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Based on a contrastive and variationist approach, this research work sheds light on the study of the structure of the Noun Phrase in Cameroon Pidgin English in contrast with Standard British English. Among other relevant topics, the following aspects of the NP are considered: the system of pronouns, nominal anaphora, the system of articles, the deictic implementation, quantification, intensification and reduplication.

Ce mémoire témoigne d'un projet de création qui tourne autour de mon utilisation de la symétrie et de la dissymétrie dans trois de mes œuvres récentes. Comme nous le verrons, la dissymétrie implique nécessairement la symétrie. Or, cette dernière est, de manière générale, intentionnellement évitée pour des raisons esthétiques ou pratiques. Les trois œuvres à l'étude sont : 1. Anaphora pour flûte, clarinette, violoncelle et piano ; 2. Cryotopia pour sextuor de percussions ; 3. Kaleidokósmos pour orchestre de chambre. À la suite d'une introduction où sont exposées les origines de mon projet de création et les diverses définitions nécessaires à sa compréhension, le premier chapitre présente un bref survol historique de l'usage de la symétrie en musique ainsi que les aspects de cette dernière qui m'ont intéressé et influencé. Le deuxième chapitre débute par la présentation des musiques à l'étude, puis démontre les diverses applications de la symétrie et de la dissymétrie dans ces œuvres. La conclusion énonce globalement mes préoccupations artistiques récentes et envisage différentes façons de traiter la symétrie comme élément discursif, notamment à l'aide de nouvelles technologies. / This thesis documents the use of symmetry and dissymmetry in three of my recent musical works. In this project, I explore the resources offered by these two forms, insisting more on their aesthetic and practical complementarity than on their theoretical incompatibility. In that, I consider various ways of treating symmetry as an element of the musical discourse. The three pieces studied are: 1. Anaphora for flute, clarinet, cello, and piano; 2. Cryotopia for percussion sextet; 3. Kaleidokósmos for chamber orchestra. To develop the notions corresponding to my approach, the first chapter proposes a comparative study of the uses of symmetry in geometry and music. The second chapter exposes the applications of the various symmetrical and dissymmetrical patterns in the three pieces studied. After this analysis, I consider a possible development of my approach as well as the treatment of symmetry through new technologies.

Coreference from the Cross-lingual Perspective Michal Nov'ak The subject of this thesis is to study properties of coreference using cross- lingual approaches. The work is motivated by the research on coreference-related linguistic typology. Another motivation is to explore whether differences in the ways how languages express coreference can be exploited to build better models for coreference resolution. We design two cross-lingual methods: the bilingually informed coreference resolution and the coreference projection. The results of our experiments with the methods carried out on Czech-English data suggest that with respect to coreference English is more informative for Czech than vice versa. Furthermore, the bilingually informed resolution applied on parallel texts has managed to outperform the monolingual resolver on both languages. In the experiments, we employ the monolingual coreference resolver and an improved method for alignment of coreferential expressions, both of which we also designed within the thesis. 1

Étudier le verbe do dans ses emplois lexicaux et grammaticaux, c’est s’intéresser à un élément fondamental de l’anaphore prédicative. Les linguistes sont divisés sur la catégorisation du verbe do employé en contexte anaphorique, lui attribuant un statut tantôt auxiliaire, tantôt lexical, tantôt intermédiaire entre ces catégories lorsqu’une délimitation nette entre le lexical et le grammatical semble impossible. S’appuyant sur un examen à la fois diachronique et synchronique des occurrences de do, cette thèse met en lumière les caractéristiques propres aux différentes formes du verbe, tout en révélant un sens « factitif » commun à chacune de ces formes dès lors que do est suivi de quelque complémentation (complémentation verbale dans le cas du do auxiliaire, complémentation nominale ou adverbiale dans le cas du do lexical). L’étude de corpus électroniques en anglais contemporain montre que ce sens factitif commun rend poreuse la frontière entre les emplois lexicaux et grammaticaux du verbe. Sans une analyse approfondie des occurrences de do dans des configurations variées, les différences syntaxiques entre ses formes grammaticales et lexicales se verraient ainsi éclipsées par leur unité de sens. / Studying the lexical and grammatical uses of do means engaging with a pivotal element of predicative anaphora. Linguists fail to agree on how to categorise do as used in anaphoric contexts: some take it tobe an auxiliary, others to be a lexical verb and still others to be intermediate between those two categories whenever it seems impossible to draw a clear line between lexical and grammatical instances. Based on a diachronic and synchronic survey of the uses of do, this dissertation uncovers the specific properties of the various forms of the verb and brings to light a “factitive” meaning sharedby all those forms, provided do takes some complementation (verbal in the case of auxiliary do, nominal or adverbial in the case of lexical do). Close scrutiny of electronic corpora of present-day English reveals that this factitive meaning blurs the boundary between lexical and grammatical occurrences. If it were not for an in-depth analysis of do as it occurs in various sentential contexts, the syntactic differences between its grammatical and lexical uses might be obscured by their semantic unity.