Towards an RRG analysis of constructions with a morphological causative in some Altaic languages

Author(s): Valeria Generalova / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

The present paper examines Bashkir and Kalmyk construction formed from transitive verbs by means of causative suffixes. We refer to these constructions to “constructions with a morphological causative”. The paper also references other Altaic languages (Mishar Tatar, Nanai, Tuvinian, Khakas). The main focus of the paper is on the valence-increasing behavior of causatives. Primary attention is drawn to the case marking of the Causee since Altaic languages allow several options for that. The paper describes in detail the existing alternation and reviews prior explanations of this phenomenon. It then couches the explanation for the alternation within the framework of Role and Reference Grammar. The analysis identifies that Altaic constructions in question are somehow peculiar compared to general trends. After discussing the advantages and drawbacks of various theoretical interpretations of this peculiarity, we conclude that it is best to link two different causative constructions to two different logical structures. We also suggest constructional schemata for Kalmyk and Bashkir to include in the Linking Algorithm.

Why use machines for empirical discovery in linguistics?

Author(s): Vladimir Pericliev / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2000

The article is a report of four discovery systems, operating in linguistics. All of these address „empirical“ discovery, or discovery from data. The first program models the familiar induction methods of John Stuart Mill, the second performs componential analysis of kinship terms, the third is a general concept-discrimination program, and the fourth can discover word order universals and write a report in English, summarizing its discoveries. These systems are briefly described and some arguments are offered in favour of machine-aided empirical discovery in linguistics. The arguments refer to the strength of machines in computationally complex tasks, the guaranteed consistency of machine results, the portability of machine methods to new tasks and domains, and the potential machines provide for our gaining new insights.

A LESSON FOR COVIDIOTS ABOUT SOME CONTACT INDUCED BORROWING OF AMERICAN ENGLISH MORPHOLOGICAL PROCESSES INTO DUTCH

Author(s): Camiel Hamans / Language(s): English Issue: s1/2021

This paper discusses morphological borrowing from American-English to Dutch. Three processes of non-morphemic word formation are studied: embellished clipping (Afro from African), libfixing (extracting segments from opaque wordforms such -topia from utopia and -(po)calypse from apocalypse) and blending (stagflation < stagnation + inflation). It will be shown that the borrowing of these processes started with borrowing of English lexical material followed by a process of reinterpretation, which subsequently led to the (re-)introduction of the processes in Dutch. Therefore, the traditional distinction between MAT and PAT borrowing turns out to be inadequate. Instead of a clear-cut difference between lexical and morphological borrowing a borrowing cline will be proposed. The respective ends of this cline are MAT and PAT.

Usefulness of English Corpora Regarding Encyclopedic Meaning of Grammatical Constructions: Count Noun Vs. Non-Count Noun, Noun Vs. Verb

Author(s): Dorota Chłopek / Language(s): English Issue: 38/2022

W artykule podjęto próbę ukazania, w jaki sposób ciągi konkordancji korpusu językowego mogą być użyteczne w zadaniach z gramatyki opisowej języka angielskiego, które tworzone były on-line za pośrednictwem aplikacji Ms Teams w celu nauczania i uczenia się podczas pandemii Sars-CoV-2. Wyrażenia językowe traktuje się jako konstrukcje wyabstrahowane z usytuowanych przypadków użycia języka w świetle „tezy o symbolizacji” Langackera, która jest zgodna z „tezą o uzusie językowym” i encyklopedyczną naturą znaczenia. W związku z tym, słowa są punktami dostępu do obszernych skarbnic wiedzy. Korpusy językowe mogą stanowić obszerne repozytoria wzorów użycia poszczególnych słów kluczowych w rozmaitych konstrukcjach językowych. Tekst koncentruje się na rozróżnieniu między angielskimi rzeczownikami policzalnymi i rzeczownikami niepoliczalnymi reprezentowanymi przez tę samą formę leksykalną, zwaną „docelową”, ang. „target”, taką jak worry, dinner i work, oraz eksponuje worry i work jako czasowniki w alternatywnych kontekstach użycia cytowanych z konkordancji Brytyjskiego Korpusu Narodowego (BNC). Termin work ukazany jest również jako słowo kluczowe, którego kategoria leksykalna, rzeczownik lub czasownik, jest wyznaczana na podstawie innych elementów zdania, określanych w kontekście występowania „wyzwalaczami”/ „zapalnikami”, ang. „triggers”

Wpływ rzeczywistości komputerowo-internetowej na normy pisowniane współczesnej polszczyzny

