Domain-general mechanism relationship with non-canonical sentence comprehension

Purpose: Canonical sentence structures are the most frequently used in a given language. Less frequent or non-canonical sentences tend to be more challenging to process and to induce a higher cognitive load. To deal with this complexity several authors suggest that not only linguistic but also non-linguistic (domain-general) mechanisms are involved. In this study, we were interested in evaluating the relationship between non-canonical oral sentence comprehension and individual cognitive control abilities.Method: Participants were instructed to perform a sentence-picture verification task with canonical and non-canonical sentences. Sentence structures (i.e., active or passive) and sentence types (i.e., affirmative or negative) were manipulated. Furthermore, each participant performed four cognitive control tasks measuring inhibitory processes, updating in working memory, flexibility and sustained attention. We hypothesized that more complex sentence structures would induce a cognitive cost reflecting involvement of additional processes, and also that this additional cost should be related with cognitive control performances.Results: Results showed better performances for canonical sentences compared to non-canonical ones supporting previous work on passive and negative sentence processing. Correlation results suggest a close relationship between cognitive control mechanisms and non-canonical sentence processing.Conclusion: This study adds evidence for the hypothesis of a domain-general mechanism implication during oral language comprehension and highlights the importance of taking task demands into consideration when exploring language comprehension mechanisms.

Category of negation paradigm in diachrony

The negation in logic and linguistics, negation as a grammatical category on the morphological and syntactic levels are substantiated in the article. It is concluded that in broad semantic terms negation can be expressed in morphologic and syntactic ways in natural language. On the morphological level negative affixes paradigm and separate parts of speech are taken into consideration, while on the syntactic level the whole negative sentence that includes one or more than one negator is observed. Negation is expressed by means of affixes that have explicative and implicative components in their meaning. Authentic affixes preserve the semantic meaning of the words they etymologically derive from, giving the word they join to, a special shade of negation. The main source of enrichment of the negative affixes paradigm and their new meaning are affixes borrowed from other languages. The study of the category of negation on different levels in diachronic aspect can help to observe the development of particular parts of speech, which can express negation, and serve as a base for further studies of negation in the different discourses and communicative situations.

SYNTACTIC IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NEGATIVE CLITIC NICHT IN THE MODERN GERMAN LANGUAGE

The article focuses on the main approaches to the analysis of sentence negation in the modern German language. The phenomenon of full and partial sentence negation has been presented. The special attention is focused on the grammatical meaning of negation. In traditional studies negation is characterized as an expression of non-existing relationships within lingual elements, or when an affirmative sentence is denied by a speaker as an incorrect one. In Germanic grammar studies there is no consensus as to the concept of negation as well as means for its implementation. Theoretical syntax deals with an absolute and double negation. The typology of neg-elements in the German language is not sufficiently highlighted due to their heterogeneity in classification. It causes opacity in the treatment of negative constructions, resulting in ambiguous outcome, and complicates the assignment of the lingual units to the appropriate category. In theoretical grammar the grammatical negation is classified according to word classes. In German a general pattern of sentence negation is represented by the clitic “nicht” in the pre-position and the post-position in relation to the verb. Traditionally negation is regarded in terms of volume of negation and the focus of negation, when the semantic function of negation has been implemented. Also grammatical studies of the German language distinguish between full negation, when the whole sentence is denied, and partial negation, which refers to certain parts of the sentence. Thereby for the grammatical negation in the German sentence the regulated order of subject and verb plays an important role. Regarding the above mentioned the article outlines the criteria for distinguishing the full and the partial negation depending on position of sentence elements in the frame construction. The position of constituents in the negative sentence and its influence on the scopus of negation has been analyzed. The analysis of syntactic distribution of clitic “nicht” in relation to full and partial negation in the models of verbal representation has been outlined.Key words: category of negation, clitic, full negation, partial negation, volume of negation, focus of negation, syntactical distribution. У статті викладено основні підходи до аналізу реченнєвого заперечення в сучасній німецькій мові. Представлено явище повного й часткового реченнєвого заперечення, увагу зосереджено на граматичному змісті заперечення. У статті проаналізовано заперечення як синтаксичну категорію щодо й змісту, й граматичного оформлення. У традиційних мовознавчих студіях заперечення схарактеризовано як вираження ненаявних відношень у межах мовних елементів. У германістиці відсутній консенсус стосовно концепції заперечення та засобів його реалізації. Теоретичний синтаксис має справу з абсолютним і подвійним запереченням. Типологію заперечних елементів у німецькій мові розглянуто не досить через їх неоднорідність у класифікації. Це спричиняє непрозорість у трактуванні заперечних конструкцій, що призводить до неоднозначних результатів та ускладнює зарахування мовних одиниць до відповідної категорії. Теоретична граматика класифікує граматичні засоби вираження заперечення відповідно до класів слів. У німецькій мові загальну модель реченнєвого заперечення представлено клітиком nicht у препозиції або постпозиції щодо дієслова. Традиційно категорія заперечення розглядається в термінах об’єму й фокусу заперечення, коли реалізується семантична функція негації, а запере-чення постає як форма модифікації дійсності. Також у граматичних студіях із німецької мови розрізняють повне й часткове заперечення. У німецькій мові граматичне заперечення пов’язано з рамковою структурою речення. У роботі окреслено граматичне оформлення та функціонування речень із повним і частковим запереченням у німецькій мові, наголошено на їх відмінностях. Проаналізовано позицію конституентів заперечного речення та їхній вплив на сферу заперечення. Визначено критерії виокремлення спеціального заперечення залежно від позиції елементів речення в рамковій конструкції. Також у статті здійснено аналіз синтаксичної дистрибуції клітика nicht щодо повного й часткового заперечення в моделях вербальних репрезентацій заперечення та про-ілюстровано їх неоднорідність.Ключові слова:категорія заперечення, клітик, повне заперечення, часткове заперечення, об’єм заперечення, фокус заперечення, синтаксична дистрибуція.

