scholarly journals Speech Production of Trilingual Children: A Study on Their Transfers in Terms of Content and Function Words and the Effect of Their L1

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 30
Author(s):  
Fotini Anastassiou ◽  
Georgia Andreou
Keyword(s):  
Transfer Function ◽  
Speech Production ◽  
Current Literature ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Third Language ◽  
Source Language ◽  
Picture Story ◽  
Word Classes ◽  
And Function ◽  
L1 And L2

The present study investigated the speech production of trilingual children whose L1 was either Greek or Albanian and their L3 was English. Since this specific combination of languages has not been widely studied in current literature this study can contribute to our knowledge and the teaching of these children. Moreover, research into transfers from content and function words could help us comprehend the different roles word classes have in trilingual speakers since Paradis (2009) has suggested that the tendency to transfer function words from L2, rather than from L1, into L3 supports the idea that content words and function words have the same status in an L2 but not in L1. Also, although content words are often transferred from both L1 and L2 into L3, studies have indicated that function words are mainly transferred from the L2 and not from the L1 (Ringbom, 1987; Sjögren, 2000; Stedje, 1977). The aim of this study was to find out the source language of our participants’ transfers, whether there would be any influence of our speakers’ L1 or L2 on Content and Function words, as well as whether cross-linguistic influence had any effect on Content and Function words, following Cenoz (2001).The participants of our study were asked to narrate a picture story in their third language and the main source of their transfers was surveyed. Also, the ratio of Content to Function words and the effect of the children’s L1 was investigated since former research showed function words are mainly transferred from the L2 and not from the L1. The results of this study showed that the main source of transfer was Greek (whether as an L1 or an L2) and that the children’s transfers were mainly from content words. Finally, the ratio of Greek content/ function words was found to be greater for those children whose L1 is Greek compared to the children whose L1 is Albanian.

scholarly journals Dụ̈ysenȧlị Ȧbdịlȧšịm. Eskị Ḳazaḳ ǰazba tịlị [The Old Kazakh written language]

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 71-76
Author(s):  
Uldanay Jumabay ◽  
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Early 19Th Century ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
Linguistic Description ◽  
Historical Archives ◽  
Word Classes ◽  
And Function ◽  
Nominal Morphology

The paper presents a review of Düysen ̣ ȧlị Ȧbdịlȧšịm’s monograph “The Old Kazakh Written Language” (“Eskị Ḳazaḳ J̌ azba Tịlị”), which is written in Kazakh and published in Beijing in 2014. The monograph is a linguistic description of the documents of the Kazakh Khanates written in the period from the first half of the 18th century until the early 19th century. The Old Kazakh documents were mostly written by Kazakh Khans and Sultans and sent to Chinese emperors of the Qing dynasty and to officials in charge of the border. Currently all the documents are preserved in the First Historical Archives of China in Beijing. The monograph is designed as a manual for university students studying Kazakh philology. The significance of the book lies in its being the first and only book providing a comprehensive linguistic description of the Old Kazakh historical documents. The monograph is divided into three chapters. The phonetics and writing system of the Old Kazakh documents are studied in the first chapter. Chapter 2 investigates the nominal morphology, in which five word classes: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals, and function words have been discussed. The last chapter presents lexical terms for temporal units. The review provides a short description of all chapters and points out that the usage of the term “Turki” is more appropriate for defining the language of the presented documents than the term “Old Kazakh Written Language”, since it manifests prevalence of non-Kazakh features.

scholarly journals The company that words keep: comparing the statistical structure of child- versus adult-directed language

2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 586-604 ◽  
Author(s):  
THOMAS HILLS
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Statistical Structure ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Contextual Diversity ◽  
Associative Structure ◽  
Word Acquisition ◽  
Word Classes ◽  
Language Statistics ◽  
And Function

ABSTRACTDoes child-directed language differ from adult-directed language in ways that might facilitate word learning? Associative structure (the probability that a word appears with its free associates), contextual diversity, word repetitions and frequency were compared longitudinally across six language corpora, with four corpora of language directed at children aged 1 ; 0 to 5 ; 0, and two adult-directed corpora representing spoken and written language. Statistics were adjusted relative to shuffled corpora. Child-directed language was found to be more associative, repetitive and consistent than adult-directed language. Moreover, these statistical properties of child-directed language better predicted word acquisition than the same statistics in adult-directed language. Word frequency and repetitions were the best predictors within word classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives and function words). For all word classes combined, associative structure, contextual diversity and word repetitions best predicted language acquisition. These results support the hypothesis that child-directed language is structured in ways that facilitate language acquisition.

Word Identification: Imageability, Semantics, and the Content-Functor Distinction

1988 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 789-799 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eileen Davelaar ◽  
Derek Besner
Keyword(s):  
Word Processing ◽  
Word Identification ◽  
Function Word ◽  
Word Class ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Word Classes ◽  
Sensory Impression ◽  
And Function ◽  
Processing Differences ◽  
Processing Mechanisms

It has often been suggested that different special-purpose mechanisms underlie the processing of content words and function words. The received view is that processing differences in various tasks arise because of differences between these word classes in terms of their semantic/syntactic function, despite the fact that these tasks often involve word processing in the absence of any sentence context. It is also well known that the ease with which a word arouses a sensory impression is often a good predictor of word-processing performance, yet the literature largely ignores the fact that, typically, imageability and word class are confounded factors. A series of three experiments shows that in the context of a Stroop task, the typical content-function word difference can be obtained, but that this word class difference disappears completely when the items are matched on the dimension of imageability. It is suggested that the processing of decontextualized content and function words does not necessarily engage distinct special purpose processing mechanisms. Implications for understanding previously published work on word class effects in other paradigms are briefly noted.

