1. On the Italian Molto and Tanto and the differences with the Slovenian Precej and Veliko : lecture at the 48. Incontro di Grammatica Generativa, IGG48, Dilef, University of Florence, 16. 2. 2023Greta Mazzaggio, Penka Stateva, 2023, unpublished conference contribution Abstract: The present work is based on a previous study in which Stateva and Stepanov (2017) compare speakers’ comprehension of two Slovenian m(any)-words, veliko and precej. S&S argue for a degree analysis of the two quantifiers suggesting that they are semantically equivalent but subject to different mechanisms of pragmatic enrichment. We present the results of two experiments that use the S&S protocol in order to assess i) the comprehension of two Italian translational equivalents of these m-words, namely, molti and tanti, and ii) potential crosslinguistic influence in the context of Italian-Slovenian bilingualism. Our results suggest that Italian m-words have the same numerical bounds even in direct competition in contrast to their Slovenian counterparts. Italian L2 speakers of Slovenian fail to differentiate between the two m-words in Slovenian which suggests that this aspect of L2 acquisition is subject to negative transfer. Keywords: amount quantifier, Italian, bilingualism, negative transfer, pragmatic enrichment Published in RUNG: 27.03.2023; Views: 1792; Downloads: 0 This document has many files! More... |
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3. Theoretical and experimental aspects of numerosity and quantification in Lebanese Arabic : dissertationAli Al Moussaoui, 2021, doctoral dissertation Abstract: A question that is receiving an increasing attention in linguistics research concerns the language components of counting. This topic is approached from syntactic, semantic and pragmatic points of view. While some accounts advocate for purely syntactic or semantic approaches of countability, other adopt hybrid accounts in which labor is divided between syntax and semantics. At the same time, research finds that there is a pragmatic component enriching the interpretation of countability and numerosity in language. This dissertation attempts to contribute into the lines of research concerned in the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects of countability with a focus on Lebanese Arabic (Henceforth LA), a language that has received little attention in the literature of counting.
In this dissertation, a broken agreement pattern in LA between the cardinal numerals and the post-numeral counted noun phrases is examined on the basis of a syntactic-semantic model of countability developed by Stepanov and Stateva (2018). We argue that the current existing model can be used to account for the countability broken agreement pattern in LA when necessary modifications are applied to it. The
success of this model in accounting for the numeral-noun-phrase agreement in LA is added to its success in similar missions in countability in Russian (Stepanov and Stateva 2018) and previously in Japanese (Watanabe 2010).
The pragmatic component of countability in LA is also examined from the angle of pragmatic strengthening. The traditional difference between singular nominals and plural nominals which makes a distinction between domains of atoms
and domains of sums is seriously challenged by current semantic and pragmatic research. The plural is found to be more complex than a simplistic view of more than one, and its interpretation has a pragmatic component which involves enriching the meaning of plurality against singularity. In our dissertation, we intend to examine an enriching pragmatic process of plural against duality in LA, a language that still preserves special morphological marking for duality. So, our research investigates the pragmatic strengthening of the plural morphology in LA against the dual morphology which results in at-least-three meaning of the plural.
On the assumption that pragmatic reasoning contributes to the interpretation of plural nominals, we extend our research to the area of bilingual LA speakers who can be an ideal environment to look into the cognitive processes involved in the interaction between two linguistic systems that have diverging features pertaining to a given linguistic phenomenon, which is countability in our study. We predict crosslinguistic variation in the interpretation of plural morphology. If languages like English associate plural with an at-least-two meaning as a result of pragmatic enrichment with an anti-singularity inference, then, in languages that
morphologically differentiate among singular, plural and dual number, the morphological plural is predicted to correspond to an at-least-three meaning. In this study, we ask whether the predicted variation in the interpretation of plural
morphology among the non-dual and dual-featuring languages is a locus of negative pragmatic transfer of features from LA as a mother tongue and English/ French as foreign languages. Keywords: countability, numerosity, Lebanese Arabic, countability model, negative pragmatic transfer, and foreign language exposure Published in RUNG: 16.07.2021; Views: 3739; Downloads: 133 Full text (3,00 MB) This document has many files! More... |
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5. Ezikov transfer v oblastta na pragmatikata : predavanje na Inštitutu za bolgarski jezik, Sofija, Bolgarija, 28. 1. 2021Penka Stateva, 2021, invited lecture at foreign university Abstract: n this talk I will present work in progress that aims to explore a previously uncharted area of multilingual language acquisition, which concerns negative linguistic transfer in the domain of pragmatics. The research is part of a larger program in experimental pragmatics which aims to identify points of cross-linguistic diversion that affect meaning. We investigate the impact of language variation on bilingual acquisition of grammatical number in pairs of languages like Lebanese Arabic and French, and Slovenian-Italian, in which the interpretation of plural morphology within each pair is different depending on whether the number paradigm also includes dual number or not. Keywords: negative transfer, plural interpretation, anti-duality, pragmatic enrichment Published in RUNG: 29.01.2021; Views: 3231; Downloads: 0 This document has many files! More... |