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Tenth High Desert Linguistics Society
Conference
November 1-3, 2012
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Keynote speakers:
Paul Dudis, Gallaudet University
Jane Hill, University of Arizona
Beth Levin, Stanford University
This year’s conference is dedicated to
the founders of the
High Desert Linguistics Society
and to those members who initiated the
High Desert Linguistics Society Conference
Table of Contents
Conference program
1
ABSTRACTS
Keynote Speakers
Paul Dudis
‘Scope in ASL Scene Depictions’
11
Jane Hill
‘On Eloquence and Official Registers in Heritage Languages’
13
Beth Levin
‘Slap, Give a Slap, Slap a Slap: Crosslinguistic Diversity in Hitting Event Descriptions’
15
Panels
Moderated Typology Panel
‘Diachrony and Typology’
17
Signed Language Panel 1
‘Effects of iconicity on signed language processing: Evidence from behavioral
and imaging studies’
19
Signed Language Panel 2
‘Effects of sign language knowledge on written word recognition in
deaf and hearing bilingual’ signers’
21
General Presentations and Posters (alphabetical by last name)
23
Program
2
2:00-‐2:25
12:30-‐1:45
12:00-‐12:25
JanneUe Hermina Maria Sotnikova S. ScoU Schupbach University of New Mexico University of New Mexico University of Montana Speech C
ommuni<es in Puerto Rico: An ethnographic study about The Role of Interac<on and Other-‐Repe<<on in the Early Blackfoot Demonstra<ves in Narra<ve Discourse
social class and children learning English in public and private Acquisi<on of Russian Aspect
schools of the island
Lunch
Naomi Lapidus-‐Shin Susan Brumbaugh Alex Trueman University of New Mexico University of New Mexico University of Arizona Adap<ve linguis<c behavior in a bilingual seNng:
Vowels Burqueños Say: Vowel measurements of a speaker Mo<on Compounds in Hiaki
Spanish in New York City
of Chicano English in Albuquerque
11:30-‐11:55
Lobo A & B
Robert Cruz, Keiko Beers, Laura Hirrel, Iphegenia Damian Vergara Wilson Joan Bybee & Shelece Easterday Kerfoot, Andrés Sabogal University of New Mexico University of New Mexico University of New Mexico Formulaic language in bilingual discourse: The case of Spanish The prominence of palataliza<on in assimila<on:
Describing reduplica<on paEerns in Tohono hacer with a borrowed English verb
a crosslinguis<c study
O’odham with language learners in mind
Fiesta A & B
Corinne Hutchison, Georgetown University Rebeca Mar;nez Gómez Christopher Adams & Aaron Marks Paul Platero, University of New Mexico University of New Mexico University of New Mexico Light Verbs in Navajo/English Code-‐mixing
The evolu<on of the Spanish Discourse Marker O sea
Voicing and the asymmetry in frica<ve loan adapta<ons
Santa Ana A & B
RegistraYon: Student Union Building (SUB)-‐-‐Upper level
11:00-‐11:25
8:30-‐10:45
Thursday, November 1st, 2012
3
Talk CANCELLED
Lobo A & B
KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
Beth Levin, Stanford University
Slap, Give a Slap, Slap a Slap: CrosslinguisVc Diversity in Hi[ng Event DescripVons
Opening celebraVon: Lesa Young's house (details to be provided)
7:00-‐9:00
LOBO A & B
Welcome and opening remarks
Michele Kiser Armik Mirzayan Carol Lynn Moder University of New Mexico University of South Dakota Oklahoma State University Intona<on Units in Navajo: Phonological Pitch Range Rela<ons in Lakota
Healthy Balance: Usage-‐based Noun Modifica<on
The Polysynthe<c Factor
Conor Snoek Elizabeth Herring Olesya Ostapenko University of Alberta Indiana University University of Wisconsin, Whitewater Visualizing dialect geography in Northern
Guarani Imperfec<ve hína Use in Paraguayan Spanish: Who will catch whom? Mul<ple wh-‐ques<ons in
Athapaskan through Kinship terms
A First Step
L1 English -‐ L2 Russian Interlanguage
Coffee Break
4:30-‐6:00
4:00-‐4:25
3:30-‐3:55
3:00-‐3:20
2:30-‐2:55
Fiesta A & B
ChrisYan Koops Víctor Valdivia University of New Mexico University of New Mexico A tone synthesizer for language documenta<on
Determining prefab status in New Mexican Spanish, and revitaliza<on
the case of decir
Santa Ana A & B
4
1:30-‐2:30
12:00-‐1:15
11:00-‐12:00
10:30-‐10:50
10:00-‐10:25
9:30-‐9:55
9:00-‐9:25
8:00-‐8:45
Lobo A & B
Lunch Break
• Terese Anderson & Grandon Goertz, Texas A & M; University of New Mexico, Perspec<ves on the vowel space
• Benjamin Anible, University of New Mexico, Sensi<vity to English Verb Biases by ASL English Bilinguals
• Hyuna B. Kim, University of Southern California, Double Accessibility in informa<on structure
• George Ann Gregory & Joanna Neal, University of Maryland & Central New Mexico Community College; Independent Researcher, S<ll Waters: Metaphors in the Choctaw transla<ons of the 23rd Psalm
• ChrisYna Healy, Gallaudet University, Affect Verbs in American Sign Language
• Holly A. Lakey, University of Oregon, The morphosyntax of fear and the metaphor of spa<al distance
• Amy Lindstrom, University of New Mexico, Seems like something's going on here: an analysis of epistemic markers in conversa<onal English
• Ricardo Napoleão de Souza, University of New Mexico, The emergence of syllable structure? Data from gradient vowel reduc<on in Brazilian Portuguese
• Stacey I. Oberly, University of Arizona, American Indian Development InsVtute, A Case-‐Study of a Grass Roots Language Revitaliza<on Project on the Southern Ute Reserva<on
• Lorena Orjuela & David Andrés Páez Acevedo, Universidade de São Paulo; University of New Mexico, Plosive systems of Macuna and Yucuna, and their possible rela<on
• John Tyczkowski, University of New Mexico, A Frame Seman<cs Approach to Machine Transla<on
• André Nogueira Xavier, State University of Campinas (UNICAMP,Brazil), Doubling of the number of hands as a resource for the expression of meaning intensifica<on in Libras (Brazilian Sign Language)
POSTER SESSION (1:30-‐3:00; Lobo A & B)
SIGNED LANGUAGE PANEL 1: MODERATED T YPOLOGY PANEL: Effects of iconicity on signed language processing:
Diachrony and Typology
Croc,
Evidence from behavioral and imaging studies Panelists: J oan B ybee, W
illiam Ian Maddieson, Rosa Vallejos
Panelists: Jeannine Kammann-‐Cessac, Corrine Occhino-‐Kehoe, Shelece Easterday, Logan Sufon
(University of New Mexico) Moderators: Clicon Langdon, (Gallaudet University) (University o f N ew M
exico) Coffee Break Valerie J. Trujillo Joan Bybee Lesa Young University of Florida University of New Mexico University of New Mexico The effect of syllabic restructuring on the Analy<c and holis<c processing in the
Familiarity and Overlap in ASL Conversa<ons
detec<on of non-‐na<ve speech development of construc<ons
Jaime Peña Jesse Stewart & Erin Wilkinson Hien Tran University of Oregon University of Manitoba University of New Mexico Numeral Classifiers in the Upper Amazon-‐
Disfluencies in Signed Language Narra<ves Conceptualiza<on of sadness in Vietnamese
Putumayo Area
Laura Janda, Lene Antonsen, Biret Ánn Bals Baal Deborah Wager ChrisYan Koops, University of New Mexico University of Tromsø, Norway University of New Mexico Arne Lohmann, University of Vienna A Radial Category Profiling Analysis of North
Repairing the Common Ground in a Joint ASL Narra<ve: A Mental Exploring discourse marker classes via Sámi Ambiposi<ons
Spaces Approach
sequencing constraints
Santa Ana A & B
Friday, November 2nd, 2012
Fiesta A & B
5
4:45-‐6:15
4:30-‐4:45
4:00-‐4:25
3:30-‐3:55
3:00-‐3:25
2:30-‐2:55
Fiesta A & B
Lobo A & B
The responsibility con<nuum: Using Construc<on Grammar to fine-‐tune the meanings of apologies
No scheduled events
KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
Jane Hill, University of Arizona On Eloquence and Official Registers in Heritage Languages
LOBO A & B
Break
Inge Genee University of Lethbridge SIGNED LANGUAGE PANEL 2: On the dual func<on of so-‐called ‘abstract finals’
(Poster take down)
Effects of sign language knowledge on wriGen word in Blackfoot: a Func<onal Discourse Grammar recogniDon in deaf and hearing bilingual signers approach
Panelists: Paul Twitchell (University of New Mexico), Gusztav Demeter Agnes Villwock (U of Hamburg), Erin Wilkinson (University of Manitoba) Case Western Reserve University Michelle Garcia-‐Vega Wolfgang Mann University of Alberta University of Texas at AusVn (Posters remain up for viewing)
The classifier-‐numeral construc<on in Upper
Deaf Children’s Understanding of Different Form-‐Meaning Necaxa Totonac: unifica<on or lexical specifica<on
Mappings in ASL
Jordan Lachler Vivion Sloan Canadian Indigenous Languages and Literacy Gallaudet University (Poster Session ConDnues unDl 3:00)
Development InsVtute; University of Alberta Two American Sign Language Nominal Construc<ons Involving The Seman<cs of the Classifier System in Haida
Signs Resembling Pronouns
Santa Ana A & B
6
Fiesta A & B
Lobo A & B
Lunch Break
11:30-‐11:55
12:00-‐1:15
Rocío MarYnez Ajmal Khan Shelece Easterday Consejo Nacional de InvesVgaciones Cienoficas y
University of Auckland, New Zealand University of New Mexico Técnicas and Universidad de Buenos Aires Language planning at the micro-‐level: the case
Prosodic correlates of focus in ques<on-‐answer pairs AEribu<ve Signs in Argen<ne Sign Language (LSA): of elite English-‐medium schools in Pakistan
in Yakima Sahap<n
State verbs or adjec<ves?
11:00-‐11:25
Terry Janzen, University of Manitoba Aimee L. Lawrence Lorrain Leeson, Trinity College Dublin University of Texas at AusVn Barbara Shaffer, University of New Mexico Exploi<ng Metalinguis<c Awareness to Maintain
Cogni<ve Mo<va<ons for Pronoun Loca<on in
Linguis<c Diversity in Amazonia
ASL and ISL
Coffee Break
Io-‐Kei Joaquim Kuong Corrine Occhino-‐Kehoe & Benjamin Anible Joshua Mee University of Macau University of New Mexico University of New Mexico To invert or not to invert: Adult Chinese speakers' L2 acquisi<on of A case of gramma<caliza<on in ASL: What’s
Mental Space Theory in Spoken Discourse
the forma<on of English embedded interroga<ves
happening with HAPPEN?
Danielle G. Barth You-‐Min Lin Esther P ascual, University of Groningen University of Oregon University of New Mexico Maria J osep Jarque, University of Barcelona Matukar Panau nominaliza<on and erstwhile
De-‐ marked Chinese verb complements: What? Gramma<calized polar ques<ons in
argument expression
The role of construc<ons in language change
signed and indigenous languages
Rosa Vallejos Chang Liu Erin Wilkinson University of New Mexico University of New Mexico University of Manitoba Coreference control and informa<on structure in
Do Chinese Understand Chinese?-‐-‐ Speech
Gramma<cal and seman<c dis<nc<ons in SELF
Kokama purpose clauses
Recogni<on in Chinese Topolects
pronouns in American Sign Language
Santa Ana A & B
Jeremy Boyd, Farrell Ackerman & Marta Kutas University of California, San Diego Independent entrenchment and preemp<on
effects in gramma<cal constraint learning
10:30-‐10:50
10:00-‐10:25
9:30-‐10:00
9:00-‐9:30
8:00-‐8:45
Saturday, November 3rd, 2012
7
Lobo A & B
Closing celebraVon: Keiko Beers's house (details to be provided)
Leah Geer University of Texas at AusVn A cross-‐linguis<c examina<on of the Symmetry & Dominance Constraints
Miako (Villanueva) Rankin Gallaudet University Defocused Agent Expression in American Sign Language
7:30-‐10:00
LOBO A & B
Break
Coffee Break
Jesse Stewart University of Manitoba Prolonga<ons as a Disfluency in American Sign Language
KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
Paul Dudis, Gallaudet University
Scope in ASL Scene Depic<ons
Iraida Galarza Indiana University Mood varia<on with epistemic adverbs in
Spanish: a diachronic look
Aubrey Healey Benjamin Anible Andrés Mauricio Sabogal University of New Mexico University of New Mexico University of New Mexico Prefabs and priming in second-‐person address
Easier Said than Done: Metaphor interpreta<on
The Revival of Añunnükü or Paraujano Language (Arawak)
in New Mexico and Southern Colorado
between English and American Sign Language
Grandon Goertz Terry Janzen, University of Manitoba University of New Mexico Barbara S haffer, University of New Mexico The dimensions of the lexicon
The Interpreter as Intersubjec<ve Discourse Par<cipant
Fiesta A & B
4:45-‐6:15
4:30-‐4:45
4:00-‐4:25
3:30-‐3:55
3:00-‐3:20
2:30-‐2:55
2:00-‐2:25
1:30-‐1:55
Karol Ibarra ZeUer & Anni Leming University of New Mexico Analyzing Humor and
Sexual Language in Local Adver<sements
Santa Ana A & B
Abstracts
Scope in ASL Scene Depictions
Paul G. Dudis
Gallaudet University
This presentation describes recent cognitive linguistic investigations on the depictive uses
of space in ASL These investigations were prompted in part by descriptive issues arising during
work on depiction typology, described below. The presentation opens with a discussion of what
the term depiction is intended to describe, followed by a brief review of two types of scene
depictions, setting up the main issue to be addressed.
One type of scene depiction has been labeled as surrogate space by Liddell (1994, 1995,
2003), described as “a mental space in which aspects of events are grounded in the physical
space that includes the signer” (Liddell 1995:30). Suggested elsewhere (e.g. Dudis 2011) is
evidence that surrogate spaces can be produced to depict not only events but spatial relationships
between objects as well. This necessitates a revision in the definition of surrogate space to
include life-sized depiction of scenes in which spatial setting encompasses the signerʼs body. The
second type of scene depiction has been labeled as a (3D) diagrammatic space (Emmorey and
Falgier 1999). This could be characterized as being a smaller-scaled scene depiction that makes
use of a limited portion of space in front of the signer.
Prompting the descriptive issue are scene depictions that are life-sized but whose spatial
setting does not encompass the signerʼs body, thereby complicating attempts to characterize
them. Examples include depictions of the shape of life-sized objects, which can occur without
indicating the locations of objects within related settings. The shape of, say, a pipe that one
discovered at a location a distance up and well out of reach can be depicted in this way. This
depiction employs a limited portion of space in front of the signer so that, unlike within the
surrogate space, the signerʼs vantage point is excluded from the scene depiction. This is
contrasted with a different instance of the verb in which the hands are raised and directed
towards where the surrogate pipe is conceived to be from a vantage point (which is described in
Emmorey and Falgier 1999 as the use of a high signing plane).
This particular issue is proposed here to be a matter of construal, specifically scope-which is an aspect of focusing (Langacker 2008). Scope figures in both linguistic expressions
and non-linguistic experience (e.g. vision), and is “always bounded, in the abstract sense of
having only limited expanse” (Langacker 2008:63). The two different instances of the pipe
depiction given above are described here as differing in scope, which impacts the extent of space
they utilize. This analysis leads us to consider other issues concerning scene depictions,
including the structure of diagrammatic space. Another issue pertains to what has been described
as direct and indirect constructed action (Metzger 1995; related phenomena also discussed in
Lentz 1986 and Liddell 2003), where there is variation in the degree to which the body
participates in the life-sized depictions of events.
11
References
Dudis, Paul. 2011. The body in scene depictions. In Cynthia B. Roy (ed.), Discourse in Signed
Languages. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 3-45.
Emmorey, Karen and Brenda Falgier. 1999. Talking about space with space: Describing
environments in ASL. In Elizabeth A. Winston (ed.), Storytelling and Conversation:
Discourse in Deaf Communities. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 3-26.
Langacker, Ronald. 2008. Cognitive Grammar: A Basic Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Lentz, Ella M. 1986. Teaching role-shifting. In Carol Padden (ed.), Proceedings of the Fourth
National Symposium on Sign Language Research and Teaching. Silver Spring, MD:
National Association of the Deaf, 58–69.
Liddell, Scott. 1994. Tokens and surrogates. In Inger Ahlgren, Brita Bergman, and Mary
Brennan (eds.), Perspectives on Sign Language Structure. Papers from the Fifth
International Symposium on Sign Language Research, vol. I. University of Durham,
England: The Deaf Studies Research Unit, 105–119.
Liddell, Scott. 1995. Real, surrogate, and token space: Grammatical consequences in ASL. In
Karen Emmorey and Judy Reilly (eds.), Language, Gesture, and Space. Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 19–41.
Liddell, Scott. 2003. Grammar, Gesture, and Meaning in American Sign Language. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Metzger, Melanie. 1995. Constructed dialogue and constructed action in American Sign
Language. In Ceil Lucas (ed.), Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities. Washington, DC:
Gallaudet University Press, 255–271.
12
On Eloquence and Official Registers in Heritage Languages
Jane Hill
University of Arizona
Most of the effort to produce materials for second-language learners of Native American
languages focuses on the needs of children and youth. However, communities often want to
produce materials in "official" registers, such as tribal or band mottoes, formal invitations, texts
for short speeches, and mission statements. The texts that have been provided to me for
translation in such cases are all expressed in appropriate American English bureaucratic
language. Often, forms of eloquence appropriate to adult registers at the time when a language
was widely used in a community can be retrieved from old collections of text. The problem I'll
discuss is that of reconciling the ideologies and institutional presuppositions implicit in these old
expressive forms with those implicit in the English-language adult registers preferred for official
use today, in order to produce contemporary heritage-language materials that are both eloquent
and usable.
13
14
Slap, Give a Slap, Slap a Slap: Crosslinguistic Diversity in Hitting Event Descriptions
Beth Levin
Stanford University
The encoding of hitting events has not received systematic crosslinguistic investigation, yet
hitting verbs provide an effective counterpoint to the much-studied breaking verbs in Fillmore's
(1970) well-known case study, "The Grammar of Hitting and Breaking". This talk aims to
redress the balance: I present the results of an ongoing survey of the encoding of hitting
events across languages and discuss its contribution to our understanding of the principles that
govern the encoding of events in language.
In English, hitting verbs stand out for their alternate realizations of the argument denoting the
surface contacted: though typically expressed as an object (Smith hit his attacker), it may be
expressed in a PP (Smith hit at his attacker, Smith hit a stick against the fence). Moving beyond
English, available studies of hitting events reveal crosslinguistic diversity in their encoding:
languages make use not only of the strategies found in English, but also additional ones. Two
observations emerge from this exploration. First, across the languages surveyed, there is some
resistance to expressing the surface as a canonical direct object, especially if its referent is
inanimate. Thus, hitting verbs contrast strikingly with breaking verbs, which across languages
consistently express their patient only as a direct object when transitive. Second, some
languages express at least some part of the manner component of the event outside the verb, e.g.,
as the complement of a light verb or a basic hitting verb, as a cognate object, or as an ideophonic
adverbial modifier. In this talk, I focus on the second observation regarding the diverse
expressions of the manner content in hitting event descriptions, exploring both its sources
and consequences, and I touch on the first observation in this context.
I argue that the expression of manner, including instruments involved, outside the verb is another
manifestation of a reduced manner verb inventory---a hallmark of lexical inventories previously
identified in studies of the lexicalization patterns of motion events. I consider the repercussions
of encoding manner outside the verb for argument realization in the context of the
theory presented in Rappaport Hovav & Levin (1998, 2005, 2010). The varied realization of the
surface, which contrasts with the uniform realization of a patient, follows because breaking verbs
are result verbs, and result verbs, as verbs of scalar change, must express their patient as their
object. This restriction does not apply to hitting verbs, which as manner verbs are not verbs of
scalar change, opening the door for the multiple realizations of the surface attested in English
and beyond. However, the available options may be restricted for language-specific reasons;
hence, the diversity of argument realization patterns attested. I review how some of the observed
options arise from the interaction between argument realization principles and the external
expression of manner. For instance, in those languages where the manner component is
expressed using a nominal denoting a tool or body part (e.g., hit a cane/fist against X), this
nominal, as a moving entity, may take precedence over the surface as direct object; as a
consequence, the surface must have an oblique realization.
In concluding, I suggest that the range of encoding options available for hitting events, including
both the alternative realizations of the surface and the various expressions of the hitting predicate
15
itself, stem at least in part from the interaction of crosslinguistically applicable argument
realization principles with differences in the lexical and morphosyntactic resources available to
the languages under consideration. In fact, Beavers, Levin & Tham (2010) make the same point
with respect to the encoding of motion events. Thus, independent differences among languages
can hide considerable commonalities among them.
16
Diachrony and Typology
Linguistic typology and the study of language change are fields that have much to offer one
another in explaining the patterns found in the world’s languages. This panel presentation will
showcase some of the research being done in the Department of Linguistics at the University of
New Mexico by provoking a discussion on this topic among four scholars who study these areas.
Professors Joan Bybee, William Croft, Ian Maddieson, and Rosa Vallejos will draw from their
diverse expertise in phonological, morphological, and syntactic change, grammaticization,
grammatical typology, phonological typology, the origin and evolution of language, and
language contact to discuss major questions in how studies in typology and diachronic language
change can inform one another to arrive at a clearer picture of the world’s linguistic landscape,
past and present. Topics of this conversation will include the role typology can play in
investigating and parsing apart deep genetic relationships, areal contact, and population
movements, and the contentious issue of how to best develop a balanced typological sample to
account for and reliably determine factors of linguistic universals, linguistic areas, and genetic
relationships. The panelists will open and close the discussion with their own unique views on
the state of the field and the future directions in which research should be taken.
Panelists’ Biographies
Joan Bybee was on the faculty at the SUNY at Buffalo from 1973-1989 and is now
Distinguished Professor Emerita of the Department of Linguistics at the UNM, where she has
served as department chair, associate dean and director of the 1995 LSA Linguistic Institute.
Bybee’s research interests include theoretical issues in phonology and morphology, language
universals and linguistic change. Her work utilizing large cross-linguistic databases, e.g.
Morphology: A study of the relation between Meaning and Form (1985), The Evolution of
Grammar: Tense, Aspect and Modality in the Languages of the World (with Perkins and
Pagliuca, 1994), provide diachronic explanations for typological phenomena. In addition, her
books presenting a usage-based perspective on synchrony and diachrony include Phonology and
Language Use (2001) and Frequency of Use and the Organization of language (2007), Language,
Usage and Cognition (2010).
William Croft received his Ph.D. in 1986 at Stanford University under Joseph Greenberg. He
has taught at the Universities of Michigan, Manchester (UK) and New Mexico, and has been a
visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institutes of Psycholinguistics and Evolutionary Anthropology,
and at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He has written several books,
including Typology and Universals, Explaining Language Change, Radical Construction
Grammar, and Verbs: Aspect and Causal Structure. His primary research areas are typology,
semantics, construction grammar and language change. He has argued that grammatical structure
can only be understood in terms of the variety of constructions used to express functions across
languages; that both qualitative and quantitative methods are necessary for grammatical analysis;
and that the study of language structure must be situated in the dynamics of evolving
conventions of language use in social interaction.
17
Ian Maddieson is an Adjunct Research Professor at the Department of Linguistics, University of
New Mexico, and Adjunct Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley,
Department of Linguistics. His Ph. D. is from UCLA where he worked for many years in the
Phonetics Lab directed by Peter Ladefoged. His major research interest is in the variety of speech
sounds and sound structures used in the world’s languages and the patterns of co-occurrence,
frequency and geographical distribution they display. This interest has led more recently also to
an interest in the origins of spoken language. His major publications include Patterns of Sounds,
The Sounds of the World’s Languages (with Peter Ladefoged) and 13 chapters contributed to the
World Atlas of Language Structures. He is currently working with colleagues in France to
develop an on-line database on sound systems of over 700 languages.
Rosa Vallejos’s research is centered in Amazonia, and integrates functional syntax, documentary
fieldwork and Spanish in contact with Amazonian languages. She has published on ditransitive
constructions, valence-changing mechanisms, and strategies for expressing focus of assertion in
spontaneous speech, among others. Her current projects include documenting the linguistic
expression of information structure factors in two typologically distinct Amazonian languages –
Kokama (Tupian-based creole) and Secoya (Tucanoan) – and testing the hypothesis that nonfinite clauses (subordination and clause chaining) correlate with background and/or presupposed
information. As for Amazonian Spanish, Vallejos focuses on morphosyntactic variation and
contact-induced change, particularly in the domain of modality. In her research the collection of
first-hand data through original fieldwork is a crucial component. Currently, she is building
corpora for Kokama, Secoya, and Amazonian Spanish.
18
Effects of iconicity on signed language processing:
Evidence from behavioral and imaging studies
Researchers from varying theoretical viewpoints have debated extensively whether the human
mind exploits the apparent iconicity in signed languages as a critical language element or a superficial
incidence nominally affecting language form but not language processing. Past psycholinguistic and
neuroimaging studies have generated conflicting results regarding the effects of iconicity on language
processing (Bosworth & Emmorey, 2010; MacSweeney et al., 2002; Thompson et al. 2009). Our goal is
to present recent work from behavioral and imaging studies exploring effects of iconicity using novel
methods.
#1: Whose iconicity? Perceptions of iconicity in signers of different signed languages
Benjamin Anible1,2, Jill P. Morford1,2, Corrine Occhino-Kehoe1,2 & Erin Wilkinson1,3
1VL2, 2University
of New Mexico, 3University of Manitoba
Investigations on the role of iconicity in language processing often rely on iconicity
ratings to determine whether signs are iconic. On what basis do individuals make iconicity
judgements? Following Wilcox (2004:122), we argue iconicity “is a distance relation between
the phonological and semantic poles of symbolic structures”, and that for signed languages,
these poles reside in conceptually similar spaces. If this is so, experience with a specific signed
language should influence perceptions of iconicity. We test this hypothesis by asking
American Sign Language (ASL) signers and German Sign Language (DGS) signers to
rate iconicity of 43 ASL and 43 DGS signs. Signers consistently rate native language signs as more
iconic than foreign language signs irrespective of the dimension on which the signs are matched.
#2: The convergence of form and meaning processing in ASL classifiers
Jeannine Kammann-Cessac & Jill P. Morford, University of New Mexico & VL2
Classifier constructions are highly imagistic, but previously have not been the foci of
psycholinguistic studies. This study investigates whether linguistic form can be processed
independently of meaning for signs that vary in their degree of iconic motivation. Participants
completed a handshape monitoring task in which target handshapes appeared in ASL classifier
constructions, core signs, and nonce signs. Non-signing hearing participants identified target
handshapes in the three sign types equally fast, but deaf ASL signers were faster to identify handshapes
in core and nonce signs than in classifier constructions. These differences in reaction time suggest that
form processing is not independent of semantics.
#3: The neural signature of classifier constructions: fNIRS brain-imaging evidence
Clifton Langdon & Laura-Ann Petitto, Gallaudet University & VL2
19
Current approaches to classifier constructions have been characterized either as utilizing a
linguistic system that can exploit iconicity (e.g. Liddell, 2003) or as an exhaustively morphemic
approach (e.g. Supalla, 1990). To gain novel insight into the underlying basis of this ASL system, we
utilize fNIRS brain imaging methodology as a tool to adjudicate between the hypotheses that classifier
constructions engage additional neural systems (H1) or that they are only processed by the same neural
systems as other verbs that carry grammatical inflection (H2). If H1 is supported, it would suggest that
sign languages are able to exploit iconic bases in a similar manner as spoken languages do with
ideophones (Arata et al., 2009). If H2 is supported it suggests that the exhaustively morphemic
approach is more felicitous than linguistic analyses that propose classifier constructions can be
decomposed into gestural and linguistic components.
References
Arata, M., Imai, M., Okuda, J., Okada, H. & Matsuda, T. (2010). Gesture in language: How sound
symbolic words are processed in the brain. In the Proceedings of the 32nd Annual meeting of the
Cognitive Science Society. pp. 1374-1379
Bosworth, R. G., & Emmorey, K. (2010). Effects of iconicity and semantic relatedness on lexical
access in american sign language. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and
Cognition, 36, 1573–1581. doi:10.1037/a0020934
Liddell, S. (2003). Grammar, gesture, and meaning in American Sign Language. Cambridge. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
MacSweeney, M., Woll, B., Campbell, R., Calvert, G. A., McGuire, P. K., David, A. S., Simmons, A., et
al. (2002). Neural correlates of British sign language comprehension: spatial processing demands of
topographic language. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14(7), 1064–1075.
Thompson, R. L., Vinson, D. P., & Vigliocco, G. (2009). The link between form and meaning in
American Sign Language: Lexical processing effects. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning,
Memory, and Cognition, 35, 550–557. doi:10.1037/a0014547
Supalla, T. (1986). The classifier system in American sign language. In C. G. Craig (Ed.), Noun classes
and categorization, Typological Series in Language (Vol. 7, pp. 181–214). Philadelphia, PA.
Wilcox, S. (2004). Conceptual spaces and embodied actions: Cognitive iconicity and signed languages.
Cognitive Linguistics, 15(2), 119–147.
20
Effects of sign language knowledge
on written word recognition in deaf and hearing bilingual signers
Research on hearing bilinguals has established that bilinguals never fully suppress
the non-target language during lexical processing (Dijkstra & Van Heuven, 2002; Marian
& Spivey, 2003; Van Hell & Dijkstra, 2002). Of various between-language factors that
may influence word recognition in bilinguals, cognate status appears to account for the
most variability (Lemhöfer et al., 2008). But suppose a bilingual knows two languages
that do not share cognates? Current theorizing would predict that in the absence of
cognates, lexical processing should not be influenced by the non-target language.
One approach to test this hypothesis is to investigate effects of sign language
knowledge on written word recognition. In spite of a lack of cognates in American Sign
Language (ASL) and English, cross-language activation effects were recently
documented in deaf (Morford et al., 2011) and hearing (Shook et al., 2012) ASL-English
bilinguals. This panel explores the nature of cross-language influences in different
populations of deaf and hearing bilinguals who are fluent in a signed language.
Effects of proficiency and language dominance on cross-language activation
in deaf ASL-English bilinguals
Paul Twitchell, UNM, Judith F. Kroll, Pennsylvania State University, Pilar Piñar,
Gallaudet University, Jill P. Morford, UNM, Erin Wilkinson, University of Manitoba
NSF Science of Learning Center on Visual Language & Visual Learning (VL2)
The first paper in the panel reports findings from a study that replicates crosslanguage activation effects in deaf ASL-English bilinguals, and extends the findings to
two new populations of signing bilinguals: deaf ASL-dominant bilinguals and hearing
English-dominant bilinguals. These effects were found using a monolingual English task
in which participants decided whether two words were semantically related (cf. Thierry
& Wu, 2007). Half of the stimuli had phonologically related translation equivalents in
ASL, and half had unrelated translation equivalents. Because the task does not require
translating the stimuli into ASL, effects of the ASL manipulation are a strong indication
that bilinguals access the ASL translations during English word recognition. Language
dominance influenced the size of the cross-language activation effect, with more robust
effects of L1 knowledge on L2 processing than the reverse.
Word recognition in deaf readers: Effects of German Sign Language knowledge on
German print word processing
Agnes Villwock, University of Hamburg, Okan Kubuş, University of Hamburg, Jill P.
Morford, UNM & Christian Rathmann, University of Hamburg
NSF Science of Learning Center on Visual Language & Visual Learning (VL2) &
Institut für Deutsche Gebärdensprache und Kommunikation Gehörloser
The second paper in our panel reports the results of a study that investigates
whether deaf bilinguals in Germany also exhibit cross-language activation effects. The
study investigated whether DGS signs are activated during a monolingual German word
recognition task. Deaf DGS-German bilinguals saw pairs of German words and decided
21
whether the words were semantically related. Half of the experimental items had
phonologically related translation equivalents in DGS. Participants were slower to reject
semantically unrelated word pairs when the translation equivalents were phonologically
related in DGS than when the DGS translations were phonologically unrelated.The
results indicate that deaf DGS-German bilinguals activate DGS signs during German
print word recognition despite a lack of form similarity between the two languages.
Implications of these results for reading development in deaf German bilinguals are
discussed.
The timecourse of cross-language activation in deaf ASL-English bilinguals
Erin Wilkinson, University of Manitoba, Corrine Occhino-Kehoe, UNM, Pilar Piñar,
Gallaudet University, Judith F. Kroll, Pennsylvania State University
NSF Science of Learning Center on Visual Language & Visual Learning (VL2)
The third paper in our panel explores the time course of cross-language
activation in deaf ASL-English bilinguals. When deaf bilinguals see a written word, does
activation spread directly to ASL phonological forms, or are ASL forms only activated
after the semantics of the English word are activated? The paradigm used by Morford et
al. (2011) included a 1 second stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA), allowing ample time for
activation from the English word to spread to semantics, and then from semantics to ASL
phonological forms. We present results from a replication study in which SOA was
manipulated such that stimulus words were separated by 750 ms SOA in one condition,
but only 250 SOA in a second condition. We replicated the cross-language activation
effect at both SOAs, strongly indicating that activation spreads directly from English
print to ASL phonological forms.
References:
Dijkstra, A., & Van Heuven, W. J. B. (2002). The architecture of the bilingual word
recognition system: From identification to decision. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition, 5, 175-197.
Lemhöfer, K., Dijkstra, T.,Schriefers, H., Baayen, R. H., Grainger, J., & Zwitserlood, P.
(2008). Native language influences on word recognition in a second language: A
megastudy. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and
Cognition, 34, 12-31.
Marian, V., & Spivey, M. J. (2003). Competing activation in bilingual language
processing: Within- and between-language competition. Bilingualism: Language
and Cognition, 6, 97-115.
Thierry, G., & Wu, Y. J. (2007). Brain potentials reveal unconscious translation during
foreign language comprehension. Proceeding of National Academy of Sciences, 104,
12530-12535.
Shook, A., & Marian, V. (2012). Bimodal bilinguals co-activate both languages during
spoken comprehension. Cognition, doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2012.05.014.
Van Hell, J. G. & Dijkstra, A. (2002). Foreign language knowledge can influence native
language performance in exclusively native contexts. Psychonomic Bulletin &
Review, 9, 780–789.
22
Voicing and the asymmetry in fricative loan adaptations
Christopher Adam (University of New Mexico)
Aaron Marks (University of New Mexico)
VOICED
VOICELESS
In adapting loanword consonants to native phonology, several strategies are available to
languages. The sacrifice of place to preserve manner (i.e. manner-faithfulness), and the sacrifice
of manner to preserve place (i.e. place-faithfulness), are two such strategies. When languages
borrow, they tend to employ one more than the other or both. In languages with an impoverished
fricative inventory, it should come as no surprise that the fricative manner is sacrificed in
loanwords in order to accommodate faithfulness of place. While this is a satisfying enough
explanation typologically, this study goes a step further by examining the acoustic perceptual
reasons for this tendency.
Within place-faithful languages, an apparent asymmetry which requires further
explanation is the role aspirate contrasts play in the treatment of imported fricatives. Placefaithful languages treat imported voiceless fricatives as allophones of voiceless aspirate plosives
(when a contrast exists), but do not treat voiced fricatives as allophones of voiced aspirate
plosives (when a contrast exists); rather, they treat these as allophones of voiced non-aspirate
plosives.
