English Nouns Research Articles

Tickling translations: Small but mighty open-sourced transformers bring English PUN-ny entities to life in French!

Recent advancements in transformer-based language models have demonstrated substantial progress in producing good translations. Despite these achievements, challenges persist in translating playful requests, especially when users intentionally introduce humor. Deciphering the hidden pun among such playful requests is one of the major difficulties for modern language models, which causes user dissatisfaction. This paper targets a specific niche of humor translation, which is the translation of English-named entities containing puns into French using small-scale open-sourced transformer models. The transformer architecture serves as a foundation for popular language models like chatGPT. It allows learning long-range contextual relationships within sequences. The main novelty of the paper is the proposed extractive question/answering (Q/A) styled technique based on the transformers to find relevant translations for the provided English nouns using the openly available parallel corpora. To evaluate the effectiveness of our method, we utilize a dataset provided by the JOKER CLEF automatic pun and humor translation 2022 team. The dataset contains single-word nouns from popular novels, anime, movies, and games, each containing a pun. The discussed methodology and experimental framework are adaptable and can be extended to any language pair for which an open, available parallel corpus exists. This flexibility underscores the broader applicability of our findings and suggests the potential for enhancing humor translation across various language combinations.

ENGLISH NOUNS AND VERBS MORPHOLOGICAL INFLECTION MISTAKES AMONG UNIBA’S TOEFL PREPARATION STUDENTS’ ASSIGNMENTS

This research attempts to find and describe the types and factors of English nouns and verbs morphological inflection from the student's assignments. This research can also be seen as one form of language development research since it also discusses the factors of the mistakes that the students commit in the making of the assignment. The assignment was to write a paragraph about anything in English then the outcome was analyzed to find the morphological inflection mistakes and classify the data based on the criteria. This research applies descriptive qualitative design and uses observation for the data collecting technique and later uses document analysis. The techniques in this research are Spradley's domain, taxonomy, and componential analysis. This research finds 16 data of inflectional mistakes that fulfill the three categories of the factors while the discussion shows that the factor following each type is dominated by unfamiliarity with inflectional rules whereas the dominant type of inflectional mistake is omission. The conclusion shows that the most common mistakes happen in nouns by the supports from Tomasello's Usage-based theory (2009). Finally, the students mostly fail on noun inflection because they are unfamiliar with the inflectional rules of nouns.

The Contrast of Common and Genitive Cases: The Case of Albanian and English Language

Case is a grammatical category which shows the noun’s relationship to other parts of speech or its function in the sentence. Albanian standard language has five cases and they are: Common case, genitive, dative, accusative and ablative case and English nouns today have only a two-case system: the unmarked common case (book, teacher, boy) and the marked genitive case (book’s, teacher’s, boy’s). In Albanian the possessive cases can be with the definite article i, e, të and së, so between English language and Albanian it is the contrast because English has two forms of possessive and usually used after the noun e.g. Mary’s book, Time’s house, students’, worker’s children’s women’s; This is Arta’s jacket; This is my mother’s jacket. This is the dog’s food. If a plural noun does not end in /s/, add /s/, women’s, men’s, children’s etc. The common case doesn’t have any contrast between Albanian and English, but the genitive in Albanian has some definite article that usually use before the noun as i emrit (name’s), i leximit (read’s), e vajzës (girl’s). In this paper we will studies the contrast of the Alb. and Eng. cases.

Сопоставление разноуровневых признаковых пространств романов Р. Брэдбери «Вино из одуванчиков» и «Лето, прощай»

The aim of the study is to determine the similarities and differences of the multilevel semantic spaces formed by the signs of English verbal nouns in the works of Ray Bradbury "Dandelion Wine" and "Farewell Summer". The author provides a definition of the term "feature space", identifies three parameters of variability (feature, level, cluster variability of levels) for a comparative analysis of the feature spaces of the studied works. The article examines the signs of five linguistic levels: phonetic, morphological, diachronic, etymological and semantic. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that in this work the feature space is considered as a certain set of multi-level features related by statistically relevant relationships. In this context, it is first demonstrated in relation to works of art. The results revealed that the novel "Dandelion Wine" contains a higher number of English verbal nouns, with the multilevel characteristics of these nouns forming fewer clusters. On the other hand, the novel "Farewell Summer" contains twice as few English lexical units, but with more clusters. Thus, we can state that the "Farewell Summer" feature space is significantly more differentiated and, accordingly, there will be much more oppositions between the features.

