Verb Phrase Research Articles

Nominalization in Arabic translations of patient information leaflets

Patient information leaflets (PILs) inserted in medicine packages constitute a genre written by experts for an audience of laymen, but studies of PILs in Arabic report low readability. According to the lay friendliness framework developed by Jensen (2013) for translated PILs, nominalization is one of the linguistic factors that contribute to PILs’ low readability. Although nominalization has been extensively studied in scientific texts including medical papers, no studies examine its use and effect on lay friendliness in PILs translated into Arabic. This study analyzes a parallel corpus of English PILs and their Arabic translations to examine the frequency and forms of nominalization introduced into the Arabic translations. Considering Givon’s (1993) definition of nominalization, all instances of finite verb phrases in the Source Texts (ST) that are fully or partially nominalized in the Target Texts (TT) were examined. Examples are discussed in terms of the level and function of nominalization in the target language.

Fenomenet proverbalisering i synkroni och diakroni

This article deals with the linguistic phenomenon usually referred to as verbersättning (“verbal substitution”) but which, in the present article, I prefer to call proverbalisering (“proverbalization”), a choice of term based on the analogy with pronominalisering, the corresponding term in the nominal sphere. However, while pronominalization has been the subject of many linguistic studies, proverbalization, despite its crucial importance to any language possessing the verb category, has received little attention in modern linguistic research. The article analyses the use of proverbalization by means of the proverb göra in Swedish with the purpose of showing that this linguistic operation is not a specifically Swedish phenomenon but a phenomenon of great linguistic generality and that this is why a comparison with other languages will reveal that its general mechanisms are fundamentally the same in the languages compared as in Swedish. In fact, it is argued that in Swedish, as well as in these languages, the proverb is a syntactic tool specifically designed for verb phrase representation and that, in this capacity, it satisfies an imperative need of linguistic expression. It follows that proverbalization is not subject to diachronic frequency fluctuation. Furthermore, the analysis does not support the common view that proverbalization is primarily a stylistic device for avoiding verb repetition, nor the conception of proverbalization as being a subdivision of ellipsis.

An Upper Take on Doubler-Uppers

Against the background of comparatively insufficient, expressly dedicated studies on double particle verb person nominalisations, this paper offers a qualitative, cognitive-constructionist approach to the properties of doubler-upper nominalisations of particle verbs in English and a reappraisal of some of the available analyses thereof. On the assumption of the validity of the flexicon stance on the organisation of words in the human mind, and on the basis of a preliminary semantic analysis of 300 types of doubler-upper nouns extracted from two corpora and Urban Dictionary, it is claimed that there are no identifiable constraints on the possibility of double-er marking and no particular properties of particle verbs as bases to preclude double -er marking. A hypothesis is formulated that, despite their deviance, doubler-uppers strike the optimal balance between complexity and unity and appear to be the most natural and morphophonologically best-fitting pattern for particle verb -er nominalisation (at least in spoken discourse and the media).

Exploring Creativity and Extravagance: The Case of Double Suffixation in English

There has been a recent focus in studies of English morphology on the concept of extravagance as applied to word formation, and on the interplay between extravagance and creativity. This article examines this issue, taking as a test case the phenomenon of double suffixation of phrasal verbs. While double-ER suffixation (fixer-upper, helper-outer) has attracted substantial interest in the literature, less has been said about other suffixes. This article provides data that demonstrate that double suffixation occurs with -ERY, -AGE, -EE and -ABLE suffixes. As such, double suffixation can be seen as a genuine word formation template, rather than a phenomenon restricted to a single suffix. Furthermore, examination of the data enables a reflection on the interactions between the concepts of productivity, creativity and extravagance. We propose to see these concepts not just as three overlapping notions, but rather as points on a creativity scale. To underscore the parallels between them, we propose to see them successively as F-creativity, E-creativity and X-creativity.

Teaching Phrasal Verbs in EFL Classes with HIIT Method

This article explores the effectiveness of integrating the High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) method into English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes for teaching phrasal verbs. The study investigates the impact of the HIIT approach on students' acquisition and usage of phrasal verbs, employing a mixedmethods research design. The findings indicate that the HIIT method enhances phrasal verb learning, leading to improved understanding, retention, and application of these challenging language components. The article concludes with implications for EFL educators seeking innovative approaches to enhance phrasal verb instruction.

