The goal of this study is to confirm Eurasia as an independent linguistic area with respect to four features of possessive morphology: locus of marking, position of pronominal possessive affixes, obligatory possessive inflection, and possessive classification. Raw data on these features was taken from the WALS database and then run through an algorithm of genealogical stratification called g-sampling, in order to minimize the bias of the sample. The resulting g-units were then categorized by type and geographical area (New World vs. Old World, Eurasia vs. the rest of the world). These counts were tested for significance using Fisher's exact test. Two features, locus of marking and possessive classification, were confirmed to be significantly different in Eurasia; the other two features were not significantly different. Possible reasons for these areal patterns-primarily structural reasons-are briefly discussed.

In this thesis I explore Bayesian models for word alignment, how they can be improved through joint annotation transfer, and how they can be extended to parallel texts in more than two languages. In addition to these general methodological developments, I apply the algorithms to problems from sign language research and linguistic typology. In the first part of the thesis, I show how Bayesian alignment models estimated with Gibbs sampling are more accurate than previous methods for a range of different languages, particularly for languages with few digital resources available—which is unfortunately the state of the vast majority of languages today. Furthermore, I explore how different variations to the models and learning algorithms affect alignment accuracy. Then, I show how part-of-speech annotation transfer can be performed jointly with word alignment to improve word alignment accuracy. I apply these models to help annotate the Swedish Sign Language Corpus (SSLC) with part-of-speech tags, and to investigate patterns of polysemy across the languages of the world. Finally, I present a model for multilingual word alignment which learns an intermediate representation of the text. This model is then used with a massively parallel corpus containing translations of the New Testament, to explore word order features in 1001 languages.

Submitted by Erika Demachki (erikademachki@gmail.com) on 2015-04-22T20:41:18Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Rodriana Dias Coelho Costa - 2014.pdf: 2770185 bytes, checksum: 49b5510c050635e5ab7c994f8c552bf4 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Erika Demachki (erikademachki@gmail.com) on 2015-04-22T20:42:34Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Rodriana Dias Coelho Costa - 2014.pdf: 2770185 bytes, checksum: 49b5510c050635e5ab7c994f8c552bf4 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-22T20:42:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Rodriana Dias Coelho Costa - 2014.pdf: 2770185 bytes, checksum: 49b5510c050635e5ab7c994f8c552bf4 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-12-04 / Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq / This study focuses on a literature search about the subject syntactic function. It is objective of this study describe its treatment by main contemporary linguistic theoretical current and its typological description. For that, we turned to some Traditional Grammar representatives who evoke the function of subject in their unmarked prototypical realization passing through the Generative Grammar and refining the reflections starting from the Typological-Functional approach that recognizes the occurrence of the subject in its diversity of achievement and its relationship with other subsystems of languages. We gave special attention to the analysis by a functionalist bias, view since our hypothesis is that there are aspects in different language approaches that integrate in order to form an epistemological function body that defines the subject. Thus, we selected some descriptive studies of Romance languages (Spanish, French and Italian), No-Romance languages (English, Icelandic, Warlpiri) and Brazilian Indigenous languages (Apãniekrá (Macro-Jê), Akwẽ-Xerente (Jê), Avá-Canoeiro and Kamaiurá (Tupi- Guarani) to compose the data of this study. The subject as syntactic or grammatical function takes different proportions in the discussion, since the functional approach considers that the oracional structure begins from the pragmatic-discursive level, it means, the subject is analysed according to the speaker’s cognitive and functional intentions in a natural speech situation. Worldview is another fundamental key to the analysis of the syntactic subject, since the functional approach considers that the speaker’s world experience is function of the updating of language in use. The above-mentioned approaches present some theoretical differences, but all of them recognize a basic oracional structure that begins from the organization of relations in the sentence level, it means, they recognize that the phrase is projected from an argument structure and, thus, they conceive the subject function in his syntactic nature. / Este estudo centra-se numa pesquisa bibliográfica acerca da função sintática sujeito, seu tratamento pelos principais aportes teóricos linguísticos contemporâneos e sua descrição tipológica. Para isso, recorremos a alguns representantes da Gramática Tradicional, que evoca a função sujeito em sua realização prototípica, não marcada, passando pela Gramática Gerativa, e, refinando os reflexos a partir da abordagem Tipológico-Funcional, que reconhece a ocorrência do sujeito em sua diversidade de realização e sua relação com os demais subsistemas das línguas. Privilegiamos na análise uma visão pelo viés funcionalista, uma vez que a nossa hipótese é que existem aspectos nas diversas abordagens linguísticas que se integram para a formação de um corpo epistemológico que define a função sujeito. Assim, selecionamos para compor os dados deste estudo alguns trabalhos descritivos de línguas românicas (Espanhol, Francês e Italiano), não românicas (Inglês, Islandês, Warlpiri) e indígenas brasileiras (Apãniekrá (Macro-Jê), Akwẽ-Xerente (Jê), Avá-Canoeiro e Kamaiurá (Tupi-Guarani)). O sujeito como função sintática ou gramatical toma diferentes proporções dentro da discussão, uma vez que a abordagem funcional considera que a estrutura oracional parte do nível discursivo-pragmático, ou seja, o sujeito é analisado de acordo com as intenções cognitivas e funcionais do falante numa situação natural de fala. A visão de mundo é outro elemento fundamental para a análise da função sujeito, uma vez que a abordagem funcional considera que a experiência de mundo do falante é função da atualização da língua em uso. As abordagens supracitadas apresentam algumas divergências teóricas, mas todas reconhecem uma estrutura oracional básica, que parte da organização das relações no nível da frase, ou seja, reconhecem que a frase é projetada a partir de uma estrutura argumental e, consequentemente, concebem a função sujeito em sua natureza sintática.

