The Effect of Chinese Proficiency on Determining Temporal Adverb Position by Native Japanese Speakers Learning Chinese

The present study aimed to investigate how native Japanese speakers learning Chinese choose preferred positions for temporal adverbs depending on their level of Chinese proficiency. A naturalness judgment task conducted on native Chinese speakers showed that the most natural position for Chinese temporal adverbs was before the subject and that placement after the locative prepositional phrase was incorrect. The same task applied to native Japanese speakers found the most natural position for Japanese temporal adverbs was also before the subject. Further, when they appear at the beginning of a sentence, they provide the time for the entire sentence. Accordingly, temporal topicalization appears to influence naturalness decisions by both native Chinese and Japanese speakers. A point of difference was that in Japanese, a temporal adverb placed after a locative prepositional phrase was judged to be acceptable. When the same task was given to native Japanese speakers learning Chinese divided into three Chinese proficiency level groups, placement before the subject was the most preferred by the higher Chinese proficiency group. In addition, placement after the locative prepositional phrase was unfavored by them while the same position was frequently selected by the lower level group. As Chinese proficiency increases it appears that the preferred temporal adverb position is before the subject and the placement after the locative prepositional is judged to be unnatural. Thus, a sense of suitable temporal adverb positions in Chinese is influenced by the level of Chinese proficiency of native Japanese speakers.

The Translation Text of Drama “Macbeth”: Grammatical Transformation of Adjunct in Noun Phrase

Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s play that used unique and dramatic choice of words in its adjective and noun. Grammatical transformation of adjectival adjunct in noun phrase in the translation text of drama Macbeth has caused the shift of phrase’s meaning. This study aims to identify the grammatical shift by using X-Bar theory. This study is a descriptive qualitative study. The data are collected by using documentation and note taking technique. There are 35 noun phrases collected. The results show that there are 3 types of shift of adjectival adjunct. First, the adjunct is omitted. Second, the adjunct shifts into complementizer phrase. Third, the adjunct shifts into prepositional phrase.

The Discourse of Brand Slogans of the Best 100 Universities in Asia 2019: ASystemic Functional Grammar Analysis

Brand slogan as a part of branding plays a defining role for universities to win fierce competition. It creates emotional bonding and memorability in the mind of potential students and stake-holders. This study investigates words choice and word arrangement used in brand slogans of 100 best universities in Asia 2019 by making use of the Systemic Functional Grammar’s Experiential Metafunction. Results indicate that words most preferred for their brand slogans are patterned and are circled around: “Truth” (4/11%), “Integrity, “sincerity” (each 3/8%), and “Act”, “creating”, “creative”, “diligence”, “excellence”, “global”, and “justice” (each 2/6%); Verb (12/48%), Noun (11/44%), Adjective (1/4%), Prepositional phrase (1/4%). They are structured in Structures of Modification (10/40%), Structures of Complementation (9/36%), word (5/20%), and Structures of Predication (1/4%).

Iets om over te praten. De problematiek van het voorzetselvoorwerp in het Nederlands en het Tsjechisch

For foreign students, the prepositional object is among the most problematic syntactic features of the Dutch language, as its form presents strong similarities with the adverbial clause, but it has an object function. In some cases it is very difficult to even decide whether the prepositional phrase has an adverbial function or is an object comparable with the direct object. In this paper the Dutch prepositional object is compared with similar constructions in the Czech language. Furthermore, the function of the preposition and its categorisation are briefly discussed. The paper ends with some criteria for Czech-speaking students to recognize a prepositional object as such.

Reflexives and Reciprocals in English and Modern Standard Arabic: An Investigation and a Comparison

The aim of this paper is to investigate the typology of reflexives and reciprocals in English and MSA, which is a variety of standardized, literary Arabic used throughout Arab countries. It has shown that MSA morphologically encoded reflexives and reciprocals are in fact syntactically and semantically asymmetrical. It will be argued that morphologically encoded reflexives do not project an anaphor (an internal argument) syntactically and their morphological marker semantically serves as a reflexivizer, whereas morphologically encoded reciprocals do project an anaphor syntactically, realized either overtly or covertly. Concerning the distribution of such anaphor, the paper elucidates the admissible and in admissible environments. It is argued that MSA does not allow possessive reflexives, but allow possessive reciprocals such as the construct-state, whether it be a noun phrase or a locative prepositional phrase. This variation is accounted for by assuming that reciprocals occupy Spec of DP and therefore can be bound by an NP from a higher phase, whereas reflexives occupy a position lower than the D head and thus must be bound within their DP phase. Finally yet importantly, MSA override reflexives and reciprocals unlike their English counterparts, are always subject to the Principle A of the Binding Theory.

