Previous work on Chinese idioms has made significant on both meaning derivation process as well as internal combination patterns. As for teaching idioms at junior high schools, recent textbooks encounter three problems: first, there is no appropriate idiom lists; second, teachers rarely mention their syntactic functions and collocational relations; third, students often use idioms in the wrong way. This study aims to investigate syntactic functions of idioms, by examing the learners¡¦ errors. Chap1 clarifies the definition and the characteristics of idioms. Chap2 prosecutes error analysis. Three types of error are identified: semantic errors, grammar errors and semantic restriction errors which are the most frequent type. With regard to the influence of the familiarity and transparency of idioms, idioms that are low familiar and opaque make learning more difficult. After understanding the learning difficulties, chap4 studies syntactic functions and internal construction of idioms. The main construction type is subject-predicate and the most popular function is predicate. We cannot predict the function of an idiom by its construction, and the argument of an idiom doesn¡¦t affect its function neither. However, the core elements of an idiom is correlate with its function. Chap5 explains learners¡¦ difficulties and designs teaching strategies, such as teaching collocation. Moreover, this paper provides two idiom lists, one for junior high school students, the other for advanced learners.

The first aim of this work is to describe the way in which the term apposition is defined in French and Czech linguistics. The second aim is to examine the use of one type of French apposition in journalistic and legal texts and to find out which equivalents are used in the Czech language for these expressions. The work is divided into theoretical and practical part. The theoretical part includes a description of different approaches of apposition in the French and Czech language. The practical part begins with a choice of one definition of apposition which will be further used in the corpus analysis. The corpus analysis is conducted by using the corpus InterCorp and its subject is to examine the function and frequency of French apposition in journalistic and legal texts and furthermore to analyse its Czech equivalents.

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.

The diploma thesis is concerned with exploring the differences between the noun phrases in written and spoken academic monologue, focussing on the length of the phrase, its internal complexity and syntactic functions. In the theoretical part of the study, the noun phrase, its constituents, structure and usage are introduced. The noun phrase is introduced as one of the means of complex condensation. The basic characteristics of written and spoken academic language are introduced as well. The practical part of the study is a detailed analysis of 210 noun phrases. The written sample is collected from selected academic articles, whereas the sample of spoken lecture is collected from the lecture database of the BASE corpus. Since the study focuses on two different forms of language, the material is analysed for each of them separately and the results are subsequently compared in the final part of each subsection. The hypothesis of the thesis is that the written sample contains noun phrases with more complex modification, whereas the spoken sample contains more simple noun phrases and more clausal modification. The hypothesis was, for the most part, confirmed.

