Complex Noun Research Articles

Between compounding and phrasal derivation: Polish complex nouns in sam(o)-

The aim of this paper is to explore the class of Polish complex nouns with the initial combining form samo-, such as samobójca ‘suicide’. The study seeks to determine the morphological structure of what we consider to be a case of ‘syntax-inside-morphology’ in the domain of Polish word-formation. We want to argue that what appears to be sheer concatenation of morphological building blocks, often routinely classified as a compound word with a lefthand bound root, could, in fact, be interpreted as a derived noun based on a phrasal unit. In what follows, we shall argue that the morphosemantics of Polish complex nouns in samo- can successfully be captured by left-branching structure, which ensures that their morphological and semantic representations cohere into a well-organised whole. The dispute over derivational phenomena exhibiting a degree of reciprocity between morphology and syntax has long surrounded the data-driven examination of certain word-formation types across languages. Currently, a rich body of linguistic data amassed across various languages seems to strongly undermine the aprioristic separation of the two modules of grammar. The present study draws on tenets central to theories which are neither strictly lexicalist nor syntactocentric, in particular the Firewall Theory advanced by Lieber & Scalise (2006) .

Syntactic Analysis of Nominal Clauses Based on Chomsky’s Generative Grammar and Implications for Language Teaching

Nominal clause is a clause with nominal feature and syntactic analysis is the study of laws of sentence constructions. And Chomsky’s Generative Grammar is a very useful method to analyse a sentence in an explanatory way. This paper aims to focus on how to understand a nominal clause under Generative Grammar (GG) for the explanatory adequacy. In doing so, it will give a brief explanation to the generative mechanisms of simple sentence under GG, then move on to the similar mechanisms of complex sentence, here, it will focus on nominal clauses. On the syntactic analysis of nominal clauses, there are two steps: first recognizing its position in the whole sentence, then picking a proper connective for the nominal clause. Notice this paper will analyse a complex noun sentence for two sentences, one is the whole sentence, and another is the small clause, namely, the nominal clause within the whole sentence. Thus, it can conclude a way to analyse nominal clauses syntactically, and understand their inner constructions. Furthermore, it can explain why a nominal clause form like this and have a better understanding of complex sentences. More importantly, such method can play its role in linguistics and foreign language teaching, which would help language teachers build up a better understanding of the nature of language and the process of language learning.

Understanding Chichewa Noun Classes and Morphological Structure

This paper explores the complex noun classification system of Chichewa, a Bantu language primarily spoken in Malawi and surrounding regions, with approximately 15 million speakers. This system, which categorizes nouns based on both semantic and morphological criteria, profoundly impacts subject-verb agreement and concord usage, thereby shaping Chichewa sentence structure. Nouns are divided into various classes, each marked by specific prefixes that change with singular and plural forms. For example, class 5 and 6 nouns typically begin with consonants such as b-, d-, and dz-, with singular forms prefixed by "li-" and plural forms by "ma-". A distinctive feature of some class 6 nouns is their retention of the "ma-" prefix in both singular and plural contexts. The paper also discusses classes 7 and 8, which differentiate nouns starting with "ch-" in singular and "z-" in plural, and classes 9 and 10, where nouns generally maintain the same form between singular and plural, using "i-" for singular and "zi-" for plural. Diminutive prefixes "ka-" and "ti-" classify nouns into classes 12 and 13, while nouns beginning with "u-" or forming plurals with "ma-" are assigned to classes 14 and 6, respectively. The study further explores locative prefixes, with class 15 involving gerund forms with "ku- ", class 16 using "pa-" for "on", class 17 using "ku-" for "at", and class 18 using "mu-" for "in". These classifications not only highlight the morphological complexity and systematic nature of Chichewa grammar and syntax but also provide a comprehensive framework for understanding and effectively using the language, offering valuable insights for linguists, language learners, and educators.

