Verb-noun Research Articles

Self-Repair in Tigrinya: Trouble Sources, Mechanisms and Solutions

This paper analyzes conversational self-repair, which refers to reconstructing problematic portions of a prior oral discourse by oneself, in Tigrinya. Tigrinya is a Northern Ethio-Eritrean-Semitic language spoken by the inhabitants of the Tigray regional state of Ethiopia and Eritrea. This article relies on recorded oral data from speakers of the Rayya Tigrinya variety, particularly inhabitants of Neksege located to the West of Maichew. A conversational analysis (CA) approach is used to analyze the trouble sources, mechanisms (initiators), and results of self-repair. The article shows that pronunciation problems emanating from dialectal variation or tongue slip, wrong word order including focus misplacement, missing constituents, perceived misunderstandings, and using (totally) wrong constituents are some of the trouble sources that push speakers to repair portions of a prior oral utterance. On top of that, cut-offs, particles, and lexemes (one verbal noun and some predicates) are identified as self-repair initiators. Though cut-offs do not indicate a self-repair, particles and predicates may sometimes indicate a self-repair. Finally, the article posits that expanding, replacing, re-ordering, aborting and restarting, and inserting are some of the solutions set for the repairable segments in the repaired portions of the oral discourse. The author recommends for further investigation repair in the process of language acquisition and learning, and the relationship between self-repair and the demographic features of participants.

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.

Collocation in the Mind: Investigating Collocational Priming in Second Language Speakers of Italian

AbstractCollocational priming is a priming effect induced by collocationally related words; it has been taken to explain the cognitive reality of collocation. Collocational priming has largely been observed in first language (L1) speakers, whereas work on the representation of collocation in a second language (L2) is still limited. In the present study, we sought to investigate this phenomenon in L1 and L2 speakers of Italian. We used a lexical decision task to explore collocational priming in verb–noun and noun–adjective collocations differing in frequency and collocational strength. Both L1 and L2 speakers were found sensitive to the frequency of collocations. Importantly, exposure to L2 Italian was found to play a role. The results suggest that collocational priming occurs both in L1 and L2 speakers, and that the mechanisms associated with collocation processing and representation in L1 and L2 speakers may be comparable.

Сопоставление разноуровневых признаковых пространств романов Р. Брэдбери «Вино из одуванчиков» и «Лето, прощай»

The aim of the study is to determine the similarities and differences of the multilevel semantic spaces formed by the signs of English verbal nouns in the works of Ray Bradbury "Dandelion Wine" and "Farewell Summer". The author provides a definition of the term "feature space", identifies three parameters of variability (feature, level, cluster variability of levels) for a comparative analysis of the feature spaces of the studied works. The article examines the signs of five linguistic levels: phonetic, morphological, diachronic, etymological and semantic. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that in this work the feature space is considered as a certain set of multi-level features related by statistically relevant relationships. In this context, it is first demonstrated in relation to works of art. The results revealed that the novel "Dandelion Wine" contains a higher number of English verbal nouns, with the multilevel characteristics of these nouns forming fewer clusters. On the other hand, the novel "Farewell Summer" contains twice as few English lexical units, but with more clusters. Thus, we can state that the "Farewell Summer" feature space is significantly more differentiated and, accordingly, there will be much more oppositions between the features.

The Gezer Inscription ʿṣd pšt ‘Bundling Flax’: Revising the Arabic Cognate Etymology

Abstract This article is dedicated to one of the main lexical cruxes of the Gezer tablet, the expression ʿṣd pšt in the third line of the inscription. I follow the longstanding understanding of the Gezer inscription, according to which pšt refers to flax. The primary innovation of the article lies in the re-evaluation of the cognate Arabic etymology. I argue that the cognate Arabic ʿḍd in both Classical and Modern Arabic does not signify ‘cutting’, as has been suggested in research thus far. Rather, it means ‘upper arm’. I then examine the Mishnaic Hebrew phrase פשתן חוצני ḥoṣne pištan ‘flax bundles’ (m. Pe’ah 6:5) which exhibits a semantic shift: ḥōṣɛn ‘bosom’ > ‘amount carried under bosom’ > ‘bundle’. Based on the revised Arabic ʿḍd ‘upper arm’ meaning, I propose a semantic parallel: the Gezer inscription’s verbal noun ʿṣd (< Proto- Semitic ‘upper arm’) has possibly experienced a semantic shift similar to that of חוצני פשתן ḥoṣne pištan ‘flax bundles’ in m. Pe’ah 6:5: ‘upper arm’ > ‘armful of produce’ > ‘bundle’. Accordingly, I suggest ʿṣd pšt means ‘bundling flax’. This suggestion offers a straightforward solution which clarifies etymological data from various Semitic languages, fits within the context of the Gezer inscription and finally resolves the agricultural ‘cutting’ flax difficulty.

