bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Lakota aspect/modality markers -kinica and tkhá
Authors: Pustet Regina
Published: March 2014

Developments of aspectual out of modal grammemes do not appear to be sufficiently documented in the extant literature on grammaticalization. The Native American language Lakota is equipped with two grammatical elements which encode both aspectual and modal concepts: -kinica ‘‘proximative, intentional’’ and the highly polysemous tkhá ‘‘proximative, past completive, past counterfactual, past obligative, past suppositive’’. This study investigates the diachronic connections between the various meanings of these grammemes, in particular, with regard to evidence for direct grammaticalization links between their aspectual and modal meanings
Aspects of a reconstruction of form and function of modal verbs in Germanic and other languages
Authors: Kotin Michail L.
Published: March 2014

Genuine modal verbs in the Germanic languages classify as preterit presents. Since the Germanic preterit derives genetically from the Indo-European perfect and since there is no trace of the original Indo-European present stems of the modal verbs, one generally assumes that these verbal classes were perfecta tantum, i.e., a morphological paradigm of the proto-language lacking any imperfectivepresent corresponding forms. The reconstruction shows that the root modality derives directly from the perfective and, respectively, the perfective-medial function. This boils down to the temporal reconstruction of the aspectual function. Comparing the Slavic aspect languages confirms the hypothesis offered by Abraham (1987, 1991, 2001, 2005) and Leiss (1992, 2000, 2002a–d) about the categorial affinity between root modality and perfective aspectuality.
Quoting and topic-marking: Some observations on the quotative tte construction in Japanese
Authors: Suzuki Ryoko
Published: March 2014

Tte is a frequent marker in Japanese conversation exhibiting multiple discourse functions: as a quotative, topic-marker, utterance-final pragmatic particle, and utterance-initial repair marker. We focus on the relationship between the original quotative function and the topic-marking function found in conversational portions of novels spanning 200 years. Three patterns are suggested: tte (1) forms a link between itself and part of the previous speaker’s utterance through immediate repetition, (2) relates itself with an entity present in the current context, or (3) introduces the name of an entity not present in the current context (keeping track of it). It is possible that the more concrete, relational aspect of tte, connecting utterances/objects, is weakened and the referential aspect, introducing referents, develops over time.
The definiteness of subjects and objects in Malagasy
Authors: Keenan Edward L.
Published: March 2014

We evaluate, for Malagasy (W. Austronesian; Madagascar), a standard observation regarding the distribution and marking of (in)definites in subject and in object position. Bare nouns naturally constitute direct objects (DOs) with an indefinite interpretation. But definite DOs are also natural, and some are marked with a preposition which also has a locative function (cf Roumanian, Spanish). Bare Ns do not occur as subjects, whereas inherently definite DPs – proper nouns, personal pronouns, demonstratives, Ns with a definite or previous mention article do. However three classes of Quantified DPs – cardinal, universal, and proportionality ones, also naturally occur as subjects. They are constructed with an apparent definite article, but their meanings in English would be called indefinite.
Fixedness in Japanese adjectives in conversation
Authors: Ono Tsuyoshi , Thompson Sandra A.
Published: March 2014

Japanese adjectives have received a fair amount of attention for their intriguing morphological and diachronic properties. Adjectives have also been discussed in the typological literature, largely in terms of their status as a lexical category vis-à-vis nouns and verbs. Rather little research has been done, however, on the everyday use of adjectives in Japanese conversation. In our paper, we aim to show that (a) adjective usage in conversation is intricately bound up with fixedness and frequency; (b) a usage-based approach reveals that interactional and cognitive practices are deeply intertwined in this lexical category for Japanese speakers; (c) these facts reflect the nature of human language as an emergent phenomenon. Based on a substantial corpus of Japanese conversations, we find that (a) attributive adjectives are very rare; (b) among predicative adjectives, as well as the rare attributive adjectives, the most frequently occurring forms strongly tend to be associated with various types of fixedness, demonstrating its central status in our attempt to represent the grammar for real speakers.
From ‘remaining’ to ‘becoming’ in Spanish
Authors: Wilson Damián Vergara
Published: March 2014

This study is based on Bybee & Eddington (2006), a synchronic study of the exemplar clusters formed by adjectives in four Spanish verb + adjective combinations used as constructions to denote a change of state (ponerse + adj, hacerse + adj, quedarse + adj, & volverse + adj). One main goal of the current study is to employ the exemplar model in a diachronic setting. This investigation studies the development of exemplar clusters of adjectives in the expression of ‘becoming’ quedar(se) + adjective in four periods: the 13th, 15th, 17th, and 19th centuries. This study provides evidence that, a.) prefabs serve as the central members of exemplar categories, b.) prefabs have longevity, c.) categories mutate over time by becoming more centralized, changing central members, or by expanding.
Re(e)volving complexity
Authors: Mithun Marianne
Published: March 2014

