Set Of Nouns Research Articles

Cerebellum engages in automation of verb-generation skill.

Numerous studies have shown cerebellar involvement in item-specific association, a form of explicit learning. However, very few have demonstrated cerebellar participation in automation of non-motor cognitive tasks. Applying fMRI to a repeated verb-generation task, we sought to distinguish cerebellar involvement in learning of item-specific noun-verb association and automation of verb generation skill. The same set of nouns was repeated in six verb-generation blocks so that subjects practiced generating verbs for the nouns. The practice was followed by a novel block with a different set of nouns. The cerebellar vermis (IV/V) and the right cerebellar lobule VI showed decreased activation following practice; activation in the right cerebellar Crus I was significantly lower in the novel challenge than in the initial verb-generation task. Furthermore, activation in this region during well-practiced blocks strongly correlated with improvement of behavioral performance in both the well-practiced and the novel blocks, suggesting its role in the learning of general mental skills not specific to the practiced noun-verb pairs. Therefore, the cerebellum processes both explicit verbal associative learning and automation of cognitive tasks. Different cerebellar regions predominate in this processing: lobule VI during the acquisition of item-specific association, and Crus I during automation of verb-generation skills through practice.

Gauging the effects of exercises on verb–noun collocations

Many contemporary textbooks for English as a foreign language (EFL) and books for vocabulary study contain exercises with a focus on collocations, with verb–noun collocations (e.g. make a mistake) being particularly popular as targets for collocation learning. Common exercise formats used in textbooks and other pedagogic materials require learners to establish appropriate matches between sets of verbs and nouns. However, matching exercises almost inevitably carry a risk of erroneous connections, and despite corrective feedback these might leave undesirable traces in the learner’s memory. We report four small-scale trials (total n = 135) in which the learning gains obtained from verb–noun matching exercises are compared with the learning gains obtained from a format in which the target collocations are presented to the learners as intact wholes. Pre-test to post-test gains turned out small in all of the conditions, owing in part to the learners’ substitution of initially correct choices by distracters from the exercises. The latter, negative side-effect was attested more often in the matching exercises than in the exercises where the learners worked with collocations as intact wholes.

The learning of adjectives and nouns from affordance and appearance features

We study how a robot can link concepts represented by adjectives and nouns in language with its own sensorimotor interactions. Specifically, an iCub humanoid robot interacts with a group of objects using a repertoire of manipulation behaviors. The objects are labeled using a set of adjectives and nouns. The effects induced on the objects are labeled as affordances, and classifiers are learned to predict the affordances from the appearance of an object. We evaluate three different models for learning adjectives and nouns using features obtained from the appearance and affordances of an object, through cross-validated training as well as through testing on novel objects. The results indicate that shape-related adjectives are best learned using features related to affordances, whereas nouns are best learned using appearance features. Analysis of the feature relevancy shows that affordance features are more relevant for adjectives, and appearance features are more relevant for nouns. We show that adjective predictions can be used to solve the odd-one-out task on a number of examples. Finally, we link our results with studies from psychology, neuroscience and linguistics that point to the differences between the development and representation of adjectives and nouns in humans.

Do young children have adult-like syntactic categories? Zipf’s law and the case of the determiner

Generativist models of grammatical development assume that children have adult-like grammatical categories from the earliest observable stages, whereas constructivist models assume that children’s early categories are more limited in scope. In the present paper, we test these assumptions with respect to one particular syntactic category, the determiner. This is done by comparing controlled measures of overlap in the set of nouns with which children and their caregivers use different instances of the determiner category in their spontaneous speech. In a series of studies, we show, first, that it is important to control for both sample size and vocabulary range when comparing child and adult overlap measures; second, that, once the appropriate controls have been applied, there is significantly less overlap in the nouns with which young children use the determiners a/an and the in their speech than in the nouns with which their caregivers use these same determiners; and, third, that the level of (controlled) overlap in the nouns that the children use with the determiners a/an and the increases significantly over the course of development. The implication is that children do not have an adult-like determiner category during the earliest observable stages, and that their knowledge of the determiner category only gradually approximates that of adults as a function of their linguistic experience.

