Verbal Condition Research Articles

Two approaches to the semantic decomposition of change of state verbs, how they differ, and why it matters

In this paper, I contrast two broad decompositional approaches to verb semantics. One, especially associated with David Dowty, involves translating verbs using a set of precisely interpreted primitive predicates such as CAUSE and BECOME, in order to facilitate semantic generalizations such as patterns of entailment between sentences. Another, with multiple origins in both temporal semantics and theories of the syntax/semantics interface (including, notably, work by Pustejovsky and Piñón), involves developing a theory of the internal part structure of the eventualities that verbs and other expressions describe; I refer to this approach, following Pianesi and Varzi, as mereotopological. These two approaches to decomposition are not, strictly speaking, incompatible, and they have sometimes been combined; however, perhaps surprisingly, comparison of them has been unsystematic. I address this gap by describing more systematically how the approaches differ from each other, illustrating with differences in the insights they offer into specific aspects of the semantics of simple change of state verbs and unselected object resultatives. I especially aim to promote interest in the development of more sophisticated, cross-linguistically applicable theories of so-calledevent structure through appeal to a wider range of notions from mereotopology.

Attraction or differentiation: diachronic changes in the causative alternation of Chinese change of state verbs

Abstract This study examines the interplay of attraction and differentiation through the diachronic encoding of causative alternations in Chinese. A corpus-based analysis is conducted to profile the use of two Change of State verbs (COS verbs), pò ‘break’ and kāi ‘open’, focusing on their argument structure constructions. The analysis yields two main insights: (i) In Chinese, there are four pairs of causative alternations. The first pair, CA1, involving the alternation between NP1+COS+NP2 and NP2+COS, serves as the source for two diachronic trajectories. In the first trajectory, NP1+COS+NP2 is replaced by NP1+V+COS+NP2, and forms CA2 with NP2+COS. Subsequently, NP2+COS transitions into NP2+V+COS, and constitutes CA3 with NP1+V+COS+NP2. In the second trajectory, NP1+COS+V+NP2 and NP2+COS+V emerge and form CA4. (ii) Evidence of attraction is found in the mutual influence between the causative variants NP1+V+COS+NP2 and NP1+COS+V+NP2, and in the modeling effect of the causative variant NP1+V+COS+NP2 on the inchoative variant NP2+V+COS. Differentiation is supported by the anchoring force of a larger constructional network, including the transitive/intransitive opposition and compound constructions. This study advances the theoretical understanding of the intertwinement of attraction and differentiation by elucidating the diachronic evolution of causative alternations in Chinese.

Continuative constructions in the Lezgic languages and their use in parallel contexts (in the Gospel of Luke translations)

The paper presents an overview of grammaticalized constructions expressing the continuative meaning ‘still do, continue doing’, attested in a number of languages of the Lezgic branch ( Nakh-Daghestanian), although enjoying very little attention from researchers. A peculiarity of four Lezgic languages is the existence of a stative verb describing continuation of existence or staying in a certain place (‘still be, remain’). It is this verb that is found as an auxiliary in continuative constructions of East Lezgic languages and Rutul; in Archi, periphrastic continuative forms are based on dedicated continuative converbs, while the auxiliary is a simple copula. In addition, I discuss the use of continuative constructions, as well as other means of expressing the continuative meaning, in parallel contexts from the Gospel of Luke translations (seven translations into six Lezgic languages were taken into account). According to cross-linguistic studies of the continuative by Panova (2021, 2023), the continuative meaning is unambiguously present in 17 contexts in the Gospel of Luke. The present paper demonstrates in which of these contexts the means of expressing the continuative meaning were most frequently used and which particular means were employed, as well as which languages explicitly express the continuative meaning more often than others. On the whole, in more than a half of all cases the continuative meaning is not expressed by an explicit grammatical or lexical means other than imperfective verb forms. At the same time, the three East Lezgic languages, as well as Rutul, make use of stative verbs meaning ‘still be, remain’, both as a lexical verb and as an auxiliary, and also of adverbs. Tsakhur and Udi, which lack dedicated continuative constructions, only use adverbs in the respective contexts, the use of adverbs in these two languages being more frequent than in languages possessing continuative constructions.

