Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Grammar'

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras/Inglês e Literatura Correspondente.
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Partindo do pressuposto de que para melhor compreender o ensino de línguas é essencial saber que tipo de concepções, conhecimentos e crenças os professores de língua têm (Freeman & Richards, 1996), esta pesquisa enfoca nas crenças de nove professores de inglês como língua estrangeira - LE a respeito da gramática e do ensino da gramática, e nas práticas de um desses professores ao trabalhar a gramática numa sala de aula de inglês - LE. A pesquisa objetiva investigar (a) as crenças que os professores têm à respeito da gramática, (b) as funções que os professores atribuem à gramática e ao seu ensino na sala de aula de inglês - LE, (c) os fatores que influenciam as crenças desses professores à respeito da gramática e de seu ensino, (d) como essas crenças podem ser contextualizadas com os dados das aulas de um desses professores. Na primeira fase de coleta e análise de dados, um questionário aberto foi aplicado aos professores com a finalidade de atingir os três primeiros objetivos da pesquisa. Posteriormente, com o objetivo de contextualizar as crenças encontradas na análise dos dados do questionário, um segundo estágio de coleta e análise de dados focalizou em episódios de aulas de um dos professores participantes. A análise dos dados mostra que de acordo com esses professores de inglês - LE a gramática e o ensino da gramática devem ser usados como facilitadores para ajudar os alunos em seu processo de aprendizagem. Os resultados também indicam que as crenças desses professores sobre a gramática e o seu ensino são influenciadas por fatores interativos - cognitivos, contextuais e experienciais - corroborando, portanto, os resultados de Borg (1999c).

The protection and enhancement of visual resources constitute an on-going challenge to the planning authorities in many communities. The crux of this challenge is to guide development towards built and natural landscape forms that will not cause detriment to an existing landscape character. To understand and cope with this problem, there is the need for a means to define and model a landscape's character, to identify methods for constructing that character definition, to create tools for storing and using such a definition to visualize its spatial manifestations, and to incorporate alternative development regulatory parameters in order to assess their impact on landscape character. Current spatial data technologies are able to portray inventories of specific, real-world objects. While well established in the planning profession, these technologies and their attendant data manipulation tools do not easily facilitate the creation of generalized, non-specific statements that are applicable across a region. Such generalized statements regarding visual and spatial features are at the heart of descriptions of landscape character and implicit within most planning regulations intended to produce a desirable landscape character. Current spatial data tools therefore do not satisfy the stated needs of planning for landscape character. In satisfying these conceptual, methodological and technological deficiencies, the research presented in this dissertation defines and demonstrates a theory of landscape grammar which formally draws parallels between the structures of linguistics and the character of landscapes. A landscape grammar defines a landscape character using a spatial vocabulary and syntax rules and can be applied to a site to generate landscape forms that embody the defined character. In this dissertation, the spatial counterparts of the linguistic concepts of vocabulary and grammar rules are formalized and implemented for use in a custom-developed geographic information system. Methods that enable the use of landscape grammars in a planning environment are presented and subsequently applied through the formal expression of planning regulations into the grammar-based model. The theory, methods and software implementation are demonstrated using a residential area of the island of Bermuda. The iterative grammatical generation of an example two-dimensional landscape scene is demonstrated with further three-dimensional representations of the results for visualization purposes. Alternative planning regulations are also incorporated into the case study grammar and resultant three-dimensional landscapes are shown. Several suggestions for future research on landscape grammars are offered in the conclusions of the dissertation.

Wailaki, a Dene language of northwestern California, is known as what is referred to in academic literature and sources such as the Ethnologue as an “extinct” language. While Wailaki descendant people may remember an older generation of relatives who spoke Wailaki to one another, as far as is known, there are no people alive today who grew up speaking this language (Golla 2011:81). This term extinct used to describe such languages, however, does not reflect the desire of communities for languages to be spoken again, and the efforts many are taking towards language revitalization. Extinct conveys finality to language loss and shift; however, the term sleeping is today used to describe dormant languages with substantial documentation that may be spoken again (Leonard 2011). Wailaki is one such language.

For Wailaki, documentation exists; however, no detailed description of the language exists prior to this work. For any scholar and language learner interested in the language, published materials on related languages such as Hupa or Mattole are referenced in order to make sense of available Wailaki documentation. This dissertation puts forth a phonological, morphological, and limited syntactic description of Wailaki, which is a cover term, used by many tribal descendants, for a dialect continuum also known as Eel River Athabaskan/Dene (Golla 2011).

Chapter 1 gives background information regarding the people, the resources available for analysis. Chapter 2 is a description of phonological processes within the dialect continuum. Chapter 3 is a description of word classes in Wailaki, and what criteria and behavior (either morphological or syntactic) that may be given to delineate classes. Chapter 4 describes the verbal morphology, and Chapter 5 describes the nominal morphology. Chapter 6 titled Clitics and Syntax describes clitics that express categories such as tense, aspect or mode, or perform syntactic functions. In addition, Chapter 6 gives limited description of aspects of Wailaki syntax such as conjunctions, negation, question formation, and some discussion of word order.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio State University, 2005.
Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xiii, 173 p.; also includes graphics. Includes bibliographical references (p. 160-171). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

The aim of this work is to investigate how the English passive, as both a linguistic phenomenon and a learning/teaching issue, is presented in pedagogical grammars for EFL/ESL teachers - grammar books aimed at trainee and practising teachers of English as a foreign/second language and intended to supply metalinguistic information on English grammar, practice in language analysis and error correction as well as an overview of grammar teaching activities and the typical problems experienced by EFL/ESL learners. Whereas a great deal of ink has been poured by theoretical and descriptive linguists in the last fifty years in attempts to conceptualise and describe the passive, very little awareness appears to exist of this recent research among language teachers. Pedagogical grammars for teachers are arguably a concrete attempt to redress the situation inasmuch as they are primarily aimed at bridging the gap between linguistic research and the practical concerns of the teacher. Spanning approximately thirty years (1978-2004), the sample of ten grammars on which this study is based originated not only in Inner Circle countries (Canada, USA, UK, New Zealand), but also in former British colonies (India, Hong Kong, Singapore) and in a country where English is learnt as a foreign language (Colombia). Through the analysis of the verbal descriptions, the examples and the diagrams featured in the corpus of ten presentations of the passive as well as the subject-specific metalanguage used, the book pieces together a picture of the way an important grammatical phenomenon has been turned into a grammaticographical product and explores how insights from the last one hundred years of linguistic and applied linguistic research have been mediated and represented for a non-academic audience. A subsidiary focus of the analysis is the evaluation of the 'fitness-for-purpose' of the grammars, i.e. whether they achieve the purposes that a teacher-oriented pedagogical presentation should serve.

