AIM The aim of this study is to investigate the opacity of Chinese compounds in search of conceptual motivations for traditional exocentric compounds and contemporary neologisms in Chinese. METHODOLOGY This research may be characterised as an empirical investigation within the quantitative paradigm. The study contains three tasks. The design of Task 1 and Task 2 replicates the experiment concerning the classification of compound transparency which Libben, Gibson, Yoon and Sandra (2003) used to test English compounds. Task 3 is a kind of word association task that is designed following a suggestion by Gleason and Ratner (1998: 215). A sample of 95 Chinese native speakers for Task 1 & Task 2 is used. A sample of 50 Chinese native speakers for Task 3 is used. None of them has participated in either Task 1 or Task 2. FINDINGS The findings are presented with regard to the two types of compounds investigated in the study: ‘semantically free’ compounds and neologisms. In summary, ‘semantically free’ compounds may process through their constituents in the mental lexicon. Meanwhile, for some certain reasons ‘semantically free’ compounds may be recognized from the mental lexicon as whole. In the research, it found that the frequency effect is stronger than the effect of ‘semantic transparency’ in ‘semantically free’ compounds, it could mean that lexico-semantic distance (semantic freedom) is much smaller in Chinese exocentric compounds than anticipated by Scalise and Guevara (2006). Neologisms may process through their constituents in the mental lexicon. The effect of semantic transparency may be stronger than the frequency effect in neologisms when compounds are semantically transparent and their constituents’ meanings are similarity. KEY CONCEPTS Exocentric compounds, endocentric compounds, ‘semantically free’ compounds, neologisms, opaqueness, semantic transparency, frequency effect, word-superiority effect. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.

This thesis has analyzed syntactical errors made in written English by Brazilian-Portuguese-speaking students of English as a foreign language. The errors were analyzed and explained so as to determine whether the students use their native competence in Portuguese or their transitional competence in English in their hypothesizing in the target language. In case they use the former, their performance in the target language most likely shows a great deal of native language interference; in case they use the latter, their errors are mostly based on overgeneralizations, false analogies within English itself, or are caused by insufficient knowledge of the rule system of English, or by simple carelessness.By means f this careful analysis the investigator supported, at least partially, the hypothesis that native language interference, while an important cause, is not the sole cause of error in foreign-language performance, since approximately 57% of the errors were due to the interference of the mother tongue.

This study presents a pragmatic viewpoint toward the analysis of definiteness, regarding the universal, primitive notions of topic, theme, focus, emphasis, specificity, reference, and restrictivity as the controlling features of discourse which are coded in derivative syntactic structures such as the Finnish case selection and word order and the English determiner system in irregular ways. The explanation of the English article as a mere marker of definiteness which is to be translated into Finnish as case, word order, and stress variations does not reveal how each language deals with nounrelated discourse functions. But if the pragmatic motivation controlling the expression of definiteness is first analyzed as an organizing principle in the syntax of an utterance, then the language-specific, superficial manifestations can be identified in a more exhaustive manner.The basic hypothesis in the study was that definiteness is a grammatical concept which is derived from the universal pragmatic functions but may not always be established in each language separately as a syntactic category. It was shown how the pragmatic notions of topicality, thematicity, focality, emphasis, specificity, reference, restrictivity,.and presuppositionality interact with the derived features of case, word order, stress, and function words in Finnish. It was observed that due to their biassed typological nature, languages combine the primitives in different ways so that a language which lacks a morphological or lexical system of marking definiteness (Finnish) must allow for more extensive pragmatic control of word order than a language which has an overt article system (English) in order to reflect the pragmatic conditions of an utterance.It was suggested in the study that the primary function of case markings (specifically, the nominative/accusative vs. partitive contrast) in Finnish is not the expression of definiteness through the totality/ partiality contrast and that the order of sentence elements is not always a direct indicator of definiteness or indefiniteness. Instead, the Finnish case selection is a result of pragmatic functions such as topicality, focality, completeness of action, specificity, referentiality, and emphasis, whereas word order in its marked/unmarked forms is related to givenness/newness and thus, topicality/focality. Seven Subject Rules and four Object Rules were formulated to account for the typological limits within which the pragmatic control of sentence elements in Finnish must operate.The study concluded that definiteness is a pragmatic consequence of a number of different things which are not coded in Finnish as they are in English. Whereas English has syntacticized definiteness and Finnish has not, the discourse functions which correspond to Finnish case and word order and the English article system are interpreted pragmatically in ways that are not equivalent between the two languages. Because definiteness is subject to syntactic limitations which themselves are contingent on pragmatic factors,: it is appropriate to speak of definiteness as a derivative function which can be attributed only to languages with an overt article system.

Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1977. / Bibliography: leaves 240-243. / Microfiche. / xiii, 243 leaves ill

Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 180-188) / Microfiche. / xii, 188 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 120-127). / xiii, 127 leaves, bound 29 cm

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

M.A. / CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The idiom is defined in this chapter. Information gathered from different sources including books is used to differentiate the idiom from the proverb. CHAPTER 2 THE ORIGIN OF IDIOMS Some sources, from which Northern Sotho idioms originate are discussed. The semantic and grammatical characteristics of idioms are also examined in the second chapter. CHAPTER 3 SOME SYNTACTICAL PATTERNS OF NORTHERN SOTHO IDIOMS This chapter is based on the main aim of this study. Most informants from whom some idioms were gathered, could not give their syntactical patterns, nor differentiate them from proverbs. Special idiomatic patterns are formed with verb-stems in the infinitive mood followed by nouns, pronouns, adverbs etc. as adjuncts. CHAPTER 4 THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF IDIOMS In the fourth chapter, the content of idioms and experiences to which these idioms give expression, are treated comprehensively. CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION Idiomatic patterns in Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Tswana and Tsonga

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