English grammatical collocations of the verb and the preposition for and their collocational equivalents in the Slovak language

This paper focuses on empirical research of grammatical collocations of the type: verb and preposition FOR. Subject to analysis were the verbal prepostional structures of the pattern 1: V+prepositional phrase in the function of the object and the pattern 2: V+ preposition+fixed element. The study is based on comparisons of the English and Slovak sentences containing this specific verbal-prepositional structure. Data for contrastive study of English and Slovak languages are taken from the electronic corpus Slovak National Corpus, ie. English- Slovak Parallel Corpus. The aim of the study is to analyse, describe and classify only prepositional counterparts.

Infinitival Clauses in the Romance Languages

“Infinitival clauses” are constructions with a clausal status whose predicate is an infinitive. Romance infinitive clauses are mostly dependent clauses and can be divided into the following types: argumental infinitival clauses (such as subject and object clauses, the latter also including indirect interrogatives), predicative infinitival clauses, infinitival adjunct clauses, infinitival relative clauses, and nominalized infinitive clauses (with a determiner). More rarely, they appear as independent (main) clauses (root infinitival clauses) of different types, which usually have a marked character. Whereas infinitival adjunct clauses are generally preceded by prepositions, which can be argued to be outside the infinitival clause proper (i.e., the clause is part of a prepositional phrase), Romance argumental infinitive clauses are often introduced by complementizers that are diachronically derived from prepositions, mostly de/di and a/à. In most Romance languages, the infinitive itself is morphologically marked by an ending containing the morpheme {r} but lacks tense and agreement morphemes. However, some Romance languages have developed an infinitive that can be inflected for subject agreement (which is found in Portuguese, Galician, and Sardinian and also attested in Old Neapolitan). Romance languages share the property of English and other languages to leave the subject of infinitive clauses unexpressed (subject/object control, arbitrary control, and optional control) and also have raising and accusative-and-infinitive constructions. A special property of many Romance languages is the possibility of overtly expressing a nominative subject in infinitival clauses, mostly in postverbal position. The tense of the infinitive clause is usually interpreted as simultaneous or anterior to that of the matrix clause, but some matrix predicates and infinitive constructions trigger a posteriority/future reading. In addition, some Romance infinitive clauses are susceptible to constraints concerning aspect and modality.

Difficulties in using correct English prepositions among EFL students

The objectives of this study are to find out the reasons of this problem and find some solutions. The participants were ten students at levels seven and eight, at the Faculty of Sciences and Arts. The researcher used the Descriptive Statistical Method and collected the data via a written test as the main research tool. The data were then analyzed using a Statistical Package of Social Sciences Programme (SPSS). The results were as follows: Saudi students faced problems with using the correct prepositions after certain verbs. Students encountered difficulties in identifying the correct prepositional phrase. Students experienced the same problem with the use of English prepositions in writing tasks and in daily communication. The recommendations of this study are that students need to revise the use of English prepositions in general and need more practice in the use of prepositions after certain verbs. They also need to make a greater effort to use English prepositional phrases in their written work. Regarding writing courses, students need to focus more on the use of prepositions in general. Curriculum designers need more attention about teaching prepositions in their textbooks and curriculums. HIGHLIGHTS: Saudi students faced problems with using the correct prepositions after certain verbs. Students encountered difficulties in identifying the correct prepositional phrase. Students experienced the same problem with the use of English prepositions in writing tasks and in daily communication.

СЪС ИЛИ БЕЗ ПРЕДЛОЗИ: КОЕ Е ВЯРНОТО / WITH OR WITHOUT PREPOSITIONS: WHICH IS TRUE

The article focuses on the competition between noun phrases in which the head noun is modified by either a relative adjective, noun qualitative modifier or a prepositional phrase. Several tests are proposed to distinguish between phrases with noun qualitative modifier and compounds consisting of two nouns. The type of the prepositions that occur in the prepositional phrases is characterised, and the conclusion is drown that the semantic dependency in the three competing structures is the same, although it is overtly expressed only through the prepositions. Keywords: noun qualitative modifier, syntactic alternations with prepositional phrases, identification of compounds, Bulgarian language