A large proportion of computationally-oriented theories of grammar operate within the confines of monostratality (i.e. there is only one level of syntactic analysis), compositionality (i.e. the meaning of an expression is determined by the meanings of its syntactic parts, plus their manner of combination), and adjacency (i.e. the only operation on terminal strings is concatenation). This thesis looks at two major approaches falling within these bounds: that based on phrase structure grammar (e.g. Gazdar), and that based on categorial grammar (e.g. Steedman). The theories are examined with reference to extraction and coordination constructions; crucially a range of 'compound' extraction and coordination phenomena are brought to bear. It is argued that the early phrase structure grammar metarules can characterise operations generating compound phenomena, but in so doing require a categorial-like category system. It is also argued that while categorial grammar contains an adequate category apparatus, Steedman's primitives such as composition do not extend to cover the full range of data. A theory is therefore presented integrating the approaches of Gazdar and Steedman. The central issue as regards processing is derivational equivalence: the grammars under consideration typically generate many semantically equivalent derivations of an expression. This problem is addressed by showing how to axiomatise derivational equivalence, and a parser is presented which employs the axiomatisation to avoid following equivalent paths.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1993.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 171-177).
This thesis considers the viability of an architectural grammar based on traditional Caribbean architecture as an aid to designing climatically responsive architecture in hot humid climates. It argues that since traditional Caribbean architecture is a successful response to the constraints of climate and resources, a grammar based on this architecture would produce designs with similar characteristics and therefore would still be relevant today. The purpose of focusing on the relationship between architectural form and energy use is to help designers understand the consequences of basic design decisions and to help them to use these issues positively to generate form. In order to investigate this issue, a number of questions were addressed in the thesis. They were: What are shape grammars? What is appropriate design in hot humid climates? What is traditional Caribbean architecture and is it climatically appropriate? What would a tropical grammar look like and what would it produce? and How could it be used practically? A grammar was formulated based on a set of 16 traditional Caribbean houses and as a test, two new designs were generated. Shape grammars, in their most basic form, are essentially a set of rules that if followed, will generate designs in the same family as the original set. Typically, they are used to study a particular architect's style or occasionally a building style. This thesis states that shape grammars have two serious limitations which reduce their usefulness to designers. The first is that shape grammars focus only on physical form and the second is that they do not increase the user's understanding of the reasons for the grammar rules. However, it was found that, in contrast, the process of developing or formulating a grammar (as opposed to using one) was exceptionally useful for developing a deep understanding of the architectural style or type. The thesis concludes that architectural grammars can be a very useful and accessible tool for designers: 1. if they are able to go beyond physical form to include other architectural issues and knowledge; 2. if means are developed for presenting grammars which allow users to understand the rules, and not simply follow them; and 3. if methods are developed for analyzing and evaluating the designs that are generated by the grammar. It also concludes that a grammar is a useful tool to familiarize designers with the most successful characteristics of traditional architectural vocabulary. The purpose of this type of grammar is not to copy or duplicate a style, but to learn from its practical solutions in order to create new combinations of form that would be appropriate to the conditions found today.
by Anne Beamish.
M.S.

This thesis proposes a procedure to transform abstract concepts into meaningful stories and evaluates its application to grammar rules in two contexts of English learnt as foreign language by Italians: as online resources available to adult independent learners, and as learning activity carried out in school. In the first case, users are passive receivers of the content produced with the procedure; in the second case, learners actively apply it while working on grammar rules. In both situations, the present research study aims to evaluate if the delivery of abstract information in story-form facilitates its understanding and memorization. This thesis, however, is also a journey which lasted three years. It started in November 2013, with the admission into the Digital Humanities PhD program of the University of Genoa. The research project I1 proposed was aimed at developing a playful and narrative digital tool to help people learn English. My previous studies and my experiences as a teacher had convinced me of the value of games and stories for learning: the combination of the two looked like the Holy Grail of teaching to me. While deepening the theoretical background necessary to realize my idea, I ended up refining my initial plan, abandoning the idea of the video-game in favour of a simpler tool apt to help Italian adult independent learners of English as a foreign language. This certainly was influenced not only by the literature, but also, and especially, by observing many of my friends struggling with speaking correct English, a situation which is shared with too many Italians. I therefore decided I needed more information on this issue. As suggested by Design Thinking, the first thing to do was framing the problem, understanding its peculiarities, and identifying the needs of my prospective users. I was surprised to note that almost all of them, even the most skilled ones or those who had been living abroad, were prone to very basic mistakes. Most of them confessed to talk and write English as if they were “playing by ear”. The problem with such behaviour is that their native language, Italian, was interfering with the foreign language and leading them to use incorrect forms. They said they remembered grammar rules vaguely and would not rely too much on them. They also did not want to spend time studying on books to learn things they felt they “knew already”: they seemed to be irritated by lengthy and abstract explanations. In order to help them – and the many Italian learners in a similar situation - I decided to focus on one specific, concrete problem: I decided to work on common mistakes of Italian speakers of English and concentrated on a book that highlighted them (Swan, Smith, 2001). As a pedagogical approach, I decided to focus on narrative learning. My previous research in storytelling and my experiences with it in real life had convinced me of the communication power of stories. Good storytelling works with any age, any background, any topic. In fact, it has been used for teaching since the dawn of time, as I had discovered during the year I spent in Australia teaching Italian as a Foreign Language at high-school level. It was while visiting Uluru, the most sacred of the Aboriginal mountains, that I found that its lower part is completely covered by drawings that were used by the elders to tell stories to the kids and educate them about Life. I was thrilled by the idea of exploring new digital forms of storytelling that would perpetuate its role in learning. For the issue I wanted to address, however, a level of difficulty was introduced by the fact that grammar rules are abstract concepts, and therefore they cannot be straightforwardly expressed in story form. Moreover, I knew it was not enough to produce some videos presenting a story, but rather to find a “formula” apt to transform grammar rules, and possibly any other abstract concept, into stories. The narrativization of abstract concepts has been discussed for quite some time by academics of different backgrounds, but a replicable procedure that could work in a variety of cases was still missing. It took several months and many readings to find a way to standardize the process. By February 2016 I had created the first prototype of Grammar Story, working on a mistake that is very common among Italians: the missing -s at the end of Present Tense verbs at the third singular person. The story was titled “Speed Dating”. By the end of the year, the first version of what I called “storification procedure” was ready. Between February and March, I wrote, scripted, produced, edited five other Grammar Stories, further refining the procedure during the process. My intention was to define a procedure people could use to create effective learning material (education professionals, designers of multimedia learning material and e-learning platforms, publishing houses, …), but in the meanwhile I realised there were other people who could benefit from the storification procedure: students and teachers. The procedure could be used by teachers to create material for their students, but also as class activity to be carried out with and by the students, in which they would be guided to produce their own stories. This possibility was worth being explored as well. As soon as my Grammar Stories were ready, I created a website to experiment them with independent adult learners, and at the same time I started sending a proposal for a Grammar Stories workshop to Dottoranda: Serena Zampolli 8 schools. Thanks to a keen English teacher, I was able to do a first exploratory trial in June 2017. The experience helped me understand what needed to be adjusted, and in the Fall I repeated the experiment in three schools. This thesis is the detailed report of this learning journey. Chapter 1 provides the Theoretical Framework for this study; it constitutes the foundation of my proposal and it is the result of extensive readings on storytelling and multimedia technology in learning context. Chapter 2 describes the storification procedure and its development. Chapter 3 illustrates the methodology for the experimentation and frames it in the context of language learning theory. Chapter 4 reports Experiment A, carried out with adult independent learners who were using the 6 Grammar stories produced. Chapter 5 describes the first field trial realised in schools on June 2017, while Chapter 6 reports on the multiple trials run in Fall 2017; all together they constitute Experiment B. Lastly, Chapter 7 draws some conclusion from this experience. I decided to devote this introduction to talking about the journey of this study for two reasons: the first is that I believe in storytelling as a most powerful communication tool, and it would be contradictory not to present it in form of story; the second is that these three years were not an easy journey. It took time to develop each part of this project, it was necessary to repeatedly explore, compare, analyse and check, but it surely was a journey where much was learnt. Before starting, some terminological clarifications are needed. In this work, “storytelling” is intended as the telling of stories which have a beginning, a development, and an end. “Narrate” is the action of delivering information in the form of a story or anyway in narrative form. It was decided to call the procedure a “storification procedure” because it aims to create stories with a beginning, a development (often including a conflict) and an end. Most of the studies on storytelling start with a definition of what is intended with "story". Instead of providing a rigid definition, I decided to identify some structural features of stories, and they are described in Section 1.2

