Monosyllabic Nouns Research Articles

Plurale stedsnavn, genusskiftet og forklaringsproblemet

The article discusses an unsolved problem in Nordic name research, namely the reason monosyllabic nouns in neuter take the plural suffix -ar or -ir in the nominative and accusative when they appear as topographical words in uncompounded place-names, which implies a transition to feminine or masculine inflection. Most scholars who have tried to explain this phenomenon have pointed to various analogies at the morpholog-ical level. In this article, it is suggested that such a morphological change can best be explained as a prosodic analogy, as a transition from a monosyllabic to a multisyllabic form is taking place, and this is a prosodic structure that, for a place-name, is much more functional and natural.

The roles of object and action, and concreteness and imageability, in the distinction between nouns and verbs: An ERP study on monosyllabic words in Chinese

The dissociation between nouns and verbs has been reported in behavioral, electrophysiological, and neuroimaging studies. It is still unclear whether the spatial and temporal differences between nouns and verbs arise from semantic differences or morpho-syntactic differences associated with the two word classes. Regarding the semantic accounts, it is also unknown whether the word class effect should be attributed to differences in object and action, or in concreteness and imageability, associated with nouns and verbs. As the question with respect to semantic accounts for the word class effect is unsettled, the two types of semantic attributes have not been well distinguished in previous studies that support morpho-syntactic accounts, and this may lead to a confounding effect between morpho-syntactic factors and semantic factors. Therefore, to better understand the origins of the noun-verb distinction, it is essential to figure out whether the word class effect is driven by the contrast between object and action or by concreteness and imageability. With tight matching of stimuli and the use of event-related potentials (ERPs), we investigated the neural processing of monosyllabic nouns and verbs in Chinese that were presented without context. The results showed that when concreteness and imageability were balanced, nouns elicited more negative N400 than verbs over a broad scalp region, suggesting distinct semantic processing between the two word classes. Furthermore, nouns elicited more late negativity than verbs at frontal sites, which may reflect differences in the semantic representation of nouns and verbs in the working memory or differences in the working memory load associated with the word classes. These ERP results showed that the distinction between nouns and verbs persists even after concreteness and imageability are matched, revealing that the semantic account for the word class effect might arise from the contrast of object and action rather than the concreteness and imageability effect. The findings of the current study draw attention to the importance of object and action distinction in studies on nouns and verbs.

Gĩtigania Nominal Tone

Tone is a suprasegmental feature that refers to the use of pitch in a language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning. Tone plays a crucial role in distinguishing meaning, word classes, tenses as well as different moods inGĩtigania language. This paper describesnominal tone in Gĩtigania, focusing on the tonal patterns as well as the effect of tone on meaning and word classes.The tonally distinctive monosyllabic nouns in Gĩtigania demonstrate both high and low tonal patterns while the bi-syllabic nouns show the HH, LL, HL, and LH tonal alterations. The tri-syllabic nouns on the other hand, demonstrate LHH, LLL, and HHH tone patterns, where similar tones are collapsed in correspondence with the Obligatory Contour Principle. Not only does tone distinguish Gĩtigania lexical items with similar segmental composition, but also brings about a difference in meaning, an indication that tone is minimally contrasting. The Autosegmental Phonological Theory as propounded by Goldsmith (1990) was employed in analysing, interpreting and discussing the data collected. The target population was the nouns in Gĩtigania. This paper used the Judgmental sampling procedure since it allows the researcher to choose desirable and reliable sample members based on one’s knowledge and judgement. Approximately one hundred Gĩtiganianouns generated through non-participant observation and introspection were selected for inclusion in this paper.The findings of this paper are anticipated to add to the existing literature in the field of Phonology.

Reduplication and the structure of nouns in Xining Chinese

In Xining Chinese, especially as used by older people, free nouns are always reduplicated, as a purely formal condition without any semantic effects. We argue that the reduplication takes place when an acategorial root is merged with a null nominal categorizer which copies the phonological matrix of the root, as an effect of a condition ruling out free monosyllabic nouns. When the condition is not independently satisfied, as in a compound or derived noun, reduplication is how the condition is met. Reduplication also occurs optionally in compounds or derived nouns. In conjunction with a minimalist theory of word formation, this will be shown to predict the distribution of reduplication in various contexts. For instance, the head of a compound can be reduplicated, but not the modifier, some affixes but not others permit reduplication of the base, non-compositional compounds do not allow reduplication, and so-called ‘bound roots’ (really, bound words) are not reduplicated. The phenomenon provides very strong evidence that simple content words are made up of an acategorial root and a categorizer which is often null, but can be overt in some languages, including Xining Chinese, where it is overt in nouns by virtue of reduplication.

