Prepositional Object Research Articles

An In-depth Corpus-based Investigation of Unbound Reflexives

ABSTRACT This paper provides a comprehensive study of real-life uses of unbound reflexives (URs) in two syntactic structures, coordination and prepositional object structures, using a large amount of synchronic, diachronic, and dialectal corpus data from some Brigham Young University (BYU) corpora. Our findings show that 1) in contemporary American English, URs have different raw frequencies and proportion patterns in the two syntactic structures from anaphoric/cataphoric reflexives and also vary according to their person values; 2) the uses of URs in the two structures have shown decreasing tendencies for the past 200 years in American English; and 3) URs are more frequently used in Irish English than any other inner-circle variety of English in relation to anaphoric reflexives, which is more prominent in coordination structures than in prepositional object structures. Our findings also contribute to providing an empirical foundation for testing existing theories of URs and developing Binding Conditions in general.

A Minimalist Analysis of Relative Clauses in the Ifẹ̀ Dialect of Yorùbá

A considerable amount of scholarly works have been carried out on the syntax of relativisation in Yorùbá but with little attention paid to how the Ifẹ̀ dialect forms its relative clauses. This paper therefore, investigates the syntax of relative constructions in the Ifẹ̀ dialect detailing the strategies employed for them. Ten native speakers aged 60 years and above were purposively selected for structured oral interview based on their proficiency. Data were subjected to syntactic analysis using the Minimalist Program. The Ifẹ̀ dialect operates “kí” as its relative marker, this is optionally dropped. When the dialect stacks two or more relative clauses in a complex sentence it optionally drops only the first relative marker, others are always visible to the PF interface. The dialect operates Head Raising Analysis (HRA) whereby the relativised argument DPs are copied to the clause left peripheral position to check the [+Rel] feature on the Rel0. Relativisable constituents are subject DPs, object DPs (comprising direct objects, objects in serial verb constructions and prepositional objects) genitive DPs and prepositional complements. Relativising a VP/predicate, the dialect either externally merges the nominalised form of a verb as the specifier of the RelP or lexicalises the [+nominal] feature copied from the main verb at the spec RelP. The Ifẹ̀ dialect exhibits some dialectal variations lexically and structurally.

A Minimalist Account of Free Relative Clauses in Zahrani Spoken Arabic

This paper explores the syntax of free relative clauses in Zahrani Spoken Arabic (henceforth ZSA). The paper shows that ZSA possesses two types of free relative clauses, viz., nominal free relative clauses and adverbial free relative clauses. The focus of the paper is on nominal free relative clauses. It is shown that nominal free relative clauses can appear in a subject position and a direct object position, and the range of relativization involves subject, direct object, indirect object, prepositional object and possessor relativization. The derivation of free relatives in ZSA involves resumption relativization strategy only where gaps are treated as null resumptive pronouns. As for distribution of null and overt resumptive clitics, there is an alternation between the use of null and overt resumptive pronouns/clitics in subject and direct object position. However, the utilization of overt resumptive pronouns/clitics is mandatory in indirect object, prepositional object and possessor position. It is argued that the free relative markers illi: and mi:n are complementizers. Furthermore, as null and overt resumptive clitics exhibit a big resemblance with respect to their behaviour in the coordinate structures and parasitic gaps, both free relatives with null or resumptive pronouns/clitics involve a null operator movement (in non-island contexts) from inside the free relative clause to the specifier of a complementizer phrase (spec CP). The CP is adjoined to a null antecedent occupying the head of a noun phrase (NP) which is a complement of a determiner phrase (DP) with an empty D.

The effects of discourse coherence on the persistence of sentence structures.

