Syntactic Change Research Articles

Lexical change is the only constant

Abstract In this study, we look at how language change is presented in two commonly used textbooks for Norwegian lower secondary school. Through thematic content analysis, we look at how linguistic change is presented as opposed to purely synchronic descriptions, as well as how linguistic changes are exemplified. We also look at which language periods are emphasized and how they are discussed. Our findings show that the textbooks mostly discuss languages as static systems and underemphasize how and why languages change. The changes that are presented are overwhelmingly lexical, while phonological, morphological, and syntactic changes are rarely mentioned. The explanations for change provided by the textbooks are mostly external to the linguistic system, such as language contact and politics. Lastly, the descriptions of language tend to be graphocentric. We discuss how this might contribute to a static and normative view of language among students.

On a Simplified Approach to Achieve Parallel Performance and Portability Across CPU and GPU Architectures

This paper presents software advances to easily exploit computer architectures consisting of a multi-core CPU and CPU+GPU to accelerate diverse types of high-performance computing (HPC) applications using a single code implementation. The paper describes and demonstrates the performance of the open-source C++ matrix and array (MATAR) library that uniquely offers: (1) a straightforward syntax for programming productivity, (2) usable data structures for data-oriented programming (DOP) for performance, and (3) a simple interface to the open-source C++ Kokkos library for portability and memory management across CPUs and GPUs. The portability across architectures with a single code implementation is achieved by automatically switching between diverse fine-grained parallelism backends (e.g., CUDA, HIP, OpenMP, pthreads, etc.) at compile time. The MATAR library solves many longstanding challenges associated with easily writing software that can run in parallel on any computer architecture. This work benefits projects seeking to write new C++ codes while also addressing the challenges of quickly making existing Fortran codes performant and portable over modern computer architectures with minimal syntactical changes from Fortran to C++. We demonstrate the feasibility of readily writing new C++ codes and modernizing existing codes with MATAR to be performant, parallel, and portable across diverse computer architectures.

TRANSLATION STRATEGIES RELATED TO THE OMISSION OF VERBS WHEN TRANSLATING FROM RUSSIAN INTO FRENCH

While there is a vast literature on translation transformations and techniques, little attention among Russian researchers is paid to the omission. The article attempts to contribute to the debate by analyzing the omission as a translation technique, as well as verb omission examples when translating a literary text from Russian into French. The omission means elimination of a source text (ST) element while translating into target text. The omission can occur at the semantic or structural-semantic levels. The latter implies not only semantic but also syntactic changes. The omission can be due to the redundancy of an element in the ST. Redundancy in ST can be caused by the structural features of the source language, repetition of information in the text or by the opportunity to extract information from the situational context. The analysis of examples of verb omission taken from the translations into French of the novel Oblomov written by Ivan Goncharov showed that the use of this technique in relation to Russian verbs obeys the general patterns of the use of omission listed above: a French translator can omit a verb and use a more economical construction allowed by the norms of the French language; can translate one verb from two ST verbs with the same meaning; can eliminate the original verb if it’s meaning can be derived from the situational context. However, the original verb can convey stylistic meanings that are important in the work; if this verb is omitted, stylistic meanings disappear.

Back-Translation as a Tool for Identifying Language Change

This study concerns the use of back-translation as a tool for identifying language change. This research is based on theories of back-translation (Baker, 1992) and language change (Campbell, 1998), focusing the use of this tool to identify shifts in language usage from lexical, morphological, and syntactical points of view. The original texts used for this study are the Indonesian novels Sitti Nurbaya (Rusli, 1922, ed. 2010), Sukreni Gadis Bali (Tisna, 1936, ed. 2013), and Salah Asuhan (Moeis, 1928, ed. 2013). The language used in these literary works is known as old Indonesian. All three novels have been translated into English: the first keeping its original title, Sitti Nurbaya (Fowler, 2009), Sukreni Gadis Bali as The Rape of Sukreni (Quinn, 2012), and Salah Asuhan as Never the Twain (Susanto, 2010). These English translations have in turn been translated back into Indonesian. The language used in these back-translated texts is present-day Indonesian, as used by speakers today. When the old Indonesian and contemporary Indonesian versions are compared, discrepancies may arise, even though the meanings of both texts are the same. These differences are considered to signify changes in the language. Our findings show that this back-translation method can be applied to understand changes in Indonesian usage. These include lexical changes, such as the word sebagai being replaced by seperti, or sekalian replaced by semua or seluruh; morphological changes, such as diobat changing into diobati, or menghinakan into menghina; and syntactical changes, such as the term suka kepada being replaced by suka.

