This thesis has analyzed 50 English compositions written by Japanese college students in order to determine some of the reasons for semantic errors which occur in the student themes. Five major categories of semantic errors were identified: (A) Semantically Wrong Choice of Lexical Items, (B) Omission of Words or Phrases Semantically Necessary, (C) Errors with the Structure of Phrases and Clauses, (D) Words Used in the Wrong Form Class, (E) Errors in Idiomatic Usage. From this analysis, it has been determined that the major cause of error was semantically wrong choice of lexical items, the choice of verbs, determiners, and P-words being particularly troublesome.This analysis also revealed that some of the causes for semantic errors were native language interference, differences in meaning distinctions and scopes of meaning in one language or the other, incomplete knowledge of grammatical and lexical restrictions of words, interference within English itself, and cultural interference. It was also evident that semantic errors related to the teaching methods used in most Japanese secondary schools. Reliance on the grammar-translation method in the junior high and senior high schools did not provide students with enough competence for them to write free compositions at the university level.Finally, this thesis offers brief suggestions on ways a teacher of EFL to Japanese students might teach some of these problem areas and improve the English writing ability of Japanese college level students.

Resultative verb constructions RVCs (hereafter) are a special type of serial verb construction in Mandarin Chinese, in which the verbs hold an action-result relation. On the one hand, they behave like compounds, e.g., the verbs can be questioned as a single verb but cannot be separately modified, and no NP can possibly intervene. On the other hand, they also behave like phrases, i.e, for some types, the verbs can be split by an NP and can be separately modified. There has been controversy about the best way to analyze RVCs. There are two general positions: the pre-lexical syntactic approach and the pre-syntactic lexical approach. The former holds that resultative verb constructions are a syntactic phenomenon which can be derived by transformational rules. The latter, claims that RVCs are best considered a lexical phenomenon, i.e., verb compounds.This dissertation argues that neither approach sufficiently accounts for this phenomenon, in that both only shift the problem from one level of linguistic description to another. I propose a linguistic prototype analysis in which RVCs are seen as conventionalized serial verb constructions. I argue that the properties of the prototype and the conventionalized serial verb construction are subject to constraints in three areas: the semantic and syntactic dependency of the verbs, iconicity, and clause linkage. Through the analysis of the syntactic, semantic, and phonological behavior of various types of serial verb constructions, it is shown that serial verb constructions are on a structural continuum, i.e., from syntax to lexicon. RVCs are seen as close to the lexicalization end on the continuum.This dissertation shows the interplay of syntax, semantics, and phonology in the processes of syntactization and morphologization in Mandarin. It not only helps account for serial verb constructions but also has implications for other serial type phenomena on the word level, such as compounding and incorporation in Mandarin. / Department of English

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1982. / Bibliography: leaves 156-160. / Microfiche. / ix, 160 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1982. / Bibliography: leaves 518-524. / Microfiche. / xiii, 524 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 273-280). / Microfiche. / xiii, 280 leaves, bound 29 cm