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T19:34:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Jane Gasperini Apergis.pdf: 497168 bytes, checksum: 77e6844c7ad8bd6acf078701e7c9fab3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-06-21 / Secretaria da Educação do Estado de São Paulo / This work aims to verify cases in point of indirect anaphoras and their functions in the textual coherence field in writing of students from secondary school. According to interactional socio-cognitive perspective of language, the discourse reference is a discursive activity for (Mondada & Dubois, 2003), Apothéloz & Chanet (2003), Schwarz (2007), Conte (2003), Francis (2003), Marcuschi (2000), Koch (2003, 2004), Koch & Marcuschi (1998), Cavalcante (2000, 2003, 2005), we have sought to identify cases in point of indirect anaphoras in school texts and we have sought to analyse their configuration and their contribution to form the coherence. In order to get the purpose, we have chosen a corpus of written texts of students of ninth grade from a public secondary school. The results suggest that indirect anaphoras are important mechanisms for writing because they perform several functions in the articulation of texts and they are tightening related to fields of coherence / Este trabalho tem por objetivo a verificação de ocorrências de anáforas indiretas e suas funções no plano da coerência textual em produções escritas de alunos do Ensino Fundamental II. Inserido em uma perspectiva sociocognitiva interacional da linguagem, na qual a referenciação é concebida como uma atividade discursiva (cf. Mondada e Dubois (2003), Apothéloz e Chanet (2003), Schwarz (2007), Conte (2003), Francis (2003), Marcuschi (2000), Koch (2003, 2004), Koch & Marcuschi, (1998), Cavalcante (2000, 2003, 2005), procuramos levantar ocorrências de referenciação anafórica indireta em textos escolares e analisá-las do ponto de sua constituição e de sua contribuição para o estabelecimento da coerência. A fim de atingirmos o objetivo pretendido, levantamos um corpus formado por textos escritos de estudantes do nono ano do Ensino Fundamental II de uma escola da rede estadual paulista. Os resultados indicam que as anáforas indiretas constituem importantes mecanismos de produção textual, pois desempenham diversas funções na articulação de textos e estão estreitamente relacionadas com a linha de coerência dos mesmos

The present study aims to capture linguistic variation in subject distribution of two typologically similar languages, Greek and Chilean Spanish, considering adult monolingual and bilingual speakers of Greek as a heritage/minority language in Chile. The focus is on null and overt third-person subjects in topic-continuity and topic-shift contexts. Such structures involve the interface between syntax and discourse/pragmatics, a vulnerable domain in bilingualism. Previous research has shown overextension of the scope of the overt subject pronoun in contexts where null subjects are discursively expected (e.g. Tsimpli, Sorace, Heycock & Filiaci 2004). The Interface Hypothesis (IH) (Sorace 2011) was formulated to account for such findings, which obtain even in pairs of two null subject languages (Sorace, Serratrice, Filiaci & Baldo 2009). The key question as to the language-contact effects on subject distribution in pairs of two null subject languages requires further exploration while the combination of Greek and Spanish has been so far understudied. The IH is evaluated with new empirical data from a bilingual situation not studied before. Data from oral narratives and aural pronominal anaphora resolution were elicited from monolinguals and three types of bilinguals, namely first-generation immigrants, heritage speakers and L2 speakers of Greek residing in Chile. The monolingual data revealed differences in the use and interpretation of overt subject pronouns between Greek and Chilean Spanish. The crosslinguistic difference lies in the strong deictic properties of the Greek pronoun compared to its Spanish counterpart; hence differences obtain because of the relative strength of the two pronominal forms. No overextension of the scope of overt pronouns was found in bilinguals, against predictions stemming from the Interface Hypothesis. This may relate to the typological similarity between Greek and Spanish as well as to the nature of the Greek pronoun, which makes its use relatively categorical. Such findings lend support to the Representational account (Tsimpli et al. 2004). On the contrary, null subjects gave rise to optionality presumably due to their complexity, which demands higher degrees of computational efficiency. The Vulnerability Hypothesis (Prada Pérez 2018) may also account for the findings.

