1,087 research outputs found

    Bibliographie

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    Hungarian is a classifier language

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    Natural language software registry (second edition)

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    Morphosyntactic Linguistic Wavelets for Knowledge Management

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    Task complexity and grammatical development in ESL

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    This study investigates whether second language learners’ interlanguage (IL) systems change according to the tasks they perform. This is a long-debated issue in the fields of SLA and language learning pedagogy, as it may have implications for language assessment and syllabus design. Pienemann’s (1998) Steadiness Hypothesis states that the basic nature of an IL system does not change across different communication tasks, provided they involve the same skill type. Pienemann claims that it is the learner’s L2 developmental stage rather than the nature of different tasks, which influences linguistic competence. Tarone (1985, 1988, 2014) and Bayley and Tarone (2012), on the other hand, claim that IL is systematically and predictably variable across tasks as a result of style shifting due to shifts in social and contextual variables such as the topic of the interaction. One important element missing in the debate is the definition of ‘different tasks’. In recent years, however, Robinson’s Cognition Hypothesis (2003) has provided some clear criteria for classifying tasks according to their cognitive complexity. The present study, therefore, tests the two competing positions on IL variability by applying the Cognition Hypothesis for task evaluation. The main research question in the study is whether learners’ IL systems vary with tasks of different degrees of cognitive complexity. In order to answer the question, tasks were designed by manipulating the task complexity variable of ± few elements, ± here-and-now and ± planning time. Tasks used in studies which apply Pienemann’s Processability Theory (PT, 1998) are used in this research. In this study, 30 adult Chinese L1-English L2 learners in Australia were recruited based on their IELTS scores: 10 were from IELTS band 7.0 or above; 10 were from IELTS bands 5.0– 5.5 and 10 were from IELTS band 4.5. First, the issue of competence in relation to tasks was approached by assessing the competence of learners by using traditional PT profiling tasks, such as ‘spot the difference’ tasks. The second step was to use Robinson’s (2007) cognitive complexity criteria to assess learners in each group while they performed a set of picture description tasks. Each learner’s performance was measured in terms of its accuracy and syntactic complexity based on the learner’s PT developmental stage to check whether the IL system across tasks was invariant. The results of this experimental study showed that each learner was quite stable across tasks in terms of morphological and syntactic complexity. The results of the accuracy analysis showed some, but not significant, differences between variables. This suggests that a learner’s IL system remains steady across tasks and within tasks of different degrees of cognitive complexity. The results of this study thus support Pienemann’s Steadiness Hypothesis (1998)

    Modeling information structure in a cross-linguistic perspective

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    This study makes substantial contributions to both the theoretical and computational treatment of information structure, with a specific focus on creating natural language processing applications such as multilingual machine translation systems. The present study first provides cross-linguistic findings in regards to information structure meanings and markings. Building upon such findings, the current model represents information structure within the HPSG/MRS framework using Individual Constraints. The primary goal of the present study is to create a multilingual grammar model of information structure for the LinGO Grammar Matrix system. The present study explores the construction of a grammar library for creating customized grammar incorporating information structure and illustrates how the information structure-based model improves performance of transfer-based machine translation

    Aspects of the Syntax, Production and Pragmatics of code-switching - with special reference to Cantonese-English

