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Objective: Studies have demonstrated a morphological decomposition process in the initial stages of visual word recognition based on orthographically defined morphemes and independent of semantic and lexical information. The present study sought to investigate this phenomenon in adult Brazilian Portuguese-speaking readers. Method: Participants performed a lexical decision task preceded by primes at two Stimulus Onset Asynchrony (SOA): 33 or 250 ms. The primes had one of the following relations with the target word: morphological (porteiro [DOORKEEPER]–PORTA [DOOR]), morpho-orthographic (cordeiro [LAMB]–CORDA [ROPE]), orthographic (abril [APRIL]–ABRIU [OPENED]), semantic (abelha [BEE]–MEL [HONEY]), or no relation (pessoa [PERSON]–DADO [DICE]). Results: Priming effects were observed for the morphological and semantic conditions at both SOAs but not for the orthographic and morpho-orthographic conditions. Conclusion: Our results suggest that semantic representations mediate morphological priming in Brazilian Portuguese since the early stages of visual word recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates prosodic and contextual differentiation strategies between preverbal past tense negator neva and adverb never in Hawai'i Creole. It aims to demonstrate differing syntactic restrictions and advocates for treating these words as two distinct morphemes. The analyses are based on phonological data gathered from interviews uploaded onto YouTube by Hawaiiverse, a Local podcast. As demonstrated through spectrogram analyses, HC néva (=ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ) is marked by a stressed accent on its first syllable and prominence on word-initial /n/, whereas neva (=ᴅɪᴅɴ'ᴛ) is marked by a lack of these features under typical circumstances. This suggests that Hawai'i Creole morphophonology depends more on stress-timed features than previously researched (cf. syllable-timed features). Neva-néva ambiguity may arise when stress does not clearly indicate which word is being used, and when context cannot be relied upon to distinguish meaning. By exploring these intricacies, this investigation offers insight into how future researchers may approach analysing other English-lexified creoles (and varieties of English) which also use never as a preverbal past tense negator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Adults recognize words that are acquired during childhood more quickly than words acquired during adulthood. This is known as the Age of Acquisition (AoA) effect. The AoA effect, according to the integrated account, manifests in tasks necessitating greater semantic processing and in tasks with arbitrary input-output mapping. Compound words allow us to investigate this account due to the arbitrary input-output mapping between the compound word itself and its morphemes, which requires greater semantic processing. Method: Forty-eight British English students in each experiment completed an unspaced (Experiment 1; n = 48; 83% female; Mage = 19.73), spaced (Experiment 2; n = 48; 83% female; Mage = 19.04), auditory (Experiment 3; n = 48; 63% female; Mage = 19.83), and cross-modal (Experiment 4; n = 48; 52% female; Mage = 19.81) lexical decision task (LDT) using a regression design on 226 compound words. Results: We observed that the AoA of the compound word affected accuracy across all tasks, whereas the AoA of the compound word influenced recognition latencies across all tasks except cross-modal LDT. Discussion: The results suggest that the influence of the AoA effect and of semantic predictors is largest in unspaced compound words and smallest in cross-modal LDT. This indicates that the AoA effect in word recognition is in line with the integrated account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hangul is widely categorized as a classic example of a morphophonemic orthography, in which each morpheme receives a single spelling, even if its pronunciation varies from context to context. This paper makes the case that Hangul is in fact a hybrid orthography that adheres to a morphophonemic strategy for spelling consonants but adopts the conventions of a phonetic writing system for representing vowels. Various explanations for this arrangement are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on two South Slavic languages, Bulgarian and Macedonian, which are famously exceptional among Slavic languages for having no case declension on non-pronominal nouns or adjectives and for having post-nominal articles. In this paper, I explore a different (and far less recognized) property of these languages that also makes them distinctive, not only among Slavic languages but among most, if not all, natural languages. I trace the historical development of the Bulgarian and Macedonian degree morphemes po- (comparative) and naj- (superlative), which are not only of interest from a traditional philological perspective but furthermore present complex issues with respect to a synchronic analysis of degree adjective morphology. Specifically, I address Bobaljik's (2012) Containment Hypothesis, which states that superlative degree modifiers are morphologically derived directly from comparative degree modifiers. I investigate the Bulgarian and Macedonian degree quantifier series 'many-more-most' – Bg: mnogo-poveče-najmnogo and Mac: mnogu-poveќe-najmnogu – which appear straightforwardly to contradict his claim and provide evidence that this exception arose due to a diachronic shift which may still be underway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Listeners adapt to the speech rate of talkers. Many studies of speech rate adaptation have focused on the influence of rate information on the perception of word segmentation or segmental perception in English. The effects of immediately adjacent (i.e., proximal) information are generally strong on the perception of both segments and segmentation, but the effects of rate information temporally remote from (i.e., distal to) ambiguous speech signals are less clear, especially for segments. The present study examines the influence of distal rate adaptation on the perception of geminate consonants in Arabic that straddle a morpheme boundary (i.e., heteromorphemic geminates). Participants heard sentences that at one point were ambiguous to the presence of the Arabic definite clitic al, which, under certain circumstances, can be realized as gemination of the subsequent word-initial consonant. The sentences were either recorded with or without the clitic and with three possible distal speech rates in the context of the clitic. They transcribed the sentences and reported what they heard, and those transcriptions were analyzed for the contribution of the original recording and the distal speech rate on the perception of al. It was found that the perception of geminates in Arabic is rate dependent. This extends the knowledge of the effects of distal rate cues to Arabic, showing that Arabic geminate consonants are perceived relative to the rate of the distal context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the need to integrate students' full linguistic repertoires into literacy instruction in middle and high school