Declarative Clauses Research Articles

The thematic organization of consumer safety instructions in English

Abstract This study investigates how the content of consumer safety instructions is organized in Themes and N-Rhemes and connected by thematic progressions. The Themes are chiefly directives or representations of the product and its usage. The goal of safety instructions, on the other hand, i.e. avoiding dangers and their negative outcomes, is mainly represented in the N-Rhemes. Thematic progressions are frequently linear, which reflects the expert/non-expert relationship between the writers and readers, or derived, which reflects the somewhat disjointedness of this text type. There are also many Rheme iterations connecting imperative clauses. In this respect the thematic organization of procedural texts differs significantly from texts where declarative clauses are predominant.

Mood Systems in the Movie Speech by Steve Biko in the “Cry Freedom”

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the mood types and their speech functions in the dialogue of Steve Biko in the movie "Cry Freedom." Utilising descriptive analysis as the primary methodological approach, the study systematically examines Biko's speech to uncover the distribution and implications of different mood types. The research methodology involved obtaining the transcribed speech, collecting clauses, identifying mood types, and drawing conclusions based on the findings. Results indicate the presence of 12 interrogative clauses and 23 declarative clauses, highlighting the prevalence of interrogation and assertion in Biko's discourse. Notably, imperative clauses were absent, reflecting the unique context of the speech within a courtroom setting. The analysis of interrogative clauses reveals a probing and challenging exchange, while declarative clauses convey assertions and affirmations. Overall, the study sheds light on the rhetorical strategies employed by Biko and underscores the significance of mood analysis in understanding persuasive communication within the movie's narrative.

Epistemic ʔilla and Deontic ʔilla in Jordanian Arabic Converge or Diverge in their Semantics and Syntax?

The goal of this study is to investigate the semantics and the syntax of the epistemic modal ʔilla in Jordanian Arabic (JA) and find-out if epistemic ʔilla and deontic ʔilla are comparable in their semantics and syntax. As for its semantics, it draws an inference based on previous knowledge and experience to expresses certainty. The proposal was that the epistemic and the deontic modal force that ʔilla has come as an extension of the exclusive focus property this modal particle has. With regard to its distribution, epistemic ʔilla appears in two patterns. A mono-clausal structure is assumed for ʔilla In Pattern 1. In Pattern 2, ʔilla comes before the copular verb kuun ‘be’ to be necessarily followed with any of the components of a declarative clause. In this pattern, the modal and the copular verb are assumed to be in a TP, and the complement of the copular verb is in a lower TP. The subject is able to raise to the higher TP. The epistemic modal may not occur in non-declarative clauses, as they cannot be judged true or false.

MALAY OF KUALUH WORD ORDER IN LABUHANBATU UTARA: A STUDY OF SYNTACTIC TYPOLOGY

The word order in the Kualuh Malay language spoken in North Labuhanbatu is the subject of this research, which aims to investigate it. Study In this research, the qualitative research method was utilized. Data for this study came primarily from interviews and participants' own experiences. The clauses or sentences that were discovered in the folklore served as the research's primary source of data. The studies of Miles and Huberman were utilized in order to make sense of the data. The process of assessing the research involved several stages, including data reduction, data display, and extracting conclusions from the data and verifying them. It is possible to draw the conclusion based on the findings of the research that the structure of the sentence patterns used in the Kualuh Malay language spoken in North Labuhanbatu contains VSO, SVO, OSV, VOS, OVS SV, VO, and OV. The word order pattern that should be followed in the declarative clause of a declarative sentence is SC, SVO, OVS. The word order pattern of the clause in this section is V-O and O-V, and it is vital that this pattern be followed. In an interrogative sentence, SV, SVO, VOS, and OSV can be used with nasal-affixed verbs or without them.

Perfectivity and predicate-centered focus in narrative: Functions of “strong” forms in Koyraboro Senni

Koyraboro Senni (KS), a Malian language of Songhay family, has a system of TAM markers that distinguish two aspectual categories – the perfective and the imperfective and three series – the “weak” series used in neutral declarative clauses and clauses with a non-subject focus, the subject-focus series, and the “strong” series, which is used for predicate-centered focus. The paper studies the use of the strong in-focus forms in a corpus of narrative texts and shows that the strong perfectives in most cases are used to describe real events, while strong imperfectives are irrealis-oriented. Contrary to implications of our current knowledge of polyfunctionality of in-focus forms the strong imperfective is not used for present progressive and is relatively frequent in narrative texts. I also argue that while the perfective part of the system is better understood as the result of development of typical intrinsically-focused reading – the perfect, its imperfective part is better explained in line with Tatevosov’s (2005) proposal of direct development of the habitual to the prospective.

