‘Two rules are at play when it comes to none’: A corpus-based analysis of singular versus plural none

English Today ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 50-56
Author(s):  
Sugene Kim
Keyword(s):  
Academic English ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Plural Noun ◽  
Actual Use ◽  
Grammar Rules ◽  
Singular Noun ◽  
Prescriptive Grammar ◽  
Upper Level ◽  
Indefinite Pronoun ◽  
Level Student

This paper identifies discrepancies between prescriptive grammar rules concerning the number of the indefinite pronoun none and the actual use of this pronoun in modern academic English as shown in the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE) and Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers (MICUSP). Whereas prescriptive rules state that the number of none is determined by its referent or by the user's desired effect, the analyses of the MICASE and MICUSP search results suggest that, regardless of the modality of discourse, (1) the number of none with an anaphoric referent is determined by the number of its referent and (2) the principle of proximity applies without exception when none is used as part of a ‘none of + singular noun/pronoun’ phrase and applies frequently but not always when followed by an ‘of + plural noun/pronoun’ phrase.

The effect of prescriptivism on comparative markers in spoken Dutch

2013 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 89-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ferdy Hubers ◽  
Helen de Hoop
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Strong Influence ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Alternative Form ◽  
Strongly Correlated ◽  
Level Of Education ◽  
Grammar Rules ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Comparative Constructions ◽  
Prescriptive Grammar

Dutch prescriptive grammar rules dictate that the complementizer dan ‘than’ should be used in comparative constructions of inequality. This has been an issue for grammarians from the sixteenth century onwards when als ‘as’ started to be used as an alternative form in this type of context. In order to find out why and when people choose one comparative marker over the other, we examined the use of these markers in the Spoken Dutch Corpus (CGN). We found that the use of dan is overall more common than als in comparative constructions of inequality, even though from a linguistic point of view als might be favoured. The choice between als and dan turns out to be strongly correlated with the level of education. Although this factor has been assumed to be of influence for a long time, as far as we know it has never been quantitatively tested before. We conclude that the effect of the level of education we found reflects the strong influence of the prescriptive rule taught in schools, repressing the use of als in comparatives of inequality.

Canaanite Pronominal Suffixes at Byblos and elsewhere

1941 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-36
Author(s):  
A. M. Honeyman
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Similar Form ◽  
Plural Noun ◽  
The Third ◽  
Singular Noun ◽  
History Of

In the series of Phœnician inscriptions from Byblos, ranging in date from the thirteenth to the first centuries b.c., there appear words containing pronominal suffixes in forms not observed elsewhere, and on the basis of these forms deductions have been drawn as to the character of the dialect of Byblos and the history of the pronominal suffixes. Some of the peculiarities are more apparent than real. Thus in Byb. 5, 1.6, exhibits in place of the contracted form in or the secondary metanalytic suffix in the form in which is regular in other Canaanite dialects for the third plural masculine suffix after the dual-plural and other words in -ay or -ē. There are no instances of the 3 pl. attached to a singular noun, nor of the 3 f.s. suffix attached to a singular noun. The two examples of the 3 f.s. suffix to the dual-plural noun cannot be treated as forms peculiar to Byblos, for the 3 f.s. suffix to the dual-plural has not been found elsewhere in Phœnician, and in other Canaanite dialects it has a similar form. Erom the evidence considered below it must be inferred that double indication of the plural occurs in Canaanite feminine nouns from the twelfth century on.

Linguistic Markers of Stance and Genre in Upper-Level Student Writing

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Aull
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Writing Development ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Student Writing ◽  
Linguistic Markers ◽  
Writing Research ◽  
Upper Level ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Level Student

Stance is a growing focus of academic writing research and an important aspect of writing development in higher education. Research on student writing to date has explored stance across different levels, language backgrounds, and disciplines, but has rarely focused on stance features across genres. This article explores stance marker use between two important genre families in higher education—persuasive argumentative writing and analytic explanatory writing—based on corpus linguistic analysis of late undergraduate and early graduate-level writing in the Michigan Corpus of Upper-Level Student Papers (MICUSP). The specific stance markers in the study, both epistemic and textual cues, have been shown to distinguish student writing across levels; this study, then, extends the analysis to consider the comparative use of these markers across genres. The findings show two stance expectations persistent across genres as well as significant distinctions between argumentative and explanatory writing vis-à-vis stance markers that intensify and contrast. The findings thus point to important considerations for instruction, assignment design, and future research.

scholarly journals Hypercorrection as a By-product of Education

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 552-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ferdy Hubers ◽  
Thijs Trompenaars ◽  
Sebastian Collin ◽  
Kees De Schepper ◽  
Helen De Hoop
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
School Students ◽  
Educational Levels ◽  
Everyday Language ◽  
Grammar Rules ◽  
University Level ◽  
Prescriptive Grammar