Syntactic Adaptation and Word Learning in 3‐ to 4‐Year‐Olds

AbstractIn a recent study, preschoolers adapted their syntactic expectations about a familiar phrase in French; this adaptation affected later word learning. In two experiments, we probed the generality of this finding by replicating the experiment and extending it to a different expression in English. We examined the ambiguous phrase the baby, which can be followed by nouns (the baby monkeys) or verbs (the baby sleeps). In induction trials, the baby consistently preceded either familiar nouns (noun condition) or verbs (verb condition). In later novel‐word trials, children in the verb condition were more likely to interpret novel words following the baby (The baby gorps!) as verbs than were children in the noun condition. In Experiment 2, a modified design isolated the effect of experience with the critical phrase from possible effects of task structure, and an added baseline condition showed the adaptation effect to be asymmetrical, suggesting frequency or surprisal effects on adaptation.

A radically usage-based, collostructional approach to assessing the differences between negative modal contractions and their parent forms

Abstract Starting from the premise that English negative modal contractions constitute partly variable patterns of associations that include both the preceding subject and the following verb infinitive, the study sets out to investigate distributional differences between can’t, shouldn’t, and won’t and their corresponding uncontracted parent forms. Given that some configurations are assumed to correlate with specific modal meanings (e.g. inanimate subjects and stative verbs > ‘epistemic prediction’; first person subjects > ‘(un)willingness’ or ‘commissive modality’), roughly 200,000 trigrams from COCA are submitted to distinctive covarying collexeme analysis in order to uncover if these contractions and their full forms are conventionalized and entrenched differentially enough to merit their separate treatment on both conceptual and methodological grounds. The results point to probabilistic tendencies, suggesting a cline where won’t and can’t appear to be more emancipated from their respective full-form analogue than shouldn’t. Furthermore, the study showcases how collostructional methods can be applied fruitfully to case studies embedded in Schmid’s (Schmid, Hans-Jörg. 2020. The dynamics of the linguistic system: Usage, conventionalization, and entrenchment. Oxford: Oxford University Press) Entrenchment and Conventionalization Model.

Teaching Implication of Meaning Construction at Morphological Level of Affixation in a Complex Indonesian Verb Formation

A tension exists between rationalists and empiricists regarding the nature of knowledge: innate then activated/discovered (rationalists) or constructed then invented (empiricists). The assumption is that, to a certain extent, basic knowledge seems to be innate in our mind and develops through experience by thinking processes to construct meanings. This meaning construction (thinking), mainly using language, is to make sense of and interpret the world. Meanings should be the primary motivation underlying linguistic constructions at all levels. This paper investigates meaning constructions at the lexical level of affixation by focusing on semantic behaviours of verbs in a complex word formation as an attempt: 1) to find out the semantic patterns of verb-based complex word formation, 2) to reveal if there is an iconic relationship of a sign (signifier) and its meaning (signified), and 3) to suggest for its teaching. Using semantic classes of verbs, based on situation types in deriving complex words, this study attempts to find out semantic patterns of such complex word formation and the possibility of revealing its iconicity. Using Antconc software, this study scrutinized linguistic expressions involving related verbs of state, event, and action in a corpus to reveal meaning construction at that level. The findings show several semantic patterns of verb-based complex word formation and an indication of the iconicity of signs. The paper also offers suggestions for teaching affixation

Altered neural anticipation of reward and loss but not receipt in adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder

BackgroundObsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by persistent, unwanted thoughts and repetitive actions. Such repetitive thoughts and/or behaviors may be reinforced either by reducing anxiety or by avoiding a potential threat or harm, and thus may be rewarding to the individual. The possible involvement of the reward system in the symptomatology of OCD is supported by studies showing altered reward processing in reward-related regions, such as the ventral striatum (VS) and the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), in adults with OCD. However, it is not clear whether this also applies to adolescents with OCD.MethodsUsing functional magnetic resonance imaging, two sessions were conducted focusing on the anticipation and receipt of monetary reward (1) or loss (2), each contrasted to a verbal (control) condition. In each session, adolescents with OCD (n1=31/n2=26) were compared with typically developing (TD) controls (n1=33/ n2=31), all aged 10-19 years, during the anticipation and feedback phase of an adapted Monetary Incentive Delay task.ResultsData revealed a hyperactivation of the VS, but not the OFC, when anticipating both monetary reward and loss in the OCD compared to the TD group.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that aberrant neural reward and loss processing in OCD is associated with greater motivation to gain or maintain a reward but not with the actual receipt. The greater degree of reward ‘wanting’ may contribute to adolescents with OCD repeating certain actions more and more frequently, which then become habits (i.e., OCD symptomatology).