Analysing the Second Semester Students’ Ability in Toefl Listening Comprehension

The aim of this research is to find out the second semester students’ ability in TOEFL Listening Comprehension at Sekolah Tinggi Bahasa Asing Cipto Hadi Pranoto. The method applied is the descriptive qualitative research. It revealed that the students’ ability to Longman Introductory Course Book by Deborah Phillips for TOEFL Test show the level of difficulties in Part A (short conversation) is 75 % comprising from 55 % moderate, in skill 1(restatement), skill 2 (expression of negative sentence), skill 3 (suggestion) and skill 6 (the expressions of agreement), 18 % easy in skill 5 (identifying occupation, location). However the problematic aspect in Part A is 2 % difficult to comprehend skill 4, passive statements, in Part B proves that the students’ comprehension of skill 7 (anticipating questions) is 20 % easy, and skill 8 (anticipating topics or main ideas) is 2 % moderate, in Part C shows that 11 % considered moderate to comprehend skill 11 (anticipating topics or main ideas), and 11 % easy to comprehend skill 10 (anticipating question). However, the problematic aspect in Part C is 2 % difficult to comprehend skill 12 (the order of the answer).

TRANSPOSITION OF SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES IN THE NOVELS BY CHARLOTTE BINGHAM

Purpose. The purpose of the current article is to describe syntactic stylistic figures based on the transposition of syntactic structures. The above-mentioned figures are classified, their percentage ratio and stylistic functions in the novels by Charlotte Bingham are outlined.Methods. The current study uses a combination of general scientific (analysis-synthesis method, continuous sampling method, descriptive method, quantitative analysis) and linguistic methods. The definitional analysis is used to clarify linguistic terms and notions specified by the research topic. The word-formation analysis is used to single out word-formation patterns of the analysed language units. The stylistic analysis is used to research into syntactic stylistic figures based on the transposition of syntactic structures and study their stylistic colouring in certain communicative situations.Results. The article presents a study of syntactic stylistic figures based on the transposition of syntactic structures in the novels by Charlotte Bingham. The term “transposition of syntactic structures” has been defined as transposition of the sentence model in the context that results in the unexpected turn in the logical meaning and additional connotations. Syntactic stylistic figures based on the transposition of syntactic structures have been classified into three groups: quasi-declarative, quasi-interrogative and quasi-negative sentences. It has been researched that in the novels by Charlotte Bingham transposition of syntactic structures is chiefly represented by quasi-affirmative sentences (48.8%). It has been revealed that quasi-declarative sentences are used in dialogues to mark colloquial speech. It has been ascertained that the transposition of interrogative sentences is less frequent (41.3%) and is mainly used to refer to the character’s self-talk. It has been substantiated that quasi-negative sentences are infrequent (9.9%) and are chiefly used to weaken the positive qualities of the denoted reality.Conclusions. The novels by Charlotte Bingham contain all types of syntactic stylistic figures based on the transposition of syntactic structures. The above-mentioned figures are chiefly represented by the transposition of declarative (48.8%) and interrogative (41.3%) sentences. Quasi-negative sentences are infrequent (9.9%).Key words: declarative sentence, interrogative sentence, negative sentence, reevaluation, syntactic stylistic figures. Мета пропонованого дослідження – розглянути синтактико-стилістичні фігури із транспозицією типів речень, здійснити їхню типологізацію, визначити їхнє кількісне співвідношення та охарактеризувати їхні стилістичні функції у романах Шарлотти Бінґхем.