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Byline: Sander Lestrade Abstract In this article, I discuss Finnish case alternation adpositions from a theoretical and corpus perspective. First, I argue that postpositional PP constructions with genitive case denote the standard spatial meaning of which an extension is marked with partitive case. Also, I show how word order interacts with case assignment. Both findings are formalized in a bidirectional Optimality Theoretic framework. Second, I show that case alternating behavior does not occur unrestrictedly in newspaper corpora. Adpositions in principle tend to assign the same case to the same object over and over again, and only a small subgroup of highly frequent nouns is assigned both genitive and partitive case by the same adposition(s). This suggests that (adpositional case) alternations are only allowed for highly frequent constructions. Article History: Date received: September 09, 2008 Date revision received: March 12, 2009

In spite of decades of theorizing, the origins of Zipf’s law remain elusive. I propose that a Zipfian distribution straightforwardly follows from the interaction of syntax (word classes differing in class size) and semantics (words having to be sufficiently specific to be distinctive and sufficiently general to be reusable). These factors are independently motivated and well-established ingredients of a natural-language system. Using a computational model, it is shown that neither of these ingredients suffices to produce a Zipfian distribution on its own and that the results deviate from the Zipfian ideal only in the same way as natural language itself does. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the diachronic development of non-structural case marking in Tibeto-Burman and in computer simulations of language evolution. It is shown how case marking is initially motivated by the pragmatic need to disambiguate between two core arguments, but eventually may develop flagging functions that even extend into the intransitive domain. Also, it is shown how different types of case-marking system may emerge from various underlying disambiguation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a uniform motivation for subject case alternations that align with distinctions in tense and aspect and those that align with a distinction between stage- and individual-level predication. We argue that both follow from an economical use of case marking that is made possible by grounding. If the argument function of an event participant can be determined on the basis of information available in the here and now, the use of case marking can be judged redundant and suspended because of economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Morphological case is a cross-linguistically widespread strategy to mark the role of participants of an event. Using a computer simulation, this paper will show how case can emerge in languages that have no rules of grammar as a result of cultural evolution. For this, only very general cognitive and communicative principles are necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a unified account of construction alternations in which case markers are involved, extending the traditional focus on the differential use of core case markers (DCM). Using an Optimality Theoretic framework, it is argued that the optional use of morphological case can be explained by the interaction of an economy and cooperativeness principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on the unified account of the cross-linguistic variation in the encoding of adjectives in prediative and attributive constructions using a unified optimality theoretic account. Accordingly, languages might be dissimilar in the encoding strategy of adjectives in the predicative domain, and there are instances that the strategy could be changed in the attributive domain. The interaction on faithfulness to the semantic class of a lexical root, and the faithfulness to discourse functions is also discussed in details.

The article presents the author's commentary on the article "A Diachronic Dimension in Maps of Case Functions," by Heiko Narrog. The author does not think as Narrog does that diachronic information cannot be shown on statistically plotted maps. He says that diachronic information is used in explaining concurrent patterns, and that this information is instructive only when given with a statistical evaluation of the concurrent patterns it serves to explain. Only then, he says, can the diachronic explanation be said to hold cross-linguistically.