Magister Artium - MA / Daar is 'n toenemende belangstelling in die rol wat die linguistiek speel ten opsigte van die hantering van taalgebreke by kinders. Hierdie verskynsel kan gedeeltelik aan twee ontwikkelings in die linguistiek toegeskryf word, nl. (a) die bekendmaking van 'n transformasionele grammatika soos vervat in Noam Chomsky se Syntactic Structures in 1957 en (b) die feit dat transformasionele grammatici beklemtoon dat 'n linguistiese teorie moet kan verklaar hoe kinders taalstrukture verwerf. Dit het tot 'n hernieude belangstelling in taalverwerwing aanleiding gegee. Volgens Ingram (1976:6) kan linguiste 'n bydrae t.o.v. ten minste vyf aspekte lewer: (a) 'n boek t.o.v. algemene fonologiese aspekte moet saamgestel word; (b) 'n omvattende boek ten opsigte van die wyse waarop normale kinders die fonologie van hulle taal verwerf, moet saamgestel word; (c) 'n versameling tegnieke t.o.v. die verkryging en ontleding van kindertaal moet ontwikkel word; (d) 'n boek wat die aard van fonologiese afwykings in kinders beskryf, moet saamgestel word; (e) 'n versameling terapeutiese riglyne vir die behandeling van fonologiese afwykings moet ontwikkel word. Wanneer ons gekonfronteer word met kinders wat aan die een of ander taalgebrek ly, ontstaan daar onmiddellik die behoefte om die kind se taalsisteem te beskryf. Die deskriptiewe metode wat gebruik word, moet effektief genoeg wees om die kind se eie reëlsisteem uit te beeld asook die kompleksiteit van die strukture wat verwerf is. Sommige linguiste glo dat die TGG die regte stap in hierdie rigting is.

A lack of research in adult literacy for both native speakers and speakers of English as a second language led to the development of the Test of Affixes in Syntactic Structures (TASS) for use in a pilot study (Dogger, January 1978) in which knowledge of derivational morphology was tested to determine its possible relationship with reading for English as a second language students. Test construction was followed by a thorough verification procedure which is the purpose of this study. In September 1978 the following measures of test strength were established: construct validity, content validity, item difficulty, item discrimination, internal consistency, rational equivalence, and concurrent validity. The degree of relationship between reading proficiency, as demonstrated by subject performance on the Iowa Silent Reading Test, Level III (ISRT,III), and knowledge of derivational affixes, as demonstrated by subject performance on TASS, was also established. Results show that successful performance on the ISRT, III includes reading strategies beyond those required for successful performance on TASS. In other words, mastery of language structures as represented by English orthography is necessary but not sufficient for college-level reading proficiency.

One of the main characteristics of German technical language is the nominal style, which includes complex pre-nominal and post-nominal extended modifiers. A commonly held view is that these are less common in Swedish due to language-specific restrictions and preferences. As such, they may pose a challenge to Swedish translators. This essay examines this particular problem and focuses on the translation of four different complex extended modifiers: adjectival, participial, genitival and prepositional.The aim of this study was to determine which syntactic structures are used when these modifiers are translated into Swedish and to identify shifts using the concept “grammatical metaphor”, thereby focusing on the degree of grammatical metaphoricity. For the purposes of this study, a chapter of the technical book Neues Bauen mit Stroh in Europa by Gruber, Gruber and Sentler was translated into Swedish and then analysed with the above-mentioned aims in mind.The study showed that out of the 117 noun phrases with extended complex modifiers in the source text 21 were transposed into a less explicit, direct structure and more metaphorical language. The metaphorization was in some cases a result of simplification/omission of less dense semantic material and/or the translation into compounds. In 46 cases, the extended modifiers showed the same degree of grammatical metaphoricity as the source language expression and thus were re-metaphorized. In the remaining cases, a verbal or more explicit structure was chosen in the translation. This especially proved to be the case with pre-nominal extended adjectival and participial modifiers.

