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The book "Current Issues in Syntactic Cartography: A crosslinguistic perspective" edited by Fuzhen Si and Luigi Rizzi provides a comprehensive study of syntactic cartography. The book is organized into 12 papers that focus on theoretical and descriptive issues of specific aspects of syntactic cartography. The chapters cover topics such as the left periphery, the Inflection Phrase (IP) zone, and the Verb Phrase (VP) zone. The book includes contributions from leading scholars and explores various languages, including Romance, Germanic, Semitic, Japanese, and Chinese. It is recommended for linguists interested in generative syntax and offers new theories and unfamiliar data for exploration. [Extracted from the article]

Both the Menzerath-Altmann law and the Zipf-Mandelbrot law note that language is a fractal structure and, like any other fractals, follows power laws. Studies on fractal linguistics demonstrated that the relation between the scaling measures and the number of constituents in language indeed follow the power law probability distribution. However, most of these studies looked at languages from the structural perspective only, often ignoring the grammatical aspects of language structures. In this study, we ventured into English grammar and used a multifractal analysis to explore the nature of multifractality in three grammatical structures in English texts – i.e. the Finite Verb Phrases, Noun Phrases, and Head Nouns. In this paper, we present the evidence of multifractality in the distribution of these constructs and discuss how the parameters of multifractality align with the current understanding of register variation in different text types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bilinguals experience processing costs when comprehending code-switches, yet the magnitude of the cost fluctuates depending on numerous factors. We tested whether switch costs vary based on the frequency of different types of code-switches, as estimated from natural corpora of bilingual speech and text. Spanish–English bilinguals in the U.S. read single-language and code-switched sentences in a self-paced task. Sentence regions containing code-switches were read more slowly than single-language control regions, consistent with the idea that integrating a code-switch poses a processing challenge. Crucially, more frequent code-switches elicited significantly smaller costs both within and across most classes of switch types (e.g., within verb phrases and when comparing switches at verb-phrase and noun-phrase sites). The results suggest that, in addition to learning distributions of syntactic and semantic patterns, bilinguals develop finely tuned expectations about code-switching behavior – representing one reason why code-switching in naturalistic contexts may not be particularly costly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been well-documented that language input designed according to the principles of statistical learning can promote language acquisition among children with or without language disorder. Cantonese-speaking children with language disorder were reported to have difficulties using expanded verb phrases and prepositional phrases, but the corresponding intervention is relatively unexplored. The current study evaluated the efficacy of an intervention designed using the statistical learning principles to promote the acquisition of these two structures. A retrospective study of existing data collected from a total of 16 Cantonese-speaking children (four female; mean age = 6.70 years) with suspected language disorder was conducted. The participants were initially divided into the 'Treatment' and the 'Control' groups. A total of eight sessions of language treatment, which focused on giving systematic language input of expanded verb phrases and prepositional phrases, were conducted on each child. Results showed that the Treatment group produced significantly more expanded verb phrases in the post-treatment language samples, while the Control group did not. The final pre- and post-comparison conducted after the Control group also received treatment indicated overall significant increased number of expanded verb phrases produced across time. On the contrary, improvement in the production of prepositional phrases was not significant. It is suggested that the unique thematic roles coded by individual prepositions possibly restricted the generalisation effect of treatment, which explains the non-significant improvement across time. Theoretical and clinical implications were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The chapters and topics covered are as follows: "Indo-European verb morphology" by Nikola Krastev and Bilyana Mihaylova, "Aspect and aspectuality" by Christina Markou, "The correlation between the simple and complex preterites" by Petya Asenova, "Imperfect" by Bilyana Mihaylova, Marina Dzhonova, and Ekaterina Tarpomanova, "Pluperfect" by Ekaterina Tarpomanova and Bilyana Mihaylova, "Future perfect" by Ekaterina Tarpomanova, "Future perfect in the past" by Ekaterina Tarpomanova and Boris Vounchev, "Modal functions of verbal tenses" by Petya Asenova, "Grammaticalization and modality of future tense forms I. Modal uses of future tense" by Petya Asenova and Zlatka Guentchéva, "Grammaticalization and modality of future tense forms II. In this section, we acknowledge the receipt of recent works on Greek itself or with substantial Greek content that have come to our editorial attention, and offer a brief characterization of their contents. Tarpomanova, Ekaterina, Petya Asenova, & Boris Vounchev, eds., 2022. [Extracted from the article]

