MacrolinguisticsPub Date : 2020-06-30DOI: 10.26478/ja2020.8.12.3
E. O. Mariera
{"title":"Onomatopoeic Infinitives and Nouns in EkeGusii: Evidence for imagic and relative iconicity","authors":"E. O. Mariera","doi":"10.26478/ja2020.8.12.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26478/ja2020.8.12.3","url":null,"abstract":": Whether meaning is arbitrary or motivated remains a matter of unsettled linguistic debate. The main purpose of this discussion is to bring to linguistic attention the level of motivation in EkeGusii, a Bantu language of the Niger-Congo family spoken in Kenya, using onomatopoeic infinitives and nouns, and to attest that meaning is considerably iconic. It does not look convenient to classify onomatopes under ideophones. Imagic iconicity plays a central role in the two word classes, though imagic and relative iconicity intersect in cacophonous, reduplicative, and inherently onomatopoeic nouns. In EkeGusii, onomatopes are either explicit or implicit. It becomes clear that onomatopoeia acquires a metaphorical function in certain idiomatic expressions in EkeGusii.","PeriodicalId":31949,"journal":{"name":"Macrolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43369349","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MacrolinguisticsPub Date : 2020-06-30DOI: 10.26478/ja2020.8.12.1
Ayoub Loutfi
{"title":"Deriving Morphological Causatives in Moroccan Arabic","authors":"Ayoub Loutfi","doi":"10.26478/ja2020.8.12.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26478/ja2020.8.12.1","url":null,"abstract":": This paper explores the nature of the post-syntactic operations responsible for the representations of the linear order of terminal nodes. In particular, it argues in favor of a unified model of the morphosyntax and morphophonology, wherein the theory of Distributed Morphology and Optimality Theory operate in a single module. The testing ground is an investigation of the formation of morphological causatives in Moroccan Arabic. Herein, the process of realizing causatives is morphological gemination, whereby the second consonant of the root is doubled. Investigating the question of what triggers the infixal process, I argue against the linearization algorithm suggested in Embick & Noyer (2001), Embick & Marantz (2008), and Embick (2006, 2010). Instead, the claim I defend here is that the onus of the linearization process falls on the prosody in Arabic, the central assumption being that the morphosyntactic structure, the output of the syntactic derivation, is the input to OT morphophonological constraints. These constraints are responsible for the linearization of the terminal nodes of the syntactic derivation. I show that adopting one theory over others misses important generalizations about the language.","PeriodicalId":31949,"journal":{"name":"Macrolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44752281","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MacrolinguisticsPub Date : 2020-06-30DOI: 10.26478/ja2020.8.12.5
Fawaz Qasem
{"title":"The Acquisition Phenomenon of Null and Overt Subjects in the Early Speech of Arabic-Speaking Children","authors":"Fawaz Qasem","doi":"10.26478/ja2020.8.12.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26478/ja2020.8.12.5","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the early acquisition of null subjects and overt subjects and how they are distributed and realized in the early speech of Arabic dialect-speaking children. The study accounts for the phenomenon of subjects by examining a longitudinal corpus of two children, Wala and Ibraheem, who were around two years old, speaking Yemeni Ibbi Arabic (YIA) dialect. The production and elicited production data collection methods were used in the study to collect the corpus during five months. The results of the study showed that null-subjects appear with a high proportion compared to the overt subjects. It was found that null subjects and overt subjects in the speech of Ibraheem and Wala had a similar distribution in the imperfective and the perfective, of which 86-87% are null subjects and 12-14% are overt subjects. The paper examined the widespread linguistic phenomenon of Null Subject Parameter acquisition, (Rizzi, 1982; Hyams, 1986, 1989) that is emergence of null subjects in line with overt subjects. The paper supports Hyam’s (1982) argument on the acquisition of Null Subject Parameter where we can find children acquire null subjects early around 2 years of age. In contrast to non-null subject languages (like English), Null Subject Languages (NSLs) like Arabic happen to have null subjects appear more frequently and this is due to the rich inflectional morphology of NSLs.","PeriodicalId":31949,"journal":{"name":"Macrolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44192656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MacrolinguisticsPub Date : 2020-06-30DOI: 10.26478/ja2020.8.12.7
Alemayehu Fekede, Wondowsen Tesfaye
