Introduction to English Morphology
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What Is the Relationship Between Language Production and Comprehension?
Journal of Memory and Language 89 (2016) 1–7 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Memory and Language journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jml Editorial Same, different, or closely related: What is the relationship between language production and comprehension? The historical tradition in psycholinguistics has largely became a hot issue through Lee’s (1950) discovery of the been to study either language production or comprehen- delayed auditory feedback (DAF) effect. When you hear your sion. Almost all of nineteenth century psycholinguistics, own speech delayed by some 150 ms, speech fluency dra- for instance, concerned the production of language, culmi- matically breaks down. Based on these observations, Lee nating in Wundt’s two-volume Die Sprache of 1900. This designed an engineering model of self-monitoring, which also held for research in language acquisition which, lar- required feedback to take place within the syllable being gely based on diary data, almost exclusively concerned spoken. the child’s production of speech until Eimas, Siqueland, Almost simultaneously, Broadbent (1952) demon- Jusczyk, and Vigorito (1971) introduced the experimental strated that participants were unable to understand a study of speech perception in infants. During the 1970s new question while answering a previous question. Atten- psycholinguistics became almost exclusively comprehen- tion can focus on one or the other task, but not on both sion research. Johnson-Laird opened his review of experi- simultaneously. This insight led to Broadbent’s famous fil- mental psycholinguistics in the 1974 Annual Review of ter model of selective attention. The issue kept returning in Psychology with the statement: ‘‘The fundamental problem psycholinguistics. -
What Are the Limits of Polysynthesis?
International Symposium on Polysynthesis in the World's Languages February 20-21, 2014 NINJAL, Tokyo What are the limits of Polysynthesis? Michael Fortescue, Marianne Mithun, and Nicholas Evans Of the various labels for morphological types currently in use by typologists ‘polysynthesis’ has proved to be the most difficult to pin down. For some it just represents an extreme on the dimension of synthesis (one of Sapir’s two major typological axes) while for others it is an independent category or parameter with far- reaching morphosyntactic ramifications. A recent characterization (Evans & Sasse 2002: 3f.) is the following: ‘Essentially, then, a prototypical polysynthetic language is one in which it is possible, in a single word, to use processes of morphological composition to encode information about both the predicate and all its arguments, for all major clause types [....] to a level of specificity, allowing this word to serve alone as a free-standing utterance without reliance on context.’ If the nub of polysynthesis is the packing of a lot of material into single verb forms that would be expressed as independent words in less synthetic languages, what exactly is the nature of and limitations on this ‘material’? The present paper investigates the limits – both upwards and downwards – of what the term is generally understood to cover. Reference Evans, N. & H.-J. Sasse (eds.). (2002). Problems of Polysynthesis. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. 1 2014-01-08 International Symposium on Polysynthesis in the World's Languages February 20-21, 2014 NINJAL, Tokyo Polysynthesis in Ainu Anna Bugaeva (National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics) Ainu is a typical polysynthetic language in the sense that a single complex verb can express what takes a whole sentence in most other languages. -
Periphrasis in Ontogeny and Phylogeny
Periphrasis in Ontogeny and Phylogeny Michael Tsai May 17, 2001 1 Introduction Periphrasis may be defined as “the use of longer, multi-word expressions in place of single words”1 [Haspelmath 2000, p. 654]. The term applies in many linguistic domains, from verb conjugation (with temporal auxiliaries) to comparative forms (with more) to interrogatives (with do). A periphrastic expression is composed of free morphemes, while a monolectic expression consists of a single word that may be composed of several morphemes bound together, e.g. through inflection. This distinction applies not just to expressions, but also to whole languages: so-called analytic (isolating) languages contain mostly monomorphemic words and rely heavily on syntax to express meaning, synthetic (inflectional) languages rely more on morphology, and polysynthetic languages can express whole sentences as a single string of bound morphemes [O’Grady 1997]. However, these terms are rough classifications, and many languages contain both analytic and synthetic elements, sometimes even in the same paradigm. The balance between the two differs with the area of grammar under consideration, but it may also differ within the same area of grammar over time. In this paper we will examine the tension between periphrastic and bound forms with respect to two aspects of grammar: tenses and interrogatives. We will examine these from the perspectives of language creation and language change, drawing on evidence from creoles2 and historical linguistics. Results from language acquisition will link these two disciplines and suggest motivations for the diachronic changes and the patterns that emerge. 1Strictly speaking, the boundary between periphrasis and discourse is ill-defined, for it depends upon what languages exist and what linguists know about them. -
