scholarly journals On degrammaticalization: Controversial points and possible explanations

2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlotta Viti
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Closed Class ◽  
Semantic Component ◽  
Directional Change ◽  
Theoretical Conception

AbstractThis paper discusses the problem of degrammaticalization, that is, the exceptions to the unidirectionality of grammaticalization. After analyzing the criteria that allow us to distinguish between various instances of counter-directional change, two principles underlying degrammaticalization are identified; one is related to the type of language and the other to the type of target structures in which degrammaticalization occurs. Firstly, the targets of degrammaticalization are usually closed-class parts of speech with an abstract semantic component. Secondly, the languages in which counter-directional grammatical changes occur turn out to be deprived of an elaborate fusional morphology. These findings may also have an impact on the theoretical conception of grammaticalization, some of whose definitional properties are discussed. The paper ends with a discussion of a more controversial point, namely, counter-directional changes by folk etymology rather than by etymology proper.

Open class and closed class: Sentence-imitation experiments on intrasentential code-switching

1997 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 257-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shoji Azuma ◽  
Richard P. Meier
Keyword(s):  
Response Times ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
The Other ◽  
Speech Errors ◽  
Sentence Repetition ◽  
Closed Class ◽  
Sentence Imitation ◽  
Open Class ◽  
Japanese English

ABSTRACTOne of the most striking facts about exchange errors in speech is that open class items are exchanged, but closed class items are not. This article argues that a pattern analogous to that in speech errors also appears in intrasentential code-switching. Intrasentential code-switching is the alternating use of two languages in a sentence by bilinguals. Studies of the spontaneous conversation of bilinguals have supported the claim that open class items may be codeswitched, but closed class items may not. This claim was tested by two sentence repetition experiments, one with Japanese/English bilinguals and the other with Spanish/English bilinguals. The results show that the switching of closed class items caused significantly longer response times and more errors than the switching of open class items.

Function words and polarity

2021 ◽  
pp. 66-85
Author(s):  
Matteo Greco
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Approach ◽  
The Other ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Closed Class ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
The One ◽  
Syntactic Derivation

Function words are commonly considered to be a small and closed class of words in which each element is associated with a specific and fixed logical meaning. Unfortunately, this is not always true as witnessed by negation: on the one hand, negation does reverse the truth-value conditions of a proposition, and the other hand, it does not, realizing what is called Expletive Negation. This chapter aims to investigate whether a word that is established on the basis of its function can be ambiguous by discussing the role of the syntactic derivation in some instances of so-called Expletive Negation clauses, a case in which negation seems to lose its capacity to deny the proposition associated with its sentence. Both a theoretical and an experimental approach has been adopted.

A Seventeenth-Century Polyglot Grammar

1979 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Bertil Sundby
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Position ◽  
The Other ◽  
Practical Skill ◽  
Language Philosophy ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Weak Points ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Parallel Texts

Summary Jean Sterpin was a Frenchman who flourished in Copenhagen in the mid-nth century. His claim to recognition rests on his polyglot grammar, Institu-tiones Glotticæ (c. l668). Sterpin was acquainted with the language philosophy of Comenius, whose Janua Linguarum (1631) had set the pattern of the polyglot genre, with the work of Nathanael Duёz (fl. 1640–78), the polyglot lexicographer-grammarian, and with Erik Eriksen Pontoppidan’s Grammatica Danica (1668). The way in which Sterpin tackles the problem of teaching the grammar of three languages (French, English and Danish) and proficiency in four (incl. Latin) is superior to the schemes employed by Beyer (1661), Howell (1662), Smith (1674), and Colsoni (1688). His method of presentation is a skilful combination of typographic variation, Vertical alternation’, and the use of parallel texts. More important still, his description of the three languages involved is effected by interlanguage comparisons. The article touches on the parts of speech, case and gender distinctions, word-order, etc, but the strong and weak points of Sterpin’s contrastive-polyglot approach are best studied in his survey of English speech-sounds. Sterpin is sparing in his use of illustrative examples, the parallels he draws are not free from ambiguity, and his sound descriptions suffer from an imperfect understanding of the organs of speech. On the other hand, he shows practical skill in tongues, and his transliterations and ‘names’ of the letters of the four alphabets are no less ingenious than the contrastive layout as a whole. Especially helpful is a table of ‘diphthongues’ and ‘triphthongues’ on the basis of which it has been possible to assign the English long vowels their relative position in the vowel tract. In addition, there are comments on vowels in weak position and on consonants.

scholarly journals Basic levels of categorization: A comparison of selected English and Polish verbs

2020 ◽  
pp. 51-70
Author(s):  
Olga Sokołowska
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activities ◽  
The Other ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Cognitive Domains ◽  
Semantic Account ◽  
Cognitive Semantic ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Basic English ◽  
Basic Level

