Semantics Of Verbs Research Articles

The Lexical semantics of motion verbs 奔, 走, and 跑 in Shanghainese and Mandarin Chinese: implications for theories of verbal meaning

The Lexical semantics of motion verbs 奔, 走, and 跑 in Shanghainese and Mandarin Chinese: implications for theories of verbal meaning

Valency patterns in Mande

Abstract In this paper, we address valency patterns in seven Mande languages with various degrees of genealogical proximity. Our study is based on the BivalTyp questionnaire focusing on 130 two-place predicates (Say 2020). While belonging to two distinct genetic groupings, two languages of the set, i.e. Mano (Southern Mande) and Kpelle (Southwestern Mande), are in intense contact with one another. We found that although Mano verbal stems are virtually unaffected by contact, the patterns of valency expression, including construction types and choice of postposition, but also the semantics of complex verbs are strongly influenced by Kpelle. This study thus adds further evidence for the predominance of pattern borrowing in multilingual settings.

Axiological and cultural codes of verbal semantics in the context of machine translation (based on the verbs of the Russian, Tatar and English languages)

Axiological and cultural codes of verbal semantics in the context of machine translation (based on the verbs of the Russian, Tatar and English languages)

Thewo Tibetan’s /ta33/ and /nə33/

Abstract This paper has three aims. First, in its form, this paper uses a narrative style to overtly highlight the iterative process used to identify the meaning of the two suffixes in question. Second, this paper seeks to describe the intricate workings of two verbal suffixes in Thewo Tibetan. Finally, this paper makes a defense of why these two suffixes belong to the category of evidentiality. Thewo Tibetan is spoken in China on the Gansu-Sichuan border. The suffixes /ta33/ and /nə33/ appear either directly after action verbs, or directly after the progressive aspect marker. /nə33/ is used to express that the speaker has sensory information of their claim at the time of the speech act. The temporal nature of the evidence, whether it is sensory information of the act itself or of the results of the act, is determined in part by the semantics of the verb (telic vs non-telic). In contrast, /ta33/ is used to express that at the time of the speech act, the speaker no longer has sensory evidence (but formerly did) of the stated action. Based upon these observations, this paper argues that temporal space and verbal semantics are key to understanding the cognition which underlies interpreting /nə33/ and /ta33/. As such, this paper makes the following three contributions: (1) In its form it provides an anecdote of failures and success along the path to identifying the function and meaning of two evidential suffixes; (2) It introduces two suffixes of the hitherto un-described Thewo Tibetan evidential system; and (3) It gives an in-depth analysis of these suffixes and offers evidence to support the claim that they are evidential suffixes.

The Semantics of Verbs in Mam Jalal's Presidential Speeches

The Semantics of Verbs in Mam Jalal's Presidential Speeches

Evolution of the Verb State Category in Germanic Languages: A Neuroscientific Perspective

Relevance of research. The article examines the process of verb formation in Germanic languages, as well as the peculiarities of the grammatical semantics of verbs at different historical stages of the development of Germanic languages. Using the comparative-historical method, the functioning of verbs in texts of Germanic languages ​​was investigated as an aspect of neurolinguistic science. Research results. The article proves that most modal verbs of Germanic languages ​​have undergone significant semantic transformations. The study of texts of different historical stages of language development shows that verbs evolved through semantic transformation. Time frames of the formation of secondary semantics were revealed. The theoretical and practical significance lies in the fact that this resarch allows a detailed study of the features of the emergence of the primary, as well as the secondary, subjective semantics of verbs in Germanic languages ​​from a neuroscientific point of view. It should be noted that the list of subjective values ​​still raises many questions and discussions. The German language has an extremely clear system of means of expressing modal values. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the neurolinguistic approach to the study of the evolution of Germanic verbs. The article aims to study the evolution of verbs in the German language in the context of neurolinguistics. To achieve the goal, the method of comparative analysis was used. This made it possible to consider the evolution of the verb through a comparative study of texts at the main stages of speech development. To solve these problems, texts reflecting the state of the language at each historical stage were studied.

HL Mandarin Speakers Toss the Same Way as Fluent Mandarin Speakers

Abstract Heritage language (HL) speakers often show weaker semantics in HL words than speakers who continue to learn and use the language. In this study, we tested whether HL Mandarin speakers simplified near-synonyms of throw verbs by diminishing the difference between the near-synonyms and/or by diminishing the difference between the generic throw verb and other near-synonyms. Two participant groups, HL Mandarin speakers and English second-language learners, acted out six Mandarin near-synonyms of throw verbs and the English verb throw. The results showed more similarities than differences between the two groups in the core features of throw verb semantics (force, speed, and direction). We observed few signs of simplification. One interpretation of these results is that early and/or naturalistic exposure to Mandarin was an important predictor of speakers’ knowledge of conceptual features. These results add to the literature showing that there can be factors beyond proficiency that contribute to speakers’ lexical semantics.

