This thesis examines ungrammatical article omission, and overuse of the definite article 'the' in indefinite specific context by Japanese learners of English. This is an area of English grammar that has been considered a major problem for L2 learners (e.g. Ionin, Ko & Wexler, 2004; R. Hawkins et al., 2005, 2006; Trenkic, 2007). The thesis extends the analysis of Japanese learners' interlanguage to the overuse of 'a' in indefinite specific mass contexts by these learners. A detailed analysis of DP structures in Japanese and English leads to the conclusion that Japanese learners, through their L1, are equipped with the linguistic features which map onto articles in English, even though Japanese lacks articles. The thesis examines the syntactic role of articles in rendering predicative nouns argumental (e.g. Chierchia, 1998; Longobardi, 1994) and explores the definiteness contrast marked by 'the' as opposed to 'a/ø' with singular count nouns and mass nouns (e.g. J. Hawkins, 1978) at the semantic level. Count/mass distinctions are also examined in detail (e.g. Doetjes, 1997; Jackendoff, 1992) because the 'a' versus 'Ø' contrast clearly relates this distinction. This thesis argues that, despite its lack of articles, the Japanese grammar expresses definiteness and count/mass distinctions through its classifier system. For example, different orderings of the constituents in a classifier phrase induce different interpretations as to definiteness (e.g. Kakegawa, 2004). Further, the thesis shows that some classifiers are incompatible with mass nouns, thus argue that in Japanese, as in English, nouns are associated with the features which underlie the count/mass distinction. Thus, the difficulty that Japanese learners display in mastering the grammar of articles in English is attributed to difficulties in the mapping between their syntactic and semantic underlying knowledge and the surface forms (e.g. Lardiere, 1998) rather than to the need to acquire new features or categories of syntactic or semantic knowledge as the Representational Deficit Hypothesis (R. Hawkins, 2005) claims. This proposal differs from the previous studies that assume that the relevant syntactic category is not present in the learners’ L1 thus not acquirable in the L2 (R. Hawkins et al., 2005; Trenkic, 2007). It also differs from those that suggest that, even when the learners’ L1 does not overtly realize these features (Ionin et al., 2004), the semantic features are available through universal grammar (UG). In order to examine how Japanese learners map syntactic and semantic knowledge onto the surface forms of articles in their English, data were collected via an oral production task and two types of grammaticality judgment tasks. An online judgment task was used to gather evidence for an intuitive type of knowledge of the constraints on article use, while an offline judgment task examined conscious metalinguistic knowledge of articles. Because L2 learners tend to construct and apply various metalinguistic rules as to the use of articles (Goto-Butler, 2002), the examination of both intuitive and conscious knowledge is essential for a comprehensive understanding of the development of the article system in interlanguage grammar. For the mapping of the syntactic knowledge of articles, the omission of articles by Japanese participants is investigated. The investigation focused on singular count nouns because the omission of articles with these nouns is ungrammatical in any context. It was observed that several of the Japanese participants indeed disallowed article omission for these nouns, suggesting that they had acquired the English system of mapping relevant syntactic knowledge onto the surface forms of articles. The thesis also explores the mapping of the semantic knowledge of articles by focusing on the overuse of 'the' in indefinite specific contexts. Previous studies have claimed that the overuse of 'the' is governed by the Article Choice Parameter (Ionin et al., 2004). The findings reported here confirm the tendency to overuse 'the' in indefinite specific (i.e. noteworthy (Ionin et al., 2004)) contexts. However, it was also observed that 'a' was judged acceptable in the same context. The offline grammaticality judgment task revealed that the choice of 'the' in this context may have been affected by metalinguistic knowledge. Thus, the findings are not in agreement with the hypothesis that a parameter governs the overuse of 'the' in indefinite specific contexts. Additionally, the thesis examines the overuse of 'a' in mass contexts. Though small in number, the participants who make inconsistent judgments for the same noun showed a tendency to accept the use of 'a' in specific contexts (i.e. de re specific) and reject it in non-specific contexts. It is argued that the feature [+specific] may be mapped onto 'a' in mass contexts in these learners’ grammar. Based on these findings, the thesis explores how the syntactic module and the semantic module interact with each other in L2 grammar when mapping linguistic knowledge onto surface forms. The thesis also explores the effect of metalinguistic knowledge on L2 learners’ grammaticality judgments in order to demonstrate a more comprehensive picture of article systems in interlanguage grammar.

