Aspect Markers Research Articles

Comprehension of Mandarin Aspect Markers by Preschool Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder.

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) reportedly struggle with the comprehension of aspect. However, since aspect and tense are closely entangled in the languages spoken by the children with DLD in previous studies, it is unclear whether the difficulty stems from aspect, tense, or both. Mandarin Chinese, a language without morphological manifestations of tense, is ideal to investigate whether the comprehension of aspect is specifically affected in children with DLD, yet to date work on this is scarce and presents methodological limitations. In this study, we examined whether preschool Mandarin-speaking children with DLD have difficulty in comprehending perfective aspect (represented with the aspect marker -le) compared to imperfective aspect (represented with the aspect markers zai- and -zhe), whether performance can be explained in terms of the pre- vs. post-verbal realization of the aspect markers, and the potential role played by lexical aspect in the comprehension of grammatical aspect. Fourteen preschool children with DLD (mean age: 61.11 months old) and 14 TD children (mean age: 63.4 months old) matched for age and nonverbal intelligence participated in a sentence-picture matching task. Global results showed that, similar to their TD peers, children with DLD performed better on imperfective aspect than perfective aspect. Concerning specific aspect markers, while children with DLD indeed performed similarly to TD children on imperfective -zhe, they obtained significantly lower accuracy than TD children on perfective -le and imperfective zai-. However, considering verb types combined with these aspect markers, results revealed that children with DLD scored significantly higher on the prototypical combination(s) (e.g., zai- + Activity verbs) than on the non-prototypical combination(s) (e.g., zai- + Accomplishment verbs). The performance pattern suggests that the comprehension of aspect markers by children with DLD is particularly affected by lexical aspect. As this also affects younger TD children, children with DLD are arguably at an earlier stage of aspectual development than their age and nonverbal intelligence matched TD peers. Therefore, the aspectual development of children with DLD appears to be delayed rather than deviant. Given this, language programs addressing difficulties in DLD may need to incorporate training on the use of aspect markers, especially targeting their combination with non-prototypical verbs.

Fungsi dan Pola Kalimat Bahasa Daerah Maba

The Maba Regional Language (BDM) is one of the regional languages found in North Maluku. BDM is spread over 5 sub-districts and 21 sub-districts/villages in East Halmahera Regency. Thus, the distribution of BDM speakers is very wide. BDM has not been studied from the aspect of pattern and function. In fact, in terms of patterns and functions, it has differences with other regional languages in Indonesia, so BDM needs to be studied in order to enrich the treasures of linguistics. In general, this study aims to foster and preserve BDM, specifically revealing its patterns and functions. This study uses a qualitative descriptive method with a syntactic approach. BDM functions include S-P, S-P-O, S-P-O-K, and S-P-Pel which form the sentence structure of BDM. BDM sentences have a S-P-O-pa pattern (description: pa = aspect marker), K-S-kb-P sentence patterns, and S-kb-P-O sentence patterns (description: kb = auxiliary verb). The function of filler in compound sentences is SP-O, while single sentences have verbal predicate, adjective predicate, noun predicate, numeral predicate, phrase predicate, repositional, and also has a uniqueness, namely having a verbal adverbial predicate structure (adverb). It can be concluded that the functions of functional sentences between one another. BDM has a unique pattern compared to other regional languages, including regional languages in the North Maluku region. As a pattern, its function cannot be converted into another function. BDM has a transitive function that oversees an intransitive function.

Processing Aspectual Agreement in a Language with Limited Morphological Inflection by Second Language Learners: An ERP Study of Mandarin Chinese.

Previous studies on the neural cognitive mechanisms of aspectual processing in second language (L2) learners have focused on Indo-European languages with rich inflectional morphology. These languages have aspects which are equipped with inflected verb forms combined with auxiliary or modal verbs. Meanwhile, little attention has been paid to Mandarin Chinese, which has limited morphological inflection, and its aspect is equipped with aspectual particles (e.g., le, zhe, guo). The present study explores the neurocognitive mechanism of Mandarin Chinese aspect processing among two groups of late Mandarin Chinese proficient learners with Thai (with Mandarin Chinese-like aspect markers) and Indonesian (lack of Mandarin Chinese-like aspect markers) as their first language (L1). We measured event-related potentials (ERPs) time locked to the aspect marker le in two different conditions (the aspect violation sentences and the correct sentences). A triphasic ELAN-LAN-P600 effect was produced by the Mandarin Chinese native speakers. However, there was no ELAN and LAN in Indonesian native speakers and Thai native speakers, except a 300–500 ms negativity widely distributed in the right hemisphere and P600-like effect. This suggests that both groups of Mandarin Chinese learners cannot reach the same level as Mandarin Chinese native speakers to process Mandarin Chinese aspect information, probably due to the complex feature of Mandarin Chinese aspect maker, the participants’ L2 proficiency and age of L2 acquisition.

