Subordinate Clauses Research Articles

On Verbal Construction Frequency in Certain Genres of Popular Literature

Corpora-based language studies is a widespread practice in modern linguistics. In our study, we address so-called mass literature (or paraliterature) via a corpus of texts. The standardization of mass literature allows us to describe its genres by applying literary formulas. In brief, a formula serves for the embodiment of cultural themes and stereotypes in a universal form. While mass literature is a common subject of literary and cultural studies, from a linguistic point of view, literary formulas have not been studied well enough. We suggest that differences between the microgenres of paraliterature may be in syntax as well as in the vocabulary. Our work is based on the mass literature corpora and provides analysis of verb constructions characteristic of microgenres (love story, detective story, science fiction novel, and fantasy). In order to identify the distinctive features of mass literature microgenres, we have conducted a series of machine learning experiments. As a dataset, we compiled a corpus of 1,200 texts belonging to four microgenres. In our previous studies we showed that statistical features (text length, sentence length, and parts of speech frequencies) were insufficient for successful classification. The usage of lexical features has improved the quality of machine learning, however, the classifier based on syntactic features has shown the best results. 81 constructions have been selected as the most important features of syntactic-based machine learning. A verb construction consists of a “verb + dependencies”. We consider several types of dependencies: arguments (subject, direct and indirect objects) and adjuncts (subordinate clause and adverbial classifier). The constructions are described in terms of the fullness of the verb valencies. Several types of constructions are distinguished: complete, incomplete (with omissions of direct or indirect complements), and extended (with adjuncts). Specific examples of verb constructions in each of the microgenres have been analyzed and described. Based on the similarity of the construction profile, romance novels and detective stories show the predominance of verbs and direct speech constructions, whereas science fiction novels and fantasy demonstrate the prevalence of full constructions. Possible non-textual explanations for our observations are also provided. The method proposed in the study can be used for the investigation of various kinds of syntactic features, for instance, those associated with the author’s, temporal or genre specificities.

A Corpus-Based Comparative Study on Syntactic Complexity in University Students’ EFL Writing in Southwestern China: A Case of Pu’er University

Syntactic complexity is the variety and sophistication degree of the syntactic structures conveyed in written production. The syntactic complexity of general Chinese university students’ EFL writing has been studied previously, but the performance of university students in educationally underdeveloped Southwestern China remains unclear. Taking Pu’er University as a case, this study collected 400 EFL compositions from 100 university students in Southwestern China and compared them with 200 writing samples from the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays. Scores of 11 syntactic complexity indices were calculated using the L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer. The independent samples t-test was conducted to investigate whether and the extent to which the two groups differed on syntactic complexity indices. The results showed that university EFL students in Southwestern China produce a similar length of linguistic units when compared to native English writers. However, the amount of subordination in EFL writing is significantly less than that of native English writers. For the amount of coordination, the university EFL students produced a lower proportion of coordinate phrases than that of native writers, but the proportion of coordinate sentences is not significantly different between the two groups. Finally, for degree of phrasal sophistication, university EFL students in Southwestern China produce significantly fewer complex nominals than native writers do. The results imply that university students in Southwestern China should write more subordinated sentences and complex nominals, such as nominal clauses, infinitives, or gerunds, in their future EFL writing, instead of writing long sentences just heavily relying on simple coordination.

OPTING WITHIN TRANSLATION STRATEGIES IN LITERARY TEXT TRANSLATION AMONG UNDERGRADUATES

This article epitomises different approaches to translation and explores the results of the application of the most commonly used translational strategies in literary text translation in an academic context, among the third-year students of the undergraduate studies of English and Chinese and English at the University of East Sarajevo. After the relevant theoretical background, the empirical part of the article offers the presentation and discussion of the most commonly used translational strategies in reference to particular structural elements in a literary text, proper nouns restructuring and culture-specific items adaptation. The premise was that the restructuring of specific translation units was carried out with the application of literal translation, original form retention and paraphrasing, along with the possible deviations from the text faithfulness. The text-based approach and convenience sampling method showed that the most complex part was to restructure the omitted introductory elements in subordinate clauses, time/tense variations in back-shifted clauses in indirect speech and the choice of the most proper strategy in the restructuring of proper nouns (particularly toponyms). Further focus was on the examination of intercultural mismatch and translational restructuring of the source language-specific cultural items. As for the restructuring of proper nouns, the respondents mostly opted for foreignisation, considering the option to be the safest ground.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0587/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

The Grammar of PP-like Free Relatives: Evidence from Subordinatewo-Clauses in German