The Aspectual Properties of Italian Venire Passives

Italian essere (be) and venire (come) periphrastic passives differ in their aspectual properties, both lexical and grammatical. Squartini’s (1999) analysis of venire passives accounts for their incompatibility with perfect aspect. In the present study, I develop an account of passive venire in which it is analyzed as a light verb, rather than a lexical verb. This difference, together with certain assumptions about the syntax of lexical aspect are leveraged to account for passive venire’s incompatibility with perfect aspect, propredicative lo, and with stative verbs. In this way, the empirical ground covered by the previous analysis is substantially expanded.

More hard words: Learning emotion and mental state adjectives from linguistic context

ABSTRACT How do young children learn the meanings of adjectives that label emotions and mental states, like happy or confident? The concepts behind these words seem easy to grasp, and yet the properties they denote are abstract and lack reliable visual correlates, much as with verbs such as think or know. There is robust evidence that the linguistic context in which mental state verbs appear supports their acquisition. Using a two-pronged approach, we explore whether the same is true for these adjectives. First, we present a comprehensive study of adjectives in child-directed speech (CDS) in CHILDES corpora, revealing that these adjectives have a unique distributional profile based on the semantics of co-occurring words, and the syntactic complements with which they appear, distinguishing them from other adjective types. Second, we present a word learning study with adults using a version of the Human Simulation Paradigm manipulating key variables from the corpus study (subject animacy and syntactic complements), while holding other features (morphosyntactic form and syntactic position of the adjective) constant. Participants’ guesses demonstrate that they recruit these cues to constrain the meaning of novel adjectives to one corresponding to an emotion or mental state. By presenting a thorough comparison of adjective types across key linguistic contexts and providing evidence that such contexts constrain adjective meaning, we systematically extend syntactic bootstrapping to the adjectival domain in a way that goes well beyond previous work, and paints a vibrant picture of what supports the acquisition of adjectives.

Mental state verb use in play by preschool-age children who stutter and their mothers

IntroductionPreschool-age children use mental state verbs (MSVs; e.g., think, know) to reference thoughts and other cognitive states. In play-based language, MSV use requires conversational flexibility, as speakers shift from discussion of actions happening in the here-and-now to more abstract discussion of mental states. Some evidence suggests that children who stutter (CWS) demonstrate subtle differences in shifting on experimental tasks of cognitive flexibility, differences which may extend to conversational flexibility. This study explored MSV use in conversational language between CWS and their mothers. MethodsThirty-five preschool-age CWS and 35 age- and gender-matched children who do not stutter (CWNS), all performing within the typical range on standardized language testing, conversed with their mothers during play. Samples were transcribed and coded for MSV use. ResultsNo between-group differences were observed in MSV use, either between the CWS and CWNS or between the groups of mothers. Age and language skills were positively associated with MSV use in the CWNS group only. For both groups of dyads, mothers’ MSV use corresponded at least to some extent to their children’s language skills. Finally, correspondence between CWNS and their mothers was observed for two conversational language measures, representing lexical diversity and morphosyntax; this overall pattern was not observed in the CWS dyad group. ConclusionsAlthough these findings point to similar use of MSVs among the groups of children and their mothers, for the CWS group, the patterns of use in relation to age and language skills are somewhat different from developmental expectations.

The effect of a visuospatial interference intervention on posttraumatic intrusions: a cross-over randomized controlled trial

ABSTRACT Background: Intrusive memories form a core symptom of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Based on concepts of visuospatial interference and memory-updating accounts, technological innovations aim to attenuate such intrusions using visuospatial interventions. Objective: This study aims to test the effect of a visuospatial Tetris-based intervention versus a verbal condition (Wiki) and a never-targeted control (no intervention) on intrusion frequency. Method: A randomized crossover trial was conducted including N = 38 PTSD patients who had at least 3 distinct intrusive memories of trauma. After both 2 weeks (intervention 1) and 4 weeks (intervention 2), one of the three memories was randomly selected and either the visuospatial intervention (memory reminder of a traumatic memory + Tetris) or verbal condition (reading a Wikipedia article + answering questions) was performed on their first memory in randomized order. In the week 4 session, the patient conducted the other intervention condition on their second memory (crossover). The third memory was never targeted (no intervention). Daily occurrence of intrusions over 8 weeks was collected using a diary and analysed using mixed Poisson regression models. Results: Overall, there was no significant reduction in intrusion frequency from either intervention compared to each other, and to no intervention control (relative risk Tetris/Wiki: 0.947; p = .31; relative risk no intervention/Tetris: 1.060; p = .15; relative risk no intervention/Wiki: 1.004; p = .92). Conclusions: There was no effect of either intervention on intrusions when administered in a crossover design where participants received both interventions. Design shortcomings and consequences for future studies are discussed.