We propose a mathematical formalism called Algebraic Dependency Grammar with applications to formal linguistics and to formal language theory. Regarding formal linguistics we aim to address the problem of grammaticality with special attention to cross-linguistic cases. In the field of formal language theory this formalism provides a new perspective allowing an algebraic classification of languages. Notably our approach suggests the existence of so-called anti-classes of languages associated to certain classes of languages. Our notion of a dependency grammar is as of a definition of a set of well-constructed dependency trees (we call this algebraic governance) and a relation which associates word-orders to dependency trees (we call this algebraic linearization). In relation to algebraic governance, we define a manifold which is a set of dependency trees satisfying an agreement condition throughout a pattern, which is the algebraic form of a collection of syntactic addresses over the dependency tree. A boolean condition on the words formalizes the notion of agreement. In relation to algebraic linearization, first we observe that the notion of projectivity is quintessentially that certain substructures of a dependency tree always form an interval in its linearization. So we have to establish well what is a substructure; we see again that patterns proportion the key, generalizing the notion of projectivity with recursive linearization procedures. Combining the above modules we have the formalism: an algebraic dependency grammar is a manifold together with a linearization. Notice that patterns sustain both manifolds and linearizations. We study their interrelation in terms of a new algebraic classification of classes of languages. We highlight the main contributions of the thesis. Regarding mathematical linguistics, algebraic dependency grammar considers trees and word-order different modules in the architecture, which allows description of languages with varied word-order. Ellipses are permitted; this issue is usually avoided because it makes some formalisms non-decidable. We differentiate linguistic phenomena structurally by their algebraic description. Algebraic dependency grammar permits observance of affinity between linguistic constructions which seem superficially different. Regarding formal language theory, a new system for understanding a very large family of languages is presented which permits observation of languages in broader contexts. We identify a new class named anti-context-free languages containing constructions structurally symmetric to context-free languages. Informally we could say that context-free languages are well-parenthesized, while anti-context-free languages are cross-serial-parenthesized. For example copy languages and respectively languages are anti-context-free.
Es proposa un formalisme matemàtic anomenat Gramàtica de Dependències Algebraica amb aplicacions a la lingüística formal i a la teoria de llenguatges formals. Pel que fa a la lingüística formal es pretén abordar el problema de la gramaticalitat, amb un èmfasi especial en la transversalitat, això és, que el formalisme sigui apte per a un bon nombre de llengües. En el camp dels llenguatges formals aquest formalisme proporciona una nova perspectiva que permet una classificació algebraica dels llenguatges. Aquest enfocament suggereix a més a més l'existència de les aquí anomenades anti-classes de llenguatges associades a certes classes de llenguatges. La nostra idea d'una gramàtica de dependències és en un conjunt de sintagmes ben construïts (d'això en diem recció algebraica) i una relació que associa ordres de paraules als sintagmes d'aquest conjunt (d'això en diem linearització algebraica). Pel que fa a la recció algebraica, introduïm el concepte de varietat sintàctica com el conjunt de sintagmes que satisfan una concordança sobre un determinat patró. Un patró és un conjunt d'adreces sintàctiques descrit algebraicament. La concordança es formalitza a través d'una condició booleana sobre el vocabulari. En relació amb linearització algebraica, en primer lloc, observem que l'essencial de la noció clàssica de projectivitat rau en el fet que certes subestructures d'un arbre de dependències formen sempre un interval en la seva linearització. Així doncs, primer hem d'establir bé que vol dir subestructura. Un cop més veiem que els patrons en proporcionen la clau, tot generalitzant la noció de projectivitat a través d'un procediment recursiu de linearització. Tot unint els dos mòduls anteriors ja tenim el nostre formalisme a punt: una gramàtica de dependències algebraica és una varietat sintàctica juntament amb una linearització. Notem que els patrons són a la base de tots dos mòduls: varietats i linearitzacions, així que resulta del tot natural estudiar-ne la interrelació en termes d'un nou sistema de classificació algebraica de classes de llenguatges. Destaquem les principals contribucions d'aquesta tesi. Pel que fa a la matemàtica lingüística, la gramàtica de dependències algebraica considera els arbres i l'ordre de les paraules diferents mòduls dins l'arquitectura la qual cosa permet de descriure llenguatges amb una gran varietat d'ordre. L'ús d'el·lipsis és permès; aquesta qüestió és normalment evitada en altres formalismes per tal com la possibilitat d'el·lipsis fa que els models es tornin no decidibles. El nostre model també ens permet classificar estructuralment fenòmens lingüístics segons la seva descripció algebraica, així com de copsar afinitats entre construccions que semblen superficialment diferents. Pel que fa a la teoria dels llenguatges formals, presentem un nou sistema de classificació que ens permet d'entendre els llenguatges en un context més ampli. Identifiquem una nova classe que anomenem llenguatges anti-lliures-de-context que conté construccions estructuralment simètriques als llenguatges lliures de context. Informalment podríem dir que els llenguatges lliures de context estan ben parentetitzats, mentre que els anti-lliures-de-context estan parentetitzats segons dependències creuades en sèrie. En són mostres d'aquesta classe els llenguatges còpia i els llenguatges respectivament.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2013.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 176-186).
In this thesis, I propose a new theory of implicature. I argue that the two main theories available so far - the (Neo-)Gricean pragmatic theory on the one hand (e.g., Sauerland (2004)), and the hybrid grammatical theory of scalar implicatures on the other hand (e.g., Fox (2007)) - cannot provide a satisfactory account of disjunctions like Al drank some or all of the beers. As I will show, the meaning of these sentences is characterized by the presence of grammatical ignorance implicatures. In this they differ from their simpler alternatives. I will show how the proposed Matrix K theory of implicature derives this result. The new theory is a radically grammatical theory in that all kinds of implicatures - weak, scalar, and ignorance implicatures - are derived in the grammar. I will also show how Hurford's constraint can be derived from a general principle of manner in the new theory. I will then turn to logically under-informative statements like Some elephants are mammals and show how their oddness falls out from the Matrix K theory without further stipulations. Next, I argue that the theory extends to infelicitous Hurford disjunctions like Jean is from France or from Paris. Both phenomena can receive a uniform explanation in terms of grammatically derived, contextually inconsistent implicatures, without stipulating obligatory scalar implicatures. Lastly, I turn to the case of implicature suspension and show how the new theory can account for missing implicatures.
by Marie-Christine Meyer.
Ph.D.

Práce poskytuje přehled základů teorie formálních jazyků, regulovaných gramatik a analýzy LL(1) jazyků. Je zde navržen a analyzován algoritmus pro analýzu programovaných gramatik, inspirován LL(1) analyzátorem. Třída jazyků přijímaná tímto algoritmem je striktní nadtřídou LL(1) jazyků, obsahující některé jazyky, které nejsou bezkontextové. Tato třída se však jeví být neporovnatelná s třídou bezkontextových jazyků.

The papers collected in this special issue originated from a workshop held at the Annual Meeting of German University Teachers of English (Anglistentag) in Hamburg in September 2016. Contributors and participants at the workshop were invited to probe into the usefulness – and the limitations – of the notion noncanonical grammar for their respective fields of interest, and the present volume is a lively testimony to an engaging discussion.

