Chinese does have independent tense elements

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-69
Author(s):  
Zhiyi Zhang ◽  
Li Shikun
Keyword(s):  
Past Tense ◽  
Spatial Concept ◽  
Finite Structure ◽  
Traditional Assumption ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Aspectual Markers

Abstract Previous research on Chinese tense indicates that Chinese has either null tense or no tense. However, the present study suggests that the conclusions of previous studies regarding Chinese tense are either against the syntactic truth or illogical. The present study provides new evidence to support that Chinese has two independent tense elements, zai and guo, which clearly indicate present and past tense, contrary to the traditional assumption that they are aspectual markers. From the perspective of grammaticalization, both zai and guo witnessed grammaticalization from the spatial concept to the temporal concept. The semantic evidence shows that zai and guo are semantically different from the aspectual markers zhe and le and convey the meaning of time location. The fact that both zai and guo are allowed in negation but not permitted in non-finite structure provides syntactic evidence that they are tense markers. However, the present study also suggests there can be two different zai and guo; zai and guo used separately and independently and zai and guo used with zhe and le. In the latter case, zai is a time adverbial and guo is an aspectual marker. The existence of independent tense markers in Chinese also shows that Chinese may have at least four different mechanisms to anchor tense.

Conditionals and Abduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 161-166
Author(s):  
Timothy Williamson
Keyword(s):  
Past Tense ◽  
Indicative Conditionals ◽  
Cognitive Differences ◽  
Indicative Conditional ◽  
Counterfactual Conditional ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
The Past ◽  
Testing Of Hypotheses ◽  
New Evidence

The chapter gives a preliminary sketch of some cognitive differences between indicative conditionals and counterfactual conditionals relevant to the testing of hypotheses by experiment. They especially concern cases where the indicative conditional can be decided without new evidence while the counterfactual conditional cannot. They also show that the antecedent of a ‘counterfactual’ conditional need not be presupposed to be false. Differences connected with the past tense morphology of ‘would’ are explored. Cases are given where the morphology should be understood as expressing a ‘fake past’, modal rather than temporal.

scholarly journals td-deletion in British English: New evidence for the long-lost morphological effect

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Maciej Baranowski ◽  
Danielle Turton
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Word Frequency ◽  
American English ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Morphological Effect ◽  
British English ◽  
Glottal Stop ◽  
New Evidence

ABSTRACTThis paper analyzes td-deletion, the process whereby coronal stops /t, d/ are deleted after a consonant at the end of the word (e.g., best, kept, missed) in the speech of 93 speakers from Manchester, stratified for age, social class, gender, and ethnicity. Prior studies of British English have not found the morphological effect—more deletion in monomorphemic mist than past tense missed—commonly observed in American English. We find this effect in Manchester and provide evidence that the rise of glottal stop replacement in postsonorant position in British English (e.g., halt, aunt) may be responsible for the reduction in the strength of this effect in British varieties. Glottaling blocks deletion, and, because the vast majority of postsonorant tokens are monomorphemic, the higher rates of monomorpheme glottaling dampens the typical effect of deletion in this context. These findings indicate organization at a higher level of the grammar, while also showing overlaid effects of factors such as style and word frequency.

A Perfect Marker in Israeli Sign Language

1999 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irit Meir
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Future Time ◽  
Past Time ◽  
Aspect Marker ◽  
The One ◽  
Aspectual Markers ◽  
Core Meaning ◽  
Prior Event

In this paper I argue for the existence of an aspectual marker in Israeli Sign Language (ISL) denoting perfect constructions. This marker is the sign glossed as ALREADY. Though this sign often occurs in past time contexts, I argue that it is a perfect-aspect marker and not a past tense marker. This claim is supported by the following observations: (a) ALREADY can co-occur with past, present and future time adverbials; (b) its core meaning is to relate a resultant state to a prior event; (c) it occurs much more in dialogues than in narrative contexts. Further examination of the properties and functions of ALREADY in the language reveals that it shares many properties with perfect constructions in other languages. In addition, it is shown that the co-occurrence of ALREADY with various time adverbials, as well as with the durational aspectual modulation, gives rise to a rich aspectual system in the language. This aspectual system is compared to similar systems in other languages. The ISL system turns out to be very different from that of Hebrew on the one hand, while showing significant similarities to that of ASL. However, there are also some differences between ISL and ASL aspectual markers, which might be due to the relative youth of ISL, and to the different source for the aspectual marker: a verbin the case of ASL, and an adverb in ISL.

scholarly journals Emerging temporality: past tense and temporal/aspectual markers in Spanish-speaking children's intra-conversational narratives

2009 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 929-966 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAOLA UCCELLI
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
Linguistic System ◽  
Language Data ◽  
Discourse Skills ◽  
Developmental Point ◽  
Parallel Case ◽  
Aspectual Markers ◽  
Verb Tense

ABSTRACTThis study describes how young Spanish-speaking children become gradually more adept at encoding temporality using grammar and discourse skills in intra-conversational narratives. The research involved parallel case studies of two Spanish-speaking children followed longitudinally from ages two to three. Type/token frequencies of verb tense, temporal/aspectual markers and narrative components were analyzed to explore interrelationships among grammatical and discourse skills. Children progressed from scattered unsystematic means of encoding temporality to mastering a basic linguistic system that included devices to mark location of events, temporal relations and aspectual meanings. The consolidation of perfective past tense to express narrative events marked a crucial developmental point which preceded an explosion of additional verb tenses and temporal markers. The value of spontaneous language data, and the need to study grammar and discourse simultaneously to construct a comprehensive developmental picture are highlighted. Results are discussed in relation to theoretical proposals on the development of temporality.