This thesis examines ungrammatical article omission, and overuse of the definite article 'the' in indefinite specific context by Japanese learners of English. This is an area of English grammar that has been considered a major problem for L2 learners (e.g. Ionin, Ko & Wexler, 2004; R. Hawkins et al., 2005, 2006; Trenkic, 2007). The thesis extends the analysis of Japanese learners' interlanguage to the overuse of 'a' in indefinite specific mass contexts by these learners. A detailed analysis of DP structures in Japanese and English leads to the conclusion that Japanese learners, through their L1, are equipped with the linguistic features which map onto articles in English, even though Japanese lacks articles. The thesis examines the syntactic role of articles in rendering predicative nouns argumental (e.g. Chierchia, 1998; Longobardi, 1994) and explores the definiteness contrast marked by 'the' as opposed to 'a/ø' with singular count nouns and mass nouns (e.g. J. Hawkins, 1978) at the semantic level. Count/mass distinctions are also examined in detail (e.g. Doetjes, 1997; Jackendoff, 1992) because the 'a' versus 'Ø' contrast clearly relates this distinction. This thesis argues that, despite its lack of articles, the Japanese grammar expresses definiteness and count/mass distinctions through its classifier system. For example, different orderings of the constituents in a classifier phrase induce different interpretations as to definiteness (e.g. Kakegawa, 2004). Further, the thesis shows that some classifiers are incompatible with mass nouns, thus argue that in Japanese, as in English, nouns are associated with the features which underlie the count/mass distinction. Thus, the difficulty that Japanese learners display in mastering the grammar of articles in English is attributed to difficulties in the mapping between their syntactic and semantic underlying knowledge and the surface forms (e.g. Lardiere, 1998) rather than to the need to acquire new features or categories of syntactic or semantic knowledge as the Representational Deficit Hypothesis (R. Hawkins, 2005) claims. This proposal differs from the previous studies that assume that the relevant syntactic category is not present in the learners’ L1 thus not acquirable in the L2 (R. Hawkins et al., 2005; Trenkic, 2007). It also differs from those that suggest that, even when the learners’ L1 does not overtly realize these features (Ionin et al., 2004), the semantic features are available through universal grammar (UG). In order to examine how Japanese learners map syntactic and semantic knowledge onto the surface forms of articles in their English, data were collected via an oral production task and two types of grammaticality judgment tasks. An online judgment task was used to gather evidence for an intuitive type of knowledge of the constraints on article use, while an offline judgment task examined conscious metalinguistic knowledge of articles. Because L2 learners tend to construct and apply various metalinguistic rules as to the use of articles (Goto-Butler, 2002), the examination of both intuitive and conscious knowledge is essential for a comprehensive understanding of the development of the article system in interlanguage grammar. For the mapping of the syntactic knowledge of articles, the omission of articles by Japanese participants is investigated. The investigation focused on singular count nouns because the omission of articles with these nouns is ungrammatical in any context. It was observed that several of the Japanese participants indeed disallowed article omission for these nouns, suggesting that they had acquired the English system of mapping relevant syntactic knowledge onto the surface forms of articles. The thesis also explores the mapping of the semantic knowledge of articles by focusing on the overuse of 'the' in indefinite specific contexts. Previous studies have claimed that the overuse of 'the' is governed by the Article Choice Parameter (Ionin et al., 2004). The findings reported here confirm the tendency to overuse 'the' in indefinite specific (i.e. noteworthy (Ionin et al., 2004)) contexts. However, it was also observed that 'a' was judged acceptable in the same context. The offline grammaticality judgment task revealed that the choice of 'the' in this context may have been affected by metalinguistic knowledge. Thus, the findings are not in agreement with the hypothesis that a parameter governs the overuse of 'the' in indefinite specific contexts. Additionally, the thesis examines the overuse of 'a' in mass contexts. Though small in number, the participants who make inconsistent judgments for the same noun showed a tendency to accept the use of 'a' in specific contexts (i.e. de re specific) and reject it in non-specific contexts. It is argued that the feature [+specific] may be mapped onto 'a' in mass contexts in these learners’ grammar. Based on these findings, the thesis explores how the syntactic module and the semantic module interact with each other in L2 grammar when mapping linguistic knowledge onto surface forms. The thesis also explores the effect of metalinguistic knowledge on L2 learners’ grammaticality judgments in order to demonstrate a more comprehensive picture of article systems in interlanguage grammar.

