Ambiguous function words do not prevent 18-month-olds from building accurate syntactic category expectations: An ERP study

This book describes the linguistic structures that constitute Medieval or Old Spanish as preserved in texts written prior to the beginning of the sixteenth century. It emphasizes those structures that contrast with the modern standard language. Chapter 1 presents methodological issues raised by the study of a language preserved only in written sources. Chapter 2 examines questions involved in reconstructing the sound system of Old Spanish before discussing relevant phonetic and phonological details. The chapter ends with an overview of Old Spanish spelling practices. Chapter 3 presents in some detail the nominal, verbal, and pronominal morphology of the language, with attention to regional variants. Chapter 4 describes selected syntactic structures, with emphasis on the noun phrase, verb phrase, object pronoun placement, subject-verb-object word order, verb tense, aspect, and mood. Chapter 5 begins with an extensive list of Old Spanish nouns, adjectives, verbs, and function words that have not survived into the modern standard language. It then presents examples of coexisting variants (doublets) and changes of meaning, and finishes with an overview of the creation of neologisms in the medieval language through derivational morphology (prefixation, suffixation, compounding). The book concludes with an anthology composed of three extracts from Spanish prose texts, one each from the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. The extracts contain footnotes that highlight relevant morphological, syntactic, and lexical features, with cross references to the relevant sections in the body of the book.

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Sharing One's Story: On the Benefits of Writing or Talking About Emotional Experience

The Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195187243.013.0059 ◽

2009 ◽

pp. 620-632 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Kate G. Niederhoffer ◽

James W. Pennebaker

Keyword(s):

Text Analysis ◽

Emotional Experience ◽

Rapid Development ◽

Emotional Valence ◽

Social Orientation ◽

Function Words ◽

Writing Paradigm ◽

Emotional Events ◽

Historical Antecedents ◽

Computerized Text Analysis

Over two decades of research devoted to the writing paradigm has resulted in substantial findings that translating emotional events into words leads to profound social, psychological, and neural changes. How and why would constructing stories about important personal events be so beneficial? The chapter describes the writing paradigm used in this research, offering an overview of the research findings and examination of its historical antecedents. While the precise mechanisms through which a narrative heals are still unrealized, we review three underlying processes that might explain its power: emotional inhibition, cognitive processes, and linguistic processes that echo changes in social orientation. Most recently, advances in computerized text analysis, in addition to the rapid development of the Internet, have afforded a new lens on the psychological transformations achieved through the writing paradigm. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) is one such computerized text analysis program that captures style and content words. Originally created to better understand the language of emotional upheaval and recovery, with a focus on content and emotional valence, more recent research has focused on subtle stylistic differences in function words such as pronouns, articles, and prepositions. These “junk words” have proven to be reliable markers of demographics, biological activity, depression, life stressors, deception, and status. The chapter briefly reviews recent LIWC-based research regarding the often-overlooked stylistic components of sharing one's story.

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Toward a Quantitative Approach to the Specialness of Poetry: Taking Chang Hen Ge and Chang Hen Ge Zhuan as a Case Study

SAGE Open ◽

10.1177/21582440211029944 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (3) ◽

pp. 215824402110299

Author(s):

Cong Zhang ◽

Rui Yuan

Keyword(s):

Empirical Evidence ◽

Quantitative Methods ◽

Great Influence ◽

Quantitative Approach ◽

Linguistic Features ◽

Function Words ◽

New Perspective

The differences of linguistic features between Chang Hen Ge ( Ge) and Chang Hen Ge Zhuan ( Zhuan) have rarely been mentioned in the relevant fields. Nevertheless, these differences can best highlight the specialness of poetry, for the two works were written contemporaneously by two friends on the same subject, in distinct styles. This article employs quantitative methods and indicators to provide empirical evidence for the specialness of Ge through comparisons between the two. The results show that, on the premise of expressing the same subject in different styles, Ge does have certain linguistic characteristics compared with Zhuan. Its particularity is reflected not only in fewer repeat characters and words but also in their richness, as well as in the use of more content words and fewer function words. Moreover, all of these characteristics have had a great influence on Ge’s artistic level and dissemination. Through this study, we hope that our methods provide a new perspective and shed some light on this area.

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Lexical decision after left, right and bilateral presentation of function words, content words and non-words: Evidence for interhemispheric interaction

Neuropsychologia ◽

10.1016/0028-3932(94)90073-6 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 32 (1) ◽

pp. 105-124 ◽

Cited By ~ 165

Author(s):

Bettina Mohr ◽

Freidemann Pulvermüller ◽

Eran Zaidel

Keyword(s):

Lexical Decision ◽

Interhemispheric Interaction ◽

Function Words ◽

Bilateral Presentation

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A broadened estimate of syntactic and lexical ability from the MB-CDI

Journal of Child Language ◽

10.1017/s0305000921000283 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-18

Author(s):

Trevor K.M. DAY ◽

Jed T. ELISON

Keyword(s):

Significant Proportion ◽

Critical Question ◽

Function Words ◽

Subsequent Investigation ◽

Factor Analytic ◽

Closed Class ◽

Communicative Development ◽

Age Related ◽

Syntactic Development ◽

Age Related Changes

Abstract A critical question in the study of language development is to understand lexical and syntactic acquisition, which play different roles in speech to the extent it would be natural to surmise they are acquired differently. As measured through the comprehension and production of closed-class words, syntactic ability emerges at roughly the 400-word mark. However, a significant proportion of the developmental work uses a coarse combination of function and content words on the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (MB-CDI). Using the MB-CDI Wordbank database, we implemented a factor analytic approach to distinguish between lexical and syntactic development from the Words and Sentences (WS) form that involves both function words and the explicit categorizations. Although the Words and Gestures (WG) form did not share the factor structure, common WG/WS elements recapitulate the expected age-related changes. This parsing of the MB-CDI may prove simple, yet fruitful in subsequent investigation.

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Metalinguistic awareness in young deaf children: A preliminary study

Applied Psycholinguistics ◽

10.1017/s0142716400009772 ◽

1981 ◽

Vol 2 (4) ◽

pp. 333-352 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Judith M. Zorfass

Keyword(s):

Developmental Pattern ◽

Deaf Children ◽

Metalinguistic Awareness ◽

Function Words ◽

Or Groups ◽

Class 1 ◽

Entire Sentence ◽

Preliminary Study ◽

Inflectional Morphemes ◽

Prelingually Deaf

ABSTRACTThis study explores the metalinguistic abilities of prelingually deaf children aged 4–7, who are users of Signed English, with regard to their explicit segmentation of Signed English sentences into words. Subjects exhibited varying metalinguistic abilities that generally increased with age and that were similar to the developmental pattern found in hearing populations. Based upon performance with respect to four factors (i.e., explicit segmentation, omissions of function words, content words, and inflectional morphemes), subjects were grouped into four classes. In Class 1, sentences or groups of words were not segmented. in Class 2, major constituents of the sentences were segmented. In Class 3, major constituents and some function words were segmented. In Class 4, the entire sentence was segmented. Patterns of omissions found throughout the classes for function words and inflectional morphemes are discussed. Also addressed are implicit segmentation skills found to develop prior to the development of explicit abilities.

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