scholarly journals Prosody and Processing: Comprehension and Production of Topic-Comment and Subject-Predicate Structures in Brazilian Portuguese / Prosódia e processamento: compreensão e produção de estruturas de tópico e de sujeito no português brasileiro

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 1601
Author(s):  
Andressa Christine Oliveira da Silva ◽  
Aline Alves Fonseca
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Production Task ◽  
Linguistic Processing ◽  
Passive Voice ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Reading Technique ◽  
The Subject

Abstract: This paper explores the influence of prosody in the processes of comprehension and production of sentences in Brazilian Portuguese with topic-comment syntactic structure and sentences with subject-predicate syntactic structure, in active or passive voice. Three experimental activities were carried out, one production task and two comprehension tasks. Experiment 1 consisted of a perception task with the ABX technique, and it aimed to test if hearers recognize prosodic differences between topicalized Determinant Phrases (DPs) and DPs in subject position. Experiment 2 consisted of a sentence elicitation task with Cross-modal naming technique and it aimed to investigate whether Portuguese native speakers produce a subject-predicate structure or a topic-comment structure in contexts that favor the occurrence of these syntactic structures in speech. Experiment 3 consisted of a comprehension task with Self-paced listening and reading technique and it aimed to investigate whether prosodic characteristics of a DP, in topic or subject position, can guide hearers during the processing in order to distinguish between these two syntactic categories. From the comprehension/perception perspective, the results of the experiments 1 and 3 indicated that speakers recognize the prosodic differences between the topicalized DPs and the subject DPs, and use such characteristics during linguistic processing. From the production perspective, the results of experiment 2 revealed that speakers are able to produce sentences consistent with topic-comment and subject-predicate syntactic structures when the context favors the occurrence of one of them. Nevertheless, the results also reveal a preference for the subject-predicate structure over the topic-comment structure in BP.Keywords: prosody-syntax; topic-comment; subject-predicate.Resumo: Este trabalho investiga a influência da prosódia nos processos de compreensão e produção de sentenças com elementos topicalizados, do tipo tópico-comentário, e sentenças com a estrutura de sujeito-predicado, na voz ativa ou passiva, do Português Brasileiro. Aplicaram-se três atividades experimentais, uma tarefa de produção e duas de compreensão. O Experimento 1 consistiu em um teste de percepção com a técnica ABX, cujo objetivo foi testar se ouvintes reconhecem as diferenças prosódicas entre Determinant Phrases (DPs) topicalizados e DPs em posição de sujeito não topicalizado. O Experimento 2 consistiu em um teste de elicitação de frases com imagens do tipo Cross-modal naming, cujo objetivo foi investigar se em contextos que favorecem a ocorrência de estruturas de sujeito ou de estruturas topicalizadas, os falantes produzem frases consistentes com tais estruturas sintáticas. O Experimento 3 consistiu em uma tarefa de compreensão, com a técnica Self-paced listening and reading, cujo objetivo foi investigar se as características prosódicas de um DP, em posição de tópico ou de sujeito, conseguem guiar o processamento linguístico dos ouvintes na distinção entre essas duas categorias sintáticas. Na compreensão/percepção, os resultados dos experimentos indicaram que os falantes reconhecem as diferenças prosódicas entre os DPs topicalizados e os DPs em posição de sujeito, e utilizam tais características durante o processamento linguístico. Na produção, os resultados revelaram que os falantes produzem frases consistentes com estruturas sintáticas de tópico e de sujeito quando o contexto favorece o aparecimento delas, entretanto, apontam para uma preferência da estrutura de sujeito como default no PB.Palavras-chave: prosódia-sintaxe; tópico-comentário; sujeito-predicado.

scholarly journals Overriding default interpretations through prosody: Depictive predicates in Brazilian Portuguese

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
Natália Brambatti Guzzo ◽  
Heather Goad
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Acoustic Cues ◽  
Production Task ◽  
The Subject

