Gentilics derived from composite proper nouns like Bin Yamīn "Benjamin" display complex morphosyntax in classical Biblical Hebrew. In postexilic Hebrew, this type of morphosyntax is not attested and ...the gentilics are formed differently. Construct-state gentilics thus confirm the regnant periodization of Ancient Hebrew.
As a research topic, humour has drawn much attention from multiple disciplines including linguistics. Based on Engelthaler & Hills’ (2018) humour scale, this study developed a measure named Humour ...Index (HMI) to quantify the degree of humour of texts. This measure was applied to examine the diachronic changes in the degree of humour of American newspapers and magazines across a time span of 118 years (1900-2017) with the use of texts from Corpus of Historical American English (COHA). Besides, the study also discussed the contributions of different types of words to the degree of humour in the two genres. The results show significant uptrends in the degree of humour of both newspapers and magazines in the examined period. Moreover, derogatory and offensive words are found to be less frequently used than other categories of words in both genres. This study provides both theoretical and methodological implications for humour studies and claims or hypotheses of previous research, such as infotainment and linguistic positivity bias.
Les variations de la fréquence textuelle au cours du temps constituent l'observable privilégié d'une linguistique diachronique quantitative. Pour saisir ce que nous apprennent d'un changement ...linguistique les différents observables de fréquence (d'occurrence, des types, prévalence), nous étudions ici la construction en plein N et montrons, d'abord, que le motif empirique de la courbe en S permet d'identifier automatiquement deux phases dans l'établissement de la construction, ensuite, que l'une d'elles coïncide plutôt avec une diffusion sociale, l'autre à une expansion sémantique.
Ce numéro monographique de Çédille, revista de estudios franceses rassemble un premier recueil d'articles issus du Colloque International DIACHRO-IX, qui s'est tenu a la Faculté de Philologie de ...l'Université de Salamanque (Espagne), les 28, 29 et 30 mars 2019.
The present study aimed to investigate diachronic changes in the frequency and function of marked syntactic structures, namely passive constructions, preposing, and cleft sentences that manifest ...information structural elements in Persian. The study examined these structures across three periods of Persian, i.e., Middle Persian, Dari, and Modern Persian. The data for Middle Persian is sourced from The Mēnōg-ī Khrad and Oshnar-I Dana, while for Dari, Tārīkh-i Bayhaqī and Safarnāma by Nasir Khusraw are used. For Modern Persian, written resources from various genres, such as short stories and scientific articles, are analyzed. The samples from each period are analyzed to determine the function and frequency of marked syntactic structures, which are then compared to identify any potential changes in their usage over time. The findings indicated that the frequency and function of these syntactic structures have changed over time. The findings suggested that passive constructions were commonly used across all three periods to present the patient as the pragmatic topic and maintain the topic-focus order. However, in modern Persian, passive construction was also used to emphasize the patient as the focus. Cleft constructions were not found in Middle Persian, but the increase in frequency of cleft constructions in Dari can be attributed to the fact that in this period, cleft sentences were used similarly to preposing, in order to observe the principle of separation of role and reference, rather than focusing on specific elements. Nonetheless, in modern Persian, cleft constructions were used to exclude other possibilities and emphasize the selected element as the focus. Preposing structures were used to present an element as the topic and provide new information about it. This study contributes to our understanding of language change and provides insights into the evolution of Persian syntax over time.
In this paper, our aim is to develop part of what Mattos e Silva (1988) has named lato sensu historical linguistics through the systematization of the "intermediary zone" between linguistic science ...and historical science in the study of a language's outward face. To this end, we first discuss epistemological and methodological aspects of the two disciplines in order to then show how they act together, giving examples of publications in which this partnership of sciences is achieved intuitively and classifying them within the areas we call social-linguistic history, adopting the denomination used by Mattos e Silva (2004), and cultural-linguistic history. Besides presenting an example of the kind of methodological partnership that has been practised for decades in historian-linguists' writings, we suggest innovations such as the use of prosopograhy, a typical historical science's method, to increase productivity in studies occupying this intermediary zone between sciences.