Improving the Student Laboratory Experience Through Constructive Alignment

Undergraduate engineering laboratories are supposed to reinforce lecture learning and demonstrate industrial applications with practical experiments. However, nearly half of students in a mandatory University of Calgary third-year materials science course in the past decade have reported on their end-of-semester surveys that they do not perceive these connections, indicating a need to improve the student perception of the laboratory learning experience. The research question is, how can established educational scholarship improve the student learning experience in undergraduate engineering laboratories? Critically reflective surveys were released to students in the third-year course, analyzing the learning experience in laboratories. Trends in response themes show a perceived lack of alignment between laboratory activities, learning outcomes, and assessments. It is therefore recommended that learning outcomes implement testable verb phrases, that the laboratory activities and assessments be oriented with these learning outcomes, and that this orientation be explicitly and consistently communicated to students.

Nonconcatenative Morphology of MSA as Represented by Deverbal Verbs

The present paper considers how the derivation of deverbal verbs occurs in Arabic, a language with nonconcatenative morphology. As Arabic linguists have carefully investigated Arabic deverbal verbs, English literature lacks such investigations. Demonstrating how a word modifies meaning while explaining the intriguing nonconcatenative morphology of Arabic are reasons for considering deverbal verbs. To illustrate the hierarchical structure of Arabic deverbal verbs efficiently, autosegmental analysis was used. Arabic manuscripts and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) dictionaries, using the Alshamela search engine and the Almaany search engine, were consulted to create a list of deverbal verbs. The manuscripts were utilized to find the initial lists, while the dictionaries were used to filter the list to only include the current deverbal verbs. The author found MSA deverbal verbs are derived through nonconcatenative morphology. The meanings of deverbal verb particles were concluded to belong to an additional autosegmental tier that is distinct from the tier of the root meaning. Notice how the meaning of the deverbal verb تضرّب [taDar:aba] ‘hit oneself’ as an intransitive verb retains the root meaning of ضرب [Daraba] ‘hit’ and adds the deverbal meaning indicating the action happening to oneself. It had been expected that all the verb roots would interact with the deverbal verb templates; however, this was not the case. These morphological gaps were attributed to violations of MSA phonotactics or semantic oddities. Further investigation of the deverbal verbs, considering other languages with nonconcatenative morphology, while investigating the deverbal verb meanings from an Optimality Theory perspective, presents promising plans for future research.

Some implications of again‐modification for the syntax of English particle verb constructions

AbstractThis paper examines the way in which scope‐taking of again interacts with word order in the English particle verb alternation. Small‐clause approaches to the particle verb alternation differ from most competing approaches in taking both verb‐particle‐object and verb‐object‐particle orders to contain a result state‐denoting small clause. An expectation of this approach on a structural approach to again ambiguity is that both orders should admit restitutive again readings. Results from a controlled judgment survey of 73 North American English speakers bear out this prediction.

Testing the unique item hypothesis with phrasal verbs in Chinese–English translations of Lu Xun’s short stories: the perspective of translation directionality

The present study revisits the unique item hypothesis (UIH) from the perspective of translation directionality in the Chinese–English(C–E) language pair. Phrasal verb (PV) is used as the linguistic feature to investigate whether UIH holds true in C–E translations and whether translation directionality plays a role in the representation of unique items, based on a self-built parallel corpus of Lu Xun’s short stories and their English translations done by two L1 and two L2 translators, and a reference corpus of BNC short stories as the non-translated reference. It is found PVs are significantly over-represented in C–E translated texts when compared with English non-translated texts, and this overrepresentation is mainly attributed to the remarkable use of PVs by L1 translators; and there is a significant difference in the use of PVs by translators of different directionality, while no significant difference is found within the same direction. Additionally, L2 translators tend to use a limited range of PVs and prefer transparent PVs to semi-transparent and opaque ones. The results falsify the UIH in general and suggest that UIH is a conditional translation tendency constrained by translation directionality, or UIH is directionality-dependent. Gravitational pull model is used to analyze and explain the divergence between different translation directions.

