Priming semantic structure in Brazilian Portuguese

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jayden Ziegler ◽  
Rodrigo Morato ◽  
Jesse Snedeker
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Structural Priming ◽  
Locative Alternation ◽  
Change Of State

Structural priming, the tendency for speakers to reuse previously encountered sentence structures, provides some of the strongest evidence for the existence of abstract structural representations in language. In the present research, we investigate the priming of semantic structure in Brazilian Portuguese using the locative alternation: A menina lustrou a mesa com o verniz “The girl rubbed the table with the polish” vs. A menina lustrou o verniz na mesa “The girl rubbed the polish on the table.” On the surface, both locative variants have the same syntactic structure: NP-V-NP-PP. However, location-theme locatives (“rub table with polish” describe a caused-change-of-state event, while theme-location locatives (“rub polish on table”) describe a caused-change-of-location event. We find robust priming on the basis of these semantic differences. This work extends our knowledge by demonstrating that semantic structural priming is not isolated to languages like English (e.g., satellite-framed with strict word order and limited inflection) but is present in a language with very different typological characteristics (e.g., verb-framed and richly inflected with subject dropping).

scholarly journals Syntactic and Semantic Modulation of Neural Activity during Auditory Sentence Comprehension

2006 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 665-679 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Humphries ◽  
Jeffrey R. Binder ◽  
David A. Medler ◽  
Einat Liebenthal
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Imaging Study ◽  
Angular Gyrus ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Word Lists

In previous functional neuroimaging studies, left anterior temporal and temporal-parietal areas responded more strongly to sentences than to randomly ordered lists of words. The smaller response for word lists could be explained by either (1) less activation of syntactic processes due to the absence of syntactic structure in the random word lists or (2) less activation of semantic processes resulting from failure to combine the content words into a global meaning. To test these two explanations, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study in which word order and combinatorial word meaning were independently manipulated during auditory comprehension. Subjects heard six different stimuli: normal sentences, semantically incongruent sentences in which content words were randomly replaced with other content words, pseudoword sentences, and versions of these three sentence types in which word order was randomized to remove syntactic structure. Effects of syntactic structure (greater activation to sentences than to word lists) were observed in the left anterior superior temporal sulcus and left angular gyrus. Semantic effects (greater activation to semantically congruent stimuli than either incongruent or pseudoword stimuli) were seen in widespread, bilateral temporal lobe areas and the angular gyrus. Of the two regions that responded to syntactic structure, the angular gyrus showed a greater response to semantic structure, suggesting that reduced activation for word lists in this area is related to a disruption in semantic processing. The anterior temporal lobe, on the other hand, was relatively insensitive to manipulations of semantic structure, suggesting that syntactic information plays a greater role in driving activation in this area.

Is word-order similarity necessary for cross-linguistic structural priming?

2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 375-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baoguo Chen ◽  
Yuefang Jia ◽  
Zhu Wang ◽  
Susan Dunlap ◽  
Jeong-Ah Shin
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Structural Priming ◽  
Stage Model ◽  
Syntactic Priming ◽  
Two Stage ◽  
Chinese And English

This article presents two experiments employing two structural priming paradigms that investigated whether cross-linguistic syntactic priming occurred in Chinese and English passive sentences that differ in word order (production-to-production priming in Experiment 1 and comprehension-to-production priming in Experiment 2). Results revealed that cross-linguistic syntactic priming occurred in Chinese and English passive sentences, regardless of production of primes or comprehension of primes and language direction (L1–L2 or L2–L1). Our findings indicate that word-order similarity between languages is not necessary for cross-linguistic structural priming, supporting the view of a two-stage model of language production.

