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In Alemannic dialects of German, [n] is particularly vulnerable to assimilation, deletion, and epenthesis. Although these changes are not necessarily uniform across all Alemannic varieties, the Alemannic dialect areas all exhibit some, if not all, of these processes. In this article, we present data from a diverse array of Alemannic dialects and show that [n] behaves similarly throughout Alemannic, assimilating to the place of following stops, deleting word-finally, and repairing hiatus through epenthesis. We contend that coronal [n] is interacting with so many processes because it is unmarked in terms of place and manner. This paper contributes to the phonological literature on dialectology and Markedness Theory. First, by considering similar processes which occur across multiple Alemannic dialects, we show how Alemannic prefers eliminating or modifying word-final [n]. Second, this analysis gives insight into theories of segment (un)markedness; thus, the data presented in this paper support descriptions of unmarked segments as undergoing assimilation, deletion, and epenthesis, while they challenge markedness accounts by scholars who bar [n] as an epenthetic segment. Third, we provide data for a language family in which one segment undergoes all three processes of assimilation, deletion, and epenthesis; this is unprecedented in the literature on unmarked segments, which typically focuses on languages which possess only one of these three processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For Spanish nouns, masculine gender is unmarked and feminine is marked. Effects of markedness on gender agreement processing are inconsistent, possibly owing to differences between online methods. This study presents a reanalysis of eye‐tracking data from Keating's (2022) study on the processing of noun‐adjective gender agreement in speakers of Spanish as a majority and a heritage language. Pairwise comparisons by noun class showed that both groups displayed sensitivity to gender violations with masculine nouns earlier in the time course of agreement processing than they did to violations with feminine nouns, although sensitivity to errors with both classes emerged later for heritage speakers. The time course advantage for detecting gender violations with masculine nouns disappeared when a word occurred between nouns and adjectives. In sum, the native Spanish parser utilizes markedness information during online computation of gender agreement dependencies, even when exposure to native language input is significantly reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates phonological substitution patterns in the early speech of children acquiring Yemeni Ibbi Arabic (YIA) as their first language. The research aims to identify the characteristics and motivations behind these substitutions, drawing on data from three monolingual Arabic-speaking children aged between 1;9 and 3;6. The analysis reveals common substitution processes, including fronting, backing, lateralization, fortition, emphasization, and de-emphasization. These patterns are examined in relation to the children’s stages of consonant acquisition, the Substitution Phonological Pattern (SPP) hypothesis, markedness theory, and natural phonology. The findings suggest that substitutions are influenced by the child’s current stage in the consonant acquisition timeline and reflect developmental challenges associated with mastering more complex sounds. The study provides empirical evidence supporting the SPP hypothesis, which highlights the children’s strategic adaptations to phonetic and articulatory challenges. Additionally, the results align with the concepts of markedness and natural phonology, demonstrating a preference for simpler, more common phonological elements over complex ones. The research contributes to the understanding of phonological acquisition in Arabic and offers insights into the interplay between universal tendencies and language-specific patterns in child language development.

This article offers a cultural cognitive theory of sexual violence: a Zerubavelian reading of its classificatory, attentional, perceptual, semiotic, mnemonic, and temporal dimensions. It maps the asymmetric syntactic contrasts between the cultural trifecta of "Victim‐Survivors," "Victimizers," and the hitherto unnamed, taken‐for‐granted "Unvictims," arguing that those who experience sexual violence are marked in contrast to both those who victimize and those who have never been victimized. Suggesting that one need not be the actor of a marked act to be marked by it, a victimizing person's marked act crystallizes as a marked identity for the person they victimize, a process I call "semiotic ricochet." Extending critiques of the victimhood‐survivorship frame, this article argues that the "rigid‐minded," binary classificatory scheme of "Victim" or "Survivor" reifies, universalizes, derivatizes, and temporally displaces its attributed. It proposes hyphenating, encasing in scare quotes, and capitalizing the identity category of "Victim‐Survivor," as well as referring to individuals as "those who experience sexual violence." Using the Zerubavelian theoretico‐methodological practice of "concept‐driven" sociology, it identifies the "Victim‐Survivor" as merely one specific instantiation of the generic social type the "Damaged Good," alongside other identities derived from marked non‐acts such as placement in foster care or undergoing a mastectomy for breast cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qur'anic intervals (Fawāsil) are considered one of the most prominent verbal features of the Qur'an. Given that there are phonetic explanations for many phonological subjects, this study aims to determine and describe the Qur'anic intervals and present a phonetic explanation for the selection and presence of different phonemes in this position in a descriptive -analytical way. To conduct this research, initially, all the intervals (6236 items), which are the final phonemes of the last words of the verses, were extracted, and their frequency was determined. Next, the presence of each phoneme was examined based on the topics discussed in the science of Tajwid, checking them against the topics