2023/09/22 by Bill Haddican, Irantzu Epelde, Haddican, Bill +5
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Basque #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Phonetics and Phonology Research #Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation #addressee #allocutive #clitic #speech act #vocative
paper · pdf · doi:10.18148/hs/2025.v9i2-10.216
openalex publication_date 2023/09/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
This paper examines variation and change in embedding restrictions on Basque allocutive morphemes – person clitics marking non-thematic addressees. Recent work has described cross-speaker variation in whether allocutive morphemes are restricted to root clauses or may appear in embeddings. This paper reports on a recent survey that suggests change in progress toward loss of the root restriction. The results, moreover, indicate no cross-speaker correlation in acceptance of embedded vocatives with acceptance or use of embedded allocutives. We take the different cross-speaker distribution of allocutive morphemes and vocatives to reflect partially different representations for these forms, with vocative morphemes bearing richer functional structure and different licensing conditions.