Language Sciences最新文献

The aim of the present article is to investigate spatial frames of reference in Dholuo, a language from the Nilotic family. Spatial descriptions were elicited by implementing a novel task, the New Man and Tree Task, which is a photo-object referential task (as opposed to the more traditional photo–photo referential tasks). The New Man and Tree Task fully crosses the categories of featured vs. unfeatured, thus addressing potential shortcomings of various previous referential tasks. Testing a total of 40 native speakers of Dholuo, it was found that the decision of a participant to use a spatial frame of reference largely depended on the complex nature of the spatial scene, while the type of spatial frame of reference chosen partly depended on whether the stimuli was featured or unfeatured, and potentially how salient that specific frame of reference was in the mind of the speaker. Overall, both the relative and the object-centred spatial frames were the most preferred across all three feature categories which correspond to findings from an earlier study showing both as used in solving everyday tasks in Dholuo.

New names are created on daily bases but old names never change in form. Thus, names offer a window where the archaic linguistics structure of a language can be traced. This study explores the grammatical structure of personal names in Kusaal by focusing on their phonology, morphonology and syntax. Phonologically, the paper explores the phonotactics of personal names; morphologically, it discusses the various morphemes that constitute this category of names, and syntactically, it analyses the rules that underlie the construction of personal names that are phrases, clauses and sentences. The meaning of personal names in Kusaal have been discussed extensively in previous studies for which reason minimal attention is dedicated to it in the current work. The findings show that personal names in Kusaal conform to almost all the structural rules of the language. They occupy specific positions in the noun phrase and in the sentence; they are neutral to syntactic features such as definiteness and plurality. Personal names also take prefixes and affixes and can be compound words. There are instances where insertions and deletions are observed in the compound formation of personal names in the language. The study uses the Basic Linguistics Theory for its descriptive analysis of personal names. Both primary and secondary data are used in this study.

This study examines syntactic complexity in Translated English (TE) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL), drawing comparisons with Native English (NE). The objective is to explore the unique syntactic features of these constrained languages, which we hypothesize are influenced by inherent cognitive and social constraints. We operationalize syntactic complexity using five constructs, namely length of production units, sentence complexity, subordination, coordination, and specific structures. The data reveals differential syntactic patterns across the language varieties studied. In our analysis, we observed that TE and EFL display a tendency for extended sentence structures, as indicated by higher mean lengths of clauses (MLC) and T-units (MLT) compared to NE. We propose that this inclination might stem from first-language interference in the writing and translation. The study also underscores a decrease in sentence complexity and subordination in constrained languages, a pattern which potentially mirrors the simplification phenomenon often reported in second language acquisition and translation research. Conversely, coordination measures exhibit an increase in TE and EFL, suggesting a syntax preference possibly informed by the linguistic structures of the speaker's or translator's first language. Our findings resonate with the idea of “constrained communication”, illuminating shared syntactic tendencies between second languages (L2s) and translated languages, which may be attributable to similar processing constraints. This investigation contributes to the ongoing dialogue on complexity and simplification in constrained languages, and encourages a merger of the traditionally separate fields of second language acquisition and translation studies.

This article presents a cognitive model of event structure that can be used to explain several features of the semantics of verbs. The model consists of four basic components: agent, patient, force vector and result vector. Each component is described in terms of the theory of conceptual spaces. The force vector is the cause of the result vector. Unlike other event models both the cause and the effect are included in the representation of a single event.

The model is used for two central topics. Firstly, to provide a force dynamic representation of causation. Secondly, to give a unified analysis of Aktionsart in terms of different forms of vectors, using force diagrams that are extensions of those used by Croft and others. It is then shown that the event model can be used to derive a variety of semantic features of verbs. In particular, I analyze manner-result complementarity, the ambiguity of the passive participle, and the role of goals (telicity).

Somatic practices frequently use imagery, typically via verbal instructions, to scaffold sensorimotor organization and experience, a phenomenon we term “introjection”. We argue that introjection is an imagery practice in which sensorimotor and conceptual aspects are co-orchestrated, suggesting the necessity of crosstalk between somatics, phenomenology, psychology, embodied-enactive cognition, and linguistic research on embodied simulation. We presently focus on the scarcely addressed details of the process necessary to enact instructions of a literal or metaphoric nature through the body. Based on vignettes from dance, Feldenkrais, and Taichi practice, we describe introjection as a complex form of processual sense-making, in which context-interpretive, mental, attentional and physical sub-processes recursively braid. Our analysis focuses on how mental and body-related processes progressively align, inform and augment each other. This dialectic requires emphasis on the active body, which implies that uni-directional models (concept ⇒ body) are inadequate and should be replaced by interactionist alternatives (concept ⇔ body). Furthermore, we emphasize that both the source image itself and the body are specifically conceptualized for the context through constructive operations, and both evolve through their interplay. At this level introjection employs representational operations that are embedded in enactive dynamics of a fully situated person.