The thesis concerns translation issues in Lithuanian translations of English rhetorical figures (anaphora and antithesis) in political speeches delivered by different politicians. Seven political speeches in English and their Lithuanian translations were analyzed from the perspective of translation strategies and translation problems. The study uses terms for translation strategies developed by Devies’ in order to comment on Lithuanian translations of English political speeches. In order to carry out the analysis of the chosen political speeches comparative as well as contrastive analysis were chosen. Firs, the original extract and its translation were compared taking into consideration the issues of translation strategies that have been used in the process of translating. Second, the original extract and its translation were contrasted in order to notice how and why some aspects in the translation have been changed. The main goal of the present paper is to see the differences and similarities of the two languages when dealing with political rhetoric. Moreover, it is extremely important to examine persuasive tools that are used most frequently in political rhetoric both in English and in Lithuanian. The hypothesis of the paper is the following: as the two languages structurally are very different, translations of rhetorical figures in English political texts will contain many structural and stylistic deviations. Structural... [to full text] / Šis baigiamasis darbas yra susijęs su vertimo aspektais, kai retorinės figūros (anafora ir antitezė), skirtingų politikų panaudotos angliškose politinėse kalbose, verčiamos į lietuvių kalbą. Atkreipiant dėmesį į vertimo strategijas ir vertimo problemas buvo išanalizuotos septynios angliškos politinės kalbos ir jų lietuviski vertimai. Siekiant aptarti lietuviškus angliškų politinių kalbų vertimus darbe vartojami Davies vertimo strategijų terminai. Siekiant atlikti politinių kalbų analizę buvo pasirinkti lyginamasis ir kontrastinis analizės būdai. Pirmiausia, buvo lyginama originalo ištrauka su jos lietuvišku atitikmeniu, atsižvelgiant į vertimo strategijas, kurios buvo panaudotos vertimo metu. Antra, originalo ištrauka ir jos lietuviška atitikmuo buvo supriešpriešinami tam, kad būtų įmanoma įžvelgti kaip ir kodėl tam tikri aspektai vertimo metu buvo pakeisti. Pagrindinis šio darbo tikslas yra įžvelgti dviejų kalbų panašumus ir skirtumus būtent politinėje retorikoje. Taip pat labai svarbu išanalizuoti įtikinėjimo priemones, kurios dažniausiai naudojamos tiek anglų tiek lietuvių politinėje retorikoje. Disertacijos hipotezė yra tokia: kadangi nagrinėjamos kalbos struktūriškai yra labai skirtingos, retorinių figūrų vertimas iš angliškų politinių kalbų į lietuviškas bus su stipriais struktūriniais ir stilistiniais nukrypimais. Struktūriniai kalbų skirtumai leidžia daryti prielaidą, kad atsiras daug skirtumų įvairiuose vertimo aspektuose. Darbas yra suskirstytas į šešias... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

Maintaining health and quality of life into old age is a critical issue facing society today. Language, and in particular language comprehension, is vulnerable to the processes of ageing (Au, Albert, & Obler, 1989; Kynette & Kemper, 1986; Nicholas, Obler, Albert, & Goodglass, 1985; Shewan & Henderson, 1988). An improved understanding of language processing and ageing will assist in distinguishing language difficulties in normal ageing from those in pathological ageing and aphasia (Maxim & Bryan, 1994) and, potentially, optimises communication throughout life. The current thesis focuses on a specific component of language comprehension - anaphora resolution . Anaphora resolution occurs frequently in everyday discourse and has been reported to decline with ageing (Cohen, 1979; Light & Capps, 1986; Ulatowska, Hayashi, Cannito, & Fleming, 1986). This thesis explored anaphora resolution relative to two key variables: ageing and working memory. Ageing was chosen as a variable as anaphora resolution has been shown to be affected by age (Cohen, 1979; Light & Capps, 1986; Ulatowska et al., 1986). Working memory was chosen as working memory is thought to underlie key aspects of discourse comprehension such as building a mental structure of discourse and updating the information (Brébion, 2003; Hasher & Zacks, 1988; Radvansky, Copeland, & Hippel, 2010; Radvansky, Lynchard, & von Hippel, 2009). Anaphora resolution was investigated using two key paradigms. The first focussed on anaphora resolution in a reading comprehension