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The present study used event-related potentials to investigate whether the processing of grammatical gender agreement involving gender regular and irregular forms recruit the same or distinct neurocognitive mechanisms and whether different grammatical gender agreement conditions elicit the same or diverse ERP signals. Native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese read sentences containing congruent and incongruent grammatical gender agreement between a determiner and a regular or an irregular form (condition 1) and between a regular or an irregular form and an adjective (condition 2). However, in condition 2, trials with incongruent regular forms elicited more positive ongoing waveforms than trial with incongruent irregular forms. We found a biphasic LAN/P600 effect for gender agreement violation involving regular and irregular forms in both conditions. Our findings suggest that gender agreement between determiner and nouns recruits the same neurocognitive mechanisms regardless of the nouns' form and that, depending on the grammatical class of the words involved in gender agreement, differences in ERP signals can emerge.

The present article addresses the following question: what variables condition syntactic transfer? Evidence is provided in support of the position that third language (L3) transfer is selective, whereby, at least under certain conditions, it is driven by the typological proximity of the target L3 measured against the other previously acquired linguistic systems (cf. Rothman and Cabrelli Amaro, 2007, 2010; Rothman, 2010; Montrul et al., 2011). To show this, we compare data in the domain of adjectival interpretation between successful first language (L1) Italian learners of English as a second language (L2) at the low to intermediate proficiency level of L3 Spanish, and successful L1 English learners of L2 Spanish at the same levels for L3 Brazilian Portuguese. The data show that, irrespective of the L1 or the L2, these L3 learners demonstrate target knowledge of subtle adjectival semantic nuances obtained via noun-raising, which English lacks and the other languages share. We maintain that such knowledge is transferred to the L3 from Italian (L1) and Spanish (L2) respectively in light of important differences between the L3 learners herein compared to what is known of the L2 Spanish performance of L1 English speakers at the same level of proficiency (see, for example, Judy et al., 2008; Rothman et al., 2010). While the present data are consistent with Flynn et al.'s (2004) Cumulative Enhancement Model, we discuss why a coupling of these data with evidence from other recent L3 studies suggests necessary modifications to this model, offering in its stead the Typological Primacy Model (TPM) for multilingual transfer. (Contains 2 figures and 8 notes.)

This study aims at verifying whether Portuguese gender-inflected nouns and adjectives are represented as full forms as suggested by Spanish data (Dominguez, Cuetos, & Segui, 1999). A series of lexical decision experiments is reported. Grammatical gender, frequency dominance, and grammatical category are manipulated and cumulative frequency is controlled. The results do not provide support for a full form representation of gender-inflected words. They suggest that grammatical category, or the nature of the inflectional process involved (lexical or syntactic), affects the way words are represented and accessed. Shorter recognition latencies were obtained for nouns drawn from Feminine dominant gender-inflected pairs than from Masculine dominant pairs whereas a tendency in the opposite direction was observed in adjectives. The effect of frequency dominance appears, nevertheless, to be restricted to feminine nouns. The data are compatible with the view that masculine nouns and adjectives are represented as gender-unmarked forms. These results are discussed in relation to current dual-access models of word recognition and to the notion of ''interpretability'' of lexico-syntactic features, as put forward in the Minimalist Program of Generative Linguistics.

Several translations of the novel Ulysses by James Joyce exist in a variety of languages. It was published in 1922 and thereupon translated to German, French, and even Polish and Czech. Three translations of the Irish novel currently exist in Brazilian Portuguese, with a fourth one planned to be published soon. Unfortunately, the circumstances and the translators behind these publications have scarcely been considered outside of Brazil. The analysis of the three Brazilian translations and their usage of proper nouns and Brazilian cultural references reveals important issues according to Lawrence Venuti's concepts of domesticating and foreignizing translations. It addresses current transnational concerns in the fields of modernism, postcolonial literature, and translation by revealing political implications through intertextuality. This analysis is specifically important to marginalized cultures in order to highlight their contributions to Western novels, furthering, thus, the necessity and importance of understanding other perceptions of literary movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Brasileira de Linguística Antropológica is the property of Revista Brasileira de Linguística Antropológica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Brasileira de Linguística Antropológica is the property of Revista Brasileira de Linguística Antropológica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of LIAMES: Línguas Indígenas Americanas is the property of Universidade Estadual de Campinas - Portal de Periodicos Eletronicos Cientificos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper we analyse verbal reduplication in the Amondawa language, focusing on the aspectual function. We argue that verbal reduplication may be linked to Amondawa's cultural values, such as the counting system and the event-based concept of time. We analysed 100 verbal predicates, considering: (i) transitivity (active and stative intransitive and transitive), (ii) semantic properties (state, activity, achievements and accomplishments); and (iii) morphological structure. The results suggest that, for the Amondawa, verbal reduplication presents notions of pluractionality, notably aspectual, and reflects cultural values related to their ways of counting things in