Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics vol. 43 (2), 2007
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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 TWO LANGUAGES, TWO CULTURES, ONE MIND: A STUDY INTO DEVELOPMENTAL CHANGES IN THE STUDENTS’ VIEW OF LANGUAGE AS A TOOL IN CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2007) Whyatt, BogusławaIn this paper I report on the preliminary results of a longitudinal one-year study of students’ progression from a low level of language awareness manifested in their superficial/intuitive use of language/languages to a higher level of language self-awareness manifested in their more con- trolled use of language. The data gathered for this study include four sources: a language aware- ness questionnaire, think aloud protocols, error analysis and post error analysis in-class discussions. The results of this study are intended to be further explored in a larger research project.Item Smitherman, Geneva. 2006. Word from the mother: Language and African Americans. New York: Routledge. xiii + 172 pages. ISBN: 0-415-35876.(Versita Ltd., de Gruyter, 2007) Dylewski, RadosławItem 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.