Dissertation (DLitt)--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (DLitt (African Languages))--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / Definiteness is generally viewed as a morpho-syntactic category. It is grammatically marked by articles in languages such as English, but not all languages have a formal grammatical encoding for this category. The nominal preprefix (NPP) in languages such as Dzamba is not an equivalent to the English article system; however, it displays a close association with definiteness. Northern Sotho is non-articled, and it does not possess the NPP in its grammatical system. As a grammatical category, definiteness is the grammaticalisation of a pragmatic category of identifiability, which is present in all languages. Identifiability, as a means of referent tracing, plays a vital role in communication. The main aim of this study is to investigate how the phenomenon of definiteness manifests itself in Northern Sotho. The introductory chapter describes the purpose and aim of the study, its theoretical approach and methodology, as well as its organisation. The second chapter presents an overview of the previous major works on definiteness. It begins with the literature on the category in general, and moves on to the literature on definiteness in African Languages. These previous studies agree on the central issues of this category. The speaker utters a definite noun phrase (NP) if he presupposes that the addressee will be in a position to locate and to identify the referent of the NP uniquely or inclusively. Chapter 3 examines noun phrases that are regarded as definite in Northern Sotho; and the factors that contribute to such a reading. Pragmatic factors, i.e. existential presupposition, transparent contexts and anaphoric reference make major contributions to the interpretation of a noun phrase as definite. Nominal determiners and quantifiers whose semantic content suggests locatability, uniqueness and/or inclusiveness give a noun phrase definite reference. Such determiners and quantifiers include the demonstrative, possessive with locative gona/ntshe, the universal quantifier, etc. Proper names and pronouns have unique reference. Chapter 4 investigates indefinite noun phrases in Northern Sotho. Bare noun phrases in this language such as mang (who), lefeela (nothing) and aretse (unknown thing/place) are incompatible with definiteness. Their semantic content suggests that their referent cannot or should not be uniquely identified. Nominal modifiers such as -ngwe (another/different/ a certain), -fe (who/which) and šele (another/different/strange) are also incompatible with unique identifiabilty and they, therefore, accord a noun phrase indefinite reference. Nouns with generic interpretation and nouns in idioms do not uniquely refer to particular individuals. Chapter 5 looks into the ambiguity of bare noun phrases in Northern Sotho. It examines such a phrase in the subject position, the object position and the complement position of prepositional phrases. Nominal modifiers such as the adjective, the relative and the possessive are incorporated into noun phrases to see how they affect the reading. The question of subject inversion (SI) is also investigated. Lastly opaque contexts are discussed, and the ambiguity created by opacity-creating operators is examined. The final chapter of the study presents the main findings.

