Verb-noun Research Articles

Noun–noun collocations in learner writing

Studies of collocations to date have emphasised use and learning of noun–verb and adjective–noun collocations. This study uses three sub-corpora of the ICLE corpus to investigate use of noun–noun collocations by learners in their academic writing. The literature to date has focused on contexts where English is being learnt as a foreign language rather than as a second language. The study therefore compares the influence of ESL and EFL learning contexts on learner use of noun–noun collocations. Findings are that accuracy of noun–noun phrases is significantly greater in the writing of ESL learners. A second question considered is what influence the presence or absence of noun–noun phrases in the first language (L1) has on learner use of these phrases in English. For this purpose, production of noun–noun phrases in written English by L1 Mandarin writers (a language that permits noun–noun phrases) is compared to writing by L1 Spanish writers (a language that does not allow noun–noun phrases). Findings are that learners whose L1 permits noun–noun phrases produce significantly more of them in English than learners whose L1 does not. Problems that learners had in forming noun–noun phrases are discussed qualitatively, and implications for EAP teaching are suggested.

Struggling to retain the functions of passive when translating English thesis abstracts

The thesis abstract, as a genre has a set of communicative functions mutually-understood by established members of the academic community. A vast majority of translation studies of source language (SL) and target language (TL) equivalence seems to have overlooked the inherent relationship between form and function when translating. The purpose of this study was to find out whether the Arab students would translate the English passive structures into their corresponding Arabic passive in order to maintain the pragma-generic functions associated with these constructions or would employ other translation replacements when translating English passives into Arabic. A further purpose was to find out what grammatical factors constrain the choice of these translation options. To fulfill these purposes, we investigated the voice choice in 90 MA thesis abstracts and their 90 Arabic translated versions written in English by the same MA students, drawn from the field of Linguistics. The data analysis revealed that when the Arab student-translators come across the English passive sentence, they resort to either of the following options: Transposing English passives into verbal nouns (masdar), or into pseudo-active verbs or active sentence structures, or into vowel melody passives, or omitting these passive structures.

Syntagmatyka morfotaktyczna i morfonologiczna rumuńskich rzeczowników odczasownikowych

Morphotactic and morphophonological syntagmatics of the Romanian verbal nounsThis paper tries to formulate a working hypothesis concerning the general morphological structure of the Romanian verbal nouns. Its first part consists in the analysis of the verbal nouns morphophonology. Some basic types of the syntagmatic structure are presented here for each morphological part of these words (root, prefixes, suffixes, inflections, interfixes). The second part is a morphotactic analysis of the forty verbal nouns. There are the nine general types of the syntagmatic structure formulated for the whole set of these Romanian lexemes.

Arabic Loanwords in Tatar and Swahili: Morphological Assimilation

This article deals with the analysis of the morphological assimilation of Arabic loanwords into Tatar, Altai language family, and Swahili, Bantu language family. The urgency of this review is caused by the fact that the formation of both Tatar and Swahili was influenced by Arabic, which had profoundly influenced them in religious, scientific, cultural and economic aspects. In this paper we apply the comparative approach that is aimed at finding isomorphic and allomorphic features in the languages studied and identifying their peculiarities in the process of Arabic vocabulary assimilation. The morphological assimilation of Arabic loanwords into these languages is realized by verbal nouns, participles, nouns denoting place and action. One of the isomorphic features of the recipient languages is the absence of the category of gender both in Tatar and Swahili; among the allomorphic peculiarities are postposition of adjectives after nouns in Swahili and the use of compound verbs with Arabic nouns as their stems in Tatar. The results of the research will contribute to the loanword studies in these unrelated languages.

The verbal noun of the qal stem in Rabbinic Hebrew traditions and qĕṭēlâ/qĕṭîlâ alternations

The verbal noun הפָירִשְׂ ‘burning’ in Rabbinic Hebrew stands in contrast to its biblical counterpart הפָרֵשְׂ ‘fire’ both in form and in function. This contrast is not, as has been suggested, a simple alternation between nominal patterns or between vowels, but rather part of a wide morphological change in Rabbinic Hebrew: the transition of the verbal nouns into a grammatical category, which can be seen in other forms and other nominal patterns as well. The inherited biblical forms that, like הפָרֵשְׂ did not fit the new alignment and were not considered appropriate verbal nouns any more, were kept in use and maintained their potential lexical status, but for expressing the verbal noun they were often replaced by other patterns.

