The Translation Text of Drama “Macbeth”: Grammatical Transformation of Adjunct in Noun Phrase

Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s play that used unique and dramatic choice of words in its adjective and noun. Grammatical transformation of adjectival adjunct in noun phrase in the translation text of drama Macbeth has caused the shift of phrase’s meaning. This study aims to identify the grammatical shift by using X-Bar theory. This study is a descriptive qualitative study. The data are collected by using documentation and note taking technique. There are 35 noun phrases collected. The results show that there are 3 types of shift of adjectival adjunct. First, the adjunct is omitted. Second, the adjunct shifts into complementizer phrase. Third, the adjunct shifts into prepositional phrase.

Latent semantic analysis for tagging activation states and identifiability in northwestern Mexican news outlets

The present work aims to study the relationship between measures, obtained from Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) and a variant known as SPAN, and activation and identifiability states (Informative States) of referents in noun phrases present in journalistic notes from Northwestern Mexican news outlets written in Spanish. The aim and challenge is to find a strategy to achieve labelling of new / given information in the discourse rooted in a theoretically linguistic stance. The new / given distinction can be defined from different perspectives in which it varies what linguistic forms are taken into account. Thus, the focus in this work is to work with full referential devices (n = 2 388). Pearson’s R correlation tests, analysis of variance, graphical exploration of the clustering of labels, and a classification experiment with random forests are performed. For the experiment, two groups were used: noun phrases labeled with all 10 tags of informative states and a binary labelling, as well as the use of two bags-of-words for each noun phrase: the interior and the exterior. It was found that using LSA in conjunction with the inner bag of words can be used to classify certain informational states. This same measure showed good results for the binary division, detecting which sentences introduce new referents in discourse. In previous work using a similar method in noun phrases in English, 80% accuracy (n = 478) was reached in their classification exercise. Our best test for Spanish reached 79%. No work on Spanish using this method has been done before and this kind of experiment is important because Spanish exhibits a more complex inflectional morphology.

Effects of Differential Presentation of Noun Types on Sentence Processing in Elderly Adults: An Eye-tracking Study

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to investigate how aging influences sentence processing when noun-phrases are presented differently.Methods: A total of 40 participants participated in the study ranging in age from 19 to 71. All were presented with sentences and pictures under either dative or accusative conditions. After that, they were asked to judge if the sentences were correct or incorrect.Results: First, there were significant differences between the older adults and younger adults in accuracy. The older group showed lower accuracy in the sentence judgment task. Second, there were significant differences between the older adults and younger adults in response time. The older group needed more time due to their lower cognitive resources. They made more errors when accusative noun phrases were provided. Third, the fixation proportion of the target stimulus between regions were significant in both types of dative and accusative noun phrase presentation. The older group showed lower proportions in the last region of the sentence.Conclusion: These results shows that both the elderly and the young gradually deal with the meaning of words through the noun phrase information. However, the elderly showed difficulty in assigning the correct thematic roles by using case-markers, given the lower proportion of fixation in the region where the target stimuli are presented. It is expected that difficulties in the communication process of the elderly will be better understood through this study.

A Study of Noun Phrase Awareness at the Eighth Graders of Two Islamic Junior High Schools in Makassar

Syntactic awareness has been linked to reading comprehension skills. In Junior high schools, syntactic awareness of noun phrases can be very important for the students in the Indonesian context because it can improve their reading comprehension. However, teaching noun phrases for the students can be challenging due to the grammar difference. The junior high school student’s noun phrase awareness was measured using a developed test. It consists of 28 questions with seven noun categories. The reliability test was conducted using KR-20 and the result was .90. The study indicated the average score of the students was 69.07 (fair). Of the seven noun phrases category, nominal possessors and conjoined noun phrases were good, prenominal possessors, multiple genitive constructs, alienable and inalienable possessions, and ad-positional phrases were fair, and nonreferential generative was weak. Referring to the result of the research, it is suggested to improve the student’s noun phrase awareness to enhance their reading comprehension.

POLYSEMY PATTERNS OF THE SIMILATIVE SUFFIX -LA IN HILL MARI

Статья посвящена моделям полисемии суффикса la в горномарийском языке. Основное значение данного суффикса — маркирование стандарта сравнения в симилятивных конструкциях. В статье рассматриваются такие значения суффикса, как маркер глоттонимов, маркер актанта при глаголе madaš ‘играть’, маркер обменного эквивалента, маркер приблизительной локализации. Помимо типологически ожидаемых моделей полисемии (как, например, маркер глоттонимов или маркер актанта при глаголах čučaš ‘казаться’, kajaš ‘быть видимым, казаться’), горномарийский симилятивный маркер la имеет менее изученные в типологическом плане функции — например, маркер актанта при глаголе madaš ‘играть’. Предыдущие исследования показали, что la может иметь разные морфосинтаксические ограничения в зависимости от контекста. В статье приводятся существующие ограничения для не рассматриваемых ранее контекстов употребления. Так, маркируя глоттоним или актант при глаголе madaš ‘играть’, la имеет более ограниченную морфосинтаксическую дистрибуцию по сравнению с симилятивными конструкциями и конструкциями с глаголами типа čučaš ‘казаться’. Еще одно употребление la — с локативными выражениями в качестве маркера приблизительной локализации. В этой функции la присоединяется к именной группе, оформленной одним из локативных падежей, а также к послеложной группе с пространственным послелогом или к наречию, сохраняющему в своем составе старые формы локативных падежей. Согласно нашим данным, полученным в ходе опроса носителей, la может присоединяться ко всем трем локативным падежам, а не только к иллативу, как это отмечается в грамматиках. Однако сочетание la с инессивом и лативом, в отличие от иллатива, грамматично только для имен с пространственной семантикой. Помимо этого, в статье анализируется описанная сеть полисемии: обсуждается возможность развития рассматриваемых функций маркера из симилятивного значения, распространившегося из симилятивных конструкций на остальные контексты. This article discusses the polysemy models of the Hill Mari suffix la, which main meaning is marking the standard of comparison in similative constructions: glottonym marker, marker of the actant in constructions with the verb madaš ‘play’, marker of the approximate localization. In addition to the typologically expected patterns of polysemy (for example, the marker of glottonyms or the complementizer marker in constructions with the verbs čučaš ‘seem’, kajaš ‘be seen, seem’), the Hill Mari similative marker la has some functions that are less studied from typological perspective. Previous research has shown that la can have different morphosyntactic restrictions depending on the context. The article presents the restrictions for contexts of la that were not studied previously in a proper way. Thus, when used as a glottonym marker or as a marker of an actant in constructions with the verb madaš ‘play’, la has a more limited morphosyntactic distribution compared to similative constructions and constructions with verbs like čučaš ‘seem’. Another context for la is locative expressions. The suffix is used to indicate the direction and not a final point. In this function, la is attached to a noun phrase marked by one of the locative cases, as well as to a postpositional group with a spatial postposition or to an adverb that retains the old forms of locative cases. It is important that la can be attached to all three locative cases, not just to the illative, as noted in the grammars. Moreover, the article analyzes the existing polysemy network: there is an attempt to present a possible invariant underlying all functions of the la. This is the similative meaning of the suffix, which is spread from the similative constructions to other contexts.

NP vuorovaikutuksen yksikkönä

Arvioitu teos: Tsuyoshi Ono & Sandra A. Thompson (toim.): The ‘noun phrase’ across languages. An emergent unit in interaction. Typological Studies in Language 128. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins 2020. 366 s. isbn 978-90-272-0499-8.