bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Implications of James E. Flege’s research for the foreign language classroom
Authors: Piske Thorsten
Published: March 2014

In a very large number of studies, James E. Flege and his colleagues have examined the influence of different subject variables on immigrants’ success in learning an L2. In this chapter, possible implications of Flege’s research for the foreign language classroom are discussed. The results obtained by Flege in studies examining the acquisition of L2 speech sounds and L2 morphosyntax suggest that four factors should particularly help students in a foreign language classroom to develop a high level of second language proficiency. These four factors are a) an early starting age, b) intensive use of the foreign language over a period of many years, c) exposure to a substantial amount of high-quality input, and d) training in the perception and production of L2 sounds.
1. Evolving perspectives on learning French as a second language through immersion
Authors: Lyster Roy
Published: March 2014

Ce chapitre passe en revue la recherche empirique ayant contribué à modeler les perspectives changeantes de l’enseignement immersif depuis la mise en place des programmes d’immersion française à Montréal il y a plus de 40 ans déjà. La recherche montre que les élèves en immersion française atteignent des niveaux élevés d’aptitudes pour la compréhension et des niveaux fonctionnels en production, avec des lacunes sur les plans de la précision de l’expression, de l’expression idiomatique, de la variété lexicale et de l’adéquation sociolinguistique. Ces lacunes seront expliquées en termes de contraintes résultant d’une interaction des propriétés structurales des traits problématiques de la langue seconde tels que les verbes, les pronoms et le genre; de leur prégnance dans le discours en classe, et d’une diversité de facteurs internes et reliés à l’apprenant. S’appuyant sur les thèses mises de l’avant par Lyster (2007) portant sur l’enseignement et l’apprentissage des langues axés sur le contenu, ce chapitre soutient le point de vue selon lequel plusieurs des lacunes dans la compétence en langue seconde chez les élèves en immersion française pourraient être surmontées par un enseignement qui saurait intégrer plus systématiquement langue et contenu.

This chapter reviews empirical research that has helped to shape evolving perspectives of immersion education since the introduction of French immersion programs in Montreal more than 40 years ago. Research confirms that French immersion students attain high levels of comprehension abilities and functional levels of communicative ability in production, with shortcomings in accurate and idiomatic expression, lexical variety, and sociolinguistic appropriateness. Shortcomings will be explained in terms of processing constraints that result from an interaction among the structural properties of problematic target features such as verbs, pronouns, and gender; their degree of salience in classroom discourse; and a range of learner-internal factors. Following an argument developed by Lyster (2007) with respect to teaching and learning languages through content, the specific argument put forth in this chapter is that many shortcomings in the second language proficiency of French immersion students could be overcome through instruction that is counterbalanced in a way that more systematically integrates language and content.
Defining child second language acquisition, defining roles for L2 instruction
Authors: Nicholas Howard , Lightbown Patsy M.
Published: March 2014

In this chapter, ‘child’ second language acquisition is defined as distinct fromboth ‘adult’ second language acquisition and from either monolingual or simultaneous bilingual development in childhood. We argue that ‘second language acquisition’ begins at a very early age (certainly before age 3) and suggest that there is a gradual development of features that become recognised as ‘adult second language acquisition’ after approximately age 7.

Using this definition, we explore both grammatical and pragmatic features of child second language development, observing how children behave in formal instructional settings where the ‘second’ language is either that of the surrounding community or of a distant community. We then explore what second language acquisition research can (not) teach us about second language instruction, especially the facilitating role that teachers can play in supporting child second language development.
Speeding up acquisition of his and her: Explicit L1/L2 contrasts help
Authors: White Joanna
Published: March 2014

This paper reviews three pedagogical intervention studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of providing pre-adolescent and adolescent learners in communicatively-oriented classrooms with explicit metalinguistic information and opportunities to use it. The studies, which target the possessive determiners (PDs), his and her, follow a pretest/posttest design and were carried out in intact treatment and comparison classes. Measures consist of grammaticality judgement, metalinguistic comment, and oral picture description tasks. A number of issues are discussed in the context of older children’s second language learning in a classroom setting. These include implementing age-appropriate instruction that takes into account learners’ cognitive and linguistic readiness for form-focused instruction, their learning style and motivation, and the context of instruction.
Home-school connections for international adoptees: Repetition in parent-child interactions
Authors: Wright Lyn
Published: March 2014