A diachronic consequence of intransitivity: structural underspecification and processing biases in Old French

Abstract The present study examines the diachronic consequence of a class of words that are superficially intransitive but that often have more than one possible underlying representation. We consider the hypothesis that structural underspecification and structure-based economy constraints on processing may drive a well-studied syntactic change in medieval French: the loss of directional/aspectual verb particles. A corpus-based approach demonstrates that, despite the prominence of Old French verb particles in the expression of motion events, they frequently occur in underspecified contexts for which a prepositional parse involving an implicit object is favored. The net result is very sparse unambiguous evidence for the conservative Old French grammar that underlies the particles.

Bilingual acquisition as the locus of syntactic change

Abstract Some grammatical phenomena are more resistant to diachronic change than others. The syntactic core is particularly resilient, raising the question why this is the case and what causes the least vulnerable properties to change. Since fundamental alterations of grammars do not occur across the lifespan of adults, first language acquisition is commonly considered to be the main locus of syntactic change. Under the assumption that language contact leads to cross-linguistic interaction, early bilinguals have been claimed to be the main agents of change. I revisit this debate, focusing on head directionality and V2. Summaries of studies of various acquisition types lead to the conclusion that reanalysis in core syntax does not happen in the course of neither monolingual nor bilingual L1 acquisition. Contrary to hypotheses entertained in diachronic linguistics, neither language contact nor structural ambiguity/complexity has this effect. For core properties to change in L1, the triggering information must be contained in the input. Insufficient exposure, as in heritage language acquisition, can cause morphosyntactic change, though not in the syntactic core. Only second language acquisition exhibits such effects. L2 learners are thus the most likely agents of fundamental syntactic change. I conclude that explanations of the resilience of syntactic phenomena cannot rely exclusively on structural aspects. It results from an interaction of syntactic and developmental factors, defined by grammatical constraint, acquisition principles, and processing demands.

The strength of the phylogenetic signal in syntactic data

While phonological change has played a central role in assessing linguistic relatedness since the nineteenth century, the usefulness of syntactic change for this purpose has remained debated – despite recent work on the question with a variety of results. In our study, we analyze the phylogenetic signal of syntactic data using state-of-the-art Bayesian algorithms and the SSWL database (Koopman 2012–). With the phylogenetic model, we infer a minimally biased family tree. We find that, generally, the phylogenetic signal in the syntactic dataset is low. The model fails to infer larger-order subgroupings that would be found further back in time. This is in contrast to the clear-cut groupings we can obtain from running this type of model on phonological databases. This raises the question how well these syntactic properties encode phylogenetic information. As it stands, the model fails to provide evidence for strong phylogenetic signal despite the rich dataset and methods.

Managing the Flow of Talk: A Longitudinal Case Study of the Multiword Expression det er sant in L2 Norwegian Interactions

Abstract Drawing on recent scholarship integrating usage-based linguistics (UBL) and conversation analysis (CA) in the investigation of second language development, this paper reports on a microanalysis tracing one adult learner’s recurring, increasingly frequent, and diverse use of the multiword expression det er sant (it/that is true) (DES) in L2 Norwegian interactions over a time span of four months. While the use of DES did not undergo syntactic changes, the analysis revealed that the functions of the expression diversified as DES became more frequent in use. Initially functioning primarily as a means of expressing agreement, DES was increasingly used to preface disagreement and indicate the closing of self-initiated repair sequences. This functional diversification was accompanied by increasing morphophonological reduction indicating an ongoing process of routinization. We argue that these changes, also when non-linear and not complying with the target norm, allowed the learner to participate more actively in managing the flow of talk. The study provides insight into how interaction shapes L2 development and the role of education in providing access to situations that foster increased membership in the speech community.

