Scalar and Counterfactual Approximatives: Investigating Heritage Greek in the USA and Germany

Approximative constructions present special interest for acquisition due to the counterfactual and scalar inferences they give rise to. In this paper we investigate the acquisition of Greek approximatives by heritage speakers in Germany and the USA. We show that while in English and German there is a single lexical item encoding counterfactuality and scalarity, in Greek there are two lexical items which, as we show, have different interpretations. In view of this difference, we test whether the crosslinguistic differences and the interface nature of approximative constructions affect their representation in heritage language. We present a production study and a comprehension study of approximative constructions. Our findings suggest that the two heritage groups do not diverge from the monolingual group in the domain of approximative constructions.

Biblical Lexical Items vs Biblical Phraseological Units: Specifying the Notions (Based on English and German Texts)

This article discusses the problem of delimiting the notions of biblical lexical item and biblical phraseological unit within the framework of studying the formation and development of biblical phraseology as a separate branch of general phraseology. The author believes that biblical phraseology should to be considered as an independent research area due to the progressive development of the study of phraseology in general, as well as the growing interest among scholars in phraseology of biblical origin and pertinent research materials that have accumulated over the past two decades. To begin with, the paper specifies the status of the biblical phraseological unit as a phraseological unit. Further, the definitions of the above-mentioned notions are analysed and a typology of biblical lexical items and phraseological units of biblical origin is developed based on a review of scholarly works dealing with various aspects of biblical lexical items and biblical phraseological units. Examples of the use of biblical lexical items and biblical phraseological units in English and German texts are provided as illustrations. The research methods applied here include analysis and synthesis, generalization and hypotheticoinductive method; comparative, contextual, and classification methods, as well as analysis of definitions, phraseological identification, and phraseological analysis. The author concludes that biblical lexical item is a broader notion, which includes biblical phraseological units. Biblical lexical items are numerous and diverse in terms of composition and can be presented in the form of multi-level linguistic units (from a word to a sentence), while biblical phraseological units are structured as fixed expressions, from a phrase to a sentence. Thus, a biblical phraseological unit is defined as a fixed reproducible linguistic unit in the form of a phrase or a sentence, having integrity of nomination and integrity of meaning that is etymologically related to the Bible. It is emphasized that the specificity of phraseological units of biblical origin is manifested at the formal, content and functional levels.

Lost in Translation: Culture-bound Lexical Items in English Subtitles of the Rap Songs by Indian Rapper ‘Badshah’ in Bollywood Movies from 2016-2021

Subtitling, a subfield of translation studies has witnessed a recent upsurge in India. The rise of subtitling services can be attributed to the fact that the number of viewers from outside the country is increasing phenomenally, thanks to the global streaming platforms. Subtitling is an art; it involves translation of the language of the video to another language with an objective to retain the temper of the original message for the target audience. The subtitler is faced with the daunting task of preserving the idiom of the source text (ST) and the target text (TT). Since, the meaning in both source and target language is profoundly affected by the cultural context, it is important to undertake the practice of translation while respecting and reflecting cultural ethos of each language. This research aims to investigate the English subtitles of selected famous rap sequences by Indian rapper ‘Badshah’ in Bollywood songs released from 2016 to 2021. With an aim to assess the quality of translation of the selected song sequences, an analysis is made of the sematic peculiarities that are lost in translation from Hindi/Punjabi to English. The loss can be mainly attributed to Hindi and Punjabi cultural references or culture-bound terms which do not have a suitable equivalent lexical item in English language.

Between feature mapping and thematic prominence: Old english se-demonstratives and pronouns in discourse

Old English se-demonstratives (which usually trace less salient referents) and personal pronouns (usually continuing previous topics) have frequently been taken to share a common pronominal property (e.g. Breban 2012; Epstein 2011; van Gelderen 2013, 2011; Kiparsky 2002; Howe 1996). This assumption holds despite their non-overlapping distribution which still remains a puzzle (cf. van Gelderen 2013; Los and van Kemenade 2018). In this paper, we argue that this distributional discrepancy stems from the lack of syntactic and formal affinities between the two forms. Se-demonstratives are either dependent (introducing full DPs) or independent (usually labeled as “pronominal”), but still instances of the same lexical item. As a D-category, they necessarily license their NP complements regardless of their being lexical or empty, thereby entering into tight formal and semantic relations with their nominal antecedents. In doing so, they rely on the working of their gender- and case-features, the two carrying semantic import and mapping onto the specific reference [+ref/spec]-property in the semantic module(s). Being bundles of case- and/or φ-features, pronominals lack the complex syntactic structure of se-demonstratives. Their formal and semantic relations with nominal antecedents are thus less intimate, holding due to interpretable person- and number-features.

Writing strategies while teaching a foreign language

Modern teaching methodology believes that the purpose of teaching writing in a foreign language is to develop the skills needed for learners to be able to complete written texts at the level that he (the student) would perform in his native language.The paper discusses writing as a means, writing as a result, and as a combination of both forms.Writing as a means. Writing is the best way to master almost every aspect of a foreign language (English at this point). For example, the student writes a new lexical item, grammar rules, answers written questions in writing, conveys individual thoughts in the form os essays. Writing as a key part of learning English, which is equally necessary for both knowledge acwuisition and testing.Writing as a result. The goal of all activities in English is to teach writing. Working on students’ spercific written forms at the “micro” level results in the student composing words or sentences.Writing as a means and an outcome. The third type of activity combines purposeful and original writing with the practice of establishing some skills and conveying content.