Countability in world Englishes

ABSTRACTIn this study we explored variation in the countability of nouns in Outer Circle, Expanding Circle and lingua franca Englishes, a phenomenon which is frequently cited as a marker of Inner Circle norms in TESOL and of endonormative and emerging varieties in the Outer and Expanding Circles. We inspected a set of mass nouns likeinformationandequipmentin the VOICE corpus and websites from Outer and Expanding Circle country domains. We also evaluated potential causes of variation, investigating differences between Outer and Expanding Circles and the contribution of substrate influence. Our data show notable and widespread countable use of nouns that are generally non‐count in Inner Circle Englishes, but such usage is highly infrequent overall. There appears to be greater variation in the Outer than the Expanding Circle, but little evidence of a determining role for substrate influence. We conclude that the prominence given to countability as a marker of ‘nativeness’ and ‘non‐nativeness’ is unhelpful, in both the prescriptive context of TESOL and the descriptive contexts of world Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca. We advocate the use of web‐based corpora to investigate lexico‐grammatical variation in lingua franca usage and to reveal the ‘plurilithic’ nature of English.

Salience and construal in the use of synonymy: A study of two sets of near-synonymous nouns

AbstractVia a corpus-based collocation analysis and a forced-choice questionnaire examination, this study investigates the use of two sets of near-synonymous nouns: authority/power/right and duty/obligation/responsibility. The corpus analysis reveals the prototypical meanings of the nouns in each set and the semantic and usage pattern differences among the synonymous nouns. Also, the corpus analysis and the results of the forced-choice study jointly show that the level of lexical salience and the language users' construal are two key factors in the use of synonymous nouns. Due to entrenchment effects, speakers/writers typically use a synonymous noun with the highest salience in a given semantic context unless the speaker/writer's construal operations result in a decision to use a different noun whose prototypical meaning fits the context better. It is also found that the selection of a non-salient noun in a given context typically signifies a difference in meaning. Furthermore, the meanings of synonymous nouns and the internal semantic structure of a synonymous-noun set seem to show a certain degree of fluidity, influenced by the competition of lexical salience and language users' construal. The study has also demonstrated the effectiveness of combining corpus-based analysis and elicited data examination in the study of synonyms.

The Effect of Focus on Form and Focus on Forms Instruction on the Acquisition of Productive Knowledge of L2 Vocabulary by Young Beginning‐Level Learners

The purpose of the study reported in this article is to investigate the effect of two instructional approaches—focus on forms (FonFs) and focus on form (FonF)—on the acquisition of a set of nouns and adjectives by young Japanese children who were complete beginners. The article begins by defining FonFs and FonF and considering the theoretical rationale for each. The author then examines how FonFs (operationalized as present‐practice‐produce) and FonF (operationalized through task‐based teaching) can be realized. It is demonstrated that in the case of beginning‐level learners, task‐based teaching is best operationalized in terms of comprehension‐based rather than production‐based tasks. The article concludes with a review of the research that has compared the effects of FonFs and FonF on vocabulary acquisition.

Lexical Connection: Semiterm Grammatical Patterns in Spanish

The aim of this paper is to describe the grammatical patterns of a set of nouns frequently used in Spanish specialized discourse: the so-called semiterms. The following nouns were selected for the study: problema ‘problem’, resultado ‘result’, motivo ‘motive/reason’, razon ‘reason’, and consecuencia ‘consequence’. Apart from designating specialized concepts in different fields, they can be used to provide structure, introduce information into the text, and act as lexical connectors. The grammatical and lexicographical description of these semiterms is compared with the results provided by consulting the Corpus de Referencia del Espanol Actual (CREA) database of the Real Academia Espanola in three thematic fields: Science and Technology, Economics and Finance, and Law. The results of the research highlight three specific patterns of use for the semiterms in specialized texts, placing particular emphasis on the constructions that contribute to the texture of discourse. It is proposed that these patterns should be incorporated into dictionaries of use (codifiers) as lexicographical data that may enrich the information given about these nouns, whose meanings are clearly diffuse.

