Adverbial Phrases Research Articles

On conceptual semantics and discourse functions

This paper deals with the conceptual semantics and the discourse functions of Spanish epistemic adverbs and/or adverbial phrases such as quizá, tal vez, a lo mejor, igual, lo mismo ‘maybe/perhaps’ in informal conversation. The study is based upon the following hypothesis: the best basis for a modal adverb to be ‘successful’ in spontaneous conversation is having a ‘dynamic’ semantic profile with an ‘instructional’ role in speaker-participant interaction. It will be shown that the conceptual profiles of grammaticalized adverbial expressions such as a lo mejor allow for specific interactional functions in conversation. The argument is corroborated by striking semantic and frequency differences with the less grammaticalized but more productive modal adverbs ending in -mente (posiblemente and probablemente). My corpus analysis also indicates that, from an interactional point of view, a lo mejor, igual and lo mismo have consistent discourse functions which quizá(s) and the adverbs in -mente clearly lack.

Locuciones adverbiales de ámbito jurídico: de los fueros medievales a su consolidación en la lengua

Given the importance of legal language in the study of historical phraseological, it is here analyzed the presence, use and evolution of adverbial phrases in some outstanding medieval fueros, and also how a good number of adverbial expressions have transcended and developed from legal language to other contexts, owed to —at least in some cases— a clear colloquial origin (a sabiendas, por bien...). This characteristic joins many others, such as the creation of complex syntagmas derived from the union of simple expressions: de cabo a rabo, a diestro y a sinestro, a tuerto o a derecho, etc. It is therefore interesting to study the individual, particular history of each adverbial phrase found, as well as the most productive syntactical combinations of expressions. We will also focus on their projection beyond the legal domain as well as on the numerous similarities in the different hispanic linguistic areas, demonstrating thus a first phase which is common to peninsular romance writings (scriptae).

Adverb code-switching among Miami's Haitian Creole–English second generation

The findings for adverbs and adverbial phrases in a naturalistic corpus of Miami Haitian Creole–English code-switching show that one language, Haitian Creole, asymmetrically supplies the grammatical frame while the other language, English, asymmetrically supplies mixed lexical categories like adverbs. Traces of code-switching with an English frame and Haitian Creole lexical categories suggest that code-switching is abstractlyBIDIRECTIONAL. A quantitative methodology that codes the language-indexation of the token in addition to the surrounding lexical items was used for all mixed (e.g. xYx/yXy, xYy/yXx, yYx/xXy) and unmixed (xXx/yYy) adverbs. Discourse position, especially the left-periphery, is found to be a significant factor in adverb code-switching. Sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic analyses which acknowledge the ‘low’ status of one language and the ‘high’ status of the other explain better the frequency of mixed English adverbs in a Haitian Creole frame and the rarity of mixed Haitian Creole adverbs in an English frame than a minimalist approach, such as MacSwan's (1999 and subsequent work), which uses phi-feature valuation and entails asymmetry without bidirectionality. While I provide confirmation for Myers-Scotton's (1993) Matrix Language Frame approach, I emphasize that trace bidirectional data need to be accounted for by a theory that is grounded in the sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic realities.

