THE INHOMOGENEITY OF NEOSTANDARD FEATURES AND ITALIAN L2/LF TEACHING RIASSUNTO Il contributo ha u... more THE INHOMOGENEITY OF NEOSTANDARD FEATURES AND ITALIAN L2/LF TEACHING RIASSUNTO Il contributo ha un duplice obiettivo. Da una parte, mira a problematizzare la disomogeneità dei tratti del cosiddetto italiano neostandard, spesso presentato come un inventario monolitico di forme e fenomeni linguistici. Dall'altra, intende collocare tale varietà linguistica, nella prospettiva glottodidattica della lingua italiana, tuttora fortemente ancorata nella grammatica normativo-prescrittiva e nei canoni dell'italiano standard. Nello specifico, verranno esaminati alcuni tratti neostandard in forte espansione nell'italiano contemporaneo dal punto di vista della complessità strutturale e semantica, del valore funzionale e comunicativo e dell'estensione nell'uso odierno. PAROLE CHIAVE: italiano, varietà neostandard, tratti linguistici, disomogeneità, glottodidattica dell'italiano L2/LS ABSTRACT The objective of this paper is twofold. First, it aims at problematizing the inhomogeneity of linguistic features belonging to the so-called neostandard Italian, often presented as a monolithic inventory of linguistic forms and phenomena. Second, it intends to set such a linguistic variety in the context of Italian language pedagogy, still strongly anchored to the normative grammar and to the canons of standard Italian. Specifically, some rapidly consolidating neo-standard traits will be examined under the following aspects: structural and semantic complexity, functional and communicative value and extension in today's usage.
Il contributo ha un duplice obiettivo. Da una parte, mira a problematizzare la disomogeneità dei ... more Il contributo ha un duplice obiettivo. Da una parte, mira a problematizzare la disomogeneità dei tratti del cosiddetto italiano neostandard, spesso presentato come un inventario monolitico di forme e fenomeni linguistici. Dall'altra, intende collocare tale varietà linguistica, nella prospettiva glottodidattica della lingua italiana, tuttora fortemente ancorata nella grammatica normativo-prescrittiva e nei canoni dell'italiano standard. Nello specifico, verranno esaminati alcuni tratti neostandard in forte espansione nell'italiano contemporaneo dal punto di vista della complessità strutturale e semantica, del valore funzionale e comunicativo e dell'estensione nell'uso odierno. PAROLE CHIAVE: italiano, varietà neostandard, tratti linguistici, disomogeneità, glottodidattica dell'italiano L2/LS ABSTRACT The objective of this paper is twofold. First, it aims at problematizing the inhomogeneity of linguistic features belonging to the so-called neostandard Italian, often presented as a monolithic inventory of linguistic forms and phenomena. Second, it intends to set such a linguistic variety in the context of Italian language pedagogy, still strongly anchored to the normative grammar and to the canons of standard Italian. Specifically, some rapidly consolidating neo-standard traits will be examined under the following aspects: structural and semantic complexity, functional and communicative value and extension in today's usage.
Artykuł jest próbą refleksji na temat ewolucji normy społecznej oraz zmian językowych i kodyfikac... more Artykuł jest próbą refleksji na temat ewolucji normy społecznej oraz zmian językowych i kodyfikacyjnych w obrębie żeńskich nazw osobowych. Głównym celem jest problematyzacja zagadnienia feminatywów we współczesnej polszczyźnie na podstawie krytycznego porównania opinii na temat ich tworzenia i użycia sformułowanych przez Radę Języka Polskiego, publiczną instytucję opiniodawczo-doradczą w sprawach używania języka polskiego. Znaczące różnice w zajętych przez naukowców na przestrzeni zaledwie kilku lat stanowiskach wskazują, że kwestia feminatywów była i nadal jest w znacznym stopniu elementem społeczno-politycznej debaty o zabarwieniu ideologicznym, społecznym i emocjonalnym, a nie problemem wynikającym z rzeczywistych ograniczeń systemu językowego.
Studia universitatis hereditati znanstvena revija za raziskave in teorijo kulturne dediščine
The study presents a contrastive Italian-Polish-Russian analysis of the left-headed binominal con... more The study presents a contrastive Italian-Polish-Russian analysis of the left-headed binominal constructions of the type [N1 of N2] composed of the metaphorical classifier It. montagna, Pol. góra, Russ. gora 'mountain'. The main aim of the study is to describe and compare semantic and structural properties of such a construction from a cognitive-functional and usage-based perspective. A contrastive and corpus-based approach makes it possible to verify how the MOUNTAIN metaphor is expressed in the three languages and to describe cross-linguistic similarities and differences with respect to its linguistic expression. Despite a basic similarity of the figurative mappings, our findings show that the metaphor is grammaticalized to quite different degrees in the examined languages, resulting far more salient and spread in Italian than in Polish and Russian.
Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe - HAL - Inria, Feb 5, 2015
It is generally believed that initial learner varieties do not rely on inflectional morphology fo... more It is generally believed that initial learner varieties do not rely on inflectional morphology for production and comprehension: rather, utterances are processed based on the default Agent (A) - Patient (P) pattern (Klein & Perdue 1997, VanPatten 2004). Recent studies however (Carroll & Widjaja 2011; Rast 2008; Rast, Watorek & Hilton 2011) suggest that form-function associations may be established even in the earliest stages of acquisition. Against this background, the present study aims at verifying whether initial learners of a morphologically complex language are able to associate inflectional endings to the corresponding syntactic functions in both comprehension and production. Within the VILLA project (Dimroth et alii 2013), 31 learners with no experience of the target language were exposed to a 14-hour Polish course, whose input was recorded and transcribed so as to correlate learner output with the relevant input features. The results of two tests administrated to two groups of learners (Italian L1 vs. French L1) are analysed in combination. In the first one, learners hear target sentences varying in their argument structure (AP vs. PA) and are required to select the picture which best depicts them. In the second test, learners are asked to repeat a set of short transitive sentences, again differing in argument structure. Target-like morphological processing can only be hypothesised if learners perform well on PA target in both tests, as this would exclude reliance on the default AP syntactic structure. In order to track the development of input processing over time, the tasks were administered after 9 and 13:30 hs. of exposure. Analysis is conducted separately for each learner, so as to take into account individual variability in both the strategies adopted by each learner at any given stage and their development over time. The study offers a window on morphological processing in the earliest stages of acquisition. Learners’ behaviour in the two combined tests reflects their hypotheses as to the structure of the target language. Relevant changes in performance in the tests therefore should hint to new hypotheses being formulated, whether towards more target-like results or not. REFERENCES Bardovi-Harlig, K. (1992) The relationship of form and meaning: a cross sectional study of tense and aspect in the interlanguage of learners of English as a second language. Applied Psycholinguistics 13, 253-78. Hinz, J., Krause, C., Rast, R., Shoemaker, E. & Watorek, M. (2012) Initial processing of morphological marking in nonnative language acquisition: Evidence from French and German learners of Polish, Paper presented at the EUROSLA 22. VanPatten, B. (ed.) (2004) Processing Instruction: Theory, Research, and Commentary. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Rast, R. (2008) Foreign Language Input: Initial Processing, Multilingual Matters.
Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe - HAL - Diderot, Aug 26, 2015
The processing and acquisition of morpho-syntax in the early stages of L2 development have receiv... more The processing and acquisition of morpho-syntax in the early stages of L2 development have received growing interest in recent SLA research, some sensitivity to form having been found from the very beginning of the acquisitional process (Rast 2008). This partly contrasts with the traditional view that initial learners tend to privilege meaning over form (VanPatten 2004) and to rely on lexical rather than grammatical information (Bardovi-Harlig 1992); if present at all, morphological variation is not believed to have any functional value (Klein & Perdue 1997). Within this debate, our work aims at a deeper understanding of the processing of Polish nominal morphology in the earliest stages of acquisition, with a focus on the role of the L1 and of specific input properties. The study is part of the VILLA project (Dimroth et al. 2013), which investigates the initial phases of the acquisition of Polish under fully controlled input conditions. Learners with five different L1s took part in a 14-hour Polish course taught by a native speaker, whose speech was planned, recorded and transcribed. This methodology makes it possible to correlate the development of the learner variety with input properties such as the frequency and context of occurrence of any linguistic element. In order to find out when and where initial learners first establish an opposition between nominative (NOM) and accusative (ACC) NPs, two tasks were administered to groups of adult German (N= 20), Dutch(N=20), French (N=17) and Italian (N=17) L1 speakers. A Comprehension test examines how learners interpret argument roles (AGENT vs. PATIENT) in the presence of case marking. In a repetition test, learners were asked to repeat short transitive sentences in Polish as accurately as possible. In both tests, target sentences vary in constituent order (SO vs. OS). The tasks were taken after identical exposure to the input, so that they are fully comparable. Each was administered twice, namely after 9 hours (T1) and 13:30 hours (T2) of exposure to the input. By correlating the results of the two tests, we can draw an overall picture of the learners' morphosyntactic competence in comprehension and repetition (Saturno, Latos & Watorek 2015). The results highlight several tendencies common to all groups, such as higher scores in comprehension than repetition, a preference for NOM as an invariable word-form, and minimal scores in the repetition of OS targets, most probably due to perceptual factors (Saturno 2015). Accuracy scores for all groups improve from T1 to T2, suggesting a beneficial effect of further, albeit limited exposure to the input. Cross-linguistically, a significant effect of the L1 was found, French learners performing significantly worse than the other groups. It is hypothesised that such differences may be linked to the L1 phonology, and specifically to stress position. Crucially, French differs from all other L1s in having fixed stress; in addition, its pattern (stressed final syllable) is not compatible with that of Polish (stressed penultimate syllable), which may hamper word segmentation and hence the retrieval of morphological information.
ABSTRACT: The study analyses the morphological structure, semantics and contemporary uses of the ... more ABSTRACT: The study analyses the morphological structure, semantics and contemporary uses of the neologism kaszotto ‘kashotto’ created in Polish by analogy to the Italianism risotto. The hybrid word-formation structured as a semi-calque reveals that Polish culinary lexicon is being enriched not only through the transfer of Italian terminology or with lexical innovations such as pseudoitalianisms. The assimilation of Italian cultural and linguistic elements also occurs as a structural and semantic remodelling of the foreign pattern in order to accommodate it to the realities of Polish culture. As illustrated by real examples of use, the new word pattern is replicated. On the sidelines of our linguistic discussion, we propose reflections on the mass reception of Italian culture and the experiencing of Italianity in today’s Poland, as well as on a semiotic potential of linguistic means carrying information about Italianity in the verbal communication of Polish speakers.
Annales Universitatis Paedagogicae Cracoviensis. Studia de Cultura, 2017
Nonostante la proliferazione di ministre e deputate sulla stampa italiana, il sistema linguistico... more Nonostante la proliferazione di ministre e deputate sulla stampa italiana, il sistema linguistico continua a oscillare fra la norma e l'uso: alcune forme risultano plausibili, diventando sempre più frequenti, altre, seppur grammaticalmente consentite, non godono della stessa fortuna. Attraverso la ricerca su diversi dati disponibili in rete e l'interrogazione diretta dei parlanti nativi, questo studio empirico intende "fotografare" la situazione attuale concernente l'uso degli agentivi femminili in italiano, tenendo conto dei bisogni comunicativi, preferenze e sensibilità dei parlanti che devono confrontarsi con i cambiamenti linguistici in corso.
Publikacja jest dostępna także w wersji elektronicznej / Accessible aussi sous forme éléctronique... more Publikacja jest dostępna także w wersji elektronicznej / Accessible aussi sous forme éléctronique Central and Eastern European Online Library www.ceeol.com Śląska Biblioteka Cyfrowa www.sbc.org.pl TABlE DES MATièrES Wiesław Banyś : Y at -il une relation entre la valence (pleine) et la synonymie ?. . .
... It happened because it fell down off the table. (25) Matt broke the glass. ... do-PST-PTCP to... more ... It happened because it fell down off the table. (25) Matt broke the glass. ... do-PST-PTCP to construct-INF INDF bookshelf 'I cut two boards. I did this to build a bookshelf.'(from Prandi 1996: 75) (38) a. Per essere sincero, quella persona non mi piace. ...
Le lingue slave: sviluppi teorici e prospettive applicative Atti del VIII incontro di linguistica slava (Udine, 10-12 settembre 2020), 2021
The study examines mixed gender agreements triggered by Polish personal nouns with an "incongruen... more The study examines mixed gender agreements triggered by Polish personal nouns with an "incongruent" formal gender given their sex-differentiable human reference. The corpus-based analysis shows that the internal NP agreement is systematically congruous with the inherent gender value of its noun head, whereas the external NP agreement routinely diverges from it, being regulated by a semantic-referential value, i.e. the sex of a referent denoted by the NP. Such a divergence consistent with Lehmann's distinction between internal and external agreement is taken as an evidence of two distinct functions in the area of linguistic gender, i.e. grammatical gender vs. natural gender.
The study analyses the current polysemy of the adverb zabójczo and the evolution of its original ... more The study analyses the current polysemy of the adverb zabójczo and the evolution of its original meaning ‘lethally.’ The semantic change ‘lethal → harmful → unbearable → impressive → extraordinary’ occurs due to the process of metaphorization and subjectivation. The concrete lexical meaning develops a secondary sense through metonymy, ‘extreme degree.’ The desemantized related expressions, i.e., the adjective zabójczy and the adverb zabójczo, take on the function of a hyperbolic intensifier. The amplifiers tend to be used in two diverse intensification patterns: the adjective as a maximizer, while the adjective as a booster.
The paper attempts to reflect on the evolution of the social norm and on linguistic and codificat... more The paper attempts to reflect on the evolution of the social norm and on linguistic and codification-related changes with regard to feminine personal nouns. The main aim is to posit and reflect on the problem of feminine forms in contempo- rary Polish on the basis of a critical comparison of opinions on their creation and use formulated by the Polish Language Council, a body issuing opinions and giving advice on the use of the Polish language. The significant differences in positions taken by scientists over the course of just a few years suggest that the issue of feminine forms was and continues to be to a large extent an element of the sociopolitical debate with an ideological, social and emotional tinge, rather than an issue resulting from the actual limitations of the language system.
