Conjunctions In English Research Articles

Usage disambiguation of Turkish discourse connectives

This paper describes a rule-based approach and a machine learning approach to disambiguate the discourse usage of Turkish connectives, which not only has single and phrasal connectives as most languages do, but also suffixal connectives that largely correspond to subordinating conjunctions in English. Since these connectives have different linguistic characteristics, two sets of linguistic rules are devised to disambiguate their discourse usage. The linguistic rules are used in the rule-based approach and employed as feature sets in the machine learning approach to test whether they influenced the decision of our algorithms. The results of both approaches are evaluated over the Turkish section of TED-Multilingual Discourse Bank and Turkish Discourse Bank 1.1, two datasets annotated in the Penn Discourse TreeBank style. The paper attests to the predictive power of the linguistic rules in disambiguating the discourse usage of both types of connectives also offering new knowledge and insights for discourse processing from the view of a morphologically rich language.

The Use of Conjunctions Among L1 Luganda Speakers of English

The study looks at the use of conjunctions among L1 Luganda speakers of English as a second language (L2) in Uganda. Using a corpus compiled from oral and written discourse, the study found that the conjunction mostly used among L1 Luganda speakers of English was “and”, followed by “but”, both of which were marginally used as sentence openers, with the written data showing no single incidence of using “and” in this respect. It was also established that a number of English conjunctions were either totally absent or only used sporadically in both types of discourse. For example, correlatives such as “scarcely…when, no sooner…than” were completely absent from our corpus. Substrate influence from Luganda has been seen to have a role, not least in the co-extensive use of “although/though” with “but” in subordination, although analogy appears to work synergistically with substrate influence here (see Andersen, 1983). Innovations involving the rejection of constructions with the conjunction “if” were observed with regard to what appear to be mixed tenses (e.g. If you did not study chemistry at lower levels, you will not understand this concept), although in L1 English such constructions are legitimate since they do not encode the semantic relation of condition (Swan, 2005). Given that L1 Luganda speakers of English are Ugandans, this aspect of the findings in the study lends itself to observations made in earlier studies (e.g. Ssempuuma, Isingoma & Meierkord, 2016; Isingoma, 2021) on the structural nativization of English in Uganda as well as trends towards endonormativity in the sense of Schneider (2007).

Translation as a tool in linguistic analysis

The English conjunction ‘if’ and its functional equivalents in Russian and in Bulgarian, which normally introduce conditional clauses, have a variety of other functions which may or may not be connected with their invariant meanings. The use of ‘if’ in combination with the negative particle ‘not’ and with the comparative connective ‘as’ to introduce syntactic elements other than conditional clauses is characterised with a whole spectrum of func¬tional meanings, such as concession, gradation, implied suggestion, etc. These meanings and nuances of meaning, which sometimes pose real pro¬blems for the linguist, come to the surface in translations from and into English, Bulgarian and Russian. Interpretations and inter-language trans¬formations involved in the process of translation play the role of semantic analysis and reveal functional peculiarities which are often overlooked in mono-lingual or even in contrastive grammars.

Peculiarities of complex sentences with object clauses in the texts of mathematical works in the english and french languages

The aim of the article is to study the basic structural and semantic qualities of two-component complex sentences with object clauses functioning in mathematical works in English and French. The works of outstanding modern mathematicians in the field of differential geometry and algebraic topology served as a material for the research. Using the technique of continuous sampling the authors extracted the sentences to be studied. The basic principles of communicative grammar, structural and semantic analysis, as well as statistical methods to process the extracted material, were applied. For the difficult material to be apprehended properly the language of mathematical works must obey some definite syntactical laws. Complex sentences with clear subordination of clauses favor to a great extent the logical consecutive statement of the mathematical text. Having a more complicated structure than simple sentences they are more evident in semantic facilitating apprehension of the information being conveyed. Constructions with object clauses are highly productive among the complex sentences of the inseparable type. As a rule, it is the subordinate clause that contains somewhat new that promotes the advancement of the course of reasoning whereas the main clause is assigned only an auxiliary part. The article covers such important features of the studied sentences as the position and construction of the main and subordinate clauses, their means of connection, morphological and semantic properties of the subordinating word, etc. In the course of analysis of these structures in the two languages, some common features (for example, the absolute predominance of the preposition of the main clause), as well as considerable differences (for example, the absence of a conjunction in English) are revealed, which should be taken into account at working with the texts of mathematical works in these languages.

