Linguistics Commons^™

A Grammatical Paradigm, Alexia Polacheck

Spring 2013, Kuhn's Philosophy of Science

Avram Noam Chomsky is known for his work at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for his political pursuits, and most importantly, for his theories in the discipline of linguistics. Chomsky linguistic pursuits aimed to answer the following linguistic studies: how a person learns and develops a language, how a person structures and understands a sentence, and what the purpose of linguistics is as a whole. His theories dramatically changed the linguistic paradigm. Due to this change, this paper also attempts to illustrate the correlation between scientific philosopher Thomas Kuhn’s belief in ‘paradigm shifts’ and the subsequent change in linguistic thought spurred …

A Morphological Study Of Drug Brand Names, Celina M. Williamson

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

The Development Of Differential Object Marking In Spanish-English Bilingual Children, Mariluz Ortiz Vergara

Open Access Theses

In monolingual development, the acquisition of differential object marking (DOM) is completed by three years of age (Rodríguez- Mondoñedo, 2008). However, among bilingual speakers, the development and use of the marker at a young age is less predictable. Spanish marks animate and specific direct objects with the preposition-a; English in contrast does not. Based on previous studies documenting transfer in areas where Spanish and English differ, it was predicted that bilingual children would experience difficulties with the use of the preposition both in matrix and left dislocated sentences (CLLD) (Montrul, 2004, Montrul & Bowles, 2009). This study tested 14 simultaneous …

Phonological Adaptations Of English Loanwords In Turkish, Rachel Beel, Jennifer Felder

Other Undergraduate Scholarship

When trying to understand the phonological system of a language (the sounds used in speech), what are some of the ways to figure out the patterns of an unfamiliar language? The way that borrowed or loanwords (words taken from one language and used in another) are pronounced in a language reveals much about the language’s phonology. The phonological system of Turkish has accommodated for starkly different syllable structures when incorporating modern English words into this contrasting language.

A personal survey of Turkish syllable structure has revealed how native speakers of Turkish cope with the phonological features of borrowed English words …

The Dirty Third: Contributions Of Southern Hip Hop To The Study Of Regional Variation Within African American English, Jennifer Bloomquist, Isaac Hancock

Africana Studies Faculty Publications

While there is well documented evidence of certain supra-regional features in African American English (AAE) phonology and morphosyntax (for example, see Labov 1972; Rickford 1999; Baugh 2000; Green 2002), recent trends in the study of linguistic variation suggest that the homogeneity of the variety has been largely overstated (Mallinson & Wolfram 2002; Friedland 2003; Wolfram 2003). For the most part, contemporary AAE influences on mainstream language have originated from varieties spoken in the northeast and on the west coast which have evolved independently of one another over the past forty years, and which vary in significant ways from southern AAE; …

The Copala Triqui Auxiliary Construction For Emotional And Psychological Predicates, George Aaron Broadwell

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

Copala Triqui has a construction in which predicates of emotion and psychological state appear with one of two special auxiliary verbs, derived historically from verbs meaning 'see' and 'look'. This paper details the constraints on the syntax of the emotion auxiliary construction and contrasts it with the ordinary verbal syntax of the language. (Ethnologue code TRC)

What Could Be Gained In Translation: Legal Language And Lawyer-Linguists In A Globalized World, Samantha Hargitt

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Translation and interpretation have long played a vital role in many legal contexts, from providing equal rights to defendants to facilitating mutual understanding among the members of the United Nations. Legal language, though, is incredibly complex and even faithfully equivalent translations can fail to meet the high standards required for operation in international legal contexts, where a lack of understanding over a single term could mean the difference between a material and non-material breach in a treaty or transnational contract. Branches of linguistics, such as comparative legal linguistics and forensic linguistics, study the characteristics and functions of legal language across …

Acoustic Analysis Of The Allophones Of The Mid-Front Spanish Vowel /E/, Raquel Gonzalez De Anda

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines the Spanish phoneme /e/ and its open allophone(s). Current literature shows that there is no complete agreement with regards to the specific phonetic environments that trigger the opening of /e/, nor if "open" is the best term to describe the allophone(s). Examining /e/ allophones in Spanish monolinguals clarifies current literature inconsistencies; and therefore, creates a baseline for future studies related to this particular vowel. In this study, the speech of ten Spanish monolingual university students was recorded. Participants read a list of words that contained /e/ in certain phonetic contexts. Each instance of /e/ was acoustically analyzed …