The table below provides a schema for this process in Hindi, a place-faithful language
with both voiceless and voiced aspirate contrasts. Though the source languages and time periods
for the loans differ by many centuries, the same pattern of voiceless fricatives being mapped to
voiceless aspirate plosives and voiced fricatives being mapped to voiced non-aspirate plosives
provides a recurring pattern which is not by any means negligible:
imported
x
θ
f
ɣ
ð
v
maps to Hindi
kʰ
t̪ ʰ
pʰ
ɡ
d̪
b
source
xun (Persian)
miθeɪn (English)
fayṣlā (Perso-Arabic)
ɣalaṭ (Perso-Arabic)
hɛðəɹ ɡɹæm (English)
vǝn (Sanskrit)
Hindi
kʰūn
mīt̪ ʰen
pʰeslā/feslā
ɡǝlǝt̪
hed̪ ǝr ɡrem
bǝn
meaning
‘blood’
‘methane’ 1
‘decision’
‘wrong’
‘Heather Graham’ 2
‘forest’
To support these theoretical findings with quantifiable acoustic measurements, we tested
our intuitive hypothesis that the segment mapping occurred on the basis of mean duration.
Voiceless fricatives map to voiceless aspirated plosives, and voiced fricatives map to voiced
plain plosives, because, for the imported fricative segments (e.g. /x/), the mean duration of the
actual target segment (e.g. /kʰ/) is closer to it than that of the potential target segment with equal
voicing and place but opposite aspiration value (e.g. /k/).
Our measurements for the velar series in Hindi are given below. This data was obtained
by using Praat to measure the duration of consonant tokens in words taken from popular Hindiand Urdu-language media.
Kumar, R. (2011, December 13). घातक �मथेन के दषु ्प्र रोकने क� अनूठ� पहल. State Hindi News. Retrieved
December 29, 2011, from http://statehindinews.blogspot.com/2011/09/blog-post_7153.html
2
हे दर क� हरकत ने है रत म� डाला. (2008, March 18). नवभारत टाइम्. Retrieved December 24, 2011, from
1
http://navbharattimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2879193.cms; 'गर
ु ' को भार� सफलता. (2002, August 29). BBC
Hindi. Retrieved December 24, 2011, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/hindi/news/020828_guru_sz.shtml
23
[k]
[kʰ]
[x]
[ɡ]
[ɡʱ]
[ɣ]
Mean duration (seconds) 0.056 0.093 0.087 0.062 0.109 0.074
Number of tokens
33
25
26
24
25
26
Statistical analysis of the data showed that the difference in mean duration between /k/
and /x/ and between /k/ and /kʰ/ were highly significant (p <0.001). The difference between /k/
and /x/ was not significant (0.3 <p <0.4). Likewise, the difference in mean duration between /ɡʱ/
and /ɣ/ and between /ɡʱ/ and /ɡ/ were highly significant (p<0.001). The difference between /ɡ/
and /ɣ/ was more significant than that between /kʰ/ and /x/, but still below the threshold of α =
0.01 (0.05<p<0.1). These results confirm our hypothesis that voiceless fricatives map in duration
to voiceless aspirates, while voiced fricatives map in duration to voiced non-aspirates, based on
perception.
It is our belief that our advancement to this argument will profoundly change the overall
approach to phonological typology and ideally reform OT to make it more typology friendly.
Boersma, P. and Hamann, S. 2007. “Phonological perception in loanword adaptation”. Old
World Conference in Phonology 4, Rhodes.
Kim, H. 2009. Korean adaptation of English affricates and fricatives in a feature-driven model of
loanword adaptation. In Calabrese, Andrea, and W. Leo Wetzels (eds.). Loan Phonology.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Peperkamp, S. 2004. A psycholinguistic theory of loanword adaptations. In M. Ettlinger, N.
Fleisher, and M. Park-Doob (eds.) Proceedings of BLS 30 341--352. Berkeley: BLS.
Hawk & Kim
24
Perspectives on the vowel space
Grandon Goertz, University of New Mexico
Terese Anderson, Texas A & M University
Vowel spaces are traditionally measured by utilizing PRAAT and the formant values
of F1 and F2 are plotted on a log-log two-dimensional vowel space, similar representation to
the IPA chart. Explanations of the use of these charts can be found in Johnson (2003), Rogers
(2000), Thomas, (2011), and Lass (1991). Recent improvements to formant plotting
techniques and evaluations have been made as well (Koops, 2012).
This study is a work in process that examines the multi-dimensional aspects of vowel
production in languages and proposes a vowel space that can be described and analyzed using
linear algebraic techniques. This study is actively seeking the mathematical relation of vowel
spaces such that the vowel space is represented by a multidimensional shape.
It is hypothesized that mathematical aspects of each vowel and language vowel
inventory indicate a spatial relationship. This implies that individual languages can be
described and categorized by their mathematical qualities. The expansion of 2-dimensional
plane representations to a multi-dimensional shape may allow for more definitive
representation and new analyses of vowel use.
Twenty eight individual vowel sounds were taken from the Ladefoged (2005)
inventory and analyzed using PRAAT. The formant values for each vowel were saved in
individual Excel files. A program using Matlab was written to compute the principal
components of the formants. The abundance of data due the sensitivity of the measuring
device, PRAAT, can make measurements unwieldy and possibly deceptive as underlying
relationships can often be simple.
Principal component methods reduce this large amount of data into equivalent
smaller data sets. The principal component approach uses linear algebraic methods to
compute the determinant, an indicator of data integrity. This approach uses a method which
fits the data to an equation set and gives the opportunity to visualize the data in several
dimensions.
Principal component evaluations provide a reduced-form matrix of the formant values
derived from the original data set. This matrix is in an n x n grid, meaning that it can be
plotted in three dimensions and evaluated for directionality and forces (vector analysis).
It was found that for individual vowels, formant data values could be reliably and
accurately transformed. (Either -1 or +1 determinants were produced and the three
components of variance, the Eigenvalues of the covariance matrix, accounted for a very high
percent of the variance.) The percent of variance for each vowel data set was computed and
indicates the closeness of the data fit to the computed equations.
The vowel values for several languages, including English, French, and German,
were then evaluated, using speech from native speakers. It was found that some vowels have
invisible polarity components that can be measured and we offer both an explanation for their
existence and the multidimensional vowel shape.
25
Johnson, Keith. (2003). Acoustic and auditory phonetics. Malden MA.: Blackwell
Publishing.
Koops, Christian. (2012). Scripting in PRAAT seminars held over several weeks, spring
2012, as an addition to the Sociophonetics course.
Ladefoged, Peter. (2005), Vowels and consonants. Malden, MA.: Blackwell Publishers.
Lass, Roger. (1991). Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rogers, Henry. (2000.) The sounds of language. Harlow UK.: Longman.
Thomas, Erik. (2011). Sociophonetics. New York.: Palgrave Macmillan.
26
Easier Said than Done: Metaphor interpretation between English and American Sign Language
Benjamin Anible
Spoken languages have many lexical collocations with high relative frequencies. When such
expressions are repeatedly used, their meanings become fixed and metaphorical inferences emerge
(Bybee, 2006: 713). Often these “prefabs” are employed by speakers for specific pragmatic purposes
like indirectness, subjectivity, or summarization (Cacciari, 1998: 120). Signed languages use metaphors
for the same reasons, but with very few exceptions metaphorical extensions are created without using
collocations of individual lexical items. Instead, depictive qualities of fully decompositional signs are
extended to take on additional metaphorical meaning (Meir, 2010: 879). This paper examines how
spoken/signed interpreters, working between these two disparate systems of conveying metaphor, produce
conceptually equivalent messages.
A pilot quantitative analysis of American Sign Language (ASL)/English interpretation was
performed on video-clips from Youtube of the 2008 presidential race. Narrow selection was intended to
factor out possible register/genre variation and diachronic interference. Twenty-four tokens of interpreted
metaphor were observed over four samples. Two systems of analysis were used to describe observed
types English metaphors and ASL interpretations.
Metaphors were found to vary in three ways; conventionality, recoverability and sharedness.
Conventionality is the degree familiarity influences fixedness. (1) is more conventional than (2) because
it is less variable. (2) may vary in the type of “footwear,” but (1) cannot vary at all – you cannot “spill
the rice” any more than you can “dump the beans.” Recoverability is the degree fixed phrases express
the metaphors they instantiate. (3) is more transparently decompositional than (4). The first expresses
BETTER IS UP. The second expresses UNDERSTANDING IS GRASPING (Gibbs, 1997:151).
Sharedness is whether the underlying conceptual metaphor exists in ASL and English. The metaphor
underlying (4) is found in both.
(1) She spilled the beans.
(2) He's rather light in his loafers/shoes.
(3) We need to take politics to a higher level.
(4) We need a president again to gets it.
Interpretations were found to vary in three ways; literal, conceptual, and depictive. (5) is an
example of a literal interpretation given the “word-for-word” correspondence where the form directly
transferred. (6) is an example of a conceptual interpretation where the English form is completely lost
while only semantic content remains. (7) is an example of a depictive interpretation where the source text
form is shed and gestural approximation is selected for the interpretation.
(5) These are the voices of Americans. →VOICE.
(6) We need a president again who gets it. → UNDERSTAND.
(7) (...) put band-aids on our problems. → CL:”put-on-band aid”
Two tendencies of interaction were observed between metaphor and interpretation type. First,
metaphor sharedness resulted in higher than average chance of literal interpretation (p=.24, x̅ = .17).
Second, high conventionality resulted in increased chance of conceptual or depictive interpretation.
For conceptual p=.32, x̅ = .16, and for depictive p=.20, x̅ = .16. A factor governing both of these
tendencies may be the amount of cognitive load required to render equivalence. When the relevance of
a metaphorical fixed expression can be easily extracted, interpreters can construct meanings that more
closely capture the sense of the source (Wilcox & Shaffer, 2005:46).
Works Cited
Bybee, Joan L. 2006. “From Usage to Grammar: The Mind's Response to Repetition.” Language 82.4:
711-733.
27
Cacciari, Christina. 1998. “Why Do We Speak Metaphorically.” Figurative Language and Thought. New
York: Oxford UP. 119-144.
Gibbs, Raymond, et al. 1997. “Metaphor in Idiom Comprehension.” Journal of Memory and Language
37: 141-54.
Meir, Irit. 2010. Iconicity and metaphor: Constraints on metaphorical extension of iconic forms.
Language, Volume 86, Number 4:865-896.
Wilcox, Sherman, and Barbara Shaffer. 2005. “Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Interpreting.”
Topics in Signed Language Interpreting. Theory and Practice. Ed. Terry Janzen. Philadelphia, PA,
USA: John Benjamins, 27-50.
28
Sensitivity to English Verb Biases by ASL-English Bilinguals
Benjamin Anible
Verb biases have been shown to help native English readers resolve temporary ambiguity in
sentence comprehension. When a post-verbal constituent may either be a direct object (DO)
as in (1) or a sentential complement (SC) as in (2), readers rely on distributional knowledge to
anticipate the more frequent syntactic frame for the associated verb (Gahl & Garnsey, 1997).
Some verbs (such as appreciated”) have a bias toward DO continuations; others toward SC
continuations. Some researchers have proposed that bilinguals will choose the syntactically
simpler complement (1) over the more complex one (2) (Clahsen & Felser, 2006), but others find
no such preference (Dussias & Cramer Scaltz, 2008).
(1) Richard appreciated his vacation time in Paris.
(2) Richard appreciated that his parents helped him achieve his dream.
Are bilinguals sensitive to the same distributional information that L1 speakers employ in
the service of ambiguity resolution while reading? There are indications that Spanish-English
bilinguals reading English sentences show sensitivity to English verb biases (Dussias, Marful,
Bajo & Gerfen., 2010). We show that deaf American Sign Language (ASL) - English bilinguals
exhibit similar sensitivity using a sentence completion task.
One-hundred subjects at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. were prompted with onehundred subject/verb sentence fragments, such as “Richard appreciated…” and asked to
complete the sentence. Identical tasks run with native English speakers by Gahl & Garnsey
(1997) demonstrated that performance data collected using these methods correlate well with
corpus data. In our study, we find high correlations between reported native English speakers’
completion biases and sentence completions by ASL-English bilinguals (DO .83, SC .86). This
correlation is higher than that found by Dussias et al. (2010) for Spanish-English bilinguals
(DO .61, SC .67).
This study provides the first evidence that ASL-English bilinguals are sensitive to English verb
biases. Further, when performance did not match between the ASL-English bilinguals and
English monolinguals, bilinguals did not invariably select a syntactically simpler complement
(e.g., a DO complement) for the verb. In fact, in instances of disagreement bilinguals were more
likely to select a syntactically more complex sentence completion (e.g., a SC complement),
contra Clahsen & Felser’s (2006) hypothesis that L2 learners rely on syntactic complexity and
not distributional cues to resolve ambiguity.
29
A case of grammaticalization in ASL: What’s happening with HAPPEN?
Corrine Occhino-Kehoe and Benjamin Anible
Our current research examines the ASL sign HAPPEN and documents its different lexical
and pragmatic usages. Based on the Morford, MacFarlane Corpus (2003) of 4,000 words in ASL,
video blogs (VLOGs), interviews, and public service announcements (PSAs) found on YouTube,
we extracted 50 tokens of HAPPEN from various native signers. Our analysis finds at least three
distinct uses of HAPPEN with varied lexical distribution; verbal (34%), nominal (12%) and what
we will call discourse marker (54%); denoted respectively by the following notation: HAPPEN,
HAPPEN+, and HAPPEN1. Examples of their use in context as follows:
(1)
(2)
(3)
PRO.3>wife SUPPOSE SOMETHING HAPPEN TO PRO.3
His wife was saying: “What if something had happened to you?!”
PRO.1 SIGN TELL-STORY THAT FUNNY HAPPEN+
I was telling a story about some funny events…
HAPPEN1 PRO.1 WORK FOR GALLAUDET
I was working for Gallaudet University…
The canonical form, meaning ‘to happen’ or ‘to occur’ consists of two distinct movement
parameters: the first, a proximal downward pivot made by the elbow, and the second, a distal
radial ulnar twist. The verbal form can be nominalized via reduplication (Supalla & Newport
1978), to mean ‘things’ or ‘occurrences.’ In this nominalized form both the pivot and the wrist
movement are articulated a minimum of two times. In the third form, HAPPEN 1, we find the
phonological form is reduced when compared with the canonical configuration of the verbal
form, either by eliding or abbreviating the pivot or the wrist movement. A chi-square test showed
that phonological reduction and discourse use of HAPPEN 1 were highly correlated (chi-square =
4.53, p= 0.0333). Additionally, common non-manual features of topic marking, such as eye-brow
raise and head-tilt, have a high co-occurrence with this form. Within discourse, the third form
precedes the recitation of a past event, placing the following content in the past (a common
construction for languages without verb inflection for tense) and alerts interlocutors to a change
in discourse topic (Janzen 1999; 2003; 2007). We conclude that HAPPEN is undergoing
grammaticalization (Bybee 2006; 2010) as evidenced by phonological reduction, syntactic
constriction, and semantic bleaching, as compared to the canonical form.
30
References
Bybee, J. L. (2010). Language, usage and cognition. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Bybee, J. (2006). From Usage to Grammar: The Mind’s Response to Repetition. Language, 82(4),
711–733.
Janzen, T. (2007). The expression of grammatical categories in signed languages. In E. Pizzuto, P.
Pietrandrea, & R. Simone (Eds.), Verbal and Signed Languages: Comparing Structures,
Constructs and Methodologies, Empirical Approaches to Language Typology (pp. 171–197).
Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Janzen, T. (2003). FINISH as an ASL Conjunction: Conceptualization and Syntactic Tightening.
Presented at the Eighth International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Logrono, Spain.
Janzen, T. (1999). The Grammaticization of Topics in American Sign Language. Studies in Language,
23(2), 271–306.
Klima, E., & Bellugi, U. (1979). The signs of language. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Morford, J., & MacFarlane, J. (2003). Frequency Characteristics of American Sign Language. Sign
Language Studies, 3(2), 213–225.
Supalla, T., & Newport, E. (1978). How many seats in a chair? The derivation of nouns and verbs in
American Sign Language. In P. Siple (Ed.), Understanding language through sign language
research (pp. 91–132). New York: Academic Press.
31
Matukar Panau nominalization and erstwhile argument expression
Danielle Barth
University of Oregon
Matukar Panau (Oceanic, Papua New Guinea) is spoken by a few hundred people in the
villages of Matukar and Surumaran in Madang Province. It is in the small sub-family Bel, which
has languages that are all spoken in the Madang area. These Austronesian languages are
surrounded by Papuan languages resulting in multi-lingual speakers, which leads to strong
metatypy in Bel (Ross 2008). Matukar Panau uses typical Oceanic direct and indirect possession
classifiers for nouns (1-2) (cf. Lynch, Ross and Crowley 2002). However, when nominalized
verbs are possessed by their erstwhile arguments, Matukar Panau uses a strategy that goes
against the typological norm (as in Goulden 1996), perhaps due to Papuan influence.
Nominalized verbs possessed by agent semantic roles (3) pattern differently than those possessed
by theme or locative semantic roles (4) (DeLancey 1991). The possession strategy for (3) is used
for a particular kind of possession of other nouns (5) and is similar to the “associative
possession” found in Bargam, a neighboring Papuan language (Hepner 2006) (6). This
associative possession is not typical for Oceanic languages. The possession strategy seen in (4) is
used in Matukar Panau for non-animate possessors (7), another non-typical kind of possession in
Oceanic. Even other Bel languages lack the associative and non-animate possessor possession
strategies found in Matukar Panau.
Additionally, nominalized verbs in Matukar Panau retain the verbal features of subject
(cf. 3) and object (cf. 4) agreement resulting in simultaneous verbal and nominal properties.
This paper will present nominalization constructions from recent field work (2010 and
2011) and demonstrate their typological unusualness in the shared influence of inherited Oceanic
and borrowed Papuan, as well as in their shared nominal and verbal features.
Direct Possession
Indirect Possession
1) ne-n
2) tamat ha-n
leg-P3sg
man
‘his/her leg’
CL-P3sg house
‘the man’s house’
32
ab
Erstwhile agent possessing nominalization
3)
PSR/AGT
THM
PSD
Pain
ai-n
y-abi-k-ama-n
haiyan
woman
mouth-3Psg
3sg-hold-NMZ-A.POSS-3Psg
bad
‘The woman’s yawning is bad (lit: The woman’s holding her mouth is bad)’
Erstwhile theme possessing nominalization
4)
PSD
THM
fun-i-k-anen
pain
fight-3sg-NMZ-POSS
woman
‘fighting/hitting woman (a woman you have to fight/hit)’
Associative Possession in Matukar Panau
Associative Possession in Bargam
5) aim
6) Ka
war-ama-n
boy rope-A.POSS-P3sg
kurek
a-bit-an
this chicken P3sg-house-A.POSS
‘boy’s umbilical cord’
‘This is a chicken house’ (Hepner 2006, 30)
Non-animate possessor
7)
Nub-anen
kukurek
water-POSS
chicken
‘Duck’ (lit: ‘water’s chicken’)
References
DeLancey, S. (1991). ‘Event construal and case role assignment’, Proceedings of the seventeenth
annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: general session and parasession on
the grammar of event structure, pp. 338-353.
Goulden, R. (1996). ‘The Maleu and Bariai languages of West New Britain’, in M. Ross (ed)
Studies in languages of New Britain and New Ireland, vol 1: Austronesian languages of
the North New Guinea cluster in northwestern New Britain. Pacific Linguistics, C, 135,
33
pp. 63-144.
Hepner, M. (2006). Bargam Grammar Sketch. SIL.
Lynch, J., M. Ross, and T. Crowley (2002). The Oceanic Languages. Richmond: Curzon Press.
Ross, M. 2008. A history of metatypy in Bel languages. Journal of language contact – THEMA
2.
Abbreviations
3
third person
POSS
possessive suffix
A.POSS associative possession suffix
PSD
possessed
AGT
agent
PSR
possessor
CL
classifier
S
subject
NMZ
nominalizer
sg
singular
O
object
THM
theme
P
agreement suffix for possessed nouns
34
Independent entrenchment and preemption effects in grammatical constraint learning
Jeremy K. Boyd, Farrell Ackerman & Marta Kutas
University of California, San Diego
While there is considerable evidence that speakers acquire grammatical constraints in part
through statistical learning (Ambridge, Pine, Rowland, & Chang, 2012; Braine & Brooks, 1995;
Brooks & Tomasello, 1999; Goldberg, 2006; Perfors, Tenenbaum, & Wonnacott, 2010), there is
disagreement regarding exactly which statistics are relevant. The present work addresses this issue by
investigating how learners infer that intransitive-only verbs like giggle cannot be used transitively
(e.g., *The joke giggled me).
Entrenchment maintains that witnessing an intransitive-only verb in any intransitive structure
incrementally strengthens the inference that it cannot appear transitively (Braine & Brooks, 1995). In
contrast, preemption emphasizes that periphrastic causative uses (e.g. The joke made me giggle) are
particularly informative: they magnify learning effects (Clark, 1987; Goldberg, 1995). Unfortunately
however, overall frequency (entrenchment) and periphrastic causative frequency (preemption) are
highly correlated in natural language materials, which makes it difficult to know whether they have
independent effects (Ambridge, Pine, Rowland, & Young, 2008; Brooks, Tomasello, Dodson, &
Lewis, 1999; Theakston, 2004), even when statistical controls are attempted (Ambridge, Pine, &
Rowland, 2012).
The present work circumvents this problem by orthogonalizing entrenchment and preemption
using novel verb input. It extends previous findings that indicate independent preemption effects
(Brooks & Tomasello, 1999) by also testing for independent entrenchment effects. Additionally, it
addresses the possibility that production preferences may not actually reflect constraint learning
(Ambridge, et al., 2008) by using production and grammaticality judgment measures.
Adults (N = 36) were assigned to three groups. In the simple intransitive and mixed groups
they witnessed the experimenter using a novel intransitive-only verb to describe bouncing events
(e.g., a squirrel bouncing an apple). Descriptions were simple intransitives in the simple intransitive
group (e.g., The apple yadded), and a mixture of simple intransitives and periphrastic causatives in
the mixed group (e.g., The apple yadded and The squirrel made the apple yad). Additionally, a
control group viewed the same events, but without input from the experimenter.
Constraint learning was assessed in two ways. In the production task participants described
new bouncing events using either the novel verb (in the simple intransitive and mixed groups), or the
verb bounce (in the control group). In the judgment task, participants rated transitive uses of either
the novel verb (in the simple intransitive and mixed groups), or bounce (in the control group). If antitransitive constraints are acquired in the simple intransitive and mixed groups, then comparisons to
control should show less transitive/passive responding in production (i.e., avoidance), and lower
ratings in the judgment task. Moreover, if entrenchment has an independent effect on constraint
acquisition, then there should be significant learning in the simple intransitive group relative to
control. And if preemption has an effect above and beyond entrenchment, then constraint learning
should be significantly stronger in the mixed group versus the simple intransitive group.
Logit mixed models (Jaeger, 2008) of the production data found a significantly lower
likelihood of transitive/passive responding in the simple intransitive group relative to control, and in
the mixed group versus the simple intransitive group. Conditional inference tests (Strobl, Malley, &
Tutz, 2009) of the judgment data largely agreed with the production results: while the ratings
difference between the simple intransitive and control groups was null, ratings were significantly
lower in the mixed than the simple intransitive group. These findings show good but not perfect
agreement between production and judgment measures of constraint learning, and suggest that adults
may rely on both entrenchment and preemption to acquire grammatical constraints.
35
References
Ambridge, B., Pine, J. M., & Rowland, C. F. (2012). Semantics versus statistics in the retreat from
locative overgeneralization errors. Cognition, 123, 260-279.
Ambridge, B., Pine, J. M., Rowland, C. F., & Chang, F. (2012). The roles of verb semantics,
entrenchment and morphophonology in the retreat from dative argument structure
overgeneralization errors. Language, 88(1), 45-81.
Ambridge, B., Pine, J. M., Rowland, C. F., & Young, C. R. (2008). The effect of verb semantic class
and verb frequency (entrenchment) on children's and adults' graded judgements of argumentstructure overgeneralization errors. Cognition, 106(1), 87-129.
Braine, M. D. S., & Brooks, P. J. (1995). Verb argument structure and the problem of avoiding an
overgeneral grammar. In M. Tomasello & W. E. Merriman (Eds.), Beyond Names for Things:
Young Children's Acquisition of Verbs (pp. 353-376). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
Brooks, P. J., & Tomasello, M. (1999). How children constrain their argument structure
constructions. Language, 75(4), 720-738.
Brooks, P. J., Tomasello, M., Dodson, K., & Lewis, L. B. (1999). Young children's
overgeneralizations with fixed transitivity verbs. Child Development, 70(6), 1325-1337.
Clark, E. V. (1987). The principle of contrast: A constraint on language acquisition. In B.
MacWhinney (Ed.), Mechanisms of Language Acquisition (pp. 1-33). Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
Goldberg, A. E. (1995). Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure.
Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Goldberg, A. E. (2006). Constructions at Work: The Nature of Generalization in Language. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Jaeger, T. F. (2008). Categorical data analysis: Away from ANOVAs (transformation or not) and
towards logit mixed models. Journal of Memory and Language, 59, 434-446.
Perfors, A., Tenenbaum, J. B., & Wonnacott, E. (2010). Variability, negative evidence, and the
acquisition of verb argument constructions. Journal of Child Language, 37(3), 607-642.
Strobl, C., Malley, J., & Tutz, G. (2009). An introduction to recursive partitioning: Rationale,
application, and characteristics of classification and regression trees, bagging, and random
forests. Psychological Methods, 14(4), 323-348.
Theakston, A. L. (2004). The role of entrenchment in children's and adults' performance on
grammaticality judgment tasks. Cognitive Development, 19, 15-34.
36
Vowels Burqueños Say: Vowel measurements of a speaker of Chicano English in Albuquerque
Susan Brumbaugh
Vowel measurements are taken and analyzed from a YouTube video, Sh*t Burqueños Say, a
collection of both lexical and phonetic variations used by many speakers of Chicano English (CE) in
Albuquerque and it's surrounding areas. There are three main goals for this study. First, I aim to
better understand the sociophonetic variation of vowels in this speaker (who has quickly become an
icon for CE in Albuquerque) and what characteristics cause the speaker to sound more Chicano.
Second, this research adds to the sparse literature on CE in New Mexico. Nearly all of the linguistic
research on CE involves speakers in California, Texas, or New York (c.f. Fought 2003, Godinez &
Maddieson 1985, Santana 1991, Slomanson & Newman 2004). New Mexico is quite different from
the aforementioned places due to 1) a long-standing (4 and 5 generations) history of Spanish use (US
Commission on Civil Rights 2010), less “new Spanish” coming to the state from first-generation
immigrants (Camarota & McArdle 2003), and the fact the Hispanic community is by far the largest
and most populous of all minority ethnic groups in Albuquerque and New Mexico, with 46% of
people identifying as “Hispanic” (U.S. Census bureau 2010) and is therefore not so “minority” here
as in other places. Finally, by using such a popular source for data, this research will be more
accessible and enjoyable to non-linguists.
Several interesting findings come from the preliminary data analysis using Praat (2012). First,
the instantiations of /i/ were organized into two groups. English words, such as think and beach, had a
higher F2 than non-English words, such as zia and sí (both common in New Mexico, even in English
conversations). Next, when /ɪ/ precedes /l/, there is a higher F1 and lower F2- so much so that it is
produced in the same area as /Ɛ/. For example, milk is produced as /mɛlk/, but spin (with no following
lateral) is produced as /spɪn/. The third set of findings concern /æ/: most tokens with this vowel have
approximately the same F2 (frontedness) as /ʌ/, but vary widely in tongue height. Most interesting,
though, is how tokens of /æ/ are substantially raised and fronted when preceding a nasal.
Furthermore, these vowel measurements for pre-nasal /æ/ are nearly exactly in the middle of the
trajectory for the diphthong /eɪ/. Finally, tokens of /ɑ/ are produced higher and more backed when
followed by a liquid or nasal (even a bilabial nasal). These differences with /i/, /ɪ/, /ɛ/, /æ/ and /ɑ/
show that the majority of vowel differences in CE are conditioned by the following consonant, and
most of the unique qualities of CE take place towards the front of the mouth.
These findings not only show linguists how vowel variation in the Chicano English of
Albuquerque behaves, but are also accessible to non-linguists in the community. While using a
YouTube video may not yield the most natural data, this video's overwhelming popularity (nearly
700,000 YouTube hits, or roughly 150,000 more hits than the population of Albuquerque) is due to
how much local viewers feel that this representation is correct. Most people that I have spoken with,
though, are unable to really articulate exactly what makes someone “sound Hispanic.” By using
examples that most people in the community are familiar with, community members can see that
their language variety is systematic in its variation, like more “standardized” forms of American
English.
37
References
Blackout Theatre (February 7, 2012). Sh*t Burqueños Say. Retrieved April 24, 2012 from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IucBp1yrr7A.
Boersma, Paul & Weenink, David (2012). Praat: doing phonetics by computer [Computer program].
Version 5.3.13, retrieved 11 April 2012 from http://www.praat.org/
Camarota, S. & McArdle, N. (2003) Where Immigrants Live: An Examination of State Residency of
the Foreign Born by Country of Origin in 1990 and 2000. Center for Immigration studies.
Retrieved May 5, 2010 from http://www.cis.org/articles/2003/back1203.html.
Fought, C. (2003). Chicano English in Context. Palgrave Macmillan. Chapters 3 & 5.
Godinez, M., & Maddieson, I. (1985). Vowel differences between Chicano and General Californian
English? International Journal of the Sociology of Language 53, 43-58.
Neel, A. (2008) Vowel space characteristics and vowel identification accuracy. Journal of Speech,
Language, and Hearing Research 51, 574-585.
Santa Ana, O. (1991). Phonetic simplification Processes in the English of the Barrio: A crossgenerational sociolinguistic study of the Chicanos of Los Angeles. Bell & Howel. Chapter 5.
Slomanson, P. & Newman, M. (2004). Peer group identification and variation in New York Latino
English laterals. English World-Wide. 25(2): 199-216.
U.S. Census bureau (n.d.).2010 Census Quick Facts. Retrieved April 12, 2012 from
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/index.html
U.S. Commision on Civil Rights. (n.d.). Language Rights and New Mexico Statehood.
Retrieved May 5, 2010 from
http://www.ped.state.nm.us/BilingualMulticultural/dl09/Language%20Rights%20and%20Ne
w%20Mexico%20Statehood.pdf
38
Analytic and holistic processing in the development of constructions
Joan Bybee
The development and use of constructions requires an interesting interplay between
analytic and holistic processing. The construction as a whole has meaning due to the
tendency to assign meaning to the highest level of chunked material (Ellis 1996) but the
words within the construction maintain to some degree their network connections to the
same words in other contexts, supplying a degree of analyzability (Beckner and Bybee
2009). Hay 2001 argues that holistic processing of morphologically complex derived
words is more likely if they are more frequent than their base forms. That is, they are less
likely to be analyzed into parts if they are frequent. This line of thinking is more difficult
to apply to constructions, though it is true that for a construction to be established, it must
be repeated, at least a few times. In addition to repetition, I argue that contexts of use that
emphasize the holistic meaning over the analytic one lead to greater loss of analyzability.
The example construction to be considered derived from a more-or-less fixed hyperbolic
idiom found in 19th and 20th century corpora (Time Magazine Corpus, the BNC, COHA,
COCA and the OED) exemplified by He hasn't got two nickels to rub together (COHA
1971). This in turn very probably derived from an expression such as ‘X is so poor s/he
does not have two sticks to rub together to make a fire’.
The first step in the development of this construction is the establishment of the holistic
meaning of the idiom ‘not have two sticks to rub together’, as an expression of the
extreme poverty of the subject. The evidence of the meaning of ‘extreme poverty’
overriding the compositional meaning is the substitution of nouns denoting coins for
sticks. The use of coins in this expression occurs early; the first example in the OED is
from 1827. Some nouns found after two are nickels, pennies, guineas, sous and so on.
However, compositionality and analyzability are not lost when holistic meaning arises as
shown by variations on the construction. For instance, the compositional meaning of two
is retained as shown by the substitution of a couple and the analyzability of the noun is
retained as shown by the appearance of adjectives to modify what is being rubbed
together.
The step in the development that precipitates a further dominance of the holistic meaning
over the analytic/compositional meaning is the metaphorical shift from poverty in the
financial domain to poverty of intellectual ability. Especially in the BNC, expressions of
intellectual impoverishment arise, such as not having two brain cells to rub together. In
this extension the sense that there should be two items to rub together is also lost and
examples arise without two, such as X hasn't got a brain cell to rub together. The
extension to this new context increases the loss of analyzability and compositionality.
Thus in addition to frequency of use conditioning loss of analyzability, establishment of
the construction in novel contexts also leads to this loss. This finding applies not just to
the development of constructions, but also to their grammaticalization when that further
step occurs.
39
References
Beckner, Clay, and Joan Bybee. 2009. “A Usage-based Account of Constituency and
Reanalysis.” Language Learning 59 (Suppl.1) (December): 29–48.
Ellis, Nick C. 1996. “Sequencing in SLA: Phonological Memory, Chunking and Points of
Order.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18: 91–126.
Hay, Jennifer. 2001. “Lexical Frequency in Morphology: Is Everything Relative?”
Linguistics 39: 1041–1070. 40
The prominence of palatalization in assimilation: a crosslinguistic study
Joan Bybee and Shelece Easterday
The data analyzed in this project was collected as part of a larger-scale typological study
of sound change. The sample of 82 languages is based on that used in Bybee, Perkins and
Pagliuca (1994), which controls for genealogical but not geographic bias. Gaps in the original
stratified probability sample have been filled according to availability of adequate descriptive
materials. For each language, all described allophonic processes were exhaustively extracted
from the available reference(s) and coded for features such as process type, directionality, and the
articulatory characteristics of the affected segments and conditioning environments. This resulted
in over 800 coded processes which serve as the data source for the current project. We believe
this to be the first database that surveys all described phonetic processes in the sample languages
and thereby offers an opportunity to observe the relative cross-linguistic frequency of process
types.
All processes involving vowels assimilating to consonant features and consonants
assimilating to vowel or glide features were extracted from the database. Our hypotheses on
articulatory motivations for predominant patterns of sound change were tested on these processes,
which account for one third of the database. Our first observation is that in both consonant-tovowel (C-to-V) and vowel-to-consonant (V-to-C) assimilation, anticipatory assimilation is more
common than carry over (perseverative) assimilation (cf. Javkin 1978). We attribute this fact to
the neuromotor nature of speech production in which anticipation arises through repetition (Rand
et al. 1998, Rhodes et al. 2004). Furthermore, this tendency is much stronger when Cs undergo
assimilation than when Vs do. In general, more assimilations are reported for Cs than for Vs. We
explain this fact by noting that vowels have greater temporal duration which makes them more
stable within a conditioning environment. The production of consonants is more temporally
constrained, making them more vulnerable to perturbations by surrounding (especially upcoming)
gestures.
In this paper we analyze the distributions of C-to-V and V-to-C assimilations according
to the type of articulation involved. The most striking finding is that Cs are much more often
affected by front vowels than by back vowels. Preliminary counts indicate that out of all
anticipatory C-to-V processes, 66 (61%) are conditioned by front vowels and 17 (16%) by back
vowels. The carry-over assimilation processes show a similar, albeit weaker trend, with 22 (39%)
conditioned by front vowels and 15 (26%) by back vowels. The outcome of C assimilations to
front vowels is most often palatalization of the consonant. Two possible explanations for these
findings will be explored: (1) Following previous research on articulatory phonology (Browman
and Goldstein 1992, Recasens 1999) we hypothesize that palatalization is more common than
other consonant assimilations due to the bulk of the tongue body and the consequent relative
effort necessary to move it. (2) Another possibility to be explored is that the neutral position of
the tongue body is such that retraction requires greater effort and deviation than does movement
toward the front palatal region, resulting in a higher relative proportion of palatal assimilation
processes. We also present diachronic evidence from well-studied languages for the strong effect
of palatalization in sound change.
