Grammatical Constraints Research Articles

ISwitch: Spanish-English Mixing in Computer-Mediated Communication

Technology, and the Internet in particular, have rapidly transformed the means of communication in the 21st century, opening the door to a novel and fertile ground of research. What takes place when bi- or multilingual individuals sit at the keyboard has been the focus of several studies exploring computer-mediated communication (cmc). However, there appears to be a lack of research dealing specifically with Spanish-English language mixing online, a surprising fact given that Spanish is the third language of the Internet and its use has grown 800% in the last decade. The present work analyzes and compares data from three different sources of cmc (e-mail, blogs, and social networks including Facebook and Twitter) among Spanish-English bilinguals in an attempt to further explore the still relatively new field of “electronic code-switching”. The study aims to outline the reasons behind bilingual individuals’ language mixing online, hypothesizing that it will accomplish many of the socio-pragmatic functions traditionally ascribed to oral code-switching along with, perhaps, other uses idiosyncratic of cmc. Furthermore, it intends to emphasize the cultural nature of code-switching, a crucial component that has often been overlooked in the search for grammatical constraints.

Anticipating syntax during reading: Evidence from the boundary change paradigm.

Previous evidence suggests that grammatical constraints have a rapid influence during language comprehension, particularly at the level of word categories (noun, verb, preposition). These findings are in conflict with a recent study from Angele, Laishley, Rayner, and Liversedge (2014), in which sentential fit had no early influence on word skipping rates during reading. In the present study, we used a gaze-contingent boundary change paradigm to manipulate the syntactic congruity of an upcoming noun or verb outside of participants' awareness. Across 3 experiments (total N = 148), we observed higher skipping rates for syntactically valid previews (The admiral would not confess . . .), when compared with violation previews (The admiral would not surgeon . . .). Readers were less likely to skip an ungrammatical continuation, even when that word was repeated within the same sentence (The admiral would not admiral . . .), suggesting that word-class constraints can take precedence over lexical repetition effects. To our knowledge, these results provide the first evidence for an influence of syntactic context during parafoveal word recognition. On the basis of the early time-course of this effect, we argue that readers can use grammatical constraints to generate syntactic expectations for upcoming words. (PsycINFO Database Record

Linguistics: The Garden and the Bush

Linguistics: The Garden and the Bush

Onko suomen ja ruotsin koodinvaihdolla kielioppia? Substantiivien ja verbien taivutus Haaparannan, Tukholman ja Helsingin kaksikielisissä keskusteluissa

Is there grammar in code-switching between Finnish and Swedish? Nouns and verbs in Finnish/Swedish code-switching he aim of the present study is to research bilingual Finnish-Swedish and Swedish-Finnish adolescents’ code-switching in Haparanda, Stockholm and Helsinki. In this article the main focus of the investigation is on the integration of embedded nouns and verbs in intrasentential code-switching from the point of view of grammar. The article investigates whether the code-switching is governed by Finnish or Swedish grammar, and how Swedish words are integrated into Finnish syntax and vice versa. he theoretical framework is found in the field of code-switching research and grammatical aspects of language alternation. A central interest of researchers on code-switching grammar is the grammatical constraints on where codeswitching can occur in a sentence and where it is not possible because of violatig the syntactic structure. The present analysis of code-switched sentences is also concerned with Poplack’s equivalence constraint, which predicts that code- switches will tend to occur at points where the juxtaposition of elements from the two languages does not violate a syntactic rule of either language. he primary data was collected in 2014–2016 among bilingual adolescents at three junior high schools in Haparanda. The secondary data was collected in 2014 at a Swedish junior high school in Helsinki and in 2015–2016 at two Swedish-Finnish junior high school in Stockholm. The data consists of video- and audio-recorded group and pair conversations. All the recordings were made outside lesson times. The analysis of the collected conversation data is qualitative. The results of this investigation show that code-switching between Finnish and Swedish is mainly governed by Finnish grammar and Finnish is used in the different noun cases, regardless of the matrix language. Embedded Swedish nouns adopt Finnish inflectional endings in code-switching in Haparanda and Stockholm. However, there are also some exceptions, especially in the conversational data from Stockholm, where the nouns also can be in the bas form or follow Swedish syntax.