The Accusatives in the Commentaries of Al-Durra Al-Alfiya by Ibn Al-Muati and Ibn Al-Khabbaz

The research elucidates the permissibility of placing the object first to convey the meaning, as the notion that the pear is eaten comes to mind first. The study delves into the issue of whether the verb can extend to encompass inclusion, involving both the deaf and others, suggesting that it has extended to inclusion in the sentence when it is a type of inclusion, as well as in instances of returning and walking The research asserts that the circumstantial accusative is in the accusative case because it resembles the direct object, being an adjunct. As Sibawayh stated: "The chapter on what is in the accusative among nouns that are neither adjectives nor verbal nouns, because it denotes the state in which the action occurs, thus it is in the accusative as it functions as an object. Some Arabs say: 'I spoke to him, his mouth to my mouth,' as if to say: 'I spoke to him, and this was his state.' Hence, it is the accusative because it describes the state in which the action occurred The research underscores the importance of the representation adopted by the author and the commentator, demonstrating that the object must fulfill three conditions: it must be a noun, it must occur after a clause containing a verb or a word conveying the meaning of a verb and its particles, or it must follow the conjunction "و" indicating association, which signifies accompaniment. Thus, the object actually serves as a noun adjunct to the conjunction"و" denoting association. The study concludes that advancing transmission and analogy in differentiation is permissible. Regarding analogy, this is because the factor in differentiation falls into two categories: one being a solid noun and the other a transitive verb, with the differentiating factor being transitive.

The debate on the nature of verbal nouns in Slavic languages: nominal or verbal?

The debate on the nature of verbal nouns in Slavic languages: nominal or verbal?

Sentential complements and predicates in Northern Somali

Abstract In the introductory part of this contribution, some of the general parameters that have been used in the literature for describing systems of sentential complementation are briefly surveyed. The major types of Northern Somali sentential complements are described in the following sections. Firstly, clauses introduced by the complementizer in, together with its possible etymology. These are followed by infinitival complements and quotative complements, which are used in a wide array of constructions. Complements headed by verbal nouns or masdars are also discussed, as well as indirect questions, which the author argues should be kept as a syntactic object also in this language. Finally, sentential predicates are introduced, i.e., sentential complements functioning as non-verbal predicates in copular constructions and in their verbless counterparts.

The Grammar of Emotion Verbs in the Qurʾān: A Case Study of the verb xāfa

Abstract The concept of emotions has been studied from numerous perspectives in psychology, the history of emotions and religion. This study sheds light on the linguistic devices implemented to articulate emotions in the Qurʾān by taking the emotion verb xāfa ‘to fear’ or ‘to be afraid’ (and its derivatives) as a case study. In both modern and classical dictionaries of the Arabic language as well as in Quranic exegesis, the verb xāfa is often replaced by another verb that expresses fear such as xašiya ‘to be afraid’ or ‘to be in awe’. Here it is shown that the verb xāfa occurs in certain syntactic structures and has specific meanings that are not denoted by other verbs expressing fear in the Qurʾān. Specifically, when the verb xāfa is followed by a subordinate clause that starts with the particle ‘an, it can be rendered as ‘to fear’ or ‘to be afraid’ since the cause of this fear is a probable event. When the verb xāfa is followed by the preposition ‘alā it denotes ‘to fear for [the wellbeing of] someone (e.g., a family member)’ because of a situation in which they are likely to be found. When it is followed by the noun rabb ‘Lord’ or Allāh ‘God’, the verb refers to ‘fear of God’, where fear of His punishment motivates the people to worship Him. When the verbal noun xawf has no object and is used in conjunction with the verbal noun ‘amn (‘security’) it can be interpreted as ‘insecurity about something’. Because the verb xāfa is central to the religious concept of fear of God, it is used in the Qurʾān to express a general and collective attitude of fear or awe. However, xāfa is also used to express individual experiences of fright at specific times or places.

