Number Of Verbs Research Articles

Future Time Reference Alternation in Afrikaans as a West-Germanic Language

There are two future time reference auxiliaries in Afrikaans, sal ‘will’ and gaan ‘go’. These auxiliaries are interchangeable in many contexts. In light of the ongoing grammaticalization of gaan, it is pertinent to describe the alternation between sal and gaan in different Afrikaans registers, and contextualize it in the West-Germanic language family where English and Dutch have similar alternating constructions. This is accomplished by analyzing Afrikaans corpus data from the 1970s and the 2000s, both spoken and written. Normalized frequencies and relative frequencies for the use of sal and gaan are reported according to a number of variables, including time, register, lexical verb, syntactic subject, clause type, sentence type, and future proximity. The effect of sentence type and future proximity is consistently present in all the datasets, and a possible change is detected in the effect of subject and clause type. Compared with English and Dutch, Afrikaans future alternation patterns more like that of English, even though it is more closely related to Dutch.

Noun and Verb Impairment in Single-Word Naming and Discourse Production in Mandarin-English Bilingual Adults with Aphasia

ABSTRACT Background Previous studies on bilingualism and aphasia have identified a similar pattern of verb-noun dissociation in single-word naming (i.e., lower accuracy for verbs than nouns) in both languages. However, whether a similar pattern of verb and noun dissociation emerges in discourse production remains unknown, particularly in typologically dissimilar languages. Aims This study investigated patterns of verb and noun impairment in both single-word naming and discourse production, and whether naming was associated with lexical retrieval in discourse production in Mandarin-English bilingual adults with aphasia (BWA). Methods Twelve Mandarin-English bilinguals with chronic aphasia completed standardized assessments on object and action naming, and three discourse tasks from the AphasiaBank (i.e., sequential pictures, single-picture, storytelling) in both L1 (Mandarin) and L2 (English). Item-level accuracy of object and action naming was fit into a generalized mixed-effects model to estimate single-word naming ability as a function of grammatical category. The proportion of verb and noun production and the number of verbs and nouns per utterance were fit into multivariate linear regression models to assess lexical retrieval in discourse. Finally, another linear regression was performed to examine the association between naming and lexical retrieval in discourse production. Results The naming accuracy for verbs was lower than for nouns in both L1 and L2. Mandarin-English BWA also demonstrated less production of verbs than nouns in discourse. However, depending on the type of the task, the effect of word category was greater in L2 than in L1. This cross-linguistic difference of the verb-noun dissociation was diminished in individuals with lower aphasia severity. Our results further showed a direct relationship between naming and lexical retrieval in discourse, irrespective of the language. Conclusions Our findings suggest an overall similar pattern of verb and noun dissociation across different linguistic contexts. However, depending on the cognitive-linguistic demands of the task, the verb-noun dissociation may emerge in L1 and L2 to varying degrees in individuals with different levels of aphasia severity. This study facilitates better understanding of verb and noun retrieval in Mandarin-English BWA.

Synonyms as the Semantic Component of Conversion

Conversion is very common in modern English. The main condition for the formation of a new language unit through conversion is the change of the syntactic function of the word, which is observed by the change of meaning. It is sometimes necessary to change the basic syntactic environment that is needed for conversion. A word formed by the conversion takes all the inflectional forms of the part of the language to which it belongs. Conversion, as a means of forming verbs and nouns, has become one of the characteristic features of the English language since the XIII century. The conversion formed as a result of the collapse of the inflectional system at the beginning of the Central Asian period. From 1150, a number of derivative verbs formed by conversion from adjectives appeared, and from the 13th-15th centuries, verbs derived from adverbs and participles appeared. In the Middle English period, until about the 15th century, the formation of verbs from nouns and adjectives significantly decreased due to the emergence of a large number of nouns and verbs borrowed from French. The grammatical homonymy of many English verbs and nouns resulting from the loss of inflection was only one of the prerequisites for the emergence of conversion as a new way of word formation.