Studies have found that second language-learning children can benefit academically from a variety of interactions outside of traditional teacher-fronted classroom activities. However, little is known about the actual linguistic processes involved in the acquisition of academic language competence. The current study investigates the role of repetition, and more specifically the functions of self- vs. other-repetition, in productions of school-related discourse genres by international adoptees during mealtime interactions with their parents in English. Two families with four adopted children (ages 4–10) from Russian-speaking regions participated in the study. Findings suggest that parents’ interactional strategies play a role in children’s productions and that children use both self- and otherrepetition for a variety of discourse functions related to their efforts to be competent interlocutors in family interaction. Self-repetition that leads to reformulation of utterances is seen to be a sign of discourse competence and linguistic creativity.
Blogs in Spanish beyond the classroom
Authors: Negueruela-Azarola Eduardo
Published: March 2014

This chapter explores pedagogical uses of blogs written in Spanish and available in the web as productive digital moments that expand and reorganize the second language (L2) learning experience. Using Sociocultural Theory (SCT) c(see Lantolf & Thorne, 2006) as an explanatory framework to understand L2 written and oral communication, I consider the importance of mindful cattention for development (see Salomon, 1991) and present two metaphors c(expansion and reorganization) for understanding blogs both as a rich locus cof communication and conceptualization and as a source of current unique texts for cultural, psychological, and social interpretation outside the classroom but only a digital click away for the L2 learner. A basic sociocultural topic-coriented heuristic for a reflective exploration of the Spanish-language blogosphere is provided so that Spanish teachers have a a sample pedagogical tool to offer to L2 learners. This study promotes meaningful utilization of Spanish-language blogs beyond the L2 classroom by recognizing blogs as a valuable sociocultural human activity.
Knowledge-based terminology management in medicine
Authors: Cimino James J.
Published: March 2014

Computer systems in clinical medicine are often integrated to facilitate data sharing, but the terminologies they use are typically not integrated. There is rarely any centralized repository of terms used in various systems, and no widely accepted standards exist. An exception is the Medical Entities Dictionary (MED) at the New York Presbyterian Hospital (NYPH) in New York. The NYPH clinical computing environment includes a centralized database of coded patient information collected from various ancillary sources and translated into codes provided by the MED. The MED includes all terms used in the ancillary departments and, as such, changes in the source terminologies must be maintained in the MED. In order to support the maintenance tasks, the MED includes knowledge about the terms themselves, arranged in a semantic network. This knowledge base is used to support sophisticated maintenance tools to facilitate additions and changes to the MED and verify their consistency and appropriateness. This chapter describes the design and development of the terminology and two case examples demonstrating some of the advantages to our approach: addition of a new terminology of laboratory terms and maintenance of an existing drug terminology.
Searching for and identifying conceptual relationships via a corpus-based approach to a Terminological Knowledge Base (CTKB)
Authors: Condamines Anne , Rebeyrolle Josette
Published: March 2014

The aim of this paper is to provide an effective method for constructing a Corpus Based Terminological Knowledge Base — CTKB. The two stages of the method based on linguistic knowledge are outlined: the identification of candidate-terms and the identification of conceptual relationships. This method is applied to a French corpus and the results are assessed from the point of view of various applications.
Freedom of speech at stake
Authors: Rudanko Juhani
Published: March 2014

The article reviews the history of freedom of speech in the early American Republic and focuses on two speeches in the House of Representatives, one in the context of the Bill of Rights in 1789 and the other in the context of the Sedition Act in 1798. In the analysis of speeches it is helpful to employ the notion of an informal fallacy. The article offers a definition of the concept and illustrates its application by examining two cases in point,ad socordiamandad hominem, in the authentic material. An awareness of such fallacious arguments is important to the student of political rhetoric and of any discourse meant to be persuasive.
Text-initiating strategies in eighteenth-century newspaper headlines
Authors: Studer Patrick
Published: March 2014

This study investigates textual organisation in early newspapers by singling out one important feature of news discourse that appeared in the course of the eighteenth century: the headline. The present paper argues that modern headlines started as foregrounded text elements of the news story before they were printed separately from the text. This claim is substantiated by a computer-assisted analysis of approximately one thousand headlines collected from the ZEN corpus (Zurich English Newspaper Corpus). The analysis is intended to reveal underlying syntactic processes involved in foregrounding and to show distribution patterns of different headline types in late eighteenth century news publications.
Contesting authorities
Authors: Oja Marko
Published: March 2014

Scientific study in the 17th century drew heavily on sources considered irrelevant or unscientific by later scholars. Wilkins' work is a prime example of this practice, attempting to find a balance between the Bible, Classical authors and contemporary research on the moon. This study uses both qualitative and quantitative methods in contemporary citation analysis and applies them to the needs of a historical text in order to show how the views in these very different sources coexist and relate to each other in a single text. Classical and contemporary sources are shown to have been used similarly, whereas the Bible represents a special case.
Chaucer's narrators and audiences
Authors: Foster Michael
Published: March 2014