Does interlanguage grammar project intermediate categories? Evidence of partial representation from one‐substitution by Chinese learners of English

AbstractThis study investigates how prepositional phrases within English noun phrases (e.g., the student of physics from Italy) are represented and processed by advanced Chinese‐speaking learners of English (henceforth L2ers). Using grammaticality judgment tasks and self‐paced reading tasks, we aim to examine the offline performance and the real‐time processing of English NP‐internal PPs in relation to the head nouns. To this end, two groups of participants were instructed to provide judgments of testing materials and to respond on‐line to experimental stimuli containing the proform one. Results indicate that highly proficient L2ers processed English NP‐internal PPs utterly differently from English controls in that they demonstrated almost no sensitivity to the existence of PPs as complements following one, mostly without consciously distinguishing them from PP adjuncts. To account for L2ers’ response patterns, we propose a partial representation hypothesis (PRH), claiming that L2ers tend to disregard intermediate categories containing PP‐complements in English NPs, thus only partially representing syntactic constituents of the target language. As a structural explanation, PRH awaits further corroboration and/or falsification from more empirical studies.

Study on Morphological Motivation on English and Chinese Noun Derivatives: Taking American National Geographic and Chinese National Geography as Examples

Linguistic motivation remains an important theoretical issue in language research. Lexical motivation, as the most basic level of linguistic motivation, has always been a hot-discussed topic in the study of motivation, but there is little study on the comparison of lexical motivation between English and Chinese, especially on noun derivatives. Therefore, this article, using corpus research and qualitative analysis, aims at finding, describing, and explaining the similarities and differences between English and Chinese noun derivatives in morphological motivation. The corpus, selected by the principle of authority, equivalence, timeliness and feasibility, is built on American National Geographic and Chinese National Geography on which a few researchers delve from the perspective of motivation, so it is worthy of more exploration. Theoretically, this study will explain the inherent laws of language and promote the further development of linguistic motivation theory. Practically, this study may improve the efficiency of vocabulary teaching and learning.

Лексико-семантическая группа английских номинаций небольшого возвышения над землей как способ репрезентации типов знания

Based on the linguocognitive approach, the article studies the linguistic conceptualization of elevations of land in English. The material was obtained from authoritative English-English dictionaries and the British National Corpus. The aim was to identify peculiarities of linguistic conceptualization of the terrain by means of landscape words forming a lexico-semantic group and denoting an elevation of land. The author performed an etymological and component analysis of the meanings of elements of the lexico-semantic group using dictionary definitions of its lexical constituents, followed by a cognitive interpretation of the semantic components of the latter and a determination of the constitutive cognitive features of the images of the designated objects. It is concluded that the landscape nouns under study have two-dimensional meaning, which is determined by visual perception: the cognitive content of English nouns denoting an elevation of land represents not only structural knowledge – a form of categorization of information that is a given, existing knowledge representing the experience of all generations – but also phenomenological knowledge arising from sensory (immediate) observation. In addition, the author determined the ability of some of the sensually perceived features of landscape objects in the vertical space (shape, size) to serve as a cognitive basis for metaphorical images, which indicates that such features are of particular importance for the everyday life of British people. The results of this study have theoretical significance and contribute to further development of cognitive linguistics by revealing the cognitive mechanisms of perception, categorization and conceptualization of elevations of land.

Individual differences in L2 proficiency moderate the effect of L1 translation knowledge on L2 lexical retrieval

Abstract The effect of translation knowledge on bilingual lexical production is mixed, with some studies showing translation interference and others showing facilitation. We considered the roles of first-language (L1) translation knowledge and second-language (L2) proficiency in lexical retrieval, testing predictions of the competition for selection, frequency lag and activation boosting accounts. In experiment 1, 54 highly proficient Spanish–English bilinguals named pictures of low-frequency nouns in English (L2). Spanish (L1) translation knowledge and English proficiency had an interactive effect on tip-of-the-tongue experiences with increased L1 translation interference at low levels of L2 proficiency and facilitation at high levels of L2 proficiency, consistent with combined predictions of competition for selection and activation boosting accounts. Experiment 2 confirmed that confounding lexical variables did not drive translation effects. By examining individual differences within bilinguals, we found support for multiple mechanisms that play a role in bilingual lexical retrieval that were not evident at the group level.

Lexical and perceptual biases in speakers’ syntactic choices

ABSTRACT Russell Tomlin’s groundbreaking work laid a foundation for the explorations of the interplay between linguistic and nonlinguistic factors determining structural choice during sentence production. The present article investigates the interplay between two such factors, lexical priming and visual cueing, which may prioritize a particular referent of an event for privileged subject status within a sentence. To this end, native speakers of English read noun names of either the agent or the patient prior to describing a transitive event. Before the event description, an exogenous visual cue directed their attention to the location of one of the event’s referents. Analysis of the proportion of passive-voice descriptions revealed a strong effect of lexical priming with more passives after patient-related lexical primes but no effect of visual cueing. This highlights potential constraints on previously documented visual cueing effects on speakers’ structural choices.

