Learning of pitch and time structures in an artificial grammar setting.

Science.gov (United States)

Prince, Jon B; Stevens, Catherine J; Jones, Mari Riess; Tillmann, Barbara

2018-04-12

Despite the empirical evidence for the power of the cognitive capacity of implicit learning of structures and regularities in several modalities and materials, it remains controversial whether implicit learning extends to the learning of temporal structures and regularities. We investigated whether (a) an artificial grammar can be learned equally well when expressed in duration sequences as when expressed in pitch sequences, (b) learning of the artificial grammar in either duration or pitch (as the primary dimension) sequences can be influenced by the properties of the secondary dimension (invariant vs. randomized), and (c) learning can be boosted when the artificial grammar is expressed in both pitch and duration. After an exposure phase with grammatical sequences, learning in a subsequent test phase was assessed in a grammaticality judgment task. Participants in both the pitch and duration conditions showed incidental (not fully implicit) learning of the artificial grammar when the secondary dimension was invariant, but randomizing the pitch sequence prevented learning of the artificial grammar in duration sequences. Expressing the artificial grammar in both pitch and duration resulted in disproportionately better performance, suggesting an interaction between the learning of pitch and temporal structure. The findings are relevant to research investigating the learning of temporal structures and the learning of structures presented simultaneously in 2 dimensions (e.g., space and time, space and objects). By investigating learning, the findings provide further insight into the potential specificity of pitch and time processing, and their integrated versus independent processing, as previously debated in music cognition research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Forest Grammar(Ⅰ)

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

张松懋

1994-01-01

Forest grammar,a new type of high-dimensional grammar,is proposed in this paper,of which both the left and the right parts of every production are concatenations of tree structures.A classification of forest grammar is studied,especially,a subclass of the forest grammar,i.e.the context-sensitive forest grammar,and one of its subclasses is defined,called the weak precedence forest grammar.

THE ANALYSIS OF SYNTACTICAL INTERFERENCE IN ENGLISH PHRASES IN STUDENTS’ WRITING (A Descriptive Study at the Second Grade Students of SMP 2 Kuta Baro, Aceh Besar

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Salwa Chaira

2017-05-01

Full Text Available This qualitative-descriptive research attempts to describe Indonesian interference in building English phrases in writing. The research was undertaken to the second year students of SMP 2 Kuta Baro, Aceh Besar. This study aims to verify the Indonesian interference made by students in English phrases. The data were collected through document analysis which then the sample was selected to be analyzed. The sample of this study was twelve narrative texts composed by the students. The finding of data analysis reveals that there are some syntactical interference samples made by them as in scenery roads, voice strange, morning Sunday, water bath, garden flower, and advice future. These are resulted from Indonesian interference because they applied Indonesian structure in building English phrases. In conclusion, the research result shows that the students have lack of grammar knowledge in constructing English phrases. Therefore, they borrow Indonesian structure as a solution for their difficulties. For this reason, the teaching should focus more on how to build English phrases correctly by giving many samples of nounʸ + nounˣ (where nounˣ means head and nounʸ means modifier pattern all well as explaining the rule in English as the target language they are learning. It hopes that they will not transfer the Indonesian pattern when they are writing in English.Keywords: interference, syntactical, phrases

Searching the ASRS Database Using QUORUM Keyword Search, Phrase Search, Phrase Generation, and Phrase Discovery

Science.gov (United States)

McGreevy, Michael W.; Connors, Mary M. (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

To support Search Requests and Quick Responses at the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS), four new QUORUM methods have been developed: keyword search, phrase search, phrase generation, and phrase discovery. These methods build upon the core QUORUM methods of text analysis, modeling, and relevance-ranking. QUORUM keyword search retrieves ASRS incident narratives that contain one or more user-specified keywords in typical or selected contexts, and ranks the narratives on their relevance to the keywords in context. QUORUM phrase search retrieves narratives that contain one or more user-specified phrases, and ranks the narratives on their relevance to the phrases. QUORUM phrase generation produces a list of phrases from the ASRS database that contain a user-specified word or phrase. QUORUM phrase discovery finds phrases that are related to topics of interest. Phrase generation and phrase discovery are particularly useful for finding query phrases for input to QUORUM phrase search. The presentation of the new QUORUM methods includes: a brief review of the underlying core QUORUM methods; an overview of the new methods; numerous, concrete examples of ASRS database searches using the new methods; discussion of related methods; and, in the appendices, detailed descriptions of the new methods.

Compiler generation based on grammar inheritance

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Aksit, Mehmet; Mostert, Rene; Haverkort, Boudewijn R.H.M.

1990-01-01

The concept of grammar inheritance is introduced. Grammar inheritance is a structural organization of grammar rules by which a grammar inherits rules from ancestor grammars or may have its own rules inherited by descendant grammars. Grammar inheritance supports reusability and extensibility of

English Grammar Comparison:Descriptive Grammar vs. Prescriptive Grammar

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

ZHANG Jing-wen; LI Yi-an

2015-01-01

English grammar is thought as one of the most important parts in both language learning and teaching. While few peo⁃ple know there is more than one kind of English grammar. This essay provides the features and comparison between two com⁃monly used English grammar, namely descriptive grammar and prescriptive grammar, and assist English teachers to explore further in grammar teaching.

Vector grammars and PN machines

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

蒋昌俊

1996-01-01

The concept of vector grammars under the string semantic is introduced.The dass of vector grammars is given,which is similar to the dass of Chomsky grammars.The regular vector grammar is divided further.The strong and weak relation between the vector grammar and scalar grammar is discussed,so the spectrum system graph of scalar and vector grammars is made.The equivalent relation between the regular vector grammar and Petri nets (also called PN machine) is pointed.The hybrid PN machine is introduced,and its language is proved equivalent to the language of the context-free vector grammar.So the perfect relation structure between vector grammars and PN machines is formed.

Stereotypic and complex phrase types provide structural evidence for a multi-message display in humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae).

Science.gov (United States)

Murray, Anita; Dunlop, Rebecca A; Noad, Michael J; Goldizen, Anne W

2018-02-01

Male humpback whales produce a mating display called "song." Behavioral studies indicate song has inter- and/or intra-sexual functionality, suggesting song may be a multi-message display. Multi-message displays often include stereotypic components that convey group membership for mate attraction and/or male-male interactions, and complex components that convey individual quality for courtship. Humpback whale song contains sounds ("units") arranged into sequences ("phrases"). Repetitions of a specific phrase create a "theme." Within a theme, imperfect phrase repetitions ("phrase variants") create variability among phrases of the same type ("phrase type"). The hypothesis that song contains stereotypic and complex phrase types, structural characteristics consistent with a multi-message display, is investigated using recordings of 17 east Australian males (8:2004, 9:2011). Phrase types are categorized as stereotypic or complex using number of unit types, number of phrase variants, and the proportion of phrases that is unique to an individual versus shared amongst males. Unit types are determined using self-organizing maps. Phrase variants are determined by Levenshtein distances between phrases. Stereotypic phrase types have smaller numbers of unit types and shared phrase variants. Complex phrase types have larger numbers of unit types and unique phrase variants. This study supports the hypothesis that song could be a multi-message display.

Functional and cognitive grammars

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Anna Siewierska

2011-01-01

This paper presents a comprehensive review of the functional approach and cognitive approach to the nature of language and its relation to other aspects of human cognition. The paper starts with a brief discussion of the origins and the core tenets of the two approaches in Section 1. Section 2 discusses the similarities and differences between the three full-fledged structural functional grammars subsumed in the functional approach： Halliday＇s Systemic Functional Grammar （SFG）, Dik＇s Functional Grammar （FG）, and Van Valin＇s Role and Reference Grammar （RRG）. Section 3 deals with the major features of the three cognitive frameworks： Langacker＇s Cognitive Grammar （CG）, Goldberg＇s Cognitive Construction Grammar （CCG）, and Croft＇s Radical Construction Grammar （RCG）. Section 4 compares the two approaches and attempts to provide a unified functional-cognitive grammar. In the last section, the author concludes the paper with remarks on the unidirectional shift from functional grammar to cognitive grammar that may indicate a reinterpretation of the traditional relationship between functional and cognitive models of grammar.

Learn Grammar in Games

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

孟静

2007-01-01

Grammar learning has often been regarded as a structure based activity .Grammar games which are worth paying attention to and implementing in the classroom can help learner to learn and recall a grammar material in a pleasant, entertaining way and motivate learners,promote the communicative competence and generate the fluency. In this essay, the author compares the use of games in learning grammar with some traditional techniques for grammar presentation and revision, in order to find the advantages of using games. Also the author discusses how to choose appropriate games and when to use games.

Generic Graph Grammar: A Simple Grammar for Generic Procedural Modelling

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christiansen, Asger Nyman; Bærentzen, Jakob Andreas

2012-01-01

in a directed cyclic graph. Furthermore, the basic productions are chosen such that Generic Graph Grammar seamlessly combines the capabilities of L-systems to imitate biological growth (to model trees, animals, etc.) and those of split grammars to design structured objects (chairs, houses, etc.). This results...

(In)Flexibility of Constituency in Japanese in Multi-Modal Categorial Grammar with Structured Phonology

Science.gov (United States)

Kubota, Yusuke

2010-01-01

This dissertation proposes a theory of categorial grammar called Multi-Modal Categorial Grammar with Structured Phonology. The central feature that distinguishes this theory from the majority of contemporary syntactic theories is that it decouples (without completely segregating) two aspects of syntax--hierarchical organization (reflecting…

The Dependency Structure of Coordinate Phrases: A Corpus Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Temperley, David

2005-01-01

Hudson (1990) proposes that each conjunct in a coordinate phrase forms dependency relations with heads or dependents outside the coordinate phrase (the "multi-head" view). This proposal is tested through corpus analysis of Wall Street Journal text. For right-branching constituents (such as direct-object NPs), a short-long preference for conjunct…

COLLOCATION PHRASES IN RELATION TO OTHER LEXICAL PHRASES IN CROATIAN

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Goranka Blagus Bartolec

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The paper analyzes the semantic and lexicological aspects of collocation phrases in Croatian with tendency to separate them from other lexical phrases in Croatian (terms, idioms, names. The collocation phrase is defined as a special lexical phrase on a syntagmatic level, based on the semantic correlation of the two individual lexical components in which their meanings are specified.

Implicit Learning of Recursive Context-Free Grammars

Science.gov (United States)

Rohrmeier, Martin; Fu, Qiufang; Dienes, Zoltan

2012-01-01

Context-free grammars are fundamental for the description of linguistic syntax. However, most artificial grammar learning experiments have explored learning of simpler finite-state grammars, while studies exploring context-free grammars have not assessed awareness and implicitness. This paper explores the implicit learning of context-free grammars employing features of hierarchical organization, recursive embedding and long-distance dependencies. The grammars also featured the distinction between left- and right-branching structures, as well as between centre- and tail-embedding, both distinctions found in natural languages. People acquired unconscious knowledge of relations between grammatical classes even for dependencies over long distances, in ways that went beyond learning simpler relations (e.g. n-grams) between individual words. The structural distinctions drawn from linguistics also proved important as performance was greater for tail-embedding than centre-embedding structures. The results suggest the plausibility of implicit learning of complex context-free structures, which model some features of natural languages. They support the relevance of artificial grammar learning for probing mechanisms of language learning and challenge existing theories and computational models of implicit learning. PMID:23094021

Implicit learning of recursive context-free grammars.

Science.gov (United States)

Rohrmeier, Martin; Fu, Qiufang; Dienes, Zoltan

2012-01-01

Context-free grammars are fundamental for the description of linguistic syntax. However, most artificial grammar learning experiments have explored learning of simpler finite-state grammars, while studies exploring context-free grammars have not assessed awareness and implicitness. This paper explores the implicit learning of context-free grammars employing features of hierarchical organization, recursive embedding and long-distance dependencies. The grammars also featured the distinction between left- and right-branching structures, as well as between centre- and tail-embedding, both distinctions found in natural languages. People acquired unconscious knowledge of relations between grammatical classes even for dependencies over long distances, in ways that went beyond learning simpler relations (e.g. n-grams) between individual words. The structural distinctions drawn from linguistics also proved important as performance was greater for tail-embedding than centre-embedding structures. The results suggest the plausibility of implicit learning of complex context-free structures, which model some features of natural languages. They support the relevance of artificial grammar learning for probing mechanisms of language learning and challenge existing theories and computational models of implicit learning.

Implicit learning of recursive context-free grammars.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Martin Rohrmeier

Full Text Available Context-free grammars are fundamental for the description of linguistic syntax. However, most artificial grammar learning experiments have explored learning of simpler finite-state grammars, while studies exploring context-free grammars have not assessed awareness and implicitness. This paper explores the implicit learning of context-free grammars employing features of hierarchical organization, recursive embedding and long-distance dependencies. The grammars also featured the distinction between left- and right-branching structures, as well as between centre- and tail-embedding, both distinctions found in natural languages. People acquired unconscious knowledge of relations between grammatical classes even for dependencies over long distances, in ways that went beyond learning simpler relations (e.g. n-grams between individual words. The structural distinctions drawn from linguistics also proved important as performance was greater for tail-embedding than centre-embedding structures. The results suggest the plausibility of implicit learning of complex context-free structures, which model some features of natural languages. They support the relevance of artificial grammar learning for probing mechanisms of language learning and challenge existing theories and computational models of implicit learning.

The structure of modern standard French a student grammar

CERN Document Server

Hansen, Maj-Britt Mosegaard

2016-01-01

This book is an advanced student's grammar of French that integrates traditional grammar with knowledge and insights from modern linguistics. It assumes some prior knowledge of French grammar but is designed to be accessible to those with no background in linguistics.

Analyzing Ambiguity of Context-Free Grammars

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brabrand, Claus; Giegerich, Robert; Møller, Anders

2007-01-01

It has been known since 1962 that the ambiguity problem for context-free grammars is undecidable. Ambiguity in context-free grammars is a recurring problem in language design and parser generation, as well as in applications where grammars are used as models of real-world physical structures. We...... observe that there is a simple linguistic characterization of the grammar ambiguity problem, and we show how to exploit this to conservatively approximate the problem based on local regular approximations and grammar unfoldings. As an application, we consider grammars that occur in RNA analysis...

Grammar and Its Teaching: Challenging the Myths

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Diane Larsen-Freeman

2008-01-01

@@ Grammar is often misunderstood in the language teaching field.The misconception lies in the view that grammar is a collection of arbitrary rules about static structures in the language.Further questionable claims are that the structures do not have to be taught,learners will acquire them on their own,or if the structures are taught,the lessons that ensue will he boring.Consequently,communicative and proficiency-based teaching approaches sometimes unduly limit grammar instruction.Of the many claims about grammar that deserve to be called myths,this digest will challenge ten.

Easy French phrase book over 700 phrases for everyday use

CERN Document Server

McCoy, Heather

2012-01-01

Over 700 French phrases and sentences include terms for modern telecommunications, idioms, and slang. Designed as a quick reference and study guide, this up-to-date volume is organized for quick access to phrases related to greetings, transportation, shopping, emergencies, and other common circumstances. A phonetic pronunciation accompanies each phrase.

The Process of Word Formation and Phrase Structure of Android Application Names

OpenAIRE

Handayani, Heny

2013-01-01

Android is an operating system for mobile device, such as smartphones and tablet computers that was developed by Google. In this era, android is a popular operating system that is searched by people because of necessary of information. The process and structure of android application names are interesting to be analyzed since they have different structure of words in general. The purpose research is to describe and explain which word formation processes and phrase structure that are commonly ...

A communicative grammar of English

CERN Document Server

Leech, Geoffrey

2013-01-01

A Communicative Grammar of English has long been established as a grammar innovative in approach, reliable in coverage, and clear in its explanations. This fully revised and redesigned third edition provides up-to-date and accessible help to teachers, advanced learners and undergraduate students of English. Part One looks at the way English grammar varies in different types of English, such as 'formal' and 'informal', 'spoken' and 'written'; Part Two focuses on the uses of grammar rather than on grammatical structure and Part Three provides a handy alphabetically arranged guide to

The relationship between strategic control and conscious structural knowledge in artificial grammar learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Norman, Elisabeth; Scott, Ryan B; Price, Mark C; Dienes, Zoltan

2016-05-01

We address Jacoby's (1991) proposal that strategic control over knowledge requires conscious awareness of that knowledge. In a two-grammar artificial grammar learning experiment all participants were trained on two grammars, consisting of a regularity in letter sequences, while two other dimensions (colours and fonts) varied randomly. Strategic control was measured as the ability to selectively apply the grammars during classification. For each classification, participants also made a combined judgement of (a) decision strategy and (b) relevant stimulus dimension. Strategic control was found for all types of decision strategy, including trials where participants claimed to lack conscious structural knowledge. However, strong evidence of strategic control only occurred when participants knew or guessed that the letter dimension was relevant, suggesting that strategic control might be associated with - or even causally requires - global awareness of the nature of the rules even though it does not require detailed knowledge of their content. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Grammar and Grammar Teaching——A Reflective Journal of Grammar and Communication

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

周佳

2010-01-01

@@ 1 Introduction When we talk about grammar, we will usually refer to the detailed instruction rules of grammar. In China, grammar is usually taught explicitly in formal instructions, which is different from that in some western countries. So there are some controversial questions coming out: Should there be formal instruction of grammar?

A Blog-Integrated Grammar Instruction Approach: Structure-Andragogy-Blog (SAB

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yonca ÖZKAN

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Although history of grammar instruction dates back far in time, it is only since the sixties that we see various methods through which this subject is taught. What was done took place as an in-class activity with almost no tasks performed out of class except for assignments. Thus, this descriptive case study aims to add one new dimension to the already existing methodology introducing a blog-integrated approach emphasizing individual-generated learning. Unlike its predecessors, the approach requires individuals to select texts, analyze targeted structural points in authentic texts, and produce similar structures through modelling, all performed on weblogs, with full participation and collaboration of learners embracing the notion of “self-directed” learning. Although the designed approach aims to teach and reinforce English grammar to English learners, it does not limit itself to this field. All subjects, requiring activation of latent knowledge can certainly benefit from it, notably the L2 domain

A Task-driven Grammar Refactoring Algorithm

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ivan Halupka

2012-01-01

Full Text Available This paper presents our proposal and the implementation of an algorithm for automated refactoring of context-free grammars. Rather than operating under some domain-specific task, in our approach refactoring is perfomed on the basis of a refactoring task defined by its user. The algorithm and the corresponding refactoring system are called mARTINICA. mARTINICA is able to refactor grammars of arbitrary size and structural complexity. However, the computation time needed to perform a refactoring task with the desired outcome is highly dependent on the size of the grammar. Until now, we have successfully performed refactoring tasks on small and medium-size grammars of Pascal-like languages and parts of the Algol-60 programming language grammar. This paper also briefly introduces the reader to processes occurring in grammar refactoring, a method for describing desired properties that a refactored grammar should fulfill, and there is a discussion of the overall significance of grammar refactoring.

Drama Grammar: Towards a Performative Postmethod Pedagogy

Science.gov (United States)

Even, Susanne

2011-01-01

This article presents the original concept of drama grammar, the synthesis of grammar instruction and drama pedagogy, which integrates both structural and communicative paradigms through a dialectic combination of acting and linguistic analysis. Based on the principles of drama pedagogy, drama grammar makes use of techniques from the performing…

CHR grammars

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christiansen, Henning

2005-01-01

A grammar formalism based upon CHR is proposed analogously to the way Definite Clause Grammars are defined and implemented on top of Prolog. These grammars execute as robust bottom-up parsers with an inherent treatment of ambiguity and a high flexibility to model various linguistic phenomena....... The formalism extends previous logic programming based grammars with a form of context-sensitive rules and the possibility to include extra-grammatical hypotheses in both head and body of grammar rules. Among the applications are straightforward implementations of Assumption Grammars and abduction under...... integrity constraints for language analysis. CHR grammars appear as a powerful tool for specification and implementation of language processors and may be proposed as a new standard for bottom-up grammars in logic programming....

CHR Grammars

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christiansen, Henning

A grammar formalism based upon CHR is proposed analogously to the way Definite Clause Grammars are defined and implemented on top of Prolog. These grammars execute as robust bottom-up parsers with an inherent treatment of ambiguity and a high flexibility to model various linguistic phenomena....... The formalism extends previous logic programming based grammars with a form of context-sensitive rules and the possibility to include extra-grammatical hypotheses in both head and body of grammar rules. Among the applications are straightforward implementations of Assumption Grammars and abduction under...... integrity constraints for language analysis. CHR grammars appear as a powerful tool for specification and implementation of language processors and may be proposed as a new standard for bottom-up grammars in logic programming....

Analyzing Ambiguity of Context-Free Grammars

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brabrand, Claus; Giegerich, Robert; Møller, Anders

2010-01-01

It has been known since 1962 that the ambiguity problem for context-free grammars is undecidable. Ambiguity in context-free grammars is a recurring problem in language design and parser generation, as well as in applications where grammars are used as models of real-world physical structures. We...... observe that there is a simple linguistic characterization of the grammar ambiguity problem, and we show how to exploit this by presenting an ambiguity analysis framework based on conservative language approximations. As a concrete example, we propose a technique based on local regular approximations...

Grammar and Grammaring: Toward Modes for English Grammar Teaching in China

Science.gov (United States)

Nan, Chengyu

2015-01-01

The value of grammar instruction in foreign language learning and teaching has been a focus of debate for quite some time, which has resulted in different views on grammar and grammar teaching as well as different teaching approaches based on different perspectives or in different language learning contexts. To explore some modes for grammar…

Style representation in design grammars

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ahmad, Sumbul; Chase, Scott Curland

2012-01-01

The concept of style is relevant for both the analysis and synthesis of designs. New styles are often formed by the adaptation of previous ones based on changes in design criteria and context. A formal characterization of style is given by shape grammars, which describe the compositional rules...... underlying a set of designs. Stylistic change can be modelled by grammar transformations, which allow the transformation of the structure and vocabulary of a grammar that is used to describe a particular style. In order for grammars to be useful beyond a single application, they should have the capability...... to be transformed according to changing design style needs. Issues of formalizing stylistic change necessitate a lucid and formal definition of style in the design language generated by a grammar. Furthermore, a significant aspect of the definition of style is the representation of aesthetic qualities attributed...

Structural Motion Grammar for Universal Use of Leap Motion: Amusement and Functional Contents Focused

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Byungseok Lee

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Motions using Leap Motion controller are not standardized while the use of it is spreading in media contents. Each content defines its own motions, thereby creating confusion for users. Therefore, to alleviate user inconvenience, this study categorized the commonly used motion by Amusement and Functional Contents and defined the Structural Motion Grammar that can be universally used based on the classification. To this end, the Motion Lexicon was defined, which is a fundamental motion vocabulary, and an algorithm that enables real-time recognition of Structural Motion Grammar was developed. Moreover, the proposed method was verified by user evaluation and quantitative comparison tests.

Machine Translation Using Constraint-Based Synchronous Grammar

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

WONG Fai; DONG Mingchui; HU Dongcheng

2006-01-01

A synchronous grammar based on the formalism of context-free grammar was developed by generalizing the first component of production that models the source text. Unlike other synchronous grammars,the grammar allows multiple target productions to be associated to a single production rule which can be used to guide a parser to infer different possible translational equivalences for a recognized input string according to the feature constraints of symbols in the pattern. An extended generalized LR algorithm was adapted to the parsing of the proposed formalism to analyze the syntactic structure of a language. The grammar was used as the basis for building a machine translation system for Portuguese to Chinese translation. The empirical results show that the grammar is more expressive when modeling the translational equivalences of parallel texts for machine translation and grammar rewriting applications.

Grammar and Context in Functional Discourse Grammar

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hengeveld, K.; Mackenzie, J.L.

2014-01-01

This article presents a proposal for the organization of the Contextual Component in Functional Discourse Grammar. A guiding principle in this proposal is that, given the fact that Functional Discourse Grammar is a theory of grammar, the Contextual Component should provide the information that is

Teaching Grammar

Science.gov (United States)

Crawford, William J.

2013-01-01

Grammar is a component in all language skills: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Teachers need to know rules of grammar (teacher knowledge) as well as techniques that help students use grammar effectively and effortlessly (teaching knowledge). Using reflective practice to help teachers become comfortable with teaching grammar, this…

LL-regular grammars

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nijholt, Antinus

1980-01-01

Culik II and Cogen introduced the class of LR-regular grammars, an extension of the LR(k) grammars. In this paper we consider an analogous extension of the LL(k) grammars called the LL-regular grammars. The relation of this class of grammars to other classes of grammars will be shown. Any LL-regular

An ERP study of structural anomalies in native and semantic free artificial grammar: evidence for shared processing mechanisms.

Science.gov (United States)

Tabullo, Ángel; Sevilla, Yamila; Segura, Enrique; Zanutto, Silvano; Wainselboim, Alejandro

2013-08-21

Artificial grammars have been widely applied to the study of sequential learning in language, but few studies have directly compared the neural correlates of artificial and native grammar processing. In this study, we examined Event Related Potentials (ERPs) elicited by structural anomalies in semantic-free artificial grammar sequences and sentences in the subjects' native language (Spanish). Although ERPs differed during early stages, we observed similar posterior negativities (N400) and P600 effects in a late stage. We interpret these results as evidence of at least partially shared neural mechanisms for processing of language and artificial grammars. We suggest that in both the natural and artificial grammars, the N400 and P600 components we observed can be explained as the result of unfulfilled predictions about incoming stimuli. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Knowing Chinese character grammar.

Science.gov (United States)

Myers, James

2016-02-01

Chinese character structure has often been described as representing a kind of grammar, but the notion of character grammar has hardly been explored. Patterns in character element reduplication are particularly grammar-like, displaying discrete combinatoriality, binarity, phonology-like final prominence, and potentially the need for symbolic rules (X→XX). To test knowledge of these patterns, Chinese readers were asked to judge the acceptability of fake characters varying both in grammaticality (obeying or violating reduplication constraints) and in lexicality (of the reduplicative configurations). While lexical knowledge was important (lexicality improved acceptability and grammatical configurations were accepted more quickly when also lexical), grammatical knowledge was important as well, with grammaticality improving acceptability equally for lexical and nonlexical configurations. Acceptability was also higher for more frequent reduplicative elements, suggesting that the reduplicative configurations were decomposed. Chinese characters present an as-yet untapped resource for exploring fundamental questions about the nature of the human capacity for grammar. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Grammar-translation and CLT in L2 Grammar Teaching

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

缪杉莎

2013-01-01

This paper puts forward to compare teaching method between grammar-translation and CLT in grammar teaching. Gram⁃mar leaning is a basic concept in English learning as grammar is an important element in a communicative approach to language. This paper discussed CLT method can help and encourage student to study, however, grammar-translation method is able to under⁃stand.

PubMed Phrases, an open set of coherent phrases for searching biomedical literature

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Sun; Yeganova, Lana; Comeau, Donald C.; Wilbur, W. John; Lu, Zhiyong

2018-01-01

In biomedicine, key concepts are often expressed by multiple words (e.g., ‘zinc finger protein’). Previous work has shown treating a sequence of words as a meaningful unit, where applicable, is not only important for human understanding but also beneficial for automatic information seeking. Here we present a collection of PubMed® Phrases that are beneficial for information retrieval and human comprehension. We define these phrases as coherent chunks that are logically connected. To collect the phrase set, we apply the hypergeometric test to detect segments of consecutive terms that are likely to appear together in PubMed. These text segments are then filtered using the BM25 ranking function to ensure that they are beneficial from an information retrieval perspective. Thus, we obtain a set of 705,915 PubMed Phrases. We evaluate the quality of the set by investigating PubMed user click data and manually annotating a sample of 500 randomly selected noun phrases. We also analyze and discuss the usage of these PubMed Phrases in literature search. PMID:29893755

Novel figurative phrases and idioms: phrase characteristics over multiple presentations.

Science.gov (United States)

Schweigert, Wendy A; Cintron, Jennifer; Sullivan, Karin; Ilic, Emily; Ellis, Shannon; Dobrowits, Carrie; Roberts, Crystal

2003-07-01

In a series of three studies, characteristics of novel figurative phrases were compared with those of established idioms. Studies 1 and 2 found that certain correlations were found to be strong and in one direction for familiar idioms and comparably strong but in the opposite direction for novel figurative phrases, with the correlations for less familiar idioms usually falling partway between these extremes. Study 2 also noted that written or auditory presentation had minimal effects on characteristic ratings. In Study 3 the correlations among characteristics stayed relatively constant for familiar idioms after one, three, or six presentations, but for the novel figurative phrases, after multiple presentations the correlations changed in the direction of the established idioms.

Grammar and Communication

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

刘辉

2007-01-01

Instead of being a boring subject, grammar is in fact one of the most exciting, creative, relevant subjects. It is sometimes described as the skeleton of a language, but it is much more than bones. It is the language's heartbeat, for without grammar; there can be no meaningful or effective communication. And grammar has different definitions and categories according to different contexts. By first reviewing the past linguists, especially those grammarians and their research, the paper makes some comparisons between some categories of grammar and puts forward that there is no 'good' or 'bad' grammar but knowing grammar or knowing about grammar really has a close relationship with effective communication.

Grammar as a Programming Language. Artificial Intelligence Memo 391.

Science.gov (United States)

Rowe, Neil

Student projects that involve writing generative grammars in the computer language, "LOGO," are described in this paper, which presents a grammar-running control structure that allows students to modify and improve the grammar interpreter itself while learning how a simple kind of computer parser works. Included are procedures for…

Portmanteau constructions, phrase structure and linearization

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Brian Hok-Shing Chan

2015-12-01

Full Text Available In bilingual code-switching which involves language-pairs with contrasting head-complement orders (i.e. head-initial vs head-final, a head may be lexicalized from both languages with its complement sandwiched in the middle. These so-called portmanteau sentences (Nishimura, 1985, 1986; Sankoff, Poplack, and Vanniarajan, 1990, etc. have been attested for decades, but they had never received a systematic, formal analysis in terms of current syntactic theory before a few recent attempts (Hicks, 2010, 2012. Notwithstanding this lack of attention, these structures are in fact highly relevant to theories of linearization and phrase structure. More specifically, they challenge binary-branching (Kayne, 1994, 2004, 2005 as well as the Antisymmetry hypothesis (ibid.. Not explained by current grammatical models of code-switching, including the Equivalence Constraint (Poplack, 1980, the Matrix Language Frame Model (Myers-Scotton, 1993, 2002, etc., and the Bilingual Speech Model (Muysken, 2000, 2013, the portmanteau construction indeed looks uncommon or abnormal, defying any systematic account. However, the recurrence of these structures in various datasets and constraints on them do call for an explanation. This paper suggests an account which lies with syntax and also with the psycholinguistics of bilingualism. Assuming that linearization is a process at the Sensori-Motor (SM interface (Chomsky, 2005; 2013, this paper sees that word order is not fixed in a syntactic tree but it is set in the production process, and much information of word order rests in the processor, for instance, outputting a head before its complement (i.e. head-initial word order or the reverse (i.e. head-final word order. As for the portmanteau construction, it is the output of bilingual speakers co-activating two sets of head-complement orders which summon the phonetic forms of the same word in both languages. Under this proposal, the underlying structure of a portmanteau

Portmanteau Constructions, Phrase Structure, and Linearization.

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Chan, Brian Hok-Shing

2015-01-01

In bilingual code-switching which involves language-pairs with contrasting head-complement orders (i.e., head-initial vs. head-final), a head may be lexicalized from both languages with its complement sandwiched in the middle. These so-called "portmanteau" sentences (Nishimura, 1985, 1986; Sankoff et al., 1990, etc.) have been attested for decades, but they had never received a systematic, formal analysis in terms of current syntactic theory before a few recent attempts (Hicks, 2010, 2012). Notwithstanding this lack of attention, these structures are in fact highly relevant to theories of linearization and phrase structure. More specifically, they challenge binary-branching (Kayne, 1994, 2004, 2005) as well as the Antisymmetry hypothesis (ibid.). Not explained by current grammatical models of code-switching, including the Equivalence Constraint (Poplack, 1980), the Matrix Language Frame Model (Myers-Scotton, 1993, 2002, etc.), and the Bilingual Speech Model (Muysken, 2000, 2013), the portmanteau construction indeed looks uncommon or abnormal, defying any systematic account. However, the recurrence of these structures in various datasets and constraints on them do call for an explanation. This paper suggests an account which lies with syntax and also with the psycholinguistics of bilingualism. Assuming that linearization is a process at the Sensori-Motor (SM) interface (Chomsky, 2005, 2013), this paper sees that word order is not fixed in a syntactic tree but it is set in the production process, and much information of word order rests in the processor, for instance, outputting a head before its complement (i.e., head-initial word order) or the reverse (i.e., head-final word order). As for the portmanteau construction, it is the output of bilingual speakers co-activating two sets of head-complement orders which summon the phonetic forms of the same word in both languages. Under this proposal, the underlying structure of a portmanteau construction is as simple as an

The minimalist grammar of action

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Pastra, Katerina; Aloimonos, Yiannis

2012-01-01

Language and action have been found to share a common neural basis and in particular a common ‘syntax’, an analogous hierarchical and compositional organization. While language structure analysis has led to the formulation of different grammatical formalisms and associated discriminative or generative computational models, the structure of action is still elusive and so are the related computational models. However, structuring action has important implications on action learning and generalization, in both human cognition research and computation. In this study, we present a biologically inspired generative grammar of action, which employs the structure-building operations and principles of Chomsky's Minimalist Programme as a reference model. In this grammar, action terminals combine hierarchically into temporal sequences of actions of increasing complexity; the actions are bound with the involved tools and affected objects and are governed by certain goals. We show, how the tool role and the affected-object role of an entity within an action drives the derivation of the action syntax in this grammar and controls recursion, merge and move, the latter being mechanisms that manifest themselves not only in human language, but in human action too. PMID:22106430

Visual artificial grammar learning by rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta): exploring the role of grammar complexity and sequence length.

Science.gov (United States)

Heimbauer, Lisa A; Conway, Christopher M; Christiansen, Morten H; Beran, Michael J; Owren, Michael J

2018-03-01

Humans and nonhuman primates can learn about the organization of stimuli in the environment using implicit sequential pattern learning capabilities. However, most previous artificial grammar learning studies with nonhuman primates have involved relatively simple grammars and short input sequences. The goal in the current experiments was to assess the learning capabilities of monkeys on an artificial grammar-learning task that was more complex than most others previously used with nonhumans. Three experiments were conducted using a joystick-based, symmetrical-response serial reaction time task in which two monkeys were exposed to grammar-generated sequences at sequence lengths of four in Experiment 1, six in Experiment 2, and eight in Experiment 3. Over time, the monkeys came to respond faster to the sequences generated from the artificial grammar compared to random versions. In a subsequent generalization phase, subjects generalized their knowledge to novel sequences, responding significantly faster to novel instances of sequences produced using the familiar grammar compared to those constructed using an unfamiliar grammar. These results reveal that rhesus monkeys can learn and generalize the statistical structure inherent in an artificial grammar that is as complex as some used with humans, for sequences up to eight items long. These findings are discussed in relation to whether or not rhesus macaques and other primate species possess implicit sequence learning abilities that are similar to those that humans draw upon to learn natural language grammar.

Teaching grammar, structure and meaning exploring theory and practice for post-16 English language teachers

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Giovanelli, Marcello

2014-01-01

Teaching Grammar, Structure and Meaning introduces teachers to some basic ideas from the increasingly popular field of cognitive linguistics as a way of explaining and teaching key grammatical concepts. Particularly suitable for those teaching post-16 English Language, this book offers a methodology for teaching key aspects of linguistic form and an extensive set of learning activities. Written by an experienced linguist and teacher, this book contains:· an evaluation of current approaches to the teaching of grammar and linguistic form· a revised pedagogy based on principles from cognitive sci

French grammar and usage

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Hawkins, Roger

2015-01-01

Long trusted as the most comprehensive, up-to-date and user-friendly grammar available, French Grammar and Usage is a complete guide to French as it is written and spoken today. It includes clear descriptions of all the main grammatical phenomena of French, and their use, illustrated by numerous examples taken from contemporary French, and distinguishes the most common forms of usage, both formal and informal.Key features include:Comprehensive content, covering all the major structures of contemporary French User-friendly organisation offering easy-to-find sections with cross-referencing and i

English Grammar For Dummies

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Ward, Lesley J

2009-01-01

If you're confused by commas, perplexed by pronouns, and plain terrified by tenses, English Grammar For Dummies will put your fears to rest. Packed with expert guidance, it covers everything from sentence basics to rules even your English teacher didn't know - if you want to brush up on your grammar, this is the only guide you'll ever need. Discover how to: avoid common grammatical errors; get to grips with apostrophes; structure sentences correctly; use verbs and find the right tense; and decide when to use slang or formal English.  

Essential French grammar

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Thacker, Mike

2014-01-01

Essential French Grammar is an innovative reference grammar and workbook for intermediate and advanced undergraduate students of French (CEFR levels B2 to C1). Its clear explanations of grammar are supported by contemporary examples and lively cartoon drawings.  Each chapter contains: * real-life language examples in French, with English translations * a 'key points' box and tables that summarise grammar concepts * a variety of exercises to reinforce learning * a contemporary primary source or literary extract to illustrate grammar in context. To aid your understanding, this book also contains a glossary of grammatical terms in French and English, useful verb tables and a key to the exercises. Together, these features all help you to grasp complex points of grammar and develop your French language skills.

The Nature of Grammar

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

王楠

2012-01-01

This paper describes the nature of grammar as "universalness". The universal grammar indicates that all the languages in the world have identical grammar. This is discussed from three aspects, which gives insight into grammar acquisition.

Automating 3D reconstruction using a probabilistic grammar

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Xiong, Hanwei; Xu, Jun; Xu, Chenxi; Pan, Ming

2015-10-01

3D reconstruction of objects from point clouds with a laser scanner is still a laborious task in many applications. Automating 3D process is an ongoing research topic and suffers from the complex structure of the data. The main difficulty is due to lack of knowledge of real world objects structure. In this paper, we accumulate such structure knowledge by a probabilistic grammar learned from examples in the same category. The rules of the grammar capture compositional structures at different levels, and a feature dependent probability function is attached for every rule. The learned grammar can be used to parse new 3D point clouds, organize segment patches in a hierarchal way, and assign them meaningful labels. The parsed semantics can be used to guide the reconstruction algorithms automatically. Some examples are given to explain the method.

Presenting New Grammar

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

WU Cai-ling; WANG Xi

2015-01-01

More and more researchers have now agreed upon the necessity of teaching grammar, but it still remains controversial as how to teach the forms, with the central consideration of not to harm the meaning-focused communicative teaching method. In this essay, one of the issues in grammar teaching will be discussed as how to present new grammar to learners, through evaluating and modifying a particular presentation activity in a grammar-teaching textbook.

Grammar! A Conference Report.

Science.gov (United States)

King, Lid, Ed.; Boaks, Peter, Ed.

Papers from a conference on the teaching of grammar, particularly in second language instruction, include: "Grammar: Acquisition and Use" (Richard Johnstone); "Grammar and Communication" (Brian Page); "Linguistic Progression and Increasing Independence" (Bernardette Holmes); "La grammaire? C'est du bricolage!" ("Grammar? That's Hardware!") (Barry…

Computer-Based Linguistic Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Wright, James R.

Noam Chomsky's transformational-generative grammar model may effectively be translated into an equivalent computer model. Phrase-structure rules and transformations are tested as to their validity and ordering by the computer via the process of random lexical substitution. Errors appearing in the grammar are detected and rectified, and formal…

Synchronic and diachronic evidence for parallels between noun phrases and sentences

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rijkhoff, Jan

2008-01-01

Both formal and functional linguists have developed models in which clauses and NPs can at least partly be analyzed in a similar fashion. But whereas formal approaches to grammar have concentrated on similarities between the (underlying) syntactic structure of the NP and the clause (e.g. Jackendoff...... 1977, Abney 1989), functional theories such as Functional Grammar have investigated parallels between the underlying semantic structure of the NP and clause (Rijkhoff 1989, 1992, 2002). This article has two main goals: [a] to present a revised and expanded version of the layered (semantic) NP...

