20th-21st March 2007camling.soc.srcf.net/camling5/downloads/abstracts/... · 2007-03-15 · The Fifth Cambridge Postgraduate Conference in Language Research THE FIFTH UNIVERSITY OF

The Fifth Cambridge Postgraduate Conference in Language Research

THE FIFTH UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE POSTGRADUATE CONFERENCE IN LANGUAGE RESEARCH

20th-21st March 2007

ABSTRACTS

AUTHOR/TITLE PAGE

KEYNOTE ADDRESS:Professor Peter Austin 4Endangered Languages and Language Documentation

Lukasz Abramowicz 5Solving Thorny Theoretical Issues with Sociolinguistic Data: the Case of Person/Number Marking in Polish.

Kholoud A. Al-Thubaiti 6Age Effects on the Acquisition of Uninterpretable Features by Proficient Arabic Speakers of English

Anna Asbury 7Decomposing Case Paradigms: a Reanalysis of Finnish

Henry Beecher 8Interpreting Sluiced Prepositional Phrases: Evidence for a Pragmatic Inference Process and its Constraints

José María Lahoz Bengoechea 9Place of Articulation and Consonantal Strength

Miriam Buendía Castro and Elsa Huertas Barros 10Controlled Language Through The Definitions Of Coastal Terms In English

Shih-Chieh Chien 11The Role of Writing Strategy Use in Relation to Chinese EFL Students’ Achievement in English Writing: A Cognitive Approach

Michael Chiou 12Two Subtypes of M-implicatures: A Study with Special Reference to Modern Greek

Inji Choi 13How and When Do Children Acquire the Use of Discourse Markers?

Esuna Dugarova 14Acquisition of the Chinese Reflexive ‘ziji’ by Russian and English Speakers

Christian Egger 15Is there a Trend towards Greater Foreign Language Diversity and Multilingualism in Compulsory Education in Europe?

Anicka Fast 16Moral Incoherence in Documentary Linguistics: Theorizing the Interventionist Aspect of the Field

Nadege Foudon 17Longitudinal Study of Language Acquisition in Autistic Children

Cauvis Fung 18OBJECT Topicalization in Cantonese

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Nanna Haug Hilton 19The Social Meaning of Stress Assignment in Hønefoss Norwegian

Mariko Honda 20The Role of Prosody in Japanese: Variation in the Use of Accentual Information in Spoken Word Recognition by L1 and L2 Speakers of Japanese

Carol Jaensch 21L3 Acquisition of Articles in German by Native Japanese Speakers

Yinglin Ji 22Reference to Space in Chinese and English Poster Descriptions

Charikleia Kapellidi 23The Speaking Subject in Communication: Subjectivity and the (Gendered) Self

Eleni Karafoti 24Politeness, Gender, and the Face of the Speaker

Adam Kay 25Tree Folding

Marlies Kluck 26The Perspective of External Remerge on Right Node Raising

Sebastian Knospe 27'English meets German': On the Creative Exploitation of Anglicisms and Code-Mixing in Language Use in the Context of the Fifa World Cup

Miltiadis Kokkonidis 28The Syntax-Semantics Interface of Lexical Functional Linear Logical Grammar

Dong Ju Lee 29A Computer-Aided Error Analysis of a Korean Learner Corpus: Procedures, Findings and Pedagogical Applications

Jakob Leimgruber 30Variation in Singapore English as Reflected in Aspectual Constructions

Angelos Lengeris 31Native and Non-Native Cue Weightings when Identifying Non-Native Vowel Contrasts: A Cross-Linguistic Study

Hana Lim 32A Study of Self- and Peer-Assessment of Learners' Oral Proficiency

Chris Lucas 33Language-Internal and Contact-Induced Change in Negative Constructions

Michael Markey 34Investigating the Role of Previous Second Language Learning Experience when Approaching a Foreign Language at Secondary School: Learning French as a Third Language in Ireland

Aya Meltzer 35The Experiencer Constraint Revisited

Nikola Milic 36Language Standardization and the Printing Industry in Sixteenth Century Italy

Lindsay Milligan 37A Systems Model of Language Planning

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Mary Espinosa Ochoa 38The Early Acquisition of Determiners in Spanish and Yucatec Mayan

Caroline Piercy 39A Quantitative Analysis of Rhoticity in Dorset: Evidence from Four Locations of an Urban to Rural Hierarchy of Change

Alyson Pitts 40The Markedness of the Negative: Analysing Negation in a Spoken Corpus

Nattama Pongpairoj 41Are L2 English Article Choices UG-regulated?

Cristina Psomadakis 42Mapping Metaphors in Modern Greek

Rosalía Rodríguez-Vázquez 43How Can Song Help us Understand Spoken Language? Text-Setting Constraints in English and Spanish

Ghisseh Sarko 44Morphophonological or Syntactic Transfer in the Acquisition of English Articles by L1 Speakers of Syrian Arabic?

Dave Sayers 45Beyond the Speech Community: Quotative 'Be Like' and the 'Linguistic Virtual Collective'

Lameen Souag 46The Typology of Number Borrowing in Berber

Jennifer Sullivan 47Variability in F0 Valleys: The Case of Belfast English

Anna Sysoeva 48Word Meaning, Defaults and Conscious Pragmatic Inferences: Interaction between Sources of Information in a Theory of Utterance Processing

Ismael Teomiro-García 49Agrammatism and the Lexicon-Syntax Interface: Dutch Aphasics' Performance on Saturated Experiencer Verbs

Hiroyuki Uchida 50Logic in Pragmatics

Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi 51Defining the Degree of Lexicalization of Adverbialized Converbs

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Keynote Address

Endangered Languages and Language Documentation

Professor Peter AustinSOAS

Across the world, minority languages are under threat from larger languages and cultures and it is estimated that by the end of this century perhaps 50% of the world's 7,000 languages will have disappeared (Austin 2007). Language Documentation is a newly emerging field of linguistics that is "concerned with the methods, tools, and theoretical underpinnings for compiling a representative and lasting multipurpose record of a natural language or one of its varieties" (Gippert, Himmelmann and Mosel 2006:v). Language Documentation has developed over the last decade in large part in response to the urgent need to make an enduring record of the world's many endangered languages and to support speakers of these languages in their desire to maintain them, fuelled also by developments in information and communication technologies which make documentation and the preservation and dissemination of language data possible in ways which could not previously be envisioned. But, essentially, it also concerns itself with role of language speakers and their rights and needs in ways not previously considered within linguistics.

In this talk I will discuss some current trends in endangered languages research and present some examples of the kinds of language documentation now being carried out.

References

Austin, Peter K. (2007). 'Survival of Languages' in Emily F. Shuckburgh (ed.) Survival: The Survival of the Human Race, 72-88. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gippert, Jost, Nikolaus Himmelmann and Ulrike Mosel (eds.) (2006). Essentials of Language Documentation. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

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Solving thorny theoretical issues with sociolinguistic data: the case of Person/Number marking in Polish.

Lukasz Abramowicz University of Pennsylvania

lukaszaATbabelDOTlingDOTupennDOTedu

This paper deals with Person/Number (PN) marking in Polish. Polish PN markers exhibit “schizophrenic” behavior that is partly syntactic and partly morphological (Franks and Bański 1999). They are syntactic historically, because of their mobility ((Franks 1998); (1) – (2)), and because they can be omitted in coordination constructions (3). On the other hand, they show inflectional properties: word-level phonology processes are sensitive to their presence. In an inflection-only approach (Booij and Rubach 1987), stress variation in plural forms is a register effect, not a syntax/morphology difference. Three types of analyses dominate the literature: (i) PN markers are PF-clitics (Borsley and Rivero 1994); (ii) there are two synchronically competing analyses, one inflectional, the other syntactic (Franks 1998); (iii) PN markers are always mobile inflections on the auxiliary stem (Embick 1995). The data presented here come from sociolinguistic interviews and from evaluation tasks. They support Embick’s analysis. Specifically, the stress alternation shows robust class/register and stylistic effects. Further, coordination structures are missing from the data, and considered ungrammatical.

Examples(1a) Kiedy to kupili-ście?

when this-ACC buy.PST.MASC.2PL ‘When did you buy this?’(1b) Kiedy-ście to kupili-Ø? (1c) Kiedy to-ście kupili-Ø?(2a) My byli-śmy zmęczeni.

we be-PST.MASC.1PL tired ‘We were tired’(2b) My-śmy byli-Ø zmęczeni. (2c) Zmęczeni-śmy byli-Ø.(3) W kawiarni jedliśmy lody i pili- Ø kawę.

In café eat-PST.MASC.1PL ice-cream and drink-PST.MASC.1PL coffee

References:Booij, G., and J. Rubach (1987). Postcyclic versus Postlexical Rules in Lexical Phonology.

Linguistic Inquiry 18(1): 1-44.Borsley, R., and M. Rivero (1994). Clitic Auxiliaries and Incorporation in Polish. Natural

Language and Linguistic Theory 12: 373-422.Embick, D. (1995). Mobile Inflections in Polish. In: Proceedings of North East Linguistics

Society, 25.Franks, S. (1998). Position Paper: Clitics and Slavic. Indiana University, ms.Franks, S., and P. Bański (1999). Approaches to “Schizophrenic” Polish Person Agreement.

In K. Dziwirek et al. (eds.) Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics: The Seattle Meeting, 1998. Michigan Slavic Publications.

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Age Effects on the Acquisition of Uninterpretable Features by Proficient Arabic Speakers of English

Kholoud A. Al-Thubaiti University of Essex

kalthuATessex DOT ac.uk

A recent account of fossilization in adult L2 grammars - the ‘Interpretability hypothesis’ (Hawkins & Hattori, 2006; Tsimpli & Dimitrakopoulou, to appear) - maintains that uninterpretable syntactic features are subject to maturation. Properties associated with uninterpretable features not already activated in the L1 grammar will pose a learnability problem for older L2 speakers because they are inaccessible beyond a critical period. The present study tests this hypothesis by examining the effects of age on the knowledge shown by proficient Saudi Arabic speakers of L2 English of two subtle linguistic properties associated with uninterpretable features: (i) the Gap Strategy in wh-interrogatives, and (ii) Reflexive Binding. While the former is differently instantiated in Arabic and English, the latter is similarly present in both languages. Subjects were 25 proficient Saudi Arabic speakers of English (8 high advanced child starters, 6 advanced child starters and 11 advanced adult starters), together with 6 British English native controls. Using an acceptability preference task, results show that fossilization is selective, and is a reflex of L1–L2 grammatical differences. As predicted, the advanced adult starters showed a persistent L1 effect (de-learning problem) in the acquisition of the gap strategy in wh-interrogatives, but hardly had any problems with reflexive binding. The results further suggest that convincing evidence to refute a maturational account should be drawn from testing contrasting structures rather than similar ones (Long, 2005). As for the child starters, while the high advanced group showed native-like competence in all the tested constructions, the advanced group did not. Divergence in the child starters' L2 grammar might be the effect of proficiency.

ReferencesHawkins, R. & Hattori, H. (2006). Interpretation of English multiple wh-questions by

Japanese speakers: a missing uninterpretable feature account. Second Language Research, 22, 269-301.

Long, M. (2005). Problems with supposed counter-evidence to the critical period hypothesis. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 43, 287-317.

Tsimpli, I. M., & Dimitrakopoulou, M. (to appear). The interpretability hypothesis: evidence from Wh-interrogatives in L2 acquisition. Second Language Research.

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Decomposing Case Paradigms: a Reanalysis of Finnish

Anna AsburyUtrecht Institute of Linguistics

Anna DOT AsburyATlet DOT uu DOT nl

Introduction: Déchaine and Wiltschko (2002) propose that pronouns spell out one of three different levels of syntactic structure: NP, ϕP or DP. I propose applying this approach to case paradigms. Cases spell out DP, QP, and PP. Research on adpositions shows that spatial cases (e.g. Finnish adessive -lla/-llä ‘on’) spell out P (Van Riemsdijk & Huybregts 2001, a.o.). My proposal extends the decomposition to structural cases, relating these to nominal functional projections.

Problem: The Finnish inventory of structural cases is controversial. Partitive alternates with accusative on objects (1-2) where the interpretation involves indefiniteness or negation. This contrasts with inherent case, which is selected by the verb. Partitive is therefore not inherent, but analysing it as structural (cf. Vainikka 1993) makes the Finnish system appear highly exceptional.

Solution: Partitive is analysed as a quantifier (QP) on the basis of its interpretation in (1-2). Finnish has no articles, and partitive takes on some functions of indefinite determiners and NPIs. This explains its appearance in contexts where accusative is found in other languages, but where determiners or NPIs are also present.

