This paper mainly presents evidence for a relationship between language structure and meaning in EkeGusii, a Bantu language spoken in Kenya. The main argument is that the structure of language mirrors the structure of reality. A brief overview of other scholars demonstrates that diagrammatic iconicity shows universal tendencies. Five main ideas run down the discussion. Firstly, in EkeGusii, speakers sub-consciously cluster sounds around related meanings, evidencing gestalt and relative iconicity. Secondly, there is evidence of overlap of morphological and phonetic iconicity, an aspect of phonaesthesia. Thirdly, reduplication in certain infinitives demonstrates the reality of phono-iconicity in EkeGusii, augmented by unpleasant sound sequences. Fourthly, certain onomatopes in EkeGusii are actually diagrammatic, indicating that there is no one stop criterion for classifying overlapping types of icons. And finally, the paper posits that iconicity intersects with arbitrariness showing that language has both motivated and discrete symbols.
{"title":"Diagrammatic Iconicity in EkeGusii: A relation between the structure of form and meaning","authors":"E. O. Mariera, E. G.Mecha, G. M.Anyona","doi":"10.26478/ja2021.9.14.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26478/ja2021.9.14.4","url":null,"abstract":"This paper mainly presents evidence for a relationship between language structure and meaning in EkeGusii, a Bantu language spoken in Kenya. The main argument is that the structure of language mirrors the structure of reality. A brief overview of other scholars demonstrates that diagrammatic iconicity shows universal tendencies. Five main ideas run down the discussion. Firstly, in EkeGusii, speakers sub-consciously cluster sounds around related meanings, evidencing gestalt and relative iconicity. Secondly, there is evidence of overlap of morphological and phonetic iconicity, an aspect of phonaesthesia. Thirdly, reduplication in certain infinitives demonstrates the reality of phono-iconicity in EkeGusii, augmented by unpleasant sound sequences. Fourthly, certain onomatopes in EkeGusii are actually diagrammatic, indicating that there is no one stop criterion for classifying overlapping types of icons. And finally, the paper posits that iconicity intersects with arbitrariness showing that language has both motivated and discrete symbols.","PeriodicalId":31949,"journal":{"name":"Macrolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41966508","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
SOOAs refer to the phenomenon that the state adjective in the adverbial position is semantically associated with the object. In this paper this fact will be accounted for by invoking the properties of a pre-syntactic level of semantic representation and its interplay with syntax proper. It will be argued that the object-oriented adverbial is not derived from the attributive; in effect, it is base-generated in the complement position. A model of projection of arguments that allows for this will be proposed. It will be shown that the other special properties of SOOAs follow from the way the verb’s object and complement are represented at the pre-syntactic level. In particular, it will be shown that the underlying structure must satisfy both the requirement of the syntactic system and the requirement of the semantic system. The presence of any symbol in a representation is conditional. The theta-roles of internal arguments are assigned by the predicate, which is locally constrained, whereas the theta-roles of external arguments are assigned by the maximal projection of the predicate, viz. VP. When an external argument occurs, there is an empty predicate position in the representation, for there is an asymmetry between the conceptual system and the syntactic system. Derivation involves Move-α and Generalized Transformation. Different use of derivation methods gives rise to various forms of constructions in Chinese. Similarly, different semantic orientations result from different distributions. The state adjective is base-generated in the position behind the object because its nature is to serve the function of the complement of the object. It co-occurs with the object in the embedded VP because they are closely related to each other in terms of semantics. There is no overt predicate between the object and the state adjective. The state adjective occurs in other positions, which is the result of movement. Movement falls into two types, viz. object movement and state adjective movement. Object movement is prior to state adjective movement. In order to satisfy the requirement of feature checking, the object moves to the position NP. Then the state adjective moves to the major predicate and merges with it so as to maintain its semantic association with the state adjective and to serve the function of the complement. It follows that the difference between Chinese SOOAs and English as well as German SOOAs lies in the distance of movement of state adjectives. In Chinese, there are causative markers, resultative markers, and manner markers that can license the state adjective in the landing sites and help to maintain its semantic association with the object while in English and German there are no such markers. As a consequence, the object in Chinese-type SOOAs does not move while the state adjective moves out of the embedded VP to the empty verb position where the manner marker is inserted. The major predicate moves to the same position and merges with the
