Grammatical Processing Research Articles

SUPERPOSITION OF GRAMMATICAL AND STATISTICAL LEARNING IN A SECOND LANGUAGE: AN EYE‐TRACKING STUDY

AbstractIn this paper, data from an eye‐tracking study on auxiliary selection in L2 Italian are reported. The data suggest that learners of Italian over time and with increasing experience can process the same compound past verbs in two apparently commutable ways within the same experimental session. One way is statistical (centered on the lexical part of the verb, the past participle), and the other is grammatical (centered on the auxiliary). The results also indicate that L2 learners – with increasing proficiency – can alternate statistical and grammatical representations and processing routes for the same phenomenon within the array of a single sentence, as native speakers do.

West Iranian in historical perspective

Abstract The development of the Persian definitive object marker -rā from Old Persian rādī through Middle Persian benefactive rāy has been established as a model grammaticalization process by Bossong (1985). His explanations on other modern Iranian languages, and their interplay in the historical development, have received far less research attention. This article offers a novel and comprehensive account of the historical development of -rā in West Iranian, from Old Persian up to approximately 20 New Iranian languages. Based on the semantic map model, it demonstrates that concerning -rā, most West Iranian languages can be subdivided into three typological groups, two of which represent more or less clearly defined genetic subgroups within the continuum of West Iranian. The interplay of genetic and typological/functional factors is complex, and open questions remain. The present study aims to provide empirical data, and to raise relevant questions, for future in-depth studies.

Analysis of the Affixoid "霸" in Modern Chinese

The affixoid is a linguistic unit in modern Chinese that lies in the middle ground between roots and affixes, and research on the ontology of class affixes, a class of class affixes and a specific class of affixes has already yielded some results. In this paper, we have selected "霸", which has received relatively little attention from previous researchers. In the course of the paper, the main methods used are documentary research, combination of description and interpretation, and corpus analysis. The paper begins with a definition of the affixoid "霸" in the light of previous research on the definition of affixes, explaining the basic features of the affixoid "霸" and classifying its derivatives. This is followed by a specific analysis of the class affixoid "霸" and its derivatives in terms of syntax, semantics and pragmatics. The grammaticalization process of the affixoid "霸" is then analyzed in order to show how people's mental states and situations change.

A Corpus-Based Study on Grammaticalization and Lexicalization in Medical English

Medical English, as a specialized form of English, has attracted considerable attention due to its unique linguistic features. Grammaticalization and lexicalization represent critical mechanisms in the evolution of language and are essential for understanding and mastering medical English. This study, drawing on the MEDLINE corpus, investigates the characteristics of grammaticalization and lexicalization in medical English from the perspective of cognitive linguistics, aiming to unveil its underlying cognitive foundations. The findings suggest that the processes of grammaticalization and lexicalization in medical English reflect cognitive mechanisms such as categorization, inferential processing, and pragmatic strategies. These insights provide novel approaches and methodologies for the teaching of medical English.

The Processes of Grammaticalization and Lexicalization in the Russian Verb System

The Processes of Grammaticalization and Lexicalization in the Russian Verb System

Word formation patterns in the perception domain: a typological study of cross-modal semantic associations

Abstract The lexicalization of perception verbs has been of widespread interest as a route into understanding the relationship between language and cognition. A recent study finds global biases in colexification patterns, suggesting recurrent conceptual associations between sensory meanings across languages. In this paper, drawing on a balanced sample of 100 languages, we examine cross-modal semantic associations in word formation. Confirming earlier proposals, we find derived verbs are lower on a proposed Sense Modality Hierarchy (sight > hearing > touch > taste, smell) than the source perception verbs on which they are based. We propose these findings can be explained by verb frequency asymmetries and the general tendency for sources of derivations to be more frequent than their targets. Moreover, it appears certain pairings (e.g., hear–smell) are recurrently associated via word formation, but others are typologically rare. Intriguingly, the typological patterning partially diverges from the patterning reported for colexification in the same domain. We suggest that while colexification is driven by conceptual resemblance between sensory meanings, cross-modal word formations tend to arise from grammaticalization processes of lexical specification, where additional material (e.g., a sensory noun) is collocated to a polysemous verb in order to disambiguate it in context. Together, these processes can account for the typological similarities and divergences between the two phenomena. More generally, this study highlights the need to consider conceptual, communicative and diachronic factors together in the mapping between words and meanings.

Unpleasant words can affect the detection of morphosyntactic errors: An ERP study on individual differences.

