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- Volume 38, Issue, 2014
Studies in Language. International Journal sponsored by the Foundation “Foundations of Language” - Volume 38, Issue 2, 2014
Volume 38, Issue 2, 2014
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Structural change in Catalan discourse
Author(s): Montserrat Forcadell and Jaume Llopispp.: 237–274 (38)More LessFor the function of theme-rheme mapping onto sentence structure, Catalan right-dislocation, a syntactically-based operation, is being replaced by in situ accent-shift, a prosodic strategy. This structural innovation found in the data analysed is probably triggered by a calque from English and Spanish, which uses a prosodic variant. The occurrences found in the corpus (oral television production from non-spontaneous, supervised genres) indicate that the phenomenon is occurring unnoticed by language advisors. By showing that a non-standard prosodic strategy alien to the Catalan inventory has increased over the two periods studied, it is proved that the (structural) calque is making progress. The frequency of the occurrence of this calque may pave the way for its acceptance as a valid Catalan resource among Catalan speakers, as the intimate link between prosody and syntax in Catalan is blurred.
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Stative dimensional verbs in German
Author(s): Thomas Gamerschlagpp.: 275–334 (60)More LessStative verbs such as German wiegen ‘weigh’ and heißen ‘be called’ encode an attribute of the subject referent such as WEIGHT or NAME and, in addition, allow for the specification of a value for this attribute. From a cognitive perspective, we refer to attributes of this type as object dimensions and to stative verbs encoding object dimensions as stative dimensional verbs. We argue in favor of the relevance of these verbs to cognitive science and semantics. After introducing basic types of stative dimensional verbs, we discuss the results of an in-depth investigation of these verbs in German. In addition to the kind of dimensions encoded by stative verbs, there will be a particular focus on contrasts in the distribution of dimension encoding verbs, nouns, and adjectives. Moreover, we will present a taxonomy of stative dimensional verbs in dependence of the specific dimension.
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The basic color terms of Mandarin Chinese: A theory-driven experimental study
Author(s): Jingyi Gao and Urmas Sutroppp.: 335–359 (25)More LessIn this paper the theory of the evolution of basic color terms introduced by Berlin & Kay is applied to Mandarin Chinese. The data was collected using the fieldwork methods, color list and color-naming tasks. The rainbow order of colors does not affect the list task results. The results, i.e. basic color terms, are calculated according to the procedure in Davies & Corbett. There are nine basic color terms in Mandarin. Ranked according to the cognitive salience criterion they are the following: hóng ‘red’, huáng ‘yellow’, lu ‘green’, lán ‘blue’, hēi ‘black’, bái ‘white’, zǐ ‘purple’, fěn ‘pink’, and huī ‘gray’. Of the fully developed set of BCTs only the terms for ‘brown’ and ‘orange’ are absent. There are no real gender differences for the BCTs. Mandarin is a Stage VII basic color vocabulary language. The absence of the Stage VI term for ‘brown’ is explained using the wild-card theory. As a result Mandarin is not a counter-example to the theory of basic color terms. We suggest that the term chéng ‘orange’ is the next candidate for basic status in Mandarin. There are two competing terms for basic ‘brown’ zōng and hè. If one competing term for ‘brown’ (with high probability the term zōng) becomes basic, Mandarin Chinese will have a full set (eleven) of basic color terms.
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Stress on I: Debunking unitary contrast accounts
Author(s): Catherine E. Travis and Rena Torres Cacoullospp.: 360–392 (33)More LessMuch previous work on stress describes its function as being that of marking contrast. While some evidence has been adduced in experimental studies, work on spontaneous speech data has been plagued by a lack of operational definitions. To address this, we examine approximately 1,500 tokens of the English first singular subject pronoun in a corpus of conversational American English. Independently motivated operationalizations of contrast fail to support an overarching contrastive function of stress on I. Rather, examining co-occurrence patterns through multivariate analysis, we find that, besides chunked units (including discourse formulae as delimited by frequency and positioning), patterns of stress are subject to context-dependent discourse factors: accessibility (measured in distance from the previous mention), in tandem with coreferential priming (a tendency to repeat a preceding coreferential stressed I), as well as turn taking (an initial-position effect), and contrast in a semantic sense (manifested in higher rates of stress under negative polarity).
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The auditory demonstrative in Khaling
Author(s): Guillaume Jacques and Aimée Lahaussoispp.: 393–404 (12)More LessThis paper shows the existence of an auditory demonstrative in Khaling. The use of the demonstrative is illustrated via examples taken from narrative discourse. It is described here within the context of the spatial demonstrative system, in order to demonstrate how it is specifically used to highlight that perception of the referent is attained using the sense of audition, regardless of the visibility of the object in question. Khaling appears to be unique in having a true auditory demonstrative and it is hoped that this description will prompt field linguists to refine the description of the contrasts found within the demonstrative systems of languages around the world.
Volumes & issues
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Volume 49 (2025)
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Volume 48 (2024)
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Volume 47 (2023)
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Volume 46 (2022)
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Volume 45 (2021)
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Volume 44 (2020)
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Volume 43 (2019)
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Volume 42 (2018)
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Volume 41 (2017)
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Volume 40 (2016)
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Volume 39 (2015)
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Volume 38 (2014)
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Volume 37 (2013)
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Volume 36 (2012)
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Volume 35 (2011)
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Volume 34 (2010)
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Volume 33 (2009)
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Volume 32 (2008)
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Volume 31 (2007)
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Volume 30 (2006)
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Volume 29 (2005)
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Volume 28 (2004)
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Volume 27 (2003)
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Volume 26 (2002)
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Volume 25 (2001)
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Volume 24 (2000)
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Volume 23 (1999)
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Volume 22 (1998)
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Volume 21 (1997)
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Volume 20 (1996)
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Volume 19 (1995)
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Volume 18 (1994)
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Volume 17 (1993)
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Volume 16 (1992)
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Volume 15 (1991)
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Volume 14 (1990)
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Volume 13 (1989)
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Volume 12 (1988)
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Volume 11 (1987)
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Volume 10 (1986)
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Volume 9 (1985)
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Volume 8 (1984)
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Volume 7 (1983)
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Volume 6 (1982)
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Volume 5 (1981)
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Volume 4 (1980)
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Volume 3 (1979)
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Volume 2 (1978)
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Volume 1 (1977)
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