{"title":"Sentences with Object-oriented Adverbials and the Syntax-Semantics Interface","authors":"Yang Yongzhong, China Economics, Yang Yunjue","doi":"10.26478/ja2021.9.14.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26478/ja2021.9.14.2","url":null,"abstract":"SOOAs refer to the phenomenon that the state adjective in the adverbial position is semantically associated with the object. In this paper this fact will be accounted for by invoking the properties of a pre-syntactic level of semantic representation and its interplay with syntax proper. It will be argued that the object-oriented adverbial is not derived from the attributive; in effect, it is base-generated in the complement position. A model of projection of arguments that allows for this will be proposed. It will be shown that the other special properties of SOOAs follow from the way the verb’s object and complement are represented at the pre-syntactic level. In particular, it will be shown that the underlying structure must satisfy both the requirement of the syntactic system and the requirement of the semantic system. The presence of any symbol in a representation is conditional. The theta-roles of internal arguments are assigned by the predicate, which is locally constrained, whereas the theta-roles of external arguments are assigned by the maximal projection of the predicate, viz. VP. When an external argument occurs, there is an empty predicate position in the representation, for there is an asymmetry between the conceptual system and the syntactic system. Derivation involves Move-α and Generalized Transformation. Different use of derivation methods gives rise to various forms of constructions in Chinese. Similarly, different semantic orientations result from different distributions. The state adjective is base-generated in the position behind the object because its nature is to serve the function of the complement of the object. It co-occurs with the object in the embedded VP because they are closely related to each other in terms of semantics. There is no overt predicate between the object and the state adjective. The state adjective occurs in other positions, which is the result of movement. Movement falls into two types, viz. object movement and state adjective movement. Object movement is prior to state adjective movement. In order to satisfy the requirement of feature checking, the object moves to the position NP. Then the state adjective moves to the major predicate and merges with it so as to maintain its semantic association with the state adjective and to serve the function of the complement. It follows that the difference between Chinese SOOAs and English as well as German SOOAs lies in the distance of movement of state adjectives. In Chinese, there are causative markers, resultative markers, and manner markers that can license the state adjective in the landing sites and help to maintain its semantic association with the object while in English and German there are no such markers. As a consequence, the object in Chinese-type SOOAs does not move while the state adjective moves out of the embedded VP to the empty verb position where the manner marker is inserted. The major predicate moves to the same position and merges with the ","PeriodicalId":31949,"journal":{"name":"Macrolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41649777","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper aims to make it clear that syntactic analysis should be based on the lexical information given in the lexicon. For this purpose, lexical information of the syntactic argument is to be taken the form like [VP NKP, _, DKP, AKP] for the ditransitive verb give in English. The argument structure projects to syntactic structure. The NKP in this structure becomes VP-subject, but there is another subject called S-subject (Sentence-Subject) below S node. This amounts to Two-Subject Hypothesis for English. Between these two subjects, there intervene Conjugation-Like Elements, enriched by close examination of English verbal conjugation. Two-Subject Hypothesis perfectly accounts for peculiarities of the Expletive There (ET)construction. Restructuring can also explain the so-called Long Distance Wh-interrogative without introducing Wh-movement, and it can also explain why the imperative verbs are taking the base forms. It can also explain the characteristics of adjective imperatives by the same principles as applied to verbal imperatives. We try to deal with the other subtle problems, to get fruitful results. Restructuring approach, we think, provides more convincing explanations than the movement one.
