Pub Date : 2023-12-31DOI: 10.3390/languages9010018
M. Sokolova, Mikhael Levandovski
The study investigates psycholinguistic mechanisms of sentence parsing and ambiguity resolution by balanced Tatar–Russian bilinguals who learnt English as their additional language. We check the parser’s sensitivity to the selectional properties of the matrix verb and/or social conventions in processing and attachment resolution of ambiguous relative clauses (RCs). We chose English and Russian because they have a documented preference for low attachment (LA) and high attachment (HA), respectively, and Tatar, as we have found out in earlier work, has no attachment ambiguity. We conducted a self-paced reading task in English and Russian which returned 61% HA in Russian, 49% HA in English. It was followed by a pen-and-paper translation task. The translation post-test checked whether an attachment preference demonstrated in either English or Russian showed in RC translations into Tatar. The results return an 80% preference for LA in English–Tatar translations and 61% in Russian–Tatar translations. Both syntactic information and world knowledge influence online RC processing in Russian and English. Therefore, the multilingual parser incorporates information from multiple sources in either L1 or Ln processing. The parser may favor LA as a default parsing option while maintaining sensitivity to individual grammars (Russian), where this preference should be overridden.
{"title":"Relative Clause Processing and Attachment Resolution across Languages: Tatar–Russian–English Trilinguals","authors":"M. Sokolova, Mikhael Levandovski","doi":"10.3390/languages9010018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9010018","url":null,"abstract":"The study investigates psycholinguistic mechanisms of sentence parsing and ambiguity resolution by balanced Tatar–Russian bilinguals who learnt English as their additional language. We check the parser’s sensitivity to the selectional properties of the matrix verb and/or social conventions in processing and attachment resolution of ambiguous relative clauses (RCs). We chose English and Russian because they have a documented preference for low attachment (LA) and high attachment (HA), respectively, and Tatar, as we have found out in earlier work, has no attachment ambiguity. We conducted a self-paced reading task in English and Russian which returned 61% HA in Russian, 49% HA in English. It was followed by a pen-and-paper translation task. The translation post-test checked whether an attachment preference demonstrated in either English or Russian showed in RC translations into Tatar. The results return an 80% preference for LA in English–Tatar translations and 61% in Russian–Tatar translations. Both syntactic information and world knowledge influence online RC processing in Russian and English. Therefore, the multilingual parser incorporates information from multiple sources in either L1 or Ln processing. The parser may favor LA as a default parsing option while maintaining sensitivity to individual grammars (Russian), where this preference should be overridden.","PeriodicalId":52329,"journal":{"name":"Languages","volume":"93 21","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139131881","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}
Pub Date : 2023-12-29DOI: 10.3390/languages9010017
Aldo Olate, Ricardo Pineda
Possession has been scarcely studied in the variety of Spanish in contact with Mapudungun and in Chilean Spanish. In this contribution, we analyze the nominal possessive constructions found in a corpus of interviews with speakers from five communities: three Mapudungun–Spanish bilingual communities from the Araucanía Region, one Spanish monolingual rural community from the Bío Bío Region, and one Spanish monolingual urban community from the Araucanía Region. The possessive constructions found in the contact Spanish, rural Spanish, and urban Spanish varieties are analyzed and compared to describe the domain of possession and to propose some possible explanations from the perspective of language contact theory for the case of the Spanish spoken by bilinguals. From the corpus of transcribed interviews, nominal possessive constructions were selected, classified, described, and compared. Double possession with restrictive relative clauses, and unstressed possessive pronouns plus a prepositional phrase with genitive/specific value, showed a limited frequency of occurrence. These constructions are analyzed using the Code-Copying framework. This perspective accounts for the observed equivalencies between both languages in contact and the constructions emerging in the bilinguals’ speech. This work contributes to the documentation of the variety and, more generally, to the description of the expression of possession in the Latin American contact varieties of Spanish.
