Increasing information accessibility on the Web: a rating system for specialized dictionaries

The paper illustrates the features of the WLR (Web Linguistic Resources) portal, which collects specialized online dictionaries and asses their suitability for different functions using a specifically designed rating system. The contribution aims to demonstrate how the existing tool has improved the usefulness of lexico-graphical portals and how its effectiveness can be further increased by transforming the portal into a collaborative resource.Questo contributo descrive le caratteristiche del portale WLR (Web Linguistic Resources) che raccoglie dizionari specialistici della Rete e ne stima l’utilizzabilità per diverse funzioni, avvalendosi di uno specifico sistema di valutazione. Viene quindi mostrato come questo strumento incrementi l’utilizzabilità dei portali lessicografici finora sviluppati e come la sua efficacia possa essere ulteriormente migliorata trasformandolo in risorsa collaborativa

The Italian ‘mobile diphtongs’ A test case for experimental phonetics and phonological theory.

The Italian ‘mobile diphthongs’ sheds light on the complexity of one of the salient analogical changes that occurred in the Italian language, viz. the elimination of the alternation between the stressed diphthongs [jE] and [wO] and the unstressed monophthongs [e] and [o], respectively, within a limited group of inflectional and derivational paradigms. Historically, the monophthong–diphthong alternation was the consequence of a pan-Romance diphthongization process that affected the Late Latin low mid vowels in stressed positions. The relatively recent levelling of this alternation has led to a great deal of variation: in some cases the alternations are maintained while in others they have been eliminated. The first aim of the present study was to scrutinize durational aspects of Italian diphthongs and monophthongs in general. The second aim was to examine to what extent the variation caused by analogical levelling of the monophthong–diphthong alternation, attested in written sources, also occurs in the spoken language. To investigate these issues, a series of production experiments was carried out with native speakers of Italian. The final aim was to provide a coherent phonological treatment of the insights provided by the experiments within the framework of Optimality Theory.The book is intended as a contribution to experimental phonetics and phonology. It introduces an exciting tool for language-variation research, the speech-shadowing technique, and discusses recent phonological approaches to phenomena such as glide formation, analogy and paradigm uniformity. Therefore, this study is of interest to both phoneticians and phonologists, as well as to linguists with a special interest in Italian.LEI Universiteit LeidenResearch in and through artistic practic

A scrutinence of newies: corpus-based and experimental analyses of derivational word-formation in British English

This thesis is a comprehensive study of the mechanisms involved in the creation, recognition and understanding of new words in present-day British English formed by derivational suffixation. It is particularly interested in the formation of disposable words that are coined for a single use and thus do not gain official entries in dictionaries of English. An analysis of the use of the term “Productivity” and its attention in the literature revealed that it is inconsistent and in some cases incomplete; therefore a rationale was formed for a more comprehensive analysis through the examination of neologisms formed by suffixation. The research adopted two different but complementing methodologies to examine the Creativity of 145 suffixes in terms of the number of neologisms they create relative to their category size. Firstly, a corpus-based approach was taken, which considered twelve factors that could affect the number of neologisms a suffix creates; these included Derivative Factors of Prevalence, Opacity, Regularity, Convertibility and Distinguishability, and Base Factors of Stress Transfer, Sound Change, Truncation, Semantic Shift, Atypical PoS, Complexity and Allomorphic Variant. These factors were compared diachronically and across registers using databases formed from components of the original British National Corpus and the new Spoken BNC2014 (Love et al. 2017) to determine changes in the nature of Creativity over time and between contexts. It was concluded that two of the most influential factors on Creativity are the suffix’s frequency in the language (Prevalence), and the density of non-transparent members of its category (Opacity). Secondly, an experimental approach was taken to examine the ability of speakers to recognize and understand neologisms based on these factors through a Semantic Decision Task and Judgement Task, with reference to dual-route models of complex-word processing (Frauenfelder & Schreuder 1992; Schreuder & Baayen 1995) that predict faster processing times when the dual route is employed. To examine their ability to extract consistent meanings from neologisms, participants also participated in a follow-up study in which they were required to define neologisms. This study has shown that speakers generally have an extensive knowledge of suffixes and suffixation processes; the results of the Semantic Decision Task have provided support for theories of dual-route processing, where the employment of both direct and parsed routes increases the speed with which recognition and understanding can occur. The findings also have strong implications for the changing style of conversational speech towards patterns typical of more formal registers through suffixational Creativity; further study could examine present-day material of more formal registers to investigate whether these trends are one-way or if it is instead the case that register differences are becoming obscured by derivational Creativity and a move towards a common register for a wider variety of contexts

