The young learner’s lexicon is a predictor for its future success in school, and the organization of the lexicon needs to be well developed in order to give the learner efficient access to the words’ use and meaning. The purpose of the study is to investigate the word association pattern among 31 students in the second and the fifth grade in a multicultural Swedish school, and to try to explain these patterns in relation to variables such as age, gender, time spent in Sweden, linguistic background and the teachers’ assessment of the students’ abilities. The word association patterns were examined using a shortened version of the Kent and Rosanoff word association test. The results showed clear resemblances of word association patterns on a group level when compared to age, linguistic background and teachers’ assessment. However, there were big differences on an individual level. / <p>Svenska som andraspråk</p>

Argument marking prepositions in German are part of more complex structures referred to here as verb-preposition combinations (verb-PPs), e.g. warten auf ('to wait for') and pochen auf ('to insist on'). The preposition auf ('on') attaches to a wide range of verbs to form such combinations in which auf encodes different semantic relations that elude concrete description. Nevertheless, previous research in valency theory and related approaches could identify patterns in the distribution of verb-PP[subscript 'auf'] combinations (Eroms 1981, 1991, Lerot 1982, Bouillon 1984, Domínguez Vázquez 2005), based on perceived similarities in the meaning of the governing verbs. Cognitive linguistics provides insights into seemingly opaque senses of prepositions by analyzing them as motivated by metaphorical meaning extension (Brugman 1988, Lakoff 1987, Meex 2001, Liamkina 2007). Finally, generative approaches scrutinize the semantic relationships between verbs and their PP-arguments and systematize them under the concept of semantic roles (Fillmore 1968, Rauh 1993). However, none of these approaches can fully account for the distribution of verb-PPauf combinations in German. This dissertation proposes a novel approach towards identifying and analyzing the distributional patterns of verb-PP[subscript 'auf'] combinations by applying insights from Frame Semantics (Fillmore 1982, 1985) and Construction Grammar (Goldberg 1995, 2006). Goldberg's theory of argument structure constructions already served as a model for analyzing auf as a partially schematic argument structure construction encoding the meaning 'future orientation/future event' (Rostila 2007). Based on a large amount of corpus data, I show that such generalizing accounts are better arrived at by employing a usage-based bottom-up approach to verb-PP[subscript 'auf'] combinations. I argue that the detailed semantic and syntactic information provided by the lexical database FrameNet for each lexical unit can be used to identify distributional patterns and to describe them in detail. Furthermore, I argue that integrating the verb-PP[subscript 'auf'] combinations and the frames they evoke into a hierarchical lexical-constructional network allows us to discover substantiated generalizations about these combinations while at the same time preserving the description of their idiosyncratic features. / text

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

The research reported in this thesis examines the relative contributions of top-down and bottom-up information during lexical access. I evaluate the Cohort Model of lexical access (Marslen-Wilson and Welsh, 1978; Marslen-Wilson and Tyler, 1980; and Marslen-Wilson, 1987) which specifies that the first stage in lexical access is fully autonomous and that during this stage all processing proceeds in terms of analysis of the acoustic-phonetic input. Implicit in this model is the assumption that bottom-up processing is immune to any effects of contextual or top-down information. I examine the extent to which listeners ever rely exclusively on bottom-up information during lexical access and investigate this issue empirically, by measuring effects of context on both the production and the perception of words in various contexts. I test the hypothesis that a word uttered in a constraining context will be acoustically indistinguishable from its competitors by, first, measuring one acoustic parameter (VOT) across constraining and non-constraining contexts and, then, examining the intelligibility of tokens of that parameter taken from the varyingly constraining contexts. The data from these experiments suggest that the realization of VOT is not an aspect of bottom-up information which would create problems for a bottom-up processor in terms of providing ambiguous acoustic-phonetic information. I then investigate whether bottom-up processing during lexical access is immune to effects of context. Following Grosjean (1980) and Tyler (1984), I utilize the Gating Paradigm. Using incongruous contexts, I argue that direct assessment of the contributions made by different information sources during lexical access can be made. By presenting bottom-up information which is inappropriate to the contextual (topdown) information, I evaluate the extent to which one information source is given priority over the other. I vary both the contextual constraints available to the listener and the acoustic clarity of bottom-up information. The observed pattern of listeners' identifications of the words suggested that whilst bottomup information was given priority, top-down information was available and was utilized during lexical access. I present data which support the working structure of the Cohort Model of lexical access. I conclude, however, that the model places disproportionate emphasis on initial bottom-up processing. It appears that top-down information is not prohibited from contributing to processing during the initial stage of lexical access.

