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The introduction and wide use of devices, especially mobile ones, has changed the way learners read and do research for a variety of reasons, and this trend has attracted a number of studies conducted regarding reading on screen and on paper in addition to those dealing with the students' behavior in using online resources to print ones. This paper aims at identifying the major findings and trends in reading research by describing the current state of knowledge and practice in the studies comparing reading on screen and on paper and to provide guidance for practitioners by analyzing and summarizing the existing research. The current review adopted a systematic review as the research methodology as well as the article selection and screening process. The articles published between 2009 and 2017 were reviewed, and 37 articles were included in the analysis. The review revealed that the research on onscreen and paper-based reading focused on comparing the learners' performances in reading activities in both contexts and sharing preliminary findings and students' views. However, the findings are inconclusive as mixed findings were produced as to the effects of reading on screen and on paper. Moreover, the review also indicates that practitioners are also interested in examining the factors and affordances in reading on screen. As a result, there is still further research needed to establish the factors affecting reading and comprehension while reading on screen and on paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A retrospective account on past comparative research on Afro-Asiatic (AA) or Semito-Hamitic / Hamito--Semitic (SH / HS, resp.) phonology (first of all consonantism, also root structure) and lexicon, segmented into episodes according to diverse (often overlapping in time) trends is now under way and will be presented part by part in a series of papers. The present paper contains the first ever direction of this research, labelled "Semito-Hamitology" covering studies seeking, in their conception, the "African", i.e. "Hamitic" kinship of Semitic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper as part of a long-running series is devoted to the etymological analysis of a new segment (namely that with initial dental *z-) of the Angas-Sura root stock, a small group of modern languages remotely and ultimately akin to pharaonic Egyptian and the well-known Semitic languages or Twareg in the Sahara etc. Doing so, I wish to continue the noble tradition initiated by J.H. Greenberg (1958), the founding father of modern Afro-Asiatic comparative linguistics (along with I.M. Diakonoff), who was the first scholar ever to have established by Neo-Grammarian the methods regular consonantal correspondences between Angas-Sura and ancient Egyptian in his pioneering (painfully isolated) paper on the ancient trichotomy of the word-initial labials in both branches. Nowadays our chances in following this path are substantially more favourable being equipped with our gigantic comparative root catalogue system of the Egyptian etymologies ever published (ongoing since 1994) and of the Afro-Asiatic parental lexical stock (ongoing since 1999). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper as part of a long-running series is devoted to the etymological analysis of a new segment (namely that with initial dental *z-) of the Angas-Sura root stock, a small group of modern languages remotely and ultimately akin to pharaonic Egyptian and the well-known Semitic languages or Twareg in the Sahara etc. Doing so, I wish to continue the noble tradition initiated by J.H. Greenberg (1958), the founding father of modern Afro-Asiatic comparative linguistics (along with I.M. Diakonoff), who was the first scholar ever to have established by Neo--Grammarian the methods regular consonantal correspondences between Angas-Sura and ancient Egyptian in his pioneering (painfully isolated) paper on the ancient trichotomy of the word-initial labials in both branches. Nowadays our chances in following this path are substantially more favourable being equipped with our gigantic comparative root catalogue system of the Egyptian etymologies ever published (ongoing since 1994) and of the Afro-Asiatic parental lexical stock (ongoing since 1999). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A retrospective account on past comparative research on Afro-Asiatic (AA) or Semito-Hamitic / Hamito--Semitic (SH/HS, resp.) phonology (first of all consonantism, also root structure) and lexicon, segmented into episodes according to diverse trends (often overlapping in time) is now under way and will be presented part by part in a series of papers. The present paper contains the first ever direction of this research, labelled "Semito-Hamitology" covering studies seeking, in their conception, the "African", i.e. "Hamitic" kinship of Semitic, without a permanent communis opinio over the whole century of this 'trend' (better: amalgamate era) regarding the limits of the family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the assumptions of a Multi-Layer Transcription Model (hereinafter: MLTM). The solution presented is an advanced grapheme-to-phoneme (G2P) conversion method that can be implemented in technical applications, such as automatic speech recognition and synthesis systems. The features of MLTM also facilitate the application of text-to-transcription conversion in linguistic research. The model presented here is the basis for multi-step processing of the orthographic representation of words with those being transcribed gradually. The consecutive stages of the procedure include, among other things, identification of multi--character phonemes, voicing status