Verbs In Sentences Research Articles

Morphological change in continental West Germanic

In Dutch, Frisian and German dialects, bewildering morphological variation is found in the person-marking system (e.g., the Syntactic Atlas of Dutch Dialects for Dutch and Frisian, and Goossens 1994, Weiss 2005 and Fuss 2005 for German). One type of variation concerns the formation of subject clitics in clauses with inverted word order, i.e. with the subject following the verb. These elements are subsequently extended to other syntactic positions through analogy, via a pathway described by Kathol (2001): originally enclitic elements spread first to the position enclitic to the complementiser, then to verbs in sentences with regular word order, and finally, in a rare number of cases, to verbs in the sentence-final position in subclauses. This paper shows that Kathol’s proposed pathway actually comprises two similar but not identical pathways, i.e. one for specifically enclitic elements, and one for elements occurring both pro- and enclitically. This implies that developments must be modelled as an ‘analogical map’ rather than a pathway, which will be illustrated extensively with data from Dutch, Frisian and German dialects. The map will be shown to apply to more data than Kathol’s original pathway: it not only captures the extension of clitics, but also the spread of many innovative agreement markers and pronouns, and, hence, a range of person marking phenomena, including complementiser agreement (e.g., Carstens 2003, Weiss 2005), clitic doubling (e.g., Fuss 2005) and double agreement (e.g., Zwart 1997). Finally, following Hill (2007), some of the motivations underlying the change and the factors determining their direction are discussed.

The Study About 'Wa' case phrase In The Modern Korean —On A Reciprocal Verb Sentence—

The Study About 'Wa' case phrase In The Modern Korean —On A Reciprocal Verb Sentence—

Interlingual Pronoun Errors in English-Arabic Translation

Unlike English, Standard Arabic has two forms of subject pronouns: Independent such as ?na (I), and a pronominal suffix that is an integral part of the verb such as katab-tu (I wrote). Independent subject pronouns are commonly used in nominal sentences, not verbal sentences. Use of independent subject pronouns in verbal statements depends on syntactic, pragmatic, discoursal and semantic factors available in a particular context. The present study investigates translation students’ awareness of the syntactic, pragmatic and discoursal restrictions that determine the use of Arabic subject pronouns when translating connected discourse from English into Arabic. An error corpus of faulty uses of Arabic independent subject pronouns was collected from the translation projects of senior students majoring in translation. Syntactic, pragmatic and discoursal criteria were used to judge the deviations. It was found that students translate imitatively rather than discriminately. Since English sentences begin with a subject pronoun such as I, he, they, the students used an independent subject pronoun followed by a verb + pronominal suffix in declarative, affirmative statement, without realizing that the subject is contained in the verb, and use of ?na or huwa is redundant. Implications for increasing students’ awareness of pragmatic, discoursal and syntactic constraints in translating English pronouns into Arabic are provided.

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Three Case Studies

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Three Case Studies

Verbal working memory and its relationship to sentence‐level reading and listening comprehension in persons with aphasia

Background: Working memory (WM) has gained recent attention as a cognitive construct that may account for language comprehension deficits in persons with aphasia (PWA) (Caspari, Parkinson, LaPointe, & Katz, 1998; Martin, Kohen, & Kalinyak‐Fliszar, 2008; Wright, Downey, Gravier, Love, & Shapiro, 2007). However, few studies have investigated individual differences in performance on sentence comprehension tasks as a function of WM capacity in PWA when WM demands are manipulated. Aims: The purposes of the current study were: (1) to examine the relationships among verbal WM, sentence comprehension, and severity of impairment in PWA and (2) to investigate the differential performance of high versus low verbal WM groups on sentence comprehension tasks in which task demands were manipulated by the length of the sentence stimuli, complexity of syntactic structure, and by presentation method which varied the time over which the linguistic material was available for computation. Methods & Procedures: A total of 20 PWA were divided into high and low WM groups based on a listening version of a WM sentence span task. Each participant completed a listening version (CRTT) and three reading versions (CRTT‐R) of the Computerised Revised Token Test as the sentence comprehension tasks. Outcomes & Results: The WM task significantly predicted performance on the CRTT conditions in which information was only temporarily available, thereby imposing greater WM demands on sentence comprehension. The verbal WM task was significantly correlated with aphasia severity and a principal components analysis revealed that the WM task, overall aphasia severity, and overall reading impairment level loaded on a single factor with 76% of shared variance. The low WM group's performance was significantly lower than the high WM group on the CRTT subtests with syntactically more complex structures and on the CRTT conditions with temporally restricted presentation methods. Conclusions: This verbal WM task was significantly and moderately correlated with the overall severity of aphasia as well as with both listening and reading sentence comprehension. The WM group differences emerged only in sentence comprehension tasks with greater WM demands. These results are consistent with the notion that WM effects are most evident when WM capacity is sufficiently taxed by the task demands (e.g., Caplan & Waters, 1999; Just & Carpenter, 1992).

