WorldWideScience

Sample records for subject-verb number agreement

  1. A person is not a number: discourse involvement in subject-verb agreement computation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mancini, Simona; Molinaro, Nicola; Rizzi, Luigi; Carreiras, Manuel

    2011-09-02

    Agreement is a very important mechanism for language processing. Mainstream psycholinguistic research on subject-verb agreement processing has emphasized the purely formal and encapsulated nature of this phenomenon, positing an equivalent access to person and number features. However, person and number are intrinsically different, because person conveys extra-syntactic information concerning the participants in the speech act. To test the person-number dissociation hypothesis we investigated the neural correlates of subject-verb agreement in Spanish, using person and number violations. While number agreement violations produced a left-anterior negativity followed by a P600 with a posterior distribution, the negativity elicited by person anomalies had a centro-posterior maximum and was followed by a P600 effect that was frontally distributed in the early phase and posteriorly distributed in the late phase. These data reveal that the parser is differentially sensitive to the two features and that it deals with the two anomalies by adopting different strategies, due to the different levels of analysis affected by the person and number violations. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  2. Object attraction effects during subject-verb agreement in Persian.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Feiz, Aazam; Cowles, Wind

    2018-04-01

    Subject-verb agreement provides insight into how grammatical and semantic features interact during sentence production, and prior studies have found attraction errors when an intervening local noun is grammatically part of the subject. Two major types of theories have emerged from these studies: control based and competition-based. The current study used an subject-object-verb language with optional subject-verb agreement, Persian, to test the competition-based hypothesis that intervening object nouns may also cause attraction effects, even though objects are not part of the syntactic relationship between the subject and verb. Our results, which did not require speakers to make grammatical errors, show that objects can be attractors for agreement, but this effect appears to be dependent on the type of plural marker on the object. These results support competition-based theories of agreement production, in which agreement may be influenced by attractors that are outside the scope of the subject-verb relationship.

  3. Variant patterns of Subject-Verb agreement in Portuguese: morphological and phonological issues

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maria Antónia Mota

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, we start from a basic assumption: agreement is a most relevant operation for the Portuguese language speakers as a whole. The data from different varieties of Portuguese support this view, both in the Subject-Verb domain and within the NP, as well as the fact that speakers don’t prefer the simplest solutions: the most productive plural agreement forms are the most complex ones, morphologically and phonologically. We focus the discussion on the interplay between different linguistic factors intervening in and promoting variant overt and covert patterns of agreement (the existence of agreement and the presence of visible marks, as expected in standard canonical schemes, constitute two separate questions. More specifically, we claim that it is worth to take into account the matching between the morphological and the phonological properties and features of the verb cells, in order to fully understand the attested variant outputs and the variant patterns of subject-verb agreement. We assume that the 3rdplural person-number marker has to be described in morphophonological terms, and we conclude that agreement is a morpho-phono-syntactic process, sensitive to the lexical-semantic features and discourse properties of the controller.

  4. Subject-verb agreement: Error production by Tourism undergraduate students

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ana Paula Correia

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this paper, which is part of a more extensive research on verb tense errors, is to investigate the subject-verb agreement errors in the simple present in the texts of a group of Tourism undergraduate students. Based on the concept of interlanguage and following the error analysis model, this descriptive non-experimental study applies qualitative and quantitative procedures. Three types of instruments were used to collect data: a sociolinguistic questionnaire (to define the learners’ profile; the Dialang test (to establish their proficiency level in English; and our own learner corpus (140 texts. Errors were identified and classified by an expert panel in accordance with a verb error taxonomy developed for this study based on the taxonomy established by the Cambridge Learner Corpus. The Markin software was used to code errors in the corpus and the Wordsmith Tools software to analyze the data. Subject-verb agreement errors and their relation with the learners’ proficiency levels are described.

  5. Electrophysiology of subject-verb agreement mediated by speakers' gender.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hanulíková, Adriana; Carreiras, Manuel

    2015-01-01

    An important property of speech is that it explicitly conveys features of a speaker's identity such as age or gender. This event-related potential (ERP) study examined the effects of social information provided by a speaker's gender, i.e., the conceptual representation of gender, on subject-verb agreement. Despite numerous studies on agreement, little is known about syntactic computations generated by speaker characteristics extracted from the acoustic signal. Slovak is well suited to investigate this issue because it is a morphologically rich language in which agreement involves features for number, case, and gender. Grammaticality of a sentence can be evaluated by checking a speaker's gender as conveyed by his/her voice. We examined how conceptual information about speaker gender, which is not syntactic but rather social and pragmatic in nature, is interpreted for the computation of agreement patterns. ERP responses to verbs disagreeing with the speaker's gender (e.g., a sentence including a masculine verbal inflection spoken by a female person 'the neighbors were upset because I (∗)stoleMASC plums') elicited a larger early posterior negativity compared to correct sentences. When the agreement was purely syntactic and did not depend on the speaker's gender, a disagreement between a formally marked subject and the verb inflection (e.g., the womanFEM (∗)stoleMASC plums) resulted in a larger P600 preceded by a larger anterior negativity compared to the control sentences. This result is in line with proposals according to which the recruitment of non-syntactic information such as the gender of the speaker results in N400-like effects, while formally marked syntactic features lead to structural integration as reflected in a LAN/P600 complex.

  6. Electrophysiology of subject-verb agreement mediated by speakers’ gender

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adriana eHanulíková

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available An important property of speech is that it explicitly conveys features of a speaker's identity such as age or gender. This event-related potential (ERP study examined the effects of social information provided by a speaker’s gender, i.e. the conceptual representation of gender, on subject-verb agreement. Despite numerous studies on agreement, little is known about syntactic computations generated by speaker characteristics extracted from the acoustic signal. Slovak is well suited to investigate this issue because it is a morphologically rich language in which agreement involves features for number, case, and gender. Grammaticality of a sentence can be evaluated by checking a speaker’s gender as conveyed by his/her voice. We examined how conceptual information about speaker gender, which is not syntactic but rather social and pragmatic in nature, is interpreted for the computation of agreement patterns. ERP responses to verbs disagreeing with the speaker's gender (e.g., a sentence including a masculine verbal inflection spoken by a female person 'the neighbours were upset because I *stoleMASC plums’ elicited a larger early posterior negativity compared to correct sentences. When the agreement was purely syntactic and did not depend on the speaker’s gender, a disagreement between a formally-marked subject and the verb inflection (e.g., the womanFEM *stoleMASC plums resulted in a larger P600 preceded by a larger anterior negativity compared to the control sentences. This result is in line with proposals according to which the recruitment of non-syntactic information such as the gender of the speaker results in N400-like effects, while formally-marked syntactic features lead to structural integration as reflected in a LAN/P600 complex.

  7. Production and Processing of Subject-Verb Agreement in Monolingual Dutch Children with Specific Language Impairment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blom, Elma; Vasic, Nada; de Jong, Jan

    2014-01-01

    Purpose: In this study, the authors investigated whether errors with subject-verb agreement in monolingual Dutch children with specific language impairment (SLI) are influenced by verb phonology. In addition, the productive and receptive abilities of Dutch acquiring children with SLI regarding agreement inflection were compared. Method: An SLI…

  8. The Acquisition of Subject-Verb Agreement in Written French: From Novices to Experts' Errors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fayol, Michel; Largy, Pierre; Hupet, Michel

    1999-01-01

    Aims at demonstrating the gradual automatization of subject-verb agreement operation in young writers by examining developmental changes in the occurrence of agreement errors. Finds that subjects' performance moved from systematic errors to attraction errors through an intermediate phase. Concludes that attraction errors are a byproduct of the…

  9. Subject-Verb Agreement in Children and Adults: Serial or Hierarchical Processing?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Negro, Isabelle; Chanquoy, Lucile; Fayol, Michel; Louis-Sidney, Maryse

    2005-01-01

    Two processes, serial and hierarchical, are generally opposed to account for grammatical encoding in language production. In a developmental perspective, the question addressed here is whether the subject-verb agreement during writing is computed serially, once the words are linearly ordered in the sentence, or hierarchically, as soon as the…

  10. Sensitivity to subject-verb agreement in spoken language in children with developmental dyslexia

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Rispens, J; Roeleven, S; Koster, C

    The principle aim of this paper was to investigate sensitivity to subject-verb agreement morphology in children with developmental dyslexia. An auditory grammaticality judgement task was used to compare morphosyntactic abilities of primary school dyslexic children relative to normally developing

  11. Agreement processing and attraction errors in aging: evidence from subject-verb agreement in German.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reifegerste, Jana; Hauer, Franziska; Felser, Claudia

    2017-11-01

    Effects of aging on lexical processing are well attested, but the picture is less clear for grammatical processing. Where age differences emerge, these are usually ascribed to working-memory (WM) decline. Previous studies on the influence of WM on agreement computation have yielded inconclusive results, and work on aging and subject-verb agreement processing is lacking. In two experiments (Experiment 1: timed grammaticality judgment, Experiment 2: self-paced reading + WM test), we investigated older (OA) and younger (YA) adults' susceptibility to agreement attraction errors. We found longer reading latencies and judgment reaction times (RTs) for OAs. Further, OAs, particularly those with low WM scores, were more accepting of sentences with attraction errors than YAs. OAs showed longer reading latencies for ungrammatical sentences, again modulated by WM, than YAs. Our results indicate that OAs have greater difficulty blocking intervening nouns from interfering with the computation of agreement dependencies. WM can modulate this effect.

  12. Successful Written Subject-Verb Agreement: An Online Analysis of the Procedure Used by Students in Grades 3, 5 and 12

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alamargot, Denis; Flouret, Lisa; Larocque, Denis; Caporossi, Gilles; Pontart, Virginie; Paduraru, Carmen; Morisset, Pauline; Fayol, Michel

    2015-01-01

    This study was designed to (1) investigate the procedure responsible for successful written subject-verb agreement, and (2) describe how it develops across grades. Students in Grades 3, 5 and 12 were asked to read noun-noun-verb sentences aloud (e.g., "Le chien des voisins mange" ["The dog of the neighbors eats"]) and write out…

  13. Subject-Verb Agreement and Verbal Short-Term Memory: A Perspective from Greek Children with Specific Language Impairment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lalioti, Marina; Stavrakaki, Stavroula; Manouilidou, Christina; Talli, Ioanna

    2016-01-01

    This study investigated the performance of school age Greek-speaking children with SLI on verbal short-term memory (VSTM) and Subject-Verb (S-V) agreement in comparison to chronological age controls and younger typically developing children. VSTM abilities were assessed by means of a non-word repetition task (NRT) and an elicited production task,…

  14. Representing number in the real-time processing of agreement: Self-paced reading evidence from Arabic

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Matthew A. Tucker

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available In the processing of subject-verb agreement, non-subject plural nouns following a singular subject sometimes attract the agreement with the verb, despite not being grammatically licensed to do so. This phenomenon generates agreement errors in production and an increased tendency to fail to notice such errors in comprehension, thereby providing a window into the representation of grammatical number in working memory during sentence processing. Research in this topic, however, is primarily done in related languages with similar agreement systems. In order to increase the cross-linguistic coverage of the processing of agreement, we conducted a self-paced reading study in Modern Standard Arabic. We report robust agreement attraction errors in relative clauses, a configuration not particularly conducive to the generation of such errors for all possible lexicalizations. In particular, we examined the speed with which readers retrieve a subject controller for both grammatical and ungrammatical agreeing verbs in sentences where verbs are preceded by two NPs, one of which is a local non-subject NP that can act as a distractor for the successful resolution of subject-verb agreement. Our results suggest that the frequency of errors is modulated by the kind of plural formation strategy used on the attractor noun: nouns which form plurals by suffixation condition high rates of attraction, whereas nouns which form their plurals by internal vowel change (ablaut generate lower rates of errors and reading-time attraction effects of smaller magnitudes. Furthermore, we show some evidence that these agreement attraction effects are mostly contained in the right tail of reaction time distributions. We also present modeling data in the ACT-R framework which supports a view of these ablauting patterns wherein they are differentially specified for number and evaluate the consequences of possible representations for theories of grammar and parsing.

  15. Switching Between Noun and Verb Agreement Rules Comes at a Cost: Cross-Sectional and Interventional Studies in a Developmental Sample

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Van Reybroeck Marie

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available This study clarifies the impact of switching context between noun and verb number agreement rules in written language production. In Experiment 1, children from grade 3 to 6 were asked to fill in sentences with nouns and verbs in either a switching condition (noun followed by verb or a repeating condition (noun followed by noun. The results showed that third- and fourth-grade children produced more erroneous agreements in the switching condition than in the repeating condition, showing that switching between rules comes at a cost, whereas fifth- and sixth-grade participants’ performance was not affected by the switching context. Based on these findings, Experiment 2 aimed to assess whether a switching treatment offers a greater opportunity to improve the acquisition of grammatical agreement production, as compared to a simple treatment. Teachers from grade 3 gave either a switching treatment (mixed noun and verb exercises or a simple treatment (noun exercises followed by verb exercises. The results show that children learned better from the switching treatment than from the simple treatment. These findings highlight the cost of switching between noun and verb agreement rules during the acquisition of grammatical number agreement and also how grammatical spelling acquisition can be improved at school.

  16. AN ANALYSIS OF SUBJECT AGREEMENT ERRORS IN ENGLISH ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Windows User

    ENGLISH: THE CASE OF THIRD YEAR STUDENTS AT THE. NATIONAL ... school, communication is done in the first language, Sesotho. English has ..... carelessness, and lack of habitual checking of subject-verb agreement in sentence.

  17. Finite Verb Morphology in the Spontaneous Speech of Dutch-Speaking Children With Hearing Loss.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hammer, Annemiek; Coene, Martine

    2016-01-01

    In this study, the acquisition of Dutch finite verb morphology is investigated in children with cochlear implants (CIs) with profound hearing loss and in children with hearing aids (HAs) with moderate to severe hearing loss. Comparing these two groups of children increases our insight into how hearing experience and audibility affect the acquisition of morphosyntax. Spontaneous speech samples were analyzed of 48 children with CIs and 29 children with HAs, ages 4 to 7 years. These language samples were analyzed by means of standardized language analysis involving mean length of utterance, the number of finite verbs produced, and target-like subject-verb agreement. The outcomes were interpreted relative to expectations based on the performance of typically developing peers with normal hearing. Outcomes of all measures were correlated with hearing level in the group of HA users and age at implantation in the group of CI users. For both groups, the number of finite verbs that were produced in 50-utterance sample was on par with mean length of utterance and at the lower bound of the normal distribution. No significant differences were found between children with CIs and HAs on any of the measures under investigation. Yet, both groups produced more subject-verb agreement errors than are to be expected for typically developing hearing peers. No significant correlation was found between the hearing level of the children and the relevant measures of verb morphology, both with respect to the overall number of verbs that were used and the number of errors that children made. Within the group of CI users, the outcomes were significantly correlated with age at implantation. When producing finite verb morphology, profoundly deaf children wearing CIs perform similarly to their peers with moderate-to-severe hearing loss wearing HAs. Hearing loss negatively affects the acquisition of subject-verb agreement regardless of the hearing device (CI or HA) that the child is wearing. The

  18. The Effects of Verb Argument Complexity on Verb Production in Persons with Aphasia: Evidence from a Subject-Object-Verb Language

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sung, Jee Eun

    2016-01-01

    The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of verb argument complexity on verb production in individuals with aphasia using a verb-final language. The verb-argument complexity was examined by the number of arguments (1-, 2-, and 3-place) and the types of arguments (unaccusative vs. unergative comparisons). Fifteen Korean-speaking…

  19. On the L2 acquisition of Spanish-subject verb inversion

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Guerra Rivera, Alexia; Coopmans, Peter; Baauw, Sergio

    2015-01-01

    This study explores the acquisition of Spanish subject-verb inversion in wh-questions by Dutch L2 learners. The optional or obligatory application of this rule in Spanish wh-questions depends on the argument versus adjunct status of the wh-element. In Dutch,subject-verb inversionis obligatory in

  20. Gender and Number Agreement in the Oral Production of Arabic Heritage Speakers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Albirini, Abdulkafi; Benmamoun, Elabbas; Chakrani, Brahim

    2013-01-01

    Heritage language acquisition has been characterized by various asymmetries, including the differential acquisition rates of various linguistic areas and the unbalanced acquisition of different categories within a single area. This paper examines Arabic heritage speakers' knowledge of subject-verb agreement versus noun-adjective agreement with the…

  1. Verb agreement in the third plural person in European Portuguese: variation or semi-categorical rules?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cássio Florêncio Rubio

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this article is to characterize the verb agreement in the third person plural in the European Portuguese, and to present the points involved in this phenomenon. For the analysis, we resorted on the Theory of Linguistic Variation (LABOV 1972, 1994, 2003. The interviews debated in the quantitative analysis are from “Reference Corpus of Contemporary Portuguese”, published by the Linguistics Centre of the University of Lisbon (CLUL. The results show the influence of subject position, semantic feature of the subject, and morphological type of the subject in Linguistics.

  2. Children's Production of Subject-Verb Agreement in Hebrew When Gender and Context Are Ambiguous

    Science.gov (United States)

    Karniol, Rachel; Artzi, Sigal; Ludmer, Maya

    2016-01-01

    Third and 5th grade Hebrew-speaking children performed two sentence completion tasks, one requiring the assignment of male, female, or gender-ambiguous names and the inflection of verbs for male-stereotyped, female-stereotyped, and gender-neutral activities, and the other task, of inflecting verbs for male- and female-stereotyped activities…

  3. Verb agreement in the third plural person in European Portuguese: variation or semi-categorical rules?

    OpenAIRE

    Cássio Florêncio Rubio

    2015-01-01

    The aim of this article is to characterize the verb agreement in the third person plural in the European Portuguese, and to present the points involved in this phenomenon. For the analysis, we resorted on the Theory of Linguistic Variation (LABOV 1972, 1994, 2003). The interviews debated in the quantitative analysis are from “Reference Corpus of Contemporary Portuguese”, published by the Linguistics Centre of the University of Lisbon (CLUL). The results show the influence of subject position,...

  4. Wide-focus subject-verb inversion in Ibero-Romance: A locative account

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alice Corr

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available This paper explores the hypothesis that wide-focus subject-verb inversion in Ibero-Romance is a type of locative inversion, involving a null locative argument. Ibero-Romance displays fine-grained, systematic variation determined by verbal class and variety, offering evidence that Ibero-Romance neutral word order is SVO, rather than VSO as claimed by some null-subject accounts. It is proposed that ‘locative’ subject-verb inversion is a consequence of grammatically-encoded deictic features correlating with the semantic properties of the verbs involved. The locative element, available unequally across Ibero-Romance, can surface in different positions in the left periphery, yielding the variation encountered. The data indicate that the licensing of these constructions depends neither on the null-subject parameter, since this type of inversion also occurs in non- and partial null-subject varieties, nor on the unaccusative/unergative division, though in both cases a degree of correspondence exists.

  5. Tense and Agreement Impairment in Ibero-Romance

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gavarro, Anna; Martinez-Ferreiro, Silvia

    2007-01-01

    We examine the inflectional productions of seven Catalan, seven Galician, and seven Spanish speaking agrammatic subjects in an elicitation and a sentence repetition task and consider them in the light of the Tree Pruning Hypothesis (TPH). The results show relatively spared subject person/number agreement with the verb and impaired tense marking…

  6. Attraction Effects in Honorific Agreement in Korean.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kwon, Nayoung; Sturt, Patrick

    2016-01-01

    Previous studies have suggested that sentence processing is mediated by content-addressable direct retrieval processes (McElree, 2000; McElree et al., 2003). However, the memory retrieval processes may differ as a function of the type of dependency. For example, while many studies have reported facilitatory intrusion effects associated with a structurally illicit antecedent during the processing of subject-verb number or person agreement and negative polarity items (Pearlmutter et al., 1999; Xiang et al., 2009; Dillon et al., 2013), studies investigating reflexives have not found consistent evidence of intrusion effects (Parker et al., 2015; Sturt and Kwon, 2015; cf. Nicol and Swinney, 1989; Sturt, 2003). Similarly, the memory retrieval processes could be also sensitive to cross-linguistic differences (cf. Lago et al., 2015). We report one self-paced reading experiment and one eye-tracking experiment that examine the processing of subject-verb honorific agreement, a dependency that is different from those that have been studied to date, in Korean, a typologically different language from those previously studied. The overall results suggest that the retrieval processes underlying the processing of subject-verb honorific agreement in Korean are susceptible to facilitatory intrusion effects from a structurally illicit but feature-matching subject, with a pattern that is similar to subject-verb agreement in English. In addition, the attraction effect was not limited to the ungrammatical sentences but was also found in grammatical sentences. The clear attraction effect in the grammatical sentences suggest that the attraction effect does not solely arise as the result of an error-driven process (cf. Wagers et al., 2009), but is likely also to result from general mechanisms of retrieval processes of activating of potential items in memory (Vasishth et al., 2008).

  7. Semantic, phonologic, and verb fluency in Huntington's disease

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mariana Jardim Azambuja

    Full Text Available Abstract Verbal fluency tasks have been identified as important indicators of executive functioning impairment in patients with frontal lobe dysfunction. Although the usual evaluation of this ability considers phonologic and semantic criteria, there is some evidence that fluency of verbs would be more sensitive in disclosing frontostriatal physiopathology since frontal regions primarily mediate retrieval of verbs. Huntington's disease usually affects these circuitries. Objective: To compare three types of verbal fluency task in the assessment of frontal-striatal dysfunction in HD subjects. Methods: We studied 26 Huntington's disease subjects, divided into two subgroups: mild (11 and moderate (15 along with 26 normal volunteers matched for age, gender and schooling, for three types of verbal fluency: phonologic fluency (F-A-S, semantic fluency and fluency of verbs. Results: Huntington's disease subjects showed a significant reduction in the number of words correctly generated in the three tasks when compared to the normal group. Both controls and Huntington's disease subjects showed a similar pattern of decreasing task performance with the greatest number of words being generated by semantic elicitation followed by verbs and lastly phonologic criteria. We did not find greater production of verbs compared with F-A-S and semantic conditions. Moreover, the fluency of verbs distinguished only the moderate group from controls. Conclusion: Our results indicated that phonologic and semantic fluency can be used to evaluate executive functioning, proving more sensitive than verb fluency. However, it is important to point out that the diverse presentations of Huntington's disease means that an extended sample is necessary for more consistent analysis of this issue.

  8. Verb Agreements during On-Line Sentence Processing in Alzheimer's Disease and Frontotemporal Dementia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Price, C.C.; Grossman, M.

    2005-01-01

    An on-line ''word detection'' paradigm was used to assess the comprehension of thematic and transitive verb agreements during sentence processing in individuals diagnosed with probable Alzheimer's Disease (AD, n=15) and Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD, n=14). AD, FTD, and control participants (n=17) were asked to listen for a word in a sentence.…

  9. Cues, quantification, and agreement in language comprehension.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tanner, Darren; Bulkes, Nyssa Z

    2015-12-01

    We investigated factors that affect the comprehension of subject-verb agreement in English, using quantification as a window into the relationship between morphosyntactic processes in language production and comprehension. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants read sentences with grammatical and ungrammatical verbs, in which the plurality of the subject noun phrase was either doubly marked (via overt plural quantification and morphological marking on the noun) or singly marked (via only plural morphology on the noun). Both acceptability judgments and the ERP data showed heightened sensitivity to agreement violations when quantification provided an additional cue to the grammatical number of the subject noun phrase, over and above plural morphology. This is consistent with models of grammatical comprehension that emphasize feature prediction in tandem with cue-based memory retrieval. Our results additionally contrast with those of prior studies that showed no effects of plural quantification on agreement in language production. These findings therefore highlight some nontrivial divergences in the cues and mechanisms supporting morphosyntactic processing in language production and comprehension.

  10. Effects of verb-argument cues on verb production in persons with aphasia using a verb-final language

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jee Eun Sung

    2014-04-01

    PWA showed greater difficulties in producing verbs with more argument structures compared to the normal group. In contrast, PWA presented significantly increased performance on the verb-completion task as the number of verb arguments increased since more cues were provided for 2- or 3-place verbs than 1-place verbs. The current results suggested that the features of more semantic and syntactic units to be activated may induce greater difficulties in retrieving verbs with more arguments, and PWA benefited from the verb-argument cues in verb production.

  11. Agreement Attraction in Comprehension: Representations and Processes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wagers, Matthew W.; Lau, Ellen F.; Phillips, Colin

    2009-01-01

    Much work has demonstrated so-called attraction errors in the production of subject-verb agreement (e.g., "The key to the cabinets are on the table", [Bock, J. K., & Miller, C. A. (1991). "Broken agreement." "Cognitive Psychology, 23", 45-93]), in which a verb erroneously agrees with an intervening noun. Six self-paced reading experiments examined…

  12. Cerebellar activation in verb generation. Activation study with positron emission tomography in normal subjects

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yokoyama, Eriko [Inst. for Rehabilitation and Mental Health, Kyowa, Akita (Japan); Kanno, Iwao; Sadato, Norihiro; Senda, Michio; Fujita, Hideaki; Nagata, Ken

    1999-06-01

    To investigate the role of cerebellum in language function, we used the silent verb generation task in PET activation study. Subjects were 11 right-handed, healthy men with the mean age of 24.3. We used two experimental conditions, resting state and verb generation, and measured cerebral blood flow (CBF) alternately and repeatedly, three times for each condition. In the verb generation task, the subject was asked to silently think of as many verbs associated with auditorily given noun as he could. The subtraction image between verb generation and resting state showed activation foci at the left inferior to middle frontal lobe as well as temporal lobe in the supratentorium, consistent with previous studies. In the infratentorium, there were significant foci at bilateral cerebellar hemisphere and brain stem, which was predominantly seen over the right cerebellum. Activations were seen in the superior-lateral part of the right cerebellar hemisphere including the right dentate nucleus, and in the inferior-lateral part of the left cerebellar hemisphere. The amount of CBF increase by the task as compared with the resting condition in the upper cerebellum showed an increasing trend from the first to the third measurement. The present results suggest specific roles of the cerebellum in word retrieval as well as the practice-related changes during verbal learning. (author)

  13. Cerebellar activation in verb generation. Activation study with positron emission tomography in normal subjects

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yokoyama, Eriko; Kanno, Iwao; Sadato, Norihiro; Senda, Michio; Fujita, Hideaki; Nagata, Ken

    1999-01-01

    To investigate the role of cerebellum in language function, we used the silent verb generation task in PET activation study. Subjects were 11 right-handed, healthy men with the mean age of 24.3. We used two experimental conditions, resting state and verb generation, and measured cerebral blood flow (CBF) alternately and repeatedly, three times for each condition. In the verb generation task, the subject was asked to silently think of as many verbs associated with auditorily given noun as he could. The subtraction image between verb generation and resting state showed activation foci at the left inferior to middle frontal lobe as well as temporal lobe in the supratentorium, consistent with previous studies. In the infratentorium, there were significant foci at bilateral cerebellar hemisphere and brain stem, which was predominantly seen over the right cerebellum. Activations were seen in the superior-lateral part of the right cerebellar hemisphere including the right dentate nucleus, and in the inferior-lateral part of the left cerebellar hemisphere. The amount of CBF increase by the task as compared with the resting condition in the upper cerebellum showed an increasing trend from the first to the third measurement. The present results suggest specific roles of the cerebellum in word retrieval as well as the practice-related changes during verbal learning. (author)

  14. Encoding and Retrieval Interference in Sentence Comprehension: Evidence from Agreement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sandra Villata

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Long-distance verb-argument dependencies generally require the integration of a fronted argument when the verb is encountered for sentence interpretation. Under a parsing model that handles long-distance dependencies through a cue-based retrieval mechanism, retrieval is hampered when retrieval cues also resonate with non-target elements (retrieval interference. However, similarity-based interference may also stem from interference arising during the encoding of elements in memory (encoding interference, an effect that is not directly accountable for by a cue-based retrieval mechanism. Although encoding and retrieval interference are clearly distinct at the theoretical level, it is difficult to disentangle the two on empirical grounds, since encoding interference may also manifest at the retrieval region. We report two self-paced reading experiments aimed at teasing apart the role of each component in gender and number subject-verb agreement in Italian and English object relative clauses. In Italian, the verb does not agree in gender with the subject, thus providing no cue for retrieval. In English, although present tense verbs agree in number with the subject, past tense verbs do not, allowing us to test the role of number as a retrieval cue within the same language. Results from both experiments converge, showing similarity-based interference at encoding, and some evidence for an effect at retrieval. After having pointed out the non-negligible role of encoding in sentence comprehension, and noting that Lewis and Vasishth’s (2005 ACT-R model of sentence processing, the most fully developed cue-based retrieval approach to sentence processing does not predict encoding effects, we propose an augmentation of this model that predicts these effects. We then also propose a self-organizing sentence processing model (SOSP, which has the advantage of accounting for retrieval and encoding interference with a single mechanism.

  15. Encoding and Retrieval Interference in Sentence Comprehension: Evidence from Agreement

    Science.gov (United States)

    Villata, Sandra; Tabor, Whitney; Franck, Julie

    2018-01-01

    Long-distance verb-argument dependencies generally require the integration of a fronted argument when the verb is encountered for sentence interpretation. Under a parsing model that handles long-distance dependencies through a cue-based retrieval mechanism, retrieval is hampered when retrieval cues also resonate with non-target elements (retrieval interference). However, similarity-based interference may also stem from interference arising during the encoding of elements in memory (encoding interference), an effect that is not directly accountable for by a cue-based retrieval mechanism. Although encoding and retrieval interference are clearly distinct at the theoretical level, it is difficult to disentangle the two on empirical grounds, since encoding interference may also manifest at the retrieval region. We report two self-paced reading experiments aimed at teasing apart the role of each component in gender and number subject-verb agreement in Italian and English object relative clauses. In Italian, the verb does not agree in gender with the subject, thus providing no cue for retrieval. In English, although present tense verbs agree in number with the subject, past tense verbs do not, allowing us to test the role of number as a retrieval cue within the same language. Results from both experiments converge, showing similarity-based interference at encoding, and some evidence for an effect at retrieval. After having pointed out the non-negligible role of encoding in sentence comprehension, and noting that Lewis and Vasishth’s (2005) ACT-R model of sentence processing, the most fully developed cue-based retrieval approach to sentence processing does not predict encoding effects, we propose an augmentation of this model that predicts these effects. We then also propose a self-organizing sentence processing model (SOSP), which has the advantage of accounting for retrieval and encoding interference with a single mechanism. PMID:29403414

  16. A Descriptive Enquiry into Subject-Verb Concord in English Existential Constructions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tsuchida, Takehiro

    2011-01-01

    Subject-verb concord in English existential constructions is often viewed as problematic from both prescriptive and descriptive approaches to grammar and causes considerable confusion among teachers and learners of English as a second language (ESL). This paper aims to disentangle debates over the curious usage of the "there" + plural noun phrase…

  17. Processing of verb tense

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kostić Aleksandar Đ.

    2002-01-01

    Full Text Available Processing of Serbian inflected verbs was investigated in two lexical decision experiments. In the first experiment subjects were presented with five forms of future tense, while in the second experiment the same verbs were presented in three forms of present and future tense. The outcome of the first experiment indicates that processing of inflected verb is determined by the amount of information derived from the average probability per congruent personal pronoun of a particular verb form. This implies that the cognitive system is not sensitive to verb person per se, nor to the gender of congruent personal pronoun. Results of the second experiment show that for verb forms of different tenses, presented in the same experiment, the amount of information has to be additionally modulated by tense probability. Such an outcome speaks in favor of cognitive relevance of verb tense.

  18. 500 French verbs for dummies

    CERN Document Server

    Erotopoulos

    2013-01-01

    Vexed by French verbs? Fear no more! In 500 French Verbs For Dummies, beginning French language learners can find a quick reference for verbs in the basic present tenses. More advanced French speakers can utilize this book to learn more complex verb tenses and conjugations as well as advanced verbs with irregular endings. One page for each of the 500 most commonly used verbs in the French language -alphabetically arranged and numbered for easy referenceSpecial designation of the 50 most essential French verbsA summary of basic French grammar that incl

  19. Effect of action verbs on the performance of a complex movement.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tahar Rabahi

    Full Text Available The interaction between language and motor action has been approached by studying the effect of action verbs, kinaesthetic imagery and mental subtraction upon the performance of a complex movement, the squat vertical jump (SVJ. The time of flight gave the value of the height of the SVJ and was measured with an Optojump® and a Myotest® apparatuses. The results obtained by the effects of the cognitive stimuli showed a statistically significant improvement of the SVJ performance after either loudly or silently pronouncing, hearing or reading the verb saute (jump in French language. Action verbs specific for other motor actions (pince = pinch, lèche = lick or non-specific (bouge = move showed no or little effect. A meaningless verb for the French subjects (tiáo = jump in Chinese showed no effect as did rêve (dream, tombe (fall and stop. The verb gagne (win improved significantly the SVJ height, as did its antonym perds (lose suggesting a possible influence of affects in the subjects' performance. The effect of the specific action verb jump upon the heights of SVJ was similar to that obtained after kinaesthetic imagery and after mental subtraction of two digits numbers from three digits ones; possibly, in the latter, because of the intervention of language in calculus. It appears that the effects of the specific action verb jump did seem effective but not totally exclusive for the enhancement of the SVJ performance. The results imply an interaction among language and motor brain areas in the performance of a complex movement resulting in a clear specificity of the corresponding action verb. The effect upon performance may probably be influenced by the subjects' intention, increased attention and emotion produced by cognitive stimuli among which action verbs.

  20. Verb aspect, alternations and quantification

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Svetla Koeva

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available Verb aspect, alternations and quantification In this paper we are briefly discuss the nature of Bulgarian verb aspect and argue that the verb aspect pairs are different lexical units with different (although related meaning, different argument structure (reflecting categories, explicitness and referential status of arguments and different sets of semantic and syntactic alternations. The verb prefixes resulting in perfective verbs derivation in some cases can be interpreted as lexical quantifiers as well. Thus the Bulgarian verb aspect is related (in different way both with the potential for the generation of alternations and with the prefixal lexical quantification. It is shown that the scope of the lexical quantification by means of verbal prefixes is the quantified verb phrase and the scope remains constant in all derived alternations. The paper concerns the basic issues of these complex problems, while the detailed description of the conditions satisfying particular alternation or particular lexical quantification are subject of a more detailed study.

  1. Tense and agreement impairment in Ibero-Romance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gavarró, Anna; Martínez-Ferreiro, Silvia

    2007-01-01

    We examine the inflectional productions of seven Catalan, seven Galician, and seven Spanish speaking agrammatic subjects in an elicitation and a sentence repetition task and consider them in the light of the Tree Pruning Hypothesis (TPH). The results show relatively spared subject person/number agreement with the verb and impaired tense marking for all subjects in all the languages. Recent reformulations of syntactic theory [Chomsky (1999) MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics (vol. 18). MA: The MIT Press; (2000). Step by Step: Essays on Minimalist Syntax in Honor of Howard Lasnik (pp. 89-155). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press] regarding the locus of agreement force a reconsideration of the TPH for it to make the desired predictions; we adopt Cinque's [(1999) Adverbs and Functional Heads: A Cross-linguistic Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press] array of functional mood/tense/aspect projections and we show that subject agreement must occur between the subject DP and a low functional head for selective impairment to result. Feature underspecification, formerly considered, is rendered unnecessary.

  2. On the Nature of Clitics and Their Sensitivity to Number Attraction Effects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Santesteban, Mikel; Zawiszewski, Adam; Erdocia, Kepa; Laka, Itziar

    2017-01-01

    Pronominal dependencies have been shown to be more resilient to attraction effects than subject-verb agreement. We use this phenomenon to investigate whether antecedent-clitic dependencies in Spanish are computed like agreement or like pronominal dependencies. In Experiment 1, an acceptability judgment self-paced reading task was used. Accuracy data yielded reliable attraction effects in both grammatical and ungrammatical sentences, only in singular (but not plural) clitics. Reading times did not show reliable attraction effects. In Experiment 2, we measured electrophysiological responses to violations, which elicited a biphasic frontal negativity-P600 pattern. Number attraction modulated the frontal negativity but not the amplitude of the P600 component. This differs from ERP findings on subject-verb agreement, since when the baseline matching condition obtained a biphasic pattern, attraction effects only modulated the P600, not the preceding negativity. We argue that these findings support cue-retrieval accounts of dependency resolution and further suggest that the sensitivity to attraction effects shown by clitics resembles more the computation of pronominal dependencies than that of agreement.

  3. Verb and auxiliary movement in agrammatic Broca's aphasia

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bastiaanse, Y.R.M.; Thompson, C.K.

    Verb production in agrammatic Broca's aphasia has repeatedly been shown to be impaired by a number of investigators. Not only is the number of verbs produced often significantly reduced, but verb inflections and auxiliaries are often omitted as well (e.g., Bastiaanse, Jonkers, & Moltmaker-Osinga,

  4. A STUDY IN THE ANALYSIS OF THE HINDI VERB.

    Science.gov (United States)

    BAHL, KALI C.

    A CONSTITUENT STRUCTURE OF HINDI WAS FORMULATED TO ACCOUNT FOR THE PHENOMENA OF COMPOUND AND CONJUNCT VERBS IN THE LANGUAGE. THE TRADITIONAL CLASS OF CONJUNCT VERBS OR THE COMPOUND VERBS, CONSISTING OF NOUN OR ADJECTIVE PLUS VERB, WAS REINTERPRETED IN THIS ANALYSIS. THE FOUR SECTIONS OF THE TEXT DEALT WITH (1) THE SUBJECT-PREDICATE KERNEL…

  5. Psych verbs, the Linking Problem, and the Acquisition of Language

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hartshorne, Joshua K.; O'Donnell, Timothy J.; Sudo, Yasutada; Uruwashi, Miki; Lee, Miseon; Snedeker, Jesse

    2016-01-01

    In acquiring language, children must learn to appropriately place the different participants of an event (e.g., causal agent, affected entity) into the correct syntactic positions (e.g., subject, object) so that listeners will know who did what to whom. While many of these mappings can be characterized by broad generalizations, both within and across languages (e.g., semantic agents tend to be mapped onto syntactic subjects), not all verbs fit neatly into these generalizations. One particularly striking example is verbs of psychological state: The experiencer of the state can appear as either the subject (Agnes fears/hates/loves Bartholomew) or the direct object (Agnes frightens/angers/delights Bartholomew). The present studies explore whether this apparent variability in subject/object mapping may actually result from differences in these verbs’ underlying meanings. Specifically, we suggest that verbs like fear describe a habitual attitude towards some entity whereas verbs like frighten describe an externally caused emotional episode. We find that this distinction systematically characterizes verbs in English, Mandarin, and Korean. This pattern is generalized to novel verbs by adults in English, Japanese, and Russian, and even by English-speaking children who are just beginning to acquire psych verbs. This results support a broad role for systematic mappings between semantics and syntax in language acquisition. PMID:27693942

  6. Gender and Agreement Processing in Children with Developmental Language Disorder

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rakhlin, Natalia; Kornilov, Sergey A.; Grigorenko, Elena L.

    2014-01-01

    Two experiments tested whether Russian-speaking children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) are sensitive to gender agreement when performing a gender decision task. In Experiment 1, the presence of overt gender agreement between verbs and/or adjectival modifiers and postverbal subject nouns memory was varied. In Experiment 2, agreement…

  7. The Effects of Form-Focused Instruction on the Acquisition of Subject-Verb Inversion in German

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lindseth, Martina

    2016-01-01

    This study examines the effects of form-focused instruction (FFI) on the acquisition of subject-verb inversion word order in declarative sentences in German. A group of U.S. college students who participated in a semester-long study abroad program in Germany and were comparable in terms of preprogram oral proficiency levels and accuracy scores in…

  8. Simultaneous Processing of Noun Cue and to-be-Produced Verb in Verb Generation Task: Electromagnetic Evidence

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anna V. Butorina

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available A long-standing but implicit assumption is that words strongly associated with a presented cue are automatically activated in the memory through rapid spread of activation within brain semantic networks. The current study was aimed to provide direct evidence of such rapid access to words’ semantic representations and to investigate its neural sources using magnetoencephalography (MEG and distributed source localization technique. Thirty-three neurotypical subjects underwent the MEG recording during verb generation task, which was to produce verbs related to the presented noun cues. Brain responses evoked by the noun cues were examined while manipulating the strength of association between the noun and the potential verb responses. The strong vs. weak noun-verb association led to a greater noun-related neural response at 250–400 ms after cue onset, and faster verb production. The cortical sources of the differential response were localized in left temporal pole, previously implicated in semantic access, and left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC, thought to subserve controlled semantic retrieval. The strength of the left VLPFC’s response to the nouns with strong verb associates was positively correlated to the speed of verbs production. Our findings empirically validate the theoretical expectation that in case of a strongly connected noun-verb pair, successful access to target verb representation may occur already at the stage of lexico-semantic analysis of the presented noun. Moreover, the MEG results suggest that contrary to the previous conclusion derived from fMRI studies left VLPFC supports selection of the target verb representations, even if they were retrieved from semantic memory rapidly and effortlessly. The discordance between MEG and fMRI findings in verb generation task may stem from different modes of neural activation captured by phase-locked activity in MEG and slow changes of blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD signal

  9. DRIVING VEHICLES SUBJECT TO A CUSTOMS RESTRICTIONS AGREEMENT WITH ORDINARY SWISS NUMBER PLATES

    CERN Document Server

    Relations with the Host States Service

    2001-01-01

    The Swiss Permanent Mission to the International Organisations in Geneva has just confirmed to CERN that it is not necessary to hold a carte de légitimation or an attestation de fonctions issued by the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs to drive a vehicle subject to a customs restrictions agreement (engagement douanier), i.e. purchased or imported free of tax and customs duty, provided that the vehicle concerned is registered on ordinary Swiss number plates and not on diplomatic plates. We should like to remind you that the documents published by the Relations with the Host States Service since 1996 can be consulted on the Service's Web pages (http://www.cern.ch/relations/), which are updated as soon as new information is received from the Authorities of the Host States.

  10. The perception and expression of verb morphology in bilinguals with specific language impairment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hourieh Ahadi

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available Background and Aim: Most of the researches are about bilingual children with specific language impairment and importance of it in recognition and treatment. This study aimed to assess verb morphology in bilinguals with specific language impairment (SLI and compare them with normal bilinguals.Methods: Six bilingual (Azeri and Persian children with specific language impairment at the age of 7-8 years were collected from clinics of Tehran, Iran. They were evaluated about verb morphology using narrative speech and specific language impairment test and then, compared with six age-matched and six other language-matched children as control group. Children with specific language impairment were diagnosed by exhibiting a significant delay (more than one year in language that can not be explained by intelligence deficits, hearing loss or visual impairment. We used Man-Whitney test for comparing the groups.Results: Bilingual children with specific language impairment had delay in comparison with their age-matched group in subject-verb agreement (p=0.020 and articulating tense morphemes (p=0.019. They also had meaningful delay in using proper tense of verbs (past, present, and future in comparison with language-matched control group (p=0.029.Conclusion: Comparison of typical development of bilingual children and bilinguals with specific language impairment shows that verb morphology is a good clinical marker for diagnosing and treatment of these children.

  11. Psycholinguistic measures for German verb pairs: Semantic transparency, semantic relatedness, verb family size, and age of reading acquisition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smolka, Eva; Eulitz, Carsten

    2018-06-18

    A central issue in visual and spoken word recognition is the lexical representation of complex words-in particular, whether the lexical representation of complex words depends on semantic transparency: Is a complex verb like understand lexically represented as a whole word or via its base stand, given that its meaning is not transparent from the meanings of its parts? To study this issue, a number of stimulus characteristics are of interest that are not yet available in public databases of German. This article provides semantic association ratings, lexical paraphrases, and vector-based similarity measures for German verbs, measuring (a) the semantic transparency between 1,259 complex verbs and their bases, (b) the semantic relatedness between 1,109 verb pairs with 432 different bases, and (c) the vector-based similarity measures of 846 verb pairs. Additionally, we include the verb regularity of all verbs and two counts of verb family size for 184 base verbs, as well as estimates of age of acquisition and age of reading for 200 verbs. Together with lemma and type frequencies from public lexical databases, all measures can be downloaded along with this article. Statistical analyses indicate that verb family size, morphological complexity, frequency, and verb regularity affect the semantic transparency and relatedness ratings as well as the age of acquisition estimates, indicating that these are relevant variables in psycholinguistic experiments. Although lexical paraphrases, vector-based similarity measures, and semantic association ratings may deliver complementary information, the interrater reliability of the semantic association ratings for each verb pair provides valuable information when selecting stimuli for psycholinguistic experiments.

  12. Early Verb Constructions in French: Adjacency on the Left Edge

    Science.gov (United States)

    Veneziano, Edy; Clark, Eve V.

    2016-01-01

    Children acquiring French elaborate their early verb constructions by adding adjacent morphemes incrementally at the left edge of core verbs. This hypothesis was tested with 2657 verb uses from four children between 1;3 and 2;7. Consistent with the Adjacency Hypothesis, children added clitic subjects frst only to present tense forms (as in…

  13. Locative inversion and agreement syntax in Brazilian Portuguese

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Juanito Ornelas de Avelar

    2009-12-01

    Full Text Available Adopting the Minimalist Program framework (CHOMSKY 2000, 2001, this paper suggests that, in Brazilian Portuguese, sentences with a locative prepositional phrase in preverbal position can be characterized as instances of locative inversion in which prepositional constituents occupy the grammatical subject position. It will be proposed that particularities involving the patterns of locative inversion in Brazilian Portuguese derive from properties of the subject-verb agreement in this language.

  14. Cerebellum engages in automation of verb-generation skill.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Zhi; Wu, Paula; Weng, Xuchu; Bandettini, Peter A

    2014-03-01

    Numerous studies have shown cerebellar involvement in item-specific association, a form of explicit learning. However, very few have demonstrated cerebellar participation in automation of non-motor cognitive tasks. Applying fMRI to a repeated verb-generation task, we sought to distinguish cerebellar involvement in learning of item-specific noun-verb association and automation of verb generation skill. The same set of nouns was repeated in six verb-generation blocks so that subjects practiced generating verbs for the nouns. The practice was followed by a novel block with a different set of nouns. The cerebellar vermis (IV/V) and the right cerebellar lobule VI showed decreased activation following practice; activation in the right cerebellar Crus I was significantly lower in the novel challenge than in the initial verb-generation task. Furthermore, activation in this region during well-practiced blocks strongly correlated with improvement of behavioral performance in both the well-practiced and the novel blocks, suggesting its role in the learning of general mental skills not specific to the practiced noun-verb pairs. Therefore, the cerebellum processes both explicit verbal associative learning and automation of cognitive tasks. Different cerebellar regions predominate in this processing: lobule VI during the acquisition of item-specific association, and Crus I during automation of verb-generation skills through practice.

  15. The Agreement between Conjoined Subjects and Predicate: Croatian Church Slavonic Corpus Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ana Kovačević

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available The abundance of grammatical categories in Slavonic and their overlap are particularly evident in the agreement between conjoined subjects and predicate. When they are accompanied by agreement conditions, such as word order and animacy in Slavic languages, different agreement patterns, dependent also on concrete context and speaker, are to be expected. In this paper the study of the agreement between conjoined subjects and predicate is based on an analysis of the medieval Glagolitic Croatian Church Slavonic corpus. Number, gender, and person are grammatical categories, i. e., features of conjoined noun phrases and predicate agreement. The analysis includes noun phrases conjoined by coordinating and some non-coordinating conjunctions as well as noun phrases conjoined by a gradational ‛not only [. . .] but also’ structure. Comitative and reciprocal noun phrases are included as well. The research in the given corpus shows that the conjoined noun phrases with predicate agreement can be syntactic (predicate showing agreement with one conjunct or semantic (predicate showing agreement with all conjuncts. Syntactic agreement appears as the so-called contact agreement (predicate showing agreement with the closest conjunct and as distant agreement (predicate showing agreement with the most distant conjunct. Semantic agreement is applied mostly in accordance with G. G. Corbett’s resolution rules for Slavic languages. However, the analysis shows that some resolution rules for number should be revised due to dual number. Although absent from the majority of contemporary Slavic languages, it is precisely in historical Slavic idioms that dual number reveals its identity, highlighted in agreement study as well.

  16. Walking but not barking improves verb recovery: implications for action observation treatment in aphasia rehabilitation.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paola Marangolo

    Full Text Available Recent studies have shown that action observation treatment without concomitant verbal cue has a positive impact on the recovery of verb retrieval deficits in aphasic patients. In agreement with an embodied cognition viewpoint, a hypothesis has been advanced that gestures and language form a single communication system and words whose retrieval is facilitated by gestures are semantically represented through sensory-motor features. However, it is still an open question as to what extent this treatment approach works. Results from the recovery of motor deficits have suggested that action observation promotes motor recovery only for actions that are part of the motor repertoire of the observer. The aim of the present experiment was to further investigate the role of action observation treatment in verb recovery. In particular, we contrasted the effects induced by observing human actions (e.g. dancing, kicking, pointing, eating versus non human actions (e.g. barking, printing. Seven chronic aphasic patients with a selective deficit in verb retrieval underwent an intensive rehabilitation training that included five daily sessions over two consecutive weeks. Each subject was asked to carefully observe 115 video-clips of actions, one at a time and, after observing them, they had to produce the corresponding verb. Two groups of actions were randomly presented: humans versus nonhuman actions. In all patients, significant improvement in verb retrieval was found only by observing video-clips of human actions. Moreover, follow-up testing revealed long-term verb recovery that was still present two months after the two treatments had ended. In support of the multimodal concept representation's proposal, we suggest that just the observation of actions pertaining to the human motor repertoire is an effective rehabilitation approach for verb recovery.

  17. Verb production and word order in Russian agrammatic speakers

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dragoy, Olga; Bastiaanse, Roelien

    2010-01-01

    Background: Verb production has been shown to be impaired in individuals with agrammatic Broca's aphasia. Several theories have linked this deficit to problems with the implementation of grammatical information that the verb contains. In particular, the number and type of arguments associated with a

  18. The training of verb production in Broca's aphasia : A multiple-baseline across-behaviours study

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bastiaanse, R; Hurkmans, J; Links, P

    2006-01-01

    Background: Verb production is often impaired in Broca's aphasia: Action naming is more affected than object naming and in spontaneous speech the number and/or diversity of lexical verbs is low. Because verbs play a pivotal role in the sentence, these verb problems have a serious impact on the

  19. First-person and third-person verbs in visual motion-perception regions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Papeo, Liuba; Lingnau, Angelika

    2015-02-01

    Verb-related activity is consistently found in the left posterior lateral cortex (PLTC), encompassing also regions that respond to visual-motion perception. Besides motion, those regions appear sensitive to distinctions among the entities beyond motion, including that between first- vs. third-person ("third-person bias"). In two experiments, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we studied whether the implied subject (first/third-person) and/or the semantic content (motor/non-motor) of verbs modulate the neural activity in the left PLTC-regions responsive during basic- and biological-motion perception. In those sites, we found higher activity for verbs than for nouns. This activity was modulated by the person (but not the semantic content) of the verbs, with stronger response to third- than first-person verbs. The third-person bias elicited by verbs supports a role of motion-processing regions in encoding information about the entity beyond (and independently from) motion, and sets in a new light the role of these regions in verb processing. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  20. Auxiliary verbs in Dinka

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Andersen, Torben

    2007-01-01

    Dinka, a Western Nilotic language, has a class of auxiliary verbs which is remarkable in the following four respects: (i) It is unusually large, comprising some 20 members; (ii) it is grammatically homogeneous in terms of both morphology and syntax; (iii) most of the auxiliary verbs correspond...... to adverbs in languages like English, while the rest are tense-aspect markers; and (iv) it is possible to combine several auxiliary verbs in a single clause. For some of the auxiliary verbs there are extant full verbs from which they have evolved. To some extent, therefore, it is possible to observe what...

  1. The verb Hteti and the structure of auxiliary and modal verbs in Serbo-Croatian

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Stanimir Rakić

    1984-12-01

    Full Text Available The analysis of the distribution of enclitic forms ću, ćeš, će ... and   heverb hteti shows that they cannot be naturally reduced to each other. Thi.s mean. s that the., verb hteti is not.. an auxiliary verb at all, i. e. it does not take part in compound tenses in S.erbo-Croatian. Accord,ing to their complement.& we ha­ve distinguished two verbs hteti - hteti1 and hteti. Hteti is a modal verb, hteti a main verb. Furthermore, we have shown that there is a parallelism between 'complements "da + prezent" and "sentence" which can be best accounted for by a transforma­ tion (18, which may be called in English Subjugation of Infi­ nitive. This analysis has enabled us to present the structure of auxiliary and modal verbs by rewrite rules (34. Finally, we have shown that an alternative analysis in which all verbs are conceived as main verbs is quite feasible. In this new analysis our results are preserved in the form of an obligatory filter.

  2. Infants use known verbs to learn novel nouns: evidence from 15- and 19-month-olds.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ferguson, Brock; Graf, Eileen; Waxman, Sandra R

    2014-04-01

    Fluent speakers' representations of verbs include semantic knowledge about the nouns that can serve as their arguments. These "selectional restrictions" of a verb can in principle be recruited to learn the meaning of a novel noun. For example, the sentence He ate the carambola licenses the inference that carambola refers to something edible. We ask whether 15- and 19-month-old infants can recruit their nascent verb lexicon to identify the referents of novel nouns that appear as the verbs' subjects. We compared infants' interpretation of a novel noun (e.g., the dax) in two conditions: one in which dax is presented as the subject of animate-selecting construction (e.g., The dax is crying), and the other in which dax is the subject of an animacy-neutral construction (e.g., The dax is right here). Results indicate that by 19months, infants use their representations of known verbs to inform the meaning of a novel noun that appears as its argument. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  3. Effects of parallel planning on agreement production.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Veenstra, Alma; Meyer, Antje S; Acheson, Daniel J

    2015-11-01

    An important issue in current psycholinguistics is how the time course of utterance planning affects the generation of grammatical structures. The current study investigated the influence of parallel activation of the components of complex noun phrases on the generation of subject-verb agreement. Specifically, the lexical interference account (Gillespie & Pearlmutter, 2011b; Solomon & Pearlmutter, 2004) predicts more agreement errors (i.e., attraction) for subject phrases in which the head and local noun mismatch in number (e.g., the apple next to the pears) when nouns are planned in parallel than when they are planned in sequence. We used a speeded picture description task that yielded sentences such as the apple next to the pears is red. The objects mentioned in the noun phrase were either semantically related or unrelated. To induce agreement errors, pictures sometimes mismatched in number. In order to manipulate the likelihood of parallel processing of the objects and to test the hypothesized relationship between parallel processing and the rate of agreement errors, the pictures were either placed close together or far apart. Analyses of the participants' eye movements and speech onset latencies indicated slower processing of the first object and stronger interference from the related (compared to the unrelated) second object in the close than in the far condition. Analyses of the agreement errors yielded an attraction effect, with more errors in mismatching than in matching conditions. However, the magnitude of the attraction effect did not differ across the close and far conditions. Thus, spatial proximity encouraged parallel processing of the pictures, which led to interference of the associated conceptual and/or lexical representation, but, contrary to the prediction, it did not lead to more attraction errors. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  4. [Event-related brain potentials when Russian verbs being conjugated: to the problem of language processing modularity].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dan'ko, S G; Boĭtsova, Iu A; Solov'eva, M L; Chernigovskaia, T V; Medvedev, S V

    2014-01-01

    In the light of alternative conceptions of "two-system" and "single-system" models of language processing the efforts have been undertaken to study brain mechanisnis for generation of regular and irregular forms of Russian verbs. The 19 EEG channels of evoked activity were registered along with casual alternations of speech morphology operations to be compared. Verbs of imperfective aspect in the form of an infinitive, belonging either to a group of productive verbs (default, conventionally regular class), or toan unproductive group of verbs (conventionally irregular class) were presented to healthy subjects. The subjects were requested to produce first person present time forms of these verbs. Results of analysis of event related potentials (ERP) for a group of 22 persons are presented. Statistically reliable ERP amplitude distinctions between the verb groups are found onlyin the latencies 600-850 ms in central and parietal zones of the cortex. In these latencies ERP values associated with a presentation of irregular verbs are negative in relation to ERP values associated with the presentation of regular verbs. The received results are interpreted as a consequence of various complexity of mental work with verbs of these different groups and presumably don't support a hypothesis of universality of the "two-system" brain mechanism for processing of the regular and irregular language forms.

