Bērnu latviešu valodas attīstība artikulācijas, normu un lingvistiskās vides šķēršļu joslā

The history of civilization and our historical contacts lie not only in archaeological digs. Linguistics studies have both a historical and a powerful modern dimension with a significant impact on the future. The Latvian language is an undoubted national value in Latvia, and it should be valued since birth, at least in this country. It is a means of strengthening thoughts and ideas for children, a means of building their worldview, a stimulus for enriching their knowledge, creative activity, and, ultimately, civic thinking. The facts of language history and the traces of language contacts are also found in children’s language; for example, children are more likely to learn sounds that can be found in most languages of the world, while the sounds specific for each language are more difficult to learn for speakers of other languages. This time, I describe such creative linguistic activities of children that remind us of linguistic relationships and older forms and fit into our historical development. I have already analysed the examples observed in children’s Latvian, which, in adult language, we have transformed throughout history, but which very directly show the common grounds of the Baltic languages. For example, the historical change in vocalism known in Latvian phonetics, the sound change determined by the consonant /n/, is not inherited; it appeared in the Latvian language when in > ī, un > ū, an > o [uo], en > ie as a result of historical changes. When we compare Latvian words with Lithuanian, examples can be found: krītu < krintù, jūtu < juntù, protu < prantù, pieci < penkì, arī rankà > roka, etc. The change kind of lives in Latvian children’s language because we can hear examples of it: tinšu kamolā ‘tīšu kamolā’, pint matus ‘pīt matus’, un pinšu bizi ‘pīšu bizi’, dzint bārdu ‘dzīt bārdu’, uzmint uz kājas ‘uzmīt uz kājas’. These are variations of the change mentioned above, and these families had no relationship or other close contact with Lithuanians. Also, an example of simplification has been observed when, alike to the historical loss of consonant /d/, e.g. nīd-a – nī(d) -st-u, a child made a similar change: līd-a – es pašlaik jau lī(d)-st-u `lienu`. In reference to conversations between children and their parents, this article mentions Lithuanian formant -iuk and Latvian affix -uk- that are used to form masculine diminutives, whether the primary word is masculine or feminine. Problems in pronunciation of Latvian and Lithuanian only opening diphthongs ie and o [uo] not common in other languages are also described along with the reminder of play languages of children speaking Latvian or southern part of Zhemaitian subdialects as a signal that children perceive ie and o [uo] as monophonemes in contrast to biphonemic character of other diphthongs. Children learn languages gradually, first memorising the dominant, most frequently heard elements of language, e.g. maybe: es lasu, tu lasi, es nāku…, but why tu nāc? Why not tu nāki or even tu nāci (pres.), thus demonstrating a naturally perceived once occurred change of the consonant k into c in front of the lost front vowel? Maybe the intensity could be escalated by saying, Tu mani ļoti mīli, bet es tevi mīlu ļotāk! Education is an objective necessity, and language skills are important for learning. The five-year-old Eiženija understands this very clearly: “Jaunība ir jauns bērns. Jaunībā ir jāmācās, jo savādāk paliks vecs un neko nezinās.” (‘Youth is a young child. You have to learn when you’re young, because otherwise [one] will grow old and know nothing.’) This article focuses solely on the results of pre-school speech records and parental surveys and highlights the impact of the linguistic environment as a contributing or preventing factor.

Extending the Dialogical Array

The I-You dialogue of mutually reciprocal engagement makes a difference of heaven and hell. In the first out of four suggested types of I-You dialogue discussed in this article, all the I’s—of the primary word I-You—own a dialogical perspective. In the other three, it is the I who has an experience of creating and engaging in a dialogue that shortly achieves some kind of mutuality with You. Epistemologically, the four suggested types differ by the qualities of the I who engages in dialogue. The second stance is an I-You dialogue of sympathy. A third possibility is an I-You dialogue of empathy. A fourth possibility aims higher to a dialogue that transcends human mutuality by compassion and reaches a heavenly dialogue.

