Languages, Volume 9, Issue 3 (March 2024) – 48 articles

Mai-Ndombe is one of the southwestern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ecologically, it can be characterised as a transition zone between a moist, broadleaf rainforest ecotone in the north and shrubland/savannah areas in the south. Linguistically, Mai-Ndombe, along with the rest of southwestern Congo all the way down to the border with Angola, is among the least well-surveyed areas of the planet. Within its borders, several different Bantu (Guthrie’s zones B, C, and H) varieties are spoken, near the newly identified West-Coastal Bantu homeland, itself a hot spot of phonological diversity unlike any other in the West-Coastal Bantu domain. Phonetic and phonological accounts of its languages are particularly lacking (apart from impressionistic “grey literature” reports which seldom comply with the standards of present-day phonetic and phonological inquiry). This gap is particularly concerning as Mai-Ndombe is also an area of great anthropological diversity, with numerous hunter-gatherer Twa communities living deep in its eastern and northern forests. Their lects, collectively known as Lotwa, are severely endangered, as they face the threats of social stigma and the growing use of national and regional linguae francae. As part of the author’s doctoral project (still underway), phonetic data were collected in the area between May and July 2021, specifically in Inongo (the provincial capital) and Nioki. The present contribution is intended as a brief note on the relevant results produced so far, mainly bearing on the analysis of some phenomena of interest in the languages of the region, including Sakata rhotics and labial–velars and the presence of unusual trilling/flapping realisations in Lotwa. The picture yielded by this preliminary exploration is one of striking phonetic and phonological variation, possibly pointing to earlier stages of greater linguistic diversity than previously supposed. It is also tentatively proposed that one of the specific characteristics of the phenomena attested in the present contribution is that they tend to affect more than one language at a time, working rather as areal “phonetic possibilities” than language-bound outcomes of traditional sound change rules; in this sense, it is suggested that in-depth documentation and description can help broaden our understanding of how language contact works in highly multilingual contexts. Full article

This paper provides a comparative and diachronic account of reflexive morphology in the Kikongo language cluster, a genealogically closely related group of 40+ West Coastal Bantu languages. This study is based on data from 34 grammatical descriptions from 1659 to 2017 and fieldwork data collected in 2012 and 2015. Previous studies have shown that Kikongo languages, despite being closely related to each other, demonstrate extensive phonological and morphological variation. This is also the case for reflexive morphology. First, six different reflexive prefixes are attested in the database. These are, in alphabetical order, di- (with cognate li-), ké-, ki-, ku-, lu- and a vocalic morpheme variably written as i-, ii- or yi-. Second, while most Kikongo languages have one reflexive prefix, some descriptions report the use of two or more different prefix forms in a single language. Languages with multiple reflexive prefixes fall into two groups: one group has different prefixes in free alternation, while the overall verbal construction is claimed to determine which prefix is used in the other group. Following an overview of the formal variation, I discuss the possible origins of the various reflexive prefixes. One hypothesis assumes that the vocalic prefix is inherited from Proto-Kikongo, the most recent common ancestor of the Kikongo languages. A second hypothesis relates the origin of some reflexive prefixes to object indexes of various noun classes, in particular, noun classes 5, 7 and 11. A third hypothesis suggests that in some Kikongo languages, the vocalic reflexive prefix became fused with other pre-stem verbal morphology and developed into ku- and ki-. A fourth hypothesis proposes the development of the reflexive prefix ké- from an auxiliary. These four hypotheses are not mutually exclusive, and I discuss how multiple diachronic scenarios are necessary to account for the full range of variation of reflexive morphology in the Kikongo language cluster. It is proposed that the distribution of di-/li- and ki- is contact-induced through borrowing, both between different Kikongo languages and between Kikongo and non-Kikongo languages. I tentatively reconstruct the vocalic reflexive prefix *i- to Proto-Kikongo. Full article