The present study shows variability in Nigerian Pidgin English (NPE) through its frequently used copula dey. Previous works on copulas in NPE have rarely shown the extent to which the copula varies, the extent to which attested variation is complex, or the extent to which the simple or complex variation found is related to processing both the verb phrase in which the copula operates and the overall sentential context it scans. Contributing to this question, the study shows that copula dey exhibits complex variability, which is strongly related to the difficulty in processing the meaning and interpretation of both the verb phrase and that of the overall sentence. The article also shows that variants of dey (i.e. deh and de) are unrelated to the exhibition of this complex variability, though their choice of use is related to formality or text type. Framed within a construction grammar theoretical framework, the article identifies and classifies five contextual scenarios showing creative movement and placement of the copula, including how structural variability (or lack thereof) distinguishes between copula dey, verbal dey and metaphoric dey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has also been argued by [8] that French "intonation questions" are declarative clauses and not interrogative clauses. 9 Since such French adverbs are not compatible with a verbal interrogative clause (i) ([2]; [11]), this shows that the questioning fragment in (21b) is a questioning declarative and not an interrogative clause. Keywords: additive adverb; direct interpretation; ellipsis; English; fragment; French; presupposition; stripping EN additive adverb direct interpretation ellipsis English fragment French presupposition stripping 495 524 30 09/06/22 20220901 NES 220901 1 Introduction Fragments (non-verbal utterances with a clausal content) are pervasive in natural language, and come in several varieties. 3.3 Polarity mismatch Additive adverbs are sensitive to the polarity of the context clause: I too i or I aussi i usually occurs in a positive proposition, while I either i or I non plus i "neither" presupposes a negative one (with I pas i "not", I rien i "nothing", I jamais i "never", I personne i "no one", etc. in French, see [18]; [28]). As [25] has it: "[unlike VP ellipsis], other forms of ellipsis, such as bare remnant ellipsis (e.g., gapping and stripping), are far less sympathetic to nonlocal antecedents, cataphora, situationally-evoked antecedents, and so forth.". [Extracted from the article]

Keywords: context; inheritance network; pseudogapping; question-under-discussion; VP ellipsis EN context inheritance network pseudogapping question-under-discussion VP ellipsis 457 494 38 09/06/22 20220901 NES 220901 1 Basic properties As illustrated in (1a) and (1b), gapping elides a finite verb in the non-initial conjunct of a coordinate structure while VPE (VP ellipsis) deletes a whole VP after an auxiliary. As we have seen in the analysis of VPE, the auxiliarihood of the head in the construction reflects the simple fact that VPE and pseudogapping are both sensitive to the presence of an auxiliary. (76) HT

The authors suggest that pseudogapping and VPE both belong to the same meso-construction of auxiliary-sensitive ellipsis, but each has its own constructional constraints. This form/meaning mismatch usually implies, on the one hand, an "incomplete" syntax (i.e. the material which is necessary for the interpretation is missing in the syntactic structure), and, on the other hand, a context dependency (i.e. the missing material is generally recovered from an antecedent in the context). Keywords: corpus studies; ellipsis; experimental studies; fragments; gapping; pseudogapping; sluicing; VPE EN corpus studies ellipsis experimental studies fragments gapping pseudogapping sluicing VPE 335 340 6 09/06/22 20220901 NES 220901 1 Ellipsis issues Ellipsis constitutes a challenge to the Saussurean definition of the I linguistic sign i (which associates a form - I signifiant i - with a content - I signifié i ), since in elliptical constructions we get an interpretation in the absence of form ( I significatio ex nihilo i ). Ellipsis, experimental studies, corpus studies, fragments, gapping, pseudogapping, sluicing, VPE. [Extracted from the article]

While in the former case the fronted predicate is finite, in the latter it is generally non-finite and may be followed by a resumptive element - either a dummy verb ("do"), as in Asante Twi (3), or a tensed copy of the fronted verb, as in Hebrew (4). The editors adopt an inclusive definition of predicate fronting, encompassing an array of constructions whose common feature is that a verb or verb phrase is spelled out at the left periphery of the clause. In Chapter 5, "V(P)-fronting in Asante Twi and Limbum", Johannes Hein considers the factors determining whether predicate fronting triggers "do"-insertion (3) or verb doubling (4). Predicates which appear clause-initially include verbs of existence and presentational verbs of the I happen i or I have i type. [Extracted from the article]

Error analysis presupposes a distinction between two languages. This distinction was primarily concerned with how the two languages facilitated or hindered learning of the target language. In its original premise, the juxtaposed languages were considered facilitative if they were similar but restrictive if they were different. This gave rise to the notion of transference where it was viewed either negatively when it hindered acquisition of certain structures or positively if it facilitated acquisition. This approach developed into a new focus of studying errors and analysing them. At first such an analysis focused on mother tongue interference but later developed into interlanguage where errors were viewed as a natural phenomenon that demonstrates the progress of learning. This paper is therefore grounded on error analysis where errors in writing of high school learners are analysed in order to interrogate where second language learners are in internalisation of English structures. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to identify common errors committed by isiZulu-speaking learners in their English First Additional Language writing in order to come up with pedagogical interventions. The study employs a qualitative approach where a sample of 7 randomly selected learners' writing texts from 40 student writing texts across 15 writing classrooms in 5 schools in Pinetown District is analysed. The sampled texts are subjected to error analysis. The analysis covers grammatical aspects such as morphology, syntax and semantics. The findings indicate that learners' errors range from word and phrase level to sentence level. At word level errors of morphological constructions and spelling were committed and at phrase level, errors were caused by the complexity of the noun and verb phrases. At sentence level, there were errors in sentence construction. The study has implications for the teaching of writing especially since some teaching approaches do not incorporate the teaching of grammar whilst the common errors are grammatical errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phrase chunking is an important task in