In recent years, several ERP studies have investigated whether the early computation of agreement is permeable to the emotional content of words. Some studies have reported interactive effects of grammaticality and emotionality in the left anterior negativity (LAN) component, while others have failed to replicate these results. Furthermore, novel findings suggest that grammatical processing can elicit different neural patterns across individuals. In this study, we aim to investigate whether the interaction between grammaticality and emotionality is restricted to participants with a specific neural profile. Sixty-one female native speakers of Spanish performed an agreement judgment task in noun phrases composed of a determiner, a noun, and an unpleasant or neutral adjective that could agree or disagree in gender with the preceding noun. Our results support the existence of two different brain profiles: negative and positive dominance (individuals showing either larger LAN or larger P600 amplitudes in ungrammatical stimuli than in grammatical ones, respectively). Interestingly, the neural pattern of these two groups diverged at different points along the time course. Thus, the negative dominance group showed grammaticality effects as early as 200 ms, along with parallel and autonomous processing of grammaticality and emotionality at the LAN/N400 time window. Instead, for the positive dominance group an early interaction was found at around 200 ms, evidencing a grammaticality effect that emerged only for unpleasant words. Our findings confirm the role of individual differences in the interplay between grammar and emotion at the neural level and call for the inclusion of this perspective in studies on syntactic processing.

How does musical rhythm influence grammatical processing at the neurophysiological level?

Numerous behavioral studies have demonstrated a rhythmic priming effect (RPE) on grammatical processing using grammaticality judgment tasks (GJT), where participants performed better following regular rhythmic sequences compared to baseline conditions or irregular rhythmic sequences (i.e. auditory rhythmic sequences with violated metrical structure). Only a few studies, however, have explored neurophysiological RPE in grammatical processing. Such neurophysiological investigations have been limited to GJT presented auditorily, have been primarily focused on the French- and German-speaking adult participants, and have rarely used baseline nonpriming conditions. The objective of the present study was to investigate neurophysiological correlates of the RPE in the GJT presented in visual modality. In the current study, we registered a 128-channel electroencephalogram while Russian-speaking adolescents performed a visual GJT, where each sentence was presented word by word in a self-paced manner. Before each experimental block, participants listened to regular rhythmic sequences, irregular rhythmic sequences, or silence. We observed that the late negativity in the event-related potential was larger for the ungrammatical condition compared to the grammatical condition only after the presentation of irregular rhythmic sequences. This effect, referred to as the N600 component in previous research, has been associated with increased cognitive complexity. In conclusion, results suggest that exposure to irregular rhythmic stimulation may lead to increased cognitive demand. This is attributed to the complexity associated with concurrently executing the GJT and managing rhythmic disruption, consequently increasing the strain on working memory resources.

Grammatical gender in spoken word recognition in school-age Spanish monolingual and Spanish-English bilingual children.

This study examined grammatical gender processing in school-aged children with varying levels of cumulative English exposure. Children participated in a visual world paradigm with a four-picture display where they heard a gendered article followed by a target noun and were in the context where all images were the same gender (same gender), where all of the distractor images were the opposite gender than the target noun (different gender), and where all of the distractor images were the opposite gender, but there was a mismatch in the gendered article and target noun pair. We investigated 51 children (aged 5;0-10;0) who were exposed to Spanish since infancy but varied in their amount of cumulative English exposure. In addition to the visual word paradigm, all children completed an article-noun naming task, a grammaticality judgment task, and standardized vocabulary tests. Parents reported on their child's cumulative English language exposure and current English language use. To investigate the time course of lexical facilitation effects, looks to the target were analyzed with a cluster-based permutation test. The results revealed that all children used gender in a facilitatory way (during the noun region), and comprehension was significantly inhibited when the article-noun pairing was ungrammatical rather than grammatical. Compared to children with less cumulative English exposure, children with more cumulative English exposure looked at the target noun significantly less often overall, and compared to younger children, older children looked at the target noun significantly more often overall. Additionally, children with lower cumulative English exposure looked at target nouns more in the different-gender condition than the same-gender condition for masculine items more than feminine items.

Transitional phenomena in the adverbialization of nouns

An important part of the system of Russian adverbs constitutes adverbs motivated by non-prepositional and prepositional case forms of nouns, which can be divided into three types regarding the planes of expression and content. The first type includes adverbs motivated by non-prepositionalforms of nouns, e. g., весной. The second type comprises adverbs motivated by prepositional case forms of nouns, such as наверху. The third type is adverbs formed from combinations of different case forms of the same noun, such as изо дня в день. All these types have a stepwise character in the process of adverbalization. The study shows that adverbialization of nouns is closely related to lexicalization, but the degree and ways of lexicalisation for noun word forms are different. The transitivity scale clearly represents the process of separation from the noun and approaching the adverbalization. In addition, in the process of lexicalisation, there is also a process of grammaticalization, which is reflected in morphological, semantic, and syntactic aspects.