Методи. У роботі використано загальнонаукові (аналіз та синтез, суцільна вибірка, описовий метод, кількісний аналіз) і власне лінгвістичні методи. Дефініційний аналіз – для уточнення лінгвістичних термінів та понять, окреслених темою дослі-дження; словотвірний аналіз – для встановлення словотвірних структур відповідно до способів словотвору; стилістичний аналіз – для вивчення синтактико-стилістичних фігур із транспозицією типів речень, з’ясування їхнього стилістичного забарвлення в аналізованих комунікативних ситуаціях.Результати. Дослідження присвячено вивченню синтактико-стилістичних фігур із транспозицією типів речень у романах Шарлотти Бінґхем. Визначено, що транспозиція типів речень – це використання синтаксичних структур у невластивих їм логіко-предметних значеннях та з додатковими конотаціями. Синтактико-стилістичні фігури з транспозицією типів речень поділено на три групи: із переосмисленням розповідного (І група), запитального (ІІ група) та заперечного (ІІІ група) речень. Встановлено, що у романах Шарлотти Бінґхем превалюють фігури першої групи (48,8%). Розкрито, що вони використовуються у діалогічному мовленні персонажів як маркер розмовного стилю. З’ясовано, що фігури другої групи вживаються авторкою дещо рідше (41,3%), передусім позначаючи ведення персонажем внутрішнього діалогу. Розкрито, що третя група фігур є найменш численною (9,9%) і використовується насамперед задля послаблення позитивних якостей позначуваного.Висновки. У романах Шарлотти Бінґхем представлено всі різновиди синтактико-стилістичних фігур із транспозицією типів речень. З-поміж них найбільш поширеними є фігури з переосмисленням розповідного (48,8%) та запитального (41,3%) речень. Група фігур із переосмисленням заперечного речення є найменш репрезентативною (9,9%).Ключові слова: заперечне речення, запитальне речення, переосмислення, розповідне речення, синтактико-стилістичні фігури

All roads lead to Rome: Semantic priming between language and arithmetic

This study evaluated the existence of universal principles of cognition, common to language and arithmetic. Specifically, we analysed cross-domain semantic priming between affirmative sentences and additions, and between negative sentences and subtractions. To this end, we developed and tested a new priming procedure composed of prime sentences and target arithmetic operations. On each trial, participants had to read an affirmative or negative sentence (e.g., “The circle is red”, “The square is not yellow”) and select, between two images, the one that matched the meaning of the sentence. Afterwards, participants had to solve a one-digit addition or subtraction (e.g., 7 + 4, 6 – 3), either by selecting the correct result between two possible alternatives (Experiment 1), or by verbalizing the result of the operation (Experiment 2). We manipulated the task difficulty of both the sentences and the operations by varying the similarity between the response options for the sentence (Experiment 1 and 2), and the numerical distance between the possible results for the operation (Experiment 1). We found semantic priming for subtractions, so that participants solved subtractions faster after negative versus affirmative sentences, and this effect was modulated by the difficulty of the operation. This is the first study reporting semantic priming effects between language and arithmetic. The outcomes of this work seem to suggest a shared semantic system between both cognitive domains.