various natural language processing (NLP) applications. This paper presents a neural phrase chunking for Urdu by training contextualized word representations. This work also produces an annotated corpus. The annotation has been performed by using IOB (inside-outside-begin) labels. Comprehensive guidelines have been developed for four phrases which are noun phrase (NP), verb phrase (VP), post-positional phrase (PP) and prepositional phrase (PRP). The annotated text has been evaluated for completeness and correctness automatically. Inter-annotator agreement has been calculated for ten percent reference corpus. A neural chunker has been developed and trained on the annotated corpus. The chunker is based on long–short- term memory networks. Transfer learning has been employed to improve the chunking results. For that purpose, context-free (Word2Vec) and contextualized (ELMo) word representations have been trained. The chunker performed with an f-score of 94.9 when trained by using third layer of ELMo embeddings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyze the information structure of predicate doubling in Rioplatense Spanish (e.g., Leer, leyó 'as for reading, she/he read'). We propose that in this construction the dislocated predicate functions as a contrastive topic in the sense of Büring (2003), that is, it evokes a set of alternative questions with which it contrasts. We argue that this characterization explains the "continuation effect" that predicate doubling exhibits, i.e., the fact that a predicate doubling sentence suggests a potential continuation that involves another predicate. Moreover, we show that this analysis correctly predicts the distribution of predicate doubling in embedding contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The word "istinsah" is Arabic origin and the word "copy" is Latin origin. Copying as a writing term is a method of duplicating documents, texts in general. The verb phrases bitig yul- and bitig köçür- are used in Dîvânu Lugâti't-Türk for istinsah / copying. These verb phrases are not included or only their meanings are given in most of the studies dealing with writing, writing materials and book terms. Examining the verb phrases which is related to conceptual fields such as the writing art, printing techniques, reproduction methods, literary products, writing materials, library, will both contribute to vocabulary of these related fields and determine the semantic extension and transfer of words in Turkish language, it will enable the determination of cognitive structures and meaning maps of thought and culture. For this purpose, the words that make up the verb phrases, bitig yuland bitig köçür-, are examined with diachronic method, and structure of the words and their polysemy are searched out, and effect of the word bitig, which is valency of verbs, on the meaning of the verbs is determined. Thus, components and realization forms on the basis of linguistic description and interpretation have been determined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study aims at analyzing the syntax of Arabic-English intra-sentential code-switching within verb phrase boundaries and finding out how this type of code-switching is performed. Particularly, this study investigates the speakers' maintenance of their Arabic syntactic structure ant word order while inserting English constituents at verb phrase level. In addition, it examines the effect of the originated patterns on Arabic structural rules and examines the validity of equivalence constraint provided by Poplack in Arabic-English intra-sentential code-switching. To this end, a qualitative approach is operated to gather the research data; the qualitative data are collected from Facebook chats and comments between Jordanian university students while they are communicating on Facebook. Then, conversational analysis technique is used to analyze the syntactic aspects of VP patterns of intra-sentential Arabic-English code-switching. Furthermore, clarification of some grammatical differences between Arabic and English is provided along with analysis. The findings showed that there are thirteen patterns performed within VPs despite the grammatical differences between the two languages. These patterns sometimes violate the grammatical rules of English. Meanwhile, the grammatical rules of Arabic are not affected by intra-sentential code-switching performed within VPs. That means Jordanian Arabic-English code-mixing violates the universal constraint of 'equivalence' proposed by Poplack (1980). The study provides a potential theoretical implication for the Arabic Language Academies in the Arab World by encouraging them to cooperate to carefully ponder the implications of this code-mixing, and they should coin Arabic words for all new English terms, especially those related to the technological and scientific innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Slavic languages are commonly classified as SVO languages, with an exceptional property, though, namely an atypically extensive variability of word order. A systematic comparison of Slavic languages with uncontroversial SVO languages reveals, however, that exceptional properties are the rule. Slavic languages are 'exceptional' in so many syntactic respects that SVO appears to be a typological misnomer. This fact invites a fresh look. Upon closer scrutiny, it turns out that these languages are not exceptional, but regular members of a different type. They are representative of a yet unrecognised type of clause structure organisation. The dichotomy of 'head-final' and 'head-initial' does not exhaustively cover the system space of the make-up of phrases. In addition, there arguably exists a third option (T3). This is the type of phrasal architecture in which the head of the verb phrase is directionally unconstrained. It may precede, as in VO, it may follow, as in OV, and it may be sandwiched by its arguments within the phrase. From this viewpoint, the Slavic languages cease to be exceptional. They are regular representatives of the latter type, and, crucially, their collateral syntactic properties predictably match the properties of this type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates genre and discipline effects on the frequency and contingency profiles of English Verb-Argument Constructions (VACs), with implications for English for Specific Purposes pedagogy. Specifically, 11 VACs that have featured prominently in