A fruitful methodology for tracing the development of grammatical complexity has been the examination of centuries of written texts. Yet written documents necessarily remain silent about the prosody of the evolving constructions. An awareness of prosodic patterns can further our understanding of the emergence of complex constructions in several ways. The focus here is on early stages of development of individual constructions within a language, first when prosody is the only indication of complex structure, then when emerging marked constructions are still very young. Processes of development are illustrated with developing complement and relative constructions in Mohawk.
Elements of complex structures, where recursion isn’t
Authors: Shibatani Masayoshi
Published: March 2014

In their recent work, Hauser, Chomsky and Fitch (2002:1569) suggest that recursion “is the only uniquely human component of the faculty of language”. In both generative and typological studies, the relativization site has been considered to be one of the places where recursion of sentences takes place. This paper examines a number of wide-spread patterns of relativization around the globe and argues that what have been identified as relative clauses/sentences are in fact nominalized entities, lacking some crucial properties of both full clauses and sentences. It is furthermore shown that these nominalized forms are neither syntactically nor semantically subordinate to the nominal head they modify.
On the role of frequency and similarity in the acquisition of subject and non-subject relative clauses
Authors: Diessel Holger
Published: March 2014

Frequency and similarity are important determinants for the acquisition of children’s early item-based constructions. This paper argues that frequency and similarity are equally important for the development of more complex and intricate grammatical phenomena such as relative clauses. Specifically, the paper shows that the acquisition of relative clauses is crucially determined by the similarity between particular types of relative clauses and simple SVO constructions. Two specific hypotheses are proposed: First, since subject relatives have the same word order as ordinary SVO clauses, they usually cause fewer difficulties in comprehension studies than non-subject relatives. Second, while non-subject relatives are structurally distinct from SVO clauses, semantically they are expressed by prototypical transitive constructions, which arguably helps the child to learn this type of relative clause.
Syntactic complexity versus concatenation in a verbal production task
Authors: Barker Marjorie , Pederson Eric
Published: March 2014

We tested whether the speaker’s communicative intent drives the selection of grammatical constructions. Participants viewed complex human action video stimuli and were asked to respond in detail to a single question for each video concerning either what had happened (eliciting descriptions) or why a particular event had occurred (eliciting explanations). We predicted that responses to the why questions would contain more syntactically complex constructions (specifically verbal complements), while responses to the what questions would be more concatenated. The experimental results with these stimuli did not uphold the first part of the hypothesis: complexity in the form of syntactic embedding was statistically equivalent under both conditions. However, there was significantly more concatenation in the form of coordination in the what condition.
Cognitive and neural underpinnings of syntactic complexity
Authors: Fernandez-Duque Diego
Published: March 2014

Based on a review of the neuroimaging literature, I argue that the resources allocated for processing syntactically complex sentences (i.e., object-extracted relative clauses) are domain-general. Overlapping brain areas are activated by OR clauses and by effortful executive tasks, such as storing information in verbal working memory, resolving conflict among competing representations, and switching one’s mindset. A re-conceptualization of ‘syntactic complexity’ in terms of executive functions provides a useful framework in which to explore its links to relational complexity and to cognitive neuroscience, in general. As such, this approach should prove useful to linguists and cognitive scientists alike.
Neural mechanisms of recursive processing in cognitive and linguistic complexity
Authors: Tucker Don M. , Luu Phan , Poulsen Catherine
Published: March 2014

Cognition in the human brain requires processes of memory consolidation and retrieval that are carried out across reentrant connections between limbic cortex and multiple network levels of the neocortex. Given this layered architecture, and the point-to-point reentrance of the connections, cognition is likely to be recursive, changing its internal representations dynamically with each cycle of consolidation. To provide structure and constancy within this dynamic interplay, language operations appear to draw on the capacity for inhibitory specification emergent within the ventral, paleocortical corticolimbic pathways. We propose that inhibitory specification has been essential to regulate the dynamism of recursive consolidation, supporting the evolution of both the object qualities of words and the regularized structure of grammar.
Polysynthesis in the Arctic
Authors: Mithun Marianne
Published: March 2014

Among the most frequently cited typological characteristics of American languages is polysynthesis, a term coined in 1816 by Duponceau to describe words in American languages containing large numbers of morphemes. Major scholars since that time, including Boas, Sapir, and Greenberg, have also described certain American languages as polysynthetic, citing Eskimoan languages as prime examples. Recently however, Baker specifically excluded Eskimoan languages from the class of polysynthetic languages on the grounds that they lack one of his criterial structures: noun incorporation. Here it is shown that Eskaleut languages contain constructions diachronically and functionally equivalent to prototypical noun incorporation, like that of Iroquoian. They differ in certain other respects because of the distinct diachronic pathways by which their modern sentence structures have developed.
Polysynthesis as a typological feature
Authors: de Reuse Willem J.
Published: March 2014

