Grammatical Universals Research Articles

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL TRANSFORMATIONS IN TRANSLATION FROM FRENCH, ITALIAN LANGUAGES INTO UKRAINIAN (MORPHOLOGICAL AND SYNTACTIC ASPECTS)

Grammar is a system of objectively operating rules for changing words, their connections in word combinations and sentences. The grammatical structure of the language together with its basic vocabulary form the basis of the language. Differences in the grammatical structure of different languages often lead to the fact that during translation it is necessary to change the information contained in the original text. Even in the case of coincidence of grammatical categories in the original language and the language of translation, there is no complete correspondence between them, since the means of their expression in each language are different. When conveying grammatical constructions in translation, the principle of a functional, rather than a formal, approach to conveying the meaning of grammatical forms and constructions is important. Having analyzed grammatical universals as a means of reproducing a grammatical category in the translation from French and Italian into Ukrainian, we conclude that the three studied languages have the following common features: nouns denote objects, abstract concepts, proper names; adjectives express features of the subject; verbs – actions and states; numerals – the number and order of items in a count, and differences – nouns in the French/Italian languages have a category of certainty/uncertainty, the main means of transmission of which is the corresponding article form. In the process of translation from French and Italian to Ukrainian, grammatical units may be replaced by word forms, parts of speech, clauses, types of syntactical connection, etc. Substitutions are divided into: a) substitutions of word forms; b) replacement of parts of speech; c) replacement of sentence members (restructuring of the syntactic structure of the sentence); d) syntactic substitutions in a complex sentence; 3. addition; 4. omission. Practically important for translation is the different use of grammatical categories in their minor (asemantic) function.

Cross-linguistic variation and efficiency ed. John A. Hawkins

Reviewed by: Cross-linguistic variation and efficiency ed. John A. Hawkins Mohammad Rasekh-Mahnad Hawkins, John A. 2014. Cross-linguistic variation and efficiency. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. xiv + 271. UK £29.99 (softcover). The main goal of Hawkins in Cross-linguistic Variation and Efficiency, as in his Efficiency and Complexity in Grammars (2004), is to show that language usage shapes grammars. In his research program, Hawkins provides evidence from different languages to demonstrate that many typological patterns and language universals are rooted in language performance and gives evidence of the deep role performance plays in shaping grammars. He argues that performance and grammatical preferences are governed by principles of efficiency and complexity. To this end, the author reports his empirical findings regarding the cross-linguistic variation of syntactic structures (e.g., relative clauses, noun phrases). These findings stem from the integration of the study of generative linguistic rules, typological generalizations, language processing models developed in psycholinguistic studies, and experimental and empirical data collected by various linguists (Greenberg 1963, Dryer 1992, Haspelmath 1999, Comrie 1989). The first chapter “Language variation and the Performance-Grammar Correspondence Hypothesis”, introduces Hawkins’ Performance-Grammar Correspondence Hypothesis, previously introduced in his other works (1994, 2004), which states that “Grammars have conventionalized syntactic structures in proportion to their degree of preference in performance, as evidenced by patterns of selection in corpora and by ease of processing in psycholinguistic experiments” (p. 3). In the rest of this book, Hawkins provides empirical evidence and corpus-based data to support this hypothesis with the goal of convincing linguists that they need to incorporate this generalization into their theories of grammatical universals. The second chapter, “Three general efficiency principles”, begins with the summary of said principles, already proposed in Hawkins (2004). The “Minimize Domains” principle predicts that the human language processor prefers the smallest possible syntactic domains in which to evaluate a given grammatical relation. The “Minimize Forms” principle puts forth that minimizing the formal complexity of each linguistic form is preferred. Finally, “Maximize Online Processing” is a preference for selecting and arranging linguistic forms so as to provide the earliest possible access to as much of the ultimate syntactic and semantic representation as possible. Hawkins then discusses the relationship between complexity and efficiency, [End Page 221] emphasizing that if a message is delivered rapidly and with the least processing effort then that communication is deemed effective. The last section of this chapter provides some examples of syntactic alternations from different grammatical phenomena such as extraposition, head-complement ordering, and complex inflectional markings and functional categories, which are argued to support the idea that Hawkins’ efficiency principles cooperate and compete to make the grammar more efficient. In the third chapter, “Some current issues in language processing and the performance-grammar relationship”, Hawkins focuses on performance and provides a summary of some current related methodological and theoretical issues in psycholinguistics. He discusses ease of processing in relation to efficiency, emphasizing that the current literature on working memory simply says “that processing becomes harder, the more items are held and operated on simultaneously when reaching any one parsing decision” (p. 47). Hawkins also examines whether his efficiency principles are implemented from only the hearer’s perspective, or could also play a role in a speaker’s performance. The advantages and disadvantages of different methods of data collection used; online, acceptability, and corpus data, are also addressed. Hawkins then shows how grammatical facts could be accounted for by psycholinguistic model-building, noting that there is a correspondence between performance data and grammars. The final section of this chapter is a discussion of the incorporation of efficiency principles into Chomsky’s minimalist program (Chomsky 1995). The fourth chapter, “The conventionalization of processing efficiency”, focuses on how forms and rules of grammars are fixed or conventionalized “in favor of one or other performance alternative, in ways that reflect efficient processing” (p. 73). The author endeavours to show how grammaticalization and processing are related using data from constructions such as definiteness marking, sentential subject extraposition and heavy NP shift. He concludes that these phenomena are difficult to explain in purely grammatical terms and that they are better explained in terms of efficiency; “grammars appear to have...