change, and consonant clusters simplification. The multi-layer model described in this paper makes it possible to assign individual phonetic processes (for example assimilation), as well as other types of transformation, to particular layers. As a result, the set of rules becomes more transparent. Moreover, the rules related to any process can be modified independently of the rules connected with other forms of transformation, provided that the latter have been assigned to a different layer. These properties of the multi-layer transcription model in question provide crucial advantages for the solutions based on it, such as their flexibility and transparency. There are no assumptions in the model about the applicable number of layers, their functions, or the number of rules defined in each layer. A special mechanism used for the implementation of the MLTM concept enables projection of individual characters onto either a phonemic or a phonetic transcript (obtained after processing in the final layer of the MLTM-based system has been completed). The solution presented in this text has been implemented for the Polish language, however, it is not impossible to use the same model for other languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper constitutes part of a long-range series aiming, step by step, to identify the inherited Afro-Asiatic stock in the etymologically little explored lexicon of the Omotic (West Ethiopia) branch of the Afro-Asiatic family displaying the least of shared traits among the six branches of this macrofamily, which suggests a most ancient Omotic desintegration reaching far back to the age of post-Natufian neolithic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper constitutes the first part of a long-range series of studies gradually elaborating the enormous new materials of the anestral anatomical-physiological vocabulary of Proto-Afro-Asiatic, supposed to be the earliest known parental language spoken by the earliest known neolithic community on earth. This series is parallel to the author's ongoing projects for a comprehensive analysis of the diverse segments of the immense new cultural lexicon that has emerged in course of the author's root research over the past some three decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is another part of a planned longer series designed to step by step reveal the Chadic and wider Afro--Asiatic cognate heritage in the lexical stock of the Mubi-Toram languages which represent the easternmost (27th) group of the vast (6th) Chadic branch of the gigantic Afro-Asiatic family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation is widely accepted to be a crucial aspect of language learning, and a variety of models of motivation have been proposed over the years. The L2 Motivational Self System is a particularly interesting model that reconceptualizes motivation as a function of possible future self-guides, and has far-reaching pedagogical implications. Critics have pointed out that there is little evidence connecting L2 Motivational Self System to attainment, as it is inconsistently correlated with L2 proficiency and is only a weak predictor of results. However, as this paper details, these criticisms ignore the correlation between the L2 Motivational Self System and other behaviors and attitudes associated with attainment, such as willingness to communicate, self-efficacy, persistent learning, and low L2 anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper contains new etymological entries to Berber lexical roots and is part of a long-range series eventually resulting, when completed, in materials for an etymological dictionary of Berber, a desired addition to the fascicles of the comparative dictionary of Berber roots (DRB). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is a new contribution to revealing the Afro-Asiatic heritage in the lexical root stock of the Dangla--Migama group of Chadic languages by means of inter-branch comparison primarily using, among others, the ancient Egypto-Semitic etymological evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers and educators have been forced to introduce digital solutions within a very short time, which influenced the educational perspective significantly, and required adapting to the new conditions, not only in what concerns teaching methods but also in terms of teaching content. Contrary to the commonly held opinion that teaching at tertiary level has not changed considerably, since it concerns adults who are already autonomous, the new teaching challenges have had an impact on tertiary education as well. Moreover, university teachers needed to face this new reality without prior preparation. The aim of this paper is to present the current pandemic-driven situation from the perspective of ESP teachers from various European countries by revealing not only some of the challenges posed by the pandemic, but also certain good practices which may become a guide for other ESP teachers. The methodology applied to inquiring this research question was a qualitative-quantitative online survey distributed among ESP teachers in European coun tries. The results show that online teaching during the pandemic was challenging for most respondents, at the same time offering them the opportunity to develop professionally by improving their technical skills and learning how to use online platforms, apps and tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a descriptive study of the control structures in Kokborok, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Tripura (one of the North-Eastern states in India) and demonstrates the contact-induced changes in the phenomenon of control in Kokborok which resulted due to the long-term contact