Tematem niniejszej pracy są wybrane osobliwości w zakresie konstruowania zdań złożonych jako cecha składniowo-stylistyczna rozprawek uczniowskich. Materiał badawczy stanowiło 45 wypracowań maturalnych uczniów szkół polskich na Wileńszczyźnie. Wykorzystana została metoda analizy tekstu pisanego. Dotychczasowe badania nad polszczyzną uczniów szkół polskich na Wileńszczyźnie nie dotyczyły zakresu syntaksy. Niniejsza praca prezentuje wyniki wstępnych badań nad takimi składniowymi wykładnikami stylu, jak międzyzdaniowe wskaźniki zespolenia w konstrukcjach wielopredykatowych oraz nad konstrukcjami przesadnie rozbudowanymi, zwanymi potokami składniowymi. Tak więc głównym celem było zbadanie połączeń międzyzdaniowych (współrzędnych i podrzędnych, pomijając bezspójnikowe), które miały pokazać, za pomocą jakich wskaźników zespolenia badana grupa maturzystów łączy wypowiedzenia w tekstach pisanych, które wskaźniki nawiązania cieszą się największą popularnością u uczniów, które zaś nie są przez nich używane. Zakładałam, że w wypracowaniach jako tekstach pisanych o większym stopniu intelektualizacji powinno się znaleźć dużo wykładników nawiązania, oczekiwałam również dużej liczby spójników o zabarwieniu książkowym. Niezmiernie ważnym elementem analizy spójników parataktycznych oraz hipotaktycznych było zaakcentowanie ich wartości stylistycznej. Kolejnym zadaniem było zasygnalizowanie występowania w wybranym materiale ważnego problemu, a mianowicie nieporadności stylistyczno-składniowych w... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Šis magistro darbas nagrinėja sintaksiniai-stilistinius klausimus. Norėta nustatyti, kokių jungtukų pagalba lenkų mokyklų Lietuvoje abiturientai jungia sudėtinius sakinius, kuriuos jungtukus jie vartoja dažniausiai, o kurie visai neatsispindi (trūksta) jų rašytinėje kalboje. Didelis dėmesys buvo kreipiamas į jungtukų stilistinius bruožus (t.y. kurie yra vartojami rašytinėje kalboje, kurie šnekamojoje, galiausiai kurie pasižymi neutralumu). Darbas susideda iš įžangos, 4 skyrių ir pabaigos. Pirmajame skyriuje yra pateikti teoriniai sintaksiniai-stilistiniai klausimai. Antras skyrius ir trečias yra sukomponuoti analogiškai: antras vaizduoja sudedamųjų jungtukų analizę, trečias prijungiamųjų jungtukų, o taip pat parodomųjų įvardžių. Analizė paremta yra 45 mokinių rašiniais. Paskutinis darbo skyrius tik atkreipia dėmesį į įvairias klaidas mokinių sudėtiniuse sakiniuse, jame nėra visapusiškos analizės. Šio skyriaus tikslas buvo tik parodyti pastebėtas sudedamųjų sakinių problemas, kurias verta nagrinėti (tarp jų ir stilistinio pobūdžio klaidos). Pradžioje buvo iškelta hipotezė, kad mokinių rašiniuose turi būti daug jungtukų, o ypač rašytiniai kalbai būdingų, tačiau ji ne visai pasitvirtino. Lenkų mokyklų Lietuvoje abiturientai sudedamuosiuose sakiniuose daugiau vartojo neutralių sudedamųjų jungtukų. Prijungiamuosiuse sakiniuose proporcijos tarp neutralių jungtukų ir rašytinei kalbai būdingų buvo labai panašios. / The present master’s thesis examines syntactic-stylistic issues. The main goal of the thesis was to find out with the help of what conjunctions the graduates of Polish schools in Lithuania most often combine composite sentences, and which conjunctions are used by them the most often; also what conjunctions are missing in their written language. Great attention has been paid to stylistic features of conjunctions (i.e. which are used in the written language, spoken language, and finally, which of them are distinguished for neutrality). The thesis consists of an introduction, 4 chapters and the end. The first chapter is devoted to the theoretical syntactic/stylistic issues. The second and the third chapters are composed analogically: the second one contains an analysis of composite conjunctions, and the third one - of subordinate conjunctions and demonstrative pronouns. The analysis was based on the compositions of 45 pupils. The final chapter of the thesis only draws attention to different mistakes made by pupils in composite sentences, and does not provide a comprehensive analysis. The goal of this chapter was only to show the problems of composite sentences which have been noticed and worthy of examination (including the stylistic type of mistakes). At the beginning of the thesis a hypothesis was raised that there should be a lot of conjunctions characteristic of the written language in the compositions of pupils; it proved to be true only in part. The graduates of Polish... [to full text]

