Aspect Markers Research Articles

Visibility Dependency of Morphosyntactic Variations: A Study on Malabar Mappila Malayalam

The paper introduces the concept of ‘visibility’ of the linguistic variant and looks at how it influences language variation by examining the morphosyntactic variations in the discourses in Mappila Malayalam, a sociolect of Malayalam spoken by the Muslim community in Northern Kerala, India namely Mappilas. The study maps the variations in serial verb constructions, case marking, and the perfect aspect marker within the socio-historical context of Mappila Malayalam. The paper also develops towards a theoretical understanding of variation based on the visibility of the variants. Throughout, I observe the variants in Mappila Malayalam that contribute to a unique identity of the community and its extended variations. As such, I adopt a Labovian framework and included aspects of discourse analysis. I advance the work on sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology by discussing the development of a progressive model of variation, while further evidencing that the structure of the variation and social factors conjointly promote further variation concurrently dependent on the visibility of the variant, while considering instances from Mappila Malayalam.

An Extended Study on Tense and Aspect Markers in Pagu

This paper revisits four clitics of Pagu (a West-Papuan language spoken in North Halmahera, Indonesia) those that have been described as Tense and Aspect markers (Wimbish 1991): -oka, -ou -osi, and -uli. The first one is considered a tense marker for ‘non-future’ time, while the other three are aspect markers for ‘perfective’, ‘imperfective’, and ‘repetitive’ respectively. Following a metatypy approach (Ross 2006; 2001), I argue that while these clitics have the tense-aspect functions, at the same time under a unified analysis, each should have an extended function vis. a ‘locational marker of space and time’, ‘confirmative’, ‘durative’, and ‘repetitive presupposition marker’, respectively. These meanings and functions are based on the speakers’ interpretation of them in the local lingua franca (a variety of the North Maluku Malay). This supports Bowden’s (2012) argument that the indigenous languages of North Halmahera (Papuan) have influenced the present varieties of Malay spoken as the lingua franca in the region.

Thoughts on the usage of audible smiling in speech synthesis applications

In this perspective paper we explore the question how audible smiling can be integrated in speech synthesis applications. In human-human communication, smiling can serve various functions, such as signaling politeness or as a marker of trustworthiness and other aspects that raise and maintain the social likeability of a speaker. However, in human-machine communication, audible smiling is nearly unexplored, but could be an advantage in different applications such as dialog systems. The rather limited knowledge of the details of audible smiling and their exploitation for speech synthesis applications is a great challenge. This is also true for modeling smiling in spoken dialogs and testing it with users. Thus, this paper argues to fill the research gaps in identifying factors that constitute and affect audible smiling in order to incorporate it in speech synthesis applications. The major claim is to focus on the dynamics of audible smiling on various levels.

On the “one+verbal classifier” sequence as a delimitative aspect marker in Taiwanese Southern Min

AbstractThis paper studies the “one+verbal classifier” sequencetsi̍t-ēthat appears after an indefinite object complement in Taiwanese Southern Min. We call it the post-complement (PC)tsi̍t-ē. While thetsi̍t-ēsequence can be a durative phrase when it is immediately preceded by a verb, the PCtsi̍t-ēcannot be replaced by the durative phrasetsi̍t-ē-á‘a while’ (tsi̍t-ēplus the diminutive suffixá) or other durative phrases. We show that the PCtsi̍t-ēis a sentence-final particle, not a durative phrase serving as a predicate or complement. Moreover, it marks delimitativity, which means ‘termination in a short time.’ It is the same kind of delimitativity that verb reduplication in Mandarin Chinese expresses despite the fact that the latter targets on the verb and is more selective in terms of the verb types that it can occur with. Moreover, the PCtsi̍t-ēcarries the ‘down-play’ meaning. Syntactically, we suggest that it heads an AspP, which occurs above avP.