{"title":"Restructuring and the Proper Syntactic Analysis","authors":"Im Hong-Pin","doi":"10.26478/ja2021.9.14.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26478/ja2021.9.14.1","url":null,"abstract":"This paper aims to make it clear that syntactic analysis should be based on the lexical information given in the lexicon. For this purpose, lexical information of the syntactic argument is to be taken the form like [VP NKP, _, DKP, AKP] for the ditransitive verb give in English. The argument structure projects to syntactic structure. The NKP in this structure becomes VP-subject, but there is another subject called S-subject (Sentence-Subject) below S node. This amounts to Two-Subject Hypothesis for English. Between these two subjects, there intervene Conjugation-Like Elements, enriched by close examination of English verbal conjugation. Two-Subject Hypothesis perfectly accounts for peculiarities of the Expletive There (ET)construction. Restructuring can also explain the so-called Long Distance Wh-interrogative without introducing Wh-movement, and it can also explain why the imperative verbs are taking the base forms. It can also explain the characteristics of adjective imperatives by the same principles as applied to verbal imperatives. We try to deal with the other subtle problems, to get fruitful results. Restructuring approach, we think, provides more convincing explanations than the movement one.","PeriodicalId":31949,"journal":{"name":"Macrolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42669225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Efut culture, and by extension language, seems to have been mortally threatened after their speakers’ migration to Nigeria from Cameroun in the 16th Century. The linguistic situation resulting in language shift was especially exacerbated in the last seven decades, largely due to the dominant cultural influence of Efik, Ibibio and English. The most ostensive vestige of the language manifests in the Ekpe ‘Leopard’ secret society songs, rituals and proverbs (performed by, and intelligible mostly to octogenarians). The Efut language sociolinguistic status is between post moribund and dead stage(s). This paper attempts, therefore, to x-ray ways to revitalize and revive it. Two such revival strategies are the use of digital communication technology and Efut in Nollywood movies. Data for this work came mainly from songs, proverbs, interviews, wordlist and available historical literature. The prognosis for reviving Efut appears realistically poor, at present. However, with appropriate input and pragmatic will from all stakeholders, it would be hasty, uncharitable, to consign the language to irreversible extinction. This optimism is sustainable only if language engineers, policymakers and the Efut nation do not continue to sit on the fence.
{"title":"Cultural Dominance and Language Endangerment: The case of Efut in Cross River State, Nigeria","authors":"M. M. Okon, P. Noah","doi":"10.26478/ja2021.9.14.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26478/ja2021.9.14.8","url":null,"abstract":"The Efut culture, and by extension language, seems to have been mortally threatened after their speakers’ migration to Nigeria from Cameroun in the 16th Century. The linguistic situation resulting in language shift was especially exacerbated in the last seven decades, largely due to the dominant cultural influence of Efik, Ibibio and English. The most ostensive vestige of the language manifests in the Ekpe ‘Leopard’ secret society songs, rituals and proverbs (performed by, and intelligible mostly to octogenarians). The Efut language sociolinguistic status is between post moribund and dead stage(s). This paper attempts, therefore, to x-ray ways to revitalize and revive it. Two such revival strategies are the use of digital communication technology and Efut in Nollywood movies. Data for this work came mainly from songs, proverbs, interviews, wordlist and available historical literature. The prognosis for reviving Efut appears realistically poor, at present. However, with appropriate input and pragmatic will from all stakeholders, it would be hasty, uncharitable, to consign the language to irreversible extinction. This optimism is sustainable only if language engineers, policymakers and the Efut nation do not continue to sit on the fence.","PeriodicalId":31949,"journal":{"name":"Macrolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44373226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper examined variation in Onko dialect using the family tree model and the corresponding comparative method as the theoretical tool. A wordlist of basic items and a designed frame technique were used to gather data for this study. The data were presented in tables and the analyses were done through descriptive statistics. The data were analyzed to determine variation at the phonological, syntactic and lexical levels. The study revealed differences between Standard Yoruba and Onko dialect as well as the variation therein. Two basic factors discovered to be responsible for variations in Onko are geography (distribution of Onko communities) and language contact. The paper established that Onko exhibits variations, which are however not significant enough to disrupt mutual intelligibility among the speakers, and thus all the varieties remain a single dialect.
{"title":"Variation in Onko Dialect of Yoruba","authors":"Gbenga Fakuade, Lawal Tope Aminat, A. Rafiu","doi":"10.26478/JA2020.8.13.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26478/JA2020.8.13.5","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examined variation in Onko dialect using the family tree model and the corresponding comparative method as the theoretical tool. A wordlist of basic items and a designed frame technique were used to gather data for this study. The data were presented in tables and the analyses were done through descriptive statistics. The data were analyzed to determine variation at the phonological, syntactic and lexical levels. The study revealed differences between Standard Yoruba and Onko dialect as well as the variation therein. Two basic factors discovered to be responsible for variations in Onko are geography (distribution of Onko communities) and language contact. The paper established that Onko exhibits variations, which are however not significant enough to disrupt mutual intelligibility among the speakers, and thus all the varieties remain a single dialect.","PeriodicalId":31949,"journal":{"name":"Macrolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43020434","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper aims at investigating the morphophonological make-up of derived causatives in Moroccan Arabic within the framework of Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky, 2004). Causative verbs in MA are characterized by the systematic gemination of their medial consonants. However, it is not easy to determine the morphological nature of the causative morpheme involved in this derivation. Also, it is not clearly known why the causative morpheme gets realized exactly on the second segment of the base form. Therefore, we seek to achieve the following goals. First, we intend to determine the nature of the causative morpheme. Second, we aim to explain why the causative morpheme is realized on the second segment of the base form. In this respect, we show that the causative morpheme is represented by a featureless consonantal mora that targets the second segment of the base root, turning it into a geminate. We also show that the causative morpheme gets infixed thanks to the privileged status of root-initial segments.
