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Not all combinations of nouns and adjectives are possible and some are clearly more fre- quent than other. With this in mind this study aims to construct semantic representations of the two types of parts-of-speech, based on how they occur with each other. By inves- tigating these ideas via automatic natural language processing paradigms the study aims to find evidence for a semantic mutuality between nouns and adjectives, this notion sug- gests that the semantics of a noun can be captured by its corresponding adjectives, and vice versa. Furthermore, a set of proposed categories of adjectives and nouns, based on the ideas of Gärdenfors (2014), is presented that hypothetically are to fall in line with the produced representations. Four evaluation methods were used to analyze the result rang- ing from subjective discussion of nearest neighbours in vector space to accuracy generated from manual annotation. The result provided some evidence for the hypothesis which suggests that further research is of value.

Several theorists (amongst whom Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004:175) have stated that the verb (or the verbal group) is the core element in clauses and is largely responsible for the grammatical structure of language. In spite of this pivotal role that verbs fulfil in clauses, lexical specificity is rarely investigated in this class. Instead researchers prefer to investigate lexical specificity in the noun class. It is against this background that the main purpose of this study is to investigate specificity in the lexical verbs of first language (L1) English users and Black South African English (BSAE) users. In order to achieve this aim the secondary aims of the study are: to develop a framework for the analysis of lexical specificity in the lexical verb word class (ii) to compare specificity with regard to lexical verbs in L1 English and BSAE by using corpora, which allows one to firstly test the analysis framework on corpus data and secondly to determine whether or not lexical verbs in BSAE are less specific than lexical verbs in L1 English (iii) to establish the reasons for the differences in lexical specificity with regard to lexical verbs between L1 English and BSAE English. In order to achieve these aims, two corpora were used: the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (also known as LOCNESS) that consists of texts written by a subpopulation of L1 English users and the Tswana Learner English Corpus (also known as the TLE) that consists of texts written by a subpopulation of BSAE users. The results obtained in this study were interpreted from both a systemic functional perspective and a cognitive perspective. The initial quantitative results indicated that even though the BSAE users use lexical verbs (tokens) more frequently than L1 English users do, the BSAE users have fewer lexical verb lemmas (types) at their disposal than the L1 English users. Statistical tests determined that the mean type/token ratio between the two independent corpora is not only significant, but that the degree to which there is more specificity in the lexical verbs of the L1 English users than in the lexical verbs of the BSAE users is large. Due to space constraints, the qualitative part of the study focused only on the communication verbs in LOCNESS and the TLE. In order to provide an in-depth overview of the communication verbs, the communication verbs were divided into five semantic subcategories (using frequency counts and semantic considerations). They are: (i) to say something in a particular manner] (ii) to say something in order to express one’s feelings] (iii) to say something in order to convey information] (iv) to say something to someone in order to elicit a certain response] (v) to say something in response to something already said] Each of these semantic categories in turn was divided into semantic subcategories to present a detailed insight into the communication verbs employed in both LOCNESS and the TLE. In the study it was determined that there is overall more specificity in the lexical verbs of the L1 English users than in the lexical verbs of the L2 English users. It was also determined that there is overall more lexical diversity within the lexical verbs of the L1 English users. The following factors influenced the lexical specificity and lexical diversity in the corpora: (i) In cases where more general communication verbs are elaborated by verbs containing manner elaborations, the BSAE users tend not to use the more specific verbs. (ii) Communication verbs that usually play an important role in academic literacy (such as summarise and argue) are used to a lesser extent by the BSAE users than the L1 English users. (iii) In cases where a communication verb could possibly belong to another semantic category (as is the case with the verbs stress and maintain) the BSAE users tend to