Predicted errors in children’s early sentence comprehension

Children use syntax to interpret sentences and learn verbs; this is syntactic bootstrapping. The structure-mapping account of early syntactic bootstrapping proposes that a partial representation of sentence structure, the set of nouns occurring with the verb, guides initial interpretation and provides an abstract format for new learning. This account predicts early successes, but also telltale errors: Toddlers should be unable to tell transitive sentences from other sentences containing two nouns. In testing this prediction, we capitalized on evidence that 21-month-olds use what they have learned about noun order in English sentences to understand new transitive verbs. In two experiments, 21-month-olds applied this noun-order knowledge to two-noun intransitive sentences, mistakenly assigning different interpretations to “The boy and the girl are gorping!” and “The girl and the boy are gorping!”. This suggests that toddlers exploit partial representations of sentence structure to guide sentence interpretation; these sparse representations are useful, but error-prone.

Between Feminine Singular and Neuter Plural: Re‐Analysis Patterns

AbstractStarting from the investigation of some neuter o stems that attest either masculine or feminine doublets in Latin, this paper discusses the development of the thematic neuter and its status within the Latin gender system. Thematic neuters may be regarded as one of the latest innovations in the Indo‐European family, and most of them developed independently within the individual languages. Latin evidence shows in fact that some neuter o stems were created at a historical stage from ancient masculines of the same inflectional class. Particular attention is paid here to a set of nouns exhibiting fluctuations between a second‐declension neuter o stem and a first‐declension feminine ā stem. These gender variations throw light on a progressive change of gender, and a detailed chronological examination actually reveals that all these forms are originally feminine nouns re‐analysed as thematic neuters – an evolutionary pattern that is the opposite of what is currently assumed. This gender change can be related to the diachronic development of a number of morpho‐syntactic patterns, which may have favoured such a re‐analysis and which might have led to the genesis of these thematic neuters as a pure inner‐Latin phenomenon.

Sources of variance in the audiovisual perception of speech in noise

The sight of a talker’s face dramatically influences the perception of auditory speech. This effect is most commonly observed when subjects are presented audiovisual (AV) stimuli in the presence of acoustic noise. However, the magnitude of the gain in perception that vision adds varies considerably in published work. Here we report data from an ongoing study of individual differences in AV speech perception when English words are presented in an acoustically noisy background. A large set of monosyllablic nouns was presented at 7 signal-to-noise ratios (pink noise) in both AV and auditory-only (AO) presentation modes. The stimuli were divided into 14 blocks of 25 words and each block was equated for spoken frequency using the SUBTLEXus database (Brysbaert and New, 2009). The presentation of the stimulus blocks was counterbalanced across subjects for noise level and presentation. In agreement with Sumby and Pollack (1954), the accuracy of both AO and AV increase monotonically with signal strength with the greatest visual gain being when the auditory signal was weakest. These average results mask considerable variability due to subject (individual differences in auditory and visual perception), stimulus (lexical type, token articulation) and presentation (signal and noise attributes) factors. We will discuss how these sources of variance impede comparisons between studies.

Mechanisms of change in the evolution of jargon aphasia

Background: The evolution of jargon aphasia may reflect recovery in the speech production processes. Alternatively or additionally there may be improved self-monitoring, enabling the person to suppress jargon errors. Previous case reports offer evidence for both mechanisms of change, and suggest that they can co-occur. Aims: This longitudinal study aimed to uncover mechanisms of change in an individual with jargon aphasia. Four predictions of production processing recovery were examined against test data. The study also looked for evidence of improved error awareness, in both test and connected speech data, and explored the relationship between this improvement and the production gains. Methods & Procedures: The participant (TK) undertook tests of single word naming, reading and repetition eight times over a 21-month period, with matched sets of nouns and verbs. Analyses of correct responses and errors were conducted, in order to test predictions of processing recovery. Changes in self-monitoring behaviours were also investigated, to uncover evidence of increased error awareness. Finally, longitudinal changes in samples of connected speech were explored. Outcomes & Results: Two predictions of production processing recovery were upheld: there was a significant increase in the number of correct responses over time, and a significant decrease in the proportion of nonword errors. The error analysis also revealed a trend towards increased target-relatedness and decreased perseveration, but neither was significant. There was an increase in self-monitoring behaviours during testing, in that there were more null responses and attempted self-corrections. This increase correlated very strongly with the production gains. Connected speech showed little evidence of improved production, since the range of vocabulary employed by TK reduced as time progressed. However, self-monitoring behaviours were increasingly evident in this context. Conclusions: The origin of the production and monitoring gains experienced by TK are discussed. Implications are drawn out for further research.