Functional transition from hear to nonvisual sensory and hearsay evidential categories

Abstract This article presents a development of evidential categories derived from a verb related to the auditory sense in the evidential system attested in rGyalthang Tibetan varieties. The language varieties under study possess a morphological distinction of at least five evidentials in the access-to-information category and two evidentials in the source-of-information category. The discussion focuses on one morpheme derived from the Literary Tibetan verb grag ‘resound, hear’ used for both categories, and examines its process of grammaticalisation and degrammaticalisation. Elicited data illustrate the following functions: (1) grag as a nonvisual sensory evidential suffix that was further degrammaticalised as a copulative nonvisual sensory verb stem; (2) grag as a hearsay marker in a separate syntactic slot, which extended from (1); and (3) grag as a lexical verb stem meaning ‘hear’ [the common origin to (1) and (2)], which underwent two grammaticalisation processes.

Speech pauses in speakers with and without aphasia: A usage-based approach

Pauses in speech are indicators of cognitive effort during language production and have been examined to inform theories of lexical, grammatical and discourse processing in healthy speakers and individuals with aphasia (IWA). Studies of pauses have commonly focused on their location and duration in relation to grammatical properties such as word class or phrase complexity. However, recent studies of speech output in aphasia have revealed that utterances of IWA are characterised by stronger collocations, i.e., combinations of words that are often used together. We investigated the effects of collocation strength and lexical frequency on pause duration in comic strip narrations of IWA and non-brain-damaged (NBD) individuals with part of speech (PoS; content and function words) as covariate. Both groups showed a decrease in pause duration within more strongly collocated bigrams and before more frequent content words, with stronger effects in IWA. These results are consistent with frameworks which propose that strong collocations are more likely to be processed as holistic, perhaps even word-like, units. Usage-based approaches prove valuable in explaining patterns of preservation and impairment in aphasic language production.

Changes in Meaning in the Latest News on Liputan6.com

When writing news, changes in meaning influence the variety of language used by journalists, namely the presence of new vocabulary and adapting words to the context. The aim of this research is to describe the types and factors that influence changes in meaning in the latest news on Liputan6.com. The research method used is descriptive qualitative. The results of the research found 5 types of meaning changes, the dominant of which was widespread meaning change and 8 dominant factors of meaning change were term development. The five changes in meaning, namely (1) broadened meaning, (2) narrowed meaning, (3) refined meaning (eufemia), (4) coarsened meaning (dysphemia), and (5) total change meaning. Factors that influence changes in meaning are (1) developments in science and technology, (2) social and cultural developments, (3) differences in fields of use, (4) the existence of associations, (5) exchange of sensory responses, (6) differences in responses , (7) grammatical processes, and (8) term development. (200-250)

THE ROLE OF GREECK AND LATIN ELEMENTS IN FORMATION OF FRENCH SCIENTIFIC TERMINOLOGY

The article deals with the role of Greek and Latin elements in the formation of new words of a terminological nature in the modern French language. The author defines the main tendencies in functioning of the morphemes of foreign origin (Greek and Latin), which are characteristic of the language at the modern stage of its development. The article also reveals the main variants of word- formation, connected with the processes of lexicalization and grammaticalization.

Acaso no esté/está todo dicho. Nuevas hipótesis sobre acaso y el subjuntivo en oraciones independientes

This study endeavors to examine the Spanish adverb acaso through a diachronic lens, offering novel hypotheses to elucidate its etymological derivation, the intricacies of its grammaticalization process, and its progressive selection of the subjunctive mood within independent sentences. Etymologically, compelling evidence is presented, establishing a linguistic lineage with late Latin. Concerning its grammaticalization, intricate connections are posited with the expression por (a)ventura. Regarding the selection of the subjunctive mood, the study reveals a recent shift, notably gaining prominence since the 18th century and persisting to the contemporary era. Lastly, an analytical inquiry into the determinants behind the subjunctive mood’s modern trajectory is undertaken, comparing it with the traditional course of the indicative mood.

On the development of tense-aspect markers in Lingala youth language: a microvariationist look at language change in the verb phrase

Abstract This paper examines language change in two Lingala youth languages from the DR Congo, Lingala ya Bayankee (sometimes referred to as Yanké) and Langila, focusing on processes of grammaticalization and replication. Speakers of Lingala ya Bayankee use a grammaticalized prefix ké- for the near/immediate future tense, derived from the verb kokende ‘to go’ and from a manipulated form of the same verb, namely the prefix dyé- from kodyé (with the same meaning). The emergence and development of this tense marker is traced and compared with the strategies used by Langila speakers. Moreover, the microvariationist lens through which changes in the tense-aspect system of Lingala’s youth registers are examined in this paper looks at different formation patterns of progressive aspect, with two dominant construction types in Lingala ya Bayankee; these are also compared to the strategies used by Langila speakers. While linguistic manipulations have long been the focus of sociolinguistic approaches to the study of adolescent language use, fine-grained differences in tense and aspect marking have received little attention. Here, this paper aims to take a first step, based on rich empirical data collected during various research stays in the urban environment of Kinshasa (DR Congo).

