Numbers help us mark milestones and a few years ago, in 2017, with the publication of Pieter Seuren’s Semantic Syntax as volume 11 in this Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Theory (EALT) series, I took the opportunity that these editorial forewords afford me and signaled – with some pleasure – that EALT had entered “double digits”.1 I noted then that the next serious numerical advance would not come until EALT reached volume 100, but I nonetheless feel compelled to say something here about the numerology of the present volume.
Humans seem to like “round” numbers, so that it is worth noting that with this volume, EALT 20, the series breaks new numerical ground by advancing into the twenties, so that we have reached the threshold of a new decade2 in a slightly shorter timeframe (2018–2023) than that needed for the first decade (2011–2017). My hope is that the next decade comes in an even shorter period of time.
This volume marks a milestone in a different way too, namely on the content front. In particular, it is noteworthy that this work is the first in the series dedicated to a consideration of a South Asian language, in this case, Bangla, an Indo-Aryan language spoken by some 300 million people mostly in Bangladesh, where it is the national language.
The series has as its goal the advancement of linguistic theory via thoroughly empirical investigations. All volumes published under the EALT banner must meet both of these demands, addressing a theoretical issue but at the same time, being decidedly empirical. This volume clearly satisfies both of these criteria.
On the theoretical front, this work examines the internal syntax of the Bangla Determiner Phrase (DP), working within a theoretical framework provided by Cinque’s 2005 “parameters of movement” approach. In investigating the Bangla DP, author Dr. Ambalika Guha examines such key notions and constructs as topicalization, definiteness, and classifiers, demonstrating how they all interact through different word orders found within the DP, while also taking on the matter of ellipsis in the DP.
It is my pleasure as editor to be able to include such a rich and theoretically insightful work as this one in this series.
Brian D. Joseph
EALT Series Managing Editor
Columbus, Ohio USA
5 June 2023
EALT actually entered that numerical domain with the publication in 2017 of Perspectives on Morphological Organization (edited by Ferenc Kiefer, James P. Blevins, and Huba Bartos); circumstances beyond my control made it impossible to include an editorial foreword in that volume, so that only in the next volume could that milestone be commented upon.
I say “threshold” deliberately as I am enough of a prescriptivist and traditionalist to want to avoid falling into the popular but misguided notion that a new decade starts with 20, as opposed to 21 (inasmuch as the series started with EALT 1, not a hypothetical *EALT 0).