In this thesis we shall investigate the kinds of information which the Human Sentence Processing Mechanism employs during the resolution of local syntactic ambiguity in written texts. The thesis is in three parts. In Part I we consider some current models of syntactic ambiguity resolution. On the one hand, we consider the structural approaches, in which the processor considers only syntactic information when choosing between alternatives. On the other, we consider the interactive approaches, in which different kinds of information are brought to bear during the resolution process. In Part II, we describe a number of experiments which contrast the predictions of these two approaches. In particular, we investigate the processing of sentences which are locally ambiguous between a simple noun phrase analysis and a complex noun phrase analysis. Frazier (1979) predicts that the simple noun phrase analysis is chosen because it utilizes fewest phrasal nodes in its associated phrase marker. Crain and Steedman (1985), however, predict that the interpretation of the noun phrase is determined by referential factors, such as whether or not a unique referent can be identified for the noun phrase. The results support Crain and Steedman's interactive hypothesis. In Part III, we consider some theoretical issues concerning the timing of the processor's decisions. Crain and Steedman's original model is modified in the light of such considerations. We explore the implications of the modification for the status of syntax and semantics within our model of sentence comprehension. In the final chapter, we attempt to explain the existence of parsing preferences in sentences which are presented in isolation, and for which no explicit contextual information has been provided. We conclude that contextual considerations, such as the distinction between what is and what is not already known to the hearer, are of fundamental importance during the resolution of local syntactic ambiguity by the Human Sentence Processing Mechanism.

This dissertation investigates subject expression patterns in Dominican Spanish (DS). In this variety, the null subject constructions associated with Non-Caribbean Spanish co-exist with the widespread use of overt subjects, which are found in specific constructions that are either rare or unattested in other Spanish varieties. Interestingly, these structures co-exist in the Dominican grammar with the null subject constructions associated with Non-Caribbean Spanish. While subject expression has been studied in a number of Spanish dialects within the generative and the variationist paradigms, monolingual Dominican Spanish, to the best of my knowledge, has not been investigated in previous variationist work. This study covers this gap by examining a large corpus of spontaneous speech (N=6005) gathered in the capital city of Santo Domingo and a rural area in the northwestern Cibao region. Furthermore, in line with the cohesive approach to syntactic variation developed in recent work (Adger and Smith 2005), theoretical implications are drawn from quantitative results. The results obtained in this study show that null and overt subject patterns in DS are regulated by the same constraints that have been found relevant in previous variationist work, i.e. discourse-related factor groups and Person (Otheguy, Zentella and Livert, 2007). These results depart from previous work in that evidence for language change in progress has been found in subject position patterns, rather than in null and overt subject distribution. When this phenomenon is examined, urban, young, high-middle class and female speakers arise as the social groups leading grammatical restructuring. Quantitative and qualitative evidence is taken into account for testing previous syntactic-theoretical proposals on DS. Taking the cartographic approach to syntactic structure (Rizzi 1997) as a point of departure, it will proposed that multiple specifier positions are available within the TP and CP fields to host strong and weak subjects. This proposal, in turn, makes it possible to account for the Null Subject Parameter profile displayed by synchronic DS without resorting to competing grammars in the minds of the speakers.

