Papers by Samira Verhees
As the second author of this chapter I am very grateful to the editors of this volume for entrust... more As the second author of this chapter I am very grateful to the editors of this volume for entrusting me with the task of editing M.E. Alexeyev's original manuscript. While the core of this sketch consists of M.E. Alexeyev's manuscript, the editing was done posthumously, so that I take sole responsibility for any and all inaccuracies or mistakes in this sketch. I would also like to thank Chiara Naccarato, who has been working with me on Botlikh since 2019, and whose work on the language and comments on an earlier version of this text greatly improved the end result. I would also like to thank George Moroz for his comments on phonological topics. Thanks are also in order to our wonderful hosts in Botlikh: Uma Magomedovna Gaidarbekova, Suaibat Mazhidova and Magomed Kadyrov, and everyone else in Botlikh whom I worked with. 2 In different publications, the surname of Mikhail Alexeyev is transliterated differently. A 2016 paper was published under Alekseyev, while the manuscript at the base of the present sketch was signed Alexeyev by the author. The scientific transcription of Russian, employed to refer to papers written in Russian, adds a third variant: Alekseev. Various references in the present sketch adhere to the spelling used in the corresponding source, so Alekseyev, Alexeyev, and Alekseev all refer to the same author. References to "Alexeyev" without an accompanying bibliographical reference refer to the unpublished manuscript.
[Prepublication draft; for the final version, please refer to International Journal of Bilinguali... more [Prepublication draft; for the final version, please refer to International Journal of Bilingualism in early 2021 ] Aims and Objectives : We assess whether data on lexical borrowings obtained through field elicitation may point back not only to a specific donor language but also to its specific regional variety, and hence whether these data are a reliable tool for reconstructing unknown historical patterns of interaction between ethnic (sub-)groups. Methodology: We use quantitative analysis of the data obtained by loanword probing-elicitations of short word lists from speakers of minority languages-to calculate the amount and source of lexical transfer. We compare the results across several areas with varying degrees of bilingualism and different contact varieties of the donor language to see how this influences the results of our analysis. Data: The data for this study come from a large-scale collection of field data in Daghestan (72 speakers, 19 villages), with four Lezgic languages spoken as L1 and varying degrees of traditional bilingualism in Azerbaijani, a major Turkic language of the area. Findings: Our method suggests that the speech communities clearly indicate one of the regional varieties of Azerbaijani as the donor, the Azerbaijani of Qax for the villages in the southwest of Daghestan (Akhty and Rutul districts) and the Azerbaijani of Daghestanian lowlands in the villages of the southeast of Daghestan (Tabasaran and Khiv districts). We also observe that the amount of lexical convergence with the donor depends not only on the level of bilingualism observed in the specific village but also on the L1 of this village, suggesting language borders as natural constraint to the spread of lexical borrowing. Originality : The study is novel in that it is fully based on analysis of data on lexical convergence obtained through fieldwork on minority languages and provide quantitative results that can be compared across speech communities in the survey. Implications : Our conclusion is that the method is sensitive enough to trace donorship to one specific regional variety of the donor language. Limitations: While we were able to clearly detect not only a donor language but also its regional variety, our observations on the relative weight of the degree of bilingualism and language affiliation of a speech community as predictors of the amount of lexical 1 The article was prepared within the framework of the HSE University Basic Research Program and funded by the Russian Academic Excellence Project '5-100'. We express our deepest gratitude to Murad Suleymanov, whose help with the Azerbaijani data was immense and to Arseniy Averin, Faina Daniel, and Lilia Terekhina for helping us with the data collection.
Voprosy jazykoznanija, 2019
This paper explores how evidentiality is defined in recent research. It was inspired by the recen... more This paper explores how evidentiality is defined in recent research. It was inspired by the recent publication of The Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality and several other volumes, which provide a rich body of new material. The definition (or rather demarcation) of evidentiality encompasses both morphosyntactic and semantic parameters. I will address criteria for the distinction of dedicated grammatical evidentials, and survey the values distinguished in evidentiality's semantic domain. In addition, I discuss deictic views of evidentiality, which seem a fruitful approach to the study of evidentials in context.
Talks by Samira Verhees
Conference Presentations by Samira Verhees
Andi features a specialized suffix to indicate an event that is not taking place, contrary to the... more Andi features a specialized suffix to indicate an event that is not taking place, contrary to the speaker's expectations. It originates in a periphrastic construction of a lexical verb inflected for habitual and another verb inflected for perfect used as an auxiliary. Possibly the auxiliary originates from a verb meaning 'become tired', although it remains unclear how this lexical verb might give rise to a negative meaning with a counterexpectation component.
Drafts by Samira Verhees
This is a short grammar sketch of Botlikh which is to appear in a Handbook of Caucasian languages... more This is a short grammar sketch of Botlikh which is to appear in a Handbook of Caucasian languages. It is based on an unfinished manuscript by Mikhail Alexeyev, which was then edited and expanded upon by me (Samira Verhees).
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Papers by Samira Verhees
Talks by Samira Verhees
Conference Presentations by Samira Verhees
Drafts by Samira Verhees