Grammatical Word Class Research Articles

Lexical Characteristics of the Speech Intelligibility Test: Effects on Transcription Intelligibility for Speakers With Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson's Disease.

Lexical characteristics of speech stimuli can significantly impact intelligibility. However, lexical characteristics of the widely used Speech Intelligibility Test (SIT) are unknown. We aimed to (a) define variation in neighborhood density, word frequency, grammatical word class, and type-token ratio across a large corpus of SIT sentences and tests and (b) determine the relationship of lexical characteristics to speech intelligibility in speakers with multiple sclerosis (MS), Parkinson's disease (PD), and neurologically healthy controls. Using an extant database of 92 speakers (32 controls, 30 speakers with MS, and 30 speakers with PD), percent correct intelligibility scores were obtained for the SIT. Neighborhood density, word frequency, word class, and type-token ratio were calculated and summed for each of the 11 sentences of each SIT test. The distribution of each characteristic across SIT sentences and tests was examined. Linear mixed-effects models were performed to assess the relationship between intelligibility and the lexical characteristics. There was large variability in the distribution of lexical characteristics across this large corpus of SIT sentences and tests. Modeling revealed a relationship between intelligibility and the lexical characteristics, with word frequency and word class significantly contributing to the model. Three primary findings emerged: (a) There was considerable variability in lexical characteristics both within and across the large corpus of SIT tests; (b) there was not a robust association between intelligibility and the lexical characteristics; and (c) findings from a study demonstrating an effect of neighborhood density and word frequency on intelligibility were replicated. Clinical and research implications of the findings are discussed, and three exemplar SIT tests systematically controlling for neighborhood density and word frequency are provided.

Top-down information shapes lexical processing when listening to continuous speech

ABSTRACT Speech is often structurally and semantically ambiguous. Here we study how the human brain uses sentence context to resolve lexical ambiguity. Twenty-one participants listened to spoken narratives while magneto-encephalography (MEG) was recorded. Stories were annotated for grammatical word class (noun, verb, adjective) under two hypothesised sources of information: “bottom-up”: the most common word class given the word’s phonology; “top-down”: the correct word class given the context. We trained a classifier on trials where the hypotheses matched (about 90%) and tested the classifier on trials where they mismatched. The classifier predicted top-down word class labels, and anti-correlated with bottom-up labels. Effects peaked ∼100 ms after word onset over mid-frontal MEG sensors. Phonetic information was encoded in parallel, though peaking later (∼200 ms). Our results support that lexical representations are built in a context-sensitive manner, which precedes sensory phonetic processing. We showcase multivariate analyses for teasing apart subtle representational distinctions from neural time series.

VERSIFICATION OF LANGUAGE UNITS FROM THE LENS OF MORPHOLOGICAL STATISTICS (MODERN BRITISH AND GERMAN POETRY)

The article presents a statistical linguistic analysis of the morphological structure represented in British poetry. The part-of-speech belonging of words as a subject of stylometry is analyzed. The use of statistical text analysis to determine the set of keywords in British poetry helps to quantify the parameters of its linguistic style, and this complements the qualitative analysis of linguistic phenomena. The statistics of the researched language of British and German poetry includes the analysis of various linguistic aspects that are characteristic of poetic speech in the contemporary literature of Great Britain. The article focuses on the scientific interest in the morphological statistics of the language of British poetry for the analysis of the structural features of the poetic text. Nouns in poetry are used to name objects, ideas, abstract concepts, as well as to create images and symbols. They can play a significant role in creating images and concepts in a poetic text. Verbs define actions, events, and the state of objects in poetry; other grammatical classes of words help create rhythm, pace, movement, and expressiveness in a poetic text. Service words are used to build syntactic structures and provide coherence between words and sentences in poetry. Determining the number of linguistic units of a certain grammatical class in poetry serves as a reliable tool for studying the reflection of the most essential features and statistical parameters of poetic discourse. The material presented in the article for the study and further analysis of their morphological potential was selected from contemporary original texts written by British poets contained in literary anthologies, libraries and web resources specializing in poetry. The examples for linguistic morphological analysis are the works of Carol Ann Duffy, Seamus Justin Heaney, Simon Armitage, T. C. Eliot Doris Kareckendey, Ulrike Almut Sandig, Jan Wagner, Durs Grünbein and Kai Wieland. It has been observed that there are no strict rules as to which parts of speech should prevail in poetry in general, and this always remains in the sphere of the author's creativity. The analyzed aspects of morphological analysis can be applied to the poetry of different historical periods and literary trends in British and German poetry in order to study their features and the evolution of linguistic expression, which determines the prospects for further research in this area.