Livret Des Résumés Booklet of Abstracts
34èmes Journées de Linguistique d’Asie Orientale JLAO34 34th Paris Meeting on East Asian Linguistics 7–9 juillet 2021 / July, 7th–9th 2021 Colloque en ligne / Online Conference LIVRET DES RÉSUMÉS BOOKLET OF ABSTRACTS Comité d’organisation/Organizing committee Raoul BLIN, Ludovica LENA, Xin LI, Lin XIAO [email protected] *** Table des matières / Table of contents *** Van Hiep NGUYEN (Keynote speaker): On the study of grammar in Vietnam Julien ANTUNES: Description et analyse de l’accent des composés de type NOM-GENITIF-NOM en japonais moderne Giorgio Francesco ARCODIA: On ‘structural particles’ in Sinitic languages: typology and diachrony Huba BARTOS: Mandarin Chinese post-nuclear glides under -er suffixation Bianca BASCIANO: Degree achievements in Mandarin Chinese: A comparison between 加 jiā+ADJ and 弄 nòng+ADJ verbs Etienne BAUDEL: Chinese and Sino-Japanese lexical items in the Hachijō language of Japan Françoise BOTTERO: Xu Shen’s graphic analysis revisited Tsan Tsai CHAN: Cartographic fieldwork on sentence-final particles – Three challenges and some ways around them Hanzhu CHEN & Meng CHENG: Corrélation entre l’absence d’article et la divergence lexicale Shunting CHEN, Yiming LIANG & Pascal AMSILI: Chinese Inter-clausal Anaphora in Conditionals: A Linear Regression Study Zhuo CHEN: Differentiating two types of Mandarin unconditionals: Their internal and external syntax Katia CHIRKOVA: Aspect, Evidentiality, and Modality in Shuhi Anastasia DURYMANOVA: Nouns and verbs’ syntactic shift: some evidences against Old Chinese parts-of- speech -
The Pervasive Role of Pragmatics in Early Language
The pervasive role of pragmatics in early language Manuel Bohn Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Leipzig Research Center for Early Child Development, Leipzig University https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6006-1348 Michael C. Frank Department of Psychology, Stanford University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7551-4378 Short Title: Pragmatics in early language Author’s Note: We thank Erica Yoon and Bahar Köymen for comments on an earlier version of this paper. MB received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 749229. MCF received funding from the Jacobs Foundation Research Fellowship program. Please address correspondence to [email protected]. 1 Abstract Language is a fundamentally social endeavor. Pragmatics is the study of how speakers and listeners use social reasoning to go beyond the literal meanings of words to interpret language in context. In this review, we take a pragmatic perspective on language development and argue for developmental continuity between early non-verbal communication, language learning, and linguistic pragmatics. We link phenomena from these different literatures by relating them to a computational framework (the rational speech act framework), which conceptualizes communication as fundamentally inferential and grounded in social cognition. The model specifies how different information sources (linguistic utterances, social cues, common ground) are combined when making pragmatic inferences. We present evidence in favor of this inferential view and review how pragmatic reasoning supports children’s learning, comprehension, and use of language. Keywords: Language development; Social cognition; Pragmatics; Computational modeling; Communication 2 Introduction From a toddler pointing at a toy and saying “dat!” all the way to a lukewarm letter of recommendation, human beings use language to communicate an infinite range of meanings both flexibly and efficiently. -
Bound Free Morphemes Examples
Bound free morphemes examples They comprise simple words (i.e. words made up of one free morpheme) and compound words (i.e. words made up of two free morphemes). Examples. Contrast with bound morpheme. Many words in English consist of a single free morpheme. For example, each word in the following sentence is. Examples of derivational morphemes are un- and -ly in the word unfriendly" (Denise E. Murray and MaryAnn Christison, What English. Bound and free morphemes. Free morphemes: constitute words by themselves – boy, car, desire, gentle, man; can stand alone. Bound morphemes: can't stand. Bound and free morphemes. Free morphemes: o constitute words by themselves – boy, car, desire, gentle, man. o can stand alone. Definition. Every morpheme can be classified as either free or For example, un- appears only accompanied by. In morphology, a bound morpheme is a morpheme that appears only as part of a larger word; a free morpheme or unbound morpheme is one that can stand alone or can appear with other lexemes. A bound morpheme is also known as a bound form, and similarly a free A similar example is given in Chinese; most of its morphemes are. There are two types of morphemes-free morphemes and bound morphemes. "Free morphemes" can stand alone with a specific meaning, for example, eat, date. An affix is a bound morpheme, which means that it is exclusively attached to a free morpheme for meaning. Prefixes and suffixes are the most common examples. Those morphemes that can stand alone as words are called free morphemes. (e.g., boy Bound grammatical morphemes can be further divided into two types: inflectional For example, the –er in buyer means something like 'the one who,'. -