with Bangla (Indo-Aryan), a genetically different language spoken in the state. The instances of genitive subject and the phenomenon of overt controllee in the embedded subject position in Kokborok are the cases in point. The instance of overt controllee described in this paper points to the deviation from the classic concept of PRO thereby demonstrating a property unique to the study of South Asian languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper as part of a long-running series is devoted to the etymological analysis of a new segment (namely that with initial dental *d-) of the Angas-Sura root stock, a small group of modern languages remotely and ultimately akin to pharaonic Egyptian and the well-known Semitic languages or Twareg in the Sahara etc. Doing so, I wish to continue the noble tradition initiated by J.H. Greenberg (1958), the founding father of modern Afro-Asiatic comparative linguistics (along with I.M. Diakonoff), who was the first scholar ever to have established by Neo-Grammarian the methods regular consonantal correspondences between Angas-Sura and ancient Egyptian in his pioneering (painfully isolated) paper on the ancient trichtomomy of the word-initial labials in both branches. Nowadays our chances in following this path are substantially more favourable being equipped with our gigantic comparative root catalogue system of the Egyptian etymologies ever published (ongoing since 1994) and of the Afro-Asiatic parental lexical stock (ongoing since 1999). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the elements of Chinese culture enclosed in vocabulary and in the meaning of words; it is divided into four parts. Firstly, it is pointed out that, due to the fact that words are written down with Chinese characters, teachers of Chinese should purposefully help the students understand the rich culture contained in Chinese words, especially disyllabic compounds. Secondly, the article presents the investigation methods concerning compound words applied by the researchers of Chinese lexicon；It also assesses their applicability with regard to teaching a second language. Thirdly, the paper discusses five ways of incorporating Chinese culture during the process of formation of compound words, and points out their relationship with second language teaching. Finally, the paper discusses the methods applied in teaching Chinese vocabulary, and puts forward two methods of teaching vocabulary and their strategies at different levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to present speech shadowing (the listener's repetition of a word, phrase or sentence immediately after hearing it) as an effective teaching technique. Shadowing has been practiced in English classes in Japan for decades and many studies have confirmed its effectiveness for improving learners' listening comprehension and pronunciation skills. Even though some studies have already indicated that this technique is successfully used in teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) (Zajdler & Chu 2019), its potential has not been widely utilized in the Chinese classroom in Poland. Thus, the present paper will first discuss the auditory and cognitive underpinnings of shadowing, then a classification of the types of shadowing will be proposed. Finally, practical aspects of shadowing as an effective in-class CFL teaching technique will be presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to prove the Mass Noun Hypothesis wrong. The hypothesis claims that all common nouns in classifier languages like Mandarin Chinese are mass nouns. The objection against it consists in displaying its implausible deduction, where false conclusions have been drawn due to relying on the grammar of English, which is incongruent with the grammar of Chinese. Consequently, this paper defends the Count Noun Thesis, stating that in Chinese there are count as well as mass nouns. In support of this statement, first, the typology of numeral classifiers had to be established, which resulted in gathering and completing all the reasons to distinguish classifiers from measure words. After only this necessary differentiation was made, it was possible to show that the count/mass distinction exists in Mandarin Chinese. That is, count nouns by default have only one classifier, with certain disclaimers. Apart from that, count nouns, as in every language, may undergo some measurement with measure words. Mass nouns, however, in the context of quantification may appear only with measure words, but not with classifiers. These conditions naturally follow from the ontological status of the two types of nouns' referents, i.e. bounded objects denoted by count nouns, and scattered substances denoted by mass nouns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As with most fields of life, China can trace its history of word standardization back to ancient times, when the first dictionaries (such as Erya, ca. 3rd century B.C.) appeared. Modern Standard Chinese used in Mainland China – Putonghua – has been subject to standardization since its proclamation as the official national language of China in 1956. The definition states quite clearly that its base is formed by the Northern dialects. This statement concerns also vocabulary. However, it is not a simple matter to make a choice of words which are to be used throughout the country. On the one hand, the so-called "Northern dialects" are spoken by almost 70% of the Han Chinese population, i.e. by about 800 million people. Although the Northern dialects are said to be quite uniform, the vast area that they cover must bring diversity in vocabulary. On the other hand, the remaining 30% of the Han Chinese speak a range of mutually unintelligible tongues, which are bound