Ideational Dimensions of Wole Soyinka’s Idanre: Dramatic and Poetic Interpretations

This paper examines the ideational dimension of Soyinka’s Idanre, in the light of two approaches. The first one is the Hallidayan approach which takes substance from Halliday’s Theories on group and phrase clauses under the classification of process, participant and circumstance. The second approach is the method adopted by the Indian linguist Syal, in his book entitled Structure and Stylein commonwealth Literature. This method is issued to analyze the ideational function of texts from the perspective of grammatical classes of words like verbs, nouns, adjectives, prepositional phrases etc. It derives the interpretation from the textuality of the text, taking into account the fact that textuality reflects a particular social and cultural orientation through meaning, stated or implied, embedded in the discourse. The purpose of this study is to see how the ideational functions have been used to allow entry into the world of Idanre and to have a fulfilling interpretation of the poem, using grammar as the basis for the analysis. The study shows that the use of the two approaches to the ideational dimension has the advantage of offering an in-depth interpretation of the poem.

On the Question of Particularization in Russian: the adjective "literal"

The article is devoted to the problem of the relationship of particles as a grammatical and functional class with words of other parts of speech. The relevance of the research is determined by its involvement in the problems of studying the phenomenon of transitivity between grammatical classes of words, in particular, the process of particularization in modern Russian. The object of the study is the adjective "literal". The subject of the study is the syntagmatic, semantic and pragmatic features of this lexeme. The purpose of the work is to establish the types of use of the word literal, their syntagmatic and semantic qualifications. The paper uses a descriptive method, as well as elements of comparative and quantitative analysis. The scientific novelty of the study consists in the fact that the range of meanings of the adjective literal is determined on the basis of the material of the NKRR and the specificity of its use in the function of the particle is revealed. It is established that the "literal" lexeme in modern Russian appears both in characteristic compatibility (with nouns with the meaning of speech or mental activity or its result) and in less or uncharacteristic compatibility (with words whose meaning is not related to speech activity). The features of the use of the adjective as a communicative-pragmatic unit functioning literally by the type of particle are determined: the presence of the pragmatic meaning ‘not real’, ‘similar’ while preserving the morphological and syntactic properties of the significant word. The main conclusion concerns the qualification of the word literal in such cases as a particle-like unit with hybrid properties. The results of the study can be used both in the study of other adjectival units involved in the process of particularization, and in lexicographic practice.

Functional and Semantic Extension of the Sentence of the Modern Ukrainian Literary Language

The latest linguistic research has witnessed a strengthening of the analytical consideration of syntactic semantics, the introduction of functional-semantic approach to determining the specifics of the sentence, its nucleus and potentially nucleus components in the inter-categorical section. It is obvious that the analysis of the sentence semantic organization takes into consideration the functions of individual syntaxemes, their system relations network, as well as syntactic properties of grammatical classes of words. At the same time, there arises a problem of complex analysis and interpretation of the mechanisms of semantics and functioning of a syntactic organization in general, as well as each of its units in particular. Typology of the syntactic system of the Ukrainian language, introduction of changes into the "from semantics to function", "from function to semantics", "complex, semantic and functional potential" ideas, all these contribute to the study of syntactic constructions on both the superficial and deep meaning levels. It is noteworthy that linguistic semantics relies on the idea of ​​"non-alternative picture of the world" that is a generalized picture of a one-dimensional type, which excludes the option of complementary and mutually contradictory procedures in its interpretation. 
 Singling out of the extenders in the syntactic plane is connected to the extending way of thinking of the individual, which provides a defining conceptual background of scientific developments, acting as a tool for understanding reality in general and the extending basis of sentence construction in particular. It is the extended view of the surrounding reality allows interpreting the branched system of semantic components and meanings in various structural syntactic units.
 Given that the sentence, its structure, responsible for the unity of both the superficial and deep meaning, is the sphere of functioning of syntactically tuned elements, and, therefore, a multifaceted unit allowing interaction of formal, semantic and syntactic features of sentence entities, it is the multifaceted nature of a sentence that provides the context for extenders study.
 Functional-semantic extension of the sentence consists of a four-component hierarchy of extender models: elementary extender; extender complex; extender system; mega- extender, and that indicates the semantic potential of the studied syntactic units both from the standpoint of potentially main / main predication, and in terms of functioning in a framework of simple and complex sentences. The study of the problem is complemented by transformational intentions of the extending components, and it allows reaching to the deep meaning of the sentence through functional-semantic features.

