Indefinite Pronouns Research Articles

Features of the Use of the Indefinite Pronoun “one” in Russian and Kyrgyz Languages

Analyzes the functioning of the lexeme “one” in the sense of indefiniteness based on materials presented on the website of the Russian National Corpus and on literary works in Russian and Kyrgyz languages. The connection between the indefinite pronoun “one” and the indefinite articles of some Indo-European languages is established, as well as the conditions and reasons for the use of this pronoun in speech are identified. The relevance of the article is due to the fact that the category of definiteness/indefiniteness in different languages is currently being actively studied from a functional approach. This article differs from others in that it examines the indefinite pronoun “one” in the Russian language in comparison with the Kyrgyz language.

Contrastive Analysis of Adjectives in English and Idọma Sentence Structures

English Language and its structural patterns share both similar and different features when contrasted with other languages. In this paper, the syntactic patterns of modification of the Noun Phrase (NP), a term rooted in Chomsky’s grammatical category, are examined in English and Idọma languages. The aim is to highlight potential implications for the Idọma learners of English language as a second language. Using Government and Binding theory for data analysis, the study draws insights from Contrastive Analysis. To provide data for analysis, two episodes of Okonone, a radio programme presented in Idọma and aired on Joy FM, are recorded and transcribed. Findings reveal that both languages have predicative adjectives and they function as subject and object complements. Adjectives can also occur after the indefinite pronouns in both English and Idọma sentence structures. Unlike in English language, adjectives are observed to predominantly occur post-nominally in Idọma Syntax. Similarly, while nouns can be used as adjectives in the English sentence structure, Idọma language does not provide for such a usage. To compare adjectives in English, standard morphological processes allow users to generate single words. Since Idọma speakers rely heavily on post-nominal modification, comparison is often embedded within the adjectival structure using two or three words. The study concludes that these similarities aid smooth learning of the English language while the dissimilarities impede the proficiency of Idọma learners of the English language.

Encoding indefinite human reference without indefinite pronouns: the case of Chinese presentationals

Abstract The Chinese sequence yǒu rén [exist person] is both the minimal existential-presentational construction and the functional equivalent of indefinite pronouns in encoding indefinite human reference. This dual characteristic prompts the question of whether yǒu rén functions as a presentational construction comparable to similar forms in other languages. Building on a literary corpus of Chinese contemporary novels, this study aims to determine if yǒu rén displays the behavioral properties of presentational constructions. First, presentational yǒu rén constructions are distinguished from both locative-existential and generic-existential ones based on a set of features including predicate selection in the coda, presence and function of the locative expression, and the co-dependent interpretation of the nominal rén. Next, the discourse function of yǒu rén is examined by assessing its contrast with regular nonpresentational sentences and the anaphoric potential of the entity it introduces. While establishing the boundaries between the three construction types, the study also analyzes the co-expression pattern observed within a gradient and compositional approach.

영어 부정극어 발화유형 비교

This study investigated the speech acts of Korean adolescents, focusing on the English negative polarity item(NPI) ‘any’, which, unlike Korean, exhibits subject-object asymmetry. Specifically, differences in speech rates of NPIs and indefinite pronouns were confirmed in the subject and object positions. English NPIs mainly appear in negative contexts and conditional sentences, and since they must comply with the C-command conditions, indefinite pronouns mainly appear in the subject position, and relatively both NPIs and indefinite pronouns appear in the object position. Focusing on these basic theories, this study checked what they were like in practice. Overall, the rate of utterance of indefinite pronouns in the subject position was much higher than that of NPIs. And the fact that the rate of utterance of indefinite pronouns increases with age may be a result of learning. In the object position, the rate of utterance of indefinite pronouns was found to be similar and slightly higher than that of NPIs. This means that participants may know through learning or innately that both NPIs and indefinite pronouns are possible in the object position. It was found that the younger Korean adolescents were, the more familiar they were with the use of NPIs with the negative word ‘not’, and the less familiar they were with the use of indefinite pronouns with negative connotation. This is believed to be proportional to the frequency of appearance of ‘not’, which is commonly used in negative sentences in a second language environment.

