Earticle

This paper investigates the relationship between bi-/multi-lingual abilities and the human brain, comparing the behavioral results of previous experiments in language acquisition with those of recent ongoing brain studies. For discussion, previous researches about the influence of bilingualism on children's intelligence are reviewed, and recent studies concerning brain imaging through ERP, fMRI, MEG, etc. are introduced. Then, Fodor (1983)'s modules and Smith (2003)'s quasi-modules which were assumed to explain human cognitive abilities are examined, and further the validity of the critical period hypothesis is discussed. Based on the assumption, it analyzes Flynn (2009)'s argument which the multilingual brain is the natural state of the human brain. It is argued that the human capacity for language can be assumed to accommodate multiple languages when exposed to the languages before the critical period, and that multiple languages are represented in the brain much in the same way as single language is. Finally, it emphasizes that the study of human language and brain has to be activated in the field of neurolinguistics to investigate the correlation between the unique human capacities.

Nasal loss before voiceless fricatives and its concomitant vowel nasalization and compensatory lengthening in West Germanic languages including Old English pose two crucial questions. First, why is the nasal loss in Old English confined to before voiceless fricatives? Second, how can a formal theory like Optimality account for the nasal loss and its accompanying changes? This paper addresses both issues and shows that previous studies of nasal loss and its related sound changes are inadequate in that they treat the nasal loss and nasalization of the preceding vowel as concurrent processes, which is improbable from the diachronic standpoint, and in that they simply fail to account for the compensatory lengthening of the vowel. Assuming the chronological order of “vowel nasalization > nasal loss before voiceless fricatives and compensatory lengthening of the vowel”, the proposed solution neatly accounts for these sound changes with a limited set of universal markedness and faithfulness constraints within the framework of Optimality Theory.

This paper aims to clarify the syntactic function of the plural marker -tul and classifiers in Korean. The plural marker -tul is not always obligatory for the expression of plurality, but is characteristic in its distribution of duplicated or multiple affixation to non-nominal categories, such as adverbials and sentence final elements. We focus on the distribution and the function of -tul and the classifier phrases. Classifier is used for counting the number or quantity of an entity, but is number neutral. Affixation of -tul to a classifier results in ungrammaticality. To investigate and to give evidence for the different syntactic behaviors of the plural marker -tul and the classifiers, empirical studies were made and the analytic discussions are made in support of the assumptions made in this paper.

The conflicting syntactic and semantic properties of the expression such give a challenge to most grammatical treatments. Based on a careful corpus examination, we attempt to provide a uniform treatment in which such is taken to be a `functor' selecting its grammatical dependents. We claim that its different uses thus hinge on how these dependents are realized. It is true that every language employs a limited set of lexical categories and constructions, but there exist also many lexical expressions whose distributions cannot be pinned down to only one peculiar lexical category. The multi-function of such implies that grammar (or language learners) not only refers to lexical categories, but also utilizes grammatical functions.

The purpose of this study is to suggest the necessity and the direction of using brain-based dramatized activities in the classroom. In order to achieve this purpose, the brain-based theories such as the stages of development, Bloom's taxonomy, the theory of multiple intelligence, and the information processing theory were reviewed. Especially, the logical-mathematical, verbal-linguistic, musical, spacial, kinesthetic, personal intelligences were considered in terms of the left and right hemispheres. This study included the analysis of primary textbooks, classroom observations, and teachers' guidebooks. The results revealed that learners had little motivation to learn English, and they did not have enough chances to learn English. In this respect, various teaching methods based on dramatized activities need to be developed according to the levels of learners. Thus, the necessity and the direction of using dramatized activities such as improvisation, role plays, simulations, and pantomimes were suggested considering the stages of development, Bloom's taxonomy, the theory of multiple intelligence, and the information processing theory.

