Types Of Linguistic Knowledge Research Articles

Behavioral Signatures of Memory Resources for Language: Looking beyond the Lexicon/Grammar Divide.

Although there is a broad consensus that both the procedural and declarative memory systems play a crucial role in language learning, use, and knowledge, the mapping between linguistic types and memory structures remains underspecified: by default, a dual-route mapping of language systems to memory systems is assumed, with declarative memory handling idiosyncratic lexical knowledge and procedural memory handling rule-governed knowledge of grammar. We experimentally contrast the processing of morphology (case and aspect), syntax (subordination), and lexical semantics (collocations) in a healthy L1 population of Polish, a language rich in form distinctions. We study the processing of these four types under two conditions: a single task condition in which the grammaticality of stimuli was judged and a concurrent task condition in which grammaticality judgments were combined with a digit span task. Dividing attention impedes access to declarative memory while leaving procedural memory unaffected and hence constitutes a test that dissociates which types of linguistic information each long-term memory construct subserves. Our findings confirm the existence of a distinction between lexicon and grammar as a generative, dual-route model would predict, but the distinction is graded, as usage-based models assume: the hypothesized grammar-lexicon opposition appears as a continuum on which grammatical phenomena can be placed as being more or less "ruly" or "idiosyncratic." However, usage-based models, too, need adjusting as not all types of linguistic knowledge are proceduralized to the same extent. This move away from a simple dichotomy fundamentally changes how we think about memory for language, and hence how we design and interpret behavioral and neuroimaging studies that probe into the nature of language cognition.

Spelling Errors in French Elementary School Students: A Linguistic Analysis.

This study offers the first description of misspellings across elementary school using the Phonological, Orthographic and Morphological Assessment of Spelling (POMAS), a linguistic framework based on Triple Word Form theory, adapted for French (POMAS-FR). It aims to test the "universality" of POMAS and its suitability to track development in French spelling. One hundred ninety-four typically developing French children (Grades 1-5) produced a written narrative and words-to-dictation. These were analyzed for productivity and accuracy. Misspellings were then analyzed using POMAS-FR. Productivity and accuracy were better in the later grades. POMAS-FR provided a novel framework for tracking error types in our French sample. The data showed a linear trend for text production, whereby the proportion of phonological errors decreased rapidly in the early grades, while orthographic errors decreased and morphological errors increased throughout elementary school. Words-to-dictation showed a more stable pattern, with a steady decrease in phonological errors, and a stable proportion of orthographic and morphological errors. The specific error types found within each linguistic category are described for both tasks. The POMAS-FR allowed for the characterization of linguistic knowledge involved in learning to spell French across elementary school. Interplays between different types of linguistic knowledge were evident at all grades. In comparison with other writing systems, French text spelling competence relied heavily on morphological knowledge. These results suggest POMAS may be applied to other orthographic systems. It also highlights the importance of task and word selection for the qualitative evaluation of spelling. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.20520774.

Analysis of rater effect in the evaluation of second language grammatical knowledge in the context of writing: Application of a generalized linear model

Despite ample testing research involving the impact of rater background characteristics (e.g. raters’ native language) on assessment, relatively little has been known about how raters’ linguistic knowledge influences their scoring decision-making process. By associating second language acquisition research with regard to two types of linguistic knowledge (i.e. implicit and explicit knowledge), this study aims to explore the influence of raters’ linguistic knowledge and other rater factors (including teaching experience) on second language writing assessment, particularly in relation to the grammatical aspect of performance. Forty-two raters’ grammatical knowledge was measured with an untimed paper-and-pencil grammar test (explicit knowledge) and a timed computer-based experiment (implicit knowledge). The raters also responded to a background questionnaire. For scoring, the raters evaluated five examinees’ responses on two writing tasks (a personal essay and an argumentative essay), based on a six-point analytic scoring rubric. An analysis of a cumulative link mixed model revealed that the raters’ scores could be significantly related to their grammatical knowledge and teaching experience. In addition, different effects emerged across the examinees’ ability levels. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the predictors with respect to rating performance and provide practical implications for rater selection and training in second language performance assessment. (Hankuk University of Foreign Studies · Seoul National University)

