Noun Phrases

The present paper entitled “Khoibu Nouns” is an attempt to describe the
nouns and its categories of Khoibu, a Tibeto-Burman language being spoken by
Khoibu tribe. The literal meaning of this tribe is derived from ‘khoi’ and ‘pu’, where
‘khoi’ means ‘bee’ and ‘pu’ means ‘owner’. Thus the term refers to the speakers of
this language as the ones who own ‘bee’, ‘beehives’ and ‘honey’ in the indigenous
land of Khoibu territory. Khoibu is also known as Uipo and it belongs to the Kuki
Chin Naga group of Tibeto-Burman family (Grierson LSI, Vol III, part II, 1903),
Khoibu is mostly spoken in Chandel district of Manipur. It is spoken by
approximately 2800 speakers in the Machi sub-division of Chandel district and some
small numbers in the pockets of Imphal city, Manipur and there are eight Khoibu
villages which are confined to Chandel district of Manipur which is the area where
this language is being spoken. This paper linguistically analyses the nouns of Khoibu
and its categories. Khoibu nouns can inflect number, gender and case.

RESUMEN. El objetivo del presente artículo consiste en determinar cómo están constituidos los sintagmas nominales (SSNN) de la obra " Macario " de Juan Rulfo tanto en su versión original en español como en su traducción al francés. Igualmente, pretendemos identificar los determi-nantes más recurrentes en los SSNN de ambas versiones. Para lograr dicho objetivo, partimos de la escala de determinación del Proyecto de Universales y Tipología (UNITYP) de la Universi-dad de Colonia. De acuerdo con Seiler (1986, 9), el abanico de determinantes nominales forma un continuum cuyos polos están compuestos por los principios de extensionalidad (o referen-cialidad) e intensionalidad (o atribución). Al analizar las dos versiones del cuento, registramos 146 SSNN con la misma configuración sintáctica y 68 SSNN con diferente configuración. Asi-mismo, observamos SSNN que se constituyen desde un solo elemento como nombre propio, nombre común o pronombre personal, hasta SSNN formados de cinco elementos, esto es cua-tro determinantes (tanto extensionales como intensionales) y un nombre común. Entre los de-terminantes con mayor tendencia a la extensionalidad encontramos con más frecuencia artícu-los definidos, artículos indefinidos, cuantificadores, posesivos y demostrativos. Mientras tanto, entre los determinantes con mayor tendencia a la intensionalidad ubicamos frases preposicio-nales, adjetivos evaluativos y cláusulas relativas en ambos textos.

ABSTRACT. The purpose of this article is to identify the syntactic configuration of the Noun Phrases (NPs) in the short story " Macario " by Juan Rulfo both in its original version in Spanish and its French translation. Furthermore, our purpose is to discover the most frequent deter-miners in the NPs of both versions. In order to achieve this goal, we consider the scale of determination from the University of Cologne's Project on Universals and Typology (UNITYP). According to Seiler (1986, 9), the range of nominal determiners form a continuum whose poles are constituted by the principles of extensionality (or referentiality) and intensionality (or attri-bution). In the two versions of the text, we found 146 NPs in the source text which are translated as such into the target text, and 68 NPs with a different syntactic configuration in both texts. Furthermore, we found NPs constituted by a single element such as a proper noun, a common noun or a personal pronoun to NPs constituted by five elements, i.e., four determiners (both extensional and intensional) and a common noun. Among the extensional determiners, we found definite articles, indefinite articles, quantifiers, possessive determiners and demonstrative determiners. On the other hand, among the intensional determiners, we found preposi-tional phrases, evaluative adjectives and relative clauses in both versions of the short story.

A well-known generalization about bare numeral phrases (BNPs) in Mandarin is that they tend to require the existential verb you 'have' when in subject position, but there are some notable exceptions. This paper concentrates on the data cited by Li (1998) and proposes an Exhaustivity Condition according to which a subject BNP is felicitous if and only if it is interpreted exhaustively. It is shown how this condition generalizes to all the constructions under discussion, while at the same time they each belong to a particular type of quantificational construction or another (cumulativity, scalar focus, sufficiency, or conditional). I argue that the close relation between Mandarin subject BNPs and exhaustivity not only explains the restricted distribution of the former but also enables us to account for their so-called quantity readings in terms of exhaustive interpretation. Comparisons of the proposal with previous approaches will also be discussed.

У статті на прикладі дослідження іменникових словосполучень висвітлено можливості застосування програмного забезпечення з лінгвістичною метою. Проаналізовано основні засади опису мови для введення лінгвістичної інформації в комп’ютер, мету та спосіб використання комп’ютерних програм в опрацюванні мовного матеріалу. Зазначено переваги та перспективи застосування лінгвістичних даних, представлених в електронному вигляді (лінгвістичні бази даних і словники). Також подано огляд результатів дослідження, заснованого на принципах формалізації й автоматизації в роботі з мовним матеріалом.

