Verbal Condition Research Articles

ANALYSING PRESUPPOSITION: A STUDY ON PRESIDENT AKUFO-ADDO’S STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS (SONA), 2022

Presupposition can be said to be an assumption of a speaker prior to making an utterance and it is an implied claim of an utterance. Using qualitative method, the researchers examine various language structures that give rise to presuppositions, pursuing this exercise by exploring the State of the Nation Address (SONA) delivered by President Akufo-Addo of Ghana on 30th March 2022. The analysis of the SONA, as the data of the study, reveals the utilization of a number of presupposition triggers – such as possessive construction, “one” construction, definite noun phrase, adverbial clause, relative clause, “even” construction, iteratives, change of state verbs, and factive verbs or phrases – under the existential, structural and lexical presuppositions. The article thus opines that the enactment of presuppositions, through the identified forms, affords the President the opportunity to disseminate his message with a higher degree of veracity on the conditions and happenings of the Ghanaian state.

Two more contexts for Ge‘ez *u > u and three for *a > ǝ

The main Ge‘ez (Classical Ethiopic) verbal adjective is characterized by an ǝ-u vowel melody. Based on cognate evidence, the most basic form of this adjective, 01-stem 1ǝ2u3, derives from a *1a2uː3- pattern and thus shows assimilation of *aCuː > ǝCu. This assimilation does not operate in a set of specialized numerals shaped like 1ä2u3, which should be reconstructed as *1a2u3- with short *u. Short *u also yields Ge‘ez u in the nonaccusative case of the masculine cardinal numerals, like *ɬalaːθtu > śälästu ‘three’; this ending goes back to the Proto-Semitic diptotic nominative. The assimilation of *aCuː > ǝCu, on the other hand, also affected the personal pronoun *huːʔa-tuː > wǝʾǝtu, the perfect of fientive verbs like *gabaruː > gäbru ‘they did’, and the jussive of stative verbs like *yitrapuː > yǝtrǝfu ‘may they remain’. Ə was leveled to other parts of these paradigms, solving several longstanding problems of Ge‘ez morphology.

Making some progress on the progressive aspect zài in Mandarin Chinese

Taking into account data hitherto neglected, this article examines the progressive aspect zài 在 in Mandarin Chinese and related issues. We argue in favour of the constituency [ AspP zài 在 [V-zhe 着]] and demonstrate important syntactic and semantic differences between the progressive aspect zài 在 and the durative aspect -zhe 着 . Importantly, unlike ‘zài 在 V’, ‘V-zhe 着’ is only acceptable as the sole predicate in a root sentence when interpretable as a (derived) state. Otherwise, the presence of the progressive aspect zài 在 is required: ‘zài 在 V-zhe 着’. This crucial role of zài 在 is often obscured by its phonological fusion (haplology) with the preposition zài 在 ‘at’ heading an immediately following prepositional phrase: NP [ AspP zài 在 [ VP [ PP zài 在 NP] [V-zhe 着 NP]]] => NP ZÀI 在 NP V-zhe 着 NP. The presence/absence of an underlying progressive aspect zài 在 (having fused with the preposition zài 在) is reflected in the choice of negation. Since the progressive aspect zài 在 must be negated by méi 没, not bù 不, it follows that no underlying aspectual zài 在 is present when it is bù 不 that negates a VP with a zài 在 PP adjunct NP bù 不 [ VP [ PP zài 在 NP] VP]. By contrast, when there is an underlying aspectual zài 在, the negation méi 没 is required, resulting in the surface sequence ‘NP méi 没 ZÀI 在 NP VP’. Finally, given that a subset of auxiliaries, some stative verbs as well as state-denoting ‘V-zhe 着’ are negated by méi 没, negation of ‘zài 在 VP’ by méi 没 is compatible with the status of ‘zài 在 VP’ as a state, hence able to be true at a moment.

