LingBaW. Linguistics Beyond and Within, 2022, Vol. 8

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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12153/6960

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    Language awareness as a prerequisite of literacy skills
    (2022) Kucharská, Anna; Špačková, Klára; Šmejkalová, Martina
    Monitoring children’s language ability levels makes it possible to predict their school achievement and identify potential difficulties. Identifying literacy difficulties in terms of specific learning disabilities is an important topic for elementary school pupils. Today, there is a general consensus based on research evidence that the diagnostic battery of literacy skills should always include a test of language abilities, through which the prerequisites for individual reading skills and at-risk readers can be identified. A working group has created a diagnostic tool for language awareness that allows the morphological-syntactic (subtest A and B) and semantic (subtest C) language levels of Czech children of elementary school age to be assessed. Data analysis examines how individual language skills correspond to reading performance – decoding and reading comprehension in different reading modalities (oral and silent reading) and how they correspond to other prerequisites for reading, such as listening comprehension. The paper introduces a new diagnostic tool using a quantitative methodology. It is based on data from the research project Key Literacy Skills for Primary School Pupils – a diagnostic battery, in which 881 elementary grade pupils (Grade 1 – Grade 5) participated. The statistical parameters of the new tool are presented and the relations between the Language Awareness Test, decoding skills, and oral and silent reading comprehension are analysed.
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    Frames and political choice in Scottish election campaigns
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2022) Jakusné Harnos, Éva; Gergi-Horgos, Mátyás
    The paper presents interdisciplinary research using the framework of cognitive linguistics based metaphor theory and nationalism studies of political science. Frames of movement are placed under scrutiny during the discourse analysis of the 2016 and 2021 election manifestos of the Scottish National Party and social media posts. In relation to metaphors of movement, images describing the future of an independent Scotland are also detected. The authors attempt to analyse and interpret findings both from the perspective of cognitive linguistics and ethno-symbolism. Apart from the texts of the manifestos, the timeframe of the research involved social media posts two months preceding and two months following the elections in both cases. Methodology was issue-driven and computer assisted but supervised: key words linked to movement were extracted from the manifestos and clustered. Their occurrence and frequency in the social media posts was checked. In the qualitative analysis phase, messages of the manifestos and of the posts were contrasted in order to answer our research question what kind of persuasive political discourse was used when options for the citizens were outlined.
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    The morphology of complex numerals: A cross-linguistic study
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2022) Žoha, Lukáš; Wągiel, Marcin; Caha, Pavel
    Complex numerals are numerals composed of two or more numeral roots, e.g., three hundred five. Complex numerals fall into two classes called additive (e.g., twenty-three = 20 + 3) and multiplicative (e.g., three hundred = 3 × 100). There are two possible approaches to capturing their structure. Analysis A (e.g., He 2015) says that complex numerals form a constituent that quantifies over entities denoted by the noun. Analysis B (e.g., Ionin and Matushansky 2018) says that each numeral independently combines with the expression denoting counted entities. This article investigates the morphology of complex numerals in a sample of 17 diverse languages to determine which of these analyses (if any) is more accurate. Our goal is to lay out the patterns and discuss how well they fit with these theories. Our preliminary conclusion is that both structures should be allowed based on the data in our sample, though structures adhering to Analysis A (the complex numeral is a constituent) seem to be more common than the other type.
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    Spelling out of scope taking arguments in (de-)verbal constructions in Hungarian
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2022) Farkas, Judit; Alberti, Gábor
    The paper systematically investigates operators in post-head positions within the three constructions referring to states of affairs in Hungarian, that is, within verbal, deverbal nominal and infinitival phrases. Hungarian is well-known to be a language in which all types of operator can be, and are usually, spelt out in the pre-head zone. However, it has not been discussed in a systematic and comprehensive way earlier whether operators can appear in post-head positions. The paper points out that this is partially possible via a systematic overview of six basic operator types. It also illustrates that while spelling out operators in the pre-head zone results in unambiguous constructions, placing them in post-head positions yields different types of ambiguity. As for the acceptability of scope taking arguments, finite verbal constructions show a black-and-white picture while infinitival and deverbal nominal constructions can be characterized by gray zones in respect of the readiness of arguments to take scope from post-head position. In these “gray zones”, a somewhat speaker-dependent variation can be observed, presumably with underlying microvariation. To represent and interpret our findings, we use Grohmann’s (2000, 2003) phase-theoretic approach with its pragmasemantics-based three Spell-Out domains per cycle.