The Comparison Between English Conjunction and Indonesian Conjunctiona

This research was carried out to describe the Conjunctions in English and Bahasa Indonesia and also suggest improving teaching grammar and speaking for which a library research was carried out to acquire the data. An available in the conclusion descriptive method was carried out to describe the findings. This research focused on the similarities and dissimilarities in the conjunctions in the two systems. The finding show that from the whole comparisson of function and position were exists this means that the application of subordinating conjunctions in speaking or writing is still in low rank.

THE STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN USING CONJUNCTIONS (A DESCRIPTIVE QUANTITATIVE STUDY OF THE SIXTH SEMESTER STUDENTS OF ENGLISH STUDY PROGRAM BENGKULU UNIVERSITY)

The purpose of this research was to describe the ability of the students in 6th semester of English study program in using English conjunctions. The design of this research used descriptive quantitative study. The population of this research was 78 students in English study program Bengkulu University and the samples were 65 students. In collecting the data, the researcher used multiple choices conjunctions test. Based on the finding of the research, the ability of the students in using coordinate conjunctions was in enough category with the mean scores 61. The ability of the students in using correlative conjunction was good with the mean scores 79. The ability of the students in using relative conjunction was good with the mean score 78. The ability of the students in using subordinate conjunction was good with mean score 78, the same as the ability in using relative conjunction. According to the result in every type of conjunctions, the researcher concluded that the ability of the students in using conjunctions was in enough category with the mean score 74.

A Corpus-based Study of Chinese EFL Learners’ Employment of although

Although is a frequently used subordinating conjunction in English. However, non-nativeness is often observed in Chinese EFL learners’ although output during pedagogical practice. This paper aims at exploring the characteristics of Chinese EFL learners’ although employment in Chinese EFL learners’ writing. The study is a corpus-based analysis launched under the analytical framework of contrastive interlanguage analysis. The interlanguage hypothesis lays the theoretical foundation of the present study. Texts from two corpora—the Chinese learner English corpus [CLEC] and the “arts and humanities” disciplinary group of the British academic written English corpus [sub-BAWEC]—are analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively with the help of concordance software Antconc 3.2.1 and statistics program PASW Statistics 18. Based on the findings, conclusions are drawn as follows: 1) Chinese EFL learners tend to underuse although and produce mono-structural although clauses in their writing. Nevertheless, they share similar preference on deciding although placement in clauses with native English speakers; and 2) Factors such as interlingual difference between English and Mandarin Chinese, pedagogical neglect in English classrooms and different cognitive styles influence Chinese EFL learners’ although employment.

The Functions of 'or' and 'aw': Implications for Translation

The aim of the present study is to identify and compare the salient functions that the English conjunction or and the Arabic conjunction أو 'aw' 1 may perform. It also attempts to pinpoint the implications of this comparison for the translating process. In addition, it investigates the meanings of 'aw' in the Glorious Qur'an and the ways it is rendered in four English translations of the Qur'an with the aim of shedding light on some of the difficulties and translation problems encountered in this regard. It was shown that both or and 'aw' have multiple functions. In addition, it is found that or ( nor in negative structures) is not the only possible English translation equivalent of 'aw' . There are potential various non-synonymous translation equivalents of 'aw' in English. These include or , and , but , unless/except/but not when , until , and either…or . They represent the different meanings that 'aw' has, namely alternative, uncertainty, deliberate ambiguity, division, absolute addition, exception, continuance of an action to a specified time, and nexus 2 question.

The Arabic Origins of "Prepositions and Conjunctions" in English and European Languages: A Lexical Root Theory Approach

This paper investigates the Arabic cognates or origins of prepositions and conjunctions in English, German, French, Latin, Greek, Russian, and Sanskrit from a lexical root theory perspective. The data consists of 104 such terms like about, at, after, among, amid, before, behind, beneath, beside, between, by, despite, in, on, to, in front of, lateral to, like, anterior to, then, than, near, next to, prior to, posterior to, toward, since, and, or, but, so, for, including, however, moreover, therefore . The results exhibit that all such words have true Arabic cognates, with the same or similar forms and meanings. However, their different forms are all found to be due to natural and plausible causes and different courses of linguistic change. For example, English by and German bei are true cognates of Arabic bi 'in, with, by, for'; English to and German zu come from Arabic kai 'to, in order to' or 2atta 'to' via /2/-loss; English than (then) 'originally the ' derives from Arabic dha 'this' via /n/-insertion; English though (although) descended via Old English 'theah (this)' and German doch from Arabic dha(h) 'this'; English however (how + ever) obtains from Arabic kaifa 'how', turning /k & h/ into /h & w/. Consequently, the results indicate, contrary to Comparative Method claims, that Arabic, English, and all (Indo-)European languages belong to the same language, let alone the same family. They, therefore, prove the adequacy of the lexical root theory according to which Arabic, English, German, French, Latin, and Greek are dialects of the same language with Arabic being their origin all because of its phonetic complexity and huge lexical variety and multiplicity.

