Subordinate Constructions Research Articles

Clause linkage in Japanese

Lehmann (1988) proposed a 'survey' of the most important aspects of complex sentence formation in the languages of the world, that took the form of generally applicable parameters of clause linkage. This article tries to apply such and similar parameters to the patterns shown by Japanese, whose situation is interesting because of the great similarity in structure shown by the majority of its subordinate clause types among each other, and even with coordinate clauses. This fact sometimes causes confusion in classification, as happens for the temporal V-te form, which is listed as an example of coordination by Hinds (1986) and Kubota (1989), while Kuno (1973) considers it as a subordinate construction, and even farther from coordination than, for instance, temporal to constructions. The parameters applied help to a certain extent in locating the different kinds of Japanese complex sentences at different levels on a continuum between what Lehmann calls maximal elaboration and maximal compression of lexical and grammatical information, corresponding respectively to the coordination of independent clauses and the strong embedding of subordinate nominalized sentence

THE FAMILY-OF-ORIGIN SCALE WITH ADOLESCENTS: PRELIMINARY NORMS

The Family-of-Origin Scale (FOS) is a 40 item, ten-subscale, Likert instrument founded upon psychodynamic models of family functioning. The FOS is based upon two subordinate constructs - Autonomy and Intimacy - associated with positive individual adjustment. The original FOS was designed to assess adults' retrospective views of their family. The scale has been recently modified to assess adolescents' perceptions of current family functioning. The present study involved administering the FOS to 664 adolescents. No significant differences were obtained between the adolescents and the published adult FOS norms. The FOS appears to be appropriate for adolescents.

Article Commentary: Levels of Analysis and Personality: Lessons from the Person-Situation Debate?

In a recent article, Funder (1991) contends that global as opposed to narrow personality traits provide appropriate level of at which personality research should begin. heuristic value of generalized personality dispositions as exemplified by fivefactor model of personality (Digman, 1990) is considerable. Yet, Funder's preemptive assertions bring to mind polemic exaggeration of person-situation debate. Although such rhetoric may stimulate productive inquiry, it seems unlikely that scientific monism will, in itself, promote richest possible understanding of important issues facing personality psychology. Brevity precludes of each of Funder's assertions. Instead, this commentary examines central epistemological claims. 1. For purposes of explanation, most important traits are global but for purposes of prediction, narrower better (p. 35). Funder accords global traits superior ontologic status on grounds that they alone provide bona fide power to explain behavioral consistency. More narrow traits, by contrast, are dismissed as tautological. By illustration, Funder differentiates between global trait of social skills which explains behavior across a wide range of settings and narrow trait of social skill at parties which describes (but does not explain) behavior. This distinction possesses a certain prima facie appeal. It may be inaccurate to claim, however, that either global or narrow traits as defined in this manner possess explanatory power. Rather, they constitute descriptions of apparent consistency at differing of specificity. Although Funder has countered that of regularity is not distinct from of regularity (p. 35), this position seems itself circular. An alternative view of levels of analysis issue focuses not on distinction between explanation and description but on that between bandwidth and fidelity (Cronbach & Gleser, 1957). From this vantage point, selection of an optimal level of always requires some compromise between applicability and specificity. Interestingly, recent research on structure of trait hierarchies has indicated that people show preferences for midlevel personality constructs rather than those that exist at either narrow or highly global of (John, Hampson, & Goldberg, 1991). 2. The source of trait constructs should be life and clinical experience, as filtered by insightful observers (p. 36). Funder contends that construct development should stem from ordinary intuition inasmuch as common sense provides roughly accurate organizations, whereas mechanical procedures like factor can result in esoteric, nonintuitive constructs (p. 36). This assertion has several problematic aspects. First, although common sense merits attention in construct development, veracity of folk wisdom is routinely overestimated. It is possible to cite numerous, if not innumerable, examples of common sense gone awry (see Locke & Latham, 1991). Moreover, many of putatively esoteric, narrow traits cited by Funder, e.g., subjective expectations, praxernia, might be more aptly viewed as instances of arcane labeling rather than evidence of nonintuitive nature of narrow traits. In practice, terms used to denote global traits can also be impenetrable to uninitiated. By way of example, term surgency (one of five o-called fundamental dimensions of personality) is quite likely more abstruse to lay public than many of its subordinate constructs. Similarly, extraversion (an alternative label for same general domain) is deceptively nonintuitive in that it encompasses far more than lay notion of outgoingness. Finally, it is noteworthy that five-factor model of personality favored by Funder was identified via factor of narrowly defined terms, attesting to potential value of mechanical procedures as well as research programs that begin at narrow of analysis. Ironically, Funder's own conclusions regarding person-situation debate may be equally germane to incipient controversy (e.g., Briggs, 1989) regarding level of question: the time has passed . . . when it (is) useful to make invidious comparisons . . . such arguments are as between straw men, and more constructive issues remain to be explored (Funder, 1983, p. 288).

