Grammatical Subject Research Articles

Linguistic experience affects pronoun interpretation

Abstract We test the hypothesis that language experience influences the cognitive mechanisms used to interpret ambiguous pronouns like he or she, which require the context for interpretation. Pronoun interpretation is influenced by both the linguistic context (e.g., pronouns tend to corefer with the subject of the previous sentence) and social cues (e.g., gaze can signal the pronoun’s referent). We test whether pronoun comprehension biases are related to the individual’s linguistic exposure. We focus on written language experience as a metric of linguistic exposure, given that reading experience varies widely, and can be probed with the Author Recognition Task (ART). In three experiments, people with higher ART scores assigned pronouns to the grammatical subject more consistently. ART scores correlated with some skill measures, but pronoun comprehension was not explained by working memory, theory of mind, or socioeconomic status. Our results suggest that language exposure affects language comprehension at the discourse level.

Grammatical Subject in Results and Discussion Section of Research Articles: Disciplinary Variations

Frequencies and discourse functions of grammatical subject types were investigated in a corpus of forty results and discussion sections selected from four disciplines (Applied Linguistics, Psychology, Chemistry, and Environmental Engineering). The results and discussion sections were selected from research articles that were published in 2008-2012 issues of prestigious high journals of the four disciplines. The results and discussion sections were analyzed for realizations and discourse functions of grammatical subject types adopting the taxonomy suggested by Ebrahimi (2014). The results suggested that the selections, frequencies and discourse functions of grammatical subject types were highly imposed by the macro functions of the results and discussion sections and the conventional rules of writing in the disciplines. One immediate implication for the outcome of this study is that writers and instructors need to keep in mind that they must be fully aware (and follow suit) of how the implementation of grammatical subjects are imposed and restricted by disciplinary conventions.

Readability, referential cohesion and interaction in texts of websites, textbooks and workbooks for French language learning

As Internet carries on its growing in an unceasing manner, more and more students are guided by their teachers to accesslanguage learning websites to support self-studyThe present study examined some linguistic and interactional properties ofFrench learning websites in terms of readability, referential cohesion and interaction. These properties were comparativelyanalysed with French language textbooks and workbooks. The results showed that the websites were close to workbooks interms of the number of words and clauses used to teach/learn grammatical subjects. In order to examine readability andcomprehensibility, the websites were analysed for lexical density, clause length and referential cohesion. The resultsrevealed that they used less readable and comprehensible texts about lexical density and referential cohesion while theydesigned readable and comprehensible text regarding clause length. The websites were also analysed for involvementstrategies and the use of imperative verbs to look for their interactional features. The results indicated that they showedstrong interactional properties through involvement strategies but presented low density of imperatives. The findings of thepresent study also revealed that the texts of the websites were rather denatured electronic texts which seem to be a simpletransmission of information in printed sources as such into digital environment.

Impersonal Russian Sentences with the Subject in the Accusative Case and the Meaning of a Person's Physical Condition in the Terms of Persian Language

In this article, considering impersonal sentences with the subject in the accusative case, which conveys the physical state of a living being, an attempt is made to compare them with the Persian correlates. This type of impersonal sentences can cause different problems for the Persian-speaking students due to their grammatical specificity (e.g. the uses of the subject in the accusative, rather than in the more common dative case, the dissimilarity of their syntactic structure with the native, Persian, language, etc.). The article shows that for many of the analyzed Russian sentences there can be found Persian correlates in which the real semantic subject of the sentence does not coincide with the grammatical subject. The use of such structures during the learning process can contribute to the more effective teaching of this model of Russian sentences to the Iranian students.

An Ancient Greek Lament Form

AbstractAn unusual ancient Greek lament form, hitherto overlooked by students of the subject, displays the following syntax: parallel sentences with verb in initial position (Vi) expressing the loss, followed by the grammatical subject (S). Sometimes the same verb was used in each of the parallel lines. ViS parallelism is a subliterary syntax reflecting a very old style. A number of Greek authors adopted this syntax to represent or allusively echo the form. Examples, although relatively scarce, are spread through a diverse range of ancient literature spanning at least six centuries, from the second century BC to the fourth century AD, with earlier echoes as far back as Homer.

THE CONCEPTHORSEIS A CONCEPT

AbstractI offer an analysis of the sentence ‘the concepthorseis a concept’. It will be argued that the grammatical subject of this sentence, ‘the concepthorse’, indeed refers to a concept, and not to an object, as Frege once held. The argument is based on a criterion of proper-namehood according to which an expression is a proper name if it is so rendered in Frege’s ideography. The predicate ‘is a concept’, on the other hand, should not be thought of as referring to a function. It will be argued that the analysis of sentences of the form ‘Cis a concept’ requires the introduction of a new form of statement. Such statements are not to be thought of as having function–argument form, but rather the structure subject–copula–predicate.