In their quest to find a suitable tone of voice in an informalizing society, many companies are confronted with the choice of using T or V pronouns in their B2C communications. This paper presents an experimental study addressing the question of whether the recipients of these messages actually notice the difference between being addressed with a T form, which carries social meanings of informality and proximity, or a more distant V form, and to what extent the presence of additional informal linguistic features influences the salience of a pronoun switch. We furthermore investigate to what extent the professional socialization of participants impacts on the noticing of pronoun use. In a case study for Belgian Dutch, participants (N = 279) were presented with two versions of an information letter that they were asked to read quickly. The texts were manipulated for the use of T/V pronouns, as well as, depending on the condition, a number of additional informal linguistic features (i.e., informal punctuation, intensifiers, and English lexical items). Participants were not warned in advance about the changes between the two versions of the stimulus text. In a salience test following the presentation of the two text versions, less than 10% of participants noticed a switch in T/V form regardless of the presence of additional informal features. Similarly low rates of noticing were found for the other informal features, except for English loanwords. No differences were found depending on whether participants had a language-related professional background (e.g., language teachers, journalists, editors). We argue that the lack of noticing T/V pronouns may be due to the specifics of the Belgian Dutch system of pronominal address that has an additional highly salient colloquial pronoun of address which may obscure the difference in social meaning between the standard T and V pronouns. The discussion critically evaluates the implications of the study for the use of T/V pronouns in professional communication, musing on the complex relationship between noticing and evaluating. Full article

Quantifier-Negation sentences such as all teachers did not use Sandy’s car are known to allow an inverse scope interpretation in English. However, there is a lack of experimental evidence to determine whether this interpretation is allowed in equivalent sentences in Japanese and Chinese. To address this issue, this study conducted a sentence–picture matching truth value judgment experiment in both Japanese and Chinese. The data suggested that Japanese Quantifier-Negation sentences do allow inverse scope readings, which suggests that the subject may be interpreted within the scope of negation. In contrast, Chinese Quantifier-Negation sentences prohibit inverse scope readings, which is in accordance with the strong scope rigidity consistently observed in this language. This paper also discussed how to develop a valid experiment for investigating scope ambiguities. Full article

Some languages make a distinction between formal and informal pronouns of address. When organizations communicate in such a language, they have to choose between the formal and informal form. The goal of this paper is to explore the role of the V-T distinction in organizational communication, specifically in generic job advertisements, through two empirical studies and to obtain a preliminary evidence-based framework for V and T in organizational communication. In a corpus study, we explore which form organizations from different industry types tend to use. We find that the choice of pronoun of address is associated with industry type in Netherlandic Dutch, German, French, and Spanish, but not in Belgian Dutch. In an experimental follow-up study, we explore the effect of pronouns of address on Dutch addressees in light of the perceived personality of the companies using these forms. We find an interaction between the pronoun of address used and the level of competence a company is associated with. Based on these studies and the existing literature, we propose a framework for V and T in organizational communication. In this framework, local linguaculture and industry culture play a role in the organizational choice between V and T. Furthermore, the way in which pronouns of address affect the addressee is determined by an interplay of company characteristics and addressee characteristics. Full article

Misalignment between second language (L2) self-perception and actual ability is often observed among L2 learners. In order to further understand this phenomenon, the current study investigated how the roles of individual differences (IDs; especially experiential and cognitive IDs) influence the learners’ self-assessment accuracy. To this end, L2 speech samples elicited from 97 Japanese learners of English were analyzed via self-evaluation and expert evaluations. Subsequently, learners’ IDs profiles, including working memory, phonological memory, implicit learning and auditory processing, were linked to (a) the gap between self- and expert evaluation scores and (b) the type of inaccurate self-evaluation (i.e., overconfident vs. underconfident evaluations). The study illustrates the complex relationships between L2 learners’ linguistic knowledge, cognitive abilities, experiential profiles and self-perception. Full article