Deverbal Nouns in Modern Hebrew: Between Grammar and Competition

Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit den morphosyntaktischen und derivationellen Eigenschaften von Nominalisierungen im modernen Hebräisch und ihrer strukturelle Repräsentation. Eine zentrale Fragestellung im Rahmen von ‚hybriden‘ Wortbildungen wie Nominalisierungen ist die Ähnlichkeit bzw. die Unähnlichkeit zu den ihr zugrundeliegenden Verben. Unter Heranziehung des Hebräischen, einer Sprache mit reicher morphologischer Markierung, sowohl bei Verben als auch bei Nominalisierungen, werden mehrere Divergenzen zwischen Verben und entsprechenden Nominalisierungen im Bereich der Argument- und Ereignisstruktur eliminiert. Ausgehend von der einflussreichen These der Gleichsetzung von Nominalisierung und Passivierung untersucht diese Studie die syntaktische Struktur und deren Interaktion mit dem Wortbildungsprozess der Nominalisierung und zeigt, dass Eigenschaften, die für Passivformen typisch sind, in Nominalisierungen fehlen. Dabei präsentiert diese Studie mit der Untersuchung morphosyntaktischer Faktoren und deren Beziehungen zu Nominalisierungen, der Inkonsistenzen aufzeigt. Durch einen Vergleich von etwa 3000 Verben auf Basis der Verbklassenmorphologie ergibt sich eine signifikante Asymmetrie zwischen Nominalisierungen, die eine mediale/intransitive Markierung tragen, und Nominalisierungen, die als aktiv markiert sind, wobei sich die mediale Form in zwei klar definierten syntaktischen Kontexten als weniger produktiv erweist. Dies zeigt sich auch dadurch, dass alternierende Wurzeln, also Wurzeln die sowohl aktive als auch mediale Verbformen ausbilden können, bilden ihre Nominalisierungen auf Basis ihrer aktiven Form. Auf Basis der Konzepte von Konkurrenz und Markiertheit werden diese paradigmatischen Lücken nicht als grammatisch bedingte Inkompatibilitäten analysiert, sondern als eine generelle Präferenz für weniger markierte Formen (aktiv-markierte Nominalisierungen) gegenüber komplexeren (medial-markierte Nominalisierungen), wie in der Performanz häufig zu beobachten.This study is concerned with the properties, structural representation and derivational patterns of deverbal nouns (DNs) in Modern Hebrew. A recurring question arises in the context of such ‘hybrid’ formations: precisely how similar or far-apart are these derivatives from the verbs from which they originate? Enlisting Hebrew, a language with rich morphological marking on both verbs as well as DNs, several loci of divergence between verbs and respective DNs in the domain of argument- and event-structure are eliminated. Taking as a point of reference the influential view which equates the processes of nominalization and passivization, this study scrutinizes syntactic structure and its interaction with nominalization, showing that behaviours typical of passives are absent from DNs. a finding which weakens long-standing beliefs bearing on this class. A novel area of exploration offered in this study is the examination of morpho-syntactic factors and their interaction with nominalization, a domain where inconsistencies do arise. What emerges from a comparison of some 3000 verbs based on verb-class (templatic) morphology is a significant asymmetry between DNs carrying Middle (intransitive) marking and DNs marked as Active, wherein Middle forms are found to be less productive in two well-defined syntactic contexts. Not entirely absent, however, the same roots which fail to surface with Middle morphology are perfectly licit when derived from the corresponding Active verb (in case of alternating roots). Building on the notions of competition and markedness, such paradigmatic gaps are analysed not as grammatically-determined incompatibilities, but as a consistent preference for less-marked forms (Active-marked DNs) over more complex ones (Middle-marked DNs), a trend which lies within the realm of performance. As such, Hebrew DNs constitute a case study of the interrelations between the syntactic and morphological modules, and pragmatics

William Dwight Whitney and the Science of Language

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Dutch A-Scrambling Is Not Movement: Evidence from Antecedent Priming

The present study focuses on A-scrambling in Dutch, a local word-order alternation that typically signals the discourse-anaphoric status of the scrambled constituent. We use cross-modal priming to investigate whether an A-scrambled direct object gives rise to antecedent reactivation effects in the position where a movement theory would postulate a trace. Our results indicate that this is not the case, suggesting that A-scrambling in Dutch results from variation in base-generated order

The Philological-Pragmatic Approach : A Study of Language Choice and Code-Switching in Early Modern English School Performances