Keywords: personal nouns, feminine forms, linguistic norm, Polish language, Polish Language Council
The article addresses the relation between the grammatical gender and the linguistic encoding of ... more The article addresses the relation between the grammatical gender and the linguistic encoding of sex distinction (natural gender). Our goal is to problematize the category of gender as a multipart and multifunctional linguistic phenomenon operating in diverse dimensions of a language. The analysis of Italian and Polish languages illustrates that grammatical gender-whose main function is to signal syntactic relations between text constituents-and natural gender-whose main function is to encode information about the sex of a referent-are in principle autonomous and independent linguistic phenomena which are however strongly interrelated in a linguistic system through a morphological and syntactic interface. Key words: grammatical gender, natural gender, linguistic encoding of sex distinction, Italian, Polish
STRESZCZENIE Artykuł podejmuje rozważania na temat relacji między rodzajem gramatycznym a językowym kodowaniem informacji o różnicy płci (rodzaj naturalny). Głównym celem jest sproblematyzowanie kategorii rodzaju (gender) jako wieloaspektowego i wielofunkcyjnego zjawiska językowego. Analiza, opierająca się na przykładach z języka polskiego i włoskiego, pokazuje, iż rodzaj gramatyczny (którego główną funkcją jest sygnalizowanie relacji między elementami tekstu) i rodzaj naturalny (który informuje o płci osoby będącej desygnatem wypowiedzi) to dwa odrębne i niezależne zjawiska językowe, które jednakże są silnie skorelowane na płaszczyźnie morfologicznej i syntaktycznej systemu językowego.
SŁOWA KLUCZOWE: rodzaj gramatyczny, rodzaj naturalny, językowe kodowanie informacji o różnicy płci, język włoski, język polski
THE INHOMOGENEITY OF NEOSTANDARD FEATURES AND ITALIAN L2/LF TEACHING RIASSUNTO Il contributo ha u... more THE INHOMOGENEITY OF NEOSTANDARD FEATURES AND ITALIAN L2/LF TEACHING RIASSUNTO Il contributo ha un duplice obiettivo. Da una parte, mira a problematizzare la disomogeneità dei tratti del cosiddetto italiano neostandard, spesso presentato come un inventario monolitico di forme e fenomeni linguistici. Dall'altra, intende collocare tale varietà linguistica, nella prospettiva glottodidattica della lingua italiana, tuttora fortemente ancorata nella grammatica normativo-prescrittiva e nei canoni dell'italiano standard. Nello specifico, verranno esaminati alcuni tratti neostandard in forte espansione nell'italiano contemporaneo dal punto di vista della complessità strutturale e semantica, del valore funzionale e comunicativo e dell'estensione nell'uso odierno. PAROLE CHIAVE: italiano, varietà neostandard, tratti linguistici, disomogeneità, glottodidattica dell'italiano L2/LS ABSTRACT The objective of this paper is twofold. First, it aims at problematizing the inhomogeneity of linguistic features belonging to the so-called neostandard Italian, often presented as a monolithic inventory of linguistic forms and phenomena. Second, it intends to set such a linguistic variety in the context of Italian language pedagogy, still strongly anchored to the normative grammar and to the canons of standard Italian. Specifically, some rapidly consolidating neo-standard traits will be examined under the following aspects: structural and semantic complexity, functional and communicative value and extension in today's usage.
Il contributo ha un duplice obiettivo. Da una parte, mira a problematizzare la disomogeneità dei ... more Il contributo ha un duplice obiettivo. Da una parte, mira a problematizzare la disomogeneità dei tratti del cosiddetto italiano neostandard, spesso presentato come un inventario monolitico di forme e fenomeni linguistici. Dall'altra, intende collocare tale varietà linguistica, nella prospettiva glottodidattica della lingua italiana, tuttora fortemente ancorata nella grammatica normativo-prescrittiva e nei canoni dell'italiano standard. Nello specifico, verranno esaminati alcuni tratti neostandard in forte espansione nell'italiano contemporaneo dal punto di vista della complessità strutturale e semantica, del valore funzionale e comunicativo e dell'estensione nell'uso odierno. PAROLE CHIAVE: italiano, varietà neostandard, tratti linguistici, disomogeneità, glottodidattica dell'italiano L2/LS ABSTRACT The objective of this paper is twofold. First, it aims at problematizing the inhomogeneity of linguistic features belonging to the so-called neostandard Italian, often presented as a monolithic inventory of linguistic forms and phenomena. Second, it intends to set such a linguistic variety in the context of Italian language pedagogy, still strongly anchored to the normative grammar and to the canons of standard Italian. Specifically, some rapidly consolidating neo-standard traits will be examined under the following aspects: structural and semantic complexity, functional and communicative value and extension in today's usage.
Artykuł jest próbą refleksji na temat ewolucji normy społecznej oraz zmian językowych i kodyfikac... more Artykuł jest próbą refleksji na temat ewolucji normy społecznej oraz zmian językowych i kodyfikacyjnych w obrębie żeńskich nazw osobowych. Głównym celem jest problematyzacja zagadnienia feminatywów we współczesnej polszczyźnie na podstawie krytycznego porównania opinii na temat ich tworzenia i użycia sformułowanych przez Radę Języka Polskiego, publiczną instytucję opiniodawczo-doradczą w sprawach używania języka polskiego. Znaczące różnice w zajętych przez naukowców na przestrzeni zaledwie kilku lat stanowiskach wskazują, że kwestia feminatywów była i nadal jest w znacznym stopniu elementem społeczno-politycznej debaty o zabarwieniu ideologicznym, społecznym i emocjonalnym, a nie problemem wynikającym z rzeczywistych ograniczeń systemu językowego.
Studia universitatis hereditati znanstvena revija za raziskave in teorijo kulturne dediščine
The study presents a contrastive Italian-Polish-Russian analysis of the left-headed binominal con... more The study presents a contrastive Italian-Polish-Russian analysis of the left-headed binominal constructions of the type [N1 of N2] composed of the metaphorical classifier It. montagna, Pol. góra, Russ. gora 'mountain'. The main aim of the study is to describe and compare semantic and structural properties of such a construction from a cognitive-functional and usage-based perspective. A contrastive and corpus-based approach makes it possible to verify how the MOUNTAIN metaphor is expressed in the three languages and to describe cross-linguistic similarities and differences with respect to its linguistic expression. Despite a basic similarity of the figurative mappings, our findings show that the metaphor is grammaticalized to quite different degrees in the examined languages, resulting far more salient and spread in Italian than in Polish and Russian.
Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe - HAL - Inria, Feb 5, 2015
It is generally believed that initial learner varieties do not rely on inflectional morphology fo... more It is generally believed that initial learner varieties do not rely on inflectional morphology for production and comprehension: rather, utterances are processed based on the default Agent (A) - Patient (P) pattern (Klein & Perdue 1997, VanPatten 2004). Recent studies however (Carroll & Widjaja 2011; Rast 2008; Rast, Watorek & Hilton 2011) suggest that form-function associations may be established even in the earliest stages of acquisition. Against this background, the present study aims at verifying whether initial learners of a morphologically complex language are able to associate inflectional endings to the corresponding syntactic functions in both comprehension and production. Within the VILLA project (Dimroth et alii 2013), 31 learners with no experience of the target language were exposed to a 14-hour Polish course, whose input was recorded and transcribed so as to correlate learner output with the relevant input features. The results of two tests administrated to two groups of learners (Italian L1 vs. French L1) are analysed in combination. In the first one, learners hear target sentences varying in their argument structure (AP vs. PA) and are required to select the picture which best depicts them. In the second test, learners are asked to repeat a set of short transitive sentences, again differing in argument structure. Target-like morphological processing can only be hypothesised if learners perform well on PA target in both tests, as this would exclude reliance on the default AP syntactic structure. In order to track the development of input processing over time, the tasks were administered after 9 and 13:30 hs. of exposure. Analysis is conducted separately for each learner, so as to take into account individual variability in both the strategies adopted by each learner at any given stage and their development over time. The study offers a window on morphological processing in the earliest stages of acquisition. Learners’ behaviour in the two combined tests reflects their hypotheses as to the structure of the target language. Relevant changes in performance in the tests therefore should hint to new hypotheses being formulated, whether towards more target-like results or not. REFERENCES Bardovi-Harlig, K. (1992) The relationship of form and meaning: a cross sectional study of tense and aspect in the interlanguage of learners of English as a second language. Applied Psycholinguistics 13, 253-78. Hinz, J., Krause, C., Rast, R., Shoemaker, E. & Watorek, M. (2012) Initial processing of morphological marking in nonnative language acquisition: Evidence from French and German learners of Polish, Paper presented at the EUROSLA 22. VanPatten, B. (ed.) (2004) Processing Instruction: Theory, Research, and Commentary. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Rast, R. (2008) Foreign Language Input: Initial Processing, Multilingual Matters.
Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe - HAL - Diderot, Aug 26, 2015
The processing and acquisition of morpho-syntax in the early stages of L2 development have receiv... more The processing and acquisition of morpho-syntax in the early stages of L2 development have received growing interest in recent SLA research, some sensitivity to form having been found from the very beginning of the acquisitional process (Rast 2008). This partly contrasts with the traditional view that initial learners tend to privilege meaning over form (VanPatten 2004) and to rely on lexical rather than grammatical information (Bardovi-Harlig 1992); if present at all, morphological variation is not believed to have any functional value (Klein & Perdue 1997). Within this debate, our work aims at a deeper understanding of the processing of Polish nominal morphology in the earliest stages of acquisition, with a focus on the role of the L1 and of specific input properties. The study is part of the VILLA project (Dimroth et al. 2013), which investigates the initial phases of the acquisition of Polish under fully controlled input conditions. Learners with five different L1s took part in a 14-hour Polish course taught by a native speaker, whose speech was planned, recorded and transcribed. This methodology makes it possible to correlate the development of the learner variety with input properties such as the frequency and context of occurrence of any linguistic element. In order to find out when and where initial learners first establish an opposition between nominative (NOM) and accusative (ACC) NPs, two tasks were administered to groups of adult German (N= 20), Dutch(N=20), French (N=17) and Italian (N=17) L1 speakers. A Comprehension test examines how learners interpret argument roles (AGENT vs. PATIENT) in the presence of case marking. In a repetition test, learners were asked to repeat short transitive sentences in Polish as accurately as possible. In both tests, target sentences vary in constituent order (SO vs. OS). The tasks were taken after identical exposure to the input, so that they are fully comparable. Each was administered twice, namely after 9 hours (T1) and 13:30 hours (T2) of exposure to the input. By correlating the results of the two tests, we can draw an overall picture of the learners' morphosyntactic competence in comprehension and repetition (Saturno, Latos & Watorek 2015). The results highlight several tendencies common to all groups, such as higher scores in comprehension than repetition, a preference for NOM as an invariable word-form, and minimal scores in the repetition of OS targets, most probably due to perceptual factors (Saturno 2015). Accuracy scores for all groups improve from T1 to T2, suggesting a beneficial effect of further, albeit limited exposure to the input. Cross-linguistically, a significant effect of the L1 was found, French learners performing significantly worse than the other groups. It is hypothesised that such differences may be linked to the L1 phonology, and specifically to stress position. Crucially, French differs from all other L1s in having fixed stress; in addition, its pattern (stressed final syllable) is not compatible with that of Polish (stressed penultimate syllable), which may hamper word segmentation and hence the retrieval of morphological information.
ABSTRACT: The study analyses the morphological structure, semantics and contemporary uses of the ... more ABSTRACT: The study analyses the morphological structure, semantics and contemporary uses of the neologism kaszotto ‘kashotto’ created in Polish by analogy to the Italianism risotto. The hybrid word-formation structured as a semi-calque reveals that Polish culinary lexicon is being enriched not only through the transfer of Italian terminology or with lexical innovations such as pseudoitalianisms. The assimilation of Italian cultural and linguistic elements also occurs as a structural and semantic remodelling of the foreign pattern in order to accommodate it to the realities of Polish culture. As illustrated by real examples of use, the new word pattern is replicated. On the sidelines of our linguistic discussion, we propose reflections on the mass reception of Italian culture and the experiencing of Italianity in today’s Poland, as well as on a semiotic potential of linguistic means carrying information about Italianity in the verbal communication of Polish speakers.
Annales Universitatis Paedagogicae Cracoviensis. Studia de Cultura, 2017
Nonostante la proliferazione di ministre e deputate sulla stampa italiana, il sistema linguistico... more Nonostante la proliferazione di ministre e deputate sulla stampa italiana, il sistema linguistico continua a oscillare fra la norma e l'uso: alcune forme risultano plausibili, diventando sempre più frequenti, altre, seppur grammaticalmente consentite, non godono della stessa fortuna. Attraverso la ricerca su diversi dati disponibili in rete e l'interrogazione diretta dei parlanti nativi, questo studio empirico intende "fotografare" la situazione attuale concernente l'uso degli agentivi femminili in italiano, tenendo conto dei bisogni comunicativi, preferenze e sensibilità dei parlanti che devono confrontarsi con i cambiamenti linguistici in corso.
Publikacja jest dostępna także w wersji elektronicznej / Accessible aussi sous forme éléctronique... more Publikacja jest dostępna także w wersji elektronicznej / Accessible aussi sous forme éléctronique Central and Eastern European Online Library www.ceeol.com Śląska Biblioteka Cyfrowa www.sbc.org.pl TABlE DES MATièrES Wiesław Banyś : Y at -il une relation entre la valence (pleine) et la synonymie ?. . .