This case study examines overheard speech in a third-generation heritage Spanish Mexican family. It presents Spanish use longitudinally and describes overheard Spanish word use in interaction. Transcribed on CLAN to create a plurilingual corpus, ethnographic video data consisted of 24 h across three sampling periods, yielding nearly 30,000 Spanish, English, and language mixed utterances. Quantitative analyses indicate strong Spanish use in the first sample, before dropping. Qualitative descriptions show the third-generation target-child’s attunement to overheard Spanish, and her agency to use Spanish. Overheard input helps her use Spanish words, influencing her social encounters. This paper examines what we coded as overheard input in heritage language acquisition and socialization research. The language practices of one multigenerational Mexican family in California are explored, accounting for how their language practices in multiparty interaction co-create meaning, and how they help a third-generation child use Spanish words grounded in daily experiences. The findings contribute to the discussion of bilingualism in general and definitions of heritage bilingualism in particular. The results underscore the understudied role of overhead speech produced by a diversity of multigenerational family members and word learning. Participation frameworks are dynamically constructed by all participants as permeable, inclusive, and engage the children’s use of inherited bilingual and bicultural practices, suggesting that heritage bilingualism is not just about abstract grammar. Full article

The popularisation of legal knowledge is a critical issue for equal access to law and justice. Legal discourse has been justly criticised for its obscure terminology and convoluted phrasing, which notably led to the Plain Language Movement in English-speaking countries. In Canada, the concept of Plain Language has been applied to French since the 1980s due to the official policy of bilingualism, while the concept has only been recently discussed in France. In this paper, we examine the impact of Plain Language rewriting on legal phraseology in French popularisation contexts. The first aim of our study is to see if plain texts published in France contain more traces of legal phraseology than French Canadian texts. Our second objective is to determine if a ‘phraseology of plain language’ can be identified across genres and languages. To do this, we compare two corpora of expert-to-expert legal texts written in French—made up, respectively, of legislative texts published in France and judicial texts published by the Supreme Court of Canada—with two corpora of texts that are claimed to have been written in Plain French Language for a non-expert readership—texts that guide laypersons through legal and administrative processes in France and summaries of decisions by the Supreme Court of Canada. Using n-grams, we extract and discuss the patterns that emerge from the corpora. In particular, our analyses rely on the concept of ‘lexico–grammatical patterns’, defined as the minimal unit of meaningful text made up of recurrent sequences of lexical and grammatical items. We then identify a sample of recurring lexico–grammatical patterns and their discursive functions. Full article

The Revised Hierarchical Model (RHM) proposed by Kroll and Stewart has been one of the most influential models of late multilingual language processing. While the model has provided valuable insights into language processing mechanisms, the role of contextual factors for the RHM has not been investigated to date. Such contextual effects could be manifold, including individual speakers’ language profiles (such as age of acquisition, proficiency, and immersion experiences), experimental factors (such as different instruction languages), and environmental factors (such as societal language(s)). Additionally, it also appears promising to investigate the applicability of the RHM to non-native multilingual speakers from diverse backgrounds. To investigate whether some of the mentioned contextual factors affect non-native language processing, we designed three online experiments requiring answers in German and English, but tested speakers whose first language was neither German nor English. They performed a series of translation, picture-naming, and recall tasks based on Kroll and Stewart, as well as providing detailed information on their proficiencies, profiles of language use, and exposure. Experiment 1, conducted with speakers living in Germany, established the paradigm and investigated the role of individual differences in linguistic background. While Experiment 2 focused on the short-term effects of the experimental context by varying whether instructions were provided in German or in English, Experiment 3 examined the longer-term role of the current language environment by comparing individuals living in German-speaking countries with speakers living in societies where neither experimental language is spoken regularly. As in Kroll and Stewart, both the response language and the list type constituted key variables affecting response times and accuracy, known as language asymmetry and category interference. Importantly, the strength of this asymmetry was affected by participants’ immersion experiences, suggesting a certain dynamic development in multilingual language processing. In addition, context also seemed to play a role for experimental performance, especially the language environment examined in Experiment 3. Hence, speakers’ individual linguistic backgrounds and experience with the experimental languages, as well as additional contextual factors, need to be considered when conducting multilingual experiments and drawing conclusions about multilinguistic processing. Full article

