bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Progressive aspect in child L2 English
Authors: Ionin Tania
Published: March 2014

This paper investigates the use of -ing forms and bare verb forms in progressive contexts in cross-sectional data of L1-Russian L2-English children. It is proposed that child L2-learners are guided by the Uniqueness Principle (cf. Wexler & Culicover 1980; Pinker 1989; Clark 1987; among others), which leads them to restrict -ing forms to progressive contexts and bare verb forms to non-progressive contexts. The acquisition of progressive interpretation is furthermore shown to be independent of the acquisition of finiteness morphology. It is suggested that child L2-learners follow a developmental path similar to that of child L1-learners, but that, unlike L1-learners, they may also be influenced by L1-transfer.
Successful features: Verb raising and adverbs in L2 acquisition under an Organic Grammar approach
Authors: Vainikka Anne , Young-Scholten Martha
Published: March 2014

Under Organic Grammar (Vainikka and Young-Scholten 2005; 2007), the building of L2 syntactic structure is constrained by UG in interaction with primary linguistic data. On the basis of verb raising, we argue against the partial UG availability pursued in Hawkins and Chan (1997) in their Failed Functional Features Hypothesis, whose refinement by Hawkins and Hattori (2006) states that only those uninterpretable syntactic features present in the learner’s L1 remain accessible for L2 acquisition. After summarizing UG-driven L2 German verb raising, we consider French/English adverb placement data pointing to L1-driven verb raising (White, 1991a, b; Schwartz, 1996). However, absence of Frenchlike raising in questions and negation (White 1992; Eubank 1994) requires an alternative account. Based on Vainikka’s (2007) framework which dispenses with Cinque’s (1999) prolific projections, we provide an alternative analysis.
Selective deficits at the syntax-discourse interface: evidence from the CEDEL2 corpus
Authors: Lozano Cristóbal
Published: March 2014

Previous research shows that English-speaking learners of Spanish show (i) early sensitivity to the syntactic mechanisms licensing overt and null pronominal subjects, yet (i) persistent and long-lasting deficits when pronominal distribution is constrained by topic/focus at the syntax-discourse interface. It has been assumed that such vulnerability affects the whole set of phi-features of the pronominal paradigm, but I will use near-native corpus evidence to show that the observed deficits are selective, i.e., they do not affect the whole set of phi-features in the pronominal paradigm but rather a subset: due to their representational nature (which is constrained by Universal Grammar), only third person singular animate pronouns are targets for vulnerability, while the rest of the paradigm remains rather stable.
Syllable-final /s/ lenition and the acquisition of plural morphology in Spanish-speaking children
Authors: Miller Karen , Schmitt Cristina
Published: March 2014

This paper examines the effect of syllable-final /s/ lenition on the production and comprehension of plural marking in Spanish-speaking children. Two varieties of Spanish were examined. The first variety is Chilean Spanish where final /s/ undergoes a process of lenition and is sometimes omitted in the speech of adult speakers. This results in an ambiguous input for plural marking as the plural marker is sometimes produced (as [s] or [h]) and sometimes omitted (zero) in plural noun phrases. The second variety is Mexican Spanish (of Mexico City) where there is no such lenition process and the plural marker is consistently produced as an alveolar fricative. The goal of the experimental studies presented here is to determine how these different types of input (ambiguous input vs. consistent input) affect the language acquisition process.
Early determination
Authors: Pérez-Leroux Ana Teresa , Battersby Tanya
Published: March 2014

This study examines the syntactic and semantic factors in children’s initial production of determiners. Using longitudinal corpora of two monolingual Spanish-speaking children, we investigate whether children exhibit sensitivity to the pre-/post-verbal asymmetry, and awareness of the count-singular, mass and count-plural distinction from an early age. Our results indicate that the children in this study have determiners from a very young age, but their initial use is not as generalized as adults’. The data suggest that the different quantitative status of the relevant input across domains and categories (lexical class, number, function and position) plays a role in development. We conclude that children attend to the categorical distinctions, rather than the overall variability in the input, in the process of acquiring the determiner system.
Before grammar
Authors: Rojas-Nieto Cecilia
Published: March 2014

This paper presents early complex constructions with querer ‘want’ produced by a young Mexican Spanish-speaking child. It argues that constructions in the complement position, regardless their infinitive or subjunctive marking, result from simple cut and paste operations and do not involve any complex syntactic operations. Crucial for this proposal is the fact that these marked constructions have an independent exposition before they get into any combination, and the frequent and distributed occurrence of anomalous two-predicate combinations that result from the adjunction of unrestricted constructions from the child’s construction inventory. A functional-pragmatic motivation is proposed. Evidence is interpreted within the Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition (Tomasello 2003), taking into account recent work on child’s early complex constructions (Diessel & Tomasello 2005; Givón 2007, 2008).
Specific language impairment in Spanish & Catalan
Authors: Torrens Vincent , Escobar Linda
Published: March 2014

