Subordinating and Coordinating Particles in Lakhota

In her Dakota Texts Ella Deloria appears to be using cha and chanke interchangeably. The goal of this paper is to show that the difference lies in the realm of subordination. For this purpose other languages have been examined to detect how subordination is marked in them. Both German and English are shown to mark subordinate clauses overtly, but Lakhota markers are not so apparent. Subordination is formally defined in a Generative Semantic framework and pertinent works on Lakhota grammar are reviewed. The solution implied by Boas and Deloria that cha is a subordinator is accepted and proven to be true. But Boas and Deloria\u27s solution turns out to have the function of a causal subordinator and also acts as an emphatic particle. Chanke is shown to be a coordinating conjunction

Forms and functions of codeswitching to Hindi/Urdu in Indian English and Pakistani English

This study examines the forms and functions of codeswitching to Hindi/Urdu in Indian English and Pakistani English. The aim is to find out how these local languages manifest and are used in the local non-native variety of English. Previous research on codeswitching to Hindi and Urdu in Indian English and Pakistani English has mostly concentrated only on the use of single lexical items and their impact on the lexicon of the local English leaving the more varied ways in which the local languages show relatively unresearched. The material was collected from the Corpus of Global Web-based English (GloWbE). This study served additionally as a methodological experiment using the most frequent Hindi and Urdu words to locate and collect codeswitches in the corpus. The analysis of the structural patterns showed that Hindi and Urdu codeswitches manifest in a variety of different forms ranging from longer intersentential codeswitches for complete Hindi and Urdu sentences to interclausal switches, i.e. switches between main and dependent clauses, and to shorter intraclausal codeswitches like words and phrases. The structural analysis also revealed that the structural patterns appear to follow the same tendencies in both Indian and Pakistani English. The Hindi/Urdu codeswitches also served diverse types of functions. The switches could roughly be divided into switches with a communicative function and cultural switches. Communicative functions included, among others, quotations, figurative language, conveying greetings and prayers, interjections, reiterations, and metalinguistic commentary. Cultural codeswitches expressed objects and concepts specific to the Indian and Pakistani culture. Cultural switches also functioned as references to the Indian and Pakistani culture implying the Indianness or Pakistaniness of something or someone

Tu pełna zgoda, ale... : investigating Concessive marking in spoken Polish

Niniejszy artykuł wskazuje na przydatność dialogicznego modelu koncesywności - zakładającego sekwencyjne występowanie twierdzeń, potwierdzeń i kontrtwierdzeń - jako narzędzia opisu mówionej polszczyzny. Jego celem jest ponadto otwarcie dyskusji na temat sposobu, w jaki Polacy realizują wzmiankowaną relację w różnych kontekstach komunikacyjnych. W polu zainteresowania znalazły się więc znaczniki sygnalizujące potwierdzenia i kontrtwierdzenia, a także schematy, zgodnie z którymi mówiący negocjują znaczenia podczas interakcji. W analizie wykorzystano autentyczne przykłady użycia, w tym rozmowy prywatne oraz audycje radiowe. Na podstawie tych danych wykazano, że rozmówcy, którzy próbują złagodzić możliwy niepożądany skutek niezgody czy kontrtwierdzenia, często realizują schemat tak, ale (zgoda-niezgoda), choć odnotowano także odwrócone schematy typu niezgoda-zgoda. W odniesieniu do rodzajów znaczników zauważono, że podczas gdy kontrtwierdzenia są sygnalizowane głównie przez ale, potwierdzenia współwystępują z przysłówkami modalnymi, przymiotnikami wartościującymi, znacznikami deiktycznymi, elementami prozodycznymi oraz powtórzeniami. Autorka sugeruje ponadto, iż zastosowanie interakcyjnego modelu koncesywności w badaniach kontrastywnych nad językiem polskim i angielskim może pozwolić nie tylko na zgłębienie wiedzy o organizacji języka mówionego, lecz także mieć zastosowanie w nauczaniu języka angielskiego.The action-oriented concept of Concession seems not to have received any attention by discourse analysts studying Polish conversational data. It is therefore the aim of this article to demonstrate the usefulness of this analytical model in discourse-pragmatic studies of spoken Polish and to open a forum for discussion on how the Concessive relation - one of the organising principles of spoken interaction and text-forming strategies in written communication - is realised by Polish speakers in various communicative settings. Towards this end, the study focuses on common ways of marking acknowledgments and rebuttals attested by real-life data (private conversations and radio talk) and it demonstrates patterns which are realised by speakers negotiating meaning in informal and semi-formal contexts. The analysis clearly shows that, trying to mitigate the possible negative effect of disagreement, Poles usually follow the tak, ale schema, even though disagreement-agreement patterns are attested as well. As regards the type of marking, it is found that while countermoves are associated predominantly with ale, acknowledgments are cued by modal adverbs, evaluative adjectives, deixis, prosody and repetition. Finally, it is concluded that application of the interactional model of Concession in contrastive analyses of Polish and English can not only further discourse analysts’ understanding of the organisation of spoken interaction, but it can also have a bearing on language instruction and acquisition

De Morgan's laws and NEG-raising: a syntactic view

In this paper, we will motivate the application of specific rules of inference from the propositional calculus to natural language sentences. Specifically, we will analyse De Morgan’s laws, which pertain to the interaction of two central topics in syntactic research: negation and coordination. We will argue that the applicability of De Morgan’s laws to natural language structures can be derived from independently motivated operations of grammar and principles restricting the application of these operations. This has direct empirical consequences for the hypothesised relations between natural language and logic

A constrastive analysis of Dutch and English

Janssen, Th.A.M.J. [Promotor

Syntax with oscillators and energy levels

This book presents a new approach to studying the syntax of human language, one which emphasizes how we think about time. Tilsen argues that many current theories are unsatisfactory because those theories conceptualize syntactic patterns with spatially arranged structures of objects. These object-structures are atemporal and do not lend well to reasoning about time. The book develops an alternative conceptual model in which oscillatory systems of various types interact with each other through coupling forces, and in which the relative energies of those systems are organized in particular ways. Tilsen emphasizes that the two primary mechanisms of the approach – oscillators and energy levels – require alternative ways of thinking about time. Furthermore, his theory leads to a new way of thinking about grammaticality and the recursive nature of language. The theory is applied to a variety of syntactic phenomena: word order, phrase structure, morphosyntax, constituency, case systems, ellipsis, anaphora, and islands. The book also presents a general program for the study of language in which the construction of linguistic theories is itself an object of theoretical analysis. Reviewed by John Goldsmith, Mark Gibson and an anonymous reviewer. Signed reports are openly available in the downloads session

Syntax with oscillators and energy levels

This book presents a new approach to studying the syntax of human language, one which emphasizes how we think about time. Tilsen argues that many current theories are unsatisfactory because those theories conceptualize syntactic patterns with spatially arranged structures of objects. These object-structures are atemporal and do not lend well to reasoning about time. The book develops an alternative conceptual model in which oscillatory systems of various types interact with each other through coupling forces, and in which the relative energies of those systems are organized in particular ways. Tilsen emphasizes that the two primary mechanisms of the approach – oscillators and energy levels – require alternative ways of thinking about time. Furthermore, his theory leads to a new way of thinking about grammaticality and the recursive nature of language. The theory is applied to a variety of syntactic phenomena: word order, phrase structure, morphosyntax, constituency, case systems, ellipsis, anaphora, and islands. The book also presents a general program for the study of language in which the construction of linguistic theories is itself an object of theoretical analysis. Reviewed by John Goldsmith, Mark Gibson and an anonymous reviewer. Signed reports are openly available in the downloads session