We studied the role of discourse coherence relations on structure formulation in sentence production by examining whether a connective, an essential signal of coherence relations, modulates the tendency for speakers to reuse sentence structures (i.e., structural priming). We further examined three possible modulating factors: the type of connectives (additive vs. adversative connective), event similarity (similar event vs. different event), and topic cohesion (with or without available anaphoric antecedent). In four structural priming experiments, native Dutch participants were asked to read either a Dutch double object sentence or a prepositional object sentence and describe pictures that depicted ditransitive events. Critically, the prime and the target either were linked by a connective (en "and" or maar "but") or were not linked. The verb overlap between the prime and the target was also manipulated. In Experiment 1, the presence of en facilitated structural priming, but only when the verbs were different. In Experiment 2, maar reduced structural priming when the verbs were repeated. Experiment 3 replicated the findings of Experiments 1 and 2 in a within-subjects design. In Experiment 4, there was no referential link between the sentences. Now there was no connective effect on structural priming. Taken together, we demonstrated that the insertion of a connective influences syntactic persistence. The connective effects vary across semantic properties of the connectives, event similarity, and referential continuity, suggesting that the production of sentence structure is modulated by speakers' prediction about listeners' inference of coherence relations between consecutive utterances. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Adaptation of Gap Predictions in Filler-Gap Dependency Processing during Reading

Syntactic adaptation effects have been demonstrated for an expanding list of structure types, but the mechanism underlying this effect is still being explored. In the current work on filler-gap dependency processing, we examined whether exposing participants to a less common gap location—prepositional object (PO) gaps—altered their gap predictions, and whether these effects would transfer across tasks when this input was presented in a quasi-naturalistic way (i.e., by reading stories). In Experiment 1, we demonstrated that comprehenders dampened their direct object (DO) gap predictions following exposure to PO gaps. However, Experiments 2A and 2B suggest that these adaptation effects did not transfer when the quasi-naturalistic exposure phase was presented as a separate task (Experiment 2A) and when they also needed to generalize from a syntactic to a semantic measure of direct object gap predictions (i.e., filled gap vs. plausibility mismatch sentences; Experiment 2B). Overall, these experiments add filler-gap dependency processing, as well as the gap predictions associated with it, to the growing list of structures demonstrating adaptation effects, while also suggesting that this effect may be specific to a singular experimental task environment.

A SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS OF NOUN PHRASE FOUND IN JUSTIN BIEBER S SONG LYRICS PURPOSE ALBUM

This research was aimed at analyzing the structures and functions of noun phrase which have been used in Justin Bierber’s song that contained in “purpose”album.This research was designed by using qualitative method. The data were analyzed byusing Creswell’theory. There are data condensation, data display, and drawing conclution. The result of data analysis showed that there were 148 noun phrases which have been found. They were classified into 6 structures:determiner+head,determiner+pre-modifier+head, determiner+head+postmodifier,determiner+premodifier+head+postmodifier,head+modifier,andpremodifier+head. In addition, there are six syntactic functions: as subject, subject of completment, object, object of preposition, object of completment and component of preposition. Based on the research finding, it can be concluded that mostly song lyrics in ‘purpose” album were intended to use noun phrase to construct the sentences and delivering meaning of the song lyrics. Thus, noun phrase is the effective aspect that can be used in aliterary works to provide or give information in detail about a sentence depended on the function attached to the noun phrase.

Abstract Priming and the Lexical Boost Effect across Development in a Structurally Biased Language

The present study investigates the developmental trajectory of abstract representations for syntactic structures in children. In a structural priming experiment on the dative alternation in German, we primed children from three different age groups (3–4 years, 5–6 years, 7–8 years) and adults with double object datives (Dora sent Boots the rabbit) or prepositional object datives (Dora sent the rabbit to Boots). Importantly, the prepositional object structure in German is dispreferred and only rarely encountered by young children. While immediate as well as cumulative structural priming effects occurred across all age groups, these effects were strongest in the 3- to 4-year-old group and gradually decreased with increasing age. These results suggest that representations in young children are less stable than in adults and, therefore, more susceptible to adaptation both immediately and across time, presumably due to stronger surprisal. Lexical boost effects, in contrast, were not present in 3- to 4-year-olds but gradually emerged with increasing age, possibly due to limited working-memory capacity in the younger child groups.