“A thought group is a group, not a thought!” results of a teaching intervention on complex noun phrases in Canadian EAP programs

Complex noun phrases (CNPs) are a major vehicle of academic written discourse. However, despite posing significant challenges to English language learners (ELLs), they are rarely taught in post-secondary English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programs. This article reports on a quasi-experimental study on the usefulness of explicit teaching of the structure and use of CNPs in Canadian post-secondary EAP programs for the purposes of reading comprehension. Specially designed modules on CNP structure and use were integrated into advanced reading and writing EAP courses taught to 96 first-year college and university ELLs over the course of a semester. 102 ELLs in different sections of the same courses had regular instruction without the CNP modules. Pre- and post-test scores were analyzed using a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM), and the teaching intervention was found to have a significant effect on the post-test scores in the experimental group. The relative success of the intervention is analyzed in relation to the literature on form-focused teaching interventions in reading courses. The article concludes by discussing opportunities for further integration of CNP instruction in EAP curricula.

An NLP-Based Exploration of Variance in Student Writing and Syntax: Implications for Automated Writing Evaluation

In writing assessment, expert human evaluators ideally judge individual essays with attention to variance among writers’ syntactic patterns. There are many ways to compose text successfully or less successfully. For automated writing evaluation (AWE) systems to provide accurate assessment and relevant feedback, they must be able to consider similar kinds of variance. The current study employed natural language processing (NLP) to explore variance in syntactic complexity and sophistication across clusters characterized in a large corpus (n = 36,207) of middle school and high school argumentative essays. Using NLP tools, k-means clustering, and discriminant function analysis (DFA), we observed that student writers employed four distinct syntactic patterns: (1) familiar and descriptive language, (2) consistently simple noun phrases, (3) variably complex noun phrases, and (4) moderate complexity with less familiar language. Importantly, each pattern spanned the full range of writing quality; there were no syntactic patterns consistently evaluated as “good” or “bad”. These findings support the need for nuanced approaches in automated writing assessment while informing ways that AWE can participate in that process. Future AWE research can and should explore similar variability across other detectable elements of writing (e.g., vocabulary, cohesion, discursive cues, and sentiment) via diverse modeling methods.

Rhymes and Syntax: A Morpho-Syntactic Analysis of Czech Poetry

A linguistically informed distant reading presupposes an adequate performance of Natural Language Processing tools. This article describes our evaluation of the UDPipe parser on a manually annotated sample of nineteenth-century Czech poetry in the following steps: (1) creation of a documented data set for this domain (poetry, nineteenth century, Czech); (2) domain-specific annotation decisions; (3) error analysis. The sample consisted of 29 randomly selected poems which were first automatically tagged and parsed with the UDPipe parser and then manually checked word by word. The following features were checked: word segmentation (chunking), lemmatization, part of speech assignment, assignment of more fine-grained morphological details, the position in the syntactic dependency tree (selection of the syntactic parent), as well as the label of the syntactic relation between the word and its parent. The findings were analyzed. The most typical parser errors are associated with complex noun phrases that contain other noun(s) as modifier(s), especially when these occur in a poetry-specific word order, that is, preposed to the governing noun. On the other hand, neither archaic orthography nor neologisms posed substantial issues.

Logical Relations and Noun Phrase Complexity of EFL Students’ Academic Writing to Promote Literacy Development Cycle Teaching Model

Academic writing has become more important, especially for academicians who are required to publish articles in a reputable journal. However, meeting journals’ quality standards is not an easy task. Graduate students as prospective academicians need to improve their writing style to be competent academic writers because previous studies revealed that writing style covering clause simplex, clause complex, and complex noun phrase are problematic for them. This qualitative case study explored the logical relations of clause complexes and complex noun phrases of clause simplexes found in graduate students' unpublished academic writing. It employed genre analysis for examining 20 graduate students' unpublished research papers collected using purposive sampling technique. The findings revealed that the students mostly produced choppy texts. They utilized parataxis (47.3%) and hypotaxis (52.7%). Concerning logico-semantic relation, the expansion relation is dominant (76.8%). In terms of complex noun phrase, 20.7% occurrences were found in clause simplexes, in which attributive adjective pre-modifiers and prepositional phrase post modifiers were dominant. Furthermore, the interviews revealed that the students' writing problems derived from their lack of awareness and low literacy of academic writing characteristics. Based on the research findings, a teaching model of the literacy development cycle is recommended to enhance students’ skills in academic writing.

