Subject-verb-object Research Articles

A Concept-based Approach to the Instruction of the Chinese ba-construction

This study explores a concept-based instruction approach to promoting second languagedevelopment of the ba-construction, a known difficult area, by six collegelevelEnglish learners of Chinese in a two-month enrichment program. We developedSCOBAs to explain the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic constraints of the baconstruction, as well as its similarities and differences from the canonical Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) and topicalization Object-Subject-Verb (OSV) word orders. Theparticipants’ productive use of the construction was assessed with two translations(one on paper and one on the computer) and a cartoon description task followinga pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest format. Semi-structured interviews and theparticipants’ verbalization data were also collected. By comparing the participants’gain scores in relation to maximum possible scores, we found that the participants had made large gains throughout the study and retained much of the gain two weeks after the posttest. The microgenetic analyses of the participants’ production data showed improvement in the use of resultative verb compound, perfective marker–le, and the placement of directional particles. Finally, the verbalizations data indicated improvement in conceptual understanding of the ba-construction in terms of its scope, i.e., not just the physical placement of objects, but the accentuation of the results of the verbal action.

The role of discourse in long-distance dependency formation

ABSTRACT Sentences with filler-gap dependency are more difficult to process than those without, as reflected by event-related brain potentials (ERPs) such as sustained left anterior negativity (SLAN). The cognitive processes underlying SLAN may support associating a filler with a temporally distant gap in syntactic representation. Alternatively, processing filler-gap dependencies in the absence of a supportive context involves additional discourse processing. The present study conducted an ERP experiment that manipulated syntactic complexity (subject–object–verb [SOV] and object–subject–verb [OSV]) and discourse (the supportive and non-supportive context) in Japanese. The result showed a SLAN in OSV relative to SOV in the non-supportive but not the supportive context, which suggests that the difficulty involved in processing OSV in Japanese is largely due to a pragmatic factor. The present study contributes to a better understanding of how the language-processing system builds long-distance dependency by interacting with the memory system.

Use of Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy to Assess Syntactic Processing by Monolingual and Bilingual Adults and Children.

This exploratory study assessed the use of functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) to examine hemodynamic response patterns during sentence processing. Four groups of participants: monolingual English children, bilingual Chinese-English children, bilingual Chinese-English adults and monolingual English adults were given an agent selection syntactic processing task. Bilingual child participants were classified as simultaneous or sequential bilinguals to examine the impact of first language, age of second-language acquisition (AoL2A), and the length of second language experience on behavioral performance and cortical activation. Participants were asked to select the agent of four types of sentences: subject-verb-object (SVO), passive (PAS), subject-extracted relative clause (SR), and object-extracted relative clause (OR) adopted from the “Whatdunit” task by Montgomery et al. (2016). Semantic cues were removed by using inanimate nouns for agents and patients, which constrained participants to make decisions based on syntactic knowledge. Behavioral results showed greater accuracy for canonical SVO and SR sentence types than for noncanonical OR and PAS sentence types, which aligns with prior studies. Neuroimaging results revealed greater hemodynamic responses to relative clauses (i.e., SR and OR sentences) than to simple sentences (SVO and PAS), especially for Chinese-English bilinguals suggesting first-language transfer influencing sentence processing in English. The effects AoL2A and the length of second language experience showed no significant differences between simultaneous and sequential bilinguals or between bilingual adults and children for identifying the correct agent in each sentence. However, neuroimaging results demonstrated greater hemodynamic responses in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and left inferior parietal lobule (IPL) in simultaneous bilinguals compared to sequential bilinguals and greater hemodynamic responses in left and right DLPFC and left IPL among bilingual adults. Different behavioral and neural hemodynamic response patterns afford new insights into the effects of syntactic knowledge on sentence processing.

