Language and Linguistics Compass最新文献

Tanaka, Y. (2023). Phonology of proper names. Language and Linguistics Compass 17(5), e12502. https://doi.org/10.1111/lnc3.12502

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The first element is, ambiguously, a proper name or common noun. There were two possible output blend forms for each case (italics and underlining indicate the segmental correspondences between each source word and the output). In (2a), B/bohemian + hummus can yield either B/bohemmus, preserving more segments of B/bohemian, or B/bohummus, preserving more hummus. Similarly, in (2b), T/túrkey + tycóon can yield either T/túrcoon, preserving the primary stress of T/túrkey, or T/turcóon, preserving that of tycóon. Moreton and colleagues predicted that participants would tend to match the output form retaining more segmental and prosodic properties from the first element (i.e., BOHEMMUS, TÚRCOON) with the definition indicating that the first element was a proper name. (In the actual experiment, the stimuli were shown in all capital letters to remove the influence of orthography.)

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The present paper deals with the problem of interlingual equivalence in vocabulary, text translation and intercultural communication and proposes a novel approach to this problem based on ideas from prototype theory and field theory. Within this approach, interlingual equivalence is defined not as the relation between two lexemes, but as the relation between a lexeme and a semantic field. The first part of the paper thus provides a general description of the main types of corresponding semantic fields. The second part deals with the factors that generally serve as a basis for establishing equivalence relations between lexical units in systems of the languages being compared and in texts. Particular attention is paid to outlining the differences between these factors. Furthermore, the paper discusses peculiarities arising when establishing equivalence relations between utterances in interlingual communication. In certain communicative situations, equivalent utterances cannot be perceived as adequate forms of realisation of a speech act, which must be taken into account in order to avoid misunderstanding and communication failure. In this case, equivalence relations in communication often need to be replaced by relations of adequacy. The difference between equivalence and adequacy is discussed as well. The analysis is based on comparison of the lexical-semantic spheres of English, German and Russian.

Linguistic research on proper names has mostly focused on their semantic and syntactic aspects, with relatively little attention being paid to their phonology. This article provides an exploratory overview of issues surrounding the sound patterns of proper names. Some studies argue that names in general tend to resist alternations due to name-specific faithfulness, and that complex names can behave like simplex words due to a lack of compositionality, while others point to data that may challenge those views. There is also a body of work that examines the sounds of names in the context of cognitive psychology. By reviewing the relevant literature, this article aims to pave the way for further research in name phonology.

Linguistic prosody involves the rhythm and melody of speech. It implicitly enhances or modifies the explicit meaning of spoken words. The literature on linguistic prosody related to autism spectrum disorder deals both with the production and perception of a broad range of linguistic functions. These functions range from the formal encoding of grammatical features (e.g. lexical stress, syntactic structure) to the less formal, more intuitive signalling of pragmatic or interactional aspects (speech acts, information structure, turn-taking in conversation). This narrative review reports mixed results from 51 studies, with tentative evidence for greater differences in the perception of intuitive functions. Apart from considerable methodological differences across the different studies, much of the variability in the results is due to the wide range of ages investigated, since difficulties encountered by autistic children do not always persist into adulthood and compensatory strategies can be learnt for using prosody in communication.

Within the past 2 decades, probabilistic grammars have been put forward in the study of phonotactics as a necessary device to model gradient acceptability of lexical forms. This implicitly suggests that categorical grammars cannot even in principle account for such gradience. Most importantly, influential research has proposed that grammatical forms described by categorical grammars could be simply understood as by-products of probabilistic thresholds. Therefore, either implicitly or explicitly, categorical grammars are painted as not only empirically insufficient but also theoretically and formally redundant by this interpretation of probabilistic grammars in the domain of phonotactics. This paper provides a general overview of this recent debate and argues against the standard threshold interpretation for probabilistic grammars based on mathematical results, explicit axiomatic principles, and recent experimental evidence. In its place, I propose an interpretation for gradient grammars that solves apparent inconsistencies, combines the two types of grammar, accommodates previous technical contributions and data, and establishes a clear theoretical role that opens up further research directions.

Communicating linguistics to broader audiences (lingcomm) can be achieved most effectively by drawing on insights from across the fields of linguistics, science communication (scicomm), pedagogy and psychology. In this article we provide an overview of work that examines lingcomm as a specific practice. We also give an overview of the Lingthusiasm podcast, and discuss four major ways that we incorporate effective communications methodologies from a range of literature in the production of episodes. First, we discuss how we frame topics and take a particular stance towards linguistic attitudes, second, we discuss how we introduce linguistic terminology and manage audience cognitive load, third, we discuss the role of metaphor in effective communication of abstract concepts, and fourth, we discuss the affective tools of humour and awe in connecting audiences with linguistic concepts. We also discuss a 2022 survey of Lingthusiasm listeners, which highlights how the audience responds to our design choices. In providing this summary, we also advocate for lingcomm as a theoretically-driven area of linguistic expertise, and a particularly effective forum for the application of linguistics.

The field of third language acquisition has gathered increased attention over the last three decades. However, phonological acquisition in an L3 is still relatively understudied within the field, despite there likely being over a billion people regularly using an L3 worldwide. In this paper, we review experimental and theoretical studies of sequential L3 acquisition to date and aim to give implications for future L3 phonological acquisition research, laying the groundwork for advances in this area. According to the reviewed studies, it is necessary to adapt previous second language phonology models (i.e. SLM/SLM-r, PAM/PAM-L2, L2LP) into future L3 phonological research. Additionally, it is essential to expand the research scope and time scale to reflect linguistic diversity, age and education background of participants, and the processes of learning.

Thematic relations are traditionally analysed as projecting into derivations of sentence meanings from the lexical content of verbs. Thematic separation, a natural outgrowth of event semantics, proposes an alternative to this tradition: thematic relations are introduced into derivations by verb-independent elements and are, therefore, grammatically separate from the lexical content of verbs. Although critical to theories of meaning and lexical representation, the evidence for thematic separation has not been reckoned with widely in linguistic theory, and the consequent implications for psycholinguistic theories have not received proper consideration. This is surprising as the representations permitted by thematic separation comport quite well with evidence for pre-verbal thematic interpretation during real-time sentence comprehension. Psycholinguistic theories, therefore, stand to benefit from engagement with separationist alternatives to thematic relations, and may, in turn, shed light on the representations semantic theory should provide. After briefly defending the utility of events in semantic representation, this paper motivates thematic separation with evidence from the cumulative interpretations and adnominal modal adverbs; two cases where a semantic operator intervenes between a thematic relation and a verbal predicate. Psycholinguistic results investigating pre-verbal thematic interpretation then follow, where thematic separation is argued to furnish theories with coherent incremental representations without commitment to specific verbal predicates. The timecourse of verb predictability is also shown to intersect with ongoing debates on the granularity of thematic relations, suggesting further connections between semantic and psycholinguistic theory to be explored.

Atchan is a Kwa language spoken by approximately 150,000 people in and around Abidjan in southern Côte d’Ivoire. In this paper, I describe aspects of the phonology of Atchan, including its consonant and vowel inventory, syllable structure, patterns of nasalisation, and lexical and grammatical tone. I provide examples from primary data collected in collaboration with native speakers of Atchan. This article offers the first comprehensive sketch of Atchan phonology in the literature.