Structural ambiguity in the Georgian verbal noun

Abstract In this paper, we propose that the verbal noun in Georgian is structurally ambiguous, with a more verbal instantiation (V-VN) and a more nominal instantiation (N-VN). We argue for the ambiguity hypothesis on the basis of syntactic diagnostics that target how the two instantiations of the verbal noun crucially diverge from one another. After demonstrating that the ambiguity hypothesis is indeed motivated by the data, we propose that the distinction between V-VNs and N-VNs in Georgian helps us to distinguish between more proposition-like and more event-like readings of verbal noun phrases. We then argue from a theoretical standpoint that the N-VN is a lexically derived nominal, whereas the V-VN in its behavior approaches what might be called an “infinitive” in modern Georgian.

The Problematic Forms of Nominalization in English: Gerund, Verbal Noun, and Deverbal Noun

This paper addresses a problematic issue concerning the three forms of nominalization: gerund, verbal noun, and deverbal noun. These nominals are problematic for two reasons. The first reason is that they mix different degrees of nominal and verbal properties, so the choice of these nominals for certain structure is not easily predictable. The second one is that there are many discrepancies concerning the terminology related to these forms used in linguistic references and studies. The confusing terminology is misleading for the researcher, teachers, and learners. The terms under investigation have different internal structures, but they share the same nominal functions and distribution within the sentence (subject, object, etc.). The study aims to point out the confusing discrepancies in terminology, the properties of these forms, the similarities and differences between these three forms, and accordingly their categories.

The learning burden of collocations: The role of interlexical and intralexical factors

This study investigates whether congruency (+/– literal translation equivalent), collocate–node relationship (adjective–noun, verb–noun, phrasal-verb–noun collocations), and word length influence the learning burden of EFL learners’ learning collocations at the initial stage of form–meaning mapping. Eighteen collocations were selected on the basis of a pretest. They were divided into 9 congruent and 9 incongruent collocations and into 6 verb–noun collocations, 6 phrasal-verb–noun collocations and 6 adjective–noun collocations. Forty-one EFL learners (first language: Dutch) were asked to read a word list containing the 18 target collocations, their translation and a sample sentence and to complete four online exercises, in which the 18 collocations were presented twice. Learning gains were measured at three levels of sensitivity: form recall test 1, form recall test 2 (+ clue), form recognition test. Although mixed findings were revealed, all factors seemed to affect the learning difficultly of the collocations. Incongruent collocations appeared to be more difficult to recall than congruent ones. Adjective–noun collocations were better recalled and recognized than (phrasal) verb–noun collocations. Depending on the posttest, participants’ vocabulary size and word length of the individual constituents making up the collocation also affected the learning process.

History of the Modern Standard Serbian Language: Neologisms in the Sermons of Gavrilo Stefanović Venclović

The article deals with the neologisms in the sermons of Gavrilo Stefanović Venclović, a Serbian writer of the XVIIIth century, who was among the first to use Serbian vernacular as a standard language for the purpose of writing sermons. After the Vuk type of written language had won, lexical gaps were filled mainly words and expressions already present in the vernacular. This method provided a very limited stylistic and lexical inventory for the writers. Venclović’s stylistic neologisms, possessing such qualities as picturesqueness and semantic transparency, served to draw attention of the audience to the text of the sermon. Rooted in the biblical tradition, they represent a ‘bridge’ between the Old Church Slavonic lexical legacy and the Serbian vernacular, as well as demonstrate the possibility for the creation of a standard language based on vernacular, without divorcement from the tradition of Cyril and Methodius. For a more detailed analysis of the neologisms in the language of Venclović’s sermons the author has chosen the category of verbal nouns with the suffix -lac, which were further categorized into complex and simple nouns, according to the derivation feature.

Irish Constructions with Bain

Irish has a large number of constructions consisting of a verb of general meaning (a light verb), a noun (usually abstract) and a preposition. These light-verb constructions (LVCs) form a unit: the light verb fulfils the grammatical functions while also retaining some of its lexical semantics, and the noun conveys the core semantics of the whole, so that the meaning of the predicate is distributed among the parts of the construction. The tendency to use periphrastic means of conveying predicates in Irish has been discussed by Wagner (1959) and Greene (1966) and the same phenomenon has recently been discussed by Wigger (2004, 2008 and 2009) from a contrastive and lexicological point of view. LVCs containing verbal nouns (NV-LVCs) have been discussed by Bloch-Trojnar (2009a, 2009b and 2010) with particular stress on their aspectual characteristics and the interaction between the verb-noun predicate and the choice of the light verb. The present paper is intended as an attempt to introduce LVCs involving simple (non-verbal) nouns into the discussion.