Hollow glass microspheres have been used extensively in the automotive and marine industries as an additive for reducing weight and saving material costs. They are also added to paints and other materials for their reflective properties. They have shown promise for weight critical applications, but have thus far resulted in materials with low fracture toughness and impact resistance when combined with thermosetting resins in syntactic foam. The advent of commercially available microspheres with a wide range of crushing strengths, densities and adhesive properties has given new impetus to research into syntactic foam with better fracture behaviour. Current research suggests that the beneficial effects on fracture and impact resistance gained by the addition of solid reinforcements such as rubber and ceramic particles are not seen with the addition of hollow glass microspheres. The research presented in this paper has examined the mechanisms for fracture resistance in glass microsphere filled epoxy (GMFE) syntactic foams, as well as determined the effect microsphere crushing strength and adhesion strength has on the material???s fracture toughness. The flexural properties of various GMFE have also been determined. GMFE were manufactured with varying microsphere volume fraction up to 50%, and with variances in microsphere crushing strength and adhesion. The specimens were tested for Mode I fracture toughness in a three point single edge notched bending setup as described in ASTM D5045 as well as a three point flexural setup as described in ASTM D790-3. Fracture surfaces were inspected using scanning electron microscope imaging to identify the fracture mechanisms in the presence of microspheres. Results indicate a positive effect on fracture toughness resulting from new fracture areas created as tails in the wake of the microspheres in the fracture plane. Results also indicate a negative effect on fracture toughness resulting from weak microspheres or from interfacial disbonding at the fracture plane. These two effects combine to show an increase in GMFE fracture toughness as the volume fraction of microspheres is increased to between 10 ??? 20% volume fraction (where the positive effect dominates), with a reduction in fracture toughness as microspheres are added further (where the negative effect dominates).

This research concerns the structural and discourse related properties of cleft constructions found in spoken New Zealand English. In particular, the main analysis focuses on one cleft type, namely on the demonstrative cleft; examples include (a) 'That's what I had in mind' and (b) 'That's what I thought'. The demonstrative cleft has received little attention in the literature, and this is reflected in its inconsistent classification (some believe it to be a reversed wh-cleft, others classify it together with it-clefts, and others still use the label ‘th-cleft’). The current work investigates the clefts exemplified in (a) and (b), in terms of 23 different structural and discourse related properties. These properties were identified by consulting existing literature on clefts, and data from the Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English (about 200,000 words of spontaneous conversation). Additionally, the same excerpts of conversation were also examined for it-clefts, wh-clefts and reversed wh-clefts, whose most significant properties in spoken language are also related here. The data were tagged manually for the various cleft constructions investigated, and difficult examples were cross-checked by and discussed with other linguists. The thesis consists of three introductory chapters (Chapters 1, 2 and 3), which introduce the data investigated and the constructions analysed. Chapter 4 presents the analysis of the demonstrative cleft. Following this, peripheral and problematic demonstrative clefts, that is, clefts which deviate from the prototypical demonstrative cleft model are discussed in Chapter 5. Finally, Chapter 6 deals with other cleft types in English, namely it-clefts, wh-clefts and reversed wh-clefts, and their most significant properties in spoken language. The thesis concludes with a summary chapter (Chapter 7). One innovative aspect of the research concerns the fact that in spoken language, clefts can be 'un-integrated' or loosely integrated inside the syntactic structure which they are part of, while still being tightly connected within the discourse portion in which they are found, e.g., 'That's what you have to do when moving into a new house is nest', and 'That is what the government wants you to do is to vote Labour' (termed here double cleft construction). Double clefts are discussed in Chapter 4. The corpus also contains un-integrated wh-clefts, such as 'What I want to do is I want to study clefts', treated in Chapter 5. Previous studies suggest that in spoken language, the distinction between the syntax of clauses and the overall organisation of discourse is not always clear; clauses which do not appear to be syntactically subordinate may nonetheless be subordinate in terms of the discourse role they play. This is problematic for existing syntactic theories which rely on tightly integrated structures. An adequate analysis of un-integrated constructions, in terms of their syntax and discourse function will be of interest both to theoretical syntax and to computational linguistics. The research contributes to existing knowledge of the grammatical constructions used by speakers of New Zealand English and English worldwide. Given the significant differences between the grammar of spoken language and that of written language, this work helps increase understanding of spoken language and of what it means to be a ‘speaker’.