Author(s): Marcin Maciołek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 39/2022

The influence of computer-internet reality on the spelling norms of contemporary Polish The paper – in accordance with the title – concerns the influence of information technology on the orthographic system of the Polish language. The use of computers and the Internet not only resulted in the appearance of new words in Polish, but also contributed to the decision on how to write specific computerisms (allowing their polonized version), and even to the formulation of spelling rules that standardize the spelling of certain word series, such as the names of computer fonts, programming languages, programs and operating systems, or the names of Internet portals. However, not all issues concerning the writing of newly appearing in Polish language computerisms have already been considered by linguists. The normative solution requires, among other things, spelling of derivatives created on the basis of nouns ending in silent e, which have been adopted from English. This is why the author discusses the existing spelling habits of the users of contemporary Polish language and signals the facts which should be taken into account when formulating an appropriate orthographic rule.

Pandemia – kandydat na słowo stulecia? Językowy obraz leksemu w polszczyźnie w oparciu o dane korpusowe

Author(s): Tatiana Szczygłowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 39/2022

The article presents the linguistic image of the noun pandemic in contemporary Polish. The aim of the analysis is to look at how the word is used today, in the COVID-19 era, and how it was used before the first cases of this disease were detected. The first part of the article discusses the current data available on the Words of the Day website, Google Trends and the MoncoPL corpus search engine, while the second part shows the occurrences of the lexeme in slightly older texts that were collected in the National Corpus of Polish (NKJP) before 2010. The analysis of the material extracted from the above sources indicates that that the noun pandemic was very rare in the NKJP and then became very popular with the appearance of the pathogen causing COVID-19. However, the analysis of the most common collocates shows that the mentioned event did not have a significant impact on the other aspects of the use of the lexeme by the users of modern Polish. Keywords: pandemic, MoncoPL, Words of the Day, Google Trends, National Corpus of Polish.

New Polish Right – politeness and radicalism. A corpus analysis of Krzysztof Bosak’s (de)legitimation strategies on Twitter

Author(s): Marcin Kosman / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2023

The article discusses (de)legitimation strategies of Krzysztof Bosak, one of the leaders of the Confederation Liberty and Independence, a Polish coalition of right-wing movements. The success of the formation appears to be in line with that of other European (far) right-wing parties, which have become politically relevant in recent decades. Despite the Confederation’s growing position in European politics, there is a paucity of research devoted to the party. The present paper attempts to bridge the gap by focusing on Bosak’s 2020 presidential campaign and the politician’s use of Twitter. In order to investigate Bosak’s discourse in detail, corpus linguistic methods were used. As they allow the researcher to work on large samples of data, Bosak’s tweets were investigated at both qualitative and quantitative levels. The results suggest that the candidate focused on legitimizing Catholicism and conservative ideas. At the same time, he delegitimised the left and LGBT communities, framing the presidential campaign as a clash between the conservative order.

Pro- in Two Semantic Networks (A Comparative Study of English and Bulgarian)

Author(s): Svetlana Nedelcheva / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2023

The prefix pro- is found in different languages of Indo-European origin.It has given rise to a number of prefixes and prepositions in these languages. The present article aims to construct the semantic networks of pro- in English as are presentative of Germanic languages and Bulgarian as one of the South Slavic languages and to find some intersections and variations. Most studies devoted to prefixes focus on their function as aspectual markers and do not consider their semantic contribution when they are associated with verbs. By analysing the prefix pro-, this research tries to show that prefixes also play a very important role in the semantic structuring of space. As the data reveal, pro- is more productive in Bulgarian than in English, as it combines with more varied types of base verbs. Therefore, it has developed a more branched semantic network.

Epistemická částice zřejmě pohledem paralelního korpusu

Author(s): Jana Šindlerová,Barbora Štěpánková,Ingrid Lindgren Andrén / Language(s): Czech Issue: 27/2023

In this paper, we analyze the meaning potential of the Czech epistemic particle zřejmě, focusing on the degree of certainty it expresses. Based on a preliminary observation, we hypothesize that, contrary to the existing dictionary treatment, there are two separate meanings of zřejmě with different degree of certainty.Our corpus study follows the assumption that comparing data from parallel corpora may be helpful in determining the fine-grained meaning of pragmatic markers, including epistemic markers. In the analysis, we investigate the epistemic features of English and Swedish translation equivalents of zřejmě, their semantic consistency and the ability of recipients to interpret the degree of certainty expressed.The corpus data show that there are two interpretative tendencies differing in the degree of certainty expressed, one of them rooted in the evidential meaning. Nevertheless, not even native speakers are fully able to distinguish between these two meaning interpretations.

