This book presents a novel approach to verb classes, employing a bottom-up, corpus-based methodology and combining key insights Frame Semantics, Construction Grammar, and Valency Grammar.
Cравнение и метафора в идиостиле С. Кинга Тахтарова, Светлана Салаватовна; Зубинова, Амелия Шамилевна
Vestnik Volgogradskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Serii͡a︡ 2, I͡A︡zykoznanie.,
11/2018, Volume:
17, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
В статье выявлены существенные характеристики идиостиля С. Кинга, отражающие специфику авторского использования сравнений и метафор. На материале романов «1408», «Кэрри», «Сияние», «Ловец снов», ...«Мертвая Зона» описаны семантические и структурные типы сравнений и метафор, показаны их функции в формировании содержания художественного текста. Структурный анализ позволил установить несколько типов формальных моделей построения сравнения и метафоры: однозвенное глагольное сравнение (as if ... verb, verb ... like ... verb), двухзвенная атрибутивная структура (noun-like), двух- и трехзвенная номинативную модель сравнения, а также простые (однообразные) и сложные (многообразные) модели метафоры. В результате семантического анализа романов С. Кинга выявлен сложный характер участия образного сравнения и метафоры в выражении жанровой специфики. Оба тропа активно используются для создания напряжения повествования и повышения атмосферы ужаса. Они выполняют сходные функции в текстах, однако отличаются способами создания атмосферы напряжения и ужаса: если в сравнении образы представлены прямо, то для метафоры характерны косвенные и непрямые модели передачи смысла. Описав образые сравнения и метафоры как средства порождения ужаса, ощущения смерти, страха и иных эмоций, авторы статьи пришли к выводу о том, что данные тропы персонализируют стиль С. Кинга.
This book describes various shifts of complements which verbs of implicit negation (e.g. forbid, forbear, avoid, prohibit, and prevent) have experienced in the history of English.
This paper focuses on the Experiencer Object (EO)/Experiencer Subject (ES) alternation in Polish. This alternation is viewed here as distinct from the causative/anticausative alternation, because ...eventive EO verbs do not pattern like change of state (COS) verbs, and their reflexive ES alternants are unergative, not unaccusative. Eventive EO verbs share a common base with their ES counterparts, which corresponds to an unergative vP, with the experiencer merged in a low external argument position, viz. Spec, vP (Tollan 2018), not in Spec, VoiceP. The difference between causative EO verbs and their ES cognates lies in the Voice layer; in the former, the causer argument occupies the specifier of thematic VoiceP, while in the latter the Voice is expletive, filled with the reflexivemarker się. Despite sharing the common base, eventive EO verbs and their reflexive ES variantsare not derivationally related by a syntactic rule, as neither of the two structures can be treated as the basic one. The same reflexive marker with the same function and structural position is foundin Polish anticausatives, which also share a common base with their causative counterparts. The common base, this time, however, corresponds to an unaccusative, not unergative, vP.
Preschool-age children use mental state verbs (MSVs; e.g., think, know) to reference thoughts and other cognitive states. In play-based language, MSV use requires conversational flexibility, as ...speakers shift from discussion of actions happening in the here-and-now to more abstract discussion of mental states. Some evidence suggests that children who stutter (CWS) demonstrate subtle differences in shifting on experimental tasks of cognitive flexibility, differences which may extend to conversational flexibility. This study explored MSV use in conversational language between CWS and their mothers.
Thirty-five preschool-age CWS and 35 age- and gender-matched children who do not stutter (CWNS), all performing within the typical range on standardized language testing, conversed with their mothers during play. Samples were transcribed and coded for MSV use.
No between-group differences were observed in MSV use, either between the CWS and CWNS or between the groups of mothers. Age and language skills were positively associated with MSV use in the CWNS group only. For both groups of dyads, mothers’ MSV use corresponded at least to some extent to their children’s language skills. Finally, correspondence between CWNS and their mothers was observed for two conversational language measures, representing lexical diversity and morphosyntax; this overall pattern was not observed in the CWS dyad group.
Although these findings point to similar use of MSVs among the groups of children and their mothers, for the CWS group, the patterns of use in relation to age and language skills are somewhat different from developmental expectations.