task. Performance was assessed using accuracy of response. The second employed Gernsbacher's (1989) probe-response paradigm. The probe- response paradigm allowed examination of specific working memory processes underlying discourse comprehension, namely; a) storing and maintaining information in working memory (i.e., laying the foundation of the discourse structure); and b) updating information stored in working memory through suppressing the irrelevant discourse information. Storage and maintenance of the information was assessed by examining whether participants utilised “advantage of first mention” (Gernsbacher, 1990). Suppression was evaluated by investigating whether the accessibility of nonreferent names decreased in participants' working memory after they read anaphoric pronouns in sentences. This approach aimed to answer the following questions: 1) Do age and working memory capacity affect anaphora resolution in a comprehension task?; 2) Do age and working memory affect advantage of first mention in a probe recognition task?; and 3) Does age affect suppression of irrelevant information in an anaphora resolution task? In Chapter 3, Gernsbacher's (1989) original study was replicated. In Chapter 4 the same questions were examined, with the addition of a higher working memory load. For both studies, 30 younger and 30 older participants completed two comprehension experiments followed by an assessment of working memory capacity (reading span task). The comprehension experiments each contained a reading comprehension task and a probe recognition task. The reading comprehension task introduced two discourse characters (either a male or female name), one of which was referred to later in the text, using an anaphoric pronoun. Comprehension questions always asked about the referents of the anaphoric pronouns. Participants' accuracy in answering each comprehension question was indicative of their ability to resolve anaphora. Response times in the recognition task provided measures of the accessibility of: a) first and second mentioned names, and b) referent and nonreferent names. Chapters 3 and 4 found that, regardless of the tasks' working memory storage demands, older adults were less accurate than younger adults in the comprehension of anaphoric pronouns. Comprehension accuracy was related to working memory capacity, such that individuals with higher working memory capacity exhibited higher accuracy of response in the comprehension task. In addition, working memory capacity affected the accessibility of first and second mentioned names in the discourse suggesting that working memory capacity might influence the process of laying the foundation for the mental representation of comprehension. An ageing effect was observed on the suppression process during anaphora resolution under high working memory load only. When working memory load was low, neither younger nor older participants suppressed the accessibility of the nonreferents by the time they finished reading the sentences. This suggested that anaphora resolution might be postponed in less demanding tasks. However, under higher working memory load, younger adults, but not older adults, suppressed the accessibility of the nonreferents by the time they finished reading the sentence. It was therefore suggested that age-related changes in anaphora resolution abilities might be mediated by a decline in inhibitory functions that are responsible for suppressing the already-activated information that are no longer relevant to the task goals. The final study of the thesis (Chapter 5) aimed to determine why younger adults delayed the process of anaphora resolution in Experiment 1 (See Chapter 3), but completed the process by the time they finished reading the sentences in Experiment 2 (See Chapter 4). Specific questions addressed were: 1) Was comprehension accuracy affected by working memory storage load and the syntactic structure of the sentences?; 2) Do younger adults suppress the accessibility of the nonreferents by the time they reach the end of the sentence, in simpler sentences with increased storage load and late disambiguation?; and, 3) Do younger adults suppress the accessibility of nonreferents by the time they reach the end of the sentence, in more syntactically complex sentences with low storage load and prior disambiguation?. Forty younger participants completed four separate comprehension experimental tasks followed by a reading span test. A similar experimental approach was employed to that described in