scholarly journals LEMMATIC INFLUENCE ON VOCABULARY ACQUISITION AMONG L3 ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS IN TANZANIA

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydia Kaoo ◽  
Rose Acen Upor
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Vocabulary Acquisition ◽  
Word Association ◽  
Third Language ◽  
Source Language ◽  
The Status ◽  
Rural Context ◽  
L1 And L2

This paper presents the findings of a study that investigated cross-linguistic influence (CLI) on the acquisition of English vocabulary by Tanzanian third language (L3) learners. Specifically, the study aimed to determine how lemmatic CLI from L1 and L2  influences L3 in a multilingual rural context where L1 is a dominant ethnic community language (L1=Haya, L2=Swahili, L3=English) and determine the source language responsible. In all, 40 participants performed three language tasks i.e. word association(WAT), letter writing task (LWT) and wordless picture narration (WPN). The study found evidence of lemmatic transfer from background languages in various forms. More significantly, , the L2 played instrumental and facilitative roles, both strategically and spontaneously, in influencing L3 vocabulary acquisition relative to the L1. Also, the study found the status of L2 is the predominant source language for lemmatic influence on L3 English and was modulated by proficiency and exposure.The study confirms that L3 learners reduce CLI as they increase L3 proficiency and that L2 acts as both a filter and source language as it features in L3.

A Guide to Old Spanish

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven N. Dworkin
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Standard Language ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Sound System ◽  
Old Spanish ◽  
And Function ◽  
Linguistic Structures ◽  
Verb Tense ◽  
Modern Standard

This book describes the linguistic structures that constitute Medieval or Old Spanish as preserved in texts written prior to the beginning of the sixteenth century. It emphasizes those structures that contrast with the modern standard language. Chapter 1 presents methodological issues raised by the study of a language preserved only in written sources. Chapter 2 examines questions involved in reconstructing the sound system of Old Spanish before discussing relevant phonetic and phonological details. The chapter ends with an overview of Old Spanish spelling practices. Chapter 3 presents in some detail the nominal, verbal, and pronominal morphology of the language, with attention to regional variants. Chapter 4 describes selected syntactic structures, with emphasis on the noun phrase, verb phrase, object pronoun placement, subject-verb-object word order, verb tense, aspect, and mood. Chapter 5 begins with an extensive list of Old Spanish nouns, adjectives, verbs, and function words that have not survived into the modern standard language. It then presents examples of coexisting variants (doublets) and changes of meaning, and finishes with an overview of the creation of neologisms in the medieval language through derivational morphology (prefixation, suffixation, compounding). The book concludes with an anthology composed of three extracts from Spanish prose texts, one each from the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. The extracts contain footnotes that highlight relevant morphological, syntactic, and lexical features, with cross references to the relevant sections in the body of the book.

scholarly journals 「テイル」形と「タ」形の派生アスペクト「パーフェクト性」と インドネシア語の機能語SudahとTelah

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 84-95
Author(s):  
Nandang Rachmat
Keyword(s):  
Morphological Aspect ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
Future Event ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Basic Meaning ◽  
And Function

The basic meaning of the morphological aspect of Japanese is the opposition between the form -ru/-tawhich expresses perfective,  and -teiru/-teitawhich expresses imperfective. Also there are perfect meanings which derivate from the basic meaning of -taand -teiru/-teitaforms. They refer to the fact that a certain result or effect of previous activity remain at a certain point of time. In Indonesian function wordssudahand telah, which are generally considered as perfective markers, can often be the equivalent of perfect meanings in Japanese. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify the differences between perfect aspect meanings in both languages mainly regarding the use of words sudahandtelah. This paper aims to explain perfect meanings in Japanese and Indonesian through the use of -ta, -teiru, -teitaforms and function words sudahand telah by contrastive analysis. The analysis showed that the perfect meanings cannot be fully matched with the use of sudahandtelah. They are not interchangeable because of differences in aspectual, modal, and contextual meanings. Some of them are expressed without using sudahor telah at all. Sudahmeans ingressive aspect, and refers to the result or effect of previous activities. As modal meanings, sudah indicates two things, that the speaker possesses predictions about a future event and the speaker’s attitude to provide the hearer information. Telah means completive aspect. It does not refer to the meaning of the effect of a previous activity, therefore it can not function as taxis on future perfect aspect.

Function words in statistical machine-translated Chinese and original Chinese: A study into the translationese of machine translation systems

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 752-771
Author(s):  
Chen-li Kuo
Keyword(s):  
Machine Translation ◽  
Attribute Selection ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Source Language ◽  
Statistical Mt ◽  
Chinese Texts ◽  
Translation Systems

Abstract Statistical approaches have become the mainstream in machine translation (MT), for their potential in producing less rigid and more natural translations than rule-based approaches. However, on closer examination, the uses of function words between statistical machine-translated Chinese and the original Chinese are different, and such differences may be associated with translationese as discussed in translation studies. This article examines the distribution of Chinese function words in a comparable corpus consisting of MTs and the original Chinese texts extracted from Wikipedia. An attribute selection technique is used to investigate which types of function words are significant in discriminating between statistical machine-translated Chinese and the original texts. The results show that statistical MT overuses the most frequent function words, even when alternatives exist. To improve the quality of the end product, developers of MT should pay close attention to modelling Chinese conjunctions and adverbial function words. The results also suggest that machine-translated Chinese shares some characteristics with human-translated texts, including normalization and being influenced by the source language; however, machine-translated texts do not exhibit other characteristics of translationese such as explicitation.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document