A study of integrating discourse-context information into Spanish aspect grammatical teaching for Sinophone learners

This work explores and evaluates the effect of teaching the Spanish past tense aspect (indefinite preterit and imperfective preterit) to Chinese learners in a discourse context compared with the traditional teaching of grammar. We postulate that this teaching methodology—which integrates the content of traditional grammar programs with implicit and explicit instruction on how to interpret discourse-contextual information—will be more effective for Spanish L2 learning in the Chinese university context. In order to test the effect, we conducted a study with two groups of students under two different conditions. The experimental group contained 18 subjects, and the control group, which was taught in a traditional grammar program, contained 17 subjects. Using a teaching experiment that involved three online video-based grammar classes and the gathering of students’ data from pre- and post-tests consisting of comprehension task and multiple-choice tasks, we observed that the instruction of how to interpret aspectual information in a discourse context improved the learners’ ability to analyse and comprehend the target grammar point. However, the learners did not show more accuracy in their use of stative verbs in the post-test than that in the pre-test. FUNDING INFORMATION. This research was funded by National Social Science Foundation of China (20CYY001).

Recalling presupposed information

Abstract This article addresses, experimentally, the question of how presuppositions are cognitively processed and retrieved in discourse. In the proposed research, we have administered tweets produced by Italian politicians to native speakers so as to assess how easily they could retrieve the presupposed content of two presupposition triggers (definite descriptions and change of state verbs), as opposed to their explicit paraphrase, by answering verification questions. Results showed that content presupposed by change of state verbs was likely to receive more attention than content conveyed by definite descriptions; this could possibly be due to the greater effort involved in mentally representing the event taken for granted by the predicates. Definite descriptions, on the contrary, seem to instruct to a shallower processing modality, which means that their content is processed less attentively or in a ‘good-enough’ way.

러시아어 심리적 상태 동사의 의미파생 메커니즘 연구

This paper is devoted to the study of the role of context in the process of the semantic derivation. By distinguishing between “semantic derivation” which is a dynamic process in which new word meanings emerge, and “polysemy” which is the result of this process, research methods can be diversified according to the stages of semantic derivation. In polysemy, which is the completed result of semantic development, the context functions as a means of identifying specific lexico-semantic variants. On the other hand, changes in the contextual environment are the necessary conditions for the emergence of new meanings, and these changes occur under the conditions of creative use of words by language users. The method of changing the context in the semantic derivation process depends on the part of speech to which the word belongs, and the emergence of a new meaning in the predicate verb implies that the thematic class of the actants in the typical situation indicated by the verb has changed.
 One of the main mechanisms of semantic derivation as a dynamic process is described - a shift in the focus of attention. The results of the analysis using examples of Russian mental state verbs clearly show how, in the process of semantic derivation, they change the thematic class of the actants in the situation, forming the derived meaning of the type of speech act. Therefore, the syntactic and lexical context that emerged in the process of analyzing Russian mental state verbs confirms the regularity of semantic derivation according to the “mental state → speech act expressing it” model. Of course, the frequent and customary use of mental state verbs in the meaning of speech acts does not guarantee the status of the derived meaning described as part of the entry in the explanatory dictionary. However, this semantic derivation model is meaningful in that it reflects the dynamic characteristics of language and provides the possibility of describing the operating principles of words under actual usage conditions.

How things become red in Mandarin Chinese? A case study of deadjectival change of state predicates

This paper provides an HPSG analysis for the morphosyntax and the semantics of deadjectival change of state (CoS) verbs in Mandarin Chinese. We first show that adjectives are a distinct word class from verbs in Mandarin Chinese and argue for the derivation of CoS verbs from property concept adjectives. We then model this derivation with a lexical rule. Finally, since CoS verbs can be combined with another verb to form a resultative verb compound (RVC) to express caused CoS, we also propose a lexical rule to account for RVCs.

Frequency matters in second language acquisition too! Frequency effects in the production of preterit morphology with state verbs in Spanish second language learners and heritage speakers

The feature reassembly approach to second language acquisition research has been influential in laying the groundwork for recent theories of heritage languages. Lexical frequency has emerged as an important variable in recent studies within a feature-oriented approach to heritage language acquisition, but the focus on frequency has not yet received considerable attention with second language learners. To determine whether lexical frequency affects both populations of bilinguals, 51 adult heritage speakers and 40 second language learners of Spanish carried out a production task concerning preterit aspect morphology with state verbs of varying frequency, which represents an area of the Spanish aspectual system that is challenging for bilingual populations to acquire. Heritage speakers and second language learners were highly similar in their production tendencies: lower-proficiency speakers used the preterit with the least-frequent state verbs, while more proficient speakers in both groups showed less sensitivity to frequency, despite overall chance levels of preterit production. These findings extend recent research on Spanish as a heritage language by showing that second language learners are also influenced by frequency in their production of aspect morphology.