Propositions and the Substitution Anomaly

The Substitution Anomaly is the failure of intuitively coreferential expressions of the corresponding forms “that S” and “the proposition that S” to be intersubstitutable salva veritate under certain ‘selective’ attitudinal verbs that grammatically accept both sorts of terms as complements. The Substitution Anomaly poses a direct threat to the basic assumptions of Millianism, which predict the interchangeability of “that S” and “the proposition that S”. Jeffrey King has argued persuasively that the most plausible Millian solution is to treat the selective attitudinal verbs as lexically ambiguous, having distinct meanings associated with the different sorts of complement terms. In opposition this approach, I argue that there are independent reasons for maintaining the univocality of these verbs and that this can be done while accommodating the Substitution Anomaly and without sacrificing the transparency of the relevant attitude ascriptions. In particular, I show how, by employing an extended version of Edward Zalta’s system of intensional logic for abstract objects, one can construct for a regimented fragment ℜ of English containing the relevant vocabulary a semantical theory ℑ which (a) treats ℜ’s selective attitudinal verbs as univocal, (b) regards genuine terms as occurring transparently under such verbs in sentences of ℜ, and yet (c) predicts the occurrence of the Substitution Anomaly in ℜ.

Quelques aspects du fonctionnement de la négation en arabe marocain

Sentential negation in Moroccan Arabic is realized by two elements, ma- and -š/ši. Three aspects will be considered in this paper : first, the origin of these two elements, second, the morphological constraints that characterize sentential negation in the context of verbal and non verbal predicates and finally, a particular use of the sentential negation in verbal sentences, the metalinguistic negation.

Processing the universal quantifier during sentence comprehension: ERP evidence

This study investigates the temporal neural dynamics of processing the Chinese universal quantifier dou during Chinese sentence comprehension using the event-related potential (ERP) technique. Universal quantifier violations were created when the universal quantifier dou (all, every) was misplaced either after a singular object noun phrase (NP) in a Subject–Object–Verb (SOV) sentence (Experiments 1 and 3) or after a singular subject NP in a SVO sentence (Experiment 2). Participants were asked to make semantic plausibility judgment (Experiments 1 and 2) or to comprehend sentences real time followed by a sentence recognition test at the end of the experiment (Experiment 3). Experiment 1 found that quantifier violations elicited a sustained positivity from 400 to 1100ms post-onset of the quantifier and a sustained negativity from 300 to 800ms post-onset of the following verb. Experiment 2 varied the distance between dou and the following verb by the presence or absence of an adverb between them. Again, the sustained positivity was observed on the mismatching quantifier; in addition, a sustained negativity was observed on the word immediately following the quantifier, regardless of whether this word was a verb or adverb. Experiment 3 used the same stimuli as Experiment 1 but with a different task. The quantifier violation elicited anteriorly distributed negativities over different time intervals post-onset of the quantifier. The sustained positivity is interpreted as being associated with an integration process that links the universal quantifier with the preceding entity. The sustained negativity is attributed to a second-pass process to reinterpret the sentence. Other functional interpretations of the ERP components were discussed and ruled out.

