The sixth meeting of Young Linguists' Seminar took place on 28th May 2015. The talks were guided by the following leitmotif:
In Search of Solutions to Linguistic Puzzles
The following five papers were presented by linguists from the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin and Maria Curie-Skłodowska University.
Tomasz Czerniak
The Elusive Character of the Welsh [ə]
John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin
The IPA symbol which is frequently employed to denote the phonetic shape of the Welsh mid-central vowel is often misinterpreted as a weak or reduced vowel. The vowel, represented by <y> in spelling, might indeed be confusing to an English-centred linguist. Firstly, the formant structure is largely consistent with the reduced vowel of the English language found in words like about or phenomenon (Ball and Williams 2001). Secondly, its distribution is limited to a non-final position. Whenever <y> would occur in a final syllable, its melody is changed, which is known in the literature as Vowel Mutation (Ball and Jones 1984, Hannahs 2013). Thirdly, <y> seems to be the only vowel which is not lengthened in open stressed syllables (Buczek 1998). Moreover, it is unattested in monosyllables except in extremely rare borrowings (e.g. nyrs, fyr ‘nurse, fur’) or in clitics (Ball and Jones 1984).
On the other hand, <y> appears in a stressed syllable, which should indicated anything but its weakness. Furthermore, it alternates mostly with [i] and [u] but not with other vowels and cannot be understood as a reduction product. On top of that, Awbery (1986) observes that it is indeed lengthened under stress in certain southern dialects of Welsh.
Both phonetic and phonological facts should shed some more light on the elusive character of Welsh <y>, what it should be represented with phonetically and what it should be named.
References
Awbery, Gwenllian M. 1986. Pembrokeshire Welsh. A phonological study. Llandysul. National Museum of Wales.
Ball, Martin J. and Glyn E. Jones. 1984. eds. Welsh Phonology. Selected Readings. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
Ball, Martin J. and Briony Williams. 2001. The phonetics of Welsh. New York: Edwin Mellen Press.
Buczek, Anita. 1988. The vowel that cannot be long: the story of the Welsh central vowel schwa. In
Structure and Interpretation - Studies in Phonology, edited by E. Cyran, 55-64. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Folium.
Hannahs, S. J. 2013. The phonology of Welsh. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Anna Dąbrowska
Is the Verb TO DIE Unaccusative in English?
John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin
The Unaccusative Hypothesis, originally introduced by Perlmutter (1978) on the ground of the Relational Grammar, but later adopted by Burzio (1986) within the Government-and-Binding (GB) framework (Chomsky, 1981), divides the class of intransitive verbs into two syntactically different but semantically similar subclasses, i.e., unaccusative and unergative verbs. From the Government-and-Binding (GB) perspective, an unergative verb is a theta-marked as a deep-structure subject and there is no object involved (unergative: NP [VP V], Kate dances), while an unaccusative verb takes a theta-marked deep-structure object as its sole argument (unaccusative: [VP V NP], Kate fell) (cf. Alexiadou et al., 2004: 2).
Unaccusativity proves to be of a great significance within the debate upon the dual nature of verbs, their syntactic and lexical semantic characteristics, and the mutual correlation (B. Levin and Rappaport Hovav, 1995: 2). Thus, the paper addresses the question of the class status of the verb TO DIE in English, which although taken for granted as unaccusative by the encyclopaedic definition, does not represent a class of pure unaccusatives. To solve this problem, first, unaccusativity in the light of the Lexicon-Syntax Interface is examined, with a detailed analysis of the syntactic and semantic approaches towards unaccusativity. Afterwards, the taxonomy of unaccusative verbs, and their syntactic properties are scrutinised. Finally, the verb TO DIE is tested against the six commonly acknowledged unaccusativity diagnostics postulated in the literature for English. These are: (1) auxiliary selection, with a justification why this popular test does not apply to modern English; (2) causative alteration (not applicable for the verb TO DIE); (3) resultative constructions, that have no instances for the verb under scrutiny; (4) adjectival participles (A man died in the accident); (5) there-insertion (There died a young boy); and (6) locative inversion (In the room died the grandmother). In a nutshell, with the three diagnostics satisfied, the conclusion is drawn that the verb TO DIE in English belongs to the class of unaccusative verbs.
References
Alexiadou, Artemis, Anagnostopoulou, Elena and Everaert, Martin (eds.) (2004). The Unaccusativity Puzzle: Explorations of the Syntax-Lexicon Interface. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Baker, Mark (1988). Incorporation: A Theory of Grammatical Function Changing. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Belletti, Adriana and Rizzi, Luigi (1988). Psych-verbs and θ theory. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 6, 291–352.
Burzio, Luigi (1986). Italian Syntax: a Government-binding approach. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Chomsky, Noam (1981). Lectures on Government and Binding. Hawthorne, Westchester, New York: Foris Publications
Koontz-Garboden, Andrew (2009). Anticausativization. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 27, 77–138.
Kitagawa, Yoshihisa (1986). Subjects in Japanese and English. Doctoral dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Koopman, Hilda and Sportiche, Dominique (1991). The position of subjects. Lingua, 85 (2/3), 211-258.
