New article on Yiddish published

My article on the history of Yiddish, “On Slavic-influenced Syntactic Changes in Yiddish: A Parametric Account” has been published in the proceedings of FASL24 (the NYU meeting):

Pereltsvaig, Asya (2017) On Slavic-influenced Syntactic Changes in Yiddish: A Parametric Account. In: Yohei Oseki, Mashe Esipova, Stephanie Harves (eds.) Annual Workshop on Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics. The NYU Meeting 2015. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Slavic Publications. Pp. 281-300.

Introduction:

Slavic influence on the phonology, morphology, and lexicon of Yiddish is well-documented (Weinreich 1980, inter alia). In contrast, syntactic innovations triggered by contact with Slavic languages are rarely investigated. This paper examines the extension of verb-second (V2) from root clauses to embedded clauses, which was suggested to be Slavic-influenced by Weinreich (1958) and Santorini (1989, 1992). However, no satisfactory explanation has been offered in the previous literature for how Slavic languages—which lack V2 in either root or embedded clauses—could have engendered such a change in Yiddish. The key to the proposed analysis is treating (embedded) V2 not as a unitary phenomenon, but as a “constellation” of parameter values, some of which were already in place in Yiddish before Slavic languages came into the picture and the rest of which changed under the influence of Slavic.

Advance Praise for Languages of the World is IN!

The second edition of Languages of the World: An Introduction is on its way to booksellers near you! Advance praise is now up on Cambridge University Press website (thanks to Marie-Lucie Tarpent for pointing it out to me!):

‘This book is unique, there are no other books like it.’

Bradley Montgomery-Anderson, Northeastern State University, Oklahoma

‘… there is no other material at present which so exactly fits the needs of our course … the text is really reader-friendly, a pleasure to use in class, and popular with the students. The inclusion of assignments and exercises in every chapter is a very valuable addition, and the addition of different kinds of boxes with further information makes the reading process more flexible and multi-dimensional.’

Arthur Holmer, Lunds Universitet, Sweden

You can pre-order your copy (available in September) from Cambridge University Press.

In the meantime, next Saturday I am going to teach an all-day workshop on Languages of the World. You can still sign up here.