Innovation on screen

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Reichelt
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
American English ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Formation Processes ◽  
Character Analysis ◽  
Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Abstract This study explores marked affixation as a possible cue for characterization in scripted television dialogue. The data used here is the newly compiled TV Corpus, which encompasses over 265 million words in its North American English context. An initial corpus-based analysis quantifies the innovative use of affixes in word-formation processes across the corpus to allow for comparison with a following character analysis, which investigates how derivational word-formation supports characterization patterns within a specific series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. For this, a list of productive prefixes (e.g. de-, un-) and suffixes (e.g. -y, -ish) is used to elicit relevant contexts. The study thus combines two approaches to word-formation processes in scripted contexts. On a large scale, it shows how derivational neologisms are spread across TV dialogue and on a much smaller scale, it highlights particular instances where these neologisms are used to aid character construction.

The Yale Grammatical Diversity Project: Morphosyntactic variation in North American English

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Raffaella Zanuttini ◽  
Jim Wood ◽  
Jason Zentz ◽  
Laurence Horn
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
American English ◽  
Statistical Tests ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Social Variables ◽  
Morphosyntactic Variation ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Individual

AbstractThe Yale Grammatical Diversity Project approaches the empirical domain of North American English from the perspective of generative microcomparative syntax. In addition to eliciting judgments from speakers of particular varieties, we also conduct large-scale surveys, map the results of those surveys geographically, conduct statistical tests taking geography and other social variables into account, and look for theoretically significant linguistic correlations. In all cases, we do this with the primary goal of understanding variation between speakers at the individual level. While our goals and methodologies are informed by our theoretical perspective, we expect that our work and results will be of interest to linguists working in other frameworks and even to the public more generally. This article outlines the goals and methodologies of the project and describes in broad strokes some of the results obtained so far, as well as some of the ways we have shared our findings with others, inside and outside academia.

scholarly journals A multi-lab study of bilingual infants: Exploring the preference for infant-directed speech

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krista Byers-Heinlein ◽  
Angeline Tsui ◽  
Christina Bergmann ◽  
Alexis K. Black ◽  
Anna Brown ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Native Language ◽  
American English ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Linguistic Experience ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Matched Samples ◽  
Two Age Groups

From the earliest months of life, infants prefer listening to and learn better from infant-directed speech (IDS) than adult-directed speech (ADS). Yet, IDS differs within communities, across languages, and across cultures, both in form and in prevalence. This large-scale, multi-site study used the diversity of bilingual infant experiences to explore the impact of different types of linguistic experience on infants’ IDS preference. As part of the multi-lab ManyBabies 1 project, we compared lab-matched samples of 333 bilingual and 385 monolingual infants’ preference for North-American English IDS (cf. ManyBabies Consortium, 2020 (ManyBabies 1)), tested in 17 labs in 7 countries. Those infants were tested in two age groups: 6–9 months (the younger sample) and 12–15 months (the older sample). We found that bilingual and monolingual infants both preferred IDS to ADS, and did not differ in terms of the overall magnitude of this preference. However, amongst bilingual infants who were acquiring North-American English (NAE) as a native language, greater exposure to NAE was associated with a stronger IDS preference, extending the previous finding from ManyBabies 1 that monolinguals learning NAE as a native language showed a stronger preference than infants unexposed to NAE. Together, our findings indicate that IDS preference likely makes a similar contribution to monolingual and bilingual development, and that infants are exquisitely sensitive to the nature and frequency of different types of language input in their early environments.

scholarly journals Analyzing lexical emergence in Modern American English online

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
JACK GRIEVE ◽  
ANDREA NINI ◽  
DIANSHENG GUO
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Quantitative Method ◽  
Large Time ◽  
American English ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Formation Processes ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Semantic Classes ◽  
Word Forms

This article introduces a quantitative method for identifying newly emerging word forms in large time-stamped corpora of natural language and then describes an analysis of lexical emergence in American social media using this method, based on a multi-billion-word corpus of Tweets collected between October 2013 and November 2014. In total 29 emerging word forms, which represent various semantic classes, grammatical parts-of-speech and word formation processes, were identified through this analysis. These 29 forms are then examined from various perspectives in order to begin to better understand the process of lexical emergence.

scholarly journals A Multilab Study of Bilingual Infants: Exploring the Preference for Infant-Directed Speech

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 251524592097462
Author(s):  
Krista Byers-Heinlein ◽  
Angeline Sin Mei Tsui ◽  
Christina Bergmann ◽  
Alexis K. Black ◽  
Anna Brown ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Native Language ◽  
American English ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Linguistic Experience ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Matched Samples ◽  
Two Age Groups

From the earliest months of life, infants prefer listening to and learn better from infant-directed speech (IDS) compared with adult-directed speech (ADS). Yet IDS differs within communities, across languages, and across cultures, both in form and in prevalence. This large-scale, multisite study used the diversity of bilingual infant experiences to explore the impact of different types of linguistic experience on infants’ IDS preference. As part of the multilab ManyBabies 1 project, we compared preference for North American English (NAE) IDS in lab-matched samples of 333 bilingual and 384 monolingual infants tested in 17 labs in seven countries. The tested infants were in two age groups: 6 to 9 months and 12 to 15 months. We found that bilingual and monolingual infants both preferred IDS to ADS, and the two groups did not differ in terms of the overall magnitude of this preference. However, among bilingual infants who were acquiring NAE as a native language, greater exposure to NAE was associated with a stronger IDS preference. These findings extend the previous finding from ManyBabies 1 that monolinguals learning NAE as a native language showed a stronger IDS preference than infants unexposed to NAE. Together, our findings indicate that IDS preference likely makes similar contributions to monolingual and bilingual development, and that infants are exquisitely sensitive to the nature and frequency of different types of language input in their early environments.

