Four- to five-year-olds’ use of word order and prosody in focus marking in Dutch

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (s1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aoju Chen ◽  
Barbara Höhle
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Limited Role ◽  
Specific Focus ◽  
Narrow Focus ◽  
Ambient Language ◽  
Show Evidence ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Focus Marking

AbstractThis study investigated Dutch-speaking four- to five-year-olds’ use of word order and prosody in distinguishing focus types (broad focus, narrow focus, and contrastive narrow focus) via an interactive answer-reconstruction game. We have found an overall preference for the unmarked word order SVO and no evidence for the use of OVS to distinguish focus types. But the children used pitch and duration in the subject-nouns to distinguish focus types in SVO sentences. These findings show that Dutch-speaking four- to five-year-olds differ from their German- and Finnish-speaking peers, who show evidence of varying choice of word order to mark specific focus types, and use prosody to distinguish focus types in subject and object nouns in both SVO and OVS sentences. These comparisons suggest that typological differences in the relative importance between word order and prosody can lead to differences in children’s use of word order and prosody in unmarked and marked word orders. A more equal role of word order and prosody in the ambient language can stimulate more extensive use of prosody in the marked word order, whereas a more limited role of word order can restrict the use of prosody in the unmarked word order.

Pilgrimage and the Dynamics of Urbanism Reconsidered: Faubourg Architecture in Romanesque Aquitaine

2010 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 41-76
Author(s):  
Robert Maxwell
Keyword(s):  
Urban Growth ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Santiago De Compostela ◽  
Commercial Markets ◽  
Heated Debate ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Since the late nineteenth century, scholars have considered pilgrimage a dynamic catalyst that influenced a range of cultural practices, not least architecture. The charismatic stewardship of such influential scholars as Arthur Kingsley Porter, Kenneth John Conant, Emile Mâle and Elie Lambert helped propel the study of ‘pilgrimage architecture’ to a leading field of study, and a handful of churches — notably St-Sernin in Toulouse, St-Martin in Tours, St-Martial in Limoges, Ste-Foy in Conques and the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela — achieved status as paradigmatic monuments. At the same time, the subject was also for a long while a source of heated debate fuelled by nationalist interests, occasionally lapsing even into ad hominem squabbles. The matter has in recent decades generated calmer discussion, including new perspectives introduced by studies of other complementary cultural phenomena. Urban and economic historians, in particular, have looked to the role of pilgrimage in relation to urban growth and the rise of commercial markets. This scholarship has contributed to re-evaluations among art historians and has shed greater light, for example, on the predatory fervour with which certain bishops, cathedral chapters and abbots enticed pilgrims to destinations like Chartres, Santiago de Compostela or Cluny, just as the infusion of interdisciplinary perspectives has helped architectural historians reassess so-called pilgrimage architecture. After all, not all churches of that type were on the pilgrimage roads, nor do all churches on those roads reflect the Toulousain-Compostelan model. The relative importance of the paradigmatic five churches has been called into question.

Reversed ang-inversion and narrow focus marking in Tagalog

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 469-497
Author(s):  
Patrick Nuhn
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Narrow Focus ◽  
Focus Marking

Abstract In Tagalog, an argument that is in narrow focus can be fronted to the clause initial position, deviating from the default verb-initial word order. This so-called ang-inversion has been claimed to be obligatory (Nagaya, 2007) or at least the go-to strategy (Kaufman, 2005) of encoding narrow focus. There is, however, an alternative that has so far received little attention in the literature: reversed ang-inversion. Structurally, this construction can be understood as the result of combining two inversion constructions: ang-inversion and ay-inversion. As a consequence, the focal constituent appears at the end of the sentence rather than at the beginning. This article presents spoken data elicited during field work as well as written data on reversed ang-inversion. Comparing the use of regular and reversed ang-inversion indicates that discourse-structural considerations play an important role in construction choice between the two.

Relative role of visual and non-visual cues in determining the direction of “up”: Experiments in the York tilted room facility

2003 ◽  
Vol 13 (4-6) ◽  
pp. 287-293
Author(s):  
H.L. Jenkin ◽  
R.T. Dyde ◽  
M.R. Jenkin ◽  
I.P. Howard ◽  
L.R. Harris
Keyword(s):  
Surface Structure ◽  
Interior Design ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Human Performance ◽  
Body Orientation ◽  
Relative Role ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Relative Significance ◽  
The Subject

Perceiving a direction as “up” is fundamental to human performance and perception. Astronauts in microgravity frequently experience reorientation illusions in which they, or their world, appear to flip and ‘up’ becomes arbitrarily redefined. This paper assesses the relative importance of visual cues in determining the perceived up direction. In the absence of information about the origin of illumination, people interpret surface structure by assuming that the direction of illumination is from above. Here we exploit this phenomenon to measure the influence of head and body orientation, gravity and visual cues on the perceived up direction. Fifteen subjects judged the shape of shaded circles presented in various orientations. The circles were shaded in such a way that when the shading was compatible with light coming from above, the circle appeared as a convex hemisphere. Therefore, by finding which shaded circle appeared most convex, we can deduce the direction regarded as “up”. The different cues contributing to this percept were separated by varying both the orientation of the subject and the surrounding room relative to gravity. The relative significance of each cue may be of use in spacecraft interior design to help reduce the incidence of visual reorientation illusions.