41
References
Browman, Catherine P., and Louis M. Goldstein. 1990. Tiers in articulatory phonology with some
implications for casual speech. In John Kingston and Mary E. Beckman (Eds.), Papers in
Laboratory Phonology I: Between the Grammar and Physics of Speech, 341-376. Cambridge:
Bybee, Joan L., Revere Perkins, and William Pagliuca. 1994. The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect,
and Modality in the Languages of the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Javkin, Hector Rau. 1978. Phonetic universals and phonological change. Berkeley: University of California
Dissertation.
Rand, M. K., Hikosaka, O., Miyachi, S., Lu, X., and K. Miyashita. 1998. Characteristics of a long-term
procedural skill in the monkey. Experimental Brain Research 118: 293-297.
Recasens, Daniel. 1999. Lingual coarticulation. In William J. Hardcastle and Nigel Hewlett (Eds.),
Coarticulation: Theory, Data and Techniques, 80-104. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rhodes, Bradley J., Daniel Bullock, Willem B. Verwey, Bruno B. Averbeck, Michael P. A. Page. 2004.
Learning and production of movement sequences: Behavioral, neurophysiological, and modeling
perspectives. Human Movement Science 23: 699-746.
42
Describing reduplication patterns in Tohono O’odham with language learners in mind
Robert Cruz, Keiko Beers, Laura Hirrel, Iphegenia Kerfoot, Andrés Sabogal
Tohono O’odham (hereafter, TO), an endangered Uto-Aztecan language spoken primarily in
southern Arizona and northern Sonora, Mexico, has a complex reduplication system to express a
variety of semantic qualities, such as plurality, distributive (for both nouns and verbs), and
iterative aspects (Fitzgerald 2003). However, there is no comprehensive description or
explanation of the language’s reduplication patterns in the literature that is consistent with our
data (Hill and Zepeda 1992; Fitzgerald 1999, 2003; Riggle 2006). In addition, the only
pedagogical grammar available for the language, Zepeda (1983), exclusively presents a single
reduplication process, although several different patterns are productive in the language. Given
the endangered status of TO, it is necessary to make all reduplication patterns available to L2
learners. At first glance, however, the full set of reduplication processes may appear random and
unpredictable to these learners. As a result, there is a need for a straightforward explanation and
presentation of the patterns that can be easily absorbed and implemented in the classroom.
Our study examines and describes all reduplication processes evident in the data for TO.
We propose that reduplication conforms to a limited set of predictable patterns, and rely on
prosodic theory to provide a unified understanding of TO reduplication. For pedagogical
purposes, Zepeda (1983) presents a simplified account of reduplication as “CV-copying”. For
example, gogs ‘dog’ → go-gogs ‘dogs’ (p. 7) would be explained as the copying of the initial
CV in the base form of of the word (i.e., go). However, this description does not account for
other reduplication patterns in the language. There are other cases in which the reduplicant either
lengthens (e.g. ban ‘coyote’ → ba: ban ‘coyotes’) or shortens (mi:stol ‘cat’ → mi mistol ‘cats’).
This study suggests that lengthening and shortening can be understood in terms of a prosodic
pattern, “quantitative complementarity,” which was introduced by McCarthy and Prince (1995:
334-5). When this theory is considered within the context of TO, the reduplicant occurs in a
prosodically light form when paired with a heavy base, and in a heavy form when paired with a
light base. The “quantitative” moraic weight of the reduplicant “complements” that of the base.
The data for the study were collected in two sets. In the first set, examples were drawn
from a corpus which has been developed and recorded over the course of one year in cooperation
with our collegue, Mr. Cruz, a native TO speaker. In the second set, instances of reduplication
were elicited specifically with the present study in mind. In many cases, previous works on TO
(Fitzgerald 1999; 2000; 2003; Hill and Zepeda 1998; Saxton 1969; 1983; Zepeda 1983) provided
ideas for elicitation materials, as did discussions with and suggestions from Mr. Cruz.
Our findings suggest that a simple generalization can be made regarding reduplication
patterns in TO, which is that lengthening and shortening in reduplicants depend upon TO's
treatment of the prosodic weight of the base. This generalization makes it possible to teach L2
learners a larger number of reduplication patterns while maintaining pedagogical simplicity. It
also adds explanatory power to the description of the data, as it provides an explanation for why
43
the reduplicants have the forms that they do, rather than solely providing an overgeneralized rule
for their formation. A more complete description of the predictable processes involved in
reduplication may be useful for teachers working on TO language revitalization, while at the
same time, may assist learners in their ability to recall reduplicative forms.
References
Fitzgerald, Colleen. 1999. Unfaithful bases and Syncope in Tohono O’odham Reduplication.
Paper presented at the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 18.
Fitzgerald, Colleen. 2000. Vowel hiatus and faithfulness in Tohono O’odham reduplication.
Linguistic Inquiry, 31:4, pp. 713-722.
Fitzgerald, Colleen. 2003. How Prosodically Consistent is Tohono O’odham? Studies in UtoAztecan, 5, pp. 55-74.
Hayes, Bruce. 1989. Compensatory Lengthening in Moraic Phonology. Linguistic Inquiry, 20:2,
pp. 253-306.
Hill, Jane and Zepeda, Ofelia. 1998. Tohono O’odham (Papago) Plurals. Anthropological
Linguistics, 40:1, pp. 1-42.
McCarthy, John and Prince, Alan. 1995. Prosodic Morphology. In J. Goldsmith (Eds), The
Handbook of Phonological Theory, 318-366. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers.
Riggle, Jason. 2006. Infixing Reduplication in Pima and Its Theoretical Consequences.
National Language Linguistics Theory, 24, pp. 857-891.
Saxton, Dean; Saxton, Lucille & Enos, Susie. 1983. Dictionary, Tohono O’odham / Pima to
English, English to Tohono O’odham / Pima. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.
Zepeda, Ofelia. 1983. A Papago Grammar. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
44
The emergence of syllable structure? Data from gradient vowel reduction in Brazilian Portuguese Ricardo de Souza -‐ Linguistics Department UNM [email protected] Vowel reduction may be the first step towards the emergence of new syllable patterns in a language. Reduction is understood here as the time and gestural compression of phonetic units which may or may not lead to vowel deletion. The assumption that phonological change is not the product of categorical processes is supported by studies based on dynamic phonological theories such as Usage-‐based Phonology (Bybee, 2001; 2010), Exemplar Models (Pierrehumbert, 2001) and Articulatory Phonology (Browman & Goldstein, 1986; 1992). These theories predict that phonological change derives from gradual changes on lexical and phonetical levels, thus affecting different words and phonetic environments in distinct ways. This study investigated the reduction of high vowels [i] and [u] in prestressed CVC syllables closed by the sibilant [s] in the Belo Horizonte dialect of Brazilian Portuguese. If the vowels in question were indeed being reduced to deletion, a new syllable pattern consisting of obstruent + [s] would emerge. I present data from sixteen native speakers (8 male, 8 female) of two different age groups (21-‐25 and 35-‐62 years old), who produced 1920 tokens of 60 words in carrier-‐sentences at two different speech rates presented in a controlled experiment. The results obtained were examined considering the overall range of the vowel reduction in Belo Horizonte Portuguese, as well as its possible gradual manifestation. In addition, I used an electroglottograph to examine the occurrence of vowels in half of the reduction data. This articulatory analysis proved helpful in determining the presence of a high vowel in the phonetic environments tested. Statistical analyses of the results demonstrate that reduction of prestressed [i] and [u] is taking place at high rates in the dialect. Moreover, the data showed that there 45
is indeed a trend for vowel deletion, thus yielding unusual sequences of segments of up to three consonants. Words were affected differently according to a number of factors tested. Variables such as vowel type, speech rate, stress and speaker age were relevant in the occurrence of high vowel reduction. Frequency effects played different roles according to the vowel. Compensatory lengthening of the sibilant in the vowel-‐reduced syllables was also observed. The experiment indicates that vowel reduction may lead to the emergence of new syllable patterns. Differences in the range of occurrence of the phenomenon suggest that this ongoing change manifests itself in a gradient fashion. Compensatory lengthening, as well as the simultaneous occurrence of deletion and partial reductions contribute to the view that gradience plays a role in the emergence of new linguistic units. Browman, Catherine; Goldstein, Louis. 1986. Towards an articulatory phonology. In
Ewen, C.; Anderson, J. (eds.) Phonology Yearbook 3. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. 219-252. ____________. 1992. Articulatory phonology: an overview. Phonetica, Vol. 49 (3-4).
155-180.
Bybee, Joan. 2001. Phonology and language use. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
____________. 2010. Language, Usage and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. de Souza, Ricardo F. N. 2012. A redução de vogais altas pretônicas no português de Belo Horizonte: uma análise baseada na gradiência. Belo Horizonte, MG: Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais Thesis. Pierrehumbert, Janet. 2001. Exemplar Dynamics. In: BYBEE, Joan; HOPPER, Paul
(Eds.). Frequency and the Emergency of Linguistic Structure. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins Publishing Company. 137-158. 46
The responsibility continuum: Using Construction Grammar
to fine-tune the meanings of apologies
Gusztav Demeter
Case Western Reserve University
Apologies have been studied from different perspectives, from describing the way they
are produced in English (Cohen, 2005) or different languages (Cohen & Shively, 2007), to
comparative, intercultural analyses (Jung, 2004). However, most studies used a speech act theory
approach (Austin, 1975; Searle, 1969), which did not allow for a clear distinction between
different meanings of apologies. A more recent perspective advocates a cognitive linguistics
approach, claiming that pragmatic information can be related directly to the linguistic form of a
construction (Kay, 2004) and that cognitive aspects complement the communicative-functional
approach (Nuyts, 2004). One theoretical solution that would allow for better distinguishing the
meanings of apologies is Construction Grammar, which states that the specific construction that
an expression is part of contributes to its meaning (Croft & Cruse, 2004; Goldberg, 1995, 2006).
The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between different constructions used to
apologize and the meaning of those apologies and to show that the choice of constructions used
in an apology contributes to its meaning. The study focuses on explicit expressions of apology,
namely those that contain lexemes such as sorry, excuse, apologize, and forgive.
A discourse analysis methodology using corpora was used to examine the relationship
between the degree of responsibility expressed in apologies and the constructions used to express
them. The Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English (Du Bois, Chafe, Meyer, &
Thompson, 2000) and the spoken section of the Corpus of Contemporary American English
(Davies, 2008), totaling 81,806,485 words, were used. The most important finding is that there is
a continuum of responsibility in the case of apologies, rather than a clear cut distinction between
acknowledging responsibility and denying it. Moreover, it seems that the choice of construction
used to express the apology determines the position of the apology on the continuum. For
example, speech act theory would consider both apologies below as acknowledging
responsibility:
(1) I 'm sorry I mispronounced your name a moment ago
(2) I 'm sorry if I was too forward.
However, the two apologies clearly show different degrees of responsibility. In (1), the
construction containing the personal pronoun I followed by a verb phrase suggests that the
speaker clearly takes ownership of the action that requires the apology. The use of if and a clause
in (2) can be interpreted to indicate that the speaker does not believe he has done something
wrong. Therefore, example (2) would be placed further away on the responsibility continuum
than example (1), namely more towards the “denying responsibility” end. The placement of all
the constructions on the continuum is shown in Figure 1.
In conclusion, we believe that the choice of a specific construction in an apology
contributes to its meaning by placing it closer or further away from the two extremes of the
responsibility continuum, namely “acknowledging responsibility” and “denying responsibility.”
Therefore, a Construction Grammar approach seems to allow for a more precise distinction
between the different meanings of apologies than a traditional speech act theory approach does.
47
Acknowledging
responsibility
3
4
Providing an
explanation
5
6
12
1
[I’m sorry I VP]
6
[forgive me this but CLAUSE]
10
[I’m sorry |
UTTERANCE:DENIAL]
2
[forgive me for GERUND-CLAUSE
but CLAUSE]
7
11
[I'm sorry SUBJ have to / can’t
/could not VERB-INF OBJ]
3
[forgive me for GERUND-CLAUSE]
[I apologize for GERUND-CLAUSE]
[I'm sorry for GERUND-CLAUSE]
[I apologize for it]
[UTTERANCE:ACKNOWLEDGMENT forgive me]
[UTTERANCE:ACKNOWLEDGMENT we
apologize]
[UTTERANCE:ACKNOWLEDGMENT I'm sorry]
12
[forgive me | but CLAUSE]
[excuse me | but CLAUSE]
[I apologize | but CLAUSE]
13
[I'm sorry |
UTTERANCE:EXPLANATION]
[I apologize | UTTERANCE]
[forgive me | UTTERANCE]
[I apologize to you | UTTERANCE]
5
[I apologize for NP]
[forgive the NP]
[we apologize for NP]
[sorry for NP]
Categories
Acknowledging
responsibility
9
13
2
[forgive my NP]
8
14
1
4
7
Denying
responsibility
8
9
[I apologize for that]
[we apologize for that]
[I’m sorry about that]
[I apologize if CLAUSE]
[I’m sorry if CLAUSE]
[forgive me if CLAUSE]
[excuse me if CLAUSE]
Denying
responsibility
11
14
10
[UTTERANCE | so I apologize]
Providing an
explanation
Figure 1. The placement of apology constructions on the responsibility continuum.
References
Austin, J. L. (1975). How to do things with words (2nd ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press.
Cohen, A. D. (2005). Strategies for learning and performing L2 speech acts. Interlanguage
pragmatics, 2(3), 275-301.
Cohen, A. D., & Shively, R. L. (2007). Acquisition of requests and apologies in Spanish and
French: Impact of study abroad and strategy-building intervention. The Modern
Language Journal, 91(2), 189-212.
Croft, W., & Cruse, D. A. (2004). Cognitive linguistics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Davies, M. (2008). The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA): 400+ Million
Words, 1990-present.:
Du Bois, J. W., Chafe, W. L., Meyer, C., & Thompson, S. A. (2000). Santa Barbara corpus of
spoken American English, Part 1. Philadelphia: Linguistic Data Consortium.
Goldberg, A. E. (1995). Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument
structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Goldberg, A. E. (2006). Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Jung, E. H. S. (2004). Interlanguage pragmatics: Apology speech acts. In C. L. Moder & A.
Martinovic-Zic (Eds.), Discourse across languages and cultures (pp. 99-116).
Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Kay, P. (2004). Pragmatic aspects of grammatical constructions. In L. R. Horn & G. L. Ward
(Eds.), The handbook of pragmatics (pp. 675-700). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Nuyts, J. (2004). The cognitive-pragmatic approach. Intercultural Pragmatics, 1(1), 135-149.
Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. London: Cambridge
University Press.
48
Prosodic correlates of focus in question-answer pairs in Yakima Sahaptin
Shelece Easterday
Information focus relates information in a given utterance to the preceding discourse,
with focused elements corresponding to new, important, or relevant information
(Wennerstrom 2001). Like many discourse structures, focus has been found to have prosodic
correlates in English and other well-studied languages. But research on the intonational
patterns of focus or any other discourse structure in the indigenous languages of North
America is extremely scarce. The current project is a preliminary investigation of the
intonational patterns of focus in Yakima Sahaptin, a highly endangered language of the
Sahaptian family currently spoken in south-central Washington State.
Hargus and Beavert (2006) found that Yakima Sahaptin behaves like a pitch accent
language, with stress marked unpredictably and contrastively on words by means of higher
pitch and greater intensity. In a study of sentence-level prosody in declarative sentences and
WH-questions in Yakima Sahaptin, Hargus and Beavert (2009) concluded that intonational
phonology in the language is ‘minimal’; however, the analysis was conducted on sentences
out of context in order to minimize possible complications involving focus. This suggests
that there might be prosodic correlates of focus operating within the language. The current
exploratory study seeks to identify and characterize these prosodic features.
The data set consists of 39 question-answer pairs extracted from Beavert and Hargus
(2009), a comprehensive text and audio dictionary of Yakima Sahaptin. In an approach
informed by Ladd (2008) and Umbach (2004), each question-answer pair was coded for finegrained semantic-pragmatic focal properties, resulting in six categories of semantic focus:
Global/Broad, Narrow, Yes/No Contrast, Yes/No Non-Contrast, Where, and What Sound (see
examples (1)-(2)). The question and answer components of each pair were then subjected to
an initial phonological analysis. Subsequent phonetic analysis of the data revealed robust
prosodic characteristics in both question and answer components that generally patterned
according to the six focal distinctions. Pitch was found to be the most salient prominence
feature: in most categories, semantic focus was signaled by higher average f0 on the pitch
accented syllable of the focused word, or, if an entire phrase was in focus, on a consistent and
predictable portion of the phrase (e.g., the nominal portion of the locative phrase in answers
to Where questions). Additionally, duration and pause were found to be salient prominence
features, patterning differently, for example, in the answer portions of the Yes/No Contrast
and Non-Contrast pairs. Larger clause-level intonation contours were identified for the
question portions of the What Sound, Yes/No Contrast, and Yes/No Non-Contrast pairs.
The results of this study indicate that there are consistent prosodic correlates of
semantic focus in Yakima Sahaptin. Question-answer pairs in the language are characterized
by sets of intonational features that largely pattern according to the focal semantics of the
pair. These findings indicate that a fine-grained semantic approach - one which allows for
categories beyond the traditional Global and Narrow distinction - is useful in investigating
the prosodic correlates of information focus.
49
(1)
Yes/No Contrast Q&A Pair (focused information in bold):
Q:
Wáshmash kúyx k’úsi’?
wá-sh=mash
kúyx k’úsi’
COP-PPF=2Sg.GEN white horse
‘Do you have a white horse?’
A:
Cháw, wáshnash chmúk k’úsi.
cháw wá-sh=nash chmúk
no
COP-PPF=1Sg black
‘No, I have a black horse.’
k’úsi
horse
(Beavert and Hargus 2009: 255)
(2)
Where Q&A Pair (focused information in bold):
Q:
Minánnam ánicha wáwiikw’inki kúpi?
minán=nam á-nich-a
wáwiikw’inki kúpi
where=2Sg
3O-put.away-PST
ground
coffee
‘Where did you put the ground coffee?’
A:
Íchnaknash ánicha xálukt pak’ikáwaaspa.
íchnak=nash
á-nich-a
here=1Sg
3O-put.away-PST
‘I put it under this shelf.’
xálukt pak’ikáwaas-pa
under
shelf-LOC
(Beavert and Hargus 2009: 131)
References
Beavert, Virginia and Sharon Hargus. 2009. Ichishkiin Sinwit Yakama/Yakima Sahaptin
Dictionary. Toppenish and Seattle: Heritage University and University of Washington
Press.
Hargus, Sharon and Virginia Beavert. 2006. A note on the phonetic correlates of stress in
Yakima Sahaptin. In Daniel J. Jinguji and Steven Moran (Eds.), University of
Washington Working Papers in Linguistics, 64-95.
Hargus, Sharon and Virginia Beavert. 2009. Sahaptin Intonational Phonology. Paper
presented at The Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas,
San Francisco, January 2009.
Jansen, Joana. 2010. A grammar of Yakima Ichishkiin/Sahaptin. Ph.D. Dissertation,
University of Oregon.
Ladd, D. Robert. 2008. Intonational phonology. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Umbach, C. (2004) On the Notion of Contrast in Information Structure and Discourse
Structure. Journal of Semantics 21(2) 1 - 21.
Wennerstrom, Ann. 2001. The music of everyday speech: prosody and discourse analysis.
New York: Oxford University Press.
50
Mood variation with epistemic adverbs in Spanish: a diachronic look
Iraida Galarza
Indiana University
Synchronically, mood choice (indicative/ subjunctive) in independent clauses introduced by
adverbs of epistemic modality (seguramente/surely, probablemente/ probably, posiblemente/
possibly, quizás/perhaps, maybe and tal vez/maybe) is variable in Spanish (1).
(1) Tal vez voy/vaya a la fiesta.
Maybe I go-indicative / I go-subjunctive to the party.
Some studies suggest that this choice is constrained by the adverb itself (García, 2011;
Haverkate, 2002; King, McLeish, Zuckerman & Schwenter, 2008 in Schwenter, 2011; Renaldi,
1977; Woehr, 1972), the temporal reference of the event expressed by the verb (García, 2011;
King, McLeish, Zuckerman & Schwenter, 2008 in Schwenter, 2011; Renaldi, 1977), and the
dialect (García, 2011; King, McLeish, Zuckerman & Schwenter, 2008, in Schwenter, 2011;
Renaldi, 1977).
In terms of the diachronic dimension of this structure, there is conflicting evidence with
respect to the historical development of the subjunctive in Spanish. Firstly, Silva-Corvalán
(2001, p. 146) indicates that mood in Romance languages has gone through a diachronic change
in favor of the indicative: not only the subjunctive has lost many of its temporal forms but also
the indicative mood and the conditional have extended to subjunctive contexts. In contrast,
Houle & Martínez-Gómez (2009) found that the subjunctive has increased its frequency of use
with the adverb quizá(s), and its historically associated forms (qui sabe, quiçabe, quiça, quien
sabe, quisá, quisás) from the 13th century on.
In light of the previous research, the present study investigates the modal development
(indicative/ subjunctive) of seguramente, probablemente, posiblemente, quizás and tal vez from
the 16th to the 20th century. Specifically, it investigates whether there has been a diachronic
change in favor of the indicative or the subjunctive mood with each of these adverbs. In addition,
it examines whether these adverbs show a similar development pattern with respect to their
modal distribution. Lastly, this study analyzes the linguistic factors that significantly predict the
subjunctive mood with these adverbs in the 5 centuries under study.
The data for this study comes from El Corpus Diacrónico del Español (CORDE). A total
of 50 tokens per century were extracted for each adverb and then coded for the following
variables: mood, adverb, polarity, adjacency of the adverb with respect to the verb, temporal
reference, person, number, and century. The preliminary results show that the use of the
subjunctive with these adverbs has significantly increased from the 19th century on. However,
these adverbs observe different rates of use of the subjunctive, being quizás the one that observed
the earlier and greater increase. A multivariate analysis showed that the factors that significantly
predict the subjunctive mood were the century (20th and 19th centuries), the temporal reference of
the event expressed by the verb (future and present reference), the adverb, and the negative
polarity. These results suggest that in the specific context of the independent clauses introduced
by adverbs of epistemic modality there has been a diachronic change in favor of the subjunctive
mood.
51
References
García, C. (2011). Distinguishing Two “Synonyms”: A Variationist Analysis of quizá and quizás
in Six Spanish Dialects, in J. Michnowicz & R. Dodsworth (eds), Selected Proceedings
of the 5th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics, Somerville, MA: Cascadilla
Proceedings Project, pp. 103-112.
Houle, L. & Martínez Gómez, R. (2011). A Closer Look at quizá(s): Grammaticalization and an
Epistemic Adverb, en L. A. Ortiz-López (ed.) Selected Proceedings of the 13th Hispanic
Linguistics, Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project, pp. 296-304.
REAL ACADEMIA ESPAÑOLA: Banco de datos (CORDE) [en línea]. Corpus diacrónico del
español. <http://www.rae.es>
Renaldi, T. W. (1977). Notes on the functions of “acaso”, “quizá(s)” and “tal vez” in American
Spanish. Hispania, 60 (2), pp. 332-336.
Silva-Corvalán, C. (2001). Sociolingüística y pragmática del español. Georgetown University
Press. Washington, D.C.
Schwenter, S. (2011). Morphosyntactic Variation. In M. Díaz-Campos (ed.) The handbook of
hispanic sociolinguistics Chapter II. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Woehr , R. (1972). “Acaso”, “Quizá(s)”, “Tal vez”: Free variants?. Hispania,55 (2), pp. 320-327.
52
The classifier-numeral construction in Upper Necaxa Totonac: unification or lexical specification?
Michelle Garcia-Vega
University of Alberta
Upper Necaxa Totonac (UNT), part of the Totonac-Tepehua language family, is an endangered language
spoken in the Sierra Norte of Puebla State, Mexico. Numerals in Upper Necaxa are obligatorily prefixed
with a classifier in counting under 20 (Beck 2011), as in (1). We created a database of over 900 classifiernumeral expressions in UNT to explore their semantic and morpho-syntactic distributional properties in
context. The UNT data show that while some classifiers in classifier-numeral expressions serve important
pragmatic and semantic functions, other classifiers are lexically specified indicating purely formal or
grammatical properties of the language.
The literature on the semantic contribution of the classifier to the classifier construction is fairly divided.
Some authors, such as Allan (1977), Denny (1979), and Aikhenvald (2006), have suggested that the
classifier in numeral classifier constructions reflect something about the lexical noun with which it cooccurs, designating some inherent feature in the nominal denotatum, rather than contributing new
information to the meaning of the noun phrase, implying that the classifier is a semantically redundant
marker which serves purely formal or grammatical functions. Other authors, such as Greenberg (1972),
Lucy (1992) and Senft (2000) have shown that classifiers may have nothing to do with classifying per se,
but rather composes a dynamic system of modification and denotation by classifier construction. In this
view, the classifier-numeral construction are unitizers serving to individuate the nominal complement by
providing semantic specification to the lexical noun which may lack the adequate features for the
enumeration context. This view is furthered by the underspecification of nominal number in some
numeral classifier languages, where nouns are ambiguous between being singular or plural when not
inflected as such.
The data from UNT show that some classifier constructions contribute to the meaning of the lexical noun
or referent by providing a unit for measuring or counting nouns which may lack the adequate properties
for the enumeration context, and disambiguates the underspecified number marking of the nominal, as
exemplified in (2). The classifier-numeral construction, thereby, signals the relevant individuation status
for lexical nouns lacking such a feature, and contributes toward the construction of reference as held by
Lucy (1992), Senft (2000), and Levy (2004). However, in other constructions the data show that the
classifier-numeral expression is lexically specified and seems to serve purely grammatical functions, as in
(3), where the generic or default classifier a’h- has been selected, rather than hen- the classifier for longthin things which usually appears with nouns like posts, logs, and sticks.
The study implies that while the literature is divided between two different camps on the function of
numeral classifiers, both camps are correct, at least in the case of Upper Necaxa where some classifiernumeral expressions are unitizers which contribute to the semantic and individuation status of the nominal
referent, but others are lexically-determined satisfying purely grammatical specifications of the language.
53
(1) cha:'tin chi'xkú'
cha:'–tin
chi'xkú'
CLF:HUMAN–one man
‘the man’
(2) talá’jni’ pu:laksti’wile:nka’ cha:’tín ta’jatatláni’
talá’jni’
pu:lak–sti’wí–le:n–ka’
cha:’–tin
stretcher
inside–swing–take–IDF:PFV CLF:HUMAN–one
‘They carried the sick person on a stretcher’
ta’jatát–la–ni’
illness–do–NM
(3) a'kxní ya:wa:kán hentín poste ya:wa:ni'kán tu: li:lakalhta'nhte:kán
a'kxní
ya:wá:–kan
a’h–tin
poste
ya:wá:–ní–kan
CLF:DEFAULT–one
post
stand–ben–idf
when
√stand–idf
tu:
nrel
li:–laka–lhta'nh–tayá–kan
inst–face–taut–take–idf
‘When they put up a post they put something up against it that they can use to pull (the fence wire)
tight’
References
Aikhenvald, Sasha. (2006). Classifiers and noun classes, semantics, pp. 463-70 of Volume 1 of
Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd edition, edited by Keith Brown. Elsevier: Oxford.
Allan, Keith. (1977). Classifiers. Language 53: 284-310.
Beck, David. (2011). Upper Necaxa Totonac Dictionary. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Greenberg, Joseph H. 1972. “Numeral classifiers and substantival number: Problem in the genesis of
a linguistic type”. Working papers In Language Universals 9.
Lucy, John A. (1992). Language Diversity and Thought: A Reformulation of the Linguistic Relativity
Hypothesis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Levy, Paulette. (2004). Parts in Papantla Totonac and the genesis of systems of Numeral Classification.
A.Y. Aikhenvald (ed.), Sprachtypologie Universalienforschung, volumen Nominal Classification.
Senft, G. (Ed.). (2000). Systems of nominal classification. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
54
A cross-linguistic examination of the Symmetry & Dominance Constraints
Leah Geer
University of Texas at Austin
It has been suggested that the Symmetry and Dominance (S&D) Conditions, proposed by Battison (1978)
are universal across sign languages (Channon, 2004). Yet, while Battison himself never claimed these conditions to be universal, they are often presumed to hold cross-linguistically often without justification for the
language in question. To assess whether it is reasonable to assume S&D can be applied to other languages, I
evaluate data from a convenience sample of nine sign language dictionaries (Brazilian SL, Chinese SL, Dutch
SL, French SL, Italian SL, Hong Kong SL, Nicaraguan SL, Indian SL, and Mongolian SL) and discuss the types
of violations exhibited in each language and the implications for S&D. I argue that the variation in data can be
productively accounted for using Optimality Theory (OT) and building from recent work by Eccarius (2011).
From 3,454 signs, a total 100 S&D violations were identified (see Table 1). Identified violations fell into
four main categories: signs with unified hand configuration (where both move but they do so together, like the
ASL signs LEAD and TAKE - RIDE, pictured in Figure 1), signs in which a marked base handshape not specified
in Battison’s list of allowable base handshapes was used, signs in which both hands move but the movement is
not unified, and signs which violated S&D in some other manner.
With data from these nine languages, I show that each has signs which violate S&D, thus perhaps it would
be better to classify Battison’s constraints as “descriptive generalizations” for ASL rather than universals. There
were, however, trends that emerged in the data with respect to the types of violations each language exhibited.
One way to capture these trends and to predict which types of violations may be present in different languages
is to use OT. Prince and Smolensky’s (1993) model assumes that formational constraints that govern wellformedness can be ranked differently across languages yielding different types of outcomes. Eccarius suggested
one type of faithfulness constraint necessary to account for sign language data is faithfulness to some realworld entity being depicted with the hands. Such an analysis, given the right constraints, can account for the
S&D violations in the present investigation; consider Figure 2. This tableau represents a constraint ranking
necessary to demonstrate a language which allows the two hands to bear different configurations and that both
move together. The first and second constraints, I DENT U NIF and I DENT SF reflect faithfulness to real-world
referents. Respectively, taking a ride in a vehicle necessitates both entities move together and the H handshape
on the dominant hand represents a two-legged entity. The third constraint, a markedness constraint, reflects a
dispreference for hands bearing different configurations, but because the other constraints rank above it, it is
violated in this instance and others throughout the dataset analyzed here.
Future work should continue analysis of patterns of S&D violations in these and other languages not included here, and also analysis of video data, rather than dictionaries alone.
Sign Language
Brazilian
Chinese
Dutch
French
Hong Kong
Indian
Italian
Nicaraguan
Mongolian
Items in sample
374
177
962
307
539
225
330
286
255
Items in violation
16
18
12
4
23
10
6
4
7
Percent violations
4.29%
10.17%
1.25%
1.3%
4.27%
4.44%
1.82%
1.4%
2.75%
Table 1: Summary of S&D violations within a 9 language sample
55
a) LEAD
b) TAKE - RIDE
Figure 1: Examples of ASL violations of the Symmetry & Dominance conditions
Fig. 1b [TAKE - RIDE ( C : H )]
a.
b.
c.
☞
I DENT U NIF
I DENT SF
TAKE - RIDE ( C : H )
TAKE - RIDE ( C : C )
TAKE - RIDE ( C : H
only H moves)
∗!
∗!
*D IFF HS
∗
Figure 2: Tableau demonstrating the ranking I DENT U NIF»I DENT SF»*D IFF HS. Letters in parentheses indicate the handshapes each hand assumes in the production of the sign for the different candidates. I DENT U NIF states that corresponding elements between external referent contrasts and output contrasts should have comparable amounts of unification,
I DENT SF states corresponding segments between external referent contrasts and output contrasts should have identical
Selected Finger combinations (Eccarius, 2011), and *D IFF HS states that hands must be specified for the same configuration.
References
Battison, R. (1978). Lexical borrowing in American Sign Language. Linstok Press, Silver Spring.
Channon, R. (2004). The symmetry and dominance conditions reconsidered. In Proceedings of Chicago Linguistic
Society, volume 40, pages 44–57.
Eccarius, P. (2011). A constraint-based account of distributional differences in handshapes. In Channon, R. and van der
Hulst, H., editors, Formational Units in Sign Languages, pages 261–284. De Gruyter, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Prince, A. and Smolensky, P. (1993). Optimality Theory: Constraint Interaction in Generative Grammar (ROA Version
8/2002). Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers, NJ.
56
On the dual function of so-called ‘abstract finals’ in Blackfoot: a Functional Discourse Grammar
approach
Inge Genee, University of Lethbridge, Canada
HDLS-10, UNM, November 1-3 2012
This paper contributes to the discussion on the nature of Algonquian finals by focusing on the
dual function of so-called abstract finals in Blackfoot. It capitalizes on the distinction between
lexemes, (semantic) frames and (morphosyntactic) templates made in Functional Discourse
Grammar (FDG; Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008) to show that they may originate both in the
grammar component or in the lexical component.
Verb stems in Algonquian languages are subcategorized for transitivity and the animacy
of S (in intransitive stems) or P (in transitive stems), creating the well-known classification of
verbs stems (Bloomfield 1946) shown in Table 1 and exemplified in examples (1a-c).
Algonquian verb stems can be exceedingly complex (e.g. Bakker 2006 for Cree), but they
minimally must contain a root (sometimes called an initial in Algonquian linguistics) and a socalled final.
Traditionally, two kinds of verb finals are distinguished: ‘abstract’ and ‘concrete’.
Concrete finals would add “palpable meaning” (Bloomfield 1946: 104), while abstract finals add
no more information than transitivity and animacy (Armoskaite 2010, 2011; Bloomfield 1946;
Frantz 2009: 97-107; Wolfart 1973, 1996). Recent work has shown that this distinction is rather
ragged around the edges: some abstract finals have additional meaning (Denny 1978), and some
concrete finals have very little specific meaning, resulting in a series of generative analyses of
both abstract and concrete finals in a variety of languages as ‘light verbs’ (e.g. Mathieu 2008 and
references therein).
This paper focusses on those abstract finals in Blackfoot which truly appear to contain no
more semantic content than animacy and transitivity. The examples in (1) show that they can
occur in stem-final position, while (2) and (3) show that they may also occur stem-internally. A
stem-final abstract final (as in (1)) connects the lexeme (the verb root) to the State of Affairs in
which it is used in terms of transitivity and animacy (cf. Haspelmath’s (2002: 230-235)
“transpositional” inflection); it will thus be introduced in the grammar rather than the lexicon. A
stem-internal abstract final (as in (2) and (3)) connects an input lexeme to a derivational lexeme,
by supplying the correct type of stem for the derivational lexeme to attach to. In productive
derivations (2), its actual form will be supplied in the grammar, but in lexicalized derivations (3)
it is located in the lexicon.
FDG recognizes a category of so-called “placeholder morphemes”, whose function it is to
reserve a position for the expression of grammaticalized pragmatic and semantic features in the
morphosyntax. Stem-final abstract finals are easily accounted for as instances of such
morphemes. I will show that such placeholder morphemes occur also in the lexicon, and that
stem-internal abstract finals are a good example. This analysis contributes to our understanding
of Blackfoot verb structure in providing a unified analysis for the stem-final and stem-internal
occurrence of abstract finals; it contributes to the theory of Functional Discourse Grammar in
proposing that placeholder morphemes occur not only in the grammatical component of the
model, but also in the lexical component.