classrooms. Traditional monoglossic approaches often neglect the linguistic assets multilingual students bring, limiting their academic potential. Drawing on translanguaging theory, this paper explores three strategies—bilingual morpheme mapping, comparative morphological analysis, and multilingual word walls. These strategies seek to enhance vocabulary instruction by utilizing students' home languages and ultimately cultivating a deeper understanding of word formation and meaning. The benefits of such approaches extend beyond multilingual students, offering all students more comprehensive vocabulary knowledge across disciplines. While the advantages of these methods are evident, the paper also identifies limitations and calls for further research to explore the long‐term impacts on literacy development. By advocating for professional learning focused on translanguaging and morphological instruction, this paper highlights the need to incorporate word strategies that enhance literacy for all students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis study examined the independent contribution of morphological awareness and orthographic awareness in reading comprehension, controlling for working memory and reading fluency in Arabic-speaking children. Participants (N = 244) from grades four and five, were classified into typical comprehenders (n = 207) and poor comprehenders (n = 37). All the participants underwent reading comprehension tasks (sentence comprehension and reading maze), orthographic awareness tasks (word choice and parsing), morphological awareness test (root morpheme awareness), working memory test (listening sentence span), word reading fluency, and word reading accuracy and fluency (reading in one minute). The results indicated that morphological awareness and orthographic awareness contributed significantly to reading comprehension (composite scores) only in the typical comprehenders group. Although morphological awareness showed significant predictive relation with reading comprehension, orthographic awareness was a stronger predictor of reading comprehension while controlling for working memory and reading fluency. The findings are discussed, and future directions for research are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article confronts a multifunctional grammaticalized form in Mandarin, the preverbal morpheme yǒu (有). Since its appearance in the Chinese mainland around the 1990s, there has been controversy about whether it is an aspect marker or not. In response to this question, we conducted a questionnaire survey to investigate how native Mandarin speakers generally understand sentences with preverbal yǒu. The results not only show that preverbal yǒu can serve as a perfective viewpoint marker that makes the terminal boundary of an event semantically visible, but also provide evidence of its other function as an existential marker. The concrete function of preverbal yǒu (perfective or existential) depends on pragmatic inference based on the temporal properties of a given situation. With this observation, the paper resolves the controversy of which of these two functions actually applies to preverbal yǒu, and integrates this marker into the broader context of pragmatics-based multifunctionality as it is widely found in Sinitic and mainland Southeast Asian languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines Zellig Harris's 1946 work "From morpheme to utterance," highlighting its departure from the structuralist framework of immediate constituency. Topics discussed include Harris's rejection of traditional syntactic analysis, the introduction of substitution techniques for morpheme sequences, and the implications of his approach for contemporary grammatical theory.

The article presents a formalized procedure for describing utterances based on sequences of morphemes rather than individual morphemes, aiming to provide a compact description of utterance structure in a language. Topics discussed include the classification of morphemes through substitution, the challenges of syntactic analysis due to a lack of explicit methods, and the implications of treating repeated morphemes as single units in syntactic description.

Learning the meaning of words entails also understanding the meaning of the morphemes in them. With the goal of providing evidence on the learning of new morphemes at very young ages, for this study we designed a preferential attention task with the participation of children aged 18, 24 and 30 months. During the training, they were presented with objects that had a wavy or straight cutout, with each kind of cutout associated with a pseudo-morpheme (-sa or -go) in a set of pseudo-words. In each phase of the trial, both kinds of cutouts were presented in new objects as the children listened to a new pseudo-word with one of the pseudo-morphemes in which they had been trained. The results indicated that the children were able to associate the pseudo-morpheme -go with its referent, especially at 18 and 30 months old. The possible effects of whether or not the morphemes in the task are regular are discussed; however, evidence was found in favour of the children having the ability to identify a new morpheme and associate it with its meaning, a fundamental skill in learning morphology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a new characterization of the Null Subject Parameter (NSP). I contend that the NSP must be modeled referring to two main properties of the Agree/agreement systems: (i) presence/absence of abstract Agree, and (ii) presence/absence of agreement dissociation at PF. The first property results in the division between radical argument ellipsis languages of the Japanese type and consistent null subject languages of the Spanish type, including languages like Central Trentino, i.e., languages with some obligatory clitic subjects but with rich agreement and free inversion. The second property results in the division between consistent null subject languages and consistent non-null subject ones. The agreement dissociation hypothesis also accounts for the partial null subject type, which characterizes languages like Brazilian Portuguese that have impoverished agreement expansion at PF (perhaps, only for number features). From a theoretical point of view, this study focuses on the agreement dissociation property showing why abstract Agree cannot guarantee subject ellipsis even in those perplexing cases in which it produces enough agreement distinctions at PF. The reason is that only an expanded agreement morpheme adjoined to the T0 node can serve as a licit antecedent for ellipsis of a subject D0 head at PF. Therefore, the theory derives the bimorphemic principle in Koeneman and Zeijlstra (Koeneman, Olaf & Hedde Zeijlstra. 