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    Ground Zero: A bibliometric analysis of L2 vocabulary research 1986-1990
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2022) Meara, Paul
    This paper uses a co-citation analysis to examine the research on vocabulary acquisition that was published in 1990. Two analyses are presented. The first is a detailed account of the 1990 research on its own terms. The second analysis places this work in a larger context by looking at research published in a five-year window covering 1986-1990.
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    Domains of case changing and case maintaining movements
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2022) Newson, Mark; Szécsényi, Krisztina
    With recent developments in Case Theory, movements in which a DP acquires a different case to the one it would have received had it not moved have been accepted as a possibility. In this paper we examine a number of such movements from a variety of languages to attempt to characterise and understand them more fully. Based in Dependent Case Theory, our analysis claims that case change does not really happen, but case assignment is allowed to be delayed under certain circumstances creating the illusion of one case over-writing another. In explicating these circumstances, we are not only able to provide a better understanding of when ‘case change’ can and can’t happen, but also develop the theory in ways which address certain conceptual problems that it faces.
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    Crossing language boundaries. The use of English in advertisements in Polish lifestyle magazines
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2022) Dąbrowska, Marta
    Advertising is an area open to various types of innovation and a creative use of language. Advertisers use a variety of strategies to attract as many customers as possible, employing enticing visuals, clever puns, detailed descriptions, direct appeals, etc. Yet, if the product is to sell, it appears self-evident that the language of the advertisement should not constitute a barrier. Contrary to this assumption, however, there has been an ever growing trend visible in Polish magazines for the last two decades to formulate parts of or even complete advertisements, not infrequently of Polish brands, in English, despite the fact that English remains a foreign language in Poland, although, admittedly, a very popular one. The present study is conducted within the framework of sociolinguistically informed linguistic landscape analysis. It investigates the visibility of English in the advertising landscape of lifestyle magazines published in Poland, represented by a selection of high quality and mid-range general interest and specialised women’s and men’s magazines. Its objective is to identify tendencies in the manifestations of this newly developing multilingualism in respect of the frequency of using English, the category of advertised products which particularly often appear in such multilingual advertisements as well as the type of magazines which admit such advertisements rather readily. Regarding the linguistic strategies used in the analysed texts, attempts are made to establish whether English tends to be used in complete texts and sentences or only parts of those, and if the latter, which elements of the genre of advertising are especially marked by such language choices and why.
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    On bare and non-bare temporal names in Romanian
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2022) Tănase-Dogaru, Mihaela
    The present paper investigates punctual vs. habitual readings of Romanian proper temporal names of the type luni ‘Monday’ vs. lunea ‘Monday.def’. These readings are associated with the absence vs. presence of the definite article (Franco and Lorusso 2022). The paper makes two major claims. Firstly, following Longobardi (1994, 2005), and Franco and Lorusso (2020), the paper claims that with bare, i.e., definiteless, proper time names, N-to-D movement triggers individual-like reference, which, in turn, explains why the event is interpreted as punctual. Secondly, the paper shows that the structure of proper temporal names is complex, in the sense that it contains the classifier zi ‘day’, thus paralleling the structure of complex descriptive proper names of the type ‘the planet Venus’ (see van Riemsdijk 1998, Cornilescu 2007 a.o.). This classifier is shown to be overt when there is no N-raising, and silent when N raises to D in the structure of proper temporal names.
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    Scottish Gaelic political terminology – Term formation in the Scottish Parliament Annual Report
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2022) Krochmann, Lena
    This paper analyses the Scottish Gaelic political terminology used by the Scottish Parliament, based on the translations of three Annual Reports. Applying principles from terminology theory and taking minority-language concerns into account, the Scottish Gaelic terms are examined for methods of term formation and their relation to their English and, where applicable, Irish equivalents. Inconsistencies in the terminology are also considered. The results are placed in the wider context of research on Scottish Gaelic terminology and corpus planning. The paper argues that the examined terminology is shaped by the dominance of English, as well as by practical concerns arising from the current language planning situation.