  5. Body-part specific interactions of action verb processing with motor behaviour.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Klepp, Anne; Niccolai, Valentina; Sieksmeyer, Jan; Arnzen, Stephanie; Indefrey, Peter; Schnitzler, Alfons; Biermann-Ruben, Katja

    2017-06-15

    The interaction of action-related language processing with actual movement is an indicator of the functional role of motor cortical involvement in language understanding. This paper describes two experiments using single action verb stimuli. Motor responses were performed with the hand or the foot. To test the double dissociation of language-motor facilitation effects within subjects, Experiments 1 and 2 used a priming procedure where both hand and foot reactions had to be performed in response to different geometrical shapes, which were preceded by action verbs. In Experiment 1, the semantics of the verbs could be ignored whereas Experiment 2 included semantic decisions. Only Experiment 2 revealed a clear double dissociation in reaction times: reactions were facilitated when preceded by verbs describing actions with the matching effector. In Experiment 1, by contrast, there was an interaction between verb-response congruence and a semantic variable related to motor features of the verbs. Thus, the double dissociation paradigm of semantic motor priming was effective, corroborating the role of the motor system in action-related language processing. Importantly, this effect was body part specific. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  6. Hitting the nail on the head: Force vectors in verb semantics

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Goldschmidt, A.; Zwarts, J.

    2016-01-01

    We present an analysis of force verbs, like hit, as involving paths with force-dynamic properties, modelled through force vectors. This allows us to explain a number of observations about the lexical meaning and composition of these verbs. For instance, force adverbs such as hard specify the

  7. The Verb Always Leaves IP in V2 Clauses

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Schwartz, Bonnie D.; Vikner, Sten

    2007-01-01

    The verb second (V2) phenomenon, as it is found in the Germanic languages, has been the focus of much attention within recent syntactic research. In most of the literature on V2, it is assumed that the verb in all V2 clauses has moved to a head position outside IP, e.g. Cº. In Schwartz & Vikner...... (1989) we claimed that all V2 clauses were CPs, and we referred to this analysis as the 'traditional' analysis. In this paper we shall call it the 'V2 outside IP' analysis, and by using this term we want to convey that although in what follows we will adhere to the view that the verb moves to Cº, any...... analysis in which the verb moves into an Xº which is the sister of IP may be compatible with what we say here. Various alternatives to this analysis have been explored in the literature, and here we will address two in particular: One alternative is that there is an asymmetry between subject...

  8. Variation in verb cluster interruption

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hendriks, Lotte

    2014-01-01

    Except for finite verbs in main clauses, verbs in Standard Dutch cluster together in a clause-final position. In certain Dutch dialects, non-verbal material can occur within this verb cluster (Verhasselt 1961; Koelmans 1965, among many others). These dialects vary with respect to which types of

  9. Immobile Complex Verbs in Germanic

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Vikner, Sten

    2005-01-01

    the V° requirements or the V* requirements. Haider (1993, p. 62) and Koopman (1995), who also discuss such immobile verbs, only account for verbs with two prefix-like parts (e.g., German uraufführen ‘to perform (a play) for the first time' or Dutch herinvoeren ‘to reintroduce'), not for the more...... frequent type with only one prefix-like part (e.g., German bauchreden/Dutch buikspreken ‘to ventriloquize'). This analysis will try to account not only for the data discussed in Haider (1993) and Koopman (1995) but also for the following: - why immobile verbs include verbs with only one prefix-like part...... are immobile, - why such verbs are not found in Germanic VO-languages such as English and Scandinavian....

  10. A Review on Studies of Phrasal Verb Constructions in ESL Context

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maryam Jahedi

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available This paper aims to give an overview of studies on phrasal verbs in three decades to present the theoretical and methodological issues, as well as the findings of research. Moreover, this review reveals the developments and paradigm shifts occurred in this area. Previous studies have shown that the research findings have not been incorporated into classroom activities and English Language Teaching (ELT materials. The paper claims that the number of research on the use of phrasal verbs in ESL textbooks is limited and, therefore, further research is needed to examine how phrasal verbs are treated in textbooks in order to help ELT materials developers to present these items more effectively based on research findings. Keywords: Corpus-based studies, ESL learner, Phrasal verbs

  11. NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVE MEDIATED BY MANNER OF MOTION VERBS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Olesea BODEAN-VOZIAN

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available There is typological variation in the way languages encode manner as an element of a motion event. Languages like English view it as relevant, and the lexicalization of the variety of ways to move results in a rich class of motion verbs, contrary to other types of languages, like Romanian, which leave the manner element to be encoded by verbids or adverbs (for these reasons some linguists refer to the first type as manner-rich and second type as manner-poor languages. Still, several studies contrasting typologically different languages showed that languages of the latter type are not so poor in manner-of-motion verbs. The question then might rather be: which manner components are more likely to be lexicalized?For research purposes, we distinguish manner in terms of objective elements (medium, speed or intensity and subjective elements (attitude, intention. The aim of the study is to focus on the manner-of-motion verbs that embed an evaluative or qualitative dimension of motion and to examine the way these verbs encode somebody’s perspective in a narrative. The first question in such a case is whose evaluation or point of view is being represented. The second one is how the subjective point of view (narrative perspective mediated through manner-of-motion verbs in an English narrative (The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien is translated into Romanian, supposedly a manner-poor or low-manner language.PERSPECTIVA NARATIVĂ MEDIATĂ DE VERBELE DE MIŞCARE DE MODExistă o variaţie tipologică în felul în care limbile codifică modul ca element al unui eveniment de mişcare. Limbile precum engleza îl percep drept unul relevant, iar lexicalizarea gamei de mijloace de redare a mişcării a dat naştere unei clase bogate de verbe de mişcare, contrar altor tipuri de limbi, aşa ca româna, în care elementul ce redă modul este codificat de gerunziu sau adverbe. Din aceasta cauză, unii lingvişti numesc primul tip limbi bogate în verbe de mod (

  12. Agrammatic aphasia verb and argument patterns in Kiswahili-English spontaneous language

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hillary K. Sang

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Background: The spontaneous and narrative language of Kiswahili agrammatic aphasic and non-brain-damaged speakers was analysed. The bilingual participants were also tested in English to enable comparisons of verb production in the two languages. The significance of this study was to characterise bilingual Kiswahili-English spontaneous agrammatic output. This was done by describing Kiswahili-English bilingual output data with a specific focus on the production of verbs. The description involves comparison of verb and argument production in Kiswahili and English. Methods and procedures: The participants recruited for this study were drawn from two groups of participants (six non-fluent aphasic/agrammatic speakers and six non-braindamaged. From each participant, a sample of spontaneous output was tape-recorded in English and Kiswahili based on the description and narration of the Flood rescue picture’ and the ‘Cookie theft picture’. The data elicited were compared for each subject and between the participants and relevant verb parameters have been analysed. The variables that were studied included mean length of utterance (MLU, inflectional errors, verb tokens and types, copulas and auxiliaries. Further, all verbs produced were classified as per their argument structure. Results: The results from English data supported previous findings on agrammatic output. The agrammatic participants produced utterances with shorter MLU and simpler sentence structure. However, Kiswahili data surprisingly showed reversed results, with agrammatic speakers producing longer utterances than non-brain-damaged (NBD controls. The results also revealed selective impairment in some agrammatic speakers who made inflectional errors. The verb argument structure showed contrasting results, with agrammatic speakers preferring transitive verbs whilst the NBD speakers used more intransitive verbs. Conclusions: The study attempts for the first time to characterise English

  13. The behavioural patterns and neural correlates of concrete and abstract verb processing in aphasia: A novel verb semantic battery

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Reem S.W. Alyahya

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Typically, processing is more accurate and efficient for concrete than abstract concepts in both healthy adults and individuals with aphasia. While, concreteness effects have been thoroughly documented with respect to noun processing, other words classes have received little attention despite tending to be less concrete than nouns. The aim of the current study was to explore concrete-abstract differences in verbs and identify their neural correlates in post-stroke aphasia. Given the dearth of comprehension tests for verbs, a battery of neuropsychological tests was developed in this study to assess the comprehension of concrete and abstract verbs. Specifically, a sensitive verb synonym judgment test was generated that varied both the items' imageability and frequency, and a picture-to-word matching test with numerous concrete verbs. Normative data were then collected and the tests were administered to a cohort of 48 individuals with chronic post-stroke aphasia to explore the behavioural patterns and neural correlates of verb processing. The results revealed significantly better comprehension of concrete than abstract verbs, aligning with the existing aphasiological literature on noun processing. In addition, the patients performed better during verb comprehension than verb production. Lesion-symptom correlational analyses revealed common areas that support processing of concrete and abstract verbs, including the left anterior temporal lobe, posterior supramarginal gyrus and superior lateral occipital cortex. A direct contrast between them revealed additional regions with graded differences. Specifically, the left frontal regions were associated with processing abstract verbs; whereas, the left posterior temporal and occipital regions were associated with processing concrete verbs. Moreover, overlapping and distinct neural correlates were identified in association with the comprehension and production of concrete verbs. These patient findings

  14. The behavioural patterns and neural correlates of concrete and abstract verb processing in aphasia: A novel verb semantic battery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alyahya, Reem S W; Halai, Ajay D; Conroy, Paul; Lambon Ralph, Matthew A

    2018-01-01

    Typically, processing is more accurate and efficient for concrete than abstract concepts in both healthy adults and individuals with aphasia. While, concreteness effects have been thoroughly documented with respect to noun processing, other words classes have received little attention despite tending to be less concrete than nouns. The aim of the current study was to explore concrete-abstract differences in verbs and identify their neural correlates in post-stroke aphasia. Given the dearth of comprehension tests for verbs, a battery of neuropsychological tests was developed in this study to assess the comprehension of concrete and abstract verbs. Specifically, a sensitive verb synonym judgment test was generated that varied both the items' imageability and frequency, and a picture-to-word matching test with numerous concrete verbs. Normative data were then collected and the tests were administered to a cohort of 48 individuals with chronic post-stroke aphasia to explore the behavioural patterns and neural correlates of verb processing. The results revealed significantly better comprehension of concrete than abstract verbs, aligning with the existing aphasiological literature on noun processing. In addition, the patients performed better during verb comprehension than verb production. Lesion-symptom correlational analyses revealed common areas that support processing of concrete and abstract verbs, including the left anterior temporal lobe, posterior supramarginal gyrus and superior lateral occipital cortex. A direct contrast between them revealed additional regions with graded differences. Specifically, the left frontal regions were associated with processing abstract verbs; whereas, the left posterior temporal and occipital regions were associated with processing concrete verbs. Moreover, overlapping and distinct neural correlates were identified in association with the comprehension and production of concrete verbs. These patient findings align with data from

  15. Abstract Objects of Verbs

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Robering, Klaus

    2014-01-01

    Verbs do often take arguments of quite different types. In an orthodox type-theoretic framework this results in an extreme polysemy of many verbs. In this article, it is shown that this unwanted consequence can be avoided when a theory of "abstract objects" is adopted according to which these obj......Verbs do often take arguments of quite different types. In an orthodox type-theoretic framework this results in an extreme polysemy of many verbs. In this article, it is shown that this unwanted consequence can be avoided when a theory of "abstract objects" is adopted according to which...... these objects represent non-objectual entities in contexts from which they are excluded by type restrictions. Thus these objects are "abstract'' in a functional rather than in an ontological sense: they function as representatives of other entities but they are otherwise quite normal objects. Three examples...

  16. On using verbs appropriately in academic English writing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Khrabrova Valentina Evgenievna

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available The article is concerned with English action verbs as key elements of academic English writing. Due to cognitive and semantic characteristics, verbs in the predicate function, by contrast with deverbative suffixal nouns and adjectives as parts of nominal predicates, convey the meaning of written message more concisely. The article is provided with verb classifications aimed at systematizing the information about verbs and developing a conscious approach to choosing verbs in the writing process. Syntactic transformation, limitation of passive voice forms, substitution of action verbs for stative verbs, adjectives and nouns entail perfecting the second language student writing skills.

  17. Familiar Verbs Are Not Always Easier than Novel Verbs: How German Pre-School Children Comprehend Active and Passive Sentences

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dittmar, Miriam; Abbot-Smith, Kirsten; Lieven, Elena; Tomasello, Michael

    2014-01-01

    Many studies show a developmental advantage for transitive sentences with familiar verbs over those with novel verbs. It might be that once familiar verbs become entrenched in particular constructions, they would be more difficult to understand (than would novel verbs) in non-prototypical constructions. We provide support for this hypothesis…

  18. An Investigation of the Problems Jordanian EFL Learners Encounter in Presupposition Triggered by Certain Factive Verbs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hamzah Saleh Ghammaz

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available This study aimed at investigating the problems that Jordanian EFL learners encounter in presupposition triggered by certain factive verbs. Specifically, it sought to find out whether there is a relationship between the subjects’ proficiency level in English and their correct recognition of presupposition triggered by certain factive verbs. It also aims at identifying which factive verbs are much more difficult than others in terms of the presupposed meaning. The subjects of the study were 70 adult learners of English at the University of Jordan. They belong to two different proficiency levels: Intermediate and Advanced. A special test was prepared to elicit the data needed for investigation. The test required the subjects to circle the best choice that presupposes a given sentence. The results showed that the Advanced Group outperformed the Intermediate Group on all the target factive verbs, and the factive verb “ be aware of ” proved to be the most difficult one followed by “forget”. The importance of this study lies in that it invistigates the semantic behaviour of some verbs in English language what contributes to understanding the general semantic system of the language, and this is the main tast of linguists. The study recommended that further investigation should be made in the area of presupposition and factive verbs in order to pinpoint the sources of difficulty for learners. The results of those investigations can be used to improve EFL learning and teaching in Jordan.

  19. Verb Movement and the Licensing of NP-positions in the Germanic Languages

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Vikner, Sten

    1990-01-01

    In this dissertation, I want to discuss a certain set of interrelated phenomena in Danish and other Germanic languages. What   I am interested in is the position of the finite verb, the factors that determine this verb-position, and the consequences that the choice of position has for other...... into which other positions NPs may occupy, and how they depend on certain verb movements either taking place in the same sentence, or at least being possible in the language in question. The thesis is organised as follows: In chapter 1, I briefly introduce the theoretical background for my study, and discuss...... a number of definitions central to the following chapters. In chapter 2, I discuss the two kinds of movement of the finite verb found in the Germanic languages: Verb Second (V2) and V-to-I movement, and their distrib­ution across the Germanic languages. (French (and to some extent Italian) is sometimes...

  20. Development of Lexical and Syntactic Representations: The Acquisition of Symmetrical and Asymmetrical Verbs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gurcanli, Ozge

    2013-01-01

    This dissertation concerns the acquisition of the interaction between lexicosemantic properties of verbs and syntax, focusing on symmetrical and asymmetrical verbs in different syntactic structures. Based on linguistic evidence, it is shown that two conceptual categories, Mutuality and Number, interact to give rise to four event-types: Single…

  1. German causative events with placement verbs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    De Knop Sabine

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Several studies have described the semantic uses of German posture verbs, but only few have dealt with German placement verbs. The present study wants to make up for this gap. Starting from a collection of examples from the core corpora of the Digitales Wörterbuch der Deutschen Sprache (DWDS and some former studies on posture verbs, it first describes the variety of the most common German placement verbs stellen (‘to put upright’, legen (‘to lay down’, setzen (‘to set’ and stecken (‘to stick’.

  2. Visual variability affects early verb learning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Twomey, Katherine E; Lush, Lauren; Pearce, Ruth; Horst, Jessica S

    2014-09-01

    Research demonstrates that within-category visual variability facilitates noun learning; however, the effect of visual variability on verb learning is unknown. We habituated 24-month-old children to a novel verb paired with an animated star-shaped actor. Across multiple trials, children saw either a single action from an action category (identical actions condition, for example, travelling while repeatedly changing into a circle shape) or multiple actions from that action category (variable actions condition, for example, travelling while changing into a circle shape, then a square shape, then a triangle shape). Four test trials followed habituation. One paired the habituated verb with a new action from the habituated category (e.g., 'dacking' + pentagon shape) and one with a completely novel action (e.g., 'dacking' + leg movement). The others paired a new verb with a new same-category action (e.g., 'keefing' + pentagon shape), or a completely novel category action (e.g., 'keefing' + leg movement). Although all children discriminated novel verb/action pairs, children in the identical actions condition discriminated trials that included the completely novel verb, while children in the variable actions condition discriminated the out-of-category action. These data suggest that - as in noun learning - visual variability affects verb learning and children's ability to form action categories. © 2014 The British Psychological Society.

  3. Why Are Verbs so Hard to Remember? Effects of Semantic Context on Memory for Verbs and Nouns

    Science.gov (United States)

    Earles, Julie L.; Kersten, Alan W.

    2017-01-01

    Three experiments test the theory that verb meanings are more malleable than noun meanings in different semantic contexts, making a previously seen verb difficult to remember when it appears in a new semantic context. Experiment 1 revealed that changing the direct object noun in a transitive sentence reduced recognition of a previously seen verb,…

  4. Analysis of Tense Interferential of Verbs in Old Narrative Texts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mahmood Barati khansari

    2014-08-01

    have not explained them. We categorize them in the following: 1-2-2 simple past + present tense in the statements without Vav (and 2-2-2 - simple past +( subject+ present tense in the statements with Vav (and 2-2-3- past participle + present in the statement with Vav (and 2-2-4- simple past + present tense in the statements with conjunction Vav (and 2-2-5- liking verb + present tense in the statements without conjunction Vav (and 2-2-6- past participle + present in the statement without conjunction Vav (and 2-2-7- Perfect Tense + subject + simple present + in the statements without Vav (and 3-2- the above examples in the conditional sentences and similar conditional sentences 2-2-8- progressive past + Vav (and + present Tense 2-2-9- simple past + subject + present perfect in statement with Vav (and 2-2-10- simile sentences and the like It firstly seems this method to be the literary art of Eltefat which is used in prose texts, as Fruzanfar believed when he says Managhebe Ouhadi Kermani's stylistic characteristics, " the writer narrates a massage through stories which he narrates of third person to first person". He changes third person to first person. This method is named Eltefat in the figures of speech ( badi ( Fruzanfar, 1347, Introduction, p. 61. Surely, this can not be counted figure of speech ( Elme Badi'. Although, on the basis of Eltefat literary art, the person changes from absent to addressee or vice versa ( Homaee, 1361, p. 293. On the basis of examples, the writer does not want to decorate the speech but it is his method of speech and time circumstances. In addition, the verb times have been changed and the persons are fixed ( from absent to addresses. We can negligently call this grammar point literary art of Eltefat as Homaee counted the conjunct absent verb to addresses in examples such as be khoneh Bordan ( I took him to house, sar charb kardam ( I oiled my head and muy setordam ( I removed my hair ( see Homaee, the same, but this method is not correct

  5. The Design of an Online Concordancing Program for Teaching about Reporting Verbs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joel Bloch

    2009-02-01

    Full Text Available This paper discusses the use of a web-based concordancing program using an interface design similar to the one used at the MICASE concordancing site to help students appropriately choose reporting verbs. Appropriate reporting verbs are important for asserting credible claims in academic papers. An interface was created that asked the students to make lexical, syntactic, and rhetorical choices based on a preset number of criteria related to the decisions writers make in choosing reporting verbs. Based on these choices, the interface could query a database of sentences that had been derived from a corpus of academic writing. The user would then be provided with a small sample of sentences using reporting verbs that matched the criteria that had been selected. The paper discusses how the assumptions about pedagogy for teaching about reporting verbs were incorporated into the design features of the interface and how the implementation of the concordancing site was integrated with the teaching of grammar and vocabulary in an L2 academic writing class.

  6. Comprehension of verb number morphemes in Czech children: Singular and plural show different relations to age and vocabulary

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Smolík, Filip; Bláhová, Veronika

    2017-01-01

    Roč. 37, č. 1 (2017), s. 42-57 ISSN 0142-7237 R&D Projects: GA ČR GA13-26779S Institutional support: RVO:68081740 Keywords : comprehension * grammatical agreement * grammatical number * morphology * picture-pointing task * picture-pointing task Subject RIV: AN - Psychology OBOR OECD: Psychology (including human - machine relations) Impact factor: 1.196, year: 2016

  7. Structure of Complex Verb Forms in Meiteilon

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lourembam Surjit Singh

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available This piece of work proposes to descriptively investigate the structures of complex verbs in Meiteilon. The categorization of such verbs is based on the nature of semantic and syntactic functions of a lexeme or verbal lexeme. A lexeme or verbal lexeme in Meiteilon may have multifunctional properties in the nature of occurrence. Such lexical items can be co-occurred together in a phrase as single functional word. Specifically, in the co-occurrences of two lexical items, the first component of lexical items has different semantic and syntactic functions in comparison to semantic and syntactic functions of the second component of lexical items. Such co-occurrences of two lexical items are the forms of complex verb that are covered with the term complex predicate in this work. The investigation in constructing complex predicate is thoroughly presenting in this work. Keywords: Structures, complex verb, conjunct verb, compound verb, complex predicate

  8. [Take] and the ASL Verb Complex: An Autolexical Account

    Science.gov (United States)

    Metlay, Donald S.

    2012-01-01

    This dissertation will show how linguistic description and an Autolexical account of the bound verb root [take] shed a light on the nature of complex verb constructions in American Sign Language (ASL). This is accomplished by creating a new ASL Verb Complex Model unifying all verbs into one category of VERB. This model also accounts for a variety…

  9. Serialising languages: Satellite-framed, verb-framed or neither ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The diversity in the coding of the core schema of motion, i.e., Path, has led to a traditional typology of languages into verb-framed and satellite-framed languages. In the former Path is encoded in verbs and in the latter it is encoded in non-verb elements that function as sisters to co-event expressing verbs such as manner ...

  10. THE STRUCTURE OF MORPHEMES OF LITHUANIAN VERBS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Asta Kazlauskienė

    2013-04-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this research was to establish and describe the most important phonemic patterns of Lithuanian verb morphemes. The investigation was based on a corpus of 30,000 verb types (verbs and their forms. All words in the corpus were stressed and phonetically transcribed. A computer program was developed to extract statistics out of this corpus. The results indicate that monosyllabic morphemes dominate in Lithuanian. They comprise 97%, 99%, 98%, and 97% of all verb roots, prefixes, derivational suffixes, and endings respectively. Inflectional suffixes and the reflexive affix are exclusively monosyllabic. Pronominal inflection endings are either disyllabic (97% or trisyllabic. There is a high variety of vowelconsonant patterns among verbs: the verb root is represented by 91 patterns, prefixes by 8 patterns, derivational suffixes by 18 patterns, inflectional suffixes by 7 patterns, inflectional endings by 9 patterns, endings of pronominal participles by 7 patterns, and the reflexive affix by 3 different patterns. The consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC pattern appeared to be the most frequent among verb roots (45%, the CV pattern was the most frequent among prefixes (59%, the VC pattern was the most frequent among derivational suffixes (46%, and V pattern was the most frequent among inflectional endings of Lithuanian verbs (76%. In many cases, the root of a verb contains both initial and final consonants (82%. Because of this and because of the tendency to avoid hiatus in Lithuanian, the root can be adjoined by vowel-final prefixes and vowel-initial suffixes or inflectional endings. This appears to be the case, as prefixes are mostly open (80%, and both derivational suffixes (90% and all inflectional endings begin with vowels. Inflectional suffixes do not follow this regularity. Only one-third of them start with a vowel. The hypothesis that the phonemic structure of a verb root might determine the corresponding patterns of its adjoining affixes seems

  11. Decomposability and mental representation of French verbs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Estivalet, Gustavo L; Meunier, Fanny E

    2015-01-01

    In French, regardless of stem regularity, inflectional verbal suffixes are extremely regular and paradigmatic. Considering the complexity of the French verbal system, we argue that all French verbs are polymorphemic forms that are decomposed during visual recognition independently of their stem regularity. We conducted a behavioral experiment in which we manipulated the surface and cumulative frequencies of verbal inflected forms and asked participants to perform a visual lexical decision task. We tested four types of verbs with respect to their stem variants: a. fully regular (parler "to speak," [parl-]); b. phonological change e/E verbs with orthographic markers (répéter "to repeat," [répét-] and [répèt-]); c. phonological change o/O verbs without orthographic markers (adorer "to adore," [ador-] and [adOr-]); and d. idiosyncratic (boire "to drink," [boi-] and [buv-]). For each type of verb, we contrasted four conditions, forms with high and low surface frequencies and forms with high and low cumulative frequencies. Our results showed a significant cumulative frequency effect for the fully regular and idiosyncratic verbs, indicating that different stems within idiosyncratic verbs (such as [boi-] and [buv-]) have distinct representations in the mental lexicon as different fully regular verbs. For the phonological change verbs, we found a significant cumulative frequency effect only when considering the two forms of the stem together ([répét-] and [répèt-]), suggesting that they share a single abstract and under specified phonological representation. Our results also revealed a significant surface frequency effect for all types of verbs, which may reflect the recombination of the stem lexical representation with the functional information of the suffixes. Overall, these results indicate that all inflected verbal forms in French are decomposed during visual recognition and that this process could be due to the regularities of the French inflectional verbal

  12. Decomposability and mental representation of French verbs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gustavo Lopez Estivalet

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available In French, regardless of stem regularity, inflectional verbal suffixes are extremely regular and paradigmatic. Considering the complexity of the French verbal system, we argue that all French verbs are polymorphemic forms that are decomposed during visual recognition independently of their stem regularity. We conducted a behavioural experiment in which we manipulated the surface and cumulative frequencies of verbal inflected forms and asked participants to perform a visual lexical decision task. We tested four types of verbs with respect to their stem variants: a. fully regular (parler ‘to speak’, [parl-]; b. phonological change e/E verbs with orthographic markers (répéter ‘to repeat’, [répét-] and [répèt-]; c. phonological change o/O verbs without orthographic markers (adorer ‘to adore’, [ador-] and [adOr-]; and d. idiosyncratic (boire ‘to drink’, [boi-] and [buv-]. For each type of verb, we contrasted four conditions, forms with high and low surface frequencies and forms with high and low cumulative frequencies. Our results showed a significant cumulative frequency effect for the fully regular and idiosyncratic verbs, indicating that different stems within idiosyncratic verbs (such as [boi-] and [buv-] have distinct representations in the mental lexicon as different fully regular verbs. For the phonological change verbs, we found a significant cumulative frequency effect only when considering the two forms of the stem together ([répét-] and [répèt-], suggesting that they share a single abstract and underspecified phonological representation. Our results also revealed a significant surface frequency effect for all types of verbs, which may reflect the recombination of the stem lexical representation with the functional information of the suffixes. Overall, these results indicate that all inflected verbal forms in French are decomposed during visual recognition and that this process could be due to the regularities of

  13. Gender Agreement Attraction in Russian: Production and Comprehension Evidence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Slioussar, Natalia; Malko, Anton

    2016-01-01

    Agreement attraction errors (such as the number error in the example "The key to the cabinets are rusty") have been the object of many studies in the last 20 years. So far, almost all production experiments and all comprehension experiments looked at binary features (primarily at number in Germanic, Romance, and some other languages, in several cases at gender in Romance languages). Among other things, it was noted that both in production and in comprehension, attraction effects are much stronger for some feature combinations than for the others: they can be observed in the sentences with singular heads and plural dependent nouns (e.g.,"The key to the cabinets…"), but not in the sentences with plural heads and singular dependent nouns (e.g., "The keys to the cabinet…"). Almost all proposed explanations of this asymmetry appeal to feature markedness, but existing findings do not allow teasing different approaches to markedness apart. We report the results of four experiments (one on production and three on comprehension) studying subject-verb gender agreement in Russian, a language with three genders. Firstly, we found attraction effects both in production and in comprehension, but, unlike in the case of number agreement, they were not parallel (in production, feminine gender triggered strongest effects, while neuter triggered weakest effects, while in comprehension, masculine triggered weakest effects). Secondly, in the comprehension experiments attraction was observed for all dependent noun genders, but only for a subset of head noun genders. This goes against the traditional assumption that the features of the dependent noun are crucial for attraction, showing the features of the head are more important. We demonstrate that this approach can be extended to previous findings on attraction and that there exists other evidence for it. In total, these findings let us reconsider the question which properties of features are crucial for agreement attraction in

  14. Investigating Thematic Roles through Implicit Learning: Evidence from Light Verb Constructions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eva Wittenberg

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available The syntactic structure of a sentence is usually a strong predictor of its meaning: Each argument noun phrase (i.e., Subject and Object should map onto exactly one thematic role (i.e., Agent and Patient, respectively. Some constructions, however, are exceptions to this pattern. This paper investigates how the syntactic structure of an utterance contributes to its construal, using ditransitive English light verb constructions, such as “Nils gave a hug to his brother,” as an example of such mismatches: Hugging is a two-role event, but the ditransitive syntactic structure suggests a three-role event. Data from an eye-tracking experiment and behavioral categorization data reveal that listeners learn to categorize sentences according to the number of thematic roles they convey, independent of their syntax. Light verb constructions, however, seem to form a category of their own, in which the syntactic structure leads listeners down an initial incorrect assignment of thematic roles, from which they only partly recover. These results suggest an automatic influence of syntactic argument structure on semantic interpretation and event construal, even in highly frequent constructions.

  15. Analysis of Tense Interferential of Verbs in Old Narrative Texts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Amir Zeighami

    2014-07-01

    the grammarians have not explained them. We categorize them in the following: 1-2-2 simple past + present tense in the statements without Vav (and 2-2-2 - simple past +( subject+ present tense in the statements with Vav (and 2-2-3- past participle + present in the statement with Vav (and 2-2-4- simple past + present tense in the statements with conjunction Vav (and 2-2-5- liking verb + present tense in the statements without conjunction Vav (and 2-2-6- past participle + present in the statement without conjunction Vav (and 2-2-7- Perfect Tense + subject + simple present + in the statements without Vav (and 3-2- the above examples in the conditional sentences and similar conditional sentences 2-2-8- progressive past + Vav (and + present Tense 2-2-9- simple past + subject + present perfect in statement with Vav (and 2-2-10- simile sentences and the like It firstly seems this method to be the literary art of Eltefat which is used in prose texts, as Fruzanfar believed when he says Managhebe Ouhadi Kermani's stylistic characteristics, " the writer narrates a massage through stories which he narrates of third person to first person". He changes third person to first person. This method is named Eltefat in the figures of speech ( badi ( Fruzanfar, 1347, Introduction, p. 61. Surely, this can not be counted figure of speech ( Elme Badi'. Although, on the basis of Eltefat literary art, the person changes from absent to addressee or vice versa ( Homaee, 1361, p. 293. On the basis of examples, the writer does not want to decorate the speech but it is his method of speech and time circumstances. In addition, the verb times have been changed and the persons are fixed ( from absent to addresses. We can negligently call this grammar point literary art of Eltefat as Homaee counted the conjunct absent verb to addresses in examples such as be khoneh Bordan ( I took him to house, sar charb kardam ( I oiled my head and muy setordam ( I removed my hair ( see Homaee, the same, but

  16. Revisiting verbs of emission: an update on some relevant theoretical accounts of lexical specification and argument structure of emission verbs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Natasa Milivojevic

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available The paper addresses the question of what semantic properties lexicalized in verbs determine their syntactic behavior in intransitive motion events and in resultative constructions in English and Serbian. Special attention is devoted to English and Serbian verbs of emission (specifically verbs of sound emission and partly also verbs of light, smell and substance emission regarding their potential to surface as main verbs in these constructions and to combine with directional phrases within specific morphosyntactic templates (unaccusatives and unergatives. The presented research promotes a theoretical view according to which the established syntactic patterns can be applied across the whole class of verbs of emission to express a full er range of atypical verb meanings in motion events. Theoretical conclusions of the research are also relevant for a wider theoretical description of motion events and resultatives in a cross - linguistic perspective. The paper puts forth additional implica tions regarding the projectionalist approach to semantic verb classes against the theoretical framework of Beth Levin (1993. Finally, the paper considers the relevant points of structurally realized similarities via relevant constructional templates in En glish and in Serbian, as well as some important points of morphosyntactic divergence between the two languages. The conclusions presented aim at a more comprehensive contrastive language typology based on language “framing” parameters.

  17. Acquisition and evaluation of verb subcategorization resources for biomedicine.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rimell, Laura; Lippincott, Thomas; Verspoor, Karin; Johnson, Helen L; Korhonen, Anna

    2013-04-01

    Biomedical natural language processing (NLP) applications that have access to detailed resources about the linguistic characteristics of biomedical language demonstrate improved performance on tasks such as relation extraction and syntactic or semantic parsing. Such applications are important for transforming the growing unstructured information buried in the biomedical literature into structured, actionable information. In this paper, we address the creation of linguistic resources that capture how individual biomedical verbs behave. We specifically consider verb subcategorization, or the tendency of verbs to "select" co-occurrence with particular phrase types, which influences the interpretation of verbs and identification of verbal arguments in context. There are currently a limited number of biomedical resources containing information about subcategorization frames (SCFs), and these are the result of either labor-intensive manual collation, or automatic methods that use tools adapted to a single biomedical subdomain. Either method may result in resources that lack coverage. Moreover, the quality of existing verb SCF resources for biomedicine is unknown, due to a lack of available gold standards for evaluation. This paper presents three new resources related to verb subcategorization frames in biomedicine, and four experiments making use of the new resources. We present the first biomedical SCF gold standards, capturing two different but widely-used definitions of subcategorization, and a new SCF lexicon, BioCat, covering a large number of biomedical sub-domains. We evaluate the SCF acquisition methodologies for BioCat with respect to the gold standards, and compare the results with the accuracy of the only previously existing automatically-acquired SCF lexicon for biomedicine, the BioLexicon. Our results show that the BioLexicon has greater precision while BioCat has better coverage of SCFs. Finally, we explore the definition of subcategorization using these

  18. Vibration Response Imaging: evaluation of rater agreement in healthy subjects and subjects with pneumonia

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bartziokas, Konstantinos; Daenas, Christos; Preau, Sebastien; Zygoulis, Paris; Triantaris, Apostolos; Kerenidi, Theodora; Makris, Demosthenes; Gourgoulianis, Konstantinos I; Daniil, Zoe

    2010-01-01

    We evaluated pulmonologists variability in the interpretation of Vibration response imaging (VRI) obtained from healthy subjects and patients hospitalized for community acquired pneumonia. The present is a prospective study conducted in a tertiary university hospital. Twenty healthy subjects and twenty three pneumonia cases were included in this study. Six pulmonologists blindly analyzed images of normal subjects and pneumonia cases and evaluated different aspects of VRI images related to the quality of data aquisition, synchronization of the progression of breath sound distribution and agreement between the maximal energy frame (MEF) of VRI (which is the maximal geographical area of lung vibrations produced at maximal inspiration) and chest radiography. For qualitative assessment of VRI images, the raters' evaluations were analyzed by degree of consistency and agreement. The average value for overall identical evaluations of twelve features of the VRI image evaluation, ranged from 87% to 95% per rater (94% to 97% in control cases and from 79% to 93% per rater in pneumonia cases). Inter-rater median (IQR) agreement was 91% (82-96). The level of agreement according to VRI feature evaluated was in most cases over 80%; intra-class correlation (ICC) obtained by using a model of subject/rater for the averaged features was overall 0.86 (0.92 in normal and 0.73 in pneumonia cases). Our findings suggest good agreement in the interpretation of VRI data between different raters. In this respect, VRI might be helpful as a radiation free diagnostic tool for the management of pneumonia

  19. Vibration Response Imaging: evaluation of rater agreement in healthy subjects and subjects with pneumonia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Makris Demosthenes

    2010-03-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background We evaluated pulmonologists variability in the interpretation of Vibration response imaging (VRI obtained from healthy subjects and patients hospitalized for community acquired pneumonia. Methods The present is a prospective study conducted in a tertiary university hospital. Twenty healthy subjects and twenty three pneumonia cases were included in this study. Six pulmonologists blindly analyzed images of normal subjects and pneumonia cases and evaluated different aspects of VRI images related to the quality of data aquisition, synchronization of the progression of breath sound distribution and agreement between the maximal energy frame (MEF of VRI (which is the maximal geographical area of lung vibrations produced at maximal inspiration and chest radiography. For qualitative assessment of VRI images, the raters' evaluations were analyzed by degree of consistency and agreement. Results The average value for overall identical evaluations of twelve features of the VRI image evaluation, ranged from 87% to 95% per rater (94% to 97% in control cases and from 79% to 93% per rater in pneumonia cases. Inter-rater median (IQR agreement was 91% (82-96. The level of agreement according to VRI feature evaluated was in most cases over 80%; intra-class correlation (ICC obtained by using a model of subject/rater for the averaged features was overall 0.86 (0.92 in normal and 0.73 in pneumonia cases. Conclusions Our findings suggest good agreement in the interpretation of VRI data between different raters. In this respect, VRI might be helpful as a radiation free diagnostic tool for the management of pneumonia.

  20. Noun Countability; Count Nouns and Non-count Nouns, What are the Syntactic Differences Between them?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Azhar A. Alkazwini

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available Words that function as the subjects of verbs, objects of verbs or prepositions and which can have a plural form and possessive ending are known as nouns. They are described as referring to persons, places, things, states, or qualities and might also be used as an attributive modifier. In this paper, classes and subclasses of nouns shall be presented, then, noun countability branching into count and non-count nous shall be discussed. A number of present examples illustrating differences between count and non-count nouns and this includes determiner-head-co-occurrence restrictions of number, subject-verb agreement, in addition to some exceptions to this agreement rule shall be discussed. Also, the lexically inherent number in nouns and how inherently plural nouns are classified in terms of (+/- count are illustrated. This research will discuss partitive construction of count and non-count nouns, nouns as attributive modifier and, finally, conclude with the fact that there are syntactic difference between count and non-count in the English Language.

  1. Verbal Semantics Drives Early Anticipatory Eye Movements during the Comprehension of Verb-Initial Sentences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sauppe, Sebastian

    2016-01-01

    Studies on anticipatory processes during sentence comprehension often focus on the prediction of postverbal direct objects. In subject-initial languages (the target of most studies so far), however, the position in the sentence, the syntactic function, and the semantic role of arguments are often conflated. For example, in the sentence "The frog will eat the fly" the syntactic object ("fly") is at the same time also the last word and the patient argument of the verb. It is therefore not apparent which kind of information listeners orient to for predictive processing during sentence comprehension. A visual world eye tracking study on the verb-initial language Tagalog (Austronesian) tested what kind of information listeners use to anticipate upcoming postverbal linguistic input. The grammatical structure of Tagalog allows to test whether listeners' anticipatory gaze behavior is guided by predictions of the linear order of words, by syntactic functions (e.g., subject/object), or by semantic roles (agent/patient). Participants heard sentences of the type "Eat frog fly" or "Eat fly frog" (both meaning "The frog will eat the fly") while looking at displays containing an agent referent ("frog"), a patient referent ("fly") and a distractor. The verb carried morphological marking that allowed the order and syntactic function of agent and patient to be inferred. After having heard the verb, listeners fixated on the agent irrespective of its syntactic function or position in the sentence. While hearing the first-mentioned argument, listeners fixated on the corresponding referent in the display accordingly and then initiated saccades to the last-mentioned referent before it was encountered. The results indicate that listeners used verbal semantics to identify referents and their semantic roles early; information about word order or syntactic functions did not influence anticipatory gaze behavior directly after the verb was heard. In this verb-initial language, event semantics

  2. Verbal semantics drives early anticipatory eye movements during the comprehension of verb-initial sentences

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sebastian eSauppe

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available Studies on anticipatory processes during sentence comprehension often focus on the prediction of postverbal direct objects. In subject-initial languages (the target of most studies so far, however, the position in the sentence, the syntactic function, and the semantic role of arguments are often conflated. For example, in the sentence The frog will eat the fly the syntactic object (fly is at the same time also the last word and the patient argument of the verb. It is therefore not apparent which kind of information listeners orient to for predictive processing during sentence comprehension. A visual world eye tracking study on the verb-initial language Tagalog (Austronesian tested what kind of information listeners use to anticipate upcoming postverbal linguistic input. The grammatical structure of Tagalog allows to test whether listeners' anticipatory gaze behavior is guided by predictions of the linear order of words, by syntactic functions (e.g., subject/object, or by semantic roles (agent/patient. Participants heard sentences of the type Eat frog fly or Eat fly frog (both meaning The frog will eat the fly while looking at displays containing an agent referent (frog, a patient referent (fly and a distractor. The verb carried morphological marking that allowed the order and syntactic function of agent and patient to be inferred. After having heard the verb, listeners fixated on the agent irrespective of its syntactic function or position in the sentence. While hearing the first-mentioned argument, listeners fixated on the corresponding referent in the display accordingly and then initiated saccades to the last-mentioned referent before it was encountered. The results indicate that listeners used verbal semantics to identify referents and their semantic roles early; information about word order or syntactic functions did not influence anticipatory gaze behavior directly after the verb was heard. In this verb-initial language, event semantics

  3. Spanish Verbs Visualization: A study and scalable experimentation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ana García Serrano

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available In this paper it is presented a study on verbs in Spanish and it’s potential to display images from the Wikipedia (Wikimedia. It is designed and developed an Information Retrieval model based on linguistic structures of verbs and an environment that allows all subsequent scaling Spanish verbs. Adesse and EuroWordNet are the linguistic resources selected to bring the theoretical basis of the work. In the absence of an adequate corpus with relevant judgments to the problem, it has been recorded by the second author a subset of visual verbs sufficiently representative and enable to further work on this issue. Finally conclusions about visual verbs as well as the obtained results are provided

  4. On English Locative Subjects

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gabriela Brůhová

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available The paper analyses English sentences with thematic locative subjects. These subjects were detected as translation counterparts of Czech sentenceinitial locative adverbials realized by prepositional phrases with the prepositions do (into, na (on, v/ve (in, z/ze (from complemented by a noun. In the corresponding English structure, the initial scene-setting adverbial is reflected in the thematic subject, which results in the locative semantics of the subject. The sentences are analysed from syntactic, semantic and FSP aspects. From the syntactic point of view, we found five syntactic patterns of the English sentences with a locative subject (SV, SVA, SVO, SVpassA and SVCs that correspond to Czech sentences with initial locative adverbials. On the FSP level the paper studies the potential of the sentences to implement the Presentation or Quality Scale. Since it is the “semantic content of the verb that actuates the presentation semantics of the sentence” (Duškova, 2015a: 260, major attention is paid to the syntactic-semantic structure of the verb. The analysis of the semantics of the English sentences results in the identification of two semantic classes of verbs which co-occur with the English locative subject.

  5. Aspectual auxiliary verbs in Xitsonga

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Kate H

    Let him always come' e. á vá hátl-é vá yá étlélà. OPT 3PL quickly-OPT 3PL go sleep. 'Let them quickly go to bed'. 3.4 Negative markers. Negation is marked on AA verbs. The auxiliary verb hatla 'quickly' is negated in three tenses.

  6. Naming abilities: Differentiation between objects and verbs in aphasia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Luisa Carmen Spezzano

    Full Text Available Abstract Cognitive Neuropsychology aims to understand the processing mechanisms of normal and injured brain, by means of functional architectural models of information processing. Naming is one of the most important abilities in linguistic processing. Naming of different semantic and grammatical categories differ in their lexical properties and have distinct neuroanatomical substrates. We reviewed literature data on the differences between nouns and verbs in aphasic subjects reported by scientific publications in the form of indexed articles. Studies on naming abilities tended to emphasize the differentiation between nouns and verbs both in their lexical properties and neuroanatomical substrates. Functional neuroimaging studies have improved the state of knowledge regarding category-specific naming abilities, but further studies on different types of aphasia and the use of naming abilities in different contexts are warranted.

  7. Left-right compatibility in the processing of trading verbs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vicario, Carmelo M; Rumiati, Raffaella I

    2014-01-01

    The research investigating the nature of cognitive processes involved in the representation of economical outcomes is growing. Within this research, the mental accounting model proposes that individuals may well use cognitive operations to organize, evaluate, and keep track of their financial activities (Thaler, 1999). Here we wanted to test this hypothesis by asking to a group of participants to detect a syntax mistake of verbs indicating incoming and going out activities related to economical profit (trading verbs), swapping (swapping verbs) and thinking (thinking verbs). We reported a left-right compatibility for trading verbs (i.e., participants were faster with their right hand while detecting verb referring to a monetary gain with respect to a monetary loss; and faster with their left hand while detecting a monetary loss with respect to a monetary gain). However, this pattern of result was not reported while detecting swapping verbs. Results are discussed taking into account the mental accounting theory as well as to the spatial mapping of valence hypothesis.

  8. English Verb Accuracy of Bilingual Cantonese-English Preschoolers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rezzonico, Stefano; Goldberg, Ahuva; Milburn, Trelani; Belletti, Adriana; Girolametto, Luigi

    2017-01-01

    Purpose: Knowledge of verb development in typically developing bilingual preschoolers may inform clinicians about verb accuracy rates during the 1st 2 years of English instruction. This study aimed to investigate tensed verb accuracy in 2 assessment contexts in 4- and 5-year-old Cantonese-English bilingual preschoolers. Method: The sample included…

  9. Verb movement in Germanic and Celtic languages: a flexible approach

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Koeneman, O.

    2010-01-01

    This paper develops a new perspective on the question of what type of verb movement the modern Celtic languages display, V to I movement or V to C movement. Under the standard assumption that the subject remains relatively low in these languages compared to Germanic languages, this category fails to

  10. On the Formation of Verb Compounds in Early Middle Japanese

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wenchao LI

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper is dedicated to the formation of verb compounds in Early Middle Japanese, a stage of the Japanese language used in the Heian Period (794–1185. The findings reveal that current verb compounds have come a long way from Old Japanese. Multiple verbs in Old Japanese are assigned to an associate type, rather than a compounding type of relation. Thus, the serial constituents receive equal syntactic weight, giving rise to the extensive use of the coordinate type and succession type of multi-verbs. In Early Middle Japanese, the combinations of the two constituents seem much tighter, giving rise the frequent use of the modifier-predicate V-V. The conclusion emerging from this study is that it was not until Early Middle Japanese that verb compounds in the strict sense appeared. Moreover, two types of verb weakening are observed in Early Middle Japanese: (a transformation of the first verb into a prefix, (b grammaticalization of the second verb into a directional/resultative complement.

  11. A characterization of verb use in Turkish agrammatic narrative speech.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arslan, Seçkin; Bamyacı, Elif; Bastiaanse, Roelien

    2016-01-01

    This study investigates the characteristics of narrative-speech production and the use of verbs in Turkish agrammatic speakers (n = 10) compared to non-brain-damaged controls (n = 10). To elicit narrative-speech samples, personal interviews and storytelling tasks were conducted. Turkish has a large and regular verb inflection paradigm where verbs are inflected for evidentiality (i.e. direct versus indirect evidence available to the speaker). Particularly, we explored the general characteristics of the speech samples (e.g. utterance length) and the uses of lexical, finite and non-finite verbs and direct and indirect evidentials. The results show that speech rate is slow, verbs per utterance are lower than normal and the verb diversity is reduced in the agrammatic speakers. Verb inflection is relatively intact; however, a trade-off pattern between inflection for direct evidentials and verb diversity is found. The implications of the data are discussed in connection with narrative-speech production studies on other languages.

  12. Improving production of treated and untreated verbs in aphasia: A meta-analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vânia de Aguiar

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND. Demographic and clinical predictors of aphasia recovery have been identified in the literature. However, little attention has been devoted to identifying and distinguishing predictors of improvement for different outcomes, e.g., production of treated vs. untreated materials. These outcomes may rely on different mechanisms, and therefore be predicted by different variables. Furthermore, treatment features are not typically accounted for when studying predictors of aphasia recovery. This is partly due to the small numbers of cases reported in studies, but also to limitations of data analysis techniques usually employed. METHOD. We reviewed the literature on predictors of aphasia recovery, and conducted a meta-analysis of single-case studies designed to assess the efficacy of treatments for verb production. The contribution of demographic, clinical, and treatment-related variables was assessed by means of Random Forests (a machine-learning technique used in classification and regression. Two outcomes were investigated: production of treated (for 142 patients and untreated verbs (for 166 patients. RESULTS. Improved production of treated verbs was predicted by a three-way interaction of pre-treatment scores on tests for verb comprehension and word repetition, and the frequency of treatment sessions. Improvement in production of untreated verbs was predicted by an interaction including the use of morphological cues, presence of grammatical impairment, pre-treatment scores on a test for noun comprehension and frequency of treatment sessions. CONCLUSION. Improvement in the production of treated verbs occurs frequently. It may depend on restoring access to and/or knowledge of lexeme representations, and requires relative sparing of semantic knowledge (as measured by verb comprehension and phonological output abilities (including working memory, as measured by word repetition. Improvement in the production of untreated verbs has not been

  13. Left-right compatibility in the processing of trading verbs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carmelo Mario Vicario

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available The research investigating the nature of cognitive processes involved in the representation of economical outcomes is growing. Within this research, the mental accounting model proposes that individuals may well use cognitive operations to organize, evaluate, and keep track of their financial activities (Thaler, 1999. Here we wanted to test this hypothesis by asking to a group of participants to detect a syntax mistake of verbs indicating incoming and going out activities related to economical profit (trading verbs, swapping (swapping verbs and thinking (thinking verbs. We reported a left-right compatibility for trading verbs (i.e. participants were faster with their right hand while detecting verb referring to a monetary gain with respect to a monetary loss; and faster with their left hand while detecting a monetary loss with respect to a monetary gain. However, this pattern of result was not reported while detecting swapping verbs. Results are discussed taking into account the mental accounting theory as well as to the spatial mapping of valence hypothesis.

  14. Abstract Objects of Verbs

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    2014-01-01

    Verbs do often take arguments of quite different types. In an orthodox type-theoretic framework this results in an extreme polysemy of many verbs. In this article, it is shown that this unwanted consequence can be avoided when a theory of "abstract objects" is adopted according to which...... these objects represent non-objectual entities in contexts from which they are excluded by type restrictions. Thus these objects are "abstract'' in a functional rather than in an ontological sense: they function as representatives of other entities but they are otherwise quite normal objects. Three examples...

  15. Phonological Planning during Sentence Production: Beyond the Verb.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schnur, Tatiana T

    2011-01-01

    The current study addresses the extent of phonological planning during spontaneous sentence production. Previous work shows that at articulation, phonological encoding occurs for entire phrases, but encoding beyond the initial phrase may be due to the syntactic relevance of the verb in planning the utterance. I conducted three experiments to investigate whether phonological planning crosses multiple grammatical phrase boundaries (as defined by the number of lexical heads of phrase) within a single phonological phrase. Using the picture-word interference paradigm, I found in two separate experiments a significant phonological facilitation effect to both the verb and noun of sentences like "He opens the gate." I also altered the frequency of the direct object and found longer utterance initiation times for sentences ending with a low-frequency vs. high-frequency object offering further support that the direct object was phonologically encoded at the time of utterance initiation. That phonological information for post-verbal elements was activated suggests that the grammatical importance of the verb does not restrict the extent of phonological planning. These results suggest that the phonological phrase is unit of planning, where all elements within a phonological phrase are encoded before articulation. Thus, consistent with other action sequencing behavior, there is significant phonological planning ahead in sentence production.

  16. CP-recursion and the derivation of verb second in Germanic main and embedded clauses

    OpenAIRE

    Vikner, Sten

    2017-01-01

    This paper will give an overview of the verb second (V2) phenomenon, as found in both main and embedded clauses in Germanic, and it will also explore a particular derivation of (embedded) V2, in terms of a cP/CP-distinction.All the Germanic languages except modern English (but including e. g. Old English) are V2, i. e. in all declarative main clauses and in all wh-questions, the finite verb is in the second position, regardless of whether the first position is occupied by the subject or by so...

  17. Using an Online Dictionary for Identifying the Meanings of Verb ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This article reports on the results of a study which investigated the use of an online dictionary by Chinese EFL learners in identifying the meanings of verb phrases. Thirty-two stu-dents with English as major subject participated in a meaning determination task with and without the help of the Macmillan English Dictionary ...

  18. Presentation of the verbs in Bulgarian-Polish electronic dictionary

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ludmila Dimitrova

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available Presentation of the verbs in Bulgarian-Polish electronic dictionary This paper briefly discusses the presentation of the verbs in the first electronic Bulgarian-Polish dictionary that is currently being developed under a bilateral collaboration between IMI-BAS and ISS-PAS. Special attention is given to the digital entry classifiers that describe Bulgarian and Polish verbs. Problems related to the correspondence between natural language phenomena and their presentations are discussed. Some examples illustrate the different types of dictionary entries for verbs.

