scholarly journals Reliance on Predicative Units as a Method of Analysing and Translating Amharic Written Texts

Aethiopica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iosif Fridman
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Students ◽  
The Other ◽  
Second Step ◽  
Detailed Knowledge ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
The Third ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Written Texts ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Finite Verb

In analysing and translating Amharic texts, most foreign students have experienced major problems while trying to ‘redirect’ the rigidly leftbranching syntax of Amharic into the predominantly right-branching syntax of most European languages. The way out of this difficulty proposed by some teachers of Amharic consists in the so-called ‘translating from the end’ principle: the student begins to decipher the structure of an Amharic sentence from the finite verb form at its very end and gradually proceeds towards the beginning of the sentence, untangling—one by one—the syntactic structures involved. In the course of teaching Amharic, I have found this method largely inadequate for the purpose it is supposed to achieve. As an alternative to the ‘translating from the end’ method the author proposes another strategy which could be termed ‘reliance on predicative units’. In using this strategy, the student should, first of all, single out verb forms which are likely to perform the function of (final or dependent) predicates. The second step consists in delimiting groups, or units, headed by every such verb form. The third step is to provide a rough, working translation of every such unit without taking into consideration its relations to the other units in the sentence. The fourth, and final, step consists in joining the translations of the predicative units together; at this stage, detailed knowledge of Amharic morphosyntactic rules is very much required.

scholarly journals Topiks im Deutschen und Italienischen

2021 ◽  
Vol 111 (6) ◽  
pp. 89-104
Author(s):  
Federica Cognola ◽  
Manuela Caterina Moroni
Keyword(s):  
Initial Position ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Written Texts ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Fixed Order ◽  
The Difference ◽  
German Data ◽  
Finite Verb

The aim of this paper is i) to investigate the distribution of different topic types in the highest portion (found above valutative adverbs such as glücklicherweise and leider, Cinque 1999) of the German Mittelfeld, i. e. the clause portion found between the finite and non-finite verb forms (Satzklammer), and ii) to compare it with the distribution of topics within the Italian left periphery, i. e. the area found above the finite verb where operators, focalised and topicalised constructions are hosted (Rizzi 1997; Benincà 1988, 2001). Based on a corpus of written and oral German data collected through the DeReKO and the FOLK Databases, we show that in German i) in both written and oral examples a single topic belonging to all topic classes can appear in the highest portion of the Mittelfeld (as proposed by Frascarelli/Hinterhölzl 2007), ii) and that multiple topics are restricted to written texts and appear with the fixed order “Aboutness Topic > Familiar Topic; Aboutness Topic > Contrast Topic”. We compare the distribution of topics above valutative adverbs in German with the distribution of topics in the Italian left periphery. We show that the two languages share the fact that multiple topics are possible, with the difference that i) three topics can appear in the Italian left periphery in the order Aboutness Topic > Contrast Topic > Familiar Topic whereas only sequences of two topics are attested in German; ii) the sentence-initial position functions as an “extra” position for topics in German but not in Italian due to the V2 nature of the former language; iii) the presence of multiple topics in the left periphery is restricted to oral or informal texts in Italian and it is a typical trait of colloquial/informal language, whereas the availability of multiple topics in the German Mittefeld is restricted to written/formal texts and can thus be seen as a written/formal trait.

scholarly journals Hipoteza Witolda Mańczaka o ugrofińskim substracie w językach bałtyckich

LingVaria ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (28) ◽  
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Tomasz Witczak
Keyword(s):  
Present Author ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Grammatical Number ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
Estonian Language ◽  
Substrate Influence ◽  
Finite Verb

