Bücher veröffentlicht von Language Science Press

Information structure is a relatively new field to linguistics and has only recently been studied for smaller and less described languages. This book is the first of its kind that brings together contributions on information structure in Austronesian languages. Current approaches from formal semantics, discourse studies, and intonational phonology are brought together with language specific and cross-linguistic expertise of Austronesian languages. The 13 chapters in this volume cover all subgroups of the large Austronesian family, including Formosan, Central Malayo-Polynesian, South Halmahera-West New Guinea, and Oceanic. The major focus, though, lies on Western Malayo-Polynesian languages.

This text is a practical guide for linguists, and programmers, who work with data in multilingual computational environments. We introduce the basic concepts needed to understand how writing systems and character encodings function, and how they work together at the intersection between the Unicode Standard and the International Phonetic Alphabet. Although these standards are often met with frustration by users, they nevertheless provide language researchers and programmers with a consistent computational architecture needed to process, publish and analyze lexical data from the world's languages. Thus we bring to light common, but not always transparent, pitfalls which researchers face when working with Unicode and IPA. Having identified and overcome these pitfalls involved in making writing systems and character encodings syntactically and semantically interoperable (to the extent that they can be), we created a suite of open-source Python and R tools to work with languages using orthography profiles that describe author- or document-specific orthographic conventions. In this cookbook we describe a formal specification of orthography profiles and provide recipes using open source tools to show how users can segment text, analyze it, identify errors, and to transform it into different written forms for comparative linguistics research.

This volume of the series "Translation and Multilingual Natural Language Processing" includes most of the papers presented at the Workshop "Language Technology for a Multilingual Europe", held at the University of Hamburg on September 27, 2011 in the framework of the conference GSCL 2011 with the topic "Multilingual Resources and Multilingual Applications", along with several additional contributions. In addition to an overview article on Machine Translation and two contributions on the European initiatives META-NET and Multilingual Web, the volume includes six full research articles. Our intention with this workshop was to bring together various groups concerned with the umbrella topics of multilingualism and language technology, especially multilingual technologies. This encompassed, on the one hand, representatives from research and development in the field of language technologies, and, on the other hand, users from diverse areas such as, among others, industry, administration and funding agencies. The Workshop "Language Technology for a Multilingual Europe" was co-organised by the two GSCL working groups "Text Technology" and "Machine Translation" (http://gscl.info) as well as by META-NET (http://www.meta-net.eu).

African Linguistics on the Prairie features select revised peer-reviewed papers from the 45th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, held at the University of Kansas. The articles in this volume reflect the enormous diversity of African languages, as they focus on languages from all of the major African language phyla. The articles here also reflect the many different research perspectives that frame the work of linguists in the Association for Contemporary African Linguistics. The diversity of views presented in this volume are thus indicative of the vitality of current African linguistics research. The work presented in this volume represents both descriptive and theoretical methodologies and covers fields ranging from phonetics, phonology, morphology, typology, syntax, and semantics to sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, language acquisition, computational linguistics and beyond. This broad scope and the quality of the articles contained within holds out the promise of continued advancement in linguistic research on African languages.

While there are languages that code a particular grammatical role (e.g. subject or direct object) in one and the same way across the board, many more languages code the same grammatical roles differentially. The variables which condition the differential argument marking (or DAM) pertain to various properties of the NP (such as animacy or definiteness) or to event semantics or various properties of the clause. While the main line of current research on DAM is mainly synchronic the volume tackles the diachronic perspective. The tenet is that the emergence and the development of differential marking systems provide a different kind of evidence for the understanding of the phenomenon. The present volume consists of 18 chapters and primarily brings together diachronic case studies on particular languages or language groups including e.g. Finno-Ugric, Sino-Tibetan and Japonic languages. The volume also includes a position paper, which provides an overview of the typology of different subtypes of DAM systems, a chapter on computer simulation of the emergence of DAM and a chapter devoted to the cross-linguistic effects of referential hierarchies on DAM.

This book provides a new analysis for the syntax of comparatives, focusing on various deletion phenomena affecting the subclause. In particular, the proposed account shows that Comparative Deletion is merely a surface phenomenon that can be drawn back to the overtness of the comparative operator and the availability of lower copies of a movement chain, and it is thus subject to both language-internal and cross-linguistic variation. The main focus of the book is on English, yet other languages are also discussed for comparative purposes, with the aim of showing what the idiosyncratic properties of English comparatives are.

The purpose of this volume is to explore key issues, approaches and challenges to quality in institutional translation by confronting academics¿ and practitioners¿ perspectives. What the reader will find in this book is an interplay of two approaches: academic contributions providing the conceptual and theoretical background for discussing quality on the one hand, and chapters exploring selected aspects of quality and case studies from both academics and practitioners on the other. Our aim is to present these two approaches as a breeding ground for testing one vis-à-vis the other. This book studies institutional translation mostly through the lens of the European Union (EU) reality, and, more specifically, of EU institutions and bodies, due to the unprecedented scale of their multilingual operations and the legal and political importance of translation. Thus, it is concerned with the supranational (international) level, deliberately leaving national and other contexts aside. Quality in supranational institutions is explored both in terms of translation processes and their products ¿ the translated texts.

