Contrastive feature hierarchies and Germanic phonology

LANGUAGE, VOLUME 73, NUMBER 4 (1997) More generally, this is an informative and comprehensive introduction to the particular problems faced by Indian ELT, which are unlikely to be anticipated by ELT specialists from other countries. [Shravan Vasishth, Ohio State University.] Linguistics: An introduction to language and communication. 4th edn. By Adrian Akmajian, Richard A. Demers , Ann K. Farmer, and Robert M. Harnish. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. Pp. xiv, 577. This is the latest edition of a well used and respected introductory linguisücs text. The authors follow the basic organization of the third edition. 'The structure of human language', part 1, includes the topics of morphology, phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, language variation, and language change. 'Communication and cognitive science', part 2, comprises pragmatics, psychology of language (speech production and comprehension), language acquisition , and language and the brain. The comprehensiveness of the volume, particularly with respect to the cognitive science and language use sections, permits it to serve as a basic text for courses with diverse foci, from straightforward introductory linguistics to communications and psycholinguistics. Since the text contains more material than even the most ambitious instructor could hope to cover in a semester, the authors suggest a number of modular formats, selecting particular chapters to be tailored to the goals of the course. There is much to like about the new edition. The authors use an inductive pedagogical approach that invites students to examine language as an object of inquiry, taking as much space as needed to build important linguistic intuitions. Students are initiated into the reasoning and methodologies that linguists use in formulating theories and making inferences from data. The authors employ a fairly elevated register , with unapologetic use of technical terms which are always well-defined and illustrated. Tables and figures are pertinent and not overused. One perennial problem in writing linguistic texts remains the choice of which version of a theory to present: One wishes to be as current as possible so as to show the advances of the discipline to fullest advantage and at the same time to leave students, the majority of whom will not continue in linguistics, with a coherent model having reasonable explanatory power. The authors have chosen to present theories that are well-established, if not cutting-edge, that serve to demonstrate the requirements of a viable linguistic theory. Thus the authors present distinctive feature theory and foot-based prosody as their phonological models, with an advanced section on tone contour. To illustrate syntactic models, they present transformational theory, with an advanced section on X-bar theory. A choice that pleases me less is the strong focus on English examples, to the near exclusion of those from other languages. The authors are fully cognizant of this decision, arguing that their intention is to encourage linguistic intuitions in a largely Englishspeaking audience. A counter to this position is that first, a linguistics course may well provide the only opportunity for the college population to be exposed to the vast though diminishing range of linguistic diversity, particularly of non-European languages. Second, many of the intuitions we wish to foster can be strengthened, not by examining English in evercloser detail, but by noting the contrast between an English linguistic strategy and a very different one that marks the same concept. [Marcia Haag, University of Oklahoma.] The phonology of German. By Richard Wiese. (The phonology of the world's languages, ed. by Jacques Durand.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Pp. x, 351. This, the fourth volume in Durand's ambitiously titled series, aims to be 'a thorough and in-depth survey of the phonological system ofpresent-day [standard ] German ... as it is spoken . . most frequently and directly in the northern parts of (former East and West) Germany' , and an 'application of recent theories and models ... to the German language!,] ... a guide to and critical discussion of the standard literature . . . [with] emphasis on both empirical coverage and on theoretical argumentation and analysis' (1); it is intended for phonologists and tertiary-level teachers and students of German alike. Wiese argues that traditional descriptive tools lead to potentially contradictory accounts depending on whether one proceeds from phonetic observation or overall systemic requirements, motivating his choice of a...

The study of Romance-Germanic languages and their linguistic and literary interactions is essential for understanding the evolution of European language and literature. The Romance and Germanic languages, as two fundamental branches of the Indo-European family, have profoundly influenced the formation of cultural and linguistic identities in Europe. This paper aims to explore recent trends in the linguistic and literary studies of these languages, analyzing how new theories and practices in comparative linguistics and literature contribute to the understanding of the connections between Romance-Germanic languages. In an era of rapid globalization and digitalization, interactions and borrowings between these languages are constantly evolving, leading to a reevaluation of research methods and traditional approaches in the study of language and literature.

