scholarly journals EARLY SYNTACTIC ACQUISITION IN A BALINESE SPEAKING CHILD

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-92
Author(s):  
Ni Luh Putu Sri Adnyani
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Natural Setting ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Phonetic Transcription ◽  
Spontaneous Interaction ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Grammatical Functions

This article addresses the acquisition of syntax in a Balinese monolingual child at the age of 2;5 until 2;7. The data was collected in natural setting when the child involved in spontaneous interaction with adults. The speech produced by the child was segmented based on the utterances. The speech produced by the child was transcribed orthographically, along with the phonetic transcription. Besides, every utterance produced by the child accompanied by contextual description and explanation. The data was coded and glossed according to the parts of speech, and grammatical functions. The results show that at this stage, even though the child goes through early sentence or word combinations stage, the child still produces single-word utterances at the onset as well. The words belong to noun, verb, adjective, adverb and particle. Words combination produced can be classified into declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences. Initially, the child frequently omit subject. The fact that in colloquial adult’s conversation in Balinese omitting subject is acceptable may contribute to the subject omission. In two words combinations NP and VP occurred and in three or more words utterances S-P, S-P-O and S-P-C starting to be produced. In making questions kije‘where’, ape ‘what’, encen ‘which one’ and nyen ‘whose’ are used. In question, the child also applied rising intonation when question words are not applied. The child is also able to express tag question. In imperative sentences, the child is able to use command, request, and invitation. This study implies the role of adult’s input in children language acquisition as shown in subject omission and the flexible word order.   

The influence of discourse context on children's provision of auxiliary BE

2008 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNA L. THEAKSTON ◽  
ELENA V. M. LIEVEN
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Linguistic Representations ◽  
Prior Use ◽  
Single Child ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
Children's Speech

ABSTRACTChildren pass through a stage in development when they produce utterances that contain auxiliary BE (he's playing) and utterances where auxiliary BE is omitted (he playing). One explanation that has been put forward to explain this phenomenon is the presence of questions in the input that model S-V word order (Theakston, Lieven & Tomasello, 2003). The current paper reports two studies that investigate the role of the input in children's use and non-use of auxiliary BE in declaratives. In Study 1, 96 children aged from 2 ; 5 to 2 ; 10 were exposed to known and novel verbs modelled in questions only or declaratives only. In Study 2, naturalistic data from a dense database from a single child between the ages of 2 ; 8 to 3 ; 2 were examined to investigate the influence of (1) declaratives and questions in the input in prior discourse, and (2) the child's immediately previous use of declaratives where auxiliary BE was produced or omitted, on his subsequent use or non-use of auxiliary BE. The results show that in both the experimental and naturalistic contexts, the presence of questions in the input resulted in lower levels of auxiliary provision in the children's speech than in utterances following declaratives in the input. In addition, the children's prior use or non-use of auxiliary BE influenced subsequent use. The findings are discussed in the context of usage-based theories of language acquisition and the role of the language children hear in their developing linguistic representations.

Primary Grade Children's Memory for Parts of Speech

1979 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-130
Author(s):  
Elliott W. Simon ◽  
John Parker ◽  
John N. Bohannon
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Developmental Differences ◽  
Kindergarten Children ◽  
Primary Grade ◽  
Comprehension Strategies ◽  
Second Grade ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Children's Memory ◽  
Unusual Finding

Developmental differences in elementary school (kindergarten, first and second grade) children's free recall for parts of speech were investigated using sentences with normal and scrambled word order. The children were presented four sentences with normal syntax and four sentences with scrambled word order. There were significant effects of age, syntax, and rate of presentation; these replicated previous research. The unusual finding was that the kindergarten children, when presented with scrambled word strings, recalled more verbs than either the first or second grade children. It was hypothesized that this occurred because either the kindergarten children failed to detect the scrambled nature of syntaxless strings, or there is a change in the comprehension strategies which de-emphasizes the role of the verb.

scholarly journals Meaning and its Effect on the Grammatical Guidance of (Gareebul Hadith): Al-zamakhshari's book Alfa'iq as a case study: المعنى وأثره في التوجيه النحوي لغريب الحديث: الفائق للزمخشري (ت538ه) أنموذجًا

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Atef Ahmed Osman Khaimar
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Meaning ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Descriptive Approach ◽  
Scientific Truth ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Grammatical Functions