This paper investigates into impossible deletion of an embedded predicate complex in Korean. We have first shown as in Chung (2009) that when an embedded subject or object stays within an embedded clause, the case in point is attributed to non-constituenthood of the embedded predicate complex. However, grammar allows Move to feed Delete: in other words, movement of the embedded subject or object expression out of the embedded clause makes a way for the latter to undergo constituency-respecting deletion. Ahn and Cho (2009) argue following this idea that Korean (as well as English) does not allow CP deletion, blaming the case in point on it. Showing that Ahn and Cho's analysis is not sufficient enough in addressing all the possible cases in question, however, we have argued that movement of the embedded expression either through or into the matrix [Spec, vP] counts as an instance of A-movement in the constructions involving VP-like ellipsis, and that therefore it is ruled out as it involves extraction out of the embedded CP.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the loan adaptation pattern for Japanese fricatives/affricates in Korean, based on the laryngeal classification (Iverson and Salmons 1995). Numerous words have been borrowed from Japanese over the last century and many of them are still in frequent use. Considering the consonantal systems of the two languages, it has been argued that certain phonetic factors such as VOT play a crucial role in the loan adaption (Ahn and Lee 2007). There occur, however, various mismatches in the adaptation of fricatives/affricates as the laryngeal neutralization occurs only in an initial position. That is, the voiceless fricative is exempt from the strong constraint requiring initial laryngeal neutralization. On the contrary, the Japanese voiced fricative /z/ is realized as an affricate /c/, not as a fricative. To be more specific, we first argue that initial laryngeal neutralization reflects the lack of voicing contrast in Korean and the Japanese voicing contrast cannot be perceived during loan adaptation. Second, we explain how the frication/affrication escapes from the constraint for initial neutralization. For this analysis, using the framework of Optimality Theory (McCarthy and Prince 1995), we provide several constraints responsible for the exceptional behavior of the fricatives/affricates. Third, we show that Korean speakers do not perceive the detailed morphological information in Japanese, that is, the so-called “Rendaku(連濁)” process, as the initial voicing of the second compound word is ignored in loan adaptation. In addition, we show that the voiceless fricatives/affricates in Anglo-Japanese words are adopted differently from those directly borrowed from English.

Condoravdi (1992, 1994) proposes that bare plurals have the so-called quasi-universal reading, in addition to the generic and the existential readings. She argues that bare plurals may presuppose their descriptive content, but not their index, which satisfies the so-called weak novelty felicity condition. Meanwhile, this so-called quasi-universal reading of bare plurals is proposed as the generic reading by Dobrovie-Sorin (1998). She accounts for the lack of lawlikeness in this generic reading with the episodic context of the sentence in question. Given this, Cohen (2005) argues that although Dobrovie-Sorin proposes the quasi-universal reading as the generic reading, we are still left with three kinds of readings for bare plurals unless she provides a unified semantics for generics. On the other hand, Cohen proposes that there is no need to stipulate the quasi-universal reading of bare plurals if the suitability implicature is employed. Given these, this paper reviews Condoravdi's (1992, 1994), Dobrovie-Sorin's (1998), and Cohen's (2005) theories, and concludes that we still need the third reading of bare plurals, i.e., the quasi-universal reading, pointing out some problems of Cohen's theory, which is based on the suitability implicature.

This study attempts to investigate rhythmic patterns and structures in function word sequences of English. In the phonetic experiment, we examined five different lengths and three different types of sequences varying with the neighboring word construction. The intervals between two pitch accents in the string of function words were measured in terms of the number of syllables to see the extent to which a rhythmic beat stretches in English. In addition, a priority ordering of pitch accent assignment among function words was explored and compared with the one suggested by Giegerich (1968). Results show that the maximum number of unstressed syllables was varied depending on the length and the types of function word sequences, one to seven, but that the maximum number of lapsed words as opposed to syllables was consistently three. As prosodic prominence is manifested as a pitch accent at the level of utterance in English, it is contented that unaccented words as opposed to unstressed syllable should be counted as the weak counterpart within a rhythmic unit. Moreover, it is suggested that this rhythmic unit construing in the postlexical level should be called ‘accentual foot,’ following Lee & Kang (2009) and that it should be distinctive from ‘foot’ at the lexical level. Similar to the lexical foot that a stressed syllable can be followed by maximally two unstressed ones, the accentual foot is generally composed of one accented word followed by maximally three accented words. The ordering of accented function words is, in general, consistent with that of Giegerich (1968) in that modal verbs are most likely to be accented, and that auxiliaries are the least. What should be noticed in the ordering results was that phrase final pronouns were rarely accented and should deserve to be considered as a separate category because they cause a change in the whole rhythmic pattern of a sentence.