한국인 영어학습자의 명사구 발화에서 영어 능숙도에 따른 관사와 단음절 명사 모음 길이 비교

한국인 영어학습자의 명사구 발화에서 영어 능숙도에 따른 관사와 단음절 명사 모음 길이 비교

The relation between the vowel duration and intensity in English NPs [an article—a monosyllabic noun] and the English proficiency of Korean learners

Generally, the vowels in content words are phonetically more prominent than the ones in function words in English. This is because they have a stress of a suprasegmental feature, making them produced longer in duration and greater in intensity. Based on this phonetical phenomenon, this research investigates the relation between the vowel duration and intensity in English NPs [an article—a monosyllabic noun] and the English proficiency of Korean learners. For analysis, the researchers utilized Rated Korean-Spoken English Corpus (made in 2017) to collect and measure the duration and intensity of each vowel in the monosyllabic noun phrases of the 853 sentences articulated by the Korean speakers who were categorized into one of the four different English proficiency groups based on their speaking ability (Advanced, Intermediate-High, Intermediate-Low, and Novice). From the findings, it was revealed that the higher the proficiency level becomes, the greater the ratio of the vowel duration in the nouns of a content word to the vowel duration in the articles of a function word gets, meaning that the higher the English proficiency level reaches, the better the Korean speakers articulate the words with proper stresses as native speakers do. However, the ratio of the vowel intensity in the nouns to the vowel intensity in the articles has less relation to Korean speakers' English proficiency.Generally, the vowels in content words are phonetically more prominent than the ones in function words in English. This is because they have a stress of a suprasegmental feature, making them produced longer in duration and greater in intensity. Based on this phonetical phenomenon, this research investigates the relation between the vowel duration and intensity in English NPs [an article—a monosyllabic noun] and the English proficiency of Korean learners. For analysis, the researchers utilized Rated Korean-Spoken English Corpus (made in 2017) to collect and measure the duration and intensity of each vowel in the monosyllabic noun phrases of the 853 sentences articulated by the Korean speakers who were categorized into one of the four different English proficiency groups based on their speaking ability (Advanced, Intermediate-High, Intermediate-Low, and Novice). From the findings, it was revealed that the higher the proficiency level becomes, the greater the ratio of the vowel duration in the nouns of a con...

동일 형태소를 포함한 1?2음절 명사의 통사 특징 분석

동일 형태소를 포함한 1?2음절 명사의 통사 특징 분석

An acceptability judgment study of 1+1 NN compounds in Chinese

Chinese 1+1 NNs refer to compounds made of two monosyllabic nouns, such as shū-bāo ‘book-bag’ and jī-dàn ‘chicken-egg’. They occur frequently, do not violate any prosodic constraint, and appear to be highly productive. However, in Qin and Duanmu (2017), it was found that the mean acceptability ranking was quite low for randomly constructed 1+1 NNs. Since the focus of Qin and Duanmu (2017) was on a different issue, the set of 1+1 NNs was small and not of balanced design. In this study, we gathered acceptability scores from 17 Chinese native speakers on 1000 randomly constructed 1+1 NNs. It is found that the mean acceptability score is only 22.6%, even lower than that of Qin and Duanmu (2017). In addition, while Qin and Duanmu (2017) found ambiguity, naturalness, and frequency to have significant effects on acceptability scores, the present study did not find ambiguity to be relevant. We also found that 1+1 NNs consisting of two elastic nouns are significantly less acceptable than those consisting of one or two non-elastic nouns, although the effect size is rather small. Possible reasons for the low acceptability of 1+1 NN compounds are discussed, including semantic transparency, grammatical relations between the two nouns of a compound, and modern vs. classic vocabulary.

Nouns and verbs in Chinese are processed differently: Evidence from an ERP study on monosyllabic and disyllabic word processing

Abstract This event-related potential (ERP) study aims to investigate the neural processing of nouns and verbs in Chinese, especially the processing of monosyllabic nouns (MNs) and verbs (MVs) versus disyllabic nouns (DNs) and verbs (DVs). All four types of words were embedded in syntactically well-defined contexts and a semantic relatedness judgment task was performed. Results showed that, regardless of the number of syllables, verbs elicited more negative N400 than nouns, which may be due to the semantic difference between object and action rather than concreteness or imageability. Furthermore, DVs elicited a greater N1 and a smaller late positive component than DNs whereas such differences were absent in the comparison between MNs and MVs. The N1 and late positive component seem to reflect the early detection and late integration of the syntactic mismatch between the verb contexts and noun usage of DVs, respectively. The findings of the current study indicated that the word class effect in Chinese is due to the semantic differences between nouns and verbs, calling into attention the importance of distinguishing monosyllabic words from disyllabic words when examining the word class effect in Chinese.