to penetrate the Northern dialects. The aim of this paper is to show how the lexicon of Putonghua is being codified. An attempt will be made to reveal how the basic vocabulary was selected during the forming of Putonghua in the 1950s. Some of the tools used by the State Language Commission in order to control the process of vocabulary standardization will be described. Moreover, the paper intends to describe the ongoing changes in the Chinese lexicon. It will show the sources of new words that are gradually accepted into the authoritative dictionaries of modern Chinese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is a new contribution to revealing the Afro-Asiatic heritage in the lexicon of the Omotic languages by means of interbranch comparison using a.o. the ancient Egypto-Semitic evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is a new contribution to revealing the Afro-Asiatic heritage in the lexicon of the Dangla-Migama group of Chadic languages by means of interbranch comparison using a.o. the ancient Egypto-Semitic evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is a new contribution to revealing the Afro-Asiatic heritage in the lexicon of the Angas-Sura group of Chadic languages by means of interbranch comparison using a.o. the ancient Egypto-Semitic evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the use of bound forms in coordination constructions and ʔijjā and ʔijja in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Jordanian Arabic (JA), respectively. Using the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995, 2000, 2005) as a theoretical framework, the paper proposes that the use of bound forms in such constructions is ruled by a Phonetic-Form constraint that prohibits cliticization of a bound form onto another bound form, i.e. the combination of two bound forms does not result in a free form; hence it is blocked. The paper demonstrates that the use of ʔijjā and ʔijja in MSA and JA, respectively, is a direct consequence of this constraint, so that ʔijjā/ʔijja is a Phonetic-Form object used to serve as a lexical host of bound forms (cf. Fassi Fehri 1993). The use of ʔijjā/ʔijja is also shown to be prosodically ruled; it is prosodically dependent so that ʔijjā/ ʔijja should be a member of the prosodic unit which also includes the preceding word. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines conditioned changes that occurred in Miyakoan (mostly Proto-Miyakoan) reflexes of Proto-Ryukyuan close vowels *i and *u after the unconditioned raising of Proto-Ryukyuan *e and *o had taken place. These changes in close vowels are interpreted here as chain shifts. The core assumption is that changes in *i and *u occurred in response to the raising of *e and *o in order to avoid or compensate for the functionally damaging merger of *i/*e and *u/*o. The paper shows that there is a rather wide range of conditions under which *i and *u produced distinct reflexes in Miyakoan. Consequently, these vowels acted differently after stops, after sibilants, after nasals, in an onsetless/standalone position, after the flap, before the flap, and before nasals and other sonorants word-initially. At the same time, reflexes of both proto-vowels have been observed to maintain certain symmetry, meaning that in a similar environment, *i and *u generally underwent similar or analogical changes. Thus, the conditions for identifying Miyakoan reflexes or *i and *u are listed and specified in this paper. Conversely, it is argued that unless one of these conditions has been met, one should reconstruct a Proto-Ryukyuan mid-vowel rather than a close vowel. Such specification may influence the comparative study of Ryukyuan languages to a significant degree, challenging a number of the so far established reconstructions (most notably Thorpe 1983). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to outline the fundamental grammaticalization and degrammat(icalizat)ion processes observable in the restructuring of the tense/aspect/mood systems of the West Iranian languages during their historical development. Their core aspectual systems will be presented as consisting of three categories: Imperfective, Perfective and Perfect. Special attention will be paid to the rise of the analytic Perfect in Middle Persian and its further development in Early New Persian and other West Iranian languages. It will be shown that the degrammation of the copula played a significant role in the formation of compound temporal (Perfect, Pluperfect) and modal categories (Evidential, Conjectural) in New Persian, Kurdish, Balochi and Tajik. The Evidential mode of New Persian is based on the analytic Perfect rafte ast 'he is gone' and it is found in all the three aspectual categories (Imperfective, Perfective and Perfect) and both voices. It is usually claimed that it developed in the Iranian languages probably under Turkic influence. We intend to address the contentious issue of syntactic borrowing in terms of language contact in another paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores potential gender-linked differences in the use and perception of insulting language among Bosnian university students. The respondents were asked to provide one-word answers to four questions about the worst male-directed and female-directed insults, and about one-word descriptions of a male and female person who they view as the most detestable. The results indicate that the male and female respondents have a similar perception of the worst male-directed (lack of masculinity) and, to a lesser extent, femaledirected insults (sexual looseness). Surprisingly, insults of homosexual nature, as well as those pertaining to being unethical and physically unattractive were rarely mentioned. The results