This study examines empirical data from Spanish and Catalan children with SLI and argues in favor of the grammatical agreement deficit hypothesis (Clahsen 1989, 1991; Clahsen et al. 1997). Following Chomsky’s (1995) system of morphosyntactic features in terms of interpretability, we will assume that all uninterpretable features are affected in the grammar of children with SLI. The data reveal a morphosyntactic deficit in the Determiner system and in the subject-verb agreement paradigm, posing problems with case marking.
Variability in the grammatical profiles of Spanish-speaking children with specific language impairment
Authors: Morgan Gareth , Restrepo M. Adelaida , Auza B. Alejandra
Published: March 2014

This chapter investigates whether a specific grammatical marker can be used to identify specific language impairment (SLI) in monolingual Spanish-speaking (SS) children that is consistent with a linguistic knowledge deficit account of SLI. A number of grammatical markers that have been identified as vulnerable to error in Spanish-English bilingual children with SLI (articles, clitics, subjunctive verbs, & derivational morphemes) were tested in monolingual SS children with and without SLI. Results indicated significant group differences between monolingual SS children with and without SLI in all grammatical areas tested. However, children with SLI demonstrated considerable variability across grammatical markers such that one particular grammatical marker could not be identified as impaired in all children with SLI. Theoretical and clinical implications of the study are discussed.
La constitution d’une concordance de verbes de l’ancien français
Authors: Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot Hava
Published: March 2014

This paper presents a project which consists of the implementation of electronic concordances and dictionaries of Old French. As compared to other dictionaries, electronic dictionaries present several advantages. We outline those advantages and describe the method used for this purpose. The choice of the corpus as well as the delimitation of the period are also discussed. The two first parts of the concordances are illustrated by various examples.
Les adjectifs dérivés de noms de parties du corps dans les textes médicaux
Authors: Borillo Andrée
Published: March 2014

Among the large category of Adjectives, we selected an interesting subset of denominal adjectives issued from nouns referring to parts and regions of the human body — external parts as well as internal organs — called "Noms de parties du corps" (Npc). These adjectives are so massively used in medical discourse that they could be taken as a lexical parameter for this register identification They are generally used with an attributive function [SN [N Apc]], but the head noun they modify may belong to different categories. It can be nouns with a referential content (parts of the body or material objets) but also nouns most generally derived from verbs or adjectives, representing states, actions or processes ("predicative nouns"). According to the category of the head noun, the relation expressed by the Apc can be interpreted in different ways: as a part-whole relation when the head noun denotes itself a body part, as a locative relation with nouns referring to physical objets of all sorts, but when it is coupled with a predicative noun, the adjective Ape is to be taken exactly as the nominal base (the noun from which it derives) would be, that is it has to be considered as an argument within the verbal structure defined by an agentive verb such as faire, pratiquer, provoquer (to make, to cause) or by a stative verb such as avoir (to have), présenter, manifester (to exhibit).
Lexicon-Grammar, Electronic Dictionaries and Local Grammars of Italian
Authors: D’Agostino Emilio , Elia Annibale , Vietri Simonetta
Published: March 2014

In this paper we will show how Italian electronic dictionaries have been built within the methodological framework of Lexicon-grammar. We will see the structure of electronic dictionaries of simple and compound words, and we will show how to analyse texts employing these linguistic tools within INTEX, a morphological analyser. INTEX contains a tool which allows to construct local grammars on the model of finite state automata. These grammars can be based not only on words but also on the non-terminal symbols contained in the dictionaries. Finally, we will show how electronic grammars (built with INTEX) interact with dictionaries and allow recognition of sequences of simple and compound words.
Les relatifs de surface
Authors: Dubois Jean , Dubois-Charlier Francoise
Published: March 2014

We have here examined some types of sentences which include a relative pronoun, for which we would like to suggest that the outwardly relative clause may not be a 'true' relative clause:
C'est Pierre qui m'accompagnera à la gare
Il y a des enfants qui jouent au ballon dans le jardin
Il est / existe /se trouve des gens qui pensent que...
J'ai une mélodie qui me trotte dans la tête
Tu as ton jupon qui dépasse
Cyril partait gagnant mais Pierre est celui qui a été élu
All such structures are interpreted here as resulting, not from a reunion of two clauses through relativization, but from the rearrangement of a single simple clause: Son mari n 'aime pas les voyages → Elle a un mari qui n 'aime pas les voyages .
This rearrangement is motivated by focalization or rethematization purposes. It involves the use of a new beginning for the sentence (to set out the focus or to indicate the new theme); as a consequence, the rest of the sentence is marked with a qu- form. We thus call the qu- clause a 'pseudo-relative'.
Synonymie de mots et synonymie de phrases
Authors: Leclère Christian , Brisbois Jacqueline
Published: March 2014