On the lengthened grade in the nominative singular

Abstract One of the best established cases of lengthened grade is the nominative singular of many athematic paradigms, where lengthened grade (LG) in the last predesinential element is opposed to full grade (FG) in other forms and is normally reconstructed for PIE (distinctive LG). However, the exact original distribution and the explanation of the phenomenon are controversial. Different theories also make different predictions about the original distribution of distinctive LG, and these may be checked in order to assess these theories. In Indo-Iranian, Brugmann’s Law turned many cases of o grade into synchronic LG, thus removing potential cases of distinctive LG. The distribution of LG in Proto-Indo-Iranian (PIIr) strong stem forms is investigated, with the conclusion that distinctive LG in the nominative singular is only found in endingless nominatives. Elsewhere all forms of the strong stem show the same ablaut. Therefore, LG in the nominative singular can (but need not) largely be secondary, either leveling by strong stem forms with Indo-Iranian ā grade from o grade, or by analogy to such paradigms. The isolated form Vedic véṣ ‘bird’ < PIIr *(h)wáy-š is a counterexample to a general LG rule for monosyllabic stems. Indo-Iranian thus, while not excluding original distinctive LG in some s-marked nominatives, does not support it. However, evidence from Western IE languages appears to show distinctive LG in some nominatives of monosyllabic nouns. Possible explanations are discussed at the end.

Do metrical incongruities disrupt semantic processing in modern Chinese? An event-related potential study.

The present study examined the relationship between prosody and semantic processing in the written form of modern Chinese by analysing behavioural data and event-related potential data. By manipulating the number of noun syllables in verb-objection, we compare the dynamic neural mechanisms of the structure bisyllabic verb (V2)+monosyllabic noun (N1) (i.e. V2+N1) with V2+N1 (N2, bisyllabic noun). In Chinese, the rhythmic pattern V2+N1 is considered to be a metrical incongruity, whereas V2+N2 is considered to be a metrical congruity. For example, the verb yunshu (to transport) can be followed by liangshi (cereals). However, if yunshu is followed by liang (cereals), yunshu liang is usually considered to be metrically incongruous. This paper shows that (i) V2+N1 elicited more negative amplitudes than V2+N2 in the 90-170 ms and 450-500 ms windows, which indicates that metrical incongruities affect semantic processing in Chinese, and (ii) the acceptance rate for V2+N1 is significantly lower than that of V2+N2, which implies that metrical incongruities disrupt semantic processing in modern Chinese. These results are in agreement with previous studies. This is the first study to find that metrical incongruities disrupt semantic processing in Chinese. This study provides convergent evidence that metrical congruities facilitate semantic processing, whereas metrical incongruities disrupt semantic processing. Video abstract available (Supplemental digital content 1, http://links.lww.com/WNR/A340).

Are Young Children With Cochlear Implants Sensitive to the Statistics of Words in the Ambient Spoken Language?

The purpose of this study was to determine whether children with cochlear implants (CIs) are sensitive to statistical characteristics of words in the ambient spoken language, whether that sensitivity changes in expected ways as their spoken lexicon grows, and whether that sensitivity varies with unilateral or bilateral implantation. We analyzed archival data collected from the parents of 36 children who received cochlear implantation (20 unilateral, 16 bilateral) before 24 months of age. The parents reported their children's word productions 12 months after implantation using the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories: Words and Sentences (Fenson et al., 1993). We computed the number of words, out of 292 possible monosyllabic nouns, verbs, and adjectives, that each child was reported to say and calculated the average phonotactic probability, neighborhood density, and word frequency of the reported words. Spoken vocabulary size positively correlated with average phonotactic probability and negatively correlated with average neighborhood density, but only in children with bilateral CIs. At 12 months postimplantation, children with bilateral CIs demonstrate sensitivity to statistical characteristics of words in the ambient spoken language akin to that reported for children with normal hearing during the early stages of lexical development. Children with unilateral CIs do not.

