<p>The language used in Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (or MMORPGs) is a form of computer-mediate communication. It consists of elements from both written and spoken language, but it is a highly abbreviated and innovative form of written language. This study focuses on the English language used in a MMORPG called Warhammer Online. The aim of this study is to identify abbreviations, interpret their meanings and to analyze the word formation processes and semantic changes that are involved in new words. The method used in this study is a qualitative case study of the English language in a MMORPG from a synchronic point of view. The secondary sources used in this study include previous works on morphology and semantics. The material used is based on logs acquired from the game Warhammer Online as a subscribed player. The results presented in this study show new and unique words created by players in Warhammer Online, along with other semantic changes that have taken place. It is concluded that the English written language has not seen such a major change in its entirety before, within one community.</p>

Lexical compounding refers to the process of word formation through union of lexicalized morphemes. Given that young Chinese readers learn print vocabulary as unanalyzed whole, I am uncertain whether children can effortlessly decompose bound morphemes from disyllabic words for lexical compounding to occur. With this concern, I propose a lexical blending process in parallel with lexical compounding, where words are constructed from previously learnt words that have not yet been decomposed as morphemes. This thesis investigated the mechanisms behind the lexical blending process, as well as its role in word reading among young Chinese readers, in five studies Studies One and Two examined the factors that favor lexical blending to occur. In Study One, I located a high proportion of disyllabic words and bound morphemes within a corpus of Chinese textbooks in Hong Kong. Around 40-50% of disyllabic words in Grade One to Grade Three are composed of one or more bound morphemes, which set a favorable environment for lexical blending to occur. In Study Two, I found that younger readers tended to commit more selection errors, defined as “naming the target character as a character that forms a highly frequent two-character compound word with it” (Shu, Meng, Chen, Luan and Cao, 2005), than older readers during character reading, suggesting that their representations of bound morphemes were not precise. An experiment on morpheme name judgment demonstrated that bound morphemes and low frequency morphemes embedded in high frequency words were most prone to selection errors. I further examined the lexical blending process and its contribution to reading development in Studies Three and Four. Adopting a cross-sequential design in Study Three, I found that lexical blending concurrently and longitudinally predicted Chinese word reading, after lexical compounding and other reading-related variables were partialled out. In Study Four, I located lexical class and structural relation knowledge as significant component skills of lexical blending. The process of lexical blending proceeded first with structural arrangement of words, followed by morphological decomposition and union of morphemes to eventually form a blended word. I also tested Chinese dyslexic readers’ performance on lexical blending in Study Five. Dyslexic readers exhibited difficulties in lexical blending and all the related component skills, when compared with chronological-age (CA) matched controls. Process-wise, the dyslexic readers were weaker than CA controls in both structural arrangement and morphological decomposition, while having particular difficulties in the latter process. I conclude that lexical blending is an important word formation process for young Chinese readers. To aid mastery of lexical blending, readers should be aware of the syntax in phrases and sentences, as it provides cues on structural arrangement of blended words. In addition, I suggest explicit instruction on lexical blending skills in the curriculum, with a particular focus on morphological decomposition, in order to meet the learning needs of dyslexic readers. / published_or_final_version / Psychology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Die Magisterarbeit besteht aus zwei Hauptteilen: I- theoretischer Teil; II- praktischer Teil. Das Thema der Arbeit ist mit der Erweiterung und Erneuerung des Wortschatzes der deutschen Sprache verbunden. Die Magisterarbeit ist dem Bereich Wortbildung gewidmet. Der Untersuchungsgegenstand der Arbeit sind Bindestrichkomposita in der Mediensprache. Die wichtigsten Ziele und Aufgaben der Arbeit sind: 1. Die wichtigsten Wortbildungsarten der deutschen Sprache kurz zu beschreiben. 2. Die theoretischen Kenntnisse auf dem Gebiet der Bindestrichkomposita in der deutschen Sprache vorzustellen. 3. Die Bindestrichfunktion zu behandeln. 4. Die gesammelten Belege in Gruppen zu klassifizieren und zu analysieren. In dem theoretischen Teil berufe ich mich meistens auf solche Autoren wie J. Erben, E. Donalies, M. Lohde u.a. In dem empirischen Teil berufe ich mich auf solche Quellen: die Zeitung "Die Zeit", die Zeitschrift "Der Spiegel" und Internet. / Darbas susideda iš dviejų pagrindinių dalių: teorinės ir praktinės. Darbo tema susijusi su naujų žodžių atsiradimu vokiečių kalboje. Tyrinėjimo objektas- sudurtiniai žodžiai jungiami brūkšneliais vokiečių informacijos priemonių kalboje. Pagrindiniai darbo tikslai ir uždaviniai yra tokie: 1. Trumpai aprašyti svarbiausias žodžių darybos rūšis vokiečių kalboje. 2. Pateikti teorinių žinių apie sudurtinius žodžius, kurie jungiami brūkšneliais vokiečių kalboje, panagrinėti brūkšnelio funkciją. 3. Suklasifikuoti ir išanalizuoti surinktus pavyzdžius. Praktinėje darbo dalyje naudojami šaltiniai: laikraštis "Die Zeit", žurnalas"Der Spiegel" ir internetas. / The paper consists of two main parts: theoretical and practical. The topic of the thesis concerns the appearance of new words in German. The purpose of the reaserch is hyphenated nominal compounds in the language of German media. The main objectives of the paper include: 1. A short description of the main word formation methods in German. 2. Theoretical overview of hyphenated German compuonds and the function of a hyphen. 3. Classification and analysis of examples collected. Sources used in the practical part of the paper are newspaper "Die Zeit", magazine "Der Spiegel", the Internet.

