Speech Markers Research Articles

Reported speech and its extensions in Beserman

Abstract This paper presents a descriptive account of reported speech, understood in terms of Spronck & Nikitina (2019), in Beserman (Uralic > Permic). Two phenomena are described in particular. First, it is demonstrated that, although Beserman generally prefers the direct speech strategy, the interpretation of indexicals in certain contexts may be affected by pragmatic factors. Second, Beserman allows for agreement mismatch between the subject and the predicate of the reported clause, known as “monstrous agreement”. This phenomenon has not been attested in Permic languages before. Apart from that, extended uses of two Beserman reported speech markers are described, whereby they convey pragmatic meanings that resemble English kind of or like. This semantic development reverses a well-known grammaticalization path that turns such pragmatic elements into reported speech markers. The study is based on both corpus and elicited data.

Grounds for Exemption from Criminal Liability? How Forensic Linguistics Can Contribute to Terrorism Trials

Drawing on Brown and Fraser’s (in: Giles, Scherer (eds) Social markers in speech, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 33–62, 1979) framework for the analysis of communicative situations and Fuentes Rodríguez’s (Lingüística pragmática y Análisis del discurso, Arco Libros, Madrid, 2000; in Estudios de Lingüística: Investigaciones lingüísticas en el siglo XXI, 2009. https://doi.org/10.14198/ELUA2009.Anexo3.04) model of pragmatic analysis, this paper examines three home-made recordings featuring some of the members of the terrorist cell responsible for the 2017 vehicle-ramming attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils weighted as evidence during the trial held between November 2020 and May 2021 in the Spanish National High Court. The aim of this qualitative analysis is to test whether the linguistic evidence available supports the allegation that the participation in these recordings by one of the accused, Mohamed Houli Chemlal, had been planned by his interlocutors. Results show, first, that the exchanges analyzed present features indicative of both spontaneity and (limited) planification. Second, that Houli makes key contributions to the unfolding of the interactions shown in the recordings and that he does so in a cooperative and apparently relaxed manner, which could at best provide only partial support to his allegations. It is claimed that forensic linguistic analysis can generate valuable insights within terrorism-related legal proceedings.

Toolkit to Examine Lifelike Language (TELL): An app to capture speech and language markers of neurodegeneration.

Automated speech and language analysis (ASLA) is a promising approach for capturing early markers of neurodegenerative diseases. However, its potential remains underexploited in research and translational settings, partly due to the lack of a unified tool for data collection, encryption, processing, download, and visualization. Here we introduce the Toolkit to Examine Lifelike Language (TELL) v.1.0.0, a web-based app designed to bridge such a gap. First, we outline general aspects of its development. Second, we list the steps to access and use the app. Third, we specify its data collection protocol, including a linguistic profile survey and 11 audio recording tasks. Fourth, we describe the outputs the app generates for researchers (downloadable files) and for clinicians (real-time metrics). Fifth, we survey published findings obtained through its tasks and metrics. Sixth, we refer to TELL's current limitations and prospects for expansion. Overall, with its current and planned features, TELL aims to facilitate ASLA for research and clinical aims in the neurodegeneration arena. A demo version can be accessed here: https://demo.sci.tellapp.org/ .

Alogia and pressured speech do not fall on a continuum of speech production using objective speech technologies.

Speech production is affected in a variety of serious mental illnesses (SMI; e.g., schizophrenia, unipolar depression, bipolar disorders) and at its extremes can be observed in the gross reduction of speech (e.g., alogia) or increase of speech (e.g., pressured speech). The present study evaluated whether clinically-rated alogia and pressured speech represent antithetical constructs when analyzed using objective metrics of speech production. We examined natural speech using acoustic and natural language processing features from two archival studies using several different speaking tasks and a combined 107 patients meeting criteria for SMI. Contrary to expectations, we did not find that alogia and pressured speech presented as opposing ends of a speech production continuum. Objective speech markers were associated with clinically rated alogia but not pressured speech, and these results were consistent across speaking tasks and studies. Implications for our understanding of speech production symptoms in SMI are discussed, as well as implications for Natural Language Processing and digital phenotyping efforts more generally.

