Functional Category of Aspectuality in the Russian And English Languages

This article studies functional and semantic Tense/Aspect complexes in Russian and English, focusing on their similarities and differences. In Russian, Tense-Aspect meanings of the verb forms correlate with the semantic components of Aktionsart, while in English both Imperfective and Perfective aspects of the verb semantics are realized by the constituent category of Tense/Aspect. The inner asymmetry of the verb forms and meanings is acknowledged for each of the contrastive languages, especially for the two languages compared. The material of the study is retrieved from grammar books and manuals and from literary text samples, principally concerns the use of Tense/Aspect forms of the Russian verb and the forms of the English Perfect. The novelty impact of the study is determined by focusing on the irregularity of the aspectual meanings of English Perfect forms and Tense/Aspect forms of the Russian verb, whereas they are mostly due to lexical meanings of the verbs influenced by intralinguistic specificities of the semantics of lexical indicators as well as mechanisms of communication on the whole. Aspectual meanings both for the Perfective and Imperfective Aspect in languages under comparison used to make up lexical and grammatical aspectual categorical complexes. In terms of Aspect and Tense, peculiarities are found as functional and semantic ones, highly dependent on the situation and context of communication, thus involving extralinguistic factors which also concern the extralinguistic environment of Tense/Aspect verbal forms in use. The comparison of functions and the semantics of Aspect and Aktionsart in the Russian language with those of English Perfect asymmetry is proved to emerge, being caused by cross-linguistic structural and typological differences, particularly, the existence or not the similar forms, their varying semantic load, analytical or synthetic tendencies and others. The asymmetry is especially vividly seen translation and lexicographic field to compose varying kinds of bilingual dictionaries.

Consistent Clustering Pattern of Prokaryotic Genes Based on Base Frequency at the Second Codon Position and its Association with Functional Category Preference

In 2002, our research group observed a gene clustering pattern based on the base frequency of A versus T at the second codon position in the genome of Vibrio cholera and found that the functional category distribution of genes in the two clusters was different. With the availability of a large number of sequenced genomes, we performed a systematic investigation of A2–T2 distribution and found that 2694 out of 2764 prokaryotic genomes have an optimal clustering number of two, indicating a consistent pattern. Analysis of the functional categories of the coding genes in each cluster in 1483 prokaryotic genomes indicated, that 99.33% of the genomes exhibited a significant difference (p < 0.01) in function distribution between the two clusters. Specifically, functional category P was overrepresented in the small cluster of 98.65% of genomes, whereas categories J, K, and L were overrepresented in the larger cluster of over 98.52% of genomes. Lineage analysis uncovered that these preferences appear consistently across all phyla. Overall, our work revealed an almost universal clustering pattern based on the relative frequency of A2 versus T2 and its role in functional category preference. These findings will promote the understanding of the rationality of theoretical prediction of functional classes of genes from their nucleotide sequences and how protein function is determined by DNA sequence. Graphical abstract

The ‘of’ word

This chapter explores from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives the categorial status of words like English of and equivalent items in other languages. It evaluates, and ultimately comes down in favour of, the arguments for continuing to treat such items as prepositions and heads of PP even when they have lost independent semantic content and serve instead a purely grammatical function. This analysis is contrasted both with the proposal to assign them to the functional category K(ase), as favoured within current nanosyntactic work, and with an account in which they retain prepositional status but as non-projecting members of that class. In broader theoretical terms, the chapter argues that one of the benefits of LFG’s parallel architecture is the consequential economy in its postulated inventory of functional categories.

The Kid’s Kid(’s) Bed: Generic or Possessive? A Mandarin Insight

The recursive computational mechanism generates an infinite range of expressions. However, little is known about how different concepts interact with each other within recursive structures. The current study investigated how Mandarin-speaking children dealt with possessives and generics in recursive structures. The picture-matching task showed that Mandarin-speaking children 4 to 6 had a bias for generics in ambiguous possessive constructions in Mandarin, where the genitive maker was covert (e.g., Yuehan de baobao chuang John&rsquo;s kid bed, where baobao chuang kid bed has both a generic interpretation and a referential interpretation). It was found that that Mandarin-speaking children below 6 had a non-recursive interpretation of the possessive John&rsquo;s kid(&rsquo;s) bed, and instead understand kid&rsquo;s bed to refer generically to a type of bed. This finding suggests that semantics does not parallel syntax in the acquisition of indirect recursion, in line with the prediction of the generic-as-default hypothesis which claims that generics are the default mode of representation of ambiguous statements when the statement can be either generic or non-generic. The delayed recursive possessive interpretation suggests that the full determiner phrase is acquired later than a noun phrase modification, which is universal in all languages. We also discuss the role of the overt functional category in the acquisition of indirect recursion.