This research concerns the structural and discourse related properties of cleft constructions found in spoken New Zealand English. In particular, the main analysis focuses on one cleft type, namely on the demonstrative cleft; examples include (a) 'That's what I had in mind' and (b) 'That's what I thought'. The demonstrative cleft has received little attention in the literature, and this is reflected in its inconsistent classification (some believe it to be a reversed wh-cleft, others classify it together with it-clefts, and others still use the label ‘th-cleft’). The current work investigates the clefts exemplified in (a) and (b), in terms of 23 different structural and discourse related properties. These properties were identified by consulting existing literature on clefts, and data from the Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English (about 200,000 words of spontaneous conversation). Additionally, the same excerpts of conversation were also examined for it-clefts, wh-clefts and reversed wh-clefts, whose most significant properties in spoken language are also related here. The data were tagged manually for the various cleft constructions investigated, and difficult examples were cross-checked by and discussed with other linguists. The thesis consists of three introductory chapters (Chapters 1, 2 and 3), which introduce the data investigated and the constructions analysed. Chapter 4 presents the analysis of the demonstrative cleft. Following this, peripheral and problematic demonstrative clefts, that is, clefts which deviate from the prototypical demonstrative cleft model are discussed in Chapter 5. Finally, Chapter 6 deals with other cleft types in English, namely it-clefts, wh-clefts and reversed wh-clefts, and their most significant properties in spoken language. The thesis concludes with a summary chapter (Chapter 7). One innovative aspect of the research concerns the fact that in spoken language, clefts can be 'un-integrated' or loosely integrated inside the syntactic structure which they are part of, while still being tightly connected within the discourse portion in which they are found, e.g., 'That's what you have to do when moving into a new house is nest', and 'That is what the government wants you to do is to vote Labour' (termed here double cleft construction). Double clefts are discussed in Chapter 4. The corpus also contains un-integrated wh-clefts, such as 'What I want to do is I want to study clefts', treated in Chapter 5. Previous studies suggest that in spoken language, the distinction between the syntax of clauses and the overall organisation of discourse is not always clear; clauses which do not appear to be syntactically subordinate may nonetheless be subordinate in terms of the discourse role they play. This is problematic for existing syntactic theories which rely on tightly integrated structures. An adequate analysis of un-integrated constructions, in terms of their syntax and discourse function will be of interest both to theoretical syntax and to computational linguistics. The research contributes to existing knowledge of the grammatical constructions used by speakers of New Zealand English and English worldwide. Given the significant differences between the grammar of spoken language and that of written language, this work helps increase understanding of spoken language and of what it means to be a ‘speaker’.

This research concerns the structural and discourse related properties of cleft constructions found in spoken New Zealand English. In particular, the main analysis focuses on one cleft type, namely on the demonstrative cleft; examples include (a) 'That's what I had in mind' and (b) 'That's what I thought'. The demonstrative cleft has received little attention in the literature, and this is reflected in its inconsistent classification (some believe it to be a reversed wh-cleft, others classify it together with it-clefts, and others still use the label ‘th-cleft’). The current work investigates the clefts exemplified in (a) and (b), in terms of 23 different structural and discourse related properties. These properties were identified by consulting existing literature on clefts, and data from the Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English (about 200,000 words of spontaneous conversation). Additionally, the same excerpts of conversation were also examined for it-clefts, wh-clefts and reversed wh-clefts, whose most significant properties in spoken language are also related here. The data were tagged manually for the various cleft constructions investigated, and difficult examples were cross-checked by and discussed with other linguists. The thesis consists of three introductory chapters (Chapters 1, 2 and 3), which introduce the data investigated and the constructions analysed. Chapter 4 presents the analysis of the demonstrative cleft. Following this, peripheral and problematic demonstrative clefts, that is, clefts which deviate from the prototypical demonstrative cleft model are discussed in Chapter 5. Finally, Chapter 6 deals with other cleft types in English, namely it-clefts, wh-clefts and reversed wh-clefts, and their most significant properties in spoken language. The thesis concludes with a summary chapter (Chapter 7). One innovative aspect of the research concerns the fact that in spoken language, clefts can be 'un-integrated' or loosely integrated inside the syntactic structure which they are part of, while still being tightly connected within the discourse portion in which they are found, e.g., 'That's what you have to do when moving into a new house is nest', and 'That is what the government wants you to do is to vote Labour' (termed here double cleft construction). Double clefts are discussed in Chapter 4. The corpus also contains un-integrated wh-clefts, such as 'What I want to do is I want to study clefts', treated in Chapter 5. Previous studies suggest that in spoken language, the distinction between the syntax of clauses and the overall organisation of discourse is not always clear; clauses which do not appear to be syntactically subordinate may nonetheless be subordinate in terms of the discourse role they play. This is problematic for existing syntactic theories which rely on tightly integrated structures. An adequate analysis of un-integrated constructions, in terms of their syntax and discourse function will be of interest both to theoretical syntax and to computational linguistics. The research contributes to existing knowledge of the grammatical constructions used by speakers of New Zealand English and English worldwide. Given the significant differences between the grammar of spoken language and that of written language, this work helps increase understanding of spoken language and of what it means to be a ‘speaker’.

