Semantic Valence Research Articles

Semantic Valence and Cultural Representation of Phraseological Units (Kazakh and English)

The rules for the compatibility of idiomatic units in the linguistic consciousness of native speakers are a particular problem that is related to the formation and evolution of the language norm. It is still unknown what is the catalyst for the transformation of language norms — usage or the laws and rules of the language. As a result of the cultural interpretation of a phraseological unit in the process of its use, the most important component of the cultural and linguistic meaning of the phraseological unit is formed, the content of which is the value-emotional attitude to what is happening. The focus of the article is the notion that phraseological valence - beyond grammatical structure to cultural and semantic dimensions. This perspective likely emphasizes the importance of cultural and semantic factors in shaping the meaning and usage of phraseological units, rather than purely grammatical considerations. Comparing English and Kazakh phraseological units with similar concepts but different cultural representations provides an insightful examination of how language reflects unique cultural perspectives and values. The article determines that there is a certain pattern in the semantic variation of phraseological units, and also compares the semantically equivalent and non-equivalent structure of English and Kazakh phraseological units. The purpose of the article is to prove that in the valence of phraseological units the role of the transitive meaning, rather than the literal meaning, predominates, and the grammatical construction has valency.

Semantic effects on the perception of emotional prosody in native and non-native Chinese speakers

ABSTRACT While previous research has found an in-group advantage (IGA) favouring native speakers in emotional prosody perception over non-native speakers, the effects of semantics on emotional prosody perception remain unclear. This study investigated the effects of semantics on emotional prosody perception in Chinese words and sentences for native and non-native Chinese speakers. The critical manipulation was the congruence of prosodic (positive, negative) and semantic (positive, negative, and neutral) valence. Participants listened to a series of audio clips and judged whether the emotional prosody was positive or negative for each utterance. The results revealed an IGA effect: native speakers perceived emotional prosody more accurately and quickly than non-native speakers in Chinese words and sentences. Furthermore, a semantic congruence effect was observed in Chinese words, where both native and non-native speakers recognised emotional prosody more accurately in the semantic-prosody congruent condition than in the incongruent condition. However, in Chinese sentences, this congruence effect was only present for non-native speakers. Additionally, the IGA effect and semantic congruence effect on emotional prosody perception were influenced by prosody valence. These findings illuminate the role of semantics in emotional prosody perception, highlighting perceptual differences between native and non-native Chinese speakers.

“A Flash of Consciousness in the Unconsciousness of Days”: Anna Akhmatova’s Prophetic Gift

This study focuses on From Sketches (1959), a little-known poem of Anna Akhmatova’s later work that has received no literary commentary. The fragment fits into some of the poet’s known poetic and prose predictions and is also correlated with the image of Cassandra that accompanied Akhmatova throughout her creative life. Referring to some of the poet’s memoirs and autobiographical prose, as well as to materials from the author’s notebooks, it is possible to discover some overlaps that indicate, on the one hand, the writer’s consistent strategy (from prediction to the terrible ability to draw upon misfortune), and, on the other hand, the integrity of the image of time / the end of time that is formed in Akhmatova’s notes: both in the work on variants of poetic lines, and in the secret writing of notebooks. At present, there are several versions of the poem, written at different times, some of which have a title and some of which do not, and are characterised by major and minor discrepancies. A comparative textual analysis of the poetic variations testifies to the poet’s search for increasingly powerful and precise means of describing the approach of an apocalyptic catastrophe. Despite the intonational similarity of The Running of Time, the ‘sketch’ in question appears never to have been incorporated by the poet as a separate stanza into a cycle or larger text. The study shows that the poem, highlighted by a poetic and prosaic context, reveals one of the key features of the poetics of the unfinished, typical of A. Akhmatova’s later artistic thinking. The dialogical nature and ‘semantic valence’ of Akhmatova’s poetry, and the emergence of new meanings, are stimulated by the ‘passage of time’ and are actualised when disasters and difficulties occur, each time helping to uncover the hidden visionary layers of Akhmatova’s poetry.

