Argument Structure Research Articles

Language contact between Italian and English: a case study on nouns ending in the suffix -ing

Abstract The article deals with how English deverbal nouns with the suffix -ing have been imported into Italian. The focus is on the semantic characteristics of these borrowed nouns in Italian and, in particular, on the question of whether they have been borrowed not as simple sign-concept pairings but with argument and event structure. In previous research, it has been claimed that argument and event structure need to be licensed by some overt functional element. Hence, borrowed deverbal nouns should have argument structure and event structure only if they have an overt affix, in other words, only if the forms are not borrowed holistically as unsegmented words but retain internal morphological structure, implying that morphological borrowing of the affix has occurred. When a foreign affix combines with native bases of the recipient language, this is often considered an important criterion for morphological borrowing, which is clearly not the case for the suffix -ing in Italian. Here, it will be shown that contrary to expectation, numerous occurrences with argument and event structure may be found in a large Italian web corpus for a sample of English deverbal nouns ending in -ing, borrowed into (certain registers) of Italian.

Constructional complexity as a predictor of Korean EFL learners’ writing proficiency

Abstract Based on usage-based constructionist approaches to language development, this study investigates the validity of constructional complexity as a predictor of writing proficiency of Korean EFL learners. We analyzed argumentative essays produced by Korean EFL learners and compared a prediction model that uses English argument structure constructions with a conventional T-unit-based model. We first tested the predictive power of a discriminant function model with argument structure constructions as predictors for assessing writing proficiency of lower- and higher-level learners. We then compared the construction-based model to another model that included T-unit measures as predictors. The results validated the contribution of argument structure constructions for predicting L2 writing proficiency: The construction-based model yielded higher prediction accuracy than the T-unit-based model did, confirming that constructional complexity is closely aligned with writing proficiency. These findings demonstrate the significance of a construction-based model as a reliable tool for diagnosing EFL learners’ writing proficiency.

Language style and recognition of the answers in health Q&A community: Moderating effects of medical terminology

The rise of social question and answer (Q&A) platforms has changed the model of traditional health-information services. The quality of answers on a Q&A platform is critical to attract users and increase their community engagement. Thus, recognition of the answer was used to measure users’ acceptance of the answer. A theoretical model of the impact of language style on community recognition of health questions was developed. Nearly 1330 answers from a health question from Zhihu were obtained to verify the model. Results showed that personality reliability, assertiveness, argumentation clarity, commitment, and reverse incentive of health information positively affected answer recognition, while argumentation structure negatively affected answer acceptance. Simultaneously, the degree of use of medical terminology has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between answer recognition and assertiveness, argumentation structure, argumentation clarity, and commitment. Introducing Aristotle’s rhetoric theory to language style and answer recognition could potentially develop healthy communities and disseminate health knowledge.

The boundaries of lying

AbstractThe Holy Scriptures can be considered a specific kind of normative texts, whose use to assess practical moral cases requires interpretation. In the field of ethics, this interpretative problem results in the necessity of bridging the gap between the normative source – moral precepts – and the specific cases. In the history of the Church, this problem was the core of the so-called casuistry, namely the decision-making practice consisting in applying the Commandments and other principles of the Holy Scriptures to specific cases or moral problems. By taking into account the sin of lying, this paper argues that casuistic texts reveal an extremely sophisticated interpretative method, grounded on “pragmatic” contextual and communicative considerations and argumentative structures that resemble the ones used in legal interpretation. These works show how the underspecified biblical text expressing an abstract norm was enriched pragmatically by completing it and modulating its meaning so that it could be used to draw a conclusion in a specific context on a specific case. The mutual interdependence between biblical interpretation, pragmatics, and argumentation sheds light on a much broader phenomenon, namely the pragmatic nature of argumentation.

The wrong horse was bet on: the effects of argument structure versus argument adjacency on the processing of idiomatic sentences.