Nouns in Chinese-type languages behave differently in several salient ways from those in Germanic and Romance languages. To name a few: Chinese-type nouns do not have obligatory plural markers (-s/es) or articles (a/an/the), but they do have a unique, systematic inventory of classifiers, or words that obligatorily appear with nouns and numbers. Though Chinese-type languages have a great deal in common with one another in the nominal domain, we observe that these languages vary dramatically with respect to how definiteness and indefiniteness are encoded. This paper explores these differences and proposes a modified model of NPs based on Krifka (1995) and Chierchia (1998) to accommodate data from both Chinese-type languages and languages with obligatory plural marking.

This paper reports on a corpus-based description of predicative nouns in a register-diversified financial corpus. Structural linguistics (Chomsky 1981) and register analysis (Biber & Conrad 2009) are the theoretical backgrounds of this research. As predicative noun, we define a noun derived from a verb, an adjective or a noun that occurs in support verb constructions (Gross 1981). In order to identify the predicative nouns occurring in a Modern Greek financial corpus we applied (a.) five Lexicon-Grammar tables containing predicative nouns, along with their distributional and transformational properties (Tziafa 2012); (b.) 122 finite state automata (Ioannidou 2013), representing noun phrases.

Primera aproximación teórica hacia los misterios de las expresiones nominales introducidas por el llamado "artículo determinado o definido" (el/la/los/las), el llamado "artículo indeterminado o indefinido" (un/una/unos/unas) y el aquí llamado "artículo cero". Actualmente, la autora se distancia bastante de los planteamientos que presenta aquí en relación con lo que llama el "artículo cero" (identificado aquí con los nombres sin artículo ni determinante), pero mantiene sus propuestas en relación con el uso y significado de el/la/los/las y un/una/unos/unas.

This paper reports on a corpus-based description of predicative nouns in a register-diversified financial corpus. Structural linguistics (Chomsky 1981) and register analysis (Biber & Conrad 2009) are the theoretical backgrounds of this research. As predicative noun, we define a noun derived from a verb, an adjective or a noun that occurs in support verb constructions (Gross 1981). In order to identify the predicative nouns occurring in a Modern Greek financial corpus we applied a. five Lexicon-Grammar tables containing predicative nouns, along with their distributional and transformational properties (Tziafa 2012); b. 122 finite state automata (Ioannidou 2013), representing noun phrases.

This chapter talks about the Island Constraints (Ross, 1967) and its application to the noun phrases in Malay. This universal constraint applies for noun phrases which involved movement. The constraints discussed include complex noun phrase constraint, wh-island constraint, coordinate structure constraint, and noun phrase subject constraint.

A.Razak, R. 2004. 'Island constraints and Noun
    Phrases in Malay' in Darwis Harahap (ed.) Mutiara Budi- Kenangan kepada Prof. Abdullah Hassan (In conjunction with the retirement of Prof Abdullah Hassan), 353-365. DBP: Kuala Lumpur.

The semantic function of 'together' in adnominal position has generally been considered to be that of preventing a distributive reading of the predicate. On the basis of a new range of data, I will argue that this view is mistaken. The semantic function of adnominal 'together' rather is that of inducing a cumulative measurement of a group. This measurement-based analysis of adnominal 'together' can with some modifications be carried over to adverbial occurrences of  'together'.

Modifiers are elements used to modify the meaning of the head of their phrase. They are optional in that they may be removed without changing the syntactic structure of the sentence in which they occur. In AGk, adjectives are typically noun modifiers, whereas adverbs and adpositional phrases (APs) are universal modifiers, since they can be used to modify any kind of head, including nouns. This paper deals first with noun modifiers, then with modification outside the NP