The phenomenon of basic level concepts in cognition and categorization, so crucial in the cognitive account of natural language is typically accessed via what is perceptually the most outstanding phenomena represented in many languages, at least those rooted in Proto-IndoEuropean (specifically English and Polish) by nouns fulfilling the criteria of basic terms, originally established for classifying color vocabulary. These are prototypical examples in the category of nouns – relating to countable, material objects. Nominal representation, according to Langacker (1987) is indicative of a given stimulus being perceived and conceptualized as a thing, i.e., a region in one or more cognitive domains (conceptions) established in the speakers’ minds. This is a rather self-imposing construal of physical, countable stimuli, which meet the good gestalt criteria, such as animals, plants, and man-made objects of everyday use. The semantic scopes of nouns representing such phenomena seem to overlap to a relatively high degree across languages, especially related ones, such as English and Polish, and finding the precise equivalents within them does not pose particular problems. This is hardly the case when it comes to phenomena represented by verbs and classifiable as processes in Langacker’s cognitive, semantic account of the division of words into parts of speech. A comparison of the meaning of selected basic English verbs and their closest Polish counterparts reveals serious discrepancies in a number of cases. Thus, certain basic English verbs representing common, everyday physical activities prove to differ considerably from their Polish counterparts with regard to their respective levels of schematicity/ specificity of meaning, and, in consequence, the range of cognitive domains involved in their semantic scopes. This is the case of such equivalent lexemes as płynąć/pływać – swim; sail; flow; float or break – łamać; tłuc; rwać; drzeć. In both cases, one language is quite specific while the other is much more schematic as regards the actual cognitive domains activated by corresponding words and the degree to which that activation in the stimulated conceptual blends depends on the lexical context in which the respective words are used. This indicates that even related languages spoken by communities from similar cultural circles may codify considerably different construals of the same nonmaterial phenomena, specifically processes.

scholarly journals Role Language and Character Language

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Satoshi KINSUI ◽  
Hiroko YAMAKIDO
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
Cultural Stereotypes ◽  
Speech Styles ◽  
Actual Role ◽  
Closed Class ◽  
Other Hand

Since Kinsui's (2000, 2003) initial proposal, research on role language has progressed with the topics growing more diverse. In this paper we propose that a peculiar speech style assigned to a certain character in fiction should be treated as character language rather than role language. Role language, which is based on social and cultural stereotypes, is a subset of character language. Given that role language is also a linguistic stereotype, its knowledge should be widely shared by members of the speech community, and its patterns within limits. Character language, on the other hand, allows for various types, being far from being a closed class. We examine and give examples of four types of character language: speech styles that could become actual role language, once shared widely in the speech community; speech styles that are effectively adopted by characters outside of their expected speaker's social and cultural groups; speech styles employed to represent something other than their stereotypes; and uniquely created speech styles.

Cultural selection and biased transformation: two dynamics of cultural evolution

2021 ◽  
Vol 376 (1828) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Mesoudi
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Population Level ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
Cultural Selection ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Directional Change

Here, I discuss two broad versions of human cultural evolution which currently exist in the literature and which emphasize different underlying dynamics. One, which originates in population-genetic-style modelling, emphasizes how cultural selection causes some cultural variants to be favoured and gradually increase in frequency over others. The other, which draws more from cognitive science, holds that cultural change is driven by the biased transformation of cultural variants by individuals in non-random and consistent directions. Despite claims that cultural evolution is characterized by one or the other of these dynamics, these are neither mutually exclusive nor a dichotomy. Different domains of human culture are likely to be more or less strongly weighted towards cultural selection or biased transformation. Identifying cultural dynamics in real-world cultural data is challenging given that they can generate the same population-level patterns, such as directional change or cross-cultural stability, and the same cognitive and emotional mechanisms may underlie both cultural selection and biased transformation. Nevertheless, fine-grained historical analysis and laboratory experiments, combined with formal models to generate quantitative predictions, offer the best way of distinguishing them. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Foundations of cultural evolution’.

