I denna uppsats undersöks hur två läroböcker i tyska för högstadiet skolår 7-9 utformat ettgrammatiskt moment – verbböjningen. Analysen baseras på språkdidaktiska teorier. Ianalysen undersöks om upplägget i böckerna är didaktiskt motiverat och vilka didaktiskateorier som ligger bakom upplägget. Vidare undersöks om arbetsuppgifterna är inbäddadei ett kommunikativt sammanhang eller om de är isolerade samt vilken grad av styrningarbetsuppgifterna har. Därtill undersöks hur ordningsföljden är vid inlärningen av verben.Det finns olika teorier och metoder om grammatikinlärning, två av de viktigaste är dendeduktiva kontra den induktiva metoden. En annan beskriver hur man uppfattar ocharbetar med grammatiken, som produkt eller som process. När det gällergrammatikkunskap skiljer man på den deklarativa kunskapen och den procedurala.Analysresultatet visar en obalans mellan de båda läroböckerna, där det ena läromedletligger mer i framkant med dagens språkdidaktiska forskning än det andra.

Persons with Swedish as their first language often find it hard to learn subject-verb agreement when studying English. In Swedish this grammatical difficulty does not exist and it is therefore hard to introduce to learners that have Swedish as their native language.This investigation is based on the texts of 28 ninth graders of whom four were interviewed. My interest was in finding out how the students reflect on their own written work with a focus on subject-verb agreement with a particular focus on the third person singular s.My study shows that the four interviewed students claim that they never reflect on grammar in their spontaneous writing and that they never consciously try to apply rules that they have studied in school through being offered grammatical explanations. Instead they make their grammatical choices intuitively, using their procedural knowledge.

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Verbs and prepositions encode relations within events, such as a child running towards the top of a hill or a second child pushing the first away from the top. These relational terms present significant challenges in language acquisition, requiring the mapping of the categorical system of language onto the continuous stream of information in events. This challenge is magnified when considering the complexities of events themselves. Events consist of part-whole relations, or partonomic hierarchies, in which events defined by smaller boundaries, such as the child running up the hill, can be integrated into broader categories, such as the second child preventing the first from reaching the top (Zacks & Tversky, 2001). This dissertation addresses how this partonomic hierarchy in events is paralleled in the structure of relational language. I examine the semantic category of force dynamics, or "how entities interact with respect to force" (Talmy, 1988, p. 49), which introduces broad categories (e.g., help, prevent) that incorporate previously independent relations in events, such as paths, goals, and causality. Two studies ask how children and adults navigate the tension between fine and broad categories in their nonlinguistic representations of force and motion events and whether language - in the form of both labels and syntactic cues - helps children to integrate previously independent relations into these higher order constructs. Participants completed a novel task designed to assess the saliency of force dynamics relations across events. Participants viewed an animated event depicting a force dynamics relation (e.g., prevent, cause) and were asked to identify which of two perceptually varied events (i.e., different characters and setting) depicted the same relation. Study One extends previous research, showing that adults encode force dynamics relations in nonlinguistic contexts. Study Two examined these representations in 4-year-olds, both with and without linguistic cues. Absent linguistic cues, children showed no evidence of encoding force dynamics; however, the presence of language highlighted these relations, improving children's attention to these broader categories in events. The results are the first to explore the problem of hierarchies in relational language and demonstrate a novel role for language in drawing children's attention to the presence of relations between relations. / Psychology

This dissertation evaluates the untested assumption that the individuation of events into units matters for word learning, particularly the learning of terms which map onto relational event units (Gentner & Boroditsky, 2001; Maguire et al., 2006). We predicted that 3-year-old children’s statistical action segmentation abilities would relate to their verb comprehension and to their overall vocabulary knowledge (Research Question 1). We also hypothesized that statistical action segmentation would facilitate children’s learning of novel verbs (Research Question 2). Largely confirming our first prediction, children who were better able to statistically segment novel action sequences into reliable units had more sophisticated overall vocabularies and were quicker to select the correct referents of overall vocabulary items and verb vocabulary items; nevertheless, they did not have larger verb vocabularies. Unexpectedly, statistical action segmentation did not facilitate children’s learning of verbs for statistically consistent action units. However, children showed greater learning of verbs labeling statistical action part-units than verbs labeling statistical action non-units, providing some evidence for our second prediction. In sum, this dissertation takes an important step towards understanding how event segmentation may contribute to vocabulary acquisition. / Psychology

