UTASCILT 18 - UT Arlington – UTA€¦ · A corpus-based examination of repluralized pronouns in...
Transcript of UTASCILT 18 - UT Arlington – UTA€¦ · A corpus-based examination of repluralized pronouns in...
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UTASCILT 18
The 18th
Annual UT Arlington Student Conference in Linguistics and TESOL
March 3-4, 2011, The University of Texas at Arlington
Presentation Abstracts
Sa'a Event Structures: Variations on a 'Thematic' C
Karen Ashley, GIAL
Typological Rara (and Rarissima) in Khevsur and Tush
Thomas Wier, University of Chicago
Syntactic Deviation in Partially Schematic Constructions: A corpus-based
approach to COME/GET to V2 constructions in English
Nicholas Lester, UNT
A corpus-based examination of repluralized pronouns in Tuvan
Vitaly Voinov, UT Arlington
First Conjunct Agreement: A Feature-Driven Analysis (Withdrawn)
Feras Saeed, English and Foreign Languages University Hyderabad
The Role of Givenness in Swahili Reciprocal Constructions
Mohamed Mwamzandi, UT Arlington
The Problem of the Second Person Plural Pronoun in English
Elizabeth Weinrich, BaylorUniversity
Circumscribing Matched Guise Technique‘s potential: geographical origin
as a prejudice trigger
Laura Di Ferrante & Sergio Pizziconi, Texas A&M Commerce
Speech Acts or the prototypes of speech acts. An application of the Total
Cognitive Response (ToCoRe) to TESOL
Sergio Pizziconi, Texas A&M Commerce
From knowing ―one‖ to ―two‖: evidence for self-initiated early correct use
of ―two‖
Felix Wang, Dartmouth College
The Acquisition of English Past Tense by Junior High School Students in
Taiwan (Withdrawn)
Kuan-Ming Edward Teng, National Tsing Hua University
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The Aspect Hypothesis and the Acquisition of L2 Japanese Tense and
Aspect by English Native Speakers (Withdrawn)
Kyoko Tomikura, CSU Northridge
The effect of computer-mediated communication (CMC) interaction on
L2 vocabulary acquisition: A comparison study of CMC interaction and
face-to-face interaction
Ju-Young Lee, UT Arlington
Investigating the Missing of the Indefinite Article and Copula be in the
production skills of Iraqi Learners of English
Inam Ismael Taher Al-Shaibani, Diyala University
Poster Abstracts
Wh-domains and optional wh-movement in Jarai
Joshua Jensen, UT Arlington
The Intonation of Declarative and Interrogative Sentences in Akan
Charlotte Fofo Lomotey, Texas A&M Commerce
Nonnative Speakers and Conventional Expressions within the Apology
Speech Act
Toni Taherzadeh, Texas A&M Commerce
Orthographic choices for Lamkang
Ryan Hamilton, UNT
―A shroe! A shroe! My dingkome for a shroe!‖: Compensation strategies
for comprehension in an unconventional speech of Monty Python
Audrey C. Adams, Texas A&M Commerce
‗Doing Gender‘ for Laughs: Discourse Analysis of Comedic Sketches
of Gender Performance from 1970 – 2010
Katherine Bell, Tulane University
The Proto-form of Bagobo (Tagabawa), Mandaya, Manobo, Sama and
Davao Sebuano (Withdrawn)
Peter Jon L. Mendoza, Mindanao State University
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Sa'a Event Structures: Variations on a 'Thematic' C
Karen Ashley
Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics
ABSTRACT
Many Oceanic languages have two suffixes which attach to transitive verbs before an object
marker is added: -(C)i and -(C)akini, where C is a variable consonant chosen from a limited set.
Historical studies refer to these consonants as 'thematic', explaining the variation as a reanalysis
of original root-final consonants. However, such an explanation does not adequately account for
roots occurring with more than one C variant in the same language. These examples indicate that
the consonants are more than just empty fossils. Several attempts have been made to explain the
variants in terms of semantic groupings, but the proposed groups are limited in scope and do not
serve to explain why close synonyms can occur in different semantic groups with different
consonants. While there is evidence in Polynesian languages that the consonants are gradually
shifting towards a single default consonant, other Oceanic languages have no single consonant
that is statistically dominant.
In the Sa'a language the consonants also occur in nominalizers with the form -Ca. In the
nominalizer environment there are many sets of minimal pairs and even triplets which allow
clear meaning differences to be discerned. I show that while these differences are subtle, they
carry over to the verbal environments, where they often distinguish changes in the structure or
lexical aspect of the event from what is indicated by the bare root. The resulting derived verbs
are frequently applied in culturally specific ways, which may result in glosses which do not seem
to overtly indicate a change in event structure or aspect.
In this paper I show that the consonants should be considered as separate morphemes, each with
a unique meaning indicating event structure, aspect, and/or participant involvement. If the
consonants are morphemes in their own right, both of the so-called suffixes should more properly
be called suffix sequences. The Sa'a consonant meanings have explanatory value for
constructions cognate to puzzling examples from other Oceanic languages. Perhaps the results
found in Sa'a will prompt other researchers in the Oceanic family to consider aspectual and event
structure functions for the 'thematic' consonants in the verbal suffix sequences.
Examples
(1) Caused achievement: ha'a-siho 'to cause to descend
Oto kire dau huni ha'a-siho=a iiola aa-na haka,
then 3PL do to CAUS-descend=3S canoe PREP-3S ship
'Then they tried to lower the ship's canoe.'
(2) Caused activity: ha'-siho-l=i 'to do the activity of causing something to descend
Oto ko ha'a-siho-l=i=e mola mwala na mo ola ikire
then IMPV CAUS-descend-ACT=LOC=3s merely people and PL.ART things
3PL.POSS
'So it (the ship) was just unloading the people and their things.'
(3) Activity: uusu-l-e-'i-n=i 'to do the activity of pushing to'
E uusu-l-e-'i-n=i=e mola iiola ingeie.
3S push-ACT-NMLZ-ATTR-APPL=LOC=3S merely canoe 3SG.POSS
‗He just poled his canoe.‘
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(4) Achievement: uusu-ng-e-'i-n=i 'to do a pushing event to'
Pwaapwaa e uusu-ng-e-'i-n=i=e kele mwela huni toli
dunge.
Grandma 3S push-EV-NMLZ-ATTR-APPL=LOC=3S DIM child to bring fire
‗Grandma sent a little child to bring fire.‘
References
Arms, David. 1973. Whence the Fijian transitive endings? Oceanic Linguistics 12.503-58.
Clark, Ross. 1977. Eastern Oceanic transitive suffixes and the genesis of rules. Paper presented
at the Austronesian Symposium, Linguistic Society of America Institute, University of
Hawaii.
Evans, Bethwyn. 2003. A study of valency-changing devices in Proto Oceanic. No. 539.
Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
Hale, Kenneth. 1973. Deep-surface canonical disparities in relation to analysis and change: An
Australian example. Current trends in linguistics, ed. by Thomas Sebeok. Vol. 11. The
Hague: Mouton.
Lichtenberk, Frantisek. 2001. On the morphological status of thematic consonants in two
Oceanic languages. Issues in Austronesian morphology: A focusschrift for Byron W.
Bender, ed. by Joel Bradshaw and Kenneth L. Rehg, 123-147. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
Lynch, John, Malcolm Ross and Terry Crowley. 2002. The Oceanic languages. Richmond:
Curzon Press.
Pawley, Andrew. 1973. Some problems in Proto-Oceanic grammar. Oceanic Linguistics 12.103-
188.
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Typological Rara (and Rarissima) in Khevsur and Tush
Thomas Wier
University of Chicago
ABSTRACT
Khevsur and Tush are endangered highly divergent dialects (perhaps separate languages)
of Georgian spoken in eastern Georgia near the border with Chechnya and Ingushetia in the
Russian Federation. They are interesting for a number of reasons, not least among which the
intimate and not fully understood contact they have long had with Nakh-Daghestanian languages
that lie north of the Caucasus Mountains. However, in this talk we will show from a new
dialectological corpus being produced that this question of language contact is also connected to
a number of highly unusual grammatical features: unusual forms of question formation, ditropic
(aka Klavans type five) clitics, degrammaticalization and case-stacking.
In terms of question formation, Standard Georgian [SG] is relatively well-behaved: a
dedicated preverbal focus position operates for both single (1a) and multiple (1b) wh-questions.
Also unexceptional is the animacy restriction in (1c): animates usually precede inanimates
(Harris 1981). It has been claimed (e.g. Chomsky 1973 and many in that tradition) that question
formation is subject to a .superiority condition., under which this generalization is a hard and
fast rule. Khevsur and Tush texts show this is only a statistical truth even within Kartvelian: as
in (2), taken from a corpus, inanimates can indeed precede animates even in triple wh-formations
Much more interesting than statistical rara are true rarissima such as ditropic clitics
(Cysouw to appear) which have actually degrammaticalized from their original word internal
position as prefixes situated between the preverb and verb root and now can freely suffix to
preceding material serving as focal particles, even though they grammatical modify the
following material, as in (3). Because we have access to Old Georgian texts, we know exactly
what was possible in the ancestral dialect of Khevsur and Tush: as with modern SG, the prefixes
could not separate from the verb. What is most interesting is that these clitics show similarities
to Udi endoclitics (Harris 2002) and some constructions in Chechen (Good 2003) and Ingush
(Peterson 2001). Such constructions have also been claimed not to exist (Marantz 1988) and are
certainly cross-linguistically much harder to find. This fact suggests that the local clustering of
ditropicity might be an areal feature.