Extensions: I explore the possibility of distinguishing other Finnish cases by reference to nominal projections. Accusative -t and genitive -n are analysed as DP allomorphs of the pronoun and noun respectively.

Theoretical Implications: Case paradigms are epiphenomenal, existing at the morphological rather than the syntactic level. Case-specific notions are superfluous, as cases are divided amongst the nominal projections independently needed, thus reducing the inventory of theoretical primitives. (1) Silja joi maito-a / maido-n.

Silja drank milk-PART / milk-ACC

‘Silja drank some milk.’ / ‘Silja drank the milk.’(2) En osta auto-a. Osta-n auto-n.

not buy car-PART buy-1SG car-ACC

‘I won’t buy the car.’ ‘I buy/will buy the car.’

ReferencesDéchaine & Wiltschko (2002). Decomposing Pronouns. Linguistic InquiryVan Riemsdijk & Huybregts (2001). Location and Locality. Progress in Grammar, (eds) Van

Oostendorp & AnagnostopoulouVainikka (1993) . Three Structural Cases in Finnish. Case and other Functional Categories in

Finnish Syntax (eds) Holmberg & Nikanne.

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Interpreting sluiced prepositional phrases: Evidence for a pragmatic inference process and its constraints

Henry BeecherUniversity of California San Diego hbeecherATling DOT ucsd DOT edu

An in-depth examination of sluiced prepositional phrases or SPPs as italicized in (1a) (1a) The only thing I can come up with is contamination but I don’t know what from.

reveals a subclass of sluicing (Ross 1969) for which interpretation is unobtainable by syntactic or semantic parallelism with an available antecedent as prevailing analyses claim (Chung, et al 1995; Merchant 1999). I propose SPP interpretation crucially relies on associating an antecedent with a property (contamination with SOURCE in 1a) through which the relevant proposition is inferred (‘that contamination is from something’). Consequently, this proposal predicts any SPP is licit provided it indirectly questions a sufficiently salient property of an antecedent VP, NP or AP whether or not parallelism holds.

Two empirical investigations tested this prediction and provided insight into factors constraining the underlying inference process. Results from the first refute the claim by Culicover & Jackendoff (2005) that stranded SPPs idiosyncratically occur with only the 10 prepositions in (2a).

(2) a. about, at, by, for, from, in, of, on, to, with (undisputed to occur in stranded SPPs)b. after, against, around, before, behind, between, into, off, out, over, since,

through, towards, under, until, up (newly attested to occur in stranded SPPs)c. above,across,below,beneath,beside,beyond,down,inside,near,outside (rated ≥ 3.0)d. during, without (rated < 3.0)

Over 200 stranded SPPs combining who or what with prepositions in (2b) – 16 more than previously attested – were collected via searching with Google’s API. This clearly indicates stranded SPPs are systematic. Furthermore, classified by type there were 45% NP, 45% VP and 10% AP antecedents among the 3000 examples culled for all 26 prepositions. SPPs with NP antecedents (cf 1a) are the very ones whose interpretation crucially requires inferring a proposition based on an antecedent’s relevant property.

A grammaticality survey further tested the analysis on 12 infrequently occurring prepositions (cf 2c-d) for which actual examples were not found. Unlike prepositions in (2a-b), those in (2c-d) lack abstract connotations. Therefore, the stimuli by design provided each SPP with a context in which the antecedent’s relevant spatial property was sufficiently salient to support the underlying inference process. Native speakers rated SPPs containing 10 of the prepositions (cf 2c) on average 3.0 or greater using a 5-point scale. Only SPPs containing 2 prepositions (cf 2d) were rated below 3.0.

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Place of Articulation and Consonantal Strength

José María Lahoz Bengoechea Universidad Complutense de Madrid

josemarialahozAThotmail DOT com

Besides manner of articulation and glottal activity, which have been more studied, place of articulation also plays an important role in determining the relative strength of a consonant. This is so because the joint contribution of magnitude and duration of articulatory gestures (glottal, velo-pharyngeal, and oral) defines a global level of intraoral pressure that can be related to strength (Malécot 1970).

Such aerodynamic criteria have been used to explain the role that a back place of articulation can have in reducing oral volume and thus increasing intraoral pressure, namely strength. This can interfere with glottal activity (e.g. in passive devoicing). I will provide examples of diachronic change in several languages which show a tight relationship between back places and strength (mainly Semitic languages, such as Arabic, but also some other, such as Samoan –Austronesian– or Vlach Romani –Indo-European).

A relation has been proposed between order of diffusion of linguistic change and place of articulation. However, there is a controversy about the relative order between labials and coronals. I will examine different proposals and I will present articulatory, aerodynamic and perceptual data to support the idea that coronal consonants are weaker than labial consonants. The lesser the mass of the articulatory organ, the faster the movements and the shorter the duration of the gesture, which leads to weakness. Besides, certain kinds of coronals might be associated with a relatively descended position of the jaw, which can cause an increase of the oral volume and, consequently, a decrease of the intraoral pressure. Nevertheless, further study is needed on the link between jaw gestures and different types of labials and coronals. To finish, there are some optimal durations for the correct perception of each manner, which vary depending on the place of articulation, and these thresholds seem to favour the weakening of coronals much more than that of labials or dorsals (García Santos 2002).

ReferencesGarcía Santos, J. F. (2002). Cambio fonético y fonética acústica. Salamanca: Ediciones

Universidad de Salamanca.Malécot, A. (1970). “The lenis-fortis opposition: its physiological parameters”. Journal of the

Acoustical Society of America 47 (2), 1588-1592.

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Controlled Language Through The Definitions Of Coastal Terms In English1

Miriam Buendía Castro and Elsa Huertas BarrosUniversity of Granada (Spain)

mbuendiaATugr DOT es and ehuertasATugr DOT es

Controlled languages are artificially defined subsets of natural language which help to create clear and concise documents, and thus ensure coherent communication.

In this paper we approach controlled language through the definitions of specialized terms with a view to establishing a metalanguage for the basic format of definitions. Our research focuses on a corpus of specialized terms related to waves and tides extracted from the Glossary of Coastal Terminology elaborated by the NOAA Coastal Services Center.

The methodology used for elaborating controlled-language definitions is based on the Functional-Lexematic Model (FML) (Martín Mingorance 1984, 1989, 1995; Faber and Mairal 1999). The conceptual structure of a domain is made explicit within definitions that are coherent in both their micro and macrostructure (Faber and Tercedor Sánchez 2001). The linguistic description of any specialized concepts should do the following: (1) make category membership explicit; (2) reflect its relations with other concepts within the same category; (3) specify its essential attributes and features (Faber et al., 2005).

Our results show that the use of controlled language in the definition of terms makes their conceptual description more coherent and systematic. Controlled language increases terminological consistency and standardization, simplifies the syntax and avoids any semantic ambiguities.

ReferencesFaber, P. and R. Mairal Usón (1999). Constructing a Lexicon of English Verbs. Berlin:

Mouton de GruyterFaber, P. and M.I. Tercedor Sánchez (2001). “Codifying conceptual information in

descriptive terminology management.” Meta 46(1), 192-204

1 This research is part of the Project MARCOCOSTA: Marcos de conocimiento multilingüe en la gestión integrada de zonas costeras (P06-HUM-01489), funded by the Andalusian Regional Government.

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The Role of Writing Strategy Use in Relation to Chinese EFL Students’ Achievement in English Writing: A Cognitive Approach

Shih-Chieh ChienUniversity of Cambridge

scc47ATcam DOT ac DOT uk

This paper takes a cognitive approach in exploring cognitive and metacognitive writing strategies in EFL student writers in relation to their achievement in the L2 (English) writing, and in discussing the results and implications for teaching L2 writing. Despite a considerable amount of work on models of how people write in L1 (e.g. Emig, 1971; Flower and Hayes, 1981; Hayes, 1996), there has been relatively little research developed into the role of writing in the L2. To determine the relationship of writing strategy use and writing task performance, 18 high- and 18 low- achieving Chinese EFL students selected out of 107 students in 9 English composition classes at a university in Taiwan participated in this study. The strategies used by the high- and low- achievers in writing revealed through the concurrent think-aloud protocol were investigated and then compared. The results showed the similarities and differences in which parts the high- and low- achieving student writers devoted more or less attention to in their cognitive activities. Furthermore, the writing strategies used by the high- and low- achievers are statistically different in 1) generating ideas, 2) generating texts, 3) revising and 4) editing. In light of the findings, the nature of expertise will be revisited and the implications for pedagogy in English writing will be discussed.

ReferencesEmig, J. (1971). The Composing Processes of Twelfth Graders. Urbana, Ill.: NCTE.Flower, L. & Hayes, J. R. (1981). A cognitive process theory of writing. College Composition

and Communication, 32 (4), 365-387. Hayes, J. R. (1996). A new framework for understanding cognition and affect in writing. In C.

M. Levy and S. Ransdell (Eds.). The science of writing: Theories, methods, individual differences, and application (pp. 1-55). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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Two subtypes of M-implicatures: A study with special reference to Modern Greek

Michael ChiouUniversity of Reading

llr03mcATreading DOT ac DOT uk

The neo-Gricean pragmatic M-principle (Levinson 1987, 1991, 2000 and Huang 2000, 2007) operates in terms of alternates that contrast in form. More specifically, the M-principle predicts that “marked or prolix anaphoric expressions will tend to pick up the complement of the stereotypical extensions that would have been suggested by the use of the corresponding unmarked forms” (Levinson 2000: 38). When it comes to anaphora, the M-principle predicts that, given an anaphoric M-scale {x, y}, the use of the marked y instead of the unmarked x will M-implicate a contrast either in terms of reference or in terms of contrastiveness and/or logophoricity (Levinson 2000, Huang 2000, 2007).

Based on a study in Modern Greek anaphora, it will be argued that these two subtypes of M-implicatures (in reference and in contrastiveness/logophoricity) interact systematically in a hierarchical manner. Therefore, a hierarchical resolution schema will be proposed according to which M-implicatures in reference are the first to be calculated. If on the other hand, there is no contrast in reference despite the use of a prolix expression, then an M-implicature in terms contrastiveness and/or logophoricity is generated.

ReferencesHuang, Y. (2000). Anaphora: A Cross Linguistic Study. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Huang, Y. (2007). Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Levinson, C. S. (1987). Pragmatics and the grammar of Anaphora: A partial pragmatic

reduction of binding and control phenomena. Journal of Linguistics, 23: 379-434.Levinson, C. S. (1991). Pragmatic Reduction of Pragmatic Conditions Revisited. Journal of

Linguistics. 27: 107-161.Levinson, C. S. (2000). Presumptive Meanings: The Theory of Generalized Conversational

Implicature. The MIT Press: Cambridge.

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How and when do children acquire the use of discourse markers?

Inji ChoiUniversity of Oxford

injiDOTchoiATwolfsonDOToxfordDOTacDOTuk

There is a very large literature dealing with the nature of discourse makers from a variety of theoretical perspectives; but strangely there is very little written on how children first acquire the use of them. In this paper I will be reporting on my research into the developmental aspects of the use of discourse markers, and will attempt to show that they are learned considerably earlier than is usually assumed.

Previous studies on the acquisition of pragmatics have been heavily concentrated on psycholinguistics and have largely focussed on the acquisition of indirect speech acts, logical connectives, and related issues. Since many researchers have claimed that elements of this sort are acquired rather late at the age of 9 or 10 (cf. Kail and Weissenborn 1984 and Champaud and Bassano 1994), this gave a bench-mark against which to investigate the acquisition of discourse markers. The study uses the data of 4 to 12-year-old children’s narratives where the subjects are asked to recall either the Fish Story or the Beach Story. The results demonstrate the early onset of discourse markers such as so and and at the age of 4. At this early age the subjects can be shown to control the structure of discourse by means of discourse markers which guide the intended meaning of the utterances the hearer should understand. This central finding – that the use of so and and as discourse markers is established before there is any persuasive evidence of the control of logical connectives – suggests a larger hypothesis that the rudimentary use of discourse markers is a precursor for the emergent command of procedural meaning more generally.

ReferencesBlakemore, D. (2002). Relevance and Linguistic Meaning: The Semantics and Pragmatics of

Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Champaud, C. and Bassano, D. (1994). French concessive connectives and argumentation: an

experimental study in eight- to ten-year-old children. Journal of Child Language 21: 415-438.

Kail, M. and Weissenborn, J. (1984). A developmental cross-linguistic study of adversative connectives: French 'mais' and German 'aber/sondern'. Journal of Child Language 11: 143-158.