Gegenstand der Arbeit sind Modalpartikelkombinationen aus ja und doch, halt und eben sowie doch und auch. Basierend auf empirischen Untersuchungen (Akzeptabilitätsstudien, Korpusrecherchen) und einer formalen Modellierung der Bedeutung der Einzelpartikeln sowie ihrer Sequenzen im Rahmen des Diskursmodells nach Farkas & Bruce (2010) schlägt die Arbeit eine ikonische Erklärung der beobachteten Abfolgepräferenzen vor. Die Arbeit argumentiert, dass es sich hierbei um die unmarkierte Abfolge handelt, dass aber ebenfalls von einer markierten Sequenzierung auszugehen ist, die weniger akzeptabel bewertet wird, seltener und auf bestimmte Kontexte beschränkt ist. Diese Kontexte werden identifiziert und in die Ableitung der Präferenz integriert. The subject of this piece of work is the combination of the modal particles ja and doch, halt and eben as well as doch and auch. Based on empirical investigation (acceptability studies, corpus searches) and a formal modelling of the meaning of the single particles as well as their sequences within the discourse model by Farkas & Bruce (2010), this work proposes an iconic explanation of the observed sequencing preferences. It is argued that the preferred sequences show the unmarked orders. However, one should act on the assumption that marked sequences exist as well. These are less acceptable, occur more infrequently and are restricted to certain contexts. These contexts are identified and integrated into the explanation of the preferences.

The purpose of this volume is to present a snapshot of the state of the art of research on the languages of the Maltese islands, which include spoken Maltese, Maltese English and Maltese Sign Language. Malta is a tiny, but densely populated country, with over 422,000 inhabitants spread over only 316 square kilometers. It is a bilingual country, with Maltese and English enjoying the status of official languages. Maltese is a descendant of Arabic, but due to the history of the island, it has borrowed extensively from Sicilian, Italian and English. Furthermore, local dialects still coexist alongside the official standard language. The status of English as a second language dates back to British colonial rule, and just as in other former British colonies, a characteristic Maltese variety of English has developed. To these languages must be added Maltese Sign Language, which is the language of the Maltese Deaf community. This was recently recognised as Malta's third official language by an act of Parliament in 2016. While a volume such as the present one can hardly do justice to all aspects of a diverse and complex linguistic situation, even in a small community like that of Malta, our aim in editing this book was to shed light on the main strands of research being undertaken in the Maltese linguistic context. Six of the contributions in this book focus on Maltese and explore a broad range of topics including: historical changes in the Maltese sound system; syllabification strategies; the interaction of prosody and gesture; the constraints regulating /t/-insertion; the productivity of derivational suffixes; and raising phenomena. The study of Maltese English, especially with the purpose of establishing the defining characteristics of this variety of English, is a relatively new area of research. Three of the papers in this volume deal with Maltese English, which is explored from the different perspectives of rhythm, the syntax of nominal phrases, and lexical choice. The last contribution discusses the way in which Maltese Sign Language (LSM) has evolved alongside developments in LSM research. In summary, we believe the present volume has the potential to present a unique snapshot of a complex linguistic situation in a geographically restricted area. Given the nature and range of topics proposed, the volume will likely be of interest to researchers in both theoretical and comparative linguistics, as well as those working with experimental and corpus-based methodologies. Our hope is that the studies presented here will also serve to pave the way for further research on the languages of Malta, encouraging researchers to also take new directions, including the exploration of variation and sociolinguistic factors which, while often raised as explanatory constructs in the papers presented here, remain under-researched.

