scholarly journals Root infinitives in Jamaican Creole

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamirand Nnena De Lisser ◽  
Stephanie Durrleman ◽  
Ur Shlonsky ◽  
Luigi Rizzi
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Hierarchical Organization ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Distributional Properties ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Aspectual Markers ◽  
Jamaican Creole ◽  
Development Proceeds

This paper addresses the question of the existence and manifestation of Root Infinitives (RI) in the acquisition of a creole language, Jamaican Creole (JC). It examines JC children’s omission of progressive and prospective aspectual markers in the clausal map in order to determine if early JC includes a root infinitive stage. It shows that non-target-consistent bare verb structures in child JC have distributional properties which have been claimed to be hallmarks of RI: in particular, they occur in declaratives (and in yes-no questions), but not in wh-questions, and they typically co-occur with null subjects, whereas subjects are typically overt in clauses with fully specified aspectual markers. It shows that these properties are expected under a truncation approach (Rizzi, 1993/4; De Lisser et al., 2016), and briefly compares truncation and other approaches to RI. Additionally, the paper compares the properties of truncation and the “growing trees” approach introduced in Friedmann, Belletti and Rizzi (this volume), according to which learners’ productions start with minimal structures in a bottom up fashion, and then higher zones get added on top of the structure as development proceeds, following the hierarchical organization uncovered by cartographic work. Finally, the paper discusses the similarities and differences between the two ideas, and argues that they are compatible, and possibly reflect different stages in language development.

scholarly journals Children’s Grammar of Null Subjects: Evidence from Comprehension

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 563-590 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robyn Orfitelli ◽  
Nina Hyams
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
First Language ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Children's Grammar

The null subject (NS) stage is one of the best-described hallmarks of first language development. We present a series of experiments assessing children’s interpretation of NS sentences, as a way of testing the two main competing analyses of the phenomenon: grammatical accounts, under which young children’s grammars license NSs in declarative sentences; and performance accounts, which hold that children have an adult grammar, but omit subjects in production for extrasyntactic reasons. Overall, we find evidence of an NS stage in comprehension, just as in production. This suggests that child and adult grammars differ, in line with grammatical accounts.

Current Issues in Multilingual First Language Acquisition

2013 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 21-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Unsworth
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Development ◽  
First Language ◽  
Similar Rate ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Input Quantity ◽  
Linguistic System ◽  
Development Proceeds ◽  
Practical Implications

Multilingual first language acquisition refers to the language development of children exposed to two or more languages from birth or shortly thereafter. Much of the research on this topic adopts a comparative approach. Bilinguals are thus compared with their monolingual peers, and trilinguals with both bilinguals and monolinguals; within children, comparisons are made between a child's two (or more) languages, and between different domains within those languages. The goal of such comparisons is to determine the extent to which language development proceeds along similar paths and/or at a similar rate across groups, languages, and domains, in order to elaborate upon the question of whether these different groups acquire language in the same way, and to evaluate how language development in multilingual settings is influenced by environmental factors. The answers to these questions have both theoretical and practical implications.The goal of this article is to discuss the results of some of this recent research on multilingual first language acquisition by reviewing (a) properties of the developing linguistic system in a variety of linguistic domains and (b) some of the characteristics of multilingual first language acquisition that have attracted attention over the past five years, including cross-linguistic influence, dominance, and input quantity/quality. Trilingual first language acquisition is covered in a dedicated section.

scholarly journals IMAGINATIVE-EVALUATIVE CONSTITUENT OF THE CONCEPT FAMILY IN THE BRITISH PUBLICISTIC DISCOURSE

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (11(79)) ◽  
pp. 29-33
Author(s):  
Iryna Matiiash-Hnediuk ◽  
Kseniia Lysak
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Language Development ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
The World ◽  
Similarities And Differences

