Linguistic Typology Research Articles

Conditional-Resultative Hypotactic Constructions from the Viewpoint of Evidentiality on the Empirical Material of the Kartvelian Languages1

Evidentiality is a universal category, the study of which should be carried out on the grammatical (morphological and syntactic) and lexical levels. The paper analyzes conditional-resultative hypotactic constructions from the viewpoint of evidentiality. Conditional-resultative hypotactic constructions consist of two components – main and subordinate clauses; The condition is given in the subordinate clause, the predicate of which represents the action which serves as a precondition for the fulfillment of the second action. The condition is followed by the result, which is given in the main clause and takes place if the corresponding condition is fulfilled. Such hypotactic construction is based on background knowledge, as the action described in the conditional-resultative sentence implies logical inter-relation between the clauses. The following questions should be answered in this regard: What are the characteristic features of these constructions from the viewpoint of evidentiality? Does the logical relation between the main and subordinate clauses represent a source of information which serves as a basis for evidentiality? Based on the analysis of the empirical material, it can be concluded that hypotactic constructions are evidential if conclusions or assumptions are drawn on the basis of logical conditional-resultative relations (and not perceptive facts), as well as the background knowledge/experience of the speaker. Hypotactic constructions are not evidential unless the logical relation between conditional-resultative clauses implies the above-mentioned nuances, and if only a certain fact, result or appeal is represented. The paper also focuses on the data of other Kartvelian languages and reveals the typology of the Kartvelian languages with regard to the issue under analysis.

Linguistic typology, language modality, and stuff like that

Abstract Pragmatic particles termed general extenders (GE) have been examined across languages and are found to serve multiple functions. Despite the fruitful findings, few study the use of GEs in different language modalities and in typologically more different languages such as Chinese. This research aims to contribute to this literature by investigating the use of the GE zhilei(de) (zld), ‘of that kind,’ in spoken and written Chinese. Data from corpora of spoken and written Chinese suggest that zld displays some distinctive patterns in its form and function, partly due to the typological traits of Mandarin Chinese. The results also indicate that the language modality where zld is deployed may have impacts on its structural and functional distribution. The current article thus holds implications not only for the literature of GEs but also for the study of the interface between linguistic typology, language modality, and pragmatic expressions.

Crosslinguistic influence and morphological awareness in English (third language) writing

Aims: The aim of the present paper is twofold. Firstly, we look into the effects of a number of factors on crosslinguistic influence (study 1). Secondly, we analyse the role played by morphological awareness in the production of crosslinguistic instances (study 2). In this way, we contribute to the understanding of how crosslinguistic and metalinguistic dimensions of third language acquisition are intertwined. Methodology: We investigate lexical adaptations of the first language and second language in third language English (i.e. adapted loan words) and combine quantitative and qualitative research methods. A quantitative analysis explores the impact of the first language, the L2 factor, typology and proficiency in the target and the source languages (study 1). A qualitative analysis then proposes a categorization of the strategies used by participants to adapt their first language and second language to the target language (study 2). Data and Analysis: Language proficiency was evaluated in 222 compositions, 74 written in each language (Basque, Spanish and English). The adapted loan words found in English compositions were classified according to their source language, word category, word class and type/token categories (study 1). In addition, the strategies used by participants were identified and analysed (study 2). Findings: The results indicate that language typology is the main predictor of the source language of crosslinguistic influence, and a variety of strategies point at morphological awareness as a key factor in the strategic use of participants’ first language and second language. Originality: By mixing quantitative and qualitative methods, this paper provides additional support to the claim that crosslinguistic influence and morphological awareness are intertwined in third language writing. Significance: The overall results show that students who are morphologically aware make crosslinguistic and morphological associations and use them strategically in their third language.

What Do Language Representations Really Represent?