Тексты дневников В. Д. Касьянова в аспекте диахронического изучения сочетаемости слов

The research objective is to identify semantic shifts that occurred in word collocations, documented in the diaries of archpriest V. D. Kasyanov, and the nature of changes in collocability of certain prepositional-case forms. The scientific novelty of the study lies in identifying semantic changes that occurred over a century and a half and were not reflected in lexicographical sources, revealed through the analysis of word syntagmatic relationships. Additionally, for the first time, the collocational possibilities of some words and prepositional-case forms in the modern Russian language are compared with those in the 19th-century language. The study identified lexemes that have non-standard collocability according to contemporary Russian standards, indicating the presence of components in their meaning that were subsequently lost, corroborated by data from the National Corpus of the Russian Language. For some words, semantic shifts lead to a complete loss of lexical-syntactic expression of semantic valency or show a tendency towards such loss. The analysis also revealed that modern case forms "по + Dative case" and "от + Genitive case" demonstrate a more limited collocability compared to the 19th-century language.

Higher autism trait severity in children associates with diminished integration of angry prosody in semantic processing

BackgroundPrevious studies examined group differences of individuals with and without autism. This study investigated individual differences in automatic integration of emotional prosody during semantic processing at the behavioral and neural levels among children using a continuous measure of autism trait severity. MethodEvent-related potentials (ERPs) of 46 children, 21 of them diagnosed with ASD, were measured. Children determined the semantic valence of spoken words, and ignored the emotional prosody, which was either congruent or incongruent with the semantic valence. ResultsIndependent of congruency, higher autism trait severity and Intelligence Quotient (IQ) were associated with faster reaction times (RTs), while higher IQ and language ability were associated with higher accuracy. The difference between congruent and incongruent conditions (congruency effect) indicates automatic integration of emotional prosody in semantic processing. In ERPs, higher autism trait severity and higher IQ were associated with smaller congruency effects on P2 amplitudes for angry (but not happy) prosodic stimuli. ConclusionThe findings suggest a stronger tendency to ignore angry prosodies among children with higher autism trait severity. This has implications for educational practices and parent counseling regarding communication with children with high autism trait severity.

The spread of affective and semantic valence representations across states

In many decision problems, outcomes are not reached after a single action but rather after a series of events or states. To optimize decisions over multiple states, representations of how good or bad the outcomes are, that is, the outcomes’ valence, should spread across states. One mechanism for valence spreading is a temporal, state-independent process in which a single valence representation is updated when an outcome is experienced and fades away afterwards. Each state’s valence is based on its temporal proximity to the experienced outcome. An alternative, state-dependent mechanism relies on the structure of transitions between states, updating a separate valence representation for each state according to its spatial distance from the outcomes. We examined how these mechanistic accounts shape the spread of two formats of valence representation, feelings (affective valence) and knowledge (semantic valence), between states.In two pre-registered experiments (N = 585), we used a novel task in which participants move in a four-state maze, one of which contains an outcome. The participants provide self-reports of affective and semantic valence throughout the maze and after finishing it. Results show that the affective representation of negative valence is more localized in state-space than the semantic representation. We also found evidence for the relative reliance of the affective valence on a temporal, state-independent mechanism and of the semantic valence on a structured, state-dependent mechanism.Our findings provide mechanistic accounts for the differences between affective and semantic valence representations and indicate how such representations may play a role in associative learning and decision-making.

