The aim of this research is to study the French language used in Belgium, to describe the linguistic situation and some peculiarities of the language there, and to compare it with French language used in France. The author lived in Belgium for nearly six years and compared her experience of the differences between the French language in Belgium with the one used in France. To explore her impressions, she has studied and analysed different sources on the topic and summarised the most important differences. The research is divided in two parts. One gives more general information on Belgium, describes the history of the territory and the linguistic situation of the country to help understand the situation of the French language there. The other, more important part on the language itself describes the phonetic, morphological, syntactic and lexical particularities of Belgian French. The basic conclusion of this paper is that Belgian French is slightly different from French used in France but the differences are not great enough to make understanding between the two nations difficult.

This Master's thesis deals with the gerund and -ing participial clauses in written and spoken academic texts. The theoretical part defines the academic discourse and non-finite verb forms. Gerund and -ing participial constructions are further described regarding their forms and syntactic functions. The sources used for the research part are two corpora of contemporary academic British English: BASE and BAWE. BASE corpus contains transcripts of academic lectures. BAWE corpus is a collection of university-level students' writings. Both corpora contain texts from four different genres and moreover students' assignments are divided into four levels of study. For the purpose of the research part of our thesis, only the genre "Arts and Humanities" and the highest level of study will be taken into account. The practical part analyses the frequency of gerund and -ing participial clauses, frequency of verbs occurring in these constructions and collocations of these verbs. A detailed analysis aims at studying 100 sentences from written texts and 100 sentences from academic lectures. This sample is examined regarding the internal structure of each non-finite clause and its syntactic function. The final section summarizes the results or our research.

La quantité d'information disponible dans le domaine biomédical ne cesse d'augmenter. Pour que cette information soit facilement utilisable par les experts d'un domaine, il est nécessaire de l'extraire et de la structurer. Pour avoir des données structurées, il convient de détecter les relations existantes entre les entités dans les textes. Nos recherches se sont focalisées sur la question de l'extraction de relations complexes représentant des résultats expérimentaux, et sur la détection et la catégorisation de relations binaires entre des entités biomédicales. Nous nous sommes intéressée aux résultats expérimentaux présentés dans les articles scientifiques. Nous appelons résultat expérimental, un résultat quantitatif obtenu suite à une expérience et mis en relation avec les informations permettant de décrire cette expérience. Ces résultats sont importants pour les experts en biologie, par exemple pour faire de la modélisation. Dans le domaine de la physiologie rénale, une base de données a été créée pour centraliser ces résultats d'expérimentation, mais l'alimentation de la base est manuelle et de ce fait longue. Nous proposons une solution pour extraire automatiquement des articles scientifiques les connaissances pertinentes pour la base de données, c'est-à-dire des résultats expérimentaux que nous représentons par une relation n-aire. La méthode procède en deux étapes : extraction automatique des documents et proposition de celles-ci pour validation ou modification par l'expert via une interface. Nous avons également proposé une méthode à base d'apprentissage automatique pour l'extraction et la classification de relations binaires en domaine de spécialité. Nous nous sommes intéressée aux caractéristiques et variétés d'expressions des relations, et à la prise en compte de ces caractéristiques dans un système à base d'apprentissage. Nous avons étudié la prise en compte de la structure syntaxique de la phrase et la simplification de phrases dirigée pour la tâche d'extraction de relations. Nous avons en particulier développé une méthode de simplification à base d'apprentissage automatique, qui utilise en cascade plusieurs classifieurs. / The amount of available scientific literature is constantly growing. If the experts of a domain want to easily access this information, it must be extracted and structured. To obtain structured data, both entities and relations of the texts must be detected. Our research is about the problem of complex relation extraction which represent experimental results, and detection and classification of binary relations between biomedical entities. We are interested in experimental results presented in scientific papers. An experimental result is a quantitative result obtained by an experimentation and linked with information that describes this experimentation. These results are important for biology experts, for example for doing modelization. In the domain of renal physiology, a database was created to centralize these experimental results, but the base is manually populated, therefore the population takes a long time. We propose a solution to automatically extract relevant knowledge for the database from the scientific papers, that is experimental results which are represented by a n-ary relation. The method proceeds in two steps: automatic extraction from documents and proposal of information extracted for approval or modification by the experts via an interface. We also proposed a method based on machine learning for extraction and classification of binary relations in specialized domains. We focused on the variations of the expression of relations, and how to represent them in a machine learning system. We studied the way to take into account syntactic structure of the sentence and the sentence simplification guided by the task of relation extraction. In particular, we developed a simplification method based on machine learning, which uses a series of classifiers.