  This research is based on the explanation of the meaning and its types and the need to understand it, and the concept of the parsing (Al-i’raab) and its importance, and the relationship between meaning and parsing (Al-i’raab), it also aims to demonstrate the grammatical guidance of (Gareebul Hadith), and its effect according to Zamakhshari, and reveal the manifestations of this effect, and expounding the basis of weighting according to him in case of multifaceted aspects of parsing (Al-i’raab). It also aims to reveal the role of meaning in his grammatical thought. To achieve these objectives, the research relied on analytical descriptive approach, and the required discussion, analysis and comment, in order to reach the scientific truth impartially and objectively. The nature of the subject necessitated that it be composed of two topics interceding an introduction and a conclusion. The first topic defined the meaning and parsing (Al-i’raab), and explained the relationship between them, through three sections addressing the concept of the meaning and the need to understand it, the concept of the parsing (Al-i’raab) and its importance, the relationship between the meaning and the parsing (Al-i’raab). The second topic showed the manifestations of the effect of the meaning in the grammatical guidance of (Gareebul Hadith) according to Zamakhshari, and it came in two sections; one dealt with what was attributed to the meaning in which the main touchstone in the grammatical guidance, and the latter studied what is likely with multifaceted aspects of parsing (Al-i’raab). One of the most important results of the research is that Zamakhshari not only in his grammatical guidance of (Gareebul Hadith) mentioned grammatical functions, but went beyond that to the semantic meaning, and the role of context in highlighting that meaning. The research also shows the effect of meaning according to Zamakhshari in mentioning the grammatical aspects allowable, and the differentiation between them is according to the power of meaning in each aspect. Among the recommendations of the researcher: The need to link between the Grammar and meaning, or between grammatical and semantic phenomena.    

scholarly journals Prototype constructions in early language acquisition

2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Ibbotson ◽  
Michael Tomasello
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Functional Significance ◽  
Early Language ◽  
General Applicability ◽  
Multiple Cues ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Linguistic Cues ◽  
Reliability And Availability

AbstractIn this paper we bring together several lines of cross-linguistic research to demonstrate the role of prototypicality in young children's acquisition of the transitive construction. Much research has shown that young children are slow to form abstract constructions because they fail to see the more general applicability of syntactic markers such as word order and case marking. Here we attempt to explain this fact by investigating the nature of the language children do and do not hear, specifically, the reliability and availability of the linguistic cues they are exposed to. We suggest that constructions redundantly marked with multiple cues could have a special status as a nucleus around which the prototype forms—which makes it difficult for them to isolate the functional significance of each cue. The implications of this view for language acquisition are discussed within a usage-based framework.

Four- to five-year-olds’ use of word order and prosody in focus marking in Dutch

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (s1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aoju Chen ◽  
Barbara Höhle
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Limited Role ◽  
Specific Focus ◽  
Narrow Focus ◽  
Ambient Language ◽  
Show Evidence ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Focus Marking

AbstractThis study investigated Dutch-speaking four- to five-year-olds’ use of word order and prosody in distinguishing focus types (broad focus, narrow focus, and contrastive narrow focus) via an interactive answer-reconstruction game. We have found an overall preference for the unmarked word order SVO and no evidence for the use of OVS to distinguish focus types. But the children used pitch and duration in the subject-nouns to distinguish focus types in SVO sentences. These findings show that Dutch-speaking four- to five-year-olds differ from their German- and Finnish-speaking peers, who show evidence of varying choice of word order to mark specific focus types, and use prosody to distinguish focus types in subject and object nouns in both SVO and OVS sentences. These comparisons suggest that typological differences in the relative importance between word order and prosody can lead to differences in children’s use of word order and prosody in unmarked and marked word orders. A more equal role of word order and prosody in the ambient language can stimulate more extensive use of prosody in the marked word order, whereas a more limited role of word order can restrict the use of prosody in the unmarked word order.

scholarly journals A comparison of collocations and word associations in Estonian from the perspective of parts of speech

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-167
Author(s):  
Ene Vainik ◽  
Maria Tuulik ◽  
Kristina Koppel
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Word Associations ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Grammatical Relations ◽  
Associative Structures ◽  
Local Grammar

The paper provides a comparative study of the collocational and associative structures in Estonian with respect to the role of parts of speech. The lists of collocations and associations of an equal set of nouns, verbs and adjectives, originating from the respective dictionaries, is analysed to find both the range of coincidences and differences. The results show a moderate overlap, among which the biggest overlap occurs in the range of the adjectival associates and collocates. There is an overall prevalence for nouns appearing among the associated and collocated items. The coincidental sets of relations are tentatively explained by the influence of grammatical relations i.e. the patterns of local grammar binding together the collocations and motivating the associations. The results are discussed with respect to the possible reasons causing the associations-collocations mismatch and in relation to the application of these findings in the fields of lexicography and second language acquisition.

scholarly journals Semantic syncretism in a figurative structure of Alexander Belyakov`s lyric poetry

2021 ◽  
Vol 61 ◽  
pp. 268-279
Author(s):  
Aleksey S. Bokarev
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Lyric Poetry ◽  
World Order ◽  
Main Theme ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Secret Agent ◽  
Linguistic Phenomenon