Witold Mańczak’s Hypothesis about the Finno-Ugric Substrate in the Baltic Languages The paper discusses Witold Mańczak’s hypothesis concerning a Finnic (particularly Balto-Finnic) substrate in the Baltic languages (Mańczak 1990: 29–38; 1993: 151; 2008: 149–152), as well as J. H. Holst’s critical evaluation of the problem (Holst 2015: 151–173). Mańczak lists as many as ten arguments in support of the substrate theory: According to Meillet (1925: 100–101), the disappearance of the neuter gender in Lithuanian and Latvian occurred under the influence of Balto-Finnic languages, since the category of gender is absent from Finno-Ugric; Old Lithuanian displays secondary local cases (i.e. illative, allative, adessive, ines-sive), formed using postpositions according to the Finno-Ugric pattern (Meillet 1925: 101); The Lithuanian constructions expressing evidentiality (e.g. Lith. nešęs velnias ak-menį) – as well as their Latvian counterparts – appeared due to substrate influence, according to Pisani (1959: 217); The Lithuanian numerals 11–19 ending in -lika (e.g, Lith. vienúolika ‘eleven’, dvýlika ‘twelve’, etc.) are of substrate origin (Pisani 1959: 217); The particle of the Lithuanian imperative -ki or -k (e.g. OLith. dúoki ‘give’) – repro-duces a similar particle known from Finnish, according to some scholars (Топоров, Трубачев 1962: 249–250); The alternation of voiced and voiceless consonants like blekai / plekai ‘tripe’ (Kiparsky 1968: 76–90 lists 200 such doublets in Latvian and 50 in Lithuanian) may be caused by the influence of a Finno-Ugric substratum, since the Finno-Ugric lan-guages used to lack voiced consonants; There are Common Baltic terms of Finno-Ugric origin, e.g. the name for ‘amber’: OPrus. gentars, Lith. giñtaras, Latv. dzĩtars m. ‘amber’ (Bednarczuk 1976: 47–48). The use of the genitive instead of an adjective in East Baltic (e.g. Lith. lietuvių kalba ‘Lithuanian language’, Latv. latviešu valoda ‘Latvian language’), unknown in other Indo-European languages, arose through Balto-Finnic influence – cf. Finnish suomen kieli ‘Finnish language’, Est. eesti keel ‘Estonian language’ (Bednarczuk 1968). The territory of Latvia abounds in hydronyms of Finnic provenance, while in Lithuania we may identify the name Nemunas (chief river in the area) as well as ca. 30 other river names of potential Finno-Ugric origin (Zinkevičius 1984: 155). The non-distinction of grammatical number in third-person finite verb forms in Lithua-nian, Latvian and Old Prussian was, according to some researchers (e.g. Thomason, Kaufman 1988: 243), caused by Balto-Finnic influence. Besides, the present author reviews Holst’s critical paper on the theory of a Uralic substratum in Common Baltic.

scholarly journals “Joking, kidding, teasing”: Slippery categories for cross-cultural comparison but key words for understanding Anglo conversational humor

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 487-514 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cliff Goddard
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cultural Comparison ◽  
The Third ◽  
Cross Cultural Comparison ◽  
European Languages ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Common ◽  
English Verb

Abstract Terms like to joke (and joking) and to tease (and teasing) have a curious double life in contrastive and interactional pragmatics and related fields. Occasionally they are studied as metapragmatic terms of ordinary English, along with related expressions such as kidding. More commonly they are used as scientific or technical categories, both for research into English and for cross-linguistic and cross-cultural comparison. Related English adjectives, such as jocular and mock, are also much-used in a growing lexicon of compound terms, such as jocular abuse, mock abuse, jocular mockery, and the like. Against this background, the present paper has three main aims. In the first part, it is argued that the meanings of the verbs to joke and to tease (and related nouns) are much more English-specific than is commonly recognized. They are not precisely cross-translatable even into European languages such as French and German. Adopting such terms as baseline categories for cross-cultural comparison therefore risks introducing an Anglocentric bias into our theoretical vocabulary. Nor can the problem be easily solved, it is argued, by attributing technical meanings to the terms. Detailed analysis of the everyday meanings of words like joking and teasing, on the other hand, can yield insights into the ethnopragmatics of Anglo conversational humor. This task is undertaken in the second part of the paper. The important English verb to kid and the common conversational formulas just kidding and only joking are also examined. The semantic methodology used is the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach, which depends on paraphrase into simple, cross-translatable words. Building on the NSM analyses, the third part of the paper considers whether it is possible to construct a typological framework for conversational humor based on cross-translatable terminology.

scholarly journals Detonation as Grammatological Version of Philosophy Texts Reading

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 257-268
Author(s):  
Оlha Volodymyrivna Hаidamachuk
Keyword(s):  
Focal Point ◽  
The Other ◽  
Second Step ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
Learning Situation ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
The Third ◽  
Modern Learning ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Simultaneous Reading