De par leur présence à l’interface entre plusieurs domaines linguistiques (phonologie, morpho-syntaxe, sémantique ou pragmatique), les déterminants ont depuis longtemps suscité l’intérêt des chercheurs en acquisition. On trouve ainsi de nombreux travaux portant notamment sur les contraintes phono-prosodiques, lexico-syntaxiques, sémantiques ou pragmatiques à l’œuvre dans le processus d’acquisition de ces formes, mais peu d’entre eux ont cherché à proposer une analyse combinée de ces facteurs, en tenant compte à la fois des morphèmes adultes et des formes de transition (omissions et fillers). Nous avons donc souhaité, dans le cadre de ce travail, décrire l’émergence des déterminants et de leurs proto-formes en essayant de saisir, dans une perspective multidimensionnelle intégrant à la fois des facteurs distributionnels et fonctionnels, quels facteurs influencent le plus ce processus, et à quelles périodes.Cette thèse repose sur l’analyse d’un corpus longitudinal de quatre enfants, âgés de 1;6 pour le plus jeune lors de la première séance sélectionnée à 3;5 pour le plus âgé lors de la dernière. Nous avons repéré au sein de ce corpus tous les noms produits par les enfants ainsi que les formes les précédant et chaque syntagme a fait l’objet d’une analyse phono-prosodique, lexico-syntaxique, sémantique, pragmatique et discursive.Les résultats montrent d’une part que tous les facteurs distributionnels peuvent - à des degrés différents - influencer la production des formes pré-nominales, et d’autre part, que les usages que les enfants font des formes témoignent d’une sensibilité précoce à certains contrastes pragmatico-discursifs. Toutefois, aucun des facteurs pris séparément n’a permis de rendre compte de l’intégralité des productions des enfants. L’analyse conjointe de ces facteurs distributionnels et fonctionnels a confirmé les tendances dégagées au préalable et a mis en évidence l’influence d’un ensemble de facteurs (et en particulier, phono-prosodique, syntaxique et pragmatique) plus que d’un facteur unique ou prédominant tout au long du processus d’acquisition des déterminants. / Given their presence at the crossroads of different linguistic fields (phonology, morphosyntax, semantics or pragmatics), determiners have for a long time aroused the interest of language acquisition researchers. We thus find several studies dealing with the phono-prosodic, lexical and syntactic, semantic or pragmatic constraints involved in the acquisition of determiners. But only few of them have provided a combined analysis of all these factors, considering both adult morphemes and transitional forms (omissions and filler syllables). Our study aims to describe the emergence of filler syllables and determiners and understand - in a multidimensional perspective examining simultaneously distributional and functional factors - which factors may affect the acquisition process, and over which periods of time.Our study is based on a corpus of four children, aged from 1;6 for the youngest in the first selected session to 3;5 for the eldest in the last session. We first identified all the noun phrases produced in the data and each occurrence was then analysed according to phono-prosodic, lexical, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and discursive factors.Our results show that each distributional factor may influence, at different degrees, the production of pre-nominal forms and that children’s use of forms shows early sensitivity to pragmatic factors. However, none of the factors taken separately have accounted for all of the children’s productions. An additional combined analysis of both distributional and functional factors has supported the initial trends and highlighted the influence of a series of factors (and in particular, phono-prosodic, syntactic and pragmatic), more than a single and predominant one throughout the acquisition process of determiners.

