This research investigated the effect of frequency of language use on the production of consonant gradation by non-dominant speakers of Finnish in the immigrant community of Sointula, BC. Three types of frequency – word-frequency, suffix-frequency, and stem-frequency – were tested. It also investigated whether quantitative or qualitative gradation is more successful in producing gradation than the other and, finally, whether immigrant generation can explain the variation between participants. A translation task was administered to the six participants across three generations. Based on the framework of exemplar-driven cognitive grammar (Bybee 2001; Pierrehumbert 2001), the frequency-effects were assumed to be contingent upon the mode of lexical access; frequent complex words, presumably accessed as wholes thanks to frequent usage, would not exhibit as many gradation errors as infrequent words, which would be accessed via their composite parts due to infrequency. The anticipated frequency-effects were not found. Both frequent and infrequent words manifested some gradation loss as an analogical change. This suggests that all words are infrequent. While Bybee’s model assumes high-volume language use over time in dominant language contexts, lack of volume appears to suppress the differential behavior between frequent and infrequent words in Sointula. However, correct gradation was predictable based on suffix-use, which in turn was determined partly by semantics of suffixes; those Finnish suffixes that are semantically mappable to equivalent morphemes in English were better preserved than GEN object-markers, which do not have corresponding morpheme in English. With the atrophy of the GEN object-marker also gradation becomes redundant. This may arise from the tendency to mark syntactic constituency with word-order alone in English-influenced Finnish. Thus, semantics of suffixes proves to be a better predictor of gradation than frequency. Gradation loss increased with each generation born abroad; by G3, it has all but disappeared. Consonant gradation is not preserved through the generations. Qualitative gradation disappears before quantitative gradation. The above findings are sensible in a context of reduced language-functionality. Against expectation, little evidence for storing sub-word morphemes and decomposed access was found. Instead, the data suggests that most stored lexical items are whole words and that gradation is associated with whole complex forms.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-14T12:43:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 2438500 bytes, checksum: d5b82b593d0da6e288762e3d5e5d24de (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-02-26 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This research is an investigation of how complex words formed with bound words, in Brazilian Portuguese (BP), are processed (represented and accessed in the mental lexicon). We are concerned to know whether they are accessed in its complete form (whole-form) or are accessible by their morphemes, with separation of affixes (affix stripping) when processing. Two experiments were made to know about this performance among adult native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. The first experiment was based on the paradigm of the Stroop Effect and the second experiment was based on masked priming paradigm. The results of the first experiment revealed that complex words formed with bound bases were processed longer than complex words formed with free bases and which caused this delay was the Stroop effect that acted as a extra linguistic, thus resulting in the need to conduct the second experiment, the masked priming that in addition revealed that the words formed with bound bases are actually processed faster than the free bases, also revealed that words formed with bound bases in condition of morphologically related prime and target are processed faster than words formed with bound bases in prime condition and targets phonetically related or unrelated. In general, the results showed that complex words formed with bound bases are stored in the mental lexicon in full and do not undergo any process prior decomposition when they are accessed. / Esta pesquisa é uma investigação sobre como palavras complexas formadas com bases presas, no português brasileiro (PB), são processadas (representadas e acessadas no léxico mental). Interessa-nos saber se elas são acessadas em sua forma completa (whole-form) ou se são acessadas por seus morfemas, havendo separação dos afixos (affix stripping) quando de seu processamento. Dois experimentos foram feitos para averiguação dessas possibilidades, entre falantes nativos adultos do português brasileiro. O primeiro experimento foi baseado no paradigma do Efeito Stroop e o segundo experimento baseou-se no paradigma de priming encoberto. Os resultados do primeiro experimento revelaram que as palavras complexas formadas com bases presas foram processadas em maior tempo do que as palavras complexas formadas com bases livres e o que provocou esse atraso foi o efeito stroop, que atuou como efeito extralinguístico, induzindo uma prévia decomposição. Surgiu, assim, a necessidade da realização do segundo experimento, o de priming encoberto, que, além de revelar que as palavras formadas com bases presas são de fato, processadas mais rapidamente do que as bases livres, revelaram também que palavras formadas com bases presas na condição de prime e alvo relacionados morfologicamente são processadas mais rapidamente do que palavras formadas com bases presas na condição de prime e alvos relacionados foneticamente ou sem nenhuma relação. Em geral, os resultados mostraram que palavras complexas formadas com bases presas estão estocadas no léxico mental por inteiro e não passam por nenhum processo de prévia decomposição quando são acessadas.