"번역문에 나타난 한·일 상표지 대응 양상 연구 -완료 국면에서 ‘-어 있는’과 ‘-은’의 시점을 중심으로- -완료 국면에서 ‘-어 있는’과 ‘-은’의 시점을 중심으로-"

This study aims to investigate the relationship between perspectives and aspects, assuming that differences in the perspective of two languages lead to differences in the choice of aspect markers. When the two situations form a complex sentence at different intervals of time, this study focuses on the perspective of the subject of conception, in relation to expressing it with ‘-eo iss-neon’ in Korean literary works and ‘-ta’ in Japanese translations. The choice of aspect marker changes depending on where the perspective of the subject of conception is during the Perfect phase. The Korean perspective is ‘object viewed’, and the two situations are recognized as coexisting within one fixed frame. The Japanese perspective, by means of the ‘vantage point’, recognized the temporal order of the two situations in sequence.

Serial Verb Constructions in Nzema: A Descriptive Analysis

This paper aims to discuss Serial Verb Constructions (SVCs) in Nzema, a Southern Bia (Kwa) language. It draws on some of the characteristics and properties that have been surveyed in the existing literature, for instance, subject/object sharing, tense, aspect, and negation. It also discusses the types and functions of SVCs in Nzema. The current paper analyses the notions of tense, aspect, and polarity and how they are marked in Nzema SVCs. Most of the data used in the analysis has been derived from the daily conversations of native speakers. Four respondents were approached for the purpose of this study. The analysis shows that Nzema SVCs belong to the types explored in the literature as clause chaining, both integrated and concordial. Moreover, serial verb patterns are used by the speakers to add argument, such as an instrument or beneficiary. Future markers are used before the verbs, while past markers occur after the verbs. On the other hand, progressive aspect markers occur before the verbs in the speech of the respondents. Furthermore, tense and aspect marking are repeated by the respondents on all the verbs in the series. Regarding argument sharing, the object is only shared when the verbs in the series are transitive.
 Keywords: argument sharing, clause chaining serialization, concordial serial verb, integrated serial verb construction

Acquisition of Chinese Verb Separation by Adult L2 Learners

Chinese verb separation is a grammatical construction in which a bimorphemic verb compound separates and expands into a verb phrase. For example, to say “sang one song”, one must insert the aspect marker le and classifier phrase yī shǒu between the verb chàng gē ‘sing-song’ as in chàng le yī shǒu gē (sing-LE-one-classifier-song). Adult second language (L2) learners face at least three problems related to acquiring verb separation: separation patterns are complex and numerous, classroom oral input is limited, and L1 transfer often fails. To better understand L2 learners’ acquisition of verb separation, this study tested 28 adult L2-Chinese classroom learners. Three tasks were administered online: verb decomposition, grammaticality judgment, and oral translation. On average, only 37% of verbs were accurately decomposed, 63% of verbs were accurately judged to be grammatical, and 19% of verbs were orally produced with the correct separation pattern. Chinese verb separation, particularly decomposition and oral production, is thus extremely challenging for L2 learners to acquire—even for advanced learners with a relatively large vocabulary size. The results are discussed in terms of the Unified Competition Model and L2 Chinese pedagogy.

The L3 acquisition of English tense-aspect system by Uygur speakers with L2 Mandarin Chinese

This paper examines the role of Lexical Aspect Hypothesis (LAH) and linguistic typological similarity in the L3 acquisition of English tense and aspect among Uygur speakers with L2 Mandarin Chinese (Chinese hereafter). LAH asserts that the emerging verbal inflections at the early stage of language acquisition primarily function as markers of the lexical aspect and thus predicts universality for acquisition of tense and aspect. However, with an assumption of language transfer, the typological closer relationship of Uygur with English in terms of the tense and aspect system was expected to trigger L1 transfer in L3 acquisition. The study analyzed the English tense and aspect forms used by the participants (N = 25) for verbs of four distinct lexical aspects (50 target items) in contexts of past. The result shows that the lexical aspect influences the appropriate use of past tense—past tense marker aligned with telic predicates (achievements and accomplishments), -ing with activities (for inappropriate uses), and nonpast with states (for inappropriate uses), and the influence is observed at each proficiency level. The results show little evidence for language transfer in the acquisition of the English past tense, either from L1 Uygur or L2 Chinese; instead, the data suggest that L3 acquisition of tense and aspect is more subject to acquisitional universality (LAH).