This thesis is a reference ( or sketch) grammar of Karajarri, an Australian Aboriginal language. As such, there is no attempt to be fully comprehensive at any point, but rather to provide a broad overview of the grammar of the language. I have chosen, however, to include in the study a more detailed analysis of one aspect of the language, namely the case-marking system (based on a framework developed by Dench and Evans 1988). This overview may be a basis for further research into particular aspects of the language. The reference grammar style of this study will also be of use in understanding the texts of Karajani which already exist from past work. The analysis is based on previous work done on Karajarri, as well as a period of field research in June 1992.

Grammar is an essential part of language learning. Thus, it is important that teachers know how to efficiently teach grammar to students, and with what approach - explicitly orimplicitly as well as through Focus on Forms (FoFs), Focus on Form (FoF) or Focus onMeaning (FoM). Furthermore, the common use of textbooks in English education in Sweden makes it essential to explore how these present grammar. Therefore, to make teachers aware of what grammar teaching approach a textbook has, this degree project intends to examine how and to what degree English textbooks used in Swedish upper secondary schools can be seen to exhibit an overall explicit or implicit approach to grammar teaching. The aim is to analyze three English 5 textbooks that are currently used in classrooms in Sweden, through the use of relevant research regarding grammar teaching as well as the steering documents for English 5 in Swedish upper secondary school. The analysis was carried out with the help of a framework developed by means of research on explicit and implicit grammar teaching as well as the three grammar teaching approaches FoFs, FoF and FoM. Thus, through the textbook analysis, we set out to investigate whether the textbooks present grammar instruction explicitly or implicitly and through FoFs, FoF or FoM. After having collected research on the topic of how to teach grammar, it became apparent that researchers on grammar teaching agree that FoF is the most beneficial out of the three above mentioned approaches, and thus, we decided to take a stand for this approach throughout the project. The results of this study showed that two out of three textbooks used overall implicit grammar teaching through FoM. Moreover, one out of the three textbooks used overall explicit grammar teaching through an FoF approach.

Kiswahili hat ein doppeltes System der nominalen Klassifikation. Das erste System ist das aus dem Bantu (Niger-Congo) bekannte System der konkordierenden nominalen und \"pronominalen\" Präfixe; das zweite, jüngere System gründet sich auf das Bedeutungsmerkmal [belebt]. Die grammatische Kategorie NUMERUS (SINGULAR::PLURAL) gilt nur im zweiten System; innerhalb des ersten Systems ist die Bildung der Nominalpaare, z .B. mtulwatu, ein derivationeller Prozeß und bezieht Konkordanz sich ausschlieBlich auf die Kategorie KLASSE.

Bibliography: leaves 526-532. A description of the grammar of Worora, a language from the north west Kimberley region of Western Australia, proceeds along pedagogical lines. Introducing the speakers of Worora and their history and society, and the nature of the land in which they used to live, as well as to the manner and circumstances in which this account came to be written; describing in outline six important lexical categories, essential to a basic understanding of the grammar.

Karbi is a Tibeto-Burman (TB) language spoken by half a million people in the Karbi Anglong district in Assam, Northeast India, and surrounding areas in the extended Brahmaputra Valley area. It is an agglutinating, verb-final language. This dissertation offers a description of the dialect spoken in the hills of the Karbi Anglong district. It is primarily based on a corpus that was created during a total of fifteen months of original fieldwork, while building on and expanding on research reported by Grüßner in 1978. While the exact phylogenetic status of Karbi inside TB has remained controversial, this dissertation points out various putative links to other TB languages. The most intriguing aspect of Karbi phonology is the tone system, which carries a low functional load. While three tones can be contrasted on monosyllabic roots, the rich agglutinating morphology of Karbi allows the formation of polysyllabic words, at which level tones lose most of their phonemicity, while still leaving systematic phonetic traces. Nouns and verbs represent the two major word classes of Karbi at the root level; property-concept terms represent a subclass of verbs. At the heart of Karbi morphosyntax, there are two prefixes of Proto-TB provenance that have diachronically shaped the grammar of the language: the possessive prefix a- and the nominalizer ke-. Possessive a- attaches to nouns that are modified by preposed elements and represents the most frequent morpheme in the corpus. Nominalization involving ke- forms the basis for a variety of predicate constructions, including most of Karbi subordination as well as a number of main clause constructions. In addition to nominalization, subordination commonly involves clause chaining. Noun phrases may be marked for their clausal role via -phān `non-subject' or -lòng `locative' but frequently remain unmarked for role. Their pragmatic status can be indicated with information structure markers for topic, focus, and additivity. Commonly used discourse constructions include elaborate expressions and parallelism more generally, general extenders, copy verb constructions, as well as a number of final particles. Audio files are available of the texts given in the appendices, particular examples illustrating phonological issues, and phonetic recordings of tone minimal sets. Supplemental files are located at: https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/13657

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2008.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 141-148).
This thesis makes the following three claims: (1) Competition exists in natural language: the grammaticality (and meaning) of using a linguistic object 0 can be affected by the grammaticality (and meaning) of a different linguistic object [phi]' (2) Structure plays a role in competition: [phi]' can only affect the grammaticality (and meaning) of [phi]' of [phi]' and [phi]' are structurally related (in particular, if [phi]' is no more complex than [phi]' (3) Simpler is better: if 0 is strictly more complex than [phi]', and if the two are equally good otherwise, q will be blocked by [phi]' The first claim is the most general and the least controversial. It adds little to what is commonly accepted in the domains of conversational implicature, focus alternatives, morphological blocking, and economy conditions in syntax and semantics. Chapter 1 presents background on some of the issues regarding this general claim. The second claim is more controversial. Most work on implicature has treated considerations of structural complexity as unimportant or downright orthogonal to conversational reasoning. In the domain of focus alternatives structure has been occasionally used (in particular, below the word level), but argued to be irrelevant otherwise. In Chapter 2 I will present a case study that shows that, at least sometimes, reference to structure (specifically to structural complexity) is necessary. Chapter 3, jointly written with Danny Fox, discusses a remaining question about the use of alternatives for implicature and provides arguments for a parallel treatment of implicature and focus, as well as for a constraint on the ability of contextual relevance to remove a formal alternative from the set of actual alternatives. In Chapter 4 I discuss certain cases of morphological blocking that cannot be based solely on structural pruning. For the patterns to be accounted for, a direct preference for simpler structures must be active in the grammar.
by Roni Katzir.
Ph.D.

Faifi is an endangered Afroasiatic-Semitic speech form of southwestern Saudi Arabia along the border with Yemen, with roughly 50,000 speakers. This study is partially a comprehensive grammar of this speech form, written from a functional/ typological perspective that emphasizes that the key to comprehending linguistic processes comes from studying the functionality of language and its elements.

This thesis introduces the Faifi people, aspects of their culture, and history, and includes a comparative study between Faifi and Arabic, which consists of nineteen linguistic aspects. The thesis introduces the major aspects of Faifi, including: contrastive phonology, syllable structure, pronouns, demonstratives, clitics, nouns, verbs, adjectives, future stems, adverbs, NP and NP related operations, word order, alignments, tense and aspect, relative clause, complement clause and adverbial clause.

