This study seeks to contribute to addressing a gap in theory-driven corpus-based research focused on the so-called translation specific features (TSF) in Arabic translated texts. It provides a contrastive Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)-informed analysis of concessive/contrastive connective markers in a selected comparable corpus made up of…

The present study investigates the Thai quantifier 'laay' ([Thai characters omitted]) and its two major English lexical equivalents: 'several' and 'many', using data from an English-Thai parallel corpus, the Thai and British National Corpora. An examination of the parallel corpus reveals that the quantifier 'laay' has a broad semantic property as…

The present study aimed to catalogue and compare usage patterns of verb-particle constructions (VPCs) in Modern Standard Arabic and English by native and learner writers. Building upon an analysis of a multi-genre monolingual Arabic corpus, use of both Arabic and English VPCs was explored in a bilingual L1 (first language) Arabic L2 (second…

This study has two goals. First, we present much-needed empirical linguistic data and systematic analyses on the spatial semantic systems in English and Korean, two languages that have been extensively compared to date in the debate on spatial language and spatial cognition. We conduct our linguistic investigation comprehensively, encompassing the…

This dissertation concerns the formal pragmatics of constructions in English and Japanese that are perceptively intensificative in their discourse function in some way. In particular I examine polarity emphasis (verum focus), exclamatives, and acts of notification and surprise in language using a compositional version of Farkas and Bruce (2010)'s…

Referential expressions such as pronouns are frequently used in conversations, and native speakers seem to understand who these expressions refer to effortlessly. Although the process of pronoun resolution seems to be easy, interpretations of pronouns are dependent on various sources of information from the discourse including morphosyntax (e.g.,…

This study aims to exemplify how language teaching can benefit from learner corpus research (LCR). To this end, this study determines how L1 and L2 English speakers with diverse L1 backgrounds differ with respect to adjective amplification, based on the "International Corpus of Learner English" (ICLE) and the "Louvain Corpus of…

This is a study of processes of structural and functional diversification of the uses of three cognate verbs across the Indo-Iranian language family: "do/make", "be/become", and "give". First, this study identifies over sixty distinct construction types in which these verbs are used, including complex predicate…

We examined case-marking variation in heritage Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian. Comparing heritage to homeland Polish and Ukrainian speakers, we found only a few types and a few tokens of systematic distinction between heritage and homeland varieties. A total of 6,291 instances of nouns and pronouns were extracted from transcribed conversations…

In the current study we investigate whether 2- and 3-year-old German children use intonation productively to mark the informational status of referents. Using a story-telling task, we compared children's and adults' intonational realization via pitch accent (H*, L* and de-accentuation) of New, Given, and Contrastive referents. Both children and…

In this dissertation, I investigate the phenomenon of internal topicalization cross-linguistically, using Chinese as a starting point. Internal topicalization refers to constructions in which a topic phrase is placed between the subject and the verb (in contrast to external topicalization, which involves a topic in the CP domain). I argue that…

Stuttering patterns may differ when comparing two languages. In bilinguals, specific patterns of stuttering in each one of the languages may potentially be found. This study reports on the case of a 27-year-old Spanish/English simultaneous bilingual whose dominant language is English. Speech and language testing was performed in both languages…

Vantage Theory (VT) and Cognitive Grammar (CG) both rely crucially on the cognitive phenomenon of categorization as well as on the semantic/pragmatic notion of participant point of view in making claims about human linguistic production and perception. In this paper these commonalities of commitment are explored, as are the differences in the ways…

The literature generally assumes that object clitic omission is equally allowed in all child languages. In this paper we challenge this claim by means of an elicitation experiment carried out with children acquiring two closely related languages, Catalan and Spanish. Our results show that while omission is high in young Catalan-speaking children,…

The Macedonian verb form corresponding to the form ending in "-l" in French is examined, focusing on the active past participle, which represents the past indeterminate or non-testimonial tense. Special attention is paid to aspectual, modal, temporal, and prosodic values, and all examples are drawn from the two languages. (MSE)