... It happened because it fell down off the table. (25) Matt broke the glass. ... do-PST-PTCP to... more ... It happened because it fell down off the table. (25) Matt broke the glass. ... do-PST-PTCP to construct-INF INDF bookshelf 'I cut two boards. I did this to build a bookshelf.'(from Prandi 1996: 75) (38) a. Per essere sincero, quella persona non mi piace. ...
Le lingue slave: sviluppi teorici e prospettive applicative Atti del VIII incontro di linguistica slava (Udine, 10-12 settembre 2020), 2021
The study examines mixed gender agreements triggered by Polish personal nouns with an "incongruen... more The study examines mixed gender agreements triggered by Polish personal nouns with an "incongruent" formal gender given their sex-differentiable human reference. The corpus-based analysis shows that the internal NP agreement is systematically congruous with the inherent gender value of its noun head, whereas the external NP agreement routinely diverges from it, being regulated by a semantic-referential value, i.e. the sex of a referent denoted by the NP. Such a divergence consistent with Lehmann's distinction between internal and external agreement is taken as an evidence of two distinct functions in the area of linguistic gender, i.e. grammatical gender vs. natural gender.
The study analyses the current polysemy of the adverb zabójczo and the evolution of its original ... more The study analyses the current polysemy of the adverb zabójczo and the evolution of its original meaning ‘lethally.’ The semantic change ‘lethal → harmful → unbearable → impressive → extraordinary’ occurs due to the process of metaphorization and subjectivation. The concrete lexical meaning develops a secondary sense through metonymy, ‘extreme degree.’ The desemantized related expressions, i.e., the adjective zabójczy and the adverb zabójczo, take on the function of a hyperbolic intensifier. The amplifiers tend to be used in two diverse intensification patterns: the adjective as a maximizer, while the adjective as a booster.
The paper attempts to reflect on the evolution of the social norm and on linguistic and codificat... more The paper attempts to reflect on the evolution of the social norm and on linguistic and codification-related changes with regard to feminine personal nouns. The main aim is to posit and reflect on the problem of feminine forms in contempo- rary Polish on the basis of a critical comparison of opinions on their creation and use formulated by the Polish Language Council, a body issuing opinions and giving advice on the use of the Polish language. The significant differences in positions taken by scientists over the course of just a few years suggest that the issue of feminine forms was and continues to be to a large extent an element of the sociopolitical debate with an ideological, social and emotional tinge, rather than an issue resulting from the actual limitations of the language system.
Keywords: personal nouns, feminine forms, linguistic norm, Polish language, Polish Language Council
The article addresses the relation between the grammatical gender and the linguistic encoding of ... more The article addresses the relation between the grammatical gender and the linguistic encoding of sex distinction (natural gender). Our goal is to problematize the category of gender as a multipart and multifunctional linguistic phenomenon operating in diverse dimensions of a language. The analysis of Italian and Polish languages illustrates that grammatical gender-whose main function is to signal syntactic relations between text constituents-and natural gender-whose main function is to encode information about the sex of a referent-are in principle autonomous and independent linguistic phenomena which are however strongly interrelated in a linguistic system through a morphological and syntactic interface. Key words: grammatical gender, natural gender, linguistic encoding of sex distinction, Italian, Polish
STRESZCZENIE Artykuł podejmuje rozważania na temat relacji między rodzajem gramatycznym a językowym kodowaniem informacji o różnicy płci (rodzaj naturalny). Głównym celem jest sproblematyzowanie kategorii rodzaju (gender) jako wieloaspektowego i wielofunkcyjnego zjawiska językowego. Analiza, opierająca się na przykładach z języka polskiego i włoskiego, pokazuje, iż rodzaj gramatyczny (którego główną funkcją jest sygnalizowanie relacji między elementami tekstu) i rodzaj naturalny (który informuje o płci osoby będącej desygnatem wypowiedzi) to dwa odrębne i niezależne zjawiska językowe, które jednakże są silnie skorelowane na płaszczyźnie morfologicznej i syntaktycznej systemu językowego.
SŁOWA KLUCZOWE: rodzaj gramatyczny, rodzaj naturalny, językowe kodowanie informacji o różnicy płci, język włoski, język polski
The aim of the study entitled Factual concessive connectors. A contrastive analysis in Italian an... more The aim of the study entitled Factual concessive connectors. A contrastive analysis in Italian and Polish is to examine and compare the use and functions of the factual concessive connectors in two European languages: Italian and Polish. The comparison is based on a detailed analysis of the syntax, meaning and synchronic usage patterns of these connective expressions. Contrary to most of the studies devoted to this issue so far, the analysis is not restricted to ideal sentences, but rather accounts for the distribution of factual concessive connectors in real examples provided by linguistic corpora. The theoretical starting point of the research is the framework of Functional Grammar (FG), especially the theory concerning the hierarchical structure of discourse (Dik, 1997; Hengeveld, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1997, Crevels, 1998, 1999). After the discussion on some theoretical proposals regarding different semantic-functional levels of adverbial connection, two main domains of concessive connection, ‘representational’ relations versus ‘interpersonal’ ones, have been distinguished. The analysis carried out on a corpus of authentic texts of written and spoken language in relation to the previously identified semantic and pragmatic parameters shows a number of correlations existing in both languages and confirms the main hypothesis of the research: not all concessive connectors are identical in meaning and use. The analysis also focuses on some historical aspects concerning the diachronic origins of concessive connectors. The synchronic distribution of Italian and Polish concessive connectors that emerges from the corpus-based analysis is reviewed from the diachronic perspective and this re-examination indicates the existence of some interesting correlations between the diachronic origins of concessive connectors and their synchronic usage patterns. Linguistic Edition 56 edited by LINCOM, 01/2006; Munich: Lincom Europa., ISBN: ISBN 10: 3895863513 / ISBN 13: 9783895863516
Extensive research on the beginning stages of language learning by untutored learners reveals lit... more Extensive research on the beginning stages of language learning by untutored learners reveals little to no productive morphology (Perdue 1993). Other research, even with tutored learners, has found similar results (Bardovi-Harlig 1992; Larsen-Freeman 2010; VanPatten 2004). To what extent is this lack of productive morphology due to the type of linguistic input or instruction that the learner receives? A complete control of the learner’s linguistic environment from the moment of first exposure to the foreign language can contribute to answering this question. This paper reports on such a study, in which Polish (a highly inflected language) is the target language. The study investigates how native speakers of French (less inflected) used the Polish input provided by their instructor to perceive and use nominal morphology. In this study, 17 native speakers of French took part in a 10-day Polish course, a total of 14 hours of oral Polish input from a native-speaking instructor. None of the participants had previously been exposed to Polish or another Slavic language, and the morphologically-rich input included no explicit instruction about nominal morphology. This paper presents the results of two tasks, an aural grammaticality judgement task administered at two time intervals and an oral production task (giving route directions) administered at the end of the Polish course. The first task tests learners’ ability to recognize forms and distinguish them in specific contexts. The second task tests learners’ ability to produce correct forms. Test results are compared to each other and to the Polish input to see how learners integrated (or not) these new forms into their individual learner varieties. Results will be discussed in light of current approaches to teaching inflectional forms at the beginner level, regardless of the language being learned. REFERENCES: Bardovi-Harlig, K. (1992) The relationship of form and meaning: A cross-sectional study of tense and aspect in the interlanguage of learners of English as a second language, Applied Psycholinguistics 13: 253-278. Larsen-Freeman, D. (2010). Not so fast: A discussion of L2 morpheme processing. Language Learning 60(1): 221-230. Perdue, C. (1993) (Ed) Adult Language Acquisition: Cross-linguistic Perspectives, Vol. I and II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. VanPatten, B. (2004) Input processing in second language acquisition. In B. VanPatten (Ed), Processing Instruction: Theory, Research, and Commentary (5-31). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
It is generally believed that initial learner varieties do not rely on inflectional morphology fo... more It is generally believed that initial learner varieties do not rely on inflectional morphology for production and comprehension: rather, utterances are processed based on the default Agent (A) - Patient (P) pattern (Klein & Perdue 1997, VanPatten 2004). Recent studies however (Carroll & Widjaja 2011; Rast 2008; Rast, Watorek & Hilton 2011) suggest that form-function associations may be established even in the earliest stages of acquisition.