Toward a Universal Dependencies Treebank of Old English: Representing the Morphological Relatedness of Un-Derivatives

This article deals with one of the aspects involved in the compilation of a treebank of Old English within the framework of Universal Dependencies. More specifically, this study addresses the question of how to account for the remarkable degree of Old English morphological relatedness in a type of treebank designed to stress syntactic similarities across languages. The solution proposed and assessed in this study is the addition of an extra field of annotation for morphological relatedness. The data of this analysis comprise 1106 derivatives attaching the prefix un-. Out of these, there are around 80 morphologically complex nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs whose derivation cannot be described gradually, 33 of which are unique formations or hapax legomena according to the attestations provided by the Dictionary of Old English Corpus. The main conclusion is that the specification of short-distance and long-distance morphological relatedness provides the Old English treebank with a paradigmatic dimension that can be particularly relevant for languages with relatively generalised and transparent derivational morphology.

Leveraging Semantic Text Analysis to Improve the Performance of Transformer-Based Relation Extraction

Keyword extraction from Knowledge Bases underpins the definition of relevancy in Digital Library search systems. However, it is the pertinent task of Joint Relation Extraction, which populates the Knowledge Bases from which results are retrieved. Recent work focuses on fine-tuned, Pre-trained Transformers. Yet, F1 scores for scientific literature achieve just 53.2, versus 69 in the general domain. The research demonstrates the failure of existing work to evidence the rationale for optimisations to finetuned classifiers. In contrast, emerging research subjectively adopts the common belief that Natural Language Processing techniques fail to derive context and shared knowledge. In fact, global context and shared knowledge account for just 10.4% and 11.2% of total relation misclassifications, respectively. In this work, the novel employment of semantic text analysis presents objective challenges for the Transformer-based classification of Joint Relation Extraction. This is the first known work to quantify that pipelined error propagation accounts for 45.3% of total relation misclassifications, the most poignant challenge in this domain. More specifically, Part-of-Speech tagging highlights the misclassification of complex noun phrases, accounting for 25.47% of relation misclassifications. Furthermore, this study identifies two limitations in the purported bidirectionality of the Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) Pre-trained Language Model. Firstly, there is a notable imbalance in the misclassification of right-to-left relations, which occurs at a rate double that of left-to-right relations. Additionally, a failure to recognise local context through determiners and prepositions contributes to 16.04% of misclassifications. Furthermore, it is highlighted that the annotation scheme of the singular dataset utilised in existing research, Scientific Entities, Relations and Coreferences (SciERC), is marred by ambiguity. Notably, two asymmetric relations within this dataset achieve recall rates of only 10% and 29%.

Linguistic complexity measures of short narrative writings for modeling overall Chinese proficiency

This study investigates whether linguistic complexity measures of short narrative writings can model overall proficiency in Chinese as a second language. A sample of native Japanese undergraduate students with intermediate (n = 34) and advanced (n = 43) levels of Chinese proficiency, and a sample of native speakers of Chinese (n = 43) altogether provided 240 short narrative essays in Chinese, with a minimum length of 30 characters and an actual grand mean length of 45 characters. Linguistic complexity measures, as discussed in relevant literature, were identified and coded in the essays. Multivariate analyses of variance tests suggest that learners across proficiency levels performed significantly differently on 11 complexity measures of short narrative writings. Multinomial logistic regression further revealed that six of these measures (lexical diversity, high-difficulty vocabulary, complex noun phrase ratio, average sentence length, error-free T-unit ratio, and the first-person singular pronoun) could collectively distinguish student writers’ general Chinese proficiency levels, with an overall accuracy rate approaching 0.80. The implications of the findings of this study for writing assessments and writing instruction are discussed.