Morphosyntactic agreement in English: does it help the listener in noise?

English morphosyntactic agreement, such as determiner–noun agreement in These cabs broke down and noun–verb agreement in The cabs break down, has a few interesting properties that enable us to investigate whether agreement has a psycholinguistic function, that is, whether it helps the listener process linguistic information expressed by a speaker. The present project relies on these properties in a perception experiment, examines the two aforementioned types of English agreement, and aims at analyzing whether and how native English listeners benefit from agreement. The two types of agreement were contrasted with cases without any overtly agreeing elements (e.g. The cabs broke down). Native speakers of English with normal hearing heard short English sentences in quiet and in more or less intense white noise and were requested to indicate whether the second word of the sentence (e.g. These cabs broke down) was a singular or plural noun. Accuracy was entered as the response variable in the binomial logistic regression model. Results showed that overt determiner–noun agreement clearly increased response accuracy, while noun–verb agreement had at best marginal effects. The findings are interpreted against the background of functional aspects of linguistic structures in English, in the context of unfavorable listening conditions in particular.

The Indo-Iranian background of the Ossetic future

Abstract The Ossetic future is generally believed to originate in compounds with Proto-Iranian *čana(h)- ‘desiring’, but the morphological and phonological details have never been explored. Examination of the Indo-Iranian evidence confirms that since the root *kanH- ‘take pleasure in’ occurs almost exclusively as a stative perfect, the only plausible source is possessive (bahuvrīhi) compounds with the derived noun *čanah- ‘desire’, which were restricted to this usage already in Old Iranian (cf. Avestan šaētō.cinah- ‘whose desire is possessions’). From denominative bases and thematic verbal nouns, *X-čanāh ‘whose desire is XN, desiring XN’ was reinterpreted as deverbal ‘(be) wanting to XV’ > ‘XV-fut’ and generalized to all verbal stems. The phonological evolution to Ossetic -ʒæn- is regular; the distribution of the allomorphs -ʒæn- and -ʒin- in the Digor dialect provides indirect evidence for the placement of stress in Proto-Ossetic, which in turn permits the resolution of an old problem, the double reflex of Proto-Iranian *pati- in compounds.

Употребата на възвратните притежателни местоимения свой, си в устната форма на българския книжовен език

Current normative problems related to the use of the reflexive possessive pronouns svoy, si in the oral form of the Bulgarian literary language are considered. Attention is drawn to non-trivial cases of the use of reflexive possessives instead of possessive pro-nouns. Attention is paid to the competition between the two types of pronouns in certain types of syntactic constructions and the reasons for errors and hesitations are analyzed. Cases that present more complex semantic relations, encoded in the sentence as a linguistic unit, at the level of which the rule for the use of the reflexive possessive pronoun is manifested: sentences with an extended noun phrase, with nominalization by means of a verbal noun, impersonal sentences are examined and typologized.

Grenzüberschreitungen an der Peripherie: Aspektuelle Funktionen von Aktivpartizipien und Verbalsubstantiven im Tschechischen

Summary Non-finite verb forms are located at the boundary of the verbal paradigm. On the one hand, they are formed paradigmatically and – if they are not lexicalized – correspond semantically to the underlying verb; on the other hand, they behave syntactically like nominal forms. Their interpretation and thus their treatment in grammars and in corpus annotation differ in individual national philological traditions. In the present text, the behavior of Czech participles and verbal nouns is investigated with respect to the category of verbal aspect. On the basis of excerpts from electronic corpora (Czech National Corpus), it is shown that both participles and verbal nouns express aspectual functions. Even more, they are capable of overstepping boundaries of codification and formal description and actualizing these aspectual functions in concrete contexts. However, participles and verbal nouns do not behave in the same way, but follow certain lines, which are given by differences in codification, formal morphology and syntactic functions.

