A Grammar of Paraguayan Guarani

The history of Guarani is a history of resilience. Paraguayan Guarani is a vibrant, modern language, mother tongue to millions of people in South America. It is the only indigenous language in the Americas spoken by a non-ethnically indigenous majority, and since 1992, it is also an official language of Paraguay alongside Spanish. This book provides the first comprehensive reference grammar of Modern Paraguayan Guarani written for an English-language audience. It is an accessible yet thorough and carefully substantiated description of the language’s phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics. It also includes information about its centuries of documented history and its current sociolinguistic situation. Examples come from literary sources and film, scholastic grammars, online newspapers, blogs and other publications, publicly accessible social media data, and the author’s own fieldwork. They are specifically chosen to reflect the diversity of uses of modern-day Guarani, with the aim of providing a realistic picture of the current state of the language in twenty-first century Paraguay. This book will benefit researchers and students of Guarani and Paraguay, such as linguists, anthropologists, ethnographers, sociologists, historians, or cultural studies and literature scholars. Typologically-oriented researchers and students of other Tupian and Amerindian languages will have reliable data for comparative purposes. Given the unique socio-historical profile of Guarani, researchers in fields such as language contact, bilingualism, code-switching, language planning, language education, and literacy will find this book a valuable reference resource

A Grammar of Paraguayan Guarani

The history of Guarani is a history of resilience. Paraguayan Guarani is a vibrant, modern language, mother tongue to millions of people in South America. It is the only indigenous language in the Americas spoken by a non-ethnically indigenous majority, and since 1992, it is also an official language of Paraguay alongside Spanish. This book provides the first comprehensive reference grammar of Modern Paraguayan Guarani written for an English-language audience. It is an accessible yet thorough and carefully substantiated description of the language’s phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics. It also includes information about its centuries of documented history and its current sociolinguistic situation. Examples come from literary sources and film, scholastic grammars, online newspapers, blogs and other publications, publicly accessible social media data, and the author’s own fieldwork. They are specifically chosen to reflect the diversity of uses of modern-day Guarani, with the aim of providing a realistic picture of the current state of the language in twenty-first century Paraguay. This book will benefit researchers and students of Guarani and Paraguay, such as linguists, anthropologists, ethnographers, sociologists, historians, or cultural studies and literature scholars. Typologically-oriented researchers and students of other Tupian and Amerindian languages will have reliable data for comparative purposes. Given the unique socio-historical profile of Guarani, researchers in fields such as language contact, bilingualism, code-switching, language planning, language education, and literacy will find this book a valuable reference resource

La estructura informacional en la triplicación con clíticos del español rioplatense

Presentamos la triplicación de clíticos (TCL) en español rioplatense como una construcción en la que dos frases nominales y un clítico comparten la función objeto (directo) de un predicado transitivo y analizamos su función comunicativa como la de permitir al hablante una mayor flexibilidad a la hora de asignar estatus informacionales a distintos constituyentes de la oración. De esta forma, se vuelve más transparente la correspondencia entre los constituyentes de la oración y su estructura informacional, de manera similar a lo que sucede en las lenguas configuracionales de discurs

El modelo de las fuerzas discursivas y el doblado de clíticos rioplatense

El español expresa objetos directos mediante clíticos, sintagmas nominales independientes lexicales o pronominales, o ambos (doblado de clíticos). Esta última estructura presenta problemas para las teorías sintácticas que asumen que cada argumento de un predicado puede ser expresado una sola vez. Mucho se ha escrito sobre la representación estructural y semántica del doblado de clíticos de objeto directo. Sin embargo, aún no sabemos qué impulsa a los hablantes a utilizar estas estructuras aparentemente redundantes. En este trabajo analizamos el dialecto Rioplatense, generalmente entendido como el más permisivo con respecto al doblado de objetos directos, admitiendo el doblado no sólo de pronombres animados y de objetos directos animados, sino también el de objetos directos inanimados. El objetivo de este trabajo es mostrar que el doblado de clíticos responde a fuerzas discursivas que requieren independientemente la expresión de un objeto directo como clítico y como sintagma nominal lexical. El análisis relaciona la estructura del discurso con las jerarquías tipológicas universales de marcaje de argumentos verbales para explicar bajo qué condiciones un hablante rioplatense escoge una estructura de doblado para satisfacer diferentes presiones discursivas. Los ejemplos proceden de un corpus de cuatro textos referenciados en el apéndice, más ejemplos recogidos de la red. </div

