scholarly journals A Corpus-Based Study on Mood Combination Preference in Two-Clause Composite Sentences in Modern Chinese

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 311
Author(s):  
Guangrong Wan ◽  
Chengfa Yu
Keyword(s):  
Main Clause ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Complex Sentence ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Compound Sentence

Every clause is associated with a specific expressive intention and bears a specific mood: declarative, interrogative, imperative or exclamative. Different moods are combined with the juxtaposition of clauses. A compound sentence has a homogeneous mood combination between its constituent clauses, while the mood in a complex sentence is usually counted on its main clause with the mood in its subordinate clause(s) drowned. Clauses in a Chinese sentence, however, are independent in terms of mood; that is to say, the mood of the whole sentence is the combination of moods of each clause. Tendency for mood combination of two-clause composite sentences in modern Chinese is demonstrated as follows: 1) Homogeneous mood combinations greatly exceed heterogeneous ones; the “declarative + declarative” type outnumbers other types; and there are more combinations with a declarative mood than those without; 2) The more convincing the meaning of a particle indicates, the more frequently the corresponding mood appears in the first part of the combinations; and the mood realized by a modal adverb appears in the second part if another mood is not realized by a modal adverb; 3) A conjunction highly restricts the mood combination; and the frequency of mood combination in coordinate and causal clauses is approximately equal, much higher than that in adversative clauses.

scholarly journals On adverbial clauses in spoken Lithuanian

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Erika Jasionytė-Mikučionienė
Keyword(s):  
Spoken Language ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Private Communication ◽  
Semantic Relationship ◽  
Complex Sentence ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Pragmatic Inference ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Adverbial Clause

The aim of the paper is to investigate adverbial clauses of time, cause, condition and concession in spontaneous private communication. The study explores semantic relations between the main and subordinate clauses, grammatical features and predominant conjunctions.The data for the research was collected from the morphologically annotated Corpus of Spoken Lithuanian, namely, its sub-corpus of spontaneous private speech which is used at home, at friends’ place, or which is produced by close friends.The analysis of spontaneous private communication shows that the finite adverbial clauses of time, cause, condition and concession are related to a set of conjunctions, but other indicators such as the use of verbal categories (especially tense, aspect and mood), contextual lexical markers as well as pragmatic inference also help to determine the semantic relationship between the main and the subordinate clause.In a spoken language, temporal clauses are usually combined with the conjunctions kai, kaip ‘when’, kol ‘while’, less frequently – with kada ‘when’; causal clauses are combined with the conjunction nes ‘because; since’, less frequently – with kad and kadangi ‘because’; conditional clauses are typically combined with the conjunction jeigu ‘if’, less frequently – with jei ‘if’, concessive clauses – with the conjunction nors ‘though’. The conjunctions kai ‘when’, kol ‘while’, kadangi ‘because’, jeigu and jei ‘if’ correlate with the particle tai that is very frequent in a spoken language, while the conjunction nors ‘though’ – with the contrastive conjunction bet ‘but’.In the natural language flow, the structure of adverbial sentences is modified: other sentential and discourse units can intervene between the main and the subordinate clauses, and the adverbial conjunction moves from the initial to the medial position.Traditional Lithuanian grammars emphasise that the position of adverbial clauses is undefined: they can appear before or after the main clause. However, the analysis of spontaneous speech shows that the position of a subordinate clause is influenced by the semantic relationship between the clauses. If a subordinate clause refers to a previous action or event, then it dominates in a preposition. Besides, the position of an adverbial clause is also influenced by correlative conjunctions: the main clause with the correlative particle tai dominates in the postposition.The research also revealed that Lithuanian adverbial clauses could function at the discourse level: in dialogues, the structure of a complex sentence is broken down and subordinate adverbial clauses can acquire additional – discourse – functions. Adverbial conjunctions, in their turn, can indicate relations with a previous discourse. 

scholarly journals FEATURES OF TRANSLATION OF COMPLEX SENTENCES WITH SEMANTICS OF INDIRECT EVIDENTIALITY FROM FRENCH INTO RUSSIAN