The relative role of vocabulary and grammatical knowledge in L2 reading comprehension: a systematic review of literature

AbstractThe purpose of this systematic review is to synthesize the findings in the literature on the relative contribution of two types of linguistic knowledge (i. e., vocabulary and grammatical knowledge) to L2 reading comprehension; and to discuss the possible factors that might have led to the complexity and incongruity of the research findings. Nineteen studies were identified for this review through a systematic process of selection, and were analyzed in terms of the relationship of vocabulary and grammatical knowledge with L2 reading comprehension and their relative significance. The result of this review showed that there was no clear evidence supporting which type of linguistic knowledge is more contributive than the other; and the inconclusive findings might be attributed to the variations in the design of the studies. Two factors emerged, including participants’ language proficiency and construct definition, operationalization, and measurement. Some considerations for future research are suggested.

–ED ALLOMORPHS AND LINGUISTIC KNOWLEDGE OF MALAY SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH: A DESCRIPTIVE AND CORRELATIONAL STUDY

Malay is a language from the Austronesian family and unlike the Indo-European-originated English, it does not generally have inflectional temporal markers. Investigating this from a cross-linguistics - influence perspective, differences between the languages could mean difficulties for Malay speakers to acquire features of English. The objectives of this study are to investigate Malay speakers’ pronunciation of the English language –ed allomorphs – [d], [t] and [ɪd]/[əd] – and the relationship between the morphophonological forms and two types of linguistic knowledge, one of which is implicit while the other is explicit. Data were collated from fifty participants who are social science undergraduates and English majors who speak English as a second language. Four instruments were used to gauge the respondents’ verbal use of –ed allomorphs as well as their implicit and explicit knowledge of the allomorphs. Results indicate that the students’ verbal usage of the target items either lacks approximation to Standard English pronunciation or is largely dropped altogether. Results also suggest a moderate relationship between implicit and explicit knowledge of the allomorphs and their verbal production by Malay speakers of English. The finding illuminates acquisition problem of English language speakers whose mother tongue does not share similar inflectional markers. Pedagogical solutions can help learners of the English language to approximate Standard English and in the long run, enhance effective communication and increase chances of employability.

The assessment of Bosnian EFL learners’ knowledge by two different measures: test and writing assignment

Abstract English is taught as a foreign language in elementary and high schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH). However, since the number of English classes per week is very limited they should be utilized in the best possible way to produce proficient users of English. Nowadays, when language proficiency is viewed as one’s ability to speak and write in the target language and not about it, the need for the proficiency evaluation in schools arises. The present study attempts to shed a spot of light on this issue, investigating two very common ways of assessing students’ knowledge in schools, namely tests and writing assignments. Hence, through the interviews with English teachers and the analysis of students’ tests and writing assignments, the current paper explores the ways in which these two measures are realized, the tasks they consist of, the type of linguistic knowledge they are used to evaluate, their levels of difficulty, and the type of corrective feedback teachers provide on both of them. The results suggest that teachers on both measure rather students’ explicit than their implicit knowledge, focusing much more on accuracy than fluency development.

Linguistic Knowledge Types and Past-Time Inflectional Output of Malay Users of English

Acquiring the tense-aspect morphological system of English is challenging to second language learners due to the multifaceted nature of temporal markers. Acquisitional complexities may also be caused by the absence of parallel indicators in the mother tongue and the types of linguistic knowledge that users have. This paper highlights Malay-English differences in temporal markers and reports an investigation on language learners’ production of past-time inflections [-en] and [-ed] and their relationship with linguistic knowledge. Seventy-two Malay English majors who use English as a second language participated in the study. Data were collated using three instruments namely the Grammaticality Judgment Test (GJT), the Metalinguistic Knowledge Test (MKT) and the Written Production Test (WPT). Correlational evidence between explicit and implicit knowledge and target item output was found. Qualitative analysis of written data indicates consistent usage of [-ed] inflection but not [-en]. The findings of the study will enhance theoretical understanding of the role of linguistic knowledge on the development of learners’ inflectional morphology and can encourage sound instructional practices in the classroom.

