Adjectival Constructions Research Articles

Perilaku Sintaksis Kata Sifat dalam Bahasa Bali

This article is intended to analyze the syntactical behavior of adjectives in Balinese language at phrases and clauses level. The data were collected using the observation method and note-taking and recording techniques. The data were analyzed using the connecting and comparing techniques, and distributional method with deletion, transformational, and insertion techniques. The results of data analysis were formally and informally presented using both inductive and deductive techniques. The results of the study show that in the endocentric and attributive phrases, the adjectives in Balinese language function as the central and attributive elements, that in the endocentric and coordinative phrases, they function as the central element only, and that in the exocentric phrase, they function as the axis. The meaning of the phrase with an adjective + adjective construction refers to equivalence and opposition. In the clausal level, adjectives in Balinese language function as predicate, complement, and adverb.

MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF DERIVATIONAL AFFIXES IN THE SHORT STORY OF WINTER BREAK BY HILARY MANTEL

This paper aimed to explore derivational affixes, more specifically the types of derivational affixes and the functions of the derivational affixes in the story of Winter Break, which was written by Hilary Mantel. The exploration of the affixes is important to conduct because it would assist learners of English in enriching their vocabulary items. This study was quantitative descriptive. The researchers collected complex words from the story and analyzed their derivational affixes. Results showed that there existed 54 occurrences of words containing derivational affixes. 3 of the 54 words contained 3 types of prefixes, namely in-, un-, pre-, and the remaining 51 words contained 20 suffixes such as -er, -ed, -y, -ly, -ion, -hood, -ment, -al, -ing, -tion, -ish, -ness, -ous, -ity, -ful, -ary, -age, -cal, -less, -able. Four functions of derivational affixes were identified in the short story of Winter Break, namely, noun formation with 16 occurrences (29.6%), adjective formation with 24 occurrences (44.4%), adverb formation with 13 occurrences (24.1) and verb formation with only 1 occurrence (1.9%). Because the Winter Break narrative uses a lot of noun descriptions, which means that adjectives are employed to modify nouns, the adjective construction occurred the most frequently. The verb formation is the least common as the majority of the verbs in the Winter Break story are past tense; as a result, these verbs are categorized as inflectional affixes rather than derivational verbs, which is beyond the purview of this study.

Temporal interpretations of negation in Karitiana

In this paper, we investigate the behavior of the particle -ki in Karitiana, which acquires a meaning roughly similar to English ‘before’ when it appears in embedded clauses together with the adverbial suffix -t, but otherwise seems to behave as a negative particle in all other instances. Contrary to prior literature that analyzes -ki as a sort of aspectual marker in embedded clauses (cf. Rocha 2016 and Müller and Heleno 2023), we claim that -ki is still truly negation and has the same core meaning of a negative particle be it in matrix or embedded clauses, or adjectival constructions. The temporal meaning of -ki simply arises pragmatically as an implicature from the fact that the event denoted by the embedded clause has not (yet) occurred (as opposed to the event denoted from the matrix clause) and is though expected to occur, yet—even then—the later occurrence of the event is cancellable (which is a key difference from the default interpretation of a temporal clausal connective such as English ‘before’). This will allow to maintain a uniform analysis of the suffix -ki across all of its uses.

A quantitative approach to doublets in Russian denominal adjective construction

This article is devoted to the rivalry between suffixes in the derivation of denominal adjectives in Russian. In particular, it proposes a large-scale quantitative analysis based on the Russian National Corpus. Its main goal is to contribute to identifying the properties that determine the choice of the suffix in these derivatives. Denominal adjectival derivation in Russian makes use of a wide variety of exponents. Most of them are phonological variants (extensions) of three main suffixes, - n-, - sk- and - Ov-. These three, which can be considered as basic, constitute the focus of our analysis. Two datasets were built for this research, a general one containing one of the suffixes above, and a more specific one containing doublets, which is to say, adjectives constructed on the same base with different suffixes. Data from the two sets are analyzed by means of various statistical models. Our results globally provide a quantitatively robust confirmation of observations previously made in the literature. In particular, we show that -n- occupies a specific position in the derivational system of Russian, as it is less productive and its derivatives are tendentially less transparent and more prone to display lexicalized meanings that point towards the qualitative pole of the qualitative-relational semantic spectrum. Moreover, - sk- and - Ov- are more likely to form doublets (be attached to the same bases), a further argument in favor of a greater homogeneity between them as opposed to - n-.

