Validity and Reliability of Students Perceptions on OBE Approach in Malaysian VC Using Rasch Model

This pilot study aims to produce empirical evidence regarding the validity and reliability of instrument of the perception of vocational college diploma students towards the Outcome Based Education (OBE) approach. Validity and reliability were analysed using Rasch Model Measurement assisted by Winsteps 3.72 software. This research instrument contained 26 items and was distributed to 60 diploma students of vocational college at the Northern Zone. Validity analysis of the instrument was done through four functional testings. For reliability and separation of respondents, it was found that the individual reliability value was 0.91, while that for items demonstrated an item value of 0.94 and item separation index of 3.90. Results from the analysis of polarity item found that 25 items had a positive PMC value between 0.52-0.83. Meanwhile, analysis on item fit found 23 items with an outfit mean-square value between 0.41 and 1.24. This situation suggested three items that require attention. In the analysis on local dependence that determines dependent items based on the standardised residual correlation value, it was shown that the correlation value for the items used did not overlap with that of other items. These findings provided the evidence that the instrument of perception of vocational college diploma students on OBE approach has a high level of validity and reliability to be used in actual studies.

Processing of the Mandarin polarity item renhe ‘any’

The Mandarin renhe is similar to the English any in terms of polarity sensitivity (Wang 1993; Wang & Hsieh 1996; Kuo 2003; Cheng & Giannakidou 2013; Shyu 2016). However, the following phenomena regarding any in relative clause environments have not been surveyed with respect to renhe: (a) the NPI illusion effect reported in studies like Parker & Phillips (2011; 2016); (b) the subtrigging effect discussed in LeGrand (1975) and Dayal (1998; 2004). We conducted two untimed, offline acceptability judgment experiments and the results suggest that: (i) NPI illusion does not appear in Mandarin in untimed offline processing, (ii) the subtrigging effect of renhe holds, and (iii) renhe can be licensed by certain types of declarative verbs like tongyi ‘agree’ and zancheng ‘approve’. The results confirm the strict structural requirement of the c-commanding relation between a negation licensor and renhe (Wang 1993) and the licensing of renhe in non-veridical contexts (Cheng & Giannakidou 2013), and further suggest additional licensing environments for renhe: relative clauses and declarative verbs. This requires reconsideration of positing non-veridicality as a necessary licensing condition for renhe and calls for future research on how renhe is licensed under these two licensing environments.

‘Not’ in focus:

This paper investigates the interaction of focus and negation in the Bantu language Zulu (Nguni; S42). I discuss four strategies that are used to negate transitive sentences in Zulu. The default strategy, in which an object marker is added to the negated verb, expresses polarity focus by dislocating the object-marked object from the VP-focus domain. In the second strategy, no object marker occurs, and focus falls on the object or the VP. I show that in this strategy, negation typically associates with the focus and is not part of the presupposition, and I argue that this is responsible for a (hitherto unexplained) additional contrastive inference that speakers report with this negation strategy. The third strategy, a cleft, is used to remove the focused object from the scope of negation; as a result, negation can associate with the presupposition. In the fourth strategy, the object noun loses its augment and is interpreted as a negative polarity item (NPI). Based on a proposal by Lahiri (1998), I argue that in negated sentences with NPI-objects, focus is placed on an implicit cardinality predicate which is associated with the semantic representation of the indefinite NPI-object.

GRAMMATICALIZATION OF NOUNS IN JORDANIAN ARABIC: EVIDENCE FROM ʃIKIL AND OMIR

The current study aims at exploring the grammaticalization of the nouns ʃikil 'shape' and omir 'age' in Jordanian Arabic. The data were collected from Jordanian T.V. series and interviews with native speakers of Jordanian Arabic. The sample of the study consisted of 300 tokens of ʃikil and 200 tokens of omir. The researcher collected the data, then he analysed the functions of these two words. The study found out that ʃikil was used 100 times as a noun meaning 'shape', and 200 times as an evidential particle. Besides, omir was also used as a noun 60 times and 140 times as a negative polarity item. The findings of the study showed that ʃikil has one lexical meaning 'shape', and it evolved by the process of grammaticalization into an evidential particle. ʃikil underwent the process of semantic bleaching, since it lost its content meaning and developed to serve a grammatical function of evidentially. Bedsides, it was decategorized as it lost the grammatical features of nouns, i.e. it cannot be pluralized and cannot accept definite articles. Also ʃikil lost its stress as part of phonetic reduction. Similarly, omir has one lexical meaning 'age' and developed into a negative polarity item. Omir was affected by the process of semantic bleaching and decategorization as it was developed from its original meaning as a noun meaning 'age' into a negative polarity item. Additionally, omir underwent the process of phonetic reduction as it lost stress. The study found out that ʃikil and omir underwent three stages of grammaticalization: semantic bleaching, decategorization, and phonetic reduction.