The aim of the article is to study the metaphorization peculiarities of the concept FAMILY in the British publicistic discourse of the XVIII – XXI centuries. The question of a language segmenting, categorizing the surrounding reality and the experience of its speakers, which has always been in the center of attention of scholars is raised. The importance of lexical nomination as a means of fixing the changes that occur continuously and are understood by humans in their social practice is highlighted. The focus of the study is to trace the process of forming an image of ​​the world of English speakers using publicistic material in diachrony over the past four centuries and to identify the specifics of conceptualization and categorization of this segment of reality. The modifications of the imaginative-evaluative constituent, the loss of the existing and the acquirement of new meanings and their shades are bound with both the language development and with the extralinguistic factors such as the development of the community, social, political and historical events. Printed mass media have always been an important and influential part of social life. They take part in the creation and exchange of ideas and opinions as people receive knowledge about the world indirectly through mass media. These facts contribute to the analysis of a lingvocultural element of words both synchronically and diachronically. Comparing newspapers texts it becomes possible to highlight similarities and differences in the interpretation of the notion expressed by some lexeme. Moreover, the analysis of articles indicates social understanding of the notion. Since newspapers are affordable and available for all members of the society, they are the representatives of live language which unites knowledge and experience.

Piecemeal crosslinguistic influence and multilingualism

2020 ◽  
pp. 026765832094366
Author(s):  
Alfonso Morales-Front ◽  
Cristina Sanz
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Development ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Formal System ◽  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Essential Difference ◽  
The Core ◽  
Crosslinguistic Influence ◽  
Development Proceeds

Saussure proposed the division language/parole and argued that language can be studied as a formal system. Fifty years later Chomsky declared competence the core interest of linguistics. Although for years Generative second language acquisition (GenSLA) has adopted this view, a number of recent publications poke holes into the competence bubble. Westergaard’s article is among those that pushes the boundaries of Generative Grammar (GG). In our commentary, we propose that Westergaard’s Micro-cue Model (McM) and the Linguistic Proximity Model (LPM) may actually be closer to a Usage-Based Approach (UbA) to language development than to the original spirit of GG, and that Westergaard’s sound, evidence-based proposals face some drag by being presented under the aegis of GG. Specifically, the assumption that all learning derives from general cognitive processes -hence, no essential difference between L1, L2, and Ln; the use of cues that are emergent and acquired piecemeal, and the idea that language development proceeds from the specific to the general, are all hallmarks of the UbA. We believe Westergaard’s contribution is important and timely and should encourage a better appreciation of the work being done in other domains as well as an understanding of how the different approaches complement each other.

scholarly journals Norm emergence in multiagent systems: a viewpoint paper

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 706-749
Author(s):  
Andreasa Morris-Martin ◽  
Marina De Vos ◽  
Julian Padget
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Multiagent Systems ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Agent Societies ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Norm Emergence ◽  
Future Topics

Abstract Norms are utilised in agent societies to encourage acceptable behaviour by the participating agents. They can be established or revised from the top-down (authority) or from the bottom-up (populace). The study of norm creation from the bottom-up—or norm emergence/convergence—shows evidence of increasing activity. In consequence, we seek to analyse and categorize the approaches proposed in the literature for facilitating norm emergence. This paper makes three contributions to the study of norm emergence. Firstly, we present the different perspectives of norms and their impact on the norm emergence process, with the aim of comparing their similarities and differences in implementing the norm life cycle. Secondly, we identify the characteristics that support norm emergence that are observed in the emergence literature. Finally, we identify and propose future topics for study for the community, through a discussion of the challenges and opportunities in norm emergence.

Distributional semantics insights on agentive suffix rivalry in French

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 354-391
Author(s):  
Richard Huyghe ◽  
Marine Wauquier
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Statistical Analyses ◽  
Distributional Semantics ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Distributional Properties ◽  
Large Scale Study ◽  
New Perspective

The formation of French agent nouns (ANs) involves a large variety of morphological constructions, and particularly of suffixes. In this study, we focus on the semantic counterpart of agentive suffix diversity and investigate whether the morphological variety of ANs correlates with different agentive subtypes. We adopt a distributional semantics approach and combine manual, computational and statistical analyses applied to French ANs ending in -aire, -ant, -eur, -ien, -ier and -iste. Our methodology allows for a large-scale study of ANs and involves both top-down and bottom-up procedures. We first characterize agentive suffixes with respect to their morphosemantic and distributional properties, outlining their specificities and similarities. Then we automatically cluster ANs into distributionally relevant subsets and examine their properties. Based on quantitative analysis, our study provides a new perspective on agentive suffix rivalry in French that both confirms existing claims and sheds light on previously unseen phenomena.

