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Quantifier scope in sentence prosody?

Author(s): Balázs Surányi,Gergő Turi / Language(s): English Issue: 2-3/2018

Logical scope interpretation and sentence prosody exhibit intricate, yet scarcely studied interrelations across a variety of languages and constructions. Despite these observable interrelations, it is not clear whether quantifier scope by itself is able to directly affect prosodic form. Information structure is a key potential confounding factor, as it appears to richly interact both with scope interpretation and with prosodic form. To address this complication, the current study investigates, based on data from Hungarian, whether quantifier scope is expressed prosodically if information structure is kept in check. A production experiment is presented that investigates grammatically scope ambiguous doubly quantified sentences with varied focus structures, while lacking a syntactically marked topic or focus. In contrast to the information structural manipulation, which is manifest in the analysis of the acoustic data, the results reveal no prosodic effect of quantifier scope, nor the interaction of scope with information structure. This finding casts doubt on the notion that logical scope can receive direct prosodic expression, and it indirectly corroborates the restrictive view instead that scope interpretation is encoded in prosody only in cases in which it is a free rider on information structure.

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A direct comparison of metonymic and metaphoric relations in adjective–noun pairs

Author(s): Hanna Weiland-Breckle,Petra B. Schumacher / Language(s): English Issue: 2-3/2018

Theories on metaphor and metonymy make different claims about the nature of the underlying processes in the computation of these two types of language use, i.e., whether they differ or not. Experimental investigations of metonymy and metaphor have generally not compared these two phenomena in a straightforward manner among others due to structural variability. To overcome this shortcoming, we conducted a study in German that used adjective–noun combinations to contrast metaphor and metonymy directly in an ERP-study during reading for comprehension. By combining three different nouns with one adjective in predicative position we construed adjective–noun pairs with literal (the baby was lively), metonymic (the eyes were lively) or metaphoric (the speed was lively) relations. The data revealed a more pronounced N400 for the metaphoric relations in comparison to the literal controls. We argue that the enhanced cost for metaphors reflects the activation process of two unrelated domains via mapping or extended predication. The metonymic adjective–noun pairs only showed a small trend to differ from the other two conditions. This might indicate that metonymies require mapping processes or shifts only within a single domain or domain matrix. Moreover, in contrast to previous studies, we did not find a Late Positivity. We explain this result with regard to different discourse representational consequences arising during combinatorial processing.

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How similar are objects and events?

Author(s): Alexis Wellwood,Susan J. Hespos,Lance Rips / Language(s): English Issue: 2-3/2018

Semanticists often assume an ontology for natural language that includes not only ordinary objects, but also events, and other sorts of entities. We link this ontology to how speakers represent static and dynamic entities. Specifically, we test how speakers determine whether an entity counts as “atomic” by using count vs. mass (e.g., some gleebs, some gleeb) and distributive vs. non-distributive descriptions (e.g., gleeb every second or so, gleeb around a little). We then seek evidence for atomic representation in a non-linguistic task. Ultimately we suggest that natural language ontology reveals properties of language-independent conceptualization.

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CHALLENGES IN ROMANIAN/ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF TECHNICAL TERMINOLOGY