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Acquisition of the Chinese reflexive ‘ziji’ by Russian and English speakers

Esuna DugarovaUniversity of Cambridge

The cross-linguistic variation between English, Chinese and Russian lies in that (i) the English reflexive ‘himself’ must be bound locally both in finite and non-finite clauses, the Chinese reflexive ‘ziji’ can be bound either long-distance or locally both in finite and non-finite clauses, whereas the Russian reflexive ‘sebja’ must be bound locally in finite clauses but can be bound either long-distance or locally in non-finite clauses; (ii) the Chinese reflexive can only take a subject as its antecedent and so does the Russian reflexive, while the English reflexive can take both a subject and an object as its antecedent.

The main research questions arise as to whether (i) Russian and English speakers are able to acquire the syntactic properties of ‘ziji’; (ii) the behaviour of ‘ziji’ in non-native grammars is constrained by Universal Grammar (UG). A few studies have been done on the acquisition of ‘ziji’ by English speakers (e.g. Yuan 1998) and no empirical studies have focused on the acquisition of ‘ziji’ by Russian speakers. The present study is aimed to fill a gap in this research area.

The results of a multiple-choice comprehension task obtained from 48 Russian and 26 English learners of Chinese at beginner, intermediate and advanced proficiency levels indicate that (i) Russian and English learners are able to acquire long-distance binding of ‘ziji’ both in finite and non-finite clauses; (ii) there is an asymmetry in the interpretation of ‘ziji’ exhibited both by Russian and English speakers: long-distance binding is more acceptable in non-finite clauses than in finite clauses; (iii) Russian speakers acquire subject-orientation of ‘ziji’ more easily than English speakers. The interpretation of ‘ziji’ by non-native speakers is explained by adopting the Relativized SUBJECT analysis (Progovac 1992, 1993). Overall, the findings of the study provide evidence that L1 transfer occurs in second language acquisition and interlanguage grammars are UG-constrained (Schwartz and Sprouse 1996).

References:Progovac, L. (1992). Relativized SUBJECT: Long-distance reflexive without movement.

Linguistic Inquiry 23: 671-680.__________ (1993). Long-distance reflexives: Movement-to-INFL versus relativized

SUBJECT. Linguistic Inquiry 24: 755-772.Schwartz, B. D. and R. Sprouse (1996). L2 cognitive states and the full transfer/full access

model. Second Language Research 12: 40-72.Yuan, B. (1998). Interpretation of binding and orientation of the Chinese reflexive 'ziji' by

English and Japanese speakers. Second Language Research 14: 324-341.

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Is there a Trend towards Greater Foreign Language Diversity and Multilingualism in Compulsory Education in Europe?

Christian EggerBirkbeck College, University of London

christianeggerATyahoo DOT com

This paper examines foreign language acquisition in compulsory education. The aim is to compare recent changes within several European countries’ educational systems in order to establish foreign language policy trends. Particular attention is given to the question of whether there is a trend towards greater foreign language diversity and multilingualism.

International organisations such as the European Union, the Council of Europe and UNESCO recommend that people should be taught at least two foreign languages in order to be better prepared for the future. Critics, however, lament the ineffectiveness of this recommendation and see an ever-increasing preponderance of English language teaching in many education systems. Education authorities influence the linguistic repertoire of whole generations of pupils through the curricula, and this linguistic repertoire exerts a powerful influence on whether a country develops greater foreign language diversity and multilingualism or not.

At the international level, the choices of education authorities are likely to interact: if the education system of language X teaches language Y, this choice may reduce the incentive of the education system of language Y, or some other language, to teach language X. A language takes a clear lead when the decisions of several education systems converge. As a consequence, the teaching of this language seems essential and more and more education authorities choose the same lingua franca whereas other languages lose out. The recent extensive curriculum reforms in many European countries can be applied to this model. Depending on whether there is a trend towards greater foreign language diversity and multilingualism or an increasing focus on a single language, significant forecasts for the future spread of English and its role in the European and World language systems can be made.

Education authorities that increase foreign language teaching have to find ways of accommodating this addition to their curricula. Authorities that choose not to increase or even to reduce foreign language teaching can save a lot of resources but they also run considerable risks.

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Moral incoherence in documentary linguistics: Theorizing the interventionist aspect of the field

Anicka FastSchool of Oriental and African Studies

anicka DOT fastATmail DOT mcgill DOT ca

Recent linguistic literature abounds with overtly moral language justifying linguists’ intervention in endangered language situations. To use Matras’ disparaging characterization, language revitalization is no longer “just a topic of research, but a mission” (2005: 226). Documentary linguists thus find themselves in the unusual situation of having developed an interventionist stance that superficially resembles the rhetoric of missionary linguist counterparts, despite many academics’ continuing uneasiness about missionary methods and motives.

Through a broad survey of the recent endangered language literature, I argue that the contrast between documentary linguists’ use of moral language and their rejection of the moral contributions of missionary linguists starkly highlights the moral incoherence that philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre (1985) identifies with post-Enlightenment attempts to find a shared rational basis for morality. This incoherence contrasts with the missionary linguist’s worldview, which I suggest typifies the tradition-based rational enquiry advocated by MacIntyre. The moral framework of missionary linguists includes allegiance to the church and Christian community rather than to the academy; the cultivation of virtue as part of identity, and the belief that there is a rational basis for making moral judgments. In short, the clash between academic and missionary linguists rests on a fundamental disagreement about the terms of moral debate. I conclude that fruitful engagement can only occur if academic linguists stop accepting particular claims to truth only as illuminations of supposedly universal values, and, like their missionary colleagues, situate their moral language within a particular tradition.

ReferencesMacIntyre, Alasdair (1985). After virtue: A study in moral theory. London: Duckworth.Matras, Yaron (2005). ‘Language contact, language endangerment, and the role of the “salva-

tion linguist”’. In Peter K. Austin (ed.) Language Documentation and Description, vol. 3. London: SOAS, 225-251.

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Longitudinal Study of Language Acquisition in Autistic Children

Nadege FoudonInstitute for Cognitive Sciences , CNRS-UMR 5230

foudonATisc DOT cnrs DOT fr

The acquisition process of autistic children differs from that of normal children (acquisition by immersion) in that they need speech therapy support. Additionally, only half of autistic patients speak as adults and their linguistic level remains lower compared to normal subjects (Howlin, 2003). Despite the importance of language in the diagnosis (it is one of the main criteria for autism in DSM-IV (1994)) and the deficits of autistic people, longitudinal studies of language development in autistic children don’t exist.

The aim of our study is to describe language acquisition in autistic children, and put forward more precise hypotheses regarding the language acquisition delay, as well as answering other questions:

Why is there a severe delay of acquisition in verbal autistic people (first words: 38 months against 12 in normal children)?Why do Aspergers show a less severe delay (1st words: 15 months)?How can we explain the identical delay between first words and first combinations in autistic (14 months) and SLI children; and that it’s higher than in normal (6 months) and even in Asperger children (11months)?

There are three main (mutually compatible) hypotheses:a) Dissociation between comprehension and linguistic production in autistic children.b) Deficit in ToM (Theory of Mind) in autistic population, in addition to an SLI in verbal autistic children explaining the delay. c) Deficit in ToM in all autistic population but at different degrees of severity.

To test these assumptions, we collect and transcribe corpora of nine autistic children at different stages of language acquisition. We compare our corpora with those of healthy and SLI children at similar stages. Additionally, we use parents’ questionnaires, plus an experimental test (borrowed from Savage-Rumbaugh et al.) to evaluate the first hypothesis. We do standard false belief tests to assess ToM.

ReferencesDSM-IV (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, Washington

D.C., American Psychiatric Association. 4th edition.Howlin, P. (2003). “Outcome in high-functioning adults with autism with and without

early language delays: implications for the differentiation between autism and Asperger syndrome”, in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 33/1, 3-13.

Savage-Rumbaugh, S., McDonald, E.S.K., Sevcick, R.A., Hopkins, W.D. & Rupert, E. (1993). Language comprehension in ape and child, Monographs of the society for research in Child development 58, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press.

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OBJECT Topicalization in Cantonese

Cauvis FungSchool of Humanities, The University of Hong Kong

cauvisfungAThkusua DOT hku DOT hk

TOPIC and FOCUS topicalization constructions are commonly found in Cantonese, a Chinese language spoken by 71 million people. This paper aims at giving an optimality-theoretic (OT) account of the topicalization phenomenon in Cantonese, focusing on constructions where the TOPIC or FOCUS is identified with the OBJ function.

The [+New] feature (Choi 2001) is employed to explain the motivation of FOCUS topicalization in Cantonese. The NEW-L constraint, however, cannot be directly applied to the language since it exhibits a peculiar phenomenon that, though the [+New] feature motivates FOCUS topicalization, a FOCUS does not necessarily contain purely [+New] information and the [+New] information is not obliged to occur in the leftmost position of the FOCUS as in (1b) below, where saam1 bun2 zi6din2 is the FOCUS and only the non-leftmost zi6din2 is established as the [+New] information with question (1a).

(1) a. nei5 maai5zo2 saam1 bun2 me1 aa3?2.SG buy.PERF three CL what PART

‘What are the three books which you have bought?’

b.[saam1bun2 zi6din2] aa3 ngo5 maai5zo2three CL dictionary PART 1.SG buy.PERF‘It is three dictionaries which I have bought.’

[+New]-FOCUS ∧ FOCUS-L is introduced in this study to account for the phenomenon.

ReferencesChoi, Hye-Won (2001). Phrase structure, information structure and resolution of mismatch. In

Peter Sells (ed). Formal and Empirical Issues in Optimality Theoretic Syntax. Stanford, CA.: CSLI Publications.

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The Social Meaning of Stress Assignment in Hønefoss Norwegian

Nanna Haug HiltonUniversity of York

nhh500ATyork DOT ac DOT uk

There are two ways of assigning stress to loan words in East Norwegian dialects. A loan word has stress as an idiosyncratic property of the lexicon, and stress can thus be assigned on the same syllable as in the language from which it was borrowed. Alternatively, a loan word can be subject to the Initial Primary Stress Rule (IPSR) (Kristoffersen, 2000), a rule which moves stress from the ‘borrowed’ position to the initial. Studies have shown that the IPSR is hardly ever used by speakers of the Oslo dialect (Jahnsen, 2001) and that stressing loan words on the initial syllable is seen as an unattractive feature by informants in major urban centres (Kristiansen, 1995; Røyneland, 2005). Røyneland (2005) suggests that stress assignment conveys social meaning, and calls for more research from different areas of Norway. This study uses data from the town of Hønefoss to see whether factors like social background and attitudes correlate with an individual’s choice of stress assignment.

Hønefoss is in an area of Norway currently experiencing regional dialect levelling. Consequentially, people in the town have a choice whether to stick with their traditional local dialect, where the IPSR has been the main way of assigning stress to loan words, or whether to abandon such stigmatised features in order to level their language with the regional dialect. I demonstrate, using data collected in Hønefoss, that attitudes and questions of identity play a role in this choice, and that by looking at these together with social background information, a clearer picture can be created of the social meaning of stress assignment in East Norwegian.

ReferencesJahnsen, V. (2001). Øst og vest for elva. Oslo: Institutt for lingvistiske og nordiske studium,

University of Oslo. Kristiansen, E. (1995). Holdninger til vikværsk. Oslo: Institutt for lingvistiske og nordiske

studium. University of Oslo. Kristoffersen, G. (2000). The Phonology of Norwegian. New York: Oxford University Press. Røyneland, U. (2005). Dialektnivellering, ungdom og identitet. Oslo: Institutt for lingvistiske

og nordiske studium, University of Oslo.

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The role of prosody in Japanese: variation in the use of accentual information in spoken word recognition by L1 and L2 speakers of Japanese.

Mariko HondaUniversity of Reading

mariko DOT hondaATrdg DOT ac DOT uk

This study examined the role of pitch accent in perception of Japanese by native speakers of Japanese with and without pitch accent in their variety and students with and without pitch accent in their L1 learning Japanese. A laboratory-based listening test was given to determine how L1 influenced word recognition.

Some languages of the world, like Chinese, distinguish words by tone and other languages, like English, do not. A few languages, like Swedish, have restricted pitch accent contrasts in a subset of the vocabulary. It is not generally appreciated that Japanese is a restricted pitch accent language in this sense, and that there are interesting differences amongst varieties of Japanese in this respect – some have pitch accent contrasts whilst others do not.

In our experiment, the L1 subjects included 17 speakers of the standard (Tokyo) accent with contrastive pitch accent and 17 speakers of an accent without lexical pitch (from Ibaraki). The L2 subjects included 42 students of Japanese as a foreign language: 17 L1 speakers of English (from Oxford) without contrastive pitch in their L1 and 25 L1 speakers of Norwegian (from Oslo) with lexical tone in their L1. The former thus had a different suprasegmental basis from Japanese, while the latter had a similar one. The experiment, a word discrimination test, explored the effect of F0 contour in identifying lexical pitch accent words in Japanese.