A Contrastive Study of the Grammaticalization Between “Gan Jing” and “Clean” Based on Corpus

Based on corpus study, this paper makes a diachronic study of the grammaticalization process of the Chinese word “Gan Jing” and English word “clean”. The study shows that both “Gan Jing” and “clean” gradually lose their original meaning and change from a content word to a functional word. The mechanisms of the grammaticalization include reanalysis, analogy, semantic bleaching, metonymy and metaphor, as well as subjectivity. These changes can be attributed to the principle of economy. Though “Gan Jing” and “clean” share many similarities in grammaticalization path, mechanisms and motivations, the use frequency of them varies. The lowly grammaticalized form of “Gan Jing” is most used while the highly-intensified meaning of “clean” is used more widely.

The Grammatical and Pragmatic Features of the New Popular Construction of “Cloud+X” in Contemporary Chinese

“Cloud+X” is a popular construction that has appeared and been frequently used in recent years. The study of the grammatical and pragmatic process of "Cloud+X" construction has vital significance for understanding the development of this buzzword in the new era and word creation. The buzzword “Cloud+X” is analyzed from the perspective of grammar and pragmatics in this paper. From the grammatical perspective, this paper will focus on the grammatical characteristics of “Cloud+X” and analyze its evolution motivation. Based on three main constructions including “Cloud+verbs with monosyllabic morphemes”, “Cloud+verbs with disyllabic or polysyllabic morphemes” and “Cloud+nominal morphemes”, and combined with specific examples and meme theory, this study analyzes their relationship and evolution. From the pragmatic perspective, the paper mainly focuses on the four main aspects of the construction “Cloud+X” such as its productivity, main user groups, emerging platforms and registers as well as the construction stability.

Challenges Related to Grammatical and Morphological Processing of Arabic Texts by Means of Artificial Intelligence

This research aims to study the challenges facing artificial intelligence in processing Arabic texts grammatically and morphologically, by conducting a survey on a random sample of Microsoft Word 2010 users. The research provided a theoretical framework for the subject of the study, as it addressed the concept of artificial intelligence, as well as the general challenges facing artificial intelligence and some challenges specific to processing Arabic texts. The research relied on the descriptive approach, and this helped highlight the importance of the study and provide a comprehensive vision of its subject. The study concluded a set of results, the most important of which are: - There are many challenges facing users in processing Arabic texts grammatically and morphologically, such as derivation, morphology, and the breadth and comprehensiveness of the Arabic language. - The inability of artificial intelligence so far to reach a high degree of quality and efficiency in processing Arabic texts grammatically and morphologically. - The possibility of processing the Arabic language in the future by adding some software operations that help develop the machine’s capabilities to understand the Arabic language and the ability to express it effectively, through the use of new artificial intelligence methods, such as deep learning and machine learning. The study recommended a number of important recommendations, which are: - Microsoft Word is constantly updated by Microsoft, in order to ensure the quality and efficiency of the program in processing Arabic texts grammatically and morphologically. - Encouraging students and researchers to conduct more scientific research in the field of automated processing of linguistic texts, in order to enhance the progress and development of this vital field.

A Corpus-Based Study of “V + Dào” Constructions as Temporal Contouring Events in Mandarin

The temporal contouring event is a hot topic in Talmy’s linguistic typology, and the “V + Dào” construction is one of the prototypes of Chinese compliments with its typological disputes, which lie in its event integration patterns. According to the corpus-based and correlational analysis of “V + Dào” constructions as temporal contouring events in Mandarin, this paper aims to explore their event integration patterns and reveal their event integration degrees in terms of event semantics, and syntactic properties. The research results are found that: IEI_V can conflate 2 conceptual primitives;  IEI_D consists of two conceptual primitives; EEI_VD contains 2 combinations of IEI_V and IEI_D, which can be formularized as “2+2”;  the value of EEI_Type refers to the verb-phase construction (VPha); the hierarchy of correlated variables in IEI_V and IEI_D is ranked as “(ActiPro > AssoFun) > (SynType_VD > SynTyp_X) > (FigEnt_Anim)”; Chin_VD is only weakly correlated with SynType_VD and SynTyp_X. This study can provide insights to reveal the lexicalization and grammaticalization processes of “V + Dào” construction or even the verb complement construction in Mandarin.