2021. Pro-drop and the morphological structure of inflection. Ms. Available at: https://www.heddezeijlstra.org/bio) without further ado, i.e., the observation that null subject properties correlate with a bimorphemic T0 node expressing tense and agreement separately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study describes and analyzes the morphosyntactic expression of the Southern Zazaki Ezafe – a linking element in the nominal domain common among Iranian languages. This morpheme is used to link modifiers (i.e. adjectives and possessors) to their head nouns as follows: n-ez1 mod1-ez2 mod2-ez3 mod3. Southern Zazaki, like other languages of the Kurdish region (and unlike, e.g. Persian) reflects phi-features (and case) of the head noun on each Ezafe morpheme in a noun phrase. This paper is focussed around two morphosyntactic puzzles that arise in Southern Zazaki. First, while the Ezafe marker in general reflects the case of the entire DP, the presence of a possessor produces invariant oblique case, regardless of the case value assigned to the DP externally (Paul, Ludwig. 2009. Zazaki. In Gernot Windfuhr (ed.), The Iranian languages, 545–586. Routledge; Todd, Terry Lynn. 2002. A grammar of Dimili. Also known as Zaza. Stockholm: Iremet Forlag; Toosarvandani, Maziar & Coppe van Urk. 2014. The syntax of nominal concord: What Ezafe in Zazaki shows us. Proceedings of NELS 43(2). 209–220 i.a.). Second, Southern Zazaki uniquely employs a separate series of "D-form" Ezafe morphemes in certain syntactic contexts (Keskin, Mesut. 2010. Zazaca üzerine notlar (Notes on Zazaki). In Şükrü Aslan (ed.), Herkesin Bildiugi Sır: Dersim. Iletisim, 221–244; Paul, Ludwig. 2009. Zazaki. In Gernot Windfuhr (ed.), The Iranian languages, 545–586. Routledge; Todd, Terry Lynn. 2002. A grammar of Dimili. Also known as Zaza. Stockholm: Iremet Forlag; Werner, Brigitte. 2018. Forms and meanings of the Ezafe in Zazaki. In Saloumeh Gholami (ed.), Endangered Iranian languages. Reichert Verlag i.a.). This study aims to provide a cohesive analysis of Ezafe in Southern Zazaki both with respect to its general phi- and case-sensitive realizations, as well as the distribution of D-forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper means to re-examine the source of incompleteness for a clause with a bare verb as predicate and no other markings in Mandarin. I propose that the reason comes from the need for categorial labels at the syntax-semantic interface to produce a clear interpretation. Since there are no grammatical affixes marking category V available in Mandarin, it has to make use of functional morphemes which shape their complement space categorially. The result is that overt (or at least inferable) morphemes from the extended projections of VP must occur to assign category V for the predicate phrase, while a root needs merge with degree morphemes to be a predicate adjective. The analysis shows that some issues traditionally related to finiteness may have a pure syntactic account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An intriguing phenomenon in Korean vocative constructions has not received comprehensive attention in the generative literature: in the vocatives, the morpheme -i undergoes drop, and its absence hinges on its immediate adjacency to the vocative marker -(y)a. This article contributes to the literature by demonstrating that this drop is an instance of morphosyntactic haplological dissimilation. Specifically, I identify two ϕ-features, ϕ[−HON: intimate] and ϕ[animate], and propose the morphosyntactic *<ϕ,ϕ> constraint on the -i drop, targeting adjacent matching ϕ-features. This constraint rules out the illicit sequence of *-i-(y)a because both morphemes share matching ϕ-features and their exponents are immediately string-adjacent, resulting in the -i drop. This analysis offers theoretical insights into the mechanisms underlying the haplological dissimilation pertaining to ϕ-features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Verb‐marking errors such as she play football and daddy singing are a hallmark feature of English‐speaking children's speech. We investigated the proposal that these errors are input‐driven errors of commission arising from the high relative frequency of subject + unmarked verb sequences in well‐formed child‐directed speech. We tested this proposal via a preregistered corpus analysis and asked at what level the effects occur: Is it the relative frequency of specific subject + unmarked verb sequences in the input that is important, or is it simply that verbs become entrenched, such that their frequency of appearance with any third person singular subject accounts for errors? We found that the best predictor of children's verb‐marking errors is the relative frequency of unmarked forms of specific subject + verb sequences. Our results supported the proposal that children's apparent omissions of certain grammatical morphemes are in fact input‐driven errors of commission and provided insight into the mechanisms by which this occurs. A one‐page Accessible Summary of this article in nontechnical language is freely available in the Supporting Information online and at https://oasis‐database.org. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study documents and assesses the Tool for Automatic Measurement of Morphological Information (TAMMI), which calculates measures related to basic morpheme counts, morphological variety, morphological complexity, morpheme type-token counts, and variables found in the MorphoLex database (Sánchez-Gutiérrez et al., 2018) including morpheme frequency/length, morpheme family size counts and frequency, and morpheme hapax counts. These measures are assessed in two studies that include a word frequency measure as a control variable. The first study examined links between morphological variables and judgements of reading ease in a corpus of ~ 5000 reading excerpts, finding that variables related to derivational variety, word frequency, affix frequency, and morpheme counts explained 40% of the variance in the reading scores. The second examined links between morphological variables and human assessments of vocabulary proficiency in a corpus of ~ 7000 essays written by English-language learners (ELLs), finding that the number of morphemes, morpheme variety, and the number of roots explained 21% of the variance in the human assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Derivational affixes are not always automatically classified into functional or lexical categories. Although they are treated differently in various approaches, a shared view contends that the status of a suffix is controversial when it forms categorially incoherent words. However, it is debatable even when it forms words of a single category. This study argues that the Bifurcated Lexical Model proposed by Joseph E. Emonds is promising in this respect. With two subcomponents of the lexicon that, respectively, store functional and lexical morphemes, the model allows an affix to behave both as a functional and a lexical morpheme. This study demonstrates that the model can successfully account for the properties of the deverbal noun-forming suffix -ment in Present-Day English. The -ment nouns newly retrieved from the Oxford English Dictionary Online include instances in which -ment attaches to non-verbal elements and converted words. While such nouns may pose potential challenges to the perspective of an affix as a functional morpheme, their existence is not surprising but rather predictable within the model that allows for the flexibility of an affix in the dichotomy between functional and lexical categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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It