Chaucer's narrator-persona has been a central theme in Chaucerian scholarship; the persona has traditionally been seen as a mask behind which the poet hides. Within this essay it is argued that the narrators of theBook of the DuchessandHouse of Fameare a type of social mask, and that by rhetorically employing and manipulating the social dynamic between himself and his real-world audience, Chaucer produces a narrator figure which will influence how his contemporary audience would perceive the poet outside the fictional world of the text.
From certainty to doubt
Authors: Rodríguez Somolinos Amalia
Published: March 2014

This paper explains the evolution of the modal markervoirein French, following an argumentative and pragmatic approach. Until the 16th century,voirecan mark a confirmation in a dialogue. It can also appear inside a sentential structure. In both cases,voireis strongly assertive. This assertive value disappears in the course of the 17th century, and intra-sententialvoire1 will give way tovoire2, characteristic of Modern French.Voireis found nowadays inside a sentential structure, and it has a semantic value close to the Modern Frenchmêmeor Englisheven. But withvoire2, the degree of adhesion by the speaker to his utterance has diminished. The weakening of the primary assertive value has resulted in an entirely different marker.
Discourse features of code-switching in legal reports in late medieval England
Authors: Davidson Mary Catherine
Published: March 2014

This study of code-switching in late medieval legal texts termed Year Books responds to research by Herbert Schendl and Laura Wright on medieval code-switching. Each concludes that code-switching constitutes registers or discourse modes within specific text-types. Year Books examined in this study similarly develop specific discourse strategies by switching between Latin and French to encode the reporting of pleading and procedure. The sequence of switches in the reports serves primarily to format and organise case reports and secondarily to differentiate legal commentary from procedure and pleading. Legal reports, though not official records and likely used for reference purposes, are nevertheless witness that code-switching is a formalised mode of discourse within the common law profession.
Dummy prepositions and the licensing of null subjects in Brazilian Portuguese
Authors: Nunes Jairo
Published: March 2014

This paper discusses constructions in Brazilian Portuguese in which a null subject is adequately licensed only if the clause containing it is preceded by the dummy preposition de. Assuming that referential null subjects in Brazilian Portuguese are traces of A-movement (see Ferreira 2000, 2004 and Rodrigues 2002, 2004), I argue that the presence of de signals whether or not the embedded clause has received inherent Case and this ultimately determines whether the embedded subject is allowed to move from within its clause and whether it should undergo upward or sideward movement (see Nunes 2001, 2004).
Corpus linguistics and grammaticalisation theory
Authors: Mair Christian
Published: March 2014

The paper argues for a closer collaboration between corpus linguists and grammaticalisation theorists. Corpora have a number of benefits: First, they make it possible to study incipient or ongoing processes of grammaticalisation. Secondly, a quantitative-cum-qualitative analysis of corpus data makes it possible to shed light on important theoretical issues. Thirdly, corpora allow a better take on the textlinguistic, genre and discourse factors relevant to grammaticalisation.

The general points made are illustrated with data provided in the digitally accessible quotation base of the OED. On the basis of the evidence, I propose a distinction between two types of grammaticalisation, a “dynamic” one, which is reflected in massive shifts of frequency, and a “static” one, which can be characterised as the occasional use of lexical items in grammatical function.
Life after degrammaticalisation
Authors: Wright Laura
Published: March 2014

The present paper challenges the notion that grammaticalisation is opposed to lexicalisation, and that degrammaticalisation automatically entails lexicalisation. An equally plausible change of status of a former grammatical formative is for it to turn into a sociolinguistic marker. This point is made on the basis of the degrammaticalisation of present plural be in Standard English, and its subsequent reemergence as a sociolinguistic variable. Basilectal be was transmitted via the speech of transported London prisoners, among others, to the New World where it is now a prominent feature of African American Vernacular English.

The data for this survey are taken from the Bridewell Court Minute Books, 1559–1625. The language therein provides evidence of the speech-community from which many of the earliest Virginia indentured servants originally came.
Valency – item-specificity and idiom principle
Authors: Herbst Thomas
Published: March 2014

This article discusses the role of valency as a lexico-grammatical phenomenon which can only be fully accounted for in terms of such concepts as Sinclair’s idiom principle. It is argued that insights from corpus linguistics and foreign language linguistics can be accommodated in cognitive approaches such as Construction Grammar. The article outlines various levels of abstraction involved in a valency description and argues that although to a certain extent generalizations can be made, the idiosyncratic nature of valency should not be underestimated. Using largely data from the Valency Dictionary of English, it is shown that this is true of practically all levels of a valency description, ranging from correspondences of valency patterns and the meanings of the items to the lexical realization of particular complements.
A corpus-based investigation  of cognate object constructions
Authors: Höche Silke
Published: March 2014

