The development of a sound change can be influenced by linguistic and social factors, both within the language community and from cases of language contact. The present study is an examination of the internally generated ongoing tonogenesis process in Afrikaans, specifically analyzing production and perception of word-initial plosives among different age and gender groups. Results show that female speakers are devoicing significantly more often than male speakers, and the perception of female voices is influenced more by f0 levels than the perception of male voices. This study finds that gender is a larger predictor overall of tonogenetic patterns than age.*

Flapping-wing robots, inspired by natural flyers, have gained significant attention for surveillance and environmental monitoring applications. This study presents the design and analysis of a bat-inspired flapping-wing robot with foldable wings, aiming to enhance flight efficiency and maneuverability. The robot features silicone-based, stretchable membrane wings, with a wingspan of 1.4 m and a total mass of 620 g. A one-degree-of-freedom (DOF) revolute-spherical-spherical-revolute mechanism is used to reproduce the flapping motion, while a one-DOF Watt six-bar linkage mechanism enables dynamic wing folding, allowing adaptive wing shape modulation during flight. Explicit solutions for joint angle of the wing were expressed through analytical method. Flight tests were conducted to validate the effectiveness of the flapping-folding mechanism. Results show that the robot successfully replicates bat wing kinematics, with folding during the upstroke and unfolding during the downstroke. This research offers insights into bio-inspired wing designs for next-generation flapping-wing robots.

The doubling of auxiliaries ‘have’ and ‘be’ in perfect tense constructions is a European areal phenomenon. It is present in languages of different filiations that have been in contact for a long time. In Dutch its distribution is largely restricted to the southeastern part of Dutch-speaking Belgium and some communities of North Brabant in the Netherlands. Double perfects are attested in contemporary Afrikaans, which is contrary to what we should expect, given that its metropolitan dialectal base is Hollandic, not southern Netherlandic. The Cape Dutch and Afrikaans evidence, sparse as it is, suggests that the range of this feature was significantly broader in vernacular Early Modern Dutch than one might infer from contemporary metropolitan norms.*

This article discusses the variation between masculine and neuter anaphoric pronouns in Afrikaans, especially in reference to inanimate entities such as objects, abstracts, collectives, and masses. The fact that books, governments, and wine can be referred to as both hy ‘he’ and dit ‘it’ is well known, but it is surprising given what is known about pronominal gender systems. Such systems are usually organized according to clear semantic principles, yielding predictable choices. The article summarizes the available literature, provides new data from the NWU-Kommentaarkorpus, and presents an approach that helps to make sense of the synchronic variation and, to some extent, the diachronic developments.

This article examines Afrikaans V1-constructions with the verb laat ‘let’ and compares them with similar constructions in Dutch. I refer to these as pseudo-let imperatives (or PLI-constructions). Although PLI-constructions have the same form as some let-imperatives in both languages, they no longer function as commands and lack the directive force typically associated with imperatives. Instead, PLI-constructions are used to express the speaker’s perspective on a certain event or action. Drawing on grammaticalization criteria used by Van Craenenbroeck & Van Koppen (2015, 2017) in their work on perception and causative verbs in imperative(-like) constructions in Dutch, this article argues that PLI-laat/laten has undergone grammaticalization in both Afrikaans and Dutch. Additionally, I demonstrate that the Afrikaans PLI-laat has grammaticalized further than its Dutch counterpart. I propose that Afrikaans’ contact with a variety of other languages throughout its history may have accelerated the grammaticalization of laat relative to its Dutch counterpart, resulting in the observed differences in the grammaticalization of PLI-laat/laten constructions.

This article concerns the so-called Infinitivus Pro Participio (IPP) effect – in terms of which what appears to be an infinitive surfaces where a selected past participle is expected – as it manifests in modern Afrikaans. Prior research has highlighted the apparent optionality of this effect, leading to conflicting conclusions regarding the continued existence of a productive IPP-effect in contemporary Afrikaans. Here we draw on recent corpus- and questionnaire-based investigations to consider the optionality of the IPP-effect in Afrikaans in more empirical detail, with the objective of establishing (i) the status of the IPP in Afrikaans and (ii) how it differs from the IPP in Dutch. The article’s second objective is to consider the role of language contact in shaping the IPP-effect as it is currently attested in (varieties of) Afrikaans.*