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 1014-1019
Author(s):  
G.F. Lutfullina
Keyword(s):  
Information Source ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Complex Sentence ◽  
Complete Representation ◽  
Complex Sentences ◽  
Informative Part ◽  
Dependent Clause

The article is devoted to the analysis of complex sentences with indirect evidentiality semantics in French. A complex sentence is an explicit way of expressing indirect evidentiality. Indirect evidentiality implies the receipt of information from third parties. A complex sentence is a mean of complete representation of information source. As a result of the study it was found that in French indirect evidentiality is expressed by complex sentences. The main clause indicates information source. The dependent clause introduced by conjunction que is informative. The subordinate clause in majority of cases is in postposition of the main clause. French complex sentence is translated into Russian by analogue complex sentence. Only in some cases it is possible to replace the subordinate clause as a verbally expressed informative part by a process noun. In French and in Russian informing verbs are involved at the lexical level. In French the verbs informer, announcer are involved. Occasionally the verb renseigner is used. In translation these verbs correspond to Russian verbs of similar semantics: декларировать / to declare, сообщать / to report, извещать / to inform.

scholarly journals Complementiser and Relativiser in the English Subordinate Clauses

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
Ni Luh Ketut Mas Indrawati
Keyword(s):  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Complex Sentence ◽  
Simple Sentence ◽  
Constituent Structure ◽  
Complex Sentences ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Tree Diagram ◽  
1 John ◽  
Simple Sentences ◽  
Compound Sentence

Words combine to form larger units; phrases, clauses, and sentences. The study of the structure of phrases, clauses, and sentences is referred to as syntax. Quirk, et, all (1985:47) distinguishes sentences into two types they are; simple sentences and multiple sentences which cover compound sentences and complex sentences. A simple sentence consists of one independent clause, a multiple clause contains more than one clauses, a compound sentence consists of two or more independent clauses, while a complex sentence consists of insubordinate and subordinate clauses.Subordinate clause, in embedding the element of the insubordinate clause use either complementiser or relativiser. For example: (1) john said that he did not come to the party. That in (1) is considered to be complimentiser since it introduces the subordinate clause. (2) John met the teacher that teaches you English. That in (2) is classified as relativiser because it is used to introduce the modifying clause.This paper attempts to discuss complementiser and relativiser in the English subordinate clauses and describe the constituent structure in a tree diagram using the approach proposed by Kroeger (2005). The data were taken from a novel entitled Saved by The Bride by Fiona Lowe (2013).Keywords: complex sentences, subordinate clauses, complementiser or relativiser

scholarly journals Reanalysis processes in non-native sentence comprehension

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Hiroki Fujita ◽  
Ian Cunnings
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movement ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Memory Trace ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Subordinate Clause

Abstract We report two offline and two eye-movement experiments examining non-native (L2) sentence processing during and after reanalysis of temporarily ambiguous sentences like “While Mary dressed the baby laughed happily”. Such sentences cause reanalysis at the main clause verb (“laughed”), as the temporarily ambiguous noun phrase (“the baby”) may initially be misanalysed as the direct object of the subordinate clause verb (“dressed”). The offline experiments revealed that L2ers have difficulty reanalysing temporarily ambiguous sentences with a greater persistence of the initially assigned misinterpretation than native (L1) speakers. In the eye-movement experiments, we found that L2ers complete reanalysis similarly to L1ers but fail to fully erase the memory trace of the initially assigned interpretation. Our results suggested that the source of L2 reanalysis difficulty is a failure to erase the initially assigned misinterpretation from memory rather than a failure to conduct syntactic reanalysis.

scholarly journals A taxonomy of antonymy in Arabic: Egyptian and Saudi proverbs in comparison

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 200-222
Author(s):  
Hamada Hassanein ◽  
Mohammad Mahzari
Keyword(s):  
Main Clause ◽  
The Other ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Case Marking ◽  
News Discourse ◽  
Discourse Functions ◽  
Syntactic Frames

