The aims of this paper are twofold. First, I aim to discuss some theoretical and practical issues concerning the methods employed by linguists when doing typological research. More specifically, I will present the kinds of data typologists usually base their work on, also discussing some related issues that deal with the nature of the data themselves and the possible misinterpretations that they may lead to. Then, I will discuss how typology tends to focus its attention over a limited array of phenomena (i.e., morphosyntactic ones), leaving aside phenomena pertaining to other levels of analysis (e.g., discourse). I thus will exemplify how integrating discourse phenomena might result in more comprehensive analyses and, consequently, in better-suited typological generalizations. Second, I will propose a multi-level method (which I call discourse-sensitive typology) based on the converging evidence perspective, discussing how it might help us to overcome the abovementioned issues and ultimately make typology truly usage-based.

A long-standing issue in linguistic typology concerns the relationship between cross-linguistic generalization and the empirical foundations on which such generalizations are built. The contributions assembled in this issue of Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads approach this question from complementary empirical and theoretical perspectives. On the one hand, several papers pursue typological analysis that is explicitly anchored in naturally occurring data, examining how cross-linguistic generalizations are affected when categories and comparisons are grounded in attested usage. On the other hand, the issue includes studies of intralinguistic variation—sometimes drawing on variationist sociolinguistic frameworks—that take variation itself as an empirical window onto grammatical organization; patterns of variation are used to formulate and test generalizations that bear on typological comparison and explanatory modeling. Together, these perspectives invite reflection on how typological generalizations are constructed, evaluated, and interpreted when both cross-linguistic and intralinguistic evidence are incorporated.

This article aims to fill a gap in the typological literature by discussing the typology of overt denominal verb formation strategies, that is, morphosyntactic strategies other than conversion/zero-derivation that are used to derive a verb from a nominal base. We analyse the morphological, syntactic and semantic properties of these strategies in a variety sample of 222 languages. These properties include the morphological status, the productivity, and the semantic effects of the overt verbaliser, as well as the features of the nominal base and the polysemy patterns that characterise verbalisers across languages. The typological survey is complemented by a section on the diachronic typology of overt denominal verb formation strategies, in which we identify the most common diachronic sources of overt verbalisers and discuss the diachronic dynamics that involve them in relation to other denominal verb formation strategies such as conversion/zero-derivation.

The aim of this paper is to integrate the analysis of the intra-linguistic variation attested in the coding of counterfactual conditionals in spoken Italian with a larger cross-linguistic perspective. We start by providing a sociolinguistically- informed discussion of the counterfactual conditional strategies attested in spoken Italian, through a corpus-based analysis. After describing the corpus and the parameters of analysis, we provide a typology of the attested constructions, based on the verbal forms employed for protasis and apodosis, showing that the observed variation goes beyond the representations available in the literature. In particular, we describe the spread of counterfactual imperfective past indicative forms, which are especially frequent in symmetrical constructions and are argued to be associated to lower educational achievements and, to a lesser extent, to informal contexts. We then consider the picture of Italian counterfactual conditionals within a wider perspective, to verify whether the patterns described for Italian follow more general tendencies. After addressing some crucial methodological issues, concerning the problems raised by the integration of a sociolinguistic and a cross-linguistic approach, we argue that Italian data are probably to be analyzed as manifestations of a widespread trend towards the use of symmetrical countefactual constructions on the one hand and the use of past habituals for functions connected to the irrealis domain on the other hand.

This paper aims at investigating the semantics of nominal reduplication cross-linguistically. Nominal reduplication is treated as an iconic morphological device expressing functions that have something to do with plurality. Nevertheless, in the languages of the world, other types of functions are attested as well, which seem to pivot around different notions like conceptual similarity, heterogeneity, combinations of them, or even possession. Based on a large-scale cross-linguistic analysis, we provide a typology of nominal reduplication considering the range of semantic functions and the type of reduplicative patterns. We argue that the attested variation clearly points to a common semantic core underlying the various functions, and this core can be identified in some modification of the degree and type of referentiality. Finally, the attested tendencies and correlations may shed new light on the role of iconicity in explaining the connection between reduplicated nouns and their functions.

