Nominal Expressions Research Articles

Syntactic Structures and Rhetorical Functions of Electrical Engineering, Psychiatry, and Linguistics Research Article Titles in English and Persian: A Cross-linguistic and Cross-disciplinary Study

A research article (RA) title is the first and foremost feature that attracts the reader's attention, the feature from which she/he may decide whether the whole article is worth reading. The present study attempted to investigate syntactic structures and rhetorical functions of RA titles written in English and Persian and published in journals in three disciplines of Electrical Engineering, Psychiatry, and Linguistics. To this end, 750 English and 750 Persian RAs were randomly selected from reputable English and Persian journals in these fields and syntactic structures of their titles were analyzed based on Dietz’s (1995) taxonomy. The results revealed that, despite some similarities, there were some cross-linguistic and cross-disciplinary differences in title structures. The differences were found in title components and title length and style. Generally, English titles were shorter in length than Persian ones. Psychiatry titles were the longest, whereas Linguistics ones were the shortest. Although the majority of titles were single-unit ones, English authors used multiple-unit titles more than Persian ones. Multiple-unit titles were also employed the most in Linguistics RAs. No significant difference was found regarding combinations of multiple-unit titles in the two languages; however, topic-description combinations were the most frequent in Electrical Engineering and Linguistics titles, whereas topic-method ones were the most popular in Psychiatry titles. Moreover, the post-modified nominal group construction was the most frequent syntactic structure across single-unit titles. Such findings can contribute to the developments of English for Specific Purposes and provide some information about Persian and English RA titles structures in different disciplines.

Complex anaphora with this: variation between three written argumentative genres

The concept of complex anaphora – ‘nominal expressions referring to propositionally structured referents’ ( Consten et al., 2007 ) – makes a useful distinction between a text-structuring function, one important to argumentative text, and the forms used to accomplish the function. Since complex anaphors often contain the demonstrative this, the contexts of all this tokens in three corpora of written argumentation – research articles, editorials and student essays – were analysed in order to identify instances of complex anaphora. While the frequencies of pronoun use for complex anaphora were similar, the frequencies of determiner use varied, as did placement of anaphors within their host sentence, with determiners appearing non-initially much more often than pronouns in all corpora, particularly editorials. Overall, there was greater variation between the patterns of use in research articles and editorials than between these and student essays.

Extraction facts and the internal structure of nominal constructions in Polish – (A report on) an empirical study

AbstractThis paper examines the acceptability of several types of extraction out of the nominal domain (Left Branch Extraction – LBE, deep LBE, extraordinary LBE, double AP LBE, extraction of NP-complements, extraction across a numeral) in Polish and its relevance for the current views on the nominal structure of the “NP”/“DP” -languages. The point of departure is an overview of the abovementioned extraction types. Next, a succinct summary of an acceptability study of these constructions conducted on a population of 183 native speakers of Polish is provided. While the results confirm the cross-linguistic observation that the extractions in question are generally ‘discourse-triggered’, their acceptability in Polish seems to be relatively low and reveals fairly interesting differences between the specific constructions (e.g., LBE-wh vs. LBE-demonstratives). These may have broader implications for the ongoing debate concerning the optimal shape of the nominal structure in (languages like) Polish, as they seem to provide (at least circumstantial) arguments for a more elaborate sequence of projections on top of the NP.

Nonverbal Predication in Chukchi

In this paper, I describe and analyze several types of nonverbal predication in Chukchi. Following, I assume that Case is a realization of bundle formed by percolation of features assigned by different heads above the terminal node and explain the equative/absolutive variation in case marking pattern observed in Chukchi nominal predication by feature percolation. The analysis of nominal predicational constructions is then extended to account for peculiar properties of adjectival predication.