Lidé s deštníky/deštníkem: K jednomu typu číselné shody

Author(s): František Štícha / Language(s): Czech Issue: 27/2023

In Czech, the attributive noun within the noun phrase containing the so-called commitative attribute (s/with + noun) can in principle be in the plural (s deštníky / with umbrellas) as well as in the singular (s deštníkem / with an umbrella). Based on the analysis of the corpus findings, this article argues that in principle there are no strict rules determining the use of either morphological number. In general, the plural is preferred, but in some cases the singular predominates. Although there are no strict rules, some influence seems to be observed. This is mainly a matter of the lexical composition of this type of attributive noun phrase – some ready-made patterns with plural agreement can be observed. Probably, plural agreement also predominates in noun phrases that evoke a notion of a group of objects belonging to a group or a collection of people, such as the batons belonging to policemen (policisté s obušky / policemen with truncheons).

Co je v ČNK nového XII

Author(s): Michal Křen,Michal Škrabal / Language(s): Czech Issue: 27/2023

Cómo dominar la fraseología y automatizar el proceso de documentación: una solución tecnológica para la formación de intérpretes en la combinación español<>árabe

Author(s): Mahmoud Gaber / Language(s): Spanish Issue: 1/2023

Interpreting technologies are becoming more and more widespread thanks to the advances in Artificial Intelligence, the changes in the work environment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, commercial interests, etc. However, there is a certain scarcity, in terms of quantity and quality, of technologies available to professional interpreters. This scarcity is even more acute in the field of interpreting training, especially in under-resourced languages, as in the case of Arabic. This study aims to: i) fill the existing gaps in interpreting training by introducing a methodology based on technological solutions for the documentation and mastery of phraseology from comparable corpora (spoken and written text), and ii) introduce a contrastive analysis of phraseology between Arabic and Spanish. In order to achieve our objectives, the design protocol and compilation process of the comparable corpora shall be described in detail. The corpus exploitation method used to carry out the documentation and phraseology extraction previous to the interpretation task is also illustrated. The results of the study reveal several advantages of our methodology for the trainee interpreter during documentation and preparation on a specialised topic (cybersecurity). Moreover, the study illustrates the most frequent collocations in both Arabic and Spanish subcorpora for the topic we have selected.

Inteligența artificială în terapia limbajului. Abordare preliminară

Author(s): Carolina BODEA HAȚEGAN,Dorina-Anca Talaş,Raluca Nicoleta Trifu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 2/2023

In the first part of the article the term artificial intelligence is defined and several studies are presented that highlight the implications of using artificial intelligence in language therapy. The second part highlights three tools created with artificial intelligence (GPT Chat, Bing Chat and Google Bard), as well as some practical examples of work tasks that can be carried out using these tools to support language therapy sessions.

A Functional Approach to Natural Language

Author(s): Šemsudin Plojović,Bucea-Manea-Ţoniş Radu,Valentin Kuleto,Adrian Beteringhe,Milena Ilić P. / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2022

This article does not aim to erase the border, rather vague, between natural and artificial languages, but to offer the researcher in the field of language analysis a useful tool for their logical generation and interpretation. After processing the available literature and setting the theoretical framework, a case study was conducted concerning the application of the functional approach in natural languages, and the obtained results indicate the following conclusion: The only difference between functional and natural language is that the condition of interrupting recursive calls may be external to the calling auto function in the case of natural language. Basically, once the message is understood or transmitted, it leaves the loop, this aspect being part of the communication protocol between people.

Akademické psaní a frázové banky

Author(s): Jiří Homoláč,Michal Křen,Alena Kašpárková,Kamila Etchegoyen Rosolová,Jana Hoffmannová,Petr Kaderka,Jakub Kopecký,Tamah Sherman,Pavel Vondřička / Language(s): Czech Issue: 4/2023

Scholars have previously conceptualized academic writing as both process and product. Academic phrasebanks are a tool in which these two conceptions intertwine, i.e., where the products, existing texts such as journal articles, are broken down into smaller units such as steps and phrases, which are then used in the process of producing new texts. In this article, we examine the possibilities and limits of collecting these smaller units for research and didactic purposes, presenting a newly established phrasebank in this context. First, we consider various scholarly and pedagogical approaches to academic writing. We then provide an overview of existing academic phrasebanks, primarily the seminal University of Manchester Academic Phrasebank created by John Morley, focusing on how its principles and structure have been utilized to create similar tools for other languages. We subsequently describe the design and creation of the Czech Academic Phrasebank, the innovative character of which is its link to the Czech National Corpus, specifically a subcorpus of Czech scholarly articles. The processes of conceptualizing the phrasebank, its basic units and functions, excerpting phrases, linking to the corpus, and the various problems encountered throughout are reflected. We conclude by outlining directions for the phrasebank’s use in Czech-language genre-based pedagogy.

