Specific Verbs Research Articles

Gradually increasing context-sensitivity shapes the development of children's verb marking: A corpus study.

There is substantial evidence that children's apparent omission of grammatical morphemes in utterances such as "She play tennis" and "Mummy eating" is in fact errors of commission in which contextually licensed unmarked forms encountered in the input are reproduced in a context-blind fashion. So how do children stop making such errors? In this study, we test the assumption that children's ability to recover from error is related to their developing sensitivity to longer-range dependencies. We use a pre-registered corpus analysis to explore the predictive value of different cues with regards to children's verb-marking errors and observe a developmental pattern consistent with this account. We look at context-independent cues (the identity of the specific verb being used) and at the relative value of context-dependent cues (the identity of the specific subject+verb sequence being used). We find that the only consistent effect across a group of 2- to 3-year-olds and a group of 3- to 4-year-olds is the relative frequency of unmarked forms of specific subject+verb sequences being used. The relative frequency of unmarked forms of the verb alone is predictive only in the younger age group. This is consistent with an account in which children recover from making errors by becoming progressively more sensitive to context, at first the immediately preceding lexical contexts (e.g., the subject that precedes the verb) and eventually more distant grammatical markers (e.g., the fronted auxiliary that precedes the subject in questions). RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: We provide a corpus analysis investigating input effects on young children's verb-marking errors (e.g., Mummy go) across development (between 2 and 4 years of age). We find evidence that these apparent errors of omission are in fact input-driven errors of commission that persist into the third year of life. We compare the relative effect on error rates of context-independent (e.g., verb) and context-dependent (e.g., subject+verb sequence) cues across developmental time. Our findings support the proposal that children recover from making verb-marking errors by becoming progressively more sensitive to preceding context.

Analysis of Dataset Limitations in Semantic Knowledge-Driven Multi-Variant Machine Translation

In this study, we explore the implications of dataset limitations in semantic knowledge-driven machine translation (MT) for intelligent virtual assistants (IVA). Our approach diverges from traditional single-best translation techniques, utilizing a multi-variant MT method that generates multiple valid translations per input sentence through a constrained beam search. This method extends beyond the typical constraints of specific verb ontologies, embedding within a broader semantic knowledge framework. We evaluate the performance of multi-variant MT models in translating training sets for Natural Language Understanding (NLU) models. These models are applied to semantically diverse datasets, including a detailed evaluation using the standard MultiATIS++ dataset. The results from this evaluation indicate that while multi-variant MT method is promising, its impact on improving intent classification (IC) accuracy is limited when applied to conventional datasets such as MultiATIS++. However, our findings underscore that the effectiveness of multi-variant translation is closely associated with the diversity and suitability of the datasets utilized. Finally, we provide an in-depth analysis focused on generating variant-aware NLU datasets. This analysis aims to offer guidance on enhancing NLU models through semantically rich and variant-sensitive datasets, maximizing the advantages of multi-variant MT.

Analysis of verb argument constructions (VACs) in L2 learners across proficiency levels: A corpus-based study in L1 Indonesian

This study investigated the constructional knowledge development of L1 Indonesian by examining nineteen Verb-Argument Constructions (VACs). The VACs examined in the present study are a verb pattern, followed by a preposition and a noun phrase, for example, “V about N” as in “He talkedaboutthe progress”. This study used the Indonesian subset of the Education First Cambridge Open Language Database (EFCAMDAT) corpus from beginner to advanced levels (CEFR A1 to C1; Council of Europe, 2001). This dataset comprises 2943 writing texts (224,763 words) from 623 learners. Frequency analysis of types and tokens was conducted to examine the distribution of the 19 VACs in learner writings across levels. Growth analyses were conducted to investigate the verbs that learners most frequently associated with the most productive VACs. Correlational analyses were conducted to explore how closely related the verb-VAC associations between proficiency levels and the verb occupants in the associations. The results indicate that learners’ constructional knowledge development was implied by: (1) the frequency increase in types and tokens of VACs from lower to higher proficiency levels, (2) the variety of verbs associated with VACs, and (3) the construction schematicity increase indicated by the use of general to more specific verb productions distinct to proficiency levels. The results suggest that English language learners need more exposure to lexicogrammatical features to facilitate VACs acquisition and usage.