and theories of modern phonetics. The findings reveal that factors such as the quantity and quality of auditory and perceptual clues, the degree of phonetic difficulty, and the relative degree of markedness of a phoneme play a decisive role in the presence or absence of that phoneme and its frequency in this position. In simpler terms, sounds with a higher level of hearing and perception, which the listener receives more accurately, and with less phonetic difficulty and markedness, such as vowels and sonorant consonants, have a more significant presence in this position. In contrast, sounds that do not have such characteristics, such as consonants or consonants with a second articulation, play a lesser role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research report presents the results of research on the markedness of active and passive voice in Indonesian. The purpose of this study was to determine the markedness of active and passive voice in Indonesian and their implications. The theory used in this study is the concept of markedness proposed by Waugh and Lafford (1994: 2378) and Croft (1990: 64). This research was conducted qualitatively and quantitatively. The results of the study are as follows. The active voice in Indonesian is an unmarked construct, that is, a simple, productive, context-insensitive, more universal sentence, and easier to understand. The passive voice in Indonesian is a marked construct, that is, a more complex, less productive, context-sensitive, more particular sentence, and harder to stand. This markedness has implications for grammar and language learning. For grammar preparation, active voice explanations should be the basis for passive voice explanations so that the rules for forming both types of sentences are easy to understand. For language learning, active voice should be learned first and then passive voice so that both types of sentences are mastered more easily by language learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Horn’s (1984) Principle of Division of Pragmatic Labor, marked forms should have marked meanings. We investigate differences in the interpretation of two prosodically distinct forms of the disjunction sau in Romanian (‘A sau B’): (i) neutral rise-fall prosody, and (ii) marked rise-fall-rise prosody, where both disjuncts are stressed. Adults typically interpret disjunction inclusively (A or B, possibly both) or exclusively (A or B, but not both), while children interpret it inclusively or conjunctively (A and B), cf. Singh et al. (2016) and Tieu et al. (2017). We ask whether similar preferences hold for Romanian and probe into the understudied role of prosody. Given adults’ greater sensitivity to prosody compared to children (Gotzner et al. 2013), we predict they might associate marked sau with the marked exclusive meaning more than children do. We tested Romanian-speaking adults and 5-year-olds using a forced-choice task, in which two puppets made guesses about what would happen, using either neutral sau or marked sau. While adults preferred neutral sau to describe contexts in which both disjuncts were true and marked sau for contexts in which only one disjunct was true, children selected the two disjunctions indiscriminately. We conclude that, unlike adults, children do not distinguish between prosodically marked and unmarked forms of disjunction.

This study examines online processing and offline judgments of subject-verb person agreement with a focus on how this is impacted by markedness in heritage speakers (HSs) of Italian. To this end, 54 adult HSs living in Germany and 40 homeland Italian speakers completed a self-paced reading task (SPRT) and a grammaticality judgment task (GJT). Markedness was manipulated by probing agreement with both first-person (marked) and third-person (unmarked) subjects. Agreement was manipulated by crossing first-person marked subjects with third-person unmarked verbs and vice versa. Crucially, person violations with 1st person subjects (e.g., io *suona la chitarra “I plays-3rd-person the guitar”) yielded significantly shorter RTs in the SPRT and higher accuracy in the GJT than the opposite error type (e.g., il giornalista *esco spesso “the journalist go-1st-person out often”). This effect is consistent with the claim that when the first element in the dependency is marked (first person), the parser generates stronger predictions regarding upcoming agreeing elements. These results nicely align with work from the same populations investigating the impact of morphological markedness on grammatical gender agreement, suggesting that markedness impacts agreement similarly in two distinct grammatical domains and that sensitivity to markedness is more prevalent for HSs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Jordanian Educational Journal is the property of Association of Arab Universities 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 examines online processing and offline judgments of subject-verb person agreement with a focus on how this is impacted by markedness in heritage speakers (HSs) of Italian. To this end, 54 adult HSs living in Germany and 40 homeland Italian speakers completed a self-paced reading task (SPRT) and a grammaticality judgment task (GJT). Markedness was manipulated by probing agreement with both first-person (marked) and third-person (unmarked) subjects. Agreement was manipulated by crossing first-person marked subjects with third-person unmarked verbs and vice versa. Crucially, person violations with 1st person subjects (e.g., io *suona la chitarra “I plays-3rd-person the guitar”) yielded significantly shorter RTs in the SPRT and higher accuracy in the GJT than the opposite error type (e.g., il giornalista *esco spesso “the journalist go-1st-person out often”). This effect is consistent with the claim that when the first element in the dependency is marked (first person), the parser generates stronger predictions regarding upcoming agreeing elements. These results nicely align with work from the same populations investigating the impact of morphological markedness on grammatical gender agreement, suggesting that markedness impacts agreement similarly in two distinct grammatical domains and that sensitivity to markedness is more prevalent for HSs.

