Nominalization

This paper attempts to demarcate the class of Akan verb-noun compounds like bɔ́-àdéɛ́ [create-thing] 'creator', to discuss their properties and to present a Construction Morphology account of the properties. Working with the view that Akan verbs are invariably consonant-initial and that the verb constituent of verb-noun compounds are invariably simplex, it is shown that many exemplars cited in the Akan literature do not belong to the class because they bear affixes that betray them as either nominalized verb phrases or noun-noun compounds with deverbal left-hand constituents. It is shown that the noun constituent may be the internal argument of the verb mostly, but may also be the external argument or an adjunct, usually naming the location of the action. The noun constituent may bear the semantic role of undergoer, affected object, patient, instrument, location, result or goal of the action/event designated by the verb, while the denotatum of the compound may be agent, theme, instrument, location or condition. Finally, it is shown that Akan Verb-Noun compounds have endocentric and exocentric subtypes whose properties are adequately accounted for in Construction Morphology.

This study is concerned with the properties, structural representation and derivational patterns of deverbal nouns (DNs) in Modern Hebrew. A recurring question arises in the context of such 'hybrid' formations: precisely how similar or far-apart are these derivatives from the verbs from which they originate? Enlisting Hebrew, a language with rich morphological marking on both verbs as well as DNs, several loci of divergence between verbs and respective DNs in the domain of argument-and eventstructure are eliminated. Taking as a point of reference the influential view which equates the processes of nominalization and passivization, this study scrutinizes syntactic structure and its interaction with nominalization, showing that behaviours typical of passives are absent from DNs. Most notably, the 'demoted' status of external arguments, and rejection of unaccusative and unergative verbs as inputs to nominalization, are not intrinsic to Hebrew DNs, a finding which weakens long-standing beliefs bearing on this class. A novel area of exploration offered in this study is the examination of morpho-syntactic factors and their interaction with nominalization, a domain where inconsistencies do arise. What emerges from a comparison of some 3000 verbs based on verb-class (templatic) morphology is a significant asymmetry between DNs carrying Middle (intransitive) marking and DNs marked as Active, wherein Middle forms are found to be less productive in two well-defined syntactic contexts. Not entirely absent, however, the same roots which fail to surface with Middle morphology are perfectly licit when derived from the corresponding Active verb (in case of alternating roots). Building on the notions of competition and markedness, such paradigmatic gaps are analysed not as grammaticallydetermined incompatibilities, but as a consistent preference for less-marked forms (Active-marked DNs) over more complex ones (Middle-marked DNs), a trend which lies within the realm of performance. As such, Hebrew DNs constitute a case study of the interrelations between the syntactic and morphological modules, and pragmatics.

The study explores the grammatical means employed for the expression of information structure in standard colloquial Burmese on the basis of a corpus of written and spoken texts. It analyses the morphosyntactic and prosodic devices identified as relevant for its goals, namely the differential subject and object marking, constituent order, particles used to create a range of interpretations related to the notions of topic, focus and contrast, stand-alone sentence nominalisations and prosody.
The study argues for the existence of a grammatical system of informational PACKAGING in Burmese that has no direct linking to information structural categories like topic, focus and contrast. Expressed by various morphosyntactic means, it segregates information into separate informational units (PACKAGES) and establishes structural relations between them. This partition shows a robust correspondence to prosody.
The PACKAGING system is mobilised for creation of diverse information structure-related interpretive effects through its different configurations and interaction with the context. Concepts like topic, focus, contrast and apparent contrast-degrees observed in Burmese are interpretive outcomes of this interaction and have no immediate expression in the language. Furthermore, the usage of PACKAGING is not restricted to information structural effects and the system plays a crucial role in discourse structuring and content management in Burmese.
Analysis of stand-alone nominalised sentences along the lines of a speaker’s subjective channel of communication suggests the resemblance with the function of similar phenomena in many other Tibeto-Burman languages. It proposes PACKAGING motivations for this function and shows how this can be mobilised for information structure-related interpretations.
Hence, the study rejects the view of a direct expression of information structural categories by linguistic means. Instead, similarly to many other linguistic categories, it proposes an indirect interpretive link between a pragmatically-semantically underspecified grammatical system and the derived interpretation.