The article focuses on issues associated with German and Ukrainian comparative phraseology. It provides comparative analyses of phraseological units in the German language with respect to their equivalents in the Ukraine language. The importance of phraseology is examined when forming communicative competencies in multicultural educational processes. Practically oriented research of contrastive phraseology includes three aspects: compilation of bilingual (multilingual) dictionaries (lexicography), translation and teaching of a foreign language. In this article we consider the phraseological parallels of the German and Ukrainian languages, focusing on the third aspect, namely the study of phraseology as one of the components of the study of a foreign language. In the study of the material of the German and Ukrainian languages in terms of their comparison (translation), the following groups of phraseological units can be distinguished: phraseological units with phraseological equivalents in German and Ukrainian languages – full equivalents that coincide in meaning, lexical composition, figurativeness, grammatical structure and stylistic coloring. In such units, the lexical and grammatical meaning fully coincide. Phraseological units with partial phraseological equivalents in the German and Ukrainian languages. The third group includes the phraseological units of the German language, which have no phraseological equivalents in the Ukrainian language. The transfer of the value of similar phraseological units is carried out in the following ways: Literal translation. This applies primarily to idioms denoting realities and which are absent in other languages. Descriptive translation. The phraseological meaning is transmitted using ordinary words or phrases of a non-phrasal nature. In a descriptive translation, phraseological units lose their figurativeness, and only the general phraseological meaning (that is, the figurative meaning) is transmitted. The analysis showed that most of the phraseological units of the German and Ukrainian languages are either equivalent, partially equivalent, or similar language units. The second most productive group of phraseological units refers to language units that are not equivalent in both languages. Comparison of the studied units of both languages belongs to the most important problems of general lexicography and phraseography. When studying the phraseology of a foreign language, a very important role is played by the native language. It is advisable to build on comparative (contrastive) phraseology. Comparison of German and Ukrainian phraseological units makes it possible to investigate the inter-lingual and foreign-language aspects of the phraseology of these languages. The knowledge gained in comparative phraseology is necessary in translation, as well as in teaching German.

Two competing theories exist about the Proto-Germanic syllabication of VCiV and similar sequences: one proposes that the division was V.CiV, the other, VC.iV. Furthermore, three major phonological developments in Germanic groups have never received a satisfactory explanation: consonant gemination in West Germanic, vowel lengthening (with differential constraints) in North Germanic, and glide strengthening in Gothic. This paper proposes a uniform solution for all these problems, based on independently established principles of syllabic phonology: a preference (at least in the Germanic languages) for stressed syllables that have two morae (Prokosch 1939), and a universal preference for syllable onsets that are at least as strong as the preceding syllable offset (Hooper 1976). We provide various kinds of evidence for a Proto-Germanic syllabication VC.iV which is in accordance with Prokosch's principle, but not with Hooper's; and we then explain subsequent developments as different ways of rebalancing the syllable structure to accord with both Prokosch's and Hooper's principles: VC.iV > VC.CiV in West Germanic; VC.iV > V.CIV in North Germanic; and VC.iV > VC.jV in Gothic.*