(Re)defining component structures in morphological constructions: a cognitive grammar perspective

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Van Huyssteen, GB

2010-01-01

Full Text Available )defining Component Structures in Morphological Constructions: A Cognitive Grammar Perspective Gerhard B van Huyssteen 1. Introduction The study of words, parts of words, and word-formation is one of the fields of enquiry that has kept language philosophers... and linguists busy for centuries. Despite this long tradition, the literature on word morphology sometimes remains rather imprecise, ambiguous and/or vague; for example, Tuggy (1992: 287) illustrates that ?(d)efinitions, when given, are frequently circular...

Access, Rank, and Select in Grammar-compressed Strings

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Belazzougui, Djamal; Cording, Patrick Hagge; Puglisi, Simon J.

2015-01-01

Given a string S of length N on a fixed alphabet of σ symbols, a grammar compressor produces a context-free grammar G of size n that generates S and only S. In this paper we describe data structures to support the following operations on a grammar-compressed string: access(S,i,j) (return substring...... consecutive symbols from S. Alternatively, we can achieve \\O(logτN+m/logσN) query time using \\O(nτlogτ(N/n)logN) bits of space, matching a lower bound stated by Verbin and Yu for strings where N is polynomially related to n when τ = log ε N. For rank and select we describe data structures of size \\O...

Group Grammar

Science.gov (United States)

Adams, Karen

2015-01-01

In this article Karen Adams demonstrates how to incorporate group grammar techniques into a classroom activity. In the activity, students practice using the target grammar to do something they naturally enjoy: learning about each other.

Closure properties of Watson-Crick grammars

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Zulkufli, Nurul Liyana binti Mohamad; Turaev, Sherzod; Tamrin, Mohd Izzuddin Mohd; Azeddine, Messikh

2015-12-01

In this paper, we define Watson-Crick context-free grammars, as an extension of Watson-Crick regular grammars and Watson-Crick linear grammars with context-free grammar rules. We show the relation of Watson-Crick (regular and linear) grammars to the sticker systems, and study some of the important closure properties of the Watson-Crick grammars. We establish that the Watson-Crick regular grammars are closed under almost all of the main closure operations, while the differences between other Watson-Crick grammars with their corresponding Chomsky grammars depend on the computational power of the Watson-Crick grammars which still need to be studied.

Dictionary of Idioms and Phrases in

African Journals Online (AJOL)

the use of arrows to show the grammatical form from which the spoken form of a used word is derived, other phrases that may be formed from the head phrase, the numbering of the various meanings, . the explanation of head idioms and phrases in Tamil within their context and the advanced meanings of head idioms and ...

A Python-based Interface for Wide Coverage Lexicalized Tree-adjoining Grammars

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Wang Ziqi

2015-04-01

Full Text Available This paper describes the design and implementation of a Python-based interface for wide coverage Lexicalized Tree-adjoining Grammars. The grammars are part of the XTAG Grammar project at the University of Pennsylvania, which were hand-written and semi-automatically curated to parse real-world corpora. We provide an interface to the wide coverage English and Korean XTAG grammars. Each XTAG grammar is lexicalized, which means at least one word selects a tree fragment (called an elementary tree or etree. Derivations for sentences are built by combining etrees using substitution (replacement of a tree node with an etree at the frontier of another etree and adjunction (replacement of an internal tree node in an etree by another etree. Each etree is associated with a feature structure representing constraints on substitution and adjunction. Feature structures are combined using unification during the combination of etrees. We plan to integrate our toolkit for XTAG grammars into the Python-based Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK: nltk.org. We have provided an API capable of searching the lexicalized etrees for a given word or multiple words, searching for a etree by name or function, display the lexicalized etrees to the user using a graphical view, display the feature structure associated with each tree node in an etree, hide or highlight features based on a regular expression, and browsing the entire tree database for each XTAG grammar.

Subverting the grammar

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Bárbara Amaral da Silva

2015-03-01

Full Text Available From the notion of parody, credibility and legitimacy, coming mainly from studies in discourse analysis, and ideas from the sociolinguistic we intend to develop a brief comparison between the Expositive Grammar – Advanced Course (46st ed.:1926 of Eduardo Carlos Pereira, who initially presents itself as a merely descriptive grammar, and the Portuguese Grammar by the Confused Method, written by Mendes Fradique (4st ed.: 1985. We observed that the first one claims to be “expositive” when it is cle­arly prescriptive. The work of Mendes Fradique uses humor and irony to parody pres­criptive grammars, criticizing the “good use”. In order to prove the above statement, we selected some of the concepts presented by those works, checking the position taken by each one. Among them is the very concept of grammar, language etc.

A Brief Survey of Grammar

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陈福生

1984-01-01

@@ There are two kinds of grammar, prescriptive grammar and descriptive grammar. The prescriptive grammar gives orders how a language ought to be used rather than simply describing how it is used.This type of grammar lays down a lot of rules for the student to follow but the gifted philologist Edward Sapir points out that all grammatical rules leak. This type of grammar also warns the student against what are called ‘Shall-nots', but these ‘Shall-nots' are more likely to cause the student muchconcern rather than helping him to exprese his ideas in English. On the contrary, the descriptive grammar just describes how a language is used.

Teaching Grammar

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Michael Swan

2008-01-01

@@ The trouble with teaching grammar is that we are never quite sure whether it works or not:its effects are uncertain and hard to assess.Michael Swan looks at grammar teaching and the carry-over to spontaneous production by students.

Grammar

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

JeanetteDeCarrico; DianeLarsen-Freeman

2004-01-01

When it comes to definitions of grammar,confusion abounds.One problem is that the word grammar means different things to different people.For many,the term sugges tsa list of do's and don't's,rules that tell us we should say It is I,not It is me,that we should not say ain't,or that weshould avoid ending a sentence with a preposition.For oth

Generic Adaptively Secure Searchable Phrase Encryption

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Kissel Zachary A.

2017-01-01

Full Text Available In recent years searchable symmetric encryption has seen a rapid increase in query expressiveness including keyword, phrase, Boolean, and fuzzy queries. With this expressiveness came increasingly complex constructions. Having these facts in mind, we present an efficient and generic searchable symmetric encryption construction for phrase queries. Our construction is straightforward to implement, and is proven secure under adaptively chosen query attacks (CQA2 in the random oracle model with an honest-but-curious adversary. To our knowledge, this is the first encrypted phrase search system that achieves CQA2 security. Moreover, we demonstrate that our document collection preprocessing algorithm allows us to extend a dynamic SSE construction so that it supports phrase queries. We also provide a compiler theorem which transforms any CQA2-secure SSE construction for keyword queries into a CQA2-secure SSE construction that supports phrase queries.

SERIOUS GRAMMAR CAN BE FUN

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

1996-01-01

IntroductionToday many Chinese students think of English grammar as an unpopular and difficult part of theirEnglish lessons Even more worryingly,that attitude is one they have usually picked up from theirteachers.Namely,grammar seems to be hard work for EFL teachers and students.So should grammarteaching be abolishedWhy do many teachers and students take a negative attitude toward grammarInthis paper,first,I will attempt to discuss the place of grammar in EFL teaching.Next,I will outline thetraditional methods of grammar teaching and the results of this kind of grammar teaching.Finally,I willput forward some suggestions on how to make grammar teaching more interesting in Chinese classrooms.

Unsupervised grammar induction of clinical report sublanguage

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Kate Rohit J

2012-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Clinical reports are written using a subset of natural language while employing many domain-specific terms; such a language is also known as a sublanguage for a scientific or a technical domain. Different genres of clinical reports use different sublaguages, and in addition, different medical facilities use different medical language conventions. This makes supervised training of a parser for clinical sentences very difficult as it would require expensive annotation effort to adapt to every type of clinical text. Methods In this paper, we present an unsupervised method which automatically induces a grammar and a parser for the sublanguage of a given genre of clinical reports from a corpus with no annotations. In order to capture sentence structures specific to clinical domains, the grammar is induced in terms of semantic classes of clinical terms in addition to part-of-speech tags. Our method induces grammar by minimizing the combined encoding cost of the grammar and the corresponding sentence derivations. The probabilities for the productions of the induced grammar are then learned from the unannotated corpus using an instance of the expectation-maximization algorithm. Results Our experiments show that the induced grammar is able to parse novel sentences. Using a dataset of discharge summary sentences with no annotations, our method obtains 60.5% F-measure for parse-bracketing on sentences of maximum length 10. By varying a parameter, the method can induce a range of grammars, from very specific to very general, and obtains the best performance in between the two extremes.

Unsupervised grammar induction of clinical report sublanguage.

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Kate, Rohit J

2012-10-05

Clinical reports are written using a subset of natural language while employing many domain-specific terms; such a language is also known as a sublanguage for a scientific or a technical domain. Different genres of clinical reports use different sublaguages, and in addition, different medical facilities use different medical language conventions. This makes supervised training of a parser for clinical sentences very difficult as it would require expensive annotation effort to adapt to every type of clinical text. In this paper, we present an unsupervised method which automatically induces a grammar and a parser for the sublanguage of a given genre of clinical reports from a corpus with no annotations. In order to capture sentence structures specific to clinical domains, the grammar is induced in terms of semantic classes of clinical terms in addition to part-of-speech tags. Our method induces grammar by minimizing the combined encoding cost of the grammar and the corresponding sentence derivations. The probabilities for the productions of the induced grammar are then learned from the unannotated corpus using an instance of the expectation-maximization algorithm. Our experiments show that the induced grammar is able to parse novel sentences. Using a dataset of discharge summary sentences with no annotations, our method obtains 60.5% F-measure for parse-bracketing on sentences of maximum length 10. By varying a parameter, the method can induce a range of grammars, from very specific to very general, and obtains the best performance in between the two extremes.

Metrical presentation boosts implicit learning of artificial grammar.

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Selchenkova, Tatiana; François, Clément; Schön, Daniele; Corneyllie, Alexandra; Perrin, Fabien; Tillmann, Barbara

2014-01-01

The present study investigated whether a temporal hierarchical structure favors implicit learning. An artificial pitch grammar implemented with a set of tones was presented in two different temporal contexts, notably with either a strongly metrical structure or an isochronous structure. According to the Dynamic Attending Theory, external temporal regularities can entrain internal oscillators that guide attention over time, allowing for temporal expectations that influence perception of future events. Based on this framework, it was hypothesized that the metrical structure provides a benefit for artificial grammar learning in comparison to an isochronous presentation. Our study combined behavioral and event-related potential measurements. Behavioral results demonstrated similar learning in both participant groups. By contrast, analyses of event-related potentials showed a larger P300 component and an earlier N2 component for the strongly metrical group during the exposure phase and the test phase, respectively. These findings suggests that the temporal expectations in the strongly metrical condition helped listeners to better process the pitch dimension, leading to improved learning of the artificial grammar.

Effect of X-Word Grammar and Traditional Grammar Instruction on Grammatical Accuracy

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Livingston, Sue; Toce, Andi; Casey, Toce; Montoya, Fernando; Hart, Bonny R.; O'Flaherty, Carmela

2018-01-01

This study first briefly describes an instructional approach to teaching grammar known as X-Word Grammar and then compares its effectiveness in assisting students in achieving grammatical accuracy with traditionally taught grammar. Two groups of L2 pre-college students were taught using curricula and practice procedures in two different grammar…

The Role of Teaching Grammar in First Language Education

Science.gov (United States)

Demir, Sezgin; Erdogan, Ayse

2018-01-01

Grammar; while originating from the natural structure of the language also is the system which makes it possible for different language functions meet within the body of common rules especially communication. Having command of the language used, speaking and writing it correctly require strong grammar knowledge actually. However only knowing the…

Grammar

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

JeanetteDecarrico; DianeLarsen-Freeman

2004-01-01

Previous sections have reviewed issues in describing grammar, issues that were mainly concerned with what to describe, how to describe it and how to account for differing approaches and their implications in terms of theory and pedagogy in applied linguistics. But however precise and thorough researchers may attempt to be in addressing these issues, there are certain limitations to descriptions of grammar given in isolation from all other parts of the language system

Descriptive and discourse-referential modifiers in a layered model of the noun phrase

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rijkhoff, Jan

2008-01-01

This article argues that adnominal modifiers in a layered model of the noun phrase can be divided into two major subcategories: descriptive modifiers and discourse-referential modifiers. Whereas descriptive modifiers can be subdivided into classifying, qualifying, quantifying and localizing...... modifiers (section 2), discourse-referential modifiers in the noun phrase are concerned with the status of entities as referents in the world of discourse (section 3). I will pay particular attention to three issues: (i) formal reflections of the layered, semantic structure of the noun phrase (section 4...

Generative Graph Grammar of Neo-Vaiśeṣika Formal Ontology (NVFO)

Science.gov (United States)

Tavva, Rajesh; Singh, Navjyoti

NLP applications for Sanskrit so far work within computational paradigm of string grammars. However, to compute 'meanings', as in traditional śā bdabodha prakriyā-s, there is a need to develop suitable graph grammars. Ontological structures are fundamentally graphs. We work within the formal framework of Neo-Vaiśeṣika Formal Ontology (NVFO) to propose a generative graph grammar. The proposed formal grammar only produces well-formed graphs that can be readily interpreted in accordance with Vaiśeṣ ika Ontology. We show that graphs not permitted by Vaiśeṣ ika ontology are not generated by the proposed grammar. Further, we write Interpreter of these graphical structures. This creates computational environment which can be deployed for writing computational applications of Vaiśeṣ ika ontology. We illustrate how this environment can be used to create applications like computing śā bdabodha of sentences.

Spoken Grammar for Chinese Learners

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徐晓敏

2013-01-01

Currently, the concept of spoken grammar has been mentioned among Chinese teachers. However, teach-ers in China still have a vague idea of spoken grammar. Therefore this dissertation examines what spoken grammar is and argues that native speakers’ model of spoken grammar needs to be highlighted in the classroom teaching.

Systemic functional grammar in natural language generation linguistic description and computational representation

CERN Document Server

Teich, Elke

1999-01-01

This volume deals with the computational application of systemic functional grammar (SFG) for natural language generation. In particular, it describes the implementation of a fragment of the grammar of German in the computational framework of KOMET-PENMAN for multilingual generation. The text also presents a specification of explicit well-formedness constraints on syntagmatic structure which are defined in the form of typed feature structures. It thus achieves a model of systemic functional grammar that unites both the strengths of systemics, such as stratification, functional diversification

Multiple Grammars and the Logic of Learnability in Second Language Acquisition.

Science.gov (United States)

Roeper, Tom W

2016-01-01

The core notion of modern Universal Grammar is that language ability requires abstract representation in terms of hierarchy, movement operations, abstract features on words, and fixed mapping to meaning. These mental structures are a step toward integrating representational knowledge of all kinds into a larger model of cognitive psychology. Examining first and second language at once provides clues as to how abstractly we should represent this knowledge. The abstract nature of grammar allows both the formulation of many grammars and the possibility that a rule of one grammar could apply to another grammar. We argue that every language contains Multiple Grammars which may reflect different language families. We develop numerous examples of how the same abstract rules can apply in various languages and develop a theory of how language modules (case-marking, topicalization, and quantification) interact to predict L2 acquisition paths. In particular we show in depth how Germanic Verb-second operations, based on Verb-final structure, can apply in English. The argument is built around how and where V2 from German can apply in English, seeking to explain the crucial contrast: "nothing" yelled out Bill/(*)"nothing" yelled Bill out in terms of the necessary abstractness of the V2 rule.

Phonology without universal grammar.

Science.gov (United States)

Archangeli, Diana; Pulleyblank, Douglas

2015-01-01

The question of identifying the properties of language that are specific human linguistic abilities, i.e., Universal Grammar, lies at the center of linguistic research. This paper argues for a largely Emergent Grammar in phonology, taking as the starting point that memory, categorization, attention to frequency, and the creation of symbolic systems are all nonlinguistic characteristics of the human mind. The articulation patterns of American English rhotics illustrate categorization and systems; the distribution of vowels in Bantu vowel harmony uses frequencies of particular sequences to argue against Universal Grammar and in favor of Emergent Grammar; prefix allomorphy in Esimbi illustrates the Emergent symbolic system integrating phonological and morphological generalizations. The Esimbi case has been treated as an example of phonological opacity in a Universal Grammar account; the Emergent analysis resolves the pattern without opacity concerns.

k-visit Attribute Grammars

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielson, Hanne Riis; Skyum, S.

1981-01-01

It is shown that any well-defined attribute grammar is k-visit for some k. Furthermore, it is shown that given a well-defined grammar G and an integer k, it is decidable whether G is k-visit. Finally it is shown that the k-visit grammars specify a proper hierarchy with respect to translations...

Explicit teaching of grammar and improvement in the grammar of ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Explicit teaching of grammar and improvement in the grammar of student writing. J Parkinson. Abstract. No Abstract. Full Text: EMAIL FREE FULL TEXT EMAIL FREE FULL TEXT · DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT. Article Metrics. Metrics Loading ... Metrics powered by PLOS ALM

From exemplar to grammar: a probabilistic analogy-based model of language learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Bod, Rens

2009-07-01

While rules and exemplars are usually viewed as opposites, this paper argues that they form end points of the same distribution. By representing both rules and exemplars as (partial) trees, we can take into account the fluid middle ground between the two extremes. This insight is the starting point for a new theory of language learning that is based on the following idea: If a language learner does not know which phrase-structure trees should be assigned to initial sentences, s/he allows (implicitly) for all possible trees and lets linguistic experience decide which is the "best" tree for each sentence. The best tree is obtained by maximizing "structural analogy" between a sentence and previous sentences, which is formalized by the most probable shortest combination of subtrees from all trees of previous sentences. Corpus-based experiments with this model on the Penn Treebank and the Childes database indicate that it can learn both exemplar-based and rule-based aspects of language, ranging from phrasal verbs to auxiliary fronting. By having learned the syntactic structures of sentences, we have also learned the grammar implicit in these structures, which can in turn be used to produce new sentences. We show that our model mimicks children's language development from item-based constructions to abstract constructions, and that the model can simulate some of the errors made by children in producing complex questions. Copyright © 2009 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Business Rules Definition for Decision Support System Using Matrix Grammar

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Eva Zámečníková

2016-06-01

Full Text Available This paper deals with formalization of business rules by formal grammars. In our work we focus on methods for high frequency data processing. We process data by using complex event platforms (CEP which allow to process high volume of data in nearly real time. Decision making process is contained by one level of processing of CEP. Business rules are used for decision making process description. For the business rules formalization we chose matrix grammar. The use of formal grammars is quite natural as the structure of rules and its rewriting is very similar both for the business rules and for formal grammar. In addition the matrix grammar allows to simulate dependencies and correlations between the rules. The result of this work is a model for data processing of knowledge-based decision support system described by the rules of formal grammar. This system will support the decision making in CEP. This solution may contribute to the speedup of decision making process in complex event processing and also to the formal verification of these systems.

Strictness Analysis for Attribute Grammars

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rosendahl, Mads

1992-01-01

interpretation of attribute grammars. The framework is used to construct a strictness analysis for attribute grammars. Results of the analysis enable us to transform an attribute grammar such that attributes are evaluated during parsing, if possible. The analysis is proved correct by relating it to a fixpoint...... semantics for attribute grammars. An implementation of the analysis is discussed and some extensions to the analysis are mentioned....

French grammar in context

CERN Document Server

Jubb, Margaret

2013-01-01

Instructors' edition without answer keysDiscount of 20% offered when 10 ebooks are sold- e.g. they will be sold for 263.60/ £151.90 instead of 329.50/£189.90French Grammar in Context presents a unique and exciting approach to learning grammar. Authentic texts from a rich variety of sources, literary and journalistic, are used as the starting point for the illustration and explanation of key areas of French grammar. Each point is consolidated with a wide range of written and spoken exercises. Grammar is presented not as an end in itself, but as a

Forest Grammar (Ⅱ)

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

张松懋

1994-01-01

The syntactic parsing algorithm of weak precedence forest grammar has been introduced and the correctness and unambiguity of this algorithm have been proved. An example is given to the syntactic parsing procedure of weak precedence forest grammar.

Importance of Grammar in English Teaching

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

赵天毓

2011-01-01

Grammar teaching is one of the most difficult and important points in the middle school. However, there exist some problems with present grammar teaching, such as students＇ poor knowledge of grammar, improper teaching methods and the ignorance of grammar

TEACHING GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT: WHY AND HOW?

OpenAIRE

Noor Maulidiyah

2017-01-01

Grammar is an important component of English. Without grammar, it is not possible to communicate meaning successfully. Therefore, teachers and educators have to pay close attention to teaching grammar effectively. Based on the writer‘s experience in teaching grammar using the traditional way, many students still had difficulty in acquiring the grammar points. The grammar meetings were not effective, and the students did not thoroughly understand the grammar exercises. The students seemed bore...

On Construction Grammar

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

XIAO Kunxue

2005-01-01

Constructionist approach with its brand-new perspective has begun to demonstrate its dynamic power. This paper attempts to review the basic ideas, achievements and comparison with generative grammar of Construction Grammar and generalize some problems and future research prospects.

How to Learn English Grammar?

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

肖琳燃

2017-01-01

Grammar is an aspect of language about which learners have different opinions. Some learners are very interested in ifnding out or learning grammar rules and doing lots of grammar exercises. Others hate grammar and think it is the most boring part of learning a new language. Whatever opinion you have, however, you cannot escape from grammar; it is in every sentence you read or write, speak or hear. Grammar is simply the word for the rules that people follow when they use a language. We need those rules in the same way as we need the rules in a game. If there are no rules, or if everybody follows their own rules, the game would soon break down. It's the same with language; without rules we would not be able to communicate with other people. So you cannot escape from grammar, but the key question here is: what is the best way to learn grammar? You can learn the rules of a game by simply playing the game. You will certainly make mistakes; you may even get hurt. Eventually, however, you will know how to play. Of course, the rules of a language are very much more complicated than the rules of any game, but in fact this is exactly how you learned your own language. Nobody taught you the rules of your mother tongue as you were growing up but now you never make a grammar mistake.

A Communication Style of Advertising Phrases : A Comparison of Advertising Phrases in Women's Magazines of Japan and Korea

OpenAIRE

具, 軟和

2006-01-01

Advertising phrases of women's magazines adopt various methods to achieve an effective communication with readers. Japanese advertising phrases show a tendency of providing readers firstly with background reasons of why they need a product and secondly with what kind of effects they can get if they buy it, trying to avoid to look too pushy. Korean advertising phrases show a tendency of making readers pay attentions on a product by providing product features directly. We can say in communicati...

1001 easy French phrases

CERN Document Server

McCoy, Heather

2010-01-01

The perfect companion for tourists and business travelers in France and other places where the French language is spoken, this book offers fast, effective communication. More than 1,000 basic words, phrases, and sentences cover everything from asking directions and renting a car to ordering dinner and finding a bank.Designed as a quick reference tool and an easy study guide, this inexpensive and easy-to-use book offers completely up-to-date terms for modern telecommunications, idioms, and slang. The contents are arranged for quick access to phrases related to greetings, transportation, shoppin

Artificial grammar learning in individuals with severe aphasia.

Science.gov (United States)

Zimmerer, Vitor C; Cowell, Patricia E; Varley, Rosemary A

2014-01-01

One factor in syntactic impairment in aphasia might be damage to general structure processing systems. In such a case, deficits would be evident in the processing of syntactically structured non-linguistic information. To explore this hypothesis, we examined performances on artificial grammar learning (AGL) tasks in which the grammar was expressed in non-linguistic visual forms. In the first experiment, AGL behavior of four aphasic participants with severe syntactic impairment, five aphasic participants without syntactic impairment, and healthy controls was examined. Participants were trained on sequences of nonsense stimuli with the structure A(n)B(n). Data were analyzed at an individual level to identify different behavioral profiles and account for heterogeneity in aphasic as well as healthy groups. Healthy controls and patients without syntactic impairment were more likely to learn configurational (item order) than quantitative (counting) regularities. Quantitative regularities were only detected by individuals who also detected the configurational properties of the stimulus sequences. By contrast, two individuals with syntactic impairment learned quantitative regularities, but showed no sensitivity towards configurational structure. They also failed to detect configurational structure in a second experiment in which sequences were structured by the grammar A(+)B(+). We discuss the potential relationship between AGL and processing of word order as well as the potential of AGL in clinical practice. © 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Grammar Games: A Case for Instructionist Game Models to Enhance Grammar Awareness and Accuracy

Science.gov (United States)

Raftery, Brian; Santos, Jennifer

2015-01-01

Based on our own experiences teaching grammar in developmental writing classes and classes not dedicated to writing instruction, along with a history of scholarship that indicates a need for grammar pedagogies (e.g., Dougherty, 2012), instructor-designed grammar games can likely help facilitate learning about these mechanics of writing while…

The Teaching of English Grammar

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

祖凤霞

2009-01-01

Acquiring the grammar system is vital in the foreign language learning, and there has always been the debate on how learners can best acquire the English grammar. Inthis paper, two methods for teaching grammar will be presented--traditional practice and consciousness-raising. Both thetwo methods have their ad-vantages and disadvantages. But in practice, it is a better idea to combine different methods to make grammar teaching more effective. In addition, the consideration of different individual learners is also very important.

Classroom Grammar Teaching for Adult Learners

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

石怡

2014-01-01

As Wight (1999, p.33) pointed out to“know a language was to know the grammar of it”, hence grammar teaching is usually the main approach in second or foreign language teaching. This paper presents an analysis from three aspects to il-lustrate why classroom grammar teaching benefits adult learners. However, if grammar is overstated, some negative results will occur. Therefore a balance between grammar teaching and communicative skill teaching is need, as is a balance between accuracy and fluency.

Using Games in Primary Schools for Effective Grammar Teaching: a Case Study from Sebha

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mustafa Mubarak Pathan

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Teaching and learning a foreign language like English is not easy task. The situation become more difficult when the learners are primary school children and teaching and learning focus is grammar, an activity often regarded as ‘boring, ‘uninteresting’ and ‘’tedious’. However, one’s mastery over a language is determined by the appropriate use of language by that individual following grammatical rules and failing to follow the rules of grammar marks one’s use of language as erroneous. Therefore, systematic attempt is done to teach grammatical rules and structures to the language learners from the beginning of language teaching and learning process. However, the success or failure of learning, mastering and using the grammatical rules and structures is largely determined by the technique and approach used by the grammar teacher to teach. The leaner-cantered, interesting, motivating technique of grammar teaching is believed to generate positive results whereas traditional, teacher-centered, uninteresting, uninvolving method is believed to be a cause of failure for learners to learn and master grammar rules and structures. Therefore, the grammar teaching technique, which involves language learners, to maximum, in learning in amusing and creative way, motivating, challenging and stimulating his/her mental processes, and reducing classroom anxiety and fear, is desired and recommended for fruitful language teaching and learning process. In this respect, the present paper discusses the effectiveness of using games for teaching grammar to primary school students as a technique which could easily be utilised and exploited for maximum benefits for learners. The study is based on the practical experiment done on the students of two primary schools in Sebha city of Libya using grammar games. The results, which proved to be fruitful and positive, are discussed as a basis for the argument in support of using games for teaching grammar to school

The Journalism Writing Course: Evaluation of Hybrid versus Online Grammar Instruction

Science.gov (United States)

Moore, Jensen; Jones, Khristen

2015-01-01

This study examined introductory journalism writing courses and compared hybrid (part online/part classroom) versus online grammar instruction. The hybrid structure allowed for grammar topics to be taught online, with a pretest following, and then reviewing missed/difficult pretest concepts in class prior to a posttest. The quasi-experimental…

Procedure Of Teaching Grammar Using Memory Enhancement

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Herri Susanto

2011-11-01

Full Text Available Teaching grammar has been regarded as a process of understanding from the context. It means a teacher teaches the pupils contextually more than just the rules. However, I have my own experience that teaching grammar methods must depend on the purposes of learning grammar. Some people learn grammar as a means to fulfill the syllabus needs for schools but other people learn grammar for special purposes out of school syllabus, such as for entrance test. For these reasons, the methods of teaching grammar should be different. The students who learn grammar based on the school syllabus probably needs longer procedure of learning that usually uses contextual teaching through listening, speaking, writing, and reading. Nevertheless, students who learn grammar for test need shorter procedure of learning such as memorizing. Therefore, I propose giving a workshop of teaching grammar using memory enhancement as another alternative teaching grammar method. This workshop would show the class that grammar can be learnt through memory enhancement process, i.e.; mind map, music, memory technique and drill to boost up students understanding for test preparation.

Teaching Grammar and Testing Grammar in the English Primary School: The Impact on Teachers and Their Teaching of the Grammar Element of the Statutory Test in Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG)

Science.gov (United States)

Safford, Kimberly

2016-01-01

The research examined the impact on teachers of the grammar element of a new statutory test in Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG) in primary schools in England. The research aimed to evaluate the nature and the extent of changes to the teaching of grammar and to wider literacy teaching since the introduction of the test in 2013. The research…

Regular extensions of some classes of grammars

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nijholt, Antinus

Culik and Cohen introduced the class of LR-regular grammars, an extension of the LR(k) grammars. In this report we consider the analogous extension of the LL(k) grammers, called the LL-regular grammars. The relations of this class of grammars to other classes of grammars are shown. Every LL-regular

A stochastic context free grammar based framework for analysis of protein sequences

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nebel Jean-Christophe

2009-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background In the last decade, there have been many applications of formal language theory in bioinformatics such as RNA structure prediction and detection of patterns in DNA. However, in the field of proteomics, the size of the protein alphabet and the complexity of relationship between amino acids have mainly limited the application of formal language theory to the production of grammars whose expressive power is not higher than stochastic regular grammars. However, these grammars, like other state of the art methods, cannot cover any higher-order dependencies such as nested and crossing relationships that are common in proteins. In order to overcome some of these limitations, we propose a Stochastic Context Free Grammar based framework for the analysis of protein sequences where grammars are induced using a genetic algorithm. Results This framework was implemented in a system aiming at the production of binding site descriptors. These descriptors not only allow detection of protein regions that are involved in these sites, but also provide insight in their structure. Grammars were induced using quantitative properties of amino acids to deal with the size of the protein alphabet. Moreover, we imposed some structural constraints on grammars to reduce the extent of the rule search space. Finally, grammars based on different properties were combined to convey as much information as possible. Evaluation was performed on sites of various sizes and complexity described either by PROSITE patterns, domain profiles or a set of patterns. Results show the produced binding site descriptors are human-readable and, hence, highlight biologically meaningful features. Moreover, they achieve good accuracy in both annotation and detection. In addition, findings suggest that, unlike current state-of-the-art methods, our system may be particularly suited to deal with patterns shared by non-homologous proteins. Conclusion A new Stochastic Context Free

The Necessity of Grammar Teaching

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Fengjuan

2010-01-01

Mastering grammar is the foundation in the proficiency of a language. Grammar teaching is also an essential part of language teaching. However, with the communicative approach was introduced into China, many foreign language teachers gradually make little of grammar teaching. In terms of the theory of linguistics, this paper specifically explores…

Building Fluency through the Phrased Text Lesson

Science.gov (United States)

Rasinski, Timothy; Yildirim, Kasim; Nageldinger, James

2012-01-01

This Teaching Tip article explores the importance of phrasing while reading. It also presents an instructional intervention strategy for helping students develop greater proficiency in reading with phrases that reflect the meaning of the text.

Theoretical Basics of the Transpositional Grammar of Russian Language

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Victor Vasilievich Shigurov

2016-09-01

Full Text Available The article presents the theoretical basics of the transpositional grammar of the Russian language (as the special areas of the functional grammar, which serves as a mechanism for describing the subject of the transposition of the linguistic units from one class (or interclass semantic-syntactic category to another (or others. The relation to the transposition of the grammar and vocabulary (word-formation was displayed; a typology of the transpositional processes in grammatical structure of the Russian language was submitted, and above all, in the parts of the speech and inter part-of-speech classes, grammatical categories and lexical-grammatical classes; general and specific objectives of the study types of transposition of the linguistic units were defined; the fragments of the description of the transition and syncretism of the language units were offered using the technique of opposition analysis and indexation. The results can be used in the development of the theory of the transpositional grammar of the Russian language.

Structural Packaging in the Input to Language Learning: Contributions of Prosodic and Morphological Marking of Phrases to the Acquisition of Language.

Science.gov (United States)

Morgan, James L.; And Others

1987-01-01

The role of cues in language acquisition was examined in three experiments. When the cue marked the phrase structure of sentences, adult subjects successfully learned syntax. When input was identical but lacked that cue, subjects failed to learn significant portions of syntax. (Author/GDC)

TEACHING GRAMMAR IN CONTEXT: WHY AND HOW?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Noor Maulidiyah

2017-04-01

Then the paper explains the concept of context in teaching grammar and describes the reasons for teaching grammar in context. The last part of the paper demonstrates how grammar is taught in context. These sample lessons are taken from different sources based on experts when teaching grammar in context.Teaching grammar in context is more useful and can help the students to master English better.

TRAINING TREE ADJOINING GRAMMARS WITH HUGE TEXT CORPUS USING SPARK MAP REDUCE

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Vijay Krishna Menon

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Tree adjoining grammars (TAGs are mildly context sensitive formalisms used mainly in modelling natural languages. Usage and research on these psycho linguistic formalisms have been erratic in the past decade, due to its demanding construction and difficulty to parse. However, they represent promising future for formalism based NLP in multilingual scenarios. In this paper we demonstrate basic synchronous Tree adjoining grammar for English-Tamil language pair that can be used readily for machine translation. We have also developed a multithreaded chart parser that gives ambiguous deep structures and a par dependency structure known as TAG derivation. Furthermore we then focus on a model for training this TAG for each language using a large corpus of text through a map reduce frequency count model in spark and estimation of various probabilistic parameters for the grammar trees thereafter; these parameters can be used to perform statistical parsing on the trained grammar.

French grammar for dummies

CERN Document Server

Mazet, Veronique

2013-01-01

The easy way to master French grammar French Grammar For Dummies is a logical extension and complement to the successful language learning book, French For Dummies. In plain English, it teaches you the grammatical rules of the French language, including parts of speech, sentence construction, pronouns, adjectives, punctuation, stress and verb tenses, and moods. Throughout the book, you get plenty of practice opportunities to help you on your goal of mastering basic French grammar and usage. Grasp the grammatical rules of French including parts of speech, sentenc

The History of Modern Chinese Grammar Studies

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Peverelli, P.J.

2015-01-01

This book discusses the way Chinese scholars developed a national grammar. Chinese didnt develop grammar until Chinas contact with Western grammar books in the 19th Century. The first indigenous grammar was published in 1889. It included some traditional notions, but mainly imitated European

A Learning Algorithm for Multimodal Grammar Inference.

Science.gov (United States)

D'Ulizia, A; Ferri, F; Grifoni, P

2011-12-01

The high costs of development and maintenance of multimodal grammars in integrating and understanding input in multimodal interfaces lead to the investigation of novel algorithmic solutions in automating grammar generation and in updating processes. Many algorithms for context-free grammar inference have been developed in the natural language processing literature. An extension of these algorithms toward the inference of multimodal grammars is necessary for multimodal input processing. In this paper, we propose a novel grammar inference mechanism that allows us to learn a multimodal grammar from its positive samples of multimodal sentences. The algorithm first generates the multimodal grammar that is able to parse the positive samples of sentences and, afterward, makes use of two learning operators and the minimum description length metrics in improving the grammar description and in avoiding the over-generalization problem. The experimental results highlight the acceptable performances of the algorithm proposed in this paper since it has a very high probability of parsing valid sentences.

Predicting binary choices from probability phrase meanings.

Science.gov (United States)

Wallsten, Thomas S; Jang, Yoonhee

2008-08-01

The issues of how individuals decide which of two events is more likely and of how they understand probability phrases both involve judging relative likelihoods. In this study, we investigated whether derived scales representing probability phrase meanings could be used within a choice model to predict independently observed binary choices. If they can, this simultaneously provides support for our model and suggests that the phrase meanings are measured meaningfully. The model assumes that, when deciding which of two events is more likely, judges take a single sample from memory regarding each event and respond accordingly. The model predicts choice probabilities by using the scaled meanings of individually selected probability phrases as proxies for confidence distributions associated with sampling from memory. Predictions are sustained for 34 of 41 participants but, nevertheless, are biased slightly low. Sequential sampling models improve the fit. The results have both theoretical and applied implications.

Ambiguity Detection Methods for Context-Free Grammars

NARCIS (Netherlands)

H.J.S. Basten (Bas)

2007-01-01

textabstractThe Meta-Environment enables the creation of grammars using the SDF formalism. From these grammars an SGLR parser can be generated. One of the advantages of these parsers is that they can handle the entire class of context-free grammars (CFGs). The grammar developer does not have to

A Construction Grammar for the Classroom

Science.gov (United States)

Holme, Randal

2010-01-01

Construction grammars (Lakoff, Women, fire and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the Mind, University of Chicago Press, 1987; Langacker, Foundations of cognitive grammar: Theoretical pre-requisites, Stanford University Press, 1987; Croft, Radical construction grammar: Syntactic theory in typological perspective, Oxford University…

Explaining word order in the noun phrase

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rijkhoff, Jan

1990-01-01

This article argues that word order in the noun phrase is largely determined by three iconic principles of constituent ordering. The patterns that these principles predict for simple noun phrases are tested against data from various existing samples. It appears that the predicted patterns are all...

Snowball Throwing in Teaching Grammar

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Yanuarti Apsari

2018-05-01

Full Text Available The aims of this study are to describe the implementation of snowball throwing in teaching grammar and to investigate the benefits of applying snowball throwing. The research was conducted at STKIP Siliwangi Bandung. This study applied qualitative research involving one class consisting of second semester students in English Department who were taking the subject of foundation of English Grammar. The data were obtained from classroom observation and students’ interview. The findings showed that there are seven stages in implementing snowball throwing in teaching grammar. The stages consist of preparing teaching material, forming group, re-explaining the material to the member of the group, formulating question, tossing the ball, answering questions and evaluating teaching and learning process. In addition, the findings also revealed that there are some benefits from applying snowball throwing in teaching grammar such as improving students’ comprehension in learning grammar, creating enjoyable learning atmosphere, increasing students’ vocabulary, developing students’ speaking skill, developing students’ cooperation skill and increasing students’ participation in the class.

Researches on Problems in College Students'Grammar Learning and Countermeasures%Researches on Problems in College Students' Grammar Learning and Countermeasures

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

廖芳

2016-01-01

Grammar is the guiding rules of language, and a good mastery of grammar is the basis of English learning. This paper starts from the problems in college students' current grammar learning and put forwards some strategies to improve their English grammar.

20 CFR 201.1 - Words and phrases.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 20 Employees' Benefits 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Words and phrases. 201.1 Section 201.1 Employees' Benefits RAILROAD RETIREMENT BOARD REGULATIONS UNDER THE RAILROAD RETIREMENT ACT DEFINITIONS § 201.1 Words and phrases. For the purposes of the regulations in this chapter, except where the...

Teachers’ Attitudes towards Teaching English Grammar: A Scale Development Study

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Murat Polat

2017-12-01

Full Text Available In most ELT classes, the importance of grammar, how it should be taught or how much it should be integrated into language teaching are still matters of discussion. Considering this fact, learning teachers’ attitudes towards teaching grammar is significantly valuable for researchers. This study thus aimed to design a scale that identifies teachers’ attitudes towards the role of grammar in the process of teaching English, to pilot it, and to find out the psychometric qualities like reliability and validity of the scale designed. The scale was developed in two phases; it was first aimed to explore the factor structure of the scale, then to confirm the structure gained from the exploration of the items. The study was carried out in 2015 and 247 volunteer language teachers from 3 state universities in Eskişehir and Kütahya were included. The results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the scale developed in this study was a considerably valid and reliable data collection tool including three factors. Finally, the analyses indicated that gender and graduate faculties did not create significant differences whereas age and the degrees obtained by the teachers created a considerable difference on language teachers’ attitudes towards grammar teaching (p<.05

USING PREZI PRESENTATION AS INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIAL IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR CLASSROOM

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Rahmat Yusny

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Utilizing digital technology as a medium for educational instruction has now become one of the 21 century pedagogy trends. Numerous researches suggested that using digital technology provides positive impacts as it gives more access to resources for the learning. In Foreign language pedagogy, using digital technology fosters learners’ autonomy by self-managing the amount of learning inputs outside the classroom. However, many studies emphasize more on the communicative and the vast resources accessible for the learners. Very limited attention given to the impact of the visual aid that focuses on aesthetic values of instructional design. English Grammar is one of many subjects that often received complaints by learners and claimed as a “boring” subject. Many English teachers especially in developing countries still utilize traditional method in teaching grammar. They introduce sentence structure using grammar formulas. Although, this method is still very popular, it often considered monotonous by many learners. This paper discusses about the study of using Prezi.com presentation to deliver grammar instruction materials in an English language classroom. From the study, it was found that the majority of the students involved in the study are fond of the materials and the post-test results showed grammar mastery improvement after receiving a grammar lesson that shows instructional materials using prezi. On the other hand, the control class that uses only writing boards and worksheets showed less improvement. This research provides new technique in developing grammar instruction design using a web tool called Prezi in enhancing the display of the instruction material. The experiment was given to students of English Language Education. The result of the study shows students’ positive perception toward the use of Prezi in English grammar instructional material.