Classes of synonyms are typically established according to the criterion that the rest of the sentence in which they can alternate remains the same; that is, the structure does not change and the various elements remain in the same place. This approach recognises the synonymy between, for example, accueillir and recevoir.
Londres accueille/reçoit le Premier ministre français
(London welcomes/receives the French Prime Minister)
but not between these verbs and se rendre, in spite of the fact that the sentence:
Le Premier ministre français s'est rendu à Londres
(The French Prime Minister went to London)
contains almost the same information (the elements being the same, but their syntactic position having changed). To extend the notion of synonymy to allow for this syntactic variability, it is necessary to know, for each verb construction, the different positions that the associated nouns may occupy, and their respective semantic roles. The exhaustive syntactic classification of verbs established at LADL makes such an approach possible.
Nominalizations of English Neutral Verbs
Authors: Machonis Peter A.
Published: March 2014

This article explores the use of three light or support verbs of English, give, make, and have, as they co-occur with the nominalizations associated with the class of English neutral verbs (537 verbs). Neutrality, also known as the ergative construction or the causative alternation, is present when the following equation holds:
N0 V N1 ↔ N1 V
For example, the verb in the following two sentences is considered neutral:
Max chimes the bell ↔ The bell chimes
Certain neutral verbs undergo nominalization and may occur with support verbs, as in the following examples:
Max gave the bell a chime
Max made a chime
with the bell
The bell made a chime
The bell has a loud chime
Prepositional phrases associated with nominalizations of these neutral verbs are also briefly examined. The appearance of these nominals with the various support verbs and prepositional phrases is shown to be highly idiosyncratic. This reinforces the notion that transformations associated with verbs can be best described on an individual basis and gives further evidence for building a formal lexicon or lexicon-grammar.
Time in Language — Language in Time
Authors: Schnelle Helmut
Published: March 2014

Ordinary language is not determined by a single and unique system. Just as a biological organism, its interrelated systems of form and meaning are developing as a multi-system, even in conceptual areas which, to the scientific mind, seem to be highly systematic, such as time. A closer study reveals there to be a multiplicity of temporalities, which are appropriate and put to use in a variety of circumstances. If the logician and epistemo-logist complains that "our ordinary language shows a tiresome bias in its treatment of time" and thinks that "this bias is of itself an inelegance or breach of theoretical simplicity" (cf. Quine 1960:170), he shows that he does not understand the organizational framework of the languages' efficiency.
Une grille d’analyse pour les prédicats nominaux
Authors: Vivès Robert
Published: March 2014

This contribution deals with lexical, syntactic and semantic features used by researchers of the « Laboratoire de Linguistique Informatique » for decribing the most relevant proper-ties of predicative nouns in the frame of the « classes d'objets » approach. Grids of two different semantic classes of predicative nouns are presented as examples.
The automatic construction of faceted terminological feedback for interactive document retrieval
Authors: Anick Peter G.
Published: March 2014

We present a linguistic method for the automatic construction of terminological feedback for use in interactive information retrieval. The method exploits the tendency for key domain concepts within result sets to participate in families of semantically related lexical compounds. We show how lexical dispersion may be used to identify terms that can serve in the role of “facets”, broad categories that organize domain concepts into separate hierarchies. The phrases in which these terms occur serve to provide a set of attributes, specializations, related concepts, etc., for the so-identified facet terms. We investigate the effect of a number of parameters on the output, with the aim of providing a relevant set of feedback categories while minimizing run-time overhead.
Incremental extraction of domain-specific terms from online text resources
Authors: Chien Lee-Feng , Chen Chun-Liang
Published: March 2014

Incremental extraction of domain-specific terms from online text resources is necessary in many information retrieval (IR) and natural language processing (NLP) applications. The purpose of this paper is to present an efficient approach which can classify online text collections from the Internet dynamically and extract domain-specific terms incrementally. This approach is developed through a successful integration of PAT-tree indexing, term extraction and document classification techniques.
Qualitative terminology extraction
Authors: Daille Béatrice
Published: March 2014

This paper presents the identification in corpora of relational adjectives in French, phenomena considered by linguists as highly informative. The approach uses a termer which is applied on a tagged and lemmatized corpus. Relational adjectives and compound nouns which include a relational adjective are then quantified and their informative status is evaluated thanks to a thesaurus of the domain. We conclude with a discussion of the interesting status of such adjectives and compound nouns for terminology extraction and other automatic terminology tasks.
Advertising discourse in eighteenth-century English newspapers
Authors: Gotti Maurizio
Published: March 2014