On the emergence of argument encoding in causatives constructions in Romance

Causative constructions in Romance show complex variation regarding the case of the subject of the non-finite clause (causee) and to its position with respect to the main causative verb and the embedded non-finite verb. It has been argued that the variation reflects the diachronic evolution of the causative construction in Romance and also documents an ongoing process of further development. We present original empirical data from a comparative corpus of Bible translations that provide new insights into diachronic evolution as well as to the synchronic variation. Our comparative approach allows us to generalize over additional semantic and pragmatic parameters for the choice of a particular construction. Our data support the assumption of the extension of ECM from clitic to nominal causee constructions in French, but they do not support this for Italian. For Spanish we see some ECM constructions in the most recent translation only.

Variability in verbal eyewitness confidence

AbstractTypically, an eyewitness' verbal confidence is used to judge the reliability of their lineup identification. Across three experiments (N = 3976), we examined eyewitnesses' own words confidence in their lineup decision. For identification decisions (n = 1099), we identified 781 quantitatively unique responses representing 132 qualitatively unique statements that could be categorized into low, medium, and high confidence. For rejectors (n = 781), we identified 599 quantitatively unique responses representing 143 qualitatively unique responses that could be categorized into low, medium, and high confidence. Most participants provided a verbal phrase (e.g., pretty sure) but a significant proportion—34.19% of identifiers and 29.05% of rejectors—provided numbers (e.g., 80%). The present data highlight the variability in how confidence is expressed. The criminal justice system would benefit from guidance for interpreting verbal confidence. We provide a picture of eyewitnesses' verbal confidence as a first step.

Competition in the Complementation of Old English Control Verbs with Oblique Marking: A Corpus Analysis

The aim of this article is to explain the syntactic competition found in the complementation of Old English Prevent verbs. The competition on argumenthood involves linked verbal predications and linked nominal predications. Evidence is gathered for continuity both between finite and non-finite linked verbal predications as well as between non-finite and nominalised linked predications. This evidence points to a diachronic development: finite clause > non-finite clause > nominalisation. The main conclusion of the article is that the Interclausal Relation Hierarchy predicts the replacement of the finite clause complementation with non-finite clause complementation in such a way that the syntactically tighter noun phrase involving a deverbal nominalisation constitutes the next step of syntactic development.

“Let’s Move on to the Recommendations.” The Use of Phrasal Verbs in Business Presentations of University Students in Hong Kong

Phrasal verbs (PVs), as a notoriously difficult L2 feature, have attracted the attention of applied linguists for a few decades. Empowered by corpus linguistics, the current study explored the quantity and quality of PVs in business presentations of university students in Hong Kong, to investigate nuances of the PV production of students in contexts. The learner corpus consists of twenty business case study presentations by 36 mixed-L1 students. Quantitative results showed that students used a sizeable number of PVs accurately. The most common lexical verbs showed a different pattern compared with native speakers of English, while the most common adverbial particles were mostly identical to those used by native speakers. International students seemed to use more PVs than Chinese L1 students and the avoidance phenomenon was observed on a few PVs. The unnatural PV use mostly stemmed from misuse of the adverbial particles due to negative L1 transfer and two instances of creative PV use were observed on English L1 speakers. We advise language teachers to incorporate more comprehensive instruction of PVs in business English courses (including common collocations, syntactic particularities, and polysemy) as well as more authentic L2 exposure.

Idioms Analysis In The Coldplay Songs Entitled Hymn For The Weekend, Amazing Day, A Head Full Of Dreams, and Birds

<p>This research aims to analyze the types of idioms and the meaning of idioms in Coldplay's song, entitled <em>Hymn For The Weekend, Amazing Day, A Head Full Of Dreams, </em><em>And </em><em>Birds </em>by using F R Palmers theory of idiom types and Geoffrey Leech's theory of idiom meanings. This research is a qualitative descriptive research. The data of this research are Coldplay song lyrics. Data analysis was carried out by categorizing all lyrics into types of idioms and idiom meanings. These types are analyzed to find out what meanings are in the song lyrics. Research used document analysis to obtain data. In analyzing the data, the research used New Criticism. In validating the data, the research used triangulation theory.The research found that the researchers found 176 of the four song lyrics. The data are classified into idiom meanings which consist of Conceptual Meaning (1 data), Connotative Meaning (22 data), Stylistic Meaning (24 data), Affective Meaning (84 data), Reflective Meaning (15 data), Collocative Meaning (1 data) , Thematic Meaning (28 data). Then the researchers also clarifies into idiom types which consist of phrasal verb (11 data), preposition verb (10 data), partial idiom (8 data) of the data, Affective and Phrasal verb meanings are more dominant than other types. This describes the speaker expressing more personal feelings or emotions and using verbs with adverbs.</p>