Degrammaticalization

Reviewed by: Degrammaticalization Paolo Ramat Degrammaticalization. By Muriel Norde. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Pp. xviii, 270. ISBN 9780199207930. $39.95. Before this comprehensive book, Muriel Norde had already published an extensive number of articles on grammaticalization and related phenomena. She now offers in the introductory chapter of this book an exhaustive report on the state of the art concerning grammaticalization and its (alleged) counterpart degrammaticalization. The references extend from p. 239 to p. 258 and no relevant contribution is neglected. The introduction (Ch. 1) contains preliminary definitions of grammaticalization and degrammaticalization, and discusses some related concepts such as lexicalization, reanalysis, and analogy, and controversial types of grammaticalization, such as ‘secondary’ grammaticalization, pragmaticalization, and clause combining. After a short section dedicated to context and constructions, the final part of the introduction deals with methodological issues: is grammaticalization a theory? N agrees with Bernd Heine, Tania Kuteva, and Östen Dahl that grammaticalization can be ‘regarded as a process with a dynamics of its own’ (31). This position is contrary to Newmeyer’s (1998) and Fischer’s (2000) view that grammaticalization is ‘essentially an epiphenomenal result of independent historical developments’ (Newmeyer 1998:235) such as semantic change, phonetic reduction, reanalysis, and metonymic and metaphorical processes. In Fischer’s words, ‘I still cannot see that there is room for a separate or “independent” process of grammaticalization’ (2000:152). In Ch. 2, ‘Unidirectionality’, N directly tackles the problem of degrammaticalization and argues that at no linguistic level can unidirectionality (which means irreversibility of grammaticalization paths) be stated in an absolute way. The aim of the book is to prove that degrammaticalization (e.g. from a grammatical word to a content item) does exist at all language levels. In a previous article of mine against grammaticalization as a unidirectional path (Ramat 2001), I gave a fairly long list of examples of degrammaticalization and commented that ‘[t]he list of degrammaticalizations could be continued, revealing that this process, although not as frequent as its reverse, is by no means irrelevant in language and therefore it cannot be simply dismissed as “exception to the general rule of grammaticalization” ’ (396). Other counterexamples to unidirectionality can be drawn from the perspective of discourse markers as illustrated by Schiffrin (1987). For instance, English deed of indeed was originally a lexical noun and meant ‘action’. In Early Middle English (EMdE) it is often used as a formulaic expression (‘in action’) in PPs. These contexts allow us to think that an event ‘in action’ has to be observable, too. This inference entails the emergence of an epistemic meaning: ofte in storial mateer scripture rehersith the commune opynyoun of men, and affirmeth not, that it was so in dede (lit. ‘often in historical matters scripture repeats the common opinion of men, and affirms not, that it was so in fact’) ‘often where matters of history are concerned, scripture repeats men’s common opinion, but does not affirm that it was so in actuality [rather than opinion]’ (from Traugott 1995:8; source: c. 1388 Purvey Wycliffe Prol I, 56 (HC)). At its first stage, indeed is an adverbial phrase, frequently used in contrast to ‘opinion’ or ‘untruth’. The syntactic sentential scope is reached at the beginning of the EMdE period when indeed reinforces another adversative conjunction in sentence position: somtyme purposely suffring [allowing] the more noble children to vainquysshe, and, as it were, gyuying to them place and soueraintie, thoughe in dede the inferiour chyldren haue more lernyng (Traugott 1995:9; source: 1531 Governor, p. 21 (HC)). [End Page 979] By the seventeenth century indeed starts appearing alone in clause-initial position, that is, in discursive—and not in grammatical—function. It serves to confirm or to amplify a previous statement. Moreover, the inferential process that this marker undergoes is closely dependent not only on the speaker evaluation, but also on the hearer’s recognition (subjectification and intersubjectification). A quotation from Harris and Campbell (1995), which I used in Ramat 2001, is of methodological relevance: ‘no reasonable theory can ignore data just because they are inconvenient: an adequate theory must account for infrequent phenomena, not merely for the most common patterns’ (338). Similarly, N critiques (106f.) Haspelmath, who claims: ‘If one is interested in...