Shared syntactic representations in bilinguals

Abstract The current study explores the nature of constituent-structure-independent structural priming across the two languages of bilinguals. Specifically, this study tests whether such cross-linguistic priming involves the priming of functional-level syntactic representations shared between the languages, which can be distinguished from the priming of mainly non-syntactic information (e.g., information structure, thematic-role order). Critical prime sentences consisted of Cantonese actives in the Object-Subject-Verb (OSV) order and passives where the patient was grammatically topicalized with the same topic particle. Target responses were produced in English actives or passives. The results show that robust priming from Cantonese Topic-Passives to English passives occurred, but no cross-linguistic priming was observed for Cantonese Topic-OSV active primes. The Topic-OSV active and Topic-Passive constructions share information structure, and are formed in different constituent structures from English actives and passives. Therefore, the robust cross-linguistic passive priming by Topic-Passive primes should in large part be ascribed to functional-level syntactic representations of passive constructions shared by Cantonese and English.

Pegah Faghiri, Pollet Samvelian. “Word order preferences and the effect of phrasal length in SOV languages: evidence from sentence production in Persian”

This study contributes to our understanding of the role of phrasal length in constituent ordering preferences by studying the relative order of verbal complements in Persian, a flexible SOV language displaying mixed head direction. To meet this objective, Faghiri and Samvelian have conducted two sentence production experiments in which they investigate the effect of the linear distance between the verb and its dependents, as well as factors that are related to conceptual accessibility includi...

Who is kissing whom? Two-year-olds’ comprehension of pronouns, case and word order

Abstract Two-year olds’ comprehension of pronouns in transitive sentences was examined. Previously, children at this age have been shown to comprehend transitive sentences containing full nouns and pronouns in subject position (Gertner et. al. 2006; Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff 1996;), but little is known about when children begin to comprehend the nominative and accusative case in pronouns. Using a preferential looking task, we found that 27-month-old children were able to comprehend transitive, grammatical sentences that had subject-verb-object (SVO) word order and nominative pronouns in subject position or accusative pronouns in object position, but 19-month-old children did not demonstrate this comprehension. Furthermore, neither group showed a consistent interpretation for ungrammatical sentences containing pronouns, in contrast to adult participants. Our results suggest that the ability to use pronouns as an aid to understanding transitive sentences develops by 27 months, before children are capable of producing these pronouns in their own speech.

Https://iupress.istanbul.edu.tr/journal/tuded/article/divan-siirinde-gecen-musiki-istilahlarina-dair-genel-bir-tasnif-denemesi

This study investigates prosodic marking of sentence initial aboutness topics and contrastive topics in Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) order in Turkish under six different conditions within experimental and theoretical perspectives. Fundamental frequency (F0 ) and duration values are the evaluation criteria of the study. The conditions illustrate aboutness and contrastive topics - discourse-new or discourse given - in different information packaging options. These conditions are compared with focus phrases under broad focus conditions. The data were collected from native speakers with the help of dialogues including the target sentences. The sentences, extracted from the recordings, were annotated via Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2020). The results indicate that F0 values at the right edge of the prenuclear domain and the nuclear domain are higher with topic phrases. Aboutness topics have higher values than contrastive topics. However, the statistical analysis indicates that this is not a categorical property when all six conditions are analyzed. Duration measurements of prenuclear, nuclear and postnuclear domains also do not differ under these six conditions. To conclude, Turkish aboutness and contrastive topics are marked with different syntactic and semantic tools, but they are not marked with a distinctive prosodic strategy and they do not differ from broad focus sentences.

Expression visuelle de la structure des phrases en langue des signes française

An individual who proficiently uses communication skills does so by referring to either oral, written or bodily language, with the latter allowing information, emotions or thoughts to be conveyed in the most correct and effective way when words are insufficient. In general, individuals throughout history have faced deafness and hearing loss, resulting in the use of sign language to communicate with the outside world. This was apparent in Europe prior to the 18th century, when such individuals were isolated and forced to create their own sign languages. Thus, the purpose of this study is three-fold: 1) to explain French sign language, its historical periods and structure, while theoretically researching and drawing on the latest resources; 2) to explain its syntactical and structural differences from oral French by examining short dialogs and drawn images; and 3) to highlight the differences between sentence structures in French sign language [e.g., free order or object-verb-subject (OVS)) and that of oral French (subject-verb-object (SVO)]. Based on the findings, although French sign language is visio-gestural, it can be effectively used to perform all functions in oral French.