L’é ciaro che se dise cusì. On Change in the System of Expletive Subject Clitics in Opitergino

Expletive subject clitics (ESCs) are pronominal elements that occur in impersonal contexts with which no individual reference is associated. Their presence strikingly distinguishes northern Italo-Romance varieties from standard Italian. We target this structural incongruence by studying the occurrence of ESCs in present-day Opitergino, a virtually unstudied Venetan variety. We explore the question of whether, in the wake of a profound transformation in the sociolinguistic environment that occurred between the first half of the 20th century and early 2020 years, the contact between Opitergino and now-dominant Italian has induced change in the Opitergino ESC system. To test whether change has occurred and to what extent, we compare the results of an extensive online survey we conducted in 2022 with the baseline rules we extracted from speakers born before 1942. We observe that while the system is overall stable, a thread of change is ongoing and manifests in (a) rule weakening in declaratives and (b) erosion of the obligatoriness of ESCs in interrogatives. We argue that this change is likely to be an effect of contact, resulting in structural convergence but not in loss, and affected the part of the ESC system that features more optionality, namely, the domain of declarative clauses.

NARRATIVE TEXTS IN INDONESIAN ELT TEXTBOOKS: A SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES

This paper aims at examining social functions, schematic structure, transitivity, and modality in narrative texts in an English textbook published by the Indonesian government and used at the tenth grade English classes. Three narrative texts were found in the textbook and selected as samples. Hallidayan concepts of social functions, schematic structure, transitivity and modality were used as theoretical epistemological concepts and his lexico-grammatical analytical framework was used as a methodological procedure of data analysis. Clauses in the three texts (i.e., Issumboshi, The Legend of Malin Kundang, and Strong Wind) were coded by numbering them and analyzed in a series of systemic functional linguistic analyses: Theme-Rheme, process-type analysis, mood-residue analysis, and functional analysis. The texts display this schematic pattern: orientation^evaluation^compilcation^resolution. The absence of reorientation within the generic structure implies the written nature of the texts. The study also presents linguistic patterns in transitivity where particular process types were used in each schematic structure. The study also proves that, although narrated in written modes and declarative clauses were dominantly exploited, the time of event and the judgment of the narrating writers were static where temporal settings of the events were always in the past and the narrators’ judgment of them remained high. These types of time and judgment enabled the narrators to convey socialization, education and entertainment functions of narrative texts and narration practices. Additionally, these analyses could exemplify an education model of systemic functional linguistic analysis and reduce currently common misconceptions in Indonesian ELT textbooks.

Language of Vietnamese School Science Textbooks

This paper explores textual meanings realised in the theme resources of a Vietnamese lower secondary school science textbook – Sinh h?c 8 (Biology 8). The theoretical framework employed for analysis is Systemic Functional Linguistics. The data for analysis is ten texts selected randomly from the textbook. The units of analysis are major independent clause simplexes and hypotactic clause complexes which have a subordinate clause in initial position. The research has brought to light a number of significant findings of which eight stand out. First, all five types of general Themes: simple Theme, multiple Theme, clausal Theme, unmarked Theme, and marked Theme are employed in the texts. Second, of the four mood function Themes: Subject Theme, Predicator Theme, Complement Theme, and Adjunct Theme, Subject Theme takes up the largest proportion. Third, of the three mood function simple Themes: simple Subject Theme, simple Predicator Theme and simple Adjunct Theme, simple Subject Theme has the highest number. Fourth, between textual + topical Theme and interpersonal + topical Theme, textual + topical Theme predominates. Fifth, of the three mood type simple Subject Theme: simple Subject Theme in declarative clause, simple Subject Theme in imperative clause and simple Subject Theme in interrogative clause, simple Subject Theme in declarative clause accounts for the highest number. Sixth, between simple Predicator Theme and multiple Predicator Theme, simple Predicator Theme has a much higher proportion. Seventh, of the nine types of simple Adjunct Theme examined, six are found in the texts, among which spatial location Adjunct Theme takes the highest number. And Eighth, Complement Theme, multiple Adjunct Theme, textual + interpersonal + topical Theme, interpersonal + topical/Subject Theme, matter Adjunct Theme, role Adjunct Theme, and stance Adjunct Theme are not found in the texts. It is concluded that Vietnamese textbook writers have employed quite a variety of theme resources to construct textual meanings and to create coherence and continuity of their texts.

