Variety Of Linguistic Phenomena Research Articles

The Emergence of the Russian-Chinese Pidgin as a Reflection of Language Contacts

Scientists have accumulated considerable experience in the study of the concept of “linguistic contacts”. Multidimensionality and multifunctionality of this phenomenon, its research in various fields of scientific knowledge determine the existence of various interpretations of this concept, each of which reflects its different points. The analysis of scientific works by Chinese, Russian, Western scientists in which the understanding of the concept of “linguistic contacts” is presented, made it possible to identify the following aspects in the interpretation of this concept: an emphasis on linguistic interaction and interaction in the process of linguistic contact; definition of linguistic contacts as an interaction between languages as a result of the interaction of communities speaking these languages; the study of linguistic contacts in the aspect of the existing variety of linguistic phenomena caused by the contact of languages. The paper defines the essential characteristics of the pidgin, identifies the factors of occurrence and features of the Russian-Chinese pidgin. Based on the analysis of scientific approaches to the study of pidgin, the reasons for their appearance, conditions of functioning, it was concluded that the main factor in the emergence of the Russian-Chinese pidgin was border trade, which occupied a special place in relations between Russia and China.The research materials can be applied in studying the features of language contacts, the interaction between Russia and China. Keywords: language, dialect, language contacts, pidgin, Russian-Chinese pidgin

Linguistic and cognitive representation of time and viewpoint in narrative discourse

AbstractIn this introduction to the special issue on time and viewpoint in narrative discourse, we highlight the central contributions of the issue concerning the relation between the linguistic construal and cognitive representation of time and viewpoint. We explain how linguistic and gestural cues guide the representation of narrative time progression and argue that this representation involves various cognitive operations regulating the alignment between the viewpoints of narrator, addressee, and narrative characters. These operations are steered by a variety of linguistic phenomena, including verb tense, adverbs, demonstratives, reduplication and negation, as well as body partitioning. We discuss how genre characteristics influence the relation between the linguistic and cognitive representation of time and viewpoint. Finally, we explain how the analyses presented in the various papers both demonstrate and clarify how the cognitive representation of time in narrative discourse relies on the human capacity to simultaneously manage multiple viewpoints, leading to the conclusion that time and viewpoint are closely related in the representation of narrative discourse.

Massively Parallel Parsing: A Strongly Interactive Model of Natural Language Interpretation*

This is a description of research in developing a natural language processing system with modular knowledge sources but strongly interactive processing. The system offers insights into a variety of linguistic phenomena and allows easy testing of a variety of hypotheses. Language interpretation takes place on a activation network which is dynamically created from input, recent context, and long‐term knowledge. Initially ambiguous and unstable, the network settles on a single interpretation, using a parallel, analog relaxation process. We also describe a parallel model for the representation of context and of the priming of concepts. Examples illustrating contextual influence on meaning interpretation and “semantic garden path” sentence processing, among other issues, are included.

François Thurot and the First History of Grammar

Abstract François Thurot’s Discours préliminaire (1796), a first attempt at a historiography of grammar, sums up the language theories of the philosophes, while prefiguring the 19th century in both his concept of language and his attitude towards the science of language. He accepts, for instance, the theory that the perfection of a language reflects the progress of the mind but rejects the metaphysical speculation on the origin of language that characteristically accompanied such a theory. And although Thurot, like his contemporaries, still preoccupies himself with the method of logico-linguistic analysis which would lead to a langue bien faite, his study opens up to a new variety of linguistic phenomena in the vernacular. Thus, his view of language embraces both the mechanical reductionism aimed at scientific language with its pretention to universality as well as the creative dynamism of discursive language with its recognition of cultural relativity. Furthermore, Thurot assimilates the interest in the genetic relationship among languages, that was already in the air, to the historicism of the philosophes, whose historical tableaux unfolded within their theories of language. Thurot’s interest in natural language is an outgrowth of the prevailing ‘climate of opinion’. The data-oriented approach to language had begun with the invention of the printing press, from which time there was an ever increasing accumulation and distribution of material on non-European languages. The French Revolution was to dramatize the importance of discursive language, since the unification of the nation depended, in part, on the democratization and standardization of daily language. Such a climate proved favorable for subsequent work on genetic classification and on Indo-European in the 19th century.