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 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 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.

scholarly journals The prosody of French ambiguous multiple negative sentences.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viviane Déprez ◽  
Jeremy Daniel Yeaton
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Acoustic Cues ◽  
Negative Concord ◽  
Double Negation ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Negative Reading ◽  
Positive Meaning ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Compositional Interpretation

While it has long been assumed that prosody can help resolve syntactic and semantic ambiguities, empirical evidence has shown that the mapping between prosody and meaning is complex (Hirschberg & Avesani, 2000; Jackendoff, 1972). This paper investigates the prosody of ambiguous French sentences with multiple potentially negative terms that allow two semantically very distinct interpretations—a single negation reading involving so-called negative concord (NC), and a double negative reading (DN) with a positive meaning reflecting a strictly compositional interpretation—with the goal to further research on the role of prosody in ambiguities by examining whether intonation can be recruited by speakers to signal distinct interpretations of these sentences to hearers. Twenty native speakers produced transitive sentences with potentially negative terms embedded in contexts designed to elicit single-negation or double-negation readings. Analysis regarding the F0 and the duration of the utterances revealed distinct prosodic profiles for the two readings, confirming previous evidence that speakers can produce characteristic acoustic cues to signal intended distinctive meanings (Kraljic & Brennan, 2005; Syrett, Simon, & Nisula, 2014). Our results reveal that NC readings feature a focused subject and a deaccented object, in contrast to DN readings where both the subject and the object were independently focused. They do not relate DN to contradiction but link negative meaning with focus on French negative concord items (NCI). The paper discusses the implications of these findings for theoretical approaches to NC and outlines further questions for the syntax-prosody interface of these constructions.

The role of cross-linguistic stress pattern frequency and word similarity on the acquisition of English stress pattern by native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Post Silveira
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
American English ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Stress Pattern ◽  
Target Language ◽  
English As Second Language ◽  
Word Similarity ◽  
L1 Transfer

This is a preliminary study in which we investigate the acquisition of English as second language (L2[1]) word stress by native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese (BP, L1[2]). In this paper, we show results of a multiple choice forced choice perception test in which native speakers of American English and native speakers of Dutch judged the production of English words bearing pre-final stress that were both cognates and non-cognates with BP words. The tokens were produced by native speakers of American English and by Brazilians that speak English as a second language. The results have shown that American and Dutch listeners were consistent in their judgments on native and non-native stress productions and both speakers' groups produced variation in stress in relation to the canonical pattern. However, the variability found in American English points to the prosodic patterns of English and the variability found in Brazilian English points to the stress patterns of Portuguese. It occurs especially in words whose forms activate neighboring similar words in the L1. Transfer from the L1 appears both at segmental and prosodic levels in BP English. [1] L2 stands for second language, foreign language, target language. [2] L1 stands for first language, mother tongue, source language.

Why is this happened? Passive morphology and unaccusativity

1997 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Balcom
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Past Participle ◽  
Production Task ◽  
Syntactic Rule ◽  
English Writing ◽  
The Past ◽  
Linguistic Representations ◽  
Unaccusative Verbs

Zobl discussed inappropriate passive morphology (‘be’ and the past participle) in the English writing of L2 learners, linking its occurrence to the class of unaccusative verbs and proposing that learners subsume unaccusatives under the syntactic rule for passive formation. The research reported here supports and amplifies Zobl' proposal, based on a grammaticality judgement task and a controlled production task containing verbs from a variety of subclasses of unaccusatives. The tasks were administered to Chinese L1 learners of English and a control group of English native speakers. Results show that subjects both used and judged as grammatical inappropriate passive morphology with all verbs falling under the rubric of unaccusativity. The article concludes with linguistic representations which maintain Zobl’s insights but are consistent with current theories of argument structure.

nr="309"Innere Sicherheit, Sprache und Biographie. : Eine biographietheoretische Perspektive auf einen komplexen Zusammenhang