Не какъв да е мелодичен контур: влияние на прозодията върху семантиката на неопределителните местоимения от типа който и да е

This study aims to address a debated question concerning the influence of emphatic stress on the semantics of koyto i da e indefinite pronouns (IPs). The meaning of this class of IPs is often analyzed in comparison to the meaning of the class of koy da e IPs. In contrastive context koyto i da e forms imply absolute randomness in the selection of an element from a given set, while koy da e forms imply selection from a subset of elements of low and medium value. It is assumed that such a contrast is created in negative sentences. Some authors argue that in this type of context IPs from both classes are not interchangeable, while others suggest that placing emphatic stress on koyto i da e aligns its semantics with koy da e. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a survey in which respondents were asked to determine the semantics of nine structurally identical sentences containing koyto i da e indefinite pronouns, differing only in their prosodic contour (emphatic or non-emphatic). The article begins with a review of approaches to modeling the semantics of both types of indefinite pronouns and the role of negation and emphasis. Attention is given to the difference in expressive strength between written and spoken language and its impact. Subsequently, we present the survey, along with the obtained results and their interpretation.

The diachrony of the Basque marker bait-: from a manner expression to subordinator

Abstract This article analyzes the diachrony of the Basque marker bait-, which is a verbal prefix in subordinate clauses, but also has other functions: for example, it appears in independent clauses and indefinite pronouns. In subordinate clauses, it is used in two ways. First, it co-occurs with clause-initial conjunctions in reason, manner or result clauses or with pronouns in relative clauses. Secondly, it is used on its own, in relative, reason, result and complement clauses (with a limited group of verbs, such as emotive factive predicates or predicates of happening). The article combines evidence from a corpus study (6822 examples from 16th- to 20th-century texts) and internal reconstruction to (1) determine if and in what way the subordinator bait- and the affirmative bai ‘yes’ can be diachronically related, and (2) try to establish diachronic relations between the functions of bait-. It is proposed that the missing link between the subordinator and the affirmative particle might be a manner expression bai which had anaphoric functions. The marker bait- emerged as a reanalyzed form of the manner expression, which then gradually and through various pathways spread to different types of subordinate clauses and was reanalyzed as a subordinator.

Morpho-syntactic structure of code-switched sentences produced by Albanian bilingual speakers

This paper aims to analyze the structure of code-switched sentences uttered by Albanian bilingual students. It examines the predictions made by two theoretical viewpoints, namely Myers-Scotton’s Matrix Language Frame (MLF) and MacSwan’s approach within the Minimalist Program (MP). The students were observed in informal environments within Prishtina international school settings, such as during recess time, on the playground, etc. Tape recordings of the conversations were used to record this naturalistic data, which was then transcribed. In particular, examples from the Albanian/English pair were analyzed, and the MLF and MP predictions regarding combinatorial possibilities were tested. The findings show that our data can only partially be accounted for by the MLF and MP approaches. Switching is mainly unidirectional, with insertions from English into an Albanian syntactic frame. Determiners, such as demonstrative pronouns, indefinite pronouns, adverbs of quantity, as well as copular verbs, auxiliary verbs, and clitics, come from the Matrix Language (ML), complying with the MLF model. However, violations of the MLF model are encountered as well, such as the non-occurrence of stem/affix switching, the occurrence of bare forms, and Embedded Language (EL) islands not always constituting the maximal projection of the phrase, which are further described and predicted in MP model. The paper provides evidence that neither MLF nor MP are able to adequately account for the possible combinations in the mixed clause. According to what the literature to date indicates, integrating the approaches rather than using each one individually results in a better understanding of the grammar of code-switching.

Особенности сочетаемости местоимения что-то с постпозитивными прилагательными в текстах разных стилей