Auf der Suche nach einer grammatischen Erklärung des Code-Switching: empirische Überprüfung ausgewählter syntaktischer Beschränkungen und der Triggering-Hypothese

Code-Switching ist ein Sprachkontaktphanomen und besteht in einem Wechsel zwischen zwei oder mehreren Sprachen bzw. Sprachvarietaten innerhalb einer Auserung und kann entweder unbewusst oder bewusst ablaufen. Das Ziel des vorliegenden Artikels ist es, ausgewahlte syntaktische Beschrankungen des Code-Switching, so wie sie in der Fachliteratur diskutiert werden, zur Debatte zu stellen und anhand einer Transkription eines Interviews mit dem beruhmten Neurobiologen Eric Kandel (2011) empirisch zu uberprufen. Einer empirischen Uberprufung wird ebenfalls die Triggering -Hypothese (M. Clyne, 1967) unterzogen.

Discourse particles in Chinese–Japanese code switching: Constrained by the Matrix Language Frame?

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: The purpose of this paper is to clarify the grammatical constraints on discourse particles in Chinese–Japanese intra-sentential code switching in light of the general framework of the Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model augmented by the 4-M model. Design/methodology/approach: This study retrieves data collected for three years from three Chinese–Japanese bilingual children aged between 2;1 and 5;0. Data and analysis: The database consists of nearly 300 hours of spontaneous conversations that are audio-recorded from the families of the three bilingual children, as well as diary entries. It shows that a large number of code switching utterances involve discourse particles. Findings/conclusions: Qualitative analyses of the data indicate that discourse particles are generally constrained by the MLF, yet they do not fit into any category of the 4-M model. Morphologically bound, discourse particles represent the information structure of a sentence (as in the Japanese topic marker - wa) or encode constraints on the inferential processes (as in the Japanese complementizer - kara) rather than truth-conditional information. They manifest some idiosyncrasy at the interface of syntax and pragmatics, and set up the MLF at a discourse level. Thus, the MLF model is extended from a merely syntactic level to the syntax–discourse interface. Originality: The present work has contributed empirical evidence from a hitherto undocumented language pair of Chinese and Japanese, and made theoretical explorations on the linguistic constraints of discourse particles. Significance/implications: On one hand, it is work that provides support for the robust nature of universality of the MLF constraints on code switching. On the other hand, discourse particles exhibit typological features that need further theoretical exploration in order to make a more comprehensive account for the grammatical constraints on Chinese–Japanese code switching.

Christine Brooke-Rose and the Science of Fiction: Rethinking Conceptual Writing and Artificial Intelligence in Xorandor

ABSTRACTThis article discusses how Christine Brooke-Rose’s 1984 novel Xorandor grew out of a conventional science fiction story intended for pseudonymous publication. Her distinct priorities as an experimental writer—adopting grammatical and syntactical constraints—manifest themselves in her revisionary appropriation of the science fiction genre. She decided to rewrite the draft of her novel entirely in dialogue, accepting SF characters as representative rather than individualized. The book’s narrators are adolescent twins who uncover explanations for events in retrospect, when in traditional “hard SF” (stories that strictly adhere to invented scientific principles), exposition prefigures the narrative action. With this setup, Brooke-Rose crafts a narrative about a silicon creature discovered on Earth that uses English and programming language to converse with humans. The young adult narrators interacting with a living computer stages a fascinating reflection on how we humanize technology and how artificial intelligences imperfectly imitate our ways of knowing and communicating.

Grammatical Constraints on Language Switching: Language Control is not Just Executive Control.

