Thesis advisor: Margaret Thomas / This research paper aims to compare fictional languages, in particular those created in works of science fiction, to natural languages. After an introduction to conlangs in general, and to Quenya, Klingon, Dothraki and Na’vi specifically, Greenberg’s linguistic universals will be used to test their resemblance to natural languages, and suggest a taxonomy of fictional languages. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Linguistics.

Στην παρούσα εργασία, διερευνούμε τη σχέση μεταξύ κλίσης και παραγωγής και διατυπώνουμε επιχειρήματα υπέρ της θεώρησης της κλίσης ως μορφολογικής διαδικασίας που διέπεται από τις ίδιες αρχές και τους ίδιους κανόνες την παραγωγή. Για να στηρίξουμε τη θέση μας, εξετάζουμε την εμφάνιση της εσωτερικής αύξησης στους προθηματοποιημένους ρηματικούς τύπους της ΚΝΕ και διαπιστώνουμε ότι το καθολικό του Greenberg που ορίζει ότι η πλίση εμφανίζεται πιο περιφερειακά από την παραγωγή δεν αποτελεί απαραβίαστη αρχή. / In this thesis we discuss the main theoretical problem of the relation between Inflection and Derivation. Every approach to such a topic entails taking a position in the current theoretical debate about the issue if there is a sharp boundary between the two categories. We adopt the idea there is a cline from derivation to inflection rather than a clear-cut dichotomy between the two. In this view, interactions between Derivation and Inflection show that Inflection may feed Derivation. Central to the discussion are Modern Greek prefixed verbs with internal augment but also other European languages that is to say Germanic Languages, Romance Languages and some Modern Greek dialects.

The aim of this study is to compare and contrast the use of hyperbole or exaggeration in spoken Czech and English language. The research is based on comparative approach to two samples accounting for 100 hyperbolic instances in Czech and 100 instances of hyperbole in English. The Czech sample has been randomly excerpted from the oral part of the Czech National Corpus ORAL2008, whereas the English sample has been randomly excerpted from the "spoken context-govern" and "spoken demographic" sections of The British National Corpus. The two samples are subject to analysis. Firstly, the formal realization of hyperbole is examined. Secondly, the occurrences are classified semantically (quantitative versus qualitative hyperbole) and, thirdly, the lexico-semantics is examined (hyperbolic source domains). By this, the present study tests the hypothesis of universal hyperbolic source domains by examining the situation in Czech and English. Finally, the occurrence of conventionalized instances of hyperbole as opposed to creative instances of hyperbolic nonce-usages is examined. Last but not least, it is the aim of this study to provide the overall frequency figures of hyperbole in both languages.

A 'Subject Indexing Language' (SIL) is an artificial language used for formulating names of subjects. Although classificationists have sought for universals in many fields of study such as, philosophy, biology, general systems theory, etc., the search for a deep structure of SILs formally began with Ranganathan's idea of 'absolute syntax' and was brought to the present by G. Bhattacharyya and D. Austin. Whereas Bhattacharyya's deep structure of SIL is primarily based on classificatory principles (parallel to 'absolute syntax'), the deep structure proposed by Austin has a linguistic connotation. The present study describes and compares two such deep structurebased SILs, viz., PRECIS (PREserved Context Index System) and DSIS (Deep Structure Indexing System), a recent computerized version of POPSI (POstulate-based Permuted Subject Indexing), developed by F. J. Devadason at Documentation Research and Training Centre, Bangalore, India. Both also belong to the category of SILs typified as 'string indexing' languages. The study involves: i) writing of a suitable DSIS index entry generation program, ii) using both PRECIS (in-house) and DSIS programs to index a collection of representative sample documents from the soft sciences, iii) analyzing and comparing their respective syntactic and semantic aspects in terms of both linguistic and classificatory principles, and iv) applying some measures of efficiency and effectiveness. It was realized that certain modifications in the existing DSIS string manipulation algorithms are necessary to make the program fully operational. Although, no attempts have been made to quantify the measures of effectiveness and efficiency as such, suggestions have been provided as to what these probably would be. Some indications of their searching difficulties for a prospective searcher have been put forward as well.

