{"title":"Empty category in Persian relative clauses","authors":"Mahmoud Mobaraki, Abolfazl Mosaffa Jahrom","doi":"10.4312/ALA.9.2.53-70","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ALA.9.2.53-70","url":null,"abstract":"Empty categories are one of the fundamental parts of generativist’s view towards language. Empty operators, the so-called null elements, which are syntactically active in relative clauses and possibly move into [spec, CP], have reportedly been found in different languages. However, there is no solid evidence for the existence of empty operators in Persian relative clauses. Despite this, syntactic evidences such as theta theory, argument structure and subjacency condition provide satisfactory provable tests in favor of their role in Persian grammar. Namely, Persian relative clauses contain resumptive pronouns which may be covert. Their movement into [spec, CP] can precisely account for subjacency effect in relative clauses. Resumptive pronouns can occupy the subject as well as the object position. This articles attempts to introduce empty operators to Persian syntax, and shows that in such a way it is possible to account for the peculiar behavior of the Persian complementizer “ke” and its obligatory nature.","PeriodicalId":37373,"journal":{"name":"Acta Linguistica Asiatica","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45566332","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}
{"title":"A Comparative Study on Speculation Forms of Interrogative Sentences in Korean and Japanese","authors":"Chang-Hak Moon","doi":"10.4312/ALA.9.2.71-85","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ALA.9.2.71-85","url":null,"abstract":"This article reveals the interrogative aspect of speculation forms in Japanese and Korean, including the characteristics of -keyss-nya in Korean and darooka in Japanese. -keyss-nya and darooka by definition indicate meanings of both “speculation” and “interrogation”, and thus it is anticipated that the semantic characteristics of these forms will not differ significantly. However, one perceives many differences when examining the semantic characteristics of both. First, a characteristic of -keyss-nya is its <listener-oriented interrogative sentences> with strong communicativity, whereas a characteristic of darooka is its <speaker-oriented interrogative sentences> with weak communicativity. Second, based on this characteristic of <listener-oriented interrogative sentences>, -keyss-nya is not made into “question usage that does not solicit an answer” or “exclamation usage,” but it may be made into “strong rhetorical questions.” Meanwhile, based on the characteristic of <speaker-oriented interrogative questions> with weak communicativity, darooka may be derived into “question usage that does not solicit an answer”, “exclamation usage”, and “weak rhetorical interrogative sentences.” As stated above, different semantic meanings of -keyss-nya and darooka result from semantic differences between -keyss- and daroo. The -keyss- meaning of “completion of judgement formation” is reflected in -keyss-nya’s characteristics of <listener-oriented interrogative sentences>, and daroo’s meaning of the “judgement formation process” is reflected in darooka’s characteristics of <speaker-oriented interrogative sentences>.","PeriodicalId":37373,"journal":{"name":"Acta Linguistica Asiatica","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45271194","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}
{"title":"Foreword","authors":"E. Board","doi":"10.4312/ala.9.2.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ala.9.2.5","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000Valovi \u0000Nespeče morje,valovi zrejo vate.Šum zbudi srce. \u0000 Marcel Loboda \u0000 \u0000 \u0000Waves \u0000Sleepless the waters,their waves laying eyes on you.Sounds inflame your heart. \u0000 Marcel Loboda (translation Nina Golob) \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000 \u0000In the days of summer season openings, we are pleased to announce a new ALA issue, the second this year. Warm congratulation goes to all the authors, and feelings of gratitude go to the editorial board and all the involved. We sincerely hope that the seven research articles inflame your critical thinking just like the sounds of sleepless summer waves may inflame your hearts. \u0000Editors and Editorial Board wish the regular and new readers of the ALA journal a pleasant read full of inspiration. \u0000 Editorial board \u0000 ","PeriodicalId":37373,"journal":{"name":"Acta Linguistica Asiatica","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46087778","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}