The Sharing Economy and Social Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Development

In the present work, the authors set out to identify common ground between social entrepreneurship and the sharing economy, justify the application of these models for the sustainable development of society, as well as conduct a bibliographic study into these concepts to identify areas of overlap between them. For a more in-depth analysis, we studied 20 social entrepreneurs and 20 English versions of websites of organizations that implement the sharing economy model. Based on semantic data analysis and latent Dirichlet allocation, the texts under examination were grouped into 5 topics according to frequency of occurrence of keywords using the Python programming language. In order to trace a connection between these topics and sustainable development, we selected words that can serve as markers of environmental, social and economic aspects of the activities of these organizations. Each identified topic has appeared to have an aspect of digitalization. The study revealed that the application of the sharing economy model by social entrepreneurs and companies contributes to the sustainable development of society. The obtained results can be used in elaboration of approaches to provide the sustainable development of society.

Early life oxytocin treatment improves thermo-sensory reactivity and maternal behavior in neonates lacking the autism-associated gene Magel2

Atypical responses to sensory stimuli are considered as a core aspect and early life marker of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Although recent findings performed in mouse ASD genetic models report sensory deficits, these were explored exclusively during juvenile or adult period. Whether sensory dysfunctions might be present at the early life stage and rescued by therapeutic strategy are fairly uninvestigated. Here we found that under cool environment neonatal mice lacking the autism-associated gene Magel2 present pup calls hypo-reactivity and are retrieved with delay by their wild-type dam. This neonatal atypical sensory reactivity to cool stimuli was not associated with autonomic thermoregulatory alteration but with a deficit of the oxytocinergic system. Indeed, we show in control neonates that pharmacogenetic inactivation of hypothalamic oxytocin neurons mimicked atypical thermosensory reactivity found in Magel2 mutants. Furthermore, pharmacological intranasal administration of oxytocin to Magel2 neonates was able to rescue both the atypical thermosensory response and the maternal pup retrieval. This preclinical study establishes for the first-time early life impairments in thermosensory integration and suggest a therapeutic potential benefit of intranasal oxytocin treatment on neonatal atypical sensory reactivity for autism.

Early grammatical marking development in Mandarin-speaking toddlers.

The current study examined early grammatical marking in a relatively understudied language, Mandarin, by using the Mandarin version of MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory. Two waves of data collection included 338 monolingual children (17-36 months; 143 female) at Time 1 and 308 children (32-55 months; 139 female) at Time 2 and their caregivers, whose education ranged from third grade (elementary school) or below to postgraduate with a median of high school. Our data showed a clear order of grammatical marking acquisition among these children and supported findings on the linguistic specificity of morphological development such that early- and late-acquired markers in Mandarin are not acquired in the same order as English or other languages. Negative "mei2," "bu4," possessive "-de," classifiers, and the aspect marker "le" were the earliest-acquired markers, followed by modals, negative "bie2," adverbs, sentence final particles, resultative verb compounds, and aspect markers "guo4" and "yao4." Complex clauses and the aspect marker "zheng4" were acquired the latest. Furthermore, consistent with previous cross-linguistic studies, the development patterns of a wide range of Mandarin grammatical markers indicate that markers that are more perceptually salient and obligatory, have clear form-meaning mappings, and often appear in isolation or utterance-final position were acquired earlier than others. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Temporal partitions in the grammaticalization of imperfective aspect markers

Abstract This article proposes a new account for the typologically uncommon grammaticalization path from an adjective meaning ‘tight’ to a progressive aspect marker in Cantonese. I take a formal approach to explain the cognitive foundations in such a grammaticalization path by using formal semantic theories and tools. There are two components in the meaning of the progressive aspect, i.e. temporal inclusion and dynamism. The meaning ‘tight’ is transferred from the spatial domain to describe the close succession of events, which gives rise to the dynamic meaning component. Furthermore, this eventual dynamism is mapped to the temporal domain, which corresponds to the regular partition of the time interval with an infinitesimal measure in the semantics proposed by Deo (2009). My analysis is extended to explain the Cantonese habitual marker with an original meaning ‘open’, and to the use of morphological reduplication to express the imperfective aspect in languages from the Austronesian and Pama-Nyungan families. The theoretical contribution of this article is that the grammaticalization paths of certain aspect markers share a common cognitive foundation in terms of space, events, and time, but they may take different trajectories of evolution that target different parts of a functional morpheme with complex meanings.