Declarative Mirativity in Urdu: A Lexico-cognitive Account

The present study seeks to characterize the strategic realization of mirativity as a semantic category with an empirical focus on Urdu language. The study addresses the research question: How do declaratives become miratives? The question aims to elaborate the semantic composition which enables hearer to suspend the basic communicative function of declarative clause type and process it as a linguistic strategy to reach informational characterization peculiar to miratives. To address this question, the present study uses Evan’s (2009) the Lexical Concept and Cognitive Model (LCCM) as its theoretical underpinnings. This framework uses the constructs of Lexical Concept and Cognitive Model to account for the mechanisms of semantic composition for polysemous phenomena. The present work combines the LCCM theory with Gras et al.’s (2021) ‘phonological construction’ to account for the strategic realization of mirative meaning in Urdu. The study uses multiple data sources such as naturally occurring data, individual and dialogical introspections and Urdu Lughat. The study finds that to serve as miratives, declarative clauses undergo the processes of lexical concept selection, integration and interpretation for their final information characterization. Overall, the study implicates that meaning construction is a function of distinct types of information: linguistic content, conceptual content and contextual content, and the semantic compositional processes involved (selection, integration and interpretation) occur in tandem and recursively. The study concludes that a cluse type is polysemous in nature, and its pragmatic functions result from construal imposed on its content.

Examining the Imperative Clauses in Manggarai

Manggarai is one of the languages in West Flores studied by many researchers, either native or non-native speakers. Nevertheless, only a few describe the sound system in the imperative clauses of the Manggarai language. Imperative clauses are speech acts intended to influence the interlocutor to take specific actions and aim to give orders (commands), requests, requests, suggestions (advice), warnings, instructions, and hopes. Some researchers who briefly describe imperative clauses have failed to formulate case markers in imperative clauses. Thus, this study aims to formulate case markings in imperative clauses comprehensively. Researchers as native speakers of the Manggarai language in the Kempo dialect use familiar examples. The data used in this study are examples of imperative clauses that are often found and assessed based on the author's intuition as a native dialect speaker. This study also tested several formulas of imperative clause rules in previous research, which distinguished the use of gi and ga, and neka marker in negative imperative clauses. Some critical findings in this research are, firstly, the markers gi and ga are not an enclitic attached to the word they follow; secondly, the articles gi and ga are not specific markers for imperative clauses because they can also appear in other clause forms (e.g., declarative clauses); and third, the words neka and asi in the negative imperative clauses of the Manggarai language can be used interchangeably and do not change the meaning of the clause. Thus, this proves that there are no unique markers in the imperative clauses of the Manggarai language because the form varies relatively depending on the context with whom one is talking.

Targeted aspect-based emotion analysis to detect opportunities and precaution in financial Twitter messages

Microblogging platforms, of which Twitter is a representative example, are valuable information sources for market screening and financial models. In them, users voluntarily provide relevant information, including educated knowledge on investments, reacting to the state of the stock markets in real-time and, often, influencing this state. We are interested in the user forecasts in financial, social media messages expressing opportunities and precautions about assets. We propose a novel Targeted Aspect-Based Emotion Analysis (tabea) system that can individually discern the financial emotions (positive and negative forecasts) on the different stock market assets in the same tweet (instead of making an overall guess about that whole tweet). It is based on Natural Language Processing (nlp) techniques and Machine Learning streaming algorithms. The system comprises a constituency parsing module for parsing the tweets and splitting them into simpler declarative clauses; an offline data processing module to engineer textual, numerical and categorical features and analyse and select them based on their relevance; and a stream classification module to continuously process tweets on-the-fly. Experimental results on a labelled data set endorse our solution. It achieves over 90% precision for the target emotions, financial opportunity, and precaution on Twitter. To the best of our knowledge, no prior work in the literature has addressed this problem despite its practical interest in decision-making, and we are not aware of any previous nlp nor online Machine Learning approaches to tabea.

