Matching Items (13)
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- All Subjects: Discourse analysis
- All Subjects: negation
- All Subjects: Languages in contact
- Creators: Gelderen, Elly van
Description
ABSTRACT There are many parts of speech and morphological items in a linguistic lexicon that may be optional in order to have a cohesive language with a complete range of expression. Negation is not one of them. Negation appears to be absolutely essential from a linguistic (and indeed, a psychological) point of view within any human language. Humans need to be able to say in some fashion "No" and to express our not doing things in various ways. During the discussions that appear in this thesis, I expound upon the historical changes that can be seen within three different language branches - North Germanic (with Gothic, Old Saxon, Old Norse, Swedish, and Icelandic), West Germanic (with English), and Celtic (with Welsh) - focusing on negation particles in particular and their position within these languages. I also examine how each of these chosen languages has seen negation shift over time in relation to Jespersen's negation cycle. Finally, I compare and contrast the results I see from these languages, demonstrating that they all three do follow a distinct negation cycle. I also explain how these three negation cycles are chronologically not in sync with one another and obviously all changed at different rates. This appears to be the case even within the different branches of the Germanic family.
ContributorsLoewenhagen, Angela C (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Committee member) / Bjork, Robert (Committee member) / Gillon, Carrie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The primary topic of this dissertation is the grammaticalization of negation in three Sinitic language varieties: Hakka, Mandarin, and Southern Min. I discuss negative morphemes that are used under different modality or aspect contexts, including ability, volition, necessity, and perfectivity. Not only does this study examine Southern Min affirmative and negative pairs, but it also highlights the grammaticalization of negation and parametric differences in negation among the languages under investigation. This dissertation also covers the reanalysis of negatives into interrogatives. I approach the investigation of Southern Min negation from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. I analyze corpus data in addition to data collected from fieldwork for the contemporary linguistic data. For my diachronic research of Chinese negation, I use historical texts and etymological dictionaries. Diachronically, many of the negative morphemes originate from full-fledged verbs and undergo an analogous grammaticalization process that consists of multiple stages of reanalysis from V to T (aspect; modality), and then T to C (interrogative; discourse). I explain this reanalysis, which involves head-to-head movement, using generative frameworks that combine a modified cartographic approach and the Minimalist Economy Principles. Synchronic data show that Southern Min affirmative modals are characterized by a certain morphological doubling. These doublings consist of two near synonyms used in sequence, resulting from the loss of features in a verb and a second verb added as a renewal. In the negation paradigm, some negatives project a negative phrase, while the others serve a dual function, occupying a modal/aspect head as well as a negative head. The latter system is gradually shifting to the former. This study uncovers evidence to counter the long-established paradigm, where negation is tied to its independent modality (abilitive, volitional and necessitive) or aspect (perfective and perfect). I observe a mismatch between the use of interrogatives and their modality/aspect and attribute this phenomenon to feature loss during their reanalysis from negatives to interrogatives. Results however show that consistency occurs in the grammaticalization of negation within Southern Min and intra-linguistically among the three Sinitic languages, and that parametric differences are found at the morphological level.
ContributorsYang, Huiling (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Adams, Karen (Committee member) / Gillon, Carrie (Committee member) / Sun, Chaofen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Spanish-speaking (SS) dual language learners (DLLs) have shown differential developmental profiles of the native language (L1). The current study examined whether or not the Spanish acquisition profile, specifically accusative clitics, in predominantly SS, Latino children continues to develop in an English-language contact situation. This study examined (1) accuracy rates of clitic production, total substitutions, and total omissions across 5-, 6-, and 7-year-olds; (2) accuracy rates of clitic production, total substitutions, and total omissions across low and high English proficiency groups; and (3) whether or not there was a trend to use the default clitic lo in inappropriate contexts. Seventy-four SS children aged 5;1 to 7;11 participated in a clitic elicitation task. Results indicated non-significant effects of age and proficiency level on the accuracy of clitic production. These results suggest dual language learners are in an environment that does not foster the maintenance of the L1, at least in the accuracy of accusative clitic pronouns.