In Brazilian Portuguese, depictive predicates can have ambiguous readings: the attribute can either refer to the subject (high attachment; HA) or the object (low attachment; LA) of the sentence. Previous studies have found that LA is the default interpretation for ambiguous depictive predicates (e.g., Magalhães & Maia 2006, Fonseca & Magalhães 2007), and that speakers use different acoustic cues to signal HA. However, these studies found several mismatches between speakers’ intended intonation and listeners’ interpretations. We conducted a judgement task and a production task to determine which acoustic cues are used by native speakers to arrive at HA interpretation. The results for the judgement task indicate that HA interpretation is favored by pause before attribute (which can be combined with another cue in the attribute). In the production task, speakers can also signal HA by putting a pause before the attribute (which can be combined with another cue in the object). However, some of the participants did not use any acoustic cue to signal HA, which suggests that some speakers arrive at a HA interpretation only through context, not prosody.

scholarly journals SVIATOSLAV KARAVANSKYI: THE PROBLEM OF SPELLING AND LEXICOGRAPHIC CODIFICATION

2021 ◽  
pp. 31-41
Author(s):  
I. D. Farion
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Main Tool ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Totalitarian Regime ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Descriptive Method ◽  
Political Figure

Purpose and tasks. The purpose is to actualize the linguistic heritage of S. Karavanskyi as a basis for further prescriptive linguistic research. Among the tasks is the analysis of spelling and lexicographic codification in the works of a linguist. The object of our study is the linguistic heritage of Sviatoslav Karavanskyi, who after more than 30 years of Moscow-Stalin concentration camps and 37 years of American emigration carried, preserved and motivated the specific linguistic norm of the constantly destroyed Ukrainian language and its native speakers. The subject of our research is spelling and lexicographic codification of the first third of the XX-XXI century in the works of S. Karavanskyi. When processing the material, we use the analytical and descriptive method. Conclusions and prospects of the study. Spelling issues in the works of S. Karavanskyi have a substantiated ideological basis, which is to reflect the spelling of specific rather than assimilative (“destructive”) features caused by the occupation and totalitarian regime of the 30-80s of the XX century. Spelling assimilation and the necessity to remove it is to change the phonetic-morphological and syntactic structure of the Ukrainian language, in particular phonetic, morphological, word-formation and syntactic changes. The lexicographic codification of the linguist is evidenced by his two fundamental works: “Practical Dictionary of Synonyms of the Ukrainian Language” and “RussianUkrainian Dictionary of Complex Vocabulary”. The main methodological basis for compiling these dictionaries is the specificity of Ukrainian vocabulary in its resistance to codification in dictionaries of “pseudo-language” imposed on Ukrainians during the ethnocide policy and exposing Soviet lexicography as the main “tool of Ukrainian linguicide”. Among the prospects of our study is a holistic linguistic and political portrait of a linguist and socio-political figure.

scholarly journals Linguistic processor integration for solving planimetric problems

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 0-0
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Semantic Representation ◽  
Interactive Visualization ◽  
Subject Area ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Language Description

The research deals with the original algorithms of the linguistic processor integration for solving planimetric problems. The linguistic processor translates the natural language description of the problem into a semantic representation based on the ontology that supports the axiomatics of geometry. The linguistic processor synthesizes natural-language comments to the solution and drawing objects. The method of interactive visualization of the linguistic processor functioning is proposed. The method provides a step-by-step dialog control of syntactic structure construction and its display in semantic representation. During the experiments, several dozens of standard syntactic structures correctly displayed in the semantic structures of the subject area were obtained. The direction of further research related to the development of the proposed approach is outlined.

scholarly journals Hindi aspectual complex predicates

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shakthi Poornima ◽  
Jean-Pierre Koenig
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
The Other ◽  
Complex Predicates ◽  
Case Assignment ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Complex Predicate ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Intransitive Verbs ◽  
Syntax Of Aspect

This paper discusses ergative case assignment in Hindi and its interaction with aspectual verb complexes or complex predicate constructions. It is shown that ergative case is assigned by the last head in the aspectual verb complex and that ergative case on the subject of intransitive verbs denoting bodily-functions is associated with a counter-to-expectation meaning. It is then shown that aspect complex predicates in Hindi involve two distinct syntactic structures, which have similar semantics. While one syntactic structure involves argument composition, the other involves a head-modifier structure. It is argued that the existence of two structures favor approaches to the interface between syntax and semantics which do not require a uniform isomorphism between the semantics and syntax of aspect.

