Function words are known to be shorter than content words. I investigate the function words BE and HAVE (with its content word homonym) and show that more reduction, operationalized as word shortening or contraction, is found in some grammaticalized meanings of these words. The difference between the words’ uses cannot be attributed to differences in frequency or semantic weight. Instead I argue that these words are often shortened and reduced when they occur in constructions in which they are highly predictable. This suggests that particular grammaticalized uses of a word are stored with their own exemplar clouds of context-specific phonetic realizations. The phonetics of any instance of a word are then jointly determined by the exemplar cloud for that word and the particular context. A given instance of an auxiliary can be reduced either because it is predictable in the current context or because that use of the auxiliary usually occurs in predictable contexts. The effects cannot be attributed to frequency or semantic weight. The present study compares function word production in the speech of school-aged children and their caregivers and in inter-adult speech. The effects of predictability in context and average predictability across contexts are replicated across the datasets. However, I find that as children get older their function words shorten relative to content words, even when controlling for increasing speech rate, showing that as their language experience increases they spend less time where it is not needed for comprehensibility. Caregivers spend less time on function words with older children than younger children, suggesting that they expect function words to be more difficult for younger interlocutors to decode than for older interlocutors. Additionally, while adults use either word shortening or contraction to increase the efficiency of speech, children tend to either use contraction and word shortening or neither until age seven, where they start to use one strategy or the other like adults. Young children with better vocabulary employ an adult-like strategy earlier, suggesting earlier onset of efficient yet effective speech behavior, namely allocating less signal to function words when they are especially easy for the listener to decode.

The discourse functions of three Taiwanese particles la, hon and ne are analyzed. These utterance particles occur primarily found in the spoken language, usually conversation. The corpus of the study comprises transcription of recorded face-to-face, telephone, and radio talk show conversation, casual interviews, and church sermons. All three Taiwanese particles express a form of emphasis but in different ways. La has five interrelated functions, depending on the context: 1. To express in an assertion and in an answer to a question; 2. To express a sense of guessing or questioning; 3. To express one's impatience, dislike, or annoyance; 4. To indicate a sense of coaxing; 5. To emphasize each item in an incomplete list. Hon expresses the lowest degree of speaker emphasis of the three particles. It is used to elicit a minimal or a positive response from the addressee. Finally, ne expresses the strongest degree of emphasis of the three. It is usually used to draw the addressee's attention to information that the speaker assumes is new to the hearer. / Department of English

Prior research has considered the sequential order of function words, after the contextual words of the text have been removed, as a stylistic indicator of authorship. This research describes an effort to enhance authorship attribution accuracy based on this same information source with alternate classifiers, alternate n-gram construction methods, and a genetically tuned configuration. The approach is original in that it is the first time that probabilistic versions of Burrows's Delta have been used. Instead of using z-scores as an input for a classifier, the z-scores were converted to probabilistic equivalents (since z-scores cannot be subtracted, added, or divided without the possibility of distorting their probabilistic meaning); this adaptation enhanced accuracy. Multiple versions of Burrows's Delta were evaluated; this includes a hybrid of the Probabilistic Burrows's Delta and the version proposed by Smith & Aldridge (2011); in this case accuracy was enhanced when individual frequent words were evaluated as indicators of style. Other novel aspects include alternate n-gram construction methods; a reconciliation process that allows texts of various lengths from different authors to be compared; and a GA selection process that determines which function (or frequent) words (see Smith & Rickards, 2008; see also Shaker, Corne, & Everson, 2007) may be used in the construction of function word n-grams.