  19. Influencing the parents of children aged 9-13 years: findings from the VERB campaign.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Price, Simani M; Huhman, Marian; Potter, Lance D

    2008-06-01

    The CDC's VERB campaign was designed to increase physical activity among children aged 9-13 years (tweens). As part of the strategy to surround tweens with support to be physically active, VERB developed messages for parents, the secondary target audience, to encourage them to support their tween's physical activity. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine whether parent awareness of VERB was a significant predictor of seven factors that related to parental attitudes, beliefs, and supportive behaviors for tweens' physical activity using the Youth Media Campaign Longitudinal Survey (YMCLS). Parents (N=1946) of U.S. children aged 9-13 years. Advertising directed at tweens through paid television, radio, print, Internet, and schools was the primary VERB intervention; tween advertising could have been also seen by parents. Messages directed at parents encouraging their support of tweens' physical activity were delivered in English through mainly print and radio. In-language messages for Latino and Asian audiences were delivered through print, radio, television, and at events. Parents' awareness of VERB; parents' attitudes, beliefs, and support for their tweens' physical activities. Awareness increased each year of the campaign; more than 50% of parents were aware of VERB by the third year of the campaign. Parents reported that their main source of awareness was television, the main channel used to reach tweens. Awareness of VERB was predictive of positive attitudes about physical activity for all children, belief in the importance of physical activity for their own child, and the number of days parents were physically active with their child. Parents' awareness of VERB was associated with positive attitudes, beliefs, and behavior. Parents' awareness probably resulted from a combination of messages directed to parents and tweens. To maximize audience reach, social marketers who are developing health messages should consider the potential value of

  20. EEG source reconstruction evidence for the noun-verb neural dissociation along semantic dimensions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhao, Bin; Dang, Jianwu; Zhang, Gaoyan

    2017-09-17

    One of the long-standing issues in neurolinguistic research is about the neural basis of word representation, concerning whether grammatical classification or semantic difference causes the neural dissociation of brain activity patterns when processing different word categories, especially nouns and verbs. To disentangle this puzzle, four orthogonalized word categories in Chinese: unambiguous nouns (UN), unambiguous verbs (UV), ambiguous words with noun-biased semantics (AN), and ambiguous words with verb-biased semantics (AV) were adopted in an auditory task for recording electroencephalographic (EEG) signals from 128 electrodes on the scalps of twenty-two subjects. With the advanced current density reconstruction (CDR) algorithm and the constraint of standardized low-resolution electromagnetic tomography, the spatiotemporal brain dynamics of word processing were explored with the results that in multiple time periods including P1 (60-90ms), N1 (100-140ms), P200 (150-250ms) and N400 (350-450ms), noun-verb dissociation over the parietal-occipital and frontal-central cortices appeared not only between the UN-UV grammatical classes but also between the grammatically identical but semantically different AN-AV pairs. The apparent semantic dissociation within one grammatical class strongly suggests that the semantic difference rather than grammatical classification could be interpreted as the origin of the noun-verb neural dissociation. Our results also revealed that semantic dissociation occurs from an early stage and repeats in multiple phases, thus supporting a functionally hierarchical word processing mechanism. Copyright © 2017 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  1. 78 FR 13463 - Editorial Corrections to the Export Administration Regulations

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-02-28

    ... create proper subject/verb agreement. More specifically, the word ``is'' at paragraph (b)(1)(ii) is... Sec. 742.10 of the EAR to create proper subject/verb agreement. More specifically, the word ``is'' at... Juridiques et Contentieuses. Specifically, the rule misidentified ``Paris Cedex 9'' as ``Paris Codex 9...

  2. Verb Placement in Second Language Acquisition: Experimental Evidence for the Different Behavior of Auxiliary and Lexical Verbs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Verhagen, Josje

    2011-01-01

    This study investigates the acquisition of verb placement by Moroccan and Turkish second language (L2) learners of Dutch. Elicited production data corroborate earlier findings from L2 German that learners who do not produce auxiliaries do not raise lexical verbs over negation, whereas learners who produce auxiliaries do. Data from elicited…

  3. Learning to categorize verbs and nouns : studies on Dutch

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Erkelens, M.A.

    2009-01-01

    Verbs and nouns are elementary notions in linguistics, so the question how children learn to categorize verbs and nouns in their first language is an intriguing one. Children not only have to learn to identify verbs and nouns as belonging to different categories based on perception, they also have

  4. Online Sentence Comprehension in PPA: Verb-Based Integration and Prediction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jennifer E Mack

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available Introduction. Impaired language comprehension is frequently observed in primary progressive aphasia (PPA. Word comprehension deficits are characteristic of the semantic variant (PPA-S whereas sentence comprehension deficits are more prevalent in the agrammatic (PPA-G and logopenic (PPA-L variants (Amici et al., 2007; Gorno-Tempini et al., 2011; Thompson et al., 2013. Word and sentence comprehension deficits have also been shown to have distinct neural substrates in PPA (Mesulam, Thompson, Weintraub, & Rogalski, in press. However, little is known about the relationship between word and sentence comprehension processes in PPA, specifically how words are accessed, combined, and used to predict upcoming elements within a sentence. A previous study demonstrated that listeners with stroke-induced agrammatic aphasia rapidly access verb meanings and use them to semantically integrate verb-arguments; however, they show deficits in using verb meanings predictively (Mack, Ji, & Thompson, 2013. The present study tested whether listeners with PPA are able to access verb meanings and to use this information to integrate and predict verb-arguments. Methods. Fifteen adults with PPA (8 with PPA-G, 3 with PPA-L, and 4 with PPA-S and ten age-matched controls participated in two eyetracking experiments. In both experiments, participants heard sentences with restrictive verbs that were semantically compatible with only one object in a four-picture visual array (e.g., eat when the array included a cake and three non-edible objects and unrestrictive verbs (e.g., move that were compatible with all four objects. The verb-based integration experiment tested access to verb meaning and its effects on integration of the direct object (e.g., Susan will eat/move the cake; the verb-based prediction experiment examined prediction of the direct object (e.g., Susan will eat/move the …. The dependent variable was the rate of fixations on the target picture (e.g., the cake in the

  5. Typological Analysis of the Yakut and German Polysemantic Verbs KEL and KOMMEN

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Svetlana Mitrofanovna Prokopieva

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available The analysis of language semantics of the polysemantic verbs kel and kommen of the modern Yakut and German languages brings us to the domain of concepts. Interest in typological studies of languages, in particular, in comparative studies of concept structure of polysemantic verbs has increased thanks to cognitive linguistics which is currently the most intensively developing field of linguistics. The direct nominative meaning of the Yakut verb kel and the German kommen reflects the main components of the concept structure that can be assigned to the concept core: object, operation, result. The purpose of this paper is the typological analysis of lexicographic codification of the phenomenon of polysemy in various languages of the Turkic and German language families. The study is of complex character; to reveal universal and specific ethnic-cultural features of compared Yakut and German linguistic units we used the inductive-deductive method, i.e. theoretical conclusions result from the analysis of practical material. Using the component analysis, lexical units were separated into smallest meaningful parts. Distributive method was used to analyze actualization of meanings of the Yakut and German polysemantic verbs ‘kel’ and ‘kommen’ in context. The typological analysis was invoked to reveal ethnic specifics of compared Yakut and German polysemantic verbs. The polysemantic verbs kel and kommen share the following concepts through subject: ‘man’, ‘animal’, ‘time’, ‘artifact’, ‘emotional-physical state’, and ‘abstract notion’. All concepts given above, 15 lexico-semantic variants, 2 grammatical meanings of the polysemantic word kel and 18 meanings of the verb kommen are represented and codified according to all lexicographic rules and requirements in the Great Academic Dictionary of the Yakut Language and the Great German-Russian Dictionary that are an inexhaustible source for further research into comparative and

  6. Scope and semimodal verbs: two approaches

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Richter, Michael

    2002-01-01

    Full Text Available In this paper I focus on scope phenomena connected with semimodal (and modal verbs and mainly on the syntactic behaviour of these groups of verbs. One important question is: why can semimodal verbs (and modal verbs in epistemic use not have perfect and future tense forms? Taking among other things Reichenbach’s tense system as a starting point I try to point out that the interpretation of a semimodal or a modal in epistemic use is problematic 1. if there is more than one reference time/if the reference time is indefinite or 2. if the verb in question stands together with an auxiliary of future which has a certain modal meaning itself. The comparison of the treatment of these phenomena in the framework of the Semantic Syntax with a non transformational approach (fragment of a categorial grammar shows, that some important transformational rules and principles easily and economically can be represented in a non transformational grammar. The transformational approach needs rules like RAISING and LOWERING (or at least one of the two, and in addition to this a rather extended set of rules for the generation of sentences, while in the categorial system we need only two reduction laws. It has to be investigated whether and to what extent the formation and transformation rules in a transformational grammar on the one hand and the dominance / linear precedence rules together with the lexical entries on the other hand are equivalent.

  7. Force Dynamics of Verb Complementation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jacek Woźny

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Force Dynamics of Verb Complementation The concepts of motion and force are both extensively discussed in cognitive linguistics literature. But they are discussed separately. The first usually in the context of ‘motion situations’ (Talmy, Slobin, Zlatev, the other as part of the Force Dynamics framework, which was developed by Talmy. The aim of this paper is twofold: first, to argue that the concepts of force and motion should not be isolated but considered as two inseparable parts of force-motion events. The second goal is to prove that the modified Force Dynamics (force-motion framework can be used for precise characterization of the verb complementation patterns. To this end, a random sample of 50 sentences containing the verb ‘went’ is analyzed, demonstrating the differences between the categories of intensive and intransitive complementation with respect to the linguistically coded parameters of force and motion.

  8. L2 speakers decompose morphologically complex verbs: fMRI evidence from priming of transparent derived verbs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sophie eDe Grauwe

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available In this fMRI long-lag priming study, we investigated the processing of Dutch semantically transparent, derived prefix verbs. In such words, the meaning of the word as a whole can be deduced from the meanings of its parts, e.g. wegleggen ‘put aside’. Many behavioral and some fMRI studies suggest that native (L1 speakers decompose transparent derived words. The brain region usually implicated in morphological decomposition is the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG. In non-native (L2 speakers, the processing of transparent derived words has hardly been investigated, especially in fMRI studies, and results are contradictory: Some studies find more reliance on holistic (i.e. non-decompositional processing by L2 speakers; some find no difference between L1 and L2 speakers. In this study, we wanted to find out whether Dutch transparent derived prefix verbs are decomposed or processed holistically by German L2 speakers of Dutch. Half of the derived verbs (e.g. omvallen ‘fall down’ were preceded by their stem (e.g. vallen ‘fall’ with a lag of 4 to 6 words (‘primed’; the other half (e.g. inslapen ‘fall asleep’ were not (‘unprimed’. L1 and L2 speakers of Dutch made lexical decisions on these visually presented verbs. Both ROI analyses and whole-brain analyses showed that there was a significant repetition suppression effect for primed compared to unprimed derived verbs in the LIFG. This was true both for the analyses over L2 speakers only and for the analyses over the two language groups together. The latter did not reveal any interaction with language group (L1 vs. L2 in the LIFG. Thus, L2 speakers show a clear priming effect in the LIFG, an area that has been associated with morphological decomposition. Our findings are consistent with the idea that L2 speakers engage in decomposition of transparent derived verbs rather than processing them holistically.

  9. Modelling verb selection within argument structure constructions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Matusevych, Yevgen; Alishahi, Afra; Backus, Albert

    2017-01-01

    This article looks into the nature of cognitive associations between verbs and argument structure constructions (ASCs). Existing research has shown that distributional and semantic factors affect speakers' choice of verbs in ASCs. A formal account of this theory has been proposed by Ellis,

  10. Differential Impairment of Noun and Verb Consequent to LH Lesions in Persian Aphasic Patients

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dr. Reza Nilipour

    2003-08-01

    Full Text Available The major focus of this research is on the differential disruption of language abilities subsequent to brain damages as they relate to site and size of lesion, especially left hemisphere lesions which disrupt the production and processing of "Nouns" vs. "Verbs" as two functionally different lexical categories. Several clinical as well as experimental studies reported on different language have shown that nouns and verbs can be independently disrupted due to brain damage. A prevalent impairment in naming actions (Producing verbs is reported in non-fluent aphasic patients, with lesions involving left frontal lobe, whereas a selective in naming objects (Producing nouns has been observed in amnesic patients, with lesions involving the temporal lobe and the temporal lobe and the posterior association aresas. This research is a theoretical and fundamental based on descriptive and analytical method. The aphasic data in this research were obtained by assessing each patient's aphasic symptoms using a standard Persian aphasia test (Paradis, Nilipoure, Paribakht, 1989 as well as post-test analysis of each patient' connected descriptive speech. The subjects were selected form among aphasics who referred to speech therapy centers in Tehran during a pe5iod of one year since autumn 1999. The subjects selected in the study were a homogenous group with left hemisphere lesions due to CVA. They were educated adult right handed. Speakers of Persian without any risk factor such as nicotine, alcohol or any addiction and diabetes with no gross depression or anxiety problems or face and oral paralysis and hemiaopsia. The subjects in this study comprised to adults ranging between 33 and 76 years of age. The results indicated that there are significant correlation between: 1 The production of nouns and left hemisphere lesion. 2 The production of verbs and left hemisphere lesion. 3 Brain lesion and language deficits. 4 The site of lesion and language abilities

  11. Kinematic parameters of signed verbs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Malaia, Evie; Wilbur, Ronnie B; Milkovic, Marina

    2013-10-01

    Sign language users recruit physical properties of visual motion to convey linguistic information. Research on American Sign Language (ASL) indicates that signers systematically use kinematic features (e.g., velocity, deceleration) of dominant hand motion for distinguishing specific semantic properties of verb classes in production ( Malaia & Wilbur, 2012a) and process these distinctions as part of the phonological structure of these verb classes in comprehension ( Malaia, Ranaweera, Wilbur, & Talavage, 2012). These studies are driven by the event visibility hypothesis by Wilbur (2003), who proposed that such use of kinematic features should be universal to sign language (SL) by the grammaticalization of physics and geometry for linguistic purposes. In a prior motion capture study, Malaia and Wilbur (2012a) lent support for the event visibility hypothesis in ASL, but there has not been quantitative data from other SLs to test the generalization to other languages. The authors investigated the kinematic parameters of predicates in Croatian Sign Language ( Hrvatskom Znakovnom Jeziku [HZJ]). Kinematic features of verb signs were affected both by event structure of the predicate (semantics) and phrase position within the sentence (prosody). The data demonstrate that kinematic features of motion in HZJ verb signs are recruited to convey morphological and prosodic information. This is the first crosslinguistic motion capture confirmation that specific kinematic properties of articulator motion are grammaticalized in other SLs to express linguistic features.

  12. Noun-Verb Ambiguity in Chronic Undifferentiated Schizophrenia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goldfarb, Robert; Bekker, Natalie

    2009-01-01

    This study investigated noun-verb retrieval patterns of 30 adults with chronic undifferentiated schizophrenia and 67 typical adults, to determine if schizophrenia affected nouns (associated with temporal lobe function) differently from verbs (associated with frontal lobe function). Stimuli were homophonic homographic homonyms, balanced according…

  13. Grammar rules for the isiZulu complex verb | Maria Keet | Southern ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The isiZulu verb is known for its morphological complexity, which is a subject of on-going linguistics research, as well as for prospects of computational use, such as controlled natural language interfaces, machine translation and spellcheckers. To this end, we seek to answer the question as to what the precise grammar ...

  14. Vowel quality alternation in Dinka verb derivation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Andersen, Torben

    2017-01-01

    In Dinka, a predominantly monosyllabic and highly fusional Western Nilotic language, vowel quality alternation in the root plays a major and systematic role in the morphology of verbs, together with alternations in vowel length, voice quality, and tone. Earlier work has shown that in the inflecti...... modifications. These include a different distribution of the vowel grades and interaction with a shift in voice quality, to breathy voice.......In Dinka, a predominantly monosyllabic and highly fusional Western Nilotic language, vowel quality alternation in the root plays a major and systematic role in the morphology of verbs, together with alternations in vowel length, voice quality, and tone. Earlier work has shown that in the inflection...... of simple, i. e., underived, transitive verbs, the vowel quality alternation conforms to a vowel height gradation system with three vowel grades. The present article shows that this vowel gradation system is also operative in the morphology of derived verbs with a transitive root, but with certain...

  15. Language-invariant verb processing regions in Spanish-English bilinguals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Willms, Joanna L; Shapiro, Kevin A; Peelen, Marius V; Pajtas, Petra E; Costa, Albert; Moo, Lauren R; Caramazza, Alfonso

    2011-07-01

    Nouns and verbs are fundamental grammatical building blocks of all languages. Studies of brain-damaged patients and healthy individuals have demonstrated that verb processing can be dissociated from noun processing at a neuroanatomical level. In cases where bilingual patients have a noun or verb deficit, the deficit has been observed in both languages. This suggests that the noun-verb distinction may be based on neural components that are common across languages. Here we investigated the cortical organization of grammatical categories in healthy, early Spanish-English bilinguals using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a morphophonological alternation task. Four regions showed greater activity for verbs than for nouns in both languages: left posterior middle temporal gyrus (LMTG), left middle frontal gyrus (LMFG), pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA), and right middle occipital gyrus (RMOG); no regions showed greater activation for nouns. Multi-voxel pattern analysis within verb-specific regions showed indistinguishable activity patterns for English and Spanish, indicating language-invariant bilingual processing. In LMTG and LMFG, patterns were more similar within than across grammatical category, both within and across languages, indicating language-invariant grammatical class information. These results suggest that the neural substrates underlying verb-specific processing are largely independent of language in bilinguals, both at the macroscopic neuroanatomical level and at the level of voxel activity patterns. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  16. Training verb argument structure production in agrammatic aphasia: Behavioral and neural recovery patterns

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thompson, Cynthia K.; Riley, Ellyn A.; den Ouden, Dirk-Bart; Meltzer-Asscher, Aya; Lukic, Sladjana

    2013-01-01

    Introduction Neuroimaging and lesion studies indicate a left hemisphere network for verb and verb argument structure processing, involving both frontal and temporoparietal brain regions. Although their verb comprehension is generally unimpaired, it is well known that individuals with agrammatic aphasia often present with verb production deficits, characterized by an argument structure complexity hierarchy, indicating faulty access to argument structure representations for production and integration into syntactic contexts. Recovery of verb processing in agrammatism, however, has received little attention and no studies have examined the neural mechanisms associated with improved verb and argument structure processing. In the present study we trained agrammatic individuals on verbs with complex argument structure in sentence contexts and examined generalization to verbs with less complex argument structure. The neural substrates of improved verb production were examined using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Methods Eight individuals with chronic agrammatic aphasia participated in the study (four experimental and four control participants). Production of three-argument verbs in active sentences was trained using a sentence generation task emphasizing the verb’s argument structure and the thematic roles of sentential noun phrases. Before and after training, production of trained and untrained verbs was tested in naming and sentence production and fMRI scans were obtained, using an action naming task. Results Significant pre- to post-training improvement in trained and untrained (one- and two-argument) verbs was found for treated, but not control, participants, with between-group differences found for verb naming, production of verbs in sentences, and production of argument structure. fMRI activation derived from post-treatment compared to pre-treatment scans revealed upregulation in cortical regions implicated for verb and argument structure processing

  17. Verbs in the lexicon: Why is hitting easier than breaking?

    Science.gov (United States)

    McKoon, Gail; Love, Jessica

    2011-11-01

    Adult speakers use verbs in syntactically appropriate ways. For example, they know implicitly that the boy hit at the fence is acceptable but the boy broke at the fence is not. We suggest that this knowledge is lexically encoded in semantic decompositions. The decomposition for break verbs (e.g. crack, smash) is hypothesized to be more complex than that for hit verbs (e.g. kick, kiss). Specifically, the decomposition of a break verb denotes that "an entity changes state as the result of some external force" whereas the decomposition for a hit verb denotes only that "an entity potentially comes in contact with another entity." In this article, verbs of the two types were compared in a lexical decision experiment - Experiment 1 - and they were compared in sentence comprehension experiments with transitive sentences (e.g. the car hit the bicycle and the car broke the bicycle) - Experiments 2 and 3. In Experiment 1, processing times were shorter for the hit than the break verbs and in Experiments 2 and 3, processing times were shorter for the hit sentences than the break sentences, results that are in accord with the complexities of the postulated semantic decompositions.

  18. Universal Annotation of Slavic Verb Forms

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zeman Daniel

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available This article proposes application of a subset of the Universal Dependencies (UD standard to the group of Slavic languages. The subset in question comprises morphosyntactic features of various verb forms. We systematically document the inventory of features observable with Slavic verbs, giving numerous examples from 10 languages. We demonstrate that terminology in literature may differ, yet the substance remains the same. Our goal is practical. We definitely do not intend to overturn the many decades of research in Slavic comparative linguistics. Instead, we want to put the properties of Slavic verbs in the context of UD, and to propose a unified (Slavic-wide application of UD features and values to them. We believe that our proposal is a compromise that could be accepted by corpus linguists working on all Slavic languages.

  19. Toddlers' Verb Lexicon Diversity and Grammatical Outcomes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hadley, Pamela A.; Rispoli, Matthew; Hsu, Ning

    2016-01-01

    Purpose: The goals of this study were to quantify longitudinal expectations for verb lexicon growth and to determine whether verb lexicon measures were better predictors of later grammatical outcomes than noun lexicon measures. Method: Longitudinal parent-report measures from the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (Fenson et al.,…

  20. Verbs and attention to relational roles in English and Tamil*

    Science.gov (United States)

    SETHURAMAN, NITYA; SMITH, LINDA B.

    2013-01-01

    English-learning children have been shown to reliably use cues from argument structure in learning verbs. However, languages pair overtly expressed arguments with verbs to varying extents, raising the question of whether children learning all languages expect the same, universal mapping between arguments and relational roles. Three experiments examined this question by asking how strongly early-learned verbs by themselves, without their corresponding explicitly expressed arguments, point to ‘conceptual arguments’ – the relational roles in a scene. Children aged two to four years and adult speakers of two languages that differ structurally in terms of whether the arguments of a verb are explicitly expressed more (English) or less (Tamil) frequently were compared in their mapping of verbs, presented without any overtly expressed arguments, to a range of scenes. The results suggest different developmental trajectories for language learners, as well as different patterns of adult interpretation, and offer new ways of thinking about the nature of verbs cross-linguistically. PMID:22289295

  1. Remarks on Causative Verbs and Object Deletion in English

    OpenAIRE

    Onozuka, Hiromi

    2007-01-01

    Rappaport Hovav and Levin (1998) contend that result verbs disallow object deletion becauseof their lexical semantic properties. Their point is that the distinction between result verbs andmanner verbs with their different event structure representation constitutes the important factorwhich dictates the possibility of the variation of argument realization, of which object deletionrepresents one instance. Responding to their claim, Goldberg (2001) presents the evidencewhich mainly concerns the...

  2. Effects of relative embodiment in lexical and semantic processing of verbs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sidhu, David M; Kwan, Rachel; Pexman, Penny M; Siakaluk, Paul D

    2014-06-01

    Research examining semantic richness effects in visual word recognition has shown that multiple dimensions of meaning are activated in the process of word recognition (e.g., Yap et al., 2012). This research has, however, been limited to nouns. In the present research we extended the semantic richness approach to verb stimuli in order to investigate how verb meanings are represented. We characterized a dimension of relative embodiment for verbs, based on the bodily sense described by Borghi and Cimatti (2010), and collected ratings on that dimension for 687 English verbs. The relative embodiment ratings revealed that bodily experience was judged to be more important to the meanings of some verbs (e.g., dance, breathe) than to others (e.g., evaporate, expect). We then tested the effects of relative embodiment and imageability on verb processing in lexical decision (Experiment 1), action picture naming (Experiment 2), and syntactic classification (Experiment 3). In all three experiments results showed facilitatory effects of relative embodiment, but not imageability: latencies were faster for relatively more embodied verbs, even after several other lexical variables were controlled. The results suggest that relative embodiment is an important aspect of verb meaning, and that the semantic richness approach holds promise as a strategy for investigating other aspects of verb meaning. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  3. Memory Retrieval in Parsing and Interpretation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schlueter, Ananda Lila Zoe

    2017-01-01

    This dissertation explores the relationship between the parser and the grammar in error-driven retrieval by examining the mechanism underlying the illusory licensing of subject-verb agreement violations ("agreement attraction"). Previous work motivates a two-stage model of agreement attraction in which the parser predicts the verb's…

  4. Chinese Learners' Acquisition of English Verbs: A Corpus-Driven Approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Linxiao; Jo, Hie-myung

    2012-01-01

    Limited research has investigated advanced language learners' acquisition of English verbs. The current study examines and compares the acquisition pattern of English verbs among Chinese second language (L2) learners at both intermediate and advanced levels to answer the following questions: (1) Do L2 learners acquire regular verbs and irregular…

  5. The Syntactic Analysis of Pronoun Homofunction Considering Verb Structure and the Function of Connected Pronouns in Passive-Emotional Sentences

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mohammad Irani

    2017-04-01

       All these sentences express a kind of passive and emotional reaction; hence, it must certainly be considered to get the meaning of such sentences. Khābash gereft, for example, means he fell asleep.In the other hand, paying attention to the meaning will notably be effective in determining the verb type in structure and the grammatical role of the words in such sentences. According to the authors of this research, unlike some ideas, the verb structure is not compounded in these sentences, but is a nominal/adjectival component before the homo-function, recognized to be a part of the compound verb by some grammarians and linguists, has a subject role; and the homo-function is also a simple verb completely agreeing in suffix with the subject. The role of the pronoun suffixes, also, must be determined paying special attention to their role in traditional grammar because we think sometimes proposing ideas on some grammatical points might not bring about acceptable results regardless of their background and historic relations. Since pronoun suffixes occur only as objects, complements and genitives, the joint pronouns in these sentences are not an exception and have the same roles. The accompanying noun or adjective is the subject. The disjoint initial noun or pronoun, the “pronoun homo-role”, can be replaced by the pronoun suffix in some sentences, but makes the sentence ungrammatical in most cases.

  6. Polyphony and verb forms

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jelena Rajić

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper examines some special uses of indicative and subjunctive verb forms in Spanish, which contemporary linguistics explains using the notions of polyphony, evidentials, echoic representation, quotatives, etc. These terms, even though they refer to different characteristics and belong to different theoretical frameworks, share one common feature: they all refer to diverse linguistic forms (discourse markers, linguistic negation, quotatives, echoic utterances, etc. characterized by the presence and interaction of different voices or points of view in one discourse sequence. In this study we are interested in a description of quotative or polyphonic meanings expressed by specific verb forms and tenses, the imperfect and the conditional, and also by indicative forms in subordinate substantive clauses with a negative main verb and by subjunctive forms in subordinate concessive clauses. Our research focuses on the analysis of the linguistic conditions that make possible the evidential use of the conditional, the imperfect and the echoic (metarepresentative interpretation of indicative and subjunctive forms in the above-mentioned contexts. The examples we discuss show that evidential and echoic interpretations are inferential meanings derived from the extralinguistic situation and the knowledge that speakers have of the world.

  7. Production of verb tenses in children with cochlear implants

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sokolovac Ivana

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The production of verb tenses leads to better language development of children with cochlear implants. The aim of this study was to assess the acquisition of verb tenses in children with cochlear implants. The sample included 60 children, aged from 9 to 15, with average intellectual abilities. The study group consisted of 30 patients with cochlear implants, with no additional disabilities. The control group consisted of 30 subjects with typical speech - language development and preserved hearing. The acquisition of basic tenses was assessed by 'Corpus for the Assessment of the Use of Tenses' (Dimić, 2003. Significant statistical differences were found in the use of the present tense in children with cochlear implants and hearing children (t=-4.385; p<0.001 as well as in the use of the past tense (t=-4.650; p<0.001, and the future tense (t=-4.269; p<0.001. There was also a significant difference in the use of irregular verb 'go' (t=-3.958; p<0.001, as well as in the combination of the present and the past tense (t=-5.806; p<0.001. The present tense was used correctly by most children with cochlear implants (70%, followed by the past tense (53%, and finally the future tense (23%. Children with cochlear implants, even after several years of re/habilitation, do not reach the grammatical development of children with normal hearing.

  8. A Double-Verb Construction in Mbya Guarani.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dooley, Robert A.

    The double-verb construction in Mbya Guarani is described. In this construction, the second verb (V2) has a distinctive morphology. It is concluded that the construction, examined from several viewpoints (lexico-semantic, phonological, morphological, and syntactic) is a phrase in which V2 functions as a modifier of V1, and that is different from…

  9. 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

  10. The On-Line Processing of Verb-Phrase Ellipsis in Aphasia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Poirier, Josee; Shapiro, Lewis P.; Love, Tracy; Grodzinsky, Yosef

    2009-01-01

    We investigate the on-line processing of verb-phrase ellipsis (VPE) constructions in two brain injured populations: Broca's and Anomic aphasics. VPE constructions are built from two simple clauses; the first is the antecedent clause and the second is the ellipsis clause. The ellipsis clause is missing its verb and object (i.e., its verb phrase…

  11. Acquiring and processing verb argument structure: distributional learning in a miniature language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wonnacott, Elizabeth; Newport, Elissa L; Tanenhaus, Michael K

    2008-05-01

    Adult knowledge of a language involves correctly balancing lexically-based and more language-general patterns. For example, verb argument structures may sometimes readily generalize to new verbs, yet with particular verbs may resist generalization. From the perspective of acquisition, this creates significant learnability problems, with some researchers claiming a crucial role for verb semantics in the determination of when generalization may and may not occur. Similarly, there has been debate regarding how verb-specific and more generalized constraints interact in sentence processing and on the role of semantics in this process. The current work explores these issues using artificial language learning. In three experiments using languages without semantic cues to verb distribution, we demonstrate that learners can acquire both verb-specific and verb-general patterns, based on distributional information in the linguistic input regarding each of the verbs as well as across the language as a whole. As with natural languages, these factors are shown to affect production, judgments and real-time processing. We demonstrate that learners apply a rational procedure in determining their usage of these different input statistics and conclude by suggesting that a Bayesian perspective on statistical learning may be an appropriate framework for capturing our findings.

  12. Meaning and the English verb

    CERN Document Server

    Leech, Geoffrey

    2014-01-01

    Every language has its peculiar problems of meaning for the foreign learner. In the English language, some of the biggest yet most fascinating problems are concentrated in the area of the finite verb phrase: in particular, tense, aspect, mood and modality. Meaning and the English Verb describes these fields in detail for teachers and advanced students of English as a foreign or second language. This new third edition uses up-to-date examples to show differences and similarities between American and British english, reflecting a great deal of recent research in this area. It also takes account

  13. Noun and verb processing in aphasia: Behavioural profiles and neural correlates

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Reem S.W. Alyahya

    Full Text Available The behavioural and neural processes underpinning different word classes, particularly nouns and verbs, have been a long-standing area of interest in psycholinguistic, neuropsychology and aphasiology research. This topic has theoretical implications concerning the organisation of the language system, as well as clinical consequences related to the management of patients with language deficits. Research findings, however, have diverged widely, which might, in part, reflect methodological differences, particularly related to controlling the psycholinguistic variations between nouns and verbs. The first aim of this study, therefore, was to develop a set of neuropsychological tests that assessed single-word production and comprehension with a matched set of nouns and verbs. Secondly, the behavioural profiles and neural correlates of noun and verb processing were explored, based on these novel tests, in a relatively large cohort of 48 patients with chronic post-stroke aphasia. A data-driven approach, principal component analysis (PCA, was also used to determine how noun and verb production and comprehension were related to the patients' underlying fundamental language domains. The results revealed no performance differences between noun and verb production and comprehension once matched on multiple psycholinguistic features including, most critically, imageability. Interestingly, the noun-verb differences found in previous studies were replicated in this study once un-matched materials were used. Lesion-symptom mapping revealed overlapping neural correlates of noun and verb processing along left temporal and parietal regions. These findings support the view that the neural representation of noun and verb processing at single-word level are jointly-supported by distributed cortical regions. The PCA generated five fundamental language and cognitive components of aphasia: phonological production, phonological recognition, semantics, fluency, and

  14. Testing controlled productive knowledge of adverb-verb collocations ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The study also reveals that controlled productive knowledge of adverbverb collocations is less problematic. Based on these results, teaching strategies aimed at improving the use of adverb-verb collocations among EFL users are proposed. Keywords: academic writing, adverb-verb collocations, productive knowledge of ...

  15. Live Action: Can Young Children Learn Verbs From Video?

    OpenAIRE

    Roseberry, Sarah; Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy; Parish-Morris, Julia; Golinkoff, Roberta Michnick

    2009-01-01

    The availability of educational programming aimed at infants and toddlers is increasing, yet the effect of video on language acquisition remains unclear. Three studies of 96 children aged 30–42 months investigated their ability to learn verbs from video. Study 1 asked whether children could learn verbs from video when supported by live social interaction. Study 2 tested whether children could learn verbs from video alone. Study 3 clarified whether the benefits of social interaction remained w...

  16. The role of syntax in complex networks: Local and global importance of verbs in a syntactic dependency network

    Science.gov (United States)

    Čech, Radek; Mačutek, Ján; Žabokrtský, Zdeněk

    2011-10-01

    Syntax of natural language has been the focus of linguistics for decades. The complex network theory, being one of new research tools, opens new perspectives on syntax properties of the language. Despite numerous partial achievements, some fundamental problems remain unsolved. Specifically, although statistical properties typical for complex networks can be observed in all syntactic networks, the impact of syntax itself on these properties is still unclear. The aim of the present study is to shed more light on the role of syntax in the syntactic network structure. In particular, we concentrate on the impact of the syntactic function of a verb in the sentence on the complex network structure. Verbs play the decisive role in the sentence structure (“local” importance). From this fact we hypothesize the importance of verbs in the complex network (“global” importance). The importance of verb in the complex network is assessed by the number of links which are directed from the node representing verb to other nodes in the network. Six languages (Catalan, Czech, Dutch, Hungarian, Italian, Portuguese) were used for testing the hypothesis.

  17. Word Order and Voice Influence the Timing of Verb Planning in German Sentence Production.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sauppe, Sebastian

    2017-01-01

    Theories of incremental sentence production make different assumptions about when speakers encode information about described events and when verbs are selected, accordingly. An eye tracking experiment on German testing the predictions from linear and hierarchical incrementality about the timing of event encoding and verb planning is reported. In the experiment, participants described depictions of two-participant events with sentences that differed in voice and word order. Verb-medial active sentences and actives and passives with sentence-final verbs were compared. Linear incrementality predicts that sentences with verbs placed early differ from verb-final sentences because verbs are assumed to only be planned shortly before they are articulated. By contrast, hierarchical incrementality assumes that speakers start planning with relational encoding of the event. A weak version of hierarchical incrementality assumes that only the action is encoded at the outset of formulation and selection of lexical verbs only occurs shortly before they are articulated, leading to the prediction of different fixation patterns for verb-medial and verb-final sentences. A strong version of hierarchical incrementality predicts no differences between verb-medial and verb-final sentences because it assumes that verbs are always lexically selected early in the formulation process. Based on growth curve analyses of fixations to agent and patient characters in the described pictures, and the influence of character humanness and the lack of an influence of the visual salience of characters on speakers' choice of active or passive voice, the current results suggest that while verb planning does not necessarily occur early during formulation, speakers of German always create an event representation early.

  18. Resisting attraction: Individual differences in executive control are associated with subject-verb agreement errors in production.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Veenstra, Alma; Antoniou, Kyriakos; Katsos, Napoleon; Kissine, Mikhail

    2018-04-19

    We propose that attraction errors in agreement production (e.g., the key to the cabinets are missing) are related to two components of executive control: working memory and inhibitory control. We tested 138 children aged 10 to 12, an age when children are expected to produce high rates of errors. To increase the potential of individual variation in executive control skills, participants came from monolingual, bilingual, and bidialectal language backgrounds. Attraction errors were elicited with a picture description task in Dutch and executive control was measured with a digit span task, Corsi blocks task, switching task, and attentional networks task. Overall, higher rates of attraction errors were negatively associated with higher verbal working memory and, independently, with higher inhibitory control. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of the role of both working memory and inhibitory control in attraction errors in production. Implications for memory- and grammar-based models are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

  19. Learning to Construct Verbs in Navajo and Quechua

    Science.gov (United States)

    Courtney, Ellen H.; Saville-Troike, Muriel

    2002-01-01

    Navajo and Quechua, both languages with a highly complex morphology, provide intriguing insights into the acquisition of inflectional systems. The development of the verb in the two languages is especially interesting, since the morphology encodes diverse grammatical notions, with the complex verb often constituting the entire sentence. While the…

  20. Verb-Noun Collocation Proficiency and Academic Years

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fatemeh Ebrahimi-Bazzaz

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Generally vocabulary and collocations in particular have significant roles in language proficiency. A collocation includes two words that are frequently joined concurrently in the memory of native speakers. There have been many linguistic studies trying to define, to describe, and to categorise English collocations. It contains grammatical collocations and lexical collocations which include nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverb. In the context of a foreign language environment such as Iran, collocational proficiency can be useful because it helps the students improve their language proficiency. This paper investigates the possible relationship between verb-noun collocation proficiency among students from one academic year to the next. To reach this goal, a test of verb-noun collocations was administered to Iranian learners. The participants in the study were 212 Iranian students in an Iranian university. They were selected from the second term of freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years. The students’ age ranged from 18 to 35.The results of ANOVA showed there was variability in the verb-noun collocations proficiency within each academic year and between the four academic years. The results of a post hoc multiple comparison tests demonstrated that the means are significantly different between the first year and the third and fourth years, and between the third and the fourth academic year; however, students require at least two years to show significant development in verb-noun collocation proficiency. These findings provided a vital implication that lexical collocations are learnt and developed through four academic years of university, but requires at least two years showing significant development in the language proficiency.

  1. Word Order and Voice Influence the Timing of Verb Planning in German Sentence Production

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sebastian Sauppe

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available Theories of incremental sentence production make different assumptions about when speakers encode information about described events and when verbs are selected, accordingly. An eye tracking experiment on German testing the predictions from linear and hierarchical incrementality about the timing of event encoding and verb planning is reported. In the experiment, participants described depictions of two-participant events with sentences that differed in voice and word order. Verb-medial active sentences and actives and passives with sentence-final verbs were compared. Linear incrementality predicts that sentences with verbs placed early differ from verb-final sentences because verbs are assumed to only be planned shortly before they are articulated. By contrast, hierarchical incrementality assumes that speakers start planning with relational encoding of the event. A weak version of hierarchical incrementality assumes that only the action is encoded at the outset of formulation and selection of lexical verbs only occurs shortly before they are articulated, leading to the prediction of different fixation patterns for verb-medial and verb-final sentences. A strong version of hierarchical incrementality predicts no differences between verb-medial and verb-final sentences because it assumes that verbs are always lexically selected early in the formulation process. Based on growth curve analyses of fixations to agent and patient characters in the described pictures, and the influence of character humanness and the lack of an influence of the visual salience of characters on speakers' choice of active or passive voice, the current results suggest that while verb planning does not necessarily occur early during formulation, speakers of German always create an event representation early.

  2. Objects, Events and "to Be" Verbs in Spanish--An ERP Study of the Syntax-Semantics Interface

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leone-Fernandez, Barbara; Molinaro, Nicola; Carreiras, Manuel; Barber, Horacio A.

    2012-01-01

    In Spanish, objects and events at subject position constrain the selection of different forms of the auxiliary verb "to be": locative predicates about objects require "estar en", while those relating to events require "ser en", both translatable as "to be in". Subjective ratings showed that while the "object + ser + en" is considered as incorrect,…

  3. A Translation Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs: An Ongoing Project ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    A Translation Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs: An Ongoing Project. ... Abstract. The paper centres on a plan for an English-Arabic phrasal verb dictionary for Arab trainee translators. Such a dictionary ... AJOL African Journals Online. HOW TO USE ...

  4. Electrophysiological correlates of second-language syntactic processes are related to native and second language distance regardless of age of acquisition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Begoña eDíaz

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available In the present study, we investigate how early and late L2 learners process L2 grammatical traits that are either present or absent in their native language (L1. Thirteen early (AoA = 4 years old and thirteen late (AoA = 18 years old Spanish learners of Basque performed a grammatical judgment task on auditory Basque sentences while their event-related brain potentials (ERPs were recorded. The sentences contained violations of a syntactic property specific to participants’ L2, i.e., ergative case, or violations of a syntactic property present in both of the participants’ languages, i.e., verb agreement. Two forms of verb agreement were tested: subject agreement, found in participants’ L1 and L2, and object agreement, present only in participants’ L2. Behaviorally, early bilinguals were more accurate in the judgment task than late L2 learners. Early bilinguals showed native-like ERPs for verb agreement, which differed from the late learners’ ERP pattern. Nonetheless, approximation to native-likeness was greater for the subject-verb agreement processing, the type of verb-agreement present in participants’ L1, compared to object-verb agreement, the type of verb-agreement present only in participants’ L2. For the ergative argument alignment, unique to L2, the two non-native groups showed similar ERP patterns which did not correspond to the natives’ ERP pattern. We conclude that non-native syntactic processing approximates native processing for early L2 acquisition and high proficiency levels when the syntactic property is common to the L1 and L2. However, syntactic traits that are not present in the L1 do not rely on native-like processing, despite early AoA and high proficiency.

  5. Semantic priming effects of synonyms, antonyms, frame, implication and verb-object categories

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elsa Skënderi-Rakipllari

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Semantic priming has been a major subject of interest for psycholinguists, whose aim is to discover how lexical memory is structured and organized. The facilitation process of word retrieval through semantic priming has long been studied. The present research is aimed to reveal which semantic category has the best priming effect. Through a lexical decision task experiment we compared the reaction times of masked primed pairs and unprimed pairs. In addition, we analyzed the reaction times and priming effect of connected semantic relations: antonymy, frame, synonymy, implication and verb-object. The data collected and interpreted unveiled that the mean reaction times of primed pairs were shorter than those of unprimed pairs. As to semantic priming, the most significantly primed pairs were those of implications and verb- objects, and not those of synonymy or antonymy as it might be expected.

  6. Understanding of action-related and abstract verbs in comparison: a behavioral and TMS study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Innocenti, Alessandro; De Stefani, Elisa; Sestito, Mariateresa; Gentilucci, Maurizio

    2014-02-01

    Does the comprehension of both action-related and abstract verbs rely on motor simulation? In a behavioral experiment, in which a semantic task was used, response times to hand-action-related verbs were briefer than those to abstract verbs and both decreased with repetition of presentation. In a transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) experiment, single-pulse stimulation was randomly delivered over hand motor area of the left primary motor cortex to measure cortical-spinal excitability at 300 or 500 ms after verb presentation. Two blocks of trials were run. In each block, the same verbs were randomly presented. In the first block, stimulation induced an increase in motor evoked potentials only when TMS was applied 300 ms after action-related verb presentation. In the second block, no modulation of motor cortex was found according to type of verb and stimulation-delay. These results confirm that motor simulation can be used to understand action rather than abstract verbs. Moreover, they suggest that with repetition, the semantic processing for action verbs does not require activation of primary motor cortex anymore.

  7. METAPHORIZATION AND METONYMIZATIO: DIACHRONIC DEVELOPMENT OF VERBS OF VOLITION IN SOUTHERN MIN

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Miao-Hsia Chang

    2009-06-01

    Full Text Available This paper investigates the diachrony of the verbs of volition ai and beh in Southern Min (SM. The data include historical SM texts (16th-19th century, folk songs in the late 19th to early 20th century, and contemporary natural Taiwanese Southern Min conversations. The results mainly mark two stages of the development of ai and beh: historical (before 1900 and contemporary SM. Since the 16th century (Ming Dynasty, ai has been used as a verb of volition indicating love, intention or hope. As for historical ai, it marked future, specialized however for predicting an adverse future. In contemporary SM, a sense of necessity emerged with the use of ai denoting general agreement among people. Seven senses are attributed to historical beh: want/intention/hope, future, excessiveness, necessity, proximity and conditionality. In contemporary SM, the indication of the want of an entity has become a less preferred use, and necessity is only preserved when indicating puzzlement and helplessness. The diachronic developments of ai and beh demonstrate an interplay of metaphorization and metonymization (Traugott and Dasher 2002:27. Metaphorization contributes first to the semantic shift of ai and beh from “to want; to love” to “to intend to” and a concurrent categorical change from lexical verb into auxiliary, and second, to the evolution of future. Metonymization activates an even wider range of uses and meaning change, including the pragmatic strengthening of interpretations such as excessiveness (beh, necessity (ai, beh, proximity (beh and conditional (beh, and prediction of an undesirable future (ai.

  8. Theory of mind and preschoolers' understanding of implicit causality in verbs: A comparison between Serbian and Hungarian children

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Agota Major

    2010-06-01

    Full Text Available This study aims to investigate the effect of theory of mind, age and mother tongue on the implicit causality effect in preschoolers from two different language backgrounds. Serbian and Hungarian native speakers aged 3–7 years participated in the study. After taking part in a Theory of Mind task, children were presented verbs in simple „Subject verb Object” sentences describing interactions between two participants, with the interactions being based on emotional, mental or visual experiences. Children were asked “Why does S verb O?” and their responses were categorized as containing an inference about the sentence-S or the sentence-O. The results show that Theory of Mind is a significant factor in the emergence of implicit causality, with age of participants and mother tongue being also contributing to explaining patterns of implicit causality.

  9. Auxiliary Verbs, Dictionaries and the Late Evolution of the Italian Language

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kinder, John J.

    2004-01-01

    The use of BE as an auxiliary verb with intransitive verbs has declined in all the Romance languages over the past five centuries. Today, Spanish and Portuguese use only HAVE, in Catalan and Romanian BE occurs in marginal contexts, and in French, BE is used with approximately 40 verbs. Italian is a notable exception, since BE is still used as the…

  10. Training verb and sentence production in agrammatic Broca's aphasia

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Links, Petra; Hurkmans, Joost; Bastiaanse, Roelien

    2010-01-01

    Background: Many aphasic speakers have problems producing verbs at both the word and the sentence level. A treatment programme called ACTION (Bastiaanse, Bunge, Perk, 2004; Bastiaanse, Jonkers, Quak, Varela Put, 1997) has been developed to train verb production of both fluent and non-fluent aphasic

  11. Certain Verbs Are Syntactically Explicit Quantifiers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anna Szabolcsi

    2010-12-01

    Form: Its Structure and Derivation. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Montague, R. 1974. ‘The proper treatment of quantification in ordinary English’. In R. Thomason (ed. ‘Formal Philosophy: Selected Papers of Richard Montague’, 247–271. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.Nchare, A. L. 2011. The Grammar of Shupamem. Ph.D. thesis, New York University.Partee, B. 1973. ‘Some structural analogies between tenses and pronouns in English’. The Journal of Philosophy 70, no. 18: 601–609.http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2025024Percus, O. 2000. ‘Constraints on Some Other Variables in Syntax’. Natural Language Semantics 8, no. 3: 173–229.http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1011298526791Percus, O. & Sauerland, U. 2003. ‘On the LFs of attitude reports’. In Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung.Perlmutter, D. 1970. ‘The two verbs begin’. In R. Thomason (ed. ‘Readings in English Transformational Grammar’, 107–119. Waltham, MA: Blaisdell.Polinsky, M. 2008. ‘Real And Apparent Long-distance Agreement In Subject-to-subject Raising Constructions’. Lecture at the Annual Meeting of the German Linguistic Society, Bamberg.Quine, W. V. O. 1960. ‘Variables explained away’. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 104: 343–347.Schlenker, P. 1999. Propositional Attitudes and Indexicality (A Cross-Linguistic Approach. Ph.D. thesis, MIT.Schlenker, P. 2004. ‘Sequence phenomena and double access readings generalized’. In J. Lacarme & J. Guéron (eds. ‘The Syntax of Time’, 555–597. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Schlenker, P. 2006. ‘Ontological symmetry in language’. Mind and Language 21: 504–539.http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2006.00288.xStechow, A. von. 2004. ‘Binding by verbs: tense, person, and mood under attitudes’. In H. Lohnstein & S. Trissler (eds. ‘The Syntax and Semantics of the Left Periphery’, 431–488. Berlin: de Gruyter.Stechow, A. von. 2008. ‘Tenses, Modals, and Attitudes as Verbal Quantifiers’. Ms., ESSLLI Hamburg

  12. Distributional structure in language: contributions to noun-verb difficulty differences in infant word recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Willits, Jon A; Seidenberg, Mark S; Saffran, Jenny R

    2014-09-01

    What makes some words easy for infants to recognize, and other words difficult? We addressed this issue in the context of prior results suggesting that infants have difficulty recognizing verbs relative to nouns. In this work, we highlight the role played by the distributional contexts in which nouns and verbs occur. Distributional statistics predict that English nouns should generally be easier to recognize than verbs in fluent speech. However, there are situations in which distributional statistics provide similar support for verbs. The statistics for verbs that occur with the English morpheme -ing, for example, should facilitate verb recognition. In two experiments with 7.5- and 9.5-month-old infants, we tested the importance of distributional statistics for word recognition by varying the frequency of the contextual frames in which verbs occur. The results support the conclusion that distributional statistics are utilized by infant language learners and contribute to noun-verb differences in word recognition. Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier B.V.

  13. Effects of TMS on different stages of motor and non-motor verb processing in the primary motor cortex.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Liuba Papeo

    Full Text Available The embodied cognition hypothesis suggests that motor and premotor areas are automatically and necessarily involved in understanding action language, as word conceptual representations are embodied. This transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS study explores the role of the left primary motor cortex in action-verb processing. TMS-induced motor-evoked potentials from right-hand muscles were recorded as a measure of M1 activity, while participants were asked either to judge explicitly whether a verb was action-related (semantic task or to decide on the number of syllables in a verb (syllabic task. TMS was applied in three different experiments at 170, 350 and 500 ms post-stimulus during both tasks to identify when the enhancement of M1 activity occurred during word processing. The delays between stimulus onset and magnetic stimulation were consistent with electrophysiological studies, suggesting that word recognition can be differentiated into early (within 200 ms and late (within 400 ms lexical-semantic stages, and post-conceptual stages. Reaction times and accuracy were recorded to measure the extent to which the participants' linguistic performance was affected by the interference of TMS with M1 activity. No enhancement of M1 activity specific for action verbs was found at 170 and 350 ms post-stimulus, when lexical-semantic processes are presumed to occur (Experiments 1-2. When TMS was applied at 500 ms post-stimulus (Experiment 3, processing action verbs, compared with non-action verbs, increased the M1-activity in the semantic task and decreased it in the syllabic task. This effect was specific for hand-action verbs and was not observed for action-verbs related to other body parts. Neither accuracy nor RTs were affected by TMS. These findings suggest that the lexical-semantic processing of action verbs does not automatically activate the M1. This area seems to be rather involved in post-conceptual processing that follows the retrieval of motor

  14. Lexical Analysis of the Verb "COOK" and Learning Vocabulary: A Corpus Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Priyono

    2011-01-01

    English verbs have built-in properties that determine how they behave syntactically and generate appropriate meaning associated. With these inherent properties some verbs can fill in only in certain syntactic structures and some in others. The observation of the verb "COOK" using English corpus has revealed its lexical properties…

  15. Attention to body-parts varies with visual preference and verb-effector associations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boyer, Ty W; Maouene, Josita; Sethuraman, Nitya

    2017-05-01

    Theories of embodied conceptual meaning suggest fundamental relations between others' actions, language, and our own actions and visual attention processes. Prior studies have found that when people view an image of a neutral body in a scene they first look toward, in order, the head, torso, hands, and legs. Other studies show associations between action verbs and the body-effectors used in performing the action (e.g., "jump" with feet/legs; "talk" with face/head). In the present experiment, the visual attention of participants was recorded with a remote eye-tracking system while they viewed an image of an actor pantomiming an action and heard a concrete action verb. Participants manually responded whether or not the action image was a good example of the verb they heard. The eye-tracking results confirmed that participants looked at the head most, followed by the hands, and the feet least of all; however, visual attention to each of the body-parts also varied as a function of the effector associated with the spoken verb on image/verb congruent trials, particularly for verbs associated with the legs. Overall, these results suggest that language influences some perceptual processes; however, hearing auditory verbs did not alter the previously reported fundamental hierarchical sequence of directed attention, and fixations on specific body-effectors may not be essential for verb comprehension as peripheral visual cues may be sufficient to perform the task.

  16. Regularisation of irregular verbs in child English second language ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Data was collected from the language of English medium preschool children. The study concludes that when the Blocking Principle interferes, children resort to a novel interlanguage rule that regularises irregular verbs. This interlanguage rule applies in a similar way to all irregular verbs, thus children produce utterances ...

  17. Verb Movement Variation in Germanic and Optimality Theory

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Vikner, Sten

    2001-01-01

    This habilitation dissertation falls into two parts. In the first part, "Establishing the typology: Verb Movement in the Germanic VO- and OV-languages", I continue the work in Vikner (1995a, 1997) on the movement of finite verbs across the Germanic languages. Chapter 1 argues that rich finite inf...... data are treated: constructions with auxiliaries, negation and/or do-insertion, and chapter 7 accounts for the differences in distribution between the V2 word order and the non-V2 word order between the languages.......This habilitation dissertation falls into two parts. In the first part, "Establishing the typology: Verb Movement in the Germanic VO- and OV-languages", I continue the work in Vikner (1995a, 1997) on the movement of finite verbs across the Germanic languages. Chapter 1 argues that rich finite...... inflection triggers V°-to-I° movement in the Germanic (and Romance) VO-languages, chapter 2 supports the claim that Yiddish is an OV-language, and chapter 3 defends the view that all Germanic OV-languages except Yiddish do not have V°-to-I° movement. Where Part I tries to establish facts and arguments which...

  18. The Role of Input Frequency and Semantic Transparency in the Acquisition of Verb Meaning: Evidence from Placement Verbs in Tamil and Dutch

    Science.gov (United States)

    Narasimhan, Bhuvana; Gullberg, Marianne

    2011-01-01

    We investigate how Tamil- and Dutch-speaking adults and four- to five-year-old children use caused posture verbs ("lay/stand a bottle on a table") to label placement events in which objects are oriented vertically or horizontally. Tamil caused posture verbs consist of morphemes that individually label the causal and result subevents ("nikka…

  19. It’s not what it looks to be! : Déconnexion entre forme et sens dans les énoncés avec verbe de perception à emploi dit “copule”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christelle LACASSAIN-LAGOIN

    2012-03-01

    Full Text Available Cet article a pour objet l’analyse de la déconnexion entre forme et sens dans les énoncés où figurent les verbes de perception à emploi dit copule (look, sound, smell, taste et feel. L’origine de ces verbes est sujette à débat et il est avancé ici une hypothèse sur l’origine nominale de ces verbes, ainsi que sur leur comportement syntaxique et sémantique unique. Il apparaît que, dans ce type d’énoncés, le sujet grammatical n’est pas le sujet logique du verbe, qui a un emploi modalisant en ce qu’il exprime un jugement sur les apparences perceptuelles. Ce conflit apparent entre syntaxe et sémantique transparaît également au niveau de certains types d’attributs du sujet (les syntagmes nominaux, les syntagmes prépositionnels introduits par OF et les propositions en AS IF / AS THOUGH. L’étude montre que tous les attributs renvoient nécessairement à des propriétés gradables, ce qui n’est pas le cas avec le verbe copule be. Ainsi, ces énoncés copulatifs, où le verbe de perception a un emploi modalisant, présentent tous, à plusieurs titres et de diverses manières, un phénomène de compression syntaxique et sémantique motive par l’application d’un principe d’économie langagière.This paper aims at analysing the disconnection between form and meaning in sentences involving copular perception verbs (look, sound, smell, taste and feel. The origin of these verbs is a controversial issue, and in this article, it is argued that they have a nominal origin and that they have identical syntactic and semantic features. It appears that, in these copulative sentences, the grammatical subject does not coincide with the underlying subject of the verb, which has a modalising use as it expresses a judgment concerning sensory appearances. This surface conflict between syntax and semantics also shows in certain types of subject complements – nominal phrases, OF-prepositional phrases and AS IF/AS THOUGH-clauses. This

  20. Exploring Atypical Verb+Noun Combinations in Learner Technical Writing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Luzon Marco, Maria Jose

    2011-01-01

    Professional and academic discourse is characterised by a specific phraseology, which usually poses problems for students. This paper investigates atypical verb+noun collocations in a corpus of English technical writing of Spanish students. I focus on the type of verbs that most frequently occurred in these awkward or questionable combinations and…

  1. Remarks on Causative Verbs and Object Deletion in English

    Science.gov (United States)

    Onozuka, Hiromi

    2007-01-01

    Rappaport Hovav and Levin [Rappaport Hovav, M., Levin, B., 1998. "Building verb meanings." In: Butt, M., Geuder, W. (Eds.), "The Projection of Arguments: Lexical and Compositional Factors." CSLI Publications, Stanford, pp. 97-134] contend that result verbs disallow object deletion because of their lexical semantic properties. Their point is that…

  2. LEXICAL AND GRAMMATICAL POTENTIAL OF THE VERB LASSEN IN MODERN GERMAN

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rogozhnikova Irina Nikolaevna

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available A solution to the problem of verbal meaning identity is offered with the support of semantic analysis of the verb lassen and determination of grammatical construction types with it. Studies of dictionary definitions helped to reveal formal and conceptual asymmetry of semantic meanings of the verb lassen, which is presented in correlation between homonymy and polysemy. The author characterizes three homonymous verbs: lassen I with the meaning "to get free, separate", lassen II with the meaning "to perform a volition act towards another person", lassen III with the meaning "to cause something". The semantic structure of every homonym is considered as a distinct system of individual meanings tied with chained polysemy relations. The data collected on the homonyms' usage in various texts laid the basis for the typology of grammatical constructions with respect to a functional and semantic factor, indicated coordination between a grammar construction and a certain meaning of the verb lassen. It is stated that the particle sich if joined to the verb lassen may perform two grammatical functions: mainly it is an independent predicate, but in some cases when it is added to the verb lassen II ('to have opportunity to perform some activity' it is transferred into a constituent of a predicate.

