Search

Intercultural communication (ICC) is a dynamic communicative phenomenon due to the cultural value presented in the multicultural communication exchange. The present study aims to explore the intercultural communication between Black and Chinese speakers in the trilogy of Rush Hour. Specifically, this study aims to see the characteristics of Black English and the communicative effects of conversation among speakers of different cultural backgrounds. Through the methods of qualitative descriptive, linguistic behavior is justified to show whether the conventions are acceptable to each community group. The results show that as an American Englishspeaking, Carter, a Black American is more expressive in using English because he is a native speaker, while Lee, as an L2 English from China, faces more communicative barriers. The cultural value of non-standard forms also adorns such conversation, e.g., phonological and sentence structures stigmatization. Not to mention, Chinese surnames produce homonyms with English pronouns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Relative to rhythmically abnormal NN compounds, normal compounds elicited a larger N1 and a larger N400 when they were in semantically congruent conditions, and semantically congruent compounds elicited a larger LPC in rhythmically normal conditions. • Rhythmic patterns and semantics interactively affect the reading processing of Chinese NN compounds. • Rhythmic patterns exerted a distinct meaning-modulating effect, namely, the abnormal rhythmic pattern tends to reduce the semantic acceptability of NN compounds. The collocation of a monosyllable and a disyllable stands as a distinctive prosodic feature of Chinese. Whether rhythm is the decisive factor for acceptability of the collocation is still controversial in Chinese linguistics. This study has investigated this issue by exploring the influence of rhythmic patterns (2 + 1 disyllable + monosyllable vs. 1 + 2 monosyllable + disyllable) on the reading of Chinese noun-noun compounds (NN compounds) through an event-related potential (ERP) experiment. We found that, in terms of behavioral data, rhythmic patterns exerted a distinct meaning-modulating effect, namely, the abnormal rhythmic pattern (1 + 2) tends to reduce the semantic acceptability of NN compounds. ERP data showed that, the normal rhythmic pattern (2 + 1) elicited a larger N100 component than the abnormal one in semantically incongruent conditions; a rhythm-modulated N400 component was followed by a later positive component (LPC) associated with the re-analysis of compounds. Both behavioral and ERP data revealed a greater cognitive effort required to process NN compounds when semantics and rhythm were incongruent. These findings indicate that rhythmic patterns and semantics interactively affect the reading processing of Chinese NN compounds, and that rhythmic expectations may prevail in the semantic processing of Chinese compounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Target domains in original and translated texts show crosslinguistic similarities. • Metaphorical mappings in original and translated texts show crosslinguistic similarities. • Lexicalization of source domain differs by language in original vs translated texts. Speakers across different languages structure a similar set of target domains (e.g., emotions, time, ideas) as spatial motion, relying on the same metaphorical mappings (abstract concept as moving entity ; abstract concept as location). These crosslinguistic similarities co-occur with crosslinguistic differences in the lexicalization of the source domain, with some languages encoding manner more frequently than others. But do these patterns of similarities and differences extend to translations of written texts? In this study, we analyzed metaphorical motion expressions from novels written in typologically distinct (German vs. Spanish) vs. typologically similar languages (German vs. Polish) and their translations into a language from the opposite (German vs. Spanish) or the same typological group (German vs. Polish). We observed strong crosslinguistic similarities in target domains and metaphorical mappings and systematic crosslinguistic differences in the lexicalization of the source domain, with translations largely adhering to the patterns of the target language. Our findings thus suggest that translations of metaphorical motion events to a target language—be it of a similar or a different typological group—follow the same patterns in the target and source language in structure (mappings) but adhere to the patterns of the target language in the lexicalization of the metaphorical event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theoretical linguistic treatments of the intrusive-s of popular Dominican Spanish (yo[s] tuve.