The present article inscribes itself in the realm of the investigation of visual hieratic textuality. In the article, I use semiotactics as the methodology developed on the basis of contemporary phonology (in particular, (mor)phonotactics, e. g. Dressler and Dziubalska-Kołaczyk 2006 inter alia) to examine salient asymmetries as markedness phenomena operating on a hieratic marker active both in the Judaic denomination and in Christianity ‒ the Stone Tablets. In particular, I focus on the semiotactic reflection of the markedness effects related to the presence of the analysed marker in Catholic churches. I establish several implicational cooccurrence restrictions and arrive at establishing several primes in the nano-structure of a hieratic sign. The basis for the analysis is the digital documentation of the representation of the Stone Tablets in Christian churches which I collected in various European countries in the years 2010‒2022. The supplementary illustrative materials are available here in the form of a recorded presentation.

A 3D/4D ultrasound analysis of Ukrainian back fricatives provides evidence for onset lenition (debuccalization) and non-markedness reducing place neutralization in the coda (neutralization to the uvular place of articulation). These findings impinge on the role of markedness in predicting synchronic alternations and the direction of sound change. Analyses that rely on markedness as a motivating factor for synchronic patterns of alternations allow for the possibility of coda lenition, but not of onset lenition. However, the analyzed data instantiate debuccalization, a type of lenition, in the onset. Moreover, the observed retraction of place in the coda, resulting in uvular fricatives, is similarly difficult to derive from markedness principles. These findings are not compatible with the view that synchronic alternations must be driven by markedness reduction and suggest that (i) models of synchronic phonology must be designed in such a way as to accommodate segmental alternations that are arbitrary from the point of view of markedness principles, and (ii) reduction of representational complexity cannot be reliably viewed as the driver of neutralization processes.

Copyright of Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai, Philologia is the property of Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania 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 paper presents the results of a study of the five causative formations of Classical Armenian. It focuses on the correspondence between the morphosyntactic complexity of causatives and the autonomy of the causee, which is specified based on the semantic type of the noncausal base verb. The correspondence proves to be incomplete as witnessed by areas of overlap in the lexical distribution of base verbs. While the competing lexical and synthetic causatives reflect the patientive and non-patientive readings of the first argument of the noncausal verb, respectively, the competing synthetic and analytic causatives rather express the contrast in the degree of affectedness of the causee, which does not fully depend on the semantic properties of the noncausal predicate. The semantic types of causation better correlate with morphosyntactic complexity than with segmental length in Classical Armenian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much research has examined second language (L2) phonetic acquisition, less research has examined first language (L1) attrition in terms of the voice onset time (VOT) of voiceless stops. The current study examined L2 acquisition and L1 attrition in the VOT of word-initial voiceless stops among late English–Arabic and Arabic–English bilinguals in order to explore the role of phonetic similarity in L2 acquisition and L1 attrition of speech. The study included 60 participants: 15 monolingual Arabic speakers, 15 monolingual English speakers, 15 English–Arabic bilinguals and 15 Arabic–English bilinguals. The bilinguals had been living in their L2 environment for more than 15 years. The participants narrated two cartoons in Arabic and/or three in English. The monolingual groups' results revealed clear cross-language differences in the VOT of voiceless plosives between the two languages. Phonetic similarity affected L2 acquisition in that those L2 sounds that were close in phonetic space to L1 sounds (i.e. /t/ and /k/) were more difficult to acquire than those that were dissimilar to L1 sounds (i.e. /p/). However, L1 attrition showed an asymmetric pattern, occurring only in the English–Arabic bilinguals' productions of the English /k/. We suggest that markedness might contribute to explaining this asymmetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The text focuses on the formal realization of the communicative function of exclamation in Czech. Since Czech exclamative sentences do not constitute a separate formally distinct sentence type, we apply a contrastive (English — Czech) corpus-assisted approach to identify the formal indicators of exclamations at various language levels. Following Michaelis (2001), exclamations are defined as expressions of the speaker’s affective response to a situation; they comprise two components, namely the speaker’s assessment of a situation as extreme or non-canonical and the recoverability of the propositional content. Although there is no unambiguous conventional pairing between the exclamative function and its formal expression in Czech, the analysis has shown that the exclamation is typically indicated by the accumulation of marked linguistic means pertaining to various language levels, such as intonation/punctuation, expressive lexis, intensifying adverbs and particles and deviations from the canonical word order.

Quantity distinctions are morphologically indicated in the majority of languages.However, the marking of these distinctions exhibits a high degree of cross-linguistic variation with respect to the number of quantity categories, their agreement properties, and the morphemes themselves. Furthermore, number marking on numerically quantified nouns varies across languages: for instance, while German and English use plural number marking with numerals other than “one” (for example, “two books”), Turkish and Hungarian use singular number marking with all numerals. Recent work has discussed how to explain number marking with numerals. In particular, Bale and Khanjian (2014) propose that the quantity concepts of the two types of languages vary semantically. We present novel evidence from a cross-linguistic study of Hungarian, Turkish and German child language, and argue that the quantity concepts do not vary, and the variation between languages must have a morphosyntactic explanation.