Abstract The study aims to discuss how English article system is acquired by Mandarin-Chinese speakers at two domains, semantic domain and sentence level, by analyzing oral-story-telling data produced by forty 19-to-20-year old college students in Taiwan (20 males and 20 females), divided into low proficiency and high proficiency levels based on their results of Michigan Listening Comprehension Test. The production data was classified into four semantic types marked by a combination of two universal semantic concepts, specificity and definiteness for the purpose of examining Fluctuation Hypothesis (FH) proposed by Ionin (2004), who argued that L2 access to Universal Grammar by predicting L2 learners without article system will fluctuate between two parameter settings of specificity and definiteness. It is found that overuse of the did occur in [+specificity, -definiteness] contexts where target use is a, particularly for low-level learners. Besides, to closely probe into how L1 Mandarin-Chinese speakers use articles in L2 grammar within Ionin¡¦s framework, a model for linguistic properties marking specificity and definiteness in Chinese was proposed so as to compare the differences between English article system and Chinese classifier system, arguing that the interference of L1 may take place at semantic domain by L1 Mandarin-Chinese speakers. The evidence that the substitution of nage for definite article the in [+specificity, +definiteness] contexts and that of numeral one yige for indefinite article a in only [+specificity, -definiteness] and [-specificity, -definiteness] contexts sheds the light on the possibility of the occurrence of L1 transfer at the semantic domain. As for article use in sentential positions, due to definiteness effect and subject indefinite effect in Chinese, it is predicted that L1 Mandarin-Chinese speakers would drop articles more often in preverbal positions than in postverbal positions. The result showed that low-level learners did drop more articles in preverbal positions than in postverbal positions, but advanced learners showed the contrast, which implies that the beginners are easily governed by the definiteness effect, that is, L1 is at play at the initial state of L2 grammar. Overall, the advanced learners used articles more accurately than the low-level learners did, suggesting that the advanced Mandarin-Chinese L2 English learners may gradually reset the parameter of L2 grammars in acquiring English article system. Furthermore, different error types produced by the participants were classified in the study and provided with theoretical discussion. A surprising finding is that the low-level learners highly misused the Cinderella for Cinderella in the data. Such error production may show the evidence of L2 access to UG since the Cinderella cannot be used in English and there is no determiner the projecting in Chinese proper name. The overuse of the further illustrates the existence of projecting D for L1 Chinese learners. The acquisition rate of article use was measured by SOC (Suppliances in Obligatory Contexts) and TLU (Target-Like-Use). The results showed that the most difficult article use for both proficiency levels is zero article Ø. The advanced learners can use the more accurately than the learners at proficiency level due to the high occurrences of overgeneralization of the by the low-proficiency levels. In general, the result of the current study bears on the issue of accessibility of UG and the possibility of parameter (re-) setting. It is also shown that L1 plays a significant role in L2 article use not only at the semantic domain but also at the sentential level by L1 Mandarin-Chinese speakers, especially for those at the initial state of L2 grammar.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study investigates the manifestations of the universal categories of (in)definiteness and (non-)specificity in the Runyankore-Rukiga determiner phrase by means of discourse-pragmatic and morpho-syntactic considerations. Runyankore-Rukiga, like all other Bantu languages, exhibits no (in)definite articles, but there are various ways the language employs to encode the definiteness. Lyons’s (1999) semantic principles of definiteness and his definition of specificity are adopted for the study, as well as the Minimalist and Cartographic approaches to syntax. The data come from authentic written materials, recorded spoken discourse and elicitation (backed up by other native speakers’ grammaticality judgement). The study considers modified and unmodified (bare) nouns. Bare nouns are generally (save for those with