An Analysis of Errors in English Writing Made by Chinese and Korean University Students

This study adopted Kim (2009)’s error classification system, based on from Dulay, Burt and Krashen (1982)’s linguistic classification of errors. Errors in 168 English essays written by Chinese and Korean university students were identified and coded by three coders using NVivo. The analysis shows that some errors such as run-on sentences, the omission of articles and plural suffix-s, and sentence misordering can be caused by the negative transfer from learners’ first language. This phenomenon is highlighted by the contrastive analysis hypothesis (CAH). In Chinese, for example, commas are used in a multifunctional way. They can be used as either periods or conjunctions, which results in run-on sentences and the omission of conjunctions in English. No articles exist in the Chinese and Korean languages, which is also the reason for the omission of English articles. Different use of plural forms in Chinese and Korean makes it difficult for EFL learners to master in English. The Korean SOV structure also confuses many Korean university students when they construct their English SVO sentences. Meanwhile, some errors can be caused just because of learners’ own creative construction regardless of their first language background, such as the misformation of verbs and nouns. This error cluster is illustrated by the creative construction hypothesis (CCH). The results indicate that both the occurrence of CAH and CCH are reasonable to some extent. The comparative analysis of errors in English writing made by Chinese and Korean university students shows a general picture of common errors made by these English learners as comprised of both CAH and CCH type errors. The reasons these errors were made are also explored, especially reasons related to their first language.

THE ABILITY OF STUDENTS IN USING ENGLISH CONJUNCTION (CASE STUDY AT SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL SMA NEGERI 5 BANDA ACEH)

This research is about the ability of Students in Using EnglishConjunction. The aim of this study is to measure the ability of second year students ofSenior high school in using English conjunctions. The samples of this research were57 second semester students of senior high school. The determination of the sampleswas done randomly. In collecting the data, they were given a set of test inunderstanding the usage of conjunction. The number of items are 40, they weredivided into two parts, the first part (completed the paragraph in using coordinatingand subordinating conjunction) and the second part (complete the sentence in usingcoordinating and subordinating conjunction). In processing data the writer used thestatistical procedure such as, the range score, the interval width, the interval class, thefrequency distribution, and arithmetic mean ( X ). From the data analysis the meanscore of second semester students of senior high school is 60,15. It is considered thecriteria of value in this research is not enough. It is recommended to the researchwhich relates to the ability of second semester students of senior high school in usingconjunctions or other the same level can be continued by other researchers so that theunbreakable problems can be solved in the future.

Syntactic Variability in Spoken English Discourse through Age Dimensions

The present article demonstrates certain syntactic expressions of the informal spoken English discourse among native speakers belonging to different age groups. The data of our analysis demonstrate that the frequency of the application of linguistic variables differs among different age categories of native speakers. This is particularly expressed in the frequency of the use of English conjunctions and and but in terms of the frequent use of attributive clauses and adverbial clauses with because.

Seeing as though

In this article we address a hitherto unstudied causal conjunction in English,seeing as though. Occurring predominantly in informal registers, the conjunction is typically used to introduce information which the speaker takes to be self-evidently true and on whose basis some further comment, or query, is made. Drawing on data derived from internet searches we draw up a semantic profile of the expression in comparison and contrast with other reason connectives, namely, seeing (that)andsince. The data suggest thatseeing as thoughis associated with highly subjective construals of the reason relation. We also address the internal structure of the expression. The use ofseeingin a reason conjunction is traced to a common conceptual metaphor, wherebyknowing is seeing. More puzzling is the occurrence ofas though. While rejecting the possibility of a compositional analysis of the expression, we note thatas thoughis only one of a number of items which can occur with causalseeing. These items have to do with the appearance of things and are in fact able to occur as complementizers after predicates of seeming and appearing. To this extent,as thoughis consistent with the subjectivity associated with the complex conjunction. In the course of our investigation, we also document the extraordinary proliferation of reason connectives that involve lexical items such asseeing,as,though, and several others, and suggest that this exuberance of new forms may not be unrelated to the subjectivity inherent in the construal of causal relations.