Markedness is the observation of an encoding asymmetry in which higher complexity (both in terms of form and meaning) tends to pattern with lower frequency. Given that markedness focuses on the relationships between form-meaning patterns and usage patterns, markedness is of inherent theoretical interest for cognitive linguistics. Traditionally it is assumed that the markedness values of Russian aspect are perfective as marked vs. imperfective as unmarked. However, this assumption is not without controversy and conflicts with patterns observed in other languages. Furthermore, neither complexity of form nor corpus frequency support the traditional markedness assumption at the level of the category. We drill down to the levels of both the lexeme (groups of verbs defined by the major patterns of aspectual morphology) and the subparadigm (tense) and find better support for observation of markedness at these levels. While one group of verbs supports the traditional assignment of perfective as marked, two other groups of verbs support the opposite, with imperfective as marked. The subparadigm level of tense presents a special challenge since, due to confounding factors of homonymy and non-contiguous forms, no previous study has presented an accurate measurement of the incidence of future tense forms in Russian. We overcome this obstacle by examining a stratified set of verbs, sampling and manually tagging forms, and then using the sample data to extrapolate a reasonable estimate of future tense forms. We find that perfective future tense forms are approximately fourteen times more frequent than imperfective future tense forms. Russian future tense forms give strong support to the recognition of imperfective aspect as marked due to higher morphological complexity and much lower frequency. We conclude that it makes more sense to evaluate markedness patterns at local levels rather than at the category level.

This study offers a selective overview of the most important methodological approaches and theoretical concepts relevant to the study of musical meaning which have emerged in the Anglo-American musicological tradition since the 1990s. It takes as its starting point the work of Lawrence Kramer, which represents the conceptual underpinnings of New Musicology, and continues with Michael Klein's study of musical intertextuality, which helps to further illustrate the implications of post-modern philosophy for the hermeneutical interpretation of music. A significant portion of the text is dedicated to Robert Hatten's work on markedness, correlation, gestures, topics, and tropes. The discussion of the topic theory also covers the contributions made by Raymond Monelle, Danuta Mirka, and others. The overview continues with Esti Sheinberg's theory of musical incongruities and her typology of modes of semantic ambiguity, including irony, satire, parody, and the grotesque. To complement the traditional text-based approach to musical meaning, this overview also considers meanings communicated through the movements of the human body, referencing Nicholas Cook's thoughts on embodied cognition and Robert Hatten's approach to interpreting musical gestures encoded in a musical text. Attention is also paid to the line of thinking leading from Edward T. Cone's ideas on the presence of different voices and personae in seemingly singular musical works, through Fred Maus's conception of music in terms of dramatic interaction of musical agents, to Hatten's theory of virtual agency. This is followed by the summary of Byron Almén's theory of musical narrative, i.e. the capacity of music to articulate a trajectory leading from one state to another, propelled by the dynamic forces of conflict and resolution. Subsequent chapters discuss the relevance of recent approaches to the study of musical form (William Caplin, James Hepokoski, Warren Darcy) and the possibilities/limits of musical narrative in music since 1900, in which the conventional principles of syntax (tonality, form, motivic/thematic structure) are often questioned. In the closing section, the author returns to Kramer's ideas, takes a stance with regard to the opposition of semiotic and hermeneutic approaches, and discusses ethical issues associated with the act of interpretation (and misinterpretation). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Tertium Linguistic Journal / Pólrocznik Jezykoznawczy Tertium is the property of Cracow Tertium Society for the Promotion of Language Studies 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 text focuses on the formal realization of the communicative function of exclamation in Czech. Since Czech exclamative sentences do not constitute a separate formally distinct sentence type, we apply a contrastive (English -- Czech) corpus-assisted approach to identify the formal indicators of exclamations at various language levels. Following Michaelis (2001), exclamations are defined as expressions of the speaker's affective response to a situation; they comprise two components, namely the speaker's assessment of a situation as extreme or non-canonical and the recoverability of the propositional content. Although there is no unambiguous conventional pairing between the exclamative function and its formal expression in Czech, the analysis has shown that the exclamation is typically indicated by the accumulation of marked linguistic means pertaining to various language levels, such as intonation/punctuation, expressive lexis, intensifying adverbs and particles and deviations from the canonical word order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many languages, grammatical gender is an inherent property of nouns and, as such, forms a basis for agreement relations between nouns and their dependent elements (e.g., adjectives, determiners). Mental gender representation is traditionally assumed to be categorial, with categorial gender nodes corresponding to the given gender specifications in a certain language (e.g., [masculine], [feminine], [neuter] in German). In alternative models, inspired by accounts put forward in theoretical linguistics, it has been argued that mental gender representations consist of sets of binary features which might be fully specified (e.g., masc [+ m, − f], fem [− m, + f], neut [− m, − f]) or underspecified (e.g., masc [+ m], fem [+ f], neut [] or masc [+ m, − f], fem [], neut [− f]). We have conducted two experiments to test these controversial accounts. Native speakers of German were asked to decide on the (un-)grammaticality of gender agreement of visually presented combinations of I) definite determiners and nouns, and II) anaphoric personal pronouns and nouns in an implicit nominative singular setting. Overall, agreement violations with neuter das / es increased processing costs compared to violations with die / sie or der / er for masculine or feminine target nouns, respectively. The observed pattern poses a challenge for models involving categorial gender representation. Rather, it is consistent with feature-based representations of grammatical gender in the mental lexicon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the hypothesis that marked sounds are more likely to be gaps in a sound inventory. A gap is defined as an absence of an [α voice] stop or fricative when the [−α voice] counterpart exists. Different formulations of markedness are tested and evaluated on whether they label the gaps as more marked than