20 CFR 300.1 - Words and phrases.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 20 Employees' Benefits 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Words and phrases. 300.1 Section 300.1 Employees' Benefits RAILROAD RETIREMENT BOARD REGULATIONS UNDER THE RAILROAD UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACT DEFINITIONS § 300.1 Words and phrases. For the purposes of the regulations in this part, except where the...

Grammar and Teaching ESL

Science.gov (United States)

Morrissey, Glenda; Young, Barbara N.

2005-01-01

The variety of theories relating to teaching ESL learners leads to contradictory ideas about teaching a second language. This paper focuses on the continuing importance of grammar in teaching and the current resurgence in interest in returning to grammar as an important component in the classroom.

REFLECTIONS ON GRAMMAR TEACHING

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

2000-01-01

This article aims to answer three questions:(1)Why there exists a discrepancy between the learner’sgrammar knowledge and their communicative skills?(2)What problems are there with grammar tests andteaching?(3)How should grammar be taught as"away of talking"rather than"a description of rules"?

GRAMMAR IN LANGUAGE TEACHING

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Jiang Nongxin

2003-01-01

@@ 1 Definition of grammar Grammar is the science dealing with the systematic rules of a language, its forms, inflections, syntax, and the art of using them correctly. It is summarized from language use and practice, and reflects the logic of thinking in people's speech or writing.

HIGHER ORDER THINKING IN TEACHING GRAMMAR

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Citra Dewi

2017-04-01

Full Text Available The aim of this paper discussed about how to enhance students’ higher order thinking that should be done by teacher in teaching grammar. Usually teaching grammar was boring and has the same way to learn like change the pattern of sentence into positive, negative and introgative while the students’ need more various way to develop their thinking. The outcome of students’ competence in grammar sometimes not sufficient enough when the students’ occured some test international standart like Test of English Foreign Language, International English Language Testing. Whereas in TOEFL test it needed higher order thinking answer, so teacher should develop students’ higher order thingking in daily teaching grammar in order to make the students’ enhance their thinking are higher. The method was used in this paper by using field study based on the experience of teaching grammar. It can be shown by students’ toefl score was less in stucture and written expression. The result of this paper was after teacher gave some treatments to enhance students’ higher order thinking in teaching grammar, the students’ toefl scores are sufficient enough as a part of stucture and written expression. It can concluded that it needed some strategies to enhancce students higher order thinking by teaching grammar it can make students’ higher toefl score. Teachers should be creative and inovative to teach the students’ started from giving the students’ question or test in teaching grammar.

Grammar Teaching in Chinese Tertiary Education

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

LAN Hui-hui

2016-01-01

Grammar teaching, as one essential aspect of English language teaching (ELT), has been and continues to be an area of some controversy and debates, which entails the emergency of diverse classroom practices for language teachers:Focus on Form or Focus on FormS. Connected with the specific context of grammar teaching in Chinese higher education, this paper tends to re-consider the place of grammar teaching in the classroom, and come up with some feasible approaches to instructing grammar so as to make appropriate connections between grammatical forms and the meanings.

Delta's Key to the Next Generation TOEFL[R] Test: Essential Grammar for the iBT

Science.gov (United States)

Gallagher, Nancy

2012-01-01

Although the TOEFL iBT does not have a discrete grammar section, knowledge of English sentence structure is important throughout the test. Essential Grammar for the iBT reviews the skills that are fundamental to success on tests. Content includes noun and verb forms, clauses, agreement, parallel structure, punctuation, and much more. The book may…

Reframing the English Grammar Schools Debate

Science.gov (United States)

Morris, Rebecca; Perry, Thomas

2017-01-01

In October 2015 the Department for Education (DfE) permitted a grammar school in Tonbridge, Kent, to open up an annexe in Sevenoaks, 10 miles away. Amidst claims that the annexe was essentially a new grammar school, the decision reignited an old debate about the value of academically-selective "grammar" schools in England. The intensity…

Integrating source-language context into phrase-based statistical machine translation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Haque, R.; Kumar Naskar, S.; Bosch, A.P.J. van den; Way, A.

2011-01-01

The translation features typically used in Phrase-Based Statistical Machine Translation (PB-SMT) model dependencies between the source and target phrases, but not among the phrases in the source language themselves. A swathe of research has demonstrated that integrating source context modelling

Some Key Principles for Developing Grammar Skills

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

张威

2008-01-01

Grammar is sometimes defined aft"the way words are put together to make correct sentences"(Ur,2004,P.75).The aim of teaching grammar is to raise the rates of the correctness of language use and help the students transfer the isolated language points to apply language.In this essay，the author introduces two kinds of Conlnlon methods in English grammar class. And there are some key principles in grammar teaching.

REA's handbook of English grammar, style, and writing

CERN Document Server

REA, The Editors of

1992-01-01

The ability to write and speak correctly and effectively is a prerequisite for doing well in all subjects, including the physical and social sciences, math and the liberal arts. Writing and speaking skills become even more important when seeking a job and trying to succeed in a chosen career. This easy-to-understand, straightforward English handbook does not use the hard-to-understand technical jargon usually found in English grammar books. Instead, this handbook provides hundreds of examples from which it is possible to easily see what is correct and what is incorrect in all areas of English grammar and writing. Learn quickly and easily: 1. Rules and exceptions in grammar, 2. Spelling and proper punctuation, 3. Common errors in sentence structure, 4. 2,000 examples of correct usage, and 5. Effective writing skills. Complete practice exercises with answers follow each chapter.The handbook covers the following in detail: nouns, verbs, adjectives, paragraphs, composition, punctuation, spelling, and much more. A...

The Importance of English Grammar Teaching at College

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

孙丽伟

2012-01-01

This paper attempts to elaborate the importance of grammar teaching at college through the four linguistic skills: listening, speaking, reading,and writing.The nature of grammar determines the significance of grammar teaching. This paper shows the importance of grammar teaching from its relationship with listening,speaking,reading and writing.

A Survey of Grammar Instruction from Scholastic Perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Peng, Yanghua

2017-01-01

The study of grammar has been paid much attention and the grammar instruction becomes an emphasis and key problem in English language teaching and learning. How to instruct students grammar appropriately becomes controversial for some English teachers increasingly. Some linguistics, theorists and teachers hold that the grammar instruction should…

Functional discourse grammar: pragmatic aspects

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hannay, M.; Hengeveld, K.; Brisard, F.; Östman, J.O.; Verschueren, J.

2009-01-01

This chapter introduces Functional Discourse Grammar, focusing on the way in which this model is capable of accounting for the grammatical encoding of pragmatic distinctions and for the typological variation found in this area of grammar.

An Evaluation of the Grammar Teaching Material

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

张可科

2013-01-01

　　Of the many issues surrounding grammar, perhaps the hottest debate is whether to teach it or not. We review briefly argu⁃ments against and in support of grammar teaching before examining current grammar approaches in second language teaching.

English grammar a university course

CERN Document Server

Downing, Angela

2014-01-01

This best-selling comprehensive descriptive grammar forms a complete course, ideal for all students studying English Language ,whether on a course or for self-study. Broadly based on Hallidayan systemic-functional grammar but also drawing on cognitive linguistics and discourse analysis, English Grammar is accessible, avoiding overly theoretical or technical explanations.Divided into 12 self-contained chapters based around language functions, each chapter is divided into units of class-length material. Key features include:Numerous authentic texts from a wide range of sources, both spoken and w

What English Teachers Need to Know about Grammar.

Science.gov (United States)

Murdick, William

1996-01-01

Suggests that English teachers need to know that grammar is a difficult subject; know what children know about grammar; know that grammatical error is complex; and know more about language than just grammar. Concludes with the advice of Noam Chomsky--that grammar should be taught for its own intrinsic interest. (RS)

Ch(k) grammars: A characterization of LL(k) languages

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Becvar, J.; Nijholt, Antinus; Soisalon-Soininen, E.

In this paper we introduce the class of so called Ch(k) grammars [pronounced "chain k grammars"]. This class of grammars is properly contained in the class of LR(k) grammars and it properly contains the LL(k) grammars. However, the family of Ch[k) languages coincides with the family of LL(k)

Chargaff's "Grammar of Biology": New Fractal-like Rules

OpenAIRE

Yamagishi, Michel Eduardo Beleza; Herai, Roberto H.

2011-01-01

Chargaff once said that "I saw before me in dark contours the beginning of a grammar of Biology". In linguistics, "grammar" is the set of natural language rules, but we do not know for sure what Chargaff meant by "grammar" of Biology. Nevertheless, assuming the metaphor, Chargaff himself started a "grammar of Biology" discovering the so called Chargaff's rules. In this work, we further develop his grammar. Using new concepts, we were able to discovery new genomic rules that seem to be invaria...

Phrase frequency effects in language production.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Niels Janssen

Full Text Available A classic debate in the psychology of language concerns the question of the grain-size of the linguistic information that is stored in memory. One view is that only morphologically simple forms are stored (e.g., 'car', 'red', and that more complex forms of language such as multi-word phrases (e.g., 'red car' are generated on-line from the simple forms. In two experiments we tested this view. In Experiment 1, participants produced noun+adjective and noun+noun phrases that were elicited by experimental displays consisting of colored line drawings and two superimposed line drawings. In Experiment 2, participants produced noun+adjective and determiner+noun+adjective utterances elicited by colored line drawings. In both experiments, naming latencies decreased with increasing frequency of the multi-word phrase, and were unaffected by the frequency of the object name in the utterance. These results suggest that the language system is sensitive to the distribution of linguistic information at grain-sizes beyond individual words.

Semantic and syntactic forces in noun phrase production

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vigliocco, G.; Lauer, M.; Damian, M.F.; Levelt, W.J.M.

2002-01-01

Three experiments investigated semantic and syntactic effects in the production of phrases in Dutch. Bilingual participants were presented with English nouns and were asked to produce an adjective + noun phrase in Dutch including the translation of the noun. In 2 experiments, the authors blocked

English Grammar Workbook For Dummies

CERN Document Server

O'Sullivan, Nuala

2010-01-01

English Grammar Workbook For Dummies, UK Edition is grammar First Aid for anyone wanting to perfect their English and develop the practical skills needed to write and speak correctly. Each chapter focuses on key grammatical principles, with easy-to-follow theory and examples as well as practice questions and explanations. From verbs, prepositions and tenses, to style, expressions and tricky word traps, this hands-on workbook is essential for both beginners looking to learn and practise the basics of English grammar, and those who want to brush up skills they already have - quickly, easily, and

Practising French grammar a workbook

CERN Document Server

Dr Roger Hawkins; Towell, Richard

2015-01-01

This new edition of Practising French Grammar offers a set of varied and accessible exercises for developing a practical awareness of French as it is spoken and written today. The lively examples and authentic texts and cartoons have been updated to reflect current usage. A new companion website provides a wealth of additional interactive exercises to help consolidate challenging grammar points. Practising French Grammar provides concise summaries of key grammatical points at the beginning of each exercise, as well as model answers to the exercises and translations of difficult words, making i

Teachers'Perceptions of Teaching Grammar in Young Learners'Classroom%Teachers' Perceptions of Teaching Grammar in Young Learners' Classroom

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

余媛

2016-01-01

The present essay studies the role of grammar in young learners' classroom, perceived by the English teachers in China. The study gives a detailed description of what the role of grammar is like in young learners' classroom, by interviewing primary school teachers both from a city in a developed coastal city and a less developed city in central China. It highlights the differences in the perceptions of teachers on the prominence of grammar in their classes. These differences may indicate regional disparity and potential factors for teachers' teaching approaches to grammar instruction.

CLIMB grammars: three projects using metagrammar engineering

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Fokkens, A.S.; Avgustinova, T.; Zhang, Yi

2012-01-01

This paper introduces the CLIMB (Comparative Libraries of Implementations with Matrix Basis) methodology and grammars. The basic idea behind CLIMB is to use code generation as a general methodology for grammar development in order to create a more systematic approach to grammar development. The

LR-parsing of Extended Context-free Grammars

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Madsen, Ole Lehrmann; Kristensen, Bent Bruun

1976-01-01

To improve the readability of a grammar it is common to use extended context free grammars (ECFGs) which are context free grammars (CFGs) extended with the repetition operator (*), the alternation operator (¦) and parentheses to express the right hand sides of the productions. The topic treated h...

Grammar in Context using Comprehended Input

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mariam Mohamed Nor

2014-03-01

Full Text Available There have been so many ongoing disputes on different approaches to teaching grammar. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching grammar using Gass comprehended Input technique (GCI (1997 (implicit and to explore the undergraduates’ perception on the GCI technique. The respondents consisted of 30 undergraduates’ who are currently pursuing their Bachelor of English. Using the qualitative method, the research instrument was a set of 23- item interview and content analysis of the students’ written work. Results showed that the teaching of grammar using explicit instructions was more preferred than implicit instruction for complex components in grammatical rules. However, implicit instruction is equally effective regardless of the proficiency levels to enable pedagogy to be executed. It is also noted that there is lots of room for improvement, since the undergraduates have a weak grasp of the basic tense aspect of English grammar. Therefore, the Malaysian Ministry of Education should consider having grammar formally taught in isolation as what was practised previously.

Introducing English grammar

CERN Document Server

Borjars, Kersti

2013-01-01

Answering key questions such as 'Why study grammar?' and 'What is standard English?', Introducing English Grammar guides readers through the practical analysis of the syntax of English sentences. With all special terms carefully explained as they are introduced, the book is written for readers with no previous experience of grammatical analysis. It is ideal for all those beginning their study of linguistics, English language or speech pathology, as well as students with primarily literary interests who need to cover the basics of linguistic analysis. The approach taken is in line with current research in grammar, a particular advantage for students who may go on to study syntax in more depth. All the examples and exercises use real language taken from newspaper articles, non-standard dialects and include excerpts from studies of patients with language difficulties. Students are encouraged to think about the terminology as a tool kit for studying language and to test what can and cannot be described using thes...

The Grammar Movie Project

Science.gov (United States)

Kreutner, Edith

2015-01-01

In this case study, I will show how directing a movie on grammar can help students improve their oral skills as well as their language competency, team working and planning skills, and also teach them about learning itself. I will present an innovative teaching project that uses the medium of film to get students engaged with grammar and that aims…

The P600 in Implicit Artificial Grammar Learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Silva, Susana; Folia, Vasiliki; Hagoort, Peter; Petersson, Karl Magnus

2017-01-01

The suitability of the artificial grammar learning (AGL) paradigm to capture relevant aspects of the acquisition of linguistic structures has been empirically tested in a number of EEG studies. Some have shown a syntax-related P600 component, but it has not been ruled out that the AGL P600 effect is a response to surface features (e.g., subsequence familiarity) rather than the underlying syntax structure. Therefore, in this study, we controlled for the surface characteristics of the test sequences (associative chunk strength) and recorded the EEG before (baseline preference classification) and after (preference and grammaticality classification) exposure to a grammar. After exposure, a typical, centroparietal P600 effect was elicited by grammatical violations and not by unfamiliar subsequences, suggesting that the AGL P600 effect signals a response to structural irregularities. Moreover, preference and grammaticality classification showed a qualitatively similar ERP profile, strengthening the idea that the implicit structural mere-exposure paradigm in combination with preference classification is a suitable alternative to the traditional grammaticality classification test. Copyright © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Wie viel Syntax braucht die Semantik, und wie viel Semantik enthält die Syntax?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hubert Haider

2004-05-01

Full Text Available The nature of the syntax-semantics interface is a controversial issue in grammar theory. Current theorizing in Generative Grammar endorses a 'tight fit' conception. Abstract syntax is to provide distinct structural configurations for distinct semantic entities in terms of semantically typed functional heads that project functional phrases. Positive and convincing evidence for the tight fit approach is wanting. The opposite viewpoint, once called the autonomy viewpoint in Generative Grammar, takes syntax to be a module of grammar that is not necessarily tailored to the needs of semantics. It is an algorithm that maps strings on structures and vice versa. The semantic construction algorithm maps syntactic structure on adequate semantic domains. In this contribution, evidence from three areas syntax of adverbials, syntax of negation, alleged semantic correlates of argument structure are reviewed in order to clarify which of the two viewpoints is more likely to be adequate. It is argued that the autonomy approach is superior.

Wie viel Syntax braucht die Semantik, und wie viel Semantik enthält die Syntax?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hubert Haider

2004-05-01

Full Text Available The nature of the syntax-semantics interface is a controversial issue in grammar theory. Current theorizing in Generative Grammar endorses a 'tight fit' conception. Abstract syntax is to provide distinct structural configurations for distinct semantic entities in terms of semantically typed functional heads that project functional phrases. Positive and convincing evidence for the tight fit approach is wanting. The opposite viewpoint, once called the autonomy viewpoint in Generative Grammar, takes syntax to be a module of grammar that is not necessarily tailored to the needs of semantics. It is an algorithm that maps strings on structures and vice versa. The semantic construction algorithm maps syntactic structure on adequate semantic domains. In this contribution, evidence from three areas syntax of adverbials, syntax of negation, alleged semantic correlates of argument structure are reviewed in order to clarify which of the two viewpoints is more likely to be adequate. It is argued that the autonomy approach is superior.

Conceptualisations of "Grammar Teaching": L1 English Teachers' Beliefs about Teaching Grammar for Writing

Science.gov (United States)

Watson, Annabel Mary

2015-01-01

This paper reports on an investigation of L1 English teachers' conceptual and evaluative beliefs about teaching grammar, one strand of a larger Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded investigation into the impact of contextualised grammar teaching [RES-062-23-0775]. Thirty-one teachers in English secondary schools were interviewed…

Missionary Pragmalinguistics: Father Diego Luis de Sanvitores’ grammar within the tradition of Philippine grammars

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Winkler, A.P.

2016-01-01

The grammar written in Latin, in 1668, by the Jesuit missionary Father Diego Luis de Sanvitores (1627-1672) is the oldest description we have of Chamorro, a language spoken on the Mariana islands. The grammar received a number of bad reviews and as a consequence has become neglected and almost

Does Teaching Grammar Really Hinder Students＇ Speaking Abilities？

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Kazumi Araki

2015-01-01

In the history of formal English education in Japan, grammar used to be the mainstream. In the secondary education system, teachers used to spend many hours teaching grammar to the students. However, it has been replaced by the aural/oral method of teaching a foreign language. There was even a remark that teaching grammar hinders students from communicating fluently. Literally, there was a time when grammar was set aside in formal English education. However, the author noticed that in grammar classes, the students speak English more loudly and confidently without much hesitation than in other types of English classes. One of the reasons is that they are not worried about the contents of the speeches. They are simply concentrating on the forms. They are not afraid of making major mistakes, and the errors they make are minor so they do not feel embarrassed in public. The atmosphere of the grammar classes is very positive and the students enjoy speaking English. In this paper, the author shows how grammar classes can contribute to the acquisition of the students＇ speaking abilities and manners. ＂Learning grammar was a precious experience＂, one student reported after the course.

On Anaphora and the Binding Principles in Categorial Grammar

Science.gov (United States)

Morrill, Glyn; Valentín, Oriol

In type logical categorial grammar the analysis of an expression is a resource-conscious proof. Anaphora represents a particular challenge to this approach in that the antecedent resource is multiplied in the semantics. This duplication, which corresponds logically to the structural rule of contraction, may be treated lexically or syntactically. Furthermore, anaphora is subject to constraints, which Chomsky (1981) formulated as Binding Principles A, B, and C. In this paper we consider English anaphora in categorial grammar including reference to the binding principles. We invoke displacement calculus, modal categorial calculus, categorial calculus with limited contraction, and entertain addition of negation as failure.

An approach to multiscale modelling with graph grammars.

Science.gov (United States)

Ong, Yongzhi; Streit, Katarína; Henke, Michael; Kurth, Winfried

2014-09-01

Functional-structural plant models (FSPMs) simulate biological processes at different spatial scales. Methods exist for multiscale data representation and modification, but the advantages of using multiple scales in the dynamic aspects of FSPMs remain unclear. Results from multiscale models in various other areas of science that share fundamental modelling issues with FSPMs suggest that potential advantages do exist, and this study therefore aims to introduce an approach to multiscale modelling in FSPMs. A three-part graph data structure and grammar is revisited, and presented with a conceptual framework for multiscale modelling. The framework is used for identifying roles, categorizing and describing scale-to-scale interactions, thus allowing alternative approaches to model development as opposed to correlation-based modelling at a single scale. Reverse information flow (from macro- to micro-scale) is catered for in the framework. The methods are implemented within the programming language XL. Three example models are implemented using the proposed multiscale graph model and framework. The first illustrates the fundamental usage of the graph data structure and grammar, the second uses probabilistic modelling for organs at the fine scale in order to derive crown growth, and the third combines multiscale plant topology with ozone trends and metabolic network simulations in order to model juvenile beech stands under exposure to a toxic trace gas. The graph data structure supports data representation and grammar operations at multiple scales. The results demonstrate that multiscale modelling is a viable method in FSPM and an alternative to correlation-based modelling. Advantages and disadvantages of multiscale modelling are illustrated by comparisons with single-scale implementations, leading to motivations for further research in sensitivity analysis and run-time efficiency for these models.

The phrase “information storage and retrieval” (IS&R)

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hjørland, Birger

2015-01-01

Scholars have uncovered abundant data about the history of the term “information”, as well as some of its many combined phrases (e.g. “information science”, “information retrieval” and “information technology”). Many other compounds involving “information” seem, however, not to have a known origi...... yet. In this article, further information about the phrase “information storage and retrieval” is provided. To know the history of terms and their associated concepts is an important prescription against poor terminological phrasing and theoretical confusion....

Abductive Logic Grammars

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christiansen, Henning; Dahl, Veronica

2009-01-01

By extending logic grammars with constraint logic, we give them the ability to create knowledge bases that represent the meaning of an input string. Semantic information is thus defined through extra-grammatical means, and a sentence's meaning logically follows as a by-product of string rewriting....... We formalize these ideas, and exemplify them both within and outside first-order logic, and for both fixed and dynamic knowledge bases. Within the latter variety, we consider the usual left-to-right derivations that are traditional in logic grammars, but also -- in a significant departure from...

The equivalence problem for LL- and LR-regular grammars

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nijholt, Antinus

1982-01-01

The equivalence problem for context-free grammars is "given two arbitrary grammars, do they generate the same language?" Since this is undecidable in general, attention has been restricted to decidable subclasses of the context-free grammars. For example, the classes of LL(k) grammars and real-time

15000 useful phrases

CERN Document Server

Kleiser, Grenville

1900-01-01

This incredibly useful book will appeal to writers, public speakers and anyone else who would like to improve their vocabulary. It contains a huge number of phrases which you can use in everyday speech and at special occasions, which will help you express your thoughts, ideas and feelings in a brand new way. A classic reference work, this edition has been specially formatted for today's e-readers.

Recovering grammar relationships for the Java language specification

NARCIS (Netherlands)

R. Lämmel (Ralf); V. Zaytsev (Vadim)

2011-01-01

textabstractGrammar convergence is a method that helps in discovering relationships between different grammars of the same language or different language versions. The key element of the method is the operational, transformation-based representation of those relationships. Given input grammars for

Performance Grammars

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Robinson, Jane J

1974-01-01

.... The theory of systematic variation affords better direction for gathering data on rule-governed language use and a means for representing the results in formal grammars that predict speech behavior...

Machine translation of noun phrases from English to Igala using the ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Due to the structural differences between English and Igala, noun phrases coupled with the non- availability of large amount of parallel aligned corpus for English and Igala language, the rule based technology was adopted to develop the model. The model was implemented using VB.net programming language as front ...

An Introduction of Three-dimensional Grammar

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fan Xiao

2017-12-01

Full Text Available This paper introduces some key points of Three-dimensional Grammar. As for the structure, it can be distinguished into syntactic structure, semantic structure and pragmatic structure from the perspectives of syntax, semantics and pragmatics. And the same is true with the followings, such as grammatical constituents, grammatical functions, grammatical meanings, grammatical focuses. Sentence types which is called sentence pattern, sentence model and sentence types respectively, and analysis methods. This paper proposes that grammatical researches should be done in accordance with the four principles, that is form and meaning co-verified, static and dynamic co-referenced, structure and function co-testified and description and interpretation co-promoted.

DEVELOPING A SOUND POLICY FOR THE TREATMENT OF GRAMMAR

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

2001-01-01

Should grammar be taught at all?Is it a hindrance or anaid?Communicative language teaching approach seems to havecast doubts on the value of grammar teaching.The present paperargues that the positive effect of grammar in College Englishteaching and learning should not be overlooked.Grammar servesas a means to the final achievement of language proficiency.Itis time for language teachers to reconsider the role of grammarand to come up with a more appropriate and thus,moreeffective treatment of grammar in College English teaching.

Verbal behavior in Alzheimer's disease patients: Analysis of phrase repetition.

Science.gov (United States)

Cecato, Juliana Francisca; Martinellil, José Eduardo; Bartholomeu, Luana Luz; Basqueira, Ana Paula; Yassuda, Mônica Sanches; Aprahamian, Ivan

2010-01-01

Language problems in the elderly with AD are due to the fact that deterioration occurs not only in semantic memory, but in a group of cognitive factors, evidenced by a deficiency in search strategies for linguistic information. To evaluate phrase repetition in two cognitive tests, the MMSE and MoCA, in a group of Alzheimer disease patients (AD) and normal controls. A Cross-sectional study was conducted involving 20 patients who sought medical assistance at a geriatric institute in Jundiaí, São Paulo. The subjects underwent a detailed clinical examination and neuropsychometric evaluation. All subjects with AD met DSM-IV and NINCDS-ADRDA criteria. Ten patients received a diagnosis of AD and 10 were healthy subjects, forming the control group (CG). All participants correctly answered the phrase from the MMSE (phrase 1). The MoCA phrases (phrases 2 and 3) were correct in 80% and 90%, respectively in the CG and in 40% and 50%, respectively in the AD group. The MoCA test proved more effective in evaluating the echoic behavior in AD patients compared to the MMSE. The simpler phrase repetition task in the MMSE was found to be less sensitive in detecting mild language decline in AD patients.

Verbal behavior in Alzheimer disease patients: Analysis of phrase repetition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Juliana Francisca Cecato

Full Text Available Abstract Language problems in the elderly with AD are due to the fact that deterioration occurs not only in semantic memory, but in a group of cognitive factors, evidenced by a deficiency in search strategies for linguistic information. Objectives: To evaluate phrase repetition in two cognitive tests, the MMSE and MoCA, in a group of Alzheimer disease patients (AD and normal controls. Methods: A Cross-sectional study was conducted involving 20 patients who sought medical assistance at a geriatric institute in Jundiaí, São Paulo. The subjects underwent a detailed clinical examination and neuropsychometric evaluation. All subjects with AD met DSM-IV and NINCDS-ADRDA criteria. Ten patients received a diagnosis of AD and 10 were healthy subjects, forming the control group (CG. Results: All participants correctly answered the phrase from the MMSE (phrase 1. The MoCA phrases (phrases 2 and 3 were correct in 80% and 90%, respectively in the CG and in 40% and 50%, respectively in the AD group. Conclusions: The MoCA test proved more effective in evaluating the echoic behavior in AD patients compared to the MMSE. The simpler phrase repetition task in the MMSE was found to be less sensitive in detecting mild language decline in AD patients.

RAISING YOUNG LEARNERS‟ AWARENESS OF GRAMMAR THROUGH CREATIVE LANGUAGE ACTIVITIES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

C. Murni Wahyanti

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Current developments in foreign language teaching have shown the need to reconsider the role of grammar. It is argued that grammar understanding can promote more precise use of the foreign language. This belief has led to an increased interest in grammar teaching, including grammar teaching for young learners. In teaching English to young learners, activities that can promote grammar awareness are needed. The activities should be presented in context to make sure that the meaning is clear. The activities should also be creatively designed in order to challenge students‘ motivation and involvement. Grammar activities presented creatively in meaningful contexts are useful for noticing the language patterns. This paper focuses on the changing status of grammar, the importance of grammar in the young learner classroom, and how to raise grammar awareness through creative language activities. It also reports the result of a small-scale study on implementing grammarawareness activities for teaching English to Elementary School students.

EXPLAIN AND EXPLORE——THE INDUCTIVE APPROACH TO EFL GRAMMAR INSTRUCTION

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

YuGuoxing

2004-01-01

The new role of grammar instruction now is based on the increasing understandings that grammar per se is a comprehensive conglomerate. The paper examines the inductive approach to EFL grammar instruction. It starts with some theoretical considerations on inductive approach to formal grammar instruction, followed by its methodological considerations such as how to deal with grammar generalizations and exceptions, learner variables, and grammar complexity, and proposes a sensitive and dynamic balance of explorations and explanations in EFL grammar instruction.

A Communicative Approach to College English Grammar Teaching and Learning

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

LI Yong-xian

2016-01-01

In response to the misconception that Communicative Language Teaching means no teaching of grammar, it is argued that grammar is as important as traffic rules for safe and smooth traffic on the road. To achieve appropriate and effective commu-nication, a communicative approach to college grammar teaching and learning is proposed. Both teachers and learners should change their attitudes toward and conceptions about grammar teaching and learning;additionally, teaching grammar in the com-pany of reading and writing helps learners learn and acquire grammar in meaningful contexts.

Teachers' Perceptions about Grammar Teaching

Science.gov (United States)

Thu, Tran Hoang

2009-01-01

This study investigates English as a second language (ESL) teachers' beliefs in grammar teaching. A 32-item questionnaire was administered to 11 ESL teachers in a language school in California. The results show that the participants generally believe that the formal study of grammar is essential to the eventual mastery of a foreign or second…

Grammars with two-sided contexts

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mikhail Barash

2014-05-01

Full Text Available In a recent paper (M. Barash, A. Okhotin, "Defining contexts in context-free grammars", LATA 2012, the authors introduced an extension of the context-free grammars equipped with an operator for referring to the left context of the substring being defined. This paper proposes a more general model, in which context specifications may be two-sided, that is, both the left and the right contexts can be specified by the corresponding operators. The paper gives the definitions and establishes the basic theory of such grammars, leading to a normal form and a parsing algorithm working in time O(n^4, where n is the length of the input string.

The Study of the Effect of Syntactic Complexity of Noun and Verb Phrase Structure on the Occurrence of Stuttering in 4-6 Year Pre-School Stuttering Persian Children

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abbas Ali Ahangar

2013-04-01

Full Text Available Objective: The purpose of the present research was to investigate the effect of syntactic complexity of noun phrase and verb phrase on the occurrence of stuttering in 4-6 year Persian speaking children with stuttering. Materials & Methods: This descriptive-analytic research was done on 15 stuttering children, consisting of 12 boys and 3 girls, 4 to 6 years old monolingual Persian speaking who referred to Javad-Ol-Aemmeh speech therapy clinic in Mashhad city. The sampling approach was simple (available sampling method. To do this research, sampling was carried out in a quiet home of speech therapy where there were just the speech therapist, the parent, the child and the researcher. While speaking, the speech of the children was recorded by an MP3 with Creative brand. Finally, a 30-minute spontaneous speech sample was gathered from each of the given stuttering children. The children produced around 60 utterances during a verbal interaction with the speech therapist, parents (mother or father or the researcher. Then the produced spontaneous speech sample by any of these stuttering children was transcribed on paper. The data were analyzed only as groups and not individually. The data were analyzed using SPSS software and Paired T-test method. Results: The group analyses showed significant differences between fluent and stuttered utterances in terms of syntactic complexity of noun and verb phrase structures. Also, the results confirm that at phrasal level, in noun phrases, based on their three functions as subject, direct object and object of preposition, there is a meaningful relationship between the number of subject (P<0.001 and object of preposition (P=0.050 with the stuttering frequency. In verb phrases, based on the presence of the auxiliary verb, copula verb, and negative prefix, just there is a meaningful relationship between the presence of the auxiliary verb and the stuttering frequency (P=0.010. Conclusion: The research findings indicate

Linearly Ordered Attribute Grammar Scheduling Using SAT-Solving

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bransen, Jeroen; van Binsbergen, L.Thomas; Claessen, Koen; Dijkstra, Atze

2015-01-01

Many computations over trees can be specified using attribute grammars. Compilers for attribute grammars need to find an evaluation order (or schedule) in order to generate efficient code. For the class of linearly ordered attribute grammars such a schedule can be found statically, but this problem

Interval Size and Phrase Position: A Comparison between German and Chinese Folksongs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daniel Shanahan

2012-09-01

Full Text Available It is well known that the pitch of the voice tends to decline over the course of a spoken utterance. Ladd (2008 showed that there is also a tendency for the pitch range of spoken utterances to shrink as the pitch of the voice declines. Motivated by this work, two studies are reported that test for the existence of “late phrase compression” in music where the interval size tends to decline toward the end of a phrase. A study of 39,863 phrases from notated Germanic folksongs shows the predicted decline in interval size. However, a second study of 10,985 phrases from Chinese folksongs shows a reverse relationship. In fact, the interval behaviors in Chinese and Germanic folksongs provide marked contrasts: Chinese phrases are dominated by relatively large intervals, but begin with small intervals and end with medium-small intervals. Germanic phrases are dominated by relatively medium intervals, but begin with large intervals and end with small intervals. In short, late phrase interval compression is not evident cross-culturally.

Object grammars and random generation

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I. Dutour

1998-12-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a new systematic approach for the uniform random generation of combinatorial objects. The method is based on the notion of object grammars which give recursive descriptions of objects and generalize context-freegrammars. The application of particular valuations to these grammars leads to enumeration and random generation of objects according to non algebraic parameters.

Parallel communicating grammar systems with context-free components are Turing complete for any communication model

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Wilkin Mary Sarah Ruth

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Parallel Communicating Grammar Systems (PCGS were introduced as a language-theoretic treatment of concurrent systems. A PCGS extends the concept of a grammar to a structure that consists of several grammars working in parallel, communicating with each other, and so contributing to the generation of strings. PCGS are usually more powerful than a single grammar of the same type; PCGS with context-free components (CF-PCGS in particular were shown to be Turing complete. However, this result only holds when a specific type of communication (which we call broadcast communication, as opposed to one-step communication is used. We expand the original construction that showed Turing completeness so that broadcast communication is eliminated at the expense of introducing a significant number of additional, helper component grammars. We thus show that CF-PCGS with one-step communication are also Turing complete. We introduce in the process several techniques that may be usable in other constructions and may be capable of removing broadcast communication in general.

Sentential Negation in English

Science.gov (United States)

Mowarin, Macaulay

2009-01-01

This paper undertakes a detailed analysis of sentential negation in the English language with Chomsky's Government-Binding theory of Transformational Grammar as theoretical model. It distinguishes between constituent and sentential negation in English. The essay identifies the exact position of Negation phrase in an English clause structure. It…

XPath Node Selection over Grammar-Compressed Trees

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Sebastian Maneth

2013-11-01

Full Text Available XML document markup is highly repetitive and therefore well compressible using grammar-based compression. Downward, navigational XPath can be executed over grammar-compressed trees in PTIME: the query is translated into an automaton which is executed in one pass over the grammar. This result is well-known and has been mentioned before. Here we present precise bounds on the time complexity of this problem, in terms of big-O notation. For a given grammar and XPath query, we consider three different tasks: (1 to count the number of nodes selected by the query, (2 to materialize the pre-order numbers of the selected nodes, and (3 to serialize the subtrees at the selected nodes.

Developmental Constraints on Learning Artificial Grammars with Fixed, Flexible and Free Word Order

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Iga Nowak

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Human learning, although highly flexible and efficient, is constrained in ways that facilitate or impede the acquisition of certain systems of information. Some such constraints, active during infancy and childhood, have been proposed to account for the apparent ease with which typically developing children acquire language. In a series of experiments, we investigated the role of developmental constraints on learning artificial grammars with a distinction between shorter and relatively frequent words (‘function words,’ F-words and longer and less frequent words (‘content words,’ C-words. We constructed 4 finite-state grammars, in which the order of F-words, relative to C-words, was either fixed (F-words always occupied the same positions in a string, flexible (every F-word always followed a C-word, or free. We exposed adults (N = 84 and kindergarten children (N = 100 to strings from each of these artificial grammars, and we assessed their ability to recognize strings with the same structure, but a different vocabulary. Adults were better at recognizing strings when regularities were available (i.e., fixed and flexible order grammars, while children were better at recognizing strings from the grammars consistent with the attested distribution of function and content words in natural languages (i.e., flexible and free order grammars. These results provide evidence for a link between developmental constraints on learning and linguistic typology.

Constraints and Logic Programming in Grammars and Language Analysis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christiansen, Henning

2014-01-01

Constraints are an important notion in grammars and language analysis, and constraint programming techniques have been developed concurrently for solving a variety of complex problems. In this chapter we consider the synthesis of these branches into practical and effective methods for language...... methods that combine constraints with logic grammars such as Definite Clause Grammars and CHR Grammars, and show also a direct relationship to abductive reasoning....

Teaching English Grammar Through Communicative Language Teaching Approach

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

王玮

2013-01-01

Grammar is an important part of language learning. In order for students to have a functional knowledge of a language (in other words, that they can spontaneously produce language) they must have at least some knowledge about the grammatical con⁃structs of the language in question. How grammar can be taught? Considering various second language teaching methods, teaching grammar through Communicative Language Teaching Approach is the most talked. Emphasis in this article is put on the applica⁃tion of Communicative Language Teaching Approach in grammar teaching in college English classes.

A Contrastive Study of Two Approaches to Teach Grammar

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Cai; Lin

2007-01-01

There are many kinds of methods of teaching grammar, no matter what they are, these approaches can generally be classified into two approaches-deductive and inductive. What an appropriate grammar teaching approach is by examining the inductive and deductive approaches to grammar teaching and learning. It starts with the definitions of inductive and deductive approaches to grammar teaching, followed by a contrastive study of these two approaches in terms of both the bases and the application. Finally, it explores the inductive approach and outlines the benefits of this approach and suggests an alternative view of grammar teaching.

Teaching Children Foreign-Language Grammar: Are Authentic Materials Appropriate?

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Olga Malova

2016-10-01

Full Text Available The paper discusses authentic materials as a resource for teaching grammar to young learners. Difficulties in foreign-language grammar learning for Russian pupils are presented, and typical challenges are described. The paper provides a pre-/post-intervention study of the development of children’s grammar skills. The research question is, “How does one use authentic materials for teaching grammar in an English as a foreign language (EFL classroom?” A qualitative method is used to assess the learning outcomes of using authentic materials in teaching grammar to eight–nine-year-old pupils (the second year of studying English.

TEACHING GRAMMAR FOR ACTIVE USE: A FRAMEWORK FOR COMPARISON OF THREE INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNIQUES

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Sasan Baleghizadeh

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Teaching grammar in a way that enables students to use grammatical structures correctly in their active use has always been one of the intricate tasks for most practitioners. This study compared the ef­fectiveness of three instructional methods: games, dialogues practiced through role-play, and unfocused tasks for teaching grammar. Forty eight pre-intermediate female students participated in this study. The structures chosen were Conditional Sentence Type 2 and Wish structures for expressing present desires. A posttest was administered to assess the subjects' productive knowledge of the grammatical patterns. The results showed that there were no significant differences in the performance of groups. In other words, all three methods were equally effective to boost students' grammatical knowledge of the two structures.

