The Return of Constructions

1998 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 431-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL TOMASELLO
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Middle Level ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
Sentence Level ◽  
Generative Lexicon ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Open Class ◽  
Level Of Analysis ◽  
Category Principle

Review essay on: Goldberg, A. Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure. University of Chicago Press (1995). Pp. xi+265.The cornerstone of traditional descriptive grammars is the construction: a recurrent pattern of linguistic elements that serves some well-defined communicative function. Prototypical constructions are sentence-level patterns such as, in English: the imperative, the ditransitive, the passive, the resultative, the yes–no question, and the cleft (each of which may have some subtypes). Also included in some theorists' definition of construction are components of sentences such as the prepositional phrase, the noun phrase, or the genitive noun phrase. Traditional constructions may have some specific words or morphemes associated with them (e.g. by in the full passive, 's in the genitive), but these are generally closed-class morphemes. Almost by definition, traditional constructions are relatively abstract patterns that apply across whole classes of open-class morphemes.One of the defining features of modern-day generative grammar is the absence of constructions. Chomsky (1981) hypothesized that grammatical structure comprises two primary levels: the level of principles and parameters, which is much more abstract than constructions and includes everything from the subjacency constraint to the empty category principle, and the level of the lexicon, which includes all of the concrete morphemes and words of a particular language. In this view, constructions represent a ‘middle level’ of analysis that is, in effect, an epiphenomenon resulting from the interaction of the two primary levels. One outcome of this theoretical move has been that generative linguists concerned with construction-level phenomena have had to fill the generative lexicon with ever richer types of linguistic information, especially for verbs (e.g. Bresnan, 1982; Jackendoff, 1990; Levin, 1995; Pinker, 1989).

scholarly journals Sentence first, arguments after: Mechanisms of morphosyntax acquisition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi Getz
Keyword(s):  
Distributional Analysis ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Syntactic Theory ◽  
Closed Class ◽  
Linguistic Representations ◽  
Small Set ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
The One ◽  
Open Class

Natural languages contain complex grammatical patterns. For example, in German, finite verbs occur second in main clauses while non-finite verbs occur last, as in 'dein Bruder möchte in den Zoo gehen' (“Your brother wants to go to the zoo”). Children easily acquire this type of morphosyntactic contingency (Poeppel & Wexler, 1993; Deprez & Pierce, 1994). There is extensive debate in the literature over the nature of children’s linguistic representations, but there are considerably fewer mechanistic ideas about how knowledge is actually acquired. Regarding German, one approach might be to learn the position of prosodically prominent open-class words (“verbs go 2nd or last”) and then fill in the morphological details. Alternatively, one could work in the opposite direction, learning the position of closed-class morphemes (“-te goes 2nd and -en goes last”) and fitting open-class items into the resulting structure. This second approach is counter-intuitive, but I will argue that it is the one learners take.Previous research suggests that learners focus distributional analysis on closed-class items because of their distinctive perceptual properties (Braine, 1963; Morgan, Meier, & Newport, 1987; Shi, Werker & Morgan, 1999; Valian & Coulson, 1988). The Anchoring Hypothesis (Valian & Coulson, 1988) posits that, because these items tend to occur at grammatically important points in the sentence (e.g., phrase edges), focusing on them helps learners acquire grammatical structure. Here I ask how learners use closed-class items to acquire complex morphosyntactic patterns such as the verb form/position contingency in German. Experiments 1-4 refute concerns that morphosyntactic contingencies like those in German are too complex to learn distributionally. Experiments 5-8 explore the mechanisms underlying learning, showing that adults and children analyze closed-class items as predictive of the presence and position of open-class items, but not the reverse. In these experiments, subtle mathematical distinctions in learners’ input had significant effects on learning, illuminating the biased computations underlying anchored distributional analysis. Taken together, results suggest that learners organize knowledge of language patterns relative to a small set of closed-class items—just as patterns are represented in modern syntactic theory (Rizzi & Cinque, 2016).