On the etymology and distribution of verb forms in Arabic-based pidgins

Abstract In this paper, we add to the body of existing literature on Arabic-based pidgins. We focus on the verbal system because the structure of this phrasal category and how it is used in discourse remain inconclusive. For instance, while some claim these speakers prefer the imperfective form which is marked for male third person singular (e.g. y-iji ‘3sg.m-come.ipf’), others claim it is the imperative that is most preferred (e.g. rūh ‘2.sg.m-go.imp’). Equally, while some argue the choice between either verb forms is pragmatically motivated, others claim it is phonologically motivated. To add to this mix, a third group claims there is a systematic division of labor in that non-state verbs usually follow the prefixed type while the state verbs follow the unprefixed type. We evaluate these proposals. Analysis of ‘frog story’ narratives by 10 GPA speakers in the United Arab Emirates reveal the prefixed form to be the most preferred and this preference is influenced by the contriving of phonological, semantic, and pragmatic factors. Frequency as well as item-based analogy as understood within usage-based theories of learning provide a viable framework in which the apparent inconsistencies between the competing proposals are resolved.

Способы выражения начала действия в севернорусских былинах

This paper discusses the ways to express the beginning of action in the Northern Russian bylinas. The material for the study was: Onega epics, recorded by Alexander Fedorovich Hilferding, in the summer of 1871 and epics of Mezen. There are two ways of expressing the beginning of action in the bylinas: an analytical method — usinginfinitive constructions with verbs of the beginning of an action, and a synthetic one — using verbs of the initial way of action. The bylinas are characterized by a variety of verbs of the beginning of action (nachat’, pochat’, uchat’, zachat’, stat’ and also vzyat’) and wider possibilities of their compatibility (the ability to combine with verbs of state and other verbs denoting situations that cannot be divided into phases). It can be concluded that the synthetic way of expressing the beginning of action prevails in the bylinas - obviously, in the early modern times, when the language of epics was being formed, the initial mode of verbal action already dominated as a way of expressing the beginning.

An Analysis of Mental State Verb and Complex Syntax Use in Children Who Are Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

Children who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) have documented deficits with complex syntax and vocabulary knowledge. Mental state verbs (MSVs) are necessary for some kinds of complex syntax use and communicate abstract concepts needed for academic language. The purpose of this study was to examine the frequency, diversity, and syntactic context of MSV use in children who are DHH compared to children with typical hearing (CTH). Seventy-three preschool children (23 with cochlear implants, 22 with hearing aids, and 28 with typical hearing) completed a structured language sample as part of a larger assessment battery. Samples were analyzed and compared across groups for use of MSVs, diversity in MSV use, and syntactical context for MSVs. Children who are DHH used significantly fewer MSV in complex syntax, a smaller diversity of MSV, and significantly fewer MSV in obligatory contexts compared to CTH. Results for the cochlear implants and hearing aid groups were not significantly different from one another despite differing levels of hearing loss. Children who are DHH demonstrate significant differences in the rate, diversity, and complexity of MSV use compared to peers with typical hearing. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.24091860.

Stative verbs and perceptions of intensity: The case of ‘believe’ in simple and progressive aspect

This study assessed the validity of descriptive findings from corpus linguistics research by analyzing human participants’ performance and perception data. While the stative verb believe usually occurs in the simple aspect, a corpus-based analysis has revealed that believe also occurs in the progressive form in communicative situations conveying a heightened degree of intensity and marked with specific linguistic features such as intensifying adjectives, adverbs of certainty, direct addresses, and others (Gracheva, in press). This study adopted an experimental approach to further assess the link between the progressive form in situations of use conducive to assertive stance and emotional involvement and its surrounding linguistic characteristics. Eighty-six native English speakers were presented with 24 naturally-occurring texts from corpora. Half of the texts involved linguistic features of intensity (progressive aspect condition), while half involved no such features (simple aspect condition). Participants read the texts and selected the form of believe (simple or progressive aspect) which they thought was appropriate in each text. Results showed that participants selected the progressive aspect 47% of the times for the texts featuring language of intensity, while their selection of that aspect was less than 3% in the simple condition texts. Follow-up interviews revealed that participants sensed the intensity conveyed by the texts (e.g., strong emotion, urgency, emphasis), leading to their choice of the progressive over the simple aspect.

