Animate Nouns Research Articles

Propping up predicates: Adjectival predication in Tłı̨ch​ǫ Yatıì

In Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì (Dene, aka Athapaskan), copulas appear obligatorily with adjectives predicated of animate subjects, but are barred from appearing with adjectives predicated of inanimates. I propose that this asymmetry arises from a requirement to realize grammatical agreement for person, and that animate nouns alone bear a person feature. Unlike verbs, adjectives in this language cannot inflect; hence copulas are inserted in adjectival predicates as a rescue strategy to avoid ungrammaticality.

Deconstructing the non-episodic readings of Spanish deverbal adjectives

The interpretation of an eventuality embedded in a deverbal adjective is typically non-episodic; specifically it is dispositional, habitual or modal. This article examines these readings based on a case study of three productive adjectivalizing suffixes in Spanish. It is proposed that the same structure can underlie these three non-episodic readings. Which is selected in each case is a function of different pieces of linguistic information, including the causal link between subject and eventuality, and the status of external circumstances relevant for the situation. This approach suggests an underspecification view of polysemy, makes it possible to account for the range of non-episodic readings without using designated null aspectual operators, and provides a natural explanation of the asymmetries between these readings with respect to adjective-to-noun conversion and combination with animate nouns.

Direccionales con con y Marcado Diferencial de Objeto

An understudied property of Spanish grammar is the possibility of obtaining a directional reading with a PP introduced by con ‘with’, as in Ven con papá ‘Come to daddy’. This work explores this construction taking into account both the properties of the verb and the prepositional phrase, identifying as one of the restrictions that the preposition must in such cases introduce an animate noun; this relates such cases to standard Differential Object Marking (DOM). The proposal, which closely follows the analyses of DOM based on animacy, is that con is able to grammaticalise the [person] property of an animate noun.

Production predicts comprehension: Animacy effects in Mandarin relative clause processing

This article investigates the relationship between production and comprehension of relative clauses in Mandarin Chinese. In a picture description task, we find strong head noun animacy effects on relative clause production despite the fact that Mandarin has head-final relative clauses ([[relative clause] head noun]), so that the animate/inanimate head noun is uttered late. These and other production results have implications for theories of incremental language planning. We then used corpus analyses to investigate the distribution of structure–message pairings in the language that result from these animacy-based production biases. Mandarin is particularly interesting from the language comprehension side, as there is an extensive literature on relative clause comprehension, with conflicting results. A gated sentence completion task reveals comprehenders’ animacy-linked expectations in relative clause interpretation and also shows the substantial amount of syntactic ambiguity in Mandarin relative clauses, owing to their head-final structure. The completion data were reliable predictors of comprehenders’ self-paced reading times, but the distance between syntactically-dependent elements in the sentences was not. We argue that these results argue against accounts of sentence comprehension that posit that some sentence types are inherently more difficult than others. Instead we suggest that sentence types with which comprehenders have little experience are difficult, and we link the results ultimately to producers’ different production choices in different animacy configurations and consequent variation in language patterns that comprehenders experience.

“Whatdunit?” Developmental changes in children's syntactically based sentence interpretation abilities and sensitivity to word order

ABSTRACTAim 1 of this study was to examine the developmental changes in typically developing English-speaking children's syntactically based sentence interpretation abilities and sensitivity to word order. Aim 2 was to determine the psychometric standing of the novel sentence interpretation task developed for this study, because we wish to use it later with children with specific language impairment. Children listened to semantically implausible sentences in which noun animacy and the natural affordance between the nouns were removed, thus controlling for event probability. Using this novel “whatdunit?” agent selection task, 256 children 7–11 years old listened to two structures with canonical word order and two with noncanonical word order. After each sentence, children selected as quickly as possible the picture of the noun they believed was “doing the action.” Children interpreted sentences with canonical word order with greater accuracy and speed than those with noncanonical word order. Older children (mean age = 10 years, 8 months) were more accurate and faster than younger children (mean age = 8 years, 1 month) across all sentence forms. Both older and younger children demonstrated similar error patterns across sentence type. The “whatdunit?” task also proved to have strong validity and reliability, making it suitable for studies with children with specific language impairment.