{"title":"Nominal Possession in Contact Spanish Spoken by Mapudungun/Spanish Bilinguals","authors":"Aldo Olate, Ricardo Pineda","doi":"10.3390/languages9010017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9010017","url":null,"abstract":"Possession has been scarcely studied in the variety of Spanish in contact with Mapudungun and in Chilean Spanish. In this contribution, we analyze the nominal possessive constructions found in a corpus of interviews with speakers from five communities: three Mapudungun–Spanish bilingual communities from the Araucanía Region, one Spanish monolingual rural community from the Bío Bío Region, and one Spanish monolingual urban community from the Araucanía Region. The possessive constructions found in the contact Spanish, rural Spanish, and urban Spanish varieties are analyzed and compared to describe the domain of possession and to propose some possible explanations from the perspective of language contact theory for the case of the Spanish spoken by bilinguals. From the corpus of transcribed interviews, nominal possessive constructions were selected, classified, described, and compared. Double possession with restrictive relative clauses, and unstressed possessive pronouns plus a prepositional phrase with genitive/specific value, showed a limited frequency of occurrence. These constructions are analyzed using the Code-Copying framework. This perspective accounts for the observed equivalencies between both languages in contact and the constructions emerging in the bilinguals’ speech. This work contributes to the documentation of the variety and, more generally, to the description of the expression of possession in the Latin American contact varieties of Spanish.","PeriodicalId":52329,"journal":{"name":"Languages","volume":"6 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139148164","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}
Pub Date : 2023-12-28DOI: 10.3390/languages9010016
Avel·lina Suñer Gratacós
In this paper, I analyze, from a compositional perspective, the relevant features to construct the interpretation of immediate succession between a subordinate event and the event that takes place in the main sentence. Among all the components involved in the construction of the meaning of immediate succession, I focus particularly on the subordinators, which present a mosaic of variation in current Spanish. The key ideas that can be derived from the data analysis are the following. First: subordinators of immediate succession are the loci of variation of temporal subordinates. Second: a subordinator of immediate succession is a “linguistic variable” that can be syntactically materialized in different forms by applying general rules that do not change the meaning, although sometimes they do change the grammatical category. Third: in the diachronic evolution of Spanish, several patterns of internal structure have emerged for immediate succession subordinators. However, most of them have ceased to be productive, although some subordinators that were coined with these patterns have survived as fossils in the current language. Fourth: the only productive pattern in the present language can be reduced to the Adv (immediacy) + que scheme, which goes back to Late Latin.
在本文中，我从构词角度分析了构建从句事件与主句事件之间的紧接解释的相关特征。在构建直接承接意义所涉及的所有成分中，我尤其关注从句，因为在当前的西班牙语中，从句呈现出多种变化。从数据分析中可以得出以下主要观点。第一：紧接的从句是时间从句的变异地点。第二：紧承式从句是一种 "语言变量"，它可以通过应用一般规则以不同的形式具体化为句法，这些规则虽然有时会改变语法类别，但不会改变其含义。第三：在西班牙语的非同步演变过程中，出现了几种直接承接从句的内部结构模式。然而，其中大多数已不再具有生产性，尽管一些用这些模式创造的从句作为活化石存留在现在的语言中。第四：目前语言中唯一的生产性模式可以归结为 Adv（直接性）+ que 方案，它可以追溯到晚期拉丁语。
{"title":"Levels of Variation in Subordinates of Immediate Succession in Current Spanish","authors":"Avel·lina Suñer Gratacós","doi":"10.3390/languages9010016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9010016","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, I analyze, from a compositional perspective, the relevant features to construct the interpretation of immediate succession between a subordinate event and the event that takes place in the main sentence. Among all the components involved in the construction of the meaning of immediate succession, I focus particularly on the subordinators, which present a mosaic of variation in current Spanish. The key ideas that can be derived from the data analysis are the following. First: subordinators of immediate succession are the loci of variation of temporal subordinates. Second: a subordinator of immediate succession is a “linguistic variable” that can be syntactically materialized in different forms by applying general rules that do not change the meaning, although sometimes they do change the grammatical category. Third: in the diachronic evolution of Spanish, several patterns of internal structure have emerged for immediate succession subordinators. However, most of them have ceased to be productive, although some subordinators that were coined with these patterns have survived as fossils in the current language. Fourth: the only productive pattern in the present language can be reduced to the Adv (immediacy) + que scheme, which goes back to Late Latin.","PeriodicalId":52329,"journal":{"name":"Languages","volume":"74 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139151911","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}