Unstable Statives – An Observational Study: How British Popular Culture Reveals What is Happening to A Specific Verb Class, and the Possible Reasons for This Development

That a certain class of verb commonly known as ‘statives’ is undergoing change in terms of the way in which certain verbs of this type are being used in everyday speech is nothing new to the field of linguistics. Much has been written about it, and the author of this paper alone has been preoccupied with the subject for many years now. However, notwithstanding that this change has been fairly widely documented for well over half a century, the present paper has been motivated by the desire to capture the root cause of this change in writing and to establish the linguistic conditions that have enabled it to occur. This is not so much a reductionist venture, negatively conceived, as a quest to determine the primary factors involved in what can seem at times to be a most peculiar phenomenon. The method employed to delimit these causal factors proceeds by a process of elimination, while the provision of evidence adopts the traditional, tried-and-tested method of ‘observation and collection’. The stative-specific research papers that examine the current variation constituting the focus of this paper are all from the present century.

High frequency as a morphomic coherence inhibitor: evidence from the evolution of some Catalan verbs

Abstract During the Middle Ages, a new verb class was formed within the Catalan 2nd conjugation, characterized by the presence of a velar augment (/g/ or /sk/) in the L-pattern (first-person present indicative and present subjunctive) and PYTA (preterite, old conditional and imperfect subjunctive). In this paper, we study three verbs that avoided, totally or partially, the analogical velarization undergone by most 2nd conjugation verbs: haver ‘to have’, ser ‘to be’, and voler ‘to want’. Based on a corpus of Catalan works ranging from the 13th to the 19th century, we test the extent to which the L- and PYTA-patterns of these three verbs are psychologically real for speakers. The results confirm what some authors have already observed for other languages, pointing out that the high frequency of these specific verbs or the need for phonological congruence could inhibit the morphomic pattern or even block analogical levelling.

Morphosyntactic underspecification affects the processing of verbal forms at different levels of abstraction in L1 and L2 German

Abstract Using a priming paradigm, we investigated the processing of overtly identical verb forms with different sets of morphosyntactic features in L1 and L2 German. We found that more specific functions of a verb (inflected verbs) were better primes for less specific verb functions (past participles) than vice versa. For L1 speakers, these priming asymmetries were observed regardless of whether the lexical verb was repeated in prime and target or not (i.e., priming also for abstract configurations). For L2 learners, a similar but not native-like asymmetric priming pattern was seen only with repetition of the lexical verb. It was absent when the verb was not repeated. We conclude that in L2, morphosyntactic information is processed more on a lexical, item-based level compared to L1. We discuss our results in the context of several accounts, e.g., Shallow Structure Hypothesis, Declarative Procedural Model and the Ontogenesis Model of the L2 Lexical Representation.

Language and cultural creolisation in nigerian script texts

This article deals with the peculiarities of script texts being a part of cinematography – one of modern art form. The scientific problem is determined by the trend towards globalisation of all contemporary art types, on the one hand, and the need to preserve cultural heritage, on the other hand. The aim of the work is to identify the characteristic features of Nigerian English script texts – phenomena created due to creolisation process defined as the process of British English adapting procedure to the realities of local languages and cultures. The Nigerian script text is a creolised type of text with characteristic of unique properties – the presence of detailed instructions in the form of author’s remarks which provide expanded information for subsequent stepwise actions for the director, actors, editors, makeup and costume designers; a double process of creolisation due to the necessary adaptation to numerous local languages and cultures. It is proved that Nigerian script texts, influenced by the process of creolisation, are largely subject to grammatical transformations. The most productive grammatical changes include: the consistent use of nouns and pronouns within the same semantic group; the simplification of the specific verb forms manifested in the use of simple forms and omission of auxiliary verbs in interrogative and negative sentences. High-frequency grammatical transformation processes in Nigerian script texts are explained by the influence of tribal languages and be needs of the Nigerians to preserve the heritage of local cultures.