attested sounds. Results show an overall success of markedness based on typological attestedness of sounds in labeling gaps as more marked. However, the success of markedness based on aerodynamics and cross-linguistic phonological processes is limited to stops and fricatives, respectively. Analyses also show that gaps in attested inventories are more likely to be marked than gaps from randomized artificial inventories. This discrepancy between attested and artificial inventories shows how markedness, feature economy, and symmetry interact in shaping sound systems of human languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on a translation proposal of the novel Tropique de la violence by Nathacha Appanah. An analysis of the source text and a stylistic comparison between the different narrative voices are carried out, as well as an overview of the use of the neo-standard in Italian literature and Italian translation. By means of specific examples, this paper proposes to argue that the use of a marked language and the inclusion of grammatical and structural “errors” constitute a valid translation strategy for the rendering of the marked language of one of the five narrators of this novel.

This study investigates the uniformity of Persian and English inflectional affixes based on Natural Morphology Theory to show how the uniformity of inflectional affixes of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs can be explained. The present research has exercised mixed (qual-quan) and descriptive-analytical method. Research data were selected from both Persian and English corpora by the means of a random sampling method; afterward, the data were analyzed according to Dressler and Mayerthaler’s approach considering uniformity. In terms of frequency, the results identified uniformed forms in both languages and indicate that in the Persian corpus, 526 inflectional affixes of verbs, and all affixes of adjectives (185) are uniformed, although inflectional affixes of nouns lack uniformity. While in English corpus, inflectional verb affixes (89) represent uniformity, 172 inflectional noun affixes and 23 adjective affixes lack uniformity. Generally, the more frequency in uniformity of affixes shows they are less marked and more natural. Therefore, tense affix, negation, and subjunctive mood in the inflectional system are more natural than optative mood, past tense affix-ad, and imperative affix. Person and number markers are more natural than imperfect aspect in English. It is worth mentioning that all portmanteau morphs, suppletions and fusion forms reduce the naturalness of both languages due to the fact that there is no one-one relationship between their forms and meanings. The achievements of the current study can be useful in the field of translation studie

The empirical study of word learning is driven by a theoretical debate between lexical constraint and social-pragmatic accounts; it has still not been determined which of these two best explains the evidence. We investigated whether the markedness of a pointing accompanying a verbal reference could help to learn a part name. Participants were 35 two-and-a-half-year-olds, 42 four-and-a-half-year-olds, and 38 undergraduate university students in Japan. The experimenter pointed to a novel part (embedded in a novel whole object) with either "marked" pointing, which was touching the part with a small circular motion, or with usual pointing. Touch accompanied by circular motion reliably elicited learning of part names in all age groups. Usual distal pointing without motion reliably elicited learning of whole object names. The pattern of findings rejects a whole-object constraint in early word learning and demonstrates that marked pointing can promote learning novel part names, supporting a social-pragmatic account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper offers a synchronic and diachronic account of markedness of the oppositional tense-aspect stems in Classical Armenian. The synchronic part explores the correspondence between markedness and productivity of verb classes as attested in the Armenian Bible translation, as well as the correspondence between markedness and token frequency of a selection of fifty most frequent verbs in the same text. The default pattern, characterized by an unmarked present and marked aorist stems, constitutes some two-thirds of the entire dataset but is less common in the most frequent verbs. By contrast, the two patterns with the unmarked aorist are significantly better represented and the token frequency of their aorist stems is typically higher for such verbs. This evidence is discussed in the context of a typological generalization predicting the lower markedness of more frequently used forms. An outlook on the historical grammar of Classical Armenian suggests that the attested system reflects a transition from aspect- to tense-oriented marking of stems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Semitic agreement is normally discontinuous (i.e. expressed by more than one affix on the verb) only in the second and third persons. However, in restricted cases in particular languages, first person agreement is also discontinuous. I discuss two types of first person discontinuities. The first manifests the hallmarks of a meta split, persisting across paradigms and exponents. I argue that this type of first person discontinuity arises due to postsyntactic Fission which separates antagonistic sets of features prior to insertion and which is driven by markedness constraints on feature coexponence. The second type of first person discontinuity is restricted to a single paradigm and does not evince true discontinuous bleeding effects. Such discontinuities are best captured via morphological Doubling , modeled via Generalized Reduplication. First person discontinuities thus provide strong empirical support for the autonomy of morpheme splitting rules and morpheme copying rules. I demonstrate that each type of rule has a distinct empirical signature and acts as a repair to a different kind of morphotactic constraint. Consequently, there must be more than one route to discontinuous agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this paper is to explore the phonotactic structure of the Turkish phonological system on the basis of an extensive Turkish linguistic corpus. In a descriptive study, the distribution of Turkish consonants in onset and coda positions as well as consonantal sequences across syllable boundary (in c.c) and coda clusters (in cvcc syllable were examined. Results showed that stops and affricates in syllable onset position are most frequent, which is in line with the hierarchy of sonority scale assumed by the constraint *ONSET/X (Selkirk, 1984). Furthermore, the study of sound sequences in various syllable structures revealed that sonorants are more frequent than stops in coda position (in cvc), and also closer to syllable head than stops in coda clusters (in cvcc). This finding contradicts the predictions assumed by the constraint *CODA/X. Further results indicated that the distribution of Turkish consonants in coda clusters (in cvcc) are in conformity with the Sonority Sequencing Principle with the least marked phonotactic structure. However, the distribution of consonants across syllable boundary (in c.c) involves various consonantal sequences including those which belong to the same or similar natural class of consonants.