Pub Date : 2023-12-25DOI: 10.3390/languages9010012
Andrea Pešková
This explorative study examines intonation contours in neutral and non-neutral statements of Paraguayan Spanish, a variety shaped by extensive contact with Guarani, a co-official language of Paraguay. Paraguayan Spanish displays both lexical and syntactic borrowings from Guarani, along with innovative intonation patterns not found in other Spanish varieties. Previous but still limited research on yes/no and wh-questions in this variety suggests the emergence of a unique intonational system, possibly of a hybrid nature, in both Spanish monolinguals and Spanish–Guarani bilinguals. To date, no comprehensive description of intonation patterns in Paraguayan Spanish statements exists. The present study addresses this gap by analyzing data obtained through a Discourse Completion Task, covering broad-focus statements, contrastive focus, exclamatives, and statements of the obvious. Data were collected in 2014 from two monolingual speakers, eleven bilingual Spanish-dominant speakers, and eight bilingual Guarani-dominant speakers. The intonation is formalized using the Autosegmental–Metrical model of intonational phonology and the Spanish Tones and Break Indices labeling system. The findings reveal three main realizations of nuclear accents (L+H*, H+L*, and innovative >H+L*) in neutral and non-neutral declarative sentences, lengthening of syllables, diverse syntactical strategies, and lexical borrowings. The study contributes to the understanding of a lesser-studied Spanish variety and offers insights into theoretical aspects of contact linguistics.
{"title":"In the Echoes of Guarani: Exploring the Intonation of Statements in Paraguayan Spanish","authors":"Andrea Pešková","doi":"10.3390/languages9010012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9010012","url":null,"abstract":"This explorative study examines intonation contours in neutral and non-neutral statements of Paraguayan Spanish, a variety shaped by extensive contact with Guarani, a co-official language of Paraguay. Paraguayan Spanish displays both lexical and syntactic borrowings from Guarani, along with innovative intonation patterns not found in other Spanish varieties. Previous but still limited research on yes/no and wh-questions in this variety suggests the emergence of a unique intonational system, possibly of a hybrid nature, in both Spanish monolinguals and Spanish–Guarani bilinguals. To date, no comprehensive description of intonation patterns in Paraguayan Spanish statements exists. The present study addresses this gap by analyzing data obtained through a Discourse Completion Task, covering broad-focus statements, contrastive focus, exclamatives, and statements of the obvious. Data were collected in 2014 from two monolingual speakers, eleven bilingual Spanish-dominant speakers, and eight bilingual Guarani-dominant speakers. The intonation is formalized using the Autosegmental–Metrical model of intonational phonology and the Spanish Tones and Break Indices labeling system. The findings reveal three main realizations of nuclear accents (L+H*, H+L*, and innovative >H+L*) in neutral and non-neutral declarative sentences, lengthening of syllables, diverse syntactical strategies, and lexical borrowings. The study contributes to the understanding of a lesser-studied Spanish variety and offers insights into theoretical aspects of contact linguistics.","PeriodicalId":52329,"journal":{"name":"Languages","volume":"46 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-12-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139159536","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 investigates the contemporary grammaticalized uses of perdón (‘sorry’) in two varieties of Spanish, namely Mexican and Peninsular Spanish. Methodologically, the investigation is based on a taxonomy of offenses, organized around the concept of ‘face’ and based on spoken data of Spanish from Mexico and Spain. This taxonomy turns out to be a fruitful methodological tool for the analysis of apologetic markers: it does not only offer usage-based evidence for previous theorizing concerning the grammaticalization process of apologetic markers, but also leads to a refinement of these previous results from a contrastive point of view. Evidence from both corpora suggests a more advanced stage in the grammaticalization process of perdón in Mexican Spanish, where it can be used not only as a self-face-saving device geared towards the positive face of the speaker, but also in turn-taking contexts oriented towards the negative face of the interlocutor. Peninsular Spanish, on the other hand, resorts to a more varied gamut of apologetic markers in these contexts.
