Verb Phrase Research Articles

Which factors predict teachers’ evaluation of the difficulty and usefulness of phrasal verbs in L2 contexts?

Abstract Research examining teachers’ cognition of lexical items has flourished in the past few years. However, most of these studies focused on individual words rather than formulaic sequences. The present study aims to fill this gap through eliciting teachers’ evaluation of one type of formulaic sequences: phrasal verbs (PVs). The aim is to examine factors (frequency, opacity, and learners’ receptive and productive knowledge) that might predict teachers’ evaluation of the difficulty and usefulness of 100 PV senses. For that purpose, a survey was administered to 174 teachers. Results of generalized mixed-effects modelling showed that teachers’ assessment of both the usefulness and difficulty of PVs was predicted by sense-specific corpus frequency and receptive knowledge of these PV senses. Moreover, difficulty ratings were additionally affected by opacity and productive knowledge of PVs. We discuss these findings in relation to previous research on L2 PV knowledge and implications for L2 teaching practice.

Delving Into the Syntactic and Semantic Aspects of Verb Phrases in a Comparative Context

This research paper aims to investigate and analyze the syntax and semantics of verb phrases in both English and Bangla, with a view of identifying their major similarities and differences. Though English and Bangla verb phrases have a lot of likenesses, they vary in their structure, function and meaning. The term ‘verb’ is often considered to be a most vital syntactic and semantic component of any language. It is, both in English and Bangla, defined as a linguistic unit expressing some ‘action’ or ‘state’. Syntactically, the verb appears as a part or constituent of a phrase and is usually modified or complemented in some way(s): the verb complemented by noun(s), adjective(s), adverb(s), adverb participle(s), infinitive(s) etc. and the main verb is the ‘head’ accompanies other verbs, generally the copulas, verbs to have, modals etc. The verb phrase also involves the so-called concept which is traditionally termed a ‘predicate’. Moreover, in order to analyze the verb phrase semantically too, this research attempts to study the internal structure of the verb phrase consisting of the auxiliary verb and the main verb, where the role of main verbs is to convey the semantic content of the verb phrase and set up various relationships with all the other elements in the sentence. Here, the auxiliary verb often indicates aspect, tense, mood, voice, etc. So, this research is intended to provide readers and learners of both languages with necessary information about the similarities and differences in the verb phrases of English and Bangla.

The Difficulties That Faced Libyan Students in Learning English Vocabulary and Understanding Academic Texts

This study examines Libyan students' difficulties in acquiring the English language and comprehending academic writing. The research delineates particular vocabulary-related challenges and their effects on reading comprehension and academic achievement. A quantitative methodology was employed, utilizing a questionnaire administered to 32 students from the English department at Aljufra University. The results demonstrate that students face considerable difficulties in enhancing their vocabulary, employing words correctly, and comprehending phrasal verbs. The challenges are frequently intensified by cultural and linguistic disparities between Arabic and English, impeding students' ability to identify equivalent concepts in both languages. It also reveals that many students rely on traditional learning methods, such as dictionaries, flashcards, and repetition. While these strategies are somewhat effective, they are insufficient for mastering the complexities of academic English. The research highlights the necessity for educational institutions to provide additional support, including targeted vocabulary instruction, workshops, and one-on-one tutoring, to enhance students' academic writing and comprehension skills. Over 60% of the participants expressed the need for more excellent institutional support in academic writing, emphasizing the importance of structured resources to improve their learning outcomes. The results further emphasize the challenges associated with phrasal verbs and complex vocabulary, which remain common obstacles for non-native speakers. Addressing these areas through culturally responsive teaching techniques and providing real-world examples could make learning more relatable for students. The research underlines the importance of a comprehensive approach to vocabulary learning that incorporates both traditional and modern methods. Educators' focused effort to provide vocabulary support, academic assistance, and culturally relevant instruction is essential for improving Libyan students' vocabulary, enhancing their comprehension of scholarly texts, and ultimately enabling their educational success.

