This thesis examines the bilingual discourse of a cohort of Belizean Spanish speakers who engage in robust language mixing between Spanish, English and to a lesser extent Belize Kriol, an English-lexified creole. The speakers selected for the current study have been identified as the “highest language mixers” in a corpus of 51 interviews conducted in northern and western Belize, areas which have been classified as two distinct dialect regions (Cardona Ramírez 2010; Hagerty 1979). While an abundance of research exists on Spanish-English bilingualism in the U.S. (e.g. Torres Cacoullos and Travis 2014; Silva Corvalán 1994; Roca and Lipksi 1993) there is less research on non-U.S. varieties of Spanish in contact with English, in particular, Belizean varieties of Spanish. Thus, by appealing to the comparative variationist framework (Poplack and Tagliamonte 2001), the major aims of the study are: (i) to describe the major patterns of use among those speakers of Belizean varieties of Spanish who engage in language mixing and, (ii) to determine the status of the single and multiword English-origin fragments which comprise the majority of non-native material in Spanish discourse. In determining the status of the English-origin material with regard to borrowing and code-switching, not only are the specific linguistic mechanisms used by these speakers elucidated, but insights are gained as to whether code-switching and borrowing are distinct linguistic phenomena. Diagnostics of subject position and gender and number agreement on English-origin nouns and verbal morphology and variable clitic placement for English-origin verbs revealed both these categories to pattern with Spanish suggesting that they are borrowings. The remaining one-third of the data, comprised of multiword fragments, consisted primarily of intrasentential and intersentential code-switching and a large category of multiword fragments which initially appeared to be neither code-switches nor borrowings. A comparative quantitative analysis revealed these items to be integrated into Spanish suggesting that they may be treated as single units of meaning. Results, for the most part, are consonant with the literature on bilingual speech. Data consists mainly of lexical borrowing (Thomason 2001; Pfaff 1979; Berk-Seligson 1986), specifically nouns, the most borrowed category cross-linguistically (Muysken 2000; Poplack et al. 1988). Speakers engage in “skilled” or equivalence intrasentential code-switching consistent with other Spanish-English data (Poplack 1980). In addition, only those speakers who reported being equally dominant in the respective languages exhibited robust intrasentential code-switching, thus, concurring with the prevailing assertion that code-switching is the domain of fluent bilinguals (Bullock and Toribio 2012; Lipski 1985; Poplack 1980). Some distinctive features of the language mixing employed by these speakers include the frequent and productive use of bilingual compound verbs (BCV) and a near categorical preference for BCVs as the mechanism for borrowing English-origin verbs. With regard to Spanish determiner marking on English-origin nouns, the masculine default is used almost exclusively, unlike the variability reported elsewhere (Dubord 2004; Smead 2000). By analyzing data from both dialect regions of Belize, this study provides insight both into the global picture of language mixing practices in Belize as well as regional patterns insofar as they are instantiated by the cohort analyzed.

Children with lower language abilities, including children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) are at risk for persistent reading difficulties. Previous studies have demonstrated that children with lower language abilities display eye movements different from their typically developing peers while hearing nouns in a naturalistic storybook reading context. This study examined how language ability and various lexical characteristics interact with 4- and 5-year- olds' eye movements during a naturalistic storybook reading task. We used eye-tracking technology to measure eye movements of 49 preschoolers with variable language skill. The children looked at storybook pictures on an eye tracking computer while they listened to a narration of the story. Target areas of each illustration corresponded to verbs in the text (i.e., images of the subjects and objects referred to by the verb). Results revealed that all children, regardless of language ability, were more likely to be looking at the target images while a target verb was being spoken than when a different word was being spoken. This relationship grew stronger as language ability increased. Additionally, lexical variables (age of acquisition, number of syllables, concreteness, frequency, and occurrences in the story) also impacted the likelihood that children were looking at the target images. Because the interaction of each lexical variable, language ability, and time was different, clinical implications suggest that speech-language pathologists, early childhood educators, and parents should be aware of these interactions in selecting storybooks with specific word stimuli. Such careful consideration of word stimuli may help children identify what illustrations are important during shared storybook reading.

No description available.

