Grammaticalization Paths of Predicative Possession in Sanskrit

Friday November 8, 2013, at 14:15 – 16:00 (SH: AF (Seminarrom F (212), Sydneshaugen skole))

Possession is an abstract and multifaceted domain of human conceptualization. Predicative possessive expressions found across the languages of the world are often derived from constructions, called in the literature ‘source schemas’, borrowed from other, more concrete, conceptual domains.

In Vedic Sanskrit, three different constructions are used in order to express predicative possession: a dative construction (dative possessor, nominative possessee, and a form of ‘be’), a locative construction, and a genitive construction. In later stages of the language, the three constructions reduce to one: the structure with the genitive becomes the conventional expression for possession. This phenomenon is concomitant with the dative and genitive merging.

In this presentation, I will describe and analyse the three Early Vedic constructions: their syntax, semantics (which type of possession they codify), and pragmatics (have– relation? belong– relation?). Then I will try to trace the grammaticalization path of the genitive construction, showing that the replacement of the dative is cognitively natural and motivated. Finally, I will argue that the extension of the genitive, at the expense of the dative, in the semantic space of possession is the first step, and also the trigger, for the dative/genitive syncretism.

Serena Danesi, Postdoc (NonCanCase Project), LLE, University of Bergen.

Representasjon av fleirordsuttrykk i leksikalske og terminologiske ressursar

Fredag 1. november, 2013, 14:15 – 16:00 (SH: AF (Seminarrom F (212), Sydneshaugen skole))

Fleirordsuttrykk er språklege einingar som “til sjuande og sist” og “å kaste inn handkleet”, som har særeigne eigenskaper ein ikkje utan vidare kan utleie på grunnlag av enkeltorda. Leksikalske og syntaktiske begrensingar på bruken av fleirordsuttrykk gjer dei problematiske blant anna i automatisk språkanalyse.

I utvikling  av språkteknologi er standardisering av språkressursar, og det å sørge for at slike ressursar snakkar saman­­­ – interoperabilitet – eit viktig omsyn. Eg skal her presentere ein liten studie eg har utført i samarbeid med kollegaer ved UiB og NHH, der vi har sett på den formelle representasjonen av fleirordsuttrykk i leksikalske og terminologiske databasar. Med formell representasjon tenker vi i denne samanhengen på kva for informasjon ein skal registrere når ein skal lagre slike utrykk i ein database. Vi ser på kva informasjon forfattarane har funne relevant for å beskrive “sine” fleirordsuttrykk, både innanfor ramma av eige prosjekt og med tanke på at datamaterialet skal utgjere ein gjenbrukbar ressurs til nytte også for andre føremål.

Ei viktig problemstilling i mitt doktorgradsprosjekt om norske fleirordsuttrykk er å finne ein balanse mellom kva for informasjon ein skal representere i leksikonet, og kva for informasjon ein skal overlate til andre nivå av lingvistisk beskrivelse.

 

Gyri Smørdal Losnegaard, stipendiat, Institutt for lingvistiske, litterære og estetiske studier (Forskergruppen LaMoRe), UiB.

Need grammar?

“There was a point in the 1960s when the [British] Government said that schoolchildren didn’t need to learn any grammar as it inhibits their creativity. Now, that’s changing rapidly.” Read more.

Language Autobiographies in Sardinia

Friday October 18, 2013 at 14: 15 – 16:00 (HF: 217)

My presentation is about a research project regarding the relationship between Italian, Sardinian and other languages in Sardinia. The analysis is based on language (auto)biographies I’ve recently collected, asking people to tell their life stories with the main focus being on their relationship with the languages they were in contact with, and their linguistic history in the community (family, neighbor, school, workplace etc.). This kind of data can tell us a lot about the perception of the multilingual reality and of the relationship between language(s) and identity. Using micro stories we build the macro story, they tell a lot about the Sardinian community’s recent linguistic history.

Marco Gargiulo, Associate Professor, Department of Foreign Languages (University of Bergen)

Friday Seminar: A Distinction between Parse Trees and Constituent Trees in “Deep” Grammar Implementations

September 06, 2013 at 14:15 – 16:00 in HF:217

In this talk I will present a grammar design which makes a distinction between parse trees and constituent trees. While a parse tree simply is the incremental combination of words, one by one, a constituent tree is a regular representation of the constituent structure of a given utterance, inspired by Diderichsen’s Sentence Schema. In the proposed design, the constituent tree is derived from the parse tree.

The parse tree – constituent tree distinction opens for a procedure for building syntactic trees that is neither top-down nor bottom-up, but rather left-right. The aim of this talk is to show how the separation of parse tree from constituent tree (i) gives the grammar more flexibility when it comes to word order, and (ii) has the potential of increasing the psycholinguistic plausibility of “deep” grammar implementations.

Petter Haugereid (Postdoc, LLE,  University of Bergen)

CLARINO gets DSpace

August 23, 2013 at 9:15 in HF:264

In the context of the European CLARIN initiative, a language infrastructure network is being constructed, consisting of centers offering access to language data, tools and services. The LINDAT center in the Czech Republic is based on a DSpace repository with suitable extensions to function in CLARIN. It has been used as an example for the CLARINO center at the University Library at Bergen.

Jozef Misutka (Charles University Prague) and Øyvind Gjesdal (University of Bergen) will talk and demonstrate. See the Seminars page for more information.

It’s time

Cho Seong-Eun, a master’s student in computational linguistics at the University of Bergen, will present his work in his master’s thesis. His project was entitled Automatic Detection of Conceptual Time Metaphors. This presentation will be held on May 29, 2013 (for further information, see this term’s seminars).