Die Artikulatorische Phonologie (Catherine Browman und Louis Goldstein) wurde als Alternative zu segmentalen Ansätzen entwickelt. So nimmt die segmentale Phonologie an, dass nur distinkte Information gespeichert wird, die dann mit Hilfe von Regeln und Rechenprinzipien von der kategorialen Welt der Symbole in die kontinuierliche Welt der physikalischen Repräsentation u¿bersetzt wird. Die Artikulatorische Phonologie hingegen nimmt an, dass auch kontinuierliche Information wie beispielsweise sprecher- oder situationsbedingte Variationen als Teil des Sprachsystems gespeichert werden. Variabilität wird hier als Teil des linguistischen Systems betrachtet, das konkret Aufschluss über zugrundeliegende Strukturen gibt. Im Modell der Artikulatorischen Phonologie wird Sprache als dynamisches System betrachtet und somit phonetische und phonologische Information integriert. Die Grundeinheiten der Artikulatorischen Phonologie sind nicht Segmente oder Merkmale, sondern artikulatorische Gesten. Diese legen linguistische relevante Konstriktionen wie beispielsweise einen Vollverschluss der Zungenspitze an den Alveolen sowie eine glottale Öffnungsgeste fu¿r Stimmlosigkeit bei der Produktion von /t/. Die Einbeziehung der zeitlichen Domäne ermöglicht im Gegensatz zu segmentalen Ansätzen die Abbildung natu¿rlicher Variabilität. So kann beispielsweise im Falle von /t/ der Grad der Aspiration direkt aus der zeitlichen Anordnung der glottalen und oralen Geste abgeleitet werden: Ist die glottale Geste länger als die Zungenspitzengeste aktiviert, so entsteht auf akustischer Oberfläche Aspiration. Artikulatorische Gesten enkodieren darüber hinaus den kontextuellen Einfluss (Koartikulation in Form von Synergien zwischen Organgruppen) und können direkt den Einfluss höhere linguistischer Strukturen wie der prosodischen Hierarchie abbilden. Das vorliegende Buch stellt eine Einführung in die Artikulatorische Phonologie dar. Es richtet sich an Leserinnen und Leser, die phonetische Grundkenntnisse besitzen und sich mit der Artikulatorischen Phonologie beschäftigen. Daru¿ber hinaus werden neben einer Einfu¿hrung in das Model auch neuere Arbeiten und aktuelle Weiterentwicklungen aufgezeigt, insbesondere die Implementierung prosodischer Aspekte in die Artikulatorische Phonologie. Somit eignet sich das Buch auch für Leserinnen und Leser, die bereits mit der Artikulatorischen Phonologie in Kontakt gekommen sind, aber ihr Wissen vertiefen möchten. Zur Veranschaulichung werden Beispiele aus verschiedenen Sprachen gegeben, darunter Deutsch, Katalanisch, Italienisch, Polnisch, Mandarin und Tashlhiyt Berber.

Historically a dubbing country, Germany is not well-known for subtitled productions. But while dubbing is predominant in Germany, more and more German viewers prefer original and subtitled versions of their favourite shows and films. Conventional subtitling, however, can be seen as a strong intrusion into the original image that can not only disrupt but also destroy the director's intended shot composition and focus points. Long eye movements between focus points and subtitles decrease the viewer's information intake, and especially German audiences, who are often not used to subtitles, seem to prefer to wait for the next subtitle instead of looking back up again. Furthermore, not only the placement, but also the overall design of conventional subtitles can disturb the image composition - for instance titles with a weak contrast, inappropriate typeface or irritating colour system. So should it not, despite the translation process, be possible to preserve both image and sound as far as possible? Especially given today's numerous artistic and technical possibilities and the huge amount of work that goes into the visual aspects of a film, taking into account not only special effects, but also typefaces, opening credits and text-image compositions. A further development of existing subtitling guidelines would not only express respect towards the original film version but also the translator's work. The presented study shows how integrated titles can increase information intake while maintaining the intended image composition and focus points as well as the aesthetics of the shot compositions. During a three-stage experiment, the specifically for this purpose created integrated titles in the documentary "Joining the Dots" by director Pablo Romero-Fresco were analysed with the help of eye movement data from more than 45 participants. Titles were placed based on the gaze behaviour of English native speakers and then rated by German viewers dependant on a German translation. The results show that a reduction of the distance between intended focus points and titles allow the viewers more time to explore the image and connect the titles to the plot. The integrated titles were rated as more aesthetically pleasing and reading durations were shorter than with conventional subtitles. Based on the analysis of graphic design and filmmaking rules as well as conventional subtitling standards, a first workflow and set of placement strategies for integrated titles were created in order to allow a more respectful handling of film material as well as the preservation of the original image composition and typographic film identity.

This book is a comprehensive description of the grammar of Rapa Nui, the Polynesian language spoken on Easter Island. After an introductory chapter, the grammar deals with phonology, word classes, the noun phrase, possession, the verb phrase, verbal and nonverbal clauses, mood and negation, and clause combinations. The phonology of Rapa Nui reveals certain issues of typological interest, such as the existence of strict conditions on the phonological shape of words, word-final devoicing, and reduplication patterns motivated by metrical constraints. For Polynesian languages, the distinction between nouns and verbs in the lexicon has often been denied; in this grammar it is argued that this distinction is needed for Rapa Nui. Rapa Nui has sometimes been characterised as an ergative language; this grammar shows that it is unambiguously accusative. Subject and object marking depend on an interplay of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic factors. Other distinctive features of the language include the existence of a ¿neutral¿ aspect marker, a serial verb construction, the emergence of copula verbs, a possessive-relative construction, and a tendency to maximise the use of the nominal domain. Rapa Nui¿s relationship to the other Polynesian languages is a recurring theme in this grammar; the relationship to Tahitian (which has profoundly influenced Rapa Nui) especially deserves attention. The grammar is supplemented with a number of interlinear texts, two maps and a subject index.