Relatives and Relations in Paluai

This paper discusses the expression of kinship in Paluai (Baluan-Pam, ISO 639-3: blq), an Oceanic language spoken on Baluan Island, Manus Province, Papua New Guinea. Based on data gathered during extensive fieldwork, the authors first consider the formal characteristics of nominal possessive constructions that are relevant to the kinship system. Subsequently, the set of consanguineal and affinal kinship terms is presented, followed by a detailed discussion of social organization on Baluan Island and the role of the kinship system therein, and how this may fit in with the different forms of nominal possession that various terms can take. All kin terms except four ( pen 'daughter', pwai 'cousin', kauwat 'in-law', and polam 'inlaw') can only enter into direct possessive constructions. The final part of the paper is dedicated to the use of kinship terms in a changing cultural context, including the use of birth order terms, which are a relatively rare phenomenon, and the partial replacement of the system by terms from the creole language Tok Pisin.

Cross-domain variation in the X itself as a grammatical construction

The X itself is a nominal construction that has not received much attention within cognitive linguistics despite it having a quite interesting function, as it serves to select a core part in a partonomy and thus specify lexical relations within a text. Apart from being mentioned in passing in Croft & Cruse (2004), one of the few treatments of this construction in cognitive linguistics is Jensen (2014) who builds on the comments in Croft & Cruse (2004) and proposes a hypothesis pertaining to the cognitive and discursive function of the construction. However, that hypothesis does not take into account an important aspect of the reality of language — namely, variation. This article investigates, within the framework of usage-based construction grammar, the X itself in the Open American National Corpus (OANC) to see whether the construction displays variation across the nine domains that the data in OANC are divided into. Applying quantitative techniques, including lexical diversity measures and multidimensional scaling, this article explores aspects of the discursive behavior of the X itself across these domains and addresses the extent to which the construction interacts with the registers associated with the domains. Focusing on use-based varieties (McArthur 1992, see also Quirk 1989 and Halliday et al. 1964: 77), the present article argues that the X itself is not a constructional monolith, but that it is characterized by register-sensitive functional variation and that its core selection function very likely serves a information-structural discourse-pragmatic purpose.

Post-syntactic Operations and Spellout of Nominals

The paper investigates the derivational mechanism of complex nominal expressions in Georgian, a language of Kartvelian (South Caucasian) family. It argues that these structures are derived through syntactic Head-to-head movement as well as post-syntactic operations like Fusion and Merger Under Adjacency which apply after syntactic computation of these structures is completed. By applying three basic word building mechanisms along with the morpheme specific information to be either prefix or suffix, the paper accounts for an array of Mirror Principle violating morpheme orders in the final form of these expressions.

Els arguments interns directes dels noms en català: aproximació teoricodescriptiva

It is widely known that there is nowadays a certain consensus on the idea that nominal constructions, like sentences, are constrained by a series of restrictions that structure the relation between the head and the modifiers. This implies that some nouns, like verbs, admit arguments. This paper is based on the idea that syntactic structure is built upon categorially neutral roots to try to explain the fact that verbs and nouns are parallel regarding argument structure. Evidence from a corpus of Catalan language (CTILC) is given to prove how this is true at least regarding internal argument structure. Moreover, nouns of all aspectual types are analyzed, as well as nouns admitting different kinds of complements, so as to describe which factors are relevant in the realization of internal arguments of nouns and nominalizations in Catalan.

Study on neutral complex systems with Markovian switching and partly unknown transition rates

The exponential stability problem of uncertain neutral complex system with Markovian switching is investigated in the presence of nonlinear perturbations and partial information on transition rates. The study begins to consider the related nominal systems and construct a novel augmented stochastic Lyapunov functional which contains some triple-integral terms to reduce the conservatism. Then the exponential stability criteria are developed by utilizing Lyapunov stability theory, reciprocally convex lemma and free-weighting matrices. The results are further extended to the corresponding uncertain case. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

Marketing Research and the Potentials of SMEs in Sub-Saharan Africa: Conceptual Evidence from Nigeria