Language teaching has been strongly influenced over recent years by talk of notions and functions, most notably through Wilkins' (1976) work on Notional Syllabuses. Yet the notional/functional syllabus has been criticized for failing to capture anything more than a superficial correspondence between form and meaning. In this thesis I argue for a framework in which a deeper congruence between form and meaning is developed. I identify regularities in the lexico-syntactic structure of English which express recognizable notional relationships, which in turn reflect deeper conceptualizations of relations between events and participants. These conceptualizations are represented on a semantic continuum of 'contextual distance'. By reference to this continuum, I argue that we can identify a clear congruence between increasing conceptual complexity and increasing lexicosyntactic complexity. This account gives considerable prominence to the role of lexis, and to the interdependence between grammar, lexis and context in the signalling of meaning, something which has not always been adequately considered within linguistics or within applied linguistics. I then consider a possible application of these ideas to pedagogy. In many 'product' approaches to syllabus design and methodology, learners work with language forms whose meanings are to an extent already fixed, with grammar subsuming lexis and with cotext and context already clearly related by the materials designer. In such approaches the interdependence between grammar, lexis and context is sometimes lost sight of, and I argue for a revised approach in which this interdependence is made central. Thus learners are encouraged to fashion their own meanings by working with lexical items, and by learning to grammaticize these lexical items by reference to context. By separating out grammar and lexis in this way, learners are given direct access to the deeper congruence between form and meaning - between grammar, lexis and context. The format of the thesis is as follows . I begin with a selective review of work in linguistics (chapter one) and applied linguistics (chapter two), arguing that the importance of the grammar/lexis relationship has not (by and large) been much investigated. In chapter three I introduce the continuum of contextual distance, outlining a general hypothesis in which relationships between grammar, lexis and context are linked to a deeper understanding of the congruence between form and meaning. I go on to develop the detail of this hypothesis, looking both at ideational meanings (chapter four) and interpersonal meanings (chapter five). Stepping back from these detailed arguments, I conclude by presenting an approach to classroom methodology (chapter six) and to syllabus design (chapter seven) based on the concept of learner grammaticization.

The aim of this paper is to analyze Wittgenstein’s philosophical grammar in the Middle Period. The paper examines the thesis that grammar is not responsible for reality. It investigates the role that rules play in this context and how they determine meaning. Special focus shall be put on arbitrary rules. Therefore, we shall develop a thesis of vagueness with special emphasis on perspicuous representation.
Este trabajo analiza la propuesta wittgensteiniana acerca de la gramática filosófica en el período intermedio. Se estudia la tesis general de que la gramática no es responsable de la realidad. Seguidamente, se analiza el papel que juegan las reglas y cómo determinan el significado. Se indaga acerca del papel arbitrario de las reglas. Para ello se desarrolla la tesis de la vaguedad y el papel que juega la representación perspicua.

Cette étude est la toute première tentative de description complète de la grammaire du hamar, une langue parlée par environ 46.500 personnes dans le sud-ouest de l'Ethiopie (Lewis 2009). L'étude est basée sur des données collectées pendant 9 mois de travail sur le terrain entre 2013 et 2014 dans les territoires des Hamar. Les données sur la langue ont été recueillies auprès de 14 locuteurs natifs dans les villages hamar, et sont composées de 50 textes de longueurs et de genres différents. Cette grammaire décrit la phonologie, la morphologie, la syntaxe et certains aspects de la pragmatique et du discours du hamar et est organisée en 13 chapitres suivis par trois annexes : l'annexe A et B se composent d'un lexique sélectionné d’environ 1 400 entrées, l’annexe C contient trois textes hamar annotés. L'analyse qui sous-tend cette monographie grammaticale suit le cadre théorique Basic Linguistic Theory (la théorie linguistique de base - Dixon 1997, 2010, 2012)
This study is the first-ever attempt at a comprehensive grammatical description of Hamar, a language spoken in South West Ethiopia by approximately 46.500 people (Lewis 2009). The study is based on 9 months of fieldwork carried out between 2013and 2014 in Hamar territories. Language data was gathered from 14 native speakers in Hamar villages, and it amounts to 50 texts of varying lengths and genres. The grammar investigates the phonology, the morphology, the syntax and somepragmatic and discourse-related features of Hamar and it is organized in 13 chapters followed by three appendices: appendix A and B consist of a selected lexicon of circa 1400 entries, appendix C includes three annotated Hamar texts.The analysis underlying this monograph grammar follows the theoretical framework of Basic Linguistic Theory (Dixon 1997, 2010, 2012)

Dans cette thèse, nous examinons comment les locuteurs anglais utilisent le geste quand ils expriment une négation. Nous identifions neuf gestes de la négation et nous analysons leurs formes, leur rapport à la négation grammaticale, et leur organisation par rapport au discours. S’appuyant sur un corpus audiovisuel, nous démontrons que le geste joue un rôle fondamental dans les constructions négatives, comme le noyau et la portée de la négation, la négation implicite et la négation cumulative. Au cours de nos analyses nous montrons comment le geste présente des tendances universelles à exprimer une négation aussi tôt et aussi fréquemment que possible dans une phrase négative. Nous émettons l’hypothèse que le contexte du discours et le type de négation grammaticale se combinent pour déterminer quels gestes utilisent les locuteurs et comment ils les organisent, ce qui nous permet d’établir des arguments en faveur d’une grammaire multimodale. Nous accompagnons notre analyse d’une méthodologie pour recueillir, transcrire, et analyser un corpus audiovisuel, et dans un chapitre final nous appliquons cette méthodologie aux secteurs du système linguistique autres que la négation : l’aspect progressif, la modalité épistémique, et les opérations de focalisation. Cette thèse offre une analyse multimodale des notions grammaticales de l’anglais, ciblant surtout la négation, et établit un lien entre la grammaire, le geste, et la cognition. Pendant l’expression d’une négation, les anglophones exécutent une multitude de gestes—mouvements de la main et de la tête qui sont liés à la parole. Ces gestes peuvent illustrer des idées, appliquer une emphase sur une hypothèse, et diriger l'interaction. Les gestes qui se connectent spécifiquement à l’expression de la négation sont des formes conventionnelles que l’on reconnaît comme ‘les gestes de la négation’ quels que soient le locuteur et le contexte précis (c. F. Ladewig 2008). Suivant Geneviève Calbris (1990, 2003, 2005) et Adam Kendon (2002, 2004), nous avons ciblé les gestes de la négation qui sont caractérisés par une forme de main ouverte et un avant-bras en pronation. Ces gestes se divisent en deux sous-groupes : les gestes de la main horizontale et les gestes de la main verticale. Adoptant une approche nouvelle pour l’analyse du geste, qui nécessite l’investigation des propriétés formelles du geste à travers des clips ralentis et sans son, nous avons pu identifier et décrire trois gestes de la négation avec la main horizontale et six gestes de la négation avec la main verticale Ces gestes peuvent sembler similaires, cependant, après un chapitre introductif dans lequel nous présentons notre méthodologie et nos motivations, nous démontrons au cours du deuxième chapitre que ces gestes se distinguent selon quand, comment, et pourquoi les locuteurs les utilisent. En particulier, nous utilisons des exemples pour montrer que le type de particule grammaticale (no, not, n’t, none, etc. ) se combine avec le type de contexte négatif (une interruption, une excuse, un refus, etc. ) pour déterminer quel geste de la négation le locuteur va utiliser et comment il va le déployer par rapport à sa parole. De plus, la linguistique cognitive nous fournit des outils pour analyser les énoncés et pour expliquer la co-expression de la négation dans la modalité vocale et gestuelle dans une perspective cognitive. Dans le troisième chapitre, nous considérons l’étude au-delà de la négation et nous recherchons des liens entre la grammaire, le geste, et la cognition dans d’autres secteurs du système linguistique. Nous analysons l’aspect progressif, la modalité épistémique, et les opérations de focalisation pour pouvoir lier BE + -ING avec les gestes cycliques (Figure 3), les modaux et les adverbes épistémiques avec les gestes de balancement, et la délocalisation syntaxique avec les gestes de pointage que le locuteur utilise pour rendre saillant un élément de son énoncé. A travers l'histoire, les linguistes ont lutté contre l’idéologie dominante en linguistique pour exposer des dimensions de la grammaire autres que sa dimension formelle et morphosyntaxique. Il s’agit de ses dimensions sociales, fonctionnelles, interactionnelles et cognitives. Cette thèse fournit une méthodologie pour analyser la grammaire dans une perspective multimodale et utilise la négation, l’aspect progressif, la modalité épistémique, et les opérations de focalisation pour exposer la dimension gestuelle de la grammaire
In this thesis, I examine the way English speakers gesture when they negate. I identify nine gestures of negation and analyse their forms, their relation to grammatical negation, and their organisation in regard to speech. Drawing examples from an audiovisual corpus, I demonstrate that gesture plays a role in negative constructs, such as node and scope of negation, inherent negation, and cumulative negation, suggesting how these gestures also exhibit the universal tendencies to express negation early on and frequently in negative sentences. I argue that discourse context and type of grammatical negation combine to determine which gestures speakers use and how they use them, establishing arguments toward a multimodal grammar. I accompany this analysis with a methodology for collecting, transcribing, and analysing multimodal data, which in a final chapter I apply to areas of the linguistic system other than negation—namely, progressivity, epistemic modality, and focus operations. This thesis offers an in-depth multimodal analysis of grammatical notions in English, especially negation, and establishes a link between grammar, gesture, and cognition