ClusType: Effective Entity Recognition and Typing by Relation Phrase-Based Clustering

Science.gov (United States)

Ren, Xiang; El-Kishky, Ahmed; Wang, Chi; Tao, Fangbo; Voss, Clare R.; Ji, Heng; Han, Jiawei

2015-01-01

Entity recognition is an important but challenging research problem. In reality, many text collections are from specific, dynamic, or emerging domains, which poses significant new challenges for entity recognition with increase in name ambiguity and context sparsity, requiring entity detection without domain restriction. In this paper, we investigate entity recognition (ER) with distant-supervision and propose a novel relation phrase-based ER framework, called ClusType, that runs data-driven phrase mining to generate entity mention candidates and relation phrases, and enforces the principle that relation phrases should be softly clustered when propagating type information between their argument entities. Then we predict the type of each entity mention based on the type signatures of its co-occurring relation phrases and the type indicators of its surface name, as computed over the corpus. Specifically, we formulate a joint optimization problem for two tasks, type propagation with relation phrases and multi-view relation phrase clustering. Our experiments on multiple genres—news, Yelp reviews and tweets—demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of ClusType, with an average of 37% improvement in F1 score over the best compared method. PMID:26705503

Grammar-based Automatic 3D Model Reconstruction from Terrestrial Laser Scanning Data

Science.gov (United States)

Yu, Q.; Helmholz, P.; Belton, D.; West, G.

2014-04-01

The automatic reconstruction of 3D buildings has been an important research topic during the last years. In this paper, a novel method is proposed to automatically reconstruct the 3D building models from segmented data based on pre-defined formal grammar and rules. Such segmented data can be extracted e.g. from terrestrial or mobile laser scanning devices. Two steps are considered in detail. The first step is to transform the segmented data into 3D shapes, for instance using the DXF (Drawing Exchange Format) format which is a CAD data file format used for data interchange between AutoCAD and other program. Second, we develop a formal grammar to describe the building model structure and integrate the pre-defined grammars into the reconstruction process. Depending on the different segmented data, the selected grammar and rules are applied to drive the reconstruction process in an automatic manner. Compared with other existing approaches, our proposed method allows the model reconstruction directly from 3D shapes and takes the whole building into account.

The preverbal locative NP in Lexical Functional Grammar

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Data is drawn from some of the findings of the study I conducted on the locative inversion constructions in Botswana in 2003. I explore an information structure analysis of the findings. I also propose an analysis within Lexical Functional Grammar (Henceforth LFG), a non-transformational theory which considers languages ...

ChemicalTagger: A tool for semantic text-mining in chemistry.

Science.gov (United States)

Hawizy, Lezan; Jessop, David M; Adams, Nico; Murray-Rust, Peter

2011-05-16

The primary method for scientific communication is in the form of published scientific articles and theses which use natural language combined with domain-specific terminology. As such, they contain free owing unstructured text. Given the usefulness of data extraction from unstructured literature, we aim to show how this can be achieved for the discipline of chemistry. The highly formulaic style of writing most chemists adopt make their contributions well suited to high-throughput Natural Language Processing (NLP) approaches. We have developed the ChemicalTagger parser as a medium-depth, phrase-based semantic NLP tool for the language of chemical experiments. Tagging is based on a modular architecture and uses a combination of OSCAR, domain-specific regex and English taggers to identify parts-of-speech. The ANTLR grammar is used to structure this into tree-based phrases. Using a metric that allows for overlapping annotations, we achieved machine-annotator agreements of 88.9% for phrase recognition and 91.9% for phrase-type identification (Action names). It is possible parse to chemical experimental text using rule-based techniques in conjunction with a formal grammar parser. ChemicalTagger has been deployed for over 10,000 patents and has identified solvents from their linguistic context with >99.5% precision.

ChemicalTagger: A tool for semantic text-mining in chemistry

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Hawizy Lezan

2011-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The primary method for scientific communication is in the form of published scientific articles and theses which use natural language combined with domain-specific terminology. As such, they contain free owing unstructured text. Given the usefulness of data extraction from unstructured literature, we aim to show how this can be achieved for the discipline of chemistry. The highly formulaic style of writing most chemists adopt make their contributions well suited to high-throughput Natural Language Processing (NLP approaches. Results We have developed the ChemicalTagger parser as a medium-depth, phrase-based semantic NLP tool for the language of chemical experiments. Tagging is based on a modular architecture and uses a combination of OSCAR, domain-specific regex and English taggers to identify parts-of-speech. The ANTLR grammar is used to structure this into tree-based phrases. Using a metric that allows for overlapping annotations, we achieved machine-annotator agreements of 88.9% for phrase recognition and 91.9% for phrase-type identification (Action names. Conclusions It is possible parse to chemical experimental text using rule-based techniques in conjunction with a formal grammar parser. ChemicalTagger has been deployed for over 10,000 patents and has identified solvents from their linguistic context with >99.5% precision.

Fast Parsing using Pruning and Grammar Specialization

OpenAIRE

Rayner, Manny; Carter, David

1996-01-01

We show how a general grammar may be automatically adapted for fast parsing of utterances from a specific domain by means of constituent pruning and grammar specialization based on explanation-based learning. These methods together give an order of magnitude increase in speed, and the coverage loss entailed by grammar specialization is reduced to approximately half that reported in previous work. Experiments described here suggest that the loss of coverage has been reduced to the point where ...

A comprehensive French grammar

CERN Document Server

Price, Glanville

2013-01-01

Characterized by clear and accessible explanations, numerous examples and sample sentences, a new section on register and tone, and useful appendices covering topics including age and time, A Comprehensive French Grammar, Sixth Edition is an indispensable tool for advanced students of French language and literature.A revised edition of this established, bestselling French grammarIncludes a new section on register and medium and offers expanded treatment of French punctuationFeatures numerous examples and sample sentences, and useful appendices covering topics including age, time, and dimension

A Review of the Development of Systemic-Functional Grammar

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张晶

2014-01-01

50 years has seen Systemic-Functional Grammar(SFG)growing into its prosperity. With the efforts of Halliday and many other linguists, SFG has developed from Scale and Category Grammar to Systemic Grammar and then to Functional Gram-mar. The development of this general linguistic theory’s features and framework is the main focus of this study. SFG views lan-guage as a social semiotic resource people use to express meanings in context.

Phrasing in the speech and reading of the hearing impaired.

Science.gov (United States)

Gregory, J F

1986-08-01

The study reported here explored a partial explanation for the fourth-grade "bottleneck" in literacy advancement by hearing-impaired students. Speech samples from 21 deaf subjects were rated for degree of evident phrasal quality. Likewise, reading comprehension scores for each student were obtained under four reading conditions: reading in whole sentences, in phrases, in fragmented word groups, and in single words. Degree of rated speech phrasality was found to relate significantly and positively to correct recall answers to questions based upon silent reading of passages typed in meaningful word groups (but not when the passages were typed in whole sentences, fragmented word groups, or in single words). The results were taken to suggest that--whereas staccato-speaking deaf students may lack a sense of the phrase altogether--phrasal-speaking deaf youngsters fail to independently apply their phrase sense in the normal reading situation. Thus, both types of deaf youngsters have difficulty affecting the transition to phrase reading that is common for hearing students at or about the fourth-grade level. Finally, I argue that this phrase sense can be instilled in hearing-impaired students and that they can be trained to use it in reading.

The P600 in implicit artificial grammar learning

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Silva, S.; Folia, V.; Hagoort, P.; Petersson, K.M.

2017-01-01

The suitability of the artificial grammar learning (AGL) paradigm to capture relevant aspects of the acquisition of linguistic structures has been empirically tested in a number of EEG studies. Some have shown a syntax-related P600 component, but it has not been ruled out that the AGL P600 effect is

English Grammar and Thai University Students: An Insurmountable Linguistic Battle?

Science.gov (United States)

Saengboon, Saksit

2017-01-01

This study aimed at investigating English grammar knowledge of a group of Thai university students. The three main research questions revolved around their knowledge of English grammar, the kinds of difficulties they had encountered in using the grammar as well as their perceptions of the roles of grammar in using English. The participants were…

Increases in individualistic words and phrases in American books, 1960-2008.

Science.gov (United States)

Twenge, Jean M; Campbell, W Keith; Gentile, Brittany

2012-01-01

Cultural products such as song lyrics, television shows, and books reveal cultural differences, including cultural change over time. Two studies examine changes in the use of individualistic words (Study 1) and phrases (Study 2) in the Google Books Ngram corpus of millions of books in American English. Current samples from the general population generated and rated lists of individualistic words and phrases (e.g., "unique," "personalize," "self," "all about me," "I am special," "I'm the best"). Individualistic words and phrases increased in use between 1960 and 2008, even when controlling for changes in communal words and phrases. Language in American books has become increasingly focused on the self and uniqueness in the decades since 1960.

Analyses of Common Grammar Mistakes in High-school English

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Yang Liou

2017-01-01

English has an important position in the basic education stage as a language subject. English teaching requires students to have the abilities of listening, speaking, reading and writing in high school. If students want to learn these skills well, they should not only memorize vocabularies, but also master grammar knowledge. This paper illustrates the importance of English grammar for learning English and lists the common grammar mistakes. It also introduces some skills of learning English grammar.

An Attempt to Employ Diagrammatic Illustrations in Teaching English Grammar: Pictorial English Grammar

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Kaoru Takahashi

2013-08-01

Full Text Available In order for intermediate students poor at English grammar to enjoy learning it, a unique methodology has been improved in the classroom. In this article illustrated vehicles relevant to the five basic sentence patterns are presented in order to show how helpful this method is to understand English grammar. Also, more enhanced areas of this theory are discussed, which clarifies the feasibility of this methodology. The items to be introduced in my method are gerund, the passive voice, the relative pronoun and so on.

Using a Linguistic Theory of Humour in Teaching English Grammar

Science.gov (United States)

Abdulmajeed, Rufaidah Kamal; Hameed, Sarab Khalil

2017-01-01

Teachers who teach a new language grammar do not usually have the time and the proper situation to introduce humour when starting a new topic in grammar. There are many different opinions about teaching grammar. Many teachers seem to believe in the importance of grammar lessons devoted to a study of language rules and practical exercises. Other…

Essential grammar for today's writers, students, and teachers

CERN Document Server

Sullivan, Nancy

2014-01-01

This innovative grammar text is an ideal resource for writers, language students, and current and future classroom teachers who need an accessible "refresher" in a step-by-step guide to essential grammar. Rather than becoming mired in overly detailed linguistic definitions, Nancy Sullivan helps writers and students understand and apply grammatical concepts and develop the skills they need to enhance their own writing. Along with engaging discussions of both contemporary and traditional terminology, Sullivan's text provides clear explanations of the basics of English grammar and a highly practical, hands-on approach to mastering the use of language. Complementing the focus on constructing excellent sentences, every example and exercise set is contextually grounded in language themes. Teachers, students, and writers will appreciate the streamlined, easy-to-understand coverage of essential grammar, as well as the affordable price. This is an ideal textbook for future teachers enrolled in an upper-level grammar c...

Grammar of Binding in the languages of the world: Innate or learned?

Science.gov (United States)

Cole, Peter; Hermon, Gabriella; Yanti

2015-08-01

Languages around the world often appear to manifest nearly identical grammatical properties, but, at the same time, the grammatical differences can also be great, sometimes even seeming to support Joos's (1958) claim that "languages can differ from each other without limit and in unpredictable way" (p. 96). This state of affairs provides a puzzle for both nativist approaches to language like Generative Grammar that posit a fixed "Universal Grammar", and for approaches that minimize the contribution of innate grammatical structure. We approach this puzzling state of affairs by looking at one area of grammar, "Binding", the system of local and long distance anaphoric elements in a language. This is an area of grammar that has long been central to the Generative approach to language structure. We compare the anaphoric systems found in "familiar" (European-like) languages that contain dedicated classes of bound and free anaphors (pronouns and reflexives) with the anaphoric systems in endangered Austronesian languages of Indonesia, languages in which there is overlap or no distinction between pronouns and reflexives (Peranakan Javanese and Jambi Malay). What is of special interest about Jambi anaphora is not only that conservative dialects of Jambi Malay do not distinguish between pronouns and reflexives, but that Jambi anaphora appear to constitute a live snapshot of a unitary class of anaphora in the process of grammaticalization as a distinct system of pronouns and reflexives. We argue that the facts of Jambi anaphora cannot be explained by theories positing a Universal Grammar of Binding. Thus, these facts provide evidence that complex grammatical systems like Binding cannot be innate. Our results from Austronesian languages are confirmed by data from signed and creole languages. Our conclusion is that the human language learning capacity must include the ability to model the full complexity found in the syntax of the world's languages. From the perspective of child

Learning a generative probabilistic grammar of experience: a process-level model of language acquisition.

Science.gov (United States)

Kolodny, Oren; Lotem, Arnon; Edelman, Shimon

2015-03-01

We introduce a set of biologically and computationally motivated design choices for modeling the learning of language, or of other types of sequential, hierarchically structured experience and behavior, and describe an implemented system that conforms to these choices and is capable of unsupervised learning from raw natural-language corpora. Given a stream of linguistic input, our model incrementally learns a grammar that captures its statistical patterns, which can then be used to parse or generate new data. The grammar constructed in this manner takes the form of a directed weighted graph, whose nodes are recursively (hierarchically) defined patterns over the elements of the input stream. We evaluated the model in seventeen experiments, grouped into five studies, which examined, respectively, (a) the generative ability of grammar learned from a corpus of natural language, (b) the characteristics of the learned representation, (c) sequence segmentation and chunking, (d) artificial grammar learning, and (e) certain types of structure dependence. The model's performance largely vindicates our design choices, suggesting that progress in modeling language acquisition can be made on a broad front-ranging from issues of generativity to the replication of human experimental findings-by bringing biological and computational considerations, as well as lessons from prior efforts, to bear on the modeling approach. Copyright © 2014 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Neural Correlates of Phrase Rhythm: An EEG Study of Bipartite vs. Rondo Sonata Form

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Antonio Fernández-Caballero

2017-04-01

Full Text Available This paper introduces the neural correlates of phrase rhythm. In short, phrase rhythm is the rhythmic aspect of phrase construction and the relationships between phrases. For the sake of establishing the neural correlates, a musical experiment has been designed to induce music-evoked stimuli related to phrase rhythm. Brain activity is monitored through electroencephalography (EEG by using a brain–computer interface. The power spectral value of each EEG channel is estimated to obtain how power variance distributes as a function of frequency. Our experiment shows statistical differences in theta and alpha bands in the phrase rhythm variations of two classical sonatas, one in bipartite form and the other in rondo form.

Artificial grammar learning in vascular and progressive non-fluent aphasias.

Science.gov (United States)

Cope, Thomas E; Wilson, Benjamin; Robson, Holly; Drinkall, Rebecca; Dean, Lauren; Grube, Manon; Jones, P Simon; Patterson, Karalyn; Griffiths, Timothy D; Rowe, James B; Petkov, Christopher I

2017-09-01

Patients with non-fluent aphasias display impairments of expressive and receptive grammar. This has been attributed to deficits in processing configurational and hierarchical sequencing relationships. This hypothesis had not been formally tested. It was also controversial whether impairments are specific to language, or reflect domain general deficits in processing structured auditory sequences. Here we used an artificial grammar learning paradigm to compare the abilities of controls to participants with agrammatic aphasia of two different aetiologies: stroke and frontotemporal dementia. Ten patients with non-fluent variant primary progressive aphasia (nfvPPA), 12 with non-fluent aphasia due to stroke, and 11 controls implicitly learned a novel mixed-complexity artificial grammar designed to assess processing of increasingly complex sequencing relationships. We compared response profiles for otherwise identical sequences of speech tokens (nonsense words) and tone sweeps. In all three groups the ability to detect grammatical violations varied with sequence complexity, with performance improving over time and being better for adjacent than non-adjacent relationships. Patients performed less well than controls overall, and this was related more strongly to aphasia severity than to aetiology. All groups improved with practice and performed well at a control task of detecting oddball nonwords. Crucially, group differences did not interact with sequence complexity, demonstrating that aphasic patients were not disproportionately impaired on complex structures. Hierarchical cluster analysis revealed that response patterns were very similar across all three groups, but very different between the nonsense word and tone tasks, despite identical artificial grammar structures. Overall, we demonstrate that agrammatic aphasics of two different aetiologies are not disproportionately impaired on complex sequencing relationships, and that the learning of phonological and non

The equivalence problem for LL- and LR-regular grammars

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nijholt, Antinus; Gecsec, F.

It will be shown that the equivalence problem for LL-regular grammars is decidable. Apart from extending the known result for LL(k) grammar equivalence to LLregular grammar equivalence, we obtain an alternative proof of the decidability of LL(k) equivalence. The equivalence prob]em for LL-regular

Shape Grammars for Innovative Hybrid Typological Design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Al-kazzaz, Dhuha; Bridges, Alan; Chase, Scott Curland

2010-01-01

This paper describes a new methodology of deriving innovative hybrid designs using shape grammars of heterogeneous designs. The method is detailed within three phases of shape grammars: analysis, synthesis and evaluation. In the analysis phase, the research suggests that original rules of each...... design component are grouped in subclass rule sets to facilitate rule choices. Additionally, adding new hybrid rules to original rules expands the options available to the grammar user. In the synthesis phase, the research adopts state labels and markers to drive the design generation. The former...... is implemented with a user guide grammar to ensure hybridity in the generated design, while the latter aims to ensure feasible designs. Lastly evaluation criteria are added to measure the degree of innovation of the hybrid designs. This paper describes the derivation of hybrid minaret designs from a corpus...

Left-forbidding cooperating distributed grammar systems

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Goldefus, F.; Masopust, Tomáš; Meduna, A.

2010-01-01

Roč. 411, 40-42 (2010), s. 3661-3667 ISSN 0304-3975 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z10190503 Keywords : cooperating distributed grammar system * cooperating derivation mode * left-forbidding grammar * generative power * descriptional complexity Subject RIV: BA - General Mathematics Impact factor: 0.838, year: 2010 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304397510003440

Studying Grammar in the Technological Age

Science.gov (United States)

Ediger, Marlow

2012-01-01

When being a student in grade school as well as in high school (1934-1946), grammar was heavily emphasized in English/language arts classes, particularly in grades four through the senior year in high school. Evidently, teachers and school administrators then saw a theoretical way to assist pupils in writing achievement. Grammar and writing were…

Propelling Students into Active Grammar Participation

Science.gov (United States)

Jurhill, Dennis A.

2011-01-01

"O! this learning, what a thing it is." -W. Shakespeare, "The Taming of the Shrew." The aim of this action research was to find out if active grammar involvement amongst students might lead to better results. My approach was to activate my students during grammar instruction by using cooperative learning: that is a form of…

Single-View 3D Scene Reconstruction and Parsing by Attribute Grammar.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Xiaobai; Zhao, Yibiao; Zhu, Song-Chun

2018-03-01

In this paper, we present an attribute grammar for solving two coupled tasks: i) parsing a 2D image into semantic regions; and ii) recovering the 3D scene structures of all regions. The proposed grammar consists of a set of production rules, each describing a kind of spatial relation between planar surfaces in 3D scenes. These production rules are used to decompose an input image into a hierarchical parse graph representation where each graph node indicates a planar surface or a composite surface. Different from other stochastic image grammars, the proposed grammar augments each graph node with a set of attribute variables to depict scene-level global geometry, e.g., camera focal length, or local geometry, e.g., surface normal, contact lines between surfaces. These geometric attributes impose constraints between a node and its off-springs in the parse graph. Under a probabilistic framework, we develop a Markov Chain Monte Carlo method to construct a parse graph that optimizes the 2D image recognition and 3D scene reconstruction purposes simultaneously. We evaluated our method on both public benchmarks and newly collected datasets. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed method is capable of achieving state-of-the-art scene reconstruction of a single image.

Heavy noun phrase constructions in the Afrikaans novel 'n Ander ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Heavy noun phrase constructions in the Afrikaans novel 'n Ander Land: a cognitive account of a stylistic feature. Luna Beard. Abstract. This article focusses on one grammatical construction, namely heavy noun phrase (NP) constructions in Afrikaans, and more specifically on those instances encountered in the Afrikaans ...

Study of Applying Cognitive Linguistic Theory into Japanese Grammar Teaching——Taking Causative Sentence as an Example

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Zhang Yu[1

2016-01-01

The traditional Japanese grammar teaching often only pays attention to the interpretation of syntax and the integrity of grammar structure. This violates the cultivation of communicative competence, and is not in conformity with the society’s requirements of applied foreign language talents. Cognitive linguistics theory, which links language form with semantic concept, reveals the internal relation of man’s thinking and language. If we can subtly apply cognitive linguistic theory into Japanese grammar teaching to explore the cognitive process in the speakers’ brain while expressing, we can get a good understanding of diffi cult points and “special case”. This paper explores the introductory methods and efficacy of the cognitive linguistics theory applied in Japanese grammar teaching method, by lecturing causative sentences an example.

Information packaging in Functional Discourse Grammar

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Niels Smit

2007-07-01

Full Text Available

The paper addresses the modelling of information packaging in Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG, in particular the treatment of Topic, Comment and Focus. Current FDG has inherited the traditional Functional Grammar (FG representation of these categories as functions, which attach to Subacts of evocation. However, arguments of a formal, notional and descriptive nature can be advanced against pragmatic function assignment and in favour of an alternative analysis in which informational and evocational structures are dissociated so as to command their own primitives. In the context of a model of discourse knowledge organisation in which communicated contents are associated with packaging instructions that tell the Addressee how to treat the evoked knowledge, it is argued that focality can be modelled by means of a Focus operator that can attach to various constituents at the Interpersonal Level. Topicality, on the other hand, concerns binomial and monomial modes of presenting communicated contents. This can be rendered by means of the dedicated informational units Topic (Top and Comment (Cm, that interact in frames.

Teaching english grammar through interactive methods

OpenAIRE

Aminova N.

2016-01-01

The article is devoted for the effective ways of teaching grammar. Actuality of the theme is justified as it sets conditions for revealing high progress in teaching a foreign language and for developing effective methods which can be helpful for foreign language teachers. Different progressive methods of teaching English grammar are given in this paper as well.

Modality effects in implicit artificial grammar learning: An EEG study.

Science.gov (United States)

Silva, Susana; Folia, Vasiliki; Inácio, Filomena; Castro, São Luís; Petersson, Karl Magnus

2018-05-15

Recently, it has been proposed that sequence learning engages a combination of modality-specific operating networks and modality-independent computational principles. In the present study, we compared the behavioural and EEG outcomes of implicit artificial grammar learning in the visual vs. auditory modality. We controlled for the influence of surface characteristics of sequences (Associative Chunk Strength), thus focusing on the strictly structural aspects of sequence learning, and we adapted the paradigms to compensate for known frailties of the visual modality compared to audition (temporal presentation, fast presentation rate). The behavioural outcomes were similar across modalities. Favouring the idea of modality-specificity, ERPs in response to grammar violations differed in topography and latency (earlier and more anterior component in the visual modality), and ERPs in response to surface features emerged only in the auditory modality. In favour of modality-independence, we observed three common functional properties in the late ERPs of the two grammars: both were free of interactions between structural and surface influences, both were more extended in a grammaticality classification test than in a preference classification test, and both correlated positively and strongly with theta event-related-synchronization during baseline testing. Our findings support the idea of modality-specificity combined with modality-independence, and suggest that memory for visual vs. auditory sequences may largely contribute to cross-modal differences. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Implementation of the common phrase index method on the phrase query for information retrieval

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Fatmawati, Triyah; Zaman, Badrus; Werdiningsih, Indah

2017-08-01

As the development of technology, the process of finding information on the news text is easy, because the text of the news is not only distributed in print media, such as newspapers, but also in electronic media that can be accessed using the search engine. In the process of finding relevant documents on the search engine, a phrase often used as a query. The number of words that make up the phrase query and their position obviously affect the relevance of the document produced. As a result, the accuracy of the information obtained will be affected. Based on the outlined problem, the purpose of this research was to analyze the implementation of the common phrase index method on information retrieval. This research will be conducted in English news text and implemented on a prototype to determine the relevance level of the documents produced. The system is built with the stages of pre-processing, indexing, term weighting calculation, and cosine similarity calculation. Then the system will display the document search results in a sequence, based on the cosine similarity. Furthermore, system testing will be conducted using 100 documents and 20 queries. That result is then used for the evaluation stage. First, determine the relevant documents using kappa statistic calculation. Second, determine the system success rate using precision, recall, and F-measure calculation. In this research, the result of kappa statistic calculation was 0.71, so that the relevant documents are eligible for the system evaluation. Then the calculation of precision, recall, and F-measure produces precision of 0.37, recall of 0.50, and F-measure of 0.43. From this result can be said that the success rate of the system to produce relevant documents is low.

High-level methodologies for grammar engineering, introduction to the special issue

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Denys Duchier

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Grammar Engineering is the task of designing and implementing linguistically motivated electronic descriptions of natural language (so-called grammars. These grammars are expressed within well-defined theoretical frameworks, and offer a fine-grained description of natural language. While grammars were first used to describe syntax, that is to say, the relations between constituents in a sentence, they often go beyond syntax and include semantic information. Grammar engineering provides precise descriptions which can be used for natural language understanding and generation, making these valuable resources for various natural language applications, including textual entailment, dialogue systems, or machine translation. The first attempts at designing large-scale resource grammars were costly because of the complexity of the task (Erbach et al. 1990 and of the number of persons that were needed (see e.g. Doran et al. 1997. Advances in the field have led to the development of environments for semi-automatic grammar engineering, borrowing ideas from compilation (grammar engineering is compared with software development and machine learning. This special issue reports on new trends in the field, where grammar engineering benefits from elaborate high-level methodologies and techniques, dealing with various issues (both theoretical and practical.

The contribution of phonological short-term memory to artificial grammar learning.

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Andrade, Jackie; Baddeley, Alan

2011-05-01

Three experiments investigated the contribution of phonological short-term memory (STM) to grammar learning by manipulating rehearsal during study of an auditory artificial grammar made up from a vocabulary of spoken Mandarin syllables. Experiment 1 showed that concurrent, irrelevant articulation impaired grammar learning compared with a nonverbal control task. Experiment 2 replicated and extended this finding, showing that repeating the grammatical strings at study improved grammar learning compared with suppressing rehearsal or remaining silent during learning. Experiment 3 found no effects of rehearsal on grammar learning once participants had learned the component syllables. The findings suggest that phonological STM aids artificial grammar learning via effects on vocabulary learning.

Understanding the Complex Processes in Developing Student Teachers' Knowledge about Grammar

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Svalberg, Agneta M.-L.

2015-01-01

This article takes the view that grammar is driven by user choices and is therefore complex and dynamic. This has implications for the teaching of grammar in language teacher education and how teachers' cognitions about grammar, and hence their own grammar teaching, might change. In this small, interpretative study, the participants--students on…

Towards a Pedagogy of Grammar Instruction

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Richards, Jack C.; Reppen, Randi

2014-01-01

Grammar can be viewed both as knowledge and as ability. When viewed as knowledge, the focus is on rules for sentence formation. When viewed as ability, the focus is on how grammar is used as a resource in the creation of spoken and written texts. Twelve principles are proposed as the basis for a pedagogy that focusses on acquiring learning to use…

Grammar and Usage: History and Myth

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Watson, Ken

2010-01-01

The paper first traces the history of thinking about language from the Greek writers of the fifth century BC to the development of the first Greek grammar in about 100 BC. Since the glories of Ancient Greek literature predate the development of grammar, there is every reason to doubt the received wisdom that one must have an explicit knowledge of…

An Exploration of the Relationship between Vietnamese Students' Knowledge of L1 Grammar and Their English Grammar Proficiency

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Tran, Tammie M.

2010-01-01

The problem. This research study explores an important issue in the field of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and second language acquisition (SLA). Its purpose is to examine the relationship between Vietnamese students' L1 grammar knowledge and their English grammar proficiency. Furthermore, it investigates the extent to…

What exactly is Universal Grammar, and has anyone seen it?

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Dąbrowska, Ewa

2015-01-01

Universal Grammar (UG) is a suspect concept. There is little agreement on what exactly is in it; and the empirical evidence for it is very weak. This paper critically examines a variety of arguments that have been put forward as evidence for UG, focussing on the three most powerful ones: universality (all human languages share a number of properties), convergence (all language learners converge on the same grammar in spite of the fact that they are exposed to different input), and poverty of the stimulus (children know things about language which they could not have learned from the input available to them). I argue that these arguments are based on premises which are either false or unsubstantiated. Languages differ from each other in profound ways, and there are very few true universals, so the fundamental crosslinguistic fact that needs explaining is diversity, not universality. A number of recent studies have demonstrated the existence of considerable differences in adult native speakers' knowledge of the grammar of their language, including aspects of inflectional morphology, passives, quantifiers, and a variety of more complex constructions, so learners do not in fact converge on the same grammar. Finally, the poverty of the stimulus argument presupposes that children acquire linguistic representations of the kind postulated by generative grammarians; constructionist grammars such as those proposed by Tomasello, Goldberg and others can be learned from the input. We are the only species that has language, so there must be something unique about humans that makes language learning possible. The extent of crosslinguistic diversity and the considerable individual differences in the rate, style and outcome of acquisition suggest that it is more promising to think in terms of a language-making capacity, i.e., a set of domain-general abilities, rather than an innate body of knowledge about the structural properties of the target system.

What exactly is Universal Grammar, and has anyone seen it?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ewa eDabrowska

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Universal Grammar (UG is a suspect concept. There is little agreement on what exactly is in it; and the empirical evidence for it is very weak. This paper critically examines a variety of arguments that have been put forward as evidence for UG, focussing on the three most powerful ones: universality (all human languages share a number of properties, convergence (all language learners converge on the same grammar in spite of the fact that they are exposed to different input, and poverty of the stimulus (children know things about language which they could not have learned from the input available to them. I argue that these arguments are based on premises which are either false or unsubstantiated. Languages differ from each other in profound ways, and there are very few true universals, so the fundamental crosslinguistic fact that needs explaining is diversity, not universality. A number of recent studies have demonstrated the existence of considerable differences in adult native speakers’ knowledge of the grammar of their language, including aspects of inflectional morphology, passives, quantifiers, and a variety of more complex constructions, so learners do not in fact converge on the same grammar. Finally, the poverty of the stimulus argument presupposes that children acquire linguistic representations of the kind postulated by generative grammarians; constructionist grammars such as those proposed by Tomasello, Goldberg and others can be learned from the input. We are the only species that has language, so there must be something unique about humans that makes language learning possible. The extent of crosslinguistic diversity and the considerable individual differences in the rate, style and outcome of acquisition suggest that it is more promising to think in terms of a language-making capacity, i.e. a set of domain-general abilities, rather than an innate body of knowledge about the structural properties of the target system.

An Overview of the Nigel Text Generation Grammar.

Science.gov (United States)

1983-04-01

34 76b, Hudson 76, Halliday 81, de Joia 80, Fawcett 80].3 1.2. Design Goals for the Grammar Three kinds of goals have guided the work of creating Nigel...Davey 79] Davey, A., Discourse Production, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1979. [ de Joia 80] de Joia , A., and A. Stenton, Terms in Systemic...1 1.1. The Text Generation Task as a Stimulus for Grammar Design .........................1I -1.2. Design Goals for the Grammar

Incorporating Pass-Phrase Dependent Background Models for Text-Dependent Speaker verification

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sarkar, Achintya Kumar; Tan, Zheng-Hua

2018-01-01

-dependent. We show that the proposed method significantly reduces the error rates of text-dependent speaker verification for the non-target types: target-wrong and impostor-wrong while it maintains comparable TD-SV performance when impostors speak a correct utterance with respect to the conventional system......In this paper, we propose pass-phrase dependent background models (PBMs) for text-dependent (TD) speaker verification (SV) to integrate the pass-phrase identification process into the conventional TD-SV system, where a PBM is derived from a text-independent background model through adaptation using...... the utterances of a particular pass-phrase. During training, pass-phrase specific target speaker models are derived from the particular PBM using the training data for the respective target model. While testing, the best PBM is first selected for the test utterance in the maximum likelihood (ML) sense...

A constraint-based bottom-up counterpart to definite clause grammars

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christiansen, Henning

2004-01-01

A new grammar formalism, CHR Grammars (CHRG), is proposed that provides a constraint-solving approach to language analysis, built on top of the programming language of Constraint Handling Rules in the same way as Definite Clause Grammars (DCG) on Prolog. CHRG works bottom-up and adds the following......, integrity constraints, operators a la assumption grammars, and to incorporate other constraint solvers. (iv)~Context-sensitive rules that apply for disambiguation, coordination in natural language and tagger-like rules....

Grammar-Based Specification and Parsing of Binary File Formats

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William Underwood

2012-03-01

Full Text Available The capability to validate and view or play binary file formats, as well as to convert binary file formats to standard or current file formats, is critically important to the preservation of digital data and records. This paper describes the extension of context-free grammars from strings to binary files. Binary files are arrays of data types, such as long and short integers, floating-point numbers and pointers, as well as characters. The concept of an attribute grammar is extended to these context-free array grammars. This attribute grammar has been used to define a number of chunk-based and directory-based binary file formats. A parser generator has been used with some of these grammars to generate syntax checkers (recognizers for validating binary file formats. Among the potential benefits of an attribute grammar-based approach to specification and parsing of binary file formats is that attribute grammars not only support format validation, but support generation of error messages during validation of format, validation of semantic constraints, attribute value extraction (characterization, generation of viewers or players for file formats, and conversion to current or standard file formats. The significance of these results is that with these extensions to core computer science concepts, traditional parser/compiler technologies can potentially be used as a part of a general, cost effective curation strategy for binary file formats.

Measuring strategic control in artificial grammar learning.

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Norman, Elisabeth; Price, Mark C; Jones, Emma

2011-12-01

In response to concerns with existing procedures for measuring strategic control over implicit knowledge in artificial grammar learning (AGL), we introduce a more stringent measurement procedure. After two separate training blocks which each consisted of letter strings derived from a different grammar, participants either judged the grammaticality of novel letter strings with respect to only one of these two grammars (pure-block condition), or had the target grammar varying randomly from trial to trial (novel mixed-block condition) which required a higher degree of conscious flexible control. Random variation in the colour and font of letters was introduced to disguise the nature of the rule and reduce explicit learning. Strategic control was observed both in the pure-block and mixed-block conditions, and even among participants who did not realise the rule was based on letter identity. This indicated detailed strategic control in the absence of explicit learning. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Research into Practice: Grammar Learning and Teaching

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Larsen-Freeman, Diane

2015-01-01

This selective review of the second language acquisition and applied linguistics research literature on grammar learning and teaching falls into three categories: where research has had little impact (the non-interface position), modest impact (form-focused instruction), and where it potentially can have a large impact (reconceiving grammar).…

How Should English Grammar Be Taught in Middle Schools By Wang Shikun

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

王仕坤

2014-01-01

This paper mainly deals with the idea that whether grammar teaching should be weakened or not ,the importance of grammar teaching,the present situation of grammar and some suggestions on how to teach grammar ,aiming at the improvement of English teaching and learning.

A brief analysis of the necessity of grammar teaching in CLT

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

胡晓; 王榛

2017-01-01

Grammar teaching is the important component of communicative language teaching, and also the teaching content of communicative approach. This study is going to analyze the status of English grammar learning, the theoretical basis of CLT, and some difficulties with regard to grammar education in China, while discussing teachers might try to adjust the current grammar approach in communicative English teaching.

Stimulus-Response Theory of Finite Automata, Technical Report No. 133.

Science.gov (United States)

Suppes, Patrick

The central aim of this paper and its projected successors is to prove in detail that stimulus-response theory, or at least a mathematically precise version, can give an account of the learning of many phrase-structure grammars. Section 2 is concerned with standard notions of finite and probabilistic automata. An automaton is defined as a device…

Flexible Processing and the Design of Grammar

Science.gov (United States)

Sag, Ivan A.; Wasow, Thomas

2015-01-01

We explore the consequences of letting the incremental and integrative nature of language processing inform the design of competence grammar. What emerges is a view of grammar as a system of local monotonic constraints that provide a direct characterization of the signs (the form-meaning correspondences) of a given language. This…

Reading and Grammar Learning through Mobile Phones

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Shudong; Smith, Simon

2013-01-01

This paper describes an ongoing language-learning project, three years into its development. We examine both the feasibility and the limitations of developing English reading and grammar skills through the interface of mobile phones. Throughout the project, reading and grammar materials were regularly sent to students' mobile phones. Students read…

Verbal prefixation, construction grammar, and semantic compatibility

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lewandowski, Wojciech

2016-01-01

This paper aims to analyze the interaction between prefixes, verbs, and abstract argument structure constructions, using as a testing ground the locative alternation. It has been assumed that in order to participate in the locative alternation, a verb must specify a manner of motion from which a ...... between resultative prefixes, alternating verbs, and the more abstract change-of-state variant is driven by semantic coherence. Keywords: resultative prefixes, construction grammar, semantic coherence, locative alternation, Polish...

GRAMMAR IN TEFL: A CRITIQUE OF INDONESIAN HIGH SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Peter Collins

2006-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract: The aim of this paper is to critically assess the presentation of English grammar in textbooks used in secondary schools in Indonesia. The influence of the Communicative Approach is in evidence in the books examined, and yet the importance of explicit grammar instruction is not ignored, reflecting the view of many today that grammatical forms cannot be successfully learnt merely on the basis of comprehensible input. Despite recognition of its central role, the grammar instruction presented in the textbooks invites questions as to its linguistic adequacy and accuracy. Writers often seem unwilling to take on board the insights recorded in the influential and authoritative descriptive grammars of recent years, continuing to accept tacitly the principles exposed in Traditional Grammar.

Dissertation Notice: A Grammar of Wutun

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Reviewed by Benjamin Brosig

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Erika Sandman. 2016. A Grammar of Wutun. Helsinki: University of Helsinki. Doctoral dissertation, xii, 370 p. [http://bit.ly/2C0jMCY, accessed 13 December 2017]. An occasional problem when doing research on the languages of northern China is that while there are medium-sized structuralist, historical, and contemporary grammars for many local non-Sinitic varieties (e.g., Todaeva 1966, Chen and Cinggeltei 1986, and Fried 2010 for Bonan, the same does not seem to be equally true for their Sinitic contact varieties. A Grammar of Wutun, a dissertation written by Erika Sandman at the two departments of World Culture and Modern Languages at the University of Helsinki, helps close this gap for what has since Chen (1981 been known as one of the most idiosyncratic varieties of North-Western Mandarin. This language formed as part of the Amdo Sprachbund in intensive contact with Amdo Tibetan and, to some extent, Qinghai Bonan. A Grammar of Wutun is based on Basic Linguistic Theory (Dixon 1997, 2010 and tends to make use of well-established classics for individual linguistic domains (e.g., Lamprecht 1994 for information structure, Yap et al. 2011 for nominalization. Based on a corpus of approximately 1,300 naturally attested and 1,100 elicited clauses mostly collected by the author herself, it first describes the sociolinguistic and research context (1-18, the phonology (19-41, following Janhunen et al. 2008 and word classes (42-175, nouns, verbs, minor of Wutun. After attested morphological forms are thus accounted for, it continues by describing functional domains such as aspect (176-205; evidentiality and egophoricity (206-239; clausal word order, valency, and information structure (240-286; clause-type-related morphological mechanisms for interrogating, ordering, and negating (287-310; and clause connection (311-348. The book closes with glossed and translated transcriptions of three short procedural monologues (349-361. In the nominal domain, Wutun

The Role of Simple Semantics in the Process of Artificial Grammar Learning.

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Öttl, Birgit; Jäger, Gerhard; Kaup, Barbara

2017-10-01

This study investigated the effect of semantic information on artificial grammar learning (AGL). Recursive grammars of different complexity levels (regular language, mirror language, copy language) were investigated in a series of AGL experiments. In the with-semantics condition, participants acquired semantic information prior to the AGL experiment; in the without-semantics control condition, participants did not receive semantic information. It was hypothesized that semantics would generally facilitate grammar acquisition and that the learning benefit in the with-semantics conditions would increase with increasing grammar complexity. Experiment 1 showed learning effects for all grammars but no performance difference between conditions. Experiment 2 replicated the absence of a semantic benefit for all grammars even though semantic information was more prominent during grammar acquisition as compared to Experiment 1. Thus, we did not find evidence for the idea that semantics facilitates grammar acquisition, which seems to support the view of an independent syntactic processing component.