SEMANTIC VALENCE OF THE WORD "CAMEL" AND ITS AUTOMATION METHODS IN THE NATIONAL CORPUS

This study analyzes the compatibility and semantic valence of the word "camel" in linguistic science. The purpose of the paper is to propose ways to verbalize the semantic valence of the word "camel" of the conceptual knowledge that served as the basis for it. Camel is a conceptual concept that has formed the image of the Kazakh ethnic world. It has more than 500 combined complex concepts. Because the camel occupies a special place in the life of the Kazakh people. The natural qualities and functions of the camel are the most important quality, endurance and tolerance and a tendency to a semi-desert zone have been widely recognized due to the combination with the word "camel" in the language system. There is also a special way to formalize and verbalize some concepts that represent the ethnic picture of the world on linguistic resources. Thus, it is quite possible to make a separate subcorpus of conceptual names representing the ethnic image of the Kazakhs from the National Corpus of the Kazakh language. The National Corpus provides effective ways of expressing the conceptual image of the concept, including the ethnic one. The cultural code of phrases semantically combined with the word camel is revealed. Why is the abundance of ethno-marked names related to camels determined in the Kazakh worldview? Since the concept of "image of the world picture" is the subject of interdisciplinary research, it is studied from different angles in each field. Since the worldview is an indicator of mental interpretation, it serves as a cognitive unit that asserts each nation has different knowledge about an abstract concept for a person. Having determined the ability to combine the word "camel" with such potential, we were convinced that the types of camels, the nature of the camel, the functions of the camel, and the connotative attribute that is actively used in describing a person, plant, animal, appearance, and character of a person. Automatization of the text related to the word "camel" is also carried out through a search system. By linking texts to the word "camel", it is quite possible to link them to the semantic designation in the sentence in which the phrase is involved.

A divergent effect of stimulus perceptual details on affective and semantic representations of valence.

The current work investigated the potential dissociation between two modes of valence: affective valence (valence of the emotional response) and semantic valence (stored knowledge about the valence of an object/event). A series of six experiments systematically examined the divergent effect of manipulating the amount of perceptual details on affective valence and semantic knowledge about valence. We predicted that affective valence, more than semantic valence, will be affected by manipulating the amount of stimulus perceptual details. Experiment 1a manipulated the amount of perceptual details by presenting the same stimulus content with different quantity of perceptual details. We compared three conditions: a very short movie clip, a still picture that was taken from the movie clip, and a blurred version of the picture from the movie clip. Experiment 1b replicated Experiment 1a using a stronger filter for blurring the picture. Experiment 2 used different manipulation of filtering out visual perceptual details by comparing still pictures to outlined images. Experiment 3 generalized the results of Experiments 1 and 2 by comparing pictures and written words. Experiments 4a and 4b examined the hypothesis regarding the divergent effect of the amount of perceptual details on semantic and affective valence, using physiological signals and a reaction time task, measures that do not rely on self-reports. Results suggest that affective valence is more sensitive to the change in the amount of perceptual details of the stimulus than semantic valence. The psychological mechanism that might underlie this effect and the theoretical implications of the findings are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The function of predicate words in organization of scientific text

The article is devoted to the issues of studying the discursive features of the communication of a scientific text, since the logical train of thought is most clearly traced in it, i.e. semantic connection between the components of a single whole. The subject of the analysis is the characteristics of the functions of predicate words in the organization of a scientific text. The methodological basis of the study was the theoretical work related to communicative linguistics, cognitive linguistics, cognitive logic, text theory, discourse studies, for which the priority is the study of the language as a cognitive mechanism that plays a role in coding and transforming textual information. The emphasis is placed on the fact that the language serves cognition, and the text, therefore, is a product of a purposeful mental and speech activity of a person and an object of reception. A particular attention is paid to the description of the text-forming categories, especially to the category of cohesion, since, as a whole, the text exists precisely due to the combination of the most diverse types of connections. Based on the results of the analysis, it is emphasized that scientific texts differ from other types of texts in a logical construction. It is concluded that the lexical markers are involved in the logical-semantic organization of scientific texts, expressing a certain relationship, in terms of their participation in ensuring the development of thought and the logical coherence of fragments of scientific texts. It was revealed that the logical cores of scientific texts - predicate words connect the text logically on the basis of the semantic valence that is inherent in them.