Глагольные коллокации с компонентами «(nouveau) coronavirus» и «COVID-19» во французском языке

The article is devoted to the study of semantic restrictions in the use of verbal collocations with the components "(nouveau) coronavirus" and "COVID-19" applying the AntConc service. It has been found that "coronavirus" lexemes tend to co-occur with 135 verbs. The most common model is (nouveau) coronavirus / COVID-19 + V, where the virus acts as a subject of action and the verbs belong to the lexical-semantic fields "Physical impact on the object", "Qualitative state", "Being", "Progressive motion of the subject", "Social relations", "Social activity", "Interpersonal relationships", "Relationship". The virus plays the role of the object of the action in the V + (nouveau) coronavirus / COVID-19 model. The identified verbal lexemes belong to the lexical-semantic groups "Social activity", "Qualitative state", "Physical impact on object", "Intellectual activity", "Interpersonal relationships", "Being". As the object of action, the lexemes under study reveal more significant limitations of combinatorial potential. The V + PRÉP + coronavirus / COVID-19 model includes verbs of social activity and qualitative state, used with the prepositions contre, de, à, avec. There is a high frequency of collocations with modal verbs. The quantitative predominance of verbs combined with "coronavirus" lexemes that act as a subject suggests that the range of actions performed by the coronavirus is much wider than the actions it experiences.

A corpus-based study of the discourse functions of English tense: the co-occurrence of tense and lexical aspect at various textual positions of news reports

This study analyses the discourse functions of tense in the New York Times Corpus under a three-dimensional framework – the three dimensions being tense, verb and textual position. The texts are divided into ten 10 percent sub-sections and the distribution of the tenses along textual positions, the distribution of verb categories along textual positions as well as the distribution of tense-verb construction along textual positions are calculated to examine the features of tense use in news reports. The association between tense and verb categories is calculated using WordSmith log-likelihood statistics. Quantitative distribution analysis of the tenses reveals their distribution patterns. The distribution of the present and the present perfect follows a multi-peaked curve while there is a steady increase of preterit from the beginning to the end. The association between tense and verb shows that different tenses have attractions for different verb categories. The present tense attracts state verbs, the past tense attracts achievement verbs, and the present perfect prefers achievement and activity verbs. Analysis of tense-verb constructions along textual positions reveals that tense-verb constructions have localised functions – within different textual positions, tense-verb constructions take on various features and focus on different functions. All these findings constitute the stylistic use of tenses in news reports and reveal modern news values in the journalistic community.

Tense-aspect conditioned agent marking in Kanakanavu, an Austronesian language of Taiwan

Abstract This article examines two types of lexical effects in the voice system of Kanakanavu, an Austronesian language of Taiwan. The first concerns a well-attested phenomenon in the Austronesian literature: interactions between the semantic transitivity of verbs and their ability (or lack thereof) to undergo voice alternation. The second concerns a phenomenon that is typologically and areally rare in the western Austronesian context – differential agent marking. The pronominal agent in Kanakanavu’s patient-/undergoer-voice construction is differentially case-marked depending on the tense-aspect value of the clause. However, lexical effects are found in how the differentially marked agent is interpreted. When dynamic verbs are used, omitted agents in perfective clauses are interpreted as coreferential with a specific referent mentioned in prior discourse, but those in non-perfective clauses are interpreted as having generic reference, backgrounded, and/or not centrally involved in the situation expressed by the verb. When stative verbs are used, alternation between perfective and imperfective verb forms may have various effects on the interpretation of the agent. In some stative verbs, the agent is interpreted as a prototypical semantic agent in the perfective, but as a semantic experiencer in the imperfective. In other stative verbs, the perfective/non-perfective alternation has to do with whether a change of state is involved, without having any effects on agent interpretation. This study explores how lexical effects manifest across both elicited and natural discourse data. It also presents the phenomenon of differential agent marking in Kanakanavu as neither typical nor representative in the western Austronesian context.

Kasus Argumen Inti Verba Bahasa Muna di Sulawesi Tenggara

The Muna language serves as both a social language and a means of communication within the Muna sociocultural area, actively used and mastered by its speakers. The objective of this study is to uncover linguistic facts, specifically those related to the core argument cases of verbs in the Muna language. The research employs a descriptive method aimed at providing an accurate description of the data, characteristics, and relationships of the phenomena under investigation. The research findings reveal various verb core argument cases in the Muna language, including: (a) Stative verb core argument cases, which encompass (i) basic stative verb core argument cases, (ii) stative experiential verb core argument cases, (iii) stative verb core argument cases involving ownership, and (iv) core argument cases of locative stative verbs. (b) Core argument cases for process verbs, which consist of (i) basic process verb core argument cases, (ii) process experience verb core argument cases, (iii) process verb core argument cases involving ownership, and (iv) core argument cases of locative process verbs. (c) Action verb core argument cases, which include (i) basic action verb core argument cases, (ii) action experience verb core argument cases, (iii) action verb core argument cases involving possession, and (iv) core argument cases of locative action verbs.