This research concerns the structural and discourse related properties of cleft constructions found in spoken New Zealand English. In particular, the main analysis focuses on one cleft type, namely on the demonstrative cleft; examples include (a) 'That's what I had in mind' and (b) 'That's what I thought'. The demonstrative cleft has received little attention in the literature, and this is reflected in its inconsistent classification (some believe it to be a reversed wh-cleft, others classify it together with it-clefts, and others still use the label ‘th-cleft’). The current work investigates the clefts exemplified in (a) and (b), in terms of 23 different structural and discourse related properties. These properties were identified by consulting existing literature on clefts, and data from the Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English (about 200,000 words of spontaneous conversation). Additionally, the same excerpts of conversation were also examined for it-clefts, wh-clefts and reversed wh-clefts, whose most significant properties in spoken language are also related here. The data were tagged manually for the various cleft constructions investigated, and difficult examples were cross-checked by and discussed with other linguists. The thesis consists of three introductory chapters (Chapters 1, 2 and 3), which introduce the data investigated and the constructions analysed. Chapter 4 presents the analysis of the demonstrative cleft. Following this, peripheral and problematic demonstrative clefts, that is, clefts which deviate from the prototypical demonstrative cleft model are discussed in Chapter 5. Finally, Chapter 6 deals with other cleft types in English, namely it-clefts, wh-clefts and reversed wh-clefts, and their most significant properties in spoken language. The thesis concludes with a summary chapter (Chapter 7). One innovative aspect of the research concerns the fact that in spoken language, clefts can be 'un-integrated' or loosely integrated inside the syntactic structure which they are part of, while still being tightly connected within the discourse portion in which they are found, e.g., 'That's what you have to do when moving into a new house is nest', and 'That is what the government wants you to do is to vote Labour' (termed here double cleft construction). Double clefts are discussed in Chapter 4. The corpus also contains un-integrated wh-clefts, such as 'What I want to do is I want to study clefts', treated in Chapter 5. Previous studies suggest that in spoken language, the distinction between the syntax of clauses and the overall organisation of discourse is not always clear; clauses which do not appear to be syntactically subordinate may nonetheless be subordinate in terms of the discourse role they play. This is problematic for existing syntactic theories which rely on tightly integrated structures. An adequate analysis of un-integrated constructions, in terms of their syntax and discourse function will be of interest both to theoretical syntax and to computational linguistics. The research contributes to existing knowledge of the grammatical constructions used by speakers of New Zealand English and English worldwide. Given the significant differences between the grammar of spoken language and that of written language, this work helps increase understanding of spoken language and of what it means to be a ‘speaker’.

This thesis presents a technology to complement taxation-based policy proposals aimed at addressing the digital copyright problem. Theapproach presented facilitates identification of intellectual propertyusing expression fingerprints. Copyright law protects expression of content. Recognizing literaryworks for copyright protection requires identification of theexpression of their content. The expression fingerprints described inthis thesis use a novel set of linguistic features that capture boththe content presented in documents and the manner of expression usedin conveying this content. These fingerprints consist of bothsyntactic and semantic elements of language. Examples of thesyntactic elements of expression include structures of embedding andembedded verb phrases. The semantic elements of expression consist ofhigh-level, broad semantic categories. Syntactic and semantic elements of expression enable generation ofmodels that correctly identify books and their paraphrases 82% of thetime, providing a significant (approximately 18%) improvement over modelsthat use tfidf-weighted keywords. The performance of models builtwith these features is also better than models created with standardfeatures used in stylometry (e.g., function words), which yield anaccuracy of 62%.In the non-digital world, copyright holders collect revenues bycontrolling distribution of their works. Current approaches to thedigital copyright problem attempt to provide copyright holders withthe same kind of control over distribution by employing Digital RightsManagement (DRM) systems. However, DRM systems also enable copyrightholders to control and limit fair use, to inhibit others' speech, andto collect private information about individual users of digitalworks.Digital tracking technologies enable alternate solutions to thedigital copyright problem; some of these solutions can protectcreative incentives of copyright holders in the absence of controlover distribution of works. Expression fingerprints facilitatedigital tracking even when literary works are DRM- and watermark-free,and even when they are paraphrased. As such, they enable meteringpopularity of works and make practicable solutions that encouragelarge-scale dissemination and unrestricted use of digital works andthat protect the revenues of copyright holders, for example throughtaxation-based revenue collection and distribution systems, withoutimposing limits on distribution.