Neste trabalho, investiga-se a distribuição dos sufixos -inho e -zinho nos dialetos de Porto Alegre e Curitiba. A partir de estudos que contemplaram tais afixos, olhamos para fatores de natureza lingüística, como classe gramatical (nomes, não-nomes), tonicidade (oxítona, paroxítona e proparoxítona), segmento final da forma primitiva (vogal baixa, vogal média-baixa frontal e posterior, -i, - u primitivos, -e, - o primitivos, -s / -z, -r / -m, -l), onset da sílaba final (nasal dorsal, labiais, coronais, dorsais, onset vazio), e para fatores de natureza extralingüística, como escolaridade (primário, ginásio, secundário), sexo (masculino e feminino), faixa etária (menos de 50 anos e mais de 50 anos), localidade (Porto Alegre e Curitiba). Esta pesquisa faz uso de dados de fala extraídos de 24 entrevistas do Projeto VARSUL e de um teste de produtividade, que se utiliza de pseudopalavras, aplicado a 20 informantes. Para a análise quantitativa dos resultados, fazemos um uso adaptado dos programas que compõem o pacote VARBRUL, lançando mão tão-somente de freqüências, já que não se trata de um fenômeno tipicamente variável. A análise dos resultados mostrou que -inho é o sufixo mais usado, ainda que -zinho seja o preferido no contexto de pseudopalavras. Além disso, observouse um padrão predominantemente alternante, conforme já previu a literatura, definido pela tonicidade, ainda que algum lugar para usos variáveis esteja reservado. / In this paper, the distribution of the suffixes -inho and -zinho is investigated in the dialects of Porto Alegre and Curitiba. Starting from studies that cover such affix, we looked at factors of linguistic nature, like grammatical class (names, nonames), tonicity (stressed on the last, second last, or third last syllable), final segment in the primitive form (low vowel, back and front low-mid vowels, -i, primitive -u, -e, primitive -o, -s / -z, -r / -m, -l), final syllable onset (dorsal nasal, labial, coronal, dorsal, empty onset), and extra linguistic nature factors, such as educational background (primary, elementary, high school), sex (male and female), age group (less than 50 and more than 50 years old), place (Porto Alegre and Curitiba). This research makes use of extracted speech data of 24 interviews from Projeto VARSUL and of a productivity test, which uses pseudo words, applied to 20 applicants. For the quantitative analysis of the results, we make an adapted use of the programs that compose the package VARBRUL, not taking into account only of frequencies numbers, since it is not a typically variable phenomenon. The analysis of the results showed that -inho is the most used suffix, although -zinho is the favorite in the context of pseudo words. Besides, a predominantly alternating pattern was observed, as already expected in literature, defined by the tonicity, although some place for variable uses may be reserved.

Este trabalho estuda a caracterizacao semântica dos argumentos dativos. Entendemos como “dativos” NPs que sao o primeiro objeto de construcões de duplo objeto (como, p. ex., John gave Mary a book “Joao deu um livro para Maria”), certos cliticos pronominais (como, p. ex., Maria me deu o livro) e NPs com marcacao morfologica de caso (como, p. ex., Hann gaf mér bókina “Ele me deu o livro”). Essencialmente, propõe-se, neste trabalho, que dativos sejam argumentos que estao envolvidos em eventos em que sao afetados. Iniciamos esse estudo a partir das caracterizacões tradicionais de argumentos dativos, de acordo com as quais essa seria uma funcao sintatica talhada para expressar o “possuidor” em um evento que envolve mudanca (potencial) de posse. Examinamos, com detalhe, as propostas feitas para dar conta da alternância dativa do inglês – principalmente, a conhecida restricao o “possuidor prospectivo” – e como essas propostas poderiam ser estendidas para cobrir os dados do português brasileiro. Essa proposta implica que, se o dativo é possuidor, o objeto direto deve ser o argumento possuido, descrevendo assim a relacao entre esses dois argumentos e os caracterizando. Levantamos, em seguida, algumas dificuldades para essas abordagens, mostrando, entre outros problemas, que muitos verbos que tomam argumentos dativos nao envolvem “posse”. Tendo mostrado que a abordagem baseada em posse falha em predizer quais verbos