Topic development, syntax, and social class

A conclusion of 20 years’ research into social class differences in speech is that working‐class speakers make greater use of pronouns as compared to nouns and use fewer subordinate constructions than do middle‐class speakers. These syntactic findings have been linked, in the work of Basil Bernstein and others, to hypothesized differences in class‐based language orientations or “codes.” The present study uses data from adolescent discussion groups to argue that social class differences in syntax result instead from differences in the conversational styles of working‐class and middle‐class speakers. Contrasting styles of topic development are documented: a working‐class approach which makes use of anaphoric reference and ellipses across speaker turns, and a middle‐class approach which identifies topics with full NP's in each new speaker's turn. These approaches to topic development are first tied to differences in the group's turn‐taking styles and are then related to observed patterns of pronominal reference and subordination in the two groups.

Strategies of discourse comprehension By Teun A. van Dijk and Walter Kintsch (review)

REVIEW ARTICLE Strategies of discourse comprehension. By Teun A. van Dijk and Walter Kintsch. New York: Academic Press, 1983. Pp. xi, 418. $38.50. Reviewed by Douglas Biber, University of Southern California* A discourse perspective has become increasingly important in linguistics. Within descriptive linguistics, grammatical processes like definitization, pronominalization , ellipsis, and focus are regularly studied in discourse contexts; and functional analyses of syntactic features in discourse (e.g. passives, clefts, subordinate constructions) have become common. Studies of linguistic variation , whether among social groups or situations, are normally based on naturally occurring discourse. Sociological studies ofconversational interaction and anthropological studies of speech events both require a discourse perspective. Given this widespread interest, it is no surprise that the cognitive processing of discourse has become a central issue in psycholinguistics. Highly informative and thought-provoking, SDC represents one of the most fully articulated models of discourse comprehension to date; it should provide a research framework for some years to come. It is useful reading for researchers working in the broad areas of psycholinguistics, discourse analysis, and educational linguistics, as well as those working on comprehension itself. SDC presents a detailed model of discourse comprehension, with primary emphasis on the processes of comprehension, rather than static representations . Van Dijk & Kintsch bring complementary backgrounds to the writing of the book: Van Dijk's earlier work (1972, 1977, 1981) deals with text grammar and discourse pragmatics in relatively broad and abstract terms, while Kintsch has a more experimental orientation, with primary interests in semantic memory and cognitive processes (1974, 1977). In SDC, they combine their interests and orientations to develop a model of text comprehension and production. The SDC model extends an earlier one (Kintsch & van Dijk 1978) in several respects. The major structure in that version is the 'textbase', a hierarchical semantic representation defined in terms of propositions, and relations among propositions. SDC proposes a second major structure: the 'situation model', which represents the events, participants, and general situation of a text. Thus simultaneous, interacting representations of the text (the textbase) and the social context (the situational model) are constructed during discourse comprehension . More importantly, SDC is process-oriented, whereas the earlier model was developed in static terms. That is, the primary focus of 5DC is the on-line construction of meaning—an account of how the processing and interpretation of text can occur simultaneously. V&K's central claim is that online discourse comprehension requires 'strategies' which use different kinds of information in different orders, to construct a (tentative) representation of a text efficiently and rapidly. * I want to thank Edward Finegan and William Grabe for comments on an earlier version ofthis review. 664 REVIEW ARTICLE665 In several respects, 5DC represents a major advance in the study ofdiscourse comprehension. It attempts to model the entire process, providing an over-all framework for more detailed studies. The book proceeds from micro to macro levels of representation, describing the functions of strategies at each. Despite its comprehensive nature, SDC is relatively detailed, raising important issues and proposing possible answers at several levels of comprehension. V&K also attempt to provide an integrated model, showing how the structures and strategies at each level relate to those at others. Finally, the hypothesized use of strategies is frequently illustrated through consideration of naturally occurring texts (primarily a news article from Newsweek, but also samples from literary discourse and conversation), and certain aspects of the model are tested experimentally . The analyses of the text samples and the experiments do not prove the validity of SDC; but they provide empirical support, and indicate how experimental tests might proceed. Thus SDC develops a general model which identifies important issues requiring further research, rather than presenting a fully-specified theory of discourse comprehension. Chap. 1 introduces the notions of strategy, textbase, and situational model. In addition, it provides an overview of the types of strategies within the model, including certain ones not treated elsewhere in SDC. These include stylistic strategies (attention to alternative ways of expressing similar meanings, depending on situation, participants, and over-all goals); rhetorical strategies (e.g. for figures of speech); and conversational strategies (e.g. for turn-taking). As research studies are extended to a variety of discourse types, all these should receive more...