Conversion in languages with different morphological structures: a semantic comparison of English and Czech

This article presents a comparative study of the semantics of conversion between verbs and nouns in two languages with different morphological structures – English and Czech. To make the cross-linguistic comparison of semantic relations possible, a cognitive approach is used to provide conceptual semantic categories applicable within both languages. The semantic categories, based on event schemata introduced by Radden and Dirven (2007) primarily for syntactic description, are applied to data samples of verb–noun conversion pairs in both languages, using a dictionary-based approach. We analyse a corpus sample of 300 conversion pairs of verbs and nouns in each language (e.g., run.v – run.n, pepper.n – pepper.v; běhat ‘run.v’– běh ‘run.n’, pepř ‘pepper.n’ – pepřit ‘pepper.v’) annotated for the semantic relation between the verb and the noun. We analyse which relations appear in the two languages and how often, looking for sizeable differences to answer the question of whether the morphological characteristics of a language influence the semantics of conversion. The analysis of the annotated samples documents that the languages most often employ conversion for the same concepts (namely, instance of action/process and result) and that the range of semantic categories in English and Czech is generally the same, suggesting that the differences in the morphology of the two languages do not affect the range of possible meanings that conversion is employed for. The data also show a difference in the number of types of combinations of multiple semantic relations between the verb and the noun in a single conversion pair, which was found to be larger in English than in Czech, and also in the frequency with which certain individual semantic relations occur, and these differences seem to be at least partially related to the morphological characteristics of Czech and English.

Роль вспомогательного глагола в составе русской глагольной перифразы (на материале современных электронных СМИ)

The paper explores the definition and typology of periphrastic expressions in both Russian and Romance languages, taking into consideration a range of linguistic criteria. Given its multidimensional nature, periphrasis cannot be specified in terms of subject, resulting in ambiguity in its designation. Most Russian linguists consider periphrasis as a descriptive expression that may be ambiguous but serves to convey the meaning of another expression or word. The verbal periphrasis holds a significant position in language, serving an indispensable function in conveying the meaning of actions. In the Russian language, verbal periphrasis is a binomial compound construction, with its basic model typically involving an auxiliary verb and a verbal or nominal form denoting an action. Within this model, four structures can be identified, including (1) verb + verbal noun, (2) verb + substantive phrase, (3) verb + primitive noun, and (4) verb + infinitive. The auxiliary verb within the verbal periphrasis assumes a functional role while retaining its lexical meaning to some extent. Semantically, ten main types of auxiliary verbs can be identified in verb periphrasis in Russian. These express (1) implementation, (2) phasing and other aspectual values, (3) causativity, (4) conversivity, (5) explication, (6) manifestation, (7) operation, (8) participation, (9) modality, and (10) intensity. The auxiliary verb used in the verbal periphrasis undergoes a process of desemanticization while occasionally preserving a partial semantic significance or acquiring a novel meaning.

Object Incorporation in Latin: Towards Macro- and Micro-Typology of Incorporation

In this paper, the Latin language is analyzed in the context of typology of object incorporation. The authors draw on the research of Mithun, who considers incorporation on the basis of two obligatory conditions: first, the noun must be embedded in the verb, and second, the language must have parallel syntactic paraphrases with non-incorporated noun. The second criterion is so important that the phenomenon of incorporation is acknowledged to exist even in those languages where there is no complete integration of the noun into the verb, but only a certain syntactic compactness, provided there are parallel constructions. The latter type has been coined “noun stripping” and has launched the division of incorporation into two types, viz. “strong” and “weak” incorporation. Another important point of divergence between the incorporating languages is the change of the argument structure of the source verb, namely, the preservation or loss of transitivity of the incorporated complex. Taking all these parameters into account, the authors propose a new typology of object incorporation, including languages that have not previously been considered in the context of this phenomenon. This typology is not based on a strict opposition of incorporating and non-incorporating languages, but represents a kind of continuum in which the place of a language depends on whether it demonstrates: 1) full incorporation or only a close syntactic Noun–Verb compactness; 2) the presence of parallel syntactic paraphrases; 3) the detransitivisation of the resulting compound verb. The authors examine each criterion in detail as applied to Latin and show the place of Latin in this typology.