This article addresses the grammar of PP-like free relatives (= PP-FRs) such as the locative clause in Bello schläft, wo Grace schläft ‘Bello is sleeping where Grace is sleeping’. The most prominent compositional analysis of PP-FRs is developed by Caponigro (2004), Caponigro and Pearl (2009), and Hall and Caponigro (2010). They derive PP-FRs from a stacked CP-structure that is based on silent prepositions and a nominal treatment of wh-words such as where. I first argue against this analysis by means of a detailed discussion of subordinate clauses introduced by wo ‘where’ in German. Specifically, I show that wo-clauses do not involve silent prepositions, and that both wo and wo-clauses are prepositional instead of nominal in nature. Second, I sketch a surface-oriented alternative approach to PP-FRs that dispenses with silent prepositions and assigns the prepositional nature of PP-like wh-words a key role in the derivation. Specifically, I propose that the fronting of PP-like wh-words in free relatives licenses an abstraction over predicates (instead of entities) and a corresponding type shifting. I relate the new analysis to analyses of corresponding subordinate headed relative and interrogative clauses. Furthermore, I evaluate it against potential general constraints on higher-order abstraction as argued for, in particular, by Poole (2017).

Interlocked life cycles of counterfactual mood forms from Archaic to Classical Greek

Abstract Based on a corpus study of 2074 occurrences in Archaic (424) and Classical (1650) Greek, I offer a unified explanation for the temporal reference extensions of counterfactual mood forms in declarative, interrogative, wish and de-activated illocutions (i.e. subordinate clauses). I propose a diachronic trajectory (life cycle) for counterfactual mood forms from past to present and future reference. Extensions are constrained diachronically by grammatical aspect (e.g. imperfect facilitating extensions to present reference more than the aorist or pluperfect), and actionality of the state of affairs in clausal context (atelic states of affairs enabling temporal extensions), as well as synchronically by illocutionary usage, collocations with temporal adverbs and common ground knowledge (i.e. temporal location known or not). This trajectory explains the replacements of the inherited counterfactual optative by the counterfactual indicative, because their life cycles are interlocked: in Archaic Greek the counterfactual optative had already extended from its original past to present and future reference and is losing its counterfactuality, whereas the counterfactual indicative referred only to the past and sometimes the present. In Classical Greek, temporal extensions of the counterfactual indicative are continued across different aspects, clause types and illocutions at different rates of change and the counterfactual optative is filtered out of the system.

The French Reception of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: A Belated Consecration

The French Reception of <i>Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</i>: A Belated Consecration

THE STRUCTURES AND FUNCTIONS OF LEXICAL BUNDLES IN PAKISTANI BIOLOGY TEXTBOOKS

This study investigated and explored the structures and functions of 100 common lexical bundles of four-word, considering the structural and functional classification of lexical bundles, defined by (Biber, 2004 , p. 381 - 384), which was used as the theoretical framework also. This study is a corpus-based study of the four-word lexical bundles taken from biology textbooks which are being taught at the Pakistani Higher Secondary School Certificate level (HSSC) in KPK. The specified corpus of these textbooks was run in the AntConc software to perceive and detached LBs in the corpus. The bundles were then analyzed and classified according to (Biber et al., 2004) structural and functional taxonomy of lexical bundles. Structural analysis showed that lexical bundles incorporating dependent clause fragments, verb phrase with passive verb and preposition phrase were the most corporate type of bundles produced by biology textbooks. In terms of the functions, the majority of the bundles served as discourse organizers and referential expressions. These discoveries have educational endeavors and can be utilized in English for academic and special purposes. Keywords: Lexical bundles, Corpus-based study, Pakistani academic textbooks, English language teaching, English for academic purpose.

Sentences of Interrogative in Kurdish Language of Typology View

This Research under the topic (Sentences of interrogative in Kurdish Language of typology view) the research is about interrogative sentence from typology view, in This research try to select types of interrogative sentence and types answers Interrogative sentence from the theory view, the difference of this research Compare with other previous research is depend on typology view, especially in His opinion (Bernard COMRIY) and (Norval SMITH) which for the is purpose they have prepared a questionnaire under the topic(Lingua Descriptive studies: Questionnaire) they published in (Lingua) magazine to get a universal Grammer between different languages without care of history between languages, for this purpose, the research expect the introduction, result and list of resources, is consist of two parts, the first part: it consists types interrogative sentence, yes – no question and types, interrogative sentence word-question, Echo-question. The second part: it consists of elements of question in main clauses, subordinate clauses, prepositional phrases, noun phrase, coordinate structure, and types of answers.