Gauging the effectiveness of a mobile application for learning English phrasal verbs

Abstract This study used a mixed-methods approach to evaluate the efficacy of mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) in teaching English phrasal verbs (PVs) in a 12-week study. The participants were 122 EFL college students divided equally into an experimental and a control group. The experimental group was assigned PV learning on an iOS-based application (henceforth referred to as “app”) for eight weeks; the control group learned the same PVs through paper-based material. Pre-tests, post-tests, and weekly class tests were conducted, and one-way ANOVAs were performed to evaluate the differences between the two groups using their pre-test and post-test scores, with repeated measures ANOVA used to analyse the learning gains in weekly tests. The results revealed that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group in the post-test (F = 6.09, p = .015, Cohen’s d = 0.45) and weekly tests (F = 31.68, p = .000). A Likert-scale-based e-questionnaire consisting of 19 items was administered to the experimental group to obtain their perceptions of the app’s usefulness for learning English PVs. The overall results suggest that MALL, particularly with this specific mobile app, may enhance students’ ability to understand and use English PVs, a key aspect of vocabulary skills. The findings can be used to encourage instructors to employ MALL for teaching the English lexicon for better learning outcomes in EFL settings.

Argument Coreference Between Content Verbs and Predicative Nouns in Brazilian Portuguese

The literature on complement clauses and support/light verb constructions provides most of the available information on coreference between arguments of matrix and subordinate syntactic predicates. However, this phenomenon is largely unexplored when it comes to verb phrases consisting of a content verb and a predicative noun in object position, such as declarar paixão (“declare passion”), cumprir a promessa (“fulfill the promise”), responder perguntas (“answer questions”), or resistir à tentação (“resist temptation”). The notions of obligatory and non-obligatory coreference do not fully explain this phenomenon, since non-coreferential usage of these phrases leads to different types of coercion, which are relevant properties to classify these phrases. This paper proposes a pilot study of verb phrases of this kind, extracting them from a Brazilian Portuguese newspaper corpus aiming at their syntactic-semantic classification. This procedure revealed a total of 75 such verb phrases. Based on semantic coercion and distributional properties, four major classes divided into seven subclasses are proposed to cover two-thirds of the data. There is also a fifth class with 17 items in which coreference appears to be a contextual property, i.e., unrelated to lexical semantics, and eight hapax legomena. The results provide a new perspective on this understudied topic, identifying also irregular aspects deserving further studies

The Function and Structure of Nominative Participial Constructions in Modern English

The following paper examines the syntactic construction and functional variety of nominative participial constructions in Contemporary English, focusing on the syntactic economy provided by nominative participial constructions and the contribution to discourse clarity. Based on examples from the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English, this chapter discusses how these sorts of structure embed delicate actions or states into sentences without elaborate clause structures. This chapter will explore how nominative participial constructions serve these discourse functions through the use of examples from academic, journalistic, and literary registers-foregrounding information, summarizing preceding actions, and emphatic purposes. The study also provides comparative insights into nominative participial constructions in relation to other forms of non-finite clauses, such as gerunds, which uniquely allow for condensation with a clearly identifiable subject even in highly reduced syntactic environments. In all, these findings contribute to a view that nominative participial constructions in English represent an instance of embodiment of the functional-syntactic interface: conciseness vs. richness of description, contributing to a more flexible and expressive syntax.

ENGLISH PHRASAL VERBS USED IN THE ALBUM “JUSTICE” BY JUSTIN BIEBER

The objective of this research was to find out the types and the meaning of phrasal verb in the album “Justice” by Justin Bieber. The researcher used qualitative method as metodology and descriptive qualitative as approach. In analyzing the data, the researcher used theory of Miles et al, therewere data condensation, data display, drawing and verifying conclusion. The source of the data was taken from the album “Justice” by Justin Bieber. Based on the results, there are two types of phrasal verbs that the researcher found, namely: transitive and intransitive phrasal verbs. Transitive phrasal verbs divided into two types are: Separable and Inseparable. There were 38 data of phrasal verbs, the most common phrasal verb were inseparable 22, separable 6, and intransitive 10. And also the researcher found the meaning semantically from phrasal verbs that contain in the album “Justice” by Justin Bieber. Based on the results of the analysis conducted by the researcher, the researcher concluded that there were a lot of phrasal verbs that contain the song lyrics of the album “Justice” by Justin Bieber and the use of phrasal verb in the album “Justice” by Justin Bieber is added the knowledge about the vocabulary of the phrasal verbs.