A significant difference between L1 groups and L2 groups was observed. The test also revealed that the native accent pattern of L1 non-pitch accent speakers imposed constraints on their perception of pitch accent in standard Japanese to some extent. However, no link was observed between Japanese speakers from Ibaraki and English learners of Japanese with respect to in difficulties experienced. Surprisingly, speakers of Norwegian demonstrated tendencies similar to those of native English speakers. Both L2 groups showed a great level of inconsistency in test performance within a group, and the factors for this deviation were also examined.

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L3 Acquisition of articles in German by native Japanese speakers

Carol Jaensch University of Essex

cjaensATessex DOT ac DOT uk

It is well documented that native speakers of languages which lack articles and have no morphological marker for definiteness show persistent variability in the use of articles in L2s where they are present and upon which definiteness is marked (Ionin, Ko & Wexler 2004). This and other studies of the L2 acquisition of articles that mark definiteness in the target language have shown (i) that development is different where the L1 lacks articles and where they are present; (ii) that speakers of L1s without articles use L2 articles to mark both definiteness and specificity for a considerable time. This poses some interesting questions for L3 acquisition, given the following scenario:

L1 Japanese L2 English L3 German[+arg,-pred] → [+arg,+pred] → [+arg,+pred](no articles) (obligatory articles/count sing. NPs) (same as L2)

Will learners whose L1 lacks articles still fluctuate in their L3 article choice when they have acquired an L2 where articles mark definiteness? Does L2 proficiency have an effect on L3? Both questions bear on the nature of transfer in non-primary language acquisition, and whether acquisition of specific linguistic properties in a second language facilitates learning of cognate properties in a third language.

Results are presented from written gap-filling and oral elicitation tasks from two groups of L3 German speakers with Japanese L1: a low proficiency L2 English group and a high proficiency L2 English group. A native control group was included. Results show strong evidence of L2 transfer effect, with L2 proficiency having more effect on the target-like behaviour of the subjects’ article choice than length of immersion or tuition in the L3. Unexpectedly, persistent overuse of the definite article appears to be more strongly linked to the Case of the noun than its specificity. The implications of this for the role of the L1 and L2 in L3 acquisition will be considered.

ReferencesIonin, T., Ko, H., & Wexler, K. (2004). Article semantics in L2-acquisition: The role of

specificity. In Language Acquisition 12(1),3 – 69.

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Reference to Space in Chinese and English Poster Descriptions

Yinglin JiUniversity of Cambridge

yj215ATcam DOT ac DOT uk

The present study compares reference to space in Chinese and English oral discourses elicited on the basis of a poster description task. In the last two decades, reference to space has received a lot of attention from linguists and acquisitionists alike. The typology for the expression of space in languages as proposed by L. Talmy instigated a lot of these studies cross-linguistically. Whereas reference to space is very much linked with our perceptual and cognitive systems (and may therefore be considered to be guided by universal factors), recent studies also show that languages have very different ways of expressing spatial information. For example, English is proposed to be satellite-framed, expressing manner of motion in the verb and path in the satellite; Chinese, on the other hand, seems to be an equipollent language (Slobin) that expresses path in both main verbs and satellites. These raise questions in the acquisitional context regarding the factors guiding acquisition: are they of a universal cognitive or of a language-specific nature? The comparison of discourses by English and Chinese natives will allow to address this question in more detail. In addition, the present task requires, on the part of speakers, not only spatial knowledge (introducing a spatial setting, keeping track of the hierarchical ordering of spatial information, etc.), but also knowledge about discourse coherence and cohesion overall.

Results of the present study show that Chinese resembles English with respect to frequency of the expression of explicit spatial relations and this is largely task-specific. The two differ in aspects such as the place of the location with respect to the rest of the information in the utterance, and types of spatial relations expressed in the poster description; and this is mainly of a language-specific nature.

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The speaking subject in communication: subjectivity and the (gendered) self

Charikleia Kapellidi, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

kapellidiATyahoo DOT gr

The aim of the present paper is to reveal the relationship between two notions closely associated with the ‘speaking subject’, i.e. subjectivity and (emotional) involvement. Running through the major approaches to the two notions, I try to detect the reasons for their being disconnected. Thus, as far as ‘subjectivity’ is concerned, all definitions –with the exception of one or two, e.g. Benveniste’s (1971) or Lyons’ (1982)– limit the content of the concept either highlighting one of its aspects (e.g. Maynard, 1993) or resulting in the identification of subjectivity with logical involvement (e.g. Langacker, 1990). On the other hand, the literature review about involvement yielded several heterogeneous definitions that locate involvement in emotive communication, further obscuring its relationship with subjectivity.

I argue that involvement should be subsumed under the ‘umbrella’ of subjectivity, which –as the expression of self in discourse– concerns every manifestation of the speaker’s presence in language and covers the logical as well as the emotional dimension of the subject. Thus, subjectivity should be reconsidered as the expression of the thinking/perceiving, feeling and interactional self. Moreover, I claim that these dimensions (logical and emotional) are so closely related to each other that it is almost impossible to distinguish them. I try to check this blending of the above dimensions by examining the use and function of 1st and 2nd person subject pronouns, which have been described as the most typical indexes of subjectivity (deixis) in every language.

Furthermore, I explore the interplay of 1st and 2nd personal pronouns and gender, and more specifically how the deployment of the redundant –for the Greek language– personal pronoun may differ, depending on the gender of the speaker, and what this means for the projection of the gendered self and the notion of subjectivity.

ReferencesBenveniste, E. (1971). Problems in General Linguistics. (trans. M.E. Meek). Coral Gables.

FL: University of Miami press. Lyons, J. (1982). “Deixis and subjectivity: loquor ergo sum?” In Speech, Place and Action:

Studies in Deixis and Related Topics, R. Jarvella and W. Klein, (eds), 101-124. Chichester and New York.

Langacker, R. (1990). “Subjectification”. Cognitive Linguistics, 4: 1-38.Maynard, S. (1993). Discourse Modality: Subjectivity, emotion and voice in the Japanese lan-

guage. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

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Politeness, gender and the face of the speaker

Eleni KarafotiAristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

karafoutiAThotmail DOT com

The present paper deals with the phenomenon of politeness, but from a different perspective, that of the speaker’s face. Running through the dominant theories of politeness, the major aim of the paper is to reveal that they are other-oriented (to the hearer) and underestimate the needs of the speaker in communication. The speaker’s face is recognized by two researchers (Chen, 2001; Ruhi, 2004) who acknowledge this deficiency in literature and propose a broader model.

In order to examine the overlooked position of the speaker’s face in interaction, I focus on the linguistic act of complimenting, which, within the framework of B&L’s theory, has an ambiguous interpretation: it is considered a positive politeness strategy and at the same time a face threatening act against the hearer’s face. More specifically, I examine compliment responses, which despite their variability have something in common: they have to balance two different and non-mutually satisfied constraints, the agreement with the complimenter and the avoidance of self-praise (Pomerantz, 1978). Although the compliance with one of the two constraints is partly culturally defined, I argue that the motivation for the acceptance of the compliment (self-praise) or the rejection of it (face-threatening for hearer’s face) seems to be the speaker’s needs and not the protection of the hearer.

The exploration of the Greek data (26 informal conversations) confirms the above hypothesis, revealing that the dominant constraint in the particular sample is that of the agreement with the complimenter (thus there is no effort to avoid self-praise).

On a second level in this paper, by taking into account that gender is a dynamic category which is constructed and reconstructed through language, I explore how gender is (or is not) involved in the protection of the speaker’s face.

ReferencesChen, R. (2001). “Self–politeness: A proposal”. Journal of Pragmatics 33, pp.87-106.Pomerantz, A. (1978). “Compliment responses: Notes on the cooperation of multiple

constraints”. In J. Schenkein (ed.), Studies in the organization of conversational interaction (pp. 79-112). New York: Academic Press.

Ruhi, S. (pre-publication version) (2004). “Self-politeness in managing rapport sensitive acts: The case of compliment responses in Turkish”. Paper presented at the conference on Language, Politeness and Gender: The Pragmatic Roots. Helsinki.

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Tree Folding

Adam KayUniversity of Cambridge

ak408ATcam DOT ac DOT uk

Rooted trees provide an elegant solution to the problem of representing hierarchical relationships (Harary, 1969), and in linguistics are used to model both synchronic and diachronic relations of this sort (e.g. the former trees were used in models of ‘deep structure’ in early transformational grammar (Chomsky, 2006), while the latter are used in historical linguistics). However, when the hierarchical relations are considered to be synchronic, rooted trees leave something to be desired, since if a single element enters into n hierarchical relations it will be represented n times in the tree. The tree representing Pierce’s Law, for example, (((p -> q) -> p) -> p), must have three leaves named p. I will present a natural and logical extension of graph theory that solves this problem by allowing any rooted tree to be ‘folded’, thus eliminating extraneous elements. The folding is invertible (i.e. no information is lost), so the new visual representation is equivalent to the rooted tree and, naturally, the tree’s equivalent parenthetic expression. Though the idea is a part of pure mathematics and consequently applicable to any rooted tree, I will show how it is of particular relevance to a number of problems in linguistics, for example, what Jackendoff (2002) has termed ‘the problem of 2’; the tension in movement-based syntactic theory between talk of ‘movement’, (‘pied-piping’, ‘hopping’, etc.) and the caveat that in fact there is no movement; and the relation between the diachronicity of an utterance and the synchronicity of a proposition.

ReferencesChomsky, Noam (2006). Language and Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harary, Frank (1969). Graph Theory. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan University Press.Jackendoff, Ray (2002). Foundations of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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The perspective of external remerge on Right Node Raising

Marlies Kluck,University of Groningen

MDOTEDOTKluckATrug DOT nl

One of the most notorious properties associated with RNR is the strong condition on periphery that makes (i) grammatical but rules out (ii):

(i) [John read_] and [Mary burned_] a book(ii) *[John bought_ today] and [Mary will buy_ tomorrow] a book.

Clearly, we have a restriction that allows only rightmost material to be displaced, elided or deleted (depending on one's approach). I will discuss this condition in different syntactic accounts of RNR (PF deletion, backward ellipsis and multiple dominance). I will argue in the line of Hartmann (2000) that the periphery condition is not syntactic but due to prosodic constraints on edge alignment. This then explains the ad hoc nature of the syntactic accounts with respect to the edge restriction. However, this does not mean that RNR itself is the result of deletion at PF. This would imply phonological identity that is not always detectable in the respective conjuncts, which are often seen as evidence for the elliptical nature of RNR (contra some multiple dominance accounts and PF deletion). I will argue that these data are restricted to morphological alternations of the same syntactic features, like some/any in (iii):

(iii) [Pete has read_]but [he hasn’t understood_] any of my books.

I will show how re-merge of the shared material into the second conjunct would allow for some sharing of non-identical elements but not all. My proposal for RNR elaborates on insights of De Vries (2005a,b) and Van Riemsdijk (2004) for external remerge and coordination.

ReferencesHartmann, Katharina (2000). Right node raising and gapping: Interface conditions on

prosodic deletion. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Riemsdijk, Henk van (2004). ‘Graft is the Logically Missing Case of Merge’. Visnyk of the

Kiev National Linguistic University 7(2).Vries, M. de (2005a). ‘Ellipsis in nevenschikking: voorwaarts deleren maar achterwaarts

delen.’ TABU 34, 13-46.Vries, M. de (2005b). ‘Merge: Properties and Boundary Conditions.’ Linguistics in the

Netherlands 22, 219-230.

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'English meets German': On the Creative Exploitation of Anglicisms and Code-Mixing in German Press Language

Sebastian KnospeUniversität Greifswald, Germanysebastian_knospeATweb DOT de

Traditional descriptive models focussing on European language contacts assume that the latter are primarily connected to the importation of loanwords (Haugen 1950), espe-cially if the recipient language itself has a high ethnolinguistic vitality (Giles 1977) – like German. In light of the role of current English, working as the European and global lingua franca (Schneider, ed. 1997, Görlach 2002), the palette of linguistic contact phe-nomena, however, often even includes further-reaching traces of ‘Englishisation’ which go beyond the mere use of (lexicalised) anglicisms (Androutsopoulos 2004). Thus, syntactically more extended or pragmatically more refined ad hoc forms of code-mixing involving shifts into English may be exploited for particular discursive effects. Indeed, this may also apply to written contexts of use, such as to the typically anglophile sections of supraregional German papers (cf. the domains of sports, pop music etc.).