{"title":"Diverging Grammaticalization Patterns across Spanish Varieties: The Case of perdón in Mexican and Peninsular Spanish","authors":"Marlies Jansegers, Chantal Melis, Jennie Elenor Arrington Báez","doi":"10.3390/languages9010013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9010013","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates the contemporary grammaticalized uses of perdón (‘sorry’) in two varieties of Spanish, namely Mexican and Peninsular Spanish. Methodologically, the investigation is based on a taxonomy of offenses, organized around the concept of ‘face’ and based on spoken data of Spanish from Mexico and Spain. This taxonomy turns out to be a fruitful methodological tool for the analysis of apologetic markers: it does not only offer usage-based evidence for previous theorizing concerning the grammaticalization process of apologetic markers, but also leads to a refinement of these previous results from a contrastive point of view. Evidence from both corpora suggests a more advanced stage in the grammaticalization process of perdón in Mexican Spanish, where it can be used not only as a self-face-saving device geared towards the positive face of the speaker, but also in turn-taking contexts oriented towards the negative face of the interlocutor. Peninsular Spanish, on the other hand, resorts to a more varied gamut of apologetic markers in these contexts.","PeriodicalId":52329,"journal":{"name":"Languages","volume":"9 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-12-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139158342","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}
Pub Date : 2023-12-22DOI: 10.3390/languages9010010
Alibek Jakupov, Julien Longhi, B. Zeddini
Digital forensic investigations are becoming increasingly crucial in criminal investigations and civil litigations, especially in cases of corporate espionage and intellectual property theft as more communication occurs online via e-mail and social media. Deceptive opinion spam analysis is an emerging field of research that aims to detect and identify fraudulent reviews, comments, and other forms of deceptive online content. In this paper, we explore how the findings from this field may be relevant to forensic investigation, particularly the features that capture stylistic patterns and sentiments, which are psychologically relevant aspects of truthful and deceptive language. To assess these features’ utility, we demonstrate the potential of our proposed approach using the real-world dataset from the Enron Email Corpus. Our findings suggest that deceptive opinion spam analysis may be a valuable tool for forensic investigators and legal professionals looking to identify and analyze deceptive behavior in online communication. By incorporating these techniques into their investigative and legal strategies, professionals can improve the accuracy and reliability of their findings, leading to more effective and just outcomes.
{"title":"The Language of Deception: Applying Findings on Opinion Spam to Legal and Forensic Discourses","authors":"Alibek Jakupov, Julien Longhi, B. Zeddini","doi":"10.3390/languages9010010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9010010","url":null,"abstract":"Digital forensic investigations are becoming increasingly crucial in criminal investigations and civil litigations, especially in cases of corporate espionage and intellectual property theft as more communication occurs online via e-mail and social media. Deceptive opinion spam analysis is an emerging field of research that aims to detect and identify fraudulent reviews, comments, and other forms of deceptive online content. In this paper, we explore how the findings from this field may be relevant to forensic investigation, particularly the features that capture stylistic patterns and sentiments, which are psychologically relevant aspects of truthful and deceptive language. To assess these features’ utility, we demonstrate the potential of our proposed approach using the real-world dataset from the Enron Email Corpus. Our findings suggest that deceptive opinion spam analysis may be a valuable tool for forensic investigators and legal professionals looking to identify and analyze deceptive behavior in online communication. By incorporating these techniques into their investigative and legal strategies, professionals can improve the accuracy and reliability of their findings, leading to more effective and just outcomes.","PeriodicalId":52329,"journal":{"name":"Languages","volume":"1 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138944589","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}
Pub Date : 2023-12-21DOI: 10.3390/languages9010008
Natascha Müller
Cognitive science has demonstrated that multilinguals (including children) show a cognitive advantage over monolinguals. Linguistics has provided evidence that multilinguals (including children) are able to successfully separate their lexicons and grammars and negotiate multilingual environments. Apart from these achievements, linguistics has generally failed to demonstrate a multilingual advantage related to the multilingual’s linguistic proficiency. The present article summarizes the current literature, which shows that there are first indications of an acceleration effect in multilingual children. This effect is discernable if the languages radically differ, if the child uses a ‘weak’ language (often a minority language), if the child acquires more than two languages from birth, and if contact with the language exhibiting the acceleration effect is delayed until kindergarten age. This kind of acceleration effect represents an explanation gap under current theorizing in cognitive science and linguistics, and calls for a new language acquisition theory, a best-of-breed solution for further research in language acquisition. AAiMLL (Acquisition Advantages in MultiLingual Learners) combines cognitive and linguistic aspects with a threshold theory. It is claimed here that the multilingual child learns from two cognitive acquisition strategies. One is fed by grammatical features, and requires the child to (re-)use already acquired knowledge by generalizing to new domains. The other strategy enables the child to consider rejected alternatives of earlier decisions in one language, for use in the other language. An acceleration effect related to the multilingual’s linguistic proficiency is indicative of the success of both strategies. The success of the strategies is argued to be related to a threshold of language usage from a quantitative or a qualitative perspective.