On the Notion of Metaphor in Sign Languages Some Observations Based on Russian Sign Language
John Benjamins Publishing Company This is a contribution from Sign Language & Linguistics 20:2 © 2017. John Benjamins Publishing Company This electronic file may not be altered in any way. The author(s) of this article is/are permitted to use this PDF file to generate printed copies to be used by way of offprints, for their personal use only. Permission is granted by the publishers to post this file on a closed server which is accessible only to members (students and faculty) of the author's/s' institute. It is not permitted to post this PDF on the internet, or to share it on sites such as Mendeley, ResearchGate, Academia.edu. Please see our rights policy on https://benjamins.com/content/customers/rights For any other use of this material prior written permission should be obtained from the publishers or through the Copyright Clearance Center (for USA: www.copyright.com). Please contact [email protected] or consult our website: www.benjamins.com On the notion of metaphor in sign languages Some observations based on Russian Sign Language Vadim Kimmelmana, Maria Kyusevab, Yana Lomakinac, and Daria Perovad aUniversity of Amsterdam / bThe University of Melbourne / cUnaffiliated researcher / dHigher School of Economics, Moscow Metaphors in sign languages have been an important research topic in recent years, and Taub’s (2001) model of metaphor formation in signs has been influ- ential in the field. In this paper, we analyze metaphors in signs of cognition and emotions in Russian Sign Language (RSL) and argue for a modification of Taub’s (2001) theory of metaphor. We demonstrate that metaphor formation in RSL uses a number of mechanisms: a concrete sign can acquire metaphorical mean- ing without change, a part of a sequential compound can acquire a metaphorical meaning, and a morpheme within a productive sign or a simultaneous com- pound can acquire a metaphorical meaning. -
Chapter 15 Second Language Acquisition
Chapter 15 Second Language Acquisition Dorothy Chun and Jan Frodesen Key Terms • Automaticity • Communicative competence • Critical period hypothesis • Interaction hypothesis • Interlanguage • Nativist theories of SLA • Sociocultural theories of SLA Chapter Preview As we have seen in earlier chapters, language is a complex array of many different components, ranging from individual sounds to whether a particular utterance or sentence is appropriate in a given situation or culture. In this chapter we will look at the issues involved in learning or acquiring a second language as an adolescent or adult learner. The main question with regard to second language acquisition (SLA) is: Why do people acquire a first language with little conscious effort while it is so difficult to master all of the aspects of a second language and speak it like a native speaker? This chapter will first discuss the main linguistic issues with regard to how second languages are acquired (e.g., phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon/vocabulary, pragmatics). It will then describe some of the influences from the field of psychology on the study of second language acquisition and will examine the cognitive processes that differ between first-language (L1) and second-language (L2) learning. Thirdly, the chapter will consider how social and affective issues of L2 learning have come to the forefront in the last decade of the 20th century and into the 21st century. Finally, interspersed throughout the chapter are discussions of the 1 relationship between current knowledge about how second languages are acquired and the practice of language teaching, including some of the current issues in language teaching, especially those arising from increased globalization. -
1 the Origins of Language
Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-49945-3 — The Study of Language George Yule Excerpt More Information 1 The Origins of Language The first person to set foot on the continent of Australia was a woman named Warramurrungunji. She emerged from the sea onto an island off northern Australia, and then headed inland, creating children and putting each one in a specific place. As she moved across the landscape, Warramurrungunji told each child, “I am putting you here. This is the language you should talk! This is your language!” Erard (2016) This origin story from the Iwaidja people of Australia, illustrated in the painting above, offers an explanation of not only where language came from, but also why there are so many different languages. Among the English-speaking people, there have been multiple attempts to provide a comparable explanation, but not much proof to support any of them. Instead of a belief in a single mythical earth mother, we have a variety of possible beliefs, all fairly speculative. We simply don’t have a definitive answer to the question of how language originated. We do know that the ability to produce sound and simple vocal patterning (a hum versus a grunt, for example) appears to be in an ancient part of the brain that we share with all vertebrates, including fish, frogs, birds and other mammals. But that isn’t human language. We suspect that some type of spoken language must have developed between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago, well before written language (about 5,000 years ago). -