Incorporating Speech Recognition into a Natural User Interface

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Chapa, Nicholas

2017-01-01

The Augmented/ Virtual Reality (AVR) Lab has been working to study the applicability of recent virtual and augmented reality hardware and software to KSC operations. This includes the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Microsoft HoloLens, and Unity game engine. My project in this lab is to integrate voice recognition and voice commands into an easy to modify system that can be added to an existing portion of a Natural User Interface (NUI). A NUI is an intuitive and simple to use interface incorporating visual, touch, and speech recognition. The inclusion of speech recognition capability will allow users to perform actions or make inquiries using only their voice. The simplicity of needing only to speak to control an on-screen object or enact some digital action means that any user can quickly become accustomed to using this system. Multiple programs were tested for use in a speech command and recognition system. Sphinx4 translates speech to text using a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) based Language Model, an Acoustic Model, and a word Dictionary running on Java. PocketSphinx had similar functionality to Sphinx4 but instead ran on C. However, neither of these programs were ideal as building a Java or C wrapper slowed performance. The most ideal speech recognition system tested was the Unity Engine Grammar Recognizer. A Context Free Grammar (CFG) structure is written in an XML file to specify the structure of phrases and words that will be recognized by Unity Grammar Recognizer. Using Speech Recognition Grammar Specification (SRGS) 1.0 makes modifying the recognized combinations of words and phrases very simple and quick to do. With SRGS 1.0, semantic information can also be added to the XML file, which allows for even more control over how spoken words and phrases are interpreted by Unity. Additionally, using a CFG with SRGS 1.0 produces a Finite State Machine (FSM) functionality limiting the potential for incorrectly heard words or phrases. The purpose of my project was to

Examining item content and structure in health status and health outcomes instruments: toward the development of a grammar for better understanding of the concepts being measured.

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Erickson, Pennifer; Willke, Richard J

2013-06-01

Health outcomes instruments assess diverse health concepts. Although item-level concepts are considered fundamental elements, the field lacks structures for evaluating and organizing them for decision making. This article proposes a grammar using item stems, response options, and recall periods to systematically identify item-level concepts. The grammar uses "core concept," "evaluative component," and "recall period" as intuitive terms for communicating with stakeholders. Better characterization of concepts is necessary for classifying instrument content and linking it to treatment benefit. Items in 2 generic and 21 disease-specific instruments were evaluated to develop and illustrate the use of the grammar. Concepts were assigned International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health codes for exploring the value that the grammar and a classification system add to the understanding of content across instruments. The 23 instruments include many core concepts; emotional function is the only concept assessed in all instruments. Concepts in disease-specific instruments show obvious patterns; for example, arthritis instruments focus on physical function. The majority of instruments used the same response options across all items, with five-point scales being the most common. Most instruments used one recall period for all items. Shorter recall periods were used for conditions associated with "flares," such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and "skin disease." Every diagnosis, however, showed variation across instruments in the recall period used. This analysis indicates the proposed grammar's potential for discerning the conceptual content within and between health outcomes instruments and illustrates its value for improving communication between stakeholders and for making decisions related to treatment benefit. Copyright © 2013 International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Missionary Pragmalinguistics: Father Diego Luis de Sanvitores’ grammar (1668) within the tradition of Philippine grammars

OpenAIRE

Winkler, A.P.

2016-01-01

The grammar written in Latin, in 1668, by the Jesuit missionary Father Diego Luis de Sanvitores (1627-1672) is the oldest description we have of Chamorro, a language spoken on the Mariana islands. The grammar received a number of bad reviews and as a consequence has become neglected and almost forgotten. The main point of criticism has been that Sanvitores used the Latin grammatical framework to explain a language that in many ways does not fit this framework. In this thesis it is argued inst...

Language Practice with Multimedia Supported Web-Based Grammar Revision Material

Science.gov (United States)

Baturay, Meltem Huri; Daloglu, Aysegul; Yildirim, Soner

2010-01-01

The aim of this study was to investigate the perceptions of elementary-level English language learners towards web-based, multimedia-annotated grammar learning. WEBGRAM, a system designed to provide supplementary web-based grammar revision material, uses audio-visual aids to enrich the contextual presentation of grammar and allows learners to…

A few thoughts about teaching listening and grammar

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

吴西

2014-01-01

Listening and grammar are the most difficult subjects for both teacher and students. This passage discussed how to visual aid and brain storming in the listening class;and the importance of confidence in the grammar teaching and learning.

Style grammars for interactive visualization of architecture.

Science.gov (United States)

Aliaga, Daniel G; Rosen, Paul A; Bekins, Daniel R

2007-01-01

Interactive visualization of architecture provides a way to quickly visualize existing or novel buildings and structures. Such applications require both fast rendering and an effortless input regimen for creating and changing architecture using high-level editing operations that automatically fill in the necessary details. Procedural modeling and synthesis is a powerful paradigm that yields high data amplification and can be coupled with fast-rendering techniques to quickly generate plausible details of a scene without much or any user interaction. Previously, forward generating procedural methods have been proposed where a procedure is explicitly created to generate particular content. In this paper, we present our work in inverse procedural modeling of buildings and describe how to use an extracted repertoire of building grammars to facilitate the visualization and quick modification of architectural structures and buildings. We demonstrate an interactive application where the user draws simple building blocks and, using our system, can automatically complete the building "in the style of" other buildings using view-dependent texture mapping or nonphotorealistic rendering techniques. Our system supports an arbitrary number of building grammars created from user subdivided building models and captured photographs. Using only edit, copy, and paste metaphors, the entire building styles can be altered and transferred from one building to another in a few operations, enhancing the ability to modify an existing architectural structure or to visualize a novel building in the style of the others.

On the Balance of Grammar and Communication Teaching for Chinese Students

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

秦耀咏

2002-01-01

To the problem of neglecting grammar teaching when the Communicative approach is encouraged,this paper tries to analyze the position of teaching grammar and put forward some suggestions on how to balance grammar and communication teaching.

Spoken Grammar and Its Role in the English Language Classroom

Science.gov (United States)

Hilliard, Amanda

2014-01-01

This article addresses key issues and considerations for teachers wanting to incorporate spoken grammar activities into their own teaching and also focuses on six common features of spoken grammar, with practical activities and suggestions for teaching them in the language classroom. The hope is that this discussion of spoken grammar and its place…

[Stimuli phrases of adductor spasmodic dysphonia phonatory break in mandarin Chinese].

Science.gov (United States)

Ge, Pingjiang; Ren, Qingyi; Chen, Zhipeng; Cheng, Qiuhui; Sheng, Xiaoli; Wang, Ling; Chen, Shaohua; Zhang, Siyi

2015-12-01

To investigate the characteristics of adductor spasmodic dysphonia phonatory break in mandarin Chinese and select the stimuli phrases. Thirty-eight patients with adductor spasmodic dysphonia were involved in this study. Standard phrase " fù mŭ xīn" and a speech corpus in mandarin Chinese with 229 syllables covering all vowel and constant of mandarin Chinese were selected. Every patient read the phrases above twice in normal speed and comfortable voice. Two auditory perpetual speech pathologists marked phonatory break syllables respectively. The frequency of phonatory break syllables and their located phrases were calculated, rated and described. The phrases including the most phonatory break syllables were selected as stimuli phrases, the phonatory break frequency of which was also higher than that of standard phrase "fù mŭ xīn". Phonatory break happened in the reading of all patients. The average number of phonatory break syllables was 14 (3-33). Phonatroy break occurred when saying 177 (77.3%) syllables in the speech corpus. The syllables "guŏ, rén, zāng, diàn, chē, gè, guăn, a, bā, ne, de" broke in 23.1%-41.0% patients. These syllables belonged to the phrases "pĭng guŏ, huŏ chē, shì de, nĭ shì gè hăo rén, wŏ mén shì yŏu zŏng shì bă qĭn shì nong dé hĕn zāng, wŏ mén nà biān yŏu wăng qiú yùn dong chăng, cān gŭan, jiŭ bā hé yī gè miàn bāo dìan, tā shì duō me kāng kăi a,wŏ yīng gāi zài xìn lĭ xiĕ yī xiē shén mē ne?". Thirty-seven patients (97.3%) had phonatory break in above mentioned words. Ratios of these words phonatory break also were more than "fù mŭ xīn". Adductor spasmodic dysphonic patients exhibited different degrees of phonatory break in mandarine Chinese. The phrases" shì de, pĭng guŏ, huŏ chē, nĭ shì gè hăo rén, wŏ mén nà biān yŏu wăng qiú yùn dong chăng, cān gŭan, jiŭ bā hé yī gè miàn bāo dìan, tā shì duō me kāng kăi a" were recommended as stimuli

Probe into Methods of Teaching English Grammar

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

刘春华

2011-01-01

@@ 1 Definition of grammar People sometlmes descibe grammaras the "rules" of a language, to be accurate,grammar is the science dealing with thesystematic rules of a language,its forms,inflections,syntax,and the rules of usingthem correctly.It is summarized from lan-guage use and practice,and reflects thelogic of thinking in people's speech orwriting.

Increases in Individualistic Words and Phrases in American Books, 1960–2008

Science.gov (United States)

Twenge, Jean M.; Campbell, W. Keith; Gentile, Brittany

2012-01-01

Cultural products such as song lyrics, television shows, and books reveal cultural differences, including cultural change over time. Two studies examine changes in the use of individualistic words (Study 1) and phrases (Study 2) in the Google Books Ngram corpus of millions of books in American English. Current samples from the general population generated and rated lists of individualistic words and phrases (e.g., “unique,” “personalize,” “self,” “all about me,” “I am special,” “I’m the best”). Individualistic words and phrases increased in use between 1960 and 2008, even when controlling for changes in communal words and phrases. Language in American books has become increasingly focused on the self and uniqueness in the decades since 1960. PMID:22808113

Associative Cognitive CREED for Successful Grammar Learning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrias Tri Susanto

2016-06-01

Full Text Available This research article reports a qualitative study which was conducted to investigate ways successful EFL learners learned English grammar. The subjects of this research were eight successful EFL learners from six different countries in Asia: China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam. The data was collected by interviewing each subject in person individually at an agreed time and place. The result showed that all the grammar learning processes described by the subjects were closely linked to the framework of Associative Cognitive CREED. There were also some contributing factors that could be integrally combined salient to the overall grammar learning process. However, interestingly, each subject emphasized different aspects of learning.

LeadMine: a grammar and dictionary driven approach to entity recognition

Science.gov (United States)

2015-01-01

Background Chemical entity recognition has traditionally been performed by machine learning approaches. Here we describe an approach using grammars and dictionaries. This approach has the advantage that the entities found can be directly related to a given grammar or dictionary, which allows the type of an entity to be known and, if an entity is misannotated, indicates which resource should be corrected. As recognition is driven by what is expected, if spelling errors occur, they can be corrected. Correcting such errors is highly useful when attempting to lookup an entity in a database or, in the case of chemical names, converting them to structures. Results Our system uses a mixture of expertly curated grammars and dictionaries, as well as dictionaries automatically derived from public resources. We show that the heuristics developed to filter our dictionary of trivial chemical names (from PubChem) yields a better performing dictionary than the previously published Jochem dictionary. Our final system performs post-processing steps to modify the boundaries of entities and to detect abbreviations. These steps are shown to significantly improve performance (2.6% and 4.0% F1-score respectively). Our complete system, with incremental post-BioCreative workshop improvements, achieves 89.9% precision and 85.4% recall (87.6% F1-score) on the CHEMDNER test set. Conclusions Grammar and dictionary approaches can produce results at least as good as the current state of the art in machine learning approaches. While machine learning approaches are commonly thought of as "black box" systems, our approach directly links the output entities to the input dictionaries and grammars. Our approach also allows correction of errors in detected entities, which can assist with entity resolution. PMID:25810776

Difficulties in Teaching and Learning Grammar in an EFL Context

Science.gov (United States)

Al-Mekhlafi, Abdu Mohammed; Nagaratnam, Ramani Perur

2011-01-01

The role of grammar instruction in an ESL/EFL context has been for decades a major issue for students and teachers alike. Researchers have debated whether grammar should be taught in the classroom and students, for their part, have generally looked upon grammar instruction as a necessary evil at best, and an avoidable burden at worst. The paper…

Communicating Grammatically: Evaluating a Learner Strategy Website for Spanish Grammar

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Cohen, Andrew D.; Pinilla-Herrera, Angela; Thompson, Jonathan R.; Witzig, Lance E.

2011-01-01

After a brief introduction to language learner strategies and grammar strategies as a subcategory, it is pointed out that research on the use of grammar strategies by learners of a second language (L2) has been limited. The article then describes the construction of a website with strategies for learning and performing Spanish grammar, with a…

Enhancing Empirical Research for Linguistically Motivated Precision Grammars

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Fokkens, A.S.

2014-01-01

Grammars of natural language are highly complex objects. This complexity is reflected in formal analyses found in both syntactic theory and computational grammars. In particular, there are two factors that make it notoriously difficult to make strong assertions about analyses for natural language

TG Grammar's Implications for the Foreign Language Teaching

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

殷彩

2009-01-01

Chomsky's Transformational-Generative (TG) grammar is another revolution to linguistics after Saussure's strueturalism, and it plays an important role in the modem linguistics. Introducing the research perspective and method of TG grammar, this paper analyses its implications for the foreign language teaching.

On the Equivalence of Formal Grammars and Machines.

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Lund, Bruce

1991-01-01

Explores concepts of formal language and automata theory underlying computational linguistics. A computational formalism is described known as a "logic grammar," with which computational systems process linguistic data, with examples in declarative and procedural semantics and definite clause grammars. (13 references) (CB)

Metagrammar Engineering: Towards systematic exploration of implemented grammars

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Fokkens, A.S.

2011-01-01

When designing grammars of natural language, typically, more than one formal analysis can account for a given phenomenon. Moreover, because analyses interact, the choices made by the engineer influence the possibilities available in further grammar development. The order in which phenomena are

A Pure Object-Oriented Embedding of Attribute Grammars

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sloane, A.M.; Kats, L.C.L.; Visser, E.

2010-01-01

Attribute grammars are a powerful specification paradigm for many language processing tasks, particularly semantic analysis of programming languages. Recent attribute grammar systems use dynamic scheduling algorithms to evaluate attributes by need. In this paper, we show how to remove the need for a

The relationship between positive or negative phrasing and patients' coping with lateral epicondylitis.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Dong Oh; Gong, Hyun Sik; Kim, Jeong Hwan; Rhee, Seung Hwan; Lee, Young Ho; Baek, Goo Hyun

2014-04-01

Research suggests that phrases with negative content can affect patients' response to medical procedures and how they cope with medical illnesses. We hypothesized that patients with lateral epicondylitis who describe their condition in positive phrases cope better than those who do not. We prospectively followed up 91 patients with lateral epicondylitis for 12 months. The patients indicated their baseline coping status based on the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS) and were discharged with a wait-and-see policy. During follow-up interviews, the patients described the nature of their condition in their own words and were then categorized into either positive or negative phrasing groups. We compared these two groups regarding current coping status and whether they had sought additional treatment. We also analyzed for the factors associated with these outcomes. There were no significant differences in baseline PCS scores between the two groups. At follow-up, patients in the positive phrasing group (n = 62) had significantly lower PCS scores and were less likely to seek additional treatment than those in the negative phrasing group (n = 29). Multivariable analyses showed that positive phrasing and low pain levels were independently associated with improvement in PCS scores and that negative phrasing and depression were independently associated with patients' seeking additional treatment. Patients' positive phrasing about their condition are associated with improvement in their coping status and with less use of medical resources in the case of lateral epicondylitis. This study suggests that patients with more positive attitudes toward their illness cope and comply better when a wait-and-see treatment is recommended by their physicians. Copyright © 2014 Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery Board of Trustees. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

Negotiated Grammar Transformation

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V. Zaytsev (Vadim)

2012-01-01

htmlabstractIn this paper, we study controlled adaptability of metamodel transformations. We consider one of the most rigid metamodel transformation formalisms — automated grammar transformation with operator suites, where a transformation script is built in such a way that it is essentially meant

Aligning English grammar testing with European language standards

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Bodrič Radmila

2015-01-01

Full Text Available In recent years, foreign language testing has gained in significance with the advent of The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (2001 (CEFR, a European language document which set comparable standards for learning, teaching and assessing foreign languages. The CEFR was used to set the research aim of this paper - testing grammar at level B2. The main aim of the research was to determine grammatical competence at level B2 and additional aims included: (a determining which particular areas of grammar need to be learned by students at level B2, (b formulating grammatical descriptors for each individual area of grammar, (c determining the test’s threshold level which would fulfil the criteria for grammatical competence at level B2, and (d determining the extent to which students have mastered the given areas. The pre-testing was followed by the main testing on the sample of 164 students in two secondary schools. The results indicated that the quantity and quality of grammatical competence was lower than expected: 47% of the population failed to fulfil the basic level of grammatical competence. The causes may be attributed to the factors of a subjective and objective nature. Level B2 is demanding qualitatively as well as quantitatively, regarding both the formal and the functional complexity and scope of language use, which requires intensive language production, high levels of motivation and sound working habits in order to master the given grammatical structures.

Indirect Positive Evidence in the Acquisition of a Subset Grammar

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Schwartz, Misha; Goad, Heather

2017-01-01

This article proposes that second language learners can use indirect positive evidence (IPE) to acquire a phonological grammar that is a subset of their L1 grammar. IPE is evidence from errors in the learner's L1 made by native speakers of the learner's L2. It has been assumed that subset grammars may be acquired using direct or indirect negative…

Complexity, Training Paradigm Design, and the Contribution of Memory Subsystems to Grammar Learning

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Ettlinger, Marc; Wong, Patrick C. M.

2016-01-01

Although there is variability in nonnative grammar learning outcomes, the contributions of training paradigm design and memory subsystems are not well understood. To examine this, we presented learners with an artificial grammar that formed words via simple and complex morphophonological rules. Across three experiments, we manipulated training paradigm design and measured subjects' declarative, procedural, and working memory subsystems. Experiment 1 demonstrated that passive, exposure-based training boosted learning of both simple and complex grammatical rules, relative to no training. Additionally, procedural memory correlated with simple rule learning, whereas declarative memory correlated with complex rule learning. Experiment 2 showed that presenting corrective feedback during the test phase did not improve learning. Experiment 3 revealed that structuring the order of training so that subjects are first exposed to the simple rule and then the complex improved learning. The cumulative findings shed light on the contributions of grammatical complexity, training paradigm design, and domain-general memory subsystems in determining grammar learning success. PMID:27391085

Complexity, Training Paradigm Design, and the Contribution of Memory Subsystems to Grammar Learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Antoniou, Mark; Ettlinger, Marc; Wong, Patrick C M

2016-01-01

Although there is variability in nonnative grammar learning outcomes, the contributions of training paradigm design and memory subsystems are not well understood. To examine this, we presented learners with an artificial grammar that formed words via simple and complex morphophonological rules. Across three experiments, we manipulated training paradigm design and measured subjects' declarative, procedural, and working memory subsystems. Experiment 1 demonstrated that passive, exposure-based training boosted learning of both simple and complex grammatical rules, relative to no training. Additionally, procedural memory correlated with simple rule learning, whereas declarative memory correlated with complex rule learning. Experiment 2 showed that presenting corrective feedback during the test phase did not improve learning. Experiment 3 revealed that structuring the order of training so that subjects are first exposed to the simple rule and then the complex improved learning. The cumulative findings shed light on the contributions of grammatical complexity, training paradigm design, and domain-general memory subsystems in determining grammar learning success.

Complexity, Training Paradigm Design, and the Contribution of Memory Subsystems to Grammar Learning.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mark Antoniou

Full Text Available Although there is variability in nonnative grammar learning outcomes, the contributions of training paradigm design and memory subsystems are not well understood. To examine this, we presented learners with an artificial grammar that formed words via simple and complex morphophonological rules. Across three experiments, we manipulated training paradigm design and measured subjects' declarative, procedural, and working memory subsystems. Experiment 1 demonstrated that passive, exposure-based training boosted learning of both simple and complex grammatical rules, relative to no training. Additionally, procedural memory correlated with simple rule learning, whereas declarative memory correlated with complex rule learning. Experiment 2 showed that presenting corrective feedback during the test phase did not improve learning. Experiment 3 revealed that structuring the order of training so that subjects are first exposed to the simple rule and then the complex improved learning. The cumulative findings shed light on the contributions of grammatical complexity, training paradigm design, and domain-general memory subsystems in determining grammar learning success.

Handbook of graph grammars and computing by graph transformation

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Engels, G; Kreowski, H J; Rozenberg, G

1999-01-01

Graph grammars originated in the late 60s, motivated by considerations about pattern recognition and compiler construction. Since then, the list of areas which have interacted with the development of graph grammars has grown quite impressively. Besides the aforementioned areas, it includes software specification and development, VLSI layout schemes, database design, modeling of concurrent systems, massively parallel computer architectures, logic programming, computer animation, developmental biology, music composition, visual languages, and many others.The area of graph grammars and graph tran

Dwie (antyfilozoficzne „gramatyki” Wittgensteina [Two (anti philosophical grammars of Ludwig Wittgenstein

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Adam Nowaczyk

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Wittgenstein is the author of two conceptions of “grammar”, that were meant to be tools of reaching the same goal: discrediting of the traditional, i.e. “metaphysical” questions of philosophy. His early conception concerns logical grammar being the language of logic notation, which is devoid of logical constants. This idea was supported by the ontological thesis that there are no logical objects. In fact, it was not indispensable for achieving the intended purpose, since the elimination of philosophical problems was provided by the semantic argument that the only sensible statements are those of the natural sciences. The second concept of grammar, presented in the writings of the later Wittgenstein, seems more ambiguous. Grammar is a set of rules of the language game, having a status of grammatical statements. Examples of such statements are diverse, and desirable, according to the authors, reformulation of them all into concrete orders or prohibitions seems problematic. In the Investigations Wittgenstein distinguishes between deep and surface grammar, which serves to determine the proper task of philosophy as description of the deep grammar (especially the grammar of philosophically relevant words. In this sense New Philosophy is a kind of philosophical grammar. Wittgensteinian grammar is also anti-philosophical, as it aims at the elimination of erroneous (pseudometaphysical claims derived from misleading forms of surface grammar. Despite the differences in the concepts of language and grammar in the early and late Wittgenstein, he has not changed his critical approach to the traditional philosophical questions.

Kiss my asterisk a feisty guide to punctuation and grammar

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Baranick, Jenny

2014-01-01

Grammar has finally let its hair down! Unlike uptight grammar books that overwhelm us with every single grammar rule, Kiss My Asterisk is like a bikini: it's fun, flirty, and covers only the most important bits. Its lessons, which are 100 percent free of complicated grammar jargon, have been carefully selected to include today's most common, noticeable errors—the ones that confuse our readers or make them wonder if we are, in fact, smarter than a fifth grader. What is the proper use of an apostrophe? When should an ellipsis be used instead of an em dash? Why do we capitalize President Obama bu

Nicht-referentielle Nominalphrasen (Non-Referential Noun Phrases)

Science.gov (United States)

Leys, Odo

1973-01-01

Appeared as Working Report No. 21 of the Linguistic Institute of the University of Cologne; critical observations on S. Kuno's Some Properties of Non-Refential Noun Phrases,'' in Studies in General and Oriental Linguistics, 1970. (RS)

Extricating the description of the grammar of isiXhosa from a ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

A Eurocentric approach was the only possible point of departure for those originally attempting to set out the grammatical structure of isiXhosa. Not being mother-tongue speakers, their commendable efforts were inevitably done from the perspective of the grammar of European languages such as Latin and English.

Nigel: A Systemic Grammar for Text Generation.

Science.gov (United States)

1983-02-01

presumed. Basic references on the systemic framework include [Berry 75, Berry 77, Halliday 76a, Halliday 76b, Hudson 76, Halliday 81, de Joia 80...Edinburgh, 1979. [do Joia 80] de Joia , A., and A. Stanton, Terms in Systemic Linguistics, Batsford Academic and Educational, Ltd., London, 1980. -’C...1 A Grammar for Text Generation- -The Challenge ................................. 1 *1.2 A Grammar for Text Generation--The Design

What Constitutes a Phrase in Sound-Based Music? A Mixed-Methods Investigation of Perception and Acoustics.

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Olsen, Kirk N; Dean, Roger T; Leung, Yvonne

2016-01-01

Phrasing facilitates the organization of auditory information and is central to speech and music. Not surprisingly, aspects of changing intensity, rhythm, and pitch are key determinants of musical phrases and their boundaries in instrumental note-based music. Different kinds of speech (such as tone- vs. stress-languages) share these features in different proportions and form an instructive comparison. However, little is known about whether or how musical phrasing is perceived in sound-based music, where the basic musical unit from which a piece is created is commonly non-instrumental continuous sounds, rather than instrumental discontinuous notes. This issue forms the target of the present paper. Twenty participants (17 untrained in music) were presented with six stimuli derived from sound-based music, note-based music, and environmental sound. Their task was to indicate each occurrence of a perceived phrase and qualitatively describe key characteristics of the stimulus associated with each phrase response. It was hypothesized that sound-based music does elicit phrase perception, and that this is primarily associated with temporal changes in intensity and timbre, rather than rhythm and pitch. Results supported this hypothesis. Qualitative analysis of participant descriptions showed that for sound-based music, the majority of perceived phrases were associated with intensity or timbral change. For the note-based piano piece, rhythm was the main theme associated with perceived musical phrasing. We modeled the occurrence in time of perceived musical phrases with recurrent event 'hazard' analyses using time-series data representing acoustic predictors associated with intensity, spectral flatness, and rhythmic density. Acoustic intensity and timbre (represented here by spectral flatness) were strong predictors of perceived musical phrasing in sound-based music, and rhythm was only predictive for the piano piece. A further analysis including five additional spectral

The Role of Grammar Instruction in Language Teaching

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

无

2001-01-01

@@ The role of grammar instruction in foreign or second language acquisition is one of the most con troversial issues in foreign/second language teach ing and learning research. The advocators of gram mar instruction argue that grammar should be the core of language instruction and formal instruction enhances formal accuracy. On the other hand, crit ics naintain that the grammar knowledge has lim ited uses and may hinder the students from acquir ing the communicative competence and efficiency. Undoubtedly these two extreme theories often put teachers into a dilemma. What theory should they believe then? Do they accept the one and ignore the other?

Grammar for College Writing: A Sentence-Composing Approach

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Killgallon, Don; Killgallon, Jenny

2010-01-01

Across America, in thousands of classrooms, from elementary school to high school, the time-tested sentence-composing approach has given students tools to become better writers. Now the authors present a much anticipated sentence-composing grammar worktext for college writing. This book presents a new and easier way to understand grammar: (1) Noun…

Grammar predicts procedural learning and consolidation deficits in children with Specific Language Impairment.

Science.gov (United States)

Hedenius, Martina; Persson, Jonas; Tremblay, Antoine; Adi-Japha, Esther; Veríssimo, João; Dye, Cristina D; Alm, Per; Jennische, Margareta; Bruce Tomblin, J; Ullman, Michael T

2011-01-01

The Procedural Deficit Hypothesis (PDH) posits that Specific Language Impairment (SLI) can be largely explained by abnormalities of brain structures that subserve procedural memory. The PDH predicts impairments of procedural memory itself, and that such impairments underlie the grammatical deficits observed in the disorder. Previous studies have indeed reported procedural learning impairments in SLI, and have found that these are associated with grammatical difficulties. The present study extends this research by examining consolidation and longer-term procedural sequence learning in children with SLI. The Alternating Serial Reaction Time (ASRT) task was given to children with SLI and typically developing (TD) children in an initial learning session and an average of three days later to test for consolidation and longer-term learning. Although both groups showed evidence of initial sequence learning, only the TD children showed clear signs of consolidation, even though the two groups did not differ in longer-term learning. When the children were re-categorized on the basis of grammar deficits rather than broader language deficits, a clearer pattern emerged. Whereas both the grammar impaired and normal grammar groups showed evidence of initial sequence learning, only those with normal grammar showed consolidation and longer-term learning. Indeed, the grammar-impaired group appeared to lose any sequence knowledge gained during the initial testing session. These findings held even when controlling for vocabulary or a broad non-grammatical language measure, neither of which were associated with procedural memory. When grammar was examined as a continuous variable over all children, the same relationships between procedural memory and grammar, but not vocabulary or the broader language measure, were observed. Overall, the findings support and further specify the PDH. They suggest that consolidation and longer-term procedural learning are impaired in SLI, but that these

Grammar Predicts Procedural Learning and Consolidation Deficits in Children with Specific Language Impairment

Science.gov (United States)

Hedenius, Martina; Persson, Jonas; Tremblay, Antoine; Adi-Japha, Esther; Veríssimo, João; Dye, Cristina D.; Alm, Per; Jennische, Margareta; Tomblin, J. Bruce; Ullman, Michael T.

2011-01-01

The Procedural Deficit Hypothesis (PDH) posits that Specific Language Impairment (SLI) can be largely explained by abnormalities of brain structures that subserve procedural memory. The PDH predicts impairments of procedural memory itself, and that such impairments underlie the grammatical deficits observed in the disorder. Previous studies have indeed reported procedural learning impairments in SLI, and have found that these are associated with grammatical difficulties. The present study extends this research by examining the consolidation and longer-term procedural sequence learning in children with SLI. The Alternating Serial Reaction Time (ASRT) task was given to children with SLI and typically-developing (TD) children in an initial learning session and an average of three days later to test for consolidation and longer-term learning. Although both groups showed evidence of initial sequence learning, only the TD children showed clear signs of consolidation, even though the two groups did not differ in longer-term learning. When the children were re-categorized on the basis of grammar deficits rather than broader language deficits, a clearer pattern emerged. Whereas both the grammar impaired and normal grammar groups showed evidence of initial sequence learning, only those with normal grammar showed consolidation and longer-term learning. Indeed, the grammar-impaired group appeared to lose any sequence knowledge gained during the initial testing session. These findings held even when controlling for vocabulary or a broad non-grammatical language measure, neither of which were associated with procedural memory. When grammar was examined as a continuous variable over all children, the same relationships between procedural memory and grammar, but not vocabulary or the broader language measure, were observed. Overall, the findings support and further specify the PDH. They suggest that consolidation and longer-term procedural learning are impaired in SLI, but that

Current Developments in Research on the Teaching of Grammar

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Hossein Nassaji; Sandra Fotos

2006-01-01

@@ With the rise of communicative methodology in the late 1970s, the role of grammar instruction in second language learning was downplayed, and it was even suggested that teaching grammar was not only unhelpful but might actually be detrimental.

Young children pause on phrase boundaries in self-paced music listening: The role of harmonic cues.

Science.gov (United States)

Kragness, Haley E; Trainor, Laurel J

2018-05-01

Proper segmentation of auditory streams is essential for understanding music. Many cues, including meter, melodic contour, and harmony, influence adults' perception of musical phrase boundaries. To date, no studies have examined young children's musical grouping in a production task. We used a musical self-pacing method to investigate (1) whether dwell times index young children's musical phrase grouping and, if so, (2) whether children dwell longer on phrase boundaries defined by harmonic cues specifically. In Experiment 1, we asked 3-year-old children to self-pace through chord progressions from Bach chorales (sequences in which metrical, harmonic, and melodic contour grouping cues aligned) by pressing a computer key to present each chord in the sequence. Participants dwelled longer on chords in the 8th position, which corresponded to phrase endings. In Experiment 2, we tested 3-, 4-, and 7-year-old children's sensitivity to harmonic cues to phrase grouping when metrical regularity cues and melodic contour cues were misaligned with the harmonic phrase boundaries. In this case, 7 and 4 year olds but not 3 year olds dwelled longer on harmonic phrase boundaries, suggesting that the influence of harmonic cues on phrase boundary perception develops substantially between 3 and 4 years of age in Western children. Overall, we show that the musical dwell time method is child-friendly and can be used to investigate various aspects of young children's musical understanding, including phrase grouping and harmonic knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TO EXPLICIT GRAMMAR TEACHING AND ITS RELATIONAHIP TO COMMUNICATION

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

2000-01-01

Grammar teaching is greatly emphasised in English language teaching in China, but does it really attain the goal the students desire? An investigation was made with overseas students about their attitudes to explicit grammar teaching. The investigation reveals that grammar teaching should focus on developing the learners’ communicative ability more than presenting and explaining grammatical rules.

Grammar Maturity Model

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zaytsev, V.; Pierantonio, A.; Schätz, B.; Tamzalit, D.

2014-01-01

The evolution of a software language (whether modelled by a grammar or a schema or a metamodel) is not limited to development of new versions and dialects. An important dimension of a software language evolution is maturing in the sense of improving the quality of its definition. In this paper, we

REEP Grammar Favorites.

Science.gov (United States)

Arlington County Public Schools, VA. REEP, Arlington Education and Employment Program.

This document provides the Arlington Education and Employment Program's (REEP) favorite techniques for teaching English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) grammar. The focus, levels, and materials needed are presented for each of the techniques as well as the steps to follow. (Adjunct ERIC Clearinghouse for ESL Literacy Education) (Author/VWL)

Grammar-Supported 3d Indoor Reconstruction from Point Clouds for As-Built Bim

Science.gov (United States)

Becker, S.; Peter, M.; Fritsch, D.

2015-03-01

The paper presents a grammar-based approach for the robust automatic reconstruction of 3D interiors from raw point clouds. The core of the approach is a 3D indoor grammar which is an extension of our previously published grammar concept for the modeling of 2D floor plans. The grammar allows for the modeling of buildings whose horizontal, continuous floors are traversed by hallways providing access to the rooms as it is the case for most office buildings or public buildings like schools, hospitals or hotels. The grammar is designed in such way that it can be embedded in an iterative automatic learning process providing a seamless transition from LOD3 to LOD4 building models. Starting from an initial low-level grammar, automatically derived from the window representations of an available LOD3 building model, hypotheses about indoor geometries can be generated. The hypothesized indoor geometries are checked against observation data - here 3D point clouds - collected in the interior of the building. The verified and accepted geometries form the basis for an automatic update of the initial grammar. By this, the knowledge content of the initial grammar is enriched, leading to a grammar with increased quality. This higher-level grammar can then be applied to predict realistic geometries to building parts where only sparse observation data are available. Thus, our approach allows for the robust generation of complete 3D indoor models whose quality can be improved continuously as soon as new observation data are fed into the grammar-based reconstruction process. The feasibility of our approach is demonstrated based on a real-world example.

Explicit Grammar Instruction in L2 Learners’Writing Development:Effective or Ineffective?

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田秀峰

2012-01-01

　　It has long been in dispute about whether explicit grammar teaching is more effective in second language learning or implicit grammar teaching is. However, there are more than one factor to take into consideration while discussing which way is better for L2 learners. This short essay aims at depicting three respects concerning grammar teaching, namely learning context, language learners’beliefs and needs, and grammar instruction. When educators and practitioners try to adopt grammar instruction either implicitly or explicitly in L2 learners’writing development, they probably need to consider the above three factors and to find out the best way to produce more effective teaching results among their students

The autonomy of grammar and semantic internalism

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Dobler Tamara

2014-01-01

Full Text Available In his post-Tractatus work on natural language use, Wittgenstein defended the notion of what he dubbed the autonomy of grammar. According to this thought, grammar - or semantics, in a more recent idiom - is essentially autonomous from metaphysical considerations, and is not answerable to the nature of things. The argument has several related incarnations in Wittgenstein’s post-Tractatus writings, and has given rise to a number of important insights, both critical and constructive. In this paper I will argue for a potential connection between Wittgenstein’s autonomy argument and some more recent internalist arguments for the autonomy of semantics. My main motivation for establishing this connection comes from the fact that the later Wittgenstein’s comments on grammar and meaning stand in opposition to some of the core assumptions of semantic externalism.

Individual and combined effects of enactment and testing on memory for action phrases.

Science.gov (United States)

Kubik, Veit; Söderlund, Hedvig; Nilsson, Lars-Göran; Jönsson, Fredrik U

2014-01-01

We investigated the individual and combined effects of enactment and testing on memory for action phrases to address whether both study techniques commonly promote item-specific processing. Participants (N = 112) were divided into four groups (n = 28). They either exclusively studied 36 action phrases (e.g., "lift the glass") or both studied and cued-recalled them in four trials. During study trials participants encoded the action phrases either by motorically performing them, or by reading them aloud, and they took final verb-cued recall tests over 18-min and 1-week retention intervals. A testing effect was demonstrated for action phrases, however, only when they were verbally encoded, and not when they were enacted. Similarly, enactive (relative to verbal) encoding reduced the rate of forgetting, but only when the action phrases were exclusively studied, and not when they were also tested. These less-than-additive effects of enactment and testing on the rate of forgetting, as well as on long-term retention, support the notion that both study techniques effectively promote item-specific processing that can only be marginally increased further by combining them.

El Sistema de Formas en Colores for Teaching Grammar in Spanish

Science.gov (United States)

Nailon, James

2010-01-01

Sistema de formas en colores (SFC) is a symbols-based system for teaching Spanish grammatical structures and concepts within a communicative context in the elementary school. The (ACTFL) Standards for Foreign Language Learning: Preparing for the 21st Century states that, "While grammar and vocabulary are essential tools for communication, it is…

Interactive Russian Grammar: The Case System

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Rimma Gam

2009-01-01

Full Text Available My paper addresses a problem many of us in North American college language programs confront regularly, the solution to which regularly and frustratingly remains just out of our reach. I refer to the teaching of the most basic and most crucial element of Russian grammar, namely, its case system, and teaching it to our students whose native language, English, does not have such a system. As I teach the Russian cases, I see vividly the disconnect between grammar presented for students (simplified, episodic, based on the "pick it up along the way" principle and the learned papers on Russian grammar by linguists, which are barely comprehensible to a non-linguist. Materials in the middle are lacking-materials to help a literature professor acting as a "de facto" language instructor understand and address the needs of students as they learn this crucial segment of basic Russian grammar. This core element of Russian grammar is presented to students in the first year of college language study, is revisited in the second year, and very often by the third year students either manage to completely block it out from their memory (as if it were some traumatic experience that happened "a long time ago"-that is, before .summer break-but most importantly due to the lack of practice or demonstrate a partial or even complete lack of understanding or misunderstanding of this system forcing us to deal with it again in the third year. Not only is it frustrating for both the students and the language instructor; but from the point of view of their overall proficiency, the lack of control of the case system holds our students back. There can be no talk of advanced language proficiency without a complete and automatic mastery of this basic system. Unfortunately, regardless of the specific textbooks used, the students very often manage not to have a general idea and mastery of this system even by the third year of study.

Webster's word power better English grammar improve your written and spoken English

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Kirkpatrick, Betty

2014-01-01

With questions and answer sections throughout, this book helps you to improve your written and spoken English through understanding the structure of the English language. This is a thorough and useful book with all parts of speech and grammar explained. Used by ELT self-study students.

From LL-regular to LL(1) grammars: Transformations, covers and parsing

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nijholt, Antinus

1982-01-01

In this paper it is shown that it is possible to transform any LL-regular grammar G into an LL(1) grammar G' in such a way that parsing G' is as good as parsing G. That is, a parse of a sentence of grammar G can be obtained with a simple string homomorphism from the parse of a corresponding sentence

Exemplar variability facilitates rapid learning of an otherwise unlearnable grammar by individuals with language-based learning disability.

Science.gov (United States)

von Koss Torkildsen, Janne; Dailey, Natalie S; Aguilar, Jessica M; Gómez, Rebecca; Plante, Elena

2013-04-01

Even without explicit instruction, learners are able to extract information about the form of a language simply by attending to input that reflects the underlying grammar. In this study, the authors explored the role of variability in this learning by asking whether varying the number of unique exemplars heard by the learner affects learning of an artificial syntactic form. Learners with normal language (n = 16) and language-based learning disability (LLD; n = 16) were exposed to strings of nonwords that represented an underlying grammar. Half of the learners heard 3 exemplars 16 times each (low variability group), and the other half of the learners heard 24 exemplars twice each (high variability group). Learners were then tested for recognition of items heard and generalization of the grammar with new nonword strings. Only those learners with LLD who were in the high variability group were able to demonstrate generalization of the underlying grammar. For learners with normal language, both those in the high and the low variability groups showed generalization of the grammar, but relative effect sizes suggested a larger learning effect in the high variability group. The results demonstrate that the structure of the learning context can determine the ability to generalize from specific training items to novel cases.