Use of Aspect Markers by Mandarin-speaking Children with High-Functioning Autism Plus Language Impairment and Children with Developmental Language Disorder

IntroductionThis study investigates the comprehension and production of four typical Mandarin aspect markers zai-, -le, -zhe, and -guo by preschool children with high functioning autism plus language impairment (HFA-LI) and those with developmental language disorder (DLD), by comparing them with typically developing age-matched (TDA) children. MethodsTwenty children with HFA-LI (M/F: 18/2; mean age: 5.20), 20 with DLD (M/F: 11/9; mean age: 5.25), and 20 TDA children (M/F:14/6; mean age:5.27) completed a picture-choice task and priming picture-description task. The results were analyzed using non-parametric methods. ResultsIn the comprehension task, the HFA-LI and DLD groups achieved lower accuracy than the TDA group on zai-, -le, and -guo. The comprehension of aspect markers in the HFA-LI and DLD groups was affected by lexical aspect. In the production task, the HFA-LI and DLD groups produced fewer sentences with the target aspect marker for all four aspect markers than the TDA group. However, they produced more sentences with bare verb forms for zai- and -guo than the TDA group. Furthermore, all three groups tended to combine aspect markers with their semantically inherent types of verbs (e.g, zai-+Activity verbs). The HFA-LI group produced more sentences irrelevant to the task than the other two groups for -zhe and -guo, and some children in the HFA-LI group produced ungrammatical sentences in which both the progressive zai- and perfective -le were used. ConclusionsChildren with HFA-LI and DLD demonstrate similarities in the comprehension and production of Mandarin aspect markers, given their poor comprehension of the aspect markers zai-, -le and -guo, and poor production of all four aspect markers compared to their TDA peers. Their performance was also impacted by lexical aspect.

Time Reference in Mandarin Relative Clauses

In this paper, we investigate constraints on the time reference of embedded clauses in Mandarin. We show that while English past-tensed embedded clauses disallow later-than-matrix readings in intensional contexts on a de dicto construal, Mandarin relative clauses with bare predicates yield temporally free readings across the board. We argue that the contrast between the temporal interpretations of bare embedded clauses in Mandarin vs. past-tensed embedded clauses in English is not due to a putative contrast between ‘tenseless’ languages (as Mandarin is traditionally assumed to be) and ‘tensed’ languages such as English. Mandarin is indeed not tenseless, but rather has a covert Non-Future tense, restricting the reference time of bare sentences to non-future times. Moreover, Mandarin superficially tenseless embedded clauses with overt—be it perfect, perfective, durative/progressive—aspectual marking do not allow later-than-matrix readings on a de dicto construal, just like tensed embedded clauses in English. We conclude that the freedom of interpretation of bare embedded clauses in Mandarin cannot be imputed to null semantically underspecified tense, but rather to null semantically underspecified aspect. Our analysis provides, to our knowledge, the first arguments for Non-Future tense in embedded contexts.

ON THE SPECIAL PRONOUN TA IN THE WUHAN DIALECT OF CHINESE: A RESUMPTIVE ANALYSIS*

AbstractIn this article, I will investigate a special pronoun Ta that appears in the postverbal thematic position of various constructions in the Wuhan dialect of Chinese. I will argue that all the sentences containing Ta can be unified under an Agree‐based resumptive analysis. More specifically, I will claim that Ta, differing from the regular pronouns, is φ‐feature deprived (or a weak pronoun), which is the reason why the pronoun can function as a resumptive pronoun in ba‐constructions (a case of A‐resumption) on a par with A‐traces/copies. Furthermore, I will argue that the completion‐inducing effect of Ta does not necessarily entail that Ta is an aspectual marker; rather, the effect is due to the exceptional omission of the telicizing verb particle inside the small clause; therefore, Ta remains to be a resumptive pronoun throughout.

