Argument structure and specific language impairment: retrospect and prospect

This article reflects a collaboration between the Universities of Groningen and Reading of which Frans Zwarts was the promoter. One of the outcomes was a close attention to the learning of various aspects of argument structure by children with specific language impairment (SLI) in Dutch and English. At that time and since, the focus on deficits in grammatical morphology in these children has left verb complementation as something of a syntactic Cinderella. Here we review the findings from our studies in the 1990s. We confirm that children with SLI in both languages have problems with verb specificity, with argument structure alternations and with resultative verb predicates. The very limited number of subsequent studies on verb syntax appear to support our findings. We conclude that this is an area which will repay further scrutiny – it is high time argument structure received an invitation to the ball.

Argument omissions in preschool Catalan and Spanish speaking children with SLI

El presente artículo describe tres estudios sobre la producción del verbo y la estructura argumental en niños con Trastorno Específico del Lenguaje (TEL) usando diferentes metodologías. El primero es un estudio observacional que usa una muestra de habla espontánea. El segundo usa una tarea experimental de denominación de oraciones como resultado de la observación de videos de acciones. El tercero comprende la tarea de denominación de oraciones con imágenes estáticas en eventos con diferente complejidad argumental. Aunque los datos concretos varían en función de la metodología usada, hay una clara evidencia de que los niños de habla catalana y española con TEL presentan especiales dificultades en la producción de verbos con una alta complejidad en relación a la estructura argumental y cometen errores en la especificación de los argumentos obligatorios. Se concluye que tanto limitaciones en el procesamiento como déficits en la representación semántica de los verbos pueden estar implicados en estas dificultades

Argument structures in Chinese university students’ argumentative writing: a contrastive study

Situated within a Systemic Functional Linguistics genre paradigm, this study adopted a function-based linguistic approach to examine the argument structures in English writing produced by Chinese university students of English as foreign language (EFL). Their English writing was contrasted with three other sets of argumentative essays in order to explore differences and similarities in the use of argument structures. The four sets of essays were produced by three groups of university students: native English- and Chinese-speaking university students and Chinese university EFL students. Participants’ interviews and questionnaire responses were also collected. The study found that most native English-speaking participants used an analytical arguing strategy, while most Chinese-speaking university participants preferred a hortatory argument structure both in their English and Chinese writing. It was also found that Chinese participants’ English writing was influenced by both English and Chinese.

The Derivation of Dative Alternations

Maia Duguine, Susana Huidobro and Nerea Madariaga (eds.)

Identification et modélisation lexicographique des dépendances syntaxiques régies du français: le cas des dépendances nominales

Cette recherche porte sur l’interface entre la sémantique lexicale et la syntaxe, et elle s’inscrit dans le cadre du projet de base lexicale DiCo (acronyme pour Dictionnaire de combinatoire) à l’Observatoire de Linguistique Sens-Texte [OLST] de l’Université de Montréal. Le projet découle d'une volonté d'inscrire de façon concise et complète, à même le dictionnaire, le comportement syntaxique typique à chaque unité lexicale. Dans cette optique, nous encodons la cooccurrence des lexies nominales du DiCo avec leurs actants à l'intérieur d'un tableau de régime lexical (aussi connu sous le nom de schéma valenciel, structure argumentale, cadre de sous-catégorisation, structure prédicats-arguments, etc.), en notant entre autres les dépendances syntaxiques de surface impliquées. Dans ce mémoire, nous présentons les propriétés syntaxiques d'une dépendance nominale du français, celle que nous avons nommée attributive adnominale, de façon à exposer une méthodologie d'identification et de caractérisation des dépendances syntaxiques de surface. Nous donnons également la liste des dépendances nominales régies identifiées au cours de ce travail. Par la suite, nous exposons la création d'une base de données de régimes généralisés du français nommée CARNAVAL. Finalement, nous discutons des applications possibles de notre travail, particulièrement en ce qui a trait à la création d'une typologie des régimes lexicaux du français.