{"title":"Multilingual Practices and Multiple Contestations in the Linguistic Landscape of Selected Towns in Oromia: A geosemiotic perspective","authors":"Alemayehu Fekede, Wondowsen Tesfaye","doi":"10.26478/ja2020.8.12.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26478/ja2020.8.12.7","url":null,"abstract":"This study analyzed a linguistic landscape, which is a relatively recent development in sociolinguistic research committed to the investigation of the visual manifestations of the relationships observed between language or semiosis and society in the public space. There has been less attention on the semiotic interpretations in the public environments despite the ubiquitous nature of such signs in Ethiopia. This study intends to fill this gap through Semiotic Landscape research. By means of mixed methods, qualitative and quantitative, it aims to discover the contestations in the Linguistic Landscape (LL, henceforth) of selected urban environments in Oromia. The study employed a theoretical concept of geosemiotics from social semiotics as an analytical tool. Visual data consisting of 1275 photographs of signs were collected from the main streets of Adama, Jimma and Sebeta towns from different domains of sign using bodies. Besides, data were collected through in-depth interviews with major LL actors, selected based on purposive sampling technique. The analysis demonstrated that some top-down and most of bottom-up signs showed varieties of multilingual practices, contestations, identity constructions and other related social concerns. The absence of a clear policy on language use on signs at both federal and regional levels has resulted in contestations.","PeriodicalId":31949,"journal":{"name":"Macrolinguistics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41807930","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MacrolinguisticsPub Date : 2020-06-30DOI: 10.26478/ja2020.8.12.4
Cheng Chihjen
{"title":"Existential, Possessive and Locative Constructions in Yami Language: A comparative study to Formosan languages","authors":"Cheng Chihjen","doi":"10.26478/ja2020.8.12.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26478/ja2020.8.12.4","url":null,"abstract":": This study reports on Yami existential, possessive and locative constructions, regarding the issues on (i) two ‘HAVE’ structures, (ii) Definiteness Effect (DE) and (iii) an analysis of small clause, in terms of a formal syntactic approach. Compared with Formosan languages, Yami syntactically shows the differences based on two ‘HAVE’ structures. Besides, it is also proved that Definiteness Effect in Yami differs from that in other Formosan languages, such as Bunun language. Finally, this study also argues that the existential verb amian/abo ‘exist/not exist’ in Yami selects a small clause as its complement, representing a relative clause.","PeriodicalId":31949,"journal":{"name":"Macrolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47276687","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MacrolinguisticsPub Date : 2020-06-30DOI: 10.26478/ja2020.8.12.9
Almustapha Wali Sambo
{"title":"A Morphological Compounding Analysis of Hausa Registers Use in Nigerian Cell-phone Market","authors":"Almustapha Wali Sambo","doi":"10.26478/ja2020.8.12.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26478/ja2020.8.12.9","url":null,"abstract":": This study aims to find the compound registers that are used among the Farm-Centre cell-phone marketers, analyse their compounding morphological structures, and explain the meaning they convey. The Farm-Centre Cell-phone Market is located in Kano metropolis, the largest city of Northern Nigeria. The study employs an ethnographic method of data collection and adopts Abubakar (2000) as a model of approach when analysing the structures of the compound registers. It is found that the registers have the following six morphological compound structures: (i) Genitive-based compounds [LG+N] N , (ii) Noun-based compounds [N+GL+N] N , (iii) Adjective-based compounds [Adj+N] N , (iv) Diminutive-based compounds [Dim+N] N , (v) Particle dà ‘with’ compounds [dà+N] N , (vi) Verb-based compounds [V+VN/Prep] V . Moreover, the registers are so special among the marketers because they convey meanings that are irrelevant to the conventional meanings known by the general speakers of the Hausa language.","PeriodicalId":31949,"journal":{"name":"Macrolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46614239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MacrolinguisticsPub Date : 2020-06-30DOI: 10.26478/ja2020.8.12.8
Jianghua Han
{"title":"A Study of Kinship Terms in Thai from the Culture and Cognitive Perspectives","authors":"Jianghua Han","doi":"10.26478/ja2020.8.12.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26478/ja2020.8.12.8","url":null,"abstract":"The kinship terms of Thai can be divided into native kinship terms and foreign kinship terms based on the source, and can also be divided into civilian kinship terms and royal kinship terms based on the users. Thai kinship terms have different degrees of distinction in the following six dimensions: paternal and maternal, age, gender, the lineal and the collateral, consanguinity and affinity, users and use occasions. The unique use rules of Thai kinship terms reflect Thai people’s concept of the distinctions between superiority and inferiority, seniors and juniors, intimacy and estrangement. In addition, Thai kinship terms reflect the marriage form that the Thais have experienced, and also reflect Thai people’s ethnic cognitive orientation of experience familiarity, cognitive distance and metaphorical thinking.","PeriodicalId":31949,"journal":{"name":"Macrolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44096312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MacrolinguisticsPub Date : 2020-06-30DOI: 10.26478/ja2020.8.12.2
Jennifer Ujunwa Okoli, C. Ezebuilo, Sopuruchi Christian Aboh