Polysynthesis is characterized as a type of morphology, qualitatively different from inflectional morphology and from derivational morphology and redefined as productive noninflectional concatenation (PNC). Like syntax and unlike derivational morphology, PNC is fully productive, potentially recursive, necessarily concatenative, allows for ordering variability of some elements, and interacts with syntax. Unlike inflectional morphology and like syntax and derivational morphology, PNC can be category-changing. This postulated morphological feature is very prevalent in polysynthetic language families such as Eskimo (illustrated by Siberian Yupik), but not very prevalent in other language families often designated as polysynthetic, such as Athabascan (illustrated by Western Apache). This new characterization of polysynthesis has as an interesting consequence its existence, to a small degree, in Indo-European languages.
The impact of clause types and focus control, aspect, modality, and referentiality on
negation in Lamang and Hdi (Central Chadic)
Authors: Wolff H. Ekkehard
Published: March 2014

Negation in two closely related Central Chadic languages (Lamang, Hdi) is deeply
intertwined with focus and clause types. Marked modality and morphologically marked
negation are mutually exclusive; in senso strictu, the negation domain is restricted to
the indicative mood. Negation interacts in a systematic way with aspectuality through
the intrinsic focus characteristics of some of the aspectual forms. Indirectly,
therefore, negation interacts also with referentiality, since referentiality links up
again with apectuality and modality. The languages have developed several negation
strategies (e.g. general/simple negation, a focus negation frame, a non-focus negation
frame, dependent clause negation) and use negative tagging. Lamang has developed a
special contrastive term focus negation strategy. The languages differ remarkably,
however, with regard to the compatibility of inflexional formatives with negative
markers.
Quantification and polarity
Authors: Jaggar Philip J.
Published: March 2014

Hausa has a typologically interesting but poorly understood set of quantifying time and
degree adverbs – equivalent to English 'never ever', 'not at
all', etc. – which behave as negative polarity items and enhance the pragmatic
impact of a negative utterance (both verbal and non-verbal). The functional distribution
of these adverbial intensifiers is unusual, however, in that some are
"bipolar", i.e., they can express opposite (minimal/maximal) values
according to whether they occur in negative or positive syntactic environments, with the
minimal intensifiers operating at the negative pole. An intensifier such as dà1ai, for
example, can mean either 'never' (negative) or
'always' (positive), and other modifiers, e.g., atàbau, can express
these same temporal meanings in addition to 'absolutely'. This paper
provides a unified account of this natural functional class of adverbs, and is seen as a
contribution to cross-linguistic research into polarity items and their licensing
contexts
Negation marking in Igbo
Authors: Ndimele Ozo-mekuri
Published: March 2014

At first sight Igbo as a whole unfolds different strategies to indicate negation. The
major strategies are the use of negative affixes, inherently negative auxiliary verbs,
tonal alternation, contrastive focus. Though we meet a richness of negation formation,
there also common basic features and concepts emerging from the investigation: TAM
categories may be neutralized when being negated. Negation provokes a wide range
segmental and tonal changes within the scope of negation. As observed in many other
languages, there is a clash when negation and focus interact. As the two seem to clash,
special strategies must be applied to bring the two together. One such strategy is to
apply a cleft-like construction, involving two clauses and an obligatory movement of the
negated constituent to the ‘focal point’. Another cause for the explanation of the
richness of negation in Igbo is the fact that different negation patterns are applied in
constituent and predication negation.
Negation in Gur
Authors: Winkelmann Kerstin , Miehe Gudrun
Published: March 2014

The negation patterns of Gur sentences show an intriguing variety in both copula
construction and verbal sentences. However, recurrent linguistic forms arising in
different constructions let us assume common genetic as well common typological or areal
sources.Negative markers may appear in preverbal, verb final and sentence final
position. We observe double or even triple marking of negation. The obligatory sentence
final marking is scattered throughout the whole area, but concentrated in a continuum
stretching westward from Western Oti-Volta languages. The occurrence of some negative
markers crosses language group or even family boundaries. Negation influences word order
as well as the choice or avoidance of verbal forms especially of overtly marked
perfective verb stems.
Negation in South Mande
Authors: Vydrine Valentin
Published: March 2014

Southern Mande languages, spoken in Côte-d’Ivoire, Liberia and Guinea, display
different strategies in the expression of negation. The most frequent one consists in
the use of special “negative” series of personal subject pronouns (all Dan languages,
Mano, Tura, Guro, Yaure, Mwan, Beng). In some languages the negative pronouns are
completed by auxiliaries, most often following the subject pronouns. Two languages (Guro
and Yaure) have developed a frame negative marking: the first element of the negation
follows the subject group (and optionally fuses with the subject pronoun), the second
follows the verbal group.
From double negation to portmanteau
Authors: Ebermann Erwin
Published: March 2014