Chapters 3 and 4; however working memory storage load, syntactic complexity, and time-course for providing contextual information were manipulated. Results of Chapter 5 found that participants' accuracy declined in more syntactically complex sentences. A decline in accuracy appeared indicative of the tasks' higher processing demands and demonstrated that prior disambiguation was not facilitating the resolution of anaphora. Results from the recognition task showed that in sentences of increased syntactic complexity, participants suppressed the accessibility of nonreferents by the time they finished reading the sentence. It was suggested that higher processing demands of syntactically complex sentences, rather than a facilitating effect of earlier disambiguation in these sentences, contributed to the earlier suppression of nonreferents. In summary, this thesis demonstrated that older adults were less accurate than younger adults in comprehending anaphoric pronouns. Moreover, working memory capacity positively influenced comprehension accuracy and affected the advantage of first mention of discourse entities. It was suggested that individual differences in working memory capacity might affect the ability to lay foundations for discourse comprehension. Furthermore, older adults showed no suppression of nonreferents during processing of anaphora, regardless of working memory storage load. It appears possible that older adults' difficulty in anaphora resolution might be due to an inability to suppress irrelevant discourse information. Findings from the present study suggest that ageing may negatively affect the comprehension of linguistic structures for which more than one meaning could be inferred. While further exploration of this finding is required, it is possible that communication strategies could be devised to minimise the use of structures with more than one meaning - with the aim of improving and maintaining communication in older adults. Ultimately, determining the underlying causes of language impairments in both healthy ageing and neurological disease will help to improve speech-language therapy methods for these populations.

This thesis addresses the technical and linguistic aspects of discourse-level processing in phrase-based statistical machine translation (SMT). Connected texts can have complex text-level linguistic dependencies across sentences that must be preserved in translation. However, the models and algorithms of SMT are pervaded by locality assumptions. In a standard SMT setup, no model has more complex dependencies than an n-gram model. The popular stack decoding algorithm exploits this fact to implement efficient search with a dynamic programming technique. This is a serious technical obstacle to discourse-level modelling in SMT. From a technical viewpoint, the main contribution of our work is the development of a document-level decoder based on stochastic local search that translates a complete document as a single unit. The decoder starts with an initial translation of the document, created randomly or by running a stack decoder, and refines it with a sequence of elementary operations. After each step, the current translation is scored by a set of feature models with access to the full document context and its translation. We demonstrate the viability of this decoding approach for different document-level models. From a linguistic viewpoint, we focus on the problem of translating pronominal anaphora. After investigating the properties and challenges of the pronoun translation task both theoretically and by studying corpus data, a neural network model for cross-lingual pronoun prediction is presented. This network jointly performs anaphora resolution and pronoun prediction and is trained on bilingual corpus data only, with no need for manual coreference annotations. The network is then integrated as a feature model in the document-level SMT decoder and tested in an English–French SMT system. We show that the pronoun prediction network model more adequately represents discourse-level dependencies for less frequent pronouns than a simpler maximum entropy baseline with separate coreference resolution. By creating a framework for experimenting with discourse-level features in SMT, this work contributes to a long-term perspective that strives for more thorough modelling of complex linguistic phenomena in translation. Our results on pronoun translation shed new light on a challenging, but essential problem in machine translation that is as yet unsolved.