This study investigated the processing of lexical elements of idioms in isolation. Using visual word priming, spreading activation for idiomatically related word pairs (e.g., pop–question) was compared to that for semantically related (e.g., answer–question) and unrelated word pairs (e.g., trim–question) in two experiments varying in SOA (500 ms and 350 ms). In line with hybrid theories of idiom representation and processing, facilitatory priming was found in both experiments for idiomatic primes, suggesting a tight link between the words of an idiom that is mediated by a common idiom representation. While idiomatic priming was stable across SOAs, semantic priming was stronger for the short SOA, implying fast and early activation. In conclusion, one lexical element of an idiom can facilitate the processing of another, even if the elements are not presented within a phrasal context (i.e., within an idiom), and without the words being semantically related. We discuss our findings in light of theories about idiom processing, as well as current findings in the field of semantic priming. Full article

This qualitative case study reports the impact of schooling on migrant children’s language socialization, particularly focusing on the role of language ideologies and practices within Korean schools. Despite an increasing population of migrant multilingual children in Korean schools, the education system predominantly follows a monolingual orientation with Korean as the primary medium of instruction. The research aims to address this gap by investigating the influence of Korean teachers’ and emergent multilingual youths’ language ideologies on bi- and multilingual language education. Additionally, this study explores how emerging multilingual children comply with or exhibit ambivalence/resistance toward instructed practices. Data were collected over three years from a regional middle school in South Korea and inductively analyzed using constant comparative methods. The findings underscore the significance of creating a multilingual space in classrooms where teachers value diverse linguistic and other semiotic resources, fostering more active engagement and negotiation of meaning among multilingual students. In contrast, monolingual-oriented classrooms result in the students’ passive behavior and hinder socialization into the Korean school environment. This study advocates for a more inclusive learning environment that recognizes and embraces multilingual values, facilitating meaningful language practices among emerging multilingual youth. Full article

The present study investigated whether L1 and L2 Spanish speakers show sensitivity to matching/mismatching syllable structure and consonant sonority in lexical segmentation in Spanish. A total of 81 English–Spanish learners and 72 Spanish–English learners completed a fragment-monitoring task. They listened to lists of Spanish words as they saw a CV or CVC syllable (e.g., “pa” or “pal”) and pressed a button when the word began with the syllable shown on the screen. The task manipulated syllable structure (CV or CVC) and consonant sonority (fricative, nasal, or liquid) of target syllables and carrier words. Target syllables either matched or did not match the structure of the first syllable in target carrier words (e.g., “pa—pa.lo.ma”; “pa—pal.me.ra”). The results showed that consonant sonority modulated sensitivity to syllable structure in both groups of participants. Spanish–English learners responded faster to matching syllable structure in words that had a fricative or a nasal as the second consonant, and English–Spanish learners responded faster only with a fricative consonant. Higher L2 Spanish proficiency correlated with faster target-syllable identification, but sensitivity to matching/mismatching structure did not vary as a function of proficiency. The study highlights the influence of phonetic factors in the development of L2 lexical segmentation routines. Full article

Russian’s six cases and multiple noun classes make case marking potentially challenging ground for heritage speakers. Indeed, morphological levelling, “probably the best-described feature of language loss”, has been substantiated. One study from 2006 showed that Heritage Russian speakers in the USA produced canonical or prescribed markers for only 13% of preposition+nominal sequences. Conversely, another study from 2020 found that Heritage Russian speakers in Toronto produce a 94% canonical case marker rate in conversational speech. To explore the effects of methodological differences across several studies, the current paper circumscribes the context to preposition+nominal sequences in Heritage Russian speech from the same Toronto corpus as used by the 2020 study but mirroring the domain investigated by Polinsky and including a Homeland comparison to consider changes in both the rates of use of canonical case marking and distributional patterns of non-canonical use. Regression models show more canonical case marking in more frequent words, an independent effect of slightly more mismatch by later generations, but less morphological levelling than reported by Polinsky. Lexicon size does not predict case marking rates as strongly as language usage patterns do, but generation, since immigration, is the best-fitting social predictor. We confirm (small) rate changes in Heritage (vs. Homeland) Russian canonical case marking but not in patterns of levelling. Full article

