Typology of Ukrainian Verb Stems: Word-Forming and Morphonological Aspects

The description of word-forming morphology of deverbatives of the modern Ukrainian language in view of its functional character, dynamic processes in the language, shifts that have taken place in its corpus in recent times, provides good grounds for determining new classification principles of morphological analysis of deverbatives. The article identifies morphonological types of basic verbs of word-forming units in the Ukrainian language. The word-forming units play a dominant role in the systematization of Ukrainian word-formation, as it clearly traces the patterns of the internal mechanism, which is characterized by hierarchical connections between other complex units of the word-formation system (word-forming pairs, chains, series and word-forming paradigms). Reconstruction of the basic verbs of word-forming units makes it possible to correctly determine the direction of word-forming motivation, morphonological type and to establish a morphonological model. Their properties are clarified by the nature of the basic verb stem, morphonological transformations into morphonologically marked derivatives at different degrees of derivation. The spectrum of morphonological types of basic verbs of word-forming units in the Ukrainian language covers word-forming units of morphonological types of indivisible and divisible basic verbs of word-forming units. With indivisible basic verbs there are 5 morphological classes, with divisible basic verbs – 7

Porządek sufiksów w wielokrotnych zdrobnieniach : na materiale języka polskiego i bułgarskiego

Artykuł prezentuje opis kombinacji sufiksów występujących w deminutywach drugiego i trzeciego stopnia w języku polskim i bułgarskim. Wykazujemy w nim, że tworzenie deminutywów pierwszego i drugiego stopnia w obu językach zależy od czynników fonologicznych, morfologicznych, semantycznych i psycholingwistycznych. Spośród wielu hipotetycznych kombinacji sufiksów deminutywnych wykorzystywanych jest w rzeczywistości zaledwie kilka. Oba języki filtrują swoje względnie obszerne zasoby sufiksów DIM1 i używają bardzo niewielu z nich do tworzenia rzeczowników DIM2 (w języku bułgarskim również do tworzenia rzeczowników DIM3). Ponadto tylko sufiksy pojawiające się w rzeczownikach DIM2 mogą derywować rzeczowniki DIM3. Kombinacje sufiksów w deminutywach pierwszego i drugiego stopnia są stałe i przypominają szablon. Artykuł jest przyczynkiem do teorii morfologicznej - do właściwego rozumienia procesów deminutywizacji, próbą ustalenia listy sufiksów kończących procesy derywacyjne i odkrycia zasad, które rządzą układem afiksów w językach naturalnych.In this article we investigate suffix combinations in second- and third-grade diminutive nouns in Polish and Bulgarian. We show that the formation of double and multiple diminutives in both languages is subject to phonological, morphological, semantic and psycholinguistic constraints. Although diminutive suffixes constitute a semantically homogeneous set, they do not combine freely with each other and of all possible combinations of diminutive suffixes in a language only a very few exist. Both languages under scrutiny in this paper 'filter' their relatively large sets of DIM1 suffixes and use a very few of them for the formation of DIM2 nouns, and Bulgarian also for DIM3 nouns. Moreover, only suffixes that occur in DIM2 nouns can derive DIM3 nouns in Bulgarian. The combinations of diminutive suffixes in double and multiple diminutives are fixed and resemble to some extent a template order. The paper also contributes to morphological theory: to the proper understanding of diminutivization, to the definition of closing suffixation, and to revealing the way affix order is constrained in human languages

A distributional semantic study on German event nominalizations

AbstractWe present the results of a large-scale corpus-based comparison of two German event nominalization patterns: deverbal nouns in -ung (e.g., die Evaluierung, 'the evaluation') and nominal infinitives (e.g., das Evaluieren, 'the evaluating'). Among the many available event nominalization patterns for German, we selected these two because they are both highly productive and challenging from the semantic point of view. Both patterns are known to keep a tight relation with the event denoted by the base verb, but with different nuances. Our study targets a better understanding of the differences in their semantic import.The key notion of our comparison is that of semantic transparency, and we propose a usage-based characterization of the relationship between derived nominals and their bases. Using methods from distributional semantics, we bring to bear two concrete measures of transparency which highlight different nuances: the first one, cosine, detects nominalizations which are semantically similar to their bases; the second one, distributional inclusion, detects nominalizations which are used in a subset of the contexts of the base verb. We find that only the inclusion measure helps in characterizing the difference between the two types of nominalizations, in relation with the traditionally considered variable of relative frequency (Hay, 2001). Finally, the distributional analysis allows us to frame our comparison in the broader coordinates of the inflection vs. derivation cline

FROM LANGUAGE TO LITERACY: STRUCTURAL FEATURES OF ACQUIRED LANGUAGES FACILITATING ENGLISH MORPHOLOGICAL AWARENESS

Morphological awareness is a crucial metalinguistic skill, specifically for English Language Learners (ELLs). Since languages differ widely in degree of orthographic opacity, degree of morphological fusion, and degree of morphological synthesis, this thesis sought to evaluate the impact of the structural features of other languages upon ELLs’ levels of English morphological awareness. Additionally, the study investigated the relationship between morphological awareness and perceived levels of literacy and oracy proficiency. Multilingual individuals responded to an online survey containing a morphological awareness task and a language history questionnaire. Each language represented in the sample was coded according to its structural features. Subsequently, the relationship between the features and morphological awareness was analyzed. Morphological awareness was impacted by a confluence of all three structural features. Knowledge of languages with higher degrees of morphological synthesis or higher degrees of orthographic opacity was found to predict higher levels of morphological awareness. Additionally, perceived English literacy proficiency explained a larger degree of the variance in English morphological awareness than perceived English oracy proficiency, though both were statistically significant. The findings indicate the acquisition of English may be impacted by familiarity with other languages and by perceptions of English proficienc