“Depraved subjects and the maliciousness of objects,” i.e. quirky objects

AbstractThe authors deal with a range of phenomena characterized by anomalies with respect to the mismatch between the surface realization of nominal phrases on the morphosyntactic level, i.e. the selection of cases, and their grammatical function. In connection with the subject function, traditional scholars generally regarded this kind of non-canonical relation between sentence structure and semantic interpretation as a categorial deviation and treated it under the cover terms grammatical versus logical subject. The eye-catching title of this paper makes allusions to rather dangerous, odd and sinister characters and topics in real life. On the one hand, therefore it should express the “irrational” use of well-established terms and categories. On the other hand, it may point at our attempt to group together and “telescope” different and mostly separate constructions such as

Selection of a Grammatical Subject in English Correlative Conjunction Phrases : An Optimality-Theoretic Approach

The topic of selection of a grammatical subject in a correlative conjunction phrase has long failed to attract the attention of linguists due to some difficulties not only in figuring out the internal structure of NP’s conjoined by a correlative conjunction but also in its heavy dependency on the representational aspects each correlative conjunction demonstrates. In this paper, I have explored the seemingly complex patterns in the selection of a grammatical subject in a correlative conjunction phrase in the frame of the Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993, 2008). I show that, with the help of three newly developed constraints such as MinDist, Focus, and PARSE which are ranked relatively to each other, an optimal grammatical subject out of two NP candidates conjoined by a correlative conjunction can be correctly selectable.

Grammatical category influences lateralized imagery for sentences

abstractNatural language syntax has previously been thought to reflect abstract processing rules independent of meaning construction. However, grammatical categories may serve a functional role by allocating attention towards recurrent topics in discourse. Here, we show that listeners incorporate grammatical category into imagery when producing stick figure drawings from heard sentences, supporting the latter view. Participants listened to sentences with transitive verbs that independently varied whether a male or a female character (1) was mentioned first, (2) was the agent or recipient of an action, and (3) was the grammatical subject or object of the sentence. Replicating previous findings, we show that the first named character as well as the agent of the sentence tends to be drawn to the left in the image, probably reflecting left-to-right reading direction. But we also find that the grammatical subject of the sentence has a propensity to be drawn to the left of the object. We interpret this to suggest that grammatical category carries discursive meaning as an attention allocator. Our findings also highlight how language influences processes hitherto thought to be non-linguistic.

Existential Import and an Unnecessary Restriction on Predicate Logics

Contemporary logicians continue to address problems associated with the existential import of categorical propositions. One notable problem concerns invalid instances of subalternation in the case of a universal proposition with an empty subject term. To remedy problems, logicians restrict first-order predicate logics to exclude such terms. Examining the historical origins of contemporary discussions reveals that logicians continue to make various category mistakes. We now believe that no proposition per se has existential import as commonly understood and thus it is unnecessary to restrict first-order predicate logics to non-empty classes. After introducing the problem, we trace some nineteenth century treatments of the issue to locate a source of misconstruing propositional import (1) in misconceptions of ‘implies’ and ‘affirms’ and name the process/product fallacy, along with (2) the translation of categorical sentences using quantifiers and accommodating an empty class. Next we treat some metalogical matters to orient our discussion by which we provide a more precise nomenclature about ‘sentence’ and ‘proposition’ to correct previous misconceptions; here we uncover a common category mistake in respect of a proposition’s efficacy. The semantic distinction between agent and force is helpful in this connection. We conclude by showing that logicians have reinserted existence as a predicate, a position previously excised by Kant, and that the Frege-Russell ambiguity thesis applies only to relationships within a categorical sentence between grammatical predicate and subject.

The Realizations of Point of Departure of Message in General English Texts

This study aimed to investigate the realization of marked and unmarked theme types as point of departure of message in general English texts. The corpus of this study was 15 general English texts extracted from English general textbooks for university students published in Iran and taught at universities in Iran. The corpus was analyzed based on Halliday’s (1985) framework of thematic organization. Findings suggested the unmarked theme was predominant compared to marked theme. This is due to that writers prefer to use simple structure that help readers to get a better comprehension. Findings also showed that different types of marked theme were used to help in text organization and contribute to better comprehension. In such cases, the writers felt the need to mention some elements in the thematic position other than grammatical subject. The findings highlighted that general English instructors and developers need to take on board the notion of theme and its importance in teaching and developing general English texts.