scholarly journals The role of dynamic contrasts in the L2 acquisition of Spanish past tense morphology

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 558-577 ◽  
Author(s):  
LAURA DOMÍNGUEZ ◽  
NICOLE TRACY-VENTURA ◽  
MARÍA J. ARCHE ◽  
ROSAMOND MITCHELL ◽  
FLORENCE MYLES
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
L2 Acquisition ◽  
Single Class ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Aspect Hypothesis ◽  
Lexical Aspect ◽  
New Evidence

This study examines the second language acquisition of Spanish past tense morphology by three groups of English speakers (beginners, intermediates and advanced). We adopt a novel methodological approach – combining oral corpus data with controlled experimental data – in order to provide new evidence on the validity of the Lexical Aspect Hypothesis (LAH) in L2 Spanish. Data elicited through one comprehension and three oral tasks with varying degrees of experimental control show that the emergence of temporal markings is determined mainly by the dynamic/non-dynamic contrast (whether a verb is a state or an event) as beginner and intermediate speakers use Preterit with event verbs but Imperfect mainly with state verbs. One crucial finding is that although advanced learners use typical Preterit–telic associations in the least controlled oral tasks, as predicted by the LAH, this pattern is often reversed in tasks designed to include non-prototypical (and infrequent) form–meaning contexts. The results of the comprehension task also show that the Preterit-event and Imperfect-state associations observed in the production data determine the interpretation that learners assign to the Preterit and the Imperfect as well. These results show that beginner and intermediate learners treat event verbs (achievements, accomplishments and activities) in Spanish as a single class that they associate with Preterit morphology. We argue that dynamicity contrasts, and not telicity, affect learners’ use of past tense forms during early stages of acquisition.

Systematic effects in observed parallaxes

1978 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 31-35
Author(s):  
R. B. Hanson
Keyword(s):  
Error Estimates ◽  
Zero Point ◽  
Absolute Zero ◽  
Apparent Magnitude ◽  
Coherent System ◽  
Preliminary Results ◽  
General Catalogue ◽  
Systematic Effects ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Right Ascension

Several outstanding problems affecting the existing parallaxes should be resolved to form a coherent system for the new General Catalogue proposed by van Altena, as well as to improve luminosity calibrations and other parallax applications. Lutz has reviewed several of these problems, such as: (A) systematic differences between observatories, (B) external error estimates, (C) the absolute zero point, and (D) systematic observational effects (in right ascension, declination, apparent magnitude, etc.). Here we explore the use of cluster and spectroscopic parallaxes, and the distributions of observed parallaxes, to bring new evidence to bear on these classic problems. Several preliminary results have been obtained.

Zero Marking of Past Tense in Child African American English

2014 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 173-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Lee ◽  
Janna B. Oetting
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
American English ◽  
African American English ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Grammatical Function

Zero marking of the simple past is often listed as a common feature of child African American English (AAE). In the current paper, we review the literature and present new data to help clinicians better understand zero marking of the simple past in child AAE. Specifically, we provide information to support the following statements: (a) By six years of age, the simple past is infrequently zero marked by typically developing AAE-speaking children; (b) There are important differences between the simple past and participle morphemes that affect AAE-speaking children's marking options; and (c) In addition to a verb's grammatical function, its phonetic properties help determine whether an AAE-speaking child will produce a zero marked form.

MERLIN Finds New Evidence of Ranolazine Safety

2007 ◽  
Vol 40 (9) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
BRUCE JANCIN
Keyword(s):  
New Evidence

Vaccination for travellers – new evidence and recommendations

2001 ◽  
Vol 58 (6) ◽  
pp. 362-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matius P. Stürchler ◽  
R. P. Steffen
Keyword(s):  
Hepatitis B ◽  
Hepatitis A ◽  
New Evidence

Impfungen sind einfache und effektive Maßnahmen zur Verhinderung von Reisekrankheiten. Compliance-Probleme sind gering, da alle Impfungen noch vor Abreise verabreicht werden und bei manchen Impfungen nur eine Dosis für den zuverlässigen Schutz nötig ist. Für jeden Reisenden sind die Hepatitis A- und die Diphtherie-Tetanus-Impfung empfohlen, für Asien und Afrika auch die Polioimpfung. Bei Reisen >30 Tagen, jüngeren Personen und Reisenden mit Risikoverhalten sollte immer auch eine Hepatitis B-Impfung, eventuell als Kombination mit Hepatitis A in Betracht gezogen werden. Je nach Reisestil, -destination und -dauer können auch weitere Impfungen wie z.B. die Typhus-, Tollwut-, Zeckenenzephalitis-, Grippe-, Masern-Mumps-Röteln-, Gelbfieber-, Meningokokkenmeningitis- und die Japanische Enzephalitis-Impfung in Frage kommen. Mehrere Impfungen können gleichzeitig verabreicht werden – eine Staffelung ist nicht nötig. i BAG Supplementum VI, Stand Juli 2000 «Impfungen für Auslandreisende»; http://www.admin.ch/bag/infekt/prev/reisemed/index.htm; Safetravel http://www.safetravel.ch; Tropimed

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