The category of animacy in the local dialects of the lower Dreta Valley

In the local dialects of the lower Dreta Valley (between Gornji Grad and Nazarje), which belong to the Upper Savinja dialect group, the set of animate nouns is larger than in standard Slovenian.

Квазиоппозиции в текстах и грамматиках XVI–XVIII вв. как маркеры устройства славянской категории одушевленности

This article examines the paradigmatic expression of animacy in the XVI–XVIIIth century Russian, Polish, Slovak and Czech languages. In Russian, animate nouns are marked only by neutralization of the Acc. and the Gen. forms, whereas in Czech, the differentiation of animate and inanimate nouns is marked primarily by different case endings for a single grammatical case. Polish and Slovak use both methods.Some texts and grammars from the early development stages of the modern Slavic literary languages reflect the creation of certain artificial oppositions. These quasioppositions are present in Dmitry Gerasimov’s and Maximus the Greek’s translations of the Church Slavonic Donatus, in the first Polish grammar by Pierre Statorius (1568), in the Czech grammars by Beneš Optat, Petr Gzel and Václav Philomathes (1531), Jan Blahoslav (1571) and Matouš Benešovský (1577), as well as in the Slovak Camaldolese Bible (1756-59).

Neural bases of syntax-semantics interface processing.

The binding problem-question of how information between the modules of the linguistic system is integrated during language processing-is as yet unresolved. The remarkable speed of language processing and comprehension (Pulvermüller et al. 2009) suggests that at least coarse semantic information (e.g. noun animacy) and syntactically-relevant information (e.g. verbal template) are integrated rapidly to allow for coarse comprehension. This EEG study investigated syntax-semantics interface processing during word-by-word sentence reading. As alpha-band neural activity serves as an inhibition mechanism for local networks, we used topographical distribution of alpha power to help identify the timecourse of the binding process. We manipulated the syntactic parameter of verbal event structure, and semantic parameter of noun animacy in reduced relative clauses (RRCs, e.g. "The witness/mansion seized/protected by the agent was in danger"), to investigate the neural bases of interaction between syntactic and semantic networks during sentence processing. The word-by-word stimulus presentation method in the present experiment required manipulation of both syntactic structure and semantic features in the working memory. The results demonstrated a gradient distribution of early components (biphasic posterior P1-N2 and anterior N1-P2) over function words "by" and "the", and the verb, corresponding to facilitation or conflict resulting from the syntactic (telicity) and semantic (animacy) cues in the preceding portion of the sentence. This was followed by assimilation of power distribution in the α band at the second noun. The flattened distribution of α power during the mental manipulation with high demand on working memory-thematic role re-assignment-demonstrates a state of α equilibrium with strong functional coupling between posterior and anterior regions. These results demonstrate that the processing of semantic and syntactic features during sentence comprehension proceeds in highly integrated fashion using gating of attentional resources to facilitate rapid comprehension, with attentional suppression of global alpha power to facilitate interaction of local networks.

Konsekwencje zaniku liczby podwójnej w języku łacińskim. Głos w sprawie dualnej genezy piątej deklinacji łacińskiej

The loss of the dual number in the early pre-literary phase of the development of Latin caused massive changes in the Latin declension. The dual forms of consonant stems, which in animate nouns (later masculine and feminine nouns) were probably characterised by the ending *-ē , gen. du. *-ēs (< PIE nom. du. *-eh 1 , gen. du. *-eh 1 s ), were generally reinterpreted as plurals (hence the secondary plural ending -ēs < nom. du. *-ē in Latin) and sometimes as collectives or singulars (nom. sg. -ēs < nom. du. *-ē ). The latter process led to the formation of the fifth Latin declension with the characteristic -ē- . This category includes very numerous nouns that have no plural forms ( singularia tantum ). Also the Old Latin dual forms ending in *-ī (< PIE *-ih 1 ) like viginti ‘twenty’ were transformed by regular morphological processes into singulative forms with - iēs , -iēi , which are also in the fifth declension. On the basis of these observations, the author advances the research hypothesis that the fifth Latin declension appeared already in the pre-literary period as a result of the loss of the earlier dual inflection.