Ideology plays an important role in our life. Translation and language are always sites of ideological encounters. Translation is represented through a dominant ideology of any society. If translation theories and ideology put under scrutiny, evidences regarding the influence of cultural conflicts will be found in them. This paper is firstly aimed at investigating the analytical framework proposed by Hatim & Mason (1990, 1991, and 1997) to study and analyze the issues of Genre, discourse and text; and then for the purpose of studying the issue of ideology and its angles in translations. The focus of this study is the application of Hatim & Mason's analytical framework on J. D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye " and its two Persian translations by Ahmad Karimi and Mohammad Najafi. From the ideological standpoint which affects the process of translation, enough probing has again been carried out into the very same work of literature. Worthy of mention would be th...

Die von Verben abgeleiteten Substantive realisieren vielfach ganz oder teilweise die Valenz des Basisverbs. Dabei können die deverbalen Aktanten (i) innerhalb desselben Wortes (Rektionskomposita), (ii) in der vom Deverbativum gegründeten NP, (iii) in demselben Satz oder (iv) außerhalb des Satzes erscheinen. In dem Beitrag wird auf alle (i)-(iv) Möglichkeiten im Deutschen und Polnischen eingegangen, dennoch gilt besonderes Augenmerk der letzteren davon. Somit sind die folgenden Überlegungen auf der Ebene der transphrastischen Linguistik anzusiedeln und verstehen sich als Beitrag zur Textgrammatik. Analysiert werden Artikel aus dem Wirtschaftsteil deutscher und polnischer Zeitungen mit dem Ziel, Strukturtypen der deverbalen Valenzrealisierung in Texten der beiden Sprachen zu ermitteln.

This paper focuses on the innovative nature of Sakhalin Ainu with respectto nominalization. Based on a cross-dialectal comparison, I suggest that zero-nominalization [(NP…) V]NP reflects the oldest stage (I), while the strategy ofadding a nominalizing word [(NP…) VNMZ]NP, which proliferates in Hokkaido Ainu, may be regarded as the next stage (II). Finally, in Sakhalin Ainu, non-finite verbal forms containing possessive-style marking [(NP…) V-POSS]NP(III), which can also be used as non-embedded (finite) structures [(NP…) V-POSS]MC (IV) in a broad range of presuppositional contexts, may be regarded as the lastand most innovative stage.

This paper examines the life-cycle of versatile nominalizers in Chinese, with special attention to how they develop into attitudinal stance markers. Based on cross-dialectal and diachronic data, we first identify a wide range of extended uses of nominalization constructions within the Sinitic language family, among them relativizing and subordinating uses, then trace how these dependent nominalization constructions are reanalyzed as independent finite structures. Our analysis reveals a series of semantic and syntactic scope expansions that paves the way for nominalization [ 2 9 _ T D $ D I F F ] constructions to be extended from referential uses to attitudinal uses. Our findings highlight the robustness of an (inter)subjectification process whereby nominalizers often combine with other particles at the right periphery to form complex sentence final mood particles, which have valuable implications for cartographic studies in diachronic syntax and also for diachronic pragmatics studies that focus on the interface between grammar and discourse-not only for Chinese, but for other languages with attitudinal nominalizers as well.

In Ainu language there is nominalizing suffix:-i/-hi and there is indefinite patient prefix: i-. It is possible to say that the prefix has meanings of " something " , somebody " and the suffix has meanings of " item " , " issue ". V and VC syllables of modern Ainu were ʔV and ʔVC syllables correspondingly in Late Jōmon – Yayoi. And thus, it is possible to say that both morphemes had completely the same material implementation: *ʔi. And, thus, it is possible to conclude that modern suffix-i/-hi and modern prefix i-are derivations of the same morpheme, i.e.: *ʔi that seems to have been a fully significant word meaning " item " , " issue " " something " in Late Jōmon Ainu and could be placed left hand and right hand from the nuclear position. Prepositive *ʔi later became prefix and postpositive *ʔi later became suffix.