The base of Korean noun paradigms

This paper reports and analyzes the tonal patterns that emerge in South Kyengsang monosyllabic nouns that exhibit two well-known analogical changes in stem shape, one involving coronal obstruent codas and the other stems with an underlying cluster. By the first change, underlying and orthographic /nach/ ‘face’ inflects as nat̚, nach-ɨl (conservative) or nas-ɨl (innovative); and by the second underlying /talk/ ‘chicken’ inflects as tak̚, talk-ɨl (conservative) or tak-ɨl (innovative). We find that many such nouns with a high-low tonal pattern change to high-high when inflected with the segmentally innovative stem. We propose that this tonal change supports the model of Korean noun paradigms proposed in Albright (2008) and Do (2013) in which the citation form serves as the base for the construction of the suffixed forms. If the base is a neutralization site, then learners select the alternant in which they have the greatest confidence of scoring a correct hit when undoing the neutralization.

Spectro-temporal correlates of lexical access during auditory lexical decision

Lexical access during speech comprehension comprises numerous computations, including activation, competition, and selection. The spatio-temporal profile of these processes involves neural activity in peri-auditory cortices at least as early as 200ms after stimulation. Their oscillatory dynamics are less well understood, although reports link alpha band de-synchronization with lexical processing. We used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to examine whether these alpha-related oscillations reflect the speed of lexical access, as would be predicted if they index lexical activation. In an auditory semantic priming protocol, monosyllabic nouns were presented while participants performed a lexical decision task. Spatially-localizing beamforming was used to examine spectro-temporal effects in left and right auditory cortex time-locked to target word onset. Alpha and beta de-synchronization (10–20Hz ERD) was attenuated for words following a related prime compared to an unrelated prime beginning about 270ms after stimulus onset. This timing is consistent with how information about word identity unfolds incrementally in speech, quantified in information-theoretic terms. These findings suggest that alpha de-synchronization during auditory word processing is associated with early stages of lexical access.

Prosody and animacy in the development of noun determiner use: A cross-linguistic approach

This study investigates prosodic (noun length) and lexical-semantic (animacy) influences on determiner use in the spontaneous speech of three children acquiring French, Austrian German and Dutch. In support of typological and language-specific hypotheses from the Germanic–Romance contrast, an advantage of monosyllabic nouns and of inanimate nouns for taking a determiner or filler was found in French, but not in Austrian German or Dutch. The authors discuss the possible contributory role of these factors on determiner acquisition from a cross-linguistic perspective, also accounting for more specific differences between Austrian German and Dutch.

Zaliznjak's Pragmatic Factor and Its Relationship to Stress Variation in Russian

In this article the validity and scope of Zaliznjak's pragmatic factor are analysed in both derived and underived words in Russian. The pragmatic factor, according to Zaliznjak, affects the stress patterns of words on the basis of their levels of assimilation, although assimilation itself remains a rather nebulous and subjective category. Frequency data, however, may be able to measure more accurately assimilation (or, vice versa, its absence) in the language. According to the theory of the pragmatic factor, assimilated underived words tend to have “non-trivial” (desinential or mobile) stress, while unassimilated words tend to have “trivial” (fixed stem) stress. For derived words the situation is slightly different: under particular conditions assimilated words tend to have suffixal stress and unassimilated words – stem stress. While Zaliznjak's conclusions regarding monosyllabic masculine nouns and short adjectives are uncontroversial and well founded, it is unclear how the pragmatic factor affects other areas of the language. Thus, the two most common types of non-trivial feminine stress paradigms consist of, for the most part, lower frequency (i.e., unassimilated) lexemes. For derived words the theory seems more spurious still as it goes against what is known empirically about the relationship between stress and suffixation. The article is in agreement with the basic premises of the pragmatic factor, but calls for more precision and closer definition of its scope.