WHAT SHOULD WE CALL THE FORAMINIFERA?

Research Article| October 01, 2011 WHAT SHOULD WE CALL THE FORAMINIFERA? Jere H. Lipps; Jere H. Lipps 4 1Department of Integrative Biology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3140 USA2Museum of Paleontology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3140 USA 4Correspondence author. E-mail: jlipps@berkeley.edu Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Kenneth L. Finger; Kenneth L. Finger 2Museum of Paleontology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3140 USA Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Sally E. Walker Sally E. Walker 3Department of Geology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-2501 USA Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Author and Article Information Jere H. Lipps 4 1Department of Integrative Biology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3140 USA2Museum of Paleontology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3140 USA Kenneth L. Finger 2Museum of Paleontology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-3140 USA Sally E. Walker 3Department of Geology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-2501 USA 4Correspondence author. E-mail: jlipps@berkeley.edu Publisher: Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research Received: 01 Jun 2011 Accepted: 31 Jul 2011 First Online: 13 Jul 2017 Online ISSN: 1943-264X Print ISSN: 0096-1191 © 2011 Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research Journal of Foraminiferal Research (2011) 41 (4): 309–313. https://doi.org/10.2113/gsjfr.41.4.309 Article history Received: 01 Jun 2011 Accepted: 31 Jul 2011 First Online: 13 Jul 2017 Cite View This Citation Add to Citation Manager Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Search Site Citation Jere H. Lipps, Kenneth L. Finger, Sally E. Walker; WHAT SHOULD WE CALL THE FORAMINIFERA?. Journal of Foraminiferal Research 2011;; 41 (4): 309–313. doi: https://doi.org/10.2113/gsjfr.41.4.309 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Refmanager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentBy SocietyJournal of Foraminiferal Research Search Advanced Search Abstract Shelled granuloreticulose microorganisms have had a complex etymological history that began in 1826 when d’Orbigny gave his new order the name Foraminifères and characterized the group. Soon afterwards, further examination and proper Latinization established them as class Foraminifera. D’Orbigny should be credited with the suprafamilial group name, regardless of rank, because he provided defining characteristics, and also because higher taxa are not governed by ICZN rules; in addition, we should consider the history of its attribution and what is traditional and customary in zoological nomenclature. The name Foraminifera is the source of a variety of informal terms, including foraminifera, foraminifer, foraminiferan, and for-am. Long after being demoted to order, the Latinized name was modified to Foraminiferida in 1964 by Loeblich and Tappan, the informal foraminiferid was introduced later. Here, we briefly examine these terms as sets of singular and plural nouns, and their derived adjectives and nouns that begin with foram-. Authors can choose any of the derived terms, but they should be consistent by using only one term-set throughout their paper. Other nouns derived from foraminifer-, such as foraminiferologist for a student of the group, are not usually part of a term-set.The informal term foram is a valid derivation and it is the most common of the names used in conversation among earth scientists and biologists. It is already accepted in major dictionaries and literature, and it has been used in specific word pairs found in scientific publications. In addition, foram eases communication by its multilingual applicability; it is also the easiest of the terms to pronounce, write, and read. For all these reasons, its use may increase in scientific literature. You do not have access to this content, please speak to your institutional administrator if you feel you should have access.