avoid using the verbs as communication verbs. (iv) Some communication verbs (such as demand and beg) acquired additional meanings in BSAE. (v) Some essay topics in both LOCNESS and the TLE influenced the frequencies of some communication verbs in the respective corpora. Considering the factors above, it was found that being a L2 English user means that English will not always function in the same contexts for the BSAE users as it would for the L1 English users. Therefore the vocabulary of the BSAE users will only be specific and diversified in those semantic categories needed to function in certain contexts. Consequently, the findings of this study can be used to contribute to the development of pedagogical material in academic literacy courses being presented to BSAE users to create an awareness of the variation in English and all the contexts in which it can function. The findings can also be of value to researchers in the fields of lexicography and computational linguistics. / Thesis (M.A. (English))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2011

Several theorists (amongst whom Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004:175) have stated that the verb (or the verbal group) is the core element in clauses and is largely responsible for the grammatical structure of language. In spite of this pivotal role that verbs fulfil in clauses, lexical specificity is rarely investigated in this class. Instead researchers prefer to investigate lexical specificity in the noun class. It is against this background that the main purpose of this study is to investigate specificity in the lexical verbs of first language (L1) English users and Black South African English (BSAE) users. In order to achieve this aim the secondary aims of the study are: to develop a framework for the analysis of lexical specificity in the lexical verb word class (ii) to compare specificity with regard to lexical verbs in L1 English and BSAE by using corpora, which allows one to firstly test the analysis framework on corpus data and secondly to determine whether or not lexical verbs in BSAE are less specific than lexical verbs in L1 English (iii) to establish the reasons for the differences in lexical specificity with regard to lexical verbs between L1 English and BSAE English. In order to achieve these aims, two corpora were used: the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (also known as LOCNESS) that consists of texts written by a subpopulation of L1 English users and the Tswana Learner English Corpus (also known as the TLE) that consists of texts written by a subpopulation of BSAE users. The results obtained in this study were interpreted from both a systemic functional perspective and a cognitive perspective. The initial quantitative results indicated that even though the BSAE users use lexical verbs (tokens) more frequently than L1 English users do, the BSAE users have fewer lexical verb lemmas (types) at their disposal than the L1 English users. Statistical tests determined that the mean type/token ratio between the two independent corpora is not only significant, but that the degree to which there is more specificity in the lexical verbs of the L1 English users than in the lexical verbs of the BSAE users is large. Due to space constraints, the qualitative part of the study focused only on the communication verbs in LOCNESS and the TLE. In order to provide an in-depth overview of the communication verbs, the communication verbs were divided into five semantic subcategories (using frequency counts and semantic considerations). They are: (i) to say something in a particular manner] (ii) to say something in order to express one’s feelings] (iii) to say something in order to convey information] (iv) to say something to someone in order to elicit a certain response] (v) to say something in response to something already said] Each of these semantic categories in turn was divided into semantic subcategories to present a detailed insight into the communication verbs employed in both LOCNESS and the TLE. In the study it was determined that there is overall more specificity in the lexical verbs of the L1 English users than in the lexical verbs of the L2 English users. It was also determined that there is overall more lexical diversity within the lexical verbs of the L1 English users. The following factors influenced the lexical specificity and lexical diversity in the corpora: (i) In cases where more general communication verbs are elaborated by verbs containing manner elaborations, the BSAE users tend not to use the more specific verbs. (ii) Communication verbs that usually play an important role in academic literacy (such as summarise and argue) are used to a lesser extent by the BSAE users than the L1 English users. (iii) In cases where a communication verb could possibly belong to another semantic category (as is the case with the verbs stress and maintain) the BSAE users