Another construction that shows possible influence from Nakh-Daghestanian languages
is the particular kind of case-stacking seen in Khevsur and Tush is as in (4). Although Old (and
to a limited extent modern) Georgian did show Suffixaufnahme in which genitival nouns must
agree with their head noun, such genitives rarely if ever functioned as arguments of verbs. In
Khevsur and Tush, on the other hand, Suffixaufnahme properly speaking has been lost, but
instead semantically recipient arguments may be marked with both genitive and adverbial case.
The interest here lies in the fact that Nakh-Daghestanian languages often build oblique cases on
particular oblique stems of the form [ROOT]-[OBL]-[CASE] . the .obliqueness. can actually be
segmented out, as in Lak. This talk will argue that centuries of bilingualism resulted in rather
deep contact of ND languages on Khevsur and Tush using indigenous morphological resources.
(1) a. ra-s a-k.et-eb-s (*ras)
what-DAT PRV-do-TH-3SG
b. vin ra-s a-k.et-eb-s
who.NOM what-DAT PRV-do-TH-3SG
―Who is doing what?‖
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c. *ra-s vin a-k.et-eb-s
what-DAT who.NOM PRV-do-TH-3SG
―Who is doing what?‖
(2) .em-tan-it ro c.a-xv-av, rom ra-s vin vis
1SG-with-INST if PVB-roll.up-TH that what-DAT who.NOM who.DAT
s-tx-ov-d-as=av
3-ask-TH-IMPF-3SG=QUOT
―If you will roll it up for me so that whatever anyone asks of anyone…‖
(3) .em-s ga-mdidr-eb-ul-eb-s m-txov-ar-a-eb-s=tana=.
my-DAT PVB-rich-TH-PART-PL-DAT PART-ask-PART-?-PL-DAT=at=2
c.a-vid-a=v
PVB-go.OPT-OPT2=QUOT
―You should come to those who have asked [to be?] among those made wealthy.‖
(4) peqh-t ra-s .a-v-i-c-om-d-i=v?‖ u-tkv-am-is
foot-DAT.PL what-DAT PVB-1-PRV-fall-TH-IMPF-1/2IMPF=QUOT PRV-say-TH-3SG
memcxvar-is-ad
shepherd-GEN-ADV
―How could I fall flat on my feet?‖ he says to the shepherd.‖
References
Chomsky, Noam. 1973. .Conditions on transformations.. In Anderson, Stephen R. & Kiparsky,
Paul (eds.). A festschrift for Morris Halle. New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston. 287-307.
Cysouw, Michael. To appear. .Morphology in the wrong place . a survey of preposed enclitics..
Dressler, Wolfgang U. (ed.) Morphology and its Demarcations. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Good, Jeff. 2003. Strong linearity: Three case studies towards a theory of morphological
templatic constructions. Ph.D. thesis, University of California at Berkeley.
Harris, Alice. 1981. Georgian syntax. Cambridge: CUP.
Harris, Alice. 2002. Endoclitics and the Origins of Udi Morphosyntax. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Marantz, A. 1988. ―Clitics, morphological merger, and the mapping to phonological structure‖.
In Theoretical Morphology: Approaches in Modern Linguistics, M.
Hammond and M. Noonan (eds.), 253-270. San Diego, Calif.: Academic Press.
Peterson, D. A. 2001. ―Ingush .a: The elusive Type 5 clitic?‖ Language 77 (1): 144-155.
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Syntactic Deviation in Partially Schematic Constructions: A corpus-based approach to
COME/GET to V2 constructions in English
Nicholas Lester
University of North Texas, Denton
ABSTRACT
This paper examines two English polyverbal constructions, COME to V2 and GET to V2, as
exemplified in (1) and (2), respectively.
(1) The senator came to know thousands of his constituents
(2) Little Johnny got to eat ice cream after every little league game
Previous studies considered these types of constructions (though come and get as used here have
not been sufficiently studied) as belonging to a special class of complement constructions, in
which the infinitive is regarded as having what may be termed OBJ status (in the sense that it
heads an embedded predicate hierarchically subordinate to the matrix verb, whose null subject
PRO is an anaphor of the matrix NPSUB or NPDO, and which as a whole behaves similarly to NPs)
(e.g. Rudanko, 2002; McCawley, 1988), or alternatively, as being instances of RAISING (e.g.
McCawley, 1988). These constructions in particular are of interest because they represent
atypical instances of complementation -- neither come nor get is construed as a paradigmatically
centric example of complement taking verbs (as perhaps say or expect might be). The present
paper examines these constructions more closely from an ultra-fine-grained, quantitative corpus-
linguistic approach . Using the concordance software AntConc, 1126 examples of GET to V2
and 975 of COME to V2 were retrieved with regular expressions from the American National
Corpus, 2nd
edition. Manual weeding-out of false hits yielded 597 and 478 true hits,
respectively. For the purpose of statistically comparing these data sets to a reference sample, an
additional 82,427 examples of V1 to V2 were retrieved (where V = any lemmatized verb,
including COME and GET), of which 68,982 (reduced later to a random sample of 1000) were
identified as true hits. These results were then cleaned up with R (a programming and statistics
environment) and manually coded for V1 and V2 lemmas, tense/mood/person/number of V1,
aspect/voice of V2, and separately labeled for clause type (whether V1 is a complement,
infinitive, or the object of a modal, and if so, of what species). In order to discover the
productivity of these partially filled constructions, the distinctive, determinant morpho-syntactic
elements of COME/GET and V1 to V2 were identified using a logistic regression. Preliminary
results indicate that both constructions exhibit non-compositonal semantic features, which in turn
correlate with morphological and lexico-syntactic choices statistically associated with their
realization.
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References
McCawley, J. D. (1988). The Syntactic Phenomena of English. Chicago: U of C Press.
Rudanko, J. (2002). Complements and Constructions: Corpus-based Studies on Sentential
Complements in English in Recent Centuries. Lanham: University Press of America.
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A corpus-based examination of repluralized pronouns in Tuvan
Vitaly Voinov
The University of Texas at Arlington
ABSTRACT
In the Tuvan language of south Siberia, certain personal and demonstrative plural
pronouns can be marked with an extra plural morpheme /LAr/ and are therefore called
repluarlized pronouns (RPs).
Table 1: Tuvan plural and repluralized pronouns
plural DPP
1 ‗we‘ bis, bis-ter bis-ter-ler
2 ‗you‘ siler siler-ler
3 ‗they olar olar-lar
DEM ‗these‘ bo-lar bolar-lar
Pronominal repluralization as a cross-linguistic phenomenon was first noted by Head
(1978), who proposed that RPs function as extra-honorifics, i.e., speakers use RPs to indicate a
greater degree of respect for hearers or a greater degree of social distance from them than that
which is indicated by normal honorific plural pronouns. Thus, RPs supplement Brown and
Gilman‘s (1960) original division of pronouns into T and V forms with a ‗super V‘ category (as
designated by Brown and Levinson (1987)).
While at first glance, this seems to be an accurate generalization of Tuvan RPs, one can
also find Tuvan utterances in which the RP forms do not easily fit as honorifics. This paper
describes how an electronic corpus of Tuvan texts was constructed in order to research the
possible functions of Tuvan RPs, and how corpus findings were assessed by native speakers of
Tuvan. The tentative conclusion is that besides serving as extra-honorifics, Tuvan RPs can also
have two functions that are not directly related to social deixis: 1) to ascribe a special status to
referents, and 2) to characterize plural referents as constituted by a plurality of internal
subgroups. These findings show that some of Head‘s (1978) proposed universals dealing with
social deixis in pronominal reference need to be tweaked in order to be able to account for the
Tuvan pronominal system.
References
Brown, Penelope & Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some universals in language
usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brown, Roger & Albert Gilman. 1960. The pronouns of power and solidarity. In Thomas
Sebeok (ed.), Style in language, 253-276. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Head, Brian F. 1978. Respect degrees in pronominal reference. In Joseph H. Greenberg
(ed.), Universals of human language, vol.3: Word structure, 151-212. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
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First Conjunct Agreement: A Feature-Driven Analysis
Feras Saeed
The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India
Abstract
In this paper, I investigate the phenomenon of First Conjunct Agreement, with the aim of
devising a mechanism by which this agreement discrepancy can be accounted for under a
uniform theory of agreement in natural language grammar. The proposed analysis is based on the
relation between availability of unvalued features and locality of domains.
First Conjunct Agreement (FCA) poses a challenge to a uniform theory of agreement in
Minimalist syntax. The verb tends to display different patterns of agreement with a conjunction
phrase depending on two factors: i) word order, i.e. whether the conjunction phrase precedes or
follows the verb; and ii) the type of DPs that are conjoined, i.e. whether they are pronominal or
non-pronominal.
There have been efforts to devise a mechanism through which FCA facts can be accounted for,
starting with clausal coordination with gapping and across-the-board extraction (Aoun,
Benmamoun, and Sportiche, 1994, 1999), late-merge (Soltan, 2006), and government (Munn,
1999). However, no adequate and satisfactory mechanism has been proposed to account for the
FCA facts in Standard Arabic.