Šiame bakalauro darbe nagrinėjami terminai, išrinkti iš „Enciklopedinio kompiuterijos žodyno“ (Dagienė, Grigas, Jevsikova, 2008). Kompiuterijos terminai analizuojami pagal dėmenų skaičių, struktūrą, kilmę, darybą. Vienažodžiai terminai suskirstyti pagal kirčiuotes ir išanalizuotas jų kirčiavimas, taip pat jų kilmė ir daryba. Sudėtiniai terminai suskirstyti pagal žodžių skaičių ir išnagrinėti pagal žodžių ryšio reiškimo būdą ir prijungiamojo žodžio ryšio reiškimo būdus, taip pat aptarti jų kirčiavimo ypatumai. Iš viso išanalizuoti 3394 terminai, iš kurių 74,6 proc. yra sudėtiniai, 25,4 proc. yra vienažodžiai kompiuterijos terminai. Tarp vienažodžių terminų daugiausia yra pirmosios (43,6 proc.) ir antrosios (41,2 proc.) kirčiuotės terminų. Kilmės atžvilgiu vienažodžiai terminai suskirstyti į lietuviškus (62,6 proc.), tarptautinius ir hibridinius (37,4 proc.). Didžiąją dalį (94,2 proc.) lietuviškų vienažodžių terminų sudaro dariniai (dažniausiai priesagų vediniai). 93,2 proc. visų sudėtinių terminų sudaro dvižodžiai terminai. 97,9 proc. dvižodžių terminų yra su prepoziciškai prijungtais dėmenimis. Sudėtiniai terminai yra įvairios sandaros, jų kirčiavimas atitinka bendrinės lietuvių kalbos kirčiavimo normas. / The bachelor thesis analyzes the terms which were selected from “Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Informatics“ (“Enciklopedinis kompiuterijos žodynas“) (Dagienė, Grigas, Jevsikova, 2008). Terms of computer are analyzed according to the number, structure, origin and formation of components. One-word terms are divided according to the accentuation classes. Their accentuation, origin and formation have been analyzed. Compound terms are divided according to the number of words and analyzed according to the way the connection of words is expressed as well as to the ways the connection of the subordinate word is expressed. Moreover, peculiarities of their accentuation have been discussed. On the whole, 3394 terms have been analyzed. 74,6% of them are compound terms of computer, while 25,4% are one-word terms. Most latter terms are of the first (43,6%) and the second (41,2%) accentuation classes. In respect of the origin, one-word terms are divided into Lithuanian (62,6%), international and hybrid (37,4%) ones. The vast majority of Lithuanian one-word terms (94,2%) consist of formations (mostly suffix derivatives). 93,2% of all compound terms consist of two-word terms. 97,9% of two-word terms have prepositional components. Compound terms are varied in structure. Their accentuation corresponds to the accentuation norms of the common Lithuanian language.

By collecting and analysing plant names linguistically, a knowledge of popular botany and its relationshipto scientific botany can be obtained.This study has two primary aims: to describe the popular botanical view of the part of thevegetal world represented by grasses and to illustrate the dialectal use of plant names.The material consists of dialectal names for grasses and has been taken chiefly from variousarchives. The area investigated is primarily Sweden, but other parts of Fenno-Scandinavia, chieflyNorway and parts of Finland where Swedish is spoken, have also been included. The plant namesanalysed are either equivalents or synonyms: they have the same meaning but different geographicalareas of distribution or the same meaning and the same geographical areas of distribution.Three popular "species", each of which represents three different correspondences betweenpopular and scientific botany are described."Grass with a panicle" illustrates underdifferentiation. A number of grasses are collectivelygiven the same name. The grasses are primarily characterised by their similarity in appearance,but they are also used in the same way, as fodder grasses. "Grass with a panicle" has five namesin Swedish dialects: ven, tåtel, bunk, jägarn and tannar."Vegetative tillers" exemplifies overdifferentiation. The tillers are only one part of the plant,which means that the popular classification is more differentiated than the scientific one. Thereare probably several reasons for this differentiation: The vegetative tillers are the first to appearin spring, before the culms with panicles. The tillers are grazed, not cut like the flowering stems.The names found in Swedish dialects are rysk, tov and sia."Mat-grass" represents one-to-one correspondence. The "species" is on the whole identicalwith the scientific species mat-grass. The reason for this identity is the characteristic appearanceof the plant and its hardness. It is difficult to cut. In Swedish dialects mat-grass has five nameswhich are widely spread: stagg, finnskägg, hära, sägg and fnugg. But it also has a great numberof names with a very limited distribution. Because of the special efforts required at harvesttime—mat-grass often bent to the scythe only to rise again soon afterwards—this grass could stirup emotions and hence it has been subject to affective word-formation.The material points to the conclusion that external characteristics of plants may be decisive fortheir classification in popular botany. It is important to note, however, that the use made of aplant is also important in the popular division of "species". / <p>Omslagets illustration producerad av konstnären Eva Skåreus.</p> / digitalisering@umu