La communication humaine vise principalement à transmettre de l'information par le biais de l'utilisation de langues. Plusieurs chercheurs ont soutenu l'hypothèse selon laquelle les limites de la capacité du canal de transmission amènent les locuteurs de chaque langue à encoder l'information de manière à obtenir une répartition uniforme de l'information entre les unités linguistiques utilisées. Dans nos recherches, la stratégie d'encodage de l'information en communication parlée est connue comme résultant de l'interaction complexe de facteurs neuro-cognitifs, linguistiques, et sociolinguistiques et nos travaux s'inscrivent donc dans le cadre des systèmes adaptatifs complexes. Plus précisément, cette thèse vise à mettre en évidence les tendances générales, translinguistiques, guidant l'encodage de l'information en tenant compte de la structure des langues à trois niveaux d'analyse (macrosystémique, mésosystémique, et microsystémique). Notre étude s'appuie ainsi sur des corpus oraux et textuels multilingues dans une double perspective quantitative et typologique. Dans cette recherche, la langue est définie comme un système adaptatif complexe, régulé par le phénomène d'auto-organisation, qui motive une première question de recherche : "Comment les langues présentant des débits de parole et des densités d'information variés transmettent-elles les informations en moyenne ?". L'hypothèse défendue propose que la densité moyenne d'information par unité linguistique varie au cours de la communication, mais est compensée par le débit moyen de la parole. Plusieurs notions issues de la théorie de l'information ont inspiré notre manière de quantifier le contenu de l'information et le résultat de la première étude montre que le débit moyen d'information (i.e. la quantité moyenne d'information transmise par seconde) est relativement stable dans une fourchette limitée de variation parmi les 18 langues étudiées. Alors que la première étude propose une analyse de l'auto-organisation au niveau macro- systémique, la deuxième étude porte sur des sous-systèmes linguistiques tels que la phonologie et la morphologie : elle relève donc d'une analyse au niveau mésosystémique. Elle porte sur les interactions entre les modules morphologique et phonologique en utilisant les mesures de la complexité linguistique de ces modules. L'objectif est de tester l'hypothèse d'uniformité de la complexité globale au niveau mésosystémique. Les résultats révèlent une corrélation négative entre la complexité morphologique et la complexité phonologique dans les 14 langues et vont dans le sens de l'hypothèse de l'uniformité de la complexité globale d'un point de vue typologique holistique. La troisième étude analyse l'organisation interne des sous-systèmes phonologiques au moyen de la notion de charge fonctionnelle (FL) au niveau microsystémique. Les contributions relatives des sous-systèmes phonologiques (segments, accents, et tons) sont évaluées quantitativement en estimant leur rôle dans les stratégies lexicales. Elles sont aussi comparées entre 2 langues tonales et 7 langues non-tonales. En outre, la distribution interne de la charge fonctionnelle à travers les sous-systèmes vocaliques et consonantiques est analysée de façon translinguistique dans les 9 langues. Les résultats soulignent l'importance du système tonal dans les distinctions lexicales et indiquent que seuls quelques contrastes dotés d'une charge fonctionnelle élevée sont observés dans les distributions inégales de charge fonctionnelle des sous-systèmes dans les 9 langues. Cette thèse présente donc des études empiriques et quantitatives réalisées à trois niveaux d'analyse, qui permettent de décrire des tendances générales parmi les langues et apportent des éclaircissements sur le phénomène d'auto-organisation. / The main goal of using language is to transmit information. One of the fundamental questions in linguistics concerns the way how information is conveyed by means of language in human communication. So far many researchers have supported the uniform information density (UID) hypothesis asserting that due to channel capacity, speakers tend to encode information strategically in order to achieve uniform rate of information conveyed per linguistic unit. In this study, it is assumed that the encoding strategy of information during speech communication results from complex interaction among neurocognitive, linguistic, and sociolinguistic factors in the framework of complex adaptive system. In particular, this thesis aims to find general cross-language tendencies of information encoding and language structure at three different levels of analysis (i.e. macrosystemic, mesosystemic, and microsystemic levels), by using multilingual parallel oral and text corpora from a quantitative and typological perspective. In this study, language is defined as a complex adaptive system which is regulated by the phenomenon of self-organization, where the first research question comes from : "How do languages exhibiting various speech rates and information density transmit information on average ?". It is assumed that the average information density per linguistic unit varies during communication but would be compensated by the average speech rate. Several notions of the Information theory are used as measures for quantifying information content and the result of the first study shows that the average information rate (i.e. the average amount of information conveyed per second) is relatively stable within a limited range of variation among the 18 languages studied. While the first study corresponds to an analysis of self-organization at the macrosystemic level, the second study deals with linguistic subsystems such as phonology and morphology and thus, covers an analysis at the mesosystemic level. It investigates interactions between phonological and morphological modules by means of the measures of linguistic complexity of these modules. The goal is to examine whether the equal complexity hypothesis holds true at the mesosystemic level. The result exhibits a negative correlation between morphological and phonological complexity in the 14 languages and supports the equal complexity hypothesis from a holistic typological perspective. The third study investigates the internal organization of phonological subsystems by means of functional load (FL) at the microsystemic level. The relative contributions of phonological subsystems (segments, stress, and tones) are quantitatively computed by estimating their role of lexical strategies and are compared in 2 tonal and 7 non-tonal languages. Furthermore, the internal FL distribution of vocalic and consonantal subsystems is analyzed cross-linguistically in the 9 languages. The result highlights the importance of tone system in lexical distinctions and indicates that only a few salient high-FL contrasts are observed in the uneven FL distributions of subsystems in the 9 languages. This thesis therefore attempts to provide empirical and quantitative studies at the three different levels of analysis, which exhibit general tendencies among languages and provide insight into the phenomenon of self-organization.