In this language, when conjoined DPs precede the verb in SV order, no instance of First
Conjunct Agreement (FCA) arises and the verb fully agrees with the conjunction phrase:
(1) at-tullaab-u wa t-taalebaat-u jaa?-uu
the-students-m-nom and the-students-f-nom came-3.p.m
‗The (male) students and the (female) students came‘
FCA context arises when the conjoined subjects follow the verb, i.e. in VS order:
(2) jaa?-a t-tullaab-u wa t-taalebaat-u
came-3.s.m the-students-m-nom and the-students-f-nom
‗The (male) students and the (female) students came‘
(3) jaa?-at at-taalebaat-u wa t-tullaab-u
came-3.s.f the-students-f-nom and the-students-m-nom
‗The (female) students and the (male) students came‘
In FCA contexts, the verb partially agrees with the first conjunct in (person) and (gender) if the
first conjunct is a non-pronominal DP. The (number) feature is usually set to a default singular
value. However, if the first conjunct is a pronominal DP, full agreement is established with the
verb:
(4) Je?-na hunna wa aabaa-u-hunna
came-3.p.f they-f and fathers-nom-their
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‗They/f and their fathers came‘
In this paper, I argue against the clausal analysis of conjunction and claim that it is phrasal.
Further, I argue for a certain structure for conjunction phrases in Standard Arabic; one in which
both conjuncts are in the local domain of the head T. Furthermore, I take AGREE to be the right
syntactic relation for establishing agreement and propose a feature-driven mechanism for First
Conjunct Agreement in Standard Arabic and similar languages.
Selected references
Aoun, J., Benmamoun, E., & Sportiche, D. (1994). Agreement, word order, and conjunction
in some varieties of Arabic. Linguistic Inquiry, 25, 195-220.
Aoun, J., Benmamoun, E., & Sportiche, D. (1999). Further remarks on first conjunct agreement.
Linguistic Inquiry, 30, 669-681.
Benmamoun, E., & Lorimor, H. (2006). Featureless expressions: When morphophonological
markers are absent. Linguistic Inquiry, 37, 1-23.
Chomsky, N. (2000). Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In R. Martin, D. Micheals & J.
Uriagereka (Eds.), Step by step: Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik
(pp. 89-156). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Munn, A. (1999). First conjunct agreement: Against a clausal analysis. Linguistic Inquiry, 30,
643-668.
Citko, B. (2005). Agreement asymmetries in coordinate structures, Formal Approaches to Slavic
Linguistics: the Ottawa Meeting. Ottawa: Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Slavic Publications.
Corbett, G. G. (2000). Number. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Soltan, U. (2006). Standard Arabic subject-verb agreement asymmetry revisited in an agree-
based minimalist syntax. In C. Boeckx (Ed.), Agreement systems (pp. 239-265).
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
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The Role of Givenness in Swahili Reciprocal Constructions
Mohamed Mwamzandi
The University of Texas at Arlington
ABSTRACT
This paper demonstrates how pragmatic factors of given versus new information help
language users determine syntactic structures that best represent the rhetoric value of their
utterances (Prince 1981). In Swahili the participants of Reciprocal verbs are expressed via two
different syntactic frames namely, the Simple Reciprocal (SR), and the Discontinuous
Construction (DC). In SR, the participants occur as a conjoined subject NP while participants of
a DC occur in different syntactic positions: one participant in subject position and the other
participant in a postverbal position after the preposition na ‗with‘.
(1) Simple Reciprocal (2) Discontinuous Construction
a. NP1 conj NP2 [Vrec] a. [NP1] [Vrec] [PP [Pna] [NP2]]
b. NP2 conj NP1 [Vrec] b. [NP2] [Vrec] [PP[Pna] [NP1]]
Notice that the participants can be reordered in terms of which participant precedes the other in
both the SR and DC, hence, the (a) and (b) variants for each.
I present evidence to demonstrate that the syntactic positions of the participants in the
four variants of reciprocal constructions can be best explained in terms of which referent ranks
higher in the scale of givenness as demonstrated by (3) (sentences adopted from Said 1976: 93).
(3) a. Na-i-tafuta nyumba ya bwana mmoja aitwaye Sulubu.
1Sg,PRT-9ObjM-look for 9house of man one named Sulubu
‗I am looking for the house of a man named Sulubu.‘
b. [NP1 Sulubu Ngufumali] [V a-me-kosana] [PP[P na] [NP2 tajiri mwenye shamba]] 1Sulubu Ngufumali 1Agr-Perf-disagree with richman owner field
―Sulubu Ngufumali disagreed with the landlord.‖
c. #[NP2 tajiri mwenye shamba] [V a-me-kosana] [PP[P na] [NP1 Sulubu Ngufumali]]
―The landlord has disagreed with Sulubu Ngufumali.‖
(3a) is a request for information about the whereabouts of a character in the source novel, Sulubu
Ngufumali. Notice that Sulubu is explicitly mentioned in (3a). (3b) is the hearer response
implicating that Sulubu had disagreed with his landlord and therefore had moved. While it is
syntactically possible to have either the NP Sulubu Ngufumali or tajiri mwenye shamba, or both
occupy the subject position, the discourse-given NP, Sulubu Ngufumali, is preferred, hence, the
infelicity of (3c).
To explore the role of participants‘ information asymmetry in the choice of reciprocal
constructions by language users in a coherent manner, two verb categories have been selected:
conversation verbs, and marry verbs (Levin 1993). Sentences involving reciprocal conversation
verbs and marry verbs from eight Swahili pieces of literature and five newspaper articles, as well
as the Helsinki Corpus of Swahili are analyzed based on the ‗given/new principle‘ (Birner
&Ward 2009). Earlier studies have discussed derivation of the SR and DC (Vitale 1981, and
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Dimitriadis & Seidl 2002). This paper, thus, presents a different perspective on the understanding
of the semantically equivalent but pragmatically distinct variants of reciprocal constructions in
Swahili.
References
Birner, Betty J. & Ward, Gregory. 2009. Information structure and syntactic structure. Language
and Linguistics Compass, 3(4), 1167-1187.
Levin, Beth. 1993. English verb classes and alternations. The University of Chicago: Chicago.
Dimitriadis, Alexis & Seidl, Amanda. 2002. ―Statives and reciprocal morphology in Swahili.‖ In
Sauzet P. & Zribi-Hertz A.(eds.). Typologie des langues d'Afrique et universaux de la
grammaire. L'Harmattan: Paris.
Prince, Ellen. 1981. ―Towards a taxonomy of given-new information‖. In Cole, P. (ed.) Radical
pragmatics. NY: academic Press. Pp. 223-56.
Said, Mohamed M. 1976. Nyota ya Rehema. Oxford University Press, East Africa Ltd: Nairobi,
Kenya
Vitale, Anthony. 1981. Swahili Syntax. Foris Publications: Cinnaminson N.J
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The Problem of the Second Person Plural Pronoun in English
Elizabeth Weinrich
Baylor University, Texas
ABSTRACT
This presentation explores the syntax of substitutions for the second-person-plural
pronoun (abbreviated here as [2plu;pro]) in English. Specifically, it focuses on the substitution
―you all‖ ―all of you‖ and ―ya‘ll.‖ I test whether or not these substitutions act as phrases or as
phrasal pronouns through the use of constituency tests. Thus, I explore the possibility that these
substitutions behave as true [2plu;pro] or that these are only constructions of independent words
used together to convey the meaning of [2plu;pro].
In the presentation, I compare these constructions in English to a language with a regular
[2plu;pro], Russian. I also compare English to a language with a semi-regular [2plu;pro],
Spanish. Spanish is interesting in that it allows for multiple ways to convey a [2plu;pro]
depending on the speaker‘s relationship to those addressed. Though it has a regular [2plu;pro],
the presence of a respectful form in Russian also adds this complication.
I have consulted five style manuals listed below of which two recommend the use of
―you‖ as both the second-person-singular pronoun and the [2plu;pro]. These were
Understanding English Grammar and The Writer’s Harbrace Handbook, both of which are
specifically about grammar. The remaining three do not comment on the issue at all. However,
this allows for ambiguity and the use of ―you all‖ and ―you guys‖ in discourse indicates the need
for a regular [2plu;pro]. My research, therefore, has the potential to make ―you all‖ ―all of you‖
and ―ya‘ll‖ more acceptable as regular [2plu;pro]s.
Bibliography
Bobaljik, Jonathan David. ―Floating Quantifiers: Handle With Care.‖ uconn.edu. 2001. Web. 16
January 2010.
Garcia, Erica C. The Role of Theory in Linguistic Analysis: the Spanish Pronoun System.
Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1975. Print.
Glenn, Cheryl and Loretta Gray. The Writer’s Harbrace Handbook. 3rd edition. Boston:
Thomson Wadsworth, 2007. Print.
Kolln, Martha and Robert Funk. Understanding English Grammar. 7th edition. New York:
Pearson Education, 2006. Print.
Modern Language Association. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 7th edition.
New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2009. Print.
Strunk Jr., William and E.B. White. The Elements of Style. 4th edition. New York: Longman,
2000. Print.
Turabian, Kate L. A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. 7th
edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Print.
15 | P a g e
Circumscribing Matched Guise Technique‟s potential:
geographical origin as a prejudice trigger
Laura Di Ferrante & Sergio Pizziconi
Texas A&M University, Commerce
ABSTRACT
The matched guise technique (MGT), in its prototypical form, as established by Lambert
and colleagues in 1960, and in various modifications (see, for example, Graff, Labov, and Harris
1986), has allowed researchers to collect underlying reactions to different languages and
varieties of the same language. It is substantially aimed at investigating linguistic attitudes of
individuals toward a given social group.
Typically, the participants in the experimental group express evaluations of the socio-
economic, cultural, and personality characteristics of other people, only on the basis of listening
to their recorded voices. In other words, the informants assess people whom they have never
seen either in person, or in a photograph, or on video; about whom they have no information; the
only available element for the assessment is their voice recorded while reading a text.