The Ainu (Southern Hokkaido) relative clause construction is built on the model
of the nominal attributive construction, while the noun-complement construction is based on that of the nominal possessive construction in which the head
is marked with a possessive suffix. Also, relative and noun-complement clauses
behave differently with regard to island violation constraints: only the latter
allow such violations. However, there is a small number of noun-complement
clauses without possessive marking on the perception/relational head noun,
which makes them look like relative clauses; these are the so-called emergent
GNMCCs. I suggest that these head nouns appear in non-possessive form in order to dissociate themselves from the few homonymous possessive heads which
are grammaticalized as modal/evidential markers in the relevant constructions.

Does anything like 'Standard Sino-Tibetan nominalization' exist in Hmong-Mien languages? It has been suggested that Iu Mien nyei and Xong nangd/naond may be examples. Here it is suggested that White Hmong and Green Mong li/le may be examples as well.

In my article, I analyze the syntactic behaviour of sentential arguments in Russian. Three types of sentential arguments: those with the infinitival form of the verb, with the marker čto and with the marker to, čto. The principal aim of my analysis is to find out to which extent the behaviour of sentential arguments corresponds to the canonical behaviour of subject, direct object and some other types of arguments in Russian. I conclude that the types of sentential arguments under analysis differ strongly from canonical (nominal) arguments. For instance, the use sentential arguments with deverbal nouns is restricted, and the way of forming the passive construction differs from the standard one. Importantly, the arguments introduced by to, čto behave differently from the other two types under analysis.

In this thesis, I study the differences in form and interpretation presented by event-denoting nominalizations. Frequently, languages have more than one type of event nominalization, such as deverbal nouns derived by means of suffixes (Italian mutamento / mutazione, ‘change’, ‘mutation’, or English assignment, explosion) and their corresponding verbal nouns, e.g. infinitives (il mutare, ‘the changing’) or gerunds (exploding). These are usually perceived as alternatives, since their semantic difference is not clearly understood by neither native speakers nor linguists.
The aim of this work is to understand the rationale that leads us to choose one form instead of the other and to define the linguistic features involved. The hypothesis underlying the whole thesis is that different forms are never true synonyms and, thus, present some differences in use, distribution or meaning.
In a first study, I explore the role of the base verb in the nominalization selection. I investigate if the various nominalizations are formed from different types of base verbs and which characteristics define their domain of application. By means of statistical modeling, I highlight how the transitivity of the base verb partially determines which nominalization is preferred. Moreover, I show that NIs are not used to make up for the lack of a corresponding EDN, refuting previous claims.
Then, I move forward analyzing the cases in which both forms are derived from the same base and I try to understand if they differ in meaning. In the second study presented, I use collocation analysis to observe their semantic dissimilarities. With focus on a single syntactic pattern, I find out that nominal infinitives and deverbal nouns inherit only part of the base verb senses. The former usually prefer metaphorical and abstract senses, whereas the latter select more concrete and literal ones.
Lastly, I use distributional semantic models to observe quantitatively the semantic shift of the two processes. I confirm the hypothesis that nominal infinitives are more transparent and more semantically regular than deverbal nouns, given their inflectional nature.
The studies presented have been conducted on Italian and German; however, the findings are relevant for the general treatment of nominalizations and may be replicated for further languages. Overall, my work shows how quantitative analyses of corpus data can help us investigate problems that are hardly addressed by linguists introspection. Moreover, it includes in the study of nominalizations nominal infinitives, non-finite verbal forms which, contrary to English gerunds, have not received the attention they deserve.