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Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Rolle von Konkordanzmarkierungen innerhalb einer Phrase für die Segmentierung eines fremden Sprachstroms. Das Merkmal der Konkordanz tritt auf, wenn alle Bestandteile einer Phrase gleichermaßen durch eine identische Markierung gekennzeichnet sind (z. B. los muchachos ricosSpanisch = die reichen Männer). Da diese wiederkehrenden Markierungen zumeist aus Affixen bestehen, kann Konkordanz als ein Sonderfall der Flexionsmorphologie betrachtet werden. Es wurde untersucht, ob die formale Korrespondenz zwischen den Bestandteilen konkordanter Phrasen als Hinweis auf die Grenzen der linguistisch relevanten Einheit Phrase im Spracherwerb fungieren kann. Zusätzlich wird auf das Zusammenspiel einzelner Hinweisreize untereinander eingegangen. Mit Kindern im Alter von zehn Monaten wurden vier Experimente mit dem Headturn Preference Paradigma (Jusczyk & Aslin, 1995) durchgeführt. Es wurde zunächst bei deutschen und englischen Kleinkindern untersucht, ob sie sensibel für gleich bleibende Suffixe innerhalb einer Phrase sind und diese für die Segmentierung nutzen können. Außerdem wurde das Zusammenspiel der Hinweise Konkordanz und Prosodie bei der Auffindung von Phrasengrenzen betrachtet. Es zeigte sich, dass deutsche Kinder in besonderer Weise auf konkordante Markierungen reagieren. Neben einer Sensitivität für Konkordanzmarkierungen zeigte das Ergebnis der deutschen Kinder auch, dass sie Flexionssuffixe im Deutschen bereits im Sprachstrom bemerken können. Ein solches Ergebnismuster ließ sich bei den Englisch lernenden Kindern nicht beobachten. Verschiedene Erklärungsmöglichkeiten für diesen Unterschied werden erläutert. Insgesamt weisen die Daten aus den Kindersprachexperimenten darauf hin, dass bereits im Alter von zehn Monaten bei Kindern eine Sensibilität für wiederholt in ähnlicher / gleicher Form auftretende sprachliche Elemente innerhalb der Domäne der Phrase vorhanden ist. Außerdem lassen die Resultate darauf schließen, dass Konkordanzmarkierungen bereits früh zur Segmentierung von kontinuierlicher Sprache verwendet werden. Diese Leistung steht in Zusammenhang mit der Beachtung von statistischen Regularitäten im Sprachstrom. Untersuchungen dazu zeigen, dass m. H. statistischer Lernmechanismen wiederkehrende Elemente im Sprachstrom erkannt werden können (Bonatti, Peña, Nespor, & Mehler, 2005; Newport & Aslin, 2004; Saffran, 2001; Saffran, Aslin & Newport, 1996). Anscheinend ist das Auftreten identischer Segmente innerhalb einer relativ kleinen Domäne im Sprachstrom für Lerner ein hervorstechendes Merkmal, das dazu beiträgt, diese Domäne aus dem Signal hervorzuheben und somit die Segmentierung des Sprachstroms in kleinere Anteile zu unterstützen. Neben den Untersuchungen mit den Kleinkindern wurden zusätzlich drei Reaktionszeitexperimente mit deutschen und englischen Erwachsenen zur Rolle von Konkordanzmarkierungen bei der Verarbeitung der Fremdsprachen Spanisch, Suaheli und (für die englischen Probanden) Deutsch durchgeführt. Das erste Experiment befasste sich mit der Stimulussprache Spanisch, in der es bei Konkordanz zum mehrfachen Auftreten von identischen Suffixen mit Vollvokalen kommt. Dabei war zu beobachten, dass deutsche und englische Muttersprachler die zu erinnernden Phrasen besser in einem kontinuierlichen spanischen Sprachstrom wieder erkannten, wenn die kritischen Phrasen konkordant waren, als wenn sie nicht konkordant waren. Das zweite Experiment verwendete die Stimulussprache Suaheli (konkordante vs. nicht konkordante Präfixe). Dabei zeigte sich ein solches Muster ausschließlich bei den englischen Muttersprachlern. Das dritte Experiment untersuchte englische Muttersprachler mit deutschem Stimulusmaterial, wobei Konkordanz durch Suffixe markiert wird, die aus einer Schwa-Silbe bestehen. Hier ergab sich kein Hinweis für eine Nutzung konkordanter Markierungen bei der Erkennung von Phrasen. Als Grund dafür wird die reduzierte Vokalqualität angenommen, die Schwa-Silben u.U. schwerer wahrnehmbar macht als Vollvokalsilben (z.B. Widera & Portele, 1999; Goméz Lacabex, García Lecumberri, & Cooke, 2005). Es werden weitere Erklärungshypothesen bzgl. der Ergebnisunterschiede bei deutschen und englischen Muttersprachlern beschrieben, die auch auf den Unterschied zwischen der Verarbeitung von konkordanten Suffixen vs. Präfixen eingehen. Zusätzlich erfolgt eine Diskussion der Ergebnisse vor dem Hintergrund von Annahmen über Arten von (nicht-)sprachlichen Ähnlichkeiten und ihren Einfluss auf die Wahrnehmung von ähnlichen Elementen. Die vorliegenden Daten stützen die Annahme von Morgan (1986), dass der Input für einen Sprachlerner bereits zahlreiche Hinweise über die Struktur der jeweiligen