认知科学证明，多语言者（包括儿童）比单语言者具有认知优势。语言学提供的证据表明，多语言者（包括儿童）能够成功地分离他们的词典和语法，并在多语言环境中进行交涉。除了这些成就之外，语言学一般未能证明多语言的优势与多语言的语言能力有关。本文对目前的文献进行了总结，这些文献显示，有迹象表明多语言儿童中存在加速效应。如果语言差异很大，如果儿童使用的是 "弱 "语言（通常是少数民族语言），如果儿童从出生起就掌握了两种以上的语言，如果与表现出加速效应的语言的接触推迟到幼儿园阶段，那么这种效应就会显现出来。这种加速效应是目前认知科学和语言学理论中的一个空白，需要一种新的语言习得理论，为进一步的语言习得研究提供最佳解决方案。AAiMLL （Acquisition Advantages in MultiLanguages Learners，多语言学习者的语言习得优势）将认知和语言学方面与门槛理论相结合。该理论认为，多语儿童从两种认知习得策略中学习语言。一种是以语法特征为基础，要求儿童通过对新领域的概括来（重新）使用已经获得的知识。另一种策略则是让儿童将先前在一种语言中做出的决定，考虑在另一种语言中使用。与多语言者的语言能力相关的加速效应表明了这两种策略的成功。从定量或定性的角度来看，这些策略的成功与否与语言使用的门槛有关。
{"title":"AAiMLL: Acquisition Advantages in MultiLingual Learners: The Case of the Multilingual Child","authors":"Natascha Müller","doi":"10.3390/languages9010008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9010008","url":null,"abstract":"Cognitive science has demonstrated that multilinguals (including children) show a cognitive advantage over monolinguals. Linguistics has provided evidence that multilinguals (including children) are able to successfully separate their lexicons and grammars and negotiate multilingual environments. Apart from these achievements, linguistics has generally failed to demonstrate a multilingual advantage related to the multilingual’s linguistic proficiency. The present article summarizes the current literature, which shows that there are first indications of an acceleration effect in multilingual children. This effect is discernable if the languages radically differ, if the child uses a ‘weak’ language (often a minority language), if the child acquires more than two languages from birth, and if contact with the language exhibiting the acceleration effect is delayed until kindergarten age. This kind of acceleration effect represents an explanation gap under current theorizing in cognitive science and linguistics, and calls for a new language acquisition theory, a best-of-breed solution for further research in language acquisition. AAiMLL (Acquisition Advantages in MultiLingual Learners) combines cognitive and linguistic aspects with a threshold theory. It is claimed here that the multilingual child learns from two cognitive acquisition strategies. One is fed by grammatical features, and requires the child to (re-)use already acquired knowledge by generalizing to new domains. The other strategy enables the child to consider rejected alternatives of earlier decisions in one language, for use in the other language. An acceleration effect related to the multilingual’s linguistic proficiency is indicative of the success of both strategies. The success of the strategies is argued to be related to a threshold of language usage from a quantitative or a qualitative perspective.","PeriodicalId":52329,"journal":{"name":"Languages","volume":"32 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138948517","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}
Pub Date : 2023-12-21DOI: 10.3390/languages9010009
Abdulaziz Altamimi, Kathy Conklin
Although extensive research has been carried out on opaque formulaic language where the meaning is not the sum of the individual words (i.e., idioms and many collocations), it is still not clear how cross-language congruency and frequency of exposure influence the learning of transparent formulaic language in an L2. In the current study, self-paced reading along with offline word order recognition tasks were used to investigate the role of cross-language congruency and the frequency of exposure on the learning and processing of fully transparent binomials. In the self-paced reading, Arabic second language learners of English and native English speakers encountered three types of binomial phrases either two or five times in English texts: English-only binomials, Arabic-only binomials that were translated into English, and congruent binomials (acceptable in English and Arabic). A subsequent offline task revealed that both native and non-native speakers developed knowledge of the ‘correct’ order of binomials (i.e., fish and chips, not chips and fish) after only two exposures in the self-paced reading. Native speakers were more accurate on congruent and English-only items than Arabic-only items, while non-natives speakers exhibited no differences in accuracy across the binomial types. The offline task showed that native speakers responded faster to congruent and English-only items than Arabic-only, and non-native speakers responded faster to congruent items than English-only and Arabic-only. The frequency of exposure had no effect, with no difference in response times and accuracy between two and five exposures.
