Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics
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Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics jest międzynarodowym przeglądem zagadnień teoretycznych i metodologicznych w badaniach językoznawczych. Czasopismo publikuje oryginalne artykuły z teoretycznym wpływem na dowolną z dziedzin językoznawstwa, recenzje i przeglądy artykułów, dyskusje oraz recenzje książek.
Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics is an international review of theoretical and methodological issues in linguistic research. The journal carries original articles with a theoretical impact on any area of linguistics, review articles, discussion papers and reply articles, and book reviews.
Redaktor naczelny: Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kołaczyk
Kontakt: Faculty of English
Adam Mickiewicz University
Collegium Novum
al. Niepodległości 4
61-874 Poznań, Poland
e-mail: psicl@ifa.amu.edu.pl
strona www: http://wa.amu.edu.pl/psicl/
Nazwa wydawcy: Versita Ltd., de Gruyter
ISSN 0137-2459
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Item Atkins, B. T. Sue and Michael Rundell. 2008. The Oxford guide to practical lexicography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. xii+540 pages. ISBN: 978-0-19-927771-1.(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2008) Szczepaniak, RenataItem AUTONOMY, EXPERIENCE AND CONCEPTS: A STUDY IN EDUCATIONAL DISCOURSES(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2008) Siek-Piskozub, Teresa; Strugielska, AriadnaThe aim of this article is to investigate the impact of educational reforms launched in Poland in the last decade upon the notion of learner autonomy as evidenced by the results of a cross- sectional study. Necessarily, standard definitions of the concept of autonomy will be re-defined against the background of socio-political reforms in the country and their reflections in sylla- buses and curricula. Re-evaluating the notion of learner independence in the Polish context will be primarily viewed from the perspective of the learner; however, relevant comparisons with teachers’ perceptions will be also provided. Employing methodological guidelines offered by Conceptual Metaphor Theory, conclusions will be drawn concerning the practicability of foster- ing learner autonomy in the Polish milieu.Item CONSONANT CLUSTERS ACROSS MORPHEME BOUNDARIES: POLISH MORPHONOTACTIC INVENTORY AND ITS ACQUISITION(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2010) Zydorowicz, PaulinaMorphonotactics is a term introduced by Dressler and Dziubalska-Kołaczyk (2006) to refer to the interaction of phonotactics and morphotactics. This paper examines the acquisition of phonotac- tics and morphonotactics, i.e. consonant clusters occurring within morphemes and across mor- pheme boundaries. It is hypothesized that morphonotactic clusters will be better retained in pro- duction than lexical clusters as they carry significant morphological information. Additionally, the acquisition of consonant clusters will be investigated in terms of markedness. With respect to markedness, two hypotheses have been put forward. Firstly, less marked (preferred) sequences will emerge earlier. Secondly, preferred clusters will be retained in production better.Item Gurevich, Naomi. 2004. Lenition and contrast: The functional consequences of certain phonetically conditioned sound changes. (Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics se- ries.) New York and London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-97099-7.(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2009) Kul, Małgorzata; Jaworski, SylwesterItem Idiom processing in aphasic patients(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2009) Morawski, MarcinThe aim of the present paper is to provide insight into the issue of idiom comprehension in pa- tients who are in the process of recovery from the syndrome of aphasia. Research in figurative language comprehension has seen a robust development in the recent decades. However, it has not been until quite recently that psycholinguists began to delve into the aspect of metaphorical language comprehension in brain damaged populations. It was observed that even though the ability to produce and understand language is recovered in the majority of patients with head trauma, the impairment of some aspects of comprehension may protract. The understanding of idioms, metaphors, similes and proverbs, due to their specific, non-literal character, has been evi- denced to pose a serious problem to aphasic patients, as they fail to decipher the figurative mean- ing of the utterance, and, instead, tend to process the message literally (Papagno et al. 2004). In the present study, three patients who suffered from aphasic disorder were tested for com- prehension of idioms by means of two multiple choice tasks. The obtained results corroborated the hypothesis that patients who are in the process of recovery from aphasia encounter various pitfalls in the comprehension of idiomatic language. Predominantly, they exhibit an inclination to choose the erroneous, literal paraphrases of the presented idioms over their correct, idiomatic counterparts. The present paper aims at accounting for the reasons underlying such a tendency.Item INFINITIVES IN THE 1820 SETTLER LETTERS OF DENUNCIATION: WHAT CAN A CONTEXTUALISED APPLICATION OF CORPUS-BASED RESULTS TELL US ABOUT THE EXPRESSION OF PERSUASION?