also reveal significant gender -of-insulter differences in the use of offensive words in reference to the most disliked person, as well as the tendency by the respondents of both genders to avoid using those insults that they perceive as the harshest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with associative plurals in New Indo-Aryan languages, which are derived from the Old Indo- Aryan apara 'other'. These markers are found in a large number of NIA languages, but in many of these languages they underwent further grammaticalization into other grammatical units, such as honorific particle, standard plural marker, definiteness marker, marker of inalienable possession etc. Among the factors which underlie this grammatical development, contacts with non-Indo-Aryan languages play a significant role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The matter of shadowing natural speech has been discussed in many studies and papers. However, there is very little knowledge of human phonetical convergence to synthesized speech. To find out more about this issue an experiment in the Polish language was conducted. Two types of stimuli were used – natural speech and synthesised speech. Five sets of sentences with various phonetic phenomena in Polish were prepared. A group of twenty persons were recorded which gave the total number of 100 samples for each phenomenon. The summary of results shows convergence in both natural and synthesised speech in set number 1, 2, 4 while in group 3 and 5 the convergence was not observed. The baseline production shown that the great majority of participants prefer ɛn/ɛm version of phonetic feature which was reflected in 83 out of 100 sentences. In the shadowing natural speech participants changed ɛn/ɛm to ɛw/ɛ̃ in 26 cases and in 4 ɛw/ɛ̃ to ɛn/ɛm. When shadowing synthesised speech shift from ɛn/ɛm to ɛw/ɛ̃ in 18 sentences and 4 from ɛw/ɛ̃ to ɛn/ɛm. The intonation convergence was also observed in the perceptual analysis, however the analysis of F0 statistics did not show statistically significant differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper aims to compare and analyse three versions of Garfield comic strips, the original and two different translations into Spanish (from the United States, Spain and Argentina, respectively). More specifically this case study focuses on the treatment of onomatopoeias and interjections in the translations, with the purpose of examining the degree of influence of culture and context in the different linguistic equivalents. Finally, some pedagogical implications of the use of comic strips in the foreign language classroom are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is part of a larger project on the influence of Arabic emphatics /tˁ, dˁ, δˁ, sˁ/ on adjacent Arabic vowels by considering three factors: vowel quality, vowel duration and directionality of emphasis spread. This paper investigates the influence of the voiced alveolar emphatic /dˁ/ on the six Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) monophthongs /ɐ – ɪ – ʊ – a: – i: – u:/ as produced by ten Jordanian speakers. The monophthongs in the adjacency of /dˁ/ are compared to those adjacent to the non-emphatic alveolar voiced stop /d/. Results indicate that in the emphatic context, the vowels are clearly retracted in the vowel space and that the extent of the emphatic influence in 'preceding' or 'following' contexts is not significantly different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to give a preferably brief overview of research undertaken in the project Comparative analysis of oral descriptions of events in Swahili and Polish. A semantic and morphosyntactic perspective funded by the Polish National Science Centre within Preludium 4 funding scheme (grant no. 2012/07/N/HS2/00963). The project includes applying the conceptual apparatus that enables comparison of genetically and typologically diverse languages within the scope of one of the most complex linguistic categories, that of diathesis. The material for analysis was collected by means of interviews with Polish and Swahili native speakers by use of audiovisual prompts. The collected material was then subjected to comparative analysis with respect to diathesis. The analysis makes use of the concepts of Jerzy Bańczerowski's general theory of diathesis and concentrates mainly upon semantic and morpho-syntactic schemata for the diathetic meanings of transitivity and transmittivity. The semantic schemata proposed below are conceived to be universal in our theory. The lingual material reveals some morpho-syntactic schemata which are intertwined with the semantic schemata in each of the two languages under description. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The morphological categories belonging to the semantic dimension of Tense in Modern Greek, as it is traditionally conceived, seem to be distinguished by means of non-homogeneous criteria. In this paper the temporal and aspectual meanings are treated separately. In consequence, Modern Greek has at its disposal (i) six Tenses and (ii) two Aspects. The meanings of the six Tenses are captured systemically by means of three Time-points: (i) Event Time, (ii) Reference Time and (iii) Speech Time, which are referred to each other in the order given by means of the relations of (i) previousness and (ii) simultaneity. In turn, the meanings of the two Aspects are captured by means of the notions of (i) Shortness and (ii) Longness, which are identified as the bedrock of the aspectual oppositions in Modern Greek. Other aspectual meanings such as Termination, Inchoativity, Completion, etc. are conveyed by the lexical stems of the appropriate verbs linked with the affixal markers of the two Aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an Optimality-Theoretic analysis of stress assignment in Levantine Arabic. The proposed hierarchy incorporates two constraints, namely *EXTENDED-LAPSE-R, which restricts stress to one of the last three syllables, and ALIGN-LEFT, which demands that the left edge of the prosodic word be aligned with a foot. This hierarchy is superior to earlier research as it successfully accounts for stress assignment in a more comprehensive and economical way. Most interestingly, it can account for the unexpected stress on a light penult in prosodic words ending in four light syllables and the paradoxical status of foot extrametricality without ad hoc parameterization of constraints. Moreover, findings show that footing in Levantine Arabic is iterative, an indication that secondary stress is attested in Levantine dialects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to present the phenomenological method in the perspective of the philosophy of communication, without depriving the latter of the great importance, in Husserl's works. The first part of this paper presents the ideas contained in Idee II..., including also the study of communication and agreement for the mutual exchange of experiences. The second part of this paper is the analysis of the arguments about the intersubjectivity, formulated by Husserl in Medytacje kartezjańskie. The last part presents the late period of Husserl's works, which did not weaken his communicative analyses. This paper shows the peculiar evolution the German thinker's views, which partially explains the doubts about the fundaments of the phenomenological method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of our paper is to give a first, general description of middle voice in Bantu. As will be shown, this language group has a set of verbal derivational morphemes that challenges some of the concepts related to the middle domain. First of all, as of yet no description has been found of a language having more than one middle marker, yet many Bantu languages have up to four or five derivational morphemes that cover several parts of the semantic domain of the middle. Secondly, provided that the polysemy patterns of these morphemes only partially cover what is generally considered the "canonical" middle domain, we will call these "quasi-middle" markers. The fact that these verbal morphemes also convey notions that are usually not considered to belong to the domain of the canonical middle calls for a reassessment of what constitutes the semantic core of this voice category cross-linguistically. Although the theoretical implications of these new data are not the central focus of our paper, the basic description that we aim to provide of the middle in Bantu can nevertheless contribute to further discussion on this intricate voice category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of specialist languages has been widely discussed and analyzed not only with respect to the linguistic field (in the context of which certain changes are anticipated in language as a communicational tool), or translation studies (including cultural aspects of expressions and their equivalents) but also with respect to strategies and techniques used in the foreign language teaching process. The main objective of this paper is to examine the language of law on a sample of selected Polish legal expressions (property law expressions) and their English equivalents. The article points to the ways of translating expressions from this specialist language and emphasizes the need to include some cultural aspects in the translation process. The article starts with a presentation of various views on translation, and then provides information on specialist languages, their types and features, leading subsequently to the analysis of certain terms and concepts of law and the ways of translating them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to globalization processes, the importance of the knowledge of foreign languages in almost every field of professional and private life is constantly growing. This has had an impact on the policy of many international institutions, including those in the European Union. Supporting language pluralism has been an explicit aim of the European strategy for multilingualism since 2008. The following paper presents the results of an interdisciplinary research study initiated by representatives of two different fields of science: linguistics and political science. Among the generation of young people aged between 18-24, who belong to the so-called Generation Z (White 2017: 224) and were brought up as EU citizens, the study points to a conflict between the perception of foreign language skills and opportunities to develop them using EU funds. The research aims to analyze the awareness of the EU language policy in Poland, combining questions related to people's foreign language portfolio and knowledge about existing possibilities of learning foreign languages, as well as the ability to obtain external financing. The survey was conducted among 100 students of linguistic and non-linguistic studies and enabled the formulation of initial conclusions that are the basis for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws attention to the jubilee scientific conference which was held on 28th November 2014 in Vilnius, in the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania, on the occasion of the 125th birth anniversary of the great Polish linguist Jan Szczepan Otrębski. A one-day seminar in Vilnius was attended by Lithuanian and Polish linguists, as well as politicians who opened the conference, thus emphasizing importance and significance of this event. During the conference nine interesting papers