Vol. XXII Nr. 1

DOI: 10.31178/BWPL.22.1

View contents


Doina Jitcă
Information packaging correlates of semantic information structure categories

Abstract: This paper presents an Information Structure (IS) model at the information packaging (IPk) level and its usage in utterance partitioning and in explaining semantic IS category realizations at the pragmatic level. The IPk model proposes a hierarchical view of F0 contours that transforms utterances into binary contrast unit (CU) hierarchies. CUs have binary IPk partitions with two independent and overlapping structures and a nuclear element which project its IPk functions to the whole units it belongs to. Two nuclear accent identification rules are formulated in this paper in order to be used in decoding IPk partition hierarchy by F0 contour analysis. In the second part of the paper several intonational contours of English sentences, having different semantic IS events, are interpreted by correlating semantic IS analysis results with those of the IPk model-based analysis. By decoding IPk structure and functional constituents from F0 contours we can advance our knowledge about the relationship between prosody and intonational meaning.

Keywords:intonational meaning, utterance partitioning, nucleus, prominence, focus, topic

Download full text


Irina Stoica
Are manner of speaking verbs truly manner?

Abstract:Manner of speaking verbs (MoS) are said to induce strong island effects, in contrast with verbs of communication, which allow extraction. The main studies which tried to account for this distinction focused either on the existence of a manner component, of an added layer of meaning, or on that of a nominal element, corresponding to the resulting emitted noise. However, these intuitions according to which they simultaneously denote both manner and result would induce a violation of the Manner Result Complementarity (Levin & Rappaport 2011). Additionally, a closer look at the data shows that there are at least some cases where extraction out of the complement of MoS verbs is actually allowed. The goal of this paper is to put forth an analysis which first of all accounts for the ban on extraction, but also for the variable behaviour that these verbs evince. By postulating two structurally distinct subclasses of MoS verbs, I not only manage to reconcile the two intuitions present in the literature without violating the MRC, but also explain the syntactic behaviour of these verbs with respect to extraction from the post-verbal clause.

Keywords: manner of speaking verbs, manner verbs, result verbs, extraction, island effects

Download full text


Oana Niculescu, Maria Marin & Daniela Răuţu
Rediscovering past narrations: The oral history of the Romanian language preserved in the National Phonogram Archive

Abstract: In this paper we aim to deliver a key message related to the safeguarding of the Romanian National Phonogram Archive (AFLR). The data gathered within the Archive (the richest, most inclusive and diversified collection of dialectal texts and ethno-linguistic recordings in Romania) are of immeasurable documentary value. Through the digitization and preservation of AFLR we can gain access to both individual and collective memories, aiding to a better understanding of our cultural heritage on the one hand, and, on the other hand, restoring missing or forgotten pieces of Europe’s oral history.

Keywords: AFLR, dialect texts, cultural heritage, digitization, MIDVAL

Download full text


Larisa Avram, Anca Sevcenco & Veronica Tomescu
The acquisition of recursively embedded noun modifiers in Romanian by Hungarian-Romanian bilinguals

Abstract: The present study examines how simultaneous bilinguals acquire phenomena which are delayed in monolingual development. It compares how 5- and 7-year-old Hungarian-Romanian bilinguals and Romanian monolinguals comprehend complex DPs with recursively embedded locative Prepositional Phrase and subject relative clause modifiers. The order of acquisition is the same in L1 and in 2L1: during the early stages children assign both conjunctive and recursive readings to complex DPs with embedded modifiers and gradually reduce the number of conjunctive responses to the advantage of recursive ones. At age 7 neither the monolinguals nor the bilinguals behave adult-like. But the results reveal a significant increase in recursive responses from age 5 to age 7 only in L1. In 2L1, at this stage, there is an increase only in the number of conjunctive responses and in errors which target the lexical preposition. Our findings show that the simultaneous bilinguals follow the same acquisition path as the monolinguals but at a slower pace. We argue that when a derivationally complex structure is vulnerable in L1 acquisition, cross-linguistic interference effects may cause an even more prolonged delay in 2L1 acquisition.

Keywords: recursive, noun modifier, preposition phrase, relative clause, Hungarian-Romanian bilinguals

Download full text


 

REVIEWS
 

Sorin Ciutacu. 2019. Causality and Semantics. Semantic Change in Contemporary English. (Reviewed by Claudia E. Stoian)

 Seizi Iwata. 2020. English Resultatives: A Force-Recipient Account. (Reviewed by Imola-Ágnes Farkas)

Peter Trudgill. 2020. Millennia of Language Change. Sociolinguistic Studies in Deep Historical Linguistics. (Reviewed by Costin-Valentin Oancea)

Previous Article
Next Article