SYNTAX CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PREDICATE NOUN WORD IN THE ARABIC ALPHABET

As a basic element of grammatical predicate category, the nominal sentence predicate in literary arabic language is specified by important structural, morphological and syntactict features. These faetures result from traditional rules deep rooted in arabic syntax, according to them the arabic grammarians in their general sentence classification into nominal and verbal one, do not consider lexical meaning of predicate that defines the declarative caracter of sentence. In this view, the formal-syntactic parameters are the basic modifiers and according to them, the sort of word that stands in the beginning of sentence is followed and analyzed and, depending of its lexical nature, the sentence is named as a nominal or verbal. The parameters of sentence classification like these provide structural and morpfological differencies to the predicate of nominal sentence, so it appears in the form on an individual underived or verbal derived nouns, nominal or verbal sentence and in the form of proposal or adverbial syntagm. Each of these predicate appearing models has it own features that are important for correct interpretation and understanding of nominal sentence. The syntactic position of nominal sentence predicate is conditioned by some defined syntactic-formal limitation of subject or predicate and in relation to its subject, the position of predicate can be obliged normal or obliged inverse. The elision of nominal sentence predicate can be allowed and obliged, and it is caused by contextual-formal surrounding. According to attitudes of arabic grammarians, the use of conjuction between two or more predicates is not arbitrary but depends on sort of their semantic relations and can be allowed, prohibited or obliged. By some special contextual surruondings, the use of conjuction "fa" in front of predicate of nominal sentence is allowed and it is understood as a formal indicator of predicate position or as a kind of corroboration of subjectiv – predicate relation. Keywords: predicate category, syntax, predicate, nominal sentence, formal-syntactic parameters, structural-morphological differentiation, nominal word, syntactic position, elision, semantic relations.

Thematic roles in Alzheimer's disease: Hierarchy violations in psychological predicates

The nature of the verb deficit in Alzheimer's disease (AD) was investigated with a special focus on thematic-role assignment, employing verbs whose argument realization follows canonical thematic hierarchy, with Agent and Theme as main roles (e.g., The hunter killed the deer), and verbs whose argument realization deviates from canonical hierarchy, such as psych verbs (e.g., fear, frighten). Subject- Experiencer verbs (e.g., fear) do not assign an Agent role to the subject position of the sentence, but instead assign the role of Experiencer to that position. Object- Experiencer verbs (e.g., frighten) deviate from canonical thematic hierarchy in two ways. Like fear verbs, the frighten verbs do not assign the role of Agent. Moreover, they assign the role of Theme to the subject position and the role of Experiencer to the object position, thus resulting in the non-canonical Theme < Experiencer argument realization. Ten AD patients, 11 matched elderly controls, and 49 young controls performed a sentence completion task in which they had to choose a verb that would render the sentence grammatical and meaningful. AD patients showed no problems with canonical structures, but performed worse than controls in psych verb sentences, demonstrating greater difficulty with object- Experiencer sentences. Results suggest that AD patients may have an impairment in more fine-grained aspects of verb-semantic representation, such as thematic roles.

The cortical dynamics in building syntactic structures of sentences: An MEG study in a minimal-pair paradigm

The importance of abstract syntactic structures and their crucial role in analyzing sentences have long been emphasized in contemporary linguistics, whereas the linear order model, in which next-coming words in a sentence are claimed to be predictable based on lexico-semantic association or statistics alone, has also been proposed and widely assumed. We examined these possibilities with magnetoencephalography (MEG) and measured cortical responses to a verb with either object–verb (OV) or subject–verb (SV) sentence structures, which were tested in a minimal-pair paradigm to compare syntactic and semantic decision tasks. Significant responses to the normal OV sentences were found in the triangular part of the left inferior frontal gyrus (F3t) at 120–140 ms from the verb onset, which were selective for explicit syntactic processing. The earliest left F3t responses can thus be regarded as predictive effects for the syntactic information of the next-coming verb, which cannot be explained by associative memory or statistical factors. Moreover, subsequent responses in the left insula at 150–170 ms were selective for the processing of the OV sentence structure. On the other hand, responses in the left mediofrontal and inferior parietal regions at 240–280 ms were related to syntactic anomaly and verb transitivity, respectively. These results revealed the dynamics of the multiple cortical regions that work in concert to analyze hierarchical syntactic structures and task-related information, further elucidating the top-down syntactic processing that is crucial during on-line sentence processing.

Rapid learning of an abstract language-specific category: Polish children's acquisition of the instrumental construction

Rapid acquisition of linguistic categories or constructions is sometimes regarded as evidence of innate knowledge. In this paper, we examine Polish children's early understanding of an idiosyncratic, language-specific construction involving the instrumental case - which could not be due to innate knowledge. Thirty Polish-speaking children aged 2 ; 6 and 3 ; 2 participated in a elicited production experiment with novel verbs that were demonstrated as taking nouns in the instrumental case as patients. Children heard the verbs in sentences with either masculine or feminine nouns (which take different endings in the instrumental case), and were tested with new nouns of the same and of the opposite gender. In both age groups, a substantial majority of children succeeded in generalizing from one gendered form of the instrumental case to the other (especially to the masculine), thus indicating that they have some kind of abstract understanding of the instrumental case in this construction. This relatively early abstract knowledge of an idiosyncratic construction casts doubt on the view that early acquisition requires innate linguistic knowledge.