ContributorsFigueroa, Megan Danielle (Author) / Restrepo, María A (Thesis advisor) / Gelderen, Elly van (Committee member) / Ingram, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Past research has isolated an extension of the copular verb estar into the domain previously sanctioned for its counterpart, ser. This extension has been found in areas of contact between American English and Spanish speaking Mexican immigrants. A similar situation of contact is in occurrence in Arizona, and this study endeavored to evaluate if this same extension was present, and to what degree. This study also explores the framework of linguistic hegemony in order to relate language attitudes in Arizona to language change in Arizona. The findings revealed minimal extension. This may be due to language maintenance in response to hegemony.
ContributorsBonnell, Jamie (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Major, Roy (Committee member) / Ryan, John (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This thesis investigates similarities in the diachronic sound changes found in Eastern Old Japanese dialects and in Ryukyuan languages and tests a hypothesis of language contact. I examine three sound changes attested in the Eastern Old Japanese corpus of Kupchik (2011). These three are denasalization of prenasalized obstruents, the fortition of the labial glide [w] and prenasalized / simple voiced fricative [(n)z], and the irregular raising of Eastern Old Japanese mid vowels. Extralinguistic and linguistic evidence is presented in support of a hypothesis for language contact between 8th century Ryukyuan speakers and Eastern Old Japanese speakers. At present, many assumptions bog down any potential evidence of contact. However, cases where reconstructed Ryukyuan could have donated a form into EOJ do exist. With future research into early Ryukyuan development and the lexicons, phonologies, and syntactic patterns of Ryukyuan languages, more can be said about this hypothesis. Alongside testing a hypothesis of language contact, this thesis can also be viewed as an analysis of Eastern Old Japanese spelling variation of the three changes mentioned above.
ContributorsMakiyama, Alexander Koji (Author) / Pruitt, Kathryn (Thesis advisor) / Adams, Karen (Committee member) / Gelderen, Elly van (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
While Huntington’s (1996) theory of “The Clash of Civilizations” illuminated the concept of the gap between the Western and non-Western cultures, the framework of an opposite approach, which intensively emphasizes and strives for mutual understanding, cooperation and solidarity towards peace, has created a new and vital discursive perspective and practice through the establishment of The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC). As the domain of UNAOC has not received linguistic attention yet, the goal of the current dissertation is to investigate and reveal the notions and messages conveyed in the related context of Turkey’s accession to the EU by the Turkish Prime Minister (2003-2014) and the co- founder of the Alliance of Civilizations, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It seeks answers to the following questions: How does Mr. Erdogan conceptualize Turkey, which has geopolitically bridged the Western and non-Western cultures throughout the centuries, and which borders the boiling pot of the Middle East? How does the Prime Minister construct identities in the context of the Western and non-Western countries especially in his discussion of Turkey’s accession to the EU? How does the Prime Minister further reconceptualize the urgent need for global peace and stability in the world, contributing to the UNAOC directly and indirectly? This dissertation employs a cognitive framework approach which entails speech act theory and analogical reasoning, in addition to Reisigl and Wodak’s (2001) Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) to analyze Prime Minister Erdogan’s speeches in the international context. In conclusion, the discourse of UNAOC gives rise to new discursive practices for global peace, “countering the forces that fuel polarization and extremism” (http://www.unaoc.org/about/). The discursive construction of global phenomena, events and actions as defined in Erdogan’s speeches are reconceptualized on the basis of non-Western but secular pro-Western intertextuality and perspectivization.
ContributorsTumay, Jale (Author) / Adams, Karen L. (Thesis advisor) / Gelderen, Elly van (Committee member) / Prior, Matthew (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Throughout generative syntax, verb movement has been discussed and debated to varying degrees. Syntacticians have attempted to describe this unique form of head movement and its constraints cross-linguistically. Pollock’s (1985, 1997) elaborate comparison of French and English verb movement restrictions has been considered one of the major contributions to the discussion. His analysis has led to the general understanding that auxiliaries are the only variety of verbs in English capable of moving to a higher position in the TP-layer—i.e. the T. In order to prove this claim, Pollock and others (e.g. Roberts 1993, Ernst 2002, Engels 2012, etc.) have examined the placement of other constituents—i.e. adverbs, negation, etc.