{"title":"The Morphophonology of Moroccan Arabic Derived Causatives","authors":"A. Noamane","doi":"10.26478/JA2020.8.13.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26478/JA2020.8.13.1","url":null,"abstract":"This paper aims at investigating the morphophonological make-up of derived causatives in Moroccan Arabic within the framework of Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky, 2004). Causative verbs in MA are characterized by the systematic gemination of their medial consonants. However, it is not easy to determine the morphological nature of the causative morpheme involved in this derivation. Also, it is not clearly known why the causative morpheme gets realized exactly on the second segment of the base form. Therefore, we seek to achieve the following goals. First, we intend to determine the nature of the causative morpheme. Second, we aim to explain why the causative morpheme is realized on the second segment of the base form. In this respect, we show that the causative morpheme is represented by a featureless consonantal mora that targets the second segment of the base root, turning it into a geminate. We also show that the causative morpheme gets infixed thanks to the privileged status of root-initial segments.","PeriodicalId":31949,"journal":{"name":"Macrolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43800201","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study compares the phonology of Konso, Diraytata and Mosittacha languages which belong to the Konsoid subgroup in the Lowland East Cushitic family. The aim is to identify and describe the phonological similarities and differences that exist among these languages. The classification of the languages’ sound systems, gemination, phonotactics and syllable structures are carried out in order to determine the major pattern of differences and similarities. Some major sound changes are discovered and the merger of voiced obstruents into voiceless counterparts is another major finding observed in these languages.
{"title":"The Comparative Phonology of Konsoid","authors":"Wondwosen Tesfaye","doi":"10.26478/JA2020.8.13.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26478/JA2020.8.13.6","url":null,"abstract":"This study compares the phonology of Konso, Diraytata and Mosittacha languages which belong to the Konsoid subgroup in the Lowland East Cushitic family. The aim is to identify and describe the phonological similarities and differences that exist among these languages. The classification of the languages’ sound systems, gemination, phonotactics and syllable structures are carried out in order to determine the major pattern of differences and similarities. Some major sound changes are discovered and the merger of voiced obstruents into voiceless counterparts is another major finding observed in these languages.","PeriodicalId":31949,"journal":{"name":"Macrolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46955786","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper discusses the structure and hierarchy of sentence-endings in Tibetan language. Tibetan sentence-endings are hierarchical. They can be divided into two levels from the perspectives of structure, distribution and expressive function. The first level comes after the predicate or verb phrase, indicating the category of tense/aspect/mood (TAM). The second level, which follows a self-sufficient sentence, mainly expresses the meaning of the speaker’s hint, inference, evaluation and attitude to the information. Each level includes several different types of endings, which act on different syntactic categories or manifest different degrees of subjectivity. The lower the degree of correlation between the endings and the information of the self-sufficient sentence is, the higher the corresponding semantic category and the speaker’s subjective participation are. Some lower-level endings can also express the grammatical meaning of the higher level in certain context with increasing subjectivity.