The article considers some syntagmatic properties of the Russian indefinite pronoun chto-to [something]. The aim of the work is to identify the features of combining chto-to with full postpositive adjectives in texts of different styles. The problem is solved on the basis of corpus data. These involve materials from various stylistically marked corpora (subcorpora of academic, official, fiction, theological texts in the main corpus of the Russian National Corpus; a subcorpus of the national media in the media corpus of the Russian National Corpus; poetry and spoken corpora of the Russian National Corpus; subcorpora of Internet news, LiveJournal, VKontakte and the Magazine Hall of the General Internet-Corpus of Russian). The methodology of the work includes the method of extracting collocations (statistically stable phrases) from the corpus and the method of the accuracy of the syntagmatic connection between the components of collocations. The study found that the combination “chto-to + a full adjective” is statistically stable. The calculation of the strength of the syntagmatic connection between its components in different stylistically marked corpora shows that there is a significant variation between the corpora. The method of the automatic extraction of collocations reveals 19 adjectives that have the highest indexes of the strength of the syntagmatic connection with chto-to. The strength of the syntagmatic connection with each of these adjectives is studied in different stylistically marked corpora. In each of the 19 cases, an intercorporal variation is detected. The obtained statistical data are interpreted linguistically. The fact that the strength of the connection between the components of the combination “chto-to + a full adjective” varies depending on the genre-style register is explained by the varying degree of accuracy and objectivity of texts of different registers. Combinations like “chto-to + a full adjective” mark inaccuracy and subjectivity, and therefore they are the least stable in texts of styles that are characterized by accuracy and objectivity (official-business, educational-scientific texts), and the most stable in texts of inaccurate and subjective styles (blog texts, colloquial speech, prose fiction texts). The variation in the strength of the syntagmatic connection of the pronoun chto-to with a specific adjective in texts of different styles is often determined by the semantics of this adjective. The semantics of an adjective may prevent its connection with the pronoun chto-to in texts of a certain style, and may contribute to such a connection: for example, the semantics of the adjective noven’kiy [(diminutive) new] prevents its connection with the pronoun chto-to in theological texts, but contributes to its connection with the pronoun chto-to in newspaper texts.

THE USE OF INTERROGATIVE PRONOUNS AS INDEFINITE IN CONTEMPORARY SERBIAN

The paper aims at identifying the semantic conditions allowing the use of interrogative pronouns instead of indefinite ones without change in meaning, in the case of the Serbian language. To this end, first of all, a pattern of the meaning of indefiniteness characteristic of indefinite pronouns is outlined based on observations on the language of four contem- porary dramas. The paper uses a componential analysis borrowed from another author and adapted for the purposes of the present study, highlighting relevant differential features in the semantic invariant, as well as a syntactic-grammatical analysis of the context, dividing it into two domains. The variants of the meaning of indefiniteness thus identified are applied to the uses of interrogatives in the role of indefinite pronouns extracted from the electronic corpus of Serbian. The pattern of differential features enabling the use in question is highlighted

Эксплицитные и имплицитные маркеры конфликтного речевого поведения в интернет-опосредованной коммуникации периода пандемии COVID-19

Introduction. The Internet leaves a significant imprint on the features of the construction and means of implementing conflict communication. The calculation of these tools allows us to differentiate communicative conflicts on the Internet with a sufficient degree of clarity and suppress them.
 Aim. Identification and comprehensive study of the conflict speech behavior in the process of exchanging comments on posts in the LiveJournal for the period from January 2020 to December 2022.
 Methodology and research methods. A continuous sampling method is used to select study material, a method of complex communicative-pragmatic analysis provides the assessment of comments as conflicting, linguostylistic analysis and contextual analysis contribute to detect the explicit and implicit markers of conflict interaction.
 Results. Detected explicit markers: profanity, zoometaphores, negative facial nomination from the point of view of origin, mental development, health status, level of education, from the point of view of the interests of society, occasionalism of the pandemic period, naming of the interlocutor as representatives of hostile ideology, emotive verbs with negative meaning, neutral device nominations when referring to the interlocutor, lexical means with threat, isolation, vaccinating semantics. Detected implicit markers: means that contribute to the construction of a dichotomy "own - alien", phraseologisms with negative connotations, an abundance of punctuation marks, Internet memes for the transmission of emotions, typeface, parcellated constructions, English-language interspersions, erratives, multiple questions, incomplete sentences, parallel constructions, repetitions, imperatives, subjunctive mood in an incentive meaning, modal words with the semantics of dignity. Means-enhancers of conflict interaction: adversative conjunctions, hyperbolization, phonetic pun, indefinite pronouns, double negation, adverbs-intensifiers, amplifying-excretory particles.
 Scientific novelty. A wide range of verbal and non-verbal means that show conflict explicitly and implicitly has been identified.
 Practical significance. We believe that the achieved results will ensure the regulation of the increase in conflict situations on the Internet.