The goal of the present study is to provide a direct comparison of the results of informal judgment collection methods with the results of formal judgment collection methods, as a first step in understanding the relative merits of each family of methods. Although previous studies have compared small samples of informal and formal results, this article presents the first large-scale comparison based on a random sample of phenomena from a leading theoretical journal (Linguistic Inquiry). We tested 296 data points from the approximately 1743 English data points that were published in Linguistic Inquiry between 2001 and 2010. We tested this sample with 936 naïve participants using three formal judgment tasks (magnitude estimation, 7-point Likert scale, and two-alternative forced-choice) and report five statistical analyses. The results suggest a convergence rate of 95% between informal and formal methods, with a margin of error of 5.3-5.8%. We discuss the implications of this convergence rate for the ongoing conversation about judgment collection methods, and lay out a set of questions for future research into syntactic methodology. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.

This article aims to identify Muhammad's linguistic characters as a speech partner and speaker in the Quran with language ethics education. Objects of this research are verses in Quran translation texts containing Muhammad's role as a speech partner and speaker. Data were collected using observation and documentation techniques and analyzed using the referential identity method. The study found that Muhammad's characters as a speech partner and speaker in Quran translation texts contain many educational values applicable to language ethics. They include: utilizing trusted source as information basis of using language, being a trustworthy communicator of language, integrity in language and faith, not accusing without accurate information, applying proper respect to speech partners, utilization of positive tone, using the language for harmony. In conclusion, in Quran translation texts, Muhammad's linguistics characters can be utilized in language ethics education as a source of values that can be universally understood and accepted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the interactional uses of the oath-expression waḷḷāhi 'by God' in Egyptian Arabic. Based on everyday conversational data (Arabic CALLHOME), and drawing on conversation-analytic and interactional linguistics methods, the analysis shows that waḷḷāhi rarely introduces a solemn act of swearing; rather, it is conventionally used as a marker expressing or inviting the expression of commitment and certainty. waḷḷāhi can occur in turn-initial and utterance-final position, where it frames or modifies the current speaker's contribution, or as a freestanding response token. In epistemically divergent contexts, waḷḷāhi serves to resist the other party's assumptions or claims about a certain state of affairs by asserting commitment to a different state of affairs, or by questioning the certainty of the prior speaker. Commitment indexed by turn-initial tokens is relativized to the speaker's potentially restricted access and rights to knowledge, and is therefore more reserved; utterance-final tokens do not invoke this subjective reference and serve to express absolute commitment. In epistemically congruent and affiliative contexts, waḷḷāhi undergoes indexical reanalysis and is interpreted as an index of involvement, earnestness, and interest. The analysis aligns with a widely observed path of semantic and pragmatic development of discourse markers whereby markers come to assume more specific relational functions as they extend to new contexts of use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Ourself and themself are not merely non-standard variants of ourselves/themselves. • These forms instead reflect productive expressive choices. • Other mixed number self pronouns are also attested. • Number morphologies can be combined creatively for expressive purposes. • Language users deploy signals and meanings to meet their communicative goals. Previous scholarly work on the pronouns ourself and themself describes them as variants of ourselves and themselves. In this paper, attested tokens of ourself and themself are examined, and the contexts in which they appear are analyzed. This analysis shows that these forms, and even some less frequent examples of other mixed-number self pronouns, occur where this combination of singular and plural morphology fits the communicative context. While prescriptive pressures limit their frequency, the existence of these data falsifies the claim that number morphology in self pronouns is grammatically constrained. Instead, the data show that the distribution of ourself and themself reflect expressive choices that speakers (and writers) make to facilitate communication, and provide support for a view of grammatical categories, even those commonly regarded as syntactically or semantically determined, as independent bearers of meaning. Speakers' creativity in the use of these forms reveals the nature of the linguistic system, as well as its structure as a set of signals and meanings deployed by language users to meet their communicative goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This study aimed to verify a computational phonetic and acoustic analysis tool created in the MATLAB environment. A dataset was obtained containing 3 broad American dialects (Northern, Western and New England) from the TIMIT database using words that also appeared in the Swadesh list. Each dialect consisted of 20 speakers uttering 10 sentences. Verification using phonetic