scholarly journals SPECIFICS OF OLD ENGLISH SYNTAX AS THE BASIS FOR GRAMMATICALIZATION OF FOCUSING ADVERBS

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (11(79)) ◽  
pp. 111-115
Author(s):  
Olena Andrushenko
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
English Language Development ◽  
New Information ◽  
English Syntax ◽  
Focus Marking

The article deals with the preconditions of focusing adverbs grammaticalization in Old English, which function as one of the markers of sentence information structure in Modern English. With major strategies of highlighting the components of information structure in the language of VII-XI cen. being analyzed, the study found that the order of arranging the elements in the sentence was, namely, most sensitive to old/new information allotment, as well as, sentence topic and focus marking, which explains the word order variations in the clause. Adverbs as a class in this period were represented by temporal, VP- and sentential ones. All these types have relevance for the current study given that they may serve as one of the sources of grammaticalization for focusing adverbs in further periods of the English language development. The other source for the highlighted adverbs formation were adverbial suffixes -ly or -e added to adjectives, nouns and verbs. It was proved that the major adverbial discourse markers in Old English are temporal adverbs þa/thonne, her and nu. Therefore, this class presumably served the basis for the formation of new focusing adverbs at further stages of the language evolution.

scholarly journals On the position of adjectives in Middle English

2006 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
OLGA FISCHER
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Word Order ◽  
New Information

The position of adjectives, and especially that of postnominal adjectives, in Middle English is compared to the adjective situation for Old English. Recently, Fischer (2000, 2001), followed to some extent by Haumann (2003), has proposed that in Old English there is a difference in meaning between certain types of preposed and postposed adjectives, which is related to a number of parameters such as definiteness vs indefiniteness of the NP, weak vs strong forms of the adjective, and given vs new information. This article will investigate to what extent the same or similar parameters still hold in Middle English, a period in which postposed adjective position began to decline due to, among other things, the loss of the strong vs weak distinction in adjectives, the rise of a new determiner system and the gradual fixation of word order on both a phrasal and a clausal level. Special attention will be paid to the postnominal and + adjective construction, which is here argued, pace Haumann for Old English, to be similar to postnominal adjectives without and.

scholarly journals The impact of information structure on the emergence of differential object marking: an experimental study

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shira Tal ◽  
Kenny Smith ◽  
Jennifer Culbertson ◽  
Eitan Grossman ◽  
Inbal Arnon
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Alternative Hypothesis ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Language Typology ◽  
Differential Object Marking ◽  
New Information ◽  
Object Marking ◽  
The Impact

Many languages exhibit differential object marking (DOM), where only certain types of grammatical objects are marked with morphological case. Traditionally, it has been claimed that DOM arises as a way to prevent ambiguity by marking objects that might otherwise be mistaken for subjects (e.g., animate objects). While some recent experimental work supports this account (Fedzechkina et al., 2012), research on language typology suggests at least one alternative hypothesis. In particular, DOM may instead arise as a way of marking objects that are atypical from the point of view of information structure. According to this account, rather than being marked to avoid ambiguity, objects are marked when they are given (already familiar in the discourse) rather than new. Here, we experimentally investigate this hypothesis using two artificial language learning experiments. We find that information structure impacts participants’ object-marking, but in an indirect way: atypical information structure leads to a change of word order, which then triggers increased object marking. Interestingly, this staged process of change is compatible with documented cases of DOM emergence (Iemmolo, 2013). We argue that this process is driven by two cognitive tendencies. First, a tendency to place discourse given information before new information, and second, a tendency to mark non-canonical word order. Taken together, our findings provide corroborating evidence for the role of information structure in the emergence of DOM systems.

scholarly journals Studying word order differences in a historical parallel corpus: An example from Old Spanish and Old Portuguese

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristine Gunn Eide
Keyword(s):  
Structural Properties ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
14Th Century ◽  
Parallel Corpus ◽  
Old Spanish ◽  
New Information ◽  
Structural Differences ◽  
Old Portuguese