This paper takes up a corpus-based discussion of so-called Cognate Object Constructions (COC) (as exemplified in He slept a deep and dreamless sleep), carried out within the framework of Cognitive Linguistics (CL). This paradigm has recently become criticized for promoting a usage-based approach to language but falling short of wide-ranging applications of empirical methods such as corpus investigations and the thorough analysis of retrieved data using elaborate statistical methods. Our study, in which we introduce COCs as a family of related constructions, presents and discusses the results of an investigation of the pattern as recorded in the British National Corpus (BNC). More than 3,100 instances of COCs could be extracted, which were carefully examined and interpreted by means of a collostructional analysis, a statistical procedure developed by Stefanowitsch and Gries (2003). Different types of the construction will be described, with an attempt to arrange these in a usage-based network of constructions, incorporating the data obtained from our statistical analysis. The network comprises information of different levels of abstraction, ranging from abstract, high-level schemas to low-level, lexically filled patterns (idioms, set phrases).
On the development of actionality, tense, and viewpoint from Early to Late Latin
Authors: Haverling Gerd V.M.
Published: March 2014

In Early and Classical Latin, verbal affixes indicate actional oppositions, such as non-dynamic vs. dynamic, atelic vs. telic, or the focus on the beginning or the end of a development or change. The tense system emphasises the relative sequence of events and sometimes it even distinguishes the normal past from the anterior past. There is a viewpoint opposition in all the forms of actionality and even in the indication of permanent states in the past. In Late Latin, several of the verbal affixes lose their actional functions and several previously transitive verbs become intransitive. The sensitivity to the relative sequence of events diminishes and there are major changes in the functions of the tense forms and a tendency to use the imperfective viewpoint, where Classical Latin distinguished the perfective viewpoint from the imperfective one.
Continuity and change: The history of two Greek tenses
Authors: Gerö Eva-Carin , Ruge Hans
Published: March 2014

The goal of this paper is to demonstrate two cases of continuity in the Greek tense system from Antiquity till today, viz. the Imperfect and the Future, both of which, in spite of partly changing morphology and other variation on a surface level, remain remarkably constant semantically and conceptually. The constant meaning of the Imperfect may be defined quite cogently, depending on the choice of theoretical framework, either as developing, intraterminal or inclusive. Also the Future, in spite of more radical surface variation diachronically, displays a remarkably high degree of continuity on a conceptual level. Already Ancient Greek had the possibility of expressing different aspects also in the future tense by means of modal expressions or by periphrasis.
Predicative verbs of transition in Portuguese and Spanish: A cognitive approach to aspect, aktionsart, and tense
Authors: Söhrman Ingmar , Nilsson Kåre
Published: March 2014

Contrary to the Germanic languages, the Romance languages have a whole range of verbs instead of one (or two) specific, polysemic copula verb which can be used to express all kinds of transition from one state or situation into another, i.e. serving as a dynamic counterpart of a corresponding static verb used to describe existing states of affairs related to animate or inanimate subjects in a predicative context. There also exist more synthetic ways of expressing change in the state of affairs through the so-called ingressive verbs. These verbs reflect the typical situation in Latin, where transition, i.e. change in the state of affairs, was normally represented by lexical and/or synthetic means of expression. Cf.excandesco and irascor ‘to get angry’, where the rise of a new situation is made explicit by the inchoative infix -sc-. Thus the nowadays current analytical expressions of transition by means of a dynamic copula or a factitive verb followed by a predicative complement of the subject or object, respectively,represent a typological shift from the ancient, synthetic ways of expressing situational change.
Comparative TAM morphology in Niger-Congo: The case of persistive, and some other markers in Bantu
Authors: Maho Jouni Filip
Published: March 2014

The present paper looks at so-called persistive markers (denoting something like “still going on”) in the sub-Saharan Bantu languages, one of the major subgroups of the Niger-Congo language phylum. The intention is to relate these persistive markers, in terms of cognacy, to a few non-persistive markers (especially progressives and futures).
Bardi arguments: Referentiality, agreement and omission in Bardi discourse
Authors: Bowern Claire
Published: March 2014

The Bardi language of Northwestern Australia exhibits complex interactions between morphology, syntax, and discourse structure. In this paper I examine the interplay between constituent order, the marking of argument functions through verbal agreement, and the role of bound nominal omission. The findings presented here have implications for the Pronominal Argument Hypothesis and analysis of bound argument markers as “pronominal”.
Ditransitive constructions: Towards a new Role and Reference Grammar account?
Authors: Haspelmath Martin
Published: March 2014