Tackling emotional processing in adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder + autism spectrum disorder using emotional and action verbal fluency tasks.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are two neurodevelopmental conditions with neuropsychological, social, emotional, and psychopathological similarities. Both are characterized by executive dysfunction, emotion dysregulation (ED), and psychiatric comorbidities. By focusing on emotions and embodied cognition, this study aims to improve the understanding of overlapping symptoms between ADHD and ASD through the use of verbal fluency tasks. Fifty-two adults with ADHD, 13 adults with ADHD + ASD and 24 neurotypical (NT) participants were recruited in this study. A neuropsychological evaluation, including different verbal fluency conditions (e.g. emotional and action), was proposed. Subjects also completed several self-report questionnaires, such as scales measuring symptoms of ED. Compared to NT controls, adults with ADHD + ASD produced fewer anger-related emotions. Symptoms of emotion dysregulation were associated with an increased number of actions verbs and emotions produced in ADHD. The association between affective language of adults with ADHD and symptoms of emotion dysregulation may reflect their social maladjustment. Moreover, the addition of ADHD + ASD conditions may reflect more severe affective dysfunction.

Identifying Linguistic Markers of French-Speaking Teenagers With Developmental Language Disorder: Which Tasks Matter?

This research aimed to identify reliable tasks discriminating French-speaking adolescents with developmental language disorder (DLD) from their peers with typical language (TL) and to assess which linguistic domains represent areas of particular weakness in DLD. Unlike English, morphosyntax has not been identified as a special area of weakness when compared with lexicosemantics in French preschoolers with DLD. Since there is evidence that subject-verb number agreement is consolidated in later childhood, one might expect morphosyntax to be a particular weakness and marker of French DLD only in (pre)adolescence. We administered 20 subtasks that assessed linguistic and phonological working memory skills of two groups: 17 adolescents clinically identified as having DLD (M = 14.1 years) and 20 (pre)teens with TL (M = 12.2 years). Using robust statistics that are less affected by outliers, we selected the most discriminating subtasks between our groups, calculated their optimal cutoff score, and derived diagnostic accuracy statistics. We combined these subtasks in a multivariable model to identify which subtasks contributed the most to the identification of DLD. Seven subtasks were selected as discriminating between our groups, and three showed outstanding diagnostic accuracy: Recalling Sentences, a multiword task assessing lexicosemantic skills, and a subject-verb number agreement production task. When combined, we found that the latter contributed the most to our multivariable model. This study provides evidence that the most relevant markers to identify DLD in French teenagers are tasks assessing lexicosemantics and morphosyntactic domains, and that morphosyntax should be considered an important area of weakness in French-speaking teenagers with DLD. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21753932.

Clustering and switching analysis of verb fluency in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease

To investigate verb fluency performance in individuals with Alzheimer's disease compared with healthy older adults by analyzing total correct responses, number of clusters, average cluster size, and number of switches. This is a case-control study of 39 healthy older adults and 29 older adults with a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. Verb fluency performance was analyzed in terms of total number of correct verbs retrieved, number of clusters, average cluster size, and number of switches. To obtain the study outcomes, we previously conducted a procedure for categorization of the verbs that would compose the clusters. The classification of verbs was adapted for this study, including assessment by raters and analysis of inter-rater reliability. Individuals with Alzheimer's disease showed significantly poorer performance than healthy controls in the number of switches and total number of correct verbs retrieved. The two groups did not differ significantly in the other measures. In this study, individuals with Alzheimer's disease showed impaired verb fluency, characterized by a reduced number of verbs retrieved and fewer transitions between verb categories. The findings suggest that, in Alzheimer's disease, verb fluency is more sensitive to cognitive deficits resulting from executive dysfunction than from semantic disruption.

