Sinteze de limba română / Synthesis of the Romanian Language

The study Synthesis of the Romanian Language capitalizes on recent theoretical findings on Romanian grammar and seeks to provide a parallel between traditional grammar and the modern theories expounded in the new Grammar of the Academy (GALR) and the Basic Grammar of the Romanian language (GBLR). Through this work, Silvia Stoian Krieb highlights the main differences in interpretation between the two types of description: the traditional and modern.

Serial verbs in modern standard Arabic

This paper aims to discuss serial verb constructions in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). It argues against the claim that this structure does not exist in MSA. We examined parallel structures in this paper: being verbs and what is called albadal ‘apposition’ in the traditional grammar of the Arabic language. This paper argues that the first structure should be analyzed as an auxiliary structure that contains two clauses, while the second structure should be analyzed as a serial verb structure as it denotes, among others, a complex situation, shares the same subject, and contains one clause. Finally, this paper provides a brief syntactic analysis for being verbs and serial verbs in MSA within the lexical functional grammar (LFG) framework, showing the differences between the two structures.

Prepositional Phrases in Modern Standard Arabic: An Agree-Based Analysis

Prepositions, in Arabic traditional grammar literature, have been analyzed as Genitive Case assigners (Hasan, 1976; Sibaweihi, n.d.). This paper presents a phase-based analysis for prepositions (Ps) in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). The analysis is built on Chomsky's (2005, 2008) Feature-Inheritance model of Agree. In this proposed analysis, Prepositional Phrases (PPs) in MSA are analyzed as phases, where a Probe-Goal relation is established between the prepositional Probe p-P and the DP in its searching domain (i.e., its complement). The outcome of this relation is valuation of the unvalued Case feature on this DP complement (i.e., Genitive Case), and a similar valuation to the unvalued phi-features (φ-fs) on the Probe p-P.

Arabic Lexical Phrases

The Arabic traditional grammar as well as Chomsky’s mainstream theory may not be able to provide a good analysis of some fixed Arabic phrases. The challenge of such data directly stems from the fact that the general syntactic rules assumed by the two opposing theories cannot explain the syntactic and the semantic aspects of the fixed Arabic data. I argue that the Construction Grammar provides an adequate account that does not rely on syntactic structure alone, as assumed by the mainstream theory or the Arabic traditional grammar, but rather it links phonological, syntactic, and semantic information together in one basic construction by means of some correspondence rules. The Arabic data proves that there is a strong need for a linguistic theory that takes into consideration all data of different range of productivity.

Modalization of Speech Actions as the Basis of the Metaphoric Transfer (on the Example of German Economic Discourse)

The question of the nature of speech modalization has been repeatedly considered in linguistics from various positions, which is partially reflected in the text of the article. The authors of the publication propose to look at the points of intersection of the process of metaphorization of statements within the framework of one type of discourse with the expression of the author's attitude to and/or assessment of its content. To substantiate the validity of this approach, the authors refer to the methodology of logical analysis of language, the theory of intersubjectivity and the theory of evaluativity, linking cognitive methods of analyzing the process of metaphorization with a broad understanding of the category of modality. This formulation of the problem fits into the modern scientific paradigm of interdisciplinarity and the actualization of interdisciplinary relations, which reflects the relevance of the proposed text. The scientific novelty of the topic is an attempt to determine the correlation of the category of modality in its axiological and ideological aspects with metaphorization as a means of actualizing evaluativity in economic discourse. Commonly, denoting phenomena, processes or results is not limited to their nomination, but the producer of the utterance gives them a modal assessment. The empirical material containing fragments of texts of the German-language mass media on economic topics reflects the validity of the proposed interpretation of the issue, shows the potential relationship of phenomena in the intersection of various connotative meanings of a cognitive metaphor, potentially serving to express the attitude to the proposition of an utterance at the level of intersubjective assessments that create a modal frame of the text. The given examples clearly demonstrate that cognitive metaphors in various forms of their implementation could serve to express ideological modality from the standpoint of intersubjectivity, since the producer of the text relies on the reflection of a fragment of reality in the communicative and cognitive activity of subjects of the national-cultural community of people. The article recognizes a certain ambiguity of the proposed interpretation of the category of modality, which is considered in the traditional grammar as an expression of possibility, ought and desirability, or as a confidence, doubt and assertion that the action is carried out at different time levels using phrases with modal verbs, modal words or adverbs, particles, etc. Thus, the article can be considered as an indirect invitation to a discussion on the issue.

Non- Prototypical Reduplication in Odia

The paper discusses in detail echo formations and expressives found in the Odia language and the strategies for forming them. The complex semantic structure as well as the wide semantic and conceptual space they occupy, make them complex categories that have been ignored both by Western and Asian linguists because they are a prototypical grammatical feature not fitting the traditional grammar writing (Abbi, 2018). Odia has morphological fixed segmentism with the variants /ph/ and /m/. Morphological fixed segmentism is a kind of affixation, and so it resembles affixing morphology generally. [ɡaɽɪ > ɡaɽɪ phaɽɪ ‘car and other transport’ ; ʧɪra > ʧɪra mɪra ‘ torn and such’ ] This paper endeavours to find the reason behind this particular choice of phonemes by Odia speakers. Furthermore, the paper investigates if Odia base-reduplicant structures follow the Syllable Contact Law (Vennemann, 1988). According to the Syllable Contact Law, sonority should fall across syllable boundaries. This paper proves that Odia base-reduplicant structures follow the Syllable Contact Law as rise in sonority across syllable boundaries is a marked feature in Odia.’