The Effect Of Pause Duration On Intelligibility Of Non-Native Spontaneous Oral Discourse, Ryan Frederick Lege

Theses and Dissertations

Pausing is a natural part of human speech. Pausing is used to segment speech, negotiate meaning, and allow for breathing. In oral speech, pausing, along with other suprasegmental features, plays a critical role in creating meaning as comprehensible speech is seen as a goal for language learners around the world. In order to be comprehensible, language learners need to learn to pause correctly in their speaking. Though this notion is widely accepted by applied linguists and many language teachers, the effect of pausing on intelligibility of spontaneous oral discourse has not been established by empirical data. This study isolates pause …

The Mental Lexicon In Students Of Non-Spoken Languages: A Case Study With Ancient Greek And Latin, Randall C. Meister

Student Works

The unique pedagogical circumstances and uses of non-spoken languages (such as Ancient Greek and Latin) offer other facets to current models of L2 mental lexicon, which, up until this point in academic dialogue, have focused on bilinguals, who produce their language. While empirical evidence from an array of studies (see Cielslicka-­Ratajczak, 1994) favors an integrated system of interwoven phonological, semantic, and categorical information all working together to influence production and comprehension, the elements of L2 organization within the context of non-­spoken ancient languages remains underexplored, yet may offer further evidence for the organization of mental L2 lexical. My current study …

It’S Not What You Do, It’S Who You Are: Adjectives As Identity-Conferrers, C.B. Rodgers

Anthós

To see how positive identity assessments are created, I investigated two statements, both released by organizations that can broadly be described as part of Portland’s liberal or left community. Each statement responds to assertions that the actions of the organization, or one of its members, provides a platform for anti-Semitic, white supremacist, and/or fascist political organizers to make inroads in Portland. One set of data is a statement from Citybikes, a workerowned cooperative, that was published on Portland IndyMedia, a web-based independent media center; the other is a statement from a Portland community art space, The Variant, that was published …

English-Only Policy And Belief In The United States, Lauren E. White

Honors Theses and Capstones

English-Only initiatives are commonplace in the United States. Proponents of Official English would like to make the official language of the United States English despite the prestige English already has in the United States. The motivations behind this movement are varied and have substantial effects on the opinion of the American population. This paper examines a group of American residents in the Northeast, aged 18 and older. States considered Northeastern in this study are Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. The survey distributed contains questions on the topic of English- only issues, …

Invited Editorial: African Pygmies, What's Behind A Name?, Paul Verdu, Giovanni Destro-Bisol

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

No abstract provided.

Clausal Negation As Raising In San Dionisio Ocotepec Zapotec, George Aaron Broadwell

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

This paper argues that clausal negation in San Dionisio Ocotepec Zapotec is best analysed as a kind of raising phenomenon. This analysis correctly predicts a number of facts about the interaction of word order and aspect in the language.

Copala Triqui Rhetoric Discourse Of Peace, Sharone Horowit-Hendler

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Our team worked with a native speaker of Copala Triqui, Román Vidal Lopez, to write the Address to the Triqui People, a message of peace for the Copal Triqui. We translated it to Spanish and English, and worked on creating a lexicon of Copala Triqui.

Iotacism And The Pattern Of Vowel Leveling In Roman To Byzantine Era Manuscripts: Perspectives From The Thomas Gignac Corpus, Craig Meister

Student Works

After centuries of debate surrounding the change of the Greek simple vowels and diphthongs ι, υ, η, οι, and ει into the phoneme /i/, the process known as iotacism (sometimes referred to as itacism) has become not only an anomaly of philological analysis, but the phonetic reality of this vowel shift and leveling from the phonemes /i/, /oi/, /e:/, /y/, and /ei/ to /i/ have yet to be linguistically analyzed successfully within various systems of linguistic modeling. In order to fill this important gap within the history of the Greek language, this research seeks to use the Roman and Byzantine …

On Swearwords And Slang, Robert Moore

Faculty Publications

Slang lexemes and swearwords are commonly discussed in conjunction with each other as though they were slightly different versions of the same phenomenon. However, they clearly are not, as a careful consideration of their different prototypical functions reveals. Each of these lexical categories has a central or core function, and in each case this function is linked to the obligatory expression of affect. Different kinds of affect are entailed in the prototypical uses of slang and of swearwords, but in the case of both of these lexical types, this affect is incompatible with the formality and deference of honorifics, or, …