The aim of this paper is to give a comprehensive description of the suffix ‑pödï of Akawaio (Cariban, Venezuelan). In particular, we aim to investigate the functions that this marker can express and the grammatical status that it has in the grammar of Akawaio. This is a challenge because ‑pödï shows broad multifunctionality that has not yet been fully explored. A review of the typological phenomenon of pluractionality suggests that all the functions of this suffix can be captured within the pluractional conceptual space. In addition to mapping the functions of ‑pödï into the pluractional space, we also identify additional morphology that explains the absence of ‑pödï in the other typical pluractional functions. Finally, we give an overview of pluractional markers in other Cariban languages, with particular reference to Kari’nja.

AbstractThe paper investigates discontinuous reduplication (DR), a pattern where reduplicant and base are separated by other material, by annotating a 214-example dataset collected from a 99-language sample. Several items turned out to serve as interposing elements, although their nature does not seem to correlate with function, unlike the category of the base. DR’s functions are a subset of those associated with reduplication cross-linguistically. All languages displaying DR also present contiguous reduplication, suggesting acontiguous reduplication > discontinuous reduplicationhierarchy. Finally, a corpus-based analysis of Italian (lacking DR according to grammars) unveiled a wealth of DR patterns, suggesting that corpora are essential for the typological enterprise.

Exploring complex lexemes cross-linguisticallyEditors' introduction 1 Towards a typology of complex lexemes Concept-naming is one of the most fundamental activities performed by speakers, who need either ready-made labels to talk about entities or devices to build new labels (be they rules or processes, schemas or analogical mechanisms).Knowing how languages perform the basic function of creating labels to name concepts, especially complex concepts, is crucial to understanding their creative potential in building new (potentially stable) categories and, more generally, to understanding how they (may) categorize reality, and refer to it.What are the strategies employed by languages for naming complex concepts?How do they differ cross-linguistically, and what are the limits of their variation?Are there strategies that are more widespread than others, or even universal? 1 These are questions for lexical typology and/or word-formation typology, but what we know about the typology of complex concept naming is very limited compared to what we know about domains like word order or inflectional morphology.There may be different reasons behind this state-of-affairs.Analysing all of them falls outside the scope of the present introduction: we will just discuss some factors that we deem relevant for our current purposes.Complex concept naming is definitely related to word-formation.The domain of word-formation can count on an extremely rich and ever-growing body of literature, which would be impossible to credit here (suffice it to mention the collections edited by Booij, Lehmann & Mugdan 2000;2004; Lieber & Štekauer 2009a;2014; Müller et al. 2015; Lieber et al. 2021).However, quite surprisingly, word-formation has rarely been the subject of large-scale, thorough typological 1 We wish to thank the many anonymous referees who generously agreed to review the chapters included in this volume, including this introduction: their insightful comments significantly improved the quality of the volume.Heartfelt thanks are also due to Jean-Christophe Verstraete for his guidance and constant support, which were essential to bring this project to conclusion.We are also grateful to the audience of the When "noun" meets "noun" workshop at the

Abstract In this paper we analyse the formal and functional ‘extravagance’ of general extenders embedded within morphological schemas, either at the end of coordinate compounds, or as constituents of complex words, especially at the end of lists of complex words formed according to the same schema. After discussing two case studies from Italian (eccetera ‘etcetera’ and tutto ‘everything/all’), we conclude that complex words containing general extenders are ‘wild words’, namely ‘contextuals’ (Clark & Clark 1979) that are created to meet specific communicative needs and are meant not to be stored. As such, they serve as a strategy to create ‘ad hoc categories’ (Mauri & Sansò 2018a). The relationship of ‘wild words’ with lists is also explored and deemed crucial both for their semantic interpretation and for explaining their collocation within morphological structures.