From Latin QUO(D) VELLES to Romagnol Cvël: A Case of Degrammaticalisation from a Free‐choice Indefinite to the Noun ‘Thing’1

AbstractDegrammaticalisation is an oft‐dismissed category of language change. In this paper evidence is provided for its existence, its triggers, and its conditions. This case study details the development of an understudied Old Italo‐Romance indefinite, covelle, a polarity‐sensitive item roughly translating as ‘anything’ which originated from a Latin free relative with Free‐Choice interpretation. It is shown that in Old Italo‐Romance the original Free Choice use was expanded to further nonveridical contexts. Subsequently, a curious development of covelle in Old Romagnol, a 16th‐century Gallo‐Italic variety, is examined whereby polar neutralisation (loss of sensitivity to polarity) of the indefinite was taking place. Contextually, a process of degrammaticalisation had begun through which the indefinite pronoun developed into the classifier ‘thing’. In Modern and Contemporary Romagnol cvël is almost exclusively employed as a noun/classifier. It is argued that two parallel processes have initiated a cycle that led cvël to complete degrammaticalisation: (i) the grammaticalization of the old noun for ‘thing’, co(n)sa, into a wh‐word, calling for lexical replacement, and (ii) competition from the Negative Concord Item gnit. The development of covelle in Romagnol represents a well‐documented case of degrammaticalisation, whose causes and conditions can be thoroughly described and motivated within an interaction with cyclical change.

Partikulas kaut izrunas varianti

The article discusses phonetic changes in the pronunciation of the particle kaut. The particle kaut is considered in the word group with the indefinite pronouns kas and kāds in different cases and adverbs kur and kad in everyday speech – both in standard colloquial language and in low colloquial speech. In the research, the author analysed 160 tokens of the particle kaut in the colloquial speech. In about 20% of all cases, there are no changes in the pronunciation of the particle kaut. In these cases, the speech rate is slower, and the speaker aims for more precise pronunciation to reach the purpose of speech – to explain, clarify, and reveal information as clearly and understandable as possible. In 73% of pronunciation cases of the particle kaut, positional sound changes have happened – elision of the consonant [t] because of the following consonant [k]. Extra changes can be seen in 7% of pronunciation cases of the particle kaut. In standard colloquial language mostly, the particle kaut is used as the first component of an analytical lexical unit and is followed by indefinite pronouns kas and kāds in different grammatical cases and adverbs kad and kur. The precision of the pronunciation of the particle kaut and, thereby, sound changes happening in the word depend on the tasks given to the particle kaut and the reason it is used in a sentence. If the only task for the particle is to show the approximation or inaccuracy of the information given, the speaker does not worry about its pronunciation and makes it as simple as possible.

In the periphery of an indefinite pronoun. Forms and functions of conceptual agreement with jemand

Abstract In German, the social gender of the human referent matches the grammatical gender of the noun and pronoun in many cases. Nevertheless, those categories can also differ from each other. The indefinite pronoun jemand ‘someone’ prototypically exhibits masculine grammatical gender irrespective of its concrete referents. This paper addresses a special phenomenon that can occur with jemand, namely, the conceptual agreement of relative pronouns, i.e., the occurrence of feminine target forms that refer to the masculine indefinite pronoun jemand (Sie ist jemand, die gerne Kaffee trinkt ‘She is someone m , who f likes to drink coffee’). Based on two empirical analyses that examine the phenomenon from different methodological perspectives, this article will demonstrate that the marked phenomenon is comparatively rare, but does occur nevertheless. The phenomenon cannot be fully explained by the loss of the genericity of indefinite pronouns. In fact, either semantic or pragmatic explanations can be applied. This phenomenon can especially be observed in specific types of contexts (or constructions) that lack the prototypical feature of indefinite pronouns: indefinite reference. Jemand increasingly seems to be emerging in non-prototypical contexts for indefinite pronouns, which to some extent override the morphosyntactic features of the (relevant) part of speech. This occurrence is a semantic explanation for conceptual agreement forms. Pragmatic explanations for variation in agreement forms can be applied in prototypical contexts of indefinite pronouns, for example when an effort to use gender-sensitive language is made. Based on the phenomenon of conceptual agreement, this article thus explores the functions and properties in the periphery of indefinite pronouns as a part of speech.