Marking statements of fact in early pidgins

Abstract The particle fi is used in Classical Arabic as a local and temporal preposition, ‘in’. In the contemporary Arabic dialects, it has the same meaning, but in addition it is used in some dialects as an existential, ‘there is/are’. In a number of Arabic work-related pidgins, such as Gulf Pidgin Arabic and Pidgin Madame, fi has acquired new functions. It does not only denote nominal predication, location, and possession, but is also used in combination with verbal forms. Several proposals have been made to explain this use of fī. Avram (2012) regards fī as a progressive aspect marker, while Potsdam & Alanazi (2014) deny the verbal nature of the construction and regard fī as a copula. Bakir (2014) analyzes fī as a marker of verbality of the predicate. The present paper suggests that the general function of fi is to mark the link between topic and focus as assertive rather than modal and looks for parallels of this use in a few other work-related pidgins.

Circumfixation: A semasiological approach

This paper investigates what kinds of meanings are expressed by circumfixes cross-linguistically, with an eye toward explaining this rare formal phenomenon. Based on the study of several hundred languages, it shows that circumfixes express negation relatively more often than other functions, followed by a wide array of TAME and derivational meanings and some more specific functions such as adjectival degree or the formation of ordinal numerals. While circumfixes are found in many unrelated languages and in all macro-areas, they nevertheless cluster in specific families, which suggests that it is their diachronic emergence that is rare rather than their synchronic distribution per se. The semantic contributions of circumfixes are explained by different diachronic mechanisms. Negative circumfixes are argued to ultimately follow from the negative cycle, whereas circumfixes encoding other functions are claimed to emerge from the cumulation of functionally compatible morphs, as in the case of certain aspectual and temporal markers. In addition, there is also some evidence that empty morphs may be reinterpreted as parts of circumfixes. All these processes are further constrained by the fact that one half of the developing circumfix has to be a prefix. Since prefixes are relatively rare overall, this necessary condition for circumfixation often is not met. On the other hand, prefixes express negation relatively frequently, and this helps to further explain why circumfixes have strong ties to this particular semantic domain.

한국 문학 작품과 일본어 번역본의 비교를 통한 결과지속상 ‘-어 있-’의 대응 양상 연구

This study provides to look at the corresponding Japanese Expressions of ‘-eo iss-’ as a basic study that looked at the translation patterns before preparing the content of education for learners majoring in Korean translation. ‘-eo iss-’ is usually combined with a intransitive verb with a final point that ‘change’ occurs in the subject. A intransitive verb that ‘change in position and posture’ occurs in the subject or passive verb combined with ‘-eo iss-’, it is translated into Japanese ‘-teiru’. The verb in front is translated one-on-one with the intransitive verb of Korean or the verbs related to it with a focus on the action after the completion of the action. In Japanese, ‘-teiru’ is used when two actions occur at the same time. However, when each action occurs one after another in time, the preceding action is translated into ‘-ta’ which is past tense. However, when the back translation is performed in Korean, both expressions are possible, so if you want to express the meaning of non-progressive (resultative), you can translate it using ‘-eo iss-’. In addition, many examples translated into ‘aru/iru’ instead of ‘-teiru’ were found. When there is a focus on spatial arrangement or existence, ‘aru/iru’ is used. In Japanese, the combination of ‘transitive verb+-tearu’ is preferred when the subject of the action is not explicitly revealed. This is because there is a focus on the action. However, in the case of Korean, ‘-eo iss-’ is used for involuntary intransitive verbs or verbs that focus on the changed state. The ‘no’ translation of ‘-eo iss-’ is used to indicate the economic feasibility of expression and the place or time when an event occurs. This is because the meaning can be specified on behalf of the aspect marker. When the back translation is performed in Korean, you will have to proceed with this information known in advance. (Hankuk University of Foreign Studies·Pukyong National University)