Graded representations in the acquisition of English and German transitive constructions

English and German children aged 2 years 4 months and 4 years heard both novel and familiar verbs in sentences whose form was grammatical, but which mismatched the event they were watching (e.g., ‘ The frog is pushing the lion’, when the lion was actually the ‘agent’ or ‘doer’ of the pushing). These verbs were then elicited in new sentences. All children mostly corrected the familiar verb (i.e., they used the agent as the grammatical subject), but there were cross-linguistic differences among the two-year-olds concerning the novel verb. When English 2-year-olds used the novel verb they mostly corrected. However, their most frequent response was to avoid using the novel verb altogether. German 2-year-olds corrected the novel verb significantly more often than their English counterparts, demonstrating more robust verb-general representations of agent- and patient-marking. These findings provide support for a ‘graded representations’ view of development, which proposes that grammatical representations may be simultaneously abstract but ‘weak’.

Processing of semantic relations in normal aging and Alzheimer's disease

The decline in semantic memory observed in Alzheimer's disease is presumed to result from progressive loss of the attributes underlying category representation. Here, we explored the possibility that semantic deterioration would affect attributes differently, depending on the type of semantic relationship connecting the subject and the object of the attribution. We compared the performance of 50 patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (APs) to that of 30 elderly controls in two semantic tasks: a verbal sentence verification task and a visual test of analogical relations, both including several types of semantic relations. On the sentence verification task, the performance of APs was comparable to that of elderly controls when statements were true, but deteriorated significantly when statements were false. This result was interpreted as a failure of controlled processes to successfully search semantic space when statements were incongruent or false. In addition, all participants found some semantic relations more difficult to process than others, with relative difficulty being consistent across tasks. Taxonomic semantic relations were the most difficult, while part/whole relations were the easiest, but also the ones to deteriorate most rapidly. In contrast, functional attributes were comparatively preserved as the disease progressed. These results emphasize the role of attention and semantic context in jointly determining access to relevant attributes and categories. Furthermore, they suggest that semantic memory impairments in Alzheimer's are affected by the type of processing and semantic relationship required by the task.

An Experimental Analysis of the Affective Dimensions of Deep Vocabulary Knowledge Used in Inferring the Meaning of Words in Context

This paper examines an under-studied component of deep vocabulary knowledge, affective meaning, which is used to convey attitudes. Two affective dimensions, evaluation and potency, are examined to determine whether they influence the vocabulary choices of native speakers of American-English in describing interpersonal interactions. In Experiment 1, 44 college students read sentences containing verbs that varied in class (experiencer or action), evaluation (positive or negative), and potency (high or low). These students were asked to choose adjectives to describe nouns filling the sentence thematic roles. In Experiment 2, 30 students chose sentence verbs, given sentences containing agents or stimuli and patients or experiencers with different levels of evaluation and potency. Students systematically used the evaluation and potency of the words to constrain their vocabulary choices. Results suggest that deep vocabulary knowledge includes subtle, affective aspects of word meaning, at least in some knowledge domains. These affective components are measurable, but they have not been systematically incorporated into assessment instruments that tap vocabulary depth. Affective components of vocabulary deserve more systematic attention in applied linguistics, because vocabulary depth is important for understanding the nature of vocabulary networks and for its contribution to proficiency in advanced L2 learners.

Native Thai Speakers’ Acquisition of English Word Stress Patterns

The influence of syllabic structure, lexical class and stress patterns of known words on the acquisition of the English stress system was investigated in ten native Thai speakers. All participants were adult learners of English with an average length of residence in the US of 1.4 years. They were asked to produce and give perceptual judgments on 40 English non-words of varying syllabic structures in noun and verb sentence frames. Results of the production data suggested that syllables with a long vowel attracted stress more often than syllables containing a short vowel and nouns received initial stress more often than verbs. Additionally, regression analyses with the three factors as predictors suggested that Thai participants' pattern of stress assignment on non-words was significantly influenced by the stress patterns of phonologically similar real words. These results were compared and contrasted to those found in previous work with Spanish-English and Korean-English bilinguals.