Notre recherche s’inscrit à la fois dans le domaine des Recherches sur l’acquisition des langues et celui de la Didactique des langues étrangères, et poursuit un double objectif. D’abord, nous avons décrit les influences translinguistiques, issues de l’espagnol L1 comme de l’anglais L2, dans le processus d’acquisition de certaines structures liées au groupe verbal en français L3, à savoir la construction des verbes avec des compléments nominaux, la sélection des prépositions introduisant éventuellement ces compléments et l’acquisition des pronoms compléments. Pour cela, nous avons pris en compte les apports théoriques des recherches sur l’acquisition plurilingue mais également des études ayant dégagé des itinéraires de développement pour le français. Nous nous sommes basée sur des productions écrites réalisées par des étudiants, débutants en français, de première année de la filière de Traduction/Interprétation de la Universidad de Concepción au Chili.Le deuxième objectif de notre recherche correspond à une démarche de transposition didactique de résultats empiriques dans le but de mieux accompagner l’apprentissage du français dans notre contexte de formation. Nos propositions didactiques concernent aussi bien la sélection et le séquençage des contenus grammaticaux, la démarche méthodologique d’enseignement de la grammaire, et la correction/évaluation de la compétence grammaticale des apprenants. In fine, notre objectif didactique est de contribuer à la formation d’apprenants plurilingues conscients des processus à l’œuvre dans leur acquisition, et de les accompagner dans un usage réflexif de leurs connaissances linguistiques, notamment grammaticales. / Our research is related both to Second Language Acquisition Research and to Foreign Language Didactics, and has a twofold objective.First, we described crosslinguistic influences, from Spanish L1 and English L2, in the acquisition processes of some structures related to the verb construction in French L3, i.e. the verb construction with noun phrases, the selection of prepositions that potentially introduce these complements, and the acquisition of complement pronouns. To carry out this identification of syntactic transfers, we consider theoretical contributions from both multilingual acquisition research and studies that define developmental stages in French acquisition. Our study is based on written productions taken from first-year students, beginners in French, of the Translation/Interpretation university program at Universidad de Concepción in Chile.The second objective of our research consists of a didactic transposition of empirical results in order to better support the learning of French in our training context. Our teaching proposals deal with the selection and sequencing of grammatical contents, the methodological approach of grammar instruction, and the correction/evaluation of learners’ grammatical competence. In the end, our didactic purpose is to contribute to multilingual learners training and self-conscience of their acquisition processes, to support them with the reflexive use of their linguistic knowledge, in particular their grammatical knowledge.

English is taught in Swedish schools as a foreign language. The students are at different levels, and most of them try to achieve a higher proficiency level. While the extent to which students are successful at learning a language depends on many different factors. Previous studies have shown that students who are open to taking risks in their production are at an advantage. The present study investigated 80 texts written by students in the seventh and the ninth grade. The main aim was to investigate to what extent errors and complexity levels can be explained in relation to risk taking. In more detail, the study examined differences between the grades in terms of degree of syntactic complexity and what kinds of aspect and tense errors were made. To be able to investigate the errors an approach called Error Analysis was used. The results showed that for both grades, substitution errors were the most common error and there was a significant difference between the grades (p<0.001); however, the other errors showed no significant differences. Regarding the complexity levels, there was a highly significant difference (significance level p<0.001) for the least complex sentences, but there were no significant differences between the grades for the highest and second highest levels of complexity. The results furthermore suggest that there is a correlation between risk taking and a higher likelihood of making errors, as a large proportion of the erroneous sentences written by students from the ninth grade were found in syntactically complex sentences. Most of the errors made by students in the seventh grade were found in less syntactically complex sentences however.