Analysis of the Order of Russian Declarative Clauses Based on the Principle of Iconicity

Analysis of the Order of Russian Declarative Clauses Based on the Principle of Iconicity

Feature Borrowing in Language Contact

In this paper, we consider mood selection in embedded clauses by focusing on a German-based minority language, Cimbrian, which is spoken in a northern Italian enclave. Mood selection in Cimbrian relies on the presence of two different complementizers, az and ke (the latter being borrowed from Romance varieties), each of which selectively require a specific mood. Az selects the mood subjunctive in modal sentences introduced by non-factive verbs, whereas ke co-occurs with the indicative in purely declarative clauses introduced by factive and semi-factive verbs. However, this binary distribution is challenged in the two following contexts, and it is precisely at this point that feature borrowing comes into play: (i) with the verb gloam ‘to believe/to think’, the expected binary pattern appears (irrealis az + subjunctive and the realis ke + indicative), but, crucially, a third construction emerges, namely ke + subj.; (ii) surprisingly, az + subj. displays some ‘gaps’ in its paradigm, specifically in the first person, which appeared in the data we collected via translation tasks from Italian into Cimbrian. Both phenomena shed light on how language contact works, not in terms of structural borrowing but rather in terms of the transfer of the specific features of a given lexical item.

Scrutinizing Register Realization in Facebook Trading Group

This study aims at scrutinizing the register pattern used by the sellers in promoting their goods in the popular Facebook trading group used by people in Ngabang, West Borneo, “Ngabang Jual-Beli”. The group is an ambient representation of language variation used in West Borneo. The register analysis covers the field, tenor, and mode of the discourse. The data analysis encompasses domain, taxonomy, componential, and cultural theme analysis modified by Santosa (2017). The domain covers the kinds of goods being sold. The taxonomy analysis is the three meta functions in the SFL framework. The combined domain and taxonomy in the componential analysis figure out the register pattern in the group. The findings reveal that in the field of discourse, the posted clauses are dominated by the use of the material process, relational identification, and relational attributive process. The material process reflects the experiential meaning of the current activities. Meanwhile, the information of the goods realizes relational identification and relational attributive processes. With respect to the tenor of discourse, there is a tendency for the sellers to use declarative clauses which reflect equal status between the sellers and the customers by considering the minimal social distance. Furthermore, in the mode of discourse, the unmarked topical theme reflects as the majority of the ellipsis subject referring to the sellers. The study implies that the language used in digital trading should consider the participants, the relationship among the participants, and the media used to persuade their target market.Keywords: Facebook trading group, online shop, register, systemic functional linguistics

Syntax Matters: Exploring the Effect of Linguistic Similarity in Third Language Acquisition

AbstractOver the last two decades, the question of to which linguistic cues learners pay attention when they decode a new language has been subject to controversy in the field of third language (L3) acquisition. In this article, we present an artificial language learning experiment that investigated how lexical and syntactic similarities between an artificial L3 and preexisting grammars impact crosslinguistic influence at the very beginning of the acquisition process. We exposed four groups of 30 Norwegian–English bilinguals each to one of four L3s and gave them training in that L3. The participants gave forced‐choice acceptability judgments on pairs of nonsubject‐initial declarative clauses that differed in word order, one grammatical in English, the other grammatical in Norwegian. The participants had not been exposed to nonsubject‐initial declaratives during the exposure and training phases to avoid confounds with learning. The results showed that both lexical and syntactic similarities affect crosslinguistic influence. We discuss this result considering contemporary accounts of L3 acquisition.

Pre-field phobia – About formal and meaning-related prohibitions on starting a German V2 clause

AbstractGerman is a V2 language, i.e., a declarative clause has the finite verb in the position immediately after the first constituent. Traditionally, this order is derived by raising the verb to C and putting a single constituent into the so-called pre-field. Arguably, there are three options to fill the first position: (i) topicalization (A’-movement), (ii) formal movement, which raises the highest constituent in the ongoing derivation (A-movement), or (iii) merging a constituent which is only legitimate there (base-generation). Theoretically, any major constituent can occupy the pre-field. However, it has been observed that certain expressions cannot appear there. In its narrower focus, the paper argues that there are more pre-field-phobic expressions than standardly assumed, and that these expressions, although at first glance heterogeneous, fall into two classes. One can be defined structurally and is considered in the second part of this paper; the other class can be captured in terms of meaning and comprises a specific type of expressive adverbial (discussed in the first and main part). The paper’s message in a broader sense is that syntax restricts the occurrence of expressive expressions. It is shown that the sentence-initial position in German does not allow material which is exclusively use-conditional in the sense of expressive meaning.