The Syntax of Number Markers

This chapter explores the syntactic significance of number marking based on distributional, formal, and interpretive properties and its parameters of variation. On the basis of these properties, various syntactic analyses of number marking are evaluated. The hypothesis that number marking is hosted in a functional category NumP is introduced and it is shown that it can account for some, but crucially not all, of the properties of number marking. However, the assumption that number marking associates with a functional category, does not imply that it will associate with the same functional category across all languages, nor that it will associate in the same way. Diagnostics are provided to identify where and how on the nominal spine a given number marker associates.

A Comparative Functional Analysis of Discourse Markers in the Native and the Non-Native English Newspaper Business Corpus

The current study explores the functional nature of Discourse Markers (DMs) in the newspaper business corpus. DMs function as cohesive devices which, additionally, carry pragmatic and semantic meanings present in both the written and the spoken discourse. The focus of this study is to comparatively highlight the differences in the functions of DMs in the business discourse of the native and the non-native newspapers. The study has employed Fung’s (2003) multi-categorical comprehensive framework of DMs. The framework functionally divides DMs into interpersonal, cognitive, structural, and referential categories. These major categories have further been divided into many subcategories of DMs. Based on this comprehensive framework; the current study identifies different functional DMs and compares them for their quantitative and qualitative differences in use. For the analysis of this study, a corpus of one million words was collected from the native business newspapers (The Daily Mail and The Telegraph) and the non-native business newspapers (The Dawn, The Business Recorder, The Nation and Daily Times). Data analysis shows that the most frequently used functional categories of DMs among the native writers are referential and structural, while the least frequently used functional category is cognitive. On the other hand, non-native Pakistani writers make more use of functional DMs of referential, structural and cognitive categories, while the least frequently used functional category is interpersonal. This quantitative difference in the use of DMs makes the native business corpus more coherent and interactive than that of the non-native business corpus. It is expected that the findings of the study may help understand the differences of textuality in the native and the non-native newspaper corpus. It is also expected that the findings of the current study can assist curriculum developers and ESL instructors in developing better teaching materials for second language learners.

Some thoughts on the Slavic verbal system (a typological approach)

This paper deals with the essential verb categories - the grammatical categories of tense, aspect and mode, as well as with actionality as a lexical and functional category. These categories coexist in the Slavic languages in manifold correlations, determined by the type of language. The paper is focused on tense as the central verb category. In the first part, there is a typological approach to the Slavic verbal system proposed, as a base for its systematic functional description and interpretation. Two prototypes of the verbal system in Slavia can be postulated - a southern and a northern one. The Slavic languages of the Balkan linguistic area (Sprachbund) - Bulgarian and Macedonian - belong to the southern prototype, while the East Slavic languages and Polish belong to the northern prototype. The remaining Slavic languages represent various transitional phases from one prototype to the other. The actual version of the model offered in this paper is synchronically based, but the diachronic approach is considered indispensable for an adequate modelling of the Slavic verbal system. In this context, the paper presents some critical remarks on the modern Slavic grammaticography, with key focus on its methodological and theoretical basis. The last part of the paper presents some approaches to and interpretations of the tense category in some selected recent works.

HOME GARDEN, ALONG WITH ITS FUNCTIONAL CATEGORY AND KEY SPECIES REPORTED IN NEPAL: A REVIEW

Home gardening is performed from an ancient period in Nepalese societies. More than 74.5% of the population of the country is involved in an agriculture-based profession in Nepal. Home gardens include the versatile species of trees, vegetables, annual and perennial vegetables, birds and animals, medicinal herb plants on the same land units in a geometric or dimensional proportion. this paper focuses on the presentation of home garden status and present scenario and its interlinkages with home garden. Though sufficient work on home garden has been done but still focus on self-sufficiency and their role in food security has not been reported. The home garden species was found to be of great importance as they play a vital role in conservation of key species.

Conclusion

Chapter 7 summarizes the major claims of this work and offers avenues for future research. The five claims are (i) bare numeral containing phrases have identical D-less structures in classifier and number marking languages; (ii) for classifier languages, it is not necessary to assume a functional category D to account for nominal arguments; (iii) the Universal DP Hypothesis is inadequate to account for cross-linguistic variation and makes different predications about classifier languages than those in this book; (iv) article determiners in classifier languages are expected; and (v) language variation is due primarily to four factors (outlined in the book).