Language Analysis of Science and Technology Textbook in Nepal: A Semiotic Perspective

This article has analyzed the semiotic aspects of grade 10 Science and Technology subjects’ textbook implemented in Nepal. The main objective of this study was to explore the kind of figures, pictures, symbols, graphs and other signs used in science textbook. It examined how the figures and signs used in the book effect on science learning. It has been carried out in a qualitative design because it is developed on critical logic and argumentative analysis. Theoretically, this work believes on Peirce’s semiotics. Figures, pictures, symbols, graphs and other kind of signs used in this subjects’ textbook act as data in this study. The meaning-making process includes qualitative and critical analysis. It combines signs from several contexts, meaning, abbreviation including the verbal semantics of speech, and the operational system. And, its result was summarized in overall synopsis of content related aspect and pedagogical techniques and practices correspondence with relevancy and misconception. The result show that the use of visual materials, such as graphs, symbol, pictures, figure, etc. in science textbooks can serve as semiotic signs that induce argumentative reasoning and contribute to the structure of scientific arguments in science classroom. It provides good insights into the representation of multiple mode of representation, scientific influences, and the use of visual materials to enhance scientific literacy however it needs to uplift.

The Emergence of Verb Patterns in Arabic in Children With Developmental Language Disorder Compared to Children With Typical Development.

The Arabic verb system features a nonlinear root and pattern derivational morphology. Previous studies suggest that young Arabic and Hebrew speakers' early verb use is based on semantic complexity rather than derivational morphological structure. The present study examines the role of morphological and semantic complexity in the emergence of the verb derivational morphology in Arabic speaking children with developmental language disorder (DLD) compared to children with typical language development (TLD). Natural language data were collected from native Arabic-speaking children (40 with DLD; aged 4-6 years and 133 with TLD aged 2;6-6;0 [years;months]) using picture-based elicitation tasks, and verbs were coded morphologically for derivational features and for features of semantic complexity. The results showed that children with DLD demonstrated a more limited production of verb patterns, both in types and in tokens, than age-matched children with TLD. Also, children with DLD age 5;0-6;0 were similar in types and tokens of verb patterns to younger children with TLD at the age of 3;6-4 years. Moreover, while children with TLD at the age of 2;6-3 years used a smaller number of verb patterns than older 4;0-5;0 aged children with DLD, the two groups were not different in verb semantics. Finally, the morphological and semantic diversity demonstrated by the children with DLD was similar to the morphological and semantic diversity shown by children with TLD. Our findings support the conclusion that children with DLD and with TLD acquire the derivational verb system in the same pathway and the quantitative lexical differences between the two groups support a delay rather than a deviation from the typical developmental trajectory.

Метафорические образы перемещения в жидкой среде в диалекте английского языка Scots

The paper attempts to study the semantics of verbs denoting movement in a liquid medium in the Scots dialect. The aim of the study is to determine the ways of figurative interpretation of the semantics of movement in a liquid medium in Scottish lexical metaphor. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that for the first time in the Scots dialect, the semantics of verbs of movement in a liquid medium have been studied and described as a basis for creating a system of metaphorical images. The results showed that such a class of verbs is small and poorly differentiated. In the original meaning of the verbal lexemes of this class, such semantic components as “medium”, “speed” and “sound” turned out to be important. These components of the semantics in dialectal verbs served as the basis for a figurative assimilation of processes and phenomena of various spheres of human activity. The metaphorical evaluation of verbs in which the main semantic component of the original (nominative) meaning is movement in a “liquid dirty medium” is most often negative. Movement in such a medium served as a source sphere for the figurative comprehension of a number of deviant social actions, deeds, and human behavior.

A Word-Based Approach to the So-Called Category-Changing Usage of the English Derivational Prefix Out-

One of the traditional observations about English derivational morphology is that prefixes behave differently from suffixes and are rather close to lexemes. A word-based analysis of prefixes based on this observation has been proposed, but it faces a challenge raised by the seemingly category-changing property of the comparative verb-forming prefix out-. This study aims to solve this problem in a framework that enriches the traditional generative word-based morphology with the concept of the Abstract Lexical Unit. In analyzing data, I pay attention to the degree semantics of comparative out-prefixed verbs and show that the so-called “denominal or deadjectival” out-verbs are produced as hyponyms of already existing out-verbs with sparse semantics. A pseudonym experiment demonstrates that this type of out-verb has a number/rank/action comparative interpretation, and the nouns or adjectives that occupy the head position further specify the object that is counted. The problematic type is related to its base word via head replacement rather than concatenative affixation. Drawing on these new perspective and observations, this paper shows that the traditional finding about the status of English prefixes can be maintained in a word-based approach.