Linguistically-augmented perplexity-based data selection for language models

This paper explores the use of linguistic information for the selection of data to train language models. We depart from the state-of-the-art method in perplexity-based data selection and extend it in order to use word-level linguistic units (i.e. lemmas, named entity categories and part-of-speech tags) instead of surface forms. We then present two methods that combine the different types of linguistic knowledge as well as the surface forms (1, naïve selection of the top ranked sentences selected by each method; 2, linear interpolation of the datasets selected by the different methods). The paper presents detailed results and analysis for four languages with different levels of morphologic complexity (English, Spanish, Czech and Chinese). The interpolation-based combination outperforms the purely statistical baseline in all the scenarios, resulting in language models with lower perplexity. In relative terms the improvements are similar regardless of the language, with perplexity reductions achieved in the range 7.72–13.02%. In absolute terms the reduction is higher for languages with high type-token ratio (Chinese, 202.16) or rich morphology (Czech, 81.53) and lower for the remaining languages, Spanish (55.2) and English (34.43 on the English side of the same parallel dataset as for Czech and 61.90 on the same parallel dataset as for Spanish).

Building contact linguistic competence related to English as the nativized foreign language

This paper deals with contact linguistic competence , a type of linguistic knowledge, for the first time identified and described here, which focuses on the standardized and consistent use of words and names from English as the nativized foreign language (ENFL) in a non-English language that regularly comes into contact with it. In the first part, the defining properties and major glocal implications of ENFL will be reviewed; in the second part, the concept of contact linguistic competence will be explained and then elaborated from three interrelated angles: (1) practical aspects, covering the reasons for introducing and building contact linguistic competence in special language users and, particularly, university students of English language and linguistics, (2) theoretical aspects, covering the foundations of contact linguistic competence and a proposed checklist of the elements to be mastered, and (3) pedagogical aspects, covering the methods for efficiently imparting and acquiring contact linguistic competence within the educational system and, specifically, EFL classes; and in the third part of the paper, prerequisites seen as indispensable for bringing this process to its full fruition will be touched on.

Exploring the effectiveness of linguistic knowledge for biographical relation extraction

AbstractMachine learning techniques have been implemented to extract instances of semantic relations using diverse features based on linguistic knowledge, such as tokens, lemmas, PoS-tags, or dependency paths. However, there has been little work aiming to know which of these features works better in the relation extraction task, and less in languages other than English. In this paper, various features representing different levels of linguistic knowledge are systematically evaluated for biographical relation extraction. The effectiveness of these features was measured by training several supervised classifiers that only differ in the type of linguistic knowledge used to define their features. The experiments performed in this paper show that some basic linguistic knowledge (provided by lemmas and their combination in bigrams) behaves better than other complex features, such as those based on syntactic analysis. Furthermore, some feature combinations using different levels of analysis are proposed in order (i) to avoid feature overlapping as well as (ii) to evaluate the use of computationally inexpensive and widespread tools such as tokenization and lemmatization. This paper also describes two new freely available corpora for biographical relation extraction in Portuguese and Spanish, built by means of a distant-supervision strategy. Experiments were performed with five semantic relations and two languages, using these corpora.