57
TRANSITIVITY Intransitive
Transitive
ANIMACY
Inanimate
(V)II (inanimate S)
(V)TI (inanimate P)
Animate
(V)AI (animate S)
(V)TA (animate P)
Table 1. Traditional Algonquianist classification of verb stems
(1) a. nitánii
nit-waan-ii
1-sayINTR-AI
‘I talked’
(2)
(3)
b.
nitánistoo’pa
nit-waan-istoo-hp-wa
1-sayINTR-TI-DIR-3SG.OBJ
‘I said it’
c.
nítohpommááttsaawa nohkówa omiksi ápotsskinaiksi
om-iksi
nit-ohpomm-aa-áttsi-aa-wa n-ohkó-wa
1-buyINTR-AI-CAUS.TA-DIR-3 1-son-3
DEM-AN.PL
‘I made my son buy those cows’ (Frantz 2009: 101)
nitánistaawa
nit-waan-ist-aa-wa
1-sayINTR-TA-DIR-3SG
‘I told him/her’
(Frantz 2009: 97-98)
ápotsskina-iksi
cow-AN.PL
nítssaipioohsáttsooka (Frantz & Russell 1995: 198)
nit-sa+ip-i-ohsi-áttsi-ok-wa
1-out+bringTR-TA-REFL.AI-CAUS.TA-INV-3SG
PERSON-ADJUNCT+VERB ROOT-AF-CF1-CF2-INVERSION-PERSON
‘she gave me a laxative’, lit. ‘she caused me to bring myself out’
Cf. sa+ip-i-ohsi-áttsi VTA ‘give a laxative to’ lit. ‘cause someone to bring
himself out (=urinate)’; sa+ip-i-oohsi VAI ‘urinate’ lit. ‘bring oneself out’;
sa+ip-i VTA ‘bring/take out’
References
Armoskaite, Solveiga. 2010. On intrinsic transitivity of Blackfoot root verbs. UBCWPL 29: 60-69.
Armoskaite, Solveiga. 2011. The destiny of roots in Blackfoot and Lithuanian. Doctoral Dissertation, Linguistics,
University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
Bakker, Peter 2006. Algonquian verb structure: Plains Cree. In What´s in a verb? Studies in the verbal morphology
of the Languages of the Americas, edited by E.B. Carlin and G.J. Rowicka, 3-28. Utrecht: LOT.
Bloomfield, Leonard. 1946. Algonquian. In Linguistic structures of native America, edited by Cornelius Osgood and
Harry Hoijer, 85-129. New York: Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology.
Denny, J. Peter. 1978. Verb class meanings of the abstract finals in Ojibway Inanimate Intransitive verbs. IJAL 44:
294-322.
Frantz, Donald, and Norma Russell. 1995. Blackfoot dictionary of stems, roots, and affixes. 2nd ed. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press.
Frantz, Donald G. 2009. Blackfoot Grammar. 2nd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Haspelmath, Martin. 2002. Understanding Morphology. London: Arnold.
Hengeveld, Kees, and J. Lachlan Mackenzie. 2008. Functional Discourse Grammar. A typologically-based theory of
language structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mathieu, Eric. 2008. "The syntax of abstract and concrete finals in Ojibwe." In NELS 37 : Proceedings of the 37th
Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society, edited by Emily Elfner and Martin Walkow, 101-114.
BookSurge Publishing.
Wolfart, H. Christoph. 1973. Plains Cree: A grammatical study, Transactions of the American Philosophical
Society. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society.
Wolfart, H.C. 1996. A sketch of Cree, an Algonquian Language. In Handbook of North American Indians, Vol 17:
Languages, edited by Ives Goddard, 391-438. Washington: Smithsonian.
58
The dimensions of the lexicon
Grandon Goertz, University of New Mexico
Overview. This study examines typological qualities of corpus data using a
mathematical powerlaw model to describe its distributions and frequencies. Speakers use
preconstructed phrases in predictable and characteristic ways (Barlow and Kemmer
(2000), Ellis, (2008), Erman and Warren (2000), Fillmore, Kay, & O’Connor (1988),
Pawley and Syder (1983), and Tremblay, Derwing, Libben, & Westbury (2007). The
lexicon has been envisioned as containing both words and word clusters, from which
speakers draw.
From a review of Flake (1998), Gell-Mann (1995), Mitchell (2009), Clauset,
Shalizi, and Newman (2009), and West & Brown, (2004), it is evident that there are
geometrical modeling techniques that can show how the corpus data is shaped, its
properties and distribution. A corpus may be powerlaw distributed, self-similar at all
scales, and the laws of preferential attachment may apply (Cappocci, et al, 2006). Any
corpus can be analyzed in terms of the phrases it contains, and its frequent word
connections, or nodes (Widdows, 2004).
Data. This project evaluated the properties of a privately created lexicon, and the
characteristics of its phrases. This corpus contains scripts, transcripts and screenplays of
137 movies, for a total of 1,250,000 words. These scripts represent spoken discourse.
Computer programs processed the movie data and supplied data distributions and log-log
plots of frequency. The text from Moby Dick and the Santa Barbara Corpus were also
evaluated. The private corpus compared favorably to both, having better fits to the data as
shown by the R2 values.
Report of results. Corpus data was found to be powerlaw distributed, and it can
be represented linearly on a double log axis. Powerlaw distributions are exponential, and
the value of the exponent is the dimension of the shape of the plot. Powerlaw
distributions arise from the fact that words that are more frequent are used in
combinations with more words. These combinations lead to the establishment of
collocations or word chunks, and phrases. This phenomenon of clustering is known as
preferential attachment and is characteristic of such distributions.
Because of preferential attachment, nodes are formed, and the analysis of the corpus
includes an evaluation of nodes as defined by the weight given to the words preceding
and following.
Theoretical implications. A measure of ‘frequent’ and ‘infrequent’ for each
corpus is offered. On the exponential data plot, low frequency words have a value that is
to the right of the boundary of the exponential cutoff. High frequency words are those
that have values to the left of the boundary point of the plot that establishes regularity.
The data leads to a conclusion that that there is a functioning exemplar lexicon consisting
of collocations of varying strengths, which can be measured. Further, phrase frequencies
should be the unit of evaluation, rather than individual word frequencies, as phrase
frequencies show the language as it is actually configured in use.
This paper introduces the idea of the nodal lexicon which has the comparative strength or
frequency that is based on preceding word and following word connections.
59
References:
Barlow, Michael and Kemmer, Suzanne., Eds. 2000. Usage based models of language.
CSLI Publications, Stanford.
Capocci, A, V. Servedio, F. Colaiori, L Buriol, D. Donato, S Leonardi, and G Caldarelli.
2006. Preferential attachment in the growth of social networks: The internet
encyclopedia Wikipedia. Physical Review E 74, 036116.
Clauset, Aaron, Cosma Shalizi, and M. Newman. 2009. Power-law distributions in
empirical data, SIAM Review 51(4), 661-703 (2009).
Ellis, Nick. 2008. Phraseology. John Benjamins, Amsterdam.
Erman, Britt and Beatrice Warren. 2000. The idiom principle and the open choice
principle. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin.
Fillmore, Charles Paul Kay and Mary O’Connor . 1988. Regularity and idiomaticity in
grammatical constructions: The case of let alone. Language 64, 501:38.
Flake, Gary. 1998. The computational beauty of nature. The MIT Press, Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
Gell-Mann, Murray. 1995. Complexity. John Wiley and Sons, Inc. Hoboken, NJ.
Mitchell, Melanie. 2009. Complexity, a guided tour. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Pawley, A. and F. H. Snyder 1983. Two puzzles for linguistic theory: Nativelike selection
and nativelike fluency. In J. C. Richards and R. W. Schmidt (eds.) Language and
Communication. Longman, New York.
Tremblay, Antoine, Bruce Derwing, Gary Libben, and Chris Westbury. 2007. Processing
advantages of lexical bundles: Evidence from self-paced reading experiments, word
and sentence recall tasks, and off-line semantic ratings. Presented at the Symposium
on Formulaic Language, University of Wisconsin, April 18-21, 2007.
West, Geoffrey and James Brown. 2004. Life's universal scaling laws. Physics Today.
60
Still Waters: Metaphors in the Choctaw translations of the 23rd Psalm
George Ann Gregory, University of Maryland University &
College CNM Community College
Joanna Neal, Independent Researcher
The book of Psalms was translated by Rev. Cyrus Byington and Alfred Wright with the
aid of Choctaw translator, Joseph Dukes, in the early 1800’s, using an English translation of
Psalms, either the King James Version or the Geneva Bible. Joseph Dukes, one of the Choctaw
speakers assisting them, started working with them when he was only ten-years-old, was a mixed
blood Choctaw, and was attending a mission school at a time when most Choctaws shunned
Christian missionaries. The Choctaw had first encountered Europeans in 1540 with the De Soto
expedition. Choctaws, however, did not encounter Europeans again for over a hundred years
with their next contacts being with the French and the English. During that hundred years, the
culture of all the Southeastern Indians changed drastically from city states to smaller villages.
The Choctaw had three main districts, each with its own principle chief or speaker. By the time
of the inception of the United States, the Choctaw population had experienced major population
losses and rapid cultural change. Missionary activities began after the War of 1812 and at the
request of Pushmataha, one of the principle chiefs, for schools. By that time, there were already a
number of mixed-blood Choctaw, and Europeans who intermarried with Choctaw wanted their
children Europeanized.
The above history helps to inform the understanding of the metaphors and imagery in the
Choctaw version. This paper examines metaphors used in the Choctaw version of the 23rd Psalm,
comparing them to the English metaphors and to traditional Choctaw ideas of that time. Part of
what is examined are the cultural ideas embodied in each translation and how closely these ideas
61
could be translated into the Choctaw cultural context of the early 1800’s. Some ideas appear to
older Choctaw traditions and some images contradict traditional Choctaw beliefs. Some of the
ideas that differ in translation are those related to spirit, still waters, shepherd, and righteous
path.
62
Prefabs and Priming in Second-Person Address
in New Mexico and Southern Colorado
Aubrey Healey
This study examines second-person address (2S) forms in New Mexican Spanish with the aim of
discovering linguistic and extralinguistic reasons that a speaker may choose one form over
another. In New Mexican Spanish a speaker has the choice between using either the tú or usted
form to address their interlocutor. Previous sociolinguistic research on Spanish has found social
factors, involving the dynamics of power and solidarity, to be the strongest influence in secondperson address form choice (Brown and Gilman 1960; Rey 1994; Uber 1985; 2000). However, a
recent study (Healey 2011) on second person address forms in Cali, Colombia found linguistic
and cognitive factors, such as occurrence in prefabricated constructions (c.f. Bybee 2006; Travis
2007; Wilson 2009) and linguistic priming (c.f. Torres Cacoullos and Travis 2011; Travis 2007),
to be more significant than social factors.
In order to identify the linguistic conditioning of 2S form usage, 489 tokens of second
person singular verbs were extracted in their context from the New Mexican and Southern
Colorado Survey of Spanish (NMCOSS) (Bills and Vigil 2008). Goldvarb X (Sankoff 2005)
was used to perform multi-variate analysis; all tokens were coded for the following linguistic
factor groups: current second person address form, previous second person address form,
realization, verb type, semantic class of verb, clause type, reported speech, and Tense-MoodAspect. Also, a number of extralinguistic factors which also create sub-contexts that may affect
the variation were coded: speaker role (interviewer/interviewee), speaker age, addressee age,
speaker gender, and addressee gender.
This analysis had the following findings: (1) Certain formulaic expressions (prefabs)
occur with such high frequency that they will tend to be uttered in the same second person form,
in these data specifically oiga and mira; (2) Second person form choice will be affected by
structural priming, which means that the previous use of tú will prime the current use of tú, and
the previous use of usted will prime the current use of usted; and (3) The genre of discourse (the
communicative situation) will affect the overall patterning of second person address forms. In
particular, because second person address forms are much more common and useful in
interactive rather than narrative discourse, the linguistic and extralinguistic sub-contexts
affecting 2S form choice will be easier to discover in spontaneous conversation, whereas the
speaker and addressee roles found in the interview genre may obscure the effects of the more
subtle influences. This study is the first to examine second person address form usage in New
Mexico quantitatively by examining both linguistic and social factors, and thus aims to uncover
reasons a speaker might choose one form over the other.
63
[They don’t want to].
They don’t want to.
They don’t want to listen (usted).
% They say,
[They can bring] -A: [I didn't want it] either.
P: they can -they can bring the horse to water,
but that don't mean he's gonna drink.
A: But if that water is not .. appropriate for
our kids,
P: <X well later no X> -There’s -like we said,
there’s kids that do want to.
and others that sa- -not more than= -A: What happens is when they go to
school,
they have to leave behind their culture
and their language.
P: [Well] -A: [like] you and I?
P: Well look (tú),
I have -.. my nephew now,
.. and he’s lucky.
P:
Examples of prefabricated constructions
P:
[No quieren].
No quieren.
No quieren oiga.
% Dicen,
[Pueden llevar] -A: [I didn't want it] either.
P: pueden -pueden llevar al caballo a beber agua,
but that don't mean he's gonna drink.
A: But if that water is not .. appropriate
for our kids,
P: <X Pos luego no X> -Hay -como dijimos,
hay chavalos que sí quieren.
y otros que di- -no más se= -A: Lo que pasa es que cuando van a la
escuela,
tienen que dejar su cultura y su lengua.
P: [Pos] -A: [like] you and I?
P: Pos mira,
yo tengo -.. my nephew ahora,
.. y es suerte.
(Bills and Vigil 2008, 88-1A3, 654-677)
Table 1: Variable-rule analysis of the contribution of factors selected as significant to usted usage p< .05 (p =0.032)
N=489 Input= .779 (66.6% usted, 326/489)
Log likelihood= -157.190
Factor
Factor Weight
Percent usted (n)
Speaker Role
Interviewer
.790
93% (284/304)
Interviewee
.102
23% (42/185)
Range .69
Previous 2S Form
Usted
.629
82% 258/315)
None
.513
84% (16/19)
Tú
.253
34% (52/155)
Range .38
Realization
Expressed
.635
80% (111/139)
Unexpressed
.445
61% (215/350)
Range .19
References
Bills, G. D. and N. Vigil. 2008. The Spanish language of New Mexico and southern Colorado. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Brown, R. & R. Gilman. 1960. The pronouns of power and solidarity. In Thomas A. Sebeok (ed), Style in language, 253–276. Cambridge, MA:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.
Bybee, J. 2006. From usage to grammar: The mind’s response to repetition. Language. 82(4). 711-733.
Healey, A. 2011. Tú, vos, or usted: Who are you in Cali?. Linguistics Society of the Southwest Annual Conference. University of Texas at
Brownsville
Rey, A. 1994. The usage of usted in three societies: Colombia, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Language Quarterly 32(3-4): 193-204.
Sankoff, David, Sali Tagliamonte, and Eric Smith. 2005. Goldvarb X: A variable rule application for Macintosh and Windows. Department of
Linguistics, University of Toronto.
Travis, C. E. 2005. Discourse markers in Colombian Spanish. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Travis, C. E. 2007. Genre effects on subject expression in Spanish. Language Variation and Change (19): Cambridge University Press: 101-135.
Torres Cacoullos , R. and C. E. Travis. 2011. Testing convergence via code-switching. International Journal of Bilingualism. 15(3): 241-267.
Uber, D. R. 1985. The dual function of usted. Hispania 68: 388-392.
Uber, D. R. 2000. 'Addressing' business in Puerto Rico. In Ana Roca (ed), Research on Spanish in the United States, 310-318. Somerville:
Cascadilla Press.
Wilson, D. 2009. Prefabs at the center for centuries. Paper presented at the 12th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (HLS). San Juan, PR. October
21-24.
64
Affect Verbs in American Sign Language
Christina Healy, Gallaudet University
As a first step in researching affect verbs in American Sign Language (ASL), this
project evaluated the construals evoked by constructions produced when native signers
translated English sentences with affect verbs. Affect verbs reference circumstances in
which an experiencer apprehends a stimulus and undergoes an internal change. For
example, if Mary reads a book and experiences fascination, an English speaker could say
any of the following:
1) That book fascinated Mary.
2) Mary was fascinated with that book.
3) That book is fascinating.
These sentences all refer to the same situation wherein the book acts as stimulus and
Mary is the experiencer of fascination. However, they differ in the construals they evoke.
In the unmarked verb construction in (1), the trajector role is elaborated by the stimulus,
with book appearing as the subject of the sentence, and the experiencer elaborates the
landmark role. In (2), the construction BE V+ed construes the experiencer as the primary
focal participant. Finally, in (3) the stimulus elaborates the trajector evoked by the
construction BE V+ing, and the experiencer is left unspecified. Talmy (2003) notes that
the majority of English affect verbs are stimulussubject in their unmarked constructions,
like fascinate, while other languages are dominated by experiencer-subject affect verbs.
Construals of ASL affect verbs have not been studied previously.
The data for this project were elicited through a translation task: ten English
stimulus subject affect verbs appeared in each of the three constructions represented in
(1)-(3). Five native ASL signers translated each sentence, and the videotaped data were
coded for clause types, trajector and landmark roles, use of space, and non-manual
markers (movements of the head, torso, eyes, brows, cheeks, nose, and mouth).
The results indicate that ASL predominately construes the experiencer as the
primary focal participant, in contrast to English. The elicitation prompts were evenly
distributed across three construal types, yet the vast majority of elicited ASL utterances
encoded construals in which the experiencer elaborated the trajector role of the affect
verb. Constructions encoding the stimulus as the trajector showed evidence of English
influence, and of the 120 responses, only 9 construals left the experiencer unspecified.
Participants commented that these translations were especially challenging. Also
interesting, though none of the elicitation sentences contained a verb of apprehension, 28
of the ASL responses included an apprehension sign adjacent to the affect lexeme, such
as LOOK-AT in (4).
________t
4) BIG DOG SMALL DOG LOOK-AT SCARE
Small dogs (apprehend-and) fear big dogs.
This is under further investigation and may be similar to apprehension prefixes found in
65
some spoken languages.
Understanding ASL affect verbs is crucial for developing English literacy
curriculum for deaf students, teaching ASL as a second language, and training sign
language interpreters. It may also inform counselors in appreciating construals patients
use while discussing affective situations. Finally, ASL’s conception of affective events
provides insight to the culture and cognition of its native speakers, and the means used to
convey that in discourse.
Reference
Talmy, Leonard. 2003. Toward a cognitive semantics: Typology and process in concept
structuring (Language, speech, and communication) Volume 2. Massachusetts
Institute of Technology: Cambridge, MA.
66
Speech Communities in Puerto Rico: An ethnographic study about social class and
children learning English in public and private schools of the island.
Jannette Hermina
Abstract
This research describes an ethnographic study related to the learning of English in
a public school and a private school in two small towns in the northern coast of Puerto
Rico. The research examines the social interaction of elementary school students in the
English classroom, as well as different extracurricular activities, educational and social
resources that families use to increase the learning of English in their children.
Extracurricular activities, additional educational and social resources are often referred in
sociocultural literature as cultural capital. Cultural capital is a term coined by Pierre
Bourdieu (1977) to refer to the different artifacts and approaches that people implement
in order to achieve higher social status. This study aims to illustrate that the access and
successful management of additional extracurricular, educational and social resources is
an asset in the learning of English in Puerto Rico. The research describes how children
and parents see English as a tool for social mobility. In this study, I investigated: a) what
the factors are that influence private school Puerto Rican students to learn and master
English productively, b) what the factors are that impede public school Puerto Rican
students from mastering the learning of English productively, and c) how both social
groups incorporate the use of English in their daily social interactions.
The research questions that guided this research are: 1) Are there two different speech
communities in Puerto Rico? Who are they? What are the linguistics and social
differences in these two speech communities? 2) Do public school and private school
children use any English in their school context? 3) Is there any resistance or empathy
towards English in public schools? Is there any resistance or empathy towards the
learning of English in private schools? 4) Do children in public and private schools and
their families see English as a social mobility mechanism in their future professional
lives? If so, how? 5) What additional extracurricular, educational, and social resources
do public school families and private school families use to increase the learning of
English for their children? The methodology included classroom observations, two
sociolinguistics interviews with focal parents, a sociolinguistic questionnaire, and two
brief interviews with focal children. Finally, the qualitative analysis focuses on general
aspects of the children’s social interactions in the English classroom, their uses of English
and the connection of it with their access to extracurricular, educational, and social
resources. The conclusions bring a clearer picture of how English is perceived by these
speech communities and what are the advantages of learning English to move higher in
the social class strata of Puerto Rico. This work is significant to the field of educational
linguistics and sociolinguistics because there are few studies that compare access to
extracurricular activities, additional educational and social resources (cultural capital)
between public and private school students in Puerto Rico.
Reference:
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice. United Kingdom: Cambridge
University Press.
67
Guarani Imperfective hína use in Paraguayan Spanish: A First Step
Elizabeth Herring
Indiana University
Paraguay provides a unique context in which to study the effects of language contact. With
strong national pride in the indigenous language, Guarani linguistic effects are regularly heard in
Paraguayan Spanish. One morpheme that is often heard is hína, the Guarani Imperfective aspect
marker, as seen in 1.
1
te
estoy hablando-hína
2.DOP be.1SG talk.PROG-HINA
I am talking to you.
The grammaticalization process of the imperfective marker hína, as well as a comparative look
at other languages in the Tupi-Guarani language family helps form a more complete description
of its use throughout history and Latin America. In determining its use in Paraguayan Spanish,
we must first start with understanding its use in Paraguayan Guarani.
While Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca (1994) find a locative origin for imperfective
markings in all languages investigated, this does not appear to be the case with hína. Neither the
first Guarani grammar description written, by Ruiz de Montoya in 1639, nor a comparative study
of other Tupi-Guarani languages provided a locative explanation for hína. This qualitative
description of the data proposes multiple functions for the morpheme. While also marking
imperfective aspect, hína can be, and has been throughout documented history, used to provide
emphasis and/or as an assertion particle.
Using historical data as well as the results of a comparative survey of imperfective and
emphasizing markings in Tupi-Guarani languages, a qualitative description of present-day
Guarani usage of hína reveals important diversions from prescriptive grammar descriptions of
the marker. It also highlights connections between hína’s lexical status and the appearance of
intervening material, allowing the conclusion that the marker is in an intermediate stage of
grammaticalization, as described by Bybee, et. Al (1994) and Torres Cacoullos (2012).
Typologically, aspect markings are found closest to the lexical root, with mood and tense
markings being farther away. The distance from the lexical root has to do with the amount of
power the marking has to affect the meaning of the verb phrase. Guarani’s hína does not always
follow this so-called universal. With present and future tense situations, hína appears outside,
that is, farther from the lexical root, of all tense markings. It also appears outside for all past
68
tense markings except kuri, which is the most common and most recent past. This difference in
placement relative to the lexical root implies different meanings, or at least, different degrees of
meaning change.
With the historical, comparative, and present-day Guarani use of hína having been
described in the first part of the paper, its use in Spanish can begin to occur. A preliminary look
at the possible interpretations of hína use in Paraguayan Spanish are proposed here, as are ways
to confirm or deny these hypotheses in future studies.
Selected References
Bybee, J. L., Perkins, R. D., & Pagliuca, W. (1994). The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect,
and Modality in the Languages of the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Clements, J. C. (2006). The Lexicalization-Grammaticalization Continuum. In J. C. Clements, T.
A. Klinger, D. Piston-Hatlen, and K. J. Rottet (Eds.), History, Society and Variation In
honor of Albert Valdman (pp. 77-100). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing
Company.
Torres Cacoullos, R. (2012). Variation and Grammaticalization. In Díaz-Campos, M. (Ed.) The
Handbook of Hispanic Sociolinguistics (pp. 148-167). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
69
Light Verbs in Navajo/English Code-mixing
Corinne Hutchinson (Georgetown University)
Paul Platero (University of New Mexico)
Data from light verb constructions in Navajo/English mixed code are problematic for both the
constraint-free model of code-mixing described in González-Vilbazo & López (2011) and others
(e.g. MacSwan, 1999, 2005, 2010) and the MLF model supported by (e.g. Myers-Scotton, 1993a,
1993b, Myers-Scotton & Jake, 2000; Jake et al., 2002, 2005; Myers-Scotton & Jake, 2009).
Light verb constructions using forms of the Navajo verbs ásh[44h ‘make/do’ and 1sht’9 ‘act/do’
with English lexical verbs are an extremely productive verbal code-mixing strategy in
Navajo/English mixed code, as shown in (1a). Light verb constructions employing a Navajo
lexical verb with an English light verb, such as that shown in (1b), are judged as marginally
acceptable by native bilingual speakers. Navajo verbs have no infinitival forms; such constructions
employ agentless iterative perfective forms of the lexical verb.
(1)
a.
kisses
7yiilaa
3sg.make:PERF
‘He gave kisses’
b.
?He gave n1’iits’-s
IT.3sg.indef.PERF.kiss
‘He gave kisses’
Monolingual Navajo light verb constructions—as shown in (2)—are dispreferred by native
speakers, and may be the result of grammatical convergence with English.
(2)
?* n1’iits’-s
IT.3sg.indef.PERF.kiss
‘He made/gave kisses’
7yiilaa
3sg.make:PERF
The non-categorical asymmetry between the availability of Navajo/English and English/Navajo
light verb constructions is vexing for both the constraint-free code-mixing models and the MLF
model. Although the Navajo/English and English/Navajo light verb constructions are generally
both judged to be acceptable by native bilingual speakers, the former (1a) is robustly attested in
naturalistic speech, while the latter (1b) is vanishingly rare and is generally associated with
speakers of limited bilingual competence. The MLF model predicts such Navajo/English and
English/Navajo constructions to be equally acceptable, which does not correspond to the intuitions
of native Navajo/English bilinguals. The constraint-free approach, on the other hand, predicts
categorical asymmetry (González-Vilbazo & López, 2011), also not reflected in the NavajoEnglish data.
This paper explores a constraint-free model of cross-linguistic light verb constructions in which
the availability of cross-linguistic light verb constructions is tempered by the standards of minimal
verbal inflection in each of the participating languages. Navajo verbs minimally bear more
inflectional material than English verbs—even nominalized Navajo verbs bear inflectional
material minimally marking subject/object/aspect—limiting the communicative advantage of a
light verb construction using a Navajo lexical verb with an English light verb. The noncategorically asymmetrical availability of light verb constructions using English versus Navajo
lexical verbs is suggested to result from speakers’ avoidance of syntactically redundant
constructions; while grammatically acceptable, such constructions are dispreferred due to their
limited communicative benefits.
70
References
Canfield, Kip. 1980. Some Notes on Code Switching in Navajo. In Anthropological Linguistics
22: 218-220.
González-Vilbazo, K. & López, L. 2011. Some properties of light verbs in code-switching.
Lingua, 121: 832-850.
Holm, A., Holm, W., & Spolsky, B. 1971. “English loan words in the speech of six-year-old
Navajo chidren.” Navajo Reading Study Progress Report 16. University of New Mexico:
Albuquerque, NM.
Jake, J. L., Myers-Scotton, C., & Gross, S. 2002. Making a Minimalist approach to codeswitching
work: Adding the Matrix Language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 5(1), 69-91.
Jake, J. L., Myers-Scotton, C., & Gross, S. 2005. A response to MacSwan (2005): Keeping the
Matrix Language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 8(3), 271-276.
MacSwan, J. 1999. A Minimalist approach to intrasentential code switching. New York: Garland
Press.
MacSwan, J. 2000. The architecture of the bilingual language faculty: Evidence from
codeswitching. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 3(1), 37-54.
MacSwan, J. 2005. Codeswitching and generative grammar: A critique of the MLF model and
some remarks on “modified minimalism”. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 8(1), 122.
MacSwan, J. 2010. Plenary address: Unconstraining codeswitching theories. Proceedings from the
Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society 44. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Myers-Scotton, C. 1993a. Duelling languages: Grammatical structure in codeswitching. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Myers-Scotton, C. 1993b. Social motivations for codeswitching: Evidence from Africa. Oxford,
UK: Oxford University Press.
Myers-Scotton, C. & Jake, J. L. 2000a. Testing the 4-M Model: An introduction. The International
Journal of Bilingualism, 4(1), 1-8.
Myers-Scotton, C., Jake, J., 2009. A universal model of codeswitching and bilingual language
processing and production. In: Bullock, B., Toribio, J.A. (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of
Linguistic Code-switching. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 336–357.
Schaengold, C. 2004. Bilingual Navajo: Mixed Codes, Bilingualism, and Language Maintenance.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University.
71
Analyzing Humor and Sexual Language in Local Advertisements
Karol Ibarra Zetter and Anni Leming
The present study investigates the language of commercial advertisement in a local magazine in the
Southwest. Specifically, this study addresses how advertisers embed humor and sexual language in the
context of advertisements. In addition, we are interested in how prefabricated chunks are used within
these advertisements. The study was primarily motivated by previous ones that examine how sex and
humor through use of metaphors are used in advertisements. Also examined, was how language strategies
are used to emphasize or downplay a “taboo” product in order to capture an audience’s attention.
Freitas (2008) studied how advertisements containing products that would likely offend or embarrass the
audience use language strategies to avoid offence and how non-offensive products are advertised using
sexual or "highly suggestive" themes. Also found in Freitas' study, "slogans and endlines often need[ed]
the presence of visuals in order to achieve the effects intended’’ (p. 64).
Fuertes-Olivera and Velasco-Sacristán (2006) used cognitive, pragmatic, and critical discourse analysis
approaches to explore sexist underpinnings of English advertisements. They explain how "advertisers
produce metaphorical utterances to invite their audience to process the utterance[s]" (p. 1984). Payne
(1997) contends that “utterances are actual instances of language in use, therefore they always occur in a
context and their interpretations always affect and are affected by the context” (p. 261).
We study language usage in the context of advertisement through a critical discourse analysis
framework. The study incorporates a collection of approximately 200 advertisements from a magazine of
New Mexico, within a period of 5 years. In the study, we created a corpus of advertisements that
contained humor and/or sexual content and examined the pragmatic use of language likely to capture the
attention of its intended audience. Next, we use the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)
to examine prefabricated chunks within in the content.
Bybee (2006) asserts that “the line between idiom and prefab is not always clear since many prefabs
require a metaphorical stretch for their interpretation” (p. 713). This study makes its contribution by
examining both the pragmatic use of metaphors and word sequences or prefabs present in
advertisements.
References
Bybee, J. (2006). From usage to grammar: The mind’s response to repetition. Language, 82 (4), 711-733.
Freitas, E. S. L. (2008), Taboo in Advertising. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Payne, T. E. (1997). Describing Morphosyntax: A Guide for Field Linguists. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Velasco-Sacristán, M. and Fuertes-Olivera, P.A. (2006). Journal of Pragmatics, 38. 1982–2002.
72
A Radial Category Profiling Analysis of North Sámi Ambipositions Laura A. Janda, Lene Antonsen, Berit Anne Bals Baal University of Tromsø, Norway We use the framework of cognitive linguistics to describe a phenomenon found in an indigenous language and suggest a possible typological generalization. North Sámi is spoken by about 30,000 people in contiguous regions of Norway, Sweden, and Finland. North Sámi faces a unique situation in Europe as a minority language in contact with majority languages from two different language families: Indo-‐European (primarily Norwegian, to a lesser extent Swedish) and Finno-‐Ugric (Finnish; Ylikoski 2009:201-‐202). Ambipositions (Hagège 2010:114) are adpositions that can appear both as (a) prepositions and as (b) postpositions (G=genitive case), as in these North Sámi examples: 1. a. miehtá dálvvi b. dálvvi miehtá [over winter-‐G] [winter-‐G over] ‘during the winter’ 2. a. čađa áiggi b. áiggi čađa [through time-‐G] [time-‐G through] ‘through time’ 3. a. rastá joga b. joga rastá [across river-‐G] [river-‐G across] ‘across the river’ 4. a. maŋŋel soađi b. soađi maŋŋel [after war-‐G] [war-‐G after] ‘after the war’ While many languages have ambipositions, they are usually a marginal phenomenon (cf. over in English all over the world/the world over). It is typologically unusual for a language to make systematic use of ambipositions (Hagège 2010:116-‐124). In North Sámi 22% of adpositions are ambipositions, as opposed to 13% and 10% in Finnish and Estonian respectively (Nickel & Sammallahti 2012:171-‐196; Grünthal 2008:57; Karlsson 2008:313-‐320). Examples 1-‐4 give the impression that the position of ambipositions is arbitrary, but two factors argue against this: regional variation and expression of meaning. We carried out empirical studies based on a 10-‐million word corpus extracted from newspapers, plus literary texts. We found that prepositional use predominates in southwestern North Sámi (parallel to predominance of prepositions in Norwegian/Swedish), whereas postpositional use predominates in the northeast (parallel to predominance of postpositions in Finnish). Corpus data was tagged for the types of meanings expressed and radial category networks were established for each ambiposition. While the radial category of each ambiposition contains the same submeanings for both preposition and postposition, we find strong differences in the distribution of meanings expressed according to position. Results for both regional variation and differences in meaning are confirmed significant by statistical models (chi-‐
square and effect size). 73
The use of North Sámi ambipositions is more complex than in other European languages known to have ambipositions. Russian has few ambipositions (radi ‘for the sake of’, spustja/pogodja ‘later’) and a corpus analysis reveals no use of position to express different meanings. Finnish and Estonian have systematic use of ambipositions, and here there are consistent tendencies, such as use of preposition to express time vs. postposition to express space (Huumo forthcoming a & b; Erelt 2003). However, in North Sámi miehtá ‘over’ is more likely to express spatial meanings as a preposition, but temporal meanings as a postposition, but this tendency is reversed for čađa ‘through’. We hypothesize that languages with more extensive use of ambipositions also use them in more complex ways. References Erelt, Mati (ed.) 2003. Estonian Language. Linguistica Uralica. Supplementary Series/Vol 1. Tallinn: Estonian Academy Publishers. Grünthal, Riho. 2008. Case and adpositions in Uralic. powerpoint. Hagège, Claude. 2010. Adpositions. Oxford: Oxford U. Press. Huumo, Tuomas. forthcoming a. Path settings: How dynamic conceptualization permits the use of path expressions as setting adverbials. Pragmatics & Beyond series of John Benjamins. Huumo, Tuomas. forthcoming b. Paths, construal and scanning: What distinguishes prepositional and postpositional uses of Finnish path adpositions? Karlsson, Fred. 2008. Finnish: An Essential Grammar. London: Routledge. Nickel, Klaus P. and Pekka Sammallahti. 2011. Nordsamisk grammatikk. Davvi Girji. A. S. Ylikoski, Jussi 2009: Non-‐finites in North Saami. (= Suomalais-‐ugrilaisen seuran toimituksia/Mémores de la Société Finno-‐ougrienne 257). Helsinki. 74
The Interpreter as Intersubjective Discourse Participant
Terry Janzen, University of Manitoba
Barbara Shaffer, University of New Mexico
When two people who share a common language engage in discourse, they make
constant assumptions about what information is active within each other’s consciousness
(Chafe 1994). Introducing an interpreter into a discourse event affects the very nature of
the interchange because the interpreter will also make assumptions about each of the
interlocutors’ knowledge stores.
Recently, ASL-English interpreters have espoused what have been termed
“expansions”, claimed to be grammatically required in ASL. In this analysis,
“information [in ASL] is not easily implied and in fact, must be explicit” (Lawrence
1995: 212). We claim, however, that the grammar of ASL has no such “explicitness”
requirement. During interpretation, the interpreter must attend to the cognitive domain of
perceived shared and non-shared information. But, what the interlocutors (i.e., not the
interpreter) assume to be within their own shared conscious domains is not necessarily
equally shared by the interpreter. Consequently, what the interpreter chooses to make
implicit or explicit in either language, and how this is accomplished using linguistic
‘packaging strategies’, is not necessarily what the interlocutors would choose to represent
their own conceptualizations of ideas expressed in the discourse. The resulting
interpretation, which should represent what is in the minds of the interlocutors, in fact
does not, and is skewed (Shaffer and Janzen 2002, 2004; Janzen and Shaffer 2003, 2008).