In this study I set out to account for certain central aspects of language choice and code-switching. My purpose is twofold: to explain why people use multiple languages within a single discourse or choose to use a particular language in a particular setting, and to demonstrate the feasibility and usefulness of combining philosophical and empirical research. Towards these ends, I develop a philological-pragmatic approach and apply it to a collection of multilingual texts. The material consists of the Orationes manuscript (Canterbury, Canterbury Cathedral Archives Lit. MS E41), containing speeches and plays in English, Latin, and Greek performed by students at the King’s School, Canterbury, in 1665–1684. I conduct a philosophical and methodological analysis of the philological-pragmatic approach, construct a framework on the basis of that analysis, and apply it in the empirical analyses to understand and explain actions. The philosophical and methodological analyses indicate that a basis for the philological-pragmatic approach can be constructed by reinterpreting philology and pragmatics from the perspective of action analysis and theory of action: philology as the study of concrete action-tokens (interpretation), pragmatics as the study of abstract action-types (explication and classification). The empirical analyses indicate that multilingual language use is an important and characteristic strategy in the Orationes texts. Three explanatory entities were central in accounting for multilingual language use: consequences of actions, causal antecedents, and further actions/forms. Consequences were classified into five basic categories: face-related, textual, argumentative, stylistic, and capacitative. These taxonomies sufficiently accounted for the patterns of language use observed in the dataset. The study constitutes the first book-length investigation of the Orationes texts. In addition to advancing our understanding of the roots of multilingual language use in the Early Modern English period, the patterns identified have several parallels both in different periods and in different cultures. Detecting such patterns has the potential to contribute to an integrated account of the phenomenon. Finally, the study offers other researchers a model for combining philology and pragmatics.Käsittelen väitöskirjassani kielen valintaa ja koodinvaihtoa. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on yhtäältä selittää, miksi yhden diskurssin sisällä käytetään useita kieliä tai tietyissä tilanteissa valitaan tietty kieli, ja toisaalta tuoda esiin hyötyjä, joita saadaan yhdistämällä filosofinen ja empiirinen tutkimus. Kehitän tutkimuksessani ns. filologis-pragmaattisen lähestymistavan ja sovellan sitä monikielisen tekstikokoelman analyysiin. Aineistoni koostuu Orationes-käsikirjoituksesta (Canterbury, Canterbury Cathedral Archives Lit. MS E41), joka sisältää Canterburyn King’s Schoolin oppilaiden vuosina 1665–1684 esittämiä puheita ja näytelmiä. Teksteissä käytettävät kielet ovat englanti, latina ja kreikka. Laadin filosofisen ja menetelmäopillisen kuvauksen filologis-pragmaattisesta lähestymistavasta, kehitän analyysin pohjalta viitekehyksen ja sovellan tätä viitekehystä tutkimuksen empiirisessä osassa tekojen ymmärtämiseen ja selittämiseen. Filosofisten ja menetelmäopillisten analyysien perusteella filologis-pragmaattinen lähestymistapa voidaan rakentaa määrittelemällä filologia ja pragmatiikka tekojen tutkimisen näkökulmasta: filologia tutkii konkreettisia tekoesiintymiä (menetelmänä tulkinta), pragmatiikka abstrakteja tekotyyppejä (menetelminä eksplikaatio ja luokittelu). Empiirisen analyysin perusteella monikielinen kielenkäyttö on keskeinen osa Orationes-tekstejä. Selityksissä viittasin erityisesti tekojen seurauksiin, kausaalisiin tekijöihin sekä muihin tekoihin/rakenteisiin. Luokittelin tekojen seuraukset edelleen kasvoihin liittyviin, tekstuaalisiin, argumentatiivisiin, stilistisiin ja mahdollistaviin. Näiden taksonomioiden avulla pystyin selittämään tutkittavat ilmiöt aineistossani. Väitöstutkimukseni on ensimmäinen laaja tutkimus Orationes-teksteistä. Tutkimuksen tulokset auttavat ymmärtämään monikielisen kielenkäytön juuria 1600-luvun Britanniassa. Vertaamalla tuloksia aiempiin tutkimuksiin löydetään yhtymäkohtia eri aikakausilta ja eri kulttuureista. Näitä yhtymäkohtia tarkastelemalla saavutetaan entistä kattavampi käsitys monikielisen kielenkäytön luonteesta. Tutkimukseni tarjoaa myös yleisen mallin filologian ja pragmatiikan yhdistämiseen

The syntax and discourse function of preposed temporal ἐπεί-clauses in Homeric Greek