In my paper I shall shed light on the (partly creative) uses of anglicisms and language mixing between English and German in German press language, e.g. within the context of the Fifa World Cup 2006. In this respect, Muysken’s (2000) taxonomy of code-mixing will serve as my analytical framework. In his model he differentiates between insertions (established loans/anglicisms and nonce borrowings), code alternations (con-ventional code-switches) and congruent lexicalisations (notably interlingual homopho-nes). To that end, each of these categories represents different qualities of language contact. Based on this insight, I shall analyse the motivation and discursive effects of interesting examples of interlingual language use (Coulmas 2005; Myers-Scotton 2005).

ReferencesAndroutsopoulos, Jannis (2004). “Non-native English and sub-cultural identities in media

discourse”. In: Sandoy, Helge et al. (ed.): Den fleirspråklege utfordringa, Oslo: Novus-forl., 83-98.

Coulmas, Florian (2005). Sociolinguistics: the study of speakers’ choices. Cambridge: CUP.Giles, Howard (1977). Language, ethnicity and intergroup relations. London: Academic

Press.Görlach, Manfred (2002). English in Europe. Oxford: OUP.Haugen, Einar (1950). “The analysis of linguistic borrowing“. Language 26:210-231. Myers-Scotton, Carol (2006). Multiple voices: an introduction to bilingualism. Malden, Mass.:

Blackwell. Muysken, Pieter (2000). Bilingual Speech – A typology of code-mixing. Cambridge: CUP.

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The Syntax-Semantics Interface in Lexical Functional Linear-Logical Grammar

Miltiadis KokkonidisUniversity of Oxford

miltiadis DOT kokkonidisATclg DOT ox DOT ac DOT uk

A recent development in formal semantics, the evolution of Glue (Dalrymple, 1999; Dalrymple, 2001) into its current First-Order Glue form (Kokkonidis, 2007), has opened up possibilities for new analyses as the new system is not only simpler, but also more powerful than its predecessor. An unexpected consequence is that it can be used for describing, among other things, language syntax. Linear-Logical Grammar has First-Order Glue as its formal foundation, and its Lexical Functional flavour is the one that tries to reconcile this foundation with the intuitions of Lexical Functional Grammar (Kaplan and Bresnan, 1982; Dalrymple, 2001). Even though Glue served as the syntax-semantics interface within LFG and has strong ties to it, this endeavour is anything but trivial. Not only does Glue play a distinctly different role to that of syntax within the LFG+Glue framework, but also syntax, according to LFG theory, is to be understood in terms of two different but complementary representations: constituent-structure and functional-structure. Within (LF)LLG, First-Order Glue keeps its role as a simple logical framework for meaning composition but also replaces LFG c-structure. The resulting system is very similar to Type-Logical Categorial Grammar (Morril, 1994, Moorgat, 1997) a formalism with which, one could say, LFG could not be more dissimilar. This paper presents this system and discusses how the formal framework primitives of LFG can be translated into First-Order Glue primitives and where they are directly transferred into the new grammar formalism and compares the new formalism to both LFG and TLCG.

ReferencesDalrymple, M. (Ed.) (1999). Semantics and Syntax in Lexical Functional Grammar: The Re-

source Logic Approach. MIT Press.Dalrymple, M. (2001). Lexical Functional Grammar. Number 42 in Syntax and Semantics

Series. Academic Press.Kaplan, R. M. and J. Bresnan (1982). Lexical Functional Grammar: A formal system for

grammatical representation. In J. Bresnan (Ed.), The Mental Representation of Gram-mar Relations, pp. 173–281. MIT Press.

Kokkonidis, M. (2007). First-order glue. Journal of Logic, Language and Information. To ap-pear.

Moorgat, M. (1997). Categorial type logics. In J. van Benthem and A. ter Meulen (Eds.), Handbook of Logic and Language. Elsevier.

Morril, G. V. (1994). Type Logical Grammar: Categorial Logic of Signs. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

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A computer-aided error analysis of a Korean learner corpus: procedures, findings and pedagogical applications

Dong Ju LeeUniversity of Essex

djleeATessex DOT ac DOT uk

This paper reports the results of a computer-aided error analysis (CEA) of a Korean secondary school students’ corpus and makes a case for taking a DDL approach when teaching writing and grammar in the Korean ELT classroom. The CEA was conducted on a small corpus (19,610 words) of writing in English produced by Korean secondary school students. The analysis identified the most common errors the students made using the error-tagging software tool, UCLEE (Dagneaux, et al., 1996).

Based on the CEA results, concordance-based and DDL materials were designed to remedy the students’ most frequent error types, using activities similar to those which featured in the studies of Gaskell & Cobb (2004), Granger & Tribble (1998), Sripicharn (2002), etc., and tried out on Korean secondary English classes. Questionnaires and in-depth interviews were employed to investigate the students’ attitudes to DDL, and the teachers who observed the classes were also interviewed. The findings show both the students and teachers displayed relatively positive responses to the approach. The paper ends with a discussion of the pedagogical implications of these findings.

ReferencesDagneaux, E., Denness, S., Granger, S. and Meunier, F. (1996). Error Tagging Manual

Version 1.1. Centre for English Corpus Linguistics, Université Catholique de Louvain.Gaskell, D. and Cobb, T. (2004). Can learners use concordance feedback for writing errors?

System 32: 301-19.Granger, S. and Tribble, C. (1998). ‘Learner corpus data in the foreign language classroom:

form-focused instruction and data-driven learning’, in S. Granger (Ed.): Learner English on Computer. London: Longman. 199-209.

Sripicharn, P. (2002). Evaluating data-driven learning: the use of classroom concordancing by Thai learners of English. Unpublished PhD dissertation, The University of Birmingham.

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Variation in Singapore English as reflected in aspectual constructions

Jakob R. E. LeimgruberUniversity of Oxford

jakob DOT leimgruberATell DOT ox DOT ac DOT uk

Singapore English, an outer-circle English (Kachru 1985) with endogenous contact ecology (Bao 2005), has been subjected to considerable amounts of research. Nonetheless, its typological status is still a matter of dispute. Called a ‘creoloid’ by Platt in 1975, a number of models have been posited to explain its nature. Central to the debate is the analysis of the variety as a continuum (Platt 1975; Ho & Platt 1993), reminiscent of post-creole ones (DeCamp 1971), as opposed to the idea of a diglossic speech community (Gupta 1998; 2001). In this latter analysis, Standard Singapore English is H(igh), and Colloquial Singapore English, often called ‘Singlish’, is L(ow).

In order to shed light on the issue, a sample of 36 students from three distinct socioeconomic backgrounds is being interviewed. Four different situational settings, ranging from highly formal face-to-face interviews to unmonitored radio-microphone recordings, will provide evidence for either one or the other approach: if situational settings have a significant influence on language use, the diglossic view will be the one to favour, if however a more fluid transition is observed, the continuum hypothesis will be given more credence.

My poster focuses on the methodological framework of the above study, with special reference to some problems encountered during the data collection. For instance, the original intention of using solely aspect markers (building on the findings of Bao (1995), and within his 2005 systemic substratist framework) had to be revised to include other variables such as existential got. The use of discourse particles, identified by Gupta (1994) as diagnostic of the diglossic L sub-variety, also proves helpful.

ReferencesBao, Zhiming (1995). Already in Singapore English. World Englishes 14.2, 181-188.Bao, Zhiming (2005) .The aspectual system of Singapore English and the systemic substratist

explanation. Journal of Linguistics 41.2, 237-267.DeCamp, David (1971). Towards a generative analysis of a post-creole speech continuum. in

Hymes, Dell (ed.), Pidginisation and Creolisation of Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 349-370.

Gupta, Anthea Fraser (1994). The Step-Tongue: Childrens' English in Singapore. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Gupta, Anthea Fraser (1998). The situation of English in Singapore. in Foley, Joseph A. and others (eds.), English in New Cultural Contexts: Reflections from Singapore. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 106-126.

Gupta, Anthea Fraser (2001). English in the linguistic ecology of Singapore. The Cultural Politics of English as a World Language, Freiburg i.B.: GNEL/MALVEN.

Ho, Mian-Lian and Platt, John Talbot (1993) Dynamics of a Contact Continuum: Singaporean English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kachru, Braj B (1985). Standards, codification and sociolinguistic realism: The English language in the outer circle. in Quirk, Randolph and Widdowson, Henry G. (eds.), English in the World: Teaching and Learning the Language and Literatures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 11-30.

Platt, John Talbot (1975). The Singapore English speech continuum and its basilect 'Singlish' as a 'creoloid'. Anthropological Linguistics 17.7, 363-374.

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Native and non-native cue weightings when identifying non-native vowel contrasts: A cross-linguistic study

Angelos LengerisUniversity College London

aleggerisAThotmail DOT com

Second language (L2) vowel perception is a difficult task for first language (L1) speakers. Languages differ in their vowel inventories and may explore different ways (acoustic cues) to signal vowel contrasts. Previous research has shown that when L2 learners fail to differentiate L2 vowel contrasts based on spectral cues, they rely on temporal ones, irrespective of whether they use duration in their L1. According to Bohn’s “desensitization” hypothesis (Bohn, 1995), this is because duration is a salient and easy to access cue. According to the “feature” hypothesis (McAllister et al., 1997) on the other hand, category formation is difficult when based on a phonetic feature/cue not used in L1 to signal phonological contrasts.

This study reports on two experiments that examined the perception of Southern British English (SBE) vowels by Greek (Gr) and Japanese (J) learners of English. Both language groups have 5 monophthongal vowels /i, e, a, o, u/ in their inventories but only in the latter vowel length is phonologically distinctive which makes them ideal to test the “feature” hypothesis. In experiment 1, the perceived relationship between the eleven SBE vowels (in /bVb/ and /bVp/ contexts) and the L2 vowel categories for both language groups was assessed using an identification test with category goodness ratings. In experiment 2, the discrimination of several SBE vowel contrasts by the same participants was tested via a categorical oddity discrimination test. The effect of L1 experience vs. salience of duration in L2 vowel perception is discussed together with the extent to which the perceived relationship between English and L1 vowels (experiment 1) can predict the L2 learners’ performance (experiment 2) and the role of consonantal context in both experiments.

ReferencesBohn, O.-S. (1995). Cross-language speech perception in adults: First language transfer

doesn’t tell it all. In W. Strange (Ed.), Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in cross-language research (pp. 279–304). Timonium, MD: York Press.

McAllister, R., J.L. Flege & T. Piske (2003). The influence of L1 on the acquisition of Swedish quantity by native speakers of Spanish, English and Estonian, Journal of Phonetics, 30, 229-258.

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A Study of Self- and Peer-Assessment of Learners’ Oral Proficiency2

Hana LimUniversity of Essex

hoblimATessex DOT ac DOT uk

Unlike the traditional assessment of language learners, involving learners in the assessment as an alternative assessment has been a salient theme in the language testing literature. However, how learners can be involved in oral proficiency assessment still needs further investigation since only a handful of studies have attempted to explore this area up to now (Cheng and Warren 2005). It is widely believed that the use of self-assessment techniques can play a great role in enhancing learners’ responsibility for their learning such as monitoring and evaluating in learning, establishing and developing appropriate criteria for assessment.

This paper reports on a study with the upper-intermediate learners in English which was carried out to find the answers to three questions as below:

(1) To what extent can learners accurately access their own and peers’ performances of tasks in the target language?

(2) What effect does learners’ self- and peer-assessment have on the ways of language study?

(3) How does learner training with self- and peer-assessment improve learners’ ability in appraising their own and peers’ language ability?

As far as the reliability of self- and peer-assessment is concerned, learners should be trained in the effective use of self- and peer-assessment instruments (Blue 1988; Davidson and Henning 1985). Thus a fortnight’s task-based learner training programme was also conducted to develop the learners’ abilities to ‘have metacognitive strategies’ and ‘understand and interpret their peers’ feedback’ through two oral performance tasks in order to see how useful the learner training is for both learners and tutors. The training programme was evaluated as an ongoing process with a multi-method approach collecting data from a variety of sources and with various methods such as ethnographic observation, learners’ overall evaluation questionnaires, pre- and post-interviews with learners, interviews with tutors, learners’ self- and peer-assessing results and tutors’ rating scores. The results show that learners were able to assess their performances more accurately with repeated marking practice. The learners were aware of the factors that affected their learning.

ReferencesCheng, W. and Warren, M. (2005). ‘Peer assessment of language proficiency’, Language

Testing. 22(3), 93-121.Blue, G. M. (1988). ‘Self-Assessment: The Limits of Learner Independence’ in Brookes, A.

and Grundy, P. (eds.) Individualisation and Autonomy in Language Learning. London: Modern English Publications, British Council.

Davidson, F. and Henning, G. (1985). ‘A self-rating scale of English difficulty’, Language Testing. 2, 164-78.