Northern Samo languages of North Western Burkina Faso, belonging to the Mande group of
languages, show an extreme variation in all fields of grammar, as in the construction of
negation. Double negation marking with a post subject plus a sentence final negation
marker was probably a feature of proto Northern Samo. Both markers are extremely
variable and prone to loss in some areas. In some areas, double negation marking
developed into post subject Portemanteau morphems marking both TAM and negation. Main
factors for these variation and developments seem to be very different migration
patterns of the subgroups, very different and sometimes assimilated contact groups, and
local insecurity in the 18th and 19th century due to slave trade.
The system of negation in Berber
Authors: Mettouchi Amina
Published: March 2014

This paper is a survey of the forms and functions of negation in various Berber
languages covering a vast area in West Africa (Kabyle (Taqbaylit), Rifan (Tarifit),
Shilha (Tashelhiyt), Tuareg (Tahaggart, Tayirt), Zenaga). It shows that negation in
Berber is characterized by non-verbal predicates which encode the distinction between
locative-existential and identificational-qualificational, as well as by clear-cut
aspectual asymmetries with respect to the positive/negative opposition. All those
features are shared to a certain extent by many languages of North-West Africa. They are
also attested worldwide, in various phyla. We propose that such features are related to
the importance of the topic/focus distinction, and the predominance of aspectual over
tense distinctions in the language.
Een Taalontlokkingsgesprek Met Buitenlandse Arbeiders
Authors: de Vries J.W.
Published: March 2014

This paper presents the annotated text of a semi-spontaneous conversation of a Dutch student with two Turkish foreign workers in the Netherlands. The conversation, which lasted nearly an hour, is published completely, with the exception of fragments in Turkish, which have been summarized between brackets.
The introduction describes the interview situation, difficulties in a linguistic interview with the aim to elicit use of a language which is not the mother tongue of the informant, and illustrates certain disturbances in the communication process. In addition the utterances of the Turkish participants are analysed according to the theory of the communicative sentence perspective as developed by Prague scholars. An intonation analysis shows similarities and differences with intonation patterns related to theme-rheme structure of standard Dutch.
Het Verklarend Handwoordenboek als Leermiddel Voor Gevorderden
Authors: Braecke Chris
Published: March 2014

Students of economics at the University of Antwerp, UFSIA (Belgium) have been asked about the usefulness of grammatical information in the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (DCE) and the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English (ALD).
The dictionaries have been used in English lessons as an alternative and active way of brushing up grammatical knowledge, in order to develop the habit of consulting these reference works.
The grammatical coding system in DCE is more comprehensive than in ALD. With a few exceptions most of the symbols are learnable.
DCE presupposes some grammatical knowledge on the part of the user of the dictionary.
Some inconsistencies with A Grammar of Contemporary English by R. Quirk, the linguistic adviser of DCE, are pointed out: the treatment of
- transitivity
- the copula
- infinitive constructions as object of a verb
In the future the coding of grammatical information will have to be improved. With a number of translating dictionaries from foreign languages into Dutch to appear, containing grammatical data similar to ALD and DCE, the need for greater uniformity of presentation and especially of the principles of grammatical coding is urgent.
Tests of English Vocabulary Command for EFL Students at University Level
Authors: Groot P.J.M. , Hoekstra J.G.
Published: March 2014

Hunter Diack's Standard Literacy Tests (SLT's) were constructed as English vocabulary tests intended to cover all the vocabulary of the English language. Originally, these tests were devised to assess the vocabulary command of native speakers. They were labeled tests of 'literacy' on the assumption that the extent of a person's vocabulary command in a language reveals the width and quality of his reading.
In each SLT, English words are presented out of context. Subjects are requested to give one meaning for each word encountered, in any manner they choose, e.g. by giving a paraphrase, by using the word in an appropriate context, etc.
If, as the author assumes, the SLT's are valid, a subject's score is a clear indication of the proportion of words in the domain he knows, i.e. of the absolute number of English words he knows.
Clearly, tests like the SLT's are useful also in EFL teaching contexts, especially at advanced levels, where the amount of vocabulary (whether the result of systematic training or unsystematic exposure) is large, calling for tests which cover an unrestricted, non-specific domain of vocabulary. Estimates of the size of foreign learners' English vocabulary as represented by the SLT's may serve a variety of purposes, e.g. in individual diagnostics, or in EFL research.
The SLT's were tried out on a particular population of EFL students, viz. Dutch students of English at university level. Four SLT's were administered to these subjects in four experiments between 1976 and 1980. The tests were slightly adapted, both in item content and in test format (e.g. translation into Dutch was accepted as a response mode).
The results of the extensive experimentation concerning these tests (reliability and validity data, psychometric test indices etc.) are presented.
Cherchez Les Valences
Authors: Honselaar Wim
Published: March 2014