The current study investigated the roles of grammaticality and executive control on bilingual language selection by examining production speed and failures of language control, or intrusion errors (e.g., saying el instead of the), in young and aging bilinguals. Production of mixed-language connected speech was elicited by asking Spanish-English bilinguals to read aloud paragraphs that had mostly grammatical (conforming to naturally occurring constraints) or mostly ungrammatical (haphazard mixing) language switches, and low or high switching rate. Mixed-language speech was slower and less accurate when switch-rate was high, but especially (for speed) or only (for intrusion errors) if switches were also ungrammatical. Executive function ability (measured with a variety of tasks in young bilinguals in Experiment 1, and aging bilinguals in Experiment 2), slowed production and increased intrusion rate in a generalized fashion, but with little or no interaction with grammaticality. Aging effects appeared to reflect reduced monitoring ability (evidenced by a lower rate of self-corrected intrusions). These results demonstrate robust effects of grammatical encoding on language selection, and imply that executive control influences bilingual language production only after sentence planning and lexical selection.

The Production of Complement Clauses in Children With Language Impairment.

The purpose of this research was to provide a comprehensive description of complement-clause production in children with language impairment. Complement clauses were examined with respect to types of complement structure produced, verb use, and both semantic and syntactic accuracy. A group of 17 children with language impairment (mean age = 6;10 [years; months]) was compared with a group of 17 younger children with typical language development (mean age = 4;6). Examples of both nonfinite complements with different subjects and sentential complements involving a range of complement-taking verbs were collected using specially designed elicitation tasks. The children with language impairment were able to construct both types of complement clauses, had access to a range of verbs that are utilized within these constructions, and had knowledge of the grammatical constraints imposed by these verbs. However, they were more restricted in their production of sentential complements and produced significantly fewer semantically accurate complements (both finite and nonfinite) than the children with typical language development. Children with language impairment evidenced deviant rather than merely delayed development in the area of complement-clause production. Complex sentences such as complement clauses need to be targeted in language intervention programs.

Lexico-grammatical structures of agreements with assessments in English conversation: From a Japanese perspective

This is an exploratory study of lexico-grammatical resources regularly employed to construct agreements with impersonal assessments in Anglo-American English in comparison with findings for Japanese. A major grammatical strategy in Japanese for constructing agreements to assessments includes positioning the gist of the agreement at the beginning of the turn, by exploiting the ease with which word order may be varied and arguments left unexpressed. Notwithstanding the divergent grammatical structures of the two languages, the data reveal that English speakers likewise display an orientation to operating on word order and to use ellipsis for achieving similar objectives. At the same time, however, there are constraints on the pervasive application of such strategies, reflecting the affordances of English grammar. Nevertheless, such grammatical constraints may be shown to be partly offset by the extensive use of formulaic expressions for producing agreements—a strategy that does not rely on syntax. The interactional resources in the respective linguistic environments seem to have evolved flexibly and ingeniously in ways that are concordant with the overarching lexico-grammatical structures of the languages while simultaneously accommodating the potentially universal interactional contingencies for displaying affiliation.

An integrated perspective on code-mixing patterns beyond doubling?

Code-mixing (CM) is a striking example of how two languages are active simultaneously in bilingual production. Gradient Symbolic Computation (GSC) proposes a formalism to account for the systematicity of CM patterns by integrating psycholinguistic notions of bilingual co-activation with generativist accounts of grammar. We applaud the attempt to bridge research traditions and all efforts to capture the systematicity of variation, and the interaction between processing and grammatical constraints in bilingual production. However, the descriptive and predictive scope of the current proposal remains somewhat unclear, as does its connection to existing accounts.

Developing EFL Vocabulary through Speaking and Listening Activities

Vocabulary is an important aspect of language and communication skills. Teaching new vocabulary words in a foreign language classroom can be a challenge for many teachers. This is because a complete knowledge of a word needs far more than simply recognizing the word or being able to give its meaning; it includes learning its: form (spoken and written form, word-parts), meaning (form and meaning, concepts and referents, associations) and use (grammatical functions, collocations and constraints on use). Since the aim of English language school program is to learn English for communicative purposes, this article, based on current research on foreign language vocabulary teaching and learning, appeals to the use of some very important strategies and techniques for effective vocabulary teaching while building listening and speaking skills: dividing text vocabulary into active and passive ones, effectively organizing and focusing repetition, using the target foreign language in different phases of the lesson and selecting effective teaching and learning activities. These strategies provide good opportunities for learners to extend the knowledge of their actual vocabulary and acquire new words of the target language in a classroom based setting. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2015.v4n3s1p390