Grammatical Representations of the Verb Phrase in Mandarin Chinese: Evidence from Syntactic Priming in Five-Year-Olds

Background/Objectives: Debates regarding how to represent verb phrases (VPs) consisting of the verb plus the complement and the aspectual marker -le in Mandarin Chinese remain an issue. Methods: Syntactic priming under a memory disguise paradigm was employed to investigate the issue using the SVO-ba alternation, where the SVO structure consists of a subject verb object, and the ba structure of a subject ba object verb, in five-year-olds (n = 216), an age with fully fledged grammatical knowledge but little interference from literacy. Results: The results indicate that both the complement and the marker -le should be represented in terms of phrasal rather than morphological structures. When -le is inflected to the verb alone, realization, which makes an event a fact, rather than completion, which makes an event finished, is accomplished. The event must be telicized to a state through a resultative complement to induce reliable production of the ba construction. The postverbal elements represent their own phrasal structure and challenge the verb-centered lexico-syntactic account because there are no additional representations left within a verb. Conclusions: More elicitations of the SVO than the ba invite future neurolinguistic explorations to disentangle the impacts of the frequency and thematic arrangement of agent and patient on grammatical representations cross-linguistically.

The Impact of Subordination Type and Finiteness on Second Language Development in Timed Impromptu Writing: An NLP-Based Analysis Using the Subordination Sophistication Analyzer

The use of subordination enables language users to achieve syntactic efficiency by allowing them to connect ideas in temporal/logical relation. Although the importance of subordination has been recognized in previous research on second language (L2) writing, it has been typically assessed with global indices that measure overall ratio of subordination. In order to capture more nuanced patterns in the development of L2 writing, this study measures the sophistication of subordination, considering subordination type (adverbialization, complementization, relativization) and finiteness (finite, nonfinite). Our natural language processing analysis of 6,566 timed impromptu essays using the Subordination Sophistication Analyzer 1.0 showed that higher-proficiency L2 learners used more subordination, and, importantly, their patterns of use differed by subordination type and finiteness. Whereas the amount of adverbialization and relativization increased along with proficiency regardless of finiteness, the use of complementization increased only for nonfinite clauses. The broader impacts of this study for education and assessment are discussed.

Phrasal verb production in child heritage speakers of English residing in Mexico: Chronological age, experience, and protracted development

Phrasal verb production in child heritage speakers of English residing in Mexico: Chronological age, experience, and protracted development

The Syntax of Verb Phrase Ellipsis in English and Arabic: A Phase Approach

يهدف هذا البحث إلى دراسة الحذف النحوي للعبارة الفعلية في اللغتين الانجليزية والعربية متبعاً منهاج الرحيلة الذي كان محل اهتمام العديد من علماء اللغة والباحثين منذٌ عام 2000 وحتى الآن (وينكلر، 2005؛ جينجل 2007، 2009؛ ألبرشت، 2010)، 2015، 2016؛ روفيريت، 2012؛ وبوسكوفيتش، 2014؛ وآخرين). حيث أتبع هذا البحث المنهج الوصفي التحليلي. وقد تم تحليل الجمل في اللغتين الانجليزية والعربية بطريقة نوعية بتطبيق منهاج الرحيلة وهو عبارة عن أحدث منهاج في النظرية الادنوية. رأس الرحيلة يؤثر ويتحكم في ترخيص حذف العبارة الفعلية في اللغتين. بتطبيق منهاج الرحيلة وجد الباحث بعض أوجه التشابه والاختلاف في البيئات النحوية التي يتم فيها ترخيص حذف العبارة الفعلية في اللغتين الانجليزية والعربية. في اللغة الإنجليزية، (لكن) تدخل مزجاً تحت الرأس (&) في الانشطار الكلي &P بينما في اللغة العربية (لكن) تدخل مزجاً تحت الرأس C في الانشطار الكلي CP، ويوصي الباحث مواصلة البحث والتقصي لهذه الظاهرة النحوية حيث تعتبر أساس لدراسات قادمة وخاصةً بإتباع منهاج الرحيلة.