Construtions of some elements for hierarphic model of arabic text

Elements of the hierarchical model of the Arabic text are proposed: positioned lexical and grammatical classes of words, morphological model, fragments of the syntactic model. A formalized representation of word forms of the Arabic text as the maximum form of the sequence of morphological units is proposed. Based on the analysis of the dictionary of word forms of political and social texts morphological units that can be used for further automated analysis and processing of the text of a natural language are identified.

Recognition of grammatical class of imagined words from EEG signals using convolutional neural network

In this paper we propose a framework using multi-channel convolutional neural network (MC–CNN) for recognizing the grammatical class (verb or noun) of covertly-spoken words from electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. Our proposed network extracts features by taking into account spatial, temporal, and spectral properties of the EEG signal. Further, sets of signals acquired from different regions of the brain are processed separately within the proposed framework and are subsequently combined at the classification stage. This approach enables the network to effectively learn discriminative features from the locations of the brain where imagined speech is processed. Our network was tested using challenging experiments, including cases where the test subject did not take part in system training. In our main application scenario, where no instance of a specific noun or verb was used during training, our method achieved 85.7% recognition. Further, our proposed method was evaluated on a publicly available EEG dataset and achieved recognition rate of 93.8% in binary classification. These results demonstrate the potential of our method.

A Feature Percolation Convention of Affixation Processes in Urhobo

This paper seeks to examine headedness in affixation processes in Urhobo using a feature percolation approach. Affixation is a rich source of word formation process in the Urhobo language. The specific objectives are to identify affixation processes in Urhobo, investigate how they are used to derive words and determine headedness in the Urhobo language using a feature percolation theory as a framework. This paper reveals three affixation processes in Urhobo, which are prefixes, circumfixes and suffixes. Affixation is a derivational aspect of morphology and it brings about change in the grammatical class of the word or rather, provides additional semantic information to a word. The paper discovers that new words are derived in the language by attaching an affix either at the beginning (prefix), or to the end (suffix) of a word. This process is very productive in the language. The paper reveals that the head of a word using prefix is left-right branching while for suffixes, it is right-left branching. The prefix and suffix attached to a root to form the circumfix project to be the head of a word. The study observes circumfixes to have two heads. Feature percolation theory is also used to determine the head of a word in Urhobo. The paper concludes by recommending further researches on the use of theories especially morphological theories in analysing morphological processes in Urhobo.

ANALYSIS OF MARKETING SLOGANS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF TRANSLATION STUDIES

This research is focused on a detailed analysis of advertising slogans of well-known food brands, linguistic features of slogans, translation strategies, linguistic shifts applied and difficulties translators face in the process of translating. The relevance of the topic is determined by the need to determine the features of the translation of advertising slogans, the influence of cultural factors on the translation of advertising slogans, the influence of verbal and nonverbal components of advertising on its perception by the target audience. For the study, 50 advertising slogans of various food companies were carried out. Features and strategies of translation of advertising slogans, lexical-grammatical, stylistic and other transformations applied to the target text are established. According to Catford's classification, the main dominant category of linguistic transformations is the transformation of sentence structure, which is used in the translation of approximately 38% of advertising slogans. Changes in rank and changes within the language system of the target language are 23% and 27%, respectively, and changes in grammatical classes of words – 12%. This work has theoretical value in terms of studying unique features of the discourse of advertising and peculiarities of translation of advertising slogans, and practical value for use of verbal and nonverbal elements of advertising as a means of influencing consumers.

