LINGUIST List 18.2150
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Mon Jul 16 2007
Diss: Comp Ling: Tarasheva: 'Repetitions of Word Forms in Texts - A...'
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1. Elena
Tarasheva,
Repetitions of Word Forms in Texts - An approach to establishing text structure
Message 1: Repetitions of Word Forms in Texts - An approach to establishing text structure
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Date: 15-Jul-2007
From: Elena Tarasheva <etarasheva nbu.bg>
Subject: Repetitions of Word Forms in Texts - An approach to establishing text structure
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Institution: Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Program: Institute for the Bulgarian Language
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2007
Author: Elena Tarasheva
Dissertation Title: Repetitions of Word Forms in Texts - An approach to establishing text structure
Linguistic Field(s):
Computational Linguistics
Subject Language(s): Bulgarian (bul)
English (eng)
Dissertation Director:
Encho Gerganov
Lilian Grozdanova
Maria Stambolieva
Ruska Stancheva
Dissertation Abstract:
Text structure has been researched in terms of co-referential chains (Halliday and Hasan 1976, 1985), thematic fields (Viehweger 1976) or derivatives, synonymy and other lexical relations (Hoey 1991, Morris and Hirst 2002 ). Unlike these studies, the present one focuses on the repetition of word forms, trying to separate lexical links from co-reference. Texts from three genres: short stories, research articles and political speeches in 2 languages (Bulgarian and English) are studied to establish: 1. Is it true that repetitions are avoided in written texts? 2. Do repetitions of word forms group into recurrent structures? 3. Do repetition structures depend on genre? 4. If each occurrence of a lexicon item is characterised by its form, intension and referent (Petofi's pyramid 1985) do repetitions reiterate the same form, link with the same referent or relate to the same intension? The method of study is by using a concordancer to compare the form, intension and referent of each occurrence of a repeated word form. The results reveal that more than half the word forms in a text are repeated and at least 25% of the notional lexemes. The repetitions form chains typical of each genre which differ from nominative chains in several significant ways. Each chain is characterised by a specific pattern of referential projections, intensional structure and forms. The configuration of predicative, generic and specific uses relate to the processes of specifying, generalising, classifying etc., which form the coherent structure of a text. The repetition of word forms features as a cohesive mechanism because repeated word forms signal the significance of a lexeme for the text; the different methods of presenting the referential set have a repercussion on the coherence of a text; the fact that each genre is characterised by a different set of repetition types contributes to the intertextuality of the text. The practical implications of the research include a researcher's guide to the structure of lexical repetitions in texts, a teaching manual on how to repeat in the different genres and what to avoid, as well as an algorithm for short summaries based on the type of chain.
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