Morphological and syntactical changes in English grammar

Morphological and syntactical changes in English grammar

Syntax in transition

This paper is an investigation of a language contact phenomenon currently taking place in Aanaar (Inari) Saami, an indigenous minority language of Finland. Aanaar Saami people have been in contact with Finnish speakers for centuries, so much so that the language community has become bilingual. This has resulted in the borrowing of both numerous Finnish loanwords and even some syntactic constructions into Aanaar Saami and seems to herald a larger change in the language. The present study focuses on a type of syntactic change called differential argument marking, which is examined in three Aanaar Saami clause types: transitive clauses, existential clauses, and passive verb clauses. Finnish exhibits complex argument marking, characterized by a total–partial distinction, whereas traditional Aanaar Saami does not have differential argument marking in subjects or objects. However, new Aanaar Saami shows multiple emergent types of differential argument marking that vary between individual speakers and, while clearly influenced by Finnish, do not always mirror their Finnish equivalents one-to-one. This, and the observation that differential argument marking is non-existent in older language materials, suggests that the phenomenon is recentFinnish influence.

Evolution of the French Language System in Ivory Coast

This article examines the current state of the French language in Ivory Coast. The relevance of the study is related to the lack of research on the state of French in Ivory Coast, represented by the following varieties: Ivorian Popular French, Ivorian French and the Nouchi language code. Nouchi, an integral part of Ivory Coast's linguistic system and a crucial factor of Ivorian identity, remains a poorly researched phenomenon today. The aim of the work is to objectively describe the phonetic, morphological, lexical and syntactic changes that take place in French on the territory of Ivory Coast in a situation of interaction with the autochthonous languages under the influence of extralinguistic factors. The scientific novelty lies in the integrated approach to the study of the French language system in Ivory Coast and the differences between each of the varieties of French and standard French. The research uses general scientific (analysis, synthesis, generalization) and special methods (descriptive and comparative methods). The analysis of the French language system shows the distinctive features of the French varieties from the standard French on the phonetic, morphological, lexical and syntactical levels. Ivorian Popular French is characterised by the greatest influence from the autochthonous languages and numerous features at all levels of the language, caused by the lack of education of its speakers. The continuity and interconnectedness of all the varieties of language examined is highlighted: the oldest variant of Ivorian Popular French became the basis for the formation of modern Ivorian French. Nouchi, on the other hand, combines earlier variants of French with borrowings from the autochthonous and European languages. Ivorian French and Nouchi are now widespread in all social strata and contribute to the issue of Ivorian self-determination.

Marching towards Contrast: The Case of ao passo que in Portuguese

This paper explores the diachrony of the Portuguese contrastive connective ao passo que (‘whereas’). First, we describe its syntactic and semantic properties in present-day European Portuguese. With this contemporary analysis in mind, we explore the semantic and syntactic changes from the PP ao passo que (lit. ‘at the step/pace that’) into first a temporal connective of simultaneity (‘at the same time as’) and, ultimately, a contrastive expression. The evolution of expressions with temporal meanings into contrastive ones has been documented in many languages. In our paper, we show that another related meaning, that of the gradual development of events that are temporally simultaneous, may also evolve into a contrastive meaning. We also examine the role of the syntax and semantics of the noun passo in this process. Furthermore, we discuss the internal analyzability of the connective and provide evidence for the retention of some internal syntax, which has implications for current theories on the nature of complex categories.

FromPeople's KingtoKing of a Country: The Development of the Place Element Modifying the Title Paired in Apposition with a Personal Name Traced in thePeterborough Chronicle

AbstractA king was typically referred to aspeople's kingin the early period of Old English, whereas today,king of a countryis the most commonly used. This study attempts to trace the development of the place element modifying the title paired in apposition with a personal name in the tradition of vernacular English historiography as represented by thePeterborough Chronicle. There existed a strong tendency to specify a smaller land area (city, town, etc.) with the genitive form of the name of the place or with a prepositional phrase involving the place‐name and a larger one (kingdom, shire, etc.) with the genitive form of the name of the people living there in Early Old English. In later periods, however, the prepositional phrase was left as the only place element available for either a smaller or larger land area. Various prepositions heading the prepositional phrase became limited during the Old English period to just one in Early Middle English. Thus, the shift frompeople's kingtoking of a countrywas almost complete in Early Middle English. These findings are related to more general patterns of syntactic change in the noun phrase in English to highlight their current relevance.