scholarly journals Youth between Labour Market and NEET - Critical Review on the Foresighted Challenges

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Buheji
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Protection System ◽  
Future Market ◽  
Market Demand ◽  
Specific Focus ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Economic Contribution

This paper critically reviews the challenges and the opportunities of youth in the labour market based on the work of Halvorsen and Hvinden (2018) and synthesis of the author on the subject. The conditions of the labour market in relevance to youth today is reviewed with a specific focus on the issue of Not in Employment, Not in Education and Not in Training NEET. Then the role of social regulations in closing youth NEET gap is investigated. The challenges of the labour market on youth today and the foresighted future are explored to see the best possible solutions.The critical review recommends further focused comprehensive social protection system that brings in solutions that meet and close the increasing gap of the contemporary and future market demand and dynamics on youth and their economic contribution opportunities.

scholarly journals When (not) to Look for Contrastive Alternatives: The Role of Pitch Accent Type and Additive Particles

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 751-778 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bettina Braun ◽  
Yuki Asano ◽  
Nicole Dehé
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Narrow Focus ◽  
Additive Particles ◽  
Subject Noun ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Additive Particle

This study investigates how pitch accent type and additive particles affect the activation of contrastive alternatives. In Experiment 1, German listeners heard declarative utterances (e.g., The swimmer wanted to put on flippers) and saw four printed words displayed on screen: one that was a contrastive alternative to the subject noun (e.g., diver), one that was non-contrastively related (e.g., pool), the object (e.g., flippers), and an unrelated distractor. Experiment 1 manipulated pitch accent type, comparing a broad focus control condition to two narrow focus conditions: with a contrastive or non-contrastive accent on the subject noun (nuclear L+H* vs. H+L*, respectively, followed by deaccentuation). In Experiment 2, the utterances in the narrow focus conditions were preceded by the unstressed additive particle auch (“also”), which may trigger alternatives itself. It associated with the accented subject. Results showed that, compared to the control condition, participants directed more fixations to the contrastive alternative when the subject was realized with a contrastive accent (nuclear L+H*) than when it was realized with non-contrastive H+L*, while additive particles had no effect. Hence, accent type is the primary trigger for signaling the presence of alternatives (i.e., contrast). Implications for theories of information structure and the processing of additive particles are discussed.

scholarly journals Where to place inaccessible subjects in Dutch: The role of definiteness and animacy

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 369-398
Author(s):  
Jorrig Vogels ◽  
Geertje Van Bergen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Syntactic Variation ◽  
Syntactic Position ◽  
Accessible Information ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Topical Information

AbstractCross-linguistically, both subjects and topical information tend to be placed at the beginning of a sentence. Subjects are generally highly topical, causing both tendencies to converge on the same word order. However, subjects that lack prototypical topic properties may give rise to an incongruence between the preference to start a sentence with the subject and the preference to start a sentence with the most accessible information. We present a corpus study in which we investigate in what syntactic position (preverbal or postverbal) such low-accessible subjects are typically found in Dutch natural language. We examine the effects of both discourse accessibility (definiteness) and inherent accessibility (animacy). Our results show that definiteness and animacy interact in determining subject position in Dutch. Non-referential (bare) subjects are less likely to occur in preverbal position than definite subjects, and this tendency is reinforced when the subject is inanimate. This suggests that these two properties that make the subject less accessible together can ‘gang up’ against the subject first preference. The results support a probabilistic multifactorial account of syntactic variation.

Syntax meets discourse: Locative and deictic (directional) inversion in English

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-276
Author(s):  
Ana Ojea
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Formal Analysis ◽  
Functional Category ◽  
Computational Requirement ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Locative Inversion ◽  
Syntactic Derivation

AbstractThis paper offers a formal analysis of three constructions in English: locative inversion, central deictic inversion and directional inversion. These constructions constitute thetic statements with a locative intentional base which sets a scene that (re)introduces an entity in the discourse; syntactically, they display a non-canonical word order and have a number of unusual grammatical properties which make them particularly interesting to show how syntax connects, and adapts, to discourse. I propose that they all obtain from a language particular mechanism which involves a functional category LocP that adjusts the computational requirement to have a preverbal subject to the intentional need to have the subject post-verbally. As for the differences among them, they are approached in terms of the features that head LocP and the lexical properties of the verbs that head each of the structures. Ultimately, the paper also serves to discuss the role of certain informational features (the so-called core intentional features) in the syntactic derivation.

scholarly journals Expression of narrow focus in spontaneous Estonian dialogues

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 351-370
Author(s):  
Heete Sahkai
Keyword(s):  
Narrow Focus ◽  
Constituent Order ◽  
A Minor ◽  
Focus Marking

