-Aramaic morphosyntax and how it has been influenced by regional languages. Publications arising out of the project have presented both new data and new analyses, contributing to theory in the fields of Language Contact and Linguistic Typology. Parallels in the Grammaticalisation of Neo-Aramaic zil- and Arabic raḥ- and a Possible Contact Scenario looked at Arabic influence on the emergence of the prospective construction in the Mosul Plain dialects of North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic, finding that it involved the replication of a category in the model language, using the same strategy, with, however, somewhat different syntax, due to the different structure of the two languages. "Borrowing of verbal derivational morphology between Semitic languages: The case of Arabic verb derivations in Neo-Aramaic" showed how verbal derivational morphology of the Semitic root-and-pattern type has been borrowed into three distinct branches of modern Aramaic (NENA, Ṭuroyo and Western Neo-Aramaic). These proved to exhibit different degrees of adoption and integration of the Arabic morphology, which correlate with the intensity of contact of the speakers with the Arabic language. Word order and information structure in Neo-Aramaic is the first dedicated study of IS in verbal clauses in a Neo-Aramaic dialect. The specific findings match crosslinguistic universals of information structure proposed by Gundel (1988). This study provides a basis for the investigation of other dialects and for a future comparison with the information structures of contact languages. The most significant outcome of the project for the project leader was the completion of her monograph, The Rise and Fall of Ergativity in Aramaic: Cycles of Alignment Change (2016). Taking account of a wide variety of evidence, this outlined the development of the NENA verbal system and accompanying changes in argument alignment, taking into account contact influence from Iranian languages. The study has significant implications for the theory of alignment change and may be used as as theoretical basis for future studies of alignment change in other languages. The main language documentation output of the project was Ariel Gutman’s documentation of the Christian dialect of Gaznax, which resulted in recordings, transcribed texts and his paper, Some Features of the Gaznax Dialect (South-East Turkey) (Gutman). Gutman’s dissertation (2016) won the City of Konstanz prize for its excellence. Attributive constructions in North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic is a comparative study of noun phrase morphosyntax across NENA dialects, informed by linguistic typology. Gutman relates his findings both to earlier strata of Aramaic and to influences from contact languages. The dissertation is the first wide-scope morphosyntactic comparative study of NENA dialects to date, and fills a long-standing gap in the field, where scholarly focus has tended to be on the verbal system. It also contributes to linguistic theory in the field of noun phrase syntax, in particular on the construct state and on the emergence of genitive case. By both Coghill and Gutman, linguistic examples are glossed and translated, and language-specific categories explained, making the findings accessible to non-Semitists as well as Semitists.
Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)
-
2012. Parallels in the Grammaticalisation of Neo-Aramaic zil- and Arabic raḥ- and a Possible Contact Scenario. In Eades, Domenyk (ed.), Grammaticalization in Semitic, 127–144. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Coghill, Eleanor
-
2015. Borrowing of verbal derivational morphology between Semitic languages: The case of Arabic verb derivations in Neo-Aramaic. In Gardani, Francesco, Arkadiev, Peter & Amiridze, Nino (eds.), Borrowed Morphology, 83–108. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton
Coghill, Eleanor
-
2015. Some Features of the Gaznax Dialect (South-East Turkey). In Khan, Geoffrey & Napiorkowska, Lidia (eds.), Neo-Aramaic and its Linguistic Context, 305–321. Gorgias Press
Gutman, Ariel
-
2016. The Rise and Fall of Ergativity in Aramaic : Cycles of Alignment Change, First edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Coghill, Eleanor
-
2017. Can pattern replication be easily established? The case of the Neo-Aramaic Neo-Construct. Actes des 18èmes Rencontres Jeunes Chercheurs en Sciences du Langage (RJC 2015): Contact de langues: situations, représentations, réalisations. Paris
Gutman, Ariel
-
2018. Attributive constructions in North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic, Berlin: Language Science Press
Gutman, Ariel
-
2018. Information structure in the Neo-Aramaic dialect of Telkepe. In Adamou, Evangelia, Haude, Katherina & Vanhove, Martine (eds.), Information Structure in Lesser-described Languages: Studies in prosody and syntax. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. S. 297-328
Coghill, Eleanor
-
(2019): Grammatical relations in Telkepe Neo-Aramaic. In: Alena Witzlack-Makarevich und Balthasar Bickel (Hg.): Argument Selectors, Bd. 123. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company (Typological Studies in Language), S. 1–50
Coghill, Eleanor
-
(2020): Northeastern Neo-Aramaic and Language Contact. In: Anthony P. Grant und Eleanor Coghill (Hg.): The Oxford Handbook of Language Contact: Oxford University Press, S. 493–518
Coghill, Eleanor