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Typology of Ergativity

Reviewed by: Non-nominative subjects ed. by Peri Bhaskararao and Karumuri Venkata Subbarao Heiko Narrog Non-nominative subjects. Ed. by Peri Bhaskararao and Karumuri Venkata Subbarao. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2004. Vol. 1. (Typological studies in language 60.) Pp. xii, 323. ISBN 9027229708. $150 (Hb). Vol. 2. (Typological studies in language 61.) Pp. xii, 317. ISBN 9027229716. $150 (Hb). Nonnominative subjects (NNS) are sentence constituents in languages with accusative alignment that exhibit some if not all canonical subject properties except nominal case marking. In English NNSs are rare, but exceptional case marking of subjects of embedded clauses, discussed by Howard Lasnik in vol. 1, is one possible example. The concept of NNS can be, and actually is, extended to noncanonical marking of subjects in languages with ergative alignment which receive other than their default ergative (or absolutive) marking, and to other noncanonical case-frames as well. Therefore, the term ‘noncanonically marked’ might have been a more appropriate title for the publication than ‘non-nominative’, as the Australian language specialist Tasaku Tsunoda remarks in his contribution. This two-volume set is the second high-profile publication on this topic within a relatively short time, following Non-canonical marking of subjects and objects (ed. by Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, R. M. W. Dixon, and Masayuki Onishi, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2001). Vol. 1 contains authors from A to Min, vol. 2 from Mis to Y, combining for twenty-eight contributions and 640 pages of densely printed text. The research [End Page 453] impetus in this case came mostly from South Asian languages. This is not surprising since South Asia, besides the Caucasus, is arguably the language area that exhibits the most abundant noncanonical case marking. While only a single contribution by Bernard Comrie deals with a Caucasian language, fifteen papers are concerned with one or more South Asian languages. Four papers deal with Germanic languages, most prominently Icelandic, and the rest are dispersed among different language families and languages. With respect to theoretical background, a clear majority of the papers are oriented toward formal syntax, particularly those dealing with South Asian and Germanic languages. There are several typologically (functionally) oriented papers, and two are on the acquisition of NNSs. The questions that emerge from the study of NNSs are as apparent as the answers to them are controversial. First, are NNSs really subjects? There seem to be various degrees of subjecthood, depending on how many properties a particular NNS shares with canonically marked subjects in a specific language. It turns out that, crosslinguistically, agreement on the verb tends to be the one subject-like feature most difficult to obtain for NNSs, while properties like control and conjunction reduction come more easily. Some papers go even further by questioning the concept of subject as such. Second, are the sentences in which NNSs occur, in particular sentences with one more argument, transitive or intransitive? Masayoshi Shibatani (not in these volumes) has triggered a discussion by making a strong argument that they are intransitive. Then, what are the conditioning factors for having NNSs? Is the existence of NNSs predictable from other properties of the language? What conditions (or elements of the clause) are responsible for noncanonical subject marking? Are NNSs arguments or adjuncts? Further, what are the implications for the theory of case (Case)? It is quite impossible to provide details of individual papers and issues within the limited space here. Instead, I wish to make some general remarks that pertain to the publication as a whole. These volumes will doubtless become an invaluable source of information on NNSs. This is the most extensive publication on the topic to date, and it contains a good number of outstanding individual contributions that deserve to be read beyond specialized interest in the topic. But the value of the publication might have been further enhanced if the papers were more connected to each other. Particularly, formally oriented studies exhibit the tendency to make far-reaching proposals about language structure in general on the basis of just one or a very limited number of languages. In a publication thematically as tightly knit as this one, it is striking to see then how apparently conflicting claims are...