Psycholinguistic research remains puzzled about the circumstances under which syntactically transformed idioms keep their figurative meaning. There is an abundance of linguistic and psycholinguistic studies that have examined which factors may determine why some idioms are more syntactically fixed than others, including transparency, compositionality, and syntactic frozenness; however, they have returned inconclusive, sometimes even conflicting, results. This is the first study to examine argument structure (i.e., the number of arguments a verb takes) and argument adjacency (i.e., the position of the critical arguments relative to the verb) and their effects on the processing of idiomatic and literal sentences in German. Our results suggest that neither the traditional models of idiom processing (according to which idioms are stored as fixed entries) nor more recent hybrid theories (which concede some compositional handling in addition to a fixed entry) adequately account for the effects of argument structure or argument adjacency. Therefore, this study challenges existing models of idiom processing. In two sentence-completion experiments, participants listened to idiomatic and literal sentences in both active and passive voice without the sentence-final verb. They indicated which of three visually-presented verbs best completed the sentence. We manipulated the factor argument structure within experiments and argument adjacency across experiments. In Experiment 1, passivized three-argument sentences had the critical argument adjacent to the verb while two-argument sentences had the critical argument non-adjacent to the verb, and vice versa in Experiment 2. In both experiments, voice interacted with argument structure. Active sentences-both literal and idiomatic-showed equivalent processing of two- and three-argument sentences. However, passive sentences returned contrasting effects. In Experiment 1, three-argument sentences were processed faster than two-argument sentences and vice versa in Experiment 2. This pattern corresponds to faster processing when critical arguments are adjacent than non-adjacent. The results point to the dominant role of argument adjacency over the number of arguments in the processing of syntactically transformed sentences. Regarding idiom processing, we conclude that the adjacency of the verb to its critical arguments determines whether passivized idioms keep their figurative meaning and present the implications of this finding for relevant models of idiom processing.

A cognitive approach to the allegedly left-headed prefix verbs in German:

In this article, the much discussed problem of apparently left-headed German prefix verbs (e. g. besohlen ‘sole’, erschneidern ‘obtain by tailoring’, verschimmeln ‘become mouldy’) will be addressed from a cognitive perspective. It will be argued that nominal bases are metonymically reconceptualized as events inside the derivatives. This proposal has two advantages over previous approaches. First, it is not necessary to assign verbal or verbalizing properties to the prefixes be-, ent-, er-, ver-, and zer-, which have their origin in prepositions or adverbs. Secondly, an overgeneration of virtual verbs, i. e. of verbs which are not or no longer attested (e. g. *dachen ‘roof’, †sohlen ‘sole’) is avoided because the metonymic and hence purely conceptual verbalization process takes place in the context of the inseparable prefixes. The prefixes neither change the word-class of their bases nor provide argument structures, which are predicted by a small set of conceptual event schemata. The function of the prefixes is rather to add semantic or aspectual information. Synchronic support for the proposal to be presented first of all comes from the fact that conversion, which historically preceded prefixation in German, is still active. Contrastive analyses of English and German non-derived denominal verbs will illustrate this point. Moreover, many prefix verbs still co-exist with non-derived denominal verbs (e. g. schottern (< Schotter ‘gravel, ballast’) vs. beschottern, entschottern, verschottern). A more general observation is that the compatibility of denominal verbs with the holistic (or ‘synoptic’) perspective conveyed by the inseparable prefixes depends on the metonymic patterns underlying these verbs.

Типовой аргумент «Йорг Хайдер – правый популист» в системе дискурсивного конструирования немецкими СМИ идентичности австрийцев (на материале публикаций газеты “Der Tagesspiegel” в феврале 2000 г.)