This study focuses on the predicate argument structure (PAS) of a sub-class of verbs in Xitsonga - verbs of change of possession: give, contribute, future having, providing, obtaining and verbs of exchange. It is shown that these verbs select various theta roles to form their PAS in the different alternations allowed in this language. The effects of the applicative {-el-} and causative {-is-} verbal affixes on the PAS of such verbs are also considered. The study confirms the fact that the ordering of objects in ditransitive verbs is determined by an interplay of syntactic and semantic factors. Ambiguity arises in the case of two animate objects. In this case the object with a definite reading will appear adjacent to the verb. / African Languages / M. A. (Arican Languages)

Text in Afrikaans / Twee sentrale probleme word hier ondersoek, naamlik die daarstelling van 'n teoreties adekwate model om leksikale valensie te verreken en die problematiek rondom die beskrywing van Afrikaanse bewegingswerkwoorde. Die vertrekpunt is dat 'n teorie van UG lesikale valensie slegs ten dele verreken. So 'n teorie is gemoeid met die vorm van 'n konstruksie wat op LF-vlak leesbaar is. Gevolglik beskryf 'n teorie van UG valensie net in universele sintakties-kategoriale terme. In hierdie studie word die semantiese en pragmatiese komponente van 'n valensieteorie derhalwe uitgebou sodat daar 'n duideliker begrip verkry kan word van die wisselwerking tussen alle veranderlikes van valensie op 'n taalspesifieke LF-vlak. 'n Valensieteorie word op eklektiese wyse saamgestel uit verskeie ander teoriee. Die apparaat om die sintaktiese komponent van 'n valensieteorie te beskryf, word aan TGGmodelle ontleen. Die semantiese komponent van die teorie word aangevul vanuit die Konseptuele Semantiek en die pragmatiese komponent daarvan vanui t kogni ti ewe grammatikamodelle. Die interaksie tussen hierdie komponente word verreken deur teoriee van leksikalisasie, korrespondensiereels en die passing tussen konstruksies en leksikale items. Die ontleding van Afrikaanse bewegingswerkwoorde spesif iseer die omvattender anali tiese apparaat wat nodig is vir die verrekening van valensie verby die punt waarvoor 'n teorie van UG voorsiening maak. Dit blyk uit hierdie analise dat die valensie van die kategorie in 'n aantal valensieraambeskrywings vir die aparte subklasse saamgevat kan word. 'n Duidelike beeld van die universele en taalspesifiekidiosinkratiese aspekte van hierdie kategorie kan in terme van hierdie valensierame aangetoon word. 'n Verdere hipotese (die onakkusatiwiteithipotese) is dat die sintaktiese verspreiding van werkwoorde ui t hulle semantiek voorspel kan word. Hierdie hipotese word getoets aan die empiriese data van Afrikaanse bewegingswerkwoorde. Hierdie bewegingswerkwoorde word in groepe geklassifiseer na gelang van ooreenstemmende semanties-pragmatiese kenmerke. Daar word getoon dat bewegingswerkwoorde met dieself de semantiespragmatiese kenmerke dieselfde valensierame het. Valensierame is daarom op sistematiese wyse uit semanties-pragmatiese kenmerke afleibaar. Sekere fasette van valensierame word egter ook bepaal deur konvensies soos profilering, en deur bereelde interaksie met 'n basiese konstruksie se argumentstruktuur. / This thesis focuses on the development of a theoretically adequate model to account for lexical valence and to provide the detail for such a model by means of an analysis of Afrikaans verbs of motion. The thesis is a response to a theory of UG which inadequately accounts for lexical valence. A theory of UG is concerned with the universal syntactic form of a construction that is legible on LF level. It therefore describes valence in universal syntactic-categorial terms only. This thesis develops the semantic and pragmatic components of a theory of valence in order that a clearer understanding may be gained of the interaction between all the variables of valence on a language specific LF level. A theory of valence is construed eclectically from several other theories. TGG models provide the methods used to describe the syntactic component of a theory of valence. Conceptual Semantics contributes to the development of the semantic component, and models of cognitive grammar to the pragmatic component. The interaction between these components is explained by theories of lexicalisation, rules of correspondence and the fusion of constructions and lexical items. The analysis of Afrikaans verbs of motion provides the comprehensive set of analytical devices required to account for valence beyond the point of LF. From this analysis it emerges that the valence of this category can be summarized in a finite number of frames of valence for distinct classes within the category. 'n Clear understanding of the universal and language specific aspects of this category is achieved by means of these frames of valence. A further hypothesis (the unaccusativity hypothesis) posits that the syntactic distribution of verbs can be predicted from their semantics. This hypothesis is tested by means of empirical data of Afrikaans verbs of motion. These verbs are classified according to similar semantic-pragmatic features. It is shown that verbs of motion with the same semanticpragmatic features share frames of valence. These frames thus are deducible systematically from semantic-pragmatic features. Certain aspects of frames of valence, however, are determined by conventions such as profiling and the regulated interaction between verbs and constructions. / Afrikaans / D.Litt. et Phil. (Afrikaans)