inherent unique semantic features) ambiguous between (in)definite and (non-) specific readings Thus, an appropriate reading is contingent on a correct discourse-pragmatic setting. Nominal modifiers are categorized into three groups (Visser, 2008). Those which contribute unambiguously to the definiteness interpretation of head nouns, e.g., demonstratives, the functional elements -a and nya-, some quantifiers and the absolute pronoun. The second category includes nominal modifiers which have neutral semantic features of (in)definiteness and (non-)specificity, namely, adjectives, numerals, possessives as well as nominal and clausal relatives. Thirdly, nominal modifiers occur which are assumed to possess an inherent semantic feature of indefiniteness, for example, some quantifiers and the lexicalized element haine. The study investigates the inferences associated with the Initial Vowel (IV) when it occurs optionally in the inflectional morphology of nominal modifiers with the neutral feature of (in)definiteness and (non-)specificity in prenominal, and postnominal positions, as well as in positions when the head of the phrase is a pro category. The intricate relation of the core morpheme of the demonstrative and the IV is investigated. The study concludes that the initial vowel occurring optionally in the inflectional morphology of neutral nominal modifiers and with bare object nouns following a negative verb evolved from the core demonstrative morpheme and exhibits anaphoric features in the absence of a full lexical head as well as functioning as a functional category determiner, expressing specificity, contrastive focus and sometimes emphasis features. Indefinite nominal modifiers contribute to indefiniteness reading of their head nouns although the indefinite feature is not inherent in them, in that they can appear in definite contexts as well. Indefinite quantifiers too allow the IV in their inflectional morphology as a determiner that mainly encodes contrastive focus or emphasis. The results from the study offer explanations of key areas of syntax, morphology and semantics relating to the Determiner phrase system from a perspective of no (in)definite articles, which constitutes a significantly major contribution to Bantu linguistic research. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie ondersoek die manifestasies van die universele kategorieë van (on)bepaaldheid en (nie-)spesifisiteit in die Runyankore-Rukiga bepalerfrase deur middel van diskoers-pragmatiese en morfo-sintaktiese oorwegings. Runyankore-Rukiga, soos ander Bantutale, het geen (on)bepaalde lidwoorde (bepalers) nie, maar daar is ‘n verskeidenheid middele wat die taalkluster van gebruik maak om die verskynsels te enkodeer. Lyons (1999) se semantiese beginsels van bepaaldheid en sy definisie van spesifisiteit word aanvaar vir die studie, asook die Minimalistiese en Kartografiese benaderings tot sintaksis. Die data van die studie kom uit oorspronklike geskrewe materiaal, opnames van gesproke diskoers en elisitasie (ondersteun deur ander sprekers se grammatikaliteitsoordele). Die studie ondersoek naamwoorde wat respektiewelik omskryf en nie-omskryf word deur bepalers. Naamwoorde in die algemeen (behalwe dié met inherente unieke semantiese kenmerke) is dubbelsinnig tussen (on)bepaalde en (nie-)spesifieke interpretasies. Dus is ‘n gepaste interpretasie afhanklik van ‘n gepaste diskoerspragmatiese konteks. Naamwoordelike bepalers kan in drie groepe geklassifiseer word (Visser, 2008). Daardie wat ondubbelsinnig bydra tot die bepaaldheids-interpretasie van kern-naamwoorde, bv. demonstratiewe, die funksionele elemente –a en –nya in Runyankore-Rukiga, sommige kwantifiseerders, en die absolute voornaamwoord. Die tweede kategorie sluit in naamwoordelike bepalers wat neutraal semantiese kenmerke het ten opsigte van (on)bepaaldheid en (nie-)spesifisiteit, naamlik adjektiewe, telwoorde, possessiewe, asook nominale en sinsrelatiewe. Die derde groep is naamwoordelike bepalers wat beskik oor ‘n kenmerk van inherente onbepaaldheid, bv. sommige kwantifiseerders en die geleksikaliseerde element haine in Runyankore-Rukiga. Die studie ondersoek interpretasies geassosieer met die aanvangsvokaal (AV) wanneer dit opsioneel verskyn in die infleksiemorfologie van naamwoordelike bepalers met die neutrale kenmerk van (on)bepaaldheid en (nie-)spesifisiteit in prenominale en postnominale posisie, asook in posisies waar die kern van die naamwoordfrase ‘n foneties leë pro kategorie is. Die ingewikkelde verhouding van die kernmorfeem van die demonstratief en die AV word ondersoek. Die studie maak die slotsom dat die