(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2010) Włodarczyk, MatyldaThis paper takes issue with Biber’s (1988) findings concerning the significance of infinitives for what he calls the “overt expression of persuasion” (Biber 1988: 115). It aims to demonstrate that statistically generated results of research on large electronic corpora of contemporary English may not be verifiable in small, well-contextualised, single-genre collections, such as the one rep- resenting 19th century English used in this study. The collection comprises denunciation letters addressed to the colonial authorities (the Colonial Office) by the first British settlers in the Cape Colony (the 1820 Settlers). The letters follow the generic model of petition (Włodarczyk 2010) understood as an official written request. An act of denunciation, as we may assume, contributes to the inherent persuasiveness of petitions by increasing the illocutionary force (in the sense of Searle 1969, 1979) of the letter. Therefore, patterns of distribution of infinitives as markers of persuasion (Biber 1988) are particularly interesting to trace in the 1820 Settler denunciation let- ters. The paper shows that some of Biber’s statements may not be taken as valid generalizations, as the persuasive potential of infinitives may not be corroborated unless each and every token is thoroughly contextualized. Furthermore, an analysis of requests in denunciations conducted within Speech Act Theory (Austin 1962; Searle 1969; Blum-Kulka 1984; Culpeper and Archer 2008) shows that it is first and foremost politeness concerns (cf. Brown and Levinson 1987), not the increased need for persuasiveness, that determine the degree of the illocutionary force of re- quests.Item Karwatowska, Małgorzata and Jolanta Szpyra-Kozłowska. 2005. Lingwistyka płci: Ona i on w języku polskim. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej. 294 pages. ISBN: 83-227-2342-3.(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2008) Glapka, Ewa; Kiełkiewicz-Janowiak, AgnieszkaItem LISTENER ORIENTED REPRESENTATIONS IN NATURAL PHONOLOGY(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2009) Schwartz, GeoffreyWhile Natural Phonology has long contended that phonemes are specified for their phonetic properties, followers of the theory have concentrated primarily on phonological processes, in- stead of delving into the details of pronounceable representations. In the area of representation, NP has thus failed to pursue its claim that systematic articulatory and perceptual phenomena be- low the level of segmental contrast must be treated phonologically. By building an explicit model of representation in NP, we may help the theory to meet one of its primary challenges: “to con- firm the hypothesis that speech processing is categorical, or phonological, down to the level of the actual phonetic (pronounceable) representation” (Donegan 2002: 79). Prominence Phonology (Schwartz, in press) is an NP-inspired model that seeks to take Donegan’s call to action to heart, introducing new and phonetically explicit representations based upon scalar yet monovalent ele- mental primes. This paper introduces these representations with the goal of refining our view of the signal so as to develop a phonological view of speech.Item MEASURING FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING APTITUDE. POLISH ADAPTATION OF THE MODERN LANGUAGE APTITUDE TEST BY CARROLL AND SAPON(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2008) Rysiewicz, JacekThis article sets itself two main aims. The first is to describe the rationale behind the decision to adapt for Polish learners the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) by Carroll and Sapon (1959), rather than to develop a new measure. The reasons behind the decision are discussed in the context of the relevant individual differences (ID) research in Poland and the need for a reli- able and theoretically valid measure of foreign language (FL) aptitude for L1 Polish is articu- lated. The other aim is to describe the development, piloting and initial validation of the Polish MLAT-based adaptation of a new measure of FL aptitude. Two methods of test adaptation (trans- lation and paraphrase) are discussed and justified with relation to the current project. It was de- cided that all four components of FL aptitude, as proposed by Carroll (1981), would be repre- sented in the Polish adaptation of the MLAT. The piloting was done on approximately 200 sec- ondary school learners aged 19, while the data for the initial validation study, in the form of sec- ond language (L2) English proficiency test results as well as simple measures of motivation, length of study, social background and others, came from ca. 250 subjects, aged 18–22.Item MINIMISE AD (?