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SEMANTIC BIAS AS AN APPLICATION OF THE UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR MODEL IN THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE
Title
SEMANTIC BIAS AS AN APPLICATION OF THE UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR MODEL IN THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE.
Creator
Gural, Iryna, Modianos, Doan T., Villegas, Alvaro, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
The theory of the Universal Grammar developed by Chomsky has been known for many years. The main idea behind the theory was that the processing of the language does not depend on the culture but it universal among all the languages. Further psycholinguistic studies developed the ideas about schematic comprehension of the language, giving rise to the idea of the "garden path effect". Research focused on the processing of the ambiguous sentences and found the tendency for readers to prefer...
Show moreThe theory of the Universal Grammar developed by Chomsky has been known for many years. The main idea behind the theory was that the processing of the language does not depend on the culture but it universal among all the languages. Further psycholinguistic studies developed the ideas about schematic comprehension of the language, giving rise to the idea of the "garden path effect". Research focused on the processing of the ambiguous sentences and found the tendency for readers to prefer interpretations of specific sentence areas as objects. The current study summarizes the ideas of psycholinguistic study and incorporates a novel language structure to study readers' syntactic preferences. In addition, conducting the study in Russian language accompanies previous research in other languages, also arguing in favor of the Universal Grammar model given the hypothesis was supported. It was hypothesized that readers would prefer the comparison of the two direct objects over the subjects, which would be reflected by faster reading times. Self-paced reading ask was administered to the participants in order to measure their reading times. The analysis found no significant differences in the reading times of the critical area, thus hypothesis was not supported. Possible explanations, limitations, and further directions are discussed.
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Date Issued
2019
Identifier
CFH2000513, ucf:45697
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH2000513
La sintaxis del neutro de materia en asturiano: Especificidad, genericidad y la posici(&)#243;n del adjetivo
Title
La sintaxis del neutro de materia en asturiano: Especificidad, genericidad y la posici(&)#243;n del adjetivo.
Creator
Burner, Matthew, Lopez, Humberto, Fernandez-Rubiera, Francisco, Villegas, Alvaro, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
While Asturian, a language spoken in Northwestern Spain, shows some similarities with Spanish, there is a morphological characteristic that the two languages do not share. Unlike Spanish, Asturian has not only morphemes dedicated to both the masculine ((-)u) and feminine ((-)a) genders in its adjectives, but there is also a morpheme that represents the neuter ((-)o). Related to this morphological characteristic, Asturian exhibits what is standardly called the mass neuter phenomenon.In order...
Show moreWhile Asturian, a language spoken in Northwestern Spain, shows some similarities with Spanish, there is a morphological characteristic that the two languages do not share. Unlike Spanish, Asturian has not only morphemes dedicated to both the masculine ((-)u) and feminine ((-)a) genders in its adjectives, but there is also a morpheme that represents the neuter ((-)o). Related to this morphological characteristic, Asturian exhibits what is standardly called the mass neuter phenomenon.In order for the mass neuter to be present in a grammatically correct sentence in Asturian, certain criteria must be met. For instance, either a masculine or feminine mass noun can be followed by a neuter adjective, and this structure gives a generic interpretation reading. However, it is important to take into account that the same adjective can also agree in gender with the noun that precedes it, in which case the morphological neuter is ungrammatical and the interpretation becomes specific. There also exists a third possibility in which the adjective appears in a prenominal position, in which case the adjective must agree in gender, the interpretation must be specific, and the mass neuter is ruled out. Given the possibilities in gender agreement, specific or generic interpretation, and adjective placement, my study aims to better define the contexts in which the mass neuter in Asturian can and cannot appear in a grammatical sentence, and how the syntactic analysis proposed to account for to the placement of the adjective can shed light to explain the phenomenon under study.
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Date Issued
2015
Identifier
CFE0005932, ucf:50833
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005932
El efecto de la variaci(&)#243;n dialectal en el procesamiento
Title
El efecto de la variaci(&)#243;n dialectal en el procesamiento.