One of the aims of every linguistic theory is to provide an exact and systematic description of the meaning of any sentence. The notion of "valence" is widely used in West- and East-European linguistics (Tesnière, Helbig/Schenkel, Apresjan, Mel'cuk, etc.) in order to account for the connection between syntactic structures and word meanings. So, in John saw the children it is due to the inherent valences of SEE that John is under-stood as 'seeing' and the children as 'seen': the referents of these two sentence elements carry specific meaning aspects of the verb. They only function in this way if they meet the formal characteristics set by the verb.
In this paper I furnish a definition of "valence" and a corresponding discovery procedure. This procedure yields an explicit set of valences of any particular word. Valences are considered aspects of the meaning of a (set of) word(s) X, carried by the referent of a (set of) word(s) Y; as a corrolary, the meaning of this Y cannot be completely understood without taking into account the functioning of its referent as the carrier of the valence meaning. The discovery procedure does not assign a specific valence meaning to a verb if the functioning of the corresponding sentence element can be (completely) accounted for on the grounds of its own form. To illustrate this point, a valence labelled "price" which is claimed by Apresjan for the Russian verb ARENDOVAT' (='to lease'), would be rejected by the procedure because the corresponding sentence element has a form and a meaning which are not in function of its being dependent to ARENDOVAT', but would have the same form and meaning in other contexts.
An analysis of the syntax and semantics of the Dutch verb WACHTEN (='to wait') illustrates the procedure. A short contrastive analysis of Russian and Dutch 'wait' shows some interesting differences in their comparable valences and in the syntactic peculiarities of adjuncts to these verbs.
In, Spin.
Authors: Welsing W.P.B.M.
Published: March 2014

Suggestions for explicit, communicative and differentiated objectives for the teaching of Foreign Languages to" adults.
The suggestions made at the end of this article are based on an analysis of the needs of a great number of adult learners that followed courses in Dutch Schools for intermediate and higher general education, courses organized by the Bond van Nederlandse Volksuniversiteiten and preparing for the internationally recognized certificate (Deutsche Volkshochschule Verband) and courses organized by the B.N.V.U. and other institutions not preparing for any particular certificate but with an emphasis on the spoken language.
Although the objectives suggested are presented as a whole, the learner-centred approach enables teachers to plan syllabuses for almost any kind or level of courses, as exemplified by the choices made for the groups mentioned above. The model used was based on the "cube-model" developed by Welsing and Van Bommel (1977) who were greatly influenced by the Council of Europe activities (J.v.Ek, 1975).
The questionnaire with the help of which the needs analysis was made focused on the personal data of those investigated, the circumstances in which they were to use the foreign language, expected roles, modes and channels of communication, motivation, appreciation of the way in which they had been taught so far, interests and command of the foreign language.
* The title of the article is derived from a Dutch skipping rhyme.While it is recited the rope is turned round continuously and children take part in the skipping intermittently. They must not touch the rope.
Toetsen Voor het Onderkennen Van Leerproblemen Bij Beginnende Lezers
Authors: Verhoeven Ludo Th.
Published: March 2014

A report is given of the construction and validation of diagnostic tests for the evaluation of pupils in the first stages of reading instruction. With these tests it will be possible to apply psychological principles of learning to read to the design of interventions that will facilitate the acquisition of desirable levels of reading performance. The tests indicate, which pupils have difficulties in learning to read. They also give an indication of the nature of these problems and of the way these problems can be solved.
For each test it was analyzed with the help of information processing task analysis which subskills play a role in reading and writing words and short texts. Also an analysis was made of the errors in the various tests. Then for each test it was investigated what the connection was between the occurrence of certain types of errors in the test and the mastery (or absence of mastery) of subskills that underly the test performance. It turned out that in a number of cases the occurrence of certain types of errors could be related to an insufficient command of the specific subskills which play an important role in the initial stages of learning to read and to write.
Thus the tests can be seen as diagnostic evaluation instruments. By analysing the pupil's errors in the tests the teacher will be informed about the degree to which his pupils have mastered the underlying sub-skills. In this way the teacher can himself improve the quality of instruction especially for those pupils who are in danger of falling behind in the teaching process.
The construction and validation process is illustrated by means of two of the tests.
Functies Van Beeldspraak in Studietekstes
Authors: Simons P.R.J.
Published: March 2014