In the Arabic language a “word/particle” is divided into three classes: noun verb and particle. After research of relevant literature it became evident to this researcher that the bulk of research related to signifying particles has stressed their complementary relation to nouns and verbs which has created shortcomings in these studies. The most noteworthy of them has been to restrict a study of particles either to their linguistic or grammatical functions or to confine this endeavor to some particles only. This study aims to study all particles as independent components of Arabic signifiers. In the first section , the researcher reviews relevant grammatical terminologies relating to and associated with the particles such as: speech ,word , noun, verb…etc, and outlines both instances of similarities and differences found among them. He then elucidates the three categories of word particles by referring to the peculiarities of each of them. The remaining chapters are devoted to presenting the linguistic definitions of each word particle , beginning with single phoneme particles and systematically progressing to higher ones. Essentially all word particles fulfill linguistic functions before they may fulfill any syntactic or other functions. After reviewing their linguistic functions, the researcher queries , or proposes the possibility of using linguistic terminology for them instead of using syntactical or grammatical terminology because the former embraces all word particles whereas the latter is restricted to just some of them. In the final section, he focuses on the syntactical functions of the semantic particles, and their influence grammatically , wehter it is permanent or occasional influence. He also explains word particles associated with whether nouns or verbs , or with both of them. / الكلمة في اللغة العربية تنقسم الى ثلاثة أقسام :اسم وفعل وحرف، ولقد تبين للباحث بعد مراجعته للأدبيات أن معظم الدراسات التى تناولت حروف المعاني تناولتها من منظور انها مكملة للقسمين الآخرين، هذه النظرية أدّت إلى قصور في الدراسة، وقد تجلى اهم أوجه هذا القصور أولا في التركيز على جانب واحد من جوانب دراسة الحروف، اعني الجانب اللغوي او الوظيفة النحوية، او الإقتصار على بعض الحروف دون سائرها. هذا البحث يعتبر محاولة لدراسة جميع الحروف كقسم مستقل من أقسام الكلمة العربية، يبتدأ الباحث فيه - في الفصل الأول - باستعراض المصطلحات النحوية المحيطة والمرتبطة بالحروف من قبيل : الكلام والكلمة واللفظ والقول ...الخ مبيناً كيفة تداخل وترابط تلك المصطلحات وأوجه إختلافها، ثم أقسام الكلام الثلاثة مع الإشارة إلى مميزات كل قسمٍ وخصائصه ، وتتناول بقية الفصول المعاني اللغوية للحروف- إبتداء بالحروف الأحادية ثم الثنائية والثلاثية والرباعية و الخماسية - لأنّ الأصل في كل الكلمات أن تؤدّي وظائف لغوية محدّدة قبل أن يكون لها دورٌ نحويٌ او لايكون، ويتساءل الباحث او يقترح – بعد استعراض المعاني الللغوية للحروف – امكانية استخدام التسميات اللغوية للحروف بدلاً من التسمية النحوية، لأنّ الأولى تشمل كلّ الحروف ، بينما تقتصر الثانية على قسمٍ من الحروف . ثمّ يتدرج إلى الفصل الأخير المخصص للعمل النحوي للحروف ، مستعرضاً أوجه عملها – سواء كانت دائمة العمل أو عاملة أحياناً ومهملة في بعض الأحوال- ومبيناً ما يختص منها بالعمل بالاسم او بالفعل وما يشترك في الدخول عليهما. / Linguistics

<p>This corpus-based study examines adjectives and adjectival expressions used to describe characters in British children’s fiction. The focus is on diachronic variation, by comparing Victorian (19th-century) and contemporary (late 20th-century) children’s fiction, and on gender variation, by comparing the descriptions of female and male characters. I adopt a qualitative as well as a quantitative approach, and consider factors such as lexical diversity, adjectival density, collocation patterns, evaluative meaning, syntactic function and distribution across semantic domains. Most findings are related to a dichotomy set up between an idealistic and a realistic portrayal of characters. The study shows that an idealistic portrayal of characters is typical of the Victorian material and a realistic portrayal of characters typical of the contemporary material. Further, gender differences are much more pronounced, and reflect traditional gender role patterns more in the Victorian material than in the contemporary material. For instance, a pleasant appearance is typically described for Victorian female characters and social position for Victorian male characters. Moreover, descriptions of mental properties of Victorian female characters are conspicuously rare. Such gendered patterns are less distinct in the contemporary material, although appearance is still more extensively described for female than male characters. As regards how the qualities are attributed to characters, the descriptions of Victorian female characters were found to be the most formulaic compared to the descriptions of Victorian male, contemporary female and contemporary male characters.</p>

This corpus-based study examines adjectives and adjectival expressions used to describe characters in British children’s fiction. The focus is on diachronic variation, by comparing Victorian (19th-century) and contemporary (late 20th-century) children’s fiction, and on gender variation, by comparing the descriptions of female and male characters. I adopt a qualitative as well as a quantitative approach, and consider factors such as lexical diversity, adjectival density, collocation patterns, evaluative meaning, syntactic function and distribution across semantic domains. Most findings are related to a dichotomy set up between an idealistic and a realistic portrayal of characters. The study shows that an idealistic portrayal of characters is typical of the Victorian material and a realistic portrayal of characters typical of the contemporary material. Further, gender differences are much more pronounced, and reflect traditional gender role patterns more in the Victorian material than in the contemporary material. For instance, a pleasant appearance is typically described for Victorian female characters and social position for Victorian male characters. Moreover, descriptions of mental properties of Victorian female characters are conspicuously rare. Such gendered patterns are less distinct in the contemporary material, although appearance is still more extensively described for female than male characters. As regards how the qualities are attributed to characters, the descriptions of Victorian female characters were found to be the most formulaic compared to the descriptions of Victorian male, contemporary female and contemporary male characters.