ÖZET: Fikir birliğine varılamayan pek çok öbek türü bulunmakla birlikte, bunların içinde en göze çarpanı varlığı dahi tartışma konusu olan takısız/eksiz ad öbeğidir. Bu tür için yapılan tanımlar, bazı öbekleri dışarıda bıraktığı gibi terim de "kendinde olmayan-eksiz" öbekler adlandırması ile söz dizimsel ilişkilerin sınırlarını belirtme açısından eksiktir. Bu yüzden yazıda alternatif olarak önerilen kavram ve işlevsel terim eşleme/eşleme öbeğidir. Bu öneri doğrultusunda da yazıda amacımız, "eksiz ad öbeği türü" altında sayılan yapı tiplerinin Çuvaşçadaki görünümlerini ilişkililiklerini ve biçimsel olarak virgül ya da kısa çizgi ile ayrılan eşlenmiş yapıları eşleme olgusuna göre gözlemlemek ve açıklamaktır. Eşleme için verilen tanımlar dil bilim literatüründe bir hayli tartışmalı olsa da dillerin tipolojik özellikleri göz önünde bulundurulduğunda çözülemeyecek kadar karmaşık değildir. "Niteleme" ve "sıfat"tanımı genel olarak bu yapılara eşleme olarak yaklaşılmasını güçleştirse de niteleyicinin (modification) eşleme yapılarında bir niteleyen niteleyiciler (attributive modifier) özelliği gösterdikleri söz dizimsel dağılımlarına bakıldığında anlaşılmaktadır. Eşlemeler de elbette ad kökenli öbekler içerisindedir ve bir ad öbeğidir. Bunlar, ad öbeğinin yapısının işlevsel derinliğini gösteren söz dizimi, anlam bilimi ve kullanımın etkileşimi ile ortaya çıkan birleşimsel bir alanda, eşleme dil bilgisel ilişkisi ile kurulan öbeklerdir.

Studies on children’s comprehension of definite DPs suggests that definiteness is difficult to acquire. However, most work has focused on languages with definite determiners and grammaticalized number. Vietnamese realizes number and definiteness differently: nouns are underspecified for both properties, addition of a classifier triggers a definite singular interpretation, and a classifier and pluralizer together trigger a definite plural interpretation.We replicate an act-out task from Munn et al. (2006) testing comprehension of plural and singular definites by Vietnamese children ages 3 to 7. Contra results from English and Spanish, Vietnamese children make few definiteness errors, instead committing number errors. We argue that this difference arises from how children integrate number and definiteness when the task is difficult. Children acquiring languages with definite determiners and grammatical number (English, Spanish) sacrifice definiteness in favor of number, while those acquiring languages like Vietnamese prioritize definiteness, resulting in number errors.

Статья посвящена анализу английских народных названий зернобобовых культур с целью улучшения качества переводов и формирования навыков владения специализированной лексикой на иностранном языке у будущих специалистов данного направления сельскохозяйственной деятельности. Методологическую основу исследования образуют сравнительный метод и принцип историко-этимологической реконструкции. Результаты работы заключаются в систематизации народных названий зернобобовых культур на английском языке по сравнению с их эквивалентами на русском языке. Также разработан глоссарий в облике легкочитаемой таблицы для терминологической проверки переводов. Результаты исследования могут быть применены в сфере подготовки переводчиков, а также при обучении профессиональной терминологии на англий-ском языке студентов и специалистов, занимающихся выращиванием и селекционно-семеноводческой работой зернобобовых культур.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the English vernacular names of leguminous crops in order to improve the quality of translations and to create specialised terminological skills in a foreign language in future specialists working in this area of the agricultural activity. The methodological bases of the present research are represented by the comparative method and the principle of historical and etymological reconstruction. The results of the study consist in the systematisation of the English vernacular names of leguminous crops in comparison with their Russian
equivalents. A glossary in the form of an easy-to-read table for the terminological
assessment of translations is presented as well. The results of the study can be applied in the sphere of translators’ training as well as while teaching professional terminology in English to students and post-graduates who specialise in the cultivation, breeding and seed production of leguminous crops.

The present study investigates the structure of of-complement noun phrase in Nigerian English,
comparing findings with those of British and Ghanaian varieties. Of-complement is high in
frequency and is a typical complement that has structural tendencies for recursiveness and
complexity. A review of literature explicating the structural simplification hypothesis (Gorlach,
1998) suggests that the structure of-complement (or any other type) has received very little
attention. Perhaps such scanty works show the different arguments surrounding its syntactic and
theoretical status in different grammatical descriptions. Unlike many previous NP frameworks,
Huddleston & Pullum (2002, 2004) argued that complements are not only a syntactic element
within the NP structure, but also that they are of equal obligatory syntactic status as a head noun
within an NP. This framework, unlike many others, therefore conceptualizes the complement
slot as an important part in the scheme of things for an NP structure viz-a-viz its complexity.
Thus, a serious examination of NP complexity would consider the cooperation (relationship)
between a complement and the other syntactic elements constituting the NP structure. This is
one of many issues that the present study sheds light on. On the basis of variables representing
syntactic function and text type, together with corpus analyses of NPs extracted from the Nigerian
component of International Corpus of English (ICE), the structural behavior of of-complement in
the lights of other internal elements constituting an NP structure, is clearly shown. It is found that
a complement is less likely to co-occur with other all internal elements (20%). Also, it is shown that
an of-complement is likely to co-occur with prenominal elements (30%). Furthermore, the paper
shows that a structural type of of-complement representing h-complement (i.e. an NP structure
consisting of a head noun + a complement, see Huddleston & Pullum, 2002, 2004, and Akinlotan
& Housen, 2017) is more likely to occur (26%) as an independent NP structure than to co-occur
with postnominal elements (24%). The structural simplification hypothesis is manifested in our
corpus data, as it is found out that a complement is more likely to be simple-structured (54%)
than complex-structured (46%). On the predictive strength of syntactic function and text type
(Biber et al., 1999; Schilk & Schuab, 2016; Akinlotan, 2017), the study finds syntactic function a
better predictor than text type.
Keywords: noun phrase complement; syntactic cooperation; complexity; Nigerian English noun
phrase; new Englishes.