Joint attention (JA) is the ability to coordinate attention between a conversation partner and an outside object, while being aware of the other’s attention. This study investigates JA in 14 parent-child dyads at the ages 0;9, 1;0, 1;3, 1;6, 1;9 and 2;0, and aims to examine how the initiation of JA develops with age, as well as the relationship between JA and later vocabulary size and syntactic level. The strategies for initiating JA were recorded for both parents and children, and the total amount of JA, as well as child-initiated JA, was calculated for each age point. The results show that children with a higher language level, calculated as a composite score of vocabulary at 4;0 and syntactic level at 3;0, spent on average more time in JA than children with a lower language level. In line with previous research, the present study found a positive relationship between JA and vocabulary. Furthermore, the results suggest a relationship between JA and syntactic development. Especially the amount of child-initiated JA was related to both vocabulary size at the age of 4;0 and syntactic level at the age of 3;0, which indicates the importance of this type of interaction for language acquisition. / Joint attention (JA) är förmågan att koordinera sin uppmärksamhet mellan en konversationspartner och ett tredje objekt, och samtidigt vara medveten om den andres uppmärksamhet. Den här studien undersöker JA i 14 förälder-barndyader vid åldrarna 0;9, 1;0, 1;3, 1;6, 1;9 och 2;0, med syftet att utröna hur initieringen av JA utvecklas med åldern, och hur relationen mellan JA och senare ordförrådsstorlek och syntaktisk nivå ser ut. Strategierna för att initiera JA undersöktes för både föräldrar och barn, och den totala mängden JA och barninitierad JA räknades för varje ålderspunkt. Resultaten visar att barn med en högre språklig nivå, räknat som kompositpoängen av vokabulär vid 4;0 och syntaktisk nivå vid 3;0, i genomsnitt spenderade mer tid i JA än barn med en lägre språklig nivå. I linje med tidigare forskning påvisade denna studie ett positivt samband mellan JA och ordförråd. Därutöver tyder resultaten på ett samband mellan JA och syntaktisk utveckling. Särskilt mängden barninitierad JA var positivt relaterad till både ordförråd vid 4;0 och syntaktisk nivå vid 3;0, vilket indikerar att denna typ av interaktion är viktig för språkutveckling. / Modelling infant language acquisition from parent-child interaction (MINT)

Este estudo consiste na comparação de três amostras lingüísticas: o espanhol não-nativo de estudantes brasileiros adultos, o espanhol nativo de informantes montevideanos (considerada como língua meta), e o português do Brasil (língua materna). Todos os informantes receberam uma situação teste em forma de história em quadrinhos, sem texto escrito, de modo que o conteúdo semântico fosse o mesmo e também fossem evitadas as influências léxicas. A situação teste, solicita em espanhol, o uso de estruturas com clíticos dativos, que expressam relações de possessão. Sua realização e a realização de outras estruturas constituem as variáveis lingüísticas a partir das quais, são examinadas e comparadas as diferentes projeções sintáticas. As referências teóricas e o modelo de análise propostos por Fernández e Anula (1995), compatíveis com algumas das teorias de maior poder explicativo na área da lingüística e da aquisição de línguas, contribuíram significativamente pela atenção dedicada aos fenômenos da língua espanhola. Os resultados do nosso estudo mostram estruturas idiossincrásicas no espanhol nãonativo, que respondem a padrões sintáticos regulares, em sua maioria habilitados pelo sistema da língua materna. A análise estatística quantifica as variáveis e mostra distâncias entre o espanhol não-nativo e a língua meta, e entre aquele e a língua materna. / This study consists of a comparison among three linguistic samples: the non-native Spanish of adult Brazilian students, the native Spanish of Montevidean informants (considered as target language), and Brazilian Portuguese (the mother language). All informants received a test situation shown in the comics form, with no written text, so semantic content was the same and lexical influences were avoided. The test situation, in Spanish, requires the usage of structures with dative clitics, which express possessive relations. Its realization and the realization of other structures constitute the linguistic variables, from which diferent projections are examined. The theoretical references and the model of syntatic analysis proposed by Fernández e Anula (1995), compatible with some theories with more explicatory power in the field of linguistics and language acquisition, contributed significantly because of the attention devoted to Spanish language phenomena. Results show idiosyncratic structures in non-native Spanish, responding to regular syntactic patterns, most of which habilitated by the mother tongue\'s system. The data statistical analysis quantifies variables and shows distances between the non-native Spanish and the native Spanish, and between the former and the mother language.