The aim of the research is to identify the specifics of the discursive construction of the identity of Austrians through the typical argument ‘Jörg Haider is a right-wing populist’ in the German periodical ‘Der Tagesspiegel’ in February 2000. The paper analyses the structure and modifications of this typical argument, its connection with the discursive position of the main actors, the ways of its linguistic implementation. The paper is novel in that it is the first to use the argumentation analysis of the microstructure of media discourse on the basis of studies of critical and linguistic discourse analysis of Russian, Austrian and German Germanistics. As a result of the research, it has been found that identity construction occurs through, firstly, the repetition of meanings generated in discourse and by discourse, which can be generalised using typical arguments. Secondly, the described typical argument linguistically constructs the common political present, future and past of Germany and Austria, a representative of the nation. The typical argument is implemented by the lexico-syntactic and rhetorical means that mark the discursive position of the actors: the formation of public opinion, political enlightenment and ambivalent attitude to Nazism.

Transitivity and polysemy of the Verb in Romanian Language

The present article studies the semantic-syntactic structure of polysemantic verbs, following the stratification of their meanings. Analyzing the syntactic neighborhoods of a certain polysemantic verb, with the matrix of obligatory thematic roles, characteristic for actantial, circumstantial or predicative relations, we notice that in the process of functioning, various transformational processes of a different nature take place. Following the research, it was found that these transformations modify the argumentative structure of the verb at the referential level, changing its semantic-syntactic structure, which allows it to pass from one semantic class to another to fully reveal its communicative role. Responsible for these would be the phenomenon of actantial derivation. Only two forms of actantial derivation were discussed – transitivization and intransitivization – given that transitivity, an unmarked semantic feature, influences the ability of the verb to accumulate meanings with different syntactic patterns. It was found that there is an obvious oscillation between the positive or negative marking of transitivity and the realization of a verb as intransitive or transitive. The phenomenon of free syntactic variation also participates in the diversification of the syntactic structure of a polysemantic verb, which allows the operation of semantically equivalent but syntactically different variants.

Стратегия принятия предложения в политическом дискурсе

This study reviewed several previous studies related to political discourse, and among them, special attention was paid to the research of N. Fairclough and I. Fairclough. It has been argued that the acceptance strategy discourse has a distinctive argument structure as opposed to the general argument discourse. Putin's speech to the Russian Parliament was analyzed. In Putin's speech, it was found that in the discourse of acceptance strategy, the utterance motive, the proposition premise, and the proposition premise considerations can function as categories of arguments. Putin elaborated on the content of the proposal and at the same time suggested that the proposal was a practical and broad issue, stating that there was such a public opinion among citizens; however, Putin's speech emphasized that it is inappropriate to exclude the presidential term from the constitution without expressing his intention to accept the proposal directly; however, he expressed his opinion on the argument that would allow the incumbent to run for the next presidential election. He presented 1) substantive premises that the current Russian constitutional system is weak and there is an active debate about the presidential system; 2) the value premise that the amendment bill would strengthen our sovereignty, traditions and values; 3) alternatives that the parliamentary cabinet system not suitable for the current stage. This series of structures of argumentation has been seen to emphasize that Tereshkova's proposal is significant. In this study, a discourse strategy that reinforces the validity of a proposal without explicitly making a claim was named unrevealed statements. This strategy was considered to have the advantage of maximizing the effect of the utterance, providing only a persuasive argument without compromising the speaker's image in any way.

Improving logical flow in English-as-a-foreign-language learner essays by reordering sentences