When delivering intervention to an individual with aphasia, clinicians must provide services that are grounded in evidence-based practice and show evidence of generalization of skills outside of therapy. Verb Network Strengthening Treatment is a straightforward treatment approach that requires inexpensive materials, making it possible to implement in various clinical settings in compliance with time allotted by insurance companies. The present study uses a single subject ABA design to investigate if the findings of Edmonds, Nadeau, & Kiran (2009) can be replicated when VNeST is administered using a lower dose of VNeST. Based on VNeST’s promotion of widespread activation of the semantic and syntactic network, it was predicted that reducing the dose of treatment would result in generalization to untrained items, as evidenced through weekly administration of probes and standardized testing. Results following treatment supported the hypothesis, however the effects of treatment were smaller than that of the original protocol. / Communication Sciences

The purpose of this study is to give a brief history of the strong verbs in Old English and to trace their development in Middle English and in Modern English, concentrating on the last period. In Modern English two lines of development are of particular interest and importance: the confusion of children and illiterates in using strong verb forms and the treatment of strong verbs in recent grammars. It is hoped that this study will show the pertinence of these verbs and that from this study recommendations can be made as to the simplest procedure for teaching them.

Current research into language change and evolution focuses on native varieties of English, Schneider’s (2007) settler strand, but we have little knowledge concerning diachronic changes in non-native varieties of English, Schneider’s (2007) indigenous strand. Such a theory must take into account language contact as well as theories pertaining to Second Language Acquisition. This dissertation describes the diachronic changes which occur in one feature of Black South African English (BSAE), namely the progressive aspect. Current synchronic research on BSAE suggests that the progressive aspect is overextended to include stative verbs. This dissertation aims to evaluate the value of this hypothesis, and determine whether there is evidence of this overextension in diachronic data. In order to observe instances of language change, a diachronic corpus of BSAE was complied. This corpus consisted of data from letters, fiction, and newspapers ranging from the 1870s until the 2000s. Using this corpus, analyses were performed in order to determine the frequency of progressive use, the distribution of aktionsart categories, and which temporal meanings were denoted by stative verbs and activity verbs used in the progressive aspect. These analyses were then repeated for data taken from the historical corpus of White South African English (WSAE), in order to ascertain whether changes in BSAE developed parallel to WSAE, or if it follows its own trajectory of change. One further analysis was conducted on BSAE: the aspectual categories of 71 state verbs were analysed in order to determine whether speakers of BSAE indeed do overextend the –ing progressive form onto stative verbs describing states and qualities. The results indicate that the frequency of verbs used with the progressive aspect increases for BSAE, but decreases for WSAE. The comparison of aktionsart distribution indicates that BSAE has a higher overall frequency of communication verbs and accomplishments, while WSAE has a higher frequency of activity verbs, verbs denoting the future, and stative verbs. Achievements are used as expected by both varieties. The analysis of the temporal meanings of stative verbs indicates that speakers of WSAE denote the prototypical short duration associated with the progressive aspect for 74.83% of the verbs, while BSAE uses an extended temporal meaning for 46.86% of the verbs, indicating that speakers of BSAE more likely to overextend the temporal duration of stative verbs than WSAE speakers. The temporal meanings for activities were the same for both varieties; the prototypical short duration is denoted by 77.83% of the total activities in BSAE, and 77.11% of the activities in WSAE. The extended duration in both varieties may be due to language change in general, while the additional temporal meanings for statives in BSAE are a result of substrate transfer. / MA (English)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2015