First and Second Language Speech Perception: Graded Learning

In the process of language learning, individuals must acquire different types of linguistic knowledge, such as the sounds of the language (phonemes), how these may be combined to form words (phonotactics), and morphological rules. Early and late bilinguals tend to perform like natives on second language phonological tasks that involve pre‐lexical processes (e.g., categorization or identification of isolate phonemes) but their performance decreases when the tasks tap into lexical processes (e.g., accessing to the lexicon storage and selecting the appropiate words). This graded performance across phonological processes is consistent with the processing hierarchy proposed by different models of (native) speech perception. The relation between the first and second languages is further evidenced by the correlation between native and non‐native phoneme discrimination of both early and late bilinguals. This correlation provides evidence that individual differences in the command of non‐native sounds are caused by a language‐specific capability. We propose that the study of second language processes combined with the assessment of individual differences is a relevant field for the understanding of the speech perception architecture.

Annotation of grammatical function in the Persian treebank

In this paper we present and justify methodological principles and syntactic criteria to design an annotation scheme for a Persian Treebank. The advantages of the proposed scheme for annotation of the Persian Treebank will be discussed. At the same time, we present the way that different types of linguistic knowledge (morphological, syntactic and semantic) are encoded in the structures of the schema. We will show how this scheme can account for many of the syntactic constructions that appear to be unique to the Persian language.

Towards Automatic Error Analysis of Machine Translation Output

Evaluation and error analysis of machine translation output are important but difficult tasks. In this article, we propose a framework for automatic error analysis and classification based on the identification of actual erroneous words using the algorithms for computation of Word Error Rate (WER) and Position-independent word Error Rate (PER), which is just a very first step towards development of automatic evaluation measures that provide more specific information of certain translation problems. The proposed approach enables the use of various types of linguistic knowledge in order to classify translation errors in many different ways. This work focuses on one possible set-up, namely, on five error categories: inflectional errors, errors due to wrong word order, missing words, extra words, and incorrect lexical choices. For each of the categories, we analyze the contribution of various POS classes. We compared the results of automatic error analysis with the results of human error analysis in order to investigate two possible applications: estimating the contribution of each error type in a given translation output in order to identify the main sources of errors for a given translation system, and comparing different translation outputs using the introduced error categories in order to obtain more information about advantages and disadvantages of different systems and possibilites for improvements, as well as about advantages and disadvantages of applied methods for improvements. We used Arabic–English Newswire and Broadcast News and Chinese–English Newswire outputs created in the framework of the GALE project, several Spanish and English European Parliament outputs generated during the TC-Star project, and three German–English outputs generated in the framework of the fourth Machine Translation Workshop. We show that our results correlate very well with the results of a human error analysis, and that all our metrics except the extra words reflect well the differences between different versions of the same translation system as well as the differences between different translation systems.

Problemy pomiaru wiedzy językowej

A key issue in research projects exploring the effectiveness of foreign language learning and teaching is precise measurement of learners’ knowledge of the targeted structure before and after the pedagogic intervention with an eye to determining the value of specific instructional options. Such measurement, however, poses a considerable challenge because traditional tests focusing on grammar or lexis only provide information about explicit, declarative knowledge, which is conscious and can primarily be applied in situations in which learners have sufficient time to plan their responses. For this reason, it is also necessary to measure implicit, procedural knowledge which is subconscious and automatic, thus enabling successful participation in spontaneous communication where limited attentional resources have to be employed in understanding and conveying messages in real time. The aim of this paper is to characterize the two types of linguistic knowledge, present the tools that can be employed in their measurement, and demonstrate how instruments of this kind can be successfully utilized in empirical investigations aiming to verify the effectiveness of techniques and procedures in teaching grammar.