In the Arabic language a “word/particle” is divided into three classes: noun verb and particle. After research of relevant literature it became evident to this researcher that the bulk of research related to signifying particles has stressed their complementary relation to nouns and verbs which has created shortcomings in these studies. The most noteworthy of them has been to restrict a study of particles either to their linguistic or grammatical functions or to confine this endeavor to some particles only. This study aims to study all particles as independent components of Arabic signifiers. In the first section , the researcher reviews relevant grammatical terminologies relating to and associated with the particles such as: speech ,word , noun, verb…etc, and outlines both instances of similarities and differences found among them. He then elucidates the three categories of word particles by referring to the peculiarities of each of them. The remaining chapters are devoted to presenting the linguistic definitions of each word particle , beginning with single phoneme particles and systematically progressing to higher ones. Essentially all word particles fulfill linguistic functions before they may fulfill any syntactic or other functions. After reviewing their linguistic functions, the researcher queries , or proposes the possibility of using linguistic terminology for them instead of using syntactical or grammatical terminology because the former embraces all word particles whereas the latter is restricted to just some of them. In the final section, he focuses on the syntactical functions of the semantic particles, and their influence grammatically , wehter it is permanent or occasional influence. He also explains word particles associated with whether nouns or verbs , or with both of them. / الكلمة في اللغة العربية تنقسم الى ثلاثة أقسام :اسم وفعل وحرف، ولقد تبين للباحث بعد مراجعته للأدبيات أن معظم الدراسات التى تناولت حروف المعاني تناولتها من منظور انها مكملة للقسمين الآخرين، هذه النظرية أدّت إلى قصور في الدراسة، وقد تجلى اهم أوجه هذا القصور أولا في التركيز على جانب واحد من جوانب دراسة الحروف، اعني الجانب اللغوي او الوظيفة النحوية، او الإقتصار على بعض الحروف دون سائرها. هذا البحث يعتبر محاولة لدراسة جميع الحروف كقسم مستقل من أقسام الكلمة العربية، يبتدأ الباحث فيه - في الفصل الأول - باستعراض المصطلحات النحوية المحيطة والمرتبطة بالحروف من قبيل : الكلام والكلمة واللفظ والقول ...الخ مبيناً كيفة تداخل وترابط تلك المصطلحات وأوجه إختلافها، ثم أقسام الكلام الثلاثة مع الإشارة إلى مميزات كل قسمٍ وخصائصه ، وتتناول بقية الفصول المعاني اللغوية للحروف- إبتداء بالحروف الأحادية ثم الثنائية والثلاثية والرباعية و الخماسية - لأنّ الأصل في كل الكلمات أن تؤدّي وظائف لغوية محدّدة قبل أن يكون لها دورٌ نحويٌ او لايكون، ويتساءل الباحث او يقترح – بعد استعراض المعاني الللغوية للحروف – امكانية استخدام التسميات اللغوية للحروف بدلاً من التسمية النحوية، لأنّ الأولى تشمل كلّ الحروف ، بينما تقتصر الثانية على قسمٍ من الحروف . ثمّ يتدرج إلى الفصل الأخير المخصص للعمل النحوي للحروف ، مستعرضاً أوجه عملها – سواء كانت دائمة العمل أو عاملة أحياناً ومهملة في بعض الأحوال- ومبيناً ما يختص منها بالعمل بالاسم او بالفعل وما يشترك في الدخول عليهما. / Linguistics and Modern Languages