Breaking Up, Down and Out: Anomie in Georgi Gospodinov's <em>Natural Novel</em>

Her critical remarks pertain to the works of arguably the most prominent contemporary Bulgarian author, Georgi Gospodinov; they constitute an effort to unfold — with minimal immobilization and reduction — the multiplicitous, paradoxical complexities of peculiar (interand intra-) textual events that she nominates razroiavania — a word strange even in its native Bulgarian language. A composite of the prefix ‘raz-’ and a form of the verbal noun roene, the singular, razroiavane, encompasses all of the senses of ‘pullulating’ — engendering, germinating, swarming,

The creation and interpretation of nominal predicates: Bi + ann in Scottish Gaelic

In this paper I analyze a construction in Scottish Gaelic that presents challenges for our understanding of the individual level/stage level distinction, the mechanics of nonverbal predication, and the semantics of lexical items like ‘sit’, ‘stand’, and ‘lie’. I argue that this “stage-level” construction, with the verb bi ‘be’, the preposition ann ‘in’, and a noun or “verbal noun”, appears when a very specific kind of nominal predicate is required, not just one that is stage-level. This type of predicate requires functional structure not available in the nominal domain for creation, so the material is merged with prepositional structure. The “verbal nouns” that appear with bi+ann form an intuitive semantic class; I argue that what unites them is a root-internal specification for (a) posture of body or mind and (b) homogeneity in nonverbal environments. This analysis resolves several open questions about the construction, including the semantic characterization of the roots that occur with ann and the categorization and interpretation of the predicates it creates. The analysis has implications for our understanding of the creation of nonverbal predicates cross-linguistically and provides insight into the puzzling meanings of sit/stand/lie roots.

Nominal KAŊ form in Basse Mandinka: Its cognitive mapping and taxonomical status (Part 2)

Abstract Purpose: T he present study, divided into a series of two papers, provides a detailed empirical description and cognitive-grammaticalization analysis of the meaning of a Mandinka verbal expression compounded of the non-verbal predicator be ‘be’, a verbal noun expressing a given action and the postposition kaŋ ‘on, at’ (so-called the Nominal KAŊ form). Method: T he author follows the cognitive approach to verbal semantics which consists first of determining the exact range of contextually induced senses and next of unifying such values into a consistent map based upon certain diachronic universals or grammaticalization paths. Results: T he synchronic inventory of senses of the Nominal KAŊ form (i.e. progressive, continuous, progressive-iterative, iterative, habitual and durative values) shows that this construction can be mapped using the imperfective path as a template of chaining. This mapping, hypothesized on the ground of synchronic semantic evidence and typological diachronic laws, is next corroborated by the structural properties of the Nominal KAŊ locution, especially by its locative and nominal character. Conclusion: A ll the evidence enables the author to semantically define the NomKAŊ form as a nonadvanced imperfective-path gram. Part 1: In the second article of the series, the author designs the map of the semantic potential of the Nominal KAŊ locution and corroborates it by analyzing formal properties of this construction

Profiling the collocation use in ELT textbooks and learner writing

The present study investigates the collocational profiles of (1) three series of graded textbooks for English as a foreign language (EFL) commonly used in Taiwan, (2) the written productions of EFL learners, and (3) the written productions of native speakers (NS) of English. These texts were examined against a purpose-built collocation list. Based on the British National Corpus (BNC), the collocation list comprises 43,875 verb–noun collocations, the nodes of which were drawn from a prescribed wordlist (Jeng, Chang, Cheng, & Gu, 2002) to be learned on completion of the secondary education in Taiwan. Findings show that overall the collocational density and diversity of the textbooks are comparable to those of NS essays. Nonetheless, only small proportions of collocations within the repertoire were presented in the textbooks, and these collocations did not recur enough for the learner to consolidate collocational knowledge. Compared with their NS equivalents, learners’ writing exhibited an inordinate degree of collocational density and limited collocational diversity, suggesting that they did have the need to construct utterances with collocations, but were inhibited by a underdeveloped sense of collocational knowledge. Implications for learning/teaching collocations and materials designing are discussed.