Comparative Analysis of Lexical Bundles in Dissertation Abstracts: Insights for Teaching Academic English to Chinese Students

Lexical bundle research in academic abstracts has predominantly focused on research articles, with less attention given to dissertation abstracts. This is particularly relevant for Chinese graduate students who are required to provide English abstracts in their dissertations. Addressing this gap, the study compared the structural and functional distribution of lexical bundles in dissertation abstracts by linguistics students from China and the United States to inform academic instruction. Two corpora, the Chinese University Student Collection and the American University Student Collection, each with 700 abstracts, were compiled and analyzed. The findings showed that Chinese students proportionally used more noun phrase (NP) and prepositional phrase (PP)-based lexical bundles, but fewer verb phrase (VP)-based ones, compared to their American counterparts. Additionally, they used a higher proportion of research- and participant-oriented bundles, but fewer text-oriented bundles. These differences highlight distinct structural and functional preferences in lexical bundle usage between the two student groups. This study underscores the importance of adapting instructional strategies to address these differences, enhancing English academic writing skills of Chinese graduate students by acknowledging the diverse linguistic approaches of international student populations.

"An Investigation of the Hierarchy of Realization of English Idiomatic Phraseology by Iraqi Learners of EFL

هنالك العديد من التراكيب الاصطلاحية التي تُعَد من المشكلات الرئيسة لمتعلمي اللغة الإنكليزية بوصفها لغة أجنبية. وكذلك التراكيب التعبيرية كمصطلح عام والأفعال المركبة بشكلٍ خاص والتي هي إحدى أشكال تلك التعابير الاصطلاحية ولا يمكننا إنكار حقيقة أن المتعلمين للغة الإنكليزية بوصفها لغة أجنبية يجدون صعوبة في فهم واستخدام تلك التراكيب التعبيرية، وهذا الأمر يقودهم إلى تجنب استخدام تلك التراكيب. تهدف الدراسة الحالية إلى التعرّف إلى أي مدى يستطيع المتعلمون العراقيون للغة الإنكليزية تمييز وإنتاج التراكيب التعبيرية الاصطلاحية كمشكلة من المشكلات التي يواجهها هؤلاء المتعلمون، كما تهدف هذهِ الدراسة إلى معرفة فيما إذا كانت تلك التراكيب التعبيرية تتدرج في صعوبتها خلال المراحل الأربع في الكلية. ولقد أفتُرِض انه هنالك بعض الفروق الإحصائية بين المتعلمين للمراحل الأربع في قسم اللغة الإنكليزية في جامعة تكريت/ كلية التربية للبنات. طبّق الاختبار على 100 طالبة في كلية التربية للبنات/ جامعة تكريت. تقع الدراسة بجزئين رئيسين، يهتم الجزء الأول بالجانب النظري المتمثل باصطلاحات فضلًا عن التراكيب التعبيرية، تعاريفها، أنواعها، وبعض خصائصها, كما يشتمل على التداخل الحاصل بين المصطلحين. بينما يعني الجزء الثاني من هذه الدراسة بالإجراءات الإحصائية المتبعة من الباحثتين. تشير الاستنتاجات بأنه ليس بالضرورة أن تتطور اللغة بشكل مستمر، وكما يبدو فأن بعض الاصطلاحات التعبيرية لا تتطور بينما البعض تتقدم نحوه. وفي نهاية البحث، ضمّنت الباحثتان هذه الدراسة عدداً من الاستنتاجات والتوصيات والمقترحات.