Our hypothesis is that in a MGT survey, once an informant connects the voice s/he hears
to a geographical origin, it is on this last attribution that the assessments on the other dimensions
(social, cultural, and economic status and personality features) are based.
We have conducted a meta-analysis of two different surveys carried out in Italy (Di
Ferrante 2007) and Switzerland (Catricalà and Di Ferrante 2010)—expanding a previous
investigation in Italy (Volkart Rey 1990). The objective was to identify the variable that triggers
informants‘ evaluations and their implicit or explicit prejudices. On one hand, we statistically
confirmed that the MGT is a valuable tool to measure listener skills in connecting a voice to a
specific geographical origin. On the other hand, using Rank Correlation Tests of some of the
scales of assessment, we also statistically demonstrated that once an informant attributes a
geographical origin to a voice, the trigger of the prejudice switches from the voice to the
attributed geographical origin.
These results suggest that MGT is still a formidable and, in this new perspective, ever
more powerful methodological tool to elicit attitudes and prejudices towards different geographic
groups. However, its power to measure linguistic attitude and prejudice is subordinate to the
effect of other dimensions, namely geographic origin. In this sense the necessity to rethink the
techniques and methodologies to measure linguistic attitudes emerges.
16 | P a g e
References
CATRICALÀ, Maria, DI FERRANTE, Laura. 2011 (forthcoming). «Pregiudizi in movimento e
lingua italiana: un'inchiesta di matched guise nel Canton Ticino e la questione dei diritti
linguistici.» [Moving prejudices and Italian language: a matched guise survey in Canton Ticino
and the linguistic rights issue]. Proceeding of the OLSI, Vitality of a minority language. Aspects
and methodological proposals. Bellinzona, 15 - 16 October, 2010.
DI FERRANTE, Laura. 2007. Spazi linguistici in cambiamento. Una nuova inchiesta di matched
guise a Milano, Napoli e Roma [Linguistic Spaces in the move. A new matched guise survey in
Milan, Naples, and Rome], Ph.D. dissertation in Linguistics and Teaching Italian to Speakers of
Other Languages, Università per Stranieri di Siena.
GRAFF, David, LABOV, William, HARRIS Wendell A. 1986. «Testing listeners‘ reactions to
phonological markers of ethnic identity: a new method for sociolinguistic research», in
SANKOFF David (ed)., Diversity and Diachrony, Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
LAMBERT, William E., et alii. 1960. «Evaluational Reactions to Spoken Languages», Journal
of Abnormal and Social Psycology, 60 (1), pp. 44-51.
VOLKART-REY, Ramon. 1990. Atteggiamenti linguistici e stratificazione sociale. La
percezione dello status scociale attraverso la pronuncia. Indagine empirica a Catania e a Roma,
Roma: Bonacci.
17 | P a g e
Speech Acts or the prototypes of speech acts. An application of the Total Cognitive
Response (ToCoRe) to TESOL
Sergio Pizziconi
Texas A&M University, Commerce
ABSTRACT
Speech Act theory, in the way it was unfolded by Austin and Searle, proved to have several
general theoretical weaknesses, as demonstrated in the short discussion in Levinson (1983, pp.
246-82). Moreover, the literature about the use of speech acts in language teaching/learning
(Nelson et al., 2002; Beebe & Cummings, 1995; Boxer & Pickering, 1995) has demonstrated
practical hardships in collecting genuine, authentic forms to be ascribed to each speech act and in
using them in the classroom.
Nevertheless, the theory is retained as an underlying theoretical framework in all the SL or FL
teaching/learning methodologies that work with functional curricula. Not only is the use of terms
like request, apology, promise a direct legacy of the theory, but also the opposition between
direct and indirect speech acts, on one hand, and the relevance given to context and co-text
information, on the other, make clear reference to the distinction between locutionary,
illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts and to the felicity conditions, respectively.
A prototypical approach to the definition of each speech act type is presented here to configure
an alternative approach to the teaching/learning of speech acts and confine the quest for the
genuine spontaneous forms to a marginal relevance in the issue. At the same time, the
methodological suggestion can shed a different light onto the dim theoretical areas of the general
theory of speech acts.
This theoretical framing has been tested in a pilot survey in which native speakers were asked to
recognize some possible formulations of the speech act of bragging/showing-off. The results of
this survey tend to confirm the plausibility of the proposal. A synthetic representation of the
variables affecting the modifications to the central prototype to generate different realizations of
the speech act is then presented through a functional equation. A more or less extended version
of the functional equation becomes the object of study of the specific speech act.
The method presented here is aligned to a teaching methodological constellation that I have
dubbed Total Cognitive Response (ToCoRe), according to which teaching/learning materials and
activities are designed to activate a widespread interaction within and between different
cognitive and perceptual areas.
18 | P a g e
References
Beebe, L. M. & Cummings, M.C. (1995). Natural Speech Act Data Versus Written
Questionnaire Data: How Data Collection Method Affects Speech Act Performance. In S. A.
Gass, Speech Acts Across Cultures: Challenges to Communication in a Second Language (pp.
65-85). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Boxer, D. & Pickering, L. (1995). Problems in the presentation of speech acts in ELT materials:
The case of complaints. ELT Journal: English Language Teachers Journal , 49 (1), 44-57.
Levinson, S. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nelson, G. C. et alii. (2002). Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: STrategy Use in Egyptian Arabic and
American English Refusals. Applied Linguistics , 23 (2), 163-89.
19 | P a g e
From knowing “one” to “two”: evidence for self-initiated early correct use of “two”
Felix Wang
Dartmouth College, NH
In early number development, it is a slow and mysterious process for a one-knower
child to become a two-knower, a process that takes an entire 6 months (e.g., Wynn, 1992). These
findings represent a gap between the experimental results and the diary studies (e.g., Mix, 2009),
which suggest that children are able to produce correct uses of ―two‖ much younger than the
typical two-knower age (36 months). In order to examine this discrepancy, we look at when
exactly children become able to use two correctly in daily uses. Furthermore, are such early
correct uses merely coincidental (Clark & Nikitina, 2009)?
We analyzed the CHILDES corpus Manchester (Theakston et al., 2002). In this corpus,
twelve children were recorded twice every month between ages two and three. The word ―two‖
was searched using CLAN (MacWhinney, 2000), and five sentences before and after each
utterance were included for analysis. We looked for cardinal two uses, which could mean ―exact
two‖, or ―more than two‖. Only uses of two explicitly confirmed or corrected by parents were
included. Any two appeared in a counting list was excluded, so were repetitions from the
preceding five sentences and uses without confirmation from parents. Age information was
eliminated during coding, and a second coder coded 20% of the data with 93% agreement.
We found 224 cardinal uses of two under such stringent inclusion criterion, 190 of
which are correct uses (85%). Eleven children had more than three correct uses (Figure 1). The
onset of correct use was determined by the age of first use (26.2 months) and age of repeated use
(27.5 months), and two measures highly correlate (r=.91, p<.001) (Stromswold, 1989). The
frequency of correct use of two is very much significantly predicted by age of the child (Figure
2).
Some children never over-generalize two as more than two, while other children
infrequently over-generalize, which happen with and without plural markings (p>.05, Fisher‘s
exact test). Some children started correct use of two with no plural markings, similar to Spence
(Mix, 2009), and other children started to use two with pluralized nouns. For most children,
cardinal uses occur with a pluralized noun in a NP (86.6%).
Interestingly, correct uses are predominately spontaneous. Production of correct use is
not limited to nouns that often come with pairs (e.g., eyes, shoes), indicating uses are
novel/productive. In contrast, children almost never respond an NP construction alone to a ―how
many‖ question from parents. A preliminary examination of 67 answers from two children of
this sample for ―how many‖ questions shows that children either recite the count list in whole or
in part (24%), or they simply do not answer with numbers (39%), indicating that they have no
idea what the question means. When they do answer with a number word or an NP, the answer is
mostly wrong (88%). Together, these results have implications for how we should elicit ―two‖
uses from toddlers in the future, and how this trajectory of correct use foreshadows the
conceptual leap from one-knower to two-knower.
20 | P a g e
Figures
Figure 1. Total number of cardinal uses of two between two and three years of age
Figure 2.1 Relations between number of correct uses of two and age (in months)
References
Clark, Eve V. & Nikitina, Tatiana. (2009). One vs. more than one: Antecedents to plurality in
early language acquisition. Linguistics 47(1): 103-39.
MacWhinney, Brian. (2000). The CHILDES project: Tools for analyzing talk. Third Edition.
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Mix, Kelly. (2009). How Spencer made number: first uses of the number words. Journal of
Experimental Child Psychology, 102(4), 427-444.
Stromswold, Karin. (1989). Using naturalistic data: methodological and theoretical issues (or
how to lie with naturalistic data. Paper presented at the14th Annual Boston University
Child Language Conference, October 13-15, 1989.
Theakston, Anna, Leven, Elena, Pine, Julian, & Rowland, Caroline (2001). The Role of
Performance Limitations in the Acquisition of Verb-Argument Structure: An Alternative
Account. Journal of Child Language, 28(01), 127-152.
Wynn, Karen. (1992). Children‘s acquisition of the number words and the counting system.
