Date: 07-Mar-2009 From: Parcival von Schmid <lotuu.nl> Subject: Directionality and locality: Mahanta E-mail this message to a friend
Title: Directionality and locality
Subtitle: With special reference to vowel harmony with special reference to vowel
harmony
Series Title: LOT Dissertations Series 173
Published: 2008
Publisher: Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke - LOT
http://www.lotpublications.nl/
Author: Shakuntala Mahanta
Paperback: ISBN: 9789078328476 Pages: 294 Price: Europe EURO 25.02
Abstract:
In this dissertation it is argued that regressive harmony in some languages is exclusively unidirectional and independent of morphological restrictions. Primarily focussing on Assamese (with original research and data from the language), regressive harmony is shown to be the result of a precedence relation, where 'marked' sequences of vowels are prohibited. It is shown that regressive [ATR] harmony in Assamese, Pulaar and Karajá can be analysed with the aid of a higher, though violable constraint *[-ATR][+ATR]. Non-iterative regressive harmony in Bengali and Tripura Bengali is also shown to require an analysis similar to that of Assamese, but the restricted domain of harmony require the constraint is *[-ATR][+high +ATR].
It is shown that locality, another important factor in harmony is apparent from the blocking of harmony by a nasal segment only in the immediate vicinity of the triggering segments /i/ and /u/. Locality is also evident in exceptional cases of vowel harmony. This dissertation shows that exclusively leftward vowel harmony in languages is inherently a directional process. Furthermore, there are various locality requirements in an apparently long-distance process like vowel harmony and these have been explored in considerable detail in this dissertation. This dissertation is of relevance to theoretical phonologists, phoneticians as well as researchers interested in South Asian linguistics.
Linguistic Field(s):
Morphology
Phonetics
Phonology
Date: 07-Mar-2009 From: Parcival von Schmid <lotuu.nl> Subject: Proper Nouns and Pronouns: van Vliet E-mail this message to a friend
Title: Proper Nouns and Pronouns
Subtitle: The production of referential expressions in narrative discourse
Series Title: LOT Dissertation Series 175
Published: 2008
Publisher: Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke - LOT
http://www.lotpublications.nl/
Author: Sarah van Vliet
Paperback: ISBN: 9789078328490 Pages: 202 Price: Europe EURO 20.92
Abstract:
In consecutive references to narrative characters, narrators usually alternate between the use of proper nouns and pronouns. This study aims to provide a comprehensive and cognitively plausible account of reference maintenance in online narrative discourse production. The corpus research reported in this study offers an analysis of the grammatical and discourse factors affecting referential choice in narrative discourse production. The analysis is based on a large corpus of written narratives, elicited through visual stimuli (a comic). The results of the quantitative analyses indicate that in the maintenance of reference to narrative characters, the choice between proper nouns and pronouns is guided by two mechanisms: an independent distance-based alternation of proper nouns and pronouns, and the repetition of proper nouns after discourse-structural boundaries. These linear and hierarchical factors can be assumed to exert their influence through the fluctuation of (assumed) referent salience. The relation between context factors and referential form stems from the salience characteristics inherent in the nominal categories proper noun and pronoun, which accounts for reference maintenance at both the clause and the discourse level.
Proper Nouns and Pronouns should be of interest to researchers working in the fields of text linguistics, cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics.
Linguistic Field(s):
Cognitive Science
Discourse Analysis
Ling & Literature
Psycholinguistics
Text/Corpus Linguistics
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