LANGUAGE, VOLUME 73, NUMBER 4 (1997) More generally, this is an informative and comprehensive introduction to the particular problems faced by Indian ELT, which are unlikely to be anticipated by ELT specialists from other countries. [Shravan Vasishth, Ohio State University.] Linguistics: An introduction to language and communication. 4th edn. By Adrian Akmajian, Richard A. Demers , Ann K. Farmer, and Robert M. Harnish. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. Pp. xiv, 577. This is the latest edition of a well used and respected introductory linguisücs text. The authors follow the basic organization of the third edition. 'The structure of human language', part 1, includes the topics of morphology, phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, language variation, and language change. 'Communication and cognitive science', part 2, comprises pragmatics, psychology of language (speech production and comprehension), language acquisition , and language and the brain. The comprehensiveness of the volume, particularly with respect to the cognitive science and language use sections, permits it to serve as a basic text for courses with diverse foci, from straightforward introductory linguistics to communications and psycholinguistics. Since the text contains more material than even the most ambitious instructor could hope to cover in a semester, the authors suggest a number of modular formats, selecting particular chapters to be tailored to the goals of the course. There is much to like about the new edition. The authors use an inductive pedagogical approach that invites students to examine language as an object of inquiry, taking as much space as needed to build important linguistic intuitions. Students are initiated into the reasoning and methodologies that linguists use in formulating theories and making inferences from data. The authors employ a fairly elevated register , with unapologetic use of technical terms which are always well-defined and illustrated. Tables and figures are pertinent and not overused. One perennial problem in writing linguistic texts remains the choice of which version of a theory to present: One wishes to be as current as possible so as to show the advances of the discipline to fullest advantage and at the same time to leave students, the majority of whom will not continue in linguistics, with a coherent model having reasonable explanatory power. The authors have chosen to present theories that are well-established, if not cutting-edge, that serve to demonstrate the requirements of a viable linguistic theory. Thus the authors present distinctive feature theory and foot-based prosody as their phonological models, with an advanced section on tone contour. To illustrate syntactic models, they present transformational theory, with an advanced section on X-bar theory. A choice that pleases me less is the strong focus on English examples, to the near exclusion of those from other languages. The authors are fully cognizant of this decision, arguing that their intention is to encourage linguistic intuitions in a largely Englishspeaking audience. A counter to this position is that first, a linguistics course may well provide the only opportunity for the college population to be exposed to the vast though diminishing range of linguistic diversity, particularly of non-European languages. Second, many of the intuitions we wish to foster can be strengthened, not by examining English in evercloser detail, but by noting the contrast between an English linguistic strategy and a very different one that marks the same concept. [Marcia Haag, University of Oklahoma.] The phonology of German. By Richard Wiese. (The phonology of the world's languages, ed. by Jacques Durand.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Pp. x, 351. This, the fourth volume in Durand's ambitiously titled series, aims to be 'a thorough and in-depth survey of the phonological system ofpresent-day [standard ] German ... as it is spoken . . most frequently and directly in the northern parts of (former East and West) Germany' , and an 'application of recent theories and models ... to the German language!,] ... a guide to and critical discussion of the standard literature . . . [with] emphasis on both empirical coverage and on theoretical argumentation and analysis' (1); it is intended for phonologists and tertiary-level teachers and students of German alike. Wiese argues that traditional descriptive tools lead to potentially contradictory accounts depending on whether one proceeds from phonetic observation or overall systemic requirements, motivating his choice of a...

Contrastive feature hierarchies have been developed and used for some time in depicting typical phonological development and in guiding therapy decisions. Previous descriptions of feature use have been based on independent analyses and usually phonetic inventories. However, recent trends in phonology include a relational analysis of phonemic inventories (D. Ingram & K. D. Ingram, 2001). The current investigation was a relational analysis of the phonemic inventories of 40 typically developing 2-year-old American-English-speaking children. Consonant inventories were derived from spontaneous speech samples using the Logical International Phonetics Programs computer software (D. K. Oller & R. E. Delgado, 1999). Cluster analysis was used to determine the grouping of contrastive features. Four levels emerged. Level I included [consonant], [sonorant], and [coronal], Level II included [voice], Level III included [anterior], [continuant], and [nasal], and Level IV included [lateral] and [strident]. Results suggested that the resulting 4-level phonemic feature hierarchy might be used to classify the phonological systems of children with phonological disorders.

This chapter argues that there is a deep connection between feature ordering, contrast, and phonological activity. Contrasts are governed by language‐specific feature hierarchies; only contrastive features so determined are active in the phonology. These claims are supported and illustrated by case studies involving vowel harmony, consonant co‐occurrence, and loanword adaptation.