Author(s): Laura Sasu / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018

THE UNDELYING RESEARCH FOCUSSES ON THE CURRENT USE OF ENGLISH (FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES)BY (FUTURE) PROFESSIONALS IN VARIOUS DOMAINS. AS THE PREVALENT INTERNATIONALCOMMUNICATION MEDIUM, ENGLISH BECOMES A KEY FACTOR FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT INTHE CURRENT CONTEXT OF INFORMATION EXCHANGE. THEORETICAL AND APPLIED LINGUISTICSPROVIDE THE NOTIONAL FRAMEWOK NECESSARY FOR OPTIMAL RESULTS OF TRANSLATION INSPECIFIC OCCUPATIONAL AREAS. CONVEYING DOMAIN-SPECIFIC KNOWLEDGE IN ACADEMIC ANDPROFESSIONAL CONTEXTS/SITUATIONS IMPLIES TRANSFER OF MEANING BY MEANS OF ACCURATETRANSLATION OF FIELD-RELATED TERMINOLOGY. FOR ATTAINING HIGHEST SEMANTIC EQUIVALENCE,THE TERM CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN SOURCE AND TARGET LANGUAGE NEEDS TO BE FURTHERINVESTIGATED. BESIDES FORMAL AND NOTIONAL OVERLAPPING OR SIMILARITY OF NUMEROUS TERMSTHAT ARE ETHYMOLOGICALLY LINKED, THERE ARE ALSO COUNTLESS SITUATIONS, WHERE DEFINING,DISAMBIGUATION AND TERMINOLOGICAL RESEARCH ARE NECESSARY IN ORDER TO PROVIDEACCEPTABLE SOLUTIONS FOR TRANSLATION DIFFICULTIES, INCLUDING: SYNONYMY; POLYSEMY;PARTIAL OR CONTEXTUAL SYNONYMY; LACK OF SPECIFIC TERMS IN TARGET LANGUAGE;TRANSLATION BY DEFINITION; COMPLETE TERMINOLOGICAL DIVERGENCE OR MISLEADING FORMALEQUIVALENCE/SIMILARITY BETWEEN SEMANTICALLY DIFFERENT TERMS. EXAMPLES OF SUCHSITUATIONS ARE TERMINOLOGICALLY INVESTIGATED IN ORDER TO HIGHLIGHT POSSIBLECHALLENGES THAT ARE MOST LIKELY TO OCCUR IN TRANSLATIONS PRODUCED FOR ACQUISITION,COMPREHENSION OR DISSEMINATION DOMAIN-SPECIFIC INFORMATION.

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On Linguistic “Unconsciousness”. Some Introductory Remarks

Author(s): Cristinel Munteanu / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2017

In this article – which may look like a collage of quotations – I aim at mentioning the opinions of some famous linguists with regard to the so called ―unconsciousness‖ of common speakers manifested within the linguistic activity as such (that is during the process of communication). Consequently, I will present the ideas of some American linguists (E. Sapir, L.Bloomfield and Ch. Hockett), taking into account both the opinions of certain European forerunners(H. Paul and F. de Saussure), and the subsequent criticism formulated by E. Coseriu concerning the respective linguistic ―unconsciousness‖.

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Domains and CauseP in a unified semantics of Chinese adverbial ziji ‘self’

Author(s): Hsiu-Chen Daphne Liao / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2018

A unified semantics of Chinese adverbial ziji ‘self’ is proposed for its three exclusive readings. In the proposal, adverbial ziji is a focused item, evoking alternatives for consideration by its focus semantic value. Depending on domain variation and different syntactic adjoining positions, ziji shows various surface readings, though the availability of readings is affected by context, world knowledge, and a relation presupposition triggered by ziji. The proposed mechanism suggests the following. First, CauseP for internal causation cannot be introduced by ziji, but is projected more prevalently than commonly assumed. Second, CauseP should be projected in anticausatives. If this analysis is on the right track, it will give us a new perspective of intensifiers and the projection of CauseP, and it will also help us advance the study of anticausatives.

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Two types of free choice universality across languages

Author(s): Mara Panaitescu / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2018

The paper teases apart two types of interpretations displayed by so-called “universal” free choice (FC) determiners (e.g., French n’importe quel or Spanish cualquiera) depending on the kind of licensing environment they are placed in, which will be called parallel and serial universality respectively. Since serial universal readings are available to all FCIs cross-linguistically and the only possibility in some cases, they are taken to be the central semantic ingredient of free choice. Section 2 aims to establish a parallel between serial universality (particularly subtrigged sentences) and other constructions which involve semantically constrained pairs of events. The third section represent the co-variation of entity, event and world indices as an option that determiners have under certain (syntactic and semantic) conditions, and which FCIs have grammaticalized. The other ingredient which singles out serial universality from other event-related readings is the (non-optional) causal link between the events introduced by the relative clause and matrix events. The link between relative clause and matrix events is analyzed as a form of historical necessity, a relation between cause and effect, as understood within a metaphysical modal base.