Sprache enthält. Sowohl Kleinkinder als auch erwachsene Sprachlerner scheinen für einen beachtlichen Teil dieser Hinweisreize sensibel zu sein. Die bislang kaum beachteten konkordante Markierungen innerhalb von Phrasen scheinen zumindest einen Teil dieser Hinweisreize auszumachen. / This thesis investigates the role of concordant markings in a phrase for the segmentation of a foreign speech stream. The feature concordance appears, when all elements of a syntactic phrase carry the same marker (e.g. los muchachos ricosSpanish = the rich men). These recurring markers are mostly affixes which means that they can be viewed as a special case in inflectional morphology. It was investigated whether the formal correspondance between the elements of concordant phrases might function as a cue to phrase boundaries in language acquisition. Four experiments were done with infants at the age of 10 months using the Headturn Preference Paradigm (Jusczyk & Aslin, 1995). At first it was investigated with German- and English-learning infants whether they are sensitive to recurring suffixes in a phrase and whether they are able to use these elements for phrase segmentation. Furthermore, the interplay between the cues concordance and prosody for the location of phrase boundaries was investigated. It was shown that German-learning infants where sensitive to concordant markings and that they notice inflectional suffixes in the speech stream. Such a result was not observed with the English-learning infants. Various possibilities to explain this difference between German- and English-learning infants are proposed. The results from the experiments with infants show that already 10-months old infants are sensitive to linguistic elements which recur in the domain of the phrase in similar or identical form. Furthermore, the results suggest that concordant markers are used for segmentation of the continuous speech stream from early on. This capacity is closely related with the attention for statistical regularities in the speech stream. Concerning this it was shown that supported by statistical learning mechanisms recurring elements in the speech stream or certain patterns of co-occurrence can be tracked (Bonatti, Peña, Nespor, & Mehler, 2005; Newport & Aslin, 2004; Saffran, 2001; Saffran, Aslin & Newport, 1996). Consequently, it seems that the occurrence of identical segments in a relatively small domain in the speech stream is a salient feature for learners which points out this domain from the signal and therfore supports the segmentation of the speech stream into smaller units. Besides the experiments with infants also three reaction time experiments with German and English adults where carried out. These experiments were concerned with the role of concordant markings for the processing of the foreign languages Spanish, Swahili and (for English participants) German. The first experment used Spanish as the stimulus language. In Spanish concordant phrases each element carries an identical suffix containing a full vowel. For German and English participants it was observed that they recognized a critical phrase form a continuous speech stream significantly better when this phrase was concordant than when it was non-concordant. In the second experiment with adults Swahili stimuli were used where concordant vs. non-concordant prefixes occur. Now, for English but not for German participants an advantage for the recognition of concordant phrases was observed. In the third experiment English participants were tested with German stimuli where concordance is marked by suffixes containing a Schwa-vowel (reduced vowel). The results of this experiments were not significant, suggesting no use of German concordant markings for the recognition of phrases by native English speakers. One reason that might be proposed to explain this result is the reduced vowel appearing in German concordant suffixes which might make them less perceptually salient than syllables containing a full vowel (e.g. Widera & Portele, 1999; Goméz Lacabex, García Lecumberri, & Cooke, 2005). More possiblities to explain the differences in the results between the German and the English participants are given. Furthermore, there is a discussion of the results against the backround of assumptions about kinds of (non-)linguistic similarities and their influence of the perception of similar elements. Altogether the experimental results of this thesis support the assumption of Morgan (1986) that the linguistic input for a learner already contains various cues about the structure of the target language. Infants as well as adults seem to be sensitve for a considerable amount of these cues. Concordant markings in the domain of a phrase seem to be one of these cues.