This book deals with the phonological event of final devoicing in a theoretical framework based on principles and parameters rather than rules. It refers to data coming almost exclusively from German (native and non-native items). The first chapter presents the 'raw facts', providing an outline of the sort of alternations and distributional restrictions on voicing to be accounted for. Previous treatments of final devoicing in German are discussed and evaluated in the second chapter. Chapters 3 and 4 provide an analysis of final devoicing in German couched in the framework of Government Phonology (GP), a phonological theory operating with principles and parameters. Some of the central tenets of GP are introduced at the beginning of chapter 3, and additional concepts of the theory are explained as they become relevant to the discussion of final devoicing. The author argues that final devoicing should be interpreted as a phonological weakening process involving the withdrawal of autosegmental licensing from the laryngeal element L (which represents voicing in obstruents). This occurs in phonologically 'weak' environments, where, due to clearly definable prosodic conditions, only reduced autosegmental licensing potential is available. This analysis, developed with reference to the prestige variety of German ( Hochlautung ), is then extended to Northern Standard German, and the phonological differences between the two dialects are identified. In the final chapter, the author investigates whether final devoicing results in phonological neutralisation, as is often assumed in the literature. She observes that the GP account developed in chapters 3 and 4 is incompatible with this traditional view. This is desirable, since, among other things, the conflict between earlier phonological analyses and experimental studies of final devoicing can now be resolved.

Nowadays typological studies of related and unrelated languages are becoming of great importance. Appealing to historic, comparatively-synchronous, contrastive parallels of several languages opens up the possibility of highlighting the certain features of their historical and cultural development. Scientific research studies of such kind help to clarify the universal, common and distinctive features of comparative languages, as well as to substantiate the uniqueness of every language as a national phenomenon. Important for contrastive phonetics is the study of super-segmental means, in particular prosodic means, that is stress and intonation. In comparative linguistics to identify the peculiarities of stress in comparative languages can be used such criteria: nature of stress, the place of stress in a word, quality of stress and function of stress. These criteria were taken in to account in our research because they give quite objective data for achieving the goal. This article is devoted to the comparative study of verbal stress in the Ukrainian and German languages. The object of our study is verbal stress in the Ukrainian and German languages, which distinguishes and differs a word from the speech flow – the basic unit of the language mechanism of a particular language. There is considered the means of distinguishing the stressed syllable, the ratio of longitude and stress of a vowel sound, the place of stress in a word, functions of word stress. The main regularities of the accent norm of parts of speech in the Ukrainian and German languages. In the course of study, we came to the conclusion that in the Ukrainian and German languages the stressed syllable is characterized by dynamism, duration and expressiveness of timbre, that is dynamic stress is typical for both languages. Both languages have different place of stress in the word. With some apprehension, it can be considered a fixed accent in the German language, where the first sellable is mainly stressed (there are some rare exception, so it cannot be called a typical feature). In the Ukrainian language the accent is diverse and mobile, there are certain patterns of accent norm of parts of speech. Such free dynamic stress has a significative function, it distinguishes the grammatical forms of lexeme and the meaning of words. However, In the German language, in cases where the accent is free, the significative function is also used. In both compared languages we can find a side accent in addition to the main accent. Complex words have such accent. In the Ukrainian language the side stress is the first and the main stress is the second; in the German language, the main stress is the first and the side stress is the second. Common for all types of stress is the culminative function (design of word through the allocation of its prosodic center). Mobile stress has a significative (word-distinguishing) function.

