Tatiana Nikitina

Animacy encoding in English: why and how

We report on two recent medium-scale initiatives annotating present day English corpora for animacy distinctions. We discuss the relevance of animacy for computational linguistics, specifically generation, the annotation categories used in the two studies and the interannotator reliability for one of the studies.

Subcategorization pattern and lexical meaning of motion verbs: a study of the source/goal ambiguity*

Abstract The article addresses the problem of the linguistic encoding of the locative roles of Goal and Source of motion. After discussing the typological patterns of marking static locations, goals, and sources of motion, I analyze data from Wan, a Southeastern Mande language that often does not encode the distinction between sources and goals either outside of the verb (by adpositions or case) or in the verbs argument structure. In addition to a class of specialized verbs that subcategorize for a particular type of locative argument (“source verbs” and “goal verbs”), Wan has a number of verbs that do not restrict their argument to either sources or goals. I show that the two verb classes contrast with respect to the amount of information about the direction of motion that is entailed by the verbs lexical meaning. In encoding the role of the locative argument, the two verb classes rely on different strategies: the semantic role is either encoded in the verbs argument structure, or inferred from the interaction of contextual information and the verbs lexical entailments. I demonstrate how the lexical entailments of motion verbs influence their subcategorization pattern and discuss crosslinguistic evidence that supports this analysis.

One vs. more than one: antecedents to plural marking in early language acquisition*

Abstract When children first mark distinctions in language, they may use semantically possible but nonconventional expressions. This can be seen in their initial attempts to express ‘more-than-one’ in English (conventionally conveyed by use of the plural inflection). We explore childrens earliest expressions for ‘more-than-one’ by (a) examining longitudinal records for references to one vs. several objects, (b) eliciting references to pictures depicting one vs. two, three, or four objects, and (c) eliciting answers to what- vs. how many-questions about two or more objects. Longitudinal observations show that (1) the plural ending (-s) emerges piecemeal; and (2) children use numeral + bare-stem nouns (two blanket) before conventional -s. We then elicited singular and plural expressions using pictures from 25 two- and three-year-olds. Most children used plural -s for only a few items; a number relied on numeral + bare-stem forms (two duck); a few used quantifiers like more, and a few iteration with pointing gestures (e.g., for three cats, cat + POINT for each in turn). Knowledge of plural marking was distinct from knowledge of counting: Two-year-olds answered what questions with conventional or non-conventional plurals for up to nine objects, but managed how many-questions only for two or three, did poorly with four or five, and typically failed to respond for six or more, consistent with findings on the conceptual development of number.

Redefining Constructio Praegnans: On the Variation between Allative and Locative Expressions in Ancient Greek

In traditional Ancient Greek grammar, the term constructio praegnans refers to an apparent syntactic anomaly whereby the idea of motion is missing from either the verb or the prepositional phrase: a verb that does not express motion is combined with a directional prepositional phrase (e.g., ‘slaughter into a container’) or a motion verb combines with a static prepositional phrase describing a goal of motion (e.g., ‘throw in the fire’). This study explores such usages in the period from Archaic to Classical Greek and argues against treating constructio praegnans as a unitary phenomenon. The seemingly aberrant combinations of the verb’s meaning and the type of prepositional phrase are shown to be motivated by four independent factors: 1) lexical (some individual non-motion verbs select for a directional argument); 2) aspectual (static encoding of endpoints is allowed with perfect participles); 3) the encoding of results with change of state verbs; and 4) the archaic use of static prepositional phrases in directional contexts (the goal argument of a motion verb is described by a static prepositional phrase). The four types of “pregnant” use are paralleled by different phenomena in other languages. Based on statistical analysis, they are also argued to undergo different kinds of diachronic development. Some of these developments, nevertheless, fall into a more general pattern: Ancient Greek gradually moves toward a more consistent use of specialized directional expressions to mark goals of motion, conforming increasingly to the “satellite-framed” type of motion encoding.

Russian verboids: A case study in expressive vocabulary

Abstract Like other Balto-Slavic languages, Russian makes extensive use of verboids, a class of deverbal formations lacking inflectional and derivational markers. The use of verboids is characteristic of oral narration and is typically accompanied by gesture. This article surveys the properties of verboids based on data from the Russian National corpus. It shows that verboids bear a striking resemblance to ideophones and similar “expressive” words in other languages, presenting a typologically unusual case of verb-derived expressive words in a language with rich verbal morphology. It is argued that the peculiar behavior of Russian verboids should be analyzed with reference to their indexical, as opposed to purely symbolic, meaning: verboids differ from inflected verbs in not encoding general concepts, but rather pointing directly to particular instances of events. The indexical meaning helps account for a number of morphosyntactic properties that distinguish verboids from verbs, such as their incompatibility with negation and questions. Besides the restrictions shared with ideophones, Russian verboids are characterized by properties determined by the structure of Russian lexicon; in particular, they are shown to neutralize semantic distinctions encoded by Russian verbal morphology, as well as certain distinctions that can only be neutralized with some verbs in colloquial speech.

Frames of reference in discourse: Spatial descriptions in Bashkir (Turkic)

Abstract In spite of the growing body of research on frames of spatial reference, a number of important questions remain unanswered. This study explores reference frame use in Bashkir, based on a linguistic matching task and a nonverbal task. In the linguistic task, speakers relied freely on intrinsic and relative frames. In intrinsic descriptions, two different kinds of mapping were attested: a mapping based on the Ground’s function, and a mapping based on the Ground’s shape. Several factors were identified that affect the choice of linguistic description, including lexical choice, the chair’s orientation with respect to the viewer, and the speaker’s age. Interference from Russian was not a significant factor. The repair strategies speakers used when encountering misunderstanding suggest that they were not aware of the source of their difficulties. A number of previous studies reported, for different languages, a correlation between reference frame use in linguistic and nonlinguistic tasks, supporting the linguistic relativity hypothesis. The data from Bashkir shows no such correlation: nonverbal coding strategies did not correspond to the same individual’s linguistic strategies, but correlated with the use of Russian in linguistic descriptions. I interpret this finding tentatively as pointing toward a mediated relationship between spatial cognition and language.