This paper reviews some of basic argument marking properties of ditransitive constructions and asks how various syntactic frameworks deal with them. In particular, I critically examine two accounts within Role and Reference Grammar (RRG). I lay out a basic typology of three alignment types: indirective alignment, neutral alignment, and secundative alignment. Since the latter is not common in the most widely studied languages, theoretical frameworks have typically had problems with it, including the earlier account within RRG. I argue that the three ditransitive alignment types are parallel to the three monotransitive alignment types (accusative, neutral, ergative), and that it is worth exploring an alternative RRG account that operates with two additional macroroles, R and T, which function much like A and U. In this paper, I will examine the treatment of ditransitive constructions in Role and Reference Grammar and compare it to the perspective on ditransitives that I have developed in earlier work (Haspelmath 2005a, 2007a), as well as to some other formal grammatical frameworks. I will conclude by proposing a fairly radical revision of the standard treatment of ditransitive constructions in rrg (Guerrero & Van Valin 2004; Van Valin 2007).
A prosodic projection for Role and Reference Grammar
Authors: O'Connor Rob
Published: March 2014

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce a prosodic projection into the RRG inventory of grammatical representation. In particular this projection enables investigation of prosodic aspects of information structure (focus structure) within the RRG framework to proceed alongside existing investigation of syntactic and other means of expressing and representing information structure. The prosodic projection is based on the Autosegmental-Metrical/Tones and Break Indices (AM/ToBI) approach to the representation of intonation. The AM/ToBI representation is adapted into rr g through a redefining of prosodic structure in terms of concepts like prosodic “template” and prosodic “inventory”, which already have a degree of familiarity within RRG through their syntactic counterparts.
Predication and reference in specificational sentences – functions of English noun phrases
Authors: Pavey Emma
Published: March 2014

In this paper, I examine the interpretation and coding of referents in English noun phrases as used in communication. The analysis is framed in terms of the identifiability, specificity and referentiality of the referent. In examining specificational constructions and the “value” and “variable” functions they contain (terms from DeClerck 1988), I show that noun phrases in specificational constructions can be incorporated into a scale which ranges from “pragmatic” to “semantic” predication, and which depends on sentential and discourse context. The relationship between reference and predication is therefore more complex than a binary alternation. Drawing on previous work in Pavey (2004), presenting these findings within a Role and Reference Grammar framework allows for both types of predication to be represented.
Alternative expressions of 'want' complements
Authors: Guerrero Lilián
Published: March 2014

The complements of “want” predicate may vary depending on the identity of the main and the dependent subjects. When identical, five main tendencies are found cross-linguistically: (i) the dependent subject is omitted, (ii) the dependent subject is overtly expressed, (iii) “want” is a desiderative affix or (iv) an uninflected particle, and (v) there are alternative choices (Haspelmath 2005). Using data from the Uto-Aztecan family, this article focuses on one of the less common means, the co-existence of alternative expressions. The analysis provides an account for this phenomenon in light of the Interclausal Relations Hierarchy (Van Valin 2005): whenever there are available structures in a language, the tightest linkage encodes intention, and the less tight expresses different mental states.
Unmarked transitivity
Authors: Bornkessel-Schlesewsky Ina , Schlesewsky Matthias
Published: March 2014

Recent experimental evidence suggests that a prototypical concept of transitive events (“unmarked transitivity”), which has proven a useful descriptive notion in language typological research, also plays a crucial role during real time language comprehension. In this chapter, we review neurocognitive evidence for unmarked transitivity from both a neuroanatomical (spatial) and neurophysiological (temporal) perspective. We further show how unmarked transitivity, which we characterise as the default realisation of a more general requirement for argument distinctness, can be integrated into a comprehensive model of cross-linguistic language comprehension. Finally, we discuss possible consequences of the comprehension findings for theoretical characterisations of language architecture, with a particular focus on Role and Reference Grammar.
Parsing for Role and Reference Grammar
Authors: Guest Elizabeth
Published: March 2014

Parsing of human languages is a well studied subject, but most algorithms will handle either fixed word order languages or free word order languages. In this paper we describe extensions to a chart parser in order to enable varying degrees of word order flexibility and parsing via templates instead of rules. We have chosen to use templates instead of rules because this enables more information to be captured, which in turn will make it easier to extract the meaning from the sentence. The grammatical paradigm used in this paper is Role and Reference Grammar, but we expect the methods to be useful for other grammatical paradigms.
The typology of semantic affinities
Authors: Pottier Bernard
Published: March 2014

Following previous research by the author, this chapter shows how semantic proximity (or proxemy) may result from meaning divergence in one lexical item (polysemy) or from meaning convergence of different lexical items (parasemy). Polysemous variations are explained by the interplay of several parameters: domains of instantiation, synaesthesic fields, and universal visualized cognitive schemas. In parasemy, a referential domain is conceived and uttered through several optional solutions, i.e., polysemiosis, within one and the same language as well as crosslinguistically (e.g., correspondences between proverbs in spite of distinct cultural environments). The paper shows how taxemic paradigms are expressed by roots, stems, classifiers, determiners, a compromise between the necessary multiplicity of lexical items and memory limitations.
A typology of morphological constructions
Authors: Martín Arista Javier
Published: March 2014