Instead, discourse in all languages is grounded in intersubjectivity, where speakers and
signers make lexical, grammatical, and “packaging” choices based on what they believe
their interlocutors know and believe, and typically have numerous linguistic options open
to them with which to construct their discourse.
This talk examines features of interpreted discourse where implicit and explicit
coding is based on the interpreter’s construal of the information being expressed and the
interpreter’s decisions regarding what to profile in the target message. Further, we
suggest that understanding “contextualization” as a successful discourse strategy (Gile
1995), as part of interpretation into any target language, provides a more correct approach
to the expression of shared or non-shared knowledge.
References:
Chafe, Wallace. 1994. Discourse, consciousness, and time: The flow and displacement of
conscious experience in speaking and writing. Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press.
Gile, Daniel. 1995. Basic Concepts and Models for Interpreter and Translator Training.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Janzen, Terry, and Barbara Shaffer. 2003. Implicit versus explicit coding across two
languages: Mismatches of cognitive domains during interpretation. Paper
presented at the Eighth International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Logroño,
Spain, July 20-25, 2003.
75
Janzen, Terry, and Barbara Shaffer. 2008. Intersubjectivity in interpreted interactions:
The interpreter’s role in co-constructing meaning. In Jordan Zlatev, Timothy
Racine, Chris Sinha and Esa Itkonen (Eds.), The Shared Mind: Perspectives on
Intersubjectivity. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 333-355.
Lawrence, Shelley. 1995. Interpreter discourse: English to ASL expansion. In Elizabeth
A. Winston (ed.), Mapping our course: A collaborative venture, Proceedings of
the Tenth National Convention, Conference of Interpreter Trainers. October 2629, 1994. USA: Conference of Interpreter Trainers.
Shaffer, Barbara, and Terry Janzen. 2004. Contextualization in ASL–English
interpretation: A question of grammar or discourse strategy. Paper presented at
the Conceptual Structures, Discourse and Language 2004 Conference. Edmonton,
Alberta, October 8–10, 2004.
Shaffer, Barbara, and Terry Janzen. 2002. Topic marking: What signers know but
interpreters don’t. Paper presented at the Association of Visual Language
Interpreters of Canada Fourteenth National Biennial Conference. Halifax, Nova
Scotia, July 22-26, 2002.
76
Cognitive Motivations for Pronoun Location in ASL and ISL
Terry Janzen, University of Manitoba
Lorraine Leeson, Trinity College Dublin
Barbara Shaffer, University of New Mexico
To some extent, motivations for the location feature of pronouns in signed languages can be seen,
as when the signer points to a referent that is present and in view in some real space. This is then
taken as extending to pointing to a space conceptualized as the location upon which a non-present
reference is mapped. What has not been clear, however, is the degree of arbitrariness in the
signer’s choice of location, given that non-present referents could effectively be positioned
anywhere within the signer’s articulation space because they are not linked to any actual present
space.
In the present study, we take a corpus approach to examining the motivations underlying
pronoun location in American Sign Language (ASL) and Irish Sign Language (ISL). Our corpora
consist of conversational and narrative data in the two languages. While it is the case that the
observer (whether interlocutor or researcher) may not have access to the signer’s motivations
because they are part of the signer’s conceptualization of events and of discourse needs, which
may not be expressed overtly, we find that certain principles can been seen to determine much of
the use of pronoun space. We categorize pronoun instantiations in the corpora according to a)
metaphorical mappings such as DISTANCE IS DIFFERENCE and PROXIMITY IS SAMENESS; b) the
relation of pronoun use to observable perspective-taking (Janzen 2004); and c) discourse
conventions (Russell and Janzen 2005). We note that metaphor in signed languages has as of late
been investigated primarily at the lexical level (Wilcox 2000; Taub 2001) but not in terms of
grammatical relations, the domain within which our study takes place. Further, we find that
features of location choice correlate in part with text type, with narrative passages showing the
greatest variability, while others, e.g., comparative description and descriptions involving
impersonal pronouns, show a much more restricted use of location choice.
In this study we find that in both the ASL and ISL corpora there are very few pronoun
locations that cannot be accounted for in terms of cognitive motivation, and that appeals to
arbitrariness in this domain are unfounded.
References:
Janzen, T. 2004. Space rotation, perspective shift, and verb morphology in ASL. Cognitive
Linguistics, 15(2), 149-174.
Russell, K., and T. Janzen. 2005. The Categorical Nature of ASL Pronoun Locations.
Ninth International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, July 17 – 23, 2005. Seoul, S.
Korea.
Taub, Sarah F. 2001. Language From the Body: Iconicity and Metaphor in American Sign
Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wilcox. P. 2000. Metaphor in American Sign Language. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University
Press.
77
Language planning at the micro-level: the case of elite English-medium schools in Pakistan
Ajmal Khan
University of Auckland, New Zealand
This study examines the dynamics of the language-in-education management at the microcontext of elite English-medium schools in Pakistan. The classical works on language policy
and planning (LPP) were based on the premise that language planning processes, which take
place at the level of the nation-state, were geared towards a policy of monolingual hegemony
based on a single national language and a rejection of any serious role for minority languages
(Spolsky, 2009). As such the earlier works on LPP were criticised for paying little attention to
language practices and attitudes of communities (Tollefson, 2002). In this study I subscribe to
the view that actual language planning is manifested in the attitudes and practices of individuals,
groups and organisations (Liddicoat & Baldauf jr, 2008).
Pakistan is a multilingual state where a majority of educated people can speak three languages:
English, Urdu (the national language) and a regional vernacular (Pashto in this case). While the
state’s official policy supports the regional vernaculars in education at school level, the de facto
language policy privileges English and Urdu (to some extent) and neglects the native or regional
languages. English-medium schools, especially those of the elite category, are instrumental in the
acquisition and prestige planning of English.
The study as such was guided by the following research questions:
•
•
What are the dynamics of the language-in-education management at the micro-level
of elite schools?
What are the stakeholders’ attitudes towards English, Urdu and Pashto?
To situate my findings within the theoretical landscape of the questions raised above, I draw
upon research on LPP, explicit and implicit dimensions of LPP, LPP at the micro-level,
multilingualism and immersion education. Data was collected over a period of three months
(followed by on-going interaction through emails) ethnographic research involving observations,
focus group discussions, semi-structured interviews and documents review. Two Englishmedium schools are the context and cases for this study.
Research findings reveal that the schools enjoy immense autonomy in their language-ineducation
policy. Their English-only policy is assimilationist (Corson, 1999) and replacive immersion
(Fortune & Tedick, 2008). Pashto, the mother tongue of a majority of the students, is not only
excluded as medium of instruction, it is also not taught as a subject. Students who are noticed
using Pashto in and outside the class are punished. The returning overseas students with native
like proficiency in English and peer group culture also play a significant role in influencing the
local students’ language attitudes and practices in favour of English. Agency mainly rests with
the school administration led by the principal; parents also enjoy significant agency by virtue of
their as status as the valued customers of these educational-cum-commercial chains of
enterprises. The teachers enjoy limited agency as their role is to follow and implement the
language-in-education vision of the schools through prescribed curriculum and pedagogical
practices. In a paradoxical manner the state’s role of enforcing “monolingual hegemony” in the
era of classical LPP has been taken over by the modern day autonomous private school.
78
References
Corson, D. (1999). Language Policy in Schools: A Resource for Teachers and Administrators.
Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Fortune, T. W. & Tedick, D. J. (Eds.) (2008). Pathways to multilingualism: Evolving
perspectives on immersion education. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.
Liddicoat, A. J. and Baldauf, R. B. (2008). Language planning in local contexts: Agents,
contexts and interactions. In A.J. Liddicoat & R.B. Baldauf (Eds.), Language planning in
local contexts. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.
Spolsky, B. (2009). Language management. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tollefson, J. W., (2002). Language policies in education: Critical issues. Mahwah, New
Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
79
Double Accessibility in information structure
Hyuna B. Kim
University of Southern California Alum
The cross-linguistic consideration of a ‘Double Accessibility Reading’ (DAR, Abusch 1997) in the
English sentence “John said that Mary is pregnant” led Ogihara(1996) to claim that Japanese type
languages have an optional DAR depending on the optional movement of the deictic present tense
embedded under the matric tense in (1):
Hanako-ga
ima Tookyoo-ni i-ru
to it-ta-yo.
(1) Taroo-wa konoo
Taroo-TOP yesterday Hanako-NOM now Tokyo-at
be-PRES that say-PAST ending
Reading #1: ‘Yesterday Taroo said, “Hanako is now in Tokyo” ‘
Reading #2: ‘Yesterday Taroo said that Hanako was in Tokyo and she is still in Tokyo now.’
However, there are reasons to cast serious doubt about the true identity of the optional DAR. First, when
the temporal indexical adverb ‘ima’ is removed, Reading #1 survives but the DAR (Reading #2) hardly
stands as a separate meaning, just like the English sentence “Yesterday John said that Mary was in LA at
that time” does not have a DAR but a DAR-like reading is still available for it when the speaker has some
reason to make such inference that Mary is still in LA at the utterance time. Hence, the claimed optional
DAR of (1) comes from the confusion between a semantic meaning and added pragmatic inferences.
Secondly, when a temporal indexical appears in the embedded clause, the optional double access reading
of (1) seems to require a focal emphasis on the temporal indexical based on a specific context. The focal
emphasis brought by the temporal indexical has something to do with the speaker’s assumption about
May’s current location.
Correcting the confusion found in Ogihara(1996), it is proposed that in Japanese/ Korean there is
no true Double Accessibility phenomenon in a semantic sense, and that the DAR-ish meaning under
consideration is obtained by general pragmatic inferences. Yet, for the DAR-ish meaning that is
associated with temporal indexicals as in (1), a more story is to be told because when a temporal indexical
appears, a DAR-ish meaning is rather forced or strengthened. We account for the strong DAR-ish
meaning in Korean/Japanese by the pragmatic repair resolving a semantic conflict. The semantic conflict
found in (1) comes from the interpretation failure of the mismatching two temporal entities in the
embedded clause: an anaphoric tense and a deictic temporal indexical ‘ima / cikum.’ Thus, the deictic
adverb cannot modify the anaphoric embedded tense in indirect speech, causing a problem in
interpretation. In the proposed analysis, it is claimed that when the speaker has a strong belief or a certain
reason to assume that the said event is still going on at the utterance time on the basis of pragmatic
inferences, a pragmatic resolution is attempted to repair the mismatching meaning of the adverb, indicated
by some focal emphasis: the meaning of ‘ima /cikum’ is extended from referring to the utterance time up
to the point overlapping with the past time of saying in (1). But, the ‘extended now’ is a result of
pragmatic extension without a change of its semantic meaning.
80
Intonation Units in Navajo: The Polysynthetic Factor
Michele Kiser
Prosodic structure including suprasegmental phonetic cues such as: intonation, pitch,
rhythm, duration and pauses, has been studied in many languages but there has not been such an
analysis of Navajo. According to Chafe (1994) and DuBois et al. (1992), Intonation Units (IUs),
segments of speech occurring under a single prosody contour, reveal a great deal about how
speakers of a language segment speech in discourse. Especially important in this regard is the
number of words and ideas allowed per IU. IUs have been examined in other Athabaskan
languages polysynthetic languages such as Dena’ina (Tuttle and Lovick, 2011) and Ahtna (Berez
2011) and this study adds to that literature with an analysis of IUs in Navajo narrative.
The analysis examines a narrative produced by an adult male Navajo speaker focuses on
the structure of IUs, words per IU, and words per sentence. Transitional continuity, grammatical
roles, and syntactic units were also marked for each IU. The results are quite different from those
offered by Chafe (1994) for English. The average length of substantive IUs for English was 4.84
words per IU. The Navajo data revealed a much lower number of words per substantive IU with
an average of 2.56.
A likely explanation lies in the typological differences between the languages. Navajo is
a polysynthetic language. The notion of what constitutes a ‘word’ is different in these languages
due to their fusional nature and morphological complexity (Mithun 1999). In Navajo, a single
verb can be marked for both subject and object, conveying the equivalent information of a
sentence in English.
Áshłééh.
Á
sh
Indef.pro-DO 1sg. Sub.
“I am making it.”
Ø
lééh
Classifier
to make-V
Also, some Navajo words, which combine form and function, more closely resemble a
clause, which affects the number of words per IU.
Béésh ts’ósí Bee Ił Na’atsihí, (1 IU, 1 word)
Béésh
ts’ósí
Bee
Ił
Na’atsih
-í
Metal-N thin-Adj by means of-PP with it-P one stirs-V the one which-Rel.
“Whisk”
If one were to count content morphemes, it is plausible the Navajo results may more
closely resemble those of English, and this paper considers this possibility
The analysis of the data also revealed that clauses, including both subordinate and relative
clauses, made up 45% of the intonation units examined. The results of the examination of this
sample study are compared with similar students from English and also with studies on Northern
Athabaskan languages. In addition, a proposal to conduct a large scale analysis of IUs in Navajos
discourse is discussed.
81
References:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMmz1A4950E
Berez, A.L. 2011. Prosody as a genre distinguishing feature in Ahtna: A quantitative approach.
To appear in Functions of Language. 1-25.
Chafe, W 1994. The one new idea constraint. Discourse, consciousness and time: The flow and
displacement of conscious experience in speaking and writing. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
DuBois, J.W., Schuetze-Coburn, S., Cumming, S., and Paolino, D. 1992. Outline of discourse
transcription. In Jane Edwards and Marin Lampert (Eds.), Talking data: Transcription and
coding in discourse, 45-48. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum associates
Mithun, M. 1999. Words. The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 37-67.
82
A tone synthesizer for language documentation and revitalization
Chris Koops (University of New Mexico)
Tone distinctions, as found in many of the indigenous languages of the Americas, may
pose a challenge to language maintenance and revitalization efforts, especially those which
assign a major role to literacy (Grenoble & Whaley 2006). The challenge arises where the
orthography commonly used to write the language does not recognize tone distinctions.
While this poses no problem to native speakers, L2 learners who rely heavily on written
representations may be systematically led to ignore tone distinctions. Moreover, as a result
of tones not being routinely marked in writing, native speakers, including language
teachers, may lack the metalinguistic awareness required to analyze and explain the
relevant tone phenomena.
A case in point is Oklahoma Cherokee, which has a tone system of considerable
complexity, in addition to a vowel length distinction (Pulte & Feeling 1975, Wright 1996,
Johnson 2005, inter alia). There are six contrastive tones in non-final syllables, including
both level and contour tones. As a result of various phonological and morphophonological
processes, it is not uncommon for every syllable in a word to carry a different tone. This
complexity is compounded by the complexity of Cherokee morphology, which creates
long word forms, so that extended tone sequences have to be produced and recognized.
The indigenous writing system, the Cherokee syllabary, represents neither tone nor vowel
length. The same goes for the Latin-based systems that are in common use.
We present a possible solution to the problem of how to make the tones of Oklahoma
Cherokee more easily available to conscious scrutiny and discussion. Building on an
earlier proposal for the study of phonation types (Ladefoged 1995), we suggest taking
advantage of basic speech synthesis tools. A tone synthesizer with a graphical user
interface was created using the acoustic analysis and synthesis software Praat (Boersma &
Weenink 1992-2012). The synthesizer takes as input a sequence of tone/length pairs, e.g.
“2.23” – a short vowel carrying a level 2 tone followed by long vowel carrying a tone
rising from level 2 to level 3. It then generates a corresponding sequence of sine waves.
The result sounds much like a hummed word. The synthesizer thus emulates a traditional
field technique in which prosodic information is isolated by humming or whistling a word
(e.g., Pike 1945). Moreover, the user is provided with a score-like graphical representation
of the tone sequence (see Figure 1). Each individual syllable can be adjusted until a match
to the speaker’s intuition about the target sequence is found. Two words can be generated
and compared at the same time, so that subtle contrasts can be explored.
The Oklahoma Cherokee Tone Synthesizer is currently being tested and refined in order to
make the sine waves it generates approximate more closely the details of Cherokee tone
phonetics. Although primarily designed as a tool for native speakers and linguists engaged
in language documentation, it can easily be adapted for use in language teaching and
learning, for example to draw learners’ attention to specific tone contrasts.
83
Figure 1. Screenshot of the synthesizer interface, showing two orthographically identical 4syllable words which differ in terms of tone and vowel length; orthographic representation
in the native writing system (top panel), segmental phonetic representation (2nd panel from
top), English translation (3rd panel from top), iconic, score-like representation of the
generated tone contour (4th panel from top), and tone categories represented in a linguistic
system (bottom panel)
Boersma, Paul, and David Weenink. 1992–2012. Praat: doing phonetics by computer. http://www.praat.org
Grenoble, Lenore, and Lindsay Whaley. 2006. Saving languages: an introduction to language revitalization.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Johnson, Keith. 2005. Tone and Pitch Accent in Cherokee Nouns. UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual
Report. http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/phonlab/annual_report/2005/ Johnson1–48.pdf
Ladefoged, Peter. 1995. “A phonation-type synthesizer for use in the field.” In: O. Fujimura and M. Hirano
(eds.) Vocal Fold Physiology: Voice Quality Control. Singular: San Diego, pp. 61–76.
Pike, Kenneth. 1945. Tone languages: the nature of tonemic systems with a technique for the analysis of their
significant pitch contrasts. Glendale, CA: SIL.
Pulte, William, and Durbin Feeling. 1975. “Outline of Cherokee grammar.” In: D. Feeling (ed.) Cherokee–
English Dictionary. Tahlequah: Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, pp. 235–255.
Wright, Richard. 1996. “Tone and accent in Oklahoma Cherokee.” In: P. Munro (ed.) Cherokee Papers from
UCLA. Los Angeles: University of California, pp. 11–22.
84
Exploring discourse marker classes via sequencing constraints
Chris Koops (University of New Mexico) & Arne Lohmann (University of Vienna)
Discourse markers (DMs) often occur in two-part sequences like oh well, and so, etc.
Such sequences have occasionally been discussed in analyses of individual DMs, but
there are only few proposals of sequencing constraints governing whole classes of DMs
relative to each other. The existing accounts are either limited to one class of DMs
(Fraser 2011) or to written discourse (Oates 2000), and are not fully grounded in usage
data.
Our paper takes a quantitative corpus linguistic perspective on the question: Do discourse
markers in conversational language show sequencing preferences? If so, what general
constraints characterize their ordering? We examine Schiffrin’s (1987) set of highfrequency DMs: you know, I mean, well, and, but, or, so, because, now, then, oh. Our
database is the Fisher corpus of telephone conversations (Cieri et al. 2004, 2005), a 24million word telephone speech corpus. We extracted all sequences of two DMs, resulting
in 323,919 tokens of 156 possible sequences.
In a first step, we derive a general sequencing hierarchy by calculating ordering ratios for
all pairwise combinations. To illustrate, we observe 3,452 cases of oh well but only 128
cases of well oh, which gives a ratio of 0.96 for the former sequence. The mean ratio of
each DM relative to all others can be translated into a position on an ordering hierarchy,
as shown below. DMs further to the left are more likely to occur in initial position, while
DMs further to the right tend to occur in second position.
oh >well>and>but>or>now>so>then>you know>because>I mean
The distance between two members of a DM pair in terms of the number of intervening
places on the hierarchy predicts a substantial share of the individual ordering biases
(Adjusted R-squared: 0.4297). This confirms the validity and explanatory power of the
proposed model. In addition, we carried out hierarchical cluster analyses which groups all
DMs on the basis of their individual ordering profile in order to determine whether DMs
in adjacent positions in the hierarchy show similar sequencing behavior.
Three general groups of DMs emerge from our statistical models. DMs most likely to
occur in initial position are ones which respond to prior discourse, often the prior turn
(oh, well). DMs most likely to occur in final position are markers of epistemic stance
(you know, I mean), which have the subsequent talk in their scope. The third, more
heterogeneous group includes DMs which connect prior and following discourse. This is
most clearly seen in the coordinators and, but, or.
Overall, our analysis confirms the hypothesis that classes of DMs show general ordering
preferences. Moreover, their sequencing follows a pragmatic principle whereby the scope
of the DM (whether it is oriented towards prior or following discourse, or both)
85
influences its preferred relative position. In this way, the distributional characteristics of
DMs within sequences contribute to the development of an empirically-based taxonomy
of discourse markers.
References
Cieri, Christopher et al. 2004. Fisher English Training Part 1, Transcripts. Linguistic
Data Consortium, Philadelphia.
Cieri, Christopher et al. 2005. Fisher English Training Part 2, Transcripts. Linguistic
Data Consortium, Philadelphia.
Fraser, Bruce. 2011. The sequencing of contrastive discourse markers in English. Baltic
Journal of the English Language, Literature, and Culture 1: 29-35.
Oates, Sarah Louise. 2000. Multiple discourse marker occurrence: Creating hierarchies
for Natural Language. In: Proceedings of the 3rd CLUK Colloquium, Brighton, pp. 4145.
Schiffrin, Deborah. 1987. Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
86
To invert or not to invert: Adult Chinese speakers' L2 acquisition of
the formation of English embedded interrogatives
Io-Kei Joaquim Kuong
University of Macau
This study investigates adult Chinese speakers’ L2 acquisition of the formation of embedded
interrogatives in English. Unlike root interrogatives where subject-aux inversion (SAI) is
obligatory, SAI in embedded interrogatives is prohibited in Standard English. This study aims
to explore Chinese L2 learners’ understanding of the obligatory absence of SAI in embedded
interrogatives. Five groups of low- and intermediate-level informants (one postgraduate group
and four undergraduate groups), totaling 84, all of whom spoke Cantonese as their L1,
completed two tasks—namely (1) sentence completion in writing and (2) grammaticality
judgment.
In the sentence completion task, 32.9% of the elicited responses showed the prohibited SAI.
Among the ungrammatical embedded interrogatives, SAI in wh-questions recorded a higher
rate (36.0%) than that in SAI in yes/no questions (30.2%). Another finding was that one
undergraduate informant produced 11 occurrences of "whether+SAI", representing 0.8% of
the production data. Likewise, the co-occurrence of the complementizer that, a wh-word, and
SAI (e.g., John is asking that what did Mary buy?) was unexpected, with the rate of 2.6%.
On the grammaticality judgment task, all undergrads combined showed the correct judgment
rate of 72.2%, slightly lower than that of the graduate group (77.2%). On this task, only 53.9%
of the undergraduates judged "wh-word+SAI" in the embedded contexts to be ungrammatical,
lower than the 68.8% of graduate group. In relation to the judgment of the ill-formed SAI in
embedded yes/no questions (YNQs), both the undergraduate and graduate students scored
high, recording a correct judgment rate of 92.7% and 93.3% respectively.
Overall there was an interesting correlation between the informants' production and linguistic
competence. On the production front, students made more errors of SAI in wh-questions than
in embedded yes/no questions. In terms of competence in grammaticality judgment, students'
knowledge about the obligatory absence of SAI in embedded yes/no questions was much more
evident than that about the similar prohibition in wh-questions.
Given the relatively small size of the sample, two preliminary conclusions can be drawn. First,
as competent as L2 students may be in judging SAI to be grammatical in embedded YNQs,
their production is still non-target-like one third of the time. Second, Chinese students'
acquisition of the obligatory absence of SAI in English embedded questions is likely to
progress gradually from yes/no questions to wh-questions. This may suggest that whereas
students might notice that embedded yes/no questions are overtly marked by whether or if
(both of which block the syntactic movement of SAI), it takes much longer time for students
to "unlearn" the SAI rule when it comes to embedded wh-questions. It remains to be seen,
though, whether other L1 learners of English show a similar acquisition pattern. Hopefully,
this study can help us better understand the process by which English embedded interrogatives
are acquired, while at the same generate pedagogical suggestions in terms of better-informed
organization and sequencing of course materials.
87
The Semantics of the Classifier System in Haida
Jordan Lachler
Haida is a severely endangered language isolate spoken in a small number of coastal
communities in southeast Alaska and on the islands of Haida Gwaii in British Columbia.
One of its most striking characteristics is its system of over 400 different “classifiers”.
These monosyllabic elements occur as prefixes on certain verbs in certain constructions,
and typically provide some information relating to the absolutive argument in the clause.
The interaction of classifiers and verbs is complex, with some verbs requiring a classifier
in order to be complete, some verbs allowing an optional classifier, and others not
permitting any classifiers. Some verbs allow nearly any semantically-compatible
classifier to occur, while others accept only a restricted set of possibilities.
After giving an overview of the general system, the first part of this paper will focus on
the semantic groupings to be found among the set of classifiers. In addition to the
common shape classifiers found in other languages, it will be shown that Haida has a
large number of non-shape classifiers, including those which describe quantity (e.g.
‘many’, ‘few’), sound (e.g. ‘loud’, ‘banging’) and various personal physical attributes
(e.g. ‘tall and fat’, ‘small female’).
The second part of the paper will look at semantic groupings among the set of verbs with
which the classifiers occur. It will be shown that classifier-taking verbs fall into a small
number of semantically coherent groupings, including verbs of motion, handling and
position. Moreover, many of them share a common derivational potential that
distinguishes them from non-classifiertaking verbs.
The paper concludes by looking at the classifier system in light of language revitalization
efforts currently underway in Haida communities, focussing on the challenges of
imparting the full complexity of this system to second-language learners.
88
The Morphosyntax of Fear and the Metaphor of Spatial Distance
Holly Lakey
Current research on the role the body has in shaping the mind has opened the door for
exploration into the connections between language and embodied cognition. In the case of
emotions, embodiment has often been investigated in the lexicon and in conceptual metaphors,
but morphology and syntax remain relatively unexplored. This paper examines one emotion,
fear, and the reflection of embodied experience in the morphosyntax of Indo-European
languages. Examples of fear constructions in several languages, including Latin, Greek, Russian,
English, Lithuanian, Sanskrit, Spanish, French, Latvian and others, are discussed in order to
compare their morphosyntax and the semantics related to these constructions to investigate the
role of embodied emotional experience in language.
The typical physical reaction to fear is avoidance behavior, which involves putting spatial
distance between the person experiencing the emotion and the stimulus eliciting the response.
Elements in the language of fear can reflect this embodied experience, and avoidance behavior is
indicated in language through the metaphor of spatial distance. Spatial distance is accomplished
in morphosyntax through the use of marked cases, particles, and moods, as well as through
iconicity.
Indo-European languages with case systems often require either the genitive or ablative
case for objects of fear verbs, and the core meaning and functions of these cases correspond well
to the concept of spatial distance. Furthermore, the use of marked moods, modalities, clause
structure and complementizers in fear constructions also functions to put distance between the
experiencer of the emotion and its stimulus. Finally, the clause structure itself is an iconic
89
representation of conceptual distance, which stands in for physical distance in these
constructions.
The preliminary research presented in this paper is a first step towards connecting the
physical world to our conceptualizations and expressions of emotion. The lexicon is not the only
place where an embodied response to fear is found. Rather, our bodily response to fear is present
not only in our thoughts about the emotion, but in the language we use to express our fear.
Through discussions of case, mood/modality, complex clause structure, and complementizers,
this paper illustrates the embodiment of avoidance behavior in morphosyntax through the
metaphor of spatial distance.
Partial References
Battistella, Edwin L. 1996. The Logic of Markedness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins, and William Pagliuca. 1994. The Evolution of Grammar: Tense,
Aspect, and Modality in the Language of the World. Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press.
Givón, Talmy. 1983. Iconicity, isomorphism, and non-arbitrary coding in syntax. In (ed.) John
Haiman Iconicity in Syntax. John Benjamins Publishing.
Haiman, John. 1985. Natural Syntax: Iconicity and Erosion. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Hopper, Paul J. and Elizabeth Closs Traugott. 1993. Grammaticalization. Cambridge:
Jakobson, Roman. (1936) Contribution to the General Theory of Case: General meanings of the
Russian cases. In L. Waugh and M. Halle (eds.) Russian and Slavic Grammar: Studies
1931-1981. Berlin: Mouton Publishers.
90
Kövecses, Zoltán. (1990) Emotion Concepts. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Langacker, Ronald. (1999) Grammar and Conceptualization. Berlin & New York: Mouton de
Gruyter.
Nikiforidou, Kiki. (1991) The meanings of the genitive: A case study in semantic structure and
semantic change. Cognitive Linguistics 2(2), 149-205.
Watkins, Calvert. (1967) Remarks on the Genitive. Then Hague: Mouton Publishing.
91
Adaptive behavior and emerging grammatical patterns in a bilingual setting:
Spanish in New York City
Naomi Lapidus Shin, University of New Mexico
Examples of grammatical simplification are abundant in languages spoken by
bilinguals undergoing the process of language shift from a minority to a majority
language (e.g., Dorian 1980, Sasse 2001, Silva-Corvalán 1994, Trudgill 2011, Zentella
1997). But there is also evidence that bilingual speakers of minority languages introduce
complexities in their speech. In this presentation I argue that the emergence of new
grammatical patterns in bilingual speech is, in part, a result of adaptive linguistic
behavior, including (1) resistance to simplification where it counts, that is, in areas of
grammar that are the most necessary for communicative purposes, and (2) functional
compensation for loss of features.
The Spanish spoken in the US provides an excellent test case for examining the
impact of adaptive behavior. The Spanish spoken by US-born Latinos typically represents
an intermediate stage in a shift to English: While many Latin American immigrants are
Spanish-dominant bilinguals or even monolingual Spanish speakers, second-generation
speakers are typically English-dominant bilinguals. By the third generation, Latinos often
speak little or no Spanish (Bills 1989, Veltman 1988, Rivera-Mills 2012). Not
surprisingly, there is evidence of simplification in the Spanish spoken by US-born
Latinos, including the loss of some verb tenses (Silva-Corvalán 1994, Zentella 1997). In
addition, there is weakening of discourse-pragmatic constraints that govern the use of
syntactic features (Silva-Corvalán 1994, Otheguy & Zentella 2012). But, contrary to
common assumptions that US bilinguals’ Spanish is deficient and incomplete, there is
also evidence of new forms and grammatical patterns in second-generation Spanish. Such
innovations show signs of adaptive behavior, whereby bilinguals preserve and/or
introduce features that are crucial for communication.
In a study of over 4,000 third-person singular verbs taken from a corpus of
Spanish spoken in New York City (NYC), I find that US-born Latinos in NYC are
sensitive to ambiguous verb morphology as a predictor of subject pronoun use, whereas
newly-arrived Latin American immigrants are not. The US-born Latinos’ increased
attention to morphological ambiguity helps with reference tracking and serves to
compensate for at least two other concomitant changes that potentially impede reference
tracking: (1) a decrease in sensitivity to a discourse-level reference-tracking mechanism
called switch-reference, and (2) increase in coda –s deletion, which results in increased
homophony in the Spanish verbal paradigm. I argue that this type of functional
compensation, along with resistance to simplification where necessary, underpins
effective communication in Spanish among US-born bilingual Latinos. Finally, I contend
that this type of study not only has important theoretical implications (since it presents
evidence that functional considerations shape contact-induced language change), but also
has serious social implications, as it supports a view of US bilingual Latinos’ Spanish
grammar as a complete system, characterized by creativity and adaptation.
92
References
Bills, Garland. 1989. The US Census of 1980 and Spanish in the Southwest. International
Journal of the Sociology of Language 79: 11-28.
Dorian, Nancy. (ed.). 1989. Investigating obsolescence: Studies in language contraction
and death. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Otheguy, Ricardo & Ana Celia Zentella. 2012. Spanish in New York: Language contact,
dialectal leveling, and structural continuity. Oxford University Press.
Rivera-Mills, Susana. 2012. Spanish Heritage Language Maintenance: Its Legacy and Its
Future. In Sara M. Beaudrie and Marta Fairclough (eds.), Spanish as a heritage
language in the United States: The state of the field, Georgetown University Press.
Sasse Hans Jurgen. 2001. Typological changes in language obsolescence. In M.
Haspelmath et al. Language typology and language universals: An international
handbook. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1668-1677.
Silva-Corvalán, Carmen. 1994. Language Contact and Change: Spanish in Los Angeles.
Trudgill, Peter. 2011. “Complexification, simplification, and two types of contact.”
Chapter 2 of Sociolinguistic typology: Social determinants of linguistic complexity.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Veltman, Calvin.1988. Modeling the language shift process of Hispanic immigrants.
International Migration Review 22(4), 545-562.
Zentella, Ana Celia. 1997. Growing up bilingual. Oxford: Blackwell.
93
Exploiting Metalinguistic Awareness to Maintain Linguistic Diversity in
Amazonia
Aimee Lawrence
University of Texas at Austin
In this paper, I show that Nomatsigenga, an Arawak language spoken in Peru, is undergoing a sound change in which /s”/ and /S/ and /t””s/ and /tS/ are neutralized to the
dental variants before /i/. I argue that this sound change is driven by Nomatsigenga speakers’ awareness of the merger of /s/ and /S/ to /S/ before /i/ in the closely related language Ashéninka. Finally, I show that exploiting this type of knowledge is not unique to
Nomatsigenga–there are many examples from Amazonia in which speakers use metalinguistic
knowledge to maintain linguistic diversity.
In Nomatsigenga, /s”/, /S/, /t””s/, and /tS/ are separate phonemes, but before /i/, the
two fricatives and the two affricates merge. In some speakers, this merger takes the form
of free variation between the dental and alveopalatal phones although other speakers use
only dental phones before /i/. This distribution is best illustrated by the distribution of
the ‘stative’ suffix, -ach. There are two variants–-ats is used before the class I reality status
suffix -i and the variant -ach is used before the class A suffix -a, as shown in the examples
in (1-2).
(1)
pok-ap-ats-i
come-all-stat-real.i
‘the one who’s coming’
(2)
irá
jii-ach-a
3m.pro call-stat-real.a
‘the one that’s called...’
I argue that this unusual distribution is driven by an awareness of the related language
Ashéninka, where the fricatives /s/ and /S/ have merged to /S/ before /i/ (Michael 2011).
The Ashéninka pattern, then, is almost exactly the opposite of the Nomatsigenga pattern.
There is a great deal of contact between Nomatsigenga and Ashéninka. Despite (or perhaps
because of) this contact, Nomatsigenga speakers are adamant about policing the boundaries between the two languages. I claim that the Nomatsigenga sound change is driven by
metalinguistic knowledge combined with a desire to keep the two languages as distinct as
possible.
Finally, I show that there are many examples similar to the Nomatsigenga examples
in which speakers have exploited knowledge about language in order to maintain or create
linguistic diversity. One example involves a sound correspondence in the Arawak family between Baniwa /ts/ and Yucuna /h/. Yucuna has borrowed several Portuguese words through
1
94
Baniwa and applied this correspondence along the way, giving sets such as Portuguese chapéu
‘hat’ >Baniwa tsapéwa >Yucuna hapewa and Portuguese saia ‘skirt’ >Baniwa tsh aaja >Yucuna haja (Ramirez 2001; Schauer et al. 2005). Such examples are not limited to the realm
of phonology. Baure, an Arawak language spoken in Bolivia, has completely switched the
third-person masculine and feminine subject and object markers (Danielsen 2011), as can
be seen by comparing the Nomatsigenga markers (representative of the rest of the Arawak
family) and the Baure markers in Table 1. I suggest that both of these examples involve
speakers’ use of knowledge about language in order to keep languages separate.
Subject
Object
Nomatsigenga
Masculine i=
Feminine o=
Masculine =ri
Feminine =ro
Baure
ro=
ri=
=ro
=ri
Table 1: Third-person subject and object markers in Nomatsigenga and Baure
I explain a typologically-uncommon sound change in Nomatsigenga by showing that
speakers have used metalinguistic knowledge in order to maintain linguistic diversity. I also
show that this behavior is not limited to one language, but that there are similar examples
from all over the Amazon basin.
