Search

Directional prefixes, prevalent in Tangut and modern Qiangic languages, play a crucial role in expressing tense-aspect-modality and spatial meanings. Tangut directional prefixes are classified as belonging to either perfective (Dir1) or optative (Dir2) paradigms, but polyfunctional prefixes have puzzled scholars. The prefix ... ·jij1-, traditionally viewed as optative, has been observed since Kepping (1985) to also express the durative aspect. Drawing evidence from Tangut internal sources, in particular from an under-explored indigenous text, The Ode on Monthly Pleasures, this paper proposes the existence of a Dir1 prefix ... ·jij1-, potentially related to the yod unspecified directionals found in modern Gyalrongic. The proposed Dir1 prefix ... ·jij1- is homophonous with the optative (Dir2) prefix ... ·jij1- and would have served as the source for the grammaticalization of the durative ... ·jij1-. This work refines previous reconstructions of Tangut directional paradigms, and offers insights into the diachrony of tense-aspect-modality in Gyalrongic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Acta Linguistica Lithuanica is the property of Institute of the Lithuanian Language 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.)

Northern Songhay languages are known for combining Songhay and Tuareg-Berber features. Nicolaï (1979) divided these languages into nomadic and sedentary sub-branches, something which Benítez-Torres and Grant (2017) confirmed, bears out very well from a grammatical standpoint. This paper explores some of the interactions between Songhay and Berber vocabulary by looking at suppletion in Tagdal, a nomadic Northern Songhay language. In Tagdal, suppletion occurs when a verb root of Songhay origin is replaced by one of Berber origin whenever a Berber derivational prefix is present. It will be demonstrated that when Tagdal was in its formative period, the prosodic features that came along with the Songhay and Berber portions of the language made it either easier or necessary to keep the two apart. The paper ends with a brief discussion of how Songhay and Berber vocabulary may have interacted during the period when Tagdal and other Northern Songhay languages were still being formed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding text in a second language can be particularly challenging. The authors explored the contribution of morphological awareness in children's first and second languages to development in second‐language reading comprehension. Critically, the authors examined the role of a skill that might be at the heart of these cross‐linguistic connections: awareness of cross‐language suffix correspondences. This is the awareness, for instance, that the French suffix ‐eux and the English suffix ‐ous have the same meaning in the two languages, despite the fact that they look and sound different. The authors tested the contributions of each of these morphological skills to French reading comprehension in a study of students with diverse first languages enrolled in a Canadian early French immersion program with instruction entirely in French. Seventy‐five students were tested in grade 2 and again in grade 3. In grade 2, students completed measures of English and French morphological awareness and awareness of cross‐language suffix correspondences, along with control measures of nonverbal ability, French vocabulary, and French phonological awareness. In grades 2 and 3, students completed measures of French reading comprehension. The authors found that both English and French morphological awareness were related to grade 3 reading comprehension. Neither relation was significant after the autoregressor. In contrast, awareness of cross‐language suffix correspondences predicted individual differences in French reading comprehension, including after autoregressive controls. These findings show the importance of awareness of commonalities between suffixes across languages in enabling the development of French reading comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper accounts for the ka- passive form in Balinese. It focuses on its syntactic and semantic representation. Using the data taken from Balinese narrative texts issued in the Bali Orti of Bali Post newspaper, and applying the RRG theory by Van Valin and Randy (1999), it was found out that the kapassive belongs to a morphological passive voice of Balinese where the the voice is marked on the verb (it is marked by prefix ka-). The ka- base form can be attached by applicative suffixes such as -ang, -in, and -an. These morphological verbs imply various syntactic structure and semantic representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the origins of the player king and player queen speech prefixes in the play "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare. It mentions the lack of distinction in the mousetrap scene between the paratexts used to identify Claudius and the player king, and Gertrude and the player queen. It cites the efforts of modern editors to distinguish between the characters. The only modern edition that correctly attributes textual innovations is said to be the online variorum at Hamletworks.org.

The article focuses on the poem "Beowulf's" retort to taunting of Unferth which appears to be illogical maxim and mentions attempt of scholars to interpret infaege as referring to braver. Topics discussed include Old English poetic corpus available in passage in Beowulf, illogical nature of the maxims which can be solved by interpreting prefix and manuscript's reading.