To those living through them, the Elizabethan and early Stuart years of England’s history seemed unusually riven by plots and conspiracies. Protestants feared the public effects of the private machinations of the Scottish queen and her supporters, of Jesuits, and of perfidious “papists” more generally. Catholic polemicists countered with narratives of dark deeds done by men who subverted rather than served the Crown: “secret histories” circulated that warned of William and Robert Cecil, the earl of Leicester, and others undermining the public state of the realm.1 Very real conspiracies by men such as the Earl of Essex and Guy Fawkes fostered fears of others. From the hard and hungry 1590s, protests against enclosures and lack of food became so common and concerning that the authorities contrived to brand some such riots as the products of treasonous conspiracies that threatened not just particular landlords or grain merchants but the public at large.2 Over the early seventeenth century, fears of covert machinations by both the poor and the powerful only increased, culminating in the fear that King Charles himself had become a pawn in a Catholic conspiracy that endangered the lives and liberties of his subjects.3 Talk of plots and conspiracies—real and imagined—abounded in an increasingly divided and discordant political culture, seen as threatening a “public” they arguably helped to create.

How and why do attempts to remedy sexual violence fail survivors so profoundly? In industrialized democracies, government consensus that rape is something to combat has done little to reduce its prevalence. A rich corpus of literature in political science focuses on the causes and consequences of public violence while ignoring private violence altogether. In states that identify as leaders on gender equality, how does this failure to effectively respond to sexual violence unfold? We build on a wealth of feminist scholarship to advance a simple claim, worthy of urgent attention from scholars of political violence. Through formal and informal institutions, states routinely perpetrate violence, upholding structures of gendered, classed, and racialized domination and oppression. We show how legal, medical, and family systems perpetrate violence by reimposing rather than challenging patriarchal power in their interactions with survivors. By denying survivors’ experiences, dehumanizing their survival, and subjugating them in their efforts to seek care, legal, medical, and family systems refuse survivors and other feminized populations autonomy, power, and control over their own lives and bodies. These practices enact violence by recreating the embodied experiences and power dynamics present in acts of sexual violence. We join a chorus of feminist scholars to argue that understanding how institutions perpetrate violence after rape is critical for understanding broader power relations in society.

This article explores how late nineteenth-century British socialists theorized the relationship between socialism and democracy through debates about the referendum. At the 1896 London Congress of the Second International, Fabians such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb and George Bernard Shaw defended parliamentary representation, expertise, and leadership as essential to socialist politics. In contrast, radicals in the Social Democratic Federation, and the Independent Labour Party advanced a theory of “real democracy” centered on direct popular legislation. Rejecting parliamentarism as corrupt, they envisioned referenda, mandates, and recall as tools to secure individual sovereignty and to dissolve the dominance of permanent majorities. This model redefined majority rule as transient, issue-specific, and plural, challenging both plebiscitary leadership and technocratic elitism. Although the International ultimately adopted the referendum only for strategic purposes, these debates reveal an original, if forgotten, socialist account of democracy as a form of pluralist, non-electoral majoritarianism.

On May 5, 2025, the International Court of Justice issued a provisional measures order in response to a request filed in March 2025 by Sudan against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) alleging violations of the Genocide Convention by a paramilitary organization known as the “Rapid Support Forces” in relation to the Masalit group in Sudan and specifically in West Darfur. The UAE opposed the Court’s jurisdiction. The Court initially expressed its “deep concern about the unfolding human tragedy in Sudan.” Sudan came before the Court on the basis of Article IX of the Genocide Convention,1 given that both states are party to the Convention. However, the UAE made a reservation with regard to that Article, and no state (including Sudan) objected to its reservation. Sudan argued that the reservation is “vague and non-specific” and that no other such reservation has been made by any other party with regard to the Convention. It also argued that its failure to object to the reservation at the time was immaterial. The Court disagreed with Sudan and found that the absence of more specific language in the reservation “does not result in any uncertainty as to the effects of that reservation” because of the reference in the reservation to the “interpretation, application and fulfilment of the Genocide Convention.” Therefore, the Court held that Article IX is not a valid basis for the exercise of the Court’s jurisdiction and ordered the case removed from the general list.