This thesis is focused on the evaluation of lexical-semantic level in primary school children. Vocabulary is tested in a population of children with and without the postponement of compulsory schooling. Diagnostic testing is done with the help of an own research tool. A part-of-speech analysis of spontaneous speech is done with a specific goal of monitoring the performance in the area of perception and preposition use. The data is further analysed using methods of both relational and descriptive statistics. Methods and forms of work used for vocabulary development in pre-school children and first grades are explored through interviews with teachers. All the findings should help monitor the vocabulary in primary school children's speech. The research tool used in the testing also functions as a practical and didactical tool for the development of vocabulary focused on perception and preposition use.

This thesis describes the development of Dapper (`Determiner And PrePosition Error Recogniser'), a system designed to automatically acquire models of occurrence for English prepositions and determiners to allow for the detection and correction of errors in their usage, especially in the writing of non-native speakers of the language. Prepositions and determiners are focused on because they are parts of speech whose usage is particularly challenging to acquire, both for students of the language and for natural language processing tools. The work presented in this thesis proposes to address this problem by developing a system which can acquire models of correct preposition and determiner occurrence, and can use this knowledge to identify divergences from these models as errors. The contexts of these parts of speech are represented by a sophisticated feature set, incorporating a variety of semantic and syntactic elements. DAPPER is found to perform well on preposition and determiner selection tasks in correct native English text. Results on each preposition and determiner are discussed in detail to understand the possible reasons for variations in performance, and whether these are due to problems with the structure of DAPPER or to deeper linguistic reasons. An in-depth analysis of all features used is also offered, quantifying the contribution of each feature individually. This can help establish if the decision to include complex semantic and syntactic features is justified in the context of this task. Finally, the performance of DAPPER on non-native English text is assessed. The system is found to be robust when applied to text which does not contain any preposition or determiner errors. On an error correction task, results are mixed: DAPPER shows promising results on preposition selection and determiner confusion (definite vs. indefinite) errors, but is less successful in detecting errors involving missing or extraneous determiners. Several characteristics of learner writing are described, to gain a clearer understanding of what problems arise when natural language processing tools are used with this kind of text. It is concluded that the construction of contextual models is a viable approach to the task of preposition and determiner selection, despite outstanding issues pertaining to the domain of non-native writing.

The present diploma thesis is concerned with English non-prepositional equivalents of the Czech v/ve and z/ze prepositional phrases. This type of equivalent is found in approximately 20% of cases (Klégr et al., 2011). The thesis shows that some of the divergent equivalents are conditioned lexically (different valency of the Czech and English verb), while others, being of systemic nature, are related to typological differences between Czech and English. Among the systemic counterparts are particularly English locative subjects in sentence-initial position correspoding to Czech adverbials, and English premodification by a noun translated into Czech as postmodification by a prepositional phrase. Material for the analytical part was extracted from the "Core" of the parallel corpus InterCorp, consisting of original Czech fiction texts and their English translations. A total of more than 200 divergent counterparts of both Czech prepositional phrases was collected.