Cognitive Psychology, 24(2), 220-251.
y = 1.2308x - 19.859
R² = 0.4775
0
10
20
30
23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36
Nu
mb
er
of
co
rrect
use
s
age (months)
Correct uses with age
21 | P a g e
The Acquisition of English Past Tense by Junior High School Students in Taiwan
Kuan-Ming Edward Teng
National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan
ABSTRACT
The aim of this current study is to investigate the effect of lexical aspect on L2 acquisition
of English past tense by junior high school students in Taiwan in terms of the Aspect Hypothesis
proposed by Andersen and Shirai (1996). The subjects in this study were 113 ninth graders (36
for Low group, 39 for Mid group, and 38 for High group) at a junior high school in the middle of
Taiwan. The study employed a cloze test to elicit data from the subjects‘ responses and explored
the research topics: (1) the prediction of the Aspect Hypothesis on simple past, (2) L1 influence
on the use of simple past, and (3) the relation between learners‘ L2 proficiency and their simple
past use among the categories of lexical aspect. Based on the statistic outcomes, the results of the
study supported the prediction of the Aspect Hypothesis on simple past. That is, simple past
initially associated with telic verbs, then spread to activities, and finally extended to states.
Meanwhile, the present study found the perfective marking –le in Mandarin Chinese might result
in a positive transfer effect on the use of simple past in English. In addition, as learners‘ general
English proficiency increases, the effect of the Aspect Hypothesis will become weakened on
learners‘ use of simple past. At last, through the study, the researcher provided some suggestions
and implications for future directions of studies and English instruction.
Keywords: the Aspect Hypothesis, lexical aspect, simple past, L2 acquisition
Selected References
Andersen, R. W., & Shirai, Y. (1996). The primacy of aspect in first and second language
acquisition: The pidgin-creole connection. In W. C. Ritchie and T. K. Bhatia (Eds.),
Handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 527-570). San Diego, CA: Academic.
Collins, L. (2002). The roles of L1 influence and Lexical aspect in the acquisition of temporal
morphology. Language Learning, 52(1), 43-94.
Shirai, Y., & Andersen, R. W. (1995). The acquisition of tense-aspect morphology: A prototype
account. Language, 71, 743-762.
22 | P a g e
The Aspect Hypothesis and the Acquisition of L2 Japanese Tense and Aspect by English
Native Speakers
Kyoko Tomikura
California State University at Northridge
ABSTRACT
This study examined the research question how English speakers acquire tense and aspect in
L2 Japanese. It reports on findings on how native speakers of American English produced and
processed, under various experimental conditions, the Japanese imperfective –te iru- tense and
aspect markers in verbs of different classes.
The Aspect Hypothesis, as formulated Baldovi-Harlig (2000), states that lexical aspectual
classes (e.g., stative, active) influence the distribution of verbal inflections and the way the
bound morphemes are acquired. Two specific predictions were tested in the study: (a) Learners
initially use past tense with achievements and accomplishments and then extend it to activity
verbs at a later developmental stage; (b) Progressive morpheme starts with activities and is then
extended to accomplishments and achievements. Research on the Aspect Hypothesis has
adduced conflicting results. Klein (2004), for example, found that the difficulties second-
language learners of L2 English were confronted with in acquiring tense and aspect systems lie
beyond syntax. In this study I followed Klein‘s reasoning and examined a combination of
morphosyntactic and semantic variables in influencing the acquisition of Japanese tense and
aspect by American high school students and the way positive evidence affected the acquisition
process. The primary investigation was English native speakers‘ acquisitions of the Japanese
aspect marker, –te iru- form, which denotes both progressive meaning and resultative meaning.
Resultatvie meaning is often captured by the English present perfect form, have V-ed as it refers
to a state resulting from an event.
The participants of the current thesis project are 16 high school students who are taking
Japanese classes as a foreign language at private high school in Los Angeles. Five of the 16
subjects were in their fourth year and the rest (11 students) were in their third year. All subjects
were between the ages of 15 and 18. Data will be collected through two tasks: a cloze test and a
truth-value judgment test. In order to measure the L2 learners‘ present knowledge of Japanese
tense and aspect, a pre-test was administered to the subjects prior to the input. The input
consisted of sentences that include the –te iru- form with resultative meaning. Finally, several
weeks after the instruction, a post-test was administered. Data collected from both tests was
analyzed to ascertain the extent to which verb classes control the development patterns of
Japanese tense and aspect of English learners.
In conclusion, we have not found evidence that indiscriminately confirms the validity of the
Aspect Hypothesis. But we found that the proficiency levels of the learners have played a
significant role, such that those at the intermediate level behaved more akin to the native
controls. In addition, we also found that subjects attended more to the proper use of verbs or
predicates rather than to aspect. The present study suggests that instructional input and
lexical/semantic cues of verbs aids English-speaking learners in interpreting the -te
iru construction.
23 | P a g e
References
Andersen, W. R. & Shirai, Y. (1994). Discourse motivations for some cognitive acquisition
principles. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 16. 133-156.
Andersen, W. R. & Shirai, Y. (1995). The acquisition of tense-aspect morphology: A prototype
account. Language, 71 (4). 743-762.
Andersen, W. R. & Shirai, Y. (1996). The primacy of aspect in first and second language
acquisition: The pidgin-creole connection. In W. Ritchie & T. Bahita (Eds.), Handbook of
Second Language Acquisition (pp 527-570). San Diego, CA: Academic Press, Inc.
Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2000). The Aspect Hypothesis. In K. Bardovi-Harlig (Ed.),
Tense and Aspect in Second Language Acquisition (pp 191-275). Oxford, U.K.:
Blackwell.
Collins, L. (2004). The particulars on universals: A comparison of the acquisition of
tense-aspect morphology among Japanese- and French-speaking learners of English. The
Canadian Modern Language Review, 61 (2), 251-274.
Comajoan, L. (2005). The early L2 acquisition of past morphology: Perfective morphology as an
aspectual marker or default Tense marker? In D. Eddington (Ed.), Selected Proceedings
of the 6th
Conference of the Acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese as First and Second
Languages (pp. 31-43). Sommerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
Hinkel, E. (1997). The past tense and temporal verb meanings in a contextual frame. TESOL
Quarterly, 31 (2), 289-313.
Ishida, M. (2004). Effects of recasts on the acquisition of the aspectual form –te i–(ru) by
learners of Japanese as a foreign language. Language Learning, 54 (2), 311-394.
Klein, E., C. (2004). Beyond Syntax: Performance Factors in L2 Behavior. In B.
VanPattern, J. Williams, S. Rott, & M. Overstreet (eds.), Form-Meaning Connections in
Second Language Acquisition (pp. 155-177). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
Publisher.
Koyama, S. (2004). Nihongo no tensu asupekuto no Shuutoku niokeru fuhensei to tobetsusei
[Universality and individuality in the acquisition of tense and aspect in Japanese]. In S.
Koyama, K. Ootomo & M. Nohara (Eds.), Gengo to Kyooiku
(pp. 415-440). Tokyo: Kuroshio Shuppan
Labeau, E. (2005). Beyond the aspect hypothesis: Tense-aspect development in advanced L2
French. EUROSLA Yearbook, 5, 77-101.
Lee, J. F., Cadierno, T., Glass, W. R., &VanPatten, B. (1997). The effect of lexical and
grammatical cues on processing past temporal reference in second language input.
Applied Language Learning, 8 (1), 1-21.
Rohde, A. (1996). The aspect hypothesis and the emergence of tense distinctions in
naturalistic L2 acquisition. Linguistics, 34, 1115-1137.
Salaberry, M. R. (1999). The development of past tense verbal morphology in
classroom L 2 Spanish. Applied Linguistics 20 (2), 151-178.
Salaberry, R. (2000). The Acquisition of English past tense in an instructional
setting. System, 28, 135-152.
24 | P a g e
The effect of computer-mediated communication (CMC) interaction on L2 vocabulary
acquisition: A comparison study of CMC interaction and face-to-face interaction
Ju-Young Lee
The University of Texas at Arlington
ABSTRACT
This study investigates the differential effects of CMC interaction (both text-chat and voice-chat)
and face-to-face interactions on university level of ESL students‘ vocabulary acquisition. More
specifically, this study examines (a) whether learners engage in negotiated interaction when they
encounter new lexical items, (b) whether CMC interaction help learners acquire new lexical
items productively, (c) whether there are any special features related to negotiation routines in
the most acquired words and the least acquired words, and (d) whether ESL students find CMC
interaction helpful for their English learning.
The participants consisted of 12 (6 male, 6 female) international students and visiting scholars at
Iowa State University. The research design included a pre-test, a treatment activity, an immediate
post-test, and a 1 week delayed post-test. The pre-test containing 24 vocabulary whose referents
were auto parts items was given to choose the target lexical items. The type of treatment activity
used in this study was an information-gap activity in which the students were required to request
and obtain information from each other to complete the task. Two post-tests (immediate and
delayed) were administered to assess the acquisition of new lexical items. The immediate and
delayed post-tests were offered to students on the treatment day and 1 week after the initial
treatment. Finally, a follow-up survey from each participant in CMC interaction group was also
used to determine the strengths and weaknesses of computer-assisted language learning (CALL)
task and the drawbacks or advantages of using such activities for language learning.
The results showed that all ESL learners in both CMC and face-to-face interaction negotiated to
complete their tasks, and all of the twelve target lexical items prompted negotiation for all of the
dyads. Moreover, the results revealed that the students in all three groups recalled more than half
of the previously unknown target lexical items in the immediate post-test and delayed post-test.
For both productive oral and written acquisition, the results revealed that all three conditions
seem to facilitate the acquisition of L2 words, as well as to ensure a good level of retention.