Models in collaborative writing among CLIL learners of English in primary school: Linguistic outcomes and motivation matters

Model texts in the context of collaborative writing with young learners (YLs) have been shown to promote noticing and incorporation of features in students' subsequent drafts. However, few studies have analysed the quality of the drafts and even fewer have considered task motivation, despite its great impact on task completion.To fill in these gaps, our study measured draft quality and task motivation (with thermometers gathering students' ratings and motives) with Spanish YLs of English in primary school. Thirteen pairs of students (aged 10–11) wrote the same composition twice (pre-test and post-test) divided into a control group (CG), which received no feedback, and a model group (MG), which worked with model texts.Draft quality analyses revealed non-significant and medium-sized effects in syntactic complexity (clauses to T-units, dependent clauses to clauses and T-units, r = 0.44) and fluency (number of clauses, r = 0.32) in the MG. Meanwhile, a medium magnitude effect was detected in accuracy gains for the CG (L1 structures, L1 structures to clauses and lexical errors to words). Regarding task motivation, students' ratings were high, mainly justified by peer work and significantly higher after-task and across tasks in both groups, although the MG evidenced a significant and medium-sized (r = 0.53) drop in the post-test.Our findings tentatively support the potential of models to generate upgraded texts but also suggest a possible motivational cost worth further investigation. More generally, our study enhances the motivational value of collaboration among YLs.

To think thatconstructions and Japanesetowa/nanteconstructions

AbstractEnglish has what is called ‘theto think thatconstruction’, in which the subordinate clause (theto-infinitive clause) is used as if it were an independent clause (e.g.,To think that she could be so ruthless!). This paper shows that theto think thatconstruction can be divided into two types depending on the contents of thethatclauses: one is the “recall” type, in which thethatclauses represent a speaker’s knowledge (i.e., his/her past event or experience); and the other is the “surprise” type, in which thethatclauses describe an event at the speech time which the speaker regards as unbelievable. This paper further shows that the “surprise” type of theto think thatconstruction corresponds to the Japanese exclamatory sentence, or thetowa/nanteconstruction such asKodomo-ni anna koto-o iw-are-ru{towa/nante}!‘(Lit.) That my child should say such a thing!’.

The nominative-to-accusative shift in Japanese: diachronic and synchronic considerations

Abstract Some Japanese predicates allow their object to be marked either with the accusative particle o, the canonical marker of an object, or with the nominative particle ga, the canonical marker of a subject. This work reports and discusses the results of corpus-based surveys on the patterns and recent trends in nominative-marking on objects. It will be demonstrated: (i) that there has been an increase in the proportion of accusative-marking over nominative-marking in recent times, (ii) that accusative-marking is more likely to be chosen in certain types of subordinate clauses than in matrix clauses, and (iii) that at least with some types of predicates, accusative-marking on the object is more likely when its referent is animate rather than inanimate. It will be argued that the effects of clause type and animacy have to do with the functional motivation to mitigate processing load and the risk of misinterpretation incurred by nominative-marking on objects.

Analyzing Errors Made by Libyan Students When Learning Nominal Clauses

This study aims at investigating the errors Libyan students commit when learning English nominal clauses. In order to study these errors a ten-item test was designed and administered to fifteen students enrolled at the English department at the faculty of Arts and Science-Almarj. The data collected shows that participants have trouble in producing English nominal clauses. Their major difficulties lie in the area of nominal clause heads, pronoun retention, verb phrase, wrong clause choice, preposition, omission of subjects and adjacency errors. Additionally, the study provides suggestions for teaching English nominal clauses.

Is it Possible to Maintain Information Flow in Japanese into Thai Translation? A Study of Connecting Clauses

Abstract This paper investigates the ordering of connecting subordinate and coordinate clauses in Japanese-Thai translation to examine whether it is possible to maintain information flow from the source text. Japanese preposed clauses were translated using both preposed and postposed clauses in the Thai translated text. Preposed clauses were used widely when they provided: 1) listed information; 2) grounded information for comprehending main clauses; 3) the framework within which main clauses are held; 4) temporal sequences; and 5) information linking prior context to a new discourse topic. Postposed clauses were used mainly to modify main clauses. In cases where clauses provided the information needed to comprehend subsequent clauses, professional translators attempted to place the clause sentence initially, despite a preference for sentence-final occurrence arising from Thai syntactic constraints. This demonstrated norms in Japanese-Thai translation in terms of awareness among professional translators of the significance of information flow in the source text.

Cognitive and contextual factors modulating grammar learning at older ages.

