This paper aims to explore the relationship between boundedness and sentence completion. We found that it is the boundedness of eventualities instead of telicity of verbs that virtually affects and restricts sentence ...This paper aims to explore the relationship between boundedness and sentence completion. We found that it is the boundedness of eventualities instead of telicity of verbs that virtually affects and restricts sentence completion. Unboundedness and boundedness of eventualities are the underlying factors that influence and restrict sentence completion while sentence-completing elements are explicit markers of boundedness and unboundedness.展开更多
This paper reported an acoustic experiment examining the effect of topic structure and syntax on boundary pitch parameters. Simple discourses containing three sentences were constructed and the boundary between the fi...This paper reported an acoustic experiment examining the effect of topic structure and syntax on boundary pitch parameters. Simple discourses containing three sentences were constructed and the boundary between the first sentence and the second sentence of each discourse varied along the following parameters： （1） topic internal, clause; （2） topic shift, clause; （3） topic internal, sentence; and （4） topic shift, sentence. Seven native speakers of Standard Chinese read the short discourses aloud. The offset f0, f0 Max, and f0 Min of the first sentence and the onset f0, f0 Max, and f0 Min of the second sentence were measured. It was found that relative to topic internal condition, topic shift condition induced higher onset f0 following the boundary. Moreover, this higher onset f0 was caused by the raising of both f0 max and f0 min, suggesting pitch register raising rather than pitch range expansion following the boundary. Syntactic structure as index by clause or sentence was found to have no effect on boundary pitch parameters. These results provide strong evidence for a role of topic strucutre in speech production展开更多
This study, with the help of the International Corpus of English, contrastively explores uses of relative clauses by students in Hong Kong, Singapore and British English within the framework of world Englishes （Kachr...This study, with the help of the International Corpus of English, contrastively explores uses of relative clauses by students in Hong Kong, Singapore and British English within the framework of world Englishes （Kachru, 2005, 1989; Kachru ＆ Nelson, 2006）. First, in the Hong Kong data, there is probably a tendency to use restrictive relative clauses led by WHICH in places, where non-restrictive relative clauses led by WHICH are normally expected. Second, there is another tendency in the employment of non-restricted relative clauses led by THAT in Hong Kong university students＇ written work and it is interesting to note that this phenomenon seems to be more widespread in Hong Kong student writing than in Singapore student writing and no such cases were found out in the British subcorpus. Given that some distinctive patterns traditionally considered as developmental errors in the language learning process may also be seen as evidence of linguistic variations, second language teachers may need some tolerance towards this variation and compromise between ＂autonomy＂ and ＂grammaticality＂ in today＇s society of world Englishes （McKay, 2008）.展开更多
文摘This paper aims to explore the relationship between boundedness and sentence completion. We found that it is the boundedness of eventualities instead of telicity of verbs that virtually affects and restricts sentence completion. Unboundedness and boundedness of eventualities are the underlying factors that influence and restrict sentence completion while sentence-completing elements are explicit markers of boundedness and unboundedness.
文摘This paper reported an acoustic experiment examining the effect of topic structure and syntax on boundary pitch parameters. Simple discourses containing three sentences were constructed and the boundary between the first sentence and the second sentence of each discourse varied along the following parameters： （1） topic internal, clause; （2） topic shift, clause; （3） topic internal, sentence; and （4） topic shift, sentence. Seven native speakers of Standard Chinese read the short discourses aloud. The offset f0, f0 Max, and f0 Min of the first sentence and the onset f0, f0 Max, and f0 Min of the second sentence were measured. It was found that relative to topic internal condition, topic shift condition induced higher onset f0 following the boundary. Moreover, this higher onset f0 was caused by the raising of both f0 max and f0 min, suggesting pitch register raising rather than pitch range expansion following the boundary. Syntactic structure as index by clause or sentence was found to have no effect on boundary pitch parameters. These results provide strong evidence for a role of topic strucutre in speech production
文摘This study, with the help of the International Corpus of English, contrastively explores uses of relative clauses by students in Hong Kong, Singapore and British English within the framework of world Englishes （Kachru, 2005, 1989; Kachru ＆ Nelson, 2006）. First, in the Hong Kong data, there is probably a tendency to use restrictive relative clauses led by WHICH in places, where non-restrictive relative clauses led by WHICH are normally expected. Second, there is another tendency in the employment of non-restricted relative clauses led by THAT in Hong Kong university students＇ written work and it is interesting to note that this phenomenon seems to be more widespread in Hong Kong student writing than in Singapore student writing and no such cases were found out in the British subcorpus. Given that some distinctive patterns traditionally considered as developmental errors in the language learning process may also be seen as evidence of linguistic variations, second language teachers may need some tolerance towards this variation and compromise between ＂autonomy＂ and ＂grammaticality＂ in today＇s society of world Englishes （McKay, 2008）.