The article focuses on role of logic defined by philosopher Alfred Korzybski as science of language of though that has disputed topic of linguists and philosophers of language. Topics discussed include essence of logic that requires consistent application of rules, words and expressions in la parole, and prefixes considered as source of misunderstandings.

The researchers of the English and Ruthenian language defined the prefix, explained the meanings of prefixes and their use, in their own languages, but, there are not many works which focus on contrasting the prefixes in these two languages. For this reason, this paper was written, where the focus is on the negative and reversative meaning of English prefixes and their translation into the Ruthenian language. The goal of this paper is to provide a different perspective on how the negative and reversative meanings are denoted in English and Ruthenian. Through analysis of the examples from the corpus, some conclusions were made, about the similarities and differences in the two languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the domain of the prosodic word in the Ningbo dialect. The goal of this paper is to provide a critical review of the studies on the prosodic word (PW) in various languages of the world, and to investigate the phonological phenomena within the domain formed by morpho-syntactic words in the Ningbo dialect as well as discussing the role that the prosodic word plays in the phonological rule application in the Ningbo dialect. This paper provides a complete survey on various types of morpho-syntactic formation in the Ningbo dialect as well as examining the application of phonological phenomena with reference to the different types of morpho-syntactic words. It will show that the lexical tone sandhi rule (LTS) applies within the domain formed by the major types of morpho-syntactic words in Ningbo dialect. However, pure phonological information may also affect the application of LTS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue that a set of facts about the plural nominal class prefixes in Southern Bantu languages shows that some plural prefixes spell out a phrasal constituent, a Specifier bottoming out in a classifier-like noun. This leads us to adopt a theory of lexicalization that leads to the conclusion that all nominal class prefixes in Southern Bantu lexicalize Specifiers of this sort, and we argue that the relation between primary and secondary prefixes supports this conclusion. We also discuss the consequences of our conclusion for the pairing of prefixes and nouns and for the analysis of agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The antonyms with the adjectives, nouns and verbs for movement in Bulgarian language are reviewed. They are analyzed from the point of view of their structure - same root (with one or two prefixes expressing opposite) and different roots. Special attention is paid also to their semantics - contradictory, complementary or vector, vocabulary or stylistic antonyms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a re-calibration of the prefix "inter" in the practice of international relations scholarship. It examines the importance of interpretation which bears a resemblance with Heideggerian staying at the center of subject matters and Gadamerian theorizing. It also explores the important role of language learning in understanding a globalizing international relations world.

Sanskrit is one of the oldest languages in the world. A huge list of words is borrowed from the Sanskrit in other Indian languages and there are lots of similarities between Sanskrit and foreign languages. This paper presents a primary and comparative investigation and analysis between Sanskrit secondary derivative or taddhita suffixes (TS) and English suffix. It describes few major points of similarities and dissimilates between Sanskrit taddhita forms and English adjectives. Grammatical tradition of the Sanskrit is very old and most powerful. Pāņinian grammar called Aşţ-dhy-yi (AD) is considered as Sanskrit grammar. A primary comparison and brief relations between Sanskrit taddhitanta and English adjectives are investigated in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a brief overview and comparison of the imperfective and perfective aspect in Estonian and Latvian. The main means of expressing the perfective and imperfective aspect in Estonian are the case opposition of the direct object (the nominative/genitive or the partitive), the use of verb particles, and the general context. In Latvian, the opposition of the perfective and imperfective aspect is mainly expressed by existence or absence of verb prefixes, adverbs, and also the context. In Latvian, verb prefixes, besides perfectivity, may also add or modify the lexical meaning of the verb. We compare how the perfective and imperfective aspect are expressed in both languages in the case of transitive verbs, based on the correspondences found in a text corpus of literary works and their translations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studii şi Cercetări de Onomastică şi Lexicologie is the property of University of Craiova, Faculty of Letters 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 Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale is the property of Brill Academic Publishers 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.)

The article focuses on the etymology and meaning of the Homeric word by lexicographer Apollonius. Topics discussed include use of alpha, privative, or prefixes said by Apollonius considered reliable by scholars; excavated earrings and modern lexicography found by archaeologists; and economical solution for hypothesizing Greek adjective.