The present paper discusses several possible accounts of L2 errors arising in a contact situation in which the target language (Polish) is very closely related to the learner’s L1 (East Slavic: Belorussian, Russian, Ukrainian). Although L1/ L2 proximity often leads to attribute most or all errors to cross-linguistic interference, it will be shown that explanations based on universal tendencies are also viable, as indeed long suggested by detractors of the contrastive analysis approach. Because of the peculiar learning environment created by the possibility of mutual intelligibility between Polish and East Slavic, the reflection is framed within research on the psycholinguistic aspects of intercomprehension. The analysis will focus on the morphological marking of a subset of nouns that in the plural engage in slightly diverging differential object marking patterns in Polish and East Slavic. The paper presents the results of a largescale, quantitative-oriented experiment, whose findings are discussed in connection with previous non-quantitative research in order to provide a comprehensive view of the phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the area of agreement with noun phrases displaying reference problems, "evasive forms" may be used to avoid problematic choices. When referring to people of more than one or unknown social gender, masculine or feminine forms might be inappropriate. An "evasive construction" solves this problem by turning to a form that is neither masculine nor feminine. A well-known example is "singular they" in English (e.g. anyone can do it if they try hard enough). In literary New High German, neuter singular forms of indefinite pronouns could be used in similar contexts. This construction is largely obsolete in present-day Standard German but well attested until the nineteenth century and still current in some modern regional dialects. In this paper, the grammatical properties of this construction are discussed. It is shown that neuter gender is used for a specific semantic value, namely, to indicate more than one social gender simultaneously or to leave social gender explicitly open. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined potential sources of grammatical gender variability in heritage speakers (HSs) of Italian with a focus on morphological markedness. Fifty-four adult Italian HSs living in Germany and 40 homeland Italian speakers completed an online Self-Paced Reading Task and an offline Grammaticality Judgment Task. Both tasks involved sentences with grammatical and ungrammatical noun-adjective agreement, manipulating markedness. In grammatical sentences, both groups showed a markedness effect: shorter reading times (RTs) and higher accuracy for sentences containing masculine nouns as compared to sentences with feminine nouns. In ungrammatical sentences, although both groups were sensitive to ungrammaticality, only HSs showed a markedness effect, that is, they had significantly longer RTs and higher accuracy when violations were realized on feminine adjectives. Proficiency in the HL was a significant predictor of accuracy and RTs at the individual level. Taken together, results indicate that HSs acquire and process gender in a qualitatively similar way to homeland native speakers. However, RT evidence seems to suggest that at least under particular experimental methods, markedness considerations are more prevalent for HSs resulting in a speed-accuracy tradeoff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The author of this paper defines the aspectual paradigms of Russian verbs as such grammatical structures whose formal aspect is correlated with the conceptual one, therefore being its cognitive counterpart. With a view to analysing these paradigms he uses the theory of markedness as an analytic tool. According to it, the grammatical changes that occur in natural languages originate from general principles of naturalness which are typologically relevant. They result in morphological shifts that are linked to the verbalisation of Russian aspectual paradigms and allow to predict the direction of their development. In particular, the principle of natural grammatical development should be considered crucial. It means that the grammatical changes in natural languages cause elimination of marked elements, so that these more complex linguistic structues are replaced with less complex ones. Such a principle manifests an unconscious desire of language users to minimise their linguistic efforts, as it would place an additional burden on interpersonal communication.