Updating constructions: additive effects of prior and current experience during sentence production.

While much earlier work has indicated that prior verb bias from lifelong language experience influences language processing, recent findings highlight the fact that verb biases induced during lab-based exposure sessions also influence processing. We investigated the nature of updating, i.e.,how prior and current experience might interact in guiding subsequent sentence production. Participants underwent a short training session where we manipulated the bias of known English dative verbs. The prior bias of each verb for the double-object (DO) versus the prepositional-object (PO) dative was estimated using a corpus. Current verb bias was counterbalanced and controlled experimentally. Bayesian mixed-effects logistic models of participants' responses (DO or PO) during subsequent free-choice production showed that both the prior and current verb biases affected speakers' construction choice. These effects were additive and not interactive, contrary to the prediction from error-based learning models. Semantic similarity to other verbs and their experimentally manipulated biases influenced sentence production, consistent with item-based analogy and exemplar theory. These results shed light on the potential mechanisms underlying language updating and the adaptation of sentence production to ongoing experience.

Learning the statistics of pronoun reference: By word or by category?

Evidence shows that readers tend to follow recently-encountered patterns for interpreting ambiguous pronouns. If recent exposure includes frequent pronouns with prepositional object antecedents (e.g., “Matt went to the library with Ana. She took out a book”), people adapt and are more likely to assign ambiguous pronouns to prepositional antecedents than if they were exposed to pronouns with subject antecedents (Johnson & Arnold, 2022). However, it is unclear how people categorize different referential structures and how broadly they make generalizations. Johnson and Arnold (2022) found that people can learn a referential relationship specific to third-person pronouns and an antecedent's syntactic or thematic properties. The current study uses this paradigm to test how broadly people generalize categories of different types of pronouns and antecedents. Do people adapt to the behavior of categorizing “he” and “she” as individual words, or as a general class? (Experiment 1). Do people learn about likely antecedents for pronouns separately for different verb constructions (transfer vs. joint-action) and thematic roles, or broadly by grammatical function? (Experiments 2 & 3). Participants were repeatedly exposed to a referential structure of a particular type of pronouns or antecedents, and then were tested on ambiguous pronouns. All experiments showed that pronoun adaptation generalizes to new instances from the broad categorization of pronouns and antecedents.

The effect of context on noisy-channel sentence comprehension

The process of sentence comprehension must allow for the possibility of noise in the input, e.g., from speaker error, listener mishearing, or environmental noise. Consequently, semantically implausible sentences such as The girl tossed the apple the boy are often interpreted as a semantically plausible alternative (e.g., The girl tossed the apple to the boy). Previous investigations of noisy-channel comprehension have relied exclusively on paradigms with isolated sentences. Because supportive contexts alter the expectations of possible interpretations, the noisy channel framework predicts that context should encourage more inference in interpreting implausible sentences, relative to null contexts (i.e. a lack of context) or unsupportive contexts. In the present work, we tested this prediction in four types of sentence constructions: two where inference is relatively frequent (double object - prepositional object), and two where inference is rare (active-passive). We found evidence that in the two sentence types that commonly elicit inference, supportive contexts encourage noisy-channel inferences about the intended meaning of implausible sentences more than non-supportive contexts or null contexts. These results suggest that noisy-channel inference may be more pervasive in everyday language processing than previously assumed based on work with isolated sentences.

Structure prediction occurs when it is needed: Evidence from visual-world structural priming in Dutch comprehension.