A sketch grammar of Siyuewu Khroskyabs [HL Archive 9

Khroskyabs is a rGyalronic (Tibeto-Burman) language of northwestern Sichuan province in the People's Republic of China. There are an estimated 10,000 speakers of Khroskyabs living in several villages and townships in the river valleys of part of the Tibetan plateau (Huang, 2003). Khroskyabs speakers identify as ethnically Tibetan, and the language is under immense social pressure both from Amdo Tibetan (the prestige language of the community) and Mandarin Chinese (the language of schooling). There is also some lexical borrowing from both Tibetan and Sichuan Mandarin.Khroskyabs exhibits many typologically interesting characteristics, including hierarchical alignment, verb stem alternation, partial stem reduplication in reciprocal verbs, and pervasive use of directional verb prefixes which have extended uses as aspect markers. Data for this sketch was conducted in the context of a year-long graduate Field Methods seminar with a native speaker who is committed to the documentation and maintenance of her language. While it is subject to the usual limitations that come from working with a single speaker at a far geographic remove from the larger community and sociolinguistic context, Yulha’s linguistic training and personal motivation were a key advantage in this enterprise.

The Discovery of Aspect: A Heuristic Parallel Corpus Study of Ingressive, Continuative and Resumptive Viewpoint Aspect

Languages differ in how systematically and obligatorily they encode conceptual categories such as tense and aspect. By drawing on large parallel corpora, these differences can be exploited heuristically: expressive obligatoriness and the systematicity of a conceptual category in one language can function as a probe for other languages that do not (evidently) encode it. This study applies this method—called heuristic translation mining (HTM)—to viewpoint aspect in Mandarin (an aspect-oriented language) and Dutch (a non-aspect-oriented language). Specifically, it takes the Mandarin aspect markers 起来-qilai (“ingressive”) and 下去-xiaqu (“continuative”) and collects translation strategies for these markers from a corpus of five Mandarin novels and their Dutch translations. The outcomes are methodological, descriptive and theoretical in nature. Methodologically, it is shown how conceptual templates consisting of temporal boundaries and phases facilitate annotating specific types of viewpoint aspect consistently. Descriptively, the exercise indicates at which linguistic levels viewpoint aspect may be encoded in a non-aspect-oriented language. Theoretically, conducting an HTM analysis with several aspect markers at once makes it possible to quantify (non-)marking of conceptual content; it turns out that the types of viewpoint under study correspond to varying marking frequencies, which may correlate with conceptual complexity.

Aspectual marking from a typologically uncommon origin: a quantitative account of the development of hamē(w) in Middle Persian

Abstract This article follows the early grammaticalization path of a durative adverb to an aspect marker for a range of aspectual uses including durative, focalized, and habitual. In a usage-based approach, we investigate the behavior of hamē(w) in a Middle Persian database with respect to several grammatical variables, and we check its developmental path against the model proposed for the Romance languages by Bertinetto, Ebert and de Groot, aiming to uncover the amount of similarities/differences between those Romance languages and Persian. The results show that the lexical origin of the structure investigated locates Middle Persian in stage (iii) of the model, and the development documented deviates from the rest of the model in various respects. Furthermore, the usual priority of past tense in progressive developments is not observed: the adverb is originally present-oriented, but past tense usage increases as the grammaticalization proceeds.

Aspectual marking from a typologically uncommon origin: a quantitative account of the development of hamē(w) in Middle Persian

Abstract This article follows the early grammaticalization path of a durative adverb to an aspect marker for a range of aspectual uses including durative, focalized, and habitual. In a usage-based approach, we investigate the behavior of hamē(w) in a Middle Persian database with respect to several grammatical variables, and we check its developmental path against the model proposed for the Romance languages by Bertinetto, Ebert and de Groot, aiming to uncover the amount of similarities/differences between those Romance languages and Persian. The results show that the lexical origin of the structure investigated locates Middle Persian in stage (iii) of the model, and the development documented deviates from the rest of the model in various respects. Furthermore, the usual priority of past tense in progressive developments is not observed: the adverb is originally present-oriented, but past tense usage increases as the grammaticalization proceeds.

Child second language development of English tense and aspect: The role of narrative organization

AbstractMuch research has documented that second language (L2) development of tense and aspect markers is influenced by a range of factors that include cross-linguistic influences, phonological nature of forms, inherent semantics of predicates, and discourse structure. Nonetheless, relatively little research has examined the role of discourse organization in the development of tense and aspect marking. To expand our understanding of L2 tense and aspect, this study examined child L2 development of English tense and aspect in oral narratives in relation to the foregrounding and backgrounding of narrative discourse. Thirty-eight learners’ oral narratives were elicited, usingFrog, Where Are You?(Mayer, 1969) three points in time: kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2. The foreground in oral narratives was associated with more frequent use of the simple past than the background across the grade levels. While the occurrence of the simple past did not necessarily mark the foreground, the simple past emerged as the dominant form in the foreground in Grade 1. In the background, on the other hand, it took longer for the past forms to catch up with the non-past forms. The simple past became dominant in the background in Grade 2.