Creator
Schanze, Kirsten, Villegas, Alvaro, Nalbone, Lisa, Fernandez-Rubiera, Francisco, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
Lexical variation, or the existence of multiple lexemes that can be used to denote a particular concept, is a phenomenon characteristic of most of the world's language systems. Often times the source of this variation is difficult to determine, with a variety of inter- and intra-linguistic factors at play. This thesis was conducted with three main goals: 1) to delineate lexical items typical to specific dialects of Spanish and generate country-specific word lists that focus on salient...
Show moreLexical variation, or the existence of multiple lexemes that can be used to denote a particular concept, is a phenomenon characteristic of most of the world's language systems. Often times the source of this variation is difficult to determine, with a variety of inter- and intra-linguistic factors at play. This thesis was conducted with three main goals: 1) to delineate lexical items typical to specific dialects of Spanish and generate country-specific word lists that focus on salient contrasts between the different varieties of the language; 2) to determine whether speakers of particular varieties of Spanish, namely Puerto Rican and Venezuelan Spanish, were able to recognize lexical items that are supposedly characteristic of their dialect in particular; 3) to examine how dialectal variation can affect linguistic processing. The first part of this investigation examined the relative frequency of use of 1,903 dialectal words in the 22 countries contained within Corpus de Referencia del Espa(&)#241;ol Actual, or CREA, (REAL ACADEMIA ESPA(&)#209;OLA, 2008). Of these 1,903 words, total of 320 were found to be characteristic of a particular variety of Spanish. The lexical items that demonstrated significant correlation with Puerto Rican and Venezuelan Spanish were then used to develop a picture naming task in which participants were asked to designate whether a particular lexical item constituted an appropriate label for the image depicted. The results from this study suggest that speakers of these two dialects were unable to distinguish words as pertaining to their variety in particular, regardless of the supposed high frequency of use within their dialect. The present study thus theorizes that the processing of these dialectal lexical items is closer to monolingual models rather than bilingual models as bilingual-like behaviors were not observed.
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Date Issued
2016
Identifier
CFE0006176, ucf:51131
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006176
El rol de la inmersi(&)#243;n en la producci(&)#243;n del futuro del subjuntivo en portugu(&)#233;s
Title
El rol de la inmersi(&)#243;n en la producci(&)#243;n del futuro del subjuntivo en portugu(&)#233;s.
Creator
Pegoraro, Evelin, Villegas, Alvaro, Lopez, Humberto, Fernandez-Rubiera, Francisco, Sousa, Sandra, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
The Portuguese Future Subjunctive (FS) is frequently studied since out of all modern romance languages, this verbal tense and mood is regularly maintained only in Portuguese. Moreover, variation and alternation occur in the use of the FS by the speakers of the language through a substitution of the irregular inflections of the FS by the regular inflections of the Personal Infinitive (IP). The only difference between the FS and the IP is found in the irregular verbs of the FS, and these are...
Show moreThe Portuguese Future Subjunctive (FS) is frequently studied since out of all modern romance languages, this verbal tense and mood is regularly maintained only in Portuguese. Moreover, variation and alternation occur in the use of the FS by the speakers of the language through a substitution of the irregular inflections of the FS by the regular inflections of the Personal Infinitive (IP). The only difference between the FS and the IP is found in the irregular verbs of the FS, and these are usually (")regularized(") by Portuguese speakers. Since the regular verbs of the FS are identical to the IP, through a false analogy there is a tendency to use the IP for the irregular verbs as well. This thesis studies the role that immersion plays in the production of the FS and the regularization of irregular verbs by immersed speakers. The results of this study show that although there is a difference in the use of the FS between the immersed and non-immersed speakers, there is no difference as far as the regularization that occurs between both groups. The results also indicate that the regularization phenomenon is minimal, and the only difference between the native speakers of Portuguese in Brazil and the immersed group in the United States is found in the production and election of the verbal tense that is used. Although immersion seems to be affecting the immersed group at a morphological level, there seems to be no difference as far as the regularization of the FS between the immersed and non immersed groups.