scholarly journals Measuring innovation: A state of the science review of existing approaches

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Ter Haar
Keyword(s):  
Work Team ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Process Indicators ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
State Of The Science ◽  
Structured Approach ◽  
Level Of Analysis

Purpose: The level of innovation is essential for a company’s or country’s competitive advantage and the ways to measure innovation are manifold. The review aims to give an overview over the continuously growing body on approaches to measure innovation.Design/methodology/approach: A new definition of innovation measuring is proposed. Based on this definition a structured approach for researching the literature was applied. A selection of 30 advances is discussed and a 4-level-of-analysis-framework is applied to review the broad research on measuring innovation on individual, work team, company and country level.Findings: The narrative review shows that specific measuring frameworks exists for each level of analysis. Output oriented indicators can be found on all levels, they are complemented by potential enablers on country level, process indicators on company and project level and behavioural indicators on individual level. Approaches specifically focussing on work teams could not be found.Research limitations/implications: Further research is needed on specific advances on measuring innovation on work-team level.Practical implications: By discussing key characteristics of the reviewed studies, the analysis will help decision makers to choose a fitting approach and support researchers by identifying open fields of research. It is recommended to research on advances to measure innovation on work team level to close the existing gap.Originality/value: While influences on innovation are extensively discussed a comprehensive overview over the approaches to identify the effects of modifying these influences is missing. This paper intends to closes this gap.

KAJIAN SINTAKSIS DALAM PENGGUNAAN FRASA DI JEJARING SOSIAL FACEBOOK

Buana Bastra ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-23
Author(s):  
Gosita Ifantias Meisawitri ◽  
Luluk Isani Kulup
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Social Communication ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Middle Level ◽  
Arbitrary System ◽  
Verb Phrase ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Data Source

Every human being would socialize with other humans. Humans interact by using a tool called language. Language itself is often inerpreted as arbitrary system sounds symbol, languageis universal, that language has meaning or has intention to nonvey something. Language as a meansof social communication can be illustrated in the social network facebook. The phrase is notpredicative and does not have verb and phrases are groups of words. The phrase can be dividedinto phrases and phrases eksosentrik and endosentrik. The use of the phrase alone is consideredless sufficiet when used to make facebook social media users use the appropriate phrase. Facebookuser community consists of some society levels, the top level society, middle level society andbottom level society. Many Facebook users do not care about it because each of them has a styleand language in their own words. No exception educated people, for example, teachers also use alot of slang phrase because era development factors which one of them is language. This studyused a qualitative approach because the research aimed to explain itself and to describe errors ofphrase using that appear in the facebook social media. This research data was screenshot of thestatus sentences .The data source was facebook. Based on the findings of the data and data analysis,it is found some the use of noun phrase, verb phrase, the adjecive phrase, numeralia phrases andprepositional phrase as its function in facebook. According to Samsuri, There are five kinds ofphrases: (1) noun phrase, (2) verb phrase, (3) the adjective phrase, (4) the numeralia phrase, and(5) prepositional phrase. Thus, it can be concluded that there are some the use of phrase thatappears in the status which is written by facebook users.  

Word Order and Agreement in Tagoi

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-174
Author(s):  
Suzan Alamin
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Class System ◽  
Order Types ◽  
Sentence Level ◽  
Constituent Order ◽  
Noun Class ◽  
South Kordofan

Abstract This study provides a detailed description of word order types, agreement patterns and alternations found in Tagoi, a Kordofanian language traditionally spoken in South Kordofan. After a brief presentation of the language (section 1), the noun class system is introduced (section 2) and the word order and agreement patterns are examined at the noun phrase level (section 3). Section 4 gives information about the constituent order at clause and sentence level, while Section 5 summarizes the findings and conclusion of the paper. All in all, the paper aims at contributing to a better understanding of the grammar, structure and typological features of Tagoi.