Multilingual markers of depression in remotely collected speech samples: A preliminary analysis

BackgroundSpeech contains neuromuscular, physiological and cognitive components, and so is a potential biomarker of mental disorders. Previous studies indicate that speaking rate and pausing are associated with major depressive disorder (MDD). However, results are inconclusive as many studies are small and underpowered and do not include clinical samples. These studies have also been unilingual and use speech collected in controlled settings. If speech markers are to help understand the onset and progress of MDD, we need to uncover markers that are robust to language and establish the strength of associations in real-world data. MethodsWe collected speech data in 585 participants with a history of MDD in the United Kingdom, Spain, and Netherlands as part of the RADAR-MDD study. Participants recorded their speech via smartphones every two weeks for 18 months. Linear mixed models were used to estimate the strength of specific markers of depression from a set of 28 speech features. ResultsIncreased depressive symptoms were associated with speech rate, articulation rate and intensity of speech elicited from a scripted task. These features had consistently stronger effect sizes than pauses. LimitationsOur findings are derived at the cohort level so may have limited impact on identifying intra-individual speech changes associated with changes in symptom severity. The analysis of features averaged over the entire recording may have underestimated the importance of some features. ConclusionsParticipants with more severe depressive symptoms spoke more slowly and quietly. Our findings are from a real-world, multilingual, clinical dataset so represent a step-change in the usefulness of speech as a digital phenotype of MDD.

IMPLEMENTASI KEIGO PADA WEBSITE AYANA RESORT DAN FOUR SEASONS RESORT

Keigo is a type of speech level that is often used by the Japanese business people, as well as in the world of tourism in Bali. One of them is the use of keigo in marketing through website media. The data sources used are the Ayana Resort Bali website and Four Seasons Resort Bali At Jimbaran Bay website. This study focuses on the function of the keigo speech level found on the two accommodation websites. Data collection methods and techniques used in this study are observation methods followed by note-taking techniques, listening techniques and purvosive sampling. Data analysis methods and techniques used are descriptive qualitative methods. While the methods and techniques of data analysis presentation using informal methods. Based on the results of the study, it was found function the level speech keigo. The use of kenjougo to express something in a condescending way to show respect for website readers. The use of teineigo is used to make the content of the reading more polite. The function of the use of speech level markers on the two websites is to express honor, state distance, state dignity and also be found to state marketing language. The function states the marketing language found, namely, providing information, persuading, reminding and providing added value.

Pausing before verb production is associated with mild cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease.

Cognitive dysfunction and communication impairment are common and disabling symptoms in Parkinson's Disease (PD). Action verb deficits occur in PD, but it remains unclear if these impairments are related to motor system dysfunction and/or cognitive decline. The objective of our study was to evaluate relative contributions of cognitive and motor dysfunction to action verb production in naturalistic speech of patients with PD. We proposed that pausing before action-related language is associated with cognitive dysfunction and may serve as a marker of mild cognitive impairment in PD. Participants with PD (n = 92) were asked to describe the Cookie Theft picture. Speech files were transcribed, segmented into utterances, and verbs classified as action or non-action (auxiliary). We measured silent pauses before verbs and before utterances containing verbs of different classes. Cognitive assessment included Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and neuropsychological tests to categorize PD participants as normal cognition (PD-NC) or mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI) based on Movement Disorders Society (MDS) Task Force Tier II criteria. Motor symptoms were assessed using MDS-UPDRS. We performed Wilcoxon rank sum tests to identify differences in pausing between PD-NC and PD-MCI. Logistic regression models using PD-MCI as dependent variables were used to evaluate the association between pause variables and cognitive status. Participants with PD-MCI demonstrated more pausing before and within utterances compared to PD-NC, and the duration of these pauses were correlated with MoCA but not motor severity (MDS-UPDRS). Logistic regression models demonstrated that pauses before action utterances were associated with PD-MCI status, whereas pauses before non-action utterances were not significantly associated with cognitive diagnosis. We characterized pausing patterns in spontaneous speech in PD-MCI, including analysis of pause location with respect to verb class. We identified associations between cognitive status and pausing before utterances containing action verbs. Evaluation of verb-related pauses may be developed into a potentially powerful speech marker tool to detect early cognitive decline in PD and better understand linguistic dysfunction in PD.

Language and Psychosis: Tightening the Association.

This special issue of DISCOURSE in Psychosis focuses on the role of language in psychosis, including the relationships between formal thought disorder and conceptual disorganization, with speech and language markers and the neural mechanisms underlying these features in psychosis. It also covers the application of computational techniques in the study of language in psychosis, as well as the potential for using speech and language data for digital phenotyping in psychiatry.