<p>This study evaluated the relevance of marketing research in unveiling the potentials of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in sub-Saharan Africa with conceptual evidence from Nigeria. The study attempted to paint the pictures of marketing research and SMEs within the context of entrepreneurial marketing scheme. The study also adopted schema theory, the cognitive scheme for processing and retrieving marketing information, as the underpinning theory for the study. The explanatory cross-sectional survey research design was adopted as the study guide. The population of the study is made up of all operators of SMEs in Nigeria. Using multi-stage sampling technique, 248 marketing research-oriented operators of SMEs were selected. A structured interview schedule, which contains a number of nominal construct items, was used as research instrument to generate primary data from respondents that cut across the six geo-political zones in Nigeria. Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficients for all major constructs of the research instrument ranged between 0.73 and 0.81, while Average Variance Extracted (AVE) which further served as additional evidence of convergent validity also ranged from 0.842 to 0.865. Data generated were analyzed using basic descriptive statistics. The study revealed that the relevance of marketing research in unveiling the potentials of SMEs in sub-Saharan Africa can only be appreciated in the context of marketing function. Public relations and corporate affairs, human resource and personnel management, marketing and strategic management, as well as financial planning and technical development were conceptualized as the functional areas of business in which marketing research can easily be deployed to unveil the potentials of SMEs for optimal performance in sub-Saharan African region. The study concluded that some concerted efforts are needed to be made to reinvigorate the activities of the SMEs in sub-Saharan Africa. Marketing research, as amodern commercial tool, provides the required insights, direction and guide for optimized economic performance and sustainability of micro, small and medium scale enterprises in the region.</p>

Gender conflict resolution in Spanish–Basque mixed DPs

This study analyzes gender assignment in Spanish–Basque mixed nominal constructions with nouns in Basque (a language that lacks gender) and determiners in Spanish (a language that marks gender) by using a multi-task approach: (i) naturalistic data, (ii) an elicitation task, and (iii) an auditory judgment task. Naturalistic data suggest cross-language effects under which a morphological marker of Basque (-a determiner) is interpreted as a morphophonological expression of gender marking in Spanish. A preference for feminine determiners was observed in the judgment task, which differs from the masculine default trend observed in Spanish–English bilinguals (Jake, Myers-Scotton & Gross, 2002). Our results point to feminine gender as default in Spanish–Basque mixed DPs, indicating that the resources that bilinguals use for gender assignment can be different from those of monolinguals. We argue that this is an outcome of interacting processes which take place at the interfaces (lexicon, phonology, morphosyntax) of both languages, resulting in cross-language effects.

On the structure and variation of ‘hace’ as a temporal expression

The goal of this article is to analyse a case of variation in Spanish. In most varieties, constructions of the form Hace dos dias que (“it has been two days since”) reject nominal expressions like todo el dia (“all the day”), hence * Hace todo el dia que (lit. “it has been all the day that”). However, a particular variety of Argentinean Spanish allows it. This article proposes that in the non-Argentinean varieties, hace (“make”) is the spell out of a temporal relator placed in the extended projection of the verb; the nominal expression that accompanies it is a measure phrase providing the length of the vector it projects. These varieties build hace dos dias que -constructions through movement of the temporal relator to the CP area. However, the Argentinean variety builds hace dos dias que -constructions without movement, as a temporal verb that takes a durative argument. This explains the different range of nominal expressions allowed in each variety.

Juxtaposed possessives ta baba ‘her/his father’ in Mandarin Chinese

This paper investigates juxtaposed possessives (JPs) in Mandarin Chinese (MC) such as ta baba ‘her/his father’, where a personal pronoun ta ‘(s)he’ is juxtaposed with a kinship noun baba ‘father’ and the two bear a kinship relationship. I assume that a DP is projected in Mandarin nominal expressions and pronouns are Ds while bare proper names are DPs. On this basis, I argue that in JPs, the kinship term is a head taking a pro complement, projecting a Kin(ship)P projection. This KinP is then combined with a D head (a personal pronoun), which agrees in phi-specification with pro. This analysis predicts the absence of proper names and the unacceptability of non-bare pronouns and kinship terms in JPs. In addition, it captures the semantic properties of JPs: directly referential with the pronoun functioning as the anchor of the speech act.