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Des études précédentes démontrent qu’avoir accès à la structure syntaxique des phrases aide les enfants à découvrir le sens des mots nouveaux. Cela implique que les enfants doivent avoir accès à certains aspects de la structure syntaxique avant même de connaître beaucoup de mots. Étant donné que dans toutes les langues du monde la structure prosodique d’une phrase corrèle avec sa structure syntaxique, et que par ailleurs les mots et morphèmes grammaticaux sont utiles pour déterminer la catégorie syntaxique des mots, il se pourrait que les enfants utilisent la prosodie et les mots grammaticaux pour initialiser leur acquisition lexicale et syntaxique. Dans cette thèse, j’ai étudié le rôle de la prosodie phrasale et des mots grammaticaux pour guider l’analyse syntaxique chez les enfants (PARTIE 1) et la possibilité que les jeunes enfants exploitent cette information pour apprendre le sens des mots nouveaux (PARTIE 2). Dans la partie 1, j’ai construit des paires minimales de phrases en français et en anglais afin de tester si les enfants exploitent la relation entre les structures prosodique et syntaxique pour guider leur interprétation des homophones noms-verbes. J’ai démontré que les enfants d’âge préscolaire utilisent la prosodie phrasale en temps réel pour guider leur analyse syntaxique. En écoutant des phrases telles que [La petite ferme][.., les enfants interprètent ferme comme un nom, mais pour les phrases telles que [La petite][ferme...], ils interprètent ferme comme un verbe (Chapitre 3). Cette capacité a également été observée chez les enfants américains: en écoutant des phrases telles que « The baby flies… », ils utilisent la prosodie des phrases pour décider si flies est un nom ou un verbe (Chapitre 4). Par la suite, j’ai démontré que même les enfants d’environ 20 mois utilisent la prosodie des phrases pour récupérer leur structure syntaxique et pour en déduire la catégorie syntaxique des mots (Chapitre 5), une capacité qui serait extrêmement utile pour découvrir le sens des mots inconnus. C’est cette hypothèse que j’ai testé dans la partie 2, à savoir si l’information syntaxique obtenue à partir de la prosodie phrasale et des mots grammaticaux permet aux enfants d’apprendre le sens des mots. Une première série d’études s’appuie sur des phrases disloquées à droite contenant un verbe nouveau en français : [ili dase], [le bébéi] qui est minimalement différente de la phrase transitive [il dase le bébé]. Mes résultats montrent que les enfants de 28 mois exploitent les informations prosodiques de ces phrases pour contraindre leur interprétation du sens du nouveau verbe (Chapitre 6). Dans une deuxième série d’études, j’ai étudié si la prosodie et les mots grammaticaux guident l’acquisition de noms et de verbes. J’ai utilisé des phrases comme « Regarde la petite bamoule » qui peuvent être produites soit comme [Regarde la petite bamoule!], où «bamoule» est un nom, ou [Regarde], [la petite] [bamoule!], où bamoule est un verbe. Les enfants de 18 mois ont correctement analysé ces phrases et ont attribué une interprétation de nom ou de verbe au mot bamoule selon sa position dans la structure prosodique-syntaxique des phrases (Chapitre 7). Ensemble, ces études montrent que les jeunes enfants exploitent les mots grammaticaux et la structure prosodique des phrases pour inférer la structure syntaxique et contraindre ainsi l’interprétation possible du sens des mots. Ce mécanisme peut permettre aux enfants de construire une représentation initiale de la structure syntaxique des phrases, avant même de connaître la signification des mots. Bien que les informations prosodiques et les mots grammaticaux puissent prendre des formes différentes selon les langues, nos études suggèrent que cette information pourrait représenter un outil universel et qui permettrait aux enfants d’accéder à certaines informations