Relating propositions : subordination and coordination strategies in a polysynthetic language

This paper discusses the relationship between the morphological structure of language and its syntactic structure. Although it is primarily a single language which is analysed in detail, namely, Inuktitut, an Eskimo language of the Canadian Eastern Arctic, the findings seem to be of general relevance

The use of aspect in a Gwich'in narrative

Thesis (M.A.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2004This work is an investigation of the role of viewpoint aspect in highlighting and fore grounding information in discourse, and in structuring narrative discourse within a Gwich'in narrative. The purpose is to contribute to a clearer understanding of how aspect functions cross-linguistically. The focus of the analysis is on the perfective/imperfective contrast which involves speaker choice. The findings are that there is an interesting correlation between shift in narrative episode and shift in viewpoint aspect, and additionally, that the use of the perfective does highlight and mark significant information in the narrative. The study also examines the narrative in terms of proposed universals in narrative structure, as outlined by Labov, but does not find enough evidence to support his claims in Gwich'in

Handwriting processes when spelling morphologically complex words in children with and without Developmental Language Disorder

INTRODUCTION: Representations activated during handwriting production code information on morphological structure and reflect decomposition of the root and suffix. Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) have significant difficulties in spelling morphologically complex words, but previous research has not sought evidence for a morphological decomposition effect via an examination of handwriting processes in this population. METHOD: Thirty-three children aged 9-10 years with DLD, 33 children matched for chronological age (CA), and 33 younger children aged 7-8 years matched for oral language ability (LA) completed a dictated spelling task (21 words; 12 with inflectional suffixes, nine with derivational suffixes). The task was completed on paper with an inking pen linked to a graphics tablet running the handwriting software Eye and Pen. Pause analyses and letter duration analyses were conducted. RESULTS: The three groups showed similar handwriting processes, evidencing a morphological decomposition effect in a natural writing task. Pause durations observed at the root/suffix boundary were significantly longer than those occurring in the root. Letter durations were also significantly longer for the letter immediately prior to the boundary compared to the letter after it. Nevertheless, despite being commensurate to their LA matches for mean pause durations and letter durations, children with DLD were significantly poorer at spelling derivational morphemes. Handwriting processes did significantly predict spelling accuracy but to a much lesser extent compared to reading ability. DISCUSSION: It is suggested that derivational spelling difficulties in DLD may derive more from problems with underspecified orthographic representations as opposed to handwriting processing differences

Using TEI for an Endangered Language Lexical Resource: The Nxaʔamxcín Database-Dictionary Project

This paper describes the evolution of a lexical resource project for Nxaʔamxcín, an endangered Salish language, from the project’s inception in the 1990s, based on legacy materials recorded in the 1960s and 1970s, to its current form as an online database that is transformable into various print and web-based formats for varying uses. We illustrate how we are using TEI P5 for data-encoding and archiving and show that TEI is a mature, reliable, flexible standard which is a valuable tool for lexical and morphological markup and for the production of lexical resources. Lexical resource creation, as is the case with language documentation and description more generally, benefits from portability and thus from conformance to standards (Bird and Simons 2003, Thieberger 2011). This paper therefore also discusses standards-harmonization, focusing on our attempt to achieve interoperability in format and terminology between our database and standards proposed for LMF, RELISH and GOLD. We show that, while it is possible to achieve interoperability, ultimately it is difficult to do so convincingly, thus raising questions about what conformance to standards means in practice.National Foreign Language Resource Cente

Morphology and the mental lexicon: Three questions about decomposition

The most basic question for the study of morphology and the mental lexicon is whether or not words are _decomposed_: informally, this is the question of whether words are represented (and processed) in terms of some kind of smaller units; that is, broken down into constituent parts. Formally, what it means to represent or process a word as decomposed or not turns out to be quite complex. One of the basic lines of division in the field classifies approaches according to whether they decompose all “complex” words (“Full Decomposition”), or none (“Full Listing”), or some but not all, according to some criterion (typical of “Dual-Route” models). However, if we are correct, there are at least three senses in which an approach might be said to be decompositional or not, with the result that ongoing discussions of what appears to be a single large issue might not always be addressing the same distinction. Put slightly differently, there is no single question of decomposition. Instead, there are independent but related questions that define current research. Our goal here is to identify this finer-grained set of questions, as they are the ones that should assume a central place in the study of morphological and lexical representation

Syntax of Heritage Languages

In research on heritage speakers, it is often observed that areas of core syntax tend to be resilient and resemble the relevant baseline. This paper discusses this generalization and provides examples of areas that tend to be resilient and areas that are vulnerable. Research into the syntax of heritage speakers has tended to focus on certain areas, such as argument structure and the representation of null arguments (Polinsky 1997, 2006, Pires & Rothman 2007, Rothman 2007, Rothman & Iverson 2007, Montrul 2008, Laleko this volume), meaning that a lot of grammatical domains have not been sufficiently explored. This chapter nevertheless tries to summarize the main findings and outline important methodological and theoretical issues that any work on heritage syntax needs to consider carefully. Examples of the latter include the question of what the appropriate baseline for comparison is, and how to adequately separate morphology and syntax. Empirically, the chapter will consider lexical categories, passives and verb second as examples of relatively resilient areas of syntactic representations. In terms of areas that are more vulnerable, it will look at word order, long-distance dependencies, and discontinuous dependencies