This chapter is a discourse analytic study of 18th-century newspaper advertisements. The data are taken from advertisements published in English newspapers of that time (mainlyThe Review,The SpectatorandThe Tatler). The paper points out the main linguistic and stylistic features of these advertising texts, and compares these results to those from Leech's (1966) study so as to discover any systematisation or alteration in the writing of such texts which has taken place in the last three centuries.
The underlying pattern of the Renaissance botanical genrepinax
Authors: Selosse Philippe
Published: March 2014

The aim of this paper is to define the Renaissance botanical genrePinax, illustrated by Gesner's (1542) and Bauhin's (1596, 1623) books. The results of the linguistic analysis of these books are interpreted in the frame of the Renaissanceepisteme, that is, the configuration of knowledge peculiar to this period. Though it comes in the form of a simple compendium of plant names (nomenclature), aPinaxhas an underlying “taxonomic” organisation. Whereas Gesner's principles of organisation (alphabetical order, interlinguistic synonymy) pertain to the medicinal custom, Bauhin's principles (logical division, Aristotelian synonymy, chain of being) are conceived in the frame of the botanical specialised scientific community, according to Renaissance metaphysical thoughts (neo-Platonic eponymy, prototypy, correspondences).
‘Ther been thinges thre, the whiche thynges troublen al this erthe’
Authors: Bergs Alexander
Published: March 2014

This paper describes and analyses the origin, development, structure, and use ofwhichas a demonstrative element. This largely qualitative study shows that demonstrativewhichhad its heyday in the late Middle English and early Modern English periods. The subsequent reduction of both type and token frequency is seen in the context of both structural and sociolinguistic factors, e.g., the doubly-filled COMP filter and standardisation. From a functional point of view, its use is related to information structuring and the organisation of discourse through pragmatic markers. As a discourse marker, it refers back to a previously mentioned element and, at the same time, marks the end of one topic and provides a clear starting point for the next.
If I may say so
Authors: Fetzer Anita
Published: March 2014

This contribution examines those contexts in which a contribution is assigned the status of not such as is required (Grice 1975). The first part analyses the theoretical construct of appropriateness in an integrated framework based on Habermas’s theory of communicative action, Gice’s logic and conversation and Sbisà’s approach to speech act theory. The second part operationalizes the theoretical construct as appropriateness conditions. The third part presents a data analysis in which the form and function of explicit and implicit references to appropriateness are analysed in the genre of a political interview. Particular attention is given to the questions of where the inappropriateness is manifest, what constitutive part of the contribution is assigned the status of being inappropriate, who refers to the inappropriateness and how the inappropriateness is realized linguistically.
The appropriateness of questions
Authors: Becker Annette
Published: March 2014

When is a question appropriate? In Recontextualizing Context, Fetzer (2004) distinguishes between “grammaticality” and “appropriateness” of sentences and utterances. Appropriateness, other than grammaticality, is a socio-cultural construct. Whereas the grammaticality of sentences may be judged without consideration of their textual, interpersonal, or interactional context, the appropriateness of utterances is highly context-dependent on all these levels. This is especially apparent in dialogical discourse types like media interviews. This contribution assumes as a working hypothesis that the appropriateness of questions can be approached through an analysis of the subsequent answers. Data is taken from videotaped interviews television journalists conducted with politicians and experts during British election night coverages. Their analysis is based on the pragmatic framework developed by Harris (1991) for the analysis of politicians’ evasiveness, and the multidisciplinary frameworks developed by Lauerbach (2003, 2004) and Becker (2005, 2007) for the analysis of interviewing practices. Comparison of interviews with politicians and interviews with experts reveals clear differences as to what answerers interpret as an appropriate question within the global context of the election night coverage and with respect to the question’s local textual, interpersonal, or interactional context.
From contrastive rhetoric to intercultural rhetoric: A search for collective identity
Authors: Li Xiaoming
Published: March 2014

Contrastive rhetoric (CR) has come under sharp criticism in recent years. This chapter first traces CR’s emphasis on textual differences in students’ writing to its historical link to formal linguistics, delineating the reach and limitations of such an approach. Then, examining the major criticisms leveled against CR, it suggests that the criticism reflects the changing theoretical winds in Western academia. CR, with its continuing focus on the demonstrable linguistic traits of writing rather than their ideological implications, is vulnerable to charges of political neutrality, if not naiveté. Finally, it posits that intercultural rhetoric, by including qualitative research with expanded notions of culture, will offer both insights to teaching writing to non-native speakers of English and alternatives to the dominant discourse.
Lies at Wal-Mart
Authors: Puschmann Cornelius
Published: March 2014

Blogs are increasingly popular among private persons, public institutions, nongovernmental organizations and companies. While a range of communicative functions is associated with blogs in the way they are used specifically by corporations, one key area of interest is clearly public relations. This is especially pertinent to large businesses that face a significant amount of criticism in the media. As an example for such a case, this paper presents an analysis of Life at Wal-Mart, an image blog maintained by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Following a description of corporate blogs as an emerging genre, I will outline how Life at Wal-Mart is used to further specific communicative goals of the company and what the findings indicate for a modern theory of digital genres.
Structural patterns blocking plural in Romance nominalizations
Authors: Iordachioaia Gianina , Soare Elena
Published: March 2014