SEMANTIC GRAPH BASED TERM EXPANSION FOR SENTENCE-LEVEL SENTIMENT ANALYSIS

The semantic orientation (also referred to as prior polarity) of a word plays an important role in automatic sentence-level sentiment analysis. Several approaches have been proposed wherein a lexicon of words marked with their polarities is exploited to infer the meaning of sentences. However, relying on prior word polarity may produce inaccurate decisions. This is because we may find negative-sentence sentiments that include words with positive prior polarities or vice versa. In this article, we propose an approach to sentence-level sentiment analysis that exploits knowledge encoded in heavy-weight semantic graphs to assist in discovering the meaning of a word in the context of the sentence where it appears. In this context, we build contextual semantic networks for indexing sentences and expand them with semantically/lexically-relevant terms in an attempt to disambiguate the meanings of word mentions in sentences. In order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach, we have developed a prototype system using a real-world dataset that contains 46830 sentiment sentences along with a gold-standard that comprises 10000 movie reviews that are labelled under five sentiment categories (very negative, negative, neutral, positive, very positive). Findings indicate that enriching the semantic graphs of sentiment sentences with NOUN-based synonyms and hypernyms has improved the overall quality of baseline sentiment analysis techniques.

USING ANTONYMIC TRANSLATION IN RENDERING ENGLISH PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS INTO UKRAINIAN

The article considers phraseological units and antonymic translation as one of the most effective methods of transmission of lexical units. Antonymic translation is shown to be an independent type of translation. Antonymic translation is defined as a translation mode whereby an affirmative (positive) element in the ST is translated by a negative element in the TT and, vice versa, a negative element in the ST is translated using an affirmative element in the TT, without changing the meaning of the original sentence. It is not a word-for-word translation, but a transformation when the translator selects an antonym and combines it with a negation element. Antonymic translation as such can be understood in broader and narrower terms, i.e. it may cover instances of a simple substitution of an element in the ST by its antonymic counterpart (negative or positive) in translation; positive / negative recasting, a translation procedure where the translator modifies the order of the units in the ST in order to conform to the syntactic or idiomatic constraints of the TT; and narrowing of the scope of negation whereby the original negative sentence is turned into an affirmative one in translation by moving the negation element to a word phrase or an elliptical sentence. The term antonymic translation covers all these three types. Generally, antonymic translation consists not only in the transformation of negative constructions to affirmative or vice versa: an original phraseological unit can be substituted for other expressions with the opposite meaning in a target language or an occasional antonym. The usage of antonymic translation as one of the methods of contextual replacement has been investigated. The main types of this lexical and grammatical transformation are systematized. The attention is focused on the reasons for using antonymic translation.

Plurality and crosslinguistic variation: an experimental investigation of the Turkish plural

In English and many other languages, the interpretation of the plural is associated with an ‘exclusive’ reading in positive sentences and an ‘inclusive’ reading in negative ones. For example, the plural noun tulips in a sentence such as Chicken planted tulips suggests that Chicken planted more than one tulip (i.e., a reading which ‘excludes’ atomic individual tulips). At the same time, however, the corresponding negative sentence Chicken didn’t plant tulips doesn’t merely convey that he didn’t plant more than one tulip, but rather that he didn’t plant any tulip (i.e., ‘including’ atomic individual tulips). Different approaches to the meaning contribution of the English plural vary in how they account for this alternation across the polarities, but converge on assuming that (at least one of) the denotation(s) of the plural should include atomic individuals. Turkish, on the other hand, is cited as one of the few known languages in which the plural only receives an exclusive interpretation (e.g., Bale et al. Cross-linguistic representations of numerals and number marking. in: Li, Lutz (eds) Semantics and linguistic theory (SALT) 20, CLC Publications, Ithaca, pp 582–598, 2010). More recent proposals have, however, argued that the Turkish plural should in fact be analysed more like the English plural (e.g., Sağ, The semantics of number marking: reference to kinds, counting, and optional classifiers, PhD dissertation, Rutgers University, 2019). We report two experiments investigating Turkish-speaking adults’ and preschool-aged children’s interpretation of positive and negative sentences containing plural nouns. The results provide clear evidence for inclusive interpretations of the plural in Turkish, supporting accounts that treat the Turkish and English plurals alike. We briefly discuss how an inclusive meaning of the Turkish plural can be integrated within a theory of the Turkish number system which captures some idiosyncratic properties of the singular and the agreement between number and number numerals.