El procés de gramaticalització en l'adquisició del llenguatge: la categoria formal de verb

Des de diverses perspectives, alguns autors han remarcat la importància del verb en l'adquisició del llenguatge (Bloom, 1991; Pinker, 1989; Tomasello, 1992). Donat que la seva estructura semàntica proporciona un marc conceptual per incloure-hi estructures lingüistiques més àmplies, esdevé un element clau en el pas a una fase de parla organitzada gramaticalment. Es per aquest motiu que l'adquisició de la categoria formal de verb és essencial per poder entendre com els nens arriben a ser gramaticalment competents. En aquest estudi pretenem explorar com s'adquireix la classe formal de verb tenint en compte les diferents propostes que intenten explicar el procés de gramaticalització i, en concret, l'adquisició de les categories de mot. En les dades sobre l'adquisició inicial dels verbs, es troba que a partir dels tres anys hi ha un ús consistent del elements verbals, però abans d'aquesta edat alguns autors han descrit un ús dels marcadors morfològics limitat a alguns verbs (Bloom, 90) i també que la utilització de l'estructura argumental inicial sembla anar lligada a verbs individuals (Tomasello, 92, Olguin i Tomasello, 93). Aquestes dades apunten que en un principi els verbs serien utilitzats de forma lexicalitzada, de manera que s'adquiririen individualment.

A relação gramatical objeto direto : implicações para o ensino de língua materna

This paper attempts to investigate the discourse manifestations of the grammatical relation direct object with respect to the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic properties that underlie this element. The research adopts theoretical orientation of the functionalism from North American and Brazilian schools inspired in Givón (1995, 2001), Hopper and Thompson (1980), Chafe (1979), Furtado da Cunha, Oliveira, Martelotta (2003) inter alia. From functionalism, the research uses principles of iconicity, markedness and informativity and it analize categories of transitivity, grounding and animacy. This research is anchored in prototype model (TAYLOR 1995); construction grammar model (GOLDBERG 1996, 2002). Both theoretical orientations share the view that language is a malleable living organism subject to socio-cultural context. Grammar is then the result of created, maintained, and systematized linguistic patterns developed from and used for language use. According to a functional linguistics and cognitivist linguistics verbs are stored in the speakers lexicon in syntactic-semantic frames which are more frequent. These frames carry information concerning obligatory and optional arguments and the semantic roles these arguments take in the clause. The analysis focuses on the semantic type of the verbs and its relationship with the argument encoded as a direct object observing the aspectual nature of verbs. Direct objects are classified according to their morphology (lexical or pronominal noun phrase), semantic role, informational content and animacy. This study discusses pedagogical implications with relation to how the grammatical concepts touched on this paper are treated in school textbooks. The empirical data come from Corpus Discurso & Gramática: a língua falada e escrita na cidade do Natal (FURTADO DA CUNHA, 1998). This corpus is composed of texts that contain spoken and written modalities. These modalities are in turn organized according to different types: personal narratives, retold narrative, description of preferred place, procedural place, procedural description and report on argumentation. The sample data totals 40 texts produced by four language consultants of the last graduation date. The paper shows that the same syntactic structures (formed through Subject-Verb-Object) correspond to different semantic-pragmatic structures in relation to specific communicative purposes even verb is an event, process or state. The argument structure are not aleatory but are related to experience; that is the way humans conceptualize the world and talk about it

Abordagem cognitiva da construção deverbal x-dor: contribuições para o ensino do português

This work analyzes deverbal nominalizations with the sufix dor in Brazilian Portuguese, under the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics, more specifically, the Construction Grammar. The aim is to determine the general features of interpretation that characterize this deverbal construction and its use in formal writing. Based on the cognitive assumption that grammatical structure is motivated, explained, and determined by the structure of cognitive patterns, created from our experience in the world, and by the communicative function of language, the dor deverbal is treated as a polysemic grammatical construction. In the composition of V+dor, the relation rootsuffix is focused, through a characterization of the syntactic-semantic nature of the verb and the values of the suffix. Among the different values conventionally related to the XDOR construction, the agentive is considered as the prototypical sense. The relation between the other values and the prototype is explained by cognitive abilities and discourse motivations. The deverbal construction X-DOR is also interpreted as a valency noun that, like an action nominal, retains the argument structure of the deriving predicate. It is also intended to demonstrate the textual function of this deverbal construction, as a device of information condensing and anaphoric recovery. The data were taken from Veja magazine and the approach is qualitative (explicative), with quantitative support

