scholarly journals Human impersonal pronouns in Afrikaans: a double questionnaire-based study

2018 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniël Van Olmen ◽  
Adri Breed
Keyword(s):  
Impersonal Pronouns

On the use of translation corpora in contrastive linguistics

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Volker Gast
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Coarse Grained ◽  
Testing Hypotheses ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Contrastive Linguistics ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The One ◽  
Impersonal Pronoun ◽  
Impersonal Pronouns

This article argues for a type of corpus-based contrastive research that is item-specific, predictive and hypothesis-driven. It reports on a programmatic study of the ways in which impersonalization is expressed in English and German. Impersonalization is taken to be epitomized by human impersonal pronouns like German man (e.g. Man lebt nur einmal ‘You/one only live(s) once’). English does not have a specialized impersonal pronoun like Germ. man and uses a variety of strategies instead. The question arises what determines the choice of a given impersonalization strategy in English. Drawing on relevant theoretical work and using data from a translation corpus (Europarl), variables potentially affecting the distribution of impersonalization strategies in English are identified, and their influence on the choice of a strategy is determined. By testing hypotheses derived from theoretical work and using multivariate quantitative methods of analysis, the study is intended to illustrate how bridges can be built between fine-grained semantic analyses, on the one hand, and more coarse-grained, but empirically valid, corpus research, on the other.

Human impersonal pronouns in Swedish and Dutch

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evie Coussé ◽  
Johan van der Auwera
Keyword(s):  
Human Being ◽  
Parallel Corpus ◽  
Contrastive Study ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Impersonal Pronouns

This paper presents a contrastive study of the human impersonal pronouns man in Swedish and men in Dutch. Both impersonal pronouns are etymologically derived from man ‘human being’ and they more or less have the same meaning. However, there are important differences in the usage of these pronouns. In this study, the similarities and differences between Swedish man and Dutch men are studied in a Dutch-Swedish parallel corpus. Analysing a parallel corpus has the advantage of allowing one to both study the distribution of man and men in original texts and to contrast the use of these pronouns with their translations.

scholarly journals When one is singular: Notes on zero-person constructions in Latvian

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 248-267
Author(s):  
Nicole Nau
Keyword(s):  
Grammatical Number ◽  
Impersonal Pronouns

Axel Holvoet has demonstrated that Latvian has two types of zero-person constructions which formally differ in grammatical number, and that the singular type has a parallel in Finnic, but not in Lithuanian. This paper shows that the meanings covered by the two types are distinct and do not overlap. Using the framework proposed by Gast and van der Auwera for the description of human impersonal pronouns, it is shown that the singular type is characterized by non-veridicality and an internal perspective. As in Finnish, but not Estonian, it is used in conditional sentences with all kinds of verbs. The plural type is used in Latvian as well as in Lithuanian with veridical propositions and an external perspective.

Subject NP patterning in the development of text production

2002 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorit Ravid ◽  
Janet G. van Hell ◽  
Elisa Rosado ◽  
Anita Zamora
Keyword(s):  
Expository Texts ◽  
Grade School ◽  
Developmental Patterns ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Subject Pronouns ◽  
Text Production ◽  
Specific Analysis ◽  
University Level ◽  
Target Languages ◽  
Impersonal Pronouns

This paper examines how choice of subject NP types and structures changes in the development of text construction, and the extent of variation in the developmental patterns which are produced in speech and in writing. The population for this study consisted of 80 participants — 40 grade-school children and 40 university-level adults — with 20 participants in each of four languages: Dutch, Hebrew, English, and Spanish. The database for each language-specific analysis consisted of 40 grade-school texts and 40 adult texts. In each group, half were spoken texts and half written, half were narratives and half expository texts: altogether 320 texts. All subject NP slots in each text were counted and classified by category of realization (zero, pronoun, or lexical), by pronoun type (personal vs. impersonal), and by lexical complexity (terminal NPs governing a single lexical noun vs. non-terminal NPs governing more than one lexical noun). In general, the written expositions of adults are the preferred site for lexical subjects and for non-terminal subjects. Among both children and adults, narratives contain more personal subject pronouns, and expository texts contain more impersonal pronouns. Several cross-linguistic differences emerged (mainly between Spanish and the other three languages), reflecting differences in the syntactic, inflectional, and pronominal patternings of the target languages.

From contrastive linguistics to linguistic typology

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan van der Auwera
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
The Other ◽  
Linguistic Typology ◽  
Third Language ◽  
The Third ◽  
Contrastive Linguistics ◽  
Impersonal Pronouns

The paper looks back at Hawkins (1986), A comparative typology of English and German, and shows, on the basis of raising and human impersonal pronouns in English, Dutch and German, that contrastive linguistics can be viewed as a pilot study in typology. It also pleads for doing the contrastive linguistics of three languages rather than of two, not least because the third language can teach us something about the other two.

scholarly journals Not so impersonal

Pragmatics ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaime J. Gelabert-Desnoyer
Keyword(s):  
Political Language ◽  
General Behavior ◽  
Parliamentary Debate ◽  
The One ◽  
Qualitative Analyses ◽  
Impersonal Pronoun ◽  
Impersonal Pronouns

This paper combines quantitative and qualitative analyses in a corpus-based study of how and for what purposes politicians, in the context of the Spanish Parliament, use the impersonal pronoun uno ‘one’. I begin by contrasting how uno is used in parliamentary debate versus non-political language. After reviewing traditional definitions of the semantic range and general behavior of this pronoun, I argue that a more accurate account that the one provided by standard grammars is needed for us to better understand how the peculiar characteristics of a parliament affect intentionality in the use of impersonal pronouns. In particular, it is argued that uno is utilized by politicians to serve principally two purposes: 1) avoidance of bluntness - a means of preserving professional etiquette, and 2) avoidance of self- praise - demonstrative of humility. Both purposes serve the larger objective of preserving professional face.

Tax Preparer Certification and Organization Form among Uncertified Preparers Influence Client Satisfaction and Experience

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Candace L. Witherspoon ◽  
Dan N. Stone
Keyword(s):  
Positive Affect ◽  
Small Firm ◽  
Client Satisfaction ◽  
Organizational Form ◽  
Client Perceptions ◽  
State Certification ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Big Box ◽  
Linguistic Methods ◽  
Impersonal Pronouns

ABSTRACT How does state certification (e.g., CPA, enrolled agent [EA], or attorney) and organizational form among uncertified preparers (big box “franchise” firms versus not) influence client satisfaction and interactions? Results from a sample (n = 3,984) of Yelp ratings of U.S. tax preparers indicates that certified preparers receive higher ratings than do uncertified small-firm preparers, who earn higher ratings than do franchise preparers. Linguistic analysis suggests that clients of certified preparers experience tax preparation service as a “relational” interaction, with reviews evidencing more positive affect and inclusive pronouns (e.g., we). In contrast, the clients of franchise firms experience tax preparation as “transactional,” with reviews evidencing more swear words and impersonal pronouns. Linguistic results for uncertified small preparers fall between those of certified and franchise preparers. The paper is among the first to adapt emerging corpus linguistic methods to examine client perceptions of professional accounting services.

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