De la topicalisation impersonnelle en français moderne

About Impersonal topicalization in modern French
 In most languages of the world, especially in Western languages such as Latin, French, English, German, etc., a category of verbs is only used in the third person singular to express certain facts. Another category, combining all persons at the start, by transformation, is only used in the third person singular. So they use the pronoun "he"only to conjugate. So we have, in the same statement, a grammatical subject and a logical subject. Can a single verb have two subjects at the same time? What are these verbs using a universe pronoun in French to conjugate? How are they built? What is the semantics of these verbs? To address this issue, we will rely on morphosyntax and on a corpus composed of seven works. Our contribution aims to decipher sentences containing verbs that are conjugated only in the third person singular both syntactically and semantically and whose apparent subject is "he"and the logical subject postposed to the verb. The text is based on Lamartine's Poetic Meditations, Molière's School for Women, La Fontaine's Fables, Victor Hugo's Ruy Blas, Corneille's Cinna, Jean-Paul Sartre's Huis clos et des Flies, and finally, Cahier d'un retour au pays natal by Aimé Césaire. The theoretical framework used is morphosyntax.

AN ANALYSIS OF THEME AND RHEME USED IN THE FIVE-STAR HOTELS’ WEB SITES IN SURABAYA

The study done by the writer observes the themes and rhemes used in the five-star hotels’ web sites in Surabaya. It includes the types of themes and the notions of subject which are under the Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) proposed by Halliday and Matthiessen (2004). In addition, the data of the study are in the form of text and taken from seven Surabaya five-star hotels’ web sites. The writer also used a descriptive qualitative approach in analyzing the 155 data. From the analysis, it is found the two kinds of structure of theme and rheme used by the hotels in their web sites. The hotels also used three types of theme which are simple theme, clause as a theme, and thematic equative. In terms of the subjects (psychological subject, grammatical subject, and logical subject), the hotels are able to fulfill either one, two, or three notions of subject.

Antecedent Retrieval with Repeated Name Anaphors in Japanese: Topic and Subject

The present study tested whether repeated-name anaphors in Japanese elicit different effects in retrieving antecedents, depending on the anaphors being either a topic anaphor appended with the topic marker wa or a non-topic anaphor with the nominative marker ga. Early studies have shown that pronoun anaphors facilitate faster retrieval of their antecedents relative to repeated name anaphors, when the anaphors are grammatical subjects that refer to salient antecedents. In Japanese, however, grammatical subjects can be further classified into topic-subjects marked by wa and non-topic subjects marked by ga. Therefore, different antecedent-retrieval patterns may be possible between topic-wa and topic-ga even when they both were repeated-name anaphors. In addition, the present study investigated this issue with native English speakers who were learners of Japanese. Because their first language, English, does not overtly mark an entity as topic or non-topic, it was predicted that they might be relatively insensitive to anaphors’ topic-hood and may not show different effects between topic-wa and non-topic-ga. A self-paced reading experiment showed that native Japanese speakers retrieved antecedents faster for repeated-name topic-wa anaphors than for non-topic-ga. On the other hand, native English speakers showed only marginally faster retrieval of antecedents for topic anaphors compared with to non-topic anaphors.

Kulttuurisilla aikavyöhykkeillä

Translators working from Finnish to Russian often have problems finding equivalents for the Finnish words iltapäivä ( afternoon ) and aamupäivä (a similar expression denoting the time before noon). I argue that this problem is due to fundamental differences in how the day is divided into smaller segments in Finnish and Russian. To show this, three sets of possible equivalents were compared with iltapäivä and aamupäivä. All of them were found problematicin some respect, especially in cases where aamupäivä or iltapäivä are used as grammatical subjects or otherwise referentially. This leads to the conclusion that rather than translating single words or expressions, the translator is in fact transitioning between different systems of expressing time.

Furthering Prostration in the Hebrew Bible: A Non-Denotative Analysis of hištaḥăwah

This article provides a non-denotative analysis of the Hebrew word for prostration in the Old Testament, hištaḥăwah. It does so in order to better grasp the discursive situating of prostration as a ritual within the socio-religious contexts and conceptions of biblical authors and peoples. The analysis of hištaḥăwah proceeds along non-denotative lines, specifically analyzing its usage as per its connotative attribution, its grammatical subjects and number (communal versus individual), and its directedness. This study shows that the usage of hištaḥăwah must be understood as a variegated literary term representing a ritualized action that originally was seen and understood multivalently. However, the aggregate usage of the term indicates continuities of understanding as well as changes due to historical circumstances and uses. Such measures give greater insight into experiential aspects of Israelite religious practice, as well as providing insight into the discursive norms that structured Israelite society and worldview during different periods