Current research into language change and evolution focuses on native varieties of English, Schneider’s (2007) settler strand, but we have little knowledge concerning diachronic changes in non-native varieties of English, Schneider’s (2007) indigenous strand. Such a theory must take into account language contact as well as theories pertaining to Second Language Acquisition. This dissertation describes the diachronic changes which occur in one feature of Black South African English (BSAE), namely the progressive aspect. Current synchronic research on BSAE suggests that the progressive aspect is overextended to include stative verbs. This dissertation aims to evaluate the value of this hypothesis, and determine whether there is evidence of this overextension in diachronic data. In order to observe instances of language change, a diachronic corpus of BSAE was complied. This corpus consisted of data from letters, fiction, and newspapers ranging from the 1870s until the 2000s. Using this corpus, analyses were performed in order to determine the frequency of progressive use, the distribution of aktionsart categories, and which temporal meanings were denoted by stative verbs and activity verbs used in the progressive aspect. These analyses were then repeated for data taken from the historical corpus of White South African English (WSAE), in order to ascertain whether changes in BSAE developed parallel to WSAE, or if it follows its own trajectory of change. One further analysis was conducted on BSAE: the aspectual categories of 71 state verbs were analysed in order to determine whether speakers of BSAE indeed do overextend the –ing progressive form onto stative verbs describing states and qualities. The results indicate that the frequency of verbs used with the progressive aspect increases for BSAE, but decreases for WSAE. The comparison of aktionsart distribution indicates that BSAE has a higher overall frequency of communication verbs and accomplishments, while WSAE has a higher frequency of activity verbs, verbs denoting the future, and stative verbs. Achievements are used as expected by both varieties. The analysis of the temporal meanings of stative verbs indicates that speakers of WSAE denote the prototypical short duration associated with the progressive aspect for 74.83% of the verbs, while BSAE uses an extended temporal meaning for 46.86% of the verbs, indicating that speakers of BSAE more likely to overextend the temporal duration of stative verbs than WSAE speakers. The temporal meanings for activities were the same for both varieties; the prototypical short duration is denoted by 77.83% of the total activities in BSAE, and 77.11% of the activities in WSAE. The extended duration in both varieties may be due to language change in general, while the additional temporal meanings for statives in BSAE are a result of substrate transfer. / MA (English)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2015

Denna studie undersöker samspelet mellan de semantiska kategorierna inkoativitet, futurum och modalitet i få/får/fick/fått + perceptionsverbskonstruktioner i skriven svenska , samt om det går att systematiskt skilja mellan dessa kategorier i form av frekvens och kontext. Enligt Åke Viberg framstår få som rätt språkspecifikt i sitt polysema omfång jämfört med andra europeiska språk, såsom engelska, finska, tyska och franska (Viberg 2009: 105, 119, 2012: 1413). Vidare påstår han att perceptionsverben se, höra och veta i samband med få som hjälpverb (få + perceptionsverb) uttrycker inkoativitet och även att den inkoativa betydelsen är semantiskt nära besläktad med futurum (Viberg 2002: 123, 2012: 1444). Inkoativitet innebär ett predikats uttryck för övergång (Bybee et al., 1994), ofta utan någon som helst hänvisning till vad som orsakar det övergående skedet (Viberg 2002: s.129). Studien är en korpusundersökning baserad på skönlitterära texter och pressmaterial från 70- till 90-talet, där 50 meningar per perceptionsverb analyseras utifrån de semantiska kategorier de anses uttrycka. Resultaten tyder på att det inte går att semantiskt kategorisera konstruktionerna få + perceptionsverb som en kategori för sig, som uttrycker inkoativitet och futurum. Konstruktionerna uppvisar en viss semantisk relation till futurum och inkoativa betydelser men är även i stor utsträckning kopplade till andra funktioner av få + verb i infinitiv, särskilt modalitet. Undersökningen tillför en ökad förståelse för få:s polysema grammatiska beteende samt bidrar till den allmänna förståelsen för tempus, aspekt och modalitet i svenska. / This paper studies the interplay between inchoative, future and modal meanings in constructions containing the verb of possession få (in all of its four conjugations) + verbs of perception in written Swedish, and seeks to find out if it is possible to systematically differentiate these categories from each other in terms of frequency and context. According to Åke Viberg, the Swedish verb of possession få appears to be quite language specific with its polysemic characteristics compared to other European languages, such as English, Finnish, German and French (Viberg 2009: s.105, 119, 2012: s.1413). Viberg also suggests that få in combination with either of the three verbs of perception se ‘see’, höra ‘hear’, veta ‘know’ expresses inchoative sense, to which he further states the future sense is closely related to (Viberg 2002: 123, 2012: 1444). The inchoative sense is when a predicate expresses transition (Bybee et al., 1994), often with a lack of explicit reference to the cause of the transition (Viberg 2002: s.129). The study is a corpus investigation, which includes a selection of fiction and newspaper material ranging from the 1970s to the 1990s. 50 sentences per perception verb are analysed based on the semantic categories that they are considered being an expression of. The results show that the få + perception verb constructions are not semantically classifiable as a category which expresses the inchoative and future sense. Apart from displaying some connection with the inchoative and future meanings, these constructions appear to be well integrated with other functions expressed by få + infinitive verbs, primarily modality. In addition to provide an increased understanding of the polysemic grammatical behaviour of få as an auxiliary verb, this investigation also contributes to the overall knowledge of tense, aspect and modality in Swedish.