recent analyses of general domain English usage in the British National Corpus are examined in a specialized corpus of 400 research articles. Analysis includes normalized frequency, type-token ratio, frequency rank, and delta P as a measure of verb-construction association strength, with the results analyzed across disciplines and in comparison to previous analyses on general domain English corpora. A clear consistency was found in the frequency and frequency ranks of VACs across the specialized and general corpora, which points towards the importance and meaningful nature of abstract constructions. At the same time, variation in the verb-construction contingency profiles also highlights the importance of genre and community. Findings are discussed within usage-based perspectives, with careful attention to the implications for English for Specific Purposes pedagogy. • Verb-Argument Construction (VAC) frequency ranks are consistent across corpora. • VAC lead verbs differ notably across the general and specialized corpora. • VAC lead verbs in the research corpus are more specialized than those in BNC. • VAC lead verbs at the discipline level reveal notable discipline-specificity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both the semantic and structural quality of the subject, which is the prerequisite for the verb to take place, is naturally determined by the volition of the verb / predicate that assumes the constitutive role. The morphomorphic voice is also used in oruludag.edu.trder to enrich the qualities encoded in the genetics of the verb; in other words, the verb can enter the verb conjugation with the voice suffixes. Also, the verb conjugation suffixes such as negativity, tense, person, etc. will be effective in determining the volition of the verb. The verb, whose volition becomes clear, is now ready to take on the predicate task and gather the elements that serve itself, that is, to form a sentence or verb phrase. The task name of the language unit that makes, does, causes the verb or happens is the subject. The noun or pronoun that is given the task of being a subject connects the predicate through the subject case suffix. The important thing here is which qualified verb the subject will meet. Since the nature of the subject will determine the verb with which it will relate, revealing the double-headed relationship between the subject and the verb will become clear by answering some questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: dualism; English; semantic (sub)families; superposition; synthetic compounds (SCs) EN dualism English semantic (sub)families superposition synthetic compounds (SCs) 395 461 67 03/11/22 20220301 NES 220301 1 Introduction There is a longstanding debate concerning two mutually exclusive hypotheses, i.e., whether synthetic compounds (henceforth, SCs), such as E. I heartbreaker i , have to be analyzed either as agentive or instrumental derivations from a phrase [[ I heart break i ][ I er i ]] or as compounds of a modifying noun and an agent/instrument noun [[ I heart i ] [ I break i + I -er i ]] (see Section 2). Of the Latinate families, I X-producer i , I X-manager i , and I X-provider i primarily support a derivational analysis, although composition and above all superposition are also suggested by some SCs (Section 5). 7.6 Compositional analysis Our empirical results also led to arguments for the compositional analysis of SCs. When the German particle verbs are nominalized, which is similar to the derivational analysis of SCs, then the noun constituent can be dropped, as in I Auf- und Ab i + I lad i + I ung i "up- and un+load+ing", but cannot be replaced, with dropping of the particle, as in * I Ab i + I lad i + I ung und -halt i + I ung. i By contrast, in SCs as in other noun compounds, each of the lexical parts can be dropped, i.e., alongside the more frequent gapping schema I X- and YZ i there is also the schema I XY and -Z i , as in I music-player and -recorder i , which is typical of N-N compounds. According to the OED/MED, simplex agent nouns are often attested much earlier than the corresponding SCs: this is true for 9 subfamilies, in 6 subfamilies this antecedence is only slight, in 2 subfamilies attestation is nearly simultaneous, but only in 5 subfamilies SCs are attested earlier than the simplex agent nouns (and never much earlier). [Extracted from the article]

Other scholars (e.g., [8]; [31]; [50]; [59]; [68]) claimed that I le i used in this way is a fusion of both the perfective I le i and the particle I le i . Keywords: aspect marker; construal; usage-based constructionist approach EN aspect marker construal usage-based constructionist approach 541 577 37 03/11/22 20220301 NES 220301 1 Introduction The Mandarin Chinese particle I le i is one of the most recalcitrant elements in Chinese linguistics and one of the most confusing grammar points in Chinese second language learning. One participant (#25) considered "raise/keep I le i a dog" in S5 as an equivalent type to "be married I le i ", noting that both are "durative action"; but the same participant considered "rent I le i an apartment" as similar to "pour I le i a glass alcohol", stating that both describe "instantaneous" actions. Unfortunately, this insight did not lead to what would be a logical conclusion, namely that the inceptive I le i prevails over the perfective I le i in [V I le i ]. For example, the [verb I le i ] search returned I zou le i "go away I le i " many tokens of which were a part of I ná-zou le i "take away I le i " or some other verbal strings where I zou i is a directional suffix meaning "away". [Extracted from the article]