A neural language model trained on a text corpus can be used to induce distributed representations of words, such that similar words end up with similar representations. If the corpus is multilingual, the same model can be used to learn distributed representations of languages, such that similar languages end up with similar representations. We show that this holds even when the multilingual corpus has been translated into English, by picking up the faint signal left by the source languages. However, just as it is a thorny problem to separate semantic from syntactic similarity in word representations, it is not obvious what type of similarity is captured by language representations. We investigate correlations and causal relationships between language representations learned from translations on one hand, and genetic, geographical, and several levels of structural similarity between languages on the other. Of these, structural similarity is found to correlate most strongly with language representation similarity, whereas genetic relationships—a convenient benchmark used for evaluation in previous work—appears to be a confounding factor. Apart from implications about translation effects, we see this more generally as a case where NLP and linguistic typology can interact and benefit one another.

15th century Korean Grammar from a Viewpoint of Linguistic Typology and Historical Grammar

15th century Korean Grammar from a Viewpoint of Linguistic Typology and Historical Grammar

Metalinguistic evaluators and pragmatic strategies in selected hate-inducing speeches in Nigeria

Hate-inducing language, which has become a recurrent decimal in Nigerian socio-political discourse, is not unconnected to the deep-seated boundaries existing amongst different ethnic groups in Nigeria. Linguistic studies on hate language in Nigeria have largely utilised pragmatic and critical discourse analytical tools in identifying the illocutions and ideologies involved but hardly paid attention to the metalinguistic forms deployed in hate speeches. Therefore, the present study, aside adding to the research line of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM)—which has unduly focused on language typology, explores the metalinguistic evaluators that index hate speech in Nigeria, and relate them to specific pragmatic strategies through which hate speech producers’ intentions are communicated. To achieve this, three full manuscripts of hate speech made by three groups (i.e. Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, Youths of Oduduwa Republic, and Biafra Nation Youth League) from three (northern, western, and eastern, respectively) regions of Nigeria are purposively sampled from Google directories and Radio Biafra archives, subjected to descriptive and quantitative analysis, with insights from the NSM theory and aspects of pragmatic acts. Two categories of metalinguistic evaluators were identified, positive (GOOD) and negative (BAD) evaluators; and these are associated with three pragmatic strategies; namely, blunt condemnation, unshielded exposition, and appeal to emotion. While the condemning and exposing strategies largely utilise negative evaluators in initiating hate on target groups, the emotion-drawing strategy largely employs positive evaluators in boosting the image of the hate-speech producing group in the eyes of the audience. With these findings, the study takes existing scholarship on violence-inducing language a step forward, especially in providing a pragmatic explanation to the proliferation of hate crimes in Nigeria. It also offers a holistic linguistic database and critical meta-language for the teaching of hate-related language and crime, especially in second-language situations.

THE KEY ISSUES OF THE LINGUISTIC THEORY OF APHORISM

The key points of the linguistic theory of the aphorism are formulated in the article.The importance of the research is the necessity of the theoretical description of the aphoristic units as the linguistic category for the solution of the problem of building up a general theory of «more then word» units which in contrast with other language units don’t have their general theoretical basis and comprehension so far.The purpose of the research is to formulate the main issues of the linguistic theory of the aphorism and within this theory to determine the properties and the types of aphoristic units as a particular linguistic category, the number of such units, their systematic and functional properties, etc.The methodology of the research is based on the previous study of the linguistic nature of the aphorism and its perception as a complex linguistic object isomorphic in its basic properties to phraseological and lexical units that is proved by the previous research of the author of the article.The actual material of the research is presented in the prepared by the author (in co-authorship as well) or the dictionaries that have already been published as well as in his tutorials, textbooks and other teaching-methodological materials in Polish, English, German, and in other languages.As a result of the research it can be stated that the specific quality called «aphoristic» is typical of the aphorism which means that it possesses the semantics of generalizing. Due to this peculiar feature aphorisms form an isolated category of linguistic units. This approach doesn’t exclude other views on the language essence of the aphorism but it shows that aphorisms can be described in a particular area of linguistics – aphoristics (or the aphoristic linguistics) and the key issues of the linguistic theory of the aphorism described in this article can lie in its basis.The article also presents the level characteristics of the aphoristic units in the language system. The phenomena of inter-level homonymy of aphoristic, lexical and phraseological units as well as paradigmatic forms of the usage and functional isomorphism of occasional and usual aphoristic units, the ways of aphoristic derivation are determined. Also the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the aphoristic fund of the language have been stated. The principles of the description of the aphoristic units as an object of a peculiar branch of linguistics – aphoristics – are grounded and its methodological, conceptual and metalinguistic peculiarities are stated. The main purposes and most important issues of aphoristics and its position inside the structure of linguistics are focused on.The results of the research may be used in theoretical linguistics in the process of the study of language properties of aphoristic units, in comparative and typological linguistics to determine the general and the specific as well as the typologically significant features in the aphoristic units of different languages.