"تأثير القراءات القرآنية بالنحو العربي في سورة الجمعة "دراسة تحليلية تطبيقية The Effect of Quranic Readings in Arabic Grammar and its Implementation in Surah al-Jumu'ah

This research focuses on an analytical study, specifically the impact of Quranic readings on Arabic grammar, and its application in surah al-Jumu'ah. The study consists of four sections, starting with the introductory section, which discusses the linguistic and figurative meanings in surah al-Jumu'ah. The first section elucidates the relationship between grammar and Quranic readings, while the second section explores the nouns mentioned in surah al-Jumu'ah from the perspective of grammarians and reciters. The third section examines the verbs mentioned in surah al-Jumu'ah and their interpretation by grammarians and reciters. Finally, the fourth and last section presents the researcher's analysis of the letters mentioned in the surah from the perspective of grammarians and reciters. The study concludes that grammatical factors have a significant influence on Quranic readings. It also highlights specific verbs mentioned in surah Al-Jumu'ah, are yahmilu, hummiluw, infadhuw. The study recommends that grammarians and linguists adjust their rules and derive them from the methodology of the Noble Quran. Additionally, it advises readers to recite the Quran in the narration transmitted by the companions without being concerned about deviating from analogy (qiyas) or adhering to it.

Verb tenses as a means of expressing simultaneity in the English and Russian languages (based on the verb “to do” and the conjunction “when”)

The article examines the possibility of expressing simultaneity using the verb “to do” and the conjunction “when” in one sentence. The relevance of the research is due to the need for comprehensive systematic studies of verbal and non-verbal means of expressing the category of simultaneity in English and Russian separately and in comparative terms. To achieve the purpose of the study, the following tasks were set and solved: 1) the tense forms of verbs in English and Russian, which help to express simultaneity; 2) the frequency of use of various tense forms based on a specific verb and conjunction in the compared languages. We used descriptive and comparative methods to implement the tasks set. The theoretical significance of the study lies in the fact that it allows us to identify the features of expressing simultaneity in two different-structured languages. The scientific results and theoretical positions obtained in the course of our work can be used in the further study of simultaneity. The practical results of the research can be used in teaching functional semantics, general and comparative linguistics. The theoretical basis of the research was the works of Russian and foreign authors devoted to the study of simultaneity and its categories.

Stativity and inchoativity

Abstract States, long considered a homogeneous event class, have been shown to actually decompose into sufficiently distinct aspectual types. Davidsonian and Kimian statives (Maienborn 2008; Rothmayr 2009), for instance, show a major contrast in presence/absence of event-related properties, including finer-grained (sub)class distinctions. Within the Davidsonian (mixed eventive-stative) type, a novel class has been identified using Spanish data as reference (Marín and McNally 2011). This class, dubbed inchoative stative is characterized by including a left boundary (Piñón 1997) marking the temporal onset of the state. We focus on documented Old Spanish data to argue that non-eventive (Kimian-like) left-bounded states are also possible. We note that productive combinations of the locative copula estar ‘be-loc’ with past participles of specific verbs produce distinct selectional and interpretive patterns defined by (i) pure states (homogenous spatial situation); (ii) no change-of-state/location denotation; (iii) left boundary. If correct, data suggest that inchoative stativity is not necessarily a Davidsonian type of predication; and that two distinct types of inchoative statives should be carefully differentiated under (more) specific criteria.