Análise de clustering e switching da fluência de verbos em indivíduos com doença de Alzheimer

ABSTRACT Purpose To investigate verb fluency performance in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease compared with healthy older adults by analyzing total correct responses, number of clusters, average cluster size, and number of switches. Methods This is a case-control study of 39 healthy older adults and 29 older adults with a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. Verb fluency performance was analyzed in terms of total number of correct verbs retrieved, number of clusters, average cluster size, and number of switches. To obtain the study outcomes, we previously conducted a procedure for categorization of the verbs that would compose the clusters. The classification of verbs was adapted for this study, including assessment by raters and analysis of inter-rater reliability. Results Individuals with Alzheimer’s disease showed significantly poorer performance than healthy controls in the number of switches and total number of correct verbs retrieved. The two groups did not differ significantly in the other measures. Conclusion In this study, individuals with Alzheimer’s disease showed impaired verb fluency, characterized by a reduced number of verbs retrieved and fewer transitions between verb categories. The findings suggest that, in Alzheimer’s disease, verb fluency is more sensitive to cognitive deficits resulting from executive dysfunction than from semantic disruption.

Emotional Competencies of Students and Psycholinguistic Characteristics of Their Texts Written under Conditions of Situational Stress: Relationship Issues

The author deals with the relationship between the psycholinguistic characteristics of the text, as indicators of psycho-emotional states in conditions of situational stress, and the level of developed emotional competencies, i.e., the ability to understand and manage one’s own and others’ emotions. An empirical study was conducted on a student sample using the EmIn Questionnaire by D.V. Lyusin, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) by Ch.D. Spielberger and the Prognoz-2 Questionnaire by V.Yu. Rybnikov. The students who took part in the experiment wrote texts under situational stress, for which psycholinguistic indicators were calculated. The results of the study were analyzed using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. The data obtained confirmed the positive relationship between the emotional competencies of the students under conditions of situational stress and such psycholinguistic characteristics of their written texts as the Treiger index, the action objectification index, the use of the “subject of assistance” syntaxeme, which reflect emotional and cognitive tension, desire and determination to act and help others, as well as the negative relationship with the coefficient of aggressiveness, the first person singular pronouns, the use of the “predicate” and “causative” syntaxemes, which are markers of uncontrolled aggression, suspicion, egocentric position, search for emotional positive support from the outside, and avoidance reactions. The assumption about the relationship of emotional competences with manifestations of situational (“state”) and personal (“trait”) anxiety, as well as the likelihood of neuropsychic breakdowns in a stressful situation, was not confirmed. As a result of the study, general psycholinguistic indicators of the manifestations of situational anxiety and the formation of emotional competences were determined - these are the action objectification index and aggressiveness index. This suggests that both the ability to understand and regulate the emotions of other people, and situational anxiety, as a reactive state of the subjective experience of anxiety, tension, concern, when writing a text in a stressful situation, can be marked by an increase in number of verbs and verb forms used in the text, syntactic incompleteness of statements and a decrease in their socialization.

Statics and Dynamics of Description
 in S.T. Coleridge’s Poem «The Rime of the Ancient Mariner»

The research task is to study the nature of the correlation of the three main parts of speech in the text of the poem by S.T. Coleridge’s «The Rime of the Ancient Mariner», one of the first poetic works of English romanticism. Part-of-speech features are involved in the study, reflecting the nominality and nature of
 the description: nouns, verbs and adjectives.
 The study uses both directly observed frequencies and indexes reflecting them. The absolute frequency numbers of nouns, verbs, and adjectives recorded in each part have been normalized through dividing by the number of words in
 each part, which made it possible to obtain comparable data for parts of the poem that differ significantly in volume.
 A number of statistical procedures are used for the analysis: Busemann
 coefficients, and the coefficient of variation, chi-square test. Their application made it possible to determine the relationship between statics and dynamics in the text. A power function is used to reflect the frequency distribution of nouns,
 which proved to be very successful for this material. It allows us to determine the
 degree of nominalization of various parts in the poem.
 The results of the study indicate a fairly high stability of Coleridge’s style within the framework of the poem in terms of nominalization and dynamics of description. In addition, the article notes strong prevalence of the dynamic description over the static one.