This thesis is concerned with structural iconicity and its effects on possessive classification. The Iconicity-of-distance hypothesis argues that the linguistic distance between a possessor and a possessum reflects the conceptual distance, and is therefore smaller in inalienable possession. The role of distance iconicity in language processing was tested using the artificial language learning paradigm. An experiment was designed to investigate whether speakers of Czech will learn an iconically structured grammar better. The experiment conducted with 40 participants did not show significant differences between the two experimental groups. However, the evidence is inconlusive and the data suggest that structural iconicity could influence processing. The results also suggest that speaker of Czech are able to use alienability as a category of language.

Cette thèse propose une description du vietnamien en comparaison avec le français autour du phénomène de la relativisation, dans le cadre de la linguistique typologique et contrastive. Elle s’articule en deux parties. La première traite des questions préliminaires et du cadre typologique. Il s’agit de présenter quelques traits dominants de la langue vietnamienne, langue isolante, par rapport au français, langue flexionnelle, en passant en revue certaines notions de base en linguistique générale telles que sujet/sujet grammatical, thème/rhème, phrase/proposition et subordination/subordonnant. La notion de subordination sera ensuite introduite dans le cadre typologique adopté (Creissels 2006) pour la présentation de la relativisation translinguistique ainsi que pour l’analyse des relatives en français et en vietnamien. La seconde partie est consacrée à l’étude contrastive des relatives en français et en vietnamien, et cela, avec un double objectif. Le premier est de dégager, aux niveaux morphosyntaxique et fonctionnel, les propriétés de la relativisation en examinant la structure syntaxique du nom de domaine, les stratégies de relativisation, la Hiérarchie d’Accessibilité à la relativisation ainsi que les types de relatives. Le second est de mettre en évidence les particularités du fonctionnement du vietnamien par rapport au français, et plus spécifiquement, la relation minimale (Lemaréchal 1997) entre un nom et une relative et la polyfonctionnalité du relativiseur mà. Cette étude, qui se veut contribuer à la typologie de la relativisation, fournit une description systématique de la subordonnée relative dans une perspective typologique, et jamais une telle étude n’a été entreprise, à notre connaissance, en linguistique vietnamienne. / This thesis proposes a description of Vietnamese in comparison with French around the phenomenon of relativization in the frame of typological and contrastive linguistics. It is divided into two parts. The first part specifies the preliminary matters and typological framework. It presents some salient features of the Vietnamese language, an isolating language, compared to the French inflected language. It reviews some basic concepts in general linguistics such as subject / grammatical subject, theme / rheme, sentence / clause and subordination / subordinator. The notion of subordination is then introduced into the typological framework adopted (Creissels 2006) for the presentation of crosslinguistic relativization as well as for the analysis of relative clauses in French and in Vietnamese. The second part is devoted to the constrative study of the relative clauses in French and in Vietnamese with two objectives. The first objective is to identify the properties of relativization at the morphosyntactic and functional levels by examining the syntactic structure of the head noun, the strategies of relativization, the Accessibility Hierarchy for relativization and the typology of relative clauses. The second objective is to highlight the peculiarities of the functioning of Vietnamese compared with French, and more specifically, the Minimum relationship (Lemaréchal 1997) between a head noun and a relative clause and the polyfunctionality of the relativiser mà. This study, which aims at contributing to the typology of relativization, provides a systematic description of the relative subordination in a typological perspective, and never such a study has been undertaken, to our knowledge, in Vietnamese linguistics.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:22:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-07-28Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:27:29Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 oliveira_gm_me_sjrp.pdf: 694678 bytes, checksum: d0b469f7cacf82b729e428d0d985aa22 (MD5) / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) / O objetivo deste trabalho é investigar a atuação de restrições de ordem semântica ao lado das de ordem sintática para a determinação do processo de formação de orações relativas, em busca de evidências que confirmem a revisão da Hierarquia de Acessibilidade (HA) de Keenan e Comrie (1977) proposta por Dik (1997). As críticas à HA de Keenan e Comrie (1977) dizem respeito tanto a razões empíricas – pelo fato de que em algumas línguas não há nenhuma forma de se construir orações relativas; quanto a razões teóricas – pelo fato de as funções sintáticas não serem relevantes para todas as línguas do mundo. O corpus deste trabalho é composto por 30 línguas indígenas brasileiras e conta com descrições previamente feitas, como gramáticas, teses e outros tipos de manuais descritivos. Os dados coletados por este trabalho confirmam a hipótese de que é necessária uma revisão da HA. As lacunas na HA dizem respeito, principalmente, à função de Objeto Indireto. Para várias das línguas investigadas, essa função sintática não está acessível à relativização, mas outras funções, mais baixas na hierarquia do que essa, podem ser relativizadas, contrariando a HA de Keenan e Comrie (1977). Ao se analisarem as funções semânticas relativizadas, concluiu-se que as funções de Recipiente, Locativo e Tempo têm o mesmo estatuto nas línguas, hipótese confirmada pela teoria da Gramática Discursivo-Funcional. Em consequência disso, propomos neste trabalho uma outra hierarquia, baseada em critérios sintáticos e semânticos. Além disso, a nominalização desponta, neste trabalho, como a estratégia de relativização mais recorrente, apesar de não ser aceita como estratégia legítima para alguns autores de orientação formalista / This study aims at investigating the role of semantic and syntactic constraints to determine the process of relative clauses formation, in search of evidence that confirms the revision of the Accessibility Hierarchy (AH), by Keenan and Comrie (1977), proposed by Dik (1997). The criticism to the HA, by Keenan and Comrie (1977), concern both empirical reasons (the fact that there are languages that do not have any type of relative construction) and theoretical reasons (the fact that the authors take syntactic categories as universal without mentioning any theory that defines them and without taking into account that there are languages for which these functions are not relevant). The corpus of this work consists of 30 Brazilian indigenous languages and includes descriptions made previously, such as grammar books, theses and other types of descriptive manuals. Data collected by this study confirm the hypothesis that a review is needed for AH. Gaps in the AH relate mainly to the function of Indirect Object. For many languages, such function is not accessible to relativization, but other functions, lower in the hierarchy, can be relativized. When analyzing the relativized semantic functions, it was concluded that the semantic functions of Recipient, Locative and Time have the same status in the languages, a hypothesis that is also confirmed by the theory of Functional Discourse Grammar. In addition, in this study, nominalization happens to be the most recurrent strategy of relativization, although it is not accepted as a legitimate strategy for some more formalistic authors

