Search results for "Phrase"
showing 10 items of 185 documents
Introduction to Spreadsheet Modeling and Metaheuristics
2017
Models, as a simplified representation of reality, are used daily in an attempt to control or understand some aspects of a real system. Simplification of reality is the accepted view of the modeling process, which assumes that reality represents the absolute truth. Without getting too deep into a philosophical discourse, it is worth mentioning the notion of model-dependent realism, a phrase coined by physicists Stephen Hawkings and Leonard Molinow in their book The Grand Design. Model-dependent realism “is based on the idea that our brains interpret the input from our sensory organs by making a model of the world to aid in the decision-making process.” This implies that more than one model …
Continuous and discontinuous nominal expressions in flexible (or “free”) word order languages: Patterns and correlates
2020
AbstractThis study explores continuous and discontinuous word order patterns of multi-word nominal expressions in flexible word order languages (traditionally referred to as “free word order” or “non-configurational” languages). Besides describing syntagmatic patterns, this paper seeks to identify any functional or other correlates that can be associated with different word orders. The languages under investigation are a number of Australian languages as well as Vedic Sanskrit, all of which have long been known for their syntagmatic flexibility. With respect to continuous order, evidence from several of these languages suggests that default ordering is primarily governed by functional templ…
Neither a toda virolla nor tumbados a la bartola. A corpus analysis of phraseologically bound spanish words
2021
[EN] This article presents results on the Spanish phraseologically bound words (PLF), also known as cranberry words, based on a corpus analysis. If up to now the different Spanish PLF had been collected introspectively, this article presents a list of the Spanish PLF indicating the phraseological fixation index (IFF) of each one of them in the phraseological unit (UF) that contains them and ordered by the weighted phraseological fixation index (IFFP). To do this, it has been necessary to obtain from the corpus the total number of occurrences of the PLF (NPLF) and to analyse the fixation of these elements both inside the UF or the UFS that contain them (FFPLF) and outside the UF, in their fr…
“Holding Grudges Is So Last Century”: The Use of GenX So as a Modifier of Noun Phrases
2020
This article focuses on the X is so NP-construction in American English, as exemplified by “Holding grudges is so last century” (SOAP, As the World Turns, 2002). Drawing on the Corpus of American Soap Operas (Davies 2011-), the aim of this study is to provide an account of the distributional pattern of noun phrase modification with so, including preferences in modified noun phrase (NP) types and concomitant differences in the meaning of so. The analyses reveal that, in line with subjectification theory on intensification (Athanasiadou 2007), so is expanding its functional range from intensification to emphasis. The findings suggest a near-complementary distribution of these meanings, with …
Comparing formulaicity of learner writing through phrase-frames: a corpus-driven study of Lithuanian and Polish EFL student writing
2018
Learner corpus research continues to provide evidence of how formulaic language is (mis)used by learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). This paper deals with less investigated multi-word units in EFL contexts, namely, phrase-frames (Fletcher 2002–2007), i.e. sets of n-grams identical except for one word (it is * to, in the * of). The study compares Lithuanian and Polish learner writing in English in terms of phrase-frames and contrasts them with native speakers. The analysis shows that certain differences between Lithuanian and Polish learners result from transfer from their native languages, yet both groups of learners share many common features. Most importantly, the phrase-frame…
Never saw one – first-person null subjects in spoken English1
2016
While null subjects are a well-researched phenomenon in pro-drop languages like Italian or Spanish, they have not received much attention in non-pro-drop languages such as English, where they are traditionally associated with particular (written) genres such as diaries or are discussed under a broader umbrella term such as situational ellipsis. However, examples such as the one in the title – while certainly not frequent – are commonly encountered in colloquial speech, with first-person singular tokens outnumbering any other person.This article investigates the linguistic and non-linguistic factors influencing the (non-) realisation of first-person singular subjects in a corpus of colloquia…
Combining Machine Translated Sentence Chunks from Multiple MT Systems
2018
This paper presents a hybrid machine translation (HMT) system that pursues syntactic analysis to acquire phrases of source sentences, translates the phrases using multiple online machine translation (MT) system application program interfaces (APIs) and generates output by combining translated chunks to obtain the best possible translation. The aim of this study is to improve translation quality of English – Latvian texts over each of the individual MT APIs. The selection of the best translation hypothesis is done by calculating the perplexity for each hypothesis using an n-gram language model. The result is a phrase-based multi-system machine translation system that allows to improve MT out…
Präpositionale Wortgruppen im Altspanischen: 13.-15. Jahrhundert
2013
Der Untersuchungsgegenstand dieser Dissertation sind präpositionale Wortgruppen (PWG) (locuciones prepositivas) in kastilischen Texten aus dem Mittelalter. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist eine kontrastive Analyse von PWG an Hand von zwei Diskurstraditionen, einer juristischen und einer historischen, während des 13., 14. und 15.Jahrhunderts. Das Hauptkorpus beinhaltet zu jedem Jahrhundert einen juristischen und einen chronistischen Text. Um der Gefahr der einseitigen Konzentration auf juristische und chronistische Texte zu entgehen, werden für jedes Jahrhundert ein zusätzlicher Text aus der Gattung der Literatur ausgewertet (Calila e Dimna, El Conde Lucanor und La Celestina). Ausgangspunkt dieser Arb…
What is French for déjà vu? Descriptions of déjà vu in native French and English speakers
2015
Little is known about how people characterise and classify the experience of deja vu. The term deja vu might capture a range of different phenomena and people may use it differently. We examined the description of deja vu in two languages: French and English, hypothesising that the use of deja vu would vary between the two languages. In French, the phrase deja vu can be used to indicate a veridical experience of recognition - as in "I have already seen this face before". However, the same is not true in English. In an online questionnaire, we found equal rates of deja vu amongst French and English speakers, and key differences in how the experience was described. As expected, the French gro…
When nominal features are marked on verbs: A transcranial magnetic stimulation study
2006
It has been claimed that verb processing (as opposed to noun processing) is subserved by specific neural circuits in the left prefrontal cortex. In this study, we took advantage of the unusual grammatical characteristics of clitic pronouns in Italian (e.g., lo and la in portalo and portala 'bring it [masculine]/[feminine]', respectively)-the fact that clitics have both nominal and verbal characteristics, to explore the neural correlates of verb and clitic processing. We used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to suppress the excitability of the left prefrontal cortex and to assess its role in producing verb+det+noun and verb+clitic phrases. Results showed an interference ef…