O Processamento de Línguas Naturais é uma área interdisciplinar cujas pesquisas podem ser divididas em duas grandes linhas: análise e síntese da língua. Esta pesquisa de doutorado traz contribuições para ambas. Para a análise da língua, um modelo integrativo capaz de unir diferentes níveis linguísticos é apresentado e avaliado em relação aos níveis morfológico, (incluindo subníveis léxico e morfossintático), sintático e semântico. Enquanto análises tradicionais são feitas dos níveis mais baixos da língua para os mais altos, em uma estratégia em cascata, na qual erros dos níveis mais baixos são propagados para os níveis mais altos, o modelo de análise proposto é capaz de unificar a análise de diferentes níveis a partir de uma abordagem bidirecional. O modelo é baseado em uma grande rede neural, treinada em córpus, cujos padrões de treinamento são extraídos de tokens presentes nas orações. Um tipo de recorrência denominado coativação é aplicado no modelo para permitir que a análise de um padrão modifique e seja modificada pela análise de outros padrões em um mesmo contexto. O modelo de análise permite investigações para as quais não foi originalmente planejado, além de apresentar resultados considerados satisfatórios em lematização e análise morfossintática, porém ainda demandando aprimoramento para a tarefa de análise sintática. A ferramenta associada a esse modelo permitiu investigar a recorrência proposta e a interação bidirecional entre níveis da língua, incluindo seus subníveis. Experimentos para coativação e bidirecionalidade foram realizados e considerados satisfatórios. Para a área de síntese da língua, um modelo de simplificação sintática, tarefa considerada como adaptação de texto para texto, baseado em regras manuais é aplicado em textos analisados sintaticamente, tendo como objetivo tornar os textos sintaticamente mais simples para leitores com letramento rudimentar ou básico. A ferramenta associada a esse modelo permitiu realizar simplificação sintática com medida-f de 77,2%, simplificando aproximadamente 16% de orações em textos do gênero enciclopédico / Natural Language Processing is an interdisciplinary research area that encompasses two large research avenues: language analysis and language synthesis. This thesis contributes for both of them. In what concerns language analysis, it presents an integrative model that links different levels of linguistic analysis. The evaluation of such model takes into consideration several levels: morphologic (including lexical and morph-syntactic sub-levels), syntactic and semantic. Whereas traditional analysis are undertaken from the lower levels to the upper ones, propagating errors in such direction, the model proposed herein is able to unify different levels of analysis using a bidirectional approach. The model is based on a large-scale neural network trained in corpus, which extracts its training features from tokens within the sentences. A type of recurrence denominated co-activation is applied to the model to make the analysis of a pattern able to modify (and to be modified by) the analysis of other patterns in a same context. This model may be used for purposes different from those for which it was conceived and yields satisfactory results in lemmatization and part-of-speech analysis, but still needs work on syntactic analysis. The tool associated to this model makes it possible to analyze the proposed recurrence language and the bidirectional influence of different levels on each other, including sub-level interaction. Experiments on both co-activation and bidirectional level integration were performed, and the results were considered satisfactory. On the other hand, in what concerns language synthesis, this thesis presents a rule-based model of syntactic simplification (one of text adaptation techniques), applicable to syntactically parsed texts in order to render them simpler for low literacy readers. The tool associated to this model makes it possible to carry out the task of syntactic simplification in Portuguese language. Such tool achieved 77.2% of f-measure in a task that simplified approximately 16% of the sentences of an encyclopedic text