Explaining matrix/subordinate domain discrepancies

Different writers, linguists, and researchers present nuances in language acquisition theories. However, few studies explore in-service teachers’ voices in such discourses. It is, therefore, imperative to explore the voices of in-service teachers in such narratives as they teach emergent bilinguals (EBs) and culturally and linguistically diverse students. This paper examined how in-service teachers perceive First Language Acquisition (FLA) theories and how those perceptions influence teaching EBs and informing classroom practice. Centering on Freeman and Freeman’s discussion of five FLA theories (imitation, reinforcement, behaviorist, social interaction, active construction, connectionist), we argue that in-service teachers’ perceptions of first language acquisition theories impact how they teach and engage EBs in their classrooms. Findings show that in-service teachers consider the social interaction theory most beneficial to students’ language development. However, the precariousness of FLA theories makes it challenging for them to determine the best approach to teaching EBs. Additionally, teacher education programs and critical professional development (PD) courses are instrumental in fostering understanding and robust pedagogical mindsets and preparing teachers to meet the needs of emergent bilinguals.

This comprehensive study investigates the crucial role of clauses in English sentence structure, primarily focusing on the distinction between independent clauses and dependent clauses. This research explores how these two types of clauses function as essential components in forming sentence structures, facilitating the expression of complex ideas and effective communication. The investigation reveals that independent clauses possess the ability to position alone as thorough sentences, while dependent clauses depend on independent clauses on the context and meaning. The study identifies various types of dependent clauses and examines how they contribute to more complex sentence structures. Furthermore, this research highlights the importance of subordinating conjunctions in introducing dependent clauses and establishing logical relationships within sentence structures. By elucidating the functions of independent and dependent clauses, this study provides valuable insights into the formation of effective sentence structures. The research demonstrates how the strategic use of independent and dependent clauses, along with the appropriate utilization of subordinating conjunctions, can enhance the quality and complexity of sentence structures. This analysis offers a deeper understanding of sentence structure mechanisms, contributing to broader linguistic theories and applications. The study emphasizes the critical role of clause analysis in developing strong writing skills and effective communication. The results indicate that a solid understanding of independent clauses, dependent clauses, and the use of subordinating conjunctions is crucial in creating varied and expressive sentence structures. This study contributes significantly to the considerate of sentence structures in English, underscoring the importance of independent clauses, dependent clauses, and subordinating conjunctions in language learning, teaching, and research. The study concludes that mastery of various clause types and the ability to combine them effectively are key to enhancing language proficiency and communication skills.

Subordinate clauses of time with the conjunctions referring to a limit or boundary kol, iki, ligi can express not only relations of a sequence of events/situations or simultaneity, but also highlight duration and indicate efforts put into the performance of the action. Verbs in the main and subordinate clauses can make certain combinations of tense forms. The selection of a subordinate clause structure depends on the modality of the predicate in the main clause. In cases of epistemic modality, main and subordinate clauses are based on verb forms expressed by the same tense. Cases, when tense forms differ, in such sentences are concerned with the de dicto semantic relation. When the predicate of the main clause expresses deontic modality, for the subordinate clause of time the following type of structure is selected: a conjunction referring to a temporal limit or boundary + negation + verb in the past simple tense. Clauses of time are characterised by specific structural peculiarities and a higher degree of grammaticality, semantically they are related to a need to describe a situation of imminent change or a situation set against the background of the other situation.