Various theorists have proposed different reasons for the usefulness of concrete analogies in written texts. Some stress a concretizing function, others a structurizing function, and still others suggest that analogies induce a more active proces-sing of the text. The main question which we tried to answer in a series of six experiments were:
a. Does the addition of concrete analogies lead to higher per-formances and longer reading-times in subjects of different ages?
b. What are the effects under restricted time conditions?
c. Why are concrete analogies effective?
d. Are there aptitude-treatment interactions? In general, the results showed that subjects, when confronted with analogies, not only studied longer, but learned more and different things. However, if the study time was limited, these effects disappeared. Furthermore some aptitude-treatment inter-actions were found, especially in the case of the visualizer-verbalizer dimension. All three of the above mentioned functions of analogies were supported by the data.
De Kunst Van- Het Doelstellingen Formuleren
Authors: Oud-de Glas Maria , Buis Th.J.M.N.
Published: March 2014

In a research project conducted at the Institute for Applied So-ciology of the Catholic University of Nijmegen, an attempt has been made to arrive by means of a structured decision procedure at a choice of objectives for foreign language teaching in gene-ral secondary schools and at an analysis of the arguments and criteria that play a role in the decision process.
A panel of experts (teachers and others) had to make a choice out of a list of 18 possible objectives, formulated in terms of language use situations.
On an abstraction scale going from general to operational, these objectives can be characterized as concrete objectives, that ha-ve an external and an internal function in education.
External because they are intended to inform those who have to make choices in the educational system, choices concerning subjects and school types.
Internal, because they have to indicate directions for curriculum development and for the construction of tests.
The state of our knowledge about relationships between language use and situational variables does not allow a completely syste-matic derivation of language forms and content from descriptions of situations.The usefulness of these objectives lies also else-where: in being more precise than the official school and exami-nation programs and more generally accessible than the operatio-nal objectives that are the actual tests.
Handelingspatronen in de Communicatie in de Klas
Authors: Ehlich Konrad
Published: March 2014

This article deals with the relationship between the concrete perceptible linguistic phenomena and their underlying schemata of speech action, illustrated by an analysis of this relationship in the educational institution, i.e. in a classroom.
The concrete linguistic utterances are realisations of actions being specific "positions" within the schema. For the analysis of these schemata of speech action and the way they are put to use in communicative interaction, e.g. in classrooms, it is necessary to distinguish the discrete units that constitute the schema. These units are determined by the goal of the schema. As yet, the relationship between schemata of speech action and linguistic surface phenomena is not unequivocal. This is caused by the complex nature of communicative interaction. Schemata of speech action provide a potential for possible linear realizations. The analysis is illustrated with the help of empirical data taken from real communication in a classroom.
An understanding of schemata of speech action allows teachers to better comprehend their own actions and those of their pupils.
Openingssequenties Van Lesbeginnen
Authors: Mazeland Harrie
Published: March 2014

An attempt is made to analyse some aspects of the sequencing structure in the openings of lessons.
It is shown that there are different levels of sequencing for different sets of participants. On a base-line two sequential posi-tions are realized within the participant set "whole class". Posi-tion one is occupied by the teacher and contains at least an utterance or nonverbal signal with a directive function. Position two is the nonverbal reaction of the pupils to this directive. It can have situation-sensitive expansions through the embedding of sequences which are constrained on two levels: Topically, the embedded sequences handle more detailed aspects of the directive in position one; interactionally, they apply to a smaller set of participants. The base-line positions together with the embedded sequences form a kind of directive clusters. They are terminated with the comple-tion of position two, which is realized by the devices the teacher uses in initiating a next position for the participant set "whole class". Such verbal and nonverbal devices also constitute the respective participant sets and the shifts between them. Especially on boundaries as the transition from one directive cluster to the following the devices are typically ordered in a tripartite structure. It is shown that the pupils orient themselves to this order in coordinating their actions with those of the teacher.
Some discussion is offered to the tasks different directive clusters have. One type organizes an additive kind of availability that is connected with the specific lesson. It is optionably insertable and located after a directive position of the other kind. This latter one organizes the discourse availability of the pupils. It is obligatory, though reducable to routinized nonverbal signals.
Some properties of the sequential structure are also discussed. The directive clusters as a whole have the property of repeatabi-lity, contrary to the summons/answer-pair in conversational openings. The repetitions give the openings an intervalle charac-ter, alternating verbal and nonverbal positions and chaining clusters together.
On the other hand the directive clusters as a whole are nonter-minal; the type of nonterminality differs from that of the summons/ answer-pair in conversational openings. Throughout the paper constrastive comparisons are made with Schegloff's analysis of sequencing in the openings of telephone calls. The analysis is based on 21 video-taped openings of lessons (recorded in Germany (FRG)).
Componenten Van Tweede-Taalbeheersing
Authors: Hulstijn Jan H.
Published: March 2014