<p>This study investigates the realisation of phonological quantity in the dialects of Modern Swedish, based on a corpus containing recordings from 86 locations in Sweden and the Swedishspeaking parts of Finland. The corpus was recorded as part of the national SweDia project.</p><p>The study is explorative in character. Quantity structures in Swedish dialects and their geographical distribution, as described in the dialectological literature, are compared to the results of a data-driven categorisation (cluster analysis). The results reveal an overall good correspondence of the data driven and the traditional categorisation, although with some deviations in the detail.</p><p>The study is divided into two parts. The first part lays the foundation for the data-driven categorisation, which is then described in the second part. First, the phonology and phonetics of quantity in Swedish are described in terms of durational distinctions and vocalic quality differences that typically accompany the durational differences. Preaspiration, which appears to be a normative feature in some dialects, is covered as well. An overview of the historical development of the Swedish quantity system is provided, with special emphasis on a phonological interpretation of quantity changes. Thereafter, dialectological evidence is combined with phonological and typological considerations to develop a categorisation of Swedish dialects.</p><p>The second part explains the methodology of cluster analysis and applies this method to vowel and consonant durations from one contrastive word pair, in order to obtain an alternative dialect categorisation. Analyses of vowel quality and preaspiration are performed in addition to the durational analyses. Hypotheses derived from the cluster analysis are then tested on one additional word pair recorded in 75 locations and on three additional word pairs recorded in four locations.</p><p>The general pattern emerging from the cluster analysis is a categorisation of the dialects into three main types, a Finland-Swedish, a Northern and a Southern type. This categorisation shows a good geographical agreement with the categorisation that is derived from the analysis of the dialectological literature. Therefore, the durational patterns of the three types are interpreted as reflections of three different phonological systems: 4-way systems with vocalic and consonantal quantity, 3-way systems with vocalic quantity and with consonantal quantity only after short vowels, and 2-way systems with complementary quantity. From the historical perspective, the 4-way system constitutes the most conservative and the 2-way system the most recently developed system.</p><p>Finally, it is argued that the historical development is one of the factors behind occasional mismatches between the data-driven and the dialectological categorisation. Data from one of the dialects, which has recently abandoned a 4-way system but has obviously retained the durational properties of the older system, is used as an example to illustrate this historical hypothesis.</p>