were read out about the life and work of Jan Sz. Otrębski, a linguist who devoted a large part of his life to research of the Lithuanian language. In general, the papers highlighted inter alia the genius of this scholar and his great contribution to the study of both the Lithuanian language as well as the other Indo-European languages. In other words, let background anniversary be a good opportunity to recall the figure of this great scholar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper seeks to investigate how SUCCESS is conceptualized metaphorically in popular American success books, aphorisms and quotes. The study is based on an analysis of a corpus comprising over 600 utterances in which the lexical entry SUCCESS is regarded as constituting part of a metaphorical expression. The utterances have been extracted from the initial corpus of 10 success guide books, as well as 150 success aphorisms and quotes by famous Americans. The study investigates two aspects of this conceptualization. In the first instance, it examines which metaphorical source domains, as understood within the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, prove to be most productive in the corpus. Secondly, in line with the frequently expressed views that the significance of conceptual metaphor as an explanatory construct is sometimes overstated in cognitive linguistic research, the paper attempts to analyze examples of linguistic metaphors which appear to be motivated in ways that are, at least in part, independent of well-established conceptual mappings, with particular emphasis on the resemblance-based and image metaphors associated with the predicate nominative forms 'X is a Y'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper singles out English orientating constructions which refer to constant coordinates meant to position situational changeable entities, e.g. at eye level, on hand, in part, in detail. The analysis of constructions denoting location reveals their entrenchment in mind in the basic – articleless – form representing situation coordinates on the superordinate categorization level. Orientating constructions have two discursive variants depending upon the article in their structure: definite and indefinite. The definite article refers to the reference points imposed by a particular situation which is signalled by the combination of orientating and extending constructions while the indefinite article points to the establishment of new coordinates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of the paper is to examine Polish data from the perspective of Sigurðsson's (2011, 2014) theory of C/edge linking. The crucial point of the theory lies in the hypothesis that phases are equipped with silent edge features which enable narrow syntax to link to context. All definite arguments, overt as well as null arguments, must be successfully C/edge linked, e.g. they have to match at least one feature in the broad C-domain. The present study focuses on utterances in Polish with direct object expressed as pronoun or null.The account proves successful in explaining some distributional patterns of null vs. pronoun objects in Polish. The Polish data investigated in this study indicates that the theory of silent edge linkers providing a communication channel for syntax and context is a step towards understanding the relation between syntax and pragmatics better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reference theory popular in 1970-1990s, which aimed at integrating various forms of semantic determination of lexical units of the language analysed from the syntax perspective, provides the starting point for the author. Quantification and definiteness/indefiniteness were treated in numerous publications from that period as varieties of the same semantic category, i.e. determination of the referential status of nominal groups. The author assumes that both categories demonstrate functional independence, therefore their exponents form opposites. Consequently, the quantification model of definiteness/indefiniteness, cultivated by some researchers, is not supported in the language material, being rather a strictly logical structure. At the same time, the author demonstrates that certain relations and dependencies occur between the two categories. Four aspects of such dependencies: selection, implication, collocation and derivation, are examined in the paper using Polish language materials and materials of other European languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An attempt is made to arrange chronologically the particular stages of the diachronic process of the refinitivization of the infinitive based on their synchronic reflections observable in the contemporary Finnish language. The paper begins with an overview of the morphological and syntagmatic properties of various Finnish infinitive types, and a presentation of the adopted taxonomic approach as opposed to the transformational one. The main part contains a discussion on the details and the substantiation of the particular proposed chronological arrangement of the stages of the process of refinitivization of the infinitive in Finnish. A total of six stages of this process are distinguished, as a consequence of which the connection between the infinitive and finite verb tightens to such an extent that the finite verb metamorphoses into an auxiliary verb, whereas the infinitive metamorphoses into the only carrier of lexical meaning in a new compound verb form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores some ways in which a neo-Reichenbachian time-relational framework can be applied to diachronic data. The target language of this study is Vedic Sanskrit, the language of the sacred texts of Hinduism. The main focus of the paper concerns the evolution of the Vedic past tense system, which at the beginning of the Vedic tradition is aspect-based and later develops into a system where temporal remoteness and evidentiality distinctions determine the distribution of the past tense categories. This language therefore offers a particularly intriguing data set for exploring the diachronic relationship between aspect, proximal tense and evidentiality, a field of diachronic semantics which has only received limited attention in the research literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The primary aim of the paper is to provide a new, derivational analysis of two types of Polish sentences with the occurrence of a particle to, which syntactically code focus and topic. These are: to-clefts (To Janek napisał list. 