In the article the J. Derrida’s deconstruction interpretation is reasoned as a detonation. The deconstructor demonstrates that the strategic inflexion in a reading should be started from the tactics of rereading of already written as a «reading in between of lines». Derrida tries to revoke a «logocentric» intonation in favour of, as he thought, «grammatological» articulation. If it was true, we dealt with a field of unbounded, undivided tonation, the every in- of which had been always abrogated beforehand. However, in fact his deconstruction gives a voice those detonations, which will hardly have it as of right. When «Of grammatology» author was deconstructing texts he reread, he proceeded from «really obvious» in-tonation (there was supposed that the whole “logocentric” epoch was tuned on it), and aspired to interpret unheard before de-tonations instead of to balance in a field of tonation. It means his focal point is detonation (dispersion, scattering, burst etc.). As a result, «detonational processes» were activated in his own text too. Grammatological version of philosophy texts reading (detonation) is extrapolated on a modern learning approach. We suggest exploring the difference between the teacher-centred strategy and the learner-centred strategy. Derrida revocates «logocentric» intonation the same as he declines any subordination, which is focused mode of a lector-expertize’s voice as the only source of sense, in favour of «grammatological» articulation. In fact the deconstruction gives voice to suppressed detonation. Maximum of such diffusion allows us to acknowledge students have equal rights to be sources of sense. In West-European teaching discourse it names learner-centred strategy. The conclusion is that the new Derrida’s strategy of reading is divided on three tactic steps, two of which he could perform himself and showed to us, while he could only detect third one by his intuition and invited us to step there ourselves. The first step is the intoning as guiding lines obtaining for the next steps. Philosophy (metaphysics) is opened through traditional «intono-logical» (logocentric) reading strategy. The second step is «suspension» of intonation’s dictat for the sake of dе-tonation of the intoned (any mistake has a positive value. The third step is articulation as perfect techniques of simultaneous reading of in- and de-tonations in their inversely corresponding completeness, which opens the whole field of tonation. The model of the lack of domination promotes the learning situation as a «just play» for all participants: a freed from command role instructor just as one of equal-righted participants of learning process becomes the same learner as students. So every time they together should look for knowledge in the other way then before.

Overt subjects in English: evidence for the marking of person in an English-Italian bilingual child

2002 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 327-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
LUDOVICA SERRATRICE
Keyword(s):  
Significant Proportion ◽  
The Other ◽  
Verbal Morphology ◽  
Bilingual Child ◽  
Verb Agreement ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Person Agreement ◽  
The One ◽  
Finite Verb

Data from one English-Italian bilingual child (1;10–3;1) are presented in this study which challenge the hypothesis that the consistent realization of overt subjects in English is caused by the emergence of finite verbal morphology in the child's grammar. The argument is made for the emergence of subjects as an independent grammatical property of English, namely the marking of person deixis. Throughout the period of observation there is a significant proportion of overt subjects in the child's English utterances appearing both with finite and non-finite verb forms. Production of subjects stabilizes at 90% of obligatory contexts when no morphological correlates of finiteness have been acquired yet. While subjects are produced at significantly lower rates in Italian, we observe the consolidation of a number of inflected forms marking person agreement. The emergence of overt subjects in English on the one hand, and of subject–verb agreement in Italian on the other suggest that this bilingual child is grammaticalizing the all-important function of person deixis in language-specific ways: the same function is expressed by different forms in the child's two languages.

Non-Similarity-Based Conceptualization in Pigeons via Secondary or Mediated Generalization

1992 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 374-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
E.A. Wasserman ◽  
C.L. DeVolder ◽  
D.J. Coppage
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Second Step ◽  
Stimulus Class ◽  
The Third ◽  
Step Procedure ◽  
Stimulus Classes

We used a three-step procedure to produce and disclose non-similarity-based conceptualization in pigeons. Merely by being associated with the same response in the first step, classes of perceptually dissimilar stimuli, like cars and chairs, appear to amalgamate into a new category of functionally equivalent Stimuli. Thus, requiring a new response to be made to only one of these two stimulus classes in the second step transfers to the other stimulus class in the third step. This case of non-similarity-based conceptualization in pigeons is relevant to the construction of superordinate categories and to the role of language in secondary or mediated generalization.

scholarly journals VIOLATION OF CONVERSATION RULES IN TURN TAKING IN THE SECOND STEP CLASS AT CEC MATARAM

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Roy Armansyah ◽  
Asbah Asbah ◽  
Moh. Fauzi Bafadal
Keyword(s):  
Video Recording ◽  
The Other ◽  
Second Step ◽  
Qualitative Design ◽  
The Third ◽  
Turn Taking ◽  
Descriptive Qualitative