On the pragmatic aspects of the use of relative adjectives (based on newspaper texts)

The article is devoted to studying the pragmatics of using relative adjectives in media discourse. Relative adjectives pose a serious problem for Russian lexicography. Their lexical meaning depends on the generating stem of the noun (cf. лесной from лес, кирпичный — from кирпич, пламенный — from пламя), but it does not always coincide. The article examines two questions, illustrated with examples from newspapers and magazines in Russian. The first question is related to the behavior of relative adjectives in the syntactic structure of an utterance. These words are actively involved in various transformations (reorganizations) of the phrase in inner speech. Examples are expressions such as проходной балл (passing score), онегинская строфа (Onegin stanza), чеховское ружье (Chekhov’s gun), вертолетные деньги (helicopter money), etc. The mobility, dynamism of this grammatical class of words represents a significant benefit (bonus) for the journalist. It is shown that the mechanisms of metaphor and metonymy are involved in the processes of syntactic transformation. The second question is the acquisition by relative adjectives of additional pragmatic shades of meaning due to the ideological attitudes (principles) of the speaker. These definitions acquire evaluative (axiological) semantics, which can be used, among other things, for the purpose of manipulating the reader. With the help of these adjectives, a positive or negative image of a concept is formed. Many such expressions originated in the Soviet era (пламенный борец, порочная практика, гнилая буржуазия), but their range continues to expand today (вегетарианский период, санкционные меры, материнский капитал, силовые министерства). The combination of relative adjectives, as well as their pragmatic connotations, require reflection in lexicographical publications.

Does verb transitivity influence word association responses?

Abstract Although several studies have investigated the influence of the grammatical class of cue words on response patterns in the word association task, relatively little is known about the influence of more fine-grained distinctions such as cue transitivity. The present study tests two predictions, made in existing studies, of the influence of this variable. The first is that cue transitivity would influence the grammatical class of responses; the second, that it would affect the directionality of position-based, or syntagmatic, responses. English language associative responses to 49 transitive and 49 intransitive cues were gathered from 53 English L1 respondents. These responses were then analysed according to their grammatical class and categorical designation. Results suggested that cue transitivity influences both of these measurements: transitive cues yielded more noun responses and more associations classified as likely to follow the cue in text than did intransitives, while transitives received more verb responses and more associations likely to precede the cue. These results are discussed in the light of contiguity-based and semantic theories of the determinants of word association.

MAIN PROBLEMS AND DIRECTIONS IN THE STUDY OF PRONOUNS AT THE TURN OF THE XX-XXI CENTURIES

The article contains an analytical review of linguistic works devoted to the reinterpretation of pronouns as a grammatical class of Russian words. Pronouns are words that are difficult to systematize according to the characteristics on the basis of which parts of speech in the language are distinguished. The purpose of the study is to consider the most important works in the field of linguistics, to generalize the views and approaches in the description of the pronominal class and to determine the most productive of them. The subject of research in this article is the works on pronouns, published in the late XX and early XXI century. The analysis revealed the main problems and trends in the description of the pronominal class in modern Russian linguistics. It was found that pronouns require special description schemes, since they differ in their properties from all other words at the categorical level. The most productive approach to describe them is the functional one, which makes it possible to study pronouns, taking into account the specifics of their use in texts and communication. Among several methods of functional research, the most effective is the description of pronouns according to the effective function.

The Language of Power in the Present-Day Digital Media Discourse and Its Effect on Young People’s Consciousness

This study focuses on the notion of power as a way of conceptualisation, representation and functioning in the Russian and English-speaking media discourse and its role in the life of the younger generation of the third millennium. Power and its language have always remained an actual research question of interdisciplinary scientific analysis. However, studying young people’s linguistic and paralinguistic perception of power in the era of digitalisation becomes extremely important due to an empowering role young adults have started playing in modern society employing new media and their discursive communication there. The study regards the theoretical background of the phenomenon of power, based on A. Gramsci’s hegemonic approach. The authors of the research suggest that the media discourse is a hegemonic form of power that maintains its position through the elaboration of a particular worldview, which makes a significant impact on young individuals, the so-called net-generation. The study relies on free-associative and graphic experiments to analyse and perceive “power” concept and its influence on young individuals’ consciousness. Results indicate that both Russian and English-speaking media discourse represents “power” through the prism of anthroponyms as well as toponyms. Besides, the findings of the free-associative experiment, conducted among young adults, demonstrated the dominance of the lexical units belonging to the same grammatical class of words as the stimulus word “power”. Furthermore, a graphic experiment revealed young people’s emotional evaluations of power in media discourse communication. As such, the results suggest that “power” is a natural, complex and multifaceted linguacultural and social phenomenon realised through a variety of linguistic and paralinguistic means, and it produces a dualistic effect on young people’s consciousness through their interaction in the media discourse space.