Kuroda, Shige-Yuki (1988). Whether we agree or not: a comparative syntax of English and Japanese, Lingvisticae Investigationes, 12, 1-47.
Levin, Beth, and Malka Rappaport Hovav (1995). Unaccusativity: At the Syntax-Lexical Semantic Interface. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Levin, L. (1986). Operations on lexical forms: Unaccusative rules in Germanic languages. Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Perlmutter, D.M. (1978). Impersonal Passives and the Unaccusative Hypothesis. In: Proceedings of the 4th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 157-190.
Rosen, C. (1984). The interface between semantic roles and initial grammatical relations. In D. Perlmutter and C. Rosen (eds.), Studies in Relational Grammar 2, 38-77. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Van Valin, Robert D. (1990). Semantic parameters of split intransitivity. Language, 66(2): 221-60.
Angelina Żyśko
On Being Cheerful: In Search of English-Polish Cognates in the Historical Development of Proto-Indo European *ker-
Maria Curie-Skłodowska University
Konrad Żyśko
Wordplay Based on Vagueness – A Cognitive Account
Maria Curie-Skłodowska University
Iza Batyra
Recent Trends in Teaching English to Young Foreign Language Learners – An Interactive Presentation for Teacher Trainees from the Department of Linguistics and English Studies
John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin
In the past few years, there has been a marked interest in young learners methodology. We owe its popularity to the recently increased international collaboration with English speaking countries and the number of emigrants whose children learn English abroad with ease in the natural setting, developing literacy and numeracy skills as well as communicative and linguistic competence in the target language.
Since 2008, the study devoted to teaching young learners has become increasingly important when the Ministry of Education in Poland introduced the law stating that English language teaching is obligatory since the first year of primary education. Consequently, the overall system of primary education in a three-year cycle has been increased to six teaching hours a week making room for two teaching hours of English in years I, II and III.
The fact that English has become mandatory since the first years of formal education, contributed to the remodeling of the form the language content is transmitted to children who are in the process of developing their reading and writing skills as well as the ability to express their ideas in their native language.
Although old methods such as the Grammar Translation Method, the Direct Method, the Audio-lingual Method, the Cognitive Method or Total Physical Response had their limitations and shortcomings, their elements are still applied in the present-day curriculum of English language teaching on various educational levels. Nevertheless, in the 21st century eclectic approach should be supplemented with an innovative young learners methodology which should cater for the learners’ interest and hobbies, inspire and motivate them to discover the world of English and most importantly provide them with entertainment.
All these events persuaded, encouraged and inspired highly distinguished researchers, scholars, academics and prominent English teachers such as A. Wright (1984, 1989, 1992, 1997), P. Ur (1992), S. Halliwell (1992), S. Phillips (1993), A. Edwards and P. Knight (1994, 2001), M. Toth (1995) L. Cameron (2001), P. McKay and J. Guse (2007), C. Nixon and M. Tomlinson (2005), A. Underhill and J. Moon (2005), R. Graham (Genki English), H. Doron (The Helen Doron Method) and the like to produce and publish tones of teaching aid and invent new educational and entertaining methods, techniques and activities for younger learners.
The aim of the presentation is to demonstrate an accumulation of various ideas, i.e. methods, techniques, activities of teaching English in early education, such as learning through stories, songs, chants, games, clips, multimedia, colourful flashcards, charts, maps, senses etc. which are all inspiring ways of supplementing traditional course book-based primary teaching and ‘smuggling’ English world into young minds.
Books
Cameron, L. and McKay, P. (2010) Bringing Creative Teaching into the Young Learner Classroom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cameron, L. (2001) Teaching Languages to Young Learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Edwards, A. and P. Knight (2001) Effective Early Years Education. Teaching Young Children. Buckingham, Philadelphia: Open University Press.
Halliwell, S. (1992) Teaching English in the Primary Classroom. Longman Handbooks for Language Teachers. Harlow: Longman.
McKay, P. and Guse, J. (2007) Five-Minute Activities for Young Learners. Cambridge Handbook for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Moon, J. and A. Underhill (2005) Children Learning English. The Teacher Development Series. MacMillan Heinemen Books for Teachers.
Nixon, C. and Tomlinson, M. (2005) Primary Communication Box: Speaking and Listening Activities and Games for Younger Learners. Cambridge Copy Collection. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nixon, C. and Tomlinson, M (2003) Primary Vocabulary Box: Word Games and Activities for Younger Learners. Cambridge Copy Collection. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Philips. S. (1993) Young Learners. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ur, P. and Wright, A. (1992) Five-Minute Activities. A Resource Book of Short Activities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wright, A. (1997) Creating Stories with Children. Resource Books for Children. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
Wright, A. (1984) 100+Pictures for Teachers to Copy. Edinburgh: Pearson Education Limited.
Wright, A. (1989) Pictures for Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wright, A. (1992) The Hairy Tree Man. Spellbinders. Level 1. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
Links
Photos by Karolina Drabikowska