  3. Testing the “division of labor hypothesis” of aphasic verb production using big-data

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yasmeen Faroqi-Shah

    2015-05-01

    Individuals with aphasia and healthy controls produced a similar proportion of light verbs (.38, U(298 = 13,129, p > 0.05. Linear regression analysis revealed three significant predictors of high light verb use in aphasia: greater syntactic complexity (high DSS score, lower semantic richness (low idea density and lower Verb Naming Test scores (picture naming of heavy verbs, Cho-Reyes & Thompson, 2012. These findings support the division of labor in aphasia – persons with stronger syntactic abilities produce more light verbs and have lower semantic ability (Gordon & Dell, 2003.

  4. Verbal aspect category and some ways of distinguishing of aspect pairs of verbs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elena V. Sheyko

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available The article discusses one of the most complex grammatical categories of the verb - category of the aspect, it is noted that there are still unsolved issues relating to the status of this category, its volume, ratio to the aspect pairs of verbs. One group of scientists after V.V. Vinogradov calls category of aspect as word-changing on the basis of the lexical identity of aspect pairs, another group, and in particular I.G. Miloslavsky, relates it to the formative, the third group, which representative is L.A. Mesenyashina, tryes to find a compromise, and those verbs, which syntactic-functional series are identical, calls paired, and those verbs in which there are significant differences in compatibility, calls different lexems. Thus it is accounted only the compatibility of verbs with the word forms, as well as many verbs can act as a reference in subordinate clauses, and in this case their compatibility in different lexical-semantic versions may vary. It is shown on the example of the verbs “чувствовать – почувствовать», which in the majority of lexicographical sources are named paired verbs, but their compatibility is not the same, and therefore, they can not be called as aspect pair. Therefore, in determining the pair/unpair verbs we should proceed from the same or not the same invariant meaning of verbs (in the terminology of A. Timberlake, take into account their multiple meanings and compatibility in different LSV and consider compatibility not only at the level of word forms, but also at the level of a complex sentence.

  5. Aspectual Morphemes as Verb Classifiers in Slavic and Non-Slavic Languages

    OpenAIRE

    Menzenski, Matthew

    2014-01-01

    This paper was presented at the Slavic Linguistics Society Annual Meeting in Seattle, Washington on September 19 2014.   Abstract: Janda et al. (2013) propose an analysis of Russian aspectual prefixes as verb classifiers, arguing that the prefix which forms the 'natural perfective' from a given verb serves to classify that verb according to its semantic characteristics. This analysis contrasts with the traditional analysis of Russian aspect, described by Tixonov (1998) and others, in...

  6. The ultimate phrasal verb book for ESL and EFL students

    CERN Document Server

    Hart, Carl W

    2017-01-01

    Presents 400 common phrasal verbs as they are used in everyday English. Updated information includes the most commonly used phrasal verbs, hundreds of examples in context and hundreds of exercises to increase fluency and prep for the TOEFL, and more.

  7. Production of verbs related to body movement in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson's Disease (PD).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cousins, Katheryn A Q; Ash, Sharon; Grossman, Murray

    2018-03-01

    Theories of grounded cognition propose that action verb knowledge relies in part on motor processing regions, including premotor cortex. Accordingly, impaired action verb knowledge in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson's Disease (PD) is thought to be due to motor system degeneration. Upper motor neuron disease in ALS degrades the motor cortex and related pyramidal motor system, while disease in PD is centered in the basal ganglia and can spread to frontostriatal areas that are important to language functioning. These anatomical distinctions in disease may yield subtle differences in the action verb impairment between patient groups. Here we compare verbs where the body is the agent of the action to verbs where the body is the theme. To examine the role of motor functioning in body verb production, we split patient groups into patients with high motor impairment (HMI) and those with low motor impairment (LMI), using disease-specific measures of motor impairment. Regression analyses assessed how verb production in ALS and PD was related to motor system atrophy. We find a dissociation between agent- and theme-body verbs in ALS: ALS HMI were impaired for agent body verbs but not theme verbs, compared to ALS LMI. This dissociation was not present in PD patients, who instead show depressed production for all body verbs. Although patients with cognitive impairment were excluded from this study, cognitive performance significantly correlated with the production of theme verbs in ALS and cognitive/stative verbs in PD. Finally, regression analyses related the agent-theme dissociation in ALS to grey matter atrophy of premotor cortex. These findings support the view that motor dysfunction and disease in premotor cortex contributes to the agent body verb deficit in ALS, and begin to identify some distinct characteristics of impairment for verbs in ALS and PD. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Sentence Imitation as a Marker of SLI in Czech: Disproportionate Impairment of Verbs and Clitics

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Smolík, Filip; Vávrů, P.

    2014-01-01

    Roč. 57, č. 3 (2014), s. 837-849 ISSN 1092-4388 R&D Projects: GA ČR GAP407/10/2047 Institutional support: RVO:68081740 Keywords : sentences * specific language impairment * verbs Subject RIV: AN - Psychology Impact factor: 2.070, year: 2014 http://jslhr.pubs.asha.org/Article.aspx?articleid=1865523

  9. Live Action: Can Young Children Learn Verbs from Video?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roseberry, Sarah; Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy; Parish-Morris, Julia; Golinkoff, Roberta M.

    2009-01-01

    The availability of educational programming aimed at infants and toddlers is increasing, yet the effect of video on language acquisition remains unclear. Three studies of 96 children aged 30-42 months investigated their ability to learn verbs from video. Study 1 asked whether children could learn verbs from video when supported by live social…

  10. Parallelism Effects and Verb Activation: The Sustained Reactivation Hypothesis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Callahan, Sarah M.; Shapiro, Lewis P.; Love, Tracy

    2010-01-01

    This study investigated the processes underlying parallelism by evaluating the activation of a parallel element (i.e., a verb) throughout "and"-coordinated sentences. Four points were tested: (1) approximately 1,600ms after the verb in the first conjunct (PP1), (2) immediately following the conjunction (PP2), (3) approximately 1,100ms after the…

  11. FUNCTIONAL INTERACTION OF LEXICAL AND GRAMMATICAL FACTORS IN THE ENGLISH VERB SYSTEM

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nina Sergeevna Kotova

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available Purpose. The purpose of the research conducted is revealing the peculiarities of lexical paradigmatics influence upon the usage of aspect and temporal verb forms and the opposite impact as well, i.e. the influence of aspect and temporal verb forms upon the lexical meaning of this verb groups under specific conditions of functioning. The lexical paradigmatics is considered as the system of mutually contrasted semantic features of particular verb groups. In this case, we analyze the paradigmatics in the middle language hierarchy for each language level separately. Methodology. The research is conducted synchronically on the material of the contemporary English verb system. Interaction of lexical and grammatical factors in the English verb system is examined in a functional aspect. Such consideration gives a possibility to differentiate the intrasystem phenomena and phenomena of pragmatic character and expose the system-structural mutual relations of lexical and grammatical factors. The research material is the verb as massive word group. From the point of view of interaction of lexical and grammatical factors in the functional and semantic field representing aspectuality, we get interested in the meaning which realizes in the opposition ofatelicity – telicity(telicity correlates the action with the limit, and atelicity demotes the action irrespectively to its limit. The technique applied to the analysis of lexical and grammatical factors in the English verb system is complex combining descriptive and comparative and functional methods. Results. Interrelations and interdependency of lexical and grammatical paradigmatics create particular sustainability in using the lexical unit of this paradigm with aspect and temporal verb forms. In this case, the tendencies of the language sign developing and changing are expressed in the process of the mutual substitution and interpenetration of grammatical forms primarily under the influence of paradigmatic

  12. VERB - a social marketing campaign to increase physical activity among youth.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wong, Faye; Huhman, Marian; Heitzler, Carrie; Asbury, Lori; Bretthauer-Mueller, Rosemary; McCarthy, Susan; Londe, Paula

    2004-07-01

    The VERB campaign is a multiethnic media campaign with a goal to increase and maintain physical activity among tweens, or children aged nine to 13 years. Parents, especially mothers aged 29 to 46, and other sources of influence on tweens (e.g., teachers, youth program leaders) are the secondary audiences of the VERB initiative. VERB applies sophisticated commercial marketing techniques to address the public health problem of sedentary lifestyles of American children, using the social marketing principles of product, price, place, and promotion. In this paper, we describe how these four principles were applied to formulate the strategies and tactics of the VERB campaign, and we provide examples of the multimedia materials (e.g., posters, print advertising, television, radio spots) that were created.

  13. VERB A Social Marketing Campaign to Increase Physical Activity Among Youth

    OpenAIRE

    Faye Wong; Marian Huhman; Carrie Heitzler; Lori Asbury; Rosemary Bretthauer-Mueller; Susan McCarthy; Paula Londe

    2004-01-01

    The VERB campaign is a multiethnic media campaign with a goal to increase and maintain physical activity among tweens, or children aged nine to 13 years. Parents, especially mothers aged 29 to 46, and other sources of influence on tweens (e.g., teachers, youth program leaders) are the secondary audiences of the VERB initiative. VERB applies sophisticated commercial marketing techniques to address the public health problem of sedentary lifestyles of American children, using the social marketin...

  14. Verb-Noun Collocations in Written Discourse of Iranian EFL Learners

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fatemeh Ebrahimi-Bazzaz

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available When native speakers of English write, they employ both grammatical rules and collocations. Collocations are words that are present in the memory of native speakers as ready-made prefabricated chunks. Non-native speakers who wish to acquire native-like fluency should give appropriate attention to collocations in writing in order not to produce sentences that native speakers may consider odd. The present study tries to explore the use of verb-noun collocations in written discourse of English as foreign language (EFL among Iranian EFL learners from one academic year to the next in Iran. To measure the use of verb-noun collocations in written discourse, there was a 60-minute task of writing story  based on a series of six pictures whereby for each picture, three verb-noun collocations were measured, and nouns were provided to limit the choice of collocations. The results of the statistical analysis of ANOVA for the research question indicated that there was a significant difference in the use of lexical verb-noun collocations in written discourse both between and within the four academic years. The results of a post hoc multiple comparison tests confirmed that the means are significantly different between the first year and the third and fourth years, between the second and the fourth, and between the third and the fourth academic year which indicate substantial development in verb-noun collocation proficiency.  The vital implication is that the learners could use verb-noun collocations in productive skill of writing.

  15. Lexical, Morphological, and Syntactic Characteristics of Verbs in the Spontaneous Production of Italian Children

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Laura D'Odorico

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available This study investigates from a developmental point of view the lexical, morphological, and syntactic characteristics of verb production during the first stages of language acquisition. The spontaneous productions of children with different mean length of utterance (MLU were analysed, examining the relative production of different types of verbs (transitive, intransitive, and mixed, the arguments expressed or omitted in the utterances containing a verb, the morphological inflections produced by the children for each verb, and the generalisation of the syntactic construction with which specific verbs were produced. Data are interpreted in support of the hypothesis that children have a limited abstract knowledge of verbs in the early period of multiword utterance production and that the process of abstractness and generalisation develops gradually on the basis of linguistic experience.

  16. Verbs and Attention to Relational Roles in English and Tamil

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sethuraman, Nitya; Smith, Linda B.

    2013-01-01

    English-learning children have been shown to reliably use cues from argument structure in learning verbs. However, languages pair overtly expressed arguments with verbs to varying extents, raising the question of whether children learning all languages expect the same, universal mapping between arguments and relational roles. Three experiments…

  17. Beyond dichotomies : on the nature and classification of compound verbs in English

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alexandra Bagasheva

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available The study of compound verbs in English poses numerous problems, among which even their recognition as compounds on grounds of their derivation. Resulting from at least three different word-formation patterns, compound verbs constitute a heterogeneous class of complex lexemes. Their status as actual compound lexemes invites the differentiation between compounding as a word-formation process and compounds as a special class of lexemes. Even within the latter, compound verbs display marked properties at least in relation to the inability of standard classifications of compounds to capture and compromise their lexical uniformity and their heterogeneous origin. The adoption of a position in which it is argued that compound verbs in English constitute a constructional idiom and the application of scalar analytical notions which combine word-formationist and lexical-semantic accounts cast in the general framework of the cognitive linguistic enterprise yield informative generalizations concerning the linguistic and conceptual properties of compound verbs in English. In view of Radden and Dirven's (2007: 41-46 claim that we do not need "more than two basic types of conceptual units things and relations" in order to establish linguistically relevant conceptual distinctions, compound verbs pose a problem for neat dichotomous treatment as they very often both conceptually and in terms of form include a "thing" (e.g. to flat-hunt, to house-sit, to fellow-feel, to case-harden, etc. and thus come closer to a "situation" than to a "relation". Exactly because of the fact that compound verbs profile/perspectivize "situations" as "relations", they function as special construal mechanisms and as such do not fit the subordinate/coordinate distinction, because they name situations. In view of the above the paper treats compound verbs as a constructional idiom whose analysis necessitates the recognition of the role of conceptual conversion mechanisms, scalar

  18. Phonological variation in verbs ending in –ear (chantagear and –iar (variar

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Thaïs Cristófaro Alves da Silva

    2009-10-01

    Full Text Available This paper deals with the variation between mid and high vowels related to verbal forms in Brazilian Portuguese ending in –ear  (chantagear “to blackmail” and –iar (variar “to vary”. In these two sets of verbs one observes standard forms such as chantag[e]ia  and var[i]a and also non-standard forms such as chantag[i]a and  var[i]ia. It will also be considered regular verbs in –ear that did not show variation: estr[Ei]a.  Based on Usage-Based Phonology (BYBEE, 2001 and Exemplar Model (PIERREHUMBERT, 2001 we will show that in verbs ending in -ear and –iar type frequency and special verbs contribute to speakers generalize morphological  marked patterns. This offer instruments to explain why speaker generalize morphophonological patterns for verbs ending in –ear  (chantagear as verbs ending in –iar (variar. We will also explain why a form like estr[Ei]a does not present variation.

  19. Effects of imitating gestures during encoding or during retrieval of novel verbs on children's test performance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    de Nooijer, Jacqueline A; van Gog, Tamara; Paas, Fred; Zwaan, Rolf A

    2013-09-01

    Research has shown that observing and imitating gestures can foster word learning and that imitation might be more beneficial than observation, which is in line with theories of Embodied Cognition. This study investigated when imitation of gestures is most effective, using a 2×2×2×3 mixed design with between-subjects factors Imitation during Encoding (IE; Yes/No) and Imitation during Retrieval (IR; Yes/No), and within-subjects factors Time of Testing (Immediate/Delayed) and Verb Type (Object manipulation/Locomotion/Abstract). Primary school children (N=115) learned 15 novel verbs (five of each type). They were provided with a verbal definition and a video of the gesture. Depending on assigned condition, they additionally received no imitation instructions, instructions to imitate the gesture immediately (i.e., during encoding; IE), instructions to imitate (from memory) during the first posttest (i.e., during retrieval; IR), or both (IE-IR). Based on the literature, all three imitation conditions could be predicted to be more effective than no imitation. On an immediate and delayed posttest, only the object-manipulation verbs were differentially affected by instructional method, with IE and IR being more effective than no imitation on the immediate test; IE-IR and no imitation did not differ significantly. After a one week delay, only IR was more effective than no imitation, suggesting that imitation during retrieval is most effective for learning object-manipulation words. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  20. Grasping hand verbs: oscillatory beta and alpha correlates of action-word processing.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Valentina Niccolai

    Full Text Available The grounded cognition framework proposes that sensorimotor brain areas, which are typically involved in perception and action, also play a role in linguistic processing. We assessed oscillatory modulation during visual presentation of single verbs and localized cortical motor regions by means of isometric contraction of hand and foot muscles. Analogously to oscillatory activation patterns accompanying voluntary movements, we expected a somatotopically distributed suppression of beta and alpha frequencies in the motor cortex during processing of body-related action verbs. Magnetoencephalographic data were collected during presentation of verbs that express actions performed using the hands (H or feet (F. Verbs denoting no bodily movement (N were used as a control. Between 150 and 500 msec after visual word onset, beta rhythms were suppressed in H and F in comparison with N in the left hemisphere. Similarly, alpha oscillations showed left-lateralized power suppression in the H-N contrast, although at a later stage. The cortical oscillatory activity that typically occurs during voluntary movements is therefore found to somatotopically accompany the processing of body-related verbs. The combination of a localizer task with the oscillatory investigation applied to verb reading as in the present study provides further methodological possibilities of tracking language processing in the brain.

  1. Agreement among Goldmann applanation tonometer, iCare, and Icare PRO rebound tonometers; non-contact tonometer; and Tonopen XL in healthy elderly subjects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kato, Yoshitake; Nakakura, Shunsuke; Matsuo, Naoko; Yoshitomi, Kayo; Handa, Marina; Tabuchi, Hitoshi; Kiuchi, Yoshiaki

    2018-04-01

    To evaluate the inter-device agreement among the Goldmann applanation tonometer (GAT), iCare and Icare PRO rebound tonometers, non-contact tonometer (NCT), and Tonopen XL tonometer. Sixty healthy elderly subjects were enrolled. The intraocular pressure (IOP) in each subject's right eye was measured thrice using each of the five tonometers. Intra-device agreement was evaluated by calculating intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs). Inter-device agreement was evaluated by ICC and Bland-Altman analyses. ICCs for intra-device agreement for each tonometer were >0.8. IOP as measured by iCare (mean ± SD, 11.6 ± 2.5 mmHg) was significantly lower (p tonometers (all ICCs tonometers ranged from 14.94 to 16.47 mmHg. Among the other tonometers, however, the widths of 95% limits of agreement ranged from 7.91 to 9.24 mmHg. There was good inter-device agreement among GAT, rebound tonometers, and NCT. Tonopen XL shows the worst agreement with the other tonometers; therefore, we should pay attention to its' respective IOP. Japan Clinical Trials Register; number: UMIN000011544.

  2. Verb Learning in 14- and 18-Month-Old English-Learning Infants

    Science.gov (United States)

    He, Angela Xiaoxue; Lidz, Jeffrey

    2017-01-01

    The present study investigates English-learning infants' early understanding of the link between the grammatical category "verb" and the conceptual category "event," and their ability to recruit morphosyntactic information online to learn novel verb meanings. We report two experiments using an infant-controlled…

  3. The Role of Modal Verbs in Research Papers in the Field of Logistics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Polona Vičič

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available Research papers, an essential vehicle for disseminating new knowledge and findings, have long been valued for their linguistic objectivity and impersonality. However, more recent approaches to research paper writing suggest that authors should also take an “argumentative position” (White, 2003 by projecting their stance and encouraging the readers to actively engage in the process of reading and evaluating the text (Hyland, 2005; Scollon, 1994. An important linguistic feature, frequently employed for both objective and subjective presentation of claims, is modality and within it modal verbs, which through their modal meanings express different communicative functions. In recognition of genre- and discipline-specific norms, the present paper will focus on quantitative and qualitative analysis of modal verbs and their meanings and functions in logistics research papers, whereby the ultimate goal is to show what practical implications the study’s results may have for the teaching of English to students of logistics.

  4. What’s Done is Done: Verb Aspect and Verbatim Memory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Meghan Salomon-Amend

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available Grammatical verb aspect uses morphosyntactic cues (‘-ed’, ‘-ing’ to convey whether an action is, for example, complete (“walked” or on-going (“was walking” and has shown notable comprehension ramifications for a reader’s event model. Additionally, research suggests that the reader quickly forgets verbatim surface-form information, such as morphosyntactic cues, while the event model remains intact. The current study used three different memory tests to probe readers’ event models of the texts, testing readers’ event model at retrieval. More importantly, we explored whether participants could have biased memory for the perfective aspect consistent with events unfolding in the narrative world. We show that verbs in the perfective aspect were remembered more accurately than those in the imperfective aspect. Moreover, imperfective verbs had a stronger tendency to be misremembered as being in the perfective aspect. That is, readers’ memory seems to be affected by the passage of narrative time, rather than maintaining fidelity to the temporal status of the verb at original presentation.

  5. Understanding and use of phrasal verbs and idioms in medical/nursing texts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Polackova, G

    2008-01-01

    Phrasal verbs and idioms are frequently used in everyday English. They are also used in more specific language as equivalents for special terms. The use of phrasal verbs and idioms by native patients and health care workers makes their communication easier and less confusing. Non-native medical workers often come across with English phrasal verbs (idioms) in authentic texts and communication. They should be able to recognize them and after analyzing their meaning include them into their own active vocabulary (Ref. 5).

  6. Noun and verb differences in picture naming: past studies and new evidence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mätzig, Simone; Druks, Judit; Masterson, Jackie; Vigliocco, Gabriella

    2009-06-01

    We re-examine the double dissociation view of noun-verb differences by critically reviewing past lesion studies reporting selective noun or verb deficits in picture naming, and reporting the results of a new picture naming study carried out with aphasic patients and comparison participants. Since there are theoretical arguments and empirical evidence that verb processing is more demanding than noun processing, in the review we distinguished between cases that presented with large and small differences between nouns and verbs. We argued that the latter cases may be accounted for in terms of greater difficulty in processing verbs than nouns. For the cases reporting large differences between nouns and verbs we assessed consistency in lesion localization and consistency in diagnostic classification. More variability both in terms of diagnostic category and lesion sites was found among the verb impaired than the noun impaired patients. In the experimental study, nine aphasic patients and nine age matched neurologically unimpaired individuals carried out a picture naming study that used a large set of materials matched for age of acquisition and in addition to accuracy measures, latencies were also recorded. Despite the patients' variable language deficits, diagnostic category and the matched materials, all patients performed faster and more accurately in naming the object than the action pictures. The comparison participants performed similarly. We also carried out a qualitative analysis of the errors patients made and showed that different types of errors were made in response to object and action pictures. We concluded that action naming places more and different demands on the language processor than object naming. The conclusions of the literature review and the results of the experimental study are discussed in relation to claims previous studies have made on the basis of the double dissociation found between nouns and verbs. We argue that these claims are only

  7. Sentence production with verbs of alternating transitivity in agrammatic Broca's aphasia

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bastiaanse, Y.R.M.; van Zonneveld, R.M.

    Bastiaanse, Koekkoek And Van Zonneveld (2003) hypothesized that individuals with Broca's aphasia have problems with sentences in which the verb and its arguments are not in their base position. The present study is meant to test this hypothesis with the help of verbs with alternating transitivity:

  8. Rhyme and Word Placement in Storybooks Support High-Level Verb Mapping in 3- to 5-Year-Olds

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kirsten Read

    2018-06-01

    Full Text Available High-level verbs can be especially challenging for young children to initially map to meaning. This study manipulated the format of a storybook designed to support such verb learning from shared reading. We tested whether 3- to 5-year-olds (n = 38 could remember the referents of eight new verbs when presented as essential actions within a narrative story but with differences in placement. Children were randomly assigned to either a rhymed condition, in which target verbs were heard at the end of rhyming stanzas making them maximally appreciable, or a control condition, where the verbs were presented in the same story, but not in final position or within a rhymed stanza. After hearing the story, each child was given three sets of retention questions testing their identification, demonstration, and production of the target verbs. Children identified and successfully demonstrated more target verbs in the rhymed condition than the control condition, and only in the rhymed condition did children’s initial verb mappings exceed chance. No differences between conditions were found in children’s ability to produce the target verbs, in part because of how often they reverted to more generic terms to describe the actions in the story. Nonetheless, these findings support the hypothesis that giving children maximal support within a storybook reading context can facilitate an initial grasp on challenging verbs.

  9. Compound verbs in English revisited

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alexandra Bagasheva

    2011-05-01

    Full Text Available Compound verbs (CVs raise a number of puzzling questions concerning their classification, their word formation properties, their basic onomasiological function and their transitory status between “relations” and “conceptual-cores”. Using the constructionist framework in the context of a usage-based network model of language, the paper develops a proposal for the classification of CVs and an account of the semantics of word formation niches of CVs created by analogy, which yield unified semantic analyses. A hypothesis is formulated concerning the acategorial nature of CV internal constituents, which naturally accommodates the proposed classification and word formation niche analyses. A hypothesis is formulated in this context concerning the intermediary status of CVs as language-cognition interface units collapsing the “relation-conceptual core” distinction. Conclusions are drawn relating to the transitory nature of most CVs as nonce creations performing a special function in communicative interaction.

  10. Compound verbs in English revisited

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alexandra Bagasheva

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Compound verbs (CVs raise a number of puzzling questions concerning their classification, their word formation properties, their basic onomasiological function and their transitory status between “relations” and “conceptual-cores”. Using the constructionist framework in the context of a usage-based network model of language, the paper develops a proposal for the classification of CVs and an account of the semantics of word formation niches of CVs created by analogy, which yield unified semantic analyses. A hypothesis is formulated concerning the acategorial nature of CV internal constituents, which naturally accommodates the proposed classification and word formation niche analyses. A hypothesis is formulated in this context concerning the intermediary status of CVs as language-cognition interface units collapsing the “relation-conceptual core” distinction. Conclusions are drawn relating to the transitory nature of most CVs as nonce creations performing a special function in communicative interaction.

  11. Interpersonal lexicon : Structural evidence from two independently constructed verb-based taxonomies

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    De Raad, B.

    1999-01-01

    In this study the structure of interpersonal behavior is investigated according to the principles of the so-called psycholexical approach. As bases for this study, we used the data from a taxonomy of interpersonal behavior verbs and a subset of data from a taxonomy of interpersonal tl-nir verbs. The

  12. Modelling analogical change : A history of Swedish and Frisian verb inflection

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Strik, Oscar

    2015-01-01

    Why did Shakespeare write 'shak’d' when we say 'shook'? Why do some people say 'dived' and others 'dove'? These questions have to do with how we inflect verbs for past tense, and how those strategies vary across time and space. This dissertation sheds light on the issue through case studies of verbs

  13. Hitting the nail on the head: Force vectors in verb semantics

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Goldschmidt, A.; Zwarts, J.

    2016-01-01

    Hitting the nail on the head: Forces in verb meanings Anja Goldschmidt (UU) & Joost Zwarts (UU) There is a growing recognition of the role of forces in verb meanings, starting with the seminal work of Leonard Talmy (Talmy 1985). In one line of research these forces are analyzed in terms of vectors,

  14. LEXICAL ANALYSIS OF THE VERB COOK AND LEARNING VOCABULARY: A CORPUS STUDY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Priyono Priyono

    2011-07-01

    Full Text Available English verbs have built-in properties that determine how they behave syntactically and generate appropriate meaning associated. With these inherent properties some verbs can fill in only in certain syntactic structures and some in others. The observation of the verb COOK using English corpus has revealed its lexical properties covering the area of syntax, semantics, and collocation suggesting uniqueness of its behaviours that are distinguishable from other verbs. Having found the lexical properties of COOK, this article concludes that the acquisition of lexicon should include lexical properties that reflect their level of competence. It also argues that the acquisition of lexical properties should be implicit, not through meta-linguistic knowledge. This would render early grammar teaching unnecessary. The acquisition of lexical properties should take place through subconscious process, not explicit grammar instruction. Many of these are grammatical aspects such as word order, sentence construction, grammatical and lexical collocations.

  15. Dissociable intrinsic functional networks support noun-object and verb-action processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Huichao; Lin, Qixiang; Han, Zaizhu; Li, Hongyu; Song, Luping; Chen, Lingjuan; He, Yong; Bi, Yanchao

    2017-12-01

    The processing mechanism of verbs-actions and nouns-objects is a central topic of language research, with robust evidence for behavioral dissociation. The neural basis for these two major word and/or conceptual classes, however, remains controversial. Two experiments were conducted to study this question from the network perspective. Experiment 1 found that nodes of the same class, obtained through task-evoked brain imaging meta-analyses, were more strongly connected with each other than nodes of different classes during resting-state, forming segregated network modules. Experiment 2 examined the behavioral relevance of these intrinsic networks using data from 88 brain-damaged patients, finding that across patients the relative strength of functional connectivity of the two networks significantly correlated with the noun-object vs. verb-action relative behavioral performances. In summary, we found that verbs-actions and nouns-objects are supported by separable intrinsic functional networks and that the integrity of such networks accounts for the relative noun-object- and verb-action-selective deficits. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  16. The Zulu Ditransitive Verb Phrase

    Science.gov (United States)

    Adams, Nikki

    2010-01-01

    In this dissertation, several related aspects of arguments to ditransitive verbs are explored. The aim is to discover in what ways certain asymmetries in what is frequently referred to as a "symmetric object" language are interconnected while still allowing the other symmetric object behavior. These asymmetries are: (1) The requirement that the…

  17. Translating English and Mandarin Verbs with Argument Structure (Mis)matches Using LCS Representation

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Olsen, M. B

    1998-01-01

    ...). The author demonstrates how Lexical Conceptual Structure (LCS) templates allow the same semantic structure to apply both to verbs with thematic roles incorporated in the verb itself, and those requiring external thematic complements...

  18. A Logical Approach to Modal Verbs 3. “Must”

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Imre Attila

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The article aims at a logical approach to discussing must, organized around the core meaning of necessity, split into epistemic (logical necessity and deontic necessity (obligation. After discussing must as a central modal auxiliary, we present various meanings of must, relying on authoritative sources published for international (English, Hungarian, and Romanian students. Possible issues of teaching must are also dealt with, supported by data from a popular TV series containing modal verbs. The conclusion discusses the importance and relativity of a number of occurrences, trying to offer a possible teaching option for modals stemming from practice.

  19. Comparative Study of the Passive Verb in Arabic and Persian Languages from the Perspective of Grammatical and Semantic

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mansooreh Zarkoob

    2012-11-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Verb is one the important categories and main elements of sentence which is sometimes divided in similar types in Arabic and Persian. One of the main types of verb existed in both languages is passive verb. Although this appellation is apparently common in both languages, it seems passive verbs are completely equivalent in both languages but since passive verb in the Persian language has been discussed from different aspects compared with Arabic, in this article we are looking for some answers to these questions that if we can find other structures apart from passive structure which are accounted as passive in their meanings? Which kind of relationship is there between grammatical and semantic structures of passive verb in both languages? What are grammatical and semantic differences and similarities of passive verb in Persian and Arabic languages? The results of this survey decreased translation errors of students. We also state this example as a result of this research that, not only there is an auxiliary verb in both languages is investigated as a passive-maker but also, there are some planar verbs in both languages and also voice changes are occurred in addition to inflection changes.

  20. Feature-Specific Event-Related Potential Effects to Action- and Sound-Related Verbs during Visual Word Recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Popp, Margot; Trumpp, Natalie M; Kiefer, Markus

    2016-01-01

    Grounded cognition theories suggest that conceptual representations essentially depend on modality-specific sensory and motor systems. Feature-specific brain activation across different feature types such as action or audition has been intensively investigated in nouns, while feature-specific conceptual category differences in verbs mainly focused on body part specific effects. The present work aimed at assessing whether feature-specific event-related potential (ERP) differences between action and sound concepts, as previously observed in nouns, can also be found within the word class of verbs. In Experiment 1, participants were visually presented with carefully matched sound and action verbs within a lexical decision task, which provides implicit access to word meaning and minimizes strategic access to semantic word features. Experiment 2 tested whether pre-activating the verb concept in a context phase, in which the verb is presented with a related context noun, modulates subsequent feature-specific action vs. sound verb processing within the lexical decision task. In Experiment 1, ERP analyses revealed a differential ERP polarity pattern for action and sound verbs at parietal and central electrodes similar to previous results in nouns. Pre-activation of the meaning of verbs in the preceding context phase in Experiment 2 resulted in a polarity-reversal of feature-specific ERP effects in the lexical decision task compared with Experiment 1. This parallels analogous earlier findings for primed action and sound related nouns. In line with grounded cognitions theories, our ERP study provides evidence for a differential processing of action and sound verbs similar to earlier observation for concrete nouns. Although the localizational value of ERPs must be viewed with caution, our results indicate that the meaning of verbs is linked to different neural circuits depending on conceptual feature relevance.

  1. Latent semantics of action verbs reflect phonetic parameters of intensity and emotional content

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Petersen, Michael Kai

    2015-01-01

    already in toddlers, this study explores whether articulatory and acoustic parameters may likewise differentiate the latent semantics of action verbs. Selecting 3 X 20 emotion, face, and hand related verbs known to activate premotor areas in the brain, their mutual cosine similarities were computed using...... latent semantic analysis LSA, and the resulting adjacency matrices were compared based on two different large scale text corpora; HAWIK and TASA. Applying hierarchical clustering to identify common structures across the two text corpora, the verbs largely divide into combined mouth and hand movements...... versus emotional expressions. Transforming the verbs into their constituent phonemes, and projecting them into an articulatory space framed by tongue height and formant frequencies, the clustered small and large size movements appear differentiated by front versus back vowels corresponding to increasing...

  2. Use of nouns and verbs in the oral narrative of individuals with hearing impairment and normal hearing between 5 and 11 years of age

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Erica Endo Amemiya

    Full Text Available CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVE: Nouns and verbs indicate actions in oral communication. However, hearing impairment can compromise the acquisition of oral language to such an extent that appropriate use of these can be challenging. The objective of this study was to compare the use of nouns and verbs in the oral narrative of hearing-impaired and hearing children. DESIGN AND SETTING: Analytical cross-sectional study at the Department of Speech-Language and Hearing Sciences, Universidade Federal de São Paulo. METHODS: Twenty-one children with moderate to profound bilateral neurosensory hearing impairment and twenty-one with normal hearing (controls were matched according to sex, school year and school type. A board showing pictures was presented to each child, to elicit a narrative and measure their performance in producing nouns and verbs. RESULTS: Twenty-two (52.4% of the subjects were males. The mean age was 8 years (standard deviation, SD = 1.5. Comparing averages between the groups of boys and girls, we did not find any significant difference in their use of nouns, but among verbs, there was a significant difference regarding use of the imperative (P = 0.041: more frequent among boys (mean = 2.91. There was no significant difference in the use of nouns and verbs between deaf children and hearers, in relation to school type. Regarding use of the indicative, there was a nearly significant trend (P = 0.058. CONCLUSION: Among oralized hearing-impaired children who underwent speech therapy, their performance regarding verbs and noun use was similar to that of their hearing counterparts.

  3. On an emotional node: modeling sentiment in graphs of action verbs

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Petersen, Michael Kai; Hansen, Lars Kai

    2012-01-01

    Neuroimaging studies have over the past decades established that language is grounded in sensorimotor areas of the brain. Not only action verbs related to face and hand motion but also emotional expressions activate premotor systems in the brain. Hypothesizing that patterns of neural activation...... might be reflected in the latent semantics of words, we apply hierarchical clustering and network graph analysis to quantify the interaction of emotion and motion related action verbs based on two large-scale text corpora. Comparing the word topologies to neural networks we suggest that the co......-activation of associated word forms in the brain resemble the latent semantics of action verbs, which may in turn reflect parameters of force and spatial differentiation underlying action based language....

  4. Special Report: Conflicting Data on Spanish Intransitive Verbs in Two Leading Dictionaries.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Teschner, Richard V.; Flemming, Jennifer

    1996-01-01

    Presents a conflation of and a comparison between the 1,646 verbs the Royal Academy's "Diccionario de la lengua espanola" (Dictionary of the Spanish Language) classifies as solely or partly intransitive and the 1,382 verbs that are so classified by the "Pequeno Larousse ilustrado" (Illustrated Larousse Small Dictionary).…

  5. Spoken Verb Processing in Spanish: An Analysis Using a New Online Resource

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rivera, Semilla M.; Bates, Elizabeth A.; Orozco-Fegueroa, Araceli; Wicha, Nicole Y. Y.

    2010-01-01

    Verbs are one of the basic building blocks of grammar, yet few studies have examined the grammatical, morphological, and phonological factors contributing to lexical access and production of Spanish verb inflection. This report describes an online data set that incorporates psycholinguistic dimensions for 50 of the most common early-acquired…

  6. A Common Mechanism in Verb and Noun Naming Deficits in Alzheimer's Patients

    Science.gov (United States)

    Almor, Amit; Aronoff, Justin M.; MacDonald, Maryellen C.; Gonnerman, Laura M.; Kempler, Daniel; Hintiryan, Houri; Hayes, UnJa L.; Arunachalam, Sudha; Andersen, Elaine S.

    2009-01-01

    We tested the ability of Alzheimer's patients and elderly controls to name living and non-living nouns, and manner and instrument verbs. Patients' error patterns and relative performance with different categories showed evidence of graceful degradation for both nouns and verbs, with particular domain-specific impairments for living nouns and…

  7. Subordinate clause comprehension and tense/agreement inconsistency in children with specific language impairment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Souto, Sofía M; Leonard, Laurence B; Deevy, Patricia; Fey, Marc E; Bredin-Oja, Shelley L

    2016-01-01

    Several recent studies have suggested that the production errors of children with specific language impairment (SLI) such as The girl singing may be explained by a misinterpretation of grammatical adult input containing a similar structure (e.g., The boy hears the girl singing). Thirteen children with SLI and 13 younger typically developing children with comparable sentence comprehension test scores (TD-COMP) completed a comprehension task to assess their understanding of sentences involving a nonfinite subject-verb sequence in a subordinate clause such as The dad sees the boy running. TD-COMP children were more accurate on subordinate clause items than children with SLI despite similar performance on simple transitive (e.g., The horse sees the cow) and simple progressive (e.g., The cow is eating) items. However, no relationship was found between the SLI group's specific subordinate clause comprehension level and their specific level of auxiliary is production, casting some doubt on this type of structure as a source for inconsistent use of auxiliary is. The reader will learn that children with specific language impairment (SLI): (1) have difficulty understanding complex sentences that include nonfinite subject-verb sequences; (2) that this difficulty is apparent in comparison to younger typically developing peers who have similar scores not only on a sentence comprehension test, but also on simple sentences that correspond to the component parts of the complex sentences; and (3) that this weakness is concurrent with these children's inconsistent use of auxiliary is in production. Although novel verb studies show a clear connection between how children with SLI hear new verbs and how they use them, we do not yet have evidence that this connection is tied to a poor understanding of the input sentences that house the verbs. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  8. Conceptual plural information is used to guide early parsing decisions: Evidence from garden-path sentences with reciprocal verbs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Patson, Nikole D; Ferreira, Fernanda

    2009-05-01

    In three eyetracking studies, we investigated the role of conceptual plurality in initial parsing decisions in temporarily ambiguous sentences with reciprocal verbs (e.g., While the lovers kissed the baby played alone). We varied the subject of the first clause using three types of plural noun phrases: conjoined noun phrases (the bride and the groom), plural definite descriptions (the lovers), and numerically quantified noun phrases (the two lovers). We found no evidence for garden-path effects when the subject was conjoined (Ferreira & McClure, 1997), but traditional garden-path effects were found with the other plural noun phrases. In addition, we tested plural anaphors that had a plural antecedent present in the discourse. We found that when the antecedent was conjoined, garden-path effects were absent compared to cases in which the antecedent was a plural definite description. Our results indicate that the parser is sensitive to the conceptual representation of a plural constituent. In particular, it appears that a Complex Reference Object (Moxey et al., 2004) automatically activates a reciprocal reading of a reciprocal verb.

  9. Where syntax meets math: Right Intraparietal Sulcus activation in response to grammatical number agreement violations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carreiras, Manuel; Carr, Lindsay; Barber, Horacio A.; Hernandez, Arturo

    2009-01-01

    Previous research has shown that the processing of words referring to actions activated motor areas. Here we show activation of the right intraparietal sulcus, an area that has been associated with quantity processing, when participants are asked to read pairs of words with number agreement violations as opposed to phrases with gender agreement violations or with no violation. In addition, we show activation in the left premotor and left inferior frontal areas when either gender or number agreement is violated. We argue that number violation automatically activates processes linked to quantity processing which are not directly related to language mechanisms. PMID:19800410

  10. Between grammar and dictionary: With special reference to Slovene verb

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Žele Andreja

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Slovene resources confirm that verbal aspect and aspectualness depend on the morphological, lexical, syntactic, and other characteristics of a particular language. Since verbal aspect is directly connected to the meaning of a particular verb, as well as its structural and semantic-syntactic abilities, it is considered to be an essential characteristic in terms of the language system of every language. The specific features of aspectualness, especially if we take into account its connectedness to a given language system, are confirmed by various contrastive studies, which also place considerable emphasis on a number of general aspectual characteristics that can be applied to all languages. Within every language system, for example, the grammatical (morphological, lexical, and syntactic aspectualness are distinguished from one another, whereas in the case of a particular text, the relationship between aspect, time, and mood cannot be overlooked. What remains central in both current and future discussions is establishing the relationship between aspectualness and temporality within a particular language or languages. Cases of ‘aspectual competitiveness’, related to the temporal structure of a given sentence, have been noted in Slovene as well, especially in examples like Sem že večerjal - Sem že povečerjal (‘I already had dinner - I already finished my dinner’, Vedno smo k obstoječemu doprinesli tudi nekaj novega - Vedno smo k obstoječemu doprinašali tudi nekaj novega (‘We always contributed something new to the existing condition - We always used to contribute something new to the existing condition’, etc. That the behavior of the imperfect may vary in the past and future is shown by examples like Temperatura se je dvigovala ‘višala, padala in spet višala’ (The temperature kept rising ‘rising, falling, and rising again’, Temperatura se bo dvigovala ‘vedno samo navzgor, brez nihanja’ (The temperature will keep on

  11. Conceptual representation of verbs in bilinguals: semantic field effects and a second-language performance paradox.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Segalowitz, Norman; de Almeida, Roberto G

    2002-01-01

    It is well known that bilinguals perform better in their first language (L1) than in their second lanaguage (L2) in a wide range of linguistic tasks. In recent studies, however, the authors have found that bilingual participants can demonstrate faster response times to L1 stimuli than to L2 stimuli in one classification task and the reverse in a different classification task. In the current study, they investigated the reasons for this "L2-better-than-L1" effect. English-French bilinguals performed one word relatedness and two categorization tasks with verbs of motion (e.g., run) and psychological verbs (e.g., admire) in both languages. In the word relatedness task, participants judged how closely related pairs of verbs from both categories were. In a speeded semantic categorization task, participants classified the verbs according to their semantic category (psychological or motion). In an arbitrary classification task, participants had to learn how verbs had been assigned to two arbitrary categories. Participants performed better in L1 in the semantic classification task but paradoxically better in L2 in the arbitrary classification task. To account for these effects, the authors used the ratings from the word relatedness task to plot three-dimensional "semantic fields" for the verbs. Cross-language field differences were found to be significantly related to the paradoxical performance and to fluency levels. The results have implications for understanding of how bilinguals represent verbs in the mental lexicon. Copyright 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).

  12. Ueber das Mannheimer Woerterbuch zur Verbvalenz (About the Mannheim Dictionary of Verb Valence)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schumacher, Helmut

    1976-01-01

    Describes the purpose, structure and application of this monolingual verb lexicon, which indicates the morphosyntactic environments of the most common German verbs. Mention is made of the forthcoming valence lexicon. The book is for teachers and textbook writers. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

  13. Age of Acquisition Effects in Chinese EFL learners’ Delexicalized Verb and Collocation Acquisition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Miao Haiyan

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available This paper investigates age of acquisition (AoA effects and the acquisition of delexicalized verbs and collocations in Chinese EFL learners, and explores the underlying reasons from the connectionist model for these learners’ acquisition characteristics. The data were collected through a translation test consisted of delexialized verb information section and English-Chinese and Chinese-English collocation parts, aiming to focus on Chinese EFL learners’ receptive and productive abilities respectively. As Chinese EFL is a nationally classroom-based practice beginning from early primary school, the pedagogical value and different phases of acquisition are thus taken into consideration in designing the translation test. Research results show that the effects of AoA are significant not only in the learners’ acquisition of individual delexicalized verbs but also in delexicalized collocations. Although learners have long begun to learn delexicalized verbs, their production indicates that early learning does not guarantee total acquisition, because their grasp of delexicalized verbs still stay at the senior middle school level. AoA effects significantly affect the recognition but not the production of collocations. Furthermore, a plateau effect occurs in learners’ acquisition of college-level delexicalized collocations, as their recognition and production have no processing advantages over earlier learned collocations.

  14. Comparison of Different Test Construction Strategies in the Development of a Gender Fair Interest Inventory Using Verbs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wetzel, Eunike; Hell, Benedikt; Passler, Katja

    2012-01-01

    Three test construction strategies are described and illustrated in the development of the Verb Interest Test (VIT), an inventory that assesses vocational interests using verbs. Verbs might be a promising alternative to the descriptions of occupational activities used in most vocational interest inventories because they are context-independent,…

  15. Verbal semantics drives early anticipatory eye movements during the comprehension of verb-initial sentences

    OpenAIRE

    Sebastian eSauppe; Sebastian eSauppe; Sebastian eSauppe

    2016-01-01

    Studies on anticipatory processes during sentence comprehension often focus on the prediction of postverbal direct objects. In subject-initial languages (the target of most studies so far), however, the position in the sentence, the syntactic function, and the semantic role of arguments are often conflated. For example, in the sentence The frog will eat the fly the syntactic object (fly) is at the same time also the last word and the patient argument of the verb. It is therefore not apparent ...

  16. Verbal Semantics Drives Early Anticipatory Eye Movements during the Comprehension of Verb-Initial Sentences

    OpenAIRE

    Sauppe, Sebastian

    2016-01-01

    Studies on anticipatory processes during sentence comprehension often focus on the prediction of postverbal direct objects. In subject-initial languages (the target of most studies so far), however, the position in the sentence, the syntactic function, and the semantic role of arguments are often conflated. For example, in the sentence “The frog will eat the fly” the syntactic object (“fly”) is at the same time also the last word and the patient argument of the verb. It is therefore not appar...

  17. Effects of Stimulation of the Subthalamic Nucleus on Naming and Reading Nouns and Verbs in Parkinson's Disease

    Science.gov (United States)

    Silveri, Maria Caterina; Ciccarelli, Nicoletta; Baldonero, Eleonora; Piano, Carla; Zinno, Massimiliano; Soleti, Francesco; Bentivoglio, Anna Rita; Albanese, Alberto; Daniele, Antonio

    2012-01-01

    An impairment for verbs has been described in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), suggesting that a disruption of frontal-subcortical circuits may result in dysfunction of the neural systems involved in action-verb processing. A previous study suggested that deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) during verb generation…

  18. Input Distribution Influences Degree of Auxiliary Use by Children with Specific Language Impairment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leonard, Laurence B; Deevy, Patricia

    2011-04-01

    Children with specific language impairment (SLI) show a protracted period of inconsistent use of tense/agreement morphemes. The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether this inconsistent use could be attributed to the children's misinterpretations of particular syntactic structures in the input. In Study 1, preschool-aged children with SLI and typically developing peers heard sentences containing novel verbs preceded by auxiliary was or sentences in which the novel verb formed part of a nonfinite subject-verb sequence within a larger syntactic structure (e.g., We saw the dog relling ). The children were then tested on their use of the novel verbs in contexts that obligated use of auxiliary is . The children with SLI were less accurate than their peers and more likely to produce the novel verb without is if the verb had been heard in a nonfinite subject-verb sequence. In Study 2, children with SLI and typically developing peers were tested on their comprehension of sentences such as The cow sees the horse eating. The children with SLI were less accurate than their peers and were disproportionately influenced by the nonfinite subject-verb clause at the end of the sentence. We interpret these findings within the framework of construction learning.

  19. Russian language for Persian learners A research on the difficulties of learning motion verbs of

    OpenAIRE

    ایزانلو ایزانلو

    2009-01-01

    Since motion verbs of Russian language is one of those complex issues in Russian language syntax, Iranian students who are learning Russian language face problems when learning this grammatical category. These problems in learning appear in two stages. a)The stage of learning and understanding the meaning of these verbs in the Russian language itself; b) The stage of transition of these verbs from Russian language into Persian language when translating texts into Persian. It seems that the di...

  20. Scandinavian object shift, remnant VP-topicalisation, verb particles and causatives

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Engels, Eva; Vikner, Sten

    2013-01-01

    constructions in Danish and Swedish, namely particle verb constructions and causative constructions with Danish "lade" and Swedish "låta" ‘let’. It is shown how differences in the VP-internal object position give rise to mirror image sequences concerning Object Shift in connection with verb second (Vº......On the basis of an examination of remnant VP-topicalisation constructions, this paper argues for an order preservation analysis of Scandinavian Object Shift. Extending the empirical database, we account for the phenomena in an Optimality Theoretic framework. The paper focusses on two particular...

  1. Language Analysis : Phrasal Verbs and Phonological Information in ESL Textbooks

    OpenAIRE

    北山, 長貴; Nagaki, Kitayama

    1996-01-01

    Grammatical terms which are used in both linguistics and applied linguistics are usually fixed. Especially the ones used in grammar textbooks for English as a Second Language (E5L) are fixed. However, there is a term which varies from text to text in ESL grammar. It is the term "phrasal verb". This is what I am interested in; why so many different terminologies are used in each textbook. In this paper I would like to clarify the definition of phrasal verbs by mentioning several studies of phr...

  2. The degree of verb movement in embedded clauses in three varieties of Norwegian

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kristine Bentzen

    2007-04-01

    Full Text Available The position of the verb(s in embedded non-V2 contexts varies in Norwegian dialects. In Eastern Norwegian (EastN, all verbs have to follow all adverbs in non-V2 contexts. In Tromsø Northern Norwegian (TrNN main verbs and non-finite auxiliaries have to follow all adverbs, but finite auxiliaries may precede adverbs they take scope over. In Regional Northern Norwegian (ReNN all finite verbs (main/auxiliary may precede all adverbs, and non-finite auxiliaries may precede adverbs they take scope over. These data are accounted for within a remnant movement approach. The variation between the three dialects is argued to follow from differences in how selectional features on auxiliaries and T are checked. It is suggested that auxiliaries are associated with a pair of functional projections (so-called lifters: a VP lifter below and an AdvP lifter above. An auxiliary with these lifters ‘sinks’ below adverbs it takes scope over. Overt feature checking (through adjacency occurs when the lifters are present; covert feature checking occurs when the lifters are absent. In EastN, overt feature checking, and the lifters, is obligatory for all auxiliaries; in TrNN this is obligatory for non-finite auxiliaries but optional for finite auxiliaries; in ReNN this is optional for all auxiliaries.

  3. Some remarks on Romanian reflexive verbs derived by the prefix "în"

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Veronica Tomescu

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available The paper discusses a small group of Romanian reflexive verbs, denominals derived by means of the prefix în, as well as a group of transitive verbs which are reflexivized. Their behaviour will be briefly considered. A search on the Internet has also been made alongside the dictionary study in order to gain an insight into the frequency of use of certain forms.

  4. Complement Syntax, Mental Verbs, and Theory of Mind in Children Who Are Deaf

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keddington, Holly B.

    2013-01-01

    The present study was conducted in three parts. Each part analyzed theory of mind (ToM) development in children who are deaf in relation to mental verb and complement syntax understanding. In the first part, participants were given a series of tests for the purpose of correlational analysis of ToM, mental verb understanding, and memory for…

  5. Polysemous Verbs and Modality in Native and Non-Native Argumentative Writing: A Corpus-Based Study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Danica Salazar

    2009-12-01

    Full Text Available The present study is a corpus-based analysis of a selection of polysemous lexical verbs used to express modality in student argumentative writing. Twenty-three lexical verbs were searched for in three 100,000-word corpora of argumentative essays written in English by American, Filipino and Spanish university students. Concordance lines were examined to determine their use in the three corpora. After presenting the overall results for all verbs studied, more in-depth linguistic analysis was performed on the polysemous verb feel. These analyses revealed that the non-native writers, unlike their native counterparts, had a limited grasp of the full range of meanings of lexical verbs such as feel. It also showed that all student writers under study employed only a restricted range of lexical verbs to convey modal meanings in their writing.En este artículo presentamos un análisis de una selección de verbos polisémicos, utilizados para expresar modalidad, en tres corpus de textos argumentativos escritos en inglés por estudiantes universitarios americanos, filipinos y españoles. Después de exponer los resultados generales, se presenta un análisis más exhaustivo del verbo polisémico feel, que revela que los estudiantes no nativos, a diferencia de los nativos, tienen un conocimiento limitado de su diversidad de sentidos. También muestra que todos los estudiantes analizados usaron un repertorio restringido de verbos léxicos que expresan modalidad.

  6. Subject Agreement-Dependency of Accusative Case in Turkish or Jump-starting Grammatical Machinery

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Keskin, C.

    2009-01-01

    A work which argues that there is a link between the presence of subject agreement in a construction and the availability of accusative case in that construction. The empirical domain is various types of nominalization in Turkish. Adopts a cross-linguistic perspective to a certain degree, studying

  7. serialising languages: satellite-framed, verb-framed or neither

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    George Saad

    Figure 2: Verb-framed construction type (Slobin 2000: 109). 2 ... 2 An anonymous reviewer asks why we have replaced Talmy's conflation term “Ground” with ..... an S-language may predispose speakers to pay more linguistic attention to.

  8. ACQUIRING NEW PHRASAL VERBS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hari Supriono

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available The acquisition of English demands natural settings in which learners engage with linguistic resources and attempt trial and errors method to express their ideas. These natural settings, for some, traditionally still require the presence of native speakerteachers (NST. However as the growing numbers of non-native speaker teachers (NNST of English in the developing countries makes way to the need for more occupation, the presence of NST on the contrary is lacking in relevance. However, can the NNST fulfill the necessitated language skills as if the classes were to be managed by NST? How much does the competence of NNST level NST‘s? Or, should we see the realm from the other end of the continuum?—thatwhatever norms and levels of competence our students should have should as well be determined by the availability of the resources at hand and the need for English as means of global communication? This paper questions the conventional paradigm in seeing the needs for learners‘ competence in English skills and challenges new generation of English teachers to be creative and realistic in meeting the needs of language acquisition and/or learning of EFLthrough the teaching and acquisition of phrasal verbs.