Sign Order in Slovenian Sign Language Transitive and Ditransitive Sentences

The basic sign order in Slovenian Sign Language (SZJ) is Subject-Verb-Object (SVO). This is shown by analysing non-topicalised or focalised transitive and ditransitive sentences that were elicited from first language SZJ informants using Picture Description Task. The data further reveal that the visual-gestural modality, through which SZJ is transmitted, plays a role in linearization since visually influenced classifier predicates trigger the non-basic SOV sign order in this language.

Structural and Extralinguistic Aspects of Code-Switching: Evidence From Papiamentu-Dutch Auditory Sentence Matching

Despite a wealth of studies on effects of switch locations in code-switching (CS), we know relatively little about how structural factors such as switch location and extralinguistic factors such as directionality preferences may jointly modulate CS (cf., Stell and Yapko, 2015). Previous findings in the nominal domain suggest that within-constituent switching (within the noun phrase) may be easier to process than between-constituent switching (a structural effect), and that there may also be directionality effects with switches preferred only in one language direction (an extra-linguistic effect). In this study we examine a different domain, namely how VP-external (preverbal) vs. VP-internal (postverbal) switch location and switch directionality affects the processing of Papiamentu–Dutch mixed subject-verb-object (SVO) sentences. We manipulated switch location (preverbal/postverbal), and directionality of switch (PD/DP) and tested 50 Papiamentu–Dutch bilinguals on an auditory sentence matching task. The results from the mixed conditions showed no effect of switch location. Instead, we found only an effect of directionality and in an unexpected direction for this population, with switches from Dutch to Papiamentu being processed faster than switches from Papiamentu to Dutch regardless of switch location. The results highlight the importance of taking extralinguistic factors into account, but also the challenges of studying CS, particularly in lesser studied speech communities, and the need for a data-driven, cross-disciplinary approach to the study of CS.

An analytical study of word-order patterns in Standard Arabic simple sentence

The main focus of the study is to analyze the simple sentence structure and its word-order patterns of Standard Arabic syntactically. Main methods concern description and comparison of word-order patterns observed. Primarily the current study deals with some differentiations of the terms on sentence types and word-order patterns described by both medieval grammarians and modern linguists. Moreover, the so called Sībawayhian theory of ʿamil’ also provides some explanations of sentence structures and word-order patterns in Standard Arabic. Simple sentences are highlighted to examine the occasions for using different patterns and where they are commonly found, along with examples to facilitate the explanation and use of these patterns. It is essential to point out that Standard Arabic is considered to be a language with a flexible word-order, which is why there exist word-order patterns of both VOS and SVO languages, though the latter is more frequently used.

Elicitation of particular grammatical structures in speeches for interpreting research: enhancing ecological validity of experimental research in interpreting

ABSTRACT In many experiments with simultaneous interpreting (SI), researchers use source speeches that are not only written and read aloud, but also pre-recorded, reducing their ecological validity. This study proposes a method to obtain speeches that are suited for experimental research, but with lower levels of input control. It examines the effect of written cues in a PowerPoint presentation with varying constituent orders and varying ratios of explicit verbal input. The study analyses to what extent the cues are capable of eliciting SOV (subject – object – verb) constituent orders in Dutch speakers, a well-known trigger of cognitive load in SI. We focus on two types of subordinate clauses: adverbial and content clauses. The results reveal that the extent to which SOV is elicited in speakers is highest when the (S)OV order is present in the written input. However, other types of input, with lower levels of input control, such as verbless structures, are also seen to elicit to 50% of SOV in speeches.