Some Complex Event Nominals (CENs) like the Romanian infinitive contradict the generalization in Grimshaw (1990) according to which CENs do not pluralize. But many CENs like the Romanian supine and the Spanish nominal infinitive obey this generalization. In this paper we explain the availability and the blocking of pluralization in relation to the internal structure of the CEN. We argue that pluralization in CENs is blocked by the syntactic encoding of the unbounded outer or inner aspect. The Romanian supine projects a verbal structure with a [–bounded] (outer) Aspect projection. In the Spanish nominal infinitive, the unbounded/atelic inner aspect is accommodated by a [–count] Classifier projection in a nominal structure. Both patterns prevent the projection of Number, and thus, pluralization. But this does not exclude the availability of plural for CENs with a bounded/telic inner aspect which project a [+count] ClassifierP and implicitly, NumberP, as in the case of Romanian infinitival CENs.
Phonological processes of Japanese based on the theory of phonology as human behavior
Authors: Tobin Yishai , Miyakoda Haruko
Published: March 2014

By analyzing speech errors (normal and pathological) and loanwords of Japanese within the theory of Phonology as Human Behavior, we seek to account for why processes such as substitution occur as they do by referring to the “struggle” between speakers’ desire for maximum communication (the communication factor) and minimal effort (the human factor). We conclude that (1) the error patterns or the processes observed in loanword adaptations are not random but motivated and that clinical phonology represents a more extreme version of the “mini-max” struggle where the human factor overrides the communication factor; (2) the communicative forces found within different word positions have a great influence on how and where the phonological processes of loanwords occur.
Tell me about yourself
Authors: Stern Nancy
Published: March 2014

This paper offers an innovative Columbia School account of English -self pronouns (myself, yourself, etc.). The analysis rejects the view that the distribution of -self pronouns is a reflex of syntactic structure, as well as the traditional characterization of -self as a reflexive pronoun. Instead, -self forms are hypothesized to signal a constant meaning, insistence on a referent, which accounts for the forms’ distribution in authentic texts. This approach has led to the discovery that -self forms contribute to the same types of interpretations across a wide range of different structural contexts, including not only reflexive and emphatic uses, but also like-phrases, picture noun phrases, logophoric uses, conjoined expressions, and other environments.
Meaning in nonlinguistic systems
Authors: Leonard Robert A.
Published: March 2014

This article extends the boundaries of Columbia School linguistic semantic theory by applying its analytical constructs to nonlinguistic behaviors, where, as in language, there exist systematicity and arbitrariness: food; construction of social and gender identity; and use of architectural, private, and urban space. Further, meaningful elements of these behaviors vary analogously to Labovian sociolinguistic feature variation. The guiding orientation is that human behavior is structured not by an unmotivated, autonomous culture, but is communicative and social, interpreted by people as signals with meanings; and these meanings are discerned as interpreting power, prestige and identity. Data come primarily from fieldwork in Lamu (Kenya) and Thailand.
The contrast between pronoun position in European Portuguese and Castilian Spanish: An application of Functional Grammar
Authors: Mackenzie J. Lachlan
Published: March 2014

Cast in Functional Grammar (FG), this chapter considers the syntactic placement of pronominal clitics in European Portuguese (EP), contrasting these with comparable phenomena in Castilian Spanish (CS). It emerges that EP constituent order results from the interplay of (at least) a single, minimally specified structural pattern, a principle of increasing syntactic weight, and the independently required principles of restrictive apposition and adverbial insertion. The specific difference between EP and CS reduces to the insight that EP allows placement of the verb in clause-initial position, whereas this is excluded in CS; verb position determines the occurrence of proclisis and enclisis, which we analyse as syntactic rather than morphological in EP. The chapter illustrates the applicability of FG to the comparison of languages.
Machine translation and human translation: Using machine translation engines and corpora for teaching and research
Authors: Maia Belinda
Published: March 2014

Machine translation and human translation often encounter the same difficulties at the level of the word and sentence. This chapter describes a methodology which encourages students to select examples of such problems from corpora, evaluate the performance of on-line machine translation engines with them, and compare the results with those of human translation. This has proved a way of providing training in linguistic analysis and the use of corpora as language resources in an interesting way. The methodology has been made possible by the project Linguateca, and the computational tools it develops also offer opportunities for research projects in the areas of human and machine translation, terminology extraction, corpus linguistics, contrastive linguistics and related areas.
Subjective construal as a 'fashion of speaking' in Japanese
Authors: Ikegami Yoshihiko
Published: March 2014