Orientadores: Juanito Ornelas de Avelar, Sonia Maria Lazzarini Cyrino / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-26T07:18:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Moreno_BrunaSanchez_M.pdf: 919712 bytes, checksum: 45b4197097b0b00f8a5763f725c6dbbd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014 / Resumo: À luz do Programa Minimalista (Chomsky 1995, 2001, 2004, 2008), o presente trabalho se propõe a examinar orações infinitivas preposicionadas em construções com predicados de natureza adjetival do tipo "difícil/ fácil", denominadas tough-construtions na literatura gerativista. Parte-se da observação de Galves (1987) acerca da ambiguidade que tais sentenças desencadeiam no Português Brasileiro (PB), mas não no Português Europeu (PE), com a finalidade de responder por qual motivo o PB admite a interpretação em que o sujeito nulo da oração encaixada pode ser correferente ao DP na posição de sujeito da oração matriz. A hipótese que orienta este trabalho considera a proposta de Ouali (2008) a respeito de retenção, doação ou compartilhamento de traços-? na relação entre os núcleos C(omplementizador) e T(empo) para apontar que, no PB, a preposição "de" introdutora da oração infinitiva é um C que pode reter ou compartilhar traços-? com T. Esse núcleo funciona, nesse sentido, como uma fonte provedora de Caso, licenciando um pronome nulo pro como argumento externo da oração encaixada, o qual pode ser correferente ao sujeito da oração matriz. O mesmo não se aplica ao PE, cuja única categoria permitida como sujeito da oração infinitiva é um PRO arbitrário, tendo em vista que, nessa gramática, o núcleo C introdutor da oração infinitiva em tough-constructions não é uma fonte provedora de Caso / Abstract: In light of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995, 2001, 2004, 2008), this study aims to examine infinitive sentences introduced by a preposition in constructions centered in a "hard / easy" predicate, so-called tough-constructions in the generative literature. This dissertation assumes Galves¿ observation (1987) about the ambiguity triggered by such sentences in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), but not in European Portuguese (EP), in order to account for the reasons why BP admits the interpretation in which the null subject of the embedded non-finite sentence can be correferent to the DP in subject position in the matrix sentence. The present hypothesis that guides this work considers Ouali (2008) in regard to to keeping, donating or sharing the ?-features between C(omplementizer) and T(ense) to point out that, in BP, the preposition "de", which introduces the infinitive sentence, is a C that can keep or share its features with T. In this sense, this C provides Case to a null pronoun pro, licensed as external argument in the embedded sentence and correferent to the subject in the matrix sentence. The same does not apply to EP, which just allows an arbitrary PRO as the subject of the non-finite sentence, given that, in this grammar, the introducer C of the infinitive sentence in tough-constructions does not assign Case to any element in Spec-T / Mestrado / Linguistica / Mestra em Linguística

Orientador: Juanito Ornelas de Avelar / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-22T18:27:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Toniette_HarleyFabianodasNeves_M.pdf: 543478 bytes, checksum: e66df1330e4692d74daa4b867660aabd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / Resumo: Explorando pressupostos da Teoria de Princípios e Parâmetros em sua versão minimalista (Chomsky 1995, 1998, 1999, 2004, 2008), esta dissertação propõe que o licenciamento da concordância verbal com constituintes não argumentais no português brasileiro deriva da possibilidade de C e T compartilharem traços-f, no sentido proposto em Ouali (2008). A hipótese que norteia o trabalho é a de que, no português brasileiro, C pode preservar os traços-f que são herdados por T, tornando-se, com isso, um potencial atribuidor de Caso nominativo; por extensão, os traços-f em T podem receber os valores assumidos pelos traços-f em C nas construções em que uma sonda partindo do primeiro não detecta nenhum elemento com o qual possa estabelecer concordância. O trabalho apresenta algumas previsões dessa análise em torno de entre o português brasileiro (PB) e o português europeu (PE), bem como aponta vantagens em relação a outras propostas que também procuram formalizar a possibilidade concordância com termos não argumentais no PB / Abstract: Following the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995, 1998, 1999, 2004, 2008), this dissertation proposes that the agreement of the verbal inflection with non-argumental phrases in Brazilian Portuguese occurs when C shares its f-features with T, in the sense proposed by Ouali (2008), and the probe starting from T doesn't detect a phrase to guarantee the valuation of T's f-features. This hypothesis predicts that in Brazilian Portuguese, C can attribute nominative Case to phrases in Spec-C, which allows explain why topics and wh-phrases can dispense with prepositions in this language. The dissertation also highlights grammatical contrasts regarding the co-occurrence of topics and wh-phrases, showing the advantages of this analysis over other approaches on topicalized phrases in the literature of Brazilian Portuguese / Mestrado / Linguistica / Mestre em Linguística

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

University of Macau / Faculty of Arts and Humanities / Department of Chinese

M.A. (African Languages) / Please refer to full text to view abstract