The article focuses on the etymology of the Essex word releet. Topics include philologist Walter W. Skeat's publication of a note in 1878 arguing that the word was a survival of an Old English (OE) genitival construction, his claim on the prefix "re" in the word, and an evidence of the Essex word in several places in Suffolk, England.

This paper explores an area of nominalization in English for which there are no dedicated affixes, specifically, deverbal nominalizations that mean 'thing, stuff or non-human that is verb-ed'. The suffix -ee in English typically creates only patient nouns that denote humans, for example, employee, nominee. English, of course, does have complex nouns that express this meaning, and this paper provides a preliminary discussion of how we might study them. First, I discuss a range of established forms that denote this meaning (baking, acquisition, inheritance, additive, mixture, etc.). Two methods of finding novel forms are also discussed, first eliciting them from native speakers in an informal production experiment, and second searching for them in the Corpus of Contemporary American English. Finally the theoretical implications of the data are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The common reconstruction of *eh2- and devī́-type *ih2-stem singular nominatives as *-ah2 (< *-eh2) and *-ih2 includes no overt marking of the nonneuter nominative singular. Instead of taking this for granted and searching for a motivation in the history of those stems, we raise the possibility of a reconstruction with overt marking (*-āh2, *-īh2). In the second part, the distribution of some word-final vowel shortenings in the Rigveda is analysed in order to determine whether they correlate with the different origins of the vowels or not. The distributions prove interesting, and call for further investigation, but since shortening seems possible irrespective of the origin of the vowel, the Vedic evidence cannot help decide between the two possible reconstructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an auditory presentation technique called segmented binaural presentation. The technique builds on the dichotic listening paradigm (Shankweiler & Studdert-Kennedy, 1967; Studdert-Kennedy & Shankweiler, 1970) and segmented lexical presentation (Libben, 2003; Betram, Kuperman, Baayen, & Hyönä, 2011). The technique allows the first part of a word to be presented to one ear and the second part of the word to be presented to the other ear. The experimenter may thus manipulate whether a stimulus is segmented in this binaural manner and, if it is segmented, the location of the binaural segmentation within the word. We discuss how the technique may be implemented on the Macintosh platform, using PsyScope and freely available software for audio file creation. We also report on a test implementation of the technique using suffixed and compound English words in a lexical decision task. Results suggest that the technique differentiates between segmentation that occurs within and between compound constituents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present paper, an effort has been made to check the similarity pattern of two strings. A new metric is defined to calculate the distance between two strings. On the basis of the distance function, three procedures and an algorithm have been proposed to check the presence of a string in another string as a prefix, suffix or in between another string. The proposed algorithm also enables us to check the partial similarity between two strings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students in a content-area reading course examined the vocabulary of each of their disciplines, focusing on recurrent roots and affixes. They wanted to become teachers of math, science, English, music, and history; therefore, they needed to learn discipline-specific morphemes so they could help their future students figure out new words in their content areas. The students: analyzed words in their disciplinary vocabularies, using recurrent roots and affixes to aid in comprehension of word meaning;, adapted traditional reading strategies for disciplinary use;, discovered that many roots and affixes which were seemingly particular to one discipline also contributed to the meanings of words in other disciplines;, designed content-area lessons using a morphemic approach., The class learned that teaching the meanings of morphemes could improve disciplinary literacy and could also help with vocabulary in other content areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Diachronica is the property of John Benjamins Publishing Co. 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.)