Effects of therapy targeted at verb retrieval and the realisation of the predicate argument structure: A case study

Background : Verb retrieval and sentence production difficulties are both common features of aphasia. Previous treatment studies have focused predominantly on verb retrieval and the mapping of semantic and syntactic structure. There have been more limited investigations of the production of the predicate argument structure (PAS). Aims : This study aimed to evaluate the outcome of intensive therapy for a client with aphasia. NS had multiple and interacting difficulties that resulted in problems in producing sentences. Therapy aimed to improve his sentence production by: (a) improving the retrieval of verbs, (b) increasing his awareness of the relationship between nouns and verbs, and (c) improving his production of one-, two-, and three-argument structures. The therapy thus targeted access to PAS information and PAS production as well as verb retrieval. Methods & Procedures : A period of intensive therapy, based around a set of 48 self-selected verbs, was preceded and followed by detailed assessment of NS's single word and sentence production and comprehension. Outcomes & Results : Therapy resulted in a significant improvement in NS's retrieval of the verbs involved in treatment but no generalisation to other verbs. His production of sentences showed more widespread changes. He produced more nouns within sentences, omitted fewer obligatory arguments, and produced a greater variety of argument structures in connected speech. Conclusions : Therapy resulted in a greater awareness of the need for a verb within a sentence and a strategy for producing the argument structure frame around that verb. Improved sentence production was therefore seen, although verb retrieval difficulties were still evident. The study replicates previous research that verb and sentence production difficulties can be treated effectively in people with aphasia. The effects of therapy on sentence production in constrained tasks and narrative speech are discussed.

Groupes nominaux négatifs issus de la réduction de verbes supports

On the basis of general syntactic operations, within Z. S. Harris framework, we establish, for Portuguese, a syntactic relation between negative NPs, headed by a predicative noun (e.g. A não ratificação desse tratado por parte de alguns países; The non-ratification of that treaty by some countries), and negative support verb sentences (Não houve ratificação desse tratado por parte de alguns países; There was no ratification of that treaty by some countries). Support verb sentences, in turn, correspond to the nominalization of negative verbal (and adjectival) sentences (Alguns países não ratificaram esse tratado; Some countries did not ratify that treaty). Such an approach also clarifies the linguistic status of the element não (non) occurring in negative noun phrases, with predicative nouns, a linguistic fact mentioned sporadically by grammarians, and treated by lexicographers in a totally inconsistent way. Theoretical data were verified experimentally for Portuguese, English and French, on real text corpora, and the results confirm the consistency of the analysis.

Early and late Spanish–English bilinguals' acquisition of English word stress patterns

Guion, Clark, Harada and Wayland (2003) found that three factors affect English speakers' stress placement on bisyllabic non-words: syllabic structure, lexical class and stress patterns of phonologically similar real words. The current replication and extension included three groups (N = 30): native English speakers, early Spanish–English bilinguals, and late Spanish–English bilinguals. Participants produced and gave perceptual judgments on 40 non-words of varying syllabic structures in noun and verb sentence frames. A regression analysis used the three factors to predict stress placement in production and perception. All three groups showed significant effects from stress patterns of phonologically similar real words and lexical class. The effect of syllabic structure for early bilinguals was slightly different from that of native speakers and late bilinguals showed greatly reduced effects. Late bilinguals exhibited more initial stress overall, possibly due to L1 transfer. These results run counter to the prediction made by Long (1990) about age effects on phonological acquisition.

Acquisition of English word stress patterns in early and late bilinguals

Given early acquisition of prosodic knowledge as demonstrated by infants’ sensitivity to native language accentual patterns, the question of whether learners can acquire new prosodic patterns across the life span arises. Acquisition of English stress by early and late Spanish–English and Korean–English bilinguals was investigated. In a production task, two-syllable nonwords were produced in noun and verb sentence frames. In a perception task, preference for first or last syllable stress on the nonwords was indicated. Also, real words that were phonologically similar to the nonwords were collected. Logistic regression analyses and ANOVAs were conducted to determine the effect of three factors (syllable structure, lexical class, and stress patterns of phonologically similar words) on the production and perception responses. In all three groups, stress patterns of phonologically similar real words predicted stress on nonwords. For the two other factors, early bilinguals patterned similarly to the native-English participants. Late Spanish–English bilinguals demonstrated less learning of stress patterns based on syllabic structure, and late Korean–English bilinguals demonstrated less learning of stress patterns based on lexical class than native-English speakers. Thus, compared to native speakers, late bilinguals’ ability to abstract stress patterns is reduced and affected by the first language. [Work supported by NIH.]