Exploring Thematic Progressions in Two Excerpts From Amma Darko’s Faceless

This study explores thematic progressions in two excerpts from Amma Darko’s Faceless. The study aims at looking into the different types of thematic progressions used in the selected excerpts to decode there-from the deep meanings linguistically encoded by the author. The study further aims at examining how the different thematic progressions used in the studied texts contribute to their cohesion and contextual coherence. The research appeals to the mixed quantitative and qualitative methodology. Via this method, the number of thematic progression patterns identified has been quantified per excerpt to pave the way to the interpretation of the findings that ensued. The study has arrived at impressive results. Among several others available in the interpretation of the findings subsection, Amma Darko has purposefully not used the Split-Rheme Pattern to avoid a complex writing style that would make her writing not accessible to her readership. The simple linear thematic progression and the overriding theme reiteration patterns extensively used in both texts have allowed the author to emphasize the key thematic points of the studied texts. Moreover, the theme reiteration development strategy used in both texts has provided them with clear focuses. Some of these include skin bleaching, tradition and marriage in Africa, street children, women’s life conditions in Ghana to name but a few. For deeper meanings decoding in the studied excerpts, further studies on discourse-semantics, contextual coherence, conjunctive and lexical relations, as well as experiential and interpersonal meanings could pick up from this article findings.

Ideal Words

In this theoretical paper, we consider the notion of semantic competence and its relation to general language understanding—one of the most sough-after goals of Artificial Intelligence. We come back to three main accounts of competence involving (a) lexical knowledge; (b) truth-theoretic reference; and (c) causal chains in language use. We argue that all three are needed to reach a notion of meaning in artificial agents and suggest that they can be combined in a single formalisation, where competence develops from exposure to observable performance data. We introduce a theoretical framework which translates set theory into vector-space semantics by applying distributional techniques to a corpus of utterances associated with truth values. The resulting meaning space naturally satisfies the requirements of a causal theory of competence, but it can also be regarded as some ‘ideal’ model of the world, allowing for extensions and standard lexical relations to be retrieved.

The Use of Semantic Lexical Relation in Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”

Semantics is the study of words’ meaning. One of the branches of semantics is a lexical relation study. It refers to the relationship between the meaning of words. The focus of this article is the explanation of the use of three types of lexical relations: synonymy, antonymy and hyponymy in the Rowling’s novel “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”. The study aims to explain the use of the elements or the three types of semantics lexical relation appeared in that novel.This study employed qualitative research in the form of content analysis which deeply investigates the meanings in the novel. The units of analysis are words that appeared in the novel, taken from the whole chapters of the novel. Therefore, the object is semantics lexical relations comprising three types of lexical relations: synonymy, antonymy and hyponymy.The findings show that each type of lexical relation is interconnected with one another. The most dominant type that is used by the author of the novel is antonymy. There were 148 out of 319 items, followed by synonymy with 97 finding items and then hyponymy with 26 finding items.This current study hopefully can enhance the teacher or lecturers and the students English Language Education to involve the semantics lexical relation. Moreover, the findings and discussions can be applied in English Language Education Study Program, specifically in the semantics subject. The implications of lexical relation could be found not only in an English textbook but also in literature work such as novel, poetry, poem, even in play or drama, which is the subject that is required to learn by every single student.

Arkas: a pragmatic approach to a Greek comic series

The paper analyzes certain episodes taken from Arkas comic series: «Με τον κηδεμόνα σου» (Me ton kidemona sou) and «Σκέπτομαι κι ας μην υπάρχω» (Skeptome ki as min iparxo) in terms of Pragmatics. It explores the way language is used to create humor and jokes in one of the most famous Greek comic series. Sense relations, lexical relations and sentence relations are tracked down. In particular, an attempt to test the applicability of Grice’s conversational Maxims, implicatures-explicatures, as well as, the Cooperation Principle is made. In addition, cases of polysemy are discussed. By examining the bubbles and the various symbols, the aim is to identify specific patterns that lead to a humorous outcome. Along with the linguistic elements, reference is made to the aesthetics that surround the sketches. Overall, the paper analyses specific episodes treating language as a means by which we do things.