Use of Algorithms when Teaching Morphological Norms of Nouns: A Case Study in the 6th Grade

The author of the article focuses on the search for optimal and effective methods and techniques that contribute to the conscious acquisition of the morphological norms of nouns and prevent grammatical errors in the speech of students. The article presents the system of assignments on the compilation of grammatical algorithms in the study of morphological norms of nouns. The content of this system includes such structural elements as (1) observation of linguistic material, (2) structuring of observations using tables and (3) building an algorithmic argument based on the conclusions made during the observation of the didactic material and heuristic conversations on finding grammatical features, by which the branches of the algorithm are formed. In the course of scientific and methodological research, the effectiveness of compiling algorithms in the process of collective and independent work during lessons was determined. The results of a study based on this technique showed that schoolchildren, compiling algorithms related to the grammatical material, consciously learn the morphological norms of nouns, avoiding grammatical errors in speech. The presented methodology for compiling grammatical algorithms when studying a noun can be used for other grammatical classes of words, encouraging the creativity of both students and teachers of the Russian language.

Language Features of Russian Texts of Engineering Discourse

The Article is devoted to the applied problem of identifying the linguistic features of engineering texts. The study of Russian-language texts of engineering discourse is usually of an applied nature, in our case, this applied research is caused by the need to teach foreigners who receive professional engineering education in Russia and in Russian language. The object of the research is the Russian-language texts of textbooks and manuals of engineering specialty Robotic systems. The logical-component features of the engineering texts organization are described. The basis for the study of features can be a dictionary database of engineering texts, namely catalogs of frequency words. The method of creating a catalog of frequency words is presented. The source material for this study were the texts on the engineering specialty Robotic systems, created for the purpose of teaching students of this profile. In total, about 10 thousand pages of authentic texts were processed. The catalog of frequency vocabulary includes about 2000 units. On the basis of this analysis, the substantive, verbal, adjectival, adverbial groups and the group of service parts of speech were identified. Quantitative analysis allowed to identify the most popular grammatical classes of words that are found in Russian engineering texts, and to describe the features of their functioning in engineering texts. Currently, the results of the research allow us to come to the statement that engineering communication is a special kind of Russian-language speech universe. The method of analysis of texts of engineering specialties, based on the study of the most frequent vocabulary, is not exhaustive in order to see all their specific language features, but makes it possible to track the most striking features inherent in this class of scientific texts. The Appendix contains a catalogue of frequency vocabulary in the engineering specialty Robotic systems.

Characteristics of Manchu Particle sere as a Hearsay Marker

This study aims to prove that Manchu sere is a particle representing hearsay. In order to achieve the purpose of this study, this study examined the morphological and distributional characteristics of sere and confirmed that the characteristics of sere are consistent with the characteristics of the grammatical word classes that function as hearsay. Morphologically, sere was formed in the say verb se-, and -ra was used as an atypical usage. That is, sere shows the characteristics of the grammatical morpheme. Distributively, the sere phrase has different characteristics from the quotation phrase. First, in the sere phrase, there is no accusative subject sentence. Second, there is no realization of a speaker in the sere phrase. Third, the speaker of the sere phrase is a third person speaker that is not specified, and the speaker is always different from the subject of the phrase that expresses the information. In conclusion, the morphological and distributional characteristics of sere are consistent with the characteristics of the typical hearsay phrase. Therefore, sere is a grammatical morpheme that represents hearsay.

