Examining individual variation in learner production data: A few programmatic pointers for corpus-based analyses using the example of adverbial clause ordering

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Stefan Th. Gries ◽  
Stefanie Wulff
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
First Language ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Production Data ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Adverbial Clause ◽  
Temporal Adverbial

ABSTRACT This study examines the variable positioning of a finite adverbial subordinate clause and its main clause with the subordinate clause either preceding or following the main clause in native versus nonnative English. Specifically, we contrast causal, concessive, conditional, and temporal adverbial clauses produced by German and Chinese learners of English with those produced by native speakers. We examined 2,362 attestations from the Chinese and German subsections of the International Corpus of Learner English (Granger, Dagneaux, Meunier, & Paquot, 2009) and from the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (Granger, 1998). All instances were annotated for the ordering, the subordinate clause type, the lengths of the main and subordinate clauses, the first language of the speakers, the conjunction used, and the file it originated from (as a proxy for the speaker producing the sentence so as to be able to study individual and lexical variation). The results of a two-step regression modeling protocol suggest that learners behave most nativelike with causal clauses and struggle most with conditional and concessive clauses; in addition, learners make more non-nativelike choices when the main and subordinate clause are of about equal length.

scholarly journals On adverbial clauses in spoken Lithuanian

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Erika Jasionytė-Mikučionienė
Keyword(s):  
Spoken Language ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Private Communication ◽  
Semantic Relationship ◽  
Complex Sentence ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Pragmatic Inference ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Adverbial Clause

The aim of the paper is to investigate adverbial clauses of time, cause, condition and concession in spontaneous private communication. The study explores semantic relations between the main and subordinate clauses, grammatical features and predominant conjunctions.The data for the research was collected from the morphologically annotated Corpus of Spoken Lithuanian, namely, its sub-corpus of spontaneous private speech which is used at home, at friends’ place, or which is produced by close friends.The analysis of spontaneous private communication shows that the finite adverbial clauses of time, cause, condition and concession are related to a set of conjunctions, but other indicators such as the use of verbal categories (especially tense, aspect and mood), contextual lexical markers as well as pragmatic inference also help to determine the semantic relationship between the main and the subordinate clause.In a spoken language, temporal clauses are usually combined with the conjunctions kai, kaip ‘when’, kol ‘while’, less frequently – with kada ‘when’; causal clauses are combined with the conjunction nes ‘because; since’, less frequently – with kad and kadangi ‘because’; conditional clauses are typically combined with the conjunction jeigu ‘if’, less frequently – with jei ‘if’, concessive clauses – with the conjunction nors ‘though’. The conjunctions kai ‘when’, kol ‘while’, kadangi ‘because’, jeigu and jei ‘if’ correlate with the particle tai that is very frequent in a spoken language, while the conjunction nors ‘though’ – with the contrastive conjunction bet ‘but’.In the natural language flow, the structure of adverbial sentences is modified: other sentential and discourse units can intervene between the main and the subordinate clauses, and the adverbial conjunction moves from the initial to the medial position.Traditional Lithuanian grammars emphasise that the position of adverbial clauses is undefined: they can appear before or after the main clause. However, the analysis of spontaneous speech shows that the position of a subordinate clause is influenced by the semantic relationship between the clauses. If a subordinate clause refers to a previous action or event, then it dominates in a preposition. Besides, the position of an adverbial clause is also influenced by correlative conjunctions: the main clause with the correlative particle tai dominates in the postposition.The research also revealed that Lithuanian adverbial clauses could function at the discourse level: in dialogues, the structure of a complex sentence is broken down and subordinate adverbial clauses can acquire additional – discourse – functions. Adverbial conjunctions, in their turn, can indicate relations with a previous discourse. 

scholarly journals Aquisição da correferência pronominal catafórica no português europeu por aprendentes chineses

2017 ◽  
pp. 401-422
Author(s):  
Yi Zheng
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
First Language ◽  
European Portuguese ◽  
Syntactic Position ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
Overt Pronoun ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Main Factors ◽  
Temporal Adverbial ◽  
Matrix Subject

This paper aims to investigate how Chinese learners of European Portuguese as second language acquire backward anaphora in this language, analyzing the interpretation of overt pronoun in left-dislocated temporal adverbial adjunct. Two experiments were administered to test if the syntactic position and the proximity of antecedent are main factors to determine the interpretation by the native speakers of Portuguese and the Chinese learners, as well as if the learners are influenced by their first language. The first test illustrates that in Chinese the native speakers may fluctuate between three possible interpretations in backward anaphora structures, namely the matrix subject, matrix object and the antecedent in context. The second test demonstrates that the native speakers of European Portuguese also fluctuate between the three interpretations, while the Chinese learners do not tend to accept an antecedent in the context. The test also shows that the C1 level learners are more likely to accept the matrix subject as the antecedent of the embedded overt pronoun than the B2 level learners.