Estonian offers several means for expressing narrow focus, including a choice between a syntactic strategy resulting in marked constituent order, and a prosodic strategy resulting in marked nuclear accent placement. The present study examines the usage of the different focus-marking strategies in spontaneous dialogues, with the primary aim of verifying the hypothesis that when either the syntactic or the prosodic strategy must be used, the prosodic strategy is preferred. The results show an overwhelming preference for keeping both the constituent order and the accent placement unmarked. In the relatively small number of cases where either the syntactic or the prosodic strategy must be chosen, a slight preference for the prosodic strategy can be observed. There also exists a minor strategy of focus fronting, whereby both the constituent order and the nuclear accent placement are marked; the role of this strategy requires further study.Kokkuvõte. Heete Sahkai: Kitsa fookuse väljendamine eestikeelses suulises dialoogis. Eesti keel võimaldab väljendada kitsast fookust muuhulgas nii moodustajajärje kui primaarse lauserõhu asukoha abil. Artiklis vaadeldakse kitsa fookuse väljendamist reisibüroo dialoogides peamise eesmärgiga kontrollida hüpoteesi, et suulises kõnes eelistatakse süntaktilisele fookuse väljendamisele prosoodilist. Tulemused näitavad tugevat eelistust lausungite suhtes, kus on samaaegselt nii markeerimata moodustajajärg kui ka markeerimata prosoodia. Juhtumeid, kus tuleb valida kas markeeritud moodustajajärg või markeeritud prosoodia, on suhteliselt vähe ning nende põhjal võib järeldada, et prosoodiline markeerimine on tõepoolest mõnevõrra eelistatud. Edasist uurimist nõuab andmestikus vähesel määral esindatud lausealguline fookus, mille puhul on markeeritud nii moodustajajärg kui primaarse lauserõhu asukoht.Võtmesõnad: fookus; moodustajajärg; lauserõhk; eesti keel

scholarly journals EARLY SYNTACTIC ACQUISITION IN A BALINESE SPEAKING CHILD

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-92
Author(s):  
Ni Luh Putu Sri Adnyani
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Natural Setting ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Phonetic Transcription ◽  
Spontaneous Interaction ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Grammatical Functions

This article addresses the acquisition of syntax in a Balinese monolingual child at the age of 2;5 until 2;7. The data was collected in natural setting when the child involved in spontaneous interaction with adults. The speech produced by the child was segmented based on the utterances. The speech produced by the child was transcribed orthographically, along with the phonetic transcription. Besides, every utterance produced by the child accompanied by contextual description and explanation. The data was coded and glossed according to the parts of speech, and grammatical functions. The results show that at this stage, even though the child goes through early sentence or word combinations stage, the child still produces single-word utterances at the onset as well. The words belong to noun, verb, adjective, adverb and particle. Words combination produced can be classified into declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences. Initially, the child frequently omit subject. The fact that in colloquial adult’s conversation in Balinese omitting subject is acceptable may contribute to the subject omission. In two words combinations NP and VP occurred and in three or more words utterances S-P, S-P-O and S-P-C starting to be produced. In making questions kije‘where’, ape ‘what’, encen ‘which one’ and nyen ‘whose’ are used. In question, the child also applied rising intonation when question words are not applied. The child is also able to express tag question. In imperative sentences, the child is able to use command, request, and invitation. This study implies the role of adult’s input in children language acquisition as shown in subject omission and the flexible word order.   

Processing transfer: Language-specific processing strategies as a source of interlanguage variation

1987 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 351-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Harrington
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Speech Processing ◽  
Order Effects ◽  
Response Patterns ◽  
English Sentence ◽  
Processing Strategies ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Simple Sentences

ABSTRACTA sentence interpretation experiment based on the functionalist Competition Model of speech processing (Bates & MacWhinney, 1982) was administered to three groups of university-age English L1, Japanese ESL, and Japanese L1 subjects (n = 12 per group) in an attempt to elicit evidence for (1) processing strategies characteristic of the Japanese and English L1 groups and, (2) transfer/influence of Japanese L1 strategies on the English sentence interpretations of the Japanese ESL group. Subjects selected the subject/actor of simple sentences incorporating word order, animacy, and stress cues in random converging and competing orders. The English L1 and ESL groups were tested on English sentences and the Japanese L1 group tested on Japanese sentences. The Japanese L1 interpretations were most heavily influenced by animacy cues, while the English L1 group showed a higher overall sensitivity to word order manipulations. The ESL group resembled the Japanese L1 group in reliance on animacy cues, with the exception of allowing inanimate nouns to act as subjects. While the ESL group showed greater sensitivity to word order effects than the Japanese L1 group, no “second-noun” strategy (i.e., systematically interpreting the NNV and VNN orders as left- and right-dislocated SOV and VOS orders) was evident.Although the findings were generally consistent with previous research, the presence of contrasting response patterns in the English L1 group suggests caution in attempting to typify languages on the basis of processing strategies drawn from probablistic tendencies evident in grouped data, and leaves open the role of such processing strategy typologies as a potential source of variation in inter-language.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document