This study examined potential sources of grammatical gender variability in heritage speakers (HSs) of Italian with a focus on morphological markedness. Fifty-four adult Italian HSs living in Germany and 40 homeland Italian speakers completed an online Self-Paced Reading Task and an offline Grammaticality Judgment Task. Both tasks involved sentences with grammatical and ungrammatical noun-adjective agreement, manipulating markedness. In grammatical sentences, both groups showed a markedness effect: shorter reading times (RTs) and higher accuracy for sentences containing masculine nouns as compared to sentences with feminine nouns. In ungrammatical sentences, although both groups were sensitive to ungrammaticality, only HSs showed a markedness effect, that is, they had significantly longer RTs and higher accuracy when violations were realized on feminine adjectives. Proficiency in the HL was a significant predictor of accuracy and RTs at the individual level. Taken together, results indicate that HSs acquire and process gender in a qualitatively similar way to homeland native speakers. However, RT evidence seems to suggest that at least under particular experimental methods, markedness considerations are more prevalent for HSs resulting in a speed-accuracy tradeoff.

This paper explores the asymmetry in the disordered (atypical) Greek L1 phonological productions of a child with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) compared to the productions of two non-disordered (typical) children. The study focuses on the simplification patterns of reversed sonority consonantal clusters, namely [S/FRICATIVE+STOP] and [S+FRICATIVE]. The data show that, while the non-disordered children simplify reversed sonority clusters in the same way by deleting the more sonorous consonant, the child with DLD applies two different simplification patterns, resulting from constraints that disallow featural Markedness. We propose that the asymmetry attested in the reduction is due to the employment of two distinct grammars by the two groups of children. The typically developing children employ the cross-linguistically widely attested sonoritydriven reduction. Meanwhile, the grammar of the child with DLD is not motivated by sonority, but rather by a general avoidance for Markedness, retaining the unmarked [- continuant] Manner of Articulation in [S/FRICATIVE+STOP] clusters, while favoring the consonant with unmarked Place of Articulation in [S+FRICATIVE] clusters, where the Manner of Articulation of both segments is marked, i.e. [+continuant]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a literary corpus study of four grammatical tenses across four European languages. The corpus consists of a selection of eight chapters from Javier Marías's Spanish novel Así empieza lo malo 'Thus bad begins', and its translations to English, Dutch, and French. We annotated 1579 verb forms in the Spanish source text for tense, and, subsequently, their translations in the other languages, distinguishing between two registers within the novel, i.e., dialogue and narration. We found that the vast majority of the Spanish tenses are translated one-to-one to their counterparts in the three languages, especially in narration. In dialogue, we found several deviations, which we could partially account for within an Optimality Theoretic approach by appealing to the notion of markedness along two different typological dimensions, namely, tense (present versus past) and aspect (imperfective versus perfective). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the Ganong lexicality effect has been observed for phonemic and tonal categorization, the effects of frequency and markedness are less clear, especially in terms of tonal categorization. In this study, we use Mandarin Chinese to investigate the effects of lexicality, tone frequency and markedness. We examined Mandarin speakers' tonal categorization of tokens on all possible tonal continua with one end being a word and the other being a tonotactic gap (i.e., an unattested syllable-tone combination). The results of a forced-choice identification experiment showed a general bias against the gap endpoints, with the noted exception of continua involving T4 (X51), the most frequent lexical tone. Specifically, when T4 served as the gap endpoint, no obvious bias against it was observed regardless of its lexical status. Moreover, on the T3-T4 continua, there was an apparent bias against T3 (X214), the tone with the most complex contour, again, regardless of lexicality, suggesting a strong markedness effect. Taken together, the results of this study show the individual effects of lexicality, tone frequency and markedness, as well as their interactions, which contribute to our understanding of tonal categorization in relation to lexical statistics (tone frequency) and phonology (markedness). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this paper is to explore the phonotactic structure of the Turkish phonological system on the basis of an extensive Turkish linguistic corpus. In a descriptive study, the distribution of Turkish consonants in onset and coda positions as well as consonantal sequences across syllable boundary (in c.c) and coda clusters (in cvcc syllable were examined. Results showed that stops and affricates in syllable onset position are most frequent, which is in line with the hierarchy of sonority scale assumed by the constraint *ONSET/X (Selkirk, 1984). Furthermore, the study of sound sequences in various syllable structures revealed that sonorants are more frequent than stops in coda position (in cvc), and also closer to syllable head than stops in coda clusters (in cvcc). This finding contradicts the predictions assumed by the constraint *CODA/X. Further results indicated that the distribution of Turkish consonants in coda clusters (in cvcc) are in conformity with the Sonority Sequencing Principle with the least marked phonotactic structure. However, the distribution of consonants across syllable boundary (in c.c) involves various consonantal sequences including those which belong to the same or similar natural class of consonants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author of this paper defines the aspectual paradigms of Russian verbs as such grammatical structures whose formal aspect is correlated with the conceptual one, therefore being its cognitive counterpart. With a view to analysing these paradigms he uses the theory of markedness as an analytic tool. According to it, the grammatical changes that occur in natural languages originate from general principles of naturalness which are typologically relevant. They result in morphological shifts that are linked to the verbalisation of Russian aspectual paradigms and allow to predict the direction of their development. In particular, the principle of natural grammatical development should be