Номинация растений по признаку сходства с другими растениями в финно-пермских языках

Phytonymy, an important part of the nominal vocabulary, is a subject of study that has significance in linguistics and other disciplines such as history and ethnography. This paper examines the nomination of plants by comparing them with other plant names from the vocabulary of Finno-Permic languages. The aim is to describe how the folk names of a plant are nominat-ed based on their similarity to other plants by analyzing common nomination patterns in relat-ed languages and examining various aspects of the nomination process. The data were taken from various lexicographic sources, monographs, and articles. In total, more than a hundred folk phytonyms were considered. These are complex nouns comprising two or three components connected by a subordinating conjunction. The plant name to which the nomination object is compared takes the last place in such phytonyms. The names under consideration were found to be produced mostly based on two main attributes: resemblance to another plant and an additional characteristic such as color, habitat, growth period, taste, or fragrance. Flora vocabulary was studied mainly by descriptive methods, with component and semantic analysis approaches used in some cases. In the Finno-Permic languages, plant nomination based on similarity with another plant is less prevalent compared to nominations based on other features. We believe that it is due to the late origin of this intricate form of nomination that has led to its separate development in each language. Several plants, such as willow, peas, anemone, and horsetail, are particularly prevalent as objects of comparison.

AN ANALYSIS OF MORPHOSYNTACTIC CONSTRUCTION OF ENGLISH WRITING TEXT PRODUCED BY THE POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS AT UNISMUH MAKASSAR

This research aimed to find out the most frequent types of inflectional suffixes, derivational suffixes, noun phrases and verb phrases produced by the Postgraduate Students in writing argumentative text. This research used Descriptive Quantitative Research. The data were obtained by using writing test. The samples of this research were 16 Postgraduate Students of English Education Master Program in Academic Year 2023 selected by using Total Sampling Technique. The results of data analysis from 16 samples found that 1) The inflectional suffixes of plurality {-s} were 46,06%, 3rd person singular {s/es} were 8.33%, past tense/passive {-ed} were 14.58%, participle {-ing} were 17.59 %, possessive {-s} were 3,93%, and comparative/ superlative degrees {er/est} were 3.47%. 2) The derivational suffixes forming noun were 52.4%, forming verb were 3.2%, forming adjective were 23.92%, and forming adverb were 19.28%. 3) The constructions of simple noun phrases were 18.86%, rather complex noun phrases were 23.58 %, and very complex noun phrases were 56.83%. 4) The constructions of simple verb phrases were 82.5% and rather complex verb phrases were 16.87%. Thus, it can be concluded that the most frequent types of inflectional suffixes used by the students were plurality {-s}, the type of derivational suffixes was noun formation, the type of noun phrases was very complex noun phrases, and the type of verb phrases was simple verb phrases.

Agreement Attraction Errors among Saudi Non-Native English Speakers

Agreement attraction errors are one of the errors that language users make, and psycholinguists examine as a window into how language processing functions. Agreement attraction errors arise if a sentence has a complex noun phrase with the main noun acting as the controller of agreement and a local noun acting as the attractor for agreement. Earlier research has shown that phrases tend to have more agreement errors than clauses among native speakers of English. This study investigated whether agreement attraction errors are more in phrases than clauses among non-native English speakers with varying proficiency levels from Saudi Arabia, as little has been done on non-native speakers of English. The study used a forced-choice task by instructing the participants to select either singular or plural verbs for each complex noun phrase that was displayed. The quantity and quality of their agreement errors—whether in prepositional phrases or relative clauses—were examined in the study. Furthermore, it contrasted reaction time for items with prepositional phrases to items with relative clauses. Proficiency level was also reviewed to determine how it affected agreement attraction errors. No statistically significant difference was found between the two types, but processing items with prepositional phrases took longer than processing items with relative clauses. Despite past research suggesting that agreement errors are more common in phrases than clauses, the current study did not find this difference to be of significance. The complexity of both sorts of errors is equal among the sample, and proficiency proved to be irrelevant.