Accentuation of masculine monosyllabic nouns of Susak speakers in New Jersey

SUSAKO SNEKTOS, VARTOJAMOS NIU DŽERSYJE, VYRISKOSIOS GIMINĖS VIENSKIEMENIŲ DAIKTAVARDŽIŲ KIRCIAVIMAS Santrauka Slavų akcentologijoje akcentinės paradigmos d teorija yra kontraversiska dėl keleto priežascių, visų pirma dėl garso įrasų is tarmių, kuriose manoma, kad ji turėtų egzistuoti, trūkumo. Straipsnyje problema nagrinėjama remiantis kroatų kalbos cakavų tarmės Susako snektos, kurioje, kaip žinoma, akcentinė paradigma d egzistuoja (plg. Hamm et al. 1956), įrasais, atliktais Niu Džersyje, kur uždaroje bendruomenėje gyvena emigravusi į JAV dauguma Susako salos gyventojų. Tyrimas parodė, kad Susako tarmės vartotojai Niu Džersyje yra islaike a.p. d kirciavimo modelį, taciau tiek siai paradigmai priklausą, tiek ir kiti daiktavardžiai paklūsta apibendrinimo bei analogijos reiskiniams dėl kitų kroatų kalbos tarmių, o ypac dėl bendrinės kalbos įtakos. Straipsnyje pateikiamas aprasas is esmės sutampa su duodamu veikale Hamm et al. 1956, taciau yra ir skirtumų: nurodoma daugiau oksitoninių a.p. d žodžių refleksų; teigiama, kad vienskiemeniuose žodžiuose neoakūtą pakeites cirkumfleksas, taigi ilgojo kamieno a.p. b žodžiai neskiriami nuo atitinkamų a.p. d žodžių: ir vieniems, ir kitiems būdingos baritoninės cirkumfleksinės vardininko ir oksitoninės netiesioginių linksnių formos; tuo tarpu daugumoje trumpojo kamieno žodžių a.p. d ir a.p. b skiriamos: a.p. d būdingas saknies balsio pailgėjimas ir cirkumfleksas vardininko formoje, o a.p. b – trumpas kirciuotas balsis saknyje.

Accentuation of masculine monosyllabic nouns of Susak speakers in New Jersey

SUSAKO ŠNEKTOS, VARTOJAMOS NIU DŽERSYJE, VYRIŠKOSIOS GIMINĖS VIENSKIEMENIŲ DAIKTAVARDŽIŲ KIRČIAVIMASSantraukaSlavų akcentologijoje akcentinės paradigmos d teorija yra kontraversiška dėl keleto priežasčių, visų pirma dėl garso įrašų iš tarmių, kuriose manoma, kad ji turėtų egzistuoti, trūkumo. Straipsnyje problema nagrinėjama remiantis kroatų kalbos čakavų tarmės Susako šnektos, kurioje, kaip žinoma, akcentinė paradigma d egzistuoja (plg. Hamm et al. 1956), įrašais, atliktais Niu Džersyje, kur uždaroje bendruomenėje gyvena emigravusi į JAV dauguma Susako salos gyventojų. Tyrimas parodė, kad Susako tarmės vartotojai Niu Džersyje yra išlaikę a.p. d kirčiavimo modelį, tačiau tiek šiai paradigmai priklausą, tiek ir kiti daiktavardžiai paklūsta apibendrinimo bei analogijos reiškiniams dėl kitų kroatų kalbos tarmių, o ypač dėl bendrinės kalbos įtakos. Straipsnyje pateikiamas aprašas iš esmės sutampa su duodamu veikale Hamm et al. 1956, tačiau yra ir skirtumų: nurodoma daugiau oksitoninių a.p. d žodžių refleksų; teigiama, kad vienskiemeniuose žodžiuose neoakūtą pakeitęs cirkumfleksas, taigi ilgojo kamieno a.p. b žodžiai neskiriami nuo atitinkamų a.p. d žodžių: ir vieniems, ir kitiems būdingos baritoninės cirkumfleksinės vardininko ir oksitoninės netiesioginių linksnių formos; tuo tarpu daugumoje trumpojo kamieno žodžių a.p. d ir a.p. b skiriamos: a.p. d būdingas šaknies balsio pailgėjimas ir cirkumfleksas vardininko formoje, o a.p. b – trumpas kirčiuotas balsis šaknyje.

Body—object interaction ratings for 1,618 monosyllabic nouns

Body-object interaction (BOI) assesses the ease with which a human body can physically interact with a word's referent. Recent research has shown that BOI influences visual word recognition processes in such a way that responses to high-BOI words (e.g., couch) are faster and less error prone than responses to low-BOI words (e.g., cliff). Importantly, the high-BOI words and the low-BOI words that were used in those studies were matched on imageability. In the present study, we collected BOI ratings for a large set of words. BOI ratings, on a 1-7 scale, were obtained for 1,618 monosyllabic nouns. These ratings allowed us to test the generalizability of BOI effects to a large set of items, and they should be useful to researchers who are interested in manipulating or controlling for the effects of BOI. The body-object interaction ratings for this study may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society's Archive of Norms, Stimuli, and Data, www.psychonomic.org/archive.

Tonal(Accentual) alternation of monosyllabic nouns in Middle Korean

Tonal(Accentual) alternation of monosyllabic nouns in Middle Korean