AGRAMMATIC PATIENT’S DUAL CODING PROCESS IN SENTENCE COMPREHENSION

This paper reports on a study on the dual coding process involved in an agrammatic patient when comprehending sentences using a sentence to picture matching test. The test was undertaken at The National Stroke Association of Malaysia (NASAM), Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. The current study employs the theory of Paivio’s (1991) Dual Coding Theory (DCT) as an explanation for the agrammatic patient’s ability to comprehend active and passive sentences and adopts an influential hypothesis by Grodzinsky’s (1990) Trace Deletion Hypothesis (TDH) concerning agrammatism that characterises agrammatic patients as a good comprehender of Subject Verb Object (SVO) sentence structure, the active sentence but as bad comprehenders of Object Verb Subject (OVS) sentence structure, the passive sentences. A comprehension test, the Sentence to Picture Matching Test designed by Christensen (2001) has been adopted in this study to examine the suitability of dual coding theory as an explanation for the agrammatic patient’s comprehension ability. The performance of the patient’s comprehension pattern in this study supports the account of TDH and in general, the findings of this study suggest that sentence to picture matching test could be used to investigate the dual coding process of the agrammatic patient.

THE PEOPLE OF KAO AND THEIR LANGUAGE IN THE NORTHERN COAST OF HALMAHERA

There are two major language families existing in Indonesia. Those are Austronesian and Papuan languages. Most of Austronesian language speakers live in all over Indonesia. However, the other one, the Non-Austronesian or Papuan language speakers live in some parts of Eastern Indonesia such as North Maluku, Papua, West Papua and East Nusa Tenggara. The focus of this study will lie on one of the language communities in Halmahera island, North Maluku, namely Kao which is on the northern coast of the island. Based on the researches conducted from 2013 up to 2014, it is shown that Kao language which is categorized as Papuan language has been affected by Austronesian feature. It seems that the environment where Kao people live has influenced their life especially their language. One of the influences is on the structure of their language which has changed and shown the domination of the Austronesian characteristic in the case of word order, that is Subject-Verb-Object (SVO). Meanwhile, the existence of lingua franca as an inter-ethnic communication tool such as Ternate Malay which is also Austronesian language has contributed to form the present language of Kao as well. This article aims to explain the Kao people and their language which has started to be influenced by Austronesian feature.

Linguistic system and sociolinguistic environment as competing factors in linguistic variation: A typological approach

AbstractThis paper brings together typological and sociolinguistic approaches to language variation. Its main aim is to evaluate the relative effect of language internal and external factors on the number of cases in the world’s languages. I model word order as a language internal predictor; it is well-known that, for instance, languages with verb-final word order (that is, languages in which both nominal arguments precede the main lexical verb) tend to develop complex case systems more often than languages with SVO word order do. I model population size and the proportion of second language speakers in the speech community as sociolinguistic predictors; these factors have been suggested recently to influence the distribution of the number of cases in the world’s languages. Modelling the data with generalized linear mixed effects modelling suggests an interaction between the number of cases, word order, and the proportion of second language speakers on the one hand, and between the number of cases, word order, and population size, on the other. This kind of complex interactions have not been previously reported in typological research wherefore they call for more complex explanations than previously suggested for cross-linguistic variation.

Exploring Sentence Diversity at the Boundary of Typical and Impaired Language Abilities.

PurposeThis review article summarizes programmatic research on sentence diversity in toddlers developing language typically and explores developmental patterns of sentence diversity in toddlers at risk for specific language impairment.MethodThe first half of this review article presents a sentence-focused approach to language assessment and intervention and reviews findings from empirical studies of sentence diversity. In the second half, subject and verb diversity in three simple sentence types are explored in an archival database of toddlers with varying levels of grammatical outcomes at 36 months of age: low average, mild/moderate delay, and severe delay.ResultsDescriptive findings from the archival database replicated previous developmental patterns. All toddlers with low-average language abilities produced diverse simple sentences by 30 months of age and exhibited greater sentence diversity with first-person I-subjects before third-person subjects. Third-person subject diversity emerged in a developmental sequence, increasing in one-argument copula contexts and one-argument subject–verb sentences before two-argument subject–verb–object sentences. This developmental pattern held across all three outcome groups. Third-person subjects were least diverse for children with severe grammatical delays and were absent in all sentence contexts for two children with severe delays at 36 months.ConclusionsSentence diversity increases gradually and expands in predictable patterns. Understanding these developmental patterns may help identify and treat children who display unexpected difficulty combining different subjects and verbs in flexible ways.Supplemental Material and Presentation Video https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12915320