Spanish lower and upper bounded change of state verbs: focusing on transitive experiencer object verbs

Abstract Transitive causative change of state (TCoS) verbs elicit scalar readings, distinguishing them between: upper-bounded verbs (e.g., dry), denoting a culminating change of state, and lower-bounded verbs (e.g., wrinkle), denoting a change from a zero to a non-zero value (or from one value to another) regarding the property described by the semantic core of the verb. In their eventive reading, transitive experiencer object (TEO) verbs (e.g., calm down, delight) also denote causative eventualities able to yield scalar inferences. This study investigates whether TEO verbs are also associated with a minimum or maximum standard degree, proposing a similar subdivision of TEO verbs into lower-bounded items (delight) and upper-bounded items (calm down). In a forced-choice selection experiment we tested the impact of the standard degree (bound) of the semantic core of Spanish TEO verbs on the availability of lower-bounded or upper-bounded readings comparing them to TCoS verbs. Results revealed that the factor bound was significant to the extent that both lower-bounded TEO and TCoS predicates yielded the response compatible with a lower-bounded reading significantly more often than predicates that possess a maximum degree, supporting the distinction between lower and upper bounded items. Further, a significant effect of verb type was also observed, differentiating a change of state on the mental (TEO) versus the physical (TCoS) levels.

The development of desire language: A corpus study of ‘want’

Children’s usage of mental state verbs can reveal evidence of their theory of mind and general cognitive development. Children produce a certain class of mental state verbs, namely desire verbs such as want, like, and love, early in development. Among these desire verbs, they produce want the most frequently. We report on a corpus study of 450 + instances of want as gathered from children’s dialogues with caretakers in the CHILDES database. We developed a novel coding scheme to measure children’s use and understanding of want utterances: i.e., we analyzed the kinds of things that children described wanting for themselves or others, as well as the agents to whom they ascribed desires. We report on the frequencies of these features across the ages of 24 to 59 months (2–4 years of age), and highlight noteworthy trends in the way children used want. Children appear to talk about their own desires most often; they primarily use questions to talk about second person desires; and they describe more complex desires as they mature. We describe how these patterns of linguistic competency may serve as an index for the development of mechanisms that underlie mental state reasoning.

A Study of Women`s Language Features in Pakistani Female Bloggers

Bloggers often write about personal interests. The content of Pakistani female bloggers' blogs might reveal their views on women's rights and empowerment, social issues, education, fashion, and lifestyle. Pakistani female bloggers' gender discourse is examined using women's language traits. This study investigates linguistic patterns and issues of interest within a specific group to get insight into the role of women in Pakistani online discourse and gendered communication in digital spaces. This study could use qualitative research methods and data acquisition. The qualitative section of this research analyses the chosen female bloggers' blog postings to identify linguistic patterns, vocabulary, grammatical structures, and other language characteristics. Pakistani English often uses progressive verbs, which are stative in British English. In conclusion, Pakistani female bloggers' writing language is revealed via data analysis. Pakistani female bloggers have a particular voice and style due to the lack of articles, the usage of prepositions with "-ing" participles, progressive features, and informal language. The study may also examine Pakistani English stative verb progression. This could involve identifying the verbs used this way and exploring the causes of this linguistic diversity. The current study only included five female bloggers. Future research should involve a wider and more diverse sample of bloggers to better understand the groups and themes being investigated.