This article is a contribution to the development of the theory of morphology of Role and Reference Grammar in line with the more central role that constructions play in the latest version of this linguistic theory. In order to propose a principled definition of morphological processes that is not dependent on fuzzy notions like class membership, this article applies the distinction between constructions and constructional schemas to morphology in the following way. As regards morphological constructions, which are typologically relevant, the defining criterion is the distribution of markedness, that is, whether the morphologically relevant features are in the Nucleus or not. Two possibilities arise in this respect: the nuclear element or one or more non-nuclear elements are marked. If the nuclear element is marked, there is projection of morphological features. If the non-nuclear elements are marked, there is percolation as well as projection of features. Regarding constructional schemas, which are language-specific instantiations of constructions and can combine with one another, they fall into the following types: recursive/non-recursive, analytic/synthetic and continuous/discontinuous. After an application to the language of analysis, Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara, the conclusion is drawn that derivation (including compounding and affixation) can be endocentric or exocentric, whereas inflection is endocentric. Inflection and derivation can be analytic and synthetic as well as continuous and discontinuous. Unlike derivation, inflection is typically non-recursive, but the evidence provided by double case in Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara is relevant for this question.
Case loss in Texas German: The influence of semantic and pragmatic factors
Authors: Boas Hans C.
Published: March 2014

Based on a comparison of data from Gilbert (1972) and data collected by the Texas German Dialect Project between 2001–2006 I demonstrate that dative case marking in Texas German has significantly declined over the past 40 years. Applying Trudgill’s (2004) model of new-dialect formation to the data I argue that the reduction in dative case is best explained in terms of internal factors, that is, leveling processes taking place in dialect contact situations. I propose that the replacement of the dative by the accusative is triggered by at least three interlaced factors: similarity in phonological form, movement towards unmarked forms (from lexical to structural case), and similarity in semantic contexts.
Alaaba
Authors: Schneider-Blum Gertrud
Published: March 2014

Participant marking in Alaaba is mainly manifested in its case system. Eight cases can be differentiated with nouns: The Absolutive primarily encodes the direct object of a sentence and is used as the citation form of the noun. The Nominative is basically used to encode the subject of a sentence. The Genitive marks a possessive relationship. The Dative typically encodes the recipient of an action. The Ablative marks the source, the Locative a location and the Instrumental the instrument with which something is achieved. Finally the Similative is used to show similarity between two items. The case systems for modifers are considerably reduced as is shown with dependent demonstratives, numerals and adjectives. The pronominal case system is special insofar as the citation form is the Nominative; also a Locative form cannot be differentiated from the Instrumental. – The valency of verbs interacts with the use of the different cases. Some verbs may change their valency unmarked. The following verbal derivational devices can be formally established: the causative with several allomorphs, the transitivizing morpheme -a?-, the anticausative -ta?-, the passive marker -am-, the middle voice with two allomorphs, and the reciprocal which is combined of the middle voice and the passive morpheme.
Ditransitive clauses in English with special reference to Lancashire dialect
Authors: Siewierska Anna , Hollmann Willem B.
Published: March 2014

Unlike many other languages, English has three ditransitive constructions; a prepositional one in which the recipient or beneficiary is marked by a preposition and two double object constructions, one in which the recipient precedes the theme and the other in which the theme precedes the recipient. The availability and use of these three constructions in different dialects of English has long been an issue of controversy. This paper offers actual corpus data relating to the distribution of the three ditransitive constructions in one English dialect, namely Lancashire dialect. It shows that in cases where both the recipient and theme are pronominal, the double object construction with theme > recipient order is not only possible but in fact dominant.
The modal auxiliaries of English, π-operators in Functional Grammar and “grounding”
Authors: Goossens Louis
Published: March 2014

In this contribution it is argued that in spite of their homogeneousmorphological and syntactic properties, there are compelling reasons to differentiate the central modal auxiliaries of English with respect to grammaticalization. The main differential semantic criterion comes from their contribution as grounding predications, as understood by Cognitive Grammar. The implications of this differentiation will mainly be investigated for their treatment (as p-operators or otherwise) in Functional Grammar, but it will also entail a modified view for their status as grounding predications in Cognitive Grammar (as compared with Langacker’s). Insights from the diachronic development of must are taken to support the position defended here.
Adverbial conjunctions in Functional Discourse Grammar
Authors: Hengeveld Kees , Wanders Gerry
Published: March 2014