Cette thèse étudie les rapports entre l’expression d’attitudes agressives contrôlées et la perception de la dominance, à partir d’extraits de séances télévisées du conseil Municipal de Montreuil (93100) durant l’année 2013, période marquée par un climat politique vif et hostile. Un corpus a été constitué à partir d’extraits de parole spontanée de la Maire, Dominique Voynet, et de quatre de ses opposants. Les cinq locuteurs ont participé à l’enregistrement d’une relecture neutre du corpus de leurs propres extraits de parole (25 stimuli par locuteur) ainsi qu’à l’auto-évaluation perceptive de leurs stimuli (profils émotionnels), dont les résultats ont été comparés à l’évaluation perceptive des extraits par des auditeurs naïfs. Tous les locuteurs ont été perçus comme légèrement hostiles, légèrement mécontents et légèrement dominants malgré des profils émotionnels auto-évalués variables. Les extraits originaux et relus ont été comparés au niveau de leur structuration prosodico-syntaxique et de leurs caractéristiques temporelles et mélodiques. Les résultats montrent que 1) certains locuteurs semblent plus s’appuyer sur des paramètres mélodiques et d’autres sur des paramètres temporels ; 2) on peut néanmoins dégager les tendances générales concernant les corrélats dans la parole de l’hostilité et de la dominance dans notre corpus : a) des écarts entre structuration syntaxique et prosodique des extraits, b) la réduction ou l’absence d’allongements syllabiques finaux pré-pausaux, c) de fortes variations de plage de variation de F0 de part et d’autre des pauses silencieuses. / This dissertation studies the relationship between the expression of controlled aggressive attitudes and the perception of dominance, based on extracts from televised sessions of the Municipal Council of Montreuil during 2013; a period marked by a lively and hostile political climate. We constituted a corpus of spontaneous speech extracts from the Mayor, Dominique Voynet, and four of her opponents. During subsequent recording sessions, the five speakers were asked to read transcriptions of their own speech extracts in a neutral tone (25 stimuli per speaker). They also participated in a self-evaluation questionnaire that focused on the perception of emotional profiles in their own stimuli. The results of the speakers’ perceptive evaluations were compared to those of a control group of naïve listeners. All speakers were perceived as slightly hostile, discontent and dominant, despite the variability observed in the self-evaluated profiles. The original and re-read extracts were compared in their prosodic- syntactic structure as well as their temporal and melodic characteristics. We show that: 1) some speakers seem to rely mostly on melodic parameters whereas others primarily use temporal parameters, 2) nevertheless, general trends emerge regarding the speech correlates of hostility and dominance in our corpus, notably: a) discrepancies between the syntactic and the prosodic structure of the extracts, b) reduction or absence of pre-pausal final syllabic lengthening, c) large variations in F0 range on both sides of silent pauses.

TITLE: Comprehension of syntactic structures in young school-age children ABSTRACT: The thesis deals with the comprehension of syntactic structures in children attending the second grade of elementary school which was part of a larger research project exploring assumptions regarding reading and writing. The comprehension of syntactic structures was studied using an experimental version of a test which monitors the processing of different types of simple phrases and sentences. Data show the level of comprehension of children at this age, how the children understand the sentences, and what the most common mistakes are. We were able to identify the different strategies that are used in the processing of sentences and explain some of the typical ways to erroneous interpretations of sentences using the concepts described in literature. We also investigated relationships with other skills. In addition to analysis of the role of memory in sentence comprehension, the work deals mainly with the relationship between reading efficiency and reading comprehension. The results show the relationship between these variables in the Slovak language, and compare the findings with data from studies in other languages. KEY WORDS: Comprehension of syntactic structures, process of comprehension, thematic roles, comprehension...

本論文擬論述臺語述補式結構之語法與語意特性。述補式複合結構由兩個動詞或一個動詞及一個表示此一動詞之時帽組合成。由於臺語文獻中缺乏此類結構之研究，我們瀏灠了漢語中有關術補式複合動詞之研究，並採用張郇慧教授以論旨結構為本之分析模式。此結構之形成與論旨結構及句法上之及物性密切相關。除了此結構之形成外，我們亦討論其句法及語意系統與論旨結構之關聯。我們希望能藉此研究對此結構提供清楚而基本之概念。 / The previous studies on Taiwanese focus on the phonology and written forms, but few on other fields.In the thesis, we adopt a widely usde structure: Verb-Complement Construction to explore the syntax and semantics of the construction.Verb-Complement Constructions consist of two verbs or one verb plus a functional item which specifies verbal of the first verb. Due to the lack of previous studies on the topic, we first review several analyses on Mandarin Verb-Complement Compounds and adopt Chang's (1994) argument-structure-based analysis as the research approach. We propose that two factors contribute to the formation of this construction: syntactic transitivity and argument structure.The argument structure is divided into two categories: full-fledged and degenerated. Verb-complement Constructions, syntactically speaking, are formed by the combinations of transitive-transitive, intransitive-intransitive, and transitive-intransitive. Verb-Complement Constructions with full-fledged argument structure are distinguished into eight types based on the five types of this construction in terms of syntactic transitivity; Verb-complement constructions with degenerated argument structure are classified into four types based on the four kinds of this construction in terms of syntactic transitivity. We argue that different syntactic structures such as middle forms, verb copying constructions, HO construction, and KA construction as well as semantics of the construction can be effectively accounted for by argument structure.By the study, we hope to provide a fundamental and clear picture on the construction.