Ecological models of competition have provided great explanatory power regarding synonymy in derivational morphology. Competition models of this type have certainly shown their utility, as they have demonstrated, among other things, the relevance of frequency measures, productivity, compositionality and analyzability when comparing the development of morphological constructions. There has been less consideration of alternative models that could be used to describe the historical co-development of suffixes that produce words with sometimes similar forms or meanings but are not inevitably or solely in competition. The symbiotic model proposed in this article may help answer larger questions in linguistics, such as how best to analyze certain multilingual morphological phenomena, including the emergence of semantically similar forms within the same language. The present study demonstrates the importance of a diachronic approach in situations of near-synonymy, as an understanding of semantic similarity necessitates a review of the available historical record. In particular, our study focuses on the case of the suffix -eer (e.g., marketeer) in English, analyzing its origins, semantics, compositionality, and historical development, including its symbiotic relationship to the similar suffix -er (e.g., marketer). Full article

A rich tradition of studies on languages with differential object marking (DOM) is available in the literature. Languages like Spanish or Romanian are frequently cited in discussions about DOM, but Valencian is seldom mentioned in this context. This oversight may stem from a lack of familiarity with the Valencian language and an over-reliance on guidelines set by textbooks and official prescriptive grammars—in the case of Valencian, by the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua—which drafts the linguistic regulations of the Valencian language. This study aimed to analyze the usage of the DOM in Valencian and explore the social variables that help explain this usage (sex, age, and education). To achieve this goal, Spanish–Valencian bilingual participants completed an oral production task to evaluate their use of DOM in Valencian. Statistical analysis revealed that Valencian is a DOM language that marks direct objects that refer to humans and definite entities. These results point to the linguistic ideologies in Valencia that attempt to artificially create linguistic differentiation between Valencian and Spanish, the co-official languages in the region. Furthermore, the results emphasize the limitations of top-down prescriptive policies in modifying vernacular linguistic varieties. Full article

Most analyses of monophthong change have historically relied on static acoustic measures. It is unclear the extent to which dynamic measures can shed greater light on monophthong change than can already be captured using such static approaches. In this study, we conducted a real-time trend analysis of vowels in corpora collected from female Mainstream Australian English (MAusE) speakers under 30 years of age across three time periods: the 1960s, 1990s, and 2010s. Using three different methods for characterising the first and second formants (the target-based approach, discrete cosine transform (DCT), and generalised additive mixed model (GAMM)), we statistically examined differences for each of 10 monophthongs to outline change over the fifty-year period. Results show that all three methods complement each other in capturing the changing vowel system, with the DCT and GAMM analyses superior in their ability to provide greater nuanced detail that would be overlooked without consideration of dynamicity. However, if consideration of the vowel system as a whole is of interest (i.e., the relationships between the vowels), visualising the vowel space can facilitate interpretation, and this may require reference to static measures. We also acknowledge that locating the source of vowel dynamic differences in sound change involves reference to surrounding phonetic context. Full article