SUBORDINATE CLAUSES IN ADULTERY NOVEL

JURNAL SPHOTA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-10
Author(s):  
Wahyu Nugraha ◽  
I Komang Sulatra ◽  
Purwati
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Library Research ◽  
Complement Clause ◽  
English Syntax ◽  
Adverbial Clause ◽  
Dependent Clause

A subordinate clause (dependent clause) is a clause that cannot stand alone as a complete sentence because it does not express a complete thought. It explains and gives more information to the main clause. There are three major types of subordinate clause such as: Complement Clause, Relative Clause, and Adverbial Clause (Miller, 2002:63). This research is a library research that aims to find out types and functions of subordinate clause found in Adultery. This research uses several theories from expert in other to analyze the problems in this study. The book written by Jim Miller (2002) entitled An Introduction to English Syntax and the book written by Bas Aarts (2001) entitled English Syntax and Argumentation, Second Edition are used. It is stated that there are three major types of subordinate clause that can be recognized as Complement clause, Relative clause, and Adverbial Clause. Then, the clause functions such as Clauses Functioning as Subject, Clause Functioning as Direct Object, Clauses Functioning as Adjunct and Clauses Functioning as Complements within Phrases.  The result of this research shows that three major types of subordinate clause are found. Furthermore, the clause functions are also found as well, however only Clauses Functioning as Subject weren’t found in this research.

scholarly journals (Zeit)Befindlichkeit und partieller Gleichlauf in der Sprache. Eine Untersuchung zum Deutschen

2019 ◽  
pp. 227-239
Author(s):  
Mariola Wierzbicka
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
German Language ◽  
Prepositional Phrases ◽  
Absolute Necessity ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Adverbial Clause ◽  
Temporal Adverbial

The paper discusses ways of expressing the temporal relations of partial simultaneity in adverbial clauses in the German language. Although the relations can be expressed by participle phrases, noun phrases, prepositional phrases and infinitive phrases, the adverbial clause is the most frequent means of expressing the relations. The temporal adverbial clause has an almost unlimited range of applications, which stretches from vaguely hinted relation to absolute necessity, and from general statements and clarifications to definite emotionally motivated utterances. Wherever there is an obvious connection between facts, events, actions, relations as well as personal will and feeling, it can be expressed by means of a temporal structure. The subject of the paper is the influence of conjunctions während, als, wenn, seit(dem) and solange on the time arrangement of situations introduced into the time clause and the main clause with regard to morphological, syntactic and semantic elements and dependence on the relation of the correspondence between events in the time clause and events in the main clause in German.

scholarly journals Penanda Klausa Adverbial Dalam Bahasa Angkola

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 127
Author(s):  
Melani Rahmi Siagian ◽  
Mulyadi Mulyadi
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Temporal Clauses ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Data Collections ◽  
Adverbial Clause ◽  
Written Sources ◽  
Descriptive Qualitative

An adverbial clause is a subordinate clause that serves to provide information on the main clause. The presence of an adverbial clause is not a must, but it can help create coherence in a discourse. This study aims to describe the markers of adverbial clauses in Angkola language. The method used is descriptive qualitative markers. Data collections are conducted by speaking, listening, and taking notes. The data in this study are adverbial clauses in Angkola language obtained from native Angkola speakers and also written sources obtained from Angkola language books. Data analysis was carried out by matching the data with the theory contained in the study, namely adverbial clause markers in Angkola language sentences. The results showed that there were five types of adverbial clauses in Angkola language, namely temporal clauses marked by the word dung 'after' and dompak 'when', conditional clauses marked by the word molo 'if', causal clauses (causal clause) which is marked by the word harana 'because', the purpose clause (purposal clause) which is marked by the word anso 'so that/so', and the concession clause (consessive clause) which is marked by the words bope 'although' and aha pe 'what ever'. The use of adverbial clauses can be found at the initial or final position in a sentence.

Syntax from and for discourse II: More on complex sentences as meso-constructions

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beate Hampe ◽  
Stefan Th. Gries
Keyword(s):  
Multinomial Regression ◽  
Complex Sentence ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Complex Sentences ◽  
Corpus Linguistic ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Adverbial Clause ◽  
Temporal Adverbial

Abstract This paper presents a direct continuation of preceding corpus-linguistic research on complex sentence constructions with temporal adverbial clauses in a cognitive and usage-based framework (Diessel 2008; Hampe 2015). Working towards a more systematic construction-based account of complex sentences with before-, after-, until- and once-clauses in spontaneously spoken English, Hampe (2015) hypothesised that the morpho-syntactic realisations of configurations with initial adverbial clauses systematically diverge from those of configurations with final ones as a reflection of the specific functionality of each and that usage properties that are found across instantiations with a coherent functional load are retained in the schematisations creating constructions. This paper employs a multinomial regression in order to test to which extent each of eight closely related complex-sentence constructions with either initial or final before-, after-, until- and once-clauses can be predicted from the realisation of a few key morpho-syntactic properties of the respective adverbial and matrix clauses involved. The results support an analysis of complex-sentence constructions as meso-constructions that are not only specific about the subordinator and the positioning of the adverbial clause, but also retain “traces” of characteristic usage properties.