Arai et al. (2007) showed that structural priming in the comprehension of English dative sentences only occurred when the verb was repeated between prime and target, suggesting a lexically-dependent mechanism of structure prediction. However, a recent study in Mandarin comprehension found abstract (verb-independent) structural priming and such priming was stronger when the structure was unexpected (e.g., when a verb biased toward the double object [DO] structure is followed by an unexpected prepositional object [PO] structure; Chen et al., 2022). The latter finding of inverse preference priming is consistent with error-based implicit learning accounts, which suggest structural priming is based on learning from prediction errors (Chang et al., 2006). Here we tested the mechanism of structure prediction (lexically-dependent vs. abstract) in four visual-world comprehension experiments in Dutch. Dutch is a Germanic language like English; it is biased toward the PO structure like Mandarin. We not only found structural priming when the verb was repeated, but also when the verb was different: During target sentence processing, comprehenders looked more often at the recipient (predicting a DO structure) than at the theme (predicting a PO structure) after a DO prime and vice versa after a PO prime. Importantly, abstract structural priming only occurred when the target structure was relatively unpredictable. We interpret the inconsistent findings across languages in terms of an effortful process of structure prediction in comprehension (Pickering & Gambi, 2018): it occurs when it is needed to disambiguate the postverbal arguments, but not when it is optional. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

정보구조의관점에서본고대중국어개사‘以’목적어의 이동과 생략

고대 중국어 개사 ‘以’의 목적어의 이동과 생략에 대해 그동안 통사, 의미, 화용 등 다양한 각도에서 연구가 진행되었다. 본고는 『孟子』를 분석대상으로 삼아 정보구조(information structure)의 관점에서 전면적인 분석을 도모하였다. 특히 Vallduvi(1990)는 기존에 화제-초점, 바탕-초점 등 이분적으로 분할하던 정보구조를 연결부-꼬리부-초점부로 삼분으로 계층 분절하였다.BR 개사 ‘以’의 목적어는 문두 혹은 ‘以’ 앞으로 이동된다. 문두로 이동하는 경우 연결부로 지정된다. 개사 ‘以’의 목적어가 의문사인 경우 ‘以’ 앞으로 도치되어 초점부가 되는데 이는 이전시기 SOV어순의 잔재로 볼 수 있다. 지시대명사 ‘是’의 경우 以’ 앞뒤에 모두 출현하는데 꼬리부와 연결부로 정보구조에 차이가 있으며 문법화 경로에 영향을 미쳤다. 일반명사 역시 개사 ‘以’ 앞으로 이동하여 문두에 나타나면 대조적 연결부가 되거나 혹은 초점부에 포함된다.BR 개사 ‘以’ 뒤의 목적어는 흔히 구정보이고 접근성이 높을 경우 생략된다. 정보구조적으로는 구정보가 후행 문장에서 연결부로 사용되는 경우이다. 그러나 잉여적 구정보라도 선행 문장과 다른 정보기능을 수행하는 경우 생략되지 않는다. 예컨대 선행 문장에 초점부로 기능하던 것이 후행 문장에서 꼬리부로 기능하는 경우 생략되지 않는다. 또한 구정보라도 초점부에 포함되는 경우 생략되지 않는다.

ERROR ANALYSIS BY USING THE PREPOSITIVE COMPLEMENT – A STUDY WITH ALBANIAN-SPEAKING GERMAN LEARNERS IN NORTH MACEDONIA

The goal of this paper is the contrastive analysis of the prepositions and prepositional supplements of the German and Albanian language. This paper also analyzes and assesses the difficulties of learning a foreign language and the causes of the error frequency in the Albanian native speakers learning German as a foreign language concerning the prepositions and prepositional supplements. It further provides an overview of the problems during the usage of prepositions required by verbs, adjectives and nouns by Albanian learners of the German language. Additionally, there will be an evaluation of the error analysis and the presentation of some methods which provide an easier way to learn the correct usage of the prepositional objects. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to investigate the reasons for the errors, so they can be avoided in the future. It often happens that foreign language learners unconsciously use a construction from another language when they are in a stressful situation, in which they have not yet mastered this construction in German or they cannot think of the correct form at the moment. However, this does not mean that the construction is necessarily taken from their mother tongue (in our case Albanian). It also happens that learners automatically fall back on another foreign language that they speak better than German. This also applies to the prepositions in prepositional supplements. It often happens that learners use the preposition ‘von’ in German instead the English counterpart ‘from’ or the English preposition ‘to’ instead the German ‘zu’. In their native language, the learners use the correct prepositions because these have already been automated since childhood through extensive influence on the language. In the foreign language, the prepositions still have to be become automatic, although it is quite understandable that the learners unconsciously transfer the prepositions from Albanian or from another foreign language into German. In summary, it takes a lot of patience and practice to master the governed prepositions in prepositional supplements. Further research in the field of the methodology of prepositional objects is urgently needed. There are not enough methodological techniques to make it easier to master the required prepositions.

