Alternations of classificatory verb stems in Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì: a cognitive semantic account

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hussein Al-Bataineh

Abstract This paper investigates the phenomenon of ‘classificatory verbs’, i.e. a set of motion and positional verbs that show stem alternations depending on the semantic features of one of their arguments in Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì (Dogrib), based on field notes and documentary sources of the language. The paper shows that Tłı̨chǫ classificatory verbal categories belong to four semantic subclasses which have inconsistent stem inventories caused by the presence or absence of some semantic features. Stem inventories of locative verb systems vary depending on the scalar [effort] feature, and those of motion verbs correlate with the scalar [agentive] feature. The paper explains why other semantically related verbs do not show stem alternations and proposes contrastive hierarchies to represent variations in stem inventories intra- and cross-linguistically assuming that the selection of a stem for a particular semantic category follows a series of binary choices that characterize the opposition’s active in the language.

2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-194
Author(s):  
Hussein Al-Bataineh

Abstract This paper investigates the phenomenon of ‘classificatory verbs’, i.e. a set of motion and positional verbs that show stem alternations depending on the semantic features of one of their arguments in Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì (Dogrib), based on field notes and documentary sources of the language. The paper shows that Tłı̨chǫ classificatory verbal categories belong to four semantic subclasses which have inconsistent stem inventories caused by the presence or absence of some semantic features. Stem inventories of locative verb systems vary depending on the scalar [effort] feature, and those of motion verbs correlate with the scalar [agentive] feature. The paper explains why other semantically related verbs do not show stem alternations and proposes contrastive hierarchies to represent variations in stem inventories intra- and cross-linguistically assuming that the selection of a stem for a particular semantic category follows a series of binary choices that characterize the opposition’s active in the language.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hussein Al-Bataineh

This paper investigates the phenomenon of ‘classificatory verbs,’ i.e., a set of motion and positional verbs that show stem alternation depending on the semantic features of one of their arguments. The data is drawn mainly from Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì Multimedia Dictionary, Nicholas Welch’s field notes, and other documentary sources of the language. Tłı̨chǫ classificatory verbs are presented and analyzed in detail. The paper argues that Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì classificatory verbs belong to four semantic subclasses and that these subclasses show a decreasing degree of stem alternations related to argument classification. The inconsistency in stem alternation is triggered by the presence or absence of some semantic features that determine the number of stem allomorphs. Locative verbs are affected by the [COMFORT] feature, and the other three sets are influenced by [TRANSFER], [INITIAL AGENTIVE] and [FINAL AGENTIVE] features. Moreover, the paper outlines a semantic feature geometry that accounts for the observed regularities in classificatory verb stems and their possible variations intra- and cross-linguistically.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 363-402
Author(s):  
Fuyin Thomas Li ◽  
Na Liu

Abstract This paper discusses the grammaticalization of motion verbs in Mandarin. A class of motion verbs in Mandarin that regularly appears at either V1 or V2 position in the V1+V2 construction is only grammaticalized at the V2 position, where the verb becomes a directional complement. We provide a cognitive semantic account and propose a new hypothesis that we call the syntactic position and event type sensitivity hypothesis in grammaticalization. We analyze corpus data across five historical stages for 11 simplex directional complements. The analysis draws on Talmy’s macro-event theory and Lehmann’s grammaticalization parameters. It is concluded that motion verbs at the V1 position are most likely to have agentive subjects, which foregrounds the idea of motion in V1, while V2 focuses on the Agent’s purpose. Motion verbs at V2 are relatively more likely to have non-agentive subjects, which foregrounds the Path element in V2 and complements the action of V1, rather than the purpose of the Agent. What triggers the grammaticalization of the V2 is the foregrounding of the Path element in V2, which complements the action of V1, and its non-agentive subject.


Author(s):  
Aleksandra T. Bayanova ◽  

Introduction. Color terms constitute a most archaic lexical stratum of any language. Being characterized by vivid ethnocultural specifics, those serve as important elements to the linguistic view of the world. Goals. The paper seeks to analyze semantic features of the Kalmyk color term улан ‘red’ and its German translation equivalents. Materials and Methods. The work explores Kalmyk folktales recorded by the Finnish scholar G. J. Ramstedt during his 1903 scientific expedition to the Kalmyk Steppe. The analysis of the color term comprises both general research methods and specifically linguoculturological ones, such as linguoculturological and conceptual insights into folklore texts. Results. Impacts of color in world perception of the Kalmyks — just as for any other nation — are diverse enough. The folktale texts recorded by G. J. Ramstedt contain a total of five shades of the color, the lexeme улан ‘red’ being largely characterized by positive semantics. German translation variants are not always complete semantic equivalents of the color term which results from that color denoting lexemes — and those of red in particular — are integral to a certain ethnic worldview, this leading to some ambivalence of the color under study. Conclusions. The lexeme улан ‘red’ in its first nominative meaning denotes a color of an object, e.g., red proper, scarlet, ruddy, etc. In the Kalmyk language, it also serves to denote the prototypic color of blood and is often used to describe animal coat colors. The Finnish scholar employed different German translation means. In most cases, the selection of translation equivalents depends on the translator’s associative/visual thinking and perception of the world, as well as on lexical, semantic and morphological patterns of Kalmyk and German. Folklore texts are structured specifically, and a translator needs utmost attention and linguistic intuition to avoid any inaccuracies when communicating a color paradigm from the original text. The challenge be tackled by a translator of color terms in a folklore text is that he/she is supposed to bear both the linguocultures examined.