aanvangsvokaal wat opsioneel verskyn in die infleksiemorfologie van neutrale naamwoordelike bepalers en met ongemodifiseerde naamwoorde wat volg na ‘n negatiewe werkwoord, ontwikkel het uit die kern demonstratiewe morfeem en anaforiese kenmerke toon in die afwesigheid van ‘n volledige leksikale kern naamwoord, en ook funksioneer as ‘n funksionele kategorie, bepaler, met spesifisiteit, kontrastiewe fokus, asook somtyds beklemtoningskenmerke. Onbepaalde naamwoordelike bepalers dra by tot die onbepaaldheidsinterpretasie van die kernnaamwoord alhoewel die onbepaaldheidskenmerk nie inherent is aan dié naamwoorde nie, omdat hulle in bepaaldheidskontekste kan verskyn. Onbepaalde kwantifiseerders vertoon die AV in hul infleksiemorfologie, as ‘n bepaler wat hoofsaaklik kontrastiewe fokus of beklemtoning enkodeer. Die resultate van die studie bied verklarings vir sleutel-areas van die sintaksis, morfologie en semantiek rakende die bepaler frase sisteem vanuit die perspektief van (on)bepaalde lidwoorde, wat ‘n betekenisvolle bydrae maak tot navorsing in die Bantutale.

A presente dissertação realiza uma investigação semântica do sintagma nominal (NP) do caboverdiano, língua falada no arquipélago de Cabo Verde, localizado na costa ocidental africana. As análises concentram-se na variedade de Santiago, ilha em que está localizada a capital do país, a cidade de Praia. Os nomes no caboverdiano, em geral, não são acompanhados de determinante e podem ser interpretados tanto como definidos quanto indefinidos. A utilização de un / uns está, em geral, associada a introdução de novos referentes, seu uso, contudo, não é frequente. Existe, ainda, a partícula kel/kes que parece veicular, entre outras coisas, definitude. Tal emprego, todavia, tampouco se dá frequentemente. O estatuto de kel, em caboverdiano, causa algumas divergências entre os pesquisadores da língua. Alguns autores advogam que ele desempenha, por vezes, o papel de artigo definido (ver, entre outros, (Alexandre and Soares, 2004), (Baptista, 2007), (Quint, 2000)). Discutiremos alguns dos trabalhos que versam sobre o sintagma nominal em caboverdiano, apresentando argumentos que corroboram ou não essa hipótese. A bem da verdade, a maioria das descrições sobre o caboverdiano não manifesta acordo quanto à existência ou não de artigo definido nessa língua. Os que afirmam sua existência parecem, muitas vezes, apresentar análises da língua centradas na descrição e análise do português, principalmente do português europeu. Diante dessa perspectiva, diversos fenômenos idiossincráticos do caboverdiano podem passar despercebidos, como no caso de uma possível contribuição ilocucional do operador uma, outro modificador do sintagma nominal. Este trabalho procura realizar uma análise do caboverdiano centrada nos fatos da própria língua, investigando as diferentes estratégias de interpretação dos nomes, bem como o papel dos elementos que compõem o sintagma nominal. / This dissertation conducts an investigation of the semantic of the noun phrase (NP) Cape Verdean language, spoken in the Cape Verde, archipelago located on the West African coast. The analysis focuses on the Santiago variety. The nouns in the Cape Verdean are generally determinerless and can be interpreted both as definite and indefinite. The introduction of new referents is generally associated with the use of un/uns, its use however is not frequent. There are also the particle kel/kes it seems vehicle, among other things, definiteness. Such employement, however, nor is often gives. The status of kel in Cape Verdean, cause some disagreement among of the language researchers. Some scholars advocate that kel may assume, sometimes, the role of a definite article (see among others (Alexandre and Soares, 2004), (Baptista, 2007), (Quint, 2000)). I will discuss several works which deal with noun phrase in Cape Verdean, revealing arguments which confirm whether or not this hypothesis. In fact, most of the Cape Verdean descriptions not show agreement on the definite article presence or absence in that language. Those who claim its existence often seem to present analysis of the Cape Verdean centered on the description and analysis of the Portuguese, especially European Portuguese. With that prospect, severals idiosyncratic phenomena of the Cape Verde may go unnotice, as in the case of a possible illocutionary contribution of the uma operator, another noun phrase modifier. This work attempt examine of the an Cape Verdean analyse focused on the language facts theirselves, investigating different strategies for nouns interpretation, as well as the elements role on the noun phrase.