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T19:33:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Maria Francisca Ferreira Trujillo.pdf: 490631 bytes, checksum: 943d3b70dd6dda2f592134203530578f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-10-10 / This research, imprint structuralist, entitled diachronic study of prepositions com, em, por and per, in Portuguese texts of the XIV to the XX century, aims to investigate and describe the prepositions com, em, por and per in the Portuguese language, spelling and its amendments senses under the historical perspective. It is historical and descriptive research that is based on analysis of historical grammars and texts from the fourteenth century to the twentieth. The corpus of archaic texts from fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, drawn from the collections of Jose J. Nunes (1959) and J. L. Vasconcellos (1959). The texts from the sixteenth to the eighteenth were consulted in the National Digital Library of Lisbon. To represent the nineteenth and twentieth centuries chose varied literary works of Brazilian writers, preferring prose and, as the literary genre, seeks to vary between tales, auto, novels etc., In order to diversify styles, while that were selected authors who represent a form as close to the standard level of language (the language with little spontaneous reproduction without regional variation, for this is not the object of our study). Initially are compared every two centuries between them, and finally, compares the data with the twentieth century, aiming to verify the occurrence of changes in spelling and meanings in these prepositional connectives. Anchored on the assumption that, on the basis of the linguistic system of Portuguese prepositional connectives occupy important role, justified the development of such a survey. As a result, it is believed that the prepositions themselves carry some degree of meaning that make them, in the Portuguese language, basic elements that accompany the diachrony of language without changing its form or function / Esta pesquisa, de cunho estruturalista, intitulada Estudo diacrônico das preposições com, em, por e per em textos portugueses do século XIV ao XX, objetiva investigar e descrever as preposições com, em, por e per na língua portuguesa, suas alterações de grafia e sentidos sob a perspectiva histórica. Trata-se de pesquisa histórico-descritiva que tem como base de análise gramáticas históricas e textos do século XIV ao XX. O corpus é constituído de textos arcaicos dos séculos XIV e XV, retirados das coletâneas de José J. Nunes (1959) e J. L. de Vasconcellos (1959). Os textos dos séculos XVI ao XVIII foram consultados na Biblioteca Nacional Digital de Lisboa. Para representar os séculos XIX e XX escolhemos obras literárias variadas de escritores brasileiros, dando preferência à prosa e, quanto ao gênero literário, procura-se variar entre contos, auto, romances etc., com o intuito de diversificar estilos, ao mesmo tempo em que foram selecionados autores que representam uma forma o mais próximo possível do nível padrão da língua (com pouca reprodução da língua espontânea e sem variante regional, por não ser este o objeto do nosso estudo). São comparadas, inicialmente, cada dois séculos entre si e, por último, comparam-se os dados com o século XX, objetivando verificar as ocorrências de alterações de grafia e sentidos nesses conectivos preposicionais. Ancora-se na hipótese de que, na base do sistema linguístico do idioma português os conectivos preposicionais ocupam papel relevante, justifica-se o desenvolvimento de uma pesquisa dessa natureza. Como resultados, julga-se que as preposições carregam em si algum grau de significação que as tornam, na língua portuguesa, elementos de base que acompanham a diacronia da língua sem mudar sua função ou forma

Este trabalho traz uma comparação das posposições de caso NI, DE e WO da língua japonesa com preposições do português, baseada no aparato teórico da semântica cognitiva, e centrada nas estruturas semânticas das posposições de caso desenhadas por Moriyama (2005). Como resultado, elaboramos tabelas com as diversas preposições que podem ser mapeadas em cada uma das várias acepções das posposições estudadas. Cremos que este trabalho traga contribuições para o ensino do japonês a aprendizes lusófonos, bem como para a prática da tradução entre as línguas japonesa e portuguesa. / This work contains a comparison between the Japanese case markers NI, DE and WO, and Portuguese prepositions, based on the theoretic framework of cognitive semantics and centered on semantic structures of Japanese case markers as described by Moriyama (2005). As a result, we have made tables with the several prepositions that can be mapped into each one of the several senses of the case markers studied here. We believe that this work brings contributions for Japanese language teaching to Portuguese-speaking students, as well as to the practice of translation between Japanese and Portuguese.

