scholarly journals Definite-indefinite article choice development in Dutch child language

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 93-109
Author(s):  
Darlene Keydeniers ◽  
Jeanne Eliazer ◽  
Jeannette Schaeffer

Abstract Many acquisition studies indicate that across languages, children overgenerate definite articles in indefinite contexts. However, proportions and ages at which children make this error vary, and so do theoretical accounts. Attempting to resolve some of the mixed results, we combined the methods of two different studies (Schaeffer & Matthewson 2005 (SM) and van Hout, Harrigan & de Villiers 2010 (HHV)) and administered them to one group of 82 Dutch-acquiring children aged 2–9 and adult controls (N = 23).1 The results show that definite article overuse takes place in (a) only the youngest age group (2;1–3;7) in the relevant SM indefinite condition, (b) only the two oldest child groups (6;0–9;4) in the HHV indefinite condition, and (c) adults score at ceiling in the SM conditions, while only around 70% correct in the HHV conditions. We argue that (a) the indefinite conditions of the two article choice experiments test different types of knowledge, and therefore their results cannot be compared, (b) the HHV task has more methodological drawbacks than the SM task, rendering its results difficult to interpret, and (c) the results provide less evidence for HHV’s unranked-constraint hypothesis than for SM’s lack-of-Concept-of-Non-Shared-Assumptions hypothesis.

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 223-237
Author(s):  
Maxim Kupreyev

The first appearance of the emphatic demonstratives pA/tA/nA in northern Egyptian letters of the 6th Dynasty and their absence from southern Egyptian sources indicates the growing difference between the language variants spoken in these broadly defined regions. Originating from the Old Egyptian pronominal stems p-/t-/n-, the use of these new demonstratives expands rapidly during the Middle Kingdom. In their weak form as definite articles, they indicate that a noun is knownin discourse and thus signal a hitherto hidden grammatical category – definiteness. Once the definite article is grammaticalised and starts to be used with a priori definite nouns such as pA nTr wa ‘the sole god’ or pA HqA ‘the ruler’ (18th Dynasty), the indefinite article appears. The further development in Demotic and Coptic shows that the article was on the way to becoming a noun marker. When attached to a relative phrase, it created a new noun, which could be further determined (xenpetnanouf ‘some good deeds’, ppetouaab ‘the saint’). The following article traces the regional origins of the definite article as well as the main principles governing their development.


Verbum ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Ovidiu Ivancu

All Romance languages have developed the definite and the indefinite article via the Vulgar Latin (Classical Latin did not use articles), the language of the Roman colonists. According to Joseph H. Greenberg (1978), the definite article predated the indefinite one by approximately two centuries, being developed from demonstratives through a complex process of grammaticalization. Many areas of nowadays` Romania were incorporated into the Roman Empire for about 170 years. After two military campaign, the Roman emperor Trajan conquered Dacia, east of Danube.The Romans imposed their own administration and inforced Latin as lingua franca.The language of the colonists, mixed with the native language and, later on, with various languages spoken by the many migrant populations that followed the Roman retreat resulted in a new language (Romanian), of Latin origins. The Romanian language, attested in the 16th Century, in documents written by foreign travellers, uses four different types of articles. Being a highly inflected language, Romanian changes the form of the articles according to the gender, the number and the case of the noun As compared to the other Romance languages, Romanian uses the definite article enclitically. Thus, the definite article and the noun constitute a single word. The present paper aims at discussing, analysing and providing an overview of the use of definite and indefinite articles. The general norm and its various exceptions are examined from a broader perspective, synchronically and diachronically. The pedagogical perspective is meant to offer a comprehensible synthesis to foreign learners.


Author(s):  
Ritu Gupta ◽  
Ravinder K Gupta ◽  
Vallabh Dogra ◽  
Himani Badyal

Objective: To study the various beliefs and problems regarding menstruation among adolescent girls living in rural border areas. Design- Prospective study. Setting- Pediatric outpatient clinic. Materials and methods- About 200 adolescent girls (11-19 years) living in rural border areas were enrolled for the study. These girls were asked about menarche, duration of the cycle, amount of blood loss and the various menstrual problems. They were also asked about the various beliefs and myths regarding menstruation. The girls having any illness affecting the menstrual cycle or those suffering from neuropsychiatric disorders were excluded from this study. Results- About 51% of the study population was in the age group 17-18 years. About 43.5% of girls attained menarche at the age of 10-12 years. About 51% of girls did not know about menstruation before menarche. Abdominal pain was the most common side effect seen in 41% of girls during menstruation. About 61% of girls considered themselves unclean during menstruation.  Twenty percent avoided schools, 20% avoided kitchen, 12% avoided temples while 10% stayed away from friends/ relatives. Only 33% of girls knew that menstruation stops temporarily after becoming pregnant. Twenty-two percent girls were using sanitary napkins while the rest used different types of clothes during the menstrual cycle. Conclusion- There is a dire need to educate girls regarding menstruation before menarche in the rural border areas. Every mother should discuss in a friendly way regarding various aspects of menstruation.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 26
Author(s):  
Zaidan Ali Jassem