/*IN-)FINITUM? IN DEFENSE OF WEAKLY CARTOGRAPHIC COMPUTATIONAL MODELS(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2008) Cegłowski, PiotrThis paper provides a critical overview of the strongly derivational and non-cartographic approaches to syntax based solely on the relation between a newly selected lexical item (LI) and the so-called derivational space (the existing syntactic object) treated as the pivot of the syntactic derivation. Specifically, it is argued that, given the asymmetry requirement requisite for lineariza- tion, as stated in Kayne’s (1994) Linear Correspondence Axiom (LCA) and Chomsky’s (1994) Bare Phrase Structure (BPS), the abovementioned procedure is unattainable in certain strongly derivational syntactic configurations. The latter sections of the paper, while still arguing against the excessively minimized derivational space, focus on the non-cartographic Escape system pro- posed by Zwart (2007). It is shown that the data (comprising mostly the so-called “look-ahead”- based cases) that prove problematic for Escape can be captured within a moderately (i.e. weakly) cartographic view of the left periphery in accord with Thráinsson’s (1996) Limited Diversity Hypothesis.Item NATURAL PHONOLOGY AS A FUNCTIONAL THEORY(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2009) Balas, AnnaThis paper presents Natural Phonology as a functional theory. Natural Phonology is shown to be functional in two senses: as focusing on explanation and thus increasing our understanding of how language works, and as having practical applications, especially to second language acquisi- tion and speech therapy. The contribution argues that crucial as formalism is in computational linguistics and speech technology, Natural Phonology, with less rigid and less formalized claims, has important applications in the areas where language and not totally predictable human factors are involved. The paper discusses approaches to autonomy in language, explanation and hy- pothesis in Natural Phonology, and applications of Natural Phonology.Item NEW TESTS FOR LANGUAGE MAPPING WITH INTRAOPERATIVE ELECTRICAL STIMULATION OF THE BRAIN TO PRESERVE LANGUAGE IN INDIVIDUALS WITH TUMORS AND EPILEPSY: A PRELIMINARY FOLLOW-UP STUDY(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2009) Połczyńska, MonikaIntraoperative Electrical Stimulation (IES) of the brain is performed to localise and spare lan- guage functional areas before extraction of brain tissue in patients with tumors and epilepsy. The procedure is very precise and highly effective. Yet, it is argued that language tests used during IES are too limited. This article presents new language tests that have a potential of minimising post-operative risk to language function. It is a continuation of a previous study (Połczyńska 2008) and it contains extended versions of earlier presented tests, as well as new tests designed in three sets: (1) Grammar-focused tests for the dominant left hemisphere, (2) Non-dominant right- hemisphere tests and (3) Tests for the subcortex. To assure maximum safety and efficiency of the tests before they are used during IES for the first time, it is suggested that they are first used with patients with intractable epilepsy who have a multielectrode subdural grid implanted onto their cortex to trace the source of seizures. The subdural grid gives a chance to carry out an electrical stimulation of those areas of the cortex which are covered with a grid. This type of language mapping is carried out in a ward and is not time-limited.Item NON-VERBAL CUES IN POLITICS: AN ANALYSIS OF GESTURAL SIGNALS SENT BY AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN POLITICIANS(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2008) Rominiecka, Marta“Speech is accompanied by an intricate set of gestural signals which affect meaning, emphasis and other aspects of utterances” Argyle (1972: 245). They are at least as influential as the verbal content of the message in determining how an individual is perceived (Rosenberg et al. 1986). Kopacz (2006) claims that non-verbal behaviours play an immense role in forming people’s judgements and may be used in political persuasion to elicit positive reactions from voters. The objective of this paper is to analyze some of the most popular body signals sent by American and European politicians and show which of them are considered positive and strengthen the verbal message and which are said to be negative and make the performer look unprofessional and un- trustworthy. The next purpose is to determine which non-verbal channel such as eyes, face, hands, posture, legs is the strongest and attracts