Linguists recognize that sign languages are highly complex linguistic systems which meet all the criteria used to define a ‘language’. My ongoing language documentation with the Kere community in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and their local languages, Kere, and Sinasina Sign Language (SSSL), suggests that the English word ‘language’ is not a direct correlate of the Tok Pisin words tok or tok ples, as the current literature suggests. Drawing on interviews and collaboration with Kere people, I explore the culturally specific concepts and functions embedded in Tok Pisin metalanguage, focusing on differences between tok, tok ples, aksen, and ‘language’. Unlike spoken Kere, SSSL is aksen, not tok or tok ples because sociocultural functions are core to the meaning of tok, which only refers to spoken languages, unlike ‘language’. Understanding these differences is essential for translation and for further research with sign languages in PNG. This analysis of tok, tok ples, aksen, and ‘language’ also highlights the reality that ‘language’ is not a universal concept and there is a need for more research to unpack what ‘language’ means across languages and cultures.

Maximizers represent a subclass of degree modifiers that convey the highest degree to which a property can be carried out. This paper studies five Croatian near-synonymous maximizers (all meaning “completely, totally”), viz. posve, potpuno, sasvim, skroz, and totalno, as a part of <maximizer + adjective> construction. It is assumed here that analysed pairings act as (semi)-prefabricated units with maximizers that impose particular modes of construal. To analyse the subtle semantic differences of examined maximizers, we shall turn to the distributional hypothesis and examine contexts in which maximizers occur. Using a combination of analytical statistics (collostructional analysis) and multifactorial methods (hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis and correspondence analysis), we aim to examine similarities (proximities) and differences (distances) between analysed constructions in order to understand intricate relationships among maximizers, fostering valuable insights into their semantics. The findings of this study provide insight into the interplay of the Croatian maximizers and adjectives.

Recent psycholinguistic studies have revealed an important distinction in narrative discourse between bounded and unbounded language use. Bounded language use is typical of Germanic languages other than English and involves the holistic presentation of situations, with clauses construed as self-contained units attaining a point of completion. Unbounded language use, in turn, groups events into larger complexes of roughly simultaneous events, each event of which is still open when the next one begins. This contrast between English and the other Germanic languages has been accounted for by the claim that English began its history as a bounded language, but shifted to unbounded following the decline, from the fifteenth century onwards, of the Verb-second (V2) constraint on word order. According to this hypothesis, the loss of V2 made possible the grammaticalization of the be progressive, a device that encourages unboundedness. The present article expands on this line of research and examines seven constructions which developed at around the same time and which together are taking English in the direction of unbounded construal; it is argued that the drift in English from a bounded to an unbounded system may have been instigated by the contact situation between Old English speakers and Old Norse speakers in the Danelaw area.

The present study proposes a linguistic habitat that may evoke people's first language (L1) to support a better understanding of current environmental catastrophes and address one pathway to support solution finding. A purposive participant sample consisted of 25 undergraduate students majoring in linguistics was selected to provide input regarding how their first language (Balochi, Balti, Pashto, Punjabi, and Sindhi) might approach ecological problems and consider its role in promoting ecosolidarity. While considering the epistemological perspectives offered by ecolinguistics, the qualitative data were analyzed to determine linguistic resources (words and structures) employed by the participants to describe aspects of the environmental crisis. As an element of the analysis, findings were also explored through quantitative percentages of representation. Findings revealed that while describing the natural environment in Urdu and English, the two official, and dominant languages of Pakistan, the participants often borrowed words and used structures that did not connect directly to first language terminology. This situation not only may result in misunderstandings and misinterpretation of subsequent actions for change, but it also suggests that multiple world voices as native speaker tongues may not have played an integral role in messaging to a broad population of speakers across Pakistan. The study suggests that purposeful, ecological language planning and the application of ecological content to local languages should be part of the ecological dialogue because they have the potential to promote deeper understanding at individual and collective societal levels.

In this study an integrational linguistic approach to metaphor is used in the context of an ecological psychology study of novel metaphor creation by adults in a structured conversation setting. This paper forms an example of the proposed complementarity of integrational linguistics (Harris, 1981) and ecological psychology (Gibson, 1979; Jones and Read, 2023) by providing a study of novel metaphor that eschews the traditional “coded carrier of message” assumptions about language, as well as the traditional “knowledge is mental representation” assumptions of representationalist cognitive psychology. Instead, novel metaphor is presented as the sine qua non of the creation of signs in the process of communication, and that creation is proposed to be founded on the perception of invariants across different naturally occurring kinds of objects and events (cf., Read & Szokolszky, 2016). The practice of metaphor is taken as a special case of perceptually guided kinematic semiology. This study describes the practice of metaphor by adults in a structured experimental situation designed to present metaphoric resemblance and to encourage the practice of metaphor with guiding verbal instructions. Such a study allows explication of the integrational method as applied to structured conversational settings. Although the conversation and context were designed to draw attention to metaphoric resemblance and to encourage verbal metaphor, not everyone practiced metaphor, showing that the practice is not determined by context. When metaphor was created, the form often mirrored the perceptual invariants available to the perceiver, i.e., motion or stationary resemblances. No one created exactly the same metaphor even in this consistent context, which emphasizes the creative aspect of metaphor as a prototype of sign creation, with its core properties of novelty, enhanced interest and noticeableness. I make the following central points: communicating by creating and integrating signs is the foundation of language; metaphor is the prototype of the creation of signs, the creation of novel metaphor in conversation is a practice that enhances communication, even in structured experimental settings; and conversation can be studied as the ongoing process of sign integration, that is, as perceptually guided kinematic semiology. The current study shows that metaphor as a practice in conversation is closely coordinated with the perception of metaphoric resemblance and the request to talk about objects and events that are alike metaphorically. Finally, it is argued that direct perception is the best approach on which to found an account of metaphor in communication.