Ellipsis in Mandarin

1997 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Helen Charters
Keyword(s):  
Individual Variation ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Significant Contributor

Abstract Overall, learners of Mandarin tend to use overt nouns and pronouns to a greater extent than native speakers (Charters 1996b), but what specifically gives rise to this discrepancy? Differences in the distribution of ellipsis in learner and native speaker texts is investigated: both frequency and discourse contexts of syntactic structures associated with ellipsis are compared. Learners made no errors of ellipsis in structures where ellipsis is grammatically prescribed, nor did they appear to avoid such syntactic structures. In fact, the discrepancy in overall frequencies arises in contexts where ellipsis is optional; it is a consequence not of differing syntactic choices, but of differing pragmatic choices in comparable syntactic contexts. No single syntactic structure emerges as a significant contributor to the different rates of optional ellipsis overall. However, when individual variation is taken into account, it is clear that some learners use ellipsis only in syntactic contexts where it is permissible in English, and most learners use elliptic syntactic structures in a narrower range of discourse contexts than is typical of native speaker use.

Conditions on prominent internal possessors in Turkish

2019 ◽  
pp. 163-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asli Göksel ◽  
Balkiz Öztürk
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Body Part ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Adverbial Clause ◽  
Matrix Subject ◽  
Psych Verb

This chapter investigates the syntactic properties of the prominent possessor constructions in Turkish. Possessors of possessive phrases become prominent only in a set of well-defined constructions, namely, from within an adverbial clause, typically containing a body part idiom. These idioms have the structure NP-POSS V, where N is a noun of inalienable possession, V is an unaccusative verb, and the idiom itself is paraphraseable as a psych-verb. The chapter analyses the syntactic structure of these idioms and proposes that the subject position in the adverbial clause is occupied by PRO. PRO is in the c-command domain of the matrix subject and is the locus of the experiencer of the unaccusative verb. The possessor is coindexed with this experiencer via its morphosyntactic features.

scholarly journals Viés de causalidade implícita para 50 predicados do Português Brasileiro / Implicity Causality Bias for 50 Predicates in Brazilian Portuguese

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 89
Author(s):  
Renata Sabrinne Souza de Carvalho ◽  
Mahayana Cristina Godoy
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Normative Study ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
European Portuguese ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Implicit Causality ◽  
Do So

Resumo: Nesse trabalho, construímos um corpus com predicados de causalidade implícita para o Português Brasileiro (PB). A causalidade implícita é uma propriedade de uma classe de predicados verbais cuja causa para o evento que denotam tende a recair, para alguns verbos, no sujeito da oração (“enfurecer”, “decepcionar”) e, para outros, em seu objeto (“parabenizar”, “admirar”). Nosso objetivo foi registrar o viés de causalidade de 50 predicados. Para isso, realizamos um experimento de continuação de sentenças com 34 participantes, falantes nativos de português brasileiro. Nossas análises identificaram 24 verbos com viés de causalidade associado ao sujeito e 22 verbos com viés de causalidade associada ao objeto. Esses resultados expandem um corpus já existente em português europeu (COSTA, 2003). Que saibamos, este é o primeiro estudo normativo para a construção de um corpus de causalidade implícita que tem como alvo falantes de português brasileiro. O resultado é um conjunto de verbos que podem ser usados em futuros estudos em psicolinguística ou psicologia que lidem com relações de causalidade. Palavras-chave: psicolinguística; causalidade implícita; verbos; português brasileiro.Abstract: In this paper, we built an implicit causality corpus for Brazilian Portuguese (BP) verbal predicates. Implicit causality is a property of some verbal predicates that strongly associate their causality with their subject (for verbs such as “enrage”, “disappoint”) or their object (for verbs like “congratulate”, “admire”). Our goal was to measure the causality bias of 50 predicates. In order to do so, we carried out a sentence continuation experiment with 34 participants, all native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. Our results identify 24 verbs with a causal bias associated with the subject of the clause, and 22 verbs with a causal bias associated with its object. These results expand a corpus that already exists in European Portuguese (Costa, 2003). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first normative study for the construction of a corpus of implicit causality that targets Brazilian Portuguese speakers. The result is a set of verbal predicates that can be used in future studies in psycholinguistics or psychology that aims at investigating causal relationships.Keywords: psycholinguistics; implicity causality; verbs; Brazilian portuguese.