is well established that children's reading comprehension is driven, at least in part, by their awareness of morphemes, or the smallest units of meaning in language. The question of how it does so is largely open; this mechanistic knowledge would specify theories of reading comprehension and guide effective classroom instruction. We report here on a longitudinal study designed to test two candidate mechanisms by which morphological awareness might support the development of reading comprehension: use of morphemes to read words and to understand words, known as morphological decoding and analysis, respectively. We tracked the development of 221 children on key measures from Grades 3 to 5. These three-wave longitudinal data enabled us to test morphological decoding and analysis as mediators connecting morphological awareness to gains in reading comprehension over time. Structural equation modeling showed that morphological awareness contributed to gains in both morphological decoding and analysis. Critically, only morphological analysis mediated the contribution of morphological awareness to gains in reading comprehension between Grades 3 and 5. These findings elaborate predictions of the morphological pathways framework. Specifically, longitudinal modeling shows how morphological awareness supports children's developing reading comprehension: by enabling the use of morphemes to read and understand words, with effects on the understanding of words supporting children's growing skill in understanding texts. Evidence supporting these two specific mechanisms inspires the design of targeted teaching on morphemes toward the development of strong reading comprehension. Educational Impact and Implications Statement: Prior research has established that children's awareness of roots and suffixes in words helps them to understand texts. Here we work out how it does so in a study in which we follow children over time to look at long-term effects. We uncover that children's awareness of roots and suffixes supports them in understanding challenging words, which in turns enables stronger progress in understanding texts. These findings identify two targets for instruction that are likely to support children's reading comprehension: awareness of roots and suffixes and using them to understand words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a semantic analysis of control verbs in Japanese that take finite clauses marked by the nominalizer koto. We argue for an analysis in which the invisible subject of the embedded clause is a run-of-the-mill zero pronoun and where the obligatory coreference relation between the controller and the embedded subject is mediated by a primarily semantic factor. At the heart of our analysis lies the idea that there is a common underlying meaning shared across apparently heterogeneous classes of koto-taking control verbs, which consists of a causal relation between a volitional action inherent in the meaning of the verb and a de se attitude denoted by the embedded clause. The semantic analysis we offer not only explains language-internal properties of Japanese control verbs with respect to tense morpheme distribution that have been attributed to syntactic factors in the previous literature, but it also suggests a hitherto unnoticed possible cross-linguistic generalization about finite control and embedded tense interpretation which we dub 'hypothesis of relative tense in finite control.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates region-specific inflectional morpheme frequencies within the ICNALE Corpus, exploring significant global linguistic intricacies. Through a quantitative, corpus-based approach, it conducts a comprehensive contrastive analysis, leveraging the extensive accessibility of the online ICNALE. Despite inherent limitations in data collection primarily reliant on interviews and written compositions within the ICNALE Corpus, the study offers illuminating insights into how diverse linguistic backgrounds influence the usage of inflectional morphemes in English. The findings bring to light interesting patterns in possessive usage, reflecting variations among ESL learners in acquiring grammatical features. Additionally, it highlights complexities in acquiring comparative and superlative degrees, aligning with challenges encountered by learners in mastering specific inflections. Analyses of plural noun inflections, subject-verb agreement, past tense, past participle, and present participle usage underscore the multifaceted influences of language background, acquisition stages, and instructional emphasis on learners' morphological patterns. Future inquiries could further investigate the impact of instructional methodologies on inflectional morpheme acquisition, undertake comparative studies across proficiency levels and age groups, explore morphological transfer from learners' native languages, and deepen comprehension of cognitive processes guiding effective learning strategies. These endeavors hold promise in refining pedagogical methodologies and enriching language learning experiences for diverse learner cohorts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Morphology plays a crucial role in students' language acquisition. This study delves into the distinctions between inflectional and derivational morphemes, aiming to enhance comprehension of these concepts. By investigating word creation processes and observed alterations, the study illustrates the profound impact of prefixes and suffixes on words, shedding light on their significance in language learning. Students frequently require clarification when distinguishing between inflectional and derivational morphemes during learning. To enhance comprehension of this subject, this present study initially investigated the definitions and subcategories of these two terms outlined in various literary sources. Next, it provided a concise overview of the critical distinctions between inflectional and derivational morphemes. These analyses aim to determine the word created by derivational morphemes, the word formed by inflectional morphemes, the process by which the specified word is formed, and the types of observed alterations. The author implements the descriptive qualitative approach. It will discover that each morpheme possesses its function and influences the base word's meaning, word class, or grammatical function. This study illustrates the impact of prefixes and suffixes on words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is concerned with imperfective suffixes in Russian. It argues that there are at least three imperfective suffixes, the progressive morpheme, the iterative marker and the habitual suffix. It is shown that they differ in morphosyntactic and semantic properties. As to their structural properties, the progressive suffix is the lowest marker; the iterative morpheme attaches in a higher position; and the habitual morpheme is structurally the highest element. Thus, the article argues against a unitary approach to the iterative suffix and the habitual morpheme. Semantically, the iterative suffix has a pluractional meaning, whereas the habitual suffix is a vague generic quantifier. As to their phonological