Translation Algorithm of Proper Nouns in English-Chinese Translation Based on Lexical Knowledge Spectrum Map

The Lexical Knowledge Spectrum Map (LKSM) represents a comprehensive visual representation of the breadth and depth of lexical knowledge within a specific domain or language. By categorizing words and phrases along a spectrum ranging from basic to advanced levels of complexity, the LKSM provides learners and educators with a clear overview of vocabulary proficiency and progression. This dynamic tool not only helps individuals track their language learning journey but also guides instructional planning by identifying areas of focus and potential gaps in lexical understanding. With its intuitive interface and adaptable framework, the LKSM serves as a valuable resource for promoting effective vocabulary acquisition and mastery across diverse linguistic contexts and educational settings. This paper introduces a novel translation algorithm designed specifically for handling proper nouns in English-Chinese translation, leveraging the Lexical Knowledge Spectrum Map (LKSM) and Feature Vector Optimization with Statistical (FVOS) techniques. Proper nouns pose a unique challenge in translation due to their cultural and contextual significance, often requiring specialized handling to ensure accuracy and coherence in the target language. The proposed algorithm utilizes the LKSM to categorize proper nouns along a spectrum of lexical complexity, providing a comprehensive framework for understanding and translating these entities effectively. Additionally, FVOS techniques are employed to optimize feature vectors for proper noun translation, enhancing the algorithm's ability to capture and preserve semantic nuances across languages. With FVOS model English proper nouns translated into Chinese, the proposed algorithm achieves an average accuracy of 85%, outperforming baseline translation methods by 15%. Moreover, specific proper noun categories exhibit notable improvements, with names of people achieving an accuracy of 90%, followed by locations at 85%, and organizations at 80%.

Suffixes with agent meaning “-er” and “-or” and their etymology

The article describes suffixation of English noun, etymological characteristics of suffix “-er” and “-or”, the description of its meaning, combinability of the suffixes with the other stems. Affixes can be treated as a way to enlarge the word stock of any language. Suffixes play a great role in the benefication of the vocabulary, they can change not only the word meaning but also the fact that it belongs to another part of speech. Etymology reveals the origin of the suffix, its correlation to the other suffixes from relative languages. The word meanings can be changed with time, and this phenomenon also differentiates the suffixes and their meaning. As an example the two noun-forming suffixes were taken for a research.

TV simultaneous interpreting of proper nouns from English to Arabic in King Charles III’s speeches

This paper aims to explore the interpreting strategies which were employed by TV interpreters to render English proper nouns (PNs) into Arabic. The data of the study comprise PNs detected in King Charles III’s political speeches along with their Arabic renditions produced live by three TV interpreters working for Al Jazeera, Sky News Arabic, and France 24. The study embarks on a qualitative and quantitative approach to achieve its aim. Based on the classification of PNs carried out by Särkkä (2007), PNs found in the English speeches are categorized in terms of their internal syntactic structure into central PNs (CPNs), extended PNs (EPNs), and descriptive PNs (DPNs). The Arabic renditions of PNs are analysed aiming to find a correlation between the category of the proper noun (PN) and the employed strategy. Based on Kalina’s (1992) typology of interpreting strategies, the results indicate that TV interpreters in many cases resorted to emergency strategies, such as omission and compression, to deal with different categories of PNs. The former strategy is particularly evident in dealing with CPNs while the latter appears mostly in DPNs. Aside from emergency strategies, transliteration is frequently used by TV interpreters to render CPNs while the strategy of transliteration plus translation is dominant in rendering EPNs.

L1 Saudi-Arabic Learners' Use of Articles with Count and Mass Nouns in L2 English

L1 Saudi-Arabic Learners' Use of Articles with Count and Mass Nouns in L2 English

English adjectives of similarity: A corpus study of their determiner/modifier status

This paper investigates the determiner/modifier distinction issue. As reference grammars tend to define determiners and modifiers very vaguely especially in neighbouring cases there is a need for more formal rule together with obligatory semantic constraint. The left-hand periphery of English noun phrases is of strict order: determination zone precedes the modification zone (from left to right), so determiners go before the adjectival string. As the determination zone precedes the modification one it is assumed that only modifiers can be preceded by adjectives. The adjectives of similarity are tested in this way. The corpus-based analysis results in fixing possible adjectives accompanying the adjectives of similarity on their left. It is claimed that no adjective of similarity can be considered as a determiner.

Second language processing of English definite noun phrases by Spanish speakers and Japanese speakers

Abstract The present study examines the acquisition of definite noun phrases (NPs) in L2 English. Both English and Spanish have a definite article, but Japanese lacks articles, though definite anaphoric and definite non-anaphoric are present to some degree through the optional use of sono (the/that). A self-paced reading task was administered to assess real-time processing in the comprehension of different types of definite NPs by L2-English learners. The self-paced reading results show processing of definite NPs is influenced by proficiency level rather than L1 transfer effects. We discuss our findings in reference to the Morphological Congruency Hypothesis and the Lexical Learning/Lexical Transfer model and suggest that our data support the latter but not the former.