Video games as a screen-interactive platform of historical media education: educational potential and risks of politicization

Screen culture today, absorbing verbal-narrative and written culture, is the dominant memorial-representative format for the reproduction, preservation and broadcast of cultural information. Among the varieties of screen culture, since the beginning of the 21st century, video games have become especially popular and widespread. They possess unique interactive-procedural qualities, which, together with the traditional grammar of screen narrative, create an original complex of rhetorical techniques that effectively influence the mass public consciousness. In turn, the plot and visual design of video games is often based on historical narratives, becoming a platform for virtual interactive reconstruction of history. The study is devoted to the up-to-date topic of analyzing the on-screen phenomenon of video games as an innovative platform for historical media education, identifying its educational potential and the risks of political distortion of history. The methodological basis of the study is cultural-civilizational, dialectical and historical approaches, as well as structural-functional analysis, comparative-political science approach and systemic method. The study made it possible to identify a wide range of historical video games and classify the modalities of the implementation of historical topics in them with its general educational potential. In addition, the fundamental deconstructive nature of the actualization of the historical metanarrative in the procedural-interactive architectonics of video games has been determined. Finally, three main strategies for distorting and falsifying history in video games have been revealed. According to the results of the study, it was revealed that almost every significant cultural and historical era, with an emphasis on military battle plots, is reflected in the video game format. These game projects have serious educational potential, procedurally immersing the gamer in the context of the main historical facts, cultural aesthetics of the era and internal determinants of historical dynamics. At the same time, the postmodern essence of video games has been established, which poses a threat to the invariance of the perception of history, latently encouraging the intentions to rewrite it. Other risks are contained in the identified examples of politicization of the historical narrative of video games, which are concretized in the tendency to belittle the role of Russia in the international arena and the Eurocentric value accentuation.

Sentence-Final Particles in Chinese

Chinese has a rich system of Sentence-Final Particles (SFPs). Traditional grammar and descriptive linguistic studies attempt to capture the precise semantic interpretation and the discourse function of each particle. Much work related to this aspect tries to find out what the core semantic interpretation of a given SFP is, how the diverse interpretations of a given SFP are developed from its core interpretation, and in what context the use of a given SFP is licit. Linguists from different disciplines have made important observations and offered various explanations. On the other hand, diachronic studies trace the origin and the evolution of each SFP, which helps understand the core semantics of SFPs in modern Chinese. Studies on different Chinese dialects also help the understanding of the meaning and the function of SFPs from a comparative perspective. Under the generative framework, SFPs are analyzed as complementizers, which are located in the peripheral domain. Both traditional grammarians and generative syntacticians are interested in patterns like the rigid order that necessarily shows whenever SFPs co-occur. They attempt to establish the hierarchical order of SFPs and identify the general principle that regulates such an order. Recent studies show that such an order is regulated by a discourse constraint related to subjectivity, according to which the higher a functional projection is located, the more directly it is for such a projection to be linked to the speaker’s attitude, the more subjective the interpretation of such a projection becomes, and the less likely it is for such a projection to be embedded. This constraint offers an explanation to the question of why only some SFPs can appear in embedded clauses whereas the others demonstrate root properties. Syntacticians are also interested in the question of how to derive the final order of SFPs. Two analyses are available: disjunction analysis and complement-to-specifier raising analysis. A more recent finding is that under the minimalist framework, each SFP heads a phase and bears an EPP feature. Complement-to-specifier raising is required as a last resort to satisfy the Extended Projection Principle (EPP). The complement of an SFP is moved to the phase edge to postpone the transfer of the phrases that are embedded within the complement, which allows these phrases to be extracted later.

Inversion and word order in English: A functional perspective

English is an SVO (Subject, Verb, Object) word order language. This canonical SVO pattern is the default unmarked word-order configuration typical of English, which makes this language to be classified under the typology of SVO languages. However, driven by the major purpose of language as an instrument of human communication and social interaction, and as a semantic system for making meanings, addressors sometimes depart in their discourse from this basic canonical order of constituents where a grammaticalized system like inversion takes place, resulting in inverted constructions. Through testing and developing the Degree of Focus Hypothesis, proposed by Huffman (1993), this study, which employed a mixed methods research design, sought to explore the communicative and semantic values of inversion; and the pragmalinguistc functions of preposing, i.e., clause-initial adjuncts, to the pragmatic process of communication. The study confirmed the Degree of Focus Hypothesis where the hypothesized notion of concentration of attention stemming from inversion was found to be applicable. The paper stressed that what triggers inversion or non-inversion is a certain communicative effect such as focus rather than a relation of formal determination where one element determines mechanically the form or appearance of another. A contribution to linguistic and educational research, the paper, therefore, highlighted the importance of a human factor in the functioning of language and emphasized the need to break away from grammar-based teaching (traditional grammar) to discourse-based language teaching (communicative grammar) where languaging rather than language should be the focus of language teaching and learning.

IMPROVING READING COMPREHENSION SKILL THROUGH INTERACTIVE READING STRATEGIES OF GRADE 10TH STUDENTS AT PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOL

It is widely accepted that English reading comprehension skill is vital for academic success. Yet a majority of Pakistani teachers adopt the traditional grammartranslation approach, which fail to assist students to comprehend course contents that are taught in English. The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of interactive reading comprehension strategies and traditional grammar-translation reading comprehension approach. This research used a quasi-experiment research design and the independent sample t-test to compare the reading comprehension skills of 10th grade students of two different schools of district Korangi, Karachi. The findings of the study proved significant improvements in English reading comprehension skills of the interactive reading comprehension treatment group over the grammar-translation treatment group.