“She’s Like Why You Speak English While Dreaming?”: A Corpus-Based Study of Quotative Markers Used by Chinese Speakers of L2 English

Based on sociolinguistic data collected from 29 Chinese L1 speakers of English in the US, this article investigated the quotative markers used by non-native speakers in their direct speech reporting. By conducting regression analysis, both linguistic factors (the tense of the verb, the subject pronouns, the mimetic status of the quotation, the content of the quotation, and the presence of discourse markers) and extralinguistic factors (gender, extracurricular contact with native speakers, and length of stay in the target country) were examined and further discussed. Our results revealed that factors such as the content of the quotation, the tense of the verb, and the presence of other discourse markers significantly influence the choice of quotative markers in non-native speech. We demonstrated that non-native speakers use a variety of quotative verbs in their direct speech reporting. Nonetheless, because of L1 impact, they rely primarily on the dominant form say. We also noticed that while non-native speakers might not be accurate in their words when reporting direct speech, they use prosodic cues to make their storytelling more convincing and authentic.

The meaning and functions of pragmatic markers in Russian oral speech

* Review: Pragmatic Markers of Russian Everyday Speech: dictionary-monograph. Bogdanova-Beglaryan N. V. (comp., ed., forew.). The reviewed dictionary-monograph Pragmatic Markers of Russian Everyday Speech (St Petersburg, 2021) is devoted to the lexicographic description of pragmatic markers, considered as a class of discursive words whose typical features (absence of denotation, lexical and grammatical meanings, multi-categorization, multi-functionality) are manifested to the highest degree. The dictionary-monograph is the first dictionary that provides a detailed description of over 60 Russian discursive units in various contexts and in the variety of their functions, which makes it a unique phenomenon in modern Russian linguistic studies. The genre of the publication is defined not as a dictionary but as a dictionary-monograph, since the dictionary entries are not traditional. They are more like linguistic essays which include both common lexicographic zones and rich illustrative material, as well as the functions of the markers in speech. In addition, the description is given not in the genre of a dictionary but rather in the genre of a scientific article. All this provides extensive material important for understanding the functioning of markers in speech; without such data the dictionary of discursive units would not make sense. The dictionary is based on the results of work of many linguists while creating the corpora One speech day and Balanced annotated text collection and processing the richest material from these sources. The structure of the dictionary-monograph includes the editor’s preface, the dictionary of pragmatic markers itself, and some final reflections. The editor’s preface is a theoretical introduction that explains to the reader the point of view of the authors’ team on the units of the dictionary, and the results of the studies on how they function in speech. The most important part of the theoretical introduction is the typology of pragmatic markers based on the functions they perform in speech. The dictionary entry includes the headword, all the functions of the pragmatic marker, rich illustrative material from everyday speech for each of the marker’s functions and, in some cases, statistics on the use of the marker in a particular function. The dictionary clearly demonstrates multi-functionality of pragmatic markers. In conclusion, the author-compiler notes that the work on the dictionary is still in progress, and it is open for additions. A multimedia version of the dictionary is already available.

Intonation Parameters in Gender Diverse People

Although intonation is often addressed in speech training for gender diverse individuals, the relationship between intonation and femininity/masculinity ratings remains unclear. The aim of this study was to examine differences in intonation parameters in gender diverse individuals. Moreover, the relationship between acoustic intonation parameters and femininity/masculinity ratings was investigated. Speech samples of semistructured speech were elicited from cisgender (cis) (107 ciswomen, 104 cis men), transgender (trans) (19 trans women, 10 trans men), and non-binary (n=11) individuals using a prosody protocol. An objective acoustic analysis was performed to compare intonation parameters (upward/downward/flat intonation shift, general and final intonation shift, general fundamental frequency range, fundamental frequency variation index) between groups. In addition, a listening experiment was conducted, consisting of a cis and gender diverse listening panel (n=41). The listeners were asked to rate the femininity/masculinity of speech samples (n=57) using a visual analogue scale. Correlational analyses were used to examine the relationship between intonation parameters and femininity/masculinity ratings. Similarity was found in the intonation parameters of participants with a similar gender identity. In non-binary speakers, no significant differences in acoustic intonation parameters were found between these speakers and the cisgender speakers. In addition, no significant correlations were found between the acoustic intonation parameters and the femininity/masculinity ratings in the groups with cis men, cis women, and non-binary participants. However, moderate to strong significant correlations were found between acoustic intonation parameters and femininity/masculinity ratings in the trans participants. Intonation is a "speech marker" that distinguishes between groups with a different gender identity. No relationship was observed between intonation and femininity/masculinity ratings for cisgender and non-binary speakers. However, the significant relationship between these parameters for transgender participants (trans men and trans women) provides evidence for intonation exercises in gender affirming voice, speech, and communication training, and therefore contribute to evidence-based intonation training in transgender persons.