AbstractPrescriptive grammar rules are taught in education, generally to ban the use of certain frequently encountered constructions in everyday language. This may lead to hypercorrection, meaning that the prescribed form in one construction is extended to another one in which it is in fact prohibited by prescriptive grammar. We discuss two such cases in Dutch: the hypercorrect use of the comparative particle dan ‘than’ in equative constructions, and the hypercorrect use of the accusative pronoun hen ‘them’ for a dative object. In two experiments, high school students of three educational levels were tested on their use of these hypercorrect forms (nexp1 = 162, nexp2 = 159). Our results indicate an overall large amount of hypercorrection across all levels of education, including pre-university level students who otherwise perform better in constructions targeted by prescriptive grammar rules. We conclude that while teaching prescriptive grammar rules to high school students seems to increase their use of correct forms in certain constructions, this comes at a cost of hypercorrection in others.

scholarly journals Lazy or Dyslexic: A Multisensory Approach to Face English Language Learning Difficulties

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Yanilis Romero
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
English Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Public High School ◽  
Academic English ◽  
Minimal Pairs ◽  
Low Achieving Students ◽  
Grammar Rules ◽  
Tenth Grade ◽  
Specific Difficulty

An investigation was conducted to help weak academic English learners in a public high school in Colombia, as they seemed to be facing a learning specific difficulty called dyslexia. A focus group of ten students from ninth and tenth grade was the beneficiaries of the design, implementation, and assessment of five multisensory activities to help students decrease their struggles while learning the foreign language (English). For the present action research, five activities were applied during two academic terms (six months) where students were taught verbs, grammar rules, question words, and minimal pairs to help them do better while reading. Outcomes showed that low academic students tend to have a better performance when teachers target multisensory activities to assist them in their learning process related to grammar within the English sessions. Color-coded activities help low achieving students to exercise and remember more easily as senses are engaged while learning, reading exercises are better approached if their workload is split into smaller quantities compare to regular learners.

scholarly journals Beyond the single course: teaching research throughout the curriculum

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-171
Author(s):  
Paula A. Mazzer ◽  
Bethany Melroe Lehrman
Keyword(s):  
Research Skills ◽  
Stem Majors ◽  
Laboratory Courses ◽  
Teaching Research ◽  
Upper Level ◽  
Level Student

Our STEM majors arrive on campus as rule followers—“Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it,” is their refrain. To break this mindset, we redesigned our suite of laboratory courses to scaffold research throughout the program. Every laboratory incorporates both discipline-specific and research-specific skills. Foundational courses introduce research skills, leading to upper level student-driven research. This model should be extensible to any curriculum and makes research an integral part of the undergraduate career.

Intensifier-Verb Collocations in Academic English by Chinese Learners Compared to Native-Speaker Students

2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 470-487
Author(s):  
Junyu Wu ◽  
Heli Tissari
Keyword(s):  
English Learners ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Academic English ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
Upper Level ◽  
Esl Learners ◽  
Chinese Learner ◽  
Chinese Esl Learners ◽  
Chinese Learners Of English

Abstract It is difficult for L2 English learners in general, and especially Chinese learners of English, to form idiomatic collocations. This article presents a comparison of the use of intensifier-verb collocations in English by native speaker students and Chinese ESL learners, paying particular attention to verbs which collocate with intensifiers. The data consisted of written production from three corpora: two of these are native English corpora: the British Academic Written English (BAWE) Corpus and Michigan Corpus of Upper-Level Student Papers (MICUSP). The third one is a recently created Chinese Learner English corpus, Ten-thousand English Compositions of Chinese Learners (TECCL). Findings suggest that Chinese learners of English produce significantly more intensifier-verb collocations than native speaker students, but that their English attests a smaller variety of intensifier-verb collocations compared with the native speakers. Moreover, Chinese learners of English use the intensifier-verb collocation types just-verb, only-verb and really-verb very frequently compared with native speaker students. As regards verb collocates, the intensifiers hardly, clearly, well, strongly and deeply collocate with semantically different verbs in native and Chinese learner English. Compared with the patterns in Chinese learner English, the intensifiers in native speaker English collocate with a more stable and restricted set of verb collocates.

‘Notice the Similarities between the Two Sets …’: Imperative Usage in a Corpus of Upper-Level Student Papers

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justine A. Neiderhiser ◽  
Patrick Kelley ◽  
Kohlee M. Kennedy ◽  
John M. Swales ◽  
Carla Vergaro
Keyword(s):  
Upper Level ◽  
Level Student
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