Hedged Performatives in Spoken American English: A Discourse-oriented Analysis

This paper provides a corpus-based analysis of so-called “hedged performatives,” which, although frequently referred to in the literature, have never been the subject of an in-depth functional study. Using data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English, the focus is on I must/ have to say, I must/ have to admit, and I must/ have to confess, as the hedged performatives which are among the most frequent and score highest in terms of collocational strength. The qualitative analysis identifies two main functions, viz., downtoner and emphasizer. They are shown to derive from the interplay of three co(n)textual parameters: (i) “semantic valency” of the host clause (i.e., positive, negative, or neutral semantic content), (ii) “thematic orientation” of the host clause (i.e., toward the speaker, the addressee, or a third person/the situation), and (iii) conversational “alignment” of the speaker with the interlocutor (i.e., agreement or disagreement). It is further shown that hedged performatives play an important role in rapport management, serving (mainly positive face) politeness strategies, which are captured in terms of face-preservation, face-damage, and face-boost.

Temporal dynamics of the semantic versus affective representations of valence during reversal learning

Valence, the representation of a stimulus in terms of good or bad, plays a central role in models of affect, value-based learning theories, and value-based decision-making models. Previous work used Unconditioned Stimulus (US) to support a theoretical division between two different types of valence representations for a stimulus: the semantic representation of valence, i.e., stored accumulated knowledge about the value of the stimulus, and the affective representation of valence, i.e., the valence of the affective response to this stimulus. The current work extended past research by using a neutral Conditioned Stimulus (CS) in the context of reversal learning, a type of associative learning. The impact of expected uncertainty (the variability of rewards) and unexpected uncertainty (reversal) on the evolving temporal dynamics of the two types of valence representations of the CS was tested in two experiments. Results show that in an environment presenting the two types of uncertainty, the adaptation process (learning rate) of the choices and of the semantic valence representation is slower than the adaptation of the affective valence representation. In contrast, in environments with only unexpected uncertainty (i.e., fixed rewards), there is no difference in the temporal dynamics of the two types of valence representations. Implications for models of affect, value-based learning theories, and value-based decision-making models are discussed.

CONTINUUM OF PARAPHRASING – SYNTAX SYNONYMY IN THE DICHOTOMY LANGUAGE IS SPEECH (on the material of modern French artistic prose)

This paper is dedicated to the studies of syntactical synonymy as one of kinds of periphrasing in the dichotomy language/ discourse and theory of mental kinetism. It is establishedthat in the process of transformation in language are formed the one basic (with one terminal chain) and two basic (with two or more terminal chains)synonymic periphrases of pivotal (primary) syntagm or proposition, that are actualized in discourse in the form of co(n)textually preferential options. On the bases of syntactical and semantic valence of elements of synonymic constructionsare defined the key lexemes of each option which form with peripheral lexical components certain models of synonymic derivational trees (nominal, verbal, adjectival etc.). As the result of studies the virtual terminal chains of discourse innovations-synonymic structures are reconstructed and the hierarchical and horizontal semantic and syntactical relations between them are established in the functional-semantic field of syntactical synonymy.

Methods of the Study of Verbs of Understanding in Linguistics (Based on the English Language Material)

The study of verbs of understanding in the language structure is an essential issue for cognitive linguistics and scientific research related to the semantic fields of the lexical level. Verbs of understanding in the lexical tier of the language are indicators of the cognitive process of mastering speech by communicators and have a wide semantic scope. The central link in this sphere is the word “know”. After analyzing the formal and semantic valency of the verbs of understanding and describing their semantic and syntactic features, the researchers classified them into four groups, determined the functionality of these verbs by parts of speech, and identified subcategorical signs of right- and left-handed actants.