Argumentation is ubiquitous in everyday discourse, and it is a skill that can be learned. In our society, it is also one that must be learned: education systems all over the world agree on the importance of argumentation skills. However, writing effective argumentation is difficult, and even more so if it has to be expressed in a foreign language. Existing artificial intelligence systems for language learning can help learners: they can provide objective feedback (e.g., concerning grammar and spelling), as well as providing learners with opportunities to identify errors and subsequently improve their texts. Even so, systems aiming at higher discourse-level skills, such as persuasiveness and content organisation, are still limited. In this article, we propose the novel task of sentence reordering for improving the logical flow of argumentative essays. To train such a computational system, we present a new corpus called ICNALE-AS2R, containing essays written by English-as-foreign-language learners from various Asian countries, that have been annotated with argumentative structure and sentence reordering. We also propose a novel method to automatically reorder sentences in imperfect essays, which is based on argumentative structure analysis. Given an input essay and its corresponding argumentative structure, we cast the reordering task as a traversal problem. Our sentence reordering system first determines the pairwise ordering relation between pairs of sentences that are connected by argumentative relations. In the second step, the system traverses the argumentative structure that has been augmented with pairwise ordering information, in order to generate the final output text. Empirical evaluation shows that in the task of reconstructing the final reordered essays in the dataset, our reordering system achieves .926 and .879 in longest common subsequence ratio and Kendall's Tau metrics, respectively. The system is also able to perform the reordering operation selectively, that is, it reorders sentences when necessary and retains the original input order when it is already optimal.

Main Concepts in the Spoken Discourse of Persons with Aphasia: Analysis on a Propositional and Linguistic Level

Individuals produce discourse for various purposes as part of their daily functioning. Therefore, the ability to form a discourse should be one of the main goals of functional speech-language therapy for persons with aphasia (PwA). In addition to assessing the language skills required to form a discourse, it is important to analyse how PwA form general ideas that need to be narrated. This study had two specific aims: (1) to investigate the ability of PwA, with special consideration to the stage of their recovery—the acute and the chronic phase—to form main concepts in a discourse, and (2) to examine the relationship between the number of main concepts and different types of language measures related to productivity, informativeness, and grammaticality in all tested groups. Participants included a total of 38 persons with mild and moderate aphasia (19 in the acute and 19 in the chronic phase of recovery) and 38 healthy speakers (HS) who were matched in age, gender, and level of education. In order to effectively compare the discourse produced by the groups, a single structured stimulus was used, whereby all participants were asked to orally describe a picture from the Croatian version of the Comprehensive Aphasia Test. Compared to the HS, the main concepts produced by PwA were different in number, as well as in terms of their accuracy and completeness. However, when analysing the success in the production of the main concepts with regard to the time post-stroke—acute and chronic—the difference was not confirmed, indicating great individual differences between PwA that undermine the differences on a group level. Linguistic measures of informativeness (CIUs and CIU/words) and only one measure of grammaticality (number of clauses) showed a significant correlation with the number of main concepts in PwA. When analysing correlations for PwA in the acute and chronic phases, only CIU showed a significant association with MC, confirming it as a robust measure of discourse production in PwA. PwA did not produce long and complex sentences, and they showed difficulties in the use of verbs and the marking of argument structures.

Introducing arguments beyond the thematic domain

Extensive research has focused on how VoiceP (Kratzer 1996), ApplP (Pylkkänen 2008), and i* (Wood & Marantz 2017), an overarching term for Voice and Appl, establish argument structure inside the thematic domain (below TP). A question arises as to whether argument structure can be established outside the thematic domain (above TP). This work provides empirical evidence from Korean in suggesting that an argument can be introduced by Voice/Appl (i*) in the left periphery. Specifically, it lends support to the claim that the discourse participant ‘addressee’ is represented in syntax (Haegeman & Hill 2013; Miyagawa 2017; 2022; Portner et al. 2019 among others). In this regard, this work draws parallels between the thematic domain and the speech act domain, which have been considered to be two separate domains.

Closing Argument as Multimodal Oratory: Insights from the Chauvin Trial

The paper examines selected aspects of the defence closing argument in a highly publicised criminal trial to illustrate the orchestration of various semiotic resources in legal persuasion and to explain their role in the creation of meaning. The study demonstrates that closing arguments are multimodal performances whose persuasiveness results from the combination of modes (speech, image, video, gaze, gesture, posture, proxemics) which contextualise and strengthen one another, rather than language alone. Drawing on earlier research into multimodality, courtroom rhetoric and proximity in disciplinary genres, the analysis centres on the ways in which the defence counsel controls the rhetorical features of his narrative and constructs himself and the audience as people with similar understandings and goals. The study specifically demonstrates how the counsel constructs the proximity of commitment, the proximity of membership and the proximity of experience. It explores such facets of proximity as: organisation, argument structure, credibility, stance and engagement, and identifies key rhetorical strategies used to achieve the intended communicative effect. The analysis clearly shows that the persuasiveness of the counsel’s performance depends on the synchronisation of a range of meaning-making resources, which, if used in isolation, would result in a much less engaging argument.

