Locative Prepositions “at, in, on” and Translation to Vietnamese Through Frameworks

Based on the role of the frame of reference under the influence of point-of-view culture in the British and Vietnamese ethnic groups used as a cognitive premise in the translation, the article presents the justification of the contracting process about the reasons, similarities and differences as well as the semantic differences of the locating preposition “at, in, on” in English with the corresponding linguistic units in Vietnamese through specific communication contexts. Research results show that if the reference object (DTQC) in the positioning reference system of the English preposition is assimilated with the speaker in Vietnamese [similar to the reference frame in the reference system] then, the translation semantics of the preposition “at, in, on” will be similar to the expression semantics of the corresponding units in Vietnamese. In contrast, the different structural semantics are manifested because there is no similarity in the frame of reference.

Expressing prospective location in French: rethinking Vandeloise’s ‘principle of anticipation’

Vandeloise’s (1987, 2017) principle of anticipation proposes that French verbs of motion can enable prospective readings of static locative prepositions. However, it has little to say about verbs of motion that do not have a prospective verbal reference place (VRP): that is, to what extent are verbs of initial polarity like partir and s’enfuir able to trigger prospective readings of prepositions? This article argues that each verb must be analysed individually and that prospective readings of prepositions depend on the interaction of verbal and prepositional semantics: for example, the movement away from a viewer expressed by partir favours a prospective reading of derrière but not of devant: this is due to differences regarding access to perception. The animacy of the Ground and its status as a material or spatial entity (Vandeloise, 2017) is also a key factor (e.g. partir près de + spatial entity). This suggests that verbs of initial polarity participate in synergistic verb/preposition/Ground interpretations that help to overcome their lack of a VRP. The prospective reading of the preposition depends on the choice of verb and Ground, thus supporting a distributed view of spatial semantics (Sinha and Kuteva, 1995; Zlatev, 1997, 2003, 2007; Evans and Tyler, 2004).

New prepositions in the house

In the literature on semantic and categorial change French chez and Mainland Scandinavian hos are often cited together as parallel examples of locative prepositions deriving from nouns referring to the concept ‘house’. In this paper we compare in detail the philological records and the more recent development of the two items as well as that of the cognate Insular Scandinavian hjá. We show that while there are similarities in the development of Latin CASA / French chez and hos, as frequently suggested in the literature, there are also significant divergences. We argue in favour of a reevaluation of the origin of hos aligning it with hjá rather than casa as suggested in Noreen (1892), and show that if so revised, the differences can be shown to arise from the different meanings of the source terms: Latin casa ‘hut, house’ and later ‘place’ as opposed to Old Swedish hos and Old Icelandic hjá ‘group of people, company’. We then go on to explore the consequences of these different diachronic trajectories for our general understanding of the connected semantic and syntactic developments and the time course of categorial change.

A minimalist approach to the syntax of p

This paper proposes a minimalist analysis of locative prepositions in Central Catalan, from a comparative perspective. Specifically, I claim that certain semantic and syntactic properties that are usually considered part of the field of the extended projection of PPs in cartographic approaches (categories like Place, Degree, K, and AxPart, for example) are in fact properties of the DP in the complement of a preposition. This claim takes the view that adpositions are a functional projection that relates two DPs, the Figure and the Ground, and not a lexical head that projects a functional domain on its own, as Ns, Vs or As (cf. den Dikken 2010; Koopman 2000). The final part of the paper proposes a model to account for the variation that locative prepositions exhibit across Romance languages following the Conjecture of Borer (1984) (known as the Borer-Chomsky Conjecture since Baker 2008). More precisely, I propose a model in which microparametric differences among Romance simple locative prepositions depend on the particular composition of features in p.