Variation between singular and plural subject-verb agreement in German: A usage-based approach

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliana Goschler
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Systematic Variation ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Verb Agreement ◽  
Determining Factors ◽  
Proper Name ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Plural Subject

AbstractAt first glance, subject-verb-agreement seems to be straightforward in German: In the case of simplex NPs, the subject always agrees with the verb syntactically in person and number. However, with coordinated NPs in subject position, there is considerable variation in usage. If both conjuncts are singular NPs, the verb may display singular agreement - as would be expected, since coordinated structures inherit their syntactic properties from their individual components - but much more frequently, the verb displays plural agreement. On the basis of the LIMAS-corpus, a one-million-word corpus of written German, I will show that there is systematic variation between the two options. Among the determining factors are the position of the verb (preceding or following the subject), the type of NP (pronoun, proper name, lexical NP) and the internal syntactic structure of the subject (coordination of full NPs vs. coordination of partial NPs sharing a determiner, and definiteness vs. indefiniteness of the coordinated parts of the subject). I will discuss the results from the perspective of usage-based approaches and argue for an integration of semantic, pragmatic, and frequency factors in any theoretical approach to grammar.

scholarly journals Linguistic Processor Integration for Solving Planimetric Problems

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Sergeyi S. Kurbatov
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Semantic Representation ◽  
Interactive Visualization ◽  
Subject Area ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Language Description

The research deals with the original algorithms of the linguistic processor integration for solving planimetric problems. The linguistic processor translates the natural language description of the problem into a semantic representation based on the ontology that supports the axiomatics of geometry. The linguistic processor synthesizes natural-language comments to the solution and drawing objects. The method of interactive visualization of the linguistic processor functioning is proposed. The method provides a step-by-step dialog control of syntactic structure construction and its display in semantic representation. During the experiments, several dozens of standard syntactic structures correctly displayed in the semantic structures of the subject area were obtained. The direction of further research related to the development of the proposed approach is outlined.

scholarly journals Uso de se com infinitivo do português clássico ao português europeu e brasileiro modernos (The usage of se in infinitival clauses from Classical to European and Brazilian Portuguese)

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Silvia Regina De Oliveira Cavalcante
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
European Portuguese ◽  
De Se ◽  
Infinitival Clauses ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Diachronic Analysis ◽  
The 19Th Century

Este artigo traz uma análise diacrônica das construções com SE e verbo no infinitivo associando-a a mudanças paramétricas que ocorreram ao longo da história do português: as mudanças na posição do sujeito e no tipo de SE. O fenômeno, que foi considerado típico de uma gramática brasileira, é na verdade uma construção da gramática do Português Clássico (séculos 16 e 17). As diferenças encontradas entre o comportamento do fenômeno no Português Clássico, Português Europeu (a partir do século 18) e Português Brasileiro (textos de autores brasileiros nascidos a partir do século 19) foram analisadas como resultados de diferentes gramáticas.PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Construções com SE. Mudança linguística. Português Europeu. Português Brasileiro. Português Clássico.ABSTRACT This paper brings a diachronic analysis of SE constructions in infinitival clauses, as a result of parametric changes that occurred throughout the history of Portuguese: changes in the subject position and type of SE. The phenomenon, which was considered typical of a Brazilian Grammar, appears as a construction of Classical Portuguese (between 16th and 17th centuries). The observed different patterns of the phenomenon in Classical Portuguese, European Portuguese (from 18th century on) and Brazilian Portuguese (texts written by Brazilian born from the 19th century on) were analyzed as result of different grammars.KEYWORDS: SE-constructions. Diachronic syntax. Classical Portuguese. European Portuguese. Brazilian Portuguese.

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