Semantic Shift in the Meaning of the Arabic word tamma

Grammaticalisation of lexical items takes place gradually, and to track the changes a word undergoes, a historical corpus is needed. This paper investigates the changes the Arabic word “tamma” underwent. The corpus provided by King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology (KACST Arabic Corpus) is used in this study because the search engine for this corpus offers the ability for searches to be time-restricted. Thus, the development of the verb “tamma” was tracked. It was found that this verb is used in the corpus in two ways: as a polysemous lexical verb with three meanings: “to be completed,” “to occur,” and “to remain.” The second use of the verb is as an auxiliary that indicates the completion of the action of the verbal noun it precedes. An important finding is that this use, contrary to common belief, occurred in Arabic during the period between 1101 AD and 1200 AD and is not a modern introduction into Arabic. In order to explain this change, the paper investigates how this verb is translated to English and what grammatical function it has in recent use. This paper also suggests that the verb “tamma” could be defective.

Observations regarding extended causative verbal adverbials in the modern turkish language

In the grammatical structure of the Turkish language, the ablative case suffix can also in certain contexts express causation. Thus, causative adverbial phrases can be derived by adding the ablative case suffix to noun phrases formed during the process of nominalization by transforming the initial clauses with finite predicates, where the function of the correlative is marked by verbal nouns ending in -DIk / -(y)AcAk. Based on concrete (con)textual examples, this paper aims to analyze grammatical and semantic structures of causative adverbial phrases derived by adding the ablative case suffix to noun phrases formed during the process of nominalization by transforming the initial clauses with finite predicates. A contrastive analysis, which also analyzes semantically similar syntactic structures in the Bosnian language, is used to indicate similarities and differences within syntactic structures expressing causation in these two genetically and typologically different languages. The basic sources of the analysis are the following novels by Kemal Tahir: Esir Şehrin İnsanları, Esir Şehrin Mahpusu and Yol Ayrımı. Keywords: Turkish language, Bosnian language, causative adverbial phrases, ablative case suffix, initial noun clauses

Экология музыкального разума. Понятие «связующий паттерн» в концепции Кристофера Смолла musicking

The aim of this article is to analyse key aspects of the concept of musicking. Despite the fact that this term, coined by Christopher Small, has firmly entrenched in the scientific community, the context in which it is used does not reflect the nature of the neologism. The premise of Small’s word-making was the absence of a verbal noun corresponding to “music-making” in the English vocabulary. However, musicking is not the same as music-making. Unexpected semantic connections are also found when comparing the term musicking with the concept of “musurgia” used in medieval treatises. Small deliberately declined direct copying — the very process of creating the term determined his way of thinking. Not only did he modify the concept of the nature of music-making, expand the list of its participants, identify equivalent forms with specific features, but he also recognised musicking as a comprehensive phenomenon, specifically as musical art in the unity of its manifestations. To prove his point of view, Small appealed to the authority of Gregory Bateson, using the concept of “the binding pattern” borrowed from anthropology as the central element of the concept of musicking. Meanwhile, Small only outlined the boundaries of its use, though he intuitively sensed its limitless potential. In addition, his idea of the pattern as a multidimensional system of relations fundamentally differs from the interpretations accepted in musical art. According to Small’s hypothesis, when a piece of music is performed, all participants, including listeners, are able to “recognise” the metaphor of “the binding pattern”, which allows interpreting participation in musicking as a process of decoding vital information. In this situation, it seems logical to refer directly to Bateson’s works, as well as to the works of others, who pointed out the similarity of internal laws of the world of nature and the world of art. Such an angle will help us to reveal the uniqueness of Small’s concept and to justify the use of the term musicking as a tool of scientific analysis.

Prepositional Usage in Modern Irish: Range and Variation

Abstract Prepositional form and function in Irish, as in other Modern Celtic languages, are topics of much significance. In Modern Irish numerous simple prepositions not only form compounds with possessive forms of personal pronouns but additionally marshal an impressive array of ‘conjugated’ forms corresponding to the various grammatical persons. Prepositions also play a crucial role in indicating aspect and are involved in passive/ reflexive roles with the verbal noun. This paper offers an overview of the functioning of a selection of important prepositions in the language and provides examples by way of illustration.