Genericity in third language English: Acquisition pattern and transfer in ultimate attainment

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 266-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdelkader Hermas
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
First Language ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
L1 Transfer ◽  
Third Language ◽  
Bare Plurals ◽  
Existential Interpretation ◽  
Sentence Level ◽  
Ultimate Attainment ◽  
Acceptability Judgment

This study investigates the acquisition of genericity in advanced third language (L3) English. The learners are first language (L1) Moroccan Arabic–second language (L2) French adults. They completed an acceptability judgment task testing the interpretation of five count nominal types in noun phrase (NP)-level and sentence-level genericity: definite, indefinite and bare singulars, definite and bare plurals. The study defines the generic or non-generic status of every NP form in the learners’ L3 interlanguage. The results show that the L3 learners are target-like on the generic interpretation of bare plurals, although these are strictly existential in their native language and illicit in L2 French. Definite and bare singulars do not pose any difficulty either. In contrast, non-facilitative L1 transfer induces the generic interpretation of definite plurals and restricts indefinite singulars to the existential interpretation. The results show that the L3 learners do not distinguish NP-level from sentence-level genericity, reflecting L1 Arabic grammar where the two merge. They use the same pattern of NP types for the two types. Thus, knowledge of genericity in L3 English is a patchwork of target-like and non-target-like exponents.

scholarly journals Translation and the Dialectics of Difference and Equivalence: Some Theoretical Propositions for a Redefinition of the Source-Target Text Relation

2002 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lieven Tack
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Communication Theory ◽  
Sufficient Conditions ◽  
General Question ◽  
Source Text ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient ◽  
Level Of Analysis

Abstract At which level of analysis (descriptivist, empirical, epistemological), and along which perspective (sociological, linguistical, communicative), should we locate the distinctive criteria for the definition of translation? In other words, what are the necessary and sufficient conditions which constitute the object « translation,» exclusively this object and not any other object? This is the general question of this article. It will be developped in two steps. First, we shall try to demonstrate that the perspective adopted by translatology, in defining translation by its semantical and fonctional equivalence relation with a source text, is congenetically determined by the discursive exclusion of the theorisation of that which is the very condition of possibility of each translation: the disrupture and distancing by which humans structure their social relation. Consequently, it is by the critique of communication theory, where a large part of translatology has drawn its scientific foundations, that we can deliver sound arguments for the assessing of translation in the structure of social relations. A second step consists in the formulation of a working hypothesis: if translation may be caused by the social dialectics of distancing and negociation of meaning, it is not sufficiently specified by this logic. It could be hypothesized that translation finds its specificity in the hybridity of the linguistic referential relation it instaures with the mute universe to be conceptualized on the one hand, and with the source text to be reformulated on the other.

Gender Agreement as a "Decreolizing" Feature of an Afro-Brazilian Dialect

1997 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan N. Baxter ◽  
Dante Lucchesi ◽  
Maximiliano Guimaraes
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Gender Agreement ◽  
Structural Variables ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
L1 Acquisition ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Afro Brazilian

This paper examines variation in the noun phrase gender agreement rule in the Afro-Brazilian Portuguese dialect of Helvétia. The analysis of the variation proceeds within a quantitative framework; it considers structural implications, in generative terms, and sociolinguistic aspects, yielding evidence relevant to the definition of the postcreole nature of the dialect. Structural parallels are found with Portuguese L1 acquisition and with varieties of creole Portuguese, and the relationship of the Helvétia dialect to more standard varieties of Brazilian Portuguese is clarified. An evaluation of structural variables reveals how the gender agreement rule is being incorporated into the grammar of the dialect at different rates along different structural paths and in different pragmatic functions, reflecting intricacies of the grammar associated with the noun. Finally, a scrutiny of the effect of extralinguistic variables on gender agreement clearly reveals the acquisitional nature of the variation.