Phd Handbook in Linguistics
The PhD program in Linguistics Table of Contents The PhD program in Linguistics 2 Graduate work in the Department of Linguistics 2 Graduate Courses in Linguistics 3 Graduate Introductory courses (400-level) 3 Graduate Core courses (400-level) 4 Advanced Graduate Courses (500-level) 4 Linguistics Requirements for PhD students 5 Planning the PhD degree program of study 5 Pre-Qualifying 5 Qualifying for Advancement to Candidacy for PhD students 5 Timing 6 Teaching Assistantships 6 Sample Schedules for a Linguistics PhD 7 Sample Linguistics and Brain and Cognitive Sciences schedule 7 Sample Linguistics and Computer Science (LIN/CS) schedule. 8 Course Descriptions 9 Linguistics 9 Relevant Brain and Cognitive Science Graduate Courses 14 Relevant Computer Science Graduate Courses 16 1 The PhD program in Linguistics The PhD program in Linguistics The Department of Linguistics at the University of Rochester offers a fully-funded five year PhD program in Linguistics, focusing on cross-disciplinary training and collaboration. Students in this program have a primary affiliation in Linguistics, with secondary affiliation in an allied department. At Rochester, cross-disciplinary, collaborative work is the norm. The Linguistics faculty are grounded in the traditional fields of formal linguistics, employing empirical methodologies to examine data and topics in experimental syntax, semantics, pragmatics, phonetics, laboratory phonology, and morphology in collaboration with faculty and students in allied fields. Our work incorporates contemporary issues and practices in these areas. Our principal allied fields are Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Computer Science, but we also have strong connections in related departments, such as Biomedical Engineering and departments at the Eastman School of Music. -
An Introduction to Syntactic Analysis and Theory
An Introduction to Syntactic Analysis and Theory Hilda Koopman Dominique Sportiche Edward Stabler 1 Morphology: Starting with words 1 2 Syntactic analysis introduced 37 3 Clauses 87 4 Many other phrases: first glance 101 5 X-bar theory and a first glimpse of discontinuities 121 6 The model of syntax 141 7 Binding and the hierarchical nature of phrase structure 163 8 Apparent violations of Locality of Selection 187 9 Raising and Control 203 10 Summary and review 223 iii 1 Morphology: Starting with words Our informal characterization defined syntax as the set of rules or princi- ples that govern how words are put together to form phrases, well formed sequences of words. Almost all of the words in it have some common sense meaning independent of the study of language. We more or less understand what a rule or principle is. A rule or principle describes a regularity in what happens. (For example: “if the temperature drops suddenly, water vapor will condense”). This notion of rule that we will be interested in should be distinguished from the notion of a rule that is an instruction or a statement about what should happen, such as “If the light is green, do not cross the street.” As linguists, our primary interest is not in how anyone says you should talk. Rather, we are interested in how people really talk. In common usage, “word” refers to some kind of linguistic unit. We have a rough, common sense idea of what a word is, but it is surprisingly difficult to characterize this precisely. -
Chapter 3 Morphology: the Words of Language
Ch. 3 Morphology: The Words of Language The Words of Language • In spoken language we don’t pause between most words • So when you hear a sentence in a language you don’t know, you won’t be able to tell where one word ends and the next begins • Most English speakers can pick out all of the words in Thecatsatonthemat because they can identify all those words The Words of Language • These boundaries between words can be played with for humor, as in the credits for NPR’s Car Talk: • Copyeditor: Adeline Moore • Pollution Control: Maury Missions • Legal Firm: Dewey Cheetham The Words of Language • Lexicon: Our mental dictionary of all the words we know • Lexicographers aim to create written records of our lexicons (dictionaries) • Dictionaries describe the spelling, standard pronunciation, definitions of meaning, and parts of speech of each word • They may also prescribe language use Content and Function Words • Content words: the words that convey conceptual meaning (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.) • Open class: new types of content words can be added all the time • E.g. a new noun called a flurg would be fine • Function words: the words that convey grammatical meaning (articles, prepositions, conjunctions, etc.) • Closed class: new function words are very rarely added to a language • English does not have a gender-neutral third person singular pronoun, and rather than adopt a new pronoun, many people use they instead of choosing between he and she. Content and Function Words • The brain treats content and function words differently • Some aphasics are unable to read the function words in and which but can read the content words inn and witch.