A presente dissertação realiza uma investigação semântica do sintagma nominal (NP) do caboverdiano, língua falada no arquipélago de Cabo Verde, localizado na costa ocidental africana. As análises concentram-se na variedade de Santiago, ilha em que está localizada a capital do país, a cidade de Praia. Os nomes no caboverdiano, em geral, não são acompanhados de determinante e podem ser interpretados tanto como definidos quanto indefinidos. A utilização de un / uns está, em geral, associada a introdução de novos referentes, seu uso, contudo, não é frequente. Existe, ainda, a partícula kel/kes que parece veicular, entre outras coisas, definitude. Tal emprego, todavia, tampouco se dá frequentemente. O estatuto de kel, em caboverdiano, causa algumas divergências entre os pesquisadores da língua. Alguns autores advogam que ele desempenha, por vezes, o papel de artigo definido (ver, entre outros, (Alexandre and Soares, 2004), (Baptista, 2007), (Quint, 2000)). Discutiremos alguns dos trabalhos que versam sobre o sintagma nominal em caboverdiano, apresentando argumentos que corroboram ou não essa hipótese. A bem da verdade, a maioria das descrições sobre o caboverdiano não manifesta acordo quanto à existência ou não de artigo definido nessa língua. Os que afirmam sua existência parecem, muitas vezes, apresentar análises da língua centradas na descrição e análise do português, principalmente do português europeu. Diante dessa perspectiva, diversos fenômenos idiossincráticos do caboverdiano podem passar despercebidos, como no caso de uma possível contribuição ilocucional do operador uma, outro modificador do sintagma nominal. Este trabalho procura realizar uma análise do caboverdiano centrada nos fatos da própria língua, investigando as diferentes estratégias de interpretação dos nomes, bem como o papel dos elementos que compõem o sintagma nominal. / This dissertation conducts an investigation of the semantic of the noun phrase (NP) Cape Verdean language, spoken in the Cape Verde, archipelago located on the West African coast. The analysis focuses on the Santiago variety. The nouns in the Cape Verdean are generally determinerless and can be interpreted both as definite and indefinite. The introduction of new referents is generally associated with the use of un/uns, its use however is not frequent. There are also the particle kel/kes it seems vehicle, among other things, definiteness. Such employement, however, nor is often gives. The status of kel in Cape Verdean, cause some disagreement among of the language researchers. Some scholars advocate that kel may assume, sometimes, the role of a definite article (see among others (Alexandre and Soares, 2004), (Baptista, 2007), (Quint, 2000)). I will discuss several works which deal with noun phrase in Cape Verdean, revealing arguments which confirm whether or not this hypothesis. In fact, most of the Cape Verdean descriptions not show agreement on the definite article presence or absence in that language. Those who claim its existence often seem to present analysis of the Cape Verdean centered on the description and analysis of the Portuguese, especially European Portuguese. With that prospect, severals idiosyncratic phenomena of the Cape Verde may go unnotice, as in the case of a possible illocutionary contribution of the uma operator, another noun phrase modifier. This work attempt examine of the an Cape Verdean analyse focused on the language facts theirselves, investigating different strategies for nouns interpretation, as well as the elements role on the noun phrase.