Effects of Processing on the Acceptability of “Frozen” Extraposed Constituents

AbstractIn syntactic theory, “freezing” refers to the idea that a constituent extraposed to a noncanonical position is resistant to extraction of any of its subconstituents (What did Terry see a movie yesterday about ———?). The unacceptability of such examples, compared to minimally different sentences without extraposition, has been claimed to be a result of a grammatical constraint on dependency formation, such as Ross's (1967) Frozen Structure Constraint. Here, we argue that the gradient pattern of acceptability associated with such examples is better explained in terms of processing complexity. Experimental evidence from a controlled acceptability task shows that the total penalty for extraction from extraposed constituents is predictable from the summed acceptability penalties independently linked to extraction and extraposition. As prior research links both of these displacement phenomena to increased processing costs, we conclude that a grammar of unbounded dependencies in English does not require a “freezing” constraint for the explanation of these cases.

QR Out of a Tensed Clause: Evidence from Antecedent‐Contained Deletion

AbstractThis paper presents an argument based on evidence from experiments featuring Antecedent‐Contained Deletion (ACD) sentences situated in carefully‐manipulated discourse contexts, that covert movement is not grammatically constrained by tense. ACD is a form of Verb Phrase Ellipsis in which ellipsis is embedded in its antecedent. Under an account appealing to Quantifier Raising, the quantificational phrase containing the ellipsis site raises to a VP‐external position, allowing the VP to become the antecedent. When ACD is embedded in a non‐finite clause, such sentences are ambiguous, since multiple VPs can serve as an antecedent. However, when ACD is embedded in a finite clause, the range of interpretations has been claimed to be restricted, because of an independent ‘clause‐bounded’ movement constraint on Quantifier Raising. However, there are exceptions to this generalization. I present evidence from an experimental investigation of finite‐clause‐embedded ACD sentences, relying on Cecchetto (2004), to demonstrate that under the right discourse conditions, the supposedly unavailable Matrix reading surfaces robustly, at a percentage that is surprising if the constraint were rooted in the grammar. I argue that these results call into question the source of this locality restriction, and propose that it has nothing to do with an arbitrary grammatical constraint on movement.

Community rules and speaker behavior: Individual adherence to group constraints on (ING)

AbstractThis paper investigates the degree to which individual speakers follow the morphosyntactic hierarchy governing grammatical constraints on (ING) in the Southern U.S. city of Raleigh, North Carolina. (ING) was used as the variable of study for its well-studied internal constraints and comparability to previous studies on the internal constraints oft/ddeletion. A lexical category constraint hierarchy for the community was determined via multivariate mixed-effects statistical models, and each speaker's (ING) pattern was compared to this hierarchy. Results show maintenance in grammatical constraints even when taking phonological factors into account, unlike some work ont/ddeletion. Uniformity exists across speakers with respect to the ordering of internal constraints despite the overall decline in rates of –inover time, but constraint weights (expressed as log odds) vary significantly from speaker to speaker, with no correlates to social or internal factors. These results have consequences for representation of individuals in terms of an aggregate pattern, questioning the consistency of factor weight values at the speaker level despite consistent ordering of constraints.

THE DATIVE ALTERNATION IN GERMAN-ENGLISH INTERLANGUAGE

This study investigates the role of probabilistic grammatical constraints on the dative alternation in English as a second language (ESL). It presents the results of an experiment in which the different factors that are influential in first language (L1) English are tested with advanced learners of English whose L1 is German. Second language (L2) learners are influenced by the same determinants as L1 speakers but to a lesser degree. Together with the results of previous studies, the present results suggest that, initially, the learners do not make use of probabilistic constraints in spite of the constraints being influential in the L1 and only gradually acquire a sensitivity toward the constraints that govern the choice between the two dative constructions.