tend to avoid using the verbs as communication verbs. (iv) Some communication verbs (such as demand and beg) acquired additional meanings in BSAE. (v) Some essay topics in both LOCNESS and the TLE influenced the frequencies of some communication verbs in the respective corpora. Considering the factors above, it was found that being a L2 English user means that English will not always function in the same contexts for the BSAE users as it would for the L1 English users. Therefore the vocabulary of the BSAE users will only be specific and diversified in those semantic categories needed to function in certain contexts. Consequently, the findings of this study can be used to contribute to the development of pedagogical material in academic literacy courses being presented to BSAE users to create an awareness of the variation in English and all the contexts in which it can function. The findings can also be of value to researchers in the fields of lexicography and computational linguistics. / Thesis (M.A. (English))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2011

本論文之目的在於探討「在」各種構式的概念、句式的意義以及語意上的各種分布，從語料中觀察母語人士和非母語人士「在」使用上的差異，並將研究結果應用於華語教材的設計中。研究者將先前關於「在」的詞類討論、構式的內容、句式義、相關變式的文獻做一整裡，發現過去「在」的研究多集中於語言現象的討論，在教學上的應用較少，於是運用認知功能學派的理論釐清「在」的概念、構式意義和功能後，調查語料庫「在」的語意和構式的分布，發現「在+處所」的構式無論是臺灣母語人士的語料庫還是中介語語料庫都顯示極高的頻率，占學習者書面語語料中的76.6％，口語語料也占了63.5％，其他語意範疇所占的比例不高，和母語人士相較下，調查結果顯示非母語人士在書面語上對「在」的使用掌握度不夠全面，仍停留在原型的語意，而口語的掌握度較高。因此，本文以構式語法和認知語言學的理論為基礎，一方面使用語料庫研究法考察語意範疇的分布，另一方面採用對比法研究檢視華語學習者的中介語句，並使用變換分析法討論句式變化的合理性，更進一步將構式、隱現、相關變式的考察成果結合認知功能教學法與任務式教學法，設計出符合認知功能主張的教材內容與練習，以幫助學生徹底掌握「在」構式的深刻內涵。 / The purpose of this study is to investigate concepts associated with zài constructions, focusing on their different meanings and semantic distributions. Having observed native speakers’ and non-native speakers’ different performances in corpora, the researcher applies the study results to the design of Taiwan Mandarin teaching materials. After reviewing literature on discussions about part of speeches of zài, zài constructions, meanings of sentences and related transformations, the researcher discovers that previous studies have made more efforts to discuss linguistic phenomena rather than pedagogic applications. As a result, by utilizing the theories of cognitive-functional approaches to clarify the concepts, constructional meanings, and functions of zài, the researcher investigates the semantic and construction distributions of zài and finds out that “zài+ location” displays the highest frequency in both corpora of native and non-native speakers: 76.6％ in interlanguage corpora in form of written language and 63.5％ in interlanguage corpora in form of spoken language. Other semantic categories, however, have lower frequency. In addition, the result of investigation indicates that non-native speakers hardly master all dimensions of zài, and they still remain at the prototypical level in written language, but know spoken language better. Therefore, based on construction grammar and cognitive linguistics, this study on the one hand uses corpus study to inspect the distribution of semantic categories, and on the other hand, adopts contrastive study to inspect Mandarin learners’ interlanguage and employs transformation analysis to debate the rationality of transformation. Furthermore, the researcher, based on the results of studies on constructions, appearance and disappearance of zài , transformations with cognition-functional teaching methods and the task-based approach, designs contents and exercises conforming to cognition-functional approaches in order to help Mandarin learners know zài constructions thoroughly.

The present thesis studies the copular verbs and their co-occurrence with adjectival complements in contemporary written and spoken English. The theoretical part of this work first describes the copular verbs in terms of their types and types of complements they take. A corpus-based approach to copular verbs follows. A part of the theory also provides an overview of the terminology that is used with copular verbs. The work consists of two parts: the theoretical part which introduces the topic and describes the features of both the principal copula be and other copular verbs and the analytical part which analyses written language data excerpted from the Araneum Anglicum corpus and spoken language data from the Spoken BNC2014 corpus. The analytical part focuses on the following seven verbs: feel, look, seem, remain, become, go and get and their adjectival complements. These adjectives are then analysed in terms of their frequency and collocability with the verbs. The collocate lists of all verbs are then compared between the two corpora. Finally, the analysis also attempts to categorize the adjectives semantically. The analysis also focuses on adverbs which occur in these constructions and which function is to modify the adjectives. The results of the analytical part are summarized in the conclusion.