This study shows that the incorporation of the first-person plural pronoun a gente has not only reached the southernmost tip of the Brazilian territory, but has crossed the border and entered Uruguayan Portuguese, or varieties of Portuguese spoken in northern Uruguay by Portuguese–Spanish bilinguals. This finding is based on the quantification of the a gente/nós variable in sociolinguistic interviews carried out in two border communities: Aceguá, Brazil, and Aceguá, Uruguay. The analysis of interviews recorded on each side of the border yielded a total of 1000 tokens that were submitted to a multivariate analysis. Following the premises of comparative sociolinguistics, we compared the distribution of the variable on both sides of the border and found that although Uruguayans used a gente less often than Brazilians, this innovation, preferred by young speakers, is incorporated in both dialects, following similar linguistic paths. These results show that Uruguayan Portuguese has incorporated the pronominal a gente in its grammar in a clear sign of convergence towards Brazilian Portuguese and divergence from Spanish, despite the coexistence with Spanish that categorically uses nosotros as the first-person plural pronoun and reserves the cognate la gente for its purely lexical meaning ‘the people’. Full article

Human communication is a multimodal phenomenon that involves the combined use of verbal and non-verbal signs. It is estimated that non-verbal signs, especially paralinguistic and kinesic ones, have a significant impact on message production. Silence in Spanish has been described as a plurifunctional communicative resource whose meanings vary depending on contextual, social, and cultural factors. The pragmatic and sociolinguistic nature of this phenomenon calls for examining each case considering the context, the social variables, and the relationship between participants. The aim of this study is to determine the use of silence in Spanish by young women. To achieve this, a corpus of 9 h of spontaneous conversations among six young Spanish university women (1.5 h per participant) was analyzed. The analysis has allowed identifying, first, a series of communicative functions of silence produced by the participants. A relationship between the duration of silence and its communicative function has also been established. Finally, differences in the use of silence by the participants have been found, determined by the interlocutor (male/female), which confirms that women use silence as a basic interactive strategy differently when talking with women and when they do so with men. Full article

As one of the productive approaches to L2 pragmatic development, study abroad (SA) has drawn the attention of numerous researchers during the past few decades. Different factors, specifically those related to L2 learners, implicate the impact of SA on pragmatic development. The present systematic review aims to identify the roles of individual differences, including personal as well as social and cognitive variables, on the pragmatic development of L2 learners who were involved in SA programs. To this end, 39 studies from peer-reviewed journals and books published from 2000 to 2022 were scrutinized. The results revealed that a substantial amount of research has been conducted on the intersection of L2 pragmatic competence and SA. However, more studies are required to investigate the impact of learner variables on different aspects of L2 pragmatics in the SA context. The results also indicated the extent to which learner variables were analyzed in these studies and how each variable impacted the effectiveness of SA programs. In addition to the effects of learner variables, the methodological features of the studies, including the context of the studies, designs of the studies, data sources, and characteristics of the involved participants, were explored and reported. The findings contribute to the fields of L2 pragmatic acquisition and study abroad by highlighting the gaps in the literature and identifying key learner variables that can have drastic influences on learners’ outcomes. Full article

This paper addresses the crucial question of the structuring of scientific Notions for the purpose of their proper teaching/acquisition. It aims to demonstrate that non-taxonomic structures, derived from the systematic lexicographic definition of terminological lexical units, can be rigorously constructed and are adequate for implementing a non-isolationist approach to terminology modeling: one that embeds the description of terminological units within a more global model of the general lexicon. Using theoretical and descriptive principles of Explanatory Combinatorial Lexicology and the lexicography of lexical networks known as Lexical Systems, we apply our approach to the core terminology of chemistry and chemistry-related environmental terminology. This allows us to propose Notion building road maps for three languages—English, French and Russian—that can be used as guides for the teaching/acquisition of chemistry Notions. Additionally, exploiting the special case of the noun carbon—which pertains to chemistry, environmental science and, even, general language—we demonstrate the potential of our non-isolationist approach for interfacing distinct sectors of terminological knowledge. Full article

The fact that there are (at least) two different translations of the English preposition for used to describe duration in Portuguese, namely durante and por, shows that duration is an interesting area in the tense and aspect panorama of this language, which deserves close study. In this paper, I present an empirical study based on four different corpora to investigate the matter, looking at the Portuguese varieties from Brazil and Portugal and different text genres (general and specialised newspapers, oral interviews, and fiction). The material spans circa two centuries. This paper identifies some specific uses and preferences of the two adverbials and confirms and challenges other claims in the linguistic literature. It shows that narrative fiction is definitely different from newspaper text due to its need to describe short duration and that planned duration can be expressed using both kinds of adverbials. Full article