Drawing on overarching methodological frameworks of Hallidayan grammatical metaphor, Fairclough's perspective on critical discourse analysis and rhetoric, this study attempts to posit a novel, integrated and practical approach to political, the media, advertisement and other discourses. To this end and based on the proposed approach, it aims to critically and eclectically exemplify and dissect three speeches delivered by Mr. Barack Obama, former president of the US, to first manifest the integrated approach practicality and adeptness through analysis; then by virtue of analysis to unveil how language is manipulated and distorted by orators in order to convey seamlessly intended messages and political creeds to the audience. Surveying recent annals of literature, to date no one has conducted an integrated study applying these disciplines in an individual paper and this study as a trial one can be useful for upcoming research. The analysis depicts practicality and efficiency of the integrated approach and displays that the speeches abound with nominalizations, modal verbs, parallelisms and antitheses. Furthermore, there are some three-part listing, the use of passivization, quotations and modality metaphors. Therefore, a tendency to utilize more nominalizations, parallelism and other devices by the speaker can be a fundamental reason for making his political language more powerful, impressive, persuasive and ambiguous as well.

This thesis researches on aspect and tense in Rukai by focusing on their interpretation and interaction. The issues center on two component parts: the association between morphology and eventuality/situation type, and that between morphology and tense. In the domain of eventuality, I establish a connection between determiner morphology (specifically, the case morphemes) and event structuring at the level of verbal formation. It is argued that Rukai case markers correlate with a set of verbal prefixes that form a part of verbal stems in structuring eventualities. A generalized hypothesis of morphological merger is proposed to account for this morphosyntactic correlation and other formational instances. Secondly, I examine the interrelation of nominalization, voice formation and eventuality. It is argued that nominalization is used to construct a third kind of voice in Rukai, the object voice, in addition to the active and passive. The study indicates that derived nominalized and object voice constructions convey derived states, whose interpretation result from an aspectual shift in the domain of eventuality. In the domain of tense, I investigate the interpretation of tense markers and their interaction with aspect. The way how the nonfuture tense gets interpreted shows that it is temporally indeterminate, but aspectually constrained. The future is characterized by its function as a temporal marker in modal constructions. The interaction of the future tense with modals indicates that it can specify temporal posteriority in modal constructions. Furthermore, it is argued that the perfect aspect forms a complex tense with the nonfuture in conveying a past meaning. The nonfuture and future tenses are further examined in sentences with sub-ordinate clauses. The study shows that the nonfuture and the future tense behave differently with respect to their relation with a reference point in complex sentences. The nonfuture is more restricted than the future tense in that it cannot take a future time as its temporal reference, whereas the future can take a past time as its temporal reference.

This paper focuses on lexical nominalization, clausal nominalization and complementation, and relativization in Isbukun Bunun (Formosan, Austronesian). Based on fieldwork in Taoyuan, Kaohsiung in Taiwan, it shows the similarities and dissimilarities between the three different linguistic phenomena. It is found that the Philippine focus system plays a very important role in all three phenomena and that some markers are shared between them.

What are linguistic features, and how do they manifest themselves in natural languages? The Georgian language provides a particularly acute set of challenges to linguists in the way it questions received assumptions about grammatical functions, thematic relations, and natural language categorization. 

This dissertation tackles these facts by examining first what the evidence for different domains of grammar are in Georgian. How do data from Georgian verb morphology challenge traditional assumptions underlying lexical incremental assumptions behind the morpheme? Do inversion facts argue for monostratal or multistratal conceptualizations of grammatical functions?

The answer to both of these questions is highly complicated, and requires an extensive look at the Georgian systems of case, agreement, tense, aspect, and modality.  In particular I assess the viability of classical treatments such as Harris (1982), Anderson (1993), Marantz (1992), and Stump (2001) and find that Georgian poses problems for each one.  I go on to assess in the second part how differential feature hierarchies in morphology versus syntax argue for the existence of distinct feature geometries.  Feature hierarchies, it turns out, are epiphenomena of set-theoretical properties of these geometries.  In the last chapter, I discuss the literature on feature hierarchies arguing how many scholars have misunderstood this highly abstract area of grammatical theorizing.