The verb-initial independent declarative clauses on which the most complete witnesses to the Old English Bede disagree

ABSTRACT The article examines the verb-initial independent declarative clauses with overt subjects (V1) in the Old English Bede on which the most complete witnesses disagree. It identifies the syntactic and textual environments in which the V1 clauses are altered or omitted and the types of changes they undergo. The article demonstrates that the majority of the alterations and omissions are recorded in the later manuscripts B and Ca. Most of them reflect the change to the V2 and V3 word order and the rise of the þa VS clauses in the V1 textual environments (e.g. reported discourse). Besides these widely attested developments in syntax and textual organisation, the corpus also exhibits the alterations that can be attributed to the individual scribes who modify or omit the V1 clauses to align the Old English translation with the Latin, eliminate asyndetic parataxis, homogenise the style, and streamline the narrative. The variants and scribal interventions uncovered by the present inquiry not only help form a more complete picture of the transmission and uses of the manuscripts of the Old English Bede but also contribute to the diachronic and synchronic study of the Old English language and style.

TEXTUAL MEANING STRATEGIES IN UX WRITING OF GO-JEK MOBILE APPLICATION

This research intends to examine how textual meaning strategies influence the user of Go-Jek mobile application through UX (User Experience) writing. The data of this research was the UX writing of the Go-Jek mobile application in version 4. 10. 3. All the UX writing in its apps would be disparted into clauses. Then, the theories of UX writing and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), especially the Theme System, are applied in this research. This research has shown that Go-Jek’s UX writing used some textual meaning strategies. The three highest percentages of mood classes are declarative, imperative, and WH-interrogatives. Declarative clauses give a lot of brief information to the user. This information builds the purposeful concept of UX writing. Then, imperative clauses show much conciseness of word choices that eases the user in understanding the guideline of its application step by step. Third, WH- interrogatives clauses indicate conversational or interactivity responses, which create an intimacy between Go-Jek and its user. The interactivity can stimulate and encourage the user to try new services and promotions. Besides, their clear statement or command helps the user in minimizing errors. These strategies are fruitful for both usability and professionalism of the Go-Jek application through UX writing.Keywords; UX writing, User Experience, Systemic Functional Linguistics, Textual meaning

‘IS THE PICTURE WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS?’: THE INTERPERSONAL MEANINGS OF A DIALOGUE IN AN EFL TEXTBOOK

This study was aimed at scrutinising a multimodal text embedded in a dialogue of an EFL textbook. To this end, Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis (SF-MDA) focused on interpersonal meanings consulting grammar of visual design and intersemiotic complementarity drawing on systemic functional linguistics were employed to analyse the artefact, a dialogue within a part named 'communication' taken from an EFL textbook for a primary school level. The findings revealed that declarative clause and modalisation (epistemic modality) of probability was found to be the most common system used in the verbal text. Meanwhile, high modality and validity were found in the visual image indicated by the realisations and representations of detailed abstraction and full-colour saturation. Finally, the study draws a conclusion that there is a cohesive interaction to a certain extent between the verbal text and the visual image represented in the multimodal dialogue.

Syntacticized topics in Kurmuk

This article argues that Kurmuk, a little-described Western Nilotic language, is characterized by a syntacticized topic whose grammatical relation is variable. In this language, declarative clauses have as topic an obligatory preverbal NP which is either a subject, an object, or an adjunct. The grammatical relation of the topic is expressed by a voice-like inflection of the verb, called orientation here. While subject-orientation is morphologically unmarked, object-oriented and adjunct-oriented verbs are marked by a subject suffix or by a suffix indicating that the topic is not subject, and adjunct-orientation differs from object-orientation by a marked tone pattern. Topic choice largely reflects information structure by indicating topic continuity. The topic also plays a crucial role in relative clauses and in clauses with contrastive constituent focus, in that objects and adjuncts can only be relativized or contrastively focalized if they are coded as topics. Moreover, some types of adverbial clauses require adjunct-orientation.