{"title":"Retrieving Linguistic Information from a Corpus on the Example of Negation in Chinese","authors":"Luboš Gajdoš","doi":"10.4312/ALA.9.2.103-115","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ALA.9.2.103-115","url":null,"abstract":"The paper deals with corpus analysis of negation in Chinese, namely the negatives bù 不 and méi/ méiyǒu没/没有. The adverbs BU and MEI are two of the most frequent negatives in Chinese. The aim of this study is to present statistical data together with linguistics analysis. The results provide empirical evidence of discrepancy between “authentic” language data versus linguistic prescription with practical implications for second-language acquisition. The findings inter alia suggest a new approach to verb categorisation. ","PeriodicalId":37373,"journal":{"name":"Acta Linguistica Asiatica","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48142715","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}
{"title":"Tracing the Identity and Ascertaining the Nature of Brahmi-derived Devanagari Script","authors":"K. Pandey, S. Jha","doi":"10.4312/ALA.9.1.59-73","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ALA.9.1.59-73","url":null,"abstract":"Current research exploits the orthographic design of Brahmi-derived scripts (also called Indic scripts), particularly the Devanagari script. Earlier works on orthographic nature of Brahmi-derived scripts fail to create a consensus among epigraphists, historians or linguists, and thus have been identified by various names, like semi-syllabic, subsyllabic, semi-alphabetic, alphasyllabary or abugida. On the contrary, this paper argues that Brahmi-derived scripts should not be categorized as scripts with overlapping features of alphabetic and syllabic properties as these scripts are neither alphabetic nor syllabic. Historical evolution and linguistic properties of Indic scripts, particularly Devanagari, ascertain the need for a new categorization of its own and, thus preferably merit a unique descriptor. This paper investigates orthographic characteristics of the Brahmi-derived Devanagari script, current trends in research pertaining to the Devanagari script along with other Indic scripts and the implications of these findings for literacy development in Indic writing systems.","PeriodicalId":37373,"journal":{"name":"Acta Linguistica Asiatica","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42131689","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}
{"title":"Negative Polarity Items in Telugu","authors":"Mayuri J. Dilip, Rajesh Kumar","doi":"10.4312/ALA.9.1.9-28","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ALA.9.1.9-28","url":null,"abstract":"The paper presents a unified account of licensing conditions of Negative Polarity Items (NPI) in Telugu. Based on the distribution of NPIs in complex clauses, we state that negation c-commanding NPI at the base-generated. Consequently, features checking between negation and NPI restricts the alternatives on the scale inherent to NPIs. The morphological realization of NPI in the non-negative contexts is different from the context with overt negation. The NPIs show the following distribution. NPI occurs in subject position; A negative licensing Multiple NPIs. There are three types of NPIs: wh-element, quantifier and idiomatic expression. In complex clauses, wh-elements block long-distance licensing. In contrast, quantifiers and idiomatic expressions do not block long-distance licensing.","PeriodicalId":37373,"journal":{"name":"Acta Linguistica Asiatica","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45893927","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}
{"title":"Affection of the part of speech elements in Vietnamese text readability","authors":"Điệp Thi Nhu Nguyễn, An-Vinh Lương, Điền Đinh","doi":"10.4312/ALA.9.1.105-118","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ALA.9.1.105-118","url":null,"abstract":"While English text readability has been studied for a long time, investigating text readability in Vietnamese, a low-resourced language with poorresearch technologies and data sets questionable of international importance, is at its beginnings. In readability research, it is generally the “word” that has been carefully investigated. Based on the comparison of elements affecting readability of the “word” unit in English, we determine the parts of speech (POS) in Vietnamese that were found to influence Vietnamese text readability. In this study, prose texts in Vietnamese textbooks at different difficulty level were taken as the data to find out the POS frequencies and their correlations. In terms of frequency, our findings can initially assist users when editing documents, reforming textbooks, and question banks for native Vietnamese in general and foreigners in particular. Even more important, with these findings we can identify those linguistic elements that are considered the “potential” POS affecting Vietnamese text readability, and make grounds for further studies.","PeriodicalId":37373,"journal":{"name":"Acta Linguistica Asiatica","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42352326","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}