scholarly journals Acquisition of Romani in a Bilingual Context

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 211-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hristo Kyuchukov
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Grammatical Categories ◽  
Communicative Development ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Research Findings

ABSTRACTThe paper presents research findings from research on Roma children and their acquisition of different grammatical categories in the Romani language. Results from three different studies with Roma children from Bulgaria are discussed: acquisition of mental state verbs (MSV), Bates-MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDI) in Romani and subtests from DELV (Seymour, Roeper, & de Villiers, 2005). All the testing and research shows that Roma children follow the paths of normally developing children in their language development. Roma children are able to correctly use nouns, verbs, wh-questions and to assume different communicative roles.

Crowdfunding and Slow Money

2016 ◽  
pp. 285-294
Author(s):  
Jung Aymeric
Keyword(s):  
Capital Markets ◽  
Business Development ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
New Business ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Conventional Models

Investment is always needed for new business or business development, and we are living with the emergence of new kinds of providers. Alongside banks, funds, or capital markets, efficient funding through people is doable on a larger scale than ever before, thanks in part to the Internet. Crowdfunding platforms and Slow Money are part of this bottom-up trend. In this chapter we compare crowdfunding and Slow Money and by analyzing how they attract people, we discuss their similarities and differences to respond to the research questions. The analysis might help identify potential synergies between the two non-conventional models, and heighten crowd-based solutions of fundraising. This article will identify their fundamentals. More importantly, we will investigate the spirit behind direct funding.

Subject realization and crosslinguistic interference in the bilingual acquisition of Spanish and English: what is the role of the input?

2003 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 371-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHANNE PARADIS ◽  
SAMUEL NAVARRO
Keyword(s):  
Future Research ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Potential Influence ◽  
Bilingual Child ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Distributional Properties ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Language Data ◽  
Crosslinguistic Influence

This study investigated whether crosslinguistic interference occurs in the domain of subject realization in Spanish in a bilingual acquisition context. We were also interested in exploring whether the source of the interference is due to child-internal crosslanguage contact between English and Spanish, as is commonly assumed, or due to the nature of the language input in a bilingual family, a factor which has not typically been considered in studies of crosslinguistic influence. The use of subjects in a null subject language like Spanish is a phenomenon linked to the pragmatics/syntax interface of the grammar, and thus, is a domain where crosslinguistic interference is predicted to be likely to occur in bilingual acquisition (Müller & Hulk, 2001). Using spontaneous language data available from CHILDES (www.childes.psy.cmu.edu), we examined the use of overt subjects in Spanish by two Spanish monolingual children (ages: 1;8–2;7 and 1;8–1;11) one Spanish–English bilingual child (age 1;9–2;6) and their parental interlocutors. We looked at the proportions of overt versus null subjects as well as the discourse-pragmatic contexts of overt subject use by the children in order to uncover bilingual/monolingual differences in the distributional properties and the functional determinants of subject realization. We also looked at identical variables in the speech of the children's parental interlocutors to investigate the potential influence of the input on the children's output. Our results suggest that the bilingual child showed patterns in her subject realizations in Spanish that could be interpreted as due to crosslinguistic effects from English; however, there is also evidence that these effects may have a source in the input, rather than resulting from internal crosslanguage contact. While our data do not permit us to distinguish conclusively between these two possible sources, they indicate that future research on crosslinguistic influence in bilingual acquisition should take input into account.

The transitional stage of a second child – 18 months to 2 years

1986 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Oldenburg
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Language Development ◽  
Transitional Stage ◽  
Early Language ◽  
Second Child ◽  
Early Language Development ◽  
Born Child ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Language For Learning

Abstract Two case studies have been done on the early language development of boys (without siblings), using a functional framework (Halliday, 1975; Painter, 1984). This paper will discuss the results of a case study of a second-born child, Alison, analyzed using the same methods as the above studies. The similarities and differences between the children will be examined. They all made a functional distinction between language for learning (“Mathetic”) and language for doing (“Pragmatic”), although the distinction was expressed differently in Alison’s case. Differences were also noted in Alison’s development of Transitivity and Mood. The relevance of environmental factors will also be discussed.

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