Adapting Bloom’s Taxonomy for Designing Grammar Activities to Teach English Tenses at IUH

This experimental study aimed to investigate the application of Bloom's taxonomy in teaching grammar, specifically English tenses, at IUH. The researchers aim to enhance the teaching and learning process of English tenses by incorporating higher-order thinking skills into the activities. Two groups of students, DHAV18A (n=42) and DHAV18B (n=45) were involved in the study. After teaching the English tenses chapter in the grammar course, the views of the students were surveyed regarding the self-study section and in-class activities that utilized a high level of Bloom's taxonomy. Additionally, students' scores on a test were analyzed, revealing that 90% of students were able to answer basic questions correctly, while 80% were able to answer difficult questions that required the application and creation levels of Bloom's taxonomy. The study also outlines the specific steps taken to adapt the taxonomy, including the identification of specific verbs and cognitive processes related to teaching English tenses. The adapted taxonomy is then used to design a set of grammar activities for each tense. Finally, the researchers conducted a pilot study to evaluate the effectiveness of the activities in terms of student engagement and learning outcomes. The findings suggest that the adapted taxonomy can be successfully applied in designing grammar activities for teaching English tenses, leading to improved student engagement and learning outcomes. The study concludes with recommendations for further research and implications for language teaching

Causal Semantics for Implicative Verbs

Abstract Implicative verbs (e.g., manage, dare) are characterized by complement inferences (Karttunen, 1971). English manage entails its complement; the entailment reverses polarity with matrix negation, and is accompanied by a projective inference to the complement’s non-triviality (Coleman, 1975; Karttunen & Peters, 1979). I use data from Finnish and English to argue that the implicative inferential profile is derived from backgrounded relations of causal necessity and causal sufficiency (defined over the structure of a formal causal model; Pearl 2000; Schulz 2011) which link the lexical content of an implicative verb to the realization of its complement. The proposal builds on Baglini & Francez’s (2016) causal analysis of manage, but significantly revises the earlier proposal to offer a treatment which accounts not only for English manage, but extends to the lexical semantics of the full implicative class, including ‘polarity-reversing’ verbs like fail, lexically specific verbs like dare, and their Finnish counterparts. Unlike earlier analyses, the proposed causal semantics also provides a natural explanation of the commonalities between two-way entailing verbs like manage and a related class of weaker ‘one-way’ implicatives such as Finnish jaksaa (‘have the strength’), which entail complement truth values under only one matrix polarity, but generate strong pragmatic implicatures in the two-way implicative pattern under the non-entailing polarity.

Абстрактность и конкретность значения слова как лексико-семантическая категория

The aim of the study is to determine the abstractness and concreteness of a word at the lexico-semantic level (involving the material of the German language). The paper sheds light on the notions of the abstractness and concreteness of the meaning of a word, which will make it possible to see a lexico-semantic category in these phenomena. The scientific novelty lies in establishing a category derived not only from the nominative function of words, but also from the properties of the lexico-semantic level of the language system and manifested in the properties of the meanings of words. The main characteristics of the meanings of words depend on whether a verb is the head in the paradigm and also on the order of the paradigm or if it is a verb member of the paradigm and in this case, the order does not matter. In the process of examining the system of verbal meanings of the modern German language, the hierarchy and structure of lexico-semantic verbal paradigms were revealed. As a result, it was proved that the criteria for determining the abstractness or concreteness of the meaning are the abstraction of paradigmatic and syntagmatic properties of some verbs, the abstractness of verbs expressed in the extensive nature of their syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations in the language system and the definiteness of the same properties in specific verbs with clear paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations.

Karakteristik Tes Pilihan Majemuk dan Potensinya dalam Mengukur Kemampuan Berpikir Tingkat Tinggi

This study describes an effective strategy for building multiple-choice tests that can be implemented in assessing higher-order thinking. Its application in education is mainly to measure students' cognitive skills. Some of the steps used to construct this compound choice test include manipulating specific verb targets, reversing items, and using high-quality distractors. This study found that compound choice items have great potential for assessing higher-order thinking.