Hittite attests a set of complex sentences in which (mostly) relative clauses (other subordinate clauses are also attested) appear in linear syntax to be within another subordinate (usually conditional, rarely temporal) clause or main clause. The relative clause can be preceded by a very limited array of constituents from the matrix clause, e.g., mān ‘if’ or the quotative particle ⸗wa(r). There are also examples which attest the conditional subordinator and the irrealis particle in two positions simultaneously, at the left edge of the whole sentence and in the conditional clause (= main clause for the relative clause). I provide a fine-grained descriptive and structural analysis of the structure and show that the type cannot be explained as bare indefinites, embedded relative clauses or parenthetic clauses. It is shown that, structurally, the sentences containing subordinate (mostly relative) clauses within other clauses are heterogenous and of three types. The difference lies in the elements that precede the relative clause and in the structure of the sentences, whereby a standard Hittite relative clause adjoins at different heights. All three types display the same mismatch between prosodic domains and syntax/semantics—the constituent that is part of the main clause from the semantic and syntactic perspective is prosodically part of the relative clause. Since there is a clause boundary delimiting the end of the subordinate clause within the main clause, it makes sense to treat the surface structure as a distinct taxonomic unit, which is correspondingly labelled a mismatch sentence. The new evidence allows us to obtain a fuller understanding of the Hittite left periphery than was previously possible. It thus offers an important window into hitherto unrecognized aspects of the underlying structure of the complex sentence in Hittite.

Conceived within the frame of the ItalAnt project for the realization of a grammar of Old Italian (intended as corresponding to the variety used in Florence in the 13 t h century), this paper deals with the semantic area of concessive constructions. The basic morphosyntactic structures of contemporary Italian - consisting in hypotaxis with subordinating conjunctions (plus sometimes added adverbials), and in parataxis with coordinating conjunctions and/or adverbial elements - correspond to those documented in Old Italian, with the exception of «parahypotaxis». The label is traditionally adopted to name sequences of «dependent clause + main clause» where the last is introduced by a coordinating conjunction like e («and») or ma («but»); in this way a correlative structure is formed, parallel to the one which may be found in more common sequences of «dependent clause + main clause» where the last contains an adverbial not coordinating element. Between the two diachronic strata of Italian there are instead deeper differences with respect to the morpholexical elements adopted to express the semantic relationship, especially in hypotaxis: the basic form is avvegna che (unknown in contemporary Italian), while tutto che, ancor che and the nowadays main written subordinating conjunction benche appear only rarely, and the other «modern» forms sebbene, quantunque, etc. are not attested. Stronger although not perfect correspondences may be found in paratactic structures, where the second coordinate clause is introduced by the coordinating conjunctions e and ma and/or contains the anaphoric adverbials non ostante questo, con tutto cio, tuttavia and pur.

The author investigated the interpretation of temporal references during comprehension of sentences containing a main and subordinate clause. Experiments 1 and 2 examined state and event subordinate clauses, respectively, and showed that subordinate temporal references overlapping with or close to the time of the main clause event were read faster than nonoverlapping distant references. Experiment 3 examined temporal references in nonsubordinate main clauses and confirmed that temporal relations between main and subordinate clauses were established on-line in the previous experiments. Experiment 4 independently manipulated temporal overlap and distance and suggested that event and state clauses are processed according to distinct temporal parameters. The results are explained by the contingency relations that events and states establish with other discourse events.

This study aims to find the function of controlling constituents in Acehnese subordinative constructions. The function in question is “places” in the syntactic structure that will be filled with specific categories. This research employs qualitative research methods, incorporating note-taking and document review techniques. The data is presented in written text, rather than numbers or statistics. The data is obtained from various sources, such as sentences in Aceh language books, Aceh grammar books, and Aceh language dictionaries. The results show that controlling constituents in Acehnese subordinative constructions occupy only the functions of subject, object, complement, and adverb. These functions play a crucial role in connecting the main clause and the subordinate clause, thereby determining the overall meaning of the sentence. The subject-controlling constituent, as subject, object, complement, or adverb, plays a direct role in connecting the main clause and the subordinate clause. The subject in the subordinate clause refers to the subject, object, complement, and adverb in the main clause so that the subject in the subordinate clause can be omitted. It can be said that all these syntactic functions play an important role in controlling the subject in the subordinate clause.