過而不改、是謂過矣 (孔子) This paper discusses foundational issues in nominalization, focusing on empirical , conceptual, and theoretical problems that have plagued the field for years. Current definitions of nominalization are based on narrow observations on verbal-based nominalizations, while languages across the globe display nominal-based ones, many of which share morphology with the former. Nominalization morphology in many languages also applies to units larger than words, yielding grammatical nominalizations besides lexical nominalizations. The imbalance in the past studies, which have focused on so-called relative clauses at the expense of grammatical nominalizations, has resulted in a lopsided view on the relationship between the two. This, in turn, has led to the mishandling of different manifestations of nominalizations as if they are derivatives of relative clauses, as suggested by the widely used terms such as "headless relative clause" and "internally-headed relative clause". We demonstrate that these, including the ordinary restrictive relative clause, are not independent grammatical structures but are epiphenomena arising from the uses of grammatical nominalizations. A clear distinction between structures and their use is a theoretical prerequisite in arriving at a satisfactory understanding of the nature of grammatical nominal-izations and their role in grammar.

This paper focusses on the concept of ‘grammatical metaphor’ as it has been introduced in the framework of systemic functional linguistics. It first explains ‘metaphor’ in general, as it is traditionally known, and renames this, following Halliday, as lexical metaphor. In contrast to this, grammatical metaphor is explained as an alternative, grammatical resource in language. Two types of grammatical metaphor, ideational metaphor and interpersonal metaphor (including metaphors of modality and metaphors of mood) are explained and illustrated.

This paper investigates the usage of the Japanese sentence-final construction no(da) in 27 postings collected from online question-and-answer forums. This linguistic feature appears frequently in both spoken and written Japanese discourse; however, it continues to pose difficulties to researchers when attempting to identify its meaning and functions. A major issue is that insufficient information regarding discourse context has resulted in ambiguity in many of the functions described in previous studies. Considering these limitations, the present study attempted to specify discourse contexts towards which three proposed functions of no(da) gravitate: 1) giving and asking explanation, 2) evoking politeness, and 3) organizing discourse. The results of this study indicate that two collocations, ~no desu ga and ~no deshou ka, play important roles in serving these functions in the genre of question-and-answer forums.

The aim of this article is to provide an overview of the main sources of antipassives based on a 120-language sample. The sample includes the 48 languages with an antipassive in the WALS (Polinsky 2013) + 72 further languages in which an antipassive or a functionally equivalent construction is attested (e.g. deobjective constructions, unspecified object constructions, etc.). The diachronic sources of antipassives are identified drawing on two kinds of evidence: (i) etymological reconstructions based on the comparative method; (ii) synchronic resemblance between (some features of) the source construction and (some features of) the target construction. Four main diachronic sources are recurrent in the sample: (i) agent nominalizations; (ii) generic/indefinite items filling the object position (e.g. person for animate objects, (some)thing for inanimate objects); (iii) action nominalizations, sometimes accompanied by a light verb like ‘do’; (iv) morphemes encoding reflexive/reciprocal actions. For each of these sources, a diachronic scenario is proposed through which the antipassive construction might have come into existence. The article also explores the hypothesis that at least some of the functional and structural differences among antipassive constructions across languages may be explained by taking into account the diachronic sources of these constructions.

Almost every linguist working on the grammar of the language has noted that Akan has an interesting way in which nouns are formed from many different structures – lexical and non-lexical. What has not been done, however, is a deliberate attempt at describing the derivational process(es) involved. This thesis is an attempt at showing how noun formation in Akan happens. This is a descriptive analysis. It looks at the processes involved in the formation of the nouns as well as the structure of the nouns formed.

The thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapter one, the introduction, covers the aims and objectives of the study as well as the ethno-linguistic description of Akan. Chapter two presents general information on the phrase structure of Akan, specifically, that of the noun phrase and the verb phrase. The two main sections of the chapter begin with the description of the morphology of the noun word and that of the verb word respectively. Chapter three discusses the derivational processes that characterise nominal derivation in the language. Chapter four shows how the derivational processes described in chapter three work. Chapter five discusses some of the most basic phonological issues that come into play during nominal derivation. Chapter six summarises and concludes the thesis.

Bu çalışmanın konusu, bugünkü Tataristan coğrafyasında başta edebiyat olmak üzere, basın (gazete, dergi vs.), yayın (Tv ve Radyo yayınlarında) ve eğitim (ilk ve orta öğretimde zorunlu) alanlarında kullanılmakta olan "yazı dili" Tatarcasıdır. Öte yandan Tatarcanın konuşma dili olarak özellikle şehir popülasyonu arasındaki kullanım alanı devletin birinci resmi dili olan Rusçaya göre çok daha sınırlıdır. Tatar dili ve kültürü 1552 yılında Kazan Hanlığı'nın yıkılmasından itibaren Rus baskısı altında kalmıştır. Sovyet dönemindeki azınlık halkların asimilasyonu politikalarıyla iyice ağırlaşan bu baskı Tatarlar arasında her geçen kuşakta daha da derinleşen dil değiştirme (language shift) sonucunu doğurmuştur. Tatarca konuşanların sayısı her geçen gün daha da azalmaktadır (Wertheim 2003:348). Tatarca, Tataristan Cumhuriyetinin Rusçadan sonra ikinci resmi dilidir. Bugün Tatarca, her ne kadar Tatarların azınlık olarak yaşadıkları Tataristan'da millet olarak varlıklarını devam ettirmelerinin en önemli aracı olarak görülmekte ve Tatarcanın Sovyet döneminde yitirdiği sosyal ve politik öneminin Sovyet sonrası dönemde yeniden kazandırılması yolunda özellikle Tataristan Cumhuriyetinin 1991 yılında otonom hale gelmesinden sonra, gerek Tatar hükümeti, gerekse Tatar aydınları nezdinde çeşitli adımlar atılmakla birlikte, halen Tatarca Tataristan Cumhuriyetinde 4 milyonluk nüfusun yaklaşık ¼ ü tarafından konuşulmaktadır. Konuşma dili olarak şehirlerde katışıksız olarak ya da Tataristan Cumhuriyetinin resmi dili olan ve Tatarcadan çok daha fazla kullanım alanına sahip olan Rusça ile çeşitli derecelerde karışık olarak çeşitli stillerde konuşulmaktadır. (Tanıtım Bülteninden)

The paper characterizes the PP–nominal (prepositional phrase + nominalization) pattern in Biblical Hebrew and Rabbinic Hebrew (e.g., עלינו לעשות ‘it is our duty to do’) and discusses its relation to the so-called evaluative or חג״ם pattern (e.g., טוב לנו עבֹד ‘it would have been better for us to serve’). In spite of the resemblance between the two, it is argued that the former is a distinct pattern both historically and typologically, but that both share similar generalizations within predicate-initial sentence patterns. Historically, the PP-nominal sentences are a unique case of prepositional phrase predicate sentences with simple noun phrase subjects, having fixed word order and nominalized subjects. Typologically, they are essentially marked for person. Changes in the PP-nominal pattern in Rabbinic Hebrew suggest that it grew closer to the evaluative pattern