Figurative syncretism that goes back to the linguistic archaism is construed as a complex notion of several semantic symptoms in a single word when the speech context does not eliminate the vagueness but rather generates it instead. Principles of signifying syncretic figurativeness in lyric poetry of the modern poet Alexander Belyakov are the subject matter of the research. The paper considers a package of themes and motifs represented by such figurativeness. Analysis shows that the sense content of syncretism in the author’s works is exclusively situational, i.e., it depends on the context; thus the link between a linguistic phenomenon or a technique (polysemy, homonymy, paronymic attraction, transformation of parts of speech) and the semantics is unstable and is formed anew at each stage of the poet’s creative endeavors. In the earlier verses, it is associated with ideas of instability and unnaturalness of the world order. In later and mature texts, its significance is determined by the book’s main theme, be it the universal disappearance and dispersion of everything (as in “The Traceless Marches”), protracted nightmare of a dreamer (as in “The Carbon-dioxide Dreams”), or creative efforts of a poet likened to a secret agent`s mission (as in “Rotation of Secret Expeditions,” and “Sumerian Spy”). That being said, A. Belyakov’s poetry can hardly be perceived as a full-scale “reincarnation” of linguistic archaism, since actually we are confronted merely with its imitation by means supplied by an essentially new, latest epoch. However, if the ancient syncretism was a premise of the knowledge and differentiation of phenomena, its modern counterpart — neo-syncretism — casts doubt on their knowledge and testifies to the total revision of the world undertaken by poetic consciousness.

scholarly journals Where to place inaccessible subjects in Dutch: The role of definiteness and animacy

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 369-398
Author(s):  
Jorrig Vogels ◽  
Geertje Van Bergen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Syntactic Variation ◽  
Syntactic Position ◽  
Accessible Information ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Topical Information

AbstractCross-linguistically, both subjects and topical information tend to be placed at the beginning of a sentence. Subjects are generally highly topical, causing both tendencies to converge on the same word order. However, subjects that lack prototypical topic properties may give rise to an incongruence between the preference to start a sentence with the subject and the preference to start a sentence with the most accessible information. We present a corpus study in which we investigate in what syntactic position (preverbal or postverbal) such low-accessible subjects are typically found in Dutch natural language. We examine the effects of both discourse accessibility (definiteness) and inherent accessibility (animacy). Our results show that definiteness and animacy interact in determining subject position in Dutch. Non-referential (bare) subjects are less likely to occur in preverbal position than definite subjects, and this tendency is reinforced when the subject is inanimate. This suggests that these two properties that make the subject less accessible together can ‘gang up’ against the subject first preference. The results support a probabilistic multifactorial account of syntactic variation.

Syntax meets discourse: Locative and deictic (directional) inversion in English

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-276
Author(s):  
Ana Ojea
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Formal Analysis ◽  
Functional Category ◽  
Computational Requirement ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Locative Inversion ◽  
Syntactic Derivation

AbstractThis paper offers a formal analysis of three constructions in English: locative inversion, central deictic inversion and directional inversion. These constructions constitute thetic statements with a locative intentional base which sets a scene that (re)introduces an entity in the discourse; syntactically, they display a non-canonical word order and have a number of unusual grammatical properties which make them particularly interesting to show how syntax connects, and adapts, to discourse. I propose that they all obtain from a language particular mechanism which involves a functional category LocP that adjusts the computational requirement to have a preverbal subject to the intentional need to have the subject post-verbally. As for the differences among them, they are approached in terms of the features that head LocP and the lexical properties of the verbs that head each of the structures. Ultimately, the paper also serves to discuss the role of certain informational features (the so-called core intentional features) in the syntactic derivation.

Processing transfer: Language-specific processing strategies as a source of interlanguage variation

1987 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 351-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Harrington
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Speech Processing ◽  
Order Effects ◽  
Response Patterns ◽  
English Sentence ◽  
Processing Strategies ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Simple Sentences

ABSTRACTA sentence interpretation experiment based on the functionalist Competition Model of speech processing (Bates & MacWhinney, 1982) was administered to three groups of university-age English L1, Japanese ESL, and Japanese L1 subjects (n = 12 per group) in an attempt to elicit evidence for (1) processing strategies characteristic of the Japanese and English L1 groups and, (2) transfer/influence of Japanese L1 strategies on the English sentence interpretations of the Japanese ESL group. Subjects selected the subject/actor of simple sentences incorporating word order, animacy, and stress cues in random converging and competing orders. The English L1 and ESL groups were tested on English sentences and the Japanese L1 group tested on Japanese sentences. The Japanese L1 interpretations were most heavily influenced by animacy cues, while the English L1 group showed a higher overall sensitivity to word order manipulations. The ESL group resembled the Japanese L1 group in reliance on animacy cues, with the exception of allowing inanimate nouns to act as subjects. While the ESL group showed greater sensitivity to word order effects than the Japanese L1 group, no “second-noun” strategy (i.e., systematically interpreting the NNV and VNN orders as left- and right-dislocated SOV and VOS orders) was evident.Although the findings were generally consistent with previous research, the presence of contrasting response patterns in the English L1 group suggests caution in attempting to typify languages on the basis of processing strategies drawn from probablistic tendencies evident in grouped data, and leaves open the role of such processing strategy typologies as a potential source of variation in inter-language.

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