Embodied representation of the body contains veridical spatial information

In two experiments, the extent to which mental body representations contain spatial information was examined. Participants were asked to compare distances between various body parts. Similar to what happens when people compare distances on a real visual stimulus, they were faster as the distance differences between body parts became larger (Experiment 1), and this effect could not (only) be explained by the crossing of major bodily categories (umbilicus to knee vs. knee to ankle; Experiment 2). In addition, participants also performed simple animate/inanimate verification on a set of nouns. The nouns describing animate items were names of body parts. A spatial priming effect was found: Verification was faster for body part items preceded by body parts in close spatial proximity. This suggests automatic activation of spatial body information. Taken together, results from the distance comparison task and the property verification task showed that mental body representations contain both categorical and more metric spatial information. These findings are further discussed in terms of recent embodied cognition theories.

A controlled study of changes in conversation following aphasia therapy for anomia

This paper investigates the relationship between change in picture naming with anomia therapy and changes in word retrieval in conversations between adults with aphasia and a regular conversational partner. We present data from two therapy projects (Hickin et al. [] and Best et al. []). In each study, therapy involved cueing with the aim of improving retrieval of a set of nouns. Naming of the experimental items was assessed twice prior to therapy and again immediately afterwards. There was a significant change in word finding, as measured by picture naming, for the group and for 11 of the 13 participants. At the same time points, we collected conversations between the person with aphasia and a regular conversational partner. We analysed these using Profile of Word Errors and Retrieval in Speech (Herbert et al. []) and investigated a set of conversational variables predicted to change with therapy. Unsurprisingly, the conversation data is not straightforward. There is no significant change on the conversation measures for the group but some changes for individuals. We predicted change in word retrieval after therapy would relate to change in everyday conversations and tested this by correlating the change (post-therapy minus mean pre-therapy) in picture naming with the change in conversation variables. There was a significant positive relationship between the change in picture naming and change in some conversation measures including the number of nouns produced in 5 min of conversation (r = 0.50, p < 0.05, one-tailed) and the number of nouns produced per substantive turn (r = 0.55, p < 0.05, one-tailed). The findings suggest changes in word finding following therapy for aphasia can be reflected in changes in conversation. The clinical implications of the complex results are explored.

A corpus study of semantic patterns in compounding

Studies of modifier-noun compounds have indicated that they tend to follow regular semantic patterns (e.g., Downing, Language 53: 810–842, 1977; Warren, Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. Gothenburg Studies in English Goteborg 41: 1–266, 1978). The results of several psycholinguistic studies have supported the hypothesis that people rely on statistical knowledge about how nouns tend to be used in combination in order to facilitate the interpretation of novel compounds (e.g., Gagné &amp; Shoben, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 23: 71–87, 1997; Maguire, Maguire &amp; Cater, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 36: 288–297, 2010; Storms &amp; Wisniewski, Memory and Cognition 33: 852–861, 2005). We conducted a series of corpus analyses in order to establish the salience and reliability of semantic patterns in English compounds. These analyses demonstrated that similar concepts tend to appear in combination with similar sets of nouns. In addition, categorizing combinations according to the semantic category of the modifier and head revealed consistent regularities in productivity reflecting the likelihood of plausible relationships. These findings support the idea that statistical knowledge about semantic patterns in compounding can be used to facilitate the interpretation of novel compounds. The implications for existing theories and models of conceptual combination are discussed.

Improved vocabulary production after naming therapy in aphasia: can gains in picture naming generalise to connected speech?