Particle Placement in Learner Language

AbstractThis study presents the first multifactorial corpus‐based analysis of verb–particle constructions in a data sample comprising spoken and written productions by intermediate‐level learners of English as a second language from 17 language backgrounds. We annotated 4,911 attestations retrieved from native speaker and language learner corpora for 14 predictors, including syntactic complexity, rhythmic and segment alternation, and the verb framing of the speaker's native language. A multifactorial prediction and deviation analysis using regression (Gries & Deshors, 2014), which stacks multiple regression analyses to compare native speaker and learner productions in identical contexts, revealed a complex picture in which processing demands, input effects, and native language typology jointly shape the degree to which learners’ choices of constructions are nativelike or not.

Interlanguage: a perspective of quantitative linguistic typology

The study of interlanguage (IL) is crucial for the understanding of the acquisition and development of human languages. But there are very few empirical investigations into IL from a perspective of general linguistics or/and linguistic typology. Based on a dependency treebank of Chinese EFL learners' English writings from eight consecutive grades, we quantitatively analyzed the typological features of IL. It was found that: (1) Chinese EFL learners' IL linguistic system is a language with SV and VO preference. (2) From the perspective of linguistic typology, IL progressively approaches from native language to target language with the increase of second language proficiency. (3) Dependency direction can well measure learners' IL at different learning stages. (4) The dependency directions of adverbials and attributives can well reflect the typological changes of Chinese EFL learners' IL and learners’ language proficiency.

한국어와 중국어 인칭 표현의 계량적 분석

Personal pronouns and other noun expressions could be considered as person expressions. This study aims to organize concrete examples which were extracted from Korean and Chinese corpora and analyze the corpus data to accurately identify the usage frequency of personal pronouns and substitute expressions, and reexamine the features and causes of their usage based on the theories of language typology. For this purpose, by using Korean and Chinese corpora with empirical techniques, the actual frequency of appearance, using rate, and distribution of Korean and Chinese person expressions were investigated. The characteristics of them were inductively summarized based on the results of quantitative and corollary analysis of corpus. When summarizing, it is necessary to use qualitative research methods to interpret the three research questions and to identify the cause of the analysis results. If these three questions are proved, the relation of personal pronouns and substitute expressions can be regarded as a verbal existence. (Shanghai International Studies University)

Register in Systemic Functional Linguistics*

AbstractChristian M. I. M. Matthiessen elaborates on the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) approach to register in this contribution to the inaugural issue ofRegister Studies.He is Chair Professor of the Department of English at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where he pursues a scholarly agenda that includes developing the theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics and applying it to text and discourse analysis, functional grammar, issues related to language evolution and typology, and comprehensive descriptive models of register. Throughout his career, Matthiessen has made major contributions to SFL theories and methods. Among his major works isLexicogrammatical Cartography: English Systems(1995, International Language Sciences Publishers). More than any other scholar, Matthiessen has expounded on Halliday’s early ideas on register and applied SFL theory to describing models of register variation. He remains an active researcher in the area of register studies which includes his registerial cartography – the comprehensive and systematic description of the registers in a language. Matthiessen’s work has left an indelible mark on the theory and systematic study of patterns of register in language use.

Linguistic inferences without words

Contemporary semantics has uncovered a sophisticated typology of linguistic inferences, characterized by their conversational status and their behavior in complex sentences. This typology is usually thought to be specific to language and in part lexically encoded in the meanings of words. We argue that it is neither. Using a method involving "composite" utterances that include normal words alongside novel nonlinguistic iconic representations (gestures and animations), we observe successful "one-shot learning" of linguistic meanings, with four of the main inference types (implicatures, presuppositions, supplements, homogeneity) replicated with gestures and animations. The results suggest a deeper cognitive source for the inferential typology than usually thought: Domain-general cognitive algorithms productively divide both linguistic and nonlinguistic information along familiar parts of the linguistic typology.