This article aims at giving a comprehensive account of a so far undescribed reduplicative pattern in Italian named syntactic discontinuous reduplication with antonymic pairs (SDRA). This pattern, characterized by the non-contiguous repetition of the same element within a larger fixed configuration defined by two spatial antonyms, can be schematized as , where Adv1 and Adv2 are antonyms (e.g., di qua ‘here’ ∼ di là ‘there’). After describing its formal and functional properties, based on naturally occurring data extracted from the Italian Web 2016 corpus, the SDRA is analyzed as an independent ‘construction’ in the Construction Grammar sense. This construction is claimed to convey a general value of ‘plurality’ and to have developed a polysemy network of daughter constructions expressing more specific functions such as ‘distributivity,’ ‘related variety,’ and ‘dispersion.’ In addition, we propose considering the SDRA a ‘multiple source construction,’ originating from the blending of two independent constructions: syntactic reduplication and irreversible binomials with antonymic adverbs. Finally, we discuss SDRA-like patterns in other typologically different languages (Russian, Modern Hebrew, Mandarin Chinese, German), pointing out similarities and differences, and paving the way to a more systematic study of discontinuous reduplication in a crosslinguistic perspective.

This paper aims at giving a typological overview of pluractionality in order to show how grammatical categories, in cross-linguistic perspective, cannot be considered as universally valid entities. After having defined the phenomenon, I will present the main functions and some formal characteristics that pluractional markers have in the languages of the world. Then, I will describe the diachronic sources from which pluractional markers probably come from. Finally, I will discuss the grammatical status that pluractionality has in cross-linguistic perspective in the light of the broad variety it shows in the languages of the world and also taking into consideration data from specific languages.

The paper describes the aim and structure of a new freely accessible resource – ListTyp: A typological database of listing patterns – with a focus on methodological aspects, encoded information and search functions.1

This paper aims to give a cross-linguistic overview of pluractionality. Pluractionality is defined as a structural modification of the verb indicating the presence of multiple events. The paper first investigates the functions associated with pluractional markers in the languages of the world and classifies them into core and additional functions. I then present the most frequent marking strategies that the languages adopt in order to encode pluractionality and briefly discuss the morphological nature of one in particular (i.e., lexical alternation), as well as the formal identification of participant plurality. Finally, I examine the grammatical status of pluractionality in a cross-linguistic perspective, taking the most recent typological literature into consideration. I conclude that "pluractionality" cannot be theoretically conceived as a unique, cross-linguistically valid category but should rather be regarded as a label, which indicates different phenomena in different languages, useful for typological comparison but not reflecting any kind of pre-established grammatical category.

AbstractHittite features three derivational suffixes, i.e.,-ške/a-, -šša-, and -anna/i-, that attach to verbs and are commonly described as expressing a number of imperfective-like functions. So far, the distribution and use of these suffixes has defied a satisfactory explanation. Whereas some scholars argue that they operate within the domain of lexical aspect, others view them as associated with the encoding of grammatical imperfective aspect. In this paper, we focus on the interpretation of-ške/a-and argue that a better understanding of the nature of this suffix can be achieved if one frames its description within the typology of pluractional constructions. As we show, the range of polyfunctionality of-ške/a-fully complies with the cross-linguistic behavior of pluractional markers. We also provide a tentative diachronic scenario that accounts for the rise of such polyfunctionality out of the original semantic core of the suffix.

The aim of this book is to give the first large-scale typological investigation of pluractionality in the languages of the world. Pluractionality is defined as the morphological modification of the verb to express a plurality of situations that can additionally involve a plurality of participants and/or spaces. Based on a 246-language sample, the main characteristics of pluractionality are described and discussed throughout the book. Firstly, a description of the functions that pluractional markers cross-linguistically express is presented and the relationships occurring among them are explained through the semantic map model. Then, the marking strategies that languages display to express such functions are illustrated and some issues concerning the formal identification are briefly discussed as well. The typological generalizations are corroborated showing how pluractional markers work in three specific languages (Akawaio, Beja, Maa). In conclusion, the theoretical conceptualization of pluractionality is discussed referring to the Radical Construction Grammar approach.