Schedule 77. StuTS

This talk focuses on the variation and generalisations in the way languages form commands and prohibitives. It is common for languages to express a command with an imperative verb: as in German ‘steh!’ or ‘geh!’. This verb form usually is the bare stem, or has special imperative marking. Expressing a negated command, a prohibitiv, in German is done by combining the imperative with negation: `Geh nicht!’.

Suprisingly, this way of expressing a prohibitive is quite rare. Many languages change the form of the verb (in Spanish or Vitu an irrealis is used, in Italian or Finnish the infinitive verb), or the amount of verbs (like in Serbo-Croatian with an auxiliary, or an additional verb in Lao or Dyirbal); other languages change the form of the negation (such as in Sinhala or Ika); and again other languages add other verbal inflectional material, other agreement, or even add complementisers (Arapaho, Didinga, Boumaa Fijian).

Despite this overwhelming variation, there are various generalisations that can be made about why a certain language forms a prohibitive in a specific way, which I will discuss in the talk: factors such as the type of negation and the location of the verb in the clause matters.

Info

Day: 2025-05-15
Start time: 10:30
Duration: 00:55
Room: Campus Jahnallee, Hörsaal 2 Süd
Track: Keynote
Language: en

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