Abstract: Turn taking is simplest systematic for the organization of turn taking for conversation (Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson (1974). In conversation, sometimes the participant violate the rules as they begin to talk, meanwhile the other speakers are still speaking, and none of words and sentences to say in turn. Therefore, the writer was interested to analyze the violation of conversation rules in turn taking in order to investigate kinds of violation of conversation rules in turn taking that happened in the second step class of CEC Mataram, especially in debating activity by using a descriptive qualitative design. Then, the data were collected through video-recording from the second step class members of CEC Mataram. They were about 65 students and one teacher. Based on finding of this study, the writer found out five violations, such as violation of pause, gaps, laps, overlaps, and interruption. The first highest violation was pause violation with 135 times (81.3%) implies that the speaker in debating activity was silence within the turn given. The second one was interruption with 15 times (9.1%) implies that the other speakers began to talk when a speaker was speaking. The third was overlaps with 7 times (4.2%) implies that the speaker spoke at same time. The fourth was gaps with 5 times (3.0%) implies that the speaker did not talk directly when other speaker  were given a chance to turn when one speaker was replaced. The fifth was laps with 4 times (2.4%) implies than none options for next turn is used when speaker change, the participant did not indicate backchannel during the debating activity (0% of violation).

scholarly journals Syntax-Pragmatics interface in converbal constructions

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Nyurguyana Petrova
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
The Other ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Finite Verb

Converbs are non-finite verb forms which indicate adverbial subordination (Haspelmath 1995). Converbal clauses can occur in chaining constructions, where they are stacked one after the other to advance the narration (Nedjalkov 1995). Bickel (2006) has claimed that there are cross-linguistic occurrences of such constructions, where the scope of an interrogative marker is indeterminate. The chaining constructions in Sakha (Yakut), a Turkic language, show variation in illocutionary scope, which is determined by focus assignment. This study provides a mechanism for deriving Sakha converbs and their interaction in terms of mood and information-structure in chaining constructions.

Preverbation and narrativity in Lithuanian. The distribution of finite simplex and compound verbs in narrative main clauses

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 167-192
Author(s):  
Lea Sawicki
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Text ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
The Past ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Compound Verbs ◽  
Finite Verb

The article deals with the use of simplex and compound (prefixed) verbs in narrative text. Main clauses comprising finite verb forms in the past and in the past habitual tense are examined in an attempt to establish to what extent simplex and compound verbs exhibit aspect oppositions, and whether a correlation exists between the occurrence of simplex vs. compound verbs and distinct textual units. The investigation shows that although simple and compound verbs in Lithuanian are not in direct aspect opposition to each other, in the background text portions most of the verbs are prefixless past tense forms or habitual forms, whereas in the plot-advancing text portions, the vast majority of verbs are compound verbs in the simple past tense.  

Efficacy of some insecticide modules against major insect pests and spider population of rice, Oryza sativa L.

ENTOMON ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 257-262
Author(s):  
Atanu Seni ◽  
Bhimasen Naik
Keyword(s):  
Oryza Sativa ◽  
Grain Yield ◽  
Untreated Control ◽  
Insect Pests ◽  
Oryza Sativa L ◽  
Gall Midge ◽  
Stem Borer ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Third ◽  
Treated Plot

Experiments were carried out to assess some insecticide modules against major insect pests of rice. Each module consists of a basal application of carbofuran 3G @ 1 kg a.i ha-1 at 20 DAT and Rynaxypyr 20 SC @ 30 g a.i ha-1 at 45 DAT except untreated control. All modules differ with each other only in third treatment which was applied in 65 DAT. The third treatment includes: Imidacloprid 17.8 SL @ 27 g a.i ha-1, Pymetrozine 50 WG @ 150 g a.i ha-1, Triflumezopyrim 106 SC @ 27 g a.i ha-1, Buprofezin 25 SC @ 250 g a.i ha-1; Glamore (Imidacloprid 40+Ethiprole 40% w/w) 80 WG @ 100 g a.i. ha-1, Thiacloprid 24 SC @ 60 g a.i ha-1, Azadirachtin 0.03 EC @ 8 g a.i ha-1, Dinotefuran 20 SG@ 40 g a.i ha-1 and untreated control. All the treated plots recorded significantly lower percent of dead heart, white ear- head caused by stem borer and silver shoot caused by gall midge. Module with Pymetrozine 50 WG @ 150 g a.i ha-1 treated plot recorded significantly higher per cent reduction of plant hoppers (>80% over untreated control) and produced higher grain yield (50.75 qha-1) than the other modules. Among the different treated modules the maximum number of spiders was found in Azadirachtin 0.03 EC @ 8 g a.i ha-1 treated module plot followed by other treatments.

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