Attention and Structural Choice in Sentence Production

2018 ◽  
pp. 526-546
Author(s):  
Andriy Myachykov ◽  
Mikhail Pokhoday ◽  
Russell Tomlin
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Sentence Production ◽  
Regular Mapping ◽  
Structural Choice ◽  
Mapping Mechanism ◽  
Production Mechanisms

This chapter offers a review of experimental evidence about the role of the speaker’s attention in the choice of syntactic structure and the corresponding word order during sentence production. Here, we describe how the speaker’s syntactic choices reflect the regular mapping mechanism that reflects the features of the described event in the produced sentence. One of the most important event parameters that the speaker considers is the changing salience status of the event’s referents. This chapter summarizes current theoretical debate about the interplay between attention and sentence production mechanisms. Finally, it reviews the corresponding experimental evidence from languages with both restricted and flexible word orders.

scholarly journals The role of case marking and word order in cross-linguistic structural priming in late L2 acquisition

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merel Muylle ◽  
Bernolet Sarah ◽  
Robert Hartsuiker
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
Structural Priming ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Learning Paradigm ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Case Marking

Several studies found cross-linguistic structural priming with various language combinations. Here, we investigated the role of two important domains of language variation: case marking and word order. We varied these features in an artificial language (AL) learning paradigm, using three different AL versions in a between-subjects design. Priming was assessed between Dutch (no case marking, SVO word order) and a) a baseline version with SVO word order, b) a case marking version, and c) a version with SOV word order. Similar within- language and cross-linguistic priming was found in all versions for transitive sentences, indicating that cross-linguistic structural priming was not hindered. In contrast, for ditransitive sentences we found similar within-language priming for all versions, but no cross-linguistic priming. The finding that cross-linguistic priming is possible between languages that vary in morphological marking or word order, is compatible with studies showing cross-linguistic priming between natural languages that differ on these dimensions.

scholarly journals Conceptual Sentiment Analysis Model

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 2358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kranti Vithal Ghag ◽  
Ketan Shah
Keyword(s):  
Sentiment Analysis ◽  
Relative Frequency ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Average Frequency ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Analysis Model ◽  
Inverse Document Frequency ◽  
Document Frequency ◽  
Improve Accuracy

<span>Bag-of-words approach is popularly used for Sentiment analysis. It maps the terms in the reviews to term-document vectors and thus disrupts the syntactic structure of sentences in the reviews. Association among the terms or the semantic structure of sentences is also not preserved. This research work focuses on classifying the sentiments by considering the syntactic and semantic structure of the sentences in the review. To improve accuracy, sentiment classifiers based on relative frequency, average frequency and term frequency inverse document frequency were proposed. To handle terms with apostrophe, preprocessing techniques were extended. To focus on opinionated contents, subjectivity extraction was performed at phrase level. Experiments were performed on Pang &amp; Lees, Kaggle’s and UCI’s dataset. Classifiers were also evaluated on the UCI’s Product and Restaurant dataset. Sentiment Classification accuracy improved from 67.9% for a comparable term weighing technique, DeltaTFIDF, up to 77.2% for proposed classifiers. Inception of the proposed concept based approach, subjectivity extraction and extensions to preprocessing techniques, improved the accuracy to 93.9%.</span>

scholarly journals SOME REMARKS ON TODO N IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE

2003 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta Pires De Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Semantic Properties ◽  
Central Abstract