People counting system involves the process of counting and estimating the number of people in a scene. The counting system has a number of useful applications, ranging from pedestrian traffic surveillance and monitoring the number of people that enters and leaves shopping malls to commercial buildings, vehicles and a number of other security-related applications. Over the years, significant progress has been made. However, people counting systems still have not overcome a number of challenges such as occlusions, human pose and direction, multiple people detection, varying lighting and weather conditions. The aim of this research is to present an optimal solution that is invariant to the challenges. That is, the outcome of the results will not be affected by the challenges. Also, the solution will handle the trade-off between the counting accuracy and the time it takes to implement the counting process. As a result, a new background subtraction method known as single pixel method is proposed. This is where useful features are collected from each scene using frame difference method. Then, these features are reduced into single pixels. The single pixels are then used to estimate the total number of people in the scene. Furthermore, a virtual-line direction-estimation method is presented where the directions in which the people are heading are estimated prior to counting. AFRIKAANS : Mense-telstelsels behels die proses van die tel en die beraming van die aantal mense op ’n toneel. Die telstelsel het ’n aantal nuttige toepassings wat wissel van voetgangerverkeer toesig en die monitering van die aantal mense wat binnekom en verlaat tot winkelsentrums, kommersiële geboue, voertuie, en ’n aantal ander sekuriteit-verwante programme. Oor die jare is beduidende vordering gemaak. Daar is egter ’n aantal uitdagings wat mense-telstelsels nog nie oorkom het nie, soos afsluiting, menslike inhou en rigting, die opsporing van veelvoudige mense, wisselende beligting en weerstoestande. Die doel van hierdie navorsing is om ’n optimale oplossing aan te bied, wat invariant is teen die uitdagings. Met ander woorde, die uitdagings sal nie die resultate affekteer nie. Die oplossing sal ook die uitruil tussen die tel akkuraatheid en die implementeringstyd van die telproses hanteer. As gevolg hiervan, is ’n nuwe agtergrondaftrekkingsmetode, wat bekend staan as ’n enkele beeldelement metode, voorgestel. Dit is waar die nuttige funksies van elke toneel, met behulp van die raamverskilmetode ingesamel word. Dan word hierdie eienskappe in enkele beeldelemente verminder. Die enkele beeldelemente word dan gebruik om die totale aantal mense in die toneel te skat. Verder is daar van ’n virtuele-lyn rigting-skatting metode gebruik gemaak wat die rigtings waarin die mense beweeg vooraf beraam. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / unrestricted

La présente étude vise à étayer l’état des connaissances liées aux relations entre les compétences en compréhension écrite, le vocabulaire et les capacités en traitement graphomorphologique d’étudiants collégiaux du français langue seconde de niveau intermédiaire et intermédiaire avancé. Bon nombre de ces étudiants présentent des problèmes de compréhension écrite, problèmes qui sont abordés dans la présente recherche sous l’angle des connaissances lexicales et du traitement graphomorphologique, soit la capacité de coordonner les informations de nature orthographique, phonologique et sémantique au cours de la lecture. Les résultats montrent que les étudiants possèdent de faibles connaissances lexicales, ce qui pourrait expliquer en partie les problèmes de compréhension écrite qu’ils présentent. Par ailleurs, même si les étudiants de niveau intermédiaire avancé affichent une meilleure compétence en compréhension écrite et de meilleures connaissances en vocabulaire que les étudiants de niveau intermédiaire, leurs capacités en matière de traitement graphomorphologique sont de même niveau. Enfin, les liens entre les trois variables semblent plus forts pour les étudiants de niveau intermédiaire que pour ceux de niveau intermédiaire avancé, ce qui pourrait laisser penser que le traitement graphomorphologique jouerait un rôle plus important pour les apprenants moins avancés d’une langue seconde. / The present study seeks to investigate the relationship between reading comprehension, vocabulary, and the graphomorphologic processing abilities of college students studying French as a second language at intermediate and intermediate-advanced levels. Many of these students face written comprehension difficulties which are often addressed from the vantage point of lexical knowledge and graphomorphological processing, the capacity to coordinate information that is orthographic, phonologic, and semantic in nature while reading. The results of the study demonstrate that students possess weak vocabulary, which could explain in part the problems they face with respect to written comprehension. As well, even if students at the intermediate-advanced level demonstrate better levels of written comprehension and a larger vocabulary in comparison to students at the intermediate level, their capacity with respect to graphomorphological processing are the same. The evidence demonstrates that the links between the three variables seem to be stronger for students at the intermediate level than at the intermediate-advanced level, which could imply that graphomorphological processing plays a more important role for less proficient second language learners.