Лексические и синтаксические параметры академического текста: дискриминантный анализ

This article presents three mathematical models to differentiate academic texts from three subject discourses written in Russian (i.e., Philological, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences) which further enable design and automated profiling of corresponding typologies. Our models include 5 indices, one at surface level (i.e., sentence length) and 4 syntax features (i.e., mean verbs per sentence, mean adjectives per sentence, local noun overlap, and global argument overlap). We identified and validated the five statistically significant features out of 45 linguistic features extracted from our research corpus consisting of 91.185 tokens. The shortest sentence length is found in Russian language textbooks while the longest sentences are identified in Natural Science texts. The mean number of verbs, nouns, and adjectives per sentence is higher in Natural Science textbooks, whereas Mathematics discourse is characterized by the shortest word length, highest local noun overlap, and highest global argument overlap. We assign the metric differences between the three discourses to their functions: Natural Science texts are characterized by descriptions and narrative passages in contrast to Philology that is associated with opinions. Mathematical discourse operates with precise definitions, explanations and justifications thus exercising numerous overlaps. The discriminant analysis built on top of the features supports the development of text profilers targeting parametric analyses. The automation of these features and the provided formulas for classification enable the design and development of text profilers required for textbook writing and editing. Our findings are useful for professional linguists, technologists, and academic writers to select and modify texts for their target audience.

Structural and functional connectivity of the inferior temporal numeral area.

A growing body of evidence suggests that in adults, there is a spatially consistent "inferior temporal numeral area" (ITNA) in the occipitotemporal cortex that appears to preferentially process Arabic digits relative to non-numerical symbols and objects. However, very little is known about why the ITNA is spatially segregated from regions that process other orthographic stimuli such as letters, and why it is spatially consistent across individuals. In the present study, we used diffusion-weighted imaging and functional magnetic resonance imaging to contrast structural and functional connectivity between left and right hemisphere ITNAs and a left hemisphere letter-preferring region. We found that the left ITNA had stronger structural and functional connectivity than the letter region to inferior parietal regions involved in numerical magnitude representation and arithmetic. Between hemispheres, the left ITNA showed stronger structural connectivity with the left inferior frontal gyrus (Broca's area), while the right ITNA showed stronger structural connectivity to the ipsilateral inferior parietal cortex and stronger functional coupling with the bilateral IPS. Based on their relative connectivity, our results suggest that the left ITNA may be more readily involved in mapping digits to verbal number representations, while the right ITNA may support the mapping of digits to quantity representations.

Referential effects on verb agreement: Finnish numeral-noun constructions

This paper explores seemingly puzzling subject-verb agreement patterns with Finnish numeral noun constructions (NNCs, e.g. three birds) in subject position, which can occur with singular or plural verbs. This alternation is not predicted by current theories. Building on properties of Finnish independent of NNCs, I argue that the Finnish data can be reconciled with prior analyses if we analyze verb number marking as dependent on referential properties of the NNC. I suggest that NNCs with singular verbs do not involve agreement, but rather a default verb form that surfaces in contexts involving existential construal, while NNCs with plural verbs are a true case of (semantic) agreement. According to my analysis, the lack of subject-verb agreement with existentially-interpreted NNCs is related to the fact that, more generally, existentially-construed subjects do not trigger verb agreement in Finnish (which presumably stems from their underlying syntactic position, given the discourse-configurational nature of Finnish). By arguing that subject-verb agreement in Finnish NNCs is variable and depends on existential vs. definite construals, while agreement patterns in the nominal domain are more rigid, these data pose a challenge to attempts to unify agreement mechanisms in the verbal and nominal domains.