His Lordship's -ship and the King of Golfdom. Against a purely functional analysis of suffixhood

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heike Baeskow
Keyword(s):  
Functional Analysis ◽  
Conceptual Knowledge ◽  
Semantic Information ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Distributed Morphology ◽  
Word Class ◽  
Formation Processes ◽  
Functional Elements ◽  
Grammatical Morphemes ◽  
Independent Model

For many decades there has been a consensus among linguists of various schools that derivational suffixes function not only to determine the word-class of the complex expressions they form, but also convey semantic information. The aspect of suffix-inherent meaning is ignored by representatives of a relatively new theoretical direction – Neo-Construction Grammar – who consider derivational suffixes to be either purely functional elements of the grammar or meaningless phonological realizations of abstract grammatical morphemes. The latter view is maintained by adherents of Distributed Morphology, who at the same time emphasize the importance of conceptual knowledge for derivational processes without attempting to define this aspect. The purpose of this study is first of all to provide support for the long-standing assumption that suffixes are inherently meaningful. The focus of interest is on the suffixes -ship, -dom and -hood. Data from Old English and Modern English (including neologisms) will show that these suffixes have developed rich arrays of meaning which cannot be structurally derived. Moreover, since conceptual knowledge is indeed an important factor for word-formation processes, a concrete, theory-independent model for the representation of the synchronically observable meaning components associated with -ship, -dom and -hood will be proposed.

Interannual Variability of North American Winter Temperature Extremes and Its Associated Circulation Anomalies in Observations and CMIP5 Simulations

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 847-865 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Yu ◽  
H. Lin ◽  
V. V. Kharin ◽  
X. L. Wang
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Surface Temperature ◽  
Atmospheric Circulation ◽  
North American ◽  
North Pacific ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Temperature Extremes ◽  
Temperature Extreme ◽  
Central Canada ◽  
Leading Mode

AbstractThe interannual variability of wintertime North American surface temperature extremes and its generation and maintenance are analyzed in this study. The leading mode of the temperature extreme anomalies, revealed by empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analyses of December–February mean temperature extreme indices over North America, is characterized by an anomalous center of action over western-central Canada. In association with the leading mode of temperature extreme variability, the large-scale atmospheric circulation features an anomalous Pacific–North American (PNA)-like pattern from the preceding fall to winter, which has important implications for seasonal prediction of North American temperature extremes. A positive PNA pattern leads to more warm and fewer cold extremes over western-central Canada. The anomalous circulation over the PNA sector drives thermal advection that contributes to temperature anomalies over North America, as well as a Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO)-like sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly pattern in the midlatitude North Pacific. The PNA-like circulation anomaly tends to be supported by SST warming in the tropical central-eastern Pacific and a positive synoptic-scale eddy vorticity forcing feedback on the large-scale circulation over the PNA sector. The leading extreme mode–associated atmospheric circulation patterns obtained from the observational and reanalysis data, together with the anomalous SST and synoptic eddy activities, are reasonably well simulated in most CMIP5 models and in the multimodel mean. For most models considered, the simulated patterns of atmospheric circulation, SST, and synoptic eddy activities have lower spatial variances than the corresponding observational and reanalysis patterns over the PNA sector, especially over the North Pacific.

Acoustic correlates of primary and secondary stress in North American English

2011 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 362-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingo Plag ◽  
Gero Kunter ◽  
Mareile Schramm
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
American English ◽  
Secondary Stress ◽  
Acoustic Correlates

Translanguaging sequel

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eriko Sato
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Formation Processes ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Language Classrooms ◽  
Political Dispute ◽  
Japanese Translation

Abstract The paper examines the products of interlingual and intralingual translanguaging and qualitatively analyzes three origin-based lexical varieties in Japanese, wago (native Japanese words), kango (Sino-Japanese words), and gairaigo (foreign loanwords other than kango) in terms of how they have been complementing, competing against, or being in conflict with each other, how they engage word-formation processes as deep as morpheme-levels, and how they are perceived and manipulated by language users, including translators. This study shows that translanguaging has been practiced recursively and multi-directionally over a long period of time, yielding the phenomenon ‘translanguaging sequel’. The qualitative study of a Japanese translation of a Korean poem reveals a translator’s ideology-driven translanguaging practice that crosses not only interlingual but also intralingual boundaries, causing an international socio-political dispute. This study supports the view that translanguaging has been shaping and reshaping the norms of languages and language use. It also suggests the benefits of analyzing the products and traces of translanguaging in translated texts as well as the process of translanguaging during translation activities that can be promoted and implemented in language classrooms.

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