Anaphoric choices in Japanese fictional novels: the discourse arrangement of noun phrases, zero and third person pronouns

By examining Japanese fictional novels, this article will discuss how anaphoric devices (noun phrases (NPs), third person pronouns (TPPs), and zero anaphors) are selected and arranged in a given discourse. The traditional view of anaphora considers the co-referential relationship between anaphoric devices to be syntagmatic; that is, a pronoun, for example, refers back to its antecedent. It also declares the hierarchical order of information values between anaphoric devices; NPs are semantically the most informative, indicating an episode boundary, and pronouns less informative. Furthermore, zero anaphora is the most referentially transparent, showing the most accessibility of a topic. However, real text shows the contrary. NPs occur frequently while there is no apparent discourse boundary, and the same episode is continuous. This is because zero anaphors and TPPs (if they occur) break down readily due to the nature of a forthcoming sentence and the NP is reinstated, in order to continue the same topic in a given discourse. Therefore, the article opposes the traditional view of anaphora. Based on the concept of text processing, using ‘mental representations’, this article will determine certain occurrence patterns of the three anaphoric devices.

First verbal productions of a bilingual child learning Basque and Spanish simultaneously : analysis of the noun phrase. 'Primeras producciones verbales de niños bilingües aprendiendo castellano y euskera simultáneamente : análisis de los sustantivos en la frase'.

Estudiar la evolución del lenguaje en niños bilingües que hablan euskera y castellano. Hipótesis: se encontrarán pocas marcas gramaticales en las frases. En euskera aparecerán ciertos sufijos de declinación; se espera encontrar el determinante 'A', marca de los casos locativo y posesivo y posiblemente algunos dativos. En castellano se espera no encontrar marcas gramaticales con preposiciones y artículos y sí en los casos locativo y posesivo. No se hallarán marcas formales y sí algunas construcciones lingüísticas por categorías ya que parece que los sistemas gramaticales funcionan de manera autónoma. Un niño en su período entre un año y once meses hasta dos años y tres meses, que se desenvuelve en euskera en el ambiente familiar y en castellano en su ambiente social. Se trata de un estudio descriptivo que está dividido en cuatro apartados: relato del ambiente familiar y social en el que se desenvuelve el niño. Diferencias entre el castellano y el euskera. Teorías que explican este tipo de problemas. Análisis de datos recogidos en las cintas. Las marcas gramaticales en castellano y euskera se clasifican en dos grupos: prefijos y unidades aisladas que preceden al nombre como artículos, pseudoartículos. Sufijos, incluyendo las marcas de casos, y calificativos. Grabaciones en vídeo sobre la producción en castellano y en euskera en situaciones familiares espontáneas. Cada sesión de grabación dura 30 minutos para cada idioma. Análisis de los datos recogidos en la grabación después de haber realizado la transcripción. En este caso, el artículo castellano no aparece inmediatamente. Los artículos indefinidos son más frecuentes que los definidos. Las formas masculinas predominan sobre las femeninas. Los artículos en castellano y los nombres en castellano y euskera son las unidades gramaticales más numerosas. Hay pocos ejemplos de sufijos locativos y posesivos. Aparecen pocas marcas de plural en los nombres. Se usan otras cuantificaciones como números, palabras 'otro', 'más'. A este nivel gramatical no hay fusión de marcas de los dos idiomas: no hay terminaciones 'A' en palabras castellanas usadas en contexto hispano y no hay artículos castellanos delante de nombres vascos usados en contexto vasco.

Availability and Use of Audiovisual and Electronic Resources by Distance Learning Students in Nigerian Universities: a Case Study of National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Ibadan Study Centre

This study investigated the availability and use of audiovisual and electronic resources by distance learning students at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). A questionnaire was administered tothe distance learning students selected across the various departments of the NOUN. The findings revealed that even though NOUN made provision for audiovisual and electronic resources for students' use, a majority of the audiovisual and electronic resources are available through personal provision by the students.The study also revealed regular use of audiovisual and electronic resources by the distance learning students. Constraints on use include poor power supply, poor infrastructure, lack of adequate skill, and high cost of access.

Microstates in language-related brain potential maps show noun-verb differences

Brain processing of grammatical word class was studied analyzing event-related potential (ERP) brain fields. Normal subjects observed a randomized sequence of single German nouns and verbs on a computer screen, while 20-channel ERP field map series were recorded separately for both word classes. Spatial microstate analysis was applied, based on the observation that series of ERP maps consist of epochs of quasi-stable map landscapes and based on the rationale that different map landscapes must have been generated by different neural generators and thus suggest different brain functions. Space-oriented segmentation of the mean map series identified nine successive, different functional microstates, i.e., steps of brain information processing characterized by quasi-stable map landscapes. In the microstate from 116 to 172 msec, noun-related maps differed significantly from verb-related maps along the left–right axis. The results indicate that different neural populations represent different grammatical word classes in language processing, in agreement with clinical observations. This word class differentiation as revealed by the spatial–temporal organization of neural activity occurred at a time after word input compatible with speed of reading.

Noun-ours [ [Material gráfico]: les vitamines des petits : Bon appetit grands et petits!.

Impreso en ángulo inferior derecho: "Producido en España"

Noun Sense Disambiguation using Co-Occurrence Relation in Machine Translation

Word Sense Disambiguation, the process of identifying the meaning of a word in a sentence when the word has multiple meanings, is a critical problem of machine translation. It is generally very difficult to select the correct meaning of a word in a sentence, especially when the syntactical difference between the source and target language is big, e.g., English-Korean machine translation. To achieve a high level of accuracy of noun sense selection in machine translation, we introduced a statistical method based on co-occurrence relation of words in sentences and applied it to the English-Korean machine translator RyongNamSan. ACM Computing Classification System (1998): I.2.7.

Provocative feature deletion: a syntactic model of agreement alternations in noun incorporation contexts

The relationship between noun incorporation (NI) and the agreement alternations that occur in such contexts (NI Transitivity Alternations) remains inadequately understood. Three interpretations of these alternations (Baker, Aranovich & Golluscio 2005; Mithun 1984; Rosen 1989) are shown to be undermined by foundational or mechanical issues. I propose a syntactic model, adopting Branigan's (2011) interpretation of NI as the result of “provocative” feature valuation, which triggers generation of a copy of the object that subsequently merges inside the verb. Provocation triggers a reflexive Refine operation that deletes duplicate features from chains, making them interpretable for Transfer. NI Transitivity Alternations result from variant deletion preferences exhibited during Refine. I argue that the NI contexts discussed (Generic NI, Partial NI and Double Object NI) result from different restrictions on phonetic and semantic identity in chain formation. This provides us with a consistent definition of NI Transitivity Alternations across contexts, as well as a new typology that distinguishes NI contexts, rather than incorporating languages.