Designing a noun guesser for part of speech tagging in Northern Sotho

In this article, we describe an element of a suite of computational tools for assigning word-class tags (as a preparation for part of speech (POS) tagging) to word forms in unrestricted Northern Sotho texts. POS-tagging is a step towards a linguistic analysis of the texts, which in turn allows for advanced data extraction. The tool component that is described, identifies (and classifies) noun forms. Several types of linguistic knowledge are used to recognize nouns that are not contained in the noun lexicon of the system. These include the relationship between singular and plural noun prefixes, knowledge about noun derivation, and data about the co-occurrence of the candidate with concords, pronouns and adjectives in a local context. Our implementation is a symbolic, voting-based process: together, all tests determine whether a candidate is a noun; accuracy on unseen test data is around 92%.

Compound verbs in codeswitching: Bilinguals making do?

This paper builds on an earlier one (Gardner-Chloros & Edwards, 2004), where we pointed to various problems underlying the search for grammatical constraints on codeswitching (CS), these problems being largely derived from the assumption that CS is the sum of two finite and discrete systems which together make up the competence of the bilingual speaker. Here we look more closely at the type of grammatical knowledge involved in intrasentential CS, by examining a widely attested structure in CS, bilingual compound verbs (BCVs). We consider the properties of compound verbs in general, including in monolingual contexts, their significance in the CS literature, notably for the notion of Matrix Language, and their implications for an understanding of bilingual grammars, broadly defined. We conclude that this widespread feature of bilingual speech is more than a convenient frame for inserting foreign words, and should be seen as part of a more general verb-formation process. The types of linguistic knowledge which allow such formations to emerge are based on what Sebba (1998) has called conceptual work, rather than on the simple interaction of two linguistic systems as such. We list a number of factors to be taken into account in trying to identify a CS grammar, within which idiolect, metalinguistic knowledge and community norms are particularly significant.

Statistical machine translation from Slovenian to English

In this paper, we analyse three statistical models for the machine translation of Slovenian into English. All of them are based on the IBM Model~4, but differ in the type of linguistic knowledge they use. Model 4a uses only basic linguistic units of the text, i.e., words and sentences. In Model 4b, lemmatisation is used as a preprocessing step of the translation task. Lemmatisation also makes it possible to add a Slovenian-English dictionary as an additional knowledge source. Model 4c takes advantage of the morpho-syntactic descriptions (MSD) of words. In Model 4c, MSD codes replace the automatic word classes used in Models 4a and 4b. The models are experimentally evaluated using the IJS-ELAN parallel corpus.

Explicit instruction in orthographic structure and word morphology helps Chinese children learn to write characters

Previous research in alphabetic languages had shown that children learning to write are sensitive to morphological information, and that it serves as a resource that they draw upon as they acquire writing skills. In Chinese as well, sensitivity to morphological and orthographic information had been found to predict children’s ability to read characters. The present study investigated whether raising children’s awareness of the morphemic and orthographic structure of Chinese words would lead to beneficial results in their learning to write Chinese. An experimental group of 144 first graders from two primary schools in Beijing, China were given instruction designed to increase their knowledge of the orthographic and morphological structure of Chinese words. After two semesters, the experimental group’s ability to copy Chinese characters and to write them from memory were both found to be significantly better than a control group. Theoretical implications are discussed, including how writing benefits from the types of linguistic knowledge that underlie lexical storage and retrieval in reading and speech. Educational implications are also discussed, such as how drawing children’s attention to the morphemic components of Chinese words and the systematic features of Chinese orthography provides them with multiple sources of information they may utilize in learning to write.

Learning to Spell a Regularly Spelled Language Is Not a Trivial Task - Patterns of Errors in Kiswahili.

Various theories of spelling development are discussed, includingtheir relevance to regularly spelled languages. For those languagesstudied so far, models including the incorporation of a wide variety oflinguistic knowledge seem most fruitful. Data from studies of reading,however, suggest that when the language is regularly spelled children donot make many errors after the initial stages. Data are presented fromspelling errors in children learning to spell Kiswahili, a regularlyspelled, non-European language. Patterns of errors and even specificphonemes and graphemes that are problematic are shown to resembleclosely the patterns found in English and other European languages. Itis concluded that, as in other languages, children are integrating manydifferent types of linguistic knowledge in their attempt to spell wordscorrectly; dialect, orthography, and grammatical knowledge are allimportant. Unlike reading such a language, spelling a regularly spelledlanguage is a cognitively challenging task.