The chapter addresses the question of subjectivity in language, in particular, that aspect of subjectivity which is discussed under the rubric of ‘subjective construal’ in Cognitive Linguistics. It is argued that faced with a situation to be linguistically encoded, the speaker of any language can operate either with subjective or objective construal but that there is a marked difference among the speakers of different languages in the extent to which they indulge in subjective rather than objective construal. This is illustrated by referring to Japanese, whose speakers tend to prefer subjective construal (which results in subject-object merger), as contrasted with the speakers of English and probably of western languages in general, who apparently prefer objective construal (which results in subject-object contrast).
Adult phonetic learning of a second language vowel system
Authors: Baptista Barbara O.
Published: March 2014

A longitudinal study of the acquisition of English vowels by Brazilian Portuguese speakers provides evidence for the claim of Flege’s (1995) speech learning model (SLM) that phonetic learning is possible in adulthood, and further that the results of this learning are apparent even in the early stages and in the phonetic approximation of “similar” vowels. In addition to the expected link between certain L1 and interlanguage (IL) vowels, the study provides evidence for a link among the IL vowels themselves, which appear to undergo changes in relation to one another. The results suggest that any description of the phonetic representation of newly-formed IL categories should include their location within the phonetic space relative to the location of other L2 categories.
The role of parents in heritage language maintenance and development
Authors: Li Guofang
Published: March 2014

Drawing on two ethnographic studies on Chinese immigrant families’ home literacy practices, this chapter addresses the issue of Heritage language (HL) loss and the role of parents in facilitating immigrant children’s HL maintenance and development in the home milieu. The results indicate that the parents as well as their ethnic communities play a significant role in their children’s HL maintenance, and they employ a variety of strategies and resources to facilitate their children’s first language learning. However, due to the lack of mainstream school and societal support, the parents experience different barriers in fostering the children’s positive attitudes toward HL learning, and their actions often did not match their beliefs. These findings suggest that relying on parents alone cannot help the immigrant children become bicultural and biliterate.More institutional support from policy makers and schools is needed.
Doing gender within oral history
Authors: Amesberger Helga
Published: March 2014

At the focus of the article is how the process of generating oral history contributes to the creation of gendered history. I follow two paths to proof my hypothesis that researchers participate in the creation and reinforcement of gender stereotypes and engendering the subject. First, I analyse life story interviews with female and male survivors of the Mauthausen concentration camp, concerning how the interviewees draw genders, and about which gendered topics do wo/men speak (or do not speak). Second, I look at the role of the interviewer: what kind of questions does s/he ask women respectively men, and do gender-specific questions produce otherwise non-mentioned topics or reduce interviewees to their assumed gender roles. The analysis shows that doing gender is a common pattern in oral history interviews and therefore needed to be reflected on.
Oral history as a dialogue with the Polish-Jewish past of a local community from the perspective of social pedagogy
Authors: Kubiszyn Marta
Published: March 2014

The article is a part of the author’s broader project researching multicultural education in Poland. It presents oral history as a form of social activity which can help partly reconstruct the memory of the Polish-Jewish past and reinforce the re-building of the formerly multicultural identity of local communities. Oral history is analysed here within the theoretical and methodological framework of social pedagogy. The paper also presents the efforts aiming at introducing oral history into the educational activities of the Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre Centre in Lublin, a local cultural institution which focuses on the history and heritage of the city’s local community by restoring and re-reading its Polish-Jewish past.
Sharing oral history with the wider public: Experiences of the Refugee Communities History Project
Authors: Alfred Zibiah
Published: March 2014

The Refugee Communities History Project has sought to share refugee community oral history life story material with refugee communities but also with the wider public, school groups and tourists visiting the exhibition “Belonging” held at the Museum of London from October 2006 until February 2007. This paper will explore issues that may arise when sharing material with audiences “outside” of the community from which material is collected. Issues to consider when making material accessible to audiences who feel negatively about, prejudiced against or hostile towards the communities from which material is collected will be discussed.
A catalogue of semantic shifts: Towards a typology of semantic derivation
Authors: Zalizniak Anna A.
Published: March 2014

A formalized catalogue comprising the facts of the similar semantic shift, both synchronic and diachronic, which occurs independently in different languages and epochs, would reveal the most frequent, prominent and significant samples of semantic derivation. It might be used: (1) as a semantic plausibility criterion inlinguistic reconstruction; (2) as a basis for the semantic typology; (3) as a linguistic evidence for cognitive processes. The paper deals with the formal structure of the lexicographic entry of the Catalogue of semantic shifts (see Zalizniak 2001). Some examples of parallel semantic shifts in several groups of Indo-European languages are discussed in more detail.
Constructions, co-composition and merge
Authors: Martínez Fernández Beatriz
Published: March 2014