This study seeks to determine the relative position of derivational affixes on the lexicon-grammar continuum in English. Its major claim is that the set of prefixes is rather more lexical and the set of suffixes rather more grammatical in nature. This hypothesis is supported by a battery of ten tests (nine linguistic and one psycholinguistic). All tests converge to the point where we can raise the possibility of a unified explanation. A theoretical account is offered which is grounded in both language structure and processing. It is erected on a temporal asymmetry between prefixes and suffixes and a logical (relational) asymmetry between stems and affixes. In conjunction with the immediacy-of-processing assumption, these asymmetries lead to a temporal precedence of (more) lexical over (more) grammatical material, hence the higher lexicalness of prefixes and the higher grammaticalness of suffixes. An extended focus on inflectional morphology locates inflectional suffixes at the grammatical end of the spectrum. Inflectional prefixes in languages other than English may find a place either between derivational prefixes and derivational suffixes or between derivational and inflectional suffixes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background An absent word of a word y of length n is a word that does not occur in y. It is a minimal absent word if all its proper factors occur in y. Minimal absent words have been computed in genomes of organisms from all domains of life; their computation also provides a fast alternative for measuring approximation in sequence comparison. There exists an O(n)-time and O(n)-space algorithm for computing all minimal absent words on a fixed-sized alphabet based on the construction of suffix automata (Crochemore et al., 1998). No implementation of this algorithm is publicly available. There also exists an O(n²)-time and O(n)-space algorithm for the same problem based on the construction of suffix arrays (Pinho et al., 2009). An implementation of this algorithm was also provided by the authors and is currently the fastest available. Results Our contribution in this article is twofold: first, we bridge this unpleasant gap by presenting an O(n)-time and O(n)-space algorithm for computing all minimal absent words based on the construction of suffix arrays; and second, we provide the respective implementation of this algorithm. Experimental results, using real and synthetic data, show that this implementation outperforms the one by Pinho et al. The open-source code of our implementation is freely available at http://github.com/solonas13/maw. Conclusions Classical notions for sequence comparison are increasingly being replaced by other similarity measures that refer to the composition of sequences in terms of their constituent patterns. One such measure is the minimal absent words. In this article, we present a new linear-time and linear-space algorithm for the computation of minimal absent words based on the suffix array. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a well-known fact that across the world's languages there is a fairly strong asymmetry in the affixation of grammatical material, in that suffixes considerably outnumber prefixes in typological databases. This article argues that prosody, specifically prosodic phrasing, plays an important part in bringing about this asymmetry. Prosodic word and phrase boundaries may occur after a clitic function word preceding its lexical host with sufficient frequency so as to impede the fusion required for affixhood. Conversely, prosodic boundaries rarely, if ever, occur between a lexical host and a clitic function word following it. Hence, prosody does not impede the fusion process between lexical hosts and postposed function words, which therefore become affixes more easily. Evidence for the asymmetry in prosodic phrasing is provided from two sources: disfluencies, and ditropic cliticization, that is, the fact that grammatical PROclitics may be phonological ENclitics (i.e. phrased with a preceding host), but grammatical enclitics are never phonological proclitics. Earlier explanations for the suffixing preference have neglected prosody almost completely and thus also missed the related asymmetry in ditropic cliticization. More importantly, the evidence from prosodic phrasing suggests a new venue for explaining the suffixing preference. The asymmetry in prosodic phrasing, which, according to the hypothesis proposed here, is a major factor underlying the suffixing preference, has a natural basis in the mechanics of turn-taking as well as in the mechanics of speech production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Professor Heidi Harley's argument on nature of roots, its syntactic behavior, and interpretation of roots. Topics include semantic content in linguistics, use of idiomatic phrases and its interpretations, adjectival participles in English and Greek language, and use of verbalizing suffixes. Examples explaining the arguments are presented.

This article describes the ways tense, aspect, mood, and modality are marked in the Finisterre-Huon Papuan language Awara. Awara uses verbal suffixes for all of these, as well as employing multi-verb constructions for four aspectual distinctions. Two past tenses, the present tense, and one future tense are marked. Distinguishing between the present tense suffix and the homophonous imperfective aspect suffix is a thorny issue in Awara morphology. The suffixes marking mood and modality belong to two classes of irrealis suffixes, which are similar in form to irrealis suffixes of other Finisterre-Huon languages. Awara is noteworthy for a grammatical distinction between static and dynamic verb classes, realized in different forms of imperfective aspectual suffixes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] We used Uighur scripts which are known for their rich suffixes. [•] The influences of number of suffixes on initial landing positions and refixation probability independent of frequency. [•] These results are difficult to explain by purely low-level guidance of eye movements. [•] Morphological structure of parafoveal words can influence saccade program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the relationship between the lexicon and language use through the lens of type and token frequency. Type frequency is taken to reflect the lexicon, token frequency language use. Type and token frequencies were compared for a total of 10 basic distinctions at the phonological, morphological, lexical and lexico-syntactic levels in English. These include consonants vs. vowels, prefixes vs. suffixes, count vs. mass nouns and transitive vs. intransitive verbs. The empirical analysis reveals that type frequencies may be more, or less, extreme than token frequencies. Non-phonological distinctions evince a higher discrepancy between type and token frequency than phonological ones. In addition, complexity is more strongly discouraged in token than in type frequency, suggesting that it is more of an issue in processing than in storage. It is concluded that the lexicon constrains language use, though only to a limited extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of LingVaria is the property of Ksiegarnia Akademicka Sp. zo.o 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.)