{"title":"The Structure and Hierarchy of Sentence-endings in Tibetan Language","authors":"Huaping Li","doi":"10.26478/JA2020.8.13.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26478/JA2020.8.13.2","url":null,"abstract":"This paper discusses the structure and hierarchy of sentence-endings in Tibetan language. Tibetan sentence-endings are hierarchical. They can be divided into two levels from the perspectives of structure, distribution and expressive function. The first level comes after the predicate or verb phrase, indicating the category of tense/aspect/mood (TAM). The second level, which follows a self-sufficient sentence, mainly expresses the meaning of the speaker’s hint, inference, evaluation and attitude to the information. Each level includes several different types of endings, which act on different syntactic categories or manifest different degrees of subjectivity. The lower the degree of correlation between the endings and the information of the self-sufficient sentence is, the higher the corresponding semantic category and the speaker’s subjective participation are. Some lower-level endings can also express the grammatical meaning of the higher level in certain context with increasing subjectivity.","PeriodicalId":31949,"journal":{"name":"Macrolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47805629","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The complexity of the Moroccan language landscape sparks off a power struggle between languages. The focus in this chapter is on the apparent French/English language contest over supremacy. Here comes the current investigation that aims at gauging Moroccan’s perceptions of French and English through a language questionnaire. Responses were subjected to statistical analyses to support or reject the hypothesis that gender, age and language proficiency affect Moroccans’ evaluations of French and English. The study reveals that Moroccans’ attitudes towards English are significantly more favorable than those towards the French language. Age, but not gender, has turned out to have a statistically significant difference in the overall evaluation of French and English. These evaluations have also been shown to correlate with the respondents’ French and English language proficiency. The result of this study is an indication that Moroccans’ attitudes toward French and English are undergoing a change from a conventional preference for French to a recent favor of English whose phenomenal growth globally may have affected language attitudes locally.
{"title":"French versus English: A sociolinguistic study of Moroccans’ foreign language attitudinal tendencies","authors":"Mahmoud Seddik","doi":"10.26478/JA2020.8.13.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26478/JA2020.8.13.8","url":null,"abstract":"The complexity of the Moroccan language landscape sparks off a power struggle between languages. The focus in this chapter is on the apparent French/English language contest over supremacy. Here comes the current investigation that aims at gauging Moroccan’s perceptions of French and English through a language questionnaire. Responses were subjected to statistical analyses to support or reject the hypothesis that gender, age and language proficiency affect Moroccans’ evaluations of French and English. The study reveals that Moroccans’ attitudes towards English are significantly more favorable than those towards the French language. Age, but not gender, has turned out to have a statistically significant difference in the overall evaluation of French and English. These evaluations have also been shown to correlate with the respondents’ French and English language proficiency. The result of this study is an indication that Moroccans’ attitudes toward French and English are undergoing a change from a conventional preference for French to a recent favor of English whose phenomenal growth globally may have affected language attitudes locally.","PeriodicalId":31949,"journal":{"name":"Macrolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48673132","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
: Optionality, defined as the coexistence of two or more variants of a given construction, has been investigated in second language studies. Following the notion of optionality, this study defines the Mandarin ba -construction and its corresponding non- ba -forms as optional variants to examine Cantonese-speaking learners’ acquisition of Mandarin. We designed an elicited production task and an acceptability judgement task to test the disposal and locational displacement types of the ba -construction, and invited Cantonese learners and Mandarin native speakers to attend the experiments. The Cantonese learners, like learners with other language backgrounds, produced fewer ba -sentences compared with native speakers, but the Cantonese learners produced much more ba -sentences than learners with other language backgrounds and were aware of the constraints on the ba -construction, which is probably due to the existence of the similar zoeng -construction in Cantonese. Although at an advanced level, the performance of the Cantonese learners diverged from that of the native speakers in both the production and the judgement, which demonstrates the existence of optionality in the Cantonese learners’ interlanguage grammars.
{"title":"Acquisition of the Mandarin ba-Construction by Cantonese Learners","authors":"Yike Yang","doi":"10.26478/ja2020.8.12.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26478/ja2020.8.12.6","url":null,"abstract":": Optionality, defined as the coexistence of two or more variants of a given construction, has been investigated in second language studies. Following the notion of optionality, this study defines the Mandarin ba -construction and its corresponding non- ba -forms as optional variants to examine Cantonese-speaking learners’ acquisition of Mandarin. We designed an elicited production task and an acceptability judgement task to test the disposal and locational displacement types of the ba -construction, and invited Cantonese learners and Mandarin native speakers to attend the experiments. The Cantonese learners, like learners with other language backgrounds, produced fewer ba -sentences compared with native speakers, but the Cantonese learners produced much more ba -sentences than learners with other language backgrounds and were aware of the constraints on the ba -construction, which is probably due to the existence of the similar zoeng -construction in Cantonese. Although at an advanced level, the performance of the Cantonese learners diverged from that of the native speakers in both the production and the judgement, which demonstrates the existence of optionality in the Cantonese learners’ interlanguage grammars.","PeriodicalId":31949,"journal":{"name":"Macrolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46825341","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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