Disease Delineation for Multiple Sclerosis, Friedreich Ataxia, and Healthy Controls Using Supervised Machine Learning on Speech Acoustics.

Neurodegenerative disease often affects speech. Speech acoustics can be used as objective clinical markers of pathology. Previous investigations of pathological speech have primarily compared controls with one specific condition and excluded comorbidities. We broaden the utility of speech markers by examining how multiple acoustic features can delineate diseases. We used supervised machine learning with gradient boosting (CatBoost) to delineate healthy speech from speech of people with multiple sclerosis or Friedreich ataxia. Participants performed a diadochokinetic task where they repeated alternating syllables. We subjected 74 spectral and temporal prosodic features from the speech recordings to machine learning. Results showed that Friedreich ataxia, multiple sclerosis and healthy controls were all identified with high accuracy (over 82%). Twenty-one acoustic features were strong markers of neurodegenerative diseases, falling under the categories of spectral qualia, spectral power, and speech rate. We demonstrated that speech markers can delineate neurodegenerative diseases and distinguish healthy speech from pathological speech with high accuracy. Findings emphasize the importance of examining speech outcomes when assessing indicators of neurodegenerative disease. We propose large-scale initiatives to broaden the scope for differentiating other neurological diseases and affective disorders.

Reliability Predictors in Narratives of Oocyte Donors

This article analyses protocols of in-depth interviews of oocyte donors using a comprehensive methodology that combines aspects of psychology, semiotics, pragmatics, and cognitive linguistics. The authors examine discursive markers of oral dialogic speech that indirectly indicate the reliability of the statements of the interviewees or their desire to disguise information during the conversation. The interdisciplinary nature of the study is provided by the synthesis of psychological and linguistic methodological approaches to the analysis of linguistic material, united around the logical-philosophical category of modality. A similar methodological approach is found in the authorial methods of criteria analysis by A. Vrij. Within the framework of the first method, the authors consider the cognitive operations transmitted by the interviewee while describing the ongoing events, as well as the structural and lexical-semantic makeup of the text as indicators of the reliability of the information presented, which corresponds to the linguistic interpretation of modality. The second method of analysis is developed to a greater extent in line with the psychological approach to the definition of modality: the presence of accurate sensory information in the narrative of the interviewees is a significant indicator of the speaker’s truthfulness. The analysis of interviews with oocyte donors using these methods reveals that perceptual and affective information updated in a communication situation is more indicative of the truthfulness of the speaker than the mental representation of the events and facts presented. In addition, truth-tellers provide more detail, also related to the realm of sensory perception. The desire to disguise any information is often accompanied by a reference to forgetfulness and a transition to another topic of the storyline. The applied research results may be of interest to a wide range of interviewers on different topics while the scholarly results can be used in interdisciplinary art and social science studies.

Directive-optative markers in Slavic : observations on their persistance and change

The article examines the usage range and the provenance of 'particles' that, in Slavic languages, are employed as markers of directive-optative speech acts. The investigation concentrates on typical representatives derived from LET-verbs (*nehati, pustiti) and on Cz. ať. These units serve not only as illocutionary markers, but have found their way into domains of clause combining, such as concessive or complement clauses. As a pilot study, this article presents pieces of a global picture that should bring together issues concerning the diachronic development of these units in terms of syntactic variability and semantic expansion, and how both correlate. Jointly, the article raises general methodological issues relevant for clause combining and the representation of meaning variation on a synchronic and a diachronic level.