Definiteness marking in American Norwegian: a unique pattern among the Scandinavian languages

This paper examines definiteness marking in American Norwegian (AmNo), a heritage variety of Norwegian spoken in the US. The description adds another language to the much-studied variation within Scandinavian nominal phrases. It builds on established syntactic analysis of Scandinavian and investigates aspects that are (un)like Norwegian spoken in the homeland. A central finding is that the core syntax of Norwegian noun phrases is retained in AmNo, while the morphophonological spell-out is sometimes different. Indefinite determiners, for example, are obligatory in AmNo, but some speakers produce them with non-homeland-like gender agreement. One systematic change is observed: double definiteness has been partially lost. The typical AmNo modified definite phrase lacks the prenominal determiner that is obligatory for varieties in Norway. I argue that this is a syntactic change which allows the realization of D to be optional. This is a pattern not found in the other Scandinavian languages. At the same time, this innovative structure in AmNo is not like English, the dominant language of the AmNo speakers. This demonstrates heritage language change that is distinct from both the homeland language and the dominant language.

Cross-cultural adaptation of the Genetic Counseling Outcome Scale (GCOS-24) for use in Canada: A qualitative study.

The Genetic Counselling Outcome Scale (GCOS)-24 is a patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) developed and validated in the United Kingdom (UK). The aim of this study was to cross-culturally adapt GCOS-24 to Canadian Clinical Genetic Services (CGS). This was achieved through a qualitative study exploring whether the existing GCOS-24 maintains its intended meaning in a Canadian population and assessing whether GCOS-24 items could be better worded to meet the needs of members of families affected by genetic conditions in Canada. Thirteen participants were recruited from Canadian Patient Organizations supporting people and families affected by genetic conditions. Data were collected through semi-structured cognitive interviews, as these allow exploration of participants' comprehension, opinions, thoughts, and feelings regarding GCOS-24's instructions, response options, and the meaning/relevance of each item. Thematic analysis was utilized for data analysis, and an inductive approach to coding was followed to allow for themes to emerge from the data. Themes were organized in respect to their questionnaire item and further classified into their respective Empowerment dimension. The GCOS-24 instructions were found easy to understand by all thirteen participants. Although the response options were also found to be straightforward, the data suggest the questionnaire would benefit from the addition of a "non-applicable" option. Semantic validation of the GCOS-24 showed that items within the Cognitive Control and Emotional Regulation dimensions were found easy to understand by participants. However, items within the Decisional Control, Behavioural Control and Hope dimensions presented semantic difficulties. Participants provided feedback on syntactic changes to support understanding, and this feedback was used to develop a final Canadian-adapted version of GCOS-24, GCOS-Canada. This study provides the first step towards a valid, culturally adapted PROM for use in Canadian CGS service evaluation and research. GCOS-Canada would benefit from psychometric validation to ensure validity, reliability, responsiveness, minimal clinically important difference and internal consistency.

Word order evolves at similar rates in main and subordinate clauses

Abstract In syntactic change, it remains an open issue whether word orders are more conservative or innovative in subordinate clauses compared with main clauses. Using 47 dependency-annotated corpora and Bayesian phylogenetic inference, we explore the evolution of S/V, V/O, and S/O orders across main and subordinate clauses in Indo-European. Our results reveal similar rates of change across clause types, with no evidence for any inherent conservatism of subordinate or main clauses. Our models also support evolutionary biases towards SV, VO, and SO orders, consistent with theories of dependency length minimization that favor verb-medial orders and with theories of a subject preference that favor SO orders. Finally, our results show that while the word order in the proto-language cannot be estimated with any reasonable degree of certainty, the early history of the family was dominated by a moderate preference for SVO orders, with substantial uncertainty between VO and OV orders in both main and subordinate clauses.

Defying syntactic preservation in Alzheimer's disease: what type of impairment predicts syntactic change in dementia (if it does) and why?