2 I specially thank Neil, Fred and Sandy of World Horizons in Llanelli, South Wales in the UK for their cooperation for the research in 2006.

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Language-internal and contact-induced change in negative constructions

Chris LucasUniversity of Cambridge

cbl23ATcam DOT ac DOT uk

This paper investigates the phenomenon of Jespersen’s Cycle (JC) in Arabic and Berber. In JC (at its simplest) a postverbal item is grammaticalized to form part of a discontinuous marker of negation together with the original preverbal negator. This diachronic pattern is familiar from European languages, but its counterparts in Arabic and Berber have received little attention until now.

In JC varieties of Arabic the discontinuous negative morpheme is composed of the original preverbal negator mā, plus the grammaticalized postverbal element -š(i) (<ši < šay’ ‘(any)thing’), e.g. ma-bəħibb-iš ‘I don’t like’ (Egyptian; Woidich 1968: 33). Compare Tamazight Berber, where ur is the original negator and ša (< kra ‘(any)thing’) the grammaticalized element, e.g. ur iffigh ša ‘he didn’t leave’ (Boumalk 1996: 36). Questions prompted by these data are: in which language was the discontinuous construction innovated, how did this innovation happen, and how was it spread to the other language(s)?

Evidence is presented from a comparative study of negation in varieties of present-day spoken Arabic and medieval Berber texts, which suggests that the innovation of the postverbal negator began in Arabic and spread to Berber through contact. JC in Arabic thus requires a language-internal explanation, viz.: in contexts where a verb could plausibly be interpreted as taking a null object, children acquiring future JC varieties of Arabic reanalysed ši in object position as a negator rather than an object meaning ‘(any)thing’. By contrast, the spread of JC from Arabic to Berber is seen as a function of contact-induced grammaticalization (in the sense of Heine and Kuteva 2003). Crucially, if contact is indeed responsible here, a language-internal model of JC in Berber is necessarily incomplete: something that is equally true, if often overlooked, of JC in European languages.

ReferencesBoumalk, Abdallah, (1996). ‘La négation en berbère marocain’, in Salem Chaker &

Dominique Caubet (eds.) La négation en berbère et en arabe maghrébin, Paris : sssL’Harmattan, 35-48.

Heine, Bernd & Kuteva, Tania, (2003). ‘On contact-induced grammaticalization’, Studies in Language 27: 3, 529-572.

Woidich, Manfred, (1968). Negation und negative Sätze im Ägyptisch-Arabischen. Ph.D. dissertation, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität zu München.

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Investigating the role of early second language learning experience when approaching a foreign language at secondary school: learning French as a third

language in Ireland

Michael Markey Université de Charles de Gaulle – Lille 3 (France)

michael DOT markeyATgmail DOT com

In what way does being exposed to a second language from an early age help or hinder pupils when they approach a new foreign language at secondary school? This paper presents an original research project which attempts to shed light on this question by focusing on two groups of Irish secondary school pupils learning French as a third language.

The first part of this paper will deal with the theoretical foundations of this research project, drawing upon research into learning Irish as a second language and immersion education through Irish, before focusing on studies examining the influence of these two language learning contexts on subsequent foreign language learning.

We go on to detail the methodology adopted, that of a quantitative study involving a series of extended semi-structured interviews. We will show how a corpus of introspective data was gathered and subsequently analysed in order to verify or question the validity of our research hypotheses.

Our research points towards the need to design integrated language learning curricula and to consider previous language learning experience when teaching a foreign language. We will conclude by describing how we hope to extend this project via an 18 month longitudinal study combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies.

ReferencesCoady, M. (2001). Attitudes Towards Bilingualism in Ireland, Bilingual Research Journal 25,

p. 39-55Little, D. (2003). Languages in the Post-Primary Curriculum: A Discussion Paper, National

Council for Curriculum and Assessment, DublinO’Laoire, M. (2005). Three Languages in the schools in Ireland, International Journal of the

Sociology of Language, 171, p. 95 – 113

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mailto:michaelDOTmarkeyATgmailDOTcom


The Experiencer Constraint Revisited

Aya Meltzer Tel Aviv University

ameltzerATpost DOT tau DOT ac DOT il

What led some researchers (Borer 1990) to claim that all present participles can be adjectival is the fact that they all appear prenominally (1).

(1) a. an interesting / surprising / amusing / amazing boy b. a flourishing town / a glimmering diamond / a lasting sensation c. a jumping / crying / growing / sitting boy However, all other adjectival contexts allow only participles such as those in (1a,b).

Brekke (1988) suggested the Experiencer Constraint: only participles of verbs that have an internal Experiencer θ-role can be adjectival. However, this generalization does not predict the adjectival status of the participles in (1b), and does not explain why it is the case that only participles of object-Experiencer verbs can be adjectival.

I suggest the following constraint: only present participles of stative verbs can be adjectival. The constraint is natural, since stative participles denote states, and are therefore suitable for becoming adjectives. In contrast, participles like 'jumping' denote an event, and can become adjectives only as a result of a morphologically visible operation that turns this event into a property ('jumpy').

How can non-adjectival participles appear prenominally (1c)? I suggest that what appears here is a reduced relative clause. This suggestion solves another puzzle: it is well-known that post-nominal reduced relatives cannot be one-word constituents (2a). An independently known phenomenon is the requirement for adjacency between a modified and a modifying head. According to my analysis, all reduced relatives are generated prenominally (2b). Only when the adjacency requirement is violated, does extraposition take place (2c).

(2) a. ??The boy jumping is my cousin. b. The [jumping (*in the yard)] boy is my cousin. c. The boy jumping in the yard is my cousin.

References Borer, H. (1990). "V + ing: It Walks like an Adjective, It Talks like an Adjective" Linguistic

Inquiry 21, pp. 95-103.Brekke, M. (1988). "The Experiencer Constraint" Linguistic Inquiry 19, pp. 169-180. Wasow, T. (1977). "Transformations and the Lexicon" in P. Culicover, T. Wasow and A.

Akmajian (eds.). Formal syntax, New York: Academic Press, pp. 327-360.

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Language Standardization and the Printing Industry in Sixteenth Century Italy3

Nikola MilicUniversity of Oxford

nikola DOT milicATsomerville DOT oxford DOT ac DOT uk

This paper discusses the emergence of the linguistic standard in the 16th century-Italy, in response to the rapid diffusion of printing. Although the selected linguistic model for literary expression existed (a form of the Florentine dialect), the economy and market needs increasingly begin to dictate linguistic standards in order to secure widespread and marketable diffusion of the printed material.

To a very large extent linguistic administration of the printed text depended on the linguistic competence of the correttore, or a copy-editor in the modern sense, who goes line after line, page after page through the text in order to secure the compatibility of the text with the advanced linguistic norm. This was preformed not only by philologists or the letterati (e.g. Pietro Bembo), but also intellectuals much less specialised in the controversial linguistic issues (e.g. school masters). The overwhelming majority of the correttori was in fact non-Florentine, usually from Brescia, Bergamo, Piedmont, and Venice. The work of the correttori carried, therefore, a very high risk of an error, due to the fact that the linguistic standard was not customarily used by any correttore. The mixture of the native linguistic habits of the correttori with the features of the standard, characterized by words or grammatical features of their own native vernacular, or indeed hypercorrect use of some Florentine words that were no longer in use or considered best avoided, were responsible for the fact that the language of the printed book did not correspond to either the language of the correttori, or of the original author, but can be described as an autonomous and substantially other language. Testimonies of the linguistic omissions made by correttori are numerous, and here I provide examples from two: Ruscelli's I fiori delle rime de' poeti illustri (Venezia, 1558) and Sansovino's Lettere sopra le diece giornate del Decamerone (Venezia, 1542).

These testimonies raise a pressing question of what constituted a linguistic error, and against which standard was something to be judged as an error, but also why they occur. The question of a linguistic error (as well as standard), according to these testimonies, is an area of much subjective interpretation of no coherent linguistic, but rhetorical, theory of what constitutes specific standard norms, ultimately compatible with the market interests of the printing industry.

3I would like to thank the Leverhulme Trust for funding this research

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A Systems Model of Language Planning

Lindsay MilliganUniversity of Aberdeen

l DOT milliganATabdn DOT ac DOT uk

A Systems Thinking (ST) approach to language planning has not yet been addressed in the corpus of language planning literature. ST encourages the study of a language, understanding that its corpus, status and acquisition are interconnected. ST allows us to gain a better understanding of the complexities of language planning by creating a visual model reflecting the interrelations within and among aspects of language vitality.

There are two immediate benefits to bringing an ST approach to language planning theory. First, this approach allows for the assimilation and incorporation of hypotheses and principles from the field's forerunners, including Cooper (1989), Fishman (1991) and Williams (1992) into one qualitative model of language planning that uses consistent graphical language. Second, the ST approach allows for the creation of a model for language planning that is flexible and broadly applicable. ST can negate placing any one area of language vitality in position of privilege by suggesting that each area in which a language functions is only one part of a metasystem.

Governments in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States of America are effectively using ST in order to create models flexible enough to explain social systems and in order to help predict the repercussions of social intervention (Sterman, 2000). When ST is brought into the field of language planning, it can be used to further our understanding of how interventions in aspects of language vitality unite to positively and negatively influence the language.

ReferencesCooper, R.L. (1989). Language Planning and Social Change. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.Fishman, Joshua (1991). Reversing Language Shift. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Sterman, John (2000). Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World. Toronto: Irwin

McGraw-Hill.Williams, Glyn (1992). Sociolinguistics: A Sociological Critique. London: Routledge.

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The Early Acquisition of Determiners in Spanish and Yucatec Mayan.

Mary Espinosa OchoaUniversity of Hamburg/ Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán

maryespinosaochoaATyahoo DOT com DOT mx

This is a study which compares the early acquisition of determiners in two unrelated languages: Spanish and Yucatec Mayan. The literature shows that determiners are very early in the acquisition (Soja 1994, Muneton Ayala et al 2002) and that they even seem to be the first particles to be syntactically productive in the child’s speech (Lieven et al, 2003). In our analysis of longitudinal data of Flor, a native speaker of Mexican Spanish, determiners are found already at the age of 1;11. However, in the analysis of the spontaneous speech of Armando and Sandi, native speakers of Yucatec Mayan, no determiners were found until 2;07. These results are interesting because the study of Mayan languages has already put in question the assumption that nouns are acquired earlier than verbs (Brown 1998, de León 1999, Pfeiler 2003).

To test the spontaneous data results and to find out at which age determiners are part of the grammatical knowledge of both Yucatec and Spanish children, we conducted an elicited imitation task with children aged between 2;00 and 5;00, both monolinguals of the languages studied. The use of determiners is mastered earlier in the acquisition of Spanish (2;00) than in Mayan (3;00) speaking children. We attribute this to a characteristic of the Yucatec input in which determiners are difficult to identify.

ReferencesBrown, P. (1998). Children´s First Verbs in Tzeltal. Evidence for an Early Verb Category.

Linguistics 36-4, 713-753. de León, L. (1999). Verbs in Tzotzil Early Syntactic Development. International Journal of

Bilingualism 3: 219-240.Lieven, E., Tomasello, M., Behrens, H. and Speares, J. (2003). Early syntactic creativity: a

usage based approach. Journal of Child Language 30: 333-370.Muneton Ayala, M., Rodrigo López M. (2005). Estudio longitudinal de la producción de

deícticos en castellano en niños de 12 a 36 meses durante las actividades cotidianas. Anuario de Psicología 36, 3: 315-337.

Pfeiler, B. (2003). Early acquisition of the verbal complex in Yucatec Maya. In D. Bittner et al. (eds.), Development of Verb Inflection in First Language Acquistion. A Cross-Linguistic Perspective: 379-401.

Soja, N. Nancy. (1994). Evidence for a distinct kind of noun. Cognition 51:267-284.

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A quantitative analysis of rhoticity in Dorset: evidence from four locations of an urban to rural hierarchy of change

Caroline PiercyUniversity of Essex

ctpierATessex DOT ac DOT uk

The South-West of England of which Dorset is a part is often described as being non-prevocalic /r/ pronouncing or rhotic (e.g. Wells 1982); however since the Survey of English Dialects examined Dorset in the 1950s there is no recent evidence to show to what extent this is still true. Research from other traditionally rhotic areas suggests that this feature is dying out (e.g. Sullivan 1992, Williams 1991) and others propose that widespread leveling of accents is taking place. However, how does a sound change permeate through a geographical area; can it be predicted where it will occur first? or in which geographical, social or linguistic environments?