Consequences of the comparative fallacy for the acquisition of grammatical aspect in Spanish

Abstract This paper tackles the usefulness of comparing L2 learners against native speakers in empirical SLA studies focusing on grammatical aspect. Adapting the view that interlanguage grammars should be analysed in their own right instead of as a deficient form of the target, we show that expressing perspectivity (fulfilled by grammatical aspect markers) methodologically complicates the analyses of Grammaticality Judgment Tasks in aspect studies. For Spanish past tenses, we show that especially with items constructed as allegedly ungrammatical natives behave heterogeneously. This casts doubt on the question whether these data can be used as a baseline against which learners’ data could be compared. By analysing the interlanguage separately (not only in comparison to the controls), our findings among German learners of L2 Spanish suggest the use of the forms depends essentially on temporal markers which can be related to both their L1 lacking grammatical aspect and the pedagogical input. Crucially, though the interlanguage does not match the target (i.e., past tenses do not necessarily correlate with aspectuality), the systems are not chaotic but follow well-defined rules.

Experiential motivation and the linguistics of sitting, standing, and lying.

The three human at‐rest postures of sitting, standing, and lying are basic, recurring features of human behavior and may reasonably be called primary postures. The three postures share the property of being stable through time, but they are also differentiated in terms of their overall shape, their physiological properties, and typical associated behaviors such as the association of sitting with social interaction, and lying with sleeping. The experiential realities of the three postures underlie and motivate a range of cross‐linguistic phenomena involving morphemes with meanings of “sit”, “stand,” and “lie”. The relevant linguistic phenomena include higher frequencies of occurrence compared with other kinds of posture verbs and differential behavior with respect to some morphosyntactic patterns involving notions such as agentivity. The posture morphemes can also be the source for a variety of semantic extensions reflecting experiential realities of the postures, such as the extension of “lie” to mean “sleep” in some languages. Extensions also include grammaticalizations of the posture morphemes to locative and aspectual markers which reflect the temporal stability and spatial fixedness of the postures themselves.This article is categorized under:Linguistics > Cognitive LinguisticsLinguistics > Language in Mind and Brain

The syntax of inner aspect in Hungarian

This paper is concerned with the syntactic representation of inner aspect in Hungarian. We contribute to the extant research on inner aspectual markers by providing an analysis of entailed versus implied telicity as well as the (non)maximality effects with which telic predicates are associated. Although we focus on the grammar of Hungarian, we also draw parallels between typologically different languages like Finno-Ugric (e.g. Hungarian and Finnish) and Germanic (e.g. English) regarding their inner aspectual marking strategies, and the interaction of inner aspect and case assignment.

Same Root, Different Categories: Encoding Direction in Chinese

The complexity of the directional construction in Chinese involves the following factors: (a) it can take a single directional item as the predicate; (b) two directional items can cooccur to serve as the predicate; (c) one or two directional items can be attached to a matrix verb in a single clause; (d) if more than one directional item is involved, their linear order can differ. I propose that the leading factor behind this complexity is that in Chinese a single Root can take different categories when merged in different syntactic positions. Therefore, the same directional item may in fact have the phonological form of a verb, a preposition, a part of a single preposition, or even a spatial aspectual marker in different directional constructions. I then place this account within the context of parametric studies of motion event constructions, showing that two new dimensions can be added: the special property of Roots in a language and the existence of Spatial Aspect in at least some languages.

On the source of linguistic transfer in the learning of -te i- in L3 Japanese

"This paper examines the source of linguistic transfer in L3 Japanese in the learning of the -te i- aspect marker, in a context where L1 is Romanian and L2 is English. The analysis of data from two groups of learners (25 beginners and 14 intermediate L3 learners) show that the source of transfer is L1 Romanian, in spite of the fact that some similarities between the properties of L3 and L2 could have favored transfer from L2 English. This conclusion is supported by the fact that, in a comprehension task, both proficiency groups of L3 learners interpreted -te i- predicates as having a habitual value more often than the native speakers who took part in this study. This non-facilitative transfer effect is still found with the intermediate group, mainly with activities, where no clear distinction is attested between the progressive and the habitual values of the -te i- predicates. Overall, L3 learners did not interpret -te i- predicates as progressive more often than the native speakers, which suggests that L2 cannot be the source of transfer. "