This article follows the line of research proposed in this volume by Mairal and Ruiz de Mendoza, Cortés Rodríguez, and Martín Arista, combining functional and constructional models of language. I discuss some interesting examples of break verbs with argument-adjuncts of motion which, being syntactically similar to Goldberg’s caused-motion construction, do not meet the definition for constructions devised by Goldberg. These structures are characterised by acquiring the semantics of motion without losing the semantics of change of state. Therefore, I have labelled them merge structures. Since Construction Grammar focuses mainly on constructions, I resort to Pustejovsky’s Generative Lexicon (henceforth GL) in search of a mechanism that allows me to explain this type of structure, because it is purposely designed to deal with creative uses of language and, more precisely, with polysemy. In a sense, it is not that different from Goldberg’s constructions, but it has the advantage that using the same system of lexical representation that is used for co-composition, it can also explain merge. The comparison of the two representations, co-composition and merge, indicates that the main differences can be explained by putting some of the semantic weight on the event and qualia structures. Although these representations capture the main differences existing between merge and co-composition, this argument only works at the level of interpretation or comprehension, a problem that was already pointed out by Goldberg (1995, 2006). Therefore, this article has also addressed the question of how to account for the production of those structures. Van Valin (in press) foresees the possibility of reconciling projectionist accounts like Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) and constructionist approaches like Pustejovsky’s GL and argues that the interpretive role of co-composition is helpful in the linking from syntax to semantics in RRG. Thus, when presented with a certain syntactic structure, the choice between a merge or a co-compositional reading will be determined by their lexical representations.
Measuring out reflexivity in secondary predication in English and Spanish
Authors: Gonzálvez-García Francisco
Published: March 2014

This article provides a usage-based, bottom-up constructionist analysis la Goldberg (2006) of formally identical instances of secondary predication featuring find/encontrar (find) and a reflexive pronoun in the object slot in English and Spanish. Specifically, it shows that these two configurations can be aptly regarded as two different, though closely connected, constructions (i.e. learned form-function pairings), namely, the reflexive subjective-transitive construction and the self-descriptive subjective-transitive construction. At a higher level of resolution, it is argued that the reflexive subjective-transitive construction imposes an agentive, intentional construal on the event/state of affairs in question, while the self-descriptive subjective-transitive construction requires a non-volitional, non-agentive construal. Crucially, configurations of the reflexive subjective-transitive construction are shown to be closer to a two-participant event elaboration in which the entity encoded in the main clause and the reflexive is construed as a divided self (Haiman 1998) between an experiencer subject and an affected object. By contrast, instances of the self-descriptive subjective-transitive construction can be aptly considered to be functionally equivalent to one-participant events, and can thus often be paraphrased by means of (in-)transitive or intensive clauses. At an ever higher level of granularity, the continuum between reflexives (encoding two-participant events) and middles (encoding one-participant events) can also be observed vertically within the self-descriptive subjective-transitive construction. The crucial determinant in this respect is taken to be the inherent meaning and form properties of the object-related predicative phrase (i.e. the XPCOMP) and its transitivity properties (Hopper & Thompson 1980). Finally, corpus-based evidence is provided that although English and Spanish share a considerable number of morphosyntactic realizations of the XPCOMP, the inventory of such realizations is not fully symmetrical, thus lending further credence to Crofts (2003) contention that argument structure is not only construction-specific but also language-specific.
The development of case in Germanic
Authors: Barðdal Jóhanna
Published: March 2014

In this article five existing explanations for the loss of case morphology in the Germanic languages are examined. These are (1) phonological erosion, (2) a change from synthetic to analytic language type, (3) a change from free to fixed word order, (4) the development of the definite article, and (5) a change from lexical to structural case. All five explanations are rejected in favor of (6) a usage-based constructional approach where the breakdown of the case system is expected on the basis of the fact that the argument structure constructions are partially synonymous. Hence, it is predicted that the case and argument structure constructions will either merge, with subsequent loss of case distinctions and case morphology, or that high type frequency constructions will attract new verbs and verbs from low type frequency constructions, gradually causing them to fall into disuse. English, Mainland Scandinavian and Dutch have taken the former path, while German, Icelandic and Faroese have developed along the latter.
A usage-based approach to change: Old Russian possessive constructions
Authors: Eckhoff Hanne Martine
Published: March 2014

This article explores the usefulness of a usage-based constructional approach to syntactic change. Case constructions are particularly interesting data in this respect, because of their prominent semantic features. A corpus study of the history of Old Russian possessive constructions is taken as an example of a change involving syntactic constructions which is difficult to describe well within established models of diachronic syntax and cannot feasibly be classified as grammaticalisation. Instead, the changes are best viewed as an interlocking set of schematisations and deschematisations, accompanied by extensions and narrowings of the meanings of several of the constructions within the possessive semantic field.
Verb classes and dative objects in Insular Scandinavian
Authors: Jónsson Jóhannes Gísli
Published: March 2014