Emotional concepts in the collection of T. Moore’s works “Irish Melodies” (based on Volumes 1–3)

This article is devoted to the study of the phenomenon of emotional concepts based on the themes of sentimentality in the literary works by the Irish poet T. Moore. The practical study of emotional concepts based on the linguistic material of a particular language represents an important component of linguistic knowledge overall, providing an opportunity to consider different spheres of the emotional world of a person at a deeper level. Linguocultural analysis of emotional concepts allows us to classify some distinctive components of associative series, as well as the features of the use of concepts in oral and written speech. The research of the emotional concepts in poetry gives the possibility to reveal some linguocultural peculiarities of concepts, conditioned by the author’s individual and cultural properties of the analysed works. In the present study, the analysis of emotional concepts is performed in the linguistic and cognitive paradigm and implies the identification of specific semantic and syntactic valence of emotion nominants in the collection of poems “Irish Melodies” by T. Moore.

Semantics-Prosody Stroop Effect on English Emotion Word Processing in Chinese College Students With Trait Depression.

This study explored the performance of Chinese college students with different severity of trait depression to process English emotional speech under a complete semantics–prosody Stroop effect paradigm in quiet and noisy conditions. A total of 24 college students with high-trait depression and 24 students with low-trait depression participated in this study. They were required to selectively attend to either the prosodic emotion (happy, sad) or semantic valence (positive and negative) of the English words they heard and then respond quickly. Both prosody task and semantic task were performed in quiet and noisy listening conditions. Results showed that the high-trait group reacted slower than the low-trait group in the prosody task due to their bluntness and insensitivity toward emotional processing. Besides, both groups reacted faster under the consistent situation, showing a clear congruency-induced facilitation effect and the wide existence of the Stroop effect in both tasks. Only the Stroop effect played a bigger role during emotional prosody identification in quiet condition, and the noise eliminated such an effect. For the sake of experimental design, both groups spent less time on the prosody task than the semantic task regardless of consistency in all listening conditions, indicating the friendliness of basic emotion identification and the difficulty for second language learners in face of semantic judgment. These findings suggest the unneglectable effects of college students’ mood conditions and noise outside on emotion word processing.

The Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic of the Adjective in Swiss German

This paper examines mechanisms found in verbal fixation of the national specifics of the Swiss German language based on a categorical-grammatical group of adjectives related to a wide association of signified words. The objects of the analysis are adjectives collected from lexicographic sources as well as
 journalistic and artistic texts by the continuous sampling method.
 The main attention is paid to the features of the qualitative composition and semantic valence compatibility of segmental root and non-root derivational morphemes within the two main word-formation models of adjectives that are
 characteristic of the modern German language in its synchronous state, they are derivatives and composites. The functioning of adjectives in phraseological units
 is also analyzed. This group consists mainly of single-morpheme root lexemes. Phraseological units used as a research material allows us to more fully represent the functional potential of adjectives in the linguistic and cultural aspect.
 The study concludes that in Swiss German, compared to the German language, root morphemes and postfixes more widely realize their potential of mutual compatibility, which leads to an enrichment of paradigmatic meanings and reveals additional discursive and pragmatic adjective values of Swiss German.

Foreignness in the Nineteenth Century Romanian Novel (1845-1900): From Semantic Valences to Specific Markers of Novelistic Subgenres

This paper operates with the archive of digitized texts (about 150 novels published between 1845 and 1900) offered by the project ASTRA Data Mining: The Digital Museum of the 19th Century Romanian Novel. By identifying the occurrences for the term “străin” (“foreign/er”; “strange/r”) and its entire lexical family, the study intends to prove that there is a strong correlation between linguistic signs and literary concepts. More precisely, my survey finds its starting point in the methodology developed by Ryan Heuser and Long Le-Khac. The two researchers use the pair of notions “signal/concept,” where “signal” means “any number of things that are readily tracked computationally” and “concept” represents “the phenomenon that we take a signal to stand for, or the phenomenon we take the signal to reveal,” in order to explain their working method. This precisely is the main reason why I have chosen to classify the occurrences of my key-word based on their semantic valence and to discuss semantic variation as an important indicator in trying to delineate different types of literary discourse and the novelistic subgenres. Lastly, my paper intends to provide a complete ad litteram image of “foreignness” as it occurs in the nineteenth-century Romanian novel. This image will be formed based on the meanings (“implicit” and “explicit” meaning, according to Teun A. van Dijk’s delineation) of the terms that comprise the lexical family for my key-word and on the context (the “micro-” and “macrocontext”) in which these words occur as well.

