Unua aliro al la uzo de interjekcioj en Esperanto

Interjections are a class of words found across all natural languages. Their use relates to the expression of mental states or speech acts within the discursive context. Although they are relatively common in natural languages, they represent a class of words that are poorly integrated into the grammar, and therefore, are theoretically less predictable as linguistic elements for planned languages ​​such as Esperanto. In this article, I propose to analyze the use of some interjections in Esperanto. The aim is to understand how competent speakers of this language employ interjections. For this, in the first part I review the literature on the linguistic aspects of interjections, in comparison with the Esperanto grammatical tradition; then I analyze the data related to the use of these words by competent speakers, which I obtained through the application of a survey specially designed for this purpose, which is also described in this article

On conversational valence and the definition of interjections

Interjections, like some other word classes, have proven difficult to define in a principled way, and therefore there has been disagreement about whether some words belong to this class. Lists of interjections in grammars sometimes include arguably disparate items, e.g. greeting terms, along with words such as oh and ah. There has also been dispute about the possibility or necessity for interjections to be in a syntactic relation to other components, that is, about their valence. In this paper I propose a definition of interjection which involves an extension of valence in the usual syntactic sense, introducing the notion of conversational valence to distinguish between interjections and words such as goodbye. The latter can only be felicitously used when there is an addressee present, as well as the speaker, thus having a conversational valence of 2, while interjections do not require an addressee, i.e. their conversational valence is 1. For example, if I stub my toe I can appropriately say ouch! in the absence of anyone else. Interjections are distinguished by being the only linguistic items with such a low conversational valence.ANU College of Arts & Social Sciences, School of Language Studies; ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, School of Culture, History and Languag

The EEE corpus: socio-affective "glue" cues in elderly-robot interactions in a Smart Home with the EmOz platform

International audienceThe aim of this preliminary study of feasibility is to give a glance at interactions in a Smart Home prototype between the elderly and a companion robot that is having some socio-affective language primitives as the only vector of communication. The paper particularly focuses on the methodology and the scenario made to collect a spontaneous corpus of human-robot interactions. Through a Wizard of Oz platform (EmOz), which was specifically developed for this issue, a robot is introduced as an intermediary between the technological environment and some elderly who have to give vocal commands to the robot to control the Smart Home. The robot vocal productions increases progressively by adding prosodic levels: (1) no speech, (2) pure prosodic mouth noises supposed to be the "glue's" tools, (3) lexicons with supposed "glue" prosody and (4) subject's commands imitations with supposed "glue" prosody. The elderly subjects' speech behaviours confirm the hypothesis that the socio-affective "glue" effect increase towards the prosodic levels, especially for socio-isolated people. The actual corpus is still on recording process and is motivated to collect data from socio-isolated elderly in real need

The EEE corpus: socio-affective "glue" cues in elderly-robot interactions in a Smart Home with the EmOz platform

International audienceThe aim of this preliminary study of feasibility is to give a glance at interactions in a Smart Home prototype between the elderly and a companion robot that is having some socio-affective language primitives as the only vector of communication. The paper particularly focuses on the methodology and the scenario made to collect a spontaneous corpus of human-robot interactions. Through a Wizard of Oz platform (EmOz), which was specifically developed for this issue, a robot is introduced as an intermediary between the technological environment and some elderly who have to give vocal commands to the robot to control the Smart Home. The robot vocal productions increases progressively by adding prosodic levels: (1) no speech, (2) pure prosodic mouth noises supposed to be the "glue's" tools, (3) lexicons with supposed "glue" prosody and (4) subject's commands imitations with supposed "glue" prosody. The elderly subjects' speech behaviours confirm the hypothesis that the socio-affective "glue" effect increase towards the prosodic levels, especially for socio-isolated people. The actual corpus is still on recording process and is motivated to collect data from socio-isolated elderly in real need

Translating English Sound Symbolism in Italian Comics: A Corpus-Based Linguistic Analysis across Six Decades (1932–1992)

Linking interdisciplinarity and multimodality in translation studies, this paper will analyse the diachronic translation of English ideophones in Italian Disney comics. This is achieved thanks to the compiling of a bi-directional corpus of sound symbolic entries spanning six decades (1932–1992)—a corpus that was created following extensive archival work in various Italian and American libraries between 2014 and 2016. The central aim is to showcase practical examples coming from published comic scripts and to highlight patterns of translation in each of the five different time windows which were chosen according to specific historical, linguistic and cultural vicissitudes taking place in the Italian nation. Overall, the intention is to shed light on an under-developed area of studies that focuses on the cross-linguistical transposition of ideophonic forms in comic books and to pinpoint how greater factors might influence the treatment of such deceptively miniscule elements in the comic books’ pages