The influence of community on language structure

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irit Meir ◽  
Assaf Israel ◽  
Wendy Sandler ◽  
Carol A. Padden ◽  
Mark Aronoff
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Social Factor ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Cultural Artifact ◽  
Language Structure ◽  
Single Argument ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Brain

By comparing two sign languages of approximately the same age but which arose and developed under different social circumstances, we are able to identify possible relationships between social factors and language structure. We argue that two structural properties of these languages are related to the size and the heterogeneity versus homogeneity of their respective communities: use of space in grammatical structure and degree of lexical and sublexical variability. A third characteristic, the tendency toward single-argument clauses appears to be a function of a different social factor: language age. Our study supports the view that language is not just a structure in the brain, nor is it strictly the domain of the individual. It is very much a socio-cultural artifact. Keywords: community and language structure; sign languages; ISL; ABSL; variation; space; argument structure

Blackfoot causative formation between lexicon and grammar

Linguistics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Inge Genee
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Morphological Type ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Lexical Unit ◽  
Causative Constructions ◽  
Discourse Grammar ◽  
Synthetic Construction ◽  
Causative Construction ◽  
Semantic Properties

AbstractThis article considers the treatment of causatives in Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG) in relation to questions regarding the division of labor between the Grammar and the Lexicon in Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG). The focus is on causative constructions in which the causativizer affixes to the verb in so-called polysynthetic languages. In this respect the article also contributes to the treatment of polysynthesis in FDG. The central question is whether the causative construction is a derived lexeme created in the lexicon and inserted into the grammatical structure as a single lexical unit, or whether it is created in the grammar as a synthetic construction involving two lexical units. The article describes the pertinent morphosyntactic and semantic properties of causative constructions in Blackfoot, a polysynthetic language belonging to the Algonquian language family. I show that such constructions contain two events, each with their own semantic properties including argument structure and modifiability. In FDG this is accounted for by analyzing the semantic configuration at the Representational Level of analysis as a complex Episode consisting of two States-of-Affairs, while analyzing the morphosyntactic configuration at the Morphosyntactic Level as a complex verbal Word containing two verbal Roots, one of which is the causativizer. The causativizer is analyzed as an independent verbal lexeme stored in the lexicon rather than as derivational morpheme. This analysis follows logically from the way in which FDG conceptualizes polysynthesis, namely as a morphological type which allows the presence of more than one lexical element within a single word.

scholarly journals Manual Versus Automated Narrative Analysis of Agrammatic Production Patterns: The Northwestern Narrative Language Analysis and Computerized Language Analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 373-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chien-Ju Hsu ◽  
Cynthia K. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Coding Systems ◽  
Language Analysis ◽  
Sentence Level ◽  
Agrammatic Aphasia ◽  
Verb Argument Structure ◽  
Assessment And Treatment ◽  
Healthy Control ◽  
Narrative Language

Purpose The purpose of this study is to compare the outcomes of the manually coded Northwestern Narrative Language Analysis (NNLA) system, which was developed for characterizing agrammatic production patterns, and the automated Computerized Language Analysis (CLAN) system, which has recently been adopted to analyze speech samples of individuals with aphasia (a) for reliability purposes to ascertain whether they yield similar results and (b) to evaluate CLAN for its ability to automatically identify language variables important for detailing agrammatic production patterns. Method The same set of Cinderella narrative samples from 8 participants with a clinical diagnosis of agrammatic aphasia and 10 cognitively healthy control participants were transcribed and coded using NNLA and CLAN. Both coding systems were utilized to quantify and characterize speech production patterns across several microsyntactic levels: utterance, sentence, lexical, morphological, and verb argument structure levels. Agreement between the 2 coding systems was computed for variables coded by both. Results Comparison of the 2 systems revealed high agreement for most, but not all, lexical-level and morphological-level variables. However, NNLA elucidated utterance-level, sentence-level, and verb argument structure–level impairments, important for assessment and treatment of agrammatism, which are not automatically coded by CLAN. Conclusions CLAN automatically and reliably codes most lexical and morphological variables but does not automatically quantify variables important for detailing production deficits in agrammatic aphasia, although conventions for manually coding some of these variables in Codes for the Human Analysis of Transcripts are possible. Suggestions for combining automated programs and manual coding to capture these variables or revising CLAN to automate coding of these variables are discussed.

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