References
Danielsen, Swintha. 2011. The personal paradigms in Baure and other Southern Arawak
languages. International Journal of American Linguistics 77(4). 495–520.
Michael, Lev D. 2011. La reconstrucción y la clasificación interna de la rama Kampa de la
familia Arawak. In CILLA V, .
Ramirez, Henri. 2001. Dicionário Baniwa-Português. Manaus: Editora da Universidade do
Amazonas.
Schauer, Junia G., Stanley Schauer, Eladio Yukuna & Walter Yukuna. 2005. Meke kemakánaka puráka? aloji: wapura? akó chu, eyá karı́wana chu (diccionario bilingüe: Yukuna
- español; español - yukuna). Bogotá: Editorial Fundación para el Desarollo de los Pueblos
Marginados.
2
95
De-marked Chinese verb complements: The role of constructions in language change
You-Min Lin
This paper investigates the development of de-marked verb complement construction in
Chinese (DVC), where a de-marked predicate is followed by another predicative expression
ascribing further information to the de-marked event, illustrated by (1)-(2). Chinese DVC, with a
de-marked primary event, is treated as distinct from another construction, where the modifying
predicate marked by de precedes the primary event, exemplified in (3). The two de’s, (both
pronounced with reduced vowel quality and neutral tone today) are reported to be etymologically
distinct and represented by different characters in orthography. 得 (henceforth de1), originally a
verb “get, obtain,” marks the primary event in DVC, while 的 (henceforth de2), a
nominalizer/marker of attributive modification, marks the modifying predicate in (3).
A pilot study reveals that de2 started to appear frequently as a marker of primary event as
early as the 13th century. The change is hypothesized to be triggered by phonetic similarity of the
two de’s due to phonetic reduction, and facilitated by at least the following factors:
•
•
The boundary between a primary and a modifying event, hence an originally -de1 and -de2 marked predicate, respectively, becomes less clear when the two predicates are of similar
semantic salience, and hence their primary vs. secondary status is ambiguous and subject to
the construal of language users (see (4) and (5)).
As de1 becomes increasingly semantically bleached, the increasing frequency of [V de2] as a
topic in the topic-comment construction in the 13th century (as in (6)) triggers [V de1] to be
re-interpreted as a topic in a topic-comment structure.
The initial findings call for an investigation of the interaction between de1 and de2 in light of the
development of DVC, including any shifts of constructional prototypes and re-organization of
constructional taxonomies that may have led to further contextual expansion of DVC. Diachronic
data will be collected from electronic databases of historical Chinese texts, available at:
(http://hanchi.ihp.sinica.edu.tw/ihp/hanji.htm).
Contemporary Chinese:
(1) 他打得我鮮血直流
ta
da
de
wo
xian xie
zhi
3S
hit
DE1 1S
fresh blood continuous
‘He hit me so bad that I bled continuously.’
(2) 他跑得很快
ta
pao
de
hen
kuai
3S
run
DE1 very fast
‘He runs very fast.’
(3) 他迅速的跑過來
ta
xunsu de
pao-guo-lao
3S
fast
DE2 run-cross-come
‘He runs fast (towards us).’
96
liu
flow
(4) 他聰明得/的很討厭
ta
congming
de
hen
taoyan
3S
smart
DE1/DE2
very annoying
‘He is annoyingly smart./He is so smart that it is annoying.’
(5) 貴得/的有道理
gui
de
you
daoli
expensive
DE1/DE2
exist reason
‘(it is) expensive for a reason.’
Historical example:
DE2-marked topic in topic-comment construction
(6) 怕的城荒國破 (Yuan Za Ju, 13th Century)
pa
de
cheng-huang-guo-po
fear DE2 town-deserted-country-overthrown
‘What I fear, the town deserted, and the country overthrown.’
97
Seems like something’s going on here: an analysis of epistemic
markers in conversational English
Amy Lindstrom
The purpose of this research is to investigate the frequency and phonetic duration of the
collocations seems like, looks like, and sounds like as epistemic markers occurring in the
environments of both it and an unexpressed subject, as in (1-2):
1) The economy however changed that a little bit and looks like we’re going to be in this home for a
(Switchboard corpus, 02196A)
while but uh it’s not so bad
2) Aikman was hitting him right on the numbers every time so sounds like he’s going to be all right for
next season
(Switchboard corpus, 02157A)
The progress of grammaticization results in reduced phonetic forms and changes in meaning and
inference which are contextually expanded to allow inclusion in a broader range of constructions
(Bybee 2010:31). A corpus-based analysis of these verb + like constructions reveals that the
frequency of co-occurrence has caused semantic bleaching and reanalysis as epistemic markers
used to convey speaker evaluation. This in turn has lead to a higher rate of unexpressed it as the
constructions emerge as ‘chunks’. A study by Scheibman (2000) shows that an expression can
undergo semantic and phonological reduction in only some of its uses, allowing the simultaneous
storage of both old and new forms (2000:122).
I hypothesized that the constructions under investigation will exhibit higher rates of phonetic
reduction in the environment of an unexpressed subject (without it) due to reducing factors oft
studied in phonological literature, including frequency effects and semantic reanalysis. As Plug
(2005) points out, the communicative function of phonetic reduction is largely understudied. To
this end, 120 tokens of seems like, looks like, and sounds like, with and without it, were extracted
from the Switchboard Corpus (Godfrey et.al) and measured for duration at the onset of [s] and [l]
using Praat (Boersma & Weenink). A mixed-effects regression analysis confirmed that the
constructions without it were more phonetically reduced than their expressed subject
counterparts. This supports Scheibman’s (2000) findings and adds strength to a modular
generative model (Pierrehumbert 1990) of lexical storage, which recognizes communicative
context as a significant predictor in the way language is processed.
References
Bybee, Joan (2010). Language, Usage, and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Pierrehumbert, J. (1990). Phonological and Phonetic Representation, Journal of Phonetics 18,
375-394.
Plug, Leendert. 2005. From words to actions: The phonetics of eigenlijk in two communicative
contexts. Phonetica 62: 131–145.
Scheibman, Joanne. 2000. I dunno: A usage-based account of the phonological reduction of
don’t in American English conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 32, 105-124.
98
Do Chinese Understand Chinese?
--- Speech Recognition in Chinese Dialects
Chang Liu
This study tackles a question that one must address when considering speech recognition
in Chinese dialects: how do Chinese listeners recognize/categorize Chinese talkers since most of
the Chinese dialects are unintelligible to them? A large body of work in speech recognition of
Indo-European languages has provided evidence that individuals are aware of phonological
differences between dialects and are able to categorize the talkers with some degree of accuracy
(Bush 1967, Preston 1993, Purnell at al 1999, Clopper and Pisoni 2004a, inter alia). What is the
situation in Chinese dialect recognition?
By examining five Chinese dialects, and 480 sound file tokens from 17 participants (5
speakers and 12 listeners), this study confirms and extends observations on speech recognition,
particularly in Chinese dialects. First, the results of the current experiment provide compelling
evidence that naïve Chinese listeners have explicit awareness of several highly distinguishable
phonological differences among dialects even though most of the dialects are unintelligible to
them, which is the linguistic reality in China. Also, this experiment corroborates Clopper and
Pisoni 2004b’s observation that exposure to linguistic variation affects the recognition ability of
the listener. In addition, it supports Tang & van Heuven 2008 and Zhang 2005 regarding the role
of media in Chinese language speech recognition.
What distinguishes this research from other studies is that in the present study,
spontaneous speech is recorded and used as stimuli for the listeners. All the speakers are
encouraged to talk about one topic, which is their study in America. In addition, the stimulusresponse confusion matrix for the classification of the Chinese dialects is employed and the
analysis for it is elaborated.
References
Bush, C. N. 1967. Some acoustic parameters of speech and their relationships to the perception
of dialect differences. TESOL Quarterly, 1(3), 20-30.
Clopper, C. G. 2004a. Some acoustic cues for categorizing American English regional dialects:
An initial report on dialect variation in production and perception. Research on Spoken
Language Processing, 24, 43-65.
99
Clopper, C.G and Posini 2004b. Homebodies and army brats: Some effects of early linguistic
experience and residential history on dialect categorization. Language Variation and
Change. 16, 31-48.
Preston, D. 1993. Folk Dialectology. In D. Preston (Ed.), American dialect research (pp. 333378). Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Purnell, T., Idsardi, W. & Baugh, J. 1999. Perceptual and phonetic experiments on American
English dialect identification. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 18, 10-30.
Tang and van Heuven. 2008. Mutual intelligibility of Chinese dialects tested functionally. B Los
and M van Koppen (eds). Linguistics in the Netherlands. Amsterdam: John Benjamins:
145-156.
Zhang, Qing. 2005. A Chinese yuppie in Beijing: Phonological variation and the
construction of a new professional identity. Language in Society. 34: 431-466.
100
Deaf Children’s Understanding of Different Form-Meaning Mappings in ASL
Wolfgang Mann
City University London & University of Texas at Austin
Lexical items, spoken or signed, represent mappings between a phonological form and a
meaning or set of meanings. Young language learners manage to create an initial mapping on the
basis of just a single incidental encounter, or several encounters, with a new lexical item and can
retain these initial mappings (Carey, 1978; Goodman, McDonough, & Brown, 1998). This kind
of fast mapping is an essential first step in a much longer process, the slow mapping of a
phonological form to a more complete and conventionalized set of meanings, which requires
exposure to the phonological form on different occasions and in different contexts (Clark, 2009).
This study is one of the first to investigate deaf children’s vocabulary development in a signed
language, using a form-meaning mapping paradigm. We explored different aspects of the
mapping between phonological form and meaning of signs in American Sign Language (ASL).
Our aim was to investigate whether a) deaf children show variation in their understanding of the
different mappings and b) if there is a hi erarchy of difficulty for these tasks and, therefore,
whether ASL vocabulary acquisition proceeds incrementally, as is the case for spoken languages.
Twenty two deaf native signers between the ages of 6-11 years (M= 8;6) completed four webbased ASL vocabulary tasks (see Figure 1 for an example). Each of these tasks tapped a different
degree of strength of vocabulary knowledge: meaning recognition, form recognition, meaning
recall, and form recall. Using the same items across tasks allowed us to compare children’s
mappings across the four tasks and, thus, collect more detailed information about their
knowledge of each item. Two of the four tasks were receptive tasks: in the meaning recognition
task, participants saw the target sign, followed by four pictures, and had to select the picture that
corresponded to the target sign. In the form recognition task, participants saw a picture, followed
by four signs, and had to select the target sign that matched the picture. The two remaining tasks
were production tasks. In the form recall task, participants saw a picture and had to produce the
target sign. For the meaning recall, participants saw the target sign and had to supply three
different ASL signs with an associated meaning.
Participants scored (Table 1) higher on form recall than meaning recall, t(21) = 16.324, p < .001;
higher on meaning recognition than meaning recall, t(21) = 21.284, p < .001; higher on meaning
recognition than form recall, t(21) = 5.813; higher on form recognition than form recall, t(21) =
4.534, p < .001; and higher on form recognition than meaning recall, t(21) = 19.659, p < .001.
Results indicate that recall requires a stronger mapping than recognition, and signers who can
recall the form of a sign or supply another sign with an associated meaning are also likely to
recognize that sign’s form or meaning. Vocabulary acquisition in ASL therefore appears to
proceed incrementally, as is the case with spoken languages, with the strength of the mapping
between form and meaning increasing over time.
101
References:
Carey, S. (1978). The child as word learner. In J. Bresnan, G. Miller, & M. Halle
(Eds.), Linguistic theory and psychological reality (pp. 264–293). Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
Clark, E. (2009). First language acquisition (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Goodman, J. C., McDonough, L., & Brown, N. B. (1998). The role of semantic context
and memory in the acquisition of novel nouns. Child Development, 69, 1330–
1344.
Figure 1. Screen shot of the ASL Vocabulary Test
Table 1. Mean performance scores in percentages
Tasks
Mean in %
SD
Range
Meaning Recognition
92.03
4.89
77.14 - 97.14
Form Recognition
89.54
6.04
80.00 - 97.14
Form recall
84.18
7.17
68.13 - 95.71
Meaning recall
60.44
6.61
37.29 - 70.00
102
The evolution of the Spanish Discourse Marker O sea
Rebeca Martínez Gómez
One of the most controversial words in Spanish, not only among linguists (e.g. Briz
2001b, Cortés Rodríguez 1991) but also in the world of many native speakers due to its
social meaning (cf. Vigara-Tauste 2002), is the discourse marker (DM) o sea (“be it”, “I
mean”, see example 1). In its original sense, the form o sea is constituted by the
conjunction o "or” and sea, the third person singular present subjunctive form of the verb
ser "to be", which takes a noun phrase as an alternative for another (see example 2).
Although the synchronic uses of o sea have been widely studied (Briz 2001a, FélixBrasdefer 2006, Galán Rodríguez 1998, Travis 2005, Schwenter 1996) there has been no
research that looks at the diachronic development of this DM. The only study that
provides a few examples from old uses of o sea is Casado Velarde (1996), leaving still
undiscovered the changes that this form has undergone. Therefore, the present study
looks at the history of o sea within the grammaticalization framework, as it has been done
in other studies of DMs (Brinton 1990, 1996, Company Company 2006, Onodera 2004,
Traugott 1995).
The study uses data from four different centuries. The diachronic tokens were
drawn from Corpus del Español (CDE) from the 13th, 17th and 19th centuries. In order to
observe synchronic examples, data was extracted from a conversational corpus from
Guadalajara, Mexico (Martínez Gómez & Ibarra Zetter 2011). A total of 215 tokens were
analyzed and coded for the following factors: function of o sea; syntactic capacity in
respect to the following proposition; and number of alternatives presented by o sea.
Beyond the dramatic increase of use of o sea by the 20th century –which
constitutes a sign of grammaticalization by itself (see Bybee 2003)–, results also show
how there have been various complex stages of o sea. Specifically, the following
functions were found: alternative conjunction, textual reformulator, subjective, repair and
counter expectation marker. In these functions, it is shown how the form has suffered
fossilization, loss of capacity to syntactically relate to other forms (Company Company
2006) and has undergone intersubjectification, (Traugott 2003).
103
Examples
1)
Ana:
te digo del mensaje=,
..estábamos los cuatro en la clase,
... (.8) y= esta- -haz de cuenta que estaban exponiendo,
.. y=,
...y me llega un mensaje no?
lo traía,
así en la bolsa,
y pues ya,
lo saco ya de= -pues me empezó a dar mucha risa dije,
no manches o sea=,
lo tengo enfrente,
y me manda un mensaje,
‘Ana: I was telling you about the message, ...we were the four of us in class, ...
(.8) and this-- it was like they were presenting, ...and, I get a text right? I had it, like in
the pocket, and so, I get it from-- so I start laughing I said, come on o sea (I mean), I have
him in front of me, and he sends me a text,’ (Corpus Tapatío 2010).
2) por ende establecemos special mientre que todo omne o sea ducque. o Conde. o Rico
omne. o godo. o Romano. o omne libre. o flanqueado. o sieruo qual quier que sea que
deua yr
‘... and therefore, we specially establish that every man, be it duke or Count or Rich man
or gothic or romain or free man or accompanied or servant, whoever that is, should go.’
(13th Century, CdE)
References
Briz, A. 2001a. El uso de o sea en la conversación. In Gramática española, enseñanza e
investigación: Lingüística con corpus. Catorce aplicaciones sobre el español. J. de
Kock (ed.). Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad. 287-318.
Briz, A. 2001b. Otra vez sobre o sea. In Pulchre, Bene, Recte. Estudios en Homenaje al
Prof. Fernando Gonzáles Ollé. Carmen Saralegui y Manuel Casado (eds.),169190. Universidad de Navarra: EUNSA.
Bybee, J. 2003. “Cognitive Processes in Grammaticalization” in Michael Tomasello (ed.)
The New Psychology of Language Volume 2. USA: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
Brinton, Laurel J. 1990. “The development of the Discourse Markers in English”. In: J.
Fisiak, ed., Historical Linguistics and Philology, 45-71. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Brinton, Laurel J. 1996. “Pragmatic markers in English. Grammaticalization and
discourse functions”. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
104
Casado Velarde, Manuel et alii. 1996. Scripta Philologica in memoriam Manuel
Taboada. Cid, Servicio de Publicaciones, Universidad de La Coruña, vol. I, págs.
321-328
Company Company, Concepción. 2006. Subjectification of Verbs into Discourse
Markers: Semantic-pragmatic change only? Belgian Journal of Linguistics, no.
20, pp. 97-121
Cortés Rodríguez, L. (1991): Sobre conectores, expletivos y muletillas en el español
hablado, Málaga: Ágora.
Félix-Brasdefer, J. C. 2006. Pragmatic and textual functions of o sea: Evidence from
Mexican Spanish. In T. Face & C. Klee (Eds.), Selected Proceedings of the 8th
Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (pp. 191-203). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla
Proceedings Project.
Galán Rodríguez, Carmen. 1998. La dimensión explicativa y deóntica de los conectores
O sea y es decir. Anuario de Estudios Filológicos , vol. 21, 1, pp. 85-104
Onodera, Noriko Okada. 2004. “ Development of discourse markers: A case of
grammaticalization.” In Japanese Discourse Markers. Synchronic and diachronic
discourse analysis. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Traugott, Elizabeth C. 1995. The role of the development of discourse markers in a
theory of grammaticalization. Paper presented at the Twelfth International
Conference on Historical Linguistics, Manchester, August 1995.
Traugott, Elizabeth C. & Richard Dasher. 2002. “The development of adverbials with
discourse marker function.” In Regularity in semantic change. Cambridge:
Traugott. 2003. Constructions in grammaticalization. In Joseph, Brian D. and Richard D.
Janda (eds.), The Handbook of Historical Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell, 624647
Travis, Catherine. 2005. "O Sea" in Discourse Markers in Colombian Spanish. A study in
Polysemy. Mouton De Gruyter.
Schwenter, Scott A. 1996. Some Reflections on o sea: A Discourse Marker in
Spanish. Journal of Pragmatics, 1996, 25, 6, June, 855-874
Vigara Tauste, Ana M. 2002. “Cultura y estilo de los ‘niños bien’: radiografía del
lenguaje pijo”. In El lenguaje de los jóvenes, Felix Rodríguez (Coord.). España:
Ariel.
Corpora
Corpus del Español (CdE). Davies, Mark. (2002-) Corpus del Español: 100 million
words, 1200s-1900s. Available online at http://www.corpusdelespanol.org.
Martínez Gómez, R. y K. Ibarra Zetter. 2011. Collecting a Corpus of
Conversational Spanish. Brown bag presentation. Latin American Iberian Institute
(LAII). March 9, 2011. Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A.
105
Attributive Signs in Argentine Sign Language (LSA): State verbs or adjectives?
Rocío Anabel Martínez
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) and Universidad
de Buenos Aires (UBA)
Abstract
In this presentation, I will focus on the group of signs known as state verbs
(TO-BE-BLUE, TO-BE-INTERESTING) in the current Argentine Sign
Language (LSA) classification. Massone & Machado (1994) and Curiel &
Massone (1993) point out that these verbs have a vital role in the grammar as
predicative signs: not only can they predicate directly -that is to say, without the
verb to be (ser or estar in Spanish)- but they can function as attributive signs the typical function of adjectives in English or Spanish-. The goal of this lecture
is to reconsider this group of signs from a cognitive perspective (Langacker
1987, 1991; Lakoff 1987, fundamentally), given that several inaccuracies
related to them have been detected in the current word class system in LSA.
Within this linguistic approach, membership in word class categories is not
defined by a single necessary-and-sufficient feature, but rather by a prototypeclustering approach, in which categories may include members that display less
than 100% of the criterial properties. Thus, using data from LSA adult native
signers, I will define the Attributive signs' membership by semantic,
morphological and syntactic criteria.
I will put forward a new hypothesis to provide a better explanation for the
phenomenon: the state verb class in LSA has an adjectival nature and, as a
consequence, they must be considered symbolic structures whose semantic pole
designate an atemporal relation, given that “all members of a given class share
fundamental semantic properties, and their semantic poles thus instantiate a
single abstract schema subject to reasonably explicit characterization”
(Langacker, 1987: 189).
106
Mental Space Theory and Spoken Discourse
Joshua Mee
Mental space theory has offered a valuable framework for understanding discourse management and
has contributed convincing explanations for understanding philosophical paradoxes regarding nonreal referents in discourse. However, the mental space paradigm has not been applied to spoken
discourse with the same vigor with which it was formulated. While mental spaces look good on
paper, how does this theory hold up when meticulously fabricated sentences are substituted for
natural spontaneous conversation?
I intend to address this issue by applying mental space theory (c.f. Fauconnier 1994) to
spoken discourse. I will consider how fundamental concepts in discourse analysis such as joint
projects, common ground, intention and breakdowns in dialogue (c.f. Clark 1985, Clark & Schaefer
1992) may be represented in mental spaces. Theoretical questions include:
1.) What kinds of spaces are involved in the development of common ground between
interlocutors in conversation?
2.) What mechanisms are used to move information from the mental spaces of each participant
into the common ground?
3.) How does common ground between interlocutors evolve when joint projects break down or
are abandoned?
I will provide an analytical framework for interpreting mental space theory to empirical data.
I will then demonstrate how its principles may provide valuable insight into real social interactions
by applying it to a conversation from the Colombian corpus of Spoken (Travis 2005) involving a
husband and his wife in which the two discuss what happened in a shared experience the previous
night. I will demonstrate how mental space theory helps us to recognize the cues that interlocutors
employ in order elicit certain presuppositions about each other and progress shared knowledge far
beyond what is explicitly communicated in the moment of a single discourse.
References
Clark, Herbert H. 1996. Using language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Clark, Herbert H. and Edward F. Schaefer. 1989. Contributing to discourse. Cognitive Science
259-94. (Reprinted in Clark 1992, 144-75.)
Fauconnier, Gilles. 1985/1994. Mental Spaces (2nd. ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Travis, Catherine E. 2005. Discourse markers in Colombian Spanish: A study in
polysemy (Cognitive Linguistics Research). Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
107
Phonological Pitch Range Relations in Lakota
Armik Mirzayan, Ph.D.
Department of Languages, Linguistics, and Philosophy, University of South Dakota
This study concerns the description and modeling of Pitch Range relationships between prosodic
phrases in spoken Lakota, an indigenous North American language of the Siouan family. The
pitch range variable in intonation consists minimally of two relative, continuous, and partially
inter-dependent dimensions: pitch level and pitch span. In natural speech the pitch range for
a speaker, in a given context, represents only a subsection of the speaker’s overall capacity for
pitch variation. The level of the pitch in a phrase is defined as the global register of the phrase
in relation to other and nearby phrases. The pitch span refers, approximately, to the range of
frequencies that the speaker uses in a phrase. In many previous studies on intonation pitch level
and pitch span are regarded as phonologically ambiguous because they involve scaling relations that
appear to be relative, extrinsic, and continuous. Ladd (1996, 2008), on the other hand, proposes a
novel view of pitch range modifications which allows not only for extrinsic global variation but for
structural variation as well. Structural variation here refers to modifications in pitch span which
are manifestations of phonological pitch range relationships between prosodic units.
In this study - which is part of a larger study of Lakota Intonation - I analyze the extent to which
Lakota speakers make use of pitch range to indicate structural relations between prosodic units.
In particular, I investigate (i) patterns of application (or non-application) of downstep within and
between prosodic phrases, (ii) factors that trigger pitch range compression inside prosodic phrases,
and (iii) how these pitch span variations can be incorporated in modeling natural speech intonation.
I present the results of my analysis as follows.
First, I discuss the segmental and suprasegmental criteria I have used to define prosodic phrases
in Lakota. I provide acoustic and impressionistic evidence in favor of a phrase accent tonal entity
in Lakota. The evidence for this intermediate level phrase accent comes from several phonetic
observations involving intonation and modes of phonation in longer stretches of speech extracted
from texts and conversations. Second, I analyze the interaction of the phrase accents with two
prominent pitch range phenomena. These include (1) downstep inside intonational phrases, and
(2) the sudden and extreme post-nuclear pitch span compressions that generally extend over the
clause-final enclitics and the preceding verb, when the verb does not carry the nuclear accent.
Preliminary results from the current investigation of Lakota intonation shed light on some of the
outstanding theoretical ambiguities regarding the nature and the use of pitch range in phonology (see Pierrehumbert-1980, Pierrehumbert and Beckman-1988, Ladd-2008, among others). In
addition, this study demonstrates that an understanding of phonological pitch range relations is
important for modeling intonation in natural discourse.
108
Healthy Balance: Usage-based Noun Modification
Carol Lynn Moder
Oklahoma State University
Noun modification, including ADJ-Noun (dirty hands, healthy balance) and NounNoun combinations (dirt road, health care), have been the subject of debate in linguistics.
Formalist approaches hypothesize that productive processes must be fully compositional,
with each item preserving an independent, context-free meaning that combines in a
predictable rule-governed way (Lappin 2001). One formalist approach, the generative lexicon
approach, has attempted to move beyond such rule-list oppositions, positing lexical
representations and “generative devices” that are meant to capture multiple meaning for
single lexical items and their creative combination through “co-compositional semantic
representation” (Pustejovsky 1998). Extending the generative lexicon framework, Asher &
Lascarides (2001) discuss how discourse context might interact with constraint-based lexical
rules. However, such formalist approaches under-represent the nature and type of variation
that may occur. The full network of polysemous senses of a lexical item are more effectively
predicted and explained within a cognitive linguistics approach (Langacker 1987, 2008;
Turner & Fauconnier 1995; Sweetser 1999; Geeraerts 2010). For a fuller explanation of the
ways in which discourse elements may create shifts in lexical meaning a usage-based
construction grammar approach (Goldberg 1995, 2006; Croft 2001; Tomasello 2003; Bybee
2007, 2010) is needed.
Previous cognitive discourse approach research on noun modification has found that
for metaphorical N-N combinations usage was critical and that even conventional
combinations could take on a much wider range of new mappings within a specific discourse
context than formalist accounts predict (Moder 2004). This study extends the findings for NN combinations by examining the effects of frequency and context on the use of N-N versus
ADJ-Noun combinations within similar semantic domains (health care, healthy balance; dirt
roads, dirty tricks). The combinations were analyzed using a corpus of spoken American
English taken from National Public Radio news programs (2,000,000 words) and a related
written American English corpus of 2 million words of text from The New York Times. To
consider genre variation patterns, targeted combinations were analyzed using the Corpus of
Contemporary American English. Specific ADJ-N and N-N combinations examined included
health, health; dirt, dirty; noise, noisy; and sleep, sleepy. The results demonstrate that the
noun and adjective modifiers within the same domain tended to evidence different type and
token frequency patterns that contributed to widely different lexicalized meanings.
Furthermore, the variability in meanings went well beyond those posited within formalist
approaches and the patterns were distinctive across lexical items. The findings suggest that
even transparent, productive morphologically-related lexical items develop disparate
discourse distributions and usage patterns that lead to distinctive item-based form-meaning
pairings. This extensive variability calls into question most current views of linguistic
compositionality.
109
References:
Bybee, J. L. 2007. Frequency of Use and the Organization of Language. Oxford:
Bybee, J. L. 2010. Language, Usage, and Cognition. Cambridge:
Croft, W. (2001). Radical Construction Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Geeraerts, D. (2010). Theories of Lexical Semantics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Goldberg, A. E. (1995). Constructions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Goldberg, A.E. (2006). Constructions at Work. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Langacker, R. W. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Volume I: Theoretical
Prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Langacker, R. W. 2008. Cognitive Grammar I: A Basic Introduction. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Lappin, S. 2001. An introduction to formal semantics. The Handbook of Linguistics, ed. M.
Aronoff & J. Rees-Miller, 369-393. Oxford: Blackwell.
Moder, C. L. 2004. Icebox moms and hockey dads: Context and the mapping of N-N
metaphorical expressions. Language, Culture, & Mind, eds. M.Achard and S.
Kemmer. Stanford: CSLI Publications, pp.109-121.
Sweetser, E. 1999. Compositionality and blending: Semantic Composition in a cognitively realistic framework. Cognitive Linguistics: Foundations, Scope and
Methodology, eds. T. Janssen & G. Redeker, 129-162. Berlin: Mouton de
Gruyter.
Tomasello. M. (2003). Constructing a Language: A Usage-based Theory of Language
Acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Turner, M. & Fauconnier, G. 1995. Conceptual integration and formal expression.
Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 10: 183-204.
110
Doubling of the number of hands as a resource for the expression of meaning
intensification in Libras (Brazilian Sign Language)
André Nogueira Xavier
State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) - Brazil
This work aims at reporting the results of an experiment designed and carried out (1) to elicit
intensified forms of some signs of Libras (Brazilian Sign Language) and (2) to check the
extent to which doubling of the number of hands in signs typically produced with only one
hand is employed as a resource for the intensification of their meaning. The criterion for the
selection of signs used as stimuli in this experiment was mainly the observation of them
undergoing doubling when their meaning was being intensified in spontaneous signing. As it
will be discussed, even though the analysis of the data obtained revealed that subjects were
consistent in changing their facial and body expressions as well as the aspects of their hands’
movement when producing the intensified forms of a sign, the same does not hold true about
doubling of the number of hands in one-handed signs for the same purpose. Out of 12 deaf
subjects, 6 men and 6 women, users of Libras, only 6 produced a few one-handed sign with
two hands when intensifying their meaning and mostly not for the same sign. These results
suggest that even though Libras allows the intensification of meaning to be expressed by
doubling the number of hands in some signs, the extent to which this resource is employed
seems to vary inter-subjects.
111
A Case-Study of a Grass Roots Language Revitalization Project on the Southern Ute
Reservation
Stacey Oberly, Ph.D.
University of Arizona, American Indian Development Institute
Abstract:
This paper presents a case-study of a collaborative, community-based language revitalization
project on the Southern Ute reservation in the southwestern corner of Colorado. There are forty
fluent speakers of Southern Ute (Oberly 2003) out of approximately 1,400 enrolled tribal
members making it a severely endangered language. Southern Ute is a Southern Numic UtoAztecan language. It speaks to issues of language endangerment and revitalization, language
ideologies, language identity, revitalization pedagogy and language as political power.
The collaborators on this project include a tribal member coordinator and three co-teachers: a
volunteer non-tribal linguist with over fifty years experience studying Ute; a fluent Ute speaker
and a tribal-member linguist with twenty years experience teaching Ute language. The project
consists of a year-long Ute language class open to the community free of charge.
This project was the first collaborative, community-based language revitalization project on the
Southern Ute reservation. As the first project of its kind, it provides insight into the often
opposing tribal and personal ideologies and policies regarding to this endangered language.
According to 1986 Tribal Resolution 86-23, “the Tribal Council recognizes the need for the
Tribe to preserve its culture and its language, and further recognizes that its tribal heritage is a
unique and valuable asset...” Contrary to resolution’s recognition and value of Ute language, it
took over three months and several meetings to gain official approval for the project. This
contrast between stated ideology and actual political support causes strife in the community. For
example, on the first night of the class the irate vice-chairman of the official tribal committee
charged with teaching the Ute language and culture insisted that the Ute language class be
cancelled since neither Tribal Council nor her committee had approved the class. The tribal
member organizer pulled out a wad of money and said, “You see this money. It is my money
and I can do whatever I want with it. I can pay an elder to teach me my language if I want to. If
you are not here to help, then you are free to leave but I will not cancel the class.” This is one
example of how language ideologies and language as power play out in language revitalization.
The structure of two-hour weekly class consisted of a fifty minute lecture by the non-tribal
linguist lecturing from the 2011 Ute Reference Grammar; a twenty minute hands-on-activity by
the tribal-member linguist and a fifty minute partial-immersion lesson by the fluent speaker
using visuals based on the Accelerated Second Language Acquisition Approach (Greymorning
2008). A total of eighty-eight community members attended the class. The students ranged in
age from two years to eighty-seven. The diversity of students created a pedagogical situation in
which the range of objectives, learning styles and interest levels required adaptation and
flexibility.
112
References
Greymorning, Stephen. 2008. Accelerated Second Language Acquisition Training Note.
University of Montana: Missoula, MT.
Oberly, Stacey. 2003. The Status of Southern Ute Language. Southern Ute Tribe: Ignacio CO.
Southern Ute Tribal Council. 1986. Resolution Number 86-23. Southern Ute Tribe: Ignacio
CO.
113
Plosive Consonants in Macuna and Yucuna
Lorena Orjuela
Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo – FAPESP
Universidade de São Paulo
David Páez
This presentation focuses on a discussion about two plosive consonant systems of
two endangered languages from the Amazon, namely, Macuna (Eastern
Tucanoan) and Yucuna (Arawak). Both systems show special behaviors; on the
one hand, Somthermon & Somthermon (1995) present an phonemic inventory of
Macuna of five plosives, two voiceless /t/ and /k/ and three voiced /b/, /d/ and /g/.
Based on an acoustic analysis, Orjuela (2012, unpublished) confirmed the lack of
/p/ and came up with four findings regarding these consonants in intra-word CV
oral contexts, as follows: a) k, as opposed to t, shows positive VOT values that
lead to consider it as an aspirated, b) voiced plosives are distributed in a sort of
scale d>b>g, regarding closure, VOT and total values of duration; c) g seems to
occur less frequently and, specifically, only with high vowels i and ɨ; and lastly d)
there is a possible palatal plosive c which alternates with palatal fricative ç.
On the other hand, Shaurer & Shaurer (1967, 2000) described the phonemic
inventory of plosives in Yucuna as composed only by voiceless consonants p/ /ph/
/t/ /th/ /c/ y /k/. Recent acoustic analyses conducted by Páez have observed the
variety of possible realizations of these plosives, finding a significant amount of
voicing, which is to be recognized when describing the phonemic system.
The observations in both languages are noteworthy since both systems seem to be
distributed in a scale according to the values that define them as plosives, i.e.,
closure, VOT and total duration, as well as levels of voicing.
114
Who will catch whom? Multiple wh-questions in L1 English – L2 Russian Interlanguage
Olesya Ostapenko
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
This paper investigates the nature of interlanguage (IL) grammars with respect to multiple whquestions such as Who saw what? of high-proficiency non-native speakers of Russian whose first
language is English. English and Russian differ greatly in the range of permissible multiple whquestions as well as the order of wh-elements in a sentence. Whereas only one wh-word may be
fronted in English, in Russian multiple wh-questions, all wh-words occur in a preverbal position.
In addition, in contrast to English, Russian has no constraints on the order of wh-words in the
sentence relative to each other. This aspect of grammar is not explicitly taught in a foreign
language classroom, thus the results of the interplay between the native and target languages, as
well as factors such as syntactic simplicity but infrequency of the construction occurrence,
become particularly interesting but rather inconsistent (Bley-Vroman, 2002; Bley-Vroman and
Yoshinaga, 2000; Papp, 2000).
The data are collected from advanced English-speaking learners of Russian in two tasks
addressing separate issues. In experiment 1 the subjects are to construct all possible grammatical
multiple wh-questions out of set of cards each of which contains one word. In the next task the
subjects are to rate the acceptability of multiple wh-questions. The results demonstrate that IL
grammars exhibit the following properties: 1) English-like syntactic structures, i.e. single whfronting/in situ multiple wh-questions, 2) Russian-like multiple wh-questions, i.e. multiple whfronting and partial wh-fronting and 3) patterns that are attributable to neither English nor
Russian, but attested in other primary languages, i.e. complete rejection of multiple wh-questions
(a feature of Italian or Irish, for instance) and DO > IO > OBL arrangement of wh-words relative
to each other (a property of Bulgarian, Romanian, and Polish). The implications for future
research on the acquisition of multiple wh-questions and factors such as frequency, animacy,
focus are discussed.