This study contains a reanalysis of some of the data collected by Cummins et al. (to appear), in their study of Japanese and Viet-namese immigrant students in Canada. The present study focusses on the English communicative test data elicited from 11 grade 2/3 and 11 grade 5/6 Japanese students who had been in Canada from 15 months to 5| years.
The objectives of the present study were (1) to code these data for characteristics of various L2 proficiency aspects suggested in the literature, (2) to look for clustering patterns among the coded variables by means of factor analyses (tables 3 and 4), and (3) to assess how the variables and common factors in the students' L2 performance were related to their Age and Length of Residence in Canada (by means of analyses of variance: table 5).
The findings demonstrate that there is more to L2 proficiency than 'just1 knowledge of words and grammar rules. It is the type of task in which this knowledge has to be applied that plays a crucial moderating role. A paper-and-pencil reading test, a face-to-face interview, and a story telling task all measure linguistic skills, but each does so in a very different way, and along with different nonlinguistic skills.
Furthermore, this study yielded 'Communicative Style' as a nonlinguistic L2 proficiency factor, not related to Age or Length of Residence. Future research will have to show whether Communicative Style must be considered a genuine language proficiency component or rather an artifact (method effect) created by the use of two type of tests, interactional and noninteractional tests.
Over de Taal Van de Wiskunde
Authors: Nederpelt R.P.
Published: March 2014

The professional mathematician employs in his writings a special language, which we call 'the language of mathematics'. It has two components: on the one hand (a fragment of) natural language, and on the other hand a highly specialized artificial language. The latter part attracts the eye in a mathematical text, because of its deviating form: it contains symbols, formulae and the like.
Yet almost all peculiarities of mathematical language, including those of the artificial part, can be embedded in the usual natural language frame. This different appearance of mathematical language originates from a mathematicians urge for efficiency, clarity and compactness.
A noteworthy advantage of mathematical language is found in its treatment of coreferences. The artificial part of mathematical language employs a highly developed reference mechanism, called binding. A formula like 'εx
IR(x > x2)' for instance, contains a bound variable 'x' of which only the category (viz. the set of real numbers) is fixed. The variable 'x' can be replaced by another one without changing the meaning of the formula: 'yε IR(y > y2)'.This mechanism of binding makes all kinds of referential words, as used in natural language (such as relative pronouns), superfluous.
Mathematical language is still in full development. Especially at the word and word group level, many interesting linguistic features can be observed. At the sentence and text level, however, mathematical language is not very revolutionary. Here improvements are possible, and some of these are proposed in the article.
Technologische Innovatie
Authors: Olde Kalter A.L.M.P.
Published: March 2014

Within the Dutch software house BSO, a 14-months study for the European Commission has been performed on the feasibility of DLT: Distributed Language Translation, a semi-automatic, multilingual translation system.
This project, in cooperation with a number of experts from universities in several EC-counties, resulted in a report that found its way to science and industry.
DLT is an interlingual system, as opposed to the transfer system EUROTRA. Whereas the interface of the latter, apart from a one-to-one lexical substitution as its transfer, heavily leans on semantic information in the form of abstract formatives such as 'agent','patient', DLT's Intermediate Language (IL), having the form of natural language, gives the advantage of an IL-dictionary at both sides of the dividing-line between Source Language (SL) and Target Language (TL): the translation can profit intensively from valency information.
As a compromise between the ambiguous character of natural language and the need of an effective IL to be sufficiently similar to natural languages, DLT has adopted as its IL a modified subset of an artificial language that is less ambiguous than natural languages, especially on the syntactical level: a good starting point to further reduction of this problem. As opposed to e.g. the batch-oriented system SYSTRAN, DLT's networked correspondence of SL/IL/TL with its outside operational environment links up with hardware developments. This is also true of the computer-initiated interactive disambiguation dialogue during source text entry instead of traditional post-editing.
The graduates' unemployment of Faculties of Arts is relatively high. Nevertheless, a report, published by the Arts Section of the Dutch Academic Council by the end of 1983, suggests employment possibilities in sectors other than education, e.g.: language projects in the software industry and information technology. As the actual machine translation market in the USA shows, there may be some hope for these graduates. Perhaps a more flexible way of study programming in Faculties of Arts may help to find these ways.
Feedforward (ff) en Metaforische Transfer (mt) -Dimensies Van Technical Writers'
Authors: Broer J.W.
Published: March 2014