Translation Strategies of English Passive Constructions into Arabic: An Analysis of Google Translation Engine Produced Translations Using House’s TQA Model

This study explores the translation of English passive constructions into Arabic, focusing on the prevalent translation shifts and the preservation of the source functions within this process. Utilizing a qualitative methodology, it analyzes passive constructions from an English economic-political article based on House’s (2015) Translation Quality Assessment model. It reviews all passive participles classifying them into verbal and adjectival ones. The research aims to understand how these translation shifts cater to the syntactic and semantic needs of the Arabic language, particularly how machine translation tools like Google Translation engine handle these transformations. Data collected include various English passive constructions and their Arabic translations, providing a foundation for assessing either their adherence to the target language’s norms and preferences or to the literal approach that may lead to affect such preferences and norms. Key findings reveal how Google Translation engine tends to translate according to Arabic norms and produce a natural translation while preserving the source functions. The five translation strategies used by Google Translate when translating passive constructions from English to Arabic in economic-political texts are: 1) adjectival phrases, 2) active structures, 3) passive structures with internal vowel changes, 4) verbless structures with verbal nouns, and 5) verbal phrases with 'tamma'. However, the influence of such an approach may lead to manipulating the source function, which may lead to misunderstandings or to unbalanced power relations.

Exploring crosslinguistic influence on learning particles in phrasal verbs through a cognitive linguistic approach

Abstract It is now well established that English phrasal verbs cause English as foreign language learners no small degree of confusion due to the semantic complexity. However, the influence of crosslinguistic transfer on learning phrasal verbs has remained unclear. There even has been little qualitative analysis of the crosslinguistic difference between literal and metaphorical meanings of particles. This paper proposes an instructional approach underpinned by metaphor and categorization in cognitive linguistics and highlights particles as a means of disentangling polysemous verb-particle constructions. Fifteen students from four universities in Taipei City and City of Newcastle upon Tyne participated in the study. Results of the qualitative data, i.e., discussion tasks, in-session tasks, and interviews, suggested that despite the difficulty of understanding some target items, the crosslinguistic similarities and differences generally aid the learning of the phrasal verbs via the proposed approach. Raising an awareness of crosslinguistic difference between metaphorical meanings of particles can be pedagogically useful.

The effectiveness of ChatGPT as a lexical tool for English, compared with a bilingual dictionary and a monolingual learner’s dictionary

Traditionally, language learners have relied on dictionaries when trying to read or write in a foreign language. However, new LLM-based chatbots may offer an alternative to traditional dictionaries as lexical tools. This study assesses the effectiveness of ChatGPT versus the monolingual Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE, 2024) and the bilingual Diki.pl (Diki.pl, 2024) online dictionaries in supporting English language learners in receptive and productive lexical tasks. With a sample of 166 university students at B2 to C1 proficiency levels and forty uncommon English phrasal verbs, we investigate whether a leading AI-driven chatbot, a high-quality learners’ dictionary, or a popular free bilingual dictionary offers better support in accurately understanding and producing English. The results reveal ChatGPT to be more effective than either dictionary in production, and better than the monolingual dictionary, but not the bilingual dictionary, in reception.

It is, uh, very likely? The impact of prosodic uncertainty cues on the perception and interpretation of spoken verbal probability phrases.

People typically use verbal probability phrases when discussing risks ("It is likely that this treatment will work"), both in written and spoken communication. When speakers are uncertain about risks, they can nonverbally signal this uncertainty by using prosodic cues, such as a rising, question-like intonation or a filled pause ("uh"). We experimentally studied the effects of these two prosodic cues on the listener's perceived speaker certainty and numerical interpretation of spoken verbal probability phrases. Participants (N=115) listened to various verbal probability phrases that were uttered with a rising or falling global intonation and with or without a filled pause before the probability phrase. For each phrase, they gave a point estimate of their numerical interpretation in percentages and indicated how certain they thought the speaker was about the correctness of the probability phrase. Speakers were perceived as least certain when the verbal probability phrases were spoken with both prosodic uncertainty cues. Interpretation of verbal probability phrases varied widely across participants, especially when rising intonation was produced by the speaker. Overall, high probability phrases (e.g., "very likely") were estimated as lower (and low probability phrases, such as "unlikely," as higher) when they were uttered with a rising intonation. The effects of filled pauses were less pronounced, as were the uncertainty effects for medium probability phrases (e.g., "probable"). These results stress the importance of nonverbal communication when verbally communicating risks and probabilities to people, for example, in the context of doctor-patient communication.