Against this background, the present study aims at verifying whether initial learners of a morphologically complex language are able to associate inflectional endings to the corresponding syntactic functions in both comprehension and production.
Within the VILLA project (Dimroth et alii 2013), 31 learners with no experience of the target language were exposed to a 14-hour Polish course, whose input was recorded and transcribed so as to correlate learner output with the relevant input features.
The results of two tests administrated to two groups of learners (Italian L1 vs. French L1) are analysed in combination. In the first one, learners hear target sentences varying in their argument structure (AP vs. PA) and are required to select the picture which best depicts them. In the second test, learners are asked to repeat a set of short transitive sentences, again differing in argument structure. Target-like morphological processing can only be hypothesised if learners perform well on PA target in both tests, as this would exclude reliance on the default AP syntactic structure.
In order to track the development of input processing over time, the tasks were administered after 9 and 13:30 hs. of exposure. Analysis is conducted separately for each learner, so as to take into account individual variability in both the strategies adopted by each learner at any given stage and their development over time.
The study offers a window on morphological processing in the earliest stages of acquisition. Learners’ behaviour in the two combined tests reflects their hypotheses as to the structure of the target language. Relevant changes in performance in the tests therefore should hint to new hypotheses being formulated, whether towards more target-like results or not.
REFERENCES
Bardovi-Harlig, K. (1992) The relationship of form and meaning: a cross sectional study of tense and aspect in the interlanguage of learners of English as a second language. Applied Psycholinguistics 13, 253-78.
Hinz, J., Krause, C., Rast, R., Shoemaker, E. & Watorek, M. (2012) Initial processing of morphological marking in nonnative language acquisition: Evidence from French and German learners of Polish, Paper presented at the EUROSLA 22.
VanPatten, B. (ed.) (2004) Processing Instruction: Theory, Research, and Commentary. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Rast, R. (2008) Foreign Language Input: Initial Processing, Multilingual Matters.
The study presents a contrastive Italian-Polish-Russian analysis of the left-headed binominal con... more The study presents a contrastive Italian-Polish-Russian analysis of the left-headed binominal constructions of the type [N1 of N2] composed of the metaphorical classifier It. montagna, Pol. góra, Russ. gora 'mountain'. The main aim of the study is to describe and compare semantic and structural properties of such a construction from a cognitive-functional and usage-based perspective. A contrastive and corpus-based approach makes it possible to verify how the MOUNTAIN metaphor is expressed in the three languages and to describe cross-linguistic similarities and differences with respect to its linguistic expression. Despite a basic similarity of the figurative mappings, our findings show that the metaphor is grammaticalized to quite different degrees in the examined languages, resulting far more salient and spread in Italian than in Polish and Russian.
Praca analizuje budowę morfemową, strukturę znaczeniową i współczesne użycie neologizmu kaszotto ... more Praca analizuje budowę morfemową, strukturę znaczeniową i współczesne użycie neologizmu kaszotto utworzonego w języku polskim przez analogię do italianizmu risotto. Ta hybrydowa formacja słowotwórcza o strukturze kalki wyrazowej pokazuje, że proces wzbogacania polskiego słownictwa kulinarnego pod wpływem języka włoskiego nie ogranicza się do transferu nazewnictwa lub innowacji leksykalnych typu pseudoitalianizmy. Asymilacja włoskich elementów kulturowych i językowych bazuje też na strukturalnym i semantycznym przemodolewaniu wzorca obcego w celu dostosowania go do realiów kultury polskiej. Jak ilustrują przykłady użyć, stworzony w ten sposób model słowotwórczy jest reduplikowany. Na marginesie rozważań stricte lingwistycznych, proponowana jest refleksja na temat masowej recepcji kultury włoskiej i doświadczania włoskości we współczesnej Polsce oraz potencjału semiotycznego językowych nośników informacji o włoskości w komunikacji werbalnej użytkowników języka polskiego.
Abstract
The study examines mixed gender agreements triggered by Polish personal nouns with an “... more Abstract The study examines mixed gender agreements triggered by Polish personal nouns with an “incongruent” formal gender given their sex-differentiable human reference. The corpus-based analysis shows that the internal NP agreement is systematically congruous with the inherent gender value of its noun head, whereas the external NP agreement regularly diverges from it, being regulated by a semantic-referential value, i.e. the sex of a referent denoted by the NP. Such a divergence - consistent with Lehmann’s distinction between internal and external agreement - is taken as an evidence of two distinct functions in the area of linguistic gender, i.e. grammatical gender vs. natural gender. Keywords: grammatical gender, natural gender, agreement, personal nouns, Polish.
Lo studio analizza l'attuale polisemia dell'avverbio zabójczo e lo sviluppo del suo significato o... more Lo studio analizza l'attuale polisemia dell'avverbio zabójczo e lo sviluppo del suo significato originale 'letalmente'. Il mutamento semantico delineato 'letale → nocivo → insopportabile → impressionante → eccezionale' avviene grazie al processo di iperbolizzazione, metaforizzazione e soggettivazione. Il significato lessicale concreto sviluppa su base metonimica il senso secondario 'grado estremo'. Desemantizzandosi, le espressioni imparentate, l'aggettivo zabójczy e l'avverbio zabójczo, assumono la funzione di intensificatore iperbolico. I due amplificatori tendono ad essere usati con due schemi d'intensificazione diversi: l'aggettivo in funzione di maximizer e l'avverbio in quella di booster. Parole chiave: Intensificazione iperbolica, 'Letale/letalmente', Metaforizzazione, Soggettivazione, Desemantizzazione, Polacco.
The study analyses the current polysemy of the adverb zabójczo and the development of its original meaning 'lethally'. The semantic change 'lethal → harmful → unbearable → impressive → extraordinary' occurs thanks to the process of hyperbolization, metaphorization and subjectivation. The concrete lexical meaning develops through metonymy a secondary sense 'extreme degree'. The desemantized related expressions, i.e. the adjective zabójczy and the adverb zabójczo, take on the function of a hyperbolic intensifier. The amplifiers tend to be used in two diverse intensification patterns: the adjective as a maximizer, while the adverb as a booster.