Submitted by Aline Batista (alinehb.ufpel@gmail.com) on 2018-07-17T19:12:39Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Dissertacao_Renan_Castro_Ferreira.pdf: 2147576 bytes, checksum: 576e918ce5169b06e2bd38124e8dd6e2 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Aline Batista (alinehb.ufpel@gmail.com) on 2018-07-17T21:25:35Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Dissertacao_Renan_Castro_Ferreira.pdf: 2147576 bytes, checksum: 576e918ce5169b06e2bd38124e8dd6e2 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-17T21:25:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Dissertacao_Renan_Castro_Ferreira.pdf: 2147576 bytes, checksum: 576e918ce5169b06e2bd38124e8dd6e2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-02-23 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / O presente trabalho buscou identificar as similaridades translinguísticas reais entre português e inglês em estruturas do tipo phrasal verbs e investigar a percepção dessas similaridades por aprendizes de inglês como língua estrangeira (LE) que são falantes nativos de português. Realizamos um levantamento em dicionários de verbos e regência com o objetivo de confirmar a presença, na língua portuguesa, de estruturas do tipo phrasal verbs. Depois, com base no referencial teórico de Kellerman (1977) e Ringbom (2007) sobre a importância das similaridades translinguísticas percebidas e/ou presumidas na aprendizagem de língua estrangeira, assim como no estudo de Sjöholm (1995) sobre o efeito delas na aprendizagem de phrasal verbs, utilizamos um teste de múltipla escolha e entrevistas semiestruturadas para examinar as percepções de aprendizes brasileiros de inglês e determinar se as similaridades entre as línguas em questão afetam o modo como eles compreendem e usam os phrasal verbs. O levantamento evidenciou que o português possui phrasal verbs e que muitos deles conservam similaridades de forma e significado com seus equivalentes em inglês. O teste de múltipla escolha mostrou que há uma tendência maior de escolha de phrasal verbs em inglês quando eles possuem equivalentes em português. Nas entrevistas, todos os aprendizes conseguiram identificar os equivalentes portugueses dos phrasal verbs apresentados, apesar de não terem estabelecido essa relação entre as línguas de forma consciente durante o teste. Os resultados indicam que a percepção de similaridades translinguísticas entre português-LM e inglês-LE na questão dos phrasal verbs leva à facilitação da compreensão e do uso dessas estruturas na LE alvo. / This work aimed to identify the real cross-linguistic similarities between Portuguese and English concerning phrasal verbs and investigate the perception of such similarities by learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) who are native speakers of Portuguese. To confirm that Portuguese has structures that can be classified as phrasal verbs, we carried out a survey in verb and verb collocation dictionaries. Then, based on the research by Kellerman (1977) and Ringbom (2007) on the importance of perceived and/or assumed cross-linguistics similarities in foreign language learning, as well as on Sjöholm’s (1995) study on their effect on the learning of phrasal verbs, we used a multiple-choice test and semi-structured interviews to examine the perceptions of Brazilian learners of English and determine whether the similarities between the two languages in question affect the way they comprehend and use phrasal verbs. The searches in Portuguese dictionaries evinced that Portuguese language has phrasal verbs and that many of them have similarities of form and meaning with their English equivalents. The multiple-choice test showed that the learners have a greater tendency to choose phrasal verbs in English when there are equivalents in Portuguese. In the interviews, all of the respondents were able to identify the Portuguese equivalents of the English phrasal verbs presented, in spite of not having consciously found that relationship between the languages during the test. The results indicate that the perception of cross-linguistic similarities between L1 Portuguese and FL English concerning phrasal verbs leads to the facilitation in the comprehension and use of those structures in the target foreign language.

In this thesis we explore the compositionality of particle verbs using distributional similarity and pre-trained word embeddings. We investigate the compositionality of 100 pairs of particle verbs with their base verbs. The ranking of our findings are compared to a ranking of human ratings on compositionality. In our distributional approach we use features such as context window size, content words, and only use particle verbs with one word sense. We then compare the distributional approach to a ranking done with pre-trained word embeddings. While none of the results are statistically significant, it is shown that word embeddings are not automatically superior to the more traditional distributional approach.