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In Celebration of the Differences: Distributing Meanings Over Structure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Marianne Mithun
Marianne Mithun*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara
*
[mithun@linguistics.ucsb.edu]
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Abstract

The field of linguistic typology has made great strides in mapping the structures to be found across languages. We can now ask whether speakers of all languages distribute their ideas over such structures in the same ways. This question is explored here by examining complement constructions in three genealogically and areally unrelated languages. Each offers glimpses into some factors that shape grammar over time. Crosslinguistic differences in grammar arise from what speakers have chosen to say over millennia, but even languages spoken today can provide snapshots of moments in such processes, if we care to listen to their speakers.

Keywords

Barbareño Chumashcomplementationgrammaticalizationinformation packagingMohawkprosodyYup'ik

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 97 , Issue 4 , December 2021, pp. 732 - 751
Copyright
Copyright © 2021 Linguistic Society of America

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Footnotes

*

This article is a writeup of my Presidential Address presented on January 12, 2021, at the virtual annual meeting of the LSA. I am grateful to the speakers cited here and others who worked through recordings with me. Special thanks to Mohawk speakers Annette Kaia'titáhkhe' Jacobs of Kahnawà:ke, Quebec, and Kanerahtenhá:wi Hilda Nicholas and Skawén:nati Montour of Kanehsatà:ke, Quebec. Work on Barbareño came out of the Chumash Language Project funded by NSF grant BNS-90110018. Thanks to Suzanne Wash for her fastidious work on the project. I appreciate the time spent with Ernestine Ygnacio DeSoto, daughter of Barbareño speaker Mary Yee, going through the notebooks her mother kept during her work with John Peabody Harrington. I am also grateful to the Central Alaskan Yup'ik speakers cited here, who worked through recorded conversations and narratives with me, particularly Elizabeth Ali, Elena Charles, and George Charles. All have contributed valuable expertise and insight over the years of our work together.

References

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