However, there were no statistically significant differences between groups and posttests. Thus,
meaning negotiation during computer-mediated and face-to-face interaction seems to promote
both oral and written acquisition of L2 vocabulary.
In addition, the results indicated that students tended to acquire new lexical items when they had
some background knowledge about the target words or they were negotiating both form and
meaning with their partners. A follow-up survey data showed that most of the students in both
text-chat and voice-chat CMC interaction group had a positive attitude towards this type of
activity in online, and they found synchronous chat as an interesting and helpful way of English
learning.
25 | P a g e
References
Blake, R. (2000). Computer-mediated communication: A window on L2 Spanish
interlanguage. Language Learning and Technology, 4, 120-136.
De la Fuente, M. (2002). Negotiation and oral acquisition of L2 vocabulary. Studies in
Second Language Acquisition, 24, 81-112.
De la Fuente, M. J. (2003). Is SLA interactionist theory relevant to CALL? A study on
the effects of computer-mediated interaction in L2 vocabulary acquisition. Computer Assisted
Language Learning, 16, 47-81.
Ellis, R., Tanaka, Y., & Yamazaki, A. (1994). Classroom interaction, comprehension, and
the acquisition of L2 word meanings. Language Learning, 44, 449-491.
Ellis, R., & He, X. (1999). The role of modified input and output in the incidental
acquisition of word meanings. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 21, 285-301.
Fernandez-Garcia, M., & Martinez-Arbelaiz, A. (2002). Negotiation of meaning in non-
native speaker non-native speaker synchronous discussions. CALICO Journal, 19, 279-294.
Fernandez-Garcia, M., & Arbelaiz, A. M. (2003). Learners‘ interactions: A comparison
of oral and computer-assisted written conversations. ReCALL,15(1), 113-136.
Jepson, K. (2005). Conversations-and negotiated interaction-in text and voice chat rooms.
Language Learning & Technology, 9(3), 79-98.
Long, M. H. (1996). The role of the linguistic environment in second language
acquisition. In W.C. Ritchie & T.K. Bathia (Eds.), Handbook of research on second language (pp.
413-468). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Pelletieri, J.L. (2000). Negotiation in cyberspace: The role of chatting in the development
of grammatical competence. In M. Warschauer & R. Kern (Eds.), Network-based language
teaching: Concepts and practice (pp. 59-86). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sauro, S. (2001). The success of task type in facilitating oral language production in
online computer mediated collaborative projects. Unpublished master‘s thesis, Iowa State
University, Ames.
Smith, B. (2003a). Computer-mediated negotiated interaction: An expanded model. The
Modern Language Journal, 87, 38-58.
Smith, B. (2004). Computer-mediated negotiated interaction and lexical acquisition.
Studies in Second Language Acquisition 26, 365-398.
Smith, B. (2005). The relationship between negotiated interaction, learner uptake, and
lexical acquisition in task-based computer-mediated communication. TESOL Quarterly 39 (1),
33-58.
Sykes, J. M. (2005). Synchronous CMC and pragmatic development: Effects of oral and
written chat. CALICO Journal, 22 (3), 399-431.
Varonis, E.M., & Gass, S. (1985). Non-native/non-native conversations: A model for
negotiation of meaning. Applied Linguistics, 6, 71-90.
26 | P a g e
Investigating the Missing of the Indefinite Article
and Copula be in the production skills
of Iraqi Learners of English
Inam Ismael Taher Al-Shaibani
Diyala University, Iraq
ABSTRACT
There is no one - to - one relation between English and Arabic so areas where the two languages
differ are expected to constitute problems to the non - native speaker The concentration in this
paper is on using the indefinite article a /an and the copula be .
The researcher finds out through her teaching English as a foreign language that a great number
of Iraqi learners of English make a grammatical mistake by missing the indefinite article and the
copula be in uttering such a sentence: Ahmed teacher instead of : Ahmad is a teacher . Such
mistakes are made because there is no one- to- one relationship between English and Arabic. The
interference of Arabic is behind the production of such a sentence because Arabic does not have
an indefinite article or a copula be corresponding to them in English. Indefiniteness and
copula be are expressed in Arabic in different ways.
At early stages of language acquisition, English children produce sentences like Here book and
Paula good girl (Cook and Newson , 1997 : 274-277) . So, Iraqi learners of English and English
children express their ideas through the choice and order of vocabulary rather than through
syntax. Their sentences may be acceptable but ungrammatical.
The articles have no lexical meaning nor function independently of the noun they precede.
They are used solely to give grammatical status to the following noun which needs this status
(Quirk et al., 1987:255). Yet, the articles are considered separate words because, as Hall
(1960:98-99) thinks, English grammars use writing not spoken language as their point of
departure. He suggests that the articles should be counted as bound forms like prefixes and
suffixes. For example, the indefinite article a/an and the suffix –s in the following nouns have
the same grammatical role a book, books. The indefinite article a is used with the singular count
noun to individualize the object book, so it indicates singularity, whereas the suffix –s is used to
indicate plurality. This point emphasizes the historical origin of the indefinite article in English.
It is derived from the numeral one (Strang 1970: 272; Halliday & Hassan 1987: 70).
Articles are only needed for structural and grammatical purposes not semantic ones. The noun
itself carries the feature of indefiniteness in the deep structure, and the article is introduced in the
intermediate syntactic structure (Postal 1966; cited in Master 1987: 167).
Copulative is a term used in grammatical description to refer to a linking verb i.e. a verb which
has little independent meaning , and whose main function is to relate other elements of clause
structure , especially subject and complement . In English the main copulative verb is be as: she
is a doctor (Crystal, 1998 copula (tive) ).
27 | P a g e
It can be concluded that:
1. The physical linguistic manifestation that exists in the surface structure of a language cannot
be considered a ground to make comparison between languages because there is no one –to –
one relation between them. So, the further one abstracts from the physical aspect of language
towards its conceptual content, the nearer one gets to a common core of linguistic universal
(Leech 1978: 232).
2. Missing the words which have no independent meaning such as the indefinite article and the
copula be does not affect acceptability but grammaticality.
References
Abboud, Peter F. & Ernest N. McCarns (Eds.).(1987). Elementry Modern Standard Arabic
Pronunciation and Writing .Part1.Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.
Bishir, Kamaal Mohammad , tran. (1975). Ulmanns' Words and their Use . Egypt: Al-
Shabaab.. Maktabat
Bloomfield, Leonard .( 1963) . Language. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Cook , V.J. and Mark Newson .( 1997 ).Chomsky' University Grammar. Oxford : Blackwell.
Crystal, David.( 1998). A Dictionary of Linguistic and Phonetics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Dik, Simo C. (1979). Functional Grammar. Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Company.
Hall, Robert A., Jr. (1960). Linguistics and your Language.New York : Anchor Books. Revised
edition of Leave Your Language Alone ! by the Linguistic Press in 1950.
Halliday, M. A. K. & Ruqaiya Hasan.( 1987).Cohesin in English . London : Longman.
Leech, Geoffery.( 1978 ).Semantics .Harmondsworth : Penguin Books.
Master, Peter.(1987). ―Generic The in Scientific American.‖ English for specific Purposes . 6.3:
165-185.
Postal, P. M. (1966). ―On So-called ‗ Pronouns‘ in English‖. 19 th
Monograph on Language and
Linguistics (201-224). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Institute of Languages
and Linguistics.
Pyles, Thomas & John Alego. (1971). The Origins and Developments of English Language.
New York : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Quirk, R., S. Greenbaum, G. Leech , and J. Svartvic (1987). A Comprehensive Grammar of the
English Language. London: Longman.
Strang, Barbara M. H. (1974). A History of English. Harper & Row Publishers.
Ziadeh, Farhat J., and R. Bayly Winder. (1957). An Introduction to Modern Arabic. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
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Wh-domains and optional wh-movement in Jarai
Joshua Jensen
The University of Texas at Arlington
ABSTRACT
Overview & Goals: This study investigates the prosody of wh-questions in Jarai
(Austronesian, Vietnam; SVO) in light of Richards‘s (2010) proposal that wh-in-situ is licensed
in just those languages that are able to create a wh-domain, a prosodic constituent which extends
from the complementizer (null or overt) to the wh-phrase. Languages that cannot create wh-
domains resort to wh-movement to place the wh-phrase as close as possible to the
complementizer. I argue that Jarai, an optional movement language, does create wh-domains,
thus licensing wh-in-situ; however, movement in Jarai cannot be motivated by a need to place the
wh-phrase next to the complementizer.
Background on Jarai Prosody: Phonological phrases (φ) in Jarai typically correspond to
syntactic phrases, and like syntactic phrases, they can be recursive. Every φ that is not dominated
by another φ (a φmax, Selkirk 2009) is the domain for the distribution of a high pitch accent. Thus,
a typical clause with a DP subject and VP predicate will have two φmax‘s, with a high pitch (H*)
in each, as in Figure 1.
Evidence for Wh-Domain: Figure 2 shows a wh-question derived from a ditransitive
declarative clause (S-V-DO-IO; see Figure 1). In this question, the final constituent, the indirect
object, is questioned and remains in situ. Although there is a slight high pitch on the wh-word,
the basic prosody of the clause is unchanged: the clause‘s two highest pitches—both to the left of
the wh-word—indicate that the prosodic constituency of two φmax‘s is still in place. However,
when the wh-phrase fronts, as in Figure 3, the words that previously had the highest pitches show
pitch compression, and the wh-phrase has the only high pitch accent in the clause. This
redistribution of the high pitches suggests a change in the prosodic structure: instead of two
φmax‘s, there is now only one, extending from the wh-phrase to the end of the clause. Thus the
following generalizations hold, not just for questioning the indirect object, but for any questioned
argument:
i. Boundary erasure: If a wh-phrase occurs in a non-final φmax, any φmax boundaries between
the wh-phrase and the end of the clause are erased, creating a single φmax.
ii. Pitch accent attraction: A wh-phrase attracts the pitch accent of its φmax just in case that
pitch accent would not otherwise occur to the left of the wh-phrase.