Usvajanje jezika kod djece uzrasta dvije i tri godine / Language Acquisition in Children Aged Two and Three

This paper discusses language acquisition in children aged two and three. The analysis was carried out on a corpus of child language compiled during research conducted at a kindergarten in Sarajevo among children aged two and three who acquire their native language in the area of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Qualitative and quantitative methods were applied in the corpus analysis. The development of child language production was measured by the Mean Length of Utterance, based on the number of words per utterance (MLUw). The distribution of parts of speech was established for both age groups. A special emphasis was placed on the ratio between the number of nouns and the number of verbs. The results have confirmed the nativist natural partitions hypothesis, according to which nouns are predominant in children’s early speech over verbs and other parts of speech. MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory (MCDI) was applied in the semantic analysis of nouns. The analysis confirmed the hypothesis that nouns denoting animate beings have a higher prevalence over nouns denoting inanimate objects at the early stages of language acquisition. In addition, the presence of complex and abstract concepts was detected, which supports the theory of the existence of an innate language acquisition device in humans. The creative aspect of child language was also analysed, along with differences between the language of children and the language of adult speakers.

Directionality in the interrelations between approximate number, verbal number, and mathematics in preschool-aged children.

A fundamental question in numerical development concerns the directional relation between an early-emerging non-verbal approximate number system (ANS) and culturally acquired verbal number and mathematics knowledge. Using path models on longitudinal data collected in preschool children (Mage =3.86 years; N=216; 99 males; 80.8% White; 10.8% Multiracial, 3.8% Latino; 1.9% Black; collected 2013-2017) over 1 year, this study showed that earlier verbal number knowledge was associated with later ANS precision (average β=.32), even after controlling for baseline differences in numerical, general cognitive, and language abilities. In contrast, earlier ANS precision was not associated with later verbal number knowledge (β=-.07) or mathematics abilities (average β=.10). These results suggest that learning about verbal numbers is associated with a sharpening of pre-existing non-verbal numerical abilities.

In the thick of it: scope rivalry in past counterfactuals of Pomerano

This paper analyzes the morphosyntactic variation in past counterfactuals with modal verbs in Pomerano, a Low German variety spoken in Brazil. The variation concerns (i) the highest verb (temporal auxiliary or modal verb), (ii) the morphological form of the temporal auxiliary (blocking of tense and/or person agreement), (iii) the frequently unexpected position of the modal verb (verb clusters in the CP-domain), and (iv) the overall number of verbs (syntactic doubling and/or PF-insertion). Analyzing more than 6,000 translated sentences, scope rivalry between the temporal auxiliary and the modal verb proves to be the major catalyst of an intriguing instance of language variation and change. The derivation of the extant variants grants us a privileged view of the clausal architecture of Pomerano—including cases of derivational misfiring—as well as of more general processes of clause formation.

What are the choices behind the titles? A Systemic Functional Grammar analysis of titles from articles of Rural Sciences and Communication

Selecting a text to read through its title is a current habit. In the scientific context, Swales and Feak (1998) explained that interesting titles attract readers and function as a way of convincing them to go forward. Previous studies usually present a quantitative approach. This research aims at identifying similarities and differences between titles of articles from Rural Sciences and Communication and providing an interpretation guided by Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2014) Systemic Functional Grammar. To do so, 246 titles were retrieved from the European Journal of Agronomy and the International Journal of Communication. Subsequently, an analysis of 30% of titles was conducted, considering the number of words, verbs, punctuation (HARTLEY, 2005), and field. The analysis suggests that titles are short, direct, and informative; choices for punctuation point to simple sentences, and the format short:long. The verbs were classified mainly as material processes, which may inform that concrete changes led to the article's findings.

The Myth of Women's Advantage in Using Child-Directed Speech: Evidence of Women Versus Men in Single-Sex-Parent Families.