properties, the three markers are homophonous; they are spelled out as an -yva- allomorph. In this respect, the suffixes differ from the morphological aspect operator encoding (im)perfectivity in the aspectual head, which is phonologically empty. Further, it is shown that there are certain prefixes in the verbal morphosyntactic structure that are placed between the progressive projection and the iterative projection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates young children’s acquisition of functional categories through their use of negative words and negative auxiliaries in particular. Drawing from CHILDES, we analyze twelve months of spontaneous speech by 14 children (youngest age 1;9, oldest age 3;1) and their mothers, in order to assess whether children’s earliest negative productions are morphological combinations and reflect possession of abstract syntactic categories or are instead input-driven formulae. In five analyses we show that (i) two-year-olds use a wide and overlapping range of negative and positive auxiliaries; (ii) the range of the negative auxiliaries children produce is strongly correlated with the range of the positive auxiliaries they produce; (iii) children’s most common negative auxiliary, don’t, is used grammatically with respect to the syntactic category being negated and with respect to overt markings of tense; (iv) children’s subject agreement errors with don’t are mirrored by subject agreement errors with do, have, and haven’t; and (v) children omit auxiliaries with not at rates that cannot be attributed to properties of their input. Our findings support the hypothesis that children’s earliest negations are syntactically adult-like and reflect the possession of abstract syntactic categories. By age 2, English-learning children productively combine auxiliary, negation, and tense categories and syntactically differentiate different negative morphemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the evidential system of Khams Tibetan, a cluster of Tibetic languages spoken in the south-eastern Tibetosphere, should be considered a verb paradigm. We propose a paradigm with six evidential categories (egophoric, statemental, visual sensory, nonvisual sensory, sensory inferential, and logical inferential) for all the verb classes. We focus on two varieties – rGyalthang and Lhagang – and examine how these evidential categories are encoded with distinct morphemes. We then discuss the main evidential forms of the copulative and existential verbs available in Khams Tibetan varieties as a whole, as well as their morphological relationship. Our analyses lead us to argue against a differential treatment of evidentiality depending on verb categories. The article concludes that describing the evidential paradigm may be the first essential task in writing a grammar of a Tibetic language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hybrid formations are forms of word formation that can be attributed to various factors and make a relevant contribution to the expansion of the German vocabulary. Globalisation, cultural interactions and new scientific findings can be cited as the origin of hybrid formations. The consequences of the creation and use of hybrid words are numerous, such as such as easier communication and perception, triggering of positive connotations and associations, language economics. The focus of this study was on the frequency of occurrence of nominal hybrid words and their orthography, as well as on the origin of the hybrid word components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terms of address in Turkish spontaneous pet-directed speech and those reported by the same pet-owners in questionnaires were compared with a focus on the proportion of diminutive and hypocoristic morphemes attached to various types of bases in order to see whether different data collection methods revealed different patterns of language use. The results showed that pet owners used diminutive and hypocoristic morphology along with the possessive marker in their spontaneous interactions to express endearment. While hypocoristic forms occurred with similar frequency in both sets of data, pet owners were less likely to report diminutives in their questionnaire responses although they used them in their spontaneous interactions. This is attributed to the use of diminutives to express the type of empathy, which could be easier to establish in spontaneous face-to-face communication. This attribution correctly predicted that stigmatized inverse address forms, as well, were rare in questionnaire responses. • A novel contribution to the study of the asymmetrical nature of communication between pets and pet-owners. • One of rare studies on pet-directed speech in Turkish, a non-European language. • One of rare morphopragmatics studies on diminutives and hypocoristics in Turkish. • A comparison of two sets of data and methods of data collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper combines field investigation and phonetic experiments to study the monosyllabic tone and tone sandhi of the Jino language as spoken in Baka village. The study found that the phenomenon of tone sandhi in bisyllabic words of Jino language has describable rules: from a diachronic perspective, morphemes with the same historical origin exhibit the same tone alternation characteristics when constructing words, while morphemes with different historical origins exhibit different tone alternation characteristics. Morphemes derived from the *Proto-Lolo Tone 1 reorganize the metrical relationship between morphemes in word construction, resulting in unstressed and stressed tones. From the perspective of synchronic phonological analysis, the obligatory contour principle restricts the occurrence of tones in bisyllabic words. In addition, this paper also proposes some new views on the historical development of tones in Jino language from an empirical perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempted to explore the effect of applying three associative vocabulary instruction strategies (context-based, morphemic analysis and concept map) compared with the traditional strategies on the intermediate EFL learners' vocabulary development employing a quasi-experimental, quantitative, pretest/post-test design. With the aid of an English proficiency test and a researcherdeveloped vocabulary test the homogeneity of the participants were checked before the study's treatment. Subsequently, 80 intermediate EFL learners were chosen via convenience sampling procedure from private language schools and recruited for the study and divided into four groups of 20 as the experimental and control participants. The experimental participants were taught the target lexical items with the aid of contexts, concept maps and morphemic analyses while the control participants experienced the traditional instruction (i.e., L1 equivalent provision, word lists, flashcards and memorization). The same vocabulary test was administered this time as the post-test to check whether there was a significant difference in the learners' attainment for the taught lexical items. The performance of the participants on the vocabulary post-test was analyzed both descriptively and