A Constructional Approach to the Korean Multiple Nominative Construction

A Constructional Approach to the Korean Multiple Nominative Construction

Latin as a split‐DPlanguage

AbstractIn this paper, we discuss known and less known properties of Latin Nominal Expressions that apparently create a paradox. Despite lack of articles and high productivity in left branch extraction, Latin is not a typicalNP‐language in the sense of Chierchia () and Bošković (,). In many respects, it behaves like its daughter languages, all of which have articles. We solve this paradox proposing a complex nominal structure made of aDP, which hosts overt demonstratives, and a left‐peripheral projection (LPP), parallel to the splitCPin clauses. This splitDP, based on Giusti (,), can account both for the freedom of the orders found inside the Nominal Expression and for the occurrence of discontinuous Nominal Expressions.

Jussive Subjects as Imposters

This paper demonstrates the parallels between jussive subjects and imposters by probing the cooccurrence with a notional pronoun, binding effects and word order constraint, and subject honorification pattern. Based on these shared properties, we argue for a simpler classification of nominal expressions by subsuming jussive subjects under the heading of ‘imposter". We then proceed to propose an internal syntactic structure of imposters. This analysis is shown to be able to properly capture the properties of imposters and to be compatible with the general practice of syntax.

Dem Herrgott sei Scheenster

AbstractBy integrating dialect data into typological theses on dative-marked nominal possessive constructions of the typedem Vater sein Hut, this article will continue recent approaches of both dialectological and typological research. By means of an empirical study, this article intends to not only describe the surface phenomena, but to uncover the underlying structure of this construction in East Franconian dialects. Language maps illustrate that instances of microvariation concerning the case-marking of the possessor (Wemvs.Wenvs.Wer seine Weiden sind das?) and the form of the possessive pronoun (meiner Tante ihrvs.sein Wirsing) are diatopically conditioned.

Pointing and Self-reference in French and French Sign Language

Abstract The aim of this paper is to conduct an exploratory study and compare the development of pointing and its specific use as self-reference in French sign language (LSF) with the development of pointing and self reference in French. Personal reference is expressed through nominal expressions and pronouns in French. In LSF, the signs used for personal reference have the same form as pointing gestures, which are present in children’s communication system from the age of 10-11 months (Bates et. al 1977, Clark 1978). Continuity between pointing gestures and signs is questioned by Bellugi & Klima (1981) and Petitto (1986), who indicate that signing children’s pre-linguistic pointing gestures are different from signs and correspond to two distinct categories: indexical and symbolic. We present arguments for a continuity hypothesis between pointing gestures and signs. We coded two longitudinal datasets of a French-speaking child and a French Sign Language signing child aged seven months to three years, filmed at home with their mothers once a month. Our analyses enabled us to underline the continuity between the deaf child’s pointing gestures and their incorporation as markers of personal reference into the child’s sign language system.

In support of the Matrix Language Frame Model: Evidence from Igbo-English intrasentential code-switching

ABSTRACTThis article explores the morphosyntactic features of mixed nominal expressions in a sample of empirical Igbo-English intrasentential code-switching data (i.e. codeswitching within a bilingual clause) in terms of the Matrix Language Frame (MLF) Model. Since both Igbo and English differ in the relative order of head and complement within the nominal argument phrase, the analysed data seem appropriate for testing the veracity of the principal assumption underpinning the MLF Model: the notion that the two languages (in our case Igbo and English) participating in code-switching do not both contribute equally to the morphosyntactic frame of a mixed constituent. As it turns out, the findings provide both empirical and quantitative support for the basic theoretical view that there is a Matrix Language (ML) versus Embedded Language (EL) hierarchy in classic code-switching as predicted by the MLF Model because both Igbo and English do not simultaneously satisfy the roles of the ML in Igbo-English code-switching.