"Enough Defined": Disability, Ecopoetics, and Larry Eigner

"Enough Defined":Disability, Ecopoetics, and Larry Eigner George Hart (bio) In "Compensation," RalphWaldo Emerson writes: "The radical tragedy of nature seems to be the distinction of More and Less. How can Less not feel the pain; how not feel indignation or malevolence towards More?" (301). Emerson's More and Less can be seen as the poles in the structuralist binaries that normalize identity: male/female, straight/gay, white/black, rich/poor. To these related opposites, disability studies has added able-bodied/disabled—a binary, as Lennard J. Davis points out, that "is part of an ideology of containment and a politics of power and fear" (4). Davis argues that disability is the missing fourth category in the triad of race, class, and gender; and just as critical theory has destabilized the More and Less binaries in that triad, disability studies has forced us to see the able-bodied/disabled binary anew. Emerson's remedy for the "radical tragedy" of More and Less is the erasure of difference by compensation: "In the nature of the soul is the compensation for the inequalities of condition. . . . The heart and soul of all men being one, this bitterness of His and Mine ceases" (301). Disability studies, with its roots in poststructuralist theory, rejects such a solution. Instead of two oppositional states that can change position, or absorb one another in a dialectic, disability [End Page 152] occurs along a spectrum of embodiment, and therefore the adverbial phrase "more or less" is a better figure for a disability imaginary than Emerson's substantives More and Less. Embodiment means that many of us are more or less disabled, and it is just a matter of time in terms of the more.1 If ever a poet was in the position of Emerson's "Less," confronted with "the inequalities of condition" and profoundly affected by "the natural history of calamity" (301), it certainly might be Larry Eigner: From a forceps injury at birth (August 7 '27) I have cerebral palsy, CP. The doctor, RichardWilliams, mother says, apologized for not measuring her right. If he had, she's said, I would have been delivered in the Caesarean way. The doctor told my folks they could sue him for malpractice, but considering the thing an accident or something they didn't, anyhow they let it go. (Areas 129) Although the difference created by Eigner's disability was not absolute, it was a material condition that daily made him confront "the radical tragedy of nature" in a way that no compensation could resolve.2 As Rosemarie Garland Thomson points out, before the Americans with Disabilities Act, "disability [was] a loss to be compensated for, rather than difference to be accommodated" [End Page 153] (49). Accommodation requires us to determine what is enough on the spectrum of more or less. The solution to the radical tragedy of More and Less is not the absorption of the subaltern element of the binary into the dominant one, or the recognition of the Less in the More, which is the erasure of difference, but a determination of what is enough. But how do we ever know what is enough? Eigner's approach was to define enough by seeking a balance; in his work, he tropes the compensatory More and Less into an accommodational more or less. In this way, then, Eigner makes Emersonian poetics responsive to disability, and in doing so, he provides a fresh encounter with terms such as fate, limit, and freedom. Recognizing this shift requires that we read for poetics rather than representation. Thomson reads Emersonian figures of disability in their representative rather than poetic or rhetorical aspects. She notes that the figure of the "invalid" appears in two of Emerson's essays, "Self-Reliance" and "Fate," and, she argues, the invalid becomes the Other that the "normate" self of liberal individualism defines itself against. In the terms of "Compensation," her critique is exactly right: "Emerson's atomized self demands an oppositional twin to secure its able-bodiedness" (44). But if we look to an Emersonian practice, poetics rather than representation, the possibility of moving past the binaries presents itself. Thomson identifies limitation, a key Emersonian idea, in his figures of...

Developing a descriptive system for a new preference-based measure of health-related quality of life for children

The use of preference-based measures (PBMs) of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is increasing in health care resource allocation decisions. Whilst there are measures widely used for this purpose in adults, research in the paediatric field is more limited. This paper reports on how the descriptive system for a new paediatric generic PBM of HRQoL was developed from dimensions identified in previous research. Existing scales from the paediatric literature were reviewed for suitability, and scales were also developed empirically, based on qualitative interview data from children, by taking adverbial phrases and confirming the ordinality by a ranking exercise with children. The resulting scales were applied to the dimensions from the previous research. No suitable scales were found in the paediatric literature, so the empirically derived scales were used resulting in seven different types. Children were successfully able to rank these to determine the ordinality, and these types were applied to the dimensions. This work has empirically developed a descriptive system for the dimensions of HRQoL identified in previous research. Further research is needed to test the descriptive system on a paediatric population and reduce the number of dimensions to be amenable to health state valuation.

Revisión de la categoría «adverbio» en español

Among all word classes, the adverb is the worst defined and studied grammatical category. All grammarians accept that this category includes very heterogeneous elements, which come from very different origins and have very different functions. There is thus an urgent need to review this grammatical category. With this work, I intend to find an answer to the following questions: How the grammatical theory on the adverb has been developed? Which have been the mistakes of the grammatical tradition by producing a theory on the adverb? What should we actually understand by an adverb? How can we order, in a proper and reasonable way, the elements which are presently grouped in the so called «adverb» category? And finally, is the grammatical theory on the adverb also applicable to adverbial phrases? The result is a rearrangement of the words which have been considered as adverbs by the grammatical tradition so far.

Chomsky’s derivation-by-phase theory as applied to judgments of the grammaticality of Japanese double accusative sentences

Four experiments explored the psychological reality of Chomsky’s derivation-by-phase theory. Speakers of Japanese judged the grammaticality of Japanese simple sentences involving two accusative arguments, each related with a single verb. In Experiment 1 one argument (a part-argument) constituted a part of the other argument (a whole-argument) and a part-argument either preceded or followed a whole-argument. Either the two arguments were concatenated or one argument was scrambled up to the sentence initial position. Judged grammaticality of the two types of sentences, concatenated and scrambled, was found comparably low, with no difference between them. Experiment 2 compared the two types of sentences with sentences including an adverbial phrase between the two arguments. The latter sentences were judged higher than the former for both the concatenated and the scrambled sentences. In Experiments 3 and 4, judged grammaticality increased as the distance between the two arguments was increased. Each of these findings could not be predicted by the derivation-by-phase theory. Implications of the findings for Chomsky’s mentalist position on speakers’ knowledge of language were discussed.