2021 ◽  
Vol 2019 (1) ◽  
pp. 309-325
Author(s):  
Nadja Thoma
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Security Threat ◽  
Internal Security ◽  
Analytical Perspective ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Innere Sicherheit

Zusammenfassung Im Kontext der zunehmenden Versicherheitlichung von Migration, deren Bedeutung auch für sprachliche Bildung im Kontext nationaler und globaler Sicherheitsagenden diskutiert wird, werden bestimmte Gruppen von Migrant*innen als Sicherheitsbedrohung konstruiert. Die Instrumentalisierung von Sprache für Identitätspolitik, die im Konzept von Sprache als ,Schlüssel zur Integration‘ besonders deutlich wird und unter Rückgriff auf Sprachideologien erklärt werden kann, bleibt nicht ohne Folgen für Angehörige minorisierter Gruppen. Der vorliegende Beitrag geht der Frage nach, was ,innere Sicherheit‘ für Student*innen bedeutet, denen zugeschrieben wird, keine ,native speaker‘ zu sein. Den Bezugspunkt der ,inneren Sicherheit‘ bildet dabei nicht der Nationalstaat, sondern das Subjekt. Aus einer biographieanalytischen Perspektive wird rekonstruiert, mit welchen (Un-)Sicherheitsdimensionen die Subjekte an der Universität und in Hinblick auf ihre beruflichen Pläne konfrontiert sind, wie Sicherheit und Sprache biographisch eingebettet sind und welche Strategien und Wege die Student*innen (nicht) nutzen (können), um ihre Sicherheitsspielräume zu erweitern.Abstract: In light of the increasing securitization of migration, language education is discussed as part of national and global security agendas, and certain groups of migrants have been constructed as a security threat. The instrumentalization of language for identity politics is particularly evident in the concept of language as a ‘key to integration’ and can be explained with language ideologies. These ideologies are not without consequences for members of minoritized groups. The article at hand explores the meaning of ‘internal security’ for university students who are not considered ‘native speakers’. The reference point of ‘internal security’ is not the nation state, but the subject. From a biographical-analytical perspective, the article reconstructs dimensions of security and insecurity which the subjects confront at university with regard to their professional aims. It will explore how the connection between security and language is embedded in their biographies, as well as the strategies and pathways students can and cannot use to expand their security scope.

Underlying representation of [w]-final words in Brazilian Portuguese: Evidence from morphological derivation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luiz Carlos Schwindt
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Brazilian Portuguese ◽  
Underlying Representation

AbstractThis paper deals with the underlying representation of [w]-final words in Brazilian Portuguese, usually spelled with <l> and pronounced as [w] and occasionally as [ɫ] (e.g., papel / [paˈpɛw] ~ [paˈpɛɫ] ‘paper’). It focuses on non-verbs derived by a vowel-initial suffix preceded by [l] (e.g., papel+eiro ‘paper+suffix’ / [papeˈlejɾʊ] ‘papermaker’; cliente+ismo ‘client+suffix’ / [kliẽnteˈlizmʊ] ‘patronage’). The results from a pseudoword task answered by 219 participants contrasted to lexicon data from Corpus Brasileiro show that native speakers associate such derived forms with bases already containing [l] in the last syllable, either in the onset or the coda position. This observation is interpreted in a constraint-based approach, with the assumption that a demand for alignment between vowel-initial suffixes and roots closed by /l/, along with the requirement for phonological correspondence between base and derivative, is highly ranked in a grammar that accounts for learning morphophonological representations in the language.

scholarly journals Using English Movie with Delay and Non Delay Subtitle to Improve Listening Skill

LETS ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Muh. Ikhlasul Amal ◽  
Syahdan ◽  
Risal Pandi ◽  
Halid M ◽  
Arialdi
Keyword(s):  
Learning Process ◽  
English Language ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
English Teacher ◽  
Listening Skills ◽  
Listening Skill ◽  
Language Classroom ◽  
Post Test ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Teaching Learning