Second language learning has been shown more difficult for older than younger adults, however, the research trying to identify the sources of difficulty and possible modulating factors is scarce. Extrinsic (learning condition and complexity) and intrinsic factors (executive control) have been related to L2-grammar learning in younger adults. In the present study, we aim to assess whether extrinsic and intrinsic factors are also modulating grammar learning in older adults. We compared the learning performance of younger and older adults in a L2 learning task. 162 Spanish native-speakers (81 young) learnt Japañol (Japanese syntaxis and Spanish lexicon) in either an intentional (metalinguistic explanation) or an incidental (comprehension of sentences) context. The complexity of the sentences was also manipulated by introducing (or not) a subordinate clause. Individual differences in proactivity were measured with the AX-CPT task. After the learning phase, participants performed a Grammatical Judgment Task where they answered if the presented sentences were grammatically correct. No differences between older and younger adults were found. Overall, better results were found for the intentional-condition than for the incidental-condition. A significant interaction between learning context and the proactivity index in the AX-CPT task showed that more proactive participants were better when learning in the incidental-condition. These results suggest that both extrinsic and intrinsic factors are important during language learning and that they equally affect younger and older adults.

Functions of -(y)A Suffix in Old Anadolian Turkish within the Framework of Functional and Dependency Grammar Theories: The Example of Divan of Yunus Emre

Dilde niyet, istek, olasılık, yeterlilik, gereklilik vb. ifadelerin alıcıya ulaşmasını sağlamakla görevli çeşitli birimler bulunmaktadır. Dildeki bu birimlerden biri de -(y)A ekidir. Eski Anadolu Türkçesi metinlerinde temel işlevi istek bildirmek olan -(y)A ekinin bu işlevi dışında gereklilik, yeterlilik, şart, zaman, amaç, durum gibi farklı anlam alanlarını karşılayacak biçimde kullanıldığı görülmüştür. Bu doğrultuda elinizdeki çalışma, -(y)A ekinin Yunus Emre Divanı’ndaki işlevlerini tespit etmek amacıyla hazırlanmıştır. Çalışmada işlevsel dil bilgisi kuramının “dildeki her birimin birden fazla işlevi olabilir” ve bağımsal dil bilgisi kuramının “cümleyi fiil yönetir” ilkelerinden hareketle ekin işlevleri ana cümle ve bağımlı cümle yöneticisi olarak iki ayrı başlık altında ele alınmıştır.

On the notion of the subordinate clause in German linguistics

In traditional linguistic research on German syntax the term “subordinate clause” is defined on the basis of its two distinguishing features, namely its syntactic-functional integration into the matrix, as well as its formal exponents (the presence of introductory elements and the placement of the finite verb at the end of the clause). However, this classical approach to subordination is in fact a descriptive simplification which leads to the exclusion of all reference to the scalar character of this category from syntactic description. In this paper, an alternative approach to subordination is presented through defining the dependent clause as a scalar category, encompassing a wide range of representatives differing in the degree of prototypicality. The proposed model consists of four interrelated components: a precisely defined set of integration features, type-independent general principles, a description of the type-specific clusters of integration features and the differences in the degree of integration between representatives of the same syntactic class, as well as construction-specific restrictions.

Topikaliserade rums- och tidsadverbial i fornsvenskt lagspråk – texttypiska och informationsstrukturella drag

Topicalization is a common means of bringing about syntactic variation in Old Swedish. In topicalization, a sentence element for which the usual place is in the middle or final field is instead placed in the initial field. In Early Old Swedish and up to the mid-15th century, adverbials were more common than subjects in sentence-initial position. This study analyzes factors connected to genre and information structure that contribute to topicalization of adverbials in Early Old Swedish legal language. These factors are analyzed in relation to the structure of the text.The data consist of the Uppland law (UL) and are restricted to topicalized spatial and temporal adverbs (n=77). Three research questions are posed: 1) what features connected to genre contribute to topicalization in UL; 2) what functions topicalized spatial and temporal adverbials serve in information structure; and 3) whether there is a relationship between genre features and information structure in Early Old Swedish legal language.Topicalized spatial and temporal adverbials are significantly more common in main clauses (n=57) than in subordinate clauses (n=20) in UL. Clauses with a topicalized spatial or temporal adverb usually belong to legal declarations; topicalization occurs in both first and second clauses. Two central genre-related motivations for topicalization are textual binding and framing, which means that spatial and temporal adverbs can be used to refer backward and forward in the text. Factors connected with genre also include emphasis and contrast, which in old laws is not just a stylistic technique, but has a further function in shaping the text. The information structure functions of the adverbs studied are background and rheme, with the background function being the most common. The function of theme does not occur in the data. The analysis shows clearly that the genre features are connected with the information structure functions; together they contribute to topicalization in Old Swedish legal language.