IntroductionMany studies on syntax in dementia suggest that, despite syntactic simplification, speakers with Alzheimer's disease (AD) retain their basic grammatical abilities, being mainly affected in their comprehension and production of complex syntax. Moreover, there is no single position on the origin of syntactic decline in AD, which, according to some authors, can be linked to a lexical-semantic deficit or, according to others, to either cognitive or autonomous dysfunction.MethodsIn this study, we apply the model of syntactic maturity to the analysis of oral speech production elicited by the Cookie-Theft description task. We assess a sample of 60 older adults (21 HC, 19 MCI, and 20 AD) through three indexes of syntactic maturity, measuring the proportion of sentences and clauses in discourse, their mean length, and the rate of their complexity.ResultsOur results show two important tendencies in AD: the preservation of general syntactic ability, as measured by the basic syntactic organization of speech, and the disturbance of the indexes of syntactic complexity, as measured by the overall length of utterances and their indexes of complexity.DiscussionAlthough speakers with AD maintain the ability to construct grammatically acceptable sentences and produce a similar number of utterances to healthy aging speakers and speakers with MCI, the syntactic complexity of their discourse significantly changes. Importantly, such significant changes are already present at the MCI stage and are not conditioned by the lexical-semantic deficit itself. Our results may be particularly relevant to improving the detection of cognitive impairment and to theoretically discussing the relationships between language levels in aging speakers.

Idiom Translation Quality Assessment on “Landline” Novel by Rainbow Rowell

This study aimed at assessing the quality of idiom translation in a novel entitled “Landline” by Rainbow Rowell. By referring to Nababan’s Translation Quality Assessment model (2012), this study assessed the idioms’ translation according to the degree of accuracy, acceptability, and readability. The data analyzed in this study include the idioms and Indonesian translations, as well as the assessment result made by three expert assessors. Those idioms were identified and grouped based on the classification adapted from Palmer (1981). There are 37 idioms found, which consist of 2 idioms that can undergo syntactic changes, 10 idioms with syntactic limitation, 10 frozen idioms, 5 partial idioms, and 10 phrasal verbs. The findings show that the Indonesian translation of those idioms generally has a high-quality level, especially those which were translated into equivalent idioms in the target language. Paraphrasing also plays a major role as a translation strategy used by the translator. However, this strategy may sometimes lead to distortion of the original message in the target language.

Towards Reliable Neural Machine Translation with Consistency-Aware Meta-Learning

Neural machine translation (NMT) has achieved remarkable success in producing high-quality translations. However, current NMT systems suffer from a lack of reliability, as their outputs that are often affected by lexical or syntactic changes in inputs, resulting in large variations in quality. This limitation hinders the practicality and trustworthiness of NMT. A contributing factor to this problem is that NMT models trained with the one-to-one paradigm struggle to handle the source diversity phenomenon, where inputs with the same meaning can be expressed differently. In this work, we treat this problem as a bilevel optimization problem and present a consistency-aware meta-learning (CAML) framework derived from the model-agnostic meta-learning (MAML) algorithm to address it. Specifically, the NMT model with CAML (named CoNMT) first learns a consistent meta representation of semantically equivalent sentences in the outer loop. Subsequently, a mapping from the meta representation to the output sentence is learned in the inner loop, allowing the NMT model to translate semantically equivalent sentences to the same target sentence. We conduct experiments on the NIST Chinese to English task, three WMT translation tasks, and the TED M2O task. The results demonstrate that CoNMT effectively improves overall translation quality and reliably handles diverse inputs.

외국인 학습자를 위한 먹다류 합성동사 교육연구

Vocabulary education in foreign language learning is mainly done through textbooks or dictionaries, so it remains as the acquisition of fragmentary knowledge and most of it proceeds with memorization of individual words. However if lexical knowledge is approached at the sentence level and educated, practical language use can be experienced and can be usefully used in real life. In particular, in the case of compound verbs formed by combining two elements, the form, meaning, and syntactic change are changed, so care must be taken in their use. ‘Meokda’ is a single word, but sometimes combined with other words to create a diverse vocabulary. In addition, it is a frequently used vocabulary related to food in everyday life, and it has been differentiated into various meanings by combining with other words, and the range of its use has widened. So, for practical use, it is necessary to look at the form, meaning, and syntactic. Therefore, in this study, considering these points, we tried to present an educational method centering on the food compound verb. When 'meokda' is combined with 'noun', most of the preceding nouns were [-eating], and even after being synthesized, most of them had other meanings unrelated to 'eating'. However, when the preceding element is a verb, it was found to be a compound verb that has a syntactic structure similar to 'meokda' and not a compound verb. In addition, it was confirmed that various types of compound verbs such as compound verbs with various arguments under the influence of preceding verbs and compound verbs in which the semantic role of the target argument plays an important role were found. Considering this point, an educational method was proposed to examine the meaning and syntactic structure together so that compound verbs could be formed into sentences rather than understood as individual words and connected to actual use.