inferentially (a MANOVA, an ANOVA and an independent-samples t-test). It was revealed that all the associative vocabulary teaching strategies were significantly more efficient than the traditional vocabulary teaching strategies. Moreover, it was found that concept mapping was the most efficient instructional strategy for teaching the lexical items compared with the traditional strategies and other associative strategies for the intermediate EFL learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language plays a critical role in isiXhosa poetry. Through the play and interplay of morphemes, words, phrases and lines, poets carry their messages to the intended audience. In investigating five (5) isiXhosa poems, we discovered that poets do use language that denigrates women. This language manifest itself in isiXhosa poetry by words, phrases, and lines that paint women as gold diggers, robbers, lacking intellect, promiscuous, properties of men. The discovery was made through the use of qualitative research approach and critical discourse analysis design. The selected data was analysed through the lenses of African feminism, which examines the experiences of women in literature, such as oppression of women, traces of gender inequality, role of women, as well as representation of women. Main findings of the study demonstrate that language used in isiXhosa poetry upholds the ideals patriarchal ideology and logic. It uses language that is gender bias, sexist and anti-feminism. This form of language contributes to gender-based violence, as it represents women as objects of men, lacking intellect, promiscuous. In this paper, we recommend that poets find alternative language in criticising women; using language that uphold dignity of women will not compromise their message. Furthermore, poems that uses language that denigrate women must not be selected to be studied in basic education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In English, a number of verbs enter a noteworthy, though understudied, combination with a morpheme it, which evidently lacks a referential function. Among these verbs, there are quite a few which were formed from nouns by means of conversion (e.g. to bus it, to au pair it, to verse it, to newspaper it). While some authors assume that the expletive morpheme it in direct-object position functions to enhance a verb's transitivity, the most recent diachronic study has shown that its influence on transitivity is rather marginal. If transitivization is not the driving force behind the use of the 'verb + it' construction, the question as to other functions arises. The aim of this article is to present a new proposal according to which the expletive element is primarily (though not exclusively) an aspectual marker, which, in contrast to the bare verb, expresses telicity (e.g. to bus vs. to bus it). In this function, this element provides the verb it complements with a temporal endpoint. Proceeding from a distinction between (a)telicity and (un)boundedness drawn in the pertinent literature, it will be shown that this endpoint may or may not actually be reached. The aspectual function of the expletive element it is assumed here to co-exist with other functions identified in the few previous works and in the present study. These functions, which are independent of telicity, comprise the expression of necessity, the intensification of activities, the preservation of the verse metre especially in literary texts, and the support of the verbal status of innovative or weakly established denominal conversion verbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research on the Old Slavonic hymnographic texts, translated from Greek, made clear that they exist in two versions or two redactions dating from the age of the First Bulgarian Kingdom (the tenth century). The article discusses the second redaction of the Old Bulgarian Office Menaia. The following types of corrections which characterize the second redaction, are analyzed. 1. Replacing Greek words with Old Church Slavonic ones; 2. Using fixed counterparts for some words and morphemes, such as: благ- for εὐ-; дѣ- for εργ-; блаж-т- for μακαρίζω; мъног- for πλεον-; прав- for ὀρθ-; прьв- for ἀρχ-; рад- for χαιρ-; слав- for δοξ-; сътѧжат- for κτάομαι; трьп- for μεν- (in place of страд-); тѣло for σῶμα (in place of плъть); 3. Reproduction of the morpheme structure of the Greek words, such as translating composita and prefixed words with words of the same structure; 4. Using grammatical counterparts of the Greek words, such as translating the nomina agentis and the abstract nouns with words of the same grammatical classes; 5. Choosing synonyms of the Old Church Slavonic words according to the context; 6. Corrections of mistakes. Many of the features of the second redaction of the Office Menaia are identical or similar to the features of the Preslav redaction of the Gospel, Apostolos and Psalterium. Most probably the second redaction of the Office Menaia was made in Preslav literary center. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Languages show variation in the encoding of plurality in the domain of foodstuffs. Some foodstuffs are lexicalized by singular mass nouns (e.g., garlic) and others by plural count nouns (e.g., beans). In the paper it is argued on the basis of German and Russian that there is no difference in meaning between these two forms: both denote aggregates as clusters of objects. Since objects are built into clusters, they are inaccessible for counting and both types of nouns uniformly behave like mass nouns. Such a uniform behavior would be unexplainable if these forms differed in meaning and the plural form were a regular count plural. This investigation suggests that two types of plural have to be distinguished: the mass aggregate plural, which indicates a clustered plurality of objects, and the count plural, which designates sets of disjoined objects. Regular plural markers may in principle be ambiguous between these two interpretations. However, if a plural marker is attached to a singulative or unit-denoting morpheme of a noun, the plural is unambiguously interpreted as count plural. The mass aggregate plural may receive a special morphological marking in some languages, as in Russian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While speed is a secondary parameter in some associated motion systems, some languages have verbal affixes dedicated to the encoding of speed – celerative markers. Celeratives can encode both quick and slow speed and are in some languages even the main or the sole way of expressing this meaning. However, some morphemes not only encode speed, but also other types of action manner, in particular hurry or suddenness, following colexification patterns also observed in the lexicon crosslinguistically. This paper provides a first overview of this category in the world's languages, and more generally suggests that action manner constitutes a set of comparative concepts that can be be encoded morphologically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article "Two Coptic grammatical morphemes of unknown origin" Carsten Peust discusses the etymology of two Coptic morphemes whose origin has remained unclear until today. These are the n-prefix of the so-called adjective verbs and the particle ⲡⲉ, which often accompanies the preterite converter. It is suggested that both have arisen through a false segmentation of contexts in which their predecessors typically occurred. The use of these morphemes is a distinguishing criterion between Demotic and Neo-Egyptian Egyptian. [Extracted from the article]