Directive Speech Act In Rama Gandrung Play By Purbo Asmoro

This study aimed to describe the types of directive speech acts and their types in the shadow puppet performance entitled Rama Gandrung by Purbo Asmoro (RGPA) and the puppeteer's strategy in performing speech acts in the performance. This research was a single case study in the form of a Surakarta-style shadow puppet show with puppeteer Purbo Asmoro. The research focused on the shadow puppet performance Rama Gandrung play, specifically the pathet sanga and pathet manyura scenes, with the research target on pronunciation, including gynecology (dialogue). The research results showed that the number of speech sub-acts differed based on the context of speech and linguistic markers. The directive speech act consisted of 6 sub-acts; the RGPA play with a high frequency of directive speech acts was a driving directive speech act, while a low directive speech act frequency was an asking permission directive speech act. The strategy for uncovering the essence of the story was contained in directive speech acts in ginem (character dialogue) creations with an implicit strategy, with word choices, bold words, and sentences, accompanied by purwakanthi and effective language style. Creativity in the dialogue of characters with strategic conflicts or dramatic figures, and sufficient rhetorical assistance, could amaze the audience/listeners. Purbo Asmoro's strategy was to maintain the traditional shadow puppet format mixed with a short shadow puppet performance style, reflection on directive speech acts, and creativity in processing conversations (janturan, ginem, pocapan) using simple, solid, and direct speech. The combination of Kawi, archaic, and folk languages was characteristic of the language and literature of his puppetry. Another thing about the work on the storyline included the prologue and presentation of flashbacks of the play, which were performed in directed, actual, and contextual speech acts. Keywords: Directive speech acts, Shadow puppet performances, Surakarta-style, Purbo Asmoro DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/95-06 Publication date: January 31 st 2023

AN ANALYSIS OF FILLERS USED BY BILL GATES IN THE DAVID RUBENSTEIN SHOW

Fillers are speech markers that are used by speakers to indicate when they are thinking and/or hesitating during their speech. The theory of spoken discourse states that a speaker may use various prefabricated fillers in his or her utterances, including err, ehm, well, I think, you know, if you see, what I mean, and so on Yule (1983) Furthermore, Clark & Tree (2002) stated Fillers provided a communicative function by having a position in the speaker's lexicon. The purpose of this research is to investigate the types of fillers and function filler used by the Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates in the David Rubenstein Show which as the subject of this research. This research was applied descriptive qualitative method. By using the theory of Stenstrom (1994) supported by Rose, (1998). The result of this research, the researcher found two types of filler were used in the show namely, lexicalized and unlexicalized fillers. Base on the analysis of the researcher, found the types of fillers most frequently used were unlexicalized which were used 37 times, and lexicalized fillers which were used 34 times, From the total number of each type of fillers, the most frequently used were you know for 21 times, followed by ee occurred for 19 times. Then, filler eer with the number of occurrences 15 times. The last is filler Well were frequent used 9 times in the utterance. Furthermore, the most function frequent used in the interview were mark of hesitating 38 times and the empathizing used 23 times and followed by well used 9 times.

THE ROLE OF A SLOGAN IN CREATING A CITY BRAND: LINGUO-CULTURAL ANALYSIS (based on the slogans of the German historical cities)

Statement of the problem. The main reflection of tourism lies in the understanding of the world, which is perceived not as a "traditional", but as a special imprint of the culture and history of civilizations in space and time. Such an understanding largely contributes to hybridization of new heterogeneous forms of representation, which confirms a certain syncretism and captures a separate discourse. The society itself, social system, economic structure and rituals in material culture, tourist destinations (in our case: a city) acquire their own architectonics and manifest that human-controlled spaces that serve to the purposes of their presentation and promotion as city's attractions. Results. Tourist discourse and its speech projection are accompanied in practice by myths; oral (tourist’s impressions, vacation stories, etc.) and written (guides, catalogs, commercials, souvenirs, forums, blogs, online diaries, etc.) texts are “mythified” in tourism industry as important communicative forms of the tourism space linked to location of the tourism topography. The analysis of the tourist discourse, based on the synthesis of factors and the concept of a tourist destination and advertising reveals the speech markers of the city, which can be considered as deep patterns of the slogan as a small text in the tourist culture. Conclusions. The textual and linguocultural description, as well as the study of the syntactic structures of the slogans exampled on German cities are presented in the paper as a result of the of a representative speech corpus interpretation.