Evidentiality In Uzbek And Kazakh, Christopher Straughn

Library Faculty Publications

The purpose of this work is to describe and account for the broad range of phenomena referred to as “evidentiality” in two Turkic languages: Uzbek and Kazakh. Much previous work on the Turkic languages treats evidentiality as a distinct verbal category. However, morphemes that express evidential meaning also often express other meanings such as dubitativity and admirativity, or may even express rhetorical questions. This work follows Friedman (1978; 1981; 1988) and others in considering these meanings to be the result of an evidential-like strategy: the expression of non-confirmativity. In Uzbek and Kazakh, as well as in many other Eurasian languages, …

Code-Switching And Language Change In Tunisia, Lotfi Sayahi

Languages, Literatures and Cultures Faculty Scholarship

This article quantitatively studies the patterns of Tunisian Arabic/French code-switching and the possible implications for contact-induced change in the Tunisian dialect. The purpose is to account for the extent of the occurrence of code-switching across gender lines and levels of education and assess its role in the interference from French into Arabic, both at the lexical and structural levels. Recorded semi-directed sociolinguistic interviews with twelve speakers are examined for type and frequency of code-switching and use of French borrowings.

Results show that education plays a role in distinguishing the group with a higher education from the group with only a …

Resolutions And Their Incongruities: Further Thoughts On Logical Mechanism, Christian F. Hempelmann, Salvatore Attardo

Faculty Publications

This paper is a contribution to the study of the resolution of incongruities in humor. We reject some criticisms of logical mechanisms and analyze three different types of incongruities in humorous texts: completely backgrounded, backgrounded, and foregrounded. Only the latter are addressed by logical mechanisms. We identify a mechanism of “incongruity shifting” which may be a candidate for “deep” logical mechanism (along the lines of “parallelism” in Attardo et al. HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research 15: 1–44, 2002). We finally discuss the similarities between Oring's (Engaging humor, University of Illinois Press, 2003) “appropriate incongruity” theory and our approach, which …

Timing In The Performance Of Jokes, Salvatore Attardo, Lucy Pickering

Faculty Publications

The notion of timing in humor is often mentioned as a very significant issue, and yet very little has been written about it. The paper reviews the scant literature on the subject and narrows down the definition of timing as comprising pauses and speech rate. The discussions of timing in the literature see it either as a speeding up or slowing down of speech rate. Using data collected from twenty joke performances, we show that speakers do not significantly raise or lower their speech rate at and around the punch line. The other common assumption is that punch lines are …

I Can Has Thesis? A Linguistic Analysis Of Lolspeak, Jordan Lefler

LSU Master's Theses

Lolspeak, which I characterize as an internet dialect of English that is used in conjunction with images of cats, exhibits distinctive variations and patterns which differ from those of standard English. Lolspeak has influenced other language use and may have a significant impact on the English language, due in part to the internet’s role in the evolution of English (Crystal “Language and the Internet,” 2006:26-27). To approach this data, I created a multi-modal discourse transcription technique for analyzing Lolspeak utterances within the context of their images based on Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss “The Discovery of Grounded Theory” 2007:9). I …

Ten Lectures On Mind And Language, Mark Bernard Turner

Faculty Scholarship

Ten Lectures on Mind and Language By Mark Turner
/="/">马克·特纳 心智与语言十讲
/="/">Copyright © Mark Turner 2009
/="/">These lectures were delivered by Mark Turner in May 2009, when he was the forum speaker for the Seventh China International Forum on Cognitive Linguistics. They were originally published as a book in the Eminent Linguists Lecture Series, 世界著名语言学家系列讲座。It includes the slideshows and handouts from the talks.

Contents 目录
/="/">Summaries of the lectures in Chinese 汉语导读
/="/">Lecture One: Human Meaning 人类的意义
/="/">Lecture Two: Conceptual Integration 概念整合
/="/">Lecture Three: Double-Scope Cognition 双域认知
/="/">Lecture Four: Mental Packing and …

Speech Act, Evidentiality, And Implicature In The Korean Topic-Construction, Jung Sun Son

UTA Working Papers in Linguistics - Archive

Is it possible to map pragmatic or discourse-oriented features onto the syntax level? The Korean topic marker -(n)un has a contrastive reading that induces conventional implicature, and is closely associated with a modal morpheme that can be regarded as a kind of agreement with evidentials. This paper attempts to represent such pragmatic features (implicature and evidentiality) as being involved in the topic-construction at the syntax level. To accomplish this, the paper introduces a Speech Act Projection (SAP), whose head encodes illocutionary force, and an Evidentiality Projection (EvidP), which is headed by a modal morpheme or evidential marker. The conventional implicature …