Syntaktisk komplexitet i inlärarsvenska: en jämförelse mellan finska universitets-studenters muntliga och skriftliga produktion på två olika färdighetsnivåer

This study examines how proficiency level affects syntactic complexity in written and spoken L2 Swedish. Spoken production can be more challenging for learners at lower proficiency levels due to the limited resources for processing the target language (Skehan 1998), whereas the possibility for more extensive planning during the writing process enables the production of syntactically complex structures in writing (Skehan &amp; Foster 2012, Tavakoli 2014). Automaticity at higher proficiency levels reduces the cognitive load that the spoken production imposes on learners and facilitates the production of complex structures in speech (Leonard &amp; Shea 2017). However, few studies have directly compared complexity in written and spoken L2 production, and earlier studies have resulted in contradictory results (Kuiken &amp; Vedder 2012b:364–365). The data in this study consist of monologues and essays produced by 31 Finnish university students. Some subjects study Scandinavian languages as their major, while others take part in a Swedish course at the Centre for Language and Communication Studies. The analysis is based on surface-level complexity measures, such as the mean length of production units and the dependent clause ratio. The results show that proficiency plays an important role especially in spoken production and, therefore, also in the differences between written and spoken production. At the lower proficiency level, written production is significantly more complex when it comes to the mean length of T- and AS-units, the dependent clause ratio, and the ratio of dependent clauses with a sentence adverbial. Surprisingly, the mean clause length shows higher complexity in speech at the lower proficiency level. At the higher proficiency level, there are no statistically significant differences between the modalities. These results indicate that the cognitively more demanding task of producing L2 speech can lead to the use of simple structures at the lower proficiency level, resulting in a greater difference between written and spoken complexity. The learners at the higher proficiency level seem to be able to produce complex structures also in the spoken mode, and therefore, there are no significant differences between written and spoken complexity at this level.

THE PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES AND THE SUBORDINATE CLAUSES IN “DAVID COPPERFIELD” BY CHARLES DICKENS: A STUDY OF SYNTAX

&lt;p class="normal"&gt;The objectives of the research are to know the prepositional phrases and subordinate clauses in “David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens. The total sample data of this research are sixty each for two variables. The technique of collecting data of prepositional phrases and subordinate clauses is determining texts in the novel, collecting the selected sentences, and storing them in a table. The research methodology applied is qualitative, and the technique of data analysis is descriptive analysis and hierarchical structures of syntax. Three categories are used to analyze prepositional phrases: post-modifier of a noun (pN), post-modifier of an adjective (pAdj) and adverbial (pA) while to analyze the subordinate clauses, complement clauses (CC), adjunct or adverbial clauses (AC), and relative clauses (RC) are employed. The results of the research are: 1) Prepositional phrases that function as adverbial (pA) are found to be the most category used with 65%, and the preposition &lt;em&gt;of&lt;/em&gt; is the most used among others with twelve times in total. 2) Subordinate clauses that function as adjunct clauses (AC) are found to be the most category used with 62%, and the subordinate conjunction &lt;em&gt;when&lt;/em&gt; is the most used among others with eleven times in total.&lt;/p&gt;

Taxis and Logico-Semantic Relations in Selected News Articles On Insecurity in Nigeria

The media increasingly creates and reports peoples’ experiences of insecurity in divers news reports on insecurity in Nigeria. Previous studies on media discourse and insecurity in Nigeria have focused largely on discourse construction and representations without full attention to clausal structures and logical sequence of information in the selected media reports. This study, therefore examines the clause complexes as the meaning domain and clause connectors as cohesive devices in selected news articles on insecurity in Nigeria with a view to establishing the inter-clausal structures and logical sequence of ideas in the reportage. The clause complex of Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) which sees clause as the meaning domain in a text, served as framework in the study. The main focus was on three categories: banditry, farmer/herders crisis and ethnic rivalry. Twenty-one news articles were purposively selected for their relevance to the study. The findings revealed the hypotactict constructions dominate the selected news articles. The dependent clauses were employed to amplify the meaning in the dominant clauses, and to give circumstantial information about the process rather than the participants. Also, status of clause was used to establish level of importance ascribed to the unit of information it depicted. Activities of the bandits, kidnappers and killers were often written in main clauses which gave credence to the act of insecurity in the country, while efforts of the government often came in subordinate clauses, apart from those that talked about the process. The paper concludes that news articles displays hypotactic structures than paratactic because it allows writers to describe and give circumstantial information.