The interplay in the Iliad and Odyssey between preposed temporal ἐπεί-clauses and preceding text is investigated. It is demonstrated that the metrical and compositional conditions of the poems influence lexical and grammatical form, distorting or restricting the semantics of some words while prescribing a limited set of phrasal patterns from which to form subordinate clauses. By combining in a single investigation observations on the syntax and discourse function of ἐπεί-clauses, a distinction can be drawn between components which are predominantly necessary for metrical or information purposes (such as αὐτάρ and personal pronouns) and those which facilitate the organisation of the text (such as the antiphonal relationship of imperfect and aorist accounts of events). Following an introduction to the syntax of ἐπεί-clauses, Chapter 3 argues that out of metrical necessity the typical antithetical meaning of αὐτάρ weakened to a progressive meaning when juxtaposed to ἐπεί. In Chapter 4 instances of left-dislocation of noun phrases before a preposed ἐπεί-clause are considered. It is suggested that this dislocation is determined by the discourse processing challenges posed by subordination and does not perform the role of organising discourse on a broader textual basis. Chapter 5 surveys the discourse function of the ἐπεί-clauses with the observation made that those clauses which start books bear a subtly different relationship to preceding text when compared with book-internal clauses. In Chapter 6 a range of preposed clauses are examined; they are shown to relate back to preceding text through recapitulation or through expectancy. Chapter 7 considers the discourse function of ἐπεί-clauses which, in their relationship to a preceding account of the commencement of that event, emphasise thorough completion. The wording of the ἐπεί-clause is considered in Chapter 8, with the observation made that ἐπεί-clauses which denote completion are lexically and/or phrasally distinctive

Geolinguistic variation of Hebridean Gaelic: the role of nominal morphology

This thesis investigates the geographical variation of inflectional markers used in noun phrases by speakers of Scottish Gaelic. I focus on the traditional vernacular and therefore the data represent the speech of older L1 speakers from one of the language’s heartlands: the Hebridean archipelago. I interviewed 41 speakers above the age of 50 from 18 locations on 10 islands and used dialectometric methods to analyse the data. This thesis contributes to Gaelic and linguistic research by providing: (1) an updated account of morphological and geographical variation in the traditional Gaelic vernacular; (2) further evaluation of quantitative analyses of morphology and macrolevel variation; (3) a theory of the hierarchy of inflectional markedness for Gaelic; and (4) a critical geolinguistic approach to the study of Gaelic and morphology applied to quantitative and qualitative data. The fieldwork component of this research consisted of a sociolinguistic interview, an elicitation task, and a questionnaire to collect contributors’ demographic background and linguistic attitudes. I interrogated the data with regression, cluster, and correlation analyses. The results from these analyses were visualized on maps. The results show that location is a powerful predictor of morphological variation. Locations, as a predictor, are explored through their demographic, topographic, and social context. Gaelic is a minority language under pressure from varieties of English and Scots, and therefore I also explore typological (e.g. contact-induced change) and sociolinguistic (e.g. hypercorrection) contact phenomena as explanations for morphological variation. This thesis presents evidence of considerable morphological variation within localized varieties of Gaelic. The results indicate that more northerly islands are generally more conservative in their treatment of nominal morphology, while more southerly islands are generally more innovative. These patterns correlate to some extent with the percentage of the local population that speak Gaelic, which suggests that conservative forms are supported in communities with greater densities of Gaelic speakers. Lewis is an exception in that it is the most northerly island, with some of the largest proportions of Gaelic speakers in the archipelago. Yet nominal morphology in Lewis cannot be classified as either ‘conservative’ or ‘innovative’. I argue that these patterns can be explained by segmental phonology, historical localisms, and typological phenomena (e.g. independent co-occurrence). Based on the findings from the statistical and critical analyses, I propose that: (1) typological and sociolinguistic phenomena (e.g. phonological variation and hypercorrection respectively) can account for variation; (2) variation can be explained by a hierarchy of markedness (in which more salient morphological markers are more prevalent); and (3) contact phenomena may be interacting with the hierarchy of markedness at both a linguistic and sociolinguistic level. The findings do not suggest morphosyntactic convergence from contact. Rather, much of the variation appears to be conditioned by the internal typological structures of Gaelic

Language Dispersal Beyond Farming

Why do some languages wither and die, while others prosper and spread? Around the turn of the millennium a number of archaeologists such as Colin Renfrew and Peter Bellwood made the controversial claim that many of the world’s major language families owe their dispersal to the adoption of agriculture by their early speakers. In this volume, their proposal is reassessed by linguists, investigating to what extent the economic dependence on plant cultivation really impacted language spread in various parts of the world. Special attention is paid to "tricky" language families such as Eskimo-Aleut, Quechua, Aymara, Bantu, Indo-European, Transeurasian, Turkic, Japano-Koreanic, Hmong-Mien and Trans-New Guinea, that cannot unequivocally be regarded as instances of Farming/Language Dispersal, even if subsistence played a role in their expansio