References:
Bley-Vroman, R. (2002). Frequency in production, comprehension, and acquisition. Studies in
Second Language Acquisition, 24, 209-213.
Bley-Vroman, R., & Yoshinaga, N. (2000). The acquisition of multiple wh-questions by highproficiency non-native speakers of English. Second Language Research, 16(1), 3-26.
Papp, S. (2000). Stable and developmental optionality in native and non-native Hungarian
grammars. Second Language Research, 16(2), 173-200.
115
What? Grammaticalized polar questions in signed and indigenous languages
Esther Pascual & Maria Josep Jarque
University of Groningen & University of Barcelona
This paper stems from the basic assumption that language use is intimately related to
interaction and consequently, that the language system is to some extent modeled by
interaction (cf. Voloshinov 1929; Vygotsky 1962; Enfield 2008; Zlatev et al. 2008).
The main question this paper addresses is then: how is the basic interactional pattern
of turn-taking reflected in grammatical structure? Examples of interactional
constructions are rhetorical questions (e.g. “Why bother?”) and the quotative ‘like’
construction (e.g. “I was like ‘Get lost, Romney!’”).
We will deal with the grammaticalized question-answer pattern, which
constitutes a prototypical conversational structure. Specifically, we will examine the
grammaticalized occurrence of polar questions and their subsequent answers for the
expression of non-conversational meanings. The focus will be on conditionals and
topics, which show formal similarities with interrogatives in many languages, both
spoken (Haiman 1978) and signed (Coulter 1979).
To this aim, we will present a cross-linguistic study involving unrelated
languages from different families. These are signed and indigenous languages without
writing, which share the fact that they can solely be used in situated interaction. Our
hypothesis is that interactional constructions are most fossilized in the grammar of
languages lacking or making a restrictive use of a writing system. This hypothesis is
grounded in the assumption that literacy affects cognition and language use (Olson et
al. 1985), and ultimately also linguistic structure.
For instance, all Germanic spoken languages display the use of the questionanswer structure to express conditionality (e.g. “Any questions? Call our customer
service”), but this constitutes a mere pragmatic option (Jespersen 1940). By contrast,
in Hua, a Papuan language, the question-answer structure is the only grammatical
construction available for conditionals (Haiman 1978). This is also the case for
American Sign Language (Haiman 1978), which marks conditionality with the
interrogative brow raise (Janzen 1999), and Catalan Sign Language (Fernández
Viader et al. 1998, 2000). Similarly, in ordinary English conversation, for instance,
topics may be optionally introduced through a polar question (“Remember Jane? She
left town”). In Huan grammar, a grammaticalized polar question constitutes the only
conventionalized topicalization construction (Haiman 1978). The use of an
interrogatives structure for topic marking is also very common in signed languages
(Wilcox 2012), such as American Sign Language (Liddell 1980; Janzen 1999);
Spanish Sign Language (Morales-López, E, et al. 2012); and Catalan Sign Language
(Fernández Viader et al. 1998, 2000).
This paper is based on a bibliographic study of unrelated signed and indigenous
languages from different families, enriched with a qualitative analysis of visual data
from Catalan Sign Language. The grammaticalized occurrence of the question-answer
construction in signed and indigenous languages will be compared to the marked use
of this construction in various spoken languages with writing, such as Germanic,
Romance, and Slavic languages (Pascual 2006a, 2006b, 2012). This will reveal the
extent of the correlation between interactional structures and the written versus
oral/signed nature of the languages considered.
116
Examples
1a. Polar questions for Conditionality in Hua
E-si-ve
baigu-e
[come-3SG.FUT-INT will stay-1SG]
[‘If he will come, I will stay’]
[lit. ‘Will he come? I will stay’] (Haiman 1978)
1b. Polar questions for Conditionality in American Sign Language
re
RAIN,
NOT GO PICNIC
[‘If it rains, we won’t go to the picnic’]
[lit. ‘Rain? Don’t go to the picnic.’] (Coulter 1979)
2a. Polar questions for Topicalization in Hua
Dgai-mo-ve
baigu-e
I(emph.)-C.P.-TOP will.stay-1.SG
[‘As for me, I will stay.’]
[lit. ‘Me? I will stay’] (Haiman 1978)
2b. Polar questions for Topicalization in Catalan Sign Language
t
ONION INDEX1 HATE
[‘Onions, I hate’ / ‘What I hate is onions’]
[lit. ‘Onions? I hate.’] (Pfau & Quer 2010)
References
Coulter , G.R. 1979. American Sign Language Typology. PhD Diss., UC San Diego.
Enfield, N.J. 2008. Language as shaped by social interaction. BBS 31(5): 519-520.
Fernández-Viader, M.P., et al. 1998. Aprenem LSC! 1. Manual per a l’Aprenentatge
de la Llengua de Signes Catalana. Barcelona: Centre Telemàtic Editorial.
Fernández-Viader, M.P., et al. 2000. Aprenem LSC! 2. Manual per a l’aprenentatge
de la Llengua de Signes Catalana. Barcelona: Centre Telemàtic Editorial.
Haiman, J. 1978. Conditionals are topics. Language 54(3): 564-589.
Janzen, T. 1999. The grammaticization of topics in ASL. SiL 23: 271-306.
Jespersen, O. 1940. A Modern English Grammar on Historical. Ejnar Munksgaard.
Liddell, S. 1980. American Sign Language Syntax. The Hague: Mouton Publishers.
Morales-López, E, et al. 2012. Word order and informative functions (topic and
focus) in Spanish Signed Language utterances. Journal of Pragmatics 4: 474-489.
Olson, D.R., et al (eds.). 1985. Literacy, Language, and Learning. CUP.
Pascual, E. 2006a. Questions in legal monologues Text & Talk 26: 383-402.
Pascual, E. 2006b. Fictive interaction within the sentence. Cogn. Ling. 17: 245-267.
Pascual, E. 2012. Fictive interaction in languages with and without writing. Ms.
Pfau, R. & J. Quer . 2010. Nonmanuals. In D. Bretani. Sign Languages. CUP.
Voloshinov, V.N. [1929] 1986. Marxism and the Philosophy of Language. HUP.
Vygotsky, L.S. 1962. Thought and language. MIT Press.
Wilcox, S. 2012. Language and gesture. LCM V, UCP, Lisbon, 28 June 2012.
Zlatev, J., et al. (eds.). 2008. The Shared Mind. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
117
Numeral Classifiers in the Upper Amazon-Putumayo Area
Jaime Peña
Typologically similar systems of nominal classification have been found in the Amazon region
(Payne 1987, Derbyshire and Payne 1990, Aikhenvald 2002). However, little is known yet on the
topic of classifiers of certain areas such as the one located between the Upper Amazon and the
Putumayo rivers (roughly northeast Peru, east Ecuador and southeast Colombia) where many
small language families have been present since well before European contact. This paper
provides a comparative analysis of the morphosyntactic patterns found in several genetically
unrelated languages of the Upper Amazon-Putumayo area: Peba, Yameo, Yagua (Peba-Yaguan),
Waorani (isolate), Shiwilu (Kawapanan), Resígaro (Arawak), Arabela (Zaparoan), Orejon and
Secoya (West Tukanoan), and Bora (Bora-Witotoan).
F. Seifart (2007) and D. L. Payne (2007) have pointed out the similarities between
classifiers in Bora-Witotoan languages and Yagua (Peba-Yaguan). D. L. Payne has proposed that
the Yagua classifier system arose from contact with Bora-Witoto, pointing several shared traits: i)
classifiers are used in numerals and demonstratives, ii) classifiers usually derive new nouns from
nominal and verbal roots, iii) multiple classifiers co-occur in nominal words, iv) classifiers occur
in the structure [numeral.root-classifier-number.suffix]. Nevertheless, a survey of classifier
systems of other little known languages of the area shows that the observed similarities are not
limited to Bora-Witoto and Yagua. For instance, the same [numeral.root-classifiernumber.suffix] structure is found in Shiwilu and Waorani, as shown in (1):
(1)
alaʔ-tek-saʔ
one-CL:plain-one
'one mat'
ado-bã-ke
one-CL:palm.leaf-one
'one palm leaf'
tá-nũ -kɨɨ
one-CL:ANIM-one
'one child'
dalatek
mat
Shiwilu (Kawapanan)
(Farfán 2012: 69)
Waorani (isolate)
(Derbyshire and Payne 1990: 259)
wánu-ndéé-rũ Yagua (Peba-Yaguan)
male-little-NOM
The present study explores then the role that language contact may have had in defining
the puzzling structural parallelisms observed in classifiers of languages of the Upper AmazonPutumayo area. Further, by establishing a relative chronology, it is hypothesized that classifier
systems in this region most likely converged by means of language contact in pre-Columbian
times, when cultural exchange routes traversed the Upper Amazon (Eriksen 2010; Reeve 1993).
By accounting for typological similarities of classifiers in this area, this study contributes to a
better understanding of language contact and the history of the languages of the region.
118
References
Aikhenvald, A. (2002) Language Contact in Amazonia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Derbyshire, D. and Payne, D.L. (1990) ‘Noun Classification Systems of Amazonian Languages’,
in Payne, D.L. (ed.) Amazonian Linguistics: 243-72. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Eriksen, L. (2011) Nature and Culture in Pre-Historic Amazonia. Using G.I.S. to Reconstruct
Ancient Ethnogenetic Processes from Archeology, Linguistics, Geography and
Ethnohistory. Lund University, Ph. D. dissertation. [http://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/
download?func=downloadFile&recordOId=1890748&fileOId=1890749]
Farfán Reto, H. (2012) Clasificadores en Shiwilu (Jebero): organización semántica y
morfosintáctica. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Licenciature thesis.
Payne, D. L. (1987) ‘Noun Classification in the Western Amazon’, Language Sciences 9 (1):
22-44.
Payne, D. L. (2007) ‘Source of the Yagua Nominal Classification System’, International Journal
of American Linguistics 73(4): 447-74.
Reeve, M.-E. (1993) ‘Regional Interaction in the Western Amazon: The Early Colonial
Encounter and the Jesuit Years: 1538-1767’, Ethnohistory 41 (1): 106-38.
Seifart, F. (2007) ‘The Prehistory of Nominal Classification in Witotoan Languages’,
International Journal of American Linguistics 73(4): 411-45.
Glosses
=
CL
=
NOM
=
ANIM
Animate
Classifier
Nominalizer
119
Defocused Agent Expression in American Sign Language
Miako Rankin
This paper presents multiple techniques used in American Sign Language (ASL) for
backgrounding a salient entity. Data from two research projects investigating translation of
English passive utterances into ASL will be presented. The first was a study in which deaf native
ASL users with advanced academic English proficiency translated individual passive sentences
and short texts containing multiple passive voice verbs into ASL. Data for the second research
project was collected from fifty interpreters and deaf community members of various
backgrounds during a national conference of the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf. This
allows for comparison of the linguistic structures and translation strategies employed by native
signers, new signers, experienced interpreters, certified deaf interpreters, hearing native ASL
users, etc.
ASL users have different ways of foregrounding and backgrounding information. Like many
other languages, certain situations allow for subjects to be non-overt and even when subjects are
overt, the identity of the referent may be highly specified (noun phrase) or highly schematic
(pronoun with non-specified referent). The use of conceptual blending (Fauconnier & Turner,
1996) in ASL (Liddell, 2003; Dudis, 2004) to produce constructed action and constructed
dialogue (Metzger, 1995) creates other avenues that allow for backgrounding and foregrounding
of participants. This paper analyzes several ASL utterances that include blending examples with
depicting and/or indicating verbs, in order to determine which elements are foregrounded or
backgrounded. This builds our understanding of the features of ASL that are used for these
purposes, especially when conceptual blending is involved.
When depicting a two-participant event, signers can choose to create a surrogate blend in which
the signer depicts either of the participants: the signer can blend with the entity in the role of the
agent or the entity in the role of the patient. By choosing to blend with a particular entity, the
signer foregrounds that participant and that participant’s role, because it is the one participant
that is visible as a surrogate in the blend; the other participant may be partially shown through
partitioning (Dudis, 2004), but is not a visible surrogate and is therefore backgrounded.
In addition to choosing which element is visible in the blend, signers also make choices about
how specified or schematic a representation they provide. For example, when using indicating
verbs, signers map a portion of the signing space onto a particular referent. Following signs that
indicate that space are then understood to be referring to that entity as the event participant.
However, a signer may direct an indicating verb toward part of the signing space that has not
been labeled, creating a semantically unspecified, schematic participant. The schematic
participant is backgrounded in relation to specified referents.
The findings from this research provide insight into the linguistic structures used in ASL to
express meaning and construal similar to that of English passive utterances. The results also have
direct applicability to educational settings, including teaching English to native ASL users,
teaching ASL to native English speakers, and training interpreters to work between the two
languages.
120
References:
Dudis, Paul. 2004. Body partitioning and real-space blends. Cognitive Linguistics 15-2,
223-238.
Fauconnier, Gilles and Mark Turner. 1996. Blending as a central process of grammar. In
Goldberg, Adele (ed.), Conceptual Structure, Discourse and Language. Stanford, CA:
CSLI Publications, 113-130.
Liddell, Scott K. 2003. Grammar, gesture, and meaning in American Sign Language.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Metzger, Melanie. 1995. Constructed dialogue and constructed action in American Sign
Language. In Ceil Lucas (ed.) Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities, 255-271.
Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.
121
The Revival of Añunnükü or Paraujano Language (Arawak)
Andrés Mauricio Sabogal
The idea of reviving a sleeping language is a rather new phenomenon that
has come about due to the increasing awareness of the speed of language shift to
more dominant languages during the 20th century. Zuckerman and Walsh (2011)
propose that Australian Aboriginal language revival movements should
practically model their efforts on the documented successes that Israeli (Modern
Hebrew) went through. Although these authors provide great lingustic insight
about the possibilities and limitations of an eventually revived language, they
also oversimplify an incredibly complex issue by parallelling the experience that
Israelis had with that of Australian Aboriginal peoples. It is the intention of this
paper to present the current efforts of reviving Añunnükü (Arawak), a
Venezuelan Indigenous language, as a far more comparable situation to its
Australian counterpart, that could add one more reflection on linguistic revival
efforts within decolonization contexts. The situational analysis of the Añú
linguistic reality will also be presented within the concept of language ecology,
which emphasizes the psychosocial reality of a community as the environment
that either supports or hinders linguistic well-being (Flores & Cordova 2012,
Mühlhaüsler 1996).
122
According to the basic results of the 2011 Venezuelan Census, there are
about 21 000 people who declared themselves to be Añu. The people of the
water, as they identify, live primarily on the coasts and islands of the Lago de
Maracaibo and on the Río Limón, in Northwest Venezuela. They are one of the
few surviving Arawak cultures of the Caribbean and today they firmly struggle
to awaken their “sleeping” language. By the time Marie-France Patte was
performing her research that materialized as her descriptive grammar of the
language (1989), she was personally acquainted with seven elder speakers.
Today there is only one single speaker. Yofris Márquez is in his thirties and he
learned his ancestral language from his recently deceased grandmother Ana
Dolores Márquez (Álvarez 2009: 93). However, the Añu people face today a very
favorable sociopolitical environment that seems to fuel a significant movement
that seeks to ensure the re-awakening of their language and culture. Needless to
say, it is not an easy task to revive an indigenous language, even less so when
simultaneously facing difficult situations of poverty and pollution. Thus, the
Añu people have both favorable and unfavorable conditions for such an
undertaking.
In this presentation, the author seeks to present a perspective on how the
revival of Añunnükü is taking place, what the favorable and unfavorable
conditions are, what has been accomplished so far and what must still be done in
order to ensure success. This analysis is based on the gathering of available
123
linguistic and cultural data, various interviews and informal conversations with
the academics and social leaders involved in this movement, and Añunnükü
class observations that took place during the month of June 2012. Lastly, a brief
comparison with other efforts, including Israeli, will also be presented in order to
outline the possible implications that this specific case could have with similar
efforts across the world.
Bibliography
Álvarez, José. 2009. “La Oración Simple y la Oración Compuesta en Añu”. Lingua
Americana XIII Nº 24 (2009): 91 - 140.
Patte, Marie-France. 1989. Estudio descriptivo de la lengua Añun o Paraujano. San
Cristóbal (Venezuela): Univ. Católica del Táchira.
Walsh, Michael & Zuckerman, Ghil’ad. 2011. Stop, Revive, Survive: Lessons from
the Hebrew Revival Applicable to the Reclamation, Maintenance and
Empowerment of Aboriginal Languages and Cultures. Australian Journal of
Linguistics Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 111-127
Flores Farfán, José Antonio & Córdova Hernández, Lorena. 2012. Guía de
revitalización lingüística: para una gestión formada e informada. electronic resource. available at http://lecturasadli.wordpress.com/
Mühlhäusler, Peter. 1996. Linguistic ecology: language change and linguistic
imperialism in the Pacific region. London ; New York : Routledge.
124
Blackfoot Demonstratives in Narrative Discourse
S. Scott Schupbach
University of Montana
There is currently no comprehensive description of the uses and meanings of the Blackfoot
demonstrative stem set am, ann and om and the demonstrative affix set -o, -ma, -ka, -ya, and
-hka. Although Blackfoot is an endangered language, there is a substantial Blackfoot textual
tradition made up of phonetic transcriptions of traditional oral stories (Uhlenbeck 1912). In this
study, I focus my attention on the spatial deictic uses (also called “situational uses” in the
literature) and the discourse deictic uses of demonstratives in over 25 stories from Uhlenbeck
1912 and additional data given in Uhlenbeck 1938.
Previous analyses of the demonstrative system by Uhlenbeck (1938), Taylor (1969) and Frantz
(1971, 2009) are each part of a larger grammar of Blackfoot and so tend to be superficial in their
analyses of the system. For example, all three researchers fail to draw clear distinctions between
demonstratives used in spatial or locational deixis and those found in anaphoric or discourse
deixis. I set out to carefully determine the type of each demonstrative occurrence in order to
analyze each demonstrative category as a distinct part of the system. I follow Himmelmann’s
(1996) taxonomy of universal demonstrative uses (albeit cautiously, cf. Diessel 1999) as well as
Cleary-Camp’s (2007) clarifications of these categories as my criteria for delineating
demonstratives into four categories: situational uses (including both spatial deixis and locational
deixis); discourse deictic uses; tracking uses (also called anaphoric uses); and recognitional uses.
My analysis of situational uses is built upon the framework outlined in Imai’s (2003) crosslinguistic study of spatial deixis and informed by the typological demonstrative studies of Dixon
(2003) and Diessel (1999). Imai’s approach involves identifying the specific parameters (and
their features) that are encoded in demonstrative words. His four parameters are: anchor, spatial
demarcation, referent/region configuration and function. I argue that Blackfoot’s situational
demonstrative system encodes features of Imai’s first three parameters. The stems am, ann and
om, indicate proximal, medial and distal features of spatial demarcation within a speakeranchored system. The suffix -o encodes a geometric feature of shared space between the speaker
and the addressee and the mutually exclusive suffixes -ma, -ka, -ya,and -hka each encode a
different feature of the referent/region configuration parameter, all linked to movement or
visibility. I also show how discourse deictic demonstrative occurrences differ from their
situational counterparts and how a less exhaustive analysis of the system led previous researchers
to incomplete conclusions as a result of their attempts to apply overly general meanings across
different categories of demonstrative usage.
This study provides a basic description of Blackfoot demonstratives that (1) may be utilized to
elicit more focused, context-specific data from native speakers, (2) has implications for Proulx’s
(1988) theory of Proto-Algonquian demonstrative forms and their development (a large portion
of which theory is based on modern Blackfoot forms) and (3) is a first step toward a description
of the deictic system of Blackfoot.
[Keywords: demonstratives, spatial deixis, discourse deixis, Blackfoot] 125
REFERENCES
Cleary-Camp, Jessica. 2007. Universal uses of demonstratives: Evidence from four MalayoPolynesian languages. Oceanic Linguistics 46(2):325-347.
Diessel, Holger. 1999. Demonstrativesː Form, function and grammaticalization. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins B.V.
Dixon, R. M. W. 2003. Demonstratives: A cross-linguistic typology. Studies in Language
27(1):61-112.
Frantz, Don. 1971. Toward a generative grammar of Blackfoot. Summer Institute of Linguistics
Publications in Linguistics and Related Fields #34. Norman, OK.
—. 2009[1991]. Blackfoot grammar, 2nd edition. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.
Himmelmann, Nikolaus. 1996. Demonstratives in narrative discourse: A taxonomy of universal
uses. In Studies in Anaphora, ed. by Barbara Fox, 205-54. Typological Studies in
Language, 33. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Imai, Shingo. 2003. Spatial deixis. PhD dissertation, SUNY Buffalo.
Proulx, Paul. 1988. The demonstrative pronouns of Proto-Algonquian. International Journal of
American Linguistics 54(3):309-330.
Taylor, Allan R. 1969. A Grammar of Blackfoot. Unpublished PhD dissertation, UC Berkeley.
Uhlenbeck, C. C. 1912. A New Series of Blackfoot Texts. Amsterdam.
—. 1938. A Concise Blackfoot Grammar. Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Company.
DATA
[1] Anétakik, ómakaie ksiitàpiu, áistàumahkau.
oni’taki-k
om-wa-ka-ayi
ksii-tapi-wa
hurry-IMPV.PL DIST-3.AN-MT-? foot?-person-3.AN
“Hurry, there is a person on foot, he is running this way.”
áist-a-omaahkaa-wa
here-DUR-run.AI-3.AN
Uhlenbeck, 1912:66
[2] Amók mohsokúyik áutsapòmahkau.
am-o-ka
mohsokó-yi-ka á-ohtssap-omahkaa-wa
PROX-CG-MT road-IN-MT
DUR-along.route-travel.by.foot(animal)-3
“It (animate) was walking back on the same trail.”
Uhlenbeck, 1938:39
[3] Annák Ákai-Pekàni mátainitsìuatsiks.
ann-wa-ka
akai
pekani
maat-a-i’nit-yi-waatsiksi
MED-3.AN-MT ancient
Peigan
NEG-DUR-kill.TA-PL-SG.NONAFF
“The ancient Peigans never killed [them (their enemies)].”
Uhlenbeck, 1912ː87-88
[4] Itstsíi istahpéksiks. Ánnikskaie nitáistunnoanániau.
ann-iksi-ka-ayi
MED-AN.PL-MT-?
“There are haunting spirits. Those are the ones we are afraid of.” Uhlenbeck, 1912ː58
In [1] the suffix -ka signals motion toward the anchor. But -ka can also indicate motion
backward along a path as in [2]. In other non-spatial contexts, -ka is often used to refer to
referents in the past as in [3]. In [4], -ka is used to signal the presence of an anaphor. 126
Two American Sign Language Nominal Constructions Involving Signs Resembling Pronouns
Vivion Sloan
“Describing the grammar of a language consists primarily of describing its constructions”
(Langacker 2008:183). Following from this, to understand the grammar of any language its
constructions must be identified and analyzed in detail. This study identifies and analyzes two
noun phrase structures in American Sign Language (ASL) that include (at least) a noun and a
sign resembling a pronoun. These pronoun-like signs have often been treated as variants of a
single sign1. This paper investigates the following research questions regarding these noun
phrases. Have distinct pronoun-like signs with distinct meanings been incorrectly grouped
together as variants of a single sign? What are these signs and what constructions can they
participate in? I identify and analyze two distinct signs that resemble pronouns and are uttered in
two noun phrase constructions. I show that these noun phrases may be associated with two
instances of their referent: the traditional conceptual entity designated by the phrase and a
spatially blended entity (a token or surrogate (Liddell 2003)) identified by the directionality of
the signs. I argue that the traditional instance of any referent may be definite while the spatial
instance of the same referent could be (spatially) indefinite.
I analyzed 30 videos of naturally occurring ASL discourses and looked for signs that
resemble pronouns uttered as the final sign in a noun phrase. Figure 1 shows the pronoun
PRO|x| (gloss consistent with Liddell (2003)). I analyzed 50 instances of this sign uttered as
part of what I call the [[Noun] PRO|x|] construction. This sign is articulated with an extended
index finger moving along a short path in the direction the index finger is pointing. In the
analyzed examples, PRO|x| refers to a schematic thing that is elaborated by the preceding noun.
This traditional instance of the referent is definite because it is highly accessible to the
addressee2. However, the directionality of this sign introduces a second instance of its referent: a
token that can be considered indefinite because it has not been previously identified (or located
in space) in the immediately preceding discourse. Thus, when uttered as a part of [[Noun]
PRO|x|], PRO|x| functions as a spatially indefinite determiner, and means something like “the
X, located here.”
Figure 2 shows a different pronoun-like sign, which I gloss SP-DEF-DET|x|. I analyzed
40 instances of this sign uttered as part of what I refer to as the [[Noun] SP-DEF-DET|x|]
construction. This sign is also articulated with an extended index finger, but exhibits minimal or
no path movement. In all the analyzed examples SP-DEF-DET|x| refers to a schematic thing
that is elaborated by the preceding noun. Like the previous construction, the traditional instance
of the referent is definite. However, the signer’s index finger points toward a token that was
previously introduced. Thus, this second instance of the referent can be considered definite
because it too is highly accessible to the addressee. Therefore, when uttered as part of [[Noun]
SP-DEF-DET|x|], SP-DEF-DET|x| functions as a spatially definite determiner, and means
something like, “the X, known location.”
1
One or both of the signs analyzed for this study may be the same as some pronoun-like signs discussed by other
authors. (e.g., POINT (Hoffmeister 1977); DET or PRO.3 (Zimmer & Patschke 1990); PRO (Wilbur 1979);
PRONOUN (Lillo-Martin & Klima 1990); INDEX (Kegl 1976, 1977; Meier 1990; Emmorey et al. 1991; Cormier
2002); IX (Bahan et al. 1995; MacLaughlin 1997)). However, none of these authors describe the form of the
pronoun-like signs in enough detail for me to determine the specific sign or signs they analyzed. Certainly none of
these authors comment on a distinction in form based on the presence or absence of movement along a path.
2 This instance of the referent is highly accessible and therefore definite because it was either introduced in the
immediately preceding discourse, or it is an instance of a type for which there is only one eligible candidate
(Langacker 2008:494).
127
Sample ASL data:
POSS-1
GRANDMOTHER------------ PRO|grandmother|-------------------3
|x|
Figure 1: [[Noun] PRO ] A noun phrase ending with a the pronoun PRO|x|
C-A-B-E-R---------------------------- SP-DEF-DET|CAEBER|-------------Figure 2: [Noun] SP-DEF-DET|x|] A noun phrase ending with a sign resembling PRO|x|, articulated without
movement along a path
References
Bahan, B., Judy Kegl, Dawn MacLaughlin, and Carol Neidle. (1995). Convergent Evidence for the Structure of Determiner Phrases in
American Sign Language. In L. Gabriele, D. Hardison, and R. Westmoreland (Eds.), FLSM VI: Proceedings of the Sixth Annual
Meeting of the Formal Linguistics Society of Mid-America (Vol. 2). Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Linguistics Club, 1- 12.
Cormier, Kearsy A. 2002. Grammaticization of Indexic Signs: How American Sign Language Expresses Numerosity. Doctoral
dissertation, The University of Texas, Austin, TX.
Croft, William and Alan D. Cruse. 2004. Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge University Press. New York, NY.
Hoffmeister, Robert J. 1977. The influential point. In W. Stokoe (Ed.) Proceedings of the National Symposium on Sign Language
Research and Teaching. Silver Spring, MD: National Association of the Deaf.
Emmorey, Karen, Freda Norman, and Lucinda O’Grady. 1991. The Activation of Spatial Antecedents from Overt Pronouns in
American Sign Language. Language and Cognitive Processes. 6 (3) 207- 228.
Langacker, Ronald W. 2008. Cognitive Grammar: A basic introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lillo-Martin, Diane; and Edward S. Klima. 1990. Pointing Out Differences: ASL Pronouns in Syntactic Theory. Theoretical Issues in
Sign Language Research. University of Chicago Press. Vol. 1:191 - 210
Liddell, Scott K. 2003. Grammar, Gesture, and Meaning in American Sign Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
MacLaughlin, Dawn. 1997. The Structure of Determiner Phrases: Evidence From American Sign Language. (Dissertation, Boston
University).
Meier, Richard P. 1990. Person Deixis in American Sign Language. In S. D. Fischer and P. Siple (Eds.), Theoretical Issues in Sign
Language Research, Volume 1: Linguistics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 175-190.
O’Malley, P. 1975. The grammatical function of indexic reference in American Sign Language. Research, Development and
Demonstration Center in Education of the Handicapped, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
Kegl, Judy. 1976. Relational Grammar and American Sign Language. Unpublished manuscript (reprinted in Sign Language &
Linguistics 7:2 (2004), 131-170).
Kegl, Judy. 1977. ASL Syntax: Research in Progress and Proposed Research. Unpublished manuscript, MIT, Cambridge, MA
vertical lines superimposed over the two images of PRO|grandmother| in Figure 1 (and SP-DEF-DET|CAEBER| in
Figure 2) are intended to make the signs’ path movement (or lack of path movement) easier to perceive in the still
images. 3 The
128
(reprinted in Sign Language & Linguistics 7:2 (2004), 173-206).
Taylor, John R. 2002. Cognitive Grammar. Oxford University Press.
Wilbur, Ronnie Bring. 1979. American Sign Language and sign systems: Research and application. Baltimore, MD: University Park
Press.
Zimmer, June and Cynthia Patschke.1990. A Class of Determiners in ASL. In C. Lucas (Ed.), Sign Language Research: Theoretical
Issues. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 201-210.
129
Visualizing dialect geography in Northern Athapaskan through Kinship terms
Conor Snoek
This paper seeks to compare the systems of kinship terminologies among Northern Athapaskan
languages from two complementary perspectives: the qualitative assessment of variability in the
conceptual structure of kinship systems and the quantitative analysis of dialect distance.
Northern Athapaskan is a geographic subdivision of the Athapaskan family that includes 23
extant languages spoken in the subarctic regions of Alaska and western Canada as well as in
southern Alberta (Krauss and Golla 1981: 67). The family covers a large but continuous
geographic area in which speaker communities have upheld long histories of contact leading to
complex patterns of linguistic differentiation and similarity.
The study of Athapaskan kinship has received thorough treatment in the works of Hoijer (1956)
and Dyen & Aberle (1975), as well as in many studies of individual groups (DeLaguna &
McClelland 1981, Asch 1988, and others). Those studies aimed to outline the kinship structures
among the ancient Athapaskans and reconstruct a terminological system for Proto-Athapaskan.
The kinship systems have been described as basically Dravidian (as distinguishing crossness,
that is dividing the set of relatives according to the gender of the linking relative, the sex of the
referent of the kin term, relative age and generation), with a some formal variability (Ives 1990:
79). Thus it is possible to investigate patterns of similarity and difference among Athapaskan
languages with respect to the conceptual structure of the systems. The analysis presented builds
on Ives’ (1990) investigation of Northern Athapaskan kinship systems and seeks to complement
those findings by comparing them to the more strictly linguistic analysis of phonological forms.
Krauss and Golla have noted that long periods of contact and diffusion of forms have led to a
complex historical linguistic situation in Northern Athapaskan which frequently makes difficult
the distinction between languages and dialects, and their respective associations (Krauss and
Golla 1981: 68). Dialect complexes, rather than linguistic sub-grouping, have also been
suggested for the Slavey languages of the Canadian Interior. Therefore it appears justified to
apply dialectological methods in the investigation of the similarities and differences among
Northern Athapaskan. Recent developments in measuring dialect differences through
computational means have culminated in GABMAP (Nerbonne et. al 2011), a freely available
dialect analysis tool. With GABMAP the phonemically transcribed kinship terms can be
compared in order to group languages and dialects with the help of clustering algorithms.
Furthermore, the application permits the visual representation of dialect proximity on geographic
maps.
By investigating kinship terms through both the anthropological and the dialectological lenses
this paper seeks to go beyond existing scholarship on language relationships in the northern
130
branch of this extensive family with the hope of providing fresh insights into the formidable
problem of sub-grouping in Athapaskan.
References
Asch, Michael. 1988. Kinship and the Drum Dance in a Northern Dene Community. The Boreal
Institute for Northern Studies.
DeLaguna, Frederica and Catherine McClellan. 1981. “Athna”. In Helm, June (ed.) Handbook of
North American Indians, Volume 6, Subarctic. Washington: Smithsonian Institution
Press. 641-663.
Dyen, Isidore and David F. Aberle. 1974. Lexical Reconstruction: The Case of the ProtoAthapaskan Kinship System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ives, John W. 1990. A Theory of Athapaskan Prehistory. Calgary (AB): Westerview Press and
University of Calgary Press.
Krauss, Michael E. and Victor Golla. 1981. Northern Athapaskan languages. In Helm, June (ed.),
Handbook of North American Indians 6: Subarctic. Washington, DC: Smithsonian
Institution. 67–85.
Nerbonne, John, Rinke Colen, Charlotte Gooskens, Peter Kleiweg and Therese Leinonen. 2011.
Gabmap — A Web Application for Dialectology. Dialectologia (Special Issue II): 65-89.
Rice, Keren. 1989. A Grammar of Slave. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
131
132
The Role of Interaction and Other-Repetition in the Early Acquisition of Russian Aspect
Maria Sotnikova
University of New Mexico, Department of Linguistics
The current research focuses on the early acquisition of Russian verbal aspect and the role of adultchild interaction in this process, specifically the facilitative potential of the other-repetition in the course of
language learning.
According to the traditional approach, Russian verbs exist in aspectual pairs, i.e. most of the verbs come
in perfective and imperfective meanings. The Perfective aspect construes the situation as completed, whereas
the Imperfective focuses on its development (Comrie, 1976). The complexity of Russian aspect, its morphology,
semantics and pragmatics, makes its acquisition a challenging process that is not completed even by the age of
6;0. Within the usage-based theory, a number of factors influencing the acquisition of Russian aspect have been
identified: the lexical aspectual type of the verb/Aktionsart (Stoll, 2001; 2005; Bar-Shalom, 2002), the level of
discourse complexity in which a verb form occurs (Stoll, 2001), pragmatic inferences that the child makes while
producing a specific aspectual form (Vinnitskaya and Wexler, 2001). However, the role of adult-child
interaction has not received sufficient attention. We attempt to fill in this gap by approaching the acquisition of
Russian aspect from the perspective of language as a joint action, proposed by Clark (1992; 1996). In this view,
the aim of linguistic communication is to achieve a specific joint purpose posed by the interlocutors, without any
coercion on both sides, with a commitment to mutual support, a certain amount of common ground between the
individuals and mutual responsiveness to each other’s actions (Croft, 2009: 398-399).
Our data consist of the finite present verb forms (1698 adult forms; 1109 child forms) and past forms
(1003/707) produced longitudinally by two caregiver-children pairs (ages 1;6-2;10 and 2;5-2;11) and
represented in the CHILDES corpus for Russian. We identified the cases of other-repetition of the verb forms in
adults’ and child’s speech in order to analyze the relationship between the forms and the functions of the present
vs. perfective repeats and discuss the role they play in adult-child interaction during the early period of language
learning. We demonstrate that the repetition of the verb, especially its perfective form, frequently functions as an
important tool to foster communication and thus promote the acquisition of grammatical aspect in Russian. Our data
analysis revealed that both forms and functions of adults’ repeats vary significantly for the verbs in the present
vs. past perfective tense-aspect constructions (see Tables 1 and 2). Perfective repeats produced by adults are
usually expansions of the child’s model utterance. They aim at developing the current joint project and promote
the child’s exposure and further use of the verb. Present repeats most often confirm the child’s contribution by
replicating it and thus complete the joint project. The difference between the forms of the children’s present and
perfective repeats was not found significant, however they perform significantly different functions (Table 3).