Analysis & Conclusion: As we have seen, the phonological impact of the wh-phrase
does not extend leftwards; it only extends rightwards. If this rightward pitch compression is
taken as evidence of a new prosodic constituency—a wh-domain—then Jarai wh-domains extend
from the wh-phrase to the end of the clause. Under Richards‘s account of wh-domains, this is
evidence that Jarai is complementizer-final. However, this leaves wh-movement in Jarai
unmotivated from a prosodic standpoint: by fronting, the wh-phrase moves away from rather
than toward the complementizer.
Jarai is consistent with one of Richards‘s central claims: because Jarai can create wh-
domains, wh-in-situ should be (and is) possible. But Jarai constituent questions leave open the
question of why wh-movement is also possible. Thus, Richards‘s proposal, while providing a
prosodic account of wh-in-situ, leaves open the question of what motivates wh-movement.
29 | P a g e
Figures
FIGURE 1: Declarative Clause
FIGURE 2: Questioning the Indirect Object, in situ
FIGURE 3: Questioning the Indirect Object, moved
References
Richards, Norvin. 2010. Beyond strength and weakness. In Uttering Trees. MIT Press,
Cambridge, MA.
Selkirk, Elisabeth. 2009. They syntax-phonology interface. In J. Goldsmith, et al., eds., The
Handbook of Phonological Theory, 2nd Edition.
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The Intonation of Declarative and Interrogative Sentences in Akan1
Charlotte Fofo Lomotey
Texas A&M University, Commerce
ABSTRACT
Intonation is an indispensable part of the utterances of every spoken language in the world. It can
provide cues to both linguistic and paralinguistic meanings in communication in our daily lives.
This means that when we communicate with people, intonation helps us to identify the speaker's
message, their emotional state or their communicative intent. Once the intonation of the
utterance is changed, the meaning of the utterance is also changed. This paper looks at the
intonation of declarative and interrogative sentences in Akan. It seeks, among other things, to
identify differences and similarities between the intonation of declarative and interrogative
sentences.
Results from majority of studies in intonation have shown that the F0
curve of question intonation
is higher than that of statement intonation (Haan, 2002; Ho, 1977; Shen 1990; Yuan et al., 2002).
These studies are all on tone languages, and thus are relevant to Akan, which is a tone language.
Intonation studies in Akan have not received any attention as far as instrumental work is
concerned. As such, this paper aims to be the first step at the acoustic analyses of intonation in
Akan. It also aimed at helping readers to be able to interpret the intention of the people they
communicate with.
A corpus of 10 pairs of sentences was designed. The two sentences in each pair were identical
except that one ends with a period, which indicates declarative intonation, and the other with a
question mark, indicating interrogative intonation. The 20 sentences were written one by one on
a card and presented to every speaker. These speakers are five males and five females from the
two main dialect areas of Akan in Ghana.
The speakers were asked to read the sentences five times in a very quiet environment, paying
attention to naturalness and the intonation of their utterances. Only the last three sentences of the
recordings in each case were used. The recordings were then transferred onto the Computerized
Speech Laboratory (CSL) Model 4500 and analysed. F0 curves of the sentences were extracted.
The syllabic boundaries as well as the tone category of each syllable were also labelled. Discussion, conclusions and suggestions regarding both the structure and teaching of Akan are
made based on the results of the study.
1
Akan is a Kwa language of the Niger-Congo family, spoken in Ghana. It is spoken by almost
50% of the Ghanaian population both as a first and as a second language, and also spoken by
some ethnic groups in Cote d‘Ivoire. Akan has two main dialects; namely Twi and Fante. It has
attained literary status and is the most widely researched and most studied language in Ghana. It
has two tone levels; low and high.
31 | P a g e
References
Asu, E. L. (2001). Comparison of the intonation of two question types in Estonian.
Delattre, P. et al. (1962). A Comparative Study of Declarative Intonation in American English
and Spanish. Hispania, Vol. (45) 2
Esser, J. (1978). Contrastive intonation of German and English. Phonetica (35) 41-55
Face, T. L. (2003). Intonation in Spanish declaratives: differences between lab speech and
spontaneous speech.
Fajobi, E. The nature of Yoruba intonation: a new Experimental Study.
(www.sussex.ac.uk/linguistics/documents/ef_yoruba_intonation.pdf)
Gandour, J. et. al. (2004). Hemispheric roles in the perception of speech prosody.
Gårding, Eva, (1984). Comparing Intonation. Working Papers (27) Dept. of Linguistics, Lund
University, 75-96.
Haan, J. (2002): Speaking of questions. Utrecht: LOT.
Ho, A. T. (1977). Intonation Variation in a Mandarin Sentence for Three Expressions:
Interrogative, Exclamatory and Declarative. Phonetica (34) 446-457
Ladd, R. (1996). Cross-language comparison of intonation. Intonational Phonology, 113-159,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Manolescu, A. Declarative and Interrogative Intonation in Romanian.
(www.utexas.edu/courses/lin393p/manolescu.pdf)
Shen, X.-N. S. (1990). The prosody of Mandarin Chinese. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Swerts, M. and Geluykens, R. (1994). Prosody as a Marker of Information Flow In Spoken
Discourse. Language and Speech, 37( 1), 21-43
Yuan, J., Chih-lin, S. and Kochanski, G. P. (2002). Comparison of Declarative and Interrogative
Intonation in Chinese. Proceedings of the Speech Prosody 2002 Conference. Bel, B. and Marlien
I. (Eds). Aix-en-Provence. Laboratoire Parole et Langage. pp.711-714.
Zeng. X, Philippe. M, Georges, B. Tones and Intonation in Declarative and Interrogative
Sentences in Mandarin. Paper presented at the International Symposium on Tonal Aspects of
Languages: With Emphasis on Tone Languages Beijing, China, March 28-31, 2004
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Nonnative Speakers and Conventional Expressions within the Apology Speech Act
Toni Taherzadeh
Texas A&M University, Commerce
ABSTRACT
It is generally accepted that pragmatic considerations effect speech act realization among both
native and non-native speaker communication (Coulmas, 1981; Granger, 1998). Cross-cultural
comparisons have also been emphasized in the body of research focusing on the importance of
sociopragmatic speech act conventions and second language learning and usage. Specifically,
Bardovi-Harlig, Marda, & Edelmira (2008) researched cultural conventions and speech acts of
differing illocutionary forces (apologies, refusal, and thanking) in order to investigate the
conventional expressions by comparing L2 learner‘s output (Bardovi-Harlig et al., 2008). This
study replicates the Bardovi-Harlig et al. (2008) example on a smaller scale in order to test the
conclusions, and also to examine the effects in another NNS population. Their methodology
utilized to gather sample speech acts, a computer-delivered aural DCT, is administered to various
proficiency levels of the NNSs. The transcribed responses are analyzed to determine appropriate
assessment by the NNS of the sociopragmatic identification of the speech act as an apology, and
the NS conventions expected. The purpose of this study is to further explore the potential
correlation between higher L2 proficiency and the frequency of association with pragmatic
conventions. With this data, conclusions regarding what the inclusion of apology conventions
for a more effective speech act and possible avoidance of pragmatic misfires are discussed, along
with the suggestion this information be made available when teaching speech acts to English
language learners. In the classroom, the current trend is to ignore the pragmatic contexts, yet
research is showing with increased frequency how remiss this policy is when preparing NNSs for
interaction among inner-circle NSs.
References
Bardovi-Harlig, K., Marda R., & Edelmira L. N. (2008). The use of conventional xxpressions of
thanking, apologizing, and refusing. Selected Proceedings of the 2007 Second Language
Research Forum, ed. Melissa Bowles et al., 113-130. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla
Proceedings Project.
Coulmas, F. (1981). ―Poison to your soul:‖ Thanks and apologies contrastively viewed. In F.
Coulmas (Ed.), Conversational routine: Explorations in standardized communication
situations and prepatterned speech (pp. 69-91). The Hague: Mouton.
Granger, S. (1998). Prefabricated patterns in advanced EFL writing: Collocations and formulae.
In A.P. Cowie (Ed.), Phraseology: Theory, analysis, and application (pp. 145-160).
Oxford: Clarendon.
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Orthographic choices for Lamkang
Ryan Hamilton
University of North Texas, Denton
ABSTRACT
The Lamkang of northeast India (3,000 to 6,000 speakers) want to encourage younger speakers to
read and write in their native language Lamkang instead of only in English and/or other local
vernaculars. A few speakers write Lamkang using the Roman alphabet but spelling rules differ
from writer to writer (Thounaojam and Chelliah 2007). Speakers need a standardized writing
system and dictionary to encourage literacy. This poster illustrates some of the practical problems
in devising a standardized writing system for Lamkang. Comparing three different written
instances of the same text, I will illustrate four particular problems:
1. There are several consonant clusters in word initial position in normal speech which
make the language look quite different from English, e.g. kb,kt,kp,tl,dl. Speakers tell us
that early missionaries recommended breaking these clusters up by representing them
with vowels, so that the words wouldn‘t look quite so ―odd‖ in writing. So, for example,
kb would be written as kab. Older translations of the New Testament are written with no
clusters at all. This convention is confusing since the clusters are pronounced.