tomam dativos, buscamos uma caracterizacao semântica alternativa desses argumentos, procurando estabelecer uma comparacao dessa posicao sintatica com os objetos diretos. Apresentamos uma hipotese pouco explorada para o inglês, mas que parece ter respaldo translinguistico, de que dativos expressariam argumentos afetados. Essa proposta é criticada por alguns autores, pois “afetacao” parece ser um conceito difuso. Por isso, muitas vezes se diz que esta nao é uma nocao que possa ser empregada para cobrir classes coerentes de fenômenos, sendo substituida por outros conceitos, vistos como mais relevantes. Tomamos um caminho diferente desses trabalhos: a partir de uma semântica baseada na teoria de “reticulados”, buscamos articular o conceito de “afetacao” com outros geralmente empregados no estudo da semântica lexical dos verbos por meio de uma hierarquia implicacional. Assim, propomos que afetacao, mudanca, movimento, incrementalidade, “entrada” e “saida” de existência, afetacao psicologica, benefaccao e malefaccao sejam conceitos inter-relacionados, que estao em jogo na realizacao de argumentos. À luz dessa teoria, baseada na hierarquia implicacional que estabelece “graus” de afetacao, capturamos as observacões tradicionais sobre os dativos do inglês e as nossas observacões anteriormente levantadas sobre os dados do português brasileiro, bem como os dados que nao tinham uma explicacao natural em abordagens prévias. Nossa proposta, ainda, faz predicões a respeito da distribuicao de NPs com dativo marcado morfologicamente. / This work aims to discuss the semantic characterization of dative arguments. We take “dative” to be NPs that are the first direct object in double object contructions (e.g., John gave Mary a book), some clitic pronouns (for example, Maria me deu o livro “Maria gave me the book”) and morphologically case-marked NPs (for instance, Hann gaf mér bókina “He gave me the book”). Mainly, we propose datives are arguments that are involved in events in which they are affected. We start this study from the classical accounts of dative arguments, according to which this syntactic function is suitable to express the possessor in an event of “(potential) change of possession”. We examine in detail the proposal regarding English dative alternation – mainly the so-called “prospective possessor” constraint – and how it could be extended to account for data from Brazilian Portuguese. This proposal implicates that, if the dative is the “possessor”, the direct object must be the possessed argument, describing, thus, the relationship between these two arguments and characterizing them. We point out some difficulties for these approaches, showing among other problems that some verbs that can take a dative do not involve change of possession. After showing that the possession-based approach fails to correctly predict the verbs which take dative arguments, we attempt to find an alternative semantic characterization of datives, establishing a comparison between this syntactic function and direct objects. We present an underexplored hypothesis for English, which seems to be supported by cross linguistic data, according to which datives express affected arguments. This proposal is criticized by some authors since “affectedness” seems to be a diffuse notion, which would not be useful to account for coherent classes of phenomena. Therefore, “affectedness” is usually replaced by other notions considered more relevant to argument realization. We take a different way from these works: based on a “lattice” theory, we attempt to articulate the concept of “affectedness” with other notions generally used by lexical semantic researches by means of an implicational hierarchy. As a result, we propose that “affectedness”, change, motion, incrementallity, “coming” and “letting” to exist, psych “affectedness”, benefaction and malefaction are interrelated concepts, which are involved in argument realization patterns. In the light of this theory, based on an implicacional hierarchy of “degrees” of affectedness, we account for the standard observations about English double object construction and our previous observations about data from Brazilian Portuguese. Moreover, our proposal makes additional predictions regarding the distribution of morphologically casemarked datives.