In this paper, we attempt to make a comprehensive and explicit generalization about the syntactic structure and semantic meaning of the te-clause in Japanese from the viewpoint of ”generative grammar”. Our study has led to the following conclusions:1. A te-clause functioning as a subordinate clause is analyzed as an infinite clause, as distinguished from a finite clause functioning as a main clause.2. A te-clause is not only used as a verb phrase (VP); therefore, it contains a subject.3. At the head of a finite phrase which functions as a main clause, ”ru/ta” may be used; meanwhile, at the head of a time phrase (TP), ”te” may be used.4. Under the assumption of the above-mentioned syntactic construct ion, the ”Projection principle”, the ”Extended Projection Principle” and the ”θ-criterion” in generative grammar may be satisfied.5. Under the assumption that all ”te-clauses” are either ”TP” or ”vP, ” the interpretation of the te-clause's semantic content , rather than being linked with ”syntactic construction,” is more likely to be linked with ”semantic interpretation” or ”pragmatic interpretation.”

Looking for an easy-to-use guide to English grammar? This handy introduction covers all the basics of the subject, using a simple and straightforward style. Students will find the book's step-by-step approach easy to follow and be encouraged by its non-technical language. Requiring no prior knowledge of English grammar, the information is presented in small steps, with objective techniques to help readers apply concepts. With clear explanations and well chosen examples, the book gives students the tools to understand the mysteries of English grammar as well as the perfect foundation from which to move on to more advanced topics.

This corpus-based study examines the functions of the conditional converb in Forest Enets and investigates the differences in its use between two generations of Enets speakers. In line with the previous descriptions, independent clauses with conditional converbs are used as self-addressed questions (yes/no, special, and alternative questions). The conditional converb of the verb ɛ ‘be’ when used with numerals is developing into a marker of approximation. Dependent clauses with conditional converbs include protases of conditional and concessive conditional constructions as well as complement clauses. This study discusses the diachronic relation between independent clauses with conditional converbs and the protasis of conditional constructions and concludes that either of the two directions of development is possible. Complement clauses with conditional converbs include, first, irrealis complements to negative propositional attitude predicates (dʲɔxara ‘not know’, dʲurta ‘forget’), which, showing signs of relatively recent grammaticalization, have hitherto received scant attention by scholars, and, second, sentential subjects in modal constructions with such predicates as sɔjza ‘good’, bɔɔ ‘bad’ etc. To compare the use of the Enets conditional converb across types of clauses and generations of speakers, this paper analyses the occurrence of the future tense marker on the converb, the order of clauses in multi-clause constructions, the range of verbs in the main and in the dependent clauses. Many of these parameters can be interpreted as the signs of the growing level of clause integration in the process of grammaticalization of polypredicative constructions.

In recent years, a theory of distributional learning of phrase structure grammars has been developed starting with the simple algorithm presented in (Clark and Eyraud, 2007). These ideas are based on the classic ideas of American structuralist linguistics (Wells, 1947; Harris, 1954). Since that initial paper, the algorithms have been extended to large classes of grammars, notably to the class of Multiple Context-Free grammars by (Yoshinaka, 2011). In this talk we will sketch a theory of language acquisition based on these techniques, and contrast it with other proposals, such as the semantic bootstrapping and parameter setting models. This proposal is based on three recent results: first, a weak learning result for a class of languages that plausibly includes all natural languages (Clark and Yoshinaka, 2013), secondly, a strong learning result for some context-free grammars, that includes a general strategy for converting weak learners to strong learners (Clark, 2013a), and finally a theoretical result that all minimal grammars for a language will have distributionally definable syntactic categories (Clark, 2013b). We argue that we now have all of the pieces for a complete and explanatory theory of language acquisition based on distributional learning and sketch some of the nontrivial predictions of this theory about the syntax and syntax-semantics interface.