In this article, I use a parallel corpus from the 13th and 14th century to tease out some of the structural differences that existed between Old Spanish and Old Portuguese. While these two related languages were relatively similar in many respects, and the parallel corpus reflects these similarities, differences in syntax and information structure are also apparent. By comparing the syntactic and information structural properties of the sentences that display different word orders, it is possible to pinpoint more exactly what these differences were. The parallel sentences show that information structural properties of the left periphery, where Spanish allows for new information where Portuguese does not, account for differences in both object and subject placement.

scholarly journals Cohesion in Polish-English Translation and Its Implications for Translator Training

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-233
Author(s):  
Marcin Lewandowski
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
English Language ◽  
English Word ◽  
Primary Interest ◽  
Training Experience ◽  
Translation Process ◽  
Translator Training ◽  
Language Pair

This paper focuses on the ways of maintaining cohesive links in the translation process in the Polish-English language pair. Of primary interest is how the thematic/rhematic structure of Polish sentences can be successfully rendered in English to produce cohesive, natural-sounding and communicative target texts with a proper information flow. These aspects have implications for translation teaching. It has been observed that, in view of the differences between Polish and English word order, university students at the start of their translator training experience two general problems as they attempt to translate longer stretches of text into English: (1) they produce cohesive passages, which contain errors in word order (due to syntactic interference from Polish) or (2) they produce grammatically correct sentences, which, however, form incohesive passages (i.e. ones in which the thematic/rhematic progression is not retained) with an inappropriate information structure. For this reason, students need to become acquainted with some practical solutions that help build cohesion in Polish-English translation. These include (1) shifts from active to passive, (2) other shifts in syntactic functions, (3) fronting, and (4) inventing sentence subjects out of broader context.

scholarly journals Word order in wh-questions in a North Norwegian dialect: some evidence from an acquisition study

2003 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marit Richardsen Westergaard
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Standard Language ◽  
New Information ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
The Subject

While standard Norwegian is a V2 language, some Norwegian dialects exhibit V3 in certain types of wh-questions. In some previous work on the Tromsø dialect, V3 has been considered the ‘true’ dialect and speakers' acceptance of V2 simply a result of the influence from the standard language. Based on child and adult data from a study of the acquisition of word order in the Tromsø dialect, I will argue that both V2 and V3 orders are part of the dialect – used by adult speakers and acquired (more or less) simultaneously by children. It will further be argued that the choice between the two depends on the information structure of the sentence, more specifically, on the interpretation of the subject as given or new information.

scholarly journals The clause-initial position in L2 Swedish declaratives: Word order variation and discourse pragmatics

2010 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ute Bohnacker
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Structural Level ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
L1 Transfer ◽  
New Information ◽  
Types Of Information ◽  
Transfer Of Information

In a recent study of the clause-initial position in verb-second declaratives (the prefield), Bohnacker & Rosén (2008) found significant differences between native Swedish and German concerning the frequencies with which constituents occurred in the prefield, as well as qualitative differences concerning the mapping of information structure and linear word order: Swedish exhibited a stronger tendency than German to place new information, the so-called rheme, later in the clause. Swedish-speaking learners of German transferred these patterns from their L1 to German. Their sentences were syntactically well-formed but had Swedish-style prefield frequencies and a strong pattern of Rheme Later, which native Germans perceive as unidiomatic, as an acceptability judgment and a rewrite-L2texts task showed. The present study extends Bohnacker & Rosén's work in three ways. Learners of the reverse language combination (L1 German, L2 Swedish) are investigated to see whether similar phenomena also manifest themselves there. Secondly, written and oral data from highly advanced learners are examined to see whether the learners’ persistent problems can be overcome by extensive immersion (3, 6 and 9 years of L2 exposure). Thirdly, besides investigating theme–rheme (old vs. new information), some consideration is given to another information-structural level, background vs. focus. The learners are found to overuse the prefield at first, with non-Swedish, German-style frequency patterns (e.g. low proportions of clause-initial expletives and high proportions of clause-initial rhematic elements). This is interpreted as evidence for L1 transfer of information-structural or discourse-pragmatic preferences. After 6 and 9 years, a substantial increase in clause-initial expletive subjects, clefts and lightweight given elements is indicative of development towards the target. The findings are related to current generative theorizing on the syntax-pragmatics interface, where it is often maintained that the integration of multiple types of information is one of the hardest areas for L2 learners to master.