2007 ◽  
Vol 18 (10) ◽  
pp. 845-849 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mika Koivisto ◽  
Antti Revonsuo

Inattentional blindness refers to the failure to see an unexpected object that one may be looking at directly when one's attention is elsewhere. We studied whether a stimulus whose meaning is relevant to the attentional goals of the observer will capture attention and escape inattentional blindness. The results showed that an unexpected stimulus belonging to the attended semantic category but not sharing physical features with the attended stimuli was detected more often than a semantically unrelated stimulus. This effect was larger when the unexpected stimuli were words than when they were pictures. The results imply that the semantic relation between the observer's attentional set and the unexpected stimulus plays a crucial role in inattentional blindness: An unexpected stimulus semantically related to the observer's current interests is likely to be seen, whereas unrelated unexpected stimuli are unseen. Attentional selection may thus be driven by purely semantic features: Meaning may determine whether or not one sees a stimulus.


Author(s):  
J. Balaji ◽  
T.V. Geetha ◽  
Ranjani Parthasarathi

Customization of information from web documents is an immense job that involves mainly the shortening of original texts. This task is carried out using summarization techniques. In general, an automatically generated summary is of two types – extractive and abstractive. Extractive methods use surface level and statistical features for the selection of important sentences, without considering the meaning conveyed by those sentences. In contrast, abstractive methods need a formal semantic representation, where the selection of important components and the rephrasing of the selected components are carried out using the semantic features associated with the words as well as the context. Furthermore, a deep linguistic analysis is needed for generating summaries. However, the bottleneck behind abstractive summarization is that it requires semantic representation, inference rules and natural language generation. In this paper, The authors propose a semi-supervised bootstrapping approach for the identification of important components for abstractive summarization. The input to the proposed approach is a fully connected semantic graph of a document, where the semantic graphs are constructed for sentences, which are then connected by synonym concepts and co-referring entities to form a complete semantic graph. The direction of the traversal of nodes is determined by a modified spreading activation algorithm, where the importance of the nodes and edges are decided, based on the node and its connected edges under consideration. Summary obtained using the proposed approach is compared with extractive and template based summaries, and also evaluated using ROUGE scores.


2015 ◽  
Vol null (35) ◽  
pp. 47-68
Author(s):  
김경열 ◽  
김민영 ◽  
이수진

Author(s):  
Olga Sokołowska

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.


2015 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 135-150
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Korytkowska

The exponents of the category of definiteness / indefiniteness and a certain type of expressive expressions in Bulgarian and PolishThe paper focuses on the functions of the pronoun exponents of the semantic category of definiteness / indefiniteness in Bulgarian examples of the following type: Свършихме я. Тънко я преда. Свърши се вашата, etc. Their reference to sentences such as Свършихме я тази работа. allows interpreting the function of the phrase as thematic. This type of sentences was confronted with examples such as Тя му я изтърси една… И ти ми ги говориш едни… The features of intonation and the semantic features of the double object phrase indicate its rhematic nature. Specific formal traits of such sentences, including the usage of the exponents of the category of definiteness / indefiniteness, are related with their expressive markedness.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
Belet Lydia Ingrit

The development of complementary therapies especially infertility treatment is increasing. A qualitative research was conducted to explore the experience of infertile women undergoing nursing complementary therapy. Eight women participated in this research were selected by purposive sampling method based on the inclusion criteria. Selection of participants was done using snowball sampling. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and field notes. Data analysis was performed using thematic content analysis and stages suggested by Collaizi. The results of this research  were: 1) Feeling of sadness was experienced by infertile women 2) Increasing age and the insistence of the family caused anxiety to infertile women, 3) Infertile women chose nursing complementary because they want to get pregnant naturally 4) Various ways and efforts were done by infertile women to get pregnant, 5) Infertile women had appropriate perception toward complementary nursing 6) Family supports were needed to succeed the complementary nursing. In conclusion, complementary nursing was very important to be chosen as one of solution for infertile couples. It is recommended that maternity nurses optimize their roles in giving information and support to infertile women.


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