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Contronymy and Semantic Primes

Author(s): Paweł Dziedziul / Language(s): English Issue: 02 (21)/2018

Contronymy, that is sense opposition invoked by one word, can pose a serious conundrum from a theoretical standpoint. Nonetheless, the prime concern of this paper is to introduce the phenomenon into a broader discussion within theoretical linguistics. To be more specific, the question at hand is: what kind of comprehensive and coherent theoretical construct can be adequate for semantic representation of contronymy? It will be demonstrated that the particular sense opposition can be classified as being linked with direct negation. A theoretical vantage point will be presented that addresses the cause of opposition via the means of the natural semantic metalanguage theory. This approach may shed some light on how to deal with the problem from a cognitive perspective. The underlying methodological assumptions of the presented framework, based on the idea of semantic primes, prove to be a coherent tool for encapsulating radical sense opposition manifested by contronyms. As an addendum to this prolegomena there will also be presented a brief discussion of some of the implications of contronymy for fields such as the theory of the human mind, natural language processing, artificial intelligence, machine translations and big data structures.

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Strukturalno-semantyczna analiza nazw białostockich gabinetów rehabilitacji/fizjoterapii. Część 1: wprowadzenie

Author(s): Diana Saniewska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 18/2018

This paper is concerned with the lexis belonging to the semantic field of rehabilitacja ‘rehabilitation’. It discusses the distinction between rehabilitacja ‘rehabilitation’ and fizjoterapia ‘physiotherapy’, and defines the two lexemes in order to establish the specific properties of the semantic field under analysis. The discussion refers to the findings of other researchers of chrematonymy, who consider this area of onomastics to be a cultural and linguistic phenomenon. Such theoretical background enables me to propose a three-part model of the chrematonym of an economic activity of a natural person on the basis of the names of rehabilitation/physiotherapy rooms. A detailed analysis of the analysed examples is presented in the second part of the paper.

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Strukturalno-semantyczna analiza nazw białostockich gabinetów rehabilitacji/fizjoterapii. Cześć 2: omówienie wybranych chrematonimów

Author(s): Diana Saniewska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 18/2018

This paper offers an analysis of chrematonyms connected with the area of ehabilitation/physiotherapy, as represented by the names of non-public rehabilitation/physiotherapy rooms in Białystok. It discusses the structure of anthroponyms as distinct components of the names, the structure and semantics of their identifying parts, as well as the structure and semantics of the firmonyms proper. I discuss the variants and the structure of the chrematonyms, paying particular attention to the semantically hypertrophic names. I also present the role of non-semantic elements in the names of the firms. The analysis demonstrates that the chrematonyms connected with the area of rehabilitation/physiotherapy form a heterogenous group of onyms; they reflect the varied nature of the profession, the current lifestyle trends, as well as the current epidemiological and demographic tendencies.

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SEMANTYKA I FUNKCJE ŻYWIOŁU OGNIA W BAJCE LUDOWEJ I LEGENDZIE

Author(s): Iwona Rzepnikowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 165/2019

In the Slavic traditional culture, fire is considered one of the four elements, a gift from God, surrounded by a number of obligations and bans which regulate the rules for handling it. A lot of cultural aspects of fire become actualised in folk prose, including fairy tales and legends, and the mediatory and transformational values pertaining to the element of fire have been best documented in them. Furthermore, fire is associated with the idea of eternal regeneration of life and with the moral and ethical dimensions of human behavior.

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Valori semantice ale unităţilor frazeologice româneşti cu numeralul trei

Author(s): Carolina Popușoi / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1 (29)/2019

In Romanian phraseology, combinations involving the quantity element trei ‘three’ play a special role. Its simple structure, as well as the complexity of symbols it denotes justify its place and contribution to the process of creating phraseological units. Also, the frequency of the numeral trei ‘three’ in fairy tales and in church texts (respectively, in the lives of the saints) has influenced considerably, we believe, its use in the constructions discussed hereunder. The phraseological pattern organised with the numeral trei ‘three’ is characterised by a diversity of semantic values, among which: “non value”, “disdain”, “immorality”, “castigation”, “deceit”, “deliration”, “inebriety”, “fight”, etc. The presence of the numeral trei ‘three’ in the structure of phraseological combinations gives them expressivity and dynamism.