The aim of the study was  to  analyze  and  describe  the  process of  improving students’ listening skill for eleventh grade students of MAN 1 Majene, West Sulawesi Province through  watching English movies. The subject of this research is XI Agama 2 Class that consisted of 16 students. The method used in this study is Classroom Action Research (CAR) which the writer works  collaboratively with the English teacher. The results in this study indicate that there  was  improvement of the students’ skill listening. Most of the students gradually gained good scores at the end of the cycle. The data were collected from a questionnaire, observation note of performance, pre-test and post-test. The study was conducted with cycle model through the steps of planning, conducting, observation, and reflection. The results of this study show a significant relationship between students' learning by English movie with delay subtitle related to their listening skills as shown in their improvement of post- test and positive responses of students than  E nglish movie  with not delay. The questionnaire shows that more than 75% students felt easy to understand listening materials from native speakers. Consequently, it was suggested that teaching learning process using English movie with English subtitle is recommended  into  learning  process  to  improve students' listening skills in English language classroom. In conclusion, watching English movie can improve students listening skill.

scholarly journals New phraseology in modern communicative space (to the question of replenishment of the corpus of chunks of language by phraseologisms with a component “electronic”)

Litera ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 27-38
Author(s):  
Oksana Evgen'evna Chernova ◽  
Aleksandra Anatol'evna Osipova ◽  
Dar'ya Sergeevna Buzhinskaya
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
Electronic Journal ◽  
Electronic Book ◽  
Electronic Library ◽  
Electronic Textbook ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Linguistic Units ◽  
Communicative Space

Phraseological corpus of Russian language of the late XX &ndash; early XXI centuries has been enriched with multiple phraseological units. The subject of this research became neophraseologisms with &ldquo;electronic&rdquo; as the key component, actively used in modern publicistic discourse (electronic book, electronic textbook, electronic journal, electronic wallet, electronic library, and others). In Russia, the system of gradual fixation of emergence of new suprawords linguistic units did not form, thus composers of even the modern phraseological dictionaries include neologisms carefully, &ldquo;sparsely&rdquo;, often without due &ldquo;linkage&rdquo; to time and circumstances of their emergence, not fully answering the needs of a modern user. The scientific novelty consists in the fact that there is a need to conduct linguistic qualification and dictionary description of the Russian phraseological neologisms, emerged in the conditions of &ldquo;digital pivot&rdquo; of culture and formation of global communicative space. Abundance of supraword neologisms, which sensitively react to all changes in the life of society, is connected to a number of causes. On the one hand, on the background of geopolitical &ldquo;redivisions&rdquo; came drastic changes in the sociopolitical and socioeconomic life of the Russian native speakers. On the other hand, modern humanity is undergoing civilizational changes, caused by the &ldquo;digital pivot&rdquo; as coined by the renowned Polish phraseologist Wojciech Chlebda, driving formation of a global information network.

scholarly journals Aspects of Ergonyms Perception and Understanding in Cross-Cultural Communication

2021 ◽  
pp. 110-125
Author(s):  
Elena V. Kharchenko ◽  
◽  
Shu Man ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Main Function ◽  
Cross Cultural Communication ◽  
Multicultural Environment ◽  
Proper Name ◽  
Great Relevance ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Two Stages ◽  
The City

The article describes aspects of perception and understanding of Russian ergonyms by native speakers of Russian and Chinese. The issue under study is of great relevance due to the increase in cross-cultural contacts, the tendency for the free travelling between the countries and the formation of a multicultural environment in cities. The modern metropolis is increasingly becoming a place of residence for representatives of different linguistic cultures, so we decided to check how successfully modern ergonyms perform their main function, i.e. help residents and guests of the city navigate in space. The aim of the study is to identify the universal and specific features in the perception and understanding of ergonyms by the representatives of different linguistic cultures. The study object is the perception and understanding of a proper name, with the subject being the strategies of ergonyms perception and understanding. The article describes a survey of Russian and Chinese students who were asked to determine the organization’s field of activity by its name. The experiment consisted of two stages: at the first stage, only a word was presented, while at the second one - the word and the photo of the sign. As a result, the main ways of identifying ergonyms were identified.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document