<p>Denna uppsats avser att kartlägga förekomsten av skorr i det spansktalande Karibien. Dorsala</p><p>realiseringar av fonemet /r/, dvs skorr är ett fenomen som inte är belagt i europeisk spanska. Hur</p><p>kommer det sig? Jag har försökt utröna de möjliga orsakerna till varför bakre /r/ förekommer i</p><p>spanskan i den karibiska övärlden trots att det inte förekommer i standardspanska.</p><p>Uppsatsen har visst fokus på Kuba, men berör också Puerto Rico och Dominikanska</p><p>Republiken. Syftet har varit att försöka hitta en geografisk korrelation mellan olika språk och</p><p>etniska grupper samt förekomsten av skorr i karibisk spanska. Resultaten är inte enhetliga. På</p><p>Puerto Rico verkar skorr ha spritts sedan 1980-talet. På Kuba har fenomenet fått mer</p><p>uppmärksamhet sedan 1970-talet. Beträffande Dominikanska Republiken var underlaget</p><p>bristfälligt och det gick inte att dra säkra slutsatser.</p><p>Enligt befintlig litteratur har fonemet /r/ i Karibien åtminstone sju dorsala</p><p>realiseringar fördelade som följer: [n],[R],[ʁ],[x],[χ],[h]och [ɣ], varav de sista sex här betraktas</p><p>som instanser av skorr. Ibland förekommer skorr i hela områden och ibland fläckvis. Ibland</p><p>korrelerar skorr med någon av hypoteserna, och ibland inte alls.</p><p>Resultaten är inte entydiga, men i stort korrelerar skorr med det faktum att den</p><p>spanska övärlden har haft stora bosättningar av franska och fransk-kreoltalare, de enda grannar</p><p>som konsekvent har skorr i sitt foneminventarium. Ingen annanstans i Spanskamerika har skorr</p><p>belagts.</p>

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This thesis deals with human communicative behaviour related to feedback, analysed across languages (Italian and Swedish), modalities (auditory versus visual) and different communicative situations (human-human versus human-machine dialogues). The aim of this study is to give more insight into how humans use communicative behaviour related to feedback and at the same time to suggest a method to collect valuable data that can be useful to control facial and head movements related to visual feedback in synthetic conversational agents. The study of human communicative behaviour necessitates the good quality of the materials under analysis, the support of reliable software packages for the audio-visual analysis and a specific coding scheme for the annotation of the phenomena under observation. The materials used for the investigations presented in this thesis span from spontaneous conversations video recorded in real communicative situations, and semi-spontaneous dialogues obtained with different eliciting techniques, such as map-task and information-seeking scenarios, to a specific corpus of controlled interactive speech collected by means of a motion capture system. When motion caption is used it is possible to register facial and head movements with a high degree of precision, so as to obtain valuable data useful for the implementation of facial displays in talking heads. A specific coding scheme has been developed, tested and used to annotate feedback. The annotation has been carried out with the support of different available software packages for audio-visual analysis. The procedure followed in this thesis involves initial analyses of communicative phenomena in spontaneous human-human dialogues and human-machine interaction, in order to learn about regularities in human communicative behaviour that could be transferred to talking heads, then, for the sake of reproduction in talking heads, the investigation includes more detailed analyses of data collected in a lab environment with a novel acquisition set-up that allows capturing the dynamics of facial and head movements. Finally the possibilities of transferring human communicative behaviour to a talking face are discussed and some evaluation paradigms are illustrated. The idea of reproducing human behaviour in talking heads is based on the assumption that the reproduction of facial displays related to communicative phenomena such as turn management, feedback production and expression of emotions in embodied conversational agents, might result in the design of advanced systems capable of effective multi-modal interactions with humans. / QC 20100819

Differences in marking definiteness among various languages have been considered one of the most confusing areas for speakers of different languages. As a teacher of EFL to Farsi speakers, I have frequently noticed that the students face problems when it comes to marking a definite or indefinite noun in English. One of the main objectives of the present study is to shed light on the trouble sources in practice of the use of articles in English among the subjects of my study. Farsi as a language which has two distinct registers of spoken and written forms with 9 various forms of definite/indefinite markers is different from English with 4 definite/indefinite markers. Students who speak some languages that lack these articles (such as Japanese), or probably do not have the one-to-one correspondence with definite marking system in English (such as Farsi), tend to face problems while using them in English. It is believed that Farsi marks noun phrases for specificity/non-specificity rather than definiteness/indefiniteness, while English marks nouns for definiteness/indefiniteness. The present study shows interesting instances of the choices of article that Farsi native speakers make when it comes to marking definiteness in English. Definiteness is mostly marked by a bare noun, indefiniteness is marked by the numeral 'yek' (pre-positioned) or ye (pre-positioned) or suffix '-i' (i.e. one —post-positioned) and specificity can apply to both definite and indefinite NPs.