Naming accuracy for nouns and verbs in aphasia can vary across different elicitation contexts, for example, simple picture naming, composite picture description, narratives, and conversation. For some people with aphasia, naming may be more accurate to simple pictures as opposed to naming in spontaneous, connected speech; for others, the opposite pattern may be evident. These differences have, in some instances, been related to word class (for example, noun or verb) as well as aphasia subtype. Given that the aim of picture-naming therapies is to improve word-finding in general, these differences in naming accuracy across contexts may have important implications for the potential functional benefits of picture-naming therapies. This study aimed to explore single-word therapy for both nouns and verbs, and to answer the following questions. (1) To what extent does an increase in naming accuracy after picture-naming therapy (for both nouns and verbs) predict accurate naming of the same items in less constrained spontaneous connected speech tasks such as composite picture description and retelling of a narrative? (2) Does the word class targeted in therapy (verb or noun) dictate whether there is 'carry-over' of the therapy item to connected speech tasks? (3) Does the speed at which the picture is named after therapy predict whether it will also be used appropriately in connected speech tasks? Seven participants with aphasia of varying degrees of severity and subtype took part in ten therapy sessions over five weeks. A set of potentially useful items was collected from control participant accounts of the Cookie Theft Picture Description and the Cinderella Story from the Quantitative Production Analysis. Twenty-four of these words (twelve verbs and twelve nouns) were collated for each participant, on the basis that they had failed to name them in either simple picture naming or connected speech tasks (picture-supported narrative and unsupported retelling of a narrative). These were placed in a larger cohort of verb and noun sets for therapy. Post-therapy assessments examined naming accuracy and speed of target items in single-word picture-naming and naming accuracy in connected speech contexts. There was a step-wise decrement in naming accuracy over the three naming contexts following targeted therapy. Simple pictures elicited the most correct names, followed by picture-supported narratives and lastly unsupported narratives. Picture-naming accuracy significantly predicted naming in the connected speech contexts for the group as a whole. The speed of picture naming after therapy did not predict the extent to which items were named in composite picture description and narrative tasks. The findings suggest that gains in naming accuracy obtained through picture-naming therapy may generalize to naming of the same items in more linguistically and cognitively demanding connected speech tasks. Demonstrating this generalization is methodologically challenging and the method utilized in this study may serve as one starting point for gathering a larger database in order to answer the question posed by this paper more robustly.

Analogical change and grammatical gender in ancient Greek

Analogical change is often invoked to explain evolutionary patterns witnessed in gender systems, despite the fact that analogy as a linguistic principle is still relatively poorly understood. Taking an apparently simple analogical change from the history of Greek as a starting point, namely the shift of 2nd declension nouns in -os from the Feminine gender to the Masculine, this paper demonstrates that such changes in gender can best be explained from the point of view of category formation rather than by traditional conceptions of analogy (proportional analogy, levelling, etc.). It argues instead that usage patterns (frequency, saliency) and principles of animacy best explain the phenomena witnessed and, in contrast to other accounts of changes in gender, it focuses on principles of change in the gender of individual words. Detailed and quantitative historical data for a small set of nouns which display this change are also presented which begin to indicate where changes in gender first take place in the paradigm. The results suggest that highly animate nouns may play an important role in restricting certain changes within the gender system as a whole. This new approach offers potentially fruitful avenues for further research on principles of analogical change and their application to the evolution of grammatical gender.

On flexible and rigid nouns

This article argues that in addition to the major flexible lexical categories in Hengeveld’s classification of parts-of-speech systems (Contentive, Non-Verb, Modifier), there are also flexible word classes within the rigid lexical category Noun (Set Noun, Sort Noun, General Noun). Members of flexible word classes are characterized by their vague semantics, which in the case of nouns means that values for the semantic features Shape and Homogeneity are either left undetermined or they are specified in such a way that they do not quite match the properties of the kind of entity denoted by the flexible item in the external world. I will then argue that flexible word classes constitute a proper category (i.e. they are not the result of a merger of some rigid word classes) in that members of flexible word categories display the same properties regarding category membership as members of rigid word classes. Finally this article wants to claim that the distinction between rigid and flexible noun categories (a) adds a new dimension to current classifications of parts-of-speech systems, (b) correlates with certain grammatical phenomena (e.g. so-called number discord), and (c) helps to explain the parts-of-speech hierarchy.

On Sociological Writing*

It is widely thought, both inside and outside our profession, that sociologists do not express themselves very well. The critic Malcolm Cowley complained years ago that the wisdoms of sociology, such as they are, tend to be conveyed "in a language that has to be learned almost like Esperanto." And Edmund Wilson, who once toyed with the idea that the writing of every specialist in the university should be reviewed by professors of English, doubted that sociologists would ever be able to survive such a test. Exposing the defects of sociological writing is a literary sport of long standing.