scholarly journals Shared information structure: Evidence from cross-linguistic priming

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 568-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
ZUZANNA FLEISCHER ◽  
MARTIN J. PICKERING ◽  
JANET F. MCLEAN
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Shared Information ◽  
Passive Sentence ◽  
Share Information ◽  
Active Sentence

This study asked whether bilinguals construct a language-independent level of information structure for the sentences that they produce. It reports an experiment in which a Polish–English bilingual and a confederate of the experimenter took turns to describe pictures to each other and to find those pictures in an array. The confederate produced a Polish active, passive, or conjoined noun phrase, or an active sentence with object–verb–subject order (OVS sentence). The participant responded in English, and tended to produce a passive sentence more often after a passive or an OVS sentence than after a conjoined noun phrase or active sentence. Passives and OVS sentences are syntactically unrelated but share information structure, in that both assign emphasis to the patient. We therefore argued that bilinguals construct a language-independent level of information structure during speech.

Pragmatics for Latin

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. M. Devine ◽  
Laurence D. Stephens
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Informational Content ◽  
Compositional Process ◽  
Association With Focus ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Order Language ◽  
Free Word

Latin is often described as a free word order language, but in general each word order encodes a particular information structure: in that sense, each word order has a different meaning. This book provides a descriptive analysis of Latin information structure based on detailed philological evidence and elaborates a syntax-pragmatics interface that formalizes the informational content of the various different word orders. The book covers a wide ranges of issues including broad scope focus, narrow scope focus, double focus, topicalization, tails, focus alternates, association with focus, scrambling, informational structure inside the noun phrase and hyperbaton (discontinuous constituency). Using a slightly adjusted version of the structured meanings theory, the book shows how the pragmatic meanings matching the different word orders arise naturally and spontaneously out of the compositional process as an integral part of a single semantic derivation covering denotational and informational meaning at one and the same time.

Syntactic and Phonological Influences on Children’s Articulation

1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 841-848 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Panagos ◽  
Mary Ellen Quine ◽  
Richard J. Klich
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Structural Complexity ◽  
Declarative Sentence ◽  
Word Structure ◽  
Phonological Structure ◽  
Phonological Deficits ◽  
Word Position ◽  
Structural Variables ◽  
Passive Sentence

The effects of syntactic and phonological structure on the consonant articulations of children with phonological deficits were investigated. Three structural variables were studied: syntactic structure (noun phrase, declarative sentence and passive sentence), word structure (monosyllable and disyllable) and word position (initial and final). Syntactic structure and word structure significantly affected the accuracy of articulation and the degree of word simplification. Structural complexity may contribute to overall hierarchial complexity, in turn causing children to simplify their speech.

Rheme before theme in the noun phrase

2008 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 894-915
Author(s):  
Carlotta Viti
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
New Information ◽  
Prague School

Information structure in the noun phrase remains unexplored or limited to the study of the s-form and the of-form in English, which are interpreted from the perspective of the Prague School. Accordingly, the prenominal s-form is chosen if the possessor expresses old information; conversely, if the possessor expresses new information, the postnominal of-form is preferred. Ancient Greek, however, indicates that this is not the sole pattern attested. In our data, drawn from Herodotus, a postposed genitive refers to the topic of the immediately preceding clauses, and has no semantically compatible referent around it. Preposed genitives denote new or discontinuous participants, and are used in contrastive and emphatic contexts. In this case, the principle “rheme before theme” can be identified.

A Normative Framework for Sharing Information Online

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Sullivan ◽  
Mark Alfano
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Normative Framework ◽  
Current State ◽  
Shared Information ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Share Information

People have always shared information through chains and networks of testimony. It is arguably part of what makes us human and enables us to live in cooperative communities with populations greater than 150 or so. The invention of the internet and the rise of social media have turbocharged our ability to share information. This chapter develops a normative epistemic framework for sharing information online. This framework takes into account both ethical and epistemic considerations that are intertwined in typical cases of online testimony. The authors argue that, while the current state of affairs is not entirely novel, recent technological developments call for a rethinking of the norms of testimony, as well as the articulation of a set of virtuous dispositions that people would do well to cultivate in their capacity as conduits (not just sources or receivers) of information.

scholarly journals Context-Aware Community Construction in Proximity-Based Mobile Networks

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Na Yu ◽  
Qi Han
Keyword(s):  
Social Networking ◽  
Mobile Devices ◽  
Mobile Networks ◽  
Context Aware ◽  
Two Phase ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Shared Information ◽  
Influence Graph ◽  
Social Applications ◽  
Share Information