Os estudos nas áreas da neuropsicologia e da afasiologia sempre demonstraram uma preocupação em analisar o processamento da linguagem de afásicos. Porém, ainda existe a necessidade de se analisar a produção oral desses indivíduos, com o objetivo de melhor descrever os distúrbios apresentados pelos mesmos com vistas a contribuir com os possíveis tratamentos dedicados a essas pessoas. Por essa razão, esta dissertação investigou a dificuldade de acesso lexical, tanto na produção de fala espontânea, através de uma Entrevista de Memória Autobiográfica, como na fala semi espontânea, através da Tarefa do Roubo dos Biscoitos, em dois indivíduos afásicos, caracterizando dois fenômenos linguísticos decorrentes da afasia – anomia e parafasia – bem como elencando os tipos de estratégias comunicativas empregadas por esses indivíduos com vistas a superar dificuldades linguísticas no momento da comunicação. Os resultados encontrados mostram que ambos os indivíduos apresentaram casos de anomia, principalmente relacionados aos substantivos concretos, à subcategoria dos nomes próprios e aos numerais. Foi possível verificar também que, quando apresentavam casos de anomia, os dois participantes utilizaram-se com frequência de estratégias comunicativas. No que tange aos casos de parafasia, foi possível observar que na produção oral de ambos os participantes, os casos de parafasia morfêmica relacionados aos verbos e às palavras funcionais foram mais frequentes, se comparados com os outros tipos de parafasia. Nos casos de parafasia morfêmica dos verbos, observou-se uma dificuldade de referência de tempo ao passado, ao passo que, em relação às palavras funcionais, houve uma dificuldade de flexão de gênero. / A large number of studies in Neuropsychology and Aphasiology have analyzed language processing of individuals with aphasia. However, there is still the necessity of analyzing the oral production, with the purpose of improving the description of language disorders common to these aphasic patients and analyzing appropriate treatment for these individuals. Within this context, the present study aimed to investigate lexical access in two aphasic patients in spontaneous versus semi-spontaneous speech production through two distinct tasks: an Autobiographical Memory Interview as well as The Cookie Theft Picture Description Task with the focus on the linguistic phenomena that result of aphasia - anomia and paraphasia. In addition to that, we also looked at the types of communication strategies employed by these aphasic individuals in order to overcome language difficulties when communicating. The results show that both subjects presented cases of anomia, mainly related to concrete nouns, the subcategory of proper names and numerals. It was also verified that, when presenting anomia, the two participants used communication clues in order to overcome their language impairments. With regard to the cases of paraphasia, it was also observed that, in the oral production of both participants, cases of morphemic paraphasia related to verbs and function words were more frequent when compared with other types of paraphasia. When the cases of morphemic paraphasia were related to verbs, there was a difficulty associated with time reference to the past, whereas in relation to functional words there was a difficulty of bending genre.

Esta dissertação consiste primordialmente na descrição e interpretação do item lexical mas nas crônicas de Luis Fernando Verissimo, seguindo uma abordagem sintático-semântico-discursiva. O vocábulo mas é identificado nos textos de acordo com sua posição nos enunciados e analisado a partir desse ponto de inserção. Devido à variedade de emprego de tal item lexical, relacionando termos, orações, períodos, parágrafos e porções maiores de texto, evidenciou-se seu papel na construção da coesão, da progressão textual, da coerência, da delimitação de etapas discursivas e da orientação argumentativa dos segmentos de discurso. Pretendeu-se uma melhor compreensão das crônicas de Luis Fernando Verissimo através da marca lingüística do item lexical mas. / This dissertation consists of primarily in the description and interpretation of the lexical item but in cronics of Luis Fernando Verissimo following a syntax-semantics-discursive approach. The word "but" is identified in texts in accordance with its position in a sentence and analyzed from this insertion point. Due to the variety of implementations of such lexical item and related terms, sentences, periods, paragraphs and larger portions of text, its role in the construction of cohesion, coherent textual progression, limitations of discursive phases, and the argumentative orientation of the discurses was evidenced. A better understand of the cronics of Luis Fernando Verissimo is accomplished through the linguistic makr of the lexical item but.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / O objetivo principal deste trabalho é estudar estratégias de indeterminação de sentido em um corpus de conversas telefônicas interceptadas, considerando que a produção de sentido é um processo cognitivo dependente do contexto. Delimitamos a linguística cognitiva como a área na qual essa pesquisa se encontra inserida, para melhor compreender os fundamentos e os pressupostos norteadores da Teoria dos Modelos Cognitivos Idealizados (TMCI) e da Teoria da Mesclagem Conceptual (blending), tendo como base, principalmente, os estudos de Lakoff (1987), Fauconnier (1997) e Fauconnier e Turner (2002). No decorrer do trabalho propomo-nos responder às seguintes questões de pesquisa: a) que estratégias de indeterminação de sentido são mais frequentemente usadas nestas conversas? b) que elementos do contexto e do cotexto permitem a delimitação do sentido do item lexical em determinada conversa? c) como