Translational argument technology: Engineering a step change in the argument web

Following the establishment in 2006 of a representational standard for the computational handling of structures of argumentation, the Argument Interchange Format, it became possible to develop a vision for the coherent integration of multifarious services, components and tools that create, consume, navigate, analyse, evaluate and manipulate arguments and debates. This vision was the Argument Web with theoretical foundations laid by Rahwan et al. (2007), and practical engineering work described by Bex et al. (2013). Over the intervening period, the key challenge has been to demonstrate the practical and societal value of the Argument Web by taking its tools and applications to larger audiences. This paper lays out three approaches by which the Argument Web has been scaled up in this way, each in partnership with the BBC, and each with different kinds of evaluation and impact. Transitioning these technologies to large user groups paves the way for broader-scale uptake of the Argument Web and heralds the translation from lab to real-world application for a substantial research community working in argument technology.

The argumentative salience of technology frames of reference: An analysis of argumentative discourse in the development of a health information exchange initiative

This study examines the impact that the argumentative salience of technology frames of references has on the execution of complex IS implementation projects. It employs Toulmin's argument model to develop argument maps that depict the structure of argumentation that took place during the development and implementation of an interorganizational health information exchange initiative (HIE) that took place in southeast USA. Toulmin's argument model faciliated the portrayal of frame salience in terms of three structural properties (i.e., blindness, indifference, and ownership). The study used these properties to show how the breadth, depth and conspicuity of frame structures changed during the course of the project and demonstrated how these changes impacted both the level of contestation observed in the project as well as project outcomes. In addition to lending insights that are specific to this case, our conceptualization of frame structure lends itself to cross-case comparisons and future theory building as the impact of these argument structures can be evaluated in a multitude of different contexts.

Students' abilities to formulate exhaustive titles as a key to comprehending arguments

AbstractTitles are used to find and express the main idea of a given text. This study examines the ability of 357 eleventh‐grade high school students to formulate meaningful titles for argument paragraphs. Additionally, the link between the ability to provide proper titles and the ability to recognize the argument claim is examined. The study relates to three types of argument structures. The results reveal that most students failed to convey the main idea in all three argument structures. Moreover, even students who succeeded in indicating the main claim, failed to suggest exhaustive titles. Analysis reveals seven different types of inaccuracies in titles students formulated, and reasons for such are offered. Ten recommendations for teaching are suggested in conclusion.

Explaining Recommendations through Conversations: Dialog Model and the Effects of Interface Type and Degree of Interactivity

