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Iverina Ivanova’s dissertation is now available from the university library server.

In her dissertation, Iva investigated the structure of research articles in the field of Computational Linguistics (CL) with the goal of establishing that a set of distinctive linguistic features is associated with each section type. She analyzed the interaction between the intentional and the linguistic structure of each section type. The results from the quantitative and qualitative analysis show that each section possesses an individual profile of linguistic features which are associated with it more or less strongly. These section-feature mappings are shown to be derivable from the hypothesized intentions of each section type. Her research findings provide insights into the writing strategies that writers employ in the component sections of a research article so that the overall goal
of the article is achieved.

Reference

Ivanova, Iverina. 2023. Section-Type constraints on the choice of linguistic mechanisms in research articles: a corpus-based approach. Frankfurt a.M.: University Library.
DOI: 10.21248/gups.74388

The datasets for this thesis are available on:
DOI: 10.25716/gude.1jnt-32xh

On 25 October, Sascha Bargmann  gave a keynote talk via Zoom on “Complex Idiom Modification” at the International Conference on Advance in Education, Humanities and Language (ICEL) 2023 in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia.

Sascha’s talk was based on Bargmann, Gehrke & Richter (2021) and the introductory chapter of his dissertation (Bargmann 2019).

After an introduction to idioms in general and fully-idiomatic idioms in particular, he presented Ernst (1981)’s three types of idiom modification – internal, external, and conjunction – to then zoom into conjunction modification and provide detailed analyses of two of Ernst’s examples as well as two examples from the ENCOW16A (World Englishes) corpus (accessible via https://www.webcorpora.org).

The talk can be watched at: (Sascha’s talk is about minutes 3-40)
(slides)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQcvLRJ_IaI

References

Bargmann, Sascha. 2019. Chopping up idioms: Towards a combinatorial analysis. Frankfurt a.M.: University Library. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21248/gups.73455

Bargmann, Sascha, Berit Gehrke & Frank Richter. 2021. Modification of literal meanings in semantically non-decomposable idioms. In Berthold Crysmann & Manfred Sailer (eds.), One-to-many relations in morphology, syntax, and semantics, 245–279. Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4729808

Ernst, Thomas. 1981. Grist for the linguistic mill: Idioms and ‘extra’ adjectives. Journal of Linguistic Research 1(3). 51–68

Links

• Corpus ENCOW 16A, accessible via https://www.webcorpora.org
• International Conference on Advance in Education, Humanities and Language (ICEL) 2023: https://snifib.ub.ac.id/icel
• Sascha Bargmann’s homepage: https://www.uni-frankfurt.de/82889671/Sascha_Bargmann

Manfred Sailer and Nicolas Lamoure (Frankfurt a.M.) presented a paper on “Superlative 'ever' in Dutch, French, German, and Spanish" at the 30th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar 2023.  Manfred and Nicolas look at the use of English ever in emphatic superlatives as in (1) in two Germanic and two Romance languages:

(1) a. nl: de beste opmerking ever 'the best comment ever'
       b. de: bestes Bild ever 'best picture ever'
       c. fr: la meilleure idée ever 'the best idea ever'
       d. es: la mejor foto ever 'the best picture ever'

They propose a three stage borrowing process:

• First, a constructional borrowing, which may include English adjectives and nouns.
• Second, a blend between the matrix language construction and the English construction, which still conserves ever as an English word.
• Third,  the word ever turns into a lexical borrowing and is, then, freely compatible with all constructions that allow matrix language emphatic superlative expressions such as German aller Zeiten 'of all times.'

The analysis is expressed within the modelling of social meaning proposed in Asadpour et al. 2022. It is a further develpment of Manfred and Nicolas' presentation at a DGfS workshop structural borrowing earlier this year.

Links

• Abstract of the paper: https://www.english-linguistics.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Sailer_Lamoure-Abstract.pdf
  (note: the analysis sketched in the abstract differs considerably from the one in the slides)
• Slides: https://www.english-linguistics.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/SailerLamoure_HPSG23_Slides.pdf
• HPSG 2023: https://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~fabiolah/hpsg23/index.html

References

Asadpour, Hiwa & Hassan, Shene & Sailer, Manfred. 2022. Non-wh relatives in English and Kurdish: Constraints on grammar and use. Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar 6–26. (doi:10.21248/hpsg.2022.1) (https://proceedings.hpsg.xyz/article/view/898)

Sascha Bargmann’s dissertation is now available from the university library server.
In his book, Sascha develops an argument for a consequent lexical treatment of idioms, whenever such a treatment is possible. To do this, he looks at data that have not been taken into account systematically in the previous literature.

Reference

Bargmann, Sascha. 2019. Chopping up idioms: Towards a combinatorial analysis. Frankfurt a.M.: University Library.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21248/gups.73455

The 45th Annual Conference of the German Society of Linguistics (DGfS 2023) hosted a workshop on “Coexistence, competition and change: Structural borrowing and the dynamics of asymmetric language contact.” The workshop was organized by Hiwa Asadpour, Carolina Plaza Pust, and Manfred Sailer and is part of the activities of the initiative DALC (the Dynamics of Asymmetric Language Contact).

The workshop covered a number of very different language contact situtations, including the contact between sign-languages and spoken languages.

The workshop was not only organized by members of the IEAS, but also included two presentations and two posters by the organizers:

• Hiwa gave a presentation on “Flagging-drop typology and contact-induced change“. In this presentation, Hiwa looked at the occurrence of bare noun phrases as post-verbal TARGET arguments in typologically diverse languages Northwest Iran which have been in longterm contact. (slides)
• Hiwa was also involved in two posters: one on “Contact-induced change and structural variation in the passive constructions of Nayini” with Roohollah Mofidi (Qazvin), …
• … and one on “Contact-induced change and passivization in low-resourced languages of Iran“, with Soudabeh Eslami (Zanjan), Mansoureh Delaramifar (Sistan & Baluchestan) & Masoumeh Zarei (Tehran).
• Manfred presented joint work with Nicolas Lamoure (Frankfurt a.M.) on “Superlative “ever”: A cross-linguistic lexically anchored structural borrowing“, in which they adopt the analytic tools of Asadpour et al. 2022 to borrowing. (slides)

Links

• DALC blog: https://blog.studiumdigitale.uni-frankfurt.de/dalc/
• DGfS 2023 webpage: https://dgfs2023.uni-koeln.de/en/
• Workshop program with links to the abstracts: https://blog.studiumdigitale.uni-frankfurt.de/dalc/preliminary-program/