The North Atlantic and the Arctic

Goidelic word stress is initial but with some signs of quantity sensitivity. Phrasal intonation tends to be falling (for both declaratives and questions) in southern Irish dialects but rising in northern ones. Interrogativity is marked by phonetic adjustments in initial or final accents of the utterance. Icelandic and Faroese have traditional word-initial stress-to-weight but show signs of penultimate stress patterns in loanwords. Intonation is characterized by phrasal accents within overall downtrend patterns (also in questions, but with some accentual distinctions). The polysynthetic structure of the Inuit languages makes the notion of lexical stress irrelevant, but tonal targets are associated with prosodic domains of various kinds, and a distinction is made between word-level and phrase-level tones; devoicing and truncation are utterance final. In Central Alaskan Yupik, primary word stress marks the last foot by pitch movement. Enclitic bound phrases, phrasal compounds, and non-enclitic bound phrases are seen as larger constituents below the utterance.

Word-Formation Categories in “The Tale of Bygone Years” (With a Focus on Nominal Suffixed Derivatives)

The article looks at word-formation categories in the “Tale of Bygone Years” from the cogni-tive perspective, specifically focusing on nominal suffixed derivatives as one of the most pro-ductive groups of derivative lexemes in the text of the manuscript. The author makes a num-ber of observations on the “internal form of the language” — i. e. specific forms of expression of thought and their grammatical realization as well as the creative and intellectual activity of human thinking. The primary purpose of the article is to determine the ratio of derivative and non-derivative nouns, to identify the most productive means of word formation, primary word-formation categories and their conceptual structure, and to analyze word-formation models that guide the process of cognition. We used content analysis to categorize common nouns in terms of their productivity/non-productivity and to determine word-formation mechanisms that are characteristic for the text. The statistical method was used to identify key word-formation methods and categories of nominal derivatives, while the descriptive-analytical method was used to describe their conceptual structure. In the course of the study, we identified primary word-formation categories which gave us a better idea of the medieval language consciousness which seems to have been characterized by an extensive system of word-formation suffixes. In particular, the word-formation act reveals a close interweaving of sensory and speculative perception and an interdependence of the structures of knowledge and evaluation of the world. In addition, the study revealed a high generative potential of core non-derivative concepts that underly the ancient Slavic language picture of the world. The results of the study confirm the hypothesis that the ancient man had developed abstract think-ing, and exteriorization of its conceptual system at all stages of its development was largely realized by original linguistic means. The theoretical significance of this research project lies in the synchronous study of word-formation processes as well as in applying axiological methods to the study of the linguistic picture of the world. Its practical conclusions throw fresh light at language as activity and demonstrate the high potential of original word-formation means of the Old Slavonic language. The results of this research can be used in theoretical courses in anthropo- and ethnolinguistics as well as in teaching Russian as a foreign language for advanced students.

Stress Placement in English Quadri-Syllabic and Five-Syllabic Suffixed Words and Their Roots by Pashto Speakers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan

This research study investigates the pattern of English (primary) word stress in quadri-syllabic and five-syllabic suffixed words and their roots by Pashto speakers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan and the effect of suffixation on stress placements. These suffixes in English language are called shifters which shift strong stress to the antepenultimate (third from the last), penultimate (second from the last), and ultimately (last) syllables, as well as those suffixes that do not shift strong stress to other syllables. The data was collected from sixteen Pashto language native speakers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan, by way of recording their oral-reading of a card that contained the selected words. The findings of this study indicate that primary stress pattern varies among quadri-syllabic, and five-syllabic, suffixed words. The three types of suffixes in English language assert different degrees of effect on subjects stress placement, which can influence the amount of correct productions by the subjects. Actually, the suffixes “cial” or “tial” and “ic” state a great effect on subjects primary stress placement, because the subjects were capable of generating the shift in primary stress in penultimate syllable. Unlike the greater number of incorrect productions in “tory” and “ity” suffixed words, the subjects were sensitive to the change of stress pattern, which assists a great number of correct productions in “cial” or “tial” and “ic” suffixed words. The findings disclose the fact that there was extreme unawareness of the strong stress shifting effect by Pashto speakers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which further needed more attention.

