[PLing] Einladung zum Vortrag Na'ama Pat-el, 28.10.

David Goldstein david.goldstein at univie.ac.at
Tue Oct 20 13:56:46 CEST 2015


Liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen,

ich möchte Sie alle ganz herzlich zu einem Vortrag von Na'ama Pat-el
(University of Texas at Austin) einladen, der

am 28.10.2015 (Mi)
von 15h bis 16h30
im  Seminarraum 2 (Sensengasse 3a)

stattfindet.

Der Titel lautet

The Semitic ‘Perfect' and the Problem of the Third-Person Zero Morpheme

Das Abstract findet sich am Ende dieser E-mail.

Mit herzlichen Grüßen,

David Goldstein


It has been observed in many languages that third person subject markers
on verbs are frequently zero, while those of first and second person are
overt. There have been several explanations for this phenomenon: some
argue that they are less frequent in discourse, but others argue that
first and second persons, which are more accessible, constantly
regenerate, while the third person markers do not. Proponents of this
explanation assume that third person subjects do develop, but are
subsequently lost and reduce to zero. For example, Middle Welsh 1st oed-wn
vs. 3sd oed. In this talk I’ll discuss two verbal formations which
developed during the attested period of the Semitic language family: the
West Semitic ‘perfect' and the Northeast Neo-Aramaic present. In both
paradigms the third person masculine singular is zero. I will argue that
the reason for the zero is structural rather than semantic, because, as I
will show, Semitic has no third person subjects.




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