• Spatial language encoding physical support ('on') shows continuity during childhood. • Semantic space of support shows differentiation by 2 years of age. • A new forced-choice task taps children's lexical verb knowledge. • Inter-modal preferential pointing task measures early lexical verb comprehension. Infants reason about support configurations (e.g., teddy bear on table) and young children talk about a variety of support relations, including support-from-below (e.g., apple on table) and many other types (e.g., Band-Aid on leg, picture on wall). Given this wide variation in support types, we asked whether early differentiation of the semantic space of support may play a key role in helping children to learn spatial language in this domain. Previous research has shown such differentiation with 20-month-olds mapping the basic locative construction (BE on) to support-from-below (cube on top of box), but not to a mechanical support configuration (cube on side of box via adhesion). Older children and adults show the same differentiation, with preferential mapping of BE on to support-from-below and lexical verbs to mechanical support. We further explored the development of this differentiation by testing how children aged 2 to 4.5 years map lexical verbs to a wide variety of support configurations. In Experiment 1, using an intermodal preferential pointing paradigm, we found that 2- to 3.5-year-olds map a lexical verb phrase ("sticks to") to mechanical support via adhesion. In Experiments 2 and 3, we expanded the range of mechanical support relations and used production and forced-choice tasks to ask whether 2- to 4.5-year-olds also encode mechanical relations using lexical verbs. We found that they do. These findings suggest continuity between infancy and childhood in the way that children use spatial language to differentially map to support-from-below versus mechanical support and raise new questions about how mechanical support language develops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many languages preposed adverbial clauses repeat the previous verb or predicate, which phenomenon has been termed tail-head linkage (THL henceforth, Thompson & Longacre, 1985; de Vries, 2005). This paper aims to describe THL constructions in Santiagueño Quichua (Quechua) according to two parameters: a) the degree of semantic overlap between the predicates of the THL constructions, and b) the degree of event integration of the preposed adverbial with its main clause. The first parameter allows the identification of verbatim constructions -with exact repetition of the previous predicate- and non verbatim constructions -without exact repetition-. The second parameter manifests itself in the form the head clause might adopt, where it is a converb or it takes switch reference suffixes. The interplay of both parameters shows that the different THL constructions possess diverse discourse functions, particularly regarding thematic coherence (Givón, 2001). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although a large literature demonstrates that object‐extracted relative clauses (ORCs) are harder to process than subject‐extracted relative clauses (SRCs), there is less agreement regarding where during processing this difficulty emerges, as well as how best to explain these effects. An eye‐tracking study by Staub, Dillon, and Clifton (2017) demonstrated that readers experience more processing difficulty at the matrix verb for ORCs than for SRCs when the matrix verb immediately follows the relative clause (RC), but the difficulty is eliminated if a prepositional phrase (PP) intervenes. A careful examination of Staub et al.'s materials reveals that the types of PPs used in the experiment were a mixture of locative and temporal PPs. This is important in that locative PPs can modify either a noun phrase or a verb phrase (VP), whereas temporal PPs typically modify VPs, resulting in systematic differences in PP attachment across ORCs versus SRCs. In the current eye‐tracking experiment, we systematically manipulated RC type and PP type in the same sentences used by Staub et al. The manipulation of PP type resulted in a crossover pattern at the matrix verb such that there was a trend for reading times to be longer for ORCs than SRCs when the PP was locative, but reading times were longer for SRCs than ORCs when the PP was temporal. These results provide important information regarding the locus of RC‐processing effects and highlight the importance of carefully considering how intervening material might unintentionally alter the structure or the meaning of a sentence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study deals with the hadith of the Victorious Sect, which is considered an important principle of loyalty and disavowal in Islam and a testimony of the Prophet Mohammed's (SWS) prophecy. This is a Mutawatir (consecutive) hadith narrated by nearly twenty companions. Using an analytical descriptive method, the present study examines the hadith's words and phrases at different linguistic levels: phonetic, morpho-syntactic, and semantic. Results at the phonetic level show that there is a prevalence of voiced, unaspirated, and explosive sounds that have strong impact on the listener. At the morphosyntactic level, results show a prominent presence of the nominal structures that indicate stability and permanence, with some use of verb phrases that indicate renewal, continuity and interactiveness. It seems that the morphosyntactic structures play a great role in determining the semantic interpretations of this hadith with its multiple narrations. This is evident not only through the use of structures indicating eternal existence and presence across times to confirm meaning and to engrave it in the minds of listeners, but also through the connotations of generalization, specification, focus, emphasis, contrast, and others. All are intertwined in a linguistic harmony in which all linguistic levels - sound, form and structure - perform their function in the fullest and most meaningful way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to investigate aspectual value of secondary aspectual verb phrase in Serbian in terms of both grammatical and lexical aspect (Aktionsart). The present analysis focuses on two secondary aspectualizers krenuti and stati, which when used as lexical verbs have the opposite meanings related to motion in space, but when they appear as phase construction heads both verbs modify the opening segment of the aspectual event. The central idea of the proposal is that event types in general largely depend on temporal structures which need to be contextualized before they are formally identifiable. In other words, contrary to traditional approaches which define lexical aspect as inherent to verb meaning, we claim that each verb form (or any lexical and/or grammatical form for that matter) has an underlying meaning through which it entertains systematic relations with other forms in a language (Hirtle 1982:40). We start from aspectual and Aktionsart features of krenuti and stati as verb lexemes, then move onto the level of syntax to identify the cocompositional aspect of the overall phase construction via event structure and event segmentation mechanisms. Finally, the present paper aims to examine different uses of the two secondary aspectual verbs, along with the different types of events they can denote in order to bring to light the potential meanings which give rise to the various contextual senses of the aspectual construction. The reported results of the analysis were checked on the Corpus of Contemporary Serbian Language (SrpKor 2013). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A pipeline that fetches visually relevant images for dense video captioning. • Attention mechanism to include auxiliary phrases within adversarial training. • On par or better performance on automated metrics compared to a strong baseline. • Generic pipeline can be used by any dense video captioning model to enhance inputs. Collecting textual descriptions is an especially costly task for dense video captioning, since each event in the video needs to be annotated separately and a long descriptive paragraph needs to be provided. In this paper, we investigate a way to mitigate this heavy burden and propose to leverage captions of visually similar images as auxiliary context. Our model successfully fetches visually relevant images and combines noun and verb phrases from their captions to generating coherent descriptions. To this end, we use a generator and discriminator design, together with an attention-based fusion technique, to incorporate image captions as context in the video caption generation process. The experiments on the challenging ActivityNet Captions dataset demonstrate that our proposed approach achieves more accurate and more diverse video descriptions compared to the strong baseline using METEOR, BLEU and CIDEr-D metrics and qualitative evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains the ambiguity in using modifiers and shows its types. The research contains an analysis of some ambiguous sentences with an explanation of the reasons behind this ambiguity. It presents a theoretical background about modification in general and clarifies different types of ambiguity. It depends on the available grammar sources and the internet to provide enough material. It shows that a modifier is an optional element that depends on the headword. There are two types of modification, also, there are two types of ambiguity. Phrasal verbs can be interpreted in more than one way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of depictive secondary predicates within the Turkish language, particularly surrounding the small clause phenomenon. These constructions function as adjuncts in the matrix clause. However, it may be difficult to distinguish between depictives and adverbial adjuncts in Turkish because of their morphosyntactic shape. Primarily, I will address the distinction between depictives and adverbial adjuncts based on studies founded by Schultze-Berndt & Himmelmann (2004) and Himmelmann & Schultze-Berndt (2006) based on a description of the depictive secondary predicates in Turkish. Furthermore, I will specifically focus on the adjectivals as a depictive secondary predicate. These establish a predicative relationship with their controllers, which are the subject or object of the main clause. In this context, I will also analyze this predicative relationship at a semantical, syntactical and morphosyntactical level. I will then analyze the difficulties faced when referring to these structures as constituents in an analysis of the complex sentence as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Productive morphological causatives in isiXhosa exhibit a case alternation with respect to the causee: it can be unmarked or instrumental. Much recent literature on similar alternations in causative constructions in other languages analyzes them as involving differences in the size or category of the constituent selected by the causative morpheme. We show that such an analysis cannot be extended to isiXhosa and that both alternants are verb‐selecting causatives. We propose instead that the alternation actually concerns the place in the structure in which the causee is introduced: in the specifier of the causative head itself in the unmarked‐causee construction, in a PP adjoined to the embedded verb phrase in the instrumental‐causee construction. This article thus adds to a growing body of evidence that the same thematic roles are not always assigned in the same syntactic positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to establish whether the processing of different connectives (e.g., and, but) and different coherence relations (addition, contrast) can be modulated by a structural feature of the connected segments—namely, parallelism. While but is mainly used to contrast two expressions, and occurs in many different relations and has been shown to come with a processing cost. We report three self-paced reading experiments in which we manipulate whether the connected segments share a common verb phrase. Such parallel constructions frequently occur in contrastive relations, although they are typically treated as additive in comprehension research. We expect that parallelism will compensate for the cognitive complexity of contrast and for the ambiguity of and by further signaling the coherence relation. Our results indicate that parallelism speeds up processing and provides further evidence for priming in comprehension. However, parallelism interacted with connective ambiguity in an overt disambiguation task (Experiment 3) but not in a more natural reading task (Experiment 2). We argue that the processing of contrast remains shallow unless disambiguation is explicitly required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two differences between signed and spoken languages that have been widely discussed in the literature are: the degree to which morphology is expressed simultaneously (rather than sequentially), and the degree to which iconicity is used, particularly in predicates of motion and location, often referred to as classifier predicates. In this paper we analyze a set of properties marking agency and number in four sign languages for their crosslinguistic similarities and differences regarding simultaneity and iconicity. Data from American Sign Language (ASL), Italian Sign Language (LIS), British Sign Language (BSL), and Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL) are analyzed. We find that iconic, cognitive, phonological, and morphological factors contribute to the distribution of these properties. We conduct two