The aspect meaning of đang marker in Vietnamese (contrastive study to Mandarin Chinese)

Đang is a marker that denotes the typical imperfective meaning in Vietnamese. Vietnamese and Mandarin Chinese languages belong to the same isolating language typology, but the đang marker is not always translated into 在 or 着 marker in Mandarin Chinese. The results of the study shows that the đang marker can interact with individual level state situation, stage level state situation, activity situation, accomplishment situation, achievement situation and semelfactive situation. Based on the attributes of the situation, the đang marker possible to convey different aspect meanings. With each situation type, we also need to pay attention to their extended attributes. Accordingly, the aspect meaning of a situation is the summation of the meaning of the verb, the aspect marker, the situation type, and the surrounding arguments. In this article, to clarify the aspect meaning of the đang marker as well as equivalent means of translation in Mandarin Chinese, we proceed to collect corpus, describe, analyze and contrast this marker into Mandarin Chinese based on the semantic - syntax level. The contrastive study of aspectual markers has an important role in helping learners better understand the connection between the source language and the target language. Seeing the differences between the markers will help learners limit the negative transfer process in learning a foreign language.

Functional and semantic features of the aspectual marker of realization 了 in modern chinese

Functional and semantic features of the aspectual marker of realization 了 in modern chinese

Perfective aspect and perfect aspect

AbstractThe “perfective” (Chinese term:wánzhěngtǐ) and the “perfect”(Chinese term: wánchéngtǐ) seem to be two different terms that are distinguished by definition. But in the description of actual languages, the boundary between them is not clear. The use of these two terms in many literatures is very arbitrary. This arbitrariness frequently causes confusion in typological studies in tense and aspect. This arbitrary use has a lot to do with the classification and definition ofComrie (1976). Based on a description of the perfective/imperfective distinction in Russian, this paper finds that perfective is sensitive to the inner boundaries of events, and perfect is sensitive to the relation between event time and reference time. Based on a description of the four aspectual markers (zhe, le, guo, andzai) in Mandarin Chinese, this paper finds that they respectively express three different event phases (inchoative, durative and terminative) in realization aspect. The present study shows that Mandarin is not a language sensitive to boundaries of events, but to phasal aspect. Phasal aspect also exists in Japanese.

Polysemy and Apparent Polyfunctionality of the Sakhalin Ainu Prefixes e- and ko-

Abstract The present study focuses on the polysemous verbal prefixes e- and ko- of Sakhalin Ainu and proposes their analysis as markers of high transitivity. The author takes a compositional approach to argument structure and event structure in order to account for the main use of e- and ko- as applicative markers as well as for their less common use as markers of resultative-completive and intensive aspect. Ultimately, the analysis shows that the apparent polyfunctionality of e- and ko- arises from two separate applications at the syntax-semantics level of one same underlying function of the prefixes. The author also comments on how the Sakhalin Ainu case fits in with other cases of valence-aspect conceptual overlapping cross-linguistically and on the implications of his findings for Ainu studies specifically.

Aspect in Heritage Greek: evidence from elicited production and online judgments

AbstractThis study tests grammatical aspect in adult Heritage Speakers (HSs) of Greek in Germany (HSs-Germany) and the US (HSs-US), a topic which has not been investigated before for this language, exploring the role of the dominant language and the default value as an acquisition strategy. In an oral elicitation task (Experiment 1) targeting the production of aspectual marking in Greek, Greek monolinguals (MSs) and HSs-Germany exhibited ceiling performance, while HSs-US were significantly less accurate. Education in Greek reliably predicted their accuracy. In a speeded Grammaticality Judgment task (Experiment 2) targeting the comprehension of aspect in aGrammaticality x Aspectrepeated measures design, similar results were obtained for the grammatical conditions as in Experiment 1. In ungrammatical conditions, accuracy on aspect was affected for all groups, and this was more evident for HSs. HSs-US were overall less accurate with the morphologically marked form (perfective). Decision Times (DTs) revealed that only MSs and HSs-Germany were sensitive to aspect violations exhibiting longer DTs. Education in Greek reliably predicted accuracy and DTs. The results are discussed within the realm of heritage languages, language contact, and aspect acquisition in Greek bilingual populations. Finally, certain novel verbal forms produced by HSs are also discussed.