A Corpus-Based Study on Historical Changes in the Usages of the Be/get Passives in American English

Objectives The objective of this thesis is to explore the semantic and syntactic characteristics of the be-passive and get-passive constructions and their usage in corpus data. The primary focus of this thesis is to distinguish between the be-passive and get-passive constructions by providing multiple examples for comparison. Furthermore, it delves deeper into the get-passive construction, categorizing it into different levels of usage.
 Methods This study examines the frequency and usage patterns of be-passive and get-passive constructions from 1810 to 2010, with a focus on their overall frequency and historical evolution across four different time periods. It also investigates how these constructions are used in different genres and analyzes the bonded verbs frequently linked with the get-passive. Additionally, corpus data will be analyzed to gain insights into the real-world contexts of these constructions at the lexical level.
 Results The usage of get-passives has been progressively rising between 1990 and 2010, whereas the occurrence of the be-passive has been decreasing. This suggests that the usage of these constructions may be influenced by social context. There are specific verbs that tend to be more frequently used with the get-passive construction.
 Conclusions The get-passive and be-passive in English have distinct characteristics that set them apart from each other. Although they can usually be used interchangeably, each type of passive creates unique grammatical features. Analyzing the actual usage of the be-passive and get-passive through data from the COHA corpus is a viable approach for evaluating their overall properties.

How Does English Encode ‘Tight’ Vs. ‘Loose-fit’ Motion Events? It’s Complicated

ABSTRACT Linguistic encoding of spatial events has long provided a forum for examining how languages encode space, how children learn their native encodings, and whether cross-linguistic differences affect non-linguistic representations of space. One prominent case concerns motion events in which objects are moved into tight or loose-fit relationships of containment or support. Seminal findings from Bowerman showed that young children learning Korean regularly use specific verbs to encode tight/loose fit across containment and support relationships, whereas children learning English use prepositions to encode containment or support (e.g. in/on) across the tight/loose fit distinction. Others have asked how these early-acquired differences affect non-linguistic encoding of similar events. Many of these studies have focused on the lexical differences between the two languages – verbs (in Korean) and/or prepositions (in English). Here, we ask whether this focus might underestimate how English encodes these events by closely examining the range of options used by English speakers to encode loose and tight-fit motion events. In Experiment 1, 3-year-old and adult English speakers described joining and separating events which culminated in loose or tight-fit end-states. Participants’ use of lexical verbs together with their syntactic frames differentiated among the event types, especially between “loose-fit” events with asymmetric motion between objects (e.g. a block being put into a bowl) vs. “tight-fit” events with symmetric motion (e.g. two Legos being brought together at the same time). In Experiment 2, we replicated the basic findings using events portrayed with more complex of objects. Our findings show that English affords both children and adults rich resources to encode motion events culminating in tight and loose fit end-states; these devices include both lexical items and syntactic frames. The findings raise important questions about how to examine effects of language on non-linguistic spatial cognition in children and adults.

Audiovisual mediation through English intralingual and interlingual subtitling

Abstract This paper reports on a case study implemented at the University of Salento and, partially, at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, concerning the use of subtitles as a didactic tool to develop intercultural communication skills. This study examines the intralingual and interlingual translations of the reportage Fortress Italia: Capsized in Lampedusa, about migrant arrivals in Italy and Europe. Although the video is of interest to international viewers, the lack of proper subtitling may undermine its accessibility to non-native English speakers. On the one hand, subtitles do not appear when Standard English is used, so the comprehension of those utterances depends on the receivers’ listening skills; on the other hand, the official retextualizations are characterized by formal register and editorial additions that may affect their readability. For these reasons, an alternative rendering was commissioned to a number of undergraduate and postgraduate students of Translation and Interpreting, in order to enquire into new areas of adoption of English as an International Language and as a Lingua Franca. The analysis of the selected corpus of extracts will pinpoint the strategies of lexical and structural simplification and condensation, along with the selection of specific verb tenses and aspects, which are expected to enhance the envisaged recipients’ understanding of the video’s message. Since these features of English are actively selected, by the subjects that were involved in this research, so as to foster cross-cultural communication between the authors and viewers of the news report, this study contends that specific lingua-franca uses can be activated when subtitling multimodal texts. Hence, the notion of ‘audiovisual mediation’ will be introduced in order to label an approach to audiovisual translation aiming to: (i) make the illocutionary force accessible and acceptable to the envisaged, international audience; and (ii) overcome the conventional associations between dubbing and domestication, and subtitling and foreignization.