A map of the world of 'technical' communication shows the (a, ß)-universe, flat country filled with language experts and scientists, including engineers. In the centre Technical Writing is situated, a territory in turmoil, on the border of α-land and ß-land. In the U.S.A. the territory is developing fast as the professional core of a new skill. As emigrants, many people of an α-type or ß-type nature end up in the territory. Having a problem of professional identity they possess a hy-brid personality. The attention paid to this problem causes them to lose sight of the two 'natural' forces of an emigrating individual, that is to say feedforward — an anticipative composition principle — and metaphoric transfer — 'as-if use of knowledge from the individual's professional past, to solve the communication problems met at present. Feedforward (Ivor A. Richards, 1893-1979) is a principle of creative action, proceeding from more generic to less (a top-down hier-archy); a number of 'formators' (Charles W. Morris and Bess Sondel), the tools for making text according to the feedforward scheme, are discussed. Nowadays visual elements as formators receive more emphasis. Text is seen as a distribution of three types of elements ('knowing', 'feeling', 'acting') glued into a unit, the communicative 'whole', by the formators. The textual whole should match the type of readers as originally anticipated by the technical writer (27 types, a classification based upon estimating three levels of knowing, feeling, acting; examples are included). Some prescriptions for solving Technical Writing problems found by metaphoric transfer are discussed. To illustrate the traffic of ideas arising from metaphoric transfer, a detailed map of the border area science/ technical writing is shown.
Problemen bij taalonderwijs aan buitenlandse arbeiders. Suggesties voor oplossingen.
Authors: Coumou W.F.
Published: March 2014

Language teaching to migrant workers in The Netherlands needs an improvement in two ways. Apart from various problems with regard to the environment in which the teaching of Dutch to foreign workers takes place, this type of language training also suffers from serious inadequacies in the linguistic and methodological field.
This paper discusses a few of these latter problems pertaining to both the teacher and the learner, i.e. the foreign worker.
With regard to the -- usually unpaid and voluntary -- teacher, we point out such factors as
- inexperience with the teaching of a second language and the consequen-ces of such a situation
- disparity between the language of the teacher and the dialect/sociolect of the environment in which the foreign worker finds himself; a dispa-rity because of the socio-cultural gap between the two
- discrepancy between certain features in the teacher's dialect and those of the standard language in the teaching method
- use of 'foreigner talk' in the class situation With regard to the learner we diseuse euch matters as
- expectation of the foreign worker when learning the language of his new country of residence; an expectation which to a great extent diffe, from what can objectively be defined as learning objectives
- lack of contact with speakers of Butch resulting in a low level of oral proficiency by the foreign worker
- problems relating to 'Pidgin'--Dutch
The language department of Netherlands Centre Foreigners is engaged in developping language materiale for migrant workers and their families, in particular for those who are speakers of 'Pidgin'-Dutch.
Certain preliminary considerations concerning this teaching method are dis-cussed.
Alfabetisatie in Het Nederlands Van Turkse Vrouwen
Authors: Segaar I.
Published: March 2014

This article concerns literacy in Dutch among migrant labourers and more specifically among Turkish women, as the author's main expe-rience lies in that field. The article aims to provide volunteers teaching Dutch to migrant labourers with some practical knowledge about literacy.
First the Turkish Women Committee and its aims are introduced, because this committee tries to improve the position of Turkish women abroad by - amongst others - organising literacy classes in Turkish in Amsterdam. Dutch lessons are given as well.
Linguistic arguments for literacy in the mother tongue are only put forward when social and cultural reasons have been introduced.
Then some principles of phonetics are put forward, a comparison of Dutch and Turkish vowels and indications for phonetic correction.
Finally, an order is indicated in which to present the Dutch vowels, and what phases there are to be observed in teaching pronunciation, reading and writing. Correct discrimination of speech sounds is considered absolutely necessary before teaching the last two skills.
Zijn Er Vaste Trekken In Het Maatschappelijk Denken Over Vertalen?
Authors: Peters A.J.
Published: March 2014

The article deals with the reception side of translation in an industrial context. It is only natural for an industrial linguist to look upon his job as a linguist. Most of his work, however, will be conceived and received by 'people'. This need not necessarily be a source of conflict, but where it is, the linguist tends to rely on the quality of his argument, which just as often does not decide the case. What is overlooked is that much of the disparity is engendered by a different bias as to what a language really is. For such bias, Western culture seems to have three basic options available, each overstressing one of the semiotic dimensions: the semantic, syntactic and pragmatic, as can be seen from linguistic models past and present. Recent work by Roy Harris has shown these options - termed by him the surrogationalist, contractualist and instrumentalist view, respectively - to have very deep roots in the development of Western society.
The article argues that, what with the institutional character of a language and the important role of translation in shaping the cultural landscape of the Western world, popular (and much expert) opinion on translation - as a job or a product - might well be classable under three similar headings. An attempt is made at a trichotomy of 'positions' implicit in current reactions on translation concerning such criteria as language universals, translatability, equivalence, translation unit, etc. The resultant typology is believed to reveal constant traits in popular thought on translation. If a typology is the output of lumpers and the input to hair splitters, a lot of 'hairsplitting' in the light of Harris' analysis, or similar historical work, may be called for to improve its reality content.
The article opens with an outline of the translator's position in large industries as characterized by three paradoxes: a small-scale profession within a big organization, a high-knowledge job yet lacking back-up from a prestigious academic discipline, a recent career and a very old art. This makes motivation and legitimation of the profession not an easy task. It might be easier if more were known of the sociolinguistics of translation.