Linearly Ordered Attribute Grammars : With Automatic Augmenting Dependency Selection

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Binsbergen, L. Thomas; Bransen, Jeroen; Dijkstra, Atze

2015-01-01

Attribute Grammars (AGs) extend Context-Free Grammars with attributes: information gathered on the syntax tree that adds semantics to the syntax. AGs are very well suited for describing static analyses, code-generation and other phases incorporated in a compiler. AGs are divided into classes based

What is the Spirit of the English Grammar Teaching?

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Haijiang Zhao

2016-01-01

In China,English is a foreign language,not a second language.Chinese students can't learn English well without learning its gram?mar first.As for English teachers,the most important is to help the students to grasp the spirit of English grammar learning.

The Effectiveness of Teaching Traditional Grammar on Writing Composition at the High School Level

Science.gov (United States)

Jaeger, Gina

2011-01-01

Traditional grammar instruction is a challenging element of the English curriculum; both students and teachers struggle with the rules and dull nature of grammar. However, understanding grammar is important because students need to understand the language they speak in order to be effective communicators, and teachers provide grammar instruction…

RNACompress: Grammar-based compression and informational complexity measurement of RNA secondary structure

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Chen Chun

2008-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background With the rapid emergence of RNA databases and newly identified non-coding RNAs, an efficient compression algorithm for RNA sequence and structural information is needed for the storage and analysis of such data. Although several algorithms for compressing DNA sequences have been proposed, none of them are suitable for the compression of RNA sequences with their secondary structures simultaneously. This kind of compression not only facilitates the maintenance of RNA data, but also supplies a novel way to measure the informational complexity of RNA structural data, raising the possibility of studying the relationship between the functional activities of RNA structures and their complexities, as well as various structural properties of RNA based on compression. Results RNACompress employs an efficient grammar-based model to compress RNA sequences and their secondary structures. The main goals of this algorithm are two fold: (1 present a robust and effective way for RNA structural data compression; (2 design a suitable model to represent RNA secondary structure as well as derive the informational complexity of the structural data based on compression. Our extensive tests have shown that RNACompress achieves a universally better compression ratio compared with other sequence-specific or common text-specific compression algorithms, such as Gencompress, winrar and gzip. Moreover, a test of the activities of distinct GTP-binding RNAs (aptamers compared with their structural complexity shows that our defined informational complexity can be used to describe how complexity varies with activity. These results lead to an objective means of comparing the functional properties of heteropolymers from the information perspective. Conclusion A universal algorithm for the compression of RNA secondary structure as well as the evaluation of its informational complexity is discussed in this paper. We have developed RNACompress, as a useful tool

Model-based object classification using unification grammars and abstract representations

Science.gov (United States)

Liburdy, Kathleen A.; Schalkoff, Robert J.

1993-04-01

The design and implementation of a high level computer vision system which performs object classification is described. General object labelling and functional analysis require models of classes which display a wide range of geometric variations. A large representational gap exists between abstract criteria such as `graspable' and current geometric image descriptions. The vision system developed and described in this work addresses this problem and implements solutions based on a fusion of semantics, unification, and formal language theory. Object models are represented using unification grammars, which provide a framework for the integration of structure and semantics. A methodology for the derivation of symbolic image descriptions capable of interacting with the grammar-based models is described and implemented. A unification-based parser developed for this system achieves object classification by determining if the symbolic image description can be unified with the abstract criteria of an object model. Future research directions are indicated.

Triumph through Texting: Restoring Learners' Interest in Grammar

Science.gov (United States)

Hedjazi Moghari, Mona; Marandi, S. Susan

2017-01-01

It is usually the case that learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) are exposed to language materials in class only, and of course in such a short space of time, they do not always find enough chance to practice English grammar features and become aware of their grammar mistakes. As a potential solution to this problem, the current study…

What can children tell us about the fixedness of idiomatic phrases? The psycholinguistic relevance of a linguistic model

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Kleopatra Diakogiorgi

2011-12-01

Full Text Available The present paper contains two distinct yet intricately linked studies concerning idiomatic phrases in Greek: a linguistic study and a psycholinguistic study. The linguistic study aims at investigating the degree of fixedness of idiomatic phrases, through a semantic-lexical categorization of 470 phrases with fixed subject. Three phrase categories were distinguished: typical phrases characterized by a strong semantic-lexical articulation between their constituents, and non-typical phrases, in which the constituents have a certain semantic autonomy. Non-typical phrases were further categorized into a quasi-phrases and b conventionalized phrases, the constituents of which have the highest degree of semantic autonomy. Α linguistic model was developed named “graded fixedness model”, and the psycholinguistic relevance of the model assessed by examining idiom comprehension in Greek elementary school children, aged 7.5 and 9.5 years old. To achieve this, a psycholinguistic study was then carried out. Children were presented with 8 typical, 8 quasi and 8 conventionalized phrases. For each phrase, they were asked to choose the one they thought correct out of three interpretations proposed (idiomatic, literal and other. The research findings presented and discussed herein provide evidence supporting the psychological reality of the notion of semantic autonomy even for the younger children’s processing which was overall quite poor: thus, the greater the semantic autonomy of a phrase’s constituents, the easier the access to its idiomatic meaning.Le présent article comporte deux études distinctes mais étroitement liées concernant les phrases idomatiques en grec : une étude linguistique et une étude psycholinguistique. L’étude linguistique vise à examiner le degré de figement des phrases idiomatiques, à travers une catégorisation sémantico-lexicale de 470 phrases à sujet fixe. Trois catégories de phrases ont été distingu

Comparison of Word Intelligibility in Spoken and Sung Phrases

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Lauren B. Collister

2008-09-01

Full Text Available Twenty listeners were exposed to spoken and sung passages in English produced by three trained vocalists. Passages included representative words extracted from a large database of vocal lyrics, including both popular and classical repertoires. Target words were set within spoken or sung carrier phrases. Sung carrier phrases were selected from classical vocal melodies. Roughly a quarter of all words sung by an unaccompanied soloist were misheard. Sung passages showed a seven-fold decrease in intelligibility compared with their spoken counterparts. The perceptual mistakes occurring with vowels replicate previous studies showing the centralization of vowels. Significant confusions are also evident for consonants, especially voiced stops and nasals.

Impact of Consciousness-Raising Activities on Young English Language Learners' Grammar Performance

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Fatemipour, Hamidreza; Hemmati, Shiva

2015-01-01

Grammar Consciousness-Raising (GCR) is an approach to teaching of grammar which learners instead of being taught the given rules, experience language data. The data challenge them to rethink, restructure their existing mental grammar and construct an explicit rule to describe the grammatical feature which the data illustrate (Ellis, 2002). And…

Dealing with Phrase Level Co-Articulation (PLC) in speech recognition: a first approach

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ordelman, Roeland J.F.; van Hessen, Adrianus J.; van Leeuwen, David A.; Robinson, Tony; Renals, Steve

1999-01-01

Whereas nowadays within-word co-articulation effects are usually sufficiently dealt with in automatic speech recognition, this is not always the case with phrase level co-articulation effects (PLC). This paper describes a first approach in dealing with phrase level co-articulation by applying these

Chinese-English Sourcebook of Classified Educational Phrases

Science.gov (United States)

Chinese Education, 1976

1976-01-01

Official translation from Chinese to English of words and phrases commonly used in education and library work. Classifications include sayings of Chairman Mao, revolutionary mass criticism, revolution in education, "May 7" cadre schools, teaching methods and materials, disciplines and curricula, school names and terms, and library…

What do animals learn in artificial grammar studies?

Science.gov (United States)

Beckers, Gabriël J L; Berwick, Robert C; Okanoya, Kazuo; Bolhuis, Johan J

2017-10-01

Artificial grammar learning is a popular paradigm to study syntactic ability in nonhuman animals. Subjects are first trained to recognize strings of tokens that are sequenced according to grammatical rules. Next, to test if recognition depends on grammaticality, subjects are presented with grammar-consistent and grammar-violating test strings, which they should discriminate between. However, simpler cues may underlie discrimination if they are available. Here, we review stimulus design in a sample of studies that use particular sounds as tokens, and that claim or suggest their results demonstrate a form of sequence rule learning. To assess the extent of acoustic similarity between training and test strings, we use four simple measures corresponding to cues that are likely salient. All stimulus sets contain biases in similarity measures such that grammatical test stimuli resemble training stimuli acoustically more than do non-grammatical test stimuli. These biases may contribute to response behaviour, reducing the strength of grammatical explanations. We conclude that acoustic confounds are a blind spot in artificial grammar learning studies in nonhuman animals. Copyright © 2016 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Installing the ARL Phrase Book Android Application and Configuring its Dependencies

Science.gov (United States)

2015-02-01

application contains several third - party applications, which add additional steps to the installation process. Due to these dependencies, the installation...military terms, additional Dari terms, etc.) were added to the Phrase Book app. In addition, third - party apps (e.g., Carnegie Mellon University’s...Phrase Book app uses 2 third - party apps from the Google Play Store, Google’s app store. The Google Play Store is accessible by clicking on the white

Spanish comparative phrases of equality with a definite article

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P. Pablo Devís Márquez

2017-01-01

Full Text Available In the long-standing controversy over the so-called constructions with an emphatic or quantifying definite article in Spanish, a few authors have noticed the comparative import of constructions with a quantifying article or with article and a null quantifying modifier (No es lo inteligente que era su padre. The aim of this paper is to provide a descriptive analysis capable of drawing a grammatical distinction between constructions with a definite article and comparative value and non-comparative structures with an emphatic definite article. In the former case, the article is not an independent quantifier, but a discontinuous constituent in a phrase functioning as the quantifying modifier of the comparative head.

A Theoretical Glimpse at Issues of Grammar Teaching

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

朱海涛

2012-01-01

When it comes to the description of the status of grammar in the field of second language teaching now,recent literature bears witness a good deal of discussion about a ’grammar revival’. More recently,theoretical perspectives on language teaching and learning have changed. The possibilities and feasibility of integrating form - focus instruction and meaningful communicative activities in the communicative language classroom have been explored.

The elements of grammar in 90 minutes

CERN Document Server

Hollander, Robert

2011-01-01

An eminent scholar explains the essentials of English grammar to those who never studied the basics as well as those who need a refresher course. Inspired by Strunk & White's classic The Elements of Style, this user-friendly guide focuses exclusively on grammar, explaining the individual parts of speech and their proper arrangement in sentence form. A modest investment of 90 minutes can provide readers of all ages with simple but important tools that will improve their communication skills. Dover (2011) original publication.

John Ash and the Rise of the Children's Grammar

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Navest, Karlijn Marianne

2011-01-01

From the second half of the eighteenth century onwards a knowledge of grammar served as an important marker of class in England. In order to enable their children to rise in society, middle-class parents expected their sons and daughters to learn English grammar. Since England did not have an

Multiword Constructions in the Grammar.

Science.gov (United States)

Culicover, Peter W; Jackendoff, Ray; Audring, Jenny

2017-07-01

There is ample evidence that speakers' linguistic knowledge extends well beyond what can be described in terms of rules of compositional interpretation stated over combinations of single words. We explore a range of multiword constructions (MWCs) to get a handle both on the extent of the phenomenon and on the grammatical constraints that may govern it. We consider idioms of various sorts, collocations, compounds, light verbs, syntactic nuts, and assorted other constructions, as well as morphology. Our conclusion is that MWCs highlight the central role that grammar plays in licensing MWCs in the lexicon and the creation of novel MWCs, and they help to clarify how the lexicon articulates with the rest of the grammar. Copyright © 2017 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Vega-Lite: A Grammar of Interactive Graphics.

Science.gov (United States)

Satyanarayan, Arvind; Moritz, Dominik; Wongsuphasawat, Kanit; Heer, Jeffrey

2017-01-01

We present Vega-Lite, a high-level grammar that enables rapid specification of interactive data visualizations. Vega-Lite combines a traditional grammar of graphics, providing visual encoding rules and a composition algebra for layered and multi-view displays, with a novel grammar of interaction. Users specify interactive semantics by composing selections. In Vega-Lite, a selection is an abstraction that defines input event processing, points of interest, and a predicate function for inclusion testing. Selections parameterize visual encodings by serving as input data, defining scale extents, or by driving conditional logic. The Vega-Lite compiler automatically synthesizes requisite data flow and event handling logic, which users can override for further customization. In contrast to existing reactive specifications, Vega-Lite selections decompose an interaction design into concise, enumerable semantic units. We evaluate Vega-Lite through a range of examples, demonstrating succinct specification of both customized interaction methods and common techniques such as panning, zooming, and linked selection.

Construction Morphology and the Parallel Architecture of Grammar

Science.gov (United States)

Booij, Geert; Audring, Jenny

2017-01-01

This article presents a systematic exposition of how the basic ideas of Construction Grammar (CxG) (Goldberg, 2006) and the Parallel Architecture (PA) of grammar (Jackendoff, 2002]) provide the framework for a proper account of morphological phenomena, in particular word formation. This framework is referred to as Construction Morphology (CxM). As…

Spoken Grammar: An Urgent Necessity in the EFL Context

Science.gov (United States)

Al-wossabi, Sami A.

2014-01-01

Recent studies in corpus linguistics have revealed apparent inconsistencies between the prescriptive grammar presented in EFL textbooks and the type of grammar used in the speech of native speakers. Such variations and learning gaps deprive EFL learners of the actual use of English and delay their oral/aural developmental processes. The focus of…

Designing an Intelligent Mobile Learning Tool for Grammar Learning (i-MoL

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Munir Shuib

2015-01-01

Full Text Available English is the most important second language in most non-English speaking countries, including Malaysia. A good English proficiency comes from good grasp of grammar. To conquer the problems of low English proficiency among Malaysians, it is important to identify the key motivators that could facilitate the process of grammar learning. In this digital age, technology can play a very important role and mobile technology could be one of it. Thus, this study aims at designing a mobile learning tool, namely the Intelligent Mobile Learning Tool for Grammar Learning (i-MoL to act as the “on-the-go” grammar learning support via mobile phones. i-MoL helps reinforce grammar learning through mobile phone with game-like applications, inquiry-based activities and flashcard-like information. The intelligent part of i-MoL lies in its ability to map the mobile-based grammar learning content to individual’s preferred learning styles based on Felder-Silverman Learning Style Model (FSLSM. The instructional system design through the ADDIE model was used in this study as a systematic approach in designing a novel and comprehensive mobile learning tool for grammar learning. In terms of implications, this study provides insights on how mobile technologies can be utilized to meet the mobility demand among language learners today.

Modeling the Nature of Grammar and Vocabulary Trajectories From Prekindergarten to Third Grade.

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Jiang, Hui; Logan, Jessica A; Jia, Rongfang

2018-04-17

This study investigated the longitudinal development of 2 important contributors to reading comprehension, grammar, and vocabulary skills. The primary interest was to examine the trajectories of the 2 skill areas from preschool to 3rd grade. The study involved a longitudinal sample of 420 children from 4 sites. Language skills, including grammar and vocabulary, were assessed annually with multiple measures. Multivariate latent growth curve modeling was used to examine the developmental trajectories of grammar and vocabulary, to test the correlation between the 2 domains, and to investigate the effects of demographic predictors on language growth. Results showed that both grammar and vocabulary exhibited decelerating growth from preschool to Grade 2. In Grade 3, grammar growth further flattened, whereas vocabulary continued to grow stably. Growth of vocabulary and grammar were positively correlated. Demographic characteristics, such as child gender and family socioeconomic status, were found to predict the intercept but not the slope of the growth trajectories. Children's growth in grammar skills is differentiated in a number of important ways from their growth in vocabulary skills. Results of this study suggest the need to differentiate these dimensions of language when seeking to closely examine growth from preschool to primary grades.

Distinct ERP Signatures of Word Frequency, Phrase Frequency, and Prototypicality in Speech Production

Science.gov (United States)

Hendrix, Peter; Bolger, Patrick; Baayen, Harald

2017-01-01

Recent studies have documented frequency effects for word n-grams, independently of word unigram frequency. Further studies have revealed constructional prototype effects, both at the word level as well as for phrases. The present speech production study investigates the time course of these effects for the production of prepositional phrases in…

Planning in Sentence Production: Evidence for the Phrase as a Default Planning Scope

Science.gov (United States)

Martin, Randi C.; Crowther, Jason E.; Knight, Meredith; Tamborello, Franklin P., II; Yang, Chin-Lung

2010-01-01

Controversy remains as to the scope of advanced planning in language production. Smith and Wheeldon (1999) found significantly longer onset latencies when subjects described moving-picture displays by producing sentences beginning with a complex noun phrase than for matched sentences beginning with a simple noun phrase. While these findings are…

An "Alms-Basket" of "Bric-a-Brac": "Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable".

Science.gov (United States)

Bunge, Charles A.

1999-01-01

Describes the development and history of "Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable," a reference source first published in 1870 that includes the etymology of phrases, allusions and words. Discusses reviews that reflected and shaped its status as a standard reference book, describes the current edition, and considers its enduring value.…

E-LEARNING TURKISH LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR: Analyzing Learners' Behavior

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Panagiotis GEORGALAS

2012-01-01

Full Text Available This study analyses the behavior and the preferences of the Greek learners of Turkish language, who use a particular e-learning website in parallel with their studies, namely: http://turkish.pgeorgalas.gr. The website offers free online material in Greek and English language for learning the Turkish language and grammar. The traffic of several modules of the website has been measured, examined and analyzed. The research was carried out between the years 2010- 2011 and included the analysis of several million clicks. The results show particular attitudes, habits and preferences throughout the e-learning process. There is a preference of users to exercises against theory. Fast cross-link exercises are preferred to slower “fill in” ones. During the weekends, visitors tend to use less e-learning facilities and select more light activities than the rest days of the week. Society trends and fashions like TV serials have a serious impact to the number of people who decide to learn a new foreign language, in particular Turkish. There is a strong preference of the audience to use online TV against online radio facilities for language practice. The subjects that Greek learners of Turkish language spend more time are verbs conjugation and vocabulary learning. They focus on elementary grammar subjects like the Alphabet, the numbers and the formation of plural. Finally, they try to learn the syntax of Turkish language through sentence structure puzzles and give priority to special grammar issues like noun compounds that are not present in Greek language.

Where Is She? Gender Occurrences in Online Grammar Guides

Science.gov (United States)

Amare, Nicole

2007-01-01

This article examines seven online grammar guides for instances of linguistic sexism. The grammar sentences from .edu Websites were analyzed based on NCTE's "Guidelines for Gender-Fair Use of Language" (2002) using the criteria of generic he and man; titles, labels, and names; gender stereotypes; order of mention (firstness); and ratio of male to…

Linguistics deviation, a tool for teaching English grammar: evidence ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

We have always advocated that those teaching the Use of English must seek out novel ways of teaching the grammar of English to take out the drudgery of the present approach. Here, we proposed using Linguistic deviation as a tool for teaching English grammar. This approach will produce students who are both strong in ...

Grammar and vocabulary for First and First for schools with answers

CERN Document Server

Thomas, Barbara; Matthews, Laura

2015-01-01

Grammar and Vocabulary reference and practice for the revised Cambridge English: First (FCE) and Cambridge English: First (FCE) for Schools from 2015 Cambridge Grammar and Vocabulary for First and First for Schools provides complete coverage of the grammar and vocabulary needed for the Cambridge First exams, and develops listening skills at the same time. It includes the full range of First and First for Schools exam tasks from the Reading and Use of English, Writing and Listening papers, and contains helpful grammar explanations. This edition is updated for the new exam to be introduced from 2015. It is informed by the Cambridge Learner Corpus to ensure that the language tackles real learner errors. The accompanying listening material is available online for download.

Grammar Engineering Support for Precedence Rule Recovery and Compatibility Checking

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bouwers, E.; Bravenboer, M.; Visser, E.

2007-01-01

A wide range of parser generators are used to generate parsers for programming languages. The grammar formalisms that come with parser generators provide different approaches for defining operator precedence. Some generators (e.g. YACC) support precedence declarations, others require the grammar to

DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING GRAMMAR IN AN EFL CONTEXT

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Abdu Mohammed Al-Mekhlafi

2011-07-01

Full Text Available The role of grammar instruction in an ESL/EFL context has been for decades a major issue for students and teachers alike. Researchers have debated whether grammar should be taught in the classroom and students, for their part, have generally looked upon grammar instruction as a necessary evil at best, and an avoidable burden at worst. The paper reports a study undertaken to investigate the difficulties teachers face in teaching grammar to EFL students as well as those faced by students in learning it, in the teachers' perception. The study aimed to find out whether there are significant differences in teachers' perceptions of difficulties in relation to their gender, qualification, teaching experience, and the level they teach in school, thus providing insights into their own and their students' difficulties. Mean scores and t-test were used to interpret the data. The main findings are reported with implications.

English Language Teaching Methods: State of the Art in Grammar Instruction

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Rusdiana Junaid

2014-02-01

Full Text Available The teaching of grammar has fluctuated and shifted over years. This paper addresses issues such as different ways of teaching grammar, changes in ideas, and practices at the present stage of its development as well as the current state of the art in grammar instruction. Several grammar textbooks which were published in different years also are looked at in order to discover the extent of change in terms of the materials used to teach grammar from time to time. A considerable array of English language teaching methods is available for teacher to utilize since 1980s. Before deciding to employ a particular method, however, educational practitioners need to take several things into consideration such as the objectives of the instruction, the needs, the interests, the expectation, the age, and the level of the learners, and the available supporting facilities. Equally important, the possible constraints such as the environment where the students are learning, the time, and the expectation of the institution are also needed to be considered.

The Effects of Using Online Concordancers on Teaching Grammar

Science.gov (United States)

Türkmen, Yasemin; Aydin, Selami

2016-01-01

Studies conducted so far have mainly focused on the effects of online concordancers on teaching vocabulary, while there is a lack of research focusing on the effects of online concordancers on teaching and learning grammar. Thus, this study aims to review the studies on the effects of online concordancers on teaching and learning grammar and how…

Effect of Direct Grammar Instruction on Student Writing Skills

Science.gov (United States)

Robinson, Lisa; Feng, Jay

2016-01-01

Grammar Instruction has an important role to play in helping students to speak and write more effectively. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of direct grammar instruction on the quality of student's writing skills. The participants in this study included 18 fifth grade students and two fifth grade teachers. Based on the results…

Concept-Based Grammar Teaching: An Academic Responds to Azar

Science.gov (United States)

Hill, Kent

2007-01-01

This response to Azar (this volume) intends to discuss from an academic's perspective the main points raised in her paper (i.e., grammar-based instruction and its relation to focus on form and error correction) and, to encourage a more concept-based approach to grammar instruction (CBT). A CBT approach to language development argues that the…

The Effectiveness of Grammar Learning in Impro ving Reading Comprehension of English Majors

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

田晓

2015-01-01

The importance of grammar knowledge has al-ways been neglected in reading comprehension. To help English teachers and learners see the value of grammar analysis, this pa-per, therefore, explores the correlation between grammar and reading comprehension. Forty-four freshmen of English majors were involved in the experiment, completing two tests of grammar and reading comprehension respectively, and it was followed by a personal interview for some exceptional cases after a week. The result of data analysis shows that grammar analysis accompanying with vocabulary, emotion, as well as other factors produce an ef-fect on learners’reading comprehension to a certain degree. It is suggested that language teachers as well as learners therefore should attach importance to learning grammatical knowledge.

Does complexity matter? Meta-analysis of learner performance in artificial grammar tasks.

Science.gov (United States)

Schiff, Rachel; Katan, Pesia

2014-01-01

Complexity has been shown to affect performance on artificial grammar learning (AGL) tasks (categorization of test items as grammatical/ungrammatical according to the implicitly trained grammar rules). However, previously published AGL experiments did not utilize consistent measures to investigate the comprehensive effect of grammar complexity on task performance. The present study focused on computerizing Bollt and Jones's (2000) technique of calculating topological entropy (TE), a quantitative measure of AGL charts' complexity, with the aim of examining associations between grammar systems' TE and learners' AGL task performance. We surveyed the literature and identified 56 previous AGL experiments based on 10 different grammars that met the sampling criteria. Using the automated matrix-lift-action method, we assigned a TE value for each of these 10 previously used AGL systems and examined its correlation with learners' task performance. The meta-regression analysis showed a significant correlation, demonstrating that the complexity effect transcended the different settings and conditions in which the categorization task was performed. The results reinforced the importance of using this new automated tool to uniformly measure grammar systems' complexity when experimenting with and evaluating the findings of AGL studies.

Using Webquest in Learning Grammar: Students' Perceptions in Higher Education

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Ira Irzawati

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Webquest is an internet based learning tool that can be used by students in learning English. This study investigates students’ perceptions about the use of Webquest to support learning grammar in Higher Education. Seventy-two of second semester students were involved as participants in this study. Questionnaire and interview were used to collect the data. The data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The result of this study revealed that students had positive perceptions toward the use of Webquest in learning grammar. They believed that Webquest can be used as one of effective internet based learning tools in studying grammar.

The place of exclamatives and miratives in grammar: a functional discourse grammar view

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Olbertz, H.

2012-01-01

The concept of mirativity has come to interfere in the recently developed framework of Functional Discourse Grammar with what would be considered to be exclamative elsewhere. In addition, the concept of exclamative itself turns out to be ill-defined in various studies within the functional paradigm.

The Effects of Communicative Grammar Teaching on Students' Achievement of Grammatical Knowledge and Oral Production

Science.gov (United States)

Ho, Pham Vu Phi; The Binh, Nguyen

2014-01-01

So far the students of Le Hong Phong Junior High School have been taught grammar with GTM (Grammar-Translation Method), which just prepares learners for conventional grammar-paper tests. Despite their considerable knowledge of grammar, the students fail to use the language they have learnt to communicate in real-life situations. The purpose of…

Automated Understanding of Financial Statements Using Neural Networks and Semantic Grammars

OpenAIRE

Markovitch, J. S.

1995-01-01

This article discusses how neural networks and semantic grammars may be used to locate and understand financial statements embedded in news stories received from on-line news wires. A neural net is used to identify where in the news story a financial statement appears to begin. A grammar then is applied to this text in an effort to extract specific facts from the financial statement. Applying grammars to financial statements presents unique parsing problems since the dollar amounts of financi...

The Intonation of Noun Phrase Subjects and Clause- Modifying ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

FIRST LADY

Oladipupo, Rotimi O. - Centre for Foundation Education, Bells University of. Technology ... native Englishes, especially at the level of phonology, this study investigates ... Keywords: Intonation tunes, Nigerian English, Noun Phrase Subjects,.

Tracking Down the Origins of Ambiguity in Context-Free Grammars

NARCIS (Netherlands)

H.J.S. Basten (Bas)

2010-01-01

htmlabstractContext-free grammars are widely used but still hindered by ambiguity. This stresses the need for detailed detection methods that point out the sources of ambiguity in a grammar. In this paper we show how the approximative Noncanonical Unambiguity Test by Schmitz can be extended to

Sensing the Sentence: An Embodied Simulation Approach to Rhetorical Grammar

Science.gov (United States)

Rule, Hannah J.

2017-01-01

This article applies the neuroscientific concept of embodied simulation--the process of understanding language through visual, motor, and spatial modalities of the body--to rhetorical grammar and sentence-style pedagogies. Embodied simulation invigorates rhetorical grammar instruction by attuning writers to the felt effects of written language,…

Information theory and artificial grammar learning: inferring grammaticality from redundancy.

Science.gov (United States)

Jamieson, Randall K; Nevzorova, Uliana; Lee, Graham; Mewhort, D J K

2016-03-01

In artificial grammar learning experiments, participants study strings of letters constructed using a grammar and then sort novel grammatical test exemplars from novel ungrammatical ones. The ability to distinguish grammatical from ungrammatical strings is often taken as evidence that the participants have induced the rules of the grammar. We show that judgements of grammaticality are predicted by the local redundancy of the test strings, not by grammaticality itself. The prediction holds in a transfer test in which test strings involve different letters than the training strings. Local redundancy is usually confounded with grammaticality in stimuli widely used in the literature. The confounding explains why the ability to distinguish grammatical from ungrammatical strings has popularized the idea that participants have induced the rules of the grammar, when they have not. We discuss the judgement of grammaticality task in terms of attribute substitution and pattern goodness. When asked to judge grammaticality (an inaccessible attribute), participants answer an easier question about pattern goodness (an accessible attribute).

Compiling a corpus-based dictionary grammar: an example for ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

In this article it is shown how a corpus-based dictionary grammar may be compiled — that is, a mini-grammar fully based on corpus data and specifically written for use in and inte-grated with a dictionary. Such an effort is, to the best of our knowledge, a world's first. We exem-plify our approach for a Northern Sotho ...

A Grammar of Bih

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Nguyen, Tam Thi Minh

2013-01-01

Bih is a Chamic (Austronesian) language spoken by approximately 500 people in the Southern highlands of Vietnam. This dissertation is the first descriptive grammar of the language, based on extensive fieldwork and community-based language documentation in Vietnam and written from a functional/typological perspective. The analysis in this work is…

A grammar of Lepcha

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Plaisier, Heleen

2006-01-01

This book is a descriptive grammar of Lepcha, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Sikkim, Darjeeling district in West Bengal in India, in Ilam district in Nepal, and in a few villages of Samtsi district in south-western Bhutan. The data for this study were collected during several sojourns amongst

THE IMPLICATION OF PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS BELIEF ABOUT GRAMMAR TEACHING AND LEARNING FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE POLICY IN INDONESIA

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Cecilia Titiek Murniati

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Recent studies have suggested that teachers beliefs have a significant influence on actual classroom practice and, consequently, on students achievements. However, little research has been done to investigate the influence of Indonesian language policy and teachers beliefs. The study reported seeks to examine the influence of English language policy on pre-service teacher's beliefs about the teaching of English language grammar in Indonesian schools. The research participants were pre-service teachers who have taken the subjects of Structure, Teaching Methods, and Micro-teaching in three public and private universities in Central Java and Yogyakarta Special District. Due to time and scheduling limitations, the sampling method used in this study was convenient sampling. Documentation, survey schedules, interviews, focus group discussions were used to gather the data. The findings revealed that although the language policy in Indonesia has put English language teaching and learning within the framework of communicative competence since the enactment of the 2006 School-based Curriculum, the pre-service teachers still believed that traditional method of teaching grammar (explicit grammar instruction was imperative to use. The pre-service teachers tended to exclude English language policy enacted by Indonesian government in their discussion about teachers beliefs. Instead, the pre-service teachers constructed their beliefs about English language grammar teaching and learning process on their prior experiences in learning and teaching grammar.

Graph Grammar-Based Multi-Frontal Parallel Direct Solver for Two-Dimensional Isogeometric Analysis

KAUST Repository

Kuźnik, Krzysztof

2012-06-02

This paper introduces the graph grammar based model for developing multi-thread multi-frontal parallel direct solver for two dimensional isogeometric finite element method. Execution of the solver algorithm has been expressed as the sequence of graph grammar productions. At the beginning productions construct the elimination tree with leaves corresponding to finite elements. Following sequence of graph grammar productions generates element frontal matri-ces at leaf nodes, merges matrices at parent nodes and eliminates rows corresponding to fully assembled degrees of freedom. Finally, there are graph grammar productions responsible for root problem solution and recursive backward substitutions. Expressing the solver algorithm by graph grammar productions allows us to explore the concurrency of the algorithm. The graph grammar productions are grouped into sets of independent tasks that can be executed concurrently. The resulting concurrent multi-frontal solver algorithm is implemented and tested on NVIDIA GPU, providing O(NlogN) execution time complexity where N is the number of degrees of freedom. We have confirmed this complexity by solving up to 1 million of degrees of freedom with 448 cores GPU.

Environmental Peace Education in Foreign Language Learners' English Grammar Lessons

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Arikan, Arda

2009-01-01

English language teachers create contexts to teach grammar so that meaningful learning occurs. In this study, English grammar is contextualized through environmental peace education activities to raise students' awareness of global issues. Two sources provided data to evaluate the success of this instructional process. Fourth-year pre-service…

GenoCAD Plant Grammar to Design Plant Expression Vectors for Promoter Analysis.

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Coll, Anna; Wilson, Mandy L; Gruden, Kristina; Peccoud, Jean

2016-01-01

With the rapid advances in prediction tools for discovery of new promoters and their cis-elements, there is a need to improve plant expression methodologies in order to facilitate a high-throughput functional validation of these promoters in planta. The promoter-reporter analysis is an indispensible approach for characterization of plant promoters. It requires the design of complex plant expression vectors, which can be challenging. Here, we describe the use of a plant grammar implemented in GenoCAD that will allow the users to quickly design constructs for promoter analysis experiments but also for other in planta functional studies. The GenoCAD plant grammar includes a library of plant biological parts organized in structural categories to facilitate their use and management and a set of rules that guides the process of assembling these biological parts into large constructs.

Grammar Is a System That Characterizes Talk in Interaction.

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Ginzburg, Jonathan; Poesio, Massimo

2016-01-01

Much of contemporary mainstream formal grammar theory is unable to provide analyses for language as it occurs in actual spoken interaction. Its analyses are developed for a cleaned up version of language which omits the disfluencies, non-sentential utterances, gestures, and many other phenomena that are ubiquitous in spoken language. Using evidence from linguistics, conversation analysis, multimodal communication, psychology, language acquisition, and neuroscience, we show these aspects of language use are rule governed in much the same way as phenomena captured by conventional grammars. Furthermore, we argue that over the past few years some of the tools required to provide a precise characterizations of such phenomena have begun to emerge in theoretical and computational linguistics; hence, there is no reason for treating them as "second class citizens" other than pre-theoretical assumptions about what should fall under the purview of grammar. Finally, we suggest that grammar formalisms covering such phenomena would provide a better foundation not just for linguistic analysis of face-to-face interaction, but also for sister disciplines, such as research on spoken dialogue systems and/or psychological work on language acquisition.

Inductive vs. Deductive Grammar Instruction and the Grammatical Performance of EFL Learners

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Fatemeh Behjat

2008-02-01

Full Text Available Learning a foreign language offers a great challenge to students since it involves learning different skills and subskills. Quite a few number of researches have been done so far on the relationship between gender and learning a foreign language. On the other hand, two major approaches in teaching grammar have been offered by language experts, inductive and deductive. The present study examines which method of teaching grammar is more fruitful for Iranian male and female students. For this purpose, 150 freshman students, 110 females and 40 males, majoring in English were selected from all available students at Abadeh and Shiraz Azad universities. All the subjects took the NTC's grammar test prior to the instruction as pre-test. Then, they were divided into two groups and were taught grammar inductively and deductively in each group for one semester. At the end of the instruction, the same test was taken as post-test. The comparison between the students' pre and post-test indicated that there was a significant improvement in their knowledge of grammar. By the way, through a two-way ANOVA, it was found out that males learned grammar better when they were taught inductively and females showed a better performance when they were taught deductively.

The Role of Sustained Attention in the Production of Conjoined Noun Phrases: An Individual Differences Study.

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Jongman, Suzanne R; Meyer, Antje S; Roelofs, Ardi

2015-01-01

It has previously been shown that language production, performed simultaneously with a nonlinguistic task, involves sustained attention. Sustained attention concerns the ability to maintain alertness over time. Here, we aimed to replicate the previous finding by showing that individuals call upon sustained attention when they plan single noun phrases (e.g., "the carrot") and perform a manual arrow categorization task. In addition, we investigated whether speakers also recruit sustained attention when they produce conjoined noun phrases (e.g., "the carrot and the bucket") describing two pictures, that is, when both the first and second task are linguistic. We found that sustained attention correlated with the proportion of abnormally slow phrase-production responses. Individuals with poor sustained attention displayed a greater number of very slow responses than individuals with better sustained attention. Importantly, this relationship was obtained both for the production of single phrases while performing a nonlinguistic manual task, and the production of noun phrase conjunctions in referring to two spatially separated objects. Inhibition and updating abilities were also measured. These scores did not correlate with our measure of sustained attention, suggesting that sustained attention and executive control are distinct. Overall, the results suggest that planning conjoined noun phrases involves sustained attention, and that language production happens less automatically than has often been assumed.

Influencing feelings of cancer risk: direct and moderator effects of affectively laden phrases in risk communication.

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Janssen, Eva; van Osch, Liesbeth; Lechner, Lilian; de Vries, Hein

2015-01-01

Evidence is accumulating for the importance of feelings of risk in explaining cancer preventive behaviors, but best practices for influencing these feelings are limited. This study investigated the direct and moderational influence of affectively laden phrases in cancer risk messages. Two experimental studies were conducted in relation to different cancer-related behaviors--sunbed use (n = 112) and red meat consumption (n = 447)--among student and nonstudent samples. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: (a) a cognitive message using cognitively laden phrases or (b) an affective message using affectively laden phrases. The results revealed that affective phrases did not directly influence feelings of risk in both studies. Evidence for a moderational influence was found in Study 2, suggesting that affective information strengthened the relation between feelings of risk and intention (i.e., participants relied more on their feelings in the decision-making process after exposure to affective information). These findings suggest that solely using affective phrases in risk communication may not be sufficient to directly influence feelings of risk and other methods need to be explored in future research. Moreover, research is needed to replicate our preliminary indications for a moderational influence of affective phrases to advance theory and practice.

Negative Transfer of L1 on English Grammar Learning in SLA

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

马秀琳

2015-01-01

At present,many scholars pay more attention to the positive transfer of native language on the English learning,while ignoring the negative transfer of L1 on English grammar learning.Therefore native transfer of L1 often appears on English grammar learning.This paper aims to point out that the negative transfer of L1 has a profound and vast influence on the English grammar learning,to find out the countermeasures to reduce the influence of negative transfer of L1 and finally to bring the benefits to the following relative studies.

Grammar-Lexicon Distinction in a Neurocognitive Context

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ishkhanyan, Byurakn

hypotheses and testing them through using various methods. The grammar-lexicon distinction and working memory are thus central topics of this thesis. The results suggest a potential for a successful integration of the two theories. The findings further provide evidence for Boye & Harder’s (2012......) understanding of the grammar-lexicon distinction, and for the involvement of working memory in language production, as the REF-model would predict. As a starting point for integrating the two theories, the present thesis gives directions for future research on the neurocognitive underpinning of language and its...... relation to working memory....

Discovery of a Recursive Principle: An Artificial Grammar Investigation of Human Learning of a Counting Recursion Language.

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Cho, Pyeong Whan; Szkudlarek, Emily; Tabor, Whitney

2016-01-01

Learning is typically understood as a process in which the behavior of an organism is progressively shaped until it closely approximates a target form. It is easy to comprehend how a motor skill or a vocabulary can be progressively learned-in each case, one can conceptualize a series of intermediate steps which lead to the formation of a proficient behavior. With grammar, it is more difficult to think in these terms. For example, center embedding recursive structures seem to involve a complex interplay between multiple symbolic rules which have to be in place simultaneously for the system to work at all, so it is not obvious how the mechanism could gradually come into being. Here, we offer empirical evidence from a new artificial language (or "artificial grammar") learning paradigm, Locus Prediction, that, despite the conceptual conundrum, recursion acquisition occurs gradually, at least for a simple formal language. In particular, we focus on a variant of the simplest recursive language, a (n) b (n) , and find evidence that (i) participants trained on two levels of structure (essentially ab and aabb) generalize to the next higher level (aaabbb) more readily than participants trained on one level of structure (ab) combined with a filler sentence; nevertheless, they do not generalize immediately; (ii) participants trained up to three levels (ab, aabb, aaabbb) generalize more readily to four levels than participants trained on two levels generalize to three; (iii) when we present the levels in succession, starting with the lower levels and including more and more of the higher levels, participants show evidence of transitioning between the levels gradually, exhibiting intermediate patterns of behavior on which they were not trained; (iv) the intermediate patterns of behavior are associated with perturbations of an attractor in the sense of dynamical systems theory. We argue that all of these behaviors indicate a theory of mental representation in which recursive

Transfer and access to universal grammar in adult second language acquisition

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sauter, Kim

2002-01-01

Summary This dissertation focuses on the roles of first language transfer and Universal Grammar in adult second (or foreign) language acquisition. It contributes to the ongoing debate whether second language acquisition is constrained by Universal Grammar. According to generative linguists,

Comparison of Context-free Grammars Based on Parsing Generated Test Data

NARCIS (Netherlands)

B. Fischer (Bernd); R. Lämmel (Ralf); V. Zaytsev (Vadim); U. Aßmann; J. Saraiva; A.M. Sloane

2011-01-01

textabstractThere exist a number of software engineering scenarios that essentially involve equivalence or correspondence assertions for some of the context-free grammars in the scenarios. For instance, when applying grammar transformations during parser development---be it for the sake of

The Role of Grammar in the Writing Curriculum: A Review of the Literature

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Myhill, Debra; Watson, Annabel

2014-01-01

For most Anglophone countries, the history of grammar teaching over the past 50 years is one of contestation, debate and dissent: and 50 years on we are no closer to reaching a consensus about the role of grammar in the English/Language Arts curriculum. The debate has been described through the metaphor of battle and grammar wars (Kamler, 1995;…

Functional Orientation and Practice of Inductive and Deductive Approaches to Grammar Teaching in EFL

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

邵阳

2011-01-01

To solve the ambiguous understanding of Grammar Teaching position,based on explicit grammatical knowledge,this paper discusses the grammar position in EFL,compares both its pros and cons between deductive and inductive approaches,and indicates that grammar teaching by either approach alone has disadvantages,should adopt a combination technique.