Abstract This study has set out to identify, quantify, typify, and exemplify the discourse functions of canonical antonymy in Arabic paremiography by comparing two manually collected datasets from Egyptian and Saudi (Najdi) dialects. Building upon Jones’s (2002) most extensive and often-cited classification of the discourse functions of antonyms as they co-occur within syntactic frames in news discourse, the study has substantially revised this classification and developed a provisional and dynamic typology thereof. Two major textual functions are found to be quantitatively significant and qualitatively preponderant: ancillarity (wherein an A-pair of canonical antonyms project their antonymicity onto a more important B-pair) and coordination (wherein one antonym holds an inclusive or exhaustive relation to another antonym). Three new functions have been developed and added to the retrieved classification: subordination (wherein one antonym occurs in a subordinate clause while the other occurs in a main clause), case-marking (wherein two opposite cases are served by two antonyms), and replacement (wherein one antonym is substituted with another). Semicanonical and noncanonical guises of antonymy are left and recommended for future research.

Examining individual variation in learner production data: A few programmatic pointers for corpus-based analyses using the example of adverbial clause ordering

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Stefan Th. Gries ◽  
Stefanie Wulff
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
First Language ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Production Data ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Adverbial Clause ◽  
Temporal Adverbial

ABSTRACT This study examines the variable positioning of a finite adverbial subordinate clause and its main clause with the subordinate clause either preceding or following the main clause in native versus nonnative English. Specifically, we contrast causal, concessive, conditional, and temporal adverbial clauses produced by German and Chinese learners of English with those produced by native speakers. We examined 2,362 attestations from the Chinese and German subsections of the International Corpus of Learner English (Granger, Dagneaux, Meunier, & Paquot, 2009) and from the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (Granger, 1998). All instances were annotated for the ordering, the subordinate clause type, the lengths of the main and subordinate clauses, the first language of the speakers, the conjunction used, and the file it originated from (as a proxy for the speaker producing the sentence so as to be able to study individual and lexical variation). The results of a two-step regression modeling protocol suggest that learners behave most nativelike with causal clauses and struggle most with conditional and concessive clauses; in addition, learners make more non-nativelike choices when the main and subordinate clause are of about equal length.

scholarly journals Uspeem khorosho esli k semi (‘Will Success to Arrive Good if by Seven’): Subordination Decay and Lexicalization of the Contact Frame

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 361-377
Author(s):  
M. Ya. Dymarsky
Keyword(s):  
Main Part ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Complex Sentence ◽  
Semantic Effect ◽  
The Status ◽  
Last Stage

The article is devoted to one of Russian “minor type sentences” illustrated in the title. Derivation of the construction is considered, including the processes of 1) retracting the main part of the complex sentence into the subordinate clause; 2) the loss of the function of the contact frame by the complex khorosho esli and its lexicalization as a particle adjacent to the predicate, and at the last stage of lexicalization – to any actant or circonstant. Changing the status of the complex khorosho esli gives rise to the semantic effect of splitting the displayed situation, the establishment of estimation- gradational relations between the variants of the situation, as well as the implicatures that make up the main meaning of the statement as a whole. Prerequisites arise for the formation of new derivative unions (khorosho esli... a to i ... and the like.). The characteristic of the intonation contour is given which obligatorily accompanies the functioning of the particle khorosho esli; the conclusion is substantiated that the grounds for separating the elements of a new particle by a comma disappear.

scholarly journals The Functions of Danish Causal Conjunctions

Nordlyd ◽  
10.7557/12.14 ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rita Therkelsen
Keyword(s):  
Causal Relationship ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Contextual Factors ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Functional Grammar ◽  
Distributional Properties