Differences between child-directed speech (CDS) by women and men are generally explained by either biological-evolutionary or gender-social theories. It is difficult to tease these two explanations apart for different-sex-parent families because women are usually also the main caregivers. Thus, this study aims to examine the influence of parental sex on CDS by investigating men and women who are in same-sex-parent families. Twenty same-sex-parent families participated in the study-10 families in which the parents were two men and 10 families in which the parents were two women. The families were matched for toddler age (range: 9-24 months) and sex. CDS was recorded using the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) device for 16 hr during a day. Each parent was also audio-recorded during a 30-min play session with his or her child. No difference was found between men and women across all the LENA measures, namely, adult word count, conversational turns count, and child vocalization count. The analysis of speech samples during parent-child play showed no difference between men and women in mean length of utterance and number of nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Pragmatic speech acts of initiations, responses to infants' actions, or vocalizations were similar in both sexes. Women used more "teaching" utterances than men, and men who were main caregivers used more "teaching" utterances than men who were secondary caregivers. Across both sexes, secondary caregivers used more "requests for actions" compared to main caregivers. The present findings support a functional-social approach and not a biological approach for explaining the use of CDS by men and women. These findings have clinical implications on the involvement of men in early intervention programs.

Online Comprehension of Verbal Number Morphology in Children With Developmental Language Disorder: An Eye-Tracking Study.

Previous studies have raised the possibility of preserved language comprehension in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) in online tasks and within simple sentence structures. Consequently, we evaluated the capacity of children with DLD to comprehend verbal number agreement in simple sentence structures (i.e., verb-object-subject and verb-subject). Using an eye-tracking methodology, we conducted two psycholinguistic experiments with 96 Spanish- and Catalan-speaking participants. The sample was distributed into four groups: 24 children with DLD (age range: 4;6-12;6 [years;months]; average age = 7;8 [years;months]), 24 children with the same chronological age (4;6-12;2, 7;8), 24 children with the same linguistic level (4;6-9;4, 6;8), and 24 university students as language experts (18-30, 22;5). The experimental data indicate that children with DLD can comprehend verbal number agreement at least under the present experimental conditions. The empirical outcomes suggest that number morphology comprehension by children with DLD might be more typical than what it is generally considered to be.

Children’s spatial language skills predict their verbal number skills: A longitudinal study

The process of number symbolization is assumed to be critically influenced by the acquisition of so-called verbal number skills (e.g., verbally reciting the number chain and naming Arabic numerals). For the acquisition of these verbal number skills, verbal and visuospatial skills are discussed as contributing factors. In this context, children's verbal number skills have been found to be associated with their concurrent spatial language skills such as mastery of verbal descriptions of spatial position (e.g., in front of, behind). In a longitudinal study with three measurement times (T1, T2, T3) at an interval of about 6 months, we evaluated the predictive role of preschool children's (mean age at T1: 3 years and 10 months) spatial language skills for the acquisition of verbal number skills. Children's spatial language skills at T2 significantly predicted their verbal number skills at T3, when controlling for influences of important covariates such as vocabulary knowledge. In addition, further analyses replicated previous results indicating that children's spatial language skills at T2 were associated with their verbal number skills at T2. Exploratory analyses further revealed that children's verbal number skills at T1 predict their spatial language at T2. Results suggests that better spatial language skills at the age of 4 years facilitate the future acquisition of verbal number skills.

A Qualitative Study of Actual and Non-Actual Motion Expressions in Telugu and its Implications

This paper examines the similarities and differences between actual motion (AM) and non-actual motion (NAM) expressions in Telugu via a qualitative approach. The findings revealed the following similarities: (a) the extensive use of generic deictic verbs, (b) the obligatory use of case markers for encoding Path, (c) the limited number of path verbs and their uses, and (d) the use of spatial nouns for expressing Region. In addition, the findings also revealed that AM had a reasonable number of Manner expressions, whereas NAM contained almost no information about Manner.