A quantitative approach to the grammaticalization of discourse markers

This article takes a quantitative approach to the grammar of English two-part discourse marker sequences likeoh well,you know I mean, etc. We investigate the internal ordering preferences of such sequences in spoken American English corpus data from the perspective of grammaticalization. From this perspective, the development of many discourse markers can be understood as involving a process of increasing syntactic de-categorialization (Hopper 1991) as the grammaticalizing element loses its original grammatical constraints and comes to function as a marker at the level of discourse. We test the hypothesis that discourse marker grammaticalization results in largely unconstrained ordering possibilities. Our analysis shows that, on the contrary, discourse marker sequencing is highly constrained. We interpret these constraints in terms of Auer’s (1996) model of discourse marker grammaticalization. Discourse marker sequencing is characterized by strong persistence of a marker’s original syntactic category and reflects its specific grammaticalization trajectory.

Code-switching in US Latino literature: The role of biculturalism

While mixing languages in natural speech production has often been inaccurately ascribed to illiteracy or lack of linguistic competence, doing so in writing is a long-standing practice in bilingual literature. This practice may fulfill stylistic or aesthetic purposes, be a source of credibility and/or communicate biculturalism, humor, criticism, and ethnicity, among other functions. Here, I analyze a selection of contemporary Spanish–English bilingual literature (poetry, drama, and fiction) written by Mexican American, Nuyorican, and Cuban American authors focusing on the types, and significance, of code-switching (CS) in their works. The aim of the study is to determine to what extent the socio-pragmatic functions that have been attested in natural bilingual discourse are present in literary CS, whether it is mimetic rather than rhetorical, and what differences exist both across literary genres and among the three US Latino groups. I also emphasize the cultural aspect of CS, a crucial element that has often been overlooked in the search for grammatical constraints.

Accessibility effects on production vary cross-linguistically: Evidence from English and Korean

Previous work on English suggests that accessibility of individual lexical items plays an important role in shaping speakers’ choice of sentence structure, providing evidence for lexically incremental production. In order to investigate the role of accessibility in cross-linguistic production, we manipulated accessibility in English and Korean via semantic priming in Experiment 1 and visual cueing in Experiment 2. We recorded English and Korean speakers’ speech and eye movements as they described pictured events. The production results show that English speakers’ choice of sentence structure was significantly affected by semantic priming or visual cueing, consistent with the findings of prior research: Priming the patient entity significantly increased the production of passive sentences. In contrast, Korean speakers’ choice of sentence structure was not influenced by accessibility of lexical items. Analyses of participants’ eye-movements are consistent with the production results. In Experiment 1, English speakers fixated the semantically primed entity in the visual scene, whereas Korean speakers did not. Even when the visual cueing manipulation drew Korean speakers’ focus of attention toward the cued entity in Experiment 2, Korean speakers’ choice of the first referent was not influenced by the lexical accessibility. These findings strongly suggest that lexically incremental production is not a universal production mechanism. In light of the typological differences between English and Korean, we suggest that the relative contributions of accessibility during language production are mediated by the grammatical constraints of a language.

Resumptive pronouns, structural complexity, and the elusive distinction between grammar and performance: Evidence from Cantonese

The use of resumptive pronouns in relative clauses appears to be governed by structural complexity in grammar and usage. Resumptive pronoun distributions across languages typically follow the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy (Keenan and Comrie, 1977): if the grammar allows resumptive pronouns in one position, it also allows them in more deeply embedded positions. Hawkins (2004) predicts a parallel effect in usage: when the grammar permits the option of either resumptive pronoun or gap, resumptive pronouns should be used more often as structural complexity increases. Results of two experiments, an elicited production task and an acceptability judgment task, affirm Hawkins’ prediction for Cantonese: resumptive pronouns were used more often and rated as more acceptable as the complexity of the relative clause increased from subject to direct object to coverb object and from non-possessive to possessive. Furthermore, resumptive pronoun use was apparently not governed by any categorical grammatical constraints on filler-gap dependencies. Resumptive pronouns were sometimes omitted in coverb object relatives, contrary to a proposed adjunct island condition. Implications for theories of grammatical competence are considered.