APPLICATION OF VALENCY THEORY TO THE TERM FORMATION PROCESS (BASED ON A TERM SYSTEM ‘NAMES OF BUILDING MATERIALS’)

In the modern linguistics, a limited amount of studies is devoted to “terminological valency”, however, this linguistic phenomenon needs thorough examination since it allows showing the process of appearance of new terms with certain accuracy, which makes this research topical. According to the leading linguists’ research, the valency is one of the most important structural characteristics of lexical units, as it captures the entire distribution of this unit and its consistency with other units. Valency is based on the laws of semantic agreement and units collocation due to the presence of common components in their meaning (L. Novikov, M. Stepanova and others). The relevance of our research is conditioned by the necessity to analyze the principles of structure, semantics and functioning of the language units of professional terminology. Term is the key component among these units. Building materials terminology system in the Ukrainian language at the beginning of the XXI century is the main focus of the article. The purpose of our research is to analyze the nomination means of the construction industry special concepts. The nominals of building materials are examined, and the features reflected in their structures are analyzed. It is also examined how the correlation of the reality objects influences the combinability of terms which these materials name. In this research the term “valency” is used as a synonym of the term “combinability”. A valency analysis is applied to analyze how the terms are created. As it is known, there are the following types of valency: semantic, lexical and syntactic. The article examines the semantic and syntactic valency of terms in order to determine the corpus and properties of potential connections of terms and conditions of these connections fulfillment. The valency of the complex term is conditioned on a number of reasons: belonging of the term to one or another part of speech, the morphological structure of the term and its belonging to this or that topic group within a certain term system. The valency analysis of suffix and complex derivative nominals of building materials has allowed to reveal the character of their semantic valency and to define the mechanisms of their formation.

Remarks on the Different Nature of Metonymy

The article discusses some features of actant and non-actant metonymy, complementing their main differences. It is noted that the set and content of actants depends on the semantic valence of the verb producing Nomina actionis. Inactive metonymy, its activity and other features are due only to the existence of certain realities. It is also established that the meanings of some types of actant and non-actant metonymy are not embodied in verbal units and therefore are not marked in explanatory dictionaries.

Прагматический эффект частичной энантиосемии в комическом контексте

This article analyses the mechanism of development of evaluative enantionyms in a comic context. The study aims to describe the pragmatic effect created by enantionyms and identify the reasons behind it. The empirical material was selected from the works of the following modern writers: S. Dovlatov, A. Snegirev, and E. Popov. The author of this paper observed the transformations of lexical units in the conditions of a language-game and subsequently analysed the obtained data. The following was established: as a result of the occasional use of lexemes and the development of partial enantiosemy within them, the core of the unit of language-game (a type of dicteme) gets marked. This pragmatic focus leads to connotative recoding, which is based on shifting the object of evaluation and/or on the functioning of several evaluation subjects that differ in their point of view on a situation. The most active in this process are lexemes that have a high level of semantic abstraction and a fairly wide combinability and present most general evaluations of objects and phenomena of reality that occupy extreme positions on the axiological scale. This paradigmatic phenomenon is less frequently observed in words that have more concrete meanings and are somewhat limited in terms of their lexical and/or semantic valence. Thus, under abnormal contextual conditions, enantionyms that developed in the course of the abovementioned processes become markers of the core of a language-game unit and take on the qualities of a pragmeme. Thematically, units of a language-game are quite diverse; however, their most frequent axiological characteristic is as follows: the utilitarian values and evaluations of an individual collide with those generally accepted and declared by large groups of people (the state, professional community or other environment).