Pre-Service English Teachers’ Beliefs Towards Grammar And Its Teaching At Two Turkish Universities

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İsmail Zeki DİKİCİ

2012-07-01

Full Text Available This paper examines pre-service English teachers’ beliefs towards grammar studying at two Turkish Universities. A total of 90 pre-service English teachers, 57 of whom were studying at Muğla University and 33 of whom were studying at Onsekiz Mart University in Turkey, were involved in this study. The research participants completed two questionnaires. The aim of this paper is to look into pre-service English teachers’ beliefs towards grammar and its teaching as well as their knowledge on the metalanguage of grammar. The findings reveal that although a great majority of the participants favour the use of metalanguage in teaching grammar, and support the deductive grammar teaching practises, they themselves still have serious problems even with the most basic grammatical terminology.

Current Issues in the Teaching of Grammar: An SLA Perspective

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Ellis, Rod

2006-01-01

The study of how learners acquire a second language (SLA) has helped to shape thinking about how to teach the grammar of a second language. There remain, however, a number of controversial issues. This paper considers eight key questions relating to grammar pedagogy in the light of findings from SLA. As such, this article complements…

Noticing Grammar in L2 Writing and Problem-Solving Strategies

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Geist, Monika

2017-01-01

Noticing plays an important role for second language acquisition. Since the formulation of the output hypothesis (Swain, 1985), it has been proven that producing output can lead to noticing. Studies on noticing have revealed little focus on grammar, and an in-depth investigation of grammar noticing has not been conducted so far. Studies into…

Strategies Study On Communicative Awareness-raising Approachof Grammar Teaching for English Majors

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

吴俊芳; 童心

2013-01-01

The traditional grammar teaching method can’t make learners communicate in real contexts accurately and luently.The author will probe the effects of communicative approach applied in grammar teaching in this essay.

Chomsky's Universal Grammar and Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics: An Appraisal and a Compromise

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Bavali, Mohammad; Sadighi, Firooz

2008-01-01

Recent developments in theories of language (grammars) seem to share a number of tenets which mark a drastic shift from traditional disentangled descriptions of language: emphasis on a big number of discrete grammatical rules or a corpus of structure patterns has given way to a more unitary, explanatory powerful description of language informed by…

Syntax-driven semantic frame composition in Lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammars

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Laura Kallmeyer

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The grammar framework presented in this paper combines Lexicalized Tree Adjoining Grammar (LTAG with a (decompositional frame semantics. We introduce elementary constructions as pairs of elementary LTAG trees and decompositional frames. The linking between syntax and semantics can largely be captured by such constructions since in LTAG, elementary trees represent full argument projections. Substitution and adjunction in the syntax then trigger the unification of the associated semantic frames, which are formally defined as base-labelled feature structures. Moreover, the system of elementary constructions is specified in a metagrammar by means of tree and frame descriptions. This metagrammatical factorization gives rise to a fine-grained decomposition of the semantic contributions of syntactic building blocks, and it allows us to separate lexical from constructional contributions and to carve out generalizations across constructions. In the second half of the paper, we apply the framework to the analysis of directed motion expressions and of the dative alternation in English, two well-known examples of the interaction between lexical and constructional meaning.

Freshman Students‟ Attitudes and Behavior towards Advanced Grammar and Composition Teaching

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Romel M. Aceron

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Teaching English advanced grammar and composition to college students is important as it provides them with high level of understanding and competence in the language. It guides them in putting words together into sentences and makes them orally produce sounds clearly and effectively. This paper aims to determine the attitudes and behavior towards advanced grammar and composition teaching among freshman college students of Batangas State University. Descriptive method of research has been used to analyze and interpret data. The following instruments such as self-made questionnaire, focus group discussion, data analysis, interview guide, have been utilized to gather data. To analyze and interpret data, mean scores have been used. Pearson’s (r Product Moment Correlation Method has been utilized to treat the null hypothesis with regard to the attitudes and behavior of the students towards advanced grammar and composition teaching. Based on the findings of the study, the students sometimes understand and feel the subject matters, i.e., morphology, phonology, grammar and usage, and mechanics and composition writing. They are also sometimes ready in particular lesson and activity which are given to them in class. The study also reveals that there is no significant relationship between the students’ attitudes and behavior towards AGCT. In this regard, college students taking advanced grammar and composition course must be well-motivated to understand, and must have the readiness to perform the activities entail in the subject areas of morphology, phonology, grammar and usage, and mechanics and composition writing through teacher’s varied approaches, strategies, researches, and integration.

Textual, Genre and Social Features of Spoken Grammar: A Corpus-Based Approach

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Carmen Pérez-Llantada

2009-02-01

Full Text Available This paper describes a corpus-based approach to teaching and learning spoken grammar for English for Academic Purposes with reference to Bhatia’s (2002 multi-perspective model for discourse analysis: a textual perspective, a genre perspective and a social perspective. From a textual perspective, corpus-informed instruction helps students identify grammar items through statistical frequencies, collocational patterns, context-sensitive meanings and discoursal uses of words. From a genre perspective, corpus observation provides students with exposure to recurrent lexico-grammatical patterns across different academic text types (genres. From a social perspective, corpus models can be used to raise learners’ awareness of how speakers’ different discourse roles, discourse privileges and power statuses are enacted in their grammar choices. The paper describes corpus-based instructional procedures, gives samples of learners’ linguistic output, and provides comments on the students’ response to this method of instruction. Data resulting from the assessment process and student production suggest that corpus-informed instruction grounded in Bhatia’s multi-perspective model can constitute a pedagogical approach in order to i obtain positive student responses from input and authentic samples of grammar use, ii help students identify and understand the textual, genre and social aspects of grammar in real contexts of use, and therefore iii help develop students’ ability to use grammar accurately and appropriately.

Existential Grammar for Composition.

Science.gov (United States)

Merchant, Frank

The teaching of grammar has been in sad decline since medieval times, when it included the whole skill of creating in language. Our textbook community has moved through a series of ineffective fashions, from those of Fries to post-Chomsky. All have presumed to replace prescriptive rules with realistic explanations. But all have fallen, like the…

RESPONDING AND ANALYSING: STAGES OF TEACHING FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR IN INDONESIAN CONTEXT

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Lala Bumela

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract: This paper offers an alternative to the teaching of a functional grammar course in Indonesian TEFL tertiary level context. An issue raised here is whether the course should directly require students to undertake textual analysis or provide them first with subjective reading experiences.  This issue is inspired by Jones and Lock¹s approach to teaching grammar in context (2011. This paper reports on a study that focused on two related phases of dealing with texts: responding and analyzing.  In the first phase, students were encouraged to take a personalised approach in responding to written English texts.  They had the freedom to decide whether the texts were meaningful for them in certain ways. Mckee (2003 and Lehtonen (2000 posit that as the sole decision maker in meaning negotiation, readers perceive the meaningfulness of texts in very diverse ways. In the second phase of the study, the students undertook an individual analysis of different text types.  This study reveals that a successful textual analysis is determined by how students make sense of the texts. The analysis of context of situation, for example, becomes meaningful to students after they demonstrate a proper position as a reader.  This, in turn, helps them in gaining insights into the structure and grammar of those texts.   Keywords: systemic functional linguistics, genre-based approach, textual analysis

Towards a Rationale for Research into Grammar Teaching in Schools

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Fontich, Xavier; Camps, Anna

2014-01-01

This article hopes to bring new insights to the debate about the effect of grammar knowledge on language use, especially writing. It raises the question of the need to look more closely at the following three questions: (1) What is the aim of grammar teaching?; (2) How capable are students of conceptualising about language and how is their…

Functional Grammar and Its Implications for English Teaching and Learning

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Feng, Zhiwen

2013-01-01

Functional grammar has received more and more attention from domestic scholars in the world of linguistics since 1970s, but it is still new to most EFL teachers. In spite of controversies about its applications into classroom teaching, this new grammar model has its own advantages and can facilitate EFL students to achieve academic success. This…

Linguistic grammar learning and DRD2-TAQ-IA polymorphism.

Science.gov (United States)

Wong, Patrick C M; Ettlinger, Marc; Zheng, Jing

2013-01-01

As research into the neurobiology of language has focused primarily on the systems level, fewer studies have examined the link between molecular genetics and normal variations in language functions. Because the ability to learn a language varies in adults and our genetic codes also vary, research linking the two provides a unique window into the molecular neurobiology of language. We consider a candidate association between the dopamine receptor D2 gene (DRD2) and linguistic grammar learning. DRD2-TAQ-IA polymorphism (rs1800497) is associated with dopamine receptor D2 distribution and dopamine impact in the human striatum, such that A1 allele carriers show reduction in D2 receptor binding relative to carriers who are homozygous for the A2 allele. The individual differences in grammatical rule learning that are particularly prevalent in adulthood are also associated with striatal function and its role in domain-general procedural memory. Therefore, we reasoned that procedurally-based grammar learning could be associated with DRD2-TAQ-IA polymorphism. Here, English-speaking adults learned artificial concatenative and analogical grammars, which have been respectively associated with procedural and declarative memory. Language learning capabilities were tested while learners' neural hemodynamic responses were simultaneously measured by fMRI. Behavioral learning and brain activation data were subsequently compared with the learners' DRD2 (rs1800497) genotype. Learners who were homozygous for the A2 allele were better at concatenative (but not analogical) grammar learning and had higher striatal responses relative to those who have at least one A1 allele. These results provide preliminary evidence for the neurogenetic basis of normal variations in linguistic grammar learning and its link to domain-general functions.

The construction of semantic memory: grammar based representations learned from relational episodic information

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Francesco P Battaglia

2011-08-01

Full Text Available After acquisition, memories underlie a process of consolidation, making them more resistant to interference and brain injury. Memory consolidation involves systems-level interactions, most importantly between the hippocampus and associated structures, which takes part in the initial encoding of memory, and the neocortex, which supports long-term storage. This dichotomy parallels the contrast between episodic memory (tied to the hippocampal formation, collecting an autobiographical stream of experiences, and semantic memory, a repertoire of facts and statistical regularities about the world, involving the neocortex at large. Experimental evidence points to a gradual transformation of memories, following encoding, from an episodic to a semantic character. This may require an exchange of information between different memory modules during inactive periods. We propose a theory for such interactions and for the formation of semantic memory, in which episodic memory is encoded as relational data. Semantic memory is modeled as a modified stochastic grammar, which learns to parse episodic configurations expressed as an association matrix. The grammar produces tree-like representations of episodes, describing the relationships between its main constituents at multiple levels of categorization, based on its current knowledge of world regularities. These regularities are learned by the grammar from episodic memory information, through an expectation-maximization procedure, analogous to the inside-outside algorithm for stochastic context-free grammars. We propose that a Monte-Carlo sampling version of this algorithm can be mapped on the dynamics of ``sleep replay'' of previously acquired information in the hippocampus and neocortex. We propose that the model can reproduce several properties of semantic memory such as decontextualization, top-down processing, and creation of schemata.

The Construction of Semantic Memory: Grammar-Based Representations Learned from Relational Episodic Information

Science.gov (United States)

Battaglia, Francesco P.; Pennartz, Cyriel M. A.

2011-01-01

After acquisition, memories underlie a process of consolidation, making them more resistant to interference and brain injury. Memory consolidation involves systems-level interactions, most importantly between the hippocampus and associated structures, which takes part in the initial encoding of memory, and the neocortex, which supports long-term storage. This dichotomy parallels the contrast between episodic memory (tied to the hippocampal formation), collecting an autobiographical stream of experiences, and semantic memory, a repertoire of facts and statistical regularities about the world, involving the neocortex at large. Experimental evidence points to a gradual transformation of memories, following encoding, from an episodic to a semantic character. This may require an exchange of information between different memory modules during inactive periods. We propose a theory for such interactions and for the formation of semantic memory, in which episodic memory is encoded as relational data. Semantic memory is modeled as a modified stochastic grammar, which learns to parse episodic configurations expressed as an association matrix. The grammar produces tree-like representations of episodes, describing the relationships between its main constituents at multiple levels of categorization, based on its current knowledge of world regularities. These regularities are learned by the grammar from episodic memory information, through an expectation-maximization procedure, analogous to the inside–outside algorithm for stochastic context-free grammars. We propose that a Monte-Carlo sampling version of this algorithm can be mapped on the dynamics of “sleep replay” of previously acquired information in the hippocampus and neocortex. We propose that the model can reproduce several properties of semantic memory such as decontextualization, top-down processing, and creation of schemata. PMID:21887143

The Influence of Texting Language on Grammar and Executive Functions in Primary School Children.

Science.gov (United States)

van Dijk, Chantal N; van Witteloostuijn, Merel; Vasić, Nada; Avrutin, Sergey; Blom, Elma

2016-01-01

When sending text messages on their mobile phone to friends, children often use a special type of register, which is called textese. This register allows the omission of words and the use of textisms: instances of non-standard written language such as 4ever (forever). Previous studies have shown that textese has a positive effect on children's literacy abilities. In addition, it is possible that children's grammar system is affected by textese as well, as grammar rules are often transgressed in this register. Therefore, the main aim of this study was to investigate whether the use of textese influences children's grammar performance, and whether this effect is specific to grammar or language in general. Additionally, studies have not yet investigated the influence of textese on children's cognitive abilities. Consequently, the secondary aim of this study was to find out whether textese affects children's executive functions. To investigate this, 55 children between 10 and 13 years old were tested on a receptive vocabulary and grammar performance (sentence repetition) task and various tasks measuring executive functioning. In addition, text messages were elicited and the number of omissions and textisms in children's messages were calculated. Regression analyses showed that omissions were a significant predictor of children's grammar performance after various other variables were controlled for: the more words children omitted in their text messages, the better their performance on the grammar task. Although textisms correlated (marginally) significantly with vocabulary, grammar and selective attention scores and omissions marginally significantly with vocabulary scores, no other significant effects were obtained for measures of textese in the regression analyses: neither for the language outcomes, nor for the executive function tasks. Hence, our results show that textese is positively related to children's grammar performance. On the other hand, use of textese does

The Influence of Texting Language on Grammar and Executive Functions in Primary School Children.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chantal N van Dijk

Full Text Available When sending text messages on their mobile phone to friends, children often use a special type of register, which is called textese. This register allows the omission of words and the use of textisms: instances of non-standard written language such as 4ever (forever. Previous studies have shown that textese has a positive effect on children's literacy abilities. In addition, it is possible that children's grammar system is affected by textese as well, as grammar rules are often transgressed in this register. Therefore, the main aim of this study was to investigate whether the use of textese influences children's grammar performance, and whether this effect is specific to grammar or language in general. Additionally, studies have not yet investigated the influence of textese on children's cognitive abilities. Consequently, the secondary aim of this study was to find out whether textese affects children's executive functions. To investigate this, 55 children between 10 and 13 years old were tested on a receptive vocabulary and grammar performance (sentence repetition task and various tasks measuring executive functioning. In addition, text messages were elicited and the number of omissions and textisms in children's messages were calculated. Regression analyses showed that omissions were a significant predictor of children's grammar performance after various other variables were controlled for: the more words children omitted in their text messages, the better their performance on the grammar task. Although textisms correlated (marginally significantly with vocabulary, grammar and selective attention scores and omissions marginally significantly with vocabulary scores, no other significant effects were obtained for measures of textese in the regression analyses: neither for the language outcomes, nor for the executive function tasks. Hence, our results show that textese is positively related to children's grammar performance. On the other hand

Abstract Interpretation Using Attribute Grammar

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rosendahl, Mads

1990-01-01

This paper deals with the correctness proofs of attribute grammars using methods from abstract interpretation. The technique will be described by defining a live-variable analysis for a small flow-chart language and proving it correct with respect to a continuation style semantics. The proof...

Grammar Correction in the Writing Centre: Expectations and Experiences of Monolingual and Multilingual Writers

Science.gov (United States)

Eckstein, Grant

2016-01-01

Although most writing centres maintain policies against providing grammar correction during writing tutorials, it is undeniable that students expect some level of grammar intervention there. Just how much students expect and receive is a matter of speculation. This article examines the grammar-correction issue by reporting on a survey of L1, L2,…

Pre-Service English as a Foreign Language Teachers' Belief Development about Grammar Instruction

Science.gov (United States)

Çapan, Seyit Ahmet

2014-01-01

This study aims to investigate pre-service English as Foreign Language (EFL) teachers' beliefs about grammar instruction in a foreign language (FL) context through their initial teaching practices. Analyses of semi-structured interviews and classroom observations apart from pre-and post-test results of participants' responses to a belief…

THE USE OF THE GRAMMAR-TRANSLATION METHOD IN CHINA

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

1994-01-01

Introduction Among the plethora of foreign language teaching methods and approaches there are the grammar-translation method, the direct method, the audiolingual method and the communicative approach to name but a few. Of the major methods, grammar-translation gets the most criticism and is thought to be obsolete. However, in my view it is suitable for China given the country’s present language learning situation, and, in practice, is not at all ineffectual.

Grammar Learning Strategies and Language Attainment: Seeking a Relationship

OpenAIRE

Pawlak Mirosław

2009-01-01

Despite major advances in research on language learning strategies, there are still areas that have received only scant attention, and one of them is undoubtedly learning grammar. The paper contributes to the paucity of empirical investigations in this domain by presenting the findings of a study which sought to investigate the relationship between the use of grammar learning strategies (GLS) reported by 142 English Department students and target language attainment, operationalized as their ...

How to describe grammar and vocabulary in ELT

CERN Document Server

Liu, Dilin

2013-01-01

Language description plays an important role in language learning/teaching because it often determines what specific language forms, features, and usages are taught and how. A good understanding of language description is vital for language teachers and material writers and should constitute an important part of their knowledge. This book provides a balanced treatment of both theory and practice. It focuses on some of the most important and challenging grammar and vocabulary usage questions. Using these questions as examples, it shows how theory can inform practice and how grammar and vocab

Performance of children with developmental dyslexia on high and low topological entropy artificial grammar learning task.

Science.gov (United States)

Katan, Pesia; Kahta, Shani; Sasson, Ayelet; Schiff, Rachel

2017-07-01

Graph complexity as measured by topological entropy has been previously shown to affect performance on artificial grammar learning tasks among typically developing children. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of graph complexity on implicit sequential learning among children with developmental dyslexia. Our goal was to determine whether children's performance depends on the complexity level of the grammar system learned. We conducted two artificial grammar learning experiments that compared performance of children with developmental dyslexia with that of age- and reading level-matched controls. Experiment 1 was a high topological entropy artificial grammar learning task that aimed to establish implicit learning phenomena in children with developmental dyslexia using previously published experimental conditions. Experiment 2 is a lower topological entropy variant of that task. Results indicated that given a high topological entropy grammar system, children with developmental dyslexia who were similar to the reading age-matched control group had substantial difficulty in performing the task as compared to typically developing children, who exhibited intact implicit learning of the grammar. On the other hand, when tested on a lower topological entropy grammar system, all groups performed above chance level, indicating that children with developmental dyslexia were able to identify rules from a given grammar system. The results reinforced the significance of graph complexity when experimenting with artificial grammar learning tasks, particularly with dyslexic participants.

Input-Based Approaches to Teaching Grammar: A Review of Classroom-Oriented Research.

Science.gov (United States)

Ellis, Rod

1999-01-01

Examines the theoretical rationales (universal grammar, information-processing theories, skill-learning theories) for input-based grammar teaching and reviews classroom-oriented research (i.e., enriched-input studies, input-processing studies) that has integrated this option. (Author/VWL)

Connectivity of the hippocampus and Broca's area during acquisition of a novel grammar.

Science.gov (United States)

Kepinska, Olga; de Rover, Mischa; Caspers, Johanneke; Schiller, Niels O

2018-01-15

Following Opitz and Friederici (2003) suggesting interactions of the hippocampal system and the prefrontal cortex as the neural mechanism underlying novel grammar learning, the present fMRI study investigated functional connectivity of bilateral BA 44/45 and the hippocampus during an artificial grammar learning (AGL) task. Our results, contrary to the previously reported interactions, demonstrated parallel (but separate) contributions of both regions, each with their own interactions, to the process of novel grammar acquisition. The functional connectivity pattern of Broca's area pointed to the importance of coherent activity of left frontal areas around the core language processing region for successful grammar learning. Furthermore, connectivity patterns of left and right hippocampi (predominantly with occipital areas) were found to be a strong predictor of high performance on the task. Finally, increasing functional connectivity over time of both left and right BA 44/45 with the right posterior cingulate cortex and the right temporo-parietal areas points to the importance of multimodal and attentional processes supporting novel grammar acquisition. Moreover, it highlights the right-hemispheric involvement in initial stages of L2 learning. These latter interactions were found to operate irrespective of the task performance, making them an obligatory mechanism accompanying novel grammar learning. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Template-based generation of natural language expressions with Controlled M-Grammar

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Appelo, Lisette; Leermakers, M.C.J.; Rous, J.H.G.

1993-01-01

A method is described for the generation of related natural-language expressions. The method is based on a formal grammar of the natural language in question, specified in the Controlled M-Grammar (CMG) formalism. In the CMG framework the generation of an utterance is controlled by a derivation

Network Analysis with Stochastic Grammars

Science.gov (United States)

2015-09-17

rules N = 0 //non-terminal index clusters = cluster(W) //number of clusters drive the number S productions //cluster function described in text...Essa, “Recognizing multitasked activities from video using stochastic context-free grammar,” AAAI/IAAI, pp. 770–776, 2002. [18] R. Nevatia, T. Zhao

A Grammar of Logba (Ikpana)

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dorvlo, Kofi

2008-01-01

This dissertation presents a comprehensive description of the grammar of Logba, one of the fourteen Ghana-Togo Mountain (GTM) languages spoken by approximately 7,500 speakers on the Southeastern frontier of the Ghana-Togo border. It is the outcome of fifteen months research in Logba speaking

Individual differences in adult foreign language learning: the mediating effect of metalinguistic awareness.

Science.gov (United States)

Brooks, Patricia J; Kempe, Vera

2013-02-01

In this study, we sought to identify cognitive predictors of individual differences in adult foreign-language learning and to test whether metalinguistic awareness mediated the observed relationships. Using a miniature language-learning paradigm, adults (N = 77) learned Russian vocabulary and grammar (gender agreement and case marking) over six 1-h sessions, completing tasks that encouraged attention to phrases without explicitly teaching grammatical rules. The participants' ability to describe the Russian gender and case-marking patterns mediated the effects of nonverbal intelligence and auditory sequence learning on grammar learning and generalization. Hence, even under implicit-learning conditions, individual differences stemmed from explicit metalinguistic awareness of the underlying grammar, which, in turn, was linked to nonverbal intelligence and auditory sequence learning. Prior knowledge of languages with grammatical gender (predominantly Spanish) predicted learning of gender agreement. Transfer of knowledge of gender from other languages to Russian was not mediated by awareness, which suggests that transfer operates through an implicit process akin to structural priming.

The Effect of MALL-Based Tasks on EFL Learners' Grammar Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Khodabandeh, Farzaneh; Alian, Jalal ed-din; Soleimani, Hassan

2017-01-01

Many studies have confirmed the importance of tasks on language learning. Nowadays, many teachers apply different kinds of tasks in their classrooms. The current study investigated the effect of mobile assisted language learning tasks (MALL) on participants' English grammar learning. The researcher administered a pre-validated grammar test to 90…

Some Effects of Explicit Grammar Instruction and Syntactic Priming on Students’ Written Language Production

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rahman Muhammad Asfah

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Structural or syntactic priming is a phenomenon in which prior exposure to specific language structures either facilitates or interferes with a learner’s subsequent language production [1]. Exposure to English structures through explicit instruction is reported to have inconclusive results. [2] reported that explicit and implicit grammar instruction ends up with automatization. This study reexamines the effect of syntactic priming and explicit grammar instruction on students’ writing. Specific grammatical features frequently appeared on TOEFL (Written Expression Section test were intensively practiced and then the students took a test whose items were specifically collected from TOEFL practice tests. Finally, the students were assigned to write a short essay. Sentences with similar structures which the students had been exposed to were extracted from the students’ essays. Out of 40 test items, only 59.86% in average could be answered correctly, and all of the grammatical features to which the students were previously exposed were contained in their essays. However, in average only eight out of 18 sentences were grammatically constructed. It can be concluded that although priming method with explicit instruction leads the students to use similar syntactic features in their writing, it seems to have little impact on students’ grammatical knowledge for immediate use in written language production.

Linguistic grammar learning and DRD2-TAQ-IA polymorphism.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Patrick C M Wong

Full Text Available As research into the neurobiology of language has focused primarily on the systems level, fewer studies have examined the link between molecular genetics and normal variations in language functions. Because the ability to learn a language varies in adults and our genetic codes also vary, research linking the two provides a unique window into the molecular neurobiology of language. We consider a candidate association between the dopamine receptor D2 gene (DRD2 and linguistic grammar learning. DRD2-TAQ-IA polymorphism (rs1800497 is associated with dopamine receptor D2 distribution and dopamine impact in the human striatum, such that A1 allele carriers show reduction in D2 receptor binding relative to carriers who are homozygous for the A2 allele. The individual differences in grammatical rule learning that are particularly prevalent in adulthood are also associated with striatal function and its role in domain-general procedural memory. Therefore, we reasoned that procedurally-based grammar learning could be associated with DRD2-TAQ-IA polymorphism. Here, English-speaking adults learned artificial concatenative and analogical grammars, which have been respectively associated with procedural and declarative memory. Language learning capabilities were tested while learners' neural hemodynamic responses were simultaneously measured by fMRI. Behavioral learning and brain activation data were subsequently compared with the learners' DRD2 (rs1800497 genotype. Learners who were homozygous for the A2 allele were better at concatenative (but not analogical grammar learning and had higher striatal responses relative to those who have at least one A1 allele. These results provide preliminary evidence for the neurogenetic basis of normal variations in linguistic grammar learning and its link to domain-general functions.

DEVELOPING DIGITAL ENGLISH GRAMMAR MATERIALS FOR THE SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Agnes Santi Widiati

2017-04-01

Full Text Available English has become the tool for communication among the people across countries, and schools are competing to provide English for the students as early as possible. There are plenty ready-to-use digital English modules in the market today; however, they are not relevant with the English syllabus of the primary or secondary schools. The teaching is focused on the four skills directed for communication. As such, grammar is not presented as a part of the English lessons; but only when needed to support the four skills. The absence of systematic design of English grammar lesson makes their grammar mastery weak. To fix this, the writers develop grammar materials for the secondary school, specifically for the tenth graders. Young people love working with computers or other kinds of modern gadgets, so the materials developed in this research are in the digital form, both usable by teachers at school and by students independently via the Internet. Based on the needs assessment executed in high schools in Surabaya, Sidoarjo, and Malang, the researchers have obtained the inputs about the grammar topics needed and the types of exercises preferred by the students. Articulate Storyline 2 software is used to develop the materials supported by animation and voice recording. Each module covers the objectives, description, exercises equipped with feedbacks, and quizzes with scores to measure the achievement of the objectives.

Supporting intra-group social metacognitive activities with technology: A grammar learning game

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Molenaar, I.; Horvers, A.; Desain, P.W.M.

2017-01-01

This study investigates the effects of a technology enhanced collaborative grammar learning activity on students sentence parsing and formulation. These types of collaborative learning activities for grammar education are expected to support more effective learning. Yet, effective intra-group social

On restricted context-free grammars

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Dassow, J.; Masopust, Tomáš

2012-01-01

Roč. 78, č. 1 (2012), s. 293-304 ISSN 0022-0000 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z10190503 Keywords : context-free grammars * derivation restriction * normal forms Subject RIV: BA - General Mathematics Impact factor: 1.000, year: 2012 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022000011000572

Bits of Experience in the Oral Practice of Teaching Grammar

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

王敏

2002-01-01

English learners may have such experience that most of them can't be able to speak English apropriately and fluently even if they have gained a lot of grammar knowledge. The approach of teaching grammar discussed in this paper focuses on training students' communicative ability. And it is benefical to stimulating the activeness and interest of students and fostering the ability to solve the problems independently.

Normal ordering problem and the extensions of the Stirling grammar

Science.gov (United States)

Ma, S.-M.; Mansour, T.; Schork, M.

2014-04-01

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the connection between context-free grammars and normal ordered problem, and then to explore various extensions of the Stirling grammar. We present grammatical characterizations of several well known combinatorial sequences, including the generalized Stirling numbers of the second kind related to the normal ordered problem and the r-Dowling polynomials. Also, possible avenues for future research are described.

The effect of event repetition on the production of story grammar in children's event narratives.

Science.gov (United States)

Feltis, Brooke B; Powell, Martine B; Roberts, Kim P

2011-03-01

This study examined the effect of event repetition on the amount and nature of story-grammar produced by children when recalling the event. Children aged 4 years (N=50) and 7 years (N=56) participated in either 1 or 6 occurrences of a highly similar event where details varied across the occurrences. Half the children in each age and event group recalled the last/single occurrence 5-6 days later and the other half recalled the last/single occurrence after 5-6 weeks (the final and single occurrence was the same). Children's free recall responses were classified according to the number and proportion of story-grammar elements (Stein & Glenn, 1979-setting, initiating event, internal response, plan, attempt, direct consequence, and resolution) as well as the prevalence of causal links between the individual story-grammar elements. More story-grammar detail and more links between individual story-grammar elements were reported about the final compared to single occurrence. The amount of story-grammar increased with age and decreased over time. Further, an interaction was revealed such that the effect of retention interval on the production of story-grammar was negligible for older children who experienced the repeated event. Event repetition has a beneficial effect on the production of children's story-grammar content in situations where event details varied from occasion to occasion. This study highlights the importance of eliciting free recall when conducting evidential interviews with child witnesses about repeated events. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The relationship between grammar and the psychological ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The relationship between grammar and the psychological processing of language. ... manner in which speakers perceive and psycholinguistically process information. ... order, metaphorical extensions, processing constraints, end-focus theory

7 CFR 15f.4 - What do certain words and phrases in these regulations mean?

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false What do certain words and phrases in these regulations mean? 15f.4 Section 15f.4 Agriculture Office of the Secretary of Agriculture ADJUDICATIONS UNDER....4 What do certain words and phrases in these regulations mean? Agency means the USDA agency, office...

Teachers' Attitudes towards Teaching English Grammar: A Scale Development Study

Science.gov (United States)

Polat, Murat

2017-01-01

In most ELT classes, the importance of grammar, how it should be taught or how much it should be integrated into language teaching are still matters of discussion. Considering this fact, learning teachers' attitudes towards teaching grammar is significantly valuable for researchers. This study thus aimed to design a scale that identifies teachers'…

Density of Visual Input Enhancement and Grammar Learning: A Research Proposal

Science.gov (United States)

Tran, Thu Hoang

2009-01-01

Research in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) has been done to ascertain the effectiveness of visual input enhancement (VIE) on grammar learning. However, one issue remains unexplored: the effects of VIE density on grammar learning. This paper presents a research proposal to investigate the effects of the density of VIE on English…

Consistent Parameter and Transfer Function Estimation using Context Free Grammars

Science.gov (United States)

Klotz, Daniel; Herrnegger, Mathew; Schulz, Karsten

2017-04-01

This contribution presents a method for the inference of transfer functions for rainfall-runoff models. Here, transfer functions are defined as parametrized (functional) relationships between a set of spatial predictors (e.g. elevation, slope or soil texture) and model parameters. They are ultimately used for estimation of consistent, spatially distributed model parameters from a limited amount of lumped global parameters. Additionally, they provide a straightforward method for parameter extrapolation from one set of basins to another and can even be used to derive parameterizations for multi-scale models [see: Samaniego et al., 2010]. Yet, currently an actual knowledge of the transfer functions is often implicitly assumed. As a matter of fact, for most cases these hypothesized transfer functions can rarely be measured and often remain unknown. Therefore, this contribution presents a general method for the concurrent estimation of the structure of transfer functions and their respective (global) parameters. Note, that by consequence an estimation of the distributed parameters of the rainfall-runoff model is also undertaken. The method combines two steps to achieve this. The first generates different possible transfer functions. The second then estimates the respective global transfer function parameters. The structural estimation of the transfer functions is based on the context free grammar concept. Chomsky first introduced context free grammars in linguistics [Chomsky, 1956]. Since then, they have been widely applied in computer science. But, to the knowledge of the authors, they have so far not been used in hydrology. Therefore, the contribution gives an introduction to context free grammars and shows how they can be constructed and used for the structural inference of transfer functions. This is enabled by new methods from evolutionary computation, such as grammatical evolution [O'Neill, 2001], which make it possible to exploit the constructed grammar as a

The growth of language: Universal Grammar, experience, and principles of computation.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Charles; Crain, Stephen; Berwick, Robert C; Chomsky, Noam; Bolhuis, Johan J

2017-10-01

Human infants develop language remarkably rapidly and without overt instruction. We argue that the distinctive ontogenesis of child language arises from the interplay of three factors: domain-specific principles of language (Universal Grammar), external experience, and properties of non-linguistic domains of cognition including general learning mechanisms and principles of efficient computation. We review developmental evidence that children make use of hierarchically composed structures ('Merge') from the earliest stages and at all levels of linguistic organization. At the same time, longitudinal trajectories of development show sensitivity to the quantity of specific patterns in the input, which suggests the use of probabilistic processes as well as inductive learning mechanisms that are suitable for the psychological constraints on language acquisition. By considering the place of language in human biology and evolution, we propose an approach that integrates principles from Universal Grammar and constraints from other domains of cognition. We outline some initial results of this approach as well as challenges for future research. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Multiple Grammars and the Logic of Learnability in L2

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tom W Roeper

2016-02-01

Full Text Available The goal of this article is to enhance the technical description of multi-lingual speakers in terms of a theoryof Multiple Grammars where more than one language utilizes a grammar. The challenge of V2 and itsimplications for interfaces from the perspective of the L2 learner is the focus. A number of constructionsare considered including: Quotation, Topicaliation, Empty subjects and Objects, Expletives, and Subject-auxiliary inversoni.

Teaching Grammar through Task-Based Language Teaching to Young EFL Learners

Science.gov (United States)

Yildiz, Mustafa; Senel, Mufit

2017-01-01

The present study investigates the effects of Task-Based Language Teaching on students' grammar knowledge in the field of teaching grammar. It has been studied with 32 students from 8th grade during a two-and-a-half-month process. Throughout this process, students firstly are applied a pre-test to examine their level and to confirm whether there…

Contemporary Tutorial Call: Using Purpose-Built Video as a Grammar Tutor

Science.gov (United States)

Merlo, Jarrad R.; Gruba, Paul A.

2015-01-01

Despite an increased emphasis on form-focused instruction (FFI), the use of the computer as a grammar tutor has remained largely unexamined for nearly two decades. With new technologies at hand, there is a need to take a fresh look at online grammar tutors and link designs more strongly to contemporary second language acquisition (SLA) principles…

Graph Grammar-Based Multi-Frontal Parallel Direct Solver for Two-Dimensional Isogeometric Analysis

KAUST Repository

Kuźnik, Krzysztof; Paszyński, Maciej; Calo, Victor M.

2012-01-01

at parent nodes and eliminates rows corresponding to fully assembled degrees of freedom. Finally, there are graph grammar productions responsible for root problem solution and recursive backward substitutions. Expressing the solver algorithm by graph grammar

Grammar Texts and Consumerist Subtexts

Science.gov (United States)

Sokolik, M. E.

2007-01-01

While several checklists exist for the evaluation of ESL/EFL textbooks, none includes suggestions for looking for specific biases, especially those found in the content of examples and sample sentences. Growing awareness in publishing has reduced problems in the presentation of gender-based and racial biases in most ESL/EFL grammar textbooks, but…

Transformational Grammar and Cognitive Psycholinguistics.

Science.gov (United States)

Lester, Mark

1973-01-01

An overview of Noam Chomsky's theories about transformational grammar and phonology is given. Since Chomsky was interested in characterizing what it is to know a language, the ways in which we demonstrate knowledge of our native language are discussed in detail. Particular emphasis is placed on describing how the transformational approach actually…

Readings in Applied Transformational Grammar.

Science.gov (United States)

Lester, Mark, Ed.

This volume contains nineteen essays, dealing with various aspects of transformational grammar, by scholars such as Noam Chomsky, Eric H. Lenneberg, and Leon Jakobovits. These essays have been reprinted from sources such as "College English" and "Language Learning" and are intended for the most part for a nontechnical audience. The anthology is…

Assessing Primary Literacy through Grammar Tests

Science.gov (United States)

Hodgson, John

2017-01-01

Originally an editorial for "English in Education," this short article summarises key issues in the imposition of a separate test for grammar, punctuation and spelling. It illustrates the poor foundations, lack of clarity and distortion of curriculum which invalidate the test.

A Tentative Analysis of the Origin of Middle Chinese Grammar and Its Historical Position

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Liu Shizhen

2007-10-01

Full Text Available Middle Chinese is thelanguage used in the period from the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Sui Dynasty. Inrecent years researches of Middle Chinese have attracted scholars’ attention.While it inherited some characteristics from the grammar of Ancient Chinese,the morphology and syntax of Middle Chinese underwent obvious elimination andnew birth, an important content which laid the foundation for the furtherevolution of the Early Modern Chinese Grammar. Numerous grammatical phenomenonstarted to appear in Tang and Song Dynasties. The grammar was going through achange in which new forms replaced old ones, thus being the mediator ininheriting the archaic and beginning the early modern grammar, and thereforeoccupying an important position in the history of Chinese.

Mobile-Assisted Grammar Exercises: Effects on Self-Editing in L2 Writing

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Zhi; Hegelheimer, Volker

2013-01-01

In this paper, we report on the development and implementation of a web-based mobile application, "Grammar Clinic," for an ESL writing class. Drawing on insights from the interactionist approach to Second Language Acquisition (SLA), the Noticing Hypothesis, and mobile-assisted language learning (MALL), "Grammar Clinic" was…

The Role of Simple Semantics in the Process of Artificial Grammar Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Öttl, Birgit; Jäger, Gerhard; Kaup, Barbara

2017-01-01

This study investigated the effect of semantic information on artificial grammar learning (AGL). Recursive grammars of different complexity levels (regular language, mirror language, copy language) were investigated in a series of AGL experiments. In the with-semantics condition, participants acquired semantic information prior to the AGL…

THE GRAMMAR OF DISNEY LONG ANIMATIONS: A STRUCTURALIST READING

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vyrna Santosa

2003-01-01

Full Text Available Treating several animated films as texts, the analysis of this particular genre of entertainment is using structuralist narratology, which is applied to establish a general grammar of Disney long animations by revealing the underlying rules governing the tilm narratives. Discussing the typical characters and actions, the construction of "function", and the significant actions which shape the story, this study reveals the six actant/roles based on the prescribed characterization, three basic patterns of how each actant is related to one another, and the twelve sets of basic arrangement of functions as the single basic structure of all Disney long animations. This study proves how loyal and consistent the creators of Disney long animations are toward the underlying basic structure of the story.

Neural correlates of lexicon and grammar: evidence from the production, reading, and judgment of inflection in aphasia.