Literacy and language analysis Ed. by Robert J. Scholes (review)

BOOK NOTICES 619 rarely find elsewhere—native speaker analyses of an ancient language. [Brian M. Sietsema, Merriam-Webster, Inc. and Westfield State College.] Literacy and language analysis. Ed. by Robert J. Scholes. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1993. Pp vii, 217. Cloth $49.95. This volume is centered around the idea that literacy promotes linguistic awareness and hence linguistic analysis, because it objectifies language. Several of the papers exploit this idea admirably, showing how literacy affects ideas about aspects of language ranging from phonology to syntax. For example, in a survey article, Linnea Ehri shows how orthography influences readers' conception of the phonological structure of words; in a study of Kannadaspeaking school children, Prathibha Karanth and others show that the CV structure of Kannada orthography promotes awareness of individual phonemes in school children more weakly than an alphabetic orthography does; and in another study, illiterate speakers of Kannada or Hindi are shown to perform very poorly on tests involving both morphological and syntactic judgments of acceptability. Other articles go beyond this connection between literacy and awareness or analysis to a much bolder claim: that written language has an effect on spoken language. Linguists have long rejected the possibility of such influence, and the arguments provided here should not change that. Most of them depend on conflating two types of linguistic knowledge or grammar, the unconscious knowledge or grammar of the language user and the conscious knowledge or grammar that stems from linguistic analysis, which is not really knowledge, but rather theory or hypothesis. It is quite clear that orthography can have an effect on the latter, as several of the authors in this collection show, but even so provocatively titled an article as 'On the orthographic basis of morphology' provides no evidence that 'because contemporary preliterate and illiterate language users do not show any awareness of [words and parts of words], it is unlikely that they were part of the mental grammars of preliterate peoples' (Scholes, p. 73). The argument is not helped by claims that 'more primitive (that is, nonliterate) forms of language show "no use of grammatical morphology"' (Scholes, p. 93), especially for a reader who has spent much of the last few months trying to understand even the rudiments of Athabaskan verb morphology. Several articles deal with the general cognitive effects of literacy, following the claims of McLuhan. David Olson, for example, argues that the notions of logic and literal meaning arise out of literacy. For those wishing to make a necessary connection between the study of grammar and literacy, the Sanskrit tradition is something of an embarrassment, since it flourished in an almost completely oral tradition for two millennia. P. G. Patel provides a brief overview of the topic, but does not succeed in erasing the problem. Overall, this collection should be quite enjoyable for those linguists who are interested in the connection between spoken and written language and between language and linguistic analysis , even though it sometimes provides more heat than light. The book is reasonably free of typographical errors, but unfortunately, it does not seem to have been nearly as well edited as it was proofread. The latter is especially true of one or two papers by nonnative speakers, where the use of English articles is sometimes curious. [Mark Aronoff, SUNY Stony Brook.] Girls, boys, and language. By Joan Swann. (The language in education series.) Cambridge: Blackwell, 1992. Pp. ix, 261. Cloth $44.95, paper $19.95. As part of the Language in Education series, Girls, boys, and language provides a good general introduction to and summary of the last fifteen years of research on language and gender. It begins with the premise that 'girls and boys have different experiences in education' (1) and proceeds to document the role of language in establishing these differences. Swann's focus is largely practical: she intends to move educators beyond mere recognition of gender differences and inequities in schools (recognition which is evident in references to equal opportunity throughout the National Curriculum in England and Wales, the Scottish Development Programme , and the Northern Ireland curriculum) toward promoting specific curricular changes aimed at overcoming these inequities. The book is divided into nine chapters. Ch. 1 (1-13) briefly establishes...