analyses—one of verbs and one of verb phrases. The analysis of classifier verbs shows that, as expected, all four languages exhibit many common formal and iconic properties in the expression of agency and number. The analysis of classifier verb phrases (VPs)—particularly, multiple-verb predicates—reveals (a) that it is grammatical in all four languages to express agency and number within a single verb, but also (b) that there is crosslinguistic variation in expressing agency and number across the four languages. We argue that this variation is motivated by how each language prioritizes, or ranks, several constraints. The rankings can be captured in Optimality Theory. Some constraints in this account, such as a constraint to be redundant, are found in all information systems and might be considered non-linguistic; however, the variation in constraint ranking in verb phrases reveals the grammatical and arbitrary nature of linguistic systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

2 Underspecification of "content" Moltmann says, '[complement] clauses act as predicates of modal or attitudinal objects, giving their truthmaking or satisfaction conditions' (TSNL, p. 172). That transitive verb I that i -clause complements are a kind of relative clause is not all that far-fetched on the sort of syntactic analysis of (1a) sketched above. Such a semantics might well have an advantage over a possible world semantics in terms of the fine-grainedness of the characterization that it provides for I that i -clauses, but it is unclear whether it provides any particular insight into the function of I that i -clauses in transitive verb attitude predicates or attitude nominal phrases. [Extracted from the article]

This paper deals with a customary topic on Spanish compound studies: the structures of pez globo and niño prodigio, and their classification as compounds or appositions. I propose that both structures are appositions (created in the syntax), even if they are provided with distinctive properties. I develop a suitable framework for characterizing the existing differences between both classes. In my proposal, globo establishes with pez a different syntactic relationship (one of direct modification) from the one that prodigio establishes with niño (a predication relationship). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consider his (Zhuangzi xxxii, Ziporyn 260) B b Slowpoke, or the inspired punning B b Jamb (Zhuangzi xxv, Ziporyn 202)! Taking leave of commentarial wisdom and common sense, Ziporyn seems blind to the obvious kinship between B b * B t b [ B i b ] B wk b *[ B k b ](r) B oj b and B b * B t b [ B i b ] B wk b *[ B k b ](r) B oj b , which of course Ziporyn, like most, understands as "strangeness and monstrosity." When this character recurs at xx (Ziporyn 160) as B b ( B r b ) B k-s l b B b , and in B xx b (Ziporyn 162), B (r) k-s l b , Ziporyn never shows any awareness that we have one personage written three ways. Elsewhere, when faced with a mindboggling enumeration of obscure old demons (Zhuangzi xix, Ziporyn 153), he comes up with "Tufties", "Antfrogs", and so on.[2] Ziporyn also makes frequent and sometimes adroit use of the "double translation" technique (see "Introduction", xxxiv-xxxv). [Extracted from the article]

This study analyzed the scripts of two TV dramas, The Newsroom and Suits, to examine the distribution of tense-aspect constructions. It followed the discourse perspective on pedagogical grammar which includes pursuance of i) discourse-level grammar over sentence-level grammar; and ii) communicative grammar for spoken discourse over the typical grammar based on written discourse. The scripts were extracted from the DVD subtitles so that they can be mostly composed of spoken lines. The time segments and scene descriptions were removed. All 3,392 verb phrases were manually annotated for twelve combinations of tense and aspect and more varieties. 78% of all tense-aspect constructions were simple tenses carried by main verbs; 91%, when the simple tenses carried by Aux were included. Tense realization by non-typical forms was prominent in the future tense. For some modal verbs, miscellaneous modals occurred more frequently than core modals. While the main verbs far exceeded the modals in terms of tense-carrying frequency, the latter was more crucial in delivering important details. It is proposed that L2 communicative grammar focus on a smaller subset of more practical tense-aspect constructions and spoken language features. Further drama-corpus studies for L2 learning purposes are recommended for diversified topics in larger scopes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Syntax is a species-specific component of human language combining a finite set of words in a potentially infinite number of sentences. Since words are by definition expressed by sound, factoring out syntactic information is normally impossible. Here, we circumvented this problem in a novel way by designing phrases with exactly the same acoustic content but different syntactic structures depending on the other words they occur with. In particular, we used phrases merging an article with a noun yielding a Noun Phrase (NP) or a clitic with a verb yielding a Verb Phrase (VP). We performed stereo-electroencephalographic (SEEG) recordings in epileptic patients. We measured a different electrophysiological correlates of verb phrases vs. noun phrases in multiple cortical areas in both hemispheres, including language areas and their homologous in the non-dominant hemisphere. The high gamma band activity (150-300 Hz frequency), which plays a crucial role in inter-regional cortical communications, showed a significant difference during the presentation of the homophonous phrases, depending on whether the phrase was a verb phrase or a noun phrase. Our findings contribute to the ultimate goal of a complete neural decoding of linguistic structures from the brain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many languages, indefinite expressions are known to have restricted access to core argument functions. This article focuses on the accessibility hierarchy of indefinite expressions to subject and object functions in a sample of Austronesian languages. Aiming at some comparative analysis, some cross-linguistic perspectives on the differential encoding of ± definite core arguments and other types of restrictions are discussed. The questions addressed are: (i) What type of