Habituals in the world’s languages
Collaborative project on the forms and functions of habitual markers
Habituals are aspectual markers expressing that a situation usually occurs, such as English used to, Spanish soler, or the suffix -va in Czech and Slovak. Despite an abundant literature on aspect in various languages of the world, habituals are a somewhat neglected phenomenon in linguistic research.
I am currently investigating the cross-linguistic diversity of habitual markers in collaboration with a number of colleagues from the University of Amsterdam. Together with Eva van Lier, I am working on a study of habitual markers in a sample of c. 185 of the world’s languages. We are particularly interested in the formal properties of such markers, i.e. how habitual meaning is expressed, and their lexical sources, i.e. where they come from.
In the research group Habituals, led by Kees Hengeveld, we explore the diversity of habitual constructions from the perspective of Functional Discourse Grammar and the idea of layered semantic structure. The preliminary results of the group suggest that ‘habituality’ is not a unified phenomenon across languages and that many languages have several habitual constructions with subtle semantic differences between them. The group is currently working on a collaborative volume presenting these results along with individual case studies of Spanish, Ancient Greek, Cree, Coptic, and several other languages.
Presentations
| Title | Event | Date | Downloads |
|---|---|---|---|
| A cross-linguistic survey of habitual markers | ALT 15 | 05/12/24 | poster |
| Habituals around the world | Habituals and Habitual Auxiliaries workshop, Université Paris 8 | 07/10/24 | slides |
| A hierarchical approach to habitual expressions (with Hongmei Fang, Egbert Fortuin, Rene Genis, Riccardo Giomi, Kees Hengeveld, Lois Kemp, Paula Kyselica, Ezra La Roi, Hella Olbertz, Eugenie Stapert, Jacques van der Vliet, Hein van der Voort, Sjaak de Wit, Arok Wolvengrey, and Ewa Zakrzewska) | Habituals and Habitual Auxiliaries workshop, Université Paris 8 | 07/10/24 | |
| A cross-linguistic survey of habitual markers (with Eva van Lier) | SLE 57, University of Helsinki | 22/08/24 | slides |
| A hierarchical approach to habitual expressions (with Hongmei Fang, Egbert Fortuin, Rene Genis, Riccardo Giomi, Kees Hengeveld, Lois Kemp, Paula Kyselica, Ezra La Roi, Hella Olbertz, Eugenie Stapert, Jacques van der Vliet, Hein van der Voort, Sjaak de Wit, Arok Wolvengrey, and Ewa Zakrzewska) | FDG2024, Universidade Federal de São Carlos | 05/07/24 | slides |
| Habitual serial verbs (with Eva van Lier) | Serial Predicates Across Modalities research group, University of Amsterdam | 14/12/23 | slides |
| Forms and functions of habitual markers: A cross-linguistic survey | ACLC Seminar, University of Amsterdam | 11/11/22 | slides |
| Habitual aspect in Danish | Habituals research group, University of Amsterdam | 17/12/21 | handout |