•Mental state verbs reference thoughts and other cognitive states.•Children produced mental state verbs “think” and “know” most frequently.•Children who stutter did not differ from peers in mental state verb use.•Age and language skills were related to MSV use in CWNS group but not CWS group.
There is a considerable linguistic debate on whether phrasal verbs (e.g.,
turn up,
break down) are processed as two separate words connected by a syntactic rule or whether they form a single lexical ...unit. Moreover, views differ on whether meaning (transparency vs. opacity) plays a role in determining their syntactically-connected or lexical status. As linguistic arguments could not settle these issues, we used neurophysiological brain imaging to address them. Applying a multi-feature Mismatch Negativity (MMN) design with subjects instructed to ignore speech stimuli, we recorded magnetic brain responses to particles (
up,
down) auditorily presented as infrequent “deviant” stimuli in the context of frequently occurring verb “standard” stimuli. Already at latencies below 200
ms, magnetic brain responses were larger to particles appearing in existing phrasal verbs (e.g.
rise up) than to particles appearing in non-existing combinations (e.g. ∗
fall up), regardless of whether particles carried a literal or metaphorical sense (e.g.
rise up,
heat up). Previous research found an enhanced MMN response to morphemes in existing (as opposed to non-existing) words but a reduced MMN to words in grammatically acceptable (as opposed to unacceptable) combinations. The increased brain activation to particles in real phrasal verbs reported here is consistent with the lexical enhancement but inconsistent with the syntactic reduction of the MMN, thus providing neurophysiological support that a congruent verb–particle sequence is not assembled syntactically but rather accessed as a single lexical chunk.
•The current fMRI study investigated aspects of argument structure complexity.•Increased number of thematic roles elicited left posterior perisylvian activation.•The number of thematic options had no ...behavioral or neural effects.•Unaccusative verbs elicited increased activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus.•This activation reflects difficulty in processing noncanonical mapping.
Verbs are central to sentence processing, as they encode argument structure (AS) information, i.e., information about the syntax and interpretation of the phrases accompanying them. The behavioral and neural correlates of AS processing have primarily been investigated in sentence-level tasks, requiring both verb processing and verb-argument integration. In the current functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we investigated AS processing using a lexical decision task requiring only verb processing. We examined three aspects of AS complexity: number of thematic roles, number of thematic options, and mapping (non)canonicity (unaccusative vs. unergative and transitive verbs). Increased number of thematic roles elicited greater activation in the left posterior perisylvian regions claimed to support access to stored AS representations. However, the number of thematic options had no neural effects. Further, unaccusative verbs elicited longer response times and increased activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus, reflecting the processing cost of unaccusative verbs and, more generally, supporting the role of the IFG in noncanonical argument mapping.
Where do dialects differ from Standard English, and why are they so remarkably resilient? This study argues that commonly used verbs that deviate from Standard English for the most part have a long ...pedigree. Analysing the language use of over 120 dialect speakers, Lieselotte Anderwald demonstrates that not only are speakers justified historically in using these verbs, systematically these non-standard forms actually make more sense. By constituting a simpler system, they are generally more economical than their Standard English counterparts. Drawing on data collected from the Freiburg English Dialect Corpus (FRED), this innovative and engaging study will be of great interest to students and researchers of English language and linguistics, morphology and syntax.
Hope for syntactic bootstrapping Harrigan, Kaitlyn; Valentine Hacquard; Lidz, Jeffrey
Language (Baltimore),
12/2019, Volume:
95, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
We explore children’s use of syntactic distribution in the acquisition of attitude verbs, such as think, want, and hope. Because attitude verbs refer to concepts that are opaque to observation but ...have syntactic distributions predictive of semantic properties, we hypothesize that syntax may serve as an important cue to learning their meanings. Using a novel methodology, we replicate previous literature showing an asymmetry between acquisition of think and want, and we additionally demonstrate that interpretation of a less frequent attitude verb, hope, patterns with type of syntactic complement. This supports the view that children treat syntactic frame as informative about an attitude verb’s meaning.
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