Effects of representational distance between meanings on the neural correlates of semantic ambiguity

Psycholinguistic research demonstrates that representational distance between meanings influences recognition of ambiguous words. Our goal was to investigate whether the neural correlates of ambiguity are also modulated by representational distance as a function of syntactic similarity (i.e., grammatical class) and meaning dominance. In an event-related fMRI experiment, participants completed a visual lexical decision task that included balanced and unbalanced noun–noun and noun–verb homonyms, unambiguous words, and nonwords. Syntactic similarity effects were observed in left inferior frontal regions, with greater activation for noun–verb than noun–noun homonyms. Meaning dominance effects were observed in left middle and superior temporal regions, with greater activation for balanced than unbalanced homonyms. These findings indicate that the behavioral cost associated with processing ambiguous word meanings, modulated by syntactic similarity and meaning dominance, is reflected in the neural systems underlying ambiguity processing, as frontal and temporal regions are recruited by increased competition as a function of representational distance.

The four types of Welsh YN

AbstractThis paper discusses and categorises the various medieval and modern Welsh prepositions and particles yn and the initial mutations that follow them. It investigates possible manuscript variants such as Old Welsh int and it and Middle Welsh y, and examines variations in mutation. Historical explanations are suggested, including a new explanation of the absence of mutation in the productive yn + verbal noun construction, which is argued to have spread from the construction in which possessive pronouns between yn and the verbal nouns of intransitive stative verbs prevented yn from mutating the verbal nouns.

The verb-noun agreement in English and Arabic

The verb-noun agreement in English and Arabic

Successful written subject–verb agreement: an online analysis of the procedure used by students in Grades 3, 5 and 12

This study was designed to (1) investigate the procedure responsible for successful written subject–verb agreement, and (2) describe how it develops across grades. Students in Grades 3, 5 and 12 were asked to read noun–noun–verb sentences aloud (e.g., Le chien des voisins mange [The dog of the neighbors eats]) and write out the verb inflections. Some of the nouns differed in number, thus inducing attraction errors. Results showed that third graders were successful because they implemented a declarative procedure requiring regressive fixations on the subject noun while writing out the inflection. A dual-step procedure (Hupet, Schelstraete, Demaeght, & Fayol, 1996) emerged in Grade 5, and was fully efficient by Grade 12. This procedure, which couples an automatized agreement rule with a monitoring process operated within working memory (without the need for regressive fixations), was found to trigger a mismatch asymmetry (singular–plural > plural–singular) in Grade 5. The time course of written subject–verb agreement, the origin of agreement errors and differences between the spoken and written modalities are discussed.

Two Types of Nominalizations Targeting Verbal Projections in English and Korean

In English, there are two superficially distinct nominalizations targeting verbal projections; process nominals targeting the VP (Borer 1999, Fu, Roeper and Borer 2001), and progressive gerunds targeting the vP, or the IP (Moulton 2004). While the two types of nominalizations are headed by two distinct types of nominal heads, they are products of similar syntactic operations in that the verbal sub-structures appear as complements of the nominal heads. In this paper, I argue that Korean also has two types of deverbal nominals and that they are both products of similar syntactic operations, taking the verbal sub-structures as the complements of the nominal heads; o-nominalization targeting the VP and um-nominalization targeting the vP, or the IP. I argue that simple nominal verbal nouns (VNs) possess the VP (contva Yoon and Park 2004) and that they are nominalized by a phonologically null nominal head, while um-nominalizations target vP or IP of VNs and native Korean predicates (NKPs). The fact that some VP internal adverbial modifications are possible in VNs supports the claim that even simple nominal VNs possess verbal sub-structures.

Predication Drives Verb Cortical Signatures

Verbs and nouns are fundamental units of language, but their neural instantiation remains poorly understood. Neuropsychological research has shown that nouns and verbs can be damaged independently of each other, and neuroimaging research has found that several brain regions respond differentially to the two word classes. However, the semantic-lexical properties of verbs and nouns that drive these effects remain unknown. Here we show that the most likely candidate is predication: a core lexical feature involved in binding constituent arguments (boy, candies) into a unified syntactic-semantic structure expressing a proposition (the boy likes the candies). We used functional neuroimaging to test whether the intrinsic "predication-building" function of verbs is what drives the verb-noun distinction in the brain. We first identified verb-preferring regions with a localizer experiment including verbs and nouns. Then, we examined whether these regions are sensitive to transitivity--an index measuring its tendency to select for a direct object. Transitivity is a verb-specific property lying at the core of its predication function. Neural activity in the left posterior middle temporal and inferior frontal gyri correlates with transitivity, indicating sensitivity to predication. This represents the first evidence that grammatical class preference in the brain is driven by a word's function to build predication structures.