Sleep facilitates learning a new linguistic rule

Natural languages contain countless regularities. Extraction of these patterns is an essential component of language acquisition. Here we examined the hypothesis that memory processing during sleep contributes to this learning. We exposed participants to a hidden linguistic rule by presenting a large number of two-word phrases, each including a noun preceded by one of four novel words that functioned as an article (e.g., gi rhino). These novel words (ul, gi, ro and ne) were presented as obeying an explicit rule: two words signified that the noun referent was relatively near, and two that it was relatively far. Undisclosed to participants was the fact that the novel articles also predicted noun animacy, with two of the articles preceding animate referents and the other two preceding inanimate referents. Rule acquisition was tested implicitly using a task in which participants responded to each phrase according to whether the noun was animate or inanimate. Learning of the hidden rule was evident in slower responses to phrases that violated the rule. Responses were delayed regardless of whether rule-knowledge was consciously accessible. Brain potentials provided additional confirmation of implicit and explicit rule-knowledge. An afternoon nap was interposed between two 20-min learning sessions. Participants who obtained greater amounts of both slow-wave and rapid-eye-movement sleep showed increased sensitivity to the hidden linguistic rule in the second session. We conclude that during sleep, reactivation of linguistic information linked with the rule was instrumental for stabilizing learning. The combination of slow-wave and rapid-eye-movement sleep may synergistically facilitate the abstraction of complex patterns in linguistic input.

Two-stage interaction between word order and noun animacy during online thematic processing of sentences in Mandarin Chinese

How different sources of linguistic information are used during online language comprehension is a central question in psycholinguistic research. This study used eye-tracking and electrophysiological techniques to investigate how and when word order and noun animacy interact with each other during online thematic processing of Mandarin Chinese sentences. The initial argument in the sentence is animate or inanimate and the following verb disambiguates it as an agent or patient. The results at the verb revealed that, at the early processing stage, the patient-first sentences elicited longer gaze duration and larger N400 than the agent-first ones only when the initial argument was inanimate; however, at the late stage, the patient-first sentences elicited prolonged second-pass time and enhanced P600 only when the initial argument was animate. In addition, the brain oscillations at the verb also showed different patterns in the early and later window latencies. The present results suggested that the online thematic processing of Mandarin Chinese sentences involves not only universal processing strategies (subject-preference) but also language-specific strategies as well. That is, in Mandarin Chinese, noun animacy interacts with word order immediately during online sentence comprehension; the initial processing results can be overridden by additional interpretively relevant information types at a later stage. Those results provided important indications for the language comprehension models.

CROSSLINGUISTIC DIFFERENCES IN IMPLICIT LANGUAGE LEARNING

We report three experiments that explore the effect of prior linguistic knowledge on implicit language learning. Native speakers of English from the United Kingdom and native speakers of Cantonese from Hong Kong participated in experiments that involved different learning materials. In Experiment 1, both participant groups showed evidence of learning a mapping between articles and noun animacy. In Experiment 2, neither group showed learning of a mapping between articles and a linguistically anomalous concept (the number of capital letters in an English word or that of strokes in a Chinese character). In Experiment 3, the Chinese group, but not the English group, showed evidence of learning a mapping between articles and a concept derived from the Chinese classifier system. It was concluded that first language knowledge affected implicit language learning and that implicit learning, at least when natural language learning is concerned, is subject to constraints and biases.

How the speed of working memory updating influences the on-line thematic processing of simple sentences in Mandarin Chinese.

