[pt] Esta tese visa propor uma delimitação ontológica entre eventos, fatos e estados de coisas, a partir de uma ontologia realista/platonista, e relacionar a ontologia lógica à linguagem em uso, a partir da análise da referência a essas entidades. Eventos, fatos e estados de coisas têm estado presentes na discussão analítica desde os tempos de Frege; no entanto, a discussão ainda continua. Eventos têm sido reduzidos a objetos, a fatos e a estados de coisas; fatos têm sido reduzidos a estados de coisas e a proposições; estados de coisas e fatos têm sido considerados como a mesma entidade, e assim por diante. Essas três entidades estão associadas à linguagem desde os tempos de Russell (1918). Os fatos eram relacionados às afirmações verdadeiras, sendo compreendidos como as entidades às quais apontavam essas afirmações. Os eventos eram relacionados com as sentenças de ação. De acordo com Davidson (1981a), temos sentenças de ação porque há eventos no mundo. Embora esta tese vise relacionar a ontologia à linguagem em uso, ela as desvincula num primeiro momento; por isso define a ontologia independentemente da linguagem. Propõe que a diferença entre eventos, fatos e estados de coisas é que os primeiros são concretos e os últimos, abstratos, entre outras características. Uma vez definida a ontologia, a relacionamos, a partir da referência, com a linguagem em uso. Analisamos se é possível referir a essas entidades a partir da análise de certas construções linguísticas, e vemos se é possível estabelecer tal relação a partir dessa análise. / [en] This thesis proposes an ontological delimitation between events, facts and states of affairs. It does so from a Platonist/realist perspective. It also relates the logic ontology to language use through the analysis of reference to these entities. Events, facts, and states of affairs have been present in the discussion of analytical philosophy from the times of Frege. However, the discussion still continues, and nothing has been defined. Events have been reduced to objects, facts and states of affairs. Facts have been reduced to states of affairs and propositions. States of affairs and facts have been considered as the same entity by some authors, and so forth. These three entities have been associated to language since the times of Russell (1918). Facts were related to true statements, and were understood as entities to which those statements pointed. Events were related to action sentences. According to Davidson (1981a), we have action sentences because there are events in the world. Though this thesis relates ontology to language, it defines ontology independent of language use. That is, ontology is defined without taking language use into account. It proposes that the difference between events, facts, and states of affairs is that the first are concrete, and the last abstract. Among other characteristics. Once we define the ontology, we relate it to language use through reference. We analyze whether it s possible to refer to events, facts, and states of affairs, because we understand that it is through reference that we may establish the relationship between ontology and linguistics.

This study is conducted to compare the effect of practicing a multilingual approach to a monolingual approach in teaching the English article system for students with multilingual backgrounds. Through a structured experiment in light of sociolinguistic and second language acquisition theories, two different discourses (complexes of signs and practices that organize social existence and social reproduction) structuring different legitimate languages are implemented in each respective approach. In the multilingual approach, all languages in the participants’ language repertoire are legitimized and encouraged, while only Standard English is legitimized in the monolingual approach. Three groups of informants participated in the experiment. Two groups of young informants with low English proficiency, and one group of adult informants with intermediate English proficiency participated in the experiment. The majority of the participants have more than two languages in their language repertoires. The multilingual approach was adopted in one of the young groups and the adult group. The study shows that all informants improved in their use of the English article system, regardless of the different approaches. The informants with lower English proficiency level and with a strongest [-ART] language (language with no articles) improved 40.9% in the multilingual approach, which is almost twice as much as the improvement in the monolingual approach. However, the young informants in both groups tend to be confused about the use of the indefinite article a/an after the exercise. The improvements tend to remain in a longer period of time with the multilingual approach in both the adult group and the young group. In addition, the participants tend to show higher rates of concentration, positive emotional feelings and engagement during and after the multilingual approach. The results suggest that it is beneficial to deploy the multilingual approach, through intentional structuring of the legitimized languages in classroom.

My thesis consists of two parts. First part is theoretical in which I´m introducing meanings of reference and determinant as described by eminent authors, followed by description of the main uses of definite and indefinete articles and I´m finishing the first part by introducing the current Sentence Segmentation. The second part of the Thesis is practical and here I´m working on quantitative analysis of determination and its translation itno Czech. I´m analyzing a tale called La tortuga gigante from the book Cuentos de la Selva written by Horacio Quiroga and its further Czech translation by Ada Vesela. Determinants are my main focus, articles in particular and their translation into Czech.

This thesis deals with questions of so called associative anaphora, which represents one of means of textual references. Firstly, the term is generally delimitated after a study of specialized literature. Then, the analysis is demonstrated at the French version of the novel by Milan Kundera called "La Plaisanterie" and the sequences found in this book are commented and classified on the basis of given criteria into several subcategories. The emphasis is put on semantic relations between coreferential segments and possible influence of using of determiners on functioning of these relations. In addition, the work aims to focus whether the associative link and lexical stereotypes are connected. The final task of this work is the comparison with Czech original and there is demonstrated by a summary what language means are used in Czech language to express such anaphoric links.

In my Ph.D. thesis, I examine the use of referential devices in spoken narrative discourse with predominant anaphoric reference. Special attention is paid to the relationship between two competing forms: lexical phrases containing the lexeme ten (ten-MARKED NPs) and lexical phrases not containing it (UNMARKED NPs) in repeated mentions. A primary aim of the work is (i) to identify factors favouring the use of ten-marked NPs at the expense of unmarked NPs and (ii) to explore the possibility of the lexeme ten grammaticalizing from its anaphoric use. Theoretically and methodologically I benefit mostly from the conception of discourse anaphora and the theory of grammaticalization. The referential devices are systematically explored in terms of their distribution into different classes according to a set of parameters and their values. These parameters reflect the conceptual (animacy), grammatical (syntactic function, type of clause etc.) as well as discourse characteristics of the forms and their referents (informational status of the NP in the clause, activation and persistence of the referent, etc.). The data consist of 45 short narratives produced by 15 speakers. The speakers' task was to retell three short silent-movie sketches which they had seen immediately before the recording. The design of the...