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Relevance of Trio-Grammatical Sequences of Halliday’ System Network in Advertising Text’s Interactional Exchange(s)

Author(s): Taofeek Olaiwola Dalamu / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

The study demonstrated the resourcefulness of Halliday’s system network for defining a semantic field of text. The application of the terminological strands of from below, from around, and from above to an advertisement of Central Bank of Nigeria permitted the computation of the grammatical communicative facilities. Structurally, the study revealed imperatives and declaratives, accommodated prominently in Adjunct, Predicator, and Complement as functional elements, exhibited in nominal groups. The semantic derivatives relied on giving information and demanding goods-&-services to persuade readers. Importantly, observations revealed modulated instruments of can and will,and modal adjuncts of now and simply, authenticating user-friendly method, urgency, and the merits of the Bank Verification Number (BVN) registration. The interaction further demonstrated the easy steps of the registration exercise with material processes such as walk, fill, submit, and collect. Given these illuminations, employment of Halliday’s system network is a fascinating appliance for generating meaning potential in interactional spaces. Such application might further enlighten citizens to their statutory responsibilities.

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The semantics of weak imperatives revisited: Evidence from free-choice item licensing

Author(s): Tamás Halm / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2019

This paper provides a new analysis for the semantics and pragmatics of weak (permission/acquiescence) imperatives. In a significant modification to the To-Do-List (or minimal semantics – strong pragmatic) theory of imperatives (Portner 2007; 2012; von Fintel & Iatridou 2017), I argue that in weak imperatives, the utterance of the imperative is directed not at the To-Do-List of the addressee, but at a separate list which contains the set of possible courses of action contemplated by the addressee (which I term the List of Actions Under Consideration by the addressee). I support this claim by a new detailed analysis of free-choice item licensing in imperatives (based on the dependent indefinite analysis of FCIs put forth by Giannakidou 2001). I also show how my model correctly predicts that strong imperatives are felicitous out of the blue whereas weak imperatives need the prejacent to be already part of the context. It is also pointed out how this new approach helps us cut through the familiar controversy of whether weak imperatives can create obligations. Finally, I argue that the strong vs. weak imperative distinction is orthogonal to the degree of speaker endorsement (pace von Fintel & Iatridou 2017): this claim is also supported by a new look at data from Rhaetoromance (Poletto & Zanuttini 2003), where the strong vs. weak imperative distinction is encoded overtly on the morphosyntactic level in a binary fashion.

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Situation aspectual properties of creation/consumption predicates

Author(s): Éva Kardos / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2019

This paper is concerned with the situation aspectual properties of creation and consumption verbs. More specifically, it aims to explore how telic interpretations arise in this verbal domain. The analysis which is couched in a scalar semantic framework will focus on how created/consumed themes contribute telicity given the unique, verb-mediated relationship that obtains between these themes and the scales of creation/consumption verbs. Although it is Hungarian verbs that constitute the main data set of this study, examples from English and some other languages will also be discussed for cross-linguistic comparison.

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Strength is length

Author(s): Xiaoliang Luo,Guillaume Enguehard / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2019

In this paper, we propose that the contexts of fortition and lenition can be represented with a very simple autosegmental tool: branching. We point out a major shortcoming of Coda Mirror Theory: though this model tries to account for strength with lateral relations, length should also be factored in order to account for the inalterability of geminates. In order to unify the principles that regulate strength, we propose a consistent theory built exclusively on length, without lateral relations.