  9. 2.5-year-olds use cross-situational consistency to learn verbs under referential uncertainty.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scott, Rose M; Fisher, Cynthia

    2012-02-01

    Recent evidence shows that children can use cross-situational statistics to learn new object labels under referential ambiguity (e.g., Smith & Yu, 2008). Such evidence has been interpreted as support for proposals that statistical information about word-referent co-occurrence plays a powerful role in word learning. But object labels represent only a fraction of the vocabulary children acquire, and arguably represent the simplest case of word learning based on observations of world scenes. Here we extended the study of cross-situational word learning to a new segment of the vocabulary, action verbs, to permit a stronger test of the role of statistical information in word learning. In two experiments, on each trial 2.5-year-olds encountered two novel intransitive (e.g., "She's pimming!"; Experiment 1) or transitive verbs (e.g., "She's pimming her toy!"; Experiment 2) while viewing two action events. The consistency with which each verb accompanied each action provided the only source of information about the intended referent of each verb. The 2.5-year-olds used cross-situational consistency in verb learning, but also showed significant limits on their ability to do so as the sentences and scenes became slightly more complex. These findings help to define the role of cross-situational observation in word learning. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  10. She runs, the road runs, my mind runs, bad blood runs between us: literal and figurative motion verbs: an fMRI study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Romero Lauro, Leonor J; Mattavelli, Giulia; Papagno, Costanza; Tettamanti, Marco

    2013-12-01

    The role of sensory-motor components in language processing is a central topic in cognitive neuroscience. Recent studies showed that the processing of action words recruits cortical motor regions involved in the planning and execution of the described actions. However, it remains unclear to what extent the abstract versus concrete nature of the described motion modulates the activation of premotor and motor areas and how the agent affects this modulation. Here, we contribute to this line of research by investigating the comprehension of motion verbs, used in a literal versus figurative context, in an fMRI study with normal subjects in which the somatotopy of activation was investigated by presenting motion verbs that involve upper vs. lower limbs. A set of sentences including a motion verb used in a literal, fictive (only lower limb), metaphorical, or idiomatic way was studied. Cognition verbs were also included as control. We found that figurative sentences compared to literal ones produced a greater activation of a bilateral fronto-temporal network, in line with previous studies. Moreover, fictive motion activated a more posterior region, involving primary visual areas and motion sensitive visual areas, but also the left middle frontal gyrus. Crucially, the left precentral gyrus was activated in the case of the upper limb for literal and metaphorical motion sentence types, but not idiomatic sentences. For fictive motion, we found a lower limb-related somatotopic effect, also present for literal sentences, while the evidence for metaphorical and idiomatic sentences was less strong. In conclusion, our results confirm that premotor areas are activated by language understanding, but to a different degree depending on the specific literal versus figurative context in which motion verbs appear. Therefore, they support weak embodied views suggesting that the motor system enhances the comprehension of linguistically encoded actions. © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights

  11. Bio-SimVerb and Bio-SimLex: wide-coverage evaluation sets of word similarity in biomedicine.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chiu, Billy; Pyysalo, Sampo; Vulić, Ivan; Korhonen, Anna

    2018-02-05

    Word representations support a variety of Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks. The quality of these representations is typically assessed by comparing the distances in the induced vector spaces against human similarity judgements. Whereas comprehensive evaluation resources have recently been developed for the general domain, similar resources for biomedicine currently suffer from the lack of coverage, both in terms of word types included and with respect to the semantic distinctions. Notably, verbs have been excluded, although they are essential for the interpretation of biomedical language. Further, current resources do not discern between semantic similarity and semantic relatedness, although this has been proven as an important predictor of the usefulness of word representations and their performance in downstream applications. We present two novel comprehensive resources targeting the evaluation of word representations in biomedicine. These resources, Bio-SimVerb and Bio-SimLex, address the previously mentioned problems, and can be used for evaluations of verb and noun representations respectively. In our experiments, we have computed the Pearson's correlation between performances on intrinsic and extrinsic tasks using twelve popular state-of-the-art representation models (e.g. word2vec models). The intrinsic-extrinsic correlations using our datasets are notably higher than with previous intrinsic evaluation benchmarks such as UMNSRS and MayoSRS. In addition, when evaluating representation models for their abilities to capture verb and noun semantics individually, we show a considerable variation between performances across all models. Bio-SimVerb and Bio-SimLex enable intrinsic evaluation of word representations. This evaluation can serve as a predictor of performance on various downstream tasks in the biomedical domain. The results on Bio-SimVerb and Bio-SimLex using standard word representation models highlight the importance of developing dedicated

  12. An Analysis of Stative Verbs Used with the Progressive Aspect in Corpus-Informed Textbooks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Belli, Serap Atasever

    2018-01-01

    This study was designed to investigate whether contemporary corpus-informed grammar textbooks written for English language learners and teachers presented the progressive use of stative verbs and if yes, which stative verbs were presented to occur with the progressive aspect and for which functions they took this aspect. A corpus of six electronic…

  13. Les proportions des verbes SAY/DIRE/ŘÍCI dans les propositions incises et leurs équivalents en traduction : étude sur corpus parallèle

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Olga Nádvorníková

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available EN: The aim of this paper is to identify and compare the distribution of the verbs say/dire/říci-říkat in reporting clauses placed medially or finally, and to analyze types of their equivalents in translations (French-English-Czech. Our hypothesis is that in translations from a language with a higher proportion of the neutral verbs say/dire/říci-říkat in reporting clauses into a language where their proportion is lower, the number of replacements of these verbs, especially using explicitation, will be higher than in the opposite direction of translation. The analysis is based on fiction texts from the InterCorp parallel corpus. FR: L’objectif du présent article est d’identifier et de comparer les proportions des verbes say/dire/ří- ci-říkat dans les propositions incises et d’analyser les types de leurs équivalents en traduction (français-anglais-tchèque. Nous avançons l’hypothèse que dans les traductions depuis des langues à proportion élevée de ces verbes de dire neutres dans les incises vers les langues où leur proportion s’avère moins élevée, les traducteurs auront davantage recours à l’explicitation ou à d’autres remplacements du verbe de dire neutre que dans l’autre sens de la traduction. L’analyse est basée sur le corpus parallèle InterCorp, limité aux textes littéraires.

  14. CzEngClass – Towards a Lexicon of Verb Synonyms with Valency Linked to Semantic Roles

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Urešová Zdeňka

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, we introduce our ongoing project about synonymy in bilingual context. This project aims at exploring semantic ‘equivalence’ of verb senses of generally different verbal lexemes in a bilingual (Czech-English setting. Specifically, it focuses on their valency behavior within such equivalence groups. We believe that using bilingual context (translation as an important factor in the delimitation of classes of synonymous lexical units (verbs, in our case may help to specify the verb senses, also with regard to the (semantic roles relation to other verb senses and roles of their arguments more precisely than when using monolingual corpora. In our project, we work “bottom-up”, i.e., from an evidence as recorded in our corpora and not “top-down”, from a predefined set of semantic classes.

  15. Unlocking past emotion: verb use affects mood and happiness.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hart, William

    2013-01-01

    In the research reported here, I examined whether the verbs applied to descriptions of past emotional experiences influence present mood and happiness. Participants who described a positive experience using the imperfective aspect, which implies ongoing progression, subsequently reported more positive mood and greater happiness than did participants who described a positive experience using the perfective aspect, which implies completion; likewise, participants who described a negative experience using the imperfective aspect subsequently reported more negative mood and less happiness than did participants who described a negative experience using the perfective aspect. These effects were traced to enhanced memory for the described emotional experience in the imperfective condition relative to the perfective condition. The findings demonstrate how formal features of language shape both the reinstatement of past affective reactions and happiness judgments, and may have practical applications for improving subjective well-being.

  16. Analysing English particle verbs: synchrony and diachrony

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Elenbaas, M.B.

    2004-01-01

    English has a very productive construction in which a verb is combined with a particle. (1) a. The cleaner knocked (down) the vase (down). b. The police locked (up) the criminal (up). c. The Formula 1 race-driver wrote (off) his car (off). (write off = damage beyond repair) The challenge of

  17. An Event-related Brain Potential Study of English Morphosyntactic Processing in Japanese Learners of English

    OpenAIRE

    Tatsuta, Natsuko

    2014-01-01

    This dissertation investigated the neural mechanisms underlying English morphosyntactic processing in Case, subject-verb agreement, and past tense inflection in Japanese learners of English (JLEs) using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in terms of the effects of the age of second language (L2) acquisition (the age of learning English), L2 proficiency level (the English proficiency level), and native/first language (L1) transfer. Researchers have debated for a number of years the question...

  18. Testing controlled productive knowledge of adverb-verb collocations ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    A controlled productive test of adverb-verb collocations ..... The third approach to studying collocations, corpus analysis, ..... The collocation web model is thought to match Nation's (2001) psychological .... Theory, analysis, and applications. .... Canadian Modern ... Focus on vocabulary: Mastering the Academic Word List.

  19. The Two-Level Theory of verb meaning: An approach to integrating the semantics of action with the mirror neuron system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kemmerer, David; Gonzalez-Castillo, Javier

    2010-01-01

    Verbs have two separate levels of meaning. One level reflects the uniqueness of every verb and is called the "root". The other level consists of a more austere representation that is shared by all the verbs in a given class and is called the "event structure template". We explore the following hypotheses about how, with specific reference to the motor features of action verbs, these two distinct levels of semantic representation might correspond to two distinct levels of the mirror neuron system. Hypothesis 1: Root-level motor features of verb meaning are partially subserved by somatotopically mapped mirror neurons in the left primary motor and/or premotor cortices. Hypothesis 2: Template-level motor features of verb meaning are partially subserved by representationally more schematic mirror neurons in Brodmann area 44 of the left inferior frontal gyrus. Evidence has been accumulating in support of the general neuroanatomical claims made by these two hypotheses-namely, that each level of verb meaning is associated with the designated cortical areas. However, as yet no studies have satisfied all the criteria necessary to support the more specific neurobiological claims made by the two hypotheses-namely, that each level of verb meaning is associated with mirror neurons in the pertinent brain regions. This would require demonstrating that within those regions the same neuronal populations are engaged during (a) the linguistic processing of particular motor features of verb meaning, (b) the execution of actions with the corresponding motor features, and (c) the observation of actions with the corresponding motor features. 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  20. Nouns, verbs, objects, actions, and abstractions: local fMRI activity indexes semantics, not lexical categories.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moseley, Rachel L; Pulvermüller, Friedemann

    2014-05-01

    Noun/verb dissociations in the literature defy interpretation due to the confound between lexical category and semantic meaning; nouns and verbs typically describe concrete objects and actions. Abstract words, pertaining to neither, are a critical test case: dissociations along lexical-grammatical lines would support models purporting lexical category as the principle governing brain organisation, whilst semantic models predict dissociation between concrete words but not abstract items. During fMRI scanning, participants read orthogonalised word categories of nouns and verbs, with or without concrete, sensorimotor meaning. Analysis of inferior frontal/insula, precentral and central areas revealed an interaction between lexical class and semantic factors with clear category differences between concrete nouns and verbs but not abstract ones. Though the brain stores the combinatorial and lexical-grammatical properties of words, our data show that topographical differences in brain activation, especially in the motor system and inferior frontal cortex, are driven by semantics and not by lexical class. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  1. Correlation of the verb transitivity with other grammatical categories

    OpenAIRE

    LIUBCHENKO TATIANA VIKTOROVNA

    2016-01-01

    The correlation of the verb transitivity with other categories, including voice and aspect is specified in investigation. The article also deals with interpretation of categories “voice” and “diathesis” in linguistics.

  2. Effects of animation on naming and identification across two graphic symbol sets representing verbs and prepositions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schlosser, Ralf W; Koul, Rajinder; Shane, Howard; Sorce, James; Brock, Kristofer; Harmon, Ashley; Moerlein, Dorothy; Hearn, Emilia

    2014-10-01

    The effects of animation on naming and identification of graphic symbols for verbs and prepositions were studied in 2 graphic symbol sets in preschoolers. Using a 2 × 2 × 2 × 3 completely randomized block design, preschoolers across three age groups were randomly assigned to combinations of symbol set (Autism Language Program [ALP] Animated Graphics or Picture Communication Symbols [PCS]), symbol format (animated or static), and word class (verbs or prepositions). Children were asked to name symbols and to identify a target symbol from an array given the spoken label. Animated symbols were more readily named than static symbols, although this was more pronounced for verbs than for prepositions. ALP symbols were named more accurately than PCS in particular with prepositions. Animation did not facilitate identification. ALP symbols for prepositions were identified better than PCS, but there was no difference for verbs. Finally, older children guessed and identified symbols more effectively than younger children. Animation improves the naming of graphic symbols for verbs. For prepositions, ALP symbols are named more accurately and are more readily identifiable than PCS. Naming and identifying symbols are learned skills that develop over time. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.

  3. Using the Predictability Criterion for Selecting Extended Verbs for Shona Dictionaries

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Emmanuel Chabata

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available

    The paper examines the "predictability criterion", a classificatory tool which is used in selecting affixed word forms for dictionary entries. It focuses on the criterion as it has been used by the African Languages Lexical (ALLEX Project for selecting extended verbs to enter as headwords in the Project's first monolingual Shona dictionary Duramazwi ReChiShona. The article also examines the status of Shona verbal extensions in terms of their semantic input to the verb stems they are attached to. The paper was originally motivated by two observations: (a that predictability seems to be a matter of degree; and (b that the predictability criterion tended to be used inconsistently in the selection of extended verbs and senses for Duramazwi ReChiShona. An analysis of 412 productively extended verbs that were entered as headwords in Duramazwi ReChiShona shows that verbal extensions can bring both predictable and unpredictable senses to the verb stems they are attached to. The paper demonstrates that for an effective use of the predictability criterion for selecting extended verbs for Shona dictionaries, there is need for the lexicographer to have an in-depth understanding of the kinds of semantic movements that are caused when verb stems are extended. It shows the need to view verbal extensions in Shona as derivational morphemes, not inflectional morphemes as some earlier scholars have concluded.

     

     

    Die gebruik van die voorspelbaarheidskriterium om uitgebreide werkwoorde te selekteer vir Shonawoordeboeke

    Hierdie artikel ondersoek die "voorspelbaarheidskriterium", 'n klassifikasiehulpmiddel wat gebruik word om geaffigeerde woordvorme te selekteer as woordeboekinskrywings. Dit fokus op die kriterium soos dit gebruik is deur die African Language Lexical (ALLEX Project vir die selektering van uitgebreide werkwoorde as lemmas in die Projek se eerste eentalige Shonawoordeboek Duramazwi ReChiShona. In

  4. In my own words: the translation of reporting verbs on the parallel corpus the adventures of Huckleberry Finn — As aventuras de Huck

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniel Alves

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available This article examines Monteiro Lobato’s (retextualization of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The analysis focuses on reporting verbs in instances of direct speech. The methodology used for data collection is based on Corpus Linguistics and the analysis built on the hallidayan systemic-functional grammar. The aim of this paper is to explore patterns in the choice of reporting verbs in Twain’s and Lobato’s textualizations particularly in connection with neutral verbs, such as ‘say’ in English and ‘dizer’ in Portuguese. Results show that Lobato’s (retextualization tends to select Free Direct Discourse, (instead of Direct Discourse and a wider variety of reporting verbs, there being no single verb accounting for more than 25% of all occurrences of direct discourse examined. The neutral verb ‘say’ was also observed to have been (retextualized by reporting verbs that signal speech function, indicating either information giving or demanding, and by verbs that realize an additional feature or specify speech connotation.

  5. Perceptual verbs in gabriel garcía márquez's novel "one hundred years of solitude"

    OpenAIRE

    Kriščiūnaitė, Agnė

    2017-01-01

    Perceptual Verbs in Gabriel García Márquez's Novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" This BA thesis presents an analysis of the perception Spanish and Lithuanian verbs (further – PV) in Gabriel García Márquez’s novel One Hundred Years of Solitude and its translation to Lithuanian by E. Treinienė and N. A. Petrauskienė released by the title of Šimtas metų vienatvės in 2006. According to the analysis of the five senses of perception verbs are classified into five semantic cate...

  6. Exploring atypical verb+noun combinations in learner technical writing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    María José Luzón Marco

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available Professional and academic discourse is characterised by a specific phraseology, which usually poses problems for students. This paper investigates atypical verb+noun collocations in a corpus of English technical writing of Spanish students. I focus on the type of verbs that most frequently occurred in these awkward or questionable combinations and attempt to explore the reasons why the learners deviate from NS's norms. The analysis indicates that these learners tend to have problems with a set of sub-technical and high-frequency verbs. Deviant combinations involving these verbs are frequently the result of a deficient knowledge of the phraseology of academic and technical discourse. The unawareness of collocations that are typical of this discourse often leads students to create V+N combinations by relying on the “Open Choice Principle” (Sinclair, 1991 or by using patterns from their mother tongue.El discurso profesional y académico se caracteriza por una fraseología específica, que suele plantear problemas a los estudiantes. Este artículo investiga colocaciones de verbo+nombre atípicas en un corpus de textos técnicos en inglés escritos por estudiantes españoles. El estudio se centra en los verbos que más frecuentemente aparecen en estas combinaciones atípicas y explora las razones por las que los estudiantes se desvían de la norma. El análisis indica que estos estudiantes suelen tener problemas con un grupo de verbos sub-técnicos y verbos de alta frecuencia. Las combinaciones atípicas en las que estos verbos aparecen son frecuentemente el resultado de un conocimiento deficiente de la fraseología del discurso académico y técnico. El desconocimiento de colocaciones que son típicas de este discurso a menudo lleva a los estudiantes a crear combinaciones basándose en el “principio de opción abierta” (Sinclair, 1991 o a usar colocaciones prestadas de su lengua materna.

  7. The passive of reflexive verbs in Icelandic

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hlíf Árnadóttir

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available The Reflexive Passive in Icelandic is reminiscent of the so-called New Passive (or New Impersonal in that the oblique case of a passivized object NP is preserved. As is shown by recent surveys, however, speakers who accept the Reflexive Passive do not necessarily accept the New Passive, whereas conversely, speakers who accept the New Passive do also accept the Reflexive Passive. Based on these results we suggest that there is a hierarchy in the acceptance of passive sentences in Icelandic, termed the Passive Acceptability Hierarchy. The validity of this hierarchy is confirmed by our diachronic corpus study of open access digital library texts from Icelandic journals and newspapers dating from the 19th and 20th centuries (tímarit.is. Finally, we sketch an analysis of the Reflexive Passive, proposing that the different acceptability rates of the Reflexive and New Passives lie in the argument status of the object. Simplex reflexive pronouns are semantically dependent on the verbs which select them, and should therefore be analyzed as syntactic arguments only, and not as semantic arguments of these verbs.

  8. Action verbs are processed differently in metaphorical and literal sentences depending on the semantic match of visual primes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Melissa eTroyer

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Language comprehension requires rapid and flexible access to information stored in long-term memory, likely influenced by activation of rich world knowledge and by brain systems that support the processing of sensorimotor content. We hypothesized that while literal language about biological motion might rely on neurocognitive representations of biological motion specific to the details of the actions described, metaphors rely on more generic representations of motion. In a priming and self-paced reading paradigm, participants saw video clips or images of (a an intact point-light walker or (b a scrambled control and read sentences containing literal or metaphoric uses of biological motion verbs either closely or distantly related to the depicted action (walking. We predicted that reading times for literal and metaphorical sentences would show differential sensitivity to the match between the verb and the visual prime. In Experiment 1, we observed interactions between the prime type (walker or scrambled video and the verb type (close or distant match for both literal and metaphorical sentences, but with strikingly different patterns. We found no difference in the verb region of literal sentences for Close-Match verbs after walker or scrambled motion primes, but Distant-Match verbs were read more quickly following walker primes. For metaphorical sentences, the results were roughly reversed, with Distant-Match verbs being read more slowly following a walker compared to scrambled motion. In Experiment 2, we observed a similar pattern following still image primes, though critical interactions emerged later in the sentence. We interpret these findings as evidence for shared recruitment of cognitive and neural mechanisms for processing visual and verbal biological motion information. Metaphoric language using biological motion verbs may recruit neurocognitive mechanisms similar to those used in processing literal language but be represented in a less

  9. Polysemous Verbs and Modality in Native and Non-Native Argumentative Writing: A Corpus-Based Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Salazar, Danica; Verdaguer, Isabel

    2009-01-01

    The present study is a corpus-based analysis of a selection of polysemous lexical verbs used to express modality in student argumentative writing. Twenty-three lexical verbs were searched for in three 100,000-word corpora of argumentative essays written in English by American, Filipino and Spanish university students. Concordance lines were…

  10. Preverbal Particles in Pingelapese: A Language of Micronesia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hattori, Ryoko

    2012-01-01

    This dissertation presents a synchronic and diachronic study of Pingelapese pronouns and auxiliary verbs--"ae", "e", "aen", and "en". Synchronically, Pingelapese employs subject pronominal clitics, not subject agreement markers, unlike Proto-Micronesian and many other contemporary Micronesian languages.…

  11. In my own words: the translation of reporting verbs on the parallel corpus the adventures of Huckleberry Finn — As aventuras de Huck

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniel Alves

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2016v36n1p34 This article examines Monteiro Lobato’s (retextualization of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The analysis focuses on reporting verbs in instances of direct speech. The methodology used for data collection is based on Corpus Linguistics and the analysis built on the hallidayan systemic-functional grammar. The aim of this paper is to explore patterns in the choice of reporting verbs in Twain’s and Lobato’s textualizations particularly in connection with neutral verbs, such as ‘say’ in English and ‘dizer’ in Portuguese. Results show that Lobato’s (retextualization tends to select Free Direct Discourse, (instead of Direct Discourse and a wider variety of reporting verbs, there being no single verb accounting for more than 25% of all occurrences of direct discourse examined. The neutral verb ‘say’ was also observed to have been (retextualized by reporting verbs that signal speech function, indicating either information giving or demanding, and by verbs that realize an additional feature or specify speech connotation.

  12. Noun or Verb? Adult Readers' Sensitivity to Spelling Cues to Grammatical Category in Word Endings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kemp, Nenagh; Nilsson, Jodi; Arciuli, Joanne

    2009-01-01

    The spelling of many disyllabic English word endings holds cues to their grammatical category, beyond obvious inflectional endings such as "-ing" for verbs. For example, some letter sequences are clearly associated with nouns (e.g., "-oon") and others with verbs (e.g., "-erge"). This study extended recent research by Arciuli and Cupples (2006),…

  13. The English Primary Auxiliary Verbs: A Linguistic Theoretical Exercise

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Nekky Umera

    Abstract. Obviously, the fact remains that English Language is a sensitive Language ... Even though the English auxiliary verbs are of two kinds: Primary and Modal auxiliary ..... Therefore we are of the opinion that most speakers lack adequate.

  14. Semi-quantitative methods yield greater inter- and intraobserver agreement than subjective methods for interpreting 99m technetium-hydroxymethylene-diphosphonate uptake in equine thoracic processi spinosi.

    Science.gov (United States)

    van Zadelhoff, Claudia; Ehrle, Anna; Merle, Roswitha; Jahn, Werner; Lischer, Christoph

    2018-05-09

    Scintigraphy is a standard diagnostic method for evaluating horses with back pain due to suspected thoracic processus spinosus pathology. Lesion detection is based on subjective or semi-quantitative assessments of increased uptake. This retrospective, analytical study is aimed to compare semi-quantitative and subjective methods in the evaluation of scintigraphic images of the processi spinosi in the equine thoracic spine. Scintigraphic images of 20 Warmblood horses, presented for assessment of orthopedic conditions between 2014 and 2016, were included in the study. Randomized, blinded image evaluation was performed by 11 veterinarians using subjective and semi-quantitative methods. Subjective grading was performed for the analysis of red-green-blue and grayscale scintigraphic images, which were presented in full-size or as masked images. For the semi-quantitative assessment, observers placed regions of interest over each processus spinosus. The uptake ratio of each processus spinosus in comparison to a reference region of interest was determined. Subsequently, a modified semi-quantitative calculation was developed whereby only the highest counts-per-pixel for a specified number of pixels was processed. Inter- and intraobserver agreement was calculated using intraclass correlation coefficients. Inter- and intraobserver intraclass correlation coefficients were 41.65% and 71.39%, respectively, for the subjective image assessment. Additionally, a correlation between intraobserver agreement, experience, and grayscale images was identified. The inter- and intraobserver agreement was significantly increased when using semi-quantitative analysis (97.35% and 98.36%, respectively) or the modified semi-quantitative calculation (98.61% and 98.82%, respectively). The proposed modified semi-quantitative technique showed a higher inter- and intraobserver agreement when compared to other methods, which makes it a useful tool for the analysis of scintigraphic images. The

  15. Verb inflection in Monolingual Dutch and Sequential Bilingual Turkish-Dutch Children with and without SLI

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blom, Elma; De Jong, Jan; Orgassa, Antje; Baker, Anne; Weerman, Fred

    2013-01-01

    Both children with specific language impairment (SLI) and children who acquire a second language (L2) make errors with verb inflection. This overlap between SLI and L2 raises the question if verb inflection can discriminate between L2 children with and without SLI. In this study we addressed this question for Dutch. The secondary goal of the study…

  16. Cues and economy in the acquisition of verb movement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kristine Bentzen

    2005-02-01

    Full Text Available In this paper we will discuss how economy principles interact with cues in the input in bilingual first language acquisition. We will look at the acquisition of verb placement in a child acquiring English and Norwegian simultaneously. Based on data from this child, it will be argued that when faced with ambiguous cues with respect to the verb movement parameter, children do not necessarily adopt the default, less marked setting. Rather, they may opt for a setting which yields an overall consistent grammar, even when this grammar contains operations that are more costly than those used in the target language. We will suggest that economy in acquisition may involve consistency in a grammar in correlation with economy in the more traditional sense within minimalism, where moving an element in general is considered more costly than not moving it (Chomsky 1995.

  17. The Two-Level Theory of Verb Meaning: An Approach to Integrating the Semantics of Action with the Mirror Neuron System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kemmerer, David; Gonzalez-Castillo, Javier

    2010-01-01

    Verbs have two separate levels of meaning. One level reflects the uniqueness of every verb and is called the "root". The other level consists of a more austere representation that is shared by all the verbs in a given class and is called the "event structure template". We explore the following hypotheses about how, with specific reference to the…

  18. Technical Text Comprehension Difficulties in the Usage of Reflexive Verbs in the French Language

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lina Dubikaltytė-Raugalienė

    2011-04-01

    Full Text Available The author researches the problems of textual competence and especially the reflexive constructions in the texts of French speciality. It was established that there exists some difference in the usage of reflective verbs in the French and the Lithuanian language especially in the field of passive voice and a wider semantics of modal and aspect verbs and that raises not a fen problems of effective text reading problems.

  19. Pourquoi certains verbes admettent-ils les objets implicites indéfinis ? Une réponse pragmatique

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bourmayan Anouch

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Les objets implicites indéfinis – ou OIIs – sont des constituants de sens correspondant sur un plan sémantique à des arguments objet de valeur indéfinie. Ils sont donc paraphrasables par des compléments d'objet direct indéfinis. Cependant, ces constituants sont implicites, au sens où ils n'apparaissent pas dans la forme de surface de l'énoncé. Ainsi, lorsque j'affirme (1, mon énoncé présente les mêmes conditions de vérité que (2 : (1 Marie mange. (2 Marie mange quelque chose. Affirmer que Marie mange, c'est bien affirmer que Marie mange quelque chose. Et comprendre l'énoncé en (1, c'est comprendre qu'il signifie (2. En d'autres termes, (1 met en jeu un OII. Or il semble que parmi les verbes pouvant apparaître avec un complément d'objet direct, tous n'admettent pas l'omission de l'objet et l'interprétation avec un OII. Ainsi, on ne peut pas dire « je suis en train de mettre », au sens de « je suis en train de mettre quelque chose ». Comment expliquer ce contraste entre « manger « et « mettre » ? Plus généralement, comment rendre compte de la distribution des OIIs ? Dans cet article, j'examine tour à tour quatre analyses qui ont été proposées dans la littérature, à savoir l'approche lexicaliste arbitraire, selon laquelle la capacité d'un verbe à admettre les OIIs est déterminée lexicalement mais ne peut être dérivée d'aucun autre trait sémantique du verbe, l'approche lexicaliste aspectuelle, selon laquelle la capacité d'un verbe à admettre les OIIs est déterminée lexicalement, mais peut être dérivée des propriétés aspectuelles du verbe, l'approche lexicaliste événementielle, selon laquelle la capacité d'un verbe à admettre les OIIs est déterminée par la nature de la structure événementielle du verbe, et l'approche constructionniste, selon laquelle les OIIs sont autorisés par des constructions grammaticales spécifiques qui font partie de la connaissance grammaticale des

  20. Verb Errors of Bilingual and Monolingual Basic Writers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Griswold, Olga

    2017-01-01

    This study analyzed the grammatical control of verbs exercised by 145 monolingual English and Generation 1.5 bilingual developmental writers in narrative essays using quantitative and qualitative methods. Generation 1.5 students made more errors than their monolingual peers in each category investigated, albeit in only 2 categories was the…

  1. Anna Dziemianko: User-friendliness of Verb Syntax in Pedagogical ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Abstract. Anna Dziemianko. User-friendliness of Verb Syntax in Pedagogical Dictionaries of English. 2006, XII + 229 pp. ISBN-13: 978-3-484-39130-7. ISBN- 10: 3-484-39130-8. Lexicographica. Series Maior 130. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. Price: €124.

  2. Nouns and verbs in the vocabulary acquisition of Italian children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    D'Odorico, Laura; Fasolo, Mirco

    2007-11-01

    The vocabulary development of 24 Italian children aged between 1;4 and 1;6 at the beginning of the study was longitudinally monitored on a monthly basis using the Italian version of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory drawn up by their mothers. This study analyzes data from children for whom two sampling stages were available; the first corresponding to a vocabulary size as close as possible to 200 words (mean 217, range 167-281), the second to a vocabulary size ranging from 400 to 650 words (mean 518, range 416-648). The children's vocabulary composition was analyzed by calculating, for each sampling stage, the percentage of common nouns, verbs and closed-class words. The increase in percentage points of the various lexical items between the first and second sampling stages was also analyzed. Data confirmed the predominance of nouns over verbs and closed-class words at both sampling stages, while verbs and closed-class words showed a higher percentage increase than nouns. The results provide evidence that children who reached the first sampling point at an earlier age had a higher percentage of nouns than children who reached the same stage at an older age. However, in the passage from the first to the second sampling point no relationship emerged between a style of acquisition based on the acquisition of nouns and an increase in the rate of vocabulary growth.

  3. Differential Impairment of Noun and Verb Consequent to LH Lesions in Persian Aphasic Patients

    OpenAIRE

    Dr. Reza Nilipour; Rabeeh Ariaei; Dr. Hassan Ashayeri

    2003-01-01

    The major focus of this research is on the differential disruption of language abilities subsequent to brain damages as they relate to site and size of lesion, especially left hemisphere lesions which disrupt the production and processing of "Nouns" vs. "Verbs" as two functionally different lexical categories. Several clinical as well as experimental studies reported on different language have shown that nouns and verbs can be independently disrupted due to brain damage. A prevalent impairmen...

  4. Word Class Ratios and Genres in Written Japanese: Revisiting the Modifier Verb Ratio

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bor HODOŠČEK

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available This paper explores the variability of genres in the Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese using the modifier-verb ratio proposed by Kabashima and Jukaku (1965. Using bagplots to quantifying the relation between noun and modifier-verb ratios, as well as some summary statistics obtain from them, we attempt to classify genres according to Kabashima and Jugaku (1965. Our initial analysis confirms previous research results, while at the same time uncovering some contradictions in the ratios of the genre of magazines.

  5. How Does Dissociation between Written and Oral Forms Affect Reading: Evidence from Auxiliary Verbs in Arabic

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ibrahim, Raphiq

    2011-01-01

    In Arabic, auxiliary verbs are necessary in the written language, but absent from the oral language. This is contrary to languages such as English and French in which auxiliary verbs are mandatory in both written and oral languages. This fact was exploited to examine if dissociation between written and oral forms affects reading measures like…

  6. Alternation vs. Allomorphic Variation in Old English Word-Formation: Evidence from the Derivational Paradigm of Strong Verbs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Urraca Carmen Novo

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available This article addresses the question of Old English alternations with a view to identifying instances of allomorphic variation attributable to the loss of motivation and the subsequent morphologization of alternations. The focus is on the strong verb and its derivatives, in such a way that the alternations in which the strong verb partakes can be predicted on the basis of phonological principles, whereas allomorphic variation with respect to the strong verb base is unpredictable. Out of 304 derivational paradigms based on strong verbs and comprising 4,853 derivatives, 478 instances have been found of phonologically motivated vocalic alternations. The conclusion is reached that the most frequent alternations are those that have /a/ as source and those with /y/ as target, because /a/ is the point of departure of i-mutation and /y/ its point of arrival. Sixteen instances of allomorphic variation have also been found, of which /e/ ~ /eo/, /e/ ~ /ea/ and /i/ ~ /e/ are relatively frequent.

  7. Characteristics of "Tween" Participants and Non-Participants in the VERB[TM] Summer Scorecard Physical Activity Promotion Program

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nickelson, Jen; Alfonso, Moya L.; McDermott, Robert J.; Bumpus, Elizabeth C.; Bryant, Carol A.; Baldwin, Julie A.

    2011-01-01

    Creating community-based opportunities for youth to be physically active is challenging for many municipalities. A Lexington, Kentucky community coalition designed and piloted a physical activity program, "VERB[TM] summer scorecard (VSS)", leveraging the brand equity of the national VERB[TM]--It's What You Do! campaign. Key elements of…

  8. Agreement in Persian

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lofti, Ahmad R.

    2006-01-01

    Full Text Available This article investigates agreement as a number marking mechanism in Persian. The mechanism differs from number marking on nominals in that with an inanimate plural subject, the SG verbal ending signals a collective conceptualization of the experience where the members of the group are considered together as a single unit. The PL ending, on the other hand, signals a distributive conceptualization where the entities are individuated; hence, they are considered to be dispersed over space, or distinct in sort or time. Autonomy - whether the entity is conceived of as governing the course of events or not - seems to underlie the choice between SG and PL.

  9. Combined convective and diffusive modeling of the ring current and radiation belt electron dynamics using the VERB-4D code

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aseev, N.; Shprits, Y.; Drozdov, A.; Kellerman, A. C.; Wang, D.

    2017-12-01

    Ring current and radiation belts are key elements in the global dynamics of the Earth's magnetosphere. Comprehensive mathematical models are useful tools that allow us to understand the multiscale dynamics of these charged particle populations. In this work, we present results of simulations of combined ring current - radiation belt electron dynamics using the four-dimensional Versatile Electron Radiation Belt (VERB-4D) code. The VERB-4D code solves the modified Fokker-Planck equation including convective terms and models simultaneously ring current (1 - 100 keV) and radiation belt (100 keV - several MeV) electron dynamics. We apply the code to the number of geomagnetic storms that occurred in the past, compare the results with different satellite observations, and show how low-energy particles can affect the high-energy populations. Particularly, we use data from Polar Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) mission that provides a very good MLT coverage with 1.5-hour time resolution. The POES data allow us to validate the approach of the VERB-4D code for modeling MLT-dependent processes such as electron drift, wave-particle interactions, and magnetopause shadowing. We also show how different simulation parameters and empirical models can affect the results, making a particular emphasis on the electric and magnetic field models. This work will help us reveal advantages and disadvantages of the approach behind the code and determine its prediction efficiency.

  10. Action Speaks Louder than Words: Young Children Differentially Weight Perceptual, Social, and Linguistic Cues to Learn Verbs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brandone, Amanda C.; Pence, Khara L.; Golinkoff, Roberta Michnick; Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy

    2007-01-01

    This paper explores how children use two possible solutions to the verb-mapping problem: attention to perceptually salient actions and attention to social and linguistic information (speaker cues). Twenty-two-month-olds attached a verb to one of two actions when perceptual cues (presence/absence of a result) coincided with speaker cues but not…

  11. Tense Usage Analysis in Verb Distribution in Brazilian Portuguese.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoge, Henry W., Comp.

    This section of a four-part research project investigating the syntax of Brazilian Portuguese presents data concerning tense usage in verb distribution. The data are derived from the analysis of selected literary samples from representative and contemporary writers. The selection of authors and tabulation of data are also described. Materials…

  12. Social Marketing as a Framework for Youth Physical Activity Initiatives: a 10-Year Retrospective on the Legacy of CDC's VERB Campaign.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huhman, Marian; Kelly, Ryan P; Edgar, Timothy

    2017-06-01

    In 2002, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched the VERB. It's what you do! campaign to increase physical activity among tweens and concomitantly respond to the rise in childhood obesity. This retrospective study summarizes the history of the VERB campaign's social marketing approach and its effectiveness in promoting behavior change in the targeted population. The legacy of VERB, which ended in 2006, is discussed, with an emphasis on examining initiatives over the last decade and the degree to which they followed (or did not follow) the structural and thematic lead of the campaign. The article ends with suggestions for how VERB still has the potential to inform other social marketing campaigns going forward.

  13. Walking-adaptability assessments with the Interactive Walkway: Between-systems agreement and sensitivity to task and subject variations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Geerse, Daphne J; Coolen, Bert H; Roerdink, Melvyn

    2017-05-01

    The ability to adapt walking to environmental circumstances is an important aspect of walking, yet difficult to assess. The Interactive Walkway was developed to assess walking adaptability by augmenting a multi-Kinect-v2 10-m walkway with gait-dependent visual context (stepping targets, obstacles) using real-time processed markerless full-body kinematics. In this study we determined Interactive Walkway's usability for walking-adaptability assessments in terms of between-systems agreement and sensitivity to task and subject variations. Under varying task constraints, 21 healthy subjects performed obstacle-avoidance, sudden-stops-and-starts and goal-directed-stepping tasks. Various continuous walking-adaptability outcome measures were concurrently determined with the Interactive Walkway and a gold-standard motion-registration system: available response time, obstacle-avoidance and sudden-stop margins, step length, stepping accuracy and walking speed. The same holds for dichotomous classifications of success and failure for obstacle-avoidance and sudden-stops tasks and performed short-stride versus long-stride obstacle-avoidance strategies. Continuous walking-adaptability outcome measures generally agreed well between systems (high intraclass correlation coefficients for absolute agreement, low biases and narrow limits of agreement) and were highly sensitive to task and subject variations. Success and failure ratings varied with available response times and obstacle types and agreed between systems for 85-96% of the trials while obstacle-avoidance strategies were always classified correctly. We conclude that Interactive Walkway walking-adaptability outcome measures are reliable and sensitive to task and subject variations, even in high-functioning subjects. We therefore deem Interactive Walkway walking-adaptability assessments usable for obtaining an objective and more task-specific examination of one's ability to walk, which may be feasible for both high

  14. Verbs: Some properties and their consequences for agrammatic Broca's aphasia

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bastiaanse, Y.R.M.; Rispens, J.E.; Ruigendijk, E.; Juncos Rabadán, O.; Thompson, C.K.

    2002-01-01

    It has repeatedly been shown that agrammatic Broca's aphasics have serious problems with the retrieval of verbs on action naming tests (Miceli, Silveri, Villa & Caramazza, 1984; Kohn, Lorch Pearson, 1989; Basso, Razzano, Faglioni Zanobio, 1990; Jonkers, 1998; Kim & Thompson, 2000). Less attention

  15. Verb argument structure in narrative speech: Mining the AphasiaBank

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dirk B. Den Ouden

    2015-04-01

    These results show that verb retrieval itself is not limited by argument structure complexity in speakers with aphasia, suggesting that problems with VAS may occur ‘down the line’, i.e. with the use of VAS in sentence production and/or processing.

  16. Verb-second word order after German weil ‘because’: Psycholinguistic theory from corpus-linguistic data

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gerard Kempen

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available In present-day spoken German, subordinate clauses introduced by the connector 'weil '‘because’ occur with two orders of subject, finite verb, and object(s. In addition to 'weil 'clauses with verb-final word order (“VF”; standard in subordinate clauses one often hears 'weil 'clauses with SVO, the standard order of main clauses (“verb-second”, V2. The “'weil'-V2” phenomenon is restricted to sentences where the 'weil 'clause follows the main clause, and is virtually absent from formal (written, edited German, occurring only in extemporaneous speech. Extant accounts of 'weil'-V2 focus on the interpretation of 'weil'-V2 clauses by the hearer, in particular on the type of discourse relation licensed by 'weil'-V2 vs. 'weil'-VF: causal/propositional or inferential/epistemic. Focusing instead on the production of 'weil 'clauses by the speaker, we examine a collection of about 1,000 sentences featuring a causal connector ('weil, da 'or 'denn' after the main clause, all extracted from a corpus of spoken German dialogues and annotated with tags denoting major prosodic and syntactic boundaries, and various types of disfluencies (pauses, hesitations. Based on the observed frequency patterns and on known linguistic properties of the connectors, we propose that 'weil'-V2 is caused by miscoordination between the mechanisms for lexical retrieval and grammatical encoding: Due to its high frequency, the lexical item 'weil 'is often selected prematurely, while the grammatical encoder is still working on the syntactic shape of the 'weil 'clause. 'Weil'-V2 arises when pragmatic and processing factors drive the encoder to discontinue the current sentence, and to plan the clause following 'weil 'in the form of the main clause of an independent, new sentence. Thus, the speaker continues with a V2 clause, seemingly in violation of the VF constraint imposed by the preceding 'weil'. We also explore implications of the model regarding the interpretation of

  17. Topic: Conjoint and disjoint verb alternations in Dagbani

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Samuel

    The data for the study is drawn from two ... speech in linguistic analysis, since it is not influenced by the particular research agenda. Though a native speaker of the Tomosili dialect myself, the generalizations concerning the verb ..... buy.PERF book. 'Mandeeya has bought a book.' c. Bì-hí máá sà. 3 kú-yà pàm DJ child.PL.

  18. A characterization of verb use in Turkish agrammatic narrative speech

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Arslan, Seçkin; Bamyacı, Elif; Bastiaanse, Roelien

    2016-01-01

    This study investigates the characteristics of narrative-speech production and the use of verbs in Turkish agrammatic speakers (n = 10) compared to non-brain-damaged controls (n = 10). To elicit narrative-speech samples, personal interviews and storytelling tasks were conducted. Turkish has a large

  19. 19 VERB SECOND IN AFRIKAANS: IS THIS A UNITARY ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    KATEVG

    to be weak on this analysis, the lexical verb does not enter into the scope of the tense features ... production of native Afrikaans speakers did not always conform to the prescriptive ... from previous studies investigating the behaviour of Afrikaans ECs - see footnote 21 - which ..... I think that you will the book much enjoy. 25.

  20. Variability in the Second Language Acquisition of Verb Morphology ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This article seeks to make a developmental study of variability in the acquisition of verb morphology by second language (L2) pupils who learn at an English input impoverished school where variability in learner language is often presumed to be quite extensive. By studying variability in such settings, it is hoped that we can ...

  1. Syntactic flexibility and planning scope: The effect of verb bias on advance planning during sentence recall

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maartje evan de Velde

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available In sentence production, grammatical advance planning scope depends on contextual factors (e.g., time pressure, linguistic factors (e.g., ease of structural processing, and cognitive factors (e.g., production speed. The present study tests the influence of the availability of multiple syntactic alternatives (i.e., syntactic flexibility on the scope of advance planning during the recall of Dutch dative phrases. We manipulated syntactic flexibility by using verbs with a strong bias or a weak bias towards one structural alternative in sentence frames accepting both verbs (e.g., strong/weak bias: De ober schotelt/serveert de klant de maaltijd [voor] 'The waiter dishes out/serves the customer the meal'. To assess lexical planning scope, we varied the frequency of the first post-verbal noun (N1, Experiment 1 or the second post-verbal noun (N2, Experiment 2. In each experiment, 36 speakers produced the verb phrases in a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP paradigm. On each trial, they read a sentence presented one word at a time, performed a short distractor task, and then saw a sentence preamble (e.g., De ober… which they had to complete to form the presented sentence. Onset latencies were compared using linear mixed effects models. N1 frequency did not produce any effects. N2 frequency only affected sentence onsets in the weak verb bias condition and especially in slow speakers. These findings highlight the dependency of planning scope during sentence recall on the grammatical properties of the verb and the frequency of post-verbal nouns. Implications for utterance planning in everyday speech are discussed.

  2. Did augmenting the VERB campaign advertising in select communities have an effect on awareness, attitudes, and physical activity?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berkowitz, Judy M; Huhman, Marian; Nolin, Mary Jo

    2008-06-01

    Although VERB was designed as a national media campaign, funding and donated media time enabled more-intensive advertising and marketing in certain communities. To investigate the effect of increased advertising on physical activity outcomes, six "high-dose" communities were selected to receive more hours of advertising and additional promotional activities. Longitudinal quasi-experimental design comparing outcomes in six communities that received additional VERB marketing activities with outcomes in a comparison group that received only the national dose of advertising. Two cohorts of dyads of youth aged 9-13 years (tweens) and one parent at baseline (2002), followed for 2 years. During the first year of the VERB campaign, each of the six high-dose communities received 50% more advertising and conducted special campaign activities. During the second year, only four of the six communities received the larger dose of advertising and additional promotional activities because of reduced funding. Awareness and understanding of VERB messages; attitudes about physical activity (self-efficacy, social influences, and outcome expectations); and physical activity behaviors. After 1 year, tweens in the high-dose communities reported higher levels of awareness and understanding of VERB and scored higher on the social influences scale than did tweens in a comparison group in areas that received only the national dose of advertising. After 2 years, tweens in the high-dose communities reported higher awareness and understanding of VERB, greater self-efficacy, more sessions of free-time physical activity per week, and were more active on the day before being surveyed than tweens in the comparison group who received the average national dose. Providing communities with a higher dose of marketing activities and sustaining those activities over time yields more positive outcomes.

  3. The metaphor in the grammaticalization process of the verb DANAR to express inceptive aspect with extension of the action in Brazilian Portuguese

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Thaís Franco de Paula

    Full Text Available This paper aims to present how a metaphor acts in the grammaticalization process of the verb DANAR, from Brazilian Portuguese, ranging from the full lexical verb to the grammatical, auxiliary verb in constructions like: "The kid danou(-se to cry", hereby referred to as V1DANAR + (pron + (prep + V2infinitive. We support that this new usage of DANAR, perceived as a marker of an inceptive aspect with an extension of action, is a consequence of a metaphorical cognitive process that involves imagetic schemes of motion and force, which already existed within the concrete form of DANAR, which justifies that this verb, although not the archetypal aspect marker, may have updated this grammatical category.

  4. The Dangling model in the construction of compound sentences with regard to verb tenses

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mahmoud Mehravaran

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available Abstract A sentence is the most complete syntactic unit of a language. The construction of a sentence is the most comprehensive, controversial and fascinating syntactic issue in the language grammar. The message or intention is usually conveyed through a sentence. In fact, the communicative function of a language is carried out via a sentence. A sentence can be classified in to different categories from different perspectives: semantically, constructively or performatively either with a verb or without a verb and also with regard to the construction. With regard to the construction, a sentence is either simple or compound. A simple sentence is the one with a complete meaning which only has one verb. It must be born in mind that a sentence is a complete unit whit meaning and there can be a hesitation after that. There for units of speech that have a verb without a complete meaning and there can be no silence or hesitation after them cannot be regarded as a sentence. Since they are dependent upon another sentence to be completed. They are called phrases. Such phrases can be incorporated in compound sentences make main and subordinate clauses. Compound sentences are widely discussed whit in grammatical constructions, but their types and that how have been built their various constructions are less adequately discussed. With regard to the manner of construction of compound sentences, the widest linguistic amenities can be observed in the sentences. There is not such complexity or disagreement over simple sentences but compound sentences have been less adequately investigated and there is room for more discussion and debate. Because, in some grammars, without considering the construction criteria, all sentences that are connected to one another, whit connectives are called compound sentences. This paper has precisely investigated compound sentences and has elaborated on the construction criteria of compound sentences. The study has also pointed to

  5. Language-Game and Language Tendency: Conceptual Correlation (on the Example of the Modern Transitivity of Russian Intransitive Verbs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Olena Nekrylova

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available The article is devoted to the clarification of the question of the possibility of correlation between the concepts of language-game and the language trend, which is carried out on the example of modern transitive Russian intransitive verbs. Said correlation is concretized by elucidating the possibility of a gradual transition from a language-game to the transitivity of intransitive verbs to the empirically confirmed tendency of their transition. The opinions of the researchers of the language-game concerning the possibility of manifesting such a tendency are supported by examples that show the gradual transition of the language-game into the transitivity of intransitive verbs into the corresponding linguistic tendency.

  6. Cooking verbs and metaphor Contrastive study of Greek and French

    OpenAIRE

    Tsaknaki, Olympia

    2016-01-01

    The present cross-linguistic study deals with cooking verbs in Greek and French in the light of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory. It intends to explore uniformity and diversity in metaphorical conceptualizations and the lexical choices they underlie. It also discusses the significance of metaphor awareness in foreign language teaching.

  7. A Morphological Analysis of English-Igbo Merged Verbs in Code ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This study examines the influence of Igbo morphemes on English verb structure in code-mixed/switched utterances. There is overwhelming evidence that English and Igbo languages interfere with each other in informal conversations of the Igbo-English bilinguals. This calls for researches to ascertain the degree of English ...

  8. Dependency-dependent interference: NPI interference, agreement attraction, and global pragmatic inferences

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ming eXiang

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available Previous psycholinguistics studies have shown that when forming a long distance dependency in online processing, the parser sometimes accepts a sentence even though the required grammatical constraints are only partially met. A mechanistic account of how such errors arise sheds light on both the underlying linguistic representations involved and the processing mechanisms that put such representations together. In the current study, we contrast the NPI (negative polarity items interference effect, as shown by the acceptance of an ungrammatical sentence like The bills that democratic senators have voted for will ever become law, with the well-known phenomenon of agreement attraction (The key to the cabinets are…. On the surface, these two types of errors look alike and thereby can be explained as being driven by the same source: similarity based memory interference. However, we argue that the linguistic representations involved in NPI licensing are substantially different from those of subject-verb agreement, and therefore the interference effects in each domain potentially arise from distinct sources. In particular, we show that NPI interference at least partially arises from pragmatic inferences. In a self-paced reading study with an acceptability judgment task, we showed NPI interference was modulated by participants’ general pragmatic communicative skills, as quantified by the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (Baron-Cohen 2001, especially in offline tasks. Participants with more autistic traits were actually less prone to the NPI interference effect than those with fewer autistic traits. This result contrasted with agreement attraction conditions, which were not influenced by individual pragmatic skill differences. We also show that different NPI licensors have distinct interference profiles. We discuss two kinds of interference effects for NPI licensing: memory-retrieval based and pragmatically triggered.

  9. Recalling Arabic and English Prefixed and Suffixed Verbs among Arabic-English Bilingual Speakers: An Experimental Study in Relation to Working Memory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jiyar Othman

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The current study focuses on how prefixes and suffixes in Arabic and English impact one’s working memory capacity to recall verbs.  Further, it deals with whether or not Arabic-English bilingual speakers recall Arabic and English prefixed and suffixed verbs differently. To investigate this, the study was conducted in the form of two experiments on a group of 10 graduate students. The first experiment was on Arabic prefixed and suffixed verbs, whereas the second experiment was conducted similarly on English. The study concluded that suffixed Arabic verbs were recalled more than the prefixed ones, whereas in English the result was contrary where the participants could recall prefixed verbs more than the suffixed ones. This shows that L2 (Second Language does not differ from L1 (First Language in the effort exerted to recall words. Rather, the findings may suggest that it is easier to recall words in the second language, which might be due to the intensive instruction received in the second language. The study also discovered that several other factors played important roles in making the participants recall the items such as word-length effect, frequency and recency of the words.

  10. Cognitive semantic networks: emotional verbs throw a tantrum but don't bite

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Petersen, Michael Kai; Hansen, Lars Kai

    2012-01-01

    Neuroimaging studies have over the past decades established that language is grounded in sensorimotor areas of the brain. The same neuronal circuits seem involved whether we literally pick up a ball or in a phrase refer to grasping an idea. However recent findings have demonstrated that not only ...... semantic analysis, multidimensional scaling, hierarchical clustering and network graph analysis to quantify their interaction and identify parameters of force and spatial differentiation which we propose cognitively relate emotions to sensorimotor action schemas....... leg, hand and face related but also emotional action verbs activate premotor systems in the brain. Hypothesizing that the force and spatial parameters which define action based language might also be reflected in the latent semantics of words, we select motor and emotion related verbs and apply latent...

  11. Prosodic Disambiguation of Noun/Verb Homophones in Child-Directed Speech

    Science.gov (United States)

    Conwell, Erin

    2017-01-01

    One strategy that children might use to sort words into grammatical categories such as noun and verb is distributional bootstrapping, in which local co-occurrence information is used to distinguish between categories. Words that can be used in more than one grammatical category could be problematic for this approach. Using naturalistic corpus…

  12. Is Moving More Memorable than Proving? Effects of Embodiment and Imagined Enactment on Verb Memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sidhu, David M; Pexman, Penny M

    2016-01-01

    Theories of embodied cognition propose that sensorimotor information is simulated during language processing (e.g., Barsalou, 1999). Previous studies have demonstrated that differences in simulation can have implications for word processing; for instance, lexical processing is facilitated for verbs that have relatively more embodied meanings (e.g., Sidhu et al., 2014). Here we examined the effects of these differences on memory for verbs. We observed higher rates of recognition (Experiments 1a-2a) and recall accuracy (Experiments 2b-3b) for verbs with a greater amount of associated bodily information (i.e., an embodiment effect). We also examined how this interacted with the imagined enactment effect: a memory benefit for actions that one imagines performing (e.g., Ditman et al., 2010). We found that these two effects did not interact (Experiment 3b), suggesting that the memory benefits of automatic simulation (i.e., the embodiment effect) and deliberate simulation (i.e., the imagined enactment effect) are distinct. These results provide evidence for the role of simulation in language processing, and its effects on memory.