the greatest attention.Item NP EXTENSION: B&B PHONOTACTICS(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2009) Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, KatarzynaThis paper will report on an extension of the framework of Natural Phonology in the area of syl- lable phonology and phonotactics. In particular, it will present a universal model of phonotactics constructed within Beats-and-Binding Phonology (B&B Phonology, cf. Dziubalska-Kołaczyk 2002) – a syllable-less theory of phonology embedded in Natural Phonology. The thrust of the theory is the claim that intersegmental cohesion determines syllable structure, rather than being determined by it (if one insists on the notion of the “syllable” which is epiphenomenal here). The core of B&B phonotactics is the Net Auditory Distance Principle, according to which phonologi- cal naturalness of clusters can be evaluated.Item ON CERTAIN CONSEQUENCES OF FEATURE SPREAD IN PHASE-BASED SYNTAX(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2007) Witkoś, Jacek; Cegłowski, PiotrThe paper presents some empirical consequences resulting from the application of Chomsky’s phase-based system (Chomsky 2005, 2006) and, specifically, the implementation of feature spread between phase heads (C, v) and their complements (T,V) , respectively. We begin with a brief overview of the “old” rules for the syntactic derivation and proceed with the description of the innovative concept of feature spread and the way it modifies the derivational process. Next, we hint at some problematic areas for the new system, i.e. extraction from the subject as well as that trace phenomenon. As for the former, we present, based on the comparison of the behaviour of raising as well as control verbs (including, among others, raising and control constructions), some evidence for the theory of Control as movement. What follows, we derive a parametrised version of Subject Condition. Finally, we look at certain facts from Polish (e.g. Genitive of Negation) that seem to lend credibility to the feature spread analysis.Item ON HEARING COLOURS – CROSS-MODAL ASSOCIATIONS IN VOWEL PERCEPTION IN A NON-SYNAESTHETIC POPULATION(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2009) Wrembel, MagdalenaThe present study is a continuation of previous investigations into the nature of sound−colour as- sociations in a non-synaesthetic population conducted on English and Polish vowel sound sys- tems and it aims at providing further evidence for the non-arbitrary nature of cross-modal map- pings. The experiment1 was run on a specially designed computer program and involved 90 par- ticipants who were asked to match randomised auditory stimuli (12 English vowel sounds re- corded in 2 conditions: in isolation and in a CVC context) with one of 11 basic colours (red, yel- low, green, blue, brown, purple, pink, orange, black, white and grey) presented as coloured rec- tangles on a computer screen. The program kept record of the colour choice and reaction time of the participants, who fell into 2 groups with respect to the level of their language proficiency and phonetic awareness. An analysis of the results revealed statistically significant interactions between specific col- ours and individual vowel sounds for all 12 English vowels examined in the combined analysis; for 10 vowels in Condition 1 (isolated auditory stimuli) and for 7 vowels in Condition 2 (stimuli in the CVC context). A group effect was not found to be significant as far as the quality of map- pings was concerned; however, in the case of reaction times the less advanced learners took sig- nificantly longer to assign colours to sounds in context. The findings indicate that vowel−sound mappings in non-synaesthetic perception appear non-arbitrary and follow the general tendencies in which bright colours (yellow, green) are associated with high front vowel sounds, whereas dark colours (brown, blue, black) are attributed to back vowels, while open sounds tend to be perceived as red and central vowels are mapped onto achromatic grey.Item PARTIAL CONTROL IS TRICKIER THAN WE THOUGHT(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2008) Snarska, AnnaThis paper discusses partial control, a notoriously intricate phenomenon. Brought to the linguistic limelight only recently (cf. Landau 2000), its bizarre nature renders it a real challenge to any the- ory of control. I contribute to the Agree vs. Move debate on control by making an empirical claim concerning cases of what I call Parasitic Partial Control Effects which are extremely problematic to Landau’s Agree Theory of Control. To account for these facts, I propose a solution framed within the theory of control based on Move. Refining insights in Rodrigues (2007), I suggest that the licensing of the PC effect depends on the presence of the projection of wollP dominated by TP in the structure of the infinitive and the sideward movement of the DP controller from within the adjunct to the