V této práci prozkoumáváme existující algoritmy pro přijímání jazyků definovaných bezkontextovými gramatikami. Na základě těchto znalostí navrhujeme nový model pro reprezentaci LR automatů a s jeho pomocí definujeme nový algoritmus LSCELR. Modifikujeme algoritmy pro přijímání jazyků k vytvoření algoritmů pro překlad založený na překladových gramatikách. Definujeme atributové překladové gramatiky jako rozšířené překladové gramatiky pro definici vztahů mezi vstupními a výstupními symboly překladu. Implementujeme překladový framework ctf založený na gramatikách, který implementuje překlad pomocí LSCELR. Definujeme jazyk pro popis atributových překladových gramatik a implementujeme překladač pro překlad této reprezentace do zdrojového kódu pro implementovaný framework.

In this thesis I explore the use of an algebraic (software) specification language (ASL) in the description and modelling of natural language grammar. I am particularly concerned with the application of methods of loose specification and stepwise refinement, and modularisation and parameterisation. I have some background on the use of specifications in software engineering, and suggest some benefits one might obtain from the use of such disciplines in the description of grammar. I introduce the language ASL and the algebraic concepts underlying it. I consider how we might describe the notion of constituency, independent of concrete styles of grammar, and how this leads to the need for an intensional domain. By enriching this domain, we can deal with matters such as agreement. I sketch abstract specifications of core treatments in PATR-II, LFG, GPSG and HPSG. Some consideration is given to the use of institutions to allow us to work in different (logical or programming) languages. I develop, in tandem, abstract descriptions and parameterised implementations to deal with topicalisation and wh-relatives. Lastly, I consider how loose specification and parameterisation may be employed in developing a cross-linguistic treatment for some phenomenon - in this case, dependent clause order in English, German and Dutch. This involves specification of a grammar in the dependency tradition.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Linguistics, 2006.
Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Nov. 20, 2008). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-09, Section: A, page: 3381. Adviser: Stuart Davis.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 1999.
Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 351-362). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users. Address: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/uoregon/fullcit?p9957575.

xxxix, 729 p. : ill. (some col.)
Kurtop is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by approximately 15,000 people in Northeastern Bhutan. This dissertation is the first descriptive grammar of the language, based on extensive fieldwork and community-driven language documentation in Bhutan. When possible, analyses are presented in typological and historical/comparative perspectives and illustrated with ample data, drawn mainly from texts but also elicitation as need be. Within Tibeto-Burman, Kurtop has been placed within the East Bodish sub-branch. Data presented in this study support this placement and confirm previous observations that the East Bodish languages are close relatives, but not direct descendants of Classical Tibetan. The link between the current East Bodish languages and Bhutanese prehistory remains unclear but the Kurtop grammar is a first step at understanding the historical relations. The most remarkable aspect of Kurtop phonology is the tonal system, which is contrastive following the sonorants, but incipient following the obstruents, except the palatal fricative, for which tone has completely replaced a previous contrast in voicing. Tone is present only on the first syllable of stems, where vowels are also slightly longer. Kurtop is agglutinating and polysynthetic. Words generally consist of two or three syllables, but may be as long as five or six, depending mainly on suffixing morphology. Like most languages of South Asia, Kurtop exhibits verb-final syntax and the typological correlations that follow, including postposition (or relator noun constructions), auxiliaries after the verb, and sentence-final particles. The case marking system is 'pragmatic' ergative, where an ergative marker is required in some transitive contexts, but not in others. In other contexts, including for some intransitive verbs, the ergative signals a variety of pragmatic or semantic factors. This ergative system, though typologically unusual, is characteristic of many Tibeto-Burman languages, including neighboring Dzongkha and Tshangla. Nominalization and clause-chaining are two essential components of Kurtop syntax, constituting a majority of clauses and a diachronic source for much of the main clause grammar. The evidential/mirative system in Kurtop is also of typological interest, encoding a wide range of values pertaining to speaker expectation as well as mirativity and source of knowledge.
Committee in charge: Scott DeLancey, Chairperson and Advisor; Spike Gildea, Member; Doris Payne, Member; Gyoung-Ah Lee, Member; William Ayres, Outside Member

Bih is a Chamic (Austronesian) language spoken by approximately 500 people in the Southern highlands of Vietnam. This dissertation is the first descriptive grammar of the language, based on extensive fieldwork and community-based language documentation in Vietnam and written from a functional/typological perspective. The analysis in this work is supported with illustrations drawn mainly from texts, with examples from elicitation when needed as well. In phonology, Bih is the only mainland Chamic language to have retained all four Proto-Chamic presyllablic vowels. As a result, Bih is the only Chamic language having only primary clusters inherited from Proto-Chamic and lacks the secondary clusters created by a reduction of an original disyllable form in Proto-Chamic, which occur in other languages of the family. In addition to the vowels, Bih retains only six out of thirteen Proto-Chamic presyllable consonants, but it retains all main syllable consonants from Proto-Chamic. In addition, all voiced "aspirated" consonants in Proto-Chamic become voiceless in Bih. This phonological change is common throughout coastal Chamic and it is also shared among Bih and other two highland Chamic languages, Chru and Northern Roglai, but not with Ede. In morphological terms, Bih is an isolating language. Words are mostly monosyllabic, although there are a number of disyllable or trisyllable words with the fossilized prefixes pa- or ma- or both. Without inflection on verbs, like other mainland Southeast Asian languages, Bih includes a set of particles functioning as grammatical markers. In fact, many Bih words function as either a full lexical verb or particle depending on their syntactic behaviors. The fundamental mechanisms of Bih syntax are clause-chaining and verb serialization. Most grammatical forms develop from serial verb source constructions. Another feature of great areal typological interest is the topic and focus distinction system of Bih, which, in combination with word order alternations, indicates the discourse status of a referent: whether it is new and/or important in the discourse, or the speaker's evaluation of whether or not a referent is accessible to the mind of the hearer, or whether it contradicts a presupposition or expectation on the part of the hearer or of people in general. Bih has a very interesting obviative-like system, which uses one third person pronoun form to refer to the character whose point of view is being represented and another for all other third persons.