History and lexical and word-formative types of proto-slavic noun suffix -va

On the material reconstructed derivates of proto-Slavic era a lexical-derivational taxonomy of feminine nouns with the suffix –VA is carried out. The origin and the typology of derivational suffix-va in such derivatives are established. It is proved that the suffix -VA demonstrates the ability to be combined mostly with verbal and nominal bases. Minor frequency of the creation of proto-Slavic nouns by attaching to the original foundations of the suffix -VA and different types of semantic-derivational specifics of such derivative testify in favor of assumptions about the variant of the semantic-derivational behavior of this formant, and the lack of primary word-formation functions in proto-Slavic era. It is found that the formant -VA had a distinct word-formation potential with the creation of protoSlavic nouns abstract-deverbative. In verbal morphology this particle was sometimes a marker of collectivity in nouns. In proto-Slavic era deadjectival, which are created from noun, are not uniquely identify the primary function of this suffix, since it was formed besubstantial for the representation of names of plants, household utensils, somatisms and collective nouns. Lexical-derivational typology derived from the adjective with suffix -VA is represented by two groups: the names of persons and names of animals.

The nature of parts of speech

Parts of speech have both semantic and structural aspects. The two sets of features are essentially incommensurate, since the semantic features derive from the functions of language in communication and cognition, while the structural features are essentially based in the combinatorial potential of signs in a text. Consequently, the two sets of features are largely independent of each other.Their combination in a language yields sets of parts of speech whose systematicity is largely language-internal. To the extent that there is a functional motivation for parts of speech, three restrictions must be made: 1) It is not, in the first place, a cognitive, but rather a communicative motivation. 2) The functional motivation of word classes is not direct, but mediated by semantic and syntactic categories of higher order. 3) Only the primary word classes (verb and noun) are motivated in this way. The secondary classes (adjectives, adverbs etc.) and the minor word classes (pronouns, subordinators etc.) increasingly have a systeminternal structural rather than a universal functional motivation. Given these heterogeneous functions and constraints, there is no uniform nature to all parts of speech.

Imitating Jesus: reading the Eternal Word

For the six years I was at Hartford Seminary (which is one-third Muslim), I had the enjoyable challenge of teaching Christian doctrine to Muslims. I have lost count of the number of conversations I have with Muslims who invite me to compare the Bible and the Qur'an and admit that the Qur'an looks much more like the Word of God than the Bible. In every case, I would push back and insist that they are not comparing like with like. For Christians, the primary Word of God is the Eternal Word – the Word made flesh in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. In fact, I would explain the right way to compare the Qur'an is not with the Bible but with the Eternal Word made flesh. The incarnation is the Christian equivalent of the Qur'an. And perhaps it is better to see the Bible as closer to the Hadith. At this point, the same question is asked: ‘but how is it possible to read a life?’

The role of acoustic cues in the development of (non-)target-like second-language prosodic representations

This study investigates the acquisition of English (primary) word stress by native speakers of Canadian French, with focus on the trochaic foot and the alignment of its head with heavy syllables. L2 learners and native English speakers produced disyllabic and trisyllabic nonsense nouns. The participants with consistent stress patterns were grouped according to their prosodic grammar, and their productions were analyzed acoustically. The results indicate that the L2 learners who failed to align the head of the trochaic foot with the heavy syllable realized stress with higher pitch. Conversely, the L2 learners who aligned the head of the trochaic foot with the heavy syllable realized non-initial stress by lengthening the syllable. Surprisingly, the native speakers produced higher pitch on the initial syllable irrespective of stress, and they used length to realize stress oh the heavy syllable. These findings suggest that L2 learners may have reached different prosodic grammars as a result of attending to distinct acoustic cues to English stress.