Developmental Language Impairment (DLI) is a language disorder characterized by difficulties in both language production and comprehension most readily observable on the morphological level. Previous research suggests that DLI subjects are atypical regarding word decomposition and word formation. / Given these observations, two questions arise: What is the extent of DLI insensitivity to word-internal structure and to morpheme features? and Is this insensitivity equally evident in inflectional, derivational and compounding processes? Three experiments address these questions: plural formation, nominal compounding and diminutive formation and comprehension. / These word formation processes are very productive Greek and are observed from (2;0) onwards in non-impaired children cross-linguistically. Nominal roots (bound) are mapped to other bound morphemes: inflectional affixes for plural formation, derivational affixes and inflectional affixes for diminutive formation, and lexical morphemes and inflectional affixes for compound formation. / In this thesis, the performance of Greek DLI subjects was compared to that of non-impaired controls using elicited production and comprehension tasks that probed real and novel word formation. Results show that DLI children are not sensitive to morphological features and have difficulty knowing where root boundaries are. Given the atypical performance of DLI children, the initial hypothesis on the building of an atypical competence appears to be supported.

This thesis explores the properties of adjectives and adverbs in Inuit (Eskimo-Aleut), with focus on the Inuktitut dialect group. While the literature on Eskimoan languages has claimed that they lack these categories, I present syntactic evidence for two classes of adjectives, one verb-like and another strictly attributive, as well as a class of adverbs. These categories are then employed to diagnose more general properties of the language including headedness, word-formation, adjunct licensing, and semantic composition. In the first half of Chapter 2 I demonstrate that verb-like adjectives can be differentiated from verbs insofar as only the former are compatible with a particular copular construction involving modals. Similarly, verb-like adjectives can combine with a negative marker that is incompatible with genuine verbs. This contrast is further corroborated by an inflectional distinction between verb-like adjectives and verbs in the Siglitun dialect. A second class of strictly-attributive adjectives is argued for on the basis of stacking, variable order, optionality, and compositionality. The second half of the chapter examines semantic restrictions on membership in the strictly-attributive class whereby only adjectives with subsective and privative denotations are attested. These restrictions are explained by the proposal that Inuit lacks a rule of Predicate Modification, with the result that only adjectives with semantic types capable of composing with nouns via Functional Application can compose directly with nominals. Furthermore, to explain why this restriction does not extend to verb-like adjectives it is proposed that when these modify nominals, they are adjoined DP appositives and compose via Potts’s (2005) rule of Conventional Implicature Application. In Chapter 3 I argue for a class of adverbs, presenting evidence including degree modification, variable ordering, speaker-oriented meanings, and the ability to modify additional categories. Finally, data from adverb ordering is used to compare syntactically oriented and semantically oriented approaches to adjunct licensing and verbal-complex formation. I present arguments in favour of a right-headed analysis of Inuit in which the relative position of adverbs inside polysynthetic verbal-complexes is primarily determined by semantics, supporting Ernst (2002), contra cartographic approaches such as Cinque (1999).

No description available.

Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht die Morphologiestruktur der verschiedenen Sprachperioden im Persischen, wobei der Schwerpunkt auf der Wortbildung liegt. Des Weiteren wird der Versuch unternommen, die innere Struktur der Wörter in Bezug auf die Wortbildung auf verschiedenen Zeitebenen zu erforschen und die Wortbildungsmuster zu analysieren.

This thesis investigates Swedish lexical blends. A lexical blend is defined as the concatenation of two words, where at least one word has been reduced. Lexical blends are approached from two perspectives. First, the thesis investigates lexical blends as they appear in the Swedish language. It is found that there is a significant statistical relationship between the two source words in terms of orthographic, phonemic and syllabic length and frequency in a reference corpus. Furthermore, some uncommon lexical blends created from pronouns and interjections are described. A description of lexical blends through semantic construction and similarity to other word formation processes are also described. Secondly, the thesis develops a model which predicts source words of lexical blends. To predict the source words a logistic regression model is used. The evaluation shows that using a ranking approach, the correct source words are the highest ranking word pair in 32.2% of the cases. In the top 10 ranking word pairs, the correct word pair is found in 60.6% of the cases. The results are lower than in previous studies, but the number of blends used is also smaller. It is shown that lexical blends which overlap are easier to predict than lexical blends which do not overlap. Using feature ablation, it is shown that semantic and frequency related features have the most important for the prediction of source words.