This ERP study used electrophysiological technique to examine how individual differences in the speed of working memory updating influence the use of syntactic and semantic information during on-line sentence argument interpretation, and the time course of that working memory updating effect. The basic structure of the experimental sentences was "Noun+Verb+adverb+'le'+a two-character word", with the Noun being the sentence initial argument. This initial argument is animate or inanimate and the following verb disambiguates it as an agent or patient. The results at the initial argument revealed that, the quick-updating group elicited a larger positivity over the frontal cortex (within 500-800ms post-noun onset) as compared with the slow-updating group. At the following disambiguating verb, the slow-updating group only showed a word order effect, indicating that the patient-first condition elicited a larger P600 (within 500-1,000ms post-verb onset) than the agent-first one; for the quick-updating group, at the early stage of processing, the patient-first sentences elicited a larger N400 (within 300-500ms post-verb onset) than the agent-first ones only when the initial argument was inanimate; however, at the late stage, the patient-first sentences elicited an enhanced P600 (within 800-1,000ms post-verb onset) only when the initial argument was animate. These results suggested that the speed of working memory updating not only influences the maintenance of sentence argument when the contents of working memory change but also influences the efficiency of integrating that argument with the verb at a late time point. When integrating the argument with the disambiguating verb, individuals with quick-updating ability can combine multiple sources of information (both noun animacy and word order), and conduct rapid and fine-grained two-stage processing; individuals with slow-updating ability, however, only rely on one dominant source of information types (word order), and conducted slow and course-grained processing.

The Role of Noun Animacy in Language Processing

Animacy of nouns has been found significantly impacting the organization and processing of language in many ways. In particular, it imposes restrictions on the syntactic morphology and syntactic position, and the assignment of the thematic roles heavily relies on animacy. By recording reaction times and eye tracking, previous studies revealed that animacy of nouns facilitated comprehension of ambiguous sentences and complex sentences. With the development of cognitive neuroscience techniques, the neural mechanism of how animacy influences the assignment of thematic roles has been further explored during recent years. Some new theoretical models have been proposed to explain the relationship of syntax and semantics during sentence processing in a more comprehensive way. Based on existing studies and theories, we propose that future research should particularly focus on the immediate impact of animacy during online language processing, the interaction of animacy and syntactic information during the assignment of thematic roles, and the cross-language difference of these effects.

Genitive Variation in Old English Verse with Special Attention to Beowulf

Proper noun genitives and possessive pronouns occur more frequently in postnominal position than common noun genitives in Beowulf and in many Old English (OE) verse texts. This is the opposite of patterns seen in most OE prose texts; however, the word order variation in this text correlates with such linguistic factors as animacy and morphosyntactic weight. Postnominal position is most common for proper noun genitives and possessive pronouns when both the possessive element and the head noun are animate. With inanimate heads, prenominal proper noun genitives and possessive pronouns are preferred. These findings are consistent with predictions made by the animacy hierarchy that more animate nouns should precede less animate nouns, with more variation possible in the case that both nouns are animate. For noun phrases (NPs) with common noun genitives, both animate genitives and compound head nouns result in higher frequencies of postnominal genitive position. Metrical and alliterative considerations are further shown to have an impact on possessive position within NPs; however, these poetic factors alone do not account for all of the word order variation. Language change related to the role of animacy in adnominal genitive position is argued as a contributing factor in this variation, given the elevated levels of postnominal proper noun genitives and possessive pronouns relative to postnominal common noun genitives across OE verse, as well as higher levels of postnominal proper noun genitives in certain early OE prose texts, and finally similarities in adnominal genitive position in Beowulf and historical Germanic languages other than OE. As animacy of the possessor is widely held to correlate with prenominal genitive position from the OE period onward, these findings complicate that picture for the earliest OE.

Animacy hierarchy effects on the second language acquisition of attributive psych adjectives

ABSTRACTThis article argues that “animacy” in the context of attributive psych adjectives can be subcategorized into “human,” “human by metonymy,” and “animate” and that these subcategories play a role for Chinese speakers acquiring English. A study that involved an acceptability judgment test found that, in contrast to a group of native controls, the second language (L2) speakers misuse adjectival –ed for adjectival –ing with animate nouns and adjectival –ing for adjectival –ed with human by metonymy nouns, indicating that L2 speakers appeal to an “animacy hierarchy” in determining the meanings of English psych adjectives. There is no evidence in the target language input for such a hierarchy, so the results are consistent with the view that these L2 learners are drawing on universal properties of thematic organization.