Zaburzenia mowy i języka u pacjentów po przebytym udarze mózgu. Studium epidemiologiczne

Author(s): Julia Mickiewicz,Małgorzata Rutkiewicz-Hanczewska,Radosław Kaźmierski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2022

The article is devoted to the epidemiology of speech and language disorders that occur in patients after a stroke, with particular emphasis on aphasia and dysarthria. The data was obtained based on a retrospective analysis of medical records collected in the Department of Neurology and Cerebrovascular Disorders of Poznan University of Medical Sciences at L. Bierkowski Hospital in Poznan, including discharge reports of 234 patients with a stroke who were admitted to the facility in 2017. We compared the results of the analyses with the latest reports on the epidemiology of language disorders published in international literature. It is one of the first studies concerning the Polish population in this field.

Monografia „mówienia” – od teorii do praktyki nauczania sprawności mówienia. Iwona Janowska: Wypowiedź ustna w dydaktyce językowej na przykładzie języka polskiego jako obcego

Author(s): Monika Nowicka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2022

Review of: A monograph on „speaking” – from theory to practice of teaching speaking skills. Iwona Janowska: Wypowiedź ustna w dydaktyce językowej na przykładzie języka polskiego jako obcego. Księgarnia Akademicka. Kraków 2019, ss. 244.

Accents in Speech Recognition through the Lens of a World Englishes Evaluation Set

Author(s): Miguel Del Río,Corey Miller,Ján Profant,Jennifer Drexler-Fox,Quinn Mcnamara,Nishchal Bhandari,Natalie Delworth,Ilya Pirkin,Migüel Jetté,Shipra Chandra,Peter Ha,Ryan Westerman / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2023

Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) systems generalize poorly on accented speech, creating bias issues for users and providers. The phonetic and linguistic variability of accents present challenges for ASR systems in both data collection and modeling strategies. We present two promising approaches to accented speech recognition— custom vocabulary and multilingual modeling— and highlight key challenges in the space. Among these, lack of a standard benchmark makes research and comparison difficult. We address this with a novel corpus of accented speech: Earnings-22, A 125 file, 119 hour corpus of English-language earnings calls gathered from global companies. We compare commercial models showing variation in performance when taking country of origin into consideration and demonstrate targeted improvements using the methods we introduce.

Self-Study of the MOOC English Pronunciation in a Global World: Metaphonetic Awareness and English Accent Variation

Author(s): Marta A. Nowacka / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2023

This paper reports on a study in which Polish first-year university students of English, self-studied the massive open and online course (henceforth MOOC) entitled “Pronunciation in a Global World” to gain some knowledge on the fundamentals of phonetics (the notion of comprehensibility, nativeness and identity; vowels, consonants and selected suprasegmentals) and English accent variation. Its two main goals are: firstly, to examine the MOOC’s impact on the participants’ understanding of basic phonetic concepts and, secondly, to obtain the users’ assessment of this MOOC’s attractiveness and usefulness.In general, the results do not give evidence for the positive influence of the MOOC course on the students’ meta-awareness of English phonetics, since there are statistically significant differences in only three of sixty-eight questions between the experimental and control group. Nevertheless, many informants regard the course as useful (72%) and attractive (49%).Although the results do not support the hypothesis of the MOOC’s beneficial role in facilitating the understanding of English phonetics our stand is that this online training could complement classroom teaching as a form of blended learning.

A comparison of artificial intelligence models used for fake news detection

Author(s): Ștefan Emil REPEDE,Remus Brad / Language(s): English Issue: 01/2023

This article aims to compare current state-of-the-art natural language processing models (NLP) fine-tuned for fake news detection based on a set of metrics and asses their effectiveness as a part of a disinformation management structure. The need for a development of this area comes as a response to the overwhelming and unregulated spread of fake news that represents one of the current major difficulties in today`s era. The development of AI technologies has a direct impact over the creation and spreading of misinformation and disinformation as a result of the multiple uses that technology may have. Currently, machine learning techniques a reused for the development of large language models (LLM). These developments in science areal so used in disinformation campaigns. Related to this matter the concept of disinformation management has arisen as a cybersecurity issue integral in the current cyber threat landscape.