syntaxiques des phrasesqu’ils entendent, et d’initialiser l’acquisition du langage. / Previous research demonstrates that having access to the syntactic structure of sentences helps children to discover the meaning of novel words. This implies that infants need to get access to aspects of syntactic structure before they know many words. Since in all the world’s languages the prosodic structure of a sentence correlates with its syntactic structure, and since function words/morphemes are useful to determine the syntactic category of words, infants might use phrasal prosody and function words to bootstrap their way into lexical and syntactic acquisition. In this thesis, I empirically investigated the role of phrasal prosody and function words to constrain syntactic analysis in young children (PART 1) and whether infants exploit this information to learn the meanings of novel words (PART 2). In part 1, I constructed minimal pairs of sentences in French and in English, testing whether children exploit the relationship between syntactic and prosodic structures to drive their interpretation of noun-verb homophones. I demonstrated that preschoolers use phrasal prosody online to constrain their syntactic analysis. When listening to French sentences such as [La petite ferme][…–[The little farm][…, children interpreted ferme as a noun, but in sentences such as [La petite][ferme…] – [The little girl][closes…, they interpreted ferme as a verb (Chapter 3). This ability was also attested in English-learning preschoolers who listened to sentences such as ‘The baby flies…’: they used prosodic information to decide whether “flies” was a noun or a verb (Chapter 4). Importantly, in further studies I demonstrated that even infants around 20-months use phrasal prosody to recover syntactic structures and to predict the syntactic category of upcoming words (Chapter 5), an ability which would be extremely useful to discover the meaning of unknown words. This is what I tested in part 2: whether the syntactic information obtained from phrasal prosody and function words could allow infants to constrain their acquisition of word meanings. A first series of studies relied on right-dislocated sentences containing a novel verb in French: [ili dase], [le bébéi] - ‘hei is dasing, the babyi’ (meaning ‘the baby is dasing’) which is minimally different from the transitive sentence [il dase le bébé] (he is dasing the baby). 28-montholds were shown to exploit prosodic information to constrain their interpretation of the novel verb meaning (Chapter 6). In a second series of studies, I investigated whether phrasal prosody and function words constrain the acquisition of nouns and verbs. I used sentences like ‘Regarde la petite bamoule’, which can be produced either as [Regarde la petite bamoule!] - Look at the little bamoule!, where ‘bamoule’ is a noun, or as [Regarde], [la petite] [bamoule!] - Look, the little (one) is bamouling, where bamoule is a verb. 18-month-olds correctly parsed such sentences and attributed a noun or verb meaning to the critical word depending on its position within the syntactic-prosodic structure of the sentences (Chapter 7). Taken together, these studies show that infants exploit function words and the prosodic structure of an utterance to recover the sentences’ syntactic structure, which in turn constrains the possible meaning of novel words. This powerful mechanism might be extremely useful for infants to construct a first-pass syntactic structure of spoken sentences even before they know the meanings of many words. Although prosodic information and functional elements can surface differently across languages, our studies suggest that this information may represent a universal and extremely useful tool for infants to access syntactic information through a surface analysis of the speech stream, and to bootstrap their way into language acquisition.