Valência do nome deverbal e nominalidade prototípica

O objetivo deste trabalho é mostrar que os nomes deverbais preservam a estrutura argumental do verbo input correspondente e que a especificação ou não dos argumentos no interior do termo nominal depende de um conjunto de fatores pragmáticos, especialmente relacionados a informação de curto termo compartilhada pelos participantes da interação. Como implicação teórica, a análise preserva a idéia de que há um processo gradual de descategorização verbal, que se reflete nos diferentes tipos de marcação gramatical. Conforme o predicado verbal ganha estatuto nominal, as marcações tipicamente oracionais dão lugar a outros mecanismos, como marcação argumental por preposição, modificação por adjetivo, uso de pronomes possessivos, que acompanham apropriadamente um núcleo nominal.

A expressão da estrutura argumental dos nomes derivados

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Propriedades semânticas e alternâncias sintáticas do verbo: um exercício exploratório de delimitação do significado

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

O papel da nominalização no continuum categorial

A continuidade categorial é uma propriedade indiscutível da linguagem para a tradição funcionalista, que a trata como um verdadeiro universal linguístico. Além de buscar evidência sistemática para a comprovação desse axioma, o principal objetivo deste trabalho é analisar a estrutura argumental da nominalização, num esforço concentrado por demonstrar que esse mesmo princípio universal é metodologicamente útil e teoricamente válido para postular relações intralinguísticas de continuidade categorial mesmo entre classes aparentemente discretas como as de substantivo e verbo. A trajetória percorrida para a sustentação da hipótese da continuidade categorial passa necessariamente pela comprovação de uma hipótese secundária, a de preservação de valência, postulada por Dik (1985; 1997), segundo a qual a estrutura argumental é parte constitutiva da nominalização. Essa busca não teria êxito se a trajetória percorrida não utilizasse um atalho necessário, representado pela teoria prototípica de categorização. De fato, postular a existência de categorias intermediárias, como a de nominalização, implica necessariamente a existência de membros mais prototípicos de uma categoria. A existência de estrutura argumental, que sinaliza a representação de entidades de ordem superior, permite aproximar a nominalização de membros não-prototípicos da categoria dos verbos como formas não-finitas, enquanto a ausência de estrutura argumental, que sinaliza a representação de uma entidade de primeira ordem, permitiu aproximá-lo de membros prototípicos da categoria dos substantivos

Denominal Verbs in Brazilian Portuguese: distinguishing between diachronic and synchronic structures within Distributed Morphology approach

Recent work on argument structure has shown that there must be a synchronic relation between nouns and derived verbs that can be treated in structural terms. However, a simple phonological/morphological identity or diachronic derivation between a verb and a noun cannot guarantee that there is a denominal structure in a synchronic approach. In this paper we observe the phenomenon of Denominal Verbs in Brazilian Portuguese and argue for a distinction between etymological and synchronic morphological derivation. The objectives of this paper are 1) to identify synchronic and formal criteria to define which diachronic Denominal Verbs can also be considered denominal under a synchronic analysis; and 2) to detect in which cases the label "denominal" can be justifiably abandoned. Based on results of argument structure tests submitted to the judgments of native speakers, it was possible to classify the supposed homogenous Denominal Verbs class into three major groups: Real Denominal Verbs, Root-derived Verbs, and Ambiguous Verbs. In a Distributed Morphology approach, it was possible to explain the distinction between these groups based on the ideia of phases in words and the locality of restriction in the interpretation of roots.