comparisons between dialects was made by calculating the Levenshtein distance in Gabmap and the proposed software tool. Agreement between the linguistic distances using each analysis method was found. Each tool showed increasing linguistic distance as a function of increasing geographic distance, in a similar shape to Seguy's curve. The proposed tool was then further developed to include acoustic characterisation capability of inter dialect dynamics. Significant variation between dialects was found for the pitch, trajectory length and spectral rate of change for 7 of the phonetic vowels investigated. Analysis of the vowel area using the 4 corner vowels indicated that for male speakers, geographically closer dialects have smaller variations in vowel space area than those further apart. The female utterances did not show a similar pattern of linguistic distance likely due to the lack of one corner vowel /u/, making the vowel space a triangle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • The common-base approach was followed to analyse the causative alternation in JA. • The causative alternation could be morphologically and semantically constrained. • The morphological constraint provides the necessary condition for the alternation. • The semantic constraints provide the sufficient conditions for the alternation. • The constraints proposed for JA may equally apply to other varieties of Arabic. Abstract The current study aims to provide a description of the causative-anticausative alternation in Jordanian Arabic (henceforth, JA), focusing on the structural, morphological and semantic characteristics of causative and anticausative verbs. I adopt a non-derivational approach (i.e. the common-base approach), in which the two variants share a single root to account for the alternation in JA. The fact that JA exhibits two processes, i.e. causativisation and anticausativisation, with distinct morphological markings, provides evidence that neither a causativisation analysis nor an anticausativisation one accounts for the behaviour of verbs in JA. The analysis shows that the causative alternation in JA could be morphologically and semantically constrained. The constraints proposed for the causative alternation in JA may equally apply to other varieties of Arabic such as Standard Arabic, Iraqi Arabic and Libyan Arabic. The main difference between JA and other varieties of Arabic in terms of the causative alternation lies in the morphological markings on some verbs. Investigation of the mechanisms for the causative alternation in Arabic is relatively new and this work sheds additional light on the morphological coding and the semantic constraints governing these mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of internal evidence from primarily the use of imperfective forms and external evidence from primarily first language acquisition, it is argued that English, Russian, and French aspect differ from one another, because they go back to an obligatory choice among three possible communicative directions: should a grammatical category be grounded in the speaker's experience of a situation, in the situation referred to or in the hearer as information about the situation? The progressive vs. non-progressive distinction in English is acquired in the present tense of atelic (simplex) verbs as a distinction within imperfectivity between the speaker's visual or non-visual experience. It is first-person oriented. The perfective vs. imperfective distinction in Russian is learnt in the past tense of telic (complex) verbs as a distinction between two complex situations in reality, an event and a process. It is third-person oriented. French aspect in written discourse is a three-way distinction between one imperfective form, imparfait , and two perfective forms, passé composé and passé simple , which present a deductive, abductive and inductive argument to the reader. It is learnt in school and is connected to the meta-distinction between atelic (simplex) and telic (complex) verbs. It is second-person oriented. The specific order arrived at reflects the Peircean categories of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness and their predictions. This can account for the fact that the English and Russian types can be found in the same language (e.g., Chinese) and the Russian and French types, too (e.g., Georgian), but never the English and French types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article intends to conduct a corpus-based study on the correlation between technicality and two typical ideational metaphors in English texts, i.e., nominalization which is typical experiential metaphor and verbalization which is typical logical metaphor. A general distribution pattern of the typical ideational metaphors within the contexts of genre and discipline was investigated in the BNC. Based on this general pattern, the use of typical ideational metaphors was investigated, both in the academic papers of natural sciences and social sciences written by Chinese users of English as a foreign language (EFL) and those by native English users. The first investigation based on the BNC shows that typical ideational metaphors are not only genre sensitive but also discipline sensitive, and the technicality of text is determined by the use of verbalizations rather than by that of nominalizations. The second investigation based on the research papers shows that native English users write more technical English than EFL Chinese users, and among the four groups of research papers, the EFL Chinese science papers are farther from the native English science papers than the EFL Chinese linguistic papers from the native English linguistic