This contribution presents a new view on the treatment of adverbial conjunctions in Functional Discourse Grammar, combining an analysis of general linguistic interest with a theoretically motivated one. It starts off with a typological classification of linguistic elements expressing relations between clauses, which leads to a classification of conjunctions and conjunctional phrases in English. Attention is then paid to the different lexical-grammatical properties of different types of conjunctional elements. The findings show that, in English, linguistic elements used to combine clauses form a continuum ranging from grammatical elements parallel to prepositions to lexical elements parallel to verb chain contructions. The descriptive tools of Functional Discourse Grammar help to reveal a correlation between the types of conjunction and their domain of application.
Tree tigers and tree elephants
Authors: Anstey Matthew
Published: March 2014

The description of English nominal compounds (ENCs) poses a challenge to linguistic theories because ENCs compress a bewildering array of semantic and conceptual information into a relatively simple syntactic structure. The present contribution reviews linguistic and psycholinguistic efforts to meet this challenge in a variety of ways. It is proposed that a superior explanation is one that treats the semantic and syntactic (and conceptual and prosodic) information as a constructional unity, learned and used as a distinct linguistic entity rather than as a derivative of construction-independent rules and processes. The proposed ENC construction is claimed to have theoretical, functional, and cognitive adequacy, a desideratum of linguistic theories.
A speaker/hearer-based grammar
Authors: Janssen Theo
Published: March 2014

This chapter argues for a speaker/hearer-based grammar conceived of as a structured set of procedures and procedural elements which clarify how interlocutors can produce and understand utterances. Some basic issues of a speaker/hearerbased grammar (primacy of the utterance, interaction between utterance and frame of reference, morphemes as procedural elements, the cueing function of phonetic elements in communicative processes) will be elucidated by an analysis of possessive constructions and novel compounds. Their use is based on a relationship that the speaker and hearer can integrate into their conceptualization of the frame of reference in the light of their interpretation of the current situation, their knowledge of the world and possibly the situations communicated in previous utterances and sometimes even utterances to come.
Towards a cognitive-functional model of text comprehension
Authors: Butler Christopher S.
Published: March 2014

This paper examines two cognitively-based models of text comprehension and suggests how these might be combined, and integrated with a functional grammar in order to provide an overall model which takes us from a structured sequence of words to the understanding of the concepts conveyed. The paper first provides illustrated summaries of Kintsch’s construction-integration model and Werth’s text world model. Discussion of their similarities and differences suggests that they are not incompatible, but that both lack a suitable grammatical component. The paper then examines the properties which such a grammar needs to have, and demonstrates that Role and Reference Grammar is an appropriate choice. The parts of the model are then brought together in relation to a short but complete text taken from a corpus. The paper is rounded off with some concluding remarks.
The unconscious, irresponsible construction in Modern Icelandic
Authors: Bernárdez Enrique
Published: March 2014

The Icelandic language possesses a number of constructions whose function it is to express the degree of agentivity or lack of agentivity of a process. This paper analyses a specific construction built with the auxiliary verb verða ‘to become’ plus an experiencer or affected entity in the dative and a lexical verb in the neuter form of the past participle; the construction is used to mean that the human experiencer is unconscious of the onset of the process leading to a new state as a result. For instance, mér verður litið, meaning ‘I happened to look’. The assumed agent of the resulting state is conceptualized as an involuntary experiencer, not responsible for the resulting action or process. This construction has not been the object of systematic analysis before and this paper intends to offer a preliminary analysis from a semantic perspective. The construction is set in relation with the other Icelandic constructions of ‘reduced agentivity’.
The spread and decline of indefinite man-constructions in European languages
Authors: Giacalone Ramat Anna , Sansó Andrea
Published: March 2014

This paper focuses on the areal distribution of indefinite man -constructions (i.e. impersonal active constructions in which the subject position is filled by a noun meaning ‘man’) in European languages. It is shown that man -constructions are a widespread phenomenon across Europe: they show up consistently in the so-called “Charlemagne area”, and tend to diffuse eastwards to West and South Slavonic languages, whereas East Slavonic languages do not present clear instances of this construction type. This areal distribution allows us to consider these constructions as a yet unnoticed areal feature of the Standard Average European area, but they are, in a sense, a recessive areal feature, and their distribution in older times included more languages than today (especially in Germanic and Romance). On the other hand, the eastward expansion towards the Slavonic area appears to be a quite recent phenomenon, and man -constructions in Slavonic languages are possibly an incipient category. To cope with this apparent discrepancy, a twowave model of diffusion is introduced, which singles out two historical periods in which the diffusion of these constructions is likely to have taken place.
Mediating culture through language: Contact-induced phenomena in the early translations of the Gospels
Authors: Luraghi Silvia , Cuzzolin Pierluigi
Published: March 2014