Expansion of verb-argument construction repertoires in L2 English writing

Abstract This paper investigates the use of English verb-argument constructions (VACs) in second language writing in light of usage-based constructionist approaches to language development. It employs a comprehensive list of VACs to analyze every sentence in 390 essays written by L2 learners of three levels, i.e., Low, Mid, and High, and examines the theoretical hypotheses that the repertoires of VACs expand along with L2 proficient profile and that individual VACs, albeit varying in their expansion patterns, compose a structured inventory based on constructional information. Results indicate that L2 learners of higher proficiency used significantly more types of VACs than those of lower proficiency. It is also found that significant expansions of individual VACs appeared at different L2 proficiency levels. For example, the use of [Verb + NP complement] construction significantly increased between Low and Mid, not between Mid and High, whereas the [Verb + Prepositional object] construction significantly expanded throughout the three proficiency levels. Finally, there were strong cluster effects in the expansion of VACs as small sets of VACs showed similar by-text co-occurrence patterns.

RELATIVE CLAUSE AND ITS TRANSLATION FOUND IN “THE GOOD EARTH”

This research study focuses on English relative clauses and its translations into Indonesian found in the story entitled “The Good Earth”. This study aims to: (i) analyze the types of relative clauses found in the data source, (ii) analyze the types of translation in the translation process from source language into target language. The research study applied the theory of relative clauses proposed by Quirk (1985), Sneddon (1996) and the theory of translation shift which was proposed by Catford (1965). The process of collecting data is started by reading the entire data source in order to understand the story and observe the possibility of the data source which could be taken from the data source. The data source was read to find out the types of English relative clauses which were found in the story in the method and technique of collecting the data. The research study found that one type of English relative clauses was found in the story entitled “The Good Earth”. It was the type of Restrictive relative clause found in the novel entitled “The Good Earth”. First, it can be seen that the types of English relative clauses found in the data sources are called as restrictive relative clause as subject, restrictive relative clause as object, restrictive relative clause as prepositional object, non-restrictive relative clause as subject, and non-restrictive relative clause as object. Secondly, there are two types of translation strategies used in translating from source language into target language.

How do people interpret implausible sentences?

People sometimes interpret implausible sentences nonliterally, for example treating The mother gave the candle the daughter as meaning the daughter receiving the candle. But how do they do so? We contrasted a nonliteral syntactic analysis account, according to which people compute a syntactic analysis appropriate for this nonliteral meaning, with a nonliteral semantic interpretation account, according to which they arrive at this meaning via purely semantic processing. The former but not the latter account postulates that people consider not only a literal-but-implausible double-object (DO) analysis in comprehending The mother gave the candle the daughter, but also a nonliteral-but-plausible prepositional-object (PO) analysis (i.e., including to before the daughter). In three structural priming experiments, participants heard a plausible or implausible DO or PO prime sentence. They then answered a comprehension question first or described a picture of a dative event first. In accord with the nonliteral syntactic analysis account, priming was reduced following implausible sentences than following plausible sentences and following nonliterally interpreted implausible sentences than literally interpreted implausible sentences. The results suggest that comprehenders constructed a nonliteral syntactic analysis, which we argue was predicted early in the sentence.