Science.gov (United States)

Ullman, Michael T; Pancheva, Roumyana; Love, Tracy; Yee, Eiling; Swinney, David; Hickok, Gregory

2005-05-01

Are the linguistic forms that are memorized in the mental lexicon and those that are specified by the rules of grammar subserved by distinct neurocognitive systems or by a single computational system with relatively broad anatomic distribution? On a dual-system view, the productive -ed-suffixation of English regular past tense forms (e.g., look-looked) depends upon the mental grammar, whereas irregular forms (e.g., dig-dug) are retrieved from lexical memory. On a single-mechanism view, the computation of both past tense types depends on associative memory. Neurological double dissociations between regulars and irregulars strengthen the dual-system view. The computation of real and novel, regular and irregular past tense forms was investigated in 20 aphasic subjects. Aphasics with non-fluent agrammatic speech and left frontal lesions were consistently more impaired at the production, reading, and judgment of regular than irregular past tenses. Aphasics with fluent speech and word-finding difficulties, and with left temporal/temporo-parietal lesions, showed the opposite pattern. These patterns held even when measures of frequency, phonological complexity, articulatory difficulty, and other factors were held constant. The data support the view that the memorized words of the mental lexicon are subserved by a brain system involving left temporal/temporo-parietal structures, whereas aspects of the mental grammar, in particular the computation of regular morphological forms, are subserved by a distinct system involving left frontal structures.

Implicit Structured Sequence Learning: An FMRI Study of the Structural Mere-Exposure Effect

OpenAIRE

Vasiliki eFolia; Vasiliki eFolia; Karl Magnus ePetersson; Karl Magnus ePetersson; Karl Magnus ePetersson

2014-01-01

In this event-related FMRI study we investigated the effect of five days of implicit acquisition on preference classification by means of an artificial grammar learning (AGL) paradigm based on the structural mere-exposure effect and preference classification using a simple right-linear unification grammar. This allowed us to investigate implicit AGL in a proper learning design by including baseline measurements prior to grammar exposure. After 5 days of implicit acquisition, the FMRI results ...

Completing the Task Procedure or Focusing on Form: Contextualizing Grammar Instruction via Task-Based Teaching

Science.gov (United States)

Saraç, Hatice Sezgi

2018-01-01

In this study, it was aimed to compare two distinct methodologies of grammar instruction: task-based and form-focused teaching. Within the application procedure, which lasted for one academic term, two groups of tertiary level learners (N = 53) were exposed to the same sequence of target structures, extensive writing activities and evaluation…

Learnable Classes of Categorial Grammars.

Science.gov (United States)

Kanazawa, Makoto

Learnability theory is an attempt to illuminate the concept of learnability using a mathematical model of learning. Two models of learning of categorial grammars are examined here: the standard model, in which sentences presented to the learner are flat strings of words, and one in which sentences are presented in the form of functor-argument…

The Association between Expressive Grammar Intervention and Social and Emergent Literacy Outcomes for Preschoolers with SLI

Science.gov (United States)

Washington, Karla N.

2013-01-01

Purpose: To determine whether (a) expressive grammar intervention facilitated social and emergent literacy outcomes better than no intervention and (b) expressive grammar gains and/or initial expressive grammar level predicted social and emergent literacy outcomes. Method: This investigation was a follow-up to a recently published study exploring…

Oxfold: Kinetic Folding of RNA using Stochastic Context-Free Grammars and Evolutionary Information

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Anderson, James W.J.; Haas, Pierre A.; Mathieson, Leigh-Anne

2013-01-01

Motivation: Many computational methods for RNA secondary structure prediction, and, in particular, for the prediction of a consensus structure of an alignment of RNA sequences, have been developed. Most methods however ignore biophysical factors such as the kinetics of RNA folding; no current...... implementation considers both evolutionary information and folding kinetics, thus losing information which, when considered, might lead to better predictions. Results: We present an iterative algorithm, Oxfold, in the framework of stochastic context-free grammars, that emulates the kinetics of RNA folding...

Making sense of syntax – Innate or acquired? Contrasting universal grammar with other approaches to language acquisition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christian Kliesch

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Proponents of a Universal Grammar argue that humans are born with a dedicated language system that shapes and restricts the number of grammars found in human languages (Chomsky, 2005. It is essentially innate and has a genetic manifestation. Such an innate system is necessary because human grammars are too complex to be passed on through social interactions and probabilistic learning alone. However, this view is contested by a combination of emergentist approaches and a number of studies suggest that many of the core assumptions of Universal Grammar are either unnecessary or do not hold. Furthermore, this review will explore theoretical criticism of the Universal Grammar research programme.

Dynamic Systems Theory and Universal Grammar: Holding up a Turbulent Mirror to Development in Grammars

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Plaza-Pust, Carolina

2008-01-01

Research over the last decades has shown that language development in its multiple forms is characterized by a succession of stable and unstable states. However, the variation observed is neither expected nor can it be accounted for on the basis of traditional learning concepts conceived of within the Universal Grammar (UG) paradigm. In this…

Investigating the Usefulness of Lexical Phrases in Contemporary Coursebooks

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Koprowski, Mark

2005-01-01

Over the past decade, lexical theory, corpus statistics, and psycholinguistic research have pointed to the pedagogical value of lexical phrases. In response, commercial publishers have been quick to import these insights into their materials in a bid to accommodate consumers and to profit from the "lexical chunk" phenomenon. Contemporary British…

The association between expressive grammar intervention and social and emergent literacy outcomes for preschoolers with SLI.

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Washington, Karla N

2013-02-01

To determine whether (a) expressive grammar intervention facilitated social and emergent literacy outcomes better than no intervention and (b) expressive grammar gains and/or initial expressive grammar level predicted social and emergent literacy outcomes. This investigation was a follow-up to a recently published study exploring the impact of grammatical language intervention on expressive grammar outcomes for preschoolers with specific language impairment (SLI). Twenty-two 3- to 5-year-old preschoolers received ten 20-minute intervention sessions addressing primary deficits in grammatical morphology. Participants' social and emergent literacy skills were not targeted. Twelve children awaiting intervention, chosen from the same selection pool as intervention participants, served as controls. Blind assessments of social and emergent literacy outcomes were completed at preintervention, immediately postintervention, and 3 months postintervention. Only intervention participants experienced significant gains in social and emergent literacy outcomes and maintained these gains for 3 months postintervention. Expressive grammar gains was the only single significant predictor of these outcomes. Expressive grammar intervention was associated with broad impacts on social and emergent literacy outcomes that were maintained beyond the intervention period. Gains in expressive grammar predicted these outcomes. Social and emergent literacy skills were positively affected for preschoolers with SLI during a grammatical language intervention program.

CORECLUST: identification of the conserved CRM grammar together with prediction of gene regulation.

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Nikulova, Anna A; Favorov, Alexander V; Sutormin, Roman A; Makeev, Vsevolod J; Mironov, Andrey A

2012-07-01

Identification of transcriptional regulatory regions and tracing their internal organization are important for understanding the eukaryotic cell machinery. Cis-regulatory modules (CRMs) of higher eukaryotes are believed to possess a regulatory 'grammar', or preferred arrangement of binding sites, that is crucial for proper regulation and thus tends to be evolutionarily conserved. Here, we present a method CORECLUST (COnservative REgulatory CLUster STructure) that predicts CRMs based on a set of positional weight matrices. Given regulatory regions of orthologous and/or co-regulated genes, CORECLUST constructs a CRM model by revealing the conserved rules that describe the relative location of binding sites. The constructed model may be consequently used for the genome-wide prediction of similar CRMs, and thus detection of co-regulated genes, and for the investigation of the regulatory grammar of the system. Compared with related methods, CORECLUST shows better performance at identification of CRMs conferring muscle-specific gene expression in vertebrates and early-developmental CRMs in Drosophila.

Abstract Expression Grammar Symbolic Regression

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Korns, Michael F.

This chapter examines the use of Abstract Expression Grammars to perform the entire Symbolic Regression process without the use of Genetic Programming per se. The techniques explored produce a symbolic regression engine which has absolutely no bloat, which allows total user control of the search space and output formulas, which is faster, and more accurate than the engines produced in our previous papers using Genetic Programming. The genome is an all vector structure with four chromosomes plus additional epigenetic and constraint vectors, allowing total user control of the search space and the final output formulas. A combination of specialized compiler techniques, genetic algorithms, particle swarm, aged layered populations, plus discrete and continuous differential evolution are used to produce an improved symbolic regression sytem. Nine base test cases, from the literature, are used to test the improvement in speed and accuracy. The improved results indicate that these techniques move us a big step closer toward future industrial strength symbolic regression systems.

Phonological Memory and the Acquisition of Grammar in Child L2 Learners

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Verhagen, Josje; Leseman, Paul; Messer, Marielle

2015-01-01

Previous studies show that second language (L2) learners with large phonological memory spans outperform learners with smaller memory spans on tests of L2 grammar. The current study investigated the relationship between phonological memory and L2 grammar in more detail than has been done earlier. Specifically, we asked how phonological memory…

The Economy of Fluent Speaking: Phrase-Level Reduction in a Patient with Pure Apraxia of Speech

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Staiger, Anja; Ruttenauer, Anna; Ziegler, Wolfram

2010-01-01

The term "phrase-level reduction" refers to transformations of the phonetic forms of words in connected speech. They are a characteristic property of fluent speech in normal speakers. Phrase-level reductions contribute to a reduction of articulatory-motor effort and constitute an important aspect of speech naturalness. So far, these phenomena have…

The Morphosyntactic Structure of the Noun and Verb Phrases in Dholuo/Kiswahili Code Switching

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Jael Anyango Ojanga

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Code switching, the use of any two or more languages or dialects interchangeably in a single communication context, is a common linguistic practice owing to the trend of multilingualism in the world today. In many situations of language in contact, constituents of one language can be found within the constituents of another language in a number of linguistic phenomenon namely lexical borrowing, transferring, interference, code switching and diffusion (Annamalai, 1989. Codeswitching is one of the linguistic phenomenon claimed to be the most prevalent and common mode of interaction among multilingual speakers. Brock and Eastman (1971 suggest that topic discussed influences the choice of the language. Nouns and verbs have been found to be the most code switched elements in bilingual exchange. The study took a qualitative approach with the descriptive research design. It was guided by the Matrix Language Frame Model which was formulated by Myers-Scotton in1993. This model expounds on the realization and structure of the major word classes as used in code switching. Data was collected in Nyangeta Zone, Winam Division of Kisumu East District. Winam Division is mostly inhabited by elite Dholuo L1 speakers. A sample of twenty four teachers was purposively selected to provide data needed for the study. Focus group discussion was used to collect a corpus of Dholuo/Kiswahili data which was recorded through audio taping. The recorded data was then analyzed morphosyntactaically using the Matrix Language Frame Model. The data revealed that the noun and verb phrases were realized under three categories: Matrix Language Island constituent (ML Island ML+EL and Embedded Language Island (EL Island. Keywords: Code switching, multilingualism, morphosyntactic

A STUDENT MODEL AND LEARNING ALGORITHM FOR THE EXPERT TUTORING SYSTEM OF POLISH GRAMMAR

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Kostikov Mykola

2014-11-01

Full Text Available When creating computer-assisted language learning software, it is necessary to use the potential of information technology in controlling the learning process fully. Modern intelligent tutoring systems help to make this process adaptive and personalized thanks to modeling the domain and students’ knowledge. The aim of the paper is to investigate possibilities for applying these methods in teaching Polish grammar in Ukraine taking into account its specifics. The article is concerned with the approaches of using student models in modern intelligent tutoring systems in order to provide personalized learning. A structure of the student model and a general working algorithm of the expert tutoring system of Polish grammar have been developed. The modeling of knowing and forgetting particular learning elements within the probabilistic (stochastic model has been studied, as well as the prognostication of future probabilities of students’ knowledge, taking into account their individual forgetting rates. The objective function of instruction quality with allowance for frequency of grammar rules within a certain amount of words being learned and their connections to another rules has been formulated. The problem of generating the next learning step taking into account the need for mastering previous, connected rules has been studied, as well as determining the optimal time period between the lessons depending on the current knowledge level.

Ontological semantics in modified categorial grammar

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Szymczak, Bartlomiej Antoni

2009-01-01

Categorial Grammar is a well established tool for describing natural language semantics. In the current paper we discuss some of its drawbacks and how it could be extended to overcome them. We use the extended version for deriving ontological semantics from text. A proof-of-concept implementation...

The relation between receptive grammar and procedural, declarative, and working memory in specific language impairment.

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Conti-Ramsden, Gina; Ullman, Michael T; Lum, Jarrad A G

2015-01-01

What memory systems underlie grammar in children, and do these differ between typically developing (TD) children and children with specific language impairment (SLI)? Whilst there is substantial evidence linking certain memory deficits to the language problems in children with SLI, few studies have investigated multiple memory systems simultaneously, examining not only possible memory deficits but also memory abilities that may play a compensatory role. This study examined the extent to which procedural, declarative, and working memory abilities predict receptive grammar in 45 primary school aged children with SLI (30 males, 15 females) and 46 TD children (30 males, 16 females), both on average 9;10 years of age. Regression analyses probed measures of all three memory systems simultaneously as potential predictors of receptive grammar. The model was significant, explaining 51.6% of the variance. There was a significant main effect of learning in procedural memory and a significant group × procedural learning interaction. Further investigation of the interaction revealed that procedural learning predicted grammar in TD but not in children with SLI. Indeed, procedural learning was the only predictor of grammar in TD. In contrast, only learning in declarative memory significantly predicted grammar in SLI. Thus, different memory systems are associated with receptive grammar abilities in children with SLI and their TD peers. This study is, to our knowledge, the first to demonstrate a significant group by memory system interaction in predicting grammar in children with SLI and their TD peers. In line with Ullman's Declarative/Procedural model of language and procedural deficit hypothesis of SLI, variability in understanding sentences of varying grammatical complexity appears to be associated with variability in procedural memory abilities in TD children, but with declarative memory, as an apparent compensatory mechanism, in children with SLI.

"I'll Take Commas for $200": An Instructional Intervention Using Games to Help Students Master Grammar Skills

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Bullard, Sue Burzynski; Anderson, Nancy

2014-01-01

Effective writing requires mastering grammar. For journalists, this mastery is critical because research shows poor grammar erodes media credibility. College writing instructors say students do not understand basic grammar concepts, and greater numbers of students are enrolling in remedial writing classes. This quasi-experimental mixed methods…

German Grammar in the Students' Words: The "Essentialization" of German Grammar by American College-Level Learners

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Chavez, Monika

2011-01-01

This study of 134 college-level learners of German, enrolled in four years of instruction, showed them to "essentialize" German grammar when asked to describe it to a hypothetical friend. Kubota defined the term essentialization to capture learners' views of the target culture. Its main characteristic is the presupposition of "essential, stable,…

Route description in Iwaidja: grammar and conceptualisation of motion

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Cris Edmonds-Wathen

2016-09-01

Full Text Available This study focussed on the effect of grammar of Iwaidja, an indigenous Australian language, on mathematical conceptualisation. It investigated route description in Iwaidja. Spatial concepts such as direction, height and movement in relation to another object are briefly described using examples. Differences between English and Iwaidja are used to illustrate the some of the impact of grammar on mathematical conceptualisation. The implications are discussed in terms of how understanding these grammatical features can help teachers, especially when children are not fluent in the language of instruction, as well as providing keys to cross-linguistic investigations of mathematical cognition.

An Evaluation of Universal Grammar and the Phonological Mind.

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Everett, Daniel L

2016-01-01

This paper argues against the hypothesis of a "phonological mind" advanced by Berent. It establishes that there is no evidence that phonology is innate and that, in fact, the simplest hypothesis seems to be that phonology is learned like other human abilities. Moreover, the paper fleshes out the original claim of Philip Lieberman that Universal Grammar predicts that not everyone should be able to learn every language, i.e., the opposite of what UG is normally thought to predict. The paper also underscores the problem that the absence of recursion in Pirahã represents for Universal Grammar proposals.

THE ROLE OF VISUAL GRAMMAR AND PLAYER PERCEPTION IN AN ONLINE GAME

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Nobaew, Banphot

principles and rules of a visual game landscape (the game territory and environment) for composing the forms of visual elements and structuring the meaning of perceptual experience. It creates the system of visual communication in a particular context’. This study employs two approaches which combine...... of visual grammar consists of the initial units named visual elements which are regulated by the visual operators under the visual syntactic rules; the player experience is count as part of these rules....

The "Contextual Contact" in Grammar Microteachings in Teaching English as a Foreign Language: A Teacher Training Perspective

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Sarigöz, Iskender Hakki

2015-01-01

The grammar microteachings carried out by trainees in teacher education is a critical issue due to the fact that the teaching of grammar has always been a controversial issue throughout the foreign language teaching (FLT) acculturation. There is always some negative reaction to isolated teaching of grammar in communicative language teaching…

A Comparative Study on Beliefs of Grammar Teaching between High School English Teachers and Students in China

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Deng, Fangfang; Lin, Yuewu

2016-01-01

Grammar is "a system of rules governing the conventional arrangement and relationship of words in a sentence" (Brown 1994) which can facilitate the acquisition of a foreign language and is conducive for cultivating comprehensive language competence. Most teachers regard grammar as a frame of English learning. The grammar teaching beliefs…

Spoken grammar awareness raising: Does it affect the listening ability of Iranian EFL learners?

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Mojgan Rashtchi

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Advances in spoken corpora analysis have brought about new insights into language pedagogy and have led to an awareness of the characteristics of spoken language. Current findings have shown that grammar of spoken language is different from written language. However, most listening and speaking materials are concocted based on written grammar and lack core spoken language features. The aim of the present study was to explore the question whether awareness of spoken grammar features could affect learners’ comprehension of real-life conversations. To this end, 45 university students in two intact classes participated in a listening course employing corpus-based materials. The instruction of the spoken grammar features to the experimental group was done overtly through awareness raising tasks, whereas the control group, though exposed to the same materials, was not provided with such tasks for learning the features. The results of the independent samples t tests revealed that the learners in the experimental group comprehended everyday conversations much better than those in the control group. Additionally, the highly positive views of spoken grammar held by the learners, which was elicited by means of a retrospective questionnaire, were generally comparable to those reported in the literature.

The blue book of grammar and punctuation an easy-to-use guide with clear rules, real-world examples, and reproducible quizzes

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Straus, Jane; Stern, Tom

2014-01-01

A revised and updated new edition of the bestselling workbook and grammar guide The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation is a concise, entertaining workbook and guide to English grammar, punctuation, and usage. This user-friendly resource includes simple explanations of grammar, punctuation, and usage; scores of helpful examples; dozens of reproducible worksheets; and pre- and post-tests to help teach grammar to students of all ages. Appropriate for virtually any age range, this authoritative guide makes learning English grammar and usage simple and fun. This updated Eleventh Edition reflects

Validity of a parent-report measure of vocabulary and grammar for Spanish-speaking toddlers.

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Thal, D; Jackson-Maldonado, D; Acosta, D

2000-10-01

The validity of the Fundación MacArthur Inventario del Desarrollo de Habilidades Comunicativas: Palabras y Enunciados (IDHC:PE) was examined with twenty 20- and nineteen 28-month-old, typically developing, monolingual, Spanish-speaking children living in Mexico. One measure of vocabulary (number of words) and two measures of grammar (mean of the three longest utterances and grammatical complexity score) from the IDHC:PE were compared to behavioral measures of vocabulary (number of different words from a language sample and number of objects named in a confrontation naming task) and one behavioral measure of grammar (mean length of utterance from a language sample). Only vocabulary measures were assessed in the 20-month-olds because of floor effects on the grammar measures. Results indicated validity for assessing expressive vocabulary in 20-month-olds and expressive vocabulary and grammar in 28-month-olds.

How do verbal short-term memory and working memory relate to the acquisition of vocabulary and grammar? A comparison between first and second language learners.

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Verhagen, Josje; Leseman, Paul

2016-01-01

Previous studies show that verbal short-term memory (VSTM) is related to vocabulary learning, whereas verbal working memory (VWM) is related to grammar learning in children learning a second language (L2) in the classroom. In this study, we investigated whether the same relationships apply to children learning an L2 in a naturalistic setting and to monolingual children. We also investigated whether relationships with verbal memory differ depending on the type of grammar skill investigated (i.e., morphology vs. syntax). Participants were 63 Turkish children who learned Dutch as an L2 and 45 Dutch monolingual children (mean age = 5 years). Children completed a series of VSTM and VWM tasks, a Dutch vocabulary task, and a Dutch grammar task. A confirmatory factor analysis showed that VSTM and VWM represented two separate latent factors in both groups. Structural equation modeling showed that VSTM, treated as a latent factor, significantly predicted vocabulary and grammar. VWM, treated as a latent factor, predicted only grammar. Both memory factors were significantly related to the acquisition of morphology and syntax. There were no differences between the two groups. These results show that (a) VSTM and VWM are differentially associated with language learning and (b) the same memory mechanisms are employed for learning vocabulary and grammar in L1 children and in L2 children who learn their L2 naturalistically. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

eLearning Mobile App for Android and Ios "English Grammar Learn & Test"

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Anca-Georgiana FODOR

2016-11-01

Full Text Available This article is aiming to present the architecture and few elements from the developing cycle of "English Grammar Learn & Test" app. This is an e-learning tool for people who want to improve their English Grammar and Vocabulary. The app was approved by Google Play and Apple Store and it is available for free on both platforms as following: Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.labsterzz.english_tests iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/english-grammar-learn-test/id1126468980 The app already reached350.000 users, it is rated at 4.43out of maximum 5.0 in Google Play Store. Since mid-June 2016, we launched the app also in the Apple Store iOS devices.

Cooperative Business Education - 7725 (Reinforcing Knowledge of Grammar): Department 48 - Course 7725.08.

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Dade County Public Schools, Miami, FL.

The essential elements of grammar required to write business letters, memorandums, and reports are covered in this quinmester course. The course consists of a complete grammar review and the learning of proofreading skills for students in the Cooperative Business Education program in Dade County High Schools. Instruction techniques include group…

Order in the noun phrase of the languages of Europe

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Rijkhoff, Jan

1998-01-01

The current investigation of the word order characteristics of the constituents of the noun phrase (NP) differs from other typological investigations of the issue in two major respects. First of all, it does not take for granted the existence of NPs or of the various NP-internal categories...... that it also has noun phrases: it may use a string of appositives rather than a proper, integral NP. The existence of NPs and the presence of various NP-internal categories is not an issue that has received considerable attention in typological word order studies. Yet how can we hope to establish the cross...... in a representative sample of European languages (Appendix 1), we first need to devote some attention to such basic questions as: Do all European languages have nouns? Do all European languages have proper NPs? Which NP-internal modifiers are attested in the European languages, and which are absent? These issues...

Enhancing Competency in English: The Covert Approach a Complementary to the Overt Approach in Teaching Grammar

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Hussein Islam Abdullah

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Over the years, there has been a decline in the competency of the English Language in Malaysian schools. Many parties among them the Ministry of Education, relevant NGOs, academicians and people have expressed concern over the matter. The Education Ministry through its transformational policy has taken several measures to overcome the matter. It is employing appropriate strategies to solve the problems. The focus is on learning and teaching strategies as well as the content of the language. There is no doubt that grammar is a very important component in acquiring the language in primary and secondary schools. The English teachers mostly use the communicative approach in teaching grammar. This is in line with the KBSR syllabus in mid 1980s which emphasized on the communicative method. Teachers’ training and materials such as textbooks cater for the covert method. However, some tend to ignore the structural approach which is equally effective and meaningful to increase the level of the students’ proficiency which was popular in the 1960s. The paper discusses on the two different approaches used – the covert and overt approaches – their strengths as well as weaknesses. Application of both approaches is also taken into consideration giving a better view of how grammar should be taught in schools.

CYBER-DIGITAL PLAGIARISM: AN AWARENESS APPROACH*

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Lehobye

Internet plagiarism, it is imperative to deal with the following questions: Do ... source by using its phrases or sentences, with a few changes in grammar or ..... Brinson JD et al Analysing E-Commerce and Internet Law (Prentice-Hall Upper.

Introduction (of 'The Noun Phrase in Functional Discourse Grammar')

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García Velasco, Daniel; Rijkhoff, Jan

2008-01-01

).    In order to contextualize the papers in the present volume, we will first lay out the main differences between FG and FDG and explain why some FG scholars felt that a general reorganization of the model was necessary. Section 2 gives a brief overview of the history of the way NPs have been analysed in F....... This study contains several new facts and ideas, which made it an interesting challenge to investigate to what extent the proposals he put forward could or should be integrated into the new FDG model (see also Rijkhoff this volume). All in all, the time seemed ripe for a detailed investigation of the way NPs...

Using dual-task methodology to dissociate automatic from nonautomatic processes involved in artificial grammar learning.

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Hendricks, Michelle A; Conway, Christopher M; Kellogg, Ronald T

2013-09-01

Previous studies have suggested that both automatic and intentional processes contribute to the learning of grammar and fragment knowledge in artificial grammar learning (AGL) tasks. To explore the relative contribution of automatic and intentional processes to knowledge gained in AGL, we utilized dual-task methodology to dissociate automatic and intentional grammar- and fragment-based knowledge in AGL at both acquisition and at test. Both experiments used a balanced chunk strength grammar to assure an equal proportion of fragment cues (i.e., chunks) in grammatical and nongrammatical test items. In Experiment 1, participants engaged in a working memory dual-task either during acquisition, test, or both acquisition and test. The results showed that participants performing the dual-task during acquisition learned the artificial grammar as well as the single-task group, presumably by relying on automatic learning mechanisms. A working memory dual-task at test resulted in attenuated grammar performance, suggesting a role for intentional processes for the expression of grammatical learning at test. Experiment 2 explored the importance of perceptual cues by changing letters between the acquisition and test phase; unlike Experiment 1, there was no significant learning of grammatical information for participants under dual-task conditions in Experiment 2, suggesting that intentional processing is necessary for successful acquisition and expression of grammar-based knowledge under transfer conditions. In sum, it appears that some aspects of learning in AGL are indeed relatively automatic, although the expression of grammatical information and the learning of grammatical patterns when perceptual similarity is eliminated both appear to require explicit resources. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

Confidence and Competence among Community College Students: Self-Efficacy and Performance in Grammar

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Collins, Steve; Bissell, Kimberly

2004-01-01

Proper grammar is crucial for effective communication. Two surveys of students in an introductory writing course sought to identify predictors of grammar ability. Students demonstrated a limited grasp of the language, struggling with such issues as the distinction between "it's" and "its." Women performed better than men at the beginning of the…

Improving language mapping in clinical fMRI through assessment of grammar.

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Połczyńska, Monika; Japardi, Kevin; Curtiss, Susan; Moody, Teena; Benjamin, Christopher; Cho, Andrew; Vigil, Celia; Kuhn, Taylor; Jones, Michael; Bookheimer, Susan

2017-01-01

Brain surgery in the language dominant hemisphere remains challenging due to unintended post-surgical language deficits, despite using pre-surgical functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) and intraoperative cortical stimulation. Moreover, patients are often recommended not to undergo surgery if the accompanying risk to language appears to be too high. While standard fMRI language mapping protocols may have relatively good predictive value at the group level, they remain sub-optimal on an individual level. The standard tests used typically assess lexico-semantic aspects of language, and they do not accurately reflect the complexity of language either in comprehension or production at the sentence level. Among patients who had left hemisphere language dominance we assessed which tests are best at activating language areas in the brain. We compared grammar tests (items testing word order in actives and passives, wh -subject and object questions, relativized subject and object clauses and past tense marking) with standard tests (object naming, auditory and visual responsive naming), using pre-operative fMRI. Twenty-five surgical candidates (13 females) participated in this study. Sixteen patients presented with a brain tumor, and nine with epilepsy. All participants underwent two pre-operative fMRI protocols: one including CYCLE-N grammar tests (items testing word order in actives and passives, wh-subject and object questions, relativized subject and object clauses and past tense marking); and a second one with standard fMRI tests (object naming, auditory and visual responsive naming). fMRI activations during performance in both protocols were compared at the group level, as well as in individual candidates. The grammar tests generated more volume of activation in the left hemisphere (left/right angular gyrus, right anterior/posterior superior temporal gyrus) and identified additional language regions not shown by the standard tests (e.g., left anterior

Recognition of chemical entities: combining dictionary-based and grammar-based approaches

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2015-01-01

Background The past decade has seen an upsurge in the number of publications in chemistry. The ever-swelling volume of available documents makes it increasingly hard to extract relevant new information from such unstructured texts. The BioCreative CHEMDNER challenge invites the development of systems for the automatic recognition of chemicals in text (CEM task) and for ranking the recognized compounds at the document level (CDI task). We investigated an ensemble approach where dictionary-based named entity recognition is used along with grammar-based recognizers to extract compounds from text. We assessed the performance of ten different commercial and publicly available lexical resources using an open source indexing system (Peregrine), in combination with three different chemical compound recognizers and a set of regular expressions to recognize chemical database identifiers. The effect of different stop-word lists, case-sensitivity matching, and use of chunking information was also investigated. We focused on lexical resources that provide chemical structure information. To rank the different compounds found in a text, we used a term confidence score based on the normalized ratio of the term frequencies in chemical and non-chemical journals. Results The use of stop-word lists greatly improved the performance of the dictionary-based recognition, but there was no additional benefit from using chunking information. A combination of ChEBI and HMDB as lexical resources, the LeadMine tool for grammar-based recognition, and the regular expressions, outperformed any of the individual systems. On the test set, the F-scores were 77.8% (recall 71.2%, precision 85.8%) for the CEM task and 77.6% (recall 71.7%, precision 84.6%) for the CDI task. Missed terms were mainly due to tokenization issues, poor recognition of formulas, and term conjunctions. Conclusions We developed an ensemble system that combines dictionary-based and grammar-based approaches for chemical named

Recognition of chemical entities: combining dictionary-based and grammar-based approaches.

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Akhondi, Saber A; Hettne, Kristina M; van der Horst, Eelke; van Mulligen, Erik M; Kors, Jan A

2015-01-01

The past decade has seen an upsurge in the number of publications in chemistry. The ever-swelling volume of available documents makes it increasingly hard to extract relevant new information from such unstructured texts. The BioCreative CHEMDNER challenge invites the development of systems for the automatic recognition of chemicals in text (CEM task) and for ranking the recognized compounds at the document level (CDI task). We investigated an ensemble approach where dictionary-based named entity recognition is used along with grammar-based recognizers to extract compounds from text. We assessed the performance of ten different commercial and publicly available lexical resources using an open source indexing system (Peregrine), in combination with three different chemical compound recognizers and a set of regular expressions to recognize chemical database identifiers. The effect of different stop-word lists, case-sensitivity matching, and use of chunking information was also investigated. We focused on lexical resources that provide chemical structure information. To rank the different compounds found in a text, we used a term confidence score based on the normalized ratio of the term frequencies in chemical and non-chemical journals. The use of stop-word lists greatly improved the performance of the dictionary-based recognition, but there was no additional benefit from using chunking information. A combination of ChEBI and HMDB as lexical resources, the LeadMine tool for grammar-based recognition, and the regular expressions, outperformed any of the individual systems. On the test set, the F-scores were 77.8% (recall 71.2%, precision 85.8%) for the CEM task and 77.6% (recall 71.7%, precision 84.6%) for the CDI task. Missed terms were mainly due to tokenization issues, poor recognition of formulas, and term conjunctions. We developed an ensemble system that combines dictionary-based and grammar-based approaches for chemical named entity recognition, outperforming

Comparison of single-word and adjective-noun phrase production using event-related brain potentials

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lange, Violaine Michel

2015-01-01

stimuli varying in complexity -black and white line drawings, coloured line drawings, and arrays of drawings-in participants producing single nouns. Whilst naming latencies were similar for single noun production between visual stimuli conditions, ERPs differed between drawing arrays and single drawings...... in a time-window extending beyond early visual analysis. In a second experiment, different participants were asked to produce either single noun or adjective-noun dual-word phrases to black-and-white and coloured line drawings, respectively. Adjective-noun phrase production (2W) resulted in naming latencies...

Mixed metaphors: Electrophysiological brain responses to (un)expected concrete and abstract prepositional phrases.

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Zane, Emily; Shafer, Valerie

2018-02-01

Languages around the world use spatial terminology, like prepositions, to describe non-spatial, abstract concepts, including time (e.g., in the moment). The Metaphoric Mapping Theory explains this pattern by positing that a universal human cognitive process underlies it, whereby abstract concepts are conceptualized via the application of concrete, three-dimensional space onto abstract domains. The alternative view is that the use of spatial propositions in abstract phrases is idiomatic, and thus does not trigger metaphoric mapping. In the current study, event-related potentials (ERPs) were used to examine the time-course of neural processing of concrete and abstract phrases consisting of the prepositions in or on followed by congruent and incongruent nouns (e.g., in the bowl/plate and in the moment/mend). ERPs were recorded from the onset of reference nouns in 28 adult participants using a 128-channel electrode net. Results show that congruency has differential effects on neural measures, depending on whether the noun is concrete or abstract. Incongruent reference nouns in concrete phrases (e.g., on the bowl) elicited a significant central negativity (an N400 effect), while incongruent reference nouns in abstract phrases (e.g., on the moment) did not. These results suggest that spatially incongruent concrete nouns are semantically unexpected (N400 effect). A P600 effect, which might indicate rechecking, reanalysis and/or reconstruction, was predicted for incongruent abstract nouns, but was not observed, possibly due to the variability in abstract stimuli. Findings cast doubt on accounts claiming that abstract uses of prepositions are cognitively and metaphorically linked to their spatial sense during natural, on-line processing. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Effective intervention for expressive grammar in children with specific language impairment.

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Smith-Lock, Karen M; Leitao, Suze; Lambert, Lara; Nickels, Lyndsey

2013-01-01

Children with specific language impairment are known to struggle with expressive grammar. While some studies have shown successful intervention under laboratory conditions, there is a paucity of evidence for the effectiveness of grammar treatment in young children in community settings. To evaluate the effectiveness of a school-based intervention programme for expressive grammar in 5-year-olds with specific language impairment. Thirty-four 5-year-old children attending a specialized school for children with language impairment participated in the study. Nineteen children received treatment for expressive grammar (experimental group) and 15 children received a control treatment. Treatment consisted of weekly 1-h sessions of small group activities in a classroom setting for 8 weeks. Techniques included direct instruction, focused stimulation, recasting and imitation. Results were analysed at the group level and as a case series with each child as their own control in a single-subject design. There was a significant difference in grammatical performance pre- and post-treatment for children who received grammar treatment (Cohen's d = 1.24), but not for a group of children who received a control treatment. Further, no difference in performance was found in the equivalent time period prior to treatment, nor for an untreated target. Treatment success was more pronounced in children without articulation difficulties which interfered with their ability to produce the grammatical targets (Cohen's d = 1.66). Individual analyses indicated the treatment effect was significant for the majority of children. Individually targeted intervention delivered in small groups in a classroom setting was effective in improving production of expressive grammatical targets in 5-year-old children with specific language impairment. © 2013 Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

Structural design principles of complex bird songs: a network-based approach.

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Kazutoshi Sasahara

Full Text Available Bird songs are acoustic communication signals primarily used in male-male aggression and in male-female attraction. These are often monotonous patterns composed of a few phrases, yet some birds have extremely complex songs with a large phrase repertoire, organized in non-random fashion with discernible patterns. Since structure is typically associated with function, the structures of complex bird songs provide important clues to the evolution of animal communication systems. Here we propose an efficient network-based approach to explore structural design principles of complex bird songs, in which the song networks--transition relationships among different phrases and the related structural measures--are employed. We demonstrate how this approach works with an example using California Thrasher songs, which are sequences of highly varied phrases delivered in succession over several minutes. These songs display two distinct features: a large phrase repertoire with a 'small-world' architecture, in which subsets of phrases are highly grouped and linked with a short average path length; and a balanced transition diversity amongst phrases, in which deterministic and non-deterministic transition patterns are moderately mixed. We explore the robustness of this approach with variations in sample size and the amount of noise. Our approach enables a more quantitative study of global and local structural properties of complex bird songs than has been possible to date.

Modeling promoter grammars with evolving hidden Markov models

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Won, Kyoung-Jae; Sandelin, Albin; Marstrand, Troels Torben

2008-01-01

MOTIVATION: Describing and modeling biological features of eukaryotic promoters remains an important and challenging problem within computational biology. The promoters of higher eukaryotes in particular display a wide variation in regulatory features, which are difficult to model. Often several...... factors are involved in the regulation of a set of co-regulated genes. If so, promoters can be modeled with connected regulatory features, where the network of connections is characteristic for a particular mode of regulation. RESULTS: With the goal of automatically deciphering such regulatory structures......, we present a method that iteratively evolves an ensemble of regulatory grammars using a hidden Markov Model (HMM) architecture composed of interconnected blocks representing transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs) and background regions of promoter sequences. The ensemble approach reduces the risk...

TEACHING GRAMMAR-IN-CONTEXT AND ITS IMPACT IN MINIMIZING STUDENTS’ GRAMMATICAL ERRORS

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Yadhi Nur Amin

2015-11-01

Full Text Available This study is conducted to determine the effectiveness of teaching grammar-in-context to minimize students‘ grammatical errors in writing. The design of the study was a quasi-experimental with a non-randomized pretest-posttest control group. The samples of the study were taken from the population of the tenth-grade students. The control group was taught by conventional grammar which was separately given with writing skills. Likewise, the experimental one was treated by teaching grammar-in-context. The results of the study showed that the mean score in the post-test was higher than that in the pretest; and the mean score of experimental group increased 16.20 point after the treatment. This result indicated that teaching grammarin-context is considered to be effective in minimizing students‘ grammatical errors in writing.

Modeling children's early grammatical knowledge

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Bannard, Colin; Lieven, Elena; Tomasello, Michael

2009-01-01

Theories of grammatical development differ in how much abstract knowledge they attribute to young children. Here, we report a series of experiments using a computational model to evaluate the explanatory power of child grammars based not on abstract rules but on concrete words and phrases and some local abstractions associated with these words and phrases. We use a Bayesian procedure to extract such item-based grammars from transcriptions of 28+ h of each of two children's speech at 2 and 3 years of age. We then use these grammars to parse all of the unique multiword utterances from transcriptions of separate recordings of these same children at each of the two ages. We found that at 2 years of age such a model had good coverage and predictive fit, with the children showing radically limited productivity. Furthermore, adding expert-annotated parts of speech to the induction procedure had little effect on coverage, with the exception of the category of noun. At age 3, the children's productivity sharply increased and the addition of a verb and a noun category markedly improved the model's performance. PMID:19805057

The Problem of Grammar Teaching: A Case Study of the Relationship between a Teacher's Beliefs and Pedagogical Practice

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Watson, Annabel

2015-01-01

Through a case study of a first-language English teacher's approach to teaching writing, the significance of conceptual and affective beliefs about grammar for pedagogical practice is explored. The study explores a perceived dichotomy between grammar and creativity, examining a belief that attention to grammar is separate and secondary to the…

Adaptable Grammars for Non-Context-Free Languages

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christiansen, Henning

2009-01-01

languages that are considered as prototype representatives of non-context-free phenomena in natural languages. We define a grammar formalism with these characteristics and show how it can be implemented in logic programming in a surprisingly straightforward way, compared with the expressive...

Construction Grammar as a tool for diachronic analysis

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Fried, Mirjam

2009-01-01

Roč. 1, č. 2 (2009), s. 262-291 ISSN 1876-1933 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z90610518 Keywords : grammatical change * gradualness of change * internal reconstruction * Construction Grammar Subject RIV: AI - Linguistics

A Grammar of Spoken Brazilian Portuguese.

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Thomas, Earl W.

This is a first-year text of Portuguese grammar based on the Portuguese of moderately educated Brazilians from the area around Rio de Janeiro. Spoken idiomatic usage is emphasized. An important innovation is found in the presentation of verb tenses; they are presented in the order in which the native speaker learns them. The text is intended to…

English Grammar for Students of French.

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Morton, Jacqueline

This grammar is a self-study manual intended to aid native speakers of English who are beginning the study of French. It is designed to supplement the French textbook, not to replace it. The common grammatical terms that are necessary for learning to speak and write French are explained in English and illustrated by examples in both French and…

Fully automatic multi-language translation with a catalogue of phrases – successful employment for the Swiss avalanche bulletin

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Winkler, K.; Kuhn, T.

2016-01-01

The Swiss avalanche bulletin is produced twice a day in four languages. Due to the lack of time available for manual translation, a fully automated translation system is employed, based on a catalogue of predefined phrases and predetermined rules of how these phrases can be combined to produce

“Grammar-translation” method, a linguistic historic err or of perspective: origins, dynamics and inconsistencies

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