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Date Issued
2016
Identifier
CFE0006160, ucf:51147
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006160
LOS HEROES Y MINERVA EN LA NARRACI(&)#211;N DEL LIBRO DE CABALLER(&)#205;AS CRISTALI(&)#193;N DE ESPA(&)#209;A DE BEATRIZ BERNAL
Title
LOS HEROES Y MINERVA EN LA NARRACI(&)#211;N DEL LIBRO DE CABALLER(&)#205;AS CRISTALI(&)#193;N DE ESPA(&)#209;A DE BEATRIZ BERNAL.
Creator
Ascencio, Lorena, Garcia, Martha, Villegas, Alvaro, Sousa, Sandra, Izquierdo Jimenez, Lucas, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
(")Los h(&)#233;roes y Minerva en la narraci(&)#243;n del libro de caballer(&)#237;as Cristali(&)#225;n de Espa(&)#241;a de Beatriz Bernal(") adds to the advancement of knowledge due to the novelty of the topic and findings that have been incorporated throughout this research. This work analyzes the first two volumes of the Cristali(&)#225;n de Espa(&)#241;a, which is one of the few novels of chivalry written by a woman in Spain during the 16th century. The main objective of this...
Show more(")Los h(&)#233;roes y Minerva en la narraci(&)#243;n del libro de caballer(&)#237;as Cristali(&)#225;n de Espa(&)#241;a de Beatriz Bernal(") adds to the advancement of knowledge due to the novelty of the topic and findings that have been incorporated throughout this research. This work analyzes the first two volumes of the Cristali(&)#225;n de Espa(&)#241;a, which is one of the few novels of chivalry written by a woman in Spain during the 16th century. The main objective of this investigation resides in exploring the role of hero in relation to the classic hero portrayed in chivalry novels using Amadis de Gaula as a point of reference, and the configuration of Minerva's image as the narrator's desire of a more accurate representation of women in the Early Modern Spain literature.
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Date Issued
2017
Identifier
CFE0006562, ucf:51325
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006562
La influencia de la medicina: Relaci(&)#243;n entre literatura y cultura en la temprana edad moderna espa(&)#241;ola
Title
La influencia de la medicina: Relaci(&)#243;n entre literatura y cultura en la temprana edad moderna espa(&)#241;ola.
Creator
Cruz, Nicole, Garcia, Martha, Santana, Maria, Reyes-Foster, Beatriz, Villegas, Alvaro, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
The sciences, in particular the field of medicine, have had an important role in society since its significance has been recorded in historical texts. Due to this fact, the future of medicine depends on, to a certain extent, the knowledge that has been collected in the past from the previously catalogued records. In addition to these records, literature from a specific time period could be useful to study and analyze how opinions have been formulated throughout history, how scientific...
Show moreThe sciences, in particular the field of medicine, have had an important role in society since its significance has been recorded in historical texts. Due to this fact, the future of medicine depends on, to a certain extent, the knowledge that has been collected in the past from the previously catalogued records. In addition to these records, literature from a specific time period could be useful to study and analyze how opinions have been formulated throughout history, how scientific accomplishments were shared, and what influences impacted society. This study will first explore panoramically the historical context of medicine in Spain from the Medieval through the Golden Age, which is otherwise known as the Early Modern era. Once this foundation has been well-established, this study will evaluate how the authors of each of these specific literary periods used scientific and medical aspects in their literature to reflect the influence and importance of the sciences on the beliefs, opinions, and culture of the individuals and their communities at that time. To accomplish this objective, two relevant literary texts were selected, El conde Lucanor by Don Juan Manuel and Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra, so that their characters, plot, and discourse can be analyzed to provide essential information about the role and relationship between medicine, religion, and society in early modern Spanish peninsular literature.
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Date Issued
2016
Identifier
CFE0006091, ucf:51193
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006091