matrix. Thus, Landau’s claim that partial control is licensed only in complements must be loosened (if not dropped).Item PHONOLOGY IN TEXT MESSAGES(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2007) Kul, MałgorzataText messages operate on a protocol which allows from 148 to160 characters per message, including spaces between words. In such a highly circumscribed environment, writing is seriously hampered by the limited space and the usage of the numeric phone keypad. Thus, the advent of a new quality of the text language, sometimes referred to as “textese”, was inevitable under those conditions. One of the characteristics of text messages is frequent deletion of letters in ortho- graphical forms, like in the following example: IfYaMthWozNEBiGrUWdntHavNEFAcLft2Wsh (if your mouth was any bigger you wouldn’t have anything else left to wash). In order to investigate the nature of letter deletions in text messages a study was undertaken, which analyzed ten examples of text messages coming from various sources. The aim of the study was to determine whether the deletion of letters was regular, the gen- eral prediction being that text messages are decoded via the mediation of their phonemic representations (or via mental reading). It was speculated that the regularities were governed by phonological principles such as the semiotic “figure and ground” principle (Dressler 1996) and the “rich-get-richer” principle (Donegan 1978/1985). The results demonstrate that phonology is very likely to govern reductions albeit without any recourse to the prosody level.More specifically, phonology apparently affects the pattern of deletions in text messages, whereas there is a marked tendency that stress assignment does not determine the nature of deletions.Item PHONOLOGY IN THE SPEECH SIGNAL – UNIFYING CUE AND PROSODIC LICENSING(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2010) Schwartz, GeoffreyThis paper is offered in commemoration of Prof. Edmund Gussmann, who passed away sadly and unexpectedly just a few short weeks before the 41st Poznań Linguistic Meeting, where the paper was presented. The PLM session, Competing Explanations in Phonology, was the type of gathering at which Prof. Gussmann would thrive, advancing his strong theoretical position that phonetics is irrelevant for phonological theory (Gussmann 2004). Prof. Gussmann argued for this view in an animated and sometimes provocative manner, but he always did so with charm and good nature. My own views on the role of speech in phonology differ sharply from Prof. Guss- mann’s. I am nevertheless quite grateful for his perspective, which has indeed changed the way I think of speech. Under the influence of Government Phonology, I have adopted a phonological view of the acoustic signal, which seeks to challenge phoneticians with new hypotheses about the way speech interacts with grammar. This paper explicates this perspective, and applies it to a re- cent case, cue vs. prosodic licensing, in which “phonetic” and “phonological” explanations seemed to be at an impasse. Thanks in part to Prof. Gussmann’s strong theoretical position, I have developed a new theory of constituency that offers a vehicle with which we may reconcile competing views on the underpinnings of phonological licensing.Item PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN ERGATIVITY... STILL TO BE DISCUSSED(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2008) Bavant, MarcSince Uhlenbeck’s seminal article (“Agens und Patiens im Kasussystem der indogermanischen Sprachen”, 1901) many scholars have accepted the hypothesis of an ergative case in Proto-Indo- European (PIE) given the light it could shed on obscure facts discovered by the comparatist school inside the IE family. The Soviet linguistic school has been particularly active on ergativity in rela- tion with their interests for living languages of the Caucasus and for ancient languages of the Mid- dle East. More recent works on ergativity have shifted the focus to Australian languages. When the theory of language universals took ergativity into consideration, scholars began to seek an expla- nation of the so-called “split ergativity” in relation with Silverstein’s animacy hierarchy. A sequel of this was that the kind of split ergativity demonstrated by PIE seemed contrary to the accepted universals and, consequently, discarded. This paper challenges the way language universals have been used to refute the PIE ergativity hypothesis. Indeed, the influence of the animacy hierarchy is known to be effective in many languages, but more as a tendency than as an absolute universal. Also, PIE is not a fully-fledged language, but rather a field of experimentation. I also present the viewpoint that PIE could have had no split at all, but solely a semantic impossibility to use inani- mate noun phrases in an agent role, which seemed backed up by similar “embarrassments” in modern languages and by the so-called “Hittite ergative”.