Este presente trabalho compara as construções existenciais do português do Brasil com as construções existenciais do espanhol. A pesquisa se situa no âmbito da Lingüística Histórica, da análise sintática e semântica dos verbos HAVER e TER no espanhol e português atual e arcaico. As construções existenciais ou de tempo composto no español ocorrem de modo distinto das do português, TER no espanhol somente constrói sentenças que expressam relações de posse. Levando em conta a origem das línguas portuguesa e espanhola e ainda as realizações de TER e HAVER no português e no espanhol arcaico, o objetivo deste trabalho é entender porque no espanhol não podemos formar sentenças existenciais como as do Português: 1. Por causa do feriado, há somente três alunos na sala. 2. Por causa do feriado, têm somente três alunos na sala. 3. Hay dos alumnos en el aula. 4. *Tiene una mujer en la cocina. No espanhol, o verbo TER somente é usado nas construções possessivas: 5. Yo tengo un gato y una perrita. Tendo como base princípios da teoria gerativa, busco fazer uma análise das estruturas sintática e semântica desses verbos e suas realizações, a fim de compreender as diferenças e semelhanças que existem nas construções existências no português e no espanhol. / This present study compares the construction of existential phrases in brazilian Portuguese with the construction of existential phrases in Spanish. This research is under the Historical Linguistics, syntactical and semantic analysis of verbs HAVER and TER in Spanish and Portuguese current and archaic. The existential phrases or time composed in Spanish occur distinctly from Portuguese, TER in Spanish only builds sentences that express relations of possession. Taking into account the origin this two languages and even the achievements of TER and HAVER in Portuguese and Spanish archaics, the objective of this work is to understand why in Spanish we can not form existential sentences as those in Portuguese: 6. Por causa do feriado, há somente três alunos na sala. 7. Por causa do feriado, têm somente três alunos na sala. 8. Hay dos alumnos en el aula. 9. *Tiene una mujer en la cocina. In Spanish, TER is only used to build possessive sentences: 10. Yo tengo un gato y una perrita. Based on principles of the generative theory, I make an analysis of the syntactic and semantics structures of those verbs and their achievements in order to understand the differences and similarities that exist in those constructions in Portuguese and Spanish.

Cette thèse s'inscrit dans le champ de la linguistique classique. Elle aborde l'étude du fonctionnement syntaxique du préverbe i en créole réunionnais. Un inventaire précis de ses emplois d'un point de vue descriptif est fait afin de déterminer ses conditions d'apparition et les conditions où il n'apparaît pas. Deux grandes catégories d'hypothèses sont confrontées : les hypothèses à base sémantique et les hypothèses à base purement syntaxique. Il s'agit de démontrer le bien-fondé de la seconde approche et les point faibles de la première. Les théories déjà publiées sur le problème du i sont examinées. Pour mieux saisir la valeur du i réunionnais, une comparaison des structures des créoles à base lexicale française est réalisée : le créole réunionnais qui est au premier plan de notre recherche ; les créoles mauricien et seychellois de la région de l'océan Indien et les créoles martiniquais, guadeloupéen et haïtien de la région de l'océan Atlantique. / This thesis is part of the field of classical linguistics. It deals with the study of the syntactic functioning of the preverb i in Reunion creole. A precise inventory of its uses from a descriptive point of view is made in order to determine its conditions of appearance and the conditions in which it does not appear. Two major categories of hypotheses are confronted: seamantic-based hypotheses and purely syntactical hypotheses. This is to demonstrate the merits of the second approach and the weak points of the first. Already published theories on the problem of i are examined. To better understand the value of Reunionese i, a comparaison of the structures of French-based creole languages is carried out: Reunion creole which is at the forefront of our reseach; Mauritian and Seychellois Creoles in Indian ocean region and Martinican, Guadeloupe and Haitian creoles of the Atlantic ocean region