The present diploma thesis focuses on the unconscious code-switching between second and third language. The main objective of this thesis is to deal with principles of unconscious code-switching, describe and categorize actual appearances of unconscious code-switching between second and third language. After introducing issues, the second chapter sums up the way of second and third language acquisition in terms of bilingualism and multilingualism. The third chapter presents a definition and theoretic bases of code-switching. The fourth chapter concerns the analysis of the reason for code- switching in terms of usage-based and psycholinguistic approaches. The fifth chapter presents a categorization of code-switching from syntactic and pragmatic perspectives. The sixth chapter concerns the analysis of cases of code-switching from recorded interviews and the explanation of possible factors causing unconscious code-switching. Key words: Unconscious code-switching, bilingualism, multilingualism, usage-based approach, psycholinguistic approach, function words, acquisition, second language, third language, WIPP

The master’s thesis is devoted to the comparison operators as and like, comparison being their first and basic meaning. Over the course of time they have undergone various metaphorical transfers, which have led to their polysemy. According to the authors of dictionaries and English grammars, the word as can function as a conjunction (denoting comparison, time, cause, condition, concession, manner, purpose), preposition, adverb, pronoun. As regards the word like, it can function as a conjunction, preposition, particle, adverb (discourse marker). The author attempts to present the diachronic sense development of the two lexemes with the help of etymological dictionaries and books on the history of English. The word as is described as a precedent linguistic unit, which involves the transfer of meaning from basic comparison to new situations. The thesis examines the pragmatic and socio-linguistic aspects of the development of the word like, as they are presented in the works of Russian and foreign linguists. The peculiarities of grammaticalization and subjectification of the English word like, owing to which it has acquired the function of a discourse marker, are also described. The following pragmatic functions are identified: metalinguistic, emphatic, hesitational, quotative, examplificatory, approximative. The thesis also presents a comparative analysis of the usage of the words as and like in fiction and scientific prose (with reference to the British novel Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding and the journal Nature). / Магистерская диссертация посвящена исследованию английских служебных слов as и like как инструментов логической операции сравнения. Сравнение является их понятийной основой, из которой развились другие значения, в частности, на основе метафорического переноса. Обе единицы обладают широкой семантикой и выполняют множество функций. Согласно авторам словарей и английских грамматик, слово as может функционировать как союз (сравнения, времени, причины, условия, уступки, образа действия, цели), предлог, наречие, местоимение. Слово like может выполнять функции союза, предлога, частицы, наречия (дискурсивного маркера). Предпринята попытка выстроить порядок развития значений двух единиц с привлечением данных этимологических словарей и работ по истории английского языка. В диссертации доказывается статус слова as как прецедентной грамматической единицы, в которой реализуется грамматическая метафора и происходит перенос базового значения сравнения на новые ситуации. Рассматриваются прагматические и социолингвистические аспекты развития слова like, как они представлены в работах отечественных и зарубежных лингвистов. Особое внимание уделяется особенностям грамматикализации и субъектификации данной единицы, вследствие которых она приобрела функции дискурсивного маркера. Отмечаются такие прагматические функции like, как металингвистическая, эмфатическая, функция заполнения хезитационной паузы, функция введения в предложение прямой речи, примера, примерного количества. Кроме того, проводится сопоставительный анализ функционирования слов as и like в английской художественной и научной прозе (на материале романа Хелен Филдинг «Bridget Jones’s Diary» и научно-популярного журнала «Nature»).

South African indigenous language teaching and learning materials do not provide sufficient information to help additional language learners learn the target languages effectively. While there are institutions that are tasked with developing and sharpening the skills of students in speaking South African indigenous languages, such students hardly, if at all master the art of speaking them eloquently. Students who study these languages in order to converse proficiently with their mother-tongue speakers experience insurmountable difficulties, in spite of various efforts made by the teachers who train them to read books on their own. Passing their examinations does not mean that the students’ ability to communicate with mother-tongue speakers will improve to the extent of eliminating the prevailing misunderstanding between the two groups. The persistence of this problem reveals a discrepancy between the studies of indigenous languages in South Africa and the way of speaking them, whereby important linguistic elements that make communication more authentic are excluded in language materials. This study analyses the use and significance of CIFWs in daily interactions by investigating the two Xhosa CIFWs words wethu and bethu. The overall aim of this study is to explore the use of a corpus in the examination of CIFWs in general, and wethu and bethu in particular. Both a quantitative approach based on the Gothenburg-Unisa spoken corpus and a qualitative approach based on Allwoods’ ACA theoretical framework were used in the analysis and description of the functions and significances of wethu and bethu as communicative and interactive function words. / Linguistics / MA ((Applied Linguistics)