{"title":"Construction Morphology Analysis of Compound Verbs in Igbo Language","authors":"Jennifer Ujunwa Okoli, C. Ezebuilo, Sopuruchi Christian Aboh","doi":"10.26478/ja2020.8.12.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26478/ja2020.8.12.2","url":null,"abstract":"This research analyses compound verbs in Igbo, using construction morphology theory. It seeks to identify compound verbs, analyse them using schemata structures, ascertain the structures and behaviours of tones, and examine some inflected forms of compound verbs in Igbo language. The study adopts a descriptive method of data analysis to examine data collected through oral interviews, introspections (which are confirmed by two native speakers) and those obtained from journals and textbooks. The research discovers that some compound verbs do not obey the vowel harmony rule, and through the aid of the schema, it is observed that some transformational processes have occurred before a surface compound verb is formed. According to the findings, tones also play a distinctive role in Igbo compound verbs. The research recommends further research in this area, to account for other aspects of compound verbs in Igbo that the current study could not cover.","PeriodicalId":31949,"journal":{"name":"Macrolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46634887","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MacrolinguisticsPub Date : 2019-12-31DOI: 10.26478/ja2019.7.11.6
Boubekri Abdelhakim, El-Gazzar Khalid
{"title":"A Contrastive Analysis of Conditionals in English and Moroccan Arabic: Potential problems when learning English conditionals by Moroccan EFL learners","authors":"Boubekri Abdelhakim, El-Gazzar Khalid","doi":"10.26478/ja2019.7.11.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26478/ja2019.7.11.6","url":null,"abstract":": Learning to handle hypothetical situations in a new language is always difficult (Catford, et al., 1974). This rule holds true for Moroccan Arabic (henceforth MA) speakers learning English because grammatical devices in the two languages differ in almost all equivalent situations. For instance, while English verb forms are used to indicate tense in conditional sentences, MA uses them to indicate aspect. Adopting the typology of conditional constructions suggested by Dancygier (1999) and Dancygier & Sweetser (2005), this study provides a contrastive analysis of conditionals in English and MA to predict the possible errors EFL/ESL learners are likely to make while learning English. The analysis shows that the main discrepancy between English conditionals and MA conditionals lies in the verb form used by the two systems. Accordingly, if EFL/ESL learners are influenced by verb form in their L1, they are likely to face some challenges while learning English conditionals. That is, they are likely to use the past tense in the protases of English predictive conditionals and generic conditionals since the perfective form of the verb is used in the protases of these two types in MA. Concerning the protases of English non-predictive conditionals, Moroccan EFL/ESL learners are likely to use either the past tense or the present tense since both the perfective and the imperfective forms of the verb are possible in the protases of MA non-predictive conditionals. However, due to the fact that the perfective form is the prototypical form in the protases of conditionals in MA, EFL/ESL learners are likely to use the past tense more EFL learners apodoses of English conditionals since the prevalent form in the apodoses of MA conditionals is the imperfective.","PeriodicalId":31949,"journal":{"name":"Macrolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48442597","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
MacrolinguisticsPub Date : 2019-12-31DOI: 10.26478/JA2019.7.11.3
Fawaz Qasem
{"title":"The Strong Continuity Hypothesis: Evidence from Arabic-speaking children data","authors":"Fawaz Qasem","doi":"10.26478/JA2019.7.11.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.26478/JA2019.7.11.3","url":null,"abstract":": This paper examines the acquisition of subject-verb agreement inflections in the natural speech corpus of two mono-lingual children speaking Yemeni Ibbi Arabic (YIA) between 2 and 3 years old. The two children are Ibrahim and Wala (between the age of 2;1 and 2;10) with Mean Lenghth of Utterance (MLU) range of 2.72 to 3.23 for Ibrahim and 2.9 to 3.27 for Wala. YIA, as a variety of Arabic, has rich and complex morphological system with a fusional type. Verbs are inflected with tense and agreement. Each verbal inflection is marked for person, number, and gender agreement. However, this paper attempts to explore how agreement forms are acquired by YIA-speaking children and examines when YIA children distinguish between first, second, and third person agreement, singular and plural, masculine and feminine agreement forms. The paper argues that agreement inflections (person, number, gender) are available to children early, thereby supporting the Strong Continuity Hypothesis (Lust, 1999). Moreover, the results give evidence to Wexler’s Hypothesis (1998), Very Early Knowledge of Inflection (VEKI), which says that children know the grammatical and phonological properties of inflections in a language in the earliest stages when they enter the two-word stage. Similarly, this study tests Hoekstra and Hyams’ (1995) Early Morpho-syntactic Convergence (EMC) which proposed that children acquire the specifics of inflections of the target language at an early stage. of inflections in a language in the earliest stages when they enter the two-word stage. The study also supports Hoekstra and Hyams’ (1995) Early Morpho-syntactic Convergence (EMC) which proposed that children acquire the specifics of inflections of the target language at an early stage.","PeriodicalId":31949,"journal":{"name":"Macrolinguistics","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46710874","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}