The paper presents several techniques for selecting noun phrases for interactive query expansion following pseudo-relevance feedback and a new phrase-based document ranking method. A combined syntactico-statistical method was used for the selection of phrases for query expansion. Several statistical measures of phrase selection were evaluated. Experiments were also conducted studying the effectiveness of noun phrases in document ranking. One of the major problems in phrase-based document retrieval is weighting of overlapping and non-contiguous word sequences in documents. The paper presents a new method of phrase weighting, which addressed this problem, and its evaluation on the TREC dataset.

The study investigated the relationship between the demands for precision which tasks at different levels of referent similarity place on speakers and the use of more advanced nominal structures as measured by: (1) a multi-faceted model of noun phrase complexity, (2) explicit comparative constructions of equality and inequality, and (3) later-emerging relative clause structures.  Three referent identification tasks were completed at three levels of similarity by 54 participants at three levels of proficiency. Results showed that increased similarity was related to increases in all five facets of NP complexity, to increased use of comparative structures, and to increased use of direct-object relative clauses across task exemplars and groups. However, the referent factor interacted significantly with the similarity factor. There was also a negative relationship between proficiency level and NP complexity. The study shows that while general task design factors are important pedagogic tools, they may not be completely independent of the effects of task exemplars on developmentally-relevant aspects of L2 variation. The findings also raise the question of the extent to which general measures of syntactic complexity are appropriate as measures of L2 development.

In this paper, we present syntactic and semantic arguments that, in at least one articleless language (Lithuanian), bare nouns are able to project either NP or DP structures (cf. Franks & Pereltsvaig 2004, Ajíbóyè 2006, Pereltsveig 2006). We show that, in some syntactic contexts, Lithuanian bare nouns are only able to receive definite interpretations; in one context, they are only interpreted indefinitely. We then tie these interpretations to the presence or absence of D. Further, we highlight problems with the view that there is a categorical difference between articleless (NP) and articleful (DP) languages (Bošković 2010; Despić 2011), by testing Bošković’s and Despić’s generalizations about NP vs. DP languages on Lithuanian. In both cases, Lithuanian ends up behaving somewhat like an NP language, and somewhat like a DP language. Lithuanian is therefore a counterexample to the NP/DP split posited by Bošković, and must receive a different analysis.

We provide an overview of a structural priming study in Turkish and an analysis of the data using logit mixed-effects modeling. As Turkish is an agglutinative language, it constitutes a unique testing ground for the universal and language-specific aspects of structural priming and linguistic representations. Using the idiosyncratic properties of Turkish, this study demonstrates priming effects in written production of Turkish by adult native speakers. The structures of interest are possessive noun phrases (nominal structure) (e.g. Ali[Ayse-nin ses-in]-i duydu: Ali [Ayse-GEN voice-3SG.POSS]-ACC heard “Ali heard [Ayse’s voice]”) and noun clauses (verbal structure) which are embedded complementizer phrases with a genitive subject and a nominalized verbal predicate (e.g. Ali[Ayse-nin git-tig-in]-i duydu: Ali [Ayse-GEN leave-VN-3SG.POSS]-ACC heard “Ali heard [that Ayse was leaving/(had) left]”. Certain verbs such as duy- (“to hear”) allow both such nominal and verbal structures as their direct object. The two structures have the same GEN-POSS morphology, but different inner constituents. Participants completed sentence target fragments (which are equally likely to be completed with either type under normal circumstances) with more nominal structures after nominal primes and with more verbal structures after verbal primes, which indicates a significant priming effect. Structural priming accesses the inner nominal vs. verbal constituents of these structures and is sensitive to the distinction between phrases and clauses. Despite their identical external morphological template, the two structures are represented distinctly and not as a single, general GEN-POSS form in Turkish native speakers’ minds.