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    Do so replacement and the argument/adjunct distinction in Merge-based syntax
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2022) Shuhama, Yuji
    This study provides a novel look at do so replacement within the framework of the Bare Phrase Structure theory. Unlike the previous view of do so as a monolithic VP anaphor, I argue that do so is better analyzed as do and so, separately substituting for a functional Voice head and VP, respectively. This argument is supported by the observation of VP adverbs, the locative/directional interpretation of PPs, and the analysis of voice mismatch. The study consequently presents a more refined model of VP than the previous X-bar theoretic model, as it fulfills the structural requirement between complements and adjuncts.
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    Accent boundaries and linguistic continua in the laryngeal subsystems of English
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2022) Balogné Bérces, Katalin
    A parallel is drawn between the northernmost regions of England represented by Durham and Yorkshire and the transition zone Ouddeken (2016) identifies between voicing and aspiration languages in the Dutch-German dialect continuum. It is argued that, owing to historical changes and dialect contact, the Northern Englishes discussed exhibit hybrid laryngeal systems as a result of being geographically intermediate between Scots in Scotland, which is a voice language similar to Dutch, and mainstream varieties of English spoken more to the south in England (and in most of the rest of the English-speaking world), which are aspiration systems of the German type. We model the emergence of laryngeal systems as the setting of three parameters: (i) whether the laryngeally marked/specified obstruent series contains [voice] (L-system) or [asp] (H-system); (ii) whether the laryngeal prime is able to spread (right-to-left); and (iii) whether the system has pre-obstruent delaryngealisation (POD) (due to which in C1C2, C1 becomes unmarked/underspecified). While spreading L with POD derives voice languages and non-spreading H with no POD derives aspiration languages, two mixed combinations derive the intermediate categories of Durham and Yorkshire (spreading L & no POD and spreading H & no POD, respectively). We also show that all remaining combinations are attested cross-linguistically or else theoretically uninterpretable.
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    Phenomena in Romance verb paradigms: Syncretism, order of inflectional morphemes and thematic vowel
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2022) Baldi, Benedetta; Savoia, Leonardo M.
    This article aims to propose a treatment of the internal morphological organization of words, based on the idea that morphology is part of syntactic computation. We disagree with Distributed Morphology model, whereby morphology is identified with a post-syntactic component conveying an information ‘separated from the original locus of that information in the phrase marker’ (Embick and Noyer 2001: 557) by rules manipulating syntactic nodes. We also consider inadequate the costly and complex syntactic structures that cartographic approach maps into inflectional strings. We pursue a different conceptualization assuming that morphology is governed by the same rules and principles of syntax. Sub-word elements, including inflections, thematic exponents and clitics, are fully interpretable and enter (pair-)merge operations (in the sense of Chomsky 2020a,b, 2021) according to their content, giving rise to complex words.
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    Postcolonial analysis of educational language policies of Ireland, Singapore, and Malaysia
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2022) Grala, Zuzanna
    The aim of this paper is to compare the educational language policing in Ireland, Singapore, and Malaysia. While distant geographically, the three countries experience similar linguistic processes when it comes to anglicisation, and propose different solutions to the issue of balancing linguistic rights, and promotion of English as the language of globalisation. This comparison aimed to find out what influences language policing in postcolonial countries, and in what ways language shift can be prevented. The aspects of language policing strategies are presented as a way of protecting linguistic human rights, but also as a way of dealing with the aftermaths of the policies implemented by the British Empire. Similarities and distinctions in the language policies of Ireland, Singapore, and Malaysia prove that the weak position of native languages originates not in the “natural” decline of a language, but rather in the policy of promoting English by the colonial forces. Ethnic and linguistic discrimination favouring English speakers in Ireland, Singapore, and Malaysia, originates in similar, imperial linguistic ideologies, which are still reflected in the current language policies of countries of colonial past. While the countries approach their bilingual educational policing in different ways, ultimately the outcomes seem similar when it comes to linguistic attitudes and prestige.