Language by mouth and by hand.

Language by mouth and by hand.

Linguistic fire and human cognitive powers

To view language as a cultural tool challenges much of what claims to be linguistic science while opening up a new people-centred linguistics. On this view, how we speak, think and act depends on, not just brains (or minds), but also cultural traditions. Yet, Everett is conservative: like others trained in distributional analysis, he reifies ‘words’. Though rejecting inner languages and grammatical universals, he ascribes mental reality to a lexicon. Reliant as he is on transcriptions, he takes the cognitivist view that brains represent word-forms. By contrast, in radical embodied cognitive theory, bodily dynamics themselves act as cues to meaning. Linguistic exostructures resemble tools that constrain how people concert acting-perceiving bodies. The result is unending renewal of verbal structures: like artefacts and institutions, they function to sustain a species-specific cultural ecology. As Ross (2007) argues, ecological extensions make human cognition hypersocial. When we link verbal patterns with lived experience, we communicate and cognise by fitting action/perception to cultural practices that anchor human meaning making.

Sympathy, Compassion, and Empathy in English and Russian: A Linguistic and Cultural Analysis

In this corpus-based study I contribute to the description and analysis of linguistic and cultural variation in the conceptualization of sympathy , compassion, and empathy. On the basis of a contrastive semantic analysis of sympathy, compassion, and empathy in English and their Russian translational equivalents, sočuvstvie , sostradanie, and sopereživanie, I demonstrate significant differences in the conceptualization of these words, which I explain by reference to the prevalence of different models of social interaction in Anglo and Russian cultures, as well as different cultural attitudes towards emotional expression. As a methodology I apply the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), which is based on empirically established lexical and grammatical universals, and argue that it is a powerful tool in contrastive studies.

Unveiling phonological universals: A linguist who asks “why” is (inter alia) an experimental psychologist

Evans and Levinson are right to hold theories of language accountable for language diversity, but typological data alone cannot determine the structure of mental phonological grammars. Grammatical universals are nonetheless testable by formal and experimental methods, and the growing research in experimental phonology demonstrates the viability of a comparative experimental evaluation of the UG hypothesis.