scholarly journals Word Order Alignment in Three-Argument Constructions of Irish

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (11 Zeszyt specjalny) ◽  
pp. 149-169
Author(s):  
Brian Nolan
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Functional Model ◽  
Word Alignment ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Linguistic Complexity ◽  
Role And Reference Grammar ◽  
Reference Grammar ◽  
New Information ◽  
Irish Data

This study examines the ordering of the actor (A), theme (T) and recipient (R) arguments in three-argument clauses, the prepositional ditransitive constructions of Irish. The ordering of the A, T and R arguments in three-argument clauses is an area where linguistic complexity is manifest in the Irish grammar. Across languages, the factors which influence word order adjustments, from a basic word order of A-T-R, are known to include iconicity, information structure and topicalisation, the distinction between given and new information, the effects of the various referential hierarchies, and syntactic weight. We show that some, but not all, of these apply to the Irish data. Under certain conditions, the word order of these Irish three-argument clauses changes in a different alignment. Specifically, if the T is an accusative pronoun then the word order alignment changes and consequently the T occurs after the R in clause final position, yielding an A R-T word order. We argue that post-positioning of the theme PN is due to the alignment effects that can be explained by reference to the nominal and person hierarchies, and their intersection with the principle of syntactic weight. The Irish grammar seems to be disposed to place the accusative object PN T in clause final position in word order, adding an imposed salience. We characterise the effects of the nominal and person hierarchies, and syntactic weight, on word order within these constructions. We use elements of the functional model of Role and Reference Grammar in this characterisation. These word alignment effects raise important questions of the distribution of linguistic complexity across the grammar of Irish, and the interfaces between semantics, and syntax, as well as information structure.

On-line testing as a new method of student knowledge evaluation

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-356
Author(s):  
V.P. Kovalchuk ◽  
I.M. Kovalenko ◽  
S.V. Kovalenko ◽  
V.M. Burkot ◽  
V.O. Kovalenko
Keyword(s):  
Information Technologies ◽  
English Language ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
Personality Testing ◽  
Online Testing ◽  
Training Time ◽  
Internet Resources ◽  
New Information ◽  
On Line ◽  
Use Of The Internet

Innovations change the world in all spheres of life, and education is not an exception. Modern requirements of time put us new challenges that require the use of new information technologies at all stages of the educational process in higher education institutions, in particular the use of the Internet. In addition, it has been noted that Internet resources increase motivation and contribute to the formation of a fully developed personality. Testing and evaluating students' knowledge and abilities is an integral part of the credit-module system. One of the forms of evaluation of the initial level of knowledge, consolidation and improvement of assimilation of information is testing. It should be noted that in a number of countries, testing has shifted traditional forms of control — oral and written exams and interviews. However, in Ukraine, educators remain adherents of a combination of testing and classical analysis of material. It allows the most efficient distribution of the training time of a practical class, 100% control of the knowledge and the effectiveness of mastering the material of all the students of the academic group. Technical progress stimulates the search for new variants and possibilities of testing, its various variations. One of the options that can help solve this problem was a smartphone. In order to facilitate the work of the teacher at the Department of Microbiology, an online testing system with the use of smartphones was introduced. Online testing is conducted among students with Ukrainian and English language training. With the Google Forms platform, the teacher creates a form which contains the student's records and tests. Students directly from the teacher get a link to fill out an online form directly at the lesson. For testing, a database containing standard KROK-1 licensed test tasks is used. The form can contain any number of test tasks that are in arbitrary order, as well as a changed order of distractors, which makes it impossible to write off. At the same time, all students are in the same conditions: all write one option. After submitting the form, the student receives a notification that his response is recorded. Re-linking is not possible. In turn, the teacher receives a message on the result of the test in the table — the ratio of correct answers to the total number of questions, as well as options for their answers. First and foremost, questions are displayed on which students gave the largest number of incorrect answers. This allows the topic to be considered in the process of discussion of the most difficult tasks from the students perspective, and in the future it will allow more efficiently to create forms for on-line tests and to focus on these issues.

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