  13. The Dangling model in the construction of compound sentences with regard to verb tenses

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mahmoud Mehravaran

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract A sentence is the most complete syntactic unit of a language. The construction of a sentence is the most comprehensive, controversial and fascinating syntactic issue in the language grammar. The message or intention is usually conveyed through a sentence. In fact, the communicative function of a language is carried out via a sentence. A sentence can be classified in to different categories from different perspectives: semantically, constructively or performatively either with a verb or without a verb and also with regard to the construction. With regard to the construction, a sentence is either simple or compound. A simple sentence is the one with a complete meaning which only has one verb. It must be born in mind that a sentence is a complete unit whit meaning and there can be a hesitation after that. There for units of speech that have a verb without a complete meaning and there can be no silence or hesitation after them cannot be regarded as a sentence. Since they are dependent upon another sentence to be completed. They are called phrases. Such phrases can be incorporated in compound sentences make main and subordinate clauses. Compound sentences are widely discussed whit in grammatical constructions, but their types and that how have been built their various constructions are less adequately discussed. With regard to the manner of construction of compound sentences, the widest linguistic amenities can be observed in the sentences. There is not such complexity or disagreement over simple sentences but compound sentences have been less adequately investigated and there is room for more discussion and debate. Because, in some grammars, without considering the construction criteria, all sentences that are connected to one another, whit connectives are called compound sentences. This paper has precisely investigated compound sentences and has elaborated on the construction criteria of compound sentences. The study has also pointed to

  14. Effects of a mass media campaign to increase physical activity among children: year-1 results of the VERB campaign.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huhman, Marian; Potter, Lance D; Wong, Faye L; Banspach, Stephen W; Duke, Jennifer C; Heitzler, Carrie D

    2005-08-01

    To determine the effects of a mass media campaign on the levels of physical activity among children 9 to 13 years of age. A prospective, longitudinal, quasi-experimental design was used. A baseline survey was conducted in April to June 2002, before the launch of VERB advertising. Random-digit-dialing methods were used to survey a nationally representative sample of children and parents. The follow-up survey was repeated with the same cohort of children and parents in April to June 2003. Propensity scoring was used to determine the campaign's effects on awareness and physical activity behaviors. United States. A total of 3120 parent-child dyads. Intervention. The VERB campaign is a multiethnic campaign that combines paid advertisements with school and community promotions and Internet activities to encourage children 9 to 13 years of age to be physically active every day. Launched in 2002 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, VERB uses commercial marketing methods to advertise being physically active as cool, fun, and a chance to have a good time with friends. Using the VERB brand, paid advertising ran nationally from June 2002 through June 2003, targeting 9- to 13-year-old youths. Children's awareness of the campaign and self-reported estimates of free-time and organized physical activity sessions during nonschool hours in the week before the interview. After 1 year, 74% of children surveyed were aware of the VERB campaign. Levels of reported sessions of free-time physical activity increased for subgroups of children 9 to 13 years of age. A pattern of effects across 2 measures was observed for younger children (9-10 years of age), girls, children whose parents had less than a high school education, children from urban areas that were densely populated, and children who were low active at baseline. These subgroups engaged in more median weekly sessions of free-time physical activity than did children who were unaware of VERB and, as the children's level

  15. Bringing "play" to life: the use of experiential marketing in the VERB campaign.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heitzler, Carrie D; Asbury, Lori D; Kusner, Stella L

    2008-06-01

    Given the abundance of advertising and media that children and adolescents are exposed to today, it is increasingly important to incorporate nontraditional channels and venues in strategies designed to reach them. One such channel that the CDC's VERB campaign employed was experiential marketing, which is defined here as a live event or experience that gives the target audience the opportunity to see a product and experience it for themselves. Experiential marketing and the tactics that the VERB campaign used to reach children aged 9-13 years (tweens) with health messages about physical activity are described, including a discussion about how other public health campaigns might use experiential marketing and other commercial marketing techniques to reach the public with public health messages.

  16. Secret-Key Agreement with Public Discussion subject to an Amplitude Constraint

    KAUST Repository

    Zorgui, Marwen

    2016-04-06

    This paper considers the problem of secret-key agreement with public discussion subject to a peak power constraint A on the channel input. The optimal input distribution is proved to be discrete with finite support. To overcome the computationally heavy search for the optimal discrete distribution, several suboptimal schemes are proposed and shown numerically to perform close to the capacity. Moreover, lower and upper bounds for the secret-key capacity are provided and used to prove that the secret-key capacity converges for asymptotic high values of A, to the secret-key capacity with an average power constraint A2. Finally, when the amplitude constraint A is small (A ! 0), the secret-key capacity is proved to be asymptotically equal to the capacity of the legitimate user with an amplitude constraint A and no secrecy constraint.

  17. Secret-Key Agreement with Public Discussion subject to an Amplitude Constraint

    KAUST Repository

    Zorgui, Marwen; Rezki, Zouheir; Alomair, Basel; Alouini, Mohamed-Slim

    2016-01-01

    This paper considers the problem of secret-key agreement with public discussion subject to a peak power constraint A on the channel input. The optimal input distribution is proved to be discrete with finite support. To overcome the computationally heavy search for the optimal discrete distribution, several suboptimal schemes are proposed and shown numerically to perform close to the capacity. Moreover, lower and upper bounds for the secret-key capacity are provided and used to prove that the secret-key capacity converges for asymptotic high values of A, to the secret-key capacity with an average power constraint A2. Finally, when the amplitude constraint A is small (A ! 0), the secret-key capacity is proved to be asymptotically equal to the capacity of the legitimate user with an amplitude constraint A and no secrecy constraint.

  18. Chinese L1 children's English L2 verb morphology over time: individual variation in long-term outcomes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paradis, Johanne; Tulpar, Yasemin; Arppe, Antti

    2016-05-01

    This study examined accuracy in production and grammaticality judgements of verb morphology by eighteen Chinese-speaking children learning English as a second language (L2) followed longitudinally from four to six years of exposure to English, and who began to learn English at age 4;2. Children's growth in accuracy with verb morphology reached a plateau by six years, where 11/18 children did not display native-speaker levels of accuracy for one or more morphemes. Variation in children's accuracy with verb morphology was predicted by their English vocabulary size and verbal short-term memories primarily, and quality and quantity of English input at home secondarily. This study shows that even very young L2 learners might not all catch up to native speakers in this time frame and that non-age factors play a role in determining individual variation in child L2 learners' long-term outcomes with English morphology.

  19. Is there an agreement among the items of the Korean physical therapist licensing examination, learning objectives of class subjects, and physical therapists' job descriptions?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kang, Min-Hyeok; Kwon, Oh-Yun; Kim, Yong-Wook; Kim, Ji-Won; Kim, Tae-Ho; Oh, Tae-Young; Weon, Jong-Hyuk; Lee, Tae-Sik; Oh, Jae-Seop

    2016-01-01

    To determine the agreement among the items of the Korean physical therapist licensing examination, learning objectives of class subjects, and physical therapists' job descriptions. The main tasks of physical therapists were classified, and university courses related to the main tasks were also classified. Frequency analysis was used to determine the proportions of credits for the classified courses out of the total credits of major subjects, exam items related to the classified courses out of the total number of exam items, and universities that offer courses related to the Korean physical therapist licensing examination among the surveyed universities. The proportions of credits for clinical decision making and physical therapy diagnosis-related courses out of the total number credits for major subjects at universities were relatively low (2.06% and 2.58%, respectively). Although the main tasks of physical therapists are related to diagnosis and evaluation, the proportion of physiotherapy intervention-related items (35%) was higher than that of examination and evaluation-related items (25%) on the Korean physical therapist licensing examination. The percentages of universities that offer physical therapy diagnosis and clinical decision making-related courses were 58.62% and 68.97%, respectively. Both the proportion of physiotherapy diagnosis and evaluation-related items on the Korean physical therapist licensing examination, and the number of subjects related to clinical decision making and physical therapy diagnosis in the physical therapy curriculum, should be increased to ensure that the examination items and physical therapy curriculum reflect the practical tasks of physical therapists.

  20. Uma investigação dos sentidos de um phrasal verb por meio dos corpora e dicionários on-line

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Emiliana Fernandes Bonalumi

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available Nesta pesquisa analisamos o uso do phrasal verbs throw up encontrado em dois corpora on-line originalmente escritos em língua inglesa, a saber: British National Corpus (BNC e Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA, bem como no livro didático adotado em sala de aula New English File Upper-Intermediate, com o suporte dos dicionários on-line Cambridge Online Dictionary e Macmillan Dictionary. Objetivamos identificar, classificar e generalizar o uso e significados do phrasal verb selecionado para a análise nos respectivos corpora on-line em relação ao seu uso e significado no livro didático anteriormente mencionado. Por meio dos corpora e dicionários on-line, o aluno expandirá seu conhecimento acerca do uso e significados de um determinado phrasal verb, como o analisado nesta investigação. Palavras-chave: linguística de corpus; ensino movido por dados; phrasal verbs.

  1. Keeping it simple: Studying grammatical encoding with lexically-reduced item sets

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alma eVeenstra

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Compared to the large body of work on lexical access, little research has been done on grammatical encoding in language production. An exception is the generation of subject-verb agreement. Here, two key findings have been reported: (1 Speakers make more agreement errors when the head and local noun of a phrase mismatch in number than when they match (e.g., the key to the cabinet(s; and (2 this attraction effect is asymmetric, with stronger attraction for singular than for plural head nouns. Although these findings are robust, the cognitive processes leading to agreement errors and their significance for the generation of correct agreement are not fully understood. We propose that future studies of agreement, and grammatical encoding in general, may benefit from using paradigms that tightly control the variability of the lexical content of the material.We report two experiments illustrating this approach. In both of them, the experimental items featured combinations of four nouns, four color adjectives, and two prepositions. In Experiment 1, native speakers of Dutch described pictures in sentences such as the circle next to the stars is blue. In Experiment 2, they carried out a forced-choice task, where they read subject noun phrases (e.g., the circle next to the stars and selected the correct verb-phrase (is blue or are blue with a button press. Both experiments showed an attraction effect, with more errors after subject phrases with mismatching, compared to matching head and local nouns. This effect was stronger for singular than plural heads, replicating the attraction asymmetry. In contrast, the response times recorded in Experiment 2 showed similar attraction effects for singular and plural head nouns. These results demonstrate that critical agreement phenomena can be elicited reliably in lexically-reduced contexts. We discuss the theoretical implications of the findings and the potential and limitations of studies using lexically simple

  2. Teaching Grammar: The Use of The English Auxiliary "BE" Present Tense Verb among Malaysian Form 4 and Form 5 Students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jishvithaa, Joanna M.; Tabitha, M.; Kalajahi, Seyed Ali Rezvani

    2013-01-01

    This research paper aims to explore the usage of the English Auxiliary "Be" Present Tense Verb, using corpus based method among Malaysian form 4 and form 5 students. This study is conducted by identifying and classifying the types of errors in the Auxiliary "Be" Present Tense verb in students' compositions from the MCSAW corpus…

  3. Exploring Emotive Verbs in Persian and English Short Stories: A Contrastive Sociopragmatic Approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Karimi, Keihaneh; Biria, Reza

    2017-04-01

    Current developments in the areas of discourse analysis and cross-cultural studies have led to an increased interest in the way people of different cultures express their affections on various occasions. Individuals learn how to regulate their emotional reactions according to sociocultural norms of behavior defined by the cultures to which they belong. Accordingly, this article aimed to investigate the linguistic expression of emotions in English and Persian short stories in order to fathom out the impact of culture on the way feelings are expressed cross-culturally. For this purpose, a corpus of eight different English and Persian short stories, four in each language, was selected based on a purposive sampling method. Then, using Devon's (The origin of emotions, 2006) typology of emotions, different types of emotive verbs were selected as the unit of analysis. Finally, the frequency and percentage values of emotive verb tokens used in these stories were carefully tabulated in terms of types and their respective metalinguistic categories introduced by Wierzbicka (Emotions across languages and cultures: diversity and universals, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999). The results obtained from the analysis of the targeted corpora reflected that English and Persian writers employ different types of emotive verbs in expressing their feelings. Essentially, the findings of the present study may have important implications for language teachers, material developers, and course designers.

  4. On the Tupi-Guaranian prehistory of the Siriono verb

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Roland Hemmauer

    2007-08-01

    Full Text Available This paper shows that the verbal morphosyntax of Siriono, which is synchronically highly divergent from that of other Tupi-Guaranian (TG languages, can be derived from the recon structed proto-TG (PTG system. Arguments will be presented to show that the SA=A series of person markers (e.g. PTG 1SG *a- has merged with the SO=O series (e.g. PTG 1SG *če- in the 1st and 2nd plural persons in Siriono. In spite of this partial merger of two series of person markers, morphological ele ments that appeared in PTG between the personal prefix and the stem of transitive verbs have been retained in Siriono with an identical distribution. The partial merger of the SA=A series with the SO=O series is explained by a combination of phonological and syntactic motivations. Additional evidence is drawn from Siriono’s closely related sister language Yuki. Apart from this, the prefix k- that occurs on third-person forms of ‘comitative-causative’ verbs in Siriono has retained a trace of the PTG third-person prefix *o- in spite of the emergence of an innovated third-person prefix e-. These facts are taken as evidence of a PTG origin of the Siriono system.

  5. Agreement Between the Government of India and the International Atomic Energy Agency for the Application of Safeguards to Civilian Nuclear Facilities. Addition to the List of Facilities Subject to Safeguards Under the Agreement

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2014-01-01

    In accordance with Paragraph 14(a) of the Agreement between the Government of India and the International Atomic Energy Agency for the Application of Safeguards to Civilian Nuclear Facilities (hereinafter “the Agreement”), India shall notify the Agency in writing of its decision to offer any facility identified by India for Agency safeguards under the Agreement. Any facility so notified by India becomes subject to the Agreement as of the date of receipt by the Agency of such written notification from India, and is to be included in the Annex to the Agreement. On 11 March 2014, the Agency received from India written notification, pursuant to Paragraph 14(a) of the Agreement, of its decision to bring one additional facility under safeguards in accordance with the provisions of the Agreement. Pursuant to Paragraph 14 4(a) of the Agreement, the Annex to the Agreement has been updated and is reproduced in this document for the information of all Members of the Agency

  6. Agreement Between the Government of India and the International Atomic Energy Agency for the Application of Safeguards to Civilian Nuclear Facilities. Addition to the List of Facilities Subject to Safeguards Under the Agreement

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2014-01-01

    In accordance with Paragraph 14(a) of the Agreement between the Government of India and the International Atomic Energy Agency for the Application of Safeguards to Civilian Nuclear Facilities (hereinafter “the Agreement”), India shall notify the Agency in writing of its decision to offer any facility identified by India for Agency safeguards under the Agreement. Any facility so notified by India becomes subject to the Agreement as of the date of receipt by the Agency of such written notification from India, and is to be included in the Annex to the Agreement. On 11 March 2014, the Agency received from India written notification, pursuant to Paragraph 14(a) of the Agreement, of its decision to bring one additional facility under safeguards in accordance with the provisions of the Agreement. Pursuant to Paragraph 14 4(a) of the Agreement, the Annex to the Agreement has been updated and is reproduced in this document for the information of all Members of the Agency [es

  7. Free Online Translators: A Comparative Assessment in Terms of Idioms and Phrasal Verbs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marziyeh Taleghani

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Free online translators are in fact statistical machine translators that create translator models using parallel corpora. Although it’s not a new subject and many works are reported on that in recent years, it still suffers from lots of shortcomings and has a long way ahead. While the literature on machine translators is vast, there are only a few that evaluate free online machine translators in specific terms like idioms. The aim of this paper is to evaluate and compare four free online translators in terms of translating English idioms (including idiomatic phrasal verbs into Persian. To that end, ten chosen texts from the book “oxford word Skills: idioms and phrasal verbs” were translated by four online translators, www.bing.com, www.translate.google.com , www.freetranslation.com and www.targoman.com , and the obtained results were compared in a subjectively method based on Aryanpur English to Persian dictionary. Comparison of the results shows that www.targoman.com has a better performance in translating idioms from English to Persian and as a result, it can be the best choice if the aim is to do so.

  8. Children's grammatical categories of verb and noun: a comparative look at children with specific language impairment (SLI) and normal language (NL).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Skipp, Amy; Windfuhr, Kirsten L; Conti-Ramsden, Gina

    2002-01-01

    The study investigated the development of grammatical categories (noun and verb) in young language learners. Twenty-eight children with specific language impairment (SLI) with a mean language age of 35 months and 28 children with normal language (NL) with a mean language age of 34 months were exposed to four novel verbs and four novel nouns during 10 experimental child-directed play sessions. The lexical items were modelled with four experimentally controlled argument structures. Both groups of children showed little productivity with syntactic marking of arguments in the novel verb conditions. Thus, both groups of children mostly followed the surface structure of the model presented to them, regardless of the argument they were trying to express. Therefore, there was little evidence of verb-general processes. In contrast, both groups used nouns in semantic roles that had not been modelled for them. Importantly, however, children with SLI still appeared to be more input dependent than NL children. This suggests that children with NL were working with a robust noun schema, whereas children with SLI were not. Taken together, the findings suggest that neither group of children had a grammatical category of verb, but demonstrated a general knowledge of the grammatical category of noun. These findings are discussed in relation to current theories of normal and impaired language development.

  9. VERBE DE COMPORTAMENT VERBAL ÎN LIMBA ROMÂNĂ ŞI ÎN GREACA MODERNĂ

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elena JUNGHIETU

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Fiecare limbă naţională fixează în inventarul ei lexical experienţa social-istorică unică a unui popor concret, pentru ai cărui reprezentanţi sunt esenţiale şi semnificative anumite obiecte, fenomene, activităţi etc. Această semnificaţie este condiţionată de specificul modului de viaţă şi al culturii naţionale a colectivităţii date. Din acest punct de vedere, studie­rea comparativă a verbelor de comportament din cele două limbi – româna şi greaca – este de o actualitate deosebită, deoarece anume în verbele de comportament îşi găsesc reflectare valorile specifice ale poporului dat: caracterul relaţiilor interumane, atitudinea individului faţă de mediul natural şi social, faţă de muncă etc.VERBAL BEHAVIORAL IN ROMANIAN AND MODERN GREEKEach national language fix in its lexical inventory the unique social and historical experience of a nation concretely, for whose representatives are essential and significant some objects, events, activities etc. This meaning is subject to specific lifestyle and national culture of this community. From this point of view, comparative study of behavioral verbs of the two languages - Romanian and Greek – is particularly topical because especially those verbs of behavior are reflected specific values of the given nation: nature of human relationships, the individual attitude toward the natural and social environment, towards to work etc.

  10. The number of subjects per variable required in linear regression analyses

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    P.C. Austin (Peter); E.W. Steyerberg (Ewout)

    2015-01-01

    textabstractObjectives To determine the number of independent variables that can be included in a linear regression model. Study Design and Setting We used a series of Monte Carlo simulations to examine the impact of the number of subjects per variable (SPV) on the accuracy of estimated regression

  11. Inter- and intra-observer agreement of BI-RADS-based subjective visual estimation of amount of fibroglandular breast tissue with magnetic resonance imaging: comparison to automated quantitative assessment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wengert, G.J.; Helbich, T.H.; Woitek, R.; Kapetas, P.; Clauser, P.; Baltzer, P.A.; Vogl, W.D.; Weber, M.; Meyer-Baese, A.; Pinker, Katja

    2016-01-01

    To evaluate the inter-/intra-observer agreement of BI-RADS-based subjective visual estimation of the amount of fibroglandular tissue (FGT) with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and to investigate whether FGT assessment benefits from an automated, observer-independent, quantitative MRI measurement by comparing both approaches. Eighty women with no imaging abnormalities (BI-RADS 1 and 2) were included in this institutional review board (IRB)-approved prospective study. All women underwent un-enhanced breast MRI. Four radiologists independently assessed FGT with MRI by subjective visual estimation according to BI-RADS. Automated observer-independent quantitative measurement of FGT with MRI was performed using a previously described measurement system. Inter-/intra-observer agreements of qualitative and quantitative FGT measurements were assessed using Cohen's kappa (k). Inexperienced readers achieved moderate inter-/intra-observer agreement and experienced readers a substantial inter- and perfect intra-observer agreement for subjective visual estimation of FGT. Practice and experience reduced observer-dependency. Automated observer-independent quantitative measurement of FGT was successfully performed and revealed only fair to moderate agreement (k = 0.209-0.497) with subjective visual estimations of FGT. Subjective visual estimation of FGT with MRI shows moderate intra-/inter-observer agreement, which can be improved by practice and experience. Automated observer-independent quantitative measurements of FGT are necessary to allow a standardized risk evaluation. (orig.)

  12. Inter- and intra-observer agreement of BI-RADS-based subjective visual estimation of amount of fibroglandular breast tissue with magnetic resonance imaging: comparison to automated quantitative assessment

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wengert, G.J.; Helbich, T.H.; Woitek, R.; Kapetas, P.; Clauser, P.; Baltzer, P.A. [Medical University of Vienna/ Vienna General Hospital, Department of Biomedical Imaging and Image-guided Therapy, Division of Molecular and Gender Imaging, Vienna (Austria); Vogl, W.D. [Medical University of Vienna, Department of Biomedical Imaging and Image-guided Therapy, Computational Imaging Research Lab, Wien (Austria); Weber, M. [Medical University of Vienna, Department of Biomedical Imaging and Image-guided Therapy, Division of General and Pediatric Radiology, Wien (Austria); Meyer-Baese, A. [State University of Florida, Department of Scientific Computing in Medicine, Tallahassee, FL (United States); Pinker, Katja [Medical University of Vienna/ Vienna General Hospital, Department of Biomedical Imaging and Image-guided Therapy, Division of Molecular and Gender Imaging, Vienna (Austria); State University of Florida, Department of Scientific Computing in Medicine, Tallahassee, FL (United States); Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Department of Radiology, Molecular Imaging and Therapy Services, New York City, NY (United States)

    2016-11-15

    To evaluate the inter-/intra-observer agreement of BI-RADS-based subjective visual estimation of the amount of fibroglandular tissue (FGT) with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and to investigate whether FGT assessment benefits from an automated, observer-independent, quantitative MRI measurement by comparing both approaches. Eighty women with no imaging abnormalities (BI-RADS 1 and 2) were included in this institutional review board (IRB)-approved prospective study. All women underwent un-enhanced breast MRI. Four radiologists independently assessed FGT with MRI by subjective visual estimation according to BI-RADS. Automated observer-independent quantitative measurement of FGT with MRI was performed using a previously described measurement system. Inter-/intra-observer agreements of qualitative and quantitative FGT measurements were assessed using Cohen's kappa (k). Inexperienced readers achieved moderate inter-/intra-observer agreement and experienced readers a substantial inter- and perfect intra-observer agreement for subjective visual estimation of FGT. Practice and experience reduced observer-dependency. Automated observer-independent quantitative measurement of FGT was successfully performed and revealed only fair to moderate agreement (k = 0.209-0.497) with subjective visual estimations of FGT. Subjective visual estimation of FGT with MRI shows moderate intra-/inter-observer agreement, which can be improved by practice and experience. Automated observer-independent quantitative measurements of FGT are necessary to allow a standardized risk evaluation. (orig.)

  13. Catalyzing community action within a national campaign: VERB community and national partnerships.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bretthauer-Mueller, Rosemary; Berkowitz, Judy M; Thomas, Melonie; McCarthy, Susan; Green, Lula Anna; Melancon, Heidi; Courtney, Anita H; Bryant, Carol A; Dodge, Kristin

    2008-06-01

    The VERB campaign used a social marketing approach to deliver its message through the mass media, school and community promotions, and partnerships to encourage children aged 9-13 years (tweens) to be physically active every day. This paper presents the VERB campaign's community and national partnership strategy, highlights three successful partnerships, and discusses challenges associated with the efforts. The national advertising generated awareness of and affinity for the product's brand and motivated the primary audience to seek out the product. The campaign's national and community partners were engaged to facilitate a product-distribution channel. The campaign developed a three-pronged partnership strategy to integrate the promotion with the placement of the campaign's product (physical activity): (1) reframe the way physical activity is positioned and delivered; (2) connect the brand to the point-of-purchase; and (3) refer (or drive) the audience to the action outlets, opportunities, places, spaces and programs to purchase the product. The VERB campaign provided partners with marketing training and resources to assist them as they leveraged tweens' brand awareness and supported regular physical activity among tweens. The method of technical assistance and the types of marketing tools were provided in relationship to four characteristics of the partner: (1) partner's network, (2) leaders and champions in the network, (3) partner's financial resources for community campaigns; and (4) partner's understanding of the marketing mindset. Coordinated, collaborative, and strong mass-media and community-based interventions within a national social marketing campaign can sustain the immediate effects of such campaigns.

  14. A Review on Studies of Phrasal Verb Constructions in ESL Context

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jahedi, Maryam; Mukundan, Jayakaran

    2015-01-01

    This paper aims to give an overview of studies on phrasal verbs in three decades to present the theoretical and methodological issues, as well as the findings of research. Moreover, this review reveals the developments and paradigm shifts occurred in this area. Previous studies have shown that the research findings have not been incorporated into…

  15. Looking for a Location: Dissociated Effects of Event-Related Plausibility and Verb-Argument Information on Predictive Processing in Aphasia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hayes, Rebecca A; Dickey, Michael Walsh; Warren, Tessa

    2016-12-01

    This study examined the influence of verb-argument information and event-related plausibility on prediction of upcoming event locations in people with aphasia, as well as older and younger, neurotypical adults. It investigated how these types of information interact during anticipatory processing and how the ability to take advantage of the different types of information is affected by aphasia. This study used a modified visual-world task to examine eye movements and offline photo selection. Twelve adults with aphasia (aged 54-82 years) as well as 44 young adults (aged 18-31 years) and 18 older adults (aged 50-71 years) participated. Neurotypical adults used verb argument status and plausibility information to guide both eye gaze (a measure of anticipatory processing) and image selection (a measure of ultimate interpretation). Argument status did not affect the behavior of people with aphasia in either measure. There was only limited evidence of interaction between these 2 factors in eye gaze data. Both event-related plausibility and verb-based argument status contributed to anticipatory processing of upcoming event locations among younger and older neurotypical adults. However, event-related likelihood had a much larger role in the performance of people with aphasia than did verb-based knowledge regarding argument structure.

  16. The Influence of Semantic and Morphological Complexity of Verbs on Sentence Recall: Implications for the Nature of Conceptual Representation and Category-Specific Deficits

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mobayyen, F.; de Almeida, R.G.

    2005-01-01

    One hundred and forty normal undergraduate students participated in a Proactive Interference (PI) experiment with sentences containing verbs from four different semantic and morphological classes (lexical causatives, morphological causatives, and morphologically complex and simplex perception verbs). Past research has shown significant PI build-up…

  17. Estrutura do Verbo no Portugues Coloquial (Verb Structure in Colloquial Portuguese).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pontes, Eunice

    In this study the author uses the techniques of modern descriptive linguistics to analyze various features of the Portuguese verb system. The analysis is based on the colloquial, spontaneous speech of educated natives of Rio de Janeiro and is divided into four chapters: Phonology (pp. 6-29), Morphophonemics (pp. 30-49), Morphology (pp. 50-86), and…

  18. Testing a hierarchy-of-effects model: pathways from awareness to outcomes in the VERB campaign 2002-2003.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bauman, Adrian; Bowles, Heather R; Huhman, Marian; Heitzler, Carrie D; Owen, Neville; Smith, Ben J; Reger-Nash, Bill

    2008-06-01

    The McGuire hierarchy-of-effects (HOE) model, used extensively in mass-media interventions to describe the mechanisms for understanding effects, has not been tested in physical activity campaigns. Data collected at baseline (2002) and follow-up (2003) surveys in the VERB evaluation were used in structural equation modeling to test pathways and hierarchies of campaign effects. Population-based cohort of youth aged 9-13 years (N=2364) for whom complete baseline and follow-up data were available. Awareness of the VERB campaign, understanding of the VERB message, attitude toward being active, outcome expectations, and physical activity participation. Among youth aged 9-13 years (tweens) in the study cohort, significant paths were identified between awareness and understanding (0.72, pmodel and suggest that increased awareness and understanding were the key proximal effects that led to behavior change. A distinct sequence of effects, which bypassed attitudes and outcome expectations, was found for these U.S. young people. The findings could inform the design of future campaigns to address youth physical activity.

  19. Repeatability, interocular correlation and agreement of quantitative swept-source optical coherence tomography angiography macular metrics in healthy subjects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fang, Danqi; Tang, Fang Yao; Huang, Haifan; Cheung, Carol Y; Chen, Haoyu

    2018-05-29

    To investigate the repeatability, interocular correlation and agreement of quantitative swept-source optical coherence tomography angiography (SS-OCTA) metrics in healthy subjects. Thirty-three healthy normal subjects were enrolled. The macula was scanned four times by an SS-OCTA system using the 3 mm×3 mm mode. The superficial capillary map images were analysed using a MATLAB program. A series of parameters were measured: foveal avascular zone (FAZ) area, FAZ perimeter, FAZ circularity, parafoveal vessel density, fractal dimension and vessel diameter index (VDI). The repeatability of four scans was determined by intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Then the averaged results were analysed for intereye difference, correlation and agreement using paired t-test, Pearson's correlation coefficient (r), ICC and Bland-Altman plot. The repeatability assessment of the macular metrics exported high ICC values (ranged from 0.853 to 0.996). There is no statistically significant difference in the OCTA metrics between the two eyes. FAZ area (ICC=0.961, r=0.929) and FAZ perimeter (ICC=0.884, r=0.802) showed excellent binocular correlation. Fractal dimension (ICC=0.732, r=0.578) and VDI (ICC=0.707, r=0.547) showed moderate binocular correlation, while parafoveal vessel density had poor binocular correlation. Bland-Altman plots showed the range of agreement was from -0.0763 to 0.0954 mm 2 for FAZ area and from -0.0491 to 0.1136 for parafoveal vessel density. The macular metrics obtained using SS-OCTA showed excellent repeatability in healthy subjects. We showed high intereye correlation in FAZ area and perimeter, moderate correlation in fractal dimension and VDI, while vessel density had poor correlation in normal healthy subjects. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

  20. BOLD response to motion verbs in left posterior middle temporal gyrus during story comprehension

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wallentin, Mikkel; Nielsen, Andreas Højlund; Vuust, Peter

    2011-01-01

    A primary focus within neuroimaging research on language comprehension is on the distribution of semantic knowledge in the brain. Studies have shown that the left posterior middle temporal gyrus (LPMT), a region just anterior to area MT/V5, is important for the processing of complex action...... knowledge. It has also been found that motion verbs cause activation in LPMT. In this experiment we investigated whether this effect could be replicated in a setting resembling real life language comprehension, i.e. without any overt behavioral task during passive listening to a story. During f......, clauses containing motion verbs were accompanied by a robust activation of LPMT with no other significant effects, consistent with the hypothesis that this brain region is important for processing motion knowledge, even during naturalistic language comprehension conditions....

  1. Do children with SLI use verbs to predict arguments and adjuncts: evidence from eye movements during listening.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Llorenç eAndreu

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Different psycholinguistic theories have suggested the importance of verb semantics in rapidly anticipating upcoming information during real-time sentence comprehension. To date, no study has examined if children use verbs to predict arguments and adjuncts in sentence comprehension using children with specific language impairment (SLI.Twenty-five children with SLI (aged 5 years and 3 months to 8 years and 2 months, twenty-five age-matched controls (aged 5 years and 3 months to 8 years and 2 months, twenty-five MLU-w controls (aged 3 years and 3 months to 7 years and 1 month, and 31 adults took part in the study. The eye movements of participants were monitored while they heard twenty-four sentences, such as El hombre lee con atención un cuento en la cama (translation: The man carefully reads a storybook in bed, in the presence of four depicted objects, one of which was the target (storybook, another, the competitor (bed, and another two, distracters (wardrobe and grape. The proportion of looks revealed that, when the meaning of the verb was retrieved, the upcoming argument and adjunct referents were rapidly anticipated. However, the proportion of looks at the theme, source/goal and instrument referents were significantly higher than the looks at the locatives. This pattern was found in adults as well as children with and without language impairment. The present results suggest that, in terms of sentence comprehension, the ability to understand verb information is not severely impaired in children with SLI.

  2. Studies on the s_dm.t=f verb form in Classical Egyptian

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Zonhoven, Ludovicus Martinus Johannes

    1997-01-01

    This study is devoted to some synchronic aspects of the sDm.t=f verb form, primarily its meaning and uses in Classical Egyptian. In the introduction some attention is paid to the history of the studies of the form and its origin, an aspect which will receive no further consideration. In accordance

  3. The subjective use of postural verb in Afrikaans (I): evolution from ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Kate H

    of progressive constructions in Afrikaans has not received much attention to date. ... characteristics of the subjective CPV en construction, on the basis of a pilot ..... to postural aspectual constructions can also be divided into several stages.

  4. Marking of verb tense in the English of preschool English-Mandarin bilingual children: evidence from language development profiles within subgroups on the Singapore English Action Picture Test.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brebner, Chris; McCormack, Paul; Liow, Susan Rickard

    2016-01-01

    The phonological and morphosyntactic structures of English and Mandarin contrast maximally and an increasing number of bilinguals speak these two languages. Speech and language therapists need to understand bilingual development for children speaking these languages in order reliably to assess and provide intervention for this population. To examine the marking of verb tense in the English of two groups of bilingual pre-schoolers learning these languages in a multilingual setting where the main educational language is English. The main research question addressed was: are there differences in the rate and pattern of acquisition of verb-tense marking for English-language 1 children compared with Mandarin-language 1 children? Spoken language samples in English from 481 English-Mandarin bilingual children were elicited using a 10-item action picture test and analysed for each child's use of verb tense markers: present progressive '-ing', regular past tense '-ed', third-person singular '-s', and irregular past tense and irregular past-participle forms. For 4-6 year olds the use of inflectional markers by the different language dominance groups was compared statistically using non-parametric tests. This study provides further evidence that bilingual language development is not the same as monolingual language development. The results show that there are very different rates and patterns of verb-tense marking in English for English-language 1 and Mandarin-language 1 children. Furthermore, they show that bilingual language development in English in Singapore is not the same as monolingual language development in English, and that there are differences in development depending on language dominance. Valid and reliable assessment of bilingual children's language skills needs to consider the characteristics of all languages spoken, obtaining accurate information on language use over time and accurately establishing language dominance is essential in order to make a

  5. The semantics of verbs in the dissolution and development of language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lahey, M; Feier, C D

    1982-03-01

    Evidence of the dissolution (DL) of verbs was examined in the written logs kept daily for 4 1/2 years by a woman (Mrs. W) who suffered from cerebral atrophy of unknown origin. Results were compared with similar analyses of written samples obtained from elementary school children (CWL), from normal adults (AWL) and from the literature on early oral language development (COL). The major finding of this study was that the sequence of the dissolution of verbs, in terms of the meanings expressed, mirrored the sequence of early acquisition. In the DL data reported here, Mrs. W continued to write about dynamic events after she ceased writing about stative events; in COL, children talk about dynamic events before stative events. Based on the AWL and CWL data, frequency of use is rejected as an explanation for the dominance and stability of dynamic relations in DL. Rather, it is suggested that the expression of dynamic relations may be less complex than the expression of stative relations due to possible differences in imagery and implication, but particularly due to the linguistic contexts in which each can be expressed.

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

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    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

  7. TYPES OF PEDAGOGIC INFORMATION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF SKILLS RELATED TO THE USE OF FRENCH PAST TENSE VERB FORMS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Аліна Андрущенко

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available The author built the types of pedagogic information to develop the programme to teach the usage of the most frequent French past tense verb forms in oral and written speech to students of Linguistic Higher Educational Institutions (faculties, analyzed the selection criteria of all the types of pedagogic information, as well as selected the authentic French texts to provide for the said programme, gave the examples of exercises aimed at the formation of skills related to the use of the past tense verb forms.

  8. Internal and External Dynamics in Language: Evidence from Verb Regularity in a Historical Corpus of English

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cuskley, Christine F.; Pugliese, Martina; Castellano, Claudio; Colaiori, Francesca; Loreto, Vittorio; Tria, Francesca

    2014-01-01

    Human languages are rule governed, but almost invariably these rules have exceptions in the form of irregularities. Since rules in language are efficient and productive, the persistence of irregularity is an anomaly. How does irregularity linger in the face of internal (endogenous) and external (exogenous) pressures to conform to a rule? Here we address this problem by taking a detailed look at simple past tense verbs in the Corpus of Historical American English. The data show that the language is open, with many new verbs entering. At the same time, existing verbs might tend to regularize or irregularize as a consequence of internal dynamics, but overall, the amount of irregularity sustained by the language stays roughly constant over time. Despite continuous vocabulary growth, and presumably, an attendant increase in expressive power, there is no corresponding growth in irregularity. We analyze the set of irregulars, showing they may adhere to a set of minority rules, allowing for increased stability of irregularity over time. These findings contribute to the debate on how language systems become rule governed, and how and why they sustain exceptions to rules, providing insight into the interplay between the emergence and maintenance of rules and exceptions in language. PMID:25084006

  9. L1 influence in the L2 acquisition of isiXhosa verb placement by ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    1. Introduction. In second language (L2) acquisition research conducted within ..... versus Afrikaans-speaking beginner learners of isiXhosa, with regard to verb ..... Language contact within one home is also illustrated by the case of the four L1 ...

  10. Symmetric and Asymmetric Patterns of Attraction Errors in Producing Subject-Predicate Agreement in Hebrew: An Issue of Morphological Structure

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deutsch, Avital; Dank, Maya

    2011-01-01

    A common characteristic of subject-predicate agreement errors (usually termed attraction errors) in complex noun phrases is an asymmetrical pattern of error distribution, depending on the inflectional state of the nouns comprising the complex noun phrase. That is, attraction is most likely to occur when the head noun is the morphologically…

  11. Automatically Generating Questions to Support the Acquisition of Particle Verbs: Evaluating via Crowdsourcing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chinkina, Maria; Ruiz, Simón; Meurers, Detmar

    2017-01-01

    We integrate insights from research in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and Computational Linguistics (CL) to generate text-based questions. We discuss the generation of wh- questions as functionally-driven input enhancement facilitating the acquisition of particle verbs and report the results of two crowdsourcing studies. The first study shows…

  12. Does Lexical Stress Influence 17-Month-Olds' Mapping of Verbs and Nouns?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Campbell, Jennifer; Mihalicz, Patrick; Thiessen, Erik; Curtin, Suzanne

    2018-01-01

    English-learning infants attend to lexical stress when learning new words. Attention to lexical stress might be beneficial for word learning by providing an indication of the grammatical class of that word. English disyllabic nouns commonly have trochaic (strong-weak) stress, whereas English disyllabic verbs commonly have iambic (weak-strong)…

  13. Making Sense of Phrasal Verbs: A Cognitive Linguistic Account of L2 Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gonzalez, Rafael Alejo

    2010-01-01

    Phrasal verbs (PVs) have recently been the object of interest by linguists given their status as phraseological units whose meaning is non-compositional and opaque. They constitute a perfect case for theories of language processing and language acquisition to be tested. Cognitive linguists have participated in this debate and shown a certain…

  14. The VERB campaign: applying a branding strategy in public health.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Asbury, Lori D; Wong, Faye L; Price, Simani M; Nolin, Mary Jo

    2008-06-01

    A branding strategy was an integral component of the VERB Youth Media Campaign. Branding has a long history in commercial marketing, and recently it has also been applied to public health campaigns. This article describes the process that the CDC undertook to develop a physical activity brand that would resonate with children aged 9-13 years (tweens), to launch an unknown brand nationally, to build the brand's equity, and to protect and maintain the brand's integrity. Considerations for branding other public health campaigns are also discussed.

  15. Combination of verbs in Russian language and their translation in Persian language

    OpenAIRE

    احمدی ، شیخی احمدی ، شیخی

    2009-01-01

    Like sentences, combination of words is the main part of syntax in Persian language as well as in Russian language and plays an important role in sentence structures of these languages. Combination of words in Russian language is divided into three categories: verbal combinations, nominal and adverbial combinations. The writers of this article have studied combination of verbs in Russian language and their translation in Persian language.

  16. Observations on Word Order in Saudi Arabian Sign Language

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sprenger, Kristen; Mathur, Gaurav

    2012-01-01

    This article focuses on the syntactic level of the grammar of Saudi Arabian Sign Language by exploring some word orders that occur in personal narratives in the language. Word order is one of the main ways in which languages indicate the main syntactic roles of subjects, verbs, and objects; others are verbal agreement and nominal case morphology.…

  17. Analysing learning outcomes in an Electrical Engineering curriculum using illustrative verbs derived from Bloom's Taxonomy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meda, Lawrence; Swart, Arthur James

    2018-05-01

    Learning outcomes are essential to any curriculum in education, where they need to be clear, observable and measurable. However, some academics structure learning outcomes in a way that does not promote student learning. The purpose of this article is to present the analyses of learning outcomes of an Electrical Engineering curriculum offered at a University of Technology in South Africa, in order to determine if academics are structuring them in a way that enables student learning. A qualitative case study is used where the learning outcomes from 33 study guides are reviewed using illustrative verbs derived from Bloom's Taxonomy. Results indicate that 9% of all the learning outcomes are unclear, 10% are unobservable and 23% are unmeasurable. A key recommendation is to provide regular workshops to assist academics in reviewing their learning outcomes using the illustrative verbs derived from Bloom's Taxonomy, thereby ensuring that their learning outcomes promote student learning.

  18. Methodology of Maqamat Hamadani and Hariri Based on Buseman’s statistical methodology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hamed Sedghi

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available Abstract  Stylistics can be defined as analysis and interpretation of the expression and different forms of speech, based on linguistic elements. German theorist , Buseman , devised his theses in statistical style based on the ratio of verbs to adjectives, generalizing a variety of literary and non- literary genera in German Language and Literature .   According to Buseman , increasing the number of verbs in verses, makes the text closer to literary style. Therefore, increasing the number of adjectives, makes the text closer to scientific or subjective style.   The most important achievement of statistical methodology of Buseman can be considered as: a comparison of author’s style, literary periods and genres; b studying the language system and variety of words; and, c classification and grading differences or similarities of literary, periods and genres.   The purpose of this study: Stylistic analysis of Maqamat Hamadani and al-Hariri based on the statistical model of Buseman.   The question proposed in this study : a How effective is the use of the statistical methods , in identifying and analyzing a variety of literature including Maqamat? b How effective is the quantitative scope of verbs and adjectives , as two key parameters in determining the style of literary works? And c Which element of fiction is most effective in enriching the literary approach ?   Specific research method is statistical – analysis ; We initially discovered and classified the number of verbs and adjectives in the Fifty- one of Hamadani Maqamehs and Fifty of Hariri Maqamehs ; then the scope of verbs and adjectives usage is shown in the form of tables and graphs . After that , we will assess the style of the literary work , based on the use of verbs and adjectives.   The research findings show : All Hamadani and Hariri Maqamat s quantitatively benefit from high -active approach, for the use of the verb . At 46 Maqameh Hamadani , and 48 Maqameh Hariri the

  19. Complement Tense in Contrast: The SOT parameter in Russian and English

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Arnim von Stechow

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available In an SOT-language like English, ‘past under past’ may have a simultaneous interpretation, i.e., we have temporal agreement. In a non-SOT language like Russian, we only have the shifted interpretation. In English, the temporal morphology of the embedded verb is determined by the matrix tense via a binding chain through verbal quantifiers such as ‘say’ or ‘think’. In Russian, these attitude verbs break the binding chain. The morphology of the embedded verb is determined locally by an embedded relative PRESENT, FUTURE or PAST. We propose that the difference between English and Russian is derived from: The SOT-parameter: A language L is an SOT-language if and only if the verbal quantifiers of L transmit temporal features. Verbal quantifiers quantify over times (e.g. fut. will or world-times (e.g. verba dicendi. The paper will take up a recent challenge by Daniel Altschuler and Olga Khomitsevich against existing accounts: verbs of perception and, occasionally, factive verbs in Russian may express simultaneity by ‘past under past’. We will show that the problem is in fact non-existent when the complement is imperfective. Concerning factives, however, we argue that the complement tense is an independent de re past. Finally, perception verbs are normally not verbal quantifiers and hence not subject to the SOT-parameter.

  20. Argument structure and time reference in agrammatic aphasia

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bastiaanse, Roelien; Platonov, Artem; de Almeida, Roberto G.; Manouilidou, Christina

    2015-01-01

    It has repeatedly been shown that agrammatic speakers have problems with verbs: In narrative speech, they provide less information by verbs than healthy speakers and the verbs that they produce are often not inflected for tense and agreement. Several explanations have been given for this phenomenon,

  1. ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS OF THE VERBS “TO BE”, “TO HAVE” AND “TO TAKE” AND THEIR EQUIVALENTS IN GERMAN, FRENCH AND ITALIAN LANGUAGES: LINGUISTIC–CULTURAL ASPECT

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anna Nikolaevna Panamaryova

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this research is to find out conceptual characteristics of English, German, French, Italian languages world image. The subject of this paper is English collocations with the verbs “to be”, “to have” and “to take” and their equivalents in German, French and Italian languages. The task of this paper is to compare English collocations of the verbs “to be”, “to have” and “to take” and their equivalents in German, French and Italian languages in linguistic–cultural aspect. In Russian language studies such word groups are called “synlexis”. This term was coined by G. I. Klimovskaya, the professor ofTomskStateUniversity. The main method of the research is a comparative study of linguistic units. The conclusions made in the research are essential in the further study of European linguistic world image and can be used in textbooks on Cultural Linguistics.The practical result of the research can be a cross-cultural collocation dictionary of some languages. Such a dictionary is important for linguists, translators and people studying foreign languages.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12731/2218-7405-2013-8-32

  2. Semantic Categorization of Placement Verbs in L1 and L2 Danish and Spanish

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cadierno, Teresa; Ibarretxe-Antuñano, Iraide; Hijazo-Gascón, Alberto

    2016-01-01

    This study investigates semantic categorization of the meaning of placement verbs by Danish and Spanish native speakers and two groups of intermediate second language (L2) learners (Danish learners of L2 Spanish and Spanish learners of L2 Danish). Participants described 31 video clips picturing different types of placement events. Cluster analyses…

  3. Universal and Language-Specific Patterns in the Acquisition of Verb Argument Structures in German

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leischner, Franziska N.; Weissenborn, Jürgen; Naigles, Letitia R.

    2016-01-01

    The study investigated the influence of universal and language-specific morpho-syntactic properties (i.e., flexible word order, case) on the acquisition of verb argument structures in German compared with English. To this end, 65 three- to nine-year-old German learning children and adults were asked to act out grammatical ("The sheep…

  4. Processing of Gender and Number Agreement in Russian as a Second Language: The Devil Is in the Details

    Science.gov (United States)

    Romanova, Natalia; Gor, Kira

    2017-01-01

    The study investigated the processing of Russian gender and number agreement by native (n = 36) and nonnative (n = 36) participants using a visual lexical decision task with priming. The design included a baseline condition that helped dissociate the underlying components of priming (facilitation and inhibition). The results showed no differences…

  5. Exploring rater agreement: configurations of agreement and disagreement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    ALEXANDER VON EYE

    2006-03-01

    Full Text Available At the level of manifest categorical variables, a large number of coefficients and models for the examination of rater agreement has been proposed and used for descriptive and explanatory purposes. This article focuses on exploring rater agreement. Configural Frequency Analysis (CFA is proposed as a method of exploration of cross-classifications of raters’ judgements. CFA allows researchers to (1 examine individual cells and sets of cells in agreement tables; (2 examine cells that indicate disagreement; and (3 explore agreement and disagreement among three or more raters. Four CFA base models are discussed. The first is the model of rater agreement that is also used for Cohen’s (1960  (kappa. This model proposes independence of raters’ judgements. Deviations from this model suggest agreement or disagreement beyond chance. The second CFA model is based on a log-linear null model. This model is also used for Brennan and Prediger’s (1981 n. It proposes a uniform distribution of ratings. The third model is that of Tanner and Young (1985. This model proposes equal weights for agreement cases and independence otherwise. The fourth model is the quasi-independence model. This model allows one to blank out agreement cells and thus to focus solely on patterns of disagreement. Examples use data from applicant selection.

  6. A propos du verbe traduire et du nom traduction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nelly Flaux

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper deals with the main semantic and syntactic properties of the verb traduire ‘to translate’ and of the noun traduction ‘translation’. First, the different meanings of these two words will be outlined, in French and in other languages; it will be shown that the Husserlian notion of “ideal object” is essential to give a real account of the linguistic properties of the noun traduction when it denotes a text translated from one language into another; furthermore, the notion of ideality is important for the study of many nouns of music or language and might be extended to the domain of fine arts.

  7. Nouns and verbs in Chintang: children's usage and surrounding adult speech

    OpenAIRE

    Stoll, Sabine; Bickel, Balthasar; Lieven, Elena; Banjade, Goma; Bhatta, Toya Nath; Gaenszle, Martin; Paudyal, Netra P; Pettigrew, Judith; Rai, Ichchha Purna; Rai, Manoj; Rai, Novel Kishore

    2012-01-01

    peer-reviewed Analyzing the development of the noun-to-verb ratio in a longitudinal corpus of four Chintang (Sino-Tibetan) children, we find that up to about age four, children have a significantly higher ratio than adults. Previous cross-linguistic research rules out an explanation of this in [*] This research was made by possible by Grant Nos. BI 799/1-2 and II/81 961 from the Volkswagen Foundation (DoBeS program). Author contributions: Stoll designed the study; Bickel ...

  8. The Danish Reportive Passive as a Non-Canonical Passive

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ørsnes, Bjarne

    2013-01-01

    Danish passive utterance and cognitive verbs allow a construction where the subject of an infinitival complement is raised: Peter siges at være bortrejst (‘Peter is said to be out of town’). Contrary to English, these verbs are not ECM-verbs or subject-to-object raising verbs in the active...

  9. Posture verbs in French-speaking CLIL and non-CLIL learners of Dutch

    OpenAIRE

    Hiligsmann, Philippe; Spinhayer, Camille; Josse, Amélie; Eurosla 26 Conference

    2016-01-01

    Recent research on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has confirmed that CLIL learners clearly outperform non-CLIL learners (Dalton-Puffer 2011). Although lexicon has often received pride of place in CLIL research, it is striking that studies have rarely been pushed beyond the word level. This paper therefore investigates the acquisition of Dutch posture verb constructions (PVs) in French-speaking (non-)CLIL learners. As in other Germanic languages, Dutch frequently uses compulso...

  10. Analysis of the dative in impersonal constructions: the concepts of subject and semi-subject in ancient Greek

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Luz Conti

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available Impersonal constructions holding a complement both in dative and genitive are attested in Greek with a few verbs, which share the property of expressing the interests or the needs of human beings. These constructions, which occur in several ancient Indo- European languages, are documented in the post- Homeric period in the case of Greek. In the opposite, personal constructions, which appear more recently in other languages, are already documented in Greek since Homer’s times. The dative in the impersonal construction refers to human entities, codes the Experiencer and it is also the topic. These properties, which are close to those of the prototypical subject, seem to allow the dative to show some subject-like syntactic behaviour. In fact, we will argue that the dative in the impersonal construction behaves as a semi-subject, i. e. a verbal complement which, regardless of its coding, does have a set of properties that are typically associated with the subject in Greek. As well as the complement in dative, the complement in genitive in the impersonal construction exhibits a syntactic behaviour similar to the subject. However, the genitive does not follow the same patterns the dative does in the impersonal construction.

  11. The Effects of Conceptual Metaphors on the Acquisition of Phrasal Verbs by Turkish EFL Learners

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kartal, Galip; Uner, Seda

    2017-01-01

    This study investigates the effects of conceptual metaphors on Turkish EFL learners' acquisition of phrasal verbs. The participants were 120 beginner, elementary, and pre-intermediate level students. The research follows a pre and post-test quasi-experimental research design. The students were assigned to proficiency levels according to their…

  12. The decision to extract: Part 1--Interclinician agreement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baumrind, S; Korn, E L; Boyd, R L; Maxwell, R

    1996-03-01

    As part of an ongoing prospective clinical trial of conventional orthodontic treatment, the decision making patterns of a representative group of orthodontic clinicians were examined. Data were available for 148 subjects (100 adolescents and 48 adults) who had presented at the University of California San Francisco Graduate Orthodontic Clinic requesting treatment for correction of a Class I or Class II malocclusion. The records for each subject were evaluated independently by each of five members of the clinical faculty, making available a total of 740 independent patient evaluations. With regard to the primary decision as to whether extraction or nonextraction treatment was to be preferred, agreement among clinicians was higher than had been anticipated. In almost two thirds of the cases, the decisions of all five clinicians were in agreement as to whether extraction or nonextraction was the preferred treatment modality. (This figure included 59 cases of complete agreement for extraction therapy (40%) and 38 cases of complete agreement for nonextraction therapy (26%)). In only 51 cases (34%), did the reviewing clinicians disagree as to whether extraction or nonextraction was the preferred modality of treatment. The clinicians were also asked to indicate their opinions as to whether orthognathic surgery was likely to be a part of the ultimate treatment course for each individual subject. Nine percent of the 740 patient evaluations contained a clinician judgement that surgery would be a probable or definite component of the orthodontic treatment plan. For 29% of the adult subjects (14 cases) and 23% of the adolescent subjects (23 cases), one or more of the five examining clinicians believed that adjunctive surgical intervention would probably or definitely be appropriate. These high values were unexpected, particularly because the sample had been prescreened by a single clinician to exclude subjects who might require orthognathic surgery. Clinician agreement of

  13. Past tense in the brain's time: Neurophysiological evidence for dual-route processing of past-tense verbs

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bakker, I.; Pulvermüller, F.; Shtyrov, Y.

    2013-01-01

    A controversial issue in neuro- and psycholinguistics is whether regular past-tense forms of verbs are stored lexically or generated productively by the application of abstract combinatorial schemas, for example affixation rules. The success or failure of models in accounting for this particular

  14. Words to Sleep On: Naps Facilitate Verb Generalization in Habitually and Nonhabitually Napping Preschoolers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sandoval, Michelle; Leclerc, Julia A.; Gómez, Rebecca L.

    2017-01-01

    A nap soon after encoding leads to better learning in infancy. However, whether napping plays the same role in preschoolers' learning is unclear. In Experiment 1 (N = 39), 3-year-old habitual and nonhabitual nappers learned novel verbs before a nap or a period of wakefulness and received a generalization test examining word extension to novel…

  15. BOLD Response to Motion Verbs in Left Posterior Middle Temporal Gyrus during Story Comprehension

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wallentin, Mikkel; Nielsen, Andreas Hojlund; Vuust, Peter; Dohn, Anders; Roepstorff, Andreas; Lund, Torben Ellegaard

    2011-01-01

    A primary focus within neuroimaging research on language comprehension is on the distribution of semantic knowledge in the brain. Studies have shown that the left posterior middle temporal gyrus (LPMT), a region just anterior to area MT/V5, is important for the processing of complex action knowledge. It has also been found that motion verbs cause…

  16. Preemption versus Entrenchment: Towards a Construction-General Solution to the Problem of the Retreat from Verb Argument Structure Overgeneralization.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ben Ambridge

    Full Text Available Participants aged 5;2-6;8, 9;2-10;6 and 18;1-22;2 (72 at each age rated verb argument structure overgeneralization errors (e.g., *Daddy giggled the baby using a five-point scale. The study was designed to investigate the feasibility of two proposed construction-general solutions to the question of how children retreat from, or avoid, such errors. No support was found for the prediction of the preemption hypothesis that the greater the frequency of the verb in the single most nearly synonymous construction (for this example, the periphrastic causative; e.g., Daddy made the baby giggle, the lower the acceptability of the error. Support was found, however, for the prediction of the entrenchment hypothesis that the greater the overall frequency of the verb, regardless of construction, the lower the acceptability of the error, at least for the two older groups. Thus while entrenchment appears to be a robust solution to the problem of the retreat from error, and one that generalizes across different error types, we did not find evidence that this is the case for preemption. The implication is that the solution to the retreat from error lies not with specialized mechanisms, but rather in a probabilistic process of construction competition.