Les subordonnées finales par hópōs en attique classique By Suzanne Amigues (review)

BOOK NOTICES 483 self before he could apply it to his word-order studies. Further, although his data base was limited largely to Latin, Greek, French, German, and English, his statements about more exotic languages are surprisingly well-informed; e.g., he recognizes the strict modifier-head order of Turkish, and he notes that Chinese (far from having 'no grammar', as non-specialists often say) has an elaborate fixed-constituent-order system. Scaglione has apparently chosen to reprint the translation rather than the original because of 'the updating it contains of Weil's references' (xiv). Super's translation is readable but, in places, slavishly literal (e.g., la marche des idées always comes out as 'the march of ideas'). The lack of an index in so loosely organized a work is unfortunate. [Michael A. Covington, Yale University.] Les subordonnées finales par hopös en attique classique. By Suzanne Amigues. (Études et commentaires, 89.) Paris: Klincksieck, 1977. Pp. 323. F 120.00. A's study of Gk. hopös as a subordinating conjunction, introducing final (purpose) clauses, is a well-documented analysis of occurrences from both literary and epigraphical texts written in the Attic dialect from the period between the Persian Wars and the death of Alexander. The somewhat similar study of temporal and causal use of epei and has in Herodotus by Rijksbaron (Amsterdam, 1976) focused on Ionic at a slightly earlier period. Both studies are primarily synchronic , but A's stands squarely in the philological tradition ofthe series in which it appears, while R's study is theoretically based on text grammar. A's philological work supplements standard grammars like Smyth's Greek grammar , Schwyzer's Griechische Grammatik, or Humbert's study of Greek syntax—and also differs theoretically from Lightfoot's formal syntactic study of mood (1979:81 ff.) The book is divided into three major parts: I, hopôs plus future indicative (17-93); II, hopös (án) plus subjunctive (97-197), and III, hopös (án) plus optative (201-92). Each part is subdivided into several chapters and a conclusion. The study begins with a description of the corpus (3-5) and an introduction (7-14), which describes the basic approach and findings; it ends with a general conclusion (293-8), a short bibliography , an index of examples (301-10), another of grammatical categories (311-16), and a detailed table of contents (317-20). Important findings concern the relation among final, complement, and circumstantial clauses; the value of the future tense; the moods with hopös; the value ofthe particle án, and the value of the governing verb in expressing cause. A's thesis is that the conjunction hopos itself is not intentional or ??f?ß??ß, but that its meaning is instrumental in origin; its neutral contexts thus express result (effect) and its means, rather than propose (cause). ??f?ßß is derivative from the context, which includes governing verbs of intention or effort (e.g. bouleúesthai 'deliberate ', dianoiesthai 'intend', diamákhesthai 'devise ', zètein 'seek, desire', mélein 'take care [that/how]', and phrontizein 'take thought, see to it [that]') as well as tense/mood, the particle án (optionally), and hopös. Of the final conjunctions which competed with hopös by the 4th century bc, hina was clearly replacing hopös in the spoken language (106), while alternation with has was stylistic (103). But the possible implication, that ??f?ße clauses developed from result clauses, is never explicitly stated; this underlines the primarily synchronic focus of A's study. Although this book is written for the Classical Greek scholar, its findings bear importantly on general linguistic issues—e.g., the nature of complementation in language and its relation to other subordinate constructions; historical changes in formal mechanisms for the expression of subordination in written language; and typological differences between older and newer forms of IE languages. For example, the oldest attested IE language, Hittite, did not have purpose clauses (cf. J. Friedrich's standard grammar ); and topicalization was more distinctive as a feature of its headless relative construction than nominal modification. Kuno (in Li [ed.], Subject and topic, 1976) argues that Ross' constraint on complex NP constructions is violated by certain constructions , and that...

An Investigation of Fourth-Graders' Comprehension of Pronoun Constructions in Ecologically Valid Texts

An Investigation of Fourth-Graders' Comprehension of Pronoun Constructions in Ecologically Valid Texts

Transnational Politics: Toward a Theory of Multinational Politics

The concept of “international politics” which is central to a large sector of political science, indeed its label, is increasingly being called into question. Those processes which can no longer be clearly assigned either tostatesor—as suggested by the model of “inter-national politics”—to the areabetweenstates are gaining in importance in international affairs. Some examples of these processes are the direct horizontal transactions between societal actors of different nation-states, transactions which bypass the institutions of government but strongly affect their margin of maneuver; the various forms of mutual penetration of formally separate entities; and the growing activities of a number of nonstate actors. Many theories which are connected with the model of international politics, above all that of sovereignty but also subordinate constructs such as the doctrine of separation of powers, should likewise be called into question.