Gesture-enhanced recasts have limited effects: A case of the regular past tense

This study investigates whether gesture-enhanced recasts lead to better production of the English regular past tense. Fifty-nine low-intermediate ESL students at a US university took part in communicative activities in class, during which they received, respectively, no feedback, verbal recasts, or gesture-enhanced recasts, the latter being a verbal recast accompanied by a point-back gesture indicating the non-target-like use or absence of the past tense. All learners also completed two assessments, a grammar test about the regular past tense and an oral production test that was designed to elicit the regular past tense, as a pre-test, an immediate post-test, and a delayed post-test a week later. Then, a repeated-measure ANOVA was used to analyse the linguistic development, using the obtained test scores. The results showed that there was no difference across the conditions in the grammar test, owing to the ceiling effect. On the other hand, learners significantly improved from the pre-test to the post-test in the oral production test, but there were no differences across the conditions. This contradicts a previous finding that teachers’ pedagogical gestures during recasts better facilitated the development of locative prepositions. Further, this study discusses how learning types (rule-based vs. item-based) involved in two different linguistic targets and different gestures used in the two studies may affect the efficacy of recasts.

Objectless locative prepositions in British English

In British English, sentences like This film has monsters in are possible without the pronoun it. Descriptively, we refine landscape of the phenomenon, identifying restrictions on the distribution and interpretation of OLPs, including dialectal variation within British English, and observing an A-bar movement restriction on monsters. Analytically, we argue against an A-movement analysis (Griffiths & Sailor), and ponder alternatives from a cross-linguistic perspective.

The dative in Croatian Štokavian and Kajkavian grammars up to 1860

This article deals with the approach to the dative case in Kajkavian and Štokavian grammars from 1604 to 1859. We concentrate on seventeen grammars, primarily focusing on their presentation of the meaning of the dative case. Remarks related to the meaning of the dative are mainly found in the parts of these grammars discussing syntax, and to a lesser extent in other parts. A significant feature of the majority of the grammars examined is their presentation of what modern grammars consider dative and locative (constructions) under the same umbrella of the dative case or the “third” case. The reason for this is a “morphology first” rule: the identical morphological form (in the singular) influenced grammarians’ conceptualization of what are considered typical dative constructions (e.g., those with the preposition k) and locative ones (e.g., those with the preposition u in static contexts) as dative constructions. Including the dative and locative prepositions in the scope of a single case in the singular led to an implicit assumption about the semantic profile of the dative: it occurs in static and dynamic constructions, and its semantic profile is different in the singular and plural.

Could a multimodal dictionary serve as a learning tool? An examination of the impact of technologically enhanced visual glosses on L2 text comprehension

This study examines the efficacy of a multimodal online bilingual dictionary based on cognitive linguistics in order to explore the advantages and limitations of explicit multimodal L2 vocabulary learning. Previous studies have examined the efficacy of the verbal and visual representation of words while reading L2 texts, concluding that it facilitates incidental word retention. This study explores other potentials of multimodal L2 vocabulary learning: explicit learning with a multimodal dictionary could enhance not only word retention, but also text comprehension; the dictionary could serve not only as a reference tool, but also as a learning tool; and technology-enhanced visual glosses could facilitate deeper text comprehension. To verify these claims, this study investigates the multimodal representations’ effects on Japanese students learning L2 locative prepositions by developing two online dictionaries, one with static pictures and one with animations. The findings show the advantage of such dictionaries in explicit learning; however, no significant differences are found between the two types of visual glosses, either in the vocabulary or in the listening tests. This study confirms the effectiveness of multimodal L2 materials, but also emphasizes the need for further research into making the technologically enhanced materials more effective.

EFFICACY OF RECASTS AND GESTURES ON THE ACQUISITION OF LOCATIVE PREPOSITIONS

This study investigates whether gestures can be used during recasts to enhance the saliency of a target structure (locative prepositions) and to lead to better production of the target structure. Forty-eight low-intermediate English as a second language (ESL) students partook in communicative activities during which they received either no feedback (control), verbal recasts only (R), or recasts plus gesture (RG), and a subset of participants completed a stimulated recall session. Then the pretest, immediate, and delayed posttest scores of grammar and oral production tests were used to analyze the linguistic development. The results showed that no one commented on recasts or locative prepositions during the stimulated recall session and that there were no significant changes in grammar test scores in all conditions; however, the R and RG conditions performed significantly better in the production test than the control in the immediate posttest. Furthermore, the RG condition maintained the development in the delayed posttest, whereas the R condition did not.