  17. AN ERROR ANALYSIS OF ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY (CASE STUDY AT UNIVERSITY MUHAMMADIYAH OF METRO

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fenny - Thresia

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of this study was study analyze the students’ error in writing argumentative essay. The researcher focuses on errors of verb, concord and learner language. This study took 20 students as the subject of research from the third semester. The data took from observation and documentation. Based on the result of the data analysis there are some errors still found on the student’s argumentative essay in English writing? The common errors which repeatedly appear are verb. The second is concord, and learner languages are the smallest error. From 20 samples that took, the frequency the errors of verb are 12 items (60%, concord are 8 items (40%, learner languages are 7 items (35%. As a result, verb has the biggest number of common errors.

  18. The morphosyntax of verbs of motion in serial constructions: a crosslinguistic study in three signed languages

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Benedicto, E.; Cvejanov, S.; Quer, J.; Quer, J.F.

    2008-01-01

    This paper provides a comparative analysis of the structural properties of serial verb constructions (SVC) in three sign languages: LSA (Lengua de Señas Argentina, Argentinean Sign Language), LSC (Llengua de Signes Catalana, Catalan Sign Language) and ASL (American Sign Language). The paper presents

  19. О взаимодействии перфекта и вида в литовском языке

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ema Geniušienė

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available ON THE INTERACTION OF PERFECT AND ASPECT IN LITHUANIANSummaryThis paper is concerned with the range of meanings of perfect forms determined by the aspect­ual (perfective and imperfective value of the verb and with the relation of the meanings of perfect forms to the meanings of aspects in Lithuanian. Perfect forms „būti ‘be’ + past participle active” can render the perfect meaning proper of a previous situation with continuing relevance and the resultative meaning of a state of the deep subject resulting from a previous situation. Aspect is the major factor determining the perfect or resultative use of perfect forms. The resultative mean­ing can be rendered by the perfect form of perfective verbs exclusively, the perfect meaning being rendered by the said form of verbs of either aspect. In the perfect use, a verb retains its aspectual value. In the resultative use a verb changes its perfective value to imperfective and therefore it can function as a substitute for a missing imperfective verb in an aspect opposition.The invariant perfect meaning has a number of variants largely determined by the aspectual value of the base verb.

  20. Methodology of Maqamat Hamadani and Hariri Based on Buseman’s statistical methodology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hamed Sedghi

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available  Abstract  Stylistics can be defined as analysis and interpretation of the expression and different forms of speech, based on linguistic elements. German theorist , Buseman , devised his theses in statistical style based on the ratio of verbs to adjectives, generalizing a variety of literary and non- literary genera in German Language and Literature . Â  According to Buseman , increasing the number of verbs in verses, makes the text closer to literary style. Therefore, increasing the number of adjectives, makes the text closer to scientific or subjective style.   The most important achievement of statistical methodology of Buseman can be considered as: a comparison of author’s style, literary periods and genres; b studying the language system and variety of words; and, c classification and grading differences or similarities of literary, periods and genres.   The purpose of this study: Stylistic analysis of Maqamat Hamadani and al-Hariri based on the statistical model of Buseman.   The question proposed in this study : a How effective is the use of the statistical methods , in identifying and analyzing a variety of literature including Maqamat? b How effective is the quantitative scope of verbs and adjectives , as two key parameters in determining the style of literary works? And c Which element of fiction is most effective in enriching the literary approach ?   Specific research method is statistical – analysis ; We initially discovered and classified the number of verbs and adjectives in the Fifty- one of Hamadani Maqamehs and Fifty of Hariri Maqamehs ; then the scope of verbs and adjectives usage is shown in the form of tables and graphs . After that , we will assess the style of the literary work , based on the use of verbs and adjectives.   The research findings show : All Hamadani and Hariri Maqamat s quantitatively benefit from high -active approach, for the use of the verb . At 46 Maqameh Hamadani , and

  1. Consonant Alternations in Changing Verb Forms in Modern Russian

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Olga Alekseevna Gracheva

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available The article is devoted to consonant alternations in the verbal final basis that is associated with the processes of verbal form changes. It presents some results of the verbal form analysis that are being conjugated as types 4-8. The source of the material was "Grammatical dictionary of the Russian language" by A.A. Zaliznyak. It is proved that the alternation in verbal forms of modern Russian depends on the character of language levels coordination thus performing the following functions: grammar meaning intensification, lexical homonyms differentiation, and grammar form identification including. The novelty of the data presented in the article consists in defining the principle statement that there exists some variations in the balance between regularity and predictiveness of consonant alternations in verbal forms: the alternation is more predictable if the number of grammema clusters in a paradigm that they mark is lower (type 4 with inflection -ить; on the contrary, the less predictable the alternations are, the bigger grammema clusters in the paradigm are, (i.e. when used for intensifying type 6 (with inflection -ать. The comparison of verbal forms with and without alternations resulted in the following conclusion: an infinitive form of a verb will predict with greater certainly types of alternations in the final basis and point to a definite kind of morphological meaning. The regularities revealed might be used in a descriptive morphology of modern Russian and in practice of teaching Russian as a foreign language.

  2. MIDA TEEB TEGEMA-VERB HOIDJAKEELES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Reili Argus

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available Esimese keele omandamist mõjutab lapsele suunatud keel ehk hoidjakeel, mis pakub lapsele loomuliku keele sellise statistilise struktuuri, kus tõuseb esile mingi keelesüsteemiosa kõige sagedasem, üldisem, prototüüpsem, kesksem ning kõige lihtsam element. Hoidjakeeles esineb teistest verbidest sagedamini verbi tegema. Selle verbi ühendite hulk ja laad muutub lapse kasvades. Üldjoontes võib tegema-verbi tugiverbi konstruktsioonid lapsele suunatud kõnes jaotada kolme suuremasse rühma: kõige enam esineb selliseid ühendeid, kus tegema verbiga esineb koos mõni onomatopoeetiline sõna; tegema-verbi ja adverbi või adjektiivi ühendeid, millega rõhutatakse teelisust,leidub mõnevõrra vähem ning umbes neljandiku moodustavad tegema-verbi ja noomeni ühendid. Püsiühendite ja rutiniseerunud mallide suur hulk (moodustavad lapsele suunatud kõnes tegema-verbi konstruktsioonidest peaaegu poole annab alust oletada, et lapsega kõneleja eelistab kasutada n-ö valmis kujul keeletükke. Kuigi tegema-verbil on oma roll nii leksika kui ka süntaksi omandamises, ilmneb tema olulisus kõige selgemalt vormimoodustuse omandamise kontekstis: just sellest verbist esineb lapsele suunatud kõnes kõige enam eri vorme ning just see on üks kahest varakult omandatud vormimoodustusega verbe ka lapse kõnes.

  3. Selective impairment of verb processing associated with pathological changes in Brodmann areas 44 and 45 in the motor neurone disease-dementia-aphasia syndrome.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bak, T H; O'Donovan, D G; Xuereb, J H; Boniface, S; Hodges, J R

    2001-01-01

    We report six patients with clinically diagnosed and electrophysiologically confirmed motor neurone disease (MND), in whom communication problems were an early and dominant feature. All patients developed a progressive non-fluent aphasia culminating in some cases in complete mutism. In five cases, formal testing revealed deficits in syntactic comprehension. Comprehension and production of verbs were consistently more affected those that of nouns and this effect remained stable upon subsequent testing, despite overall deterioration. The classical signs of MND, including wasting, fasciculations and severe bulbar symptoms, occurred over the following 6-12 months. The behavioural symptoms ranged from mild anosognosia to personality change implicating frontal-lobe dementia. In three cases, post-mortem examination has confirmed the clinical diagnosis of MND-dementia. In addition to the typical involvement of motor and premotor cortex, particularly pronounced pathological changes were observed in the Brodmann areas 44 (Broca's area) and 45. The finding of a selective impairment of verb/action processing in association with the dementia/aphasia syndrome of MND suggests that the neural substrate underlying verb representation is strongly connected to anterior cortical motor systems.

  4. The number of subjects per variable required in linear regression analyses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Austin, Peter C; Steyerberg, Ewout W

    2015-06-01

    To determine the number of independent variables that can be included in a linear regression model. We used a series of Monte Carlo simulations to examine the impact of the number of subjects per variable (SPV) on the accuracy of estimated regression coefficients and standard errors, on the empirical coverage of estimated confidence intervals, and on the accuracy of the estimated R(2) of the fitted model. A minimum of approximately two SPV tended to result in estimation of regression coefficients with relative bias of less than 10%. Furthermore, with this minimum number of SPV, the standard errors of the regression coefficients were accurately estimated and estimated confidence intervals had approximately the advertised coverage rates. A much higher number of SPV were necessary to minimize bias in estimating the model R(2), although adjusted R(2) estimates behaved well. The bias in estimating the model R(2) statistic was inversely proportional to the magnitude of the proportion of variation explained by the population regression model. Linear regression models require only two SPV for adequate estimation of regression coefficients, standard errors, and confidence intervals. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  5. The Limited Role of Number of Nested Syntactic Dependencies in Accounting for Processing Cost: Evidence from German Simplex and Complex Verbal Clusters

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Markus Bader

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents three acceptability experiments investigating German verb-final clauses in order to explore possible sources of sentence complexity during human parsing. The point of departure was De Vries et al.'s (2011 generalization that sentences with three or more crossed or nested dependencies are too complex for being processed by the human parsing mechanism without difficulties. This generalization is partially based on findings from Bach et al. (1986 concerning the acceptability of complex verb clusters in German and Dutch. The first experiment tests this generalization by comparing two sentence types: (i sentences with three nested dependencies within a single clause that contains three verbs in a complex verb cluster; (ii sentences with four nested dependencies distributed across two embedded clauses, one center-embedded within the other, each containing a two-verb cluster. The results show that sentences with four nested dependencies are judged as acceptable as control sentences with only two nested dependencies, whereas sentences with three nested dependencies are judged as only marginally acceptable. This argues against De Vries et al.'s (2011 claim that the human parser can process no more than two nested dependencies. The results are used to refine the Verb-Cluster Complexity Hypothesis of Bader and Schmid (2009a. The second and the third experiment investigate sentences with four nested dependencies in more detail in order to explore alternative sources of sentence complexity: the number of predicted heads to be held in working memory (storage cost in terms of the Dependency Locality Theory [DLT], Gibson, 2000 and the length of the involved dependencies (integration cost in terms of the DLT. Experiment 2 investigates sentences for which storage cost and integration cost make conflicting predictions. The results show that storage cost outweighs integration cost. Experiment 3 shows that increasing integration cost in sentences

  6. When you have too many features: Auxiliaries, agreement and clitics in Italian varieties

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Roberta D'Alessandro

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available Syntactic variation can be ascribed to a range of factors. The Borer-Chomsky conjecture, as Mark Baker (2008 refers to it, states for instance that all parameters of variation are attributable to differences in the features of particular items (e.g. functional heads in the lexicon. In this paper, this hypothesis is carefully considered in relation to a group of Abruzzese dialects that exhibit three seemingly unrelated syntactic patterns: split auxiliary selection, split differential object marking, and omnivorous participial agreement in number/argumental agreement mismatch marking. It will be proposed that these three patterns are closely interrelated, and can be attributed to the presence of an unvalued bundle of φ-features (π. Depending on which XP this head is merged with, different agreement patterns will emerge. Furthermore, these dialects will be shown to differ from another macrogroup of northern Italian dialects purely in the locus of Merge of this extra functional head: it will also be shown that the almost perfect areal complementary distribution between languages with subject clitics and languages with person-driven auxiliary selection is not accidental, but is the result of the presence of an extra φ-probe doubling the features of the subject in different parts of the syntactic spine. A microtypology of 'v 'will be presented, unifying many phenomena that were previously considered unrelated, such as auxiliary selection, participial agreement, differential object marking and subject clitics.

  7. An investigation into the strength of the association and agreement levels between subjective and objective sleep duration in adolescents.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Teresa Arora

    Full Text Available The majority of adolescent sleep research has utilized self-reported sleep duration and some have based information on a solitary question. Whilst some have claimed to have validated sleep survey data with objective actigraphy measures in adolescents, the statistical approach applied only demonstrates the strength of the association between subjective and objective sleep duration data and does not reflect if these different methods actually agree.Data were collected as part of the Midlands Adolescents Schools Sleep Education Study (MASSES. Adolescents (n=225 aged 11-13 years provided estimates for weekday, weekend and combined sleep duration based on self-reported survey data, a 7-day sleep diary, and wrist-worn actigraphy.We assessed the strength of the relationship as well as agreement levels between subjective and objectively determined sleep duration (weekday, weekend and combined. Subjective diary sleep duration was significantly correlated with actigraphy estimates for weekday and weekend sleep duration r=0.30, p ≤ 0.001 and r=0.31, p ≤ 0.001 respectively. Pitman's test demonstrated no significant difference in the variance between weekend sleep duration (r=0.09, p=0.16 and combined sleep duration (r=0.12, p=0.08 indicating acceptable agreement between actigraphy and sleep diary sleep duration only. Self-reported sleep duration estimates (weekday, weekend and combined did not agree with actigraphy determined sleep duration.Sleep diaries are a cost-effective alternative to survey/questionnaire data. Self-reported measures of sleep duration in adolescents do not agree with actigraphy measures and should be avoided where possible. Previous adolescent sleep studies that have utilized self-reported survey data may not provide a complete representation of sleep on the outcome measure of interest.

  8. Predicting word sense annotation agreement

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Martinez Alonso, Hector; Johannsen, Anders Trærup; Lopez de Lacalle, Oier

    2015-01-01

    High agreement is a common objective when annotating data for word senses. However, a number of factors make perfect agreement impossible, e.g. the limitations of the sense inventories, the difficulty of the examples or the interpretation preferences of the annotations. Estimating potential...... agreement is thus a relevant task to supplement the evaluation of sense annotations. In this article we propose two methods to predict agreement on word-annotation instances. We experiment with a continuous representation and a three-way discretization of observed agreement. In spite of the difficulty...

  9. Copy number variation in subjects with major depressive disorder who attempted suicide.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perlis, Roy H; Ruderfer, Douglas; Hamilton, Steven P; Ernst, Carl

    2012-01-01

    Suicide is one of the top ten leading causes of death in North America and represents a major public health burden, particularly for people with Major Depressive disorder (MD). Many studies have suggested that suicidal behavior runs in families, however, identification of genomic loci that drive this efffect remain to be identified. Using subjects collected as part of STAR D, we genotyped 189 subjects with MD with history of a suicide attempt and 1073 subjects with Major Depressive disorder that had never attempted suicide. Copy Number Variants (CNVs) were called in Birdsuite and analyzed in PLINK. We found a set of CNVs present in the suicide attempter group that were not present in in the non-attempter group including in SNTG2 and MACROD2 - two brain expressed genes previously linked to psychopathology; however, these results failed to reach genome-wide signifigance. These data suggest potential CNVs to be investigated further in relation to suicide attempts in MD using large sample sizes.

  10. Rôle des verbes de base dans l'acquisition de la L1 par les enfants ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Tout enfant biologiquement normal mis dans les conditions sociales requises acquiert sans heurts sa langue maternelle (L1) (Klein 1989). Cependant, cette forme d'acquisition apparemment facile, relève d'un travail cognitif complexe et sélectif (Afola-Amey, 2006). Certes, les noms s'acquièrent plus vite mais les verbes ...

  11. Effects of Animation on Naming and Identification across Two Graphic Symbol Sets Representing Verbs and Prepositions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schlosser, Ralf W.; Koul, Rajinder; Shane, Howard; Sorce, James; Brock, Kristofer; Harmon, Ashley; Moerlein, Dorothy; Hearn, Emilia

    2014-01-01

    Purpose: The effects of animation on naming and identification of graphic symbols for verbs and prepositions were studied in 2 graphic symbol sets in preschoolers. Method: Using a 2 × 2 × 2 × 3 completely randomized block design, preschoolers across three age groups were randomly assigned to combinations of symbol set (Autism Language Program…

  12. Verbs of locomotion like идти (to go – ходить (to walk: some thoughts on their semantic description

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Samedova Nezrin

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available The author presents the analysis of discussions about the semantic description of traditionally postulated verbs of locomotion like идти /to go/ - ходить /to walk/. The analysis reveals that there are very few ideas on the nature of the verbs that are uncontroversial. The second objective of the author is to propose a theory that not only incorporates ideas of several generations of eminent researchers but is also consistent within itself, comprehensive and as simple as possible.

  13. Studies on the s_dm.t=f verb form in Classical Egyptian

    OpenAIRE

    Zonhoven, Ludovicus Martinus Johannes

    1997-01-01

    This study is devoted to some synchronic aspects of the sDm.t=f verb form, primarily its meaning and uses in Classical Egyptian. In the introduction some attention is paid to the history of the studies of the form and its origin, an aspect which will receive no further consideration. In accordance with present common opinion the sDm.t=f is here considered to belong to the suffix conjugation. Ch. I is primarily concerned with the active Dr sDm.t=f construction, but begins with a general introd...

  14. A morphophonological analysis of the velar insert in Italian verbs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nicola Lampitelli

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available This paper analyzes a particular group of Italian irregular verbs that are characterized by the insertion of [g] between the root and the inflectional markers. Despite the apparent unetymological status of such a velar insert (Rohlfs 1968, it is shown that the allomorphy of the root depends on the internal organization of the segmental material with respect to a fixed template made of a strict alternation of onsets (C and nuclei (V. The analyses are couched within the CVCV framework (Lowenstamm 1996; Scheer 2004 and are consistent with a syntactic approach to word- formation such as Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz 1993; Embick 2010. This article is part of the special collection: Motivating Form in Morpho-Syntax

  15. Semantic Models of Sentences with Verbs of Motion in Standard Language and in Scientific Language Used in Biology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vita Banionytė

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available The semantic models of sentences with verbs of motion in German standard language and in scientific language used in biology are analyzed in the article. In its theoretic part it is affirmed that the article is based on the semantic theory of the sentence. This theory, in its turn, is grounded on the correlation of semantic predicative classes and semantic roles. The combination of semantic predicative classes and semantic roles is expressed by the main semantic formula – proposition. In its practical part the differences between the semantic models of standard and scientific language used in biology are explained. While modelling sentences with verbs of motion, two groups of semantic models of sentences are singled out: that of action (Handlung and process (Vorgang. The analysis shows that the semantic models of sentences with semantic action predicatives dominate in the text of standard language while the semantic models of sentences with semantic process predicatives dominate in the texts of scientific language used in biology. The differences how the doer and direction are expressed in standard and in scientific language are clearly seen and the semantic cases (Agens, Patiens, Direktiv1 help to determine that. It is observed that in scientific texts of high level of specialization (biology science in contrast to popular scientific literature models of sentences with moving verbs are usually seldom found. They are substituted by denominative constructions. In conclusions it is shown that this analysis can be important in methodics, especially planning material for teaching professional-scientific language.

  16. VERB-VISUALITY IN MAFALDA’S COMIC STRIP: LINGUISTIC COURTESY/DISCOURTESY AND HUMOR IN THE DIALOGUE OF THE FIGURATIVE NARRATIVE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carlos Augusto Baptista Andrade

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available How to read a comic strip? What dialogical relations can such a genre perform, considering its hybrid nature of languages? It is proposed, in this article, to analyze a Mafalda’s comic strip, character created by Quino, as a discursive hybrid genre, observing the verb-visuality that constitutes the discourse, as well as exploring the meaning effects that arise from the dialogical relations. The marks of linguistic politeness and impoliteness present in the verb-visual materiality are also an object of this study. The theoretical foundation is the Dialogic Discourse Analysis (ADD, following the principles of Bakhtin (2010a, 2010b and his Circle and Brait’s (2013, as well as Brown and Levinson (1987 as a ground theory to support the issues of courtesy; and Kandinsky (2012 to assist in the reflections about the pictorial elements.

  17. Number Meaning and Number Grammar in English and Spanish

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bock, Kathryn; Carreiras, Manuel; Meseguer, Enrique

    2012-01-01

    Grammatical agreement makes different demands on speakers of different languages. Being widespread in the languages of the world, the features of agreement systems offer valuable tests of how language affects deep-seated domains of human cognition and categorization. Number agreement is one such domain, with intriguing evidence that typological…

  18. Regulatory and technical reports (abstract index journal): Annual compilation for 1997. Volume 22, Number 4

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    1998-04-01

    This journal includes all formal reports in the NUREG series prepared by the NRC staff and contractors; proceedings of conferences and workshops; as well as international agreement reports. The entries in this compilation are indexed for access by title and abstract, secondary report number, personal author, subject, NRC organization for staff and international agreements, contractor, international organization, and licensed facility.

  19. Regulatory and technical reports (abstract index journal): Annual compilation for 1997. Volume 22, Number 4

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1998-04-01

    This journal includes all formal reports in the NUREG series prepared by the NRC staff and contractors; proceedings of conferences and workshops; as well as international agreement reports. The entries in this compilation are indexed for access by title and abstract, secondary report number, personal author, subject, NRC organization for staff and international agreements, contractor, international organization, and licensed facility

  20. Feasibility of A Novel Treatment of Abstract Verbs in Aphasia and Apraxia of Speech

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dallin John Bailey

    2015-05-01

    Results were been obtained for the first of two planned treatment phases for both participants. Results indicated improved sentence production attributable to the treatment for one of the two participants. The Conservative Dual Criterion (CDC; Swoboda, Kratochwill, & Levin, 2010 was used to aid in visual inspection of graphed probe data. These results indicate the feasibility of the treatment for increasing sentence production with abstract verbs in persons with chronic aphasia and AOS.

  1. Emptiness is not so empty: The meaning of the Russian prefix вы- in the natural perfective verbs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tatiana Pozolotina

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper analyzes the meaning of the so-called "empty" prefix вы- (‘out-' of natural perfective verbs in the Russian language. It is argued that the prefix is not semantically empty, but displays meanings that can be analyzed as a radial category.

  2. Les Champs semantiques de l'action a travers le vocabulaire fondamental (Semantic Fields and Verbs in the Dictionary of Basic Vocabulary).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pons-Ridler, Suzanne

    1986-01-01

    The verbs in Gougenheim's Basic Dictionary are regrouped according to three classifications (synonyms, antonyms, and association) and organized according to semantic fields. Exercises designed to emphasize these relationships are suggested. (MSE)

  3. Canadian seismic agreement

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wetmiller, R.J.; Lyons, J.A.; Shannon, W.E.; Munro, P.S.; Thomas, J.T.; Andrew, M.D.; Lamontagne, M.; Wong, C.; Anglin, F.M.; Plouffe, M.; Lapointe, S.P.; Adams, J.; Drysdale, J.A.

    1990-04-01

    This is the twenty-first progress report under the agreement entitled Canadian Seismic Agreement between the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Canadian Commercial Corporation. Activities undertaken by the Geophysics Division of the Geological Survey of Canada (GD/GSC) during the period from July 01, 1988 to June 30, 1989 and supported in part by the NRC agreement are described below under four headings; Eastern Canada Telemetred Network and local network developments, Datalab developments, strong motion network developments and earthquake activity. In this time period eastern Canada experienced its largest earthquake in over 50 years. This earthquake, which has been christened the Saguenay earthquake, has provided a wealth of new data pertinent to earthquake engineering studies in eastern North America and is the subject of many continuing studies, which are presently being carried out at GD and elsewhere. 41 refs., 21 figs., 7 tabs

  4. The Texts of the Agency's Agreements with the Republic of Austria. V. Supplemental Agreement on the Establishment of an Agency Commissary

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    1973-03-08

    The text of the Supplemental Agreement on the Establishment of an Agency Commissary is reproduced in this document for the information of all Members. The Supplemental Agreement entered into force on 1 April 1972 pursuant to Article VII, hereby superseding the Supplemental Agreement which was the subject of documents INFCIRC/15, part V and INFCIRC/15/Add. 1.

  5. The Texts of the Agency's Agreements with the Republic of Austria. V. Supplemental Agreement on the Establishment of an Agency Commissary

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1973-01-01

    The text of the Supplemental Agreement on the Establishment of an Agency Commissary is reproduced in this document for the information of all Members. The Supplemental Agreement entered into force on 1 April 1972 pursuant to Article VII, hereby superseding the Supplemental Agreement which was the subject of documents INFCIRC/15, part V and INFCIRC/15/Add. 1

  6. Naturalness: some synchronic data of Old Indian

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Varja Cvetko-Orešnik

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available The framework of the paper is Natural Syntax initiated by Janez Orešnik in thetradition of (morphological naturalness as established by Wolfgang U. Dressler and Willi Mayerthaler. The basic tenets of Natural Syntax are described at the beginning of the paper. Natural Syntax is here applied to aspects of Old Indian synchronic verbal morphonology and verbal morphosyntax: (1 Causative -áya- verbs in Rig Veda and Atharva Veda. The root vowel a is short in closed syllables and long in open syllables. (2 Rig Veda and Atharva Veda contain 31 intransitive and 175 transitive -áya- verbs. (3 Rig Veda and Atharva Veda do not contain any causative verbs to the basic transitive verbs. (4 Post-Vedic double transitive verbs (the early construction contain an obligatory accusative corresponding to the subject of the base verb, and an optional accusative corresponding to the object of the base verb. (5 Post-Vedic double transitive verbs (the late construction contain an obligatory instrumental corresponding to the subject of the base verb, and an accusative corresponding to the object of the base verb. (6 The accusative mentioned in (5 is not obligatory. The data have been taken from Jamison (1983, a monograph about Old Indian -áya- verbs.

  7. Semantic Feature Analysis (SFA in the Treatment of Naming Deficits: Evidence from a Malay Speaker with Non-Fluent Aphasia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mohd Azmarul A Aziz

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Introduction Semantic Feature Analysis (SFA is a treatment for lexical retrieval impairment in which participants are cued by providing semantic information regarding concepts they have difficulty with in naming tasks in an effort to facilitate accurate lexical retrieval (Boyle & Coelho, 1995. People with aphasia are commonly found to have naming deficits and speech-language therapists (SLTs face difficulties in providing an effective treatment method to treat this deficit. This study aims to examine the use of SFA to address naming deficits for nouns and verbs in a Malay patient (KM with non-fluent aphasia. Methods The following tests were administered to the subject pre- and post- treatment: 1 Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE; 2 Malay Object and Action Test (MOAT; and 3 A series of comprehension and production assessments in Malay. Subject was asked to name 101 and 50 pictures from MOAT. The stimuli were coloured photograph pictures. Treatment and probe (untrained stimuli were selected from pictures that a subject could not name, yielding 40 nouns and 30 verbs. From these, 20 stimuli were randomly chosen as probe items and 20 as treatment stimuli (nouns, 15 treatment and 15 probes (verbs. For the treatment study, single subject A-B-A design was implemented. Three baseline sessions were completed prior to treatment initiation naming for both probe and treatment pictures. Subject attended once-weekly therapy sessions over 8 months. Probes assessing generalizations to untrained pictures were presented at 4th, 8th, and 12th and so on until the end of the programme. Results Results showed that KM’s ability to name trained and untrained picture stimuli improved for both nouns and verbs. KM demonstrated steady improvement in the SFA treatment of trained nouns and verbs: from 5% baseline accuracy to over 90% accuracy at treatment end for nouns and from 0% baseline accuracy to 90% accuracy at treatment end for verbs. Generalizations to

  8. Regulatory and technical reports (abstract index journal): Compilation for first quarter 1996, January--March. Volume 21, Number 1

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    1996-06-01

    This journal includes all formal reports in the NUREG series prepared by the NRC staff and contractors, proceedings of conferences and workshops, grants, and international agreement reports. The entries in this compilation are indexed for access by title and abstract, secondary report number, personal author, subject, NRC organization for staff and international agreements, contractor, international organization, and licensed facility.

  9. Regulatory and technical reports (abstract index journal): Compilation for first quarter 1996, January--March. Volume 21, Number 1

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1996-06-01

    This journal includes all formal reports in the NUREG series prepared by the NRC staff and contractors, proceedings of conferences and workshops, grants, and international agreement reports. The entries in this compilation are indexed for access by title and abstract, secondary report number, personal author, subject, NRC organization for staff and international agreements, contractor, international organization, and licensed facility

  10. The Semantic Shift of the Sensory Verb “ting (听” and Relevant Problems in Chinese Dialects

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wang Shuaichen

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The semantic shift exists in Chinese dialects. This paper takes the sensory verb “ting (听” as an example to describe its semantic shift and distribution, and to summarize its usage and distinguishing types. Furthermore, it tries to explore the motivations and mechanisms behind the semantic shift from the perspectives of typology, cultural cognition and lexical history.

  11. FFTF Authorization Agreement

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    DAUTEL, W.A.

    2000-01-01

    The purpose of the Authorization Agreement is to serve as a mechanism whereby the U.S. Department of Energy, Richland Operations Office (RL) and Fluor Hanford (FH) jointly clarify and agree to key conditions for conducting work safely and efficiently in the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF). Work must be accomplished in a manner that achieves high levels of quality while protecting the environment and the safety and health of workers and the public, and complying with applicable contractual and regulatory requirements. It is the intent of this Agreement to address those items of significant importance in establishing and supporting the FFTF Authorization Envelope, but this Agreement in no way alters the terms and conditions of the Project Hanford Management Contract (PHMC), Contract Number DE-AC06-96RL13200

  12. Regulatory and technical reports (abstract index journal): Compilation for second quarter 1997 April--June. Volume 22, Number 2

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    1997-10-01

    This journal includes all formal reports in the NUREG series prepared by the NRC staff and contractors; proceedings of conferences and workshops; as well as international agreement reports. The entries in this compilation are indexed for access by title and abstract, secondary report number, personal author, subject, NRC organization for staff and international agreements, contractor, international organization, and licensed facility.

  13. Regulatory and technical reports (abstract index journal): Compilation for second quarter 1997 April - June. Volume 22, Number 2

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1997-10-01

    This journal includes all formal reports in the NUREG series prepared by the NRC staff and contractors; proceedings of conferences and workshops; as well as international agreement reports. The entries in this compilation are indexed for access by title and abstract, secondary report number, personal author, subject, NRC organization for staff and international agreements, contractor, international organization, and licensed facility

  14. Semantic Categories in the Domain of Motion Verbs by Adult Speakers of Danish, German, and Turkish

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jessen, Moiken

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available Languages differ in the ways they divide the world. This study applies cluster analysis to understand how and why languages differ in the way they express motion events. It further lays out what the parameters of the structure of the semantic space of motion are, based on data collected from participants who were adult speakers of Danish, German, and Turkish. The participants described 37 video clips depicting a large variety of motion events. The results of the study show that the segmentation of the semantic space displays a great deal of variation across all three groups. Turkish differs from German and Danish with respect to the features used to segment the semantic space – namely by using vector orientation. German and Danish differ greatly with respect to (a how fine-grained the distinctions made are, and (b how motion verbs with a common Germanic root are distributed across the semantic space. Consequently, this study illustrates that the parameters applied for categorization by speakers are, to some degree, related to typological membership, in relation to Talmy's typological framework for the expression of motion events. Finally, the study shows that the features applied for categorization differ across languages and that typological membership is not necessarily a predictor of elaboration of the motion verb lexicon.

  15. Subjective versus objective assessment of breast reconstruction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Henseler, Helga; Smith, Joanna; Bowman, Adrian; Khambay, Balvinder S; Ju, Xiangyang; Ayoub, Ashraf; Ray, Arup K

    2013-05-01

    To date breast assessment has been conducted mainly subjectively. However lately validated objective three-dimensional (3D) imaging was developed. The study aimed to assess breast reconstruction subjectively and objectively and conduct a comparison. In forty-four patients after immediate unilateral breast reconstruction with solely the extended latissimus dorsi flap the breast was captured by validated 3D imaging method and standardized 2D photography. Breast symmetry was subjectively evaluated by six experts who applied the Harris score giving a mark of 1-4 for a poor to excellent result. An error study was conducted by examination of the intra and inter-observer agreement and agreement on controls. By Procrustes analysis an objective asymmetry score was obtained and compared to the subjective assessment. The subjective assessment showed that the inter-observer agreement was good or substantial (p-value: value: fair (p-values: 0.159, 0.134, 0.099) to substantial (p-value: 0.005) intra-observer agreement. The objective assessment revealed that the reconstructed breast showed a significantly smaller volume compared to the opposite side and that the average asymmetry score was 0.052, ranging from 0.019 to 0.136. When comparing the subjective and objective method the relationship between the two scores was highly significant. Subjective breast assessment lacked accuracy and reproducibility. This was the first error study of subjective breast assessment versus an objective validated 3D imaging method based on true 3D parameters. The substantial agreement between established subjective breast assessment and new validated objective method supported the value of the later and we expect its future role to expand. Copyright © 2013 British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Mothers' Talk to Children with Down Syndrome, Language Impairment, or Typical Development about Familiar and Unfamiliar Nouns and Verbs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bird, Elizabeth Kay-Raining; Cleave, Patricia

    2016-01-01

    This study investigated how forty-six mothers modified their talk about familiar and unfamiliar nouns and verbs when interacting with their children with Down Syndrome (DS), language impairment (LI), or typical development (TD). Children (MLUs < 2·7) were group-matched on expressive vocabulary size. Mother-child dyads were recorded playing with…

  17. Community-based naming agreement, familiarity, image agreement and visual complexity ratings among adult Indians

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    George Annamma

    2007-01-01

    Full Text Available The validity of Snodgrass and Vanderwart pictures and their norms derived on a western population on naming, familiarity, imageability and visual-complexity, is not established on a population with cultural background different from the west. We developed, therefore, a set of culturally appropriate pictures for and derived norms on Indians. Line-drawings of 103 concepts (67 from Snodgrass and Vanderwart, 36 new from 10 semantic-categories were normed on 200 community-based older subjects. Only 31% of the Snodgrass and Vanderwart items showed a concept-agreement on the Indians comparable to western norms. Naming, familiarity and image-agreement mutually correlated but not with visual-complexity. Low-education and rural-residence tended to reduced concept-agreement. The output of this study will be of use in national and cross-national studies.

  18. Productive Activities and Subjective Well-Being among Older Adults: The Influence of Number of Activities and Time Commitment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baker, Lindsey A.; Cahalin, Lawrence P.; Gerst, Kerstin; Burr, Jeffrey A.

    2005-01-01

    This study examines relationships among three measures of subjective well-being (life satisfaction, happiness and depressive symptoms), and two global measures of productive activity (number of activities and time commitment). We argue that participation in multiple productive activities should increase subjective well-being because these…

  19. RHETORICAL PATTERNS, VERB TENSE, AND VOICE IN CROSS DISCIPLINARY RESEARCH ARTICLE ABSTRACT

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sharifah Hanidar

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available This article investigates research article abstracts in terms of their rhetorical patterns and the use of verb tenses and voice. A total of 40 abstracts were selected from four international journals in the fields of Biology, Mechanical Engineering, Linguistics, and Medicine. A four move model was adopted from Hardjanto (1997 to analyze the structure of the abstracts. The results show that all the abstracts have Move 1, creating a research space; 70% have Move 2, describing research procedure; 85% have Move 3, summarizing principal results; and 85% have Move 4, evaluating results. All the abstracts in medicine have Moves 1, 2, 3 and 4, whereas the most common pattern in Biology is Moves 1, 3 and 4, in Mechanical Engineering Moves 1, 2 and 3, and in Linguistics Moves 1, 2 and 4. This seems to suggest that there is a disciplinary variation in the structuring of RA abstracts in the four disciplines under investigation. With regard to the use of verb tense and voice in each move, the present tense and past tense in the active voice and the past tense in the passive voice were the most frequently used tenses. The present tense in the active voice was frequently used in Moves 1 and 4, while the past tense in the active voice was commonly used in Move 3 and the past tense in the passive voice was frequently found in Move 2. Furthermore, it was found that the present tense in the active voice was frequently used in Biology, Mechanical Engineering and Linguistics, whereas the past tense in the active voice occurred more frequently in Medicine, and the past tense in the passive voice was more frequently found in Mechanical Engineering than in other disciplines.

  20. Form 6 - gas balancing agreement

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Anon.

    1990-01-01

    In 1988, a special Committee of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation undertook a project to draft a model from gas balancing agreement. This project was initiated at the request of a number of Foundation members who felt that a model form gas balancing agreement would facilitate the negotiation of operating agreement, since gas balancing issues had become sticking points in the process. The Committee was composed of attorneys representing a wide cross-section of the oil and gas industry including both major and independent oil companies, production companies with interstate pipeline affiliates, and private practitioners. The Committee attempted to address the more controversial issues in gas balancing with optional provisions in the Form. To facilitate the negotiation process, the number of optional provisions was minimized. This form may be used as an Appendix to the new A.A.P.L. Form 610-1989 Model Form Operating Agreement. This book includes provision of this Form which are: Ownership of gas production; Balancing of production accounts; Cash balancing upon depletion; Deliverability tests; Nominations; Statements; Payment of taxes; Operating expenses; Overproducing allowable; Payment of leasehold burdens; Operator's liability; Successors and assigns; Audits; Arbitration; and Operator's fees

  1. Effect of Integrating Computer-Assisted Language Learning in the TOEFL Performance of Nursing Students

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marlene R. Castillo

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available The study aimed to determine the relationship between the use of a computer-assisted language learning (CALL software and the TOEFL performance of nursing students. This descriptive study used a pre-test and post-test and a survey questionnaire to gather data. Interviews and observations were also conducted to gain further insights in the use of the software. Results indicate that for the three areas of the TOEFL model practice test, there is a statistically significant increase in the gain scores of the students in the post-test after being exposed to the use of the software for two semesters. They performed well in Sentence Completion and Error Identification, both under Structure and Written Expression. On the other hand, they performed only fairly for Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary. For Structure and Written Expression, the areas of strength included correct choice of main verbs, subject pronouns, and comparative use of adjective while the areas of weaknesses include correlative conjunctions, adverb-related structures, and indefinite subject and verb agreement.

  2. Dialect Variation of Copula and Auxiliary Verb BE: African American English-Speaking Children with and without Gullah/Geechee Heritage

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berry, Jessica R.; Oetting, Janna B.

    2017-01-01

    Purpose: We compared copula and auxiliary verb BE use by African American English-speaking children with and without a creole heritage, using Gullah/Geechee as the creole criterion, to determine if differences exist, the nature of the differences, and the impact of the differences on interpretations of ability. Method: Data came from 38 children,…

  3. The Facebook paths to happiness: effects of the number of Facebook friends and self-presentation on subjective well-being.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Junghyun; Lee, Jong-Eun Roselyn

    2011-06-01

    The current study investigates whether and how Facebook increases college-age users' subjective well-being by focusing on the number of Facebook friends and self-presentation strategies (positive vs. honest). A structural equation modeling analysis of cross-sectional survey data of college student Facebook users (N=391) revealed that the number of Facebook friends had a positive association with subjective well-being, but this association was not mediated by perceived social support. Additionally, we found that there was a negative curvilinear (inverted U-shape curve) relationship between Facebook friends and perceived social support. As for self-presentation strategies, whereas positive self-presentation had a direct effect on subjective well-being, honest self-presentation had a significant indirect effect on subjective well-being through perceived social support. Our study suggests that the number of Facebook friends and positive self-presentation may enhance users' subjective well-being, but this portion of happiness may not be grounded in perceived social support. On the other hand, honest self-presentation may enhance happiness rooted in social support provided by Facebook friends. Implications of our findings are discussed in light of affirmation of self-worth, time and effort required for building and maintaining friendships, and the important role played by self-disclosure in signaling one's need for social support.

  4. Noun and verb knowledge in monolingual preschool children across 17 languages: Data from Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Haman, Ewa; Łuniewska, Magdalena; Hansen, Pernille; Simonsen, Hanne Gram; Chiat, Shula; Bjekić, Jovana; Blažienė, Agnė; Chyl, Katarzyna; Dabašinskienė, Ineta; Engel de Abreu, Pascale; Gagarina, Natalia; Gavarró, Anna; Håkansson, Gisela; Harel, Efrat; Holm, Elisabeth; Kapalková, Svetlana; Kunnari, Sari; Levorato, Chiara; Lindgren, Josefin; Mieszkowska, Karolina; Montes Salarich, Laia; Potgieter, Anneke; Ribu, Ingeborg; Ringblom, Natalia; Rinker, Tanja; Roch, Maja; Slančová, Daniela; Southwood, Frenette; Tedeschi, Roberta; Tuncer, Aylin Müge; Ünal-Logacev, Özlem; Vuksanović, Jasmina; Armon-Lotem, Sharon

    2017-01-01

    This article investigates the cross-linguistic comparability of the newly developed lexical assessment tool Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT). LITMUS-CLT is a part the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) battery (Armon-Lotem, de Jong & Meir, 2015). Here we analyse results on receptive and expressive word knowledge tasks for nouns and verbs across 17 languages from eight different language families: Baltic (Lithuanian), Bantu (isiXhosa), Finnic (Finnish), Germanic (Afrikaans, British English, South African English, German, Luxembourgish, Norwegian, Swedish), Romance (Catalan, Italian), Semitic (Hebrew), Slavic (Polish, Serbian, Slovak) and Turkic (Turkish). The participants were 639 monolingual children aged 3;0-6;11 living in 15 different countries. Differences in vocabulary size were small between 16 of the languages; but isiXhosa-speaking children knew significantly fewer words than speakers of the other languages. There was a robust effect of word class: accuracy was higher for nouns than verbs. Furthermore, comprehension was more advanced than production. Results are discussed in the context of cross-linguistic comparisons of lexical development in monolingual and bilingual populations.

  5. How textbooks (and learners get it wrong: A corpus study of modal auxiliary verbs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hayo Reinders

    2013-02-01

    Full Text Available Many elements contribute to the relative difficulty in acquiring specific aspects of English as a foreign language (Goldschneider & DeKeyser, 2001. Modal auxiliary verbs (e.g. could, might, are examples of a structure that is difficult for many learners. Not only are they particularly complex semantically, but especially in the Malaysian context reported on in this paper, there is no direct equivalent in the students’ L1. In other words, they are a good example of a structure for which successful acquisition depends very much on the quality of the input and instruction students receive. This paper reports on analysis of a 230,000 word corpus of Malaysian English textbooks, in which it was found that the relative frequency of the modals did not match that found in native speaker corpora such as the BNC. We compared the textbook corpus with a learner corpus of Malaysian form 4 learners and found no direct relationship between frequency of presentation of target forms in the textbooks and their use by students in their writing. We also found a very large percentage of errors in students’ writing. We suggest a number of possible reasons for these findings and discuss the implications for materials developers and teachers.

  6. From sixty-two interviews on 'the worst and the best episode of your life'. Relationships between internal working models and a grammatical scale of subject-object affective connections.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Seganti, A; Carnevale, G; Mucelli, R; Solano, L; Target, M

    2000-06-01

    The authors address the issue of inferring unconscious internal working models of interaction through language. After reviewing Main's seminal work of linguistic assessment through the 'adult attachment interview', they stress the idea of adults' internal working models (IWMs) as information-processing devices, which give moment-to-moment sensory orientation in the face of any past or present, animate or inanimate object. They propose that a selective perception of the objects could match expected with actual influence of objects on the subject's self, through very simple 'parallel-processed' categories of internal objects. They further hypothesise that the isomorphism between internal working models of interaction and grammatical connections between subjects and objects within a clause could be a key to tracking positive and negative images of self and other during discourse. An experiment is reported applying the authors' 'scale of subject/object affective connection' to the narratives of sixty-two subjects asked to write about the 'worst' and 'best' episodes of their lives. Participants had previously been classified using Hazan & Shaver's self-reported 'attachment types' (avoidant, anxious and secure) categorising individuals' general expectations in relation to others. The findings were that the subject/object distribution of positive and negative experience, through verbs defined for this purpose as either performative or state verbs, did significantly differ between groups. In addition, different groups tended, during the best episodes, significantly to invert the trend of positive/negative subject/object distribution shown during the worst episode. Results are discussed in terms of a psychoanalytic theory of improvement through co-operative elaboration of negative relational issues.

  7. Patterns of third person plural verbal agreement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Silvia Rodrigues Vieira

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper aims to provide a Labovian sociolinguistic description of 3rd person plural patterns of agreement in European (EP, Brazilian (BP and São Tomé (STP Portuguese based on very recent samples of speech stratified for age, sex/gender and education. Linguistic and social restrictions for the variation are investigated. Results from statistical analysis indicate that there are two patterns of agreement in Portuguese: a semi-categorical rule, typical of EP, and a variable rule, typical of BP and STP, restricted by specific linguistic and social factors. Additionally, the results indicate that general linguistic constraints – such as the position of the subject, semantic feature of the subject or even discursive parallelism – cannot say anything about historical origin of Portuguese varieties, since they can be concerned with any language. Therefore, besides the quantitative expression of non-agreement, the quality of the occurrences of non-plural marking may support the characterization of each variety.

  8. TIPE VERBA BAHASA PERANCIS DAN PERWUJUDANNYA PADA KLAUSA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Roswita Lumban Tobing

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available This study aims to describe types of verbs and their realizations in clauses in French. The data were collected from books on the French language system. The data were analyzed using a structural approach combined with referential semantics to check the acceptability of verb uses in clauses. The results are as follows. First, an intransitive verb in a clause serves as a predicate that describes the subject action without an object. Second, a transitive verb must be followed by a direct or an indirect object which can be placed in front of the verb. Third, a dual-type verb can be a transitive verb or an intransitive verb. Fourth, in the passive voice, the construction of the main verb is ‘participe passé’ that must be accompanied by the auxiliary verb ‘etre’.

  9. دراسة أفعال اللغة الإنجليزية في اتصال الخطابات السياسية والدينية A Study of English Verbs of Communication in the Political and Religious Speeches

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lect. Lihadh Abdul Ameer Mubarak لحاظ عبدالامير مبارك

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Communication is the main core of language as language is widely defined as a means of communication. Verbs of communication can help achieving communication by their own. The current study focuses on the verbs of communication showing its semantic features and types. It tries to find out the role of the verbs of communication in achieving communication in two linguistic discourses namely the political and the religious speeches. It also tries to find the similarities and differences between these two types of speeches in regard to the use of verbs of communication finding out whether both types of speeches use such verbs. Finally, if verbs of communication are used, the study tries to find out which types of verbs of communication are used in both political and religious speeches. The aim of the study is to describe the verbs of communication in English as used in political and religious speeches. There by, it is possible to make a comparison between these two different discourses in regard to the use of verbs of communication and to contrast them so as to find out the syntactic and semantic differences and similarities between the two discourses. To achieve aims of the study, the following procedures are followed: 1. Presenting a theoretical background about the notion of communication in general concentrating on the role of verbs of communication. 2. Finding out the role of verbs of communication in achieving communication and showing the syntactic and semantic features of verbs of communication in English. 3. Analyzing samples of political and religious speeches to correlate the syntactic and semantic features of verbs of communication used in these two discourses.

  10. 「タクシーがゐる」の文法 : 存在動詞の使い分け

    OpenAIRE

    竹端, 暸一

    2006-01-01

    Verbs like the 'be' verb in English express existence of both animate beings and inanimate things, and moreover, they function as copulae to join the subject and the predicate of a sentence. On the other hand, some Japanese verbs like 'aru' express the existence of inanimate things, while the others like 'iru' are used, in principle, for the existence of animate things. Because of this peculiar classification of verbs, learners of Japanese are often puzzled over their choice of verbs. The ver...

  11. Statistical methods for assessing agreement between continuous measurements

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sokolowski, Ineta; Hansen, Rikke Pilegaard; Vedsted, Peter

    Background: Clinical research often involves study of agreement amongst observers. Agreement can be measured in different ways, and one can obtain quite different values depending on which method one uses. Objective: We review the approaches that have been discussed to assess the agreement between...... continuous measures and discuss their strengths and weaknesses. Different methods are illustrated using actual data from the `Delay in diagnosis of cancer in general practice´ project in Aarhus, Denmark. Subjects and Methods: We use weighted kappa-statistic, intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC......), concordance coefficient, Bland-Altman limits of agreement and percentage of agreement to assess the agreement between patient reported delay and doctor reported delay in diagnosis of cancer in general practice. Key messages: The correct statistical approach is not obvious. Many studies give the product...

  12. 45 CFR 650.7 - Awards affected by international agreements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 45 Public Welfare 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Awards affected by international agreements. 650.7 Section 650.7 Public Welfare Regulations Relating to Public Welfare (Continued) NATIONAL SCIENCE... research performer such rights in any subject invention as are contemplated in the international agreement...

  13. Closing the gap: connecting sudden representational change to the subjective Aha! experience in insightful problem solving.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Danek, Amory H; Williams, Joshua; Wiley, Jennifer

    2018-01-18

    Two hallmarks of insightful problem solving are thought to be suddenness in the emergence of solution due to changes in problem representation, and the subjective Aha! Although a number of studies have explored the Aha! experience, few studies have attempted to measure representational change. Following the lead of Durso et al. (Psychol Sci 5(2):94-97, 1994) and Cushen and Wiley (Conscious Cognit 21(3):1166-1175, 2012), in this study, participants made importance-to-solution ratings throughout their solution attempts as a way to assess representational change. Participants viewed a set of magic trick videos with the task of finding out how each trick worked, and rated six action verbs for each trick (including one that implied the correct solution) multiple times during solution. They were also asked to indicate the extent to which they experienced an Aha! moment. Patterns of ratings that showed a sudden change towards a correct solution led to stronger Aha! experiences than patterns that showed a more incremental change towards a correct solution, or a change towards incorrect solutions. The results show a connection between sudden changes in problem representations (leading to correct solutions) and the subjective appraisal of solutions as an Aha! This offers the first empirical support for a close relationship between two theoretical constructs that have traditionally been assumed to be related to insightful problem solving.

  14. The Dilemma of Learning Phrasal Verbs among EFL learners

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Salman A. Al Nasarat

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available This study was designed to examine difficulties in interpreting English phrasal verbs (PVs that individual college student of English face during their academic career. Interpretation is an apparent obstacle that Jordanian English students encounter as they learn language systematically. The learners being investigated were divided into two groups including regular students of English language and literature and non-majoring English students who study communication skills in English at Al Hussein Bin Talal University. Basically, the present study attempted to investigate students’ background level and performance to identify the source of weakness in interpreting PVs either orally or based on written texts. The findings would shed light on translating inability and more significantly on interpreting strategies while students work out the meaning of spoken or written PVs combinations.  The overall score obtained by students in the designed test resulted in a plausible explanation for this learning problem and should help for a better course design and instruction as well as effective classroom teaching and curricula.

  15. Intergenerational Transmission of Cultural Values in Korean American Families: An Analysis of the Verb Suffix "-ta", Part One and Part Two

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, Eunjin

    2008-01-01

    Drawing on the concept of language socialization, this study investigates ways in which parents and grandparents of three-generational Korean-American households socialize children into certain cultural values through the use of a particular linguistic feature in Korean: the verb suffix "-ta". All six participating families had at least one child…

  16. Ansätze zur Darstellung nicht- und schwach idiomatischer verbonominaler Wortverbindungen in der zweisprachigen (Lerner-Lexikografie Deutsch-Finnisch (Beschreibung eines Forschungsvorhabens

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Heine, Antja

    2006-01-01

    Full Text Available The study focuses on verb-noun-connections of the type verb + subject (accusative and verb + preposition + subject. They will be described systematically, among themselves and in relation to free word connections. The units to be examined will be taken from electronic corpora. They will be analysed with regard to their utilisation. The second part of the research project focuses on the elaboration of Finnish analogies to these units, asking, whether the results can be used for bilingual lexicography (German-Finnish.

  17. Problems With Section Two ITP TOEFL Test

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rizki Ananda

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available This study was designed to investigate (1 the difficulties faced by EFL university students with section two of the ITP, and (2 whether part A or part B was more difficult for them and why. A number of 26 students from two different universities, Syiah Kuala University and the State Islamic University Ar-Raniry were the samples for the test. The data was obtained from a multiple choice questionnaire test consisting of 46 questions, each with 4 answers to choose from. The results showed that inversions (12%, subject-verb agreements (10%, adverb clause connectors (7%, passives (6%, reduced adjective clauses (5%, parallel structures (5% and use of verbs (5% were the most difficult questions for the students. Furthermore, they felt that part B was more difficult than part A, as finding an error in a sentence was harder than completing a sentence from a multiple choice. Furthermore, the length of questions in part A did not affect the amount of time the students spent to complete part A and did not cause them to panic. Also, unfamiliar words in part A were not regarded as a problem by the students. Hence, TOEFL teachers and trainers are highly encouraged to pay more attention to doing study exercises for the seven topics with the highest percentages above in part A and also to more practice for part B.

  18. 40 CFR 35.3130 - The capitalization grant agreement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... ASSISTANCE STATE AND LOCAL ASSISTANCE State Water Pollution Control Revolving Funds § 35.3130 The... SRF Operating Agreement. (b) Operating agreement. At the option of the State, the organizational and... Management and Budget under control number 2040-0118) ...

  19. Het voorzetselvoorwerp

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Broekhuis, H.

    2004-01-01

    This article extends the classification of verbs that was provided in Broekhuis (1997), which is based on the number and types of nominal arguments of the verb, to verbs that take a PPcomplement. It turns out that those verb types that have at most one internal nominal argument (that is, the

  20. Corpus-based Transitivity Biases in Individuals with Aphasia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gayle DeDe

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Introduction Spontaneous speech samples in individuals with aphasia (IWA have been analyzed to examine many different psycholinguistic features. The present study focused on how IWA use verbs in spontaneous speech. Some verbs can occur in more than one argument structure, but are biased to occur more frequently in one frame than another. For example, "watch" appears in transitive and intransitive structures, but is usually used transitively. This is known as a transitivity bias. It is unknown whether IWA show the same transitivity biases in production as those reported in previous corpus studies with unimpaired individuals. Studies of sentence comprehension have shown that IWA are sensitive to verb biases (e.g., DeDe, 2013. In addition, IWA have shown an overall preference for transitive structures, which are the most frequent structures in English (Roland, Dick, & Elman, 2007. The present study investigated whether IWA show the same pattern of transitive and intransitive biases in spontaneous speech as unimpaired individuals. Method Participants: 278 interviews with IWA were taken from AphasiaBank. The IWA represented a range of aphasia types. Participants were omitted if they spoke English as a second language. Materials: 54 verbs were coded. We chose verbs with the goal of representing different bias types (e.g., transitive, intransitive, sentential complement. Of these, data from 11 transitively biased and 11 intransitively biased verbs (matched for frequency of use and number of syllables are presented here. Coding: All productions of the 54 verbs were coded. The coding protocol was based on Gahl, Jurafsky, and Roland (2004. We implemented an additional level of coding to indicate erroneous verb productions, such as ungrammatical structures and verb agreement errors. Results The (intransitivity biases for IWA were compared to biases from a previously published corpus study (Gahl et al., 2004. The IWA used transitively biased verbs in

  1. Linguistic analysis of face-to-face interviews with patients with an explicit request for euthanasia, their closest relatives, and their attending physicians: the use of modal verbs in Dutch.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dieltjens, Sylvain M; Heynderickx, Priscilla C; Dees, Marianne K; Vissers, Kris C

    2014-04-01

    The literature, field research, and daily practice stress the need for adequate communication in palliative care. Although language is of the utmost importance in communication, linguistic analysis of end-of-life discussions is scarce. Our aim is 2-fold: We want to determine what the use of 4 significant Dutch modal verbs expressing volition, obligation, possibility, and permission reveals about the concept of unbearable suffering and about physicians' communicative style. We quantitatively (TextStat) and qualitatively (bottom-up approach) analyzed the use of the modal verbs in 15 interviews, with patients requesting euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, their physicians, and their closest relatives. An essential element of unbearable suffering is the patient's incapacity to perform certain tasks. Further, the physician's preference for particular modal verbs reveals whether his attitude toward patients is more or less patronizing and more or less appreciative. Linguistic analysis can help medical professionals to better understand their communicative skills, styles, and approach to patients in end-of-life situations. We have shown how linguistic analysis can contribute to a better understanding of physician-patient interaction. Moreover, we have illustrated the usefulness of interdisciplinary research in the medical domain. © 2013 World Institute of Pain.