funcionam, no corpus, as estratégias de indeterminação de sentido e de que forma elas contribuem para sustentar determinado tipo de relação interpessoal? Para responder a estas questões de pesquisa, das 22 gravações de conversas telefônicas de atores sociais envolvidos com tráfico de armas e drogas, sequestro e extorsão, fornecidas pela Coordenadoria de Segurança e Inteligência do Ministério Público do Rio de Janeiro, selecionamos 10 conversas, em função da sua qualidade sonora, para serem transcritas e para proceder à análise qualitativa do uso da polissemia e da vagueza lexical. A partir das discussões teóricas e das análises desenvolvidas, concluímos que a polissemia representa a estratégia de indeterminação de sentido mais frequente no corpus desta pesquisa e que a mesma pode ser entendida como um processo de mesclagem conceptual, que sofre influências sociais e culturais: é a dinamicidade do pensamento e da linguagem que geram a polissemia. Concluímos também que a vagueza lexical é utilizada, no corpus, como um recurso linguístico para referência a assuntos ilícitos. Os itens lexicais analisados instanciam esquemas mentais abstratos que têm seus sentidos realizados a partir de pistas linguísticas e extralinguísticas que apontam para um processo interacional que pode ser entendido como um enquadre de transações comerciais (tráfico de drogas) / The main objective of this research is to study strategies of indeterminacy of meaning in a corpus of intercepted telephone conversations by social actors involved with the trafficking of drugs and weapons, with kidnapping and extortion. We elected Cognitive Linguistics as the area in which this research should be developed, as we understand the process of meaning production as a cognitive process, dependent on the context. Within Cognitive Linguistics, we adopted the principles and assumptions guiding the Theory of Idealized Cognitive Models (TMCI) and Conceptual Blending Theory, based principally on studies by Lakoff (1987), Fauconnier (1997) and Fauconnier and Turner (2002). Throughout the paper our purpose is to answer the following research questions: a) what strategies for the indeterminacy of meaning are most often used in these conversations? b) what elements of context and co-text (the immediate grammatical context ) trigger the instantiation of the meaning of a lexical item in a particular conversation? c) how do the strategies of indetermination of meaning operate , in the corpus, and how do they contribute to the creation of a particular kind of interpersonal relationship? In order to answer these questions, from the 22 recordings provided by the Coordinator of Intelligence and Security of the Public Ministry of Rio de Janeiro, we selected 10 conversations, on the basis of their sound quality. We further transcribed them and submitted them to qualitative analysis, investigating the use of lexical polysemy and vagueness. From the theoretical discussions and analyzes undertaken, we conclude that polysemy represents the strategy of indeterminacy of meaning that is most often used in the corpus and that it can be understood as a process of conceptual blending, under the influence of social and cultural factors: it is the association between the use of language and the real dynamics of thought and language that generate polysemy. We also conclude that lexical vagueness is used as a language resource to refer to illicit affairs. The lexical items studied instantiate abstract mental schemas whose meanings are triggered by the use of particular linguistic and extralinguistic cues, within the domain, or frame, of a commercial transaction (drug trafficking)

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:26:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-07-01Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:55:12Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 marcellino_er_me_arafcl.pdf: 1368519 bytes, checksum: ccff376e511697b9da30e2e01b0cba71 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / A cidade de Ibitinga destaca-se nacionalmente no ramo dos bordados, com sua economia voltada quase que exclusivamente à produção dessas peças. Tendo esse contexto como pano de fundo, esta dissertação discute todo o processo linguístico e linguístico-computacional de construção de ontoléxicos – constructos formais cuja natureza léxico-conceitual possibilita o desenvolvimento de investigações teóricas (estudos lexicogramaticais) e aplicadas (construção de recursos lexicográficos e para o processamento computacional de informação textual disponível na Web). Em particular, constrói um ontoléxico exploratório que entrelaça conceitos e itens lexicais do domínio léxico-conceitual da Indústria do Bordado de Ibitinga. O embasamento teórico-metodológico assenta-se nos estudos de semântica lexical (wordnets) e de frames (framenets), pura e computacional, de processamento automático de língua natural e de ontologias. / Ibitinga, which is a Brazilian town nationally known for its outstanding position in the embroidery business, has its economy almost totally based on the production of a broad selection of embroideries. With this embroidery industry in the backdrop, this master thesis describes the whole linguistic and computational-linguistic process of construction of ontolexicons – formal constructs whose lexical-conceptual nature allows for both theoretical (lexical-grammar construction) and applied (lexicographical and ontolexical resource construction) research. In particular, the study focuses on the design and implementation of a toy ontolexicon for the Ibitinga Embroydery Industry lexical-conceptual domain. Its theoretical foundations have drawn heavily on lexical semantics (wordnets), frame semantics (framenets), natural language processing, and ontologies.