Syntactical Marker {-Nya} In Indonesian

This study discusses the syntactic marker {-nya} in Indonesian, and aims at finding the answers to the three research questions; (i) what hosts can be appended by {-nya},(ii)what syntactic functions can be filled by {-nya}, and (iii) what is the meaning of {-nya}contextually. The data to support the analysis was collected from the source with the help of a data collection tool [antconc3.2.1w window2007]. Two theories are relevant to the discussion of {-nya}, namely; morphosyntactic theory that searched the occurrence of {-nya} in a text and discourse theory to discover the meaning of {-nya} contextually.The result of analysis showed three occurrence of {-nya}; pronoun clitics, determiner, and as adverbial formation. As a core argument {-nya} can be attached to the nasal verbs, passive verbs, zero intransitive verbs, and category of nouns, prepositions, and reflexive pronouns. As adverbial formation {-nya} is attached to the adjective, bound root, and is combined with {se-} to form confix {se-baik-nya}. As pronoun, {-nya} can serve as; Grammatical Subjects and Objects, Possessive determiner, Oblique Agent, Reflexive pronoun. As determiner it is always attached to the noun, forming nouns from verbs, and as an adverbial it can serve as an adjunct, conjunct, and disjunct. The meaning of {-nya} with pronominal category should be traced in the text and always refers to the third person singular. Keywords: syntactic markers, pronouns, argument, adverbial, discourse

Structural and Referent-Based Effects on Prosodic Expression in Russian

This study examines prosody in read productions of two published narratives by 15 Russian speakers. Two distinct sources of variation in acoustic-prosodic expression are considered: structural and referent-based. Structural effects refer to the particular linearization of words in a sentence or phrase. Referent-based effects relate to the semantic and pragmatic characteristics of the discourse referent of a word, and to grammatical roles that are partially dependent on referent characteristics. Here, we examine referent animacy and the related grammatical function of subjecthood, and the relative accessibility or information status of a word. We document patterns of prosodic augmentation and prosodic reduction due to structural and referent-based factors, as evident from change in values of acoustic-prosodic measures mean intensity, duration and f0 range. Prosodic augmentation due to structural effects is observed for words positioned ex-situ, independent of their semantic, grammatical or pragmatic features. Prosodic augmentation due to referent-based effects is observed for words that are grammatical subjects with animate referents. Prosodic expression is further affected by referent information status. Discourse-given and discourse-new information show greater prosodic augmentation than inferable information. A closer look at individual speakers' production styles reveals that structural and referent-based variations occur in combination and interact.

On the interplay of object animacy and verb type during sentence comprehension in German: ERP evidence from the processing of transitive dative and accusative constructions

AbstractComprehension of transitive sentences relies on different kinds of information, like word order, case marking, and animacy contrasts between arguments. When no formal cues like case marking or number congruency are available, a contrast in animacy helps the parser to decide which argument is the grammatical subject and which the object. Processing costs are enhanced when neither formal cues nor animacy contrasts are available in a transitive sentence. We present an ERP study on the comprehension of grammatical transitive German sentences, manipulating animacy contrasts between subjects and objects as well as the verbal case marking pattern. Our study shows strong object animacy effects even in the absence of violations, and in addition suggests that this effect of object animacy is modulated by the verbal case marking pattern.

“THE OVERALL AIM OF THIS WORK IS ….” FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL SUBJECT IN RESEARCH ARTICLE INTRODUCTIONS ACROSS FOUR DISCIPLINES

This study investigates the types and discourse functions of grammatical subjects inresearch article introductions across four disciplines, namely: Applied Linguistics andPsychology, representing soft sciences, and Chemistry and Environmental Engineering,representing hard sciences. This study was carried out on a corpus of 40 research articleintroductions (10 from each discipline). The research article introductions were sourcedfrom twelve ISI journals published from 2008 to 2012. The corpus was analysed basedon the modified model in relation to grammatical subject types and discourse functionssuggested by Ebrahimi (2014). The results revealed that the grammatical subject typeselections were guided by the nature of the research article introduction. However, thefrequency of use of the grammatical subject types was constrained by the nature ofthe discipline. Discourse functions of grammatical subject types were predominantlydetermined by the divisions of the hard and soft sciences, and the specific disciplineswithin and the internal structure of the research article introductions. In addition, theresults of this study manifest a new framework for the analysis of discourse functions ofgrammatical subject types in research article introductions.