Predicates of exposure to odor in Bulgarian and Russian (Bulgarian translation strategies)

The article deals with Bulgarian translation parallels to Russian sentences from literary texts with the verbs тянуть, потянуть, обдать / обдавать, пахнуть, which refer to some spontaneous forces delivering smell. Such predications are usually impersonal in Russian, while the smell is marked by Instrumental. The translation of such clauses into Bulgarian with impersonal structures is not typical. Firstly, because of the analytism of the Bulgarian language, secondly, because of the lack of a specific marker of impersonality. In the Bulgarian language we see a two-member sentence, where the smell takes the position of the subject. The idea of spontaneous forces (the air or the wind, carrying the smell) gives way to the idea of a smell as an active participant, which builds the situation up. Bulgarian verbs лъхна, облъхна / облъхвам, лъхам, which have different semantics and syntactic characteristics compared to the Russian ones, and are used as the main translation parallels to the Russian verbs in question. The choice of a specific verb as a translation parallel depends on the presence of the other participants, such as an experiencer or the source of the smell.

Variable First Person Singular Subject Expression in Spoken Valencian Catalan

In this paper, I analyze first person singular subject pronoun expression in spoken Valencian Catalan varieties. I present a quantitative and qualitative analysis of 7 interviews from the corpus Parlars, examining 1sg subject rates regarding tense markings (syncretic vs. non-syncretic forms), verb type, and discourse type (monologues vs. conversations). It will be shown that the factor of morphological syncretism as well as verb type influence 1sg subject expression rates. Differently from what has been observed in some previous studies on Spanish, cognitive verbs are not associated with particularly high 1sg subject expression rates, but verbs of saying are. Looking at frequent verb forms in the spoken interviews, it will be shown that (jo) dic ‘(I) say’ plays an important role, direct speech being a commonly used mechanism in the data examined here. Furthermore, discourse type (monologue vs. conversation) affects subject expression rates. These results suggest that 1sg subject expression is influenced by an interaction of verb morphology, verb type and specific verb forms, but that subject expression rates and the factors influencing them vary depending on particular pro-drop varieties, discourse types and the type of data. Looking at the contexts in which the strong pronoun jo ‘I’ is used with verbs of saying in spoken Valencian Catalan, I argue that subject expression triggers a perspectival, rather than referential shift in several cases.

English lexical bundles in a learner corpus of argumentative essays written by Korean university students

This study examines the use of recurrent multi-word sequences (lexical bundles) found in a learner corpus of English argumentative essays written by L1 Korean college students at three different proficiency levels: low, mid and high. After compiling a list of the most frequently occurring four-word bundles in the three sub-corpora of the learner corpus, the study categorises them by structure and identifies which bundles appear in more than one sub-corpus. It then identifies frequent bi-grams embedded in the bundles in each sub-corpus to ascertain how the learners at each proficiency level construct multi-word sequences in context. The findings indicate that more proficient learners favour phrasal bundles, often producing them along with post-modifiers and in longer sentences, and thus approximating norms for academic prose. Lower proficiency learners, however, tend to use more clausal bundles, often including first-person pronouns and employing only a few specific verbs such as want and be, all of which are characteristic of spoken and informal registers. Taken together, these findings reflect L2 development in the use of formulaic language as they describe the uses of lexical bundles that are specific to each proficiency level.