The Expressive Use of Adjectives in Metropolitan Anthony Bloom’s Religious Discourse

An overwhelming personality of the 20th century, Metropolitan Anthony Bloom was the spiritual head of the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain (1948-2003) who really raised the British people’s awareness of what Orthodoxy meant. He provided the realm of religious discourse with a particular outlook on Christianity (mainly sprung from his own revelation of the risen Christ), which he expressed in a perfectly natural and unsophisticated manner. Interestingly enough, Anthony Bloom and C. S. Lewis can be viewed as “kindred spirits”, as not only did they embrace Christianity after being non-believers, but their writing styles are also similar in that “both have an uncanny ability to explain difficult concepts with simple and engaging language” (“Beginning to Pray (A. Bloom)” [book review]). In Metropolitan Anthony’s view, Christian life represents the personal encounter with God. His discourse is in fact a place of encounters; it is where Eastern Orthodoxy meets Western spirituality, where the sacred realm meets the secular realm and, perhaps most importantly, where the metropolitan’s inner world meaningfully interacts with his addressees’ spiritual searches. We hereby examine the ways in which adjectives contribute to creating an image of a particular world in the following books: Living Prayer (1999a), School for Prayer (1999b), Meditations on a Theme: A spiritual journey (2003). Our approach relies on the Jakobsonian model (1960/1987) of language functions, Kinneavy’s (1980) Theory of Discourse, van Eemeren’s (2002) pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation and various studies on religious discourse. The current paper reveals such discourse constants as the triadic pattern of adjectival constructions, the abundant use of the adjectives “real” and “true”, as well as the presence of adjectives in parallelism and repetition. All these expressive uses of adjectives contribute to the creation of a complex network in which the world of the Gospel, the discursive ethos (conveying the author’s attitude in its diversity) and the reader’s image intermingle in a most harmonious manner.

Adjectives in Arabic

The main aim of this paper is to describe the main adjectival constructions in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). It contributes a new analysis of an adjectival construction in MSA that was analysed in traditional grammar as a special postnominal adjectival construction, called the unreal adjectival construction. We argue that it is an example of prenominal adjectival constructions in MSA. We also provide a new analysis of the prenominal construction, suggesting that the adjective modifies the following noun, and this noun is the subject of the adjective. Moreover, we provide an analysis of predicate adjectives in MSA, whether with or without a copula, arguing that the single-tier analysis in Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) is the appropriate analysis for predicate adjectival constructions in MSA. Additionally, this paper shows the similarities and differences between adjectival words and participial words, which are both used as modifiers in MSA.

Register effects and the Spanish adjectival construction sin + INF in historical corpus data

This study analyzes the usage of the Spanish adjectival sin + infinitive verb construction (un libro sin terminar ‘an unfinished book’) and the no + past participle construction (un libro no terminado ‘an unfinished book’) in historical corpus data, with the objective of quantitatively assessing Pountain’s (1993) analysis of the emergence of adjectival sin + INF as motivated in part by register formality. A logistic regression analysis finds that the usage of adjectival sin + INF over no + PP is significantly favored by the text register of Prose Fiction, and significantly disfavored by the register of Legal Texts. Furthermore, this preference increases with time in the register of Prose Fiction. These findings support Pountain’s claim, in showing that register effects significantly influence the usage of the novel construction. Ultimately, this study stresses the importance of measuring register effects in the analysis of language change in corpus data.

Norwegian Compounds and Corresponding Constructions in Russian: The Case of Nouns with Deverbal Heads

ABSTRACT This article presents a corpus study of Norwegian compounds with deverbal heads (e.g., papirproduksjon ‘paper production’ from produsere ‘produce’) and corresponding constructions in Russian, such as the genitive (proizvodstvo bumagi ‘paper production’), the adjective (bumažnoe proizvodstvo ‘paper production’), the preposition (priglašenie na užin ‘dinner invitation’), and compound constructions (zemlevladelec ‘landowner’). Test of the “Non-Head Function Hypothesis” (Mezhevich 2002) indicates that the genitive construction is the most frequent equivalent of Norwegian compounds where the non-head functions as an internal argument (object). However, the adjective and compound constructions represent important competitors, while the preposition construction is more marginal. The genitive construction is shown to be particularly frequent for non-agentive nouns. A number of generalizations about the use of compounds are proposed, and it is argued that the adjective construction involves “typification,” which is an example of the general cognitive process “construal” (Langacker 2008). Finally, an “Extended Non-Head Function Hypothesis” is proposed, according to which the choice of a Russian construction depends on the closeness of the relation between head and non-head of the Norwegian compound. The closer the relation, the more likely is the use of the genitive. The more distant the relation, the more likely is the use of the adjective construction.