Experience and generalization in a connectionist model of Mandarin Chinese relative clause processing.

Sentences containing relative clauses are well known to be difficult to comprehend, and they have long been an arena in which to investigate the role of working memory in language comprehension. However, recent work has suggested that relative clause processing is better described by ambiguity resolution processes than by limits on extrinsic working memory. We investigated these alternative views with a Simple Recurrent Network (SRN) model of relative clause processing in Mandarin Chinese, which has a unique pattern of word order across main and relative clauses and which has yielded mixed results in human comprehension studies. To assess the model's ability to generalize from similar sentence structures, and to observe effects of ambiguity through the sentence, we trained the model on several different sentence types, based on a detailed corpus analysis of Mandarin relative clauses and simple sentences, coded to include patterns of noun animacy in the various structures. The model was evaluated on 16 different relative clause subtypes. Its performance corresponded well to human reading times, including effects previously attributed to working memory overflow. The model's performance across a wide variety of sentence types suggested that the seemingly inconsistent results in some prior empirical studies stemmed from failures to consider the full range of sentence types in empirical studies. Crucially, sentence difficulty for the model was not simply a reflection of sentence frequency in the training set; the model generalized from similar sentences and showed high error rates at points of ambiguity. The results suggest that SRNs are a powerful tool to examine the complicated constraint-satisfaction process of sentence comprehension, and that understanding comprehension of specific structures must include consideration of experiences with other similar structures in the language.

The Assignment of Gender in L2 Hebrew: The Role of the L1 Gender System

Grammatical gender poses a serious problem to second language (L2) learners as well as to proficient speakers of L2. This paper tests what contributes to this difficulty in L2 Hebrew. Gender identification in the absence of lexical information was tested for 30 Hebrew L2 learners and 20 Hebrew near-native speakers whose L1 has gender morphology, e.g. Russian, or not, e.g. English, as well as 10 adult native speakers of Hebrew. Te participants were tested on assigning grammatical gender to novel animate nouns in Hebrew. The findings show that difficulties are due to L1 interference, by indirect reliance on L1 strategies in determining gender for novel animate nouns in L2, rather than access to Universal Grammar or across the board reliance on native adult strategies.

Adesyvas Mikalojaus Daukšos &lt;em&gt;Postilėje&lt;/em&gt;

THE USE OF THE ADESSIVE CASE IN MIKALOJUS DAUKŠA’S POSTILLASummaryThe local meanings of the adessive in Daukša’s Postilla are discussed. In other Old Lithuanian writings (Chylinskis’ translation of the New Testament, the Gospel of Luke from Bretkūnas’ translation of the Bible) the adessive is not used in its etymological meaning ‘position near to the object’, while in DP a 6,43% of the occurrences of the adessive are clearly used in its primary meaning.The use of the adessive is mostly associated with animacy. Adessives are described according to the animacy hierarchy and compared to Kavaliūnaitė’s analyses of the adessive in Chylinskis’ translation of the New Testament. In DP the usage of the adessive doesn’t follow the animacy hierarchy as closely as in Chylinskis’ text. In the 3rd person personal pronoun, in demonstrative pronouns, proper names, and common animate nouns denoting humans the adessive and the inessive cases are neutralized in the meanings ‘cognitive states and processes’ and ‘place among people’, while in Chylinskis the adessive and the inessive are in complementary distribution.

The Analysis of Gender Markers in Animals

This paper aims to be a contribution to the study of the linguistic concept of gender. Out of many potential challenges in this area, it will focus on the problem of assigning gender to animal nouns. This problem is topical in view of the fact that in present-day English, gender is a marginal grammatical category and therefore recedes into the background in descriptions of today’s English. Grammatical gender is a rare topic of research and scientific discussions or papers. A detailed analysis of gender assignment to animal names is based on two subcorpora (the English edition of National Geographic and the English edition of Journal of Zoology). To make the picture as complete as possible, a contrastive analysis of gender markers is offered.