THE PROBLEM OF COMPLEX VERBS IN KAZAKH LINGUISTICS

In this research, the structure of the language system has been sufficiently investigated. In Kazakh linguistics, the verb as a part of speech in the structural aspect has been the object of many research works; grammatical features and lexical-semantic groups are determined. However, there are problems that have not been resolved about verbs. One of these problems concerns compound verbs. The article analyzes linguistic units that are called complex verbs in textbooks, monographs, academic grammars and belongs to different categories; explains the concept of "complex verb", its relationship with the concept of "compound word". Because the verbs in the Kazakh language, which are described as complex verbs, grammatically differ from the concepts of complex nouns, complex adjectives, complex numerals. The author analyzes the main approaches to the classification and formulation of conclusions regarding the definition of complex verbs in the Kazakh language and the differentiation of their types. As well as complex verbs, analytical forms of verbs, complex forms formed by the auxiliary verb edi, phrasal verbs, compound verbs are considered from such aspects as semantic, structural, morphological; their affiliation to language levels and grammatical features are indicated.

Noun Classes and Agreement in Lutsotso

One of the most noticeable grammatical features of Bantu languages, is the presence of noun classes. Although each noun (or noun stem) in the majority of Bantu languages is classified into one of 15–18 noun classes, Lutsotso language captures 21 classes. While it is frequently hard to distinguish between noun classes semantically, basic meanings or semantic trends of subsets of members may frequently be identified. Lutsotso nouns consist of a noun prefix and a root. The two elements of the Lutsotso nominal are crucial because the prefix, for example, denotes the class. Complex agreement morphology in the noun phrase and the sentence is controlled by class membership, which is indicated morphologically on the noun by a class prefix. As such, the prefix functions as a classifier. Agreement is a type of syntactic connection in which a word's or phrase's inflectional behaviour is dictated by the features of a nominal element to which it is closely connected. Number, person, case, and gender are examples of agreement markers. The class to which the head noun belongs must be reflected throughout the phrase in Bantu languages. This is accomplished through the use of concordial prefixes, which have distinct forms for the parts of speech to which they are attached. There is no discrete number morphology in Bantu languages, but the noun class system mediates number; numerous noun classes are paired according to number, forming singular-plural pairs. The Noun (N) component element of the simple sentence exists as a complex Noun phrase (NP) with nominal qualities indicated by affixes. Accordingly, concord prefixes control and impact the words connected with them in the Lutsotso noun phrase. The study discovered that concord prefixes sustain the grammatical relationship between the head noun and the rest of the noun phrase.

Criteria for writing compound nouns (contact-hyphen) in modern Russian orthography

The subject of the study is the regularities of the distribution of merged and hyphenated spellings of complex nouns in modern rules. Special attention is paid to identifying the main criteria for the design of the words of the studied group in the "Rules of Russian spelling and punctuation" of 1956, which still have the status of a set of spelling norms of the state language. Since the current rules are outdated, the work also considers the prescriptions of updated, but not having an official status, academic rulebooks: the complete academic handbook of 2006 and the newest electronic resource of OROSS "Spelling commentary of the Russian Dictionary" by E. V. Beshenkova, O. E. Ivanova, E. V. Tenkova. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time it analyzes the modern rules of spelling of complex nouns and the criteria underlying them. The established inconsistency of codification of these norms originates in the "Rules of Russian Spelling and Punctuation" of 1956 and is further developed in modern reference and educational literature, in particular in the complete academic handbook of 2006. As a result, it is concluded that it is necessary to include in the basic set of spelling rules a section containing the basic rules for distinguishing between merged and hyphenated spellings, set out briefly, simply and clearly.