Comparisons of Equality With German so…wie, and the Relationship Between Degrees and Properties

We present a compositionally transparent, unified semantic analysis of two kinds of so…wie-equative constructions in German, namely degree equatives and property equatives in the domain of individuals or events. Unlike in English and many other European languages (Haspelmath & Buchholz 1998, Rett 2013), both equative types in German feature the parameter marker so, suggesting a unified analysis. We show that the parallel formal expression of German degree and property equatives is accompanied by a parallel syntactic distribution (in predicative, attributive, and adverbial position), and by identical semantic properties: Both equative types allow for scope ambiguities, show negative island effects out of context, and license the negative polarity item überhaupt ‘at all’ in the complement clause. As the same properties are also shared by German comparatives, we adopt the influential quantificational analysis of comparatives in von Stechow (1984ab), Heim (1985, 2001, 2007), and Beck (2011), and treat both German equative types in a uniform manner as expressing universal quantification over sets of degrees or over sets of properties (of individuals or events). Conceptually, the uniform marking of degree-related and property-related meanings is expected given that the abstract semantic category degree (type $d$) can be reconstructed in terms of equivalence classes, i.e., ontologically simpler sets of individuals (type $\langle e,t\rangle $) or events (type $\langle v,t\rangle $). These are found in any language, showing that whether or not a language makes explicit reference to degrees (by means of gradable adjectives, degree question words, degree-only equatives) does not follow on general conceptual or semantic grounds, but is determined by the grammar of that language.

Bocado: scalar semantics and polarity sensitivity

This paper traces the developments of the noun bocado as it participates in two polarity-sensitive constructions in the history of Portuguese: the minimizer bocado ‘[not even] a bit’, a negative polarity item in Old Portuguese, and the degree adverbial um bocado ‘a bit’, which emerges in the 1700 s and is a positive polarity item. I adopt Israel’s (2011) grammar of polarity based on two lexical features, a quantitative value (q-value) and an informative value (i-value), in order to analyze the properties of these constructions as they reveal the interaction between lexical meaning and the logic of scalar reasoning. By applying this model in diachrony, I show how the logic of pragmatic scales underlies the patterns observed: a low q-value (lexical meaning) constrains the possible contexts of use of the expression in terms of the informativity of the propositions conveyed. Diachronic studies can thus shed light on the types of meaning associated with scalar terms as well as on types of scalar items.

Syntax of the Palestinian Arabic negation-associated exclusive construction

This paper presents an analysis of a Palestinian Arabic negation-associated exclusive construction featuring the contrastive focus marker illa ‘but’, with theoretical implications for the syntax of negation, negative polarity item licensing, and the categorical status of the root in sentential syntax. It analyzes illa-phrases as constituents licensed by a c-commanding sentential negation (Neg), and illa as a grammatical device encoding contrastiveness. A crucial source for the exclusive semantics of the construction comes from a silent bass ‘only’ immediately following illa that constitutes a syntactic ‘shield’ against Neg scope. Rather than taking an in-situ focus-interpretation approach (cf. Rooth 1985, 1992), we argue for two covert movements at the syntax-semantics interface: quantifier raising of illa-phrases to the designated specifier of polarity Phrase followed by Polarity-to-Focus-raising of Neg. This creates the right syntactic configuration for the truth conditional import of both operators and captures the ‘classical’ thought that focus-sensitive exclusive operators like only quantify over propositional alternatives.

Is There a Negative Polarity Item ‮דבר‬‎ in DSS Hebrew?

A negative polarity item (NPI) is a word or expression that occurs grammatically in negative clauses and a variety of other types of clauses such as interrogatives and conditionals, but not in ordinary affirmative sentences. Examples from classical Biblical Hebrew include the pronoun ‮מאומה‬‎ “anything” and the semantically-bleached noun ‮דבר‬‎ “a thing,” which has been produced from the ordinary noun ‮דבר‬‎ “word, matter, action” by the process of grammaticalization. This paper examines the noun ‮דבר‬‎ in the non-biblical DSS with the purpose of determining whether it is used as there as an NPI, as in Biblical Hebrew, or as an ordinary semantically-bleached noun, as in Rabbinic Hebrew. The results show that the diachronic development of ‮דבר‬‎ in the DSS appears to be at an earlier stage than classical Biblical Hebrew, despite the later dating of the scrolls. This finding is explained as a special kind of pseudo-classicism.