Generic options: Variable use of vos and uno in Patagonia Spanish (Argentina)

The distribution of vos ‘you’ and uno ‘one’ in generic messages is studied in a corpus of female speakers of Spanish (Argentina).The question was how it is possible that the form vos, so clearly defined as the pronoun to refer to the interlocutor, could have an impersonal reading, alongside the indefinite pronoun uno, which seems much more fit to do the job. The alternation between the generic use of the forms vos and uno cannot be, in our view, the result of chance nor a merely stylistic tool, but corresponds to the communicative strategies that speakers utilize in each and every context. This paper studies the different factors that play a role in the selection of each of the pronouns.

Mixtec negative existential cycles, standard negation and negative indefiniteness

In Mixtec scholarship one finds hesitant claims that Mixtec standard negators (‘not’) derive from or are related to existential ones (‘there is not’). The data are complex, not least because there are several standard and existential negators. This paper confirms these claims, with reference to current typological theorizing on the “Negative Existential Cycle” and provides as full an account as possible of the effect of this cycle in Mixtec. The study also argues that the Mixtec languages show evidence for introducing a “Negative Existential Indefiniteness Cycle”. This process makes negative indefinite pronouns (like ‘nobody’) out of negative existential constructions (like ‘not exists somebody’), of which each component gets lost at the clausal level and may reappear.

Коммуникативная категория достоверности в устном научно-популярном дискурсе

The paper examines the peculiarities of the implementation of the communicative category of reliability in the oral popular science discourse on the Internet. The communicative category of reliability is studied using the material of lectures posted on the PostNauka educational platform. The features of the video lectures of the PostNauka project are determined, which indicate the need to consider the Russian-language online lecture as a separate genre of popular science discourse. The results of analysing the material under study are described: the markers of problematic reliability used by lecturers to attract the attention of the audience and increase the involvement of the listener in communication are highlighted, in particular, the specifics of the use of lexical means in lecture materials in Russian are examined. The aim of the research is to describe the specifics of the reliability category expression in the text of a popular science video lecture on history. The scientific novelty of the research lies in identifying the means of the reliability category expression in the oral popular science humanities discourse taking into account the lecturer’s choice of the optimal ways of constructing meanings when conveying information to listeners. As a result, it has been found that the transfer of scientific knowledge to a wide audience is characterised by the presence of problematic reliability markers. Such linguistic means include parenthetical words, indefinite pronouns, adjectives and adverbs with evaluative meanings, semantically empty lexemes, as well as lexemes requiring the communicants to have common presuppositions within the same linguistic culture.

ENGLISH INDEFINITE PRONOUN ANY AND ITS SERBIAN TRANSLATION EQUIVALENTS

This study aims to analyse a contrastive relation between the English indefinite pronoun any and its Serbian equivalents. Beside the simple pronoun any, the study also focuses on how its compounds with other words – nouns (-body, -thing), numerals (-one) and interrogatives (-where) are performed and translated into Serbian. In this sense, the study is result-oriented. In order to reveal the equivalence relevance and equivalence distribution in practice, the analysis was based on a parallel corpus. The source text ʻThe Sense of an Endingʼ by J. Barnes was confronted with the corresponding target text in Serbian ʻOvo liči na krajʼ, to investigate the appropriate forms.
 Although belonging to different language families, English and Serbian have shown a significant degree of similarities and differences among the elements in scope. Indefinite pronouns are a linguistic universal. Thus they occur systematically in both English and Serbian. Nevertheless, the Serbian pronominal equivalents are not categorised only as indefinites, but they also have a negative (niko, ništa, nikakav), free-choice (neko, nešto, neki) and universal functions26 (svako, bilo koji, bilo kakav). There is rarely any reciprocity in a direct Serbian implication for each English pronoun – an English indefinite pronoun usually has numerous Serbian equivalents. The proportion of the pronominal and non-pronominal (adverbs, particles, prepositional phrases, etc) Serbian equivalents is 2:1. Zero equivalence has appeared to be unexpectedly frequent – predominantly in negative and interrogative contexts. But even when the indefinites are not explicitly translated, due to stylistic and pragmatic differences between the two languages, there is equivalence at a syntactic level. The analysis revealed various equivalents, but they can be roughly brought down to the following: any is mostly omitted in Serbian negatives, and interrogatives, and translated as svaki in affirmatives; anything is translated as ništa in negatives, išta in interroatives and nešto in affirmatives; anyone is translated as niko in negatives, and iko in affirmatives; anybody is translated as bilo ko in affirmatives; anyway is translated as bilo kako bilo in affirmatives; anywhere is translated as ikud in negatives. Such an asymmetry of equivalence shows that there is not obvious and apparent compatibility between English and Serbian indefinite pronouns.
 The aim of this paper has therefore been to offer a better understanding of the various forms among the corresponding English and Serbian indefinite pronominals, in terms of their practical relevance.