The effects of online conjunction materials on college EFL students’ writing

Misuse of English conjunction related to incoherent writing, according to the literature, comes from learners’ first language interference, improper mechanical exercises, and misleading lists of connectors in textbooks demonstrated as if mutually interchangeable without contextual constraints. Form-focused instruction with explicit semantic, stylistic and syntactic properties can help learning of connectors. Additionally, computer learner corpus analysis which identifies systematic interlanguage patterns in Chinese learner data offers pedagogical insights for the current study. Four Web-based online conjunction units based on principles from related literature and learner corpus analyses were designed for 19 EFL college students to use for a month with sentence-beyond contexts concerning stylistic properties and overuse situations. Before and after the project, a gap-filling test on conjunctors and a writing task were used, followed by an evaluation questionnaire on students’ perception. Results indicated that students generally held a positive attitude toward the online units and demonstrated statistically significant improvements in the use of connectors in both the test and free production contexts. The case study argues that pedagogically sound instructional design for online conjunction materials can help college EFL learners write more accurate and coherent essays.

Towards a new typology of connectives with special reference to conjunction in English and Korean

This paper discusses the semantic and pragmatic properties of conjunction in English and Korean, suggesting a new typology of connectives. In this new typology, connectives are no longer classified as belonging to one of the two categories of meaning, i.e. conceptual or procedural meaning [Semantic Constraints on Relevance, Blackwell, Oxford, Blakemore, (1987)]. Instead, it is claimed that some connectives, including conjunction, have both conceptual and procedural meaning. This line of argument is represented by means of a scale or cline of meaning over which the various meanings of a connective range from logical connection to inferential meaning. One of the crucial assumptions regarding the cline of meaning is that the further we move in the inferential direction, the more inferencing is needed.

DEALING WITH AMBIGUITIES IN ENGLISH CONJUNCTIONS AND COMPARATIVES BY A DETERMINISTIC PARSER

The major problems in parsing English conjunctions and comparatives are ambiguities of scoping and ellipsis. Scoping ambiguities occur when a parser cannot deterministically detect boundaries of constituents, while ellipsis ambiguities occur when a parser cannot deterministically detect missing components. Since simple lookahead mechanisms cannot collect adequate information to resolve these ambiguities, a parsing strategy that only employs such mechanisms will need to backtrack each time it makes incorrect assumptions. In this paper, we extend the Wait-And-See strategy to parse conjunctions and comparatives deterministically and simultaneously. Several mechanisms, such as bottom-up preparsing, suspension, and pattern matching, are implemented. The bottom-up preparsing accesses the dictionary and recognizes isolated sentence fragments which can be determined without ambiguities. The suspension, which is different from Marcus’s attention shifting, allows the parser to suspend temporally at ambiguous points and continue to parse the rest of the sentence until it obtains the necessary information to resolve the ambiguities. Pattern matching uses the concept of symmetry to detect missing components (the ellipses) in the two conjoined or compared sentence fragments.

Old English Coordination, Apposition, and the Syntax of English Poetry

Fred Robinson has shown how the Beowulf poet uses variation for thematic as well as ornamental purposes. Yet though apposition is perhaps the defining stylistic characteristic of Old English poetry, not all juxtapositions are the appositional phrases that modern readers expect in this literature. Some juxtapositions enumerate items in a list. In the modern English phrase, banker, his wife, and the mother of his children, the noun phrases can be either appositional variations with the same referent or conjoined items with different referents. I shall argue that the distinction between these two structures is clearer in Old English poetry than in modern English because of the role of the half-line unit in punctuating the syntax. Old English prose does not have the half-line; it makes use of other means to disambiguate the two structures. The most notable of these are the other patterns of conjunction still found in later poetry and prose. To follow most translators of Old English poetry and assume a modern English kind of ambiguity in phrases of the form A, B, and C ultimately weakens the position of appositional variation. Since the Beowulf poet uses variation to clarify poetic words,3 it is unlikely that such a poet would introduce variation where it confusingly increases structural ambiguity. Moreover, Old English prose sharply distinguishes enumeration from variation, even though variation is not nearly so characteristic of prose as it is of verse. It is only in verse that juxtaposition appears to substitute for conjunction so extensively that modern readers despair of distinguishing among the series that enumerate and the series that contain appositives. Solving this puzzle requires seeing that Old English prose takes the prosaic license of adding compensatory conjunctions. The medium of prose leaves its writers bereft of the resources afforded by the metrical line for defining enumerative series in verse. Variation was not the only threat to the poets' goal of simple, unhierarchical enumeration. The grammatical subordination exercised by the Old English conjunction ond posed an equally great problem. The poets countered both forces with a simple prescriptive rule that can be deduced from the poems we have. The rule states, in part, that the line-ending can substitute for a conjunction whenever an immediately subsequent half-line is a conjoined pair. Though juxtaposition alone was ambiguous, the enumerative series could use it without introducing ambiguity as long as the subsequent half-line cued the expressed conjunction. Therefore, though metrical requirements made for potential ambiguity in verse, the verse line itself superimposed a phrasal unit, the half-line, that was more clearly