As with all Pano languages, Chácobo links clauses together through an elaborate system of switch reference clauses. This paper provides a detailed description of switch reference and clause linkage in Chácobo (Pano) from a typological perspective. While previous work on Chácobo and Pano languages in general describes such clause-linkage strategies as involving subordination, no work has provided a detailed description of the diagnostics for classifying clause-linkage types with clause-linkage strategies in Pano. If these variables are relied on, nearly all clause-linkage strategies in Chácobo fall outside of typical coordination and subordinate patterns. There is also little reason to adopt such a distinction on language-internal grounds. Full article

This article analyses the communicative power of eyebrows in ancient Rome within the framework of broader research into gestures from the same period. Our research uses the corpus of Latin literature to describe evidence of gestures in said texts. It then identifies the expressions used by the authors to refer to them and describes how they were performed. Moreover, by analysing the context, it explains the meanings the authors attribute to them. Although the texts do not describe these gestures with the precision required by non-verbal communication research today, our analysis of the selected extracts has enabled us to identify four free eyebrow gestures—contracting, raising, relaxing, and lowering—and associate a meaning to them. In this regard, we have uncovered that Roman writers introduce eyebrow gestures in their work to communicate emotions such as arrogance and humility, and anger or seriousness, and even to identify certain characters. In turn, these gestures are also used to express disapproval and assent in place of speech. Full article

Against the background of comparatively insufficient, expressly dedicated studies on double particle verb person nominalisations, this paper offers a qualitative, cognitive-constructionist approach to the properties of doubler-upper nominalisations of particle verbs in English and a reappraisal of some of the available analyses thereof. On the assumption of the validity of the flexicon stance on the organisation of words in the human mind, and on the basis of a preliminary semantic analysis of 300 types of doubler-upper nouns extracted from two corpora and Urban Dictionary, it is claimed that there are no identifiable constraints on the possibility of double-er marking and no particular properties of particle verbs as bases to preclude double -er marking. A hypothesis is formulated that, despite their deviance, doubler-uppers strike the optimal balance between complexity and unity and appear to be the most natural and morphophonologically best-fitting pattern for particle verb -er nominalisation (at least in spoken discourse and the media). Full article

This paper applies the Autosegmental Metrical (AM) model of intonation phonology and the Spanish Tones and Break Indices (Sp_ToBI) annotation conventions to compare the intonational contours of declarative sentences in two varieties of Puerto Rican Spanish: (1) San Juan Spanish, spoken in the capital city of San Juan, and (2) Loíza Spanish, an Afro-Hispanic vernacular spoken in Loíza. The geographical proximity between these two municipalities entails constant contact within a shared linguistic space. However, speakers from San Juan perceive Loíza as a municipality that has its own peculiar way of speaking. The acoustic and phonological analysis was carried out with PRAAT to verify whether pitch accents coincide in the spontaneous speech of the two analyzed varieties. The data we examined contain an overall predominance of the bitonal pitch accents L*+H and L+<H* in San Juan Spanish, and L+H* in Loíza Spanish. Findings show both similarities and differences within the two speech communities, as well as with intonational patterns in other (Afro-)Hispanic varieties. These results provide new information on spontaneous declarative intonation in (Afro-)Puerto Rican Spanish by offering a new perspective on the origin of a set of the prosodic phenomena found in these two varieties. Full article