2. Since there is no detailed grammatical description of Lamkang, speakers are not clear and
have not been taught about word boundaries. It is not clear for the Lamkang where to
make breaks in words. For example, the word avathungbingngi ‗and then‘ is written in
the following ways:
av thung bing ngi
ava thung bingi
av thung bing -i
ava thungbi ngi
Also, since English does not have such long words or doubled consonant sequences such as
ngng, the Lamkang have been taught to avoid long words and not represent doubled
consonants. They, therefore, break words up at arbitrary points.
3. Lamkang has a retroflex [t] sound (produced with the tongue curled to the roof of the
mouth). This should be written with a dot under the t but that diacritic is often omitted.
4. Words in Lamkang change meaning depending on the tone of the word or syllable in a
word. Tone is not always indicated although sometimes a final h is added to show falling
tone.
References
Thounaojam, Harimohon and Shobhana Chelliah. 2007. The Lamkang Language:
Grammatical Sketch, Texts and Lexicon. Published as a special issue of the Linguistics of the
Tibeto-Burman Area, Volume Vol. 30.1.1-212.
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“A shroe! A shroe! My dingkome for a shroe!”:
Compensation strategies for comprehension in an unconventional speech of Monty Python
Audrey C. Adams
Texas A&M University, Commerce
ABSTRACT
In an episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, a guest appearing on a talk show speaks entirely
in anagrammed and scrambled speech. To further complicate comprehension, the language itself
was scrambled based on the orthographic constituents rather than phonetic, but presented orally.
For example, the word that is pronounced as if the written word were taht, which is scrambling
the order of the graphic letters, hence, losing the interdental phoneme present in the original
word. Based on the assumption that the meaning of the scrambled speech still comes across,
regardless of disruptions, this analysis aims to identify the clues that allow for comprehension,
and consider the compensation strategies used by the listener on levels of context, prosody,
syntax, and morphology. The results indicate that prosodic cues are working as the framework of
each utterance, and are most heavily relied upon to obtain a meaningful understanding of the
language. When the prosodic information is insufficient, the listener is able to compensate by
processing additional clues on levels of morphology and syntax. The results of this analysis,
along with studies of other types of strains, can be used to define the extreme terms of a
benchmark against which we can describe the processes of language comprehension in normal,
natural situations. Such a benchmark would allow the assessment of the degree of resiliency of
language comprehension and processing strategies used to compensate multiple inferences.
Additionally, an adjustment to this benchmark can also provide insights about the way non-
native English speakers would compensate for the differences in prosodic systems between their
L1 and English, and in what ways they may compensate when those differences interfere with
comprehension.
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„Doing Gender‟ for Laughs: Discourse Analysis of Comedic Sketches of Gender
Performance from 1970 – 2010
Katherine Bell
Tulane University, New Orleans
ABSTRACT
An interest in gender arose in the 1960‘s; fields such as sociolinguistics, psychology, and
anthropology were saturated with gender discussion throughout the 1970‘s and 1980‘s. The
interest in understanding the ‗other‘ spread outside of academia, appearing in such pop
psychology books as Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus (Gray 1992), intended for
readers in the larger culture. As a result, members of today‘s mainstream Western society are
accustomed to a more candid discussion of gender roles, norms, differences, similarities and
performances than the society that existed before the rise of feminism and the aforementioned
interest in gender construction. Over the years, this societal awareness has been attested in
numerous comedy sketches; generally, it is men performing women.
This article uses discourse analysis to compare indexical features of four comedy
sketches in which men are parodying the performance of the female gender, beginning in 1970
with Monty Python‘s depiction of the ‗Pepperpots‘ and ending with Harvard Sailing Team‘s
‗Boys Will Be Girls‘ sketch released in 2010. It is important to note that these skits all involve 2,
3 or 4 ‗women‘ speaking to each other; there are no male interlocutors. The focus will be on
paralinguistic features such as facial expressions, body language and prosodic features such as
intonation and vocal pitch range. Indicators of politeness such as agreement, cooperative speech
and turn taking (as opposed to disagreement and insult in stereotypical male speech) are
examined, as well as the use of standard (or close-to-standard) English and the avoidance of
cursing. The earliest sketches examined indicate all of the features which have been attributed to
feminine discourse yet in the comedy sketches of the last twenty years, the performance is
increasingly nuanced and lacking some of these supposedly feminine attributes – for example, no
more dressing in drag and speaking in high pitched voices.
By examining examples of gender performance in its most exaggerated form – comedic parody -
perspectives regarding gender can be examined in varying socio-historical contexts to reveal
possible change over time. There is no way for these men to ‗be‘ women outside of performing
practices that the culture in which they live define as ‗womanly‘ or feminine in the socio-
historical time period in which they are performing.
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References
Colston, Herbert L. and O‘Brien, Jennifer. 2000. Contrast of Kind Versus contrast of
Magnitude: The Pragmatic Accomplishments of Irony and Hyperbole. Discourse Processes 30
(2), 179-199.
Crawford, Mary. 2003. Gender and humor in social context. Journal of Pragmatics 35, 1413 –
1430.
Gregerson, Edgar A. 1979. Sexual Linguistics. Annals New York Academy of Sciences.
Holmes, Janet. 1999. Women, Men and Politeness: Agreeable and Disagreeable Responses. In:
Jawaorski, Adam (Ed.), The Discourse Reader. p. 324 – 333. Routledge, Taylor and Francis
Group. London.
Kendall, Shari. 2008. The balancing act: Framing gendered parental identities at dinnertime.
Language in Society, 37, 539-568. Cambridge University Press.
Kiesling, Scott Fabious. 2001. Now I Gotta Watch What I Say: Shifting constructions of
Masculinity in discourse. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 11: 250-273.
Kreuz, Roger J. and Roberts, Richard M. 1995. Two cures for Verbal Irony: hyperbole and the
Ironic tone of Voice. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 10.(1) 21 – 31, Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
Levon, Erez. 2007. Sexuality in context: Variation and the sociolinguistic perception of identity.
Language in Society 36: 533-554.
Tannen, Deborah. 1990. You Just Don‘t Understand. Ballantine, New York.
Todd, Alexandra, Fisher, Sue (Eds.), 1988. Gender and Discourse: The Power of Talk. Anlex,
Norwood, NJ.
West, Candace, Zimmerman, Donald H. 1987. Doing Gender. Gender and Society Vol. 1, 125-
151.
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The Proto-form of Bagobo (Tagabawa), Mandaya, Manobo, Sama and Davao Sebuano
Peter Jon L. Mendoza
Mindanao State University - Iligan Institute of Technology, The Philippines
ABSTRACT
This paper rationally shows the relationship of languages and the degree of their affinities.
Through intellectual guess, this paper attempted to explicate the changes the morphemes of the
five studied languages underwent---from their proposed proto-forms to their respective present
forms. All these are shown or presented in phonetic notations that proposed rationalized
environments or condition to account for the changes that took place.
This study presents the proto-form of the five studied languages having four common vowels
namely [α], [Ι], [o], and [u]. This study used 100 commonly used words from the Swadesh list
comprising of the 200-word list which was formulated by the Swiss linguist Morris Swadesh.
These words, which were subjected to translation in the five studied languages, include the five
senses, weathers in the Philippines and other common words.
The study limited in the comparative reconstruction, pursuing the technique on subgrouping of
the languages being studied.
Arriving with the proto-forms through comparative reconstruction was done through the
employment of two known strategies namely: Phonetic Plausibility Strategy (PPS) and Majority
Rules Strategy (MRS). The reconstruction of the morphemes was the heart of the study as it tries
to propose the proto-form behind plausible and possible paths of their evolution that considers
dimensions of sound changes and geographical location, and careful respondent selection.
Further, lexico statistics was employed to quantify the relationships among and between the
studied languages. The results showed Bagobo having the most number of shared lexemes (based
on core vocabularies shared) with the four other languages, and is further closest to Manobo. In
addition, there were other clusters of languages proposed that showed certain degree of affinity
(based on their shared core vocabularies) such as Davao Sebuano and Mandaya, and distant
relationships as well, since peripheral vocabulary was seen strong among the studied languages –
such in the case of the language Sama. Though the percentage of their affinity may seem too
small, it is never rational to conclude that there is no relationship among these languages.
Finally, the correspondences exhibited by the sample lexemes among the languages could not be
just ignored.
(Please refer to the figure on the next page)
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Figure 4.2
Manobo Bagobo Davao-Sebuano Mandaya Sama
Though the percentage of their affinity may seem too small, it is never rational to conclude that
there is no relationship among these languages.
Finally, the correspondences exhibited by the sample lexemes among the languages could not be
just ignored.
References
O‘Grady, William, et. al.(1997). Contemporary linguistics, An Introduction. 90 To Henman
Court Road, London.
Hyman, Larry M.(1975). Phonology: theory and analysis. Holt, Rinehart and Winston
Crowley, Terry.(1992). An introduction to historical linguistics. Oxford University Press.
Finegan, Edward.(1999). Language-its structure and use. (Third ed.) New York: Harcourt Brace
College Publishers.
Websites:
www.linguistics.org/issues/10/10-1329.htm/
www.sanrokan.com
Term paper:
The Proto-form of Bagobo, Manobo, Mandaya and Sama
By: Peter Jon L. Mendoza (March 2003) University of Southeastern Philippines
PROTO-LANGUAGE