Major Total Conversion in English: The Question of Directionality

<p>This research investigates the directionality of major total conversion in English, where major total conversion is defined as the process and at the same time as the result of deriving a new lexical item by altering the part of speech of the base without marking the alteration overtly, as in the presumed pair dry – to dry. The question is whether there is a reliable strategy for deciding which member of a pair is the base and which member is the converted counterpart. Various attempts had been made to resolve the controversial directional issue, but the results have been inconsistent. The investigation aims to discover whether or not there exists a coherent notion about how to decide directionality by considering four factors assumed in the literature to reflect directionality. A large corpus of potential examples of major total conversion was collected to act as test materials. The four factors were compared for each major total conversion pair to see to what extent there was agreement among them. Results showed the factors did not agree to the expected extent. The findings are discussed in detail and it is claimed the inconsistencies can often be explained with recourse to a few general principles. In conclusion, on the whole the four factors considered are consistent with one another. In other words, the notion about how to determine directionality in major total conversion is coherent and can be maintained for English.</p>

Major Total Conversion in English: The Question of Directionality

<p>This research investigates the directionality of major total conversion in English, where major total conversion is defined as the process and at the same time as the result of deriving a new lexical item by altering the part of speech of the base without marking the alteration overtly, as in the presumed pair dry – to dry. The question is whether there is a reliable strategy for deciding which member of a pair is the base and which member is the converted counterpart. Various attempts had been made to resolve the controversial directional issue, but the results have been inconsistent. The investigation aims to discover whether or not there exists a coherent notion about how to decide directionality by considering four factors assumed in the literature to reflect directionality. A large corpus of potential examples of major total conversion was collected to act as test materials. The four factors were compared for each major total conversion pair to see to what extent there was agreement among them. Results showed the factors did not agree to the expected extent. The findings are discussed in detail and it is claimed the inconsistencies can often be explained with recourse to a few general principles. In conclusion, on the whole the four factors considered are consistent with one another. In other words, the notion about how to determine directionality in major total conversion is coherent and can be maintained for English.</p>

Le traitement de la phraséologie dans DEFI

DEFI is a prototype computer tool aimed at ranking (from most to least relevant) the French translations of an English lexical item in context. This paper deals with the strategies used by DEFI to recognize multi-word units (mwus) in running text. Any lexical unit included in the lexical database used in the project (a merge of the Oxford/Hachette and Robert/Collins English-to-French dictionaries) and longer than a single word is submitted to a surface parser, and the same process is applied to the user ’s text. A program written in Prolog assesses the quality of the match between the parsed user’s text and candidate mwus retrieved from the project’s lexical database. The matcher is able to account for some of the distortions undergone by the mwu, e.g. movement of a constituent as a result of relativization or passivization.

A methodology for Qur’anic lexical translation

The present study propounds a methodology for the translation of Qur’anic lexis in a way that synergizes semantic preference, discourse prosody, and para/intertextuality. Towards the validation of this methodology, the Qur’anic lexical item آيـة (āyah) is investigated at two levels: (a) the intertextual level of the semantic preferences emerging in the various co-texts of āyah inside the Qurʼan and (b) the paratextual level of the overall discourse prosody underlying these semantic preferences in the exegetical contexts of āyah. The research finds firstly that there are four semantic preferences associated with āyah, viz. cosmological phenomena, miraculous tokens, conclusive evidence, and divine revelations/communications. Second, the discourse prosody underlying the Qurʼanic usages of āyah is divine visibility, which motivates the word’s generic English translation as “sign.” Third, in rendering the lexical item آيـة (āyah) into English, the well-known Qur’an translators in the Qurʼanic Arabic Corpus have opted either for “sign,” to maintain the positive discourse prosody associated with the Qur’anic usages of the item, or “token,” “portent,” “miracle(s),” or “verse/revelations/communications,” with a view to observing the semantic preferences associated with them.

Syntactic patterns of πᾶς as a quantifier in New Testament Greek

In linguistic terms, a quantifier is an item that appears with a noun to specify the number or amount of referents indicated by the noun. In English, various kinds of quantification are lexically differentiated—universal quantification (all), distributive quantification (each), and universal-distributive (every). In Greek, however, quantification is conveyed syntactically using primarily one lexical item, namely πᾶς. In this article, we examine the syntactic patterns of πᾶς as a quantifier from a linguistic point of view with attention to the determination of the noun (articular versus anarthrous), the number of the noun (singular versus plural) and the phrasal word order. We also examine the phenomenon of ‘floating’ quantification in which the quantifier moves to a new position in the noun phrase. Finally, we compare the patterns found in New Testament Greek with those of the quantifier כל in the Hebrew Bible in order to determine the extent and type of Semitic interference with respect to quantification in New Testament Greek grammar.Contribution: The syntactic patterns of πᾶς as a quantifier are identified and the semantic import of each pattern is described. The relationship of πᾶς to the quantifier כל in the Hebrew Bible shows evidence of Semitic interference in New Testament Greek grammar.