This thesis is a descriptive analysis of Wano, a Trans-New Guinea language found in West Papua which is spoken by approximately 7,000 native speakers. The thesis includes: (i) an introduction of Wano topography and demography; a brief ethnographic sketch; some sociolinguistic issues such as name taboo, counting system and kinship terms; and typological profile of the language in chapter 1; (ii) morphophonological properties in chapter 2; (iii) forms and functions of nouns in chapter 3; (iv) verbs in chapter 4; (v) deixis in chapter 5; (vi) clause elements in chapter 6; and (vii) intransitive/transitive non-verbal predication in chapter 7; (viii) clause combination is consecutively observed in terms of coordination and subordination in chapter 8; serial verb constructions in chapter 9; clause linking in chapter 10; and bridging linkage in chapter 11. Chapter 12 sums-up the overall thesis. Wano has 11 consonantal and 5 vocalic phonemes expressed through their allophonic variations, consonantal assimilation and vocalic diphthongs. The only fricative phoneme attested is bilabial fricative /Î2/. There are two open and two closed syllable patterns where all consonants are syllable-onset, while approximants can also be syllable-coda. Vowels are syllable-nucleus. Stress is syllable-final which will be penultimate in cliticization. The phonology-morphology interface provides a significant contribution to the shaping of conjugational verbs, which, in turn, plays an essential role to an understanding of Wano verbal system where distinction between roots, stems, citation forms, sequential forms and tense-aspect-mood is defined. Wano is a polysynthetic language that displays an agglutinative-fusional morphology. Although the alienable-inalienable noun distinction is essentially simple in its morphology, the sex-distinction of the possessor between kin terms allows room for semantic-pragmatic complexity in the interpretation of their various uses. Wano has four non-verbal predications, consists of experiential event, nominal, adjectival, and deictic predicates. Wano is a verb-final language that allows pronominal pro-drop and has no rigid word order for arguments. A clause may consist only of (i) a single verb, (ii) a single inalienable noun, (iii) a serial verb construction, (iv) a combination of an inalienable noun with a verb, and or (v) a combination of an inalienable noun with a serial verb construction. To maintain discourse coherency, Wano makes use of tail-head linkage construction. The thesis consists of: pre-sections (i-xxxiii), contents (1-478), bibliography (479-498), and appendices (499-594) that include verb paradigms, noun paradigms, some oral texts and dialectal wordlist.

This dissertation constitutes the first attempt at describing the grammar of Wampis (Spanish: Huambisa), a language spoken in the Peruvian Amazon. Wampis belongs to the so-called Jivaroan family of languages and is closely related to sister languages Awajun, Shuar, Shiwiar and Achuar. The grammar introduces the Wampis people and some aspects of their culture and history before analyzing the major aspects of the language from a grammatical perspective. Wampis possesses a complex prosodic system that mixes features of tone and stress. Vowel elision processes pervade most morphophonological processes. Nasalization is also present and spreads rightward and leftward through continuants and vowels. Every word in Wampis needs at least one high tone, but more can occur in a word. Morphologically, Wampis is a very rich language. Nouns and especially verbs have very robust morphology. Affixes and enclitics contribute different meanings to words. Some morphemes codify semantic categories that are not grammatically codified in many other languages, such as sudden realization, apprehensive and mirative modalities. An outstanding feature of Wampis is the pattern of argument indexation on the verb, which follows an uncommon pattern in which the verb agrees with the object (and not with the subject) if the object is a Plural Speech Act participant. Parallel to this pattern of argument indexation is the typologically uncommon pattern of object marking in Wampis, whereby a third person object noun phrase is not marked as an object if the subject is a first plural, second singular or second plural person. Wampis exhibits a nominative-accusative alignment. All notional objects (direct, indirect, object of applicative) are treated identically in the syntax. The preferred order is A P V. Wampis also possesses a sophisticated system of participant tracking, which is instantiated in the grammar via switch-reference markers. Another typologically uncommon feature of Wampis is the presence of a sub-system of switch-reference markers that track a participant that is not a subject. Throughout the twenty-one chapters of this grammar, other issues of Wampis related to different areas of phonology, morphology and syntax are also addressed and described from a functional and a typological perspective.

Die Promotionsschrift ist eine deskriptive Grammatik der ozeanischen Sprache Daakaka. Die Sprache wird von etwa eintausend Sprechern auf der vulkanischen Insel Ambrym im Pazifikstaat Vanuatu gesprochen. Die Arbeit entstand im Rahmen eines Dokumentationsprojekts, vor dessen Beginn im Jahr 2009 die Sprache weder beschrieben noch nennenswert verschriftet war. Empirische Grundlage der Beschreibung ist die umfangreiche Datensammlung der Autorin. Unter den vielen bemerkenswerten Eigenschaften der Sprache finden sich ein sehr komplexes System nominaler Possession, semitransitive und pluraktionale Verben und eine außergewöhnlich große Bandbreite von Serialverbkonstruktionen.
The dissertation is a descriptive Grammar of the Oceanic language Daakaka. The language is spoken by about one thousand speakers on the volcanic island of Ambrym in the pacific nation of Vanuatu. The grammar was written in the course of a documentation project which started in 2009, and before which the language had neither been described nor written down. Among the many remarkable properties of the language are a very system of nominal possession, semitransitive and pluractional verbs and an exceptional range of serial verb constructions.

Cette thèse est une description des systèmes phonologique et morphosyntaxique du kwakum, langue bantu A90 parlée dans la région de l’Est du Cameroun. Les données qui sont analysées dans ce travail ont été collectées à Sibita, un village de l’Arrondissement de Doumé. Le kwakum a une série de 28 consonnes parmi lesquelles des occlusives aspirées et labio-vélaires. Il possède un système vocalique de sept voyelles à longueur contrastive. L’analyse tonale est basée sur la distinction H vs. B vs. 0. Le système de classe nominale est quelque peu réduit et les correspondances entre les classes du kwakum et celles du Proto Bantu restent problématiques. Il existe huit classes morphologiques qui indiquent le nombre et cinq classes nominales qui déterminent l’accord. L’on note également un accord par défaut déclenché par les noms singuliers, ce qui suggère que la réduction du système de classe nominale est encore en cours. Le syntagme nominal est le seul domaine où s’observe l’accord en classe nominale. Dans les constructions connectivales, la tête syntaxique n’est pas nécessairement la tête sémantique. Le Kwakum possède des «ambipositions» employées comme préposition si le complément est nominal et comme postposition si le complément est pronominal. L’expression du temps verbal nécessite l’utilisation d’auxiliaires ou d’affixes temporels qui peuvent être combinés à un schème tonal de remplacement apparaissant sur les bases verbales. L’ordre des constituants dans la phrase est SVO. L’on note également des phrases averbales formées de deux noms ou d’un nom/pronom et d’un démonstratif. Les appendices contiennent un lexique kwakum-français et deux textes transcrits, glosés, traduits accompagnés de fichiers audio
This thesis provides an analysis of the phonological and morphosyntactic systems of Kwakum, a Bantu A90 language spoken in the East Region of Cameroon. The data analysed in this work was collected from Kwakum speakers living in Sibita, a village located in the Doume Subdivision. Kwakum has a series of 28 consonants, among which aspirated and labiovelars stops. Its seven-vowel system is marked by contrastive length. The tone analysis is based on the distinction H vs. L vs. 0. The noun class system is somewhat reduced and the correspondences between the Kwakum classes and those of Proto Bantu are still problematic. There are eight morphological classes, marking number, and five noun classes which determine agreement. There is also a default agreement pattern triggered by singular nouns. This suggests an ongoing breakdown of the noun class system. Noun class agreement can only be observed within the noun phrase. In connective constructions, the syntactic head is not necessarily the semantic head. Kwakum has “ambipositions”, used as prepositions with nominal complements and as postposition with pronominal complements. Tense marking involves the use of tense auxiliaries or affixes which may be combined with a replacive tone scheme assigned to the verb stem. Kwakum is a SVO language and also presents instances of non-verbal clauses involving two nouns or a noun/pronoun and a demonstrative. The appendices include a Kwakum-French lexicon and two texts transcribed glossed and time-aligned with audio