Longitudinal changes of automated speech markers in MCI and mild AD

AbstractBackgroundMild cognitive impairment (MCI) and mild Alzheimer’s disease (mAD) are characterized by decline in memory and other cognitive domains, including language. Previous studies have shown that MCI and mAD patients produce impaired speech. In this study, we investigated longitudinal changes in lexical and acoustic speech features from natural speech of MCI and mAD patients using highly reliable automated methods.MethodWe analyzed 116 digitized 1‐minute picture descriptions produced by 24 MCI (65.8±9.2y, 9 females, mean mini‐mental state exam (MMSE) score at the first recording (T1)=25.4±1.1) and 19 mAD patients (66.9±8.8y, 5 females, mean MMSE at T1=21.9±1.1). The groups did not differ in demographic characteristics, disease duration, and mean inter‐sample interval. Using automated pipelines, we tagged the part‐of‐speech categories of all words, rated words for word frequency, familiarity, concreteness, and semantic ambiguity, and counted partial words and total number of words. Speech samples were segmented into speech and silent pause segments to calculate mean speech segment duration, pause rate, percent of speech out of total time, and articulation rate. Linear mixed‐effects models examined changes over time for each measure, controlling for disease duration at T1. The difference between the first and the last recordings (mean=24±10.9 months) in each measure was related to changes in MMSE, covarying for disease duration at T1.ResultPatients’ adjectives (beta=‐0.04, p=0.006) and determiners (beta=‐0.06, p=0.01) decreased over time, whereas pronouns increased (beta=0.06, p=0.014). Patients produced more frequent (beta=0.004, p=0.043) and more familiar (beta=0.001, p=0.046) words over time. Patients articulated more slowly (beta=‐0.02, p=0.001) and produced more partial words (beta=0.04, p=0.004) and fewer total words (beta=‐0.9, p=0.018) over time. Patients produced shorter speech segments (beta=0.008, p=0.021), paused more frequently (beta=0.32, p=0.001), and produced less speech (beta=‐0.35, p<0.001) over time. All measures showed no group interaction. Patients whose MMSE scores decreased spoke more slowly (beta=2.25, p=0.04) and produced higher‐frequency words (beta=‐6.4, p=0.043) and more partial words (beta=‐0.72, p=0.028) compared with patients whose MMSE scores did not change.ConclusionMCI and mAD patients’ language changed over time, and this was significantly related to patients’ cognitive decline. These findings support the use of automated speech analyses in studying longitudinal changes in neurodegeneration.

Interpreting acoustic features for the assessment of Alzheimer’s disease using ForestNet

Nowadays, interpretable machine learning models are one of the most critical topics in the medical domain. The lack of interpretation leads to blind and unreliable models for clinicians, despite the fact that the aim is to support diagnosis through these tools. This problem has been increasing since the creation of large models such as those based on deep learning, which, despite providing good performance in prediction and classification tasks, are not transparent to human understanding. One of the increasingly prevalent clinical problems related to acoustic and linguistic disorders is Alzheimer’s disease (AD), where one important challenge is to provide speech markers that help in supporting, understanding, and facilitating the diagnosis and monitoring of the disease. It motivates this study which proposes a methodology focused on analyzing acoustic features in AD and at the same time providing interpretation from the results. The proposed approach consists of using decision tree-based methods together with neural networks (ForestNet) for analyzing the classification results. Only features that can give interpretation were considered. Unweighted average recalls of up to 79% were achieved for discriminating AD patients. Then, we looked at the relevant features that provided most of the information for assessing AD, which were those related to rhythm, voiced rates, duration, and phone rates. This confirms that this kind of approach can be suitable for the discrimination of AD while maintaining a good performance. • An approach based on decision trees together with artificial neural networks (ForesNet) is considered for analyzing/interpreting different sets of acoustic features for the assessment of Alzheimer’s disease. • Unweighted average recalls of up to 79% were achieved for discriminating Alzheimer’s patients. • The proposed approach outperformed the use of regular decision tree-based methods by 11%. • The considered methods and results here may be interpretative from the clinical point of view, which makes our model suitable for supporting the clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

The Syntactic and Discourse Properties of Second Person Singular Forms of Address inPaisaSpanish

AbstractIn this study we examine the linguistic complexity and lexical properties of the discourse associated with second person singular forms of address (2PS) in the Spanish spoken in Medellín, Colombia. This Spanish variety exhibits the use of a tripartite system of 2PS, in whichvoseo,tuteo, andustedeoare used, and sometimes interchanged, according to sociopragmatic factors. By means of a discourse completion task (DCT), 672 responses were collected from 38 informants. Data was parsed and tagged using UDPipe to train an annotation Spanish model. Syntactic and lexical properties were extracted automatically in Python. Results revealed the syntactic properties and the existence of collocations significantly associated with each 2PS. The discourse associated withvosdiffers in terms of the predicate structure, DCT response length, pragmatic function, and use of colloquial speech markers. Results of this work shed further light on the variable use of 2PS in this intriguing Spanish dialect.