Universal human concepts as a tool for exploring bilingual lives

Embodied within every language is a unique universe of meaning. This raises some key questions about the conceptual universes of bilingual persons: What meanings does a bilingual person live with? How does such a person (in contrast with a monolingual person) think and feel? How are their thoughts and emotions related to their two different languages? In order to investigate these questions we need to listen to the subjective experience of bilingual people and, in particular, bilingual writers who have been able to reflect deeply on their personal experience and to articulate their own insights (cf. Besemeres, 2002). We also need to analyze semantic differences between languages and try to link the “soft” subjective experience of bilingual persons with “hard” objective evidence derived from rigorous semantic analysis. Finally, we need to recognize that in order to compare the different meanings that bilingual persons live with, we need a common measure at our disposal. In this paper, I will argue that the “Natural Semantic Metalanguage” based on empirically established lexical and grammatical universals (Goddard & Wierzbicka, 1994, 2002) provides such a common measure, and I will try to show how the use of this metalanguage can help us to explore the conceptual worlds of bilingual people more effectively and more revealingly.

HOW THE BRAIN EVOLVED LANGUAGE.Donald Loritz. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. 227. $45.00 cloth.

Loritz discusses the nature and evolution of language in the context of a connectionist approach to neural architecture, namely, Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART). Given the massive parallel processing inherent to ART, he argues that all of the mechanisms inherent to generative grammar, including discrete rules, stored grammatical representations, and so on, can be dispensed with. Loritz's “adaptive grammar” attempts to derive what have been considered to be grammatical universals from the structure of the human brain, in particular its short-term memory limitations. For example, so-called universal topic-verb order (p. 149) follows from “a deeper biological injunction to say (and do) topical things first, a ‘rule' which applies not just to conversations but to everything brains do. It is a corollary of evolution: the organism that doesn't do relevant things first simply doesn't survive” (pp. 150–151).

A Culturally salient Polish Emotion: Przykro (pron. pshickro)

The author analyzes, on the basis of naturally occurring examples, the Polish word przykro, which, she argues, plays an important role in Polish “emotion talk.” She compares and contrasts this word with its closest English counterparts, such as hurt, offended, sorry, and sad, and she shows how each of these English words differs in meaning from the Polish key word przykro. To be able to show, clearly and precisely, what these differences are, she relies on the “Natural Semantic Metalanguage” (“NSM”), based on a set of empirically established lexical and grammatical universals. In doing so, she seeks to demonstrate the explanatory power of the proposed methodological framework (the “NSM” semantic theory). At the same time the author shows how language-specific lexical categories such as the Polish word przykro are linked with a culture's core values. She also shows the cultural implications of the lexical category “hurt” in Anglo culture, and discusses the cultural implications of the absence of a word like przykro in English, and of a word like hurt in Polish.

Lexical and Grammatical Universals as a Key to Conceptual Structures

Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on Phonetics and Phonological Universals (1998)

Studies in formal semantics: Intensionality, temporality, negation Edited by Franz Guenthner and Christian Rohrer (review)