papers in technicality. This research is of implication to the discipline-based English training of the non-native English learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to assess the assumption that number transcoding processing is driven by the linguistic properties of verbal number systems, through the analysis of errors produced by a Basque–French bilingual adult with aphasia, in a number dictation task. In particular, it was predicted that errors would not be the same in Basque and French given their respective differences in the formation of numbers (Basque has a vigecimal regular system whereas French has a decimal irregular system). A 44-year-old Basque–French bilingual patient with aphasia, and a control subject, were assessed on a dictation task. The task consisted in hearing Basque or French numbers, and writing them in Arabic numerals. Results show that the patient produced different errors in each language. The errors can be explained in terms of the different linguistic properties of the Basque and French numeral systems. That this could be observed in one and the same bilingual individual, whose two languages use different numeral systems, suggests the involvement of distinct transcoding processes respective to the particular language in which numbers are being processed. This highlights an interaction between language and number representation and processing, a new and active field of inquiry in contemporary cognition research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the issue of segmental distribution and patterns with reference to the gemination processes in Sanskrit and Assamese within an Optimality theoretic model ( Prince and Smolensky, 1993 ). Segmental properties inherent in a segment and cross-linguistic well formedness conditions play a significant role in triggering gemination. The underlying liquids and approximants /j/, /r/, /l/, and /w/ trigger gemination of the preceding obstruents in Assamese. However, what has been conspicuously observed in synchronic Assamese grammar is that, in the surface forms, /j/ gets dropped in gemination and a process of metathesis occurs in the form of an insertion of a vowel before the geminates. The process is analyzed in an Optimality theoretic model and I have proposed the ranking *CCG>>MAX C>> Linearity to represent the phenomenon. However, we need one more markedness constraint *V[back, round]glides to address the issue of obstruent geminates followed by approximant ‘w’. In such cases ‘w’ gets dropped in the surface form, and we do not get any process of metathesis operating here. Actually, what happens is a consequence of the fact that metathesis is not possible because Assamese does not allow / ɔw / or /Vu/ diphthongs. Hence, I propose that the constraints *V[back, round]glides, *Cw are higher ranked over [Max Round>>Max W] and Linearity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether V + V combinations in Jordanian Arabic (JA) and English could be classified as either serial verb constructions (SVCs) or V + V compounds. Through applying the cross-linguistic criteria of SVC, which have been established in the relevant literature, it seems that V + V combinations in JA and what have been considered as V + V compounds in English satisfy all the criteria of SVC. The analysis shows that the criteria found in the literature to identify compounds and SVCs show a great deal of overlap, especially with regard to the fact that both types of construction are inseparable. We argue that the criteria discussed in this paper and in much of the literature to identify SVCs are necessary, but insufficient, conditions for SVC-hood. Alternatively, we propose that as far as JA and English are concerned, SVC and V + V compounds may exist on a continuum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we consider optional /r/ drop as attested in colloquial Georgian. Three distinct simplification patterns are attested in colloquial speech: (a) No /r/ drop. We argue that there are three main factors blocking /r/ drop in #C1rC2: the OCP, faithfulness to word-initial coronal obstruents and homonymy; (b) Optional /r/ drop. We argue that optional /r/ drop occurs in contexts where there is little overlap between C1 and C2. Hence /r/ drop does not create any retrieval problems for C1 and it applies optionally; (c) Assimilation applies after /r/ drop takes place. The patterns and direction of assimilation are determined by the strongest percept, in this case by glottals, which have a strong release. The analysis of #C1rC2 simplification demonstrates that in colloquial Georgian /r/ is the consonant undergoing deletion and C1 is the segment undergoing assimilation in the majority of cases. Both processes, /r/ drop and assimilation can only apply where there is minimal deviation from the input, not threatening C1 retrieval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we followed an emergentist view on the acceptability of “want to” contraction in both comprehension and production of Subject Extraction Question (SEQ) and Object Extraction Question (OEQ). Earlier experimental work (e.g. Bailes, 2000 ) showed that such a contrast is not robust for EFL learners. To study this hypothesis, one hundred EFL learners were randomly chosen among advanced EFL students. They were given two types of tests. One was a grammaticality judgment test, and the other was an elicited production test. The results showed that EFL learners had a propensity to contract “want to” both in OEQ and SEQ wherever want and to were adjacent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides a detailed description of the relationship between linguistic diversity and biological diversity (biodiversity henceforth). For the sake of ease of the presentation the paper has been organized into sections. Each section begins with a question. In Section 2 that follows the Introduction, diversity and its various types have been described. The third section deals with attitude, in general, toward diversity. Section 4 compares linguistic diversity with biodiversity, while Section 5 compares the pace of extinction between language and living organism. Sections 6 and 7 discuss linguistic diversity across the world and in India, respectively. Linguistic landscape in India has been discussed with reference to diversity in language and script and features of Indian multilingualism. The next three Sections 8–10 attempt to answer the questions, such as – why linguistic diversity occurs, how is it assessed and how languages are lost? Consequences of language loss and concern for language revitalization have been discussed in the last two Sections 11 and 12 of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the beginning of the Sephardic diaspora in the Ottoman Empire, Judeo-Spanish has been in contact with different languages, both romance and others. The lexical borrowings from these languages are a characteristic element of Judeo-Spanish, especially the Hebraisms of the classical period (until the beginning of the 19th century) and the Gallicisms of the modern period (from the middle of the 19th century onward). The results of these language contacts have seldom been analyzed from a syntactical point of view, a fact that reflects the general lack of detailed studies about Judeo-Spanish syntax. The aim of this paper is to summarize the results of language contacts that can be observed in the concessive and concessive conditional clauses in modern Judeo-Spanish texts, published between 1880 and 1930. First, we see an increase and a diversification of the concessive conjunctions due to the contacts with Western European languages, especially Italian. Second, a linguistic innovation in the concessive conditional clauses reflects the fundamental changes in the language contacts of Judeo-Spanish between the 18th century and the modern period, as well as the modernization of Judeo-Spanish that characterizes its transformation during the last decades of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thematic structure is considered as one of the elements of discourse that can be explored especially in the process of translation. Therefore, this study was an attempt to investigate and analyze the thematic structure of English news and their Persian translated version exploiting both descriptive and quantitative approaches. Correspondingly, 1000 clauses in English and 1095 translated clauses in Persian were collected from the University of Tehran Persian-English Comparable Corpus (UTPECC). Then, the extracted data were analyzed adopting Halliday and Matthiessen's (2014) classification of thematic structure. The results of the Chi-square test highlighted a significant difference between various theme types in both corpora except for topical, multiple, elided and interpersonal-topical themes. Moreover, the results were calibrated with a descriptive analysis of the clauses of both corpora showing that there were two major alterations to the thematic structure in the process of translation including changing of themes into rhemes or vice versa as a general trend which realized through some structural procedures. All the structural procedures and a significant difference between the theme types in both corpora showed that the canonical form of Persian structure was preferred over keeping the English thematic structure in the translation of English news text into Persian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present article it is argued that the first instances of linguistic communication between early humans were characterised by the use of consciously invented signs. This position is in contrast with what is probably the mainstream view on the subject, which holds that language is the result of a biologically acquired communicative ability that spontaneously, instinctively, began to manifest itself in the mouths or hands of the very first language users. By highlighting the inextricable link existing between linguistic production and conscious thought, I claim that the first true linguistic items that appeared on the evolutionary scene could never have been generated had a higher level of consciousness not come to characterise the human mind, enabling it to perform ‘thinking about thinking’. Key to this novel mental capacity was the acquisition of a new type of representational system accessible to conscious awareness. The view of language emergence suggested here inevitably clashes against some important theories about language and its evolution. By placing conscious meaning right at its core, it rejects, for example, syntatctocentric approaches to language. It also distances itself from accounts of language evolution which predict linguistic forms to have arisen before linguistic meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aims to challenge MacSwan's (2000, 2005, 2010) Minimalist model of intra-sentential CS on theoretical grounds. It argues that his conception of CS as a ‘union’ of, at least, two lexically-encoded grammars (Gs) constrained by the requirements of ‘mixed Gs’ is a Minimalist version of the Equivalence Constraint. It argues that the logical consequence of employing the Minimalist Program as theoretical framework is to view CS, instead, as ‘mixing’ of, at least, two language-specific halves (Lexicons) through the language-independent Computational System of Human Language (C HL ) to produce a ‘well-formed’ grammatical structure which is externally counted as an expression of one and only one G; hence, no ‘hybrid’ expressions, no ‘mixed Gs’. Likewise, MacSwan's Phonological Form Disjunction Theorem is conceptually redundant as the default design of the C HL itself restricts CS within X 0 , and, consequently, turns out to be as much an unmotivated CS-specific grammatical postulate as is the Free Morpheme Constraint a CS-specific constraint. With its elimination, the differences between monolingual and bilingual linguistic competence are logically reduced only to an additional L, enabling a bilingual speaker to produce an infinite number of well-formed sentences which are counted as expressions of either Gx or Gy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores changes of verb valency by means of noun-incorporation. We claim that noun-incorporation in English manifests itself in verbs formed by compression and backformation, such as to baby-sit, to head-hunt, to whistle-blow , and denominal verbs formed by transmutation, for example to doctor, to nest, to knife . Analysis of more than 6500 contexts with English incorporation complexes taken from corpora has shown that noun-incorporation in English leads to simple or complex change of valency. Semantically a sentence with noun-incorporation can be either complicated, due to extra connotations and metaphorical meanings of incorporation complexes, or simplified, due to reduction of semantic valency and morphosyntactic reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of the study is to get comprehensive understanding of English reading instructional process which can increase English reading competence of students at Master program, Faculty of Tarbiya and teacher training UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta. The component of instruction consists of instructional objective, form and function of text, instructional procedure, form and function of instructional activity, the role of student and teacher, and evaluation in reading instruction. This research is a qualitative study done in May of 2013-2014 academic year. The data is collected by using the techniques of observation, interview and document analysis. The data is analyzed by taxonomy analysis and theme analysis. The result shows that the English reading instruction runs well. It can develop student's reading competence based on their academic need to understand academic English texts. It is done by using many kinds of texts with three reading procedures namely pre reading, whilst reading and post reading. These procedures facilitate the students to be able to use interactive process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of Arabic syntax and the foundation is essentially in the Arab world there is a group that reconstruct the foundation in order to prepare syntactic and group developing pedagogical syntax essentially Arab and foundation combined with Western linguistics, but do not link it with language learning. This article would describe the concept of syntax as a basic foundation of Arabic linguistics epistemology that could be the basis of linguistic pedagogical education in Arabic. Furthermore, this article would identify its application in the preparation of teaching materials for students of pedagogical syntax Indonesia. While the study of Arabic syntax and essentially foundation in Indonesia, many educational institutions Arabic ignore their correlation. Based on linguistic approach to educational and library data analyzed by the text of discourse found that the basic foundation of Arabic syntax is the sama', qiyas, ijma', ta'lil, ta'wil, istihsan 'amil and istishhab. The application of the basic foundation of syntax as the basis for the preparation of learning materials is a pedagogical syntactic analysis of the basic foundations of syntax in generating syntax, allowance rules of syntax, classification of syntactic descriptive elements, comparing element with Indonesian and Arabic syntax and arrrange the teaching materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores what cultural cognition of 'marriage' is metaphorically conceptualized in Indonesian expressions. This paper has two questions. Firstly, what cultural cognitions of 'marriage' are encoded in the use of metaphorical expressions in Indonesian? Secondly, how such cultural cognition of 'marriage' is metaphorically conceptualized in Indonesian expressions? The analysis and discussion of this exploration basically follow (i) the principles of embodiment in Cognitive Linguistics and (ii) the logic of cultural conceptualization in Cultural Linguistics. Both serve as the primary bases to analyze the problem of the study. The paper is expected to contribute to the present linguistic study in two-fold benefits. Firstly, it presents the discussion of the cultural cognitions of marriage represented in Indonesian metaphorical expressions. Secondly, it discusses the methodological issues of (i) how to understand the relation between culture and language and (ii) how to uncover any cultural representations in linguistic metaphors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From a cross-linguistic perspective, Citko and Gracanin-Yuksek (2013) argue that three approaches should be available for the coordinated wh -question (CWH): the mono-clausal approach, the bulk sharing approach, and the non-bulk sharing approach. This paper aims to reveal the nature of the CWH in Japanese, which has not received much attention in the literature, and argues that none of those approaches capture properties of CWHs in Japanese. Alternatively, a backward ellipsis approach is investigated and it is shown that the backward