{"title":"The Effect of Congruency and Frequency of Exposures on the Learning of L2 Binomials","authors":"Abdulaziz Altamimi, Kathy Conklin","doi":"10.3390/languages9010009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9010009","url":null,"abstract":"Although extensive research has been carried out on opaque formulaic language where the meaning is not the sum of the individual words (i.e., idioms and many collocations), it is still not clear how cross-language congruency and frequency of exposure influence the learning of transparent formulaic language in an L2. In the current study, self-paced reading along with offline word order recognition tasks were used to investigate the role of cross-language congruency and the frequency of exposure on the learning and processing of fully transparent binomials. In the self-paced reading, Arabic second language learners of English and native English speakers encountered three types of binomial phrases either two or five times in English texts: English-only binomials, Arabic-only binomials that were translated into English, and congruent binomials (acceptable in English and Arabic). A subsequent offline task revealed that both native and non-native speakers developed knowledge of the ‘correct’ order of binomials (i.e., fish and chips, not chips and fish) after only two exposures in the self-paced reading. Native speakers were more accurate on congruent and English-only items than Arabic-only items, while non-natives speakers exhibited no differences in accuracy across the binomial types. The offline task showed that native speakers responded faster to congruent and English-only items than Arabic-only, and non-native speakers responded faster to congruent items than English-only and Arabic-only. The frequency of exposure had no effect, with no difference in response times and accuracy between two and five exposures.","PeriodicalId":52329,"journal":{"name":"Languages","volume":"14 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138948297","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}
Decades-long research on islands has led to the conclusion that island constraints are candidates for language universals. A recent surge in research on islandhood in African languages has revealed some would-be island configurations that are transparent for A¯- dependency formation. In this article, we show that in Shupamem, all clausal configurations expected to have the status of opaque island domains fail to block the formation of long-distance A¯- dependencies involving object ex situ focus. In support of the claim that A¯- movement has occurred in such cases, we rely on evidence from three wh- movement diagnostics (weak crossover effects, reconstruction phenomena and quantifier float). Furthermore, we show that non-movement dependencies across purported island boundaries in the language are also possible through the licensing of “island”-internal negative concord items by external non-local negators. We conclude that clausal island effects fail to materialize in Shupamem ex situ focus constructions and negative concord item-licensing domains. Based on an exploratory typological survey of islands in African languages, we indicate a trend toward varying degrees of island permeability in the area, concluding that while Shupamem is not an isolated example, it features one of the most permissive grammars known to date in this respect.