Temporal Adverbial Clause Markings In Balinese

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Ketut Artawa ◽  
Made Sri Satyawati ◽  
Shiohara Asako ◽  
Ketut Widya Purnawati
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Simple Form ◽  
Complex Form ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Semantic Function ◽  
Adverbial Clause ◽  
Temporal Adverbial

Temporal adverbial functions can be realized by a subordinate clause. This subordinate clause is called temporal adverbial clause. The temporal adverbial clause is marked by a particular word(s) according to its semantic function. Balinese has several temporal adverbial clause markers, which can be in a simple or a complex form. The simple form is one word marker, while the complex form can be a phrase. Although there is a set of semantic function classifications, but somehow, not all of those semantic functions of the temporal adverbial in Balinese are filled by an adverbial clause. This paper focuses on the markers of those temporal adverbials, which are realized by an adverbial clause. The data in this paper, which are obtained from several short stories collections in Balinese, are descriptively analyzed. The result showed that Balinese has a number of marker variations, which do not only depend on the semantic function of temporal adverbial, but also depend on the speech level of the utterance. This means that a particular semantic function may be exclusively marked by several markers.

Foregrounding of subordinate clauses by word order: Psycholinguistic evidence of the function of V>Adv (V2) word order in Danish

Linguistics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 245-273
Author(s):  
Marie Herget Christensen ◽  
Tanya Karoli Christensen ◽  
Torben Juel Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
The Other ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Clause Complex

AbstractIn modern Danish, main clauses have the word order X>Verb>Adverb (i. e., V2) whereas subordinate clauses are generally characterized by the “subordinate clause” word order Subject>Adverb>Verb. Spoken Danish has a high frequency of “main clause” word order in subordinate clauses, however, and in the article we argue that this “Main Clause Phenomena” (cf. Aelbrecht et  al. 2012) functions as a foregrounding device, signaling that the more important information of the clause complex is to be found in the subordinate clause instead of in its matrix clause.A prediction from the foregrounding hypothesis is that a subordinate clause with Verb>Adverb word order will attract more attention than a clause with Adverb>Verb word order. To test this, we conducted an experiment under the text change paradigm. 59 students each read 24 constructions twice, each containing a subordinate clause with either Verb>Adverb or Adverb>Verb word order. Half of the subordinate clauses were governed by a semifactive predicate (open to both word orders) and the other half by a semantically secondary sentence (in itself strongly favoring Verb>Adverb word order). Attention to the subordinate clause was tested by measuring how disinclined the participants were to notice change of a word in the subordinate clause when re-reading it.Results showed significantly more attention to Verb>Adverb clauses than to Adverb>Verb clauses (though only under semifactive predicates), and more attention to subordinate clauses under semantically secondary than semifactive predicates. We consider this as strongly supporting the hypothesis that Verb>Adv word order functions as a foregrounding signal in subordinate clauses.

On Expletive Negation Some Remarks With Regard to Catalan

1991 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Teresa Espinal
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Item ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Especial Reference ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Comparative Structure ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Logical Specifications

The aim of this paper is to identify which syntactic structures allow the interpretation of meaningless or expletive negation and under what conditions formal negation appears in the syntax of natural languages, with especial reference to Central Catalan. I shall describe two syntactic environments: (a) the negation which occurs at the subordinate clause of a comparative structure of inequality, and (b) the negation which occurs at the subordinate clause in the subjunctive tense-mood of certain predicates. In both structures I shall assume that there is a lexical item at the main clause which subcategorizes, among other possible complements, for a que (than, that) clause. At D-structure there is, furthermore, a NegP which is the complement of this conjunction. At the level of LF no expletive is specified, because the logical specifications of the lexical items which subcategorize for these subordinate clauses absorb the value of the negative operator.

Subordinate and interrogative clause negation in Iquito

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Negative Particle ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Grammatical Categories ◽  
Peruvian Amazonia

Abstract This paper describes a specific non-standard negation strategy in Iquito, a moribund Zaparoan language spoken in northern Peruvian Amazonia. This strategy is used in finite subordinate clauses (namely adverbial dependent clauses and relative clauses), as well as information questions, and it utilizes two negative markers: a negative particle which is also found in standard negation, and a verbal affix which does not function as a negator in any other context. Using existing typological characterizations of subordinate clause negation, we see that Iquito exhibits the following attested traits: it uses the standard negator in a different position, it also utilizes a distinct negator, and it employs more negators in the subordinate clause than in the main clause. But unlike the languages presented in the literature, Iquito utilizes these parameters simultaneously. Additionally, the position of the standard negator changes within the subordinate clause, depending on the reality status of the clause. Using Iquito as a case study, I propose a set of parameters for comparing subordinate clause and interrogative negation strategies to standard negation strategies, which include the type of negator used, its position, the overall number of negators, the potential for interaction with other grammatical categories, such as reality status, and the resulting word order of the clause. This set of parameters expands the initial typological characterizations of subordinate clause negation strategies.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document