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    This dissertation argues for the position that code-switching utterances are constrained by the same set of mechanisms as those which govern monolingual utterances. While this thesis is in line with more recent code-switching theories (e.g. Belazi et al. 1994, MacSwan 1997, Mahootian 1993), this dissertation differs from those works in making two specific claims: Firstly, functional categories and lexical categories exhibit different syntactic behaviour in code-switching. Secondly, codeswitching is subject to the same principles not only in syntax, but also in production and pragmatics. Chapter 2 presents a critical review of constraints and processing models previously proposed in the literature. It is suggested that in view of the vast variety of data, no existing model is completely adequate. Nevertheless, it is argued that a model which does not postulate syntactic constraints (along the lines of Mahootian 1993, MacSwan 1997) or production principles (along the lines of de Bot 1992) specific to code switching is to be preferred on cognitive and theoretical grounds. Chapter 3 concerns word order between lexical heads and their complements in code-switching. It is shown that the language of a lexical head (i.e. noun or verb) may or may not determine the word order of its complement. Chapter 4 investigates word order between functional heads and their complements in code-switching. Contrary to the case with lexical categories, the language of functional heads (e.g. D, I and C) is shown to determine the word order of their complements in code-switching. It is proposed that word order between heads (lexical or functional) and complements is governed by head-parameters, and the difference between lexical heads and functional heads is due to their differential processing and production in terms of Levelt's (1989) algorithm. Chapter 5 investigates the selection properties of functional categories in codeswitching, with special reference to Cantonese-English. Contrary to the Functional Head Constraint (Belazi et al. 1994), it is shown that code-switching can occur freely between functional heads and their complements, provided that the c-selection requirements of the functional heads are satisfied. Chapter 6 investigates the selection properties of lexical categories in code-switching, again with special reference to Cantonese-English. It is shown that "language-specific" c-selection properties need not be observed: a Cantonese verb may take an English DP whereas an English verb may take a Cantonese demonstrative phrase (DemP). Similar phenomena are drawn from other language-pairs involving a language with morphological case and a language without morphological case. The difference between functional categories and lexical categories in their selection properties is again explained in terms of the different production processes they undergo. Chapter 7 is devoted to prepositions which have been problematic in terms of their status as a functional category or a lexical category. Based on the behaviour of prepositions in code-switching, it is suggested that prepositions display a dual character. It is proposed that prepositions may well point to the fact that the conventional dichotomy between functional categories and lexical categories is not a primitive one in the lexicon. Chapter 8 looks at code-switching in a wider perspective. and explores the pragmatic determinants of code-switching in the light of Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson 1995). It is argued that many types of code-switching (e.g. repetitions, quotations, etc.) are motivated by the desire to optimize the "relevance" of a message, with "relevance" as defined in Relevance Theory

    The Montagovian Generative Lexicon ΛT yn: a Type Theoretical Framework for Natural Language Semantics

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    International audienceWe present a framework, named the Montagovian generative lexicon, for computing the semantics of natural language sentences, expressed in many-sorted higher order logic. Word meaning is described by several lambda terms of second order lambda calculus (Girard’s system F): the principal lambda term encodes the argument structure, while the other lambda terms implement meaning transfers. The base types include a type for propositions and many types for sorts of a many-sorted logic for expressing restriction of selection. This framework is able to integrate a proper treatment of lexical phenomena into a Montagovian compositional semantics, like the (im)possible arguments of a predicate, and the adaptation of a word meaning to some contexts. Among these adaptations of a word meaning to contexts, ontological inclusions are handled by coercive subtyping, an extension of system F introduced in the present paper. The benefits of this framework for lexical semantics and pragmatics are illustrated on meaning transfers and coercions, on possible and impossible copredication over different senses, on deverbal ambiguities, and on “fictive motion”. Next we show that the compositional treatment of determiners, quantifiers, plurals, and other semantic phenomena is richer in our framework. We then conclude with the linguistic, logical and computational perspectives opened by the Montagovian generative lexicon

    Formal approaches to number in Slavic and beyond (Volume 5)

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    The goal of this collective monograph is to explore the relationship between the cognitive notion of number and various grammatical devices expressing this concept in natural language with a special focus on Slavic. The book aims at investigating different morphosyntactic and semantic categories including plurality and number-marking, individuation and countability, cumulativity, distributivity and collectivity, numerals, numeral modifiers and classifiers, as well as other quantifiers. It gathers 19 contributions tackling the main themes from different theoretical and methodological perspectives in order to contribute to our understanding of cross-linguistic patterns both in Slavic and non-Slavic languages
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