El modelo de las fuerzas discursivas y el doblado de clíticos rioplatense

El español expresa objetos directos mediante clíticos, sintagmas nominales independientes lexicales o pronominales, o ambos (doblado de clíticos). Esta última estructura presenta problemas para las teorías sintácticas que asumen que cada argumento de un predicado puede ser expresado una sola vez. Mucho se ha escrito sobre la representación estructural y semántica del doblado de clíticos de objeto directo. Sin embargo, aún no sabemos qué impulsa a los hablantes a utilizar estas estructuras aparentemente redundantes. En este trabajo analizamos el dialecto Rioplatense, generalmente entendido como el más permisivo con respecto al doblado de objetos directos, admitiendo el doblado no sólo de pronombres animados y de objetos directos animados, sino también el de objetos directos inanimados. El objetivo de este trabajo es mostrar que el doblado de clíticos responde a fuerzas discursivas que requieren independientemente la expresión de un objeto directo como clítico y como sintagma nominal lexical. El análisis relaciona la estructura del discurso con las jerarquías tipológicas universales de marcaje de argumentos verbales para explicar bajo qué condiciones un hablante rioplatense escoge una estructura de doblado para satisfacer diferentes presiones discursivas. Los ejemplos proceden de un corpus de cuatro textos referenciados en el apéndice, más ejemplos recogidos de la red.

Language Characteristics of Individuals with Down Syndrome

On average, language and communication characteristics of individuals with Down syndrome (the most common genetic cause of intellectual disability) follow a consistent profile. Despite considerable individual variability, receptive language is typically stronger than expressive language, with particular challenges in phonology and syntax. We review the literature on language and literacy skills of individuals with Down syndrome, with emphasis on the areas of phonology, vocabulary, syntax, and pragmatics. We begin by describing the hearing, oral-motor, cognitive, social, and prelinguistic and early nonverbal communication characteristics of individuals with Down syndrome. We conclude with a discussion of clinical implications and research directions

Narrative skill in boys with fragile X syndrome with and without autism spectrum disorder

We examined recalled narratives of boys with fragile X syndrome with autism spectrum disorder (FXS-ASD; N=28) and without ASD (FXS-O; N=29), and compared them to those of boys with Down syndrome (DS; N=33) and typically developing boys (TD; N=39). Narratives were scored for mentions of macrostructural Story Grammar elements (Introduction, Relationship, Initiating Events, Internal Response, Attempts/Actions, and Ending). We found that narrative recall is predicted by short-term memory and nonverbal mental age levels in almost all groups (except TD), but not by expressive syntax or caregiver education. After adjusting for these covariates, there were no differences between the three groups with intellectual disability (ID). The FXS-ASD group, however, had significantly poorer performance than the TD group on the overall Story Grammar score, and both the FXS-O and FXS-ASD groups had lower Attempts/Actions scores than the TD group. We conclude that some form of narrative impairment may be associated with FXS, that this impairment may be shared by other forms of ID, and that the presence of ASD has a significantly detrimental effect on narrative recall

Longitudinal Profiles of Expressive Vocabulary, Syntax, and Pragmatic Language in Boys with Fragile X Syndrome or Down Syndrome

Fragile X syndrome (FXS) and Down syndrome (DS) are the two leading genetic causes of intellectual disability, and FXS is the most common known genetic condition associated with autism. Both FXS and DS are associated with significant language impairment, but little is known about expressive language across domains over time or the role of autism in language development in FXS

Cognitive, Environmental, and Linguistic Predictors of Syntax in Fragile X Syndrome and Down Syndrome

We examined which cognitive, environmental, and speech/language variables predict expressive syntax in boys with fragile X syndrome (FXS), Down syndrome (DS), and typical development (TD), and whether predictive relationships differed by group

Expressive morphosyntax in boys with Fragile X syndrome with and without autism spectrum disorder

Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is the most common inherited cause of intellectual disability, and the most common single gene disorder associated with autism. Language impairments in this disorder are well documented, but the nature and extent of syntactic impairments are still unclear