This study investigates the realisation of phonological quantity in the dialects of Modern Swedish, based on a corpus containing recordings from 86 locations in Sweden and the Swedishspeaking parts of Finland. The corpus was recorded as part of the national SweDia project. The study is explorative in character. Quantity structures in Swedish dialects and their geographical distribution, as described in the dialectological literature, are compared to the results of a data-driven categorisation (cluster analysis). The results reveal an overall good correspondence of the data driven and the traditional categorisation, although with some deviations in the detail. The study is divided into two parts. The first part lays the foundation for the data-driven categorisation, which is then described in the second part. First, the phonology and phonetics of quantity in Swedish are described in terms of durational distinctions and vocalic quality differences that typically accompany the durational differences. Preaspiration, which appears to be a normative feature in some dialects, is covered as well. An overview of the historical development of the Swedish quantity system is provided, with special emphasis on a phonological interpretation of quantity changes. Thereafter, dialectological evidence is combined with phonological and typological considerations to develop a categorisation of Swedish dialects. The second part explains the methodology of cluster analysis and applies this method to vowel and consonant durations from one contrastive word pair, in order to obtain an alternative dialect categorisation. Analyses of vowel quality and preaspiration are performed in addition to the durational analyses. Hypotheses derived from the cluster analysis are then tested on one additional word pair recorded in 75 locations and on three additional word pairs recorded in four locations. The general pattern emerging from the cluster analysis is a categorisation of the dialects into three main types, a Finland-Swedish, a Northern and a Southern type. This categorisation shows a good geographical agreement with the categorisation that is derived from the analysis of the dialectological literature. Therefore, the durational patterns of the three types are interpreted as reflections of three different phonological systems: 4-way systems with vocalic and consonantal quantity, 3-way systems with vocalic quantity and with consonantal quantity only after short vowels, and 2-way systems with complementary quantity. From the historical perspective, the 4-way system constitutes the most conservative and the 2-way system the most recently developed system. Finally, it is argued that the historical development is one of the factors behind occasional mismatches between the data-driven and the dialectological categorisation. Data from one of the dialects, which has recently abandoned a 4-way system but has obviously retained the durational properties of the older system, is used as an example to illustrate this historical hypothesis.

Die Arbeit setzt sich mit verschiedenen Aspekten der Nutzung korpusbasierter Statistiken in quantitativen typologischen Untersuchungen auseinander. Die einzelnen Abschnitte der Arbeit können als Teile einer sprachunabhängigen Prozesskette angesehen werden, die somit umfassende Untersuchungen zu den verschiedenen Sprachen der Welt erlaubt. Es werden dabei die Schritte von der automatisierten Erstellung der grundlegenden Ressourcen über die mathematisch fundierten Methoden bis hin zum fertigen Resultat der verschiedenen typologischen Analysen betrachtet. Hauptaugenmerk der Untersuchungen liegt zunächst auf den Textkorpora, die der Analyse zugrundeliegen, insbesondere auf ihrer Beschaffung und Verarbeitung unter technischen Gesichtspunkten. Es schließen sich Abhandlungen zur Nutzung der Korpora im Gebiet des lexikalischen Sprachvergleich an, wobei eine Quantifizierung sprachlicher Beziehungen mit empirischen Mitteln erreicht wird. Darüber hinaus werden die Korpora als Basis für automatisierte Messungen sprachlicher Parameter verwendet. Zum einen werden derartige messbare Eigenschaften vorgestellt, zum anderen werden sie hinsichtlich ihrer Nutzbarkeit für sprachtypologische Untersuchungen systematisch betrachtet. Abschließend werden Beziehungen dieser Messungen untereinander und zu sprachtypologischen Parametern untersucht. Dabei werden quantitative Verfahren eingesetzt.

This study primarily investigates the expression of two local roles, goal and source, in South American languages. Local roles describe the direction of movement or locatedness in relation to a physical object, a ground, in a motion event. While goal expresses motion to or towards and source expresses motion from a ground, these are not always distinguished from one another but sometimes encoded indifferently. A previous cross-linguistic study by Wälchli and Zúñiga (2006) shows that the encoding of goal and source tends to be distinct in Eurasia, North Africa, and Australia, and more diverse in the Americas and New Guinea. However, the sample used in their study is not representative in the Americas. The principal aim of the present study is to determine whether the encoding of goal and source is distinct or indifferent in a representative sample of South American languages, using both reference grammars and parallel texts consisting of Bible translations. The local role path, expressing motion through a ground, is also studied to the extent that this is possible given the data. The findings show that distinct encoding of goal and source is most common in the sample. Indifferent languages are still attested for, yet to a smaller extent than in Wälchli and Zúñiga's study (2006).