Asymmetry in temporal specification between affirmation and negation

Asymmetry in temporal specification between affirmation and negation

DIALECTISMS IN NOVEL "MAMY" BY MARIA MATIOS

The article analyzes the accentuation, phonetic, morphological, word-forming and phraseological dialectisms used in the six-act drama "Mamy" by Maria Mathios. Unlike lexical dialectisms, which are mostly presented in page-by-page footnotes with an interpretation of their semantics by the author, the speech units studied in the proposed article mostly function in the text of the work itself and do not require explanation, as they are completely understandable from the context. Instead, phraseological dialectisms are also often explained in footnotes, since their semantics may not be completely clear to the general public. At the same time, we observe the use of phonetic, morphological, accentuation and phraseological dialectisms precisely in the speech of the characters, although lexical ones are also presented in the author's speech. In addition, the researched work presents significant monologues of characters, which contain a number of various speech units from different structural levels of the language. Among the morphological dialectisms, we note speech features primarily in the field of nouns, in particular, the presence of the ending -y in the genitive singular of feminine nouns of the third declension; in verb forms, primarily in the preservation of ancient forms of the past tense, the function of the participle-postfix -sia is mainly in the preposition; in the writer's representation of a number of dialect forms of official parts of speech, as well as exclamations. Accentuational dialectisms are mostly paroxytonated units. Word-forming dialectisms differ from literary language mainly by suffixes, less often by prefixes. Phraseological dialecticisms used in the text of the novel are emotionally saturated, are an important element of the characters' speech, and function mostly with the main component of the verb and verbal semantics. The researched types of dialectisms recorded in the prose text are presented in dialects of the southwestern dialect, primarily Hutsul, Transnistrian, Bukovinian, Transcarpathian, and Boykish. The analyzed dialect units are an important component of the characters' individual speech, logically woven into the linguistic fabric of the artistic text.

Пам’ять у лінгвістичному і соціокультурному вимірах

The article explores the linguistic characteristics of the concept of memory as one of the key cultural concepts among other meaningful ones — person, life, language, word. The starting point was the position that memory is a psychological category that is verbalized in different ways by linguistic means, models synonymous series, mental image forms. It is noted that the word-concept memory correlates with the words consciousness, memory, imagination, mind, knowledge through the prism of individual and collective experience of the past, and acts as a tool for evaluating human existence. In a comparative aspect, the semantics of the Ukrainian verb to remember and the Czech zapomnět, as well as the related nouns nezabudka and pomněnka, are considered. Verbs, having at first glance a similar grammatical structure, are characterized by antonymic meanings in modern literary languages. The factors that led the original semantic feature of the root pomn- (memor- [пам’ят-]) — «to remember» — to develop to the opposite meaning in the Czech verb zapomnět «to forget / not to remember something» are analyzed. It was noted that under the influence of other Slavic languages, the parallel use in the XVI–XVII c. in the Ukrainian language, two words — «пам’ятати / помнити» — led to the fact that the word to remember displaced the word to remember from usage. The semantics of ʽmemory’ in the interpretation of figurative means — metaphors and phraseology, which show signs of high semantic stability, reproducibility in the language from memory, and thus have the status of collective memories. The evidence presented in the article shows that the conceptual field of memory is structured by concepts that are relevant both for the individual and for the whole human community in a particular time dimension and have a high axiological potential.

Statistics versus semantics: retreating from the dative overgeneralization errors by Chinese EFL learners

AbstractThis study investigated the effects of entrenchment, preemption, verb semantics, and morphophonological constraints in Chinese EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners’ retreat from the overgeneralization errors of English dative alternations. Two groups of Chinese EFL learners rated the acceptability of 66 dative verbs in their well and ill forms. The results demonstrated that Chinese EFL learners were simultaneously sensitive to the multiple cues from entrenchment, preemption, semantic, and morphophonological constraints, indicating that Chinese EFL learners restricted the generalization of the dative alternation by utilizing both the statistical verb-bias information and semantic properties of the dative verbs. Moreover, the sensitivity of Chinese EFL learners to these constraints increases with the improvement of their English proficiency. These results validated the usage-based approaches to second language acquisition and provided an answer to the “Baker’s Paradox.”