Lenition Processes in Ut-ma’in (Fakkanci): A Case Study of Deletion and Weakining of Glottal Sound /ʔ/

This paper aims to describe the phonological processes of glottal /ʔ/ deletion in Ut-ma’in, a northwest Kainji language, under the Niger-Congo phylum. The paper employs an ethnographic method for data collection and adopts a distinctive features theory postulated by Chomsky and Halle (1968) in analyzing the glottal deletion in the language. The paper identifies, describes, and analyses glottal /ʔ/ deletion in the language, and the rules governing the process. The paper claims that the glottal stop /ʔ/ is deleted when it occurs at a word-final position; at syllable-final position, followed by another syllable and at a morpheme boundary in the language in a rapid speech. This claim is backed with several instances of words, compound words and verbal phrases. The paper discovers that the phonological process of deletion is very common in the language, and it plays a vital role in making speech easy. It also discovers that such a process results in a change of syllable structure another process of vowel lengthening and a change of noun class in the language.

Interrogatives of reason in Tibeto-Burman languages of Sichuan

Abstract This is a typological study of the why-interrogative expressions in Tibeto-Burman languages, or the non-Chinese Sino-Tibetan languages, in Sichuan, southwest China. After examining 22 languages/dialects, the interrogative category of reason is grouped into three types, viz. the distinct why-type, the how-type, and the what-type, according to the interrogative categories from which they are derived. It is discovered that the what-type is the dominant strategy for languages in Sichuan to derive the reason category. It is also common for Tibeto-Burman languages to use verbal interrogatives, namely interrogative verb phrases and interrogative words with verbal origins, dominantly in the sense of ‘to do what’ and ‘to become what’, to ask for reason. After a focused investigation of the verbal interrogatives, it is found that Tibeto-Burman languages in Sichuan distinguish purpose from cause via word/phrase distinction, sentential positions and semantic differences. A path of grammaticalization of the verbal interrogatives is thus proposed and analyzed. Finally, the derivation maps of interrogatives in Cysouw (2005) and Hölzl (2018) are complemented with a refined distinction between purpose and cause.

The inconsistency of sentential subjects’ analysis in English

The article presents a critical analysis of approaches to defining sentential subjects as non-canonical syntactic units consisting of a finite or a non-finite clause. The major issue discussed is the position of the sentential subject in the tree structure debating whether it lands in subject position as a result of movement or it is base-generated in the subject position. Additionally, a claim is made that sentential subjects are not true subjects, but rather topics, suggesting that a different constituent occupies the canonical subject position. Therefore, sentential subjects appear to behave akin to both topics and regular subjects. They cannot generally occur in subject positions in embedded clauses, subject-auxiliary inversions and after topicalised units, yet they trigger subject-verb agreement. When considering these two alternatives, the author finds it important to distinguish between the pragmatic function and the syntactic position. Though subjects have been studied in various linguistic schools, a common consistent opinion on the sentential subject status has not been reached. The discrepancies in existing views are revealed in similar examples analyzed as grammatical or ungrammatical within different scientific frameworks. Distributional and transformational tests, along with the study of the information structure of the utterance aimed at proving the acceptability / unacceptability of sentential subjects show mixed results and sometimes contradictory analyses. The research suggests that ungrammatical sentential units are normally neutralised by alternative structures that function as syntactic blockers. To address the complexity in exploring sentential subject,the author advocates for a multifactor approach, which takes into account structural, distributional, weight ratio, semantic, pragmatic and psycholinguistic characteristics of subjects in a variety of configurations to ensure understanding the degree of subjecthood of syntactic structures and their systemic arrangement from the core to the periphery. In conclusion, the article emphasizes the need for a comprehensive approach to studying sentential subjects, acknowledging their multifaceted nature and aiming for a systemic understanding of subjecthood within linguistic frameworks.

PHRASEOLOGISMS ARISING IN CONNECTION WITH THE PROFESSION

Although Chinese and Uzbek languages belong to different language families, they have similar aspects in terms of grammatical features and phraseology. The basis of our article is to reveal the feature in the process of variation of the unit of analysis of uniqueness among languages, in pronunciation, within the content. It is worth noting that the unifying feature of the concepts of the uniqueness of verb phraseology and phrases is that linguistic objects are approached from the point of view of the integrity of the linguistic structure, as well as the unity of form and content. Also, the role of the use of professional phraseology is partially explained.