Specialized languages can activate different sets of semantic features when compared to general language or express concepts through different words according to the domain. The specialized lexicon, i.e., lexical units that denote more specific concepts and knowledge emerging from specific domains, however, co-exists with the common lexicon, i.e., the set of lexical units that denote concepts and knowledge shared by the average speakers, regardless of their specific training or expertise. Communication between specialists and non-specialists can show a big gap between language(s), and therefore lexical units, used by the two groups. However, quite often, semantic and conceptual overlapping between specialized and common lexical units occurs and, in many cases, the specialized and common units refer to close concepts or even point to the same reality. Considering the modeling of meaning in functional lexical resources, this paper puts forth a solution that links common and specialized lexica within the WordNet model framework. We propose a new relation expressing semantic proximity between common and specialized units and define the conditions for its establishment. Besides contributing to the observation and understanding of the process of knowledge specialization and its reflex on the lexicon, the proposed relation allows for the integration of specialized and non-specialized lexicons into a single database, contributing directly to improving communication in specialist/non-specialist contexts, such as teaching–learning situations or health professional-patient interactions, among many others, where code-switching is frequent and necessary. Full article

There has been a recent focus in studies of English morphology on the concept of extravagance as applied to word formation, and on the interplay between extravagance and creativity. This article examines this issue, taking as a test case the phenomenon of double suffixation of phrasal verbs. While double-ER suffixation (fixer-upper, helper-outer) has attracted substantial interest in the literature, less has been said about other suffixes. This article provides data that demonstrate that double suffixation occurs with -ERY, -AGE, -EE and -ABLE suffixes. As such, double suffixation can be seen as a genuine word formation template, rather than a phenomenon restricted to a single suffix. Furthermore, examination of the data enables a reflection on the interactions between the concepts of productivity, creativity and extravagance. We propose to see these concepts not just as three overlapping notions, but rather as points on a creativity scale. To underscore the parallels between them, we propose to see them successively as F-creativity, E-creativity and X-creativity. Full article

The relative weighting of f0 and vowel reduction in English spoken word recognition at the sentence level were investigated in one two-alternative forced-choice word identification experiment. In the experiment, an H* pitch-accented or a deaccented word fragment (e.g., AR- in the word archive) was presented at the end of a carrier sentence for identification. The results of the experiment revealed differences in the cue weighting of English lexical stress perception between native and non-native listeners. For native English listeners, vowel quality was a more prominent cue than f0, while native Mandarin Chinese listeners employed both vowel quality and f0 in a comparable fashion. These results suggested that (a) vowel reduction is superior to f0 in signaling initial stress in the words and (b) f0 facilitates the recognition of word initial stress, which is modulated by first language. Full article

The aim of this article is to explain the syntactic competition found in the complementation of Old English Prevent verbs. The competition on argumenthood involves linked verbal predications and linked nominal predications. Evidence is gathered for continuity both between finite and non-finite linked verbal predications as well as between non-finite and nominalised linked predications. This evidence points to a diachronic development: finite clause > non-finite clause > nominalisation. The main conclusion of the article is that the Interclausal Relation Hierarchy predicts the replacement of the finite clause complementation with non-finite clause complementation in such a way that the syntactically tighter noun phrase involving a deverbal nominalisation constitutes the next step of syntactic development. Full article

This study aims to establish a methodological framework for investigating deception in both spoken and written language production. A foundational premise is that the production of deceitful narratives induces a heightened cognitive load that has a discernable influence on linguistic processes during real-time language production. This study includes meticulous analysis of spoken and written data from two participants who told truthful and deceitful narratives. Spoken processes were captured through audio recordings and subsequently transcribed, while written processes were recorded using keystroke logging, resulting in final texts and corresponding linear representations of the writing activity. By grounding our study in a linguistic approach for understanding cognitive load indicators in language production, we demonstrate how linguistic processes, such as text length, pauses, fluency, revisions, repetitions, and reformulations can be used to capture instances of deception in both speaking and writing. Additionally, our findings underscore that markers of cognitive load are likely to be more discernible and more automatically measured in the written modality. This suggests that the collection and examination of writing processes have substantial potential for forensic applications. By highlighting the efficacy of analyzing both spoken and written modalities, this study provides a versatile methodological framework for studying deception during language production, which significantly enriches the existing forensic toolkit. Full article