A Contrastive Analysis towards English and Indonesian Noun Clauses

Main problem discussed in this study was the comparison of noun clauses in English and Bahasa Indonesia. The comparison aimed to find similarities and differences in the syntactic field that the noun clauses have in the two languages. This research applied contrastive analysis and the method was library research. The research instrument were noun clauses in English, Bahasa Indonesia and other linguistic issues especially books and internet citation supporting the main topic. The data analyzed by applying several theories in Content Analysis. This research found that English and Indonesian noun clauses cannot stand alone by themselves as sentences, they are introduced by conjunction and they need main clauses to produce sense. In terms of differences, English noun clause can function as objective complement but Indonesian noun clause cannot perform such function. English noun clause can be used as subject whereas Indonesian noun clause can be used as subject but introduced by any introductory words, the introductory word in English noun clause used as appositive cannot be omitted whereas the introductory word in Indonesian noun clause used as appositive can be omitted; the preposition in Indonesian noun clause used as object of preposition can be omitted whereas the preposition in English noun clause cannot be omitted.

No looking back: the effects of visual cues on the lexical boost in structural priming

ABSTRACT Four structural priming experiments investigated the lexical boost effect in structural priming. In two experiments, we tested whether repeating the subject in prepositional object or double object ditransitive structures boosted structural priming. In two other experiments, we manipulated the repetition of the verb. Repetition of the subject noun affected structural priming, but only when the prime remained visible while participants produced the target sentence. In contrast, repetition of the verb boosted priming regardless of whether participants could see the prime and target simultaneously. We conclude that the subject noun repetition effect is more strategic in nature than the verb boost effect. Structures are automatically associated with the verb, their syntactic head, whereas repetition of the subject noun only affects priming if the presentation method makes the repetition highly explicit.

The Neural Correlates of Semantic and Grammatical Encoding During Sentence Production in a Second Language: Evidence From an fMRI Study Using Structural Priming.

Japanese English learners have difficulty speaking Double Object (DO; give B A) than Prepositional Object (PO; give A to B) structures which neural underpinning is unknown. In speaking, syntactic and phonological processing follow semantic encoding, conversion of non-verbal mental representation into a structure suitable for expression. To test whether DO difficulty lies in linguistic or prelinguistic process, we conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging. Thirty participants described cartoons using DO or PO, or simply named them. Greater reaction times and error rates indicated DO difficulty. DO compared with PO showed parieto-frontal activation including left inferior frontal gyrus, reflecting linguistic process. Psychological priming in PO produced immediately after DO and vice versa compared to after control, indicated shared process between PO and DO. Cross-structural neural repetition suppression was observed in occipito-parietal regions, overlapping the linguistic system in pre-SMA. Thus DO and PO share prelinguistic process, whereas linguistic process imposes overload in DO.

Error-based structure prediction in language comprehension: Evidence from verb bias effects in a visual-world structural priming paradigm for Mandarin Chinese.

Structural priming studies in production have demonstrated stronger priming effects for unexpected sentence structures (inverse preference effect). This is consistent with error-based implicit learning accounts that assume learning depends on prediction error. Such prediction error can be verb-specific, leading to strong priming when a verb that is for instance biased toward the prepositional object (PO) structure occurs with an unexpected double object (DO) structure. However, it is unclear whether this mechanism also holds for language comprehension, especially for languages like Mandarin Chinese, which arguably depends strongly on semantics to predict syntax in comprehension. Experiment 1 was a norming study (N = 367) that measured the biases (DO vs. PO) of 48 Mandarin Chinese dative verbs. Experiment 2 (N = 72) crossed verb bias (DO-bias or PO-bias) and structure (DO or PO) of prime sentences in a visual-world paradigm, to examine whether Mandarin comprehenders show an inverse preference effect. The priming effect is expressed as the proportion of looks to the predicted referent (i.e., the recipient after a DO-prime, the theme after a PO-prime), for two critical time windows during target sentence processing: the verb and the first syllable of the first postverbal noun (which was identical in theme and recipient). There was priming in both time windows, even though the verb differed between prime and target. Importantly, there was an inverse preference effect (i.e., stronger priming after a DO prime with a PO-biased verb than with a DO-biased verb) in the second time window. These results provide evidence for an error-based structure prediction system in comprehension. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).