indefinite nouns have core argument function? (ii) If barred from core argument function, how are indefinite arguments circumvented? (iii) Does existence or lack of indefinite articles correlate with access to core argument function, and in what way? In Austronesian languages, one finding is that languages with indefinite articles display fewer restrictions on the access of indefinite NPs to core argument function. Another finding is that differences of definiteness, individuation and specificity of arguments tend to be expressed by distinct domains: the noun phrase in languages with indefinite articles, the verb phrase in languages without indefinite articles (via valency, voice alternations, alignment changes), with an intermediate situation in some Micronesian languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines the inconsistent ways in which reference grammars make the distinction between postmodification and complementation in the structure of English adjective phrases and adverb phrases, and attempts to provide a solution to this terminological quandary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main focus of specialized translation classes is usually terminology, but in many cases that is not enough, particularly in situations where the students' L2 level is below the required standard, so that much remedial grammar teaching is needed. This paper argues that in such situations, if not as a rule, both explicit and implicit grammar teaching should be a part of translation classes, before discussing the author's long-term practice of conceptualizing grammar. The teaching of tense, aspect and complex noun phrases is then introduced with examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to demonstrate the fruitfulness of the influential verb typology developed by Zeno Vendler for recent debates in the philosophy of perception. Section one explains the verb typology and explains how Vendler applies it to different perceptual notions. Section two identifies various questions that arise from observations in Vendler's paper that suggest that there is a match between the temporal properties of perceptual verb objects and the complex verb phrases of which they are a part. Subsequent discussion focuses on just one of these questions. Section three identifies and rejects a simple proposal about how to answer this question. Section four develops a 'limited matching' account. In the visual perception of events and processes there seems to be a match between the temporal duration, order and location of the events and processes which are the objects of perception and the subject's perceiving them. But this matching is absent in cases of the perception of primary substances; objects which manifestly endure over time. Section five identifies and responds to some criticisms of this matching account. The conclusion notes some consequences of the discussion for contemporary debates about the temporal characteristics of perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report on an analysis of spontaneous gesture production in 2‐year‐old children who come from three countries (Italy, United Kingdom, Australia) and who speak two languages (Italian, English), in an attempt to tease apart the influence of language and culture when comparing children from different cultural and linguistic environments. Eighty‐seven monolingual children aged 24–30 months completed an experimental task measuring their comprehension and production of nouns and predicates. The Italian children scored significantly higher than the other groups on all lexical measures. With regard to gestures, British children produced significantly fewer pointing and speech combinations compared to Italian and Australian children, who did not differ from each other. In contrast, Italian children produced significantly more representational gestures than the other two groups. We conclude that spoken language development is primarily influenced by the input language over gesture production, whereas the combination of cultural and language environments affects gesture production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English‐as‐a‐foreign‐language (EFL) textbooks and internet resources exhibit various formats and implementations of exercises on phrasal verbs. The experimental study reported here examines whether some of these might be more effective than others. EFL learners at a university in Japan were randomly assigned to 4 treatment groups. Two groups were presented first with phrasal verbs and their meaning before they were prompted to retrieve the particles from memory. The difference between these 2 retrieval groups was that 1 group studied and then retrieved items 1 at a time, while the other group studied and retrieved them in sets. The 2 other groups received the exercises as trial‐and‐error events, where participants were prompted to guess the particles and were subsequently provided with the correct response. One group was given immediate feedback on each item, while the other group tackled sets of 14 items before receiving feedback. The effectiveness of these exercise implementations was compared through an immediate and a 1‐week delayed posttest. The best test scores were obtained when the exercises had served the purpose of retrieval, although this advantage shrank in the delayed posttest (where scores were poor regardless of treatment condition). On average 70% of the posttest errors produced by the learners who had tackled the exercises by trial‐and‐error were duplicates of incorrect responses they had supplied at the exercise stage, which indicates that corrective feedback was often ineffective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First, based on analysis of some—mostly late—Latin texts that positively reflect actual oral delivery, I present some remarks on structure and frequency of Verb-Phrases 'auxiliary+infinitive' as arguable markers of 'orality' in Latin. Second, I examine the occurrence of these Verb-Phrases in some works by Ambrose of Milan and show that, on the one hand, the investigation of Verb-Phrases might support the view that the De sacramentis and Explanatio symboli are unrevised catecheses, but, on the other hand, it is of no help in the conjecture of the degree of elaboration undergone by those works that, stemming from an oral homiletic delivery, were later revised in view of publication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]