The grammaticalization and grammatical meaning of a ‘do’ support verb in the northern Italian Camuno dialect

Abstract This paper provides a case study of the grammaticalization of ‘do’ as a support verb in the northern Italian dialect of Camuno. It demonstrates the relative compatibility of fa ‘do’ with different semantic types of supported verbs through the results of an elicitation experiment. A comparison of results from adjacent dialects reveals a series of progressively more grammaticalized forms with three stages: ‘pragmatic’ ‘do’-support, largely restricted to agentive-subject, activity verbs, where question type depends mainly on the pragmatics; ‘agentive’ ‘do’-support, where use with that core group of verbs is largely categorial, and there is more use with theme-subject, change-of-state verbs and a few experiencer-subject, stative verbs; and ‘generalized’ ‘do’-support where optionality remains only with the most resistant stative verbs. Along with loss of lexical content in ‘do’, comes a reduction in salience of the special question meaning. Furthermore, a question with lexical fa ‘do’ (in an optional FS dialect) implies physical evidence exists to determine the truth of a proposition. In a question with bleached fa ‘do’ (in an obligatory FS dialect) the connection to reality has been lost leaving only the implication, and fa ‘do’ has then become an epistemic modal.

Alternating arguments of Polish psych verbs

This paper focuses on the Experiencer Object (EO)/Experiencer Subject (ES) alternation in Polish. This alternation is viewed here as distinct from the causative/anticausative alternation, because eventive EO verbs do not pattern like change of state (COS) verbs, and their reflexive ES alternants are unergative, not unaccusative. Eventive EO verbs share a common base with their ES counterparts, which corresponds to an unergative vP, with the experiencer merged in a low external argument position, viz. Spec, vP (Tollan 2018), not in Spec, VoiceP. The difference between causative EO verbs and their ES cognates lies in the Voice layer; in the former, the causer argument occupies the specifier of thematic VoiceP, while in the latter the Voice is expletive, filled with the reflexivemarker się. Despite sharing the common base, eventive EO verbs and their reflexive ES variantsare not derivationally related by a syntactic rule, as neither of the two structures can be treated as the basic one. The same reflexive marker with the same function and structural position is foundin Polish anticausatives, which also share a common base with their causative counterparts. The common base, this time, however, corresponds to an unaccusative, not unergative, vP.

SEMANTICS OF PERFECTIVE AND IMPERFECTIVE ASPECT

This article examines the concept of state aspect and holistic endpoint, action and state verbs are incomplete rather than complete, they do not encode any endpoint, and the verbs to do and succeed are complete because they are endpoints. Temporary instruments also serve to preserve the content of individual scenes, events as a whole, and completeness.

PECULIARITIES OF FUNCTIONING OF LEXICO-SEMANTIC GROUPS OF VERBS IN THE CONTINUOUS FORM IN ENGLISH DRAMA OF XVII–XX CENTURIES

The article identifies lexico-semantic groups of verbs which were used in the Continuous form through the Modern English period (XVII–XX centuries). It has been determined that in most cases the Continuous forms are used with the verbs of dynamic semantics. Nevertheless there has been revealed a tendency of Continuous forms to increase their use with stative verbs, which contribute to the fixing of expressive meaning in these forms.

The Ethno-Philosophical Context of Stative Verbs in the Germanic Languages

The aim of the research is to study the ethno-philosophical context associated with the stative verbs in order to determine the ways in which it reproduces cultural features, identity, and ways of thinking. The research employed the method of corpus analysis, the method of linguistic analysis, and the method of comparative analysis of two lan-guages. It is important to note that the use of different verbs to express a state in Eng-lish and German can have an effect on the perception of time and duration of a state. For example, in English “to be” can indicate the duration of a state, while “sein” in German can be used to express a state at a specific moment in time. This may reflect differences in the perception of time and emphasis on the temporality or duration of a state in each language. The analysis found significant differences in the expression of states, which reflect the cultural features and specifics of each language. This study opens up prospects for further research on the impact of cultural context on linguistic structures and may have important applications in the practice of translation. Further research can focus on a more detailed study of the semantic and syntactic features of expressions of state in languages.

КЫРГЫЗ ТИЛИНДЕГИ ПСИХОЛОГИЯЛЫК АБАЛДЫ ТУЮНДУРГАН ЭТИШ СӨЗДӨР

The article examines the verbs of the psychological state of a person in the modern Kyrgyz language and the semantic nature of the verb group expressing the mental state in it. The psychological state of a person as an integral mental process is a physiological reaction and an external expression of internal subjective content through verbal predicates, which is the essence of our scientific work. A person as a subject of mental activity not only causes certain changes in life, but also affects other people, and also feels and perceives what is happening in the environment. Positive and negative emotions, pleasant and unpleasant feelings in a person's character are expressed through a language function, in our work we use semantic predicates, which are analyzed in this article.