Várias propriedades sintáticas e semânticas de todo N, chamadas bare universal phrase (BUP), e todos(s) o(s) N(s), defined universal phrase (DUP), podem ser explicadas atribuindo-se uma estrutura semântica a cada sintagma quantificacional. Se nossa proposta semântica estiver correta, torna-se incorreta a afirmação de Peres (1992) de que a presença do artigo definido no sintagma quantificacional é nula. As estruturas semânticas atribuídas a BUP e DUP justificam a hipótese de que todo N não é um quantificador. Tal hipótese encontra ressonância na proposição de Negrão (2002), que afirma ser todo N um indefinido, no sentido de Heim. As análises de Dayal (1998) e Saeboe (2001) acerca de any são usadas para mostrar que todo N é um universal, não um indedinido. Além disso, trata-se de um modal. A discussão a respeito da generalização de Enç é feita para demonstrar que, uma vez que se considere todo como quantificador como a melhor solução, tal generalização deverá ser revista. Nossa proposta é a de manter a distinção entre a distinção entre quantificação e especificidade. A especificidade é dada pela presença do artigo definido. O quantificador propriamente dito expressa quantificação. Tal proposta abre a possibilidade de uma classe de quantificadores não-específicos (talvez modais), dos quais todo N é um exemplo central. Abstract Several syntactic and semantic properties of todo N, named bare universal phrase (BUP), and todo(s) o(s) N(s), defined universal phrase (DUP), may be explained by attributing to each quantifier phrase a semantic structure. If our semantic proposal is correct, then Peres’s (1992) claim that the presence of the definite article in the quantifier phrase is vacuous is not right. The semantic structures attributed to BUP and DUP lead to the hypothesis that todo N was not a quantifier. Such a hypothesis finds resonance in Negrão’s proporal (2002) that claims that todo N is an indefinite in Heim’s sense. Dayal’s (1998) and Saeboe’s (2001) analyses of any are used to show that todo N is a universal, not an indefinite. Moreover it is a modal. The discussion of Enç’s generalization is brought up in order to show that if considering todo as a quantifier is a better solution, then Enç’s generalization needs to be revised. Our proposal is to keep apart quantification from specificity. Specificity is given by the presence of the definite article. The quantifier itself expresses quantification. Such a proposal opens up the possibility of a class of non-specific (perhaps modal) quantifiers, of which todo N is a central example.

Subject-verb order in spoken Arabic: Morpholexical and event-based factors

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Owens ◽  
Robin Dodsworth ◽  
Trent Rockwood
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Arabian Peninsula ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Global Function ◽  
Event Based ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Spoken Arabic

AbstractThis article explores the relationship between the global functions of variable subject-verb order and morpholexical class of subjects in the spoken Arabic of the Arabian peninsula. Using corpus-based methods, it is shown that lexical class—pronoun, pronominal, noun—definiteness, and the discourse-defined lexical specificity of a noun all correlate significantly with subject-verb or verb-subject word order. The global function of the two orders is explored using an array of measures to show that verb-subject order prototypically presents events, while subject-verb signals available referentiality. Using the quantitatively based study of Anthony Naro and Sebastiao Votre ([1999]. Discourse motivations for linguistic regularities: Verb/subject order in spoken Brazilian Portuguese. Probus 11:75–100.) on Brazilian Portuguese as a point of comparison, a typological framework is developed for understanding languages with variable subject-verb order.

First Language Acquisition

2016 ◽  
pp. 269-288
Author(s):  
Maria-Teresa Guasti
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
First Language ◽  
Formal Semantics ◽  
Hierarchical Organization ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Brain Organization ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics

Humans acquire language naturally, namely without specific instruction, by being exposed to it and by interacting with other human beings. According to the generativist enterprise, humans are endowed with a system of knowledge on the form of possible human languages (Universal Grammar). Evidence consistent with this assumption is provided in the chapter, by illustrating crucial phenomena ranging from the acquisition of phonology, to morphosyntax, syntax, formal semantics, and pragmatics. Infants’ brain organization is tuned to speech stimuli and presents left hemisphere specialization, from the first days of life, if not already in the mother’s womb. Infants set apart languages at two days of age, based on durational or rhythmic properties. Toddlers combine words by respecting the basic word order and are very sensitive to the hierarchical organization of sentences, both when it comes to the syntactic structure and when it comes to the interpretation of sentences.

scholarly journals Resolving knowledge discrepancies in informing sequences

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas M. Seuren ◽  
Mike Huiskes ◽  
Tom Koole
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Change Of State ◽  
English Translations ◽  
Specific Practice

AbstractThis article investigates a specific practice that recipients in Dutch talk-in-interaction use when responding to turns that have as one of their main jobs to inform. By responding to an informing turn with an oh-prefaced nonrepeating response that has yes/no-type interrogative word order, recipients treat that turn as counter to expectation and request both confirmation of the inference formulated in his/her response, as well as reconciliatory information for the two discrepant states of affairs. This practice is compared to similar cases where the nonrepeating response is not oh-prefaced to show that such turns implement different actions. Data are in Dutch with English translations. (Counterexpectations, change-of-state, yes/no-type interrogatives, action formation, practions)*

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document