In the article I propose an analysis of the Danish causal conjunctions <em>fordi, siden</em> and <em>for</em> based on the framework of Danish Functional Grammar. As conjunctions they relate two clauses, and their semantics have in common that it indicates a causal relationship between the clauses. The causal conjunctions are different as far as their distribution is concerned; <em>siden</em> conjoins a subordinate clause and a main clause, <em>for</em> conjoins two main clauses, and <em>fordi</em> is able to do both. Methodologically I have based my analysis on these distributional properties comparing <em>siden</em> and <em>fordi</em> conjoining a subordinate and a main clause, and comparing <em>for</em> and <em>fordi</em> conjoining two main clauses, following the thesis that they would establish a causal relationship between different kinds of content. My main findings are that <em>fordi</em> establishes a causal relationship between the events referred to by the two clauses, and the whole utterance functions as a statement of this causal relationship. <em>Siden</em> presupposes such a general causal relationship between the two events and puts forward the causing event as a reason for assuming or wishing or ordering the caused event, <em>siden</em> thus establishes a causal relationship between an event and a speech act. <em>For</em> equally presupposes a general causal relationship between two events and it establishes a causal relationship between speech acts, and <em>fordi</em> conjoining two main clauses is able to do this too, but in this position it also maintains its event-relating ability, the interpretation depending on contextual factors.

The effect of using an online-based course on the learning of grammar inductively and deductively

ReCALL ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Farhan AbuSeileek
Keyword(s):  
Complex Sentence ◽  
Simple Sentence ◽  
Computer Based Learning ◽  
Language Structure ◽  
Computer Mediated ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Computer Based ◽  
Structure Complexity ◽  
Compound Sentence

AbstractThis study aims at exploring the effectiveness of using an online-based course on the learning of sentence types inductively and deductively. To achieve this purpose, a computer-mediated course was designed. The sample of the study consists of four groups taught under four treatments of grammar: (1) with computer-based learning inductively, (2) with computer-based learning deductively, (3) with non-computer-based learning inductively, and (4) with non-computer-based learning deductively. A pre-test/post-test design (between-subject) is used to investigate the effect of two factors: method (computer-based learning vs. non-computer-based learning) and technique (induction vs. deduction) on the students’ learning of sentence types. The results reveal a new manner of enhancing grammar learning based on the level of language structure complexity. The computer-based learning method is found to be functional for more complex and elaborate structures, like the complex sentence and compound complex sentence, and more complicated grammar structures need to be taught by means of the deductive technique. None of the inductive and deductive techniques is reported to be more practical with simple grammar structures such as the simple sentence and compound sentence.

Foregrounding of subordinate clauses by word order: Psycholinguistic evidence of the function of V>Adv (V2) word order in Danish

Linguistics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 245-273
Author(s):  
Marie Herget Christensen ◽  
Tanya Karoli Christensen ◽  
Torben Juel Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Main Clause ◽  
The Other ◽  
Subordinate Clause ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Clause Complex

AbstractIn modern Danish, main clauses have the word order X>Verb>Adverb (i. e., V2) whereas subordinate clauses are generally characterized by the “subordinate clause” word order Subject>Adverb>Verb. Spoken Danish has a high frequency of “main clause” word order in subordinate clauses, however, and in the article we argue that this “Main Clause Phenomena” (cf. Aelbrecht et  al. 2012) functions as a foregrounding device, signaling that the more important information of the clause complex is to be found in the subordinate clause instead of in its matrix clause.A prediction from the foregrounding hypothesis is that a subordinate clause with Verb>Adverb word order will attract more attention than a clause with Adverb>Verb word order. To test this, we conducted an experiment under the text change paradigm. 59 students each read 24 constructions twice, each containing a subordinate clause with either Verb>Adverb or Adverb>Verb word order. Half of the subordinate clauses were governed by a semifactive predicate (open to both word orders) and the other half by a semantically secondary sentence (in itself strongly favoring Verb>Adverb word order). Attention to the subordinate clause was tested by measuring how disinclined the participants were to notice change of a word in the subordinate clause when re-reading it.Results showed significantly more attention to Verb>Adverb clauses than to Adverb>Verb clauses (though only under semifactive predicates), and more attention to subordinate clauses under semantically secondary than semifactive predicates. We consider this as strongly supporting the hypothesis that Verb>Adv word order functions as a foregrounding signal in subordinate clauses.

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