considered crucial. It means that the grammatical changes in natural languages cause elimination of marked elements, so that these more complex linguistic structues are replaced with less complex ones. Such a principle manifests an unconscious desire of language users to minimise their linguistic efforts, as it would place an additional burden on interpersonal communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION In this research, we have had an exact categorization for different kinds of derivational and derivational-compound past participles in the frame of typological prototypes which is a universal approach towards the parts of speech. In this theory, prototypical adjectives with no morphemes belong to the semantic class of ‘property’ and to ‘modification’ in terms of propositional act constructions. These prototypical adjectives should be simple and without any morphemes on the basis of structural coding of typological prototypes theory. Furthermore, the adjectives which are not simple and have morphemes, are considered as marked and non- prototypical adjectives. Indeed, the structural coding criterion specifies only that the marked member is encoded by at least as many morphemes as the unmarked member (croft, 1999:73). This generalization is an implicational universal. If a language codes a typologically unmarked member of a grammatical category by n morphemes (n > 0), then it codes a typologically marked member of that category by at least n morphemes. Past participles which are studied in this research, are marked and are not simple structurally. They are divided to derivational and derivational- compound ones which have all morphemes. Derivational past participles are made by the past stem of verb + a suffix (-h) and the derivational-compound past participles are made by a noun, adjective, adverb, pronoun + derivational past participle (stem of a verb+ suffix(h)). Therefore, they are not prototypical in terms of their structure and their different semantic class. Typological markedness also constrains the distribution of constructions exhibiting the behavioral potential of the categories; if a construction encoding the behavioral potential of members of a grammatical category is found in that category, it is found with at least the unmarked member of that category for that construction.MATERIALS AND METHODSIn this research, examples of derivational and derivational-compound past participles are collected from the definitions and classifications of Persian grammarians and linguists. Then the examples of past participles are verified based on the typological criteria; structural coding and behavioral potential. All the examples are studied through the consideration of their adjectival and nominal behavioral potentials. Finally, their status and positions are specified in the Croft’s parts of speech semantic map. Then the new classification of past participles regarding their nominal and adjectival behaviors are placed in the behavioral diagrams.RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONPast participles do not act similarly and are not uniform on the basis of behavioral potential. Therefore, they are not in the same level. Some derivational past participles are used both with adjectival and nominal behavioral potentials. Some of them are used only in modification and propositional constructions and with nominal behavioral criteria. Some are used only in modification and propositional constructions. Some of derivational-compound past participles are used as both adjectives and nouns. Some of them are used only in modification and propositional constructions and with nominal behavioral criteria. Moreover, some are used only in propositional constructions with all of nominal behavioral potentials which are considered as marked nouns. In this research, past participles behavioral potential is verified and at last it is shown that they follow the behavioral potential of typological prototype theory. Totally, their behavioral potential is not more than the behavioral potentials of unmarked nouns. Hence, they are marked category in terms of both structural coding and behavioral potential. Finally, their position is specified on the semantic map and their behavioral potentials are shown through diagrams. The position of derivational and derivational-compound past participles on the semantic map are considered as ‘action’ in terms of semantic class and ‘modification’ in terms of propositional act. Because in all derivational and derivational-compound past participles, we have used an action for the propositional act of modification. In other words, by marking and adding morphemes to an action as a semantic class, we have used it for acting as modification. Therefore, the position of past participles is shown in the semantic map as figure 1 below. CONCLUSIONDerivational and derivational-compound past participles’ new classifications on the basis of their adjectival, nominal or both are placed on the behavioral diagrams. behavioral potentials are shown by ovals and the positions of past participles are shown by (*) in the ovals. One oval is dedicated to adjectival criteria. One oval is dedicated to nominal criteria. These ovals have some common spaces which are considered for past participles which have both the adjectival and nominal behavioral potential."Reference to PDF article"Figure 1. semantic map of Persian parts of speech constructionsAnother classification is considered for a class of derivational- compound past participles which are made by a noun and the past participle of verbs ‘zadeh’: giving birth and ‘xandeh’: to call someone’. This class of derivational-compound past participles have only nominal usage. They are used with all of the nominal behavioral criteria and are not used with specific behavioral potentials of adjectives. In other words, they cannot be gradable, they are not used with intensifiers and are not used in the modification constructions. These are the most specific properties of prototypical adjectives. They only are used in the propositional constructions. It should be mentioned that nouns also could be used in the propositional constructions. So, this class of derivational-compound past participles are considered as marked nouns and not adjectives. Therefore, their position in the semantic map is considered as ‘action’ in terms of semantic class and ‘reference’ in terms of propositional act. If their propositional act was modification, they could be used as adjectives. It means they could be used with the most specific adjectival properties (able to be gradable, used with intensifiers and used in modification constructions). However, Persian speakers have used this construction to refer and name some specific persons. Accordingly, their propositional act would be reference and not modification. Therefore, they are called persons’ name.