Conjunction in meta-restriction grammar

This paper describes Meta-Restriction Grammar for parsing coordinate conjunction in English. Meta-Restriction Grammar consists of Restriction Grammar, a logic grammar implementation of Sager's String Grammar, plus a metagrammatical component that automatically rewrites “base” grammar rules into more complex rules to handle coordinate conjunction. The approach resembles Sedogbo's approach of “empty elements” or “holes.” This avoids the combinatorial explosion due to backtracking in the treatment of Woods, Sager, and Dahl and McCord. Restriction Grammar is well suited to metagrammar extensions, because the absence of parameters in grammar rules facilitates the statement of metarules. The metagrammatical component generates grammar rules specifying allowable conjoinings at limited types of nodes, to reduce redundancy. Meta-Restriction Grammar represents both the surface structure and a regularized structure (via pointers to elided elements) for efficient computation of selectional restrictions. This approach is sufficiently powerful to handle a number of complex phenomena, such as conjunction with comma (as distinguished from the appositive construction), paired conjunctions such as both ... and, either ... or, and scoping of left noun modifiers under conjunction. One of the great attractions of the metagrammar approach is that the grammar can be translated and compiled, resulting in an efficient treatment of conjunction (parse times of 1 to 3 seconds per parse). This contracts with the interrupt-driven approach, where an interpreter generates rules for conjoining structures on demand, making it impossible to compile the complete grammar.

Coordination and how to distinguish categories

In this paper we have presented a detailed treatment of key problems in the syntax of coordination in English which goes well beyond previous treatments in the breadth of its coverage. The separation of immediate dominance rules from linear precedence rules had played an essential role in our analysis. It is this aspect of Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar that allows the full range of conjunctions in English to be treated in a unified manner using a small set of constructs. This same factoring of dominance and ordering information is what allows us to account for such problems as the peculiar properties of the coordination of embedded clauses and NPs, as we have shown. In addition, it is the interplay of various independently motivated principles in GPSG, such as the Head Feature Convention and the Foot Feature Principle, that enable one to derive, rather than stipulate, a solution to such long-standing problems as the facts commonly discussed in terms of the Coordinate Structure Constraint and the Across-the-Board Convention. Over twenty years ago, the syntax of coordination was a key topic in the discussions that led to the widespread acceptance of transformational grammar. It is curious, then, that even today no version of transformational grammar has succeeded in explaining, and often not even in describing, well-known and very basic facts about coordination (e.g., the fact that arbitrary tensed VPs can coordinate with each other). Moreover, the various instances of coordination of unlike categories, which we have provided an account of without appeal to any ancillary devices or ad hoc principles, have received no serious analysis within the transformational tradition. Of course, much remains to be done on the grammar of coordinate constructions. Among the problems we have addressed insufficiently or not at all are the precise formulation of the syntax and semantics of non-constituent ellipsis, the treatment of ‘right node raising’ constructions, and the semantic peculiarities of N1-coordination discussed by Bergmann (1982). Nevertheless, the present paper improves on earlier generative treatments of coordination by broadening the coverage while at the same time stipulating less.

ADVERBS, PREPOSITIONS, AND CONJUNCTIONS IN ENGLISH: A STUDY IN GRADIENCE1

Studia LinguisticaVolume 31, Issue 1 p. 38-64 ADVERBS, PREPOSITIONS, AND CONJUNCTIONS IN ENGLISH: A STUDY IN GRADIENCE1 Bengt Jacobsson, Bengt JacobssonSearch for more papers by this author Bengt Jacobsson, Bengt JacobssonSearch for more papers by this author First published: June 1977 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9582.1977.tb00646.xCitations: 4 1 I am indebted to Hans Andersson, Randolph Quirk, Bengt Sigurd, and Jan Svartvik for valuable comments and criticisms. The errors that remain are mine alone. AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume31, Issue1June 1977Pages 38-64 RelatedInformation