ВІДТВОРЕННЯ ЗАЙМЕННИКІВ ЯК МАРКЕРІВ НЕОЗНАЧЕНОСТІ В ДВОМОВНОМУ ПАРАЛЕЛЬНОМУ КОРПУСІ: ЗІСТАВНИЙ АСПЕКТ

The article continues a series of publications devoted to the application of a corpus method to the study of translation transformations from the contrastive perspective. The author analyzes indefinite pronouns in the parallel corpus of texts (English-Ukrainian language pair), and finds out the specifics of strategies for their reproduction in Ukrainian. The parallel corpora contain a palette of strategies used by translators, as well as repertoires of translation equivalents with examples of their contextual use, thus providing a valuable resource for contrastive cross-linguistic studies. Pronouns are classified according to a systemic structural grammatical features, corresponding morphological and functional, specified person, object, feature, or their absence. The study proved that the variability of translation of the linguistic units under analysis is usually determined by the taxonomy of indefinite pronouns (semantic and structural aspects), as well as their functionality traits within a particular text fragment and context in general. Among a scope of interlingual transformations in the parallel corpus, the study revealed that two translation transformations prevailed: logical/semantic development and differentiation of meaning. Interstingly, the compensation of losses method was not used at all, which can be explained by indefinite pronouns’ isomorphic features – presence of similar equivalents in the Ukrainian language to express the category of uncertainty. Motivated exclusively by linguistic factors, indefinite pronouns demonstrate a high level of intertranslatability, do not require additional contextual clarification and can be compensated by other translation transformations.

An Analysis of Grammatical Error in Justin Bieber's Song Lyrics

ABSTRACTA language is a communication tool used by every human being in everyday life. People used their language to communicate with each other to help deliver the information. Meanwhile, Indonesians lack grammar, especially to studying from unreliable sources, such as listening to songs. This research is trying to analyze the grammatical error in Justin Bieber’s song lyrics and identify the most frequent type of errors found in Justin Bieber’s song lyrics. This is descriptive qualitative research and the data instrument used in this research is data analysis. The result shows that there were three types of grammatical errors contained in Justin Bieber's song lyrics, such as Subject-Verb Agreement, Indefinite Pronouns, and Prepositions. The grammatical error contains 7 grammatical errors found in the subject-verb agreement, 5 grammatical errors found in the Indefinite Pronouns, and 1 grammatical error found in the preposition. However, the subject-verb agreement is the most frequent grammatical error used in Justin Bieber’s song lyrics.Keywords: Grammatical Error, Justin Bieber’s Songs, Lyrics

Analysis of Pronoun in “Cinderella” Story by Disney

This research aims to analyze pronouns used in a story with title “Cinderella” by Disney. Researchers chose descriptive qualitative method to analyze the data in order to show pronouns that appeared in the story of Cinderella. There were several steps that researchers conducted to collect data, including read the story, then identified the pronouns, and finally analyzed each pronoun from the story descriptively. This research found that there were 15 pronouns used in the story of Cinderella with six types of pronoun. These pronouns include 5 personal pronouns as subject (They, She, It, He, and I), 2 personal pronouns as object (her and them), 3 possessive adjectives (her, his, and their), 2 relative pronouns (whose and who), 2 demonstrative pronouns (this and that), and 1 indefinite pronoun (everyone). In addition, the pronoun that appeared the most was “her” as much as 22.92%, and conversely, pronoun that appeared the least were “their, this, whose, I, everyone, and who”, which each of them only appeared 1 time in the story (2.08% for each pronoun).