Word Formation in South American Languages ed. by Swintha Danielsen, Katja Hannss, and Fernando Zúñiga

Reviewed by: Word Formation in South American Languages ed. by Swintha Danielsen, Katja Hannss, and Fernando Zúñiga Hein van der Voort Word Formation in South American Languages. Edited by Swintha Danielsen, Katja Hannss, and Fernando Zúñiga. Studies in Language Companion Series 163. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2014. Pp. vi + 228. $149.00 (hardcover). This new volume in the companion series to the journal Studies in Language has come out of a workshop on Word Formation in South American Languages organized in June 2011 in Leipzig, Germany, by Femmy Admiraal, Swintha Danielsen and Katja Hannss. The main focus of the call for papers was on compounding, which has not received as much attention in South American language studies as other morphological processes. Only a few of the talks at the workshop made it to the volume in the form of an article. Nevertheless, the majority of the nine articles deal with compounding and related phenomena, two articles deal with reduplication, and the last article focuses on nominalization. As a consequence, the volume is tilted towards compounding and does not cover much of what can be considered canonical derivational morphology. The introduction to the volume is very useful. It presents the topic of the volume and definitions with ample reference to literature, it gives a brief overview of each article in the volume, and it has a useful map locating the languages discussed. The editors define “word formation” in the sense of Bauer (2006), excluding inflection. Strange as it may seem, there are few cross-linguistic studies of word formation as a topic including compounding, reduplication, and derivation. The editors refer to Štekauer and Lieber (2005), noting the sparsity of studies on word formation in “smaller” languages and hoping to contribute to filling this gap for a selection of understudied South American languages. Below, I discuss the chapters one by one. Fernando Zúñiga’s carefully written chapter, “Nominal Compounds in Mapudungun,” is an important contribution to the field of Mapudungun studies. As a polysynthetic agglutinating language, the focus has traditionally been on its rich verb morphology rather than on nominal compounding–what Zúñiga calls “multi-stem nominal expressions.” Zúñiga evaluates and compares the way such nominal expressions have been analyzed in previous studies, showing specific gaps in the analyses. He proposes a more typologically meaningful classification (and subclassification) of nominal compounds that takes into account the systematic correlation between syntactic headedness and the kind of semantic relationship that obtains between head and dependent. For example, when the semantic relationship between head and dependent is intimate, as in the case of a body part, the compound is head-initial. When the relationship is nonintimate, the concomitant parts of the compound have relative phonological independence. When the relationship is unspecified, the compound is head-final. Temis L. Tacconi’s chapter, “Towards a Characterization of Compounding in Maká,” on a Mataco-Mataguayan language of the Paraguayan Chaco region, is the weakest of the volume. The chapter seeks to discuss criteria for regarding lexemes as compounds and whether their behavior is distinctive to the Mataco-Mataguayan family or reflects universal principles. The data on Maká are rich and fascinating, but both the presentation and the analysis are somewhat confusing. The inconsistent use of zero third person morphemes further complicates the analyses. What is said in the text sometimes does not seem to match the examples. Contrasts and criteria are sometimes lacking when the author claims to demonstrate properties or categories. (For instance, how do we see that a certain combination of words is “frozen”? Why is ‘hard’ a noun?) The text contains [End Page 340] unusual terminology such as “derivative morphemes.” This chapter should have been edited more carefully. Paola Cúneo’s chapter “Augmentative Form in Toba (Guaycuruan): Form and Function,” is an interesting contribution to the study of compounds. It discusses derivational and lexical expressions of evaluative notions such as big size, abundance, intensity, excess, and mockery. After a useful discussion of the notion of evaluative morphology in general (see also Cúneo 2015), the author elaborates on the different augmentative expressions in Toba and how these can grammaticalize via compounding. Plant and animal names...