  2. L'accord sujet-verbe : acquis en fin d'école primaire, vraiment ?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Brissaud Catherine

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available Nous avons mené un recueil de données longitudinal (réparti sur trois années scolaires : de février 2009 à juin 2011. Cette étude a pour objectif de mieux comprendre les procédures développées par des élèves de 8 à 11 ans alors qu’ils évoluent de l'étape morphémique vers l'étape orthographique d'acquisition de l'orthographe grammaticale. Nous nous concentrons sur une compétence particulièrement attendue en fin d'école primaire : la réussite de l'accord sujet-verbe. Nous présentons les "portraits orthographiques" de quatre élèves à travers l'analyse de l'évolution de leurs compétences en situation de dictée (sur deux ans et de production écrite (sur une année scolaire. Nous élargissons ensuite aux productions des CM2 lors des évaluations nationales. Nous montrons que ces élèves ont des évolutions similaires mais assez fortement décalées dans le temps. C'est la maîtrise de procédures morphosyntaxiques (qui coexistent alors avec les procédures morphosémantiques développées en premier lieu qui permet d'améliorer puis stabiliser leurs choix orthographiques. L'accord sujet-verbe reste cependant une compétence "en cours d'acquisition", donc fragile, pour de nombreux élèves en fin d'école primaire. Il est donc important de réfléchir à des dispositifs et des outils susceptibles de favoriser le développement de ces procédures morphosyntaxiques et leur intégration dans une démarche réflexive d'analyse et de contrôle.

  3. Het voorzetselvoorwerp

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Broekhuis, H.

    2004-01-01

    This article extends the classification of verbs that was provided in Broekhuis (1997), which is based on the number and types of nominal arguments of the verb, to verbs that take a PP-complement. It turns out that those verb types that have at most one internal nominal argument (that is, the

  4. Evaluating subjective cognitive impairment in the adult epilepsy clinic: Effects of depression, number of antiepileptic medications, and seizure frequency.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Feldman, Lauren; Lapin, Brittany; Busch, Robyn M; Bautista, Jocelyn F

    2018-04-01

    Subjective cognitive complaints are a frequent concern of patients with epilepsy. The Aldenkamp-Baker Neuropsychological Assessment Schedule (ABNAS) is a patient-reported scale validated to measure adverse cognitive effects of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). The goals of this study were to identify predictors of patient-reported cognitive dysfunction and to assess the relationship between subjective and objective cognitive impairment. The Cleveland Clinic Knowledge Program Data Registry was used to identify adult patients seen in outpatient epilepsy clinic from January to May 2015 and who completed the following scales: ABNAS for subjective cognitive impairment, Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) for depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item (GAD-7) scale, Quality of Life in Epilepsy (QOLIE-10), and EuroQOL five dimensions questionnaire (EQ-5D) for health-related quality of life. Topiramate (TPM) was considered a high-risk medication for cognitive impairment. Patients were categorized into groups based on total ABNAS score: subjective cognitive impairment (ABNAS>15; N=270) and no subjective cognitive impairment (ABNAS≤15; N=400). Multivariable logistic regression models were constructed to identify independent predictors of subjective cognitive impairment. In a subset of patients who had neuropsychological testing within 6months of completing the ABNAS (N=60), Pearson correlations and multivariable logistic regression models, controlling for number of AEDs, depression, and anxiety, assessed the relationship between subjective cognitive impairment and objective cognitive performance on measures of intelligence, attention/working memory, verbal fluency, naming, processing speed, manual dexterity, visuomotor processing, and verbal memory. Forty percent of patients in the overall sample (N=270/670) reported cognitive impairment. The variables most strongly associated with subjective cognitive impairment were PHQ-9 score, number of AEDs, and seizure frequency. In

  5. GHANA JOURNAL OF LINGUISTICS Volume 6 Number 2 2017

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Modern Languages and English Language at the Kwame Nkrumah ... too, are diverse, covering phonology (Kuubezelle & Akanlig-Pare), morphology/syntax ... constructions are relatively free as in English prepositional verbs, but barred when ...

  6. The IEA/bioenergy implementing agreement and other activities

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Costello, R [U.S. Department of Energy, Washington D.C. (United States). Biofuels Systems Div.

    1997-12-31

    Implementing Agreements (IAs) are used widely in international collaborative work within the International Energy Agency (IEA). These agreements are meant to be very flexible depending on the nature of the work and the interests of the participating countries. Many IAs are directed at the development of specific technologies, while a number of IAs are primarily used to facilitate information collection and dissemination. There are also a number of agreements that do not deal directly with technology development, but deal with environmental, economic and safety aspects of the technologies under development. The IEA Bioenergy Agreement is a prime example of how Implementing Agreements can be utilised to establish and expand cooperative research for the effective leveraging of technical knowledge and financial resources in finding solutions to the future needs of a growing energy dependent world. As will be illustrated, these activities are important to the commercialisation and deployment of bioenergy technologies, which increasingly are being visualized as one of the few options that can maintain and promote economic and environmental stability

  7. The IEA/bioenergy implementing agreement and other activities

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Costello, R.

    1996-01-01

    Implementing Agreements (IAs) are used widely in international collaborative work within the International Energy Agency (IEA). These agreements are meant to be very flexible depending on the nature of the work and the interests of the participating countries. Many IAs are directed at the development of specific technologies, while a number of IAs are primarily used to facilitate information collection and dissemination. There are also a number of agreements that do not deal directly with technology development, but deal with environmental, economic and safety aspects of the technologies under development. The IEA Bioenergy Agreement is a prime example of how Implementing Agreements can be utilised to establish and expand cooperative research for the effective leveraging of technical knowledge and financial resources in finding solutions to the future needs of a growing energy dependent world. As will be illustrated, these activities are important to the commercialisation and deployment of bioenergy technologies, which increasingly are being visualized as one of the few options that can maintain and promote economic and environmental stability

  8. The IEA/bioenergy implementing agreement and other activities

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Costello, R. [U.S. Department of Energy, Washington D.C. (United States). Biofuels Systems Div.

    1996-12-31

    Implementing Agreements (IAs) are used widely in international collaborative work within the International Energy Agency (IEA). These agreements are meant to be very flexible depending on the nature of the work and the interests of the participating countries. Many IAs are directed at the development of specific technologies, while a number of IAs are primarily used to facilitate information collection and dissemination. There are also a number of agreements that do not deal directly with technology development, but deal with environmental, economic and safety aspects of the technologies under development. The IEA Bioenergy Agreement is a prime example of how Implementing Agreements can be utilised to establish and expand cooperative research for the effective leveraging of technical knowledge and financial resources in finding solutions to the future needs of a growing energy dependent world. As will be illustrated, these activities are important to the commercialisation and deployment of bioenergy technologies, which increasingly are being visualized as one of the few options that can maintain and promote economic and environmental stability

  9. Some Phenomena on Negative Inversion Constructions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sung, Tae-Soo

    2013-01-01

    We examine the characteristics of NDI (negative degree inversion) and its relation with other inversion phenomena such as SVI (subject-verb inversion) and SAI (subject-auxiliary inversion). The negative element in the NDI construction may be" not," a negative adverbial, or a negative verb. In this respect, NDI has similar licensing…

  10. Intra-examiner repeatability and agreement in accommodative response measurements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Antona, B; Sanchez, I; Barrio, A; Barra, F; Gonzalez, E

    2009-11-01

    Clinical measurement of the accommodative response (AR) identifies the focusing plane of a subject with respect to the accommodative target. To establish whether a significant change in AR has occurred, it is important to determine the repeatability of this measurement. This study had two aims: First, to determine the intraexaminer repeatability of AR measurements using four clinical methods: Nott retinoscopy, monocular estimate method (MEM) retinoscopy, binocular crossed cylinder test (BCC) and near autorefractometry. Second, to study the level of agreement between AR measurements obtained with the different methods. The AR of the right eye at one accommodative demand of 2.50 D (40 cm) was measured on two separate occasions in 61 visually normal subjects of mean age 19.7 years (range 18-32 years). The intraexaminer repeatability of the tests, and agreement between them, were estimated by the Bland-Altman method. We determined mean differences (MD) and the 95% limits of agreement [coefficient of repeatability (COR) and coefficient of agreement (COA)]. Nott retinoscopy and BCC offered the best repeatability, showing the lowest MD and narrowest 95% interval of agreement (Nott: -0.10 +/- 0.66 D, BCC: -0.05 +/- 0.75 D). The 95% limits of agreement for the four techniques were similar (COA = +/- 0.92 to +/-1.00 D) yet clinically significant, according to the expected values of the AR. The two dynamic retinoscopy techniques (Nott and MEM) had a better agreement (COA = +/-0.64 D) although this COA must be interpreted in the context of the low MEM repeatability (COR = +/-0.98 D). The best method of assessing AR was Nott retinoscopy. The BCC technique was also repeatable, and both are recommended as suitable methods for clinical use. Despite better agreement between MEM and Nott, agreement among the remaining methods was poor such that their interchangeable use in clinical practice is not recommended.

  11. A LIVING EXAMPLE OF THE VERB YAÑŞA- IN OLD TURKISH: YENÇELEŞMEK ESKİ TÜKÇEDEKİ YAÑŞA- FİİLİNİN YAŞADIĞI BİR ÖRNEK: YENÇELEŞMEK

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dilek HERKMEN

    2009-12-01

    Full Text Available The verb yençeleş- which was collected from Anatolian dialects, takes place in present sources in different shapes. This word that underwent vowel changes is a derived form of yañşa- verb which has been seen since old Turkish period. In this study, the analysis of verb yençeleş- is indicated with it’s forms in historical texts. It was confirmed that, the verb yençeleş- had been derived from an onomatopoeic word root yañ. Also the other derivatives of that root were shown in this study. Halk ağzından derlenen yençeleş- fiili mevcut kaynaklarda farklı şekiller ile yer almaktadır. Ses değişikliğine uğrayan kelime Eski Türkçeden beri yaşayan yañşa- fiilinin türemiş şeklidir. Bu çalışmada yençeleş- fiilinin tahlili, tarihî metinlerdeki şekliyle birlikte belirtilmiştir. Yençeleş- fiilinin yañ yansıma kökünden türediği tespit edilmiş ve bu köke ait diğer türevler gösterilmiştir.

  12. The Range of Gapping and the Status of Auxiliaries.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Warner, A. R.

    Full verbs and auxiliaries are subject to gapping. In the simplest cases, this construction type involves apparent ellipsis within one or more clausal conjuncts under identity with the finite verb or auxiliary of a preceding conjunct. It has often been suggested that the apparent ellipsis must involve at least a verb. Some researchers see in the…

  13. ERROR ANALYSIS ON INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY STUDENTS’ SENTENCE WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rentauli Mariah Silalahi

    2015-03-01

    Full Text Available Students’ error analysis is very important for helping EFL teachers to develop their teaching materials, assessments and methods. However, it takes much time and effort from the teachers to do such an error analysis towards their students’ language. This study seeks to identify the common errors made by 1 class of 28 freshmen students studying English in their first semester in an IT university. The data is collected from their writing assignments for eight consecutive weeks. The errors found were classified into 24 types and the top ten most common errors committed by the students were article, preposition, spelling, word choice, subject-verb agreement, auxiliary verb, plural form, verb form, capital letter, and meaningless sentences. The findings about the students’ frequency of committing errors were, then, contrasted to their midterm test result and in order to find out the reasons behind the error recurrence; the students were given some questions to answer in a questionnaire format. Most of the students admitted that careless was the major reason for their errors and lack understanding came next. This study suggests EFL teachers to devote their time to continuously check the students’ language by giving corrections so that the students can learn from their errors and stop committing the same errors.

  14. Cooperative monitoring of regional security agreements

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Pregenzer, A.L.; Vannoni, M.; Biringer, K.L. [Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States). Nonproliferation and Arms Control Analysis Dept.

    1996-11-01

    This paper argues that cooperative monitoring plays a critical role in the implementation of regional security agreements and confidence building measures. A framework for developing cooperative monitoring options is proposed and several possibilities for relating bilateral and regional monitoring systems to international monitoring systems are discussed. Three bilateral or regional agreements are analyzed briefly to illustrate different possibilities. These examples illustrate that the relationship of regional or bilateral arms control or security agreements to international agreements depends on a number of factors: the overlap of provisions between regional and international agreements; the degree of interest in a regional agreement among the international community; efficiency in implementing the agreement; and numerous political considerations. Given the importance of regional security to the international community, regions should be encouraged to develop their own infrastructure for implementing regional arms control and other security agreements. A regional infrastructure need not preclude participation in an international regime. On the contrary, establishing regional institutions for arms control and nonproliferation could result in more proactive participation of regional parties in developing solutions for regional and international problems, thereby strengthening existing and future international regimes. Possible first steps for strengthening regional infrastructures are identified and potential technical requirements are discussed.

  15. Construction of Graphic Symbol Sequences by Preschool-Aged Children: Learning, Training, and Maintenance

    Science.gov (United States)

    Poupart, Annick; Trudeau, Natacha; Sutton, Ann

    2013-01-01

    The use of augmentative and alternative communication systems based on graphic symbols requires children to learn to combine symbols to convey utterances. The current study investigated how children without disabilities aged 4 to 6 years (n = 74) performed on a simple sentence (subject-verb and subject-verb-object) transposition task (i.e., spoken…

  16. The Change from SOV to SVO in Ancient Greek.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taylor, Ann

    1994-01-01

    Examines the distribution of clause types in ancient Greek during the Homeric (pre-800 B.C.) and Hellenistic (ca. 100 A.D.) periods, as well as an intermediate period (ca. 450 B.C.), delineating the evolution from a subject-object-verb (SOV) to a subject-verb-object (SVO) structure. (49 references) (MDM)

  17. Raising out of finite CP in Nguni: the case of fanele | Zeller ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The Nguni modal verb fanele can select a finite clause in the subjunctive mood as its complement. Typically, the thematic subject of this clausal complement remains in the embedded subject position, in which case the matrix verb fanele is prefixed with the expletive marker ku-. However, in another possible construction with ...

  18. THE CASE FOR VERB-ADJECTIVE COLLOCATIONS: CORPUS-BASED ANALYSIS AND LEXICOGRAPHICAL TREATMENT

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Moisés Almela

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available This article explores a type of co-occurrence pattern which cannot be adequately described by existing models of collocation, and for which combinatory dictionaries have yet failed to provide sufficient information. The phenomenon of “oblique inter-collocation”, as I propose to call it, is characterised by a concatenation of syntagmatic preferences which partially contravenes the habitual grammatical order of semantic selection. In particular, I will examine some of the effects which the verb cause exerts on the distribution of attributive adjectives in the context of specific noun classes. The procedure for detecting and describing patterns of oblique inter-collocation is illustrated by means of SketchEngine corpus query tools. Based on the data extracted from a large-scale corpus, this paper carries out a critical analysis of the micro-structure in Oxford Collocations Dictionary.

  19. THE PHENOMENON OF UNDERSPECIFICATION IN EARLY CHILD GRAMMAR: THE EXAMPLE OF VERB PLACEMENT AND OPTIONALITY / LE PHÉNOMÈNE DE SOUS-SPÉCIFICATION DANS LA GRAMMAIRE ENFANTINE: L'EXEMPLE DU POSITIONNEMENT DU VERBE ET DE L'OPTIONNALITÉ / FENOMENUL FORMULĂRII INEXACTE ÎN GRAMATICA TIMPURIE A COPILULUI: EXEMPLUL PLASĂRII VERBULUI ŞI OPŢIONALITATEA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sonja Kitanovska-Kimovska

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this paper is to discuss the phenomenon of underspecification in early child grammar with respect to the syntactic consequences it has in the child language system. The paper addresses the phenomena of verb placement and optionality and how they are accounted for by first language acquisition theories assuming identity between child and adult grammatical systems. These phenomena are discussed within the weak and strong continuity frameworks which account for L1A by incorporating the notion of underspecification among their basic assumptions. Continuity approaches to L1A find underspecification to be of crucial importance in the early grammar. It seems that underspecification of functional categories and their features is what makes the child and adult systems different by provoking a number of syntactic consequences evident in the child system, while absent in the adult one

  20. Agreements

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    These columns summarize the different bilateral and multilateral agreements concluded recently between the different OECD countries and concerning the nuclear energy domain: Argentina - Australia: Agreement concerning Co-operation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy (2001). Argentina - Brazil: Joint Declaration regarding the Creation of the Argentinean-Brazilian Agency for Nuclear Energy Applications (2001). Australia - Czech Republic / Australia - Hungary: Agreements on Co-operation in Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy and the Transfer of Nuclear Material (2001). Australia - Indonesia: Arrangement Concerning Co-operation on Nuclear Safeguards and Related Matters (2001). Austria - Switzerland: Agreement on the Early Exchange of Information in the Field of Nuclear Safety and Radiation. Brazil - United States: Extension of the Agreement concerning Research and Development in Nuclear Material Control, Accountancy, Verification, Physical Protection, and Advanced Containment and Surveillance Technologies for International Safeguards Applications (2001). Czech Republic - Republic of Korea: Agreement for Co-operation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy (2001). European Union- Russian Federation: Agreements on Nuclear Safety and Controlled Nuclear Fusion (2001). France - United States: Agreement for Co-operation in Advanced Nuclear Reactor Science and Technology (2001). Japan - United Kingdom: Co-operation Agreement on Advanced Nuclear Fuel Cycle, Fast Breeder Reactor and Other Related Technologies (2001). Republic OF Korea - United States: Annex IV Joint Project on Cintichem Technology (2000). Morocco - United States: Protocol amending the Co-operation Agreement on the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy (2001). Multilateral Agreements: Agreement for Information Exchange on Radiological Surveillance in Northern Europe (2001). Status of Conventions in the Field of Nuclear Energy. (author)

  1. -p ADVERB-VERB SUFFIX IN KIRIM TATARIAN DIALECT FROM ESKISEHIR AND SURROUNDINGS / ESKISEHIR VE YÖRESI KIRIM TATAR AĞZINDA -p ZARF-FIIL EKI

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dr. Arzu S. Ertane BAYDAR

    2008-08-01

    Full Text Available In this study, -p adverb-verb suffix used in Kırım Tatarian accent inEskisehir and surroundings was researched all aspects and its vocal structureand functions were presented with rich samples; the meanings of the samplesin Turkish are shown in paranthesis.

  2. Review Article: Yamada, Jeni "Laura: A Case for the Modularity of Language"; Tomasello, Michael "First Verbs: A Case Study of Early Grammatical Development."

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shatz, Marilyn

    1994-01-01

    Jeni Yamada's "Laura" and Michael Tomasello's "First Verbs" continue a tradition of providing useful information on the language ability of individuals in a depth rarely found in multisubject studies; however, these efforts are unusual for case studies in that both take strong theoretical positions on the essence of language and language learning.…

  3. Safeguards agreements - Their legal and conceptual basis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sanders, B.; Rainer, R.H.

    1977-01-01

    The application of Agency safeguards requires treaty arrangements (Safeguards Agreements) between the State or States concerned and the Agency. The authority for the Agency to conclude such agreements and to implement them is provided for in the Agency's Statute. On the basis of the statutory provisions safeguards principles and procedures have been elaborated. These have been laid down in: The Agency's Safeguards System 1965, extended in 1966 and 1968; and the basis for negotiating safeguards agreements with NNWS pursuant to NPT. The verification of the undertaking by the State concerned not to use items subject to safeguards for purposes contrary to the terms of the agreement is ensured through the application of various safeguards measures. Containment and surveillance measures are expected to play an increasingly important role. One of the specific features of NPT Safeguards Agreements is the establishment of national systems of accounting and control of nuclear material. The majority of the agreements concluded under the non-NPT safeguards agreements implement obligations undertaken under co-operation agreements between States for peaceful uses of nuclear energy. These agreements naturally reflect approaches adopted by the parties, in particular regarding the circumstances under which safeguards should be applied. Thus, the concepts used in the non-NPT safeguards agreements and the Safeguards System document, which is incorporated in these agreements by reference, are in continuous evolution. The Agency's Safeguards System document (INFCIRC/66/Rev.2) continues to be supplemented in practical application and through explicit decision by the Board. The non-NPT safeguards agreements contain, besides technical safeguards provisions from this document, and further provision for notification, inventories and financial matters, legal and political provisions such as sanctions in the case of non-compliance, and privileges and immunities. The paper discusses the

  4. Cooperative monitoring of regional security agreements

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Pregenzer, A.L.; Vannoni, M.; Biringer, K.L.

    1995-08-01

    This paper argues that cooperative monitoring plays a critical role in the implementation of regional security agreements and confidence building measures. A framework for developing cooperative monitoring options is proposed and several possibilities for relating bilateral and regional monitoring systems to international monitoring systems are discussed. Three bilateral or regional agreements are analyzed briefly to illustrate different possibilities: (1) the demilitarization of the Sinai region between Israel and Egypt in the 1970s; (2) the 1991 quadripartite agreement for monitoring nuclear facilities among Brazil, Argentina, The Argentine-Brazilian Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials and the International Atomic Energy Agency; and (3) a bilateral Open Skies agreement between Hungary and Romania in 1991. These examples illustrate that the relationship of regional or bilateral arms control or security agreements to international agreements depends on a number of factors: the overlap of provisions between regional and international agreements; the degree of interest in a regional agreement among the international community; efficiency in implementing the agreement; and numerous political considerations.Given the importance of regional security to the international community, regions should be encouraged to develop their own infrastructure for implementing regional arms control and other security agreements. A regional infrastructure need not preclude participation in an international regime. On the contrary, establishing regional institutions for arms control and nonproliferation could result in more proactive participation of regional parties in developing solutions for regional and international problems, thereby strengthening existing and future international regimes. Possible first steps for strengthening regional infrastructures are identified and potential technical requirements are discussed.

  5. Kutadgu Bilig'de “yorı-” Fiili Üzerine On The Verb Of “yorı-” In Kutadgu Bilig

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ahmet DEMİRTAŞ

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available The basic meaning of the words in a text can also be used with different connotations apart from their basic meanings. It can be possible to understand and to make sense of a text by knowing these different meanings of the words used in the text and the context.The “yorı-” verb, which means “to walk” basically is also used in other meanings in Kutadgu Bilig. As one of the works of Karahanlı Turkish era, The Kutadgu Bilig is a work of Turkish cultural history, Turkish language and literature that has never lost its importance. In this study, the context meanings of the “yorı-” verb found in Kutadgu Bilig’s index were tried to determined. It was found that the “yorı-” verb placed in 253 times in the text. Out of these, it was placed 234 times as one word and 19 times as the compound verb form.The verb “yorı-” is shown with the meanings of “to walk” and “to arrive” in Kutadgu Bilig’s index. However, the “yorı-” verb in the text was used not only to mean “to walk” and “to arrive” but also “to live”, “to move”, “to walk around”, “to go”, “to deal with”, “to continue”, “to spend time”, “to be mentioned”, “to think”, “to get along”, “to be valued” and “to write.” In addition, as it is seen in the examples of modern Turkish, it was used like a preposition to mean “to come on” in order to specify a motivation and quickness in the form of the imperative conjugated with the second person singular.It was also determined in the text that the “yorı-” verb was used like yolça yorı- “to behave”, izçe yorı- “to behave”, sa•vı yorı- “to increase the influence”, ya•guŽk yorı- “to approach” and umınçŽka yorı- “to be in expectation” with a noun and buza yorı- “to ruin”, kezip yorı- “to walk around”, yaŽka yorı- “to approach” and ayı•glap yorı- “to decry” with a compound verb. Bir metindeki kelimeler

  6. Structuring group medical practices: shareholder and partnership agreements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gassman, A S

    1992-01-01

    This article is the second in a series addressing the structuring of group medical entities, shareholder relationships, and general representation factors. In this article, a number of the legal and business considerations for entering into shareholder and partnership agreements are discussed, and various types of practice structures and recommended group practice agreement provisions are described.

  7. Teaching Semantic Prosody of English Verbs through the DDL Approach and Its Effect on Learners' Vocabulary Choice Appropriateness in a Persian EFL Context

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mansoory, Niloofar; Jafarpour, Mohsen

    2014-01-01

    This study examined teaching SP of English verbs through the data-driven learning (DDL) approach and its effect on learners' vocabulary choice appropriateness in the Persian English foreign language (EFL) context. In the present study, two male intact classes were selected. One of these two classes was randomly selected as a treatment group and…

  8. On a syntactic-semantic model with the locative case

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Antonić Ivana

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available The topic of this paper is a syntactic-semantic model whose distinctive element is the locative case with the preposition U (IN and the relevant feature (+ human being. This model is realized in three different variants - with the intransitive (A or transitive verb (B, where the nominative in the function of subject and the locative indicate different (B1 or the same (B2 referents. Furthermore, the verb belongs to a semantic class which denotes emerging, stimulation, duration, fading away, diminishing or change in the intensity, in principle, of any phenomenon, and concretely in this model such verbs appear in the collocational link with the nouns implying man's psychological, physiological or mental states, feelings or mood. With an adequate analytic procedure, all the three variants of this model are approached from the syntactic-semantic and pragmatic perspective. The paper points to the causative semantics of these structures, reduced to the metalinguistic formula 'make that X V', which confirms that the semantics of these verb-noun collocational links, syntactically speaking, condenses a complex two-member sentential structure represented by the semantically deficient verb (= causative component in the basic, matrix structure, and the complement clause with the conjunction DA (THAT and the basic verb. And precisely from this semantic feature there follows that the notion in the locative case semantically, actually, represents the BEARER of a physiological, physiological or mental state, feeling, mood, so that it represents the GRAMMATICAL SUBJECT of the corresponding basic subordinated predication whose exponent, actually, is the grammatical subject in the structure with the intransitive verb (or with the syntactically-semantically intransitive verb structure, that is the object in the structure with the transitive verb. Two possible semantic interpretations of this model are presented: the one related to the referential pointing to the

  9. Agreement between paper and pen visual analogue scales and a wristwatch-based electronic appetite rating system (PRO-Diary©), for continuous monitoring of free-living subjective appetite sensations in 7-10 year old children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rumbold, P L S; Dodd-Reynolds, C J; Stevenson, E

    2013-10-01

    Electronic capture of free-living subjective appetite data can provide a more reliable alternative to traditional pen and paper visual analogue scales (P&P VAS), whilst reducing researcher workload. Consequently, the aim of this study was to explore the agreement between P&P VAS and a wristwatch-based electronic appetite rating system known as the PRO-Diary© technique, for monitoring free-living appetite sensations in 7-10 year old children. On one occasion, using a within-subject design, the 12 children (n=6 boys; n=6 girls) recorded their subjective appetite (hunger, prospective food consumption, and fullness), at two time points before lunch (11:30 and 12:00) and every 60 min thereafter until 21:00. The agreement between the P&P VAS and PRO-Diary© technique was explored using 95% limits of agreement and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) calculated using the Bland and Altman (1986) technique. For hunger, prospective food consumption and fullness, the 95% limits of agreement were -1±25 mm (95% CI: lower limit -8mm; upper limit +6mm), 0±21 mm (95% CI: lower limit -6mm; upper limit +6mm) and -6±24 mm (95% CI: lower limit -14 mm; upper limit +1mm), respectively. Given the advantages associated with electronic data capture (inexpensive; integrated alarm; data easily downloaded), we conclude that the PRO-Diary© technique is an equivalent method to employ when continuously monitoring free-living appetite sensations in 7-10 year old children, but should not be used interchangeably with P&P VAS. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. STABILITY OF INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL AGREEMENTS IN LEADERSHIP MODEL

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Jin ZHANG; Shouyang WANG; Lei ZU

    2008-01-01

    International Environmental Agreements (IEAs) are a form of cooperation ratified by countries which can improve the management of shared environmental resources. The authors analyze the stability of International Environmental Agreements in leadership model. In 2006, Diamantoudi & Sartzetakis found that a stable coalition consists of either 2, 3, or 4 members if the number of countries is greater than 4. Their model is reconsidered. It is shown that the size of stable IEAs decreases from 3 to 2 when the total number of countries involved increases. However, a situation that can guarantee 4 to be the size of stable IEAs could not be found.

  11. Transitivity pairs in Baltic: between Finnic and Slavic

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nau Nicole

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available In this paper we examine transitivity pairs in the two modern Baltic languages Lithuanian and Latvian and compare them to neighbouring Finnic (Finnish, Estonian and Slavic (Russian, Polish languages. In Slavic the main strategy is to derive the intransitive (noncausal verb from the transitive (causal verb, while in Finnic we find a high number of derived causatives. Baltic uses both techniques, and in addition, there is a higher number of pairs where either both verbs are marked, or two etymologically related verbs are underived from a synchronic point of view. Differences and similarities across the six languages are investigated, using a list of 20 notions divided into five groups. Special attention is paid to animacy and to the distinction between inchoative and durative noncausal verbs.

  12. tDCS stimulation segregates words in the brain: evidence from aphasia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Valentina eFiori

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available A number of studies have already shown that modulating cortical activity by means of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS improves noun or verb naming in aphasic patients. However, it is not yet clear whether these effects are equally obtained through stimulation over the frontal or the temporal regions. In the present study, the same group of aphasic subjects participated in two randomized double-blind experiments involving two intensive language treatments for their noun and verb retrieval difficulties. During each training, each subject was treated with tDCS (20 min., 1mA over the left hemisphere in three different conditions: anodic tDCS over the temporal areas, anodic tDCS over the frontal areas and sham stimulation, while they performed a noun and an action naming tasks. Each experimental condition was run in five consecutive daily sessions over three weeks with 6 days of intersession interval. The order of administration of the two language trainings was randomly assigned to all patients. Overall, with respect to the other two conditions, results showed a significant greater improvement in noun naming after stimulation over the temporal region, while verb naming recovered significantly better after stimulation of the frontal region. These improvements persisted at one month after the end of each treatment suggesting a long-term effect on recovery of the patients’ noun and verb difficulties. These data clearly suggest that the mechanisms of recovery for naming can be segregated coupling tDCS with an intensive language training.

  13. Representacions gramaticals i activitat metalingüística dels alumnes de secundària : la categoria verb

    OpenAIRE

    Durán Rivas, Carme

    2009-01-01

    L’article descriu una investigació sobre la representació gramatical que alumnes de l’últim curs de la secundària obligatòria han construït sobre la categoria verb, una noció de gran dificultat epistemològica. La finalitat última és identificar les estràtegies que han fet servir per conceptualizar-la i conèixer les dificultats amb què es troben com un primer pas per, d’una banda, entendre com es produeix el procés d’interiorització dels coneixements gramaticals i, d’una altra, poder dissenyar...

  14. OCP TECD Report - TARDEC Blast Mitigation Program (BMP) and National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) Michigan (MI) Chapter Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) Summary

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-09-26

    Standard, MIL-STD-3058, Occupant-Centric Protection for Military Ground Vehicles. 15. SUBJECT TERMS Occupant Centric Platform Technology-Enabled...Capability Demonstration (OCP TECD), Occupant-centric, Occupant Protection , Underbody Blast, National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA...Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) 16. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF: 17. LIMITATION OF ABSTRACT 18. NUMBER OF PAGES 19a. NAME OF

  15. Final task force report on the Agreement State Program

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1977-12-01

    Section 274 of the Atomic Energy Act provides a statutory means by which the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission may relinquish to the States a part of its regulatory authority over the use of source material, by-product material, and small quantities of special nuclear material. The Commission is required to retain regulatory authority over the licensing of nuclear facilities, exports and imports of nuclear materials and facilities, larger quantities of special nuclear material, and activities conducted by other Federal agencies which are not exempted by the Act. This study analyzes the NRC Agreement State Program to determine: whether the NRC should aggressively promote Agreement State status; whether the NRC should relinquish additional responsibility to the States and if so, which responsibilities and under what circumstances, and conversely if NRC should reassert authority in any areas; to what extent the NRC should continue to oversee State performance; and whether changes in the statute or regulations are desirable or required. At present, there are 25 states that have not opted for agreement status. Appendix A contains a discussion of the legislative history of Section 274, a report on the current status of the program, Agreement State review procedures, the full text of Section 274, a list of Agreement States, dates of agreements, number of licenses, a list of non-Agreement States, and numbers of NRC licenses in these States. Appendix B analyzes states' comments

  16. Functional categories in agrammatism: evidence from Greek.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stavrakaki, Stavroula; Kouvava, Sofia

    2003-07-01

    The aim of this study is twofold. First, to investigate the use of functional categories by two Greek agrammatic aphasics. Second, to discuss the implications of our findings for the characterization of the deficit in agrammatism. The functional categories under investigation were the following: definite and indefinite articles, personal pronouns, aspect, tense, subject-verb agreement, wh-pronouns, complementizers and the mood marker na (=to). Based on data collected through different methods, it is argued that the deficit in agrammatism cannot be described in terms of a structural account but rather by means of difficulties in the implementation of grammatical knowledge.

  17. The time-course of feature interference in agreement comprehension: Multiple mechanisms and asymmetrical attraction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tanner, Darren; Nicol, Janet; Brehm, Laurel

    2014-10-01

    Attraction interference in language comprehension and production may be as a result of common or different processes. In the present paper, we investigate attraction interference during language comprehension, focusing on the contexts in which interference arises and the time-course of these effects. Using evidence from event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and sentence judgment times, we show that agreement attraction in comprehension is best explained as morphosyntactic interference during memory retrieval. This stands in contrast to attraction as a message-level process involving the representation of the subject NP's number features, which is a strong contributor to attraction in production. We thus argue that the cognitive antecedents of agreement attraction in comprehension are non-identical with those of attraction in production, and moreover, that attraction in comprehension is primarily a consequence of similarity-based interference in cue-based memory retrieval processes. We suggest that mechanisms responsible for attraction during language comprehension are a subset of those involved in language production.

  18. Agreement of Tracing and Direct Viewing Techniques for Cervical Vertebral Maturation Assessment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wiwatworakul, Opas; Manosudprasit, Montian; Pisek, Poonsak; Chatrchaiwiwatana, Supaporn; Wangsrimongkol, Tasanee

    2015-08-01

    This study aimed to evaluate agreement among three methods for cervical vertebral maturation (CVM) assessment, comprising direct viewing, tracing only, and tracing with digitized points. Two examiners received training and tests of reliability with each CVM method before evaluation of agreement among methods. The subjects were 96 female-cleft lateral cephalometric radiographs (films of eight subjects for each age ranged from seven to 18 years). The examiners interpreted CVM stages of the subjects with four-week interval between uses of each method. The range of weighted kappa values for paired comparisons among the three methods were: 0.96-0.98 for direct viewing and tracing only comparison; 0.93-0.94 for direct viewing and tracing with digitized points comparison; and 0.96-0.97 for tracing only and tracing with digitized points comparison. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) value among the three methods was 0.95. These results indicated very good agreement among methods. Use of direct viewing is suitable for CVM assessment without spending more time for tracing. However, the three methods might be used interchangeably.

  19. Decision Tree Approach to Discovering Fraud in Leasing Agreements

    OpenAIRE

    Horvat Ivan; Pejić Bach Mirjana; Merkač Skok Marjana

    2014-01-01

    Background: Fraud attempts create large losses for financing subjects in modern economies. At the same time, leasing agreements have become more and more popular as a means of financing objects such as machinery and vehicles, but are more vulnerable to fraud attempts. Objectives: The goal of the paper is to estimate the usability of the data mining approach in discovering fraud in leasing agreements. Methods/Approach: Real-world data from one Croatian leasing firm was used for creating tow mo...

  20. Degree of agreement among sepsis diagnosis criteria in adult emergency room patients with infection

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sinto, R.; Chandra, A. T.; Lie, K. C.; Suwarto, S.

    2018-03-01

    The study on the degree of agreement among three established sepsis diagnosis criteria become the necessity to investigate the best sepsis diagnosis criteria in Indonesia further. A cross-sectional study of adult Emergency Room patients hospitalized with a diagnosis of infection in CiptoMangunkusumo Hospital, Indonesia was conducted during March and April 2017. We recorded diagnosis, gender, age, comorbidities, infection source, and origin. Every subject was classified into sepsis and non-sepsis based on 1991, 2001 and sepsis-3 criteria. Raw % and Kappa agreement coefficients (κ) were calculated according to previously established formula to measure the degree of agreement among three diagnostic criteria. As many as 278 subjects were included in this study. The raw % agreement and κ between 1991 and 2001 criteria is 69.07% and 0.34 respectively. The raw % agreement and κ between 2001 and sepsis-3 criteria is 56.12% and 0.15 respectively. The raw % agreement and κ between 1991 and sepsis-3 criteria is 48.19% and -0.02. In conclusions, there is afair agreement between 1991 and 2001 criteria, poor agreement between 2001 and sepsis-3 criteria, and poor disagreement between 1991 and sepsis-3 criteria. This necessitates further Indonesian study of the best diagnosis criteria to diagnose an infected patient with sepsis.

  1. Safeguards agreements - their legal and conceptual basis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sanders, B.; Rainer, R.

    1977-01-01

    The application of Agency safeguards requires treaty arrangements (''Safeguards Agreements'') between the State or States concerned and the Agency. The authority for the Agency to conclude such agreements and to implement them is provided for in the Agency's Statute (Articles II, III A.5 and XII). On the basis of the statutory provisions safeguards principles and procedures have been elaborated. These have been laid down in: (a) The Agency's Safeguards System 1965, extended in 1966 and 1968 (INFCIRC/66/Rev.2); and (b) The basis for negotiating safeguards agreements with NNWS pursuant to NPT (INFCIRC/153). The verification of the undertaking by the State concerned not to use items subject to safeguards for purposes contrary to the terms of the agreement is verified through the application of various safeguards measures (design review, records, reports and inspection). Containment and surveillance measures are expected to play an increasingly important role. NPT Safeguards Agreements foresee as one of their specific features the establishment of national systems of accounting and control of nuclear material. The majority of the agreements concluded under document INFCIRC/66/Rev.2 - i.e. the non-NPT safeguards agreements - implement obligations undertaken under co-operation agreements between States for peaceful uses of nuclear energy. These agreements naturally reflect approaches adopted by the parties, in particular as to the circumstances under which safeguards should be applied. Thus, the concepts used in the non-NPT safeguards agreements and the safeguards system of document INFCIRC/66/Rev.2 which is incorporated in these agreements by reference are in continuous evolution. Document INFCIRC/66/Rev.2 continues to be supplemented in practical application and through explicit decision by the Board. The non-NPT safeguards agreements contain, besides technical safeguards provisions from document INFCIRC/66/Rev.2, and further provision for notification, inventories

  2. The comparative method of language acquisition research: a Mayan case study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pye, Clifton; Pfeiler, Barbara

    2014-03-01

    This article demonstrates how the Comparative Method can be applied to cross-linguistic research on language acquisition. The Comparative Method provides a systematic procedure for organizing and interpreting acquisition data from different languages. The Comparative Method controls for cross-linguistic differences at all levels of the grammar and is especially useful in drawing attention to variation in contexts of use across languages. This article uses the Comparative Method to analyze the acquisition of verb suffixes in two Mayan languages: K'iche' and Yucatec. Mayan status suffixes simultaneously mark distinctions in verb transitivity, verb class, mood, and clause position. Two-year-old children acquiring K'iche' and Yucatec Maya accurately produce the status suffixes on verbs, in marked distinction to the verbal prefixes for aspect and agreement. We find evidence that the contexts of use for the suffixes differentially promote the children's production of cognate status suffixes in K'iche' and Yucatec.

  3. How are personality trait and profile agreement related?

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Allik, J.; Borkenau, P.; Hřebíčková, Martina; Kuppens, P.; Realo, A.

    2015-01-01

    Roč. 6, č. 6 (2015), s. 785 ISSN 1664-1078 Institutional support: RVO:68081740 Keywords : self-other agreement * trait-centered approach * varable-cenetered approach Subject RIV: AN - Psychology Impact factor: 2.463, year: 2015 http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00785/abstract

  4. Conceptual Structures of Copulas and Locative-Existential Verbs in Tibetan and Himalayan Languages%藏语与喜马拉雅语言中存在类动词的概念结构

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    黄成龙

    2014-01-01

    文章从认知语言学、语言人类学和认知心理学的角度讨论藏语的系词(yin 与 red)“是”和处所/存在动词(yod、dug、yog.red)“在、有”的功能分布,并且与喜马拉雅语言的存在类动词进行了比较。通过亲属语言之间跨语言的比较,了解存在类动词之间概念的关联性。探索存在类动词在这些语言中概念结构的相似性和差异性。%In this paper,we describe and analyze functional distribution of copulas yin,red and locative-existential verbs yod,dug,yog.red in varieties of Tibetan,in the meantime,we compare Tibetan copulas and locative-existential verbs with those of Himalayan languages.We finally provide similarities and differences of conceptual structures of copulas and locative-existential verbs between Tibetan and Himalayan languages in terms of cognitive linguistics,linguistic anthropology and cogni-tive psychology.

  5. On-line Processing of German Number-marked Relative Clauses in the Visual-world Paradigm

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anne Adelt

    2014-04-01

    (3 Filler: Wo ist das Schwein mit dem Ballon? (Where is the pig with the balloon? All sentences are randomized and presented auditorily. Simultaneously, colored illustrations of animals performing an action are shown on a computer screen (see Figure 1. Participants have to identify via button press (left/right the target animal to which the question refers. During this task, eye movements are collected as an on-line measure of sentence processing. Off-line comprehension is measured in terms of accuracy of target identification. Ten IWAs with sentence comprehension deficits and 30 healthy controls are tested. Discussion Following Burchert et al. (2003, we expect the IWA’s off-line comprehension of SRCs and ORCs to be at chance level, while controls make hardly any errors. In the on-line data, the number of fixations to the target picture are supposed to increase only at the verb or shortly after the sentence offset, since disambiguation occurs sentence finally at the verb. Controls are expected to show faster or longer fixations to the target in SRCs compared to ORCs (Caplan et al., 2007. In line with Hanne, Sekerina, Vasishth, Burchert, and De Bleser (2011, IWA’s fixations to the target should not differ qualitatively from those of controls, at least for correct responses, but eye gaze patterns may be delayed. Data collection and analysis is still ongoing. Results will be ready by October and presented and discussed at the Academy of Aphasia conference.

  6. Left fronto-temporal dynamics during agreement processing: evidence for feature-specific computations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Molinaro, Nicola; Barber, Horacio A; Pérez, Alejandro; Parkkonen, Lauri; Carreiras, Manuel

    2013-09-01

    Grammatical agreement is a widespread language phenomenon that indicates formal syntactic relations between words; however, it also conveys basic lexical (e.g. grammatical gender) or semantic (e.g. numerosity) information about a discourse referent. In this study, we focus on the reading of Spanish noun phrases, violating either number or gender determiner-noun agreement compared to grammatical controls. Magnetoencephalographic activity time-locked to the onset of the noun in both types of violation revealed a left-lateralized brain network involving anterior temporal regions (~220 ms) and, later in time, ventro-lateral prefrontal regions (>300 ms). These activations coexist with dependency-specific effects: in an initial step (~170 ms), occipito-temporal regions are employed for fine-grained analysis of the number marking (in Spanish, presence or absence of the suffix '-s'), while anterior temporal regions show increased activation for gender mismatches compared to grammatical controls. The semantic relevance of number agreement dependencies was mainly reflected by left superior temporal increased activity around 340 ms. These findings offer a detailed perspective on the multi-level analyses involved in the initial computation of agreement dependencies, and theoretically support a derivational approach to agreement computation. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  7. Implementation of voluntary agreements for energy efficiency in China

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hu Yuan

    2007-01-01

    Low-energy efficiency and environmental pollution have long been taken as key problems of Chinese industry, although a number of command-and-control and economic instruments have been adopted in the last few decades. In this paper, policy and legislation development for voluntary agreements were summarized. The voluntary agreements pilot project in two iron and steel companies in Shandong Province as well as other cases were analyzed. In order to identify the existing problems in Chinese cases, comparison was made between China and industrialized countries in the practices of energy efficiency voluntary agreements. Based on the analysis, detained recommendations, including the use of supporting policies for voluntary agreements, were raised. It is expected that voluntary agreements could play a more important role in energy efficiency improvement of Chinese industry

  8. Language-motor interference reflected in MEG beta oscillations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Klepp, Anne; Niccolai, Valentina; Buccino, Giovanni; Schnitzler, Alfons; Biermann-Ruben, Katja

    2015-04-01

    The involvement of the brain's motor system in action-related language processing can lead to overt interference with simultaneous action execution. The aim of the current study was to find evidence for this behavioural interference effect and to investigate its neurophysiological correlates using oscillatory MEG analysis. Subjects performed a semantic decision task on single action verbs, describing actions executed with the hands or the feet, and abstract verbs. Right hand button press responses were given for concrete verbs only. Therefore, longer response latencies for hand compared to foot verbs should reflect interference. We found interference effects to depend on verb imageability: overall response latencies for hand verbs did not differ significantly from foot verbs. However, imageability interacted with effector: while response latencies to hand and foot verbs with low imageability were equally fast, those for highly imageable hand verbs were longer than for highly imageable foot verbs. The difference is reflected in motor-related MEG beta band power suppression, which was weaker for highly imageable hand verbs compared with highly imageable foot verbs. This provides a putative neuronal mechanism for language-motor interference where the involvement of cortical hand motor areas in hand verb processing interacts with the typical beta suppression seen before movements. We found that the facilitatory effect of higher imageability on action verb processing time is perturbed when verb and motor response relate to the same body part. Importantly, this effect is accompanied by neurophysiological effects in beta band oscillations. The attenuated power suppression around the time of movement, reflecting decreased cortical excitability, seems to result from motor simulation during action-related language processing. This is in line with embodied cognition theories. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Inc.

  9. ON TRANSITIVITY AND INTRANSITIVITY IN THE AKHVAKH LANGUAGE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Indira Akhmedovna Abdulaeva

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available The semantic analysis of verbs of the unwritten Akhvakh language, as one from avaro-ando-tsez group of Nakho-Dagestanian languages, is carried out in this paper. The syntax sentence construction in Dagestanian languages is inseparably linked with opposition of transitivity and intransitivity. Transitive languages form ergative constructions, and intransitive ones – absolute constructions. Based on the particular role of the lexical semantics of verbs in sentence formulating, the verbs of the Akhvakh language are classified into several lexical-semantic groups: transitive, intransitive, affective, labile. A significant number of verbs combine transitive and intransitive meanings. At the level of morphology the distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs by special markers (suffixes is typical for the Akhvakh language. The causative forms of verbs, having a special place in the system of intransitive verbs, were also covered in this article.

  10. Froude number fractions to increase walking pattern dynamic similarities: application to plantar pressure study in healthy subjects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moretto, P; Bisiaux, M; Lafortune, M A

    2007-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to determine if using similar walking velocities obtained from fractions of the Froude number (N(Fr)) and leg length can lead to kinematic and kinetic similarities and lower variability. Fifteen male subjects walked on a treadmill at 0.83 (VS(1)) and 1.16ms(-1) (VS(2)) and then at two similar velocities (V(Sim27) and V(Sim37)) determined from two fractions of the N(Fr) (0.27 and 0.37) so that the average group velocity remained unchanged in both conditions (VS(1)=V (Sim27)andVS(2)=V (Sim37)). N(Fr) can theoretically be used to determine walking velocities proportional to leg lengths and to establish dynamic similarities between subjects. This study represents the first attempt at using this approach to examine plantar pressure. The ankle and knee joint angles were studied in the sagittal plane and the plantar pressure distribution was assessed with an in-shoe measurement device. The similarity ratios were computed from anthropometric parameters and plantar pressure peaks. Dynamically similar conditions caused a 25% reduction in leg joint angles variation and a 10% significant decrease in dimensionless pressure peak variability on average of five footprint locations. It also lead to heel and under-midfoot pressure peaks proportional to body mass and to an increase in the number of under-forefoot plantar pressure peaks proportional to body mass and/or leg length. The use of walking velocities derived from N(Fr) allows kinematic and plantar pressure similarities between subjects to be observed and leads to a lower inter-subject variability. In-shoe pressure measurements have proven to be valuable for the understanding of lower extremity function. Set walking velocities used for clinical assessment mask the effects of body size and individual gait mechanics. The anthropometric scaling of walking velocities (fraction of N(Fr)) should improve identification of unique walking strategies and pathological foot functions.

  11. Bilateral agreements

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1998-01-01

    Ten bilateral agreements are presented. These are: 1) Co-operation agreement relating to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy between Argentina and EURATOM (1996); 2) Agreement on co-operation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy between Argentina and Greece (1997); 3) Implementing arrangement for technical exchange and co-operation in the area of peaceful uses of nuclear energy between Argentina and the United States (1997); 4) Agreement concerning co-operation in nuclear science and technology between Australia and Indonesia (1997); 5) Implementation of the 1985 Agreement for co-operation concerning the peaceful uses of nuclear energy between the People's Republic of China and the United States (1998); 6) Protocol of co-operation between France and Lithuania (1997); 7) Agreement on co-operation in energy research, science and technology, and development between Germany and the United States (1998); 8) Agreement on early notification of a nuclear accident and exchange of information on nuclear facilities between Greece and Romania (1997); 9) Agreement on early notification of nuclear accidents and co-operation in the field of nuclear safety between Hungary and the Ukraine (1997); 10) Agreement in the field of radioactive waste management between Switzerland and the United States (1997). (K.A.)

  12. Sintaksičeskije i semantičeskije charakteristiki russkich, pol'skich i češskich glagolov v slovare sočetajemostej VALLEX

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Skwarska, Karolína

    -, č. 1 (2014), s. 42-48 ISSN 1998-5053 R&D Projects: GA ČR GAP406/12/0557 Institutional support: RVO:68378017 Keywords : syntactic properties of a verb * semantic properties of a verb * valency * valency lexicon * comparative research of Slavonic languages Subject RIV: AI - Linguistics

  13. 75 FR 66680 - Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement; Trade Agreements-New Thresholds (DFARS 2009-D040)

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-29

    ... Trade Organization Government Procurement Agreement and the Free Trade Agreements, as determined by the... of Subjects in 48 CFR Part 225 Government procurement. Ynette R. Shelkin, Editor, Defense Acquisition...

  14. The semantics of «lacuna modifications» (a case study for the verbs of sound

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ivlieva I. V.

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available the article examines the insufficiently explored domain of Russian verbal word formation synthesis – the lacuna (gap field. For the first time ever, the term «lacuna (gap modification» is being introduced into linguistic usage. This new term is defined, the well-grounded classification of lacuna types is presented, and the methods for creating an adequate lexicographic index of lacunas (gaps is provided. Using the methods of componential analysis and synthesis, the lacuna charts and diagrams for the verbs of sound are constructed. Data obtained from the Russian native speakers’ questionnaire is used for clarification purposes. The results of the research set forward the identification methodology and consistent description techniques for lacunas (gaps with respect to their future codification in various dictionaries, e.g., thesaurus, word-formation, etc.

  15. The Dependency Axiom and the Relation between Agreement and Movement

    Science.gov (United States)

    Linares Scarcerieau, Carlo Andrei

    2012-01-01

    Agreement and movement go hand in hand in a number of constructions across languages, and this correlation has played an important role in syntactic theory. The current standard approach to this "movement-agreement connection" is the Agree+EPP model, whose EPP component has often been questioned on conceptual grounds. The goal of this…

  16. Agreement of NP and VP Coordination in English and Korean

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hong, Sung-Ryong; Na, Won-Shik

    2011-01-01

    There have been long argumentations about this topic and people are still having difficulty in explaining precisely what the agreement values the mother NP phrase should have from two conjunct daughters which have different AGR (Agreement) values. Especially, this could be more complicated when the values of gender, number, and person of each…

  17. Sensitivity to Morphosyntactic Information in 3-Year-Old Children With Typical Language Development: A Feasibility Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deevy, Patricia; Leonard, Laurence B; Marchman, Virginia A

    2017-03-01

    This study tested the feasibility of a method designed to assess children's sensitivity to tense/agreement information in fronted auxiliaries during online comprehension of questions (e.g., Are the nice little dogs running?). We expected that a group of children who were proficient in auxiliary use would show this sensitivity, indicating an awareness of the relation between the subject-verb sequence (e.g., dogs running) and preceding information (e.g., are). Failure to grasp this relation is proposed to play a role in the protracted inconsistency in auxiliary use in children with specific language impairment (SLI). Fifteen 3-year-old typically developing children who demonstrated proficiency in auxiliary use viewed pairs of pictures showing a single agent and multiple agents while hearing questions with or without an agreeing fronted auxiliary. Proportion looking to the target was measured. Children showed anticipatory looking on the basis of the number information contained in the auxiliary (is or are). The children tested in this study represent a group that frequently serves as a comparison for older children with SLI. Because the method successfully demonstrated their sensitivity to tense/agreement information in questions, future research that involves direct comparisons of these 2 groups is warranted.

  18. Input Skewedness, Consistency, and Order of Frequent Verbs in Frequency-Driven Second Language Construction Learning: A Replication and Extension of Casenhiser and Goldberg (2005) to Adult Second Language Acquisition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nakamura, Daisuke

    2012-01-01

    Recent usage-based models of language acquisition research has found that three frequency manipulations; (1) skewed input (Casenhiser & Goldberg 2005), (2) input consistency (Childers & Tomasello 2001), and (3) order of frequent verbs (Goldberg, Casenhiser, & White 2007) facilitated construction learning in children. The present paper addresses…

  19. GIVE and its arguments in Bohairic Coptic

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Zakrzewska, E.D.; Nolan, B.; Rawoens, G.; Diedrichsen, E.

    2015-01-01

    The subject of this chapter is the competition between two prepositional markers of the Recipient, n- (the dedicated ‘dative’ marker) and e- (basically a marker of the allative), as used with the verb ti ‘give’ and some of its derivates, especially performative verbs, in Bohairic Coptic. The

  20. Word order and finiteness in Dutch and English Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bastiaanse, R

    The effect of two linguistic factors in Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia was examined using Dutch and English subjects. Three tasks were used to test (1) the comprehension and (2) the construction of sentences, where verbs (in Dutch) and verb arguments (in Dutch and English) are in canonical versus