INSULTED THEN PROMOTED? FEMININE AGENTIVES IN ITALIAN AND POLISH: SOCIETY, USE AND LINGUISTIC SYS... more INSULTED THEN PROMOTED? FEMININE AGENTIVES IN ITALIAN AND POLISH: SOCIETY, USE AND LINGUISTIC SYSTEM. Abstract: Long-term societal changes, political guidelines for non-sexist language and other extralinguistic factors have prompted the process of reappraisal, revision and readjustment of the lexical repertory of agentives characterized by masculine-feminine asymmetries. In spite of an attested tendency towards the “feminization” of the lexical repertory of political, academic and professional titles, the introduction and use of feminine forms is still a thorny issue within the community of Italian and Polish speakers. Our main aim is to critically explore some of the “traditional” problems related to the grammar and use of feminine agentives in the contemporary Italian and Polish language. The illustration of specific formal and lexical means providing natural gender information about human referents in the two linguistic systems is followed by the discussion of some critical issues (e.g. masculine generics, syntactic, semantic or pragmatic discrepancies) in the present-day use of Italian and Polish agentives. Keywords: society, linguistic system, use, feminine agentives, Polish language, Italian language
This empirical study investigates the impact of focus-on-form input enhancement on the oral produ... more This empirical study investigates the impact of focus-on-form input enhancement on the oral production of Polish spatial expressions by novice L2 learners. Two groups of French learners were exposed to the communicative input which differed on whether or not their attention was drawn to specific morphosyntactic properties of the target language: Form-based input vs. Meaning-based input. After 14 hours of exposure to the TL input, the learners took a verbal route direction-giving task. The inter-group results reveal a supportive effect of the form-based instruction on the processing and learning of target constructions. The intra-learner results imply the role of individuality. Final findings suggest complex and multifactorial input-learner interdependences. enhancement, meaning-based vs. form-based instruction
Tytuł: Wyrażenia przestrzenne we wczesnym rozwoju języka drugiego: rola wzmacniania inputu poprzez zwracanie uwagi na formę językową Słowa kluczowe: gramatyka L2, początkujący uczniowie, wyrażenia przestrzenne, produkcja ustna, " wzmacnianie " inputu językowego, metoda nauczania: meaning-based vs. form-based
Alcune riflessioni sugli agentivi femminili: l'italiano e il polacco a confronto, Dec 2018
Riassunto
Gli agentivi non dispongono tuttora del paradigma completo delle forme femminili. Oggi... more Riassunto Gli agentivi non dispongono tuttora del paradigma completo delle forme femminili. Oggi la tendenza a ristabilire le simmetrie linguistiche in questo repertorio lessicale è assai forte. Dopo aver discusso alcune questioni teoriche legate alla grammatica e all’uso degli agentivi femminili, si analizzano diversi modi in cui l’informazione sul genere del referente può essere codificata a livello morfologico, morfosintattico, lessicale e pragmatico in due lingue: l’italiano e il polacco. La prospettiva contrastiva ha permesso di cogliere alcuni aspetti linguistici spesso ignorati nelle analisi del fenomeno circoscritte a una singola lingua.
Parole chiave: agentivi, codifica linguistica della distinzione del genere, italiano, polacco.
Abstract Agentives still do not dispose of the full paradigm of feminine forms. Today, the tendency to reintroduce the principle of a symmetrical linguistic use in this lexical repertory is quite strong. The discussion of some theoretical issues concerning the grammar and use of feminine agentives, is followed by an analysis of different ways in which the information about the sex of a referent can be encoded on morphological, morphosyntactic, lexical and pragmatic level in two languages, i.e. Italian and Polish. The contrastive perspective has allowed us to grasp some linguistic aspects often ignored in the analyses of the phenomenon in only one language.
Keywords: agentives, linguistic coding of gender distinction, Italian, Polish.
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Papers by Aga Latos
and linguistic elements also occurs as a structural and semantic remodelling of the foreign pattern in order to accommodate it to the realities of Polish culture. As illustrated by real examples of use, the new word pattern is replicated. On the sidelines of our linguistic discussion, we propose reflections on the mass reception of Italian culture and
the experiencing of Italianity in today’s Poland, as well as on a semiotic potential of linguistic means carrying information about Italianity in the verbal communication of Polish speakers.
Keywords: personal nouns, feminine forms, linguistic norm, Polish language, Polish Language Council
Key words: grammatical gender, natural gender, linguistic encoding of sex distinction, Italian, Polish
STRESZCZENIE Artykuł podejmuje rozważania na temat relacji między rodzajem gramatycznym a językowym kodowaniem informacji o różnicy płci (rodzaj naturalny). Głównym celem jest sproblematyzowanie kategorii rodzaju (gender) jako wieloaspektowego i wielofunkcyjnego zjawiska językowego. Analiza, opierająca się na przykładach z języka polskiego i włoskiego, pokazuje, iż rodzaj gramatyczny (którego główną funkcją jest sygnalizowanie relacji między elementami tekstu) i rodzaj naturalny (który informuje o płci osoby będącej desygnatem wypowiedzi) to dwa odrębne i niezależne zjawiska językowe, które jednakże są silnie skorelowane na płaszczyźnie morfologicznej i syntaktycznej systemu językowego.
SŁOWA KLUCZOWE: rodzaj gramatyczny, rodzaj naturalny, językowe kodowanie informacji o różnicy płci, język włoski, język polski
and linguistic elements also occurs as a structural and semantic remodelling of the foreign pattern in order to accommodate it to the realities of Polish culture. As illustrated by real examples of use, the new word pattern is replicated. On the sidelines of our linguistic discussion, we propose reflections on the mass reception of Italian culture and
the experiencing of Italianity in today’s Poland, as well as on a semiotic potential of linguistic means carrying information about Italianity in the verbal communication of Polish speakers.
Keywords: personal nouns, feminine forms, linguistic norm, Polish language, Polish Language Council
Key words: grammatical gender, natural gender, linguistic encoding of sex distinction, Italian, Polish
STRESZCZENIE Artykuł podejmuje rozważania na temat relacji między rodzajem gramatycznym a językowym kodowaniem informacji o różnicy płci (rodzaj naturalny). Głównym celem jest sproblematyzowanie kategorii rodzaju (gender) jako wieloaspektowego i wielofunkcyjnego zjawiska językowego. Analiza, opierająca się na przykładach z języka polskiego i włoskiego, pokazuje, iż rodzaj gramatyczny (którego główną funkcją jest sygnalizowanie relacji między elementami tekstu) i rodzaj naturalny (który informuje o płci osoby będącej desygnatem wypowiedzi) to dwa odrębne i niezależne zjawiska językowe, które jednakże są silnie skorelowane na płaszczyźnie morfologicznej i syntaktycznej systemu językowego.