Cette thèse propose une analyse contrastive de la notion de défini telle qu’elle est exprimée dans le système de l’article en anglais et en arabe moderne standard. L’ensemble des notions associées au défini et à l’indéfini sont examinées d’un point de vue sémantique et d’un point de vue syntaxique, afin de découvrir la manière dont les deux langues traitent ces concepts; les différences et les ressemblances sont répertoriées dans le contexte d’une étude détaillée de corpus. Le récit, The Brook Kerith de l’écrivain irlandais George Moore a été choisi pour des raisons géo-historiques et littéraires: les événements racontés se déroulent en Terre Sainte à l’aube de l’ère chrétienne. Les occurrences du syntagme nominal en anglais et en arabe analysées dans le premier chapitre permettent de dégager les convergences et les divergences des deux systèmes. Les résultats sont soumis à une analyse quantitative et statistique. Il en ressort que la valeur de l’article défini en anglais (“the”) et en arabe (“al”) correspondent dans 76% des emplois. La ressemblance entre la valeur de l’article indéfini (“a / an”) en anglais et son équivalent en arabe s'élève à 96%. Cependant, dans la mesure où l’arabe est une langue sans article indéfini, le fonctionnement de l’article zéro en anglais est sans équivalence; on découvre que l’arabe choisit selon le contexte, soit la marque du défini (al), soit la marque sémiologique de l’indéfini. En dernière analyse, on constate une grande ressemblance entre les mécanismes cognitifs sous-jacents; les différences concernent les transformations sémiotiques de la structure profonde. / This thesis offers a contrastive analysis of the notion of definiteness as conveyed by the system of the article in English and Standard Arabic. Definiteness and other notions associated with it are investigated semantically and syntactically in an attempt to discover how these two languages approach such notions and when the two languages converge and diverge in this respect. To this end, corpus analysis is chosen as a means to inspect these ideas. The corpus, The Brook Kerith, by the Irish writer, George Moore, is chosen for geo-historical and literary reasons: the story takes place in the Holy Land at the dawn of this Christian era. A contrastive analysis of the first chapter along with its translation is analyzed from a pragmatic and semantic perspective. The analysis is followed by statistical and computational analyses. It is found that the article “the” and the Arabic article “al’ are used for seemingly the same purpose in the proportion of 76%. The occurrence of the article “a/an” is 96% consistent with indefiniteness in Arabic. However, the use of the “zero article” shows discrepancy as whether to use the article “al” or no article in Arabic. In the last analysis, the cognitive operations underlying usage in both languages are similar. The differences are on the level of the semiotic transformation of these deep operations.

In this thesis I aim to improve phrase-based statistical machine translation (PBSMT) in a number of ways by the use of text harmonization strategies. PBSMT systems are built by training statistical models on large corpora of human translations. This architecture generally performs well for languages with similar structure. If the languages are different for example with respect to word order or morphological complexity, however, the standard methods do not tend to work well. I address this problem through text harmonization, by making texts more similar before training and applying a PBSMT system. I investigate how text harmonization can be used to improve PBSMT with a focus on four areas: compounding, definiteness, word order, and unknown words. For the first three areas, the focus is on linguistic differences between languages, which I address by applying transformation rules, using either rule-based or machine learning-based techniques, to the source or target data. For the last area, unknown words, I harmonize the translation input to the training data by replacing unknown words with known alternatives. I show that translation into languages with closed compounds can be improved by splitting and merging compounds. I develop new merging algorithms that outperform previously suggested algorithms and show how part-of-speech tags can be used to improve the order of compound parts. Scandinavian definite noun phrases are identified as a problem forPBSMT in translation into Scandinavian languages and I propose a preprocessing approach that addresses this problem and gives large improvements over a baseline. Several previous proposals for how to handle differences in reordering exist; I propose two types of extensions, iterating reordering and word alignment and using automatically induced word classes, which allow these methods to be used for less-resourced languages. Finally I identify several ways of replacing unknown words in the translation input, most notably a spell checking-inspired algorithm, which can be trained using character-based PBSMT techniques. Overall I present several approaches for extending PBSMT by the use of pre- and postprocessing techniques for text harmonization, and show experimentally that these methods work. Text harmonization methods are an efficient way to improve statistical machine translation within the phrase-based approach, without resorting to more complex models.