These theoretical issues were investigated by a quantitative analysis of the casual speech of informants from four locations across Dorset. The four locations were chosen to represent different places on an urban-rural continuum. The informants were chosen to represent two age groups, older and younger, in order to invoke the apparent time construct. Results of this analysis show that rhoticity is indeed in decline, being all but absent from the younger age cohort. Rhoticity amongst the older speakers demonstrates a decline of rhoticity as predicted by an Urban-Rural hierarchy of linguistic change.

These findings seem to suggest that contact between dialects may be a contributor to language change with those speakers from high dialect contact locations and professions showing lower levels of rhoticity. Results from the linguistic environment of non pre-vocalic /r/ tokens suggest that there may be some constraints on its loss but that a larger sample of tokens and speakers may help to provide further evidence on this issue.

ReferencesSullivan, A (1991). Sound change in progress : a study of phonological change and lexical

diffusion, with reference to glottalization and r-loss in the speech of some Exeter Schoolchildren Exeter: University of Exeter Press

Wells, J.C (1982). Accents of English Cambridge: Cambridge University PressWilliams, Michael. (1991). Postvocalic (r) in the urban speech of the Isle of Wight.

Wellington Working Papers in Linguistics 3 56-66

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The markedness of the negative: Analysing negation in a spoken corpus

Alyson PittsUniversity of Cambridge

acp43ATcam DOT ac DOT uk

This paper presents the outcome of a corpus-based study of negation in English. The most straightforward conception of negation typically involves an inversion of some (descriptive) state of affairs [as in (1)] yet in everyday language negation may target any aspect of the utterance (thus going beyond the propositional content); Horn (1989) deems this metalinguistic negation [as in (2)]:

(1) I don’t feel well [- I feel terrible](2) I don’t feel ‘well’ - I feel great !

Theoretical discussion of negation is centuries old but we now confront the empirical plausibility of current theory: drawing from real, spoken data in the International Corpus of English (ICE-GB) we can access hundreds of utterances containing the negative particle [not]. Indeed, by appealing to real life examples we illustrate the difficulty in positing a clear allocation of – and distinction between – Horn’s original posited categories. Instead, the corpus data and analysis gives rise to a modified, finer grained classification; enabling the identification of certain ‘clearer’ cases of metalinguistic and descriptive negation whilst allowing for considerable overlap between the assignments. This assessment still permits a modest reconciliation with Horn’s dichotomy and furthermore presents a tentative association with the public, mental and abstract representations discussed by Wilson (2000).

The current study and theoretical ramifications therefore address the lack of hard evidence in demarcating between metalinguistic and descriptive negation in everyday language. This leads to the incorporation of a complex combination of factors (including backgrounding, focus effects and prosodic features) in seeking a full understanding of negation in everyday use.

ReferencesHorn, L.R. (1989). A Natural History of Negation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Wilson, D. (2000). “Metarepresentation in Linguistic Communication” in Sperber, D. (ed)

Metarepresentations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.411-448. International Corpus of English – Great Britain: Release 2 (2006).

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/english-usage/projects/ice-gb/

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Are L2 English Article Choices UG-regulated?

Nattama PongpairojUniversity of York

np500ATyork DOT ac DOT uk

The paper reports English article substitutions by L1 Thai (-articles) and L1 French (+articles) speakers. The study was a semi-replication of the forced-choice elicitation task from Ionin, Ko & Wexler (IKW) (2004). IKW report that L1 Russian and Korean learners of English overuse a(n) in [+def;-spec] contexts and the in [-def;+spec] contexts, and argue that these learners fluctuate between the two settings of the Article Choice Parameter, one linked to [± definiteness], the other to [± specificity]. The problem is that the claim is based on materials in which ‘specificity’ was operationalised as the speaker’s explicitly stated knowledge (ESK) of the referent being talked about (see Trenkic, in press, b). The values of [specificity] and ESK were conflated in all contexts ([+spec; +ESK]; [-spec; -ESK]). However, a referent can be [+specific], even when -ESK. It is thus possible that in IKW’s study the article choice was not influenced by [±specificity] (UG-regulated), but by what was explicitly claimed about the referent. We investigated this possibility by adding cases where [specificity] and ESK values were separated: [+spec; -ESK]. Repeated measures ANOVA confirmed that, on this test, the L1 Thai learners’ article distinctions were influenced by [±ESK], and not by [±specificity]. This is in line with the proposal in Trenkic (in press, a) that L2ers from articleless languages misanalyse and use English articles as lexical elements, attributing them referential, common-sense meanings of definite / indefinite (“that can be / cannot be identified”). In contrast, French speakers’ article choices were mainly appropriate, suggesting a syntactically-triggered production.

References Ionin, Tanya, Heejeong Ko, and Ken Wexler (2004). Article semantics in L2 acquisition:

the role of specificity. Language Acquisition 12. 3-69.Trenkic, Danijela. (in press, a). Variability in L2 article production: beyond the

representational deficit vs. processing constraints debate. Second Language Research.Trenkic, Danijela. (in press, b). The representation of English articles in bilingual grammars:

determiners or adjectives?" Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.

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mailto:np500ATyorkDOTacDOTuk


Mapping Metaphors in Modern Greek: Life is a Journey

Cristina Psomadakis University of Oxford

cristina DOT psomadakisATworc DOT ox DOT ac DOT uk

When M. Johnson and G. Lakoff published "Metaphors We Live By" they were at the forefront of a radical change in thinking about metaphors. Metaphors, they suggested, are not simply poetic parts of speech, or obscure idiomatic expressions, but rather part of our larger cognitive reasoning. Metaphors in the language form part of larger, conceptual metaphors that help us understand and talk about the world we live in.

Using this theory of metaphors as a theoretical framework, my presentation will focus on the Modern Greek language and examine the presence of the "universal" conceptual metaphor “LIFE IS A JOURNEY” and its culture-specific dimensions. This conceptual metaphor envisages life as a journey, with birth as the point of embarkation and death as the final destination. So in English for example, humans encounter “twists and turns,” “get lost” but later “find their way” and often “come to a crossroads.” In Modern Greek, this metaphor is present in the discourse of love, religion and daily life. There is evidence from ancient Greece that the “LIFE IS A JOURNEY” metaphor has been conceptualized since antiquity.

Linguistic data has been collected using a Greek corpus, as well as examples from media and literature. The analysis of “LIFE IS A JOURNEY” and conceptual metaphors in Modern Greek more generally, will not only help us gain insight into the language, thought processes and culture of the Greek people, but will also serve as a comparative tool which will contribute to the understanding and extent of "universal" metaphors.

Examples:1 Το καλο το παλικαρι ξερει και αλλο µονοπατι 2 Ο δροµος ειχε την δικη του ιστορια A good fellow knows another route The road had its own story2 ∆εν περπατησαµε ποτε στον ιδιο δροµο 3 Τα πηγαινε καλα, αλλα καπου χαθηκε We were never on the same path He was OK, but got lost

ReferencesJohnson, M.; Lakoff, G. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press.Kovecses, Z. (2002). Metaphors. Oxford University Press.

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mailto:cristinaDOTpsomadakisATworcDOToxDOTacDOTuk


How can song help us understand spoken language? Text-setting constraints in English and Spanish

Rosalía Rodríguez-VázquezUniversity of Edinburgh

R DOT Rodriguez-VazquezATsms DOT ed DOT ac DOT uk

In recent years, Optimality Theory (OT) has been applied to the analysis of English metrics (Hayes and Kaun 1996; Hayes and MacEachern 1998; Kiparsky 2006) and of text-setting in English (Hayes, in press). An important limitation of these studies is the narrowness of their scope – they deal almost exclusively with English verse and songs, a fact which makes their theoretical claims biased.

This paper is devoted to the comparative examination of the most important text-setting constraints as applied to a corpus of English and Spanish folk songs. A theoretical and empirical analysis of these songs is developed to determine the degree of accuracy of the OT-based theories argued for in Hayes and MacEachern (1998), Kiparsky (2006) and Hayes (in press). The two main issues addressed in this paper are (i) the constraints used to define what a mismatch is in English and Spanish folk songs, and (ii) the positioning of stressed syllables in both text-setting traditions, as well as the different ranking of constraints in each of the two languages.

The analysis has the following results: (a) the definition of a mismatch in Spanish responds to syllable-related constraints, whereas it is linked to stress in English, (b) the agreement between linguistic stress and beat strength is enforced in English, while this enforcement happens only in certain positions in Spanish, (c) there is a relation between the rhythmic characteristics of a language and its ranking of text-setting constraints.

ReferencesHayes, Bruce and Abigail Kaun (1996). “The role of phonological phrasing in sung and

chanted verse”. The Linguistic Review 13:243-303.Hayes, Bruce and Margaret MacEachern (1998). “Quatrain form in English folk verse”,

Language 74(3):473-507.Hayes, Bruce (in press). “Text setting as constraint conflict” Presented as a paper at the

conference Typology of poetic forms. Paris 2005.Kiparsky, Paul (2006). “A modular metrics of folk verse”. Eds. Elan B. Dresher and Nila

Friedberg. Formal approaches to poetry. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 7-52.

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mailto:RDOTRodriguez-VazquezATsmsDOTedDOTacDOTuk


“Morphophonological or syntactic transfer in the acquisition of English articles by L1 speakers of Syrian Arabic?”

Ghisseh SarkoUniversity of Essex

gsarkoATessex DOT ac DOT uk

Recent studies of L2 acquisition of English articles by speakers of L1s that lack articles show that in development informants fluctuate between the/a as markers of (in)definiteness and (non-)specificity (Ionin, Ko & Wexler 2004). By contrast, learners of English of L1 speakers of languages where articles mark definiteness do not fluctuate (Snape 2006, Hawkins et al 2006). Syrian Arabic (SA) has a phonologically definite article overt form ?al, but no overt form of indefinite. Will SA speakers acquiring English fluctuate between use of the and a with [–def/+spec] NPs, as speakers of L1s that lack articles? This would be predicted if L1 transfer effects occur at the level of morphophonology. Or, will they recognize that English a (and Ø with mass and plural NPs) only marks indefiniteness? This would be predicted if transfer effects occur at the level of syntax, in the form of an interpretable [-definite] feature on the category D. Learners would then expect a/Ø only to realize [-definite]. Results of a study of 57 SA speakers of English initially show fluctuation between the and a/Ø in [-def, +spec] contexts consistent with transfer at the level of morphophonology. However, closer examination shows that overuse of the occurs where NPs are relative clause modified. Such cases uniformly require a definite article in SA; the conclusion is that transfer is at the level of syntax and not morphophonology. As advanced speakers restructure towards the target norm, it is argued that the case provides further evidence for Full Transfer/Full Access Hypothesis at the syntactic level.

ReferencesHawkins, R., Al-Eid, S., Almahboob, I., Athanasopoulos, P., Chaengchenkit, R., Hu, Y.,

Rezai, M. J., Jaensch, C., Jeon, Y., Jiang, A., Leung, Y-K. I., Matsunaga, K., Ortega, M., Sarko, G., Snape, N. & Velasco-Zárate, K. (2006). Accounting for English article interpretation by L2 speakers. Eurosla Yearbook 6, 7-25.

Ionin, T., Ko, H. and Wexler, K. (2004a). “Article semantics in L2 acquisition: the role of specificity”. Language Acquisition 12: 3-69.

Snape, N. (2006). The acquisition of the English determiner phrase by Japanese and Spanish learners of English. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Essex.

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Beyond the speech community:Quotative be like and the ‘linguistic virtual collective’

Dave SayersUniversity of Essex

dave DOT sayersATcantab DOT net

This paper evaluates the concept of the speech community, in light of the diffusion of quotative be like in present day English, e.g. ‘I was like, no way!’. Presumed to be of Californian origin (Macaulay, 2001:3), this feature has spread rapidly across the English speaking world, into British and Canadian English (Tagliamonte & D’Arcy, 2004; Tagliamonte & Hudson, 1999), and Glaswegian English (Macaulay, 2001), among others. This has occurred – especially in Britain – with very little actual interaction with Americans, but a disproportionately intense input from film, television, music etc.

The problem for sociolinguistics is that in each case, despite a possible media influence, quotative be like appears to be following perfectly normal routes of diffusion across the speech community: through successive age and gender groups. In this sense it looks like a normal linguistic innovation; it just happens to be springing up in different places. This tends to overshadow the possible rôle of the media. The question remains, however, of where exactly quotative be like came from in the first place; and this is left largely as speculation or presumption in Tagliamonte & D’Arcy (2004), Tagliamonte & Hudson (1999), and Macaulay (2001). By concentrating on interpersonal interaction, these authors have no place for the media. Nevertheless, Macaulay (2001:17-8) is drawn to briefly ponder its effect, especially in terms of American film.