Interaction and Grammar: Predicative Adjective Constructions in English Conversation

This article studies the function of Copular Predicate Constructions in everyday English conversation. We compare predicate adjective constructions (PA) and constructions with a predicate nominal containing an adjective (PAN). We ask whether the attributive function of the adjective or the presence of a noun in the PAN leads to a difference in function in the two constructions. We propose that in most cases the adjective determines the function of the construction, leading to many parallels in usage between the PA and PAN constructions. A comparison with predicate nominal constructions (PN), in contrast, shows that not including an adjective in the constructions leads to a different set of meanings and implications. The conversational usage of these constructions provides evidence for a partial correspondence of form to function: Copular Predicate Constructions often constitute a complete turn in conversation, and if not a full turn, form their own prosodic units. Other properties of these constructions—the definiteness of the NP and the presence or absence of a N—correspond to different interactional work. A comparison of all three constructions shows that the adjective plays a determining interactional role, despite differences in syntactic configuration.

When Gur class markers are absent: suffix omission in Natioro

The paper deals with the morphology of class marking in Natioro, an underdescribed Gur language spoken in several villages of Burkina Faso. In Natioro, class markers (which are a typical feature of Gur languages) are frequently omitted in many contexts, such as genitive constructions, as well as NPs modified by adjectives, numerals, and quantifiers. In the paper, I will focus on the morphological (rather than semantic) properties of these constructions. I will show that noun stems occurring in constructions with omitted class markers can be regarded as instances of incorporation. Particular attention will be given to adjectival incorporation. In Natioro, there are two types of adjectival constructions, which can be distinguished by the nature of the stems involved. I will argue that some of the incorporated constructions are derived by merging a noun with a non-inflected adjective, whereas others can be regarded as full-fledged adjectives that incorporate noun stems. Some parallels between the constructions of the latter type and constructions with relational nouns are discussed as well.

English detached adjectival constructions with an explicit subject: A quantitative corpus-based analysis

Abstract This article reports on the quantitative corpus-based investigation into the form-function interplay of the English detached adjectival construction with an explicit subject. Taking Usage-based Construction Grammar as its theoretical framework, this paper investigates the patterns of attraction of lexical items that appear in the main slots of the grammatical construction. The data obtained substantiate the constructional status of the construction and determine its semantic and functional specification in present-day English.

ADJECTIVE PHRASE CONSTRUCTION INDICATED IN STUDENTS DESCRIPTIVE TEXT: A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY ON STUDENTS OF SMA NEGERI 1 MATAULI PANDAN TAPANULI TENGAH

This study investigates the types of interlanguage of adjective phrase construction that students made when writing English descriptive text. The errors function as a system and can be used to determine interlanguage. The researcher employed a cross-sectional design and used descriptive qualitative methods. The descriptive texts of the students were collected as primary data at the same time but different levels of proficiency. Thirty tenth-grade students from Matauli Senior High School in Central Tapanuli, North Sumatera, participated in the study. Error Analysis (EA) and Interlanguage theories were central to the data analysis (IL). The findings revealed that students' English production is still interlanguage because their writings contain a wide range of errors regarding adjective phrases. There are 113 errors in total. There are up to 70 items of omission errors (62%), 19 items of misformation errors (17%), 15 items of misordering errors (13%), and 9 items of addition errors (8%). Furthermore, four processes were identified as contributing to students' interlanguage in this study, with the student's native language having the greatest influence on their English production (Language transfer (71%), second language learning strategies (14%), false concepts hypothesized (9.7%), and overgeneralization (5.3%)). The findings also revealed that both interlingual and intralingual sources have caused errors in second language learning. It can be concluded that students' competence at each level is insufficient. Due to their system, they are on the interlanguage continuum, which has a structurally intermediate status between the native and target languages.

The Reconstruction of the Proto-Semitic Genitive Ending and a Suggestion on its Origin