Middle School Students' Abilities of Concept Mapping: Focused on Biological Propositions with Adverbial Phrases or Clauses

Middle School Students' Abilities of Concept Mapping: Focused on Biological Propositions with Adverbial Phrases or Clauses

De la comparaison à l'énonciation : le cas de aussi bien

From comparison to enunciative value : the case of aussi bien The aim of this paper is to show that the adverbial phrase aussi bien, in its use as a connective or conjunct, is the result of a process of grammaticalization. It is indeed the grammaticalized form of the adjunct bien used in a comparative construction of equality. Theprocess involves an intermediary stage which corresponds to the additive value of aussi bien.The connective itself is an enunciative tool which enables the speaker to legitimate the utterance which it introduces by means of the preceding one, the comparative construction indicating that both utterances are equally true to reality.

Semi-automatic conversion of BioProp semantic annotation to PASBio annotation

BackgroundSemantic role labeling (SRL) is an important text analysis technique. In SRL, sentences are represented by one or more predicate-argument structures (PAS). Each PAS is composed of a predicate (verb) and several arguments (noun phrases, adverbial phrases, etc.) with different semantic roles, including main arguments (agent or patient) as well as adjunct arguments (time, manner, or location). PropBank is the most widely used PAS corpus and annotation format in the newswire domain. In the biomedical field, however, more detailed and restrictive PAS annotation formats such as PASBio are popular. Unfortunately, due to the lack of an annotated PASBio corpus, no publicly available machine-learning (ML) based SRL systems based on PASBio have been developed. In previous work, we constructed a biomedical corpus based on the PropBank standard called BioProp, on which we developed an ML-based SRL system, BIOSMILE. In this paper, we aim to build a system to convert BIOSMILE's BioProp annotation output to PASBio annotation. Our system consists of BIOSMILE in combination with a BioProp-PASBio rule-based converter, and an additional semi-automatic rule generator.ResultsOur first experiment evaluated our rule-based converter's performance independently from BIOSMILE performance. The converter achieved an F-score of 85.29%. The second experiment evaluated combined system (BIOSMILE + rule-based converter). The system achieved an F-score of 69.08% for PASBio's 29 verbs.ConclusionOur approach allows PAS conversion between BioProp and PASBio annotation using BIOSMILE alongside our newly developed semi-automatic rule generator and rule-based converter. Our system can match the performance of other state-of-the-art domain-specific ML-based SRL systems and can be easily customized for PASBio application development.

CONTEXTUAL LOGIC WITH MODALITIES FOR TIME AND SPACE

We develop a formal apparatus to be used as a tool in analyzing common kinds of context dependence in natural language, and their interaction with temporal and spatial modalities. It is based on context-operators, which act on wffs. The interplay between the various modalities and the context-operators is one of the main targets of the analysis. Statements made by different people at different times in different places, using the same personal temporal and spatial indexicals, can be represented in the system, and can be combined by sentential connectives and be subject to quantification. The use of spatial modality and the suggested treatment of adverbial phrases are new as far as we know. So is a certain variant of temporal modality. In the nontechnical part, consisting of Sections 1 and 2, we discuss the role that formalisms can, in principle, play in the analysis of linguistic usage; this is followed by a philosophical discussion of various kinds of context dependence. The semitechnical part, Section 3, introduces the system's components, the context, and the modal operators, and explains their use via natural language examples. In Section 4 the formal language and its semantics are defined, in full detail. The temporal and spatial sublanguages constitute separate sorts, which interact through the modal operators and the context-operators. A sound deductive system is given and a completeness result is stated, without proof.

Les degrés de grammaticalisation du groupe préposition + quoi anaphorique

The authors study the proform quoi when it is anaphoric of a predicative phrase (Il déjeuna. Après quoi il partit). In this structure, this proform loses several properties – what shows a grammaticalisation in progress. The authors make the assumption that quoi functions as a relative pronoun or an indefinite pronoun without value of subordination. Five groups emerge : In the first one, the demonstrative ce is essential as antecedent to the pronoun quoi, with a predicative value (Ce à quoi il parvint). In the second one, ce is optional (Ce en quoi il a raison / Ce à quoi elle répliqua que P) ; it can have a predicative value with the preposition en but not with the preposition à. In the third and the fourth groups, ce is impossible : in the third group, the group prep. + quoi (à quoi) assumes an argumentative function whereas in the fourth group, the group prep. + quoi (après quoi) is an adverbial phrase. At last, in the fifth group, quoi can be analysed as an indefinite pronoun : the utterances it introduces accept a different modality from the previous sentence, i.e. the interrogative modality.

