Alone in the dark?
The Indo-European pronominal inflection from a typological point of view

The article gives an outline of the inflectional peculiarities of Proto-Indo-European and its daughter languages, comparing it with unrelated languages, which show hardly any parallels to its pronominal inflection. The latter, constituting a functionally unmotivated divergence from the nominal paradigms, is presented as a probably recent development, which on the other side later leads to a levelling of nominal and pronominal endings in many Indo-European languages, although in some of them inflectional differences may persist until the present day. It is argued that the fusional morphosyntax of Indo- European faciliates linguistic changes of that kind.

The paper is an attempt to compare words of Romani origin in the Czech and Croatian languages on the basis of two contemporary lexicographic sources. The main objective is to confirm the thesis regarding the presence of words with the same Romani etymon in both languages as well as to provide the semantic charactersitics of the analysed lexemes. The paper also presents information about the frequency of the words of Romani provenience in the Czech and Croatian languages that were collected using Internet corpora of both tongues.

This article discusses the role of input in the development of discourse competence with reference to modality use, as well as the role of language transfer, which can in fact cover many aspects L2 communication, for instance, cultural codes or elements of the politeness system, including modality, in L2 learning. It indicates that just exposing the learner to linguistic input may not enable them to fully comprehend the pragmalinguistic intricacies of authentic communication. It also suggests pragmalinguisticly intricate features of communication may fail to be taken in even by the advanced foreign language learner, since they may not meet the relevance requirement of the input provided.

Th e article concerns the opposition */ʃ, ʒ/ ←→ */r/ in central Cassubian dialects. Th e existing literature does not answer the question whether the opposition has been retained. Descriptions of the continuants */ʃ, ʒ, r/ contradict one another and the disappearance of the vibration of */r/ is regarded, unjustifi ably, as a phonological identifi cation of */r/ with */ʃ, ʒ/. Even when synchronic diff erences are identifi ed, the existing phonological interpretations are unsatisfactory. Contemporary central Cassubian data prove that the opposition continues to exist. */r/ is consistently realised as [ʂ, ʐ], while */ʃ, ʒ/ is realised optionally as [ʃ, ʒ] or [ʂ, ʐ]. Th e shift of the continuants */ʃ, ʒ/ towards clear palatalisation is most probably a result of the transfer [r] → [ʂ, ʐ].

Postscript to „Sprachtabus in tungusischen Sprachen und Dialekten“

In the article some additions to the author’s work Sprachtabus in tungusischen Sprachen und Dialekten. Am Beispiel von S. M. Širokogorovs „Tungus Dictionary“ are given. These addenda comprising some further information on taboos for purulence, bear (three examples), fox, hawk and measles from Širokogorov’s dictionary.
 

This paper is a critical edition of Jehoszafat Kapłanowski’s (a Trakai-born Karaimspeaking Odessan) two letters written in Hebrew script that were sent in 1868 to Lutsk. The critical apparatus that accompanies the transcription and translation includes commentaries on each linguistic peculiarity or irregularity. The study is augmented by a glossary and facsimile, as well as brief historical comments on some of the persons mentioned in the text.