German free relative constructions allow for case requirement mismatches under two types of circumstances. The first is when the case required in the embedded clause is more complex (NOM < ACC < GEN < DAT) than the case required in the main clause, and the relative pronoun takes the form of the embedded clause case. The second type of circumstance is when the form that corresponds to the two required cases is syncretic. I propose an analysis that combines Caha’s (2009) case hierarchy in Nanosyntax with Van Riemsdijk’s (2006a) concept of Grafting. By placing case features as separate heads in the syntax, a less complex case can be Grafted into a different clause, explaining the first type of circumstance. The second type makes reference to the fact that syncretic forms are inserted via the same lexical entry (Superset Principle). A cross-linguistic comparison shows that it is language-specific whether a more complex case requirement in the main or embedded clause causes non-matching non-syncretic free relatives to be grammatical. For all languages it holds that the relative pronoun appears in the most complex case required, which provides additional evidence for case being complex and more complex cases being able to license less complex cases.

The aim of the study is to describe evaluation in the metacommunicative aspect within German scientific and journalistic discourse. The article analyzes complex sentences with causal subordinate clauses, which serve as means of argumentation and justification in expressing cause-and-effect relationships, where various types of evaluation (positive and negative, subjective and objective, rational and emotional) are explicitly conveyed. In complex sentences with causal subordinate clauses, evaluation functions as a secondary layer of meaning alongside the primary meaning and the syntactic relations arising between the main and subordinate clauses, allowing evaluation to be considered as a metacommunicative tool in the realization of scientific and journalistic discourse. The scientific novelty of the research lies in demonstrating the interrelation between the categories of subordination and evaluation, whereby the established type of cause correlates with a specific kind of evaluation. The results showed that the metacommunicativity of evaluation is marked by the position of the subordinate clause relative to the main clause, the semantics of conjunctions, lexical content, and context. The study identifies linguistic means of rational and emotional evaluation and proposes a classification of evaluations based on the types of causal subordinate clauses distinguished.

A grammatical construction resembling Present-Day English locative inversion has already been found in Old English, with a fronted prepositional phrase prompting V2 word order, both in main and subordinate clauses. It has been demonstrated that several discourse-related factors influence the positioning of objects, fronted locatives, finite verbs and subjects in subordinate clauses. One of the main aims of the present paper is to provide a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the locative inversion construction in Old English subordinate clauses. The Old English data for this study were obtained from the York–Toronto–Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose, and they were analysed using Corpus Studio. The results were compared with those for main clauses, and discourse-related factors such as PP anaphoricity or subject type were analysed in order to find the motivation for the existence of this alternation of word orders. PP anaphoricity proved not to be a determining factor in triggering finite verb inversion, while other factors such as subject weight and subject type do seem to motivate finite verb inversion, thus yielding an embedded PP-V-S word order.

Chinese Students’ English has its own characteristics. It is of significance to analyze and study these characteristics. The paper uses the corpus approach to study the misuse of tenses in Chinese College students’ CET-4 compositions of the sub-corpus of “Non-major College Students” in the Chinese Learner English Corpus (CLEC). Nine types of misuse are identified, and analysis is made of the causes of each type. It is found that the misuse of tenses in Chinese college students’ English compositions is mainly in the simple present tense and the simple past tense; the wrong collocation of tenses is mostly in the kind of complex sentence with the main clause and subordinate clause both indicating the future action and the subordinate clause using the simple present tense; as for the two special words “could” and “would” with both declarative and subjunctive usages, Chinese students often get confused and misuse them; students have vague understanding of the time concept indicated by the different tenses. Based on the analysis, the author tentatively provide some interpretations for these mistakes: many problems exist in the teaching of grammar in Chinese English teaching, and the teaching of tenses is not systematic and the focus of teaching and tests is not in accordance with the actual uses of tenses; students are affected by inter-lingual transfer and intra-lingual transfer when making English sentences. At last, some suggestions are offered by the author for the teaching of tenses: teachers should combine systematic teaching of tenses with the teaching of tenses in actual contexts and students should try to write English compositions using different tenses.