Relational nouns have been studied extensively, typically under the rubric of inalienable possession. Such nouns are typically bound to presupposed referents by an anaphoric morpheme indicating person and number. In Oceanic languages, one large class of relational nouns is linked contingently to nonhuman entities that are routinely specified in the utterance. However, another large class is linked noncontingently to presupposed human referents that typically need not be specified in the given utterance. In this paper, I propose that, in East Mekeo, the latter class of nouns corresponds with (and reveals to the investigator) the main parameters of the Mekeo self and its social world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many Oceanic languages, middle and reciprocal meanings are expressed by reflexes of Proto-Oceanic *paRi-, a polysemous and polyfunctional prefix with collective, associative, iterative, and reciprocal functions. Traditionally, reflexive constructions in Oceanic languages were marked differently from middles and reciprocals. Where reflexes of Proto-Oceanic *paRi- show a lower productivity or disappeared, Oceanic languages co-opted available morphemes and constructions to express the functions once performed by the prefix. In terms of polysemes, along with the middle/reciprocal one, which is rooted in the history of these constructions, two paths of extension developed over time: (i) from middle/reciprocal to reflexive (with reflexes of Proto-Oceanic *paRi-), and (ii) from reflexive to reciprocal, but different from middle (with innovated markers). The aim of this paper is twofold: (i) to provide a description of middles, reflexives, and reciprocals in Nalögo, a Reefs–Santa Cruz Oceanic language, and (ii) to contribute to the discussion on the typology and diachrony of such constructions within the Oceanic family. In particular, I show that Nalögo has two innovated markers, the reflexive =lëbu (maybe from Proto-Oceanic *[ta]bulo(s) 'turn round, turn back') and the reciprocal - welo. Furthermore, Nalögo displays a so-far unknown path of semantic extension within the Oceanic family: from reflexive to middle. While the reflexive–middle polysemy is widely attested in the languages of the world, it constitutes a typological rarity in Oceanic languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can brief training on novel grammatical morphemes influence visual processing of nonlinguistic stimuli? If so, how deep is this effect? Here, an experimental group learned two novel morphemes highlighting the familiar concept of transitivity in sentences; a control group was exposed to the same input but with the novel morphemes used interchangeably. Subsequently, both groups performed two visual oddball tasks with nonlinguistic motion events. In the first (attentional) oddball task, relative to the control group, the experimental group showed decreased attention (P300) to infrequent changes in the morpheme‐irrelevant dimension (shape) but not the morpheme‐relevant dimension (motion transitivity); in the second (preattentive) oddball task, they showed enhanced preattentive responses (N1/visual mismatch negativity) to infrequent changes in motion transitivity but not shape. Our findings show that increasing attention to preexisting concepts in sentences through brief training on novel grammatical morphemes can influence both attentional and preattentive visual processing. A one‐page Accessible Summary of this article in nontechnical language is freely available in the Supporting Information online and at https://oasis‐database.org [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this paper, we present data from an elicitation study and a corpus study that support the observation that the Yucatec Maya progressive aspect auxiliary táan is replaced by the habitual auxiliary k in sentences with contrastively focused fronted objects. Focus has been extensively studied in Yucatec, yet the incompatibility of object fronting and progressive aspect in Yucatec Maya remains understudied. Both our experimental results and our corpus study point in the direction that this incompatibility may very well be categorical. Theoretically, we take a progressive reading to be derived from an imperfectivity operator in combination with a singular operator, and we propose that this singular operator implicates the negation of event plurality, leading to an exhaustive interpretation which ranks below corrective focus on a contrastive focus scale. This means that, in a sentence with object focus fronting, the use of the marked auxiliary táan (as opposed to the more general k) would trigger two contrastive foci, which would be an unlikely and probably dispreferred speech act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with uses of certain morphemes, most notably the past, to represent meanings of distance from reality in modal expressions. This class of morphology has been identified with the names subjunctive, fake tense, fake past, modal past and is referred to here as X-marking, after von Fintel and Iatridou (Linguist Philos, 2020). X-marking has been most studied in the context of English conditionals however, it is well-known that the morphology is observed in many non-English languages and can appear in various other types of constructions, including counterfactual desire expressions. I motivate two desiderata for theories of X-marking in pursuit of an analysis that unifies the phenomenon across expression types and languages. I then develop a novel, formally explicit analysis of X-marking which I show to satisfy these desiderata while providing greater empirical coverage of well-known cases compared to existing accounts. The proposed analysis makes use of modal presupposition projection together with pragmatic inference via Maximize Presupposition to provide a unified treatment of X-marking in English conditionals and counterfactual desires expressions of English featuring wish. I show how previous proposals for X-marking cannot satisfy these desiderata, making them insufficient for a unified account. Lastly, I introduce a hypothesis that all varieties of morphology that can be used as X-marking cross-linguistically-including past, imperfective, plural and habitual-are vacuous in both their X-marked and ordinary uses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using visual spectrographic examination of vowel nasalization to diagnose the syllabic affiliation of phonologically ambisyllabic nasal consonants (e.g., gamma), Durvasula and Huang [(2017). Lang. Sci. 62, 17–36] argued that anticipatory vowel nasalization in these words patterns with word-medial codas. Using nasometry, the current study finds that anticipatory nasalization before monomorphemic and multimorphemic (scammer) ambisyllabic nasals differ from word-medial coda (gamble) and word-final nasals (scam), but not from other intervocalic nasals. Additionally, vowel nasalization is sensitive to the manner of the preceding phoneme. These findings demonstrate that quantifying anticipatory nasalization using nasometry differs from visual spectrographic criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research explored how Vietnamese EFL third-year students used the inflectional morpheme –s marking plural nouns (PN–s) and the third-person singular in the present tense (3SG–s) in opinion essays. 