Wie fokussiert man im Ägyptischen ein direktes Objekt?

The Egyptian language possesses well-known constructions for focalizing a subject (subject-focalizing cleft sentence jn + subject + active participle) as well as an adverbial phrase (second tense). It is argued that there is, in addition, a specialized construction for marking a focussed direct object in Old and Middle Egyptian, namely relative form (or passive participle) + object, which is obligatorily inverted to object + relative form when the focussed element is an interrogative pronoun. The term object-focalizing cleft sentence is proposed for these constructions. The object-focalizing cleft sentence cannot synchronically be analyzed as a regular nominal sentence because the bipartite nominal sentence is no longer productive in Middle Egyptian.

Information Structure in English Nominal Phrases

The purpose of this paper is to show that nominal phrases in English often have an information structure, in much the same way as clauses do. The paper deals only with premodifiers and headwords, putting aside the role of determiners and of postmodifying words and phrases. It uses a distinction made by Halliday (2004), as follows. Information structure exists on two levels: the system of information, made up of Topic and Comment (which are familiar concepts in the literature), and the system of theme, made up of Theme and Rheme (which work on a higher level, are less well known, and rely on a potentially confusing use of terms). Information structure is a structure of information; its units may coincide with syntactic units, but need not; and one syntactic structure (such as adjectival or adverbial phrase, subject or object) may represent different information elements on different occasions. For example:

Les degrés de grammaticalisation du groupe préposition + quoi anaphorique

The authors study the proform quoi when it is anaphoric of a predicative phrase (Il dejeuna. Apres quoi il partit). In this structure, this proform loses several properties – what shows a grammaticalisation in progress. The authors make the assumption that quoi functions as a relative pronoun or an indefinite pronoun without value of subordination. Five groups emerge : In the first one, the demonstrative ce is essential as antecedent to the pronoun quoi, with a predicative value (Ce a quoi il parvint). In the second one, ce is optional (Ce en quoi il a raison / Ce a quoi elle repliqua que P) ; it can have a predicative value with the preposition en but not with the preposition a. In the third and the fourth groups, ce is impossible : in the third group, the group prep. + quoi (a quoi) assumes an argumentative function whereas in the fourth group, the group prep. + quoi (apres quoi) is an adverbial phrase. At last, in the fifth group, quoi can be analysed as an indefinite pronoun : the utterances it introduces accept a different modality from the previous sentence, i.e. the interrogative modality.

On the Adverbial Phrase modifying construction

On the Adverbial Phrase modifying construction

Étude sémantique et syntaxique de sắp et sẽ en vietnamien

<titre/>The aim of this article is to carry out a semantic and syntactic analysis of sắp and sẽ in Vietnamese. After presenting a semantic invariant of these two monemes to describe their semantic unity in language, enabling me to unify their uses in discourse, I will examine closely sắp and sẽ in the light of MAT (modality, aspect, tense). Then, I will study their uses with adverbial phrases of time and with the monemes đã, rŏi, chÚa, đang. Finally, I will compare sắp and sẽ.

Increments in Navajo conversation

This paper examines the use of increments (Schegloff 1996, Ford et al. 2002) in naturally occurring Navajo discourse (conversation.) Navajo is a polysynthetic verb-final language belonging to the Athabascan family, spoken in the American Southwest. It finds that Navajo increments, specifically “glue-ons” (Couper-Kuhlen &amp; Ono this volume) appear in the form of temporal or locative adverbial phrases as well as unattached NPs, as is the case in English and other languages. However, Navajo increments do not appear to serve two functions suggested by Ford et al.(2002) for increments in English: “pursuing uptake” in the case of lack of recipiency, and the indexing of a “stance display” toward the speaker’s own previous utterance. This is not surprising given other cultural differences in Athabaskan interaction which revolve around a value on individual autonomy, with important consequences for language use.

Things and places: The case of the Zulu locatives

This paper addresses some semantic and syntactic aspects of Zulu locatives. Practically every noun (and pronoun) in Zulu can be locativised. The semantic effect of locativisation is to convert a thing-concept into a place-concept. In many Bantu languages, locatives are fully-fledged nominals; as such, they can function as subjects and direct objects, and control the full range of concordial agreements. Zulu locatives, however, fail to behave like regular nominals. At the same time, the locatives cannot be assimilated to any of the other syntactic categories that are standardly recognised, such as prepositional or adverbial phrases. In view of the fact that the locatives designate places, it is proposed that the locatives should be recognised as a distinct syntactic-semantic category of place-referring expressions.