The present work provides a comprehensive overview of causativity - its definition, classification and characteristics - in a typological perspective. It outlines the development of causativity in English, from Indo-European to Present Day English with main emphasis on the Old English period and the factors that had led to the state of causative verbs at that time. In Research Part, it inquires into the possible competition between morphological and syntactic causatives and its future after- effects with respect to the described typology. Key words: causation, causativity, causative verb, causative opposition, morphological causative verb, syntactic causative expression, labile causative opposition, Old English

Among Urdu’s many verb+verb constructions, this thesis focuses on those constructions, which combine the stem of a main content verb with another inflected verb which is used in a semantically bleached sense. Prior work on these constructions has been focused on their structural make-up and syntactic behavior in various environments. While there is consensus among scholars (Butt 1995, Hook 1977, Carnikova 1989, Porizka 2000 et al.) that these stem+verb constructions encode aspectual information, to date no clear theory has been put forward to explain the nature of their aspectual contribution. In short, we do not have a clear idea why these constructions are used instead of simple verbs. This work is an attempt to understand the precise function of these constructions. I propose that simple verbs (henceforth SV) in Urdu deal only with the action of the verb whereas (regardless of the semantic information contributed by the second inflected verb,1) the stem+verb constructions essentially deal with the action of the verb as well as the state of affairs resulting from this action. The event represented by these constructions is essentially a telic event as defined by Comrie (1976), whose resultant state is highlighted from the use of these constructions. The attention of the listener is then shifted to the result of this telic event, whose salience in the discourse is responsible for various interpretations of the event; hence my term ‘resultive construction’ (henceforth RC). When these constructions are made using the four special verbs (rah ‘stay’, sak ‘can’, paa ‘manage’ and cuk ‘finish’), the product is not resultive. Each of these verbs behaves differently and is somewhere between a resultive and an auxiliary verb construction. This work can be extended to other verb-verb construction in Urdu and other related and non-related languages as well. The analysis of the precise function of the RCs can also help in developing a model for them in various functional grammars. The proposed properties of RCs can be utilized in the semantic analysis of the Urdu quantifiers. This work should aid in identification and explanation of constructions in other languages, particularly those that are non-negatable under normal contexts. [1] All second inflected verbs with the exception of four special verbs rah ‘stay’, sak ‘can’, paa ‘manage’ and cuk ‘finish’. These four special verbs are either auxiliaries or modals as identified in prior literature.