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LE CHANGEMENT DE SENS DES LEXEMES EN DIACHRONIE

Author(s): Ivana Miljković / Language(s): French Issue: 2/2019

Dans le cadre d’une analyse diachronique nous nous proposons d’étudier, du point de vue de la sémantique, les lexèmes français qui ont subi des changements de sens. L’objectif de nos recherches est de mettre en évidence les différents types d’évolutions du sens, tant pour les substantifs que pour les adjectifs et les verbes. Parfois le sens d’origine est perdu, parfois il continue de coexister avec un sens nouveau, parfois il a perdu son caractère polysémique, etc. Et les raisons de ces évolutions de sens sont variables, depuis un simple changement d’usage jusqu’à une évolution de vision sociétale. En nous basant sur un corpus incluant les lexèmes « panier », « compter/conter », « voler », « vilain », ou encore « calcul » nous allons nous attacher à caractériser les différents types d’évolution et leurs raisons historiques. Nous évoquerons toutes les relations sémantiques en diachronie, en insistant particulièrement sur le changement de sens, la polysémie et l’homonymie.

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Martin Luther – aus onomastischer Sicht

Author(s): Adina-Lucia Nistor / Language(s): German Issue: 18/2018

Der große Theologe, Reformator und deutscher Bibelübersetzer, Luther, trägt seines November-Geburtstages wegen einen Heiligennamen. Trotz seiner abweisenden Haltung gegen die Heiligenverehrung hat er zwei seiner Kinder auf Namen von Heiligen getauft, Martin und Margarethe. Martin Luther hat den Namen Christkind mit der Absicht geschaffen, den heiligen Nikolaus als Gabenbringer für Kinder aus den Weihnachtsbräuchen zu beseitigen. Zwischen dem 4.5.1521 und dem 1.3.1522 hat der geächtete Luther unter dem Geheimnamen Junker Jörg auf der Eisenacher Wartburg gelebt, wo er das Neue Testament in nur elf Wochen übersetzt hat. Neuere onomastische Thesen versuchen den Familiennamen Luther zunächst als Ergebnis einer linguistischen Befreiung des Theologen von den Nebenbedeutungen seiner ursprünglichen Namenvariante, Luder, und schließlich als Ergebnis einer theologischen Befreiung (Eleutherius) zu erklären.

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РУССКИЙ ПРЕДЛОГ О С ВИНИТЕЛЬНЫМ ПАДЕЖОМ: ВАЛЕНТНОСТНЫЙ АНАЛИЗ

Author(s): Lennart Lönngren / Language(s): Russian Issue: 3/2020

The main purpose of this investigation, which is carried out on a relatively small amount of corpus material, is to apply a special and little-known method of valency analysis. The basic unit for such analysis is a linguistic sign, and the semantic relations between signs are shown by means of graphs with their nodes occupied by predicates and actants. Prepositional phrases investigated here always occur with a verb (or a verb nominalisation) and can be located within or outside the actant frame of this verb. The first actant of the verb may or may not signify a human being. Based on these two distinctions, the material is divided into four parts. Some additional remarks concern optional constituents,complements as well as adjuncts. The article concludes with critical remarks on two traditional linguistic concepts: the definition of morpheme and the division of word classes into autosemantic and synsemantic ones.

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ENTRE TEXTE ET SCENE, LE JEU DE L’ACTEUR DANS LA COMÉDIE ITALIENNE DE LA RENAISSANCE. LEONE DE’ SOMMI, QUATTRO DIALOGHI IN MATERIA DI RAPPRESENTAZIONI SCENICHE

Author(s): Théa Picquet / Language(s): French Issue: 2/2020

Between Text and Stage: Acting in Italian Renaissance Comedy Leone de’ Sommi, Quattro dialoghi in materia di rappresentazioni sceniche.  In his treatise, Quattro dialoghi in materia di rappresentazioni sceniche, Leone de’ Sommi gives the earliest indications of his time on comedy acting and staging. Our purpose is to analyze the relationship between text and stage in order to set into relief what pertains to acting. After a brief presentation of the author, we’ll focus on the text and its many transformations, the date when it was written as well as its structure. We’ll then proceed with the advice given to the actors, to the stage director, the importance of the setting and of lights. Finally, we’ll insist on the historical significance of the treatise and emphasize it innovative nature.

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