Similarly to the adults’ repeats, this difference in the functional load of the child’s repeats reflects the varying
degrees of her involvement in the joint project and the different nature of the interaction, depending on the
tense-aspect construal of the situation
133
References:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Bar-Shalom, Eva. (2002). Tense and Aspect in Early Child Russian. Language Acquisition, 10: 4, 321-337.
Clark, Herbert H. (1992). Arenas of Language Use. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Clark, Herbert H. (1996). Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Comrie, Bernard (1976). Aspect. An introduction to the study of verbal aspect and related problems. Cambridge.
Croft, William (2009). Toward a social cognitive linguistics. New directions in cognitive linguistics, ed. Vyvyan Evans
and Stéphanie Pourcel, 395-420. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
6. MacWhinney, Brian (2000). The CHILDES Project: Tools for Analyzing Talk. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
7. Stoll, Sabine. (2001). The Acquisition of Russian Aspect. Dissertation for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Slavic
Languages and Literature. University of California, Berkley.
8. Stoll, Sabine. (2005). Beginning and End in the Acquisition of Perfective Aspect in Russian. J. Child Language. 32, 805825.
9. Vinnitskay, Inna and Ken Wexler. (2001). The Role of Pragmatics in the Development of Russian Aspect. First
Language 21, 143-186.
Table 1. Frequencies and proportions of the forms of adult’s other repetition (present and past perfective verb forms)
Present
N
%
EXA
RED
MOD
EXP
Total
***
35
12
16
46
109
32
11
15
42
100
Past Perfective
X
N
%
6
9
5
7
21 31
35 51
68 100
***
2
16.5
p< .001
Table 2. Communicative functions of adult’s other-repetition (past perfective and present verb forms)
Past Pf
N %
23 34%
11 16%
9 13%
7 10%
5 1%
1 1%
12 18%
X2
Present
N %
34 31%
5
5%
1
1%
4
4%
25 23%
40 37%
0
0%
***
Elaboration request
68.183
Clarification request(+reformulation)
Disagreement/denial
Elaboration/adding new info
Confirmation request
Confirmation/agreement
Information receipt ratification (with
or without agreement)
Total
68
109
***
p<.001
Table 3. Communicative functions of child’s other-repetition (past perfective and present verb forms)
X2
Past Pf
Present
N
%
N
%
***
Echo answers
25 32%
46
51%
21.252
Inappropriate repetition/imitation
16 21%
12
13%
Elaboration
15 19%
7
1%
Ratification
9
12%
9
1%
Disagreement/denial
6
1%
13
14%
Elaboration request
0
4
1%
Confirmation request/clarification
6
1%
0
request
77
91
***
p<.005
134
Prolongations as a Disfluency in American Sign Language
Jesse Stewart
University of Manitoba
There is a Spanish proverb that says, él que tiene boca se equivoca literally translating to
‘he who has a mouth errs’1. Our mouths, however, may not be as guilty as we would like
to think, since most of the time, it is our brain’s processing ability that dictates whether
our ideas can keep pace with our mouth. The same analogy can said for signed
languages— when a signer’s brain fails to keep pace with their hands, fluent signing may
also be interrupted. While the development of signed language is viewed as quite remote
from that of spoken language, our linguistic and cognitive channels, through which
language is produced, are one in the same— no matter the modalities (visual-gestural or
audio-vocal) used to communicate and receive language.
Unlike spoken languages, however, there is very little published work on
disfluencies in the signed language (SL) literature that extends beyond a hand full of
categories. Some of the more well known cases include slips of the hand (Newkirk et al
1980, Hohenberger 2002; Vinson et al 2010), and tip of the finger (TOF) moments
(Thompson et al 2008). This paper looks to add to the existing literature on SL
disfluencies with a description of prolongation in American Sign Language (ASL).
McAllister (2005:259) describes prolongation in spoken languages as "speech segments
which have greater than expected duration given their linguistic and phonetic context".
Analogously, a definition of prolongations in SL should simply be the lengthening of
signs beyond their expected duration given their linguistic and phonological context. In
reality, however, prolongations appear to be more complex in SL.
My preliminary findings show that signers make use of three primary types of
prolongations for holding the floor during brief moments of non-communicative
cognitive processing. These include: (1) the slowing of a sign beyond its typical linguistic
context, which I call deceleration, (2) an unusual amount of repeats of a motion in a sign
which typically involves a reduplicated action of one or more syllables 2 i.e., BABY. I call
this type of prolongation, repetition and (3) the exaggeration of the size of a sign where
narrative performance does not appear to be a factor. I call this type of prolongation,
elongation.
My analysis also looks to answer the following questions using a variety of
techniques including mixed effects models to test for significant difference: what is the
overall duration (ms) difference between prolonged signs and non-prolonged signs,
including the aforementioned subcategories? Are certain signs more likely to be
prolonged than others i.e., classifiers vs. non-classifiers or body anchored vs. non-body
anchored signs? In which environments do prolongations tend to appear? Are
prolongations longer with new information? If so, does the duration of a prolongation
tend to taper off after subsequent repetitions of a sign? How might receivers interpret
prolongations? Finally, regarding narratives, is there a correlation (duration or quantity)
between prolongations when a narrative is told for the first time with a fresh short term
memory compared to a second narration an hour later?
1
Figuratively, ‘We all make mistakes.’
By syllable, I refer to Wilbur’s (2011) description of a syllable as a directional change in movement
within a sign i.e., the two lateral movements in BABY.
2
135
Disfluencies in Signed Language Narratives
Jesse Stewart & Erin Wilkinson
Fluent language processing involves an interaction between linguistic and cognitive
organization that is chunked in a planning unit. Disfluency is defined as language
disruptions in language production. In speech, if language processing lags behind
cognitive processing at the completion of a planned unit, then speakers will show
disfluency in various forms, e.g., by having a long pause, by using verbal utterances like
‘hmmm’, and/or by repeating utterances to allow more time to plan the following unit.
Language disruptions provide evidence that people process language in units. However,
nearly all studies on disfluency concern spoken languages. Only a few studies on signed
languages, mostly on ‘slips of the hand’, show that disfluency occurs in signed languages
as well (Klima and Bellugi 1979, Newkirk et al 1980, Dively 1998, Leuninger et al.
2002).
This study focuses on several types of signed language disfluencies from eight
deaf signers. These include: pauses, fillers, repetitions, sign-lengthening and lexical
selection errors. We attempt to deliver a more in-depth analysis of the cognitive and
communicative processes involved in disfluent speech. By isolating and subcategorizing
disfluencies, we aim to document (1) the modality differences and processing similarities
between spoken and signed language, (2) explore how disfluencies aide in coordinating
communication by analyzing phrase level environments and (3) look at how facial
expressions and body movement are used in disfluent events. The narrative format used
in documenting disfluencies not only allows for individual comparative analyses among
each participant, but also cross-participant analyses. This permits us to look at (4) each
signer’s individual isogloss and compare both common and independent strategies for
dealing with cognitive processing and the communication coordinating. Finally (5), we
look at tendencies for sign-specific disfluencies i.e., is sign-lengthening more common in
non-body anchored signs? What about with non-classifiers?
Our preliminary results suggest that disfluencies are just as complex as those
found in spoken language. This implies that both speakers and signers implement similar
strategies for dealing with cognitive planning and coordinative processes. However, due
to the anatomical differences between spoken and signed language modalities, many
disfluent categories in ASL appear to have a greater number of subcategorical forms from
which a signer may choose during a disfluent event. Like surface level language
production, however, the production of disfluencies is language (and even user) specific
i.e., the English and Spanish fillers hmmm and eeeh are distinct utterances phonetically
but are employed for the same function. This study also suggests that facial expressions
and body movements may be used to both predict and make up part of a disfluent event.
Our data suggests that individual signers tend to refer certain disfluent subcategories over
others. Finally, there is evidence to suggest that certain disfluencies are correlated with
specific sign types.
136
Conceptualization of sadness in Vietnamese
Hien Tran, Linguistics Department
This study examines conceptual structure of the sadness concept in Vietnamese. Emotion
concepts are composed of a number of parts: metaphors, metonymies, related concepts, and
cultural models (Kövecses, 1986, 1990). This study investigates conceptual mappings between
source domains and the target domain (sadness) to find out how metaphors and metonymies help
Vietnamese people conceptualize sadness; indicates universal physiological features and
highlights specific cultural features of the emotion; introduces scenarios (prototypical and nonprototypical) of sadness in Vietnamese.
Two hundred words, idioms, proverbs and expressions referring to sadness and their “real
world” examples are collected from the dictionary of Vietnamese 2000, and ten e-news websites
which are the most popular in Vietnamese (according to alexa.com).
This study employs Idealized Cognitive Model (ICM), proposed by Lakoff (1987) to
present understanding and accounting for the way the emotion is experienced.
Findings:
1) The physiological effects of sadness are: agitation, tear shedding, lack of energy (vital energy)
and consequent weakness, drooping posture, drooping facial muscles, rejection of food, inability
to sleep, weight loss, etc.
When the emotion is intense, there is an interference with accurate perception: Individuals may
have a death wish.
2) Metaphors of sadness:
SADNESS IS DARKNESS: “mặt cô ấy u buồn khi đưa thư cho tôi” (face-she-dark-sad-when-giveletter-to-me): She looked gloomy when she gave me the letter.
SADNESS IS FLUID: “nỗi buồn dâng đầy trong mắt nàng” (classifier-sad-rise-full-in-eye-her) Her
eyes were full of sadness.
SADNESS IS SPICY AND BITTER TASTE: “giọng bà đầy cay đắng khi nói về đứa con” (voice-shefull-spicy-bitter-when-speak-about-child): Her voice was full of sadness when she talked about
her son.
SADNESS IS FIRE: “lửa phiền não” (fire-sad-sad): fire of sadness; “lửa phiền đốt gan” (fire-sadburn-liver): fire of sadness burns the liver: very sad.
SADNESS IS A KNIFE: “nỗi buồn cứa gan cứa ruột” (classifier-sad-cut-liver-cut- intestines): so
sad like liver and intestines were cut by a blunt knife.
BELLY IS A CONTAINER OF SADNESS: “Bụng buồn lắm mà chả dám nói với ai” (belly-sad-verybut-no-dare-talk-with-who): very sad but cannot share with anyone.
Findings of this study show that metaphors and metonymies of sadness help Vietnamese
people conceptualize the sadness. The emotion concept is constructed by physiological and
137
socio-cultural experiences. Thus, a neglect of either of these aspects will present a distorted
picture of the emotion. The findings will contribute to the debate on universal functions and
characteristics of emotions.
References
Kövecses, Zoltán. 1986. Metaphors of Anger, Pride, and Love: A Lexical Approach to the Study of
Concepts. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Kövecses, Zoltán. 1990. Emotion Concepts. Berlin and New York: Springer-Verlag.
Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal about the Mind.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Từ điển tiếng Việt, 2000 (Dictionary of Vietnamese), Viện Ngôn Ngữ học, NXB Đà Nẵng.
138
Motion Compounds in Hiaki
Alex Trueman
University of Arizona
In this paper I document and describe some properties of compound verbs in Hiaki, and
ask the following question: What is the underlying structure of a Hiaki compound verb? In
particular, what is the structure when the head verb is intransitive (and thus cannot take the
second verb or verb phrase as its complement)? I focus on compound structures in which a verb
of motion is modified by an adjoined lexical verb or verb phrase, as in the following examples:
(1)
Uu hamut
ili
usi-ta
yu’u-siime
the woman
little child-ACC
push-go
“That woman is pushing the child along.”
(2)
Haisa ne
enchim nau eteho-u
Q
1sgNOM 2plACC together talk-to
“When we are talking can I take notes?”
haisa ne
Q 1sgNOM
aa= hiohte-sim-ne
3sgACC= write-go-IRR
Although complex verbal structures are very common in Hiaki, compounds of full lexical
verbs are a restrictive class, in the sense that there are relatively few verbs which commonly
show up as the final or head verb in such a structure. One of the most common of the
independent lexical verbs to occur as the head verb, or V2, is the intransitive motion verb siime
‘go/come’.
In the more well-understood compound verb structures, such as causatives and
desideratives, the V2 is always transitive. Escalante (1990) shows, using binding facts, that
constructions with a transitive V2 are biclausal, despite containing only a single Tense node.
Harley (2011) treats these as examples of clause fusion by embedding a VP, not TP, which
results in a single case domain. In these examples it is possible to have a distinct subject of the
embedded verb, which is what makes it possible to diagnose biclausality with binding. When the
V2 is intransitive, however, both verbs obligatorily share a nominative subject. This subject can
bind the reflexive object of an embedded transitive verb, as in (3) and (4), which would seem to
be an argument for monoclausality.
(3)
Uu chuu’u
hiva au
wok-si-sime
always 3sgREFL scratch-RED-go
DET dog
“The dog is always going along scratching itself.”
(4)
Hunume
ili o’oi-m
hiva emo
yu'u-sa-saka
DEM.DISTAL little boy-PL
always 2plREFL
push-RED-go
“Those little boys are always going around pushing each other.”
However, since there cannot be a subject of the V1 distinct from the nominative subject of V2, in
fact the binding facts can tell us very little. I utilize morphosyntactic evidence such as the
139
interaction of V2 siime with the impersonal passive –wa, and with reduplication, to argue that
siime compounds are also biclausal.
A more complex puzzle is the structural relationship between the two verbs. When V2 is
transitive, then VP1 may occur as its complement; however in the examples under consideration,
V2 is always intransitive. Two broad hypotheses are explored. The first is that verbs like siime
are undergoing grammaticization into something like an aspectual auxiliary verb. This would
seem to be in keeping with the presumed genesis of several of Hiaki’s obligatorily bound affixes,
and with trends in basic motion verbs crosslinguistically as for example, the use of English go in
increasingly grammaticized structures such as “I’m going fishing in the morning”, where the
semantics are shifted from literal motion to future/prospective. The other hypothesis, following
Zubizarreta and Oh’s (2004, 2007) work on Korean serial verbs of motion, which is one of the
few scholarly works to touch on constructions of this nature, is that VP1 is an adjunct modifier to
V2.
140
The effect of syllabic restructuring on the detection of non-native speech
Valerie J. Trujillo
University of Florida
The process by which speakers are judged to be native or foreign is not fully
understood, as how perceptual cues signaling nonnative speaker status exist at multiple levels
in the speech signal (Munro et. al, 2010). Although L2 speech is typically delivered more slowly
(Munro and Derwing, 2001; Raupach, 1980) and less fluently (Derwing et al., 2008; Riggenbach,
1991) than native-produced speech, previous studies on the effect of speech rate on accent
ratings have produced conflicting results (Munro and Derwing, 2001; MacKay et al., 2006).
The purpose of this investigation was to gain more insight into factors contributing to
the perception that a speaker is Spanish-dominant. The primary linguistic factors under
investigation were syllabic restructuring - the manifestation of the coda of one syllable as the
onset of the following syllable - and errors in article/noun gender agreement. New Mexican
participants of varying proficiencies listened to a speech sample composed of elicited speech by
native Spanish speakers, which included tokens of ±syllabic restructuring and ±gender agreement.
Participants rated the speakers’ global accent and speculated on the L1 of the speakers in the
sample. Syllabic restructuring was found to have a moderate to strong correlation with accent
ratings for participants of low Spanish proficiency even when agreement errors were present in
the stimuli. In participants with higher Spanish proficiency, the correlation between syllabic
restructuring and accent rating was moderate when no agreement errors were present and
weak when agreement errors were present in the stimuli.
141
References
Derwing, T.M., Munro, M.J., Thomson, R.I. (2008). A longitudinal study of ESL learners’
fluency and comprehensibility development. Applied Linguist. 29, 359–380.
MacKay, I.R.A., Flege, J.E., Imai, S. (2006). Evaluating the effects of chronological age and
sentence duration on degree of perceived foreign accent. Applied Psycholinguist 27, 157–
183.
Munro, M.J., Derwing, T.M. (2001). Modeling perceptions of the accentedness and
comprehensibility of L2 speech: The role of speaking rate. Studies in Second Language
Acquisition 23, 451–468.
Munro, M.J., Derwing, T.M., & Burgess, C.S. (2010). Detection of non-native speaker status
from content-masked speech. Speech Communication 52, 626-637.
Raupach, M. (1980). Temporal variables in first and second language speech production. In:
Dechert, H., Raupach, M. (Eds.), Temporal Variables in Speech: Studies in Honour of Frieda
Goldman-Eisler. Mouton, The Hague, pp. 263–270.
Riggenbach, H., 1991. Toward an understanding of fluency: a microanalysis of nonnative
speaker conversations. Discourse Process, 14, 423–441.
Keywords: Foreign accent detection, phonology, speech perception
142
A Frame Semantics Approach to Machine Translation
John Tyczkowski
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Abstract:
This paper proposes a method for using FrameNet systems to create frame-based lexicons
in multiple languages for use in machine translation applications. FrameNet is a system that
attempts to identify and describe semantic frames through extraction of information in text
corpora. It also attempts to give a syntactic explanation of words' semantic properties, along with
the main task of identifying words' meanings and using those to establish frames (Fillmore et al
2003: 235).
One question that arises in such a project involves the active human operator role in
FrameNet systems. Because new frames, and new associations between words and frames, are
always being created due to the non-static nature of language use, the best approach would be to
use a semi-supervised learning system to “teach” computers new frame associations through
experience, supplementing hand-annotated inputs. The most general frame associations could be
annotated and inputted directly, and then the semi-supervised learning approach could be used to
make the FrameNet systems adaptable to the dynamic process of semantic extension and change.
However, this analysis would be a large enough challenge just for one language on one
FrameNet system, without introducing any other languages for machine translation efforts.
Decentralizing frame semantics data collection and analysis on a per-language basis, with a
dedicated network per language, and then combining the information together on an as-needed
basis for machine translation projects, would solve that problem. Thus, when communication
would occur between two different languages' FrameNet systems, semantic frames would be
found and matched in order to compile a list of both languages' syntactic realizations of those
frames, for use in the translation process (Boas 2002). This matching process would be utilized
for both the common ("universal") frames found via hand-annotated input and the less-common
frames found via semi-supervised learning of un-annotated text.
The paper describes a process for creating a translation network based in frame semantics
that includes the following steps:
1. Establish separate frame networks for each language and gather a monolingual corpus for
each.
2. Hand-annotate each corpus for content of the frames that can be extracted (more
universal frames).
3. Have each network use a semi-supervised learning system to start determining the
content of the subframes (less universal frames).
4. Create a two-tiered translation system, containing a frame semantics exchange for
meaning and a syntactically-focused interlingual exchange for structure, separate from
the source and target language networks, but receiving input from both.
The translation process would involve establishing commonalities and differences
between the target and source languages’ frames, and interpreting them syntactically. This paper
143
addresses the question of whether meaning and form should be translated simultaneously or
serially, and sketches out the consequences of each approach.
References:
Boas, Hans C. 2002. Bilingual FrameNet Dictionaries for Machine Translation.
In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Language Resources and
Evaluation, pages 1364-1371, Las Palmas, Spain.
Fillmore, C.J., C.R. Johnson, and M.R.L. Petruck. 2003. Background to Framenet.
International Journal of Lexicography, 16.3: 235-47.
144
Determining prefab status in New Mexican Spanish, the case of decir
Víctor A. Valdivia Ruiz
From a Usage-based approach, the present study addresses the issue of how to determine
what a prefab is. 300 decir ‘to say’ clauses from the New Mexico and Colorado Spanish
Survey (Bills & Vigil, 2008) were tested for features such as frequency, morphosyntactic
variability, and prosodic distribution in order to show that several prefabs can emerge not
only from a specific verb, but also from a single Subject-Tense combination. In addition,
the paper explores whether there is a relation between prefabs’ structural gradience and
their function in the discourse. Results show that frequent collocations in the corpus (digo
‘I say’, dijo ‘he-she said’, and dicen ‘they say’) produce a range of prefabs, from
schematic ones –e.g. (yo) digo + CLAUSE ‘I say + CLAUSE–, to highly fixed
constructions –e.g como digo 'as I say'.
Bibliography
Bills, G. D., & Vigil, N. A. (2008). The Spanish of New Mexico and Southern Colorado:
A linguistic atlas. Albuquerque, NM.: University of New Mexico Press.
Bybee, J. (2003a). Cognitive processes in grammaticalization. In M. Tomasello (Ed.),
The new psychology of language (pp. 145-167). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
--------- (2010). Language, Usage and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Croft, W. (2001). Radical Construction Grammar: syntactic theory in typological
perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Croft, W., & Cruse, A. (2004). Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Du Bois, J. W., Schuetze-Coburn, S., Cumming, S., & Paolino, D. (1993). Outline of
discourse transcription. En J. Edwards, & L. Lampert (Edits.), Talking data:
Transcription and coding in discourse (págs. 45-89). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Torres-Cacoullos, R., & Travis, C. (to appear). Cross-linguistics priming rates and the
structure of subject expression.
Travis, C., & Torres Cacoullos, R. (2012 (to appear)). What do subject pronouns do in
discourse? Cognitive mechanical and interactional factors in variation. Cognitive
Linguistics, 23(4).
145
Coreference control and information structure management in Kokama purpose clauses
Rosa Vallejos
Purpose clauses are generally expressed by deranked verb forms: the subject in the matrix clause
controls reference, and the syntactic integration between clauses correlates with the semantic integration between
events (Cristofaro 2003). Many languages display multiple purpose clauses to encode same/different subjects,
realized/unrealized events, or proximal/distal events (Thompson et al. 2007). However, in Kokama (Peruvian
Amazon), purpose clauses are grammaticalized information-structure (IS) management strategies. Coreference is
controlled by the matrix absolutive and syntactic integration correlates not with semantic integration per se but
with IS factors. Further, text-data collected through original fieldwork suggests that IS may operate even within
subordinate clauses, which bears on theories that posit IS as a partitioning at the sentence level only, versus
lower ranks of syntactic structure.
Kokama has three purpose constructions, formed by attaching -tara, -mira, or -tsen to the subordinated
verb. Each construction entails different coreferentiality conditions between arguments. In mira-constructions,
the matrix absolutive controls the (omitted) accusative (O) in the purpose clause (1). In tara-constructions, the
matrix absolutive argument (S/O) controls coreference with the (omitted) nominative (S/A) in the purpose clause
(2). In tsen-constructions, all arguments in the purpose clause must be expressed by either NPs or pronouns (3);
since co-reference is not restricted, tsen-constructions are syntactically less integrated than -tara/-mira
constructions.
(1)
[ Oi
A
V-mira ]
A
V
Oi
erura
Mararina-uy
[Ø
Kutsi(=pura) mutsanaka-mira]
Mijiri
Miguel bring
Magdalena-PAS
Jose=FOC
cure-PUR1
‘Miguel brought Magdalena [in order for Jose to cure (her)]’
(2)
A
Mijiri
V
erura
Oi
Mararina-uy
[O
[Kutsi(=pura)
Ai
Ø
V-tara ]
mutsanaka-tara]
PUR2
‘Miguel brought Magdalena [in order (for her) to cure Jose]’
(3)
Ai/j V-tsen]
ra mutsanaka-tsen]
PUR3
‘Miguel brought Magdalena [in order for her/a-third-part to cure José] [*Miguel to cure Jose]’
A
Mijiri
V
erura
Oi/j
Mararina-uy
[O
[Kutsi(*=pura)
As the distribution of -tara and -mira is conditioned by syntax, while -tsen is not, speakers have two
choices to express purpose: -tara/-mira versus -tsen. The speaker’s choice is trigger by IS: -tsen implies that the
event indicated in the subordinated clause is to be construed as more independent from the main event than with
-tara/-mira. First, in (1-2), the interpretation is that the event in the subordinated clause occurs right after the
main event, while in (3) this temporal integration doesn’t exist. Second, in (1-2), the main event is a condition for
the event expressed in the subordinate clause to take place, while in (3) it is not. Third, the ellipsed arguments in
(1-2) belong to the discourse context, whereas in (3) even entities new to the addressee can be introduced in the
purpose clause. Fourth, in (1-2), the argument in the subordinate clause can be marked with contrastive focus
(=pura); this is not possible in (3) because the arguments don’t need to be given referents. Thus, this study shows
that i) pragmatic tightness between events is reflected by syntactic integration between clauses, and ii) IS can
operate within subordinate clauses.
Cristofaro, Sonia. (2003). Subordination. Oxford University Press.
Thompson, S. A., Longacre, R., & Hwang, S. (2007). “Adverbial clauses”; in T. Shopen (Ed.), Language
Typology and Syntactic Description: Complex Constructions (2nd ed., Vol. 2, pp. 237-300). Cambridge
University Press.
146
Formulaic language in bilingual discourse: The case of Spanish hacer with a
borrowed English verb
Damián Vergara Wilson
In the editor’s introduction to the International Journal of Bilingualism’s Special
Issue on New perspectives on transfer among bilinguals and L2 users, Treffers-Daller &
Sakel (2012) call for a renewal in studies of bilingualism, noting that there has been a
predisposition toward studying bilingualism from a monolingual perspective. In this call
for renewal, they cite research showing that “contact between the languages in the
bilingual can lead to the emergence of unique, hybrid features that exist in neither of the
two source languages” (4). The present study examines an emergent hybrid construction
used frequently by Spanish/English bilinguals in the Southwestern US, the bilingual
compound verb consisting of hacer ‘to do’ used as an auxiliary with an English bare
infinitive, hacer + V. While previous studies (Jenkins 2003; Medina 2005) have
examined this construction, the present study examines it from a usage-based approach in
order to demonstrate that it is a case of linguistic evolution emerging from bilingual
discourse. Examples (1 & 2) from (Torres Cacoullos and Travis in preparation) provide
instances of hacer + V:
(1) Ivette:
…somebody used to feed them
…(0.7) from the beginning los hacían feed.
(06.La Crinolina, 1617-8)
(2) Miguel: …(H) pero si el Ricky venía,
pero el Ricky le decía smoking,
ese hacía smoke.
(04.Piedras&Gallinas, 2537-9)
In applying a usage-based analysis to spoken data from New Mexico, the present study
will demonstrate that hacer + V is a hybrid construction that has shown signs of
conventionalization in expressing certain verbal situations. This study provides evidence
that the verb hacer in this construction has undergone grammaticalization and that the
input for this linguistic change is the bilingual discourse mode in which code-mixing
frequently occurs. This reinforces the proposal that bilinguals operate on a continuum and
that there is a bilingual discourse mode (Grosjean 1997; Grosjean 2012; Torres Cacoullos
and Travis 2011; Bullock and Toribio 2004). At the same time, this finding calls into
question notions toward bilingual behavior in which bilinguals maintain discrete
linguistic systems (e.g. (Muysken 2000a; Muysken 2000b; Myers-Scotton 1993; MyersScotton 2002). This reexamination applies especially to notions, such as transfer, in
which a potential donor language affects a recipient one. The finding that hybrid
constructions emerge in contact situations indicates that speakers draw from the bilingual
discourse mode in language innovation.
147
Works cited:
Bullock, Barbara E., and Almeida Jacqueline Toribio. 2004. Introduction: Convergence
as an emergent property in bilingual speech. Bilingualism: Language and
Cognition 7.91–93.
Grosjean, François. 1997. Processing mixed languages: Issues, findings, and models.
Tutorials in bilingualism: Psycholinguistic perspectives, ed. by A.M.B. de Groot
and J.F. Kroll, 225–54. Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum.
--- 2012. An Attempt to Isolate, and Then Differentiate, Transfer and Interference.
International Journal of Bilingualism 16.11–21.
Jenkins, Devin L. 2003. Bilingual Verb Constructions in Southwestern Spanish. Bilingual
Review 27(3).195-204.
Medina, Nicté Fuller. 2005. Spanish-English Contact in Belize: the case of “Hacer + V.”
Proceedings of the 2005 annual conference of the Canadian Linguistic
Association.
Muysken, Pieter. 2000a. Bilingual speech. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
--- 2000b. Bilingual Speech: A Typology of Code-Mixing. Cambridge, UK  ; New York:
Myers-Scotton, Carol. 1993. Duelling languages. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
--- 2002. Contact linguistics: Bilingual encounters and grammatical outcomes. Oxford:
Torres Cacoullos, Rena, and Catherine E. Travis. in preparation. New Mexico Spanish /
English Bilingual (NMSEB) corpus. National Science Foundation
1019112/1019122. http://nmcode-switching.la.psu.edu/.
Torres Cacoullos, Rena, and Catherine E. Travis. 2011. Testing convergence via codeswitching: Priming and the structure of variable subject expression. International
Journal of Bilingualism 15.241–267.
Treffers-Daller, Jeanine, and Jeanette Sakel. 2012. Why Transfer Is a Key Aspect of
Language Use and Processing in Bilinguals and L2-Users. International Journal
of Bilingualism 16.3–10.
148
Repairing the Common Ground in a Joint ASL Narrative: A Mental Spaces Approach
Deborah Wager
Conversational repairs have been described as attempts to address trouble sources in
speech (Schegloff, Jefferson & Sacks 1977). That is, when one speaker perceives an error, either
in her own or in her interlocutor's utterance, she begins a new action in the conversation to
correct that error, usually within two turns (Schegloff 2000). However, identification of what
might constitute a trouble source has proved problematic, as some repairs are initiated with no
apparent error, leading Schegloff, Jefferson, and Sacks to state that "nothing is, in principle,
excludable from the class 'repairable'" (1977:363). This paper looks at examples of these
supposedly unmotivated repairs and provides an explanation for them.
I examine repairs in ASL joint narratives in which husbands and wives describe their
experiences in childbirth. A new theoretical approach proposed by Croft (2011) maps speakers'
mental space representations (Fauconnier 1994) of the common ground (Clark 1996) between
them and, in the case of a joint narrative, between the speakers and the audience. Examining this
mapping at critical junctures in the discourse allows the researcher to describe the mapping of
the emerging narrative onto each signer's conceptualized common ground.
In this study I find that the repairs are associated with conflicting mappings between the
signers' mental representations of the common ground. This differs from the previous
explanation that the source of trouble was in the speech by showing that the speaker initiating the
repair is responding rather to a recognition that the mental representations of the common ground
differ in some meaningful way.
Some repairs are associated with a conflict between the shared understanding of the facts
and the description offered, either because the signer made an error in reporting or because they
had a different representation of the common ground, a different understanding of the facts.
These repairs are those where the trouble source appears in speech. Repairs previously described
as having no apparent error in the speech are found to occur when there is a discrepancy between
the focus elements of the mental representations of the common ground. When the narrative
offered by one person differs in these focus elements from the other person's mental
representation, the second person attempts to resolve this conflict using repair techniques.
References:
Clark, Herbert. 1996. Using language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fauconnier, Gilles. 1994. Mental spaces: Aspects of meaning construction in natural language.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schegloff, Emanuel A. 2000. When “others” initiate repair. Applied Linguistics 21(2). 205 –243.
doi:10.1093/applin/21.2.205 (9 May, 2011).
Schegloff, Emanuel A., Gail Jefferson & Harvey Sacks. 1977. The Preference for SelfCorrection in the Organization of Repair in Conversation. Language 53(2). 361–382.
doi:10.2307/413107 (10 May, 2011).
149
Grammatical and semantic distinctions in SELF pronouns in American Sign Language
Erin Wilkinson
SELF has been traditionally defined as an ASL grammatical sign to function as a reflexive pronoun
similar to the English –self. However, recent analyses proposed that SELF is better characterized as an
emphatic pronoun that may function as a reflexive (Koulidobrova, 2009; Wilkinson, 2008, 2012). This
empirical-based paper will discuss the grammatical and semantic distinctions expressed in three variants
of SELF pronouns in ASL. The analysis found that the SELF category is grammatically marked by
number, person, and obviation. The use of SELF pronouns appear to be driven by concrete and abstract
referents, presenting evidence of semantic distinction in the SELF system. The paper will describe the
interaction of grammatical and semantic categories of SELF pronouns. Furthermore, the choice of SELF
forms appears to be determined by genre types of ASL discourse.
The data discussed in this paper comes from 32 hours of a variety of spontaneous ASL discourse
productions in naturalistic contexts of discourse use, including narratives, monologues, and 2-person
conversations. Data reports that ASL has three distinct forms of SELF, in which realize a range of
grammatical functions and grammatical and semantic categories. The empirical study reveals an
asymmetry in grammatical and semantic distinctions marked in three SELF pronouns that has not been
addressed in the previous analyses of SELF. This finding presents a crucial piece to the on-going
discussion regarding the grammatical distinction of person as some scholars found no evidence of
grammatical distinction between 2nd and 3rd person in the pronominal (specifically deictic) system but
instead argued for 1st and non-1st person grammatical distinction in the ASL pronominal system (Kegl,
2003; McBurney, 2004; Meier, 1990, Sandler & Lillo-Martin; 2006). Given the nature of corpus-based
data, it contributes more to our understanding of the distribution of grammatical and semantic
distinctions in the ASL pronominal system.
References:
Koulidobrova, E. (2009). SELF: Intensifier and ‘long distance’ effects in ASL. ESSLLI 2009. http://tinyurl.com/3qnhclf.
(Retrieved July 27, 2011).
Kegl, J. (2003). Pronominalization in American Sign Language. Sign Language & Linguistics, 6(2):
245-265.
McBurney, S. (2004). Referential morphology in signed languages. Ph.D dissertation, University of Washington.
Meier, R. (1990). Person deixis in American Sign Language. In: Susan D. Fischer and Patricia Siple, (eds.), Theoretical
Issues in Sign Language Research. V ol. 1: Linguistics. 175-190. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sandler, W & Lillo-Martin, D. (2006). Sign language and linguistic universals. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Wilkinson, Erin. (submitted). A functional description of SELF in American Sign Language. Sign Language Studies,
Gallaudet University Press, Washington, D.C..
Wilkinson, Erin. (2008). SELF: Does it behave as a reflexive pronoun in American Sign Language? Proceedings of the
eighth annual High Desert Linguistics Society conference, 7, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM.
150
Familiarity and Overlap in ASL Conversations
Lesa Young
This study considers the impact of gender on turn-taking and overlap in sign language
conversations. It addresses this question by looking at the differences in four signed
conversations, two between a male and a female, and two between two females.
Specifically, this paper looks at differences between duration and frequency of overlaps.
Coates & Sutton-Spence’s (2001) study of signed conversations in same-sex dyads shows
that female signers prefer a collaborative floor, while male signers prefer a single-floor,
though do make switches to a collaborative floor. Several studies have shown the same
preferences toward collaborative and single floors for English speakers (Edelsky 1981,
Coates 1994, 1997). The Coates & Sutton-Spence study did not include mixed-sex
dyads. This paper contributes to the literature in that it compares the turn-taking of both
same-sex and mixed-sex dyads. The particular variables that are looked at in this paper
are frequency of overlap, duration of overlap, who gets the floor after an overlap, and
whether the content of the overlap is substantial. For the purposes of this study, an
overlap is defined as substantial if the talk directly addresses the content of what the other
speaker is saying. The current analyses suggest that both gender and familiarity influence
several aspects of overlapping behavior. This data indicates that women tend to overlap
more, but men tend to overlap for longer duration. In addition, level of familiarity
appears to have a substantial impact on overlapping behavior. In this study, frequency of
overlap, duration of overlap, number of turns usurped, percentage of overlapping talk,
and percentage of substantial overlap increased with level of familiarity. This study
differs from previous investigations in which males seem to prefer a single floor while
females prefer a collaborative floor. Such preference seemed to be more related to level
of familiarity than to gender. Thus, research on relationships, in addition to gender, could
inform studies on overlapping behavior. As interlocutors have more knowledge of each
other’s cognitive, affective, and behavioral idiosyncrasies, they are able to adjust their
talk as they know what to expect from each other. Interlocutors who are less familiar
with each other, may overlap less as they are not knowledgeable about these
idiosyncrasies. More studies are needed to clarify whether or not previous models of
conversational floors are as linked to gender as has been proposed.
151

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