The paper aims to show how translation can transfer certain culture-specific concepts into a different culture, possibly modifying it. It concentrates on the translation of the Greek preposition epí into Latin, Gothic, and Old Church Slavonic in Luke’s Gospel. We argue that, to various extents, translators incorporated results of theological discussion into their language (obviously, this is most clear for Latin, where constructions such as confido in ‘trust in’ and fleo super ‘cry over’ were created, that did not exist in Classical Latin and still survive in the Romance languages). Through carefull analysis of the various translations found, we show that even in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages cultural contact was a privileged vehicle for linguistic contact.
Conjunctive, disjunctive and adversative constructions in Europe: Some areal considerations
Authors: Mauri Caterina
Published: March 2014

The aim of this paper is to show the areal distribution of the semantic and morphosyntactic features characterizing conjunctive, disjunctive and adversative constructions in the languages of Europe. The analysis will be carried out on two levels. On the one hand, I will examine the cross-linguistic variation within Europe, identifying the geographical distribution of each construction type. On the other hand, I will compare European languages with non-European languages, pointing out the features which characterize Europe as an internally homogeneous area. This paper ends with the identification of the ‘And-But-Or’ area, located in Western-Central Europe, where conjunctive, disjunctive and adversative constructions show the same semantic and morphosyntactic properties.
Relativisation strategies in insular Celtic languages
Authors: Roma Elisa
Published: March 2014

In the first part of this paper I provide a description of the major relativisation patterns found in the Celtic languages of the British Isles, examining the distribution of relative markers both from a typological and from a diachronic point of view. In the second part Old and Early Middle English relativisation markers are chronologically ordered and compared to the Celtic patterns. While Celtic influence on English has been claimed for gapping and preposition stranding, the data indicate other outcomes of early contact, namely the constraint against an agreeing relative marker after an agreeing determiner on the antecedent noun, and the resumptive strategy with obliques. Finally general conclusions on the direction and typology of borrowing are drawn.
Canonical and non-canonical marking of core arguments in European languages
Authors: Romagno Domenica
Published: March 2014

It is observed that the prepositional direct object phenomena are related to past participle agreement and auxiliary selection in compound tenses. The purpose of this paper is to show that verb properties and object referent properties co-occur in prepositional direct object selection. Data from Spanish, Sardinian, Sicilian, Calabrian, Maltese and Roumanian are examined. The triggering parameters are the same in all the languages that are considered: 1) object affectedness (and, consequently, verb telicity), 2) object agentivity, 3) object individuation. Each parameter represents a scale according to which verb phrases (or clauses) can be ranked and, then, objects are more or less likely to be prepositional (= non-canonically marked) or non-prepositional (canonically marked).
Eliminating indeterminacy
Authors: Griniewicz (Grinev) Sergej
Published: March 2014

An anthropolinguistic approach to viewing indeterminacy is proposed, according to which indeterminacy is viewed as a category that changes from primordial vagueness of words at the early stage of evolution of human mentality to later ambiguity and concept fuzziness.
Indeterminacy of terms and icons in software localization
Authors: Schmitz Klaus-Dirk
Published: March 2014

This paper examines the relationship between terminology management practices in the software development and localization process and the empowerment of end-users. It shows that because a positive evaluation of the software use experience is often premised on clear and consistent terminology, indeterminacy phenomena such as non-transparent, “inappropriate” and inconsistent terms and icons lead to various forms of flawed communication (no meaning, wrong meaning, multiple meanings, unintended meaning, unintended association, etc.).
No fixed boundaries
Authors: Myking Johan
Published: March 2014

Traditional terminology is currently being questioned and criticised, and this criticism tends to take central dichotomies as its point of departure. This article takes as its point of departure two theses, both of which address two dichotomies: a) there are no fixed boundaries between specialised communication and other forms of communication, and, consequently, b) there are no fixed boundaries between terms and the rest of vocabulary and phraseology. By combining a semasiological study of some of the central dichotomies of terminology with a historical approach, the paper argues that central dichotomies of terminology and LSP have been subject to a renegotiation that is not yet terminated. Some traditional dichotomies seem to have been recontextualised without being completely refuted.
Concept formation and indeterminacy in the LSP of Economics
Authors: Toft Birthe
Published: March 2014

This article explores a central concept of classical economics (equilibrium) from an experiential cognitive science point of view, assuming that model-building in science is an analogy-like manifestation of metaphoric thought. In order to account for the metaphorical basis of the concept, it studies the argumentation of various economists, including the authors of an economics textbook for first year students, and comes to the conclusion that there is an obvious reason why this and many other concepts of classical economics are based on Newtonian physics analogies, viz. that such analogies originate in our primary bodily experience. The article winds up with a discussion of indeterminacy in the languages of classical and modern economics.