Cebuano-Visayan Superbalita Select News Articles: A Morphosyntactic Analysis

The present study conducted an analysis of the morphosyntactic structures found in three specific news articles from the Cebuano-Visayan SuperBalita publication. The articles in question are titled "34 ka menor naluwas sa CCPO", "Signal Shutdown Sa Pasigarbo Sa Sugbo", and "Manindahay Sa Carbon Nabalaka Sa Grabi'ng Alkansi". The study aimed to address the following inquiries: the immediate constituents and rewrite rules of syntactic structures and the morphemic structures that comprise the content words within sentences of the news articles. The research employed a qualitative approach, specifically utilizing structural analysis. The frameworks of Corder's linear grammar and Pesirla's pedagogic grammar were employed, yielding the subsequent discoveries: The analysis of the three chosen textual samples revealed the presence of sixteen simple sentences, eleven complex sentences, and one compound sentence, specifically sentence 3, which was identified through its corresponding rewrite rules. The second problem's data unveiled the morphemic structures of content words, exhibiting a total of fifty nouns, fifty-eight verbs, five adjectives, and five adverbs. Most of the nouns present in the text are in their simple form, while three of them are compound nouns, namely uplan bulabug, minur di idad, and tunga’ng gabi. The prefix "ka" is employed in the formation of five complex nouns, namely kadagku-an, kagamhanan, kalihukan, kahigayuan, and kasumaran. On the other hand, the base words pama-agi and pasigarbu are utilized in the formation of the remaining two complex nouns, using the prefixes "pama" and "pasi". Most verb prefixes are observed to be bound morphemes, specifically "gi", "nag", "mag", "gipa", and "mu". The three chosen news articles from Cebuano-Visayan Superbalita exhibit the manifestation of morphosyntactic linearity, as indicated by the findings. Therefore, additional research on morphology and syntax may serve as a starting point for discourse that employs indigenous languages.

How Do Intermediate Grade Students With and Without Language-Based Learning Disabilities Use Noun Phrases in Narrative Writing?

Noun phrase usage and elaboration is an important feature of literate language. In this study, we described noun phrase usage and elaboration in the narrative writing samples of intermediate grade students with and without language-based learning disabilities. Narrative writing samples from 64 students in fourth through sixth grades were coded for five types of noun phrases using coding procedures adapted from prior research. Noun phrase ratios (NPR) were calculated for each type of noun phrase evaluated in the study. NPRs represented the proportion of noun phrases to total clauses produced in the sample. Students in this study included all five types of noun phrases in their narrative writing to varying degrees. Between-group differences were observed in the frequency of complex noun phrase usage. Significant relationships between NPRs, analytic writing measures, and a standardized reading measure were observed. Noun phrase usage is an important consideration for both theoretical and clinical purposes. Findings from this study are related to theoretical models of writing and levels of language frameworks. The clinical relevance for noun phrase assessment and intervention for intermediate grade students with language-based learning disability is discussed.

Associative plurals and their associates

Abstract This paper presents an integrated approach to the morphosyntax of the three nominal plural markers of Hungarian: multiplicative -k, possessive -i, and associative plural -ék. It explicates the relationship between the associative and multiplicative plural markers, and between the associative plural and the anaphoric possession marker -é. Central in the analysis proposed is the hypothesis that the marker -é consistently plays the role of a predicational relator formally licensing the silence of one of the two terms in the predication relationship that it mediates. The syntax underlying the associative plural involves an asyndetic coordination relation in which the content of a silent plural pronoun is specified by a complex noun phrase headed by the silent noun group. The analysis has im-plications for the syntax of number and demonstratives and for the licensing of silent nouns and pronouns.

Kant’s “in itself”: Toward a New Adverbial Reading

Abstract It is commonly assumed that the expression “an sich selbst” (“in itself”) in Kant combines with terms to form complex nouns such as “thing in itself” and “end in itself.” I argue that the basic use of “an sich selbst” in Kant’s German is as a sentence adverb, which has the role of modifying subject-predicate combinations, rather than either subject or predicate on their own. Expressions of the form “S is P an sich selbst” mean roughly that S is P ‘in its own right’ or without some further ‘condition’. Accordingly, “an sich selbst” should not be treated as forming complex nouns. This analysis has significant consequences for the interpretation of “thing in itself” in particular, for it implies that the latter is not a complete nominal expression. Instead, one must treat ‘an sich selbst’ as expressing how some S is a ‘thing’, looking to the wider sentential context. I conclude with a brief account of the new significance granted to the concept of a ‘thing’ (Ding) according to the present interpretation.