Expounding register and registerial cartography in systemic functional linguistics: an interview with Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen

Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen is a leading scholar in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Together with William C. Mann and Sandra A. Thompson, he developed Rhetorical Structure Theory, a discourse analytical framework which he has continued to expand and extend using insights from the architecture of SFL. His contributions to SFL are in various areas, such as functional language typology, theoretical modeling of the dimensions of language and comprehensive paradigmatic description of English lexicogrammatical systems. In this interview, he discusses various topics on register from the SFL perspective, including the definition of register and the location of register in the SFL architecture. The interview also relates to Halliday’s and Martin’s conceptions of register, Matthiessen’s long-term project of registerial cartography, and the applications of register in various domains. The discussion is expected to contribute to the debates on register and its applications.

Polysynthesis: A review

AbstractThe notion of polysynthesis was introduced two centuries ago and is still widely used in linguistic typology, as well as in linguistic theory and even language description. Nevertheless, several of its features make it unappealing as a technical term. First, there is no consensus as to which of the competing, partially overlapping, definitions is to be preferred. Second, the different structural phenomena covered by the label show variation both across and within languages; the term is in need of qualification to be precise. Third, neither the synchronic distribution nor the diachronic origins of the phenomena involved is well understood. Fourth, even though the term is essentially framed in typological terms, no robust cross‐linguistic generalizations based on it have been hitherto found. The present paper surveys these features and argues that the notion can be used nonimpressionistically only if defined more cogently and more restrictively.

Why typology matters: a corpus-based study of explicitation and implicitation of Manner-of-motion in narrative texts

ABSTRACTThis research highlights the importance of linguistic typology to our understanding of translation universals. It tests two potential universals: process-oriented implicitation and product-oriented explicitation. Drawing on the hypothesis of thinking-for-translating, this paper analyses these universals in terms of the expression of Manner-of-motion, one of the semantic components which displays asymmetries between satellite-framed languages (e.g. Germanic languages) and verb-framed languages (e.g. Romance languages). The corpus-based method used here includes a German > Spanish parallel corpus of narrative texts and a comparable corpus in Spanish. The results confirm, on the one hand, that translations into Spanish are more implicit regarding Manner-of-motion than their corresponding German originals, and on the other hand, that these translations present a higher degree of explicitness of Manner-of-motion than comparable texts originally written in Spanish. These findings indicate that linguistic typology is key when studying translation universals, especially in intertypological scenarios, in which both the source and target languages have an impact on translation. In an attempt to systematise the resulting data, the validated universals have been reorganized into an explicitation – implicitation cline.

Subsegments and the emergence of segments

Q Theory proposes that the most granular and basic temporal unit of abstract phonological representation is not the segment, as widely assumed in classic generative phonology, but the quantized subsegment. With a more granular quantization of the speech stream, Q Theory provides phonological grammar with the representational capability to model behaviors that affect both the parts and the wholes of segments. In Q Theory, segments are emergent from strings of subsegments and from subsegmental interactions based on the principles of similarity, proximity, and co-occurrence that already underlie phonological operations. Evidence is presented from linguistic typology, and mechanics are drawn from speech segmentation and recognition. Q Theory makes it possible to develop an advanced theory of complex segments.

A cross-linguistic comparison on the use of acoustic cues for ambiguity resolution