The article discusses what the author refers to as the degrammaticalization of the suffix ish in the English language. It examines grammatical change in the English language, the concept of the cline of grammaticality, and ish in the history of Modern English. It also discusses the acceptability of utterances in the English language.

In Spoken Continental French, the subject clitic il can in some cases be dropped – for example in certain impersonal construction (e.g. faut que ‘is necessary that’). This phenomenon is of particular interest in the context of claims that this variety of French is in fact a null subject language, with subject clitics acting as agreement affixes rather than true arguments (e.g. Roberge, 1990; Auger, 1994; Culbertson, 2010, among others). Under this view, the il in impersonals (and other constructions with less than fully referential subjects) is likewise an agreement marker, which can be dropped under some circumstances. Here we report the results of a controlled acceptability judgement task designed to probe features which affect the availability of il-drop. Our findings suggest that verb frequency, subcategorisation by the verb for a quasi-argument vs. true expletive, and modal vs. non-modal status influence il-drop. We discuss implications of this variation for an analysis of subject clitics as agreement affixes in Spoken French. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports results from an investigation of domains of H tone spreading in Xitsonga, a southern Bantu language. High (H) tone spreads into toneless syllables but it spreads only to the first syllable if a nominal root has an H tone. Kisseberth (1994) argues that domain structures created by the Pre-High Projection rule account for the patterns regarding the non-spreading of H tone in Xitsonga. The findings concur with Kisseberth's analysis of domain sensitive H tone spreading when nouns have one or two toneless syllables before an H-toned syllable. In this paper, Kisseberth's observation is extended by analysing H tone spreading in nouns with more than two toneless syllables before an H-tone syllable. Results show that H tone spreads only to the noun class prefix, which suggests that the noun class prefix is outside of the prosodic domain formed in nouns. I further propose that the Obligatory Contour Principle functions at the prosodic word level and that the noun class prefix of a noun phrase in Xitsonga is encliticised to a preceding word. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NDN is a recently proposed general-purpose network architecture whose routing based on hierarchical content name. The explosion of the number of routing entries have driven the growth of routing table size at an alarming rate. The traditional methods of single-hop routing have little effects on FIB aggregation and reduction. This paper proposed a nexthop-selectable aggregation method based on suffix digest for FIB. On one hand, it put the nexthop-selectable method into the FIB aggregation to achieve a better aggregation with the same prefix and reduced the number of routing table size. On the other hand, it also provided the method based on suffix hole to make sure the success of routing. Theoretical analysis and results show that nexthop-selectable FIB aggregation method based on suffix digest can reduce the FIB sizes to below 20% and the success probability can be close to 100% with the growing number of hash functions of Bloom filter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last two decades, nanotechnology has not only grown considerably but also evolved in its use of scientific terminology. This paper examines the growth in nano-prefixed terms in a corpus of nanotechnology scholarly publications over a 21-year time period. The percentage of publications using a nano-prefixed term has increased from <10 % in the early 1990s to nearly 80 % by 2010. A co-word analysis of nano-prefixed terms indicates that the network of these terms has moved from being densely organized around a few common nano-prefixed terms such as 'nanostructure' in 2000 to becoming less dense and more differentiated in using additional nano-prefixed terms while continuing to coalesce around the common nano-prefixed terms by 2010. We further observe that the share of nanotechnology papers oriented toward biomedical and clinical medicine applications has risen from just over 5 % to more than 11 %. While these results cannot fully distinguish between the use of nano-prefixed terms in response to broader policy or societal influences, they do suggest that there are intellectual and scientific underpinnings to the growth of a collectively shared vocabulary. We consider whether our findings signify the maturation of a scientific field and the extent to which this denotes the emergence of a shared scientific understanding regarding nanotechnology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Language in Different Contexts / Kalba ir Kontekstai is the property of Vytautas Magnus University 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.)