The Multifunctionality of MandarinDiào 掉

AbstractThis paper explores the various functions ofdiàoin Mandarin Chinese as it changes from a verb to a phase marker. As a phase marker,diàoprovides a natural endpoint to a co-occurring event and indicates completion, which is a distinct function from the perfect markerle. In this shift, the meaning ofdiàoalso expands, including ‘falling down’, ‘throwing down’, ‘disappearing’, ‘removal’, ‘completion’ and ‘change of state’. The multifunctionality ofdiàois the result of grammaticalization along with semantic change and extension. Cognitive mechanisms such as metonymic and metaphoric extensions, pragmatic inferencing, analogy on Verb-Complement structures, and semantic generalization all contribute to the grammaticalization ofdiào, with further influence from contact with southern Chinese dialects. This paper further argues that the grammaticalization and semantic extension ofdiàois in accordance with the development of aspectual markers cross-linguistically, reflecting the commonality in human cognition.

Predicting Chinese Preschoolers’ Acquisition of Aspect Markers: A Corpus-Based Study

This study explored the patterns and predictors of aspect marker acquisition of Chinese preschoolers speaking Mandarin Chinese as their first language (L1). Based on a corpus drawn from 157 preschoolers from Beijing, China, this study set out to explore (1) the developmental pattern of aspect marker acquisition; (2) the interactional pattern between grammatical aspect markers and lexical aspects; (3) the production of temporal adverbs with aspect markers; and (4) the predictors of aspect marker acquisition. The main research findings included the following: (1) the Jonckheere–Terpstra test revealed an age-related increase in children’s production of aspect markers, and in particular, there was a significant increase in grammatical aspect markers and lexical aspect subclasses from age 4;6 (Year; Month) onwards; (2) the Friedman’s ANOVAs indicated that -LE was frequently used in combination with most of the lexical aspect subclasses, among them the achievement was the most frequently co-occurring subclass, while the activities came second; (3) a series of Chi-square tests showed that using temporal adverbs in combination with aspect markers became increasingly common among older children; (4) the hierarchical regression analysis identified children’s preschooling experience as a significant predictor of their early aspectual development, after controlling for the other variables.

Demystify a Positive Role of L1 in L2 Acquisition: In the Case of Chinese Aspect Marker Le

This study aims to uncover a positive role of L1 in L2 acquisition through analyzing the positive effect of Chinese aspect marker le on the use of English simple past by Chinese EFL learners. The theoretical framework is set first, with clarification of theories about tense and aspect as well as discussion of the impacts of L1 on SLA. Following a review of Chinese aspect marker le, relevant empirical research and teaching practice are cited to demonstrate the positive influence of le on the L2 English simple past use. This positive transfer of Chinese Aspect Marker le is explained using transfer theory and connectionism. The present study is meant to arouse L2 English teachers’ awareness of the benefits of L1 so that they can capitalize on L2 learners’ native language to facilitate their students’ L2 learning.

小议“会”类惯常句的用法及惯常特性

In Mandarin the modal verb ‘hui’ has several functions: expresses agent-oriented dynamin modality, future tense, speaker-oriented epistemic modality, and subjunctive mood. Besides these usages, ‘hui’ can also mark the habitual aspect. When its explanation is the habitual aspect marker, the situation that the whole sentence describes should be the plural events or states. Habitual sentences that are marked with ‘hui’ may be divided into two types: without any other marker or with dominant conditional constructions. Compared with another habitual marker ‘rongyi’, ‘hui’ can’t express habitual aspect without proper context. It is because ‘hui’ itself doesn’t have the property of repeatability and express the habitual aspect isn’t its inherent meaning. The habitual reading only can be inferred from the context-absorption and coexist with other basic usages.