In terms of adverb placement, Cinque (1999) assigns a position for each adverb in a rigid hierarchy. Claiming the adverbs are in the specifier position, this syntactic representation follows the rich Cartographic framework. I agree that adverbs are base-generated in the specifiers; however, I argue that such a specific ordering of adverbs is rather difficult to justify. Therefore, I adopt the scope-based approach, which groups adverbs into “zones” throughout the TP-layer.
By analyzing spoken corpus data, this thesis provides empirical evidence of auxiliary verb movement occurring in Modern English. I argue that, despite being considered optional, English speakers move auxiliaries to the T more frequently, which is consistently indicated by the analysis of adverb placement in the TP-layer.
In terms of adverb placement, Cinque (1999) assigns a position for each adverb in a rigid hierarchy. Claiming the adverbs are in the specifier position, this syntactic representation follows the rich Cartographic framework. I agree that adverbs are base-generated in the specifiers; however, I argue that such a specific ordering of adverbs is rather difficult to justify. Therefore, I adopt the scope-based approach, which groups adverbs into “zones” throughout the TP-layer.
By analyzing spoken corpus data, this thesis provides empirical evidence of auxiliary verb movement occurring in Modern English. I argue that, despite being considered optional, English speakers move auxiliaries to the T more frequently, which is consistently indicated by the analysis of adverb placement in the TP-layer.
ContributorsWolfe, Andrew John (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Bahtchevanova, Mariana (Committee member) / Wood, Johanna (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
The issue of women driving remains to be highly debated in Saudi Arabia. Recent developments on its legalization have sparked conversation and discourse, particularly in social media sites like Twitter. Several hashtags have been used to indicate either support or criticism towards the movement.
Examining Twitter tweets and hashtags, the study explored how the discourse on women driving had been executed, particularly in between genders. The study analyzed a sizeable number of tweets as well as their context via linguistic corpora analysis. Following Norman Fairclough’s framework, the two opposing perspectives were investigated both at a level of textual analysis. The selected tweets were representative of the three hashtags that emerged on the heat of the discourse regarding the issue of women driving in Saudi Arabia: #Women_car_driving, #I_will_drive_my_car_June15, and #I_will_enter_my_kitchen_June15.
The results showed, among others, that tweets with the hashtag #Women_car_driving presented a tremendous support towards the movement. On the other hand strong opposing reactions emerged from the hashtags #I_will_drive_my_car_June15 and #I_will_enter_my_kitchen_June15.
Examining Twitter tweets and hashtags, the study explored how the discourse on women driving had been executed, particularly in between genders. The study analyzed a sizeable number of tweets as well as their context via linguistic corpora analysis. Following Norman Fairclough’s framework, the two opposing perspectives were investigated both at a level of textual analysis. The selected tweets were representative of the three hashtags that emerged on the heat of the discourse regarding the issue of women driving in Saudi Arabia: #Women_car_driving, #I_will_drive_my_car_June15, and #I_will_enter_my_kitchen_June15.
The results showed, among others, that tweets with the hashtag #Women_car_driving presented a tremendous support towards the movement. On the other hand strong opposing reactions emerged from the hashtags #I_will_drive_my_car_June15 and #I_will_enter_my_kitchen_June15.
ContributorsAljarallah, Rayya Sulaiman (Author) / Adams, Karen (Thesis advisor) / Gelderen, Elly van (Committee member) / Prior, Matthew (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
This dissertation provides an account of evidentiality of a number of selected verbs of perception in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). The verbs are divided into three categories: activity, experiential, and source-based, following Viberg (1983). The data shows that the activity P.Vs in MSA are rarely used evidentially whereas the experiential and the source-based ones are commonly used to indicate evidential meaning. It also shows that while the source-based verb is mostly used with an inferred evidential meaning, the evidentiality encoded by the experiential perception verbs is determined by the complementation pattern and the person of the subject (first or third person subject). With the non-finite complement, these verbs indicate a direct evidentiality when having a first person subject, and a reported evidentiality when having a third person subject. With the finite CP complement, they indicate an indirect evidentiality. This corpus-based study also examines the grammaticalization of these verbs when used evidentially. I argue that only the verb ra’aa of the selected experiential verbs is fully grammaticalized, but only when it is in the past tense and followed by a verbal non-finite complement. In this usage, it becomes a light verb. The source-based verb badaa/yabduu when indicating an evidentiality, it is grammaticalized into copulative verb when followed by an adjectival predicate, and modal verb when followed by a finite complement.