Explaining system-generated recommendations based on user reviews can foster users’ understanding and assessment of the recommended items and the recommender system (RS) as a whole. While up to now explanations have mostly been static, shown in a single presentation unit, some interactive explanatory approaches have emerged in explainable artificial intelligence (XAI), making it easier for users to examine system decisions and to explore arguments according to their information needs. However, little is known about how interactive interfaces should be conceptualized and designed to meet the explanatory aims of transparency, effectiveness, and trust in RS. Thus, we investigate the potential of interactive, conversational explanations in review-based RS and propose an explanation approach inspired by dialog models and formal argument structures. In particular, we investigate users’ perception of two different interface types for presenting explanations, a graphical user interface (GUI)-based dialog consisting of a sequence of explanatory steps, and a chatbot-like natural-language interface. Since providing explanations by means of natural language conversation is a novel approach, there is a lack of understanding how users would formulate their questions with a corresponding lack of datasets. We thus propose an intent model for explanatory queries and describe the development of ConvEx-DS, a dataset containing intent annotations of 1,806 user questions in the domain of hotels, that can be used to to train intent detection methods as part of the development of conversational agents for explainable RS. We validate the model by measuring user-perceived helpfulness of answers given based on the implemented intent detection. Finally, we report on a user study investigating users’ evaluation of the two types of interactive explanations proposed (GUI and chatbot), and to test the effect of varying degrees of interactivity that result in greater or lesser access to explanatory information. By using Structural Equation Modeling, we reveal details on the relationships between the perceived quality of an explanation and the explanatory objectives of transparency, trust, and effectiveness. Our results show that providing interactive options for scrutinizing explanatory arguments has a significant positive influence on the evaluation by users (compared to low interactive alternatives). Results also suggest that user characteristics such as decision-making style may have a significant influence on the evaluation of different types of interactive explanation interfaces.

Connecting source use and argumentation in L2 integrated argumentative writing performance

Second language (L2) integrated argumentative writing is a complex process, where writers need to integrate sources to make effective arguments to demonstrate their writing proficiency. While abundant research has examined essay performance features in relation to proficiency scores, our understanding of the nature of L2 argumentation and the impact of source use on argumentation quality remains relatively limited. This short communication investigates how source use characteristics were manifested in 300 argumentative writing performances of an integrated writing test. The essays were coded and analyzed in terms of integration style, interpretation accuracy, and integration purpose along with their argumentation effectiveness, operationalized as argument structure and reasoning quality. The results showed that while source use characteristics did not show a direct relationship with score level, certain features displayed systematic differences across levels of argumentation effectiveness, which are significantly related to writing scores. The findings suggest a potential complex, indirect relationship between source use, argumentation, and writing proficiency that warrants a more thorough analysis in L2 writing research.

Addressing uncertainty in the safety assurance of machine-learning

There is increasing interest in the application of machine learning (ML) technologies to safety-critical cyber-physical systems, with the promise of increased levels of autonomy due to their potential for solving complex perception and planning tasks. However, demonstrating the safety of ML is seen as one of the most challenging hurdles to their widespread deployment for such applications. In this paper we explore the factors which make the safety assurance of ML such a challenging task. In particular we address the impact of uncertainty on the confidence in ML safety assurance arguments. We show how this uncertainty is related to complexity in the ML models as well as the inherent complexity of the tasks that they are designed to implement. Based on definitions of uncertainty as well as an exemplary assurance argument structure, we examine typical weaknesses in the argument and how these can be addressed. The analysis combines an understanding of causes of insufficiencies in ML models with a systematic analysis of the types of asserted context, asserted evidence and asserted inference within the assurance argument. This leads to a systematic identification of requirements on the assurance argument structure as well as supporting evidence. We conclude that a combination of qualitative arguments combined with quantitative evidence are required to build a robust argument for safety-related properties of ML functions that is continuously refined to reduce residual and emerging uncertainties in the arguments after the function has been deployed into the target environment.

Introduction: Thirty Years after Cultural Capital

Abstract This essay considers the status of John Guillory's Cultural Capital thirty years after its publication. Responding to an ongoing crisis in the humanities (which seems never to have passed) and to the “canon wars” of literary studies in the 1980s and 1990s, Cultural Capital refocused the debate about literary canons and aesthetic value away from contests of judgment in order to describe the social and institutional contexts of canon formation. What emerges from Guillory's Bourdieusian framework is a brilliant account not only of the process of canon formation but also of the professional anxieties that attend arguments about canonicity and representation. The essay explores the structure of Guillory's argument and considers why this work has been largely absent in recent debates about the state of the profession and the discipline of literary studies. The essay then introduces each contribution to this special issue, which seeks to bring Guillory's theory of canon formation back into contemporary debates about the future of literary studies, the politics of cultural representation, and the state of the humanities in crisis.