We Shall Be Watching You, You're Going To Die, And Other Threats: A Corpus-Based Speech Act Approach, Natalie Raun Carter

UTA Working Papers in Linguistics - Archive

Using a speech act approach, this paper examines the similarities and differences between English-language threats made by terrorists and those made by non-terrorists, with a focus on pronoun use and sentence-type. Both groups employ a variety of sentence-types in their threats, but use declarative statements most often. 1st person nominative pronouns occur as subjects of clauses much more frequently than 2nd person pronouns in both the terrorist and non-terrorist threat data. Non-terrorist threats, however, make significantly more use of the 1st person singular nominative pronoun, while terrorist threats use the 1st person plural nominative pronoun more frequently.

Interactional Entanglements: A Frame Analysis Of Negotiated Identities In Ethnographic Research On The Language Classroom, Mark A. Ouellette

UTA Working Papers in Linguistics - Archive

This study examines interactional entanglements that occurred during ethnographer-participant interactions in a language classroom. It draws upon Goffman's notion of framing to analyze how research participants use deixis to position the ethnographer vis-à-vis themselves within classroom speech events. The analysis shows that the teacher and students negotiated identities by appealing to the researcher's allegiances within an underlying judicial trial frame. As a marginal native, the ethnographer is particularly susceptible to others' social positioning, which raises questions concerning the very personal involvement of the ethnographer conducting research in an educational setting. This article underscores the argument that impression management is not …

Nous And On In Semi-Formal French: Pragmatic Uses Of Institutionality And Distancing, Deborah King

UTA Working Papers in Linguistics - Archive

French linguists have long noted the substitution of the indefinite pronoun on for the 1st person plural pronoun nous, in both formal and informal situations. Studies of informal conversation have found this replacement to be nearly categorical (Laberge and Sankoff 1980; Coveney 2000). By contrast, this study found a much higher percentage of nous compared to on in interviews and speeches with political or business-related themes (roughly 60% nous to 40% on). The data suggest that many speakers use nous and on in pragmatically distinct ways: nous for institutionality, on for distancing. However, nous can underscore institutionality even in potentially …

Redefining Nairobi's Streets: Study Of Slang, Marginalization, And Identity, Mungai Mutonya

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

This study attempts an analysis of a restructured Swahili variety spoken by Nairobi's street community: Kinoki. Adapting tools of sociolinguistic inquiry and focusing on Kinoki's divergence from the dominant urban slang, Sheng, the study discusses attitudes toward divergent terms referencing the street community, street activities, and law enforcement officials. Results indicate that street children, unlike their school-going peers living in the city's low-income neighborhoods, redefine pejoratives that devalue and stigmatize street people and their lifestyle. Instead, Kinoki empowers the marginalized community to construct a positive identity, to ameliorate representations of street lifestyle, and to redefine neologisms that reference in-group ( …

Sources Of Non-Conformity In Phonology: Variation And Exceptionality In Modern Hebrew Spirantization (Dissertation), Michal Temkin Martinez

Mary Ellen Ryder Linguistics Lab

This dissertation investigates the integration of two sources of non-conformity – exceptionality and variation – in a single phonological system. Exceptionality manifests itself as systematic non-conformity, and variation as partial or variable non-conformity. When both occur within the same phenomenon, this is particularly challenging for the linguistic system. Modern Hebrew spirantization provides an apt case study for the investigation of the interaction of these two sources of non-conformity where exceptional (non-alternating) segments are frequent, and variation in alternating segments has been reported (Adam 2002). This dissertation makes contributions in the forms of both data and analysis. Its goals are to …

A Longitudinal Study Of Language And Ideology In Congress, Bei Yu, Daniel Diermeier

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

This paper presents an analysis of the legislative speech records from the 101st-108th U.S. Congresses using machine learning and natural language processing methods. We use word vectors to represent the speeches in both the Senate and the House, and then use text categorization methods to classify the speakers by their ideological positions. The classification accuracy indicates the level of distinction between the liberal and the conservative ideologies. Our experiment results demonstrate an increasing partisanship in the Congress between 1989 and 2006. Ideology classifiers trained on the House speeches can predict the Senators' ideological positions well (House-to-Senate prediction), however the Senate-to-House …