Mayers-Scotten’s 4-M Model: A Qusai-Experimental Study of Pashto-English Morphological Ability

Bilingualism has been a myth for linguists and language policy and planning professionals for decades. Current study observes morphological ability and bilingual profile of L1 and L2 of Pashto mother-tongue children. Bilingual profile of the participants measured through bilingual language profile (BLP) tool. Both L1 and L2 children were tested before and after intervention. Morphological ability was measured through 4 M model. After 4 weeks of intervention, experimental child was able to read and write complex words with bridge morphemes. In contrast, controlled sample was not exposed to the intervention. The participants performed assigned language tasks and their performance-expressions were analyzed. Study confirms that early and late bridge morphemes are acquired and children have intelligibility of the language despite the fact that BLP shows low profile of the mother tongue. Significant effects of mother tongue were recorded in the participants’ performance. Effects of explicit morphological instruction was focused on identifying Pashto orthography and applying morphological ability on word formations. Findings reveal bilingual profile and patterns of morphological ability after didactic practice of intervention. Intervention contributed in developing Pashto orthography that was crucial for reading and writing proficiency. Direct impact on text-based inference and reading comprehension was another milestone of this qusai-experimental research. This model can be used for longitudinal studies

A word-based approach to Russian derivational morphology with the suffix {+к(а)}

In Russian, there are derivational suffixes which are distinguished by the uniform manner in which they form surface words. These suffixes keep the same phonological/orthographic composition and are found with surface words derived only from a particular base, as seen with {+тель} and {+ость}. However, the suffix {+к(а)} displays more complexity than the suffixes above. While the Item-and-Arrangement morphemic approach seems acceptable when morphemes are organised in a linear arrangement, such as демократ /demokrat/ ‘democrat (m.)’ > демократка /demokratka/ ‘democrat (f.)’, this approach cannot be generalised over other coinages due to the mismatch of the following: 1) the orthographic correspondence as illustrated by болгарин /bolgarin/ ‘Bulgarian (m.)’ > болгарка /bolgarka/ ‘Bulgarian (f.)’; and 2) the semantic relatedness as found with вода /voda/ ‘water’ > водка /vodka/ ‘vodka’. Moreover, the formation of this suffix possibly differs from other counterpart suffixes that denote similar functions/meanings. For instance, this suffix expresses the diminutive meaning as found by дед /ded/ ‘grandfather’ > дедка /dedka/ ‘grandfather (dim.)’. However, the majority of suffixes that denote diminutiveness are masculine, such as {+ок} (город /gorod/ ‘city’ > городок /gorodok/ ‘small city’); {+ик} (дом /dom/ ‘house’ > домик /domik/ ‘small house’); {+чик} (роман /roman/ ‘novel’ > романчик /romanchik/ ‘small novel’), etc. One of the outcomes of this study is a contribution to the debate on morphological models from a morphological perspective only. Other approaches (e.g. psycholinguistics, frequency of occurrence, corpus-based study, experimental-based study, and prototype-radial model) are employed to determine which model describes the word formation process in Russian. I identify the correlation of productivity of {+к(a)} with its mental representation and frequency factor. Also, I demonstrate the effect of relative frequency on coinages of {+к(a)} using corpus materials. The reaction time of native speakers is tested to evaluate whether coinages of {+к(a)} are mentally perceived according to storage or compositional process. Finally, I provide a new look at the semantic distribution of {+к(a)} based on ‘prototype theory’ which connects multiple meanings/functions of {+к(a)} according to ‘family relatedness’ concept. My data on {+к(a)} come from a variety of sources, such as dictionaries, corpora, and an online experiment. I make use of data from a number of Russian dictionaries to ascertain the scope of use of this suffix and provide information on its semantics. Corpora data, however, constitute a more representative source of modern language usage, and I use them to assess the importance of frequency of occurrence. Finally, I employ experimental data to test whether the cognitive perception of native speakers supports a single-route account of word-formation. The suffix {+к(а)} has a substantial influence in Russian since it provides a multiplicity of semantic meanings. It is used in forming a larger number of words compared to other suffixes. Its formation includes a variety of linguistic phenomena which are associated with word formation process (e.g. additive morphology, subtractive morphology, allomorphy, and mutation). This complexity requires explanation. After providing such an explanation and comprehensive details about suffixation in Russian, it will be argued that {+к(a)} can serve as an appropriate tool in order to assess the performance of models of word-formation; it is therefore used to test our hypotheses. I find that the word-based approach represented by the Word and Paradigm (WP) gives a more convincing explanation of linguistic phenomena associated with {+к(а)} and offers a better explanation for the description of {+к(а)} than other approaches, particularly a morpheme-based approach represented by the Item and Arrangement model (IA) or a process-based approach represented by the Item and Process model (IP)