Формування морфологічної компетенції студентів-філологів

The article deals with the problem of forming morphological competence as an important component of the linguistic competence of intending Ukrainian language and literature teachers. Its structural components are determined: learning the system of morphological knowledge; mastering the skills and abilities to identify, to distinguish, to analyze morphological phenomena; conscious using them in speaking activities in different communicative situations. It is noticed that in the process of studying morphology, students should learn the regularities of functioning the language grammatical system, the issues of its researching at the present stage of Ukrainian linguistics development. Comparison of academic and school grammar contents give grounds for distinguishing a number of problematic issues that today have a little different coverage in theoretical linguistics and in the textbooks for higher education and secondary education institutions. It is stressed that future teachers should master the system of the newest morphological knowledge, in particular modern functional morphology, necessary for further successful professional activity. It is outlined the key issues of the section “Morphology”, the mastering of which will become the basis for students to understand the linguistic nature of semantic and grammatical word classes, understanding pronouns and auxiliary words peculiarities, the features of exclamations and onomatopoeias. It is noted that in the studying the main theoretical questions of morphology priority importance is given to the problem method. The examples of problematic tasks aimed at in-depth independent individual studying educational tasks by students, searching the information to prove or refute statement are given in the article. Some tasks and exercises are proposed, the content of which is determined by key skills and which are aimed at developing the basic students’ components of morphological competence. It was emphasized that in the process of doing such tasks cognitive, creative, activity, communicative skills of intending teachers are developed, which is an important part of their professional activity.

ГРАМАТИЧНИЙ СТАТУС ДІЄПРИСЛІВНИКА В СИСТЕМІ ЧАСТИН МОВИ

The article examines the grammatical status of diiepryslivnyk (the specific adverbial form of the Ukrainian verb). It has been determined that the diiepryslivnyk as a grammatical class of words occupies a separate grammatical niche and is an unchangeable part of speech of deverbal nature, which functions with the meaning of the processual adverbial modifier or acts either as the grammatical center of an adverbial phrase or expletive structure. Ascribing the diiepryslivnyk to the verbal-adverbial or adverbial-verbal category abridges the specificity in determining its grammatical status. Diiepryslivnyk is a deverbal formation that inherits from the verb its stem with prefixes, affixes, postfix -sia, by which the meaning of the aspect is transmitted to the adverbial participle, and which has not lost its ability to have dependent words. Yet the existence of these grammatical indicators is not considered to be the basis for including the diiepryslivnyk to the deverbal forms. The difference between the diiepryslivnyk as an unchangeable form and the adverb itself is that the diiepryslivnyk expresses the meaning of a procedural adverbial modifier. The adverb is deprived of this, because it includes non-processual words. They also differ by the fact that among diiepryslivnyks there are no such words that in the isolated way, without reference to other words, would be perceived with the certain meaning of an adverbial modifier. The semantics of the adverb is clearly determined even in the isolated position.

FUNCTIONAL CONDITIONALITY OF WORD’S ACCENTUATION IN RUSSIAN ORAL SCIENTIFIC SPEECH

In modern pragmalinguistic and intonational studies an increasing relevance for describing academic discourse has the analysis of prosodic aspect of text organization and word accent as meaningful means of linguistic speech structure. The scientific significance of the research object is determined by the insufficient study of this phenomenon both in domestic and in foreign linguistics. The article describes the regularities of phrasal and prosodic word accent in oral scientific monologue of different genres. The purpose of the work is to characterize the intonational features this text and to reveal the functional conditionality of word accent in the discourse of linguistic personality. The author solves the following problems: to describe existing approaches to nterpreting semantic potential of word accent, to define the uniqueness of intonation organization of scientific oral monologue, to show the determinants of word accent in real speech contexts. In this regard, special attention is paid to the identification of text-forming mechanisms of accent, related to oral scientific discourse. The research is carried out on the basis of real oral scientific texts records processed by the method of auditory analysis with subsequent functional interpretation of the obtained data. The duration of analyzed records of oral scientific speech of various genres (lectures, reports, speeches in discussions) is more than 30 hours. After the study, the following results have been obtained: linguistic and rhetorical features of oral scientific discourse prosodic organization are revealed; the factors determining word accent in speech flow are described, the functioning of the lexico-semantically, positional-syntactically, contextually, situational-thematically and pragmatically conditioned accentuations in the analyzed material is shown. The scientific perspectives of the theme are seen in drawing up the rules of accentuation of different grammatical word classes in public speech and defining lexicographical aspects of the accentuated lexical units in the discourse, which, undoubtedly, will make a significant contribution to the description of the speech portrait of Russian linguistic personality in different communicative spheres of speech.