Sensor-equipped mobile devices have allowed users to participate in various social networking services. We focus on proximity-based mobile social networking environments where users can share information obtained from different places via their mobile devices when they are in proximity. Since people are more likely to share information if they can benefit from the sharing or if they think the information is of interest to others, there might exist community structures where users who share information more often are grouped together. Communities in proximity-based mobile networks represent social groups where connections are built when people are in proximity. We consider information influence (i.e., specify who shares information with whom) as the connection and the space and time related to the shared information as the contexts. To model the potential information influences, we construct an influence graph by integrating the space and time contexts into the proximity-based contacts of mobile users. Further, we propose a two-phase strategy to detect and track context-aware communities based on the influence graph and show how the context-aware community structure improves the performance of two types of mobile social applications.

scholarly journals Agrammatic Comprehension of Simple Active Sentences With Moved Constituents

2003 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 288-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naama Friedmann ◽  
Lewis P. Shapiro
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Movement Strategy ◽  
Conduction Aphasia ◽  
Basic Order ◽  
Active Sentence

This study examines agrammatic comprehension of object-subject-verb (OSV) and object-verb-subject (OVS) structures in Hebrew. These structures are syntactically identical to the basic order subject-verb-object (SVO) sentence except for the movement of the object to the beginning of the sentence, and thus enable empirical examination of syntactic movement in agrammatic comprehension. Seven individuals with agrammatism, 7 individuals with conduction aphasia, and 7 individuals without language impairment, all native speakers of Hebrew, performed a sentence-picture matching task. The task compared OSV and OVS sentences to SVO sentences and to subject and object relatives. Individuals with agrammatism performed more poorly than those in either of the other groups. Their comprehension of SVO sentences was significantly above chance, but comprehension of OSV and OVS sentences was at chance and was poorer than comprehension of SVO sentences. These results show that agrammatic comprehension of structures that involve movement of a noun phrase is impaired even when the structure is a simple active sentence, in line with the Trace Deletion Hypothesis (TDH; Y. Grodzinsky, 1990, 1995a, 2000). A modification is suggested to accommodate the TDH with the VP Internal Subject Hypothesis, according to which individuals with agrammatism use an "Avoid Movement" strategy in comprehension.

Agent demotion through inverted word order

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 1015-1037 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell Barlow
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Active Agent ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Verbal Morphology ◽  
Passive Construction ◽  
Constituent Order ◽  
Passive Sentence ◽  
Basic Constituent ◽  
Active Sentence

Abstract Passivization has been characterized as a strictly morphological phenomenon. Some definitions of passivization even require the passive construction to exhibit special verbal morphology. Increasingly, however, there have been descriptions of languages that have “morphology-free” passive constructions. This paper presents data from Ulwa, a Papuan language of the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea, which forms its passive constructions through a syntactic operation. Specifically, passives are formed through the inversion of subject and predicate. Whereas the canonical transitive active sentence in Ulwa has the basic constituent order SOV, the corresponding passive sentence has the order VS, where the S of the passive corresponds to the O of the active. Agent arguments are optional; when they do appear in passive constructions, they are marked as obliques. The Ulwa data support claims that it is possible for passivization to be a syntactic phenomenon that operates on the level of the clause.

Information Structure, Discourse Structure, and Noun Phrase Position in Kiowa

2012 ◽  
Vol 78 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-126
Author(s):  
Daniel Harbour ◽  
Laurel J. Watkins ◽  
David Adger
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Discourse Structure

scholarly journals Locative Inversion as an Alternation Phenomenon in Setswana: The Case of Lexical Functional Grammar Theory

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Setumile Morapedi
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Functional Grammar ◽  
Structure Approach ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Lexical Functional Grammar ◽  
New Information ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Locative Inversion

The paper has examined locative inversion constructions in Setswana, showing that the pre-posed locative phrase in these constructions is not the subject as it is viewed by other linguists in the literature. It has been argued, in this paper, that locative phrase occurs in the sentence initial position to perform the topic function which sets the scene for the focused noun phrase that alternates with it (locative phrase). The analysis has been achieved through information structure approach, showing the locative phrase that occurs in sentence initial position is a discourse phenomenon showing given information, and that the focused post-verbal noun phrase is new information that is emphasised on. Also, an appeal is made to Lexical Functional Grammar Approach to explain different ways of representing syntactic structures such as constituent structure and the functional structure.

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