Beyond the Mother Tongue: The Postmonolingual Condition

The general goal of teaching German as a foreign language is that learners can communicate appropriately in writing and orally in German. But in fact this goal can often not be achieved. Many learners in higher education master the German grammar and vocabulary, but they are unable to use German language that matches the social context, because they do not have much pragmatics competence. Pragmatic approach based on the function of language as a communication tool is a study of language by involving various aspects outside the language that are able to provide meaning. Pragmatic competence constitutes a significant factor in determining the success of communication. In fact, a German language learner in higher education is not only expected to use language and produce utterances which are understandable or grammatically correct, but is also expected to produce utterances which are socioculturally appropriate. However, for students in higher education who learn German as a Foreign Language (Deutsch als Fremdsprache/DaF), the pragmatic competence, which can actually be acquired naturally through social interaction, is quite difficult to acquire due to the limited. On this basis, pragmatics needs to be integrated into German language courses in higher education, which includes pragma linguistics and socio pragmatic. In this regard, this study describes not only the relationship between pragmatics and German as a foreign language, but also this study is an attempt to define its implications in teaching German as foreign language in higher education.

One of the functions of the dative is to mark non-prototypical subjects, i. e. subjects that somehow deviate from the agentive prototype. The Germanic languages, as all subbranches of Indo-European (cf. Barðdal et al. 2012. Reconstructing constructional semantics: The dative subject construction in Old Norse‐Icelandic, Latin, Ancient Greek, Old Russian and Old Lithuanian. Studies in Language 36(3). 511–547), exhibit structures where the subject or the subject-like argument is not in the nominative case, but in the accusative, dative or genitive, for instance. The focus of this article is on the dative, leaving accusative and genitive subjects aside, in particular homing in on lexical semantic similarities and differences between the individual Germanic languages. We compare Modern Icelandic, Modern Faroese, and Modern German, on the one hand, and the historical Germanic languages, i. e. Gothic, Old English, Old Saxon, Old High German, Middle English, Middle Dutch, Middle German, Old Norse-Icelandic and Old Swedish, on the other. The goal is to document the semantic development of the construction across time. This, in turn, is a part of a more general research program aiming at reconstructing the origin and the development of the Dative Subject Construction in Germanic and Indo-European. As the Germanic languages are both genealogically and areally related, we suggest a computational model aiming at disentangling genealogical and geographical factors, in order to estimate to which degree the two interact with each other across languages and across historical eras.

In Russian linguistics, there is a categorisation of equivalents to German compound words in Russian. The article discusses the features of the existing approach and suggests refinements based on the conducted analysis. The relevance of the article lies in the fact that it complements the existing criteria and expands the ideas concerning possible correspondences to German compound 66 words in Russian, which is a contribution both to the study of compound words in German, and to the comparative study of German and Russian languages, in general. Compound words in the German language as a specific phenomenon in the word formation of this language present the object of the study, and its subject is the categorisation of correspondences between compound nouns in German and their equivalents in Russian. The method of comparison includes correlating German compound nouns with their equivalents in Russian, identifying the frequency of using certain models when translating German compound nouns into Russian on the basis of an excerpt from the original text and its translation. The purpose of the article is to systematise the correspondences of German compound nouns in Russian on the example of a certain literary text. The author’s task is to update the categorisation of correspondences for compound nouns in German and their equivalents in Russian, suggested in previous studies, in the process of identifying the predominant type of correspondences on a specific literary material. The following methods were used: a continuous sampling method, the component analysis, a descriptive method, a comparative analysis of the original and translation, and the method of quantitative analysis. The study combines the comparative (proper linguistic) aspect and the translational one. The main models of correspondences to German compound nouns in Russian found confirmation within the analysed material, while the author suggested some additions, which present the novelty of the research. The following results were noted: in terms of frequency the model of “an adjective plus a noun” takes the first place among correspondences to German compound nouns in Russian; the second place is taken by root and derivative words of the Russian language; the third place occupies a group of translation transformations, supplemented by the author; the fourth place is taken by a model of “a noun plus another noun in the genitive case”; the fifth place goes to prepositional word combinations. Two small groups - compound nouns of the Russian language and set expressions - are added by the author. In the identified group of transformations, the use of various translation techniques is noted, for example: adding and omitting lexical units, replacing parts of speech, generalisation, concretisation, semantic development, holistic transformation, replacement of one syntactic construction with another.