Syntactic alignment and identification of theta-role subgroups in Mehináku stative verbs

In this work, I present a first analysis of the syntactic alignment in the Mehináku (Arawak) language to show how this language behaves in terms of its different verbal predicates and the arguments that these predicates take. I argue that this language tends to manifest an active-stative alignment (or split ergativity, as proposed by Aikhenvald (1999, 2001, 2002, 2018, 2019) for other Arawak languages), since it is the semantic type of the verb that determines which type of argument functioning as subject will be taken and, moreover, in what syntactic position this argument will appear. I show that transitive verbs, agentive intransitives, non-agentive intransitives, and most stative intransitive verbs (type 1) align in the same way, taking as subject one of the pronominal proclitics of the language positioned before the verb, while a small portion of the stative intransitive verbs (type 2) align with the direct object of the transitive verb since it takes as its subject the full pronouns of the language positioned after the verb. Furthermore, I show that the subject of the transitive verb (A) and the subjects of the agentive, non-agentive, and type 1 intransitive verbs are marked with the thematic role of agent or experiencer, while, in turn, the object of the transitive verb and the subject of the intransitive verb of type 2 (So) are marked with the thematic role of theme or patient.

Exploring intervention strategies to enhance face recognition abilities in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder: assessing the impact of verbalization and Navon tasks

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of two intervention strategies – identifying the global letter of Navon letters and verbally describing a face – in improving face recognition abilities of adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).Design/methodology/approachA total of 15 adolescents with ASD and 15 typically developing (TD) adolescents participated in this study, which consisted of three experimental conditions: verbalization, Navon and control. Participants were presented with a target face for a short period of time, then completed a task specific to the condition in a counterbalanced order, followed by a face recognition task.FindingsThe results of this study showed no significant interaction effects between groups and conditions, either in accuracy or reaction time. However, TD adolescents performed better than ASD adolescents in terms of accuracy. In addition, the verbalization condition resulted in better performance with slower response times compared to the control condition.Originality/valueThese findings suggest that verbalization may be a useful strategy to enhance face recognition abilities in ASD and TD individuals.

MEANS OF REPRESENTING THE EMOTIONAL MEANINGS OF FEAR IN THE WORKS OF A.P. CHEKHOV

The paper discusses the issues of lexical and semantic organization of a group of verbs with the meaning of fear and the peculiarities of the functioning of verbal constructions in the works of A.P. Chekhov. Sentences with verbs of the emotional state of fear are quite common in the works of A.P. Chekhov. The differential meanings of verbs, the specific-temporal meanings of verb forms, semantic models of verbal phrases determine their functional features in the speech of a work of art. Verbs of fear attach forms with subject and object meanings with the semantics of the cause of the condition. Verbs in the form of the past tense of the perfect form realize the dynamic-productive meaning of this form. In the functioning of verbal constructions in the text of A.P. Chekhov's stories, an important factor is their ability to realize the specific temporal meanings of verbal forms as a means of organizing the text.

BEHAVIOR OF VOICES IN THE BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC LANGUAGE: A CASE OF ENGLISH-ARABIC TRANSLATION

The present paper delves into business and economic English and Arabic texts to describe the language and translator's norms and to justify these norms with regards of voices translation. The sample is collected manually from two e-portals where 20 texts were drawn from each website. It is found that translators use oblique translation methods to render passive constructions into Arabic in their endeavor to attain more idiomatic Arabic. Although translators are inclined to use the active voice more than the passive, this usage is mostly limited to dynamic verbs where English active stative verbs were modulated to passive Arabic beside the reduced adjectival phrases. The only gain of meaning or effect is achieved when the active English stative verbs became dynamic Arabic passives in order to give a stronger reporting of information. The findings contribute in characterizing the business and economic voice’ behavior in English and Arabic in an attempt to integrate the findings with the findings of other genres.