ellipsis approach overcomes the problems which the other approaches face. One of the arguments for the backward ellipsis approach is crucially based on the generalization that case particles cannot be stranded via scrambling. This paper also suggests that this generalization is captured in terms of labeling, adopting Saito's (2014) proposal that the function of Case in Japanese is to make a phrase invisible for labeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distinction in relevance theory between two kinds of encoded meaning, conceptual and procedural, has evolved so that more and more components of encoded meaning, both linguistic and non-linguistic, are now taken to be procedural (non-conceptual). I trace these developments and assess the extent to which these diverse elements share properties that distinguish them from concept-expressing words. While the notion of procedural encoding has lost some of its original distinctiveness, it may make sense to think of all encoded meaning as procedural (including the meaning of concept-expressing words), but this necessitates the drawing of new clarifying distinctions among kinds of procedural meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My aim in this paper is to reassess the conceptual–procedural distinction as drawn in relevance theory in the light of almost thirty years of research. In Section 1 , I make some comparisons between approaches to semantics based on a conceptual–procedural distinction and those based on a distinction between truth conditions and conditions for appropriate use. In Section 2 , I present a brief history of the conceptual–procedural distinction as drawn in relevance theory. In Section 3 , I consider the nature of procedural encoding and discuss whether it is best seen as semantic or pragmatic. In Section 4 , I outline some parallels and differences between procedural and use-conditional accounts of interjections. In Section 5 , I discuss the implications of the conceptual–procedural distinction for lexical pragmatics and consider some recent proposals about how it might be extended. In Section 6 , I reassess the conceptual–procedural distinction in the light of current evolutionary approaches to cognition and point out some future directions for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Similes achieve poetic effects in virtue of the fact that they communicate explicit comparisons. This has been described as the ‘standard view’ of how similes are understood within relevance theory ( Wałaszewska, 2013 ), although it has only recently been developed at length ( Gargani, 2014 , Cf. O’Donoghue, 2009 ). In this paper I defend the standard view of similes as poetic comparisons, and argue that whatever like in similes encodes, it is the same as like in formally equivalent non-poetic comparisons. On my account, the assumption that metaphors and similes are understood in broadly the same way is false, but the content of similes which corresponds to the ad hoc concept communicated as part of the explicature by a metaphor (where applicable) can be captured in terms of a notion of comparison-relevant content. I end by comparing this account with an alternative proposal to explain simile within relevance theory by Wałaszewska (2013) . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In everyday conversation, both children and adults have an expectation that the speaker is telling the truth. In reality, however, this expectation is not always fulfilled, and both children and adults are equipped with a capacity for epistemic vigilance, i.e. a capacity to assess the speaker's trustworthiness in order to avoid being misinformed. The hearer's assessment of the speaker's trustworthiness is based on two criteria: his ability to provide true information and his benevolence toward the hearer. In two studies, we investigated how young children use these criteria, by focusing on two indicators of trustworthiness: linguistic expressions of speaker certainty, and personal familiarity. In the first study, both 3- and 4-year-olds were successful in distinguishing the degree of speaker certainty expressed by linguistic indicators and using it to assess the trustworthiness of the speaker. In the second study, children's ability to assess the speaker's trustworthiness on the basis of his attitude of certainty was further scrutinized. When pitted against personal familiarity, children's bias toward the certain speaker was modified in 5-year-olds but not 3 year-olds. The difference between the two age groups suggests that epistemic vigilance consists of a set of distinct components, with different developmental timelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main question raised in this article is why movement of a phrase makes its copy left behind invisible for labeling. Adopting the assumption that movement consists of Copy and Merge, I propose that copying a phrase makes the original inactive in syntactic computation. I argue that this makes it possible (i) to derive the effects of the Phase-Impenetrability Condition on the assumption that Transfer involves Copy, (ii) to provide an account of that-trace effects in English, and (iii) to account for Rizzi's (2006) criterial freezing, as manifested in overt wh -movement in English. I further argue that the proposed system of labeling can be made compatible with the Agree-less approach, recently advocated by Hornstein (2009) , with the assumption that feature-checking is conducted in labeling in terms of agreeing features. This brings us a nice consequence of properly dealing with the optionality of raising to object in the English ECM construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]