O objetivo deste trabalho é estudar as preposições de três línguas: latim, português e romeno. Divide-se, assim, em duas partes: uma teórica e outra, exemplificativa. Na primeira parte, após a exposição do método, comparativo e diacrônico, e do objeto de estudo, a língua e não a norma (segundo definição de COSERIU), desenvolve- se sucintamente um levantamento do uso dos termos \\\"preposição\\\" e \\\"prefixo\\\" desde sua criação até os dias atuais. Parte-se, depois, para uma definição de ambos os termos e para a delimitação de seu uso. Cita-se, então, o problema dos falsos prefixos, das preposições acidentais e das locuções prepositivas. : Feita a . distinção formal entre preposição, prefixo e advérbio, inicia-se uma explanação dos planos semânticos: espacial, temporal, biossocial e gramatical. O plano espacial será ó plano básico, a partir do qual se derivarão todas as demais idéias. Elenca-se e explica-se, enfim, certo número de passos do raciocínio (\\\"orientações semânticas\\\"). Na segunda parte, são apresentados os exemplos dos quais se deduziu a teoria da primeira parte e os oito capítulos que se seguem versam sobre um movimento ou posição determinada, a saber, \\\"afastamento\\\", \\\"aproximação\\\", \\\"meio\\\", \\\"circularidade\\\", \\\"verticalidade\\\", \\\"seqüência\\\", \\\"interioridade\\\" e \\\"proximidade\\\". Cada tipo é representado Partindo-se do latim, chega-se ao português e ao romeno, que, como sabido, são os extremos da România. Argumenta-se que as preposições conservam muito de seu sentido original, desde que sejam aplicadas essas \\\"orientações semânticas\\\". Observa-se, com isso, que elas não são desprovidas de significado e que sua complexidade semântica não deve ser entendida como um esvaziamento. / The aim of this work is a study of the prepositions of three languages: Latin, Portuguese and Romanian. It is divided into two parts: a theoretical and a demonstrative one. In the first part, after the exposition of the method - comparative and diachronical -and the subject, namely the language and not the norm (according to COSERIU\\\'s definition), a survey about the use of the terms \\\"preposition\\\" and \\\"prefix\\\" is briefly developed from their origin until nowadays. After that, both terms are defined and their use is delimited. The problems concerning false prefixes, accidental prepositions and prepositional locutions are also dealt with. A formal distinction has been made among prepositions, prefixes and adverbs. The semantic plans (spatial, temporal, biossocial and grammatical) are afterwards explained. The spatial plan is the basic one, from which ali other ideas are derivated. · Some raciocination steps are at last listed and explained (\\\"semantic orientations\\\"). In the second part, some examples are exhibited, from which the theory of the first part was inferred and the eight following chapters deal about a determined movement or position: \\\"severance\\\", \\\"approximation\\\", \\\"means\\\", \\\"circularity\\\", \\\"verticality\\\", \\\"succession\\\", \\\"interiority\\\" and \\\"proximity\\\". Each is represented by some prepositions/ prefixes. Starting from the Latin, one arrives at both already mentioned romanic languages that, as everyone knows, are spoken in the most extreme parts of the Roman Empire. The author argues that the prepositions preserve a great portion of their original sense, if those semantic orientations are applied on them. So, one observes that they are not meaningless and their semantic intricacy should not be understood as an emptying.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 203-212). / This dissertation develops a form of relativism in which propositions are treated as sets of world-time-individual triples, in contrast to standard views that treat them as sets of worlds or world-time pairs. This builds on existing proposals for predicates of personal taste such as fun and tasty, and has ties to approaches to de se attitudes involving centered worlds. I develop an accompanying pragmatic view in which the context set is similarly construed as a set of world-time-individual triples. The semantic and pragmatic systems together are used to account for the behavior of predicates of personal taste, epistemic modals, indicative conditionals, and a variety of attitude reports, including control constructions. I also explore ways that this account can help solve puzzles related to Moore's paradox. To give one concrete example, I propose that the proposition expressed by the sentence it might be raining is the set of world-time-individual triples <w,t,x> such that it's compatible with x's knowledge in w at t that it's raining. On the pragmatic side, a speaker is justified in asserting this sentence in a conversation if it is compatible with the speaker's own knowledge that it's raining; by asserting it, though, the speaker is making the stronger proposal to make it common ground that it is compatible with the knowledge of the entire group of conversational participants that it's raining. If this proposal is accepted by the other participants, then the group will have established that their knowledge states are aligned in a particular way. I introduce the core semantic and pragmatic proposals in Chapter 2, focusing on epistemic modals, predicates of personal taste, and belief reports. / (cont.) In Chapter 3, I extend the analysis to indicative conditionals, showing that this solves longstanding puzzles involving the relationship between conditionals and disjunction. In Chapter 4, I extend the approach to certain control constructions, with a special emphasis on capturing their de se interpretation. In Chapter 5, I look at two puzzles related to Moore's paradox, with special attention to the meaning of imagine. / by Tamina C. Stephenson. / Ph.D.