People usually commence an argument in hope for persuading the other party. These arguments can be a part of their job or personal life, which may influence the life of people around them or sometimes in case of a political debate, can affect lives of millions of people. The situation can get more challenging if the argument is produced in a language other than someone's mother tongue and in this respect, language proficiency can be of great value to them. One of the most important goals of language teaching classes is to teach the students of foreign languages how to develop information processes in order to express themselves. In the present study, the performance of seven students who study English in a private language school in Iran, is analyzed in a debate on 'globalization'. These Farsi speaking learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) used some collaborative and individual strategies in the process of interactive argumentation. It can be said that this debate met the requirements of a 'pro et contra' (for and against) argument mentioned by Naess (2005). The views that are in favor of the debate's subject are mentioned as well as the views against it. It does not seem to have a conclusion and the views were not weighed against each other, they were merely introduced and both sides were indicated. This mainly took place due to of lack of time to consider all the aspects of the arguments. Therefore, it can be maintained that the result of this argumentation was 'globalization now and later'. According to Hirsch's 'minimal model of ideal interactive argumentation', this may seem to be a terrible situation, but in fact it is "a very realistic assumption to make about argumentation as an on-going interactive enterprise" (1987: 440).

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<p>Syftet med denna uppsats är att studera hur blickar och pekningar förhåller sig till barns verbala yttranden. Jag har använt ett videoinspelat material där 8 hörande barn med typisk utveckling mellan 0;8 och 5;10 år interagerar. Ur detta har jag klippt sekvenser som passar min frågeställning, implementerat dem i annotationsprogrammet ELAN, och sedan annoterat och analyserat materialet. Av 77 deklarativa-informativa pekningar i det slutliga materialet fann jag 68 ha den tidigare kända funktionen för denna pekningstyp, att förekomma i en vanlig påståendesats. De återstående 9 hade ett blickmönster som skilde sig från dessa. Jag anser att dessa pekningar tillför yttrandet en betonande funktion. Jag fann även ytterligare 7 pekningar i samband med interrogativa satser som inte är tidigare beskrivna. De följde samma blickmönster som de betonade pekningarna. De slutsatser jag drog var att blickar i kombination med pekningar hos barn kan ha en betonande och en interrogativ funktion.</p>

<p>Med utgångspunkt i både traditionell och samtida syn på finithet har det uto-aztekiska språket cupeño studerats. Flera grammatiska markörer för såväl subjektskongruens som temporala, modala och aspektuella distinktioner definieras. Dessa markörer kan i huvudsatser i cupeño uppträda i antingen ett auxiliarkomplex i Wackernagels position eller som affix på verbet. Subjektskongruens och olika TMA-markörer definieras som två skilda grammatiska system. Framför allt markörerna för subjektskongruens kan bibehållas i underordnade satser, som också har speciella markörer för underordning. Även om skillnader finns mellan över- och underordnade satser så finns ingen distinktion mellan finita och icke finita verb. Förutom verbkonstruktioner i över- respektive underordnade satser definieras också verbkonstruktioner med nominal morfologi och imperativ som egna typer av verbkonstruktioner, som varierar i vilken utsträckning finita drag förekommer.</p>

<p>This essay adopts a construction grammar approach to the linguistic pattern why don’t you. It argues that the pattern can have two different senses: an interrogative sense and a suggestive sense. Further it argues that the suggestive sense is a construction similar to the definition of a construction described by construction grammar theory.</p><p>In other words, the linguistic pattern why don’t you can have a specific underlying semantics that cannot be reached by an examination of its formal pattern.</p><p>Keywords: Construct, Construction, Construction Grammar, Idiom, Interpretation, Linguistic Pattern, Marker, Underlying Semantics</p>

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