Οὐαὶ ὑμῖν... Guai a voi! Dal lamento alla minaccia in greco biblico

This paper aims at investigating the uses and pragmatic functions of οὐαί, an interjection which occurs almost only in biblical Greek. All the Septuaginta and New Testament occurrences will be analysed in order to distinguish between the uses of οὐαί as an interjection -when it expresses lamentations and has no morpho-syntactic link with any element of the sentence- and the other uses of οὐαί – when it is followed by a dative or a nominative of people / other entities that are pitied or threatened. In the Gospels, οὐαίspecifically characterises a very impolite context of enunciations, namely jesus’ verbal attack against Scribes and Pharisees, which starts with a repetitive Οὐαὶ ὑμῖν... Woe to you!; Obiettivo di questo lavoro è descrivere i contesti pragmatici di impiego dell’interiezione οὐαί, che occorre pressoché esclusivamente in greco biblico. Attraverso l’analisi delle occorrenze, in particolare della Settanta e del Nuovo Testamento, verranno distinti gli usi propriamente interiettivi -in cui οὐαί esprime un lamento e non mostra le-gami sintattici con altri elementi della frase- dagli usi non interiettivi, in cui οὐαί si com-bina di solito con il dativo (o accusativo, o ἐπί + accusativo) della persona o dell’entità per la quale ci si rammarica o che si vuole minacciare. Le occorrenze di οὐαί nei Vangeli, in particolare, ci mostrano come essa si specializzi in questo testo per marcare il minaccioso attacco frontale di Gesù a scribi e farisei, introdotto proprio dalla ripetizione della sequenza Οὐαὶ ὑμῖν... Guai a voi

A Corpus-Based Study on the Translation of English Ideophones in Italian Picture Books: The Case of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid

This paper aims to provide the readers with an overview of the nature of sound symbolism in Italian and offers new food for thought to scholars in the under-researched field of sound symbolism in translated literature for young readers. Whilst English uses ideophones in literature for young readers, Italian sound symbolism often seems to rely on Anglophonic creations, arguably due to both linguistic and cultural reasons. The third and fourth books of the series for children and young adults, ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’, have been taken as a source for examples. The books contain both text and pictures, which include ideophones in them. Each of the two English books has been analysed together with their Italian versions, and the strategies employed to translate sound symbolism have been catalogued into a small corpus. The results, on top of elucidating the nature of Italian sound symbolism, show a considerable degree of adaption and a frequent reliance on Anglophonic forms, with scattered attempts made at adapting English ideophones for the Italian readership. This is achieved through the modification of source forms to resemble Italian syntactical structures more closely and through the removal of certain consonant clusters that are considered typically Anglophonic (i.e., ,

Intonation words in initial intentional communication of Mandarin-speaking children

Intonation words play a very important role in early childhood language development and serve as a crucial entry point for studying children’s language acquisition. Utilizing a natural conversation corpus, this paper thoroughly examines the intentional communication scenes of five Mandarin-speaking children before the age of 1;05 (17 months). We found that children produced a limited yet high-frequency set of intonation words such as “啊 [a], 哎 [æ], 欸 [ε], 嗯 [ən], 呃 [ə], eng [əŋ], 哦 [o], and 咦 [i].” These intonation words do not express the children’s emotional attitudes toward propositions or events; rather, they are utilized within the frameworks of imperative, declarative, and interrogative intents. The children employ non-verbal, multimodal means such as pointing, gesturing, and facial expressions to actively convey or receive commands, provide or receive information, and inquire or respond. The data suggests that the function of intonation words is essentially equivalent to holophrases, indicating the initial stage of syntactic acquisition, which is a milestone in early syntactic development. Based on the cross-linguistic universality of intonation word acquisition and its inherited relationship with pre-linguistic intentional vocalizations, this paper proposes that children’s syntax is initiated by the prosodic features of intonation. The paper also contends that intonation words, as the initial form of human vocal language in individual development, naturally extend from early babbling, emotional vocalizations, or sound expressions for changing intentions. They do not originate from spontaneous gesturing, which seems to have no necessary evolutionary relationship with the body postures that chimpanzees use to change intentions, as suggested by existing research. Human vocal language and non-verbal multimodal means are two parallel and non-contradictory forms of communication, with no apparent evidence of the former inheriting from the latter

Proceedings of the 42nd Australian Linguistic Society Conference - 2011

ANU College of Arts & Social Sciences, School of Language Studies; ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, School of Culture, History and Languag