I will argue that the media can still play a rôle, but a very different one to interpersonal interaction, and that this deserves a reappraisal of the concept of the speech community. The media, I will argue, occupies a space between otherwise fairly discrete speech communities, allowing the transmission of linguistic innovations between them, whereupon those innovations diffuse across the speech community as per normal. This supra-speech-community language grouping, linked together predominantly by the media, I will call the ‘linguistic virtual collective’.

ReferencesMacaulay, R. (2001). ‘You’re Like ‘Why Not?’ – the Quotative Expressions of Glasgow

Adolescents’. Journal of Sociolinguistics 5(1): 3-21.Tagliamonte, S. & A. D’Arcy (2004). ‘He's like, she's like: The quotative system in

Canadian youth’. Journal of Sociolinguistics 8/4:493-514.Tagliamonte, S. & R. Hudson (1999). ‘Be Like Et Al. Beyond America: The Quotative

System in British and Canadian Youth’. Journal of Sociolinguistics 3(2): 147-172.

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The Typology of Number Borrowing in Berber

Lameen SouagSOAS

lameenATgmail DOT com

It is well-known that numbers can be borrowed, and that higher numbers are more readily borrowed than lower ones (cf. Greenberg 1978). The question of which numbers are most easily borrowed, and in which contexts, has implications for an understanding both of historical change and language contact and of the extent to which the linguistic behaviour of numbers can be related to independent cognitive factors.

In the Berber languages of North Africa, numbers are commonly clear-cut loanwords from Arabic. Many, such as Kabyle or Chenoua, retain as few as two non-Arabic number words; only a minority, like Tumzabt, retain as many as ten or more. Closer examination reveals differences in intensity of borrowing not only between, but within, languages, depending on the items being counted and on whether the numbers are cardinal or ordinal. The syntax of numerals offers further scope for variation.

The Berber languages in question are both closely related to one another and are all influenced by mutually comprehensible varieties of Maghrebi Arabic, allowing what amounts to a controlled experiment, with extremely similar contact situations in different areas yielding a wide spectrum of possible outcomes. Careful examination of this spectrum allows us to set up a typology of numeral borrowing in Arabic-Berber contact. Comparison of more distant examples, such as Japanese and Thai, suggests that this typology has wider applicability. The results appear to correlate well with studies indicating a special role for lower numbers both in short-term memory and in frequency.

ReferencesGreenberg, Joseph (1978). Generalizations about Numeral Systems. In J. Greenberg, C.

Ferguson, & E. Moravcsik (eds.), Universals of Human Language 3: Word Structure 249-295. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

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Variability in F0 valleys: the case of Belfast English

Jennifer SullivanUniversity College Dublin

jennifer DOT sullivanATucd DOT ie

This paper reports on the variability of the alignment of the low turning point (L) in Belfast English nuclear rises. Investigation into variability in low points has been rather neglected due to a prevailing view that F0 peaks are variable while valleys are not (e.g. Arvaniti et al 2000). Yet a fixed nature of valleys may not be a universal, as Ladd (1996) reports that the alignment of L in Glasgow English rises is variable, being affected by the number of preceding unstressed syllables. To investigate the possibility that valleys may be more variable than previously thought and to attempt to account for this variation, data was examined from a related dialect to Glasgow, Belfast English (data from the IViE (Intonational Variation in English) corpus (Grabe et al 2001)). Consequently, we began with the hypothesis that L in Belfast would be affected similarly to its Glasgow counterpart.

We then examined the hypotheses that the alignment of L would be affected by other factors, including segmental structure, sentence type and gender (scarcely examined in an alignment context previously). Our analysis of data from two speech styles (read sentences, map task) had these benefits: 1) the opportunity to examine the further hypothesis that there could be stylistically based alignment differences of L; 2) the opportunity to see if our other hypotheses pertaining to the alignment of L could be corroborated across both speech styles. We found significant effects on the alignment of L of the number of preceding unstressed syllables (somewhat similar to reports on Glasgow English), segmental structure and gender, effects that were indeed largely corroborated across both styles. We also found some evidence of alignment differences between the two speech styles. These results reflect high variability in valleys in Belfast and challenge the view that valleys are always stable entities.

ReferencesArvaniti, Amalia, D. Robert Ladd & Ineke Mennen (2000). What is a starred tone? Evidence

from Greek. In Michael Broe & Janet Pierrehumbert. Papers in Laboratory Phonology V: Acquisition and the lexicon, 119-131. Cambridge: CUP.

Grabe, Esther, Brechtje Post & Francis Nolan (2001). The IViE Corpus. Department of Linguistics, University of Cambridge. http://www.phon.ox.ac.uk/IViE (10 Feb 2007)

Ladd, D. Robert (1996). Intonational phonology. Cambridge: CUP.

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Word Meaning, Defaults and Conscious Pragmatic Inferences: Interaction between Sources of Information in a Theory of Utterance Processing

Anna SysoevaUniversity of Cambridge

avs29ATcam DOT ac DOT uk

The aim of the talk is to suggest a psychologically plausible way of representing utterance meaning in pragmatics. I develop the idea of a merger representation – a compositional representation of utterance meaning that combines information from word meaning, sentence structure, conscious pragmatic inference and default interpretations (Jaszczolt 2005). I investigate the possibility of developing the framework along the lines of full contextualism: eliminating encoded word meanings in favour of the senses contextually expressed by particular tokens (this idea is discussed in Recanati (2004) and goes back to Wittgenstein (1953)). This change in representing word meaning makes it necessary to reanalyse the interaction between components of the merger representation. The idea of there being default interpretations and conscious pragmatic inferences is generally compatible with full contextualism, but the interaction between the sources of meaning is tighter than is traditionally depicted. It is not possible to identify distinctive levels of defaults or conscious pragmatic inferences or to separate them from semantic potential of the word.

I use evidence from Russian and British English to demonstrate that not all propositions that are classified as implicatures by the criterion of functional independence belong with ‘secondary’ meaning. In other words, they are not separate from what is said/what is explicit but can enter the merger representation. These observations are explained by showing that the psychologically interesting boundary should be set between primary meaning (even if it overrides syntactic representation) and secondary meaning rather than between the enriched propositional form and functionally independent propositions as it is commonly assumed in post-Gricean pragmatics.

ReferencesJaszczolt, K.M. (2005). Default Semantics: Foundations of a Compositional Theory of Acts of

Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Recanati, F. (2004). Literal Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophische Untersuchungen (Philosophical Investigations).

Oxford: Blackwell.

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Agrammatism and the Lexicon-Syntax Interface: Dutch Aphasics’ Performance on Saturated Experiencer Verbs

Ismael I. Teomiro-GarcíaAutonomous University of Madridivan DOT teomiroATuam DOT es

Grodzinsky’s (1995) Trace Based Account (TBA) has been one of the most influential accounts of agrammatics’ interpretation of semantically reversible passive sentences. It states that syntactic movement is hampered: the traces of moved nominals are deleted so that the theta role cannot be transmitted to the NP, which is assigned a role by a non-linguistic strategy by virtue of its lineal position.

Besides empirical problems (Piñango 2000; Beretta and Munn 1998; among others), the TBA encounters important theoretical shortcomings. The Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995) proposes to eliminate the notion of trace due to the Inclusiveness Condition, so that the TBA no longer makes any sense within this framework. Moreover, other authors claim that the damage in agrammatism is not due to damage in the core of the syntax but due to a processing limitation at the interface levels, such as syntax-discourse (Avrutin 2000).

The proposal defended here follows the latter line of thought. Not only the syntax-discourse but also the lexicon-syntax interface is affected in agrammatism. Following Reinhart’s (2002) operationalization of this interface, I put forward the hypothesis that some operations on the lexical entries of the verbs are impaired. An experiment is carried out, which provides empirical data that show that the problem in agrammatism cannot be movement, as the TBA states, but that the impairment is located at the interface between the lexicon and the syntax.

ReferencesAvrutin, S. (2000). Comprehension of D-linked and non-D-linked wh-questions by children

and Broca’s aphasics. In Language and the brain, ed. Yoseph Grodzinsky, L. Sapiro, and D. Swinney, 295–313. San Diego: Academic Press.

Beretta, A., and A. Munn. (1998). Double-agents and trace-deletion in agrammatism. Brain and Language 65:404–421.

Chomsky, N. (1995) .The minimalist program. Cambridge: MIT Press.Grodzinsky, Y. (1995). A restrictive theory of agrammatic comprehension. Brain and

Language 50:27–51.Piñango, M. (2000). Syntactic displacement in Broca’s agrammatic aphasia. In Grammatical

disorders in aphasia: A neurolinguistic perspective, ed. R. Bastiaanse and Y. Grodzinsky. London: Whurr.

Reinhart, T. (2002). The theta system: An overview. Theoretical Linguistics 28:229-290.

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Logic in pragmatics

Hiroyuki UchidaUniversity College London

uclyhucATucl DOT ac DOT uk

In Relevance Theory (RT), pragmatic processing may enrich truth-conditions of utterances beyond reference assignment and disambiguation. Stanley claims that this free-enrichment overgenerates. Suppose the speaker utters (1) where (2a) and (2b) are contextual assumptions. Enriching (1) by adding (2a) via &introduction to derive (3), followed by Modus Ponens with (2b), the hearer may draw a relevant conclusion John stinks. Thus, according to Stanley’s claim, RT wrongly predicts that (1) can be enriched to (3).

Sperber & Wilson (1986/95) postulated that introduction rules are not used in spontaneous inferences. However, I suggest that a total elimination of &Introduction from the inferential system makes it hard to neatly explain human judgments about the equivalence relations between propositions in terms of their truth values. Though mental logic used in pragmatic inferences is different from logic as in proof theory, if truth based inference plays at least some role in such a deductive system, elimination of &I from a system which retains &Elimination may lead to inconsistency.

RT does not have to eliminate &Introduction from pragmatic inferences. Instead, the impossibility of enrichment via &I follows from Hall’s (2006) distinction between local inference that is used in enrichment and global inference as in (1)~(3). As an inference rule applicable only with independently truth-evaluable premises, &I may apply only after (1) itself develops to an independent premise/proposition.

1. John smokes. (=P)2. a. John drinks. (=Q) b. If John smokes and drinks, he stinks. (=(P&Q)→R) 3. John smokes [and drinks]. (=(P&Q))

ReferencesHall, A. (2006). Free enrichment or hidden indexicals. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics

18: 71-102Sperber, D. and Wilson, D. (1986/1995). Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford:

Blackwell. Stanley, J. (2002). Making it articulated. Mind and Language 17 1& 2: 149-168

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Defining the degree of lexicalization of adverbialized converbs

Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi,Uppsala University, Sweden

Riitta-Liisa DOT ValijarviATmoderna DOT uu DOT se

In a recent research survey, Brinton & Traugott (2005:94) suggest three degrees of lexicalization: the least lexicalized items are partially fixed multi-morpheme constructions (e.g. lose sight of, agree with), the middle-lexicalized items are complex semi-idiosyncratic forms (e.g. unhappy, desktop), and the most lexicalised items consist of simplexes and other unanalyzable forms (e.g. desk, over-the-hill). Reanalyzed items, such as nominalized participles (e.g. friend), are not included in Brinton & Traugott’s model. We would like to suggest a method of defining the degree of lexicalization of a type of reanalysis, namely the adverbialization of Finnish converbs, based on synchronic corpus data. Before the analysis of the degrees of lexicalization, we will briefly explain how converbs are used productively and how the adverbialized converbs are parallel to other adverbs. The low-lexicalized converb forms occasionally lack the arguments which the verb normally takes as part of the verbal paradigm. For example, ihailla ‘to admire’ is a transitive verb. The converb form ihail-len ‘admire-CONV’, on the other hand, lacks an object in 63 % of the instances. The low-lexicalized items may also be analogous to more frequent similar constructions. Medium-lexicalized items systematically lack the arguments of the verb and may show deviating subject-reference, e.g. epäile-mättä ‘undoubtedly’ < ‘doubt-CONV’ appears 2229 times in our corpus without an object and a subject of its own, which the productively used converb would require. High frequency gives the medium-lexicalized items further lexical strength (cf. Bybee 1985). The most lexicalized items show formal deviation, e.g. tiet-en ‘on purpose’ < ‘know-CONV’ instead of the productive tietä-en ‘know-CONV’, or they have lost their paradigm, e.g. the form häikäile-mättä ‘scrupulously’ < ‘hesitate-CONV’ is used as an adverb 107 times in our material, whereas its stem appears in finite forms with an object only five times. The high-lexicalized cases have lead to lexical splits (Bybee 1985:88-96).

ReferencesBrinton, Laurel J. & Elizabeth Closs Traugott (2005). Lexicalization and Language Change.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bybee, Joan (1985). Morphology: A Study of the Relationship between Meaning and Form.

Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

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