A presente tese tem como objetivo estudar as preposições passíveis de interpretação causal em alemão e português, de forma contrastiva, com base no processo de gramaticalização e enfoque sincrônico. Para este estudo foi feito um levantamento das preposições consideradas causais ou com acepção causal na literatura. A seguir, foram recolhidas ocorrências em alemão e português para a composição de um corpus, cujas ocorrências foram testadas para que pudesse ou não ser atestado o caráter causal das preposições, além de ter sido desenvolvido um quadro para mostrar o seu grau de gramaticalização. A fim de explicar como a interpretação causal é conferida às preposições, propôs-se um desmembramento do domínio QUALIDADE proposto por Heine et al. (1991), visto que de acordo com o estudo, a noção de causa advém por meio de relações de contiguidade metonímica não só dos domínios PESSOA, ESPAÇO e TEMPO, mas também dos grupos modo, condição, instrumento, finalidade e tema, noções que provavelmente se encontram no domínio QUALIDADE / This thesis aims to contrastively study prepositions that enable causal interpretation in German and Portuguese, based on the process of Grammaticalization and with a synchronic approach. For this study, a collection of prepositions considered causal or with causal meaning in the literature was made. Thereafter, occurrences in German and Portuguese were collected to compose a corpus. Then, these occurrences have been tested in order to prove or not the possibility of the causal character of the prepositions analyzed. Also, a table has been developed to show the degree of grammaticalization of these prepositions. In order to explain how the causal interpretation is given to prepositions, we propose a breakdown of the domain QUALITY proposed by Heine et al. (1991), since according to the study, the notion of cause comes through the relationships of metonymical contiguity not only from the domains PERSON, SPACE and TIME, but also from the mode, condition, instrument, goal and theme groups, concepts that are likely to be found within the domain QUALITY

O objetivo desta tese é discutir uma mudança diacrônica na introdução dos argumentos indiretos das sentenças ditransitivas do português brasileiro (PB). Desde o século XIX, o PB iniciou uma reanálise das estratégias possíveis para a introdução de seus objetos indiretos (OI), generalizando o uso da preposição lexical para em detrimento da preposição a, nos contextos de verbos ditransitivos de movimento, transferência e criação dar, enviar, preparar, respectivamente. Ao mesmo tempo em que essa mudança ocorreu, a expressão morfológica do argumento dativo representada pelo clítico dativo de terceira pessoa lhe(s) também foi substituída por outras estratégias, tais como objetos pronominais para / a ele(s)/ ela(s) (cf. Gomes, 2003; Freire, 2005; Torres Morais & Berlinck, 2006, 2007; Torres Morais & Salles 2010). Com o intuito de apresentar uma análise abrangente desse processo de mudança histórica no PB, analisei um corpus jornalístico composto por 223 primeiras capas da Folha de São Paulo escritas entre as décadas de 1920 e 2010, recolhidas do livro 90 anos de história nas capas mais importantes da Folha. Dessa forma, o PB não possui mais a expressão de caso dativo, nem através da preposição funcional a, nem do clítico dativo lhe(s), portanto assumo nesta tese que, diferentemente do PE, a introdução dos argumentos indiretos em PB não pode ser feita através de núcleos aplicativos. Assim sendo, o PB passou de um tipo de língua que apresentava evidência de Caso dativo para uma variante na qual apenas Caso oblíquo é atribuído ao OI por meio de preposições transitivas lexicais. Desse modo, proponho que os argumentos indiretos em PB são introduzidos por uma projeção pP (cf. Svenonius 2003, 2004, 2007; Wood 2012). / The aim of this paper is to discuss a diachronic change in the introduction of indirect arguments in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Since the 19th century, BP has initiated a reanalysis of the possible strategies to head indirect objects (IO) by generalizing the use of the full preposition para to instead of the preposition a in ditransitive sentences with verbs of movement, transfer and creation as dar give, enviar send and preparar prepare, respectively. Alongside with the substitution of the prepositions stated above, the morphological notation of the dative argument - represented by the third person clitic lhe(s) has also been replaced by other strategies, such as 3rd person pronouns preceded by para - para ele(s)/ ela(s) to him/ her/ them (cf. Gomes, 2003; Freire,2005; Torres Morais & Berlinck, 2006, 2007; Torres Morais & Salles 2010). Hence, in order to make a more thorough analysis of this historical change in BP, I analyzed a corpus of first pages from a Brazilian newspaper, Folha de São Paulo collected in the monograph 90 anos de história nas capas mais importantes da Folha (90 years of History through the most important cover pages of Folha), which spans the 20th century with 223 covers from 1920 to 2010. Hence, as BP cannot express the dative case anymore, nor via a functional preposition, nor by its morphologic counterpart (the dative clitic lhe), it has also lost the possibility of introducing dative elements in its argument structure by an applicative head. Thus, BP has shifted from a type of language which has evidence for Case, as EP, to one where Case is assigned via lexical prepositions. Consequently, I assume that the indirect arguments in BP are always headed by a lexical preposition and are introduced in the argument structure via a p head (cf. Svenonius 2003, 2004, 2007 and Wood 2012).