The Proto-Semitic genitive ending on triptotic nouns is commonly reconstructed as *-im (unbound state)/*-i (bound state). In Akkadian, however, this case ending is long -ī- before pronominal suffixes. Since the length of this vowel is unexplained, I argue that it is original and that the Akkadian bound state ending -i should also be reconstructed as long *-ī, explaining its retention in word-final position. This form seems more original than Proto-West-Semitic *-i. Hence, the Proto-Semitic bound state genitive ending should also be reconstructed as *-ī. Through internal reconstruction supported by the parallel of kinship terms like *ʔab-um ‘father’, I arrive at a pre-Proto-Semitic reconstruction of the genitive ending as *-ī-m (unbound), *-ī (bound). This paper then explores a hypothetical scenario where the genitive ending *-ī is derived from the adjectivizing ‘nisbe’ suffix through reanalysis of adjectival constructions like *bayt-u śarr-ī ‘the/a royal house’ as construct chains with meanings like ‘the/a king’s house’; with the addition of mimation and the resultant vowel shortening, this yielded the Proto-Semitic construction with a genitive, *bayt-u śarr-im. The genitive case failed to develop with diptotic nouns because they did not take mimation and in the dual and plural because the nisbe adjective was derived from the uninflected (singular) noun stem; hence, these categories all retain the more original contrast between the nominative and and an undifferentiated oblique case.

Spatial behavior in romantic communication: comparative analysis in the Russian, English, and Spanish linguocultures

This article describes the concept of “romantic communication”, examines the linguocultural specificity of spatial behavior in the instances of romantic communication in Russian, English and Spanish linguocultures. It is demonstrated that the situations of romantic communication in the indicated linguocultures are characterized by certain spatial movements of the communicants depending on their communicative intentions. The relevance of the selected topic is substantiated by globalization processes and rapid building of contacts between Russia, Great Britain and Spain, which, in turn, bonds these linguocultures and makes requires their in-depth study in order to understand the peculiarities of representation of spatial behavior in the course of interpersonal communication. It is worth noting that there are different approaches towards studying the romantic discourse; assessment is given to the role of the kinesic components therein. The question on similarity and divergence of the proxemic components in romantic communication in the Russian, English and Spanish linguocultures remains debatable, and draws particular interests of the experts in the field of linguistics and linguoculturology, as well as the representatives of business spheres dealing with Russia, Great Britain and Spain in one or another way; it allows to better understand the purpose and use of spatial components in the communicative aspect. The scientific novelty of this research consists in determination of linguistic peculiarities of representation of spatial behavior in the instances of romantic communication in the Russian, English and Spanish linguocultures. As a result of the conducted analysis, the author identifies the key main verbal, nominative, and adjective constructions that represent proxemic components of romantic communication in the English, Russian, and Spanish languages. It is also underlined that the characteristic features of the romantic discourse are related not only to kinesics, but also proxemics, which gives a better perspective on the motives of behavioral specificity of the actors of romantic communication, as well as helps to identify the level of their closeness through detailed analysis of linguistic saturation of the literary text.

Constructions synonymiques dans Les mots comme marqueurs de l’idiostyle de J.-P. Sartre

The actualization of mono- and polysynonymic compressed, extended and quantitatively equacomponential structures in J.-P. Sartre’s autobiographical story The Words allows revealing the author’s communicative intention and idiostylistic features and justifying their co(n)textual (linguistic and situational) pertinence. The considerable quantity of monopredicative utterances complicated by participial/gerundial constructions reflects existentialist ideas of the writer who describes intro- and retrospectively the main character’s actions and states of mind or the influence exerted on him by other human beings and objects. The frequent synonymic preferential options containing the predicate of perception or of mental process indicate the author’s concentration on the stream of thoughts, the sensations and the protagonists’ attempts to find the consensus with being. The apposed nominal and adjectival constructions are used to investigate the processes of elaboration and conservation of the personality, the aspiration of the Sartre-child to find himself. Two worlds appear to the reader—real and imaginary—that cross and intertwine in different temporal plans. In several extended utterances which “counterbalance” the compressed structures, new co(n)textual referents are actualized and focalized with a view to accentuate their importance in the narration or in the writer’s life. The abundance of the mono- and polypredicative utterances with the verbal head lexeme marking the process or the state confirms J.-P. Sartre’s certitude that from birth and throughout life the human being doesn’t stop changing, degrading or improving due to his actions or behavioral habits.

A cross-cultural study of figurative language in Museum Audio Descriptions. Implications for Translation

As the Translation Studies community moves forward in an increasingly networked globe, and the needs of the new market change, the range of interests of translation as a discipline broadens, new proposals are raised by the market stakeholders and new challenges are discussed in academia. The challenges discussed in this paper come from research on Audio Description (Diaz Cintas 2007) with particular reference to museum Audio Description (AD), an intersemiotic translation which pursues the aim of disseminating knowledge and helping social integration “by performing inclusive practices” (Jimenez Hurtado et al 2015). Starting from the assumption that the language used by the people performing the AD (the audio describers) is a special language shaped by the communicative needs of its users, this research focuses on issues of discursive representation, construction and mediation in English and Italian Audio Descriptions. While the existing literature has shed some light on this type of translation and its main features (i.e. verbal and adjectival constructions; see Neves 2012; Hurtado et al 2015), the area of analogies does not appear to have been investigated from a contrastive perspective. Thus, this paper seeks to address this gap by focusing on the use of analogies and claims that they should be considered as a creative strategy of intersemiotic translation.