Informal language contact and formulaic language development of Chinese students abroad during a global crisis

Abstract This longitudinal mixed-methods study tracked the informal language contact and phrasal verb knowledge of 21 Chinese foundation program students in the United Kingdom (UK) during the 2019–2020 academic year through three rounds of data collection. Because of the disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the study was able to capture the impact of a global crisis on the experiences of international students studying abroad and learning a second language (L2). Data from a Language Contact Questionnaire, a Study Abroad Social Network Survey, and semi-structured interviews indicated significant changes in their L2 use and social networks. Our findings showed that the students sharply reduced their L2 contact and increased their use of first language (L1) during the pandemic. Productive and receptive tests assessing phrasal verb knowledge revealed that the students did not make significant gains after the pandemic lockdown. The study suggests that significant changes in the living environment can directly impact students’ L2 usage and their formulaic language development.

Are cleft sentence structures more difficult to process?

This study compares the processing of cleft structures against that of monoclausal sentences using event-related potential (ERP). We aim to understand how syntactic complexity is processed by comparing the neural response to cleft and single-clause sentences with identical verb phrases, controlling for verb bias frequency effects. 60 participants were tested, and we presented 100 cleft and 100 monoclausal sentences, balanced for active and passive verb usage. The P600 component, which is associated with syntactic complexity, was examined to assess the processing load of cleft structures. Results showed that cleft structures incur a greater processing load, as indicated by a P600, compared to monoclausal sentences. This indexed the increased difficulty of processing the additional syntactic operation required to parse cleft sentences. These findings echo the results of behavioral studies of sentence comprehension on clinical populations.

Role of Verbal Encouraging Phrases (VEP) on Students Academic Achievement at Secondary School Level

The role of verbal encouraging phrases (VEP) in education has garnered significant attention in recent years, as educators and researchers alike seek to understand the factors that enhance student motivation and academic performance. The researchers designed two research objectives to execute the study were as; to find out the difference based on gender perceptions in the role of verbal encouraging phrases and the academic achievement of students in secondary level; to examine the relationship between the scores of verbal encouraging phrases and students' academic achievement. The current study was a descriptive research that was designed to investigate the role of verbal encouraging phrases in students' academic achievement at secondary school level. The researchers selected the sample of 350 secondary school students from the population. A research questionnaire was developed to collect data from the respondents. The evaluation of academic performance was based on task completion time and accuracy. Preliminary findings suggest a significant positive correlation between the use of verbal encouraging phrases by educators and heightened academic motivation among students. Further analysis reveals that the used of verbal encouraging phrases (VEP) is strongly associated with improved academic achievement, underscoring the importance of verbal reinforcement in educational settings. The study's outcomes highlight the critical of verbal encouragement in fostering a motivating learning environment, thereby contributing to enhanced academic performance. These insights provide valuable implications for educational practices, suggesting that educators should strategically employ verbal encouraging phrases to boost students' motivation and academic success.

L2 learners’ mindfulness in relation to their memorization/learning of L2 phrasal verbs

L2 learners’ mindfulness in relation to their memorization/learning of L2 phrasal verbs

Analisis Kualitas Isi dalam Teks Berita detiknews.com Edisi Januari 2024 sebagai Referensi Bahan Ajar Kelas XI SMA

This research is motivated by the tendency of news today to pay less attention to the 5W+1H elements (What, Who, Why, When, Where, and How) which are explained according to the concept of objectivity and effectiveness of news and information. The purpose of this study is to analyze the quality of information in the detik.news January 2024 edition. This analysis focuses on information quality, data availability, efficiency, and objectivity. This study is based on “Detiknews.Com News Text January 2024 Edition” and data collection techniques with the goal of learning, analyzing, and documenting. The analytic techniques used are qualitative and quantitative. In data collection, we used a formal data collection method that included the use of a symbol (or symbol) and a collection method. The purpose of using this qualitative deskriptif method is to analyze verbal phrases found in detiknews.com articles. The findings of this study may be seen in relation to the number of stories that have been published on detiknews.com, namely whether they have high quality images with clear and easy-to-understand text. The purpose of news reporting is to report on current events without revealing any personal information. The quality of information found on detik.news is intended to be useful in determining whether a piece of information is reliable in terms of language, objectivity, effectiveness, and the extent to which it has been disseminated to the public.