This paper traces the Arabic origins or cognates of the “definite articles” in English and Indo-European languages from a radical linguistic (or lexical root) theory perspective. The data comprises the definite articles in English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, Latin, Greek, Macedonian, Russian, Polish, Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, Persian, and Arabic. The results clearly indicate that five different types of such articles emerged in the data, all of which have true Arabic cognates with the same or similar forms and meanings, whose differences are due to natural and plausible causes and different routes of linguistic change, especially lexical, semantic, or morphological shift. Therefore, the results support the adequacy of the radical linguistic theory according to which, unlike the Family Tree Model or Comparative Method, Arabic, English, German, French, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit not only belong to the same language family, renamed Eurabian or Urban family, but also are dialects of the same language, with Arabic being their origin all because only it shares the whole cognates with them all and because it has a huge phonetic, morphological, grammatical, and lexical variety. They also manifest fundamental flaws and grave drawbacks which plague English and Indo-European lexicography for ignoring Arabic as an ultimate ancestor and progenitor not only in the treatment of the topic at hand but in all others in general. On a more general level, they also show that there is a radical language from which all human languages stemmed and which has been preserved almost intact in Arabic, thus being the most conservative and productive language


Land ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 424
Author(s):  
Clara-Jane Blye ◽  
Elizabeth A. Halpenny ◽  
Glen T. Hvenegaard ◽  
Dee Patriquin

This study explores how knowledge was and is mobilized to advance the objectives of the Beaver Hills Biosphere Reserve, located in Alberta, Canada. Established in 2016, a 12-year collaborative effort worked to establish the biosphere reserve and achieve formal UNESCO designation. Subsequent efforts to grow the newly established biosphere reserve have accelerated in recent years. Our study documented how different types of knowledge were accessed, created, curated, and shared between partners during these two time periods. Focus group interviews were conducted with 14 participants, who are affiliated with Beaver Hills Biosphere Reserve partner organizations, and revealed the following findings: (1) not all knowledge is equally valued or understood; (2) partnerships are highly valued, and were essential to successful knowledge mobilization, but were stronger among individuals rather than organizations; (3) fear of the loss of autonomy and potential complications due to the establishment of a biosphere reserve slowed the exchange of information and engagement by some regional actors; and (4) knowledge mobilization is and was impeded by staff and agency capacity, finances, and time scarcity. This was further complicated by entrenched norms of practice, existing successful working relationships impeding the development of new partnerships, and embracing alternative forms of knowledge.


Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matti Sarkia

AbstractThis paper analyzes three contrasting strategies for modeling intentional agency in contemporary analytic philosophy of mind and action, and draws parallels between them and similar strategies of scientific model-construction. Gricean modeling involves identifying primitive building blocks of intentional agency, and building up from such building blocks to prototypically agential behaviors. Analogical modeling is based on picking out an exemplary type of intentional agency, which is used as a model for other agential types. Theoretical modeling involves reasoning about intentional agency in terms of some domain-general framework of lawlike regularities, which involves no detailed reference to particular building blocks or exemplars of intentional agency (although it may involve coarse-grained or heuristic reference to some of them). Given the contrasting procedural approaches that they employ and the different types of knowledge that they embody, the three strategies are argued to provide mutually complementary perspectives on intentional agency.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 9813 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuta Uchiyama ◽  
Eduardo Blanco ◽  
Ryo Kohsaka

Application of biomimetics has expanded progressively to other fields in recent years, including urban and architectural design, scaling up from materials to a larger scale. Besides its contribution to design and functionality through a long evolutionary process, the philosophy of biomimetics contributes to a sustainable society at the conceptual level. The aim of this review is to shed light on trends in the application of biomimetics to architectural and urban design, in order to identify potential issues and successes resulting from implementation. In the application of biomimetics to architectural design, parts of individual “organisms”, including their form and surface structure, are frequently mimicked, whereas in urban design, on a larger scale, biomimetics is applied to mimic whole ecosystems. The overall trends of the reviewed research indicate future research necessity in the field of on biomimetic application in architectural and urban design, including Biophilia and Material. As for the scale of the applications, the urban-scale research is limited and it is a promising research which can facilitate the social implementation of biomimetics. As for facilitating methods of applications, it is instrumental to utilize different types of knowledge, such as traditional knowledge, and providing scientific clarification of functions and systems based on reviews. Thus, interdisciplinary research is required additionally to reach such goals.


2009 ◽  
Vol 73 (5) ◽  
pp. 1682-1692 ◽  
Author(s):  
X. Shi ◽  
R. Long ◽  
R. Dekett ◽  
J. Philippe

2006 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 114-125
Author(s):  
Bart Hollebrandse ◽  
Sylvia Visser
Keyword(s):  

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