O objetivo deste trabalho é estudar as preposições de três línguas: latim, português e romeno. Divide-se, assim, em duas partes: uma teórica e outra, exemplificativa. Na primeira parte, após a exposição do método, comparativo e diacrônico, e do objeto de estudo, a língua e não a norma (segundo definição de COSERIU), desenvolve- se sucintamente um levantamento do uso dos termos \\\"preposição\\\" e \\\"prefixo\\\" desde sua criação até os dias atuais. Parte-se, depois, para uma definição de ambos os termos e para a delimitação de seu uso. Cita-se, então, o problema dos falsos prefixos, das preposições acidentais e das locuções prepositivas. : Feita a . distinção formal entre preposição, prefixo e advérbio, inicia-se uma explanação dos planos semânticos: espacial, temporal, biossocial e gramatical. O plano espacial será ó plano básico, a partir do qual se derivarão todas as demais idéias. Elenca-se e explica-se, enfim, certo número de passos do raciocínio (\\\"orientações semânticas\\\"). Na segunda parte, são apresentados os exemplos dos quais se deduziu a teoria da primeira parte e os oito capítulos que se seguem versam sobre um movimento ou posição determinada, a saber, \\\"afastamento\\\", \\\"aproximação\\\", \\\"meio\\\", \\\"circularidade\\\", \\\"verticalidade\\\", \\\"seqüência\\\", \\\"interioridade\\\" e \\\"proximidade\\\". Cada tipo é representado Partindo-se do latim, chega-se ao português e ao romeno, que, como sabido, são os extremos da România. Argumenta-se que as preposições conservam muito de seu sentido original, desde que sejam aplicadas essas \\\"orientações semânticas\\\". Observa-se, com isso, que elas não são desprovidas de significado e que sua complexidade semântica não deve ser entendida como um esvaziamento. / The aim of this work is a study of the prepositions of three languages: Latin, Portuguese and Romanian. It is divided into two parts: a theoretical and a demonstrative one. In the first part, after the exposition of the method - comparative and diachronical -and the subject, namely the language and not the norm (according to COSERIU\\\'s definition), a survey about the use of the terms \\\"preposition\\\" and \\\"prefix\\\" is briefly developed from their origin until nowadays. After that, both terms are defined and their use is delimited. The problems concerning false prefixes, accidental prepositions and prepositional locutions are also dealt with. A formal distinction has been made among prepositions, prefixes and adverbs. The semantic plans (spatial, temporal, biossocial and grammatical) are afterwards explained. The spatial plan is the basic one, from which ali other ideas are derivated. · Some raciocination steps are at last listed and explained (\\\"semantic orientations\\\"). In the second part, some examples are exhibited, from which the theory of the first part was inferred and the eight following chapters deal about a determined movement or position: \\\"severance\\\", \\\"approximation\\\", \\\"means\\\", \\\"circularity\\\", \\\"verticality\\\", \\\"succession\\\", \\\"interiority\\\" and \\\"proximity\\\". Each is represented by some prepositions/ prefixes. Starting from the Latin, one arrives at both already mentioned romanic languages that, as everyone knows, are spoken in the most extreme parts of the Roman Empire. The author argues that the prepositions preserve a great portion of their original sense, if those semantic orientations are applied on them. So, one observes that they are not meaningless and their semantic intricacy should not be understood as an emptying.