the world and their conception of time. Thus, in this language/culture, it is preferable to say that this phenomenon evidences a decomposition of the event into micro-events, rather than verbal plurality. In this sense, reduplication works as a kind of aspectual marker and not as a plural mark, in the strict sense, whether in nouns or verbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of LIAMES: Línguas Indígenas Americanas is the property of Universidade Estadual de Campinas - Portal de Periodicos Eletronicos Cientificos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We use data from a questionnaire study on lexical variation in the German of current inhabitants of three places characterized by immigration from Northern Bohemia in Rio Grande do Sul. Data elicitation for 40 words (mostly nouns) followed the principles of Pluridimensional Dialectology, providing the opportunity to include variants from three steps of elicitation per lexeme (spontaneous answers, additional variants the informants were aquainted with, additional answers suggested by the interviewer) and meta comments. The data are used to take a qualitative look at ways in which the lexicon was changed and expanded in Brazil. The results show that complex contact situations shaped the development of the varieties: Variants from the original dialects are rare. The data suggest that they were frequently replaced by West Middle German and Standard variants. Portuguese loan words play a strong role, especially when they designate items of everyday relevance that were new in the Brazilian surroundings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to analyze the changes during the 19th and 20th centuries in the use of human nominal forms in constitutional provisions of Brazil and Argentina. The analysis is based on theoretical and methodological assumptions of lexicological studies and also considers recent research on general nouns. The corpus is constituted by a set of constitutional provisions from both countries on fundamental rights and guarantees. The results show that the use of general nouns and pronouns (or their elision) are important strategies for generalizations when concerning an onomasiological perspective for the expression of the concept 'human being'. In addition, it is confirmed the hypothesis that the lexical change in the constitutional provisions is related to an extension of the rights of the human person. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much work has been done on the description of the mass/count distinction in different geographical areas, Brazilian Indigenous languages are still highly underrepresented in the field. This paper presents the results of a project that involved researchers describing the mass/count distinction in 15 Brazilian Indigenous languages, based on a questionnaire we prepared in 2016 in order to explore the distribution of bare nouns, plurals, numerals, and quantifiers (see Appendix). Three main observations will be drawn. First, number marking and countability are independent. Second, counting is not restricted to natural atoms. Third, since there seems to be no systematic symmetry in the distribution of plurals, numerals, and quantifiers, we argue that the standard diagnostics for countable vs. non-countable nouns are highly language-specific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a description of the count/mass distinction in Ye'kwana, a Cariban language spoken in Brazil and Venezuela. The methodology used was based on Lima & Rothstein's questionnaire this volume). The data shows that Ye'kwana is a bare noun language and that mass and count nouns can be pluralized. However, numerals need a container phrase in order to be directly combined with mass nouns. Nominal quantifiers wanna and ooje can be directly combined with count and mass nouns, but they show different interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the count-mass distinction in Terena (Aruák, Brazil) by focusing on plural marking availability, numeral and quantifier distribution and cardinal versus volume interpretation in quantity judgment tests. The data collected from the initial research of these features in Terena reveals the relevancy of the count-mass distinction in the language with some signature properties: (i) only count nouns can be directly combined with numerals; (ii) only count nouns can be used with the quantifier êno with the interpretarion of many individuals rather than a large quantity; and finally, (iii) only count nouns can express cardinality of individuals in a comparative sentence such as John has more N than Peter. Plural morpheme distribution is unsuitable for distinguishing count from mass nouns (such as in English) since mass nouns can be pluralized in Terena, provided noun denotations have individuals to allow for number rather than volume quantity interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a description of the count/mass distinction in Taurepang, a Cariban language spoken in Brazil and Venezuela. The methodology used was based on Lima & Rothstein's questionnaire (this volume). We show that Taurepang is a bare noun language and that mass and count nouns can be pluralized. Despite nominal quantifiers have the same distribution, they show different interpretation with count and mass nouns. As the data also shows that numerals distinguish count and mass nouns and that container phrases trigger the count/measure interpretation, we assume here that the denotation of mass nouns in Taurepang cannot be count. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the count/mass distinction in Patxohã, a revitalized language spoken in Bahia and Minas Gerais, Brazil. We observe that only count nouns can be directly combined with numerals and that only count nouns can co-occur with plural determiners. Furthermore, only count nouns can be combined with size adjectives. As for quantifiers, we observe that at least one quantifier in the language (nitxi) can be combined with count and mass nouns, but trigger different interpretations depending on the noun it is combined with. We also discuss the use of container phrases in counting and measuring contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though there is no formal differentiation between count and mass nouns in Mẽbengokre, a Jê language from central Brazil, a contrast can be seen in the coercion that numerals and some quantifiers induce in mass nouns. This coercion, that leads to both a type of and unit of readings, is the only type of discretization of mass concepts that can be done within a noun phrase in the language, as measure classifiers do not exist, something that we argue for in some detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work approaches some grammatical differences in the linguistic expression of counting, measuring, aggregating, and quantity comparison and partition in Kadiwéu, a classifier language spoken in Brazil. This paper brings evidence via the grammar of comparison and partition that the counting/measuring distinction is a genuine grammatical distinction. This work also shows that aggregate nouns in Kadiwéu pattern grammatically neither with substance nouns nor with naturally atomic object nouns. That is, Kadiwéu has a specific grammatical expression for groups as atoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goals of this paper are to describe the grammatical properties of nouns and number in Dâw (Naduhup family, Northwestern Amazonia, Brazil) using Lima & Rothstein's questionnaire (this volume) on mass versus count nouns and to contribute to the typological and semantic literature on nouns and number. Our results show that Dâw is a bare argument language, with no plural on nouns or numeral classifiers, in which all nouns can be counted directly without the need of a measure or container phrase. A difference between notionally count and mass nouns can be found only when different sets of quantifiers are combined with mass and count nouns and in comparatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guató is an isolate, nearly extinct indigenous language. Only two elders, VS and EF, remember it. They both live in the Pantanal (State of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil). Despite the decline in the number of speakers due to farmers' invading land that once belonged to Indigenous people, new research has been conducted, resulting in a description of some aspects of its grammar. This paper shows the distribution of plural affixes, as used by EF. In Guató, all nouns combine directly with numerals, whether these nouns are mass or count. The language grammaticalizes the mass-count distinction only in the interpretation of quantifiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Trabalhos em Lingüística Aplicada is the property of Universidade Estadual de Campinas - Portal de Periodicos Eletronicos Cientificos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose: verifying how the initial lexical acquisition occurs in children with typical development, regarding to types and tokens of the lexical items. Furthermore, one wants to verify if the noun bias hypothesis occurs, and in what version, strong or weak. Methods: the sample consisted of 20 children, male and female, with typical language development. This research covered ages from 1:0 to 1:11 (years: months) divided in three age groups (1:0 - 1:3;29, 1:4 - 1:7;29, 1:8 - 1:11;29). Audio data from spontaneous speech were collected, and after, lexical analysis was performed regarding to types and tokens produced. The Statistical tests Mann Whitney; Kruskal -- Wallis and Wilcoxon were used, with significance level p< 0.05. Results: no statistical significance was found to the variables regarding to sex. However, statistical difference was found between the age group 1 in relation to 2 and 3 to the majority of variables. Furthermore, one verified prevalence of content words in the age groups 2 and 3. The prevalence of nouns over verbs in all age groups was observed. Conclusion: the initial lexical acquisition in children with typical development occurs gradually according to the increase of age. In this period the sex variable doesn't influence in the linguistic performance. Furthermore, the noun bias hypothesis was confirmed in its weak version, confirming the thesis that inspired this research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Acta Comportamentalia is the property of Instituto de Psicologia y Educacion de la Universidad Veracruzana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Cross-linguistic comparison of future constructions (e.g. Bybee et al. 1994) shows that future grams almost invariably derive from verbs involving agent-oriented modality or spatial movement. However, the Hup language of the northwest Brazilian Amazon (Nadahup or ‘Makú’ family) has developed a future gram from a noun: ‘wood, stick’. This paper traces a proposed path of grammaticalization from the free lexeme ‘wood’ to an increasingly abstract ‘generic’ noun in nominal compounds, thence to a purpose adverbial, and finally to a future suffix in verbal constructions. While a nominal source like ‘wood, stick’ for a future gram is typologically extraordinary, each step in this transition is argued to be clearly motivated and consistent with more general cross-linguistic patterns of grammaticalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of this paper is to briefly present some aspects of the noun classification systems of Akwẽ-Xerente (Jê), an indigenous language spoken in Central Brazil. We suggest that the semantic basis of Xerente noun classes is dependent on a knowledge of traditional myths and cultural beliefs, specifically the moieties system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Matses, a Panoan language spoken in Amazonian Peru and Brazil, has a set of 28 monosyllabic forms, representing mostly body parts, which are phonologically attached to the front of verbs, adjectives, and nouns. All Panoan languages seem to have a similar set of morphemes, and there is some controversy about whether these are prefixes or incorporated nouns. Here, this phenomenon is exemplified in detail for Matses, and I argue that while this process might have evolved from noun incorporation, synchronically it should be considered prefixation. This distinction is important for the synchronic interpretation of Matses prefixation as product of grammaticalization and for a comparative-historical perspective of these Panoan forms. Among the characteristics of Matses prefixation that are not consistent with noun incorporation is an applicative-like function, where the prefix allows into the clause an extra constituent that is in a Figure-Ground relation with absolutive arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]