It is well-known cross-linguistically that some classes of transitive verbs are more likely than others to have dative objects. Thus, verbs whose object participant is active independent of the actions of the subject participant have a strong tendency to take dative objects. In this article, I show how this is reflected in the Insular Scandinavian languages, especially Faroese, where verbs whose objects are furthest away from the dative prototype have been the prime targets of dative loss with two-place verbs. By contrast, verbs that are semantically closest to the dative prototype seem to be the most resistant to dative loss.
Haro
Authors: Woldemaram Hirut
Published: March 2014

In Haro, an Omotic language of Ethiopia, participants are encoded both on nouns as well as verbs. The principal strategy used to mark participants is by way of morphology. Apart from Agents and Patients (or Goals), noun phrases with Dative, Comitative, Instrumental and Ablative roles are identified by morphological ways. One remarkable feature concerning participant marking in Haro is that this system closely interacts with definiteness marking. An indefinite noun cannot undergo a morphological marking for subjecthood or objecthood. Hence, with indefinite nouns, constituent order remains to be the only means to identify who did what to whom. One other remarkable property of the system is that it closely interacts with focus marking. Participants within a focus domain are marked distinctively from those outside a focus domain.
Ik
Authors: König Christa
Published: March 2014

On African standards, the Kuliak language Ik is one of the few languages with an elaborated case system: Seven cases are distinguished by nominal suffixes. Case is highly productive. Nearly all elements of the language are at least to some extent case inflected: Nouns, adverbs, adpositions, verbs, and even conjunctions. But with core participants (intransitive subject, S, transitive subject, A, and object, O) case marking is defective to the extent that it is even questionable whether case provides a sufficient analysis for the system under consideration. Five case patterns are used to encode the core participants S, A and O. All patterns either show an accusative alignment or no case distinction at all. It will be shown that case is the only reasonable parameter for describing nominal inflection. Ik will be presented as a split (nominative)/accusative language. The core participants are encoded by a complex interplay of head and dependent marking: With core participants the dependent case marking occurs when cross reference by means of head marking devices fails. The language shows a clear distinction between core and peripheral participants. Pragmatically, Ik has a highly grammaticalized focus structure expressed by a separate case marker.
Jalonke
Authors: Lübke Friederike
Published: March 2014

This paper introduces participant coding in Jalonke, a Central Mande language of Guinea. The paper gives an appraisal of noun/verb distinction in the language and establishes verbs as heads of verb phrases. It sets out to identify the syntactic status and thematic roles of the participants of Jalonke verbs. The paper further investigates argument structure classes of the language; that is, classes of verbs that can be distinguished based on the number and status of their participants. It is shown that Jalonke has intransitive, transitive, causative/inchoative alternating and reflexive-only verbs, and that the motivation for three of these classes lies in an interaction of the parameters of causation type, likelihood of the denoted event to be construed as uncaused vs. externally caused and the inclination of the language towards fundamental transitivity vs. fundamental intransitivity. The fourth class of reflexive-only verbs is determined through a positive specification for control. The main result of a quantitative study on argument realization in discourse are discussed in order to demonstrate that in contrast to other languages and approaches, argument structure in Jalonke can be taken to be lexically specified.
‘Oblique subjects’, structural and lexical case marking
Authors: Askedal John Ole
Published: March 2014

The present paper is an attempt to give an integrated account of certain developments in North Germanic syntax: (1) Modern Icelandic and Faroese have so-called oblique subjects, i.e. dative, accusative or even genitive NPs with essentially the same distribution and syntactic rule properties as modern Mainland Scandinavian subjects. (2) Both Old and Modern Icelandic have a rather intricate system of lexical case assignment which differs from, e.g., the predominantly structural case assignment of Modern German.

(3) Old Icelandic has DO-IO as well as IO-DO order, whereas Modern Icelandic, like non-case-marking Modern Mainland Scandinavian, to a greater extent has IO-DO. — On the basis of these data it is argued that after the North Germanic shift to SVO, the development has been in the direction of a modern topologically, not morphologically oriented syntax both in the non-case-marking and the case-marking languages. Among other things, this explains why case assignment has remained lexical and idiosyncratic in Icelandic instead of shifting to a simpler system of structural case assignment.
Ergative to accusative
Authors: Johns Alana
Published: March 2014

This paper examines the case of different dialects of Inuktitut which appear to vary in their distribution and function of the antipassive construction. It is hypothesized that a difference in grammatical restrictions on this construction will coincide with a quantitative difference in occurrence, i.e. some dialects have moved further along the continuum toward a nominative-accusative typology. However, it is shown that counting the number of tokens of the case marker in question does not show any statistical significance, due to the fact that this case marker has functions independent of object marking and that these functions appear to vary in inverse proportion to the degree to which it is used as an accusative marker.