This article shows that endoclitics do exist in Udi, a language of the North East Caucasian family, and this fact poses a challenge to the lexicalist hypothesis. Clitics may be positioned between the morphemes of complex verb stems and immediately before the final segments of monomorphemic verb stems. The author argues, on the basis of accepted tests for wordhood, that complex verb stems are single words, not phrases. On the basis of criteria developed by Zwicky and Pullum (1983), it is argued that the clitics of Udi are true clitics. An analysis of the placement of clitics in various positions inside verb stems is proposed in optimality theory. The author shows that phonological phenomena do not provide an alternative basis for positioning these clitics and concludes that clitics in Udi are a counterexample to the lexical integrity hypothesis.

Because many of the forms participating in inherent variability are not attested in the standard language, they are often construed as evidence of change. We test this assumption by confronting the standard, as instantiated by a unique corpus covering five centuries of French grammatical injunctions, with data on the evolution of spontaneous speech over an apparent-time span of 119 years.

Reasoning that forms salient enough to have attracted the attention of grammarians were likely widespread in the speech of the time, we demonstrate how these materials may be used to (i) infer the existence of prior variability, (ii) trace the evolution of normative dictates associated with the variants, and most revealing, (iii) discern hints of prior linguistic conditioning of variant selection. These are then operationalized as factors in a multivariate analysis and tested against the facts of usage.

The linguistic focus is on future temporal reference, a notoriously variable sector of the grammar in which competing exponents have persisted for centuries. Systematic comparison of grammatical treatments with actual speaker behavior shows virtually no correspondence between the motivations offered in the literature and those constraining actual variant choice. Prescriptive efforts to explain variability, by ascribing to each variant form a dedicated reading or context of use, have had no effect on speech, which is shown to be governed by a powerful set of tacit variable constraints. These in turn are unacknowledged by the grammatical tradition. The result is a great and growing disconnect between the variable rules governing speech and the normative dictates that underlie the notion of the standard. We explore the implications of these findings for the use of grammarians' observations as data for linguistic analysis.

Sea cucumber fisheries have continued to expand during the past decade at a fast rate, despite the predictable drop during the COVID-19 period. The exploitations are now qualified as ‘serial’ and ‘contagious’. The most recent trends are shown through the analysis of Food and Agriculture Organization’s capture data, collected from different countries and territories. The mean captures per year, in fresh weight, are over 90.103 tonnes. The mean trade data for years 2019–2021 are given by category of commodities, which complicates the trade analysis. The imports, in quantity and value, show the usual importance of China and Hong Kong, and now of Saudi Arabia. The exports show the importance of the frozen products from Canada. The statistics from Hong Kong in quantities and values (for imports and re-exports) are analysed for the past decade. Globally, catches have increased in comparison to previous studies, with new countries and territories developing export fisheries, new species targeted from new regions, and new products traded. The continued growth and expansion of the global sea cucumber trade is alarming as the sustainability of many species-specific fisheries remains of great concern. Stronger conservation measures, and their implementation, at national, regional, and international levels, are required to effectively protect biodiversity, promote sustainable resource use, and address the escalating impacts of the increasing exploitation efforts.