Zeno on the Unity of Philosophy

Phronesis ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaap Mansfeld
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Philosophical Theory ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Art Of Life

AbstractThe formula 'the elements of logos' in the Zeno quotation by Epictetus at Arrian, Diss. 4.8.12 need not, pace e.g. von Arnim, pertain to the parts of speech, but more probably means the elements i.e. primary theorems of philosophical theory, or doctrine. Theory moreover should become internalized to the soul and 'lived': philosophy is also the so-called 'art of life'. These theorems are to be distinguished but should reciprocally entail each other. Philosophy according to Zeno is both tripartite and one, and tripartite especially in that its parts (and subparts) cannot be transferred simultaneously: of necessity these have to taught and learned one after the other.

scholarly journals Notes on the language of Northern Russian lamentations. 2. Composite nominations, their structure and semantics

Slovene ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 274-313
Author(s):  
Svetlana M. Tolstaya
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Semantic Relations ◽  
Compound Words ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Poetic Texts ◽  
Relationship Of

The paper is devoted to the language of the Northern Russian lamentations collected and published by E.V. Barsov 150 years ago. The author uses the material of wedding lamentations to study the typical folklore language — composite nominations, i.e. nouns, verbs, and other parts of speech formed on the basis of two (rarely three) lexical units: 1) integral compound words (svet-batiushka, drug-podruzhka, zvon-unylyj), 2) phrases with an application (dusha-devushka, doch’-nevol’nica, idti-shatat’s’a), 3) tautological phrases, i.e. complete or partial reduplications (vol’a-vol’ushka, mesto-mestechko, um-razum, gnevev-gneven) or combinations of synonyms (put’-dorozhen’ka, rod-plem’a, znat’-vedat’, gl’adet’-smotret’, strogo-grozno, zhalko-unylo), 4) constructions with a compositional relationship (gusi-lebedi, zlato-serebro, khleb-sol’, kormit’-poit’, dosyta-dop’ana). The classification is based on the following characteristics: structure (the declination of the components of the phrases), macro-syntax (coordination with both members of the binomial or one of them), micro-syntax (relationship of the components with each other—the subordination or composition) and semantics (whether members of the phrase semantically independent, or one of the members serves as an emotional, evaluative, functional definition, addition, refinement, modification of the other). The specifics of folklore material, and particularly of poetic texts of Northern Russian wedding lamentations, are their structural and syntactic diffuseness, blurring of borders between different types of composite units, the tendency to free syntax of the paratactic type, avoiding explicit means of expressing semantic relations (especially subordinates), the predominance of composition over subordination not only in sentences, but also between components of phrases.

scholarly journals On Word ‘Fake’ and What Is Behind It

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (33) ◽  
pp. 89-98
Author(s):  
Kazimierz Luciński
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
The Other ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
New Words ◽  
Linguistic Description ◽  
Part Of Speech ◽  
Russian Soil

The paper focuses on a loanword borrowed from the English language “fake” that became very popular in the Russian soil. The author shows the derivational abilities of a word leading to the formation of new words that belong to the other parts of speech: a verb “фейковать”, an adjective “фейковый”, a noun “фейковость”. Every part of speech is analysed on the basis of paradigmatic relations, in which the word is involved, along with its sociolinguistic characteristics such as the field of use and social strata to which the native speakers belong. The author does not limit himself to an ordinary linguistic description of this loanword and its sense-correlates; instead the author tries to present socio-cultural peculiarities of reality that made possible a wide use of this loanword borrowed from the English language. 

scholarly journals Interjections

Linguistics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Libert
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Word Class ◽  
Original Function ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Part Of Speech ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
Conservative Policy ◽  
Long Time

Interjections are one of the traditional parts of speech (along with nouns, verbs, etc.), although some linguists have considered them not to be a part of language but rather instinctive reactions to a situation. The word interjection comes from the Latin interjicere “to throw between,” as they were seen as words that were tossed into a sentence, without being syntactically related to other items. Examples of English interjections are oh!, ah!, ugh!, and ouch! Interjections such as these, which are not (zero-)derived from words belonging to other parts of speech, and which have only an interjectional function, are called primary interjections; interjections that have evolved from words of other classes and which have retained their original function in addition to their new one are known as secondary interjections. Secondary interjections are often swear words, e.g. shit!, or religious terms, e.g. Jesus! Some (putative) interjections, interjectional phrases, consist of more than one word, e.g. my God!; they could be problematic for the view that interjections are a word class or part of speech. Interjections have received considerably less attention from linguists than the other parts of speech. This may be due, in part, to the just mentioned view that they are not really linguistic items and thus are of little or no interest from a linguistic point of view. However, to say that they have been neglected, as some authors do, is an overstatement; as can be seen in this article, scholars have been thinking and writing about different aspects of interjections for a long time (and note that this article mentions only works devoted (at least in large part) to interjections, not works on other subjects that also discuss interjections). Thus here one will see works on the phonetics/phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of interjections, among other subjects. There does, however, seem to be one gap in the literature: few, if any, papers focus on the morphology of interjections. A problem in compiling a bibliography on interjections is that authors disagree on what should be included in the set of interjections; for example, are onomatopoeias interjections (and thus should works on onomatopoeias be included in a bibliography on interjections)? In this article a conservative policy has been taken, and works dealing only with onomatopoeias (or greetings, etc.) have been excluded.

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