ContributorsHarthi, Jaber (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Adams, Karen (Committee member) / Gebhardt, Lewis (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
ABSTRACT
This study explores some grammatical aspects of Rural Palestinian Arabic (RPA), spoken in the vicinity of the city of Tulkarm in the Northwest part of the West Bank, and compares the variety to Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Urban Palestinian Arabic (UPA). The study introduces an overview of the Arabic language and its colloquial dialects and the status of diglossia in the Arab world. Subject-verb agreement in MSA and RPA is also discussed.
The focus of this study is on the pronominal system and negation in both MSA and RPA. It investigates the correlations between dependent subject pronouns and independent pronouns and their phonological and syntactic relationships. I argue that dependent subject pronouns are reduced forms of the independent subject pronoun. The study explains how dependent subject pronouns are formed by deleting the initial syllable, except for the first person singular and the third person masculine plural, which use suppletive forms instead. Dependent object pronouns are also derived from their independent counterparts by the deletion of the second syllable, with the exception of third person plural pronouns, which take the same form as clitics attached to their hosts.
I argue that dependent subject pronouns are agreement affixes used to mark verb argument features, whereas pronominal object and possessive pronouns are clitics attached to their hosts, which can be verbs, nouns, prepositions, and quantifiers. This study investigates other uses of subject pronouns, such as the use of third person pronouns as copulas in both MSA and RPA. Additionally, third person pronouns are used as question pronouns for yes
o questions in RPA.
The dissertation also explores the morphosyntactic properties of sentential negation in RPA in comparison to sentential negation in MSA. The study shows that the negative markers ma: and -iš are used to negate perfective and imperfective verbs, while muš precedes non-verbal predicates, such as adjectives, prepositional phrases (PPs), and participles. The main predicate in the negative phrase does not need the noun phrase (NP) to raise to T if there is no need to merge with the negative element.
Keywords: Standard Arabic, Rural Palestinian Arabic, Urban Palestinian Arabic, independent pronouns, dependent pronouns, pronominal clitics, copula pronouns, negation
This study explores some grammatical aspects of Rural Palestinian Arabic (RPA), spoken in the vicinity of the city of Tulkarm in the Northwest part of the West Bank, and compares the variety to Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Urban Palestinian Arabic (UPA). The study introduces an overview of the Arabic language and its colloquial dialects and the status of diglossia in the Arab world. Subject-verb agreement in MSA and RPA is also discussed.
The focus of this study is on the pronominal system and negation in both MSA and RPA. It investigates the correlations between dependent subject pronouns and independent pronouns and their phonological and syntactic relationships. I argue that dependent subject pronouns are reduced forms of the independent subject pronoun. The study explains how dependent subject pronouns are formed by deleting the initial syllable, except for the first person singular and the third person masculine plural, which use suppletive forms instead. Dependent object pronouns are also derived from their independent counterparts by the deletion of the second syllable, with the exception of third person plural pronouns, which take the same form as clitics attached to their hosts.
I argue that dependent subject pronouns are agreement affixes used to mark verb argument features, whereas pronominal object and possessive pronouns are clitics attached to their hosts, which can be verbs, nouns, prepositions, and quantifiers. This study investigates other uses of subject pronouns, such as the use of third person pronouns as copulas in both MSA and RPA. Additionally, third person pronouns are used as question pronouns for yes
o questions in RPA.
The dissertation also explores the morphosyntactic properties of sentential negation in RPA in comparison to sentential negation in MSA. The study shows that the negative markers ma: and -iš are used to negate perfective and imperfective verbs, while muš precedes non-verbal predicates, such as adjectives, prepositional phrases (PPs), and participles. The main predicate in the negative phrase does not need the noun phrase (NP) to raise to T if there is no need to merge with the negative element.
Keywords: Standard Arabic, Rural Palestinian Arabic, Urban Palestinian Arabic, independent pronouns, dependent pronouns, pronominal clitics, copula pronouns, negation
ContributorsMousa, Neimeh (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Ali, Souad (Committee member) / James, Mark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019