Our present paper deals with some aspects of English negative prefixes. Negative prefixes form categories of interrelated senses arranged according to a primary sense. A given negative prefix has multiple senses comprehended in terms of a 'category', a network consisting of a wide range of senses linked via categorising relationships. In terms of the 'category' theory, the senses of a negative prefix gather around a prototypical one, from which the peripheral ones are derived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: High and low tones on Swedish word stems are associated with different classes of suffixes. We tested the electrophysiological effects of high and low stem tones as well as tonally cued and uncued suffixes. Two different tasks were used involving either choosing the suffix-dependent meaning of the words, or pressing a button when the word ended. To determine whether effects were in fact due to association of tones with lexical material, delexicalized stimuli were also used. High tones in lexical items produced an increase in the P2 component in both tasks, interpreted as showing passive anticipatory attention allocated to the associated upcoming suffix. This effect was absent for delexicalized forms, where instead an N1 increase was found for high tones, indicating that the high pitch was unexpected in the absence of lexical material, and did not lead to anticipatory attention. A P600 effect was found for uncued high-associated suffixes in the semantic task, which was also where the largest increase was found in reaction times. This suggests that the tonal cues were most important when participants were required to process the meaning of the words. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The derivational prefix be- productively forms deverbal, denominal and deadjectival verbs in Modern English (ModE) (e.g. beblast, bepearl, beblind). This paper re-examines the Oxford English Dictionary's (OED) description of this prefix's semantic and categorial properties in light of word-formation theory and proposes a new analysis according to which denominal and deadjectival be-verbs are based on denominal and deadjectival converted verbs (e.g. to pearl, to blind). The theoretical motivation for this analysis is the need to deal coherently with both deverbal and denominal/deadjectival be-verbs, and the analysis is empirically confirmed by the input morphology and output semantics of be-verbs. This analysis allows us to conclude that be- is a deverbal verb-forming prefix whose main function is to add the notion of total affectedness to the meaning of the base verb. This paper also shows that the ModE prefix be- provides an interesting case of the conflict between the OED and word-formation theory. Word-formation theory analyses words based on synchronic principles of language, and the results can differ greatly from the OED's descriptions, which are based on the historical-etymological principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an analysis of vowel harmony that occurs in the verbal system of ciNsenga and ciCewa. In these languages the nature of suffix vowels is determined by the nature of the root: mid vowels trigger the vowel /ε/ on the suffixes, non-mid vowels, on the other hand, trigger the vowel /i/ on the suffixes. An examination of monosyllabic verbs which, by definition, have no root vowel, reveals interesting patterns between different Bantu languages: in some languages such verbs consistently select suffixes with the vowel /i/ whereas in other languages such verbs select suffixes with the vowel /ε/. Drawing on insights from Underspecification Theory (Archangeli, 1984, 1988; Archangeli & Pulleyblank, 1989, 1994) the article argues that a unified and coherent account of vowel harmony can be made for these languages by positing that the languages are parameterised with respect to the harmonic feature specified in their underlying representations and the concomitant default rule needed to derive the surface representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The remit of this paper is to investigate the role of prefixes of spatiality in the formation of words. To do so, it adopts two approaches. Theoretically, it adopts Cognitive Semantics (CS) and tries to substantiate some of its tenets with reference to prefixation. One tenet is that linguistic items are meaningful. On this basis, it argues that prefixes of spatiality have a wide range of meanings that gather around a central sense. Another tenet is that the meaning of a linguistic item is best understood in terms of the domain in which it is embedded. On this basis, it argues that prefixes of spatiality form a set which highlights not only similarities but also differences. A further tenet is that the use of an expression is governed by the particular construal imposed on its content. On this basis, it argues that a derived word is used relative to the particular construal the speaker chooses to describe a situation. Empirically, it adopts Usage-based Linguistics, and tries to substantiate some of its premises with reference to prefixation. One premise is that knowledge of language is derived from language use. Another premise is that the linguistic system is shaped by actual data. A further premise is that structure and substance are tightly linked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper puts forward a formal analysis of the semantics of Russian verbal prefixes that is formulated within the framework of degree semantics. Prefixes are analyzed as degree modifiers. The paper demonstrates how this analysis captures the properties of pere-, one of the most complex and challenging verbal prefixes in Russian. It is proposed that spatial, temporal, excessive, comparative, and iterative uses of this prefix can all be unified under a scalar approach. The distinctions observed between these uses are largely restricted to the types of scale and comparative standard that are involved in the semantics of the verbal phrase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]