32 students each wrote an opinion essay about the topic of Facebook within 45 minutes as a progress test. The collected essays were analyzed for the use of PN–s and 3SG–s. 10 of the students who had completed their writing task were subsequently interviewed in an in-depth semi-structured format. The results revealed that students used PN–s and 3SG–s correctly in most of the obligatory contexts. Yet they used PN–s more accurately than 3SG–s. Omission was the most common error students made, and they omitted 3SG–s at a higher rate than PN–s. In view of the plural morpheme, omission of the orthographical plural variant –s was significantly higher than that of –es and of –ies. Incorrect use rarely occurred. But when it did, it was only found with PN–s, which also had a higher rate of oversuppliance than 3SG–s. In the interviews, the students reported having explicit knowledge about the target morphemes, but different factors related to the meaning-making process involved in essay writing contributed to omission or misuse. The study offers important pedagogical implications for writing instruction and teacher feedback that enhance the use of the target morphemes in written language production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The V de resultative construction has been an intriguing issue in Chinese linguistics. Theories have been put forth regarding what the morpheme de (here called deresult to avoid confusion) does in this construction. In this article, the preexisting theories are empirically questioned. It is shown that the presence of deresult is not obligatory when the result predicate takes some special forms. A procedural account is proposed of how the typical V deresult construction and its variants deliver the same logical form although they involve different functional morphemes. As a bonus, this account provides an improved model explaining the phenomenon that the V deresult construction can have multiple readings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the textuality of Aesop's fable "The Farmer and The Snake" focusing on the analyses of its morphologic segmentation linearity. This study utilizes structural analysis as the method in analyzing data. Findings reveal that the linear morphologic segmentation of morphemic contents of Aesop's fable "The Farmer and the snake" reveals thirty-two (32) lexical morphemes of eleven (11) simple form(roots) and twenty-one (21) complex forms (roots and affixations) and sixteen (17) grammatical morphemes broken down as follows: six (5) prepositions, five (5) pronouns, one (1) conjunction, one (1) particle, two (2) determiners, and three (3) auxiliaries. Based on the findings, it can be said that Aesop's fable follows morphologic segmentation linearity as shown above based on its textuality. It is recommended that second language instruction should include linear morphologic analysis of the segmentation of the content and function words in varied textualities to aid vocabulary development. Further, it is proposed that the other linguistic investigations like the syntactic and phonetic morphologic segmentation linearity should also be done to better analyze and understand the textuality of Aesop's fable "The Farmer and The Snake". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to show that properties of cognitive/conceptual representations and formal‐logical structures of linguistic meaning can be inter‐translated, recast, transformed into one another, and so united together, even though cognitive/conceptual representations and formal‐logical structures of linguistic meaning are apparently distinct in ontology and divergent in their form or character. While cognitive/conceptual representations are ultimately rooted in sensory‐motor systems, formal‐logical structures of linguistic meaning are abstractions detached from and independent of the actualized world. This paper sketches out the foundations of how representations of linguistic meaning in terms of cognitive/conceptual structures in Cognitive/Conceptual Semantics can be unified with those in terms of formal‐logical structures in Formal Semantics. This is done by recasting cognitive/conceptual representations in terms of formal‐logical structures of linguistic meaning and re‐encoding formal‐logical structures of linguistic meaning in terms of cognitive/conceptual representations. Then, these two types of semantic representations, thus shown representationally equivalent, will be related to a series of derivations across levels in neuronal networks and dynamics. The general discussion on unifying cognitive/conceptual representations of linguistic meaning with formal‐logical structures is contextualized within the broader context of theorizing in cognitive science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the expression of mistaken beliefs – as in for example the boy mistakenly believes that the turtle is dead (whereas in fact it is alive) – in the Indigenous languages of Australia. It is shown that some mode of expressing this meaning is attested in around 40% of the languages in a selection of 149 language varieties. In over 90% of the languages showing some mode of expressing the target meaning, it is – or can be – achieved through grammatical morphemes or constructions more or less dedicated to the expression of mistaken beliefs. These include particles, enclitics and various types of complement construction involving verbs of thinking, that frequently also convey meanings of saying, doing and hearing, rarely that specify the thought as mistaken. In just four or five languages, however, the meaning is attested only as a pragmatic implicature of a general statement of belief. To the extent possible given the limitations of the sources, the paper examines the range of meanings and uses of the morphemes/constructions expressing mistaken beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spanish has two forms to introduce comparative standards: que 'that' and de 'of.' The comparative morpheme is always the same más '-er/more.' While que-comparatives show no variation in their syntactic properties, there is significant variation within de-comparatives regarding extraposition, scope, ACD resolution and the syntax of comparative numerals. Despite this variation, I argue that a uniform account is possible. I propose that más has the same syntax across the board (i.e. it takes the late-merged standard as complement, Bhatt and Pancheva 2004) and semantically it is a generalized quantifier over degrees (Heim 2001). The analysis (i) ensures that más and the standard form a constituent, (ii) allows for inverse scope, ACD resolution inside the standard of comparison and extraposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]