Добірка наукової літератури з теми "(morphosyntactic) categorisation"

AbstractThis paper investigates the semantic bases of class membership in the noun class system of Gújjolaay Eegimaa (Eegimaa henceforth), a Niger-Congo and Atlantic language of the BAK group spoken in Southern Senegal. The question of whether semantic principles underlie the overt classification of nouns in Niger-Congo languages is a controversial one. There is a common perception of Niger-Congo noun class systems as being mainly semantically arbitrary. The goal of the present paper is to show that physical properties and culture-specific factors are central principles of semantic categorisation in the Eegimaa noun class system. I argue that the Eegimaa overt grammatical classification of nouns into classes is a semantic categorisation system whereby categories are structured according to prototypicality, family resemblance, metaphorical and metonymic extensions and chaining processes, as argued within the framework of Cognitive Linguistics. I show that the categorisation of entities in the Eegimaa nominal classification system productively makes use of physical properties such as shape as well as using culture-specific, less productive parameters for the semantic categorisation of entities denoted by nouns. The analysis proposed here also shows that the cases of multiple morphosyntactic classifications of nouns reflect multiple conceptual categorisation strategies. A detailed examination of the formal and semantic instances of multiple classification reveals the existence of conceptual correlations between the physical properties and the culture-specific semantic parameters of categorisation used in the Eegimaa noun class system.

Many schools of modern linguistics generally adopt a rigid approach to categorisation by not allowing degrees of form class membership, degrees of resemblance to a prototype or overlaps between categories. This all-or-none conception of categorisation (Bolinger 1961) goes back to Aristotle, and has been pervasive and influential, especially in formal linguistics. The alternative view, prevalent amongst descriptive and cognitive linguists, is to posit grammars which pervasively display categorial vagueness, more usually called gradience. In this article I will begin by briefly tracing some of the ideas on gradience in linguistics and philosophy. I will then argue, firstly, that gradience should have a role to play in language studies (both descriptive and theoretical). Secondly, I will show that two types of category fluidity should be distinguished. One type I will call Subsective Gradience (SG). It is intra-categorial in nature, and allows for members of a class to display the properties of that class to varying degrees. The other type is called Intersective Gradience (IG). This is an inter-categorial phenomenon which is characterised by two form classes ‘converging’ on each other. Thirdly, I will argue that while the two types of gradience are grammatically real, IG is not as widespread as is often claimed. Finally, in this article I will attempt to be more precise about the vague phenomenon of gradience. To this end I will devise a formalisation of SG and IG, using a number of case studies mainly from English. The formalism makes use of morphosyntactic tests to establish whether an item belongs to a particular class or to a ‘bordering’ one by weighing up the form class features that apply to the item in question. This article can be seen to argue for a midway position between the Aristotelian and the cognitivist conceptions of categorisation in that I will defend a position that allows for gradience, but nevertheless maintains sharp boundaries between categories. The ideas put forward in this article have wider implications for the study of language, in that they address the problem posed by the existence of a tension between generally rigidly conceived linguistic concepts and the continuous phenomena they describe.

This study investigates the effect of instructional design on (morpho)syntactic complexity in second language (L2) writing development. We operationalised instructional design in terms of task type and empirically based the investigation on a large subcorpus (669,876 writings by 119,960 learners from 128 tasks at all Common European Framework of Reference for Languages levels) of the EF-Cambridge Open Language Database (EFCAMDAT; Geertzen, Alexopoulou and Korhonen 2014). First, the 128 task prompts were manually categorised for task type (e.g. argumentation, description). Next, developmental trajectories of syntactic complexity from A1 to C2 were established using a variety of global (e.g. mean length of clause) and specific (e.g. non-third person singular present tense verbs) measures extracted using natural language processing techniques. The effects of task type were analysed using the categorisation from the first step. Finally, tasks that showed atypical behaviour for a measure given their task type were explored qualitatively. Our results partially confirm earlier experimental and corpus-based studies (e.g. subordination associated with argumentative tasks). Going beyond, our large-scale data-driven analysis made it possible to identify specific measures that were naturally prompted by instructional design (e.g. narrations eliciting wh-phrases). We discuss which measures typically align with certain task types and highlight how instructional design relates to L2 developmental trajectories over time.