In producing structurally ambiguous sentences, speakers often rely on prosodic acoustic cues (duration, pitch, and intensity) to enhance communication. This study compared speakers of two typologically different languages in their use of these cues for ambiguity resolution. Ten English and 10 Korean speakers completed a production task in their native language. Stimulus sentences included a relative clause which could modify either the first or the second noun (e.g., the boss of the clerk who was dishonest). The participants produced each sentence twice, being directed each time to convey one or the other of the two possible meanings. English speakers used both prosodic boundary cues, by inserting pause between words, and word prominence, by producing greater pitch movement and intensity on the heads of prosodic phrases. Korean speakers, on the other hand, used pre-boundary word lengthening and pause to mark prosodic phrase boundaries but did not use pitch or intensity to manipulate word prominence. These results suggest that the prosodic typology of languages (e.g., head-prominence vs. edge-prominence) influences the interface between syntax and phonology.In producing structurally ambiguous sentences, speakers often rely on prosodic acoustic cues (duration, pitch, and intensity) to enhance communication. This study compared speakers of two typologically different languages in their use of these cues for ambiguity resolution. Ten English and 10 Korean speakers completed a production task in their native language. Stimulus sentences included a relative clause which could modify either the first or the second noun (e.g., the boss of the clerk who was dishonest). The participants produced each sentence twice, being directed each time to convey one or the other of the two possible meanings. English speakers used both prosodic boundary cues, by inserting pause between words, and word prominence, by producing greater pitch movement and intensity on the heads of prosodic phrases. Korean speakers, on the other hand, used pre-boundary word lengthening and pause to mark prosodic phrase boundaries but did not use pitch or intensity to manipulate word prominence. These...

Interpreting meaning in police interviews: Applied Language Typology in a Forensic Linguistics context

The main aim of this paper is to raise awareness about the importance of language contrasts in legal interpreting contexts. The semantic typology of motion events put forward by Talmy (1991, 2000) and its implications for discourse and narrative (Slobin 1991, 1996, 2004, 2005) are used as an example of how an applied typology approach can be useful for the analysis of language contrasts in a forensic linguistics context. Applied Language Typology (Filipović 2008, 2017a, b) is used here to analyse transcriptions of police interviews that were mediated by an English-Spanish interpreter in California (USA) and an English-Portuguese interpreter in Norfolk (UK). The results of this analysis demonstrate that certain differences in semantic components of motion such as Manner, Cause and Deixis can lead interpreters to add, omit or modify the content of a message in the process of translation. This leads us to conclude that professional practices such as the production of bilingual transcripts and use of control interpreters, together with the inclusion of Applied Language Typology in interpreting training, would improve the quality of interpreting practices in legal contexts.

Uma proposta de descrição do sistema de MENSAGEM na organização funcional discurso

Este artigo investiga as funções linguísticas responsáveis pela organização textual do discurso. Mais especificamente, descreve o sistema semântico-discursivo de mensagem, o qual responde pelo gerenciamento da produção e acúmulo de significado no texto. Para tanto, explora a estrutura do discurso tendo como ponto de partida a relação entre esse e a gramática oracional que o realiza. Em seguida, descreve cada opção do sistema, bem como a forma como opera ao longo do fluxo textual, e assim assumindo valor nas relações que estabelece frente a outras opções. Para promover a descrição, utilizou-se o português brasileiro como língua de investigação. Um corpus com 100 mil tokens foi compilado com base na tipologia da língua no contexto de cultura. Os textos foram analisados segundo a manifestação estrutural, relações funcionais entre opções sistêmicas, e o significado gerado pela organização discursiva das mensagens. Ao final, o artigo mostra como as diferentes opções de mensagempré-selecionam funções na gramática, fazendo com que cada mensagem seja contextualizada, incorporando-se ao texto de forma a dar algum direcionamento à fase a qual pertence. O artigo mostra ainda o potencial sistêmico pelo qual diferentes tipos de texto determinam opções distintas na gramática e semântica textuais.

Towards a standardized annotation of rhyme judgments in Chinese historical phonology (and beyond)

Although rhyme analysis plays a crucial role in the reconstruction of Old Chinese phonology, the field has not yet developed a standardized annotation framework for rhyme judgments applied to Ancient Chinese texts. Building on initial attempts to standardize crosslinguistic data for the purpose of historical and typological language comparison (as part of the Cross-Linguistic Data Formats initiative), we present a proposal for consistent and transparent rhyme annotation. This proposal allows scholars to annotate the rhymes they identify in historical texts in such a way that the judgments can be analyzed with computational tools as well as conveniently inspected by scholars. Our framework is accompanied by software tools and exemplary datasets, which were annotated by various scholars, and reflect not only Chinese, but also contemporary poetry in different languages. In the paper, we present the framework and also point to caveats and current insufficiencies in annotation. In doing so, we hope to inspire more scholars working on Old Chinese reconstruction to share their judgments, allowing others working in the field to improve, revise, and analyze them.