scholarly journals Aspectuo-Temporal Underspecification in Anindilyakwa: Descriptive, Theoretical, Typological and Quantitative Issues

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Caudal ◽  
James Bednall
Keyword(s):  
Good Predictor ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Temporal Interpretation ◽  
Change Of State

So-called ‘zero’ or ‘null’ tenses have often been characterized as functionally deficient forms, deprived of any inherent content. In this paper, we will focus on the semantics of a morpho-phonologically null inflectional verbal paradigm in Anindilyakwa (Groote Eylandt, N.T., Australia, which is both temporally and aspectually underspecified. Through a quantitative corpus study conducted in the paper, we establish that ‘zero inflection’ in this language, contra prior works on such tenses in general (e.g. Bybee 1990) and in Anindilyakwa in particular (Bednall 2019), presents various degrees of sensitivity to traditional Vendlerian aspectual parameters. We show that while telicity is not a significant predictor for the temporal interpretation of zero-inflected Anindilyakwa verbs, and dynamicity is a good but not very good predictor, only a very broad opposition between change-of-state (including qua boundedness) and non-change-of-state, or perfective/imperfective, gives very significant biases towards past vs. present anchoring. We also show that atomic telicity is the only categorical Aktionsart predictor for temporal anchoring in this context correctly predict the temporal anchoring of such verbs, and stativity is not biased towards present interpretations, thereby questioning currently received typological theories of the semantics of so-called ‘zero-tenses’ / aspectuo-temporally underspecified tenses.

The locative alternation in verb-framed vs. satellite-framed languages

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 864-895 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wojciech Lewandowski
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Token Frequency ◽  
Locative Alternation ◽  
Change Of State ◽  
Type Frequency ◽  
Verb Meaning

I propose a comparative analysis of the locative alternation in Polish and Spanish. I adopt a constructional theory of argument structure (Goldberg (1995)), according to which the locative alternation is an epiphenomenon of the compatibility of a single verb meaning with two different constructions: the caused-motion construction and the causative + with adjunct construction. As claimed by Pinker (1989), a verb must specify a manner of motion from which a particular change of state can be obtained in order to be able to appear in both constructional schemas. However, I show through a corpus study that the compatibility between verbal and constructional meaning is further restricted by Talmy’s (1985, 1991, 2000) distinction between verb-framed and satellite-framed languages. In particular, Talmy’s lexicalization patterns theory systematically explains why both the token frequency and the type frequency of the alternating verbs are considerably higher in Polish than in Spanish.

Change of state of generalized trusses

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 215-224
Author(s):  
Zsolt Gáspár
Keyword(s):  
Change Of State

Speaking style prosodic variation: an 8-hour 9-style corpus study

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Philippe Goldman ◽  
Tea Prs̈ir ◽  
George Christodoulides ◽  
Antoine Auchlin
Keyword(s):  
Corpus Study ◽  
Speaking Style

scholarly journals “They Made us into a Race. We Made Ourselves into a People”: A Corpus Study of Contemporary Black American Group Identity in the Non-Fictional Writings of Ta-Nehisi Coates

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yulia Hathaway
Keyword(s):  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
Black People ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Black American ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Black America ◽  
Shared Experiences ◽  
American Group ◽  
Identity Based

AbstractThis article examines representations of contemporary Black American identity in the non-fictional writings of Ta-Nehisi Coates. The dataset is a self-compiled specialized corpus of Coates’s non-fictional writings from 1996 until 2018 (350 texts; 468,899 words). The study utilizes an interdisciplinary approach combining corpus linguistics and corpus pragmatics. Frequencies of five identity-related terms in the corpus (African(–)Americans, blacks, black people, black America/Americans and black community/communities) are compared diachronically; then the pragmatic prosody of the terms is analyzed via the notion of control. The findings suggest that Coates’s representation of Black American group identity has shifted over time. Specifically, the terms African Americans and black America are replaced by the terms blacks and black people. The study’s empirical findings, considered through the theoretical framework on Black solidarity, suggest a shift in representation of group identity in Coates’s writings from an identity based on cultural and ethnic commonalities to an identity based on the shared experiences of anti-Black racism.

The distribution of short and long pronouns in Maltese

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-220
Author(s):  
Benjamin Saade
Keyword(s):  
Weak Effect ◽  
Functional Diagnostics ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Short Forms ◽  
The Status

Abstract This study investigates the distribution of long and short independent pronouns in Maltese. By applying proposed positional and functional diagnostics to explain the variation between short and long pronouns (copular use, modification, coordination, peripheral positions) combined with a corpus study of pronominal form, person, and text type, this study sheds light on the factors that influence pronominal form and the status of reduced person forms in Maltese. While the copular use of pronouns does have a weak effect on pronominal form (long forms preferred), a stronger effect is observed with regard to grammatical person (1 sg prefers short forms, 2 sg & 3 sg prefer long forms) and text type.

Extravagant “fake” morphemes in Dutch. Morphological productivity, semantic profiles and categorical flexibility

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristel Van Goethem ◽  
Muriel Norde
Keyword(s):  
Driving Forces ◽  
Morphological Properties ◽  
Distributional Semantics ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Semantic Coherence ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Type Frequency ◽  
Imitation Leather ◽  
Artificial Grass

AbstractDutch features several morphemes with “privative” semantics that occur as left-hand members in compounds (e.g., imitatieleer ‘imitation leather’, kunstgras ‘artificial grass’, nepjuwelen ‘fake jewels’). Some of these “fake” morphemes display great categorical flexibility and innovative adjectival uses. Nep, for instance, is synchronically attested as an inflected adjective (e.g., neppe cupcake ‘fake cupcake’). In this paper, we combine an extensive corpus study of eight Dutch “fake” morphemes with statistical methods in distributional semantics and collexeme analysis in order to compare their semantic and morphological properties and to find out which factors are the driving forces behind their exceptional “extravagant” morphological behavior. Our analyses show that debonding and adjectival reanalysis are triggered by an interplay of two factors, i.e., type frequency and semantic coherence, which allow us to range the eight morphemes on a cline from more schematic to more substantive “fake” constructions.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document