http://hdl.handle.net/11089/24369 2026-04-05T16:49:08Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/24373 Inter-Relations of Core Language, Pragmatic Language, and Social Competence in Preschoolers Lau, Clarissa Language skills provide preschoolers with the foundational skills needed to socially interact, but little is known about the relationship between specific language skills and broad constructs of social competence. Sixteen preschoolers between 3-5 years with varying language abilities were recruited. Descriptive and correlational analyses were conducted to examine the relationships between language and social competence. The main finding of this study showed that early literacy skills and word knowledge and retrieval were significantly correlated with Social Independence and Social Interaction respectively. These findings support the notion that the content of preschoolers’ conversations rather than the accuracy of their speech or syntax is associated with success in social interaction and social independence. 2016-06-24T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/24372 Classifier Constructions as Procedural Referring Expressions in American Sign Language Jones, Stephen The present paper comments on signs of American Sign Language in the perspective of relevance theory. The main claim is that classifiers encode procedural instructions to help the addressee pick out the intended referent for the procedural referring expressions made with classifier constructions. The author explains how three classes of classifiers differently manipulate concepts to instruct the addressee to create ad hoc concepts though the use of inference, narrowing, and broadening. It is also claimed that classifier constructions do not encode a conceptual meaning, but a procedural instruction. The discussion includes illustrations of how the speaker’s using classifier constructions instead of lexical signs may increase the number of cognitive effects on the part of the addressee. 2016-06-24T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/24374 Incomplete Descriptions and the Underdetermination Problem Moldovan, Andrei The purpose of this paper is to discuss two phenomena related to the semantics of definite descriptions: that of incomplete uses of descriptions, and that of the underdetermination of referential uses of descriptions. The Russellian theorist has a way of accounting for incomplete uses of descriptions by appealing to an account of quantifier domain restriction, such as the one proposed in Stanley and Szabó (2000a). But, I argue, the Russellian is not the only one in a position to appeal to such an account of incomplete uses of descriptions. Proponents of other theories, such as the Fregean, which does not treat descriptions as quantifiers, might benefit from this account of domain restriction. In the second part of the paper I discuss referential uses of incomplete definite descriptions. Relative to such uses, Wettstein (1981) and others have argued that the Russellian theory faces a problem of underdetermination of semantic content. Neale (2004) has replied to this objection showing why it does not pose a threat to the Russellian theory. Again, I argue that not only the Russellian, but also the Fregean can subscribe to Neale’s (2004) suggestion. 2016-06-24T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/24370 The Position of Negative Adjectives in Aelfric’s Catholic Homilies I Grabski, Maciej In Old English, negative adjectives, i.e. incorporating the negative prefix -un, are said to generally come in postposition to nouns (e.g. Fischer, 2001; Sampson, 2010). This paper investigates to what extent this general rule is followed in Aelfric’s Catholic Homilies, the texts of this author being a typical choice for the study of Old English syntax (cf. Davis 2006; Reszkiewcz, 1966; Kohonen, 1978). The data have been obtained from the York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose (YCOE). The following research questions have been formulated: Do strong negative adjectives outnumber nonnegated adjectives in postposition? Do strong negative adjectives have a tendency to appear in postposition? Do strong negated adjectives occur in preposition? The results indicated that for the sample analyzed, strong adjectives in postposition are not predominantly negated. Additionally, the postposition of most of those which are may potentially be explained by other factors, such as modification by a prepositional phrase, co-occurrence with a weak preposed adjective (both mentioned by Fischer), or indirect Latin influence in a formulaic phrase. Also, the data does not appear to support the observation that negated adjectives tend to appear in post- rather than preposition. 2016-06-24T00:00:00Z