Perception of Schematic Structures of Prepositions in Adjectival Constructions:An Experimental Approach

Grammatical concepts are developed from basic propositional structures called event schemas (Heine 1993, 30; ‘syntactic frames’ or ‘abstract instrumental scripts’ of Schank and Abelson 1977, Sanford 1985, 200; ‘schematic meanings’ in the present study). This study argued that the concept of causality came from schematic meanings. This study has examined this claim with an experiment in which participants were guided to rate relations of the schematic meanings to six prepositions. The results showed that, despite a few exceptions, it appears there is a salient schematic meaning that affects native speakers’ choices, when they were asked to distinguish the particular preposition from those of the others in adjectival constructions. This showed which schematic meaning best indicates native speakers’ understanding of emotion causality of each preposition among the schematic meanings of six prepositions. This study empirically demonstrates that schematic meanings enable English native speakers to distinguish different prepositions in their mental lexicons, thus motivating their conceptualization of causality.

Adjectives in Likpakpaln (Konkomba): Structural and Areal-Typological Aspects

Likpakpaln is a little-described Mabia (Gur) language of northern Ghana. Drawing on primary data, this first study of adjectives in Likpakpaln concludes that the language has a small, closed adjective class of about 20 members that shares grammatical properties with nouns and verbs to varying degrees. Contrary to what is the case in other Mabia languages, Likpakpaln adjectives lack inherent class markers. We identify three types of adjectives, distinguishable from nouns and verbs on morpho-syntactic and semantic grounds. Type 1 items lean towards nouns and never function as predicates of verbal clauses. Type 2 consists of one item, possibly a loan, and appears in a predicate adjective construction typical of languages with large adjective classes. Type 3 adjectives lean towards verbs and may form the predicate of verbal clauses. An understanding of Likpakpaln adjectives can contribute to refining our current knowledge of the genetic and typological position of Likpakpaln in the Mabia family.

Eski Anadolu Türkçesi Kur'an Tercümelerinde Esmâ-i Hüsnâ'yı Karşılayan Söz Varlığı

Eski Anadolu Türkçesi döneminde yazılmış satır altı Kur’an tercümeleri, Türkçenin söz varlığı açısından zengin veri kaynaklarıdır. Temel amacı, Arapça bilmeyen halkın kendi dilinde Kur’an’ı okuyup anlamasını sağlamak olan bu çevirilerde, mütercimler hem konunun hassasiyeti gereği hem de halkın kullandığı dili temsilen titiz davranmışlardır. Satır altlarında “bire bir kelime çevirisi” şeklinde oluşturulan bu tercümeler, yazıldıkları dönemin dil özelliklerini ortaya koyma bakımından önemli eserlerdir. Tercümeler, Arapça karşısında Türkçenin ifade gücünü göstermesi açısından da ayrı bir öneme sahiptirler. Bu konuda daha önce yapılan benzer çalışmalara ek olarak Kur’an’da Esmâ-Hüsna’nın (Allah’ın en güzel isimleri) geçtiği yerler incelenip aynı Esmâ’nın Türkçedeki farklı karşılıkları da tespit edilmeye çalışılmıştır. Esmâ-i Hüsnâ’ya karşılık gelen ifadeler yapı bakımından sınıflandırılmıştır. Sınıflandırma sonucunda sıfat-fiilllerin ve sıfat-fiil gruplarının Esmâ’ların Türkçe ifadesinde yoğun bir şekilde tercih edildiği görülmüştür. Bir Türkçeleştirme yöntemi olarak karşımıza çıkan bu kullanımlar anlam boyutu ile ayrı bir öneme sahip olan Allah’ın isimlerinin dönem Türkçesine özgü karşılıklarıdır. Kur’an’ın Türkçe çevirilerinde, dilde var olan kelime ihtiyacına Türkçe kelimelerle bu dönemde ne şekilde cevap verildiği ve Türk dilinin kelime türetmede ve söz diziminde nasıl hareket ettiği açıkça görülebilmektedir. Yapılan bu tarz çalışmaların günümüz Türkçesi söz varlığına ve sözlük çalışmalarına katkı sağlayacağı umulmaktadır.

Adjective constructions denoting appearance of a person

Adjective constructions denoting appearance of a person