'It was Janek who wrote the letter'), and topic-to sentences (Janek to napisał list. 'As for Janek, he wrote the letter'). The secondary aim is to reflect on the relevance of the isomorphism of focus markers and non-verbal copulas in Polish with some reference to Hausa. Method: The approach follows a minimalist method but departs from cartographic accounts with dedicated heads in sentence left-periphery. Instead, it postulates that focus and topic are interpretive by-effects of Specification Predication. In this, the paper extends and modifies Kiss's (2006, 2010) central idea that focusing is predication. Result & Conclusion: The account proves successful in explaining a few syntactic constraints, doing so in a simple, unitary fashion. Viewing focus as a derivative of predication is a step towards understanding the relation between narrow syntax and information structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zabrocki understood structural phonetics as a branch of phonetics concerned with analyzing acodal (substantial) systems (cf. Bańczerowski 1980: 13). In this theory, each sound has a specific acoustic and articulatory substance. Zabrocki constructed linear substantial sound structures based on measuring the amount of substance implied in the articulation. Diachronic structural phonetics, in turn, is the application of synchronically defined phonetic and acoustic relations to the study of language change. This paper investigates a synchronic scenario for velar POA assimilation in Latinate prefixation in English and tests the findings against the tenets of Zabrocki's theory. The results show that Zabrocki's structural phonetics perfectly accounts for the empirical findings. The corpus of investigation is comprised of realizations of all RP English Latinate prefixes ending with /n/, collected from various pronunciation dictionaries (online and paper). As a collateral corpus, recordings of two native speakers of English were made in which they produced some of the corpus material, as well as nonce words and unusual lexemes not listed in pronunciation dictionaries [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the course of this paper article I shall depict in what way Jürgen Habermas's application of the discourse theory to the democratic polity transforms the contractarian theoretical framework, presuming, however, that the reader is familiar with the general theoretical framework and the basic concepts characteristic for this political tradition. Moreover, I will also show that the relevance of this transformation consists in delivering a justification of a kind of cosmopolitan constitutionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the primacy of communicative rationality in relation to other forms of rationality and to determine the status of openly strategic actions in the concept of Jürgen Habermas. In the theory of communicative actions, Habermas focuses on actions secretively strategic, recognizing them as "parasitic" in relation to communicative actions and explains the prevalence of communicative actions on the grounds of the theory of speech acts, in particular the concept of illocutionary force, the category of "social binding force", or practice in the lifeworld. By the same, Karl-Otto Apel challenges Habermas that he has skipped explicitly strategic class of actions, which entails the inadequacy of the justification for the status of communicative rationality. This raises a doubt - why should non-strategic actions take precedence over strategic ones? Karl-Otto Apel replies to this question with the help of transcendental-pragmatic procedure of an ultimate justification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to describe one of the theories of man, then of those regarding language and communication. There are many concepts related to these categories. Most of them define man as an independent being from outside, significant external influences. Dialectical materialism goes a different way in which man is a part of material world. Moreover, our language and communication have their roots and exist in the objective environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper surveys a number of selected constructions in Algonquian languages that fall between those expressing transitivity and those expressing intransitivity (Hopper & Thompson 1980; Dryer 2007). So-called passives are mostly agentless and show different kinds of allomorphy in the particular languages. Antipassives are not fully understood yet but seem to be more idiosyncratic than passives, and are not found everywhere in the family. Lastly, systematic mismatches between morphological and syntactic valency (similar to constructions found in Oceanic and other languages) seem to play an important role in the inventory of constructions used to express less than full transitivity in Algonquian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]