A Semantically Rich ‘Do’‐Support Verb in the Camuno Dialect of Northern Italy

AbstractIn the Camuno dialect of northern Italy, ‘do’‐support may be used to form the interrogative. In some varieties, this is optional, and it co‐exists with the alternative interrogative method of using the main verb alone. Through an elicitation experiment, participants produced their preferred version of a question based on a certain main verb with given context. The likelihood that ‘do’‐support was used varied according to the supported verb's semantics and the context pragmatics, specifically: (a) the degree to which the verb denotes activity (directly or indirectly); and (b) the role of the subject as an effector, or ‘do’‐er of that activity. Unlike for ‘do’‐support in English, a purely syntactic function does not seem relevant for Camuno ‘do’. The study shows that: (1) even if, syntactically, the support verb resembles an auxiliary, it may have full lexical content; and (2) that there exists a credible grammaticalisation pathway from a lexical ‘do’ verb to a semantically bleached, contentless ‘do’, seemingly motivated by a social preference for the ‘do’‐support construction and a desire to simplify the interrogative system.

The Computational Method for Supporting Thai VerbNet Construction

VerbNet is a lexical resource for verbs that has many applications in natural language processing tasks, especially ones that require information about both the syntactic behavior and the semantics of verbs. This article presents an attempt to construct the first version of a Thai VerbNet corpus via data enrichment of the existing lexical resource. This corpus contains the annotation at both the syntactic and semantic levels, where verbs are tagged with frames within the verb class hierarchy and their arguments are labeled with the semantic role. We discuss the technical aspect of the construction process of Thai VerbNet and survey different semantic role labeling methods to make this process fully automatic. We also investigate the linguistic aspect of the computed verb classes and the results show the potential in assisting semantic classification and analysis. At the current stage, we have built the verb class hierarchy consisting of 28 verb classes from 112 unique concept frames over 490 unique verbs using our association rule learning method on Thai verbs.

Manner, result, and intention: implications for event typology from a cognitive account of verb semantics based on fulfilment types

Abstract Verb semantics has been widely approached as a dichotomy of manner and result. However, from a cognitive perspective, manner and result are often linked by intention, as captured by the ‘fulfilment type’ property formulated in the Realisation event domain in Talmy’s event integration theory. The four ‘fulfilment types’ (intrinsic-, moot-, implied-, and attained-fulfilment) indicate different degrees of result certainty in verbs. This study investigates whether manner/result complementarity is cognitively less dichotomous and more nuanced, as the four fulfilment types in verbs could indicate more than two mental representations of verbs. Through two psycholinguistic experiments, we examine whether fulfilment types influence the cognitive salience of manner and result in novel verb meaning interpretation (Experiment 1) and the semantic relatedness between English verbs with different fulfilment types (Experiment 2). Our results demonstrate that manner and result in the mental lexicon act less like a dichotomy but more like a cline. This blur between manner and result verb statuses has consequences for a language’s typological stance in the Realisation domain and implications for how Talmyan event research should be extended beyond well-studied Motion.

КОНЦЕПТУАЛИЗАЦИЯ ПРОЦЕССОВ ПАМЯТИ В ЕСТЕСТВЕННОМ ЯЗЫКЕ: ЗАБЫВАТЬ И ПОМНИТЬ

The paper focuses on representation of memory in Russian, exploring, specifically, its spatial interpretation and semantic types of predicates objectifying mnemonic processes in relation to the time axis: actions, processes and states are distinguished. Special emphasis is on the semantics of the verb помнить (pomnit’) which is interpreted as fundamentally different from its derivatives and its antonymous verb забывать (zabyvat’) . The study is based on the hypothesis-deduction research procedure, an integral part of which is a semantic experiment conducted either in the form of surveys of native speaking respondents or in its online version, namely, in the form of Yandex and Google search requests for word combinations. In the latter case the search engines function as a “collective respondent”. As part of the research methodology, the authors used the explanatory potential of imperative forms to indicate the presence or absence of control feature in the semantics of the action verb, and established restrictions on its realization associated with aspectual opposition in the predicate system. The research allowed for constructing a matrix based on the interaction of semantic features manifested on different levels (taxonomy characteristics as action and state predicates), as well as specifying the status of the verb помнить (pomnit’) as existential-resultative in contrast to its previous linguistic interpretation as a state predicate. The results also include identifying lexical features that refer to the interaction between subjects and the memory space, and tracing the systemic metaphor-based shifts to denoting speech act in a number of memory verbs.

Event structure, force dynamics and verb semantics

This article presents a cognitive model of event structure that can be used to explain several features of the semantics of verbs. The model consists of four basic components: agent, patient, force vector and result vector. Each component is described in terms of the theory of conceptual spaces. The force vector is the cause of the result vector. Unlike other event models both the cause and the effect are included in the representation of a single event.The model is used for two central topics. Firstly, to provide a force dynamic representation of causation. Secondly, to give a unified analysis of Aktionsart in terms of different forms of vectors, using force diagrams that are extensions of those used by Croft and others. It is then shown that the event model can be used to derive a variety of semantic features of verbs. In particular, I analyze manner-result complementarity, the ambiguity of the passive participle, and the role of goals (telicity).