Interactive Text Graph Mining with a Prolog-Based Dialog Engine

AbstractOn top of a neural network-based dependency parser and a graph-based natural language processing module, we design a Prolog-based dialog engine that explores interactively a ranked fact database extracted from a text document. We reorganize dependency graphs to focus on the most relevant content elements of a sentence and integrate sentence identifiers as graph nodes. Additionally, after ranking the graph, we take advantage of the implicit semantic information that dependency links and WordNet bring in the form of subject–verb–object, “is-a” and “part-of” relations. Working on the Prolog facts and their inferred consequences, the dialog engine specializes the text graph with respect to a query and reveals interactively the document’s most relevant content elements. The open-source code of the integrated system is available at https://github.com/ptarau/DeepRank.

Abstractions made of exemplars or ‘You’re all right, and I’ve changed my mind’: Response to commentators

In this response to commentators, I agree with those who suggested that the distinction between exemplar- and abstraction-based accounts is something of a false dichotomy and therefore move to an abstractions-made-of-exemplars account under which (a) we store all the exemplars that we hear (subject to attention, decay, interference, etc.) but (b) in the service of language use, re-represent these exemplars at multiple levels of abstraction, as simulated by computational neural-network models such as BERT, ELMo and GPT-3. Whilst I maintain that traditional linguistic abstractions (e.g. a DETERMINER category; SUBJECT VERB OBJECT word order) are no more than human-readable approximations of the type of abstractions formed by both human and artificial multiple-layer networks, I express hope that the abstractions-made-of-exemplars position can point the way towards a truce in the language acquisition wars: We were all right all along, just focusing on different levels of abstraction.

Age of sign language acquisition has lifelong effect on syntactic preferences in sign language users

Acquisition of natural language has been shown to fundamentally impact both one’s ability to use the first language and the ability to learn subsequent languages later in life. Sign languages offer a unique perspective on this issue because Deaf signers receive access to signed input at varying ages. The majority acquires sign language in (early) childhood, but some learn sign language later—a situation that is drastically different from that of spoken language acquisition. To investigate the effect of age of sign language acquisition and its potential interplay with age in signers, we examined grammatical acceptability ratings and reaction time measures in a group of Deaf signers (age range = 28–58 years) with early (0–3 years) or later (4–7 years) acquisition of sign language in childhood. Behavioral responses to grammatical word order variations (subject–object–verb [SOV] vs. object–subject–verb [OSV]) were examined in sentences that included (1) simple sentences, (2) topicalized sentences, and (3) sentences involving manual classifier constructions, uniquely characteristic of sign languages. Overall, older participants responded more slowly. Age of acquisition had subtle effects on acceptability ratings, whereby the direction of the effect depended on the specific linguistic structure.

Word order preferences and the effect of phrasal length in SOV languages: evidence from sentence production in Persian

Heaviness (or phrasal length) has been shown to trigger mirror-image constituent ordering preferences in head-initial and head-final languages (heavy-late vs. heavy-first). These preferences are commonly attributed to a general cognitive pressure for processing efficiency obtained by minimizing the overall head-dependents linear distance – measured as the distance between the verb and the head of its left/right-most complement (Hawkins’s Minimizing Domains) or as the sum of the distances between the verb and its complements (Dependency Length Minimization). The alternative language-specific accessibility-based production account, that considers longer constituents to be conceptually more accessible and views heavy-first as a salient-first preference, is dismissed because it implies differential sentence production in SOV and SVO languages. This paper studies the effect of phrasal length in Persian, a flexible SOV language displaying mixed head direction and differential object marking. We investigated the effect of linear distance as well as the effect of conceptual enrichment in two sentence production experiments. Our results provide clear evidence that support DLM while undermining Hawkins’s MiD. However, they also show that some length effects cannot be captured by a dependency-distance-minimizing model and the conceptual accessibility hypothesis also needs to be taken into account to explain ordering preferences in Persian. Importantly, our findings indicate that distance minimization has a less strong effect in Persian than previously shown for other SOV languages.