SŁOWA KLUCZOWE: rodzaj gramatyczny, rodzaj naturalny, językowe kodowanie informacji o różnicy płci, język włoski, język polski
Linguistic Edition 56 edited by LINCOM, 01/2006; Munich: Lincom Europa., ISBN: ISBN 10: 3895863513 / ISBN 13: 9783895863516
In this study, 17 native speakers of French took part in a 10-day Polish course, a total of 14 hours of oral Polish input from a native-speaking instructor. None of the participants had previously been exposed to Polish or another Slavic language, and the morphologically-rich input included no explicit instruction about nominal morphology.
This paper presents the results of two tasks, an aural grammaticality judgement task administered at two time intervals and an oral production task (giving route directions) administered at the end of the Polish course. The first task tests learners’ ability to recognize forms and distinguish them in specific contexts. The second task tests learners’ ability to produce correct forms. Test results are compared to each other and to the Polish input to see how learners integrated (or not) these new forms into their individual learner varieties. Results will be discussed in light of current approaches to teaching inflectional forms at the beginner level, regardless of the language being learned.
REFERENCES:
Bardovi-Harlig, K. (1992) The relationship of form and meaning: A cross-sectional study of tense and aspect in the interlanguage of learners of English as a second language, Applied Psycholinguistics 13: 253-278.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2010). Not so fast: A discussion of L2 morpheme processing. Language Learning 60(1): 221-230.
Perdue, C. (1993) (Ed) Adult Language Acquisition: Cross-linguistic Perspectives, Vol. I and II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
VanPatten, B. (2004) Input processing in second language acquisition. In B. VanPatten (Ed), Processing Instruction: Theory, Research, and Commentary (5-31). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Against this background, the present study aims at verifying whether initial learners of a morphologically complex language are able to associate inflectional endings to the corresponding syntactic functions in both comprehension and production.
Within the VILLA project (Dimroth et alii 2013), 31 learners with no experience of the target language were exposed to a 14-hour Polish course, whose input was recorded and transcribed so as to correlate learner output with the relevant input features.
The results of two tests administrated to two groups of learners (Italian L1 vs. French L1) are analysed in combination. In the first one, learners hear target sentences varying in their argument structure (AP vs. PA) and are required to select the picture which best depicts them. In the second test, learners are asked to repeat a set of short transitive sentences, again differing in argument structure. Target-like morphological processing can only be hypothesised if learners perform well on PA target in both tests, as this would exclude reliance on the default AP syntactic structure.
In order to track the development of input processing over time, the tasks were administered after 9 and 13:30 hs. of exposure. Analysis is conducted separately for each learner, so as to take into account individual variability in both the strategies adopted by each learner at any given stage and their development over time.
The study offers a window on morphological processing in the earliest stages of acquisition. Learners’ behaviour in the two combined tests reflects their hypotheses as to the structure of the target language. Relevant changes in performance in the tests therefore should hint to new hypotheses being formulated, whether towards more target-like results or not.
REFERENCES
Bardovi-Harlig, K. (1992) The relationship of form and meaning: a cross sectional study of tense and aspect in the interlanguage of learners of English as a second language. Applied Psycholinguistics 13, 253-78.
Hinz, J., Krause, C., Rast, R., Shoemaker, E. & Watorek, M. (2012) Initial processing of morphological marking in nonnative language acquisition: Evidence from French and German learners of Polish, Paper presented at the EUROSLA 22.
VanPatten, B. (ed.) (2004) Processing Instruction: Theory, Research, and Commentary. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Rast, R. (2008) Foreign Language Input: Initial Processing, Multilingual Matters.
The study examines mixed gender agreements triggered by Polish personal nouns with an “incongruent” formal gender given their sex-differentiable human reference. The corpus-based analysis shows that the internal NP agreement is systematically congruous with the inherent gender value of its noun head, whereas the external NP agreement regularly diverges from it, being regulated by a semantic-referential value, i.e. the sex of a referent denoted by the NP. Such a divergence - consistent with Lehmann’s distinction between internal and external agreement - is taken as an evidence of two distinct functions in the area of linguistic gender, i.e. grammatical gender vs. natural gender.
Keywords: grammatical gender, natural gender, agreement, personal nouns, Polish.
The study analyses the current polysemy of the adverb zabójczo and the development of its original meaning 'lethally'. The semantic change 'lethal → harmful → unbearable → impressive → extraordinary' occurs thanks to the process of hyperbolization, metaphorization and subjectivation. The concrete lexical meaning develops through metonymy a secondary sense 'extreme degree'. The desemantized related expressions, i.e. the adjective zabójczy and the adverb zabójczo, take on the function of a hyperbolic intensifier. The amplifiers tend to be used in two diverse intensification patterns: the adjective as a maximizer, while the adverb as a booster.
Abstract: Long-term societal changes, political guidelines for non-sexist language and other extralinguistic factors have prompted the process of reappraisal, revision and readjustment of the lexical repertory of agentives characterized by masculine-feminine asymmetries. In spite of an attested tendency towards the “feminization” of the lexical repertory of political, academic and professional titles, the introduction and use of feminine forms is still a thorny issue within the community of Italian and Polish speakers. Our main aim is to critically explore some of the “traditional” problems related to the grammar and use of feminine agentives in the contemporary Italian and Polish language. The illustration of specific formal and lexical means providing natural gender information about human referents in the two linguistic systems is followed by the discussion of some critical issues (e.g. masculine generics, syntactic, semantic or pragmatic discrepancies) in the present-day use of Italian and Polish agentives.
Keywords: society, linguistic system, use, feminine agentives, Polish language, Italian language
Tytuł: Wyrażenia przestrzenne we wczesnym rozwoju języka drugiego: rola wzmacniania inputu poprzez zwracanie uwagi na formę językową Słowa kluczowe: gramatyka L2, początkujący uczniowie, wyrażenia przestrzenne, produkcja ustna, " wzmacnianie " inputu językowego, metoda nauczania: meaning-based vs. form-based
Gli agentivi non dispongono tuttora del paradigma completo delle forme femminili. Oggi la tendenza a ristabilire le simmetrie linguistiche in questo repertorio lessicale è assai forte. Dopo aver discusso alcune questioni teoriche legate alla grammatica e all’uso degli agentivi femminili, si analizzano diversi modi in cui l’informazione sul genere del referente può essere codificata a livello morfologico, morfosintattico, lessicale e pragmatico in due lingue: l’italiano e il polacco. La prospettiva contrastiva ha permesso di cogliere alcuni aspetti linguistici spesso ignorati nelle analisi del fenomeno circoscritte a una singola lingua.
Parole chiave: agentivi, codifica linguistica della distinzione del genere, italiano, polacco.
Abstract
Agentives still do not dispose of the full paradigm of feminine forms. Today, the tendency to reintroduce the principle of a symmetrical linguistic use in this lexical repertory is quite strong. The discussion of some theoretical issues concerning the grammar and use of feminine agentives, is followed by an analysis of different ways in which the information about the sex of a referent can be encoded on morphological, morphosyntactic, lexical and pragmatic level in two languages, i.e. Italian and Polish. The contrastive perspective has allowed us to grasp some linguistic aspects often ignored in the analyses of the phenomenon in only one language.
Keywords: agentives, linguistic coding of gender distinction, Italian, Polish.