Nominalisierung in der türkischen Sprache - In der Fortsetzung des Artikels über die Nominalisierung im Türkischen ist die Rede von den Verbalnomina, sowie von deren Bedeutungen und Funktionen in der Struktur des Matrixsatzses. Der Autor hat versucht, auch die semantische Äquivalente im Kroatischen vorzulegen. Der Beziehung zwischen Struktur und Semantik wurde am Beispiel der Nominalsätze besondere Aufmerksamkeit gewidmet. Dabei geht es vor allem um den Fall ihrer Subjekte. Befindet sich das Subjekt im vorderen Feld eines Konstituentensatzes, muss es nach der Nominalisierung im Genitiv sein, da es bekannt und bestimmt ist. Steht es dagegen im hinteren Feld (vor dem Prädikat), kann es sowohl im Nominativ als auch im Genitiv sein. Das Auswahlkriterium für den einen oder anderen
Fall liegt in der Opposition begründet: unbestimmt (dann Nominativ); bestimmt / konkret (dann Genitiv). Neben dem strukturellen und semantischen füge ich ein drittes Kriterium ein, das bestimmt, ob das Subjekt eines Nominalsatzes im Nominativ oder im Genitiv steht. Sehen wir das Problem aus der Perspektive der Strukturmöglichkeiten des Türkischen an, drängt sich dieses Kriterium als pragmalinguistisch auf. Eine Analyse der ausgewählten Beispiele bestätigt nämlich,
das für einen transformierten Nominalsatz, dessen Prädikat das Hilfsverb İMEK "sein" ist, der Genitiv des Subjekts vorgeschrieben ist. Das Subjekt eines solches Satzes, dessen Prädikat VAR oder YOK ist, muss dagegen im Nominativ stehen.

These volumes of the Syntax of Dutch discuss the internal make-up and distribution of noun phrases. Topics that will be covered include: complementation and modification of noun phrases; properties of determiners (article, demonstratives), numeral and quantifiers; the use of noun phrases as arguments, predicates and adverbial modifiers.

RÉSUMÉ.-Le problème de l'ethnocentrisme en linguistique est toujours à l'ordre du jour, et théories et descriptions sont encore trop souvent sous la dépendance de la structure des langues à partir desquelles grammaire et linguistique se sont élaborées sur vingt-cinq siècles. Or, la linguistique ne peut être vraiment générale que s'appuyant sur la plus grande diversité possible de langues, traitées sur un pied d'égalité. Nous soutiendrons dans cet article qu'une telle linguistique de la diversité des langues amène, par sa nature même, à une abstraction de plus en plus grande au fur et à mesure qu'on accroît cette diver-sité ; plus on étend le corpus des langues que l'on exploite, plus on augmente la diversité des systèmes pris en compte, et plus on est contraint à l'abstraction, si l'on cherche à dépasser la diversité des moyens auxquels recourent les différents types de langues et, en même temps, à cerner ce qui fait cette diversité. Nous soutiendrons en outre que l'épistémologie saussurienne (en par-ticulier la théorie du signe tel que Ferdinand de Saussure l'a défini), même si elle conçoit chaque langue comme un système fermé sur lui-même au sein duquel chaque signe ne tient sa valeur que de son opposition aux autres signes de la même langue, non seulement n'exclut

Matisoff (2003) reconstructs an “adjectival prefix” *gV-, based on work by Wolfenden (1929). As a result of surveying grammatical descriptions of more than 90 Tibeto-Burman languages, the present study provides evidence to reconstruct Matisoff’s adjectival prefix as a nominalizer whose functional range includes (but is not limited to) the adjectival marking. Evidence for the prefix is found in three major genetic subdivisions. Within Bradley’s (2002) Western branch, Baram (Newaric) has a particularly versatile nominalizer ki-~gi-, and Eastern Kiranti languages have *gV-…-pa nominalizing circumfixes. In Bradley’s Eastern branch, rGyalrongic languages have velar prefixes that function as the main nominalizers. Further, in DeLancey’s (2015) Central branch of Trans-Himalayan (Sino-Tibetan), we find reflexes of *gV- in many languages, most notably the versatile nominalizer kV- in Lamkang (Northwest Kuki-Chin). Other languages of the India-Myanmar border with unresolved phylogenetic status within Tibeto-Burman also have reflexes of *gV-, most prominently Karbi and Tangkhul (Konnerth 2012).