{"title":"Absence of Clausal Islands in Shupamem","authors":"Hagay Schurr, Jason Kandybowicz, Abdoulaye Laziz Nchare, Tysean Bucknor, Xiaomeng Ma, Magdalena Markowska, Armando Tapia","doi":"10.3390/languages9010007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9010007","url":null,"abstract":"Decades-long research on islands has led to the conclusion that island constraints are candidates for language universals. A recent surge in research on islandhood in African languages has revealed some would-be island configurations that are transparent for A¯- dependency formation. In this article, we show that in Shupamem, all clausal configurations expected to have the status of opaque island domains fail to block the formation of long-distance A¯- dependencies involving object ex situ focus. In support of the claim that A¯- movement has occurred in such cases, we rely on evidence from three wh- movement diagnostics (weak crossover effects, reconstruction phenomena and quantifier float). Furthermore, we show that non-movement dependencies across purported island boundaries in the language are also possible through the licensing of “island”-internal negative concord items by external non-local negators. We conclude that clausal island effects fail to materialize in Shupamem ex situ focus constructions and negative concord item-licensing domains. Based on an exploratory typological survey of islands in African languages, we indicate a trend toward varying degrees of island permeability in the area, concluding that while Shupamem is not an isolated example, it features one of the most permissive grammars known to date in this respect.","PeriodicalId":52329,"journal":{"name":"Languages","volume":"13 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138951459","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}
Pub Date : 2023-12-20DOI: 10.3390/languages9010006
Manuel Delicado Cantero, Patrícia Amaral
This paper explores the diachrony of the Portuguese contrastive connective ao passo que (‘whereas’). First, we describe its syntactic and semantic properties in present-day European Portuguese. With this contemporary analysis in mind, we explore the semantic and syntactic changes from the PP ao passo que (lit. ‘at the step/pace that’) into first a temporal connective of simultaneity (‘at the same time as’) and, ultimately, a contrastive expression. The evolution of expressions with temporal meanings into contrastive ones has been documented in many languages. In our paper, we show that another related meaning, that of the gradual development of events that are temporally simultaneous, may also evolve into a contrastive meaning. We also examine the role of the syntax and semantics of the noun passo in this process. Furthermore, we discuss the internal analyzability of the connective and provide evidence for the retention of some internal syntax, which has implications for current theories on the nature of complex categories.
本文探讨了葡萄牙语对比连接词 ao passo que（"而"）的异时性。首先，我们描述了它在当今欧洲葡萄牙语中的句法和语义特性。根据这一当代分析，我们探讨了 PP ao passo que（"以......的速度......而......"）在语义和句法上的变化，它首先是一个表示同时性的时间连接词（"同时"），最终成为一个对比表达。许多语言都记录了具有时间意义的表达演变成对比表达的过程。在本文中，我们展示了另一个相关的意义，即时间上同时发生的事件的逐渐发展，也可能演变成对比意义。我们还研究了名词 passo 的句法和语义在这一过程中的作用。此外，我们还讨论了连接词的内部可分析性，并为某些内部句法的保留提供了证据，这对当前关于复杂范畴性质的理论有一定的影响。
{"title":"Marching towards Contrast: The Case of ao passo que in Portuguese","authors":"Manuel Delicado Cantero, Patrícia Amaral","doi":"10.3390/languages9010006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9010006","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores the diachrony of the Portuguese contrastive connective ao passo que (‘whereas’). First, we describe its syntactic and semantic properties in present-day European Portuguese. With this contemporary analysis in mind, we explore the semantic and syntactic changes from the PP ao passo que (lit. ‘at the step/pace that’) into first a temporal connective of simultaneity (‘at the same time as’) and, ultimately, a contrastive expression. The evolution of expressions with temporal meanings into contrastive ones has been documented in many languages. In our paper, we show that another related meaning, that of the gradual development of events that are temporally simultaneous, may also evolve into a contrastive meaning. We also examine the role of the syntax and semantics of the noun passo in this process. Furthermore, we discuss the internal analyzability of the connective and provide evidence for the retention of some internal syntax, which has implications for current theories on the nature of complex categories.","PeriodicalId":52329,"journal":{"name":"Languages","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2023-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139169459","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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