Mandarin Chinese has long been known to possess a category of words known as ‘coverbs’ in the literature, which sit in the gray area between verb and preposition. Li and Thompson (1974) describe the historical origins of Mandarin coverbs to be full transitive verbs, despite their modern state being decidedly less verbal. They also note that coverbs are a non-homogenous class. This thesis works to establish categories of coverbs in Mandarin Chinese and their distance from true verbhood in order to understand the diachronic shift that coverbs are currently undergoing before our very eyes. I will draw on the work of scholars of Atlantic-Congo languages, Oceanic languages, and other languages of mainland Southeast Asia, to create semantic, syntactic, and morphological testing for Mandarin coverbs. Using the results of this three-pronged testing approach, I will map the results on a six-pointed verb-preposition matrix in order to visualize the space between verb and preposition and how Mandarin coverbs inhabit it. I will then use these diagrams to create a numerical score for each category of coverb and place them on a linear progression between verbhood and prepositionhood. Lastly, this work will analyze the theta roles assigned by Mandarin coverbs in each category and propose stages of diachronic development for Mandarin coverbs.

<p dir="ltr">It is generally known that alcoholic beverages held a significant place in medieval English culture, as they likewise do in modern society: the meadhall and the tavern are familiar locations in our conception of the medieval era. This study provides a corpus-driven approach to analyzing the societal meaning of alcohol in medieval England, both in terms of the general role of alcohol in the society of that time and place, and in terms of the distinction drawn between different types of alcoholic beverage. It examines the distribution of different terms for alcoholic drinks, as well as the meanings of those terms, the cultural significance of the various beverages, and how all of those elements change over time. This data is applied to case studies of three different texts: <i>Piers Plowman</i>, the <i>Canterbury Tales</i>, and <i>Le Morte Darthur</i>. From this, we are able to see not only the broader importance and interpretation of alcohol in medieval England, but also that the type of alcoholic beverage one drinks and the circumstances in which one drinks it are used to communicate information regarding one’s role in society and how one is perceived by medieval English culture at large.</p>

This project explores research-based methods for creating an e-learning resource to teach an intellectual skill. Intellectual skills are one of the five domains of learning defined by Robert M. Gagné. The intellectual skill taught via the e-learning resource is the rules of Turkish vowel harmony, a fundamental phonological feature of the Turkish language. The purpose of the e-learning resource is to provide novice learners with a set of tools and strategies with which to approach the future study of Turkish. A literature review was conducted in three areas: Gagné’s instructional design theories, Turkish language learning, and best practices for the design of multimedia e-learning. Two rapid prototypes in the form of Moodle course sites were developed. Guidance for improving the prototypes was sought from experts in instructional design, usability, and computer software. The resulting finished e-learning product is a nine-topic Moodle course based on Gagné’s nine events of instruction. The main Moodle course content teaches the rules of Turkish vowel harmony as an intellectual skill which has been broken down into discriminations (the Turkish vowels), concepts (the Turkish vowel groups) and rules (Turkish vowel harmony). Higher order rules are taught in the form of exceptions to the rules of Turkish vowel harmony found in foreign loan-words in Turkish. Practice is provided in applying the rules of Turkish vowel harmony as a set of word attack skills for approaching Turkish language artifacts found online and in the environment. A comprehensive list of resources relating to learning Turkish, learning about the Turkish language, and learning about learning Turkish, is provided to facilitate future extension and application of what was learned in this course. Each lesson is presented in the form of a Moodle book. Each lesson is followed by an ungraded assessment in the form of an Adobe® PDF quiz. The quizzes and accompanying answer keys are designed to provide guided practice, feedback, and self-assessment to help students extend and apply the lesson material. All lessons were beta-tested to ensure usability and reduction of extraneous cognitive load. The project resulted in the development of a Best Practices Checklist for designing e-learning resources to teach intellectual skills. The Best Practices Checklist, which can be found in Appendix B, was used to develop the outline for e-learning resources to teach intellectual skills in other subject areas and was found to be an effective rapid prototyping and instructional design tool. Insight was gained into the significance of prior knowledge for teaching intellectual skills, and on how to calibrate cognitive load in e-learning design relative to the learner’s prior knowledge of the subject matter being taught.

This thesis analyzes the sociolinguistic situations in postcolonial Latin America and francophone North Africa (the Maghreb) through a comparative lens. Specifically, it examines the ways in which Spain and France’s differing colonial agendas and language ideologies affected the relationships between colonizer and colonized, and, by extension, the role that Spanish and French play(ed) in these regions after decolonization. Finally, it explores how Spain and France’s contemporary discourses frame colonial participation in the two languages’ development, and the psychological effects these ideologies have had on the formerly colonized.