REVIEWS455 attacks so substantial a fragment of English. The sample grammar in Appendix D is 26 pages long, and covers a great deal of ground. As a theoretical proposal regarding the psychological mechanisms underlying human syntactic recognition , it is not an obvious success and is also (by its own admission) premised on some highly controversial assumptions (namely the alleged grammatical universals of REST).8 My most negative opinion, however, concerns a nonsubstantive matter, namely that the book is outrageously overpriced considering the poor quality of its format. REFERENCES Kaplan, Ronald M. 1972. Augmented transition networks as psychological models of sentence comprehension. Artificial Intelligence 3.77-100. Miller, George A., and Philip N. Johnson-Laird. 1977. Language and perception. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ross, John R. 1967. Constraints on variables in syntax. MIT dissertation. Wanner, Eric, and Michael Maratsos. 1979. An ATN approach to comprehension. Linguistic theory and psychological reality, ed. by Morris Halle et al., 119-61. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Woods, William. 1970. Transition network grammars for natural language analysis. Comm. Assoc, for Comp. Mach. 13.591-606. [Received 15 July 1981.] 8 One of M's major concerns is to show that some of Chomsky's proposed constraints follow directly from the determinism hypothesis. Assuming that they do follow, and that they are valid, the result would nonetheless be cold comfort to an orthodox Chomskyan, to whom it is an article of faith that the universals in question represent innate predispositions that cannot be explained in terms of such 'functional' or 'performance-related' considerations as limitations on memory. Studies in formal semantics: Intensionality, temporality, negation. Edited by Franz Guenthner and Christian Rohrer. (North-Holland linguistic series, 35.) Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1978. Pp. viii, 265. / 62.50. Reviewed by Leonard M. Faltz, Arizona State University The formal study of natural-language semantics has recently occupied an active and growing group of scholars. G&R's collection represents work in this field carried out in the mid-to-late 70's at Stuttgart and Bonn. Following an introduction (1-10) in which the study of formal semantics is outlined and placed in perspective with regard to the current state of logic and of linguistics, eight papers are presented in three groups: Intensionality (three papers), Temporality (four papers), and Negation (one paper). Readers working in formal semantics will want to know about the sorts of proposals found here. I personally was particularly interested in the articles of the 'Temporality' section, hoping that some insight into the logic of aspect would be obtained by the careful construction of formal systems. As it turned out, after reading the articles, I feel that we have yet to get to the bottom of the matter—that the essential features which control the logic of aspect have still eluded the investigators. There may be inherent limitations to the sort of approach taken here—although deeper investigations may prove this suspicion wrong. 456LANGUAGE, VOLUME 58, NUMBER 2 (1982) Fabrizio Mondadori, 'Interpreting modal semantics' (13-40), is primarily a review of the justifications for representing intensions as functions from possible worlds to extensions, together with a discussion of the applicability of this construction to proper names and natural-kind terms. He emphasizes the fact that modal semantics is a theory of truth conditions, not of language use— and that therefore epistemological considerations should not play a role in justifying the way constructions are set up to represent modal semantics. Franz Guenthner, 'Systems of intensional logic and the semantics of natural languages' (41-74), sketches the four formal semantic systems of Kripke, Âqvist, Bressan, and Montague, and compares the ways that these systems handle variables and constants (e.g., are variables assigned to individuals relative to worlds, or independently of worlds?), quantification, predication (especially intensional predicates), and indexical expressions (such as time-indexed expressions). Aldo Bressan, 'The interpreted modal calculus MC and some of its applications' (75-1 18), tells how the language MC was developed by Bressan to formalize the logic of physical sciences (especially classical particle physics). The article begins with a terse but complete definition of the syntax and model-theoretic semantics of this language. Bressan then shows how a number of modally interesting sentences (e.g. The...

Holophrases, speech acts and language universals

ABSTRACTThe arguments both for and against viewing the child's initial one-word utterances as HOLOPHRASES are reviewed. Some theoretical problems – concerning the innateness of language, the acquisition of syntax, the status of prosody and the child's comprehension of language during the one-word stage – with the holophrase controversy are pointed out. We suggest that an unresolvable theoretical stalemate exists because proponents on both sides of the controversy mistakenly assume the centrality of the notion sentence in discussing holophrases. An alternative view of early language development, which takes the SPEECH ACT as the basic unit of linguistic communication, is offered as a solution to the problems with the holophrase controversy as it now stands. We propose a more integrated description of the relations between functional and grammatical aspects of early communicative competence than is currently provided by sentence-oriented theories. In particular, we suggest that the child's PRAGMATIC INTENTIONS gradually become GRAMMATICALIZED as semantic and syntactic structures. Finally, three entities – communicative functions, referring expressions and predicating expressions – are proposed as LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS, as distinct from grammatical universals.