Auf der Grundlage der Chomskyschen Grammatiktheorie sowie der jüngsten Ergebnisse zur Informationsstrukturierung erfolgt die Untersuchung von Syntax, Morphologie und Semantik pronominaler Klitika in der bulgarischen Sprache. Im Mittelpunkt stehen die morphosyntaktischen Konfigurationen, in denen die Objektklitika vorkommen und deren prosodische, semantische und informationsstrukturelle Interpretation. Dabei geht es vor allem um folgende Punkte: • lexikalische Kategorisierung der Objektklitika • Bedingungen für das Vorkommen der Objektklitika • Kongruenzbeziehung zum verdoppelten Objekt • Funktion der Klitika und ihre Bedeutung für die informationsstrukturelle Gliederung des Satzes Rudin (1995) und Franks (1998) faßten die bulgarischen Klitika als funktionale Köpfe in der erweiterten lexikalischen Projektion von Verben auf, bei Dimitrova-Vulchanova (1998) sind sie Köpfe einer komplexen klitischen Projektion in satzinitialer Position. Schick & Zimmermann (1995) betrachten die Klitika als Adjunkte einer funktionalen Kategorie mit der Funktion, Topikalität auszudrücken. In meiner Darstellung folge ich diesen Ansätzen nicht, sondern versuche für die Fälle, in denen Klitika Stellvertreter für Nominalphrasen sind bzw. diese verdoppeln, ein anderes Erklärungsmuster zu geben. On the basis of Chomsky's Generative Theory as well as of the latest results in information structure the syntax, morphology, and semantics of object clitics in modern Bulgarian are investigated. The study examines the morphosyntactic configurations in which object clitics occur, as well as their prosodic and semantic interpretation, and the interpretation of their information structure. The following points are emphasized: • lexical categorisation of object clitics • conditions under which object clitics occur • agreement relation between object clitic and argument noun phrase • function of clitics and their meaning for the information structure of the sentence. Rudin (1997) and Franks (1998) analyse the object clitics as functional agreement (nonargument) heads in the extended projection of the verb. Dimitrova-Vulchanova (1998) argues that pronominal clitics head their own projection ClP. Schick & Zimmermann (1997) analyse the pronominal clitics as non-projecting adjuncts to a functional category F. The functional category F triggers raising of topics from the lexical projection VP. In my analysis, instead of following this approach, I try to give a different explanatory model for those cases where the clitics stand in place of argument noun phrases or double these phrases.

Cette thèse étudie empiriquement l’évolution du gérondif et du participe présent en latin tardif et examine sur la base de cette étude l’impact de leur fusion morphologique en ancien français sur leur distinction catégorielle. Les résultats confirment l’hypothèse standard de l’évolution du gérondif et du participe présent en latin tardif, mais seulement en partie : ils soutiennent une spécialisation du gérondif dans la syntaxe externe de l’adverbe, mais pas du participe présent dans celle de l’adjectif. Ainsi, le gérondif montre des signes de « converbalisation », alors que le participe présent ne subit pas de processus de « participialisation ». Comme le gérondif, le participe présent a une syntaxe externe principalement adverbiale, et ressemble ainsi plus à un converbe qu’à un participe (cf. Haspelmath 1995 : 4). Cette similitude fonctionnelle entre le gérondif et le participe présent en latin tardif fait que leur fusion morphologique en ancien français pose un problème majeur pour leur distinction catégorielle. Une proportion considérable des formes en -ant en ancien français (38%) est catégoriellement indéterminée, i.e. non catégorisable comme des gérondifs ou des participes présents – même en supposant que le gérondif et le participe présent n’empiètent pas sur la distribution de l’autre, ni dans le passage du latin tardif à l’ancien français, ni durant la période de l’ancien français. Ce constat amène à conclure que la fusion morphologique du gérondif et du participe présent en ancien français entraine la fusion de ces deux types de formes verbales aussi sur le plan catégoriel. L’étiquette proposée pour ce blend catégoriel est purement formelle : « forme en -ant »
This dissertation empirically investigates the evolution of the gerund and the present participle in Late Latin, and examines on the basis of this investigation the impact of their morphological merging in Old French on their categorial distinction. The results of this thesis confirm the standard hypothesis of the evolution of the gerund and the present participle in Late Latin, but only partly: they support a specialisation of the gerund in adverbial external syntax, but not of the present participle in adjectival external syntax. Thus, the gerund shows signs of ‘converbalisation’, while the present participle does not undergo a process of ‘participialisation’. Like the gerund, the present participle in Late Latin has mostly adverbial external syntax, and is as such more converb-like than participle-like (cf. Haspelmath 1995: 4). This functional similarity between the gerund and the present participle in Late Latin makes that their morphological merging in Old French raises a major problem for their categorial distinction. A considerable proportion of all Old French ant forms (38%) is categorially indeterminate, that is, not categorisable as either gerunds or present participles – even under the assumption that the gerund and the present participle do not encroach on each other’s distribution, neither in the transition from Late Latin to Old French, nor during the Old French period. This finding leads to the conclusion that the morphological merging of the gerund and the present participle in Old French causes these two types of non-finite verb forms to merge also on a categorial level. The label proposed for this categorial blend is the purely formal one ‘-ant form’