{"title":"Understanding Sarcastic Metaphorical Expression in Hindi through Conceptual Integration Theory","authors":"S. Sharma, S. Sinha","doi":"10.4312/ALA.9.1.89-103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ALA.9.1.89-103","url":null,"abstract":"Metaphorical expressions are one of the most indispensable aspects of human language, thought and action. Their meanings are figurative, which in other words means that they carry literal meanings, which are in direct opposition to the intended or primary meanings. Metaphors are not only limited to being used in figurative writing and speaking but they are also pervasively used in everyday language. Irony, sarcasm, jokes, puns and other such metaphorical expressions rampantly occur in our everyday speech. This paper examines the abstract notion of sarcasm with special reference to Hindi language within the framework of conceptual integration theory. A corpus of five thousand sentences has been procured from Indian Language Technology Proliferation and Deployment Centre (TDIL) for the present study. The findings of the existing paper aim to provide a theoretical understanding of how Hindi sarcasm is perceived among the native speakers.","PeriodicalId":37373,"journal":{"name":"Acta Linguistica Asiatica","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47826383","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}
{"title":"The Integration Functions of Topic Chains in Chinese Discourse","authors":"Kun Sun","doi":"10.4312/ALA.9.1.29-57","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ALA.9.1.29-57","url":null,"abstract":"The topic chain, one of the essential organization devices in Chinese discourse, is highlighted by the use of many co-referential zero forms. Although the topic chain has been realized to play an important role in organizing discourse, few attempts have been made to explore how the topic chain forms an integrated and meaningful unit and facilitates discourse organization, which are called the “integration functions” of the topic chain in this paper. This study, based on a comprehensive review of topic chain studies, re-examines the core characteristics of the topic chain. After this, the integration functions of the topic chain are analysed from internal and external levels. The topic chain itself can manage its internally different clauses to form a cohesive, meaningful and unified unit. At this stage, this paper clearly demonstrates why so much information within a topic chain is assembled into such a compact structure. At the discourse level, one topic chain can associate with other topic chains or non-chain constructions to establish textual coherence. Making use of zero anaphora, co-reference, cognitive orders and other non-morph-syntactic devices, the topic chain can combine different discourse units together to construct Chinese discourse. The study provides a systematic and well-developed account of the integration functions for the topic chain, which is significant for a deeper understanding of the nature of the topic chain and how discourse coherence is established in Chinese.","PeriodicalId":37373,"journal":{"name":"Acta Linguistica Asiatica","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70543918","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}
{"title":"Image of Japan among Slovenes","authors":"Chikako SHIGEMORI BUČAR","doi":"10.4312/ALA.9.1.75-88","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4312/ALA.9.1.75-88","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents the process and mechanism of borrowing from Japanese into Slovene. Japan and Slovenia are geographically and culturally quite distant, and the two languages are genealogically not related. Between such two languages, not many borrowings are expected, but there is a certain amount of borrowed words of Japanese origin in today's Slovene. The focus of this paper is on the words of Japanese origin that are well integrated in today’s Slovene. Firstly, the process of borrowing is analysed: there are three main phases for successful borrowing from Japanese into Slovene, but during the process, some obstacles may hinder the completion of this process, so that further creative use of some borrowed words in the Slovene environment cannot be expected. The second part of this paper will closely look at the loanwords of Japanese origin which are already recorded as headwords in today’s dictionaries of Slovene. The loanwords are analysed in relation to the borrowing process and adjustments, their semantic fields, and wherever possible, their diachronic changes in use, and other specifics. At the end, the image of Japan seen through the borrowing process and consolidated loanwords is summarized, and possible development of borrowing in the near future is predicted. \u0000 ","PeriodicalId":37373,"journal":{"name":"Acta Linguistica Asiatica","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43240670","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}