Papers by Vesna Bulatovic
Belgrade English Language and Literature Studies, 2020
This paper looks into some English lexical correspondents of aspectual pairs in Serbo-Croatian (S... more This paper looks into some English lexical correspondents of aspectual pairs in Serbo-Croatian (SC). Because SC and English are diametrically opposed in terms of how overtly they express aspect, SC and English are usually seen as typical representatives of languages with and without aspect, respectively. In SC, the aspectual dichotomy is expressed by the following three instruments in the following order of frequency: a) pairs of lexically related verbs; b) biaspectual verbs, and c) pairs of different verbs. Our analysis shows that 'aspectless' English uses the same three instruments but in a different order of frequency. Most English verbs are biaspectual, i.e. their aspectual interpretation depends on a number of factors outside the verb. This study focuses on the other two instruments. Several different types of such lexical means for the expression of aspectual dichotomy in English are identified according to the lexical and morphological relations between their members.
Belgrade English Language and Literature Studies, 2013
The paper analyses modern theories of aspect in english from the point of view of Serbian eL2 lea... more The paper analyses modern theories of aspect in english from the point of view of Serbian eL2 learners. The analysis mainly looks at the works of Vendler, Verkuyl and Kabakciev as the cornerstones 2 of what is known today as compositional aspect. An attempt is made to identify elements that could be particularly relevant for eL2 learners and that should be incorporated in english grammars. The paper points to strong arguments in favour of incorporating such content. It also shows that it is possible to create certain rules that could help eL2 learners find their way in the extremely complex category of aspect in english.
The paper examines why the use of feminatives adversely affects the Ukranian language and suggest... more The paper examines why the use of feminatives adversely affects the Ukranian language and suggests they be replaced by the general gender. While it offers insights into why exactly it may be wrong to continue using feminatives in Ukranian, the paper needs improvements in terms of the structure, theoretical foundation and methodology, but also, or even primarily, of the clarity and precision of the language. SPECIFIC COMMENTS Structure. The Introduction draws on the research by other people but there is no clear distinction between the literature review and the presentation of the corpus. The Introduction is immediately followed by the Results and discussion section. The author should consider distinguising more clearly between the results of previous research and his own research results. The corpus is not clearly described. Theoretical foundation. The Introduction includes an overview of previous research, with examples. An objective description of other people's work is intertwined with the author's own remarks, most of which are not fully developed or substantiated. For example, "the Ukranian language, possessing highly developed grammatical tools and a long tradition of naming women, can serve as an expressive example in resolving issues connected with feminatives worldwide". In my view, all the languages have all the grammatical tools that they need and there can hardly be any sound foundation for ranking languages in terms of how higly developed their grammatical tools are. Also, saying that a language has "a long tradition of naming women" is in stark contradiction to saying that there is a "rather slack acceptance by these [feminitives] by Ukranian society and especially by the majority of professional linguists". I suggest the author supports the views with strong arguments and examples. The examples included are mostly of the negative position on feminitives. Are there not any positive ones? Methodology. The author is invited to clarify and describe the methods better. At present, there are only mentions of several methods. It is possible that the authors mistakes a quantitative analysis for the statistical method as at one point the author explains that out of 257 entries (found where?), 13 are problematic, which accounts for more than 5%. This
In this article we focus on the category of aspect and examine modern English grammars to see whe... more In this article we focus on the category of aspect and examine modern English grammars to see whether they give sufficient guidelines to the learner on how aspectual meanings are decoded and encoded in English. More precisely, we check whether the grammars reflect the abundant linguistic research on aspectual construal in English. Out of a number of components that play a role in the shaping of aspectual meaning, we look at the following four: lexical aspect, arguments, grammatical aspect, and tense. An overview is first made of the key theoretical findings on the impact of these four components on aspectual interpretation, followed by an analysis of the grammar content on the given components. Our conclusion is that only two comprehensive grammars we examined take into account the results of linguistic research on aspect to a certain extent and that there is a lot of room for improvement.
Facta Universitatis Series: Linguistics and Literature, 2018
With this long awaited grammar book Krasimir Kabakčiev puts the results of international linguist... more With this long awaited grammar book Krasimir Kabakčiev puts the results of international linguistic research at the service of language instruction and guides the learner through the labyrinth of linguistic subtleties of English and Bulgarian with care, wisdom and scientific integrity. This grammar book is not a quick grammar checker or an easy reference book for a student preparing for a placement test. It is not intended for classroom use either but it is hoped that its content will reach the classroom through the teacher. This grammar is innovative in that it draws on vast linguistic research and teaching experience of the author and that the selected grammar points are observed from the point of view of two languages, English and Bulgarian, thus breaking a long tradition of writing English grammars without any cross-linguistic perspective. The two languages are compared and contrasted in a way which facilitates a proper understanding and use of both. The grammar has 592 pages di...
The theoretical approach the paper is based on is cognitive lexical semantics and its view that a... more The theoretical approach the paper is based on is cognitive lexical semantics and its view that a word’s conventional meaning is a just a prompt for the process of meaning construction. The paper looks at the problem of deciding on the right interpretation of semantic relations found within nominal compounds in the process of translation. It focuses on nominal compounds that are problematic for reason of their lack of syntactic and semantic clues, i.e. their semantic ambiguity. The added difficulty is that the extra-linguistic information that could help solve the problem is not always available. The corpus is composed of various documents considered as typical examples of the so called institutional language, which is rich in pre-packaged concepts often expressed by nominal compounds. While the analysis does not strive to offer a set of rules for disambiguation of nominal compounds, the author hopes that by pointing to examples of underspecified syntactic or semantic representation...
International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching
ESL learners often show great variation in article use. This study proposes that article use can ... more ESL learners often show great variation in article use. This study proposes that article use can be improved if the semantic feature (non)boundedness is introduced into ELT. This study argues that articles carry highly relevant information that is crucial, together with a number of other elements, for the signalling of aspectual values in English. It is argued that the signalling of aspectual values is the primary role of articles and that if ESL learners receive instruction on this role, they may learn how to signal aspectual values correctly, but also improve their article use thanks to a greater awareness of articles. The paper reports on an experiment conducted to test ESL learners’ response to such instruction and concludes that incorporating (non)boundedness into ESL instruction is both reasonable and necessary.
Uploads
Papers by Vesna Bulatovic