Le mauricien est un créole à base française avec un lexique d’origine française pour au moins 90%, sans statut officiel et de graphie récente (Hookoomsing 2004, Police-Michel et al 2011). À part l’étude générale de Baker (1972), les principales études syntaxiques portent sur le domaine nominal (Guillemin 2011, Alleesaib 2012) ou verbal (Henri 2010) ou sur les deux (Syea 2012). Cette thèse est consacrée aux adverbes qu’il convient de distinguer des autres catégories, dans une langue avec peu de morphologie flexionnelle et dont les autres catégories sont aussi invariables, à part les verbes qui peuvent avoir deux formes (forme longue (FL) et forme courte (FC))(Corne 1982, Henri & Abeillé 2008, Henri 2010) et certains noms qui peuvent agglutiner l’article (Bonami & Henri 2010). Nous montrons que les adverbes ont une syntaxe particulière qui se distingue de celle des adverbes du français: la plupart sont post verbales et certains se comportent syntaxiquement comme des compléments et non comme des ajouts, en déclenchant la FC du verbe. Du point de vue méthodologique, nous nous basons d’abord, sur le seul dictionnaire unilingue en mauricien, le DiksionerMorisien (Carpooran 2011) pour avoir une première base de données, puis sur les œuvres littéraires de Virahsawmy, sur le journal Lalit et sur les intuitions d’informateurs mauriciens pour tester nos hypothèses. Ensuite nous avons recours à des expériences de type psycholinguistique pour étudier les adverbes comparatifs en mauricien et en français. Dans un premier temps nous avons établi une liste de propriétés pour définir la catégorie Adverbe et pour la distinguer des autres catégories ; des prépositions (anba ‘sous’), des marqueurs TMA (ti [passé]), des pronoms (zordi ‘aujourd’hui’) et des adjectifs (agogo ‘en abondance’). Nous avons alors créé une autre base de données en ôtant de la première liste les mots que nous n’analysons pas comme adverbe et en ajoutant d’autres qui n’y figuraient pas. Ensuite, nous décrivons la formation lexicale des adverbes du mauricien qui sont majoritairement des hérités du français (vit ‘vite’). Il y a aussi des innovations du mauricien, créées par recatégorisation (mari qui vient du nom français ‘époux’ et qui est devenu l’adverbe ‘très’ en mauricien) ou par réduplication (anba-anba ‘sournoisement’). Le deuxième chapitre est consacré à une classification sémantique des adverbes; nous distinguons douze principales classes distinguables par des critères syntaxiques et sémantiques; les adverbes d’énonciations, modaux, connecteurs, évaluatifs, les adverbes d’habitude, aspectuels, temporels, les adverbes de domaine, locatifs, les adverbes de manière, les adverbes de degré et les adverbes sensibles au focus. Ensuite, nous faisons une étude syntaxique de ces classes. Nous montrons que les adverbes du mauricien peuvent avoir plusieurs fonctions: tête de phrase attributive, extrait, ajout à un verbe ou une autre catégorie et complément de verbe. En plus de la position des adverbes dans la phrase et de leur possibilité d’extraction dans les constructions clivées, l’alternance verbale en mauricien offre un critère supplémentaire pour déterminer la fonction des adverbes. Puis, nous consacrons les deux prochains chapitres à une étude approfondie de la classe des adverbes de degré (Kennedy & McNally 2005). Les adverbes de degré incluent aussi les adverbes comparatifs et nous avons réalisé une expérience avec des locuteurs natifs pour tester la distribution de pli et plis ‘plus’ en mauricien. Comme ces comparatifs de supériorité viennent du français plus prononcé /ply/ et /plys/ (sans compter la forme de liaison /plyz/), nous faisons aussi une étude expérimentale pour tester leur distribution en français. Nous concluons que la distribution de pli et plis en mauricien est en partie un héritage du français. Finalement, nous présentons la syntaxe des adverbes en mauricien dans le cadre HPSG qui est une théorie linguistique basée sur des contraintes (Sag et al. 2003)
Mauritian is a French-based creole with at least 90% of its lexicon inherited from French. It has no official status and a recent standardised written form (Hookoomsing 2004, Police-Michel, Carpooran & Florigny 2011). Apart form the general study of Baker (1972), most syntactic studies concern the nominal domain (Guillemin 2011, Allesaib 2012) or the verbal domain (Henri 2010) or both (Syea 2012).This dissertation is devoted to the study of adverbs, which is important to distinguish from other categories, especially in such a language with little morphology, and where the other categories are also invariable, apart from verbs that may have two forms (a long form and a short form) (Corne 1982, Henri & Abeillé 2008, Henri 2010) and nouns that may agglutinate the article (Bonami & Henri 2010). We also show that Mauritian adverbs have a particular syntax that differentiates them from French adverbs: most of the adverbs occur post-verbally and some are syntactic complements and not adjuncts, triggering the verb short form. On the methodological level, initially, we rely on the unique unilingual dictionary available in Mauritian, the Diksioner Morisien (Carpooran 2011) to obtain a first database of adverbs, and then on the literary works of the contemporary author Dev Virahsawmy, on articles from the online journal of the political party Lalit (www.lalitmauritius.org) and on the intuitions of Mauritian informants, to test our hypotheses. We also made use of more formal experimental methods to study and compare comparative adverbs in Mauritian and French.At first, we established a list of properties to define the category Adverb and to differentiate them from the other categories in Mauritian, namely prepositions (anba ‘under’), TMA markers (ti [past], pronouns (zordi ‘today’) and adjectives (agogo ‘in abundance’). Thereby, we created a new database of 428 adverbs after removing words that we do not analyse as adverbs, and adding others that were not in the list. Then, we described the lexical formation of Mauritian adverbs that are mostly French inheritances (vit ‘fast’). There are, however, some Mauritian innovations, created by recategorisation (for e.g. mari comes from the French noun mari ‘husband’ and has become a degree adverb ‘very’ in Mauritian) or by reduplication (anba-anba ‘sneakily’).The second chapter of the dissertation is devoted to a semantic classification of the adverbs; we distinguish twelve main semantic classes distinguishable by syntactic and semantic criteria; speech-act adverbs, modal adverbs, connectives, evaluatives, habitual adverbs, aspectual adverbs, domain adverbs, locatives, manner adverbs, degree adverbs and focus sensitive adverbs. Then, we studied these semantic classes of adverbs from a syntactic perspective. We show that Mauritian adverbs may function in several ways. They may be heads of copular sentences, fillers in sentence initial position, adjuncts to a verb or to another category or complements to a verb. In addition to the position of adverbs in a sentence and their possibility to be extracted in clefted constructions, the verbal alternation between a long form and a short form offers an additional criterion to determine the function of adverbs in Mauritian. The last two chapters are devoted to a detailed study of the class of degree adverbs (Kennedy & McNally 2005), including comparative adverbs (as…as, more, less). We developed experimental methods to test the distribution of pli and plis in Mauritian with native speakers. Then, since these superiority comparatives come from French plus pronounced /ply/ and /plys/ (apart from the liaison form /plyz/), we experimentally tested the distribution in French. We conclude that the distribution of Mauritian pli and plis is partly an inheritance of French. Finally, we sketch representations of the syntactic functions of Mauritian adverbs in HPSG, a formal constraint-based framework (Sag et al. 2003)