Word embedding in teaching research writing

In research writing as a scientific basis in education, some mistakes related to choosing appropriate term or definition take place. This research discusses the solving such problem by using word embedding in the Research Writing discipline. This is a word representation form, where one word has a vector and its coordinates. The words with close meaning have similar direction, showing lexical compatibility. To calculate lexical relations, the cosine of the angle between two words’ vectors are considered. Value of highly compatible word combinations is equal to 1. On the other hand, lexically incompatible words should approximately have value -1. To test the system the text of the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan was used. Particularly, words which are not related to meaning of article of the Constitution were inserted, and the system had to identify that inserted words. The system for some words showed high accuracy, however some words showed low accuracy. It is suggested that such factor was because even inserted words were not related in meaning, they could be lexically compatible with their neigh bors. This research is carried out within the framework of the Ministry of Education and Science of Republic of Kazakhstan grant project “Developing and implementing the innovative competency-based model of multilingual IT specialist in the course of national education system modernization”.

Applicability of Wordnet Architecture in Lexical Borrowing Studies

The aim of the paper is to present a new, wordnet-based method of studying lexical borrowing. In contrast to the two-dimensional (micro- and macrostructure) organization of traditional dictionaries, describing each unit in isolation, wordnets introduce an additional dimension of inter-word relations in the entire lexicon. The ability to connect wordnets cross-linguistically allows in turn for juxtaposing, comparing, and visualizing a broad spectrum of lexical relations between loanwords within the recipient language and their cognates in the source language for which the term cross-linguistic mapping has been used. The method was applied to a wordnet-based, yet differently structured network of Polish loanwords in Yiddish. This allowed to supplement the traditional typology of transferred words by introducing the notion of ‘rootedness’, that is the degree of their interconnectedness in the source and recipient systems. This in turn has provided a promising means for distinguishing inherited from acquired vocabulary.

CREATIVITY OF LANGUAGE, LEXICAL RELATIONS, AND CULTURAL VALUES: SUNDANESE HILARIOUS PUNS IN BRILIO.NET

Purpose of the study: The objective is to be studied is the use of Sundanese language with the opposite meaning, cause-effect, comparison, and extension of meaning. The use of the Sundanese language contains cultural values of humility, advice/invitations, and friendliness. Cultural values ​​become the personality of the Sundanese brand adapted to the development of technology to make the speech products of the author also discuss local and global values. Methodology: This study seeks to analyze language creativity with local Sundanese nuances that follow global progress. This research used a descriptive qualitative method. The data source from 100 Sundanese hilarious puns found in brilio.net. The descriptive method was used in several stages, namely data collection, data analysis, and data presentation. Main Findings: This research shows that Sundanese hilarious puns found in brilio.net use language creativity which contains 35% expansion of meaning (polysemy), opposite meaning (20%), cause-effect (25%), and comparison (20%). The dominant cultural values are friendliness by 52.5% others are humility (20%) and advice (27.5%). They reflect the habits of Sundanese people who like to joke and empower technological advances so that the creativity of the language produced further reflects today's digital development. Applications of this study: This research is used as a tool or model in understanding and interpreting language creativity in terms of contrastive meaning, cause-effect, comparison, the extension of meaning and values, i.e.: humility, advice, and friendliness in Sundanese hilarious puns. Novelty/Originality of this study: Sundanese hilarious puns show that language creativity not only empowers the play of words, but also the cultural values that become the tradition of Sundanese people, namely the traditions of Sundanese who like to joke (ngabodor). Cultural and lexical relationships are combined and produce funny speech following the development of typical Sundanese technology. Sundanese culture and language will persist if Sundanese people always use and maintain them, one of which is by creating hilarious Sundanese puns that follows technological advances, such as those found in Sundanese hilarious puns in brilio.net.

Zero morphemes in paradigms

This paper sheds a new light on the notion of zero morphemes in inflectional paradigms: on their formal definition (§ 1), on the way of counting them (§ 2–3) and on the way of conceptualizing them at a deeper, mathematical level (§ 4). We define (zero) morphemes in the language of cartesian set products and propose a method of counting them that applies the lexical relations of homophony, polysemy, allomorphy and synonymy to inflectional paradigms (§ 2). In this line, two homophonic or synonymous morphemes are different morphemes, while two polysemous and allomorphic morphemes count as one morpheme (§ 3). In analogy to the number zero in mathematics, zero morphemes can be thought of either as minimal elements in a totally ordered set or as neutral element in a set of opposites (§ 4). Implications for language acquisition are discussed in the conclusion (§ 5).