Contrastive Metapragmatics and the Shifting Semantics of “Sarcasm” in English and Danish

Abstract Despite valuable studies into the uses/functions of sarcasm, no previous investigation has focused on the semantics of “sarcasm” as an emic metapragmatic category. We provide a contrastive lexical study of English and Danish using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach. We find that the English noun sarcasm has been undergoing semantic innovation and is now polysemous, as is its corresponding adjective. Roughly, older sarcasm1 expresses a positive message with an obvious negative intention, while newer sarcasm2 expresses a negative message with the aim of being amusing. For Danish, sarkasme is shown to closely align with sarcasm1, but semantic innovation has been happening in Danish too. A new expression sarkastisk humor overlaps with sarcasm2 but is tailored to fit into Danish humor discourses. The study sheds light on insider understandings and metapragmatic discourses in Anglo and Danish linguacultures. There are cautionary implications for the use of “sarcasm” as a second-order concept.

Linguistic and pragmatic ways of committing oneself

Abstract In this study I focus on the complementation patterns of commissive shell nouns in Ghanaian English (GhE). Commissive shell nouns are a type of illocutionary shell noun, i.e. a noun that encapsulates a content that is usually expressed in a complement or even separate clause or sentence thereby ascribing it an illocutionary force. I use the usage-based approach to the study of language and investigate the behavioral profile of these nouns in GhE. I apply descriptive statistics to data that have been collected from the Corpus of Global Web-based English (GloWbE). The study provides evidence for the characterization of GhE usage norms, and thus contributes to the scholarly knowledge on this variety of English. It also sheds light on the contribution that the meaning-related and ultimately cognitive perspective can offer in describing the complementation patterns of illocutionary nouns in Postcolonial Englishes (PCEs).

Sensory Emotion in Words: Evidence From an Event-related Potential (ERP) Study in Light of the Emotioncy Model.

Delving into the prominent role of emotions and senses in language is not something new in the field. Thereupon, the newly developed notion of emotioncy has been introduced to foreign language education to underscore the role of sense-induced emotions in the language learning and teaching process. The present study implemented event-related potentials (ERPs) to provide evidence of the significance of employing emosensory instructional strategies in teaching vocabulary items. Hence, 18 female participants were randomly instructed on six English nouns toward which they had no prior knowledge and received no instruction for the other three words. Then, while the participants' electroencephalogram (EEG) was being recorded, they took a sentence comprehension task. Behavioral results demonstrated significant differences among the avolved, the exvolved, and the involved nouns. However, ERP analyses of target words indicated the modulations of N100 and N480 components while no significant effect was observed at P200. Further, the analysis of sensory N100 for the critical words revealed no significant effect. In conclusion, emotioncy-based language instruction can affect neural correlates of emotional word comprehension from the early stages of EEG recording. The results of this study can clarify the importance of including senses and emotions in language teaching, learning, and testing, along with materials development. Direct emosensory involvement can affect word semantic processing.Indirect emosensory involvement can affect sensorial comprehension of the word.Direct sensory involvement may enhance the accuracy of the responses.Direct sensory involvement may reduce the response time. Nowadays, learning a foreign language is considered one of the challenges in our lives. It is believed that including senses and emotions in education can foster learning new words in a foreign language. One concept that focuses on the use of sensory emotions is called emotioncy. This study employed brain imaging to analyze the effects of teaching through emotioncy on related neural modulations. Based on the results of the study, higher levels of employing senses and emotions can affect the processing and comprehension of words.

A trichotomic view of the linguistic sign: from the distinction between hyponyms and hypernyms to the distinction between images and ideas

ABSTRACT According to the theory of Baron and Herslund, English has a tendency to have names for collective concepts such as “chairs” and “bowls”, whereas French more or less consistently lacks names for collective concepts and, instead, has different names for different chairs and bowls. This observation is crucial and is not restricted to English and French nouns – when English uses one verb in an utterance, but Chinese more than one verb, we are dealing with the same distinction. All existing models of lexical semantics may contain tools to describe this distinction, but they lack tools to explain it. This is largely due to the fact that they are grounded in Saussure’s dichotomic view of symbols, i.e., as consisting of an expression unit and a content unit in which there is an arbitrary and conventional relationship between the two sides . However, if one adopts a trichotomic view, where there is one expression unit but two content units, called images and ideas, it becomes possible to explain the differences between English and French. Moreover, it becomes clear that “convention” and “arbitrariness” should be kept strictly apart, since they concern different sides of the linguistic sign.

On the effect of pluralization on the numeralization of nouns in English and Polish: a contrastive corpus-based study

On the effect of pluralization on the numeralization of nouns in English and Polish: a contrastive corpus-based study